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  HAVE YOU GONE PAST FEELING？
  by David Valderrama
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Summary: This sermon emphasizes the transformation that occurs when one
is born again and experiences the new life in Christ, contrasting the
state of being 'past feeling' with being alive in the Spirit. It delves
into the importance of maintaining a vibrant relationship with Jesus,
treasuring His anointing, and seeking to rekindle the intimate
fellowship with Him. The message urges humility, confession, and a deep
desire to return to a place of spiritual sensitivity and communion with
God.

Topics: "New Birth", "Spiritual Sensitivity"
Scripture References: Ephesians 4:17, 2 Corinthians 5:17, Psalm 63:8, Philippians 3:8, 1 John 4:7, 1 Corinthians 13:6, John 14:21, Revelation 2:4, James 4:6

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DESCRIPTION
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This sermon emphasizes the transformation that occurs when one is born
again and experiences the new life in Christ, contrasting the state of
being 'past feeling' with being alive in the Spirit. It delves into the
importance of maintaining a vibrant relationship with Jesus, treasuring
His anointing, and seeking to rekindle the intimate fellowship with Him.
The message urges humility, confession, and a deep desire to return to a
place of spiritual sensitivity and communion with God.

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CONTENT
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Ephesians chapter 4 verse 17 says, This I say therefore in testifying
the Lord that you henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the
vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated
from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them because of
the blindness of their heart, who, being past feeling, have given
themselves over unto lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with
greediness. Past feeling. I don't know about you, but there was a time
in my life whenever I enjoyed sin, whenever I enjoyed porn, fornication,
just every sin under the sun, drugs, sorcery, lying, stealing,
everything.

I was past feeling. I didn't feel what Jesus felt in his heart when I
was doing those things. I was lost.

I was dead in my trespasses and sins without hope and without God in the
world. I was past feeling. I don't know about you, but if you know what
I'm talking about, when you've been made alive by the Spirit of God,
when the Spirit of God enters inside of a man and quickens him to life,
brings him to life, raises him from the dead through believing in Jesus
Christ, and you experience a new birth, you're a new creature, born
again into eternal life.

You have a new nature. You're a partaker of the divine nature of God.
The things of God become very natural to you.

The things that Jesus did become very natural to you. You're not
following Jesus against your will. You're looking for the print of his
steps throughout the pages of scriptures that you may just follow hard
after him.

As the psalmist said, my soul follows hard after you. Psalm 63. There's
something that has been kindled in you by the grace you've received
through the forgiveness of your sins and realizing the punishment you
deserved in hellfire for your rebelling and for your rebelling and your
stubbornness and your idolatry, your pride, your stiff necked, your
hard-heartedness.

You realize the punishment that you deserve and the mercy you receive
and there's something kindled in your heart where you just want to live
with Christ, die with Christ, suffer with Christ, rejoice with Christ.
You want to walk even as he walked. You want to follow hard after him.

You're no longer past feeling. The very heartbeat of Jesus Christ is
inside of your heart and your heart is pumping with his and his life is
flowing in you and through you. You've been born again.

Everything's beautiful. Everything, the trees, the sun, the sky, the
stars, people, regardless of how off they are or how dead they are. You
feel love in your heart for them, regardless of how sinful or just
downright hateful of God.

You feel something in your heart that you've never felt before. You feel
compassion. You feel love.

You feel this earnest plea of God pleading through you for their soul to
be reconciled to God, to repent and to believe the gospel and there's
there's something inside you that you feel that wasn't there. Now if
you've ever been past feeling, I remember very vividly whenever I was
past feeling. I was a teenager.

It wasn't until 2001 when I was made alive and born again, raised from a
spiritual death, walked in newness of life. It wasn't until 2001 that I
experienced that, but I don't know about you, but when time has a way of
changing us, you know, we get bogged down with the cares of this life.
There's trials we go through.

There's things that we suffer. There's endurance that we've needed to
run the race that has been set before us and we've been asked all these
questions and we've been tossed to and fro like a wave of the sea by
every wind of doctrine and we've had to dig in the scriptures and look
at stuff on the computer and seek wisdom from elders and do all these
different things to try to get properly established in the grace and
truth of Jesus Christ and all of these things kind of wears away at you.
It kind of, you know, it's like whatever I carried that, you know, I
walked from Baltimore, Maryland to St. Augustine, Florida in 2007 to
2008 carrying a large wooden cross and I would get a lot of calluses on
my feet.

Calluses are these hard things that form on the different areas of our
body that are constantly getting rubbed and that's what it was like. I
was, the constant movement of my feet inside my shoe, walking up hills
or on the side of a hill, you know, like this or walking uphill, it
would cause my feet to rub, my toes to rub and I'd get these blisters
but in time, you know, these calluses would form and these calluses are
hard and like time has a way of doing that to our hearts. All the
different things that we go through in this life can harden our hearts
and we can once again become without feeling.

We may not be living in sin. We may still, like, the thought of using
drugs repulses me. The thought of porn repulses me.

The thought of stealing repulses me. All these things, like, it's like
whenever I use the restroom in the morning and I flush my stuff down the
toilet, you know, and or if I, you know, if I release a load into the
toilet and I look at that thing, you know, I'm not tempted in any way. I
want to flush it down the toilet.

I want it to go into the sewer where it belongs. There's nothing inside
of me that wants to, like, dig in that toilet and take it out of there
and take it with me, you know. That's what Paul likened his past life to
in Philippians chapter 3. He said, I can't all things but dung.

Dung. Like the stuff that you flush down the toilet every day. That's
what Paul's past life was to him.

All of his achievements and all of his sin were both counted as dung.
Not just his sin, but his worldly success, his religious success as a
Pharisee, his achievements, his endeavors, his zeal, all these things he
counted as dung. And he wasn't the least bit drawn away by them and
enticed to go relive it.

He was a new creature created in Christ Jesus under good works which God
ordained before the foundation of the world. These things were written
on his heart and he wrote it on the pages for us to read in Scripture.
But we can become past feeling, friends.

Past feeling. Like, do you still feel that earnest plea inside your
heart for souls that are lost in places you go, down the streets, in the
markets, at the barbershop, at school, at work, wherever you are, at the
gas station, do you still feel that earnest plea of Jesus on the inside
of you for souls to be reconciled to God? Are you grieved by sin, by
things you hear about on the news, by things that you hear about in the
neighborhood? Are you grieved by the sin in this world? Do you still
find the most amount of joy? Is it the highlight of your day when you
just perceive the presence of Jesus manifesting in your room? Is it
still the highlight of your day when when you perceive Jesus speaking to
your heart and you know that he's given you a message? Is that the
highlight of your day? Just to be with Jesus. Just waking up with Jesus.

Working with Jesus. Living with Jesus. Laying your head next to Jesus.

Like, is it Jesus, Jesus, Jesus? Is he the highlight of your day? Is he
the joy that's unspeakable and full of glory? Is he still that pearl of
great price to you? Is he still that treasure that you found and hid in
a field and for joy over it went and sold all that you had so you could
buy that field that had that treasure that was hidden? Is Jesus your
everything? Is he your all? Is he everything to you? Or are you past
feeling? Do you no longer weep when he weeps and rejoice when he
rejoices? Do you no longer feel these inner promptings of his spirit, of
his presence on the inside of you, moving you to speak and to do as he
would? Are you past feeling? It's really interesting, you know, there's
a lot of people, you know, that would call themselves Christian and say
that they're born again. Even as the Pharisees called themselves
children of Abraham. John the Baptist said God is able to, of these
stones, to raise up children to Abraham.

Like, there's people that really believe they're born again. That
they've experienced the new birth. Maybe they have.

But the way of Jesus is unnatural to them. The way of Jesus is
disagreeable to them. The way and the teaching and the life of Jesus,
his ministry, his words, his presence, they're not their inspiration.

It's not their passion. It's not this burning desire on the inside of
them. It's not this something moving them on the inside anymore.

Or maybe it never did. There's a lot of people that I've met over the
years that think that they've been born again. And they don't even know
it.

They hardly know anything that Jesus said. They still aren't, like, they
don't talk to people. They don't share their faith.

They don't tell their neighbors about Jesus. What do you think? Do you
think they're past filling? Do you think they're truly born again? John
said, whoever has this world's goods and sees his brother in need and
shuts up his bowels of compassion from him, how does the love of God
abide in such a man? And I say unto you that if you know the truth, and
the truth is what sets people free, and you don't share it, how does the
love of God abide in you? Think of it. Friends, we're talking about
Jesus Christ.

It says, in the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and that
Word was God. All things were made through him, and without him was not
anything made that was made. And that Word, which is God, who is the
creator of all things, became flesh and dwelt among us full of grace and
truth.

It's Jesus Christ. Can you really say that his Spirit is living on the
inside of you, and that's the reason why you're living the way you're
living today? That's the reason why you're going to school? That's the
reason why you're working where you work? That's the reason why you wake
up at whatever time you wake up in the morning or go to bed at night?
That's the reason why you've got all these plans for the weekend? Is it
really because of Jesus Christ, or are you past feeling? Well, anyways,
I've met so many people that believe that they're born again, that they
have no fruit. They consider those that share the truth with them
enemies, and even if it's done in meekness and the gentleness of Christ,
even when you've showed yourself long-suffering and you've sacrificed
and laid down your life for them, not in a self-righteous, high-minded
way that like, hey, I'm obedient to the gospel, but I mean like you're
not even thinking about what you're doing.

You're just moved according to the power that is working in you to lay
down your life and sacrifice to spend and be spent for them. But like
the Apostle Paul said to the Church of Corinth, he said, the more
abundantly I love you, the less I'm loved by you. He said, am I
therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth? Friends, if
we're truly born again, the Bible says in 1st John chapter 4 that
whoever is born of God loves, and he that does not love is not born of
God.

And it says in 1st Corinthians 13 that love rejoices in the truth. It
doesn't rejoice in evil, but it rejoices in the truth. When you're
confronted by a brother that you know loves you, that's meek and humble,
that has gone over and above to show the love of Jesus to you and to
give you not only their resources, but more importantly their hearts.

And you start pointing the finger back. You start rallying on them. You
get frustrated, angry.

You can't receive the correction, the concern from your brother or your
sister. That is not fruit. That's not Christian fruit.

That's pride. That's the work of the devil. Whose son are you? Whose
child are you? Jesus said, you shall know them by their fruit.

And so it's like, where I'm going with this is like, if we become past
feeling again, not like dead to God and alive to sin. We're still dead
to sin, but we're not alive to God as like we once were. We don't quite
feel that.

It's like this anointing, this presence of God is the only way I know
how to describe it. There's this something that we experience. It's
inspiring.

It makes us alive. It quickens us. It makes us rejoice.

It makes us cry. It makes us energized. Makes us wise.

When we no longer experience this, or at least not as much, are we past
feeling like when we go out into the world to buy our groceries, what do
we see? I remember, friends, whenever I used to, whenever I first got
plucked out of the fire in 2001, and my sins were forgiven and they were
nailed to the cross, and I no longer had to fear death. I no longer had
to fear hell. That was over.

That was defeated. And my sins were forgiven. I immediately went out in
the streets telling people about Jesus.

I could hardly leave the grocery store without talking to people. And it
wasn't because I was trying to be a Christian. It wasn't because I knew
that this is what the Bible says we're supposed to be like.

It's because Jesus is living on the inside of me, friends. And I was
alive to him. And you may wonder, what are you saying? Are you saying
that like, if you no longer feel this, that you're dead to God? Well,
everything that I'm doing like revolves around Jesus.

But I have to admit, I don't quite feel the same way that I used to. I'm
not saying that you're dead to God. I'm not saying that you're alive to
sin.

It's possible to still have hatred for sin. And it's possible to still
be alive to God in the sense that you're not dead to him. Your life
totally revolves around him.

But it's also possible for both of these to be true, for you to lose
that precious anointing, that sweet, intimate fellowship of Jesus, where
you wake up in the morning, and it doesn't matter how little sleep you
got, because Jesus is right there. You're ready to start your day with
him. You just have so much joy, regardless of what you're going through.

Do you still have that, friends? Or are you past feeling? Because the
anointing of Jesus is not without feeling. I have to admit, I've made
some mistakes in my walk over the past 20 years that have made me
without feeling, in some respects. Not all the time, but like, there's
nothing more precious to Jesus than his anointing, in my opinion.

Like, when Jesus anoints you with his presence, like in the Old
Testament, friends, whenever the Spirit of God came upon King Saul,
whenever the Spirit of God came upon David, whenever the Spirit of God
came upon those men in the camp of Israel, they began to prophesy, they
began to sing, they began to dance, they began to move to, like, the
beat or rhythm of the Spirit of the Lord. There was something that
happened, and that can be lost, friends. I don't think it can be lost
permanently.

It might be, maybe. But I think we need to be very careful. I think we
need to treasure that anointing more than anything.

It's more precious than any plans we have, anything that we think is a
priority. It's more important than any people in our life, because that
is like the manifestation of Jesus, is the anointing. That's the
manifestation of Jesus, whenever we feel that, friends.

Whenever we're no longer going out in the streets to preach to people
about Jesus, because we're just trying to, like, do what we know we
should be doing. But there's Jesus on the inside that's compelling us to
do it. He's moving us forward.

We're, like, we were moved to our knees, you know. I remember whenever I
was walking to the gas station, I didn't have a car at the time. My
family was poor, and I was staying with my mom during this time, and I
was staying with my mom at this time, and friends, I just, I would walk
to the gas station sometimes.

It was, like, half a mile away, and I remember I would be walking to the
gas station, and all of a sudden, just this immense unworthiness. I
would just be overwhelmed by my immense unworthiness of the gift of
Jesus, and of what I was experiencing. And right there in the grassy
meadows, I would just get on my knees and just weep, because I'm, like,
Lord, I'm so unworthy of this.

I've been so unfaithful to you. I've been such a rebellious to you.
I've, like, done all this evil, Lord, and I know you've forgiven me, but
Lord, I'm not worthy of this.

And I just thank you so much for it, Lord. It, like, it's, it just,
it's, it's everything to me, Lord, when you do this, when you manifest
yourself to me. That anointing is precious, friends, and it can be lost.

We need to treasure, treasure this anointing more than anything. It's
the manifested presence of Jesus is what it is. It's what it is.

Jesus also said, he that has my commandments and keeps them, he it is
that loves me. My Father will love him, and I will love him, and I will
manifest myself in him. But I have to tell you, friends, even though
that scripture's the truth, I wasn't thinking about that scripture when
I was obeying him.

I wasn't thinking that if I do this, then Jesus will do this. That's not
love, that's business. No, I just, I could feel in my heart different
times that Jesus wanted me to fast, and I would fast, or I would pray,
and I would pray, or I would just go down this neighborhood, you know,
in Tulsa, Oklahoma, and I would just start knocking on doors at all
these apartments and tell people about Jesus.

There's just different things that I would do, or I knew that I would
commit this Friday to helping my grandmother get her groceries and
taking her to the store at that time I had a car. There's just being led
by the Spirit, you know, the anointing of Jesus, just being led by Jesus
to do what you're doing, that intimate abiding, that union, that
fellowship, and you may, you know, like there's people that say, yeah,
no, that's like the honeymoon stage. Oh, after a few years, that'll all
go away, but the important thing is that you hold fast, that you stay
with it, that you exercise patience, that you endure all things.

Friends, that's what people told me, but my Bible says that the path of
the just shines brighter and brighter as the noonday sun. If what I
experienced at the beginning is not growing hotter and stronger towards
the end of my sojourn through the wilderness of this world, I've made
some mistakes, and I may not even know what they are, but something in
me has changed. Jesus hasn't changed.

I have. So I think the most important thing to recovering this, if
you're wondering, like, yeah, I relate to you, David. I've experienced
this manifest presence of Jesus, His anointing.

I've been led by His Spirit in this sensitive way. I've wept. I've
rejoiced.

I've consoled. I've been comforted. I've poured myself out.

I've sacrificed myself for others, you know, under this inspiration,
this influence, this anointing, but man, I just, I don't really have it.
I don't think I have it that much anymore. Well, I think that's good
that you realize that.

Some people, I'm not going to tell you like these other people, this,
oh, you grew out of it. No. I think when the apostle John was on the
island of Patmos, and he was all by himself on this island, he had all
the other apostles were dead, and he was out there on this island of
Patmos, I think that he was longing to be with Jesus, that he was
remembering Jesus, and that he was fellowshipping with Jesus, and Jesus
revealed Himself to John's thirsting soul, and when Jesus started
speaking to him, it says that, then I turned to see the voice that spoke
with me, and having turned, he fell at his feet like a dead man.

I think John was longing, you know, there was this, like he says, even
so, come Lord Jesus, the spirit and the bride say, come. I think John
would not tell you that, you know, as you get older, you just fall out
of love with Jesus. That's nonsense.

That's nonsense, friends. That's not the truth. That's a heart that has
grown past feeling that spoke those words.

That's somebody that's grown past feeling. They're past feeling again.
That's not wisdom.

That's not maturity in Christ. That's past feeling. I think John would
tell you, beloved, remember the hands that were pierced for you? What
were you doing with your hands? Beloved, what were you doing with the
feet, with your feet? Remember the feet that were pierced for you?
Beloved, what are you doing with your mind that you've been given? You
remember the head that was pierced with thorns for you? I think he
probably says something like that, you know, and he may say, you know,
Jesus didn't die with his arms folded, you know.

He died with his arms stretched out. He said, come and dine, you know,
whenever Peter was downcast and discouraged. And Jesus made him
breakfast.

We don't know it. We don't know what John would say, but I definitely
know that he wouldn't say you fall out of love with Jesus. Jesus isn't
somebody that you fall out of love with.

Jesus is somebody that it will take an eternity to even reach the
pinnacle of what it means to be in love. This doesn't mean that we don't
have our days, but if we have our days, you know, where we don't
experience this, it's not on him, it's on us. But I think the first step
into rekindling this, into experiencing this anointing of Jesus to just,
it's realizing that you've changed and that you need to change, that you
need to humble yourself, that you need to admit it, that you need to
confess it.

Because friends, there's a lot of people that think that they've been
saved, that think that they've been born again. And you know that they
haven't. You know it.

It's not just a season in their life of sin or stumbling or making
mistakes or confusion. It's like they've never brought forth fruit that
the book of 1st John talks about. They've never had a hunger and thirst
for righteousness, for the presence of Jesus, for obedience or holiness
or any of these things.

If they don't admit, like if they always think that they have it,
they'll never receive it more than likely. Because they don't even know
that they need it. And that's what a lot of elders, you know, say to
people.

They say that honeymoon stage, you know, it's like a fire, you know.
It'll eventually burn out. But I think that this fire that Jesus kindles
burns hotter and hotter as the noonday sun.

The only problem is, is that it takes work. Like fire, it takes work.
You got to feed it something.

It's not about what you can get out of God, but what can he get out of
you? He's already given you everything. What have you given to him? Fire
has got to consume us. We've just got to lay our lives down upon that
wooden altar of the cross and just die so we can live.

Like it's like this strange paradox, you know, like when we die, we live
when we're crucified together with him. Then this fellowship and this
anointing and this communion and this empowerment, you know, we all
begin to relate to it more and more with the apostles. When we read the
apostles describing about their experience in Christ, we find ourselves
communicating with them.

We're like fellowshipping with them. We're relating to them. We're
experiencing what they were going through.

And anyways, I just encourage you, you know, if you're out there and you
feel like your past feeling, you just hold on. But you throw yourself at
the feet of Jesus and you admit, Lord, it's been years, it's been years,
years since I've experienced this or it's been months or it's been a
long time. I don't even remember the last time I experienced what Dave
was talking about.

Lord, I want this again. I need it again, Lord. Just do it again, Lord.

Admit it. Let it break your heart. Let it bring you to your knees.

Let it stir your heart to cry out to him. Say, Lord, have mercy on me, a
sinner. Wash me, Lord, of whatever it is that's like, that's interfered
with this communion, this intimate fellowship, Lord, that prevents you
from manifesting yourself to me.

Lord, has it been my pride? Has it been the excitement that I get? Have
I used my relationship with you to draw attention to me? Have I used the
things that I've learned through my communion with you to promote myself
and my own holiness? What is it, Lord, that's like, that separated me
from this? What is it, Lord, that's like distanced me from this? What is
it, Lord, that prevents it? Like it says, God opposes the proud, but he
gives grace to the humble. Admit it, friends. This is where you're at.

If you feel like you're past feeling like, Lord, I feel like I'm past
feeling. I no longer feel your heartbeat. I no longer feel you living
your life through me.

I no longer feel the way that I did when I first put my trust in you and
witnessing and reading the Bible and fellowship and communion and
studying the Bible and writing tracts and writing little booklets or
writing out my thoughts, my inspirations that you birth inside of me,
Lord. It's no longer there. I no longer feel it, Lord, like I used to.

It no longer wakes me up out of my bed. It no longer wakes me up out of
my sleepiness at work. I miss it, Lord.

I want it again. Cry out to the Lord. Acknowledge that it's gone, but
believe that it's not far away and be content with the Lord's timing to
restore it again.

Grace and peace to you.

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Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/HZXy32oc3Wg.mp4
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/david-valderrama/have-you-gone-past-feeling/
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