Hi, this is Joel in Victoria. Thanks for listening to our podcast and thanks for supporting the ministry.

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I promise you, we'll make you feel right at home. Thanks so much, though, for tuning in.

Thank you again for coming out. I like to start with something funny. One day Jesus and Satan were having a contest to see who was better with computers.

After six hours of making spreadsheets, designing web pages, a thunderstorm knocked the power out.

When they rebooted their computers, Satan started screaming, it's all lost. All my material is gone. While Jesus quietly printed his out and turned it in.

Satan complained, it's not fair. He must have cheated. How come he didn't lose his work? God smiled and said, Jesus saves.

Let's say it like you mean it. This is my Bible. I am what it says I am. I have what it says I have. I can do what it says I can do.

Today I will be taught the Word of God. I boldly confess my mind is alert, my heart is receptive. I will never be the same in Jesus name. God bless you.

I want to talk to you today about separated for the better. In the scripture, there's a place called the Threshing floor. That's where the wheat was separated from the chaff.

Back in those days, they didn't have machinery. So they would lay sheaves of wheat on the ground and have their oxen and cattle walk over them repeatedly. They would break up the husk and straw.

The valuable part of the plant, the grain that was used for bread and meal, would come loose from the chaff.

The farmer could have a great harvest, but if he didn't separate the dysfunctional part of the plant from the functional, he would never make a living.

Even though he had something very valuable, if it didn't go through this process, it wouldn't do him any good.

In the same way, to reach our highest potential, God will take us through some Threshing floors. We start off like that stock of wheat. The potential is there. We have seeds of greatness. We're valuable.

But the problem is, we all have some chaff. Along with the valuable grain, we may have some pride or selfishness or insecurities.

Unless God took us through the Threshing floor, we've never become what He created us to be. God has to separate the dysfunctional part of us, the part that's holding us back from the valuable part.

Now, if the wheat could talk, it would say, I don't want to go through the Threshing floor. I don't want animals walking on me. That's uncomfortable. That's painful. Leave me alone.

But the farmer knows, without the separation, the grain would never be useful.

And sometimes we think, why am I stuck in traffic again? Why won't this person give me credit? Why did this friend walk away?

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