Latest / The Living Waters Podcast / Ep. 266 - How to Cultivate a Diligent Life

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Ep. 266 - How to Cultivate a Diligent Life · The Living Waters Podcast

• 1:04
  Speaker 1: And about an hour into our trip I'm like I'm going to test the autopilot's true north with the actual north, the actual one that I had in my hands.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: And I checked it and it was off by two degrees.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Now you might think, well, two degrees, not that big of a deal, it's only 27 miles.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: The island is 30 miles wide.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: So you might think well, instead of landing at Isthmus Cove, maybe you land a few coves over.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: But no, by two degrees being off, we would have missed the island completely.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: That's the thing.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Your spiritual habits is a way for you to reorient your heart towards true north.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: And if you're off by just a little bit we were praying earlier today about small compromises If you're off by just a little bit, the long shot of your life will end up being off completely.
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: So reorient your heart towards the glory of God through your daily spiritual habits.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: I love that it's beautiful.
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: What is your name?
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: What is your serial number?
• 2:18
  Speaker 3: Finish it Ray.
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: What is your rank and why do you keep hitting me when I'm asking you?
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: these questions.
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: That has been one of my all-time favorites, Ray.
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: Why do you do stuff like that?
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: It's a joke that's given me a lot of joy over the years.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: I've never failed to laugh at it, and you've got to build it up.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: This general Nazi was slapping the face, is that something?
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: from what's that show you used to love?
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: No, Hogan's Heroes?
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: No, it's not yeah, no, they didn't think of it.
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: But, friends, look, once you've heard one of ray's jokes you've heard at a thousand times in fact, we call him I call him a broken ray curd.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: Okay, that was actually a good gadget you like that, you like that so, but just stop for a minute.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: That german accent didn't come across in Indiana.
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: I didn't get commended for it, oh wow, I think that's the first time you broke away from an Indian accent?
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: It's because you practiced it so much over the years.
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: Ray, what did you rank?
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: And we're back.
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: We're back.
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, but yes, friends, like I said, ray is a broken Ray-Card and I'll prove it.
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: Watch this, ray.
• 3:31
  Speaker 3: I want you to finish these.
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: What do you mean?
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: Watch this, watch this, ray.
• 3:35
  Speaker 3: What do you do when someone touches your biceps?
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: What do you say?
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: What do you say?
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: You'll break your fingers.
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: And Oscar and I printed all these out in big red so Oscar can verify.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: As.
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: I say it please be careful, you'll break your fingers.
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: Okay, ray, what do you say to someone who happens to stoop down in front of you?
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: Stand up, I'm just a man, ray.
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: What do you say when they tell you that one of your kids looks like you?
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: Don't say that You'll make her proud.
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: Is this right Oscar?
• 4:02
  Speaker 3: Word for word, ray.
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: What do you say when they tell you that they haven't done something in their whole life?
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you haven't had your whole life.
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: Ray, what do you say when you tell someone something that they weren't?
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: What do you say when you tell someone something and they weren't paying attention?
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: AB Earl.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: What's that, mike?
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: Ab Earl, oh, ab Earl, right Oscar, there it is.
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: AB Earl.
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: Found there.
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: Ray, what do you say to someone when they tell you that they committed a sin in the past?
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: Everything's in the past.
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: Word for word.
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: Ray, what do you say to someone when they tell you that they did something wrong when they were younger?
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: You were younger when I met you, Ray.
• 4:49
  Speaker 3: What do you say to?
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: someone when they tell you they've only stolen something small Like a diamond ring.
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: Ray, what do you do when someone says forever I'm in?
• 4:59
  Speaker 3: Did you get them all?
• 5:00
  Speaker 3: Did you see?
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: There's more there's more.
• 5:02
  Speaker 3: Okay, ray, finish this.
• 5:07
  Speaker 3: What, okay, I'm going to impersonate here.
• 5:08
  Speaker 3: What does that make you A liar?
• 5:10
  Speaker 3: Have you ever stolen anything?
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: Yes, what does that make you A thief?
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: No a lying thief.
• 5:19
  Speaker 3: Okay, Ray, what do you do, what do you say when you're playing someone in a ping pong game and they call out a tied score of 2-2?
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: Oh, 2-2 was a racehorse, 1-1 was 1-2.
• 5:30
  Speaker 2: 2-2-1-1 race, 1-1-1-1-2.
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: Remember the first time you did that?
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's.
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: Murray Smith.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: I learned that from my friend.
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: Okay, ray.
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: What do you say to people about my daughter's rare condition when you point to a photograph of her in our ministry's bookstore?
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: She's got long almonds and seeds.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: The amount of times I've heard that in 10 years.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: Seriously, that's pretty good.
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: That is on point.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: He's a prophet.
• 5:59
  Speaker 3: I mean, this morning I'm sitting there thinking this.
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: I'm like I can't believe, and this is just like scratching the surface.
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: We need to start the book of Ray's.
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: Seriously, the broken Raykert friend X-rays yeah, ray.
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: By the way, I did have a question on that.
• 6:12
  Speaker 3: Note from that last one, we did the whole grown incense.
• 6:19
  Speaker 3: That's from Hell's Best Kept Secret, right, and I wonder how many people around the world actually think there's such a thing as grown incense.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: Didn't you know, there is.
• 6:30
  Speaker 3: Grown insensitivity?
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: Yes, it's when people hear you, they get it.
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: Grown insensitivity.
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: So, ray, can you tell us why you're such a broken record, why I don't know you take so much pleasure in it too.
• 6:43
  Speaker 3: But as you hear this, is it enlightening to you?
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: No, he knows it Like.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: This is your life.
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: I've been hearing it for 40 years.
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: That's the thing is.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: When someone sets him up for one of those, you see the spark come up.
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: Because it's going to make someone smile and that's great, Greatest joy of his life, seriously his whole life, is on repeat.
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: Groundhog Day, every single repeat.
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: Groundhog Day, every single day, Groundhog Day.
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: That's the autobiography Life on Repeat, In fact any time I call him in the evening after I go for about two minutes, then I basically describe every single thing that he had done up until that point in the day For the.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: for the last, like 20 minutes.
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: That's exactly what I've been doing.
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: But I'm sews knitting scarves for the ministry, which he always does at night, and I'm watching rugby while editing.
• 7:38
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: And that's it.
• 7:39
  Speaker 2: That's basically your whole life.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: What else?
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: would you want to do?
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: That's the whole of life right there, Well friends.
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: And cereal, oh cereal there.
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: Well, friends, I think cereal, yeah.
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: Well, oh wait, what happened?
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: Oh, that is cereal.
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: Okay, that is the one thing.
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: Back on the wagon.
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: Huh mark, you know this right how many years were we familiar?
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: With this.
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: Three bowls of cereal every day used to be your routine.
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: This is the like.
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: One of the few things you've ever broken away from.
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: Had to wow kidney steins no, no, no, no, no.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: I can't take wheat.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: Oh, wheat intolerant.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: You're dying.
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: What kind of cereal are you eating now?
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: It's those round things with a hole in.
• 8:14
  Speaker 2: Is it wheat?
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: No, oh, Cheerios.
• 8:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think they're Cheerios.
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I can handle those.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: Ah, I swallow them whole.
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: Why do you heat?
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: up your milk.
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: Because, it tastes nicer.
• 8:25
  Speaker 4: You heat up your milk.
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Wait you're a bowl of cereal.
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: Yes, he heats up his ice cream, don't you?
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: Why, of course I heat up my ice cream.
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: He heats up ice cream, bro, what?
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, just for a few seconds.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: It makes it nice to eat.
• 8:36
  Speaker 4: I freeze my milk to put on my cereal.
• 8:38
  Speaker 4: No, you can have cold milk.
• 8:39
  Speaker 2: That's good, it's like if you're.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: And so if it's lukewarm, no, I don't like it, but I like hot milk on my cereal.
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: It makes it taste better.
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: You keep getting worse.
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: Is it soup?
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: At that point, no Ice cream in the microwave.
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: Who does that?
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: Yes, a lot of people are going to write in and say they put a little ice cream in the microwave.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: Nobody.
• 8:59
  Speaker 3: No no no, no.
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: I assure you, Nobody puts ice cream.
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: The whole point of ice cream is it's frozen.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: Do you know what I want on a hot summer day?
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: Hot ice cream Chestnuts explode in the microwave at 53 seconds.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: You would know that.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: But, yeah, no, it's not like put it in for 10 minutes, Just put them for five, six seconds and it's easier.
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: You can get more in your mouth because it's slightly melted.
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: No wrong.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: You're not fighting a block of hard ice cream no wrong, all right, all right.
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: Friends, time for another one of your cool, classy comments.
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: This is from japo7314.
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: Japo, yep, I thank god for you all the time.
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: Thank you for what you do.
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: I met ray at huntington beach Pier earlier this year and just recently what I said.
• 9:49
  Speaker 3: I'm sorry.
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: Oh, and just recently started listening to your podcast.
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: I would give you 10 stars if I could.
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: I bought my comfort as Jesus and have been reading and listening to the Bible and praying, now more than ever before, thanks to your encouragement.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: That's wonderful.
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: And she ends it with thank you, friends.
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: I hope it's a she, I don't know she or he.
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: Wow, guys, how stirred do we get when we get comments like this.
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: They're seeking the Lord more.
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: They're reading the gospel more.
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: They're reading the word more, sharing the gospel.
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: That gives us great joy.
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it does so.
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: Thank you, j-a-p-o.
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: However, you pronounce that, all right friends, time for another radically revolutionary resource.
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: This podcast is brought to you by my Comfort.
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: Is Jesus, lo and behold, falls in line with what this person had mentioned, or was it someone else?
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: I thought it was maybe someone else.
• 10:42
  Speaker 3: It was.
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: Was it?
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you got a short memory loss.
• 10:45
  Speaker 3: What happened to my memory?
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Hi, I'm Ray.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: Oh man.
• 10:54
  Speaker 3: Bad memory, but I was able to remember all of your little sayings.
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they left a special corner for you.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: It's a mental home.
• 11:02
  Speaker 3: Totally, you've driven me crazy.
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, my comfort is Jesus 365 devotional entries 365.
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: Ray, when you add that with Jesus in red.
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: No, no, that was morning and evening 730.
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: You made me do that.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: I did this to you.
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, I was thinking Jesus in red, but when you add this to Jesus in red, you're talking over a thousand devotional entries.
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: Were there any other devotionals?
• 11:33
  Speaker 3: 365s that you did?
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: What?
• 11:37
  Speaker 4: No idea To be clear devotion one simply says yep.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: Devotion day two is right.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: Yep, yep, yep yep right all the way through.
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: All right, friends, my cover is Jesus.
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: Don't forget to chug from the Living Waters mug and evidence study Bible all at livingwaterscom.
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: All right, today we're talking about how to cultivate a diligent life.
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: Speaking of that, I read a comment last night on a YouTube channel where a guy said God told me to tell you that the law was only given to the Jews.
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: So I wrote back.
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: God's word tells me the law was given to stop every mouth and leave the whole world guilty.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: Before God he wrote back.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: Sorry, why do you think God told me that?
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: No, you're joking.
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: Wow, are you serious?
• 12:30
  Speaker 4: I'm serious oh boy, that's a problem.
• 12:33
  Speaker 4: Different gods yes.
• 12:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's very problematic.
• 12:38
  Speaker 3: All right, friends diligence, this is the definition Were you guys playing patty cake.
• 12:43
  Speaker 4: I was putting a long hair off of Ray's sleeve.
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was probably off my chest.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: Seriously, I wish those back hairs get everywhere.
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: I seriously wish we could take back-to-back clips of your two.
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: Oscar and I are normal.
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: No, no, mark's, it's Mark, we work, we do our job.
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: I'm sitting here perfect, mark's just being annoying all the time Removing hair.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: I removed a long hair from yours I put it there this morning.
• 13:11
  Speaker 4: What about the?
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: one on your ear or your nose.
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: Leave them alone.
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: Braid them together.
• 13:14
  Speaker 4: Mark, I spent most of my ministry here just taking care and protecting the way.
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: That's true.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to scrape doorposts with my ear hair.
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: Alright, stop it.
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: How to cultivate diligence.
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: Here's a dictionary Dictionary.
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: That's what?
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: Stop it.
• 13:27
  Speaker 3: How to cultivate diligence.
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: Here's a dictionary.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Dictionary Dictionary.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: That's what they sell in the Middle East.
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: Definition of diligence.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: What's in that cup?
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: You're drinking Eason I don't know, man.
• 13:34
  Speaker 3: This is from dictionarycom Diligence Constant and earnest effort to accomplish what is undertaken.
• 13:42
  Speaker 3: Persistent exertion of body or mind.
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: Could you read that again Really?
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, of body or mind.
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: Could you read that again Really?
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, constant and earnest effort to accomplish what is undertaken.
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: Persistent exertion of body or mind.
• 13:55
  Speaker 3: Ray you like that definition?
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like bulldog mentality Get hold of your teeth, was it Churchill that said that's why the bulldog's nose is slanted, so it can get something in its teeth and not let go.
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: Keep breathing.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: No, and that's how we should be Bulldogs whatever we put our hand to, do it with all our might.
• 14:15
  Speaker 3: Bite them, bite them, mark, yeah, yeah.
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: Diligence.
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: What would we do without um?
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: It's such a good filler.
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: Okay, I'm going to challenge you guys to not say um once, no problem.
• 14:27
  Speaker 4: Could, you Um yeah.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: I mean, where did it come from?
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: Who started it?
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: Start?
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: bringing this, and why?
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, why is it um?
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: Why isn't it like fluff, fluff?
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: Well, it's fluff, fluff, fluff, fluff, fluff fluff that's what they say in Australia.
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: Fluff, fluff.
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: You know, the other day, fluff, fluff, I was why?
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: um Seriously, man the stuff we don't even think about.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: It's probably some guy's mom.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: That's done.
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: A mom probably needs your help.
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: So, guys, diligence is in major short supply today.
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: Look, is it fair to say that there are some generations where things were more prevalent than others?
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: Like, what, like diligence.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: I think the generation before ours was very diligent, kept their word, this one's very slack.
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: I mean like as an overall sort of general sense in society, right, like that, if we go back a number of generations that we would look like let's take the world war ii era right of people, then they call them the greatest generation.
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: Well, they call themselves that.
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: They said we are the greatest generation.
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: But I mean, like if you were to go there and you were just to do an analysis and a comparison between people then and people now, would we see that diligence has diminished?
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: What do you guys think?
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: I mean, do you think that's probably true?
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: Well, these guys went around then.
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: Oh, you're the only one who was around, right?
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: What was it like?
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: Second World War?
• 16:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: I agree with you.
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm always hesitant to jump on the bagwagon of like, ah, these youth, these youth, these youth, and I don't actually don't think it's inherent within the youth.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: I think it's inherent within the culture and moment in history that we find ourselves in, Because you talk about the greatest generation or any generation before that.
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: You talk about the greatest generation or any generation before that.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: They simply had less distraction.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: You woke up in the morning and you had no immediate newsfeed, the only attention that you're.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: If you wanted to pay attention to anything else besides the book on your nightstand which is probably your Bible On your iPad, your wife, your kids, you'd have to walk outside grab a newspaper, and it was stagnant and still and definitive and it was it was basically old news, that's.
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're exactly right, and it wasn't deep scrolling, it wasn't lost rabbit trails.
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: So you, your mind, was able to be diligent because our world, in a good way, was limiting our attention.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: And nowadays, conversely again, I don't think it's so much the youth, I think, just in our cultural moment, we are amusing ourselves to death, and it's getting easier and easier.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: That's what Neil Postman says.
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: Someone else said you can disappear into the black hole of Netflix, become a workaholic in pursuit of riches and fame, or simply eat, drink and be merry in the adult playground of the modern city.
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: He goes on to say Western cultures are arguably built around the denial of death.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: You'd love this, ray.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: As Ronald puts it, we are distracting ourselves into spiritual oblivion.
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: Wow, that's very.
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: That's really powerful and true.
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: You know, mark, when we read this in the definition that diligence includes earnest effort, that it includes persistent exertion, you know we look today and we see that that's just diminished.
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: Do you think entertainment and luxury and ease have contributed to a diminishing of diligence in our lives?
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: Sure.
• 18:12
  Speaker 4: But why no?
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: See, the thing is Easy asks the question, then he answers the question, because he thinks no, I think he's a brilliant host.
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: No.
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: Thank you I hate him too, thank you, no, but here's the way.
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: Easy does it.
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: Easy has the perfect answer to his question.
• 18:28
  Speaker 4: Just in case you don't have an answer for it, that's good.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: I think he only does that to you, it's true.
• 18:35
  Speaker 4: Mark, would you say.
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: Then he gives the answer yeah, no, absolutely.
• 18:39
  Speaker 4: I mean I think that absolutely nails it.
• 18:41
  Speaker 4: I mean, with the accessibility of everything around us and the distractions from streetlights to billboards, you know, I mean we're just so entertained into the ground.
• 18:53
  Speaker 4: But why should?
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: that stop our diligence as Christians.
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: It has the ability, I think more now to distract us more than ever before, and I think that's kind of what the question was here, and this is why we need to prioritize goals, I believe, right.
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: So what I want to do and I think this is what is important is that you kind of set goals for the year, right?
• 19:13
  Speaker 4: These are the New Year's resolutions, if you would.
• 19:15
  Speaker 4: But we don't need to be so strict on them that if we mess up, I think Easy.
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: You messed up on smoking after January 3rd and morning.
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: The hookah is just so hard for you I like the smoke of the hookah, but we should have year goals, we should have quarterly goals, we should have monthly goals.
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: What do I want to accomplish this month?
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: I also have weekly goals.
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: What do I want to accomplish this week?
• 19:39
  Speaker 4: And I put that together on Sunday.
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: These are all the things that I want to have done.
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: And then the day before that night you lay out these are the things that I'm going to accomplish, that I plan on accomplishing the next day.
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: Now it's been said, you want to make God laugh.
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: Tell him your plans, right, because things don't always work out the way you want them to work out.
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: But I have a sheet and I actually went and gave it to my son, nathaniel, who just started here at Living Waters, and it was stuff to stay on task, right.
• 20:10
  Speaker 4: And there's certain things that I have and then I kind of check it.
• 20:12
  Speaker 4: For example, I'll go through a couple of these when I have an impulse, if I have an impulse to check Instagram or to check a news-related item, just if I have the impulse and I have a clock laid out, I have 8 am, 9 am, 10 am 11 am.
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: During that time frame during the day, if I have the impulse, then I do a little check that I had the impulse to check Facebook or whatever it may be, and then I have resisted next to it.
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: No, I need to stay on task.
• 20:36
  Speaker 4: I need to be disciplined to stay on task and do what I'm called to do.
• 20:39
  Speaker 4: Then I have kind of priorities.
• 20:40
  Speaker 4: What is my priority during the 8 am hour, the 9 a?
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: Every day.
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you're making me feel like a simpleton.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: I don't have any goals.
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Ray you've been trying to tell you that Ray for years.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: So what do you do when you reach a goal?
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: Yell out goal Goal.
• 20:59
  Speaker 4: And then I have things like something will pop in my mind oh yeah, I forgot, I have to call my mom, it's her birthday or whatever it may be, and or whatever it may be.
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: And then I have a little list.
• 21:06
  Speaker 4: I write down the don't forget about these things and then tasks that I've accomplished, and then write down did I drink water during the 8 am hour?
• 21:13
  Speaker 4: And I just put a little line darn water, food, snacks.
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: Did I stretch?
• 21:16
  Speaker 4: Did I get up?
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: Did I breathe?
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: Encourage.
• 21:18
  Speaker 4: So it's a little sheet that I print out.
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: It's inside my office and it's just right next to you know what I heard someone say recently, something really interesting I never thought about.
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: They said you know, obviously it's good to have goals in life, but another thing that's good for us to do is to focus on systems Systems, Because if you have a system in place, then you're going to follow that system.
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: That's going to help you to get to goals.
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: In a sense, you have that mark in that you have goals, but your goals are set within a system.
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: Your system is to create something that keeps you on task.
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: The book Atomic Habits has a whole chapter on that.
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's about is that what you're remembering?
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: He talks about how he borrows from the business world, in which they say the results are a byproduct of your system.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: If you don't like your results, you have to change your system.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: That's good.
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: So he talked about systematic habits that will equal better results.
• 22:24
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's really good, yeah, so Proverbs 12, what is in this?
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: Seriously, man, I yeah, it's you, oscar, you're up in El Paso, my bad Pro.
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: Seriously man?
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's you, oscar, you're up in El Paso, my bad.
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: Proverbs 12, 27.
• 22:37
  Speaker 3: The lazy man does not roast what he took in hunting.
• 22:40
  Speaker 3: But diligence is a man's precious possession.
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: Right when you meet someone who really has that attitude of diligence, who's driven, who is earnest and sincere in their effort, who's persistent in exertion with their body and their mind, there's something about that that makes you say, man, having that will allow you to accomplish so many other things in life.
• 23:06
  Speaker 4: It's like you boil it down to its bare minimum, and I think that I thought we were gonna start with flu yeah, um, but um did it again, man let me just speak to us.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: So he's got one left.
• 23:27
  Speaker 2: What?
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: else is there besides, um that we use they're filler words.
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know um and like Right.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: You guys get so distracted, so easily.
• 23:39
  Speaker 4: I think it's twofold One, right, we don't want to be interrupted, we are mid-thought, and so this kind of also conveys a message to somebody that you're talking to that hey, I'm not finished, I'm still processing.
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: I'm still processing some things, right.
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: And the other one is you just don't know how to communicate.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: The word is short for umbrella yeah.
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: So Titus 3.14, and let our people also learn to maintain good works to meet urgent needs, that they may not be unfruitful, wonderful, right.
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: Fruitfulness and diligence go hand in hand.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: Yes, I'm quitting.
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: No, don't quit Easy.
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: No, I totally agree Fruitfulness and diligence go hand in hand.
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: I love this quote from Thomas Edison, who is my hero.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: I love Thomas Edison because he was so innovative, Incredible guy.
• 24:37
  Speaker 4: He's the one that said we don't know one millionth percent of anything.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah that's right, he's a really humble guy.
• 24:42
  Speaker 4: There may be some people who don't know that.
• 24:44
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to get the quote out, but how does he know that he doesn't know?
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: He just made it up.
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: Oh real quick.
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: Here's a really good quote by Thomas Edison.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: That's where it came from.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: Okay, this is what he said.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: The three great essentials to achieve anything worthwhile are first, hard work.
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: Second, stick to it-nevis.
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: Stick to it-nevis.
• 25:08
  Speaker 3: Stick to it-nevis.
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: Oh man, you have to throw common sense in there somewhere.
• 25:12
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and third, thanks, mark.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: Common sense, cheat, common sense, and that's so down to it.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: Oh man, you have to throw common sense in there somewhere.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and third, thanks, mark.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: Common sense, cheat, common sense, and that's so down to earth.
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: Hard work, stick to it-ness, stick to it with it-ness, stick to it-ness, stick to it-ness.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: There it is, stick to it-ness.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: Stay with it-ness and common sense.
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: It's so down to earth and what he was like?
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: Just a brilliant guy who says there's nothing, pretend.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: Pretend of him what he said.
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: Was he an atheist?
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: No, not, no, he wasn't, no, he wasn't.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: Actually.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: Atheists say he was an atheist, but he wasn't.
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: I got a great quote from him about god not um uh another way another another way of you know.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: You talk about new year's resolutions and I think that when we talk about new year's resolutions, some people can be discouraged by that, because I read a stat recently that said this is a joke.
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: Nope, 89% of New Year's resolutions do not make it past January.
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: 89% and it was like 90 something percent, I think it was like 97% don't make it past February, and I have found this to be true.
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, like the first Monday of January, it's the busiest day at the gym.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: Everyone shows up in their brand new you know purchased gym clothes and it's like-.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: Christmas gift.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: Yep, they're all scattered and gone by like mid to late February, and I think, inherently, we all know that New Year's resolutions are hard things to keep for ourselves.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: I like the idea of creating a rule of life.
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: Rule of life has become something more popular in this day and age, but it's actually dates back to a monastic tradition.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: A rule of life is simply I got this quote to intentionally create time and space to enjoy deep fellowship with God, so that he can reorient and direct your days to increasingly glorify him along the way.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: And so a rule of life is not a to-do list, but rather an accounting of our roles and responsibilities that we have in our lives and then determining what kind of way in which we wanna fulfill that role.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: So, as an example, one again a rule of life is not like it's been made more popular by Jordan Peterson more recently, but actually, again, it's a monastic tradition dating back to the fourth century.
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: Reformers used it, our evangelical patriarchs used it.
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: So three steps know your role, know your limits and plan ahead.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: Know your role, know your limits and plan ahead.
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: And so you create rules of life for all sorts of areas my relationship with God, my personal life and health, my relationships, my wife, my children, the people who I work with, my church, right, and then what you would do with the rule of life is you find a scripture.
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: Well, I'll give you an example.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: So for me, like for my rule of life with God, it's scripture prayer and silence and solitude.
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: And so you find a verse, you create a vision statement For me.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: My verse for my time with the Lord comes from Psalm 79, he will be my sanctuary.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: My vision statement I borrow from Augustine.
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: Augustine my heart is restless until it finds its rest in thee.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: And so then, I set up my mornings with morning solitude, daily reading, and I set up my nights with nightly prayer.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: And so, in other words, like, rule of life is taking into account all of the roles that you play and then organizing your life so that you fulfill those roles with the vision in mind.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: And I know, Easy, you're big on vision statements.
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: And the reason why this is important is because, as we talked about earlier, our attention is being purchased by the algorithm of the life around us and distracting us from the things of God.
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: I love this quote by a book I read a number of years ago, because what you give your attention to is the person you become.
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: Put another way, the mind is the portal to the soul, and what you fill your mind with will shape the trajectory of your character.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: In the end, your life is no more than the sum of what you gave your attention to.
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: That bodes well for those apprentices of Jesus who give the bulk of their attention to him and to all that is good, beautiful and true in this world, but not for those who give their attention to the 24-7 news cycle of outrage and anxiety and emotional charge drama on the nonstop feed of celebrity gossip, titillation and cultural drivel.
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: As if we give it in the first place.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: Much of it is stolen by clever algorithm out of out to monetize our precious attention.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: But again, we become what we give our attention to, for better or worse.
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: The whole rule of life is reorganizing your attention to God.
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: Wow, that's so good.
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, creating space to do what is of prime importance.
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: And vision statements are huge.
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: I mean, I've shared ours before.
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: We have it hanging up in our living room and all of our family members have memorized it to gladly and passionately glorify God in every thought, affection, word and deed, while constantly enjoying Him as our greatest pleasure and most precious treasure, and that covers every Look.
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: I live to glorify God In what, in everything I think, say, do and feel, and as I'm doing that, I'm enjoying him as my prime pleasure in life and of all my possessions, he's my greatest treasure, man.
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: And then, you know, I had created what I would call a mission statement, and then I broke down the different things that we would do practically in order to help us fulfill our vision.
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: You know, and so that's something that's huge, but you know, know again, it's creating that space.
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: Morning times, I think, if possible, should be uh, prime in our lives, where we give the lord that first portion of our, of our day mark.
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: I'd love you to comment on on this quote by george muller.
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: He said someone may give him the quote.
• 31:09
  Speaker 3: No, oh, what is Mark?
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: What's the quote by George?
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: Mueller.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: Mark.
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, someone may ask.
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: But why should I rise early?
• 31:17
  Speaker 3: To remain too long in bed is a waste of time.
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: Wasting time is unbecoming of a saint who is bought by the precious blood of Jesus.
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: His time and all he has is to be used for the Lord.
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: If we sleep more than is necessary for the refreshment of the body, it is wasting time the Lord has entrusted to be used for his glory, for our own benefit and for the benefit of the saints and unbelievers around us.
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: Anyone who spends one, two, three hours in prayer and meditation before breakfast will soon discover the beneficial effect early rising has on the outward and inward man", and not so much the details of one, two, three hours, you know or whatever, and never sleeping in, but just the principle Mark of what he said.
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: What do you think of that?
• 32:00
  Speaker 4: Well, I absolutely love it.
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: This morning I'm laying there in bed, the sun hadn't come up yet, and I was simply enjoying the birds, the noises, they're singing to the Lord, and I'm just praying.
• 32:12
  Speaker 4: I'm thinking nobody will interrupt this moment, just me fellowshipping with God.
• 32:17
  Speaker 4: And I so enjoyed that time of just sitting there and, as is my routine, I reach over for God's Word and I study through, I read through God's Word, and then I go over and I salute and I report for duty and I take a shower.
• 32:31
  Speaker 4: It doesn't matter what time you wake up.
• 32:33
  Speaker 4: You showered, it doesn't Every month.
• 32:36
  Speaker 4: He's diligent.
• 32:37
  Speaker 4: It is the first of the month I go over.
• 32:40
  Speaker 4: It doesn't matter how tired you are if you go and get inside the shower and you put it on cold it's going to wake you up.
• 32:46
  Speaker 4: It's like drinking three cups of coffee.
• 32:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely.
• 32:50
  Speaker 4: If I drink coffee, I would be able to accurately say that was true, but it really does work.
• 32:56
  Speaker 4: So if you had to get up at three in the morning or two in the morning, you hop in the shower, just go straight to your refrigerator.
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: In the water Cold, plunge it, you'll be wide awake.
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, and look, the principle here is Proverbs 20, 13.
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: Do not love sleep, lest you come to poverty, open your eyes and you'll be satisfied with bread.
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: And the principle there, ray, is that sleep is stupid.
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, sleep is for the world.
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: How many times have I heard you say that?
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: Seriously, a third of our precious lives are in a state of unconsciousness, where we have no control over anything, including our mouths, right.
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: It's crazy.
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: Can you imagine Ray seriously like sleeping in until like 11, having gone to bed like at 9, 10, and then sleeping in 11 am Ridiculous.
• 33:38
  Speaker 4: When was the last time you slept until 11 am?
• 33:40
  Speaker 4: Never Ever in your life.
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: No 10 am, no 9 am, no 8 am I'm not sure.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: This is why Ray cut a hole in his bed, because he's got holy sleep.
• 33:51
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's what it is.
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: No, but we do want to encourage you, friends, now, first of all, not to be condemned and to understand that it's not wrong to have a desire for sleep.
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: Well, he gives his beloved sleep.
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and sleep is a gift from the Lord.
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: It's good.
• 34:07
  Speaker 3: We're not it's punishment.
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: Please, no one take this as a prescription to sleep two hours a night so you can be spiritual.
• 34:12
  Speaker 3: Of course not.
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: Sleep is given to us by the Lord.
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: But I think the key is to examine what your habits of life are right, as Oscar was alluding to, like if you're going to bed at 1 am every day and you're complaining that you can't get up early to seek the Lord, hey, cause and effect.
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: So be willing to say I'm going to rearrange my life, I'm going to rearrange it so that I'm demonstrating by what I do that time with the Lord is priority.
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: And you know, often again, we're looking at our lives and they're falling apart.
• 34:44
  Speaker 3: We're having no effectiveness for the Lord, we have no fruit that's being evidenced in our lives and we're saying I don't know what's going on.
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: We're not in prayer, we're not in the Word, we're not reading books that are feeding our soul, we're not in deep fellowship, we don't get accountability, we're not sharing the gospel.
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: And then we're wondering oh, I wonder why my life is just so miserable.
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: No, go ahead.
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: I was just breathing.
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: Wait, mark.
• 35:08
  Speaker 3: Sorry, let me tell you what you should say before you say it real quick yes, go ahead.
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: I telepathically sent it to you, go ahead Proverbs 21.5.
• 35:17
  Speaker 4: Wow, the plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance.
• 35:20
  Speaker 4: But everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty.
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: Oh, Surely, surely.
• 35:24
  Speaker 4: Surely can't be serious, surely.
• 35:25
  Speaker 4: This is why it's important to lay out what you plan on doing the next day, the night before, because you wake up with purpose.
• 35:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah, waking up with purpose forces you to not sleep in and creates an excitement inside of you, so you can wake up early to tackle the deeds and make sure that you're sharpening the axe before you hit the trees of life.
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, one of my favorite proverbs has always been 24, 30 to 34.
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: I went by the field of the lazy man.
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: I think do-fi is the correct Do-fi.
• 36:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there's two of us over here.
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: Do-fiance, I went by the field of the lazy man.
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: I think do fire is the correct.
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: There's two of us over here.
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: I went by the field of the lazy man and by the vineyard of the man devoid of understanding, and there it was all overgrown with thorns, Its surface was covered with nettles, it's stonewall was broken down.
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: When I saw it, I considered it Well.
• 36:13
  Speaker 3: I looked on it and received instruction a little sleep, a little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest.
• 36:20
  Speaker 3: So shall your poverty come like a prowler and your need like an armed man.
• 36:24
  Speaker 3: Oscar, isn't that just such a great mental image of the lazy person.
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's not just sleep, it's also we can be lazy when we're awake.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know we like not.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: It's important to recognize I'm not I mean this whole time.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: It's important to recognize I'm not umming this whole time.
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: It's important to recognize that our disciplines and our habits are the thing that shape our hearts and it shapes our desire to worship.
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: Mike Cosper calls them rhythms of grace, jka Smith calls it spiritual disciplines.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: I like to look at them as daily liturgies.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: Here's the reality is that your habits, the way you shape your day and the things that you do, whether you realize it or not, you have habits right now, but if they are not intentionally created by you, then they're being intentionally created by something else let's call it the algorithm and those habits are making you follow something or someone.
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: And if you haven't intentionally created habits to follow Jesus, then you're unintentionally walking through daily habits that are causing you to follow something else besides Christ.
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: And this is important.
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: Take an account of your life, man.
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: If you're not experiencing the fullness of joy and satisfaction that EZ was talking about earlier when mentioning his vision, ask yourself why.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: Look at what's going on.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: I told this story in like episode five or something like that when I was up in Washington at a high school retreat.
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: The young sporty guy comes up to me after the weekend.
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: He's like man, I've never been this close to the Lord.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: This has been so amazing.
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: I'm afraid I'm going to lose this when I go home.
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: How do I keep it?
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: And I just recognized right away man, this isn't because of my sermon, this isn't because you're on a mountaintop of experience.
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: What did you do when you got here?
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: Well, we spent time in God's word, we were out in God's nature, we spent time in prayer, we went to two or three chapels a day.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: That's exactly right.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: You had a condensed three-day experience of new habits that reshaped your heart to point yourself to the glory of God.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: And when you get home, starting Monday that morning, you're going to open your Bible and you read it, praise God.
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: The question is, what are you going to do on Thursday?
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: Are you going to open your phone and you're going to start scrolling?
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: Are your habits slowly going to change?
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: And here's the best way for me to describe it is that you know, you guys know I love sailing.
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: My wife and I used to do, and I think I've said this before in this podcast.
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: My wife and I love to do this sailing trip from Marina del Rey to Catalina Island.
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: Catalina Island is only 27 miles off the coast of California.
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: We can see it from the coast of California.
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: It's beautiful.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: It's a five and a half hour sail under regular wind conditions.
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: So one time we left Marina del Rey we put up our sails and I put it on autopilot.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: It's supposed to be at like 19 degrees or whatever the case.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: And about an hour into our trip I'm like I'm going to test the autopilot's true north with the actual north, the actual one that I had in my hands and I checked it and it was off by two degrees.
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: Now you might think, well, two degrees, not that big of a deal, it's only 27 miles.
• 39:36
  Speaker 1: The island is 30 miles wide.
• 39:39
  Speaker 1: So you might think, well, instead of landing at Isthmus Cove, maybe you land a few coves over, but no, by two degrees being off, we would have missed the island completely.
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: That's the thing.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: Your spiritual habits is a way for you to reorient your heart towards true north.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: And if you're off by just a little bit we were praying earlier today about small compromises If you're off by just a little bit, the long shot of your life will end up being off completely.
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: So reorient your heart towards the glory of God through your daily spiritual habits.
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: That's beautiful.
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: Right Proverbs 13,.
• 40:21
  Speaker 3: Four the soul of the lazy man desires but has nothing.
• 40:25
  Speaker 3: But the soul of the diligent will be made rich Bad as the King.
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: James Richly supplied, yeah.
• 40:32
  Speaker 3: So maybe someone's listening right now and saying okay, I'm whatever age and I've never been a diligent person, I've just been lazy.
• 40:44
  Speaker 3: I don't stay consistent with anything I do.
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: How would you advise them?
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: How do they change that?
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: Read the Word daily and obey what you read and read the journal of John Wesley.
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: Charles Spurgeon said of John Wesley's journal.
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: The other day I saw John Wesley's diary.
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: The good man made his days to have many hours in them, and his hours seemed to have more minutes in them than most men's hours have, because he did not waste any of them but diligently used them all in his master's service.
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: Wow.
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: I love that.
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: Yeah, ray Wesley was a powerhouse.
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: He was very short.
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he was short.
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: He was still taller than you.
• 41:23
  Speaker 3: He's 5'4".
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: History said I'm getting there.
• 41:28
  Speaker 3: History said that he had this obsessive habit of saying get right, right, get, get, get, get right wherever he went and he rode a horse with a dog in the front wearing sunglasses.
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you know the thing about Wesley and in one of my sermons where I talk about, you know, living with an eternal mindset, I use Wesley as an example.
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: But that guy wrote multiple books on his horse rides because he would ride his horse to go from town to town to preach the gospel.
• 41:55
  Speaker 2: He would write while he's riding he would write books while riding his horse.
• 41:59
  Speaker 2: That's because his wife was chasing him.
• 42:00
  Speaker 3: That too, but he wrote a dictionary, he wrote medical books.
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: He wrote devotionals.
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: It was in the family, because Charles Weasley wrote 650 million hymns.
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that's a slight exaggeration A little more than that.
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: Chat GPT helped him out.
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: Can you imagine they had secret Chat.
• 42:18
  Speaker 4: GPT technology.
• 42:19
  Speaker 3: It gets discovered later.
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I mean, he was a man that I love.
• 42:28
  Speaker 3: What Spurgeon said about him, he really maximized time, and Mark verses like this Galatians 6, 9,.
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: 1 Corinthians 15, 58,.
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast and movable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.
• 42:48
  Speaker 2: Just before Mark answers.
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: Can I share a thought?
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: No.
• 42:54
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna say that thought because it's ridiculous.
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: I think it's realizing the preciousness of time You've got.
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: The sands of time are going through your hand.
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: If you don't grab it, it's going to be gone forever, and so take advantage of every minute of every day.
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: Amen, sorry, mark.
• 43:09
  Speaker 3: Yeah, not growing weary and doing good, Mark, and being steadfast and movable, always abounding.
• 43:14
  Speaker 4: Yeah, if you remember that our marching orders are from the Lord, that he has given us a work to do before he created time.
• 43:23
  Speaker 4: Persevere, I mean just move forward.
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: You know, spurgeon, that said by perseverance, the snail entered the ark Right.
• 43:30
  Speaker 4: And then I got corrected when I put that on a post from somebody at AIG that says there were no snails that were in the ark.
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: Was that an earthquake?
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: Did we just have an earthquake?
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: Someone needs to lose weight upstairs.
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: That was pretty heavy.
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: Yeah, you know yeah.
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: You think it was an earthquake yeah.
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: So snails didn't enter the ark.
• 43:56
  Speaker 4: Correct because there's no air in the lungs.
• 43:58
  Speaker 4: Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love Him.
• 44:07
  Speaker 4: I can't get over that Snails don't breathe.
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: They don't breathe.
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: No, yeah, no, or snails.
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, right, All life holding their breath.
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: Put a snail under water for 10 days.
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 44:18
  Speaker 4: Spiritual Disciplines.
• 44:18
  Speaker 4: Disciplines of a Godly man by R Kent Hughes is a great book to start off with because it's filled with all sorts of disciplines, from fasting to worship, to prayer, to how to work.
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's just a phenomenal book to start off with.
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: My son Luke and I tonight are getting together.
• 44:33
  Speaker 3: We've been going through that book and tonight we're chapter 16, the discipline of giving, and it's one example.
• 44:40
  Speaker 3: It just deals with so many different areas of life Discipline of church right and discipline of serving, discipline of money, discipline of fellowship.
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: I mean it hits so many different areas.
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: And, yeah, I strongly recommend that one.
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: Speaking of that, I got a quote from Spurgeon.
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: That's one of the most thought-provoking quotes I've ever heard.
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: What is it?
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: I'm gonna share it with you and see if you see, see if you can see what he's saying.
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: You ready, right, excited, yep, here we go.
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: The most useful members of a church are usually those who would be doing harm if they were not doing good.
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: That is so re-comforted.
• 45:14
  Speaker 4: That is a great quote, isn't?
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: it powerful.
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: That is a great quote.
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: I mean, what's he saying?
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: He's saying that the people that do things for the kingdom, if they weren't doing things for the kingdom of light because of the nature, they'd be doing things for the kingdom of darkness.
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: I know.
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: And there's times, you know, you see like an Elon Musk, or you see someone who's just innovative, a Bezos or whatever.
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: An.
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: Oscar Navarro.
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, a non-Oscar Navarro.
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: And you're like, oh, I mean if that discipline and diligence was channeled into the kingdom.
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: Not that they don't do what they do, but they do it for the glory of God.
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: And then they do other things directly for God's glory.
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: You know this quote by Hugh Martin, it's so powerful.
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: He says Jesus loved the enthusiast, the man who knew what side he was on and threw himself wholeheartedly into the struggle.
• 46:06
  Speaker 3: He liked energetic action, as in the men who climbed the roof and broke a way through for their paralyzed friend, or in Zacchaeus who forgot his dignity and swarmed up a tree.
• 46:16
  Speaker 3: He loved the generous giver.
• 46:18
  Speaker 3: All four gospels quote him saying he who loves life loses it.
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: He loved the generous giver.
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: All four gospels quote him saying he who loves life loses it.
• 46:21
  Speaker 3: He who spends keeps it sums up his attitude to life.
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: He praised the man who banged on the door until he got an answer.
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: He wanted men to show that kind of determination in the affairs of religion.
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: He praised the widow who badgered the unjust judge into doing justice.
• 46:36
  Speaker 3: He did not like playing for safety or burying one's talent.
• 46:40
  Speaker 3: It is the peacemakers rather than the peacekeepers whom he blesses.
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: Goodness is a positive, active loyalty.
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: Who said that?
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: This was Hugh Martin.
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: Well, that's one of the most neat things I've ever heard.
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: I knew you would love that right Absolutely.
• 46:56
  Speaker 3: I'm so excited, yeah, and look, let me just say that our ministry is a byproduct of diligence, because this has been Ray's life and because of it, the whole world's being reached and it's influenced and impacted and affected us Praise the Lord for that.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, praise God I have one quick quote which I know raising love to, and it kind of goes back to what you just said really, really quickly.
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: Which is like because I think you said like well, where do I start?
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: Okay, I'm not diligent, and I love General Patton's quote A good plan violently executed now is better than a perfect plan next week.
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: Ooh, I like that, just do it.
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: That's a good one Give it done.
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: I like that.
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: Just do it, go on, give it done.
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: Perfectionism.
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: Do it right now.
• 47:42
  Speaker 2: Walk on water, even if you're going to sink, just do it.
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: Do it now easy.
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: You stupid perfectionists.
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: Listen to this by Randy Smith Christians should be the most diligent people on the planet.
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: Sadly, this is often not the case, as we are outspent, out-thought and out-performed, oftentimes by the very opponents of the gospel.
• 48:02
  Speaker 3: Is there any cause greater than fighting for the eternal salvation of souls?
• 48:06
  Speaker 3: Is there any book more accurate and relevant and thrilling than the inspired word of God?
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: Is there any power greater than the Holy Spirit?
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: Is there any God who can compare with our God?
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: Then, where is the diligence, the dedication, the determination of his people?
• 48:21
  Speaker 3: Woo, that's power man, this one by an unknown guy Following the path of least resistance, is what makes rivers and men crooked.
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: Nice, have you heard?
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: that before.
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: I've used it so many times.
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: Ah, okay.
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: Just one other thought yeah, are you ready?
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, jesus never said um, ooh, isn't that cool.
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: That is good, thomas Watson.
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: Our work is great, our time short and our master urgent.
• 48:49
  Speaker 4: These are great quotes to put all over your office and home, amen.
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: Honestly, seriously.
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that has an effect.
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: What you put up on your wall is what you're seeing and thinking on all the time Ray has half of them tattooed onto his neck, oh.
• 49:02
  Speaker 4: Ray Underwear, your neck no not on your underwear, on your neck Neck Underwear.
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: Final quote by George Whitefield I am never better than when I am on the full stretch for God.
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: Amen oh amen.
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: Good one to end with.
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: Well, friends, there you have it.
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: If you've been lazy, repent and get diligent for the Lord.
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: There is no excuse.
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: In fact, because we live in such a technologically advanced age, we should use those things to free up more of our time.
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: Think about the days Little House on the Prairie.
• 49:35
  Speaker 3: They're out there milking the cow.
• 49:37
  Speaker 3: They're getting water from the well.
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: You know what I mean.
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: You have so much time because you have so much technology.
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: Stop being consumed by that technology.
• 49:45
  Speaker 3: Use your time to be diligent, to be in full stretch for the glory of God.
• 49:50
  Speaker 3: Well, there you have it, friends.
• 49:51
  Speaker 3: Don't forget my comfort is Jesus, the Living Waters mug from which you can chug the evidence Bible that will make you study and smile.
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: Ooh, now, that doesn't rhyme, bible smile.
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: I'm off today.
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: Make sure to check it all out at livingwaterscom.
• 50:05
  Speaker 3: And don't forget, friends, there's a podcast at livingwaterscom with your thoughts and comments.
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: Don't forget to give us that rating Still five stars, one of the top in the world, because God has been kind and you've been supportive.
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: Thank you for joining us friends.
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: You've been kind and you've been supportive.
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: Thank you for joining us, friends.
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: We'll see you here next time on the Living Waters podcast, where we have no idea.
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: Yes, it's back what we're doing it's appropriate.
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: It's appropriate True.