I'm going to read John chapter 8 verse 31. It says, Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed in him, If you abide in my word, you are my disciples indeed. If you're taking notes, write the first point down. A disciple feeds on the holy scriptures. The first characteristic and a profile of a disciple is he abides.
Jesus didn't say, if you read my word, you will be my disciples. So reading and feeding are slightly different. You know, I watch certain people right now who are possessed with a political spirit. Everything they post is political. Everything is political.
And you talk to them for a little bit and you find out where they've been abiding on. Whatever you abide, you become filled with. Now, they still read the Bible. The Bible never comes out of their mouth.
Why? Because where they abide is Fox News. or where they abide is CNN where they abide is Facebook and so Jesus is saying not what you read because see the Jewish people read Torah he says what you abide in meaning you remain in that you you think it comes out you squeeze an orange and orange comes out you squeeze a christian and for some people republican comes out why because they're more abiding in their political things instead of the scriptural things please understand god's word has a lot to say about what's happening in our culture but at the end of the day my friends I'm going to bring us back as a preacher my allegiance and loyalty is to the word of God and the Bible says in here abide in my word it's going to change your life not not when you read the word but when you feed on the word meaning you abide in the word a lot of times i had to pull myself back and completely turn off the media turn off the even the scrolling of the social media because i'm like this stuff is intoxicating if the bible would have been written today it says do not you know how it says do not stay in the path of sin not sit in a seat of scornful it will say do not sit on instagram do not stay on facebook and do not go on pinterest because for some of us those are the areas today that can get you so polluted you get worked up you get angry about people you don't even know. things you don't even know about. so what I'm saying is a script.
nothing wrong with social media. God bless you. we are church that believes in in all of that. nothing wrong to post your opinion.
everybody has them. there's room for that on social media for you as well but as a believer you can read the word. a disciple you feed on the word. meaning it becomes your source and how do we know whether you feed on the word? it's very simple.
it's what comes out of you. it's what comes out of your posts. what comes out of your repost and what comes out of your language. what is your attitude?
because whatever you put in it comes out. if you feed on junk, junk comes out. if you feed on God's Word, God's Word will come out.
we don't read the Bible to learn the Bible. we read the Bible to learn obedience. the bible says in hebrews the author of hebrews says though he was a son yet he learned obedience by the things he suffered i find it challenging as i'm reading these scriptures and also matthew 28 verse 19 where jesus says go into all the world make disciples baptize them and then he says teach them and you know my western thinking is going this route teach them so that they know now we know that you know the truth and the truth will set you free there is the power in knowing my people perish for lack of knowledge but the bible says teach them to observe the things that i taught you so discipleship is not to learn the bible so that you know the bible discipleship is so that we learn obedience you A believer learns the word.
A disciple learns obedience by staying in the word. Yes the Word of God is our food. The Word of God is our sword. The Word of God is the seed.
The Word of God is honey. The Word of God is our mirror. The Word of God is our hammer. The Word of God is all of that but at the end of the day God's Word is not given to increase your information box.
It's given to transform your life. College can give you a degree, but the Bible makes you a disciple. College can teach you a skill in a particular area of society, while all other areas of our life can be dysfunctional. you go to God's word, God's word affects everything about you because you don't learn a topic, you learn a person.
Because God's word is Jesus. When I go to college, when I take a course, I learn a topic but when I go to the bible, I learn a person, his name is Jesus and I'm getting transformed to his image and to his likeness and my whole life is changing after that. You know, my wife has a dog.
I didn't say we have a dog, I said my wife has a dog. he shares our last name, he just reached a thousand followers on instagram. famous dog.
I cannot tell you how many people actually I start conversations with in the park through the dog. this is such a great evangelism tool because we go everybody asks can I pet him and they say oh I follow him. I said, you follow me?
No, but I follow him. I was like, he's going to lead you in the path of ungodliness. Besides the point, almost every week I get this commandment from my wife. Two words, feed Jacko.
My wife is about to go somewhere. It's 6 p.m. 6 p.m.
sharp. Feed Jacko. I got it.
So let's say she comes back. and she asked me did you feed jackal and i said well i memorized what you said feed jackal i recited it repeated it in fact i put it on my hand i wrote it down inscribed it on the palm of my hand i actually learned it in russian in spanish I got a small group going where we talk about how to feed jackal and it's really beautiful words that you gave me. They're precious, like they make me feel really good and when I say them I feel even better and my wife would look at me and say so did you feed Jackal?
oh no I didn't feed him but I memorized what you said see God didn't give us his words for us to memorize but for us to live them out see a believer loves the Bible disciple loves the Lord the bible is not given to us so we fall in love with the bible and don't get me wrong i know there are verses in psalm where it says i love your word that is good but the first commandment of the bible is not thou shall love thy bible especially the king james version the second commandment is thou shall love you version bible the bible says it's not about the bible it's about jesus and the bible is pretty much trying to distract us and put us back to the lord jesus christ my friend i as a believer we have to abide in the word but that word teaches us to fall in love with god it's just sad because many believers love the bible at the expense of loving the lord you must say how is that possible who killed jesus it was the people who loved the bible in fact they memorized the bible and when the author showed up they nailed him it's possible to fall in love with the book and totally ignore the heart and the person of the author believers love worship, disciples love God. because a lot of us what we do is we even Mariana asked and I'm not gonna correct it because I've said it many times. how many of us love worship?
you know it wasn't about us. you know we didn't choose the songs based on what you like because we were worshiping him. so the question would be did he like it?
That's why when you come to church and you say not my favorite song newsflash we will not sing to you This is not your birthday, it's his church you are not the main guest yes you are my friend but when we sing this we would sing we were singing to him and that's why same thing is with this book it's not about us and the disciple falls in love with the Lord not with the word does the disciple like the word? of course he does. he meditates any day and night.
his delight is in the law of the Lord but Jesus draws our attention and he says it's about being in the word so that the word Jesus reveals us Jesus. the word reveals us the savior. it reveals us him. i'm one of those people who can get so Chained up by my reading plans and by my translations that I could miss God. One of the things when we were married, before we got married, I'm not a, I am more texting guy now but I wasn't very texting guy before.
When I met my wife I bought her an iPhone because she had a phone that the text messages were not coming in in blue but in green and I got her a new phone. I wanted to see the bubbles when she's texting. I wanted to anticipate something is coming my way.
And when you have green, there's no anticipation. It just shows up right there. And so I got her the iPhone.
The month before I got her an iPhone, I was texting about 700 text messages a month, receiving and sending. That next month when I met my wife, when I got her the phone, I got a bill and there was 9,300 something text messages in a month. Huge jump. Now let me tell you why I sent and received 9,000 text messages the next month. It was not because I discovered texting.
It wasn't because I fell in love with SMS. the reason why there was so much texting my fingers were just not could not keep up is because I fell in love with a person who happened to live three and a half hours from where I lived and this person would send me texts every single day. I would send her texts every single day and one time the Lord convicted my heart and he says Vlad I still text.
I live there, you live here and God says 36,000 text messages. I have them and I even add bubbles to it. It's called my holy spirit. He inspires it and so every day when you wake up he says I want you to see my word as a letter from me.
I want you to see as a love letter but I want you to notice it's not about the text. It's about the person that's texting. It's about loving the person.
It's not just about loving the text. Come on somebody and it's about obeying God's word. but you know those of you who are in love or somebody says something really really really nice about you and they send you a text message how many of you read it more than once? how many of you saved it, screenshot it so it could be a point of reference in case you get discouraged?
you go back to like man there's people still love me, I'm not worthless, life has a purpose I have people who send a nice text message. I'm not gonna lie to you. I ain't deleting that. I'm keeping that and few times I would go back just to read. Well it's like an oil cleansing that happens when you read there.
Look praise God and that's one of the reasons why God gives us his word. It's not only so we can obey it's so we can refresh it. Every single day I say who he loves me. Man this is good. I didn't hear his voice but I got a text message.
He loves me. and so God's word for a disciple is a source of information it's a source of inspiration and it's also a source of instruction amen the second thing about a disciple not only disciple feeds instead of just reads the word but disciple follows the holy spirit then Jesus said to them follow me and I will make you fishers of men Mark chapter 1 verse 17. In John chapter 14 verse 16 it says I will pray the father and he will give you another comforter or a helper that he may abide with you. you forever. A Greek language has two words for another. The first one is alos which means another of the same kind and another one is heretos and if you're Greek and I'm mispronouncing it I'm sorry English is like my third language.
Heretos means another kind. Another kind meaning like you're trying to fix a car and this wretch, wretch, this wrench this wrench doesn't fit and you're shouting to somebody in the garage say hey could you give me another meaning could you give me another wrench because this one doesn't fit aloes means one of the same kind you're eating in the restaurant a sandwich and you really liked it and you want a second one and you can I get another one meaning exactly the same when it says he will give you another it has word alos meaning the same kind what does that mean to us today Holy Spirit wants to be to you what Jesus wants to dwell disciples the Holy Spirit wants to be to you what Jesus was to 12 disciples. He is the another. The Holy Spirit is not a different range.
He's the same sandwich. you can have the same relationship with the Holy Spirit disciples had with Jesus. You can walk with him.
You can wake up and say good morning to him. You don't have to be perfect to have him help you in your life. You don't have to pray to him.
the holy spirit bible doesn't tell us we do that the same way we don't see disciples praying to jesus rarely we see them talking to jesus but you don't see disciples coming every day and say thou is the creator of the universe they call them teacher they call them friend why because they lived and they walked with him and jesus says as i am leaving i'm sending you another just like me except because there's so many disciples around the world he's going to be available to every disciple in every nation in every tongue in every dimension in every season in every century in every 120 130 years in a 2000 in 2020 he will be another so that tells me as the disciples of Jesus 2,000 years ago not only they were to abide in his words but Jesus said follow me. Please understand the following Jesus was different at that time than following somebody on Twitter or Instagram. When you follow somebody on Twitter you follow and you see their tweets. If you follow somebody on Instagram you see their posts. That is not what following Jesus looks like.
what following Jesus looks like is more like have you ever followed somebody on the highway who was your friend in the area you were not familiar with and they told you I can give you directions but you're gonna get lost because Google Maps Apple Maps and MapQuest the rest of them they're just they just don't operate in this area because this is like really really different area but I know it so follow me now you know one thing to follow them is not clicking a button and keeping up with their posts it's keeping up with them when you follow somebody on twitter you live your own life. when you follow somebody on the highway your life, your speed, your turns, everything changes. your eyes are on that person and you're trying to keep up with them. you slow down when they slow down, you speed up when they speed up, they turn left, you turn left and god forbid mazda gets between you and them.
a Hyundai gets between you and them and you will say get behind me Hyundai. you are standing between me and that person. I cannot see if they're turning right or left. so you will honk, you will come closer, you will make that Hyundai know you got in between and the person I'm following. get out.
come on. see that's exactly what it looks like to follow the Holy Spirit. means your eyes are on the Holy Spirit you're keeping in tune what is he saying today what does he want me to do and God forbid offense gets between you and the Holy Ghost and you no longer see the Holy Spirit because you're offended at your husband or offended at your wife and you have to tell that offense get out why because I need to stay close to the Holy Ghost because it's blocking my way it's blocking the flow so that is how we follow it's not like following the Lord on Twitter where you keep up with his posts you keep up with just his word and you're reading and you're like well that's what he said that's what he did following the Holy Spirit is you keep up with him he's always moving.
the Holy Spirit is not stagnant. that's why the Bible says men shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds. it didn't say proceed it. meaning God is constantly turning. his word eternal word never changes but God's directions to your life and what he will guide you and lead you will constantly go like this and the sons of men they are not led by the book they are led by the spirit of God so they are anchored in the book in the word so they can obey the book but that they follow they're constantly fluid they follow the Holy Spirit when it comes to who to hire who to fire when it comes to who to marry when it comes to where to go when it comes to different things we rely on God eye on the Holy Spirit.
God gave us a map. He also gave us a guide. Can somebody say amen? A disciple is not somebody who sees the Holy Spirit.
It's somebody who follows him. because we can get out of your garage and I see your car but when I don't follow your car I will stop seeing it. I still know you in fact I got your number but I don't see you no more because we're so far apart.
Why? Because I'm following the directions on my own understanding relying on my own wisdom and I'm not following you. When you ignore the promptings of the Holy Spirit you forfeit your discipleship. you don't lose your salvation you don't lose your a disciple stays close to the holy spirit to the prompting and to the leading of the holy spirit as somebody who's not a disciple can hear the holy spirit can know about the whole Spirit. They just don't keep up and then follow Him.
When I was a younger believer I was so preoccupied to hear the voice of God. I remember pacing here back and forth during Wednesday fasting, opening different verses and saying Lord I want to hear you like Samuel I want to hear you like this person because in my imagination my idea of hearing God was related to being a prophet meaning to be able to get up in public and read the last four digits of your Social Security or to be able to tell you the last sin that you've committed to prophesy the paint off the wall and there are people who have the gift of prophecy and the Bible says we all can prophesy but what I'm talking about right now leading of the Holy Spirit I'm not talking about prophecy what I'm I'm talking about is to be able to hear as a believer and heed as a disciple. Hear as a believer.
Heed as a disciple. For many of us we hear the Lord here and he gets stuck in here never comes out through heeding meaning following through and the Lord took me one time to Samuel and he says the first time I spoke to Samuel he did not want to hear what I told him. He says you know what I told him to go tell Eli that Eli's family is going down. that's not what Samuel wanted to hear and I started to recognize that God's leading in my life will not always be in line with what I want to hear and I switched my prayer. Instead of praying God I want to hear your voice I said Lord give me strength to heed when I hear.
God will speak but he will not speak in the way that you think sometimes. As a disciple you cannot be a disciple and not follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit. amen and i share different examples from my life and how that works in my life i'm going to share with you a recent one it happened this morning some of you know because of covid i've started to stop to travel actually enjoyed being back home and most likely this is going to continue after the covert is lifted because i really felt that god wants me to stay home and focus more on discipleship and to produce the content more that will touch the world without me going to those countries and to those churches and to those states but to be more present here so i launched my website and I started to offer a lot of different things material my books audio sermon series short pdfs small group study guides for a short little price offer it for free first for a few days and then start selling it so that some money can come in to pay for the websites pay for other projects that I'm involved in and commitments that I made to our church when it comes to giving above my tithe and offering and so it was going good this morning I wake up before I wake up up I don't remember if it was a dream or something I just know one thing my first thought when I wake up is this out of nowhere it just hits me it's it's right here I now know when it's the Lord when it's just me offer everything on your website for free and of course like a normal good christian i rebuked the devil and i said you know in the name of jesus i didn't get enough sleep everything's gonna be okay after you drink your first cup of coffee but when it's here you know you can run from it but you just know that you know you can't you just know I go upstairs to pray and my bible was left from yesterday's devotions upstairs and it was open to Ezekiel chapter 34 and the title it says irresponsible shepherds now this is what the Lord spoke to me I'm not saying this applies to every pastor and every preacher or applies to you I'm just sharing my story and then I started to read about the part how God is rebuking the shepherds who are becoming fat off of the sheep but they're not feeding the sheep you it's pretty much in line of what hit me in the bed kind of like hey build people don't worry about your your profits help others i really felt the holy spirit said he says you're moses to israel in egypt if you go to them i'll send aaron to you he said i'll send you supporters i'll send your partners but he says give the stuff for free because the people who need it can't afford it you and people in the west who don't necessarily need it so much they can afford it but a lot of them already are overfed anytime you eat more then you exercise you become obese other parts of the world are dying for lack of food.
America is not dying for lack of food. We are dying because of too much of food. Same thing is spiritually. We have a spiritual obesity in the western countries.
We have more books, more seminars, and more colleges and most of us here today are educated beyond our obedience. And I really felt the Holy Spirit say, he says the people who need it they can pay for it. and the people who can pay for it are already obese spiritually he says offer it for free so i quickly ran i usually do after i feel from the holy spirit i look for the word in the bible if there is a word in the bible that word found me i wasn't looking for it it was right there my third checkpoint is usually my wife if my wife says no then i give it on the pause i came to my wife and she said honestly she says you're right she's like let's do it so while drinking my coffee because i'm one of those people i obey and then i think I changed everything on the website to zero zero zero zero except the physical books because we have to buy them and everything and so for those of you who always wanted the book couldn't afford it free of charge you can go download anything you want and copy there's no copyright because copyright is your right to copy and so just you can repost it and share it with others why I felt it wasn't because I was generous.
I believe I'm generous but it's not because of that. I felt the Holy Spirit take a turn and I had to take a sharp turn. I want to challenge you in which area of your life Holy Spirit is turning? Could it be in the area of forgiving someone?
Could be in the area of something where there is no name of that person in the Bible of what you should do? The Holy Spirit will just not leave you, drop you that in your heart and you can explain it away. You can find even a scripture to shut it down.
But I give you a warning. When you stop following the Holy Spirit, you will not be a disciple. following the Holy Spirit means keeping up with him following the Holy Spirit means taking turns when he turns I am NOT saying doing bizarre crazy stuff what I'm saying is things that are in line with the word you just have strong conviction out of nowhere it's the Holy Spirit leading and God you.
I'm not saying you're a prophet, not saying you have a word of knowledge but you have the Holy Spirit and he will guide you and he will speak to you. Jesus says in John he says if you obey my Commandments you are my disciples indeed. last year when I was in London and I had a couldn't sleep at night because of the jetlag so I opened the Bible study to kind of scroll scroll through my Bible and this verse came up to my mind and I felt the Holy Spirit put on my heart and he said the price for intimacy is not fellowship with the Holy Spirit it's obedience to the Holy Spirit obedience to the Holy Spirit is the key to the next level in the Holy Spirit. see Jesus defines friendship different than you and I define friendship. each one of us our friends are the people we spend the most time with.
it's the people we don't command. come on if you command them you're not friends no more. it's a dysfunctional friendship and some of you need to see it. some of you need to see it.
one of you need to see a therapist. because if you come or both of you because if you come to your friend and you say the reason why you're my bff why because you do everything i tell you how many people are like yeah of course bff for life no you're looking at him excuse me are you are you okay no you you will like you will come against that but jesus's definition of friendship is different than yours he says this because you do what i say we're friends you Friendship with the Holy Spirit is not based on talking to the Holy Spirit because how many of you have those people who talk talk talk talk and they never do. My wife went shopping to Costco and she came back and she said babe can you help me to get the water out of the trunk and I said yeah yeah yeah I got it I forgot Later in the evening as I was going out about something else there's that water she took it from the trunk and put it at the edge of the garage is still standing there.
The amazing part is to the time that I got the water back into the house I still talked to her. We continued the fellowship and many of us we think that the next level with the Holy Spirit is determined by how much more time we add time to spending time with the Holy Spirit. My friend Holy Spirit defines friendship different than you do. It's not the amount of fellowship it's the amount of obedience.
And that's why you can look at some people who you're like man but they don't talk to the Holy Spirit hours upon a day. But what if Holy Spirit told them to do something else? God will bless you not based on your prayer but based on your obedience. And sometimes when we don't obey we want to pray to cover lack of our obedience.
God told Saul I want you to go wipe out Amalekites. Guess what Saul did? He brought sacrifices to compensate for lack of obedience and some of us we will sacrifice to cover the fact we're not obedient. We will add prayer, we will add fasting just so that we don't have to do what he's asking us to do.
I remember when three years ago the Lord started putting on my heart to write a book and I said no way I'm going to be writing a book. I'm not an author. English is my third and fourth language if I'm referring to tongues. I feel I only have a high school diploma who's gonna read my stuff and I remember but I felt this strong prompting you have to do that you have to talk about that stuff you need to communicate that in the form of the book and so for a month I didn't do it and I felt like the presence of the Lord lifted from my prayer life so guess what I did what every Pentecostal person did I added one more hour to my prayer instead of praying two I started to pray three hours. things got worse so I started to fast a little bit more.
I was like man I'm gonna get a breakthrough and after I was done with all of my craziness I thought the Holy Spirit says why can't you just do what I told you? he said what why are you what is all this? I said I'm gonna get you you got God said just do but I said God but that is hard and this is what I learned obedience is the greatest sacrifice you really want to sacrifice obey abraham did not sacrifice his son he just obeyed god Jesus did not try to sacrifice his life.
The Bible says he learned obedience. He just obeyed. Anytime you focus on obedience you will always sacrifice.
Don't focus on sacrifice, focus on obedience and whatever he leads you to do just do it. If he leads you to give, give. If he leads you to save, save.
If he leads you, if he leads you to do that begin to follow the Holy Spirit and your next level in the Holy Spirit will be unlocked. People come and say how do I go into the next level of the Holy Spirit? Do I increase my prayer life? No. Increase your obedience.
and if that obedience if he leads you to pray more awesome wait on the holy spirit to lead you otherwise you become a copycat of everybody else you'll copy everybody's acts of obedience instead of developing intimacy and follow what the holy spirit is leading you to do somebody say amen amen amen come on let's give the lord clap offering god is good Michael reading Michaeliano's book this finished listening to the audio version of his book and he shared about how he started to ask the Lord to speak to him and so during the night the holy spirit revealed to him a former member of his church that he was overseeing in California left the church and started his own ministry and fell on a very difficult financial times he wasn't able to pay for his bills utility bills and so Michael receives that in the dream this man member and exact amount of how much money he needs and what the problem that he has so he woke up you know under very powerful inspiration of the holy spirit the holy spirit spoke to me in the dream that is so awesome and he calls this ex-member of that church he calls him and nobody picks up the call later on this member calls him back and tells him that the reason why he didn't pick up the call is because he was on the phone with utility companies who turned off the electricity in his house and when michael told him the details that god revealed him in the dream both started to cry because this was supernatural. Michael did not know that and Michael was so impressed that God told him that in a dream. He just rejoiced with the fact that God spoke to him.
Then for next three days he forgot what God told him to actually to pay this person's utility bills. So God comes back three days later. He says did you do what I told you? He says no but I'm really happy that you spoke to me and it was so accurate. He's like well the reason why I spoke to you so you can go help that guy.
Oh yeah that's right let me call him and actually help him you know and I was reminded of that because sometimes we are so in love with the voice of God that we actually ignore doing it we love the the experience the goosebumps that we get when God speaks my friend it's not hearing God's voice that's going to bless you it's hearing God's voice that's going to bless you it's also not hearing the devil's voice that's going to destroy you it's heeding the devil's voice. Both Jesus and Adam heard the voice of the devil in the garden, Jesus in the wilderness. But Jesus didn't heed it, Adam did. Both Jesus and Adam in the wilderness and in the garden heard the voice of the Lord. One heeded that voice, the other one didn't heed that voice.
My friend, it's not the voice you hear, it's the voice you heed. What makes you a disciple is on whose promptings are you going to follow and lead. what is holy spirit speaking to you? if you feel like God has not been speaking to me lately, you know maybe why? perhaps you've ignored it so much.
each time you ignore it, you lower the volume of his voice in your mind. you train your spirit not to respond to that by saying it's me. i don't like that. and guess what happens? it gets lower and lower and lower like a music on your computer. it's playing but it's mute.
and you can scream and hit the computer come on increase the volume but you put it on mute if you want to hear the voice of the Lord follow his promptings if he guides go through with it take risks with God your life will have resemblance of supernatural you're not just going to speak in tongues you're going to see the fruit of God in your life you might not be a prophet but you will live a destiny amen to bring this message to an end the third sign the last and third sign of what makes somebody a disciple is disciple forsakes that which hinders their follow disciple forsakes that which hinders their follow then jesus said to his disciples if anyone desires to come after me let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me matthew 16 24. i'm going to read mark chapter 1 once again then jesus said to them follow me and i will make you the fishers of men they immediately left their nets and followed him hebrews 12 verse 1 and 2 says the following similar thing it says that we are surrounded by the great cloud of witnesses let us lay aside every sin that's so so easily ensnares us. and every weight and let us run the race with endurance looking unto Jesus who's the author and the finisher of our faith. who despise the shame and sit at the right hand of the father what i want to draw from that is this is the third thing is the disciple forsakes that which hinders their follow i would like to correct in a a fallacy that exists in our teaching a lot of times that creeps from buddhism i'm going to read to you the following quotes and if you really believe one of them is from the bible i want you to say amen the ones you don't think are from the bible don't say amen but if you feel like one of them is from the bible i want you to say amen to conquer yourself is greater victory than to conquer thousands in battle He who is able, he is able who thinks he is able. The wiser discipline embodies speech and mind.
They are well controlled indeed. A disciplined mind brings happiness. No one saves us but ourselves. no one and no one may we ourselves must walk the path the person who masters himself through self-control and discipline is truly undefeatable to enjoy good health to bring true happiness to one's family to bring peace to all one must first discipline and control his own mind you know who said these words buddha you you know how many times things like these now are there scriptures that talk about he who controls his spirit is better than he who controls the city yeah but i want you to notice that christianity is not about discipline it's about devotion that decides our discipline christianity is not about the cross it's about christ who leads us to the cross Christianity is not about forsaking, it's about following and then following so good that the following decides things we need to forsake.
We are not in love with discipline, we are in love with the Lord. We are not in love with self-control, we are in love with the Lord. You don't see Jesus coming to the disciples and says hey forsake your boats leave your nets no Jesus says follow me and the bible says and they forsook their boats what was the deal as they followed Jesus their eyes were on Jesus they realized I can't carry this net with me I can't drag this boat with me so I'm gonna have to leave this behind and this behind why not because Jesus says so it's because my following him demands so My follow decides my forsake. My devotion determines my discipline.
For those of you who struggle with discipline, please hear this word. May I just deliver you right now? As a Christian, you're not supposed to be disciplined. As a Christian, you first have to be a follower.
Don't focus on discipline. Please understand you're not a Buddhist. your enlightenment doesn't depend on the level of your discipline it depends on being attached drawn and in love with the Lord and as you follow him certain things will feel uncomfortable certain things will begin to beg and say you know what I think I need to read more of the word why because the love for the lord compels me it's not you trying to discipline yourself it's you following the lord and certain things will be dropped there certain relationships will be dropped here and certain habits will be dropped there and certain things will be dropped there why not because you're disciplined but because you are a disciple my god the bible says that we forsake things and sin and we run after God looking to Jesus that means we're not looking at things we're forsaking we're not looking at things we're enduring our focus our aim is the face of Jesus and what saddens me is a lot of us, myself included, we fell in love with discipline.
we have committed an affair on the Lord by cheating on him with our self-discipline. we made an idol out of discipline, especially those of you who grew up with fathers who were in military. especially those of you who grew up with mothers who ruled the house and everything was sharp and everything was about rules what happens is that you can miss God falling in love with forsaking that you never follow there are people that wake up early in the morning who don't know God your discipline doesn't make you a disciple what makes your disciple is a heart that's burning for the Lord and out of the heart that's burning for the Lord that heart begins to dictate certain things you do and you cannot do not you trying to prepare yourself to be his disciple but you setting yourself up to be his disciple that begins to say I can't take this with me I can't take that with me why because I want to run after him and this is too heavy and that is too heavy and this is too heavy so my devotion decides my discipline otherwise my discipline becomes my idol i can wake up early in the morning i can memorize things i can stay fit all of that my friend does not make you disciple what makes you disciple is a burning passion for the lord and you can look at other christians say i am more disciplined you're buddhist sorry more discipline that's not what makes you christian it's not because you're disciplined we're not trying to become Buddhists we're trying to become Christians we follow Jesus That means we're in love with Jesus. Please understand the reason why I'm speaking so strongly because I'm the guy who's disciplined.
Not to be proud but it's just the way I grew up with the very strict disciplines in my life from fasting to prayer, from things that I do when it comes to running. I love that stuff and honestly a discipline is a stumbling block many times to my walk with Christ because I'm so focused on the discipline that I don't see the Lord. and as a disciple I have to renew my mind and say Vlad it's not about what you do it's about who you're in love with and love him so much that your discipline increases not decreases but it's not because you're trying to be disciplined you're just trying to be close you're just trying to be near you're trying to be close to him running looking unto Jesus if maybe you have had discipline in your life but you forgot what disciplines were about I want to reset your understanding it's not about discipline it's not about keeping streaks on the new version bible app and it's not about finishing three-day fasting seven-day or 21-day fasting it is coming back to following and being in love with Jesus again if in discipline you lost the burning passion for the Lord. Martha, Martha you are worried about many things but one thing is needed and that is the Lord. Church that worked and did great things in church of Ephesians in book of Revelation and Jesus says I know your works they're good.
You cannot stand these things and these things not as awesome. He says I love it but he says I just got one thing. You turned your back toward me and you're focusing on all the things that you're forsaking for me. He says turn your face back to me. turn your face back to me follow me have your eyes fixed on me that's what discipleship is all about it's not about this it's about that there's others of you in here today you have absolutely no discipline in your life whatsoever and I'm going to tell you why you're not following the Lord.
if any man desires to follow me he will pick up a cross. following will always always lead to forsaking, always. but forsaking doesn't always lead to following.
following will always lead to the cross. there will be things that will die. there will be relationships that you're gonna have to let go. there will be habits you're gonna have to put aside.
there will be things you're involved in right now that you can justify by scripture but the Holy Spirit just doesn't give you peace about it. you're gonna have to lay them aside. you cannot follow and not forsake but you can forsake and never follow.
if any man desires to follow me he will pick up his cross. why? because if you follow somebody on the road you're gonna have to maneuver and you have to keep up with them if you want to follow otherwise you're gonna lose them and i'm saying is that if you live without no discipline in your life whatsoever you kind of do whatever you want you watch whichever you want you're a believer but i want to challenge you today let's grow let's become disciples let's follow and don't focus on what you have to forsake don't focus on what you have to abandon focus on following him so much that that follow will decide, determine and lead you to forsake.
and the amazing part is this, when you're forsaking is determined by your follow. your follow sponsors your forsaking. your follow fuels your forsaking.
your follow gives you strength to forsake. whereas before you said I need to quit watching tv. why just I just watch too much tv. and so what you stop watching tv now you play video games oh i need to stop watching playing video games why when I'm a grown man you know I already have children and I just feel like I'm a boy and they're boys and so what you quit that and now you got into something else.
Why? Because anytime you forsake things that are not birthed out of the follow you find something else to fall into. But when you I'm not saying to do whatever you want I'm just saying commit passionately your heart to follow the Lord and watch as the Holy Spirit is going to give you direction and give you the power to overcome whatever you need to forsake.
Somebody give God some praise right now. Amen. Let's rise to our feet. Hallelujah.
I just want to bring you back to the Lord. I want to bring you back to falling in love with Jesus, making Jesus the most important thing in your life. Never outgrow your need for the Lord.
Never outgrow your desire for the Lord. Every head bowed and every eye closed. If you're in this room today and maybe you have not yet given your life to Jesus. Maybe you're not where you're supposed to be with God today.
perhaps the discipling thing that's not your cup of tea right now because you're not a follower of the Lord yet you're not a believer in the Lord I would like to lead you to that relationship right now if you're saying you know I would like to get saved today I would like to repent of my sin and place my trust in Jesus I would like to be born again whatever you are whether you're in this sanctuary or you're watching us on live stream or re-watching this service I want you to bow your head and close your eyes and pray this out loud with me church let's pray together I want you to say Lord Jesus please forgive me of all my sin and wash me with your precious blood. I surrender my whole life to you and from this day forward I commit my life to you. I believe you're the son of God who died on a cross for someone like me in Jesus name. the Bible says when we confess with our mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe with our heart God forgives us of our sin. if you pray that prayer the scripture says that God is giving you a new heart he's filling you with his spirit let us know that you pray that prayer if you did it in here come to the vip room just in few minutes but we can say hi to you give you some materials and plug you in if you pray that prayer on live stream go to hungrygen.com vip so we can send you some material and stay