Avodah Talk w/ Matt Walton
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Avodah Talk w/ Matt Walton
Exploring Genesis for Personal and Professional Growth
This episode invites listeners to explore the integration of faith and business, emphasizing the concept of 'Business as Ministry.' Matt discusses personal insights gleaned from Scripture, particularly Genesis 12-15, which underscores the importance of trusting God's guidance and pursuing a life aligned with His will.
• Exploring the definition of Kingdom Business
• Personal health journey impacting spiritual clarity
• God as our partner in business decisions
• The significance of prioritizing time with God
• Lessons from Abram's journey in Genesis
• Trusting God's timing and direction
• The transformative power of obedience and faith
• Encouraging deeper engagement with Scripture
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Thank you for choosing Avodah Talk w/ Matt Walton
What's up, guys? This is Matt with Avoda Talk, or the real Matt Walton. This is your hub for all things Kingdom Business Business as Ministry Business Strategy. My goal is to provide as much value, minute by minute, each podcast that you listen to. So let's get to it.
Speaker 1:God has given me a special word this morning for everybody, and so I am just fired up. Man, I woke up early today, got to exercising, I'm spending a lot of time with the Lord, I'm really working on dialing in my eating, and so I've been eating like this animal-based lifestyle. That has dramatically increased my mood. It's increased my clarity, I've dropped a lot of weight, my energy is through the roof, and so it's incredible. So, no, I'm not trying to get you guys to do that, but, man, it is awesome to really take an expert ownership over your life, and I have never really been a morning person, but I am changing to be a morning person, waking up a little bit earlier than four sometimes, but 4.30 is my target to where I wake up, and I immediately will just get into what I got to get into. I lay out my stuff the day before I lay out my stuff the day before I lay out my clothes. I put out all of my morning routine in the morning so that when I wake up I don't have to make those decisions. I just go in there and run through the motions, complete the task and then I'm out the door to start exercising. Then I get back inside and by that time I am just fired up, ready to go, and I spend a lot of time with the Lord in the morning and that looks like studying the word, worshiping in the traditional sense with music, and then obviously just worshiping with listening, prayer, listening to what the Lord has to say and worshiping through reading his words. I am just fired up. I pray that every single person that is out there is pursuing the life that you want to have and, most importantly, it's a life that God wants you to have, because there's so many times when we can come up with this life that we want to have that's so different than the life that God wants us to have. So number one thing that I would say is man, I hope that you are in the will of the Lord and if you're not, you know it and you make the necessary decisions to get into the will of the Lord and partake in his rest as you're conquering your days, so let's get right into it.
Speaker 1:Today's going to look a little different than it normally does in the past. I'm going to talk specifically about scripture today. Obviously, that's all going to be tied to business, because that's what we do, but this is literally meant to challenge you. This may frustrate some of you. Please understand that I am taking a hundred thousand foot overview over the scriptures that we're going to go through today. I am not at all trying to get into all the depths of it, although I will mention certain things that you may hear and be like hmm, and these are all meant to go out and study and to find out for yourself. Don't take my word Go out and find out for yourself. We're going to focus on Genesis 12 through 15.
Speaker 1:And I started a journey a while ago, several months ago, about figuring out who God is. But first it started with figuring out who God says that I am. And the reason why I started that journey is because my business is my ministry and it's run in a certain way in order to glorify God. God is the owner. I'm a steward. God is the CEO. I am a steward. The reason why is because I have a ministry called Reach the Streets where we go out and we evangelize. We do tent revivals out here in Las Vegas, and it's something we do just about every single Tuesday. We have worship and preaching, evangelism, resources, food.
Speaker 1:All of that and the questions that kept coming up was just hey, have you ever heard of this? Have you ever heard of that? Have you ever heard of the book of the Gospel of Thomas? Have you ever heard of these different things? Have you ever heard of this God over here, or why do y'all call him this name? And so it just started me on this journey of figuring out number one, who God says that we are. But that launched me into figuring out who God says that he is and who is God. So I started studying from Genesis 1, and I would encourage everybody to start from the very beginning. This is the foundation of our faith. I started in Genesis 1, and at the end, if I've got some time, I'll give y'all some resources. But this led me to who God is.
Speaker 1:These are three of the things that we're going to talk about here. But who is God? We're going to talk about what God desires, and it's made evident in the first several chapters of Genesis. And then we'll talk about why God said that you are very good. Because when God created man, he said that you were very good. And so why is that? Because we have this idea that God is up there just waiting to smite you. The second that you make one wrong move, he's waiting to smite you, condemn you, leave you feeling just discombobulated, and that's not God at all. And so it doesn't mean that there's not consequences. It doesn't mean that God does not like teach through those consequences. But man God is not a God that is sitting there just trying to smite you, condemn you, waiting for you to trip up. He is a God that is so good to his children, that wants to bless us and see us prosper. But he's so much more than that. He's so much more than just a God up there that wants us to prosper and live in a life of abundance. He is somebody that is looking to partner with us. And how incredible is that, like God of the universe, the God that created you and that created me is the very same God that wants to partner with you. But why did God say that we are very good?
Speaker 1:Now, before I really get into it, I'm going to skip over Genesis 1 through 11. I'll do a 500,000 foot overview of these. I believe that a lot of those stories the bulk of those stories there's so many lessons to learn in there. But a lot of them are pointing to man. God wants to partner with us. You know we continue to take things into our own hand. God will literally say, yes, this is the way that it's going to be or this is what I don't want you to do, and then our desires take over and we do those things and we go against the direct commands of God.
Speaker 1:So hopefully this will encourage you to start being hyper aware to these things. It will encourage you to study scripture like you never had before, to really understand who God is. That is the intention of this. Find out on your own. Start studying the word of God. Do more than just word studies. Study the culture. Just watch how God will expand your knowledge of who exactly he is.
Speaker 1:But I'll give you one thing Genesis, the bulk of Genesis and a lot of the Bible, is a chiasm. So I'll just leave it at that. Study that. Study what a chiasm is. Study the significance of that, because when we start to understand that and we understand the chiasm and how it has these different bookends throughout the scripture and it leads you to this treasure Incredible. It will literally expand the Bible, expand your mind in ways that it's hard for me to describe. I can't even begin to describe to you how fired up I get whenever I just get filled with this knowledge and this power that comes from God, and God alone.
Speaker 1:First, before I want to add this to it as well when you do not have clarity in your business, there's obviously a reason why God continues to invite us, not just in Scripture, but throughout our day-to-day life. He invites us to partner with Him and so many times God will literally look at us, whisper to us or tell us through his word exactly what he wants us to do. And then we say, okay, we go on and we do it our way. There are so many times when we're pursuing clarity and we pursue clarity through, maybe, a podcast or through a different book or through an individual, and no, there is nothing wrong with those things. There's nothing wrong with them at all. And in fact, if you're not doing those things, I encourage you to do those things, unless God has you in a season to where he just wants you diving into the word, because I am coming off of a season where God was like I don't want you listening to anything except studying my word and uh, and be obedient to those things and be aware of what God is trying to tell you to do.
Speaker 1:There's a few things that I think about. A lot is we can do all of these things to make our business our ministry. And before I get into that, like, if you have never heard this term, business as ministry just think about that for a second. And how. Ministry isn't confined to a preacher on Sundays, a four-wall church building, a non-profit down the street. Like ministry is who you are, where you're at. It could be where you're at in a grocery store line, where you're at in business, where you're at in the marketplace that is your ministry. And your home, your family, that is your ministry. So we as human beings can do all of these things to make our businesses and to make our lives operate out of this ministry mentality, and yet we're missing like foundational peace and our relationship with God can be suffering.
Speaker 1:So a question is like how does your time with the Lord look? And are you listening to an hour long podcast but spending 15 minutes with the Lord. If you are, that's a little bit lopsided, quit doing that. We need to spend more time with the Lord than we're spending in podcasts and books and all these other things on a consistent basis, right? It doesn't mean that you're not going to have days to where you spend, you know, hour and a half, two hours, three hours reading a book or watching a podcast and you spend an hour in the word. But if it's consistently like that, I encourage you to change that and God will honor those things and he starts to give you this desire to pursue him that maybe you're missing right now. And that starts with pursuing him and understanding that that motivation precedes the action. So as soon as you start doing it, that motivation will come. So if you're waiting for motivation to start doing something, then start doing that thing and the motivation will come, because that's one way that the enemy will continue to push your progress and will continue to push your growth down the road, because you're waiting for something that's not going to come until you actually act on something. And I'm speaking to myself right now.
Speaker 1:I've got a couple of questions written down here. One of the questions is we say that we're kingdom, but do we know what God is and who God says that we are? How many times do we say okay, god, only to take it into our hands and do it our way instead of being patient and waiting on God? Man, I am guilty of that, and I did that maybe four months ago and it came back to bite me really quick. So I pursued the money on something and it came back to bite me really quick. God taught me a very valuable lesson that I need to be patient and not just bite on the shiny object and wait for the Lord, because as soon as the Lord provided what was needed, there was no toil associated with it at all. And that reminds me of Psalm 127, verses 1 through 2.
Speaker 1:Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain. Same thing for business Unless the Lord's building your business, you're laboring in vain. You're going to experience stress and anxiety like never before. It's going to weigh down on you, it's going to deplete your motivation and you're going to find yourself just in this hamster wheel and just repeating this loop cycle that is creating a void between you and God and a void between the rest. That only comes from God and a void between the visions and all the things that God is trying to speak to, a void between the voice of God speaking to you God is trying to speak to somebody out there, whoever is listening, and you're doing something that is hindering you from hearing from the Lord.
Speaker 1:It's so awesome whenever you become exposed to these things and like speaking to me right now. I hear from God directly, like sometimes it comes through an Instagram post, like this is a channel that God has established in my life. It's like I'm going to speak through Facebook and I'm going to speak through Instagram and I'm going to speak through YouTube and I'm going to speak through titles and I'm going to speak through just little snippets of videos and it's going to be directly related to you and that's how I'm going to speak to you. If you're not hearing me in the word, if you're not hearing me in the morning time, whenever you're going on walks in the afternoon, I'm going to start speaking to you whenever you're not spending time with me and whenever you're pursuing something else. God made me aware of that and I wept and I sent myself these videos because God, video after video after video, it had three videos consistently where God said what, what I don't want you to do anymore. And here's why let's get into it.
Speaker 1:When I say kingdom business, I am not well, I am, of course, talking about how you operate your business and like the programs that you develop and how you're helping people, how you're developing humans, how you're taking care of your clients, how you're setting the standard for how business is done and customer service. All of that is incredible. But I'm also talking about the state that we operate in, because if we operate in the state of just a tizzy, we're hair on fire, we're always overreacting. That's not kingdom and it certainly can be fixed. If that's you, man, it just takes. You know, repenting, recognizing that, getting on your face before the Lord, asking God to take that over from you. Biggest things for kingdom business is how you operate and your relationship with God, because then you can then go in and do some incredible things without the anxiety, without the stress, without all of that, because your partner is God and he's got you.
Speaker 1:Let's start on our, on our overview. I'm going to go through Genesis 12. Again, I'm just going to hit the high points real quick. I'm going to Genesis 12 through 15. And before I get into that, I'm going to skim very briefly over this. So Genesis 1 through 2, they're incredible creation stories. It's multiple creation stories built into what I would have thought before I studied this as one creation story.
Speaker 1:I think you're going to see the chiasms in here. If you study chiasms, you're going to start to see these and then just understand this. The Aramaic, hebrew and the Greek they're all alphanumeric languages. So don't build your theology on numbers. But it's incredible how God uses numbers to confirm things. So God will literally, if he's trying to start a new thing in you, start paying attention to license plates. God will speak to you through license plates. Like I started to see 777, and then I started to see 333. This is very recent. I told my wife whenever we were driving. I was like God is about to do something brand new. This is finished. He's about to do something brand new and we're about to start seeing 333 everywhere. And sure enough, we did so.
Speaker 1:Then we get into the fall. We get into the fall of man and we get into God. Literally told them what to do and or, excuse me, told them what not to do. They ended up and took the desires back into their hands and they went against what God had told them to do. There's so many fascinating things in here, like there's the tree of knowledge and the tree of life, which one is in the middle? You know, we see it would seem to be a contradiction, but the word of God is inerrant, meaning that there's no errors found in the word of God. And in fact, if there's something that you don't understand, then it seems like okay, that's off, that's an error. I promise you it is not. And when you study those things that we perceive as errors, you ask like this is a problem that I see in scripture. It becomes apparent to you and God blows open the doors of revelation with the scripture.
Speaker 1:So now we get into Cain and Abel. Again, we have another story of Cain and Abel had a. Specifically, cain had a great opportunity to not overreact, to trust that God had a purpose and a plan in this. Some things in this story, whenever you first read it, just don't make sense, because you're like you didn't tell them what to bring, they brought what they Anyway. So there's a lot of questions when you're reading this ask yourself like what are the problems in the story? And then God will reveal that? No, there is none. I'll give depth of the knowledge that you're that you're seeking searching for when we get to noah. Noah was obedient to what god had called him to do. Noah, as soon as he came out of the ark, we know what happened with his sons there was. Noah took it into his own hands at that point and we see noah over react. No, we ended up and cursed his grandson. That is a fascinating story. If you haven't got into it. God creates a covenant with noah and then we get into the tower of babel.
Speaker 1:Again, I'm skipping over a lot of stuff, but we get into the Tower of Babel and how, again, we as human beings were trying to build a great name for ourselves, all disguised within, trying to get closer to God. And how many times do we do that? Then we get to Haraz, descendants, which is where we meet Abram for the first time, and I know y'all know Abram. Abraham is what he was later renamed through God and he is the father of our faith. There's so much that comes from Abram. So when we get to Genesis 12, this is where we see the call of Abram.
Speaker 1:So I want to talk about culture really quick. So this is a patriarchal style of culture within family. If we study the Eastern family, they have a patriarchal structure to where you, as the kids, had to come underneath the wing of the, the patriarch, or the father of the grandfather of the family, and until you, until he passes, you had to help him accomplish his vision and the goal that god had given over his life. And so for god to call abram away from his family was a huge deal. And so now the lord said to Abram go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you and I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you so that you will be a blessing, and he will make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. And then this is I'm skipping.
Speaker 1:So Abram, when has the Lord told him? And this is where they departed? It says he departed from Haran and Abram took Sarai, his wife, which? Study Sarai, his wife, and study Isca. It's fascinating. There's a lot of theologians that believe something fascinating about them. I don't want to give you all too much there, but study who they are. Then we see here he took Enlot, his brother's son, and all their possessions that they had gathered. So Abram departed. He was acting out of obedience to God. He had departed, and it says down here Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said To your offspring I will give this land.
Speaker 1:So he built an altar to the Lord. So where we see in previous stories of how man would build towers and how man took it into their own hands and went against what God had called them to do within Adam and Eve, and we see this with Cain and Abel. We see this with Cain and Abel. We see here Abram has a different heart posture. He did not go try to build a tower. He was not trying to gratify his flesh just yet and, believe me, abram is not perfect, but he built an altar to the Lord. We're going to see that being consistent throughout scripture, or throughout the story with Abram.
Speaker 1:Now they're heading to Egypt and they get to Egypt, and this is where Abram, when you study this, abram seemingly lied, right. We know a lot of theologians are saying that Sarai was his half-sister, but Abram told a half-truth, if you will, so told a lie in order to be blessed for her sake. And so this is what he said Say that you are my sister. So again he's coming to Egypt. They had departed from where they were at. They built an altar out of obedience to what God said. He had departed from his family. They get to Egypt.
Speaker 1:There was a great famine in the land, so they had been traveling. So he is thinking like man, I am in, needed some resources here. There's a famine in the land. We've been traveling for a while. We are without. So, sarai, why don't you what? Let's just tell them that you're my sister, so that it may go well with me because of you and that my life may be spared for your sake. And so because Abram, selflessly, I know we human beings in our Western world we see Abram marrying Sarai as something that can be a very perverted thing.
Speaker 1:But when we study this, we see that Abram taking Sarai was actually a very. He was like killing his flesh and he was saying listen, I will take, I will be the patriarch of you. I will show you the way I will provide the patriarch of you. I will show you the way I will provide for you. I will show you what it's like to be taken care of. So fast forward now. We have a famine in the land. They're in Egypt and he's telling her hey, do this so that you're spared or I'm spared for your sake. So now we get to the idea of.
Speaker 1:He was very concerned because Sarai was very beautiful and so he was thinking if they believe that you're my sister, they will want to court you, and because they won't want to marry you, they will then give me a bunch of possessions and they will want to woo me so that I will give your hand over in marriage and we then will escape by night into the wilderness and we'll leave with all the riches that we accumulate because they just want to bless us. And it goes south because Pharaoh actually Sarai catches Pharaoh's eye and Pharaoh answers to nobody, pharaoh is not trying to court anybody. Pharaoh's like yeah, I want you to be mine, you're going to be mine and I don't care about the way that our culture is. And so Abram's plan backfired here and we see Abram or we see Pharaoh then. So I'm going to say I'm going to skip down here and for her sake, he dealt well with Abram, so his plan seemingly going well at this point. And he had sheep, oxen, male donkeys and camels. So Pharaoh had blessed Abram abundantly.
Speaker 1:But the Lord afflicted Pharaoh. This is where we start to see things go south. This is where we start to learn, like we take things into our own hand and we quit believing God and the story and the scriptures and we take things into our own hand and we see God here say, okay, he afflicted Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai, abram's wife. So Pharaoh called Abram and said what is this you have done to me? Why did you not tell me that she was your wife? And so, to skip forward, he ended up and told Abram and Sarai to go and he allowed for them to keep all of their riches. So Abrai went up from Egypt, so they had to depart and he and his wife and all that they had and Lot went with him to Najib.
Speaker 1:Now, abram was very rich, so I want to park there for a second. Abram was very rich. This is not a worldly term. So for those that are believers out there that have a problem whenever you see another believer passing by in a Mercedes or another believer passing by and they've got a Rolex on, abram was very, very rich. That's not a worldly term. This is a biblical term and, yes, those possessions can have your heart, and that's where the problem is. But the possessions and all of that is not the problem. And so God again wants to bless us. See that here. He was very rich in livestock and silver and in gold, and he journeyed from the nijiv as far as bethel.
Speaker 1:So this is where we see abram and loth. They had to separate. Abram was like look, listen, you go this way or you go that way. Whichever way, you don't go, I will go. And so they ended up and separated. Loth went to the jordan valley, abram settled in the land of canaan. So then this is, uh, genesis 13. Then we we see Lot ended up and was taken.
Speaker 1:Then we see Abram, or we see all of these kings of this time, enter into a battle or enter into a war, and we quickly get down to verses 13, where we start to learn how Abram heard that his kinsmen had been taken captive and he led forth his trained men born in his house, 318 of them. So he has already accumulated all the wealth and all the people, all the servants, all of that to the tune of having trained 318 men. So they went out and he conquered all of those kings and he ended up and got all of the spoils of the war and ended up and was able to get Lot back. So God literally had promised Abram that his offspring was going to fill the earth and they were going to bless the earth. And Abram took a wife in Sarai and she was barren. So he literally is hearing the promise from God, takes Sarai and is like how in the world is this going to happen? Because my wife is barren? And so he starts to believe that Lot is going to be the heir right. He's going to be where all of his descendants come from is through Lot. And we see here that, or we see in the verse before how literally Abram let Lot go and told him to go this way. And then we see Abram fights to get Lot back and through fighting to get Lot back he got that promise back and there were some of that security that came with that. He got the spoils of the war but he ended up and gave this to Melchizedek.
Speaker 1:But we see in the king of Saddam said to Abram this is after he collected all the people, all the spoils of the war and he had conquered all the kings. He said this is the king talking. Give me the persons, but take the goods for yourself. And Abram said to the king of Sodom I have lifted my hand to the Lord, god most high possessor of heaven and earth that I would not take a thread or a sandal strap or anything that is yours, lest you should say I have made Abram rich. So this is where we see Abram literally let go to all the goods that they had gotten in the sense of food. Abram literally let go to all the goods that they had gotten in the sense of food. I will take nothing but what the young men have eaten and the share of the men who went with me. He literally gave back Lot and he gave back all the spoils that they had gotten. So Abram went and risked all of his life, risked his men's life. They ended up and conquered them to get the promise back from the Lord, aka Lot, and through that he ended up and had to give Lot back.
Speaker 1:And so Abram, when we get to Genesis 15, we see Abram be like very curious or very concerned and express a lot of fears. So Genesis 15 in these things, the word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision. Fear not, abram, I am your shield. Your reward shall be very great. But Abram said oh Lord, God, what will you give me, for? I continue childless and the heir of my house is Eleazar of Damascus. So again, he had to give up Lot again and he's thinking like how in the world is God going to provide a child? That is then going to be the provision for the vision that God had given him that's going to bless all nations. Because he doesn't have Lot, his wife is barren, so he cannot see how God is going to do this. And abram said and we don't see god. Reply to that, by the way, so that when you study the culture and the context of this time my studies have led me to, there was a whole lot longer pause there than just I didn't hear from you, and then I'm going to continue with the conversation like this, almost as if there's two conversations going on here at two different times.
Speaker 1:And it says and Abram said behold, you have given me no offspring and a member of my household will be my heir. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him this man shall not be your heir, your very own son shall be your heir. And he brought him outside and said look toward heaven and number the stars, if you are. If you are able to number them, then he said to him so shall your offspring be. And he believed the Lord. And he counted it to him as righteousness. Let's study that, by the way. He counted it to him as righteousness. That's fascinating.
Speaker 1:And he said to him I am the Lord who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans, to give you this land to possess. But he said, oh Lord, god, how am I to know that I shall possess it? And literally, because I just told you is what my mind is thinking, I shall possess it. And literally, because I just told you is what my mind is thinking, like, literally just told you that you were going to have this, yet Abraham is still questioning these things. So how often do we question things when God is like here it is, here's exactly what it is. And yet we're like well, because I can't tangibly touch this thing, I don't believe it.
Speaker 1:But he said, oh Lord, how am I to know that I shall possess it? He said to him bring me a heifer three years old, a female goat three years old, a ram three years old, a turtle, dove and a young pigeon. And he brought him all these, cut them in half and laid each of them against the other. But he did not cut the birds in half and when the birds of prey came down on the carcass, abram drove them away. So it's fascinating, because God did not tell him make a covenant right now. And I want you to do this. And here's how the covenant is going to look like.
Speaker 1:So this is actually considered a blood path covenant and Abram was very familiar because take these animals here, cut them in half and what that resembled. And so that resembled a blood path covenant. Abram just went kind of his way, if you will not really out of his way. Abram acted out of what he believed. God was trying to say cut them in half. Just imagine if this was like a mountain and there was a little crevice there. Maybe we're at the top of the mountain and you put all the animals on either side and then drains the blood right down the middle, to where you have this blood path going down the middle.
Speaker 1:And what happened is, if you were the one that initiated the covenant, if you're trying to take somebody's hand in marriage or whatever it was, and you entered into that covenant with the patriarch of the family, then you would be the one to walk through that first, before the other individual would that you were entering into that covenant and you were basically saying that, hey, I promise to do these things. Here is our covenant, punishable by death if I don't hold up my end of the deal. So I'm going to skip through this. But God had made the sun go down and this is where God told him Know for certain that your offspring will be sojourners in a land that is not theirs and will be servants there, and they will be afflicted for 400 years. That's incredible because that's pointing to Israel, but I will bring judgment on the nation that they serve, and afterward they shall come out with a great possessions. As for you, you shall back to your studies within Scripture.
Speaker 1:How was God represented over the course of numerous times? Smoke and fire. So what God is saying here, when the sun had gone down and it was dark, behold a smoking fire pot and a flaming torch passed between the pieces. So when it talks about the pieces there, it's talking about the blood path of the animals that Abram had laid out. And what God was saying here is is God revealed himself in that moment, passed through the pieces there saying Abram, you are going to fail every single time, and I know that. So I will not enter into the traditional blood covenant with you to where you're the one that is going to have to pay with your life because you're not going to uphold this.
Speaker 1:Rather, I will. I'm speaking as God. I will take the full responsibility for this covenant and I, as God, will literally take, because I know you're going to fail every single time. I will take the consequences for that. I will take all of that on myself. And so what a better partner than that that we have a God that wants to partner with us, that wants to provide the provision for the visions, that wants to provide a way of operating business it doesn't mean we're not going to have a season or a moment, but a way of relying on God to provide everything and entering into his rest. Like what a better partner than that that says I know you're going to fail, so I'm going to take all that on my own and I'm going to be the one that's going to take the brunt of that covenant and I'm going to ensure that this covenant is upheld, because God is a God of his word. The things that are fascinating here is I'm a little bit, but Hagar Hagar, one of the servants that came from when we were in Egypt with Pharaoh. So it's just fascinating when we start thinking about Islam and the father and mother of Islam and all of that. It's fascinating.
Speaker 1:So what God is saying I'll wrap this up but what God is saying over and over again, we read Genesis 12, 1, and it's a call that is different. We see there being an uncomfortable call. When God calls you to do something, it looks different than how it looks for anybody else to be called to do things. God's gonna call you to do something that's uncomfortable. God's gonna call you to do things that are going to hurt, are going to be painful. You're going to have lack, or seemingly lack, throughout that God's trying to speak to you about. Like, let me be your everything. Don't allow for finances or for any of those things to be what sustains you. Let me sustain you. So the call is different.
Speaker 1:We learned that in Genesis 12.1 that when God calls you, just know he has called all of us to something really incredible and it is going to be uncomfortable. Nowhere in Scripture does it say that things get easy when we give our life over to God. The second thing is in Genesis 12.10, we see trust and learn to not take it back into our own hands. So this is where so many times we hear from God, yet we choose to take it back into our own hands. We have to be willing to give it back. This is what we learned in Genesis 14. God was willing to seemingly give the vision that God had given him and giving Lope back. After fighting to get Lope back, he gave Lope back, which was an incredible gesture at that time and it just showed the heart of Abram that he trusted God. It doesn't mean that Abram was perfect, but he trusted God. And then we read in Genesis 15, god's mercy and his goodness and how God knows that you're going to fail. He understands these things, he knows these things, yet he still wants to partner with you and come alongside you and he still wants you to enter into his rest. And he still gives us opportunity after opportunity to partner with him. And when we partner with him, he is so good to give us everything that we need. And in those moments when we don't have everything, everything we need, and it's just a perspective shift and it's and it's incredible one when we actually get to that point.
Speaker 1:Last thing is, I want for every single person out there to really considered are you partner with God? Because I know there's a lot of people that talk about business as ministry or God's business or kingdom business. But how is your relationship with God and partner with God? There's no better partner than partner with God. Use your business as your ministry. Serve your people. Create programs around this. Hire people from prison or out the streets, if you have the ability to do that. Train your people properly to develop the human being. Grow as a leader. Study leadership and grow as a leader and really start to move from being a positional leader to being a leader that operates out of influence and is about serving others and puts others above yourself.
Speaker 1:Grow with God, man.
Speaker 1:Grow in your relationship with God, man. Spend time with God, man. Take care of your health, like we were talking about at the beginning, and start to do these things. Start to work on these disciplines and train your body, like it says in 1 Corinthians and how we need to train ourselves so that we're not disqualified when we're sharing scriptures or whenever we're preaching or teaching. Spend time with your kids, man. Spend more time, present time with your kids, intentional time with your kids. You know to them, loving on them, and if you overreact on something you know, make it right with them.
Speaker 1:But you are literally meant to partner with God and we're meant for some incredible things. So just think through some of these questions that we've talked through today and think am I partner with God or am I doing what I want to do? Am I really listening to what God wants me to do and what God is speaking to me to do, or am I going and I'm trying to take things into my own hands? You are made in the image of God. Like this is one of the most incredible things throughout scripture is you are made in the image of God.
Speaker 1:You study Matthew 6. You read all of these things where he says do this, do this. So that's just kind of a snippet. Exercise Matthew 6 within your business and it'll really teach you how to give through your business, how to not give and how to do a number of things. I'll leave it at that. So hopefully you guys enjoyed this. I am going to do some videos where I go through breaking down Scripture. Just know this. I give a 50,000-foot overview. Eventually I will start diving in even deeper on some of these things.
Speaker 1:I know some of you heard some things and it frustrated you. Maybe you haven't heard some of these things before. So study them, study the word of God, study scripture, look at midrashes, study commentaries. But the most important thing you can do is study the Bible inductively because that, like, alleviates you from having a re-commentary, midrash or any of that stuff, and God will give you a direct revelation right there and then confirm it with two or three or four or five different commentaries or people that you know. I promise you, if he's given you a revelation and you're the only one with that revelation, it's a fake revelation. We see the cult of Mormonism that God gave Joseph Smith, I believe, is his name gave him a revelation, and that is a cult that still plagues our society to today. Y'all are awesome. Thank you so much for tuning in and we will.