00:00 The Only Surveys You Need Today 00:33 Welcome to Survey Palooza 00:54 John Gets Surveyed About a Urine Test 01:31 Are We Measuring What Really Matters? 01:54 The Psalms: Your Soul Book 02:24 Your Real Self Talking to the Real God 02:53 Psalm 36 & the Human Heart 03:26 Survey #1: What Needs Correcting? 03:39 What Does It Mean to Fear God? 04:27 Do You Flatter Yourself? 04:50 What Are Your Eyes Looking At? 05:12 Can You Detect Your Own Sin? 05:37 Are Your Words Completely Honest? 05:53 Sins of Omission 06:21 Happiness, Connection & Listening 06:43 Are You Rejecting What Is Wrong? 07:12 John's Surfing Lesson 07:38 Look at the Wave 07:52 Why You Have to Watch Your Thoughts 08:20 Survey #2: How Good Is God? 08:49 God's Love Is Off the Charts 09:10 God's Faithfulness, Righteousness & Justice 09:35 The Great Lake Tahoe Debate 10:03 God Cares for Every Living Creature 10:27 God's River of Delights 10:47 In Your Light We See Light 11:07 The Two Surveys 11:27 Extra Credit: Survey the Wondrous Cross 11:48 Nice Work
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At Become New, get 10 minutes of spiritual formation every weekday with John Orberg.
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In the next few moments, we're going to do two surveys. Maybe a third if you want a little extra credit work. And they are the only surveys that you need to do today, but they are critical. We're going to do them now, and if we do them right, they kind of become a part of the rhythm of our life and our mental activity, especially as we walk through the day. Part of why I say this is we are living in a day where people have just gone overboard with surveys. It's like a constant surveypalooza. I was talking to my wife yesterday. She just made a phone call and then immediately was going to be surveyed about the phone call. People go to church, then they get surveyed about what was your experience like there. I am not making this up. This week I had to go to a lab, part of like medical checkup stuff. Everything's fine, but just had to go through it. I had to do a urine test. I passed, by the way. And I am not kidding you. Two days later, I got a text from the lab asking me to do a survey about my urine test. And I was like, you know, this is an activity I have been doing now for many, many, many decades since I was two or three years old. It's a little hard to evaluate, honestly. There was nothing real special about it. There's just this kind of preoccupation, it seems like, in the corporalist as, well, if something matters, we got to measure it. And if it measures it, then I can show that I'm making an improved. So then I get to keep my job. And I sometimes wonder if you really care about me, would you not make me fill out so many stupid surveys? But the irony is there's a few things in life that really, really matter that ironically, we can end up not looking at, not thinking about, closing our eyes to. And this is why we come to the Psalms now. The Psalms are the great soul book, the great prayer book of the Bible of life. And part of what really helps me with the Psalms is when I understand that the Psalms are not primarily about teaching doctrine. There's places where they might want to be doing that. Mostly they're showing me what an honest, open heart before God actually looks like so that I can become my real self, talking to the real God. And this is really what happens today in Psalm 36. The psalmist says, I have a message from God in my heart concerning the sinfulness of the wicked. And then the psalmist begins to describe the condition of wickedness or wrongness or wrongness or brokenness in the human heart. And of course, part of what I'm learning, we're learning as we see passages like this is that the purpose is not to read it and then think about who's a wicked person out there that I know. And I don't know, it seems a little harsh on them, but yeah, I guess I'd put them in that category, and then I feel puffed up and better about myself. The whole purpose of the psalmist saying these words is so that the reader, the singer, the prayer, you and I might recognize that attraction towards wrongness, wickedness, evil inside my own self and ask God for help and correction. So this is the first survey. Is there anything in my heart, my life, my mind that needs correcting? And here's the little inventory. So you could just start doing this together with God now. God, would you help me be honest about myself and show me whatever I need to see? There is no fear of God before their eyes. Now, the idea here is not that I'm supposed to be afraid of God because he might be mean or unpredictable. Uh it's much more taking really seriously the reality of my accountability to God. It's a little like if I'm messing around with electricity. I don't have to be afraid that electricity is mean, but if I don't know what I'm doing and I start messing up, um damage is going to happen. And people who are not spiritually wise are blithely indifferent to the reality of God and my accountability to Him and the existence of good and bad in our world and in me. No fear of God before their eyes. In their own eyes, they flatter themselves too much to detect or hate their sin. So uh now again the question is is there anything in me that needs correcting? And I'm gonna need some help. Notice the image of eyes here, they flatter themselves. You ever find yourself looking at a picture of a group of people, maybe even family people that you love and you're in it, but all you look at is you? Like, if this is a good picture of me, maybe I'm better looking than I thought I was, and that makes me happy. Or if it's a bad picture of me, oh man. As opposed to, no, I can also look at the people that I love. What do my eyes see when I'm looking from one moment to the next? They flatter themselves too much to detect or hate their sin, my sin. Easy to hate somebody else's sin when I get around you. Oh man. But do I detect it? Do I see it? Do I sniff it in me? The words of their mouths are wicked and deceitful. How are my words? Somebody asks me, Do you know this person? Maybe somebody who used to go to a church where I worked, or somebody that's an important thinker in some field, and are my first words, oh, yeah, I think so. Kind of vague. Instead of just, nope, I have no idea. I don't know. Probably should now, should have remembered. Honestly, I don't. This is just the truth about me. I don't know. How many of my words just get shaded into deceit? They fail to act wisely or do good. Now, these are what are called sins of omissions. I had a chance to give and I didn't do it. I had a chance to help and I didn't do it. I had a chance to listen. Uh Sonia Lubomirsky is a researcher in the happiness field, Russian researcher. And she says, uh many decades now of research points in a single direction that happiness is really about being connected. It's about loving and being loved. And where that really starts, she writes about is to be genuinely curious and listen to somebody. Do I do that? Or do I fail to act wisely or do good? Even on their beds, they plot evil, they commit themselves to a sinful course and do not reject what is wrong. Just quite simple things. Not gonna look at that, not gonna drink that, not gonna I I haven't actually rejected a way of life that is wrong. So that's the first survey. Just honestly, right now, today. Is there anything in my life that's off? What are my eyes seeing? I was surfing not too long ago. I don't surf well. Generally I surf at beaches with names like Grandma's Corner or uh kindergarten beach that are real safe with real little waves. But this time I was with a young friend at a beach called Tarantulus because lots of people die when they surf there. And uh the I was trying to catch a wave, and my friend who was coaching me said, No, no, no, no, no, here's what you're not doing. You have to keep looking back at the wave. See, when I'm digging real hard to try to catch it, I don't want to have to look back at it because it's kind of a pain in the neck, literally, to keep looking back at the wave. But he said, if you don't keep looking at the wave, you won't know. It may not crest, it may just be little, and then there's not going to be enough power, so there's no use paddling, or it may get real uh way too big and be about to close out, crash down on you, and then you will get hurt. And I have been to the ER three different times while surfing. Look at the wave. And and so now the idea is am I looking at my mind? Thoughts come so quickly and they can pull me so far away from God towards self-promotion or towards deceit or towards greed or self-preoccupation or worry. Look at the wave, look at the wave, look at the wave so that I can adjust accordingly. Okay, that's the first survey. Anything need correcting? And then the second survey, the psalmist goes on. Your love, Lord, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness reaches to the skies, your righteousness is like the highest mountains. Now do a little survey. How good is God? And what the psalmist is saying here is you know, uh the numbers don't go high enough. My amp only goes to 11. Your love, Lord, reaches to the heavens. How high is that? That's off the charts. That's God's love, that's God's love for me, for you. Not just that. Your faithfulness reaches to the skies. How high is that? Well, it's too high up there to measure. So it's not just that God was loving yesterday, he's loving today, he's faithful. Your righteousness is like the highest mountain. God is good. Your justice is like the great deep. My wife and I used to have an argument because one of us argued that Lake Tahoe was so deep it could not be measured, and that one turned out to be wrong. They shall go without being named. Um But there is something that cannot be measured because it is so deep. It is uh it's not Lake Tahoe, it's the justice of God. You Lord, preserve both people and animals. How beautiful is that. God every single living creature is the object of God's knowledge and God's care. So when I go out and feed Baxter and Cooper in the morning, I'm partnering with God. He's the one that keeps every heart breathing, every pair of lungs, I mean every heart beating and every pair of lungs breathing. This is how good God is. How priceless is your unfailing love. Again, doing the survey. Can't put a price tag on it. People take refuge in the shadow of your wings. Do you ever feel safe? They feast on the abundance of your house. Do you ever have enough to eat? Have any desires satisfied? You give them drink from your river of delights. Who has a river of delights? Well, that would be God. For with you is the fountain of life. In your light we see light. In your light, God's light, we see light. Physically, that's true. The sun came up again this morning, but way more than that morally and spiritually, to see what is good, to see what is noble. So those are the two surveys. Survey my own heart, look back at the wave. What are my thoughts doing? How am I doing today? And then uh survey the goodness of God. How how how great is his love? What number are you gonna give it? And his faithfulness, his righteous goodness, and his justice. And then if you want to survey one last little thing, it's not this episode. You're thinking I was gonna say, now, go to the computer right now and just thumbs up, thumbs down. Nope, nope, nope, don't have to do that. It's an old hymn, actually. When I survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died. My riches came, I count but loss and pour contempt on all my pride. So sometime today, maybe right now, just survey the cross where the fullness of God's love and God's goodness got displayed. Those are the only surveys you need to do today. And you've already been on it. Nice work.
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What is it in my heart, my life, that needs correcting? Maybe you need to lean into a friend or ask a trusted loved one who knows you, who's seen you in life, who cares about you, wants you're good. What is it in my life that needs correcting? It's a great thing to sit with because we want to treasure the person we're becoming, our character. We want to pursue a life of Christ-like virtue. And then the other and greatest treasure is God. How good is God? And I was just thinking, maybe you need to be reminded today that God is good, that he is for you, that he loves you, that because of Jesus, he stands ready to be with you, to help you, to speak to you anytime, no matter what the circumstance, all you have to do is turn the internal gaze of your heart toward him. And there he is. So I encourage you to do that today and just be reminded that God is good and that he loves you today. I'm Tim, I'm part of the team at Become New. We send out teaching like this every weekday to just help you get your day started right with Jesus. If you want to find out more, head over to become new.com, subscribe to this channel, make sure you don't miss any future teachings from John. All of our resources, the study guides, the email we send out every day with each video, the text reminder are all for free. Just for you if you find them helpful. Thanks again. We'll see you next time.
