Changing Faces Ministries Podcast
Cause and Effect
if you can see yourself the way God sees you, you will have a changing face. Here is your host, Pastor Jeff Landrow. Good morning, good morning, good morning. I want to welcome each and every one of you to our changing faces ministry. Where I am your Pastor Jeff Landrow and we do believe if you can see yourself the way God sees you, you will have a changing face. Once again, it is another great Friday morning and we are truly blessed and thankful to be able to come to you one more time. I definitely wanted to take out this time to thank each and every one of you for joining us, supporting us, sharing us on your social media sites and just getting the word out there about this ministry and what God is doing through this ministry. So definitely we want to say thank you so much for all of your support. We also want to thank One Voice Radio for allowing us this platform to come to you every single Friday morning. And if you haven't downloaded this app yet, you definitely want to download this app and then just share it with each and every one of your friends. This has truly been an amazing couple of years and we couldn't do it without all of our listeners, supporters and One Voice Radio. So we thank you. And once again, like I said, it's truly a nut. It's exciting to come before you one more time on this Friday morning to share with you what thus says the Lord. So as we get ready to get started, I want to give you something to think about. I oftentimes hear people say that they believe and trust the Word of God. And sometimes in most cases, what we say and how our actions are are totally different. Let me explain to you what I mean. If we say we trust God, why don't we trust God? Because if we say we trust Him, our actions will align us with what the Word says. But as you know from the beginning of time, men, women have suffered from this thing of disobedience to God's Word. Now, what you think about it? If we say we trust His Word, why would we act contrary to His Word? Something to think about. And what we want to look at today is when people find themselves in situations and asking themselves the question, "How did I end up here or in this place or in this spot or in this situation that I'm in?" I'm going to pose the question of, "Could it be that you really didn't trust what God Word says?" So today, we want to look at a very simple solution to problems and issues that people are faced with and that people suffer from because of this one thing that they say they do, but don't do. They say they trust God, but their actions don't line up with what they say. So what we want to do is I want to give you some things to think about, give you some things to look at, and then we're going to talk about the effects of disobedience. We're going to look at some things because we say we trust God and we say we believe God, and if you do that, we know that God can not lie. And if we know that God cannot lie, what is the problem with us trusting and believing His Word? If we look at some Scriptures, Numbers 23 and 19 says, "God is not a man that He should lie." Okay, we got that. Titus 1 and 2 says, "In hope of eternal life, which God that cannot lie promised before the world began." Another one says, Hebrews 6 and 18 says, "That by two immutable things in which it was impossible for God to lie." So that means if that's the case that God cannot lie, and we say we trust to believe God's Word, that means whatever God's Word says is going to come to pass. And I think a couple weeks ago in morning service, I was talking to the one body, Elijah, being fed by a dirty bird. If God said that that was going to happen, Elijah trusted what God's Word says and a bird said. We know that God told David when he had his encounter with Bathsheba that the baby would not live and the baby did not live. We know that God told Noah that it was going to rain and it rained. But we also know that David knew that God was with him during the barren line, and David knew that if he go against this giant goliath that he could defeat him too. So we see examples all through the Bible where people trust the God Word, and when they trust the God Word, they saw the results of God. But we also see in the Bible that during times where people didn't trust, then operate the way God told them to operate, that there was consequences to whatever they did. We can go back to the garden, Adam and Eve. He told them from every tree you may freely eat except for one. So what did they do? The enemy talked them and persuaded them to eat from the one tree that God told them not to eat from, and then there was consequences to it. So why do we think as people that his word has no power today? The same God that was with David when he beat the life, the same God that was with Noah when he built the art, and he told them it was going to rain. The same God that was with Elijah when he told them that a bird was going to feed him, he's the same God. If he's the same God, then his words still have power. So today we're going to look at something that would open our eyes and hopefully address how we do things. So what we're going to do today is we're going to turn to Malachi chapter 3, and we're going to look at verses 6 through 15. And then I'm going to give you the subject, and then I'm going to talk to you the way the world explains it to you, and then we're going to get ready to see some amazing things. So that's Malachi 3 verses 6 through 15. And it reads, "For I am the Lord, I change not. Therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed. Even from the days of your father ye have gone away from my ordinance and have not kept them. Return unto me, and I will return unto you," said the Lord of hosts. "But ye, we're in shall we return. Will a man rob God, yet ye have robbed me. But ye say, we're in have we robbed thee and tithed an offering. Ye are cursed with a curse, for ye have robbed me. Even this whole nation, bringing all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in my house, and prune me now, here with," says the Lord of hosts, "if I will not open you the wonders of heaven and pour you out blessings, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. And I will rebuke the devour for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground, neither shall your mind cast their fruit before time in the field," said the Lord of hosts. "And all nations shall call you blessed, for ye shall be a delightsome land," said the Lord of hosts. "Your words have been stout against me," said the Lord. "Yet ye say, what have we spoken so much against thee? Ye have said, it is vain to serve God, and what prophet is it that we have kept his ordnance, and that we have walked, mournfully before the Lord of hosts. And now, we call the proud, happy, yea, they that work wickedness or set up, yea, that they still tempt God and are even delivered. For a subject on this morning, we're going to talk about cause and effect, cause and effect. Therever, Father God almighty, we thank you so much for another opportunity. We thank you for this day. We thank you for this moment. Lord, we are asking right now you prepare our hearts and minds to receive what it is that you have for us on this day. Lord, we are asking right now that you just touch us right now that this Word come forth to make us better than we were before we came. In Lord right now, I pray that you remove me, that they hear none of me, but hear all of you, and let your Word go forth with power. And in light, Lord, we will always be so careful and grateful to give you all the praise, all the honor and all the glory. In your Son Jesus Christ name, we do pray, and let everyone say amen. Cause and effect. And what I want to be clear about, and I want to throw some disclaimers out there before we jump into this, this is I'm not talking to you from the aspect of highs and offerings and giving and not giving. That's not what I want to talk to you about today, although that is extremely important because I show the level of obedience or disobedience. But what I want to do is look at the cause and effect, and we're going to be talking about the effects of disobedience. And there are some causes and effect when we walk contrary to the way God will have us to walk. I want us to look at this, and I want to just give you some some very concrete foundational information that could change your life if you listen to what it is that I'm saying. If we like we stated in the beginning, God is a man, God isn't a man that he should lie. So if God does a lie and his word is his word, as we looked at that verse number six, it clearly speaks to us that for I am the Lord and I change not. Well, if he doesn't change the same thing that he was doing, then he is doing now. And if his word has that power, then it has that same power now. And because God doesn't change, we need to, and if we trust and believe in his word, we're going to get it, we could, we will get a chance to see what his word says. So if we know that God doesn't change, which is the first thing I want us to look at is God doesn't change. We often say this, but I think it is worth repeating. We serve a God that is consistent. I want us to understand that God is consistent. I want you to think about this. When has there ever been a time that the earth ever stopped turning? God does what he does, and he just keep on doing it. God is consistent and God is not on our time. God is in an all by himself. So when we look at this, God doesn't change. Verse six says, "I am the Lord and I change not." So if God doesn't change, is it fair to say the effects that we are faced with are results of us changing. Now, hear me clearly when I said it. If God doesn't change, and the power that he has is to fill the power, when we start seeing some negative effects in our lives, the negative effects could be a result of us changing. Because if God don't change, it could be a result of us moving away. I want you to think about that. This seems simple, but we often find ourselves asking how and why. I want you to think about this. Have you ever found yourself in a situation and ask yourself, how did I end up here? How did I wind up in this place? How did things get this bad? How did my finances get this way? How did situations get this way? Because if we look at what God was saying and we prepare attention to what it says, we can, there's some cause and effect in what God word says. And oftentimes, we focus so much on the effects of life that we forget about the cause. I want you to hear me what I'm saying. We get so tied up in dealing with the effects. We try to fix the effects. Now understanding that you can deal with the effects, but if you never address the cause, you're going to keep finding yourself in those same place. Think about this. Modern day cars are designed in such a way that if something is not operating correctly, it would throw a warning light. It would flash a light on inside the car to let you know that something is not performing right. Well, you can get the light turned off by maybe disconnecting the battery and not giving it power and the light will go off. But if you never address the cause, the light is still going to come on. So when the light is coming on, that's still saying that something is not right. See, what we're trying to do is we're trying to address the effect of our money situation when we never deal with the cause. The effect of money, and if you're trying to make more money, you're trying to work overtime, you're trying to do all these things, not understanding that by addressing the effects and not addressing the cause, you're going to still have those same money issues because as soon as one thing gets right, something else is going to go wrong. And you're wondering why you can't never get ahead because you never address the cause. See, because God doesn't change, the same thing that he shared with Adam and Eve in the garden about if you do this, you will surely die. The same thing is addressing to us today in Malachi sharing with us because if God doesn't change, he says when you rob him, there are some things that are going to happen in your life. So I want to make it clear, don't spend the whole, don't spend your life trying to address the effects as opposed you need to address the cause. What is causing these things? We spend a lot of time addressing the effects, but never bring attention to the cause. Therefore, we never see a change. People will go years dealing with effects of disobedience, not realizing if you work on the cause, your effect will change. How do I know? Because if God word doesn't change and he cannot lie, if we do this, then we will see this. You remember in the book of Haggai, when the people God had, the people would have been free to go back to the land, and their job was to rebuild the temple, and they got back to the land. They started good, but somewhere along the way, their job, they're what they went back to do, which was rebuild the temple, got pushed to the background, and they started building their own house, and they started taking care of their own stuff, and God became secondary, third day, and later on down the line, when God should have been the ultimate source, and God should have been the one that they made a priority, but when God wasn't the priority, some things started to happen. If you read it in Haggai, it says they used it, they couldn't make enough money to get themselves out of the situation they had. They had clothes, and we couldn't put on enough clothes to get them warm. They couldn't drink enough than to quench their thirst, because when God is not a priority, there's some cause and effect, and no matter how much you deal with the effects, no matter how much money you make, sort of like putting it in a pocket with hose in it, no matter how much you try to get over, and how much you try to get things done and taken care of, the cause until the cause is addressed, you're going to have those effects. So people spend their whole lives getting more money, getting more time, taking on more things, not understanding why nothing is working. We must learn to address the cause. We're trying to harvest what we're not willing to sow. If you want to get technical with it, what the Scripture call it, it's sowing and reaping. We want to harvest. We want the planet for harvest, but we're not willing to sow. Then we become frustrated because we don't see a chain. Anybody ever got sick and tired of being sick and tired and wondering why you can't never get ahead, wondering why things that will never change, wondering why you can't get ahead, no matter how much you try, and no matter how much you try to push yourself over, you can work over time, work 12, 13 hours a day, and still don't have enough to make ends meet. You think you're just trying to address the effects, thinking if you can make more money. Could it be? It's not the effects that you need to be addressing. Could it be the cause? Because we know in Haggia, it says, when they started to address the call, and the cause was, they wasn't prioritizing God. When they started prioritizing God, they saw a chain. All I'm sharing with you is there are some causes and effect in life, but every action does an equal and opposite react. What is it that you're trying to address, and you're not seeing the chain? So, when we look at this, it was a question that was asked, and that was asked. It says, "Will a man rob God?" And it says, "Yeah, you have robbed me." But then the question was asked, "Where in have we robbed thee?" And it talks about entice and offers. It was stated you should bring your ties and offers them to the store, that there may be meat in my house. And it says, "Prove me. Watch me. See what I'll do for you if you prioritize me." We're talking about cause and effect. See, when you don't prioritize God, you get an effect. You get some things that happen to you. In some things, situation and things don't go wrong. That's why when you thought it just seems like you had a stroke of bad luck. It wasn't a stroke of bad luck. It was the effect, so you're not prioritizing God. When you don't prioritize God, there are some effects that you have. That's why as soon as you got the car fixed or refrigerated, it went down. As soon as you got one thing lined up, something else happened. So this took place, that took place. So there are some causes and effect to everything. What is it that you're not addressing that you're trying to fix? You're working so hard on the effects when you should be addressing the cause. He says, "Prove me." He said, "Because you've been robbing me." You've been robbing me, and the effects of you robbing me is you've been cursed. It says, "You're cursed with the curse, but you have robbed me." Even this whole nation. See, we wonder why the world is in the situation that it's in. See, we think we're trying to address the effects of it. We're trying to take the guns out of school. We're trying to do all of these things, which are the effects of not prioritizing God. And we're trying to address that. When we address the call, we're going to see a change in the effect. See, you got people right now studying to address the effects, and we need to address the cause. The cause is we have turned away from God, and when you've turned away from God, you're going to have some effects. The thing about effects is you've got to deal with whatever you give. These are the effects of us not prioritizing God. It says, "You're cursed with a curse." But then, when we look at that, the second point is diagnosing the problem. I just share with you the problem, the cause. Most people don't just go to the doctor anymore. We go to the doctor when we see the effects of it, and then the doctor is going to ask you, "Why are you here today?" When you describe to the doctor why you hear the effects of it, the doctor is going to give you the cause of why you're there. And see, once you get the cause, the doctor is going to give you something not to--the doctor is going to give you something to deal with the cause. Therefore, you want to see a change in the effects. I want you to hear me clearly. The doctor needs to address the cause, because if the doctor just gives you something to address the effect, you're going to go home, and then you're going to have to come back and see him again. Until we learn to address the cause, we're going to have the effects. So what the doctor want to do is the doctor is going to ask you a series of questions, and based on the questions that you asked, he's going to say, "Now, this is what it is." He's going to give you some medicine to address the cause. Now, you may walk away from the doctor with the same effects that you have when you came, but the doctor, the medicine that the doctor gave you deal with the cause, and over time, by the medicine that the doctor gave you to address the cause, you want to see some changes in the effects that you're getting. See, what I'm here to tell you is, when we do what this, what verse 7 says, returns, when we return back to God, when we put God back in the rightful place that he deserves to be in, first and foremost in our lives, we're going to start seeing some different effects. It's like that medicine that the doctor gave you that changed the effects that you're getting. We're going to start to see something different when we put God back in this rightful place where he deserves on the throne, and we worship and praise and worry in, we're going to start seeing some different effects in our lives. So don't think it's strange that even though you're trying to address the effect, you're going to get the new house thinking that the old house wasn't good enough. You're going to get new cars thinking the old car wasn't good enough. You're trying to address all the effects of life and never address the cause. That old, that new house that you get isn't going to leave it no better than the old because the same thing until you address the call, you're going to still be getting the same or something. That's why a lot of people get new houses and they never become a home. That's why a lot of people are changing stuff because they didn't, they haven't addressed the call. He says, you are cursed. He says, bring all your ties. Now this is the returning car. This is prioritizing him putting them back in the right place. Now that we have diagnosed the problem, my question is, is there anybody tired of dealing with the same thing over and over and over again? Today, we're going to address the cause of our problem, whether it's money, it's health, whatever it is, we need to address the cause because we need to address and the cause is going to change the effects. We can't say we trust God and not abide by his word. Verse 7 says, it's time for us to return. Anytime I get lost, I will go back to the point where I got lost. See, one of the things I, you know, think about this. I don't want everybody to think about this. Just think about it. Once you, once we, once a person, the individual, accept Christ, I'm not saying that your life is going to instantly change. That's not what I'm saying. I'm not saying that you won't have any trouble. That's not what I'm saying. I'm not saying that things are going to not go wrong. That's not what I'm saying. All I'm saying is when you accept Christ, you got somebody that can address the effects in your life. And I'm going to prove that to you. When you get lost in life or when you're traveling and you get lost, the one thing I always try to do is I remember the point where I got off track and I return back to that spot because when I return back to that spot, it's going to read, it's going to, it's going to readjust me because I don't need to be leaning to what I think. I need to be following the voice of the GPS that's taking me where I want to go. Sometimes we have voices. The GPS is telling us to take a turn or to keep straight, but because we lean into what we can understand, we might take a wrong turn. But what we need to do is return back to what the GPS said and then that'll get us back on the right track. But you know, the one thing I love about the God that we serve, even when we stray off track, even when we take a wrong turn, he is great. He is just and grateful to forgive us of all of our many sins and allow us the opportunity to get back on track. That says that GPS when you're traveling and you take a wrong turn, it'll tell you go down the road, make a U-turn so you can get back on track. We serve a God that when the problem has been diagnosed, he says return under me. So if you want to address the symptoms in your life, if you want to address the effects of your life and you want to address all those things, today we need to address the causes of all of these things. Now, our problem is a lot of times we don't want to admit the cause of our effect, but when we address the cause, so you can't go to the doctor and say, "I don't know what happened to me." You can't go to the doctor and say, "I don't know what's going on," because until the doctor that properly diagnosed you, he can't deal with the effects that you're getting. When you don't listen, when you get distracted, everybody ever been driving and get distracted, and before you know it, you find yourself on the wrong road, or you ain't listening to what the GPS is saying, you took a wrong turn, or you find yourself leaning into what you know, all of these things can get you on the wrong track. What we're talking about today is cause and effect. We can't no longer sit there and wonder why these things are the way they are when we hadn't addressed the cause and a lot. When we learn to address the cause, but every action is equal and opposite reaction, but everything you sow, that's what you read. You can't be wondering why these things are happening until you address the cause. When you learn to address the cause, you're going to see a difference in the effect. The day of the day to return, to get on course, so we can finish this race. I want to just show with you. Let's just talk real quickly. We're going to get ready to wrap up. The cause was they had robbed God, so they had a curse, but he says, bring you all the ties into the storehouse that there may be meeting my house, and he says, improve me. Now here we'll say the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you up windows of heaven and pour you out blessings that there should not be room enough to receive. Listen to what he said, cause and effect. The cause was not prioritizing God. The effect was they had it. They was on the curse. You thought it was a stroke of bad luck, but it was a curse. He says, when you return, he says, bring you all the ties into the storehouse. Now you prioritize me. This is about priorities. When you prioritize me, he says, prove me and won't watch out open up a window of heaven and pour you out blessings. And then he says, then I will rebuke the devours for your sake. You remember, so many of y'all right now are living on borrowed time. I want you to think about that, because there's some things that should have happened to you a long time ago, but because of your priority that you have, because of God as a priority in your life, he said, I will rebuke the devours. The thing that should have went wrong had been going wrong for you because you prioritize him, but you only prioritize him when you return. And when you return, you're breaking the curse. And when you return and you break the curse, you're going to see some different effects in your life. Anybody ready for some different effects in your life? Anybody ready for your life to change? Anybody ready to see some things changing in life? You know what that feeling is like when you went to the Dr. Wood of Fever, he gave you something to address the calls. And when he addressed the calls, you went home, you might have left the doctor office still with a fever, but by the time you got home, that fever had broke. Anybody know what it's like to have a fever that's broken, but the doctor then deal with the fever, the doctor dealt with the calls, and when they talked to deal with the calls, the fever broke. There are a lot of you trying to deal with your effects by making more money. He's trying to deal with the effects by changing the situation and circumstances. He's trying to deal with the effects by seeing other things happen. But when you learn to address the call by prioritizing God, he said, I will rebuke the devours. I will keep those things that are going wrong, which I will keep those things from happening to you. He said he was going to do that if you learn to address the call. And he says, "And he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground, neither show your feign of vines cast their fruit before time, and the fields said the Lord of Host." And he said, "And all nations shall call you bless, for ye shall be a delight, some land said the Lord of Host." See, when you learn to take action, which is my last point, none of what we're talking about is any good unless you take action. When you learn to take action, see, right now you've been operating, and there's been some grace over your life, because truth be told, none of us deserves the right to be here, because all of us, most of us, got our priorities jacked up. But when we learn to reprioritize him and take action, return to him, do these things, and stop so much worry about the effects and start addressing the calls, we're going to see some major things happening in our lives. When we start addressing the things that need to be addressed, then we're going to see some different effects in our lives, but we must take action. Taking action will address the call, and it isn't that what you want to live an abundant life to be blessed, because he says, "Will you do something, address the calls, put him back where he's supposed to be," right? Prioritize him, he says, "And all of me should call you blessed, for ye shall be a delight, some land," said the Lord. It's going to be some things, your effects are going to change. You notice how I went from being under a curse, you're a curse, with a curse, to being blessed. You have to take some actions, you have to change, you have to address the calls, and when you address the call, you went from being cursed to being blessed. Isn't that what we all want? But we have to learn to address the call, because for every call, there is an effect. Well, for the man's soul, that's what he's going to read. For every action, there's an equal and opposite reaction. There is a danger, there is some things that's going to happen. There's some consequences to being disobedient to God's work. Today, we talked about calls in effect. We talked about how if we want to arise, there's some things that we must change. Last year, we had an opportunity to celebrate, we did a memorial for my grandmother. Around the 4th of July, our birthday was July the 5th, and we wanted to celebrate the life that she lived, God risked her soul. We wanted to celebrate there. We got some balloons, and we all got some balloons. Each person had their own balloon, and we wanted to release the balloons to remember our grandmother. In order for balloons to rise, you have to put helium in the balloon. The ones that had a lot of helium in it, they were able to rise, and they rolled a little bit faster. You asked some younger kids around, they didn't really understand what it means for a balloon to rise. They just knew they wanted balloons. They were thought by just blowing the balloons up themselves that the balloons would actually rise. They were looking for the effects of balloon rising, but they were using their own things to fill them up. It was filling the balloons with hot air, their hot air, and expecting balloons to rise the same way that helium would. But how many of you know, just putting hot air in a balloon don't make a balloon rise. Helium makes the balloon rise, and when you feel the balloon with helium, the balloon will rise up. But they didn't understand that hot air, they just wanted the balloon. What we had to teach them to do is, if you want the balloon to rise, you got to address what you're putting in. You got to address the cause, then you're going to see it get the effects that you want. What I'm here to tell you is, a lot of people want to rise up. A lot of people want to go up high, but they're filling themselves with the wrong stuff. They haven't prioritized God in this world. They haven't made God a priority, and then they're wondering why they're not riding. They're wondering why things are not changing, because they're not addressing the call. They're just only looking at the effect. The effects of putting air in a balloon, how air and balloon is, it looks just like all the other ones. But the problem is, the effect of it is, it's not going to rise because it don't have the right things in them. We can all can be walking around and looking good, smelling good, and talking good, but if you don't have the right stuff in you, if you're not living the right way, if you're not prioritizing God in what you do, you can't expect to rise the way somebody else is. Don't think it's strange when your effects don't change when you have never addressed the call. Today would be the perfect opportunity for you to address the calls in your life, because when you address the calls in your life, you're going to see some different effects. And addressing the calls for those that don't know is if you never receive Christ as your Lord and your Savior, today would be a perfect opportunity for you to do that. This is addressing the call because apart from him, it says, my Bible says, if you confess with your mouth and believe in your heart that God has raised Jesus from the dead, you will be saved. Well, without that, you're not saved. And if you want to be saved, you need to address the call. The calls is you haven't accepted Christ. Well, once you accept Christ and believe in your heart that God is raising from the dead sincerely, you're going to end up with a different effect. But if you never address it, you're not going to end up with the effect. So today would be a perfect opportunity to receive Christ. Or if you're here today and you want to become a part of this ministry, today will be a perfect opportunity to do that as well. You want to reach out to us, let us know, drop us a line, go to our site, support our ministry, go to where you see us on social media, drop me a line, let me know how the ministry have blessed you. And become a part of us like sharing supporters. Or if you're here today and you're just excited and you're ready, let's see some different effects in your life. And you know that you believe and you trust in God, but some things may not be happening the way you think, but just don't know that all your more stuff could happen to you than it already is. But God is protecting you. Today will be the perfect opportunity to get fired up and get back on track for the Lord. I tell you, this has been a great day, but great opportunity. But just remember, all of an effect is real. And whatever you address, that's what you're going to see. So today will be a perfect opportunity to address the causes in your life that you can change the effect. God, this is God's word for God's people. We want to thank you for liking, sharing and supporting, changing faces ministry. This will conclude our podcast. God bless you. And we'll see you again on next Friday. God bless. Take care, everybody. Thanks for tuning in to the changing faces podcast. Be sure to download the podcast as well as like, subscribe and share.