August 29, 2024 • 45 mins
Join Ross Bettis and Kendall Meek as they explore the topic of the believer hearing from God with more clarity.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Well Ross, welcome back.
(00:12):
Thank you.
Glad to have you back.
We had a lot of good comments about our last conversation.
Yes.
From people who watched it, not only in the church, but other places.
So I think this is going to be something people will look forward to, another conversation
with Ross.
Yes.
You gave me a little bit of a heads up on what you wanted to talk about today.
(00:33):
Yes sir.
Really piqued my interest because this is a topic that everyone is going to be curious
about that everyone wants to get better at.
Yes.
So would you like to go ahead and bring the point of conversation you want to bring today?
Yes, so the question that just kind of dropped in my heart that I wanted to share, ask you
(01:00):
about, well let me just preface it by this.
I hadn't been here long, but I've been a member for a month.
And I'm so excited to come and hear because I'm learning so much.
And you know, been in the church a long time, called into the ministry, ordained in the
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Baptist church, but I'm learning so much and it's exciting because God is so real.
Amen.
And I believe God is present with us.
And so one of the big questions that I needed some input and some guidance on to just kind
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of help clear things up for me is how does God speak to us?
And I know he speaks to everybody differently, but I do know that John 424, God is a spirit.
I do know 2 Corinthians 317, we are spirits.
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I guess in Jeremiah, I knew you before the foundation of the world.
Well what did God know?
God knew our spirits.
I think spirits are eternal.
They're neither created nor destroyed.
Some spirits will go to stay with their Lord Jesus.
The others would go with their Lord Satan.
But we are spirits.
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God is a spirit.
So I believe when he speaks, he speaks to our spirit.
Now sometimes our mind, feelings, emotions might get in the way from you hearing clearly
from your spirit.
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But I just wanted you to kind of give me some guidance.
And I'm sure God speaks in different ways.
I'll be honest with you, I remember we were at Grambling State University.
My best friend from kindergarten had a college ministry and they were having a Mardi Gras
thing in the spring.
(03:14):
And so we were out witnessing.
And I was looking for scripture and I couldn't find it.
And a breeze came and put the pages right on the page that I needed to share what it
was I was trying to share.
And so that was God speaking.
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I know it.
And I thought it was amazing.
But the longer I live, the more I'm finding out God is amazing.
And so just wanted some guidance about how God speaks to us.
One of the realities is people lie on God all the time from the pulpit.
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God said this, God, and God hadn't said that because God can't lie.
If God said it's going to happen, period.
Sometimes it's a ploy of manipulation.
I think oftentimes in marriages, a man may say, well, God told me to say this and you're
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supposed to do this.
And again, just another ploy of manipulation.
So as our overseer, our under shepherd, what's the guidance you have for your flock and on
how to hear God?
(04:41):
So you brought up some important points.
We'll start with the one where you spoke the truth that we are spirits.
So we're created in the image and likeness of God.
God is a spirit.
We are a spirit.
And I do believe that we have a beginning.
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Adam had a beginning.
He was created.
But you're right.
What God calls into being is eternal.
And so our spirit cannot be destroyed.
That's true.
That's one of the reasons we have a doctrine that you referred to of eternal conscious
punishment for people who refuse to submit to the lordship of Jesus Christ.
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They're punished eternally because they're away from the life-giving presence of God
by their own choosing.
And yet, because they've been brought into existence and God has designed things such
that the human spirit, once it comes into existence, is eternal in nature, they have
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to be kept someplace where they can't ruin his plans to create a utopia on the earth.
But once we're born again, so our spirit is called into being through the choice of a
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man and a woman, procreation, and we inherit spiritual death.
So once we are convicted of our sin by the Holy Spirit, that's one of the jobs of the
Holy Spirit is to convict the world of sin.
That's one of the reasons people hate Christians so much.
And Christianity is because of the guilt that is brought about by the message of Jesus Christ
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in unbelievers.
But once we're born again, God takes up residence, God calls our spirit to life, and he makes
a home in us.
So the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 6 that God's spirit and our spirit become one.
This is the point of Jesus' prayer in John 17 that just as you are in me, God, and I
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am in you, Jesus is praying to God the Father that they may be one just as we are one.
And so once we're born again, our spirit is called to life, God creates something new,
he takes up residence within the inside of us, we have all of God we're ever going to
have, we permanently live in the presence of God.
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And so God is always communicating, right?
He's always communicating all kinds of things that the point of Christian discipleship is
developing the skill to better partner with the will of God.
Say that one more time, I think that's very, very profound and probably needs to be on
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every television and radio in the country.
Can you say that, make that statement one more time?
Christian discipleship.
Christian discipleship is the training ground where we become more skilled and better equipped
to know, to be able to discern the will of God.
And so I'm going to say that distinct from like hearing the voice of God.
(08:18):
Okay.
You hear it referred to a lot like that.
You know, most people do not hear the voice of God.
I think it's more precise to say we discern the will of God, you know, and that's a skill
that you can develop.
Now there are gifts of the Holy Spirit that some people receive where they do kind of
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hear God speaking, like the gift of prophecy, words of wisdom, words of knowledge, these
types of things.
But even then it's not like an audible voice.
It's a discerning.
Right.
And what the hard part is, and I say this all the time, I believe God is always trying
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to speak to me.
So the problem is that I, the problem isn't that I lack faith in God speaking, it's that
I lack faith in my ability to hear him correctly.
And I think there's a healthy amount of humility that all of us need to carry with us that
God is trying to give expression to his will, to his people all the time.
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But every one of us have this thing called self-interest that will cause us many times
to hear things that God isn't communicating and like you say, attach them to God.
Or when we're hearing God, we attach extra things to it that he never intended when he
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originally said it.
And I'll show you some examples of that in scripture.
So the weak part of the link is that part of our being you described, our soul, our
mind, our will, and our emotions.
And so these are the parts of the equation that need to get trained, that need to be
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brought under the yoke of Christian discipleship so that we become better and better skilled
at giving expression to the unique thing God's wanting to do through Ross, the unique thing
that God's wanting to do through Kendall.
I have to discern that, you know, and that's a skill that's developed and acquired over
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time, you know.
That made me think about something.
When I went to Africa, well, no, let me back up.
I'm a three-time veteran of foreign wars.
And I remember my mother thought I was crazy when I went to officer candidate school and
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went to the infantry.
The first war I was enlisted, I was a private and I was a military police.
And she said, you must have lost your mind.
Now you want to be an infantry officer.
So, my third tour, my second tour in Afghanistan, I was in church and oftentimes God speaks
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to me doing praise and worship.
Get caught up in the praise and worship.
Your hands are lifted and you know, maybe you're crying, maybe you're completely focused
on God and then you can just hear this something inside you.
And so, what I heard was God is going to take you out of your house and place you in a land
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that he will show you.
Just like the scripture that's in Genesis or Exodus.
Abraham.
Abraham, yes.
So, in this one song, I just, because I was fighting my hardest to pass the bar.
I had failed it in Alabama.
I was taking it in Michigan.
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And I was divorced at that time.
I had to pay child support.
And I'm like, I've got to pass the bar exam so I can start making some money so I can
not be behind on child support again.
And I thought the way I was going to do it, pass the bar, start practicing law.
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Well God had another plan.
And so, doing that after I'm going to take you to a land that I will show thee.
Inside I was thinking, but I want to practice law.
But then I kind of just felt not my will.
Thy will be done.
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God, I'll give you this Juris Doctor degree.
And when you're ready for me to practice, then you give it back to me.
And so, God and I had this conversation doing praise and worship.
And the next thing you know, I'm back in the military.
They're sending me to Afghanistan.
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At the end of the tour in Afghanistan, they called and said, Betis, we need somebody to
go to Africa for two years.
I'm like, I don't know why you're calling me.
I'm trying to practice law.
I'm trying to practice law before I got back in the military, before my unit got activated
to go to Afghanistan.
I said, but I got to pray over this.
And I guess, as you know, there's a scripture, let the peace of God rule your heart.
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And after I prayed over it, I heard him or felt him say, yep, that's what I want you
to do.
And so when I got to Africa, I ended up hooking up with an orphanage.
And that's when I realized this is why I had to get you back into the military.
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This is why I had to get you to Africa.
Because James, I can't remember where, maybe it's James two or three, true religion is
to minister to the orphans and the widows in their time of need.
And so, you know, I'm in Africa, there's an orphanage of about 50 kids, and they were
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being supported by a Christian missionary group.
And that group had informed the pastor they're getting ready to go to Haiti.
And so that was the marriage.
And really, I considered it the greatest honor because that pastor, you know, being African,
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not American, they don't have Medicaid, Medicare welfare, they have none of that.
If you don't work in Africa, you don't eat.
And he's got 50 kids to feed and to house and to school.
And God partnered us up and fed those kids, housed them and schooled them.
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And so that's, so I guess what I'm sharing is one of the instances when God spoke to
me, and I know he knows how to speak to his children.
Right.
Yeah.
Okay, so that triggered two thoughts in me.
So we're doing the Sermon on the Mount on Sunday mornings right now.
Yes.
The very first step in the Sermon on the Mount is, blessed are the poor in spirit, for they
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will see God.
Okay.
So in the story that you described, you had your plan for your life, God had a different
plan.
You had to be willing to let go of something that was very important to you in order to
step into the kingdom plans and purposes of God.
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Right.
You had to become willing, you had to be willing to become poor in spirit, being willing to
open your hand and lose everything, even though you didn't know what was on the other side
or why.
So blessed are the poor in spirit, for they will see God.
God will reveal himself to those who are willing to lose everything.
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The story of the rich young ruler is the story of a man who is willing to do everything but
one thing in order to be saved.
And so because he wasn't willing to become poor in spirit, he did not get to participate
in the kingdom plans and purposes of God.
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And Jesus says in Mark chapter 10, he says it's so clear.
Anyone who leaves family, jobs for me will receive a hundred fold in this life and eternal
life and life to come.
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Jesus had a plan for the rich young ruler that he couldn't execute if he was holding
on to that thing that was keeping him from being willing to be poor in spirit and receive
something better God had in store for him.
And so the other thing with hearing God and being to step into the plans and purposes
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of God, I can't remember the preacher's name.
He's a famous preacher.
He was in like the the righteous brothers band, but he became a preacher and he had
this saying faith is spelled R I S K.
So becoming poor in spirit has this primal risk attached to it because at the end of
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the day we're opening our hands and we're letting go control of our lives and giving
our lives over to someone else.
And there's a huge risk attached with that and it's really painful.
You know, so the next line in the Sermon on the Mount is I'm kind of preaching my sermon
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on Sunday.
Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted.
So whenever we take that risk and let go, it would have been painful for the rich young
ruler to sell all of his possessions and give his money away.
It's not there ain't no doubt about it.
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That would have been a difficult, painful thing to do.
There would have been a morning right associated with it.
But then the next line, they will be comforted.
The word is paracol Paracol a.o.
It's how the Holy Spirit is referred to as the divine paraclete in scripture because
it's based on that Greek word to come alongside of.
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So in the Greek, the the insinuation is if we're willing to become born spirit, God will
reveal himself.
There's going to be a pain attached to what he's going to ask us to do because we're going
to feel like we're losing something.
But if we follow through, he will send his Holy Spirit and the English word is comfort.
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It's a combination of two words.
Come Fortis.
Fortis is where we get the word fortress from.
In other words, the Holy Spirit is released to our side to bring us God's strength.
You see, you follow through that process and we're we're not only here, God, we obey God.
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He is going to bring us.
He's going to take the little puny trash that we bring.
We can't see that we're not bringing anything to the equation in a relationship with God,
but need.
So he's just asking us for our trash and he's going to bring a supernatural power to do
something great in the world.
And so that's why that's why that story you told me is the perfect illustration of that,
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you know, but hearing God a lot of times, that's what it's like.
It's it's he's going to call us to some great risk that we don't that's going to make us
feel very uncomfortable and it will be painful.
But the end result is God's going to do something powerful for the kingdom, you know.
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Amen.
I think that's not a popular message that's that doesn't tickle people's hearts and minds.
It's challenging.
Nobody wants to lose.
You know, we're Americans, we want to win.
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And I guess we're so short sighted that we don't see that we will win.
Yeah.
That we do have the victory in Christ.
God is trying to get us to the ultimate victory.
And even in this situation, we think we're losing you're not even losing.
Right.
You're you're being rid of some weights that are slowing you down from accomplishing that
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thing that God wants you to accomplish.
And I guess you preach that Sunday kind of perfectly.
Yeah.
And and the hard part is how do I know people want to know for sure that they're hearing
God correctly.
You know, and that's the hard part about hearing and then obeying.
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I've seen so many people, like you mentioned, miss it.
I've missed it.
And at the same time, I know I've heard from God at times.
And boom, it happens.
And it's crazy.
But how you never know for sure.
And that's why there's risk involved.
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It's a risk because I'm I kind of feel like this is what God's wanting to do.
I'm not 100 percent sure.
And so how do you know?
You know, and so there's a lot of different ways that we can get tripped up and falter
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and not make the progress that God wants us to make, because people want certainty.
And God has designed things so that only faith, which has risk built into it, will produce
God's power being released into the circumstances.
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You're going to have to do it before you know for sure.
Faith is a substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen.
Right.
Yes.
So that risk is built in the equation.
And you're never going to be 100 percent sure.
You know, and it's designed that way.
Well, and so I don't know how much time we have left.
That made me think about all things work together for the good of them that love the Lord and
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are called according to his purpose.
And in, I don't know, in the clergy, there's some people that consider themselves good
God preachers.
They don't believe in negative stuff.
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And I've watched my prior pastor kind of transition from a good God preacher to understand that
some of the things that happen happen necessarily to get you to the place that God wants you,
which is complete dependency upon him, not depending on mammon or money or stuff or retirement,
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but depending on God.
And that the breaking down process.
But, you know, that's implicit in the core idea of Christianity.
The fundamental idea of Christianity is Jesus' instructions to his disciples.
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If anyone would come after me, he must first be willing to take up his cross and follow
me.
Anyone who's not willing to lose, anyone who's willing to lose their life will save it.
Anyone who's not willing to lose their life will forfeit it.
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These ideas.
Suffering is a non-optional part of the equation.
And the very thing that clouds our ability to hear God, which is self-interest, selfishness,
I want to hear things from God that are going to benefit me.
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So if God does speak to me, again, my natural inclination is I'm going to twist that somehow
to where it works to my advantage.
You know what I mean?
Which is what you're doing.
And we all have that almost irresistible component to our soul, our carnal man.
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Selfishness is an extremely powerful force in every one of us.
And so the bad things, the bad God sermons are about God's desire to destroy selfishness,
living for self-interest, which is what corrupts everything on the earth.
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It corrupts governments, it corrupts marriages, it corrupts businesses.
These are full of people who are driven by self, purely self-interest.
And so God is determined to destroy that and the process is going to be very uncomfortable.
And many times, many times it, some of us are so self-willed and committed to our selfishness
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and narcissistic tendencies that God will allow some really bad things to happen, to
take us through the fire so that he can bring us into the inheritance that he wants to,
that he wants to share with us.
You know the scripture, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.
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Matthew 26, 40 through 43.
So the 40th verse, then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping.
Couldn't you men keep watch with me for one hour?
He asked Peter.
Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.
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The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.
So with the selfishness, that's the weakness of the flesh.
Jesus had expressed his will to his disciples to pray with him so it wasn't like, I don't
know if I'm hearing God, no, God spoke to you.
And because of their flesh, they weren't able to follow through with those instructions
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and that's the perfect example.
God's going to speak to people all the time.
And maybe sometimes he doesn't speak because he knows you're not ready to hear it yet.
And so it goes back to Christian discipleship.
The number one thing we can do to hear God's voice clearly is to be committed at the Christian
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disciplines.
You know, God has already spoken to us primarily through his word.
It's kind of a Captain Obvious statement, I know, but the more skilled we become at
understanding the word of God, the better we're going to be able to discern with more
clarity what God's will is.
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And then even when we're certain we know God's will, that needs to be given expression within
the body of Christ so that others can help us learn to understand not only what God said
but what that means.
And you've got plenty of examples of that in Scripture.
There's an example in Acts chapter 20 where Paul, it's been revealed to Paul that he's
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to go to Jerusalem and that chains and imprisonment are awaiting him there.
So Paul knows that and he's going to Jerusalem anyway.
You know, he says, I'm constrained by the Holy Spirit.
So God has expressed his will by giving Paul this unction.
And then to the very next chapter, God speaks to a prophet named Agabus.
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Agabus reveals to Paul and other believers that God has told him that chains and imprisonment
are awaiting Paul in Jerusalem and that he's not supposed to go.
And so it says they pleaded with Paul not to go to Jerusalem because God spoke the chains
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and imprisonment were awaiting him there.
Paul is hearing God correctly.
They're both hearing the same thing.
They both have different opinions about what to do.
And so, but that process is important.
Paul winds up continuing on to Jerusalem.
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He does get imprisoned.
But once again, there are four books of the New Testament that would not have been written
if Paul had not been committed to that isolation in that period of imprisonment.
You know?
And so it's, you know, and it says that in the book of 1 Corinthians as well, 14, that
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when the gifts of the Holy Spirit are functioning and people are prophesying, do it in an orderly
way and then let others weigh what is said.
So this is something people who have that gift of hearing God clearly and the more skilled
you become at it, that still doesn't mean that you know it all.
God told me you're supposed to sell me your church for blah, blah, blah.
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Right.
It works.
Right.
You know?
We submit this to others.
We let them weigh in on it and determine what ought to be done about it.
Because God has built, baked into the equation not only our need for God, but our need for
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others.
And that's one of the things that ties us together in community and relationship is
my need for you, your need for me.
And God wants others to share in whatever he's revealing.
It's something that he wants to do to bring people together, you know?
That makes me think.
So before the pandemic, I was streaming my church services at my church and it's about
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maybe about three or four months ago, pastor said, and it just, it just hit me like that
was for you.
He said, a lot of you have been streaming, which is good, but don't forsake the gathering
of yourselves.
It's time for some of you guys to get back in church.
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And I knew that was for me.
It just, it resonated with my spirit, kind of like you take a guitar and you grab the
string and it makes the sound because you grab that string.
It's like it hits your, your tongue, your tone or your tune.
And you know that it's, oh, it's time.
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And that's, there's a verse in first John, God's spirit bears witness with your spirit
that we're children of God.
But that principle applies to other things.
There's an inner knowing in our gut, you know, Jesus says out of your innermost man, what
it literally means is out of your belly will flow rivers of living water.
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And so, you know, I tend to kind of feel the, that witness in my gut, you know, and that's
a real thing.
You know, sometimes people get discouraged from believing they can hear God because they
do feel like God has spoken to them and that thing didn't happen or it didn't go the way
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that they saw it happening.
And so they get discouraged.
But whenever God speaks, you know, it's, it's rarely some kind of a promise.
It's usually an invitation.
God is revealing he wants to do something.
And there are lots of things that have to come together for that thing to come to fruition.
You know, you have to do your part.
Other people have to do their parts.
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And so sometimes that thing, God, God really might wanted to have done something, but people
weren't willing to get an agreement with him, you know, so we shouldn't be discouraged.
If we really feel like we were discerning God's will and that thing doesn't happen.
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Well, that's, that's going to be normal.
Jesus in the garden is praying father, please let this cut path pass from me.
Yes.
Yet not my will, but I will be done.
Yes.
The thing that Jesus wanted to happen.
Yes.
Did not happen.
Yes.
So, uh, that's just a part of discipleship, but all things being equal, continuing steady
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and faithful will bring about my skill to communicate the will of God to others in ways
that bears witness with their spirit.
You know, it's like when anytime you started anything new, like a sport, you're going to
stink at it at first and people are going to beat you all the time.
But the longer you stick with it, the more you learn the skills, the more you learn how
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to win and the more good results happen.
So that's a lot of that.
That's kind of how discerning the will of God works in the same kind of a way.
Nobody's good at it at first.
Everybody hears God telling them crazy things early on until they mature and, and get more
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sophisticated in, in things.
So I know over the 30 you think or well, this camera will keep going forever.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
No matter how long the conversation.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
All right.
All right.
Well, I think, I think that kind of answers it.
Um, uh, God's speech usually is an invitation.
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Yeah.
That you either have to accept or not, uh, accept and the continuing steady and faithful,
uh, will bring about ways to bear witness with their spit.
Well help me with that.
So I was writing your name, continuing steady and faithful will bring about, will become
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more skilled and sophisticated at communicating God's will to others.
And here's the thing, Ross, you're going to hear God in ways that I don't, you know?
And so I'm going to need to hear from God through you because you can see things that
I can't, you know?
But if you come at me crazy in some kind of a weird way, you know, I'm going to be less
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likely to receive it, you know?
And so the more sophisticated and skilled we get at not only hearing the voice of God,
but then communicating it to others, it increases what God is going to be capable to do within
our community.
Okay.
You know?
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Um, so in our communication, what, one of the things I'm doing is destroying the unbelief
in you.
You know what I mean?
So the, but even though the Bible says Jesus could work no miracles in a certain place
because of their unbelief.
So becoming more skilled in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, knowing how to communicate love
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to others.
And then growing in our knowledge and understanding of, of human relationships is kind of an important
thing about seeing that the will of God comes to fruition within the spheres of influence
where God places us because you know, it's like God wanted you to go to Africa, help
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with that orphanage.
You had to earn their trust, right?
They had to earn your trust in order to do the things that God did through and with you
there.
Yes.
And so that's usually how God is working.
He's bringing people together to work on things that bring about a better world for everyone.
You know?
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You know, saying that, uh, I'm from Alabama.
I spent 10 years in Michigan and everywhere else, but I didn't choose Hobbs.
I wouldn't choose Hobbs.
And I think Hobbs is a beautiful, unique community.
I think it's unique like none other, but I didn't choose Hobbs.
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I believe God chose Hobbs and I'm starting to believe he's just now starting to reveal
why he wants me here.
And, and, and I'm learning not to be anxious, just keep walking, heel to toe, and God will
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slowly reveal it when the time is yet.
Yeah.
And you come someplace for one reason that you think of and, and God already knows that's
not why I'm sitting in there.
But you know, that gets him there initially, but there's something else that I'm going
to do with him there.
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So I've seen that work in my life many times as well.
Like, uh, you know, it took me the longest time to submit to ordination in the United
Methodist Church.
I was just ordained in 2019 by the United Methodist Church because as a younger man,
the last thing I wanted was some bureaucratic clergy person telling, handing control of
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my ministry over to some bureaucratic clergy person that was going to make me move to the
middle of nowhere, uh, West Texas.
And so, you know, that's exactly what happened.
But those were five of the best years of my life.
You know, and so being willing to be poor in spirit, being willing to say not my will,
(39:45):
but thy will be done, you know, being willing to be poor in spirit opens the door for God
to bring you some of the best blessings you never would have received following your own
game plan.
You know, I do.
I think we're brothers.
Uh, give me the parallel of that.
I was at Tuskegee.
I was in ROTC doing well in ROTC.
(40:07):
I think they do a peer evaluation at the MS three year, military science three year, your
junior year.
And I may have been number one or two or three.
Anyway, in my mind, you know, as you're being introduced into the officer system of the
military, the commission officers, they started sharing with its OERs, officer evaluation
(40:34):
records.
And I think it's very subjective, but I said to myself in my junior year, I don't want
to be a part of a system where my commanding officer does an OER on me.
And maybe he doesn't like me because I didn't want to go to his house and drink beer.
I didn't want to go to this social function and you know, and I'm going to subject my
(40:59):
career to this.
I'm like, I don't want to be part of that system.
So I got out of ROTC says, no, I want to control my life.
And in my senior year, my national guard unit gets activated.
I'm headed to Iraq.
So it doesn't matter what you want to do.
(41:21):
ROT has his plan and he knows how to lead and guide his children.
And anyway, that's the best thing that ever happened to him.
I got saved in northern Saudi Arabia.
The Air Force was bombing Kuwait and that border with Iraq and the ground was shaking.
(41:45):
And you know, I realized that if I stole the airplane, I couldn't fly it.
If I could fly it and I stole it, I wouldn't be able to refuel it and get all the way back.
There was nothing I could do in my power other than submit to being a soldier in the war
and doing my best.
And the only way I would get back is when God said, now it's over.
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It's time for you to go back home.
Yeah.
And you know, it's also true.
You can have the clearest vision in the world.
But you cannot protect that vision from what other people are going to do to it.
You know what I mean?
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And there are people who try and protect their vision like crazy, but other people are going
to put their stamp on that vision.
And that's a part of God's plan.
You know, whether it's our lives, our decisions, our careers, it's all shared property.
You know, so it is.
And Jesus redeemed us from destruction.
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So he owns us.
Yep.
We are not our own.
That's right.
So have that way, Lord.
Let thy will be done.
And that's a scary thing to pray a lot of times.
It says explicitly in the Bible, Peter, when you were a young man, you did what you wanted
to do, but there's going to come a day where your hands will be bound and God will take
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you places you don't want to go.
You know, it's amazing.
So yeah.
Well, thanks, Ross.
Yes, great conversation.
Yes, sir.
Many more to come.
I'm sure.
Yes, sir.
You know, we haven't answered all the questions in the world, but I think that conversation
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is going to be helpful to people just learning to think about things in a little different
light.
So hearing from God is a very dynamic participatory process that is going to take great courage
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at the end of the day, not only to hear, but then to step out on it.
But that's where the supernatural power of God is released.
Not when we hear God.
Yes.
When we begin stepping out in obedience.
Yes.
And taking the risks and suffering the loss that comes with it a lot of time.
But that's what releases the power.
(44:19):
And God's power is amazing.
So Amen.
Amen.
I can only imagine Noah.
Everybody said he has lost his freaking mind building a boat in the desert.
Yep.
And look at how large it is.
You probably want to commit him to the I don't know what it's called, but they used to have
(44:44):
a mental.
Insane asylum.
Yeah.
Well, insane asylum.
Yeah.
Commit him for 30 day evaluation to see has he lost it.
But all the while he's hearing from God and he's acting on and he's doing exactly what
God told him to do.
Yeah.
Amen.
Amen.
Well, thank you, Pastor.
Thank you.
Well Ross, welcome back.
(00:12):
Thank you.
Glad to have you back.
We had a lot of good comments about our last conversation.
Yes.
From people who watched it, not only in the church, but other places.
So I think this is going to be something people will look forward to, another conversation
with Ross.
Yes.
You gave me a little bit of a heads up on what you wanted to talk about today.
(00:33):
Yes sir.
Really piqued my interest because this is a topic that everyone is going to be curious
about that everyone wants to get better at.
Yes.
So would you like to go ahead and bring the point of conversation you want to bring today?
Yes, so the question that just kind of dropped in my heart that I wanted to share, ask you
(01:00):
about, well let me just preface it by this.
I hadn't been here long, but I've been a member for a month.
And I'm so excited to come and hear because I'm learning so much.
And you know, been in the church a long time, called into the ministry, ordained in the
(01:24):
Baptist church, but I'm learning so much and it's exciting because God is so real.
Amen.
And I believe God is present with us.
And so one of the big questions that I needed some input and some guidance on to just kind
(01:49):
of help clear things up for me is how does God speak to us?
And I know he speaks to everybody differently, but I do know that John 424, God is a spirit.
I do know 2 Corinthians 317, we are spirits.
(02:09):
I guess in Jeremiah, I knew you before the foundation of the world.
Well what did God know?
God knew our spirits.
I think spirits are eternal.
They're neither created nor destroyed.
Some spirits will go to stay with their Lord Jesus.
The others would go with their Lord Satan.
But we are spirits.
(02:30):
God is a spirit.
So I believe when he speaks, he speaks to our spirit.
Now sometimes our mind, feelings, emotions might get in the way from you hearing clearly
from your spirit.
(02:52):
But I just wanted you to kind of give me some guidance.
And I'm sure God speaks in different ways.
I'll be honest with you, I remember we were at Grambling State University.
My best friend from kindergarten had a college ministry and they were having a Mardi Gras
thing in the spring.
(03:14):
And so we were out witnessing.
And I was looking for scripture and I couldn't find it.
And a breeze came and put the pages right on the page that I needed to share what it
was I was trying to share.
And so that was God speaking.
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I know it.
And I thought it was amazing.
But the longer I live, the more I'm finding out God is amazing.
And so just wanted some guidance about how God speaks to us.
One of the realities is people lie on God all the time from the pulpit.
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God said this, God, and God hadn't said that because God can't lie.
If God said it's going to happen, period.
Sometimes it's a ploy of manipulation.
I think oftentimes in marriages, a man may say, well, God told me to say this and you're
(04:20):
supposed to do this.
And again, just another ploy of manipulation.
So as our overseer, our under shepherd, what's the guidance you have for your flock and on
how to hear God?
(04:41):
So you brought up some important points.
We'll start with the one where you spoke the truth that we are spirits.
So we're created in the image and likeness of God.
God is a spirit.
We are a spirit.
And I do believe that we have a beginning.
(05:03):
Adam had a beginning.
He was created.
But you're right.
What God calls into being is eternal.
And so our spirit cannot be destroyed.
That's true.
That's one of the reasons we have a doctrine that you referred to of eternal conscious
punishment for people who refuse to submit to the lordship of Jesus Christ.
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They're punished eternally because they're away from the life-giving presence of God
by their own choosing.
And yet, because they've been brought into existence and God has designed things such
that the human spirit, once it comes into existence, is eternal in nature, they have
(05:59):
to be kept someplace where they can't ruin his plans to create a utopia on the earth.
But once we're born again, so our spirit is called into being through the choice of a
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man and a woman, procreation, and we inherit spiritual death.
So once we are convicted of our sin by the Holy Spirit, that's one of the jobs of the
Holy Spirit is to convict the world of sin.
That's one of the reasons people hate Christians so much.
And Christianity is because of the guilt that is brought about by the message of Jesus Christ
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in unbelievers.
But once we're born again, God takes up residence, God calls our spirit to life, and he makes
a home in us.
So the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 6 that God's spirit and our spirit become one.
This is the point of Jesus' prayer in John 17 that just as you are in me, God, and I
(07:09):
am in you, Jesus is praying to God the Father that they may be one just as we are one.
And so once we're born again, our spirit is called to life, God creates something new,
he takes up residence within the inside of us, we have all of God we're ever going to
have, we permanently live in the presence of God.
(07:31):
And so God is always communicating, right?
He's always communicating all kinds of things that the point of Christian discipleship is
developing the skill to better partner with the will of God.
Say that one more time, I think that's very, very profound and probably needs to be on
(07:55):
every television and radio in the country.
Can you say that, make that statement one more time?
Christian discipleship.
Christian discipleship is the training ground where we become more skilled and better equipped
to know, to be able to discern the will of God.
And so I'm going to say that distinct from like hearing the voice of God.
(08:18):
Okay.
You hear it referred to a lot like that.
You know, most people do not hear the voice of God.
I think it's more precise to say we discern the will of God, you know, and that's a skill
that you can develop.
Now there are gifts of the Holy Spirit that some people receive where they do kind of
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hear God speaking, like the gift of prophecy, words of wisdom, words of knowledge, these
types of things.
But even then it's not like an audible voice.
It's a discerning.
Right.
And what the hard part is, and I say this all the time, I believe God is always trying
(08:59):
to speak to me.
So the problem is that I, the problem isn't that I lack faith in God speaking, it's that
I lack faith in my ability to hear him correctly.
And I think there's a healthy amount of humility that all of us need to carry with us that
God is trying to give expression to his will, to his people all the time.
(09:23):
But every one of us have this thing called self-interest that will cause us many times
to hear things that God isn't communicating and like you say, attach them to God.
Or when we're hearing God, we attach extra things to it that he never intended when he
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originally said it.
And I'll show you some examples of that in scripture.
So the weak part of the link is that part of our being you described, our soul, our
mind, our will, and our emotions.
And so these are the parts of the equation that need to get trained, that need to be
(10:08):
brought under the yoke of Christian discipleship so that we become better and better skilled
at giving expression to the unique thing God's wanting to do through Ross, the unique thing
that God's wanting to do through Kendall.
I have to discern that, you know, and that's a skill that's developed and acquired over
(10:31):
time, you know.
That made me think about something.
When I went to Africa, well, no, let me back up.
I'm a three-time veteran of foreign wars.
And I remember my mother thought I was crazy when I went to officer candidate school and
(10:54):
went to the infantry.
The first war I was enlisted, I was a private and I was a military police.
And she said, you must have lost your mind.
Now you want to be an infantry officer.
So, my third tour, my second tour in Afghanistan, I was in church and oftentimes God speaks
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to me doing praise and worship.
Get caught up in the praise and worship.
Your hands are lifted and you know, maybe you're crying, maybe you're completely focused
on God and then you can just hear this something inside you.
And so, what I heard was God is going to take you out of your house and place you in a land
(11:48):
that he will show you.
Just like the scripture that's in Genesis or Exodus.
Abraham.
Abraham, yes.
So, in this one song, I just, because I was fighting my hardest to pass the bar.
I had failed it in Alabama.
I was taking it in Michigan.
(12:10):
And I was divorced at that time.
I had to pay child support.
And I'm like, I've got to pass the bar exam so I can start making some money so I can
not be behind on child support again.
And I thought the way I was going to do it, pass the bar, start practicing law.
(12:35):
Well God had another plan.
And so, doing that after I'm going to take you to a land that I will show thee.
Inside I was thinking, but I want to practice law.
But then I kind of just felt not my will.
Thy will be done.
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God, I'll give you this Juris Doctor degree.
And when you're ready for me to practice, then you give it back to me.
And so, God and I had this conversation doing praise and worship.
And the next thing you know, I'm back in the military.
They're sending me to Afghanistan.
(13:18):
At the end of the tour in Afghanistan, they called and said, Betis, we need somebody to
go to Africa for two years.
I'm like, I don't know why you're calling me.
I'm trying to practice law.
I'm trying to practice law before I got back in the military, before my unit got activated
to go to Afghanistan.
I said, but I got to pray over this.
And I guess, as you know, there's a scripture, let the peace of God rule your heart.
(13:43):
And after I prayed over it, I heard him or felt him say, yep, that's what I want you
to do.
And so when I got to Africa, I ended up hooking up with an orphanage.
And that's when I realized this is why I had to get you back into the military.
(14:04):
This is why I had to get you to Africa.
Because James, I can't remember where, maybe it's James two or three, true religion is
to minister to the orphans and the widows in their time of need.
And so, you know, I'm in Africa, there's an orphanage of about 50 kids, and they were
(14:28):
being supported by a Christian missionary group.
And that group had informed the pastor they're getting ready to go to Haiti.
And so that was the marriage.
And really, I considered it the greatest honor because that pastor, you know, being African,
(14:52):
not American, they don't have Medicaid, Medicare welfare, they have none of that.
If you don't work in Africa, you don't eat.
And he's got 50 kids to feed and to house and to school.
And God partnered us up and fed those kids, housed them and schooled them.
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And so that's, so I guess what I'm sharing is one of the instances when God spoke to
me, and I know he knows how to speak to his children.
Right.
Yeah.
Okay, so that triggered two thoughts in me.
So we're doing the Sermon on the Mount on Sunday mornings right now.
Yes.
The very first step in the Sermon on the Mount is, blessed are the poor in spirit, for they
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will see God.
Okay.
So in the story that you described, you had your plan for your life, God had a different
plan.
You had to be willing to let go of something that was very important to you in order to
step into the kingdom plans and purposes of God.
(16:06):
Right.
You had to become willing, you had to be willing to become poor in spirit, being willing to
open your hand and lose everything, even though you didn't know what was on the other side
or why.
So blessed are the poor in spirit, for they will see God.
God will reveal himself to those who are willing to lose everything.
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The story of the rich young ruler is the story of a man who is willing to do everything but
one thing in order to be saved.
And so because he wasn't willing to become poor in spirit, he did not get to participate
in the kingdom plans and purposes of God.
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And Jesus says in Mark chapter 10, he says it's so clear.
Anyone who leaves family, jobs for me will receive a hundred fold in this life and eternal
life and life to come.
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Jesus had a plan for the rich young ruler that he couldn't execute if he was holding
on to that thing that was keeping him from being willing to be poor in spirit and receive
something better God had in store for him.
And so the other thing with hearing God and being to step into the plans and purposes
(17:34):
of God, I can't remember the preacher's name.
He's a famous preacher.
He was in like the the righteous brothers band, but he became a preacher and he had
this saying faith is spelled R I S K.
So becoming poor in spirit has this primal risk attached to it because at the end of
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the day we're opening our hands and we're letting go control of our lives and giving
our lives over to someone else.
And there's a huge risk attached with that and it's really painful.
You know, so the next line in the Sermon on the Mount is I'm kind of preaching my sermon
(18:21):
on Sunday.
Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted.
So whenever we take that risk and let go, it would have been painful for the rich young
ruler to sell all of his possessions and give his money away.
It's not there ain't no doubt about it.
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That would have been a difficult, painful thing to do.
There would have been a morning right associated with it.
But then the next line, they will be comforted.
The word is paracol Paracol a.o.
It's how the Holy Spirit is referred to as the divine paraclete in scripture because
it's based on that Greek word to come alongside of.
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So in the Greek, the the insinuation is if we're willing to become born spirit, God will
reveal himself.
There's going to be a pain attached to what he's going to ask us to do because we're going
to feel like we're losing something.
But if we follow through, he will send his Holy Spirit and the English word is comfort.
(19:27):
It's a combination of two words.
Come Fortis.
Fortis is where we get the word fortress from.
In other words, the Holy Spirit is released to our side to bring us God's strength.
You see, you follow through that process and we're we're not only here, God, we obey God.
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He is going to bring us.
He's going to take the little puny trash that we bring.
We can't see that we're not bringing anything to the equation in a relationship with God,
but need.
So he's just asking us for our trash and he's going to bring a supernatural power to do
something great in the world.
And so that's why that's why that story you told me is the perfect illustration of that,
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you know, but hearing God a lot of times, that's what it's like.
It's it's he's going to call us to some great risk that we don't that's going to make us
feel very uncomfortable and it will be painful.
But the end result is God's going to do something powerful for the kingdom, you know.
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Amen.
I think that's not a popular message that's that doesn't tickle people's hearts and minds.
It's challenging.
Nobody wants to lose.
You know, we're Americans, we want to win.
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And I guess we're so short sighted that we don't see that we will win.
Yeah.
That we do have the victory in Christ.
God is trying to get us to the ultimate victory.
And even in this situation, we think we're losing you're not even losing.
Right.
You're you're being rid of some weights that are slowing you down from accomplishing that
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thing that God wants you to accomplish.
And I guess you preach that Sunday kind of perfectly.
Yeah.
And and the hard part is how do I know people want to know for sure that they're hearing
God correctly.
You know, and that's the hard part about hearing and then obeying.
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I've seen so many people, like you mentioned, miss it.
I've missed it.
And at the same time, I know I've heard from God at times.
And boom, it happens.
And it's crazy.
But how you never know for sure.
And that's why there's risk involved.
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It's a risk because I'm I kind of feel like this is what God's wanting to do.
I'm not 100 percent sure.
And so how do you know?
You know, and so there's a lot of different ways that we can get tripped up and falter
(22:37):
and not make the progress that God wants us to make, because people want certainty.
And God has designed things so that only faith, which has risk built into it, will produce
God's power being released into the circumstances.
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You're going to have to do it before you know for sure.
Faith is a substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen.
Right.
Yes.
So that risk is built in the equation.
And you're never going to be 100 percent sure.
You know, and it's designed that way.
Well, and so I don't know how much time we have left.
That made me think about all things work together for the good of them that love the Lord and
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are called according to his purpose.
And in, I don't know, in the clergy, there's some people that consider themselves good
God preachers.
They don't believe in negative stuff.
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And I've watched my prior pastor kind of transition from a good God preacher to understand that
some of the things that happen happen necessarily to get you to the place that God wants you,
which is complete dependency upon him, not depending on mammon or money or stuff or retirement,
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but depending on God.
And that the breaking down process.
But, you know, that's implicit in the core idea of Christianity.
The fundamental idea of Christianity is Jesus' instructions to his disciples.
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If anyone would come after me, he must first be willing to take up his cross and follow
me.
Anyone who's not willing to lose, anyone who's willing to lose their life will save it.
Anyone who's not willing to lose their life will forfeit it.
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These ideas.
Suffering is a non-optional part of the equation.
And the very thing that clouds our ability to hear God, which is self-interest, selfishness,
I want to hear things from God that are going to benefit me.
(25:26):
So if God does speak to me, again, my natural inclination is I'm going to twist that somehow
to where it works to my advantage.
You know what I mean?
Which is what you're doing.
And we all have that almost irresistible component to our soul, our carnal man.
(25:49):
Selfishness is an extremely powerful force in every one of us.
And so the bad things, the bad God sermons are about God's desire to destroy selfishness,
living for self-interest, which is what corrupts everything on the earth.
(26:10):
It corrupts governments, it corrupts marriages, it corrupts businesses.
These are full of people who are driven by self, purely self-interest.
And so God is determined to destroy that and the process is going to be very uncomfortable.
And many times, many times it, some of us are so self-willed and committed to our selfishness
(26:39):
and narcissistic tendencies that God will allow some really bad things to happen, to
take us through the fire so that he can bring us into the inheritance that he wants to,
that he wants to share with us.
You know the scripture, the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.
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Matthew 26, 40 through 43.
So the 40th verse, then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping.
Couldn't you men keep watch with me for one hour?
He asked Peter.
Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation.
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The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak.
So with the selfishness, that's the weakness of the flesh.
Jesus had expressed his will to his disciples to pray with him so it wasn't like, I don't
know if I'm hearing God, no, God spoke to you.
And because of their flesh, they weren't able to follow through with those instructions
(27:52):
and that's the perfect example.
God's going to speak to people all the time.
And maybe sometimes he doesn't speak because he knows you're not ready to hear it yet.
And so it goes back to Christian discipleship.
The number one thing we can do to hear God's voice clearly is to be committed at the Christian
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disciplines.
You know, God has already spoken to us primarily through his word.
It's kind of a Captain Obvious statement, I know, but the more skilled we become at
understanding the word of God, the better we're going to be able to discern with more
clarity what God's will is.
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And then even when we're certain we know God's will, that needs to be given expression within
the body of Christ so that others can help us learn to understand not only what God said
but what that means.
And you've got plenty of examples of that in Scripture.
There's an example in Acts chapter 20 where Paul, it's been revealed to Paul that he's
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to go to Jerusalem and that chains and imprisonment are awaiting him there.
So Paul knows that and he's going to Jerusalem anyway.
You know, he says, I'm constrained by the Holy Spirit.
So God has expressed his will by giving Paul this unction.
And then to the very next chapter, God speaks to a prophet named Agabus.
(29:24):
Agabus reveals to Paul and other believers that God has told him that chains and imprisonment
are awaiting Paul in Jerusalem and that he's not supposed to go.
And so it says they pleaded with Paul not to go to Jerusalem because God spoke the chains
(29:44):
and imprisonment were awaiting him there.
Paul is hearing God correctly.
They're both hearing the same thing.
They both have different opinions about what to do.
And so, but that process is important.
Paul winds up continuing on to Jerusalem.
(30:07):
He does get imprisoned.
But once again, there are four books of the New Testament that would not have been written
if Paul had not been committed to that isolation in that period of imprisonment.
You know?
And so it's, you know, and it says that in the book of 1 Corinthians as well, 14, that
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when the gifts of the Holy Spirit are functioning and people are prophesying, do it in an orderly
way and then let others weigh what is said.
So this is something people who have that gift of hearing God clearly and the more skilled
you become at it, that still doesn't mean that you know it all.
God told me you're supposed to sell me your church for blah, blah, blah.
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Right.
It works.
Right.
You know?
We submit this to others.
We let them weigh in on it and determine what ought to be done about it.
Because God has built, baked into the equation not only our need for God, but our need for
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others.
And that's one of the things that ties us together in community and relationship is
my need for you, your need for me.
And God wants others to share in whatever he's revealing.
It's something that he wants to do to bring people together, you know?
That makes me think.
So before the pandemic, I was streaming my church services at my church and it's about
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maybe about three or four months ago, pastor said, and it just, it just hit me like that
was for you.
He said, a lot of you have been streaming, which is good, but don't forsake the gathering
of yourselves.
It's time for some of you guys to get back in church.
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And I knew that was for me.
It just, it resonated with my spirit, kind of like you take a guitar and you grab the
string and it makes the sound because you grab that string.
It's like it hits your, your tongue, your tone or your tune.
And you know that it's, oh, it's time.
(32:24):
And that's, there's a verse in first John, God's spirit bears witness with your spirit
that we're children of God.
But that principle applies to other things.
There's an inner knowing in our gut, you know, Jesus says out of your innermost man, what
it literally means is out of your belly will flow rivers of living water.
(32:47):
And so, you know, I tend to kind of feel the, that witness in my gut, you know, and that's
a real thing.
You know, sometimes people get discouraged from believing they can hear God because they
do feel like God has spoken to them and that thing didn't happen or it didn't go the way
(33:08):
that they saw it happening.
And so they get discouraged.
But whenever God speaks, you know, it's, it's rarely some kind of a promise.
It's usually an invitation.
God is revealing he wants to do something.
And there are lots of things that have to come together for that thing to come to fruition.
You know, you have to do your part.
Other people have to do their parts.
(33:29):
And so sometimes that thing, God, God really might wanted to have done something, but people
weren't willing to get an agreement with him, you know, so we shouldn't be discouraged.
If we really feel like we were discerning God's will and that thing doesn't happen.
(33:50):
Well, that's, that's going to be normal.
Jesus in the garden is praying father, please let this cut path pass from me.
Yes.
Yet not my will, but I will be done.
Yes.
The thing that Jesus wanted to happen.
Yes.
Did not happen.
Yes.
So, uh, that's just a part of discipleship, but all things being equal, continuing steady
(34:16):
and faithful will bring about my skill to communicate the will of God to others in ways
that bears witness with their spirit.
You know, it's like when anytime you started anything new, like a sport, you're going to
stink at it at first and people are going to beat you all the time.
But the longer you stick with it, the more you learn the skills, the more you learn how
(34:40):
to win and the more good results happen.
So that's a lot of that.
That's kind of how discerning the will of God works in the same kind of a way.
Nobody's good at it at first.
Everybody hears God telling them crazy things early on until they mature and, and get more
(35:02):
sophisticated in, in things.
So I know over the 30 you think or well, this camera will keep going forever.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
No matter how long the conversation.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
All right.
All right.
Well, I think, I think that kind of answers it.
Um, uh, God's speech usually is an invitation.
(35:27):
Yeah.
That you either have to accept or not, uh, accept and the continuing steady and faithful,
uh, will bring about ways to bear witness with their spit.
Well help me with that.
So I was writing your name, continuing steady and faithful will bring about, will become
(35:50):
more skilled and sophisticated at communicating God's will to others.
And here's the thing, Ross, you're going to hear God in ways that I don't, you know?
And so I'm going to need to hear from God through you because you can see things that
I can't, you know?
But if you come at me crazy in some kind of a weird way, you know, I'm going to be less
(36:16):
likely to receive it, you know?
And so the more sophisticated and skilled we get at not only hearing the voice of God,
but then communicating it to others, it increases what God is going to be capable to do within
our community.
Okay.
You know?
(36:37):
Um, so in our communication, what, one of the things I'm doing is destroying the unbelief
in you.
You know what I mean?
So the, but even though the Bible says Jesus could work no miracles in a certain place
because of their unbelief.
So becoming more skilled in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, knowing how to communicate love
(37:04):
to others.
And then growing in our knowledge and understanding of, of human relationships is kind of an important
thing about seeing that the will of God comes to fruition within the spheres of influence
where God places us because you know, it's like God wanted you to go to Africa, help
(37:29):
with that orphanage.
You had to earn their trust, right?
They had to earn your trust in order to do the things that God did through and with you
there.
Yes.
And so that's usually how God is working.
He's bringing people together to work on things that bring about a better world for everyone.
You know?
(37:49):
You know, saying that, uh, I'm from Alabama.
I spent 10 years in Michigan and everywhere else, but I didn't choose Hobbs.
I wouldn't choose Hobbs.
And I think Hobbs is a beautiful, unique community.
I think it's unique like none other, but I didn't choose Hobbs.
(38:14):
I believe God chose Hobbs and I'm starting to believe he's just now starting to reveal
why he wants me here.
And, and, and I'm learning not to be anxious, just keep walking, heel to toe, and God will
(38:35):
slowly reveal it when the time is yet.
Yeah.
And you come someplace for one reason that you think of and, and God already knows that's
not why I'm sitting in there.
But you know, that gets him there initially, but there's something else that I'm going
to do with him there.
(38:56):
So I've seen that work in my life many times as well.
Like, uh, you know, it took me the longest time to submit to ordination in the United
Methodist Church.
I was just ordained in 2019 by the United Methodist Church because as a younger man,
the last thing I wanted was some bureaucratic clergy person telling, handing control of
(39:24):
my ministry over to some bureaucratic clergy person that was going to make me move to the
middle of nowhere, uh, West Texas.
And so, you know, that's exactly what happened.
But those were five of the best years of my life.
You know, and so being willing to be poor in spirit, being willing to say not my will,
(39:45):
but thy will be done, you know, being willing to be poor in spirit opens the door for God
to bring you some of the best blessings you never would have received following your own
game plan.
You know, I do.
I think we're brothers.
Uh, give me the parallel of that.
I was at Tuskegee.
I was in ROTC doing well in ROTC.
(40:07):
I think they do a peer evaluation at the MS three year, military science three year, your
junior year.
And I may have been number one or two or three.
Anyway, in my mind, you know, as you're being introduced into the officer system of the
military, the commission officers, they started sharing with its OERs, officer evaluation
(40:34):
records.
And I think it's very subjective, but I said to myself in my junior year, I don't want
to be a part of a system where my commanding officer does an OER on me.
And maybe he doesn't like me because I didn't want to go to his house and drink beer.
I didn't want to go to this social function and you know, and I'm going to subject my
(40:59):
career to this.
I'm like, I don't want to be part of that system.
So I got out of ROTC says, no, I want to control my life.
And in my senior year, my national guard unit gets activated.
I'm headed to Iraq.
So it doesn't matter what you want to do.
(41:21):
ROT has his plan and he knows how to lead and guide his children.
And anyway, that's the best thing that ever happened to him.
I got saved in northern Saudi Arabia.
The Air Force was bombing Kuwait and that border with Iraq and the ground was shaking.
(41:45):
And you know, I realized that if I stole the airplane, I couldn't fly it.
If I could fly it and I stole it, I wouldn't be able to refuel it and get all the way back.
There was nothing I could do in my power other than submit to being a soldier in the war
and doing my best.
And the only way I would get back is when God said, now it's over.
(42:08):
It's time for you to go back home.
Yeah.
And you know, it's also true.
You can have the clearest vision in the world.
But you cannot protect that vision from what other people are going to do to it.
You know what I mean?
(42:29):
And there are people who try and protect their vision like crazy, but other people are going
to put their stamp on that vision.
And that's a part of God's plan.
You know, whether it's our lives, our decisions, our careers, it's all shared property.
You know, so it is.
And Jesus redeemed us from destruction.
(42:52):
So he owns us.
Yep.
We are not our own.
That's right.
So have that way, Lord.
Let thy will be done.
And that's a scary thing to pray a lot of times.
It says explicitly in the Bible, Peter, when you were a young man, you did what you wanted
to do, but there's going to come a day where your hands will be bound and God will take
(43:16):
you places you don't want to go.
You know, it's amazing.
So yeah.
Well, thanks, Ross.
Yes, great conversation.
Yes, sir.
Many more to come.
I'm sure.
Yes, sir.
You know, we haven't answered all the questions in the world, but I think that conversation
(43:36):
is going to be helpful to people just learning to think about things in a little different
light.
So hearing from God is a very dynamic participatory process that is going to take great courage
(43:56):
at the end of the day, not only to hear, but then to step out on it.
But that's where the supernatural power of God is released.
Not when we hear God.
Yes.
When we begin stepping out in obedience.
Yes.
And taking the risks and suffering the loss that comes with it a lot of time.
But that's what releases the power.
(44:19):
And God's power is amazing.
So Amen.
Amen.
I can only imagine Noah.
Everybody said he has lost his freaking mind building a boat in the desert.
Yep.
And look at how large it is.
You probably want to commit him to the I don't know what it's called, but they used to have
(44:44):
a mental.
Insane asylum.
Yeah.
Well, insane asylum.
Yeah.
Commit him for 30 day evaluation to see has he lost it.
But all the while he's hearing from God and he's acting on and he's doing exactly what
God told him to do.
Yeah.
Amen.
Amen.
Well, thank you, Pastor.
Thank you.
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