Jeff Gelineau - Beyond the Book - Class 4 - Hills and Valleys

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:01

   We all have hills and valleys in our life. I wanted to find a picture that was 3D, but I couldn’t project it. But you know, not only is there ups and downs, there’s obviously twists and turns and you have high points, you have low points, you have days, weeks, months, years that are low or or high, times when your faith is strong, times when it struggles, times when we succumb to our weaknesses and times when we stand strong.

2. 0:53

   Now some of us are are better, a little more mature, more developed, stronger. Maybe you have them less frequently. Some of us can tell the time of day by how we’re feeling. Experiencing ups and downs is is part of life and and it’s relatively healthy. When the swings become severe and debilitating, that’s when you are out of balance. The goal is to reduce the severity and the frequency of the times that you feel lost and disconnected when you feel separated from God and at odds with your brothers and sisters spiritually depressed.

3. 1:45

   I want to stop there and just do a quick aside because I said, you know, you feel at odds with your brothers and sisters and that’s, it’s been a common recurrence. And the, and the comments that you’ve been bringing up and you know, oftentimes the things that set us off are, are the stupid people that we fellowship with, right?

4. 2:09

   And I want to remind us that that’s on purpose. Those stupid people are called Christ’s brethren. He, he died for them and he and he put them in your ecclesia on purpose because he wants you to learn from that. He wants you to grow from that. We we grow through painful experiences, not through easy experiences.

5. 2:38

   A helpful suggestion is I have found to learn what your triggers are. You might be familiar with the concept of triggers when it comes to your your sins. You know things that trigger you, anything that leads to unhealthy behavior and try you try to try to be prepared for those. I would frequently come home after a day’s work and be mean and unkind and impatient and the genius I lived with would found, found that she would greet me with a hug and a kiss and a little plate of crackers and cheese and poof, all the hangry is gone.

6. 3:34

   It’s just amazing how that worked, right? We’ve got you’ve got different triggers. Every one of us has different triggers and and it requires you some introspection, some self-assessment to try to look at what’s happening in your life when your faith starts to wean, what specifically is going on, what kind of what kind of things are happening. A very common trigger stress, a lot of us react to that. Anxiety and boredom are also really ranked high as far as triggers.

7. 4:04

   There’s physical triggers as well. Certain locations, people, even even some foods sometimes can can trigger some bad reactions. Learning what it is that set you down a path that leads to your faith challenges is a helpful step in trying to reduce them. And a trigger might be a person might be a brother and sister in your meeting.

8. 4:30

   For me, my triggers are boredom and and then loneliness. For you, it’s probably something different. We’re familiar with the, the rise and the fall of faith, the the, the UPS, the downs, the and the company, company often the accompanying rise and fall of our righteous behavior.

9. 4:57

   We’ve all experienced peaks great times where we just felt fulfilled and and connected where everything was going, you know, just the way it should go and everything in and everything feels very close to God and and close and in harmony with what you understand the the Bible to be teaching. Maybe a Thursday at Bible school is a real, you know, by that time you’re really feeling good about it.

10. 5:24

    We’ve also probably all experienced the opposite times when we we didn’t feel like we were even Christian at all times when we questioned how well we’re living up to the high calling. Maybe a Thursday at Bible school. Abraham is, as you can tell, one of my favorite examples and he had hills and valleys as well.

11. 5:51

    We’ve already discussed the the thing that I think it must have been a very big high for him when God brought him outside and said look toward heaven and Number the Stars. If able to number them, so shall your offspring be and he believed the Lord and accounted to him as righteousness. Talk about a peak that would have been a you know, amazing time. Some some of my and yours too.

12. 6:11

    Probably your some of your best times are kind of when you’re out out in the wilderness, you know, and you look up and you see all the stars or, or just something great happens. You you find yourself in a prayer that really just connects. The prayer really just brings you close to God and you’re you. Maybe you’re at the ocean or you’re on a mountain. Here’s Abraham all alone out in the cold, you know, feeling the, the night around him and he didn’t even question it. He, he totally believed he was on a high. He was very, very close to God.

13. 6:43

    Abraham also had loaves. Abraham had Egypt. When you look at the life of Abraham, it’s it’s obvious James refers to Abraham as a friend of God. You know that his life is recorded for us as an example of faith. And Abraham chose to follow God. He dedicated his life to the service of that God.

14. 7:08

    And yet Abraham had his points of weakness. If you look at the Genesis chapter 12, you see the Lord has said to Abraham, go from your country and your kindred to your father’s health, to the land that I will show you. Now I’m making you a great nation. I will bless you and make your name great.

15. 7:23

    So you’ll be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. So Abraham went as the Lord had told him and Lord went with Abraham, Abraham 75 years old and took Sarah’s wife and lodge brother’s son, all their possessions, the people they had acquired in here and they set out to go land of Canaan. When they came to land of Canaan, another of the the great acts of faith.

16. 7:42

    I think of Abraham’s life this this going he must have been really strong when they packed up and they pulled out of town. You know that big that feeling when you’re heading out in your big road trip and you’ve got everything all ready. Even though he lived in a well developed, civilized city, he follows God’s calling and he leaves not knowing where he’s even going. So just trusting that God would provide for him and his family in this strange land was was going to show him. And in the land of Canaan they came and Abraham passed through the land to the place of Shechem, to the mount of Mora, oak of Mora.

17. 8:18

    And at that that time that Canaanites were in the land. So he first comes to Shechem and God reaffirms his promise to Abraham once he gets there and clearly tells him that this is the land that’s promised to his seed. Verse 7, the Lord appeared to Abraham and said to your offspring, I will give this land.

18. 8:36

    So he built there and altar the Lord who had appeared to him. He’s still feeling really good. They’ve they’ve mustered their strength, their energy, they’ve, they’ve left, they’ve gone out, they’ve come to the place. God has brought them to the place and God tells him this is the place I’m going to give you and we build an offer there and we are we off offer sacrifice to the Lord. But the Canaanite was in the land, so we headed South. God speaks to you and tells you that this is the land is going to be in your family forever.

19. 9:16

    Isn’t this the land? This is the land. Abraham doesn’t really feel like he can stay. The Canaanites were in the land and he didn’t. He didn’t feel up to it. His faith started to feel the stress of that challenge and he continues S into the area area of Bethel. From there he moved to the Hill Country in the east of Bethel and pitched his tent with Bethel in the West and AI on the east. And there he built an altar Lord and called upon the Lord. And that, I think, would have been a different sacrifice that would have been maybe a little bit more pleading, a little bit more, you know, here I am, you know, be with me, help me. Do you think he’s definitely still feeling strong, feeling good?

20. 10:01

    But how life works is either when you start to feel good, you try to feel strong. If I feel like things are going well, there’s something that comes up to challenge you, to maybe stretch you, to help you grow a little further or maybe to cause you to fall. And Abraham journeyed on, still going towards the Negeb, and there was a famine, the land.

21. 10:25

    So everyone went down to Egypt to sojourn there for the famine was severe. Now that’s a tough, tough challenge, a famine in the land. He continues to go further and further South Down into Egypt. I think it’s a challenging time right now for the whole family. Abraham’s faith seems like it’s not up to the challenge. God had told him.

22. 10:47

    God had promised him twice now he was going to be a great nation. He was going to give this 75 year old man a child and he promised to him the land that you can see around you, I’m going to give to you and to the seed after you. God surely didn’t bring Abraham all the way out there in the desert to die of starvation.

23. 11:11

    So Abraham had an opportunity to show his faith in God’s promises, to show his faith in God’s Word, to know that God has brought us here. He’s not going to let us die. Instead, he goes down. He goes down to Egypt. Never, never a sign of spiritual strength. In scriptural terms, Egypt is always a descent into sin, a descent into worldliness, and almost always involves going down a lowering of your standards, a lowering of your morals. It’s a bad choice to a tough problem. There often seems to be disadvantages of taking the easier path in life.

24. 11:53

    Give some thought to that next time a choice comes up. The harder path is by definition harder, but it brings with it less complications. It brings with it less pressure to lower your standards, to change your morals, and often appears, I think that God plans it that way. God, God is trying to test us. He’s trying to try us to, to prove us, to stretch our faith. He wants us to choose the path of faith. He often wants us to choose the harder choice. Choosing the easy path brings with it many complications. So it seems to it seems there seems to be problems that spring up in your life when you try to find your own solution to your problems.

25. 12:50

    When you follow God’s path, some sometimes problems go away. But when you make your own decisions, things can get more complicated. Almost immediately in Abraham’s life, things start to get worse. That’s a telltale sign. When he was about to enter Egypt, he said to his wife Sarah, I know that you are a beautiful woman in appearance.

26. 13:16

    And when the Egyptians see you, they will say this is his wife. Then they will kill me, but they will let you live. Say you are my sister. That may go well with me because of you, that my life may be spared for your sake. Note to self, whenever you have to ask your family to lie for you, you’re probably going down a bad Rd.

27. 13:45

    When Abraham entered Egypt, the Egyptians saw that the woman was very beautiful and when the Princess of Pharaoh saw her, they praised her to Pharaoh and the woman was taken into Pharaoh’s house. He realizes now that he’s put his life in even more imminent danger due to Sarah’s beauty. And I think again, if his faith was strong, he should have acted upon that. You got to realize that he’s already heading down a wrong road.

28. 14:18

    One of my favorite sayings that I made-up is it’s it’s hard to follow traffic laws when you’re going the wrong way down a one way street, right? You’ve got to pull AU turn even though it’s illegal. So Abraham’s heading the wrong way down a Rd. and he’s got to make a change. Once concessions are made to your easy choice, once concessions are made to your worldly self-interest, further demands are sure to come. Making further concessions inevitable. Making further demands to come.

29. 14:58

    And it’s really hard to sort out problems when you’re in the middle of the problem. So in envision situations where problems might arise, look, look forward. I love Dave’s point this morning about, you know, being intentional. It’s one thing I’m just terrible at, you know, but, but be intentional. Look, look forward, plan ahead. What’s what’s going to happen?

30. 15:21

    What situation could arise in my marriage or, or in my ecclesia or in my work or in my community? Trust your faith in God’s ability to save you and don’t put yourself in harm’s way. Don’t put yourself in a position that’s going to cause you to have to make concessions to to righteousness. Sarah is overpoweringly attractive to Pharaoh. Jewish history says that Sarah, Esther and Bathsheba were the three most beautiful women ever to live. And Sarah’s 65 years old and she’s the most one of the most beautiful women.

31. 15:53

    So Abraham shifts the danger over to Sarah and panic and and trouble. You don’t make good decisions. And how Abraham’s conscience must have racked him every time Pharaoh gave him a gift. I think he would have felt more like Sarah’s pimp than Sarah’s husband.

32. 16:15

    But God protected Sarah, God protected Abraham, and God plagued Pharaoh, and for her sake. He dealt well with Abraham. And he had sheep and oxen and male donkeys and male servants and female servants and female donkeys and camels. But the Lord afflicted Pharaoh in his house with great plagues because of Sarah Abrams wife.

33. 16:37

    So Pharaoh called, Abraham said, what is this you’ve done to me? Why’d you not tell me she was your wife? Why’d you say she’s my sister? So I took her from my wife. Here’s your sister, take her go. And Pharaoh gave men orders concerning him, and they sent him away with his wife and all that he had. Pharaoh figures it out.

34. 16:57

    Pharaoh’s the one that acts righteously in this case. Pharaoh sends Abraham back to the land that God had promised him, and Abraham goes up out of Egypt. Verse 1. Abraham went up from Egypt, he and his wife and all that he had and a lot with him into the Negeb. And Abraham was very rich in livestock, in silver and gold. That’s often the result of going down into Egypt. That’s often the result when you make those choices, when you follow those fleshly intentions, right? That’s what drives us in.

35. 17:34

    That’s what draws us into Egypt. A better job, a higher salary, a better standard of living. We convinced yourself that we’re doing it for our family. You know, the kids will be able to go to a better school, my wife won’t have to work. And it’s the family that usually suffers the most because of that decision. Few were able to leave once they get there. Abraham had to literally be driven from the land under guarded escort, and he journeyed on from the Negeb as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning between Bethel and AI, to the place where he had made an altar at the 1st.

36. 18:13

    And there Abraham called upon the name of the Lord, and he’s out and he’s back up. He’s working his way back up. He saved himself from a terrible situation, and he starts fresh again. Confession of failure, thankfulness for forgiveness. Faith is like a muscle. It’s been stretched, it’s been broken down, it’ll be built back stronger. We don’t want to do that.

37. 18:38

    We don’t want to go through that pain. But but God does it to us. We have to learn how to take advantage of that. Abraham experienced the spiritual highs of God, you know, giving him these promises and the spiritual lows of him giving his wife to Pharaoh in order to save his own skin. Now he finds himself back in the promised land and calling upon the name of the Lord again.

38. 19:04

    But lest you think he learned from that experience, several years later he finds himself telling the same lies again. She’s my sister Leather. Rinse, repeat. Like all of us, Abraham had moments where his faith was weak. He had problems learning the lesson we’ve been trying to be taught, and he confronted the same mistake more than once. But he dedicated his life to serving God. He knew that God would justify him regardless of his imperfections.

39. 19:35

    He believed in a God of mercy. Paul speaks to this in Romans 6 and 7, that that tension that exists in our lives, the tension that exists when we choose a life of service to God. And yet occasionally we find our faith wavering.

40. 19:52

    Life is this continual pattern of of ups and down, of highs and lows, times when you feel strong and able to tackle the biggest problems and times when you trip and fall over the smallest little issue. It’s a process. It’s called conversion. It’s called transformation. It always begins with knowledge. You have to know God in order to trust Him. But if you just stay in that knowledge gathering mode your whole life and you don’t use that knowledge to build a relationship with God, then you have no hope. You have to be converted.

41. 20:25

    You have to be transformed. That knowledge has to bring you to a relationship with God. It’s our relationship with God that saves us, not our knowledge of God. God is very concerned that you have an active and growing knowledge about who He is. How else can a healthy relationship be built? You can’t have a relationship unless you know who the person is.

42. 20:48

    But God is most concerned that you trust Him. What good is all that knowledge of God if you don’t develop relationship with Him and learn to love Him and learn to trust Him? Now this conversion is ongoing. It didn’t happen the day you got baptized. It didn’t happen a year after. It takes a lifetime.

43. 21:08

    And this relationship also grows during that whole lifetime because you feed it with more knowledge of about who God is and what He stands for. You also feed it by experiences that you share with God, times when He’s been there for them for you, time when you felt Him effectively. You grow your trust in God by hearing how He has dealt with those in the past through the Bible and by seeing how He deals with you today. You won’t be saved if your faith is still based solely on the knowledge you get from the Bible. That knowledge has to bring you to a trusting relationship with God in order for you to be saved. You have to have things you understand correctly. But the faith that’s described in the Bible is based in a trust in God rather than ourselves, and a faithfulness to God by being humbly faithful to him and to those around us. But then life happens.

44. 22:10

    Then you hit one of those incredible lows in your life where you fall and you can’t seem to get back up. We’re challenged by something we read or something we hear or or we think something that just makes us question what we were convinced was right. Each time we deal with something outside of our familiar patterns of thought, it’s good.

45. 22:35

    It helps us to grow. It helps us to change. Life is a series of challenges to your faith. That’s if your faith is preoccupied with with with correct thinking. You’re, you’re going to see things and hear things and read things, blogs and articles and posts and memes and songs and movies and cartoons and shows and most importantly, conversations that that make you question what you once thought you were certain about is a is a terrible comic. And I hope you don’t ever watch them. Gervais, Ricky Gervais.

46. 23:13

    And he said he was, he said he’s a renowned atheist and he was in an interview and the, he said, you know, the interview said, how can you not believe in God? And he said there’s a roughly 5000 gods on the, on the planet that are worshipped and you don’t believe in 4999 of them. I don’t believe in one more.

47. 23:39

    And it struck me, it really hit me because when I think of, you know, Vishnu or or Buddha or whatever, I kind of snicker inside my, my head. And you’re like, oh, they’re not real gods. That’s just a fake idol. You know, there’s only one God. And then to have someone say, well, I only believe in, you know, one more than you don’t believe in it just it struck me and my faith was strong and I was clear sighted. And I said, yeah, well, you know, that’s a, that’s a point. But I am out of all the things I doubt, out of all the things I question, I never questioned God. God’s just rock solid.

48. 24:15

    He’s, he’s clear in my sight. And I and I thank him for that. If I didn’t have that, what would I have? Life can, can step in. Just, you know, you’re literally watching a, you know, 32nd clip on YouTube because you can’t fall asleep and someone says something on the clip and you can it can make you spin and you find yourself in a valley and yesterday you were just on a hill.

49. 24:46

    This is a fundamental part, I think of our walk in Christ. I feel like we should have been told this in the beginning. You know that expected. Don’t be surprised by it. There’s going to be UPS, there’s going to be downs.

50. 25:04

    I think it’d be a good idea to start telling young people what to expect. I don’t want to scare them off. But, you know, I think we may want to consider the answers we give our young people when they ask those tough questions,

51. 25:17

    questions that their base of knowledge is not able to answer. When they ask us things like why does God allow so much injustice and suffering in the world? Why does God appear so violent and vengeful in the Old Testament? If Christianity is true, then why do Christians treat each other so badly? You may have heard questions like that before in the past. Some of the tough questions, and I’m sure you can think of others that you’ve heard of.

52. 25:48

    And for many, the gut reaction is to jump to the defense of the Bible and give them some workable answer, pieced together from some important concepts in the Bible.

53. 26:02

    And maybe it might just be better to be honest and just tell him, I don’t know, you know, I’m struggled with that too. I’m trying to figure that out myself. I know two things, that God is all powerful and that God loves me and he’s going to, he’s going to carry me through this. And, and if it’s something I need to understand, he’ll help me understand it.

54. 26:23

    If it’s something I don’t need to understand, it’s above me or bigger than me. I don’t need to understand it to share with them that it really is. There really are hard questions out there, and it’s OK for you to struggle with them. But God is good.

55. 26:44

    God is good. He knows way more than we’re ever going to come close to knowing. His understanding is way beyond ours. I love God and I trust that what He’s doing in my life is best.

56. 27:06

    I may not always fully understand why he’s doing it, but I trust him. Another another interesting side thought. I’m sorry I don’t like side thoughts in a talk, but sometimes they just come up. One of the tricky parts about belonging to an organized religion. We’re able to quantify and classify someone’s academic knowledge.

57. 27:37

    We can judge someone based on what they understand. It’s not as easy to see how good the relationship with God is. So from the very start we have this, relate this, this problem in our relationship with each other. When someone wants to join our ecclesia, we ask them a bunch of academic questions because it’s easy to judge and classify someone’s understanding. But before I got baptized, you know, I had to list the names of the of the kings of Israel.

58. 28:14

    I don’t know why. And I can’t remember them now. I remember. I remember that my CYC teacher taught me one of those anagrams, you know, to help me remember it, like O EE IOH or something. I forget what it was. Othneil E Hood. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of good it did me right here.

59. 28:33

    I am not, you know, I’m forgetting it. They wanted to know if I had memorized these verses. They couldn’t. They couldn’t really find out how strong my relationship was with God. They just wanted to know, you know what I knew we you can’t do an examination of someone’s trust and yet trust is the most important part. So I think I’m not saying abandoned the examination, the interview, we call it now because it’s more PCI. But let’s let’s be sure to talk about the rest. Baptism isn’t the goal.

60. 29:13

    Baptism is the door you go through to begin the walk. And it’s that walk of a lifelong of trans life filled of transformation and change and growth. That’s the goal. And let’s be sure to tell them that, you know, we’re going to have this interview with you and we want you to get baptized because we want you to begin this process of transformation, this process of change.

61. 29:42

    That academic appeal kind of continues through our entire experience at church. So let’s just play with this photo for a minute here. Imagine being a father of a beautiful young daughter and this man comes to you and he tells you he wants permission to marry your daughter. And you look him in the eyes and you say, how does she like his eggs? How does she like her eggs?

62. 30:11

    What size are her shoes? Is she good at parallel parking? Does she have a favorite number, and if So, what is that number? Give me the names of all 5 schools that she attended as a child, in order, spelled correctly, memorized. Of course you wouldn’t do that. Of course you wouldn’t. You’d say, do you love her? You’d say, are you going to take care of her? You’d say, what are you going to do to make her happy? You’d say, how are you going to serve her spiritual and her emotional needs?

63. 31:02

    And you know what? You’d have to trust his answers when it’s your child that you’re giving away. You don’t care if the boy has a good academic understanding of your daughter. You want to know about His relationship with her. We need to be more concerned about how our brothers and sisters are doing and building a relationship with God then we are counting their attendance at Sunday School. But that’s the rub, isn’t it?

64. 31:35

    Right, We can’t. It’s hard. One really great way to build a relationship with God is to study His Bible and learn more about Him. So attending at Sunday attendance at Sunday School is important. But you can’t have a relationship with God without getting to know Him. You don’t need a PhD in order to go on your first date.

65. 31:55

    You need to start having a relationship with God in Christ at whatever point you are with whatever knowledge you have. If you feel you’re lacking in a certain area, then turn to the scriptures For more information on on who God is and how he thinks. So jump back to my example of the the young suitor asking for the hand in marriage.

66. 32:17

    Wouldn’t you really question that boy’s grasp of reality if he won’t ask the girl to marry him because he hasn’t fully memorized the correct number of the names of every one of the school she went to before age 18? You know, how can you put a ring on my daughter’s finger while I’m still working on that middle school is, was it Nobel?

67. 32:39

    Was it Nobel or NOBLE? You’re not going to marry my daughter? Really. God wants us to be in a relationship with him, and that relationship involves a lifetime of learning about God’s character. And do you think you might possibly change during your next lifetime? Yeah, you’re gonna who you who you are 30 years from now is so different than who you were 30 years ago.

68. 33:14

    But that learning has to serve the purpose of us building a relationship. When we have classes, when we teach, you know, any kind of Sunday school, we have to focus on how does this Bible teach us about who God is and how we can build a better relationship with him. Learning about God’s character because we want to be more like him. I love how God is described as characters kind and merciful and loving and patient and long-suffering. Why would we ever find ourselves in a position where all we really want to do is is read and learn about God and not actually take the step of starting a relationship with Him, Learning to love Him and trust Him.

69. 34:09

    Learning puffs up, trusting breaks down. That’s the road, right? It doesn’t always happen and definitely shouldn’t happen, but one of the temptations for humans is to take in knowledge and let it build in them a sense of intelligence and power and superiority.

70. 34:32

    It was that way for the lawyers and the Pharisees, and it’s that way for us today. You can continue to learn more and more, and it empowers you. You rise in stature among other students. You feel like you really are something learning puffs up. Trusting in God is the opposite. Trusting in God requires you acknowledge you really don’t know the answer. You really can’t solve your own problems. These these tough words like submitting and surrendering and giving yourself over to God.

71. 35:09

    Trusting breaks you down. Like we were talking about yesterday. We said certainty and pride are connected and doubt and humility are connected. And when you trust to God, you, you, you, you’re humble and, and it breaks you down. It’s, it’s, it’s the way to God’s heart, but it’s humbling. It’s the way to really come to know God and more important, to be known by God.

72. 35:35

    And it’s much more about surrendering than conquering. It’s much more about admitting your weaknesses than exhibiting your strength. It’s much more about being honest than being correct. Look at this first. Now concerning food offered titles. We know that all of us possess knowledge. This knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. If anyone imagines he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he’s known by God. I love the way it says that if anyone imagines that he knows something.

73. 36:18

    It’s like, you know, you think you know something. You imagine you know something, but you don’t really know yet, as you ought to know. We can’t understand, but we can love. That’s the danger to forever learning and and not coming to a relationship of trust, a relationship of love. It’s a very tempting thing to want to learn more and more. On the other side, it’s very hard for us to submit to God, submit our will to God’s will, to give up your priorities, your agenda, your schedule, your goals and take on His. It’s hard to trust Him even more when you don’t understand what he’s doing.

74. 37:16

    I have a last set of questions for you because tomorrow I decided to give you the day off. So if you have any comments or suggestions, criticisms, that’s fine too. I’ll forward those to John. Any, any anything you want to share at all. This is your your last chance. I appreciate that. Got it.

75. 37:58

    We all experience hills and valleys. We all have high points and low points in our walk and faith. Come to trust God when it doesn’t make sense to you. Start with small things. That’s the best way. Start with the small things and develop that sense of trust. So you’ll be ready if big things ever do come.

76. 38:20

    Grow your trust in God by reading the Bible and hearing how He has dealt with those in the past and by being observant and looking around you and seeing how He deals with others today and how He deals with you today. Let’s not read the Bible hoping that somehow the act of doing so will have some power to save us. That was the problem in the Jews day, in Jesus’s day, the problem with the Jews, he said you search the Scripture because you think that in them you have eternal life and it’s they that bear witness about me.

77. 38:51

    The whole point of the Bible is telling you about me, yet you refuse to come to me. If I were to rewrite that verse, I would say, you know, you search the Scripture because you think it bears witness of me, but you think of Scripture because you think and then you have eternal life.

78. 39:11

    It bear witness of me and you refuse to come to me because you’re too busy searching the Scripture because you think and then you have eternal life, but it’s talking about me. Come to Jesus, concentrate on making your time with the Bible focused on what you can learn to help you improve your relationship with God to help you better understand Jesus.

79. 39:37

    Well, that’s the only reason really behind reading the Bible, for us to know God, for us to trust Him, trust him during the good times and during the bad times.

80. 39:55

    You don’t need to focus on doing something great, some big life changing, amazing deed. You just need to focus on doing something good. Something useful. We’ll talk about that tomorrow.