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What Is Abundant Life? · Rick Manis Ministries Podcast

• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: I am always excited to be able to speak the good things of God.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm uh Judy and I are certainly excited to be home.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's been a busy summer for us.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: I love the song we just sang.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: I love singing about having a firm foundation.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, that's all based upon not head knowledge, but a relationship with someone that we call God, Creator, Father, the Holy Spirit, based upon the relationship, not just educational understanding.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I appreciated so much listening to Clark talking about that difference, talking about the Holy Spirit.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to sort of hook on to that a little bit and talk about it and maybe even use some a few different terms, but we're talking about that life that's in us.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about the one that's in us, the Holy Spirit.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I want us to look at, you know, a famous, well-known scripture in John chapter 10, verse 10, that says that the thief does not come except to steal and to kill and to destroy.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: I've come that they may have life and that they might have it more abundantly.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now I've always looked at that, and I've always known, I mean, ever since I first came to the Lord, I've I've I would see that verse, and I would think, this must be something good.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: And you get a sense that it's good, and you kind of already know some goodness of God, and so you kind of know where it's going, but but I want to talk about that today and really maybe better define and really clarify and focus and look at this thing that's called life more abundantly, or abundant life.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to get into that and give some definitions uh this morning.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh first of all, that word for abundantly.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: What's Jesus talking about when he says life more abundantly?
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: The word abundantly is a word, Greek word parisos.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: It means excessive.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know what excessive means.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: I love this.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: It literally means too much.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: More than you can use.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Man, there's a revelation of something that when we have more than we can use, you will you will never feel hopeless when you're aware of that.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Thank God for the revelation of the word because it helps us to be to be aware.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: It means excessive, above and beyond, transcendent.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: It means more.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: It means more, more life.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's a scripture I I was reading this morning, and I want to, uh I don't think we'll have this on the screen, but but Jesus made this statement in John 5, verse 39.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: He's talking to the Pharisees and such.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: He said, You are busy analyzing the scriptures, pouring over them, hoping to gain eternal life.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: And everything you read points to me.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yet you still refuse to come to me, so I can give you that life that you're looking for.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now he's talking to people that they're they're going over the scriptures, they're they're pouring over the scriptures, and they're they're they're they're they're looking for this eternal life.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, it only comes from me, and it's something that that I give.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I really appreciated Clark really bringing out the difference between the Holy Spirit and just having.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes Christians can have an attitude of I guess I call it just just an educational thing where we're we're pouring over the scriptures and we're trying to understand God, and we're trying to find the mysteries, and we're trying, and and and of course we always have to preface this because people get a little spooked by it.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: We always have to preface this by saying that the Bible is um the inspired word of God.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: I wish more people knew the Bible more.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: I I love the Bible, I read the Bible, the the word of God is found in it, the mysteries are found, uh, are revealed through that.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: But the revealer of the truth is not just the book by itself.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: We know that the revealer is the Holy Spirit, right?
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, without the Holy Spirit's revelation, you you don't get it.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: You'll get some kind of a moral code at best, probably.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what we that's where that comes from.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: Is that people are operating just in their brain only when they read it and not letting the person, not having, or at least not having the person uh of God reveal himself.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that's really what it what what what what he uh wants and what he's what he's doing.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus said, You're pouring over the scriptures, but you won't turn to me.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so this morning I'm talking about the Holy Spirit.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about the one in us, I'm talking about the life that's in us, that's that's that's very real, and reveals himself.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: See, I'm very relational.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um just about everything I talk about when I talk about God, I'm trying I'm trying to do it in a way that that draws people into love with this person that we call God, this person that loves us so much.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I do that because my personal experience has been that for many, many years of my earlier Christianity, I was one who was more of that type of one of one pouring over the scriptures, trying to find it, trying to find the answers.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I, and I, and you know, and that's all I knew to do.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: And we were trained to do it that way.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: It was always about, it's the scriptures, the scriptures, the the you know, the the word, the word, the word.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: And we thought that the word, like Clark mentioned, we thought that the word was the printed page, more so than the living word, the logos, the living word, Christ in us himself.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: And he's the the personal revealer of truth.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, I'm pouring over the scriptures, and then a change happens, that change that I mentioned so much, where I find out that God really loves me unconditionally, and I find out that his grace is sufficient for me, and he's not demanding anything from me.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: He just he just loves me, and I start to get this revelation that God is love, and then it became personal.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: Then it became not a search for wisdom and a search for the answers and trying to figure out God and put God together with scripture upon scripture.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: It became a loving thing.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you love this?
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: It became, you know what I'm talking about?
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: It became this loving thing to where I fell in love because somebody showed me that he loved me so much.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, thank God for that revelation.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what, as a minister, this is what we hope for everybody.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: This is what we hope happens somewhere along the line while we're ministering to people, while we're speaking the word, teaching the word, where what we're what we're really hoping happens is not that you say, Whoa, that was a good sermon, but that, wow, God is beautiful.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, God is wonderful, wow, God loves me.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: I feel the love of God when I hear those words.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we hope for, that's what we want, that's the goal of all this, because what I just described is a big part of this life that goes beyond normal living.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: It transcends day-to-day living, it transcends existence, for sure.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I notice that in at least many of the circles of Christianity that Judy and I run around in, we notice that we bump into a lot of intellectual Christians.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, their their Christianity, it seems, um, so often is more intellectual than it is relational.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, we they'll use the terms about relationship and all that, but but but there's so much into their head, and that's why there often there are many questions that we get about grace.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: Even people that are very sincere about understanding grace, just like Jesus said here.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: They're pouring over the scriptures, trying to get an understanding, and it's in there, it's in the scriptures.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: This is why we use the scriptures when we preach and teach.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: It's in there.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: But the spirit has to has to reveal that life and reveal that reality to you so you can have an understanding.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: In the book of Job, it says that there is a spirit in man, and it's the inspiration of the Almighty that gives us understanding.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: And without that inspiration, then we just have our wit, our intellect.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: We're just trying to figure it out.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: And this is why people have the same book, but have completely different ideas about God, right?
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because there's a lot of verses in there, and we you know that.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: You've all done it, probably.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody, somebody probably brought something to you from the Bible that, or you know, from you know, about Jesus that that is totally different than what you know or what you've learned, and they've they brought a scripture up, and you say, well, no, that's not true because, and then you bring a scripture to them, and then they can counter with the verse because there's just a lot of verses, and this can go on and on and on.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: And that's that's more intellectual than anything.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: But people will will ask me often, well, I see the Bible talks so much about grace, but what about this?
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: What about Paul said this?
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: Or this other one said that?
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: What about that?
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, those sincere questions.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: And you try your best to help, you try your best to answer.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: But what about this?
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: And and and what's going on, the reason they're doing that and they get they're getting confused, and they're sincerely trying to understand and know, but they're trying to understand it intellectually.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: And why do why does this verse say that and that verse say that when really if we can just get people established in grace somehow?
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: And after all these years, I really don't even know how to do it.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, Judy and I talk about it a lot.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: How can we do this?
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: I say, I don't know.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: We just keep talking about it.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: Keep talking about love, keep talking about grace.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: What do I tell people sometimes?
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: Just keep looking at it.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: Just keep considering that maybe he loves you that much.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Just keep considering that his grace really is sufficient and he's not demanding anything.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: Just consider that and keep looking at it.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because a lot of times you look at it, and pretty soon it just revelation happens, and boom.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: You see it.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: Many of you have had that experience, right?
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: So we just keep talking about it.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: But many times they're wrestling with scriptures in their mind, trying to get it all settled up in here, and the only place it ever gets reconciled, the only place that it ever really, really makes perfect, eternal, beautiful sense to you is in the spirit.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: Because you know God there.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes to this day, people will bring up scriptures to me, and I'll say, you know what?
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know why it says that.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: It does not fit all this other stuff that I'm saying.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: But I do know that the way that you're explaining it, I know that's not the daddy that I know.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: I know that's not the father that I know.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because though I don't know everything about him, and neither do any of us here, we know something about him, and that's not it.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: We know him.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: We have we have at least tasted and seen that the Lord is good.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's very personal.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: And there's a need for that spirituality, I think.
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: I think there's a need for people to want to focus more on the ministry of the Spirit to them, and not just only the education of the head.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: 2 Corinthians 3.16 says that when the when the heart turns to the Lord, the veil is removed, and we see the glory of the Lord and it changes us, or the goodness of the Lord and it changes us.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_00: When the heart turns to the Lord.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: It says, now the Lord is the Spirit.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: So he said, when you when it turns to the Spirit, not just the the education of the brain, not just pouring over the scriptures alone, trying to figure it out, but reading the scriptures for sure.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: But while you're reading, while you're praying, while you're all these things that we do, remember it's the spirit that gives life.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's the one living in you, that one that's a part of you that reveals that life to you, and it continues to bring you into this tighter, beautiful, wonderful relationship that gives you so much confidence.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: It is the rock that you stand on.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: It gives you so much confidence when your world is shaking all around you.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because you've got a personal thing.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't have that, then you're starting to try to try to get it real quick.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: You'll go through there like, what did it say again?
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: And you're going to try to try to remind yourself things, and that's not a bad thing.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: But the relational thing is something that you've got and you know.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: And it's you and God.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: And this is what this whole thing was about.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: This is what He wanted for us.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: We already had people just pouring over the scriptures trying to figure them out.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you remember Judy and I did a uh a thing up here one time where she was putting these Legos together, and that was uh meant to be a picture of somebody pouring over the scriptures and saying, Well, here's a verse about God, but here's another one, and so we get all these things and try to create God in our mind from the education that we get.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I know this verse and that verse, and this goes, and and you create this thing, and it's it's it's your creation of God.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's not it's not really Him.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's one reason God says in the Bible not to create any image of Him, because any image that we create will not be Him.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: It won't it won't do Him justice.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: So there's something that happens as you turn to the Lord that loves you, that's gracious, that's good.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because once you begin to really believe that, now you're looking at the real God.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: Now you're looking at the Creator.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: Now you're looking at the nature of our Father.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now you're starting to feel the very heartbeat of God, and you just keep getting drawn into, at least I'm just talking from my experience, maybe, but I noticed you get keep getting drawn more and more into goodness and love.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: And in all these years, the more I know about his grace, from his personal revealing himself to me day by day.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Not for a moment has it ever pushed me to delve back into, oh, he's trying to show me a little bit of legalism that goes with this.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's never happened.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, it shocks me that I get further from it.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, sometimes I'm like, don't we need just a little bit of this as we go along?
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, let go of it, son, and like, where are we going, father?
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: Into more goodness, into more beauty, into more love than I could comprehend, into more graciousness than I can define.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's called superabundance of grace in the Bible.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: We know people use this derogatory term, hypergrace.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: Are you hyper grace?
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: I heard you say grace.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: You talked about grace.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: Are you hyper-grace?
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: Are you part of that?
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I love that people have pointed out that, hey, the Bible talks about hyper-grace.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's actually the Greek word hyper, they pronounce it hooper, we pronounce it hyper, but it means unquantifiable, superabundant grace.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: More than you can count, more than you can imagine, more than it's it's it's it's that same hyper hooper parisos.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: That word parisos right here that I def that I use in that definition, abundant.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: If abundant already means transcendent and beyond anything else, then hyperabundant, superabundant, grace that the Bible uses is is it's like you can't can't can't quantify it.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: Somebody tried to, somebody asked me one time, they were uh interviewing me on a radio show, and I'm talking about love, of course.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: Say, how can you, he says, I'm a very practical type of person.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: Can you give me a definite?
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: Can you define it for me?
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_00: What does love look like?
• 17:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Honestly, I can't tell you.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: I it's too big for me.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: I've tasted it.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: I know it's beautiful, it's wonderful, it's good.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: I can try to tell you about that, but but I don't know.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know its boundaries, I don't know its endings, I don't know how far it goes, it's just it's more than I can imagine.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: He says, Well, here's how I would define it.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I think it it means that you're you're good to people, that you you respect people.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: He says, but I don't have to agree with everyone, but I can be good and kind and respectful and all those things.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, that's that's good.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's certainly a part of love.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: It comes from love.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_00: I would define, I would call that more civility than agape.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like what you're describing is like a glass of seawater compared to the ocean.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: So how do you define it?
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know, anyway.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about things that are that are that are beyond.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: We're talking about things that are more than just life, more than just our existence, and more than just what we what we know about it.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: And in this relationship, here's another thing I want to say about the Holy Spirit before I move on.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: Just this one thing.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit is your daddy, your lover, your God, your creator, your your your life.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: He is your life, he's your everything.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: And he's very relational.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: And what you find out as you're allowing him to reveal himself to you, and this would be surprising too, like just about everything else is about God, it seems like we're always surprised more and more how good he is, even though I believe he's good.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: But it seems like as the days go on, I keep getting surprised by how good he is.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes uncomfortably surprised, but he's good, it's beautiful, it's wonderful.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: But I found out that as I began to allow the Spirit to reveal himself to me, that he was much more relational than commanding.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: By that, in other words, I used to think that the Holy Spirit was all about people to talk about listen to the voice of the Spirit, obey the Spirit, be led by the Spirit.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: And what I thought that meant was tell me to do something, God, and I'll do it.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: Come on.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I've done that.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, my early years of Christianity, I'm trying to be led by the Spirit.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: I would like, huh?
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: Did you say go stand on a street corner?
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's what you said.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I would do that.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I can remember, I'm thinking of a time specifically.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm standing there.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now what?
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: Tell me who to look for.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: A guy in a blue shirt, uh dressed in gray.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: What am I supposed to do?
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm thinking that he's telling me to do stuff.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, tell me something, command me.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be led by the Holy Spirit.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: I want to hear your voice.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I was tuned to always hearing about him commanding me to do something, telling me to do stuff, because that do, that performance thing, it's like I thought that that's what it was about.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: He wants me to serve him, he wants me to do things for him, and tell me, Holy Spirit, what to do, what to do, what to do.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm finding out at this point in my life that he doesn't tell me a whole lot of do stuff.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there is some of that, but I'm finding out mostly what he's telling me.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's what he thinks of me.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: How he loves me?
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: How he loves you?
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: That's another one he's teaching me, how much he loves you.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's one thing for him to love me, but why wouldn't he?
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: But he loves you.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: And he doesn't then he then he starts telling me about how he doesn't just love me and you, it's how he loves them.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know who them is?
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: Them is not us.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: Them.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: But he starts telling me that, and I'm like, woo, you're pushing the limits, God.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: But that's what the Holy Spirit's revealing to me.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: And all those things that he's revealing to me are just making him more beautiful in my eyes and makes me fall in love with him more.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: And after all these years, more tears are coming and less tears when I think about his goodness.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: More tears are coming instead of less tears.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: I think about his goodness because this revelation is an ever-increasing, ongoing revelation.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's the real thing.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because the revelation of God is an ever increasing thing, it does not wane.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: People get burned out and get tired of just educational understanding of the scriptures.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: Those are usually ex Christians.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: And they can argue with you.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because they've poured over the scriptures.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: But they got tired, they got burned out, they got disappointed, their world got shaken, and they weren't established in grace.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: Who is the person of Jesus?
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: Are you hearing anything?
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just talking to you.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: I got notes here.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: I got to finish this up.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: So let's give the definitions of life.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: Three kinds of life in the Greek language.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: The first one is bios, like biology.
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's probably self-explanatory.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's physical life, it's the manifesto life.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's you.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's a human life.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's animal life.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's cellular life.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's plant life.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's life.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_00: We know that.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's an organism that's dependent on its external environment.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: By that I mean this.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: From the time that you're born, you need things that are external.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: You need oxygen.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: You need water.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: You need food.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: Your physical life does not sustain itself.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's dependent upon its environment, outward things.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: Denied those outward things, put you in a bubble where you do not get the things from your environment, oxygen, water, uh, uh, food.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: What happens?
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: The body dies.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because it has a trajectory towards that.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: And what we're doing with the body is we're taking in every day food, oxygen, water.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: We're taking in, keeping that death away, keeping ourselve by these external things.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because the body cannot save itself.
• 23:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's dependent on things outside.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: And without those things, even with those things, it has a trajectory towards entropy or disorganization, death.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: That's bios.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: Psyche, or suke, as they say in the Greek, it speaks of the inner life.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is your consciousness.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is that part of you that's inside.
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's a life, it's a consciousness, it's it's that which enables you to even observe your own thoughts.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: And its influence can come from the bios and or the zoe, which we'll talk about, the spiritual life.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: You can form your own consciousness by having information on this life and just form some logical thing of this is who you are and create an identity.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: And many of us have testimonies of living false identities that we got from our mind.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_00: Until revelation came and we realized who God is, therefore who we are.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's formed and affected by the can be formed and affected by both the bios and the zoe in different proportions.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore, it can experience your inner life, your mind, your emotions, your will, it can live with the experience of much lack, even hopelessness and despair.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: Or it can live with much fullness, joy, and abundance.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: See, it can be influenced by that life.
• 25:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's why when the heart turns to the Lord, we see something and it changes us.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: What does it change us to?
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: It changes us to more like him, the fruit of the Spirit, the love, the joy, the peace, all of that.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is why we do what we do.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_00: This is why we follow Christ.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: This is why we teach about him.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: This is why we read about him.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: This is why we worship him.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: This is all of these things, why we pray.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: This is mentioned in 2 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 16, that says, Therefore we do not lose heart.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: Look at this.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: Even though our outward man is perishing, by us.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus didn't come to give that life alone.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: Yet the inward man, suke, psyche, is being renewed day by day.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: Why is this happening to us?
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because life is ministering to us.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: And the suke, the inward man, that consciousness of youth, have you noticed what it does in humanity?
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: It tends toward life, not death.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's always pushing that way, it's always seeking that way.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's why there's many philosophies and religions.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's it's reaching for that life.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_00: That's its its destiny, that's its desire, and there's an innate knowing that it's there.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: This is one reason people will pour over the scriptures trying to find that life.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: We'll do many other different things.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's what they were doing in that situation.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: But it's trending towards this life thing, looking for that.
• 27:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then the heart turns to the Lord, and we find Him who is life, and something happens to you.
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: The word Zoe is what we're talking about, is what Jesus was talking about, that kind of life.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: It means perpetual fullness.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: Zoe is the ultimate form of existence.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: Zoe is accessed by faith.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because this Zoe is given to us.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's a part of, it lives inside of us.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: And we access it by faith.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: When the heart turns to the Lord, we look to it.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: We say, in you is life.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_00: And that life is in me, and I have a counselor in me, I have a comforter in me, I have a leader, I have a shepherd in me, I have a teacher in me.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: Like Lauren was saying, I have the conductor living in me to speak to me, to keep my time, to lead my steps.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord is our shepherd, and we shall not want or we have no lack, because Zoe is the life of fullness.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: And our consciousness, our soul, our inner man is influenced by this Zoe life that Jesus gave us by living inside of us.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's better for you that I go, because if I go, the comforter will come to you.
• 28:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I won't just be a teacher from Galilee teaching you all these things that you don't understand.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: You notice the disciples never got any of it.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: These things that we read and we we we say are so profound and good teachings of Jesus.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: Peter, James, and John, and then they misunderstood it every single time, it seems.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: Until when?
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: Until the Holy Spirit was released.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: And the inspiration of the Almighty gave them understanding.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: Look at a man named like Paul, look what happened to him.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_00: Going one certain way, thinking that he was on a track here.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: Then he meets the Lord.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_00: And he finds his whole other life.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, This is it.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: And if anybody preaches any other thing than this grace that I'm bringing to you, count them a curse because they're they're wrong.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care if it's an angel.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care if somebody shows you a letter signed by me and is telling you contrary to what I'm teaching you now.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: No, this is wrong.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: Because what I found is the life.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: See, faith comes by by revelation.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: You know, without that revelation or without the Spirit's ministry to us, then our desire that we have for that Zoe fullness experience, it would fail, wouldn't it?
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because it would only be dependent upon our intellect and our willpower.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: But thank God for the Father's love.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: Thank God that while while men were groping around and in such darkness for so long, trying to understand God, Jesus came and said, I'm going to make this abundantly clear.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to reveal the Father in everything I say, everything I teach, everything I do, by my death on the cross, by my resurrection, I am going to show you the Father.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: And not only that, I'm going to come and live inside of you by the Spirit, and I'm going to teach you from the inside, and I'm going to love you from the inside.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: And me and you are going to be one.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_00: Even as I and my Father are one.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_00: And the Spirit that I'm talking about, he's going to show you my glory.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: He's going to reveal it to you.
• 30:54
  SPEAKER_00: I have many things to tell you, he says, but you cannot understand it.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: But when the Spirit of truth comes, you will then understand.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_00: You will know.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: And in that day, you won't be asking me.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: You'll pray the Father in my name.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: It'll be, in other words, how me and the Father have been joined together.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm taking your hand and Daddy's hand, and you and him shall be one.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: You will know.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_00: What did God say about us in this day that we're in right now?
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_00: Way back in the Old Testament, he said, in that day, in that day, they won't even have to tell their neighbor, no, the Lord, no, the Lord.
• 31:31
  SPEAKER_00: They're all gonna know me from the greatest to the least because I will be merciful to their transgressions and their sins and iniquities.
• 31:37
  SPEAKER_00: I won't even remember anymore.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: It won't have anything to do with anything.
• 31:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's what the spirit will tell you.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: But if all you're in your head, you're like, yeah, but but but Rick, why did Paul say this?
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: Why did you know?
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: Just listen to the spirit, huh?
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_00: Hallelujah.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: Thank God we have that spirit of life.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: And if anybody here says, I know I have that, why does sometimes it seem so hard to hear?
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, but maybe for one thing we can quit saying that it's hard because I'll give you my own example.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm and and and and I'm speaking to you as someone who knows every bit of these things, those struggles and hardships.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: I remember, I remember sitting in my I'm in ministry and I'm sitting in my office chair and I'm looking up at the ceiling and saying, Father, I just can't hear you.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sorry.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: I was apologizing.
• 32:43
  SPEAKER_00: I know you're probably talking, but I'm so dense, I'm so spiritually dense, I don't get it.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what to, I don't know.
• 32:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not hearing anything.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: All these people saying, God told me this and God told me that.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: I got nothing.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: And I was apologizing.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sorry.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: I said, I know it's not your problem, I know it must be my problem because you're perfect.
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I heard this.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: Said, you know what?
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: I can talk to Balaam's donkey and he would talk.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: I can talk to the dry bones in Ezekiel's valley and they'll stand up.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: I can talk to rocks and they'll cry out.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: Surely I can get it to you, son.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not based on your ability to hear me, it's based on me revealing it to you.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, oh, I like that, I like that.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: Then it did then, as here's how dense I was.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: It took me a little bit to realize, oh, I'm hearing you now.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: Wow, what's where'd that come from?
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: But it gave me an assurance that daddy was with me.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I just didn't have to hear talking all the time at that time.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: But God was confident and patient and loving with me, and he could reveal things to me as he willed.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: And it just gave me a rest, it gave me a confidence that it's okay.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: And if I come across something that I don't understand, I found out that I can just kind of let it sit, and pretty soon understanding seems to come.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's a revelation.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: With that unveiling or revelation of God Himself, look how much he wanted to reveal himself.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: He literally, he's like, he killed everything that would have stopped us from it.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: But I want you to know me.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_00: Be established in grace is what we tell people.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: Why don't you preach anything else?
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: Because you need to be established in grace.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: But there's other facets of things.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but it starts right here.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because if you aren't established in grace to see that kind of love, then you're going to worship a false image of God.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: You're going to get another image somehow.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: But get established in grace.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: That's why the Bible says that.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because when you get when you're established in grace, you're standing in the Father's heart and you can see.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: And then you start to find that you grow like a weed because revelation just starts unfolding.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: Because now you're in the place, now you're in the house where you can inquire and behold the beauty of the Lord, that place that David, the prophet, desired to be in.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: We live here now.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: How are y'all doing today?
• 35:37
  SPEAKER_00: Our faith is not a blind faith, it's not without, it's not with without rationality, because our faith is based upon the revelation of Jesus Christ.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_00: He has revealed Daddy to us and said, Come, anybody that's thirsty, Daddy's home.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_00: The good news leads us to a special relationship with our Father, and that is our paradise of love.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: And our very purpose for living is realized in that love, because the purpose was that we would have abundant life, a life that would go beyond our physical BIOS existence, a life that would go beyond just a seeking conscience, but a life that's found home in somebody that loves you very, very much.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_00: Someone who you can rely on.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_00: Some of you here, maybe your life has been rocked by the world in recent times.
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: It just happens.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: I know our family has.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: Something in me just makes me rejoice that we have this wonderful, firm foundation.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: Daddy is with us.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: And we're in the best, safest place we can be, and it is a place that somehow, in spite of what the world does, it's full of joy and peace and love.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's beautiful, it's home.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: And when you know that, you just want every heart to know the beauty and the goodness of God.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: Would you all stand up?
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: The Zoe life is the most excellent existence there is, and Jesus said, I came to give it to you.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: Here it is.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: Now eat from it.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_00: Let it feed you, let it fill you, let it flood you, let it speak, let it minister, let it lead, let it guide, let it reveal itself to you.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because that's his favorite thing to do.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: Let him reveal his goodness.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: And let it be more about that beautiful oneness, that relationship, more than just what am I supposed to do?
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: What am I supposed to do?
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: Let it be beautiful.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: Let it be restful.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because in that beauty and in that rest, that's where it's powerful.
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_00: And you will feel you will know what it means to say, the Lord is my shepherd.
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_00: I do not want anymore.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_00: I do not lack.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: That's what your consciousness was groping for before.
• 38:26
  SPEAKER_00: I love you guys.
• 38:28
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome home.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the kingdom of heaven.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the presence of a father who loves you and says, Let me show you some more.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you, Father, for your beauty.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_00: What can I say?
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: But wow.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.