Hey everyone, all right, so today we are going to talk about the difference between living
right versus living righteously.
So right versus righteous.
This is important because this is the, what we're talking about here with right versus
righteous is the difference of approach that we're taking to our relationship with God
and living out this Christian life.
What we've been doing is we've been focusing so much on trying to do what is right, which
is performance as opposed to approaching things from the perspective that we are righteous
and we're living from righteousness and the way that we do that is faith.
So instead of performance, God says that the approach that we need to be making not only
in our relationship with him, but in living our life and designing our life, you know,
we've been talking about designing our life.
What do we want our life to be?
How, what are we building towards?
How do we approach life on the offense?
In other words, we're creating something as opposed to reacting to something coming at
us.
We're instead intentionally going into something, creating it.
The way that God wants us to approach that is not performance, but rather, but rather
by faith living out of our righteousness.
So we'll be talking about that.
First of all, though, I wanted to mention, and cause I always mention a spiritual struggle
that I was going through that will always relates to the, whatever topic that we're
talking about that day.
And this particular one was, is focusing on when you're experienced spiritual burnout,
spiritual burnout is where, so burnout just in general is where you feel that you is what
happens when you have been pouring out more than you're being replenished by.
So in other words, you feel that you were pouring out something that you don't feel
that you're getting a return.
If you're pouring out and you're expecting to get a return for something, you feel that
burnout happens when you're pouring out more than what you feel you're getting in return
and burnout.
And, and really what's happening in the background is even though that's our perspective, that
Hey, I'm pouring into this thing.
That's not giving me something equal in return.
What's really happening is that burnout is happening when we are pouring out and we're
not being replenished.
We're not actually being filled that our, our, our source is being, is running dry,
as opposed to us always relying on some source to fill us up from the outside.
So whenever you have, which always should be the Lord.
So whenever you're experiencing burnout, it's that you're pouring out faster than you can
be refilled.
Um, so spiritual burnout specifically, uh, is, was what can happen when we are weary
in serving God.
That's how we'll phrase it.
That's how meaning like, that's how we phrase it to ourselves.
I am just, I felt like I am serving the Lord and I am working for him and I'm obeying him
and I'm doing all of these things and I'm, and what I'm getting of my relationship with
him in return, my feeling of connection with him, my feeling of, I don't know, being loved
by him, my fear, my, um, having the X, Y, and Z work out in my life.
I'm not, I don't feel like what I'm getting in return equals what I'm investing.
So I feel that he isn't meeting me at least halfway.
I feel like I'm doing the majority of the work and therefore it, what I'm getting in
return isn't worth the amount that I'm, it doesn't equal what I'm pouring into it.
And so we can get burnout.
Now it just simply means that we're having the wrong approach to it.
Not that, um, and that's why we actually get burned out.
We're not using what we've been pouring into something is actually being sourced from something
that has an end to it as opposed to being sourced from something that is of the Lord
himself and therefore it never ends.
It's of spirit, therefore it's eternal, therefore you're always filled.
You never get depleted.
And so if you're experiencing burnout, it means that there is a, uh, you're using, you've
come to the end of the wrong, of the source that you're using, which is, which means it's
the flesh.
If you're coming to the end of it, it means it's the flesh because everything of the flesh
has an end to it.
In other words, everything leads to death.
It's limited.
It's not eternal.
It's not, you know, you always have it.
Well, there's a limitedness to it is like in the, uh, in the prodigal son story.
free, where the father gives the son his inheritance as they inherit, as the son
asked, but when he, he takes the money outside of the father's estate, the
money eventually runs out.
It's not eternal.
Why?
Because he's not on the father's estate.
If he stayed on the father's estate, he'd for eternity get to benefit from
the father's, from his inheritance from the father, because it would never end.
But because he took a limit, took the amount outside of the father's estate,
he eventually ran through it.
So if we're experiencing burnout, you know, if we're tired of serving God,
if we become weary and well-doing, it means that we're using our flesh as the
source, and so that's a problem.
It means that we're working and approaching life from, from trying to do
the right thing instead of what God says that we should be doing, which is we're,
which is serving him and approaching life from who it is that we are, which
is our righteousness.
Um, so the, that is, is what I had experienced in my spiritual burnout state.
I was just tired of everything that I felt like I was doing to serve the Lord,
always obeying him, always doing what I thought he wanted me to do, but I never,
I thought that I could never do what I wanted to do.
And I just, I felt that what I was getting in return didn't equal the
amount that I was sacrificing.
I felt that I wasn't as close to the Lord as I was wanting to be.
And as I thought that I should be for the amount of effort and investment
and sacrifice that I had made.
And the spiritual burnout did not come overnight.
It came over years.
I don't remember how long that it took before it probably took, I don't know,
at least two decades, technically three, but we'll just say two, um,
two, two and a half decades, something like that of me just continuing to try
to do the right thing, thinking that that's what was expected of me in life.
And eventually I just ran dry.
I'm like, Lord, I am tired.
I don't know how on earth I'm supposed to keep this up because I'm all, I'm
trying to always do the right thing.
And yet it doesn't feel like you're appreciating it appropriately.
And you're not meeting me halfway.
You're not following through on your end of the bargain.
You said, if I do these things, I should expect these things.
And Lord, it's not happening.
And so if it's not happening, then it means I'm approaching it incorrectly.
Not that God's not meeting his end of the deal.
Um, so in the spiritual burnout, I just mentioned this, uh, this passage
where we see that Job experiences the same thing that we experience and that,
and he expresses it in the same way that makes us feel so Job seven, one through
three, do not mortals have hard service on earth or not their days like those
of hired laborers, that's what I felt like in my relationship with the Lord.
I just felt like this hired labor, like a slave longing for the evening shadows.
I would just beg God for a bit of relief, a bit of relief from all of the pressure
or just please, would you stop for a while?
Could I just have a bit of relief?
Um, could I have a season Lord?
I would pray this all the time.
Lord, could I just have a season where you didn't require so much of me?
That's how I would word it to him or a higher labor waiting to be paid.
So like a slave longing for the evening shadows or a hired
labor waiting to be paid.
So I have been allotted months of utility.
In other words, you're doing all of this stuff and you feel like you're
not getting anything accomplished.
And nights of misery have been assigned to me.
And that's how we feel in those, in those moments, in those
times of spiritual burnout.
Instead though, God doesn't want us to approach life from a perspective of
always trying to do the right thing and avoid the wrong thing.
Instead.
He says, I want you to live by faith.
Um, I want you to live out of your righteousness that I've given to you in
Christ, because you're now have your righteousness is what you inherited with
Christ.
You have Christ's righteousness.
He says, I want you to live out of who it is that you are out of your
righteousness, which matches my character.
I want you to live out of my character, just like Adam and Eve did in the garden.
That's how they lived.
They lived out of God's character.
And it mentions in Genesis that until they ate from the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, they didn't know the difference between good and
evil, but they were perfect.
They were without sin because they were operating and just living by an
approaching life from the, from God's character of righteousness, not trying
to do the right thing and avoid the wrong thing.
Um, so here in, um, uh, in John one through three, we're about to, that
we're about to look at is it's, God is encouraging us that there's no right
thing that we have to make sure to do.
you and wrong thing that we have to make sure to avoid because he wants this.
He doesn't want us to live based off of trying to perform and do something and
match ourself up to a specific standard of what, by avoiding these things
and doing these things instead, he said, no, choose that you already are the
thing because receive me and my righteousness and then live from that
righteousness live by that character of my righteousness and my goodness,
because I, because if you live according to my character, which is in your DNA,
you will always do the good thing.
And the right thing, not this right thing, this right thing, the thing that is
always, in other words, you'll always operate out of who God is, not out of
the, not checking off some lists, some arbitrary list outside of God of do
this type of thing where you get this specific action and you get this
specific outcome while avoiding these specific outcomes by avoiding these
specific actions, God said, no, no, no, no.
Just live according to my character, forget the outcomes and just
live according to my character.
And then you'll always do the right thing because you're
doing your, you're living my character.
Not that you're doing the right thing, but you're doing the right thing.
Hopefully that makes sense.
We'll be talking more about that.
So in first John three, nine, it says, whoever's been born of God does not
sin for his seed remains in him and cannot sin because he has been born of God.
So we can no longer sin.
So there's not this.
So we don't have to worry about matching an arbitrary list of do's and don'ts
outside of God and outside of ourselves.
God said, no, we're already reverted back to Adam and Eve before the garden.
That we can't sin.
Remember that's in your spirit, your spirit man, which is one with God
cannot sin because remember that sin is simply unbelief.
We'll be talking about that today and we'll be showing multiple
scripture verses that talk about the fact that sin is actually unbelief.
So God says, you can't your spirit that is now one with Christ because of what
you chose out of in your faith in, in Christ and what he did for you.
It cannot sin.
It can't not believe God.
It always believes God.
It's impossible for your spirit, which is one with Christ to not
believe the being that it's one with.
And that's, it's literally impossible.
It's not like, and it's because you're one with him.
So to not believe him would mean that you were, that you were separated from
him in some way and could choose whether or not you believed him.
But because you've already made that choice, you've been united with him and
you can no longer make this choice that he doesn't, that, that it to not believe him.
So, which is fine, very fascinating, but anyway, um, the God says that we know
that that aspect of ourselves, that spirit no longer sin, so we don't have,
there's not some, some potential or threat of unbelief that we have to make
sure to do all of these things, not do these things in order to avoid, in order
in order to try to not, in order to try to believe God and avoid not believing God.
We don't have to do that anymore.
He's like, that's already who you are.
And so just live out of who you are and everything will be fine.
You'll always believe me and you won't not believe me.
Um, so let's talk about, let's go pull up my notes here.
So what we're talking about is the difference between, um, you know, this
over here between, um, behavior and action versus be talking and be putting
right over here and righteous over here.
We're talking about the difference between, um, living out of our behavior
and action and the outcome that we're trying to get versus by it and basically
performance versus righteousness, the character of God, our character, faith.
That's the difference that we're talking about.
And when we've been doing this, we get spiritual burnout because it's like the
prodigal son taking the inheritance of the father and leaving the estate.
It's like it eventually runs out.
It has, it's limited.
It only has, so it only has so much, so much life in it.
I always say in other words, not life in it, but it can only last so long.
There's an end to it, but if he always lives with, but like in righteousness,
if he always lives within his father's estate, well, then he always has access
to everything that his father has.
Just like what the father told the older son, he's like, you've always
had access to everything that I have.
You just need to grab it.
Right.
Um, so righteous.
And then, um, we need to understand that righteousness is
bound in faith, not performance.
So our righteousness being right with God, being of, and really
it's more than being right with God.
I know that that's how we've always phrased that.
We've always phrased it, but righteousness is being like God is.
We already are like God in our character.
We carry that within our DNA because we're one with Christ.
We were born from God originally, and we've been reunited
with him by choice, by our choice.
And therefore Christ's righteousness was imputed to us.
It was given to us and it's now our righteousness.
So it, our righteousness is found in faith by believing God, not in performance.
So being like God can only happen if we receive the free gift and we
receive that we already are it, not by doing things that look like God.
It's a very, very important distinction that we have to actually
choose God and live from his spirit.
That is the only thing that counts.
Doing something that looks like something God would do and treating people like
God would treat them and doing what Jesus would do, you know, even though we
had that WWJD for a while, whatever, a big mantra that people would use, doing
what Jesus would do is not righteousness.
That's just doing the right thing.
Any non-believer can do that.
This doesn't count.
Like literally it doesn't count.
In fact, if you do any of these things, trying to get, get some benefits from the
Lord, then it means you're trying to earn it and it means you can't get it.
Anything that you try to earn, you can't receive.
We'll be talking about that in a minute.
I don't want to get ahead of myself because we're going to be referencing,
uh, we'll be reading a scripture verse that talks about it, but so remember
that, that righteousness also is a gift.
It's not a wage, meaning like it's not payment for something
that you've done in exchange.
Um, even believing God is not something that we've done.
And then we've gotten this thing in exchange.
A lot of times we think of it like that, but remember even faith
itself is a gift from the Lord.
It talks about that in the Bible.
It says faith is a gift from God.
And it's not something that you, you gifted to God.
And then now he's going to give you something in exchange for that gift.
No, he's the one who gave you the faith.
You're the one who you chose to act on that faith.
I'm like, okay, God, I choose you.
And then he's like, okay, because you chose me.
This is what comes with me.
You're the one who chose me.
And this is what, and the, and when you chose me and you took something
and you received me into yourself, this is everything that you received.
You received all of these things.
You grabbed it.
I offered it first.
And I'm the one who gave you the faith to be able to choose me.
And then you made the choice.
Now you've received me and you've inherited all of this.
Um, and then, so it can only be received, not earned.
Righteousness, righteousness over here can only be received, not earned.
Um, and that means again, like I said, that if you try to earn this, you can't get it.
It's not like a lot of times what we've done is we hear about the grace of the
Lord, but, and, and that he gives gifts to us and that we have to risk in that
it has to be a free gift and that he gives it to us without us earning it.
We hear that, but just in case, and to cover up any extra gaps that might be in
there, we, we think, okay, well, while God's gifting is this, I'm also going to do
these things, but that's the problem.
If you're doing something to try to earn it, it nullifies him giving it to you.
So it doesn't come.
Why?
Because you tried to earn.
It's more than like, oh, well, it just doesn't count.
So God gave it to you, despite you trying to earn it.
That is not what happens.
If you try to earn it, it will cancel out the gift and it won't come.
It's that serious of a deal.
There's one example of how that is manifested and how God expresses this in scripture and
explains this principle to us thousands of years ago, where he said, hey, the priests
need to wear linen tunics.
Linen was expensive, I believe, back then.
It's like it is more now.
It's a finer fiber and it's just not as common, I think, because of the process that it has
to go through in order to make it the way that it is in any way.
So the priests had to wear linen.
They couldn't wear cotton or anything else.
And it's because linen is so breathable, like the good linen.
Now, if you get cheap linen, it's not breathable, but if you get the good linen, it is breathable
because they and they and it needed to be very wicking, you know, so that so that there's
no because the priests were not allowed to sweat in God's presence, because remember
that it talked about sweat as being something that came with the fall, that it's it was
a sign of man trying to strive and earn something out of his flesh because he chose to do that
when he ate from the garden of Eden, he chose to do that instead of relying on the Lord
to gift him things makes him fully dependent on the Lord.
He chose instead, hey, I want to try to determine outcomes by myself by looking at what it by
knowing the difference between good and evil and formulating a plan of how to use these
good things and how to avoid these bad things and then be able to get and be able to determine
get a particular result and therefore be able to determine my own destiny and determine
my own outcomes, determine what happened.
And that leaves me not depending on the Lord, but I can at least try to do some stuff on
my own.
But remember that it was it was a in either or choice.
Adam couldn't gain and continue to get all the benefits from the Lord and do stuff on
his own.
Now, once he made that choice, God said, you made your choice for not me.
Here's me and you had you're with me.
And now you chose the not me.
You chose to do it on your own.
And anyway, so sweat was always was always a is always a sign or a or a symbol or an
expression that God uses of man working for something out of his own flesh.
And it said that the priests were not allowed to sweat in his presence like they weren't
allowed.
So it's it were we can't even try to earn something, because if we try, then it's
going to nullify the gift.
It's there's a word that I keep looking for, not and it's not nullify.
I can just keep using all that neutralize.
It neutralizes the gift.
It's like the gift can no longer come.
It hinders the gift from coming because we're working for it.
So if you want something from the Lord, whether it's this breakthrough risk, you know, it's
even faith, it's anything.
If there is something if there's aspects of the Lord that we desire, we have got to stop
trying for them.
It's why I say in the rest intensive that one of the key words that you look for to
determine whether or not you're striving or you're working is are you using the word
trying with yourself or with God?
You know, I'm really trying.
OK, there's there's the word right there.
You go.
I'm trying.
We have to just effortlessly receive it.
And then that's what we're going to be talking the rest of the time about is how do we
effortlessly receive?
So if we're not supposed to do, which is so much a habit for us, what on earth do we
do instead?
How do we live otherwise?
OK, so if you want something from God, you have to stop trying.
You have to stop doing anything for it.
OK, so God wants us to seek him, but not strive.
Oh, I'm pulling up the wrong book.
He wants to just seek him, but not strive.
So you and that's what faith is.
Remember, we talked about that with it last time at the time before last about what seeking
actually means.
It's a leaning towards and a yearning for the Lord, but it's not a working for him.
It's not a it's not a.
thinking that you're giving like something with thought within you that feels that it is it's it's
exerting any effort towards God expecting God to give you something in return for
your your efforts towards him that's not seeking him seeking him is looking for where he is which
is what why I have in the in the journal the both of those questions that you ask at the beginning
you know who does God say that he is and then who does God say that I am and then why in the evening
reflections that say okay how did I see God today and how do I see myself today it's to teach us to
always look for him to teach us actually how to seek him where is he where is his character not
what is God doing for me how is God answering my prayers not that where is God and how is he showing
up where is his character where is he working where is he moving that's what we're supposed
to be looking for and it's seeking him but not striving for him okay so let's look at Romans
4 I am reading by the way going to read and I chose this very strategically I'm going to be
reading out of the passion translation and here's why it's something that we're very unfamiliar with
now maybe one or both of you have the passion translation but it hasn't been around long
enough for us to and especially not been talked it's not usually used in um in uh pulpits or in
teachings or anything like that um and they use other translations instead they'll use the
king james version or the niv or the nasb or whatever um but the reason that I wanted to use
the passion translation is because it's unfamiliar if you're like me you've been in the church long
enough where you've heard so you've heard so many scriptures over and over and over again
that you've subconsciously memorized them you haven't quite memorized them but they're familiar
enough where when you hear them there's an aspect of you that zones out and you're like oh yeah I
already know this because you part you come to it with preconceived ideas of oh I know what that
says oh yeah I remember oh yeah that's what God says and whatever but I want you to hear it fresh
so regardless of what you think about the passion translation that hey I mean because it's probably
like me I don't you I don't recommend using the passion translation to study the bible but the way
that I use the passion translation is almost like a commentary think of the passion translation like
a commentary it is one person will two three people something like that their their interpretation
of what it was saying in greek or hebrew that's what commentaries are and we don't look at the
commentaries as if they're scripture right so just think of the passion translation about it
is like a commentary you're reading someone else's interpretation or expression to you trying to
explain to you in different words what they believe that this means it's like reading Matthew
Henry's commentary or something like that so just kind of take it like that just use it as like this
fresh way to hear scripture then I recommend that you take these same scripture verses and go look
them up in your translation that you like kjv nasb niv you know whatever and and and that's where you
can like study them more closely and like okay well what it got really say you know um whichever
whichever translation that you um trust the most um it's being the most accurately um reflective of
the original greek and hebrew okay so in the meantime though just listen to this as with
fresh ears so romans 4 reading the whole chapter so let me use abraham as an example it is clear
that humanly speaking he was the founder of judaism what was his experience of being made right with
god was it by his good works of keeping the law no remember this is paul speaking for if it was by
the things he he did he would have something to boast about remember if we do all of these things
we've got something that we feel is earning something hey look kind of like that's where we
get spiritual burnout from i feel like i've done all of this and i haven't gotten enough in return
right so we burn out this is for if it was by the things he did he would have something to boast
about but no one boasts before god so listen to what the scriptures say because abraham believed
god's words his faith transferred god's righteousness christ's righteousness into his
account so that's what you have by believing god's words by believing what god said and choosing that
that is actually reality that trend is
is his faith, so that faith, believing God's words, transferred God's righteousness into
Abraham's account.
So it was simply by believing what God said is true makes you righteous.
It's not by doing any of these things.
You could have done everything backwards.
You could have done all the bad things and avoided all the good things, but if you believed
God's words, if you then chose, after all of that, you then chose to believe God's words,
then God counts, considers you to be righteous.
This is all he sees.
He doesn't see this anymore.
We're going to be talking about that, how God himself says he doesn't see this anymore.
So when people work, they earn wages.
It can't be considered a free gift because they earned it, but no one earns God's righteousness
It can only be transferred when we no longer rely on our own works, but believe in the
one who powerfully declares the ungodly to be righteous in his eyes.
It is faith that transfers, believing God, choosing that what God says is reality.
It is faith, believing that what God says is actual reality, that transfers God's righteousness
into your account.
It is that easy.
Is that hard?
Because you have to actually believe that it's reality, not believe that it could happen,
not wishful thinking, but believing that it's reality that makes you righteous.
Period.
End of story.
And you haven't done any of these things.
So therefore, once you do this, you don't have to do any of these things anymore.
Do we not realize that it's not like, okay, well, we need to remember that, but we still
need to keep these up.
Absolutely not.
Paul talks about that in Galatians.
He's like, why do you keep focusing on this?
We don't need to worry about this anymore.
We just focus on this only this, or I get this, it's not like, okay, well, we just don't
need to rely on it anymore.
No, no, no.
Forget it.
Only this.
So we'll be talking more about all this, showing more scripture.
Okay.
Even King David himself speaks to us regarding the complete wholeness that comes inside a
person wholeness, you're completely whole.
And I can attest to the fact that that is exactly how it feels.
It feels like you're, like you're a circle that has completely come, had its ends put
together and it's perfectly enclosed and it's impenetrable.
You feel whole and the complete wholeness that comes inside a person when God's powerful
declaration of righteousness is heard over our life, apart from our works, God's like
apart from our works.
So no more of our works.
God's work is enough.
Here's what David says, what happy fulfillment is ahead for those whose rebellion has been
forgiven and whose sins are covered by blood.
What happy progress comes to them when they hear the Lord speak over them, I will never
hold your sins against you.
So that's what I was saying.
When I say we're going to come to the part where it says that God says he no longer holds
these against you, no longer sees these and holds them against you and saying, Hey, look,
you need to be making restitution for these.
You need to be, you need to, uh, you need to bear consequences for these no more.
He says, I will, because bearing consequences is holding something against you.
It's like, Oh no, you still got to pay for it.
There's no longer need to pay for it anymore.
That's what Christ did.
It's not like, Oh yeah, I got Christ paid for the possibility of like the keeping you
from hell because you did these things.
No, God said, I will never hold these sins against you at all.
Not even on earth.
Now think about it.
Does this happiness only come to the, come only to the Jews or is it available to all
who believe?
Our answer is faith was credited to Abraham as God's righteousness, faith, not circumcision.
How did he receive this gift of righteousness?
Was he circumcised at the time God accepted him or was he still uncircumcised?
Actually he was an uncircumcised Gentile when God said this of him, it was later that
he received the external sign of circumcision as a seal to confirm that God had already
transferred his righteousness.
So that was just a sign that it had already happened.
It's not some, so the reason that, that Paul is talking about circumcision and circumcision
was a part of the law.
And so people are wondering what happened first, the chicken or the egg was it the law?
In other words, circumcision or was it the transfer of righteousness by faith?
And Abraham was saying, no, no, no.
It's very clear the order of operation that God, God gave him his righteousness because
of Abraham's faith and be, and as a sign that that had happened, he's like, Hey, by the
way, mark your body.
concision. It was a sign that it had happened. It's not a requirement requirement to do because
you've done this and you don't have to do that. And this can't get you this.
Um, so in other words, works can't get you this, you have to do this.
And all of that other stuff was just designed. This had actually happened. It was just a physical
expression of something that had already happened. Remember in the spirit, physical expression of
something that had happened in the spirit. We've been talking about that, you know,
who it is that we are in the spirit and how does that train, who would, how we relate to the Lord
and how we, how our relationship with the Lord has developed it to the, up to this point. And
how does that physically get expressed? So back then between God and Abraham, this is how he
chose to physically express how to express in the physical world, the point at which he and he and
Abraham's relationship had developed. It happened to take on the form of circumcision with us.
It takes on the form of other things, you know, a business or, or, you know, a relationship or
whatever, or sometimes God will have us do do a specific thing. Um, but, um, anyway,
um, so it was later that he received the external sign of circumcision as a seal to confirm that
God had already transferred his righteousness to him by faith while he was still uncircumcised.
So now this qualifies him to come the father of all who believe among the non-Jewish people who
aren't circumcised, because apparently faith came before circumcision. So therefore anybody could
access it, not only those who, who were circumcised, um, and like their father of faith, Abraham,
and like their father of faith, Abraham, God also transfers his righteousness to them, the non-Jews,
the uncircumcised, if they have faith. Yes, Abraham is obviously the true father of faith,
but the Jewish people who are not only circumcised, but who walk in the way of faith.
So again, it's not, they can't, it's not just by circumcision that you become that you, that you
can, um, that the Jews could, it wasn't, it wasn't the, it wasn't circumcision that allowed the Jews
to become Christians. It says, sure, Jewish people are already circumcised. He said, but
they have to walk in the way of faith that our father, Abraham displayed before his circumcision.
Um, okay. God promised Abraham and his descendants that they would have an heir who would reign over
the world. This royal promise was not fulfilled because Abraham kept all the law. So what this
was talking about was this was talking about, you know, the nations that, um, would be born
physically born from Abraham's body. And this of course was made to Abraham when he was very old.
Um, and it was not the, that promise was not fulfilled because Abraham kept a law.
It says B, but it was fulfilled through the righteousness that was transferred by faith.
So the promise was fulfilled because Abraham was considered righteous before God.
How was he considered righteous before God? Because he believed God.
Um, four, if keeping the law earns the inheritance, you know, any promises, any benefits that God says
that we can have, you know, et cetera, like all of the inheritance that we're talking about now,
you know, rest, joy, peace, love, you know, fruits of the spirit, all of those things.
Um, perfect peace, et cetera. For if keeping the law earns the inheritance, doing all the right
and wrong things earns that, then the faith, then faith is robbed of its power and the promise
becomes useless, useless. Why is the promise useless? The promise it in that kind of a case,
if the law earns the inheritance, there's no point of a promise because if you follow the law,
you're in control of earning the inheritance. There's no point of a promise that that's,
that's not a promise. That's an agreement. If you do these things, you get this. Okay.
So I'm going to do these things. Okay. Now, Lord, you're obligated to give these things to me.
And he is right. Because you follow the law, you follow the procedure, you follow the formula.
Therefore, there's no such thing as a promise. A promise is only power is, um, means that because
it says, you know, when a promise would become useless in that point, meaning that there's no
point of a promise. You, you earn it. So you get it. That's what you get was promised. It was wages
for a job. Well done. No, you did your part. God does his part. So the only point of a promise is
if you can't do anything and it was granted to you. So that's what a promises is. You haven't
deserved it and you can't work for it. So when God makes you a promise, when he's made you any
promise that you want, you know, breakthrough rest, um, understanding revelation, connection,
intimacy with him, you know, relationships with other people, uh, uh, living out a, a spirit filled.
old business life, you know, whatever it is, it's, it, if God, if that is a promise, if
it's something that you want God to gift to you, you can't do anything to get it.
If you try to do something to get it, you won't get it because you're, you've done something.
You can't do anything.
You can only get it.
If you haven't even tried to do anything for it, if you try to do something for it, can't
get it.
Now, that doesn't mean that if you tried at all, but you stopped that, well, you can't
do it.
You can't get it.
No, no.
You stopped.
What that is, is repentance.
You were doing one thing you were trying, and then you repented, meaning like you turned
the other way and you chose instead what God said, God's like, okay, now you've chosen
me.
So therefore now you get it, but you can't take this and bring this with you.
God's like, no, no, no.
If that's in any kind of, if that, if that is any ingredient in the batter, then you
can't in your interaction with me, then you can't get it.
You have to abandon everything that you have exerted and worked for it.
You have to completely abandon it and choose me completely by faith.
Now that's the only way that you can receive the promise.
For the law provokes punishment.
So following all the rights and wrongs and on all of that within the law, there is, um,
you don't just get benefits from the law.
You also bear any consequences, right?
So the law provokes punishment.
It's a longer story, but in read Romans seven, and it talks about the fact that the law is
not that the law is holy because God only creates good things.
The law itself is holy, but our interaction with the law creates death within us.
Our flesh, when our flesh responds to the law, it causes our flesh to, um, it causes
death within our flesh, not with sure within our physical body.
Sure.
There's a manifestation, but remember flesh is also our soul.
So, um, it prompts death within us for the law provokes punishment and where no law exists,
there cannot be a violation of the law.
So if we're choosing righteousness, if we're choosing, okay, I'm going to abandon the long
and abandoned trying to do everything right.
And trying to avoid doing the wrong thing, if we abandon it and we, and we operate over
here in a covenant of righteousness, just receiving the, and operating and living out
of the fact that we are Christ's righteousness in front of the Lord, then there exists no
law and where the no law exists, there cannot be a violation of the law.
You can't violate the law.
If you're operating and interacting with the Lord and in life in righteousness and Christ's
righteousness out of the righteousness of God's character.
And that's how you live is by the righteousness of God's character and by the righteousness
and by the goodness of his character, you can't violate the law.
Therefore you don't sin, right?
You don't do anything wrong.
Um, so the promise depends on faith, so it can be experienced as a grace gift.
And now it extends to all the descendants of Abraham.
This promise is not only meant for those who obey the law, but also for those who enter
into the faith of Abraham, the father of us all.
So what he's just talking about the difference there between the fact that Jews can come
into the kingdom and non-Jews can come into the kingdom, you know, Gentiles can come into
the kingdom because it has nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not you're circumcised
or whether or not you follow the law, you know, both of them can come into the kingdom.
Um, that's what the scripture means when it says, I have made you the father of many nations.
He is our example and father, uh, meaning Abraham, uh, for in God's presence, he believed
that God here, this is very important that God can raise the dead and call into being
things that don't even exist yet.
That is one of the things that we are believing about that we are believing when we're believing
a God that, that God is that part of who God is, is that, how do I put that?
Yeah.
How do I put that?
Okay.
Oh man.
Maybe I can't explain that because that would be entirely too long.
I like literally have an entire teaching just around that.
Okay.
So I'm very sorry.
I'm going to have to ban it out because it's entirely too much.
Okay.
Um, that's all about promise and what promises and what God, and the fact that it is actually
God himself and not something he said, that's just too much.
So we're just going to move on.
Okay.
Against all odds, when it looked hopeless, Abraham believed the promise and expected
God to fulfill it.
Very important.
Expectation is a vital ingredient.
You can't get what we, what, how do I, the way that I've heard it expressed as I had
heard someone express it in a very neat way.
It was.
was expectation.
Okay.
I think I wrote it down.
Heard someone say it just the other day.
They said, expectation is what causes faith
to manifest into something real.
It's the thing that activates faith.
Thought that was great.
So Abraham believed the promise
and expected God to fulfill it.
There was expectation there.
It's not like, oh, wishful thinking,
oh, and if God says it'll happen,
then I guess it'll happen.
You have to anticipate and expect it.
He took God at his word,
and as a result, he became the father of many nations.
God's declaration over him came to pass.
Your descendants will be so many
that they will be impossible to count.
Okay, so let's skip down to verse 22.
So now you can see why Abraham's faith
was credited to his account as righteousness before God.
And this declaration was not just spoken over Abraham,
but also over us.
For when we believe and embrace the one
who brought our Lord Jesus back to life,
that's what we're believing.
When we believe and embrace the one,
we're believing God,
we're believing he is who he says that he is,
not that he will do what he says he will do,
but that he is who he says that he is,
that he is who he says that he is,
who brought our Lord Jesus back to life,
perfect righteousness will be credited
to our account as well.
So let me say that verse over again.
For when we believe and embrace the one
who brought our Lord Jesus back to life,
perfect righteousness will be credited
to our account as well.
That's all we have to do.
We have to believe and embrace the one
who brought our Lord Jesus back to life, God himself,
not that he will do what he says he will do,
but that he is who he says that he is.
Jesus was handed over to be crucified
for the forgiveness of our sins
and was raised back to life to prove
that he had made us right with God.
That is why he rose,
to prove that he made us righteous.
You remember that Christ,
Jesus was still in existence,
even though he died,
when he was three days in the grave,
it said that he went down to hell and then he preached.
He was still in existence,
but he rose to life.
In other words, his mortal body rose back to life
to prove that he'd made us right with God
because he died,
taking all of our sins before God,
dying face to face with God,
you know, with all of our sins.
And the fact that he rose from the dead
meant that God had accepted that sacrifice,
had accepted the fact
that Christ had taken all of our sins and they were dead.
And now he's like, okay.
So his resurrection meant that God accepted the sacrifice.
That was the proof that God had accepted it.
Otherwise God had, you know,
Christ could have died and we'd be like,
well, so God are we good?
And so the fact that he rose to Christ from the dead
meant that it was his proof
that he'd accepted the sacrifice.
Okay.
Then the next verse, Romans five.
Yeah, let's do five, one through two.
Our faith in Jesus transfers God's righteousness to us
and he now declares us flawless in his eyes.
You are now flawless.
You're righteous.
You're perfect.
You don't have any sin, any of the bad things.
You don't have any sin in you.
First John three, nine, for he was born of God.
It is impossible for him to sin.
This means we can now enjoy true and lasting peace with God
all because of what our Lord Jesus,
the anointed one had sent for us.
Remember, we didn't do anything.
I know we have heard this for forever,
but if we're not living like it,
we're not really truly believing
and understanding what happened.
So that's why I'm going over
these really, really basic topics.
These foundational things
is because we haven't believed it
to the extent that he says that it's true.
We believed it this much enough to become saved,
but God's like, no, no, no.
If you're not living bigger than that,
it means you didn't fully embrace
and understand the extent of what I did.
So that's what we're trying to do here.
We are trying to extend our faith
to the degree that God says that he did what he did,
of what it is that he accomplished.
He really died for all of our sins
and you can stop to trying to do all this stuff now
and live like this.
And let God mature you into how to live like this.
And sure, will you mess up?
Will you make mistakes?
Will you do stuff that over here looks like it's bad?
Sure.
What you're trying to learn to live or to ride a bicycle all over again.
You learned how to live this one really good.
So you can look really good to the world.
You can look really good to other people.
Why?
Because you know how to get, how to get a particular outcome and look a
particular way to other people by doing all of these things, but how do you.
How, how would that, that the way that you look and the things that you do
will look like you were stumbling all over and messing all up again.
When you become an expert at this, it will look like you're stumbling around
and messing up and not doing it right.
If, when you try this, try to live like this, because you've never
lived from this source before you're changing your source, um, that
will look messy for a while.
Will you look like you're sitting?
Will you do some, uh, will you do some things thinking that it was the Lord
and find out that that was the flesh shore, but you know what you're focused
on living out of God's character and out of who you are instead of trying
to do the right thing and avoiding the wrong things and trying to make it
look a specific way and, or, and do specific things in order to get
specific outcomes so that everything can look good to everybody else.
And it won't look bad to everybody else.
Your trait, you're choosing instead to live in freedom.
And so in the, the, in the, in the shift, in the learning, how to live in a new
way from a new source, it's going to look messy and you're going to look
like you've reverted in your faith.
You're going to start being messy.
It's going to look like you're operating out of your flesh.
It's looks like you're, you're the outcomes aren't perfect.
You know, you knew how to get the outcomes to look just so over
here, so they look perfect to everybody else.
And it looks like you're a perfect Christian over here.
It won't look like you're a perfect Christian because over here, you're
having to learn from, from like, in a manner of speaking, a child again.
And, and, but, but though that you will go through it very quickly.
It's not, this didn't take you the same amount of time as over here.
You know why?
Cause this is simple.
It's based off of who it is that you are not out of all of these rules
that you're in very complicated rules and societal norms and expectations
that you had to memorize, learn through a bunch of mistakes.
And it's a complicated thing that you have had to learn.
And, and, and over here, it's very simple to live this way, but
you do have to learn how to do it.
You have to learn what it is that you're relying on because you can
no longer rely on these anymore because you abandon them in
favor of living life like this.
Um, and I said all of that in the middle of trying to get
through verses one through three.
Um, okay.
Our faith guarantees us permanent access into this marvelous kindness,
permanent access into this marvelous kindness that has given us
a perfect relationship with God.
So even when your soul and your body sin, you still have a
perfect relationship with God.
Permanent access into this marvelous kindness that has given
us a perfect relationship with God.
It's done.
You don't have to worry about it anymore.
What incredible joy bursts forth within us as we keep on celebrating our
hope of experiencing God's glory.
Very exciting.
Uh, let's see here.
And I have hardly gotten through any of my notes.
This is very scary.
Okay.
Um, let's see.
What time is that?
I don't even know when I started.
This is very scary.
Okay.
Um, let's also look at verse nine.
Um, but Romans five, verse nine, and there is still much more to
say of his unfailing love for us.
For through the blood of Jesus, we have heard the powerful declaration.
You are now righteous in my sight.
These are all things God has said.
These are not things that we want him to say, and we're asking him to say,
and we're hoping that he'll say, he's the one who told us that
this is what we could expect.
And he says it over and over and over and over.
And that's why I really wanted to Hound and really drive
home, um, the scriptures in this one.
Um, so this is probably just going to be a long teaching.
So who knows how long it'll be?
It'll probably be two hours or something.
Um, but, uh, but I hope that, that the importance of this and the
effectiveness of this, um, teaching will just really, really, um, uh,
we'll really ground you and really can really give you what it is that you
need in your relationship, the Lord to make a distinct choice to abandon
this system and to choose to live by righteous, by your.
righteousness by which is his righteousness within you. But remember, his righteousness
has been given to you. So you are one with Christ. And so your righteousness is his righteousness.
It's not like you don't have righteousness, but he has righteousness. No, no, no.
You're sharing the righteousness. So if he can claim it and you're one with him,
you can claim it too. So choose it as your righteousness, not just, well, God's Christ
righteousness and I'm borrowing it. Lord, you know, do I have permission today? You know,
can I borrow it for a little bit? No, no, no. You will claim to it. You can call it yours.
Now you didn't earn it. You don't. So the only thing that gives you a right to own it itself
is because you are one with Christ. You're operating out of your oneness with Christ
and you receive it as something he did for you, but understand he gave it to you.
So he claims it. He's the one who quote unquote earned it. And he earned it for you,
but you get to participate with it so much that you can call it yours. It's not selfish.
It's not prideful. It is not incorrect. It is not unbiblical. It is not blasphemous.
It is what God said. He's just trying to get you to believe it so that you can choose it in your
own power, in the power and authority that Christ gave you to choose in your own faith, your own
will, your own will, determination, and intention that it is true. And that that righteousness
is yours. It has your name on it. It's your righteousness. It's more than Christ's
righteousness. It's your righteousness. Okay. So very, very important. Um, what was the next verse?
Okay. So, um, 16, it's true that no, no, no. And this free flowing gift imparts to us more,
much more than what was given to us through the one that who sinned. Oh, that was talking about,
um, the first Adam. So this free flowing gift, the one from Christ imparts to us much more than
what was given to us through the first Adam, the one who sinned for, because of one transgression,
we are all, which was Adams for, or because of one transgression, we are all facing a death
sentence with a verdict of guilty. But this gracious gift from Christ leaves us free from
our many failures and brings us into the perfect righteousness of God acquitted with the words,
quote, not guilty. I'm just going to show you here. So the first time says, um, all facing a death
sentence with the verdict of guilty, but this gracious gift leaves us free from our many
failures and brings us into the perfect righteousness of God acquitted with the words,
not guilty. Very important. That has been declared over us by God. We didn't ask for it.
He's the one who came up with the idea. He's giving us this and he's saying, Hey, look,
this is what I'm doing. This is what I'm saying. This is what I'm offering to you.
We get to choose it. So we don't have to think I came up with this idea. I hope God agrees. Oh,
good. Good. He agreed, but we keep having to remind him. Yeah, but you said it was his idea.
It's that solid. It's that sure. Uh, Romans six, six.
Okay. Could it be any clearer that our formal former identity is now and forever deprived of
its power or former identity? You know, the old man, the flesh, could it be any clearer that our
former identity is now and forever deprived of its power for we were co-crucified with him to
dismantle the stronghold of sin within us so that we would not continue to live one moment longer
submitted to sin's power. So you're no longer submitted to sin's power.
First John three, one for he was born of God. It is impossible for him to sin.
You will, would you're, uh, you would not continue to live one moment longer.
Okay. So we, for, we were co-crucified with him. So when Christ died with him to dismantle the
stronghold of sin within us, that stronghold of sin that you were submitted to is completely
dismantled within you. And it happened before you were born. But when you chose Christ, that's
when it was Christ's righteousness was imputed to you. You got to receive it, but it was something
that had already been done. It wasn't.
done when you became saved. It had already been done. You just finally received all of the benefits
so that we would not continue to live one moment longer submitted to sins power. You're no longer
submitted. Okay. Um, it says, obviously a dead person is, so this is verse seven,
obviously a dead person is incapable of sinning. And if we were co crucified with the anointed one,
we know that we will also share in the fullness of his life. Okay. Uh,
so I was trying to think if there was anything else. Um,
yeah, anyway, got to stop somewhere, even though it was like, Oh, but then there's that. No,
but then there's that, uh, okay. And, um, so I used to think talking about performance,
I used to think that I was only as valuable to God as how I served him. So was it, so all of
these do all of these following all the right things and avoiding the wrong things. Part of
the right things I believed was, especially as a Christian was doing whatever God said to do
and acting like a doormat in other people's lives, like in just like serving and volunteering
and all of this stuff. And I'm not saying that any of those things are wrong, but I was doing
it from this source. Like, well, these are the right things to do. That is exhausting
as opposed to know who am I and who is God. And therefore, what do we do? How do we express
Lord who it is that we are out into the world? How do we, we, what do we do? We love.
Therefore we love the unlovable. Why? Because that's who we are. That's just being us and who
we are not doing something good. Oh, I'm going to love this person because God said, so no,
I'm loving because that's who I am. I can't help it. Just like God. He's just loves you.
Why? Because that's who he is. It's not because you're you, so to speak, you get to be the object
of his love, but it's not because you're you it's because that's him. He just, he just loves.
And of all of the, of all of the beings that he created and all of the, the, not just the
creatures, but just the aspects of creation itself, like all aspects of creation that could
be that he could have chosen as the objects of his love. We are, he, we chose as the objects
of his love. Why it says, or not why, but how do we see this? We see this all the way back
before creation, before creation was ever created before the foundations of creation were ever laid
when it says in Ephesians one, four, and I also mentioned this again in Jeremiah one, five, but
Ephesians one, four, God chose us in him before the creation of the world. He chose us way back.
Then we were chosen as the ones to receive the, as the object to receive the expression of his
character, meaning like if he's loving, who's going to, who is he going to direct his character
towards his love, his goodness, his righteousness. Where is he? All of his, his inheritance himself,
who gets to receive everything that comes out of God, including himself. Like, well, well,
that's really what all of this character is, but I was trying to make the point,
who's who's the beneficiary who gets all of that. We do, we get to benefit from all of that.
But I thought I was only as valuable as, you know, how God could use me to help other people
live their lives. And I told God that more than once. I literally articulated that to him
in like some of my lowest moments as Lord, I, I feel like I am so
like the reason that you put me on earth was to enable other people's dreams to happen
and to be possible. It was just so depressing. And, and I just found, and, but it's because I saw,
I didn't see myself as God saw me for one thing. I didn't see God as he was, but I then didn't
see myself as God saw me. I didn't see myself as having any value in and of who I was that
I was that God wanted to enjoy. God wanted access to, I wasn't even giving myself access to me,
let alone giving God access to me. And I needed to do that. So remember that God chose us when
we were still unworthy and I'll let you read that passage. That's in Romans five, six through 11.
God chose us when we were still sinners. I mean, if that doesn't express love God,
then I don't know what does. God said that that is the greatest way that he could express his
love is that not only did he die for us, but he died for us when we were not, when we were unworthy
and we hated him when we were the ones who killed him.
Fascinating. It was our sin that killed him. Um, so this it's not, our lives is not about
performance, but it's actually about our active engagement and participation with God it's living
and operating out of our relationship. Remember we're developing our relationship with God.
That is the whole point of our existence. Then we're asking God, okay, how do we express that
into a business, into a marriage, into our children, into, I don't know, our relationships
with people at church, you know, into a ministry, you know, you know, how we serve, how we serve
others, how we show point others to you, how we evangelize, how we do our job, you know,
how we perform on this project, how we make the decisions about how we're going to execute this
project or decide our, our time schedule, uh, you know, at home or, or whatever, you know,
how do we express those things? Um, the, um,
so yeah. So in, since you're unified with him, part of him being seen is you remember as his
son and as being as part of himself being seen, um, now, okay, let's look at this.
Hebrews 11, six. I don't remember. I think that, I think we've already, uh, that was one of the
verses that we used in a past session, but I wanted to bring it up again. So Hebrews 11,
six and without faith, it is impossible to please God because anyone who comes to him must believe
that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him again, that it's all about
faith. It's all because faith credits righteousness to us. We believe God.
And then we're, and then we're given righteousness. We can't please God like this. We can't please
God by works without faith. It's impossible to please God. We, we, of course, that's where we
get this whole idea that without being righteous, it's impossible to please God. Yeah. But how do
we be righteous? We can't be righteous over here. We literally cannot achieve righteousness
by doing this. Why? Even if we could follow all the laws and all the rules, it was our flesh that
did it. And our flesh can't enter the kingdom. Only spirit can enter the kingdom. So you can
only be righteous over here. You it's literally impossible to be righteous. Even if you followed,
followed all of the ins and outs in the law, you can only be righteous this way.
Okay. Let's see here. Okay. So Romans. Okay. This is really fun. This is a whole bunch
of, this is, this is the Bible. We're quoting Habakkuk over and over and over and over and
over again. And again, just driving home the importance of it, that this is how we're supposed
to live. This is who the sons of God are. The sons of God are people are have faith and believe
they're God and are righteous. This is, uh, Romans 1 17 for in the gospel, the righteousness of God
is revealed a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, a righteousness that is only by
faith from the beginning of righteousness to the end of righteousness. There's nothing else
in righteousness. That's not faith from beginning to the end of righteousness. It's only faith
that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written, the righteous will live by faith.
That is the Habakkuk quote. The righteous will live by faith. Habakkuk is the old Testament.
And so there's multiple script, multiple passages in the new Testament that are referencing the old
Testament. The righteous will live by faith. This is before Christ died. Um, Habakkuk is
Galatians three 11. Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God
because the righteous will live by faith. Um, Hebrews 10 38. And, but my righteous one will
live by faith. And I take no pleasure in the one who shrinks back. So when God urges us to have
faith, God wants us to be courageous and step forward in it and not give into fear and shrink
back from believing God. Um, remember it's, it's hard to do. There's a risk in believing the Lord.
Uh, and because then, because remember, if you don't act on what you believe,
you actually don't believe it. That's why it's a risk to choose that. It's actually reality because
you believe it's reality. You're going to act like it. Right. So it's not just like, Oh, well,
sure. You know, if it happens, it happens. You know, there's no risk there because it's like,
well, if God said, then I guess I'll just watch and wait.
it to happen. But if you're not actively participating in it, there's no risk for you.
God said, if you're not actively participating in it, in other words, if there's no risk for you,
it is not faith. So all of faith is risk. And so, Hebrews 1038. No, I already read that one. Okay,
so this is the Habakkuk that all of the Habakkuk verse that they were all quoting Habakkuk 2.4.
See, the enemy is puffed up, his desires are not upright, but the righteous person will live by
his faithfulness. So it's, and then that particular translation, all of these, by the way, are the NIV
translation. So the NIV version also said that even though it said that the righteous person
will live by his faithfulness, it says, you could also translate that as the righteous person will
live by his faith. But here's what really helped me know that this was that you could take,
but the righteous person will live by his faithfulness. You could take it to mean
the righteous person will live by his faith because all of those other scripture references
were referencing the Old Testament. And this is where that phrase appears in the Old Testament.
So we know for sure that when Paul and whoever the author is of Hebrews, which people suspect
is Paul, but they're not entirely sure, it depends on which scholar you talk to,
but Paul, at least for Romans and Galatians, and then whoever the author is for Hebrew,
that they all were referencing scripture in there. You can tell by the way that it was
written because it will, for one thing, one of them said this, it says something like,
for as it is written, the just shall live, the righteous shall live by faith.
So they're all quoting the old, this Old Testament verse. Okay. So let's talk about faith itself.
And, um, so remember that faith, that faith is required by acting out of our, by making a willful
intentional decision and choice out of our own free will. What, you know, you were talking about,
um, uh, one of you were talking about in your, um, in your voice message back to me is realizing,
is realizing suddenly realizing the power and authority that you were given by God to make
these choices to choose, to believe him that it wasn't just going to happen just because God said
it was true. Well, then I guess it's just going to happen. And, you know, so why do I have to
choose it? No, God's like, no, if you want that to happen in your life, you have to choose that
it is true. And you have to make that choice on your own with your, the power and the authority
that I gave you to make a choice that it, that the thing for the thing to happen,
it's waiting on your action of making a choice. Right. Um, and so when you say, when you think
about, for instance, who does God say that he is, we have to make that decision. Who do I say that
God is? Do you remember, uh, that story when I was in Venice where God was asking me, you know,
Ashley, who do you say that I am? Cause I was trying to check out of the hotel. Didn't have
enough money and, and God, and I was just crying. I was like, Lord, I don't understand, you know,
why have you not provided me the, why you haven't provided me the money. Um, I thought that I'd
been believing you. I thought I'd been expecting things, you know, what did I break something?
You know, did I break my faith? You know, how did, you know, did I do something wrong? And he said,
Ashley, who do you say that I am not? And he told me, he said, Ashley, do not pare it back to me.
Who I told you I was make a willful intentional decision. Who do you choose that I am? Who do
you declare? You tell me, who do you say that I am? I don't want to hear who I told you that I am.
Who do you say and declare determine and decree for your kingdom in your reality, in your world?
Who do you say that I am to you? And that's when I had to choose God, I choose and declare and decree
you are provider. You are protector. You are good. You are loved because I say, so you have,
that is the only way that faith will work is you have to, with your power and the authority
that activate it to happen.
So God declares a truth,
but the only way the truth can land
is if you give it permission,
is if you choose it to be your truth,
that you choose that to be part of
the way your kingdom will operate.
You choose that it will have the authority
and the power in your kingdom.
Very fascinatingly,
people talk about the fact that there's a darkness
before the face of God.
And people that have encountered
that kind of dark cloud,
just gotten so close to the Lord,
so intimate with him and had such a fascinating experiences
and encounters with him that have encountered that,
that have gotten so close to him
that they've encountered the dark cloud around him.
They say, you know, because again,
God is shrouded in darkness and in mystery
because he says it's a good thing.
They say that that dark cloud is where they are tormented
by everything they didn't believe about God.
Isn't that fascinating?
They're tormented by their own unbelief.
God's not tormenting them about anything.
They are tormented by their own,
by what God had declared about himself or about them
that they have not chosen to agree with.
Isn't that wild?
So that was fascinating.
And I just wanted to mention this quote
because I thought it was a very,
very insightful way to articulate this.
Jordan Peterson once talked about,
was talking about faith one time and talking and saying that
we think faith is the willingness to suspend belief
while dealing with a proposition that any fool would reject.
That's what we do so often.
We think that in order to have faith,
we have to suspend belief in order to choose it.
But remember that if you suspend belief, in other words,
if you deny reality in order to believe something,
you're not really believing it.
The only way that faith is actually faith
is if you choose it in light of this other reality
that exists.
The fact that, sure, that thing really did happen.
People really did do that to you.
God really didn't stop it from happening or whatever.
You have to choose these things in light of the truth,
in light of what really happened, not denying reality.
And then he says,
it's like the suspension of your reality
and the acceptance of an absurd claim.
That's what he's saying,
that people think that that is what faith is.
And I didn't write down what he actually said
that faith was, but he said,
people think that that's what faith is.
And he's like, it's wrong.
You cannot suspend your belief of reality.
You have to choose this in light of this thing being true.
That you would normally,
that seems in opposition to what God is actually saying.
Okay, so if you wanna move forward in any way whatsoever,
you have to use faith.
You have to, you know why?
Because everything in the future is always an unknown.
Here's one minute.
Okay, there was another one.
There was one minute, now here's one moment.
Okay, there was another one.
You just watched me move
and you just moved from one moment into another one.
We didn't know what was gonna happen the next moment
until we were in it, right?
You're always moving into an unknown.
It always requires faith
if you're gonna move forward in any area,
if you're gonna move forward spiritually, emotionally,
physically, mentally, whatever.
It always requires faith
because you're always moving into an unknown.
If you, if like, say for instance,
spiritually or making any emotional progress
or whatever in any, in an area,
if you don't have faith, you won't move forward
because faith is required to move into an unknown.
If you don't have faith, you're not moving into it.
You're making the willful intention
to not move into the unknown
because you can't know some, here's the point.
Faith is always unknown.
If the future is certain,
then it's not, how do I put that?
If the faith were, if the future were certain,
then it doesn't take faith to move towards it.
We already know that the future is not certain.
So if it's not certain, it takes faith to move towards that.
And it's the same thing emotionally or.
in whatever area. So if you want to move beyond where you are, if you want to not be stuck,
you have to have faith. You can't get unstuck from any area of your life with certainty
and assuredness that everything's going to be okay or to work out or whatever. You always
have to have faith. If you stop having faith in some area of your life, you get stuck and
you won't move forward and you'll get the emotionally stunted in that place, spiritually,
mentally stunted, et cetera. So faith is required in order to make any kind of a progress. So
if ever you, you find yourself stuck in any area, understand that it's going to require
faith in order to get out. And faith takes a lot of courage because it's very risky.
Okay. I, I did not come up with these things with these signs. I was listening to a teaching
a, um, I don't know, a week or two ago. And I probably two weeks ago, and I heard someone
describe these signs of unbelief. And I thought, those are amazing. That's absolutely right.
That's exactly what that looks like, but I'd never thought to describe it like that. So
I thought I would tell you. So they, they said that in all of their experience and study
with the Lord, that they had realized that there were three signs that you're not believing
something. If you, if, uh, if you have contempt for something, it's a sign of unbelief. And
by the way, that can be like, just in general, if you have contempt for something, um, if
you experience contempt for something, it just means that you don't believe something.
It doesn't mean that that thing is actually true and you're supposed to believe it. But
so let's not talk about that kind of thing. Let's talk about, you know, things related
to the Lord, where the Lord is wanting us is, is saying that something is true and he's
wanting us to have faith and to believe it. We know that we're not believing something.
In other words, that we're not having faith. If we have contempt for it, if we are, uh,
so we have that feeling of contempt, that feeling of like resistance and almost in judgment.
That's what he means. A contempt that comes along with the judgment against it. Um, there's
a cat coming up to visit, um, his, his name by the way, it's taco. So we'll see if he's
probably going to come try to like rub up against me. Um, let's see. Uh, and then the
second one is anger. If you experience anger when encountering a, um, a truth again, I'm
not, we're talking, I'm not saying that every time that you experience contempt, anger,
you know, et cetera, that you shouldn't be, that you should be now believing the thing
that you're experiencing contempt or anger for. We're talking about how do you, I'm giving
you these signs so that you will know what to look for. If you know that what God is
saying is true and you're wondering whether or not you believe it. So these are three
signs that you don't believe it, that you feel contempt. You feel anger when you, when
you come in contact with, uh, that truth, reading it in the Bible or feel that God
is prompting you or somebody is talking to you about it or whatever. Or if you have a
poverty mentality. Now here's how the poverty mentality manifests. Basically something like
God will never provide for me to be able to do that. So if God says that something is
true or that you are a particular way, Oh no, God will never help me to do that. Or
I can't do that. Or does it, it's always from this perspective that of lack, I don't
have, I'm not there yet. I can't, I don't know how, if you're from this perspective
of lack and basically a poverty mentality towards the thing, it means that you don't
believe it. And I thought those were really fascinating signs to point out. Also remember
that if ever you experience, um, well, it's, it's, it's similar to the, um, to the signs
that we all talked about, but this is just a different, a different word to use. If ever
you have, uh, an accusation against God, that is unbelief and that's a sin, um, that, and,
and think of it this way. So, or it's, it's mentioned in scripture in Job about this fact
that accusation against God is a sin, meaning that accusation against God is a sign of unbelief.
And that is Job one 22. And all of this Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing.
That's an accusation. It says, did not sin by chart. How do you sin by charging God with
wrongdoing? So an accusation against God, God, you didn't follow through God. You weren't who
you said that you were. You didn't, you didn't manifest yourself in the way that you say that
you were, you said you were.
good, but this was not a good thing to do to me. You said you were loved. You said you were loved,
but you didn't do this thing for me. And if you loved me, you would have done this thing for me
or whatever. Right. Those are accusations. That is not faith. Accusation is a sign of unbelief.
Okay. So, and then remember that I already, as I already mentioned, that expectation is what
causes faith to manifest into something real. So faith, it's all tied into what James talks about.
In fact, that he says that faith isn't real unless you act on it, unless there is works
attached to it, unless you are living out your belief that that is actually reality.
In other words, you expect it. You expect that that is true. Not that you hope that that's true.
No, you expect it to happen. You expect things to operate like that. Why? Because it's the way
that it is. It's reality. So you expect reality to play out. Right. So it's important to have
an expectation. This does not mean to expect that God will manifest his character in specific ways.
Like, oh, well then I expect that this is going to happen. This is going to be the outcome. And
we're not talking about an expectation to an outcome. We're talking about an expectation
that God is and will express himself according to who he says he is. That's what I'm saying.
But we don't get to dictate what the expression of who God is looks like. He does.
Now, faith is the, okay. So faith is the only thing that pleases God. And faith is choosing
that the thing God said is said is true really is your reality. Not somebody else's reality and
not something God is making into reality. And then eventually bringing no, no, no, no, no.
It's already reality in which it's already the reality in which you are currently existing.
That is what you're choosing is true. That what God said is true is reality right now.
Not that it's going to be, not that it will be, not that when God finishes, no, no, no right now.
And then now you choose to operate it in it. James, let's just look this up really quick.
Oh, did I miss it? Wow. Here we go. Oh, right. James.
Come, come, come, come. So James talks a lot, obviously about faith and works. So James 1,
22. Don't just listen to the word of truth and not respond to it. For that is the essence of
self-deception. If you just listen to it, but you don't act on it, it means you don't believe it
because you're not actually acting on it. So, and that's deceiving yourself. You're going to think
that you believe something that you don't actually believe because if you're not acting on it,
you don't really believe it, but you think you heard it and you just sit there and just listen
to it. You know, you listen to the word of truth, but you don't respond to it. That's the essence
of self-deception. So always let his word become like poetry written and fulfilled by your life.
You fulfill God's word. He speaks out a truth. You live it. And you choose willingly by your
own free will and intention by decision to step into that truth, to live it out.
Okay. And let's see here.
Remember first Corinthians, second Corinthians five, seven, we live by faith, not by sight.
We all know that one, but I just had to mention that one because again, it's a famous
quote about, about faith. I just had to mention that one.
Uh, now, um, okay. Wanted, I've already told y'all this story. Um, I believe recently, um,
but I just wanted to mention it again, uh, in, and remind us of that in light,
remind us of that story in light of, of the fact that we're talking about how to actually live out
and act out our faith. If God says something is true, remember that I had not been believing
and not choosing by my own free will that what God, that if God said that he loved me,
that he really did love me. I just kept waiting to be convinced by God, by seeing enough things,
by experiencing enough things, by feeling different, by being convinced by scripture,
by reading all of the right books to remind myself or convince myself that God loved me or whatever.
kept trying to convince myself by logic or by a feeling experience that God really did
love me.
What I had not tried was choosing that it was true, changed everything.
And I know that y'all have heard me say this, this before, probably multiple times by this
point, but remember what I did is God told me something specific that God said, Hey,
look, I'm love.
Or you could say, you know, he told you that he's good or that he's safe or he's protector
or he's provider or whatever.
He told you that he is something, then you go into every day experiences, choosing that
that's true.
Okay.
Right now in this moment, while I'm doing the dishes or for me right now, while I'm
here sitting on this deck, like I kind of like shift into the present.
I don't think about like about the future and about what I'm about to do or in five
minutes or even the just minute or what y'all are thinking about or how this is going to
come across.
No, I bring myself fully into the presence of this moment.
And I choose that right now I'm existing in the reality that, that right now, the reality
of my existence is the fact that God is provider.
God is protector.
God is protecting me right now.
God is providing for me right now.
He is good.
And he is being good to be right now there.
It's almost like, again, I'm the object.
I'm of, of him expressing his character.
So he's putting his character out into the world, like a light beam.
Where is that light being directed towards and who's absorbing the light beam me.
So God is pouring out his goodness and he's pouring out his love and he's pouring it out
like a light beam and like this, like the spotlight directly onto me right now, I am
an object of his protection, willful and intentional decision on God's part that I am an object
of his protection, his provision, his goodness.
He's giving me is right now pouring and expressing out on me, his goodness, you know, his love,
you know, a safe and protected environment within himself, et cetera.
You just be an everyday moments and you choose that he is those things.
And I promise you that will change things.
You, it won't, you have to, you have to choose in your everyday moments that he is that thing.
Not that, okay.
I, when I get into a difficult situation, I've got to remember to battle the lies that
I'm being threatened with and tempted to believe about the Lord.
I've got to remember to, to battle those with the truth of what God said.
God said, he actually is protecting me, even though I'm not feeling protected.
He says I'm protecting me.
It's very important that in your normal everyday life, you're choosing that it's for your reality.
That is when you're practicing it.
So to speak it, you're not practicing it.
It's like, it's like, okay, this is how you have a describe it.
It's like going to the gym, you go to the gym and you're literally strengthening your
muscles as opposed to, oh, I hope that when I need some strength, that it'll, it'll come
to me.
No, no, no.
Go to the gym.
Actually intentionally make it a part of your life and strengthen those muscles.
That's what you're doing.
When you're choosing that as part of everyday life, you are building your kingdom by choosing
to bring to agree in your, with your authority and with your power that God gave you, you're
choosing over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and
over and over and over and over again, that what God said really is true.
And you are constantly, every time you make that decision, every time you were coming
into agreement, you are telling all of the creatures, all of the creation around you
within your realm of influence, power, and authority within your kingdom, you are giving
it the new instruction that God is who he said that he is, that God is protector, that
God is provider.
So it, it's literally affecting your life in that moment.
It's not just, you're not just practicing, reminding yourself or practicing convincing
yourself.
Absolutely not.
You are making a willful, intentional decision and agreement that that is true.
And immediately the creation around you, I promise you the dishes, the soap, seds,
your kitchen, your, your, uh, your desk at work, wherever it is that you are at the moment
will literally experience the truth that you were that, that, uh, the truth that God is
that thing, because you were declaring and choosing that that is your reality.
And it is now experiencing a son of God that is, that is bringing the reality of the kingdom
into that moment.
And it is made to respond to that truth.
Um, hopefully the way that I know that that's can sound as very esoterical, but I hope that
that, that, that landed, um, um, home for y'all and that y'all really understood what
I was trying to, what I'm saying, these, that spirit were the spirit world enters the present
world through.
us enters the physical world.
It chooses to enter our kingdom.
It enters our kingdom.
By the way, the way that, and I'm just going to mention this, the way that the spirit world,
because he was, he was given dominion over creation.
We were, the angels were not, we were, Satan was not, we were.
So if anything wants to influence and affect creation, how does it do that through us?
Why do you think that we're being attacked so much?
Why do you think that we're, we're always being, trying to be manipulated by Satan or
by his minions, because it's through us and getting us to make certain decisions or believe
certain things about God, because creation is looking to us, not Satan, it is looking
to us to get instruction.
Then if Satan can influence us to give it a different instruction about God, that's
how he can influence creation.
We are very what we have a very strong responsibility over to, to, you know, explain and to it,
to give creation the, an experience of who God really is.
It is very, very, very important.
So that the way that you do it is you do it by faith.
You have to choose that this is who God says that he is, and therefore I'm going to choose
that it's my reality and you do it in everyday moments.
And so that's what I would, the practice that I would ask y'all to do this week is, or this
that for the next few days until until the next teaching until Thursday, when we talk
about a new practice is to exercise your faith like that throughout the day.
And there's one more thing.
Yeah.
Okay.
I am going to mention that one too.
There's another practice that I would have y'all do as well, but I'm going to have to
explain that one first thing and have to give you a backstory about that one first, but
before I do so that one of the practices I work at, I asked y'all to do is to choose
that God is the things that he is in your, in your normal everyday moments.
Like why you're brushing your teeth, why you're getting ready for bed when you're getting
your morning coffee, whatever.
These don't have to be big moments.
We're talking about these take about like five, 10 seconds.
Just like, Nope, I'm going to, I'm just, I'm going to make the decision.
I'm going to make the choice and the decision that this is the reality in which I exist.
God is like this, this, and this exist in that, in the, in the, in the shift yourself
into the present moment and realize, okay, well, my word right now, God is loving me.
He, and you make that choice.
You make that decision that it's true.
You don't just hope that you're going to experience it.
You probably won't.
You will experience it.
Once you decide that it's true, then you will, you will feel it.
It's really interesting.
You will feel it.
You will experience it after you've made the choice that it's true, not, okay, I'm looking
for the feeling.
I hope that this is true.
I really hope I experienced it.
Okay, God, I guess I, you know, I'm willing for it to happen.
I'm willing to see it.
It won't happen.
You have to decide, you know what, this is actually true.
This is reality.
Like you did when you were a kid and you just made up stuff.
It'll feel like you're making it up, make it up, only choose that you're not making
it up.
Choose that.
No, God said at first, therefore it's real.
I, he's just waiting for me to declare that it's true to, to come to agreement, to agree
with him that it's actually true.
So therefore I'm going to agree with it.
Okay.
This is the reality in which I exist right now.
You will feel that it is, you will, it's like you will shift into a different world and
you'll feel in that moment that that's the reality of things, you know?
So, so do that as you think of it throughout the day.
And, and like I said, they're not big things.
They're intentional decisions that you're making of, this is your life.
This is who you and God are.
This is who God is.
This is who you are, et cetera.
Okay.
So the last thing that I wanted to say, oh my goodness, there's so many other things,
but it's okay.
We already said that.
Okay.
So I, oh wow.
Okay.
So I'm going to say this.
I've been talking a very long time, teaching a long time.
So who knows how long this is already going on, but I'm going to mention two more things
just because I put them in and I thought that they were important.
So remember that the faith, that faith, the size of a mustard seed can move a mountain.
So if you're doing a whole lot of something spiritually and getting nothing out of it,
it doesn't have faith in it.
So there's no reason to get all exhausted and spiritual burnout, doing a whole lot of
stuff and not getting anything in return.
Because if it had real, if it was real faith, if it was sourced by real faith and that God
is who he says to be is, and that you are who he says that you are, if you have this,
fake the size of a mustard seed, that thing is going to move mountains.
So if you're giving it a whole lot of something and you're not getting much
or anything in return, it's not big.
Um, and, uh, also,
no, I'm not going to mention that one because it's just, there's no need.
Okay.
Um, okay.
So the last story that I want to tell you, uh, and then this gives you, um,
foundation for a practice is I needed to,
God hadn't been making a promise to me for about two years.
And he was very, very, very, very, very specific about the promise.
He said, or at least this is what I believed.
And I can't tell you the amount of proof that the Lord gave me over and over and
over and over and over and over and over.
Actually, this is what's going to happen.
This is what it, this is how it is, is how it's going to work out.
And give me this promise.
And, and after two years, I was just tired of not seeing the
manifestation of the promise.
And I realized, okay, well, I know what this means.
If I'm holding accusation against God for this beautiful thing that he's given me,
he's given me this beautiful promise and I'm holding it an accusation against
him that it hasn't happened yet.
God, why hasn't it happened yet?
And that's an accusation against the Lord.
I'm now getting upset at the Lord for this beautiful gift that he gave me,
or that it's like, Hey, Ashley, here's X, Y, and Z promise.
And I thought, okay, I know I'm holding all these things against God.
So I need to let them go.
I need to hold, let go all of these.
Proofs and signs that he gave me that this promise that he was going to fulfill
this promise, because I felt that he'd give me all these signs on this proof.
So I, I, um, I, uh, released all of the signs that I felt God had given me all
of the proof, all of the evidence, all of the, whatever.
I, I, one by one, I went through all of them and emotionally cut myself off from
them.
I just emotionally let them go.
And, um, and, and I let go literally of everything, gave it all up to the Lord,
emotionally detached myself from all of it.
I don't mean that I denied the reality of them or whatever.
And then I just told myself that they weren't important.
No, I gave them up.
Completely gave them up except in that I had.
And then, so it's hard to describe, but it's like, I was lying in bed doing this
and it's like, there were all of these things stacked up between me and the Lord
and that I felt like I was pulling an accusation against him.
And so I'm like letting all of these things go and I'm letting them all go.
So I'm like removing all of the layers.
And then finally, there's only, I remember looking up and there were only two things
left.
It was God.
And then right below it, you know, in other words, the next layer, because I'd
been removing the layers next to me and the Lord, the Lord, the next layer was,
uh, the promise, the actual original promise that he'd given me because all
the other things I'd again, uh, given up were like the signs and, and the
evidence and the, I don't know, all these things that I thought he'd said and all
these particulars and all these details.
And I'd given all of those things up, all the things that I'd become emotionally
attached to.
And, um, uh, I, it basically in like memories of things, you know, uh, of me
and the Lord and all this stuff.
I just, I just emotionally released them all.
And I no longer held, held them up in accusation against the Lord.
Except for the promise because I'm like, oh, well, God is the one who gave me that
promise that, uh, and I, and anyway, so surely I'm supposed to hold on to that
one and he, and God's like, uh, we're not done yet.
That one right there is the last thing to let go.
And I was like, Lord, that doesn't under, I don't understand that theologically.
I thought I was supposed to hold on to the promise.
I thought that's what I was supposed to have faith in that you were going
to do what you said you would do.
He's like, no, let go of the promise.
I understand.
I gave it to you, but I didn't give it to you to hold on to.
I just gave it to you.
I just, I just put it in your hand, you held on to it.
And now you're still, you're holding out, still holding that against me.
He's like, no, no, no, that's not it.
I gave you the promise to reveal more of who I am to you so that you look at me and
see that I really am who I say that I am not to take your eyes off of me and look
at this thing that I promised you.
And now focus on that and now have faith in that, that that thing was going to
happen and that that's what you were having faith in.
He's like, no, no, no, no, no, no.
You will only ever have faith in me.
Okay.
I was, I was just blown away because that didn't match with my theology.
I thought that.
supposed to have faith that God was going to always do what he said he was going to do,
because you always believe that God's going to do what he says he's going to do, right?
And I thought that that's what I was supposed to have faith in. But I said, no, that's not what
you're supposed to have faith in. You expect that, yes, I will fulfill my word, but you have faith
in me. So he said, the last thing I want you to let go of, he said, because I don't want you to
let go of me. So you're not going to let go of me, but you are going to let go of the promise
that I made you. It's like, are you serious? It's like, I do not understand it. So I, I risked
letting go because what scared me was I thought, well, does that mean that this promise that he
gave me isn't going to happen? And, um, so anyway, I let it go and, and everything within me felt
free. Like, oh my word. And there was nothing between me and God anymore. Not even the promise
that he made me. And that's what I learned a deeper level of what faith means that faith is
that we believe that God is who he says that he is and that he will be that thing.
Not that he's going to do what he says he will do. In other words, manifest a particular way
or create a specific outcome, but rather that if he's making a promise, what he's saying is
I'm going to be who I say that I am. That's what that promise is actually saying. Not that he's
going to create a specific outcome, but rather he's trying to express, no, I'm going to be who
I say that I am. That is what we always focus on. Uh, so my, uh, the, the second practice that I
ask that y'all do is to exercise faith in some area, just like I did. If you can't do it for
something really big, I recommend that you, that you do. But if you just can't, cause I understand
God had to prepare me or walk me into being able to do that. So if you don't feel prepared and able
to walk into, into giving up something like that, pick something, pick something that you do feel
that you can do pick something like that smaller or something that's in a different area of your
life or whatever, and release everything, you know, to the Lord choosing God instead of the
promise that he made you or the way you thought his promise was going to manifest. Like what you
thought his promise was going to look like now, for instance, um, well, yeah, yeah, this works.
For instance, Priscilla, you've already talked about doing this with, um, with Montana. You
remember, uh, was that two years ago that I think I was with you and you did that, um, that, uh,
you know, during the time that I was there. So it's like that. So I recommend do that in some
area of y'all's life, pick something that's very important to you and release all of it, go through
like the bits and pieces of it that you feel that you're attached to that you emotionally feel a
connection to release all of them before the Lord can stop holding God accountable to execute it,
to create a specific outcome, to do something and just in release all of the things very specifically
between you and the Lord. And then in the end, choose to anchor your faith that he is who he
says that he is, and that he's going to express who he is into the situation,
not that it's going to, that the, that the expression of his character was going to manifest
in a specific way. Um, and I'll be very interested to hear, uh, the outcome. If it's very personal
that you, then you don't have to tell us, you know, what specifically it was, but I'd like to,
I'd like to hear, you know, how that process went. So I recommend writing down, you know,
in your practice part, uh, you know, in the, my practice recommending writing like phrases or
bullet points or whatever of how, how it went, like, like what you thought before you started
doing it, you know, what it was like going through it. And then just like some highlights, it doesn't
have to be heavy, or if you just get a lot more out of it by writing, you know, just the specifics,
like a lot of details about it and writing in full sentences, the more power to you,
but I just didn't want you to feel, uh, uh, and, and over wellness of having to articulate things,
articulate the highlighted bullet points of it, at least in like some phrase and just like some
bullet point phrases or whatever of what the experience was like. And then what it was like,
um, you know, once you release it, what you were able to do, and if you can't fully release
everything, just release to the degree that you can and know God is pleased.
God is pleased. God always looks at the positive. We keep thinking that God always looks at
the negative and be like, Oh, the glass is half empty. She did part of it, but you know
what? She knew all of it. No, no, no. God's just like, Oh my word. You believe me that
much that you would go to that degree that you release that many things. That's great.
He gets so excited. He's like, you would believe me that much. He loves that. He, he takes,
he doesn't look at it from the perspective of what you didn't do, but rather what you
did. It's like, you believed me that much. Remember he says, and he promised, and we
just read, he will not hold your sins against you. He will no longer hold your unbelief
against you. He just gets excited about what you did believe him in and what you did believe
him for meaning like what you did believe about him that he told you was true. All right.
So I hope that that was helpful, that that gave, it gives you a good, um, solid foundation
of what faith is and how to move forward in it. Um, and, uh, I, and you know what I am
going to mention this, I am surprised I didn't go through with this earlier, but y'all already
know this, and I'm just going to remind you that, um, remember that, that, uh, faith is
actually believing that something is true just because God said it. Even if you don't,
even if you don't feel it, and even if it doesn't make logical sense. So even if you
don't have any proof or evidence, and even if you don't, um, even if you don't feel like
it's true, you choose that it's true because God said so anyway. All right. I'll talk to you later.