Have you ever gotten off course?
Have you ever talked into your Google Maps and somehow the map quest or whatever took
you in the wrong direction?
Or maybe you had just something wrong in the address and you put it in and instead of ending
up over here you ended up over there and all you had to do was make a little adjustment
and you're back on track.
That's what I want to talk to you today about and that is just making little adjustments.
There's a lot of information that's out there right now and some of it is fake.
Some of it is false and what's funny is in the day and hour we're living in we're having
to constantly go back and listen to the Holy Spirit and ask the Holy Spirit to come into
our lives and say can you help us Holy Spirit make adjustments so that I don't get off
course.
I love so many scriptures in the Bible but one that is really a foundational one is out
of 2 Timothy 2.15 study to show yourself approved rightly dividing the word of truth and now
more than ever there's a lot of doctrine out there that's kind of dicey kind of interesting
and it seems like in the last oh I don't know especially since November it's like a lot
of things that I've always kind of felt were off are really officially kind of being exposed
and I'm thinking wow I really was hearing from God.
You know in all things you want to go back to what does the Bible say.
Can you open up a good study Bible and can you divide the word of truth can you go in
here and can you study it out or can you find those scriptures in the word that really confirm
what you're hearing or what is being taught or what is being said and I think if we always
go back to where is that in the Bible or can you give me scripture for that.
I think one that will always manage to kind of keep us on the straight and narrow.
I love to use the illustration of the gravel roads in Iowa.
I was born and raised in the Midwest and I'm mighty proud of it but I'm telling you those
gravel roads can get kind of dicey and you don't ever want to end up in the ditches because
you can mess your car up pretty doggone good if you get on one ditch or on the other ditch.
You might get your car stuck there and have to get somebody to come haul you out.
It might take you a long time it might cost you a lot of money you might be stuck there
for a while and you know in life we can get where we think we're in a good place and then
we get off and we get stuck and then we've got to have somebody come along and help us
get out of that ditch kind of help us get out of that place where maybe we were listening
to or entertaining or feeding doctrine that was kind of off.
So there's just a couple things I just want to challenge you or invite you to think about
today okay.
If what you're listening to does it really line up with the character of God?
I mean is that really God's character?
Can you back that up with scripture?
Just think about that for a minute okay.
Does it line up with his nature?
I mean does that really seem like the Holy Spirit would actually really do or say that?
Because if you're seeing something happening and it just doesn't seem to be with God's
nature then something in there is off and either you're off or whatever's going on is
off and there's nothing wrong with asking questions you know journal it write it down.
I have a friend of mine I always say man I'm getting this and she says write it down because
you'll find out down the road whether or not it's right.
My challenge to you is think about it is something that's happening in your life or something
being shared right now that it just seems.
is off to you, but you just can't put your finger on it, you might want to think about it.
Another way I like to think about it is out of Matthew 6, 33. I've shared this before, but
seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. That means seek God's way
of doing things. Seek the kingdom's way of doing things. Seek traditional, I would call it maybe
maybe it's the wrong word for you, the orthodox Christian way of doing things.
Go back and really look at it. And his righteousness. Seek ye first the kingdom of God
and his righteousness. That comes from you guarding your heart. That comes from you judging
yourself. That comes from repenting when things might be off. That means you're making the
adjustment to stay in the middle of the road. You're making the adjustment by looking at your
own heart, your own motives, and saying, am I off? Do I need to make an adjustment here?
If you make those adjustments and you ask the Holy Spirit to come and show you things, he will.
He will most definitely begin to expose things to you that are wrong or off. But you have to
invite him into that process. When I was a kid, we had a cottage up in Canada and my Uncle Bob
would come up and we would take tree branches and we would turn my grandfather's old bass boat
into a sailboat. And we would take beach towels and we'd hang them on these poles and we'd hook
up ropes and we'd go out on the lake and the wind would come off the lake and it would blow us.
Really, it was so much fun. Sailing was amazing. I mean, it was kind of an ugly sailboat, so to speak,
but boy, we had fun. And one of the things you learn very quickly when you go out sailing is that
you have to adjust the sails in order to catch the wind. And what I woke up this morning with for you
was, does it just feel like it's dead? You're not going anywhere. Lord, where are you?
There are desert experiences that when you're in ministry and you love God, there are just seasons
where you feel alone and you're kind of outside of things. But those seasons are sometimes the
best because what they do is they really create within you and create within me a hunger to say,
Lord, where are you? And I have so many people in my life that I've had in class and in Bible,
and I know that they're now in a kind of a dangerous place. I love them with all of my
heart and I always will. But my heart this morning is, if things are just dead and there
just doesn't seem to be the Holy Spirit moving you and leading you and guiding you, have you
opened the door to some things that are not good? Have you opened the doors to the occult?
Have you opened the doors to things that are evil? Are you playing with evil? Are you feeding evil?
Are there areas of your life that maybe the Lord is asking you to kind of put down because you've
opened the door to some areas of deception? And if that's you today, the whole illustration I
saw this morning was adjust the sails. Take the ropes and adjust the sails again. Adjust your
heart. Adjust your life. Adjust what you're thinking. Adjust what you're listening to.
Adjust what you're reading. Make those adjustments so that you can come back on course and then
the wind of the Holy Spirit will come and it will blow and all of a sudden you're going to start
moving again. But you're the one who's going to have to make the adjustment. You're the one who's
going to have to decide, uh-oh, I really need to close the door to this. And this morning,
this is kind of sober and somber for someone. If you have opened the door to something, whether
you wanted to or not, and initially it looked like it was a good thing, but then it led to another
door. And then it led to another door. And now you're, you're in a place.
Where you just don't know what to do because you you've gotten yourself in a
position you don't know how to get out of. I've been there you know I can
remember when I was a young Christian and I was just starting to make major
decisions in my life about following God and there was a lot of warfare around me
and I was not making great decisions but there came a day where a woman was I was
attending a Bible study in Davenport Iowa and this woman came to me and said
you know Leanne you need to you need to close the doors to some things and she
prayed over me it was wonderful and I really didn't understand what she was
talking about because I was so young in the things of God and she said you know
I think there's just some things that you need to get rid of. I went home and I
asked the Holy Spirit about it and I went through my apartment and I started
grabbing books and tapes and music and things I was reading and I walked them
out to the burn barrel outside my apartment and I got rid of all of it and
I know now looking back at that point in my life that it was a it was a turning
point for me I made the decision that I wanted to stay in truth I wanted to stay
in the Word of God I wanted to stay with Jesus and the Holy Spirit and I didn't
want to open the door to fake or false teaching you know when you're young and
you're susceptible and you're impressionable there's all kinds of
things that can be influencing you and and it can bring confusion and God is
not the author of confusion but he in his infinite love and mercy will help
you make those adjustments and you might make mistakes you know we all do but in
his love he will help you and he will get you back on track and he will guide
you into all truth he will guide you back to a good place so take the time
today look at your life evaluate what you're listening to and if you have to
adjust your sails then I encourage you to adjust those sails and you'll get
moving again in him have a good day
you