Join Ashley and Carlie Terradez for Freedom part 6. In this conclusion to the Freedom series, Ashley and Carlie reveal the power of hope and how God uses a positive imagination.
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The primary scriptures explored in Freedom Part 6 is Hebrews 11:15.
Transcription
Carlie: Did you know that a disappointed heart can stop you for walking in the freedom for which Christ paid for you to walk in? That’s right. We need to come to a point where we can stop past disappointments affecting our future.
Announcer: Why live a normal life when you could be living the abundant life? Welcome to the Abundant Life program with Ashley and Carlie Terradez.
Ashley: Hello, and welcome to Abundant Life. Hey, we’re so glad you’re with us today here in the lounge. We’re at the end of a series on freedom. We’re talking about how to walk in freedom. Do you know that Jesus paid for you to walk in freedom? It’s your right as a child of God to walk in freedom and today we’re going to be looking at how to overcome disappointments and walk in that freedom. Because if we’re disappointed, we’re not going to be walking in freedom, right?
Carlie: This is something that actually comes up a lot when we’re ministering to people. People that maybe come for prayer, often they’ll come to me for healing prayer, particularly, but oftentimes, you actually have this as well. I’m just thinking about the baptism of the Holy Spirit. When people come and they’ve had people pray through either it’s healing, baptism of the Holy Spirit, whatever it is, multiple times. But they just haven’t seen any results.
Ashley: They get disappointed.
Carlie: They get disappointed.
Ashley: And we use our experience as a gauge of God’s will for us. And that’s not the gauge we should use. What God’s will for you is in the word of God, God’s will for you is his promises. And he only has good for you. And he wants you well, praise God. He wants you to walk in victory. He wants you to walk in freedom. That’s his will for you. But if we don’t experience that someone’s going to think, “Well, God’s just not doing it for me today. It’s not God’s will.”
So we have to be careful of letting disappointments hinder us in walking in all that God has for us. So if someone came, often we have people come for prayer and say they want the baptism of the Holy Spirit, they’ll say, “Well, I’ve prayed and asked God, but nothing. I don’t feel anything.” Or, “I don’t have the evidence of speaking in tongues,” or whatever that might be, their evidence they’re looking for and they say it just hasn’t happened. And they get disappointed.
Carlie: I remember that man that came to that time, he was probably 80 years old and he’d been trying to speak in tongues for years. Do you remember him?
Ashley: Yeah, I think he said, “I’ve tried to speak in my prayer language for 30 years.” He said, “I can’t do it.” He said, “I’ve had…” And he started listing all these ministers that have personally prayed for him. I was like, “Man, that’s quite an impressive list of ministers right there.” And just out of my mouth, I just blurted out, “Yeah, but the difference is today, I’m going to pray for you and you’re going to pray in your prayer language.”
And I was like, “Thank you, Lord. It just came out.
Carlie: Oh, when this came out of you.
Ashley: I was like, “Man,” I was like, “Lord.” I was like, “It’s okay for you, you’re not here, you’re invisible. I’m the one who’s going to take the flack for this if it doesn’t work.” That’s what I’m thinking. Great man of faith. I’m thinking, “I’ve just said that this is going to work this time. He’s been trying literally for decades and I’ve just declared this time it’s going to work.” And what I did was, the Holy Spirit led me in doing this. This was God who led me in doing this. But I said to him, “You need to start…” I started to teach him. I said, “You need to just make a decision. You need to start seeing yourself doing this.”
And I actually made him confess and say, “You know what? It’s God’s will for him to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. It’s God’s will for him to pray in tongues.” And I made him say these things and made him start to believe these things. And after I taught him for a few minutes, I said, “I’m going to pray for you and then you’re going to be able pray in tongues.” And it was amazing. I prayed for him and he got his prayer language and I remember he was sobbing, crying because he’d been trying so hard.
That was one of his problems, by the way, because he was trying so hard. Often this is a side subject. This is not what we’re going to concentrate on today. But I just want you to know if you’re trying so hard to get something from God, you’re probably in works. You’re probably trying to make it happen yourself. When really we have to rely on the finished work of Jesus. Jesus paid the price for us to receive everything that God has for us. So the minute we try and make it about us, “I’ve tried this, I’ve tried that, I’ve done this, I’ve done that.” We make it about formalism about us. It’s basically in a works mentality. We’re looking at our own good works. You’d be like, “Well, I’ve done all these things. Now I deserve it.”
And you can’t earn the promises of God. You can’t earn the goodness of God. You can’t earn these things. It’s a free gift. You just have to receive it. I want to encourage you today. If you’re trying to receive your healing or trying to receive your prayer language or wherever it is, those things are guaranteed to you from the Father. Now it’s up to you to receive them. And a lot of the time we have to actually labor. The only labor we have to do is to enter into his rest and just say, “You know what? It’s a finished work. It’s a free gift. I’m going to receive it rather than try and make it happen myself.”
Carlie: Absolutely. And as we’ve brought the subject up now, if the baptism of the Holy Spirit or receiving your prayer language is something that you’d like to know more about, that you have questions about or that you just like to be able to flow and be able to receive your prayer language, we actually have a free booklet that we’d like to send you, it’s called Your Life With God. And it leads you through all the benefits of praying in tongues. It’ll help you to understand the baptism of the Holy Spirit in more detail than we can get into on today’s show and it’ll help you receive those things. So if you’d like that, the details are on your screen and we’ll send that to you for free.
Ashley: Yeah, you can get that at TerradezMinistries.com/booklet. That’s TerradezMinistries.com/booklet for those of you listening.
Carlie: And remember, today we’re talking about hope specifically because a disappointed heart can actually hinder people from receiving from God. And that’s because our expectation is a key part of what helps us to access. It’s a part of our faith that helps us to access the promises of God that grace has provided for us. Now we’ve been talking about Galatians 5:1, that it was for freedom that Christ has set us free, but don’t come again under yoke of slavery.” Amen. Never to be, again, put under a yoke of slavery or bondage. We have a part to play in making sure we stay free in our hearts.
Ashley: Amen.
Carlie: Jesus has paid for us to be free, but if we’re not careful, we can fall into the pitfalls or the traps of the enemy that’ll actually keep us in bondage. And disappointment is a trap of the enemy. We’ve been through different traps, offense, unforgiveness, we’ve been through loads of different things in this series. And this is the final part of our freedom series but I think it’s worth spending some time talking about the place of disappointment and how it effects our hope and expectation.
We meet a lot of people in ministry situations that have been sick for a long time, that had been poor for a long time, and their expectation of God is hindered because of it.
Ashley: Right.
Carlie: If you’ve been in a wheelchair for a long time, or maybe you’ve just always been poor.
Ashley: Right.
Carlie: I know you minister to lots of people that have been trapped in a cycle of poverty. It starts to get on the inside of us. Doesn’t it?
Ashley: You see yourself that way and it becomes your identity. And what happens is you end up identifying more with that, whether it’s sickness, or whether it’s poverty, you end up identifying more with that than who you are in Christ. So really, remember, we’re built spirit, soul, and body. You’re a spirit, and that’s the real you, the real you is spiritual. The real you is the spirit you, and then you possess a soul, which is your mind, will, and emotions. And then you live inside of a body, which is your flesh.
So really there’s three parts to you. And what you’ve got to understand is the spirit you, when you got born again, all things became new. And that part of you is the spirit you. You became brand new on the inside. You became alive when you got born again. So what happened was is your spirit completely changed, but your mind, will, and emotions, the soul part of you and the flesh part of you didn’t change overnight. It’s going to take time. So you know what? Whatever you looked like before in the flesh, you look exactly the same when you got born again.
For some of you, when you got born again, nothing changed in your emotions, nothing changed in your thinking. That’s why we have to renew our minds. So the key is, is to renew our minds to who we really are in Christ. So the real us is a spiritual us and the sole part of us, our mind, will, and emotions is the part we have to renew. God says you have to renew that, renewing of your mind, Romans 12. So, that’s a choice we have to make. You don’t have to renew your mind, but if you don’t renew your mind, you’re not going to experience the good things that God has for us.
Carlie: That’s true.
Ashley: And you could start to think, “Well, maybe those things aren’t for me.” No, they are for you. They’re for every believer. But the question is, are you going to believe them? Are you going to receive them? Or are you just going to go without? Doubt and go without. Believe and receive or doubt and go without.
Carlie: It’s so true. This really comes down to how much we trust God. Faith is simply boiled down is how do we trust God? Do we trust God? Do we trust his words? Do we trust his promises? Or are we looking more to our flesh, to our circumstances, to determine whether the word of God is true or not? And hope’s important because hope is the basis for faith. Now we’ve talked about faith. Faith is trust and confidence. It’s our ability to trust God, amen. And access the promises of God that grace has provided.
But there’s something important about faith, that trust in God. Faith can only give birth to something that hope has already conceived. This is really important. Hebrews 11:1 talks about it this way, it says, “Faith is the substance of things first hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” We come in hope. That’s why people come to a healing meeting, right?
Ashley: Right.
Carlie: They come with some desire. Maybe they’ve heard about healing, or maybe they’ve heard about prosperity or forgiveness. They’ve heard about something good is going on over there, right?
Ashley: Right.
Carlie: So they’ll go, they’ll attend meeting and they’ll go to church because they have a hope that their life can be better. And so they go there with an expectation. Hope is a positive expectation of something good, a positive expectation of something good. So they go with hope and while they’re there, what happens is faith starts to meet them in a place of hope and actually give birth, actually give a manifestation, if you like, substance-
Ashley: Right.
Carlie: … To something they first hoped for. If they didn’t have hope, they wouldn’t have been there in the meeting in the first place.
Ashley: Right.
Carlie: They wouldn’t have responded in the first place. But when people have come from a place of disappointment for a long time, they have such low expectation. They really want something to change, but they can’t quite step into the freedom in that area because they’ve been so disappointed in the past.
Ashley: Yep.
Carlie: In Proverbs 13:12 it says “Hope deferred has made the heart sick.” I think there are a lot of people that are watching this program actually that have fallen into that category of their hearts just become sick.
Ashley: Yep. Well, they’ve been dealing with something for so long. In fact, we had a pastor call us just yesterday about one of his congregation who was sick. And, he was asking some advice about how to minister to this person. And he told us what they were saying out of their mouth. And basically what they were saying out of their mouth was disappointment. So they were saying to their pastor, “Well, I believe God wants me well, and I believe God wants me healed.”
Carlie: But.
Ashley: But, and then they said out of their mouth, how did they say it? They said something about just being disappointed. They’re never going to get well.
Carlie: “I’m never going to be able to eat. I’m never going to be able to enjoy a Thanksgiving dinner with my family.”
Ashley: That’s right. “I know I’m never going to be able to enjoy Thanksgiving again with my family, because I’m not going to be able to eat again.” So on one, side, they were saying all this positive stuff. And on the other side, when they just got to talking, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. And we’re not condemning anyone. We’re not judging anyone.
We’re here to empower you in the promises of God. We’re here so you can receive everything God has for you. Everything God’s paid for for you. But when you’re speaking, what’s coming out of your mouth is usually a result of what’s in your heart. And what this person said was is that, “I’m never going to be enjoy, be able to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner with my family again.” And that’s what really was in their heart. Not that Jesus healed them. Not it’s their right to be healed. Not that Jesus made them worthy to be healed and he’s already done it 2,000 years ago. It was the fact that they could not see themselves ever eating properly again, and never being able to enjoy a meal again, that’s what was in their heart.
So this pastor called us and asked us for some advice. And really, the advice we gave him was very similar to what we’re teaching here now, is that person needs to spark their hope again. They need to get back into the word, back into the truth. See the word of God is going to show you are in the spirit, the real you. Your flesh, when you look in the mirror, that’s just your flesh. Your feelings tell you who you are in your soul. And the word of God tells you who you are in the spirit.
So you look in a mirror, you know who you are in the flesh. You think about your feelings. “Well, I feel sad.” That’s just your soul. When you look in the word of God, that shows you who you are in your spirit. And in your spirit, you’re healed. In your spirit, your whole. In your spirit, you’re full of joy, full of peace, full of love, regardless of the outward circumstances. That’s who you are in the spirit. That’s why we have to get into the word because the word is going to show us who we really are. The word’s going to draw out who we are.
We get into Paul’s epistles. We start reading these truths about us. And you might say, “I don’t feel like that.” Doesn’t matter. That’s the truth of who you are. Probably say, “I don’t see it in my circumstance.” It doesn’t matter. That’s the truth of who you are. And when you start doing that, that’s going to build hope. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. And when we do that, it’s going to build our hope. And until that faith is going to grow. And we’re going to be able to not let these disappointments hinder us. Because I’ll tell you, you might not have seen it in the past. Don’t let that stop you in the future.
So, “I’ve tried five times and not seeing this happen. Therefore, the word can’t be true.” No, the righteous get back up again. Go at it again. The word’s always true. Don’t quit.
Carlie: Amen. Biblical hope is powerful. It doesn’t disappoint. It actually says that in Romans 5:5, doesn’t it? Do you have that scripture there?
Ashley: Romans 5:5.
Carlie: Yeah, Paul has a lot to say about this. Hope is linked to our imagination. [crosstalk].
Ashley: This is Romans 5:5, it says, “Now hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”
Carlie: This is so important, when we really understand how much God loves us, the love of God, we will never doubt again, his ability or his willingness to provide for us. To nurture us, to protect us, to provide healing for us, to provide forgiveness for us, to provide safety, deliverance, provision. He’s the good, good Father, amen? And good fathers provide for their kids. Better than our earthly fathers ever could. He’s not holding back on you. When we understand how much he loves us and really let that sink into our heart, hope is a natural fruit of that relationship.
Faith, love and hope are powerful forces.
Ashley: Amen.
Carlie: Faith, love, and hope, a powerful forces. And oftentimes people find that they have one of those missing, or they struggle to receive from God in one or all of those areas. But we want to unpack hope a little bit more today because it is linked to our imagination. And so, there’s actually another scripture I want to read real quick. Do you happen to have Ephesians 3:20?
Ashley: Ephesians 3:20.
Carlie: In the contemporary English version.
Ashley: I have Ephesians 3:20 the contemporary England version.
Carlie: Yep, I love how it says this.
Ashley: Contemporary English version. This is 3:20, it says it this way. It says, “I pray that Christ Jesus and the church will forever bring praise to God. His power at work in us can do far more than we dare ask or imagine,”
Carlie: Man, that’s beautiful.
Ashley: His power in us can do far more than we dare ask and imagine. In the new King James it’s, “According to the power that works in us, above all we can ask or think,”
Carlie: Man, if we can imagine it, we can receive it.
Ashley: Amen. I tell you what, we’ve got more to show you in this, praise God, that’s going to really help you. I want to show you some things now that are going to empower you and help you live some of this out. So, stay tuned. We’ll be right back.
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Ashley: Hey, we’re talking about hope and about hope deferred makes the heart sick and how to really spark your hope.
Carlie: How to reignite your hope.
Ashley: Reignite your hope. Amen. That’s good. So, but before then I want to show you a testimony, praise God. We’ve had people write in and give us testimonies about how they’ve received from this ministry, through this ministry, from God. And we’d love to hear from you. Go to TerradezMinistries.com and let us know your testimonies or questions. And we’ll try and read them on air, praise God, to encourage.
We overcome by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony.
Carlie: Amen.
Ashley: And testimonies encourage other people to receive their healing or breakthrough, whatever it may be. So this testimony came from Carrie. So thanks, Carrie, for writing in, and she said that, “Since the beginning of a four month sailing trip, I’ve been having several-” she’s in a four month sailing trip.
Carlie: Pretty impressive.
Ashley: Just realize that. Congratulations, Carrie.
Carlie: That’s an achievement.
Ashley: I’m not saying I’m jealous, just sailing around the world for four months. But anyway, so, “On a form of sailing trip, I’ve been having several lying symptoms regarding my health I’ve been trying to overcome. There have been nerve issues, pinching, burning, and stinging sensations. Also my lower left leg has been weird. It’s been numb and tingly the whole time. These symptoms weren’t going away, even though I kept taking authority over them.”
This ties in a little bit with we’re talking about, about how they keep taking authority but they’re not going away. “During a stop in Florida, I turned on the TV to see the Abundant Life program where your live event was on.” So at Abundant Life, sometimes we put out a live event on this program. So instead of us being here in the lounge, it’ll be a live event. So, this was a live event and Carlie was teaching. It says, “At the end of Carlie’s teaching, she was ministering and she called out issues about nerves. So I claimed that deliverance for myself and I was healed instantly.”
Carlie: Amen.
Ashley: “And she called out numbness and tingling in the legs. When I woke up the next morning, the weird numbness and all the tingling in my legs was gone. Praise God, I’m a hundred percent healed and well.” Thanks for writing in Carrie. Praise God, praise God that [crosstalk] his healing power, amen, is still alive. He will is still for you to be healed. He’s still healing today.
Carlie: Amen.
Ashley: Praise also. Let us know if you’ve received anything from the Lord for this ministry, TerradezMinistries.com, we’d love to hear from you, or you can call us. The number is on the screen, praise God.
Carlie: Amen. That’s powerful. Carrie could have gotten disappointed. Four months is a long time. Some viewers watching this had been sick even longer than that. But what we’ve been talking about is how, when people have been in a situation, possibly a chronic situation for a long time, it starts to affect their imagination. They start to see themselves in light of those circumstances and their expectation for receiving from God gets lower and lower as the time goes on.
But hope and imagination are closely linked together. Faith is how we access the promises of God that grace has provided. But faith can’t give birth to something that hope hasn’t first conceived. The issue with hope is it affects our imagination. It affects how we see ourselves, whether we see ourselves as a well person or see ourselves as a rich person, or see ourselves as a free person, living in freedom rather than living in bondage.
Oftentimes people base their expectation on their experience.
Ashley: Right.
Carlie: Rather than having their expectation based upon the word of God and that’s a problem that will create a problem in us if we’re trying to receive something that’s in a supernatural realm because faith doesn’t operate, hope doesn’t operate in a realm that we can see yet. It operates in a realm that is unseen. Little kids, they have an amazing imagination,.
Ashley: Right.
Carlie: Right? You do not have to tell them to use their imagination. It’s naturally in them.
Ashley: Right.
Carlie: But as people grow into adulthood, somewhere along the line, they quit using their imagination.
Ashley: We keep getting told over and over, “Stop daydreaming and don’t be so silly,” and things like that. And some of the things that kids are imagining are actually good things, imagining good things. But we’re told, “Oh, don’t be so silly and stop daydreaming,” all those types of things. And our imagination, our ability to just imagine and daydream, gets beaten out of us.
Carlie: It does. But imagination is a God-given ability to see something that’s not seen. It’s very closely linked to faith and hope. Imagination is like a spiritual womb where we conceive things and then when we can see them on the inside, we’ll be able to see them on the outside.
Ashley: Imagination… Let me say it again. Imagination is like a spiritual womb where things are conceived.
Carlie: Yeah, absolutely.
Ashley: So we can’t see them. But they’re conceived.
Carlie: They’re conceived. And then faith gives substance. It gives birth to that baby in the womb, that baby that we created in our imagination, faith is what gives substance to that baby, to see that idea, that thought, manifest.
Ashley: And really, when it comes to life, isn’t when it manifests. That’s not when it happened. Really, it happened in the conception stage, right?
Carlie: Absolutely.
Ashley: It happened before then, before it could be seen. That’s why 2 Corinthians 5:7 says, “We walk by faith and not by sight. And we set our mind on things that are unseen, not in the things that are seen, everything that’s unseen is eternal. The things that are seen are temporary. So, really the spiritual world, the unseen is the parental false to the seen. And sometimes we’re guilty as human beings of saying, “Well, unless I see it, I’m not going to believe it until I see it.” In fact, we say that. “I’ll believe it when I see it.” Well, really what we should say as born again believers is, “I’ll see it when I believe it.” Stop saying, “I’ll believe when I see it,” and start saying, “I’ll see it when I believe it.”
In fact, if you’re one of these people that says, “I’ll only believe it when I see it,” you probably will never see some of these things, because even with a miracle is done in front of you, you’ll reason it out. People reason things out.
Carlie: They do.
Ashley: And they say, “No, the voice of God came from heaven and spoke to Jesus.” And they said, “Oh, it was just thunder.” So it’s amazing how, if you have that attitude where unless it’s natural, unless I can actually touch it, and feel it, then it’s not real, then even when something supernatural happens, you’ll overlook it and you won’t even be able to see and see that it was God doing it.
Carlie: This is so important what Ashley’s saying here, because if we’ve been stuck in a place where we have low expectation because hope deferred has made our heart sick, we’re going to struggle to see things by faith. We’re going to struggle in the realm of our imagination. We’re going to be fall in that category that says, “I’m not going to believe it until I see it.” Thomas was one of these guys. We can read here in John chapter 20.
Ashley: I always feel bad for Thomas. He’s got a bad rap.
Carlie: I hate the way that we…
Ashley: Doubting Thomas.
Carlie: Dating Thomas.
Ashley: Dating? Doubting Thomas.
Carlie: Doubting Thomas.
Ashley: It’s like his brand now.
Carlie: It’s bad.
Ashley: When we go to Heaven, we’re going to be like, “You’re the one that doubted. Doubting Thomas.” That’s not very kind.
Carlie: It’s not very kind. But there’s a reason for this.
Ashley: He did doubt, that’s why he’s called doubting Thomas.
Carlie: There’s a reason for this. Let’s look at this in John chapter 20. In verse 19, it’s it starts with an appearance of Jesus to his disciples. So they’re in there, in the room. It says, “The doors were locked where the disciples were assembled for fear of the Jews. Jesus came in and stood in their midst and said to them, “Peace be with you.” And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and he showed him his side.” This is after the resurrection. “The disciples were glad when they saw the Lord.”
Now, they were hiding away for fear of the Jews, because this is after Jesus had been crucified. He hadn’t risen before that point. And so they’re thinking, “Well, I’m going to be next.” Right?
Ashley: And the reason why Jesus had to say to them, “Peace to you,” is because they made sure the door was shut, it’s mentioned right here. They shut the door because they were in fear of the Jews. So it wasn’t just like, “Did you remember to shut the door?” No, they locked the door. They made sure there’s no way for the Jews to come in and get them.
Carlie: Right.
Ashley: So when Jesus walked in there, they were scared.
Carlie: The door was still shut.
Ashley: They were probably scared. Like, “What is this?” Yep.
Carlie: So think about that. It was still shut. So, there’s Jesus walking through the wall or whatever. Right? He comes in and you can imagine their first instinct was to be afraid. Right? But, so he shows them evidence. “Listen, I was crucified. I’ve risen again. Here’s the scars. Now I’m going to prove it.” And he says to them a phrase that they would’ve recognized. “Peace be with you.” He had to prove himself to them with this simple phrase, “Peace be with you.”
And he told them, “Receive the Holy spirit.” This wasn’t a point of absolute joy and excitement. You’d think about this, If you’re one of the disciples who have been hanging out with Jesus for several years, following him around, giving up everything, given up everything. Businesses, families, right? To follow somebody. And in their minds, in their hearts, their expectation was that Jesus was going to set up a physical kingdom on earth.
Ashley: Right.
Carlie: And then he was crucified. That’s disappointing to say the least, right? Hope deferred was making their heart sick. It didn’t turn out how they thought it was going to. So here they are. He’s come in. And he says, “Peace be with you,” a phrase that they would have recognized because in John chapter 14, verse 1 and verse 27, Jesus says, “Do not let your heart be troubled.” Here’s the peace. I’m giving you my peace. “My peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you.”
This is really important because the peace of God is powerful. We’re going to unpack this a little bit. The peace of God is supernatural and it’s powerful. Jesus is saying, “You’re going to have trouble guys, but I’m giving you my peace.” He left it with them. He says, “Do not let your heart be troubled.” Don’t let your heart be stirred up, be agitated. Keep your mind on what I’ve told you and the peace that I’m leaving you. So they would have recognized this phrase.
But there was one guy that wasn’t there. Thomas. He wasn’t in the room, “But Thomas, one of the 12, called the twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We’ve seen the Lord.” You can imagine they’re super excited.
Ashley: Right.
Carlie: If they would have had Facebook or Twitter, they would have been tweeting.
Ashley: Right.
Carlie: Snapchat, Instagram, the whole lot. Thomas wasn’t there. He was left out. And he actually said, “Unless I see the nail prints in his hands and put my finger in the nail prints and put my hands inside, I will not believe.” Many people come into this place of not being able to believe unless they see something because they’re in grief.
Thomas was in grief. I feel bad for him calling him doubting Thomas. But I believe it came from a heart that had been disappointed, a heart that had been grieving. He wanted to believe with everything that he had, but he’d seen the Lord crucified. What he saw in those days and the crucifixion was more real to him on the inside of him than being able to see Jesus in his imagination, being risen from the dead. And so he said, “I will not believe.”
Well, look at this. Jesus doesn’t leave us in a place of disappointment.
Ashley: Amen.
Carlie: Remember, hope is something that doesn’t disappoint. When we put our hope in God, he never disappoints us. It’s not like hope in the world. “Well, I hope it’s going to be sunny tomorrow.”
Ashley: Right.
Carlie: In something that’s unsure. When we place our hope in Jesus, he doesn’t disappoint.
Ashley: Amen.
Carlie: So he created this whole reenactment of the scenario, almost exactly the same, for Thomas’s benefit. And he says eight days later, his disciples again were inside with the door shut. This time Thomas was with him and Jesus come in again. And he says, “My peace be with you, put your finger here, look at my hands. Put your hand in my side, and don’t be faithless, but be believing.”
He encouraged Thomas, “Listen, put your expectation, put your hope in me. Don’t be like everyone else in the world that’s faithless and unbelieving and is held in captive, but walk in freedom by putting your faith and trust and hope in me. See things that are unseen. He goes on in verse 29 and says, “Thomas, because you’ve seen me, you have believed, but blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” I want to encourage you today to start dreaming again.
Maybe you’ve put your dreams on hold. Maybe the situation that you’ve been in for such a long time has become so real to you that you’ve quit dreaming, that you’ve quit expecting the supernatural power of God in your life. Let me tell you. God wants you to walk in freedom. He wants you to walk in freedom in every area of your life. Get your hopes up. Amen? Get your hopes. Set them in Jesus, who will never disappoint you. Stir up hope on the inside and start dreaming again. Start seeing yourself walk in, seeing yourself prospering, seeing yourself walking in the house, start seeing yourself as Jesus created you to be. Amen?
Ashley: Amen. That’s awesome. Praise God. Hey, thanks for joining us today. Hey, we want to pray for you before we let you go. Father God, I thank you for everyone watching and listening today.
Carlie: Amen.
Ashley: Lord, I thank you that you never disappoint. And I thank you, Lord, that you always give us hope Lord, and we can set our hope and our faith in you, Lord. I thank you, Lord, just like you said to Thomas, blessed are those who believe who haven’t seen.
Carlie: Amen.
Ashley: And Lord, we’re the ones who haven’t seen you in the natural, Lord, but we believe.
Carlie: We believe.
Ashley: So we’re blessed.
Carlie: Thank you, Jesus.
Ashley: So, right now, say this out to me. Say, I believe-
Carlie: I believe…
Ashley: The promises of God-
Carlie: The promises of God…
Ashley: Are for me in Jesus’ name.
Carlie: They’re for me.
Ashley: Amen, praise God. I’m believing you’re going to be set free today in whatever area you need to be set free in. Thanks for watching and being with us today. We’ll see you real soon.