Latest / Time with God with John North / Growing Your Relationship With God Through Reading The Bible Pt. 4

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Growing Your Relationship With God Through Reading The Bible Pt. 4 · Time with God with John North

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  Speaker 1: Good morning. All this week we're talking about growing closer
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  Speaker 1: to God and specifically growing closer to God through His word,
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  Speaker 1: the Bible. And really, if you want to get closer
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  Speaker 1: to someone and they offer to spend time with you
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  Speaker 1: and talk with you, you would be dumb not to
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  Speaker 1: do that, wouldn't you?
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  Speaker 1: Of course you're going to spend time with them, and
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  Speaker 1: we've been talking about how if you want to grow
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  Speaker 1: closer to God, the Bible has to become central in
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  Speaker 1: your life, not just a little peripheral thing for when
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  Speaker 1: you go to church and the pastor's preaching, and you've
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  Speaker 1: got to find the passage in the Bible, or you're
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  Speaker 1: at your growth group, no, something that's central in your
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  Speaker 1: life really is something that kind of defines your way
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  Speaker 1: of thinking.
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  Speaker 1: And that only happens through being constantly in God's word,
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  Speaker 1: the Bible. Well, we've been talking this week about different
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  Speaker 1: ways how to make the Bible central in your life.
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  Speaker 1: We saw on Tuesday, spend time with God in His
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  Speaker 1: word each day, and we talked about how to do that.
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  Speaker 1: Then Wednesday, how to make the Bible central, renew your
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  Speaker 1: mind by memorising verses that speak into your life. We
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  Speaker 1: talked about how to do that.
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  Speaker 1: And today, how to make the Bible central in your life.
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  Speaker 1: Use the Bible when having spiritual conversations with other people.
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  Speaker 1: Use the Bible when having spiritual conversations with other people.
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  Speaker 1: When the apostle Paul wrote to Timothy in his 2nd
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  Speaker 1: letter to Timothy in the New Testament.
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  Speaker 1: He said this to him, preparing him for effective ministry
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  Speaker 1: into other people's lives. He said to him in verse
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  Speaker 1: 16 and 17 of chapter 3.
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  Speaker 1: All scripture, that's the Bible, all scripture is breathed out
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  Speaker 1: by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction,
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  Speaker 1: and for training in righteousness, so that the man of God,
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  Speaker 1: that's you, Timothy, may be complete and equipped for every
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  Speaker 1: good work.
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  Speaker 1: So if you want to have an impact in the
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  Speaker 1: lives of other people around you, you need to make
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  Speaker 1: God's words central in your life. And as you make
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  Speaker 1: God's words central in your life, the challenge from the
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  Speaker 1: Bible today to us is, as you're growing to know
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  Speaker 1: God more through His word, use the word when you're
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  Speaker 1: talking to others in spiritual conversations. Have you ever noticed
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  Speaker 1: how often Jesus did this? We might think, well, Jesus was.
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  Speaker 1: The Son of God, uh, can't he just speak on
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  Speaker 1: his own? Why does he need to quote the Bible? Look,
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  Speaker 1: Jesus quotes by memory from more than 70 different chapters
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  Speaker 1: of the Bible in just the conversations that are recorded
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  Speaker 1: in the Gospels for us. The Bible was a huge
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  Speaker 1: part of his communication to others when he was having
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  Speaker 1: spiritual conversations.
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  Speaker 1: You know, you have spiritual conversations with people who are
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  Speaker 1: just investigating, people who want to know more about Christianity,
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  Speaker 1: or people who are searching, people who are looking for
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  Speaker 1: God or want to know how to have a relationship
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  Speaker 1: with God, and you have spiritual conversations with your Christian
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  Speaker 1: friends too. All of these conversations should just be full
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  Speaker 1: of you saying, well, you know, the Bible says, and quoting,
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  Speaker 1: or just saying, let's just look at it and opening
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  Speaker 1: your Bible on your device or if you've got a
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  Speaker 1: Bible and just,
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  Speaker 1: Telling them, helping them see what God actually says about things,
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  Speaker 1: opening the Bible and reading a verse with someone, or
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  Speaker 1: quoting a verse from memory regarding what you're talking about
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  Speaker 1: is so powerful. Don't worry about trying to defend the Bible,
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  Speaker 1: just put it out there and God will use it
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  Speaker 1: in your conversations with people. And you know what, the
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  Speaker 1: more that you spend personal time in God's word.
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  Speaker 1: The more you're going to see how it applies to
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  Speaker 1: issues in your own life or issue in your friends' lives,
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  Speaker 1: and the more you start seeing how the Bible actually
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  Speaker 1: relates to your everyday life, the more your way of
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  Speaker 1: talking with people will just have in it what comes
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  Speaker 1: out of the Bible, and that makes you a person
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  Speaker 1: of spiritual impact in the lives of the people around you.
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  Speaker 1: Use the Bible when having spiritual conversations with other people.
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  Speaker 1: I'm John North. To
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  Speaker 2: go deeper in your faith, visit AFCI.com.au.