Trails of Thought - Week 2

Hey, go church family. Welcome back to our week two podcast. My name is Gilbert. I'm

here with Pastor Matt Hattabow. Hey everyone. And I'm here with Laura. Hi everyone. Welcome

back Laura. Thank you. So good to be here. Don't we all want Laura to stay? I do. Laura

is sticking it out through the month and we're thankful. We're really happy and we're really

excited to keep talking and dig deeper into this subject called Trails of Thought. How

have the Grow Group discussions been so far? Have you guys been enjoying them? You know,

we like to hear about testimonies. We like to hear about how things have impacted you

and changed your lives. You know, we mentioned this in the introduction week, but podcasts

and the subject that we've been talking about has changed Laura's life and that's why she's

sitting here. Yes. What do you, so what helped you get to this place? Listening to the podcast

and digging deeper into the message at Grow Groups and the practical ways that you suggest

and we have to apply them. Like if we do apply them, it will help us greatly. It's an amazing

blessing and it literally changed my life. The way I think, the way I act, the way I

see things. Thank God. It's amazing. You know, I like that you mentioned this thing where

you listen or you went through the Able series and then something clicked and it's like,

I'm never going to say I'm not able. Yes, that's true. Most of the things that I used

to hear at church, it's not for me. I'm not able to do it. Maybe someone else can, but

it's not for me. That's not what the Bible says about me through the Able message, through

the Able message, Able to, Able, then Able to, and then charged. It's like the three

messages, the theology of the messages together. I can never say I'm not able anymore. I just

can't. Yeah. It doesn't make sense. No, no, it doesn't at all. And it's, it's not what

the Bible says about me. So you know, I love that phrase by the way. Which one? That's

not what the Bible says about me. That's really good. Yeah. If we can get more people ordering

their thoughts like that, which is what we're studying this month and trails of thought,

we'll see a different nation because once you, once you accept, oh wait, what the Bible

says about me is true. It changes what you act, what you say yes to, what you say no

to, what you accept in your life and what you just reject. That's right. That's true.

You know, this is literally what it looks like to renew your mind. That's exactly right.

Romans chapter 12 verse two says that do not be conformed to the patterns of this world,

Romans 12 · chapter mention

but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. How do we renew our mind? By the, by

the washing of the word. This is, this is what the Bible says. And you know, you, you

took that word. So you took what's enabled, you know, we looked at second Corinthians,

was it nine, eight, it was chapter nine, verse eight. And you took that for yourself and

you said, this is for me. This is me. I see myself in this. I can't see myself any other

way. Exactly. And this is what the, the power of the gospel does. You know, the gospel contains

power. This is the gospel, right? This is the good news. The good news is that I am

able now and I'm able to do these things. And, and so you take that and you allow that to

sit in your mind and to marinate in your mind and you allow that to just change you to the

point where you don't recognize the old pattern anymore, where, you know, maybe a trivial

example, but this is, this is true about me. You know, there was a point in my life where

the way I would speak was very different to the way I speak now. And, you know, safe to

say a lot, a lot of words, you know, that I was using that I, I won't mention, you know,

a lot of swearing, a lot of this, a lot of just loose talk, a lot of, you know, bad jokes,

whatever, whatever. And the fact is that, you know, it's not that I'm trying so hard

consistently constantly to not do that. It's just not me anymore. It comes naturally. Yeah.

It's literally not me. So once you get on a different trail, you go different places.

Yeah. And when you go different places, it's, it's just different. Everything's different.

The environment's different. And it's really the purpose of our study. That's right. That's

why we are digging into this to renew our minds that I love that phrase washing with

the water of the word, which is from, from the scripture, of course. And the purpose

of our, our study here is, you know, the Bible teaches that we're a three part being. We're

a spirit. We have a soul and we live in a body. We see that in first Thessalonians chapter

five, verse 23. And these three parts are designed to work together. We want everyone

in the Go Church family to learn to allow our spirit to direct our thoughts and to govern

our lives and our actions according to the law of love. That's really good. That's what

we're doing. That's what we want to, we want to see more of, right? We want to see how

our spirit can govern our minds, can govern our thought patterns and eventually lead to

actions that are in line with our spirits. So this is what we've been introducing and

talking about that our, what we believe, you know, changes or, you know, molds what we

think and what we think leads to how we act and what we do with ourselves and how we respond

to what we believe because you can't have true Bible faith without corresponding action.

And so we are, you know, this is what we're looking to do. We're looking to get all of

our beings, spirit, soul and body in line, you know, so we, our spirit is already set.

We're in this place. We want to, we want to, you know, see these character traits develop

in us. We want to go further. We want to know God. We want, and then, you know, and then

the mind is like, but what if, but this, but that, but you know, different kinds of fears,

different things, different limitations. And then your body is just like ice cream. I'm

just taking pastor Matt's examples for the last couple of weeks, but our body is just

like lazy play games. You know, I don't know what that looks like for you, but kind of

that's what it looks like for me. And the fact is, you know, my body goes where I tell

it to go. And my mind thinks what I tell it to think. And this is how we need to constantly,

consistently be an act. And this is, this is what we're getting into this week. We're

talking about trails of faith. So last week we talked about trails of fear. So we talked

about what the carnal mind looks like and what the, what the carnal mind takes us down.

And that is the path, the trail of fear. And this, this week we're going to concentrate

on the equal and opposite trail of faith, you know, and what the trail of faith looks

like. And you know, it might, it might look different to what you think because it does

include your mind. It does include your body. It does include corresponding action. It does

include a whole bunch of things that you may have not seen because you, you, you can be

in a place where you're saying, Oh, I believe this, I believe that I believe this, I believe

God's going to do. I believe God said, and then you do the exact opposite of what you're

saying you believe. So there's a point where, you know, we, we need to walk down this trail

and start going further and further and further in order to see, to see these things come

to pass. So the first thing I'm going to ask is, you know, we talked about what is faith,

but let's talk about where faith originates, you know, and, um, Romans chapter, chapter

10, verse nine, I'm just going to, I'm going to pull that up. And it says that if you confess

with your mouth, the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised him from

the dead, you will be saved. I think that's safe to say that that is a, um, a good model

of faith and a good example of how to activate faith. But you also see that if you believe

in your heart, you know, our, our faith originates in our heart. What is our heart? Our heart

is our spirit being. So we, like we said, we're spirit, soul and body. Faith originates

in the spirit because our spirit is, is the part of us, the core of us that is connected

to God. And so faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Faith comes when

we hear God speak his word to us. It's not only faith comes when we read their Bible,

but it's faith comes when the Holy spirit reads his word to us, when he reveals his

word to us. And when we see this as truth. So, you know, Jesus says in John 17, 17 that,

you know, Lord, your word is so sanctified them by your truth. Your word is truth. So

your word is truth. When, when that word becomes more real to you than anything around you.

So when you are focused or when you look at the things unseen and the thing that is eternal,

which is the word of God that produces faith, man, that's so good. That's the difference

between receiving and not receiving victory and defeat. When a word becomes more real

to you than what you experience or see around you. That's faith. That's really good. That's

right. And, and faith is not just, you know, faith is obviously based in God. Faith is

obviously based in who he is. Yeah. One, one person said it like this. Faith begins where

the will of God is known. Yeah. You know, you, uh, you might say, well, Matt is a really

nice, nice person. That's a really nice guy. Very friendly. You know what? I, I just believe

Matt's going to come and wash all of the dishes in my house and do all of the laundry in my

house because he's such a nice guy. The thing is I didn't say I was going to do that. I

didn't say I was going to come and, and, and wash the dishes or clean, you know, do the

laundry and I'm not, right? I'm actually not very good at it at all. Uh, you can ask

my wife, but, um, the, the point is that there's a lot of people that they treat the Lord like

that. Well, if he's good, he'll do this, but faith begins where the will of God is known.

So we find the will of God in the word of God and faith, like Gilbert said is of the

heart. It's not something that happens in our body where we, I, oh, I feel something.

I have this feeling of faith. No. Um, I need to think faith thoughts. I need to think faith

thoughts, faith thoughts. No, no. Faith is of the heart and it's a spiritual force. Um,

like, like you said last week, the thing about faith is it begins where God's will is known.

Faith comes not by praying for it, not by earning, not by going to church the certain

number of times, or even listening to this podcast. Faith comes by hearing God's word.

That's right. And, uh, first John five, uh, says that faith is the victory that overcomes

the world and, and goes on to say that it is our faith in Jesus, which is the victory.

So our, our faith is based in who God is, what he said and who he is. So, you know,

uh, I talking about the different things we do at Go Church. One thing we do is, is we

read the Bible together and every single week, someone, uh, it's not only across Go Church

Beirut, but it's across Go Church in the UK because there are three other Go churches

and you know, we're so happy to be part of something bigger and we all get to read the

Bible together and share, uh, share, share, um, uh, what is it insights. And you know,

every week there's also someone who shares a blog and we have the privilege of reading

blogs from, you know, people at Go Church Beirut and everywhere else. And Pastor Matt

Beamer actually wrote a blog, uh, about faith as an act. Faith acts, you know, faith acts,

right? Excellent. And it was, it was amazing. And the, the fact like that's so true. And

that's what we're talking about this, this month, that, you know, obviously if faith

starts in the heart, but it goes further. And when we are, we have faith in God, it's

because he's faithful and he has a, you know, a nature of faithfulness. Like the, the character

that he has and who he is, is faithful. You know, Revelation says that he is called faithful

and true. That's literally his character. That's literally who he defines himself as.

And I was, I was just like, um, you know, spending time thinking about this, you know,

this is what you would maybe call, you know, meditating on that word or, uh, or whatever,

whatever that looks like. But I was, you know, I was thinking about it and the Lord put in

my heart, you know, faithfulness is a posture, but faith is an act. And what I mean by that

is that if you look at a sprinter and you see them lining up for a race, they posture

up, they get into position, you know, and faithfulness is, is that position you get

into. You're ready to go. You know that you have one mission, one mission only, that you're

going to do what you've set your mind to. You're ready to go. You're, you're standing

there. You're, you're everything in you, like every single muscle fiber is anticipating

the go. You know what I mean? Yeah. But faith is actually the go, you know, faith is actually

the act that you take. It's actually the, the, the action that you take and you keep

taking until you get to the finish line. So there is, so, you know, God is faithful and

because he's faithful, we can count on him. We can have faith in him, but then we need

to start walking and we need to start acting with his faithfulness. We need to start going

that direction. So faith starts in the heart, but it doesn't finish in the heart. And I

want to, I want to read that, that passage in Proverbs chapter four, verse 20, it says

this, my son, give attention to my words, incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let

them depart from your eyes. Keep them in the midst of your heart for their life to those

who find them and health to all their flesh. Keep your heart with all diligence for out

of it spring the issues of life. This sounds like if you pay attention to his word, you're

going to believe what he's saying. Yeah. Yeah. You know, that really reminded me. So faith

is an act. It's where I act like what God said is true. Yeah. And I keep on acting a

great illustration of this. Hebrews chapter 11, verse seven, by faith Noah being warned

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

of God of things not seen as yet moved with fear, not the kind of fear that we were talking

about last time, but really that word means reverence or respect for God prepared an arc

to the saving of his house by which he condemned the world and became an heir of righteousness,

which is by faith, by faith, Noah being warned of God. So he heard a word from God. He heard

a word from God and that moved him to action. And so in that action, we see faith that action

took more than a hundred years and he's warned of God of things not seen as yet. Imagine

Noah building an arc. This is a huge ship. No, the land, right? It wasn't. Yeah, he built

it near the water. No, no, he's not in Beblos building this. And so Noah is building an

arc. Hey, Noah, what are you doing? I'm building an arc. Okay. What's an arc? It's a big ship.

Great. What's that? Well, me, my family, you, if you want to, and all the animals, we're

all going to get in it because it's going to start raining. Noah, what's rain? And this

went on for a long time. If Noah, you know, at some point, you know, if it doesn't start

raining, Noah can't turn this into a, like a, a decoration in his yard. Right? This is,

this is a huge ship that he's building. Faith is a trail that we're going to follow and

we're going to go a direction, but that direction probably will look odd to the world around

us. The world around us that's all running on the trail of fear. They look at us on this

trail of faith and saying, what's wrong with you? What are you doing? I'm acting like God's

word is true. I'm acting like I believe what he said. I'm not going to let his word depart

from my eyes. I'm going to keep looking at it. I'm not going to let it come out of my

ears. I'm going to keep listening to it and I'm not going to let it come out of my mouth.

I'm going to keep saying what he said. That's really good. If you think about these stories,

sometimes you take, you take for granted the fact that in that moment, it must've felt

so stupid. Like what are you doing? And that is true. And then what, what is really of

note is the fact that he acted on the word. And this is what we're talking about. Faith

acts like faith is not fulfilled until there is corresponding action that is taken with

it. So faith acts on the word. Faith acts like the word is true. Faith is not waiting

until sight, senses, or other people say, oh, this is true. Okay. Now, now I'm going

to act on it. Faith acts based on the word. Yeah. And so the mind is not disconnected

from this, right? Because faith thoughts lead to faith actions and our whole being needs

to be in alignment for faith to be fully formed and work fully. So our spirit believes the

word of God. Our mind needs to digest what to do about it and our bodies need to go,

right? If none of those things, if none of these things fall in line, then it's not going

to be accomplished. Right. And it's, I realized that what I just said is literally our values.

Love grows. I was thinking about it too. Yes. Yeah. Because we, we experienced the unconditional

love of God. It starts in our hearts, but then we grow in that, you know, we renew our

minds with that love. We start understanding what it looks like. We start seeing ourselves

and we start filling our minds with the right things. And with that, we're able to now go.

And so this is, this is the next point I want to talk about. So we, this is what faith is.

This is what faith looks like. And there is another element to this that we need to see

or understand to piece this together. That when, you know, when we see do not fear, do

not be afraid, be of good courage across the Bible. We see it countless times, right? It's,

it comes up so often and you notice it's a command. Like this is something the Lord tells

us to do not as a suggestion, not as a pat on the back, not as something like encouraging,

not as something to make you feel better. He doesn't tell you try. It's a command. It's

a command. It's like love your neighbor. Do not fear. It's literally in the same, in the

same form, right? The same format. And there is, there is a reason for that. So let me,

I want to read this scripture in Joshua chapter one, verse seven and eight. And this is, this

is basically what the Lord is saying to Joshua at the beginning of this, of this commission,

you know, and he says, only be strong and very courageous that you may observe to do

according to all the law which Moses, my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the

right hand or to the left that you may prosper wherever you go. This book of the law shall

not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in a day and night that you may observe

to do them, to do according to all that is in it. For then you will make your way prosperous

and then you will have great success. Verse nine goes on to say, have I not commanded

you? Be strong and of good courage. Do not be afraid to not be dismayed for the Lord

your God is with you wherever you go. It's a command. It's not a suggestion. This is

directly tied to your success. This is directly tied to the, then you will prosper. You know,

there's that clause that God is for you. God wants you to prosper. God wants you to achieve

what he's called you to achieve. He's not messing around here. He wants the results.

He needs these results through your hands, but he's giving you the formula to get there.

And we basically see that there are so many examples in the Bible. And so let me bring

this up. Why is the Lord commanding Joshua to not be afraid? What's the reason? The simple

fact is, obviously, if he's afraid, he's not going to go into the land. He's not going

to challenge the giants that are standing in the way. He's not going to walk up to the

walls of Jericho and do what he did. He's not going to cross the river, which is flowing

down and at the end he crossed it on dry ground. He's not going to do all those things which

seem to not make sense, but this is God's will for his life. So if he had fear, he wouldn't

be able to go down the trail of faith that God already ordained and planned for him to

walk down. We see so many examples of this across the Bible. There are different examples.

So in the New Testament, we see an exchange between Jairus and Jesus. And Pastor Matt,

you want to give context to that story? Well, I mean, Jairus is the leader of a synagogue

and his daughter is at home very, very ill. We don't know exactly what's wrong with her.

We know that she's sick to the point of death when Jairus goes to find Jesus and say, Jesus,

will you come and minister to my daughter? And Jesus says, yeah, I'll come. And while

they're on the way, the people that are helping Jairus, they come and say, you don't need

to bother Jesus anymore. It's too late. And Jesus says to Jairus, fear not, only believe.

And they go on to the house and Jesus puts all the people out that are mourning Jairus's

daughters death. And he takes Peter, James and John into the room and he tells this little

girl that's dead. Hey, little girl, get up. I say, get up. There's so much there to me

because we're talking about acting like his word is true. And think about who you were.

I'm just quoting it. You go and read the fifth chapter of Mark for yourself and look at what

Jesus said. He goes in that room and he says, little girl, I say, I say to you arise. All

the people said she was dead. Natural circumstances said she was dead. Jesus said, I say, you

arise. The Bible says that they took her up alive and said, I want ice cream. Maybe not,

but Jesus said, give her something to eat. Yeah. Yeah. I was acting like God's word is

true is how we see God's word come to pass in our life. And we're talking about Jairus's

daughter, but the centurion in Matthew chapter eight is a great example of this. Matthew

chapter eight says verse five, and when Jesus was entered into Capernaum, there came unto

him a centurion beseeching him. That's a old English word that just means asking what's

a centurion. The Roman soldier. Rome was occupying the land of Israel and Judea at this time.

He's an oppressor, but he comes to Jesus and that word beseeching, it literally means to

ask with reverence. He said, Lord, which is a key Romans chapter 10. He said, Lord, my

Romans 10 · chapter mention

servant lies home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented. Verse seven, and Jesus said unto

him, I'll come and heal him. The centurion answered, Lord, I'm not worthy that you should

come under my roof, but speak the word only and my servant shall be healed. The centurion

goes on. He says, I'm a man under authority and I have soldiers under me. I say to this

man, go and he goes to another, come and he comes to my servant. I'll say, do this and

he does it. When Jesus heard this, he marveled and said unto them that followed. So he turns

around to the disciples and says, Hey fellas, pay attention. I haven't found faith like

this in Israel, which had to be kind of a slap, you know, for the guys. Like, wait a

minute, why are we even still talking to him? And I say unto you that many will come from

the East and the West. Well, we'll go on. And verse 13, Jesus turns around to the centurion

and Jesus said unto him, go your way and as you have believed, so be it done unto you.

And his servant was healed in the same hour. Think about this. The, this man came to Jesus

and said, just, just speak the word. Once he could get Jesus to speak the word, he was

going to start acting like it was true. He didn't, he didn't have his iPhone with him

that he could FaceTime and say, okay, did it, did it change? Is he better? How's he

doing? No, he's, he's separated by time and distance from his, from the, from his servant,

but he decided if he could just hear Jesus say it's done, that would be enough because

the centurion understood that's how things operate. That's how he operates people that

he doesn't know that he's never seen gives him orders and he goes and does them. He can

say things and he doesn't have to go and make sure it's done because he knows that the people

that he's told will go and do it. If he could get Jesus to say, you servant of this centurion

be healed. That was enough. He would just act like it was true. And you know, you made

a note here that I really like. It made me, it made me think about this faith, which is

a lack of fear keeps our mind strong and focused and governed by the word of God and God's

plans above circumstances that would come against us. So this centurion says, you know,

we just read it like this. His servant was healed from that self same hour. Well, how

do they know that they had to come back and tell this? Hey, it was exactly the same hour.

We worked it out exactly the same hour as Jesus said that exactly that same time. So

there's, there's time that passed between Jesus saying that and anyone finding out what

happened and in between that time, we know that that centurion was in a place of confidence.

He was in a place of, he was on the trail of faith expecting that what Jesus had said

was true. He's acting like the word is true. That's so good. Praise God. You know, the,

this is, this is what we're really focusing on and holding on is that the, in order to

stay on the trail of faith, we have to keep that command of do not fear. Yeah. You know,

and this is, this is where we see in the story, for example, the Roman centurion, for example,

Jairus where, where Jesus says, don't be afraid, you know, only belief. This, this, this should

almost be our key scripture this month as well, but don't, you know, don't be afraid.

Don't go down that trail of fear. Just believe, just stay in that place, stay on this path

of faith. And that is the, that is also the trail of success. You know, that is the trail

of accomplished faith. That is where, you know, the walk in on that trail of faith leads

to the hope, the substance of things hoped for. So on the trail of faith, we enjoy the

substance of what we were hoping for and what we are hoping for. So we have a confident

expectation of a good end. That end is now that thing is now, and that is what we can

experience on the trail of faith. So we said that, you know, the faith, the lack of fear

keeps us on the trail of success. Faith, the lack of fear helps keep us and our minds strong,

focused and governed by the word of God, no matter what the circumstances look like, because

we stay focused. And we saw that last week in, in Mark chapter four, we saw how Jesus

was focused on the other side. He wasn't focused on the storm. He wasn't focused on the circumstance.

He wasn't focused on, you know, being accused that he doesn't care. He wasn't focused on

any of that. He was focused on, I need to get some sleep. I'm tired. We're going to

get to the other side, whether the storm likes it or not, whether the circumstances like

it or not, we're getting there because I have some work, you know, to do there. My father

has ordained work for me to do there. And there's another, there's another point that I want

to talk about before we get into the Bible illustration. And this is actually linked

to the Bible illustration, but you will notice that the trail of faith doesn't always make

sense. That's right. And you know, some decisions you take by faith because you're convinced

about the word of God don't make sense in the natural, like there are things that seem

irrational or illogical, but that is on the trail of faith. That is literally what the

trail of faith looks like. And Hebrews 11 is called the hall of faith, right? This is

the story after story after story of models of faith who acted on the word that they believed

on. So the example of Noah, you know, he acted on the word. It didn't make sense. Like if

you were just living in the day and you were focused on the things you see, so your eyes

are looking at the flesh, the carnal, the temporary, like we've seen building a boat

makes no sense whatsoever. If you are, if you're looking at Moses and he, he, he was

brought up in a palace and he is literally, you know, viewed and seen as a member of the

royal family. And he denies all of that. And he refuses to be called that because he wants

to be seen with his people because he believes his people are going to be taken out of this

place of slavery. It makes no sense. If you see the story of Abraham and Sarah, God said

that I'm going to have a child. So my name is no longer Abraham. My name is Abraham,

the father of many nations. And I still don't have a child. It makes no sense. But the fact

is they, you know, there is, um, there is a trail of faith and it might not look sensible.

Yeah. I mean, that's a, I think that that's an important thing to understand when the

whole world is going one direction and you turn around and go the opposite and start

acting like God's word is true. It'll look, if you look at, if you're looking at it from

the world's perspective, it will look weird or, you know, ill informed, um, about, let's

see, that would have been about four months, five between four and five months before I

found out about the first opportunity to come to Beirut. I found out about a great job opportunity.

It was an opportunity to do what I was already doing, but we paid more and work closer to

where we lived. So, um, the, I mean, there was no, there was nothing bad about it. It

sounded amazing. It looked amazing. Um, but on the inside I knew I shouldn't apply. I

shouldn't do this. So, um, but I, man, I have responsibilities. I have a family. Trenton

and Caitlin were little at that time. You know, um, this is, this is a good opportunity and

you know, wisdom, I should, you know, wisdom would say I should take this. Earthly wisdom.

Earthly wisdom says I should take it. And man, I, to be honest, I really struggled with

it. So, uh, I went to a church. We were, uh, at the time we were attending a Ramo Bible

church in Oklahoma city and, um, pastor Hagen was, uh, ministering and can I be honest?

I wasn't listening. I was instead in my head trying to figure out which trail I should

take. And I was thinking, Hmm, I don't know. This job looks pretty good, but there's something

on the inside that says I shouldn't do this. I shouldn't go. And while I'm like going back

and forth, back and forth, back and forth, he stops his message and he said, I don't

know who this is for, but someone in here is, you're looking at an opportunity and it

looks really good. And you think you've looked at it and everything about it looks good.

He said, this is what the Lord says. If you take that, you'll miss what he has prepared

for you. Well, I didn't know what that Hill he has prepared for us. What I knew was what

I could see, what I could feel, what I could taste and touch. And the fact was this just

makes sense. This is a really good thing. And now my pastor is correcting me. He didn't

call me out. He didn't come out. Thank God. He just said it. And then he said, okay. And

then he kept going with his message. Now, okay, wait a minute, Lord, I think you're

trying to tell me something. And so I didn't go for that. And it was just a number of,

really a number of weeks later, I found out about the opportunity to come to Beirut. And

when I look at, I look back on it now, I realized that if I had taken, this was an executive

level position. If I had taken that job, not only, it's not a matter that I couldn't have

went, I wouldn't have. Like I wouldn't even have had, I wouldn't have been available to

go to come to Beirut for that first trip in 2015 because I would have just been starting

this new executive position. I've got responsibilities now at this corporation and I've got to do

these things. What it looked like at the time didn't make sense, but I'm so glad. I'm so

glad that I was in, from our last month, I was in a position to be corrected. I was in

a place where I could grow and be shaped. And ultimately, the Lord helped me to act

like what His word was saying was true.

We're so grateful.

Praise the Lord.

Well, we are direct beneficiaries of the right decision you took.

The Lord is helping us all. But I mean, we can share a lot of examples, your personal

story, which we've shared before. There are cases where when the Lord is prompting us

to do things, to act like His word is true, if you judge by the natural, sometimes, very

often, it will look like this is foolish. But it's foolish according to man's wisdom.

But that's what Paul said, I'm going to use what man calls foolish to confound what the

world calls wise.

That's so good. That's the kind of Bible illustration that we're going to talk about in our group

groups. And I just want to introduce this real quick because we're already out of time.

We're far out of time. But it's the story of Joshua. And actually, before we started

recording, Pastor Matt and I were just talking about Joshua and how amazing, what a model

of faith he is, what an example of faith he is.

Joshua was basically one of the 12 spies that Moses had actually sent into the promised

land. And we know that story from the book of Numbers in chapters 13 and 14. And 10 of

those spies came back with a bad report. Oh, there's giants in the land. They think we're

grasshoppers and they have this image of us and we're terrified and we're not going to

make it and we're all going to die.

Then there were two, there was Joshua and there's Caleb, and they had a good report.

They said, their defense is already gone. They're already departed from them. The Lord

has already given us this land. Let's go and we can possess this. We can do this. Obviously,

that didn't make sense in the natural. They were smaller than those giants. But in faith

view or in faith sight, God already promised them that land. And so we see that that didn't

happen. The whole generation of Israelites didn't make it to the promised land because

of their own wrong trail of thought. We're not really, we can talk about that in the

girl groups, but there, you know, after Moses died and Joshua took over, we see faith story

after faith story. I'm sorry. I meant faith success after faith success after faith success.

And that's, you know, that is, that starts with that verse that we read about the Lord

commanding him. Be strong, be courageous, do not be afraid. You know, keep that word

in your mind, keep that word in front of your eyes. Do not depart from that word. Meditate

in that word day and night. Then you will have great success and you will be prosperous.

And so we're going to look at one of those faith stories. And that is in Joshua six,

that is the story of when the Israelites get to Jericho and when there are, you know, the

walls of Jericho are standing in the way of God's promise to them and what actually happens

there. And the kind of questions and the kind of discussion we're going to have is what

did God initially tell Joshua? Was it logical or was it illogical according to the world?

Did Joshua obey and what was the result of the fact that he did obey? And we're going

to see, you know, we're going to dig deeper about what the trail of thought, which was

the trail of faith looked like in that situation. And I'm really excited about the discussion

and you know, there's a lot more to discuss and you can pick out tons of stories about

the faith successes of Joshua because he had, how do you say it? He had the mind of God.

He had a God minded mentality where God said, I'm going, this is going to happen. I'm getting

to the promised land no matter what. You know, there is, it doesn't matter if there are walls

in the way or rivers in the way or the sun setting in the way, God said, so I'm going.

And he went down that trail of faith and he had victory after victory, after success,

after success. And this is what we can expect to find on the trail of faith. We can expect

to find victory after victory, after success, after success, but it starts in your mind.

It actually starts in your mind. The point where God told him and him acting, the thing

in the middle is his mind and is our mind. And that is what we are looking to renew over

the course of this month. So with that, we're out of time.

Yeah. But our, our, our message here, I want to just repeat this, your mind, my mind, it's

ours and it's a lie to say, why I can't control what I think about. Yes, you can. And that's

what we're working on through this series. You can, you can control what is in your mind.

You are able. Yes, you're able. That's right. We're able

to think on things that the Lord says that we're to think about. That's a, that's a verse

from Philippians chapter four, and we're able to stay on the right trail. And if you made

it this far in today and haven't heard, we love you and we're praying for you. God bless

you. Thank you for listening to this message. We

want everyone to experience the unconditional love of God, grow in his love and go with

his love to the rest of their world. We invite you to connect with us at one of our groups

for our next gathering. And if no one told you yet today, we love you and believe God's

very best for you.