Hey, I’m Jim Richards. I want to welcome you to some things I want to share from my heart today. Most of you know that for decades, I have been encouraging people and warning them that as the days get darker and more evil, the most important thing we need to do is to hear what the Spirit of God is saying to the churches. This is the one commandment that Jesus gave more than any other. In the book of Revelation alone, Jesus gave that commandment seven times. Seven is the number for perfection, so this is a perfect instruction about living as an overcomer, no matter what happens in our nation or the world.
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An overcomer isn’t just a person who wins the battle when it’s easy;
an overcomer is someone who always wins the battle.
The Bible says that He always leads us into victory. Always. He never leads us in anything else. However, when you talk to people about learning to hear the voice of the Spirit, most struggle with confusion.
How do I know when I’m hearing the voice of the Spirit? How do I recognize it? One of the main ways is through reading the Scripture. Now, let me say this: the Bible has 66 books. It’s quite complex, with teachings from the Old Testament and well over a thousand prophecies. Some of them are about the Harpazo, when Jesus calls the body of Christ away from Earth. Others are about His end-time appearance to rule and reign the world from Israel. The details go on and on. Even in His first coming to Earth, over 300 very specific prophecies came to pass.
That was one of the first things that made me believe the Bible so profoundly when I gave my life to the Lord. I came home and started reading the Bible. I had a little New Testament, and I started in Matthew because that’s the first book there. Most of it was over my head; I didn’t understand much. However, one thing that caught my eye over and over was when Matthew would talk about something Jesus said or something that happened around His ministry and say, “as it was prophesied by the prophet Isaiah.” After seeing that repeatedly, I thought, “Man alive, how is it that years before Jesus came, these people had such accurate prophecies?” Literally down to the words people said, like Judas getting 30 pieces of silver, throwing it away, and ending up being spent to buy the Potter’s Field. These details were so incredible that there was no way I could argue with the value and authenticity of these words.
We need to realize that learning to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit doesn’t start by taking a deep dive and trying to be all spiritual. It begins with Scripture. Let me encourage you: you can get confused with all the scriptures. There are many books in the Old Testament, books in the New Testament, prophecies, and other teachings. It’s easy to get confused, but Jesus is supposed to be the end-all for understanding Scripture because He is the Word made flesh. He came and showed us exactly what all these things in the Old Testament would look like if they were put into practice in harmony with God’s motives and intentions.
The things you need to know, if you seek prayerfully,
you will come to know them.
And, incredibly, people abandon the gospels, thinking there’s more meat and depth and all that stuff in the Epistles, the Torah, or all these other places. But the truth is you want to capitalize on the teachings of Jesus because even if you can’t understand all of these complex things in the Bible, Jesus’ teachings are not that hard to understand. Even the ones that are hard to understand are not a big problem. The things you need to know, if you seek prayerfully, you will come to know them.
But we must first establish our knowledge of the Scripture based on the Scripture to know when the Holy Spirit is speaking. You see, we get a witness in our heart that it is the Holy Spirit speaking. But more than that, we must be sure that the second witness, you know, there’s a witness. There’s a witness that the Holy Spirit speaks in our hearts. But the first witness is Scripture. Is this thing that I’m hearing, or is this thing that I think is the Holy Spirit? Is this in the Scripture?
The starting point is to establish your heart in the Scriptures
as much as possible.
If you study the teachings of Jesus, even though you might not hear the Holy Spirit verbatim quoting Scripture, you will never find the Holy Spirit will ever speak to you in any way that contradicts anything that Jesus taught, anything that Jesus modeled, anything that Jesus ever said. So, the starting point is to establish your heart in the Scriptures as much as possible.
Why is this so important? Well, staying free, experiencing deliverance from oppression, and escaping from harm often comes down to specific instructions that the Lord will give you. You know, I spent time doing jungle crusades. I was out in the jungles, and we had communists fighting in the mountains around where we were having crusades. And they sent word down to me that they were going to kill me. The witch doctors on this island had killed the previous six preachers who had come there to preach the gospel. They sent word to me that they had killed the last six, that I would be the seventh, and that they would kill me. I would never leave alive. And we even had some other groups that were threatening to kill me for going into these crusades.
Well, I tell you, it took very specific instruction from the Lord about where to go and where not to go. That doesn’t mean God spoke to me and said, don’t go to this part of town. But if I would start to go to some part of town that was unsafe—well, it wasn’t a town, it was a village—but I was starting to go somewhere unsafe, I would get this sense in my heart not to go. And I always followed it. Sometimes, I would later find out that some type of trap was laid for me there. So, if you want to have the greatest protection in the world and the greatest deliverance from oppression or from your enemies who want to hurt you, the key is recognizing the voice of the Holy Spirit in your heart. So, the first thing is, is it in line with Scripture?
But here’s another very, very interesting thing that gets into what’s going on in your heart: do not entertain things that will choke out what God is saying to you. One of the most important teachings that Jesus ever gave was on the law of the seed. I call it the immutable law of the seed. It’s unchangeable. It is the most consistent law that governs everything in the universe, governs everything about faith, governs everything about how we live our lives and what comes back to us in our lives.
Anytime you deal with God, you are planting seed in your heart. Whenever you’re reading the Scripture, thinking about it, and pondering, that’s a seed getting planted in your heart. Whatever you feel like the Holy Spirit is speaking to you is a seed being planted in your heart. Well, Jesus warned, though, that if you plant thorns among these good seeds, they will choke out the good seeds and never bear fruit. In other words, they’ll never bring you to the goals that you hope you will reach.
Where we put our attention is incredibly important if we want to be laser-focused on the Holy Spirit and be able to hear Him.
So, you ask, well, what do I do? There’s this thing that the Bible calls double-mindedness. Double-mindedness is when you shift your attention from one thing over to another thing to another thing. It’s sort of like when you’re sick, praying for healing, focused on the promises of God, meditating on the Scriptures, confessing the Scriptures, and feeling better. You’re starting to feel a little more energized, and then, maybe, you have pain, or something goes wrong. Then, you take your attention off the promises of God and put your attention on that problem. Now you’re planting a different seed in your heart, which will choke out the seed of faith. It will choke out the seed of the promise of God. So, where we put our attention is incredibly important if we want to be laser-focused on the Holy Spirit and be able to hear Him.
I’m going to read some scriptures for you. I will probably read more scriptures this time than I ever have. I want to make this as short as possible so I can run through it quickly. But this is so very important, not just for the horrible days that we’re living in, but this is important for every aspect of your life: raising your kids, praying for your kids, making good decisions for your family, making good decisions about your money, and all those kinds of things.
Matthew 6:19 says, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on Earth, where moth and rust destroy, where thieves break in and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your heart is, that is where your treasures are.”
When we focus on something to the extent that it starts drawing our attention, it becomes precious to us.
We start relying on it, and we start depending on it. That’s when we’re turning something into a treasure. As treasures, we hold on to them, observe them, pay attention to them, and think they are something we need in our lives.
Jesus says something here that seems so out of context. In verse 22, He says, “The lamp of the body.” A lamp is very interesting. A lamp holds the oil, and the oil represents the Holy Spirit. Then, the oil is lit in a wick, which gives off a fire, representing illumination. So, the lamp of the body is the eye. You ask, why would the lamp of the body be the eye?
The Bible talks about how the natural tendencies and functioning of the body are the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. Well, the pride of life is very clearly about our ego. The lusts of the flesh are about the five senses—hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, and touching. Then there is the lust of the eyes. There’s something unique about when we set our eyes on something, and even more than our natural eyes, when we set our heart on something because our heart has the same five senses as our physical body. So, our heart has the capacity for perception and sight.
While this can refer to what you fix your physical eye on, more than anything, this is about the eyes of your heart. So, He says, “The lamp of the body is the eye. Therefore, if your eye is good.” Interestingly, the word “good” in the Greek is the word “single.” If your eye is single, your whole body will be filled with light. In other words, you will have illumination in every aspect of your life. And with illumination, you can drive out the darkness, you can drive out confusion, you can drive out fear, and all those kinds of things. And He says, “So, if your eye is single, your whole body will be full of light.
But if your eye is bad…” But wait a minute. What do you mean bad? Well, this is a reference to double vision. And so, when your eyes start to go bad, you get double vision, which means it is distorted when you look at something. You don’t see it as it really is. You see it in some other way.
He says, “But if your eyes double or have disease, then your whole body will be filled with darkness. Well, when there’s darkness, that means you don’t understand. You can’t perceive or make good decisions. You don’t know for sure what you should do. There is no clarity at all in your life. And then He says, “If, therefore, the light in you is darkness, how great is that darkness?” In other words, if what I see and perceive is real, I think it is not. It’s just a distorted concept of something else, and then I’m in darkness. I can’t make the kinds of decisions that I want to make.
So, when it comes to these days that we’re living in, which are dangerous, dangerous times, and they will get worse, I need to be able to see and discern clearly. You could go to many places with this, but you will get lost if you don’t follow what Jesus is talking about.
Jesus is going to explain what happens when your eyes double. When your vision is double, you see what appears to be two different things. I was in a terrible automobile accident back about 25 years ago, and one of the things that happened was I ruptured a blood vessel in one of my eyes. I don’t remember which one it is now. We had a biker ministry in those days, so I bought a motorcycle. I hadn’t ridden at that time since I was a teenager. But if I were going to reach these bikers, I knew I had to ride a motorcycle, or else I wouldn’t have any real influence on them.
One of my problems was getting ready to go around a curve. Let’s say I’m going to the right, and this is my good eye. Then, I would be looking at that curve. And as I started to ease around that curve, suddenly, as I began to align with the highway, I am looking at it with both my good and bad eye. The problem is that it produced double vision. Everything was one size in my good eye and another size in my bad eye. I didn’t have a good depth of field. I couldn’t tell for sure if I was staying on the road or not. That had a lot to do with me quitting riding motorcycles because I knew with double vision like that, it was just a matter of time before I had a wreck and maybe killed myself.
Jesus said something very interesting. “No one can serve two masters.” And you think, what does that have to do with double vision? Well, two masters, double vision. “For either he will hate the one and love the other or be loyal to the one and despise the other. You can’t serve God and mammon.”
Traditionally, the word mammon is just translated as money. That’s not an accurate translation. The word mammon is probably more accurately translated as avarice. Avarice is not just about money. Money in and of itself is not evil. The love of money is evil. And avarice is when a person has more of a compelling desire for wealth and material things. What you get into here is that wealth and material things become the source of our security. We think that if we have all of these resources, financial resources, all these kinds of things, we are safe and immune to the things happening in the world.
In verse 25, Jesus is talking about dealing with this thing about mammon. He says, “Therefore, I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you’ll eat or what you’ll drink, nor your body, what you’ll put on it. Is life not more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not more valuable than they?”
Verse 27 says, “Which of you, by worrying, can add one cubit to your stature?” In other words, it doesn’t matter how much you worry about this. It doesn’t matter how much you fret about this. It doesn’t matter how much effort you put into stashing back, holding on to more, and being more selfish and stingier—it really doesn’t matter. That is not going to bring you true safety and true security.
Matthew 6:31 says, “Therefore, don’t worry, saying what shall we eat? Or what shall we drink? Or what shall we wear? For after these things, the Gentiles seek.” This is a real sticking point for me because I released The Prayer Organizer, an incredibly powerful prayer tool, back in the mid-eighties. And I’ve written several books on prayer. What’s interesting is He says, “Don’t worry about what you will eat, what you will drink,” all these things.
The main thing we do in prayer is focus on, “Okay, God, are you going to feed me? Okay, God, I need this. I need clothes, I need them. I can’t pay my bills. I need money.” He says, “Your Heavenly Father knows you need these things.” So, why am I reminding Him? Well, I’m reminding Him because that’s what faith is. But that’s not what faith is. That’s what unbelief is. If you think you must remind God of something, you have a belief problem. He says, “Your heavenly Father knows you need all these things.”
Now listen to this: “First, seek the kingdom of God and His righteousness.” Do all of that first. Interestingly, He’s basically saying that you’ll never have to pray about these other things if you do that. Why? Because if you seek God’s kingdom and righteousness first, all these things shall be added to you.
That is faith right there. You realize you don’t have to beg God to do this stuff or be selfish, stingy, or always on guard. I don’t have to count every penny all the time. I believe in being diligent. I believe in being responsible with your finances and all those kinds of things. But you’ll see the intimate twist here in just a moment, and you’ll understand why dealing with this issue will be number two.
The number one issue is reading the Scripture, preferably reading Jesus’ teachings more than you read anything else. But number two is seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, being at ease, and not having to hold on to all these things. So, therefore, don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
In Mark 10:23, Jesus says something that shocks the daylights out of the disciples. He says, “How hard is it for those with riches to enter the kingdom of God?” That’s a frightening statement, considering that, basically, the Jews considered success and prosperity to be a blessing of God. And now, it sounds like Jesus is saying there’s something wrong with having riches or prospering. No, there’s not.
But the way we’ve been taught by the “name it, claim it, grab it, and stab it” group of people over the last 40 or 50 years is nothing but greed-based. And Jesus Himself, not the Apostle Paul, not Peter, not somebody else—Jesus Himself—said you don’t have to pray about that stuff. You need to seek the kingdom of God first and seek the righteousness of God. All this will be added to you.
It’s not the fact that you have riches that’s a problem. It’s the fact that you trust in riches that becomes a problem.
The disciples were in shock. This contradicts all their theology. It says, “And the disciples were astonished at His words.” Of course, Jesus realized they were misinterpreting what He said. So Jesus answered again and said to them, “Children, how hard is it for those who trust in riches?” In other words, it’s not the fact that you have riches that’s a problem. It’s the fact that you trust in riches that becomes a problem.
You have trouble entering the kingdom of God because, remember, the kingdom of God represents our surrender to the Lordship of Jesus. It’s hard to surrender to the Lordship of Jesus if your trust is in riches because you think you must fight to hold on to all this stuff. You believe that you are the master of your security.
Now listen. Look at the world around you. This world is becoming more unstable, more threatening, and more violent by the moment. And the things that are happening—the truth is, we are seeing that money can’t protect us from what is happening. I forgot how many thousands of people have been put in prison, many of which are very wealthy and very successful, and they’ve been put in prison without trials, without due justice and proper representation, all because of political agendas.
So, trusting in riches will not get you through what’s happening. But the problem is, remember, whatever you trust in is your treasure. So, if riches are our treasure, then that will be what we will guard and focus on. That’s where we will be putting all our attention. Even if we’re looking at Jesus, it’s distorted because we’ve got one eye on the riches.
Psalm 20:7 says, “Some may trust in chariots, some may trust in horses, but we will remember the name of our God.” God constantly warned the nation of Israel, “Put your trust in these political alliances. Don’t do it.” Well, what did they do? They went into alliances with Egypt and other countries. And every time they went into an alliance with another country, those countries pretty much turned on them and oppressed them.
We have Jesus right out here in front of us, and then we have whatever physical things we’re hoping in for security and to make us feel safe, and we’re trying to look at both of those things simultaneously. The problem is, if we trust riches more than we trust Jesus, then Jesus starts getting smaller and smaller and more diminished. And now those riches, those material things, seem more precious, practical, and valuable than Jesus.
Jesus says it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. Remember, go back and get in context—He’s not saying that the problem is being rich. He is saying that the problem is trusting in your riches. The problem is making riches your treasure instead of making the kingdom of God and his righteousness your treasure.
The more I focus my attention on Jesus, His promises, and what He has done for me through His death, burial, and resurrection,
the more I enlarge Him.
The Bible says, “Magnify the Lord with me.” To magnify something means to make it bigger, louder, larger, and more powerful. You can’t make God bigger, louder, and more powerful, but you can make God bigger, louder, and more powerful in your personal experience and heart because you focus on Him.
You know, one of the things that we understand about the mind is when you focus your attention on something, your inner man somehow translates that into the concept that says, “Oh, you want to experience more of that.” If I focus on what I fear, I use my authority over my being. I’m using my authority to exaggerate my ability to feel fear.
If I have physical pain somewhere in my body and I think, complain, and talk about it, then it seems like it’s getting stronger and stronger and more and more powerful. Then we think, “Oh man, this thing’s getting worse. This is going to kill me. This is turning into something terrible. I’m really in trouble.” No, it’s probably not getting worse. But what is happening is because you’re thinking and talking about it, you put your attention on it, and your mind says, “Oh, you want to feel that pain more?” And so, our ability to feel that pain grows. The pain doesn’t grow. Our ability to feel it and experience it grows.
That’s the same thing that happens when we take our eyes off all these things that we trust and put our eyes on Jesus. Suddenly, Jesus begins to grow, and the way we see the world, the way we see our lives, the way we see the opportunities that are around us change.
Suppose I start reading the Scripture, particularly Jesus’ teaching, and focus more and more on Him, what He taught, and His promises, and magnify Him. In that case, I make Him bigger in my experience because I’m focusing on Him. Instead of putting my hope in these physical things and these riches, treasures, bank accounts, and all that kind of stuff, the truth is my faith will soar.
As the voice of God becomes alive to me and gets bigger and more prominent in my heart, then the more I will quickly and easily recognize His voice and be able to walk in absolute victory.
The thing that will come alive to me is going to be the voice of God. And as the voice of God becomes alive to me and gets bigger and more prominent in my heart because I’m magnifying him, making Him bigger and bigger in my heart, making Him my treasure, then the more I will quickly and more easily recognize His voice and be able to walk in absolute victory.
I hope you’ll take these words to heart. Remember that we release a new weekly CyberChurch message on our website, impactministries.com, every Thursday morning. A new series started last week. We’re talking about the mystery of the ten virgins, and we’re going to be talking about all kinds of things that help prepare you for the time that we live in. You don’t have to be destroyed in this. You can be an overcomer.
I trust and hope you will take some of this stuff to heart, put it into practice, and be an overcomer who can help people around you overcome it. You’ll be able to be the Moses of your family who leads people out of Egypt and into the promised land.
I hope this was a blessing to you. I hope you didn’t mind me sharing more scriptures than usual, but I felt such a burden to talk to you about this. So, listen, you guys have a great day.
If you’re a World Changer with us and helping us reach the world, then you’re falling into this category where it says, “Don’t put your trust in riches and clothes and things in this world that you can lose. Put your trust and invest in that which is eternal.” So, if you’re a World Changer with us, I want you to know I appreciate so much all that you do to help us take this message to the ends of the Earth, win as many people to Jesus as we can, start Bible schools all over the world, and prepare people to meet Jesus. If you’re not a World Changer, and I understand it, I still want to be a blessing to you. I want to help you. I want you to be encouraged. I want you to have a great life.
Alright, guys. Blessings to you. Be sure to jump in with me every week of CyberChurch on impactministries.com.
Dr. Jim Richards
DrJim@drjimrichards.com
Patricia: Cammie, I am so excited to hear you talk about that because so many people our age think they can’t take on new challenges. They believe they can’t step out of their comfort zone and are unwilling to try. Your testimony really excites me. Thank you so much for sharing that with us.