Glorious Way Church
Glorious Way Church equips believers for the work of the ministry and stands for God’s truth in our culture. We serve as a regional center, where people from all backgrounds find refreshing worship and true communion of the saints.
Glorious Way Church
Adjusting Your Receiver 2
Many believers wonder why their prayers go unanswered, but the issue may lie not with God, the sender, but with how we receive. This powerful message unpacks the difference between “receiving” and “having” by drawing parallels to tuning an old TV antenna—our faith must be precisely aligned to catch what God is already broadcasting. Highlighting scriptures like Mark 11:24 and Song of Solomon 2:15, it reveals how small distractions can disrupt spiritual reception. With stories of Peter, Paul, and real-life testimonies, the message emphasizes that faith is not just belief—it’s a lifestyle backed by action. Learn to fine-tune your spiritual antenna and unlock the milestones God has already sent your way.
All right, let's wave our Bibles around. Make Jesus glad, the devil mad. Say this together. Say, heavenly Father, I'm glad to be here today. I've come with an open heart. I've come with a receptive mind. I'll never be the same because of the Word of God and the Holy Ghost shining light on that Word that makes it real to me so that I can pick it up and live by it in Jesus' name. That word that makes it real to me so that I can pick it up and live by it In Jesus' name. Amen, all right. Mark 11, 24 and Song of Solomon, chapter 2.
Speaker 1:And we're going to pick up where we left off last week, on adjusting your receiver. And this will be the second message, probably the final message. Jesus is speaking to his disciples and to us, and he said in verse 24, therefore, I say unto you, what things soever you desire when you pray, believe you receive them and you shall have them. So we see that there's a difference between receiving and having. You have to receive it before you have it. There's a little gap between receiving and having. It's called seed time and you receive it when, when you pray, not when you see it. You don't receive it when you see it show up. You receive it when you pray, or you receive it when you say Works with saying or works with praying. Well, what else? Well, you have to believe it in your heart, all right. And then we go over to Song of Solomon, right after the book of Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes and chapter 2, verse 15.
Speaker 1:Take us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines, for our vines have tender grapes. So little things can spoil your crop. Little things, you know. A boll weevil is a little thing, but it'll mess up a crop of cotton, I mean, you know. You know little, a little, a little tomato. You know a little caterpillar crawling on your tomatoes. I don't know if you've ever grown tomatoes, but I did about a hundred years ago and I quit because there were too many caterpillars that I had to pick off of there and mash and they're kind of nasty and I just didn't care for it. But if you didn't do that, they just go up there and eat. You ruin your tomato, you know. And a little little foxes spoil the vine. So this year is the year of milestones. So this year is the year of milestones and God has some great things he wants to do for us. But they're not just going to happen, they're not just going to fall out of heaven on top of our head just because we have to believe we receive them.
Speaker 1:We have to adjust, and sometimes it requires an adjustment of our receiver in order to receive that thing. We talked about the old time TV last week and my dad bought a big, long, big old, tall antenna mast and a big old antenna and we'd have to turn it to tune to the right frequency of the distant transmitters that were in Corpus Christi when we moved to Refurio. Just another idea of how to think about it. In other words, you know, if I'm a wide receiver and I'm going out for my to catch a pass, well, what if the? What if the quarterback throws it a little bit inside me? Well, I need to make an adjustment to catch it, or I need to make an adjustment the other way. I mean it's not all on the, on the quarterback. I mean God is a perfect quarterback, he's got that ball coming right for you and you're going to have to make a you know you're going to have in order to receive it. You're going to have to make an adjustment many times, and so sometimes even small adjustments yield huge results.
Speaker 1:So we always have to receive by faith. There's a hand-eye coordination, and when I mean hand-eye, I'm not talking about this hand and this eye, I'm talking about the hand of faith. The hand of faith and the eye of faith, all the five senses that we have are duplicated by our spirit. So today we're going to get into a part two. You know, hebrews 11, six without faith, it's impossible to please God. And second, corinthians, five, seven, for we walk by faith, not by seems like, not by sight. See, when you walk according and this is the way most Christians walk, they walk by their senses, their five carnal senses. That's the way most people are, they. They walk by what it feels like, they walk by what it looks like, they walk by what it looks like. They walk by other things besides the Word of God. The Word of God is the true north, the Word of God is the true direction. He said. I am the way, the truth, the life. See, it's not something else. And so when we get off of that, then what happens? Well, now we need to make an adjustment, you know, and that's why we have to have a word life and a prayer life. We just have to. It's not optional.
Speaker 1:In the 21st century, we're living in the culmination of the last days. The book of Acts was the beginning. The book of Acts. Think about what all happened in the book of Acts miracles, signs, wonders. The book of Acts. Think about what all happened in the book of Acts Miracles, signs, wonders page after page. Well, we're living in the culmination of the age. There ought to be more and more and more, but yet the devil knows his time is short and he's great anger and he's unleashed his forces upon the children of light and he's trying to interfere with your signal. He's trying to get you to listen to him. He's trying. He's saying look over here, look over here. He distracts you. And so we've got to keep our eyes on the word of God. And so, when results are not forthcoming, that we're believing God for it's never God's fault, it's not God trying to teach you, test you or challenge you Our faith has to be a lifestyle.
Speaker 1:It's not something we practice when we're under pressure. I mean faith is not just when you get sick. You know, yeah, I had to use my faith this week. Tuesday was the gladdest day home, and then all the symptoms in the world hit me in the head. I couldn't even talk and my eyes were blood red. I had two things going on at one time and it's crazy, I hadn't had this in. I don't know how long I walk healthy all the time, but all of a sudden and well I know who's behind that All of a sudden and well I know who's behind that Amen, devil can't stop you unless you quit. So it's a lifestyle.
Speaker 1:It's not just for emergencies, and our faith is based on knowledge, or we could say, revelation. Faith cometh by hearing and hearing. The word hearing is not hearing with these ears, but it's hearing in your spirit. Your spirit has ears. You know, jesus said to the Jews he that hath ears to hear, let him hear. And some of them didn't have ears to hear. And so our faith is based on knowledge and revelation. Knowledge or revelation of faith in the blood and what it has done and what it is doing and what it will do.
Speaker 1:This is Communion Sunday. It's a good time to think about why we believe what we believe and what's behind it. It's not just me up here talking. It's this blood, it's this body, this living bread. Praise God, that'll put you over.
Speaker 1:Our faith is in who we are and what we have and what we can do in Christ. Not with what we can do in ourselves, but in Christ. In Christ we can do all things. We're in Christ. I mean, the minute we got saved, we got placed into Christ, and so that's our faith, that's where our faith is and ours is a good fight of faith. You know, paul said, you know, fight a good fight of faith. You know, uh, paul said, you know, fight the good fight of faith. To Timothy what's a good fight of faith? Well, a good fight of faith is fighting in the arena of faith and not in the arena of the flesh. This is what the danger of walking in the flesh and being carnal the word carnal means body ruled. I mean, you just believe everything you see and hear and taste and touch and all of that, your emotions. When you walk like that, you're easily deceived, you're easily distracted and you can't, you don't have anything to place your faith in. But you have to place your faith in, but you have to have, you have to place your faith, uh, in the arena of faith. When you fight that battle in the arena of faith, there's so many days when I have to just say well, you know, I'm not moved by what I see, I'm not moved by how I feel, I'm only moved by what I believe, and I believe the word. I mean you know that little phrase.
Speaker 1:You know Smith Wigglesworth. I mean, for goodness sake, he was known as the apostle of faith and that's what he had to tell himself. I mean, he had 19 recorded people raised from the dead, including one that had already been embalmed, took him out of the casket, leaned him up against the wall. I mean, you got to be kidding. I mean, what a man of God. I mean, he knew how to contact heaven. Well, we can do the same thing. We've got the same spiritual equipment as Jesus had. We have the same spiritual equipment. Jesus was a spirit, lived in a body. He can contact heaven. He didn't contact heaven when he was on earth just because he was Jesus. He contacted heaven while he was on earth when he had a prayer life. He had a prayer life on earth. Jesus had to pray Because why? He's a man, he's our representative. Amen, amen. So let's make sure that when we're fighting the devil, we fight in the arena of faith and not in the arena of the flesh. The arena of the flesh is always a loser for us. You know Acts 19.
Speaker 1:I think about the seven sons of Sceva. They were Jewish, you know. They cast out devils, you know, and I guess that was legitimate for them. They had a way to do it in the Old Testament, but they weren't very effective because they had that one man that was just, you know. They couldn't do anything with him, young man. And so they came up and they saw Paul. Paul was doing great signs and wonders. He was laying, handkerchiefs were laid on people and demons left them and sickness left and all of that. And they were jealous of Paul, and so they tried to mimic what Paul was doing. And so they came up to this young man in whom the demons were, and they said, in the name of Jesus that Paul preaches, come out of him. And so the young man said well, jesus, I know and Paul, I know. But who are you? You don't qualify. See, this is us. This is us trying to walk in the flesh. You know, when you walk in the flesh and you try to take authority over demon powers, your power is not any good. You're fighting in the arena of the flesh. You need to get over in the spirit. You need to feed that spirit on a regular basis. It has to be fed Amen.
Speaker 1:Faith doesn't come by hearing or by having heard. It comes by hearing and hearing, and hearing and hearing. I preach many of the things over and over again. God delivered me from fear of repetition. He told me years ago preach what you take for granted. You know, when I started this church, I started off and I preached a lot of stuff and then I felt like God, we've got to get something else. And then I started delving and trying to find new stuff and new things. You know, I preached on all kinds.
Speaker 1:I look back on some of my messages in 2002 and three and not all of them, but some of them. I thought why didn't I preach that? That's worthless? How's that gonna help anybody? You know God can correct you. God can pull you back and deliver you from the fear of not being popular or not being exciting. That's not my job, be exciting or popular. My job is to feed you that word that will transform your life. And so I just preach the same things over and over because we need to hear them and hear them. I mean I look at Romans 12 too. We just read that to open the service, you know, be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. I mean we've got to change the way we think. The only way to do that is get a different way of thinking, because you're inundated Out there. You're inundated by the world. You're inundated by everybody's opinion your family's opinion, grandma's opinion, mama's opinion, daddy's opinion, everybody's opinion, sister's opinion. Listen, you need God's opinion. Amen, amen.
Speaker 1:You know, in John 16, 12, jesus was talking to the disciples. He said I've got so many things to tell you. He had been teaching about the Holy Ghost. And John's 14, 15, 16 taught him about the Holy Ghost, told him about the comforter, told him he was going to send one, another comforter, another helper. You're not going to be alone. And he said I have so many things to tell you, but you're not able to bear them now.
Speaker 1:See, I mean we have to grow in our spirit, man, in order to receive everything that God has for us. He can't, you can't give a baby, you know, a car. You can't feed a baby a T-bone steak. They have to grow. They have to grow Well, we have to grow. We have to grow in order to qualify to receive everything that God has on our list. We've got a big old room of unclaimed blessings up there. Somebody said one time the biggest room in heaven is the room of unclaimed blessings, because so many people have just kind of slacked off in their growth and really there's no holding. There's no holding steady on growth. You're either increasing or you're decreasing. I got, I got news for you there's no, there's no treading water in the spirit realm. I mean you're either increasing or you are decreasing. And so you know it takes the Word and the Spirit to constantly increase. Everybody say I'm constantly increasing in the knowledge of my Father.
Speaker 1:In 1 Corinthians 3, 2, paul told the Corinthian church that they were carnal. They had all these cliques and factions and they were bragging on who baptized. Well, you know so-and-so. Paul baptized me. He said I don't know about anybody I've ever baptized. God didn't send me to be the baptizer. I might've, I might've done one family, but why are you bragging on all that? You don't have anything God didn't give you. No, there's no bragging. You know you're carnal. And yet you know they had all these gifts. And he said you can't bear the meat now because you're carnal. See, he couldn't give them the meat. You know they, they needed meat but they couldn't. They couldn't take it.
Speaker 1:Listen, we live in the last days. This generation has to be able to eat solid food. We've got to eat the solid meat of the word. We have to have it's not optional. The people that don't have it are gonna perish. Folks, we've seen it already. I mean I've seen preachers go to heaven at 60 just of COVID. I mean they don't even have. I mean I knew one guy personally. I mean he knew the word, but you know he didn't know how to live, he didn't know how to fight, he didn't know how to fight and win. And he's gone. You know well, thank God he went to heaven, but his ministry is just shot. Listen, we need the word, we need the meat of the word.
Speaker 1:So adjust your receiver. Um, the first I've got two things for you Adjust your receiver, adjust your hearing. What are you listening to? Who are you listening to? You're listening to a bunch of people on the internet. You better be careful, because there's a lot of error out there and a lot of people that were false prophets in the nineties have circled back around and they've got stuff out there podcasts, they've got.
Speaker 1:I saw one lady I wouldn't, I tell you, I wouldn't listen to her five seconds, seconds. And here she is all decked out in her. You know garb on X, you know just spouting off all her stuff. She was an idiot. I won't mention her name, I don't want to do that, but I'm just one example I came across the other day on my feed. I thought where I thought she died. Good Lord, how did she stay alive after preaching the garbage she did and backing false apostles?
Speaker 1:She backed one young man that was. I called him tattoo boy. I saw him kick an old man. Instead of laying hands on him, he kicked him. I'm going to release the anointing on you. Kick the poor guy and he rolled. I mean, he was him. I'm going to release the anointing on you. Kicked the poor guy and he rolled. I mean he was hurt, he was hurt. I mean you know, these people need to be horse whipped. They don't need. They don't need a television contract.
Speaker 1:Pastor, what are you? I'm just telling you, you've got to be careful. What you hear, it's out there to hear and it's going to, it's going to cloud out or crowd out. You're receiving your milestone. Everybody say I'm going to receive mine. So you're not walking by what looks like, seems like, you're not just mentally agreeing.
Speaker 1:You know, john eight, let's look at that real quick. It's worth looking at real quick. I could quote it, but let's get it in front of you, john, chapter 8. I've already preached a message. I could quit now, but I'm not through John 8, 31.
Speaker 1:And then Jesus said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him. If you, if Everybody shout, if See a lot of ifs in the Bible, when you see an, if see, if you qualify, when you see an if see, if you qualify, if you continue in my word, then are you my disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth. And the truth will set you free, no, it will make you free. In other words, you never get bound. Set free means you're bound. Set free means you're caught in a trap and needed to get released. But when you continue in the Word, you're never bound, you're never snared, you are made free. Come on, lift your hand right now. That's worth the price of a mission. Didn't even charge you for your seats today. Praise God. Everybody say I've been made free Because I'm continuing See. Continuing I mean, you know, see. It doesn't mean just see.
Speaker 1:And consistency lies the power. If we're not consistent in our Bible reading and our prayer life, we have just spotty results. It's not that you won't have any, you'll have some, but you know it's not on a level that God has for you. It's not on a level that God prefers for you. He wants you to have super, abundant in quantity, superior in quality. He wants you to have too much. He wants you to have too nice. Can you stand to have too much and too nice? Well, quit listening to wrong things. Let's listen to his word. Let's listen to his, to his uh pleadings when we're in prayer.
Speaker 1:Um, you know, highly trained professionals, uh, often need ongoing training to stay current in their skills. They have to upgrade their certifications so that they can get the latest techniques and technology in their field. So how would it be any different with a believer? I mean this word. I've been reading it for 45 years and I never cease to marvel at the things that I see over verses that I've read literally thousand times or more, and yet I get something out of it that I never got before. It's supernatural. And when we leave it on the side, you know it's on the desk or it's on the bedside or whatever, and we're just too busy to consult it. I mean we're cheating ourselves. No, let's upgrade, let's continue. Let's upgrade and give God a chance to give us a better perspective of what we've always known and add to that. There's an adding to that God can give you. You know, ignorance, or I like to say ignorance, hinders your receiving.
Speaker 1:And Jesus' own hometown. I mean, here he was and he, there, could do nothing except, you know, heal a few people of minor ailments because of their unbelief, and he marveled. Well, he didn't just give up on them, he said well, what they need is teaching. And so he sent his disciples out by two and two and all the villages and cities, and they began to teach the word. See, teaching is the antidote for unbelief. Well, if unbelief is failure, then all failure is reversible. All unbelief is reversible, then, and there's no cancer or disease that's incurable or irreversible. There is no such thing. Why? Because we have supernatural access. We're not bound by the doctors. Thank God for what they can do, and they can do good things. I'm not against them, but they don't match this right here, them, but they don't match this right here.
Speaker 1:You know, there's a man that had a child that was thrown into the fire and into the water. He had seizures and he brought him, his son, to the disciples there. And what was it? Mark nine Believe? It was, yeah, mark nine, 23. He brought, brought his son and he said I brought him to your disciples. They could not, they could not cure him. And, uh, he said but Jesus, jesus, if there's anything you can do, you know, you just, he's just so pitiful. Jesus, if there's anything you can do, have mercy on us, have mercy. And Jesus said well, it's not a question of whether I can do anything, but rather it's a question of whether you can believe, because if you can believe, all things are possible to him that believe it. And he said Lord, I believe, help my unbelief, you know. And he cast that spirit out of that boy and he was made whole right there. Praise God, all things are possible to him that believe this. So let's adjust our hearing so our faith can be fed properly to receive all that God has for us. Adjust your hearing, all right. And then the second, one, last, one, number two adjust your actions.
Speaker 1:Lack of acting on the word you know, james 2.20 in the way of faith without corresponding action is dead being alone. Faith without corresponding action is dead being alone. The simple definition of faith is faith is acting on the word. I like what Brother Hagin used to say faith is acting on the word. I like what Brother Hagen used to say faith is acting like. The Bible is true. And of course, we know that the initial action, once we have believed, the initial action that we take is speaking Without speaking. That's you know you don't have, you really don't have faith.
Speaker 1:Faith is not just a concept, it's not just an agreement. It's believing in your heart and speaking with your mouth what you believe. But then there's always another action, there's an associated action. You've got to act that out. There's an associated action. You've got to act that out. You've got to believe you. You've got to demonstrate your faith by your actions. You can't speak one way and act another.
Speaker 1:You can't say I'm healed and just go to bed all day long. What do healed people do? Well, they get up. Well, what if I don't feel like getting up? Well see, sometimes Gladys doesn't feel like getting up, she gets up. We sat up all day yesterday. She was so tired, but I wouldn't let her go to bed. Why? Because she needs to stay up. The more she stays up, the stronger she gets. We're acting, our faith. She's come a long way, but she's got some way to go and I believe you're just agreeing with us. That's all you're doing, just agreeing with us. When you pray in tongues, you're lifting my arms up and her arms up. You know, some days she'll have a kind of a day that's not so great, and in other days she just got a great day. Well, who cares? We're gonna keep on going, one day after another, after another after another. See, that's faith. That's faith.
Speaker 1:Don't get all hooked up to instant results. Adjust your actions. You know, when Peter wanted to walk on the water, he saw Jesus man. He wanted to walk on the water. None of the other 11 wanted to do it. They're sitting there in the boat in the status quo. The status quo wasn't good enough for Peter. He wanted to get out there with Jesus. Jesus says if it's you, bid me, come to thee on the water. And what's Jesus going to do? Say it's not me. No, he said it's me, come. And I mean he had to do what he had to. Leap over the side of that boat and walk on that water is what he had to do and that's what he did. We forget that he did it. Yeah, he began to sink, but he walked on it first and that was little faith, according to Jesus. So he acted on what Jesus said.
Speaker 1:Paul and Silas they were told by the Holy Ghost to go to Macedonia, to the Macedonian man. And they went and they got beaten, with many stripes thrown in the inner prison, feet and ankle bones locked up in in stocks. And at midnight Paul and Silas prayed and rejoiced, sang praises so loud that everyone heard them. Everyone heard them, including the devil and including God and God's power, fell into that, that prison, and broke those bars of those prison doors open and broke those chains off and I mean they were all released right there, in the instant.
Speaker 1:I say, you know, if we want things to start moving in our faith, we need to rejoice. Before we see anything happen, we need to learn how to rejoice in the middle of the darkness, in the middle of the symptoms. We need to learn how to shout and give God glory. You know, in the middle of when our checkbook looks like it's bankrupt, you getting anything out of this? Speaking of checkbooks, of checkbooks, so back, you know, in the eighties you know, gladys and I uh, finally I got a job after a mate came back from Corpus.
Speaker 1:I was a home builder for 25 years, then I worked in the development business for a year and a half. And then I'm back in Houston and I was working, uh, running a remodeling firm, and the guy shut it down and laid me off. And he laid me off and all I had was a week's pay or two weeks' pay, I guess. We paid our bills and what was left in our bank account was 35 bucks. But I had been attracted to home building again. I didn't think I'd ever want to build houses, but through a series of I won't go into all of it, but I just knew, but I just didn't.
Speaker 1:After that happened I was thinking maybe he wanted to change and get out of remodeling, get in and maybe start a building program in West University. He wasn't interested in that, he really wanted to retire him. He didn't want to take any more risks. I could understand it. He wasn't a believer, but he was a nice guy. So here I am with $35. I said, well, I don't have faith to be getting a home building business with $35, but I believe. I believe if I can come up with a plan. Uh, you know I hadn't found out.
Speaker 1:Bear Creek had over a thousand houses, subdivision down on 1916 clay road, thousand vacant houses. I mean they, everybody moved out and they were foreclosed on. I said I believe I can come up with a plan to go to the lenders and get a contract to keep their lawns mowed and their glasses, their their glass breakage fixed and keep the houses clean for the next buyers. You know there is probably going to be an institutional buy. They're probably have some kind of institution come in there and do that. Who knows how they sold all those houses, but they did finally get them and it converted that whole subdivision from homeowners to renters, mostly If you've lived there. Well, I'm sorry but I'm just saying what it was back then, and there was a lot of that all over town. What it was back then and, uh, and it was a lot of that all over town, I had, I had.
Speaker 1:I believe that I, if I had $25,000, I could stake myself long enough to where I could parlay that into a home building business. That was my plan. I had a plan. You got to have a plan. You sit down, write the vision. I wrote it down, I figured it out. I said $25. And how am I going to get a thousand fold return? I thought we're going to put $25 in the offering at Lakewood on Wednesday night and I based that on Deuteronomy the Lord, make you a thousand times more numerous than you are today. A hundred fold wasn't going to do it for me. I needed a thousandfold. You say, oh, you're crazy. Well, that's what I, that's what I, that's what crazy people do. Crazy people just their back's up against the wall and they're going to fight. And so we wrote that check, $25.
Speaker 1:Gladys and I prayed over it. We put it in an offering on a Wednesday night and we rejoiced and we believe we received, I think I just. I said God, I've sown my seed, I believe I've received a harvest. And so I said now, lord, the next morning, monday morning, lord, what else can I do to act on my faith, to act like the Bible is true? I believe I received that money coming. Now, what else do you want me to do? I need, there's further action, that's needed. What do you want me to do?
Speaker 1:I mean, just like that, in my prayer time he gave me the name of three businessmen that I knew, all of them at Lakewood, all of them pretty well to do, all of them successful in business. He said you go to those three men and ask them to agree with you, according to Matthew 18 and 19, for that $25,000. I said, lord, I can't do that. They're going to think I'm asking them for the money. They're going to think I'm making some kind of a play or something. You know, I, lord, I just can't. He said, well, you just tell them that you're not asking them for the money. The reason you're coming to them is that I told you that they had faith to believe for $25,000. Not everybody has that kind of faith, but they do. Well, they were quite, you know, happy to hear that God thought of them in that way. I mean, I had favor of all three and one of them became my partner. I didn't try to do anything. He couldn't get away from it. He couldn't get it. He couldn't, he couldn't shut the door. I tried to shut the door. I said I don't need no partner, I don't want a partner, I just want $25,000 of what we agreed on. No, and so finally, he brought a hundred thousand dollars and we opened our building company within 30 days.
Speaker 1:Come on, lift your hands right now so you act on your faith. I don't know how I still had a bank account with $10 in it. I don't know how they kept it open, but they did. Glory to God. Faith without corresponding action is dead. Find out what you need to do next. You believe God, you've spoken and now you need to act like the Bible is true and you need to rejoice like it's true. I mean, if you're sick, get up. If you're broke so asleep, if you're depressed, go out and encourage somebody. Laugh, laugh at the devil. Learn how to laugh at the devil. Quit listening to the devil, adjust your receiver and watch your heavenly father bring milestone after milestone to pass. Come on, lift your hands and receive. Hallelujah, glory to God. Thank you, jesus. You're so faithful. Hallelujah to God. Thank you, lord. Did you get anything out of this today? Well, it's just cornbread and beans. But cornbread and beans will put meat on you. We need the meat. Praise God.