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I want to start with a statement that I've shared regularly with our spiritual family: The God you see is the God you get. In other words, how we perceive God directly impacts and influences how we receive from God. We don't determine who God is, but we do determine who we allow him to be to us.
The enemy is fully aware of this reality. He passionately attempts to pervert our perspective of God—he wants our view jaded, distorted, contorted, and twisted. He knows that you cannot get right reception if you've got wrong perception. He will even use God's people to impact and influence your view of God's person.
But I'm talking to somebody today whose conviction and confession is: I refuse to let them ruin my perspective of him. They may not be all they say they will be, but he is everything he said he would be. They may not do all they said they would do, but he will do everything he said he would do. They may walk out when trouble walks in, but he's a friend that sticks closer than a brother. He will never leave. He will never forsake. I will not let them change my perspective of him.
When the enemy can't get us to see God in a wrong way, the enemy tries to get us to see God in a reduced way. He knows that if we have a reduced perception, we will have a reduced reception.
I'm talking to anybody at any location whose conviction and confession is: I want it all. I will not reduce the bigness of my God to the smallness of their opinion. If he says he's a healer, I want that. If he says he's a way maker, I want that. If he says he's a door opener, I want that. If he says he's a heart fixer and a mind regulator and a bridge over troubled water and a lawyer in the courtroom, doctor in the sick room—I want that.
We're in the book of Luke, chapter 11. The context of this conversation is a conversation about prayer. Luke chapter 11, verse 1 records the disciples asking Jesus this question: Lord, teach us to pray.
There's deep revelation in this request. Notice what they didn't ask. They didn't say, "Lord, teach us how to walk on water." They didn't say, "Lord, teach us how to open blind eyes." They didn't say, "Lord, teach us how to raise people from the dead." They said, "Lord, teach us to pray." Because the disciples had walked with Jesus long enough to know that if you ask him to teach you how to pray, you don't have to ask him to teach you how to raise the dead. If you ask him to teach you how to pray, you don't have to ask him to teach you how to walk on water.
Their request contains this revelation: There are times you ask God for a blessing and God gives you a blueprint. Your willingness to work the blueprint will determine whether or not you step into the blessing. You ask God to bless the marriage, he gives you a blueprint to change your ways. You ask God to bless the business, he gives you a blueprint to make some adjustments. You ask God to change your mind, he gives you a blueprint to arrest your thinking. And if you will work the blueprint, you will step into the blessing.
I want to talk to some people who've been sitting on a blueprint, not working a blueprint. You ask for the blessing, he sent the blueprint. He doesn't give the ark, he gives the plans. And what you do with the plans will determine whether or not you survive the flood.
Procrastination is a weapon of satanic warfare. The enemy has you sitting on blueprints. You need to be building because something's coming that is going to require you to have built the ark already. Get up and do it. Get up and do it until doors open. Get up and do it until things turn around. Get up and do it until God does what he said.
I'm not trying to overspiritualize something, but sometimes in religious context we over-sanitize it. What you call it determines how you fight it. If you call it an issue, you fight it one way. But if you call it a devil, you fight it another. Procrastination is a little fox that is spoiling the vine. It's got you sitting on blueprints that you should be building on.
I pray against feelings of guilt. I want you to feel conviction, not shame. Conviction leads to movement; shame leads to paralysis. Some of you now are regretting what you hadn't done. Shake it off and do it now. I should have did it last year, but I'mma do it now. I should have did it last month, but I'm going to do it now. I should have did it two years ago, and I'm going to do it now. But I believe that the God that redeems time is going to make up for the time that I wasted. I'm going to do it now.
These disciples were Jewish men who had gone through bar mitzvah. They knew scripture and they knew prayers. They'd memorized prayers. So you've got people who have been taught to pray their whole life and are familiar with the concept of prayer. But when they're around their rabbi, they have witnessed something that is different and distinct about his prayer life and the results of his prayer. This caused them to re-evaluate what they thought they already knew and say:
I've been doing this my whole life, but this has never done that for me. When you do this, a different kind of that happens. So I need you to reteach me what I thought I already knew.
We didn't even know another way existed until we got exposed to it. The enemy wants to block and stop and hinder exposure because exposure awakens in you an appetite for things you didn't know you wanted because you didn't know it existed.
Just because you aren't aware of another level doesn't mean there's not another level. Just because this is the best you've seen doesn't mean this is the best there is. The Apostle Paul said:
God wants to do some things that your eyes haven't seen and your ears haven't heard and your heart has not conceived.
I pray that God pushes you into a season where you look at an area of your life and your testimony becomes: "I didn't know it could be this good." I didn't know I could be this happy. I didn't know I could be this focused. I didn't know I could be this prosperous. I didn't know I could be this anointed.
When Jesus gives them what we know as the Lord's Prayer, he's giving them practices. But here's what's crucial: after he deals with the practices of prayer, he deals with the perception of the person they're praying to.
He says in Luke chapter 11, verse 11:
Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg will give him a scorpion? If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?
Jesus is saying: "I gave you practices, but the practices don't work if you don't change your perspective of the person you're praying to. For me to take your prayer life to other levels of fruitfulness, I not only have to change your practices—I've got to change your perspective."
Who you talking to impacts how you talk to him. I can hear if you let me listen in on the prayers in your head, and I can tell you the size of the God that's in your heart.
What Jesus does in the text is make a claim on a character trait of God that is essential to understand if a person is going to shift their prayer life. The claim he makes is simply this: God is generous.
You can't even go boldly to the throne of grace if you don't believe God is generous.
Here's the issue: some of us have been shaped by reactionary theology—when you take a theological stance in reaction to error as opposed to objectively looking at what the Bible actually has to say about that. Some people hear prosperity theology and then go all the way to the other end and embrace poverty theology. In an attempt not to be self-centered when it comes to prayer, in an attempt not to be ostentatious and greedy, some of us have reduced the size of your God down to the size of your character. So he's got to keep you in lack to keep you straight.
But there's a difference between prosperity theology (which we don't embrace) and a biblical theology that includes prospering in every area. Look at what John writes in his third epistle:
Beloved, I wish above all things that you would prosper and be in health even as your soul prospers.
Jesus pushes back against this reductionist view of God. If you got a reductionist view of God, you're having a reductionist approach to prayer. There's some things you won't get because your God's not big enough to ask.
But my God said, "Ask me for the nations." My God told me, "Call upon me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things that you know not of." My God told me in Isaiah 65:24, "Before they call, I will answer. And while they are yet speaking, I will hear." My God told me in James, "You have not because you ask not."
Are you scared to ask for what you want? Are you scared to ask him to bless it? Are you scared to ask him to open a door? Are you scared to ask him to make a way? Not me. Not this season of my life. I want absolutely everything he got for me.
Here's what's interesting about traits: with us, we have conflicting traits. God can't have any because he's the ultimate expression of integrity. The root word in the Latin is integer, which means wholeness—not broken, not fractured. He always is who he always is. Not funny, not two-faced. Not one way today and another way tomorrow. No matter what room he's in, he's God.
And because there are no traits that conflict, he always is who he always is at the same time. So he's always generous. He can never not be generous.
When he gives, he's generous. When he takes away, he's generous. When the answer's yes, he's generous. And when the answer's no, he's still being generous. When he opens the door, he's being generous. And when he closes the door, he's still being generous. When people walk in your life, he's being generous. And when they walk out, he's still being generous.
People who have this revelation get a revolution in their praise. People who don't have this revelation praise sporadically. But people who have this revelation praise consistently. You say, "I'll bless the Lord at all times." Because if the door open, it's in my favor. And if the door close, it's in my favor. If they walk in my life, it's in my favor. And if they walk out of my life, it's in my favor. Somebody praise him because he's generous.
Now watch what he says:
Which one of you fathers, if your child asks for a fish, will give him a snake? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? Then if you, being evil, imperfect, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask?
After he deals with the practices of prayer and your perspective on the person you pray to, he gets specific on what a good gift is. He says, "I want you to know what good gift I'm talking about." And then he says:
How much more will your father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?
Here's a homiletical loop: "Okay, if I give you this gift, there are some other gifts you don't have to ask me for." When I fill you with him, you get his features. His features are his fruit.
It is a good gift—not because of what he gives you, but because of who he makes you.
The primary role of the third person of the trinity is to make you like the second. The primary role is not to create a frenzy; his primary role is formation.
There's distinction in his works, but the Holy Spirit triages what's important. So it's salvation first, then comes formation. So it's salvation, sanctification, then service. The gifts are underneath the fruit.
The evidence of the spirit governing your life is the fruit your character carries as a result of his influence. Because fruit cannot be fabricated, but some gifts can. We don't know if that tongue is real. It's not that he doesn't use gifts, but he triages. He says what's first: before service is sanctification. Before function is fruit.
Paul tells believers in Corinth:
If I speak in tongues of men and angels, but I don't have fruit, I'm just sounding brass, a tinkling symbol.
The Holy Spirit is not just the gift that gives me—he's the gift that makes me.
But remember: the God you see is the God you get. If all you see the Holy Ghost doing is giving you something, then your reductionist theology, your reductionist pneumatology, is going to give you a reduced experience. So you will be functioning and not formed. You'll be prophesying great futures for others while you're stuck.
Paul says the evidence of the spirit is:
Love — unconquerable benevolence. The Holy Spirit empowers you to always seek the highest good for others no matter what they do to you. That takes the Holy Ghost. Love becomes the key that unlocks you and frees you from the prison of the desire for revenge. The desire for revenge for the Christian is torture because the flesh wants to have it, but the spirit won't let you take it. So you're just frustrated. The Holy Spirit makes me a person of love.
Joy — internal sense of jubilation based on a revelation that my welfare and my well-being rest securely in the hands of God. Inner deep gladness, and biblical joy is strength. This keeps you together. That's the Holy Ghost and joy.
Peace — an internal sense of serenity that's resting in the revelation that the one who is for me is greater than what's against me.
Second way settles for having it. Third way says I want to be it. I want to have love. I want to be a person of love, a person of peace, and a person of joy.
Whatever degree you're comfortable, say:
Holy Spirit, make me a person of love. Make me a person of joy. Make me a person of peace.
I'm super grateful to have the opportunity to minister God's word to you. I hope you're encouraged and stretched and inspired. If it blessed you, would you just send it out to someone else?
