Be Quiet!

Be Quiet! Sharon Griffin

February 10, 2015

Sharon Griffin gave us a wonderful word from the Word of God. Today she challenged us to not just close our mouths, but quiet our hearts and direct our minds to focus on the voice of the Almighty. We examined a variety of verses that speak to the theme of “Be Quiet” and gives us guidelines that we can apply to our lives. Looking at:

Habakkuk 2:20à In this particular verse the prophet Habakkuk was questioning God because of Israel’s lawlessness and sinfulness. Ironically just as Habakkuk was questioning God, He then presented himself before God, and awaited to be corrected by God. For it is okay to question God and show your concern but be mindful that God owes you no answer and that God wants to come to Him when we are concerned or when our solitude and peace is disturbed. Habakkuk was worried and his doubt grew until He quiet himself and listened as God instructed Him to write down what He said Him. For even Habakkuk and Israel themselves had to learn that…

If you are going to listen then listen to the real God not the idols in your life.

Next we need to have a “trusting confidence”

Isaiah 30:15aà “trusting confidence” in “quietness” we get so busy with the things of the world and we always ask ourselves “what are we going to do…what’s going to happen…” God wants us all to get to the point in our lives where we are “free” and away from the connections that distract us from our relationship with God. Many times in our lives, we must “rest” in God because we must discern and listen to what God wants us to do. We must rest ourselves physically as well as spiritually. We must learn to rest, allow ourselves to ponder and refocus upon God.

            If you want to know how to keep a peaceful mind, win others to Christ, encourage others, fight temptation, and forgive others etc it begins once we learn to quiet our souls then it begins once we learn to quiet our souls. Learn to put away your phone. Remove your apps, and social media. Learn to be alone and think about God and ponder upon his blessings. Close your door, analyze and reflect upon your life. Learn to not give an answer right away because we do not always have the answer for everybody and everything. We must understand that it is okay to not always know the answer to every situation, problem, text, and email it is okay to wait until the answer comes to you.

Know These Things:

·      Ecclesiastes 5:1àYou do not always need to talk, recognize the moments when you should not speak.

·      Psalm 46:10à Recognize you need to be still and listen and know, realize and recognize who God is. Being quiet increases your fear of the Almighty.  

·      Psalm 91:1à You are safe in God. God says in Him there is a secret place where we can tell Him everything, and know He will not tell a soul. We are under the shadow of the almighty and He is everything we need.

The Benefits of “Silence and Solitude”

Psalm 23:2b, 3aà Your soul consists of your will, mind, heart and your emotions.

Quiet, solitary places give us restoration. It revives and refreshes us. Sometimes we even need to separate ourselves from church “stuff”. Nothing should interfere or cloud our communication with the Lord God, so we must learn to leave from the presence of others.

Go find yourself a room, go lock yourself in the room, where no one can disturb, and there you can re-center and renew your mind with the Word of God. Life gets us stressed out so we must quiet ourselves before we speak harmfully to another human being.

Psalm 131à In silence do not fret, grumble, or complain. Do not engage with individuals’ even believers who lead you astray or contribute to non-healthy areas in your lives. Learn to:

            Minimize relationships only make the relationship what it is suppose to be within God’s boundaries.

God always responds to our silence in His Way

1 Kings 19:11-13à A good example is the story of the prophet Elijah who was tired and looked for the next command from the Lord God. Although the earth shook, fire blazed, water moved, Elijah did not see God in any of these wild natural occurrences, but God revealed Himself in a quiet still voice. If we have so much noise in our lives, we might not hear the quiet voice of the Lord. We expect God to always come in an exuberant fashion, through giant earthquakes, thunderstorms, through multitudes of people, public blessings, but a lot of times God comes in a subtle, quiet manner. We must practice and, discipline ourselves to come to God and respect the solitude of His Holy temple.

Think about this

“Where does the still, small voice of God fit into our hectic lives? When do we allow him to lead and guide and correct and affirm? And if this seldom or never happens, how can we lead truly authentic Christian lives?”

“Too busy not to pray” by Bill Hybels, InterVarsity Press 1998, page 125

·      Are you allowing God to come into your life or are you giving Him the leftover parts of your day?

o   -If we fit God in, He won’t fit, but if you start or begin with God everything will fit.-  (Matt 6:33)

o   Putting God first allows you to be sensitive to the little blessings throughout your day, so you can start running and continue on running throughout your journey.

There is such blessing and restoration and peace in solitude.

“Without silence, there is no solitude. Though silence sometimes involves the absence of speech, it always involves the act of listening. Simple to refrain from talking, without a heart listening to God, is not silence.”

“Celebration of Discipline” by Richard Foster. Hodder and Stoughton. 1989, page 123

There is a time and place to relax, but we must learn when it is God’s time. If you want to fight temptation you must listen and ask God, “Lord what should I do?” But if you are not attune to His voice then you cannot hear His answer. The Holy Spirit is a gentleman. He does not go against the Word of God and He does not force His will or choice upon us.

Strategies/Suggestions for Exercising Silence:

·      Write your prayers no more than a page (it could be a prayer of adoration) A lot of times we fall short of thanking God.

·      Journal no more than a page to help you reflect upon God’s blessings

o   All these tools strengthen your listening skills

o   Different distractions are used against different people learn what distractions to cut off from your life

Main take away from today is that God wants us to be quiet, because

All those who open their mouths close their eyes.

You Cannot Love Two Masters

Teacher: Pastor Stan

February 3, 2015

You Cannot Love Two Masters

Tonight we get the wonderful teachings from Pastor Stan, who opens up the discussion by asking us to fill in the blank to this heavy statement. Love not ______. Below is a list of words JFC members came up with.

·      Love not “hate” (3)

·      Love not “temptation”

·      Love not “lust”

·      Love not “war”

·      Love not “selfishness”

·      Love not “the world”

As a Christian we live in this world, we are born into this world, and we die in this world. How are we then supposed to treat the world and the things of this world? For it is written in our main verse tonight,

1 John 2:15-17  (NIV)

On Not Loving the World

15 Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father[a] is not in them.

Therefore scripture tells us not everything we encounter in life is meant to be loved so the question remains: What is or are the things God does not want us to love?

Well first let us establish what is the world what is a clear definition we can use to set up a basis of our understanding.

What is the world?

·      Anything the flesh wants to be fulfilled because anything that it pushes us to do is seeking to please it and not God.

·      The systems in this realm, the system or way of thinking, motivations, and ideas

How do we know the difference between God’s system and the world’s system?

·      God’s system is about love. The world’s system is about lust.

A sure simple way to see if someone is motivated by lust or love is to remember this Love always seeks to give, lust always seeks to get. The world is constantly seeking what it can get. The first thing the world system wants is your faith, everything in the world’s system is engineered for you to not use your faith. Starting from advertising, commercials, newspapers, magazines, shows, the media, the system designed to attack your faith. They do not want you to use it so they attack your faith. Everything for a Christian is connected by faith it is by faith we have been saved through grace. The Christian life is a faith walk. If the world can get you to not operate in your faith, then everything else like your money, your time, your effort…etc comes with it. If you do not operate in faith then you can get caught up in the world system.

However us as believers find the hardest part is the second part of this verse, “Do not love the world or anything in the world….” This is God’s warning for us.

Why would God warn us about this?

Because it is easy for us to start majoring in the minor (natural) things of life rather than the major things of God’s will. Jesus Christ was not sent into this world for the stuff or things like fame or riches, He was sent into the world for the souls of humanity. God does not want us to be caught up in this stuff to be caught up in the culture of the world. God wants us to be focused on studying and maintaining a relationship with Him, while reaching out for others. It does not mean God does not want us to have stuff like a house or car. He just does not want the things in our lives to control us.

There is a formula to where God can always have first access to our lives. It is

Matthew 6:33

33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

            Make God the first priority always give Him the first fruits of your day.

·      Pray to him first thing in the morning

·      Spend quality time with Him in His word

·      Meditate upon his scripturs

God did not create Hell for any human being because He does not want us to be lost to things of this world. We must be careful do not lose your life over the things in this world we see too many celebrities or common folk rushing to buy the latest shoes or jewelry or save all their money. But trust God, He will always provide for His children. God knows and has plans for our lives because this place is temporary. Heaven is forever and the greatest thing we can do in this life is lead someone else to Christ. Think about how good and faithful God is because He continuously does great things for us.

3 things to keep in mind as to why we do not love the world

1.              Because the world’s things does lift you up

a.     All of us will face trials and tribulations especially since we are Christians, if we get caught up in the world we then will construct a false sense of security. But God gives us blessed assurance that is stronger and far more real than whatever illusions the world or Satan fosters. The things (the addictions we run to alcohol, drugs, TV, instagramming,) of the world is will make us think it will elevate us from our problems but These false things will never last when we face the real test. But we get ourselves caught up in God we find out He is not only an on time God but He is a lifter. God is always available. Do not look to the world to be the answer to our dilemmas but be careful because Satan imitates but does not duplicates. The answer is in Christ.

2.              Because the things of the world will leave you.

a.     A lot of people seek the things of the world like money, because when you die, or when they lay you out, money is not coming with you. Anything the world gives you, your not going to be able to keep, this earth realm is not the end, and it is only a blink of eternity, whether you spend it in heaven or hell. Money or naturally riches cannot buy your way into heaven accepting Christ has to happen now.

3.              There is only one God. And He does not like any other gods before Him.

a.     Matthew 6:24 24 “No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.

b.     The fastest way to piss God off is to put another idol before Him. You cannot have two masters because you will end up hating one of them. Ask yourself: Do you really want to follow the world or do you really want to follow God’s Word? The reality of it is if you want to be on the winning team you might as well start with the one who created the team. The Devil knows if he can get us to not operate in faith he can make us useless to the kingdom of God. However if you fall in love with Jesus then you will discover he is the best friend you can ever have. When Jesus’s love and mercy hook up it is blessing for us, for when we deserve punishment, His mercy brushes us off and gets us back on track.

What do you think?

What are some “things” of this world you need to let go of?

What can you do to keep God as master of your life?