You Must Improve, Not Just Learn.

Hey, this is Tim Pratt Jr. I want to welcome you to the podcast Student of Life. I pray that you hear something that will add value, shape, develop, and cultivate your faith in order to be the person that God desires you to be, as well as the application to see it through. Enjoy. What's up? So this is episode 4 of season 3, and we're going to call this one You Must Improve, Not Just Learn. Um, our foundational text will come from James 1:23-25. And so I just want to read it, and then like I said, we'll start unpacking it, you know, and it'll help bring the context of that, that title all together. So let's go. James 1:23-25. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in the mirror, and after looking at himself goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. That'd be crazy. We still got verse 25 to go through, but that'd be crazy. If I go right now, that's like, you know, just day to day, it's simple. Walk into your mirror, you look at yourself, say for instance for 5 minutes a day, but every single time someone said describe yourself to me, like your features or whatever, if you spend— if you're truly spending that much time, like I'm pretty sure we look in the mirror every day just about most of us. It would be stupid— I mean, maybe it would be questionable then if I asked you like a year later to describe like your facial features. Do you notice anything? What— just describe yourself to, you know, yourself to me. And so it goes on to say, but whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues in it, not forgetting what they have heard but doing it they will be blessed in what they do. So let's look at it all together real quick, starting 23 to 25. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and after looking at himself goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom and continues in it not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it. They will be blessed in what they do. So what do I want to focus on in that? Context matters. You know, you know the scripture, be he doers of the word and just not hearers. I'm paraphrasing because a lot of times we can just hear, hear, hear. You know, we're learning. And you remember we talked about this in season 2 where we have well-filled minds but not well-formed minds. And you can go back to the kind of get, you know, like I said, the full context of that statement. But what does this passage of scripture really mean to, to me and from my perspective through the Holy Spirit? It's simply asking, in this particular context, are you applying what you're learning? Many of us, especially today, we can learn at a fast rate, or we think we learn at a fast rate. You know, we skim through something, we summarize it, and we go. And like I said, you know, once again in that episode, Wellfield versus Foreign Minds, is that a lot of that is at the expense of Siri and primarily Google. You know, we ask Siri right now, even my son, my oldest son for sure does it a lot. Ask him a question, you know, Cam, uh, hey Siri, you know, and then he gives me the answer, uh, but he didn't really know it, but however he had access to it and stuff. And so that's one part of it. But then, you know, we have the part that we really want to focus on this episode is that I get it. You know, one of the things is like read a book a week. You know, I'm not sure you can study, you can auto-listen, you know, podcast after podcast, but you know, are you truly applying it? That's the biggest thing. You know, you've heard me say time and time again, we want to become one with the text. You know. So I remember riding to church one morning with my wife, and literally the Lord spoke to me, and I wrote it down on my phone. But I think I remember he said, live the gospel just as much as you proclaim the gospel. And it was just that simple, you know, because this is the thing, man, we're, we're focusing so much on just learning and, you know, we're, we're becoming effective communicators, and but we're not really improving in our day-to-day life like we should. Now, I'm not saying, you know, because one of the first things— well, God not, you know, well, God ain't done with me yet— that, okay, I get that in this proper context, but don't hijack that and use it to basically, you know, be a— what's this word I'm looking for— just an excuse, an excuse for your lack of development or lack of improvement. And it's all inclusive, and then this goes for me too. So, you know, as you approach and you read these books, you get mentored, coached, or whatever, you have to apply, because oftentimes that's where that, that, that deeper learning that we look for, it comes from application. Deeper learning comes from application. You know, you can get into the whole thing with knowledge versus wisdom, but the doer will always outdo the thinker because basically the application is gonna precede the, just the learning of what is, it's gonna precede, it's gonna come after. But like, for example, when I was studying entrepreneurship, I would just think, think, think. Overanalyze things. And then I started seeing people that, you know, was just getting into the entrepreneur bug, and it's like, dang, bro, they out here like getting it. But it's because they had that, that application. They were like, okay, yeah, I'm learning this, and I'm studying somebody else's story, studying someone else's success or whatever, and I'm making adjustments, tweaks. You can get into the whole Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan thing, but they were able to retweak because they were out there putting together putting those things to practice. So just like when we go grab a book off the shelf, it's really just a page full of words until we start trying to apply but make it our own. Same thing with the Bible. If you're just reading about them and don't have no intent to truly be obedient to the scriptures in proper context and rightly dividing the word of truth through the Holy Spirit, you're not going to improve. You're, you're just going to basically like— you're not going to see the results that you want because it's bad theology and just erroneous teaching, inaccurate concepts of God. So you just can't read it. Like I said, you have to apply. You have to become a doer of the word. Like I say, this is not to negate being a hearer and studying and things like that, but the most important thing is that you have to do it. When you think about it, you know, as we transition to Paul Paul— and we've just spent a lot of time in these Philippians verses in these last 3 episodes, I believe— but Paul stated within Philippians 4:9, whatever you have learned or received or heard from me or seen in me, put it into practice, and the God of peace will be with you. Let's unpack that. How do you put it into practice? We're going to cover 4 points in this thing: read, study, memorize, meditate. Read, study, memorize, meditate. You can't do what God say if you don't read his word, or you can't be an entrepreneur or a financial advisor, whatever that you have aspirations for, a project manager Nurse, you have to read the material. Now you can get out here and trial and error if you want to, and I know, you know what I'm saying, for the most part, you know, somebody can say, well, I can start a business, but in some combination, shape, form, or fashion, yes, I'm pretty sure a long, long time ago that's kind of how we got there. But I believe most of us have either heard of the concept, read something to a certain degree, and just tried to go out there and build a plot under mentorship or whatever they may be. So read— you can substitute that for hearing or whatever, but read. So we have to be able to, like I say, spend time reading. But then studying is different than reading. So I'm studying principles, I'm, I'm studying scripture, I'm, I'm studying, you know, success stories and failures and, you know, all this type of stuff. And I'm trying to get to the point where I can take that knowledge, memorize it, and meditate on it. Because if I go out there in the world, I mean, I can't do anything if I don't know it, if that makes sense. Like, how can I improve in my day-to-day life if I'm not applying it? And I mean, when you think about learning a sport, for example, you take football, basketball, whatever, right now Let's say, for instance, I've never touched a basketball, never touched a football in my life, but I studied book, coach after coach, owner after owner, player after player. I know the offense, the X's and O's, but I never went out there. I did this for 5 years, say, or a year or two, and never put it into practice. I just know of it. I don't know it, I just know of it. For the most part, because I, I can't speak from real world experience. Now, am I saying that that takes away from people that just have studied something, been around it their whole life? No, I'm not trying to take away from that, you know, in the, in the full context of things. But if you look at most sport debates, unless somebody has been around the game— and I'm not talking about, you know, like you take Skip Bayless or Stephen A. Smith or these— like, I know Skip and them probably played a long time ago, But a lot of times when they're debating a very accomplished athlete, proven, that's oftentimes where the disagreement, you know, if they keep disagreeing, it's like, well, I play the game at a high level. So that's all I'm trying to say. Like, yes, in certain things, you know, you can study, study, but at the end of the day, you have to practice it in some capacity. And, you know, and even with the sports people, you can say that they are practicing what they're called to do because they're around the game and they're getting in there engaged in debate, you know. But a person is just sitting behind doing anything, no, like you're, you're not, you're not going to be able to retweet, make adjustments. That's where I believe, you know, in the corner perspective, where wisdom comes from. But then in the scriptures, you know, going back to what Paul said in Philippians 4:9 at the end of it, and the God of peace will be with you. So in the spiritual realm It's the Holy Spirit that empowers. It brings— it helps us do things to the— according to the perfect will of God. You know, I was talking to my wife the other day, and we was talking about how you have destiny in the flesh, you have destiny in the spiritual side of it. And it's like, it's always that duality. But the more and more that we feed our spirit, the Holy Spirit is able to basically correct and reprove us and, you know, move us into it. Like I say, that perpetual victory that we're experiencing here on this earth, being in this fleshly body. So like I say, you have to be able to make adjustments. You do what the word of God says, you learn, you go through the tests and trials, tribulations. And then like I say, that's where that deeper learning or deeper trust on the— into— in the Holy Spirit comes from, because you're applying it You know, you're just— you take somebody, like I say, that knows the scripture, the Bible. I think we talked about this before. They know the Bible backwards, can recite Hebrew, recite, break down, read Hebrew, whatever, and just— they know it, know all the geographical locations, all the ins and outs, but little to no obedience. But you know 3, 4, or my, you know, 5 verses, and you're continuing to build on those week after week, but you're allowing the word to do a work on you, the application of it, you're more effective. You have more spiritual maturity than that person that just knows it. Knowledge-wise, yes, they run circles around you from just pure knowledge, but application, the most important part of it, you're, you're more, you're more spiritually mature, and that's just the truth. So this is why we have to improve. And like I say, going back to, you know, how we opened up, the reason why a lot of us can't see improvement is because we won't get out, get onto the field or the court, whatever terminology you want to use. We have to get out there, you know, just with this faith walk, you know, we teach, we preach, you know, evangelize, um, and on and on and on. And you know, like I say, becoming an effective communicator. And it's no power in a lot of people. Like I say, you know, it's not in the yelling. It's not in the yelling. You know, you can learn, learn, learn, but when, like I said, it's all-inclusive when we basically become one with it. I know I keep saying this, but it's big because like I say, we, we have to get out of this mindset of just learning, learning, learning. But when we become one with the scriptures, or one with whatever the text that we are reading, and we transition into the application of it, that's where we see that major improvement. So ask yourself, you know, what are the last 3 books that you have read? What are the last 3 podcasts you listen to? Or what are the last 3 meaningful, like insightful, challenging conversations that you have had about development, whether it be spiritual, financial, personal, professional, and so on? Do you keep talking about the same thing over and over and over? You know, can you go back to that person and say, well, I kind of see it this way now that I've applied it because that didn't exactly work for me? Or are you just basically accumulating a bunch of notes and you have about 300 pages of notes But you keep going to the next book and reading but haven't applied the, you know, apply from the first 300 pages. And so now you're on your way to do another 100 and another 100, and before you know it, you probably can write 16, 17 books. You know, probably can write the whole Bible over just through learning it. And so like I say, but what does that application part look like? The studying and then moving over into saying, okay, Tried this, this didn't work. Oh, this is why I don't have improvement. You know, for me, one of my biggest things was like speaking up in meetings and really controlling meetings when I became a project manager. And what I mean by that is like I was— I kept studying material, I knew what to do, but I wouldn't do it every time. Sometimes I would, but not, not in those critical times. I wasn't doing it enough. I should be doing it every single time. Being that that's one of my primary things is just controlling the, the project, you know, in the proper context, of course. But I— and so time and time it's just like I'm talking about it, okay, well, but I'm not doing it. And so, but now I'm seeing improvement because, you know, I got to like, okay, it was a confidence thing, and it was a confidence thing with me learning, like, learning the platform and really learning that intimate knowledge that I needed to know in order to produce the necessary confidence to speak up and correct things or challenge things and so on. And then sometimes it was just to be quiet, like, because it was like, okay, this is, you know, ask the right questions, get things back on track. So, you know, by summer I want to be very efficient at this. And moving on, like I say, with just being more proactive in my discipline, you know, and life. And so it's just like, but I had to start, like, all these leadership books, all these management process things and business things. I was studying them, but it's like it was just slow improvement in my day-to-day life because I wasn't applying it. That's like I say, application is huge. So ask yourself, like, what are you— are you— are like, do you take finances? I know, like, I just want to do this one. Are you seeing the same results? Are you studying a financial book? Have you been to Financial Peace University by Dave Ramsey? Have you listened to the latest financial podcast? Okay, now look at your life a year or two ago. Have you seen any improvement, or are you still kind of doing the same thing? So that's an indicator. And I understand we can be dealt with certain things and certain things can hit us, but I believe if you look at that over a 2 to 3 year period, what does your improvement look like? Is it minimal? Like, is it moderate, or is it just a lot? You know, a great, a great gain. And just be truthful with yourself. And I believe that's when you'll be able to make the distinction. Am I just a lifelong learner, or am I a lifelong learner and plus a person, a lifelong doer, a person that's basically actually applying what I'm learning? Hey, so I want to thank you for taking the time to listen to this content today. If it has impacted you in any kind of way, I want to encourage you to share it on your social media feed with family and friends. And if you desire to connect with me on a more deeper level, go to www.timothyprattjr.org where you'll get more information on how to do that. With that being said, continue to have a blessed day, and Lord's will, I'll see you next time.