Latest / Time with God with John North / How Pain Has Brought Me Closer To God Pt. 5

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How Pain Has Brought Me Closer To God Pt. 5 · Time with God with John North

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  Speaker 1: Good morning. All this week I've been sharing with you
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  Speaker 1: 5 areas of my personal life where pain has pushed
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  Speaker 1: me towards God.
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  Speaker 1: Uh, I started off talking about how loneliness in my
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  Speaker 1: life has pushed me towards God, how financial difficulties have
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  Speaker 1: pushed me towards God. Then I shared about burnout and
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  Speaker 1: how that pushed me towards God. Yesterday I shared about
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  Speaker 1: the death of my dad and how that also has
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  Speaker 1: pushed me towards God. And today I want to share
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  Speaker 1: an area of my life that's pushed me towards God
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  Speaker 1: that you might not expect.
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  Speaker 1: You might not think this would push someone towards God,
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  Speaker 1: but it certainly has in my own life, and that
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  Speaker 1: is failure. Failure has pushed me towards God. And you know,
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  Speaker 1: as I sat down and started putting my notes together
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  Speaker 1: for this devotional with you and started thinking of failure
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  Speaker 1: in my life, it was actually pretty depressing.
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  Speaker 1: No one likes to just think of their failures, and
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  Speaker 1: I am a very positive person most of the time
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  Speaker 1: and don't dwell on my failures. But in thinking through them,
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  Speaker 1: I became so aware of how many times I've failed
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  Speaker 1: in my life, how many times, uh, I failed in
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  Speaker 1: being a witness for Jesus with people. I remember in
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  Speaker 1: my youth, someone even asking me, how does a person
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  Speaker 1: become a Christian?
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  Speaker 1: And yet I froze up and didn't know what to say,
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  Speaker 1: and the moment passed.
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  Speaker 1: I've failed in my own life to walk with God
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  Speaker 1: like I wanted to. So many times. I've had long
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  Speaker 1: periods of my life when I wasn't walking with God,
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  Speaker 1: wasn't spending time with God, uh, and my Christian life
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  Speaker 1: was really struggling.
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  Speaker 1: I think of times when I have failed people in
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  Speaker 1: my life. People who matter a lot to me, and
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  Speaker 1: yet I've let them down in so many ways. And
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  Speaker 1: you know, when you let someone down, it really feels horrible,
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  Speaker 1: doesn't it? Especially when you've let someone down who matters
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  Speaker 1: a lot to you. I've let my wife down, I've
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  Speaker 1: let my kids down. I've let my team down. There's
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  Speaker 1: so many things.
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  Speaker 1: Now don't get me wrong, I'm not living and wallowing
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  Speaker 1: in self-pity. My life as a whole has been full
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  Speaker 1: of joy, but I recognise how many times there has
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  Speaker 1: been failure in my life.
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  Speaker 1: And you know, when I've let people down, when I've
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  Speaker 1: hurt people, when I've failed God,
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  Speaker 1: When I've failed in my ministry, when I've had a
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  Speaker 1: series of great preaching engagements and God has worked so
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  Speaker 1: powerfully in places, and then I've come to another place
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  Speaker 1: and I've just relied on that and basically relied on
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  Speaker 1: myself and preached in my own power and have crashed
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  Speaker 1: and burned. I mean, there's so many different ways that
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  Speaker 1: I've failed, and yet, in all of those things, I've
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  Speaker 1: learned to recognise, yes, I failed and I'm going to
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  Speaker 1: fail again.
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  Speaker 1: But there is forgiveness with the people in my life
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  Speaker 1: and with God. The people in my life. How many
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  Speaker 1: times has my wife forgiven me? How many times have
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  Speaker 1: my kids forgiven me, my friends, my team.
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  Speaker 1: Finding forgiveness from people in the family of God is
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  Speaker 1: such an experience of God. God's reality in the lives
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  Speaker 1: of the people in my life, right? You remember the
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  Speaker 1: apostle Paul saying, forgive one another just as God in
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  Speaker 1: Christ has forgiven you.
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  Speaker 1: Love one another and all these verses in the Bible
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  Speaker 1: that talk about our relationships with one another who are Christians.
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  Speaker 1: It's taught me to ask for forgiveness, it's hard to
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  Speaker 1: ask for forgiveness, but do you know, when you ask
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  Speaker 1: for forgiveness, that is a spiritual act.
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  Speaker 1: And the forgiveness that comes is also a spiritual act.
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  Speaker 1: You can't control whether someone forgives you, but you can
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  Speaker 1: ask for forgiveness. You can accept forgiveness, sometimes that's hard
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  Speaker 1: as well, you want to beat yourself up and not
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  Speaker 1: accept forgiveness.
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  Speaker 1: You want to learn from your mistakes.
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  Speaker 1: And you also want to learn to ask God for forgiveness.
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  Speaker 1: And you know, when God forgives you and draws you close,
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  Speaker 1: your desire to be close to God goes through the roof.
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  Speaker 1: Your commitment to spending time with Him.
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  Speaker 1: You also learn to forgive others.
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  Speaker 1: You also learn to forgive others. Remember Jesus taught us
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  Speaker 1: to pray, forgive us our sins as we forgive those
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  Speaker 1: who sin against us. So what will draw you close
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  Speaker 1: to God, even your own failure, will draw you close
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  Speaker 1: to God. Don't ignore these things in your life. The
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  Speaker 1: pain points. Don't let them push you away from God.
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  Speaker 1: Let them draw you to God. That has been my experience.
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  Speaker 1: I'm John North.
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  Speaker 2: To go deeper in your faith, visit AFCI.com.au.