Hey, everyone.
All right.
So today we're going to be talking about who does God say that he is.
And I wanted to start out by explaining and giving you background story on how the Lord
really impressed this into my life.
And he's made any helped me understand that it has to truly be the foundation of everything.
Even before I know who it is that I am, I have to know and have everything in my existence
revolve, completely revolve around who he says that he is.
And so the story that I wanted to start off with today was about my crisis of faith.
And the verse that I picked to kind of show how this is highlighted in scripture as a
very usual struggle to go through, including, you know, thousands of years ago is by looking
at Psalm 42, two through three.
So it says my soul thirst for God, for the living God, when can I go and meet with God?
My tears have been my food day and night while people say to me all day long, where is your
God?
And that's how I felt when I was in my crisis of faith, I couldn't find God.
I couldn't, um, I, I had always grown up believing that God existed.
So I was saved when I was four, I was baptized in the spirit when I was not a seven, and
I was baptized in water when I was nine.
And I know 100, 100, 100% positive that I was saved, but the, and it was so odd because
my whole life revolved around always trying to be good, always trying to do the right
thing.
Why?
Because God said, so what does God say that I'm supposed to do?
Who does God say that I'm supposed to be?
How am I supposed to please God from the time that I got up to the time that I went to bed,
my entire thought process has always revolved around God.
So I know that for other people, they have to, they have to learn it.
They have to try to remember to include God in their day.
For me, it was, it was so infused into my life from such a young age, from just the
environment that I was in, the fact that I not only did we go to church, but, and I grew
up in a Christian home, but also I had was at a Christian school.
I did homeschool, but I did a very solid Christian curriculum and where they talked about God
in every single subject, every single day.
And I didn't know that somebody like me could have a crisis of faith, especially if I had
chosen God for myself at so such young age.
And I determined my actions, my feelings, everything all day, every day about him.
I didn't understand that I, that someone like me could begin to question at the age of,
I don't know, I think it was like 22, 23 could question whether or not God existed.
I thought that I was way past that.
And, and I had even experienced and felt the power of the Holy spirit himself.
And I still at age 22, 23 questioned it.
And what happened was I was just so upset with, with how it felt to me, like God had,
I don't know, victimized me to life.
The bad things that he'd allowed to happen, how he, how I felt like no matter how much I
worked, he wasn't pleased enough that I always had to push harder.
It was always that I couldn't have it or that it was going to be later.
And it was probably going to be several thousand years down the road.
And there was something in me finally that just snapped.
And basically what it was is I was not dealing.
I was taking all of these things, one thing right after another, that were
disappointments and I would hold them up against God and accusation saying, you
know, Lord, you did this to me.
You do this.
Okay.
I'm supposed to believe that you're good, but you did this, you know?
Okay.
I'm, I'm sorry, Lord.
And I know that you're, that you say that you love me and I'm supposed to believe
that you love me and that I'm supposed to love you too, but you did this and you
allow this and you're not allowing this.
And I had so many accusations built up that what also built up to the
point where eventually I couldn't ignore it at 22, 23 years old was the fact
that I had built a tremendous amount of resentment and bitterness against the
Lord, well, that just festered in me to the point where I began to wonder since
life with looked and felt so awful.
And I felt stuck.
I thought, which of course we just know as a spiritual wilderness, but because I felt
so stuck, I thought maybe God doesn't exist.
Maybe, maybe that's my issue.
I'm actually believing in something as a crutch that's in my imagination.
That's actually the thought that I was just, and the possibility that I just felt threatened
with.
So what I did is I remember that one day I was, I'd reached the end of myself.
And I literally, it was like a movie.
I literally fell from a standing position onto my knees in my apartment.
And I looked this way and I thought, okay, over here, you know, cause I'm going to make
a decision.
I'm going to make a decision for myself, whether or not I believe that God is real.
And interestingly, the Holy spirit told me my heart as I was falling, he said, Ashley,
he said, when you get up from here, you will have made a decision for the rest of your
life.
I'm like, okay.
Which is so funny because if I'm going through this crisis of faith, I'm not quite sure if
God even exists.
And yet I heard the Holy spirit say to me, Hey, by the way, when you get up, you're going
to have made a decision for the rest of your life.
That determines it.
In other words, you're never going to come back to this point where you question it again,
you're going to make a decision and it's going to be final.
And I fully accepted it.
I'm like, okay, well then there you go.
And that's true because I was so used to hearing God.
I was so used to hearing the spirit that I didn't question it.
Even though my emotions were so, uh, had turned me so against God that I was questioning whether
or not it existed.
I am fully aware of this makes no sense, but as you all know, who have gone through very
difficult struggles when you're in the middle of them, they make no sense.
So I decided, okay, over on this side of me over on the right side is my future.
It is how it is, what it is that I'm going to decide to do.
And it also is my, my, um, uh, basically my decision of what things are, my determination
of what things would look like if God's not real.
And if I choose that, he's not real over here.
Okay.
God's real.
Okay.
So these are my two, these are my two choices.
And it's like, I physically put them in these two places.
And, um, I, so I looked over here and I thought, okay, if, you know, what, if I just choose
that God doesn't even exist, then I could just live my life with him, not even existing.
And I was like, what would that be like?
And because I gave myself like a physical direction to look, it kind of helped me solidify
and solidify what it was that I was doing and my determination.
So I looked and then I realized, and I thought, okay, what would it be like to step into that?
And I kind of began to feel into that as weird as that might sound to begin to feel and imagine,
okay, stepping into that and living like that.
And then I realized in order to do that, I, for God to not be real, I don't have anyone
left to be mad at because I was so mad.
I was so mad.
I was embittered.
I was resentful.
And then I realized I can't do it.
I can't do it.
I am too mad.
I have to have someone to be mad at.
So therefore, if I'm mad and I can't let go of this anger towards God, because it is too
important to just let go of it really happened.
He really did this to me.
It's what I was feeling inside.
And therefore I knew 100%, oh, I believe God's real.
I know he's real because my anger has a direction that it is pointed towards.
And that is, and it is a real thing that exists.
In other words, what it is that I was mad at was a real thing.
It wasn't in my imagination.
So I knew from the fact that I couldn't even let go of my anger towards him.
And I was not going to let him off the hook by not being, by not existing.
I knew when a hundred percent positive, oh yeah, I, there's no doubt in my mind and there's
no doubt in my, in my, my true knowing, you know, your knower, there's no doubt in me
whatsoever that God exists.
Okay.
So now that I've determined that for myself now, what am I going to do?
And I realized, okay, well now I have to decide if he's good or evil.
Cause I just don't know.
You know, is he good or is he, is he not?
Because it feels like he's trying to kill me and I am not exaggerating when I say that
it really, when you are in that bad of a pit, it really does feel like you're like something's
chasing you and trying to squelch you, trying to snuff you out.
And I thought, obviously God's.
biggest, most powerful being in the universe.
So obviously it must be him, you know?
And so I thought God was truly out to kill me.
It just felt like there were that,
that things were happening that surely God,
if he's in, if he's, you know, in full control,
he should have been able to avoid.
So if he didn't avoid it,
if he didn't cause it to be avoided,
well then, you know, he just left me unprotected
or he caused it himself is what I was thinking.
So again, it just felt like,
I think he might just be out to kill me.
Well, surely that makes him evil, right?
So anyway, but God says that he's good.
So is he good or evil?
And I thought, you know what?
I don't know.
I go, okay, well, I don't know about that one.
So let's go to the next one.
And the third thing was, am I going to follow him or not?
And I thought, okay, well, if he's evil
and he's trying to kill me,
wouldn't I just rather at least get something out of life
like a good time, a good experience
because he's trying to kill me anyway.
So why not just make the most of my time here, right?
And I could finally start trying all those other things
that all of these people say are so much fun.
They say drugs and sleeping around
and they go partying or whatever.
And I've never done any of these things
because I just thought that they were bad,
but they all seem to think that they're fun.
So if God doesn't exist
or if God's just trying to kill me anyway,
well, then I might as well try them
and see if I think that they're fun
and see if I can at least make my life a lot happier
because dadgummit, I'm doing finally what it is
that I want to do instead of always trying to ask God
what he wants me to do, right?
So anyway, that was my conundrum.
Could I do that if he exists and he's evil?
And I realized I couldn't
because when I looked deep down inside of myself
and I really touched with the place in me
that could touch God,
I knew that if God just existed, even if he was evil,
if he existed, I had to follow him.
In fact, at that moment in making that decision,
I didn't understand how someone knowing that God exists
could rebel and choose to not follow him.
It was just that much of a,
I don't know, it was just that foundational
of a, I don't know, just a principle or truth to me.
It's like, even if he's evil,
if he is God and he's really out there, I have to follow him.
And so I basically told him that.
I said, okay, God, I just feel like
you're just martyring me either.
And you're just trying to kill me for your own glory.
I said, that's honestly what it feels like.
I don't know if you're doing that or not,
but I am telling you that is how my life feels
when I wake up every day.
But Lord, I know you exist.
And yes, for the rest of my life, I will follow you.
This determination, this decision was not,
this is what I'm supposed to do because God,
this is what God wants and whatever.
No, this was, I've got nothing to give God.
I am mad at God.
I've got no love, you know, and it's what it felt like.
And I, this was just me when I got down to brass tacks
and it was my choice.
I wasn't doing anything because I thought I should.
I was so mad at God.
I didn't care if he thought I should.
I was, I don't know,
almost like a bit of rebellion or something like that.
No, it was my choice, my intentional decision.
Like, God, this is what I'm going to do.
And then he spoke to me.
You know, and by the way, all of this took,
I don't know, at the absolute most, it took me 10 minutes.
I don't even know that it took that long.
And this is like a very serious decision, right?
Very serious thing, you know, does God exist or not?
Not what logic can I find and can I come up with
or that other people have told me
or that I can find a scripture to convince myself?
No, just nothing but me and my knower of like,
or of deep down the very seed of my existence.
What do I know is true and what am I going to act on?
And anyway, so once I made the decision,
I told God, I said, okay, God,
even if you're trying to kill me,
I will follow you because you exist.
And I understand there's no love in that.
It wasn't even subservient-ness,
it was more of an idea that if God really exists,
Is the king of the universe who created the universe.
It's an obvious choice that the creature would choose to serve.
It was just kind of like a fact.
It wasn't like I was putting myself in a servant position of like, well,
Lord, I'm nothing and you're everything or, or Lord, I just love you.
None of those things.
It was just like, it was just fact.
It was like, it's like gravity.
How could it be otherwise?
It's just like, well, this is what it is.
So therefore I'm just going to accept.
A law that's in place.
That's kind of like what it was, but I told Laura, so Lord, this is my choice.
And this is what I'm choosing.
So just like the Holy spirit has told me, I made that decision.
And the Lord, and the Lord there, when I was in that place, he can,
he affirms some things to me.
He said, Ashley, he said, this is the lowest place that anyone ever gets in life.
They can lose a spouse.
They can lose children.
He said they can have all, they could be, you know, raped.
They could have some horrible, horrible things happen to them.
Someone could try to murder them.
They could go through some horrible traumas, but this actually the spiritually, those might
be all kinds of experiences that trigger this, that triggers someone to come to this place.
But this place actually is seriously the lowest that anyone can get.
And what was interesting about that?
It's like, it feels like a pit.
I discovered God was there.
I was found that God was in the lowest place that we could ever get.
You know, he says that he's in the highest heights and the greatest steps, you know,
and all of that.
And that, and that he's everywhere.
So he said, he said, actually, you know, this is the lowest place that anyone can ever get
with me.
And he said, and I promise you, you will never be here again.
So you hit it one time.
In other words, the more you, the one and done thing.
And so now you won't ever be this low again.
I was so grateful.
I was like, well, that's good.
Cause this is awful.
And then he said, so actually he said, you don't know me at all.
You don't, he said, you're right.
You don't know me.
Cause like, cause I had mentioned that earlier too.
And I said, Lord, I have no idea who you are.
I don't know if you're good or if you're evil, but I'll follow you.
And he said, you're right.
You don't know.
He said, but I'm going to reveal two things to you.
He said, I'm going to reveal to you that I'm good.
And then I'm left, which I thought was fascinating.
You know, of all the things that he could say about himself, he said, those are the
two things that right now in this moment that I'm going, that I'm telling you, I am going
to rebuild of, of, of who I am to you.
And I said, and I just kind of say, okay.
It was just like, I had no, um, no positive emotion to be able to pour into the moment.
I was just at the end of myself.
So I got up and went about the rest of my day.
And that was my moment.
It was my crisis of faith.
And over, I think it was a year, maybe it was two, but I think it only took a year.
God taught me and confirmed to me that he was good.
And it wasn't like I knew what was going on at the time.
I didn't realize that God was teaching me that he was good.
I just knew about, you know, when the, I don't know, when the year was over or year and a
half or however long it took, I just remember a moment where, I don't know, I think something
happened and I did not, you know, probably, you know, something negative and I didn't
question the goodness of God at all.
And I didn't question the goodness of God at all.
So, you know, God's, God's a very good God.
So this thing just happened, but that doesn't make him or doesn't mean that he's not good.
It, and all of a sudden I thought, oh my word, God's been teaching me that he's good.
And I learned it, you know, cause I, I wasn't consciously and intentionally learning, trying
to learn that God was good, but he was quietly doing it.
And it was just evident when something came up and I made that choice, obviously, you
know, God's good.
I was looking, I'm looking the horrible, awful, ugly thing right dead in the face.
Wow.
That is really good.
Oh my word.
So I've learned it.
The love God's love has taken me much longer to learn.
God's still working with me on that.
But that one has a, that accusation against God run is much bigger and much deeper in
my life.
And I have more accusation against him, I guess, in that area that I had built up over
time, you know, thinking that it was the, that the, that he's not loved, you know,
it was affirmed by all of these things.
He's wrath.
He's strict.
He's all of this.
And so Lord has had a lot in my life to overcome.
So that one's taking longer, but.
I have learned enough to have learned at least to a very, very significant extent that God
truly is love.
He's just always taking me to greater and greater depths of that, which he will for
eternity because as I believe God is always expanding and getting bigger, which is why
I think the universe is always expanding.
I believe that that's a picture that God has given to us in nature of the fact that he's
always expanding.
He's always expanding, then we're always learning more about how love, how much love he is.
So that was my crisis of faith.
And and from there, God began to teach me all other, all kinds of other things about
him.
Let's see.
I'm trying to see.
There we go.
I'm trying to get my notes up here.
And so one of the things, some of the things that I learned before we get into some particular
stuff, who it is that God says that he is, because I pulled out some ones that are very
important to me and that I've learned with people are the ones that seem to stand out
the most, have the most impact things that they question the most that they struggle
with.
And we'll be talking about those.
But, but first of all, I wanted to say that we think that God is something because he
does these things and he doesn't do these other things.
But that's actually not what determines who God is.
God is who he is because he says that.
So he is something and he is the one who tells us that he's that.
That's how we know that that's what he is.
When we look in and God even talks about this and Romans one or Romans two talks about the
fact that even nonbelievers can look at creation and it can point to God.
But God himself is the one who has to reveal to us in our hearts, who he truly is.
And we can't ever gain any kind of we can't truly understand who he is from hearing about
him through other people that can prompt our conversations with the Lord, but anything
that we hear about the Lord from other people, it has to resonate in our spirit, their spirit
of God within us has to be the one to affirm that in order for us to be able to bank on
the fact that that's actually true.
So a lot of this of us have have developed our sense of who God is, you know, developed
our sense or, or developed our, our thoughts and our foundation of who he is from what
other people have told us that he is, it could be parents, it could be, you know, pastors
or counselors or teachers.
And they've tried to help us through difficult times where we're emotionally distraught,
where we, and what they're seeing is they, we need to be comforted.
So they try to tell us that God is these things, or they'll maybe they don't, they don't like
how we're behaving.
So they're saying, so they'll tell us things like, well, God, this is how God sees this.
And therefore God is wrath, and therefore God is strict, and they're trying to give
us logical explanations for things they're trying to, my point is they're trying to approach
it logically.
They're also, and, and the thing is that leaves us dependent on other people's interpretation
of who God says that he is, instead of relying on God himself to reveal who he is.
So what we've done is we have, we have also, so we've done that we've also relied on our
own experiences or what we have viewed of other people's experiences in order to teach
us who God is.
And the problem is all of those can't, none of those things can tell us who God is.
We actually have to learn that only from God himself, everything that someone else says
or that you think that you see evidence of in, in, in your experience or someone else's
experience of God, it has to be affirmed by God.
God himself has to tell you, has reveal it to you in your spirit and in your experience
of him, not the experiences that happen in your life, your experience with your interaction
with his being not God, would you give me a sign by doing this and calling that some
kind of an interaction with God's being, it has to be him revealing something to you personally
in your spirit.
And when he does, no one else can take that, can take that away.
And then what we must do is we have to then act on, on who, on who he says that he is,
and that will completely transform.
our life. Um, that means that, oh, well, it's, let me kind of approach it from different perspective.
So what I'd like you to, to do during this program, and I'm a little nervous about
explaining the wording it this way, but it's very powerful. Think of it like,
abandon your concept of Christianity and just choose to learn who God is by letting him tell
you. Just completely abandon your concept of religion, of tradition, of the way you've always
done things, what everybody that around you, what you and everybody around you have always
believed about God abandonment concept of the religion of the structure of the preconceived
ideas, even no matter how much of a foundation that, that, that is. In other words, no matter
how deep you have to go, like if you have to go to like six years old or something like that
and choose to learn who God is by letting him tell you as you experience him.
So who does God say? And we'll be talking about that when we talk about like a practice that you
can do. So who does God say that he is? So in there, one of the things that he, uh, that he
expresses about himself, which fascinatingly was the first thing that he told me, you know,
when I was going through my crisis of faith is he said, Ashley, I'm going to teach you that I am
good and that I am love. And I thought, okay, well, that's, those are interesting ones to
pick out. Well, fascinatingly, those are ones that God repeats throughout scripture.
Constantly. In fact, I've written all of these. I'm just going to read a, uh, I think just one
of the scriptures out to you, but then I'm going to give you a myriad of other verses that all say
the same thing. So repeated throughout scripture is the Lord is good and his love endures forever.
So this is first mentioned in first chronicle 1634, but it's also mentioned in second chronicle
seven three. And that's the one that I wanted to read because that is when Solomon is dedicating
the temple and the people, um, well, I'll just read it to you. So it says when all the Israelites
saw the fire come down and the glory of the Lord above the temple, they knelt on the pavement with
their faces to the ground and they worshipped and gave thanks to the Lord saying he is good
and his love endures forever, which I've found really fascinating. I think that I first read that.
Oh, I don't remember when I read that. I don't remember if I was an adult and it was after this,
the crisis of faith moment with the Lord, or if this was in high school, but I remember reading
that thinking, wow, of all the things they could have said and declared at the dedication of the
temple, they just repeated the Lord is good and his love endures forever. Then, um, uh, it's,
and this is mentioned again in Ezra three, one Psalm 23, six, we all know Psalm 23, uh, Psalm
25, eight, Psalm a hundred and a hundred verse five, Psalm 106, verse one, Psalm 107, verse one,
Psalm 118, verse one, Psalm 119, nine, uh, 19 verse 90. And what is really fascinating is Psalm
one 36. It is the entire chapter. He'll say something and I'll say his love, uh, the Lord
is good and his love endures forever. And so there's something else. The Lord is good and
his love endures forever. Something else. The Lord is good and his love endures forever. I mean,
just over and over and over. I haven't counted them, but it's, I don't know, it's at least 25
times. And, um, it's almost like the, the, the chorus of a song, uh, which, well really, you
know, because it is a song, maybe that was how they, how they sang it was kind of like a chorus,
but it, every time they said a phrase or a sentence, it was followed by the Lord is good
and his love endures forever. So my point is the repetition in scripture means that it is
extremely important to the Lord. So of all things that the Lord wants you to remember about him is
apparently the Lord that he's good and that his love endures forever so that he is good and his
love never ends. You will always have it always, always, always, always, always, always, always.
Why? Because that's who he is. Remember he says, God is love and God is good. So that's who he is.
He can't help, but be himself. And so remember that as we talk about all of these other, uh,
things that the Lord is, because he is saying, no, that I act like that towards you. And you can
You've got to respect that in our, in our, in our interaction, because that's who I am.
That's just me being me.
It's not me doing something and acting a particular way towards you because you did a certain
thing.
This is me being me and I will be that whether you're around or not.
But because of all of the beings in the universe, I chose humans.
You are the object of me being me.
You're the object of my love.
You were the object of my goodness.
You were the object of my provision, of my protection, of my direction, of my safety,
you know, et cetera.
So, but of all of the things, the fact that of all of his characteristics, the fact that
he repeats in scripture over and over and over and over and over the fact that he's
good and that his love endures forever.
I take that to mean that it is his, it is the thing that he most wants us to remember
and to associate with him and to rely on him for now.
So the first thing, so God is love and he is loving to you.
So remember it in those two ways that God is love and that he loves you as opposed to,
oh yeah, well God is love and I don't get to benefit from it or God is love and he just
loves everyone else.
It's very important that we choose by faith that we really are the object of that love
of God directs his being of his being that characteristic.
He directs that towards us.
So God took the initiative to save and to love you.
So if you look at Romans five, six or 11, it says, you see at just the right time when
we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.
Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person, someone
might possibly dare to die, but God demonstrates his own love for us in this while we were
still sinners, Christ died for us.
We have now been justified by his blood.
How much more should we be saved from God's wrath through him?
For if while we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his
son.
How much more having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life?
Not only this, so, but we also boast in God for our Lord Jesus Christ through him.
We have now received reconciliation.
So God is the one who took the initiative to save you and he did it while let's see,
let me look at the exact phrase that he used.
It says he demonstrates his own love for us in this while we were still sinners.
In other words, we were an active rebellion against the Lord dead to him, you know, in
our spirits, Christ died for us.
So it's like in the worst possible scenario, you know, Christ died for us.
So because remember it says at the beginning, it says, while we were so powerless, Christ
died for the ungodly.
Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, but Jesus died for the unrighteous
and people very rarely die for a righteous person, right?
To give of yourself is the greatest act of love.
No greater love had no man than this, that he laid down his life for someone else.
It's because that's what Jesus did or not.
That's why Jesus did that for us.
Also, if you look at John 17, 23, I in them, and it may, how did that go?
I will be in them and you in me so that they may be brought to complete unity.
Oh, that's what it was.
He was saying, he was saying, you know, Lord strengthen them that, that as they are in
me and that, and then I am in you and that you were in me, what was it like solidify
that Lord so that they may be brought to complete unity.
Then the Lord, the world will know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have
loved me.
So the fact that we're unified with God is evidence of the fact that he loves us.
Romans five, eight.
It was while we were yet sinners that Christ died for us.
And so remember that he didn't die because you were sinful.
He died because he loved you in sin was in the way.
So we give sin too much credit as being this thing that God was trying to get rid of because
it was bad.
God's like, no, no, no, I don't have access to you.
And yeah, sure.
You're in the way.
So, but it's because I love you, not because there's sin, but because I love you that I'm
going to do whatever it is that I have to do to get access to you again.
So I'm going to die, which will move sin out of the way.
That is why he died for you.
He didn't die for you because you sinned.
He died for you because he loved you.
Sin was keeping him from being able to get to you and you being able to get to him.
So again, I'm going to repeat.
This for Romans five, six and eight, you see it just the right time when you were still powerless. Christ died for the ungodly, but God demonstrates his own love for us in this while we were still centers. Christ died for us.
So what God's doing is he's rebuilding our corrupted foundation that God was a God of judgment towards us instead of the fact that he loves us.
We keep thinking that when we approach God, that his main objective towards us is to judge us to always be weighing us in the balance our deeds, whether or not we're following him, whether or not we're loving him, you know, how we're feeling about him.
Whether we're doing the last thing that he told us to do, you know, how we're handling things and like I said, how we're feeling was our attitude, right? Do we handle that correctly? And really God's like, no, my, my objective towards you is love.
Not judgment and Jesus evidence this by the fact that he came to earth and he said, I did not come to judge.
Now, yes, he is the great he is. Jesus was given the authority once he died to judge. But remember that that is judging the, the sheep from the goats. So you've already been judged and you were found perfect. You were found to be perfect because you were one with Christ.
Okay. So another one is another thing that God is that God is love. I wanted to talk about that one first instead of the good, because for whatever reason, we have a hard, difficult time. Sometimes not everyone, because I, I wasn't like this, but I've noticed in working with people, people have a hard time believing that God is good. If he's not loving and I, and so I wanted to address that one first, but remember that God is good and that he's good to you.
That's important to not just believe that he's good, but to believe that he's good to you very intentionally. In other words, you remember that you were the benefit benefit.
Benefiter you're the one who gets to benefit from the fact that he's good. You're the one to whom he directs his goodness. So in Psalm 116, seven, it says, be at rest once more on my soul for the Lord has been good to you.
So this, this is not being grateful to God for giving you money for your dinner. That helps you barely get by because, well, oh my goodness, it could just be so much worse.
That's not the goodness of God that we're talking about. We're talking about the fact that his being is something that if we were to describe as being the word is called good.
It's God being God is God being himself and he is that thing to you.
It's much deeper than what he does for you. It's who he is towards you that you get to benefit from and get to receive
We can also look at some 2713 I remain confidence of that confident of this. I see the goodness of the Lord at the land of the living Psalm 35 eight taste and see that the Lord is good. Psalm 145 nine, the Lord is good to all
The next one we're going to have to blow through some of these pretty quickly because and I've got so much so much information, especially so many and passages and
And for each one. But the next one that I want to talk about is God is provider. So we've got God is love. God is good. God is provider. This is not God is the great benefactor.
Because benefactor means that he's like, you need something you want something and he's a genie and he's doling it out to you. No, no, God is provider. It's a lot bigger than a benefactor and he's providing for you. So you get to actually receive from receive all
You're seeing the aspect of God that is exuding provision, you are the object, you were the thing that gets to actually receive that which comes forth from God.
My favorite scripture is Luke about this is Luke 1222 through 30 that that passage. In fact, I wanted to read it to you real quick.
And
I don't have it up. I thought I did.
2330
So we're very familiar with this passage, but I asked you to note that I have had to live this out by going from city to city overseas as a single woman by myself.
Having money to get to a city, but not having money to leave that city. So I would get to a city and then near the end.
At the time that I'd have to leave, God would give me money that would enable me to go to get to the next city and have food and be able to pay for hotel room and all of that.
And then at that place, he would give me money in order to go to the next city.
And so this became very, very, this passage became very, very real to me.
This isn't a hypothetical.
This is not, oh, wouldn't this be nice if, or, oh, yeah, well, we have to do our part, but we just need to remember that, you know, just in general, God provides for us.
No, God says, no, I provide for you in the particulars of your food and, uh, and you being able to have a place to sleep and in your relationships and meeting your emotional needs, et cetera.
So it mentions in Luke 12, um, starting verse 22, then Jesus said to his disciples, therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you eat or about your body, what you will wear for life is more than food and a body than clothes.
Because we're so used to having our own jobs where we get money and then we take that money and it's in our bank and we try to steward it well and responsibly.
And then we pay for food or we pay for clothes.
We, we, uh, don't take this passage literally, but I am telling you, I've had to live this thing out literally where I was not doing anything and God provided me food and he provided me shelter.
Um, and I realized, oh my word, this is real.
Uh, so, uh, let's see, consider the Ravens.
They do not sow a reap and they have no storeroom or barn yet.
God feeds them.
And how much more valuable are you than birds?
Who have you by worrying can add a single hour to your life since you cannot do this very little thing.
He calls that a little thing.
You know, why do you worry about the rest?
Um, and let's see.
So consider how the wild flowers grow.
They do not labor or spin yet.
I tell you not even Solomon and all his splendor was dressed like one of these.
If that is how God closed the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire.
How much more will he clothe you?
You have little faith and do not set your heart on what you will eat or drink.
Don't worry about it.
He says for the pagan world runs after those things.
So all of the secular world and believers, they do all of that.
And your father knows that you need them.
He knows that you need things without asking for them.
Um, let's see.
So close that.
Um, and then let's see here.
Um, now remember that contrasting to the unrighteous judge, God answers quickly.
Remember that, uh, when Jesus, Jesus told the disciples a parable to show them that they could always pray, not give up.
He mentions in Luke 18, one to eight, he says, um, or a two through eight.
He said in a certain town, there was a judge who neither feared God nor cared what people thought.
And there was a widow in that town who kept coming to him with the plea grant me justice against my adversary for some time.
He refused, but finally he said to himself, even though I don't fear God or care what people think.
So in other words, this is an unrighteous judge.
This is not what God's like.
It says yet, because this widow keeps bothering me, I will see that she gets justice so that she will, she won't eventually come and attack me.
And that's how an unrighteous judge would act.
So the Lord says, listen to what the unjust judge says and will, and will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones who cry out to him day and night?
Will he keep putting them off?
I tell you, he will see that they get justice and quickly.
Um, however, when a son of man comes, will he find faith on the earth?
So we have to remember that God, unlike, unlike that woman who had to pester an unrighteous judge, all we have to do with cry with, with the Lord is to ask the Lord, this is what I want.
All we have to do is to have a need.
And God's like, Hey, I'll provide that for you.
Um, and then the story of the tax provided in the fish's mouth.
Y'all may remember this one.
I love this one.
I have used this, um, uh, between me and the Lord so many times and found it to found that the Lord operates exactly, literally like this.
So after Jesus and his disciples arrived in Capernaum, the collectors of the two drop my temple tax came to Peter and asked, doesn't your teacher pay the temple tax?
Yes, he does.
He replied when Peter came into the house, Jesus was the first to speak.
So what do you think, Simon?
He asked from whom did the Kings of the earth collect duty and taxes from their own children or from others, from others, Peter answered.
Then the children are exempt.
You don't have to work for, to, to earn your own provision.
This is it.
We're not.
talking about whether or not we should have jobs.
We're talking about the fact that your job
is not providing for you.
God is providing for you.
Because God provides for you and you don't need anything,
you have a job.
So Jesus said to him,
but so that we may not cause offense,
go to the lake and throw out your line,
take the first fish you catch, open its mouth,
and you will find a four drop in the coin.
Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours.
So God provided for their need simply because they had it.
They didn't have to work for it.
He just went out, grabbed a fish.
You know, there was no way that he would have been able
in one fishing trip to be able to get enough
to pay for the tax, right, for a whole year.
He just went, grabbed a fish,
and then God provided the amount
that was needed in the fish's mouth.
All right, so God is protector.
In 1 Peter 2, 23, it says,
when they hurled their insults at him,
he did not retaliate.
And when he suffered, he made no threats.
Instead, he entrusted himself to him who judges justly.
One of the things that God does as protector
is he talks about protecting the orphans and the widows.
One of the things I wanted to,
the reason I wanted to point that out is
I was struck by that several years ago when I was single,
and I just kind of felt like I was uncovered.
I felt he will provide for me,
meaning not just physically provide for me,
but just emotionally, or if something comes up,
I'm the only one who can actually deal with it.
I'm the only one who can take care of it.
I'm the one who has to solve the problem.
I'm the one who has to figure it out.
And there was something about it that made me feel
not just like I had two jobs to do,
but it made me feel, well, afraid,
because I felt unprotected.
And then I came across this passage,
and all of a sudden the words just kind of jumped out on me
where it was talking about, let's see, Jeremiah,
oh, Psalm 68, five.
He's father of the fatherless and protector of widows
is God in his holy habitation.
Or Jeremiah 49, 11, leave your fatherless children.
I will keep them alive and let your widows trust in me.
Or Job 29, 12, because I delivered the poor
who cried for help and the fatherless
who had none to help him.
All of those passages refer to the fact
that God is the one who takes charge of,
and holds himself responsible for the protection
and the covering of orphans and widows.
And I was a single woman.
I wasn't a widow and I was not an orphan,
but all of a sudden the passage jumped out at me
and I thought, oh my word,
what if I'm that orphan or that widow?
I mean, really, and I'm the one who God says
that he's covering, that he's actually,
that he's protecting, that he's taking up the charge for,
that if someone comes against them,
then it's like them coming up against him,
I'm not the one who has to protect myself.
He will put himself like a roaring lion in the way,
in the way between me and the adversary
and he will deal with it.
And I realized, and I thought,
what if I'm the orphan and the widow?
So I just submit that to you to think about as well,
what if you're that orphan or that widow?
In other words, instead of when we read that passage
thinking that, oh yeah, that's always somebody else
in some other situation that I'm not in,
I'm not an orphan, I'm not a widow.
But what if you are?
In other words, an orphan or a widow
is somebody who's not being covered,
who's not being provided for, protected.
Even if they have a husband,
if that husband is not covering them,
is not giving them protection and provision,
in that area, they are a widow to the Lord
and he himself, not a pastor that he'll send on the way,
he himself, he holds responsible to cover
and to protect you in that area.
And that greatly impacted me.
And it's one of those moments
that everything in my life kind of shifted.
I realized I really am covered.
Even if I have a husband, even if I have a pastor,
even if I have a father,
even if I have whatever spiritual covering,
depending on how old you are that you have
and what your situation is,
I realized even in an area,
even if it's just in an area
that I'm not being appropriately covered,
God will take full responsibility.
I don't have to cover and protect me
in that area and to be that for me.
So I hope that you find,
encouragement in that as well.
Remember, let's see, there's so many passages.
I'm not going to read them all,
but I recommend that you do if you,
especially if you are struggling to believe
that God is protecting you.
Protecting you from,
and what kind of situations could we be talking about?
We could be talking about protecting you
when there are people that want to attack you,
say bad things about you,
give you a bad reputation,
that want to hinder or throttle something
that you were trying to accomplish.
God can step in and always does step in and protect you.
Understand that you have,
and realize that all of these things
that we're talking about, protection, provision,
and I wanted to make sure to get through all of them
before I mentioned this,
is protection, provision, is goodness, is love.
You know, all of those things are things that he is,
regardless of, and how he is interacting with you,
regardless of what your life looks like.
Case in point, there was a time where I was,
because it's who he is,
and basically this is another point
that I'm trying to make.
All of those things, his goodness, his love,
his provision, and his protection,
they're not things that you need and have a lack in,
and are asking him and waiting for him
to transact to you to fill that place.
Lord, I need to feel loved.
Oh, okay, okay, Chelsea, here you go.
Or Lord, I need to be protected.
Do you see the situation?
God's like, oh my goodness, just a second,
let me move things, and okay, I'm sending the army,
and whatever, I'm gonna protect you.
That's not, all of these things
are not transactional aspects of our relationship with God.
It's who God is,
not how he relates, not how, how do I explain it?
Not something of himself that he transacts to you,
and the reason that that's important to understand
is God says that we are always in a state of abundance,
and we are never in a state of lack in the new covenant.
So if we need something,
and if we're saying, I need something, Lord,
and I need you to transact it to me,
then it means that we're in a state of lack,
waiting on God to fill that lack,
and we're never in a state of lack.
So think of it kind of like a baby in the womb,
and basically baby in an ambionic fluid.
If there is so much that the baby is,
that is being provided for that baby
simply by the environment in which it exists.
So God's love, his goodness, his provision,
his protection are in an environment
in which you are always existing,
and you are never out of.
So it's not like, oh, well, I'm in a position
in which I'm not being protected,
and so I'll ask God to bring me protection,
to give me protection, to transact protection from me.
No, God says, no, no matter what situation you're in,
I am always who I am.
I am always protector.
Remember, I am that I am.
What he told the Israelites,
that he told Moses to declare to the Israelites that he was.
He said, tell them I am that I am since you sent me to you.
So God just wants us to choose and to believe by faith
that he is that thing.
He is provider, he is protector,
not that he's going to put in a series of events
that will cause or create or send to you protection,
provision, love, goodness.
And he says, you're always in me, in Christ.
Since you're always in Christ, and Christ is God,
therefore he is love, he is good,
he is provider, he is protector.
They're not things that are pushed back and forth
between you and the Lord.
You never leave them, you always have them
because you always have him, and he is all of those things.
Those things do not exist as something outside of him
that he has a storehouse of and he sends to you.
They are himself.
What he gives you is not provision,
he gives you himself as provider.
And therefore in giving you himself as provider,
you have provision, you have protection,
you have love, you have goodness,
and you were in all of those things.
You're being like a baby in ambient fluid,
you're being fully supported and sustained in that place,
and you're never out of it.
Let's see some other passages.
I'm just going, I'll let you read on your own time. I'll just go through them really quickly.
Romans 4 Protector, Romans 12, 7 through 21. Psalm 3, 5 through 6. Psalm 9, 10, which is
Lord, you never forsake those who seek you. Psalm 27, 10. Psalm 35, 10. I love that one.
But those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. Psalm 68, 20 or God, which is God is a God who
saves. Psalm 9, 14, because he loves me, I will rescue him. Let's see here. There's one more I
wanted to read. Oh yeah. Psalm 91, 14 to 15. He will call on me and I will answer him. I will be
with him in trouble. I will deliver him and honor him. So remember if God is protector, that means
he's safe. So whenever you're struggling with emotions or whatever, just remember that he has
a safe place in which to do that. God is always, always safe. Sorry, I've got some kind of a fly
around here. So just remember that all of these things that God is, is actually because you're in
him. They are an environment in which you exist and you're never outside of, and you're never having
to wait for something to be transacted to you. You're always in the provider. Therefore, you
always are in provision. It's not something that happens on the outside. And there was a time
where I was telling the Lord, I had been traveling from place to place. Like I said, you know,
from city to city. And there was one city I hit and I didn't have money to leave.
And it came to, and I thought, Oh, well, God's always, you know, I've been traveling for months
and God always brings it in time. And I waited and waited and waited. And the time came and went,
and I didn't have, this fly is very determined. And I didn't have the money to, to to check out
of the hotel. So I just had to extend it. So what I did is I took my, all of my suitcases
back upstairs. I extended my stay, took all the suitcases back upstairs to wait more for the
provision. You know, what I thought of in my mind is like for the provision to be seen and whatever.
And I'm like, I lay down on the, on the bed and I'm just crying. I'm just crying and crying. I was
like, Lord, what did I do? I'm so sorry. You've been, you've been sending me money whenever I,
whenever I've needed it. And now I'm here. I'm like, Lord, I don't see your provision. I know
I'm not supposed to, to question you or to doubt you, but I don't see your provision. You said,
Ashley, he said, who do you say that I am? And I remembered all that, that, that passage in
scripture where Jesus asked the disciples, who do people say that I am? And he said, well,
some say that you're Elijah and say that you are John Baptist. Some people say that you are the
Christ. And he said, but who do you say that I am? And Peter said, it's very obvious, you know,
that you were, you were the crisis and the living God. And so when I was in that, in that hotel room
that day, just on the bed, just weeping, God asked me, who do you say that I am?
He said, Ashley, don't pare it back to me. What I told you in scripture that I am.
Don't tell me what I told you about myself. Don't tell me who I told you I am.
Who do you say of your own free will and determination? Who do you declare
as reality as the reality in which you in your world operate you in your world, meaning like
my world, not like the world in which I exist in my world. What is real is that Ashley, who am I,
who have you declared that I am, and I'm allowed to be in your kingdom.
And I knew what he was asking for. And it's like, okay, God, I said,
your provider, I said, that's who you are. I'm not waiting Lord for provision from you.
I'm in the provider. Therefore, even though I don't see money,
money isn't my provision and money is not your means of providing for me.
You are provider. That is my choice. Not that you will give me things, not that you will do
things for me in life, but that just being in you, regardless of the physical manifestation,
just being in you,
I choose Lord that you were provider over me ever being out
at getting out of this situation.
And that's what he wanted.
And it broke something spiritually.
It broke something.
It changed something.
There was a, there was a shift because I had made a declaration
to the world and to myself, this is who God is to me.
He is provider.
So it's who God is the goodness, you know, he's good.
He's love.
He's provider.
He's protector.
Um, and those are just some of the, some of the things that he says that he is
obviously he's righteous, he's holy, he's omniscient and all of those, but I picked
some that are, um, that, that we struggle with on a daily basis and that we can
all kind of relate to and understand and agree with the fact that we struggle.
And so take all of those things and remember that it's not that you're not
looking for God to be doing good things for you or to be, or to be doing loving
things for you or to be, or to give you things that you can see and interpret
as provision or see and interpret as, um, protection choose instead that no God,
this is who you are to me.
And that is what I want from you.
And that is what I choose to dwell in.
Not always wanting an expression, wanting goodness transacted to me, love
transacted to me, provision transacted to me or protection transacted to me.
I choose that this is who you are.
And the important thing about that is when we choose that God is who he is, who he
says that he is, and we declare that that is true and we declare that the, and we,
we actually make a choice that that's who he is in our life.
Then God, it, it, it frees God to be who he naturally is.
It frees God to operate like that and to express himself as provider, express
himself as a protector, as good.
And as love into our lives, because we finally let him be him instead of say,
God, I want you to do these things for me.
We've chosen to say, God, I want you to be who you are in my life.
I promise you that will completely change the trajectory of your life.
So, um, is to just let him be who he wants to be with you.
All right.
So, uh, that is all that I have for right now.
Um, I will do a completely separate video on some practices that
I thought that, um, would be helpful.
There are ways that I have actually applied these, um, you know, this, this
teaching this idea of like who it is that God says that who does God say that
he is into my life so that I changed who it was that I, that I believed God was.
And sorry, I have a fly.
He's getting like right in the camera, isn't he?
Um, so I will do a separate video about those practices.
Hopefully that will be helpful.
All right.
Uh, enjoy continuing to work in your journal and I'll see you later.