[2023.8.10] The Basin: How Do I Do This?

Ephesians 4:22. You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires, to be made new in the attitude of your minds, and to put on the new self created to be like God, in true righteousness and holiness. And what caught my attention just then, reading it, was, you were taught to put off your old self. You were taught to be made new. You were taught to put on the new self. You were taught. Paul is assuming that the audience he's speaking to in the book of Ephesians has received instruction on all of those things. To put off the old self, to be made new in the attitude of your mind, and to put on the new self. And I think there is a difference between being told to do something and taught to do it. Because if you tell me what to do but don't teach me how, I'll be trapped. I will know that I'm not doing it right, but I won't know how to do it any different. I was trying to learn a few moves the other day with the guy who was doing jiu jitsu, and I noticed that, like, when he would tell me to do something, I would have a really hard time. You know, switch this elbow and put this, you know, arm. Now where the other. I mean, it was like, I am not a very athletic guy. Maybe I shouldn't say that. Maybe. Maybe that's me. I'm not doing the new me. But what I mean is, like, I don't naturally just pick up a lot of physical movements and stuff, and I don't know, like, the angles and the geometry of jiu jitsu or grappling or whatever didn't come naturally to me. But when he would get down and show me and go like. And show me I could do a lot better. And I think a lot of times, as I have preached through the years, it's been easier for me to tell people what to do than to teach them how to do it. It's easier for me to tell you to. I don't know. I want to think of one that's pretty applicable. Spend time with God, pray. But the disciples came to Jesus and said, teach us to pray. It's a big difference between telling you to pray and teaching you to pray, because one is, you should. And sometimes when somebody's just giving us a list of things we should do, it not only gets overwhelming, but we become frustrated when we give it our best effort. And like with prayer, for instance, I don't think there's anybody that calls themselves a believer in Christ who doesn't feel like, oh, man, I. Well, I think there probably are some people. There aren't many people. There aren't many of us who are followers of Christ who don't feel like I should pray more. All right, so pray more. How do I do it? Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be in heaven. Okay, okay. But after I pray that prayer, what do I pray? Well, you know, teaching someone something as simple as this can be helpful. That when you pray, a lot of times it's a good idea for you to be more specific about where you are in your walk with God than being generic about where you should be. So, you know, instead of praying like, God, I thank thee that thou art most holy, and I desire to do thy will today. I think that's awesome, and I don't think that's bad. And I think we should magnify God and begin with thanksgiving and praise and adoration. I'm not making fun of that, but I'm saying sometimes you have to start from the place where you are and go, God, I need your help right now. I can't do this without you. But you are the great I am. You are the mighty God. You could do anything. God, I know that you live in me. I know that you love me. I know that you want to help me. You said in your word that I could do all things through Christ, who strengthens me. Right now, I just ask you to flood my body with the energy that I need for this task and help me to have the words that I need to say in this situation, because I feel like my own human wisdom has fallen short. I'm running out of. See what I'm saying? And by starting with God, I need your help. It enabled me to tap into my need for God's strength. And then I praised him. That's a very simple example of it. But we could go on and on. Read your Bible more. How? How? Read my Bible. So if you weren't taught to do something, but you were told to do it, you might find yourself a lot of times feeling ashamed because you feel stupid because you don't know how. And when it comes to this thought of putting off the old self, a lot of people don't know how to do that. And what we end up doing is just hating ourself. Oh, man, I'm so selfish, and I'm such an idiot. And God, I'm such a. Like, I'm so out of control. And what's wrong with me and I'm a screw up and I'm a failure. And you know all these things that I mentioned in week one of my sermon that become identity. Things like, I'm not disciplined. No, I'm just not being disciplined. But I am. I have the potential for discipline because of Christ in me. So even the idea of putting off the old self and Paul saying, you were taught to put off the old self, a lot of people weren't his audience. He had taught them to do it. But a lot of times we haven't been taught. And a lot of times, as I mentioned several weeks ago on the daily devo, we were taught wrong. Therefore, when God is bringing something into our life to model something for us, you meet somebody and you see, oh, wow. I see an example of what it means to be kind. I see an example of what it means to be selfless. I see an example of what it means to think bigger. I see an example of what it means to walk in faith. That example that you see that God will put in your path, a lot of times it's to show you a preview of what he wants to do in your future, that he wants to give you some of those same experiences. He wants to use you in some of those same ways. When we don't put off the old self and when we don't actively cause ourselves to think like, am I nurturing now? The things that are in me that I will need for what God is calling me to be later when we're like, short term focus. Remember my weird scripture? I hadn't got to preach it yet, but from Deuteronomy 20:19, when you lay siege to a city for a long time and they won't fight you and you have to lay siege on the city to try to keep them in the city, don't go putting the ax to trees that can bear fruit. You can eat from them. God wants to feed you from those trees. Don't chop them down. I think of that as being a metaphor for the things that I cut down in my life. Because, oh man, right now I need this tree to be a battering ram. I need this relief. So let me run to this. I need this need met in my life. So let me get it this quick way. All the quick hit things that we do to meet needs that keep us and limit us from experiencing something richer in our future. So when I say, don't fight your future, I'm getting to the fact that a lot of us weren't taught how to deal with the things that come in our life that God wants to use to develop us into the person he made us to be. So when correction comes in our life, we reject it because we're insecure. We chop down the tree that has our future food on it. When relationships come in our life that are new, we're too insecure. So we don't really step into them or we don't really develop them or pursue them because we don't feel like we're worthy of that. We don't believe that God is giving it to us as a gift and we're not ready to receive it. So we chop down the tree of who we could be in the future. And instead of experiencing what God wants to give to us, we go for the short term. Hey, thanks for stopping by my YouTube channel. I hope you were blessed today. If you were, share this with somebody like and subscribe and leave me a comment. Let me know where you're watching from, what we can pray for you about. Hope to see you back here again really soon.