Hi there! This is Pastor Vlad. And before we go into this week's content, I would like to invite you to become a part of what God is doing at Hungry Generation today. This year, we've seen a great blessing of the Lord and anointing of God, God's healings and salvation and deliverances. And in 2019, I know that God wants to take us further. And many of you who are watching this video right now and watching this message, you've been receiving from Hungry Gen. You've been growing. Your world has been changing and we give to God all the glory. But we would like you in 2019 to become a part of what God is doing. And you can do that by sowing your best gift into this ministry.  This will help us to go further in 2019 and bring more of what we're bringing to you to many, many more people. Me and my wife, we do that every single year. Our church does that every single year. Well, once a year, we give a special offering to God. And then we also become partners of this ministry by our monthly contributions. And I give you that opportunity today to become our partner and to become somebody who contributes to what God is doing today. Below is a link where you can make that happen. So, why don't you ask God, what would God have you give this year to this ministry to help us go further in God? And now, let's go into this message. Two weeks from now, we are going to have our special sacrifice that once a year we're going to do as a church. It's bringing our best offering. And we believe in that the Lord is going to stretch our faith. The Lord is going to stretch also and take our church and us individually to another level. Our small groups are starting today, are being launched today. I would like to ask all the small group leaders who are going to be leading a small group in the next 10 weeks. If you could rise, please. All the small group leaders, people who are leading a small group, including Paul over there, Paul Wave. Okay, he's doing like multiple things. And so, some of the small groups were in the first service. I would like you to look at these precious beautiful people. And if you are not leading a small group, I would highly encourage you to chase any of them after the service and sign up to go to a small group for the next 10 weeks. Amen.  You will meet new people and it will be a great, great blessing to your lives. Let's give a round of applause to all of our small group leaders and all of the people who are going to our small groups. Amen, amen, amen. And one more brief encouragement and announcement before we go into the Word of God is next month in February 15th through 17th, I'm going to be going to Philippines to preach the message of Jesus Christ. It's going to be pretty much officially my first international trip. And when I say mine, you and I are included because we're together. Amen.  Amen. And so, we're really blessed that the church that I'm going to, it's a very young church full of millennials. I think 70 or 80% of the church's millennials to the point that they will not have translation. It will be straight English. And has 550 cell groups in that church. I think over 3,000 or 5,000 people. I forgot the number of pretty large church. It's not a missions. It's not a crusade. Even though on Sunday morning, there's going to be three services for the public, but mainly the services are going to be for the leaders. It's going to be a week of fire. And so, what's going to happen is that I want to give you a invitation. I want to invite each one of you to participate in this trip. Now, my ticket is paid for. Everything is taken care of. That's not the issue. After this sacrifice, I'm going to be broke. And like financially broke. But I choose that. And I want to send about 550 break free books to Philippines. And I would like to ask you to pay for it. Straight forward. I see somebody like, I can't believe you said that. So I would like to ask each one of us to take part of it. So the 225 is already been paid for by the first service. So somebody, one generous person from my home group pretty much took care of most of it. And so the rest of that, I would like to give you the opportunity to bless. I don't want to sell the books there. And plus we can't sell the books because Amazon doesn't doesn't go there. But if we pay enough, we can ship it there. And so after the service, there will be people standing here. You can come if God puts on your heart and you say, you know what? I want to bless some leaders there and I want to send that book there. Come up and we would really be grateful. If not, still pray that we will be able to make an impact on that country for the glory of God. Amen. Let's give Jesus the round of applause for his goodness and his love for our life. Amen. It's like the pastor who said, you know, we have a good news and a bad news. The bad news is the roof is leaking at the church. The good news, we have the money. And then we have one more bad news is all of that money is in your pocket. He told that to the church. And so that's kind of the situation we have here today. I really debated. You have no idea.  And I told other people and they really convinced me this of life. You're not asking money for yourself. You know, you're giving people an opportunity to bless people in that country. And so don't be shy about it. And so, so that's why I'm bold about it to speak to you because I was encouraged to do that.  I want to share today about the manifest presence of God in Genesis chapter 19 verse 17 and 18 says the following. So it came to pass when they had brought them outside that he said, escape for your life. Do not look behind you nor stay anywhere in the plane. Escape to the mountains. Lest you be destroyed. And then Lot said to them, please know my Lord's. And so the Lord delivers Lot from Sodom and then he gives him these directions. He says, I want you to run as far from Sodom as possible.  And I want you to run to the mountains, not hike up the mountain. It's almost like God was asking Lot to do an insanity workout. You know, and when I'm reading this, I'm thinking if I am an older gentleman, okay, and God's gonna like God's gonna mean or the angels were, they didn't ask him to climb the mountain. They said, run up the mountain. So imagine that you're an older gentleman like I barely can hike and God's like run. And so I see why Lot says, no, I don't want to do that. I'm just going to go settle settle in the cave mountains in the Bible. Many times they speak of men's relationship with God. Maybe because they're so high up and when you're in the mountain, you kind of feel closer to heaven. So you're closer to God. I'm not sure the real reason, but they are symbol many times of the presence of God. The world, the earth we live in has 1,809 mountains. United States has 73,389 mountains. And the beautiful tri-cities has one. Mini mountain. The Badger mountain. Some of us are yet to climb it. It's on our bucket list by 2020. We'll get there. The largest, the tallest mountain in the world is Mount Everest. 29,000 and 29 feet above the sea level. It costs about $35,000 to climb it. The gear alone is about $10,000 and the permit to climb it is $10,000. Need a mortgage just to be able to climb that mountain. 297 people died trying to climb that mountain. The winds can be as strong as 200 miles per hour when you are there. And so it takes about two months to climb there. And so out of curiosity, I've googled why would people want to climb Mount Everest? I mean, I understand that could be a big accomplishment. And they said the reason one is for charitable expeditions. Number two, for sense of achievement. Number three, for fitness increase. Number four, for life-changing experience. Number five, it's a huge adventure. No thanks. $35,000. I'm pretty sure I can find other adventures for $35,000. If you're with me, say amen. And so while maybe climbing Mount Everest is not on your bucket list and you're not willing to spend $35,000 to do that, there is a mountain God is asking you to climb. It's not a badger mountain. It's the mountain of His presence. God's presence is different than God's omnipresence. Omnipresence is what makes God God. Is that God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. And omnie means everywhere. And that means this is what makes God God. God's omnipresence is that God is present everywhere. David says, where can I go from your presence? Anywhere I go, you're there. But God's manifest presence is that God is here. Immanuel, God with us. Not just God is everywhere, but God is here. God's omnipresence is God's nature. It's God's attributes. But God's manifest presence is the experience of God. It's being able to taste and see that the Lord is good. Jesus presents Himself as living water, as living bread. Meaning something you can experience. Something it's something tangible. It's something real. It's something genuine. It's not a fabrication. God's omnipresence is David says, where can I go from your presence? God's manifest presence is David says, God, don't take your presence from me. And so what I want to encourage you this morning, this afternoon, or noon, or whenever time that somebody is going to be watching or rewatching this message with is that God wants you not to just go on the foot of Mount Everest. He wants you to climb the summit. He wants you to reach the top. He wants you to experience His presence. He wants you to live in His presence. In fact, Christian life, Jesus says, is to know God. David, if you read Psalm and you start with every Psalm and pretty much you will see David's ache for God. David's searching God through guilt and shame and his feelings and he's talking to his soul and you could see him sending, I'm panting, I'm yearning, I'm waking up in the morning and then you reach to the end of the Psalm. Pretty much it's the same story and David's shouting, rejoicing because he found him. God was never lost. God was always there. He wasn't really seeking for God, but he was seeking for God's manifest presence. He wanted to experience God in a new way. And David had busy schedule as a king and everything. Apostle Paul pretty much did exactly the same thing. He says, everything I have accomplished, I count as rubbish. I count as nothing that I could know God. Moses knowing God that he did and having all the promises from God. I'm thinking sometimes if God would give you that promise and say, I'm going to send an angel and he will help you to reach all of your dreams. Like God said to Moses, I'll send an angel and he will help you to reach your promise land. And Moses said, God, if your presence doesn't go with us, I'm not going anywhere. God says, I'll rather have you in the wilderness and promise land without you. I want to know your presence. I want to let you know that God wants you to seek his presence, live in his presence, abide in his presence to hide under the shadow of the Almighty. Only there our life is transformed. Amen. Hallelujah. God is good. And so we see that Lot and Abraham, we're going to take a look at Lot and Abraham. The first obstacle to the presence of God is I call it the proximity of the place. It's when you are in the right place and you think that because you're in that place, you are already in the presence of God. See, being in the group that's not far from God is not being the same thing as being close to God. Lot was close to Abraham, yet he was far from the Lord. There's a group of people in Matthew chapter 7 who come to Jesus and they say, we cast out demons in your name.  We prophesy in your name. You know, and I don't like that verse. The reason why is because it's always used against our church because we finally start doing all the three things because before it was demons and the healing of the sick. And now we have prophetic encounter. Thank you, Jesus. And so now that verse applies to our church and I feel like every person I meet who uses that verse, it's always against us or anything miracles that happen. They're like, well, it's that versus against you. But I want you to notice something in that verse that maybe you have never seen before. It does not say, I cast out demons. I heal the sick. We meaning the people who were rejected from Jesus did not do exorcism, healing and prophecy. They belong to a group that did it. They themselves, it's like this. It's like saying, we went to faith assembly for race to deliver. There's 2000 people that went to faith assembly being in a group that cast out demons, heals the sick and prophesies. You can be there and there is a notion of being in the right place as I am close to the presence. But these people and many of us in here can prove otherwise that you can be close to church and far from Christ. But today I want us to step over that hindrance and to realize that the place of God is so that we can encounter the presence of God. Hallelujah. In Luke chapter 15, Jesus speaks three parables and he talks about a shepherd who loses a sheep, a woman who loses a coin and a father who has a prodigal son. And the woman who had nine, ten coins, she loses a coin in the house. It's kind of like losing keys. Losing a coin in the house. I want you to notice the woman did not lose a coin somewhere in the backyard. It was right there in the house. And then she was started to sweep the house, turn on the light, remove the dirt, remove the darkness so she can find the coin. I believe the similar situation is happening today with Christianity. Many children of God are lost in church, not in the world, not in sin, but in church. Catholics are lost in church. Christians are lost in church. And God the Father is taking and sweeping through the church, sweeping through our lives sometimes, removing the darkness and removing the dirt to find children. Because just because you're in the house, it doesn't mean you're in his presence. And God wants you to be in his presence, not just be in the right place where he is omnipresent. The first hindrance to the presence of God is thinking that because I am close to Abraham, meaning because I'm close to church, I'm close to God. It's good to be close to Abraham, but Abraham has to introduce you to Jehovah, to Yahweh, to Adonai, to the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the one who was, is and is to come. Somebody say praise the Lord. You know, I'm pretty sure that each one of you, if you live in the United States and registered with the government, I have gotten one of these, where you get summoned to be in jury. How many of you got an invitation like that? All right. And so I enjoyed the privileges of not speaking English earlier, because one of the excuses you can put there for not going to be a jury is, I don't speak English. I don't speak English. And now that that's not true. I remember a few years ago, I was summoned to be a jury and praise God. I had a trip and so that was a good excuse not to go there. And so I just don't like no offense. I love our justice system and I like how it's done probably better than other countries, but I just don't like to take a week of my life and hear how somebody butchered somebody else and decide whether they're guilty or not. We have lawyers and judges for that and let them figure that out.  But when I got this, when I came back from Kingdom Domain last week and I saw that I've been summoned and I have five days to respond and it says that if you don't come, you are violating this, this, this statue. You pretty much can become a felon by not responding when you've been summoned. If you know the Lord came over me, I quickly signed and said, I'm going to Philippines and leave me alone. What I got convicted of is this, is that every single Christian has gotten one of these where God the Father has summoned you into His presence. And many of us, we treat this way better than the requests from God to be in His presence. Your Father has not invited you to become a member of Hungry Jen, though that is good, but He has summoned you to be in His presence. The first benefit of living in God's presence is that God the Father finds pleasure in your company. He desires your presence. The scripture says we love Him because He first loved us.  God the Father loves your presence. In fact, He loves it so much, He has scars on His hands and a scar on His side to prove that your presence was worth dying for, so that His presence can be worth living for. Come on, somebody. I really think that we've been summoned by God into His presence. It's not an option. For me to live in God's presence is not an upgrade to Christian life. It's the only life I have. The only life you have, you have to respond to God's call. God is waiting for you in His presence. God is waiting. He is sweeping through. Sadly for many people, He's waiting too long without anybody showing up. If you don't show up to God's presence, God will start sweeping your life.  He's not after your boyfriend, your job. He's passionately in love with you and when God searches things, He finds them. You know what He's looking for right now? You. Like the woman was looking for the last coin. God wants you in His presence. So bad. He's willing to sweep things. Break things if He needs to. Why? Because He created you for His pleasure and He sent His Son to die to get you. That's why the church exists, is that you find the presence of God. You know why church exists? So God finds the presence of you. Come into His presence. Make time during every day. I'm not talking about prayer right now. I'm talking about being in the presence of God. Being closeness with the Holy Spirit. Taking that time where you alone just separate yourself and you say, Father, show me your glory. I want to see your glory. I want to see your continents. I want to see the closeness of who you are. The closeness of who you are. Whether it's in the morning or whether it's at night, whether it's during the day, whether it's in your work, but finding His presence because when you find His presence, He finds yours. And when He finds your presence, there's a pleasure in the heart of the Father. The first obstacle to living in God's presence is the proximity of a place. It's thinking that because I'm in the right place, I'm in the presence of God. And when you begin to break that down, you recognize God the Father loves your presence so much. And when you respond, when you realize you've been summoned by God to be in His presence, you come, you recognize the Father loves you so much. He loves your presence more than you will ever love His. That's a huge, huge revelation. And if you grasp it, it will forever change the way you pray.  Otherwise, we will live our life constantly trying to measure up how much we love God and looking at our love for God. And it will only decrease if you focus on it. But if you focus on His love for you, your love for Him will increase. If you focus on your love for Him, it will decrease. The second stumbling block, the presence of the Lord, is prayer. Now prayer is not supposed to be a stumbling block to the presence of the Lord. But the problem with prayer is that everybody does it. Problem with prayer is that prayer can become a point of prayer and the purpose of prayer. The Lord was a nephew of Abraham, meaning he was a relative of him. And instead of the Lord using Abraham to get to know God of Abraham, the Lord just was so comfortable with Abraham. He was so close to Abraham. And one day, he left Abraham. Prayer is like Abraham. Many Christians are related to prayer. Well, it's a Christian's duty. It's what you do. You pray. You pray before the meal. You pray when the tire goes flat. You pray when somebody breaks your heart. You pray when the pilot says, I break and this airplane don't work. You pray.    People pray and prayer in itself. It can actually be a distraction to the presence of God. If prayer focuses on prayer, religion focuses on the how of prayer. Jesus focused on the who of prayer. Jesus always redirected our attention. He says, you missed the point. He's not saying, don't pray. He says, in prayer, pursue the presence. Somebody say, man, don't miss the point. Some of us can be so close to God and you miss him because we use the religious activities instead of to get to know his presence. We use them as an end to themselves. A week ago on 31st of December, we were flying to North Carolina. So we landed in Denver. Our flight came late. The lady at our gate said that we have 30 minutes before our flight leaves to Charlotte. So we asked her, would that be okay if we grab some breakfast? We saw a little Mexican place not very far from us. So we went to grab breakfast. She says, you guys have 30 minutes in case the plane will come earlier. I will announce it on the speakers. You will hear it. So there we are enjoying a lot of nachos and just having a time of our life. I look at my clock, it's 25 minutes. I said, brothers, me, Malika, my wife and Adrian, it's time to go. So we come to our gate and it's like rapture and left behind one, two and three movie. Nobody's there and we see Charlotte there.  I felt exactly what five foolish virgins will feel when the doors were closed. When you hit them and nobody's there and the security is not there, look, look, people vanished. So we're waiting, they're looking at the window, looking. There's only a glass between us and our destiny. And there is that lady walking through that door. She says, I've been calling on you guys twice and nobody responded. And we're like, we didn't hear you. We're still here within the time that you said. What happened? We missed it by this close. But this horrible story doesn't end there. We go into changing our flights. And so the lady is looking for a new flight to go to Charlotte and she's looking for the flight. She's like, we need to go use other airlines, which means that they'll, the United will have to pay for using other airlines to get us to Charlotte. And so she's doing that. A gentleman next to me is an older gentleman and he starts to curse and out loud start to make threats because his father died and he's coming late to this father's funeral. And so that gets involved that the managers get involved, you know, like, and I'm thinking this is going to be another episode of United, you know, like how they dragged the doctor from the, I'm thinking this is going to happen second time right in front of me. My good moment to de-escalate the situation. So I come and I'm standing next to the guy and I'm trying to talk him down and say, listen, everything's going to be all right. I'm like, I'm so sorry that your dad passed away. And I'm like, what happened to your flight? Did you, how did you miss the flight? And so he tells me, man, it was snow. And he was like, F and this, F and this, F and this. And I was like, well, I'm really sorry.  Like, not you, just we. And I'm like, you know how we missed the flight? And so, and there I am opening my big mouth. I said, we missed the flight because we ate Mexican food. So the lady changing my flight. She said, wait, so you missed your flight. It wasn't our fault. I said, what does that mean? She says, wait, I thought that was our fault. So she stops the whole changing of the flights. And she says, I'm putting you on the latest flight out of Denver, which is booked already. That means you're going to be on standby. So everything she was working on, she stopped. She was thinking what Vlad asked you to open your big mouth and help the guy like United getting trouble. That's none of your business. And so not only that, we lost our second flight. So we had to stay up all the way till late, wait for a standby. God, to God be the glory. We got the Charlotte. My point being is the point of us being in the airport was to catch the flight, not eat Mexican rest, Mexican food. We missed our flight by this close. Many people miss God's presence for this reason. They spend too much time making prayer, the point of prayer. Peditions is the point of prayer. Patterns is the point of prayer. Prayer, the techniques is the point of prayer. My desire is not to say, don't pray. Just be in the presence of God. I want you to use prayer to get to the presence of God. Use prayer to get to know the voice of the Father. Use prayer to be with God. If you discover God's presence in prayer, you will pray more, not less. You will pray deeper, not less. Your prayer life will be changed and you will not abandon prayer. Not because you're in love with prayer, but because you're in love with the presence where you discover in prayer. Somebody say amen. When we discover the presence of God in prayer, what it does is that it releases the power of God into our personal life. Somebody say prayer. Somebody say prayer. Presence, power, personal victory. Come on, let's do it one time. Say prayer. Presence, power, personal victory. People have personal battles. I'm not talking about right now your business, your family, or your ministry. I'm not talking about your Instagram following or your YouTube channel or your blog. I'm not talking about right now your side hustle or your business. I'm not talking about your speaking engagements. I'm not talking about your worship ministry. I'm talking about your own soul and your own personal life that you have right here where you have a flesh, where you have inclinations, where you have temptations, where you have certain drawings, where you have certain attacks or certain temptations. Those things, where you have hurts, where you have habits, where you have hang-ups, where you have other ages that I can't come up with right now. The different things that are pulling on your soul. And a lot of times what happens is that we can find ourselves as Christians knowing how to operate in prophetic, knowing how to operate in our faith because we've been taught and instructed. We've seen other people do it. Knowing how to repeat the right phrases that gets the demons out of other people. Knowing how to get up publicly, make a message and make other people come to know Jesus Christ because we've done it. We've seen other people do it. Knowing how to thrive in our whatever we do that impacts other people. Yet in our personal life, we find ourselves like Samson, crushing philistines and being crushed by the lily. We find that we can... I can't tell you how many missionaries I prayed for. Who said, Vlad, I've seen blind eyes open. But that power can't deliver me from porn. I can't be free from that particular habit myself. And I believe I have an answer for that. When you discover the presence of God for personally for you, it releases power into your personal life. It might not release power for you to heal more people, but it will release power to beat the devil on a personal level.   I don't want to have public victories and private defeats. I don't want my life to be stacked on private bankruptcy inside. And the only way to avoid that, my friend, is not to improve on my gifts, though. That is important and we welcome and we need more of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. But what I'm talking about is not to improve your ministry. I'm talking about is to improve your soul by drawing power from the presence of God. A woman had an issue of blood. The Bible says she was bleeding on the inside. Women have menstrual cycle where they bleed and then they stops. But for her, it didn't stop. For 12 years, she saw the doctor. She's done everything she could. She was bleeding. Maybe your problem is not with blood. Maybe your problem is with alcohol. You can't stop. Maybe your problem is with drugs. Maybe your problem is with smoking. Perhaps your problem is with video games. Maybe the area where you're hemorrhaging is depression. Maybe the area where you're hemorrhaging is you can't sleep at night. Perhaps the area where you're hemorrhaging is simply the memories of the past that keep resurfacing and depression and anxiety. Whatever the area you're hemorrhaging, this woman knows what we're going through. And she got within the proximity of Jesus. She says that's not enough. Then there were people that were close to Jesus. She says that's not enough. And the scripture says is that she was not able to touch him because she was unclean. So there was this guilt that she had to overcome. That it's not enough to be just close to Jesus, but she pressed through. And when she touched his presence, she touched his presence. She didn't ask for power. She didn't ask for healing. She touched the presence. Jesus testified. He had a testimony time. Well, he testified. Power left me. And he went straight to that woman and somehow the power knew exactly which part was broken. He went through her organs. He knew which part was in functioning. He knew which part she was setting herself up for victory. And quickly she felt in her body bleeding stopped. So many of us would be free. If we will use prayer for a personal breakthrough in the presence of God, there will be personal victory that will touch your life. That will change how you feel, how you sleep, how you change your money and how you live. It will change what you browse on your computer and what you look at on your Instagram. It will change what you search for on your YouTube channel. It will change what you look at in your movies selection. It will change your personal story. See, you might say, I don't need to pray, but you need the presence of God because you have a personal hemorrhaging problem. And that hemorrhaging problem will be fixed by the power of God and the power is released to the presence of God. The power is released to the presence of God. The power to heal your smoking. The power to heal your cussing. The power to heal your pornography. The power to heal your disease and your depression and your anxiety. God send us the power. God send us the power. Can somebody say amen? The reason why we need the presence of God is because it's the only way that will help us to overcome sin. When Lord left Abraham, he had a hard time resisting sorrow. It's impossible. You can fool people.  There are preachers. There are pastors, apostles and even prophets who fall from the grace of God. And I am in the same category and so are you because there's only one thing that keeps us in the holiness. It's not our standards. It's not by might. It's not by power. It's by my spirit, says the Lord. It's not because, well, I didn't grow up like there's so many people coming to hideous things. It's not because of that because I don't have power of my own nor do you. The only power I get is when I touch his presence. When I touch his presence, his power flows. And the first thing that power does, it doesn't help me to preach better sermons. It helps me to overcome my personal problems. It helps me to become a better husband. It helps me to become a better friend. It helps me to become a better person. It helps me to become pure when nobody's watching. It helps me to become holy when nobody has their eyes fixed on me.   Somebody's going to have a bad day. It's not going to be me. It's going to be you. Why? Because I faced you before.  I faced you before I went to sleep. I faced you in a nightmare. And I beat you there because God's presence was there. God's power was there.  Come on somebody. Hallelujah. See, when Jesus experienced the Holy Spirit in the River Jordan, the power of God came. But that power didn't make him to do exorcism. What he did is he made him go into the wilderness and there was a personal battle with peace and satan. And right there, a personal victory came. See, the power of the Holy Spirit is released from the presence of the Holy Spirit. And it leads me first to my personal victory, personal victory. If you have in your personal life right now, defeat. It's not because you're bad. It's because you're weak. And because you're weak, there's only one solution. The presence of the Holy Spirit. Sit in His presence until power flows. Sit in His presence until you walk out and people around you say something is different. Your face shines. Until God fills you so much that God shines through these skin pores like He did with Moses. Where your presence and His becomes the same. You may say, I'm not coming up with fantasies. This exists where you can't talk because He fills you.  After that, you don't want to do anything else but love Him, but to live holy and live righteous. There's personal victory that exists in the presence of the Lord. Number three is possessions. With the pool of possessions, there's a place, prayer and possessions. The place tells me that I need to know that the place is not enough. The presence is what I need. The prayer is I can't make prayer my religion. Prayer is a platform to know the Father. The pool, the draw of possessions. And we see that with Lot that when Lot got bigger resources, nicer cars, nicer house, bigger retirement account, his bitcoins increased. The companies he invested kind of, you know, started to do good and Lot got more money. What Lot did is that he, because of his possessions, decided to withdraw from Abraham and to go his own way. Abraham let him do that. Abraham didn't stop him. And he looked at Sodom and he says, this is like the garden of the Lord. He become very deceived. He looked at something and he didn't see the end of it. He only saw pretty much a deception of it. He got deceived by his possessions. And what I'm trying to say is that Lot was possessed by his possessions. And Abraham possessed his possessions. See, God is not, that's no problem with possessions. Because Abraham was very close to the Father, but Abraham had a lot of wealth. But none of the wealth Abraham had had Abraham. Anytime you're possessed by your possessions, you no longer have them. They now have you. You might say, but I still drive the car. My name is still on the lease. But the clothes, I still have them. You know, in the very unfortunate time where we had in the United States where people owned slaves, many times those slaves lived on the properties of their owners. Those slaves, they operated the machinery, operated the vehicles of their owners. But they were slaves on those properties, not the owners of those things. Don't be fooled. If the things you have have you, you no longer have them. You're broke. You just don't know it. A lot did not became poor when everything got burned in Sodom. A lot became poor when those things he had got the hold of his heart. But it's hard to resist the gravitational pull of possessions if you don't have a drawing of the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit's presence is not the center of your life. See, Satan is not going to bring witchy boards instead of God's presence. If you think that Satan is going to bring horoscopes instead of God's presence, you're wrong. He's not going to bring Woodu or Wicca or some other demonic things. What he's going to put instead of the presence of God, he's going to put possessions and he's going to put things and he's going to put Mammon instead of God's presence. Because he knows that is the only thing that offends the heart of God more because God competes for my heart, not with the devil, with Lucifer, Python, Belsible and Snake and Dragon. He competes for my heart with Mammon, with Mammon. Jesus says you can't serve two gods and he didn't say you can't serve the demons and Jesus. He says you can't serve the devil and you can't serve God and Mammon. I mentioned this story quite a few times, but in the year of 2010, we were in January doing a 21-day fast on water. And at the time, I just broke up with Lana a few days before that. It was just my fault because I had a problem with my head. And so I did not know I had a problem with my head and I'm very serious, but I had a curse right here, decision making. There was something not right there. And so we were fasting and I was really praying and started to realize that something is not right with me. It's not only the people around me. Something's not right with me. And I'm pressing in. I remember reading a book called Crazy Love by Francis Shen. Anybody read the book? Crazy Love. Great book. Don't encourage you to read it when you're fasting and you have some money in your account. And so I was reading it and I just feel this pull for some weird reason that I have too much money in my account. And I'm just rejecting it and I was like, this is wrong. I'm fasting too much already. Like I'm hearing voices. This is not right. And so I thought that when I finished fasting, it will stop and it didn't stop. And then I saw the scriptures all over. I'm reading where God was like turned off or could not operate in people's lives until they got rid of some of their finances or put finances on the altar. And I was like, God, but you don't, you give us blessings. And I felt to take a certain portion, not all of the money that I had saved and to give it away in two weeks. And when I gave it away, something just released me. The presence of God was more fresh. And the crazy part is that problem with my mind was fixed. I got married eight months later and that was fixed. The presence of God is choked in your life. If you are possessed by possessions, read this math, let's read this math each up to 13. Look what it says. It says, now he who has received the seed among the thorns is he who hears the word and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness. Somebody say deceitfulness of riches choke the word and he becomes unfruitful. You can only have riches if you have the presence. Otherwise riches have you. You can only have wealth if you have God's presence. Otherwise wealth has you. You can only have things if you have God's presence. Otherwise things have you.  Carlos, could you come up for a second? Anytime you give power to possessions, you choke in the presence. Let's see how you do. He's my friend and he's single so it's okay. Married people, the wives would be like, take me down by now. It's not the things. It's not the things that choke. The Bible doesn't say the presence of wealth chokes. Deceitfulness of wealth. Why does the wealth deceive you? Wealth cannot deceive those. It doesn't direct. And it doesn't dominate.  And so what the scripture says is Jesus's presence chokes when the wealth enriches whether they're big or small. They dominate me. They choke the presence.  Wealth kills the presence. And it's not the wealth that kills the presence. Not the night because Abraham was very, very wealthy. What it does is when I elevate it in my heart and I give it dominance, it directs my life and it deceives me and it kills the presence. Every person who is close to the presence of God, you will see in the Bible or in the history of the world, every person, every man or woman of God will tell you one thing is they had to lay certain things on the altar. Catherine Coolman will say that every woman and every man all throughout the Bible, different things, but everybody had to put things down before the presence. Why? Because sometimes those things, they will choke the presence. And when you begin to lay them down, you realize now you actually own them whereas before they owned you. Now you actually have those money whereas before they had you. Now you actually have that wealth whereas before that wealth had you. Are you with me? Let's choke him again so I can take a picture. Come on somebody, let's stop choking Jesus. Carlos, go bless him. Touch your neighbor, say don't choke Jesus. Touch your neighbor, say don't choke the presence of God. Don't get directions from your wealth. I want you to see that Lot looked to his wealth to get directions on what he should do. Abraham didn't come to Isaac and say Isaac, do you want to be sacrificed? Abraham, he, not to say this the wrong way, but Abraham owned or Abraham had Isaac. That was his. His wealth was his. Abraham easily didn't ask. He just went to it and says this is what we're going to do later in the altar and then God would move. And I want to encourage each one of you. Don't be afraid that if you get so close to God that God's going to ask you to lay something on the altar and you're like, oh, I'm going to lose it. You're going to lose it anyway. You know, Abraham, he lost his son supposedly. Lot lost his wife permanently. A few times Abraham lost his possessions supposedly because he died. Lot lost his possessions twice and one time permanently. If you are possessed by possessions, you don't have them already. It's a matter of time they'll live your life. If they don't live you while you're here, if divorce, DUI, lawyers and other things don't take it, then your death will.  Let's not be so attached to our possessions because we are not going to live on this earth forever. Let's be attached to the presence of God. And the very thing many times you sacrifice is the very thing. Somehow it makes its way always back to you. It's like the stray dog finds its way back to your house. It will find its way back to your life. When in 2003 in December, me and my wife, we gave the money that we were saving for our new home. We were trying to build a home and we gave that away so that we can see kind of a more of a breakthrough in our life and breakthrough in our spiritual life and in our ministry. You know, in 2004, the year after that, there is a land that close to the church that went up for sale and I wasn't even looking for it because after, you know, I give up the money, I decided that no more looking for a house for a while. And so my father, who is a Craigslist genius, and so he finds the land and he calls me. He's like, hey, this land is for sale. You should buy it. And my dad knew my story and I said that, you know, financial a little bit on the zero right now and it's going to be like this for some time.   And he says, well, you figure it out because my dad knows I'll pay it back.  We give it away and about five months later, the land gets bought. We build a house in four months. We have very small loans and we need to fit everything. And those of you who build like house, you know that small loan is not enough, especially if you have a wife with an expensive taste. And so we fit into that small loan, we barely fit everything in and then my wife decides to upgrade the granite, upgrade the doors and upgrade every time. I was like, my goodness, I was like, we're not going to fit into that. And not only we fit into that loan, but I had this weird idea and praise be to God that I don't do construction because otherwise I wouldn't have that idea that I want to have enough in the loan to fit everything that my wife wants and I want to have enough money to pay off my dad for the money he borrowed me. I remember when I voiced it out to some people who do construction, they said, well Vlad, keep swimming in faith because that's not real. And in December of 2014, December 31st is when my loan was closed in to the dollar, exactly enough money to finish the house with my wife's expensive things and to pay off my father, everything that he borrowed me. So Abraham gave his son, today there's four billion sons of Abraham on this earth. A lot held on to those things because he was possessed by them. He lost everything and nothing is left of a lot today. What I want to tell you is when you're in the presence of God and sometimes you may feel led, you go to God and you say, Lord, on 27th is a sacrifice. What would you have me do? Because see, God is your boss. If you're not, God is not the presence, is not the boss, then you look into your account and you say, what can I give? What does my money want me to give? What does my money want me to be generous? But you don't ask your money. You don't get directions from wealth. You get directions from the presence. And when you do that, everything you give into the presence is like a farmer who sows a seed into his backyard. It never leaves his life. It comes back 100 times more. I just want to encourage each one of you. Never be afraid to be generous when you're in the presence of God. Because God is not a greedy God. But be afraid if money has got the grip of your heart because there's only one way to break that grip. It's not anointing water. It's not anointing oil. It's not shake and bake. It's a very painful surgery called generosity. Amen, amen. The last thing is not only we have to overcome the proximity of a place, not only we have to overcome the point of a prayer and the pool of our possessions, but we have to break the personality of passivity. Lot, the problem with Lot was that Lot was, how can I put it? Slow. Do you know any slow people? Do not look at your person next to you right now. Straight at me right now. You know those slow people? Very slow people. Lot was like one of them. Lot goes to the Sodom, gets in trouble. Abraham gets him out of Sodom. And Lot goes back to Sodom. Things go bad. Angels of God come and they say, Lot, you need to get out. The Sodom is going to burn. And Lot lingers, the Bible says. And so angels, they pull him out of Sodom.  And they say, Lot, don't go back to Sodom. Run to the mountains, Badger Mountain right there. Run there. Get to the top. God's going to meet you. And Lot says, no, I'm not going to the mountain. My legs hurt. I'm going to the city. I'm going instead of to the mountain. I'm going to Prosser. And the angels like, no, you can't go to Prosser because Prosser is going to burn too. That's like Sodom Junior. You can't go there. Lot's like, I don't care. I'm going there. Angels like, man, God, where did you get this?  He doesn't get it. And so he goes to the next city. The angels were supposed to burn as well. And angels decide to stop this whole burning process of the city. Lot is there for a few days. Lot runs from that city and hides in the cave. His daughters get him drunk. They have perverted stuff happen. The children are born that start doing witchcraft and all kinds of a cold and pretty much messy. And I look at Lot and I see this in him that I see sometimes detected in every person who doesn't live in the presence of God. It's a spiritual couch potato.  So I want to ask all the couch potatoes today. Let's put that potato in the oven and cook it. You can't live in God's presence being passive. You have to be passionate. You can be uneducated, but you have to be passionate. You can be broke, but you have to be passionate. You can be not well connected, but you have to be passionate. You can have one eye looking up and one like looking straight, but you got to be passionate. You can have some fingers missing, but you got to have no passion missing. God will honestly work with anything you got left, but he cannot work with passive, slow couch potato people. Somebody say amen. I just for crying out loud.  I want it to be a passionate church. We might not have it all together as other people have it. Our city might not have an international airport. It might not have this and this and that, but I want God to know one thing. One thing we don't lack here is fuego. Passion. We don't lack passion. We don't lack hunger. We don't lack desire. We don't lack desperation for God. And just because we have more degrees than a thermometer, it didn't kill our passion. Just because we pulled in on a nicer car, our passion is still the same as we had when we had nothing. We still know how to press into God as though we had nothing. I don't want God to drag me into his presence. I want to run into his presence. I want to run the mountain. I want to climb the mountain. I don't want to be dragged into it. I break every spirit of passivity in this place right now. I break the couch potato spirit over you in Jesus mighty name. Every passive spirit, it has to go in Jesus mighty name. Are you with me church?  Passive people dwell in caves. Passionate people live on the mountain. Passive people, Satan offers them religion to the passionate people God offers his presence. I want you to see what happens when you're going to be in the cave.  Substance abuse and cave has sexual immorality.  That means you need to wake up and come to prayer in your own time. You need to learn too fast. That means you need to join the small group.  You may say, but Lord, my legs hurt.  But my God, I'm just not the con. You know, I am a businessman. I'm a quiet type.  You watch Seahawks, not a quiet type. You belong to the loudest state in the whole states.   What is your passive self?  Oh, we're going to fry that potato right now in the oven and cook it until it gets destroyed. So the passion and fire and hunger and this undignified way of loving Jesus, pressing into Jesus is going to take away part of our heart. Can somebody say amen? Come on, every hand raised right now. Begin to worship Him.  Looking at some of your men right now. You're acting to dignify. That's your problem. Just be like David. Say, Lord, I'm here for you. I'm not here for my wife. I'm not here for my kids. I'm not here for the pastor. I'm here for your presence. And God, I need you. God, I need your presence. Lord, I'm hungry for you. I'm hungry for you the same way I was when I had nothing. God, I need you right now. Come on, every hand raised. I want you to lift your voice right now. And the count of three, the same way you were saying amen. I want you the same way to lift your voice. One, two, three. Come on, every voice lifted. Every voice lifted. Begin to cry out to God. Begin to cry out to God. Begin to cry out to God. Begin to lift a shout. Begin to lift a cry. Begin to lift like David, because he's God. I seek your face. God, I seek your glory. Yeah.    Just run to the front. If you're saying, you know what? I need God to rekindle. Come on, for the next eight minutes, just quickly. Get out, which has to be everybody. I don't know what you guys are doing standing. It's not quickly. Just get out of your seat and begin to just run to the front right now. This is not for salvation. This is saying, God, I want more of your presence. God, I want more of your fire. Grab your neighbor. Just quickly come. Grab your neighbor and just quickly come. Say, God, I need your presence. God, I love your presence.  This year is a year of prayer. This year is the year of the fire. This year is the year of the presence. This year is the year of hunger for the living God. God, I love your presence. Whoa, whoa, Jesus. Raise your hands up. Look at yourself and the presence of God. Do your heart. Sing the verse. Come on, say that to the Lord right now. In every hand raise. Every heart open to the Holy Spirit. Nobody looking around. Yes, Jesus. All right. Now in this prayer, We're gonna come against every sin and every cycle of sin because sin, it makes us warm towards God. The sin brings guilt and shame and condemnation and it drives us away from the presence of God. It chokes our relationship with God. And I know we have personal battles and personal struggles, but right now as we're seeking the face of God, God's gonna begin to lose you. God's gonna begin to break that shame every cycle of sin in your life so that you can enjoy the presence of God and so that the guilt and shame and that will drive you away from God. So that it will choke your relationship with God. Right now we're gonna attack and we're gonna come against that sin in your life. We're gonna come against that passivity in your life that it produces. We're gonna break every shame in Jesus' mighty name. We're gonna lose ourselves in the presence of Almighty God.   Come on, come on, repeat after me. See every chain of passivity that's connected to sin. See I break it. See I break it in Jesus' name. See every cycle of sin, every pattern of sin in my life. See I renounce it. See I break it in Jesus' name. See be broken. See be broken. See be broken. See every chain of passivity in my life. See I renounce it and I break it. See I break your hold.  See and I run to the mountain of the Lord. Presence of God in Jesus' name. Right now open up your lips and begin to pray. Open up your lips and begin to pray. Begin to confess your sin toward God. Begin to renounce or reject every sin, every passivity. Anything that's holding you back. Any business, any excuse that's choking your presence of God. That's choking your life from you and begin to run into the presence of God. Make up your mind and begin to run up into the mountain of the Lord in Jesus' mighty name. You need His presence. You need His touch today. In Jesus' mighty name. The presence of God is thick here right now and as the pastoral team is just moving around and praying right now, begin to step out of the cave in the name of Jesus Christ. The spirit of God is here right now to meet you at the point of you need. Those of us who are still at the back and you feel that you need that touch right now, just come forward right now. The spirit of God is here right now to touch you. To touch you right now to step out of the cave. To step out of those bad habits. To step out of those situations that you've been in. Right now, you have been given the authority as we continue to worship. Just begin to step out right now from those chains of bad habits, those chains of sin. This is a new year right now and God Almighty is taking you to new places in the name of Jesus. You know the mountain chain for you. The mention of your name, king of majesty. Pray in the Holy Ghost. From the back to the front, every hand raised. Let's begin to pray in the Holy Ghost. Begin to pray in the Holy Ghost. God is rekindling his presence in people's lives right now. God is rekindling dead things that died. He's rising dry bones right now. For those of you who your prayer life was dead, God is reviving that right now. He's reviving the awareness of his presence. Receive God's fire right now. Receive God's passion right now. Receive God's presence right now.  It is the anointing of the Holy Spirit. He's reviving things. He's stirring things up. He's waking things up because this is your season. This is your time. Where you've been summoned by God. Where you've been summoned by God. To hike the mountain. To run up to this hill. Can't do satra, di sra, bol, santara, bolsia, labas, santara, bajeia. Urabas kire beresu, turrabasi, liman, labas, santara, bajeia. Asa terebe kulumasi, tarabasi, tarabasi, teze, bol, dekutu, santara, cite. Asa terebe rebe baka, tarabasi, terebe rebe kulumanasa. Some of you got it sweeping through your life right now because he's searching for you. He's seeking you. He doesn't want your stuff. He wants you. He wants your presence. And he's touching you right now. That's why your heart melt like wax in the presence of God. He wants you. He wants your heart. He wants your soul. He wants your being. Dear Holy Spirit. Dear Holy Spirit. Fall afresh right now. Every hand raised right now. Begin to just welcome the precious Holy Spirit again as the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, consume me with your fire. Consume me with your fire. Oh, Holy Spirit. Consume me with your fire. Oh, Holy Spirit. Consume me with your fire. Fire, receive. God's fire. I feel tangible presence of the Holy Spirit in this room. Just open your stuff up. Demons are gonna be coming out right now. Somebody's knees are being healed right now. Somebody's lower back is being healed right now. In his presence, miracles are like breathing. Press in. Just press in. Open me with your fire. It's delivering you right now. You're addicted to painkillers. You're taking them but you're no longer prescribed. God is delivering you right now. God's presence is flushing that out. That addiction is being flushed out. Pray for the person next to you. Right now, just place your hands. So they begin to pray for them.  And hold them because some of them are gonna fall under the power of God right now. Just open up your lips, begin to pray. Pray in tongues. Don't be afraid. This is an atmosphere. I want the Holy Spirit to wreck this place right now. I want the Holy Spirit to leave people healed today. I want the Holy Spirit to leave people free today. For people to no longer have an addiction to that thing that they have an addiction for. And right now, wherever you are at, that is where the Holy Spirit is. Begin to open up your lips. Pray out loud. Pray passionately. Invite the Holy Spirit right now into their life. Invite right now anointing of the fire of the Holy Ghost into their life right now in the name of Jesus. I'm missing that it's in Spanish. I'm missing that it's in Spanish. I'm missing that it's in Spanish. As I mentioned before somebody's knees. God is touching somebody's knees right now. No problem with your joints. Just release that. Just receive that healing right now. Somebody's lower back as well. Lord is touching somebody's lower back. God is healing that. Just receive that. In Jesus' name. Come on, every hand raised. Let's sing it one more time. One more time. One more time. Ask the Holy Spirit. Consume you. Consume you. Consume you. Thank you Jesus. Thank you for watching this content. I know this was a blessing to you. We would like to ask you to subscribe to our channel and click on the bell on our channel so that each time we upload something you can be notified. Don't forget to share this content with your friends and family and on social media. We're so thankful to you. Better is not good enough. The best is yet to come.


Okay, so this one again should be reviewed from last semester, but I think it's a good one to go over really quick. So we can think of these two reactions. So and ask ourselves, we'll compare them, and ask ourselves which one would you think would be the faster SN1 reaction? Would it be the top one here or the bottom one here? Yeah, and you guys are already saying of course the bottom one, right? You remember from last semester why, right? It's because of course both the fluorine and the bromine. I guess so let's start and say, well what is an SN1 reaction, right? What's going to happen, this is polar solvent, so that's going to lose the leaving group because we've got a secondary alkyl halide and the mechanism of course would be very similar for this one, it's just the F instead of the Br. And what we would make effectively is the secondary carbocation. So that intermediate there and it's going to be the same intermediate, well let's draw it over here. For both of these ions or for both of these reactions, so that's secondary carbocation. So since you have the same solvent, make the same secondary carbocation, the only determining factor, the rate determining factor should be what is the leaving group. So that's what we're really looking at, which is the better leaving group. So that's the real question we're asking here when we're really asking which is the faster SN1 reaction. So which is the better leaving group? Well, they both have a negative one charge. So that's what you're really looking at as, well you've got to compare their charges. It's the same charge so now we've got to compare something else. Well, we've got to think, well the fluorine is very small relative to this huge bromine. And since they have the same charge, negative one, right, but the bromine has a much bigger surface area and they don't like to have that charge concentrated so what they'll try to do is kind of push it around their surface area like that. But since you've got more surface area on the sphere of this huge bromine, and think of these as all partials, if you will. So since it's the same negative one charge, you've got a very big surface area to spread it out, this actually is more stable, the bromine anion is more stable by itself than the fluorine is. So the fluorine actually wants to stick very close to the alkyl portion of this alkyl halide. So the bromine doesn't mind so much to have that negative charge because it's very big and it can distribute it around its surface area and the fluorine can't do it as well. So that's really what you're looking at is the size of the leaving group. So since the size of the leaving group is much bigger and bromine, it's going to be the faster SN1 reaction. So let's just finish it off, just write that. Which one's the faster? Bromine is faster, the fluorine is slower. Makes sense, right? Okay, cool.