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643 | Pattern Selection · 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. Whether you are listening
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  in our app, in your favorite podcasting app, 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 Kim Miller and Erica Close in a conversation as we walk with Jesus.
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  In today's conversation, we are chatting about what life looks like when we
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  choose to live our lives according to a pattern of good works.
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  Well, hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us. This is Erica Close,
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  and I am here with Kim Miller.
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  Thank you guys so much. I'm excited about today's podcast.
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  I believe what we're talking about today is what God is asking every Christian
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  to think about and shore up.
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  Absolutely. So today we're going to talk about some of the points that Kim brought
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  out in Monday's podcast.
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  So that was podcast 641, and it was called Creating a Pattern with Your Life
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  that leads others to Jesus.
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  And it was a really important thought, namely that everyone is looking at our lives.
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  And as Christians, and as those who call ourselves Christians,
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  we have to be honest, and we need to realize that people are honestly looking
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  at our lives, and that our lives are a pattern that others follow.
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  Therefore, we need to make sure that our lives are following the correct pattern.
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  And you talked in the beginning of Monday's podcast about choosing the pattern,
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  that will get us an expected end.
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  You talked about Jeremiah 29 11 and how the plans that God has for us will lead
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  to an expected end, which is his desire for us as his children.
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  And so we need to make choices about what the pattern is going to be for our lives.
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  And that sometimes is a little hard.
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  But I think you also made a tremendous point when you talked about how the Scripture
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  instructs us to daily pick up our cross.
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  And I love the point that you made about how we pick up the cross,
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  not so that we haul around the heaviness of a cross, but we are picking up the
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  victory that Christ has won for us. Amen.
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  Amen. I think that our listeners would benefit from just hearing a little bit
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  about how we make those decisions for how we're going to live our lives,
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  how we make the choices for what our lives look like.
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  I know it sounds trite, but we just need to follow the instructions given to us in God's holy work.
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  In order to do that, we got to know what they are. It's a simple answer.
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  It's not trite, but it is simple, but it is not simple.
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  It's difficult to accomplish because we are fleshly people, and somehow we'd
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  rather watch something on TV that is totally unimportant and never going to
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  impact our lives in any positive way,
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  then we would understand God's Word and its meaning for us personally.
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  And I think that comes back to people not understanding that God's Word does impact you personally.
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  You go to church corporately, but you have a personal relationship. Amen.
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  And he says, if you love me, you'll keep my commandments.
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  And I think we hear that and we say that, but I think so many of us are hung
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  up on the fact that we don't get what that means.
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  But we understand in our earthly friendships, there are just certain boundaries you keep.
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  Yep. These people that you love, you don't tread on certain things.
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  They have quirks or buttons or whatever you want to call them.
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  And we walk perfectly in harmony with them because we understand what they need. Right.
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  Yet we don't seem to think of Jesus, who's a friend that sticks closer than
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  a brother, as a personal relationship and one which we need to maintain and grow.
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  And to grow and develop and maintain a relationship with Jesus Christ,
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  we must have a love for him.
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  And if we love him and we place our faith in him, then we will obey him.
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  It all stems from love and faith. And if you're not obeying the Lord,
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  you don't have much love for him and no faith in what he says.
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  Because he explains if you don't obey him, there are severe consequences.
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  And if you believe that, you wouldn't be doing what you're doing.
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  But if you love him, you'll keep my commandments. And if you really love him,
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  you're going to want to know him.
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  No one who is currently married to their spouse married them in the first 15
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  minutes no many of people go a long time getting to know each other,
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  many people try to circumvent that and it doesn't work well for them,
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  but to get a relationship that is strong that will withstand time that will
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  withstand the struggles and the attacks of the devil and all the different things
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  that just living in this world will do, requires getting to know that person.
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  And the more you know that person, the more you either love them and want to
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  know them more, or you're like, this person's not for me, and you kind of just cut ties.
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  This is the same model and reality for a relationship with Jesus.
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  If you love him, you want to know him. And if you truly love him,
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  the more you know him, the more you love him.
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  But too often we love from a very superficial position and we think,
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  I don't want to read the word of God.
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  Well, when someone says to you, I don't want to read the Bible,
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  then you can just put them in the column, they don't love Jesus.
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  I think you bring up something that just really reminded me of something,
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  and I really want to go here, though.
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  It's not in my notes, but, you know, you talked about wanting to read the Bible, and,
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  you know, it made me think about, you know, when we want to,
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  when we're following Christ, we're becoming His disciple, right?
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  And we were getting to know Him.
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  And I saw something, it was honestly, this was months ago, and it was just something
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  on Facebook, and someone said so many people are getting discipled by their algorithm. Oh.
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  Yeah, it was a little bit of an O. But it was, you know, what they were basic,
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  what I took that to say was that, you know, I'm a Christian.
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  I have a lot of friends who are Christians, right? And so, like on my Facebook,
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  I see lots and lots of Christian stuff.
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  I see a lot of scripture on my Facebook and in my Instagram and,
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  you know, all the places that I may be.
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  And it is so easy. It could be so easy to think if I am encountering scripture,
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  that social media is putting in front of me.
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  It would be so easy to think, therefore, I have spent time in God's word.
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  But part of the problem is you haven't encountered it.
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  Exactly. It is just digitally scrolled past your eyes. Right.
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  And if we, many of us, do say, you know, oh, Facebook is just showing us,
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  you know, what I want to see. Or, you know, you talk about something with a
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  friend and it shows up in your Facebook the next day. And that's a little creepy and all that.
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  But if we think for a moment that the algorithm is going to show us exactly
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  what we want to see, that in no way means it is what God wants us to see.
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  And we are scrolling past it. We are not sitting down with it.
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  I would never marry someone that I got to know through their Facebook posts,
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  right? That's not a relationship.
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  More importantly, I love sports.
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  That's no secret to any of my friends or probably any of our listeners.
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  And I watch a lot of sports. Yep.
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  I don't know any of them. And I have spent several hours watching a basketball
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  game, watching that person run up and down that court, going right in front of my eyes.
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  I've seen even a little bit about their statistics, but I don't know them.
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  You know a lot of things about them. But I don't know them.
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  And I only know the things that I've seen.
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  I don't know anything more than what they've chosen to show me.
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  And I think that that's what we're talking about with Scripture coming in front of your eyes.
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  You're seeing it, but if you don't engage in it, you don't ask,
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  what's this about? How does it apply to my life? What does it really mean?
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  How can I do something with this? God, what do you want this to mean for me?
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  If you're not doing that, it's like me watching the basketball game and trying
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  to claim Kim Mulkey is my best friend. Mm-hmm.
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  That's just not the truth. Nope. So I really believe there's a truth in that,
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  because I think people spend so much time doing that, there's no time left to read the Word.
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  And to sit down with it. And I'll just say right now that there is no substitute
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  for sitting down with a physical Bible in your hand.
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  Yes, it's nice to look things up online
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  and to be able to copy paste into documents and things like that and,
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  it's convenient too easy to be distracted right because that same phone in your
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  hand is the one that's got facebook scrolling exactly and there's you know i
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  could be reading the bible there on my phone and 14 notifications pop up,
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  and there is something to be said for you know sitting down with a bible and
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  you know for me it'll be a bible and a pen and a highlighter and a notebook
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  for you it would just be a Bible, but,
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  there's no substitute for that, especially if we understand what we're trying to do here, right?
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  We're trying to find the pattern for our lives, and we do that by knowing.
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  God and knowing his word. And he wants you to know him.
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  And to know him well. He says, these things I have written unto you that you
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  may know and believe. He loves me.
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  Yes, he does. He absolutely does love you.
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  And that's the thing, right? We want to get to know him.
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  And I think we have to get to this point where we realize the Bible is for us.
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  You know, early this morning, I was watching a sermon on TV.
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  And the sermon was about Abraham. And a point was made. And what's interesting
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  to me is throughout this summer, I have heard a lot of sermons about Abraham.
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  I listened to an audio book about Abraham on a tremendously long road trip.
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  And so I've probably had 24 hours of content.
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  On Abraham this summer, and I haven't really engaged with anything about Abraham
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  in probably a solid three weeks, four weeks.
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  So when this particular lesson came up this morning and I heard it about Abraham,
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  I very clearly heard the Lord say, you really need to sit back down with Abraham.
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  You know, you talked about how we follow the Lord's commandments.
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  And there are commandments, right? We talk about the Big Ten,
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  right? The Ten Commandments. We talk about love the Lord your God with all your
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  heart and all your soul and all your mind and your neighbor as yourself. That's a commandment.
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  But the commandments that are
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  given to others may have been given to others, but they are also for us.
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  What God said to Abraham.
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  Is something I need to know for me. Every word in his scripture has an impact on those who read it.
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  And if we can't find the meaning, we need to ask for it.
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  I think that's really important is to remind ourselves that we may not know
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  the meaning or the meaning for us, but if we ask and we sit down and we read,
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  he will get us to the point where we do understand what it means for us.
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  They believe he promises us that.
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  So I wanted to talk just a little bit.
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  You talked about in a Monday's podcast about how the pattern of our lives is
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  a reflection of the transformation that has occurred in our lives.
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  And I want us to just talk about that for a little bit because we talk a lot
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  about what's the evidence for things. We both have a science background,
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  right? We talk about evidence.
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  And I think that if we're honest about ourselves, we have to understand that
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  our lives are evidence for what God has done,
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  in our hearts and in our minds, evidence of the sanctification,
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  that has occurred.
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  When I spoke this truth from the Word of God, I did not reference it,
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  I don't believe. If I referenced it, I definitely did not quote the Scripture.
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  So I'm glad you've asked this question because I'd like to quote it now.
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  And it's Romans 12, 1 and 2, and it goes like this.
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  I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present
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  your bodies a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
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  And what I was really talking about in that message was this,
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  and be not conformed to this world,
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  but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is that
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  good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
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  And what I was talking about in our witnesses is that we come into this world as sinner, Romans 3.23.
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  And when we give our heart to the Lord, He comes in, and though our sins were
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  scarlet, He washes in white as snow.
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  And He dwells inside of us, but we still walk around in the world.
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  And so we are in the world, but we are not of the world because God has changed our citizenships.
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  We are no longer here, but we're looking for a city whose builder and maker
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  is God. And we are strangers and pilgrims in this world.
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  And this renewing of the mind is what he does.
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  He transforms us from a carnal nature to a saved servant of him. Thank you.
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  And the renewing of our mind is something we do every day to remind us that
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  sin no more has dominion over us, that we are no longer.
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  Slaves to sin, that we serve a God who loves us, enables us,
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  empowers us, who wants good things for us.
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  We are reminded that Satan lost all of his power when Jesus rose from the dead.
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  He lost all of his claim to us when Jesus shed his blood to wash away our sins,
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  and we received that free gift.
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  And he even defeated hell and death and the grave because death can't hold us anymore.
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  And this transformation that takes place is we are no longer slaves to sin,
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  and sin has no more dominion over us.
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  We are new creatures in Christ, and daily we have to renew our mind so that
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  when Satan comes after us, we look him in the face, so to speak,
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  and we tell him, you no longer have any authority over me. You no longer have any control of me.
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  You are powerless because Jesus in me is greater than you, and Jesus loves me.
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  This I know, for the Bible tells me so, and you have to flee.
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  That's what renewing your mind daily does it sends the devil packing and you
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  to shout i love that i love that you know we i.
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  For whatever reason sometimes i struggle to sleep so i read about sleep right
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  and what happens in our brains when we sleep and that there is you know in the
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  deepest time of our sleep Beep.
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  It's almost like our brain gets awash and the junk gets out.
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  And if that's something that has to happen in our physical brain each night,
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  for us to live the lives that we're supposed to live, how much more do our minds
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  and our hearts need to be renewed?
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  Jesus went away to the side of the river and prayed. Yes.
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  If Jesus needs to pray, come on.
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  And get renewed and get refilled, right?
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  I want to go back to that verse again, because there's a phrase in there that
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  I think we need to just hop back to.
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  So that verse starts out and it says, I beseech you, therefore,
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  brethren, by the mercies of God.
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  And I want to talk about the role of God's mercy in all of that,
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  because the verse commands us to present our bodies as a living sacrifice,
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  holy and acceptable unto God, which is our reasonable service.
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  But talk for a minute about the role of God's mercy in that.
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  God owes us nothing. Amen.
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  And on our own, we aren't worthy to be in his presence. But because of his mercy
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  and grace. Because of his mercy, he pardons my iniquity.
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  And because of his love, he bestows his mercy and such bountifulness that I
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  am welcomed and invited to be in his presence.
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  And it's the mercy of God that we are given the privilege to be part of his
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  story and to spread his gospel and to be a reflection of him because we're created in his image.
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  But our mind has to be renewed for us to reflect the image of God in the godly
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  witness he enables, empowers, and expects his children to demonstrate.
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  I think part of the renewing of our mind is something that you talked about
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  towards the close of Monday's podcast.
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  And you talked about how there are times in our lives when we need a course
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  correction, which is a nautical term, right?
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  You're on a course, and maybe the wind has blown you off course,
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  and you need to correct your course so that your ship is going where it needs to go.
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  But I think that in a life of a Christian, what a course correction really means,
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  is a moment of repentance.
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  Amen. And, you know, we, course corrections are, you know, they sometimes come
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  to us. Maybe we have a godly friend that that lets us know, hey,
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  you're going down the wrong path.
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  But even though we are told we are going down the wrong path,
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  there's an honesty and honesty.
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  Point where we have to be very honest with ourselves and say,
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  I am going down the wrong path. Lord, forgive me. There's a moment of conviction
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  so that you can have forever repentance. Right.
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  And so I think that that's really important because when we're talking about,
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  choosing the pattern, that's not a one-time choice.
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  It's a daily. It's a moment by moment sometimes.
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  Daily pick up your cross, you know, renewing your mind again and again and again.
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  Choosing Jesus.
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  I love Joshua. He said, choose you this day.
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  Every day is a day. So choose you this day whom you're going to serve.
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  Joshua said, as for me and my house, we're going to serve the And Joshua knew the Lord. No kidding.
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  I think if there's any takeaway from Monday's message and then from this conversation today, it's that.
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  In order to follow Him, we have to know Him. And in order to know Him,
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  we have to consciously spend time with Him.
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  It matters how you live. And how you live is a direct reflection on who you
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  spend time with. Absolutely.
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  Absolutely. I do want to just say I was excited on Monday that you talked about.
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  What your mom used to always say. You may be the only Bible that some people read.
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  That's one of my favorite phrases. It's very convicting.
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  I have it on a t-shirt and I think about that a lot, but I appreciate that.
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  Well, thank you all so much for listening.
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  I hope that this conversation has been a blessing, but most importantly,
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  I hope that it has pointed you towards his word.
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  And I hope that you sit down and spend time with him. He wants to spend time with you.
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  Friends, remember that 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
• 24:31
  quotes from today's podcast and scripture references.
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• 24:45
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• 24:49
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