Latest / The Living Waters Podcast / Ep. 282 - How to Cultivate a Teachable Heart

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Ep. 282 - How to Cultivate a Teachable Heart · The Living Waters Podcast

• 1:04
  Oscar Navarro: That we need to reorient our lives so that where we seek, where we spend our most time and seek wisdom, is first and foremost the Bible, god's word, our daily bread, then through the local church and church tradition, then through nature and beauty and God's creation, then books, then internet, then social media.
• 1:25
  Oscar Navarro: So, to answer your question, maybe you don't have the opportunity for a one-to-one mentor.
• 1:32
  Oscar Navarro: You can still be intentional about surrounding your time with people who are further in life than you and are in places that you want to be.
• 1:44
  Oscar Navarro: Find godly men in your lives or women in your lives, and maybe they don't have the time to disciple you, but I bet they have time to just get a cup of coffee.
• 1:53
  Oscar Navarro: Maybe it's not a full-blown discipleship program, it doesn't matter.
• 1:58
  Oscar Navarro: Do what you can to surround yourself with people who you can glean from, from.
• 2:10
  Emeal Zwayne: Another life-altering question for Ray Ray.
• 2:14
  Emeal Zwayne: Ray, ray, ray, ray, comfort Ray, this is big.
• 2:18
  Emeal Zwayne: Okay, it's a hypothetical, but I'm going to read it so as to eliminate any potential confusion.
• 2:27
  Emeal Zwayne: You ready, I'm ready?
• 2:28
  Emeal Zwayne: Okay, let's say that in New Zealand, the name that's pronounced Ray, your name, the name that's pronounced Ray, is used for both male and female, even though it's spelled differently for each.
• 2:42
  Emeal Zwayne: You know, like how we have Francis or Carrie or Stacey or Terry, those are used interchangeably for male or female.
• 2:48
  Emeal Zwayne: Okay, so for the male it's spelled R-A-Y, the way you spell your name.
• 2:55
  Ray Comfort: Why.
• 2:55
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, why?
• 2:56
  Emeal Zwayne: Because it's spelled R-A-Y.
• 2:57
  Emeal Zwayne: For the female it's spelled R-Y-E, but again, yeah, yeah, hypothetical, but again they're pronounced.
• 3:05
  Emeal Zwayne: They're both pronounced Ray.
• 3:06
  Emeal Zwayne: Okay, okay, you got that.
• 3:15
  Emeal Zwayne: Okay.
• 3:15
  Emeal Zwayne: So let's say that here in the US people pronounce the female version R-Y-E as Ray and the male version R-A-Y as Rye, like rye bread, rye, okay, yeah, got that.
• 3:22
  Emeal Zwayne: Okay.
• 3:22
  Emeal Zwayne: So they pronounce why do I feel as though I'm stepping into a trap?
• 3:26
  Emeal Zwayne: No, no, not at all, no, no, not at all, no, no, no.
• 3:27
  Emeal Zwayne: So they pronounce the female version Ray and the male version Rye.
• 3:33
  Emeal Zwayne: Okay, like Rye bread.
• 3:34
  Emeal Zwayne: You got that.
• 3:36
  Emeal Zwayne: Are people still following?
• 3:37
  Emeal Zwayne: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, have you thought about maybe having a point when you speak?
• 3:41
  Emeal Zwayne: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no point.
• 3:42
  Emeal Zwayne: Okay, listen, zealand, hypothetically.
• 3:49
  Emeal Zwayne: And you knew someone, some Americans, who were living in New Zealand for about 35 years.
• 3:52
  Emeal Zwayne: Okay, how would you feel if these Americans, who can actually and fully pronounce the name Ray, because they do it for the female version, insist on calling you Rye just because that's how that male version of the spelling is pronounced in their country, again, even though linguistically they fully have the ability to pronounce Ray and have heard that name being pronounced that way in New Zealand for 35 years.
• 4:13
  Emeal Zwayne: Would you be kind of bothered by that?
• 4:17
  Ray Comfort: I think you do a terrible New Zealand accent.
• 4:20
  Emeal Zwayne: No, I don't.
• 4:20
  Emeal Zwayne: So Ray pronounce the name D-A-W-N.
• 4:28
  Ray Comfort: D-A-W-N.
• 4:29
  Emeal Zwayne: Okay, pronounce the name D-O-W-N D-A-W-N.
• 4:30
  Emeal Zwayne: Okay, pronounce the name D-O-N Dawn.
• 4:32
  Emeal Zwayne: Ah, so you do that, ray, is that?
• 4:36
  Ray Comfort: nice to do.
• 4:37
  Emeal Zwayne: Yes, ah, that's exactly what you do so where's your point?
• 4:39
  Emeal Zwayne: My point is that it's a terrible thing to do that to people.
• 4:42
  Emeal Zwayne: It is not.
• 4:43
  Emeal Zwayne: Yes, it is.
• 4:43
  Emeal Zwayne: It's horrible, but let's forget that, friends, because we have here with us today my beautiful wife, rachel Zwayne yeah, along with my daughter, kylie Mark's daughter.
• 4:56
  Emeal Zwayne: What's your daughter's name?
• 4:58
  Ray Comfort: Eden.
• 4:59
  Emeal Zwayne: Almost forgot Eden's name.
• 5:00
  Emeal Zwayne: And let's not forget our dear friend Deborah Draper, who, by the way, is here from England visiting us.
• 5:10
  Ray Comfort: And has listened to every single podcast episode.
• 5:11
  Ray Comfort: It's not Deborah.
• 5:11
  Ray Comfort: It's not Deborah.
• 5:13
  Emeal Zwayne: Deborah Debbie, deb, whatever.
• 5:16
  Ray Comfort: H is silent.
• 5:18
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, did you guys get that?
• 5:19
  Emeal Zwayne: She's listened to every episode.
• 5:20
  Emeal Zwayne: That's wild.
• 5:20
  Mark Spence: She's also a jujitsu sort of master, but I told her how I'd be able to beat her.
• 5:26
  Emeal Zwayne: Right now, mark, you did.
• 5:27
  Ray Comfort: Is that?
• 5:28
  Emeal Zwayne: true, debra, come on.
• 5:31
  Mark Spence: I want to see the skill.
• 5:32
  Mark Spence: The only way I could beat her is, I think, if she can't get near me Exactly.
• 5:37
  Oscar Navarro: If you can run faster than her.
• 5:38
  Emeal Zwayne: And she's in a straight jacket, locked up in a room.
• 5:40
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, that's the only way I'd say 3.5 seconds, you're done.
• 5:45
  Emeal Zwayne: I'm point five seconds, you're done.
• 5:50
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, I'm not sure to be that long and a pretzel, I don't know it'd be that long, that may be too long.
• 5:52
  Emeal Zwayne: So, anyhow, I proved a point on this podcast I've been wanting to prove for a long time.
• 5:55
  Emeal Zwayne: I won't give the backdrop to that, but it is forever proven.
• 5:58
  Emeal Zwayne: Thank me, thank me, thank me very much.
• 6:00
  Emeal Zwayne: Time for a cool, classy comment.
• 6:05
  Emeal Zwayne: This, uh, this name is going to be kept.
• 6:09
  Emeal Zwayne: You can just move on if you don't want to say it.
• 6:12
  Emeal Zwayne: No, it'll be kept anonymous because I think it's important, but we're going to call this Sister D.
• 6:17
  Ray Comfort: What's the real?
• 6:18
  Emeal Zwayne: one I won't tell you.
• 6:19
  Emeal Zwayne: Hello, my name is D, my husband and I well, first of all, the title.
• 6:26
  Emeal Zwayne: The subject says Podcast Saved Our Marriage, oh wow.
• 6:31
  Ray Comfort: Hello, my name is D.
• 6:32
  Ray Comfort: Oh, you're going to cry with this one.
• 6:33
  Ray Comfort: Yes, you are.
• 6:33
  Ray Comfort: This is a crying podcast.
• 6:36
  Emeal Zwayne: I won't.
• 6:36
  Emeal Zwayne: Hello, my name is D because I cried already when I read it earlier.
• 6:40
  Emeal Zwayne: Hello, my name is D.
• 6:41
  Emeal Zwayne: My husband and I have been married for almost eight years.
• 6:44
  Emeal Zwayne: We both grew up in Christian homes and were somewhat active in our church, but definitely complacent in our relationships with God.
• 6:50
  Emeal Zwayne: After our second son was born, I became obsessed with finding the truth.
• 6:54
  Emeal Zwayne: I realized God placed an immensely important task in our hands to train up our children in the way they should go, and I wanted to know the gospel so clearly so that I could teach them the truth from the content and give them a firm foundation.
• 7:08
  Emeal Zwayne: That's when I found the Living Waters videos and was so excited.
• 7:11
  Emeal Zwayne: When you started the podcast.
• 7:12
  Emeal Zwayne: I learned so much and have been ever since.
• 7:17
  Emeal Zwayne: I just wanted God more and more.
• 7:19
  Emeal Zwayne: I started reading my Bible consistently.
• 7:21
  Emeal Zwayne: It changed the way I parent my children, also with the help of the Joyful Mothers page.
• 7:26
  Ray Comfort: Ooh plug for.
• 7:27
  Emeal Zwayne: Rachel.
• 7:27
  Emeal Zwayne: A little while later, my husband had a job with a longer commute, so I suggested he listen to the podcast as he drove.
• 7:34
  Emeal Zwayne: He did, and it didn't take long for him to become convicted.
• 7:37
  Emeal Zwayne: One evening, my world came crashing in.
• 7:42
  Ray Comfort: Stop it.
• 7:43
  Ray Comfort: Want me to take over.
• 7:45
  Emeal Zwayne: I wanted to prove you guys wrong so badly.
• 7:47
  Ray Comfort: You can't, you're unteachable.
• 7:52
  Emeal Zwayne: Came crashing in as he confessed to me his longtime addiction to pornography.
• 7:56
  Emeal Zwayne: That day changed us for the better in every way.
• 7:59
  Emeal Zwayne: Since then, we've grown so much in the Lord together.
• 8:02
  Emeal Zwayne: Dive deep into the.
• 8:03
  Emeal Zwayne: This is such an important portion Diving deep into the Bible, truly connecting with our church and prioritizing attendance and listening to godly counsel.
• 8:13
  Emeal Zwayne: Through this podcast, my husband has become the leader of our family, studies his Bible every day and keeps God at the front.
• 8:23
  Emeal Zwayne: He teaches our children about God's boundless grace and great mercy.
• 8:28
  Emeal Zwayne: I'm forever thankful to you all at Living Waters for devoting your lives to reaching the world with the gospel and training up disciples for Christ.
• 8:36
  Emeal Zwayne: Please keep up the amazing work.
• 8:38
  Emeal Zwayne: God bless you and all those that this ministry impacts.
• 8:41
  Emeal Zwayne: He's definitely using you to truly change lives for eternity.
• 8:46
  Mark Spence: Ah Wow, that is a great, great thing to read you are an ugly crier.
• 8:55
  Ray Comfort: I don't know anyone that can cry on ugly it's such a word.
• 8:58
  Emeal Zwayne: That is so, so powerful, dee.
• 9:00
  Emeal Zwayne: Thank you, can you say me that?
• 9:02
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, who are you thanking?
• 9:03
  Ray Comfort: Remind me after Oscar.
• 9:04
  Ray Comfort: Who are you?
• 9:04
  Emeal Zwayne: thanking Dee, Dee, that's all.
• 9:06
  Emeal Zwayne: We're not going to give the full name after Oscar.
• 9:08
  Emeal Zwayne: Who are you thanking Dee?
• 9:09
  Emeal Zwayne: Dee, Dee, that's all.
• 9:09
  Emeal Zwayne: We're not going to get the full name.
• 9:11
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, thank you, Dee.
• 9:14
  Emeal Zwayne: And she said PS.
• 9:14
  Emeal Zwayne: Our kids love going to big events and passing out and strategically placing gospel tracts, and their courage is helping us to be more bold and sharing our faith as well.
• 9:19
  Ray Comfort: That's wonderful.
• 9:20
  Emeal Zwayne: But man, the whole family impacted like that, you know, and God moving.
• 9:30
  Emeal Zwayne: So thank you for writing in Dee.
• 9:31
  Emeal Zwayne: This is why we do what we do.
• 9:32
  Emeal Zwayne: There are challenges that come across our way in life, you know discouragement, disheartenment, times when we wonder Lord, are you really using us?
• 9:37
  Emeal Zwayne: And then a letter like this comes through and just puts wind in our sails.
• 9:40
  Emeal Zwayne: So thank you for making it all worth it.
• 9:43
  Emeal Zwayne: Amen, we're really grateful.
• 9:44
  Emeal Zwayne: All right friends, grateful, all right friends.
• 9:49
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, and now for a radically revolutionary resource transition.
• 9:56
  Emeal Zwayne: This podcast is brought to you by 500 years of open air preaching.
• 10:02
  Mark Spence: Everything.
• 10:04
  Emeal Zwayne: I've learned 50 years.
• 10:06
  Emeal Zwayne: Ray, tell us about this book.
• 10:08
  Ray Comfort: It's 50 years of everything.
• 10:10
  Ray Comfort: I've learned 50 years, ray, tell us about this book.
• 10:12
  Ray Comfort: It's 50 years of everything.
• 10:14
  Emeal Zwayne: I've learned about open-air preaching.
• 10:16
  Emeal Zwayne: How did I know?
• 10:17
  Ray Comfort: Why did I even set you up for that silliness?
• 10:17
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, I don't know what you set me up for.
• 10:18
  Ray Comfort: I don't know what it's about yeah.
• 10:19
  Emeal Zwayne: So, ray, 50 years, that's a long time.
• 10:22
  Ray Comfort: It is a long time.
• 10:23
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah.
• 10:23
  Ray Comfort: But it just seems like yesterday.
• 10:25
  Ray Comfort: But it just seems like yesterday.
• 10:25
  Ray Comfort: Our life is a vapor.
• 10:26
  Ray Comfort: I remember the first time I stood up to preach, how terrified I was.
• 10:29
  Ray Comfort: No, I wasn't terrified, I was above terrified.
• 10:32
  Ray Comfort: Horrific, were you really?
• 10:33
  Ray Comfort: Oh, yes, well, you don't know the background I came from.
• 10:36
  Emeal Zwayne: Did you talk yourself out of it Ray multiple times and then back into it?
• 10:40
  Ray Comfort: No, no, you just had to do it the middle of the speech.
• 10:50
  Ray Comfort: I thought I'll never ever speak in public again.
• 10:52
  Ray Comfort: So that's the background I came from.
• 10:53
  Ray Comfort: So to have to get up and do it was just horrific, but praise the Lord.
• 10:58
  Emeal Zwayne: You did it Turned into 12 years.
• 11:00
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, turned into 50 years.
• 11:02
  Mark Spence: Yeah, that's crazy.
• 11:13
  Emeal Zwayne: It's going to turn into 52 and a half years.
• 11:15
  Oscar Navarro: Yeah, 52 and a half years oh, is it now 52 and a half years of annoying people?
• 11:17
  Oscar Navarro: There are a lot of people on this earth who hate you, Ray.
• 11:18
  Mark Spence: Some of them in this room, oh man.
• 11:21
  Emeal Zwayne: But seriously, you know, when you think about the opposition you got over the years and yet you pressed on.
• 11:26
  Emeal Zwayne: And I mentioned before we through the years have gotten people that actually reached out to the ministry and said I used to mock great comfort, I used to just think what he was saying was crazy and I ended up getting saved.
• 11:39
  Ray Comfort: Amen.
• 11:40
  Emeal Zwayne: And so that was all worth it.
• 11:41
  Emeal Zwayne: So yeah, check out the book Franz 50 Years of Open Air Preaching.
• 11:45
  Emeal Zwayne: Don't forget the Living Waters mug that will help you chug, and the Evidence Study Bible, this libel to bring about revival.
• 11:53
  Emeal Zwayne: All that Living Waters.
• 11:58
  Ray Comfort: How come we don't get anybody come to our website?
• 12:00
  Ray Comfort: Wheezy, I just don't understand it.
• 12:06
  Ray Comfort: What's the website again?
• 12:11
  Emeal Zwayne: We're terrible marketers.
• 12:12
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, I needed that laugh after that cry.
• 12:15
  Emeal Zwayne: Thank you guys.
• 12:15
  Emeal Zwayne: All right, friends, today we're dealing with I have no Idea, because I prepared for the wrong episode.
• 12:26
  Ray Comfort: I don't know how I did it, but this is really good because it solved a mystery, because in the last episode you started encroaching upon the.
• 12:32
  Ray Comfort: You did, yeah, I noticed that you started encroaching upon the subject of this one we're recording now and I said easy, that's the next one we're going to do.
• 12:40
  Emeal Zwayne: You know what, and I know something was wrong in my mind, because my brain's thinking how would Ray even know that?
• 12:44
  Emeal Zwayne: Because we haven't done that yet and I wasn't thinking, it's today.
• 12:48
  Mark Spence: What did you prepare for?
• 12:49
  Mark Spence: I don't know.
• 12:49
  Emeal Zwayne: Well, what I prepared for is what I need.
• 12:52
  Ray Comfort: It was being prepared, wasn't it?
• 12:53
  Ray Comfort: That was the subject.
• 12:54
  Ray Comfort: What's that Preparedness being?
• 12:56
  Emeal Zwayne: prepared man, I'm being prepared.
• 12:57
  Emeal Zwayne: No, it's actually ironic because the subject was how to grow in being sympathetic toward people, and I need sympathy today for forgetting what we were doing.
• 13:15
  Emeal Zwayne: I mean, I don't know how I did it.
• 13:16
  Mark Spence: We have other episodes that we have lined up and I still have no idea how I jumped to this one, but really, what do?
• 13:18
  Emeal Zwayne: you do, you need an assistant?
• 13:19
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, I do, yeah Well, yeah, well, wait, what do we do?
• 13:22
  Oscar Navarro: Teachable heart, oh, teachable heart.
• 13:23
  Emeal Zwayne: I had to cultivate a teachable heart.
• 13:25
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, is that right?
• 13:25
  Emeal Zwayne: Okay, so I'm at your mercy, guys.
• 13:28
  Emeal Zwayne: You guys are heading this thing.
• 13:29
  Emeal Zwayne: I got nothing.
• 13:30
  Emeal Zwayne: It's going to fall apart.
• 13:31
  Emeal Zwayne: That's what it means.
• 13:32
  Emeal Zwayne: But yeah, how to cultivate a teachable heart?
• 13:36
  Emeal Zwayne: Let me just say I can say something on this.
• 13:38
  Emeal Zwayne: You know, when I first got saved, my biggest struggle probably well, it still is, but in a very pronounced way was pride why, that is the mystery of pride.
• 13:56
  Ray Comfort: Isn't it over what that's?
• 13:57
  Ray Comfort: What I'm trying to figure that would be a great title for a book, the mystery of pride.
• 14:01
  Ray Comfort: But yeah, that would be good, yeah, really, and that.
• 14:04
  Emeal Zwayne: That that's pretty true mark I really had.
• 14:06
  Emeal Zwayne: No, I weighed like three and a half pounds.
• 14:08
  Emeal Zwayne: Oh, that was when you were born my eyeballs were the size of basketballs, were three pounds of it and yeah, I mean I was just a crazy kid, but I did.
• 14:18
  Emeal Zwayne: I grew up in a culture.
• 14:20
  Emeal Zwayne: The Arab culture is extremely, extremely prideful.
• 14:22
  Emeal Zwayne: I mean every culture is, but it is pretty pronounced, and especially the Lebanese culture.
• 14:28
  Ray Comfort: Would that be status?
• 14:30
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, it's all about image.
• 14:32
  Emeal Zwayne: So what comes with that is pride.
• 14:36
  Emeal Zwayne: How many Louis Vuitton hats did you own?
• 14:38
  Emeal Zwayne: Like 50.
• 14:39
  Emeal Zwayne: Okay, yeah, so you know.
• 14:42
  Emeal Zwayne: So it was really a part of me and I was not teachable.
• 14:46
  Emeal Zwayne: In fact, to appear to be teachable was to appear to be weak, because in the arab culture, you have to basically know everything.
• 14:53
  Emeal Zwayne: So there was no attitude of like seeking out input and advice, because you always had to appear like you had it together, at least in my context, you know.
• 15:03
  Emeal Zwayne: And so, uh, didn't you have an invincible complex?
• 15:04
  Ray Comfort: the invincibility complex, yeah, yeah, yeah when I went on that field trip with my class and I had the sense all of a sudden, if and so Didn't you?
• 15:07
  Emeal Zwayne: have an invincible complex.
• 15:08
  Emeal Zwayne: The invincibility complex, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 15:10
  Emeal Zwayne: When I went on that field trip with my class and I had the sense all of a sudden, if the bus rolled off the cliff, blew up, I'd get up and just walk away, I mean, I really, I said it to my teacher.
• 15:19
  Ray Comfort: She looked at me like so you'd be watching Superman movies or something.
• 15:23
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I was always watching superhero stuff.
• 15:26
  Emeal Zwayne: I don't know where it came from, but anyway.
• 15:29
  Emeal Zwayne: So yeah, so I wasn't the most teachable person as a younger believer, but man.
• 15:39
  Emeal Zwayne: I praise God for how much he's convicted me over the years and shown me that it's not just that we can learn.
• 15:42
  Emeal Zwayne: We can learn from anyone.
• 15:45
  Emeal Zwayne: We can learn from our enemies.
• 15:47
  Emeal Zwayne: We can learn from unbelievers.
• 15:48
  Emeal Zwayne: We can learn from our enemies.
• 15:49
  Emeal Zwayne: We can learn from unbelievers.
• 15:50
  Emeal Zwayne: We can learn from a child if our hearts are attuned to saying Lord, I'm correctable and I want to learn.
• 15:57
  Ray Comfort: You're not alone when it comes to the pride thing.
• 15:58
  Ray Comfort: New Zealand pride is different, but I remember in my surfing days it was a revelation to me when one of the guys, when we're going out surfing, he said if no one was looking I wouldn't go out.
• 16:08
  Ray Comfort: And I thought you're kidding.
• 16:12
  Ray Comfort: Is that why we're surfing Just for the praise of men?
• 16:13
  Ray Comfort: I couldn't, didn't put it into words, but it was revelation to me.
• 16:15
  Ray Comfort: I thought this whole thing is ego.
• 16:17
  Ray Comfort: It's just crazy.
• 16:19
  Ray Comfort: And that's and that's often behind so many sports.
• 16:21
  Ray Comfort: You know, people say I love the sport, but they love the praise they get from me and they love the standing ovation, their applause.
• 16:27
  Mark Spence: Yeah, I actually got that when I had spoken to the Denver Broncos before they played the Chargers.
• 16:32
  Mark Spence: When I was all done, one of their defensive backs came up to me and he said that he had been released from the team back in February because of a DUI and then his coach, kubiak, had called him up and said hey, we'd like to bring you back.
• 16:44
  Mark Spence: He said I did not know why I was coming back until I heard, until this moment, until I heard you say to play to the glory of God.
• 16:52
  Mark Spence: He said I would get a pick six where you intercept the ball and you run back for a touchdown or I'd run out the tunnel with the team and everybody's going crazy, he said.
• 17:00
  Mark Spence: I lived for that moment and it reminded me of a quote that I read in January of 94 of Madonna, who said that she would gladly have given up every single penny that she had made.
• 17:09
  Mark Spence: But she cannot give up that cheering that happens when she steps out on the stage and everybody's hollering and singing her praises.
• 17:19
  Emeal Zwayne: It's crazy.
• 17:20
  Emeal Zwayne: If man is not worshiping the true and living God, he's looking to be worshiped.
• 17:25
  Mark Spence: He's looking to be worshiped.
• 17:27
  Emeal Zwayne: And so until you bow the knee to him, you'll want every looking to be worshipped, and so, until you bow the knee to him, you'll want every knee to bow to you, and so oh that's a great quote.
• 17:34
  Ray Comfort: I didn't even prepare today.
• 17:35
  Ray Comfort: Did you prepare that?
• 17:36
  Ray Comfort: No, you could have not prepared in the future.
• 17:39
  Ray Comfort: What's?
• 17:39
  Emeal Zwayne: going on.
• 17:39
  Emeal Zwayne: I need to do this more often.
• 17:40
  Emeal Zwayne: Say what was that quote again.
• 17:41
  Emeal Zwayne: Say it again.
• 17:42
  Emeal Zwayne: I don't know what you said?
• 17:43
  Emeal Zwayne: I have no idea what you're saying You're not bowing the knee to God.
• 17:47
  Ray Comfort: You want everyone to bow the knee to you, or something like that.
• 17:49
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, I think so, something like that.
• 17:50
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, but it's true, you know, and we have all recognized it, you know.
• 17:56
  Emeal Zwayne: Well, that's good too.
• 17:58
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, say it again, say it again Is that good.
• 18:03
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, but you know, we all recognize it when we see it and we love it.
• 18:12
  Emeal Zwayne: A person with a teachable spirit, a person who, you know, when you correct them, doesn't give you an explanation, like if you come up and you say hey, you know, actually you do this like this instead of oh, yeah, yeah, well, I know, but you know I was just doing like this for the or they go oh, thank you.
• 18:24
  Emeal Zwayne: Oh, thank you so much.
• 18:29
  Emeal Zwayne: I'll change that right now.
• 18:30
  Emeal Zwayne: Right, like something resonates in our hearts.
• 18:30
  Mark Spence: We know that's right, but we struggled to do it.
• 18:31
  Mark Spence: So how do you cultivate that teachable heart?
• 18:34
  Mark Spence: Oh, that's a good title, yeah.
• 18:36
  Ray Comfort: Oh that's good that just come to you.
• 18:37
  Ray Comfort: It is Original right.
• 18:39
  Oscar Navarro: Yeah, I like what you said before we get there.
• 18:41
  Oscar Navarro: I like what you said earlier about learning something from anyone, including children.
• 18:46
  Oscar Navarro: I think that's a great disposition to have and you might think, well, what can you learn from your children?
• 18:51
  Oscar Navarro: You can learn grace and patience.
• 18:55
  Oscar Navarro: Often, when I have to go and apologize to my kids, how quickly they are to forgive me.
• 19:00
  Oscar Navarro: I learn grace from my children when they offer it to me because they're so ready to give it.
• 19:06
  Oscar Navarro: I would say I've been thinking about this a lot lately, even before you sent this subject, which is we have an opportunity to learn from whoever the Lord puts in our lives and if we're not being observant and aware, we miss the opportunity to receive that lesson.
• 19:27
  Oscar Navarro: And I've been thinking about this a lot, especially because we were exchanging back and forth another leader that failed and leading up to that I kid you not, I was thinking about you guys and I was thinking about how blessed I am to learn about faithfulness from you three men, just the faithfulness you have towards your families, the faithfulness you have in ministry and the faithfulness you guys have to the Lord.
• 19:49
  Oscar Navarro: That is something that I, on Sunday, I'll have been working here for 10 years, and I think over the last 10 years, learning the consistent, obedient faithfulness from you three has been a blessing for me.
• 20:02
  Emeal Zwayne: Wow, oscar thank you so much.
• 20:03
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, and when we hear stories like that of men that have fallen, I often think of you guys and our staff and our team and all that God's doing through the ministry, and the thought of what could happen if one of us did fall.
• 20:18
  Emeal Zwayne: I mean, again, our hope is always that people's eyes are on the Lord, they're not looking to man, they're looking to God and they continue on with Him.
• 20:24
  Emeal Zwayne: Because man is fallible and is prone to error.
• 20:26
  Emeal Zwayne: We should know that and shouldn't be surprised.
• 20:28
  Emeal Zwayne: But we know human nature.
• 20:30
  Emeal Zwayne: It affects people, disillusions people, it grieves people and I think a big part of leaders falling is that they're not teachable, and many of them are not teachable in being accountable.
• 20:42
  Emeal Zwayne: They're not teachable in understanding that they can fall.
• 20:49
  Emeal Zwayne: I don't know if I've read this on here or not, but this quote by Votie Bauckham, it's so powerful.
• 20:54
  Emeal Zwayne: He said the wisest man in the Bible fell into sexual sin.
• 20:56
  Emeal Zwayne: The strongest man in the Bible fell into sexual sin and the godliest man in the Bible fell into sexual sin.
• 21:01
  Emeal Zwayne: The strongest man in the Bible fell into sexual sin and the godliest man in the Bible fell into sexual sin.
• 21:02
  Emeal Zwayne: For me to think I'm above falling into this sin is to think that I'm wiser than Solomon, stronger than Samson and godlier than King David.
• 21:10
  Emeal Zwayne: Wow, you know it's like that's heavy, and so it's important that we are teachable in those areas.
• 21:19
  Emeal Zwayne: Anyone can fall.
• 21:19
  Emeal Zwayne: I'm going to guard my heart.
• 21:20
  Emeal Zwayne: I'm going to be careful, I'm going to get accountability.
• 21:23
  Emeal Zwayne: I'm going to protect myself and what I look at what I do.
• 21:26
  Emeal Zwayne: I'm going to let my brothers ask me the hard questions, but a lot of leaders, they think they're above that, and when someone who's under their authority asks them, how are you doing, or I'm concerned about you, they bristle, they get prideful.
• 21:38
  Emeal Zwayne: It's that image again.
• 21:39
  Emeal Zwayne: Who are you to teach me?
• 21:41
  Emeal Zwayne: But to have that heart that says I can learn from anyone, even my enemies and even those that are harsh toward me when they're correcting me.
• 21:49
  Emeal Zwayne: That's important.
• 21:50
  Mark Spence: You know Vance Havner.
• 21:50
  Mark Spence: He said we treat sin like a cream puff.
• 21:53
  Mark Spence: We need to treat it like a rattlesnake and every public failure we hear about is the result of a thousand private failings.
• 21:59
  Mark Spence: Right, there's no such thing as a private sin.
• 22:02
  Mark Spence: He went on to say that every private sin is an open spectacle in heaven.
• 22:06
  Mark Spence: So if we just kind of tear that down just a little bit, but we break it down when we hear about these pastors that are falling into sexual sin or they haven't been faithful with the benevolent fund or whatever it may be, we hear about this one encounter where there's a confession about this situation.
• 22:23
  Mark Spence: But, truth be told, they were not faithful for many thousand times over, starting with their mind.
• 22:30
  Mark Spence: I forget who it was that said Chuck Swindoll, who said you sow a thought, you reap an action.
• 22:34
  Mark Spence: You sow an action, you reap a habit.
• 22:35
  Mark Spence: Sow a habit, reap a character.
• 22:37
  Mark Spence: Sow a character, you reap a destiny.
• 22:39
  Mark Spence: But it all starts with that initial thought and one of my top prayers that I pray is a scripture very simple Search me and shrine me and see if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.
• 22:50
  Mark Spence: That would be a wise prayer, to pray moment by moment, as you go throughout your day.
• 22:56
  Emeal Zwayne: Amen, yeah, so good, so, yeah.
• 22:59
  Emeal Zwayne: So let's get into that.
• 23:00
  Emeal Zwayne: I know you guys have stuff prepared.
• 23:01
  Emeal Zwayne: I'm excited to hear it.
• 23:03
  Emeal Zwayne: But yeah, how do we do that?
• 23:05
  Emeal Zwayne: How do we cultivate a teachable heart, a teachable spirit where we'll gain that?
• 23:13
  Emeal Zwayne: In the last podcast episode I believe it was I talked about how we need to be a people who aren't foolish and that we hate correction.
• 23:19
  Emeal Zwayne: Right, because we're stupid is what the Proverbs says.
• 23:22
  Emeal Zwayne: How do we avoid being stupid to receive correction or receive instruction that we might be wise in our latter years, as the Proverbs talk about, to grow in the Lord?
• 23:31
  Oscar Navarro: I love what you said just a few minutes ago and I think we should circle back to it, which is the reality that we can learn something even from our enemies.
• 23:39
  Oscar Navarro: Someone who has greatly impacted my faith written tons of books when he passed away.
• 23:44
  Oscar Navarro: I read this article about this guy who had met him.
• 23:48
  Oscar Navarro: And what happened was this guy went online and he wrote this article that was lambasting this pastor.
• 23:55
  Oscar Navarro: And he ended up at a conference with him and he like raised his hand and he was like going to ask this gotcha question.
• 24:01
  Oscar Navarro: And when he finally got the opportunity, the pastor goes.
• 24:06
  Oscar Navarro: You know what?
• 24:06
  Oscar Navarro: That's a really good question.
• 24:09
  Oscar Navarro: Would you help me understand your perspective?
• 24:11
  Oscar Navarro: Took the guy out to coffee and spent four hours with him and he said afterwards he learned more about the sin in his own heart than any potential failings in that man's theology.
• 24:21
  Oscar Navarro: And I mean, this is somebody who wrote articles against him, who was ready to get him in a gotcha moment, but the disposition that he had from him was help me understand, not in a condescending way, but as sincerely you disagree with me.
• 24:35
  Oscar Navarro: Help me know your perspective.
• 24:38
  Oscar Navarro: And that same pastor wrote later that he recognized that there is no way he can properly disagree with someone unless he can articulate their side better than they could, and that's the reason why he wanted to learn from even his enemies to better understand them.
• 24:56
  Emeal Zwayne: Wow man, that's yeah, that's so good.
• 24:59
  Emeal Zwayne: And I think a big hindrance to being teachable is the self-deception that convinces us that there's no way we could be wrong about a certain thing, and that gets harder and harder with something that we know well and that we're familiar with.
• 25:17
  Emeal Zwayne: I'm not talking about like facts.
• 25:20
  Emeal Zwayne: We know what you're talking about Augustine, yeah, augustine, how do you say his name?
• 25:23
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, like Augustine.
• 25:23
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, I'm talking about like facts.
• 25:27
  Emeal Zwayne: I mean, I'm not talking about facts that are, like you know, objective, but maybe an approach that could go one way or the other.
• 25:35
  Emeal Zwayne: You know, we're convinced this is the right way, this is how it has to go, and so we shut off, and immediately, when someone begins to share their perspective, we immediately have a thousand reasons why not?
• 25:49
  Emeal Zwayne: And we're ready to throw them out.
• 25:50
  Emeal Zwayne: How wise would we be if we just stopped and said I'd really like to hear that.
• 25:55
  Mark Spence: I'd really like and one way to recognize that is if you find yourself over-talking when they're still speaking.
• 26:03
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, I know what you mean, if they're still speaking.
• 26:06
  Mark Spence: They're not done with their point.
• 26:08
  Mark Spence: So how do you properly bring forth a response if they're not done talking?
• 26:14
  Mark Spence: So you need to be teachable and listen to this text Proverbs 9, 10.
• 26:19
  Mark Spence: The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the holy one is understanding.
• 26:23
  Mark Spence: Ray, have you ever heard that verse?
• 26:24
  Ray Comfort: yeah, um, just thinking about, um how to cultivate a teachable heart, thomas edison said was it something like?
• 26:31
  Ray Comfort: We don't know a?
• 26:32
  Mark Spence: million millionth percent of anything.
• 26:33
  Mark Spence: Yeah, one million percent of anything.
• 26:35
  Mark Spence: Yeah, we don't know one.
• 26:36
  Mark Spence: Ninth of one percent.
• 26:37
  Mark Spence: We do not know one million.
• 26:39
  Ray Comfort: I was gonna say say that mark, yeah, yeah, that's great and it's so true we don't know anything.
• 26:44
  Ray Comfort: When years that was funny years ago I heard someone say that they rolled their eyes and they were talking about their own pride.
• 26:53
  Ray Comfort: When someone said we're going to read john, chapter three in the bible, oh and I thought I could do that.
• 27:00
  Ray Comfort: You know, 52 years of reading John chapter 3, I know every verse.
• 27:03
  Ray Comfort: I know what it means.
• 27:04
  Ray Comfort: There's nothing I can know.
• 27:05
  Ray Comfort: And I have to pull myself back and say that's how to have an unteachable heart.
• 27:10
  Ray Comfort: And you've got to realize the Bible is the word of the living God, and so it's going to have stuff in it that's more complex than our brains.
• 27:17
  Ray Comfort: And so it's going to have stuff in it that's more complex than our brains.
• 27:20
  Ray Comfort: And so you just got to read John chapter 3 and say, okay, I'm going to look at this like it's the first time I've ever read it.
• 27:25
  Ray Comfort: And I've noticed, when I meditate on scripture and stay with it night after night after night, suddenly it's like that opens up.
• 27:32
  Ray Comfort: You think I've never, seen that before.
• 27:34
  Ray Comfort: It's like searching for gold and rocks.
• 27:36
  Ray Comfort: You just have to keep breaking the rock open and suddenly there's the gold.
• 27:39
  Mark Spence: Well, I remember I was at a conference one time a men's conference and David Hawking came out and he was told right before he went up on stage.
• 27:47
  Mark Spence: He said listen, I'm sorry about the other speakers going into your time.
• 27:50
  Mark Spence: We don't have a lot of time left, so please, if you could just kind of get right into it.
• 27:54
  Mark Spence: And he went up there and he said listen.
• 27:56
  Mark Spence: I was told that the other speakers went into my time and I don't have a lot of time to get into my commentary, so I'm just going to read the text.
• 28:02
  Mark Spence: And that's what he did.
• 28:03
  Mark Spence: He read the text instead of skipping the text and getting into the commentary, which is what he was asked to do by the host.
• 28:12
  Ray Comfort: He read the scripture and then he went home and he went back and sat down.
• 28:15
  Ray Comfort: That's good, because I've been in churches where I've wanted to do that.
• 28:18
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, you know, Ray, I actually have something that I call the John 3.16 syndrome.
• 28:22
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, you know you're talking about John 3.
• 28:24
  Emeal Zwayne: But I use that because it's you know, all of us have memorized John 3.16.
• 28:29
  Emeal Zwayne: We know it forwards, backwards, can recite it in our sleep, but we get that you know attitude with so much that we do know and it's just kind of like yeah, I know it, so we tune out on it, and that's such a tragedy.
• 28:42
  Emeal Zwayne: How can you not always be awed by John 3.16?
• 28:47
  Ray Comfort: You've got to take the word so and look at it for a while.
• 28:50
  Emeal Zwayne: Oh, right For.
• 28:51
  Ray Comfort: God, so whoa yeah.
• 28:54
  Emeal Zwayne: But it's true, right, but we again, familiarity.
• 28:57
  Emeal Zwayne: It breeds that contempt sometimes and even neglect.
• 29:00
  Emeal Zwayne: But I want to see what you guys think of this.
• 29:03
  Emeal Zwayne: I was just thinking about it in terms of how we can miss out on really being teachable because of, again, our image when it comes to counsel.
• 29:15
  Emeal Zwayne: There are people that will not get counseling, though they need it desperately because of how it'll make them look.
• 29:23
  Mark Spence: Yeah.
• 29:24
  Mark Spence: Proverbs 12.1.
• 29:25
  Mark Spence: Yeah Right.
• 29:27
  Emeal Zwayne: You know what will people think if I go to counseling?
• 29:31
  Emeal Zwayne: They'll think I'm weak, they'll think I have problems, they'll think you know I'm dysfunctional and so they don't go and get counseling.
• 29:37
  Emeal Zwayne: And sometimes some people you know there may be some extenuating circumstances or maybe some legitimate ones, but but some I think a lot of times illegitimately will not even get counsel in their own church because they're worried to what the pastors might think of them, or we need to change that.
• 29:54
  Oscar Navarro: Especially if they're leaders.
• 29:56
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah.
• 29:57
  Oscar Navarro: There's this thing with leaders where it's like, well, now I'm in this leadership position and I can't get counsel.
• 30:02
  Oscar Navarro: I can't be seen as dysfunctional, I can't be seen as having problems, because then people won't trust me, they won't have confidence in me.
• 30:10
  Oscar Navarro: But that man, that couldn't be further from the truth, like that, that especially I mean.
• 30:14
  Oscar Navarro: That's why it's so important for leaders to have men in their lives who are not impressed with them and who they can go to for counsel, for wisdom and for correction.
• 30:26
  Oscar Navarro: I think, especially with leaders like you've, got that the Dunning-Kruger effect, which I know we've talked about in the podcast before.
• 30:31
  Oscar Navarro: And for those of us who don't know what the Dunning-Kruger effect is, you have to imagine sort of like an X and Y scale where the horizontal version is your confidence and the vertical I'm sorry.
• 30:43
  Mark Spence: Horizontal.
• 30:44
  Oscar Navarro: The vertical one is your confidence, the horizontal one is your knowledge field.
• 30:47
  Oscar Navarro: And so at the very beginning, if you discovering something new, you're high in confidence and low on knowledge.
• 30:54
  Oscar Navarro: You're in the I know everything phase high in confidence, low in knowledge.
• 30:58
  Oscar Navarro: But as you increase in knowledge you move from I know everything to this is kind of more complicated than I thought.
• 31:07
  Oscar Navarro: You move further away from confidence and more into knowledge and you get to the realization that you know very little.
• 31:10
  Oscar Navarro: And then the next step is like it's starting to make sense for you and on the very end of the scale you'd sort of still very low confidence.
• 31:19
  Oscar Navarro: But high in knowledge is the realization that this field is complicated.
• 31:23
  Oscar Navarro: But with that realization also comes humility and teachability.
• 31:27
  Oscar Navarro: And so the Dunning-Kruger effect.
• 31:29
  Oscar Navarro: Focus is essentially the less you know, the more arrogant you are in that field.
• 31:36
  Oscar Navarro: The more you know, the more humble you are in that field.
• 31:40
  Oscar Navarro: That's true.
• 31:41
  Ray Comfort: I can't help but think of Dunning-Kruger.
• 31:43
  Ray Comfort: There were two psychologists of the late 90s that discovered that 1990s.
• 31:47
  Ray Comfort: I can't help but think of it when I think of when I ran the 440 in 440 yards in school.
• 31:54
  Ray Comfort: I came in first.
• 31:55
  Ray Comfort: I think I mentioned this to you guys before and it was just great to hear the crowd of like eight people just roaring Eight people and the sheep, yeah, and the sheep.
• 32:04
  Ray Comfort: And then I went to inter-school sports and lined up with these guys and the gun went off and all I saw was dust and legs, because they're all so much bigger than me and I realized that really humbled me and I've never forgotten because I thought I could run fast.
• 32:17
  Ray Comfort: And that's what we think.
• 32:19
  Ray Comfort: We're more apt to think we're better at something than what we actually are.
• 32:22
  Emeal Zwayne: Oh, it happened to me in that, you know, I grew up here but I was born in Lebanon, so I was four and a half when we came and I didn't speak any English when we got here.
• 32:34
  Emeal Zwayne: But after time I learned English and then it got to a point where I was good in it.
• 32:39
  Emeal Zwayne: But then we went back to visit Lebanon when I was 18, but before almost 18.
• 32:42
  Emeal Zwayne: Before that, though, my parents would always tell me how well I spoke Arabic still, and that most kids by that point have forgotten it because you know, you're in school and you're just always using English.
• 32:53
  Emeal Zwayne: But I remember we went to Lebanon and like constantly people were looking at me like oh, where do you?
• 33:00
  Emeal Zwayne: What country do you live in?
• 33:01
  Emeal Zwayne: Where are you from?
• 33:02
  Emeal Zwayne: I'm like what do you mean?
• 33:03
  Emeal Zwayne: Like you?
• 33:03
  Ray Comfort: have an accent.
• 33:04
  Ray Comfort: You were speaking in Arabic.
• 33:05
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, that's because you're saying totally dude in the middle of it.
• 33:07
  Emeal Zwayne: Well, I'm talking with an accent, but I didn't realize I had one and I remember I was so humbled because I went down there.
• 33:13
  Emeal Zwayne: I'm like sure, I still speak arabic, you know.
• 33:15
  Emeal Zwayne: They're like where are you from?
• 33:17
  Emeal Zwayne: Foreigner, basically you know.
• 33:19
  Emeal Zwayne: So, uh, yeah, I, I hear what you're saying about that aspect of getting humility mark.
• 33:24
  Emeal Zwayne: You keep looking at me, funny.
• 33:25
  Emeal Zwayne: What do you?
• 33:26
  Oscar Navarro: whenever I mentioned dunning kruger here thatuger here, it makes you laugh.
• 33:33
  Mark Spence: Because this is the whole idea of Go ahead no, I mean, we had lunch with Bruce Garner, ray's pastor and go back even further.
• 33:43
  Mark Spence: I remember talking to Chad Williams, our Navy SEAL friend, and I said you know, I don't think there's a woman in the world that can beat me up.
• 33:48
  Mark Spence: I think this is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.
• 33:50
  Oscar Navarro: And he said he goes.
• 33:50
  Oscar Navarro: Well, you know, I don't think there's a woman in the world that can beat me up.
• 33:51
  Oscar Navarro: I think this is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.
• 33:52
  Mark Spence: And he said he goes.
• 33:53
  Mark Spence: Well, he goes.
• 33:54
  Mark Spence: I understand, I mean, there's not a man in the world that I'm afraid of and I went.
• 33:58
  Mark Spence: Yeah, I would have never said that, but anyways, I just think, I don't know.
• 34:05
  Mark Spence: I just don't think that a woman can beat me up.
• 34:08
  Oscar Navarro: There's one in this room that beats you up.
• 34:10
  Mark Spence: I know who will be able to put me in a pretzel.
• 34:12
  Mark Spence: But he said, Mark, you are so far removed from the ability of women with ultimate fighting and what they're able to do, and this is exactly what you're talking about with our vertical knowledge and our horizontal ability.
• 34:24
  Mark Spence: Bless you, my child.
• 34:28
  Ray Comfort: I got beaten up by a woman in Santa Monica, mark, don't you remember that?
• 34:31
  Emeal Zwayne: She came out like a bat out of heaven.
• 34:34
  Ray Comfort: If I get beaten up, she gets beaten up.
• 34:36
  Ray Comfort: But that makes sense.
• 34:37
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, okay, she bent down and beat me up, yeah.
• 34:39
  Emeal Zwayne: Ray has a fear of a woman.
• 34:41
  Ray Comfort: No man.
• 34:43
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, mark, deborah would destroy you, deborah.
• 34:45
  Emeal Zwayne: By the way, she was a purple belt jujitsu champion in all of Britain.
• 34:51
  Emeal Zwayne: Right, deborah?
• 34:52
  Emeal Zwayne: Did I get that right?
• 34:53
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah?
• 34:54
  Ray Comfort: Deborah, how much down from the?
• 34:56
  Emeal Zwayne: black belt, is that Not much?
• 34:58
  Ray Comfort: Two you could just spray your belt with black paint, but she's beaten black belt guys oh really, yeah, she's taken Right.
• 35:06
  Emeal Zwayne: Or women, something like that, yeah, anyway, if you're looking for a jujitsu fighter, grab her, grab her At your shit.
• 35:11
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, beat your pastor up yeah.
• 35:17
  Emeal Zwayne: So anyway, but that's good, Mark.
• 35:19
  Emeal Zwayne: So you're learning, Mark.
• 35:20
  Mark Spence: Yeah, proverbs 12.1, I said it earlier, it's whoever loves discipline loves knowledge.
• 35:24
  Mark Spence: But whoever hates correction is stupid.
• 35:27
  Mark Spence: That's what you said.
• 35:27
  Ray Comfort: Stupid.
• 35:32
  Oscar Navarro: Stupid.
• 35:32
  Oscar Navarro: I think a good question to ask yourselves in any conversation, any situation is what don't I know?
• 35:36
  Oscar Navarro: If someone's trying to correct you about your behavior, about your disposition, it's like what don't I know about myself?
• 35:44
  Oscar Navarro: What am I not seeing in myself?
• 35:46
  Oscar Navarro: If you're having a conversation with somebody about a topic, to be able to go into that conversation, what don't I know?
• 35:52
  Oscar Navarro: I think to have a teachable heart is to look for opportunities to gain not just knowledge but wisdom, Because knowledge and wisdom are two very separate things.
• 36:02
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, yeah, remember that saying Knowledge is a tomato is a fruit, wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad.
• 36:07
  Emeal Zwayne: That's right, yeah, you know, I know, I was just I forgot what I was going to say.
• 36:15
  Ray Comfort: Well, it's a good thing you prepared.
• 36:16
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, always be prepared, yeah go ahead, ray say something.
• 36:21
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, here's something interesting.
• 36:22
  Ray Comfort: There's one word that's an absolute destroyer.
• 36:25
  Ray Comfort: It's a gatling gun, destroys teachability.
• 36:28
  Ray Comfort: And I notice it comes up a lot when I'm witnessing, where some guy will say, look, I'm totally convinced what you're saying, I'm believing what you're saying, but that's the gatling gun.
• 36:39
  Ray Comfort: That little word Absolutely destroys everything that came before it.
• 36:43
  Ray Comfort: And yet the Bible takes it and uses the word, but in such a wonderful way in Romans 6, 23.
• 36:48
  Ray Comfort: Wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
• 36:53
  Ray Comfort: So, yeah, so when someone's counseling us, we've got to stay away from.
• 36:58
  Emeal Zwayne: But yeah, yeah, listen, you know, be intent on, you know, be a wisdom collector.
• 37:06
  Emeal Zwayne: You know people collect things.
• 37:08
  Emeal Zwayne: I have a file.
• 37:09
  Emeal Zwayne: I have a file called quotes.
• 37:11
  Emeal Zwayne: I love, uh, our friend thomas pertell he calls it notable quotables.
• 37:15
  Emeal Zwayne: Right, he's, he's got a file and so I, I have that file and I grab quotes and I just put them in there.
• 37:21
  Emeal Zwayne: I love it.
• 37:22
  Emeal Zwayne: It's, it's such a.
• 37:23
  Emeal Zwayne: I mean, obviously, if my phone were to go on the fritz and just kind of die, I, I, the one of the things I'd be most disheartened about is losing that file.
• 37:31
  Ray Comfort: Don't you back them up.
• 37:32
  Emeal Zwayne: No, it is what's wrong with you Go with the analogy you guys, I've lost all the time.
• 37:35
  Ray Comfort: No, no, I've totally lost respect for you, it's back.
• 37:38
  Ray Comfort: I back everything up on my phone and my iPad just immediately that I write it.
• 37:42
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, it's on the cloud.
• 37:52
  Mark Spence: Have you thought about well, and if you take it too deep I mean, god collects dust right that we, we are made from dust and something that we would discard, get rid of and despise inside of our homes, inside of our lives, dust, god says no, like the most worst thing, most worst thing is possibly the worst, the mostest is the worstest thing.
• 38:07
  Ray Comfort: Slice or sauce.
• 38:08
  Ray Comfort: That's one of the hardest words to say in the English language.
• 38:10
  Ray Comfort: How do you pronounce it?
• 38:11
  Ray Comfort: Worcestershire sauce.
• 38:14
  Mark Spence: We'll have to have Deborah correct us here afterward yeah, but God collects dust, he collects people.
• 38:20
  Mark Spence: If you would, I'm glad you qualified that.
• 38:24
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, and to be able to be the kind of person like I was talking about collecting quotes, but to collect wisdom.
• 38:30
  Ray Comfort: You see, that's a book Collect what that book you've got that file Wisdom oh yeah.
• 38:35
  Ray Comfort: What you do is you do the quote and do a little commentary on it.
• 38:39
  Ray Comfort: People love it.
• 38:40
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, 365-day devotional Easy wisdom, Ooh, easy wisdom, that's another Vance Abner quote how about Weesdom If?
• 38:47
  Mark Spence: How about wheeze, wheeze-dom?
• 38:48
  Mark Spence: If you want knowledge, go to school.
• 38:50
  Mark Spence: Yeah, if you want wisdom, get on your knees, van Savner.
• 38:53
  Emeal Zwayne: Oh, that's good, yeah, so you know to be that kind of person who recognizes, right, we've talked about it.
• 39:00
  Emeal Zwayne: If someone had 1% of all the knowledge in the universe, right?
• 39:03
  Oscar Navarro: I mean, imagine that no one has anywhere near that when would you put it In right confidence, brian, yeah, so practically speaking, you're a young man or woman and you spend the vast majority of your time in your living room, on your bed, on your phone, on your computer, on your iPad, you know, scrolling the internet, on YouTube, listening to podcasts and maybe you're listening to this one right now and you're like man.
• 39:31
  Oscar Navarro: I lack wisdom.
• 39:33
  Oscar Navarro: What do you do?
• 39:34
  Oscar Navarro: What are your next steps?
• 39:36
  Oscar Navarro: To surround yourself, to put yourself in a situation where you can grow, where you can become teachable?
• 39:43
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, well, we're living in a day and age where no one has any excuses because we have access to so much wisdom and knowledge.
• 39:51
  Emeal Zwayne: You know wisdom in terms of you know learning from others that have gone ahead of us, who have gained understanding through experience, through failure even and we have so much information that we can learn from that could help cultivate wisdom as well.
• 40:04
  Emeal Zwayne: And so I would say, be diligent in what you do with your time.
• 40:08
  Emeal Zwayne: You know, I was talking to a sister just yesterday and she was saying that she always wants to be learning, wants to be growing, that she feels like time is so precious and valuable to her that when she just is sitting around idle she wants to go crazy.
• 40:26
  Emeal Zwayne: So she's always wanting to learn and grow.
• 40:28
  Emeal Zwayne: So she's always listening to something, reading something, taking in understanding and information.
• 40:33
  Emeal Zwayne: And, oscar, you've been a great example of that.
• 40:34
  Emeal Zwayne: You're an avid reader and it comes out when you talk like that you have filled your heart and mind with truth and information, have processed it, have thought on it, have applied it to your life, and so it's so good to do that.
• 40:47
  Emeal Zwayne: Where do you spend your time?
• 40:50
  Emeal Zwayne: How do you spend your time?
• 40:53
  Emeal Zwayne: Are you feeding your soul and who are you surrounding yourself with?
• 40:55
  Emeal Zwayne: You know you always want to surround yourself with men or women, depending on your gender that are going to speak intimately into your life on topics Proverbs 13, 20,.
• 41:06
  Mark Spence: Walk with the wise and become wise, for a companion of fools suffers harm.
• 41:11
  Mark Spence: Yeah, surround yourself with people that are wiser than you.
• 41:14
  Mark Spence: Yeah, oscar's done that here.
• 41:19
  Emeal Zwayne: Why do you think he's so wise?
• 41:20
  Oscar Navarro: One for three he hangs out with us.
• 41:23
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, but what do you guys say to the person who says, look, I've asked people to, to disciple me and to to speak into my life and they just seem so busy because, you know, was it you, oscar, I think, who shared on the program where you said that, um, you know, when they ask, when they ask older people, the data, peer research yeah.
• 41:44
  Emeal Zwayne: What young people need.
• 41:45
  Emeal Zwayne: They say they need a mentor.
• 41:46
  Oscar Navarro: They need to speak into life.
• 41:47
  Emeal Zwayne: Young people agreed, and then they went back to the older people.
• 41:50
  Oscar Navarro: They said would you be interested in mentoring a younger person?
• 41:52
  Oscar Navarro: And they said no.
• 41:54
  Emeal Zwayne: Even though they're the ones that recognize that's what's needed.
• 41:57
  Oscar Navarro: So there's a gap.
• 41:58
  Oscar Navarro: There's a gap between people who recognize there is a need for discipleship, people who want discipleship and people who are willing to disciple.
• 42:06
  Oscar Navarro: I didn't mean to interrupt, no, I didn't mean to interrupt.
• 42:09
  Oscar Navarro: No, no, go ahead.
• 42:10
  Oscar Navarro: I would say it's a really good question.
• 42:11
  Oscar Navarro: I think the Wisdom Pyramid.
• 42:13
  Oscar Navarro: Brett McCracken wrote a book.
• 42:14
  Oscar Navarro: I know I've mentioned it a few times now.
• 42:15
  Oscar Navarro: It's a really good book.
• 42:17
  Oscar Navarro: It's a short read.
• 42:18
  Oscar Navarro: I want to say it's like 200 pages long.
• 42:20
  Ray Comfort: Maybe a little bit more.
• 42:20
  Ray Comfort: Well, do it if you want to say it.
• 42:26
  Oscar Navarro: Okay, I'll just the length, it's under 300 pages for sure, you guys are crazy.
• 42:32
  Oscar Navarro: Anyways, it's called the wisdom pyramid, and if you could imagine, we've all seen like the food pyramid, where it's like all the healthy food is at the bottom of the pyramid, it's the thickest part.
• 42:44
  Oscar Navarro: What you should eat most of All of the bad food, the high fructose corn syrup and sugar, is the top of the pyramid, what you should be eating least of.
• 42:52
  Oscar Navarro: And so in his book, Wisdom Pyramid, he goes through the reality that we have this pyramid in our lives too, and unfortunately we've inverted it.
• 43:00
  Oscar Navarro: We get most of our wisdom from the worst part of the pyramid and lose sight of the best part.
• 43:06
  Oscar Navarro: And so the top of the pyramid, he says, is social media, it's the Twitter, it's X, it's YouTube, it's Facebook, it's Instagram, and then next is the internet.
• 43:15
  Oscar Navarro: We want to know something, we go to Google and we research it, and then after that it's books, and then after that, nature and beauty, then the church, and the very bottom is the Bible.
• 43:24
  Oscar Navarro: And so his point in wisdom pyramid-.
• 43:25
  Ray Comfort: Oh, after that it's the podcast.
• 43:27
  Ray Comfort: The podcast, clearly.
• 43:28
  Oscar Navarro: But his point is in the wisdom pyramid is that we need to reorient our lives so that where we seek, where we spend our most time and seek wisdom is first and foremost the Bible, god's word, our daily bread, then through the local church and church tradition, then through nature and beauty and God's creation, then books, then internet, then social media.
• 43:52
  Oscar Navarro: So, to answer your question, maybe you don't have the opportunity for a one-to-one mentor.
• 43:59
  Oscar Navarro: You can still be intentional about surrounding your time with people who are further in life than you and are in places that you wanna be.
• 44:11
  Oscar Navarro: Find godly men in your lives or women in your lives, and maybe they don't have the time to disciple you, but I bet they have time to just get a cup of coffee.
• 44:20
  Oscar Navarro: Maybe it's not a full-blown discipleship program, doesn't matter.
• 44:25
  Oscar Navarro: Do what you can to surround yourself with people who you can glean from.
• 44:30
  Oscar Navarro: And if you can't listen, if you can't be around people, you can to surround yourself with people who you can glean from.
• 44:32
  Mark Spence: And if you can't listen, if you can't be around people, you can be around people who wrote books.
• 44:35
  Mark Spence: Yeah Right, Oscar had mentioned a book earlier in the episode here how People Change.
• 44:40
  Mark Spence: I immediately went on and purchased it right when he was done talking about it, because it stirred curiosity and interest inside of me.
• 44:46
  Mark Spence: So who knows what your situation and circumstance is?
• 44:48
  Mark Spence: Maybe there is legitimately nobody inside your life that can disciple you.
• 44:53
  Mark Spence: We'll be discipled by books.
• 44:55
  Mark Spence: Books are a great way.
• 44:58
  Emeal Zwayne: Yeah, I mean, I often tell people I was telling a couple last night I said when you read a book, you have a counselor in your house if it's a good, solid, sound book.
• 45:06
  Emeal Zwayne: And the thing is, is that that counselor, first of all, isn't charging you a bunch of money and you don't have to worry about their time and you don't have to worry about missing what they said, because it's right there, you can reread it, you can quote it, you can highlight it, you can memorize it.
• 45:19
  Emeal Zwayne: So, yeah, books are a great source.
• 45:22
  Emeal Zwayne: You're taking someone who is wise and who put in the heart and effort and energy to put their words in permanent print.
• 45:29
  Emeal Zwayne: That's what we have in God's Word.
• 45:32
  Emeal Zwayne: It's written right and we're getting life-changing truth that's divine and inspired.
• 45:36
  Emeal Zwayne: Obviously, people's writings aren't that, but there's truth to be gleaned from them and so you know reading's really good.
• 45:42
  Ray Comfort: I think what Jesus said unless you become a little child, you'll not enter the kingdom of God One.
• 45:46
  Ray Comfort: What are you looking at?
• 45:49
  Ray Comfort: No, I was going to agree with you.
• 45:52
  Ray Comfort: Finally, one virtue of a child is that they've got curiosity, absolute curiosity, want to know everything.
• 45:57
  Ray Comfort: I remember one of your daughters, julia, when we sat down and watched a movie.
• 46:01
  Ray Comfort: She was about six Old, black and white movie.
• 46:03
  Ray Comfort: She asked 176 questions, didn't even make it through the movie.
• 46:07
  Ray Comfort: But she has just grown in knowledge, because that's what she's like.
• 46:11
  Ray Comfort: She's just thirsting for truth.
• 46:14
  Ray Comfort: And that's how we should be when we read Scripture just thirsting for truth.
• 46:19
  Ray Comfort: And one thing that helps me is reading the Amplified Bible.
• 46:22
  Ray Comfort: You know, I've often mentioned it, the what the Amplified Bible?
• 46:24
  Ray Comfort: Louder Amplified Bible.
• 46:26
  Ray Comfort: When Sue and I read it it keeps the neighbors awake because it's so loud.
• 46:30
  Ray Comfort: That's a stupid joke, but yeah, it gives the original Greek and opens it up more, and you can read John 3.16 from a different perspective.
• 46:37
  Ray Comfort: And that's one key to being teachable is realizing you can take things from different perspectives.
• 46:41
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, that's good.
• 46:42
  Emeal Zwayne: And just to cry out to the Lord Lord, give me a teachable heart.
• 46:46
  Emeal Zwayne: Oh, yes, that too, yeah, you know that kind of little kind of thing.
• 46:51
  Emeal Zwayne: But I've often said that you know.
• 46:53
  Emeal Zwayne: We often say you know that I guess all I can do is pray.
• 46:56
  Emeal Zwayne: The most we can do is pray.
• 46:58
  Emeal Zwayne: The first thing we should do is pray.
• 46:58
  Emeal Zwayne: You cry out to the Lord and just Lord, give me a teachable heart, deal with me, you know, and surround me with people and the kinds of resources that are going to give me understanding.
• 47:10
  Emeal Zwayne: And God honors that he really does.
• 47:19
  Emeal Zwayne: And you'll come to realize that pride is just a destroyer.
• 47:21
  Emeal Zwayne: It does nothing but hinder you.
• 47:21
  Emeal Zwayne: It does nothing but alienate people from you.
• 47:22
  Emeal Zwayne: Because who wants to be around a prideful, stupid person, scripturally speaking, because they hate instruction?
• 47:28
  Emeal Zwayne: Correction, they're stupid.
• 47:30
  Emeal Zwayne: No one wants to be around someone like that.
• 47:31
  Emeal Zwayne: So you do alienate people, but if you show you have a teachable spirit, you might be surprised how many more of those people you thought didn't want to hang out with you actually do and would if you just have that heart.
• 47:43
  Ray Comfort: Just like putting a word here.
• 47:44
  Ray Comfort: If you want to grow in knowledge and things of God, listen to this podcast right from the beginning, because, guys, I have learned a lot from you three, just so much.
• 47:54
  Emeal Zwayne: Wow.
• 47:54
  Emeal Zwayne: Since we've done this podcast.
• 47:56
  Emeal Zwayne: Likewise, I thought about it distinctly recently.
• 47:59
  Emeal Zwayne: I thought, man, I really grow personally through the podcast, through hearing the wisdom that you guys have to share.
• 48:04
  Emeal Zwayne: No no you guys are more wise than me.
• 48:08
  Emeal Zwayne: I was talking about the cameraman.
• 48:09
  Emeal Zwayne: Oh, you guys are more wise than me.
• 48:12
  Emeal Zwayne: I was talking about the cameraman.
• 48:13
  Emeal Zwayne: Oh, you guys thought I was talking about you, but no, you know, it's really I have, because it's new, fresh insight and information.
• 48:24
  Ray Comfort: And people can always be confident that we have prepared for one of these.
• 48:26
  Mark Spence: I don't know for somebody who did zero prep for this.
• 48:29
  Ray Comfort: You've managed that pretty well.
• 48:30
  Ray Comfort: I think you should stop the prep.
• 48:32
  Ray Comfort: Yeah, god's great, get the prep easy.
• 48:35
  Emeal Zwayne: But you know also I'd say a takeaway from this too it's not just that we've, you know, we've learned from each other, but what has facilitated learning from each other, it's this fellowship.
• 48:44
  Emeal Zwayne: Right, we talk about it all the time.
• 48:45
  Emeal Zwayne: This is just this isn't a job.
• 48:51
  Emeal Zwayne: We're not working here.
• 48:52
  Emeal Zwayne: We're genuinely fellowshipping and because of that we've all grown and friends.
• 48:54
  Emeal Zwayne: That's what can happen.
• 48:55
  Emeal Zwayne: That's a part of having a teachable spirit is when you're willing to get into fellowship, and I often talk about this.
• 49:00
  Emeal Zwayne: That men love to hang out with other men, but that's all they do just hang out and talk about sports and silly, stupid carnal things.
• 49:10
  Emeal Zwayne: No, make it count.
• 49:12
  Emeal Zwayne: Talk about the Lord, get open about your lives, encourage each other, pray for each other.
• 49:16
  Emeal Zwayne: It will change your life in a big way.
• 49:19
  Emeal Zwayne: Amen, all right, all right, all right, all right Thank you for joining us.
• 49:26
  Emeal Zwayne: That's what you've learned, that's what you've grown in ridiculousness, don't forget, friends.
• 49:31
  Emeal Zwayne: 50 years of open air preaching everything I've learned the Living Waters mug, the Evidence Study Bible at livingwaterscom.
• 49:36
  Emeal Zwayne: And hey, hey, hey.
• 49:37
  Emeal Zwayne: Don't forget Joyful Mothers, for mothers with deep voices.
• 49:43
  Ray Comfort: Silly, check it out, it's for you too, ladies.
• 49:48
  Emeal Zwayne: But yeah, my beautiful wife Rachel's Instagram account and also Facebook and all that good stuff.
• 49:54
  Emeal Zwayne: So thank you for joining us, friends.
• 49:57
  Emeal Zwayne: We'll see you next time on the Living Waters Podcast, where we have no idea what we're doing, especially me today.