Becoming a Kingdom of God revolutionary, a Jesus disciple, is about inner heart transformation.
If we don't transform our hearts, we're going to go nowhere in our faith.
Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God, but it's a heart transformation.
It's about our heart, and in our heart there's this longing, this longing for intimacy with God.
And I've found through the years that there's a really simple way to keep our heart growing and transformed in Christ,
wherein we're developing an intimate relationship with God through the Holy Spirit working in our heart in our relationship with Jesus Christ.
And I call it PB&J for prayer, Bible, and journal.
Now you think of PB&J as peanut butter and jelly, and that's only to help you remember what the point is.
And so it's P for prayer, Bible, and journal.
And there's something about the combination of prayer, Bible, and journal that really does help us grow.
And so I referenced this one time earlier, and that is this aspect, you guys, of reading one chapter a day.
If you're taking one chapter as you're growing in Christ, I think it should be with the Gospel of John.
So in the New Testament, you have Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
The first three, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, are called the Synoptic Gospels.
And then the fourth gospel is the Gospel of John.
And the reason I'm going to encourage you to be reading from the Gospel of John,
if all of this is new to you, starting with the Gospel of John, is because this is called the Gospel of Belief.
And as a new believer, as we're growing to be the revolutionary Christian that God has called us to be,
our faith, our ability to believe God and rest in the promises of God is built around belief.
And so what makes John so unique is he gives us these seven signs of the kingdom of God, seven signs of his deity.
But you see belief again and again. Belief is repeated all through the fourth gospel.
Because John is writing to new Jesus followers about their faith in Christ.
So it's a very what we call evangelistic gospel, the Gospel of John.
So I would say start with the Gospel of John.
And then the way PB&J works, and I've been doing this now for, I don't know, over 40 years,
is to take time, I think in the morning for me, it could be in the evening for you, it doesn't really matter what time of day,
but take time to get alone with God, no distractions, no, well you could have music playing in the background,
but no TV set, no interruptions, try to find a quiet place.
A lot of folks in our church love to go to coffee shops, but go to a coffee shop and get alone with the Lord.
But take your Bible, and I'd say start with the Gospel of John.
But first is prayer.
So when I open my Bible, when I'm going to have the PB&J time, I open it and I start with prayer.
And my prayer is, Lord, speak to me.
Lord, open up my heart.
Show me what I need to see from the scriptures today to draw me more closely to you.
Show me those things in my life that need to change, that are a hindrance in my relationship with God.
And so very simple prayer like that is where it begins.
But then you start to read the Word.
And you know, in John, as you're reading a chapter, God's going to speak to you.
And we call the reading of the Word to be the logos.
And then when the Word reads you, we call that rhema.
And there's the spoken word, logos, that's the Greek word here.
But then there's the speaking word of God, which is rhema, the Greek word for speaking.
And so this is what you're doing is you're reading the spoken word, the logos.
But then as you're reading, God begins to speak to your heart about something that he wants to accentuate in your heart and in your life.
And that's why we do this, because God's speaking to us from his Word.
word, through his Logos word, he's speaking a rhema word to us.
So first is prayer, asking God to show up.
Second is Bible, letting God speak to us.
But then thirdly, and this is the part
that I think is missing a lot, and that's a journal.
And I've got a spiral bound.
This isn't spiral bound, but it's just a regular composition notebook.
It's a great place to start.
I have reams and reams of boxes full of my journals from all the years
of spending time with the Lord.
I could look back, I could open up a particular box, just randomly stick my
hand and pull out one of my journals, and within a few pages, I would remember
back to my time in Japan or remember back to my time at University of Georgia,
or I could remember back about, you know,
graduate school in California, whatever, because I took so many notes in my heart
and kept them in my journal.
So what's interesting about a journal
is that in pedagogy studies, they found that there's 80 percent more
retention in your life if you write down what you're hearing.
You write down what you're learning.
You see this in the NFL.
You see this in college football.
They call it film, going to film.
They'll go to film.
And at film, the guys all have like a notebook like this,
especially like the quarterback and stuff, and he's taking notes on what he needs
to know to remember for the upcoming game.
So even in that arena, they found that mental memory and muscle memory go together.
And so same in the Christian life that is we're reading the word.
God's going to speak to us.
We're going to forget that five minutes
after we leave if we don't write something down.
So what I think is key in a journal is
that we write it down, put a date on it so we can remember.
Let me give you three things.
Three things happen when you keep a journal.
The first is focus.
It gives you focus as you read God's word.
Secondly, memory.
You start remembering what you're reading.
And then thirdly, application.
So when I write in my journal,
I first write the date up at the top.
And then as I'm reading God's word and God speaks to me, I usually write down
the verse and as I write the whole verse out.
OK, and then I write under what God's saying to me.
Why is that? Why did I write that verse down?
Well, it's because something God's speaking to me about in my life.
And so I jot that down.
And then at the end of my time reading the word and journaling,
I try to put in application.
A lot of times I'd even write application.
And under that, what does that mean?
So God, let's just say I'm reading God's word and he speaks to me about an area
in my life that is not all together where God wants me to be.
So I write down what that is.
And and then my application would be.
This needs to change in my life for me to realize new freedom
from that area that's becoming kind of an addiction in my life.
That makes sense.
So, again, you're going to need a pen.
You're going to need a journal.
You're going to need a Bible.
When we do that, God does something.
And here's what's interesting,
that the recent studies in neuroplasticity have shown.
And what that is, is that the brain study of the brain,
they call it neuroplasticity because they're finding that your brain can grow.
And the reason you say, well, like, duh,
well, it's not really, duh, because for years and years there was this
belief that after about 30 years old, you pretty much your patterns and your
behavior and even your brain was kind of stuck with where it was at at that point.
But they're finding that to be absolutely not true.
And it's especially with people who read and people who write,
people who read things, new things, write down what they're learning.
Neuroplasticity studies are showing that you can actually increase your brain
capacity, but also you can actually increase your IQ.
So that's what's exciting about coming to know Christ, following PB&J.
It's not just a spiritual exercise.
It's actually a mental and emotional exercise in your own life.
So God can do that.
And I think God's going to do that in your life.
So I want to challenge you to PB&J.
start tomorrow get your Bible go to the gospel of John open it up start with
chapter 1 take out your journal write down what God says to you make sure
there's a part where you put in the application and the next day and the
next day and the next day and here's what's interesting is that all the
studies show that it takes about 21 to 30 days to develop a new habit so I want
to challenge you to 21 to 30 straight days don't let anything get in your way
from taking time to get alone with God open your Bible prayer and then
journaling because you'll develop a new habit in your life by doing that and
it's going to change your life man it's going to radically radically change your
life and I wouldn't be where I'm at today and as I look back over my life I
wouldn't have made virtually every major decision in my life was birthed
out of PB&J spending time with the Lord and then God speaking in my heart about
something that he's called me to do might admit that I was moving to a new
location could be in the case of my relationship with Liz you know whether
to marry her or not stuff at the church where I pastor right now most of that is
birthed in my time with alone with the Lord in PB&J so let me challenge you
become a PB&J radical revolutionary Christian and watch what God will do in
your life it will transform you from the inside out