Latest / The Woman at the Well Ministries Podcast / 578 | Conversations - Putting Down the Gloves, Letting God Fight

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578 | Conversations - Putting Down the Gloves, Letting God Fight · The Woman at the Well Ministries Podcast

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  Hello, friends, and welcome back to another podcast of Woman at the Well Ministries,
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  where we believe that all of us have to come to Jesus like the woman at the well in John chapter 4.
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  Our highest priority is making God real in your life.
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  Whether you are listening in our app, in your favorite podcasting app,
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  or on our website at watwm.org,
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  we invite you to sit down with us as we look to the scriptures to learn more
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  about God and to strengthen your daily walk with Jesus Christ.
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  In this episode of the Woman at the Well Ministries podcast,
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  join Kimi Miller and Erica Close in a conversation as we walk with Jesus.
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  In today's conversation, we're talking about what life looks like when we put
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  down the gloves and depend upon God to fight our battles.
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  Well, hello, everyone. My name is Erica Close, and I am here with Kimi Miller.
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  Hello. Thank you guys for joining us in this podcast of Woman at the Well Ministries.
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  What a pleasure it is to just talk about what we learn from Scripture.
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  Absolutely. So today we are talking about David and Goliath,
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  and we're talking about a podcast that we shared on Monday. So that would be
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  podcast 577, Who is Fighting Your Battles?
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  And in that podcast, Kim went very clearly through the account of David and Goliath.
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  And there are so many lessons for us in that podcast that I really wanted us
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  to take the opportunity to see how that applies to our lives and what that really looks like.
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  And I wanted to start, you made a statement in that podcast where you said that
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  David was relying on God to do what he had already done.
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  And I love that that's in there. I love that because when God is faithful in
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  the little things, it helps us to recognize he'll be faithful in the bigger things.
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  And as we watch God work in our lives, it increases our faith.
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  And in the scripture prior to him facing off with the Goliath,
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  the giant, it talks about how the Lord had delivered David from the paw of the
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  lion and from the paw of the bear.
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  So David had already seen God deliver him,
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  in very difficult situations. But what happens is as our faith begins to grow,
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  we stop evaluating circumstances and just live in the truth that my God will deliver me.
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  So looking at the giant in his mind was no different than the lion or the bear.
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  Because God had delivered him then, he will deliver me now.
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  My God delivers. It's a pattern that his heart had hung closely through.
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  And we do the same thing.
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  That's why people testify, because we know what God has done for others, he'll also do for us.
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  But what he's done for us needs to be completely noted in our heart and our mind.
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  And we need to stop looking at circumstances and begin to just keep our eyes.
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  Focused on Jesus and on God because God never changes.
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  He delivered him here. He'll deliver him there because the same God in one circumstance
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  is the same God in the next circumstance and his character is to deliver.
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  So the circumstances are irrelevant because we are to focus on God and not the circumstances.
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  I love that. I love that you just said that there's a pattern, right?
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  He noted the pattern of what God had done in his life. And what are patterns?
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  Patterns are predictable, right? We can see patterns occur.
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  When we see patterns, we recognize them. We see that the same thing happens
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  over and over and over again.
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  Amen. And I love that. I love that.
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  I know that if any of us stop and think and say, you know, what is the pattern
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  of how God has worked in my life?
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  You know, I have seen the Lord...
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  Do things for me again and again and again.
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  And it's so exciting to watch that. And if he has done something for me this
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  time, I can be confident that he's going to do it again.
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  And I think it's important to really realize that we are to watch what God does. Yes.
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  It's not, he tells us to be thankful and we go and we do these things that make us thankful.
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  And in the olden days, they built an altar. To mark it. To mark it. Yeah.
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  I have little rocks, you know. Yes. Little piles of rocks in places.
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  And that's kind of my little altar. And it's the thing that strikes my mind.
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  But I have plenty of little rock altars in my heart. Right.
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  I don't have a hard heart, but my heart is filled with.
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  I make note of that because I think it's important that we realize what God
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  does in our lives. and we are thankful for them, and we realize He's the same
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  God yesterday, today, and forevermore.
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  And since that is true, it's incredibly important that we mark what He does.
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  Right. I love that we're called to be thankful, but in order for us to be thankful,
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  we have to be observational.
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  Right, because you know, remember the ones that was given the stuff and they
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  didn't come back, only one came back and said he was thankful?
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  And that person fared very well.
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  Yes. But it's not just because God blesses the gratefulness.
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  The gratefulness in itself blesses you.
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  Right. And it gives you, it fortifies the strength of your faith.
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  And we have to be those people who are really trying hard to do what God has
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  us to do and to say the things God wants us to say,
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  because our pattern of good works is what helps other people see Jesus for who he is.
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  And there's scripture in 1 Timothy 1.6.
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  116, that tells us about our pattern of good works.
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  And people are watching the pattern of good works.
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  And because of that, we have got to be the people who actually do things that
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  fortify other people's faith.
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  It says, how be it for this cause I obtain mercy that in me first Jesus Christ
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  may show forth all lung suffering for a pattern to them which should hereafter
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  believe in him to life everlasting.
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  God watches my life, but so does others.
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  And that's why that testimony is so incredibly important that we live,
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  because our pattern, and what I want to take back to you is the pattern that David had. Yes.
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  David had a pattern to mark the goodness of God, to remember his deliverance.
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  And because he had marked it with the bear, he had marked it with the lion and
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  marked it countless other times.
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  When he got in this situation, he knew who God was and he wasn't worrying about the situation.
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  Because he still knew who God was. And God's the same yesterday,
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  today, and forevermore.
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  It's that pattern, that trend, and not only of what God does in our life,
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  but how we respond and what we do with it.
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  I suggest you get some little rock altars. Okay.
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  Well, you know, I think that, you know, it's interesting because we're talking here about battles.
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  But, you know, when we're talking about battles in our life,
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  they may not always be a battle against someone, right? It could be a battle against an illness.
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  It could be a battle against a financial situation.
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  Battles are not necessarily somebody coming after you. They rarely are.
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  Because in Ephesians 6, we wrestle with principalities and darkness of this world.
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  Even when it's a person, it's the devil using them. Right.
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  And I find that so puzzling because if it's someone who claims to be a Christian
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  and you're looking at them and they're acting like the devil and they're treating
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  you like the devil would treat you,
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  you want to just say, hey, you're fighting for the wrong team.
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  It's usually not a good idea to do that but you think that but then it makes
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  this long pause like how many times have I been in front of somebody and my
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  action was fighting for the wrong team,
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  It's very important that we do understand who we're fighting.
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  And as a child of God, you're fighting the devil. And you don't want to be the
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  conduit to which the devil flows.
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  And when you really understand that, when you're not doing what God says,
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  when you're not fully obedient, when your heart is not filled with faith,
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  and anything not done with faith
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  is sin, so that ounce of doubt has opened the door for sin to come in.
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  And now the devil's in because he's sinned. It's a constant sweeping.
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  It really is. It really is. I want to switch gears just a little bit because
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  you also made another statement that I really just latched onto.
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  You said that David was unwilling to take the best strategies of the world.
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  Sure was. He wouldn't put the stuff on. He wouldn't put the stuff on.
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  And I love that because when we think about,
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  all the things we have to do in our lives, like on a daily basis.
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  And there are so many things that we could do to seemingly get to where we need
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  to be or to take care of something or to make sure that something happens.
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  So often the Lord is saying to us, that's not the thing you need to do.
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  You need to ask me for it, not take things into your own hands.
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  And I love that because we are, it's so easy for us to often look at the worldly solutions to things.
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  Because the world operates on intellect and logic.
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  And faith operates on these or those two things. Wisdom is the ability to use knowledge.
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  But the world can always deconstruct an event for cause and effect.
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  And there's no room for the hand of God to be on display. Right.
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  Now, he uses logical things. He uses intellect, all of those things.
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  But when it comes down to it, his miracles are just that.
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  His deliverance is something only he could do.
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  Logic cannot get you out of a lion's jaw. A gun would.
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  But gods, if you look through eyes of faith,
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  God's hand is always visible.
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  If you do everything through logic and intellect, you will miss God's hand.
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  And there's never a moment his
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  hand isn't in it because he said he would never leave us or forsake us.
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  And I think, too, when we're trying to make sure that we are noting everything
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  that he is doing, you know, the Bible says that we are to pray without ceasing.
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  I think when we're in a constant conversation with him, we are noticing the things he's doing.
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  If I am, you know, I have to make a left turn to get out of my neighborhood, right?
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  And I always, you oftentimes have to sit there. There's traffic.
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  And I always pray, you know, Lord, open up a space, right?
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  But if I'm praying for the Lord to open up a space and then he does and I say
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  thank you, I've noted it, right? I need to thank him. I'm always praying that
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  he, that I would make sure I saw the right space. That's what I'm doing.
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  I think you have more confidence in your driving than I do mine.
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  I am always, Lord, make sure I go out of this thing in the right time because it's big traffic there.
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  Right. But he cares about all the things in our lives.
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  And if we note that he does and we thank him for all the things in our lives,
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  we're going to train ourselves to better have those eyes of faith that you talked about.
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  That is one of the greatest gifts my parents gave me was at the end of the day,
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  they would ask us, where did you see God today?
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  I'm talking first grade. Right. You do that for as long as I've been since first
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  grade and it becomes a part of your life.
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  I'm not going to say it's a habit because habits are done without thought.
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  And I want to never not think about the goodness I see in my life at the hand
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  of God. But I will say it becomes automatic. Yeah.
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  Yeah. I need to change gears again because there's one more thing you said that
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  I just don't want to lose.
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  And you talked about who David was allowing to speak to his life.
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  And I wanted to talk about how we, as Christians, make the decision as to who speaks into our life.
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  Well, sometimes I can answer that we make that decision poorly.
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  Well, that's sometimes. Sometimes we allow someone to speak into our life,
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  and then we need to go in and, with the Lord, get what they've spoken. out.
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  One thing that I've noticed is that God will remove people out of your life
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  and you go back after them.
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  Not you, Erica, but a person will go back after them because we don't recognize what he's done.
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  I think so often we don't. You know, we talk about just how.
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  We feel rejected by things, right?
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  And we don't recognize that he's actually protecting us in things.
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  Like you said, if somebody is removed, there's a reason that that person was removed.
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  It's very interesting because when you're growing up, really good parents watch
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  who you hang out with and who you call your best friend.
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  And they sift for you, people out of your life.
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  Surely I'm not the only one that has it. That person is not good for you.
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  They don't need to be your best friend.
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  But how many of us realize that that's what God does too, but we have to ask
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  Him, should this person be in my life?
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  We need to pay attention to what it is we love about someone.
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  If you have a secret desire harbored in your heart to do a sin and the person
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  you're picking to be in your life is doing that, you're trying to live vicariously through them. Right.
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  But it won't be long until you're not doing it vicariously. You're actually doing it.
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  If you have someone that's speaking
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  into your life and the words are more intellectual than they are biblical,
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  then as a child of God, you know, okay, this can't be the person who I am weighing
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  their information as being what I really need to think about.
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  There are things that we know. We know we need to do people who tell us things
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  that are in line with the Bible.
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  People who have our genuine best interests at heart, who are praying for us,
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  who love us with the love of God.
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  And not the way the human nature would be. Human nature picks people.
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  Based on what they could do for them. It also picks up, I like that personality.
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  I like someone who's funny.
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  So that funny person's automatically through the front door. Right. We can't do that.
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  We have to be looking to the Lord and allowing Him to put in our lives who belongs.
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  And we need to pay attention who He removes. But we need to sift everything
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  through prayer and His character.
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  Because he says bad character corrupts good company.
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  And we need to make sure that we know his character, which we know through his word, right?
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  So that we can sift those people, you know, in the right way.
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  In a loving way. Right. So we have the way, though, to know this person's not
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  in alignment. I think we need to make note of the fact that you're not sifting them out of your life.
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  You're sifting them out of your inner circle that speaks to you.
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  Because he went to the woman at the well.
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  He ate with the people who were not, but he did not become like them or do what they said.
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  He brought them to him. He went to them, brought them to them.
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  And that's what we have to do.
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  We need people in our lives that don't know Jesus so we can give them Jesus.
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  But we cannot let their life alter our life.
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  We have to let the Jesus in us alter theirs.
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  And so we have to be careful who speaks. And that's what I...
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  Spoke about, the people who speak into your life, not the people who are in your life.
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  That's a very, I think, important distinction we need to make.
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  And who you're listening to better be speaking the words of Jesus.
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  Right, right. The last thing that I just wanted to talk about was how do we
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  protect the God that is in us?
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  You know, we're talking about letting God fight our battles,
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  But we need to know Him and have a faithful relationship with Him in order to
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  be in a position for Him to fight our battles for us so that we know He's the
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  one fighting and it's not us.
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  And I think we need to make conscious decisions about protecting the God that
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  is in us. Well, that's what David did. Yeah.
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  David was all spun up. Spun up, sorry.
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  He was all spun up because Goliath said bad things about his God.
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  And what it comes down to is the strength of your love.
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  He loved the Lord so much that no one was going to say something bad about him.
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  I think that I would offer this suggestion.
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  How much do you love Him? And you can answer that about what will you tolerate
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  in your life that is not of Him.
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  Whether it's a person, a thing, a habit, or whatever. Because if you love Him,
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  you keep His commandments.
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  Scripture says they're not grievous, but that means they're not hard.
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  If doing what He says is hard, the love isn't quite where it needs to be.
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  Amen. And I think we just need to close it out there. Why don't you pray us out this time?
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  Our kind and most gracious, dear Heavenly Father, Lord, I thank you.
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  I thank you, Lord, for your love and for your mercy and for your grace.
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  I thank you, Lord, that you fight our battles.
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  I thank you, Lord, that you are working in our lives.
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  I thank you, Lord, that we know the promises that you have given us and that
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  we trust that those promises will be true in our lives.
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  I thank you, Lord, that we can watch the things that you do,
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  and we can watch with a confidence of knowing that if you've done them once,
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  you'll do them again. If you've done them for others, you'll do them for us.
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  I thank you, Lord, that we can know your character and that we can know you
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  intimately and personally.
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  Lord, I ask that you'd be with all those that are listening to this message.
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  I pray, Lord, that you would just reveal yourself to them in a way that they've
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  never, never seen you before. I thank you, Lord, that you may not ever ask us to go before a giant.
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  And I thank you that nothing in our lives is so big that you can't fight it for us.
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  Lord, I pray that you would remind us again and again of who you are and what
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  you've done. Increase our faith.
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  Increase our ability to show others who you are. Lord, we love you and we praise you.
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  In your name we pray. All God's people said, amen.
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  All right, remember you are loved. Jesus loves you.
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  Thank you for joining us in today's podcast. You can visit the show notes for
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  quotes from today's podcast and scripture references.
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