How to Prosper Where You Are: Vision

Cleaned from the live recording. Lightly edited for reading.

Start with vision before you count the cost

Good morning. Thank you very much, worshippers, this morning.

It's my task to share on counting the cost. But before I start with counting the cost, I want to continue a little from Thursday evening. I want to go back to us having a vision, because it will be difficult to count the cost if you don't know where you're heading or what you're trying to achieve.

You ever start saving? You have a goal. You're saying, before the year is out, I need a certain amount on my bank account. You started January, you started well. February, you were going well. March, you were going well. And somewhere around April you realize you're missing some things. You weren't able to go into KFC or Church's. You weren't able to go to the movies, because you had to cut out some things from your life.

You saw a nice dress that you really wanted, or a cologne, a perfume, and you decided, I must have this. So you went and you withdrew from the bank account. And then you say to yourself, why do I work so hard to struggle like this? So June, you decide you're going to treat yourself. July, you decide you're going to treat some friends. And then December, you realize there's nothing on the account.

You started well, but your whole intention was just to put some money on the account. It's different if you said to yourself, I'm saving for a land. I'm saving for a car. I'm saving for something that I can see, something tangible. You set a vision. There's something before you. So when you're about to buy the cologne, you say to yourself, no, the vision is greater. The vision is greater than the dress that you want to buy. The vision is greater than Church's chicken this month. After all, I'm still eating chicken at home. It's just a different seasoning on the chicken at these fast food places, and a little more fat.

You must have a vision.

Put the right destination in the GPS

How many of you use the GPS or Waze when you're driving? Why do you use it? To chart a path to where you want to go, where you want to end up. If you put in a wrong destination, what will happen? It will direct you to the wrong place. You ever put in a location and while you're driving you're saying, this thing is taking me somewhere else? It keeps rerouting me.

Where do you want to end up in the next three years? What do you want to accomplish in the next five years? In the next 10 years?

A lot of Christians, when you ask them those kinds of questions, it's like when you ask Claude or ChatGPT a question and you get back the answer and you're vexed with the answer. It wasn't the reply they gave you. It was what you put into it. What you asked it, how you primed it.

I'm saying this because many Christians, when you ask them where do you want to be in the next three years, five years, 10 years, they say to you, "God knows. Whatever God wants. I want to be in the will of God." Have you ever made that statement before? It sounds real nice. It sounds real religious. And many times God wants to know where you got it from.

He said to Abraham, "Go, leave your father's house, and go to a land that I will show you" (Genesis 12:1). You hear him? A land that he will show him.

"Whatever God wills"

Many of us will say, "I want what God wants."

I remember Prophet Frank ministering to a young woman in the assembly here, and he asked her, "Do you want to be married?" She said, "If God wills." He asked her again, "Do you want to be married?" She gave the same reply.

These are the kind of things we do as Christians, and then we get nowhere in life and we blame God 10, 15 years after.

What do you want? Imagine Elijah asking Elisha, "What do you want?" (2 Kings 2:9) and Elisha saying, "Whatever the Lord wills." Jesus asked blind Bartimaeus, "What do you want?" (Mark 10:51) And he said, "Whatever the Lord wills"? No. Some Christians lack vision, lack wisdom. If any man lack wisdom, do what? Ask, and he'll give you liberally (James 1:5). So if you lack wisdom, and somebody asks you what do you want, and you say, whatever God wills... You there with me?

What do you want?

Where there is no vision

Can I have Proverbs 29:18? Please give me the ESV first.

"Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint" (Proverbs 29:18, ESV).

Remember what I was saying. When you just say, I want to have something in the bank for the end of the year, and you don't have a plan or a vision, what happens? March, you start to throw off restraint. You start to cut into the savings. You don't want to eat curry only with potato or eddo. You don't want to cut the chicken fine no more. It must be fat.

I know some of you look at me saying, "Pastor, this is this year. This is not 10 years ago, 20 years ago." But even large organizations, trillion-dollar organizations, when they have goals, they forecast. You see, they will sometimes lay off tens of thousands of staff, cutting costs, tightening their waist, because there's a profit margin they're planning to target. And if you're in the way as an employee of them getting there, they cut you, let you go, in this modern time.

And we must be willing in our life, if there are things that are hindering us or pulling us back from getting where we should be, we need to get rid of it.

"Where there is no prophetic vision the people cast off restraint, but blessed is he who keeps the law." Tell your neighbor, it's still a blessing to obey and keep the word of the Lord.

Prophetic vision is forecasting

I want to share a little there on prophetic vision. Forecasting.

How many persons do trading in here? Forex trading. Not that kind of trading. Online trading. You must be able to predict the market. You must know when to buy. You must know when to sell. To do that, some of the software will help you by gathering news articles or trending issues that may affect the markets, to help you predict a future outcome.

As Christians, God will either minister to us by the Spirit, because we are sons of God, or he will show us through a dream his intended future, the planned destination, what we should be achieving. Or he may use someone else who flows in the revelatory gifts to say to you, this is what God is planning for you. This is what he's called you to do. This is his intention for your life.

How many of you ever had a prophetic word from a prophet or a prophetic person that said to you, this is God's outcome for your life? One, two, three, four. So many of you don't know God's outcome for your life.

Life in a circle

When you don't know that, many times as Christians our life goes round in a circle. Four years down the line you're saying, "Wow, I had millions of dollars. Where did it go?" Two years down the line you're saying, "If I had continued this degree or master's program, I would have finished by now." So you go and start a different course. And two years down the line you say, "I don't really want to do this now. Let me jump into nursing." You move from finance to nursing. Five months into the nursing program, you're at a KFC window.

I'm not playing down any job. I'm saying if there's no plan, there's no vision, if you don't know where you're heading, you'll get nowhere. Your life will just be in a circle.

Then you make a child and you say, I'll put up this study till this child turns three. Three years, three children. And then life is tough. These children got to eat. They got to live. They need to be clothed. And you're on the grind. Nothing wrong with having children. But if there's no vision...

You're here with me this morning? So while I'm speaking, I hope you're thinking. I hope you've charted a destination. I hope in this GPS up here, you're putting in some coordinates.

You noticed when you put in the coordinates for where you're heading, they give you a time stamp for how long it will take to get there? So if you put in your coordinates and it says 28 minutes, and you've been driving for four hours, what would you think? Something is wrong.

Some of us have plans we had since before people said the world was ending in 2000. Some of us had plans from before we heard the world would come to an end in 2012. You've been driving. You've been on that road too long. You have to change course. Course correct.

Your vision is not indefinite. God's will is not for it to take forever for you to get there. You hear?

Forty days or forty years

I'm speaking to Christians here, because many times when it doesn't happen within a certain time, we blame God. There's a favorite one. There's a scripture in Isaiah: "When the time is right, I the Lord will do it" (Isaiah 60:22). Many Christians love to quote that scripture because they're not meeting goals or meeting target.

Let me give you another one to open up your eyes. God told the Israelites he's taking them from Egypt into the land of milk and honey, and the journey was 40 days, but they took 40 years. Which one was God's plan? Did God change his mind?

So if you take 40 years, it means that something is wrong. If God set the goals, get God's timeline. But if you're taking forever to get there, it ain't God. It might never be the devil. It might just be you.

Blessed are the doers

I just want to pick up a little on this verse. "But blessed is he who keeps the law." Do you know what the scripture is saying?

You're not blessed because you memorize the Bible. You're not blessed because you can quote scriptures. You're not blessed because you can stand up here and preach. You're not blessed because when you go out there to witness, my God, you know the whole setup on how to share the gospel.

You're blessed when you do it. You do what it says. You live what it says.

That's why we have professors in theology who are going to hell. We have people doing a doctorate in divinity but don't know Jesus Christ. Because having a mental understanding of the scripture don't make you blessed. Blessed are the doers of it (James 1:22-25).

I prefer a Christian that obeys 10 verses than one that knows a hundred but don't obey any. You still there with me?

Babel: they had a vision

Let's go to Genesis chapter 11. We're still talking about vision.

I want to say some stuff, but I don't want people to feel as though I'm throwing stones. So I'm trying to restrain myself. They say preach, and then you don't see some people in church anymore after you preach. I'll restrain myself for now.

"Now the whole earth had one language and the same words. And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there. And they said to one another, 'Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.' And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, 'Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens'" (Genesis 11:1-4).

They had a vision. What was the vision? We're going to build a city, and the top is in heaven. Tell your neighbor about vision. You must see the outcome. You must know what it looks like.

If you have an idea of building a house and you don't know what it should look like, you need a vision. You need a plan. We have Minister Candace there. Just give them a wave. She draws plans. And when you finish with the plan and you don't know what to do next, we have Brother Gary. Give them a wave. He can help you build it.

You must know what this thing looks like that you want. They wanted a city whose top is in heaven. So they made preparations. They started to make bricks. They got mortar. They started to plan for this city.

Are you planning for where you should be? Are you laying the foundation, the groundwork, for where you should be? The whole reason we're having these 22 days of fasting, it's laying the groundwork for where we want to be. There's a vision. There's something we want from God, something God has shown us, and we're heading in that direction. So we're laying the groundwork. We're putting the flesh to the side, mortifying the flesh so that we can get there.

"And let us make a name for ourselves." Did they make a name for themselves? Up to this day we're talking about which tower. They made a name for themselves indeed. Do you want to make a name? Do you want to have a name? Some of you looking at me strange. I will show you just now how you can have a true name that lasts.

"Lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower" (Genesis 11:4-5).

You need to work

These people didn't just have water in the mouth. These people went to work. You need to go to work. I don't mean you need to go to a 9 to 5 job. I'm simply saying you need to work toward a vision. Sometimes the 9 to 5 job can't get you there, but if it could get you there, you work there. If the job at the bottom of the ladder can't get you there, try middle management. Try moving up the organization. If you're self-employed, if you're in school, you need to work. You need to study.

Don't wake up and come and say, pray for me for my exam, come and lay hands upon me, and think your head is going to be full with the answers. You need to work.

Imagine they planned something that caused the Lord to get up off his throne and come down to look at this marvel. May you do something so great that it will cause the Lord to take notice. May you do something on such a level that will cause kings and queens and presidents and people of influence to talk about it. Something positive, in Jesus' name.

I declare your business will make the news. I declare the field that you're studying, you'll make the news, in Jesus' name. I declare you'll do things with such an excellence that your business will be in one mouth after another, from one lip after another, in Jesus' mighty name.

A grand scale, good or bad

God came down to see the city and the tower. This is on a grand scale. There was another group on a grand scale, Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18:20-21; 19). They were on a grand scale that God came down to. God left heaven and came down to burn it down. Let me leave that that way.

So you can do things on a grand scale like Ted Bundy, and this woman now that killed her children, where the one juror held out that she should be jailed. You all following that news in the US?. Everybody wanted to know. Gayle King was asking, because the woman put it this way, there was one juror of brown color. And Gayle King asked, "So was it a Black person?" The woman said yes. "Was it male or female?" A Black man. And now everybody wants to know who is this man. Because the whole other jurors said we should acquit this white woman, you should toe the line. One Black man, one individual, but he stood his ground. Justice must be served.

I don't think he was planning for his name to be on international news, but it made it. May your name reach the news for good things, in Jesus' name.

"The tower, which the children of man had built" (Genesis 11:5). The children of man planning something godlike, gigantic, huge, out of this world. The top must reach where? The heavens.

There are some things that you will build that people will not believe you built. There are some things you will achieve that people will not believe you should achieve, because you had no name. You had no pedigree. You had no grandfather and grandmother in wealth. This is not old money. But you've built something that seems impossible for you, that seems impossible for your family. May you achieve things in life that are considered impossible for your generation, for your family.

One people, one language

"And the Lord said, 'Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language'" (Genesis 11:6).

We're fasting at Throne Room. Are we one people? May we be one people.

Let me show you this one language. How many of you have situations in your family where a property was left as a family property? I remember us being at a mechanic in Norton Street, and he was talking about a property next door that was a family property. When you look at the property, it was falling apart. Why is that? They all speak English, right? But not the same language.

You think speaking one language is speaking English or Spanish or Mandarin. But you can speak a dialect and not the same language. You can be in a home and you come into wealth. One says, "Let us buy a three-story apartment, a four-story apartment." And the other says, "No, let us divide the money." Before you know it, the money went in the belly, in the septic tank, and there's nothing to show. They were all speaking English, but it was a different language.

It's important. If we can't come into agreement on certain things as a family, you will get nowhere. You will build nothing.

What this is showing you, they were able to do something godlike. I don't want to go into the spiritual significance of the top touching the heavens. What I want to get out of this: because they were talking the same language, they agreed on an investment. They agreed on something that would build wealth. They agreed on something they thought would benefit their community, their nation.

Money follows vision

A few years ago I was listening to the crown prince of the UAE. Somebody was interviewing him, and they were talking about what separates the United Arab Emirates, and what they were able to accomplish, from some of the African nations. And one of the things was leadership.

If you listen to many great persons, they'll tell you, you don't need money to start something great. Money follows vision.

I was sharing something with my children a few days ago just to help them get an understanding. There's an app you see advertising a lot on social media right now, and the first story goes like this. A man walked into the bank with $150,000. US, not Guyana dollars. The teller asked him, "Where did you get all this money from?" and pulled him into a secluded area to ask about the money. He said, "I'm a businessman. If you don't believe me, I can bet you that tomorrow at this time I could turn this $150,000 into $300,000." And he said, "I bet you by tomorrow morning, when I return to the bank, there will be a handprint on your butt." The teller said, "Deal."

Next morning he showed up. He introduced a guy and said, "I came with my lawyer so he can check to see the handprint." So they went to the washroom, and he said, "My lawyer is here now to prove there's a handprint on your butt. Drop your pants." When he dropped his pants, the lawyer started to cry. So the teller asked the lawyer, "Why are you crying?" He said, "He bet me $300,000 that he could get you to drop your pants."

The guy had a vision. He had an idea. He knew how to do business.

This is only the beginning

"And the Lord said, 'Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do'" (Genesis 11:6).

Oh my God. I said to somebody the other day, "Your business, what you're doing right now, is a seed." I was saying to them, this is only the beginning of what you will do.

May you look at what you have right now and what you're doing right now, and prophesy over it and say, "This is only the beginning of what I will do. This is only the beginning of what I will accomplish." You haven't seen anything yet. You haven't achieved anything yet. It's only the beginning. It will multiply. It will grow. It will prosper in your hands. You will prosper.

I prophesy that we have recipients of the Golden Arrowhead and different honors in this church, because your work and your contribution to this nation will be recognized and celebrated at the highest level, in Jesus' name.

It's only the beginning. I'm excited. I declare over my life, all that I've accomplished so far is only the beginning. All that I am so far is only the beginning of what I'll be able to do, of what I'll achieve and what I'll become, in the mighty name of Jesus.

Favor and family connection

When you don't change up here, you complain.

I don't care if the economy is based on friends, family and favorites. I am a favorite. I have friends in the highest place. And I'm a member of his household. You can't be more family than that. And because of that, I will have favor. You have favor anywhere you go. You're well connected. Divinely connected.

So y'all stop the foolishness. If you need to go see the president, go see the president. Church gone quiet now.

When you understand who your father is and you understand your family connection, you don't care who's the president, who's vice president, who's this and who's that. If you have an audience with them, you go and have an audience with them. Because you're under a greater name, greater authority and a stronger family connection.

So stop playing politics and race, and walk in grace.

I'm not saying sell your birthright. I'm not saying bend over backward and do what you shouldn't do. I'm saying walk in integrity. If God places you before kings and presidents and you have the honor of interacting with them, engaging them, do that with boldness and integrity, in Jesus' name.

Stop complaining.

The complainers go nowhere

You know the interesting thing about God bringing the children of Israel out of Egypt, and it was to be 40 days? Do you know why it took 40 years? Because it had a bunch of complainers in the group. Nothing never going right with them. "Mr. Moses, we were eating garlic and onion and nice meat in Egypt. You bring we out here to starve" (Numbers 11:5; Exodus 16:3). It was always a complaint. "Oh gosh, we were good in Egypt. We could go and dip out from the Nile river. Now we in the desert, starving, dry."

You ever hear some Christians talk? The cup is always half empty. It's not half full for them. It's half empty. When it's half full, people know it can go up. When it's half empty, people just always see the bottom.

"Oh God, black tea again. It's like slavery. My father drink black tea. My brother drink black tea. Now I drinking black tea. Oh God, like this curse on me." You speak a curse over your own life.

I always tell you, when you go to those coffee shops and they bring the little glass of black tea, it's expensive. It ain't cheap. Now you can get a whole lot at home, and you're complaining.

Perspective. Mindset. Vision.

Man, you done throw the milk in the tea to turn it white, and it's in the toilet. Lactose intolerant. If you drink your little black tea, you would have been better off. Seriously. Your doctor tell you now your cholesterol gone up. If you had drank your little bush tea black, you would have been good. You would have been healthy.

But the perspective is, only poor people drink black tea. I keep saying to my children from early, don't let people fool you with that nonsense. Rich people buy black tea and pay a lot for it.

Murmurers die. Their vision die. Everything die. The complainers go nowhere. The complainers will sit and talk about the economy, sit and talk about the president, sit and talk about family, friends and favorites. I'm not saying these things may not be so, but you can't allow that to determine your future.

You will prosper in this land. You will grow wealthy in this land.

Nothing will be impossible

"And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them" (Genesis 11:6). You're seeing that this is God saying this?

Even though the people were planning something that wasn't godly in terms of the intention, in terms of the quality, the magnitude of what they were trying to do, it was godlike.

There are some stories, I can't remember if it's in the book of Jubilees or where I read it, where they try to fill in some of these things, telling you how many days it took for them to climb up with a brick, and when God confused them and the brick fell down, how many days it would take to go back down to get it and bring it back to the top.

"Nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them." Have you ever read someone in the New Testament who said something like that? He said with God, nothing is what? Impossible (Luke 1:37).

But there's another scripture where he talks about, if you speak to the mountain, what will happen? It will be removed. And what will happen to those who have faith? Nothing shall be impossible (Matthew 17:20).

Many times we look at the impossibility with God only. But if you have faith, nothing shall be impossible. So the impossible is not just with God. God gave us all a measure of faith (Romans 12:3). And if we use the measure of faith that he's given to us, he's saying the sky is the limit.

He said even if you have faith as small as a mustard seed. He's actually saying no one is disqualified from having faith. No one is disqualified from doing extraordinary things. No one is exempted from doing the impossible, because he gave us all a measure of faith.

Let us stand.

What is your little measure?

Can you see your faith? This little measure of faith that he gave to you. Can you see it? It's a tricky question I'm asking now.

The widow whose husband had died, and her sons were about to be taken into slavery. She had a little measure of faith. Now we talk about faith as the substance. What was her little measure of faith? The prophet asked, "What do you have?" She said, "I just have a little cruse of oil" (2 Kings 4:1-7).

The other woman, she said she had just enough flour to make a bake for her and her son, then they'll eat it and die (1 Kings 17:12). She had a little measure.

All of us have a little measure. For some of you, it's maybe $10,000 in the bank account. A little measure.

They started building that great building with a little measure. The first few scriptures tell us what? They made bricks. Tell your neighbor, you just need bricks for a great building.

I know you're saying, "Pastor, we need cement and we need steel too." But those people built in such a way that the buildings are still standing, while cement and steel are crumbling. You could still go and see the pyramids of Giza. You could go and see the Aztec pyramids in Mexico. Peru, there's something there too. They're still finding some ancient civilizations. All started with a brick.

That woman started an oil business, an oil empire, with a small cruse of oil.

My story in school

What you have may look small now. Your understanding may look small now.

I remember at 12, 13, I still couldn't comprehend anything. You ever look at your schoolbook, you write it down but it makes no sense? You go to school and you write down because they asked you to write down, but in class you understand nothing. Everything seems to be a foreign language. The teacher is talking, but you don't even know what she's talking about. You're doing mathematics, but you're sailing. She's teaching here, but you're on another planet. She's talking about this formula and that formula.

And now people will ask me, how do you know these things? How do you understand these things? Sometimes I tell them, I don't even know. Some things just come.

But the first day I went to school, they said, this is the bright boy. And I said, not while I'm here. almost all the terms. But there was a day when I moved from 39th place to 35th, and I was excited. I'm not at the back of the class anymore. At least I and I learned. I got one thing right, and then it dawned on me: you know, you can learn.

Just that little seed. And then as you jump to 20-something place, you realize those people are not brighter than you. You just need to pull yourself together. And then I reached a point where the teacher could be teaching a topic on the board, and even if I'm not paying attention, I just need to understand the concept, just one phrase. And when the exam came, I'd sit and write it back as though I was paying attention. Then I realized my brain is more visual. I learn by what I see. And then you learn there's a different way for you to study.

What is that seed? Some of you have a million dollars and you're saying this thing is too small.

Your children are a seed

Some of you, your seed is your child. Let me put it that way. Or your children.

For some reason, there's a blank page for me in some areas. But this child is a Michelangelo. This child is an Einstein. Like God took all that I couldn't comprehend and gave them the ability. He passed it on to my offspring. I'm going to invest in them.

To the children here whose parents have been investing in you, I want you to look at me. I see you turning away. Look at me. Your parents have been investing in you. All investors look for dividends. They look for profit. They look for a return on their investment. So even if they're saying to you, "I don't want nothing from you"...

I tell my children plainly: you buy a fancy car, buy two. One for you and one for me. Serious. I tell them, your father loves trips. You don't have to go to the same place. You could send me somewhere else, but just send me.

One of the worst things we can do for our children is say to them, "I don't want anything from you." And then they grow up and give us nothing, and we're so disappointed. You told them that. You put it inside of them. You taught them how to treat you later in life.

I tell my own plainly: you build the big fancy house, and if you want to go overseas, we'll manage it and rent it. We give you a portion, we take a portion. Go get the government land, then we build a big apartment. When you're overseas you get some money, and while we're here we get some money too.

Envision your children. But say to them, don't forget me. I'm making an investment in your life.

Why do you do this? The Bible says, "Honor your mother and father" (Exodus 20:12; Ephesians 6:2-3). You see why so many of them are dying out early? Because they weren't taught to honor their mother and father, so they may live long on the face of the earth. Young people, you want to live long and good? Honor your parents. That's more than an instruction. It's a promise by the Lord. If you honor them, your days will be long on the face of the earth.

Plant the seed in the right soil

So all of us have different seeds. But what do you do with a seed? Some of us put it in jars, put it on our counter, and we look at it. You plant the seed. You hear me? You plant the seed.

What do I mean by planting? Seed goes to soil, right? Let me see, how many parents have a particular school they want their child to go to? You're planting them there. Why? Because you know all the children that were planted there grow and excel and are fruitful in life.

You must know where God wants you to be. The organization, the school, the nation. Look at somebody and tell them, even who you're marrying. Because some people plant themselves in some rocky situations in relationships, and they don't bear no fruit. The life is stunted. One problem after another.

You ever see some trees, when children get whipped and they walk in the yard and start beating some trees? You ever see how they look? Bent down, broken down, falling down. That's how some people are in relationships. Lashes one after the other. They can't grow. Every time you grow a little high, they chop off your top, chop off this side, chop off that side. You're saving a little money here, and they're eating it out here, spending it out there, smoking it out there.

Be careful where you plant yourself, even in relationships, who you plant yourself to. You see rocky ground, stony ground, you see the struggling.

There's a difference if you see nice soil and all it needs is to be broken up. You can work with it, loosen it up. Even though it looks hard, when you break it up and put the seed in there, with this type of soil, it will grow. There are some people like that. When you talk to them, you look at their family, you look at their vision, where they want to go, and you say, this person is quality. This person is true stuff. There's potential here. We can do extraordinary things. Even though they don't look like anything now, I know with this person in my life we can have a great future. We can build something great.

So I'm not saying don't marry somebody because they look like they don't have anything now. But with some of them you'll see, nothing can grow here. You pass by the family. I always say to people, visit people's families unexpectedly. Especially the ones you want to get married to. You'll be shocked. You'll be surprised.

So be careful where you plant yourselves. Just lift your hands.

Declaration from Psalm 1

Can you bring up Psalm chapter 1 verse 1 for me? Let us declare this over our lives. Vision.

"Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers" (Psalm 1:1).

I do not walk in the counsel of the wicked. Nor do I stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers.

"But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night" (Psalm 1:2).

My delight is in the law of the Lord. On it I set my mind. I think about it. I plan my life around it. Day and night.

"He is like a tree planted by streams of water" (Psalm 1:3).

I'm like a tree. Planted. Settled. Deep roots. By the streams. The stream I'm talking about is the stream that flows from the throne of God. It is the stream that Ezekiel saw (Ezekiel 47:1-12). On its banks trees grow, and fishes and other creatures prosper.

Where I'm planted, I am growing. I yield. I bring forth fruit in season and out of season. Other trees are glad to be near me. People are glad to be near me. Because I prosper, they prosper. I bring forth fruit, and they bring forth fruit. And we don't have a dry season. We don't have fruitless seasons. We bear all year round.

My leaf does not wither. Every time you look at me, I look bright. I look well fed, well dressed, at peace. When you look at me, you know what peace is. When you look at me, you know what joy is. I'm flourishing. In all that we do, we prosper.

I don't care where you are. You're prospering. I am prospering.

Your name carries favor

Here's what I hear colleagues saying to you. Here's what I hear your bosses saying to you: "I don't know what we would have done without you. I don't know where this company would have been without you. I don't know where this business would have been without you. I don't know where this nation would have been without you."

Some of you here are going to make your school's name reach the newspaper. Your school will be proud because they're seeing their name next to yours. Your organization will be proud because they see their name next to yours. Your family will be proud when they read the newspaper or they're watching the news or they're on social media.

Don't look at him. Call your own name. Call your last name.

Your grandfather will be reading and say, "This family never made the papers for anything good, but we thank God for . He changed the destiny of this family." That's who you are. People will be happy to be associated with you.

Some of you are going to walk into some places and your friends are going to get contracts. Some of you are going to walk into places, and people will just see your friend walking with you, and sometimes they go back to the institution and they get favor, because the last person they saw this person with was you.

Your name carries weight. Your name carries favor. Your name carries authority.

So don't get angry with some family now when they went to shop in your name and called your name. You didn't send them, but they shop in places and say, " is my family." Because they know once they call your name...

There's favor attached to your name. There's grace attached to your name, in the mighty name of Jesus. God bless you.