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When God Gets Your Attention Pt. 3 · Time with God with John North

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Good morning. As we get our day started today, I
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: want to start it with you by just walking with
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: you into the throne room of God and reading God's
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: word and saying, Lord, what do you have to say
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: to us today? How do you want to start our day?
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: How do you want to focus our minds at the
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: beginning of this day to change the way we think
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: about life?
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Well, we know that whenever we come to God asking
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: that question, he loves to respond. He loves to speak
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: into our lives. We're talking this week on the topic
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: of when God gets our attention.
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: God's pretty good at that, isn't he? And you know,
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: sometimes God uses people to get our attention.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: I remember the story from the book of 2 Samuel
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: in the Bible of King David when he
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: Walked away from God step by step and found himself
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: doing things he would never have believed possible as he
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  Speaker 1: committed adultery with Bathsheba and then had her husband killed
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: in the battle and then lived for almost a year
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: in the cold hardness of his heart as he failed
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: to do business with God about his sin.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: And as that sin festered in his heart, the distance
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: between him and the Lord must have grown really big.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Until one day when God sent one of His people.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: To David with a message, and it says in 2
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: Samuel 12, The Lord sent Nathan the prophet to David,
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: and he came to him and said there were two
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: men in one city, the one rich and the other poor.
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: The rich man had a great many flocks and herds,
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: but the poor man had nothing except one little ewe lamb,
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: which he bought and nourished. It grew up together with
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  Speaker 1: him and his children. It would eat of his bread
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  Speaker 1: and drink of his cup and lie in his chest,
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  Speaker 1: and it was like a daughter to him.
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  Speaker 1: Now a traveller came to the rich man, and he
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  Speaker 1: was unwilling to take from his own flock or his
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  Speaker 1: own herd to prepare it for the wayfarer who had
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  Speaker 1: come to him. Rather, he took the poor man's ewe
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  Speaker 1: lamb and prepared it for the man who had come
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  Speaker 1: to him.
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  Speaker 1: Well, when David heard this, he became so angry and
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  Speaker 1: began to describe the terrible things that should be done
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  Speaker 1: to that man.
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  Speaker 1: Until Nathan said to him,
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  Speaker 1: You know, you are that man. And David recognised what
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: had happened in his relationship with the Lord, and he
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  Speaker 1: went and entered into a really deep repentance.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: Well, God often gets our attention through other people. You know,
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  Speaker 1: this is not always the most comfortable way for God
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: to get our attention. We often don't appreciate this way.
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  Speaker 1: But you know, if you find yourself unwilling to accept
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  Speaker 1: a word of reproof from someone else, very often you
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  Speaker 1: are rejecting God's prompting in that situation. You know the
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: way our hearts and minds work when someone brings a
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  Speaker 1: word of reproof or correction or challenge to us about
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: some issue in our spiritual lives or the way we
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  Speaker 1: are relating to people or whatever.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: Uh, the way our mind works is we instantly jump
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  Speaker 1: to our own defence and see that person as totally
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  Speaker 1: out of line and having bad motives and things. But
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: you know something, even when that person does have bad
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  Speaker 1: motives or may be out of line when they're speaking
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: to us about something like this.
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  Speaker 1: Almost always there is at least a kernel of truth
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  Speaker 1: in what they are saying, and we need to learn
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  Speaker 1: when something like that happens, even though it upsets us
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  Speaker 1: so much and stresses us out and gets all our
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  Speaker 1: emotions churning, we need to learn to say, OK, God.
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  Speaker 1: I am really not liking this, but I think maybe
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  Speaker 1: you're trying to get my attention. What are you trying
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  Speaker 1: to say to me? How can I grow from this
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: situation and then allow the Lord to speak to you?
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: I'm John North.