Justification Stop one on the Mountain of God justified by faith part 7

Welcome to episode 176.

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.

Welcome to episode 176. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, I am going to try to close down or close shop on justified justification, justified by faith. I know there's so much more to talk about, but I just kind of want to move on to a different topic. But the thing I want you to make sure that you understand, and the thing that we got to grasp things, a biblical worldview, and all of that put together. I believe God's way of doing things, which is found in Matthew 6:33, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. God's way of doing things is what we need to seek first. That's what Jesus said. So the way God does things, I believe, is from the inside out and from the bottom up. God does not take the most highly equipped person in any field or any endeavor. He takes the person that is the most submitted. And I believe that. I think that God looks at the inside. He says, "I look at a man's heart. Do not look at outward appearance." And let's go to that. And the story is found in 1 Samuel 16. This is the story of King David being selected. And it's 1 Samuel 16:6. So it was when they came that he looked at Eliab and said, surely the Lord's anointed is before him. But the Lord said to Samuel, do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart. And so when I say God works from the inside out and from the bottom up, God changes your spirit man. And that's why with justification, you have got to see yourself as saved. You have got to see yourself as a saint and as being changed on the inside. You can't see it. You can't see your spirit man. You have just got to believe it by faith that you are now a saint of God. You are in Christ. You are in his body. You are seated in heavenly places. Do I understand all of that? Heck no. I don't understand half of it, probably. But what I do is I just believe what I read. So in order to believe it, I've got to know that I have the mind of Christ. And as we talked on a previous episode, God— if God is our standard, or if God is the one leading and guiding and directing us, why would we not use God, who is all-powerful He is everywhere. Omnipotent, I think, is the word. Omniscient is knows everything. So why would you not use somebody who knows everything, who's everywhere all the time, and is all-powerful? There's no— there's no being any more powerful than God. Why would you not use him to help you out of or into different situations? And I can't answer that, but I do know that in my life there's a lot of times where I'm walking through life and I just do my own thing, and then the next thing I know, I'm like, oh, how'd I get here at this dead end? And then I ask God, God, you need to help turn me around. I can't keep going. That's a brick wall right there in front of me. I can't keep going that way. And my question to myself a lot of times is, why don't I ask God before I turn down that road? And I can't honestly answer why I don't do it all the time. And I think it's maybe it's pride. And maybe it's, I don't want to bother him. I'm getting better at it. And I've been really on my knees about the podcast and about my next steps and about these things. And I'm quote, waiting on God. And we, you and I both know, as I drive through traffic and I'm not real good with the patient waiting. And so I'm getting better. I'm telling God I'm all in. I've the pearl of great value. I'm buying it. And I'm going to keep doing these podcasts regardless of if anything ever comes of this, any kind of business opportunity, any kind of anything. I'm doing this because one, you're here listening, and I want to encourage, empower, and inspire you to take that next step towards God. And the only way to get closer to God, I believe the, oh, the best way to get closer to God is through his word and use his Holy Spirit. And then that takes us to the mind of Christ. I I don't understand how I have the mind of Christ, 'cause I know that I have the mind of Greg, and the mind of Greg needs to be renewed, and that is in Romans 12:2. And every time I go to Romans 12:2, I got to go to Romans 12:1, 'cause I do this every morning, and I want you to be encouraged by these words. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God. And as we're talking about this inside out and the bottom up, that is how we renew our mind. You take the mind of Greg Ryan and you put the word of God on it and you continue to wash it in the word and you continue to do that. And again, we're talking about being dead in our flesh. Our flesh will never be redeemed, but it can be sacrificed daily. And that's why I daily get up on the altar of God. And it— and Paul's saying, look, I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, present yourselves a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable, which is your reasonable service. That, that doesn't say Man, this is over and above things that you should be doing. This is just reasonable. This is something that every believer should do, period. That if you're gonna be a follower of Jesus Christ, you need to present yourself to God every day. Crucify your flesh. Galatians 2:20, I believe, says it the best. I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. And the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the law, then Christ died in vain. There is only one way to get to Christ, and that is through faith, and that is through faith in what he did for you. And as soon as you die to self and accept what Jesus did on the cross for you and I, then your, your spirit man comes alive, and you still have to daily Crucify your flesh. And that's what Paul's talking about, and that's what I'm talking about. You just got to learn. This is a learned behavior. This is a practiced habit. No one by their free will just decides, you know, I think I'm going to crawl up on the altar of God today. That's what I'm going to do. I'm just going to walk in there. I'm going to enter his gates with thanksgiving. I'm going to enter his courts with praise. And when I get done doing all that, I think I'm just going to crawl up on God's altar, and I think I'm going to crucify myself. No, we have got to on purpose and for God crucify our flesh so that we can do our best to learn to walk in the Spirit. And you do that by getting in the Word of God because Jesus said, remember in John 6 where he said, "And the words that I speak are spirit and they are life." And Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life." And Jesus also said that you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. So you have to get to know the truth. This is my soapbox moment, if you didn't know, but we've got to be in the Word of God to actually know the truth, and this truth will just start coming alive. But you also have to change the picture that you have about yourself. You cannot see yourself as a sinner. Now, you're going to still sin. I'm not going to argue with anybody that says, hey, you're never ever going to sin again when you accept Christ. That is a lie. No, Jesus died for all sin, past, present, and future sin, and he died and he don't even count it against you. So that is just the great news. It is wonderful news. It is the gospel. We do not have to worry about sin anymore, and we've got to worry about, or we got to concern ourselves with building ourselves up. We're built from the inside out and then from the bottom up. And that is where in 1 Corinthians, my calling, where I've told you multiple times, and I want you to be able to see yourself in this. 1 Corinthians 1:26-29. For ye see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: 27. But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things that are mighty; 28. And the base things of the world, and the things that are despised, God hath chosen; and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are; that no flesh should glory in his presence. And this is where I say that God is going from the bottom up. God is not going to use the top CEO of a business just straight out of the gate. If some— if a CEO accept— and if you're a CEO of a company and you've never accepted Jesus Christ, I want to tell you God loves you and he wants you in his kingdom, and you need to get into the word of God. You need to let faith come by hearing, hearing by the word of God. And you need to— you need Jesus as your Lord and Savior. But what I'm saying is that a CEO of a company, a multi-billion or million or trillion, whatever, a big company, God's not going to use that person until he gets him looking more and more like his son. And that's where I think most of it— now that don't mean that a CEO can't say, hey, I found Jesus, and have just the person that he is and the reputation that he has and all the people that follow and listen to him. That don't mean he can't be an influence, and I'm not saying that at all, but that's not the standard. God's standard is using the lowly, and you and I— and I don't mean— you may be a CEO, and I don't mean to call you lowly, but I'm not anything all that impressive. I'm just a regular guy. I wake up every morning and do pretty much the same thing, probably like you. I go through life, I try to be a good father, I try to be a good husband, I try to be a good employee or employer, and I try to be a good human. I try to love God, love people, but I don't do a great job all the time. I'm still learning, I'm still striving to be more like Christ. I'm not perfect, but he is working on me and has called me out of nothing, and now he is bringing me into something. Now, I— whatever that is, I don't know yet, and I won't know probably until we get to stand before God. But what I do know is that God is happy when we take a step towards him. He is happy. It pleases God when we use our faith. In order to use our faith, we have to know what faith is, and we have to understand faith by getting in the word of God. And so there's so much to go, and it's why I think Jesus said narrow is the gate and difficult is the way, because it is not an easy path. You have got to put things aside to put the Bible in front of you. You have got to do this. You've got to do it on purpose. You don't do it because I'm telling you to do it. You need to do it because the Holy Spirit is the one that's going to lead you into all truth. My only reason for being here is just to motivate you to get into God's Word. I'm telling you, that's why I'm here. If I can open up or tweak just a couple of these verses and make you go, "Oh, I never saw that before," or, "Yeah, that goes pretty good together," or you say, "Nah, I don't think I'd use that verse. I think I'd use this other verse," I think that's where God wants you. God wants you in his Word, thinking about his Word, having a relationship with his Holy Spirit, and just growing in life and becoming a child of the King and helping other people to become more like Jesus. And he says that his disciples will abide in his word. And if you're a disciple, you need to jump in the word. You need to be in the vine. We cannot do anything as a branch outside of the vine. I'm going to go off on 27 different tangents if I don't stop here, but I just want you to know that God loves you, that you are God's favorite, and that God wants you in his word. That's how he's going to develop the relationship with you. And that's how you're going to grow in Christ. God, I thank you so much for everything you've done for me in my life. I thank you for everything you're doing in this believer's life, this listener's life that is tuned into this episode. And I pray in Jesus' name that you would just give them a desire to get into your word, Lord, to see it and get hungry for it, for daily bread. 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 on the next episode.

Thanks for listening to the No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast at www.nodoubtonlybelieve.com.