Welcome to Gateway Church's podcast.

Wherever you're tuning in from, we hope you're encouraged by today's message.

Well, I want to continue our series on the Holy Spirit, the series called Empowered.

And this weekend I want to speak on the subject of receiving the spirit of adoption.

Receiving the spirit of adoption. I want to tell you just a little

bit about my story first. I was born to a 15-year-old mother. She actually turned 15 one month

before my birth. My dad left before I was born. My grandparents raised me most of the early years of my

life. When I was three years old,

my mother remarried, and I had a stepdad, and he did his best. He was a truck driver. He was gone

a lot. My mother in those days worked in a factory. She was gone. So babysitters raised me as well.

At the age of five, they set me down to tell me that I was being

adopted. Now, it was my biological mother, but I didn't know that this man was my stepdad. My original

name was David Taylor, long story. My name today is Mark Job, another story. But they told me that

day that I was being adopted and they explained it to me. And I can remember the joy on their

face, you know, as they were excited about this process, they'd been walking through. But I didn't

take it as a positive.

All I could think about was, where's my dad? Where's my real father? Why didn't he stay? Why didn't he

want me? Why? Why? And my heart picked up on rejection. And my little five-year-old heart,

I believe that day, took on an orphan spirit.

An orphan spirit.

An orphan spirit will lie to you about your worth, your identity, and your future.

An orphan spirit will lie to you and try to rob you from your destiny.

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