Introduction to Christian Goals setting using Ezekiel's wheel

Welcome to episode 286.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Spending time in the Word of God is the best way to spend time with God. Welcome to No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast, where we will encourage, inspire, and empower you to live your best life in Christ. Here's Greg.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, I'm continuing to talk about Ezekiel and the wheel in the middle of the wheel, and I'm going to be on this for a few episodes. I don't know how many, and I don't know when I'm going to get a finish to this, but I think that the church needs to hear this. And when I say church, I think all believers, have struggled with areas of their life, which is everybody. I'm struggling with all kinds of different areas in my life. I don't struggle with all areas, but there are things that I don't have a total grip on and a total comprehension. And I think one of the problems— and I'm going to paint with a big broad brush— I don't think the current modern church, the way it's structured, helps with discipleship. I don't think that it's set up to help you and I get deeper in the word. And that's why I'm here. And I just now, as I've been praying about and what I'm even doing here, because I'm on episode 286, it's been a long time me doing this, but we're looking at a lot of effort on my part and a lot of effort on your part. If you're a frequent flyer, if you're a Jesus fanatic like me, you have been putting in the time, you've been listening to the episodes, and hopefully this is changing your life. And what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to go deep into subjects instead of just wide. The Bible covers all kinds of different things. In fact, every area of life you can find something or the answer for it in the Bible, in the Word of God. God has the answer. It may not be apparent if you're trying to figure out what color car you need to buy, or you may not know what house. If you're trying to decide, should I marry this spouse? Should I do this? Should I take this job? The Bible's not going to be specific on that. It is going to help you with decisions. It can give you steps. And the one thing it does is it gives you faith, and it gives you understanding, and it brings peace, and it brings clarity, and it brings confidence. All of those things the Bible does if you allow the Word of God to get planted into your heart. Soapbox moment. If you plant that incorruptible seed in your heart it will start to grow and it will bear fruit. The word says, my word will not come back void. The word of God, if planted properly into good soil, will give you a harvest. And we're going to get into all of that. We've talked about this when we talked about the kingdom of God, and we're going to talk about the four foundations. We're going to pull all that together again, and we're going to talk about with this Ezekiel's wheel. When I take these teachings I look at what my pastor has preached on. I look at what other people are talking about in the world, what I'm reading in the Bible, and I listen to what the Holy Spirit is motivating me to do. And the Holy Spirit is motivating me to go deep. The Holy Spirit has always allowed me to stop on verses since I've been reading my Bible, way back in 1993. I didn't even know it was the Holy Spirit doing it. I would reread different chapters, and I would read it, and I would go back, and I didn't understand it all, so I would read it again. And I don't know if you can relate to this. Looking back, it's easier to see God looking back on my life than it is right now when I'm in this mixing bowl or this toilet bowl. Some people would say that someone has pulled the chain and we're going around and around in the circle before we go down. I do believe that God is in control of his word. He don't control you and I every action. We've talked about this multiple times. God has given you and I free will. That means we can do whatever we want, whenever we want to do it, and I believe that is true today. It was true way back 2,000 years ago. Jesus had free will. He just chose to do everything Father God assigned for him to do.

I—

he did it perfectly. He did it without error. That is incredible. I think it's wonderful news, and he did it for you and I. But you and I now, we still have free will. We can still go about our lives and do whatever we want. We can rob a bank if we want to. Now, there's consequences to everything that we do, and God's not gonna stop you from robbing the bank. Now, the Holy Spirit may go, "Hey, that's not a good idea," or, "Hey, you know, have you thought about the consequences? You thought about how long you're gonna be in jail if you get caught?" All of those things, I believe the Holy Spirit, but he don't yell at you. He don't scream. It's that still small voice, and it's called a conscience, and it's your mind. It's the mind of Christ. And it's the Holy Spirit talking. But I want to get back on point that we're in Ezekiel and we're in the first chapter of Ezekiel and that wheel in the middle of the wheel. And as we go deep into this, I need you to picture this wheel in the middle of the wheel. We talked about it in the last episode, how the— how Ezekiel saw this wheel in the middle of the wheel. And we're going to go to it right now. And we read Ezekiel 1:5-12 and then 15 and 16. I want you to hear where the Spirit is And this is why when I'm going deep in this, in this wheel in the middle of the wheel, and how God kind of tells me, hey, you're on the right track. I'm gonna chase a rabbit real quick. We talk about, and I hear people go, well, you know, we need to be in the spirit, brother. We need to walk in the spirit, and we don't need to be walking in the flesh. And I think to myself, what the heck does that mean? You know, have you ever stopped and thought, well, brother, you need to walk in the spirit? I mean, that's easy to say, but how do you walk in the spirit? I mean, what does that even look like? I'm walking in the flesh. You can't drive in the spirit. You got to have your eyes open. You shouldn't ought to eat in the spirit. You need to see where the food is and put your food in your mouth and grab it with a fork. You get the picture. We live in a physical world, but with this Bible, it's a spiritual truth. And what this is and what we do and what the Holy Spirit helps us do is we take this spiritual food, this spiritual knowledge, this spiritual wisdom, and we bring it into this physical realm. And God shows us these spiritual truths. And then as we dig and we ask for wisdom and we ask for knowledge and we just keep digging in and digging in, I'm gonna make some mistakes on this probably, but as we dig through it and we talk this thing through, I think it's gonna change your life. I just truly believe this because it's changed my life. I wanna reread Ezekiel 1:15, and I'm gonna go through 21. 21:19 Now as I looked at the living creatures, behold, a wheel was in the earth beside each living creature with its four faces. 21:20 The appearance of the wheels and their workings was like the color of beryl, and all four had the same likeness. The appearance of their workings was as if a wheel in the middle of a wheel. 21:21 When they moved, they went toward any of the four directions; they did not turn aside when they went. 20:5 And as for rims, they were so high they were awesome, and their rims were full of eyes all around the four of them. 20:6 When the living creatures went, the wheels went beside them; and when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up. 20:7 Wherever the Spirit wanted to go, they went, because there the Spirit went; and the wheels were lifted together with them, for the Spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels. When those went, these went. When those stood, these stood. And when those were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up together with them, for the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels. And I want to stop right there. I want you to think about what we just heard. I want you to think about this wheel in the middle of the wheel. And we talked about in the previous episode how we pull that spiritual component out of your life. And instead of putting God in the same realm as all these other things— your, your health, your wealth, and your finances— when you're talking about goal setting— and it doesn't just necessarily have to be goal setting, but if you're a Christian and you're setting goals, I believe this is key. If you're a Christian businessman or if you're a Christian businesswoman and you are trying to accomplish something in your life, it's if you put God on the same level as you do losing 20 pounds, or as you do getting in better shape, or making more money, or getting a different job, that, or your family, and you put that on the same level, I believe you're gonna have issues. And I believe that's why the church, for the most part, is struggling the same way the world's struggling, because we're treating the word of God and we're treating God the same way we treat the nightly news, or the same way we treat something from our mom or dad or parents or me or from our pastors. If we're not eating this word and trying to figure out and get it to grow, I think we end up with the same thing the world ends up with. And I think that's why we're in the shape that we're in. There's not enough of us eating this spiritual bread that is the Lord Jesus Christ. And we've talked about it not being an easy road. We've talked about it being difficult. I'm not telling you that I've got this all figured out. I'm I'm just telling you, I'm going after God with everything I got for the rest of my days here on this earth because I believe eternity is real. I believe that there are rewards for you and I based on how we do life down here. And it's getting more apparent that we're getting closer to the end every single day. I've said this multiple times. I believe that we are one day closer to Jesus' return today than we were yesterday. That's true anytime you're watching this or anytime you listen to this episode. I believe we're one day closer to God's return than we were yesterday. And so with that said, and with us talking about walking in the Spirit, we're going to walk into this, this next episode. But I want us to think about this one scripture where Jesus was talking about how defilement comes, and where he was talking about— and I think this kind of goes into what I've the pondering of walking in the spirit or walking in the flesh. I want you to hear what Jesus says, and it's in Matthew 15, and we'll start in verse 7. Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying, these people draw near to me with their mouths and honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me, and in vain they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. And I want to stop there. I'm not saying that every church and every pastor and every sermon is doing this. I'm just saying that we need to be in the Word of God daily. We need to feed ourselves. If you are maturing as a Christian, if you've got a baby, a baby has to be fed daily. If you have a teenager, if you've got to feed them daily, there's something wrong. I mean, there is something wrong with you having to put the spoon into their mouth, and we have got to start feeding ourselves. And I know that's a couple soapboxes, but I just want to encourage you, God's not mad at you. And we're going to talk about Romans 8:1 because that is such a powerful— the whole book of Romans is powerful, but Romans chapter 8 is such a powerful chapter. And Romans 8:1 that kicks off Romans 8 is, there is now therefore no condemnation. To those that are in Christ Jesus who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. And if you just let that sink in, there's no condemnation. And when, when it says no, that means none. And most people choke on that word. And this is grace. This is what grace looks like. When I say God's not mad at you, read Romans 8:1 and try to find where God is angry with you if you mess up. The condemnation is not coming from God. Now Satan's a punk. And he's going to use anything that you do against you. He's the accuser of the brethren. He's just a punk. Just quit listening to him. And we're just going to move on. We're going to stop right there. I'm going on, I'm rambling, I'm chasing different rabbits. And I do want to say thank you for being a part of this. If you enjoy this, hit a thumbs up or whatever you're doing now on the YouTubes or on the podcast. If you haven't given me a review, I would appreciate you going on there and saying, hey, This Yahoo's pretty cool, or whatever you do, I would appreciate it. I read all the reviews and I read all of the comments, and I just want to thank you for being here. And we always pray at the end, so let's do that now. God, I thank you so much for everything that you've done. I thank you for your word. God, I thank you for coming as a man, and I thank you for walking this earth and never making a mistake. Lord, I thank you for forgiveness And I pray in Jesus' name that you would help this listener to get into your word and not be condemned. Lord, you do not condemn anyone. You are the God of starting over. Let's just start a new thing today. And Lord, we thank you. We love you. We ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thank you for being a part of this, and I look forward to visiting with you in the next episode.

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