0:00:00 - 0:00:26 So I wanna give you a gift today. I'm in a celebratory mood because I just finished a huge uh project. It was a hard project. Um It took me about a month and it was like getting punched in the face for 30 days, all day long, which sounds pretty brutal. But um one thing that I know is true is that God 0:00:25 - 0:00:56 , he doesn't just give us the strength to overcome. He also gives us the path whereby we can overcome with joy. So, one of the blessings of the gospel is, is not just to get punched and get back up, but to do it while keeping a smile on your face and the cost of learning that and the value of believing 0:00:55 - 0:01:34 it, it can't be measured in any currency on this planet anyway. Um I, I like um I like pausing and enjoying victories because life goes by quickly. And um it's our reason and intent that highlights what has greatest worth if you're in a mode where you're just counting on life to highlight it for you 0:01:33 - 0:02:00 or you um unintentional feelings that is not gonna work out very well. You won't harvest nearly anything of the joy that God desires you to have in life. So, as part of this, I was talking to the Lord, I've taken a few weeks off making videos. I had plenty queued up and I wanted to focus on trimming 0:01:59 - 0:02:24 down my notes file for my books and getting that moving and taking time out to do these videos. Um contradicted that goal. So I paused but I, I said, Lord, I wanna, I wanna give people something today. What, what have you taught me that I can chip off a little bite size chunk and give them. And so here's 0:02:23 - 0:02:44 a little gift and it's about visions, but specifically, we're gonna talk about dreams and um you know, recently I heard someone talking about dreams from God, you know, they are dreams that just sort of reflect what you had for dinner last night and then you get the wacky ones. But there is this class 0:02:44 - 0:03:11 of dreams that are inspired and some people want them and don't have them. Some people have them and don't want them surprisingly. Um But I wanted to give you a key to receive this blessing if you don't have it in your life because um it's God's will that all of his Children have at least this mode through 0:03:11 - 0:03:34 which he can speak and I wanna keep this short. So I won't give you the full rundown of this, but I just wanna give you enough to chew on and you can get working on it if you'd like. Here's the deal. Um, you know how, as you get older you, there are people who are sort of lifelong connections, family 0:03:33 - 0:03:54 members or whatever and you get to know them really, really well and things come out that, you know, you, you're surprised to learn, you didn't know before. And, um, one of the, the interesting things about getting to know people over time is sometimes they'll open up to you and tell you things that 0:03:54 - 0:04:11 you couldn't know about a stranger, at least based off of what they, what you see them do or your knowledge of their history or whatever, they'll just share something with you. And now you have a more complete picture as I've gotten older and I've known people for longer. Here's something that has really 0:04:11 - 0:04:31 shocked me. I have seen so many examples of people who have had dreams from God. And a lot of these people would not call themselves Christians. And a lot of them would actually say they don't believe in God. And what do I mean by these dreams? Because they can come in a lot of different forms and they 0:04:30 - 0:04:52 could be highly symbolic. Sometimes they are extremely literal. They'll actually see something that hasn't happened yet and then it happens and, and it's plain enough that they understand what they're seeing. And so I've had it happen to me many times where someone has talked to me about some dream that 0:04:52 - 0:05:12 they've had and they know exactly what it means and they're like, well, what do you think about this? And I'm like, well pay attention if that happens, there's, you know, there's two things in this dream and if a happens, then you should count on b happening too. That's a rational belief. And what has 0:05:11 - 0:05:36 surprised me is that these folks, you know, a does happen and then not only do they not believe b in some cases, they don't even remember having the dream. And so, um I've tried to develop the ability to remember things like this or at least write it down. I write all my dreams down that I have. And 0:05:35 - 0:05:53 um, and in the moment like, uh in the times where, where, you know, I wake up in the middle of the night and I'm like, oh, I for sure I'm gonna remember that one. And then I don't, that's happened enough times that I forced myself to get out of bed and I write it down every single time I keep a notepad 0:05:52 - 0:06:14 and a pen right by my bed for this very reason. So I don't have any excuses not to write them down. And um, and then I type them up and I keep them in a special file and I refer to them often because um I take these things so seriously that I've gotten to the point where the, the, the only time God uses 0:06:13 - 0:06:35 dreams for the most part with me is as a mechanism for faith where he'll reveal something to me that's pretty far off from my current understanding or in time or if I knew what it would mean. This is a common one for me. I would just go do it because that's what I do. I go do what God says. And so if 0:06:35 - 0:06:54 there are timing elements involved, other things have to happen first or whatever. Um, it'll be shrouded in symbolism. And then as I'm going over these things for years, the time always comes when it's crystal clear and I know exactly what it's all about. And it's amazing because um nine times out of 0:06:54 - 0:07:20 10, it unlocks all these way deeper, transcendent gospel things like what certain symbols mean. And um you know, lots of stuff. But, but for most people, um dreams are a gateway to greater revelation. And so why, why does God, in my opinion, I think every single person who has ever lived has had at least 0:07:19 - 0:07:40 one inspired dream. And um if you were to ask someone if that's happened and they said no, I would either guess that they're lying, which happens surprisingly often or, and they know it or they don't remember because they pushed it out of their memory. And the thing about light is that when you react 0:07:39 - 0:08:06 to it in any way other than fool love and appreciation for that and obedience to it, you diminish your ability to receive those things in the future. And you also, we have something taken away from the past and frequently it's the memory of that dream among other things. And if you ask me why it is that 0:08:06 - 0:08:23 so few people have inspired dreams. When, when I personally believe that every single person has at least one, I would say it's because they didn't act on the first one. They just kind of marveled and like, oh, well, that's, that's weird. And they told two of their friends and then they forgot it. They 0:08:23 - 0:00:00 didn't write it down, they never came back to it. They never lifted a finger to try to ask, what about this? Could help me be a better person or prepare for what's coming or whatever or what test could I design to see if anything in this has anything to do with reality? And then if that proves true, 0:00:00 - 0:09:01 what would that imply for other things? They don't ask that? Like I said, a lot of these folks don't explicitly believe in God that, that I've interacted with. It's truly sad when they do. Um But you know, if you have a dream that shows you exactly what's gonna happen before it happens, you've got some 0:09:01 - 0:09:16 explaining to do and maybe that doesn't explicitly prove that God exists, but you're on your way, you better come up with something better because now you've experienced something that you don't have an explanation for so you better be open to things that you weren't open to before to try to explain 0:09:16 - 0:09:42 it. So, um dreams are gateway experiences because for the, for the neophyte, for the novice, um it's a way God can give you information that might be super important without totally condemning you for rejecting it. Um because it, it requires quite a bit of faith to pay attention, to wake up, to write 0:09:41 - 0:10:04 it down, to look at it, to try to think about what it might mean. Um The importance, the proof for how important of messages can come through dreams. It's all through the scriptures. You can see example, after example of really important instructions that came through dreams. And these are things where 0:10:04 - 0:10:25 if, if people hadn't taken them seriously, both the person who had it and also those who heard the information shared by that person, a lot of people would have died. So Joseph in Egypt is, is maybe the most obvious example, but there are more, there are a lot more. And so it turns out that um these 0:10:24 - 0:10:44 are really important things and if you're in a position where you don't have inspired dreams on a regular basis, and you don't have something better in their place. Because as God, um as you grow towards God, the limitations of that channel will become more apparent and he'll have to tell you things 0:10:44 - 0:11:06 more directly. Um Maybe he does that through um living messengers, other people who are alive on this planet. Maybe he does that through angels, maybe he does that through his voice directly. Maybe he does that through your thoughts. Um And, and all of those things carry a heavier weight, a burden. Um 0:11:06 - 0:11:25 , a greater blessing if you obey those channels, inmate light and truth through those channels and greater condemnation if you ignore, resist or reject it. And so dreams are the gateway because it's, it's sort of, it's a first ladder rung. And if you blow that, the question is, well, because what I'm 0:11:25 - 0:11:44 telling you is if you don't have this regularly or something better, you've, you're done messed up, right? Whether you realize it or not, you did. If you're a grown person and you don't have dreams or something better regularly from God, not cheeseburger dreams, then you're done messed up. So, how do 0:11:44 - 0:12:04 you get back? Um, well, it's the same as everything else. The, the first thing you do is to take an inventory of your life and you say what in the space of things can I do better if God himself were in my shoes, what would he do differently than I do? And then you, you make a list of that. You, you start 0:12:04 - 0:12:26 working on it and then when you're done, you pray again and you set about to the task again. And as you keep doing this, uh you'll get to the point where you run out of stuff and at that point, you have a right to ask God why he's not speaking to you as he's promised to. And he'll tell you the thing 0:12:26 - 0:00:00 that you forgot, or he'll open up the gates of hell and expose you to darkness. That's much greater than you thought ever existed either way. Um The point is that he's, he's lead you along and you'll, you'll be brought to the channels of greater light and truth. And um dreams tend to be the gateway. 0:00:00 - 0:13:09 They tend to be the gateway for hearing more of his voice in your life. I'll tell you though, to tie this up if I had to sum up the number one reason why people who are religious do not have inspired dreams from God. Um It's because they wouldn't believe them and act on them if they did. It's that simple 0:13:08 - 0:13:28 . Uh What I just said that was a deep dive. If I were gonna edit this video, I'd probably cut that because it's too much to tell you it's true but it's too much. But uh you know, I want, I want you to feel hopeful and try something that seems like a small bite. So here's your small bite and, and it'll 0:13:28 - 0:13:48 work almost every time for all of you is um So for almost all of you, this will be enough is really think about. If he told you some crazy thing through a dream, would you believe it? Would you act on it and I can almost guarantee the answer is no, because you, you sit there and you say, oh, I wish I 0:13:48 - 0:14:10 had inspired dreams like these people in the scriptures do. But you imagine that what they would contain are affirmations of your own perceived righteousness. And maybe not explicitly, you know, Joseph, as a kid, he had this dream of his parents bowing down to, down to him and, and maybe your dream wouldn't 0:14:09 - 0:14:35 be like the host of heaven bowing down to you and God himself, maybe not that you know that far of a uh of a jaunt into crazy ideas of your own righteousness. That's not what I mean. What I mean is your idea of what is holy right now. You would expect that dream to perfectly align with that. If your 0:14:35 - 0:14:56 idea of what is holy is going to church every Sunday and reading scriptures uh for 20 minutes a day or whatever, saying prayers, morning and night, whatever it is. Uh you would expect that dream to tell you all those things are holy. If the dream said something completely different as it tends to you 0:14:56 - 0:15:19 remember Peter's dream where he was told that the gospel needed to go to the gentiles. When Jesus had told him his whole ministry that the gospel was not to go the gentiles. When he sent out the 12, the 70 he told them, don't go to the nations, just the Children of Israel and So Peter has his dream with 0:15:19 - 0:15:39 the sheep and animals and he's told the exact opposite. So what does he do? He does the exact opposite. He does what he's shown in the dream because God has a right to correct your understanding of Him. You don't have the right to dictate to God how God is. That's reverse, right? So if you don't have 0:15:38 - 0:16:01 dreams inspired dreams, odds are the reason is because you're so self assured in what you think is right, that you would not yield to God. If he showed you, you were wrong and the dream probably wouldn't go something like, hey, this sacred cow you have, it's totally wrong. It could, it, it could, it 0:16:01 - 0:16:25 happened to Peter. It happened to me. But uh it will probably be more like I want you to do this thing that you're uncomfortable with or that you would never do or stop doing this thing that you do all the time or you think is super holy to do. And so what would your reaction be? It turns out that that's 0:16:25 - 0:16:49 not just the key for dreams, that's the key for a key for all revelation. You wanna get more communication from God first obey everything he's already told you and two learn to let go of how you think He is. When He tells you how He is. Those are not opportunities for you to cling to how you think He 0:16:48 - 0:17:06 is. There are opportunities for you to let go and then rebuild everything you thought before based on what he's just told you or shown you. So, that's long enough. Uh, I hope you put this into practice. It will absolutely change your life here and hereafter.