Bend me

Hello everyone! Please join me as I discuss the importance of allowing God to work in our lives, the danger of deceptive spirits, and the blessings in obedience. Bend me, God. Make me into the creation you intended. Prepare me to be useful for your purpose. Put in me a passion to proclaim truth. Amen.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hello, everybody. This is Keisha LeBren. Thanks for joining Shining the Light Podcast today. I hope it's a blessing to you. Let's get started. Today's topic: bend me. Bend me, God, and make me and mold me, form me and shape me into the creation you intend me to be. There has been a lot of talk lately in church about bending me. There was a man that was praying, bend me, God, bend me. And from that, there was one of the great revivals in history where lots and lots of people were brought to Christ, brought to salvation through a man saying, Bend me, God, bend me. So I don't have any notes in front of me. This is kind of exhilarating and yet a little bit dangerous. At any rate, it's gonna be a good time. So let's talk about what it takes to get to that point of bend me. Oh God. What does that look like for you? What does that look like for me? When we get to the point where it's not about what we want anymore, it's about wanting what God wants and wanting to be effective in this world. Because let's be honest here, there is only so much that we can do in ourself, and all of those things we can or we think we can do in ourself, even those things are ordered and given by the Lord. He gives us the ability to do, to say, to go. Without him, we don't have breath. We don't have the ability to speak, to do anything. So that's the first point that I'd like to make. We only are here, our breathing, are alive. We remain because God is faithful to each and every one of us. So next question: What are you doing with your life? Who are you living for? Who are you breathing for? What is the purpose in it all? If you stop and think about what you're doing every day, what is it that's making a difference in the world? Do you have a heart to make a difference in the world? Do you feel that commission on your life God has placed on every Christian to go out into the world, preach the gospel, declare the truth? No, not all of us are preachers, but we can still speak the truth, we can live the truth, we can represent the light of that truth. But before we get to that point where we can go out and be effective in this world, we have to ask God to bend us, to mold us and to shape us, to create in us a force that hell cannot stop. We have to ask God to clean up our life or the things that are holding us back, weighing us down, causing us to be ineffective, take out those things in my life, God, that are polluting the water. If we truly want to be effective and we want to bring people to Christ and we want to save the world, which will be my next topic for a different day, we have got to first go through the bending process, go through the firing process, go through the wheel, the potter's wheel. All of these things are not fun, but they are so rewarding in the end. So let me ask you this. Are you doing just enough to get by? Are you doing the bare minimum? What's required, so to speak, what you think is gonna get you to heaven, to slide in by the skin of your teeth? Is that your goal? Or is your goal, Lord, draw me so close to you that I can reach everyone around me so I can bring them to heaven with me? Because heaven is such a wonderful place, and I don't want to take a chance on just sliding in barely by the skin of my teeth, but rather I want to stand before you in judgment with a clean heart, pure hands, pure conscience, where you can say, Well done, thou good and faithful servant, because God knows your heart and he knows the difference between whether you are wanting to get by, still hang on to the world, but get in just deep enough to where you think you have a good chance of getting there. Or do you want to be so close that you can feel him breathe on you and that you can change the world with your life? It's sad to say, um, but I have been witnessing and seeing so many people, especially young people, but not always struggle with one hand in the world and one hand associated with church. The world is not going to heaven. The church is going to heaven, the body of Christ is going to heaven. And just because you associate yourself with church does not mean you are a part of the church of God. Ask yourself, am I living where I know I need to be living? Am I following the word of God? Do I understand? Have I tried to understand the word of God? Have I listened to the Lord when he is spoken to me? Have I resisted temptation? Have I prayed to God for guidance? Have I listened to his commandments? Have I obeyed them? Have I followed them with my whole heart? Have I withheld from him or have I released everything to him? We must not judge our spirituality by the world or by even the church world or those around us. We ought not to judge our spirituality by Christian artists and those that are seemingly making an impact in the world. There is a lot of people, especially in the singing realm right now, a lot of people you wouldn't expect are proclaiming Christ and singing about Christ, and that is all fine and well. But there doesn't seem to be an outward change. You still see them doing ungodly things, speaking in ungodly ways, going to ungodly places. Do not be carried about by every wind of doctrine. Do not be fooled when somebody professes Christ but does not live for Christ on a daily basis. What I'm trying to say is don't be confused. Not everybody that professes Lord, Lord, is going to enter into the kingdom of heaven. There is a difference in naming and proclaiming than in living it, doing it, abiding by it. That's what I'm saying. If you want a role model, go out there and find a little old lady dressed modestly that you know serves the Lord. And you know she serves the Lord because you can feel his spirit radiating from her. She may not speak in loud volumes, her voice may not sound like thunder. She might have a little quiet voice, not say very much, but she is the example of Christ. Find someone like that, let that be your role model. They can teach you a few things if you listen. Or find you an old gray-headed man who has weathered some storms in his life, his Bible is tattered and torn. Start watching his life and seeing what he does. That's gonna get you a whole lot farther than following this new age Christianity that is sweeping America but doesn't have any depth, doesn't have any conviction, doesn't have any change. If the song is uplifting the Lord, if the song is right in what it's saying, if the song is proclaiming truth, then sing the song, but don't put your faith in the singer because anybody can sing a Christian song. It is one thing to have talent, it's another thing to be anointed. Again, I told you I didn't have any notes with me. I feel like I'm everywhere on this topic, but let's keep trucking through. I want to add, and I'm not trying to throw stones, please do not misunderstand me, but it is worth mentioning. It does not matter if an artist has a Christian label attached to him or the group has a Christian label attached to them. If they're screaming about being a monster and it sounds like a rock show, do not be deceived, and God is not mocked. That goes back into doing the bare minimum. Is that music acceptable? People can't really snarl at that because it's a Christian label. So that's okay. Because if they have anything to say about that, then I can just say, hey, don't listen to your music. You listen to this person or you listen to that person. That's the meat of what I'm trying to serve to you today. Are you trying to just get by with what's acceptable in your church world in the modern world? Or are you trying to do that which is acceptable to God? Don't lie to yourself, follow your convictions, and when God is convicting you, don't sear it with a hot iron and become numb to it. Rather, listen, respond, and receive the blessing that God has in an obedient heart. If you want to stay stagnant in Christ and you want to stay complacent, then yes, keep doing what you're doing. Don't try to grow, sit in the seat and try to be overlooked, tied in the sidelines, just enough to associate, but do what you want to do. But remember this the Bible says if you are lukewarm, that means if you're not on fire for God, if you're not trying to do your best and move forward every day, he's going to spew you out of his mouth. Lukewarm ain't going. It ain't going. Some days we may not be able to push forward. We might just have to hold ground, stay where we're at, and try to hold on to the things God's given us to hold our ground. Maybe it's not a season of moving forward for you today, but we've got to get to that place where we can start moving forward. Stagnation, it's a dangerous ground. I don't mean to be negative, Nelly, today. I want to encourage you. I want to encourage your heart and tell you, you can rise above these things. You gotta shuck it off. Start wiggling off the world, all of the chains that are trying to wrap themselves around you, the lust of the flesh, the pride of life, the ungodly friends and ungodly places, the ungodly communication, conversation, that second glance that you shouldn't have given. Whatever it is, shake it off in the name of Jesus Christ. Ask him, Jesus, to bring you back to a place of repentance, of devotion. Time has a way of changing things. It has a way of softening things in a way. You just need to make sure that if it was wrong before, it's still wrong now. Or maybe you jumped the gun back there and you got on the bandwagon with everybody else that thought it was wrong and it really wasn't. Just be careful, okay? We're not perfect. Sometimes we grow in wisdom, but just remember if God says it's wrong, if he told you it's wrong, then it's wrong. If he keeps bringing it back to your mind and bringing it back to your heart, and he's dealing with you to lay it down, sometimes that can be a very deep struggle, especially when others are doing the things that you feel in your heart. God is leading you to give up, to lay down. I can't make the struggle easier for you, but what I can tell you from experience, if you'll just trust God and really seek after his direction and be obedient to what he wants to do in your life, it will be so rewarding for you when you come through it on the other side. Going through it is a push and pull and tug. But if you just let go and let God have it, there's a reason. There's a reason he is doing this in your life. It is to set you up, it's to mold you, to bend you, to prepare you for what he has for you to do in this world. Some things may not be sin, but they may be time consuming. They may be stealing you away from quality time that you need to spend with God in prayer in his word. It might be desensitizing you to the reality of the time that we're living in. It may be robbing you unaware of the blessings that God wants to pour out in your life. It may be stealing your influence. It's all fun and games until the trumpet sounds, and time is no more. And then what? Let's try to make things right on this side of eternity because what a blessed place awaits us that he has gone to prepare for those that love him. And this is the reality that we must let sink into our heart. If we truly love Jesus Christ, we will listen and obey. There's a song that our church choir sings. It's perfectly fitting for this moment right here.

SPEAKER_00 13:14

It says, If you love him, really love him, if you love him, really love him, you ought to thank him for all he's done for you. Lifting holy hands to him, he's done many wonderful things. I love the Lord, he heard my cry and pitied my every woe. And as long as I live when troubles arise, I'm gonna hasten, hasten to his throne. If you love him, really love him. If you love him, really love him, you want to thank him for all he's done for you. Lifting holy hands to him, he's done many wonderful things.

SPEAKER_01 14:06

And that is so true. He has done so many wonderful things. I know I've said this before, but I want to say it again. I want to stress this. When somebody sees you out in the world, do they know you are a Christian? Can they see a difference in you? The Bible says to come out from among the world, be ye separate, saith the Lord. It's okay to be different. It's okay to not be infiltrated by the world's agenda. It's okay to take a firm stand against those who go against God. That's what we're supposed to do. What will happen will be the Bible will be fulfilled, but we are to be proactive and we are to speak love with kindness and truth, even if it steps on some toes. The truth will set people free. You're not gonna set everybody free. Some people do not want set free. Some people love their sin. They don't want to budge from their sin. They're servants of the devil. We can be a light to those people and try to love them. The Bible says, as much as lieth in us, live peaceably with all men. Let's try to do that, but don't waver from the truth. Let's also not forget where we came from because we all came out of the same junkyard of sin, but God gave us a new title. He restored us, made us a new creation. We run different, don't we? Absolutely. When you have been saved, you've come out of the world, you are a different person. We may have the same tendencies. We are still flesh and blood. There are some things that, you know, people can say, oh, well, that's her last name. That's her and her. That's that's that's that name in her while she's doing that. Some things are bred in us, sometimes we just have little quirks. That's okay. God made us all unique and beautiful and for a purpose, but there is going to be some change. There's going to be some growth. There's going to be some things that we don't do anymore. We don't say anymore. We don't go there. And my change may look a little bit different than your change because maybe there are things in your life that I didn't battle with or things in my life that you didn't worry with, whatever it may be. God, just as He created every snowflake differently and unique, so did He us. It's the beauty of uniqueness, and we can still all come together in unity in the body of Christ. I may be able to do things you can't, and you can do things that I can't. And that's the beauty in it all. That's why we've got to live for Christ and do what he tells us to do so we can all do our part and get the job done for him. Work for the kingdom. And don't underestimate what God can do in somebody's life. When we write somebody off, God does not. Look in the Bible and the people that God used. Jacob was a surplanter, a cheater, a liar. God changed his name to Israel. There was a struggle there. And Jacob wrestled with the angel, and the angel of God smote Jacob in the thigh, and he walked different from that point in time. He changed. There was a change that took place, and his name was changed to Israel. Amen. God raised up King David. David had a fall with Bathsheba. Lust consumed David in a moment of his life, caused him grief, but he was able to move past it. God restored his soul. David was the apple of God's eye. Rahab the harlot with a scarlet thread saved her family by faith, by obedience. She was restored and made whole. She wasn't Rahab the harlot anymore. She had a new identity. It doesn't matter what sludge or slush of sin that you come from. God can create a new being, a new creation in you. You may have scars, wear scars, and bear scars. But so does our Lord Jesus Christ, scars in his hands and in his feet. And he bears them scars, scars in his forehead when that crown of thorns was hammered down upon him. He wears those scars so you are not defined by yours. You know, it really saddens me, it burdens my heart whenever I see people that I have grown up with that I know once knew the way, knew enough of the way to know the truth, to know what the Bible said about certain things. But they never had a solid foundation. They didn't have roots that were holding them, grounding them to the word of God and to his truth. And now I see their lives and I see the message that they're proclaiming to the world. They have sold out for a modern new age theology, not one of God Almighty, but one of God is whoever you want him to be. The universe, mother nature, forgetting that God created nature. He created the stars, the sun, the moon, the galaxies. He created all that was made was made by his hand. They've allowed careers, family, relationships to take away any thought that they may have ever had of God. They've allowed tragedy and the love that they've had for loved ones to blind them to truth. You know, people want to believe that there is no judgment because they want to believe that everybody goes to heaven. They don't want to come to terms with the reality that hell is a real place prepared for the devil and his angels and all those who serve them. The truth of the matter is there is a heaven and there is an earth, and God died to pave the way for you to go to heaven if you want to. But there is a requirement on our part, and that is to be sold out to Jesus. The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. And there's a scripture in the Bible that warns us and tells us what things will not enter into the kingdom of heaven. These aren't my words. I'm the messenger. These are God's words, and I have to abide by them. You get a free choice. God is not a dictator, he's loving and kind, and he allows you to choose. But remember that you do choose every day by your actions, by your words, where your little feet take you, what your little ears hear, what your little mouth speaks, what your little eyes behold. The recording angel in heaven is keeping track, and you will give an account. Make sure it's all under the blood of Jesus Christ. And when you are forgiven, sin no more. Turn your back on it and walk in the newness of life. I'd love to stay in chat longer, but I have to leave for church here in a few minutes. God bless you all. Let's try to live the best that we can and let God be our guiding light. Have a wonderful day. You've got this with the help and grace of God. Bye bye.