Experiencing the Highest Life – Part 2

So, brother, turn to the Spirit. Find the sense of life and get there. Find the sense of peace and get there. And when a decision comes up, brother, you have to deny the mind, deny the emotion, and deny the will, but you also have to find the source of peace. You go out and want to buy a new automobile. Look at that car over there; isn’t it beautiful? Red. Four doors. Power-packed. Brand new. Oh, I really want it. I’m excited about it. Then I say, “I’ll go over and talk to the man.” I’m excited. Then I have to look at that. What do I have? I have a sense of death. Oh, I want it so much. Well, it’s not a sense of life, brother. Sometimes, even a greater sense of death. Brother, you go to the next place, and I want to tell you this: somewhere down the line, you’re going to end up with a Volkswagen for sure.

Now, brother, you come to that place. You come to that place where there is a sense of life and a sense of peace, but you say, Gene, there are times I just don’t know. I say, brother, that’s the church. You come to some brothers and sisters and say, “I submit myself.” You submit yourself to one another. I’m not clear on something, and you sit there and fellowship the whole thing. You know, while you sit there and fellowship and you’re talking about that big red automobile, there’s just so much sense of death. Even while you’re trying to smile and you’re telling them all the rational good reasons why, you know, and you really are happy up here, and you’re telling them all the good, fine reasons why…there’s a sense of death. Then you keep on talking, and in a minute, it’s like going through a barrier, and it takes you up and all up here. Oh my God. It’s better. You go ahead, fellowshipping with the brothers and just explaining the matter with them. You don’t like it a bit. Oh, I’ll tell you, you’re so sad, and then, all of a sudden, down there, just a little piece. There’s Life.

Now, brothers, if you’re listening, and if you’re a good brother…I don’t mean good brother…if you’re a real brother, you won’t say, “Now, Brother Steve, I just feel like you ought not to have that big red Mach 1.” You don’t do that. You just, Lord, amen. I stand with my brother, Lord. Lord, give him the peace. Lord, give him the Life, and you have a real sense, you may want to share it, but you may not want to share it. You may want to share it, but you have to pay attention to your own self, brother. Don’t be too overbearing, and brother, let me say something else to the others. I’m talking to the others now. If he goes out and buys the Mach 1, brother, you say hallelujah, he’s going to learn the lesson. Praise the Lord. Well, about six weeks later, there’s a great big old dent in that car, and the insurance won’t pay for it, and he’s stuck with $2,000 worth of repairs, and he’s looking at that automobile, and he says, Lord, I should have followed the sense of Life—next time I will. Brother, you win both ways. You win both ways, because you learned the lesson in the church. I should have gone along with the sense I had after talking with my brother. You just, even when you lose, you’re going to win, because God’s going to teach you to go along with the sense you have, either when you’re dealing with the Lord or the sense you have when you’re dealing with brothers and sisters. Praise the Lord. Isn’t that a wonderful God? Hallelujah.

You’re going to know the cross, or you’re going to know the Spirit. You can’t lose, but, brother, listen. You know that for every one of us, there comes a time when we shall say, Lord, you go your way. I’m going to have that Mach 1. And brothers, you fellowship with them, and you know how they feel. You can look in their eyes and see it, and their will just swells up: I’ve got to have it. I’m out of control of myself. I have got to have it. There’s nothing I can do. So, you go have it, brother, and when you do, you’ve had it. You are not going to have peace, and you’ll learn the lesson. Brother, the next time around, you’re a little bit humbler, brother, and you’re a little bit more willing, and you go along. Brother, this is the Life of Christ, and this is the life of the Father. The sense of Life. Isn’t this wonderful?

Alright. We’re going to stop. Listen. Just check. Set your mind on the life and the peace. Find it. If you can’t find it, go to the brothers. Fellowship with it. Fellowship together. Brother, when you come into the meeting, what do you do? You come into the meeting… if you have had any experience in Life this week at all, you walk through that door right there to come into the meeting, brother. You share it just as quickly as you can, or death will set in. Death will set in. You walk through that door…brother, it’s God who’s given you a hymn this week, and you’ve sung, and you’ve been in the Spirit, and there’s been a sense of life and peace. You come in. You open it. If you can’t sing it, read it. Brothers, listen to this. Hallelujah. Praise God. And you just read it to them, and you present life and peace; you present the overcoming life to the body. Another brother says, “Hey, listen, I already got something this week. I went into the variety store, and I was just about to buy such and such, and I had a sense of death.” And I said, ” Well, Lord, then what? This? Oh no, still a sense of death. Huh? Still a sense of death. And so, I said, ” Alright, Lord, I’ll lose. You win. You win.” Hallelujah. And I went out of there through the sense of life in me. Hallelujah. Share it with the church. Brother, when you hear it, say amen. Praise God.

And brother, you sow your life out, and you sow your life out. I’m talking about the Life of the Lord, the highest Life. You sow out your experience of Life, and you sow out your experience of Life, and brothers and sisters, we all feed on the Life of the Lord within us. I feed on the Life of the experience of the Lord you have. You feed on the Life of the experience that I have. I not only get my victory, but I also get your victory. I not only have the Life of the Lord that I’ve experienced, but I also have the Life of the Lord that you have. Praise God. Hallelujah. When we leave the meeting, we’re full of Life…the highest Life in us.

Just a word. We are only beginning. Tonight we begin. Tonight, we really begin. This is the beginning tonight. This afternoon, yesterday, that was preparation. Tonight we begin. Brother, listen. There’s a Life in this universe. It’s higher than my life, and it has nothing in the world to do with me doing good. So, brothers and sisters, leave good alone. It is not – I want to repeat this – it is not a matter of you doing good. Don’t get out here and say, do I do this? Do I do good? Should I do this? Should I do that? Brother, forget the goodness and pay attention to Life. It is a matter of Life, not goodness. And the Life of God in you, which is the incarnation and the being and the characteristic and the essence of good; He will take care of any goodness he needs. Pay attention to the Life. Stop eating from the tree of good, and start eating from the Tree of Life.

There’s a life in this universe. It is a Satanic life. It is a life that is greater than my life, but God put man upon this earth to do battle with Satan. God put man upon this earth to do battle with Satan. And God said, in doing the battle, what do you do? You just eat Life. Just feed on the tree of life, and the more the third-highest life form feeds on the highest Life form…brother, don’t let anybody tease you. Don’t let anybody steal it from you. We are not lower than the angels. We’ve got the Life of God within us. We are higher than the angels. You tell Satan that tomorrow. Satan, I was made a little lower than you, but praise God, I have the highest Life for him in me, and I am higher than you, and I am greater than you, and I am more powerful than you. Get out of here.

There is a Life form in this universe, and it is the highest Life form, and it is Life, and it is peace. Listen, brothers and sisters, there was a life on this earth that walked on this earth, and I want to qualify one word before I go any further. It is not for God to give you, individually, all the characteristics and the power of that Life. I hate to tell you this, but I want you to get clear: all of the Life of God may be in you, but all the glory and the power of God is not in you. But, brother, you’re here, fully, completely there in the body. God does not put it in the individual. He kept it by putting it in the body, and the body learns the headship, and the head controls the whole body, and the head delivers the Life and the power to the body.

I know that here, right now, you’re young, and we had this experience in Tyler. We’ve had this experience with all the young churches, and I want to pass it on to you. You want to see miracles. I’m just waiting to go back. Brother, don’t get sidetracked by that. Listen, you have all of the Lord in you. You know, when a life is conceived within a mother, all that life is there. Science tells us that even if you’re colorblind, when that little seed first begins to be born, the gene and the code that science has found tells us that even colorblindness is there. All the essence is there. And how big is it? It’s like that, right? There’s just a little, bitty life in you, but it’s all of Christ. All that there is of Christ is within you, but it’s a little Life. It’s very small. It’s small; you have all of him, but he has not had his full growth in you. And we meet together for the Lord to grow in us. We need some growth in that life. So, don’t get distracted by miracles and by signs and wonders. What you want to do is to see that Life grows up from the center, and when that life is full and mature, the Lord will trust you. He will trust you, and, you know, at that time, you won’t really care very much.

I just cast this word onto you. I’ve been in mature churches, and mature churches are never categorized by great outward signs and wonders. The mature church just doesn’t fit. That’s for the baby church. That’s for the church that’s gotten off on the wrong foot. Just take, for instance, if I am a very, very, very, very poor man, and if I get a hot dog, and I’m very hungry – I need a hot dog. Well, you ought to have a hot dog. Everybody should have a hot dog. I’ve got a hot dog. Hot dogs are just wonderful, the greatest thing in the world. Everybody ought to have a hot dog. I’m not even sure you can be spiritual without a hot dog. I’ve got a hot dog because I’m so poor, and I haven’t eaten in so long. Oh, last night, somebody got healed. Hallelujah. Praise God. Hot dog. See? It was just a hot dog.

Brother, I’m rich. Every day I eat beef—big old roast. I’m eating my roast. Somebody said, “You want a hot dog?” What’s a hot dog? I’ve got a feast in front of me. Why do I need a hot dog? What’d you have for lunch? I’m not even sure. I didn’t even notice. I was just eating. That’s all I know. I just ate something. I don’t know what it was. Maybe it was pork. Maybe it was beef. Maybe it was fish. I don’t know what I was eating. I don’t. It’s no bother to me, but this is what I’m going to do. Brother, you know, when we’re going around, hey, let’s have a miracle. Brother, we’re just poor. We’re just poor. We want to see the power of God because we’ve seen so little of the power of God.