SPEAKER_00: You're listening to the road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.
SPEAKER_01: Loving God with our heart emotionally doesn't happen until we discover that God loves us.
SPEAKER_01: Until we discover, as I talked about last week, especially from John 17, 23, that that love by which the Father loved Jesus, Jesus is now placed in us that we might experience the same love that he experienced from his father.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that radical?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's fantastic stuff.
SPEAKER_00: At The Road, our vision is to raise up wholehearted disciples of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: For more information on The Road, visit theroad.org.
SPEAKER_00: We hope you are encouraged by today's message from Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.
SPEAKER_01: Last week I talked about what I believe is contending for the most important thing all of Scripture teaches, and that's to love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.
SPEAKER_01: And so we've got a graph that I want you to see.
SPEAKER_01: And this was this is something that we put together to describe what we see in the passage we just read.
SPEAKER_01: And you might want to jot it down.
SPEAKER_01: And you'll see parenthetically what I believe each section represents.
SPEAKER_01: And so we started with the first commandment last week, but I want to read it again.
SPEAKER_01: So if you have your Bibles, Mark chapter 12.
SPEAKER_01: What you read was the Matthew 22 passage here in the Antiphonal reading, but I like Mark 12, it's a little more succinct.
SPEAKER_01: Matthew has the ending about the summation of all the prophets in Scripture, and that's why I wanted that in our Antiphanal reading.
SPEAKER_01: But Mark 12, 28, Jesus is asked this question, and he answers it.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to begin by just giving you the phrase that I gave you last week.
SPEAKER_01: The greatest man who ever lived gave us the greatest command ever given that we might experience the greatest life ever offered.
SPEAKER_01: Let me say that again.
SPEAKER_01: The greatest man who ever lived gave us the greatest command ever given that we might experience the greatest life ever offered.
SPEAKER_01: All in one statement.
SPEAKER_01: The greatest statement in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: If you're going to memorize the Bible verse, I'd say memorize this one.
SPEAKER_01: If you want to contend for something in the Christian life, for many, it's the great commission.
SPEAKER_01: For others, it's experiencing God's love.
SPEAKER_01: For probably most of it, it was John 3.16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.
SPEAKER_01: Beautiful passages, so many great passages.
SPEAKER_01: But if we were to contend for, memorize, set our heart on, it would be this one.
SPEAKER_01: So let me read it.
SPEAKER_01: Then one of the scribes came and heard him reasoning together, perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, which is the first commandment of all.
SPEAKER_01: Matthew says, the greatest commandment of all.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus answered him.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 29.
SPEAKER_01: The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one, and you shall love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all your soul, with all of your mind, with all of your strength.
SPEAKER_01: This is the first and the greatest commandment.
SPEAKER_01: So, men and women, this is the stirring of our hearts this year for this church.
SPEAKER_01: It is my conviction that this is what revival looks like.
SPEAKER_01: There's all kinds of definitions of revival, and I've read numerous books on revival and awakening, and everybody's got a different definition, but no one's ever used this as a definition that I've read among historians and theologians.
SPEAKER_01: But this to me is really what revival is.
SPEAKER_01: It's a stirring of our hearts.
SPEAKER_01: It is a new contending in our spirits.
SPEAKER_01: Oh God, this year I want to love you with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength.
SPEAKER_01: It's dropping other issues that cloud our memory of the past, that cause us to be caught up in lust and fear and ambition.
SPEAKER_01: And it's being able to say, maybe to start each day is a great way to start each day with a revival of the spirit, to say, Lord, I want to love you today with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength.
SPEAKER_01: Stir my heart with a contending spirit, with a fighting spirit, that God, you would show me how to do that this year.
SPEAKER_01: That I would focus my life.
SPEAKER_01: There's a lot of things we can focus our life on.
SPEAKER_01: And in our messages, we talked about vision.
SPEAKER_01: We talked about mission.
SPEAKER_01: We talked about intimacy with Christ, and we talked about contending for your inheritance from Joshua chapter 1.
SPEAKER_01: But the reality is, all of it is summed up right here, right?
SPEAKER_01: It's all summed up right here.
SPEAKER_01: Loving God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.
SPEAKER_01: And church, it lines everything up when we do this.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it makes complete sense, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_01: That some of you are architects, some of you are carpenters, some of you are missionaries, some of you are worship leaders, some of you are lawyers.
SPEAKER_01: We all have these different jobs we have, and the reality is the God who created you to do that.
SPEAKER_01: That's your mission feel.
SPEAKER_01: What you do during the week is your mission feel, that as you grow deeper in loving God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and spirit, you're going to be better at what you do.
SPEAKER_01: You'll be a better entrepreneur.
SPEAKER_01: You'll be a better doctor.
SPEAKER_01: You'll be a better nurse.
SPEAKER_01: You'll be a better mechanic because you're doing your work hardly.
SPEAKER_01: Colossians 3, 23, do everything you do for the glory of God.
SPEAKER_01: Do everything you do with all of your might.
SPEAKER_01: That happens when our heart, our mind, our strength, and our soul is engaged and lined up with the King of Kings and the Lord of Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that awesome?
SPEAKER_01: So Jesus summed it up.
SPEAKER_01: That's revival, folks.
SPEAKER_01: And so to redefine our purpose and to redefine our vision and say, Lord, I may not be great at this, or I may not be great at that, or I may not be an eloquent speaker, or I don't know about this other stuff, but I know I can love you with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength because you've given me, as we talked about last week, a new heart.
SPEAKER_01: You realize you can't do this?
SPEAKER_01: Some of you are going, there's no way I can do that.
SPEAKER_01: If you only knew how messed up my life is.
SPEAKER_01: Well, the reality is, is that when you got saved, now if you're not saved, then you don't have a new heart.
SPEAKER_01: You still got your old heart.
SPEAKER_01: That's really bad.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's gonna be really rough.
SPEAKER_01: Trying to love God with all your heart when you got your old heart.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that stinks.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's like the worst.
SPEAKER_01: And some of you are in that place, so get saved today.
SPEAKER_01: You know, come to Christ before we take communion.
SPEAKER_01: Give your heart to Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Because God gives you a new heart.
SPEAKER_01: Spirit comes in, and you get a new heart, you get a new spirit, and you can do it.
SPEAKER_01: And I described that more last week when I was describing what it means to have a new heart.
SPEAKER_01: So last week we talked about the first focused way, because there's four focused ways to redefine our vision of loving God.
SPEAKER_01: And the first was to love God with your heart.
SPEAKER_01: And so last week I talked about loving God emotionally.
SPEAKER_01: Not emotionalism, not becoming a holy roller, not some emotional experience that you have to have all the time, but loving God with your emotions.
SPEAKER_01: Not just intellectually saying, I love God, but actually from our heart and with our emotions, beginning to ask God, God, I want to emotionally love you.
SPEAKER_01: Because when we emotionally love someone, we really get radically changed if you've ever fallen in love.
SPEAKER_01: You know, you do stupid things when you get fall in love.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's weird.
SPEAKER_01: Like you tell your kid to, you know, take out the trash.
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's 50 feet from the house and they put it there, and it's like, oh, you know, you remind him like a hundred times to take out the trash because the trash comes today or the trash comes tomorrow.
SPEAKER_01: But then they fall in love and they'll drive all the way across town to see this girl or this guy.
SPEAKER_01: Weird, so weird, you know.
SPEAKER_01: And then you can't even get them to respond to a text.
SPEAKER_01: All you want them to do is, you know, have you done your homework?
SPEAKER_01: Yes or no?
SPEAKER_01: But then they're texting all the time with this other person, and it's dumb things like, what are you doing right now?
SPEAKER_01: I'm just sitting here.
SPEAKER_01: What TV program are you going to watch tonight?
SPEAKER_01: It's like.
SPEAKER_01: So when we emotionally love, we do weird stuff and we become weird.
SPEAKER_01: And I believe loving God with our heart is loving God emotionally, and it's it's asking God, God, I want to emotionally love you.
SPEAKER_01: And I believe worship's the key, folks.
SPEAKER_01: I want to challenge you to set aside time every day to worship the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Even if it's just one song on your iPod or, you know, or you listen to uh you listen to two songs or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's when you're working out, but I'm just saying, here's what I think works.
SPEAKER_01: It's just to set aside, like on me, I've got my speakers right next to my laptop.
SPEAKER_01: I plug it in, I can, and I can fill my office with worship.
SPEAKER_01: But it's just taking maybe one song a day where no one's around and closing your eyes and starting out with say, Lord, I'm gonna love you with all my heart through this worship song.
SPEAKER_01: God, as I worship you right now, touch my emotions.
SPEAKER_01: I want to learn to emotionally love you.
SPEAKER_01: My emotions are dead.
SPEAKER_01: Some of us, our emotions are dead, and what you're doing is we're reviving our emotions and we're asking God.
SPEAKER_01: I think worship's the very best way to do that.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you're like me and you go on prayer walks.
SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, put them, put it in the earphones as you're walking.
SPEAKER_01: Don't close your eyes, you know.
SPEAKER_01: But you know, you're walking and this and just say, Lord, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.
SPEAKER_01: That's engaging our emotions.
SPEAKER_01: So that's loving God with our heart.
SPEAKER_01: We covered that really last week.
SPEAKER_01: Well, secondly, let's look at this today, and we're gonna go as far as we can until we run out of time, because I got a lot to say today, and I'll just we'll just do it next week if I don't get it all in.
SPEAKER_01: But this is loving God in a focused way with your soul.
SPEAKER_01: So last week we talked about the heart.
SPEAKER_01: Today I want to talk about the soul, and we're gonna get to the mind of strength if we can.
SPEAKER_01: But the soul, and listen to what I'm gonna say, I believe the soul is the place of identity.
SPEAKER_01: It's the place of your identity.
SPEAKER_01: And so the question is: what do I mean by identity?
SPEAKER_01: Here's the way I would define identity.
SPEAKER_01: Those are our deeply held values of how we measure success.
SPEAKER_01: Your identity are those deeply held values of how you measure success.
SPEAKER_01: What it is in your heart that causes you to feel like you're successful or unsuccessful with your life.
SPEAKER_01: That's the sole area is the imprint of this identity that we battle with.
SPEAKER_01: And Satan, from day one of our birth, has been impressing upon our hearts and wiring our mind toward an identity that he wants you to believe.
SPEAKER_01: And that identity is that through accomplishments, through achievements, through popularity, through how big your bank account is, or what kind of car you drive, or what kind of friends you have, that's success.
SPEAKER_01: That's your value system, that's your identity.
SPEAKER_01: And all of us struggle with it.
SPEAKER_01: I don't anymore.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I got I never struggle with that anymore.
SPEAKER_01: But we all struggle with it, right?
SPEAKER_01: Because here's what Satan does: he wants to define your identity through achievements and accomplishments, but he also wants to define love for us, what love really is.
SPEAKER_01: And the association of love with relationships, usually related to physical pleasure, is the way Satan defines our identity.
SPEAKER_01: So here's the challenge.
SPEAKER_01: The challenge is Jesus says, love me with your soul.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't say with part of your soul, or sometimes with your soul, or Sunday morning soul.
SPEAKER_01: Love me with all of your soul all of the time.
SPEAKER_01: You know, uh-oh, wow.
SPEAKER_01: What is that?
SPEAKER_01: It's a redefinition, church.
SPEAKER_01: We have got to redefine our identity.
SPEAKER_01: We have to redefine what success is.
SPEAKER_01: And I alluded to this last week, and I'll just say it again.
SPEAKER_01: That, and again, listen to the message, go back and listen to the message because I don't want to go through it all, but I kind of want to, but I can't.
SPEAKER_01: But but here's the thing is that loving God with our heart emotionally doesn't happen until we discover that God loves us.
SPEAKER_01: Until we discover, as I talked about last week, especially from John 17, 23, that that love by which the Father loved Jesus, Jesus has now placed in us that we might experience the same love that he experienced from his father.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that radical?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's fantastic stuff.
SPEAKER_01: Buddhists don't say stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01: Muslims don't say stuff like that.
SPEAKER_01: Taoism doesn't teach that.
SPEAKER_01: Sikhism doesn't teach that.
SPEAKER_01: Only in Christianity do we have this relationship of love and intimacy with God the Father and God the Son and God the Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: And so Jesus, in his last high priestly prayer, saying, Lord, I pray that they would experience the love you've had for me that I've now placed in them because I live in them.
SPEAKER_01: That's radical stuff.
SPEAKER_01: It's saying that our identity, church, is that you're loved by God and you get to love God.
SPEAKER_01: You're loved by God and you get to love God.
SPEAKER_01: He loves you, you love him, you're successful.
SPEAKER_01: And so loving God with all of our soul is that breakthrough moment in our hearts, and I don't think it's a one-time thing.
SPEAKER_01: I think it starts with a one-time thing, but I think it's, I think it's something that grows with us of saying each day, especially when, and don't miss this, shame comes up.
SPEAKER_01: When the shame comes, because it's at the soul identity level that shame has its deepest impact upon our hearts and our minds and our strength, because shame is basically saying I'm not worthy.
SPEAKER_01: And everybody here struggles with shame.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody here has stuff in their life that has happened to you, that's been done to you, that you say to yourself, sometimes, you say it's probably subconscious, but you say to yourself, if people knew that about me, they would disconnect.
SPEAKER_01: They would not want a relationship with me, they would not think highly of me, they would not value me.
SPEAKER_01: And for many, it's sexual abuse.
SPEAKER_01: Could be an addiction, could be a relationship broken, gone awry, that has broken your heart, and you've not really ever gotten over it, and it's and it's created bitterness in your life.
SPEAKER_01: And so if anybody knew that, even our closest spouse sometimes doesn't know some of the stuff from our past, and we have this shame area, this dark area, and it becomes a barrier to loving God with our soul.
SPEAKER_01: I really believe you can have an emotional relationship with God to a certain extent, but you can also have this big stronghold of the enemy in our identity area because of shame.
SPEAKER_01: Because here's the deal: we were all born for connection.
SPEAKER_01: All the studies of babies show how important breastfeeding is with a baby or cuddling is the baby.
SPEAKER_01: That skin-to-skin contact between mother and child.
SPEAKER_01: And why that's important is because that baby, even physiologically, needs to connect.
SPEAKER_01: Needs to connect.
SPEAKER_01: And so God put that in there.
SPEAKER_01: God put that connection in us.
SPEAKER_01: And so what shame does is shame breaks that.
SPEAKER_01: That's a satanic, demonic tool of the enemy to break your connection with people or to break the value you have on yourself of being loved by God, that if people knew that about you, you would be disconnected.
SPEAKER_01: And so you live in that shame.
SPEAKER_01: And you know what the reality is, it's true.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I wish you, well, it's not true.
SPEAKER_01: We'll still love you.
SPEAKER_01: No, we won't.
SPEAKER_01: Because we have our own shame.
SPEAKER_01: And so the reality is that's true.
SPEAKER_01: And it's not just a theory, but people actually disconnect because they realize we did this or we were a part of that.
SPEAKER_01: Well, how do we break that?
SPEAKER_01: How do we break out of that?
SPEAKER_01: How do we love God with our soul?
SPEAKER_01: Well, there's this wonderful passage that God has used mightily over the years in my own life.
SPEAKER_01: Turn in your Bibles to 2 Corinthians 4, 1 through 6.
SPEAKER_01: 2 Corinthians 4, 1 through 6.
SPEAKER_01: And uh if you're if you got the notes from the app, it's on your notes.
SPEAKER_01: But this passage by Paul, it's almost like Paul saying, look, I'm gonna give you a tutorial, a lesson on how to break the power of shame in your life.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm sure the Corinthians had a lot of shame.
SPEAKER_01: And he put it in a form that all of us can easily understand.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, since we have this ministry, as we have received mercy, we do not lose heart.
SPEAKER_01: Because here's what shame does: it causes you to lose heart.
SPEAKER_01: But we have renounced the hidden things of shame.
SPEAKER_01: So he's admitting that there's these hidden things of shame in all of our lives.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna renounce that.
SPEAKER_01: Well, then he's gonna show us how to renounce it.
SPEAKER_01: Not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, that means church being dishonest.
SPEAKER_01: And that's where most of the church is.
SPEAKER_01: Let's be honest.
SPEAKER_01: That's where most of the evangelical church is today, that we are deceitful in our handling of the word because we we're not authentic.
SPEAKER_01: We're not real.
SPEAKER_01: We all have the thing, always everything's going great.
SPEAKER_01: And it just really stinks.
SPEAKER_01: It's not going great.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I'm not saying we have to, you know, tell everybody, all of our stuff.
SPEAKER_01: People drive you crazy, you know.
SPEAKER_01: You start running from them.
SPEAKER_01: Don't you need a cup of coffee, you know, go somewhere else, haunt someone else.
SPEAKER_01: But so I am talking about, we're gonna talk about strategic people, strategic people in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: Not walking in craftiness nor handling the word of God deceitfully, but by manifestation of the truth.
SPEAKER_01: What do we know about the truth?
SPEAKER_01: The truth sets us free.
SPEAKER_01: Commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.
SPEAKER_01: What he's saying here, parenthetically, is vulnerability.
SPEAKER_01: We've got to get this out.
SPEAKER_01: We have got to have someone.
SPEAKER_01: Around here we call him bloodstained ally.
SPEAKER_01: That's why for many of you men, you may not, you know, care a hill of beans about shooting a shotgun, and that's fine.
SPEAKER_01: But you really need to be at the armory next Saturday.
SPEAKER_01: Because you need to be with some guys.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm gonna be talking about becoming a worshiper and a warrior.
SPEAKER_01: How do you become a worshiper and warrior this year?
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's how you break shame, and I'll explain in just a moment.
SPEAKER_01: So he says, here, commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.
SPEAKER_01: I don't think it means every man, but it means you need certain men, you need some men in your life that you can commend yourself to.
SPEAKER_01: But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.
SPEAKER_01: Whose minds the God of this age is blinded.
SPEAKER_01: So here we go.
SPEAKER_01: This is what the demons do, this is what demons do, this is what Satan does, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.
SPEAKER_01: So what happens is that's what the enemy does.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't want you to come to Christ, he doesn't want you to have an intimate relationship with him, because guess what God will do?
SPEAKER_01: He'll shine in to these shame areas and start setting you free.
SPEAKER_01: And you will really become dangerous for the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: Satan does not want you dangerous, he wants you anemic.
SPEAKER_01: He wants you sleepy.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you are sleepy.
SPEAKER_01: I'm talking about spiritually asleep, and God wants to just wake you up and rouse you and say, Come on, man.
SPEAKER_01: Come on, woman.
SPEAKER_01: Get into the fight.
SPEAKER_01: This is it.
SPEAKER_01: This is your life.
SPEAKER_01: It's not gonna happen tomorrow.
SPEAKER_01: This is it.
SPEAKER_01: Let's go.
SPEAKER_01: And then I love this part.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 5 for we do not preach ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord, and ourselves as your bondservants for Jesus' sake.
SPEAKER_01: For it is the God who commanded light to shine.
SPEAKER_01: Out of darkness.
SPEAKER_01: You raise light can shine out of darkness.
SPEAKER_01: Who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ?
SPEAKER_01: Two things.
SPEAKER_01: I see two things here to break the power of shame.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the first.
SPEAKER_01: The first is this become vulnerable with some brothers or sisters in your life.
SPEAKER_01: You need some bloodstained allies that you can share your shame with.
SPEAKER_01: I'm talking about trustworthy, bloodstained allies.
SPEAKER_01: If you do not share it, it will continue to be a strong alliance.
SPEAKER_01: I promise you that.
SPEAKER_01: If you're not willing to share with someone in a beautiful way, in a way in which you've built trust with that person, say, look, this happened in my life, and I want to get set free because I want to love God with all my soul this year.
SPEAKER_01: And will you help me?
SPEAKER_01: Will you stand with me?
SPEAKER_01: And if you're called out to be that person, then you drop judgment at the door.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that takes tremendous courage.
SPEAKER_01: That's why so many believers never get set free because they don't have the courage to do it.
SPEAKER_01: So that's the first thing.
SPEAKER_01: Number two, is invite the light of Jesus to shine in our hearts.
SPEAKER_01: Invite the light of Jesus to shine on our shame.
SPEAKER_01: My big shame area two years ago, when I went through all that devastation and stuff in my life that you guys know about, and all the stuff that I was struggling with, was fear of man.
SPEAKER_01: Fear of man, fear of what people think of me and creating this facade that wasn't authentic and it wasn't.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was, yeah, I mean it was authentic and real to a certain degree, probably more than most, but the reality is there were still these areas, these pockets in my life of fear of man.
SPEAKER_01: And man, I need to let God's light shine on.
SPEAKER_01: I need some blood-stained allies.
SPEAKER_01: And some of you guys in this room were part of being around the fire pit with me.
SPEAKER_01: And you had this blubbering pastor crying all the time.
SPEAKER_01: And I'd be talking to some of you, and I'd start to cry, and I didn't think for a year and a half I was crying all the time.
SPEAKER_01: But I'll tell you, every tear was healing.
SPEAKER_01: Every tear was really healing.
SPEAKER_01: And then there's a point where you kind of you're healed.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know you're healed.
SPEAKER_01: It's really cool.
SPEAKER_01: And it's like, I remember waking up one morning, probably about a year ago, I think it took about two years, and I was like, I'm free.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm free, you know?
SPEAKER_01: And uh, and I didn't know I was free the night before, but I was free the next morning.
SPEAKER_01: It was super cool.
SPEAKER_01: But it was a battle, and it was contending.
SPEAKER_01: And so, and so loving God with our soul.
SPEAKER_01: I want to love God with my soul, you know?
SPEAKER_01: And um, and that and I think that's the that's what breaks the power of porn.
SPEAKER_01: That's what breaks the power of adultery, that's what breaks the power of uh of the selfishness that comes with, you know, uh wanting to create this persona around ourselves of how successful we are.
SPEAKER_01: Because we start to have a new identity when when shame areas get broken.
SPEAKER_01: And we'll do this our whole life.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's not like one time and it's like you're working and walking in perfection from that point on.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying that.
SPEAKER_01: I'm saying it's a process, but in the journey, one of the things that gives you spiritual confidence, and I'm not talking about self-confidence, I'm talking about God confidence, spiritual confidence, is to see God break shame areas.
SPEAKER_01: Like he did it.
SPEAKER_01: And you just keep going at it, you go at it, you keep, you know, you tell you, you share with folks, you know, and that's why a D group, a discipleship group is so important.
SPEAKER_01: Being in a D group, you can go to our website, learn how to get in a D group, but you get in this group of three or four people, and you start getting real with each other.
SPEAKER_01: Because it's a mutual pack, it's a mutual, um, that's the reason I like the word ally rather than friendship.
SPEAKER_01: Um, an ally is shoulder to shoulder on a mission, an ally.
SPEAKER_01: And most men don't have blood-stained allies, and so most men are just living in their shame.
SPEAKER_01: And here I'll just say this: if you want to live a half-hearted Christian life, then stay where you're at.
SPEAKER_01: That's great.
SPEAKER_01: Because you'll get to experience half of God's love and half of his power and half of his joy, and that's okay, because that's what you want.
SPEAKER_01: Great.
SPEAKER_01: I guess it's better than nothing.
SPEAKER_01: I want it all.
SPEAKER_01: How about you?
SPEAKER_01: I want it all.
SPEAKER_01: I want all of it.
SPEAKER_01: Go for it, be wholehearted.
SPEAKER_01: And yeah, it won't be perfect, but I can tell you this, man, it's way better than before.
SPEAKER_01: Just go a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, just a little bit's better than before.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you're here.
SPEAKER_01: You're here right now.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you are going nowhere.
SPEAKER_01: That's great.
SPEAKER_01: That's actually loving God with your strength.
SPEAKER_01: You showed up here.
SPEAKER_01: And some of you have kids.
SPEAKER_01: You got your kids dressed.
SPEAKER_01: You cleaned out poopy diapers like three times this morning.
SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
SPEAKER_01: I'm getting ahead of myself.
SPEAKER_01: That's loving God with your strength.
SPEAKER_01: And ask any parent who's got a baby.
SPEAKER_01: They did love God with their strength to be here this morning.
SPEAKER_01: So loving God with our heart is with our emotions.
SPEAKER_01: Loving God with our soul is our identity and our shame.
SPEAKER_01: But then thirdly, loving God with our mind.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Love God with our mind.
SPEAKER_01: I put vision up there because I think it's with our mind that we read books.
SPEAKER_01: It's with our mind that we open God's word.
SPEAKER_01: It's with our mind that we have a vision for our life.
SPEAKER_01: It's setting goals.
SPEAKER_01: I believe goal setting is so important.
SPEAKER_01: I already covered that last week last couple weeks, but goal setting's important.
SPEAKER_01: That's why I started the noonday revival in the Rockies prayer time.
SPEAKER_01: Because if I didn't do it, it wasn't gonna happen.
SPEAKER_01: I had to set aside that time.
SPEAKER_01: It was for me as much as for anyone else.
SPEAKER_01: So on noon to one, I'm gonna focus out of 168 hours a week.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna focus that one hour on revival and awakening in our city and in our churches because I needed that.
SPEAKER_01: And then I'm asking you guys to come too if you feel like you're led to do that.
SPEAKER_01: But it's a powerful time.
SPEAKER_01: We had to set that goal.
SPEAKER_01: We had to set the goal of how we wanted worship each week.
SPEAKER_01: We had to set a goal of how God was raising up this church to be used by him.
SPEAKER_01: And then what happens is when we start setting goals of where we're going and that vision that God gives us, watch out, because God, if he's a part of the goal setting, if he's part of the vision, he'll start to line things up in amazing ways.
SPEAKER_01: You've experienced that, I hope.
SPEAKER_01: And it's really strengthening.
SPEAKER_01: Romans 12 says this I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice, wholly, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service, and do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
SPEAKER_01: And I like what it says next.
SPEAKER_01: If you renew your mind, he says, that you may prove what is the good, acceptable, perfect will of God.
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's progressive when Paul wrote this.
SPEAKER_01: There's a good will of God, there's an acceptable will of God, and then there's the perfect will of God.
SPEAKER_01: Another way to say it maybe in our vernacular is good, better, best.
SPEAKER_01: And you know that good can be the greatest enemy of the better, and better can be the greatest enemy of the best.
SPEAKER_01: Go for the best.
SPEAKER_01: God, renew my mind.
SPEAKER_01: Loving God with your mind is opening God's word, spending time in his word, listening to great sermons, renewing your mind, because if you're if your mind's not renewed, your feet don't know where to go.
SPEAKER_01: If your mind's not renewed, your feet don't know where to go.
SPEAKER_01: You'll go anywhere.
SPEAKER_01: Uh-oh, there's some there's a fox over there.
SPEAKER_01: There's a movie I gotta go see over here.
SPEAKER_01: And then there's something.
SPEAKER_01: What is it that holds us back, and we start putting boundaries around our wholehearted life?
SPEAKER_01: That's the vision of a renewed mind that transforms us.
SPEAKER_01: Because I'm getting older, and I don't want regrets.
SPEAKER_01: I've already got a few, but I don't want any more.
SPEAKER_01: And the only way I know it is be wholehearted.
SPEAKER_01: And the way you become wholehearted is you have boundaries.
SPEAKER_01: Well, those boundaries are taught in Scripture, and so as I read God's word through our prayer Bible and journal, our PB and J, our bookmark, if you don't have one, get one as you're leaving.
SPEAKER_01: Start there.
SPEAKER_01: Um you begin to have a renewed mind in a powerful way.
SPEAKER_01: And then lastly, men and women, fourthly, and I'll conclude with this: love God with your strength.
SPEAKER_01: Love God.
SPEAKER_01: What does he mean by loving God with your strength?
SPEAKER_01: Well, here's what I think it means.
SPEAKER_01: I think it means your time, energy, and money.
SPEAKER_01: It's loving God with your time, energy, and money.
SPEAKER_01: That's really the essence of life is time, energy, and money.
SPEAKER_01: It really is.
SPEAKER_01: It, you know, when we when we look at our when we look at our life, how you use your time really determines your destiny.
SPEAKER_01: Many are squandering their destiny because they're squandering their time, energy, and money.
SPEAKER_01: I am shocked at times to realize how much time I personally waste.
SPEAKER_01: I waste a lot of time.
SPEAKER_01: But I remember as a new believer, and I think it stayed with me most of my life, is that I really narrow, I didn't have any time to waste because of how strict my schedule was as an athlete at Georgia, but that began to kind of set a pattern for me, and then later as a missionary and then as a pastor, church, you gotta, you've you've got to narrow your time.
SPEAKER_01: How you use your time is power.
SPEAKER_01: People think money's power, money's not power.
SPEAKER_01: Time management is power.
SPEAKER_01: Now, money's nice to have, it's a great resource.
SPEAKER_01: And God wants you to have a lot of it, I believe.
SPEAKER_01: And what I mean by that is I believe if you become one who learns how to tithe, if you learn that at least, at the very minimum, 10% of your money goes to the Lord, you'll become a conduit of God's blessing.
SPEAKER_01: I've tested it and tested it and tested it for over 45 years.
SPEAKER_01: And it works.
SPEAKER_01: Malachi 3, the Malachi miracle, is it's the only passage in all scripture that says you can test me in this one area.
SPEAKER_01: If you will not tithe, will I not pour out to you so much blessing you can't even contain it?
SPEAKER_01: Pretty good, pretty good deal.
SPEAKER_01: And some of you are struggling financially because you've never been set free.
SPEAKER_01: Instead of you possessing your possessions, your possessions possess you.
SPEAKER_01: And you're in a straitjacket, and it's gonna continue to the day you die if you don't figure this one out.
SPEAKER_01: And so when I talk about loving with energy, I look around this room and I go, how many of you got your kids ready to come to church at some ungodly hour on Sunday, and you're here right now?
SPEAKER_01: Raise your hand if you have kids that you had to get ready for this place.
SPEAKER_01: A lot of you.
SPEAKER_01: That's loving God with your strength.
SPEAKER_01: And a whole bunch of you.
SPEAKER_01: I got here at 7:30, and there was at least 25 people all over this lobby doing stuff, getting coffee ready, donuts ready.
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
SPEAKER_01: Um, greeter stuff, things like that.
SPEAKER_01: That's loving God with your strength.
SPEAKER_01: It's it's cool.
SPEAKER_01: I go and work out now.
SPEAKER_01: I used to not work out, I'm working out again.
SPEAKER_01: I really got fat and lazy and chubby and all that.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: And then about four months ago, I decided to start working out again.
SPEAKER_01: And I did it because I wanted to love God with my strength, because I need my strength.
SPEAKER_01: And the laws of gravity were setting in and everything was moving south.
SPEAKER_01: The northward pull was getting harder.
SPEAKER_01: Antarctica of the body.
SPEAKER_01: Not working well.
SPEAKER_01: We did a springs initiative last summer.
SPEAKER_01: We went out and we painted houses.
SPEAKER_01: That's loving God with your strengths.
SPEAKER_01: It's uh it's some of you that I see you after the service, you're out here and you're picking up stuff from people.
SPEAKER_01: You're picking up, you're not picking up bulletins because we don't have any, but you're, you know, picking up gum wrappers, and you know, that's loving God with your strengths.
SPEAKER_01: It's sitting there with your kids and listening to them because they're struggling with something and they're crying.
SPEAKER_01: That's loving God with your strength.
SPEAKER_01: It's writing that check when you don't know where the money's gonna come from, and you put it in that box, that's loving God with your strengths.
SPEAKER_01: That's listening to your spouse because you hurt her feelings again, because you were an idiot like me, and you did something, and you have to go and say you're sorry, that's loving God with your strength.
SPEAKER_01: It's following our covenant of harmony that we have here at the road, where you know, if we've got an issue with someone, we go to them, we talk about it, right?
SPEAKER_01: That's loving God with your strength.
SPEAKER_01: It's a good thing.
SPEAKER_01: And it sets you free.
SPEAKER_01: So let's love God with all of our heart, emotions, soul, identity, and shame.
SPEAKER_01: Mind, our vision, and our strength.
SPEAKER_01: And that's our energy.
SPEAKER_01: How many here would say, I wish this coming year, I want to have more energy.
SPEAKER_01: I need more energy.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I believe this is the key.
SPEAKER_01: I really do.
SPEAKER_01: I believe all of our physical, mental, emotional, spiritual energies all kind of contained right here.
SPEAKER_01: This is the vision.
SPEAKER_01: Let's contend for it, let's battle for it.
SPEAKER_00: You've been listening to The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.
SPEAKER_00: We hope you have been blessed by today's message.
SPEAKER_00: To connect with us further, visit theroad.org.
SPEAKER_00: If you are walking through a difficult time, we want to pray for you.
SPEAKER_00: Go to theroad.org, click on the ministries tab, and go to our prayer page to send us your prayer request.
SPEAKER_00: Thanks again for tuning in today, and be sure to listen to the next edition of The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.