The Seven Pillars (Part 3) - A Lifestyle In The Spiritual Disciplines - Rod Mills

​This is a series on the 7 Pillars of the AeroNova spiritual family, the DNA markers of who God has called us to be as a people.
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In this teaching we discuss the second pillar, the spiritual disciplines. These are the means by which we grow into relationship with God.

Full transcript generated by ai (please excuse errors):




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​Does anybody remember the topic that we're talking about? Did you forget we were only gone a week? Yep, the seven pillars. We're talking about the seven pillars of of our spiritual family but also what I believe is something God is birthing in the in the church, what I call the Friends of Jesus. Sometimes I call it a movement, not that it's something really big, but just that it's movement of God in many people. And I also believe that the Lord is calling a spiritual order, if you will, a people who commit to this lifestyle. Do you guys kind of track what a lifestyle is? What's the difference between a spiritual practice and a lifestyle? Okay. Oh, the zoom. People need more volume. Okay. Well, here let's is this one on two? Damn. He just went downstairs. Oh, let me do this testing zoom people. Okay, just a moment. All right. So it's, this is the way it was at the retreat. Yeah. So that's what they told me at the retreat, because we had multiple microphones and multiple recordings going. And so do this. I'm going to look out on the big screen TV here. And 10 is really loud. And zero means you can't hear me. Give me a number. Just put your fingers up by the camera, you guys. I want to see. Okay, Camilla has given me. I can't even tell what Camilla has given me. He's holding up weird fingers. Okay. 910. Okay. All right. Good deal. So I think we're okay. Now, sometimes what'll happen is we'll get several people who were coming in as a nine, and then some, it'll come in as a two. And so we're trying to figure that out. So we're, when we talk about lifestyle, we're talking about a commitment to a way of life, and not just a way of life as in Oh, yeah, we'll kind of do this once a while. It is a lifestyle where these are DNA markers that mark how we live, and how we live our lives, how we relate to people. And so when we talk about this, we're we're really, I'm sharing with you the vision that I have seen God give us as a people, not just me personally, but many of us as a spiritual family, spiritual people. And spiritual orders are usually characterized by certain what I call spiritual DNA markers, but habits or, or some call them rules, but not in the way you would think rule and the way we live. And so does anybody remember what, what our first pillar is? Yes, thank you. I'm like, we might have to go back and reteach it if no one can remember. All right, pop quiz. No. So that's the first pillar. Prayer is actually the is one of the spiritual disciplines. But I feel that prayer is so important. And you go back and listen to that teaching, I feel that prayer is so important that it needs to be its own pillar in our own spiritual community. And when I say spiritual community, I mean, the people here the people on Zoom, that people who travel and minister with us, and who have committed to this kind of lifestyle, we understand that none of us have arrived or perfected in obedience, or all of this kind of tracking. Everyone agree with that, like none of us have arrived? It's not like we're saying, oh, yeah, this group of people, we got all these down. Alright, so don't feel bad. If you're hearing some of this and going, Well, I'm not sure I'm there yet. It's okay. Because God has given us a vision of who he's called us to be. So none of us have that any we're not perfected in the seven pillars. However, these characterize our calling, as the Friends of Jesus in this tribe, in this ecosystem to which he's called us. Now, me personally, I have I have noticed that God has called me to tribes in the body specific Kindred, pneus of spirit, and people for a lifetime, you will notice that there are people who are interact with us. And every once in awhile I'll allude to things 20 years ago, 15 years ago, 30 years ago, 30 to 33 years ago, 35 years ago, because I believe that God calls us to lifetime commitments. I don't believe God calls me to just kind of bounce around and commit to different people, I believe that's the nature of spiritual family. In other words, when my kids left home, I didn't say Hey, see you later, you know, call me when you're on your deathbed. You know, or call me when you get grandchildren. Or because I believe that family spiritual families the same way we commit to one another, and in this way, and if you notice, I don't know if you've looked at but many of the spiritual orders, both in the Protestant Church and the Catholic Church are the same way. It's a lifetime, adventure together. Now, none of us have arrived. But we do have this vision of these pillars that God gives us to aim at you. How many of you remember that old saying, If you aim at nothing you'll hit unless you're really lucky. Sometimes it just, but I'll never forget, years ago when we were living in North Carolina, and one of the boys was practicing his archery. Which one was it? The remember I can't remember is one of the younger boys was it was either Gabe or Dan. It was you and Dan's out there in the backyard. And he's, he's a good trooper. He's got he's got hay bales up. And he set them up in front of the fence. And so there's a wooden fence. And there's hay bales up. And Dan shoots and somehow this this side are like this. And on this side. We're like, Yeah. Yeah, so there's a double fence slats on one side every other slat. So there's no gap really, I mean, it doesn't look like there's a gap anyway, Dan shoots an arrow. And it goes between the hay bales, like how in the world, it literally goes right between one that was stacked on another one. And then it goes literally right between the two slats that had to be absolutely perfect. And then it went right between the little metal things in Andrews car, hit the radiator, and steam starts flying through. You will never do that again in a million years. But he was aiming, right he was aiming the point I'm making. The illustration is not real. It's just a good funny illustration. But the point really is that if we aim at nothing, we hit nothing. So these pillars, we're not saying that with the seven pillars, we've got it all together. We're saying that we recognize God's call for us to live in spiritual family, spiritual community in these and to walk with God, and to flock with God and God's people that he's called in this in this spiritual order. So God has given us our identity. He's given us our strengths. And he's given us our target as a spiritual family. I now we're going to talk about pillar two. The second pillar, are the spiritual disciplines. Now, technically, prayer is part of the spiritual disciplines. But we already separated that because we feel that is so important. And we went through the scriptures of why we feel that's so important. I view the spiritual disciplines, like buffet lines. You ever been through a buffet line now some of you might not be able to remember because they closed them all during COVID. But I see the spiritual disciplines like buffet lines, we grow. These are the means by which we grow into relationship with God and dine with him. Remember, when Jesus after the resurrection, the disciples were distraught, and they're out fishing couldn't catch fish, they came in, and they see Jesus at the campfire, and he's cooking fish for breakfast. And he says, come and dine, come and dine. And I believe that's what Jesus says in the spiritual disciplines. come and dine. This is the way you get the food. Right? And by which we grow in relationship, deeper relationship with God. And these things also bring us into more powerful ministry. But we don't do them for the more powerful ministry. Now I know some people and I have some very dear friends who the reason why they have a prayer life is because they want a more powerful ministry. That's okay. Yes, that's that's the way you do it. But that's not the purpose of it. The purpose of prayer is To know God to be connected with him, and to enjoy the fulfillment of everything there is in that relationship. Some Now, you might might want to write these down this just good to know stuff. Some people have recognized that most of the spiritual disciplines, and there are many, I'm not gonna talk about them all today, but I'm talking about some, they usually fall under three categories, disciplines of solitude, or listening is the first category. And there's a whole bunch of spiritual disciplines that come under solitude or listening, disciplines of service. And this is spiritual disciplines that involve serving God and serving his people, and disciplines of surrender, which are things like the spiritual discipline of repentance, the spiritual discipline, of submission, the spiritual discipline of yielding to the will of God above my own will, the holy practice of aligning our lifestyle with the kingdom of God and close friendship with him, is most often experience through the spiritual disciplines. It's usually through the disciplines that we come into close connection, I'm talking about relational connection with God. So let's take a few minutes and let's look at a few of them. I've jotted a few down, there are quite a few. I don't know that anyone really has an exhaustive list. I already talked about prayer. And so I won't cover much of that. But someone I think it was Lucy was just talking about remembering the words God speaks. And the second one I wrote down here, spiritual journaling. Because if your memories like mine, there's a lot of things that you don't remember. And that's the reason why we spiritual spiritually journal is journaling things that God speaks, or we think God speaks to us maintaining a prayer journal. Now I know I'm preaching to the choir, I know a lot of you already. Keep a prayer journal. Some of you when I met, you kept a prayer journal, some of you when we met, you didn't keep a prayer journal. And so we hope to have cultivated this spiritual discipline. And let me say, for those that may not have heard me say this before, we're not talking about a diary. Okay. Diaries want, you know, Oh, I gotta write in it every day. Dear Diary, Baba Baba, that's not what I'm talking about. It's per journal is where we write down things that we believe God is saying to us, or we believe that God is emphasizing, or a dream, or something that stood out in the Scriptures to us. And I found many times and I didn't pick up on this in my early life, I was writing things down. And I thought, Man, I don't think I'm hearing from God. But I'm gonna write this down. And I found out many of them, I actually was, and I just didn't realize it. So prayer journaling is a spiritual discipline. So if someone said, Well, what's one of the things that characterizes your family, and your spiritual family and the people that you flock and fly with? What would you say? You'd say, oh, prayer, journaling, we're a prayer journaling people. We like to prayer journal. And then if they ask you what that means, you can tell them and then teach them how to prayer journal. Also. I have prayer journals from way back. I mean, just written handwritten notes. I finally had to pay one of the kids to scan a bunch of man years later, because I had so many Well, now I do it electronically. Now, Lucy, I know you don't like to do electronically because they get lost. I'm just I have to do them electronically. Because do you do both? Yeah. So I do it. And then I backed them up. And then I occasionally will even print them out? Because Have you ever had been looking for that words like Man, where is that word, I love it to be able to search that word. And then this just a little technique you might use what I do is every once in a while I'll file a journal and go to a new one. And when I do that, I collate that electronically with a master journal. So in other words, I block and copy that two years of journal, and I put it into the master journal. So that the master journal has all the electrons I've been writing since I started doing electronic journals, and then back that up in the cloud, back that up and then print that out. You know, do it all you know, and then I'll tell you these journals will become very powerful in your life and in the lives of your children. And if the Lord Terry's is coming when your grandchildren are on the earth and they're seeking God, and they start reading your journals. Did you guys know and correct me if I'm think this is accurate. Oswald Chambers did not write any of Oswald Chambers books. His wife wrote in shorthand. Now, that's a no no one even does that anymore, I don't think but shorthand was a quick way to jot everything down verbatim. And his wife wrote in shorthand, and she captured the notes from his teachings. You know, Jesus never wrote a book. Right? He never wrote one book. Neither did Oswald Chambers. But people were writing down what they were saying. So all these books and my utmost for his highest. All of this is just collections of his teachings. He was teaching at a Bible college in the British and in Great Britain. And then whenever World War One kicked off, he went to be a chaplain in North Africa, and he died in Cairo, and that he died young, like, I think, What 4042 Something like that, died young, but his wife was writing them down. And he had writings he had journal writings and things, and those were captured. And today, people are blessed by them. All right. The next one is worship, worship. Did you know worship is a spiritual discipline? It sure is worship. So we don't see worship. And I'm saying among us, and I'm speaking to all those in zoom, and I'm speaking about those that we connect in our ecosystem. We don't see worship as something we do for 25 minutes on Sunday morning, or Saturday night or, right. Like, that's just one little piece. So one of the things we're going to do is we're gonna break bread together by everybody said, A man like we're so good. It's so good to be back. We're gonna break bread together. But it's not like, Okay, you're not going to eat again, too. We'll see you next week at Mission House. Right? We're going to eat all week, right? And everybody said, Amen. Especially those who've been fasting, we're going to wait, it's part of our diet to worship God. And there's all kinds of ways to worship not just in song, but also in poem. Also, in writing also, in, you know, when I was in the mountains, I've just go out and go for a walk in the majestic mountains. We were at 9000 feet, and it was just beautiful. And some of you probably heard the story. But one day, actually, I was teaching. Did y'all hear the bear story? So I was teaching one morning, and if you ever have been most of you haven't been there, but at Spring Canyon, this behind the stage, the whole wall is just windows, giant Windows next to right on the ground, you're on ground level, giant windows, you know, and I'm teaching and I don't know what I said, but I said something. And all of a sudden, everybody got this look of extraordinary revelation on their face. And I was like, Wow, man, that hit harder than I thought it was gonna hit, you know. And their eyes get bigger like this. And they look like they wanted to say something but nothing was coming out of their mouth. Like they almost like they were scared or something. And then that go wheeling guy goes bear like this. And there was a great big bear standing right behind me like 10 feet. But there was a window between me and him. And so anyways, we quickly rushed out because he was headed right for the children's play area. He was probably 20 yards maybe. Yeah, he went right by nataline Cliffs clear and, and so he was headed. I mean, he was probably 15 yards from the play area of the kids. So we headed out and another guy headed out and scared him around this way. And then he followed Tyler and Maverick. He followed him all the way back. She had food in the stroller, I think that was probably the problem. But um, just all of that to say I got kind of sidetracked because it was kind of an intense experience. But we were in nature. And have you ever noticed how much easier it is to worship God in His creation than it is in our creation? Now I can worship God downtown, don't get me wrong. But when I'm in downtown, and I'm surrounded by buildings and honking horns and people on the streets and trash blowing by and all of that, it doesn't quite invoke the same praise you Lord, thank You for the but when I'm out into the beauty of the mountains or the ocean, and it's God's creation, something just cries out and it just come into communion fellowship with the Lord. And so worship is something we do as a spiritual discipline. Now, why is it called a spiritual discipline? Because we're intentional about it. Now, don't think discipline as bad How many of you think when you think about discipline, it kind of gives you a negative? It's kind of like you can be honest with me okay, I'm not gonna say your name to the world on the microphone. Yet you know, I'm saying like, it's like when people say discipline your man, you know, it kind of makes me Like, Oh, that makes me a little tired. You know? How many of you are really disciplined to eat? Yeah, you don't miss many meals do you? Right? You don't miss many meals. And if you've got a good chef in the house, or if you know a good chef, that you're around a lot, you have a lot of great meals. I like that kind of discipline. How about you I like I mean, I love that kind of discipline, it's not going to take a whole lot of effort for me to break bread today, with you, especially with that good smoke flavor. And I keep smelling, which is bacon, by the way. But that it, there's the spiritual disciplines, God calls us to enjoy them like a cuisine. That's why I said I look at the spiritual disciplines, much like a buffet line. The next one is something I mentioned earlier, solitude. Now these are all different disciplines, but they have overlap in meaning you're tracking. So they have some meaning. That's the same and some meaning that's different. Solitude. That's being alone. There's times when we need to be alone. And we were sharing about this at the campus retreat. I'm at the retreat this week. Beth and I were talking about how in the mornings in our family, it is alone time with God. It's not family prayer time. And I tell this story, because when Beth and I first got married, we kind of had a little argument, the first week after the honeymoon, because I went into prayer to lock the bedroom door. And she's like, trying to get inches I want, I want to pray to like you're leaving me out. And I'm like, oh, wait a minute. This isn't my time with the Lord, you know, in those things that happen in the first year of marriage. And we had to work that out. And then she found out Oh, my goodness, I don't want to be with you during prayer time. You know, when she realized how good it is just her and Jesus, we have our prayer times. But that personal time with him is rich, it's important. So solitude is a is a spiritual discipline, being alone with God. Now, there's another kind of solitude and that is where we retreat together into a place of quiet, like Jesus did with his disciples. This is what I call retreat or spiritual retreat. Sometimes that spiritual retreat has fellowship and connection. And other times it is in silence and just being quiet before the Lord. Silence is another spiritual discipline. So I say this, because I said this earlier, before we started the recording, more than ever, I believe in spiritual retreat as a spiritual discipline. If you can hear what I just said, put it in bold, put it in, underlined, put it in italics, I am realizing that, and this is for those of you that younger, if I could go back and tell myself something, this is one of the things I would go back and tell myself, spend more time in retreat, spend more time with Jesus, you will not regret it. Now I knew this conceptually. I even taught that course I told you about 9095 on wasting time with God. But I didn't understand it with the depth that I do now. Now I realize this is hard because we don't it's not like we just have, you know, six months of vacation time to do this, right. But we can be intentional and set aside times to have retreat. And when I say retreat, really like Jesus going out and withdrawing. That's what retreat means, into the quiet place. Luke chapter five, verse 16. Jesus Himself, often can you say often, often, with Drew into the wilderness and prayed? How many of you like that verse? Some people really like it. I'll read it again. Jesus Himself, often withdrew into the wilderness and prayed wilderness there that word wilderness is translated, uninhabited nature. You see you like many of you, if not all of you, I don't know if everyone here does, but I'm going to guess that most of you like going into uninhabited nature. Maybe it's because God made you that way. Ever think about that. It's this is something in us that wants to withdraw, not to just leave society, but to withdraw to recharge, and to connect with Jesus. And sometimes it's Mike, it's, it's on a lake or reservoir fishing. And, you know, in the old days, I used to grow up here in a Baptist preachers and I went to a Baptist church for years and, and so, you know, and they'd be preaching it, you know, I always say I can worship God out here with a fishing pole. And the preachers are getting on him about not fellowshipping with believers. But the truth is, that's one of the best places to worship. It might be with a fishing pole, with God. And there are times when you need that retreat in that connection with God. And I would say this characterizes us as a people because we're already doing it some, but it's our calling is to be people of retreat. One Amen. Yeah, that's, I'm with you. Were called to be people of retreat. Mark chapter six, verse 31, Jesus said to them, Come aside by yourselves to a deserted place, and rest a while. Now Jesus wasn't just talking about physical rest. Jesus was calling them into connection with God. Jesus was good about teaching his disciples this as a lifestyle. He would often do this, as the Bible just said. Have you noticed how many feasts Israel had? Do you guys know how long the typical feast was in Israel? Come on, I need to we got some Israel scholars in here. Come on. About a week, about 10 days. Usually it's a week to 10 days. That's a feasting period. How many feasting periods were there in Israel? Three main ones, right? There was more than that. But there's three main ones. When you love it, if your boss at your job says listener, I realize you need some retreat time. So three times a year, you just go take 10 days, and you just feast with your family and your spiritual family and take time off and connect with one another, pray and worship when you love that. That's what they did. That was their lifestyle. So God was was establishing his nation in the patterns to be an example to the nations of the earth. He was teaching them this is the way you live, not two weeks of vacation a year. That's not biblical. Right. Now, I realize you can't probably tell your boss that. But who knows, you might be able to pray and work something out. But you know, I don't want to make things difficult for you at work. But it's, this is really cool. This is the way God is. And that's what I'm interested in is how is God and how can I live into that? Now, our problem is a lot of times we're like, Wow, no, that's not enough money, you know, because our priorities are not the same always as gods are. Times in retreat with Jesus or times in solitude and prayer can often bring extraordinary encounters with God. But God does not intend for us to remain in retreat, right? We're, we're not just resting to rest, we're connecting with him in relationship. This was kind of part of the mistake Peter made. So Jesus decides they're going to go on a little retreat, but this is going to be a special one. And so he takes three disciples with him on this retreat, Luke, chapter nine, verse 32. But Peter, and those with him were heavy with sleep. How many times this is just a side note? How many times in your life now in my life, this has happened a lot. When God was getting ready to show up in a major way. You just come somehow we're passive, dull, not tracking. Have you ever been there? I have. I've been I've been like, Okay, Lord, we're doing this, okay, I'm here. You know, all of a sudden, God starts moving. I'm like, Whoa, wait a minute, I wasn't ready for this. And it says Peter was the same way that he was heavy with sleep. And then when they being all three of them were fully awake. They saw Jesus glory. And there were two men who stood with Jesus on the mountain. Then it happened as they were parting from him, that Peter said to Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here. Let us make three tabernacles. Now this shows you who the other two people were on the mountain, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah. That's who Jesus was talking to on the mountain Moses and Elijah, not knowing what he said. In other words, the Scripture Luke was saying he didn't really understand what he was suggesting. And then in verse 34, while he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them and they were feel they were fearful as they entered the cloud, and a voice came out of the cloud, whose voice was it? God's voice saying, This is my beloved son. Listen to him. This is like your dad, when he said to you listen to your mother, this is like, kinda like that. You know, he's going, Hey, guys, you're recommending staying up here on the mountain. This is my Son, listen to him. He's gonna say something important. And have you ever been there where you're on the mountain, and you just wanted to stay there, build a tabernacle. Just let's just stay here, Lord, let's just stay up here. That's not God's will. It's not God's will to stay, stay up there and just be in retreat for the rest of our lives. That's not our calling. So all I'm saying is, is that retreat is something we do. But it's not something that we just, it's not the end all that we're just shooting for. All right, the next one meditated meditation on Scripture. This is the art and practice of extended times, in small portions of Scripture, meditating. And how many of you have been in a verse or two, and you're meditating and you're praying, and you just can't leave that verse like, God just keeps speaking to you through that verse. And again, and again. And again. That's meditation. I just throw this out. I learned this years ago, a good meditation technique is to emphasize one word. So what's one of your favorite scriptures? Somebody pick a favorite scripture. What is it, Sif? And what's it say? Do you remember? This? Yeah, so, you're my rock, and my salvation. Let's take that statement that David made in the Psalms. You're my rock and my salvation. Now immediately when I emphasize you're my rock and my salvation, I immediately thinking, Wait a minute, you're my, you're my rock and salvation, my salvation, not somebody else you are. And then you emphasize another one, you're my rock, and my salvation. Now I'm emphasizing rock, and God begins to speak to me through that emphasis on the word rock. That's one of the best scripture meditation methods I've ever I've ever used and experience. Because as I emphasize each individual word, God begins to show me how important that one word is in the process. Here's another one study of Scripture. And I also say study of theology. Now, theology is the study of who, God and His ways. So when we say study that's different than meditation. It's, it's, this is more in depth than meditation study, involves study, research, meditation, looking up the words application of the Scripture, growing in our skills to research and communicate what God is revealing to us. I shared this a few weeks ago, probably two weeks ago, I sent a word out to our men. And I felt it from the Lord as I was praying to all the men. I feel like the Lord saying, some of the men will say it now, the Lord's saying, study the Bible. Can you hear it? The Lord's saying to our men study the Bible. I don't know why other than it's important. I believe God is saying to us men, I feel like a lot of our women are studying the Bible, but felt like the Lord saying, men, you're not too busy to study the Bible. study, research, look up words, write down meanings. See what God is saying. study the Bible men. And when you do, you're gonna find out you're on a buffet line. That's the meat lovers buffet line. You know what I mean? You're gonna find prime rib filet mignon, barbecue pork ribs. Well, sorry for those that are not poor teeters, but you know what I'm saying? You're gonna get you start studying the Bible, you're gonna find that you're on one of the main buffet lines of God's delicacies and revealing himself. This is for the men another one is fasting. This is the practice of surrendering appetites in the natural, so we can cultivate spiritual appetites for God. Now a lot of people think of fasting as just fasting food. What else can you fast y'all help me out what else can you fast? media, TV. What else You know, we used to fast media a lot. The old days, we didn't have cell phones and smartphones and iPads, and we didn't have all that. There's a lot of things you can fast. There's there's a time to fast relationships when you get away by yourself. There's all kinds of fasting. Now, what does fasting? Well, let me say this one of the most important things about fasting, guys, if you're going to fast, please hear, hear me, hear me hear me. It must be coupled with prayer. If you start fasting, and you got a lot of work to do, and you're going to work, you're doing all this stuff. You're just doing a glorified diet. Right? Fasting always goes with prayer. If you see fasting and prayer they are they work in tandem together. It can be actually tough. If you start fasting and you're not in prayer. It's a lot of times you'll be tempted in ways that you're not ready for, right? Because fasting, you're depriving yourself of natural appetites. But we have to be feeding ourselves in the spiritual appetites. Because fasting is designed to go with prayer in connection with God. Serving in body ministry is another spiritual discipline that we are characterized by. So we understand like you, you may go to some churches or ministries and they're not big on fast, they're not big on scripture, meditation, maybe they're, they're big on something else. But these are what we believe God's called us fasting and then serving in the body. When I say this, you will notice that we have not established ministry in such a way that we have a lot of greeters, parking lot attendants, Usher's, right, janitors. Now, I understand there's a place for that in the body. But our calling is a little different. Our calling is training people in body ministry, that's an emphasis God's called us to. I'm not knocking those other ministries of helps at all, I'm just saying that that's not the central emphasis of God's calling for us. God's central emphasis, his calling for us is pillar number two, it's all these pillars. But pillar number two is what the spiritual disciplines, training people to hear God and walk with Him, and flock with God's people and move together in ministry to the nations. So body ministry, when we say body ministry, we're talking about this ministry to the body of Christ sharing in a constant flow of Revelation, and wisdom and the things that God is saying, this is the reason why we have the prayer streams with guys. Listen, the prayer streams are not predominantly for my cousin, just by the way, I had a cousin that just passed away in the last 24 hours. Now, I didn't send that out. But that's not the primary reason for our for our perk Council streams. Yes, we answer prayer requests, don't hesitate to send your prayer requests. We want to do that. But the main purpose is the full flow of what God is saying to His people. Are you guys tracking with me? So it's not just grocery list praying, it's for praying, that's releasing revelation, releasing wisdom, releasing what God's saying and what God is about to do. This is the primary purpose of our prayer streams. So we're serving in body ministry. This is one reason why I asked folks and our own spiritual family and people we walk with in this in this journey. What do you see yourself doing in the kingdom? What is God speaking to you? What kind of things is God bringing alive to you? Because I'm looking for? What are those gifts in you? And how can we bring them to life? In that what I mean is how can we water them? How do we water them? Now, if you'll notice, I'm not real pushy? Like, I'm not like trying to push people real hard to do thing, what I'm doing is watered a little bit and see what you do with it. Water a little bit and see what you do with it. And I'm looking for people who have four qualities, what are they helped me out heart for God? Availability, faithfulness, teachability, those four things, because 90 some percent of my energies go into those people in places in those situations. So this is our calling to cultivate people into this body Ministry of serving. But when we say serving, we don't necessarily mean what all the other churches mean. I mean, some of them Yes, absolutely. But not all of them. Right. You kind of tracking with me. It's like we don't have a big Ministry of helps program development, right? Because that's not Our focus our focus is in the spiritual disciplines developing people to influence out of the relationship with God, walk with him and bring people up as modern Elijah's and Enoch in the faith, people who walk with God, that's our calling, simplicity, the lifestyle of simplicity. Now simplicity is a spiritual discipline, the lifestyle of simplicity. What is it? What does it look like? That doesn't necessarily mean you live in a tiny house. Does anybody here live in a tiny house? You've seen those, you get one? Lucy shaking her head, no. Maybe a fifth wheel, camper or something? Yeah, simplicity does not necessarily mean you've moved to a tiny house, off the grid, it could mean that. But the lifestyle of simplicity means it's free of clutter. It's free of activity. I don't mean complete, like you always have activities in our lives, but we're not loaded down with activities. It's free of the things that draw our affections away from God. Like in other words, God doesn't want me developing half a dozen hobbies. So that I'm busy, got this hobby, got this hobby and got this hobby. And what I've noticed is, God will, he will give us as much freedom as he can give us. And and if we can't be faithful with that, have you ever noticed how God will kind of tighten the schedule on you a little bit, you know, and God wants to give us as much freedom as we can handle. But if we can't be good stewards of that freedom, then a lot of times, and I've had seasons in my life, literally where God has spoken this to me and I've shared it. The Lord says, Yeah, I'm gonna keep you busy. Because if you don't stay busy, you're gonna get in trouble. I've had years of my life, especially in my 20s, God spoke that to me very heavily. It's in my journals, Lord says I'm gonna keep you busy. It'll keep you out of trouble. Because I was praying one day, I was like, Lord is hard. Oh, my God, I'm working full time going to school full time doing this. But in all these, you know, doing what God had called me to do, and I'm like, Lord, this is hard. And Lord is like, I'm gonna keep you busy. Because not a bad busy. I don't mean just busyness. But I'm going to keep you fully employed. Because right now, if I don't you get into trouble. And then as time went on, he's cultivating responsibility in us, so that we can use that time that we've been given faithfully. And then what we see is, God will give us as much as he can, that we can be faithful with. All right, the lifestyle of simplicity. What is that? Really? How does that relate to the lifestyle of simplicity is when we learn to prune things ourselves. We don't wait until God goes, well, son. I've been trying to get you to prune this and you didn't prune it. So I'm gonna have to help you out here a little bit, because he will, he will help prune things if they don't get pruned. And I want to be faithful to say, God, you know what I'm, I'm with you remember about a year ago, and the Lord has given us those pruning words. And we said, Lord, we want to prune with you, we want to be with you and this not working against you are resisting the pruning that God would do. And God has done pruning in many different fashions, schedule, time, energy, money, all kinds of things. The Lord is pruned back in order to get us to a place where we're faithful with what we've been given. Because he's, he's literally cultivating us. Remember, the Scripture says, The Lord loves those he chases, chases those, he loves that sons are the ones who get chasing. And we say, Lord, I don't know why I don't like that word chasing. Well, a lot of times, it's not punted, don't think of it as punishment. It's God bringing discipline into our lives, to help us be effective and be fruitful. Much of the pruning that occurs in our lives occurs, so that we live and remain in simplicity. And a lot of times, it's not pruning of sinful things. You see what I'm saying? There's many good things we can do. But God prunes those out, but many things clutter our life and our affections if we let them. So the life of simplicity is literally pruning away those things that are that are detracting our attention, our appetites in our love, our first love for him. This is the life of simplicity, spiritual contemplation and reflection. There this is another spiritual discipline. There are very various definitions of spiritual contemplation and reflection, I must share one, I believe that it's the lifestyle get this of spiritual gazing upon Jesus and His Nature, his teachings, his creation, His truths, his relationship with us, his desires and his plans. This is the nature of the spiritual discipline of contemplation, where we're literally gazing into the ways of God. And we look into the ways of God. The scripture says in Second Corinthians three, I'll read for verse 18. But we all with unveiled face be holding as in a mirror, this word beholding means to gaze into, okay, it's not this right here. It doesn't mean Oh, glance over at God. You know, give God a glance, it's not this is not a word of glance at God. It is a beholding, or a gazing into God and into his ways. And it says that, that those who do are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, if we want to be like Jesus, look into Jesus, look into his ways, look into his nature, look into how he works with people look into how he feels, and how he moves around situations and people. Another one, we've already talked about his spiritual friendship. This is a lifestyle of close Kingdom relationships. I've already talked about it, spiritual friendship, but this is the nature got listen. I hope and pray that you don't find anyone in our midst, in our whole network of relationships and people in our spiritual family. I hope you don't find anyone who does not live and walk in close spiritual friendships, there should be no people should be alone. No one should be alone. Everyone should be connected. And when I say alone, I don't mean live alone, because you can. You can live with people and still be lonely, because we're not connected. God's called us to live in spiritual friendships with one another. This is our calling. This is our, the way God has called us to be. Right. And so what I found is when I live in spiritual friendship, it cultivates hunger. The hunger is of God in His appetites in my life. And we could talk about that on a different time. But that's just something I've observed Sabbath thing. You guys know this, we teach on it a lot is more than a commandment. It's more than a day of the week. It's a spiritual discipline. It's very similar to retreat, but it's coming away to connect with God. And it's not just retreating away to a quiet place. It's just resting in God, or ceasing from our own works and entering into his and connecting with him. And we won't teach on Sabbath thing. Today. There's quite a few others. Secrecy is another one. By the way, secrecy when I'm talking about is when Jesus talks about in Matthew chapter six, Jesus talks about Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. This is a fancy way of saying there's certain things just do them. Don't try to get people's attention from them. But he says, When you pray, go in your room. And when you've shut your door, pray to your Father who's in the secret place, and the Lord will reward you openly. You don't have to tell people. Now sometimes it's important. Sometimes it's important if you're mentoring, or you're or you're discipling someone and they say, Well, how much do you pray, don't go? Well, that's a secret. I'm not going to tell you don't do that. Like, it's good to say, well, I pray about two and a half hours in the morning, and then 30 minutes later in the morning, and then a couple hours at night, whatever it is, if that's what you do. Don't Don't hide that because Well, Jesus told me not to tell anybody. Because people you disciple need that. All he's saying is, don't be like the Pharisees and be like, Yeah, I'm gonna put it on my Facebook page. I prayed for hours today, you know, there's a whole lot of stuff probably doesn't need to go on Facebook anyway. But, you know, I'm saying like, you don't need to, you don't need to just put it out there, you know. But if you're discipling people, this is very important. So I hope you can see what secrecy is. Another one is stewardship. The spiritual discipline of stewardship is stewarding our time, our money and our energy. Now, there was a good word that was floating around in the prayer streams a few weeks ago about not squandering. You guys remember that? How about you guys on Zoom? I see a few people out there that aren't just pictures. Do you all remember that word, there was a word flying around about not squandering what God has given us whether it be time, whether it be money or whether it be energy, God was calling us to invest it into His kingdom and His ways don't waste what God has given us. And I'll tell you, in this spiritual discipline, God has called us as a people to be extreme. Avigail givers of our time, our money in our energy. Now I'll tell you this is something I've seen have phenomenal impact in my own life and the people I respect. But I want to tell you throughout my life, I've watched a remarkable, I underline I bold, that word, I put it in all caps. I've watched a remarkable phenomenon of people I've known, who give sacrificially. And what I mean was, I mean, their time, I mean, their energy and their money. I'm talking about those three things. And you know, what I noticed? Most people I know, who give sacrificially in one of those areas usually give sacrificially in the other two, most of the time. Now, there's a few variations. But this is the I'll tell you what, this is one of if I started if I could just tell you stories like right now if we just had like two more hours, and I could just tell you stories about people I've watched live this way. It would blow your mind, the divine blessing, the divine protection, the the spirit of victory that rests upon their families. But God wants wholeheartedness he doesn't he that's a promise so many things is we don't go into it necessarily wholehearted. So I want to read a passage Jesus says in Matthew chapter six, verse 24. And by the way, this is a spiritual discipline, guys, this is not just a oh yeah, obey God, this area, a spiritual discipline is what it's something we do. Again and again. And again, that brings us into deep connection with God and His kingdom. So I'm reading this is all written in read, Jesus says every one of these words I'm getting ready to read, No one can serve two masters. for either he will love the one and hate the other. Or else he'll be loyal to one, and he'll despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Now, there's a lot of Christians that have not learned this lesson in America. There's a lot of believers in America, this lesson right near right here has not sunk in. Therefore, I say to you, do not worry about your life. How many of you have worried about your life before? What you will eat? What you will drink, nor worry, do not worry about your body or what you will put on what your clothes are going to be? Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, the birds of the air and neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them all. Are you not of more value than the birds? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field how they grow, They neither toil nor spin. Yet I say to you, that even Solomon in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these. Now, if God so clothes, the grass, the field, which today is and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not worry saying, What shall we eat? What shall we drink? What shall we wear? He's kind of saying, Don't do not say, Where am I going to get my money? How am I going to pay my bills? What I'm going to you get the picture. For all after all these things the Gentiles seek for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. And then Jesus gives the answer. Ask for a raise. No. Take Dave Ramsey course. No, even though I like Dave Ramsey. I'm not slamming Dave. I'm just saying that's not what he said here. Get more wisdom for your finances. Yeah, that's a good thing. But that's not what he says. This is interesting. He says, But seek first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness. And all these things shall be added to you. That you notice that he didn't say, and all these things shall be added to you. If you do blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. He's saying listen, if you want to boil it down to one thing, seek the kingdom. Right now I know a lot of Christians that they'll read that whole passage right there. But they leave out verse 33. Now I don't mean they don't read it. I mean, they leave it out in obedience. So they go oh, Jesus said don't worry. Don't worry about this. Don't worry about that. Don't worry about this. But they don't seek first the Kingdom. Then you need to worry Uh, because seeking first the Kingdom is how Jesus says, all these things I'll be added to you, Beth and I, I've shared this with you guys, but I want to share it because in my life, my father taught me how to be blessed. When he after he became a Christian, some of you know the story. And you know the story of my dad's desk that sits there on the first floor there, which is a testimony, because my dad learned to pay to give tithes and offerings to God. And my dad told me, he said, Listen, this is the way it went. And you know the story. I won't tell the story again right now. But I will tell you that in my family, they learn that principle of giving God, his 10%. And one friend of mine goes, the Bible doesn't say, give tithes I go, Yeah, well, you're right. And this guy's a big giver. And he goes, the Bible doesn't say, give tithes and I'm like, yeah, and he goes, the reason why is because it's not yours. He says, That's God's bring the tithes into the storehouse. That is, the plinth, the storehouse is the place of food, that we operate in the kingdom. And then So Beth and I, when we got married, we were taking a finance class, and this was before. What's his name? We're talking about Dave Ramsey. What was the name of that? This was the predecessor to him. Yeah, Ron blue. And Larry Burkett. And this was the predecessor. And one of the main things they taught us in the finance courses, they like, Hey, this is what the Scripture teaches. And so we're like, okay, you know, so we did it. And I said, You know what, I don't just want to bring ties, I want to give God offerings also. And so it became a competition for us to go, can we give 13%? Can we give 14%? Can we give 20%? Because we see that, Jesus? If you treat it like a command, what do we do with the commandments? What did the what did Jesus rebuked them for the commandments, because they would treat the commandment as a minimum requirement, kind of like an army, remember, and Jesus goes, I, you know, the Scripture says, Do not commit adultery, but I say to you don't lust after her. Right? He's saying, hey, take this thing to heart go all the way with it. And so Beth and I were like, Let's go all the way with it. You know, what I saw the people in my life who were going all the way with giving in their time, their money and their energy. They were some of the most blessed people I've known. And through the years, this has remained true, as well. So I want to read Malikai, to you bring all the tithes into the storehouse, there may be food in my house. And the Lord says, Try me in this. What does that mean? Should I call on somebody? What does it mean to try God? He says, Try me in this, if I will not open the windows of heaven, and pour out for you such a blessing, there will not be room to receive it. And I will rebuke the devourer. for your sakes, have you ever met anybody and the devour has been rebuked. It's like, I have some of the people I saw as I was looking at this and wrestling with this in our early marriage. I was like, Man, this is amazing. It's like, the devourer is being rebuked on it on this level, and that level, and that level and that level. And I said, Man, I want to live that way. And so we set it in our hearts to live this way before the Lord for our married lives. And what I found was God continued to open the blessing so that I could live deeper into it. And whenever the enemy would come, I would find that by the time I begin praying about it, most of the time, God was already rebuking the devour. Now I like that. That's like having your own patrol outside the wire. It's it's more than just waiting. Many times we wait till the enemy gets inside the perimeter. And there's like, oh, man, I gotta pray, Oh, got paid my tithes. I got, man, I gotta start seeking God, I got to do all these things. And the Lord said, No, you can keep the enemy outside the wire, you can live in spiritual victory. You can live where God is pouring out His blessings. And by the way, these blessings are not like a lot of people I know teach, like on giving, whether it be time, money, or energy, and they teach it almost like, well, if you give money, God will give you more money. And that's the kind of teach it like this. Wait a minute, it's way different than that. I've been poor before and been rich. My point is, is God can bless you in all kinds of ways and protect you in all kinds of ways. Not just financially, many, many different ways. Why are we saying this? Because it's a spiritual discipline, to steward our time, our money and our energy before the Lord throughout our lives, this has been an exciting thing for us. Now, do you guys remember this illustration? We're going to close do you remember this illustrate Should I used to talk about rotation speed? Can somebody help me? What is rotation speed? I know what he was a glider IP, what's rotation speed, you remember Woody, someone rotation speed on an airplane. So when an aeroplane gets out on the runway, and it starts to roll down the runway, and it gets faster and faster and faster, there is a rotation speed. It's called VR. You don't think you have that in helicopters? Do you? Yeah. As great helicopters, your speed is rotation speed zero. Yeah. But in fixed wing, you have to be going based on the weight of the aircraft, the size of the wings, all these other things critically, or the angle of attack, there's a certain speed at which the airplane becomes airborne. And if you don't reach that speed, it doesn't matter how much fuel you have, it doesn't matter how big your engines are, it doesn't matter how good your airplane is. It's not gonna fly. Right? I've met many people. And what they'll do is, is they'll get there. But yeah, God, I'll give you $100 a month, and I'll volunteer, you know, once a while, I'll go and I'll help lead this. And, and what I mean is, is they'll dabble, they'll kind of give God some of their money. And they'll give God some of their time. And they'll give God some of their energy, but they don't get rotation speed. And so they literally just have this big, beautiful airplane and gods like, I really want to take you around the world, I really like to bless you here. And instead, they just taxi around airport runway environment, and they taxi over the taxiway and they taxi through the median. And they give, and literally, they never reach rotation speed, they're just given a little bit here and there. But they never get that speed that takes them airborne. And I'll tell you what, you can beat an airplane up real fast, if you just drive it around on the airport environment, and through the grass and all that, because airplanes are made to fly. They're not made to drive across, you know the land many times in our lives when it comes to giving God. And I don't just mean money, I'm talking about tithes and offerings, 10% plus our offerings plus our time and investing it into the kingdom of God. And there's many ways we do this investing our time like, hey, invest your time and your heart into the Kingdom. Matthew 633, with your time, seek the kingdom say, God, what's the best use of my time? God's not going to say, Okay, I'm gonna have you study the Bible, 19 hours a day. And you could slip in for lunch and dinner. And I want you to quit your job. And I want you to live in a shack, and I'll put a porta John outside. That's the way we think about God sometimes, like, Well, God is going to tell me to study the Bible, 19 hours a day, and I'm not going to blend in, I won't be able to talk to people. And you know, don't think that way. God, he's gonna, you're gonna love the way he does it, you're gonna love the way he brings it about. And then when the blessing starts coming, you're gonna be like, Whoa, then you got to learn to be a good steward of that blessing. Now, we talked about this, and we won't go any deeper. But generations of blessing are always way bigger than the previous generation. They multiply, that's the nature of blessings, they multiply. So every generation of blessing. So let's use this example. You start, you start giving God your time, money and energy on a major level, you achieve rotation speed. In other words, you're like, really, it's like God, I'm 100% in and that you're doing all this. Some of you have been doing this for several years now what happened? What happened? You got blessed, you got blessed, and you got blessed. And there's people in this room, many of us are more blessed right now than we've ever been in our lives. So now, we've got this generation of blessing that's come to us. We can't stop there. Like don't stop like, Listen, don't stop because God wants to take you from Mach one to Mach two. You know, you might be going the speed of sound, but he wants to get you twice the speed of sound, he wants to bless you on the next level, which means that I need to press deeper into the ways of God and all of the spiritual disciplines will do this. Every one of them not just stewardship, every single one of the spiritual disciplines are a buffet with God that brings us into places we've never been in before. Man, I love this. I'll tell you I love to teach on this. Because God has blessed us so richly. In so many ways. I can't imagine what my life would be like if I told you about two weeks ago, if we had not if I had not read that book, challenging me to begin by praying one hour a day. Every one of these things has been God has just blessed our socks off. We're just barefooted. We're so blessed. Amen. So Oh, Jesus says Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. So, if I give a little bit of my time, money energy to God, what will happen to my heart, it'll be there a little bit. If I give dump truck loads of my time, energy and money, what happens to my heart, it'll be dump truck loads into the kingdom of God. If I give reservoirs, entire reservoirs or mountains and valleys of it, then God's blessing comes to us in what measure we meet. That's what Jesus says, For what measure you meet. The last one I want to touch on his Study and Learning. Now, this is different. I said, study the Bible. But here's another spiritual discipline. And that is studying truth. Now, the truth is, God's truth is huge. Like, if you look at God's truth, there's all kinds of truth we're going to be studying for eons and still be growing. But I asked you to think about this. What areas has God called you to study? Somebody want to answer what areas as God called you to study? Anybody? Somebody here has an answer to that. Besides, what is it? Meditation, okay? What areas has God called you to study outside of? Just theology or the Scripture? Anybody? Language, okay, language. So you speak multiple languages, God's called you to study language, someone else. I'm gonna just wait. Everybody out there in radio land, just hold on while we wait until somebody speaks up. Three or four people, five people. No one's called to study. Art. Okay. And so you are pressing into studying that? Don't think of that as non spiritual, because all truth is God's truth. And God gives us specific callings. Okay, someone else? Someone who just finished graduate school, someone who's in graduate school? Who could that be? You leadership, leadership. Engineering? Is there anybody called to study engineering in the room? Anybody doing a PhD in it? Two or three master's degrees. I mean, you guys are being bashful. You're not being humble? Just so you know. No, but seriously, what I'm trying to do is help us see that these callings are in in themselves, they're a lot more closer to spiritual discipline than we realize. Because God will reveal Himself in His truth. The scripture says His invisible attributes are clearly seen in the things that are made. God will reveal himself in the truth of His creation. And if you're called into a particular area to study his creation, what will happen is God will reveal himself in that. And in this respect, it is a spiritual enterprise, because we are spiritual beings in this creation that communicates his invisible attributes. Does that make sense? So then Romans one is when I'm quoting, His invisible attributes are clearly seen by the things that are made. What am I trying to do here for a moment is say this, that it is a spiritual discipline to study and learn, even if it's art, even if it's engineering. Now, is it for everybody? No, everybody does not make it a spiritual enterprise. It is a spiritual enterprise to those who walk with God and see it as a spiritual discipline, who see it as more than just learning natural facts. Can I get an amen? Yeah. The last one we won't talk about today is obedience, also called listening in the Latin. We're going to talk about that on a different time. How many of you love the spiritual disciplines? Yeah, it's really awesome. We could teach on them. I just picked some, there's way more. But I didn't want to teach much longer than an hour. And we could teach them for four or five hours if you want to, but or we could just go around the room and have you tell us about what ones you've learned. And I'm sure that we could glean richly from it. But I want to just close in prayer. And then we'll open it up for for comments or questions. Lord, we want to thank you so much for teaching us to be a people in the spiritual disciplines and we thank You, Lord, that the spiritual disciplines are much more enjoyable than what most people realize that we can come into the delights of the spiritual disk. plenty of knowing you the buffet phase of heaven of knowing God and your kingdom. And so Lord, we praise and worship you today. And we pray, Lord, that you will reveal and manifest these things in our lives in extraordinary ways. In Jesus name, amen. Thank you for joining us today. Aaron ova is raising up spiritual leaders in many nations through our spiritual enrichment events, syndicated NetCast international prayer Council network and numerous international seminary scholarships. Together, we are lighting the fires of revival, fueling prayer movements and raising up friends of Jesus in the nations. We invite you to partner with us in this extraordinary movement. 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