Hello and welcome to the House of Faith Ministries. I am Lisa Kaine and I'm recording this message on Friday, April 26, 2024. Welcome. This message is entitled Your Responsibility as a Listener of the Word of God. Yes, you have a responsibility. So, let's dive into that. Let's open up in our word of prayer first. Father God, we thank you for your word that your word does not return void. But we pray that your Holy Spirit is involved in this word and that it manifests within us, Father God, so that we live by your word, hear your word, learn your word appropriately, and know how to discern going forward from here, Lord. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. Amen. All right. So, let's go to our opening scripture here. So, this is entitled, Your Responsibility as a Listener of the Word of God. That's kind of a long title, but that's what it is. 1 Corinthians 13:9, for we know in part and we prophesy in part. So, the goal of this teaching is to help you understand how to discern a very good teaching of the word of God. Maybe parts of it is good, but parts of it is non-biblical. You need to know whether you need to accept that word that is either taught or prayed over you or prophesied over you or you need to reject th those uh words because it could be non-biblical words and it could go against what you've been working with the Lord on. This impacts you big time in your life. And because of that, I want to teach you how to manage that here and in your heart so that the spirit of God moves through your life and you stand firm in the word and you are not set apart or um distracted or deceived from a false teaching. Think of it like this. If you're in a um an event somewhere, it's a biblical uh Bible event or you're in the church service, everyone's shouting amen and clapping their hands, but you're sitting there going there's red flags in your mind, their alarm bells are going off like, did I hear him correctly or her correctly? That's what you need to be able to do. You need to judge that person's teaching. And remember, I used to, if you go back to all of my early teachings, first thing I told you is don't take my word for it. Go dive into the word of God and do your homework. And I still talk about you having homework. But I haven't done this in a while. And then I thought, well, let's do a full teaching on this, okay? Because this is very, very important. Right here in our opening scripture in 1 Corinthians 13:9, Paul is saying, "For we know, we absolutely know in part a division or a share and then we prophesy in part." This is the chapter of love. 1 Corinthians 13 is the love chapter. So, he's going into some detail here. We're going to get into uh love here in just a moment because that's one of the factors that's going to help you discern uh a good teaching or biblical teaching versus a non-biblical teaching. kind of help you discern um what you need to do or what your actions are after the fact. Okay, so that's what we're going to do. So he says you know in part. Why do we only know in part? Because we're not God. If you are standing on something so strong, vehemently strong that so and so is wrong, you are in the wrong as well. Why? Because if you are Christlike and you are walking with Jesus, you're in the business of forgiveness. So whether your brother or sister is wrong, what you do is you go through Jesus and you follow his process. So we're going to get into that here in just a bit. I want you to see and understand that you have the right to accept a word or teaching and you have the right to reject a word or teaching. Because see, the Bible's all about choices. There's many scriptures that talk about choice. So, you have to choose whether you want to believe the words that were placed over you or not. That's very important. Let's say somebody prays something, but that prayer doesn't line up with the word of God. It feels good. It sounds good. You know, when I was growing up, I grew up in the church. And when I knew I had a calling of teaching on my life, I remember taking some of the things we used to quote and run around saying all the time. I went to go put it into one of my teachings and I could not find scripture on it. I couldn't even find conceptual uh scriptures to go with it. Context scriptures. I was like, "Wow, made me think twice." And I, by the way, I can't even remember any of those now. I've been doing this for so long. But what I do now is all of my teaching come from the word of God. I am not going to um I'm not going to vary off of that. I if I bring in outside sources, yes, but it is to reaffirm the word of God. That is what I do. I'm called to teach the word of God, not Lisa's teachings. I'm not God. In fact, everybody you hear is not a God. It's not God himself. Yes, the Holy Spirit moves through us, but the Holy Spirit, Jesus has already spoken all the words through the Bible. We need to stand firm by the Bible. So you have the right to choose. Now let's get a few scriptures of choice that you can choose to live by because these are choice scriptures. So I want you to understand the choice you have ahead of you. So go look at Joshua 24:15. And if it seem evil, this is Joshua speaking to the congregation of Israel when um right either right before they go uh past the Jordan and go into the promised land or right after. He's right there and he says, "And if it seem evil unto you to serve the Lord, choose." The word choose means to try, select, acceptable. Choose you this day whom ye will serve, whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwelt. But as for me in my house, we will serve the Lord. And if you follow that, Joshua is their leader. Israel ends up following them. They go and fight Jericho right after that. And as they marched around doing something that seems so weird. They end up having victory, but they all chose to follow God. Now, when you choose to follow God, you're going to find that God is going to have you do weird things. He's going to have he he wants to teach you how not to limit him. So he wants to solve things that you're praying for, asking for in ways that um you probably will never ever think of. So he wants that freedom to be able to move with you. So this is the choice. But you have to make a choice to get there first. Me and my house shall serve the Lord or me and my family shall serve the Lord. So Joshua starts with that. Let's go to Deuteronomy because God also gave the nation of Israel choice. He says,"I call on," and this is Deuteronomy 30:19, "I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing. Therefore, choose life that both thou and thy seed may live." Now, what's so fascinating about this is that you see if somebody prays over you a prayer that's going to end up in death, that's not what you want. You want choice. So, if you're hearing somebody praying over you, prophesying over you, you can stop them immediately. Say, "I don't accept that. That's not biblical. That's not scriptural. That's not what God has for me. He has life for me." You see the difference? There's something here. Now, look at what this means. Life is being alive, fresh. Uh that word fresh also means like freshly plants and watered plants. It's really alive and fresh. Death means to be in ruined. How many people are living in ruin? Because somebody spoke a curse over them and they believed it. I hope you're getting this. You don't have to believe that. You do not have to accept something that somebody says over you. I remember years ago getting my ears pierced. The lady spoke about my loaves. Oh, you're one of those. You're going to have a heart attack and you're I said, "No, I'm not. I reject that." Yeah. See, you have to protect yourself against these words that people speak that they don't even realize that they're speaking. We're going to talk about that more here in a moment. Blessing means to have the benediction or prosper prosperity. you can be blessed financially. There's a lot of teaching right now that they said the church just went too far. They're just only calling on blessings and prosperity. We know that the disciples and the apostles were uh martyed. We know that they went to their deaths that they did not have uh over an abundance of blessings. They had every need met. Yes, that is scriptural. But God wants to bless you. Look at Abraham. Abraham had so much. It was incredible. Lot and Abraham had to separate because of the blessings of God that was placed upon him. King David, King Solomon, the volume. God wants to bless you. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Now, if you're going to take your life to be like an apostle or a disciple, then you're going to want your daily bread ma ma met, as the Lord's prayer says, and you're going to want to realize that the sacrifices you're making for the word of God is going to follow the path of a disciple or an apostle. But you might not be called to be an apostle. Maybe a disciple, but not an apostle. There are different callings, different teachings. That is for another teaching. But understand the Lord wants you prosperous. He truly does. And then of course cursing which is the vilification. You can curse somebody. We see it on the news all the time especially when you come to like um courtroom for Trump and whatever. All these people saying he deserve what that's a curse. You just cursed him. Aren't you a believer in Christ? And aren't you supposed to be forgiving one another? That's what Christ does. He didn't come to judge this world. We're going to get into that here in just a moment. I want you to see Proverbs 28:4 and5. This is the choices and the consequences of the choices you make. They that forsake, they chose, they let go, relinquish, loosened the law. Now remember, the law is what was first. Jesus fulfilled the law. Now we walk in forgiveness. So uh the author here is teaching us when you forsake God's law and you praise the wicked or the morally wrong but such as keep a hedge but he's telling you but instead keep hedge about protect your mind the law within your heart contend with him let's read this without the extra words remember when I teach here the bolded word is the original word in the King James version the words in parenthesis are other words that the word could be translated into. Okay. So, they that forook forsake the law praise the wicked. But such as keep the law, those that keep the law contend with them that are wicked. And that word contend means anger metal. In other words, if I choose to keep the law, I'm making them angry. Good. Maybe it'll shake them up, but you will have an enemy who will be angry with you and upset with you because you choose God first. They don't like that because it exposes them for the darkness that they're in. It exposes them for the choice that they made that they're happy and content with the choice that they made. Again, we're starting here with a choice. You have a choice. Do you want to choose to be morally wrong, evil, or would you like to choose to walk with God in goodness? Most people want to say, why choose goodness? They don't choose God. They'll choose goodness. But remember, God encompasses everything about that is good. Let's continue on. Verse five, evil men understand not judgment or the verdict. You see, when you choose evil, there is a consequence, a judgment, a verdict against you already. You are already condemned when you do not choose Jesus. As simple as that. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. No man comes to the father except through Jesus. The moment you do not choose Jesus and you reject him, you are already judged and verdictked. The verdict is in. You are not saved. You have to go to Jesus to get saved. That this is scriptural. This is a foundation. Says, "But they that seek or search out strive after the Lord understand all things." And that word understand means to separate mentally. You're cunning. You discern. You see, your mind has to be able to discern discern what's going on. The little little things that take place, that little line that can easily be crossed. You should have red flags, bells going off when you hear something that don't sound right to you because you made the choice to walk with God. You made a choice to walk in his law or in the name of Jesus, which is the time frame we're in right now. You choose to walk that way. And because of such, you have the ability to discern, understand what someone is teaching you. Now, you're better off understanding it once you know the word of God and you're in it. You have to do your homework here. If a preacher's preaching something, he's just reading scriptures here and there. You have to pause, think about it, take it home, read those scriptures, see if it's within context, see if it meets the measure of what the Lord is trying to teach you and then accept or reject. And sometimes we just get caught up in the feeling and the emotions behind a very good teaching pastor who builds us up. Oh, it sounds good. They all applaud. Yeah, he misspoke something. That's how the devil does it. He sneaks in like the little sneaky thing. Now, look what Jesus does there. So, this is uh something I want you to see that we can walk with that helps us. John 3:17, for God sent not his son into the world to condemn, distinguish, desise, judge the world, but that the world through him might be saved, delivered, protected. First, that is the rock and the foundation we stand upon. We stand upon the name of Jesus. And the name of Jesus came not to condemn. We already have an accuser who condemns. I'm going to show you that here in just a moment. Jesus didn't come to condemn. He didn't judge anyone. He doesn't judge anyone. He came that the world would be delivered, protected, saved. Look at what John 8:15 says. Ye judge after the flesh. I judge no man. The word judge is to distinguish, decide, condemn. Jesus says, "I judge no man." So a preacher gets up to you gets up there on the preaching stand, he preaches, she preaches, you're judging that preacher. So if you're Christlike and you're going to be like Christ and you're going to walk with Jesus, you judge no one. Okay? So what I want to show you is that as you judge it, because we've been given a gift to judge, we know how to measure something. The the whole point of that gift is not to condemn, but that they might be saved. So there's a tactful way to handle someone who makes a mistake.

You made a mistake. All of us have fallen short of the glory of God. We have all made mistakes. None of us is perfect. None of us is God. Which means we need to be walking in forgiveness. Going to show this here a little bit more. But I want to show you about the word of God. Remember John 1:1. In the beginning was the word and the word was God and the word was with God. Okay. Now let's go to Hebrews 4:12. For the word of God is quick life and powerful. It's active. It's operative. It's sharper than any two edges or piercing. It reaches through even to the dividing of sunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow and is a discerner, decisive, discriminative of the thoughts and intents of the heart. So now, if you're going to judge, you got to judge through the word of God because that is what's going to help you discern. Look what it says here, the thoughts and intents of the heart, your heart, and whoever you're listening to their heart. You need to be able to discern. Now, let's go to Hebrews. I want you to see something here. Hebrews 5:14. But strong meat belongth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised in discern, judicial estimation, disputation, both good, which is beautiful, valuable, virtuous, and evil, worthless, depraved, injurious. You see, we have been given the ability to discern and we need to use our discernment appropriately to accept or to reject what we're listening to. Not just listening to a preacher or a teacher or an evangelist or even if we're reading the Bible, we're listening to God. Sometimes what happens is we take it one way and God did not mean it that way. And we have to be able to discern because there's a way we have to say, "Hey Lord, I don't get this. How do I understand this? Show me the way." And you wait on the Lord and he will show you the way. This is how we understand things. This is how we discern things. Now, so we have basis number one. Know your word. Okay? Many of us don't know our word. Uh we die through the lack of knowledge. We're actually destroyed. That word destroyed uh means that we are made dumb and stupid. And that's true because we don't know the word of God. We don't know the blessings and the strengths that the Lord has placed upon us. We don't understand it because we're not doing it ourselves. And for those that do do it for ourselves, the problem we have is we get a little hottier and hotter and the Lord has to remind us to become humbled before him because we only know in part. We don't know the whole thing. We're not God. We're where we are weak. He is strong. So he brings out our weaknesses to expose his strength. This is how God operates. Now, so you need to know your word. That's the foundation number one. Foundation number two is you have to know the emotion behind the teaching you're receiving. Whether it's through a teacher or what you're learning about the word of God or anything else around you, look at the motivation, the emotional motivation, it needs to be done in love. 1 Corinthians 13:1, though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, men and of angels, meaning if you can speak in tongues and you have that gift, you speak to angels. Well, even if you can do that, almighty one, look at this. and have not charity or love. The word there is affection or benevolence. I am become a sounding brass or a tinkling symbol. I don't make sense anymore because I'm not doing it out of love. Now, why do I teach a message like this of this magnitude? One, I'm doing it because I love you and I want you to find the word of God and walk with the word of God in truth and not be deceived by this world. So, I'm coming through with love, gentleness, kindness. These are the things that I'm speaking the word of God through. You don't do that, it's you you're not you're clinging. You're you're not making sense. You're going to set off red flags and alarms in the people who are following the love of God. Look at verse uh 13 now in the same chapter. And now abide in faith which is your persuasion, your credence, hope, anticipate, expectation, charity, affection, benevolence. These three, but the greatest of these is charity. Your affection and benevolence needs to speak for yourself. You see, your actions are going to speak more than whatever words you speak. That means your body language needs to be showing the love of God. You need to be walking in the love of God. That means helping people. You've got to be there for them. Let me pray for you. Let me help you. Let me walk you through this. Let me show you where this is in scripture. You have to be able to want to do that. That is part of discerning. Okay? That is how we discern. So, we have to know our word. And when we don't, here's the thing. The Holy Spirit will show you. He will and and you will know it in your heart. But he's going to show you through a scripture. He wants you to understand it through him directly. For the record, God doesn't need any preachers or pastors or teachers. I mean, he's established his church, but the Holy Spirit could have fulfilled all those roles. Instead, he calls you and I to be in these positions so that we can teach through him for people who need to see and can only see the physical. They don't see the spiritual atmosphere. They can't understand it. It's beyond them. So, we have to be there for them. But we have to also remember we're not God and we fall and fail. Which means we don't want to lose our loved ones. These ones that we're trying to save and keep in the line of God. Amen. Look here in 1 Corinthians chapter 2 10-14. But God hath prevailed. He took off the cover them unto us by his spirit. For the spirit teacheth all things. Yeah. The deep things of God. The spirit's going to teach you. He's going to You're going to open up your Bible and you start reading, you're going to be like, "Wow, that's the answer for what I was facing and needed to hear." Lord, thank you. That's how it works through his spirit. For what man knoweth or is aware the things of a man, save the spirit of a man which is in him? Even so, the things of God knoweth no man, but the spirit of God. The spirit of God is what's going to do everything and move through everything. Not by us, not by strength, not by power, not by I call it down in the name of Jesus. It doesn't work like that. It's by the spirit of God. Amen. It's by the spirit of God. He is moving. Verse 12. Now we have received or we take we get hold of it. Not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. You see, you want to hear that word of God. It's being given to you freely. I freely preach here, by the way. And what I do is I give this to you freely because this is what the Holy Spirit has shown me. I'm not perfect. I'm just going to have to just set aside and let that go in the name of Jesus. I have to ask the Lord's Holy Spirit to come and speak through me because it is done by spirit. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things or divine things with divi uh with spiritual. This is how we discern. So now verse 14, but the natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness. Remember what I talked about Jericho? The Lord had him march around the city six times, once each day for six days, and then seven times on the seventh day. And they shouted, and the walls came tumbling down. That's not usually how battle is done, but God chose to do it that way. Amen. for for they are foolishness or silliness, absurdity unto him. Neither can he know. Absolutely no. Or allow them because they are spiritually divinely discerned. You have to be able to discern, scrutinize, investigate, examine, judge. That's what discernment is all about. And to have that discernment, we're going to have to judge. But Jesus taught us that he does not judge or he does not condemn. So what does Jesus do? Let's go to Matthew 6:14-15. For if ye forgive, you send forth, you leave men their trespasses, a slid slip, offense, or sin, your heavenly father will also forgive you. But if you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your father forgive your trespasses. That's not talking about eternity as walking in your daily life with God. You see, if you're going to judge, you've got to judge in forgiveness. Now what you do after that is you take it to the Lord and you say Lord what you do is you say Lord either I'm misunderstanding this and always always always take yourself to the Lord first you know it could be that you're misunderstanding something you don't know everything yet you only know in part so somebody teach you something that seems so radical way out here in left field you're going to be wondering well Lord what is this So he says, "I will show you." So you go to him and you say, "Lord, I judge this, but I see it and I don't think I have enough information to understand it. So I'm here pausing. What is it that I'm missing? What did I misunderstand?" Or, "Lord, are they false teaching? Is this a false teaching that's taking place?" Because I need to know if this is, then I don't want to accept it. And the Lord will reveal it to you through his word and through his spirit. Hallelujah. And remember, we are in the times of the Gentiles. This is the time of fullness of Gentiles, which means we walk in forgiveness. I'm going to show you something here. Look at Luke 21:24. And they shall fall by the edge of the sword and shall be led away captive into all nations, and Jerusalem shall be trotten down of the Gentiles until the times, that's an occasion or set or proper time of the Gentiles be fulfilled. This is the time we're in. as prophesied. By the way, the Gentiles are not filled yet. We're not done. We keep preaching Jesus and we need to continue to preach Jesus, which is forgiveness, salvation, the good news. He came and redeemed each and every one of us. So in Matthew 18, if you read the whole thing, it talks about do not de deceive or lead astray the little children. And then he said, Peter says towards the end of the chapter, well, how many times am I supposed to forgive seven times? Jesus says, I'll take it further. 70* 7. You can take that scripture one of two ways. You can take it as meaning well forever. You have to forgive them forever. That is true because we're not God. If you take it literal and you do 490 times, you would have to write down that one sin and see if that person committed it 490 times, are you going to be over that person's life that many times for that one sin? And now, by the way, that's just one sin. That's not counting all the sins we commit. You'd have to keep a book in record. The only one who can do that is God himself. This is why you and I who are not God have to humble ourselves and forgive our brothers. Forgive our sisters. Forgive. Walk in the mercy and the grace of what Jesus stands for because we are Christlike Christians in the name of Jesus. Walking in Christianity with Jesus through salvation. Oh hallelujah. And remember everything is done by the mouth. Romans 10:9 says that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shall believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. You have to confess your forgiveness. You have to say it out loud because you have a cloud of witnesses watching around you. The devil is watching you. Angels are watching you. God is watching you. Use your mouth, which is the foundation of using the word of God. Speak forgiveness. Speak love. This is what we're supposed to call on. I'm not calling on a million dollars. I'm calling on the name of Jesus who is over my finances because he's above money and better than money. Hallelujah. Now, if we choose to accuse the person that we think did wrong, we have a couple of issues we have to be very careful of. One, they these people have an anointing on their lives. Now, David, King David, who murdered a man, God didn't remove him from his kingdom. God forgave him, but took his son that he had with Basheba that God took the son but David remained king. He was wrong. Should have been removed but he wasn't. So now what do you do? You do not take up the the accusers's position. We're not accusers. The devil is. Go to Revelation 12:9 and 10. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent called the devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world. He was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, "Now is come salvation and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ. For the accuser against one in the assembly of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night." The devil's accusing everybody all the time before God day and night. Don't do his job for him because you identified an error or mistake or a sin. No. Matthew 18 tells you what to do. But first, first first take it to God. Pray about it. Let the Lord lead you. You know, I'm I have no right to judge or condemn you. I'm not God. I messed up myself. And because of that, we have to humble ourselves before the Lord and realize we're not the accusers. We have to walk in mercy and grace. Look at Galatians 3:26. For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. That's who you are. So what your job and your responsibility is is you have to know your word. So get into it and start studying if you're not already doing start memorizing it. Let it penetrate your soul. You have to walk in love in the charity that God has given us the benevolence and your actions of love. Your actions need to speak louder than your words. Let your actions speak for themselves. Get groceries for your neighbor. Help them get to church. Pray for people. Lay your hands on them so they stop being sick because that is what we're called to do. Forgive one another is another one. We need to humble ourselves and forgive. And another part of discernment. Zechariah 4:6. Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, "This is not the word of the or excuse me, this is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel, saying, not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts." It is the spirit of God that is going to move and do everything. You have no right to accuse, so don't do it. You're not the accuser. You have the gift to judge. Judge with love and give it to the Lord. Let the Lord, let the spirit of God move and handle the whole situation. Walk in mercy. Walk in forgiveness. Walk in that love because that is what we're called to do. And again, get to know the word of God and let it penetrate so you recognize immediately what's going on so you can go right into prayer at that very moment. And you should be praying in advance in your secret place with the Lord at all times. You know, I couldn't do a teaching without talking about the secret place of the Lord. Amen. Amen. Let's close in a word of prayer. Father God, we thank you for your word and we bless your word that it does not return void. We bless your word that the enemy does not take it from us, but that we retain it, remember it, apply it to our lives, and live it. In the holy name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. God bless each and every one of you. I will see you in the next message. Bye-bye.