Changing Faces Ministries Podcast
Dry Spell Part 1
(upbeat music) - Welcome to the Changing Faces Ministries Podcast. If you can see yourself the way God sees you, you will have a changing face. Here is your host, Pastor Jeff Landrum. (upbeat music) - Good morning, good morning, good morning. Wanna welcome each and every one of you to our Changing Faces Ministries Podcast. I'm your pastor, Jeff Landrum, and where we do believe, if you can see yourself the way God sees you, you will have a changing face. We wanna welcome you this morning to our Morning Podcast. We wanna definitely thank each and every one of you for all of the support. Just we, you know, the love that you have shown towards this ministry, we greatly appreciate each and every one of you, and we wanna thank you. We definitely ask that you continue to go out, like, share, and support. You can go to our changingfacesministries.com. You can support there, you know, just whatever God has placed on your heart to do. You wanna share us on all your social media platforms. And you wanna, you know, just continue to support us. And we definitely also want to thank One Voice Radio. It is for allowing us this platform to come to you, each and every Friday morning. And we're so thankful and we're so blessed. So we thank God for your support. For all of you, One Voice Radio, for all of our listeners, for all of our followers, for all of our supporters. We thank you so much for everything. Just continue to share the good news of what God has placed within us to share. So this morning we want to continue giving the good news that God has given to us. So this morning we want to look at something. And just wanna have a conversation with you. And I know we probably won't get done with everything today. And so it's probably gonna be a two part to this, but I wanted to get a chance to talk with you. Because oftentimes we find, you may find yourself in a place where it feels like nothing is working. Have you ever found yourself to where it seemed like no matter what you do, or how much you do it, or how good you do it, seemed like nothing is working? You're doing all you can, but things are just not coming together. You're feeling drained and you're asking yourself, what else can I do? You're talking to people and they can't help you. Because in most cases, in a lot of cases, they're just in an equal or worse place than you are. So people who are dealing with stuff and in a bad place too, they may not be able to give you the help that you need. And this is the thing, you believe in God, and you've been trusting that God is going to do what he says he's going to do, but because nothing is working for you at this time, you find yourself in a point in time in your life, you're not seeing things happen, the way you would like for them to happen. And you oftentimes is wondering what is really going on. You know, when you're going through stuff, it seems like every time you turn on the TV, you're getting bad news and you're getting bad reports and things are going on in the world and situation and stuff is happening. And as I thought about this and meditated on this, where I always go to and where the spirit always lead me to is the Word of God. And I always like to look at examples and find out why is it that we as a people can be doing things and feel like stuff is going on in our lives, and we're involved in situations, but for whatever reason, we find ourselves to where we're doing stuff and things are just not happening the way that we will want them to happen or we think they should happen. And as I thought about it, the word of the spirit took me to a place. They're a familiar passage of Scripture. Matter of fact, if you've been following us for a while or you've had a chance to listen to the word from the ministry, you probably know hurt me, talk about it. But as I continue to grow and learn God's word and as you continue to reveal stuff to me, he's taken me back to familiar places, but in taking me back to familiar places, he's showing me something new. And that's the thing I love about the God we serve, that no matter how much you study his word, he can always reveal some things new to you. So if you're one of those kind of people that have been in a situation and you find yourself in a situation whether you've been there before or you're in it now, or if you're in a situation you hadn't seen it, just keep hanging in there with me 'cause it's probably around the corner. I wanted to share with you how you can find yourself doing stuff and find yourself in a place and you may be asking yourself, how did I get here? So what the idea was he took me to a very familiar teaching, a very familiar passage of scripture that shared with me as I'm gonna share with you what he revealed to me, how we can get ourselves and find ourselves in a place. And we asking ourselves, how did I end up here? So what I wanna do is take you to this passage of scripture. We're gonna read a few verses and as we read these few verses, we're gonna go back and we're gonna break it down. And then we're gonna ask you some questions about how we can find ourselves in a place. And sometimes some people are in this place and you may know how you've gotten there. Some people may be in a place and they don't even understand that they're there. And some people may be handed toward a place and I want you to be prepared for when you arrive. So wherever you are, wherever you are in that place or in that spot, I want you to follow me through these passage of scripture 'cause it's gonna reveal some things to us. I'm gonna share some things for us that's gonna help us. Don't matter if we're in it coming out of it or headed towards it, it's gonna help us. So if you got your babbas, I want you to turn with me to Luke, the Gospel of Saint Luke chapter 15 and we're gonna read verses 11 through 16. Luke chapter 15 verses 11 through 16 and it reads, and he said a certain man had two sons and the younger of them said to his father, father give me the portion of the goods that fall up to me and he divided unto them his living. And not many days after the younger son gathered all together and took his journey into a far country and there wasted his substance with riotous living. And when he's had spent all their roles, they might have famine in the land and he began to be in one. And he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country. And he sent him into the fields to feed swine. And he would fame have filled his bally's with the huff that the swines did eat and no man gave unto him. We wanna stop right there. Even though we're gonna talk about some passages after that and we're probably gonna talk about that on next week. But what we wanna talk about today is where this guy found himself. So for a subject this morning, we wanna look at just a very simple subject called dry spell. Dry spell. For a subject we're gonna talk about dry spell. Dear Father God, we thank you so much for this opportunity that you've given us. We thank you for this moment in time, Lord. We thank you for your word. We ask that you prepare our hearts and minds to receive what you have for us on today, Lord. And right now I'm asking that you remove me, that they hear none of me but hear all of you and let your word go forth with power. And that we may walk away from this or leave this message differently where before we came that we may become better. And these and many other blessings asking a yes on Jesus name and for his sake. Amen. Dry spell. Oftentimes when I was growing up, I used to hear my elders talking about they've hit a dry spell. And as youngsters, you hear it, but you don't pay attention to what dry spells are. You don't really kind of deal a whole lot in what you hear as a young kid 'cause you might not think it don't affect you at that time. But as you get older, you might hit what we call a dry spell. And when I started looking at this parable and I started looking at how things unfolded with this son of this man, you know, he found himself in a place. Unlike where he came from, through his actions and some things that he did, he found himself in a place. And of course, this is a parable that Jesus was teaching and we know Jesus taught him parables, but there's a lot of information in this parable and you want to pay attention to what is actually being shared in, and it says, you know, it was a man who had two sons. And one of the sons came and asked for the portions of this inheritance of what he had coming to him. Now, it wasn't the right time for him to get it, but it sounds like he was asking him and he needed a blessing. So he went to the father to ask for what he had coming. It sounded like he was in our time. He may have been praying for something and a good father gave his son what he asked for. And he says, not many days after he got it, he went away in a far land. So the source was the father. The son asked for what a blessing. The good father gave the son. So the father was the source for the son to get the blessing that he got, but when the son got the blessing, it says he went into a far away place. And it says he wasted the blessing that he was given by the father. Now, I don't know if that, you know, that sound like anybody you know or it may be you, that God has been so good to us and God has blessed us. And we've asked the good father for some things and he has blessed us with him. And as soon as he blessed us with him, we went off into a faraway country and we left the source. We left the one that gave it to us and we went away from it. And you know how many of you know, when you go away from the source, the father you get away from the source, the weaker and the worst place that you find yourself in. Well, this son, he went to a far country and it says he wasted what he had with Brian to his living. So he had a period of time where he had a good life because the blessing that the father gave him only lasted for a period of time. Because you know, as he left the father, he went away and the blessing that he took away from the source. I mean, if you know what it's like when you go away from the one that gave it, when you get away at some things you actually thought you was gonna have and thought it was gonna be lasted for a long time. Well, when you get away from the source, the things that he blessed you with, it's clean like the blessing that you got. Don't last that long when you get away from the source. So my point to all of that is be careful. When you've been blessed with something, you don't leave the source that bless you with what you got. But this son, he left and it says he wasted it with Brian to his living. And then it says, when he has spent all he had, now that's kind of how life typically works. When you, as long as you got it and you got it going good, seeing like things are okay. But as soon as you don't have it, things around you get worse. It says, and when he has spent all, there are roles, a mighty famine. It's just one famine with, it's just one being in a place without, this was a mighty famine in the land and he began to be in the womb. It's amazing how when you got it, you don't think you're gonna ever need anything. But when you don't have it, things around you start falling down. And now keep in mind, he's also left the source. So no longer can he just walk back and get it because he has left the source and he's went and wasted it. Now that he has wasted it, he found himself in a bad place. And when he found himself in a bad place, he says, and he went and joined himself to the citizen of that country. And he sent the citizens, sent him into the fields to feed the swines. And he would fame and filled his beddings with the husk that the swine did eat and no man gave unto him. It's all, you know, life is funny that way. As long as you got it, you know, you got friends, you got people to hang out with you. You got people that won't share it with you. But as soon as it goes, you don't have anybody to give back to you what you gave. Now be careful of who you call your friends. Be careful of the folks who you hang out. Be careful of your circle. See, because when you're not careful of how you handle the blessing, when you're not careful of honoring the one that gave it, when you're not careful and you misused what you've been given, you might find yourself, buy yourself. And when you find yourself, buy yourself, you're gonna find yourself that, that the things that you used to work for, you won't work no more, because you can find yourself in our somebody for today in a dry spell. And for some of you who don't know what a dry spell is, I always go to a Webster. And Webster usually have a pretty good definition of what I'm looking for. So I went to the dictionary and wanted to see what a dry spell was. And Webster defines a dry spell as a period characterized by a lack of success or productivity. A period. So it doesn't mean your whole life is categorized that way. It just said a period characterized by a lack of success or productivity. Kind of reminds me when I was growing up, I used to hear people say, you know, that I didn't hear the dry spell, where I can't kill nothing, it won't nothing die. I don't know what you ever know what they're like. You ever been hungry and you go hunting, you can't kill nothing, you can't find nothing dead. Sometimes in your life, you're gonna hit those dry spells, and you're gonna hit those moments in time in your life where it's gonna be categorized, it's gonna be filled with, you don't have no success. Things don't work right. And things are not lining up right, and you find yourself in a dry spell. Well, this son finds himself in a dry spell, but what we want to look at is we want to kind of look at it and see what happened. How did he find himself there? How did he put himself in what we call a dry spell? Because we got to think this boy came from a good background, this boy came from a father, and I say he's a good father because he has an inheritance. And the Bible says a good man leave an inheritance for his children's children. Well, this man got an inheritance that he gave to his son. That would categorize him as a good father. So when we want to look at this, we want to look and see the entire life things. We want to look and see what this period is about. We want to look and see how did this son end up in a dry spell. And some of us are gonna be able to relate to this son, because just as soon as God blessed us with a job, we straight away from him. We stopped going to church, we stopped doing the things we were doing before we got to blessed, and we find ourselves now in a dry spell. And you can find yourself in a dry spell, because when you got to blessed, you went in a faraway country. And your faraway country might not be a physical place. It might be a place where you took your mind to another place. And the things that you was doing prior to the blessing, you're not doing them anymore. You used to wake up every morning and read your Bible. Now you don't wake up in the morning and read your Bible. You used to be the first one at church. None of the church might see you twice a year. What I'm trying to tell you is, the same things that got you the blessing, you need to make sure you stay connected to the source, because the source doesn't move. It's us that moves away from the source. And as we move away from the source, we might find ourselves in a dry spell. If you have it, and you're not progressing in it, if you don't have it, you can get it. If you've been getting it and everything has halted, but either case, you might find yourself in a dry spell. So the day we want to look at this thing known as a dry spell. First thing we want to look at is, what are some causes of dry spells? When I started to look at that, one of the major things that I looked at is, drifting away from the source is the leading contributor to dry spells. If we ever forget that it was God who made us, it was God who gave us everything that we have, we're going to find ourselves in a dry place. This country could be in a dry place. When you turn your back from the creator, when we drift away, we find ourselves in a dry place. Just as you can't live without the heart, you cannot live without the creator. Are you trying to use something, or someone else, as a substitute for the one true and living God? If so, you're going to find yourself hitting a dry spell. Exodus 20, 3 and 5 says, God should have no other God before me. God should not make unto thee an any graven image and any likeness of anything that is in heaven, above, or that is in earth beneath, or that is in the waters under the earth. Thou should not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them, for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God. Dripping away from God will cause you and make you find yourself in a dry spell, where even if you're trying to do something good, you don't line up because you have drifted away from the source. When we look at this son, his source was his father. He was a son and his father blessed him with what he had coming to him before he was ready to receive it. This is a note for you. Make sure you know what you're asking for and why you want it. A lot of times we're just asking God to bless us. We're just asking for stuff without a plan. Stop just praying for God to bless you. Do you have a plan for the blessing that God has for you? As long as the boy was at home, he had no worries. The father provided a good living. The father provided everything for him. He didn't have to worry about a roof over his head. He didn't have to worry about clothes on his back. He didn't have to worry about shoes on his feet. He didn't have to worry about any of that that the father would make sure that all his needs were being taken care of. Isn't it something about when we honor God, with all of our ties, our offerings, when we honor God with our gifts and our talents, when we honor God with everything that we have? See, one thing I learned early in life, when God blessed me with something, I make sure I give it back to him because as long as I have it, I have to be responsible for it. But when I get turned around and give back to him, what he so graciously gave and had given to me, he has to be accountable for it. So when he blessed me with the house, I turn around and gave thanks to him and let him know that I'm giving it back to you. When he blessed me with my tears, I turn around and let him know, giving him back to you. When he blessed me with the car, I turn around and let him know. So when things go wrong and things happen, he has to make a way for me to be able to take care of it because what he's so graciously given to me, I turn around and give back to him and I'll honor him, I praise him for everything that he has given me. What our problem is, when he blesses us, we like to strand away from it, and we want people to think, and look at what I've done, look at what I did, just not understanding that God snatched that breath away from me. You won't even have the very light to even frame what you have done. We need to understand that we don't need to stray away from the pesser. We need to understand and give praises to the one that have blessed us. Stop straying away when God has blessed you, give him the praise and the honor and the glory that he deserved because when we stray away from the source, then we might find ourselves in a dry spell. We're talking about dry spells today. All of his needs, this son, all of his needs was being met. The father was taken care of him, not only was the father taking care of me in the present, the father was putting things in place for this son, even knowing to him that we'll provide for him in the future. But this son wanted it before he was ready to receive it. Make sure you have a plan for the blessing that God has for you. We're talking about being in a dry spell. So we know the cause of dry spell is dripping away. I hear you when you say, "But Pastor, I hadn't left the father, but I'm still in a dry spell." But let me ask you, are you working your plan or are you working your plan or are you working the plan that he has for you? That's a different question. I want you to understand what I'm saying. Are you working your plan or are you working the plan that he has for you? Because a lot of us get it confused. A lot of us want to ask for a blessing to do our thing. But we should be asking for a blessing and asking God, what would you have me to do with what you have given me? You could be doing a lot of good things but working the wrong plan, which means you can find yourself in a dry spell. See, sometimes we can be doing things that we want to do and it may not be bad things, but are we working the plans that God has for us? Because if you're not working the plans that God has for you, you can still be trying to do the right things and it may not be working for you because you're working the wrong plan. Make sure you're doing what God would have you to do. What a love and father would allow you to do is produce things. He would allow you to have things to show you that it's not for you. Make sure you're doing the right things for the right reasons. We're looking at dry spells. A dry spell can also derive from becoming a performance-based person. I want you to hear me when I say this. There are a lot of times we can say, "Well, I'm doing the right things." I'm going to church. I'm helping people. I'm doing all of these things and you could be doing it based on performance. But God, your performance is good, but God wants a relationship. Because if you're in the right relationship, your performance is going to line up anyway. A lot of people will be talking to people to look at their performance, but God is concerned about your heart. Why are you doing what you do? Make sure you're doing the right things for the right reason and make sure you're not doing it for performance to check a box. Why are you at church on Sundays every morning? Is it just to say that you went or you're coming to give God praise and the worship Him? Make sure and see sometimes you're going to find yourself in a dry spell because you're doing right things, but you're doing them for the wrong reason. Make sure you become more concerned with what you do. When you become more concerned with what you do than who you do it for, you're going to find yourself in a dry spell. When you're focused on the relationship that God has for you, when you're focused on building a relationship with Him, your performance is going to line up because you want to honor the father. You want to honor the one that blessed you. And when you want to honor the one that blessed you, you're going to do the right thing anyway. Malachi 3 and 10 says, "If I will not open up the windows of heaven and pour you out a blessing, that there should not be room enough for you to receive." And if God is pouring it out, He is the only one that can stop it. She stopped wanting to be a performance based Christian. She tried to be a performance based, well, lead you to dry spells because sometimes when you're doing it for your performance, your performance won't equal the results that you want. When you're doing it because you're building a relationship with the one who blessed you with the blessing, and things are going to start to line up the way they need to line up. Leaving God will cause dry spells, but returning to God can cause an overflow. He said He'll open up a window and pull you out blessings if you return. He said, "Return to me and I will return to you." See, what we are feeling to do is we're trying to figure out this thing on our own. We're trying to work through these dry spells. We're trying to figure this stuff out. When all we got to do is return back to the source. See, we're going to get to that on next week, so you won't get it all the day, but make sure you come back next week because we're going to talk about if you're going to dry spell what you need to do to come out of that dry spell. He said, "If my hooked up proved me now, that he won't do something if you return." See, the sun had it all together when he was with the father, but when he left the father went into a four-way land, he had brief flashes of success. See, that's what our problem is sometimes. Some people don't even recognize that they're in a dry spell because the enemy knows that he can give you flashes of success and you won't return. See, the flashes of success would cause you not to return back to the source that gave you the blessing in the first place. Let me tell you what I mean about flashes of success. Have you ever been doing something and things that may work in writing? On this particular day, you had a brief moment of something happened, and you said, "Oh, I'm coming out of it now." Little did you know that was just a flash. See, when this song went away, he had a period of time. You remember when it says, "When he had came, when he had wasted everything, and then." So he had that moment of time where he had a brief flash of success because he was still living off of the blessing. Even though he had left the source, the blessing was given him brief flashes of success, so he didn't know that he needed to return. So as you go away from the source, you're going to have brief flashes because the brief flashes will keep you out there. It will keep you in a dry spell because those brief flashes will give you moments of thinking they're coming out of it, but in actuality, you're not coming out of it. You're just digging a hole deeper because it says, "When he had lost, everything," it says, "A mighty famine hit the land." Don't let those brief flashes of success fool you because when you want a dry spell and the Lord has allowed you to go in a dry spell, only the Lord is going to bring you out. And the only way the Lord is going to bring you out is through repentance and returning back. What I'm trying to tell you is those brief flashes. If you need to be careful, we're going to finish up today on being careful of what you're listening to and what you allow into your moments in your mind when you're having these dry spells. See, when you're having these dry spells, people will talk to you and people will share stuff into your mind. And next thing you know, first thing you'll be thinking about is talking yourself out of returning back because the enemy knows these brief flashes that he'll allow into your mind will mess you up. So we need to be careful of what we allow into our minds. We need to be careful of who we're talking to when we're going through those dry spells because these people can mess you up and it will keep you in a place. And what we're going to do, I'm going to share this with you what I'm talking about because when we come back on next week, we're going to talk about the bags of a dry spell, but more importantly, we're going to talk about what we need to do to come out of that dry spell. See, because when you're in a dry spell, you need to be careful because the enemy will start feeding stuff into your mind when you're in a dry spell. The enemy will start telling you, you ain't big enough, you don't know enough. It ain't going to work for you. You trust in a guy that has allowed this to happen to you. You need to be careful of what you're allowing into your mind when you're going through this because the enemy wants to treat you just like a tape recorder. And some of you may not know what a tape recorder is because of all this digital technologies that we have now. But they used to have what you call these tape recorders where you can record something from one tape to another tape and then it plays the same thing. Well, the enemy wants to record some things into your mind and you need to be careful of what you're allowing the enemy to record into your mind because the enemy wants to play these things in your mind. You can't do that. You will never amount to anything. You can't, you know, you're trying to work it out in your family and the family don't care nothing about you. You need to be careful of what you're allowing the enemy to record in your mind because the enemy will record some things in your mind or will make you forget what's already in your hard drive will make you forget what was planning into your mind. See, the enemy wants to plant those negative thoughts in your mind and the enemy wants you to know that you're more than a conqueror through Christ Jesus. If the enemy wants you, he don't want you to know that you can do all things to Christ that's strengthening you. The enemy don't want you to know that God will open up a window of heaven and pull you out some blessing. The enemy don't want you to be reminded that you can do it all. And that God before you, he's more than a whole world against you. See, he needs to be careful doing those times because the enemy will mess you up. No, a lot of enemies mess you up when you're in a dry spell because you're in this dry spell because God wants you to get back to a point to when you learn that he is the source. And when you get back to the point where he is the source, he's going to do some things and provide some things for you. So if you're in a point right now that God still be careful of what you're allowing your mind. You need to be careful of what you circle that you allow or hanging out with because the enemy will mess you up and his whole job is to kill still and destroy. And if you had a point right now and you want to dry spell, you want to make sure you come back next week because we want to talk about what you're going through. And then we're going to talk about how you can come out of it. And this today is just the beginning of looking at what a dry spell is. But next week we're going to talk about coming out. So next week you want to make sure you come back. This will conclude our podcast for today. And we want to say God bless you and God keep you. And we hope to see you again on next next Friday morning as we talk about how to come out of this dry spell that you in. This is going to conclude us for the day. But God bless you and God keep you as my prayer for you and we will see you again on next Friday. God bless. Take care. Thanks for tuning in to the changing faces podcast. Be sure to download the podcast as well as like, subscribe and share. [MUSIC]