Dharius Daniels - Your Faith Has to Fight

Reason they transcend reason. I operate at a level of reasoning that’s higher than you think. I see things you don’t see. You see to the corner; I see around the corner. You see to the hill; I see over the hill. You see today; I see tomorrow. Sometimes you don’t understand what I’m doing today because you don’t see what I’m seeing for you tomorrow. But when you get to tomorrow, what I did yesterday is going to make sense for you, and the thing you were crying about yesterday, you’ll be praising me for tomorrow. Because all the promises of God are occupied with opposition, your willingness to overthrow the opposition determines whether or not you possess the promise. Your faith has to fight. Did you hear what I just said? Yes, God promises joy—that’s in the New Testament promised land, right? But you don’t get joy without a fight. You’ve got to fight for joy, and then once you possess it, you have to protect it. You’ve got to fight to get it, and then you’ve got to fight to keep it.

Now, I grew up in Mississippi, and I grew up in the old church, so I value my church. It’s generationally diverse; my life is generationally diverse. I believe there’s richness in generational diversity. That’s why I love churches like this: because they are generationally diverse. They live through stuff; they laugh at some of the things I complain about when they talk about what they have lived through. They will say things in the midst of suffering that sound like religious rhetoric until I got older and went through some challenges myself. I used to judge and say, «Why do they always say that?» until I lived a little. Then I began to understand what the mothers of the church used to mean when they said, «This joy that I have, the world didn’t give it to me, and the world can’t take it away.» You don’t get joy without a fight; you don’t get peace without a fight. All the promises of God are occupied with opposition, but it doesn’t mean it’s not yours. Your willingness to fight with your faith is not an indication of unbelief; it’s an indication of your belief. Because you don’t fight for what you don’t believe is yours. Am I making sense, family? I said, am I making sense here?

So whatever is promised has to be possessed because all the promises of God are occupied with opposition, and our willingness to overthrow the opposition determines whether or not we possess the promise. I sense this; this just came into my heart, and I don’t believe this is random. I’m telling you, the Holy Spirit drops thoughts in our hearts and minds. I’m telling somebody who’s watching or in this room: it’s still yours. See, faith makes general declarations personal. I’m going to say that one more time. What do I mean by that? You remember Mark 5, when the woman with the issue of blood is there? Jesus is walking by, and there are crowds; tons of people are touching Him. Then He stops and says, «Who touched me?» The disciples say, «What do you mean, who touched you? All these people are touching you!» He said, «No, I felt virtue go out of me.»

Y’all missed it! In other words, He’s saying, «A lot of people are touching me, but when faith touched me, it felt different. Faith will pull something from me.» Did you hear what I just said? Everybody can be in the same room, but if I’ve got faith, faith will pull something from Him. I don’t know who I’m speaking to. I don’t know about everybody on your own, but I want to know, do I have two or three people in every section that’ll reach up and grab it and say, «It’s still mine.» I had some setbacks, but it’s still mine. I had some heartaches, but it’s still mine. I made some mistakes, but it’s still mine. Let me hear the lions roar one more time!

Faith takes personal possession of God’s promises; it makes the general personal. That’s what people mean when they say, «I receive that.» This is important because if we want to learn how to possess, we need more than just power; we need principles. And this is why Judges are so important. I love it—it is a blueprint on possession. I mean, from chapter one all the way to the end of the chapter, I love it. We see in the beginning of chapter one something so interesting to me. In the very first verse of the very first chapter of Judges, it says, «After the death of Joshua, the Israelites asked the Lord, ‘Who of us is to go up first to fight against the Canaanites? ’ And the Lord answered, ‘Judah shall go up.’»

See, that’s the principle for possession right there! Notice the order: they say, «Who will go up first?» And the Lord said, «Judah.» Who’s first? Don’t mess with me! Who will go first? Judah, from the tribe of Judah, who’s going to go first? Judah! I want to show you something. Now we know Judah’s name means praise, right? It is when his mother gives birth to him; his mother suffered with people-pleasing tendencies, we know that, right? So she keeps giving birth to things, hoping to use productivity to get acceptance. Did you hear what I just said? So she keeps having these babies, hoping it’s going to make her husband like her, right? It’s a metaphor for people who try to use productivity to get acceptance. Let me just keep birthing stuff…