There are consequences to having communion with God and imbibing His heart when we glorify Him, when we fellowship with Him.  “Mary,” Jesus said, “has chosen the better part.”  Martha’s saying, “She’s not coming and helping me clean the house and prepare dinner for all the preachers that just showed up.”  And He said, “Martha, you are too caught up in all the natural things of life.  Mary has chosen the better part to sit here at My feet and listen to what I’m teaching.”

“Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have, I give to you.  I was just like you, I was destitute, I was crippled in my mind and in my soul, I was bound by the power of sin, I was being destroyed by drugs and alcohol, I was under the bondage of lust.  Here, I’ve got something to give you; I want to give you a testimony of a man who was set free from self‑will and the bondage and the idolatry of independence.”  We could go on and talk about so many of the different character aspects that we can share with people of what’s been done for us.  When faced with questions, we can respond, “You know, you are asking me a lot of questions, and I don’t know the answers to the questions.  Here’s what I know:  once I was blind, and now I see, praise God!”  Amen?  “I can’t answer all of your theological questions, but I know this: I once was under the power of sin, and now I’m free and under the power of love and full of the Holy Ghost, praise God! That’s what I have to give to you: my testimony.  I was just like you; God set me free.  God’s given me peace, God’s given me joy (praise God!), He’s given me a purpose to live.”  “We don’t have silver and gold, but what I do have to give to you that was entrusted to me by the Lord Jesus, through the power of the Holy Ghost is this: in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, rise up and walk.”  Amen?  And immediately, this power came into his legs, and he was pulled to stand, and the next thing you know he’s leaping, and jumping, and praising God, and running through the temple. 

What do we have to give; amen?  How is faith really working in our lives?  When we find ourselves in adversity, do we rise up at midnight and sing praises to God?  Do we write to senators and say, “So and so is in prison and is there some way you can pull some strings and get them out of jail?”  Why don’t we just praise God and let the earthquake get them out of jail; amen?  And God sent an earthquake, and the doors flew open, and the prison guard ran in, and Paul said, “Don’t worry, we’re all still here,” because those guys paid with their lives if prisoners escaped.  It’s interesting that the guards that let Jesus escape from the tomb were not put to death; they were paid off, the Bible says.  They were given big money to keep their mouths shut about that empty tomb.

Where are we in our lives right now, in successfully walking in the Spirit?  How do we believe we’ve been prepared to handle this coming persecution?”  The Scripture gives a lot of credibility to experience; another word used for that is “proven”; amen?  When David went to fight Goliath, Saul said, “Here, take my armor.”  But David said, “No, I’m not taking this stuff; I’m not proven in this.”  Amen?  What have we been proven in, what do we have an experience in?  Is our experience in the last trial that we didn’t faint, that we stood on the Word of God, that there was no compromise in those promises that are sure to a thousand generations?  Have we kept our faith from being mingled with the world’s wisdom?