The Be.Attitudes of Following Jesus Series - Part 2B: Be With Jesus | Andy Yeoh

Hey, you welcome to the Generation's Church podcast. We pray

you will be blessed by this message. Today I made

a word of God both encouraged and challenge you to

be all God purpose you to be. Now, let's dive

right in.

We have been on a series called The b Attitudes

of Following Jesus.

It's our very long version of.

Discipleship series, basically talking about discipleship.

We have been learning, or at least we've been trying

to learn, from.

The Word of God, the words of Jesus, what it

means to be a disciple, because that word disciple and

discipleship have been used over many, many years in many

different ways, and sometimes we can forget what Jesus really meant.

And since he was the one that introduced this to us,

it is his invitation to follow him that starts this

thing called discipleship. We want to learn from the Word

of God what it is. All right, we have done

already I think at least four parts four parts or

two or four parts with a prelude included. So if

you want to follow, the whole thing is started with

words meaning. So if you go to a podcast, start

with that and keep listening to all the different podcasts

that we have. Today we continue Part two B because

last week I couldn't finish Part two, so last week

therefore it's Part two A. Today is Part two B.

Cool O, get great? Let me do a quick summary.

For some of you you know this already, but for

those who are just joining us, I hope to at

least give you a very quick crash cause on what

we have talked about so far, disciple ship is defined

as the lifelong process. All these are very intentional words.

It's a lifelong process. You'll almost never get done with

this process until you see Jesus face to face again

in heaven. It's a lifelong process, an intentional one, a

relational one.

It's a journey.

And what it is journey all about becoming more and

more like Jesus. Okay, we have defined this process as

someone who has organized their life. Again those very intentional words.

You need to organize your life around three main lifelong goals.

What are those goals?

Be with Jesus, become like Jesus, and behave like Jesus.

I just put him all in beace. Although John Mark

Comer says be with Jesus, become like Jesus and do

as Jesus did. I've just expanded it to behave like Jesus.

I will of course explain it when it comes to

that part. This chart or this diagram helps us understand

that it's not a linear process. It's not step one,

then step two, step three. It's always happening. You're always

going to learn to be with Jesus as you learn

to become like Jesus, as you learn to.

Behave like Jesus.

At the very core of it, all, the very foundation,

is to be with Him. And we learn what it

means last week. Ultimately, every human being, whether we realize

it or not, we desire uni or convenion with God.

We all desire relationships. We all know that.

Even your friends who don't know Jesus know that they

want convenient relationship. They just may not know that ultimately

your heart longs for God. But we are believers should

know that ultimately or desire is to be with God.

Amen.

So discipleship is a way of life. It's not a

format program three steps, seven steps. It's a way of life,

a particular way of living your life. And this way

of life takes practice. And when I say practice, it's

not just training. It's like not practice as in like training,

but practice as in like It becomes your tradition. This

is how you live, This is how you think, this

is how you act. Practice doesn't mean just attempting to.

It means action. You actually act it out, all right.

And we must be careful to also say that the

aim is not perfection in the sense that human means perfection.

When the Bible uses the word perfection, it means maturity, okay,

And like all things, whether it's fruit or wine or Durian,

maturity is a process. It takes time. So we're aiming

for persistence. We don't give up even if befall one time,

we get up seven times, we just keep getting up

and keep going. It's about persistence and consistency.

Follow me, so far great?

So we all started with the invitation of Jesus when

he said these powerful words, follow me. Now, the Jewish

listeners know what this means, because even before Jesus showed

up on the scene, it's something that the Jewish people

already know. By the way till today is being practiced.

There are still rabbis that live on the earth today,

and it's still calling for students followers to follow them,

and the idea is to live with stay with be

with the rabbi and learn everything, and not just learning information,

but learning to become a type of person. So when

Jesus is followed me, he actually literally met in those Peter, James,

John and all those people literally come and walk with me. Come,

come and follow me, walk around with me and follow

and do what I do. Of course, today Jesus is

not here in the flesh, but he's here through the

Holy Spirit. So following him is not just walking behind him.

In fact, because of the Holy Spirit, he's not just

with us, He's in us.

Amen.

So to us come follow me and spend time with

me is what it means for us. So last week

we talked about what does it mean to be with Jesus?

What does that mean? We learn that Jesus sent us

the helper, the Holy Spirit. One way to translate that

is Jesus is sending us another one of him, the

Spirit of Jesus.

So the Holy Spirit didn't come just to be with us.

The Holy strict comes to be in us, in our

very depth of our being.

He's deep inside of us. Amen.

And to understand this where to understand the theology of

the temple. Back in the day, the temple is where

you go to meet God. That's where God's presence literally resided.

But then Jesus came, sent us the Holy Spirit and

taught us that He's now giving us a helper his his.

Of course, in John chapter two, he's he replaced the

whole theology of the temple by saying that he isn't

he is the Temple. He is the the overlap between

heaven and Earth.

So Jesus tabernacle among.

Us, he became among us, he became flesh and dwelt

among us.

He becomes the Temple.

And then before he left the earth, he then says,

I send Holy Spirit. Why because the Church is the

Temple and individually, as believe us, you are the temple.

And so if the temple is the dwelling place of God,

you got move and follow me. Okay, that if the

Temple is the dwelling place of God, where does the.

Holy Spirit today reside?

He resides in us because we are a temple and

the Church is a temple. Amen, So because it is

in Latin, Saint Augustine said, basically, you are you were

more inward to me than my most inward part translated

to be this way, or in simpler terms, you were

closer to me that I am to myself.

This is God.

God is closer to us than we think, closer than

we realize. Because the word spirit is the same word

as breath ruak in Hebrew and numa in Greek. It

means spirit or breath. And we learned that when we

take in breath. So a Hebrew person want to say,

I rua, right, I breathe in oxygen. And the act

of breathing in do you know what it's called scientifically,

is called inspur ration. When you breathe out, it's called expiation,

and that whole process has called respiration inspiration.

Wow, I love the Bible.

When you receive the Holy Spirit, you're receiving inspiration, breath

of God. And if you understand how the respiratory system works,

when you breathe in, when you inspire in oxygen, it

goes into your blood cells, which goes into every part

of your body. That's the picture of abiding in Christ,

because when the Holy Spirit comes and we receive him

into us, he goes to every part of us. Roger

just physically, but spiritually speaking Amen. And so Jesus then

thought the disciples before he left, and he said this

his last sermon or last Bible study. I am the vine.

You are the branches. Now abide in me, and I

not with you in you. It's the word meno, the

word abides, the word meno, which means remain or make

your home or translated to be abide, abide, meaning make

your home in me. Jesus says, as I make my

home in you. This is what it means to abide

in Jesus, making our home.

And how do we do this?

Because Jesus is not here physically Back in the day,

the disciples actually asks Jesus, where are you staying?

Where are you man? Knowing?

And then Jesus says, come follow me, and you will

see right today. How it's going to be done is

through the spirit. The Bible says, Jesus sends us the

Holy Spirit through the spirit. So ultimately we are seeking

for a home in God. We're seeking for a home

in God because that's where we belong. So John fifteen,

what Jesus really saying is I will be with you

and within you. It was also to make sense, just

follow me with you and within you. So what does

it mean to be with Jesus? Simply put, to abide

in Jesus and Jesus in us, to be in God

and God be in us. You could understand this, disciplesh

It means that you can't actually run away from God

because He's closer to you than you realize. Then we

talked about how to be with Jesus, which is we're

gonna We're gonna finish off this whole part. But last

week we touched on the first point of this part,

how to be with Jesus. Number one, we talked about

how to direct our consciousness. Okay, I'm not talking about

some new age stuff, not just some psychological stuff. Okay,

but God met us with a conscience, our consciousness. That

means our field of awareness. Let me give you some

simple words to think of consciousness, your awareness. Are you

aware of God right now? Are you a way of

God when you're in the office? Are you aware of

God when you're stuck in the gym? Are you aware

of God when you're pooping? Are you aware of God

when you're on a date? Awareness or your awakeness or

your attention These days our attention are getting pulled all directions.

But directing our attention means we have to be intentional

about directing our attention to what's right. And Jesus saying,

direct your attention to me, or a deeper word for

believers is affections.

Where is your passion, where is your affection?

Direct that direct your whole being at Jesus so consciously

talks about the flow of thoughts, your mindstream, your awareness,

all of those things. Yeah, So when Jesus says, abide

in me and my words, abide in you, he's talking

about our consciousness, all right, because the reality all of

us are making a mental home right now. We are

all abiding today, tomorrow, yes, to day, last week. We're

all abiding. Our mind our consciousness, our awareness, our attention,

our affection has a home somewhere. Some of us it

could be in our business. We're very preoccupied with that.

Some of us are in our fitness. We're preoccupied with that.

Some of us are your family. I'm not saying any

of those things are bad things. It's just that we

need to realize that it is mentally home somewhere. So

if we're not intentional about making a home in Jesus,

it will just go further along that direction.

So the question is not.

Whether you're abiding, The question is are you abiding in

Jesus and the words of Jesus. Because whatever you're abiding

is the person you become. Whatever you give you attention

to is the person you become.

Amen.

So your consciousness, your awareness, attention, affection, all of these

things sets the direction or the trajectory of your spiritual formation.

We will talk about these words again as we go along.

And your character. Whatever you aim your consciousness or your

awareness or your attention act, that will set the direction

of your life. So we are to aim our consciousness, awareness,

attention at Jesus as often as possible, all throughout the

day and the week and our life as often as possible.

It's probably not possible to have to do it every

single second of our lives. Again, it's not perfection, it's

persistence and consistency. Amen, we learned about the Heapslord, the

signs of practice. The more you think of something, the

easier it becomes you to think it again, and harder

not to think it again.

Simper that.

Okay, the more you practice something, it becomes habitual, the

more it becomes natural. It's true even when it comes

to spiritual formation. It's like if you go on the

mud road. Once you make a track, you go over

a thousand times, it becomes a rut.

Your mind's like that.

Once it becomes a rut, you ultimateically go into that

and go into that direction again. For example, makeing simple.

If you think about Jesus constantly, it becomes easier to

think of him and harder not to think of him.

So it's called neuroplasticity.

That makes your mind's mellible and it's it will be

formed and shaped. So whatever you think a lot of

it becomes more and more habitual and natural. Okay, that's

why Paul said, don't be conformed to this world, but

be transformed by the renewal of your mind. Transform the

neuroplasticity of your mind, transform the direction of your mind.

Amen.

So renew our minds means aiming our consciousness at Jesus

all throughout the day. His word, his person is beauty,

His goodness is the care of What abiding means. We

ended last week with this part what is the reward

of prayer? What is the reward of prayer? We tend

to think of reward of prayer as answered prayers, miracles, breakthroughs.

That's one way that God answers prayers, but not all

the time.

Right.

God always offers us his presence even when he doesn't

offer us his power. And that's a mystery that we

have to learn to become comfortable with. Why God heals

some and doesn't heal others, why he resurrects some and

not others, when he gives to some and not others.

That's God's prerogative, his sovereign, and we will almost never

understand that. And the more we are abiding, just the

more comfortable we become living within that mystery. Okay, And

so we talked about abiding and that our mind has

this blank space moments in our day where we're not

really doing anything, and then there's this blank space, and

what we tend to do we tend to in this day,

and if we tend to whip our phone and start scrolling,

we're gonn start to fill up that blank space. Now, psychologically,

the unaided mind, the undirected mind, tends toward chaos. It

goes into thoughts of fear, anxiety, worry, doubts. Have you

ever noticed that if it's not directed, it will go

into like all those dark places, because that's how the

mind works. So you either leaped to the past that

you cannot change, or leap to the future they cannot control.

Depending on your personality, it will go either way. Whichever

way you go erupts you off the present moment. So

we said last week, we get so caught up in

the things we cannot control past future and allow them

to control us, and we end up losing control over

what we actually can the present moment.

So we ended with these three things.

We say that we need to recognize that there are

three points in our lives where we are actually abiding,

remember abiding our consciousness. We our mind makes a home

in the first thoughts when we wake up, the last

thoughts we go to sleep, and the random moments throughout

our day, the blank spaces, especially the part when you

when you are not actively directing your mind where it

goes to is where you're actually abiding in. It gives

us a very big clue where your mind is preoccupied. Yeah, okay,

so what if the reward of prayer is not just

answered prayer in the form of things, but in the

form of men. No, that as we pray, we become

more and more conscious of God's presence, more and more

conscious of him.

Amen.

I know it sounds difficult. It's difficult even for me.

I told you last week that, Okay, the thing is this,

we we cannot really be intentional about the fleeting, random

blank spaces in the middle of our day.

Something you can help you, right.

Sometimes you're stuck in the traffic light and then suddenly

your mind goes a certain place and it's chaos. It's

like all the things you haven't done yet, all the

things that all the bad things that could happen, and you're.

Not thinking about Jesus.

Sometimes it's not so easy to be intentional because it

depends on what kind of day it was, who's talking

to you, who's bothering you? Right, But we can be

very intentional about the first thoughts when you wake up

in the morning, what do you go to first? And

I've been trying to myself to not go to my notifications,

my WhatsApp or Instagram or the game I was playing

last night. I tried to be very intentional about the

first thing I want to keep my consciousness is the

world of God, even if it's just one verse. You

can also be very intentional about the last thoughts you

have before going to bed.

What I because those things you can very easily control.

Because you can form disciplines and habits around those two parts.

So can we at least start with those two then

we work on the rest of it. It's not about perfection,

but persistence and consistency, because yeah, if we try to

do this tomorrow morning. And I told you readier right

last week a few mornings, I went to the World

of God first. Then suddenly I opened up my game.

You're playing Monopoly goal any of you get my notification,

I'm going to ask for a card from you.

Please give me.

I'm ana be worried because I our end. I gave

you fifteen billion dollars. Next day it will be like

one millions that people steal my money.

And ah.

Anyway, one morning I found I find myself going to

the game versus half way to a relized Hey, shocks,

shock shocks. I'm not supposed to be playing games, supposed

to be going to the Word of God. So I

close it quickly and go to the water God. It's

going to happen. Friends, when that happens, you're not a

bread Christian. You did not fail at abiding in Jesus,

you are just human. That's what the brain does. The

brain wants to go everywhere. But see what we're trying

to do every day. B Babby is driving this truck

on this mud road, track by track by track and

creating ruts. This is what the supposition can look like.

We're we're almost never. We are a thousand kilometers away

from where we need to be. This saint, saintly person,

where are everything, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus,

you go to tough fun us, Holy Spirit to choose

for you? What tough fun? So many choices, Holy Spirit?

What should I eat today? What should hear? A sweet

sour pop or black pepper pop or no taste pok

or what? Jesus, Jesus, please, one thousand came away. I'm

not there yet, but you know what, guys, as we

go on this journey, we're also one thousand came from

where we used to be.

We didn't know all this, we know, Jesus, we didn't

pray to we are.

Hey, we're very far away from where we used to

be all because we tend to focus on wow, very

far from where we need to be. But it's progress,

it's a process, it's a journey.

Amen.

So the more you learn to abide, the more you

train your mind. Remember the neuroplastics is. The more practice,

the more sticky becomes. The more our minds practice being

with Jesus, the Missa, it will reach a point where

the next time you're stressed out, you find yourself talking

to God. First, how beautiful would it be? But we

will never get there if we don't train our minds.

And where do we start? We start where we have

the most control over the first thoughts in your mind

and the last thoughts in your mind. Let's deal with

that first, because you know what, scientifically and sergic psychologically,

those two moments has a disproportionate effect on your neural construction.

You can find you can go and google it.

What you think about in the first thing in the

morning and the last ones in your mind has a

disproportionate effect. Yes, it's more powerful than what you do

during the day. And so if you settle that two parts,

it will affect your random parts of the day.

Amen.

So one day you'll find yourself blank space, standing traffic jam.

He's still going to chaos. You're like, oh Jesus, I

wonder what do I do about that?

Deal? Ah?

Man, I got this research paper, God, two thousand hundred words.

I've written five hundred. This is messed up. God help me.

And you're not even trying hard anymore. You're even trying

to be holy. It's just there's ruts in your brain

right now. That's where you go to when you're stressed.

That's where you go to when you're not at peace.

That's where you go to when you have a problem.

That's where you go to when your heart is broken.

That's where you go to when you're born. That's where

you go to when you're disturbed. You know what I'm saying,

But it has to be intentional. Let's start where we

can so embrace this process. You are one thousand care

away from where you need to be, but you're also

one thousand km from where you used to be.

Why go backwards? Keep moving forward? But yesterday post I try.

I tried to read the Bible, and then I got

a text from my friend. I feel so horrible. Hey,

try again, James, clear atomic habits. You know this port

that guy? He said, don't don't feel Two times don't

allow yourself to feel two times the same mistake. So

tomorrow morning supposed to rebible, you play game first the

next morning, don't do it again. Make sure you don't

because then it starts to build tracks and then rots,

am I I think I'm already beating myself. You get

it right, But then the more I say, the more

you get Okay. So point two B. Point two A

was direct your attention. You have to direct it. You

have to direct it. Number two is be intentional and

discipline with your habits.

Yeah, so your first thoughts, last thoughts.

You can form habits around those types so that you

become very conscious and you protect those moments.

In your day.

Those things you do and don't do around that is

called habit. We can develop practices to guard our first

and last thoughts of the day, what we will and

what we will not do. For example, when you wake

on the morning, I will not touch my phone first.

You can do that.

Before you go to sleep, I will put my phone

in another room. You can do that. Before I read

the news, I will read the World of God first.

Those are things you can form. Practices equals habits, but

it only becomes habits once it becomes a rut in

the road of your mind. How do habits form practice practice,

practice practice practice? Ah went off, come back again, don't

try it, don't feel the second time. Amen, we need

to learn how to create habits next around. Found the

direction of our attention and affection, because that will produce

change in us over time.

Someone's focused too much on the I want to be holy.

I want to be like Spechual.

You'll get there by changing the habits bit by bit.

Amen, I'm getting there slowly.

I can very easily now not check any messages, any Instagram,

being anything else. And maybe you don't understand what I'm saying.

I used to not be able to like I can't

I just have to check my messages. I have to check,

But now I can just put it aside. So maybe

that's why you get my replies later. Now, what if,

as John Marc Comer uses this term, what if we

turn God into a habit and we don't mean this

by God is a mental ess like Ah I think

about Yulan. God is relational, He's a person. But we

mean what we mean by turning God the face like

God becomes part of our discipline, part of our makeup

part of our content busness. What we mean by turning

God into a habit, it is not so much God

but us, because we all have a role as disciples

and a responsibility.

Your role and responsbility is to.

Choose, decide at the pawn, your response to form the

right habits. Victor Frankel, who is a neurologist and as psychologist,

who was take arrested and put in the concentration camp,

was a Jew, and from the concentration camp where he's

changed and arrested and trapped, he said this, everything can

be taken from a man, but one thing, the last

of the human's freedoms, and the freedom is this to

choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to

choose one's own way. You can be chained, shackle put

in a dungeon. It looks like you're trapped and not free.

Ahh.

But you have one freedom left and that cannot be

taken away from you.

What's that freedom?

Your response to pretty simply the greatest humor, the greatest

freedom that a human being has is what we do

with our mind. And when I say mind, I don't

just mean thinking. It means your attitude, your response. No

one and nothing can take this freedom from you. So

whatever can come at you in your life, things can

be taken away from you everything, but this one thing

can never be taken from you, your response. So, Victor Frankel,

when you try to define character, this is how you

define it. Between stimulus and response, something that stimulates a

reaction and your actual response.

Between that, there is a space.

In that space is our power to choose our response.

The power to choose is in that space. In our

response lies our growth and our freedom. So there's a

stimulus to distract you, and you have a resplace, a

space between like will you get distracted or not?

Power to you and say no, I'll do this instead.

That's the power that we have in man, the ability

to pause before you react or respond. It's about that's

where your consciousness is. It's all about where my mind goes,

what do I abide in?

What do I men know?

In turning God into a habit follows this idea that

mental habits must be formed. The unaided mind, the undirected mind,

tends towards chaos.

That's where your.

Mind is already going if you don't direct it. Jesus

is saying, direct it to me, bide in me and

my words in you. Words not just words, sir. That's

why thoughts are actually words. Concepts are actually words. Like

when I say apple, how do you describe apple? However

you describe it? Even if you draw it? You say, oh, no,

I do use I can just draw it, sure, But

when you draw it, how.

Do I form the consciousness to know there is an apple?

So words, so words. That's why Jesus being the word

is so important. He is the definition. We go to

him for the definition of what's good, what's evil, what's right,

what's wrong.

He is the word. He is the definition a man.

So your mind is already going towards chaos if you

don't direct it. So a key facet of apprenticeship to

Jesus is intentionally learning to curate our consciousness. What do

you allow into your consciousness? And what you don't allow?

Am I losing you? Or is still following me?

Okay?

This is why scripture plays such a vital role, because

what words is going to your mind? If it's not

the words of Jesus, something else is. That's why a

lot of people, smart people always tell this. They'll tell

you to read. And by the way you think reader,

you're reading. The talk is reading.

I thought he's watching.

No, yes, but it's reading. It's imprinting something in your brain.

What are you reading? All I'm saying is even Jesus

is saying that be intentional about what you're reading. There

was no TikTok. Then by it's the same concept what's

being imprinted in your mind. So bring our minds into

flow around God, around the fluit of the Spirit, around

the presence of the trinity deep within us, because we

become who we follow. Whoever or whatever we aim our

lives at will then shape us into its image. So

if you are aiming at fear anxiety, you become that image.

Whatever you look at, therefore you become. So look at Jesus.

I know it sounds easy, friends, but it's not. It's

a process. The idea is is tomorrow, let's be a

few more steps closer than yesterday. You add that you'll

be a lot closer next year.

Amen.

So whatever you look at constantly, look at constantly, and

you can you can take that literally like look at TikTok,

or you can take that metaphorically. Whichever you take it,

Whatever you look at constantly is going to form you

into a person who is a parody of all those realities.

So if you look at men, success, you.

Look at other people, you look at sports, sex, celebrities.

What you look at, you're going to become that type

of person. But if you look at the Trinity, you

look at Jesus constantly, it's going to form you into

a person who's what loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, gentle, faithful,

and so on.

And this happens slowly through a process.

Can be rushed. Amen, So listen to this. The golden

rule of habit change is this. You can't extinguish a

bad habit, You can only change it. In other words,

you can't end a habit, you can only replace it.

What it means is this, since you cannot get rid

of habits, it will remain forever. So if you have

a bad habit like you like to find during dinner,

forever you will controlled during dinner. You can never geary

of it, whatever the habit is. So if you don

want to contulde during anymore, you have to replace it.

Yet to be intentional, because if you don't do that,

you will always do the previous habit.

It's all the same. Okay, so.

Charles doing I think it's the guy who did all

his research all habits.

That is Q.

Routine reward, queue routine reward, queue routine reward. No amount

of will can take away the pattern that is already

in your brain. But you can build over it. Build

over it. You can use the same queue, same reward,

just change the routine. Example, the cube is I see

a jelly donut. Your ROUTINEO is I see jelly donut,

I eat jelly donut.

What's the reward? You get sugar high? Nice? The next

time you see a jelly do not you eat it again? Why?

Because you get sugar high. The next time you see

something sweet you eat again. Why Because the reward is

so nice you want to do it.

You keep doing it again.

So if you remove jelly donut, you don't remove anything

because your routine is the same. I see something sweet,

I'll wack it. So what must you replace the routine?

I see jelly donut, The reward is the same. What

do I want it there to day? I want sugar high.

So you see jelly donut, what you do you eat apple?

You still get sugar high? But anye, what's going to

your body. It's a bit more healthier. The sugar is

better than the jelly donutla. After all, you see jelly donut.

You want sugar high, you eat apple sli can chose

to sell it, no sugar.

You still going to your body. You can't change the reward.

Your body needs it, your your your your psyche needs it.

What you can change is the routine. Amen, So if

you make it more personal relation. You know, you see

hot girl, what do you want? Actually, actually it's not sex.

It's not just release. You want convenion, you want intimacy.

Maybe your routine now is swipe SI, spe right or left.

I don't know, never do before. Maybe there's your routine.

You could to change the routine. You're about to watch

uponn You're about to masturbate or something, and you think

about Jesus. Jesus come and invite you join me now,

and then you could have changed your routine and you

still get high. But now you're high with Jesus because

he feels the deepest part of you that can never

be feeled by anything else.

So think the thing is this.

It sounds easy, it's easy to hear, hard to do

because the things that are best for us. The rewards

come slowly, like exercise, are you I've been running so

long I still cannot do five minutes?

One can this morning?

Not through better? But eight minutes? What the srubber gimme

you re what know? But a few weeks ago, nine

minutes hot? It comes slowly, consistency, persistence, slowly, you do it,

you get better? Amen, Hey listen uh For some of you,

you think, what is this? What is this running thing?

Just a few months ago? Now I can run ten

km no problem? Like I can actually run and then

I can still last the day.

What's so great about this? Baster?

What's the problem? Not the big deal here? I think,

what's the big deal? Maybe three four months ago I

run ten minutes and actually feel chest pain.

I'm like, oh my gosh, am I gonna die?

Now? I could not last time minutes, not even one km.

I had to stop and go home. It was actually painful.

But now I can run ten with no pain. My

knees are okay, my lungs are okay. How do I

do it? How does anyone do it?

Bit by bit by bit?

It's a process, and that's just exercise. You know, if

you actually just run. Just just run. Every day you

just become better. There are deeper things life that is

even harder taking take longer, like relationships, like building trusts,

like growing deeper in God. It's slow, but it's slow tripped.

Those who like coffee co brew is slow dripped. The

product is beautiful.

Amen.

So if we had to cultivate this life or abiding

in Jesus, we must be patient with the rewards, but

we can be sure that they are coming, just as

sure as if you exercise, you will get fitter. The

more you spend time with God, you will get closer

to God. You maybe one thousand came away from where

you need to be, but you're also one thousand came

from where you used to be. I know.

So God redefined prayer a little bit. We have designed.

We have used to describe prayer as with our children.

Prayer is like talking to God and it's true, and

then we realize, wait, this would be one sided. Prayer

is communication with God. You talk to God, God talks

to you.

That's okay.

But I think if you want to understand prayer deeper,

pray it is just simply spending time with God, with

or without talking. Prayer is spending time with God. Can

I propose that to you? Because what Jesus wants is

abide in me and I in you. Being with Jesus

is golaring to be abide in him. How do we

abide in him? Through prayer? But I have to qualify

because when I say prayer, you might think, oh, pastor

they may is not to spend thirty minutes in the morning,

have a list and pray to the least. That's one

way to do it. But if you widen and deepen

the definition, prayer is just spending time with God. That's

why it's possible to pray without seizing. If prayer is talking, wow,

how oh day, talk to God, non stopper in front

of your boss, Hey, Jesus, doesn't make sense. But if

prayer is defined his way, yeah, you are in a

scoring you scoring you for not meeting the cap or whatever.

But you're there in God's presence because you are. Now Okay,

I'm gonna respond in peace. I'm gonna respond with humility

because Jesus with me right now. Yeah, pray without ceasing,

spending time with God without seizing, directing your consciousness towards

Jesus without seizing all throughout the day, especially the first

part of your day and part of your day, so

that those two parts train your in betweens.

Prayer is spending time with God. Prayer.

If this definition, then it's not just God, I ask

for something and then I get something back. Prayer means

spending time with Him. Means prayer changes not just things,

changes us.

Amen.

There's something called contemplative prayer. In the ninth century, there

was this peasant farmer. He will go into this Catholic

chapel every day and you would just sit there in

the choiet, and you'll just sit there for hours. At

one point a priest goes to him and ask him,

what are you doing here all the time?

Farmer? What are you doing here?

Sitting here doing nothing for hours? And this farmer said

this beautiful line to the priest. He said, I look

at him, and he looks at me, and we're happy. Oh,

we can at to hand. This.

This means doing nothing.

You know, this means they're not productive. No, yeah, yeah,

I mean if you're running a church on thing business,

you got customers, you cannot sit in the Catholic church

for three hours and do nothing. It's not about the hours.

It's not about the minutes. It's about the just the

discipline of spending time with him. So if you have

five minutes in between your appointment, what if you spend

three minutes out of that five minutes just look at God.

I give you another b word.

Be Oh God, look at Him as he looks at you,

and it's pleased with you. And just be happy that

you have someone who loves you unconditionally.

He just loves you.

Say now, gus think calls it love or saying nation

someone yeah, in nesious love loving. It's the very posona,

the very difficion of love loving you back, just loving you,

and just being able to enjoy that looking at God

who's looking.

At you in love. This is a form of prayer.

I hope you can add to all the other prayers

you've ready learned. Intercession, petition, spiritual warfare.

Speaking in tongues.

What about just spending time, just abiding, just being in

God's presence.

I will be honest with you.

I don't have time to sit on a pew in

some quiet Catholic church somewhere saying Andrew in ko there

for three hours and just breathe.

I wish I can do that.

I wish to live in a cold country, climb up

a mountain and just sit there. I can't do that,

but I can do this. I can wake up six

in the morning and not look at my phone, put

on my jogging shoes, and run five km, which will

take me about right now an hour or so our

twenty minutes. And in the one hour twenty minutes, I'm

listening to the word of God. And sometimes I don't,

I just turn it off. Sometimes I say things, say God,

what are you saying me to me?

To hey? Sometimes I don't. I just say, Dear God,

I'm here, and then I run.

And the truth is is that we start doing this

and maybe you try for thirty minutes. Your discipline is

off for thirty minutes, and it's lightly, not all thirty

minutes that you will connect with God. And like why

you feel that, like the farmer, Oh, I.

Look at him, Hey look at me, and we're happy. Oh,

very lightly.

You spend thirty minutes and thirty seconds in the thirty

minutes where it's like you get it, thirty seconds where

you really feel like, oh God, you are here, I

am here, and we are connecting. And then suddenly, ah,

I worry about the deal. Are you the laundry? I haven't,

are you it's raining, I haven't give the laundry yet

it's going to happen. And it's okay because that thirty

seconds worth it. You keep repeating that, and suddenly your

mind will find more and more thirty seconds, ten seconds,

five seconds during your day when your mind just goes

to God. Hey, there is not some new a psychology

and stuff, but this is God made your brains this way,

and now that we know how a brain works, turn

God into a habit.

Amen, behold God, look at him.

There's something called explicit knowledge and implicit knowledge. Our world

celebrates explicit knowledge, knowledge that can be gotten.

We read it comes from the outside. It comes from observation.

We touch and you feel hot, we touch, feel cold, rough, soft,

explicit knowledge. But hey, there's something called implicit knowledge. You

know somehow you can just feel like something is off

with somebody, or you walk into a room. Can you

feel a presence? That's that's real too. I know it's

mystical and it's hard to explain itself.

We don't talk about it. Lies it can approve, it

cannot nobody. It's there.

John Kelvin calls it census. We need that is a

sense of God, a sense of Deity. All human beings

have it. And because God leaves on the depth of you,

deep inside of you, we actually need to pay more

attention to this implicit knowledge, what we know on the inside.

And so let's let's let's just jump to the last

part because I've got to end this finally, is how

do we spend time with God? If prayer is spending

time with God, and prayer is how we train our

minds ident Jesus, how do we do this? I'm gonna

give you a whole bunch of words. It's any and

all of these things. It's what practices, habits, focus, removing distractions, walking, running, reading, listening, breathe, adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplications,

all of these things.

Okay, it's not one thing.

It's like you, you figure out your reedom, you figure

out your discipline, you figure out your habits.

But you got to amen.

As I listened to this John Marc Comer, Guy, Okay,

I did you give you example of how he did

it as a way or how one person does it,

not as the way to do it. He wakes up

in the morning, his disciplines. He does not touch his

phone at all. In fact, he goes to sleep with

his phone in a different room. That's fa hima. And

he'll wake up in the morning. He'll make a cup

of coffee. He will walk outside, and then he will

go badfoot and he'll stand on a rock. Here's this

big rock that faces east where the sun rises.

He'll stand on.

The rock because he believes in this neweral thing where

it's called grounding. Your barefoot touching the ground, it's called grounding.

Where it centers your whole being to focus. That's how

he does it. Want I give you the example. All

if you're gonna get a rock, now, is it?

No? The point is this.

That's how he ends up focusing on God. He does

all those things, bad food, stand on a rock.

Face is.

I can't do that because this John mccomo guy, he's

the guy who wrote the book The Ruthless Elimination of

Hurry bro. I my personality can allah. We cannot just

sit down, We cannot even talk. Call it for too

long we will be bored. So you got to look

at your personality. This is standing on the rock. Just

stand there and ground and just stand doesn't work for

if it works for you, do that.

What's the point here? The point is how you see?

For me?

You know how I focus? I told you what I

have to run and my runner to have a goal.

My goal is I I'm gonna run and circle because

my house is if I run the whole whole timana

is about one point something. If I run three rounds,

it's about five gm. So give I give myself goal

and run. So my body is doing something. But because

my body is doing something and I'm not holding the phone,

I'm not trying.

To have a bit to be tempted. I'm running. So

now my mind is clear and ready and free to focus.

There's me. My personality is I have to do something

to focus. What is it for me? Phone? I gotta

move remove it, I gotta look at a different app.

What is it for you?

The point is everybody must find that routine, that habit,

that discipline, especially the first moments of your day and

the last moments of your day.

Amen.

But I will suggest this to you because for many

of us we're just starting right, we're learning to this

new way of life. Okay, A good entry point into

abiding with Jesus through your prayer life is gratitude. So

if you wake up in the morning and you don't

run or you don't know what to say, I don't

know to start start with thanksgiving. Let's all try that.

Learn to wake up in the morning and start thanking God.

Because the line between gratitude and praise and worship and covenion,

it's just like a domino effect. Like you do one thing,

it touches the other thing. It touches the other thing

that's is the other thing. Seeah, you begin by thanking

God for the gift. And as you thank God for

the gift, football, Lord, I thank you for my children.

To thank her for the gift. By doing that, you're

actually aiming your graduated towards what the giver. Lord, I

thank you for the gif. Now I'm thanking who. I'm

taking the Lord. And now I'm aiming my consciousness and

awareness towards God. And as I'm aiming my consciousness towards

God by thanking him for the gift, I'm not connecting

with the giver. I'm not making contact with him. I'm

not spending time with God. And now I have a

connection with the Giver. You see how thankfulness and great

you can work. So I think a very easy elementary

beginning point is just start your morning by thanking God.

God.

I thank you for the sunrise. God, thank you for

this coffee. God, thank you for a healthy body. If

you have one, God, thank you my niece still work.

I thank you God for sleep. I thank you God

for my business. I thank you go for a car.

I thank you God.

Whatever. I just thank God.

And if you're doing you're connecting with God almost with

very little effort.

Start there. What you're trying to do is you're you're

tuning your mind. You training your mind towards God.

I heard another person say, every time his mind wanders off,

how he brings it back is through certain words. He

will say a certain word to que his mine to

come back. So for him is he will say holy

Spirit and he py pretic think about it, the wife,

the children. When he writes, he say holy Spirit, he

comes back. That works for him. Like I said last week,

some people, at the end of every email they send,

they say one sentence prayer God. A committee is deal

to you, God, A committee's client to you.

They see.

Lord Jesus, I find the spirit of greediness. I mean

if you want to, you can, but just even a

short God, I thank you for emails, I thank you

for this client.

I think you have a job. Amen, saying grace, we

do just skip.

We just do grace like not my son, don't say grace,

I think anod young.

Amen.

That's that's that's a caricature of actually what adults do too.

We just say it because it's some ritual, just like

you must say no, you're not a Christian. Actually, grace

can be a very good time to aim your consciousness

at God. That would mean now, besides morning and night,

you got now at least three more times where you

can be very intentional about like inviting God into your

consciousness and say God, I thank you for this food.

The Bible says the fats belong to you, So Lord,

take the fats, God, and give me all the nutans.

Amen. Discipleship.

So later on in this series, as this church learns

what it means to this disciples and you know what

I just tell you now, practically speaking, you have to

do discipleship with somebody. Why are you gonna have a

discipler okay, whatever we call it. But learning this and

knowing this, this is discipled Joshua, you know what's my job?

My joy is not to tell Joshua how I do

things and follow me. My job is, Joshua, how's your

consciousness when you woke up this morning? What were you

thinking about? Because we're both trying to be more conscious

of God. That's what disappos will look like. I'm helping

you follow Jesus. It's not about a you cannot do

that I do like this one.

You follow me.

We can work that you never do like me, because

disciplshi has for many years become like just following someone's patterns.

We helping each other come back to God, come back

to God. Oh you worry about your business deal? Have

you prayed about it?

Can? Come? Let's spray together.

When you say that, Joshua, come, let's spread together, you're

actually inviting, almost pulling the.

Person's consciousness to God.

Because he may not have thought about God this entire time.

Maybe he'd been trying his own way, his own strength,

how to get this deal done, and the moment you say, come,

let's pray about this, suddenly his mind, Oh yeah, God

follow me. That's what the suppleship process will look like

as we move forward in this church. We are helping

each other becoming more abiding in Jesus Amen. So I

invite you into this journey with Christ. At the same

time I release you to go figure out what's your pattern,

what's your reaedom. Some of you can run and do it,

some of you cannot. You have to sit still. Whatever

it is. Let's aim our consciousness, let's abide in Jesus.

Amen.

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