April 17, 2024 • 16 mins
In this enlightening episode, Gary Miller invites listeners on a deep spiritual exploration of Mormon 5. He emphasizes the central role of faith in our lives and challenges us to ponder the phrase, "No Jesus equals No direction." Guiding us to see the profound significance of Christ in our daily lives, Miller argues that acknowledging Jesus can lead to a life filled with purpose and direction.
Using the Book of Mormon as a beacon, Miller urges us to examine where we stand 'without Christ and God.' For those who are feeling aimless or lost, this episode is an insightful scriptural GPS check. It asserts the importance of Jesus as the key towards a life of clarity and direction and provides constructive advice on integrating God into our daily routines. Miller also extends an invitation for listeners to support his podcast which thrives on shares, ratings, and optional donations.
This episode is not just an investigation into Mormon 5, but also an inspiring testament to the transformative power of faith. It underscores the importance of inviting God into all aspects of our lives. Whether it's dealing with life's hardships or just navigating through everyday routines, this podcast offers a fresh perspective on the power of having Jesus and God at the core of our faith.
Miller's insights spark a critical discourse on how we often allocate our time and effort too heavily on understanding scriptures and religious practices, occasionally pushing Jesus to the periphery. He underscores the need to keep Christ and God as central elements in our life – from marriage and parenting to work and social interactions.
By speaking about cutting back or eliminating certain habits or activities, this episode offers practical solutions for making more room for Jesus in our lives. It serves as a guide to the secret places of prayer where we can figure out ways to invite and experience more of Jesus.
Offering a blend of spiritual wisdom and practical solutions, this episode is guaranteed to transform the way you perceive and experience Jesus in your life. As Miller aptly puts it, navigating life's tough corners could become easier once we align our actions with Jesus and God and make them the focus of our lives.
Want to learn more about Jesus? Start here!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Hey there, friends. This is Gary Miller, and you're listening to Hope in Him today.
Great to have you here. We are in Mormon 5, so get there in your scriptures.
And if you're wondering what the world of Mormon 5 is or what the Book of Mormon
is, and you're like, I've heard about that stuff, but I don't have any of that.
Gary, what are you talking about? Listen, there's a link in the show notes.
You can click on that. You can read and follow along for free.
(00:23):
And what I promise you is that if you will keep reading the pages in the Book
of Mormon, Mormon, you are going to keep running in to somebody really special.
And that really special person is Jesus.
There is no place that you can go where every place and every page you turn,
you're going to run into Jesus more than you will inside of the entire Book of Mormon.
(00:45):
So I would encourage you to dive into that and click that link.
And if you go, Gary, that's an awfully big claim. I don't know if I'm comfortable with all that.
Hey, don't take my word for it. Go start reading and test me.
See how often you run into Jesus.
And man, I know he's got something good for you there. He's got something good for all of us here.
But we're in the actual, so there's the Book of Mormon, and then there's Mormon
(01:06):
chapter five. That's where we are today.
And again, we're ministering on no Jesus equals no direction.
That's N-O, not K-N-O. No Jesus equals no direction.
And one more thing of announcements, it's April 16th when I'm recording this,
and I've got good news, friends.
We are recording an episode every single day. for the remainder of April.
(01:28):
We really want to flood the feed. I know I've been off for a couple of weeks.
So we have got all kinds of material here, all kinds of lessons.
I'm going to be sharing a ton of them. How can you get in and support us?
How can you help? Well, it's super simple. I'm going to give you three ways, okay?
Number one, if you like an episode, just share it.
Share it on your Facebook. Share it on your ex or Twitter, right?
(01:51):
Send it to a friend. Text it to a friend. If there's something here that you
go, So, hey, you know what?
The enthusiastic bald guy, you know, former Baptist preacher hellfire guy who's
talking about the Book of Mormon and Latter-day Saint stuff now.
Sky might actually be onto something. Listen, share it out. That's the number
one way you can support us. It doesn't cost anything.
You don't have to pull out your wallet. You don't have to go to the donation
(02:14):
page. None of that. You don't even have to. Just share it.
Number two, if you haven't already, get out to iTunes and leave us a five-star
review. I keep saying iTunes. I'm so dating myself.
Apple Podcasts. Click the five stars and then do that little button.
There's There's like a link there. It says, write a review.
Click that and write a few sentences. Listen, you don't have to write war and
(02:35):
peace, right? You know, so Genoa. No, you don't need to do that. Just listen.
Just put in a couple sentences about why you like the show or why you think
people should listen. All right.
That helps us get found in search on the biggest aggregator for podcasts,
which is Apple Podcasts.
That helps us get found. More five-star reviews, both the stars and the written review in there.
(02:56):
It helps us so much. So if you can do that, again, that does not cost you a
penny. You don't have to donate anything.
You don't have to do any of that. You can just roll right in and you're good to go.
The third thing that you can do, and many of you have, and let me just say thank
you, is to get out to hopinghimtoday.com and support the show.
And you can do that in a variety of ways.
(03:17):
Listen, there are people who donate $2 a month. There are people that donate much more than that.
Listen, you do what you're comfortable with. Everybody's on a budget.
Everybody's got things. but we can continue to get this word out.
The more we have to kind of play with, the more we get to kind of spend it and
put it into ads and get the show exposed to as many people as we can.
So if you can do that, that would
(03:37):
be amazing. All right, so those are the three ways. Would you do that?
One of them, pick one, maybe two, or dude, go for the trifecta, do all three.
So let's jump into our text, most important thing.
Mormon 5.16 says, "'For behold, the Spirit of the Lord "'hath ceased to strive
with their fathers, "'and they are without Christ.'".
And God in the world, and they are driven about as chaff before the wind.
(04:00):
Remember, I told you our ministering topic today is no Jesus equals no direction.
And I know some of you might say, well, Gary, that's not specifically talking about me.
If you understand the context, this is, I got the context, man.
I understand that, but I don't think we simply read it as a book report about
some other people as an interesting lesson.
(04:22):
It can be about some other the people clearly, and it is part of a lesson,
but I think we also need to pull these things off the pages and make them our
own, apply them in our lives, these principles, these concepts, right?
And so it says here, they're without Christ and God in the world,
and they're driven about as chaff before the wind.
Friends, when you and I decide that we are going to be without Christ in a moment,
(04:48):
in a day, in a week, in a month, in a year, if we're going to be without Without
Christ in our marriage and our family and our business and our money and our health,
if we're going to be without Christ and God in anything.
What it guarantees us is that we're going to be adrift.
It says here that we're driven about as the shaft before the wind,
and we can be driven all over the place.
(05:10):
Like the wind's just blowing us off into the mystic, man. We're off the path.
We're all over the place. We've got no direction.
We're getting bounced around by every circumstance. What did James say?
We're being tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine. I mean,
we are just all over the place when we're without Jesus and God.
So what's interesting about this is this is almost like an internal scriptural GPS check.
(05:33):
If we find ourselves, if you find yourself right now, or you are going to,
I promise you at some point, you're going to find yourself in a season where
you go, man, I just feel like I'm lost right now. Not lost like you lost your salvation.
Don't get carried away. But like, I just feel like I'm lost in like my work.
I feel like I'm lost in my marriage.
I feel like I'm lost right now in my spiritual life.
(05:55):
I don't feel like I have direction.
I made a wrong turn somewhere, and I feel like I'm driving around a circle.
If you are doing that, this is a great scriptural GPS check to check your direction
and get you back in the right direction.
And so what does it say here? Well, if it tells me that I'm going to go and
drift all over the place and be driven about, not to and fro,
(06:17):
right? When I'm without Christ and God, I need to be coming into the secret
place and trying to figure out, where have I left Christ out?
Where have I left God out of whatever area it is that I'm feeling lost in?
And I need to infuse, I need to get Jesus, and I need to get Heavenly Father back up in that mix.
(06:38):
And we can do that, right? I mean, listen, we're all one repentance prayer away
from being right back in fellowship with God and we can be led and we can move. And it is amazing.
That is the gift of repentance. I don't think we talk nearly enough.
And I say we, I just, you know, people I bump into and over years and years
in ministry and teaching and all that stuff, I just, you know,
(07:01):
getting around God's people, Christian people, I just don't think we talk about
repentance as a gift enough. It really is. is.
And so it's the quickest way for us to sort of get ourselves out of being bounced
around and back on track.
So that's the question we have to ask ourselves in the secret place of prayer.
Where am I without Jesus and God right now?
(07:22):
Why am I? Where am I without? You go, well, Gary, I'm not without because,
well, I believe on Jesus.
Okay, that's good. Me too. Amen. And I'm a a fan. I really am. That's good stuff, man.
But listen, believing is one thing.
Working that out, as Paul would say, working on our salvation with fear and
(07:43):
trembling, working that out practically, including Jesus and God in our conversation,
in our choices, in our behavior, in our mannerisms, in our orientation to life.
Listen, now that's a whole different thing, right?
Like that's a whole different thing. And there are places where we have not
brought Jesus into that area of our lives.
(08:05):
Listen, I'll give you an example that might seem backwards, but it's actually true.
There's a lot of us friends that have what looks like a really robust religious
practice, but we don't always have Jesus at the center of that.
Amen? Do you think that's possible?
Yeah, I think that's really possible.
I mean, you listen to people talk long enough. They'll talk about a lot of things,
(08:27):
and they're good spiritual, religious things. I don't think any of us would be critical of that.
But you're looking, you're going, wait a minute, all that's great,
but I didn't hear Jesus in there. I need to hear Jesus.
And because we can be, you know, deeply steeped in like an intellectual pursuit
of Scripture and commentaries and leave Jesus completely out of that.
(08:50):
That. We can just be using our brain, which is really good, faith and reason.
You better use that brain.
But at the same time, we can just be so academic and so checklist-y that we've
just left Jesus out of it. We can leave Jesus out of our worship.
We can sort of dutifully come and get dressed up and sit down and do the thing
and sing and stand up and sit down and go out and get back in our car and go home.
(09:13):
And we didn't really have Jesus in mind and at the center of what we were doing.
You can attend and not be focused on Jesus at all.
We can be sitting in a study and looking at our phone and not looking unto Jesus, right?
I mean, these are silly examples, sort of, but you get the idea.
(09:33):
So we can do this everywhere.
If we will remember that we are to keep the best solution or the best prescription
for not getting off track and getting lost and bounced all over the places.
I'm keeping Christ and God in that mix.
Well, if that's the solution, then I need to be consciously thinking about this.
(09:55):
How can I dot, dot, dot is a great way to do this in prayer and in journaling and working this out.
How can I bring more of Jesus into my marriage?
How can I bring more of Jesus into my parenting? How can I bring more of Jesus into my work?
How can I bring more Jesus into the way I interact with people at my church
(10:18):
or the way that I interact with friends that I know or people that I know?
Or how do I? I mean, these are all ways that we could start with.
How do I? How can I? How can I do this?
How can I put more Jesus in here? And I'm telling you, if we'll work that out
in the secret place of prayer, we'll get some answers.
And by the way, they're not always super spiritual answers. I know there are
(10:42):
some great spiritual answers, you know, more prayer, you know,
read your scriptures, all the go to church, you know, all that stuff. It's great. Awesome.
I love all those answers, but sometimes they're just a little more simple.
Sometimes I can get more Jesus into a situation simply by not opening my mouth and speaking.
For example, I need to apply that proverb and cover my mouth, right?
(11:03):
You say, well, how does that bring more Jesus in? Well, because it keeps my
natural man out because I'm shutting my mouth because that tongue is impossible
to tame going back to James, right?
So like I'm sometimes it's just silence brings more Jesus in sometimes removal
of things in a situation.
Maybe I'm not going to look at certain stuff. Maybe I'm not going to watch certain
things. Maybe I'm not going to participate in certain things.
(11:26):
And by doing an elimination, I am increasing the Jesus in a situation.
Do you see how that works?
Listen, sometimes increase is brought about by decrease.
We can decrease something in our lives, remove something from our lives,
restructure how we're spending time or what we're allowing into our sphere of influence.
(11:48):
What did David say? What is it? Psalm 101-ish?
I will set no wicked thing before that eyes, right? Like, I'm going to remove
some stuff maybe to get more Jesus in.
There's a lot of ways to do this. But as we think about this and we look at
this, and we're rolling through kind of war accounts again here at the front
end of Mormon, and man, people behaving badly, and it's just one group's doing
(12:12):
this thing, the other group's doing the other thing.
But we can roll past that too quickly, and we forget in verse 16,
when we see something like, they are without Christ and God in the world.
If I try to walk out into my day, into my business, into my marriage,
into anything without Jesus and God at the center of it, man,
I'm going to get knocked around.
Now, life is hard enough. Life's going to give you enough reason to be knocked
(12:33):
around and discouraged and hurt and offended and beat up.
We don't need to add to that and then get thrown out even more because we have
kept Jesus and God out. Let me tell you something.
This is a conscious choice you and I have to make. on a moment-by-moment basis.
How do we get all that right in our flesh? Well, I don't think we do.
(12:56):
This is why it is essential to have leading and guiding of the Holy Spirit.
Amen? That's why we need that.
Man, that's important because the Holy Spirit, I'll tell you, will prompt us.
Man, just the last 48 hours, I've been prompted multiple times by the Holy Spirit.
No audibles. I don't get burning bushes.
(13:17):
There's no choirs, like none of that. But I've had bumps in my heart where it's
like, hey, you need to be quiet here. And I was like, okay.
You know, I could have fired off a message in email to somebody that sent something
crazy, or I could have fired off something.
And for those of you that use Slack and team communications,
right, I could have fired off. It's like, no, Gary, you need to be quiet.
(13:38):
And I was having a conversation on Sunday after church.
Somebody said something, and
I just, man, part of my natural man wanted to rear up, and I mean, just,
but I got a word from the Lord, and again, I don't want to make that,
don't email me and be like, what do you mean? God's talking to you.
(14:00):
Well, we believe heavens are open.
And so we believe we get those nudges and that personal revelation from the Holy Ghost.
And so I got bumped there on that conversation and said, you know,
Gary, you need to not say anything right now.
I had a continual message in the last 48 hours. How did I get more Jesus in?
Because I got more of my flesh out.
(14:21):
More of my natural man out. That's more access for what? The Spirit of God to
move. Amen. Like there's a lot more room there.
So think about this in the secret place. Would you do it? Figure out like,
hey, okay, and you might be going along just great, Gary. This is totally not applicable.
I see what you're trying to do here, Gary, but this ain't something that's applicable
(14:41):
in my life because I'm like super Christian.
I would say, friend, I promise you there are areas where there's less Jesus
than there should be in your life.
And there's less God in those areas than should be and that could be.
And that we are missing some of the best things that Jesus has for us,
some of the best things God has for us, because that amount is low and we're getting driven around.
(15:03):
Now, what degree we're getting driven about kind of depends on how much we've got in that situation.
Yes, how much Jesus, how much God we've really got in, but there are situations
somewhere, I promise you, it might be relationally, it might be in your spiritual practices,
it might be in work, it might be in, it could be anything, but like,
I can assure you that there are places where we're a little low.
(15:24):
So let's get to the secret place.
Let's figure out where we are. And let's ask for the help from our Heavenly
Father in the name of Jesus, what we should do, how do we increase it in those
areas? And we're going to get some amazing answers.
Some will be super spiritual. Some will be so practical. We'll be like,
you got to be kidding me. Like, that's the thing?
Listen, we follow those prompts. Good things are going to happen because we serve a good God. Amen.
(15:47):
Hey, listen, thanks for being here. Get into this word. Get into this study.
Go into this verse. Take it into the secret place. Work it out.
That's much more important than a podcast. Prayer, always better than a podcast.
Prayer and scripture study, always better than a podcast.
Take that and do that. We'll see you next time.
Hey there, friends. This is Gary Miller, and you're listening to Hope in Him today.
Great to have you here. We are in Mormon 5, so get there in your scriptures.
And if you're wondering what the world of Mormon 5 is or what the Book of Mormon
is, and you're like, I've heard about that stuff, but I don't have any of that.
Gary, what are you talking about? Listen, there's a link in the show notes.
You can click on that. You can read and follow along for free.
(00:23):
And what I promise you is that if you will keep reading the pages in the Book
of Mormon, Mormon, you are going to keep running in to somebody really special.
And that really special person is Jesus.
There is no place that you can go where every place and every page you turn,
you're going to run into Jesus more than you will inside of the entire Book of Mormon.
(00:45):
So I would encourage you to dive into that and click that link.
And if you go, Gary, that's an awfully big claim. I don't know if I'm comfortable with all that.
Hey, don't take my word for it. Go start reading and test me.
See how often you run into Jesus.
And man, I know he's got something good for you there. He's got something good for all of us here.
But we're in the actual, so there's the Book of Mormon, and then there's Mormon
(01:06):
chapter five. That's where we are today.
And again, we're ministering on no Jesus equals no direction.
That's N-O, not K-N-O. No Jesus equals no direction.
And one more thing of announcements, it's April 16th when I'm recording this,
and I've got good news, friends.
We are recording an episode every single day. for the remainder of April.
(01:28):
We really want to flood the feed. I know I've been off for a couple of weeks.
So we have got all kinds of material here, all kinds of lessons.
I'm going to be sharing a ton of them. How can you get in and support us?
How can you help? Well, it's super simple. I'm going to give you three ways, okay?
Number one, if you like an episode, just share it.
Share it on your Facebook. Share it on your ex or Twitter, right?
(01:51):
Send it to a friend. Text it to a friend. If there's something here that you
go, So, hey, you know what?
The enthusiastic bald guy, you know, former Baptist preacher hellfire guy who's
talking about the Book of Mormon and Latter-day Saint stuff now.
Sky might actually be onto something. Listen, share it out. That's the number
one way you can support us. It doesn't cost anything.
You don't have to pull out your wallet. You don't have to go to the donation
(02:14):
page. None of that. You don't even have to. Just share it.
Number two, if you haven't already, get out to iTunes and leave us a five-star
review. I keep saying iTunes. I'm so dating myself.
Apple Podcasts. Click the five stars and then do that little button.
There's There's like a link there. It says, write a review.
Click that and write a few sentences. Listen, you don't have to write war and
(02:35):
peace, right? You know, so Genoa. No, you don't need to do that. Just listen.
Just put in a couple sentences about why you like the show or why you think
people should listen. All right.
That helps us get found in search on the biggest aggregator for podcasts,
which is Apple Podcasts.
That helps us get found. More five-star reviews, both the stars and the written review in there.
(02:56):
It helps us so much. So if you can do that, again, that does not cost you a
penny. You don't have to donate anything.
You don't have to do any of that. You can just roll right in and you're good to go.
The third thing that you can do, and many of you have, and let me just say thank
you, is to get out to hopinghimtoday.com and support the show.
And you can do that in a variety of ways.
(03:17):
Listen, there are people who donate $2 a month. There are people that donate much more than that.
Listen, you do what you're comfortable with. Everybody's on a budget.
Everybody's got things. but we can continue to get this word out.
The more we have to kind of play with, the more we get to kind of spend it and
put it into ads and get the show exposed to as many people as we can.
So if you can do that, that would
(03:37):
be amazing. All right, so those are the three ways. Would you do that?
One of them, pick one, maybe two, or dude, go for the trifecta, do all three.
So let's jump into our text, most important thing.
Mormon 5.16 says, "'For behold, the Spirit of the Lord "'hath ceased to strive
with their fathers, "'and they are without Christ.'".
And God in the world, and they are driven about as chaff before the wind.
(04:00):
Remember, I told you our ministering topic today is no Jesus equals no direction.
And I know some of you might say, well, Gary, that's not specifically talking about me.
If you understand the context, this is, I got the context, man.
I understand that, but I don't think we simply read it as a book report about
some other people as an interesting lesson.
(04:22):
It can be about some other the people clearly, and it is part of a lesson,
but I think we also need to pull these things off the pages and make them our
own, apply them in our lives, these principles, these concepts, right?
And so it says here, they're without Christ and God in the world,
and they're driven about as chaff before the wind.
Friends, when you and I decide that we are going to be without Christ in a moment,
(04:48):
in a day, in a week, in a month, in a year, if we're going to be without Without
Christ in our marriage and our family and our business and our money and our health,
if we're going to be without Christ and God in anything.
What it guarantees us is that we're going to be adrift.
It says here that we're driven about as the shaft before the wind,
and we can be driven all over the place.
(05:10):
Like the wind's just blowing us off into the mystic, man. We're off the path.
We're all over the place. We've got no direction.
We're getting bounced around by every circumstance. What did James say?
We're being tossed to and fro with every wind of doctrine. I mean,
we are just all over the place when we're without Jesus and God.
So what's interesting about this is this is almost like an internal scriptural GPS check.
(05:33):
If we find ourselves, if you find yourself right now, or you are going to,
I promise you at some point, you're going to find yourself in a season where
you go, man, I just feel like I'm lost right now. Not lost like you lost your salvation.
Don't get carried away. But like, I just feel like I'm lost in like my work.
I feel like I'm lost in my marriage.
I feel like I'm lost right now in my spiritual life.
(05:55):
I don't feel like I have direction.
I made a wrong turn somewhere, and I feel like I'm driving around a circle.
If you are doing that, this is a great scriptural GPS check to check your direction
and get you back in the right direction.
And so what does it say here? Well, if it tells me that I'm going to go and
drift all over the place and be driven about, not to and fro,
(06:17):
right? When I'm without Christ and God, I need to be coming into the secret
place and trying to figure out, where have I left Christ out?
Where have I left God out of whatever area it is that I'm feeling lost in?
And I need to infuse, I need to get Jesus, and I need to get Heavenly Father back up in that mix.
(06:38):
And we can do that, right? I mean, listen, we're all one repentance prayer away
from being right back in fellowship with God and we can be led and we can move. And it is amazing.
That is the gift of repentance. I don't think we talk nearly enough.
And I say we, I just, you know, people I bump into and over years and years
in ministry and teaching and all that stuff, I just, you know,
(07:01):
getting around God's people, Christian people, I just don't think we talk about
repentance as a gift enough. It really is. is.
And so it's the quickest way for us to sort of get ourselves out of being bounced
around and back on track.
So that's the question we have to ask ourselves in the secret place of prayer.
Where am I without Jesus and God right now?
(07:22):
Why am I? Where am I without? You go, well, Gary, I'm not without because,
well, I believe on Jesus.
Okay, that's good. Me too. Amen. And I'm a a fan. I really am. That's good stuff, man.
But listen, believing is one thing.
Working that out, as Paul would say, working on our salvation with fear and
(07:43):
trembling, working that out practically, including Jesus and God in our conversation,
in our choices, in our behavior, in our mannerisms, in our orientation to life.
Listen, now that's a whole different thing, right?
Like that's a whole different thing. And there are places where we have not
brought Jesus into that area of our lives.
(08:05):
Listen, I'll give you an example that might seem backwards, but it's actually true.
There's a lot of us friends that have what looks like a really robust religious
practice, but we don't always have Jesus at the center of that.
Amen? Do you think that's possible?
Yeah, I think that's really possible.
I mean, you listen to people talk long enough. They'll talk about a lot of things,
(08:27):
and they're good spiritual, religious things. I don't think any of us would be critical of that.
But you're looking, you're going, wait a minute, all that's great,
but I didn't hear Jesus in there. I need to hear Jesus.
And because we can be, you know, deeply steeped in like an intellectual pursuit
of Scripture and commentaries and leave Jesus completely out of that.
(08:50):
That. We can just be using our brain, which is really good, faith and reason.
You better use that brain.
But at the same time, we can just be so academic and so checklist-y that we've
just left Jesus out of it. We can leave Jesus out of our worship.
We can sort of dutifully come and get dressed up and sit down and do the thing
and sing and stand up and sit down and go out and get back in our car and go home.
(09:13):
And we didn't really have Jesus in mind and at the center of what we were doing.
You can attend and not be focused on Jesus at all.
We can be sitting in a study and looking at our phone and not looking unto Jesus, right?
I mean, these are silly examples, sort of, but you get the idea.
(09:33):
So we can do this everywhere.
If we will remember that we are to keep the best solution or the best prescription
for not getting off track and getting lost and bounced all over the places.
I'm keeping Christ and God in that mix.
Well, if that's the solution, then I need to be consciously thinking about this.
(09:55):
How can I dot, dot, dot is a great way to do this in prayer and in journaling and working this out.
How can I bring more of Jesus into my marriage?
How can I bring more of Jesus into my parenting? How can I bring more of Jesus into my work?
How can I bring more Jesus into the way I interact with people at my church
(10:18):
or the way that I interact with friends that I know or people that I know?
Or how do I? I mean, these are all ways that we could start with.
How do I? How can I? How can I do this?
How can I put more Jesus in here? And I'm telling you, if we'll work that out
in the secret place of prayer, we'll get some answers.
And by the way, they're not always super spiritual answers. I know there are
(10:42):
some great spiritual answers, you know, more prayer, you know,
read your scriptures, all the go to church, you know, all that stuff. It's great. Awesome.
I love all those answers, but sometimes they're just a little more simple.
Sometimes I can get more Jesus into a situation simply by not opening my mouth and speaking.
For example, I need to apply that proverb and cover my mouth, right?
(11:03):
You say, well, how does that bring more Jesus in? Well, because it keeps my
natural man out because I'm shutting my mouth because that tongue is impossible
to tame going back to James, right?
So like I'm sometimes it's just silence brings more Jesus in sometimes removal
of things in a situation.
Maybe I'm not going to look at certain stuff. Maybe I'm not going to watch certain
things. Maybe I'm not going to participate in certain things.
(11:26):
And by doing an elimination, I am increasing the Jesus in a situation.
Do you see how that works?
Listen, sometimes increase is brought about by decrease.
We can decrease something in our lives, remove something from our lives,
restructure how we're spending time or what we're allowing into our sphere of influence.
(11:48):
What did David say? What is it? Psalm 101-ish?
I will set no wicked thing before that eyes, right? Like, I'm going to remove
some stuff maybe to get more Jesus in.
There's a lot of ways to do this. But as we think about this and we look at
this, and we're rolling through kind of war accounts again here at the front
end of Mormon, and man, people behaving badly, and it's just one group's doing
(12:12):
this thing, the other group's doing the other thing.
But we can roll past that too quickly, and we forget in verse 16,
when we see something like, they are without Christ and God in the world.
If I try to walk out into my day, into my business, into my marriage,
into anything without Jesus and God at the center of it, man,
I'm going to get knocked around.
Now, life is hard enough. Life's going to give you enough reason to be knocked
(12:33):
around and discouraged and hurt and offended and beat up.
We don't need to add to that and then get thrown out even more because we have
kept Jesus and God out. Let me tell you something.
This is a conscious choice you and I have to make. on a moment-by-moment basis.
How do we get all that right in our flesh? Well, I don't think we do.
(12:56):
This is why it is essential to have leading and guiding of the Holy Spirit.
Amen? That's why we need that.
Man, that's important because the Holy Spirit, I'll tell you, will prompt us.
Man, just the last 48 hours, I've been prompted multiple times by the Holy Spirit.
No audibles. I don't get burning bushes.
(13:17):
There's no choirs, like none of that. But I've had bumps in my heart where it's
like, hey, you need to be quiet here. And I was like, okay.
You know, I could have fired off a message in email to somebody that sent something
crazy, or I could have fired off something.
And for those of you that use Slack and team communications,
right, I could have fired off. It's like, no, Gary, you need to be quiet.
(13:38):
And I was having a conversation on Sunday after church.
Somebody said something, and
I just, man, part of my natural man wanted to rear up, and I mean, just,
but I got a word from the Lord, and again, I don't want to make that,
don't email me and be like, what do you mean? God's talking to you.
(14:00):
Well, we believe heavens are open.
And so we believe we get those nudges and that personal revelation from the Holy Ghost.
And so I got bumped there on that conversation and said, you know,
Gary, you need to not say anything right now.
I had a continual message in the last 48 hours. How did I get more Jesus in?
Because I got more of my flesh out.
(14:21):
More of my natural man out. That's more access for what? The Spirit of God to
move. Amen. Like there's a lot more room there.
So think about this in the secret place. Would you do it? Figure out like,
hey, okay, and you might be going along just great, Gary. This is totally not applicable.
I see what you're trying to do here, Gary, but this ain't something that's applicable
(14:41):
in my life because I'm like super Christian.
I would say, friend, I promise you there are areas where there's less Jesus
than there should be in your life.
And there's less God in those areas than should be and that could be.
And that we are missing some of the best things that Jesus has for us,
some of the best things God has for us, because that amount is low and we're getting driven around.
(15:03):
Now, what degree we're getting driven about kind of depends on how much we've got in that situation.
Yes, how much Jesus, how much God we've really got in, but there are situations
somewhere, I promise you, it might be relationally, it might be in your spiritual practices,
it might be in work, it might be in, it could be anything, but like,
I can assure you that there are places where we're a little low.
(15:24):
So let's get to the secret place.
Let's figure out where we are. And let's ask for the help from our Heavenly
Father in the name of Jesus, what we should do, how do we increase it in those
areas? And we're going to get some amazing answers.
Some will be super spiritual. Some will be so practical. We'll be like,
you got to be kidding me. Like, that's the thing?
Listen, we follow those prompts. Good things are going to happen because we serve a good God. Amen.
(15:47):
Hey, listen, thanks for being here. Get into this word. Get into this study.
Go into this verse. Take it into the secret place. Work it out.
That's much more important than a podcast. Prayer, always better than a podcast.
Prayer and scripture study, always better than a podcast.
Take that and do that. We'll see you next time.
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