I Want To Hear God's Voice | Unpacking SOAP Devotions

TRANSCRIPT

Kevin: If someone came in here now put a gun to my set head and said, you can only give your people one thing to do. I would teach you to do this. 'cause if you learn to do your soap devotions, you will learn to hear God's voice for yourself, and you will not fall prey to the era of all the misinformation that's out there, not only just in the world, but in the religious world as well.

Thank you to the internet. It's everywhere. So we wanna just do a little bit of experimenting with soap today and just walk through a little bit together. And Chris, so I was really excited for you, my friend, when I, when you were sharing, because I know this has been on your heart for such a long time and there's been some stops and starts and that because things that.

Shouldn't be causing us to stop and start, but they are. But man, I really encouraged because you should all learn, like Chris is like, he said it, I'm getting towards the twilight side of my ministry of life, but he's not stopping. He's just getting started. So you should learn some things. Now he's just getting started, so we should never fall into that thing where, oh, we just sit around.

So soap devotions really is about a process where you get to sit at Jesus' feet. And the Holy Spirit speaks to you out of the scriptures, and that is what conforms you to the image of Christ. You can tell when someone is being, when a community is being conformed to the image of Christ. 'cause we are all different.

We all have the same heart, but we are all different. You can go to a place where there's a programmatic way of D discipling and they all come out looking like the person that's built the program. Everybody sounds the same, looks the same, talks the same, wears the same genes, everything is the same. This is not about that.

This is about you being mentored first and foremost by the Holy Spirit on the scriptures. In communities together. So we're gonna have a bit of fun with it. You've got the QR code if you wanna, in doce the QR code. We're gonna put some stuff up on the screen. Megan has the unenviable task of anything that you put up on the screen.

She's gotta make sense of it and get it down into a couple of themes that we can apply. Cass was gonna be here this morning, but she's sick, but she's online. She's doing church online for us, and as she's communicating here, don't ask me how that's happening, but it's happening. And then of course there are those of you that are more a adept to the pen.

You like the Google Scriber and you want to get out there and write it down. So I'll, we've given you all mediums by which you can just allow the Holy Spirit to speak to you. And we've got Beth and Ty sitting over here and they are actually been sitting through the noisy stuff 'cause they're actually doing devotions around the scriptures that we are gonna share in a few minutes.

Because I like that, because of the fact that you gotta learn to hear God's voice in amongst all of the stuff. So before I get Beth to read it isn't Ty's a good looking guy, isn't he? He's a good looking guy. I just know that man. He's a good looking guy over there. That man, he's got a bit of a James Dey kinda look.

I dunno. So anyway, ff you, you're hot too. You're hot too, Beth. That's okay. It's fine. So what I want to do is, before we read it, I just wanna give you a little bit of backstory. 'cause when we're reading the scriptures, you've always got two, two chapters together. At least maybe three or four, two in the old, two in the news, something like that.

So you have a little bit of context and a bit of backstory. So we don't have that now for what we're, 'cause we're only gonna focus on eight verses. So what I thought was to give you a little bit of a backstory on the Apostle John, 'cause we're gonna go from John chapter 15 verses one to eight. Now some things about you need to know about John just in case you haven't been around for a while, and you go, who the heck is John?

John was one of Jesus' closest disciples. In fact, he was so close that when Jesus was dying on the cross he made the decision that John was the one to look after his mother. So he commissioned John to look after his mother 'cause he knew he wasn't going to be here. Now that made John one of the.

In crowd of the disciples. And so he couldn't help but let the others know, I'm the one that Jesus loved. I'm looking after mom. And he also had another advantage of the fact that he was chosen for this. All of the other disciples were martyred, died, brutal deaths. They either had their head chopped off, stabbed with a sword sworn in, two, born with the oil.

They all went out in glorious ways. John aged, although they did try and boil him and oil once, there is some historical context, but he didn't die. So maybe that's where KFC got their idea from. I dunno. But anyway, so John is alive and then he's aging. So now he's becoming older 'cause the others didn't make it that far.

And so he's now on the Isle of Patmos, which is kinda like a prison. And he's over there for the sake of the gospel and he's there and he gets a revelation from Jesus. And the revelation is about something that's gonna happen real soon. It's called The End Times. And so he writes this book and the, it's the End Times of Ancient Israel, which is why when you read Revelation chapter one to 20, you see a lot of imagery out of Ezekiel, Daniel J Isaiah, all those guys, because he's quoting from them because this is what's about to happen to them.

This is the end of Ancient Israel. That's what he's writing about. And at Ad 70 6th of August, it came to a bloody and violent end when Rome came in, annex Jerusalem into the empire, shut down ancient Judaism and tore down the temple, never to be rebuilt. So he's writing about this. So he's a significant character that's in here, but beyond that, he wrote the book of John first, John, second John, and third John.

And these books do nothing more than point people to Jesus. In the early days, most people came to faith in Christ out of writings of John because all he was concerned about was Jesus was the Messiah. This is the one that we've been waiting for. This is the one that's gonna change everything and allow a relationship with God to take place again.

So that's a bit on John. Now some context, the chapter 14, before this chapter. Jesus has been talking to the disciples. So if we'd have been reading this, you'd have seen this in the back of your mind. Okay? He's been talking to them and saying to them, guys, it's time. I'm gonna be leaving shortly. I'm not gonna be here.

That was not very comforting to them. The only comforting part was he said, I'm going someplace and preparing it for you to come. Which may have been comforting, may not have been comforting 'cause they dunno where he is going. And so Thomas, he does his usual thing like, we don't know. We don't know the way, we dunno what to do.

And then Jesus does that statement. I am the way Thomas, I am the truth, and I am the life. Nobody comes to. The father buts through me. So he's really, he's being very clear now 'cause it's getting close to the cross. He's really laying down. Philip is also confused and he goes, he just, could you just tell us who the father is?

And I Jesus must have been so frustrated after all this as, look please, Philip, if you've seen me, you have seen the father. So there's all this context that is going on that's transpiring, but he's preparing them because he knows he has to go. And then he starts using this weird language like, you are in me and I'm in you, and we are in God.

And the whole thing for the Jews, this was absolutely mind blowing. They had no concept that you could have a personal relationship with God that was not on the table. They had a building that you had to play music in 24 hours a day to keep God in there. That's what they had. That was the only place. But you are saying, you are in us and we're gonna be in you, and we're in the Father.

And so this is the backstory of this that we're about to listen to. So I'm gonna pray. I'm gonna ask Beth to read these first eight, and I want you to listen, have your little Google Scriber or your phone out, put it up on the screen and I want you get, what do you observe out of these eight verses? So let me pray.

Father, I just thank you. This is my normal prayer. Every time I do my self devotions, Lord, it's like, gimme ears to hear what your spirit is saying, and then gimme the courage, the will and the courage. To apply it to my life that I may be conformed to the image of Christ. Lord, speak. You got a bunch of servants here.

Lord, we are listening and we want to hear from you. We thank you in Jesus' name. So Beth, could you just read those eight verses?

[00:08:29] Beth: So John 15. Verses one to eight says, I am the true grapevine and my father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch of mine that doesn't produce fruit, and he prunes the branches that do bear fruit so they will produce even more.

You have already been pruned and purified by the message I have given you. Remain in me and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine and you cannot produ, you cannot be fruitful unless you remain in me. Yes, I am the vine. You are the branches. Those who remain in me and I and them will produce much fruit for apart from me.

You can do nothing. Anyone who does not remain in me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers. Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned. But if you remain in me and my words remain in you, you may ask for anything you want and it will be granted when you produce much fruit. You are my true disciples.

This brings great glory to my father.

[00:09:38] Kevin: Okay, let's go to Slido. Let's go up to the screen. What do you observe? What stands out to you? What translation did you read from

[00:09:45] Beth: N-L-T-N-L-T?

[00:09:47] Kevin: Yeah. Okay. So some of you might be on the NIV, so it might sound a little bit different, so I'll read it again. You start throwing stuff up here.

I am the true vine. My father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit. While every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes. That'll be even more fruitful. You are clean because of the word I have spoken to. You remain in me as I also remain in you as. No branch can bear fruit by itself.

It must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. I'm the vine. You are the branches. If you remain in me and I knew you'll bear much fruit apart from me, you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and with us, such branches are picked up and thrown into the fire to be burned.

If you remain in me, in my words, remain in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. This is to my father's glory. You bear much fruit. Showing yourself to be my disciples. Wow, there is a lot in here. So what have we got up there? What have we Can't bear fruit remain apart from me. You can do nothing.

Okay. Authenticity. Without Jesus, we can't not do anything. Okay. Must stay connected to Jesus. Okay. Keep, just keep thinking through. What do you observe out of it? What do you observe about it? Now, I'm just gonna toss a few things in here now about where mine went because every, I've been doing this same devotion pan for 30 years, and every time I look at it, I see something different.

This is what stood out to me this time, very beginning. I am, that's an interesting statement. The term I am means absolutely nothing to us. We say I am all the time, but to first century Jews, the term I am had huge significance because that, that I am took them back to Exodus chapter three, where Moses has encountered God in the burning bush and God tells him, this is holy ground.

Take your shoes off buddy. And he says, I need you to go and speak to Firo 'cause I want my people set free. And he's freaking out and says, what am I gonna do? What do I say to the people? And he says, you tell them I am that I am. So this is really significant When they see the term I am or heard him say that, it's talking about a self existent God.

The only person that exists outside the paradise of time, outside of needing anything from anyone else. We all need stuff. He's totally self existent. He's ever present. He goes, it doesn't say like I was, I go, I was a God and I was, but then I'm going to be. He goes no, I am that. I am. I am that I am. It's ever present.

So even just those words conveyed to them, the unchanging nature of God and his ever presentness, and that this is big. The term I am is big. This goes way back and it's coming forward into this new time and this is revolutionary 'cause J Jesus did a whole bunch of I ams in there. He said before Abraham was, I am.

He says, I'm the way, I am the truth. I'm the life I am. I'm the bread of life. I'm the light of the world. Then he goes on now and he goes, and I am. Is the vine ever present? Eternal, self existent vine. Now what I love when my mind goes middle because I am the true vine. So what does that tell you? If Jesus has to say I'm the true vine, it means there's a bunch of false vines out there that people tap into to try and get meaning and purpose in life.

Sometimes we think we can get it in our families, we can get it in our kids, we can get it in our jobs or money or whatever. It's, we just feel like we can get it somewhere else. But he's trying to say all that is attached to a world that's dying. I am is the only self existent vine that you can actually draw life from.

So my mind's going, wow, this is very big. This is very big. And then he flips and he says, and my father's the gardener. And because I've been doing this so long, my mind automatically just makes connections. Where have I seen the gardener before? Where's this gardener thing come up before? And I know the gardener came up when Mary was outside the tomb looking for Jesus.

And she talked to this guy that she thought was the gardener. And then when Jesus spoke her name, he revealed himself. So the gardener. Okay. I also know that in Luke, I think it's in Luke chapter three, somewhere around on 13, the gardener comes, the father comes and says, Hey, listen, this tree, I've been watching it for three years.

It's born no fruit. Cut it down and throw it into the fire, and the vine dresser goes no. Gimme one more year. Just gimme one more year. If nothing outta fourth year, cut it down, throw it in the fire. So my mind is immediately going. The father has an expectation. He has an expectation there that he has given his all and he's looking for a return on his investment.

It's why we say to you all the time, you need to pick up a talent. You need to serve somewhere. 'cause serving in what some way, shape, or form is what actually allows our fruit to be seen by the people around us. So this whole thing of connection is really important. Really important. And then my mind's going hang on.

He's cutting some off. And some's getting bru, so it doesn't really matter. We are bleeding, whichever way you go. If you are doing well and you've got some connection, you've got some fruit going on, he's gonna trim you back. He's gonna come to me and he's gonna say, Kev, some of the stuff going on in your personal life right now is not good.

It's hindering the connection of the vine. It's hindering the flow of I am. You need to get rid of it. Sometimes he says that with your family, there's too much going on here. Get back, trim it back. Let's get back to the great. I am the self existent vine. And the thing that really stirred me about this when I was looking through it was where was the branch positioned that got cut off and thrown into the fire?

In me, Jesus said, this is not someone outside and says, this is someone in me that is not bearing any fruit.

The father has an expectation. That he wants to see fruit, he wants a return on his investment for everything he's done. So I need to be really careful. I, so for me, I'll be journaling this like mad. I need to make sure I remain in the vine. I make sure I'm bearing fruit. I gotta make sure that I don't get distracted by the things of this world, because that in the end is what shows that I'm actually a disciple.

So I didn't even get out of the first two verses. When I saw the implication of I am and saw the roles, what did you see out of it? What did you observe out of it? There's no right and there's no wrong. This is not about theology. This is about revelation to your heart, about what God wants to do in you, what he wants to do in you.

Stay connected to Jesus. Without him, you can do nothing. Remain in him. Maintain cake. Your pruning brings growth. So now you've gotta take that and go to application. How are you going to apply that to your life? What are you gonna do with this? What will you do that produces change? Not in a head knowledge.

What are you gonna do? That actually allows change to happen in your heart, so you are conformed to the image of Christ. Now if you've got something written down in your observation or whatever online that you, you write that down, you write your application outta that, whatever it is. If you still have, like when I was in school.

My teachers would do something like this. I'd still have a big blank thing in the observation. I go I dunno whether to draw something in them, have a little do, I don't know. If you haven't got anything, go with the one that was up there called remain. 'cause that remain, it really is. It keeps popping up all the way through it.

So I would say, what if you haven't got an observation, pick remain. Okay. I have to remain in this fine. So then how would I do that? Just write down how would I apply that? How would I make that part of what is gonna change and transform my life? And then after you've done that, you write down your prayer, your heart filled prayer.

As Pastor Wayne said,

pray for opportunities to glorify God. Yeah. What else have we got? Anybody here on the Google Scriber got something that's not up on the screen? Something on your what are those things called? Clipboards. If you had a clipboard in the 1980s, you were a very important person. I want you to know that's how Anita got into ministry.

She seriously figured out, Hey, all I gotta do is carry a clipboard. Anybody will do it ever. I want, and she's still carrying a clipboard today. We've even got one at home. Anything that you guys have written down that maybe hasn't made it to the screen? Have you seen something that we haven't seen? If so, just yell it out.

Anything at all, or we got it all covered.

Okay, so we got it all covered. All right, so let's have, let's turn our attention to Beth and Ty. And just see whether you've got anything that hasn't gone on there. So who wants to go first? Ladies first. Oh, ties first. Okay.

[00:19:52] Tye: Usually how we do it in village is if you get whichever verse you get first, you go first.

[00:19:56] Kevin: Yeah, we do that too.

[00:19:57] Tye: Yeah. So I got verse two as well. Grape mines think alike. I couldn't get past the first few verses. And just to reiterate what it says, it's John 15 two. It says He kill, he cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit. While every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes. So there will be even more fruitful.

And so my observation from that was Jesus' analogy of the vine is a sobering reminder of how much I need him. I don't produce any fruit without him. I find it difficult to even stay pure and righteous if I'm disconnected from him. And so without him pruning and correcting me, how will I know what needs to be cut off and what needs to be pruned?

And I got the imagery as well of the vine or even just a plant. When a stem or leaf is dying, the plant will still keep it alive, but it's up to the gardener or like the person to take off that dying plant. That's right. That's a good thought. It's and if we're the plan, like we don't know what we're keeping alive, that actually needs to die.

So for me it's like that reminder to stay connected so God can speak and go, Hey, that part of your life that you're trying so hard to hold onto just let go. Yeah. Or this part, I wanna prune you in that. Whereas if we don't stay connected, then we have no idea. Yeah. And we're, running around wondering life, why life is so difficult or why Yeah.

It sucks so much. To put it bluntly.

[00:21:19] Kevin: Yeah. Keeping it real, man. Keeping it real. And

[00:21:21] Tye: so to apply, I said I need to remain in the vine. To put it simply. This is through healthy, consistent habits of prayer, doing my devotions and having an ear to God. It cannot be a one and done decision for no lasting relationship exists without constant conversation and sacrifice and for me recently going through devotions, the main thing that's popped up is just to keep it consistent. Yeah. I've been so hot and cold with devotions and prayer for many years, so this comes up all the time. So I still struggle with it, but to the idea that if you want a healthy relationship, you can't just hit them up when you need something.

Like no one sees that person as a friend or like a close friend or anything. So you need to be consistent with God to have that relationship. Very cool.

[00:22:08] Kevin: Yeah. That's great. Thank you, Ty. That was a good Oh, I was, thanks. Yeah. I, you've heard me say this a million times if you've been around here, but one day without soap devotions, I know it, I can just feel, I can just feel like, man, my connection is not just what it used to be, two days.

Ann knows it three days, pretty much. The world knows it. It's what's the matter with you? Nothing. What's about you? He's my I'm no different to you, man. No different to you. If I do not stay tapped into that vine, my heart can turn so fast in into leading the way that I used to lead and not the way that I should lead.

So I thought you had an interesting thought too. The branch that was in Jesus in the vine was dead. But Jesus didn't remove it. The father came and cut it off your idea. They said, Hey, you can stay there. The branch, the vinyl will keep it alive, but in the end, if it's not being productive, the gardener comes.

So the father gets involved. So there's a, there's a tag team thing there going on with Jesus and the father. Okay, Beth, come on, bring it home.

[00:23:16] Beth: I got. John 15 verse three and four. It says you have already been pruned and purified by the message I have given you. Remain in me and I will remain in you.

I observed from this that when we live life the way that God intended, which is being in community and being a teachable person, we are prune. We are a pruned vine. And when we encounter God, often we are purified by his message. Being pruned and purified is one step, but remaining in him is the next, which can be challenging sometimes.

To apply this to my life, I will remember that community and being in the spirit is my pruning as community and the word of God helps to guide me and keep me accountable, and I will remain in God daily being in prayer and or the word to make sure I am living a life that is rooted in him. And when I am rooted in Christ, his love will overflow in my life.

Yeah. And then I just prayed. I just said, thank you for showing me this. And I prayed that he would lead and guide me and help me to be teachable and a valuable part of my community, showing my showing his love to everybody.

[00:24:28] Kevin: Yeah. That's great. You picked something up in there about doing it in community.

And you said in community, that actually helps with the pruning process because we all have blind spots. You have blind spots because of the family that you grew up in. You have a cognitive bias that you will always lean into. So you need to be with people that will challenge that in love and come up with and show them something different.

'cause that's how you get rid of the distractions. I love it. I think Pastor Wayne said to me once. When I said about, oh, finding the right people to do devotions with, he goes, why? If we both agree on everything, one of us is irrelevant, so don't go. Don't go finding devotions for people that look and sound and think and act like you go with people.

You know that you, man, that guy is just gonna annoy. Beautiful because that's how iron sharpens iron. That's how we do, and that's how we get pruned back. So that was a great point there. So I think that was a good one though. You need community to actually do this. So thank you guys. I know it's awkward sitting up there for all that time.

You did a great job. Thank them. You can move the screen up. Okay. So I'm happy you're getting the feel of it. It's so important. This is the key thing, if you will learn to do this. And you can't do it on your own, just by yourself. You can but you, your cognitive bias and your family origin and things like that will keep derailing you.

You've gotta be with people that you love, that you can trust. They can be unchurched people. I've had some great revelations come out of unchurched people. It's like this and this. I'm going, this is fantastic. And then comes an alien. Okay. We've kinda lost it at that point in time, but God can still speak to them.

As well. So that's why you can do this. That's why I'm committed. This is missional. When Jesus said, you know I, I want you to go make disciples. I want teach them to obey. How are you gonna teach them to obey? What are you gonna do? You can't preach messages over and over again to do that.

You teach them to obey by teaching 'em how to read the scriptures, and then the Holy Spirit reveals of them what to obey and how to grow in their faith. It's so simple, but everybody wants something more difficult, but it's so simple. It's not easy, but. If you hear the guys, it's not easy. Not easy at all.

So the reason I say get into this, get into get connected, get this thing happening, is because when you do it in community, it's not even just about for here and now because God is preparing a people to be with him for eternity. This is the deal. You have this life to decide whether you wanna spend eternity with God or away from him.

This is the gee, and part of it is being conformed to the image of Christ. That's part of the journey. I sometimes I bump into people and they go, oh, I can't believe a loving God would send people to hell. I said I don't believe that either, but God doesn't send people to Hell.

People go to Hell because they forget or refuse to choose heaven. And they said, what do you mean? I said God is a perfect gentleman. He will grant you your heart's desire. He will give you whatever you do if you spend your entire life pushing him away. God don't come into that area. I don't want nothing to do with you there.

Stay away from me. If you spent your entire life putting a distance between you and God and then you go through the doorways of death, doorway of death, he's just gonna say, look, I. It breaks my heart. 'cause you're gonna have to go that way. 'cause you spent your whole life wanting to get away from me. And the only place I've got away from me is hell 'cause the other part's with me.

So people don't go to hell because God sends them there, they go to hell because they never take the time to consider what a relationship with God looks like. That's why it's so extraordinary that God sent Jesus into this world. That's what it was all about. And I'm gonna go and get my little thing here 'cause everyone's forgotten me walking into the dark.

Everybody. But that's okay. I'm coming to the light. Look at this. This is where it started. I think. Anita was talking about this with Allison. She was the first person to learn how to walk through. There's something called the three circles. It's just the method of sharing the good news of the gospel.

And I dunno where everybody's at. And it's not. And it's not the fact that you're gonna pray one prayer and that's all you're gonna do for the rest of your life. I know people say I pray to prayer. I reckon 1965 and I'm living like the devil now. But Jesus gotta let me in 'cause I pray to prayer. I don't think so.

I don't think so. Particularly after you read the Vine, the branches today, I don't think so. Your relationship and my relationship is only as securing God as we continue and maintain the connection. So let me share with you the good news of the gospel in case you're online here or in the room, and you've never stayed, started the journey of surrendering your life to Christ.

This is the good news over here. Yeah, we discover our world is broken. I dunno about you. You, I'm gonna look around very far and you discover most appalling, horrible things. The way people are treating each other, man. Even what's happened just recently with these poor policemen down south it's evil.

It's a broken world. But it wasn't always like that in the beginning. God's original design, it was perfect. He created human beings to live with him forever. And Paradise would continue to expand, but love for, love to be loved. There must be a choice. You can't force someone to love you. You have to give them a choice.

So he had to give us a choice. You could stay with me and paradise will expand and we can just keep exploring forever. Or you could choose to go it alone, which is all sin is usurping your ability of and your authority over God. So you can go it alone. But if you do sin and death and brokenness and everything will enter this world, you're gonna wreck everything.

And of course. First human beings being what they are. They wrecked everything. They decided that their way was better than God's way, and they listened to voices they shouldn't have been listening to, and so they broke everything. And then we get trapped in brokenness, and we know we're separated from God, but we hate brokenness.

We hate it. So we think if I can just get the right relationship. Man, if I can just get that cute guy or cute girl, I'll be so happy. And then you get them. He is not happy at all. And then if I could just get enough money, I never have enough money or if I can just, enough success or if I can just get that right dream job.

But it's like a bungee cord. The harder you try and get out, the more you spring back in. It's got us trapped and in the end we just give up. And most of us settle to medicate for some kind of addiction, whether it's drinking, whether it's drugs, whether it's sex, whatever it is. Trying to numb away the feelings of this brokenness.

'cause we know we're trapped and that was the position of human beings for thousands of years with no opportunity to get back into relationship with their creator. So you talk to someone that's living in here, they know they're broken, but somewhere in there, I think if I can, I think I can fix myself.

You're 65, buddy. You're not gonna fix yourself. You're the done it by now. If you're gonna do it, you can't do it. We can't fix ourselves, but we tell ourselves that delusion. So anyway, that's it. We are basically in trouble. But then God says, Hey, listen. Someone's gonna have to do something about this.

They're stuck. They can't get out. And Jesus puts up his hand and says I'll come down. I'll wait into the mess. And not only will I wade into the mess, but I'll take, I will take the punishment for their offense of rebelling against you. And you know what? I'll even go to hell on their behalf and I will take the punishment that they deserve.

And so he comes down on this process. That's the whole part of what the cross of Easter is about. And then he goes down. But because he's holy and because he's righteous, death couldn't hold him. So he rose from the dead. And as soon as he rose from the dead, he said, now whosoever wants to can come the way back into relationship with God is open.

All you have to do sounds simple. All you have to do is stop trying to fix yourself. Stop trying to fix yourself and just surrender. You're alive to me, and then you allow Jesus to be the king and Lord and Savior of your life. And then what he does by his spirit that comes to dwell within us, we've been talking about this, then he starts to restore you back to original design, and you're restored back there by the teachings of Jesus.

The Holy Spirit bringing revelation and community, the parts of the body of Christ, the church together, and that's the process. So the question is, this is the good news of the gospel. You have to answer two questions. Where are you right now? Where are you? Are you over here having the best time in the world?

'cause you're back in God's plan and you're there. Woohoohoo, Ty and I aren't there yet. We're somewhere down here. But where are you or are you trapped over here in brokenness trying to figure it out. And you are determined. Yeah, I know. Just gimme another few more courses. I'll get another degree and I'll sort myself out.

No, you won't. Because we're trapped in this brokenness or are you trying to figure out how to get down here? Where are you on the journey? And then the next question is, where do you wanna be? If you actually enjoy this, do nothing. If you enjoy being broken and miserable and having no life and no anticipation of what's gonna happen, living in fear of death because you dunno what's out there and, but you are enjoying that.

Knock yourself out. You don't have to do a thing. But if you want to experience this, I am life of the vine. You're gonna have to do something about it. Where do you want to be? And if your answer is, I'd really like to be here on the journey, walking back in relationship with my creator, then you have to deal with this.

This is the linchpin right in there, because that's where you have to say. I surrender, I'm not going to fix myself up anymore. I'm going to leave it to you to work through me. And that is the hardest thing. That right there, simple process, really hard to do. So I don't know, where are you now?

And if you are here and you want to get round here how do you do it? This is the prayer, and you won't pray at once. You'll be praying all sorts of times, like it's acknowledging, Lord, I'm broken. I can't fix myself. I'm a long way short of your original design. Thank you so much for sending Jesus to save me.

So right now I surrender my life to him, making my Lord, making my savior, making my king. And I ask that, holy Spirit, you come into my life and then you teach me through the scriptures in community, how to be conformed back to your original design. And that's a prayer that I probably pray two or three times a week at different times, because suddenly I realize there's something in my life that even though I'm over here positionally.

Something pops up that is still trying to drag me back here. It's like I haven't surrendered that. I'm still trying to figure out if I can, maybe I can fix that part myself. That's part of the journey. So right now, let me just pray and I'm gonna pray this same prayer that I pray all the time and this three circles, the good news of the gospel.

And if it's, if you are in that position where you wanna move from there, you just pray along with me. I'll just a slow prayer. Okay. Heavenly Father, I thank you that I finally realized that I am broken and that I can't fix myself, and I so want to be in this whole position again. I wanna be back whole with you, and I know the only way is I need to surrender.

So right now I just surrender. I say, I'm not gonna try and save myself anymore. I'm not gonna try and fix myself anymore. I just hand my life to you and say, Lord, come into my life. By your spirit, start the journey of washing me and cleansing me, and teaching me, and training me, and bringing me back to your original design.

And I commit to do that in community with. My brothers and sisters in Christ, so Holy Spirit, I surrender because I want to abide in you.