More Than Meets The Eye

Think I've ever discovered. I had a good long conversation yesterday with Dr. Benjamin Hardy, the co author of so many best selling books. His latest book, 10x is easier than 2x, is one of my favorite. I don't even like talking on the phone. I like, I loathe it. But I talked to him on the phone for almost two hours yesterday and it was one of the most invigorating conversations I've ever had in my life. And.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to share with you all not anything that we talked about, but some principles that I thought of before that. And we're probably going to interject some of that stuff as well. But there's more to everything than we think, right? One of the reasons thinking is so important is because there's more to everything than we think. Like if you only look at the surface level, you can only get what the surface will give you when you plant a seed. You don't plant a seed by throwing it on the surface of the earth. You have to dig a hole. You have to put it in the hole if you want it to produce something. And I believe one of the reasons we have so many people in our society who are not productive is because we have so many people who only operate on surface level information. And one of the things that we have to do is we have to care enough to dig deep enough to learn how to produce a better experience of life for ourselves and those we come across. So I'm gonna read from the book of Job. We all know the story of Job. I don't know that any human being, other than maybe Ezekiel right.

Has ever.

Suffered more evils on the path of righteousness than Job. Job is like the scripture says, he was the greatest man in the earth. Which means he was like the wealthiest, most powerful man on earth. But he loved. He feared God and he hated evil. And he had 10 children. He loved his children. And in one day, the enemy came and took all of his children. Like all of them died in one day. I can't even wrap my mind around it. It just blows you. Like we think about our precious children whom we love more than we love. If you are a parent, you love your children more than you love anyone. And the reason you love your children more than your children and your grandchildren more than you love anyone is because like when they got here, they needed you in order for them to even survive. So the more we give to someone or something, the more we love that thing. The heart follows the Pocketbook. The heart follows our intention. It follows our attention, right? So we love our children. And he lost all of his children one day. And he had great business and great wealth. He lost all his wealth in one day. You lose all your children, lose all your wealth in one day. You can bounce back from that. You lose all your children in one day. He lost all of his children, all his wealth in one day. And then in close proximity again, he lost his health. Like, what? And then he had these friends. He had some friends who came to comfort him, and they were basically saying to him that, well, Job, come on, bro.

You were righteous before God and God blessed you. What did you do? Come on, you can tell us. We're your friends. Like, we know this happened because of some evil thing you did, right? And.

We see an answer to this in Job, chapter nine.

And it says, and I'm going to read a lot of this to you.

Because.

Going to read at least down to verse number nine. No, at least down to verse number.

At least down to verse number.

12. So at least down to ver. I'm going to read down to verse number 12. Here's what it says. Then Job answered and said, I know it is of a truth, but how should man be just with God if he will contend with him? He cannot answer. He cannot answer Him. One of a thousand is, he is wise in heart and mighty in strength, who hath hardened himself against him and prospered. He's talking about God. He's. He's. He's. He's wise. He's. He's wise in heart and mighty in strength, who have hardened himself against him and prospered. Who is who has shook their fist at God and prospering.

Right, which removeth mountains, and they know not which overturneth.

Which removeth mountains, and they know not which overturneth them. In his anger, which shaketh the earth out of his place, and the pillars thereof tremble, which commandeth the sun, and it riseth not. And he sealeth up the stars, which also spreadeth out the heavens and treadeth upon the waves of the sea, which maketh Arcturus, Orion, Pleiadius, and the chambers of the south, which doeth great things past finding out, yea, the wonders, yea, and wonders without number. Lo, he goeth by me, and I see him not. He passeth on also, but I perceive him not. Behold, he taketh away, and no man can hinder him. Who will say unto him, what does that. So there's more to everything than we know. It's really interesting. I thought I had it open here, but I actually had it open on my iPhone. It's really interesting how little we know about the things that we think we know.

And.

We know very, very. We know very, very little about. I want to read a couple of. Couple of quotes that we're all familiar with. We've all heard the sayings. Things are seldom as they seem. How many all heard that one, right? Things are seldom as the same. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. We've heard that one, right? Beauty's in the eye of the beholder. The mask concealed. The mask concealed. The mask concealed their real face. And this one is a Myron golden quote. So you may not have heard it, but I can't believe my eyes because my eyes tell lies.

Maybe that's why we are admonished in the scripture to walk by faith and not by sight. When we do that, we're allowing our future to drive our present. When we walk by faith, we're allowing our future to drive our present instead of. Instead of.

Allowing the past to drive our present. This is one of the things that Dr. Ben Hardy and I were talking about yesterday. Like, when you allow your future to drive your presentation, then it brings you joy, it gives you passion, it gives you. It gives you something to pursue. But when you allow your past to drive your future, you're always like, well, I'm not as far as I wanted to be right now. So I look back and I say, I wanted to be here by now, but I'm not here by now. And so I'm measuring myself in the gap instead of looking where I came from and seeing how far I came, measuring myself in the gain. Because in order for there to be a gap, there also has to be gain. In order for there to be gain, it also has to be a gap, right? So I get to choose which one I measure myself by, right? And so, so maybe that's why we were like, allow our future to drive our present and not the past. It's also why allowing our present under the influence of our future expectation to define our past. So instead of allowing our past to define our future, which, by the way, is what most people do, most people define their present by their past. Well, I did. I messed up X, Y and Z. So now I am only this. Isn't that how people live, right? I didn't do well in school, so now I'm dumb. That doesn't make any sense. A lot of people didn't do well in school just because School's so terrible, right? Like I used to tell the teachers, my, my children's teachers. I am not going to side with you and help you make my children feel like they're not smart to validate your stupid degree. I'm not going to do that. Right. You're a child. Your son didn't get his homework done. First of all, let me help you understand something. It ain't homework. It's schoolwork. Y' all didn't finish teaching him at school.

Do you understand? It does not make sense to send your children to school for six hours a day and then they come home and do homework for six hours. It's not homework. It's schoolwork. They didn't finish teaching at school and then they want you to make. They want to make you feel like your child is dumb or less than because they didn't do all the. They didn't spend more time memorizing more useless information in the evening to take up their whole life.

No wonder kids, all they want to do is sleep on the weekend. They're exhausted from memorizing useless minutia.

And I know some people are going to disagree with what I'm saying. I get that. That's fine. You're welcome to. You're entitled to your opinion. But the five time teacher of the year in New York, Five time teacher of the year wrote multiple books on what's wrong with the miseducational system. He wrote one called Dumbing Us Down. He wrote another one called Weapons of Mass Instruction. You read that, you'll see what a terrible thing school is to do to your children. School is for your children.

Go read Carter G. Woodson's Miseducation of the Negro and you will learn why integration of the educational system was horrible for black people. What? Yeah. Because what we did was we allowed people who believed that black children were less than to teach them as if they were less than. And one of the most important things a teacher can do for a student is to believe in their ability to learn.

Anyway.

Don'T get me started.

Stop defining your present from your past.

Your past set you up for your future. All of the things that you think were setbacks in your past were actually setups. They were set. I'm not saying they weren't setbacks. I'm not minimizing the difficulty that you've been through in your life. We've all been through difficulty. I'm not minimizing it. But that obstacle was the very opportunity that would make you strong enough to stay There. When you get there, don't miss that.

I had polio. I was born in the city in a segregated hospital. The conditions of six or seven years after the polio vaccine was discovered, the conditions of that segregated hospital were so poor, not only did I contract polio and not get the vaccine for polio, but they didn't even know what was wrong with me. My parents moved all the way to Pennsylvania before I got diagnosed or treated. Like, I walk with a brace on my leg. I can't at night when I don't have on my brace. I'm walking on crutches. Oh, that's so terrible. Woe is me. It's not terrible. And I'm not. And there is no woe for me. It was an obstacle. It was an obstacle that gave me strength in other areas. Maybe God, in his sovereign wisdom.

Knew the plan that he had for my life. And he ordained that the enemy would attack my body and make my body slow down. And the enemy just wanted my body to slow down, but God designed it so my mind would speed up.

And I couldn't spend my life chasing sports because I'm very athletic anyway and a little obsessive compulsive, whatever that means.

And so, like, when I get curious about something, I go all in. And so, like, I would have been. There's no doubt in my. All my brothers were athletes. And I mean, I was an athlete, too, but I just didn't participate in what they call organized sports because I couldn't run. That's what I hated the fact when I was a child, I hated the fact that I couldn't run as an adult. I'm so glad that I couldn't run as a child. You know why? Because it forced me to sit down and observe. And I observed things while I was sitting still that I could not have observed if I had been moving fast. And so the curse became the blessing.

The difficulty became the pathway for the destiny.

The intended evil by the enemy became the good for God.

I'm not confused. You say, oh, you sound delusional. Good. Well, I like my delusion better than yours.

So.

Like, stop allowing your past to imprison your future by defining your present.

Use your present to define your past. So what I'm saying is, right now, I'm allowing my present, who I am right now, to determine what all of those things that happen meant, instead of allowing those things that happen to determine where.

Which one's going to make my life better. Yeah, I can walk around, be miserable. I can walk around, be Miserable. Oh, I hate the white man.

Because segregation, blah, blah, and oppression and blah, blah. I'm not saying that stuff wasn't real. It was real. It's still real to some degree. But.

Okay, now what? What's next?

Anyway.

So.

We also are allowing our present. So what we should be doing is allowing our present under the influence of our future, of our future positive expectation to define our past and not allowing our past to define our present. Because when we allow our past to define our present, it can destroy our future. That's why the enemy wants us so focused on our past so he can influence to waste our present and thereby imprison our future.

We're so stuck on what happened to us in the seventh grade or the second grade or kindergarten. We're so focused on what our parents, all the mistakes our parents made.

Your parents probably didn't make any mistakes. Mine made some mistakes. Guess what? My children's parents made some mistakes. I know. I was there.

So in Job's answer, here's what we find in Job's answer to his friends who thought, well, the reason you're suffering is because you did something wrong. In Job's answer, here's what we find. Number one.

There'S more to every situation than you aspire to know. There's more to every situation than any of us aspire to know. What does that mean? That means things are seldom as they seem. So when you think you know, that's when you need to dig deeper. Isn't it fascinating that says in the book of Hosea, it says, my people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. I was so fascinated by that. When I read that, I'm like, how are God's people the ones that are destroyed for lack of knowledge? And then it tells us, because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee. It wasn't that they couldn't know that they didn't know. It was that they wouldn't know that they didn't know. And what I gathered from reading that and meditating on that, is this the biggest hindrance to learning in the world is thinking that you already know.

Woe unto you if you are so dug in on what you think you know that you're afraid to hear an opposing argument.

Like, I like to listen to Dr. Jordan Peterson, his 12 Rules for Life. I don't agree with everything he says, but I don't agree with everything anybody says. Like, I don't agree with everything my son, my daughter, my wife, my brothers. I don't agree with anything, any. Everything anybody says. I don't agree with everything Dr. Jordan Peterson said, but I love that dude, man. I love how he communicates. Like, I love how he paints word pictures. And the thing. The biggest. The biggest thing that I appreciate about Jordan Peterson is this. I can appreciate when I listen to him communicate an idea. I can see clearly that he's thought about both sides of his point. I can see clearly that he's argued for it and argued against it before he ever attempted to position it in front of another person. Right. He looked at. He realized that there's more to every situation than he knew. But the difference is he aspired to learn it. What if we aspire to learn? Like, I'm fascinated by people who aren't curious.

Fascinated. How could you not. How could you not want to know how that works? I want to know how that works. Like, even stuff. Even areas in which I don't intend to, like, become a proficient expert in, I want to at least know how it works. Like, like, some of the stuff I talk about, you're probably think, why. Why would he know that? Like. Like, for instance, a 747, fully loaded, weighs 987,000 pounds. That's almost a million, y'. All. And it's in the sky.

So because I didn't like flying, because it didn't make sense, I started studying it. Okay, I got another one for you. You know, a 747 is the one with the hump on the front. It's got an upstairs, right jumbo jet. It's got four engines, two on each wings, two on each wing. So I'm like, this is really fascinating start. I get. Got my little how things Work encyclopedias out. I'm reading about the 747. Did you know that they inflate the tires of a 747 with nitrogen because nitrogen gets cold under pressure? And when they didn't do that, when every time they attempted to land, the tires would blow out.

Huh. There's more to everything than we aspire to know. But what if we just aspired to know more about the things that we're focused on, about the things that we are intentional about? About. What if we were. What if we became desirous to know how life works, how business works, how family works, how relationships work? What if we became so obsessed with these concepts that we studied all the things we could. We studied. We studied the people we agree with and even some of the people we disagree with. I like hearing people talk that I disagree with, because when I listen to people who Talk that I disagree with. They're either gonna. One or two good things is gonna happen. They're either gonna show me where I'm wrong and then I can get better, or they're gonna show me where I'm right and I can stand my ground. Either way, I win. The only way I can lose is by being afraid to hear a different argument. And what's really fascinating is the less a person knows, the more they feel like they know. In fact, I'm going to show you something on board I wouldn't plan to do. Can I move Jose Marima? Can you get her so I can. Can I. Can I move over there? Okay, so I'm going to move over to the. My blackboard. I want to show you all something. It's really interesting. So, by the way, what I'm about to show you is not scientific. It's an illustration that I thought of in my own head. You're not going to find this in any dictionary, encyclopedia, on Google, Wikipedia, or anywhere else. Okay? So I'm. I'm not pretending that this is some scientific experiment. I'm just telling you this is how I conceptualized it. Everybody good with that? Okay, cool. So all of us around, anything that we know about, we have. We have a. We have a.

Knowledge base and whatever that could be a big knowledge base, it could be a small knowledge base, but it's a knowledge base. And on the outside of all of our knowledge base around everything that we have a knowledge base around, we have what I'd like to describe as little vacuum tubes.

And these vacuum tubes are what I call idea receptors.

Okay. And so the knowledge base that we have, the knowledge that we have is going to bump into the knowledge that's directly around it.

That we don't know. So our knowledge base is going to start sucking in a little bit more knowledge, a little bit more knowledge. Like, when I was born, I didn't know anything that I learned. Ma, ma, da da. So I got two words. I'm good. Like, right for the rest of my life. No. I came in contact. I came in contact with me, and I learned my name. And then I learned. This is my hand, and this is my left hand. This is my right hand. This is my feet. And then I learned how to tie my shoes. Then I learned how to ride a bike. And really, I don't know, but I don't know if you're encouraged by what I'm talking about right now, but, like, I learned how to ride a bike, and then I learned how to ride I learned how to fix my bike, and then I learned how to fix a flat tire on my bike and learn how to put the chain back on my bike. And then eventually, I kept on growing. I learned how to read. I learned how to write. I learned how to do arithmetic, and I learned how to have a conversation, and I learned how to. I learned how to fight, and I learned. And I know that sounds funny, right? But if you're unwilling to fight, you can't survive, right? You have to. You have to be like, criminals are looking for victims. They're not looking for a fight, right?

It reminds me of when I learned. I learned how to never be bullied, because I got bullied a lot. I had polio as an infant, right? We moved around a lot. I went to nine different schools when I was growing up. Nine. We moved around a lot, right? And I remember we moved to Tampa when I was in the seventh. When I was in the sixth grade. And I went to Twin Lakes Elementary School. And my little brothers, my five little brothers went to there, and my older brother went to a different school. And the kids on the bus would pick on us every day, right? And, like, every day, they would call us names and pick on us, call us names and pick on us. And we hated going to school. Like, dad, do we have to go to school? I remember one day, my dad gave us this. He gave us, like, one of those, like, William, William Wallace, like, Braveheart speeches, right? Am I. My. My dad was no joke. And my dad said, here's what you do, boy. One of them mess with you, what you do? You grab them by the collar, you beat him within an inch of their life, they'll leave you alone for the rest of your life. Like, they're crazy. He's crazy. Why do I have to be around all these crazy people? Why do we have to live here? This is so terrible. And then I said to my dad, I'm in the sixth grade, y', all, but I'm transferring the story to you as it happened, right? So I'm just telling you, this was then. This is not now. This was the sixth grade. I said, but, dad, what if it's a girl? He said, I don't care nothing about that.

Like. And by the way, I was way more scared of him than I was any of those kids on that bus.

One of them got my face and sure enough.

The whole thing. And then all of them jumped on. They're beating me down. I had a knot on my arm that stuck out this far. Went to school but you know what happened after that? They never called us another name. Never picked on us again. So my dad, who I thought was a nut.

Turned out to be a prophet. Okay, so.

So, so we got this knowledge base. And this knowledge base comes in contact with all the knowledge around it, but it's totally unaware. It's totally unaware of, oh, that's really good. I'll do that. And I'll do it like.

Do it like that. It's totally unaware of all this knowledge out here. Like this knowledge to my knowledge base might as well not exist because my knowledge base is totally unaware of it. My, the knowledge, my knowledge of that thing. I mean, think about how many things, like everything that you know about right now, there was a time you didn't know it.

Well, I've got good news and bad news. I got good news and scary news. Y' all ready? There's more information that you don't know than there is that you do know. And you know a lot.

And so what happens is, what happens is our idea receptors suck in this knowledge. And then our knowledge base becomes bigger. Well, because it becomes bigger, it has a bit larger surface area. And that larger surface area has more room for more idea receptors. And so I'm coming in contact with more ideas than I was when my knowledge base was smaller that I'm totally unaware of. And so this is why the people who know the least think they know the most.

And the people who know the most feel like they know the least. Like the smartest people you will ever meet, they do not feel smart. They feel like they're on this quest that is, they're on this journey that is like un arrivable because like, the more I learn, the more I realize I just don't know. And by the way, it doesn't matter if your knowledge base gets bigger again. And now you got more knowledge on more idea receptors. And now it's coming in contact with even more information around it that, that you don't know. Right. It comes in contact with. And so the like, we're on this, we're on this never ending journey of learning.

At least we should be. But here's what a lot of people do.

They get a little knowledge base which they think is a big knowledge base. And so what they do is they come in contact with the knowledge base that's outside or the information that's outside their knowledge base. And they say, that looks a little overwhelming. I think I'll just go watch tv. And so they anesthetize themselves with distractions they anesthetize themselves with distractions so they don't have to think about the stuff they don't know. And that's how most people live their life. That's not how some people. That's how most people, unfortunately live their lives. And then when you start to focus on changing your life or doing, learning the things you don't know.

Why do you care? And then they want to make you feel badly about your quest for knowledge because it shines a light on their lack of that same quest.

There's more to everything than we aspire to know. So what can we do about that? Well, we can always be aspiring to learn more than we know. That's the only thing we can do. Like, I will never learn everything.

But I will learn all of the things that I'm going to learn.

Right? And I'm gonna. And by my own decision, that's going to be as much as I possibly can while I'm here.

Because there's more to it than it seems like Job's situation looked to the guys on the outside looking in like, well, this has to be the reason. But like it says in Ecclesiastes, whether the tree fall to the north or whether it fall to the south, where it falleth, there it shall be.

Sometimes it just is what it is. So we have to do is we have to become. I've got some great news for y'. All. I got chills thinking about it. You are one great idea away from your first fortune or your next fortune, whichever the case may be. Your one idea, one, well, one great high level, high serving.

Idea away from your breakthrough. Well executed away from your breakthrough.

Whatever that looks like.

The situation is never as it seems. So I'm not, like, when I see you going through a hard time, I'm not going to assume that I know why.

Because I don't. It's like, remember what the disciples said to Jesus when they came across the man who was born blind? So who did sin? This man or his parents that he was born blind?

I imagine Jesus made that face. Maybe he didn't.

Did you hear what you just asked? You asked me if this man sinned before he was born.

Talk about cray cray, right? Who did sin? This man or his parents that he was born by? Neither hath he sinned nor his parents. Jesus wasn't saying he didn't sin, his parents didn't sin. He was saying that's not the reason he was born blind. Neither hath this man sinned nor his parents. But that the works of God should be made manifest in him. Sometimes the difficulty you go through in your life, the difficulty shows up. So God can show up and show out.

There's more to every situation than you aspire to know. See, when our enemy falls, we want to assume it's because they're our enemy. But there's more to that situation than we aspire to know. When our friend falls or our family falls or somebody falls whose shortcomings we can clearly see.

And you know, it's easier to see other people's shortcomings than it is to see your own. You know why? Because your eyes are looking out there. They ain't looking in here.

Can I get a witness?

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, sir. So every. There's more to every situation we aspire to know, but there's more to the sovereignty of God than we have the ability to know. Will you wrap your mind around that? There's more to the sovereignty of God. So my knowledge base is limitless. Limited. God's knowledge base is limitless.

If my knowledge base is limited and God's knowledge base is limitless, it is impossible for me to comprehend God.

That's why we don't relate to God through intellect. We relate to God through spirit.

Not through mind through spirit. Why? Because faith creates understanding. And the reason people who get miseducated think that there is no God is because they think that they'll believe when they understand. But understanding is not the genesis of faith. Faith is the genesis of understanding.

They that seek the Lord. It's in the Bible. They that seek the Lord understand all things.

And for those of you, by the way, who think I'm talking about religion right now, that makes you even that much more confused. Because the Bible is not a book about religion. The Bible is a book about government. The government of what? The entire universe. It's a book about a king, a kingdom, a royal family, and the culturalization of a foreign land called Earth. And our objectives as the Kings Kings. And the Kings queens is to expand the heavenly culture to this realm called Earth. Okay? There's more to the sovereignty of God than we have the ability to know. In fact, that's what Job said. Job said. That's what he said. He said in verse.

Verse 12. Behold, he taketh away who can hinder him? Who will say unto him, what doest thou. Wow. What does it say? I think it's in Daniel 3:16. I think that's where it's at. But our God, he is in the heavens. He hath done whatsoever he hath pleased. Until you yield.

Your perception of God.

To God's sovereign description of God.

You do not know who God is.

Okay, let me, let me, let me, let me, let me read it to you so you don't. So I'm not just up here making a word salad. I mean, I like salad and I like words, but sometimes when you put them together, they become a little. A little. Little much.

Chapter Romans, chapter 11. Here's what it says. Here's what it says.

And verse number.

Verse number 33.

Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past finding out.

To attempt not to yield to God's declared sovereignty, to say, well, no, God. God would never do that.

I'm not going to do that. Because, yeah.

Not to yield to God's declared sovereignty is to resist the essence of God.

What does that even mean? Well, God does what he desires to do because he desires to do it. He doesn't need our approval.

You know, it's like. It's like the. A lot of religions will teach that God loves everybody. And that sounds great.

It's just not true.

Now I'm going to treat you like God loves you because God didn't put, like, he didn't put a mark on you and say, well, I hate that one. And I hate that one. I hate that one. Why don't you treat them bad? No, he told me to treat everybody good but God. But. But I'm not God, and God's not me. He doesn't have to play by the same rules I play by. Are y' all tracking say, well, God loves everybody. That. But the Bible states clearly that he does not. That's shocking to people. You know why? Because religion is taught that God loves everybody. But if God loves everybody, before I show you where it says he doesn't love everybody. Oh, I'm not just going to say that. Right? I'm not just going to say that. I'm going to show it to you in the Bible so you can. And so what people will do, though, is they'll say, well, that just means. Well, what it means is that he hates who he says he hates. If it says he hates them, you can try to turn that into something else to make it fit into your God loves everybody narrative. But if God loves everybody, I'm just going to say what I believe. This may or may not be true, but I believe it to be true. If God loves everybody, his love has no value.

What's the significance of love that loves everybody?

If I said to my wife, baby, do you love me? And she says, yeah, I just love men, that ain't what I was looking for.

See, we laugh at it when it's us, right? But you see how pompous it is for us to assume, like, do you love your next door neighbor's children as much as you love your own? And if you say yes, I'm gonna say, quit tripping.

Right?

Okay?

So since I said I'm going to show it to you, I'm going to go. And I'm not just going to show it to you, I'm going to go ahead and read it to you. Even though this is not what I was planning on talking about, I'm going to talk about it anyway.

In.

Romans, chapter nine. I'm in chapter nine. In Romans chapter nine, we start out talking about.

Rebecca. So it says.

In verse 10. And not only this, but when Rebecca also had conceived by one, even our Father Isaac. For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth it is. It was said unto her, the elder shall serve the younger as it is written, jacob, have I loved, but Esau have I hated. What shall we say then? Because then our mind says, but, but, but that can't be the case because, like our everything in us. Can I get a witness? Everything in us, like, resists that, doesn't it? Wait a minute. Why is he hate? They're not even born. What are you talking about? Watch this. Here's what it says.

Verse 14. Paul knew you were going to say that. So he says, what shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? God forbid. For he that saith to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. I will have compassion upon whom I will have compassion. So then, it is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, even for this purpose, for this reason.

Have I raised thee up, that I might show my power in thee, and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. I made you great so I can knock you down so people will know I'm great. That seems so unfair. Fair is not a. There's not a biblical Hebrew word for the concept of fair. So fair is not a real concept. It's a man made construct.

There's no such thing as coincidence either. But anyway, I'm going to keep reading.

Verse 17. For the scripture saith unto Pharaoh, even for this same purpose have I raised thee up, that I might show my power in thee and that my name might be declared throughout all the earth. Therefore he hath mercy on whom he will have mercy and whom he will he hardeneth. Thou wilt say unto me, why doth he yet find fault for who hath resisted his will? Because that's what. Those are the questions that come to your mind, right? Well, the answer is right here. But, oh, nay, but, O man, who art thou that replies against God? Shall the thing form say unto him that formed it? Why hast thou made me thus? Have not the power the pot had, not the potter, the power over the clay of the same lump of clay to make one vessel unto honor and one unto dishonor. If God be willing to show his wrath and make his power known, endured with much long suffering the vessels of wrath fitted for destruction, that he might make known the riches of his glory on the vessels of mercy which he had afore prepared unto glory even us whom he hath called not of the Jews only, but also the Gentiles.

He has said in OC I will call them my people, which were not my people, and her beloved, which were not beloved. And it shall come to pass that in the place where they said, you are not my people, there shall they be called the children of God. God doesn't love everybody. But that I know that's not enough, so we'll show you a couple more. Because it's not. It's not only in one place in the Bible. It's. It's. It's a repeated theme. Because what happens is we make. We create an ideal, an ideal of God which is nothing more than an. An idol. We create an idol like we create a God of our imagination, and we make Him. We assume that he is how we perceived him to be instead of how he described Himself to be. Here's what it says.

In Psalms, chapter 5, verse 5. The foolish shall not stand in thy sight. Thou hatest all workers of iniquity. Now.

I just started thinking about this morning. I'm gonna do a Bible study on. In the future, on the nature of evil. Because, like. Unfortunately, when. Unfortunately, when we go to. Like churches and pastors are teaching and preaching, they don't teach you the difference between sin and transgression and trespasses and iniquity and wickedness and evil. They don't teach you. Like, all those words have a very, very different meaning. I don't know if y' all know that or not, but they're very. They're all talking about something very, very different. Okay, so then, Psalms, chapter 11.

Here's what it says.

In verse 5, Psalm 11. 5. The Lord trieth the righteous, but the wicked. And him that loveth violence, his soul hateth.

Can you all see at least that I did not make it up? Can y' all see that I'm not. This is not Myron wishing that God doesn't love everybody. I kind of wish he did.

Right? But he said, clearly he doesn't. By the way, that gives me a greater appreciation for the fact that he showed mercy to me.

Than if. Well, I just chose God because I was smart enough. I wasn't smart enough. No, there's none that seeketh God. No, not one. Okay, so there's more to the sovereignty of God, but there's. I saw something the other day that I'd never seen before. See, we. Like, there's more to the sovereignty of God than we have the ability to know. We don't even have the ability to understand. Like, I am not. God commands me to be a witness. He commands me to warn the wicked from their wicked way. But he says he's only gonna call who he's gonna call.

And so what happens is people try to resolve that. There's no. No resolution. There's no resolution necessary. Well, Myron, are you saying you should never witness? No, my entire. Everything that comes out of my life should be a witness. The words that come out of my mouth should be a witness and a testimony. I don't witness because I'm. Because I'm getting people saved. I'm saving people from hell. I witness because God told me to.

I'm not confused about the purpose of the assignment, nor the motive behind the assignment. Okay. Romans, chapter 8. We love claiming this, but I love claiming it. Maybe you don't, but I do. But I never noticed it in the context of the sovereignty of God. We all know it says Romans 8:28 says. And we know that all things work together for good to them that are called according to his purpose. Well, that's great.

But I never read it in conjunction with. In its. I never know. It's not that I never read it. I read it in the context with many a time. I never noticed it in the context of the sovereignty of God. And we know that all things work together for good. For those who are called according to his purpose, for whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to Be conformed to the image of his Son that He might be the firstborn among many brethren for whom he did predestinate. And by the way, people say, well, the people weren't predestinated. He just predestinated that they should walk in the image of the Son. That sounds good. Except the next verse says, for whom he did predestinate. He predestinated the people. He predestined the people. It's what it says. Marian. Are you a Calvinist? No, I'm a Biblicist. I just believe what the Bible says. And I believe it when it. When it. When it seems like it's contradicting itself. The only thing that's contradicting it is my misunderstanding.

Okay, so it says, for whom he did foreknow them he did also predestinate to be conformed to the image of Son that He might be the firstborn among many brethren for whom he did predestinate. Them he also called whom he called them he also justified whom he justified. Them he also glorified. And I love the fact it says them he also glorified. It's talking about it as it's in past tense. Even though we're not glorified yet I'm not in a glorified body. Are you in a glorified body? If my body was glorified, it wouldn't have been hurting as bad as it was last night when I went to bed.

What shall we say to them? These things. What shall we say then to these things? If God before us, who can be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not also with him freely give us all things? Why is it saying, if God before us, who can be against us? Because God is sovereign over the past, the present and future. Because in God's realm, they are all the same. What's going. God is sovereign over the whole thing because the whole thing is already done. Even the parts that in our perception, perspective are not done. God knows the end from the beginning. Because to God there's no difference between the end and the beginning. It's a moving picture to us. It's a snapshot to God. Or I could say it's a moving picture to us it's a fully produced movie to God. He already produced the whole. He already produced, directed the whole thing. Scripted, produced, directed the whole thing. It's already done. We are watching the premiere.

We don't have to worry about what's going to happen. Why? It's already been written. We won. Now we're going to win. We are more than conquerors through him that loves. We're not going to be more than conquerors through him that loves. I'm already more than a conqueror. I don't have to worry about how it's going to turn out, because however it's going to turn out. I was talking. One of the things I said to Ben yesterday when I was talking to him on the phone, I said, look, the ultimate definition of freedom to me, in my opinion is nothing to fear, nothing to lose, nothing to hide, nothing to gain. I was talking to Joel Bauer. Joel Bauer is one of my business coaches, and he's like, myron, I just want to say thank you for sending us clients. And they tell me that you talk nothing but good about me. Nobody does that. Why do you do that?

I don't have anything to lose at all. I'm not in competition with you. We may be in a similar business, but we're not in the same business. And your clients weren't meant for me, and mine weren't meant for you. Unless they were meant for both of us. And if something's meant for me, no one can keep it from me. And if something's not meant for me, no one can get it to me. Why am I worried about it? There's more to the sovereignty of God than we have the ability to understand.

God has ordained in his sovereignty that all of the pleasant things in your life be pleasant. He's ordained in his sovereignty that all the difficult things in your life be difficult. He's ordained it in his sovereignty. And if it pleases him, in his sovereignty. Who am I to not be pleased?

I thought I'd be done by now. I got one more point. Isn't it amazing? There's more. There's more. There's like we stop scraping the surface looking for gold. There's no gold on the surface.

We gotta dig deep. I like what somebody said a long time ago, said if you're a gold miner, you have to move tons and tons and tons of dirt just to find a couple ounces of gold. But you don't look for the dirt. You look for the gold.

Okay.

My Ron's, my rants.

There's more to every situation than you aspire to know. There's more to the sovereignty of God than you have the ability to know. And there's more to the significance of the of man. There's more to the significance of man than we have the awareness to know.

When I think about the fact that we are made in the image of God, that's called a clue. The first thing that God tells about God is that he's creative. God is love. But that's not the first thing he tells about God. God is holy. But that's not the first thing God tells us about God. God is just. But that's not the first thing God tells about God. He's omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. But none of those are the first thing God tells about God. Here's the first thing God says about God. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Why he created the heavens and the Earth? Because he's creative. And therefore it is his nature to create.

So good.

But when he created, he created three categories in creation. He created creation. The sun, the moon, the stars, the grass, the trees, the water, the planets, etcetera, etc, etcetera. He created creation.

We live in a world now that wants to worship creation.

And they want to sacrifice God on the altar of creation. Very foolish you are. Oh, I just asked the universe. The universe gave me. The universe didn't give you nothing. You are more powerful than the universe.

I can't believe you said that. I said it.

Then he created creatures. Creatures. Dogs, cats, horses, alligators, chimpanzees, fish, birds. He created creatures. You're greater than creatures. So it's interesting that God created creation. Then he created creatures. And the creatures nor the creation could appreciate the creation and the creatures that God created, none of them could appreciate. They couldn't celebrate what God had done. Why? They had no ability to conceive it. They had no ability to perceive it. They had no cognitive ability to digest what God had done in them, with them and threw them in for them. They're just. They just. The word for an animal is in Hebrew is bahema. In it is what it is. A horse is a horse is a horse. Of course. Okay, never mind. I'm running out of time. I can't chase goofy rabbits. So. But then God made something special. God created creators. He created creatives. He created creators. He created something like him that was not him.

That's when he created man. Adam Aleph dalad mem. Man not ish. Man ish is male. He created Adam Aleph dalad mem. God created man in his own image, in the image of God created him. What does it say in Genesis 1? In the image of God created he them, male and female created he them in the image of God created him. So God Created male and female in his image. If you are a man, you're made in the image of God. If you're a woman, you're made in the image of God. Your dog's not made in the image of God. You can call them fur babies all you want to. They ain't fur babies. They're animals. They're bahemas. Right. You can call your cats fur babies. They're not fur babies. They're animals. They're Bahamas. I get it. You love them, they bring you joy. You bring them food. You clean up their stuff. I get it. But they're not fur babies. Okay? I'm just saying they're very different. They have no potential to ever become like you.

Right. So God created man in his image. Somebody's like him, but not him, but somebody who has the ability to choose to.

Receive him or reject him. God created creation for creation's sake. He created creatures, and then he created creators for his sake. One of the things God said about man was it's not good for man to be alone. Other than the fact that God knows everything. How does God know it's not good for man to be alone? Because man is made in the image of God. It wasn't good for God to be alone because God made man in his image. Which means if God is creative and that's the first thing he tells us, God's creative, well, then he created man to create things. But if he created man to create things and man was alone, now the man doesn't have anybody to appreciate what he created with him.

So God created woman to help, so man could have somebody to be connected with. He created man. Humans, so God would have somebody to connect with. He created woman so the man would have somebody to connect with. And man, when they come together, they can create new life.

And then they can connect with that new life. But guess what man did? We did what men do. We severed the connection. Man severed the connection with God through sin.

And then God, man. And then what did he do? He tried to hide. He tried to hide amongst the trees of the garden. He sewed fig leaves together. Tried to cover himself up. He knew he was naked. He knew he was exposed. He knew he was vulnerable. He tried to cover it up. And then God made them. Coats of skin means something had to die. So now God not only had. Not only did God create man, not only did God connect with man. Now God has given a contribution to man.

And because we're made in the image of God, the significance of our lives comes from Our creation.

That'S our leverage. Our creative ability is our leverage. It's what gives us the ability to create value for other people. And they pay us.

So we have creation is leverage. Then we have connection. Connection is love. The love connection, right? We love people. And if you don't love people, you're missing out on one of the greatest joys in life. You can walk past a human being and not acknowledge the God likeness in them and say, hello, I hope you're having a great day today. Like, how do I know that you're. You're missing out? Because here's what the scripture says, how you treat people. God said how you treat people is how you treat me.

And then we have contributions. Well, the contribution we make as parents to children is like everything. They can't walk, they can't talk, they can't hold. You pick them up. You got to hold their head. When you hold the baby head, they can't even hold their head up. So it's our contribution that sustains their life until they become a person who can create and connect and contribute. And if we're decent parents, we're going to teach them to create, we're going to teach them to connect, we're going to teach them to contribute. And so.

That'S the significance of man. That's greater than we know, than we have an awareness to know. We're unaware. When you think of past, present and future, it reminds me of the relationship between time and eternity. I have time. I'm going to do this really quickly. This is like, congratulations for staying to the end. Because this is about. Is about to go down.

In the realm of time, there's no such thing as the present. It cannot exist. As soon as I say now, it becomes then in the realm of time, there's only the past and the future.

And.

I can see the past and I can see the future. I do something, I can react. I can react to the past or respond to the future. And I'm going to make my present better. Even though the present's not, the present is not. It doesn't exist for us yet because in time it's fleeting, it's evaporating, it's expiring. Right? Okay. But in the realm of time, there's no such thing as the past or the future. There's only the present. That's why God knows the end from the beginning. Because the end is the beginning. The beginning is the end. It's all right now. Eternity is the forever now.

Well, because God operates like this, he knows the end from the beginning because he ordained it. So.

We have the ability to be more like God by reaching into the future and deciding what we desire that future to look like, and then backwards extrapolating or reverse engineering that future in the present to determine what actions we take right now. And so we sacrifice right now on the altar of the future. It gives us passion and purpose in the present. It gives us a better definition for the past. And it gives us the ability to do the thing that God created us for in the first place. What's the first thing God ever said to man? Be fruitful, multiply, replenish the earth, subdue it, and have dominion. Be fruitful, produce on the outside based on what God put on the inside. Multiply, increase, replenish, fill up the earth, subdue it, trample down anything that tries to stop you, and then have dominion. What's the thing God commanded us to do first? He said, as a human being who's made in my image, you're representing me. Make sure your life is progressively productive. It is your job as a God image bearer to work towards making today better than yesterday and tomorrow better than today and next week better than this week and next month better than last month, and next year better than last year, and the next decade better than the last decade. And we do that until we step out of the realm of time, in which there is no present, into the realm of eternity, into which there is only the present. And that.

Is how we experience life at its fullest. Because there's way more to it than meets the eye. I hope this blesses you. I hope it helps you navigate through life with more joy, more peace, and more fulfillment. Thank you for joining us today. I'll see you all in the next video. Thanks for sharing and liking and commenting and all that other YouTubey stuff people do. And I'll see you all in the next video. Bye for now.