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Transcript

Love God with Your Mind · The Rhett Palmer Show

0:25
SPEAKER_02: You know, I try to mouth along with the song, but we have a delayed thing happening here, so it doesn't work at all.
0:32
SPEAKER_02: And uh right now we're having a uh a cup of friendship right here today, ladies and gentlemen.
0:37
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, uh good morning, everybody.
0:40
SPEAKER_01: This is Michael Bagby from Vero Beach, Florida, with a cup of friendship.
0:45
SPEAKER_01: And we are with the Sage of the Airways in Vero Beach, Rhett Palmer.
0:53
SPEAKER_02: It is written, confess things that are not as though they were.
0:56
SPEAKER_01: Exactly, the sage of the airways.
0:59
SPEAKER_02: And we have biblical historian Mike Bagby here and he bagby and he has bagged up a cup of friendship for you.
1:07
SPEAKER_02: All you have to do is go to cup of friendship.com.
1:09
SPEAKER_02: Actually, we owe one of our very first sales to Doolin because apparently you left a bag there, and he left uh left uh there's a new fellow that has a uh he's a friend of yours.
1:20
SPEAKER_02: He has a uh psychology show on Fridays, right?
1:24
SPEAKER_02: And he he came in and tried the coffee and actually ordered it online from Colorado.
1:30
SPEAKER_01: Well, Rhett, that's what we do at our uh roastery here in Vero Beach, Florida, is we roast a lot of coffee.
1:37
SPEAKER_01: We ship it, we have a lot of shipping uh to Hawaii, to California, to New York, uh, Ohio, uh, Washington, uh, all around the country.
1:47
SPEAKER_01: And uh it's delicious, high altitude, uh hand roasted, artisan style, and uh we do it right here.
1:56
SPEAKER_01: And so we've picked out three blends for this cup of friendship, and encouraging our uh friends that are listening.
2:06
SPEAKER_01: One of the greatest things you can do is invite a friend over, have a good cup of coffee, good cup of tea, get to know each other, listen to each other, encourage one another, and develop friendship, which is the really the uh lasting thing that we have in this life.
2:27
SPEAKER_02: It's pretty remarkable.
2:28
SPEAKER_02: We got together, and you've been doing this for years, that we got together, and and for us, cupofriendship.com was available, and uh hopefully maybe in a few months we'll get some of these cups made with the logo on it.
2:41
SPEAKER_02: And uh I just I just think uh you never know what's gonna happen.
2:45
SPEAKER_02: We could we could have we could have big conventions where everybody's drinking from our cups of friendship.
2:50
SPEAKER_01: I would just be content with uh enjoying a conversation with you, Rhett, and hopefully uh we would say something that would uh strike into the hearts and spirits of our friends out there and that would really encourage him because we live in exciting times right now.
3:09
SPEAKER_01: We have that's a good word for it.
3:11
SPEAKER_01: No, no, we live in exciting times because we see revival breaking out all over the world.
3:18
SPEAKER_01: Right now, Christianity is the largest movement going on on planet Earth.
3:24
SPEAKER_01: It's in Africa, it's in Central and South America, it's in Australia, it's in Europe, it's in Asia, it's bursting at the seams in places.
3:33
SPEAKER_01: Even above the Muslims?
3:34
SPEAKER_01: Even above the Muslims?
3:36
SPEAKER_01: The one of the fastest-growing churches in the world is Iran right now.
3:40
SPEAKER_01: Um in the late 1920s and 30s, I think there were, uh I read this just the other day, less than 100 Christians in Iran.
3:51
SPEAKER_01: Now, pastors in Iran estimate there's five million Christians.
3:56
SPEAKER_01: And this is one of the most persecuted areas, uh, along with Nigeria and the uh sub Saharan area of Africa, where uh the church is growing.
4:08
SPEAKER_02: Well, where there's Sharia law, though, it's against the law to have churches.
4:12
SPEAKER_01: Well, uh for uh our history of us Christians show that when we are pushed and shoved in a corner and persecuted, that is when we grow the most.
4:23
SPEAKER_01: Because you know why?
4:24
SPEAKER_01: Because that's when God shows up.
4:27
SPEAKER_01: That's when we recognize our desperate need for Him.
4:30
SPEAKER_01: And when we get to that place, we are such uh open vessels for Him to display His power, His wisdom, His majesty.
4:39
SPEAKER_01: And this is what's going on in the world right now.
4:42
SPEAKER_01: We went through this pandemic where people were isolated, fearful, depressed.
4:49
SPEAKER_01: And right now, among 20 to 30 year olds, anxiety and depression is one of the leading factors in their life.
4:56
SPEAKER_01: This is words of my uh 34-year-old son who knows that generation.
5:01
SPEAKER_01: And what is the solution to that?
5:03
SPEAKER_01: Well, the solution is understanding that God has a uh a love for us, he has a purpose for us, he has a plan that is coming into fruition.
5:14
SPEAKER_01: There is nothing going on in this world that he doesn't know about and has not orchestrated it.
5:20
SPEAKER_01: He's bringing it all into a conclusion under the administration of Jesus coming back.
5:26
SPEAKER_01: We have a role of spending eternity with him.
5:29
SPEAKER_01: And when we bring this message that our best life is ahead of us, as opposed to some so-called Christian pastors that are selling books that say, live your best life now.
5:42
SPEAKER_01: Well, I gotta say, Red, if this is my best life, I probably uh well Well, I don't know.
5:51
SPEAKER_02: Let's not pick up because I happen to like Joel.
5:54
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I mean, I I don't believe when somebody says, well, right now, if you just say, I believe in Jesus, we believe he'd been born again.
6:02
SPEAKER_02: Believe me, getting born again is not something God easily gives up.
6:05
SPEAKER_02: That's my opinion.
6:06
SPEAKER_02: But I don't think we should really uh we should we should judge other uh because sometimes the last doorway to hell is uh right after they don't, you know, sometimes we need these, I know these positive thinking guys.
6:19
SPEAKER_02: I know everybody's upset with them, but well Rhett, Rhett, Rhett.
6:24
SPEAKER_01: We're out on the topic today of the greatest commandments.
6:28
SPEAKER_01: Loving God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.
6:33
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
6:34
SPEAKER_01: And it comes from a passage in Matthew where one of them, a lawyer, asks him a question, testing Jesus.
6:42
SPEAKER_01: Teacher, what is the greatest commandment of the law?
6:44
SPEAKER_01: And he said, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, with all your mind.
6:49
SPEAKER_01: This is the great and foremost commandment.
6:51
SPEAKER_01: A second is like it you shall love your neighbors as yourself.
6:56
SPEAKER_01: On these two commandments depend the whole law and the prophets, okay?
7:01
SPEAKER_01: And so, uh, on our last few times together, Rhett, we've been talking about these great commandments, and we've recognized that they have a common element.
7:09
SPEAKER_01: They're all about what's the word?
7:13
SPEAKER_01: Relationship.
7:15
SPEAKER_01: Relationship with God and relationship with the people around us.
7:20
SPEAKER_02: Now you have to say it like Rhett Palmer.
7:23
SPEAKER_02: Relationship, because my pastor is always mimicking me, because that's what I always say.
7:28
SPEAKER_02: It's all about relationship.
7:30
SPEAKER_01: My wife uh says uh often there are only two things we leave Earth with: relationship with God and relationship with our family, friends, and neighbors.
7:40
SPEAKER_01: So in our previous discussions, we've talked, we've examined what does it actually mean to love God with our heart?
7:47
SPEAKER_01: And we recognize Well, we recognize that uh this word for heart in the uh Hebrew, because this passage does come from Deuteronomy chapter six, verse five.
8:00
SPEAKER_01: The word is Labad, which translates inner man, the source of life, the inner person.
8:05
SPEAKER_01: We focus on feelings, thought, volition, and emotions.
8:09
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
8:10
SPEAKER_01: So we discussed at first loving God with all our heart was uh praise and worship, that that's simply a response to God's divine presence.
8:21
SPEAKER_01: And we saw three uh words in the Hebrew language in the book of Psalms, halal, serbacht, tehila.
8:29
SPEAKER_01: These are words, uh Hebrew words that are translated praise in English, and they they mean uh they have this uh understanding of really worshiping and praising God with loud noises, with telling him how you feel, with acting clamorously foolish.
8:47
SPEAKER_01: This is what God uh says is praise to him.
8:50
SPEAKER_02: But let me ask you this until last week, you brought this out.
8:54
SPEAKER_02: I never heard those three words.
8:56
SPEAKER_02: And I'm very appreciative that you have done that.
8:58
SPEAKER_02: Now, can we say that slowly so even a knucklehead like me can remember them?
9:02
SPEAKER_02: Halal, right?
9:03
SPEAKER_01: Halal when we get the word hallelujah.
9:07
SPEAKER_02: Ah, praise the Lord by celebrating, dancing, shining forth, by acting clamorously foolish, a very robust, liberating.
9:13
SPEAKER_02: Then we have shabak to praise the Lord with a shout and a loud voice.
9:18
SPEAKER_02: Uh unfailing of a how do you pronounce the number three?
9:22
SPEAKER_02: Tehila.
9:23
SPEAKER_02: Tehila, tehilah, praise from your spirit, the pouring out of your heart before God.
9:28
SPEAKER_02: Let me ask you this.
9:30
SPEAKER_02: Okay, so I have um been involved in music and ministry for many years.
9:36
SPEAKER_02: And of course, I became a an I'm an outsider that was not a part of any uh normal uh what do you call it denomination, um, uh being the rebel that I am, and I got born again in my living room.
9:48
SPEAKER_02: So, of course, I believe everybody needs to get born again in their living room.
9:51
SPEAKER_02: Only kidding, only kidding.
9:53
SPEAKER_02: But I've gone through uh almost 40 years of the jumping up and down and the singing hallelujah.
10:00
SPEAKER_02: But I I want to I want to know if there's a place in the Bible for for me because as of late, maybe it's because of some things I've gone through and some dark tunnels, but I've I'm uh now attending uh I am attending a um a denomination where I may not agree with everything they teach, but I will tell you this it's very soft, gentle praise.
10:23
SPEAKER_02: There's no shobas on the platform.
10:26
SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, usually it's uh an organ.
10:28
SPEAKER_02: I got it.
10:28
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I got it.
10:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
10:30
SPEAKER_01: Red, I want just to answer your question, I think there is plenty of instruction and plenty of uh uh narrative scripture of people in the scriptures that are sitting in reverence before the Lord, contemplating his words, talking to him, having ongoing conversations, and uh a quietness of their spirits connecting with through the with the Holy Spirit.
10:56
SPEAKER_01: I I believe this is a predominant theme of the Bible to get Yeah, but I'm talking about music.
11:03
SPEAKER_01: Well, music and uh music as well as just words that we're speaking to the Lord.
11:09
SPEAKER_01: I I think this is a very important part of us and our relationship with God, of course.
11:16
SPEAKER_01: But I I think we uh in the 20th and 21st century have gone uh in various extremes on how we praise and worship the Lord.
11:29
SPEAKER_01: Uh some denominations say that quietness is reverence to the Lord, and others say uh jumping around and uh acting clamorously foolish is praising the Lord.
11:39
SPEAKER_01: They're both right.
11:41
SPEAKER_01: They're both right.
11:41
SPEAKER_01: So uh I'm just all I'm pointing out, Ritt, is when Jesus I never saw this before.
11:47
SPEAKER_01: And I went yeah, when Jesus is saying these are the greatest commandments, it begs that we investigate this and see exactly what uh what the nuances are.
11:58
SPEAKER_01: So let's move on here because we have to go.
12:00
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no.
12:00
SPEAKER_02: I I know, I know.
12:01
SPEAKER_02: But listen, this is very important to me personally, because I've been going through this for about two years now and kind of picking on the churches that are all showbiz and not a whole a lot of fluff.
12:11
SPEAKER_02: And Michael W.
12:13
SPEAKER_02: Smith, probably the number one Christian singer in the world.
12:16
SPEAKER_02: I met him once.
12:17
SPEAKER_02: Well, he just released a thing where he was being interviewed and he said, the church has got to get back, showbiz has to leave the platform and our state, and we got to get back to more sacredness.
12:27
SPEAKER_02: Now, of course.
12:28
SPEAKER_02: So I think I'm on the topmost part of this new wave.
12:32
SPEAKER_02: And so I'm wondering, oh, well, I'm so glad to read what you have taught me here in these past couple of weeks.
12:38
SPEAKER_02: This is great.
12:38
SPEAKER_02: I never ever saw that there.
12:40
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
12:41
SPEAKER_02: But um, I'm concerned about a place for those of us that are broken and maybe want to be on our knees and sing with great reverence and calmness and tenderness to the Lord.
12:52
SPEAKER_01: I think uh that is part of what we see in the book of Psalms.
12:56
SPEAKER_01: I believe that is a theme that is very evident in the uh Hebrew and the Christian scriptures.
13:02
SPEAKER_01: So I don't think there's any question about that.
13:06
SPEAKER_01: So uh I'm not sure what the nuances are that are um um either troubling or encouraging you, but I think I think the whole packet of quietness and reverence and contemplative and singing softly in hymns uh is uh goes right along with an exuberant style of worship that's described in the book of Psalms.
13:30
SPEAKER_02: So of course you know David danced before the Lord in his underclothing and you know before the Ark of the Covenant.
13:36
SPEAKER_02: And I tell you what, uh David may have been a sinner, David made some mistakes, but David certainly had a heart after God.
13:42
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
13:43
SPEAKER_01: So this is uh loving God with all of our heart.
13:47
SPEAKER_01: And we also talked about the uh uh emotions that we don't release, like offenses and we uh we have unforgiveness in our hearts, those can be a very dangerous thing to hold on to.
14:01
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
14:01
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
14:02
SPEAKER_01: Then uh the next area was loving God with our soul.
14:06
SPEAKER_01: And the word is the the word nefish, which has the meaning of inner self, the essence of life.
14:13
SPEAKER_01: Um it includes thinking, feeling, and volition, desiring.
14:18
SPEAKER_01: It often refers to the nephish as this part of your body where your throat where things go in and out.
14:24
SPEAKER_01: And a number of commentators uh that I've read uh indicate that this is the source of your obedience.
14:31
SPEAKER_01: So Jesus is uh uh very uh pointedly instructing his disciples if you love me, obey my commandments.
14:41
SPEAKER_01: And this obedience is a demonstration of our relationship with God.
14:46
SPEAKER_01: It's just like as a father, I always could tell where my relationship was with my children by the manner in which they obeyed the things that I told them to do.
14:57
SPEAKER_01: And when they grew to be teenagers and began to have independence and began thinking that maybe I didn't know all the answers, I noticed there was disobedience.
15:08
SPEAKER_01: But like uh Mark Twain, who said, When I was 17, my father was such an idiot, but by the time I was 29, I was amazed at the things that he had learned.
15:22
SPEAKER_01: Now all of my uh adult children uh are back thinking, well, Poppy is not so dumb after all.
15:30
SPEAKER_01: So uh so obedience is huge.
15:33
SPEAKER_01: And we went through John chapter 14 and 15, where Jesus talks about the uh level of obedience that we have results in the presence of the Holy Spirit in our life, the revelation of Jesus to us, uh God's presence in our life, the bearing of much fruit, joy, peace, and friendship.
15:53
SPEAKER_01: And so uh loving God with our soul, we discussed, was focusing on doing the things that God has called us to do, even if we don't feel like it.
16:04
SPEAKER_01: And then the other aspect of this was uh there have been times in all of our lives where people have said things to us that we just haven't forgot.
16:14
SPEAKER_01: The the uh teachers that said, You're just stupid, the parent that said, You're never gonna amount to anything in moments of frustration.
16:21
SPEAKER_01: Uh the coach that just said, You're not playing today.
16:25
SPEAKER_01: Uh all of these things often uh are wounds to us that never quite get healed.
16:31
SPEAKER_01: And when we find ourselves responding to situations in an uh over-the-top or abnormal way, or as my wife calls it, getting triggered, and now we have emotions that are being uh released.
16:45
SPEAKER_01: Uh sometimes that's an indication that we have some wounds in our soul that are just not healed.
16:52
SPEAKER_01: And uh David says in Psalm 41, he said, Lord be gracious to me, heal my soul.
17:00
SPEAKER_01: Uh this word Rafa is uh is a word, it's a great word.
17:04
SPEAKER_01: It means the restoration of health, to make fresh, it means to no longer be salty or poisonous, to bring or back to a prior preferable condition.
17:14
SPEAKER_01: And you see, God desires to heal our souls and restore our souls.
17:20
SPEAKER_01: I mean, Psalm 23, he makes me lie down in green pastures, he restores my soul.
17:26
SPEAKER_01: So this is uh loving God with our soul.
17:30
SPEAKER_01: So now today, Rhett, we're come to the third part of the first great commandment: loving God with our mind.
17:38
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
17:39
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
17:40
SPEAKER_02: The mind is Now, by the way, tell the people where we're we're looking, we're scrolling along here, and where are we?
17:45
SPEAKER_02: Tell tell the folks where we are.
17:46
SPEAKER_01: Well, uh, this uh uh notes that we are using that Rhett and I are referring to today is something that I wrote a couple years ago on our Biblical Places Spiritual Spaces page at seekethelamb.com.
18:03
SPEAKER_01: Uh my wife and I have been fortunate to live and work, have lived and worked in Israel off and on from 97 to the last time we were there was 2023.
18:13
SPEAKER_01: We do study tours there.
18:15
SPEAKER_01: We've had opportunity to go to most of the biblical sites, spend time uh contemplating being in just the airspace is incredible.
18:24
SPEAKER_01: And of course, when you're there, you learn a lot about the culture, the history, the politics, even the geography affects the way we understand scripture.
18:32
SPEAKER_01: So uh this is a page on our seekthelamb.com site called Biblical Places, Spiritual Spaces, where I've placed um photographs and lessons that I've learned for about 35 or 36 biblical sites in Greece, in Turkey, in Italy, and especially in Israel.
18:55
SPEAKER_01: This particular one is the Wadi Kilt.
18:58
SPEAKER_01: This is the road, ancient road from Jerusalem down to Jericho that winds through a valley uh where that has a stream.
19:06
SPEAKER_01: And we were there a few years ago uh hiking through and spending a Shabbat uh uh sitting in the stream, just enjoying the coolness.
19:15
SPEAKER_01: And this is the place uh where Jesus refers to on the uh parable of the Good Samaritan.
19:21
SPEAKER_01: When someone asks him, Who is my neighbor?
19:23
SPEAKER_01: What's the greatest commandment?
19:25
SPEAKER_01: So uh if you want to follow along or review, then go to seekethelamb.com, go to biblical places, spiritual spaces, and just click on Wadi Kelt, and this will be a review perhaps for you, uh, for things that Rhett and I are no, we really need to put a connector on the site Cup of Friendship so they could just press the button and it'll lead them right over to uh Seek the Lamb.
19:48
SPEAKER_01: Okay, we can do that.
19:50
SPEAKER_01: But um, but how do we love God with our mind?
19:53
SPEAKER_01: Well, I think the first way, Rhett, is by keeping our priorities in order.
20:00
SPEAKER_01: Uh our culture and our life experiences gives us an idea of what our own priorities should be.
20:07
SPEAKER_01: And in many cases, it's pleasure, possessions, prestige.
20:13
SPEAKER_01: These are the priorities of our life.
20:16
SPEAKER_01: And uh we grow up in an environment here in the United States of America where everything is available, and so we have all the things that the world desires to make us feel happy.
20:30
SPEAKER_02: Now give those three things again, please.
20:32
SPEAKER_01: Uh pleasure, possessions, and prestige.
20:36
SPEAKER_01: Uh these are words actually, my friend Beth uh Stewart uh spoke a few uh years ago at one of our Bible studies.
20:44
SPEAKER_01: I wrote them down, and I just quote Beth when uh uh people talk about priorities and objectives of life.
20:52
SPEAKER_01: But I think God has other uh priorities, and we when we read the Bible, we see him directing us to things that are not pleasure, possessions, and prestige.
21:05
SPEAKER_01: So I did a study on this a few years ago where I just really wanted to find out what does the Bible say about my priorities as a father, as a husband, as a missionary, as a minister, as a worker, as a uh just a human being.
21:23
SPEAKER_01: First verse I came to was Exodus 20, verse 1.
21:26
SPEAKER_01: I'm the Lord your God, you brought me out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of Egypt.
21:30
SPEAKER_01: You shall have no other gods before me.
21:32
SPEAKER_01: This is the first commandment.
21:34
SPEAKER_01: So from this I get a principle that God is number one, that nothing comes before him.
21:40
SPEAKER_01: Then in Ephesians chapter 2, verse 10, this is a verse I read as a brand new believer when I was uh living on the island of Maui, and I'd just come to receive Christ, I discovered He had purpose for me.
21:54
SPEAKER_01: And I saw that saw it in this verse.
21:55
SPEAKER_01: We are God's masterpiece, he created uh us anew in Christ Jesus.
22:00
SPEAKER_01: So that we could do the things He planned for us long ago.
22:05
SPEAKER_01: And what I see from this is God has created us to do specific things in His kingdom that we call this ministry.
22:13
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
22:14
SPEAKER_01: God's number one, He's created us to do ministry.
22:19
SPEAKER_01: Then in 2 Thessalonians, we see this passage.
22:22
SPEAKER_01: Remember, Thessaloniki was a commercial area where there was a lot of commodity market speculation.
22:31
SPEAKER_01: People were buying into grain coming from Egypt, coming from Asia.
22:39
SPEAKER_01: There was all sorts of stock market stuff going on, so much so that the Romans even had a mint in Thessaloniki.
22:47
SPEAKER_01: And Paul found his fellow Christian brothers and sisters oftentimes sitting idle and working on their investments.
22:58
SPEAKER_01: And I believe that's the reason why he said this.
23:01
SPEAKER_01: Even when we were with you, we used to give you this order.
23:04
SPEAKER_01: If anyone is not willing to work, he's not to eat either.
23:08
SPEAKER_01: We hear some of you are leading an undisciplined life, doing no work at all, acting like busybodies.
23:15
SPEAKER_01: Now, such persons we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus to work in a quiet fashion and eat their own bread.
23:23
SPEAKER_02: Now it also says that a man shall enjoy the fruit of his labor.
23:27
SPEAKER_02: And I've noticed that when you work hard during the week and you can afford to uh have a nice meal, let's say on Friday evening, whether it's at a restaurant or at home, and you know you've earned that by the sweat of your brow.
23:39
SPEAKER_01: It tastes really good.
23:41
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
23:43
SPEAKER_02: And so it is a gift.
23:44
SPEAKER_02: It's not like yeah, and we had more of that.
23:47
SPEAKER_02: If you do not work, you shall uh shall not eat.
23:49
SPEAKER_02: I mean, people are motivated and get up, and we have a lot of uh laziness prevailing in our society.
23:55
SPEAKER_02: Right.
23:55
SPEAKER_01: So what I see in this is I see this principle that men and women should work for their living expenses so that they will not be a burden on others.
24:04
SPEAKER_01: And even Paul goes on in another passage of scripture we work hard so that we can earn things, so we can give freely to those in need.
24:13
SPEAKER_01: Then there's this next passage I found in uh 1 Corinthians chapter 7.
24:18
SPEAKER_01: In everything you do, I want you to be free from the concerns of this life.
24:22
SPEAKER_01: An unmarried man can spend his time doing the Lord's work and thinking how to please him, but a married man can't do that so well.
24:30
SPEAKER_01: He has to think about his earthly responsibilities and how to please his wife.
24:35
SPEAKER_01: His interests are divided.
24:37
SPEAKER_01: So from this read, I see that a married man must place his wife above his ministry.
24:44
SPEAKER_02: Okay, God is always number one family two, ministry three.
24:50
SPEAKER_01: Second Timothy chapter five.
24:52
SPEAKER_01: You but you be sober in all things, Timothy, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
25:00
SPEAKER_01: So I see from this we should be focused on the ministry that God has given us.
25:06
SPEAKER_01: Then Psalm 127 says this It's vain for you to rise up early, to retire late, to eat the bread of painful labors, for he gives to his beloved even in his sleep.
25:18
SPEAKER_01: Behold, children are a gift from the Lord, the fruit of the womb is a reward, like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one's youth.
25:28
SPEAKER_01: How blessed is a man whose quiver is full of them.
25:32
SPEAKER_01: Now, it's no coincidence that the psalmist is focusing on our attitude toward work and then immediately follows with children are a gift from God.
25:44
SPEAKER_01: So for the principle that I pull from this Psalm 127 is our children are more important than our work.
25:54
SPEAKER_01: So from these passages as well as others, here's my list of priorities that I believe the scripture gives us.
26:01
SPEAKER_01: God is number one, family is number two, ministry is number three, our jobs are number four, and recreation and everything else, number five, six, and seven.
26:18
SPEAKER_01: Well, uh, when I was uh managing a re uh the Monokai restaurant on Maui in 1982, we had servers and uh line cooks that were members of our church.
26:33
SPEAKER_01: But when there was a swell that came up, because everyone on Maui, many uh people go there just to surf, suddenly the line cooks weren't showing up, our servers weren't showing up, and uh I had to admonish my brothers and sisters that recreation was down the list from their jobs.
26:52
SPEAKER_01: Um that was a tough one.
26:54
SPEAKER_01: God is always number one, family's number two, ministry number three.
26:58
SPEAKER_01: But there's a problem here that those of us that are involved in ministry often confuse number three with number one.
27:06
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense to you, Rhett?
27:09
SPEAKER_01: I'll give you an example.
27:11
SPEAKER_01: Uh, as I was working with the refugees, uh, Mosquito Indian refugees in uh the eastern part of Honduras, I started in 1984, and I met uh in the next uh few years, there were a number of Wheaton College graduates that had volunteered to come down and work with World Relief, because World Relief was running the refugee operation of all the Mosquito Indian refugees that had fled uh Nicaragua during this war, the Sandinista Contra War.
27:39
SPEAKER_01: There were over 60,000 refugees living in just a very desolate, swampy area, living out in the uh the uh llano, the uh pine trees, and uh it was tough.
27:54
SPEAKER_01: And World Relief came and uh started building refugee villages, and one of the workers was a girl named Annie, and I became friends with Annie, and she grew up in La Saba because her father was a very famous missionary in Honduras and Central America.
28:10
SPEAKER_01: In fact, he planted over 200 churches in a 20-year period and became foremost in the world known as a church planter.
28:19
SPEAKER_01: In fact, I was talking to Annie one day and she said her dad was in Kathmandu, Nepal, doing a um seminar on church planting.
28:28
SPEAKER_01: So, Rhett, what I see in these scriptures that we've just read is um that our principles uh that are pretty clear in the Bible, that God is number one, family is number two, that our ministry is number three, our job is number four, and our recreation is number five.
28:47
SPEAKER_01: Now, those seem to be pretty obvious, but yet they're problems even in the body of Christ.
28:53
SPEAKER_01: I'll give you an example.
28:54
SPEAKER_01: When I was managing the Monokai uh restaurant in Keyhei, uh I had line cooks and I had servers that were members of our church, and they were really good workers.
29:07
SPEAKER_01: But whenever there was a swell and the waves were pumping either on the South Shore during the wintertime or on the north shore, you lost your crew, suddenly the line cook didn't show up.
29:18
SPEAKER_01: A couple of my uh servers didn't show up, you know, and we were scrambling.
29:22
SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, when I'd see them on the next shift, I go, So what happened?
29:26
SPEAKER_01: You called in sick, and they said, Well, um, I wasn't feeling that well.
29:30
SPEAKER_01: I said, Come on, we're both followers of Jesus now.
29:33
SPEAKER_01: Come on, be honest with me.
29:36
SPEAKER_01: You were at Hukipa, you were uh out in the uh there was uh great waves that day.
29:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
29:44
SPEAKER_01: I was okay.
29:45
SPEAKER_01: I said, Look, here's our priorities.
29:47
SPEAKER_01: You know, our priorities, our recreation comes after our job.
29:51
SPEAKER_01: And so that was a discussion.
29:54
SPEAKER_01: And it it is, and it's for even for me, Rhett, I find myself, I'm so multitasking in my role as running a project in uh Nicaragua and Honduras, running a cafe in uh Honduras, running a cafe, uh, a couple of cafes here, roasting coffee, all the other things, plus just the work it takes to have conversations with you.
30:21
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure that's not a challenge whatsoever.
30:24
SPEAKER_01: So uh, but I find myself uh recreating when I should be opening books and reading and uh doing uh minor tasks like my taxes and accounting and other things.
30:37
SPEAKER_01: But so that's a problem with us.
30:39
SPEAKER_01: We we often put recreation above uh other things.
30:45
SPEAKER_01: But even this uh God number one ministry number three, that sometimes is a problem for people like uh us that are involved in God's work that sometimes we confuse number three with number one.
31:00
SPEAKER_01: And I'll give you an example.
31:02
SPEAKER_01: Uh when I was working uh with refugees in Honduras during the Sandinista Contra War, uh there were a number of volunteers from Wheaton College that came down and were working with uh World Relief that was they were basically running the refugee program.
31:16
SPEAKER_01: There were over 60,000 uh refugees that poured across the Cocoa River in 1981, 82, and 1983, and uh it was a huge uh crisis.
31:27
SPEAKER_01: Um one of my friends that was working with World Relief was a girl named Annie.
31:32
SPEAKER_01: And Annie grew up in La Saba, and I found out that her father uh was a very famous church planter.
31:39
SPEAKER_01: In fact, one day I was uh talking with Annie, and she said that her dad was uh in Kathmandu, Nepal that week doing a conference on church planting.
31:49
SPEAKER_01: And I uh so as I got to know Annie, and I realized uh she told me she had a sister, uh, and I asked her how her sister was doing spiritually, and she said, Well, she's not doing so well.
32:01
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Well, why not?
32:02
SPEAKER_01: And she said, Well, she's kind of resentful because my uh dad sort of abandoned us because he was so busy planting churches in Honduras and other parts of Central America.
32:15
SPEAKER_01: And as I got to know Annie and her family, her mom uh really uh I think was very much needing a husband around, and her husband was often off traveling in remote parts of the region, and the family suffered.
32:32
SPEAKER_01: And I realized, wow, I better be very careful about that.
32:36
SPEAKER_01: And as all this was going on, suddenly I get a call from my friend Don, who is a missionary pilot, and Don was back in the States, and I thought he was getting some work done on his airplane.
32:47
SPEAKER_01: Don called me up and he said, Mike, Lord woke me up and told me to uh give you a call because you know I'm back uh uh home here, and um the reason, real reason I came back is my wife and I were having some issues because Mike, I've been putting my ministry above my family.
33:06
SPEAKER_01: And it's caused my wife and I to have some things that we now have to work out.
33:10
SPEAKER_01: And and the Lord woke me up and told me uh to call you because I don't want you to fall into the same trap.
33:18
SPEAKER_01: Uh we're missionary pilots, we're flying and uh out to remote areas.
33:23
SPEAKER_01: Uh it's a very time-consuming thing, it consumes a lot of our thoughts and our energies.
33:28
SPEAKER_01: Don't leave your family in the dust.
33:31
SPEAKER_01: And coincidentally, within a day or two of that conversation before, as I was heading out to the La Saba airport, Laura was standing in our home with uh Lucas, who was about eight months old, and Michaela, that was about a year and a half old.
33:49
SPEAKER_01: And she said to me, Where are you going today?
33:51
SPEAKER_01: And I said, I'm going out to the airport.
33:53
SPEAKER_01: And she said, Are you gonna go see your girlfriend?
33:58
SPEAKER_01: And I looked at her, and she looked at me and kind of smiled, and I got what she was saying.
34:04
SPEAKER_01: My girlfriend, that airplane that I was spending so much time with.
34:08
SPEAKER_02: And I really got the message, and so I've really tried that's why you've always dragged your wife and your four kids wherever you go now, right?
34:16
SPEAKER_01: Of course, we've always done that.
34:18
SPEAKER_01: But you know, I realize it's very easy for us uh that are uh called to ministry that we consider our ministry to be uh God, service to God, and so we m we've played it above our family.
34:31
SPEAKER_02: I lost a very, very important uh relationship uh because I put my ministry first.
34:38
SPEAKER_02: I didn't know when I was younger.
34:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I think you told us in this last uh session.
34:43
SPEAKER_01: You told us about this.
34:44
SPEAKER_01: And uh so I think priorities are really important that we keep our priorities in order.
34:50
SPEAKER_01: This is a good way to love God with our minds.
34:52
SPEAKER_01: Now, a second area is controlling our thoughts.
34:57
SPEAKER_01: And this is something that uh we often have speculations and imaginations that take over us.
35:05
SPEAKER_01: I asked one of my friends, Ricky Ryan, uh pastor of Kumalani Church on Maui.
35:09
SPEAKER_01: Ricky is real uh effective, a great evangelist, great teacher, uh, really built the church.
35:16
SPEAKER_01: And I was having lunch, Laura and I were having lunch with uh him and his wife one day, and uh I said, Ricky, what's the most challenging thing you have in your pastoral ministry?
35:25
SPEAKER_01: And without hesitation, he said, Mike, it's speculations and imaginations.
35:30
SPEAKER_01: And I said, What do you mean?
35:31
SPEAKER_01: He said, Well, people will hear something said, or they will be told that something was said, and they will start speculating as to actually what that meant and how it impacts them.
35:44
SPEAKER_01: And then they'll start having imaginations of what the ramifications of that statement are going to be, and then they start responding to it, only later to find out what they heard was entirely false, and so their whole emotional energy that they're threw into the imagination and response to that was totally misplaced.
36:06
SPEAKER_01: All it did was cause some real relational difficulties that were just the result of imagining and uh speculating.
36:14
SPEAKER_01: And he said we have to be very careful about what we do with our thoughts.
36:19
SPEAKER_01: And I thought, man, that is a great word for me.
36:22
SPEAKER_01: Imaginations and speculations.
36:25
SPEAKER_01: Another thing that we often have is uh beliefs in our psyche, in our sk in our uh minds that are really ungodly beliefs, and that we s often live our lives by that.
36:41
SPEAKER_01: Excuse me.
36:43
SPEAKER_01: Uh I was talking to a friend of mine on Utilla uh last week, actually.
36:49
SPEAKER_01: And this is a guy who's uh a Christian, um, very vocal about telling people he loves God.
36:55
SPEAKER_01: And we were having lunch with him at our cafe there, and he's we were talking about issues in life and especially uh his time as a soldier and uh working as a medic and being deployed and uh things that happened and him being injured, and and he said to me, Well, you know, God will never give you anything more than you can handle.
37:17
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Really?
37:19
SPEAKER_01: He said, Yeah, God will never give you anything more than you can handle.
37:22
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Well, what about Paul when he writes that he was uh at sea for two nights, he was uh shipwrecked, he was uh uh hungry, he was cold, he was in uh one place in his life where he was despairing and wishing he was dead.
37:39
SPEAKER_01: Do you think God gave Paul more than he could handle?
37:42
SPEAKER_01: And Tracy looked at me and said, Well, maybe he did.
37:47
SPEAKER_01: And so um we have a lot of ungodly beliefs in our life that um we need to br kind of bring into the realm of what Jesus actually says about the situation.
37:58
SPEAKER_02: And that's just you have all these people that have committed s committed suicide, and I think, well, they got more than they could handle.
38:08
SPEAKER_01: Exactly, exactly.
38:10
SPEAKER_01: And I think I think that God wants us to get to a place, Ritt, where we desperately under we understand our desperate need for Him in our life.
38:22
SPEAKER_01: Jesus says, Blessed are the poor in spirit, they shall see the kingdom.
38:25
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
38:26
SPEAKER_01: And poor in spirit means you have no resources other than God Himself, and you desperately need Him.
38:32
SPEAKER_02: So Blessed are the poor in spirit was a reflection of understanding we are impoverished and have constant need of a connection with God.
38:41
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
38:42
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
38:43
SPEAKER_01: So that's the second way is controlling our thoughts, okay?
38:47
SPEAKER_01: Priorities controlling our thoughts.
38:49
SPEAKER_01: I think a third way that we love God with our minds writ is our prayers.
38:54
SPEAKER_01: Uh, prayer is nothing more than uh a conversation, a communication with God.
39:00
SPEAKER_01: And because we have the Holy Spirit in us, now we have a direct connection to God and His conscious, and His conscious is connected to ours, and so thoughts are exchanged back and forth.
39:12
SPEAKER_01: I think it's a dynamic we have to be aware of.
39:15
SPEAKER_01: God is always aware of our thoughts, and to have a conversation with him and to actually express our thoughts is a very healthy thing.
39:25
SPEAKER_01: And I think uh that we are have been given a uh an outline for prayer when Jesus' uh disciples ask him, teach us how to pray, and even in Matthew chapter six, in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew records Jesus' outline of um what we call uh the uh our Father in heaven, blessed be your name, or hallowed be your name.
39:48
SPEAKER_01: Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth.
39:50
SPEAKER_01: It is in heaven, give us this day our daily bread, forgive us our trespasses, we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.
39:58
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
40:00
SPEAKER_01: That is the Lord's prayer, but it's really an outline.
40:04
SPEAKER_01: Jesus says, pray in this way.
40:06
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't say repeat the words.
40:09
SPEAKER_01: He wants us in our prayers to honor God as our heavenly father and acknowledge that we are his children.
40:15
SPEAKER_01: And just think for a moment if we actually uh acted as if we were God's children.
40:23
SPEAKER_01: Because children receive sustenance, protection, wisdom, and instruction from their father.
40:29
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he doesn't want robots to praise and worship him, he wants the frailty of humans who have free will to decide to love him back.
40:40
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
40:41
SPEAKER_01: And so this is a relationship.
40:44
SPEAKER_01: And so the second part of that outline is says, Let your kingdom come, let your will be done on heaven, on earth as it is in heaven.
40:52
SPEAKER_01: And when we say that, Rhett, we're own we are giving God permission to take charge of our life.
40:59
SPEAKER_02: And override, override the free will, right?
41:01
SPEAKER_01: Uh well, just give us direction.
41:03
SPEAKER_01: We have to do that.
41:03
SPEAKER_02: Well, no, whatever is God, God has a covet covenant with us that we have free will.
41:08
SPEAKER_02: So people are always going, well, why does God allow this or rape or pillage or stealing stuff?
41:13
SPEAKER_02: It says, wait a second, he gave us free will.
41:16
SPEAKER_02: So he's going, how is that working out for you so far?
41:19
SPEAKER_02: You know, the wars and every all this trouble.
41:22
SPEAKER_02: Because they want to blame God instead of themselves.
41:24
SPEAKER_02: But so I this is conjecture on my part, but I've often thought that that, okay, so prayer says, Father, you can go over that.
41:31
SPEAKER_02: Uh I give you permission to go over that law or that covenant and intervene.
41:38
SPEAKER_01: How about this one?
41:39
SPEAKER_01: God, I decide that my free will choice today is to follow you.
41:44
SPEAKER_01: So please give me direction.
41:46
SPEAKER_01: That's my free will choice.
41:48
SPEAKER_01: That's my free will choice.
41:49
SPEAKER_01: So uh the third thing he says is give us this day our daily bread.
41:54
SPEAKER_01: Now, that word daily bread is a phrase in the Greek that's only used in this passage of scripture.
42:01
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't really mean daily bread.
42:02
SPEAKER_01: It actually refers to a supernatural substance that sustains us that comes only from God Himself.
42:10
SPEAKER_01: So the translators had a tough time actually coming up with uh what that word could be in in English.
42:19
SPEAKER_02: Is it manna, mana, or whatever it was that's keeped on the head?
42:21
SPEAKER_01: No, this this is that that supernatur the living water.
42:24
SPEAKER_01: You know, Jesus talks about how streams of living water will uh spring forth from us.
42:29
SPEAKER_01: Uh our inner being.
42:31
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I I think this is this is a substance that God gives us to get through the day.
42:38
SPEAKER_01: And you know, Rhett, sometimes our days go smoothly, other times they go very rough.
42:43
SPEAKER_01: There's trials, there's tribulations.
42:45
SPEAKER_01: In this world, you will have tribulation, but be encouraged.
42:49
SPEAKER_01: I've overcome the world, said Jesus.
42:51
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
42:51
SPEAKER_01: He's not offering us a smooth road to eternity.
42:56
SPEAKER_02: Quite the opposite in Hebrews, he says he uh he he he uh corrects the son or daughter whom he loves.
43:02
SPEAKER_02: Otherwise, yeah, it says in the Bible, bastards without a father, if I don't correct you.
43:07
SPEAKER_01: Well, even Paul says to his friends, and I think it's in Antioch Pisadia or somewhere uh on his first missionary journey, he says, through many tribut tribulations we will enter the kingdom of God.
43:19
SPEAKER_01: And so we are going to have trouble in this world.
43:22
SPEAKER_01: And so uh we need something, a supernatural substance to give us the right attitude, to give us uh the ability to have faith and walk in obedience.
43:33
SPEAKER_01: The third thing, third thing that he uh, fourth thing that he's uh in the outline is ask for forgiveness of sins.
43:40
SPEAKER_01: And at the same time, we are to forgive others.
43:44
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus goes on to say, if you don't forgive others, God's not going to forgive you.
43:48
SPEAKER_01: Finally, he says, strengthen us and keep the enemy from molesting or bothering us.
43:54
SPEAKER_01: So I think prayer, an ongoing conversation, is it says pray.
44:00
SPEAKER_01: Without ceasing, uh, that we should be having an ongoing conversation with God.
44:05
SPEAKER_02: That it doesn't mean a vain repetition.
44:08
SPEAKER_01: No, no, no, no.
44:09
SPEAKER_01: This is a very real.
44:10
SPEAKER_01: It's it's you and I getting in a situation, somebody says something, somebody does something, we pause and under our breath we say, Okay, Lord, I need you to direct me.
44:19
SPEAKER_01: I need you to show me what you do.
44:20
SPEAKER_01: Or you get a phone call, it's bad news, and you say, Lord, please help me with this.
44:26
SPEAKER_01: Please show me the solution to this.
44:28
SPEAKER_01: Uh this is prayer, this is communication.
44:32
SPEAKER_01: I think this is the way we love God with our minds.
44:34
SPEAKER_01: Finally, a fourth way is that we meditate on God's words, this that we spend time meditating, okay?
44:44
SPEAKER_01: Meditating is contemplating, it's pondering, it's unlike Eastern meditation where we empty our minds.
44:52
SPEAKER_01: This is filling our minds with God's thoughts and filling them with God's words.
44:57
SPEAKER_01: And the reality is when we meditate on God's words, our spiritual roots grow stronger.
45:04
SPEAKER_01: Our spirit will be constantly nourished, and we have character change that's happening that's gonna reflect more of Christ's character and less of ours.
45:15
SPEAKER_01: And in Galatians 5, we see the list of the fruits of the spirit love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control.
45:23
SPEAKER_01: There's gonna be greater spiritual fruits uh in our lives and our intimacy with God uh will grow.
45:31
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
45:32
SPEAKER_01: Now look how the psalmists describe the Psalm one.
45:35
SPEAKER_01: It's such a great uh memory verse.
45:37
SPEAKER_01: How blessed is a man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand in this path of sinners, or sit in the ski seat of scoffers.
45:45
SPEAKER_01: But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.
45:51
SPEAKER_01: He'll be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season, its leaves does not wither, and whatever he does, he prospers.
46:04
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
46:04
SPEAKER_01: So this is what happens when we meditate on the word of God.
46:08
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna be always nourished, our fruit is going to come in season, and our we will never get frustrated or uh withering in our spirit, and that there will be prosperity.
46:24
SPEAKER_01: Okay, this is uh if you want prosperity, the message of prosperity for this generation, meditate on God's word.
46:32
SPEAKER_02: So it also says, for every tree that beareth fruit shall be pruned that it may bear more fruit.
46:40
SPEAKER_02: And I had a friend who had groves up in O'Cala and she said they always you always ask your farmer neighbor to prune your trees because that you won't do it severely enough.
46:50
SPEAKER_02: And if you prune a tree properly, you look, you killed the tree, you chop the whole tree, but then it brings forth a hundredfold, two hundredfold, and three hundredfold.
46:58
SPEAKER_02: So the one thing is if you're being good and God sees you as a real follower, He's gonna prune you.
47:06
SPEAKER_01: Ouch.
47:07
SPEAKER_01: He's gonna prune you, yes, he will definitely do that.
47:10
SPEAKER_01: Jesus uh says that in John chapter 15, I'm the vine, you are the branches.
47:14
SPEAKER_01: He does not bear fruit, he says, I lift up, I lift up, and uh I prune you, I I reposition you, I I uh make you even more fruitful.
47:26
SPEAKER_01: So there's a lot of reasons, Rhett, why we should read the Bible, be studying it, and be meditating on it.
47:33
SPEAKER_01: And I think the first one is so that we can personally know God.
47:37
SPEAKER_01: I mean, the Bible tells us about God, what he thinks, what his values are, what his morality are, what he thinks is important, and most importantly, what he thinks about us and what plans he has from us.
47:51
SPEAKER_02: And how we make up these false little things.
47:54
SPEAKER_02: Like I think people need to hear this because I've been going through this later in life, where he has taken, I mean, he's taking the flavor out of the things of the world in such a severe way from me that it's kind of you might misconstrue it as depression, whereas I think it's actual favor because no flesh shall share in the true glory of God.
48:17
SPEAKER_02: And everything about God's world is inverted.
48:20
SPEAKER_02: You know, we think about the fame of man, and God the Bible says the fame of man is fleeting, etc.
48:26
SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
48:27
SPEAKER_01: So uh, you know, Paul says every yes, everything is worthless when compared to the priceless gain of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord.
48:36
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
48:36
SPEAKER_01: So uh there's another the second reason I think uh for me is I need to know the truth.
48:44
SPEAKER_01: Now, in our culture right now, truth is relative, it's dependent upon the situation, it's subjective.
48:50
SPEAKER_01: But I believe truth is simply God's opinion on the matter.
48:55
SPEAKER_01: And there's a classic piece of uh uh instruction here that Jesus gives us in John chapter 8.
49:03
SPEAKER_01: He says, You are truly my disciples if you keep obeying my teachings, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
49:13
SPEAKER_01: Now, the junior high school I went to in Reynoldsburg, Ohio, had you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free, chiseled in the marble or the cement above the entrance to the school.
49:27
SPEAKER_01: And as I walked through that every day, I went, okay, I'm gonna learn a lot of truth here, and I will be able, I will be free to do the things in life that I want to do.
49:37
SPEAKER_01: But it was much later in life that I realized there was a prepositional phrase before this, that uh condition, and not a it was a condition of knowing the truth is being my disciples.
49:53
SPEAKER_01: If you are my disciples, then you will know the truth.
49:57
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so outside of a relationship with God, we're not gonna know the truth.
50:02
SPEAKER_01: The other thing I realized is, Rhett, when I wake up in the morning, I need guidance.
50:06
SPEAKER_01: I need God to guide my daily life.
50:10
SPEAKER_01: And Psalm 119 says, Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.
50:16
SPEAKER_01: Rhett, I need to stay on the path.
50:19
SPEAKER_01: And God's words encourages me.
50:21
SPEAKER_01: He gives me a hope, he gives me a future, he gives me a plan for the day, he gives me a morality to uh make my decisions on.
50:31
SPEAKER_01: So I need guidance.
50:33
SPEAKER_01: And as we read the Bible, we also recognize that the ultimate source of root wisdom in this world is the Bible.
50:40
SPEAKER_01: Now, I've I've written four books, I have two more on the uh on the stove right now, but my books are uh are important, uh they're helpful for people that I give them to to in their walk with the Lord, but they don't compare at all to the wisdom that's found in the scripture.
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SPEAKER_01: And uh I have a library full of books by C.
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SPEAKER_01: S.
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SPEAKER_01: Lewis, by Ralph Moore, by um uh Tim Keller, by even John MacArthur.
51:14
SPEAKER_01: I have uh one of his books.
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SPEAKER_01: Uh I have uh a plethora of Christian authors over the years that have fed me and taught me, but all of the things they got are from the Bible.
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SPEAKER_01: The Bible is the ultimate source of wisdom.
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SPEAKER_01: It is the most published book in human history.
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SPEAKER_01: I did a calculation of the two points, I believe there's 2.4 billion Bibles that have been printed since the Gutenberg press came into being.
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SPEAKER_01: And I calculated, uh did a calculation one day, if you stacked all those books end to end, they would reach one-third the way to the moon.
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SPEAKER_01: That's how many Bibles have been printed.
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SPEAKER_01: And Paul tells his disciple Timothy, all scriptures inspired by God and profitable to teach us, to reprove us, to train us, to correct us, train us in righteousness so the man and woman of God might be adequate and equipped for every good work.
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SPEAKER_02: Okay, but Mike, that's a great way to end today's show because we are out of time.
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SPEAKER_01: Let me just finish very quickly.
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SPEAKER_01: With so much teaching going on in Christian circles, knowing the Bible will help us keep from falling into error.
52:26
SPEAKER_01: There's so much teaching going around, and we could talk about this for a whole segment, but we need to listen, and I encourage all of you, take what Rhett and I are saying.
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SPEAKER_01: Don't just accept it on our own words.
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SPEAKER_01: Go do the research yourself.
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SPEAKER_01: And I'll tell you, in today's spiritually charged environment, knowing the Bible will help us be led astray by our spiritual experiences, by angels appearing and speaking to us, by suddenly we get an impression that we should go to Timbuktu and open a coffee store or something like that.
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SPEAKER_01: No, we really need to hear from the Lord Himself on this.
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SPEAKER_01: So uh I think Rhett, we can really uh take these suggestions for developing the disciplines for loving God with our minds.
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SPEAKER_01: First, begin to analyze your thoughts with the question: is this pushing me toward God or pulling me away?
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SPEAKER_01: When we find ourselves speculating what might be the cause of a situation and imagining what possibly may happen, stop and ask yourself, is fear increasing, or am I trusting God to take care of this?
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SPEAKER_01: Then I think another important suggestion is to take a periodic inventory of your belief system.
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SPEAKER_01: Are there any ungodly beliefs in your daily operating procedures or rules of the road?
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SPEAKER_01: Finally, let's take some time to meditate on a passage of Scripture.
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SPEAKER_01: Uh, and um that's why scripture memorization is important.
54:01
SPEAKER_01: And actively keep your priorities in order.
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SPEAKER_01: God's number one, your family number two, your ministry three, for your work, recreation.
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SPEAKER_01: And then let God become part of your normal thought process.
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SPEAKER_02: And if you want to see the notes on today's show, go to Seek the Lamb.
54:19
SPEAKER_02: Seek the Lamb.
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SPEAKER_02: And you can go there.
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SPEAKER_02: Uh Mike, thanks for coming on.
54:23
SPEAKER_02: We're out of time for today.
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SPEAKER_02: You want to press the button and play our song, Michael?