Traditions and Doctrines Make the Word of God of No Effect

Welcome to episode 16. Let's get right into it.

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 16. I know I told you that I was going to be done with the sovereignty of God, but God had different plans for me. I was reading, I was reading Mark 7 this morning and it kind of jumped off the page again at me, and so I kind of used that as God saying, hey, you're not done with this yet. So I want to remind you that you're a king, and we're going to read Proverbs 25:2 again. It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings is to search out a matter. And again, if this is the first episode you've ever tuned into, I want to define the sovereignty of God. And the way I've got the sovereignty of God defined is he is the ruler of all the universe, heaven and earth, and he answers to no one. God does whatever he wants to do without asking permission. But I think the church has taken this teaching and taken the sovereignty of God to a different level, saying that God controls everything. And I don't want to rehash all that we talked about in the previous lessons. You can go back to a couple of episodes and see, you know, what kind of my thoughts on it if you want. And I may have a— if you, if you're here on the website, I may have a link back to those different episodes. But I want to move on to what I was reading in Mark that, that made me do this one more episode this morning. And it's Mark 7:6-9 and then verse 13. And I know this is a lot of scripture, but if we're basing this on the Word of God, it needs to be the Word of God. He answered and said to them, Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me. And in vain they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men. For laying aside the commandments of God, you hold the tradition of men, the washing of pitchers and cups, and many other such things you do. He said to them, all too well you reject the commandment of God that you may keep your tradition. And then we're going to skip down to 13, making the word of God of no effect through your tradition which you have handed down, and many such things you do. Now Jesus was getting on to the people and the, the Jews and the Pharisees, because if you read chapter 7, it started off, you know, they were, they were, uh, I guess in a judgmental mode. They were— the disciples came in and grabbed some. They were watching, you know, these, these guys, they were the religious leaders. They were sitting around waiting for, you know, to see something that they were doing wrong so they could pounce on them. Just a bunch of rules and regulations. And, and then that was one of the things with Christianity before I got saved. I saw Christianity in the first 29 years as just a bunch of can'ts. No, you can't do this, you can't do that, you can't— or, you know, God's going to smite you down. I mean, that's kind of— I just thought it was just a bunch of can'ts. And what I realized when I got on the other side of it, it— there's more freedom as a Christian than I ever had. As a non-Christian. So that's kind of a side note, but that was— it was through the traditions and how we see things, and, and it's not necessarily how it is. But if you, if you've ever thought that God controls everything, that is a very dangerous thought, and that is a very dangerous way to live, you know. But I want to go on the record that says— that, that says, you know, every religion I mean, every religion has doctrines and traditions and guidelines, and many of them are really, they're really good. I mean, you know, there's got to be order. God is a God of order. Foundation, like we've talked before, needs to be on the Word of God. You need to build it specifically on the Word of God. And if it starts, if it starts feeling like, I don't know, I mean, that's when you start digging in. I mean, don't take my word for this, but what I want to do, and I think what the Holy Spirit wants to do is he wants you to think. He wants you to ponder this. Is this really true? If what I'm telling you is not true, then bring some scripture out. Tell me how I'm, how I'm wrong on this thing, that, that God controls everything, even, even me getting up this morning at 6. I was trying to get up at 6:30. I got up at 6. God must have wanted me to get up at 6. You know, I'm not trying to make light, but it's a, it's, this is a real deal. And one of the things that I tell you often, there's 3 things that I like to remind you of. As you're listening to this, you are one day closer to Jesus' return. And I think a key— I found a key in Psalm 110:1 of when he's going to return. Now, you know, I'm not going to set no time and date or anything like that. I think anybody that tries to say, hey, next Thursday, I've, I've looked at the stars, and next Thursday We got a good shot of God coming back. I mean, I honestly, I don't know why he didn't come back yesterday. I mean, I think he missed a great opportunity yesterday to come back, but I'm not God and I'm just going to push through this life until he comes. But Psalm 110:1, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool. Now I just picture God, and I've— I know I, in a previous episode, I can't remember when, but I see God and Jesus up there in heaven with Jesus at his right hand. And when I do something good, rarely but occasionally, when I do something, I see God kind of elbowing Jesus, using his right elbow because Jesus is on his right side, and looking over and saying, "Did you see what he did? Man, that Greg," shaking his head. And if you don't see God smiling, you know, you need to get a little bit of a sense of humor. God loves you. God, you are his favorite. If God had a refrigerator in heaven, your picture would be all over it. So when you do something wonderful, you make God smile. And one of the things you can do is the gratitude. And I've got those 5 daily prayers, and I'm telling you, every day I start my morning out— and if you haven't gone and got your 5 daily prayers, I want to encourage you to do that. That's in episode 5. I did that on purpose so I could remember 5 daily prayers, episode 5. So go get you a copy of that. It's free, but it's the 5 things. And the first thing is, is we enter his gates with thanksgiving and enter his courts with praise. And it just resets. It sets your day. It's a— it's an incredibly powerful way to start your day. And I want to encourage you to, to take a look at it. To go back to the enemies at the footstools, I mean, in my small little way here at No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe, I want to help make that happen. But I want to take a stand. I'm just tired of watching evil seemingly triumph, you know, in the world. I just really— I'm sick of, sick of seeing Satan sneering at us. And I really, I just want to kick Satan in the teeth and his kingdom. And in my little small way, that's why, that's why I'm doing this podcast. I, I'm— this is my effort to kick Satan in the teeth by encouraging you and motivating you and inspiring you to use the authority God gave you. And, and you find that authority in the Bible. I mean, it is easy to find. You got to dig it, dig it out. Remember Proverbs 25, it's the glory of God to conceal a matter, but it's the glory of, of kings to, you know, to figure it out, to go get in it. And each one of us are kings. So let's get digging in. Let's get in this word. Let's get on this. Let's just build our life on this foundation Let's start taking it to the enemy. The Bible is clear. It says the gates of hell shall not prevail against the church. Victim, king of victims, or the king of kings? God's the king of kings. And king victims— victims sit around in a corner and cower and go, oh no, I shouldn't ought to do that. I might, I might make some waves, or I might upset somebody. Jesus told his disciple the gates of hell shall not prevail against the church. And I want you to picture yourself in whatever, whatever gate that Satan has tried to put up in your life. I want you to picture walking up to that gate with your Bible in your hand or in your heart, and I want you to just picture this gate standing in front of you, the thing that's been keeping you held back, the fear or the doubt. And I want you to look at it for a minute, and I want you to kind of get it right, get a little bit of righteous indignation, if you will. And I want you to look at that gate, and I want you to get it in your mind, and I want you to literally, in your mind, I want you to just take your foot, and there, if it's got a chain around this gate, and I just want you to start kicking. I just want you to kick it until those gates just explode. And that is— that's what the word of God will do. That's the word of God will just empower you to see this. It'll, it'll happen. It'll happen in your life. It's happened in my life. God is not a respecter of persons. But I don't walk around in fear now. I don't walk around as an idiot and just, you know, kind of walking through life going, doo doo doo, wondering what is coming next. I mean, I keep my eyes open, but I'm praying to the Holy Spirit. And I'm just by faith walking and thinking, God, if there's something going to hit me or something going to come out, I, I need you to— I need you to— you're my shepherd, you're walking out in front of me, let me know. And so I just walk through life. I don't walk through stumbling, but I don't walk through fearful either. And it's because I base my, my life as best I can on the word of God. And I want to encourage you to do the same. I want to encourage you to— as I've talked about this sovereignty of God I want you to let this think. I want you to meditate on it. I want you to, to ponder things. And, and if you go to my Facebook page, I'm starting to build that out, but I'm putting in scripture and I'm putting on in quotes from older people, people that have passed away, but when it— when times were a little bit slower, where men would think and ponder things. And I just find there's so much wisdom and people in quotes. And I think that's one of the reasons why I like it, because I'll read these quotes and, and it'll be, man, that is, that is incredible. That is just so profound in a small little quote. And bear with me because I, I'm just— there's an awful lot to say grace over on this deal. But I try to put one quote a day on my Facebook page, and then I put it over on Instagram or Versevice. I really don't, I don't have a method yet to my madness, but I'm also putting a scripture on there, and I've been told that I need to go live on Facebook, and I'm like, this can get just a tad bit overwhelming if I'm doing a podcast every day and I'm going live. And anyway, I'm working this through in my world, and there's only so much time in the day, but I'm going to do the quotes and I'm going to do the scripture and I'll do a video. I don't think I'm going to go live all the time, but I just want to thank you for stopping by., and I want to encourage you to dig in the Word today. I also want to encourage you to get those 5 daily prayers. I've got that in episode 5. I think I've got those up and running now, but you can go and download those. Use those every morning. I promise you it'll help you take on the day. Thanks again for listening.

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