Living by Gods Word

Let's bow our hearts in prayer, please. Father, again we thank you so much for who you are. We thank you for your presence.

We thank you, Lord, for the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of Truth, who has been sent by you to make known to our hearts what Truth is, the Person of Truth, God Himself. Today, Father, I pray that the Truth will find a lodging place deep in our spirits and deep in our minds. The Truth will cast out error.

The Truth will cast out darkness. The Truth will impart the knowledge of God, the fuller knowledge of God, that we might all together grow in the knowledge of Jesus Christ and be a temple in whom and through whom nothing but Truth expresses itself through the power of Christ Jesus and the Holy Spirit. We commit this into your hands and thy word into your hands and pray it will travel into the hearts and accomplish the purpose for which it is intended.

We pray in Christ's name. Amen. Before I begin this second part on out of Adam and into Christ, there's a few issues I want to talk about that I have felt very impressed of the Holy Spirit.

So I just would encourage you to ponder carefully the things that are being shared and take notes to remember and I'd just like to ask the Lord Father, please, just take these thoughts that you have put in my heart and let them serve your purpose. Bear witness to them, Lord, by the Holy Spirit and let them change the course of our lives today. Let them define a new direction and build through this word, Lord, something that is going to be pleasing in your eyes, something that is going to be beautiful in your eyes.

Amen. First of all, I would like to make a suggestion to all the parents and to future parents who are here. It is imperative that we recognize the need to have a home that is instructive, nurturing, and capable of bringing everyone to a knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And in one of the aspects of this big picture of having a home like this, we have to deal with the issue of discipline. As all parents know, discipline is necessary for children. But something that I want to suggest to all parents here that you would consider praying about, as I have felt the Lord has been urging my spirit to share these things.

We are living in a day and in a time, and we prayed about it a little bit and actually prayed it twice today. We're living in a day and we're living in a time when there is a great lack of truth in our world. And because of this, we are truth deficient in many ways.

We don't think truth. We don't meditate on truth. Oftentimes our thoughts and our minds and our desires are being carried about by the system that we live in, the world that we live in.

And we are governed by these things. In order to help combat this, I want to suggest that each and every time a parent discovers the need to implement discipline into their child's life, for whatever reason it may be, disobedience, rebellion, defiance, disrespect, whatever it might be, I want to suggest that you consider, first of all, you would consider not responding to this discipline problem as a mere human after the flesh. Because when you do so, you compound the problem.

You make it worse. If you discover rebellion or disrespect in your children and it angers you and in your anger you sin, then you compound the problem and you are teaching your children the wrong way to respond when they're adults, when they encounter the same problem in their children. Matter of fact, the chances of them responding not to what you taught them, but what they saw in you, are far greater than what you taught them.

So the first, number one, I don't really want to get too involved, but if this is where we end up going today for the entire time, that's fine with me, because I have no agenda. I only want to speak the things that the Holy Spirit is saying. So number one, do not discipline your children in the flesh.

Do not discipline your children in the flesh. It will compound the problem. Now, this not only applies to discipline, but this applies to how you respond to any kind of interaction in your family.

Do not respond in the flesh. How do you respond when you are being corrected, parents? How do you respond when you are being told about something that you need to adjust? Do you get defensive? Do you get critical? Do you get cynical? Do you defend yourself? Do you use earthly wisdom and try and turn the attention from your own actions onto the actions of the person talking to you? How do you respond? Most likely, you will discipline in the same spirit that you yourself find yourself in when you are being confronted with the need to be humble. You will discipline most likely in the same spirit that you find yourself in when you are in need to be corrected or disciplined, whether it's a humble spirit or whether it's a proud spirit.

Having said that, the main point is this. When you encounter a discipline problem in your children, I suggest that you, without fail, develop a practice that involves taking your child aside. If it's outside, you wait until you get home.

You sit down with your son or your daughter and you open up the word of God and I suggest you do it together as a husband and wife and at times gather the whole family together. And what you do is you spend 30 minutes to an hour. You make time.

You spend 30 minutes to an hour and you simply read the truth of God's word addressing the problem that you're encountering. If you are dealing with rebellion, then you need to read about rebellion. If you're dealing with disrespect, you need to read about disrespect.

You need to do it in a broken way, in a humble way, not in a vindictive way, because it is only the truth that sets us free. It doesn't matter if your child is sitting there with their head down and their eyes closed or looking up in the sky. It doesn't matter.

It's irrelevant. It's irrelevant. You yourself have had the same attitude toward truth many times.

And your father in heaven was very patient and very long-suffering and he continued to bring truth to you even though at times you had just the same kind of attitude that your son or daughter does. So be very careful when you are quick to make a judgment about that attitude because you might hear the Lord say, Well, have you had that attitude before? And what have I done? How have I handled it? The way God has disciplined me all my life, but particularly since I have become a believer for 31 years, is he has consistently without fail in every situation that I needed discipline, he brought truth to my heart. And truth corrected me.

Truth rebuked me. Truth encouraged me. Truth readjusted me.

Truth humbled me. Truth encouraged me. Truth overcame error.

It was always truth from God's word. And so I want to make a suggestion that as Christians we distance ourselves from the ways that people who don't know the Lord deal with their children. I'm in touch pretty regularly with a lot of people, email, phone, and I hear a lot of war stories that cause my heart to weep.

War stories that are going on in homes that claim to be Christians where parents are trying to deal with the problems that are associated with growing children. And you who have young children, you see it in seed form in your children's hearts when you see the rebellion, but as they get older, it gets more and more challenging. And I hear these war stories and I'm listening by phone and reading an email the way parents are trying to deal with their children.

And it is horrible. It is horrendous. It is counterproductive and it doesn't result in any good.

And so I want to challenge everyone to prayerfully consider distancing yourself from the practices and ways of this world in relation to how they would handle family problems. Yelling, screaming, vindictiveness, and such things like that. They are unproductive and they are unprofitable.

Instead, we must handle them in the spirit of Christ. We must find Christ in the midst of our crisis. We must find Christ in the midst of rebellion and difficulties with children.

It's easy to find Him here, isn't it? Sitting in this nice room and this nice atmosphere, it's easy. But where is He when everything is going wrong? He's right there. And He has a way.

He has a way of dealing. But those situations, if we're not careful, tend not to reveal the ways of Christ in our lives, but they tend to reveal the flesh, the sin, the inbred sin. So we must guard ourselves against that.

Open up the Word of God and read through the book of Ephesians. Open up the Word of God and read through five chapters of the book of Proverbs. Open up the Word of God and read through Colossians chapters 1, 2, and 3. We deal with all issues in our family according to truth.

We simply allow the truth of God's Word. Truth is a light. It's a lamp.

It sets us free. It exposes all error. It is by the truth that men are saved.

It is by the truth that men are sanctified. It is by the truth that men are changed. We must place value on truth and make it part of the fabric of our being.

It is truth that will help our children and us. So, I pray that you'll consider that and that you will prayerfully ponder it. Secondly, another burden that the Lord has put in my heart, and that is this.

There is a great need for God's house to become a house of prayer. Most people that I talk about say they pray and then after five or six minutes they don't know what to do. And I would like to offer a suggestion, again, for your prayerful consideration.

There are many different types of prayers. There's petition prayers. There's request prayers.

There's intercessory prayer. There's supplication prayers. There's four offhand.

The New Testament teaches about these. But I want to focus in on one particular type of prayer, and I want to challenge you. Every single person here, this applies to the younger ones, too.

I want to challenge you. I'm going to make a statement now, and I want to challenge you to take it to the Lord to see whether or not it's true or not. If you will consider the suggestion that I offer this morning and prayerfully take it to God and practice it, it will revolutionize your prayer life, revolutionize your life with God, and revolutionize your ability and capacity to help other people in the Christian life.

Now that's a pretty bold statement, but I'm standing by it. I'm standing by it. One of the problems that we have with prayer that results in our being prayerless or weak in our prayers and inconsistent in our prayers, or praying only when we're in a crisis.

The cause for this is that we have disconnected our prayer from truth. It's become very subjective. It's all about what I feel, how I feel, and I pray what I feel.

There's a place for that, but it's been given way too much of a place in the church today, and the result is catastrophe and disaster. So, consequently, I suggest that you learn on a regular basis, not on a sporadic basis, on a regular basis, you learn to pray the Word of God. You pray the Word of God.

Now, let me give an illustration, okay? You can pray your other prayers. You pray and you're burdened. You're burdened for this family and that family.

Very, very good. You're burdened for your family. Very, very good.

There's a place for that. But you know as well as I do that unless God has given you a big, huge heart, when you begin to pray like that, you pray and you run out. You don't know what else to pray.

You go through seven, eight, nine, ten families or ten people, and three minutes later you're like, uh... So, here's my suggestion. After you bring to the Lord your requests, casting your burdens upon the Lord, each one of these we could go into a detailed teaching, but I don't want to. It's not where I feel the Lord is leading me at this moment.

You give your requests. You give your prayers. You give to the Lord your burdens.

You cast upon Him your desires. Perhaps if the Lord puts it on your heart, you pray for your aunt, your uncle, the unsaved people in your family. Pray for your brothers and sisters.

And as we grow in the Lord, our capacity to be doing this should be growing more and more and more. There should be more and more and more of a time in our life that is devoted to prayer. Nothing to do with legalism.

And a very good telltale sign of your capacity is how much of a place in your life is being given to prayer. How much of a place? Not prayer because obligation. Prayer because your heart is bursting.

Bursting. And you must go find a place alone with God where you can beseech God for the things that God has given you a burden for. But after you have done that, you begin to pray the Word of God.

It will revolutionize your life. And I'm going to give you an example of what I mean. Just go to the book of Ephesians.

You don't have to if you don't want to, but I'm going to just illustrate this to you. This kind of prayer can occupy your heart for as long as you have allotted a time for prayer. As long as you have allotted a time for prayer.

And I suggest that every family here, you might have done this two years ago, but it is my opinion that you need to do it every week. Re-evaluate what you're doing, how you're using your time. Re-evaluate because it's so easy to lapse from being governed by the Spirit of God to being governed by our own natural desires.

And those desires will never satisfy the heart and passion of God. Never. Never.

Ephesians chapter 1. Oh may God give us a revelation. You begin reading Paul an apostle of Jesus Christ through the will of God to the saints who are in Ephesus and to the faithful in Christ Jesus. Father, I thank you so much that in your wisdom and in your infinite love you selected this man Paul.

Oh God, the value, the beauty, the richness that I have received because of the deposit that you put in Paul. Father, thank you. You begin to pray the Word of God.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father. Father, thank you that Jesus Christ reveals to me grace. Thank you Lord for the grace of God.

Thank you for the grace of God in my children's life. Thank you for grace. You just begin to blessed be God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who did bless us in every spiritual blessing.

Father, thank you for the blessings that are in Christ Jesus. Thank you Lord that your Word says that every spiritual blessing is in Christ Jesus. Oh God, help me to stop trying to find blessing outside of Christ.

Help me to stop trying to find blessing in this world. Help me to stop trying to find blessing in things. Help me.

Oh my God, you can go on and on and on and before you know it, your heart is being capacitated to not only to house the Word of God but to pray the Word of God and it becomes a part of who you are and you'll find yourself with other people and when you're interacting with your children and when your husband when you're trying to lead your family, you won't lead them in your own strength. You won't lead them with your own wisdom but you'll speak the Word of God. The Word of God will be in your heart and in your mouth and in your mind.

What you put in comes out. What are you putting in? What are you putting in dear ones? If you let society determine your value system, I guarantee you're not going to be putting in truth and therefore truth is not going to be coming out. This is one example.

Anywhere you go in the Word of God you can pray the Word of God. Pray the Word of God. You begin to pray the Word of God and these scriptures become true in your life.

The Word of God becomes true. You should never, ever, ever be in the place where you say, God I don't know what to pray. I don't know how to pray.

I don't know what to say. You open up the Word of God and you begin to pray. And your life will be revolutionized.

Teach your children to do this. What are you teaching your children? What are you depositing? Proverbs 12, 28 In the way of righteousness is life. In the way of righteousness there is life.

And in that pathway, the pathway of righteousness, there is no death in the way of righteousness. There is life and there is no death in that pathway. Brothers and sisters, God has given us His Word.

It is the way of righteousness. Our minds should be filled with it. Our hearts should be filled with it.

Our prayers should be filled with it. Our prayers should be the taking of God's Word and bringing it back to Him. Don't you know that whatever you meditate on and whatever you look at, whatever you get in your heart, you become you become that.

We live in a generation that is grossly deficient in the Word of God. Grossly deficient in the Word of God. And it is because of this that the enemy is having a hay day.

But I hear the Lord. I hear the Lord. A clarion call.

A call from the Lord that we are to arise out of sleep and to become diligent students, lovers of God's Word. Make it our life. Make it our day.

Make it our night. Early in the morning. Before you go to bed.

Make the Word of God the thing that you feast on. Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light to my path. Thy Word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against you.

Let the Word of Christ richly dwell in your hearts. Sanctify them by thy Word. Thy Word is truth.

John 17 17. Men shall not live by bread alone but by every Word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. I trust the point has been gotten.

Pray the Word of God. Pray the Word of God in the presence of your children. Say, we're going to have a prayer meeting, kids.

Open up your Bibles. Teach them how to pray the Word of God. Let them see you praying the Word of God.

Let them see you pray through the book of Ephesians verse by verse over a period of five, six months. Let them see you pray through the book of Romans verse by verse. Let them hear you talk about therefore being justified by faith we have peace.

Father, thank you that I have been declared righteous by faith in Jesus Christ. Thank you God for this righteousness that comes. Let them see you.

Let them look at you and go, wow. Let them see it. Let them see this reality in your life.

Brothers and sisters, I hope we can hear beyond the flawed vessel and hear the heart and cry of God. Now, thirdly, my last issue. Number one, discipline.

Let the Word of God be the book of discipline. Children need correction. Let them hear the Word of God.

Having a problem, sit down and read the Word of God for 30 minutes with them. If you don't have time at that moment, then make it 30 minutes before they go to bed. Let them hear the Word.

It doesn't matter if they want to. I don't want to. I didn't give you an option.

Sit down and listen. You're gonna listen. It doesn't matter because they're gonna hear it and it's gonna get in.

And see, once the Word of God gets in, the Holy Ghost has something to work with. And they hear that Word. They hear that Word and it breaks them and it softens them and it redeems them and it sanctifies them and it saves them and it drives the devil away.

Oh yes, it does. Thirdly, we must pray not only for truth doctrinally, which is very important, but we have to pray that our lives are a testimony of truth. There's a difference.

It is possible for someone to be very, very very sound in their doctrinal truth, but their life is a testimony of inconsistencies and hypocrisies. God wants truth to become a living expression in how we look at one another. You know, you can look with haughtiness and you can be a Bible-wielding Christian.

God wants our lives to become authentically true through and through so that it is truth, not just in our doctrine, but truth in our actions. Truth in our attitudes. Truth in the way we talk.

When the Bible talks about the body of Christ growing up to the measure of the fullness of Christ, that is talking about not only agreeing in the doctrinal truth of God's Word, but it's talking about a family, the family of God growing into the full measure of the stature of Christ. And Christ was not only doctrinally pure, but his life was an expression of truth. Everything he did was true.

He never had a haughty look. He never loved with mere human compassion. When God is calling us to speak the truth in love, it is not just, but it includes the truth of God's Word, right doctrine.

But it goes deeper than that. Speaking truth in love means being authentically real so that truth is what you not only confess and profess, but what you live. Who you are in Christ Jesus.

We're so quick to offer into our families that which is not truth. And I'm not talking about a false doctrine. We're so quick to muster up out of our own heart patience.

We should demand before God that every morning our life is filled with the patience of another, namely Christ. The full measure of Jesus Christ in the body is the body is living and expressing the truth that is in Jesus Christ. Truth.

I can accept the inauthentic love that Phil Beach generates because I've come to know it is insufficient. And if I offer that love to my children, I'm robbing them and misguiding them. I'm misrepresenting Jesus Christ to them.

And any other virtue that you need to live in your Christian family, any other virtue that you know God is pleased with, it's got to come by Christ. It's got to come from the man in glory. It can't come from ourself.

And that's the subtlety of you can know doctrinally what is true, but still be under the government and under the control of self. And so the third and final burden is that we would pray in our families that we would be awakened to our need to express truth and not settle for a polished fleshly Christian life. Not settle for appearances.

But wait on God until God has made an exchange in your life. Wait on God until you have exchanged that which is coming from your nature to that which you know is coming from the divine spirit of God and the word of God that you know that you know that you know that it is not of you but of God. That's what you need to offer to your family.

It's the only thing acceptable to God anyway. It's the only thing pleasing to God. It's the only thing that will go through the fire and come out on the other side.

It's the only thing that lasts. So, let's be mindful of these things and ask the Holy Spirit to guide us. And Father, we do thank you for your love.

We thank you for your mercy. And we pray, Father, that you would help us to place great value on the word of God and that you would help us, Lord, to implement the word of God in a spirit of humility and in a spirit of love and brokenness into the lives of our children when they are in need of discipline and that we would make this a practice, Lord. That we would make it a practice to read the word of God and just let the word of God speak.

Secondly, we pray, Lord, that you would teach us to pray your word. You would teach us, Lord, to go through book by book in the New Testament or wherever you would lead us, Lord. And that you would show us, Lord, how our lives can be revolutionized and transformed as that word gets into us and the Holy Ghost gets a hold of that word.

Help us to do this, Lord. Teach our children to pray, Lord. The greatest deposit we can give to our children, Lord, is equipping them with how important it is to immerse themselves in the truth.

This is the greatest asset they can have going into adulthood. And lastly, Lord, help us to pray that we would be authentic, genuine, through and through, lovers of truth, and that truth would be manifest in every area of our life. We commit this into your hands, Father, for the sake of Christ.

Amen. And amen.