By TIMOTHY L. MELTON
Pastor, Cherokee Pentecostal Holiness Church
Transcribed by Myra Colgate
References: Hebrews 11:1-3, Hebrews 12
Everyone should be praying for your pastors to lift us up. It feels good to say this. There should be nothing that’s holding anyone back.
Laying aside every weight means we each must lay aside every hindrance. Here’s what we need to understand, though, that the enemy is good at hindrances. It seems that every time one gets ready to spend time with the Lord, something else always comes along.
It’s amazing to me how lazy people can be until they feel the need to pray. Somehow, then, they get a boost of energy to take out the trash, dust off the what-not, sweep the floor, or wherever they hadn’t mowed the grass in the last six months. Now they decide to push the lawnmower over the grass, just suddenly, “It’s got to be done today.”
If they crash, they realize it’s the enemy doing its best to sidetrack them, and the Church. It is even more because of what they’ve been believing the Lord for, at the end of one’s finish line. I know we’ve all come a long way, but God is putting some things in place to be done. He’s just waiting on people to get them done.
Keep running. Amen? Keep running your race. Don’t stop! “I really need to talk to so-and-so and go somewhere. I need to rest” whatever. “I don’t feel so good”. The enemy throws on the weights. It’s so easy to be distracted for perhaps six months. “It’s been a hard week, and I really need some rest.” The problem is, one week turns into a couple more days and before long, it’s been two months. Before long, it becomes six months out of church, and one doesn’t even realize it.
Some time ago, there was a man who’d asked me to come by. I asked him where he’d been going to church. He told me where and I realized it was the church at which I’d just begun preaching. As I introduced myself, I said, ‘I’m looking forward to seeing you again this week.”
The devil’s not caring for or trying to keep a person in a church, it’s more to keep one out of coming there to enjoy the presence of the Lord. He’s trying more to keep one out of church because he hopes it will prevent them from crossing that line. When one chooses to cross that line, he realizes he’s in trouble.
I’m talking to some people who are to be heroes of the Faith. They are the ones who have gotten the Anointing of Moses in their life, the Anointing of Abraham. The devil knows that a person who has these Anointings on their life and he wants to stop them. If he can stop them, he can stop them from what God wants them to do here in Cherokee. But I declare the devil shall be stopped. Amen? I may be “drawing a line in the sand”, one that I’m daring the devil to cross.
It’s because I know who I am and what God has called me to do, and I refuse to fail. By knowing what He’s called me to do, I refuse to fail by each way or hindrance any devil has set in our path. I’ve already declared, “Come hell or high water, I am crossing the line!” I’m going to pass over it and when I see Him face-to-face, I’ll have a crown to lay down at His feet and declare to Him, “I’ve refused to fail by any way or hindrance the devil has put in my way. I’ve taken control of me so I can give the crown, when I see Him, and declare “You were worth it all.” Yes. Amen?
Lay aside every weight and any hindrances. Amazing to me is that one can watch television and see every food commercial that comes on, with no ill effect, until one has begun a fast. The enemy will try everything he can to hinder and stop us. Sin will also stop us and set us back. We don’t hear too much real preaching against sin anymore, but it’s still wicked and is against God. When one sins against a person it sets a person back. It means it will slow them down and stop them, but it can also turn one around if they’ll find, it really separates them from the God of all creation. All one should want to do is finish easily and in style.
