South Shore Pentecostal Church

J. Craig Ouellette: The Lord wants us to be stable. You believe that? Many times, Christians aren't stable. God wants stable Christians. That doesn't mean that there's no issues or problems, but he wants us so that whether it's a good day or bad day, I'm still living for God. Amen? Praise God.

Let's talk about that. Let's read these scriptures. Nothing new here to most of us. Maybe some are not as quite familiar with Isaiah 61, but Psalm 1, just the first three verses: "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be," say he shall be. "Like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season. His leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper." Amen.

Then the book of Isaiah, chapter 61, verses 1 through 3. We're using that for our context, but we're mainly focusing on verse 3. Isaiah 61 says, "The spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the meek. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of prison to them that are bound, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all that mourn, to appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning," not the morning, but being sad, "the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they might be called the trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified."

See, God wants to plant us. God wants us to be planted. So, let's just give a little background here. The term "Zion" in the Bible has multiple meanings. Zion originally referred to the southeastern hill of Jerusalem, which had a Jebusite fortress that was conquered by David. As time went on, Zion also referred to the Temple Mount and sometimes to the city of Jerusalem.

In Hebrews 12:22 and 23, the scriptures on the screen there, it says, "But ye are come unto Mount Sion," which is a New Testament way of saying Zion, "and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect."

We see that Zion also refers to the church, particularly in the New Testament. Even in the Old Testament, it often refers to the people of God or God's place of dominion, God's city. In Isaiah 61:3, it refers to a type of the church and God's people. So, again, it says, "To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion." It's not just people in Jerusalem or the Temple Mount, but now it's talking about God's people that are grieved for the evil they see and they want to see the move of God. This is what this is talking about.

He says, "I've got an appointment for them that mourn in Zion. I've got something assigned for them." God's people, I've got three things to handle mourning. One: to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise (the Hebrew word is *tehillah*, which means like a song or a hymn) for the spirit of heaviness. The purpose God gives us these things is that we might be called the trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified.

When you're planted, you're glorifying God. When you are stable, you give glory to God. When you are dependable to the Lord, he's getting glory by your dependability. That's why living for God requires a commitment out of us. Living for the Lord includes the joy of the Holy Ghost. I think we all understand that.

It said about the church at Thessalonica that they received the Holy Ghost during a period of affliction, which means the joy and desire to have God was bigger than the pressure, was bigger than the pain. Maybe we should read this scripture, 1 Thessalonians 1:6. He says, "And ye became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction with the joy of the Holy Ghost." In other words, when they felt God, they were willing to endure affliction. When they felt the presence of God, they were willing to go through some pain. This was big enough that they were willing to endure that: the joy of the Holy Ghost.

Again, the Bible says the kingdom of God is not meat and drink. In other words, God's kingdom is not a physical kingdom, but it's righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. There is a day when there's going to be a physical kingdom of God on the earth, but today, the kingdom of God is in us. It's in the people of God. It's in those that have received the Holy Ghost and been baptized in Jesus' name. They're put into the kingdom of God.

Somebody said, "Where is the kingdom of God?" Jesus says it doesn't come with observation, for it's within us. The Holy Ghost in us is the kingdom of God. You want other people to see the kingdom of God? You've got to let the Holy Ghost out. You've got to let the Holy Ghost be the driving force. We get down in our prayer place, we feel it, we know it, and we see it, but they don't know it and see it.

If I can get the Holy Ghost to start to flow out of me, they start to see the kingdom of God. They don't understand the kingdom of God, but they see the kingdom of God. Sometimes that's why as a Christian you get picked on, because they're trying to see if what you've got is really different than the world, or is it just an act? Is it just happening because you feel good today, or is it a facade? They're going to poke at you to see if what you've got is really different than what they've got. Not all people, but some people.

Sometimes things happen to us when we're living for God because the world's trying to figure out if it looks like they've got something different than me, but I want to see if it really is different than what I got. I'm going to prod them a little bit. I'm going to poke them a little bit. I'm going to provoke them a little bit. I'm going to see if all of a sudden they become an enemy just like anybody else in the world. Sometimes the world does that to see.

If you're hungry and you see good fruit, you're going to bite it to see if it tastes good. We've got fruit of the spirit; they might spiritually bite us. We shouldn't always get into this mindset that when we're being provoked or something's going wrong, all the devil's in it. God might be allowing it so that they can see you've got something they don't have. Not everything that goes against us is because the devil's got the upper hand. The devil can't do anything God doesn't let him do.

That's the lesson of Job. He can't do anything that God doesn't let him do. Sometimes we're not close enough to the Lord to know it's not the devil; God is allowing it. We're in 2 Corinthians chapter 12 with Paul. Paul says, "I got an affliction in my body." Three times I go to the Lord, "Remove this thing." He gave me a messenger of Satan to buffet me. When Paul prays to the Lord, the Lord says, "I'm allowing it for a reason, for a good reason."

The Lord also knows that he allows trials to perfect us and to grow our faith. We've got to get that in our mind. Not all trials mean you're wrong with God, or you didn't fast enough or didn't pray enough. How you handle the trials is definitely affected by our prayer and our fasting. Notice he says here in James, "Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience." It goes on to say, "But let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing."

God will allow things to develop patience in us. As I've said so many times, the Bible says, "In your patience possess ye your souls." Sometimes where we have a problem is we believe God can do it, but we get impatient waiting for him to do it. God wants us to develop patience. It's not that God doesn't hear the prayer. It's not that God doesn't know what we think we need, but a lot of times God's operations are not dependent on just me or you, but a bigger picture that God has got. I need to be patient in order to receive my part of the picture.

Peter said, "The trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ." God's trying to develop patience in us. God's trying to develop a pure faith, not a faith that operates on a feeling. A lot of times we come to God, we come into a service like yesterday, our faith is raised up to 100%, our tanks are all filled up, and we're feeling the spirit of God.

A few days later or a week later, we don't feel God. Faith is not a feeling. Faith is believing in God. The trying of my faith, God's going to test it to weed out the feelings. I've got to go through some fire in order to purify my faith to reach the point where I'm not walking by sight, but I'm walking by faith and I'm walking by the word of God. I'm not walking by my feeling, but I'm walking by what God says.

Because of that, God has given us some tools to deal with heaviness. When you're in a trial, it can get heavy. God knows that. God doesn't just say, "There they are in the trial, you're going to have to go through that, just hang on with just faith." God gives us some things to help us deal with life's situations, particularly the negative ones. The Lord's given us some tools for dealing with heaviness, depression, darkness, and trials. Even when you've got the spirit of God, you can get depressed. Elijah did. John the Baptist did.

John sent those two guys over there to find out if Jesus was really the guy they thought he was. He's depressed. He's given his life and now he's in a position that doesn't look good. Depression can come to any of us. The Bible talks about a night season in Psalm 22 and Psalm 16. There's a night season where it's a season where we are in the dark. Probably everybody here has had at least one night that you couldn't wait for daylight to come. That's a night season.

You can't sleep, you can't find any rest, and you're just waiting for the sun to come up. Get that day gone and get the next day coming. God has given us some things. There were three things: beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. In ancient Israel, when a disaster or calamity or some bad situation occurred, people would rend their clothes and they would take dust, often from ashes, and put it on their head as a sign of mourning.

We don't do that today, but we sometimes bear it in our face. Our face shows that we're not really so happy. Our attitude may show that we're not so happy, and we may go around a little bit down. The Bible is saying God says, "I've got something for you." There are times where you go through a time of mourning. We're not saying you don't ever mourn. You grieve. When Stephen died, the church mourned him. They weren't worried about whether he went to heaven; they knew he went to heaven, but they still missed him.

There are times in our humanness that we've got a time of mourning, but when I'm continually in that, God wants me to get out of that. God wants me to start to operate in the Holy Ghost. He wants me to replace my mourning condition with beauty. He doesn't mean makeup, but he means my attitude, an attitude of faith, an attitude of positiveness in God. When bad situations and events occur, there's going to be that time of mourning.

At some point, I've got to make a decision that I'm not staying here. That's not what the Bible says. The joy of the Holy Ghost. The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, and peace. Draw water from the well of salvation with joy. I'm not going to stay there. I can go through a season of that, but God does not want me there all the time. I've got to make a decision that I'm not staying there.

Then it talks about the oil of joy for mourning. In the Bible, oil refers to both anointing and the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost is an anointing also. That's why we have olive oil to anoint people when there's prayer, sickness, or deliverance. A lot of times we'll use the oil to anoint people because it's symbolic of the Holy Ghost. It's the Holy Ghost that does the work, but it's a Bible way of doing it. "Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders and the prayer of faith will heal them."

Sometimes you've got sickness, and the reason you're not getting out of it is even though you've been praying, sometimes you need to go to church and ask them to pray for you. Don't be mad because the pastor didn't call you up or the elders didn't call you up. The Bible says you call them. That's what the Bible says. You call them.

I remember when I had a kidney stone. I didn't know that's what it was. I thought it was just colitis, but it kept getting worse and worse. At 2:00 in the morning, I woke up Sister Ouellette and said, "Call your dad. I need prayer." Brother Maynard came down at 2:00 in the morning. We were living in Brockton then, and he prayed for me. Moments after he prayed for me, the pain passed. I went off to the hospital that night and they ran the dye in me and everything and said, "Yeah, you got a kidney stone."

That kidney stone I passed a couple of days later with no pain. I've never had a kidney stone since then, and that was in 1980. God is faithful, but you see, I believe the word of God. I called for the pastor. I called for the pastor and God healed me. God will heal you. God will work.

The word "Gethsemane" means oil press. Jesus is in the garden of Gethsemane. He's let himself be put into the press. They're coming to get him. They're coming to mock him. They're coming to push him to the limit. How do you think you'd feel if you got power to knock everybody down and they're provoking you, and you know that they're wrong? You know they're wicked and that they're doing it for envy. They're just trying to hold on to their power. You've got power with one word to take them all out, but you hold back.

He had that power because the gospel of John says they said, "We seek Jesus." He said, "I am." They all fell on the ground. Then they got up. All he has to do was say, "I am. I am God." That's all he had to do was say that and they were done. He could have walked right out of Jerusalem. He's allowing himself to be crushed. He is the olive, and the oil that comes out of the olive is the Holy Spirit.

By that spirit, that oil can go into the lamp, and the lamp can be lit. The lamp gives light in darkness. The Holy Ghost. Sometimes God lets trials come in us because God produces a crushing in us that provides a new place for a new flowing of the oil of the Holy Ghost. Sometimes we need to be crushed a little bit so that God can fill us again, so that God can do something new in us again.

Just like he's our example, we need the oil of joy for mourning. The oil of that Holy Ghost helps us in the night season. Remember Jesus said, "As long as I'm in the world, there's light, but the night season cometh when no man can work." Here we are working today for the Lord. How? Because we got him in us. There's still light in the world. The oil of joy in the Holy Ghost works in us to give us light in the night season. When we're in the time of oppression, we've got to go to God. We've got to get that Holy Ghost working in us.

In Isaiah 12:3, it says, "With joy draw water from the well of salvation." Sometimes you've got to go to God, "God, I need a new drink. God, I need a fresh filling. God, I need a touch from you. Lord, I need you to do something for me. I need to feel your presence again. I need to feel you moving in me. I need to feel that resurrection power working again in me." I've got to go to the well of salvation. That's Jesus. He's the well.

I've got to go to him and say, "I'm your child. You caused me to be born. I didn't fill myself. I went to the altar. You said if I'd repent and believe, you'd fill me. You filled me. You brought me this far. I need a drink. I need something from you. Oh, give me something." I got to start drawing it out of the well by the word of God, by faith. God, give him praise. Give him praise. Hallelujah.

Finally, he gets around to the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. When you're down, you don't feel like praising God, but he said he gave us the garment. A lot of times what happens is we go hang it in the closet. Sometimes we even leave it in the closet at home. We come to church and we left it in the closet at home. Garment of praise. Garment doesn't do you any good unless you put it on. I got to put on the garment.

I got to decide that I'm going to praise him. I'm going to give him praise. I'm going to lift my voice and give praise to God. I'm putting on the garment of praise. I'm talking about when you're down. Sometimes you've got to go, "Wait a minute, Lord, you gave me a garment of praise. I'm going to put that on and I'm going to start to praise you." That word "praise" is the Hebrew word *tehillah*, which means a hymn. That means I need to start singing some songs to God.

It means I need to start giving some praise to God. Not because I feel like praising him, but because he's worthy of praise. One of the biggest mistakes that we often make when we come to church is maybe we made a mistake, or we didn't do something right, or maybe we didn't pray as much, or maybe we had an attitude that wasn't right. We come to church and we don't praise God. Praising the Lord is not because we're right; it's because he's right.

We praise him because he's worthy of it. If I'm a sinner, he's still worthy of it. God didn't change whether I changed or not. If I'm right with God, I've got a lot of reason to praise him, but even if I'm not right with God, he's still worthy of my praise. Don't come to church and stop lifting your hands because you feel like you didn't pray through or you're not right with God. Decide that he is God and he's still worthy of my praise and start to lift your hands up and open your mouth and start to praise God.

In order to deal with trials, I've got to use these things. I've got to decide I'm not going to have a bad attitude. I'm going to put on beauty for ashes. I'm not staying in the place of mourning. I might not like this, it might affect me for a little bit, but I'm not staying there. I'm putting on beauty for ashes. I'm not going to wear the garment of mourning. I'm going to get ready for the garment of praise.

I'm going to stir up the gift of the Holy Ghost within me so that I can do the things that God wants me to do. I'm going to stir up that gift and I'm going to put on the garment of praise. You'll find out if you start to praise God, God shows up. Why? Psalm 22:3 says God inhabits the praises of his people. God inhabits the praises of Israel is the actual wording, but the church is a spiritual type of Israel.

When God's people start to praise him, God shows up and turns everything. That word "inhabit" means "enthrones." When we start to praise God sincerely, a spiritual throne starts being created for God. We're saying, "God, we want you to come and sit in the midst of us." Our praise starts to create that spiritual throne.

I don't know about you, but I kind of get the picture of Isaiah 6: "In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord high and lifted up and his train filled the temple." God will come and sit in the midst of his people and his glory will start to move. His train represents his glory. When his glory starts to move, we start to receive from God.

God doesn't change. Don't let the devil take your praise away. You want to make the devil mad? Praise God. When you don't praise God, it makes the devil happy. But when you do praise God, it makes the devil mad. He is angry that anybody is worshipping anything but him. He'll do everything he can to stop your worship of the true God. But when you start to truly worship God, you are making the devil mad.

You want to give him a black eye? Start praising. You want to trip him up? Start praising. He thinks he's got you in a box and you start praising him, and he doesn't know what to do because he did the worst he could do to you and you're still praising God. Hallelujah.

Sincere praise invites the presence of the Lord. Again, we've got to decide if we're going to do these things. Am I going to exchange my ashes for beauty? Am I going to take that oil of joy for mourning? Am I going to put on the garment of praise? Let's be honest: sometimes you come to church and you don't feel like praising God. Maybe church is on Wednesday night and you worked all day and you're tired and you'd like to go home and relax.

You say, "I'm going to church because I want to worship God. I want something from God and he deserves my praise and I'm going to give him the best that I can." You decide, and you come in and start to praise God. It starts to do something in you. You put on the garment of praise for the Lord. We've got to decide I want the Holy Ghost to work in us.

If we look over in 2 Timothy 1:6 and 7, Paul is speaking to Timothy. Timothy is getting some resistance and Paul's trying to encourage him. He says to him in verse 6, "Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God." Stir up the gift of God. In this particular place, he's talking about a particular ministry or anointing or gift that he's got, but it also applies to the Holy Ghost.

Sometimes we've got to stir up the gift that God has given us. Sometimes we've got to decide that I'm not going to sit here and just bake, but I'm going to let God start to work. I'm going to start to praise him. I'm going to start to pray. I'm going to start to seek God. I'm going to stir up the gift you gave me. It's like any kind of pot: the stuff on the bottom gets stale and the other stuff gets cold on top. You got to stir it up, mix it together, and get it going.

Sometimes we've got to stir up the gift of God in us. That's why we're always encouraging you to have your own prayer altar at home and your own Bible reading, because every time you're reading the Bible and you're praying to God, you're stirring up the gift. When you come to church, sometimes you've got to give an extra stir in there to get things going. Stir up the gift.

Why? Because God has not given us the spirit of fear, but power, love, and a sound mind. If you are walking around or I'm walking around always afraid, that's not God. That's not coming from God. What's the answer? Stir up the gift. Get the Holy Ghost moving. Let the Holy Ghost start to bubble over. Make a transition in the spirit. Once you get into the spirit, everything starts to look different.

Again, you have to learn to stand. What did Paul tell Timothy? Stand on the word of God. Believe what the word says. We've got to decide to praise the Lord in spite of our circumstances. A lot of times the reason we get attacked by the enemy is the enemy wants to take your joy away because somebody else is looking at you and God is trying to use you to witness to them. God wants them to come and get what you've got.

The enemy will try to pick on you to try to dull down or put doubt that you've got something. If you'll start to praise God in the circumstance, if you'll start to praise God anyways, that becomes a witness to those that are around you. The Bible says we're light. How are we light? We're light because we live in a way that the world doesn't live. We're not living by sight; we're living by the word of God.

We're living by the promises of God. We're living by what we know that God has done for us. We're living by the fact that we know that God is a faithful God. Because of that, our life is different. We show a light in the world. People are involved in drugs and alcohol and sex and gambling and all kinds of escapes because they don't have light. If you've got light, you're the person that's got the answer for them. They don't need to just see a flash and then it's gone; they need to see something that's stable.

The Lord gives us these tools for dealing with trials and bad situations so we can become stable Christians. The Lord wants us to be trees of righteousness. When you see a tree that's been there for a while, it sticks out. It's stable. Most trees don't move unless you're replanting them. A tree is something that's been planted. It's stable, and normally trees last generations.

God is trying with each one of us to make us into trees of righteousness. He's trying to get us planted where he wants us planted. Sometimes that's the problem. "I'll be a tree, but I want to be planted in Florida." The planting of the Lord, it says. I've got to let God plant me where he wants to plant me. I've got to let God put me down and plant me. Then I start to grow. If I'm where God plants me, I'm in a place that I'll be fruitful in all seasons.

In Psalm 1:1, it says, "Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law doth he meditate day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season. His leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper."

He's saying this to a people that are familiar with wilderness and desert and lack of water. He's saying it to a people that understand if I go plant a tree out in the Sahara, most likely it's not going to live. But if I plant the tree next to a river in the Sahara, it can live because it's always got the water that it needs. If it learns to put down roots deep enough, even if the water goes away, it can reach water underground.

Some of you at Winterfire might have heard this story years ago, but there was a sister who talked about the word of God, and she talked about how there was a tree out in the middle of the Sahara by itself. Out in the road, out in the middle of nothing, there was a tree out there. Eventually a drunk driver hit it and they had to move it. It had been there for over 150 years. When they dug the tree up, they found out the root went down about 150 feet.

Even though it was out there and nobody else could live, it had found water because it went deep enough. God will plant us. If I'll start to dig into where God has got me planted, even in a dry season, I'll have a source from God. God's going to plant us in places because he wants us to be trees of righteousness. Trees are easy to see. Trees give shelter, food, and comfort. In a hot day, the shade of a tree is a comfort. If it's a fruit tree, it gives you something to eat.

God wants to plant us. He gives us these things. He said, "I give you beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that you might be the planting of the Lord, trees of righteousness." If I'm going to be planted, I've got to learn to praise God. I've got to learn to praise him even in the bad situations. I've got to start to learn to give him praise regardless of how I feel and recognize that he is God.

In order for a tree to bring forth fruit, it's got to be planted. Some trees you plant them and they don't bring anything for four, five, or seven years. Pecan trees take seven years. You plant it there, it's a good healthy tree, but it's still going to be a number of years before fruit comes forth. Sometimes we get in church and we want to bring fruit forth next week. That's a good desire, but be patient. Maybe you're not a cherry tree. Maybe you're a pecan tree and it's going to take a little while.

Keep praising God. Keep praising the Lord. John 15:8 shows that God's looking for fruit. Jesus is talking about being connected to the vine. He says, "Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit, so shall ye be my disciples." If you back up, he says, "I'm the true vine, my Father's the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth fruit he purgeth it that it may bring forth more fruit."

If I'm going to be fruitful for God, I got to stay connected. How do I stay connected? I get planted where God wants me. Not where I feel comfortable and not what I like, but where God wants me to be planted. If I'll let God plant me where he wants me to be planted, the Bible's told us that he's going to plant us near water that's going to help us give fruit in due season.

In Jeremiah 17:7 and 8, it says, "Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, whose hope the Lord is." How do I develop trust in God? I go through circumstances with God. If I never go through a trial, I'll never have faith in God to deliver me through a trial. If I never have a night season, I'll never know that God can bring me through the night season. If I never have to climb a mountain, I'll never know that I can do it with God.

If I never have to confront the devil, I'll never know that I can beat him with God. This is why the Bible says faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God. I hear the word of God, but when I apply the word of God and it works, now I've got faith. Now I've got faith. God is going to plant us in a place that allows us to grow, but there's going to be different seasons there.

So many times in living for God, we are measuring things the wrong way. We're measuring how we feel, and our feeling doesn't change God. If I feel down, God's still up. If I feel up, God's still up. If I don't believe in God, God's still God. If I don't seek God, God is still there and able. God does not change based on me or my feeling or my circumstance.

If I'll start to reach for God, that's what develops faith. God will let us go through things because he loves us enough to let us go through things. Like my father-in-law says, you can't do everything yourself. God will let you rub your face in the dirt to realize, "I need you." God will let you get shipwrecked so that you can know that you do what God wants you to do.

I was telling somebody yesterday we got on the radio because of God. It was all God. The guy that got us on the radio, Basil Yard, he works for Salem Radio and he reaches out to the local pastors to try to get local pastors on the radio. He came from Barbados. He did not want to be in Boston. He was in a good church, a minister there, and God said, "Go to Boston for the revival."

He goes, "I don't want to go to Boston." He got in an accident and was paralyzed from his neck down in the hospital. While he's in the hospital, his wife gets in an accident. She calls him up, "Basil, we better do what God tells us to do." He came to Boston and a man came and prayed for him and healed him. You wouldn't know he's got plates in his body if you saw him. God loves us enough to let us get our face in the earth, in the mud, to save our soul.

In Jeremiah 17:7, "Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, whose hope the Lord is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, shall not see when heat cometh." It doesn't mean it won't feel the heat, but they're not concerned about the heat because God has planted them in a place where they're going to be fruitful. "But her leaf shall be green, and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit." When we let God plant us, we will be fruitful.

Over the years, I see many people come to church, but they will not let God plant them. They feel callings, they have faith in God, and they see different things, but they will not let God plant them. Of course, God wants you to be planted where the truth is. A lot of times you see people drawn to the truth, but they won't make the commitment because of the price. God wants us to be stable. Would you stand here today?

God gives us certain things to help us be stable. We talked about beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise. We got to stir that Holy Ghost up in us daily. We got to decide, "I'm going to praise God." You know, oftentimes you can go to church and it's not the kind of music you like. That's got nothing to do with it. You're not coming for the music; you're coming to praise God. As long as they're praising God, we need to praise God.

Lord God, we're asking you here right now today, Lord, to help us. Lord, you're desiring a people to be stable. Lord God, you've got a place to plant each and every one of us. We understand that means being planted in the church, but Lord, we need to get into the place that you've got for us. Lord, we need to understand that even when you plant us, there's going to be seasons.

We've got to make our mind up, "I'm going to praise you. I'm going to stir that gift of the Holy Ghost up in me, Lord God. I'm going to take that garment of praise and I'm going to come to church to try to praise you the best I can, not based on feeling, not based on my circumstance, and not based on people disliking me, but because you are God and you are worthy of my praise."

One thing we need to understand is if we'll praise God, it'll change into worship. When it changes into worship, you'll feel the presence of God. When you feel the presence of God, all of a sudden everything else changes and you're with God and you know that God is real. Hallelujah. Does anybody got a praise for God today?

Is anybody got something they can give to the Lord? If you're breathing, you can thank God. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Come on, if you're alive, you got hope. If you got the Holy Ghost, stir it up today. This altar's open if you want to come and praise God. God wants a praise out of us. God wants you to lift your hands and give him a praise.

Lift your hands to him. Give him a praise in the circumstance. You're going to find that God starts to show up in your life. You're going to find out that God is here for you. Hallelujah.