Priscilla Shirer: YOUR Victory Starts Here

Holiness keeps the enemy at bay to where when he comes looking around for some people that he can infiltrate some up sound inside down environments that he can fester him.
He can’t find that with me or with you because we’ve chosen right side up living aligning ourselves with the truth of God breastplates in place, securing us against the schemes of the enemy.
Holiness is your breastplate. There’s one other piece of armor I couldn’t get by without talking to you about it for a few moments.
Y’all still awake. Everybody gain. It’s in verse 14, he says, put on a breastplate called what?
Righteousness? Righteousness Jerry.
And I live in a fairly rural part of Dallas Fort Worth.
We like it that way close enough to the city. We can get there quick but it’s quiet and lazy.
We live on a little two lane, sleepy road.
Somebody’s got some horses over there, there’s some cows over there and one of my closest friends lives across the street.
That’s why we like it because she’s got a pond in the front of her property.
So I’ll get the boys and the two fishing poles I bought on sale at the local Walmart.
I have a tackle box to that.
I got on sale there cause you know, we need things, we need extra hooks because the boys always lose the hooks, extra barber thingies, you know, because we need extras of those also have gloves in the tackle box because y’all know I don’t mind going fishing, but I ain’t gonna actually touch no fish.
So we walk across the street with whatever hot dog meat we’ve got left from the week because you know, we’re professional fishermen.
So our hot dog meat is our bait.
We walk across the street, we stand in this little cove underneath some trees and we fish just right there.
Most of the time, just little sun perch, stuff like that. We can catch quick in an hour.
We can catch like 10 or 12 fish just a little quick, easy, little fishing trip every now and then though, I’m feeling adventurous.
What that means is is that we will get into my friend’s little rowboat they bought on Craigslist.
It’s metal. It’s not a big deal. It’s just a little, it’s seaworthy. It can hold us up.
That’s all we need. I’ll swim, we’ll grow out into the middle and we’ll fish from there every now and then.
But I always think twice before I do it.
And here’s the reason because in order to get in it, we first have to turn it over, they leave it upside down as they should to drain water while nobody’s using it.
So I got to turn it over to get in it.
And what I do know for sure is that when I turn this thing over, something is either gonna hop out from underneath it, someone’s gonna waddle out from underneath it or worst of all, something’s gonna slither Out from underneath that boat because the environment under there is moist and damp and perfect for critters.
Do you know what I’ve noticed?
Every single time we turned it over, something comes out and never once have I had to write a golden sealed invitation and send it into the brush nearby to invite the critters to come and join us at 1:00 today.
You’re welcome. Never once have I had to invite them because the environment created by the upside down boat is invitation enough.
Righteousness is right side up living that invites the sunlight of God’s favor and blessing upon your life.
Unrighteous nous is upside down behavior that is out of alignment with the truth of God that you’ve been sitting underneath for the last few days.
It’s behavior that is out of alignment with the truth of God to where you don’t have to invite the enemy and come and make himself at home in your life.
You just keep living upside down and the environment created by upside down behavior is invitation enough.
Listen to me, you can pray against the enemy till you’re blue in the face.
But if you and I leave passion and we do not walk in holiness.
We do not live in a lifestyle that is in alignment with the truth of God.
We will have wasted our breath in prayer. Paul says somebody’s gotta live right.
It’s flat out, straight up holiness, it’s holiness.
It’s a word that our, our grandmothers and our grandfathers back in the good old days when you went to church and you sat on a wooden pew.
It’s before some churches became so pre seeker sensitive. Remember y’all, I went, listen, I’m off track.
Listen, I went to a church and they said we are a pre seeker sensitive church.
And so we actually want to sort of uh in a way they said dull down the actual literal name of Jesus just so we can get people in first.
Then we will, we will be more direct later on.
I said, oh, you have invited the wrong person because there used to be a day and time where it was just black and white where there were fewer gray areas and tolerance.
Yes, come as you are, but don’t stay as you are holiness, brothers and sisters.
I implore you by the mercies of God to walk in a manner worthy of this calling by which you have been called that every bit of truth that you have received this weekend to align your lifestyle to it, to not determine that you will still dig your heels into the ground and live immorally or speak immorally or do the things, habits and lifestyles and choices and relationships that you know, are outside of alignment with the truth of God.
Turn the boat right side up so that you can invite the favor of God on your life.
The Apostle Paul says, righteousness is your breastplate. The Roman army in the first century.
They had many pieces of armor as you know, but the breastplate would have been one of the most critical.
The reason why was because it obviously protected the most vital organ. They had their heart.
The heart is the lifeline for your physical well being, all of the blood flow, the vitality, the energy that you need to function in every level of your life comes from the vitality of your physical heart.
What the physical heart is to the physical life.
Your spiritual heart is to your spiritual life, all of the vitality, the energy that you need to be who God has created you to be, to have fervency in your prayer life, to follow Him with passion and with fire, to read the Bible and, and not just be ink on a page, but you hear his voice speaking to you to have clear reception between you and the Holy Spirit.
You need a vital spiritual heart.
That’s why if I were your enemy more than all else, I’d be after your heart because one shot to the spiritual heart will wipe you out.
Your spiritual heart is comprised of four things, your mind, the way you think your emotions, the way you feel your ambitions, what you purpose to do and your conscience, your conscience is not the voice of God, but your conscience is like this wiring that helps this microphone amplify my voice.
The conscience is the microphone that the Holy Spirit uses to help you hear the voice of God.
So if I were your enemy, I’d be after your heart because if I could get to your heart, that would mean I would have automatic access to your mind.
Now, I could tinker with your thinking. I’d have automatic access to your emotions.
I can mess with the way you feel and make sure they’re out of alignment with the truth of God.
I can mess with your ambitions to wear.
What you wanna do is totally out of alignment with what God wants you to do and more than all else, I’d want to make it sure I have a shot to your heart so that I can short circuit the wires between you and the Holy Spirit.
Now, you can’t even hear God speak to you because you didn’t have a breastplate on the apostle.
Paul says holiness is your breastplate. Holiness blocks you from a full frontal attack of the enemy.
Holiness keeps the enemy at bay to where when he comes looking around for some people that he can infiltrate some up sound inside down environments that he can fester him.
He can’t find that with me or with you because we’ve chosen right side up living aligning ourselves with the truth of God breast place in place, securing us against the schemes of the enemy holiness.
Is your breastplate. I came to tell you to live right?
I came to tell you not to just have heard all of this to go home and live in accordance with it.
Be ye holy, not by your power, not by your might, but by the spirit of God.
There is no relationship you’re in that.
If it is out of alignment with the truth of God, that the Holy Spirit Himself won’t help you to sever so that you can walk in holiness.
There is no lifestyle you’re living that is too, that you’re too wound up in that you can’t break free from no matter how you feel in this moment, you can walk in holiness.
There is no the way you have been speaking, no addiction that you have no habit that you have been festering in your life that you have been harboring in your life, that the Holy Spirit won’t empower you to break free from so that you can walk underneath the banner, the favor of holiness in your life.
Be ye holy. Y’all listen, listen back in our grandmama and our grandparents days, great grandparents.
They wanted to honor God more than they wanted to impress people.
See the problem with Instagram and Twitter and social media.
If there’s a problem, you all the problem is we want this, we want to be impressive.
And if I’m worried for our generation, it is that we are impressive, but we don’t have breastplates on it is that we have the applause of people and our selfies are perfectly lit and we have a whole bunch of friends and a whole bunch of Instagram likes and people are following us and the enemy is thrilled because we have sacrificed holiness on the altar of impressing people.
You gotta live for the applause of heaven.
You gotta decide I will not be politically correct before I will choose to be holy.
I will not be impressive before I will choose to be holy.
I may not be the person that everybody wants to be around. I may not be the most impressive.
But what I will be as holy because the time is coming y’all where we’re gonna see our savior face to face.
And when we see him, he will not ask us how many Instagram followers we had.
He will not ask us how many friends liked our post.
He will not want to see the selfies that we took. When we see him face to face.
He’s gonna ask us, did we do business with his son Jesus Christ?
And then, and then we’re gonna give an account and I don’t know about y’all but I’m looking for well done.
I want a well done.
I want Jesus to look at me and say you did the thin girl, not because they bought the books, they bought the Bible study, they saw the movie.
No, you did the thing because you honored me.
Whether with an audience of one or an audience of 30,000, you honored me.
I came to tell you brothers and sisters walk with integrity.
Be in the dark who you are in the light.
Everything that your God has entrusted to you over these last few days, the enemy does not mind.
He doesn’t like, but he doesn’t mind that you heard him? He didn’t mind. You came here.
What he minds is if you leave here and live by what you heard.