Hope for Something New

An intimate time of reflection between you and God.

“God wants your anger, suspicion, depression, aggression, frustration, bitterness, laziness, procrastination… Chiiillleee, God wants your truth, whatever it may be!”
― Sarah Jakes Roberts

God is saying to you today:
“Don’t give up. I know you’ve been under so much pressure. I know you’ve felt overwhelmed. You are so close to your breakthrough. My word is final, so get up and stand in faith. It’s not over.”

I promise we wouldn’t be here long.
So I’m gonna pray and uh share with you what God gave to me.
Um Let me read it and then I’ll pray. I’m in second Corinthians verse 12.
Uh This is the N I V version and it says therefore, since we have such a hope, we are very bold, we are not like Moses who put a veil over his face to prevent the Israelites from seeing the end of what was passing away.
But their minds were made dull for to this day, the same veil remains when the old covenant is read, it has not been removed because only in Christ is it taken away.
Even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts.
But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.
Now the Lord is the spirit and where the spirit of the Lord is there is freedom.
And we all who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory are being transformed into his image with ever increasing glory from glory to glory, which comes from the Lord who is the spirit, holy Spirit.
Hey, you, we need you been doing it without you, but don’t want to Holy Spirit.
We’ve been on autopilot showing up for everyone else.
But now in this moment, we’re asking that you would help us show up for you that you would open our hearts to receive this sacred intimate encounter.
That can only happen when your presence falls in a room and the Holy Spirit, we invite your presence into this room and into the homes and the offices and cars of everyone who’s watching online and Holy Spirit as you fall.
May we be open? May we dare to be vulnerable so that we can experience the freedom that you desire to give us?
I thank you in advance that when this night is over, we won’t just have hope, but we’ll have freedom.
I thank you in advance that there’s gonna be some point in this message where chains are broken and strongholds come down and we won’t be able to tell what happened.
We’ll just know that your spirit fell.
And so Holy Spirit, we make room for you have way as only you can do to the extent that lives would be changed and transformed and that hope would become our anchor in Jesus name.
Amen. Amen. Thank you, Cokie.
I um a few years ago, I went to go get my eyebrows micro bladed.
There was like this huge trend um for those of us where our eyebrow follicles, God was like, I’m gonna just take the day off.
I just, I’m gonna skip that part.
If I have time, I’ll come back to it and I guess he started working on y’all and he just didn’t get a chance to come back to my eyebrows.
So I went and got my eyebrows micro bladed and you get them done.
And for those of you who don’t know, it’s supposed to be semi permanent, it’s very much so given permanent at this point.
So if y’all could pray for me, because now I’m worried that my eyebrow is gonna be up here, but as I age, my face is gonna be down here.
But um yeah, be in prayer for me.
So you get them done um one time and it’s like a semi permanent tattoo with little hair follicles.
I was desperate, don’t judge me.
And um then you go back and you get a touch up in like two weeks and then after two weeks, you go back and you get a touch up in like a year.
I went to go get them done the first time and the lady who was doing it, she’s like an overall aesthetician med lady.
And the first time she was like, have you ever thought about getting your, your moles removed?
And I was like, I didn’t even realize I had mold and she was like, yeah, you’ve got them here as you age, you’ll probably get a little bigger, just something to think about.
Then I go back for the two week touch up and during the two weeks touch up, she was like, have you ever thought about laser hair removal?
Because you could probably use it. I was like, girl, I’m getting hair eed onto my face.
No, I ain’t thought about no laser hair removal.
Every time I went back, she was showing me something new, some new area of my face or of my body that could get worked on cool sculpting.
She was like, do you have any trouble areas? It just won’t go away. I was like, I do.
But why is that your business?
And um we’re having this dialogue and then one day she asked me, she was like, you know, well, now I’m, I’m reading stuff.
I’m gonna be honest with you.
I wanna tell you, I’m all confident in my body and I wasn’t thinking about her, but I, I did a little research because I just wanted to know what some of the options were.
So, you know, I didn’t got micro needled and micro derma braids.
And every time I go in there, she’s giving me something different.
And then she was like, what about like filler or Botox? And I was like, what about it?
And she starts telling me what it does for your skin.
And she was like, I’m gonna tell you if you need Botox and she was like, let me, let me see your angry face.
And I’m like, and she was like, yeah, uh-huh.
And she was like, let me see you smile and I was like, and um so she saw me smile and she was like, you don’t really need Botox yet, you know, but you might need it later because the lines will stay in your face.
And um I know you guys have never thought about these types of things, but here I am just sharing my life, but I have to tell you, you know, I, when I go into the mirror every now and then I do the Botox check just to see what I’m working with.
I’m not committed to whether or not I’m gonna get it.
I just wanna see if what she said is where I am.
And so, um you know, I noticed though that the more I had this encounter with her, the more that we continue to have conversation, I would go home and start looking at my face and my body differently.
Any time I faced her, I would go back and it would change the perspective I had about myself.
There was something about this interaction that changed my perspective and my perception which made me realize not only has this happened to me when it comes to physical stuff, but I feel like that same face to face transfer has happened to me when I was staring down shame when I was staring down pain, disappointment.
When doctor Anita posted her flyer about avoiding your emotions or not an act of faith.
I was like, I don’t, I don’t know about that.
You know, I know she’s a doctor, she went to school, she’s done the research. It’s probably true, you know.
But I think I’ve spent so long avoiding my emotions that the idea of looking at them face to face and allowing the thoughts that have come as a result of staring at those emotions, face to face, feels so overwhelming.
So I thought I wasn’t facing them.
But the truth is even in avoiding them, it was still showing up in my life.
So I would not look at the shame. I would not look at the guilt.
I would not look at the fear, but I would make decisions based off of the reality of me knowing that it was there, it dictated relationship choices, it dictated whether or not I thought it was possible for me to share my voice, whether or not I was smart enough to do whatever I was called to do.
A lot of us are too religious and maybe we’re a little too private to admit it.
But there are many of us who have stared down and looked face to face with shame, with pain, with rejection, with abandonment, with low self esteem and insecurity.
And it has changed the way we see ourselves. That’s the beauty of when women come together.
I don’t have to know your story to know that if you’re a woman in this room more than likely you have experienced something that makes you question your worth or your value.
We glance at fearfully and wonderfully made but we stare down. Nobody will ever want you.
We glance at God doesn’t make any mistakes and all things are working together for your good.
But we glance at that, but what we really stare at are the pain spots and the damages and the thoughts that have taken place in our own minds that have kept us from really accessing the glory that would give us breakthrough.
As I was studying for this message, I was thinking about the many ways that we end up locking in on something and how it changes us.
We get frustrated with people who don’t leave relationships who won’t just change their mind.
We get frustrated with ourselves when we have a goal, we have a mission, but I just can’t give myself permission to do it.
I just can’t step out on faith. I just can’t guarantee that if I do it, I won’t fail.
So I don’t do it at all and we’re locked in on this perspective.
But as I was praying tonight about what God could do in this room, I was feeling like God wanted us to actually take inventory of what we’re locked in on.
What are the paradigms? What are the perceptions?
What are the belief systems that we have locked in on that are keeping us from experiencing hope whether or not I’m better off avoiding it.
And so in the, in the action of avoiding it, I’m not able to actually experience hope.
I’m not actually to get the breakthrough to get the breakthrough that I need because I won’t face it at all.
We have an opportunity in this room to be honest about what’s keeping us confined and what’s keeping us limited.
I know how to lock it, lock eyes on something and get things done.
I think that’s what part that is.
What is part of making a woman so powerful is that a woman knows how to lock down and get things done, whether it’s cooking a meal, working multiple jobs, taking care of the Children.
When a woman has decided that she’s gonna lock eyes on something, she’s gonna get it done.
The only struggle is that most of us don’t know how to have that level of confrontation with the obstacles that are existing within us.
We know how to go to war for everyone else.
We know how to show up and be strong for other people.
But when it’s time for us to actually lock in on what’s happening inside of us to go to war with that insecurity, to go to war with that shame to go to war with that fear.
We end up finding ourselves afraid because we don’t trust that we have what it takes to actually come out on the other side.
But as I was praying tonight, I felt like God was saying that you’ve been staring at that insecurity, you’ve been staring at that shame.
But if you’re really gonna experience breakthrough, you’re gonna have to stare it down. What does that mean?
If you’re gonna stare it down?
God told me that you’re gonna keep looking at it until the greater is He that is in you begins to get stirred up and it begins to shrink as a result of what’s taking place inside of you.
I heard God say that a woman has the ability to stare something down if she doesn’t mind actually turning to it and recognizing that she has authority over it.
Sometimes we’re staring at things, asking it for a reflection of who we are not realizing that when it’s time for us to confront something, we have something to release, we have a declaration, we have a hope that can be released.
And if we are not releasing the hope over shame, if we’re not releasing hope over our anxiety, if we’re not releasing hope over what we’ve been through, then we are experience restriction where there can be breakthrough.
And I heard God saying that the breakthrough that many of us need is gonna happen in our mouths.
That’s why it was so powerful that Doctor Anita and I didn’t even talk about hope coming.
It’s not that I don’t have anything to say to hope.
It’s that I have been too afraid that if I say it to, if I say it to my fear, if I say it to my anxiety, then it’ll backfire on me and I don’t have enough of what it takes.
But I heard God saying, all I need you to do is open your mouth.
Because if you open your mouth and begin to prophesy, that’s how your hope begins to become magnified.
You may have to whisper it at first, but it’s gonna end up becoming a roar.
I hear God saying that your hope has vocal chords and if your hope has vocal chords and you haven’t used it in a long time when you first say it, it may come out as a whisper.
But if you keep on declaring it, your voice is gonna get strong enough.
I hear God saying that somebody’s fear is strong. Somebody’s insecurity is strong.
Somebody’s inadequacy is strong because that is the voice that you keep on using.
But I hear God saying it’s time for you to turn down the microphone on that so that you and start exercising the voice of hope that is down on the inside of you.
So when somebody says hope comes, they were just saying something that someone told you to repeat.
But when someone else said it, they were saying it with power and authority and making a decree about what they must see happen in their life.
You see you get your yourself backed up in a corner and you start making a declaration about what must happen in your life.
I’ve gotta see hope in this situation. I demand that I see hope in this situation.
And until I can see where hope is, I’m gonna make sure that hope is here because hope is gonna be coming out of my mouth.
Everyone else can talk bad about the child, but I got hope coming out of my mouth, everyone else can talk bad about the ministry.
But I got hope coming out of my mouth because if God has placed me in it, God is counting on me to release, hope you are in this city because you have a hope to release.
You’re at that job because you have a hope to release and you gotta be careful who you’re in conversation with because who you stare down, you’ll start reflecting.
But when you walk into a space and say I already have a mission when I’m in here, I’m not asking you to tell me who I am.
I know why God sent me if I’m here and it’s only for a moment.
It’s because I’ve got hope to release in a moment.
And if God moves me somewhere else, it’s because I got hope to be released somewhere else.
Christ in you, the hope, the hope of glory, you wanna see glory, but you want it to come from the outside.
And I hear God saying that if you wanna really experience glory.
It’s gonna come from the Christ and you being awakened in the midst of what’s happening.
Do you know we must not know who our God is when we are in these situations?
We start thinking that the fear is bigger than our God, that the rejection is bigger than our God, that the heartbreak is bigger than our God.
That the grief is bigger than our God.
And I hear God saying that if you believe that, then you cannot release the glory.
That will help that thing shrink, that will help you navigate that and walk through it in a way that gives you courage for your next assignment.
Hope come, hope come, hope come, hope, come into my finances. Hope come into my self esteem.
Hope come into my confidence. Hope come into my parenting. Hope come in.
I wanna break a generational curse but I’m growing weary. But if hope comes, I’ll grow stronger.
I wanna do something that’s never been seen before in my community and nobody else believes in me.
But if hope just comes to me, God can download enough hope in you that it changes the way everyone starts looking at the way things have been done because one person had permission to have hope.
I wanna give somebody in this room just 10 seconds to be the hope that you need to see in your situation, to be the hope that you want, wanna see in your finances to be the hope that you wanna see in your role.
If nobody else got it, I’ll take on the mission. So God, I open up myself wherever there’s fear.
God replace it with hope, wherever there’s doubt, Lord replace it with hope. God.
I don’t know how you’re gonna do it, but I’m hoping that it’s gonna be done.
And this is not no wishful thinking. This is a demand on who you are.
I have hope in you, Jesus.
I have hope in the glory that can still be experienced in spite of the grief that I’ve gone through.
I’ve got hope that you’re gonna work it out. I got hope that you’re gonna set me free.
I got hope that this won’t be the end.
I got hope that I’m gonna come out on the other side and when I get out on the other side that I’m gonna thank God that I survived what I went through and I’m gonna testify about how I needed what I went through to become who I am right now.
It only happens with hope. I got hope. I got hope. I got hope. I got hope. I got hope.
I got hope. I got hope. I got hope. I know it’s out of, but I got hope.
I know everyone is giving up. But I got hope.
I know there’s a recession but I’m starting the business anyway because I got hope I’m going after the house anyway.
Because I got hope that I’ve never seen the righteous forsaken. That’s just not a scripture. That’s a declaration.
That’s a promise that you can bet on. I’m betting on you.
I’m betting on you, God, I’m believing in you. God.
I’m asking that you would stir up the gift of God on the inside of these women that they would not be waiting for.
Hope to just come to them, but that they would allow the hope to grow in them.
So when the hope grows in them, it overflows to every woman connected to him. I got generational hope.
I got the kind of hope that can my mother free and the kind of hope that would grab my niece and help her get free too.
I got hope for a nation. I got hope for an industry. I’ve got hope for my city. What’s up?
That was what we came to do, baby.
I got hope for what the women in this city could do if we decided that there ain’t a devil in hell that can come up against a woman who’s anchored in.
Hope. I’m gonna be honest with you.
God told me if you have had you live, I’ll turn those cities upside down.
God told me if you have, hey, you live, I’ll turn the cities upside down and say God, cities are going crazy.
It’s all on the news every single day. God, what’s the answer? God says? Just get the women together.
Because if you get the women together, you get every community. If you get the women together, you get families.
If you get the women together you, that’s why the attack has been on the woman.
That’s why the serpent went for the woman. Because if he gets the woman, he can get the man.
And if the enemy gets you, he can get everything connected to you.
But if a woman gets bold enough to say you may have had me but you gotta let me go because I feel my hope coming.
I feel my hope coming. I feel my strength coming back.
I feel like something’s about to break off for me.
And when it breaks off for me, I hope it breaks off for you too.
And when it breaks off for her, I hope it breaks off of the woman next to you because we got something to do and it’s gonna take a woman to get it done.
It’s gonna take a while and, and get it done because a woman is a birther and she’s a nurturer and she knows how to take hope, even a seed of hope.
Oh That’s why you couldn’t get in the room because if you messed around and got a seed of hope, you may start talking crazy in the middle of your circumstances.
I may be in the dark but I am not without hope.
I may be lost and confused but I am not without hope.
Hope can exist in the middle of the fire.
Hope can exist when I’m under fire, hope can keep going and I can keep moving because hope is on the way.
Help. Oh God, God, if you would open up the windows of heaven over this place, I believe that you would pour out a blessing that we don’t have room enough to receive a blessing of hope that we don’t have room enough to receive an overflow of hope.
God. I’m praying for every woman who came into this room empty.
I hear hope saying, hey, you, we’re not finished yet. Hey, you don’t you dare give up.
Hey, you, we still got work to do. Hey, you, I can still use that.
Hey, you, I know you ashamed. But what you’re ashamed of.
God sees as a tool, that thing you’re running from.
God says I can use it, staring down, staring down with hope, staring down with faith.
Stare it down with boldness. I’m gonna go after that house. I’m gonna get my heart together.
I’m gonna stare this thing down. I’m tired of letting it control me.
I’m tired of allowing it to define me.
I’m about to stare it down and release hope in a way that changes who you knew.
I don’t know if you came in here by yourself or if you came in here with a friend.
But I’m trying to let you know that who you came in with is not who you’re leaving with because who I am when I am depleted versus who I am.
When I have hope she a bad girl baby, she starts secreting a thing in the earth.
She’s a bad girl baby. She starts running up against devils. She’s a bad girl baby.
She starts believing she could break a generational curse and show God that it’ll never happen again.
That baby starts prophesying. That woman starts moving. That woman starts dreaming that woman starts prophesying.
Oh hope, healing, hoping for healing, hoping for deliverance, hoping for a generation to be saved.
I’m hoping for things that I’m not even willing to put in the words and because the power of life and death is in the tongue, all of your secret quiet hopes going to have to start being spoken out.
You’re gonna have to own that hope not campaign for it, not take votes for it, but your hope it’s gonna have to reach your lips and you’re gonna have to start walking and speaking and moving with hope.
It’s not a secret hope and may be bold for where you came from.
It may be bold for the age you’re in.
It may be bold compared to what you’ve been up against.
But if you keep it buried, how can it ever breathe man?
And I was studying for this message, y’all can stand up.
We about to go. I promise when I was studying for this message, I was reading in this scripture and second Corinthians, the scripture I shared it was talking about how Moses would put a veil over his face as the glory was beginning to fade.
No one really knows why he put the veil over his face.
There are theologians who suggest different things.
But one of the most prominent thoughts is that he would put a veil over his face so that people wouldn’t see that the glory that he had experienced on the mountain top when he had an encounter with God was fading away.
I believe that God highlighted this scripture for me because so many of us have put veils over our face so that no one sees that the glory is fading away, that the hope that it can happen.
The hope that we’re chosen, the hope that we can write it, the hope that we can produce it, the hope that we can be saved, the hope that it will be broken is beginning to fade.
And in the same text we have Paul who says, we don’t have to do that.
He doesn’t say that they don’t have to do it because their glory never fades.
Paul says, we don’t have to do that because with Christ, we can always get a hope refill.
So I don’t have to worry about it fading away.
I just gotta be courageous enough to turn to the Lord with an unveiled face.
Why you don’t have to get yourself together before you come to the Lord, you can take the veil off and say I, I’m confused but I’m changing what I’m looking at.
I don’t wanna be face to face with the confusion.
I don’t wanna be face to face with the shame anymore.
I wanna be face to face with you with the spirit of the Lord because where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
I always thought that the scripture where it says from glory to glory to glory was about levels like stairs.
But in the context of the scripture, I began to wonder, is it about the transfer of what happens when my face sees his face and now the little bit of glory that’s in me and there’s a glory to glory, to glory, to glory, to glory and maybe I am elevated because I keep my face searching for his glory.
And everyone else wonders, how does she keep getting promoted?
And everyone else wonders how come she didn’t lose her mind?
And everyone else wonders how could she be crap clapping and, and still rejoicing after all she’s been through and everyone else wonders how could she still be effective?
And they’re looking at you? But they don’t see that you looking at him and there’s an exchange happening.
There’s a glory to glory, to glory, to glory. I’m not just taking care of the kids and packing lunches.
It’s glory to glory for me.
It’s glory to glory and whatever it is we face, we make an exchange with.
So if you can be honest about what you’ve been looking at and dare to turn your face to say, well, God, who am I with you?
I’ve been facing off with relationship after relationship, rejection after rejection.
But I’m taking my face back because I wanna see glory to glory, to glory and I want the glory to lead me and I want the glory to guide me before we go.
I’m gonna, I’m gonna read this real fast.
Don’t, don’t sit down on me, don’t sit down on me.
Uh The reason why I chose this scripture is because verse 18 says, and we are who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, contemplate it.
If we just think about the Lord’s glory, we are being ever transformed into his image with ever increasing glory.
So the more I think about the Lord’s glory and transformed into his image, that’s that transfer we were talking about.
So before we go, I want every woman in this room to take a moment and think about just one area.
I know there are many where you have experienced the Lord’s glory.
Let’s just think about that for a minute.
I want to contemplate about experiencing and Gloria, I shouldn’t have that job.
I didn’t think I’d survive that heartbreak. God.
I think I made it to the other side, Lord, your glory.
It showed up when no one else would show up for me.
I saw your glory in the midst of it all.
When everyone walked away from me, you sent that one person to come and look at me and with that glory in your heart.
I want you to stare at the woman beside you.
I want you to look at that woman and let her experience your glory and you experience her glory.
You don’t have to know everything she went through to know that she’s probably gonna need to borrow from that glory that you experienced.
Just stare at her and let your eyes testify that the glory can put a heart back together.
Let your eyes testify that single mothers can get it done.
Let your eyes testify that divorce is not the end.
Let your eyes testify that God will get in the midst of a suicidal, not just a thought, a suicidal attempt and thwarted and you will be standing in a room that you didn’t even think you wanted to be in.
But God’s glory showed up in the midst of it.
All that God’s glory can still bring you to a place of healing after pain and molestation and grief.
Glory to glory. Glory to glory girl. I’m telling you.
He got you glory to glory girl.
I’m telling you that you’re gonna make it on the other side of this. From glory to glory.
Let me tell you baby that I was broke as a joke. But from glory to glory.
I’m telling you that he is a way maker from glory to glory.
Let me tell you that he can save that child from glory to glory.
Let me tell you that there’s still life in your fifties and it gets even better in your sixties from glory to glory.
Let me tell you your beautiful glory to glory.
Let me tell you you are not damaged goods from glory to glory.
Let me tell you, you are fearfully and wonderfully made from glory to glory.
Let me tell you that loneliness is not the end from glory to glory.
Let me tell you, there is no dream that is too big for God from glory to glory.
Let me tell you that no weapon formed against you will prosper.
You wanna know how I know because the weapons were formed, but the glory wouldn’t let them prosper from glory to glory.
Let me tell you the generation curses were broken because they were flowing in my life.
But the glory stopped them in their tracks.
And so when you leave this place, I want you to leave with my hope and your hope because you got glory to inhabit.
You got glory to release in the earth, you got glory to release in your city.
And that glory is gonna come from the power of God coming alive on the inside of you.
So spirit of the living God, I speak, resurrecting power over these women of the living God, I speak to the dark places in their heart.
And I say glory, glory, glory, glory, glory, glory, glory, glory, glory, glory, glory, glory, fill them with your spirit.
As only you can do. Holy Spirit fall like fresh fire until that woman burns again, until that woman dreams again.
Until that woman has peace again. Until that woman has love again.
Holy spirit, holy spirit, freedom, liberty, peace, joy, breakthrough spirit of the living God on the inside of her, bringing back everything she thought was dead.
Spirit of the living God, breathing inside of her, giving her words.
When she walks into the room, spirit up the living God, chase her out of this room.
Spirit up the living God, wait for her in that car.
Spirit of the living God, go ahead of her, go behind her and help her reconcile her path.
Swear up the living God, let hope arise and let her enemies be scattered. Spirited up the living God.
We come up against Principalities, we come up against demonic plans.
We come up against trauma and pain and we say all things are working together for the good of those who are called to his, who love the Lord and are called according to his purpose.
And you were created to allow the Christ in you to be the hope of glory and you were created to let the Christ in you be the hope of glory.
So don’t let you get in the way of what you’re called to do.
Don’t let you get in the way of what you can release.
So I come up against her and her small way of thinking and her small way of being and the way that she stays restricted when she’s called to be free break, chain break, chain breaks, chain break, chain, break, chain break, chain, God, let your glory fall and made the weight of your glory.
Break every chain in the name above all names and the name that makes enemies tatters in the name in which every tongue shall confess and every knee shall bow.
If I was calling on my name, we would have a problem.
But because I’m calling on the name of Jesus that has already defeated death itself.
When I say Jesus, a woman will be set free in the and name in the name and the name and the name and the name and the matchless name in the way maker name and the can’t secure a name and the heartbreak healing name in the name in the name of Jesus birth.
That ministry in the name of Jesus show up for those babies in the name of Jesus, believe that you can walk away from your past and no longer be ashamed in the name of Jesus, believe that you have been qualified in the name of Jesus.
Step into the call in the name of Jesus.
Do it with boldness and do it with confidence because you’re what he’s counting on.
Put your hand on the shoulder of the woman beside you just say, hey, you, how are you?
You gotta say, hey, you because that’s not the same girl. You were sitting beside just a minute ago.
You got to introduce yourself. Hey, you, I’m proud of you.
I believe in you. I’m hoping for you.
God’s got you and I got you. I’m gonna pray for you.
I’m gonna cover you and I’m gonna grow for you and we gonna make hell nervous in Jesus name.
Amen.