Pure Choices

Making God’s Choices Our Choices

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Pr. Joshua Nelson (Host), Jeanne Mogusu, Kim Pearson, John Coaxum, Korey P. Douglas

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Series Code: PC

Program Code: PC000066


00:01 The following program discusses sensitive issues.
00:03 Parents are cautioned that some material
00:05 may be too candid for younger children.
00:39 Hello, and welcome to Pure Choices.
00:41 I'm your host, Pastor Joshua Nelson.
00:43 I'm so excited that you decided to join us.
00:46 We're gonna have a good discussion today.
00:48 Our topic today is making God's choices, your choices.
00:52 You know, the title of this whole program is Pure Choices.
00:54 And a lot of times, I've often wondered,
00:57 well, I have some ideas,
00:58 I have something's that I want to do,
00:59 but how can I actually make my choices
01:01 become what God want, God choices.
01:04 So we're gonna discuss that today.
01:05 But before we get right into it,
01:07 let us just pause for a word of prayer.
01:10 Heavenly Father, we ask now as we seek after Your choices
01:13 that You would fill our hearts and our minds
01:15 through this discussion, in Jesus' name we pray.
01:17 Amen. Amen.
01:19 All right, let's introduce our panel,
01:20 to my left I have Pastor KP Douglas
01:23 from Southeast Missouri, well, he's pastoring there,
01:25 two churches there in Southeast Missouri.
01:27 And then over here on the couch,
01:29 we have Pastor John Coaxum,
01:32 from, he's pastoring at the Glenville SDA Church,
01:35 over in Cleveland, Ohio, happy to have him.
01:37 Also we have, Dr. Jeanne Mogusu,
01:40 who is over at the seminary in Andrews
01:43 and we're happy she's here with us today.
01:44 And we have Kim Pearson,
01:46 who is the associate chaplain over at Oakwood University.
01:50 So we have a great panel today
01:51 and we're gonna start with this powerful discussion,
01:54 making God's choices our choices.
01:56 Let's start with the first question,
01:58 how do you really get to the point
02:00 where you begin to make the choices
02:03 that God want you to make?
02:06 Well, I think we kind of start off on the wrong-foot
02:10 if we say, how do you get to the point?
02:13 Okay.
02:14 I think we've already set ourselves off for failure
02:15 when we say, when we set a mark
02:17 that we ourselves are trying to reach.
02:19 Okay.
02:20 I think that God allows us to make choices.
02:22 I definitely think that He,
02:23 the choices He wants us to make.
02:25 I don't know if we, like I say, try to reach our mark,
02:29 you know, I think we'd become a little legalistic
02:31 when we do that,
02:32 because we actually set out to do that.
02:35 Earlier, last week, I was reading a devotion
02:38 and I came across, you know,
02:39 we'd said that we should have really abide in God
02:42 and even I'm not sure,
02:44 if I've talked to anybody before,
02:46 but I remind myself when Christ says, "Follow me."
02:48 You know, "Follow me"
02:50 doesn't really tell you about points,
02:51 it just says, you know,
02:52 get behind me wherever I go you kind of go.
02:54 I think that when you abide with God
02:56 that your choices begin to change.
02:58 You know, when you kind of stay in constant contact with Him
03:01 that will kind of influence the choices that you make.
03:04 Okay, but let me back up us a little further
03:06 because I wanna even challenge it.
03:07 I'm challenging my own question because how,
03:10 what if you don't even really want to be with God?
03:12 How do you even get that desire
03:14 that you even want to be with the one or follow the one
03:17 that would give you that desire to have pure choice,
03:18 I mean, where do you, you know,
03:20 how do you even get to that point, you know?
03:22 I think God does the work of drawing,
03:24 as well as the work of sustaining you as well.
03:27 I think Christ said it best that no one can come to this
03:30 unless the Father draws him.
03:32 And so even our desire to have a relationship with God
03:35 that actually comes from God.
03:36 Right.
03:38 Essentially, we do nothing
03:39 but we act on what God begins in us.
03:42 The Bible talks about, he who started or began
03:44 the good work in you will bring it unto completion.
03:46 Right.
03:48 But I also wanna say
03:49 that I think that when we are in Christ
03:52 everything changes not just our thought
03:54 and our decisions, literally, everything that we do,
03:56 how we think, you know, I think our appearance changes,
03:59 you know, the word says,
04:01 "If any man be in Christ, he's a new creature."
04:02 New creature.
04:03 "Old things are passed away, behold all things become new."
04:05 Yeah, yeah, that's good. All right.
04:07 I agree with that, but I think I wanna challenge that as well
04:11 and take it back in even further
04:13 to where Joshua was saying,
04:15 what do you do if I'm not even ready
04:16 to get to the point
04:18 where I wanna make pure choices?
04:19 What do I do if I'm there?
04:21 And I will say that you have to get to a point,
04:23 it's kind of a cliché(C) phrase, but you have to be sick
04:25 and tired of being sick and tired.
04:27 You have to be tired
04:30 of the result or the consequences
04:32 that the current choices you're making
04:35 are leading you towards and say,
04:36 I want something different, I want something better.
04:39 And, of course, it's the responsibility of us
04:40 as Christians to model with those things look like.
04:43 But get to the point where you don't want
04:46 where you are in life at.
04:48 And then, yeah, you get tired of it
04:50 and then ask God to come in and just help you.
04:52 And the Bible says
04:53 that the Holy Spirit working in you
04:55 that gives you both the will and the power.
04:58 So he'll give you the will first
05:00 and then the power.
05:02 So... Yeah, amen.
05:03 I challenge that. Okay, go ahead.
05:05 On everything.
05:06 And I was doing about the same Bible study from last week.
05:09 I asked the question.
05:10 It read, it brought us to the text where Jesus says,
05:12 love your enemies as yourself.
05:14 And it asked the question, what is an enemy?
05:16 Then it follow that question up with, what about yourself?
05:20 Do you consider an enemy?
05:22 And I immediately began to think
05:23 of everything wrong about me,
05:24 that is, you know, my procrastinations,
05:27 the sins I commit, the bad habits.
05:29 And while I was reflecting on it,
05:30 it's almost like God came to me was like Korey,
05:33 that's not really the enemy.
05:34 The enemy in you is really not the bad things that you do,
05:38 but the good that you wanna do.
05:40 Because naturally, whenever we wanna do good,
05:43 we begin to fight against it.
05:45 You know, and so I think we view God
05:47 from this point of view
05:48 where we're coming to God trying to get stuff.
05:52 You know, we want the blessing, we want even,
05:54 and its good intentions, we do want to be made new.
05:57 But in that same text, it says that God, the way He loves,
06:00 the way He does things is He doesn't do things
06:03 in order to get from us.
06:04 He gives, not receive, not wanting anything in return,
06:07 and I think that our relationship with God
06:09 should really be, you just start to say,
06:10 I'm only saying this because
06:12 it was a paradigm shift for me too.
06:14 Imagine a relation with God that is not based on
06:17 me wanting to become better,
06:18 but based on the fact that I just simply love who God is,
06:21 you know, and so I just give my all to Him,
06:24 not expecting anything in return.
06:26 But what I do receive in return may be pure choices.
06:29 Okay, so he begins to shape you
06:31 and to make you into who you are.
06:33 I gotta jump in real quick because something Korey said
06:36 I think can be taken in the wrong way
06:39 is that the enemy in you is the good in you.
06:42 And that's true until you surrender to Christ.
06:45 The enemy in you is the good in you
06:47 when you're living in the flesh.
06:49 When you're not surrendering to Christ,
06:51 when you don't want Christ
06:52 'cause you are not gonna want to be inclined
06:53 to do the good thing.
06:55 But I think when you do decide,
06:56 hey, I want something different,
06:57 I wanna be more like Christ,
06:59 then the enemy in you
07:00 does become the flesh versus this,
07:02 the flesh versus the spirit.
07:03 But until you make that decision,
07:05 I wanna be careful in saying that the enemy in you
07:08 is the good
07:11 and I think that's true
07:12 until you give your life to Christ.
07:14 You give your life to Christ
07:15 then that's the war between the flesh and the spirit.
07:17 Okay.
07:18 Let's go with Jeanne and then go back to Korey.
07:19 I wanna rephrase what he said in terms of,
07:22 it's not so much the good in us as it is the lack of surrender
07:26 for what is in us, period.
07:29 Because when we don't surrender to Christ,
07:31 then we're trying to do all of these things
07:34 of our own freewill and we cannot.
07:36 There's absolutely no way that we can in our own flesh
07:41 do everything that Christ asks us
07:43 which is why He tells you, Follow me.
07:45 He prefaces it with that.
07:47 That's why in the whole book of Mark,
07:49 if you'll read the gospel from cover to cover.
07:51 He starts doing things for, like,
07:55 performing all these miracles and He keeps telling to people,
07:58 don't say who I am, don't say who I am, don't go tell the,
08:02 you know, it seems ludicrous when you read it,
08:05 how He performs a miracle
08:07 and then tells you don't go and tell anybody.
08:09 But He does that until He explains to them
08:13 what it really means to follow Him.
08:16 You know, deny yourself and then follow me.
08:19 Because He recognizes that you cannot do all of this
08:21 until you really come to know who He is first
08:25 which I think is what Korey is leading to.
08:27 Until you know who He is first in and of himself
08:31 and then you can follow Him,
08:33 so when we try to do things of us of our own will,
08:36 that's when the good in us becomes our greatest enemy.
08:39 Well, let me just kind of clean up
08:41 what I was saying.
08:42 Clean it up, man.
08:44 The question that I posed it asks,
08:46 what do you treat as the enemy?
08:48 You know, and it's not so much as what is the enemy,
08:51 because of course the bad things are your enemy
08:53 but there is the struggling of the two natures.
08:56 And when you initially come to God, as a person,
08:59 you don't have to try to do bad stuff.
09:01 The bad stuff happens naturally,
09:03 it's only when you try to do the good stuff
09:05 that you begin to debate, you know,
09:07 and I thought about it.
09:08 You know, when somebody cuts me off from highway?
09:10 Nobody had to teach me what road ridge was,
09:13 I just did it.
09:14 I just was mad that I got cut off.
09:16 But it's when I wanna treat somebody good,
09:19 when I wanna do something nice for somebody,
09:20 when I wanna kick a habit,
09:22 that's when the debating in my mind starts.
09:24 Well, should I really do something nice?
09:26 Because there ain't nobody be doing nice for me.
09:28 And they just, they're not gonna change
09:30 if I'd do something nice
09:31 and we'd begin to war against the thing in us
09:33 that wants to do good
09:35 and I'm saying we treat that as the enemy.
09:37 You know, as we talk about, you know, making pure choices,
09:40 the thing about God is so beautiful is He says,
09:43 "Follow Me, abide in Me."
09:45 The longer and the more we do that,
09:46 the more we stay in God
09:48 is the more that the paradigm shifts.
09:50 The more we feed the good side, you know what I'm saying,
09:53 is the more that it begins to grow
09:55 and it becomes less of the enemy
09:57 and the bad things begins to become the enemy.
09:59 So we're, we don't...
10:01 just how we don't have to rethink about doing bad,
10:03 we don't have to think about making pure choices
10:05 because it begins to become a part of us
10:06 and we war against the bad stuff.
10:08 And that happens when you really develop
10:10 a relation with Jesus
10:12 and you really get to know who He is.
10:14 You know, I think that, you know,
10:15 and I have heard different people say, you know,
10:16 "Does God really exists?"
10:18 or wondering, you know,
10:19 different things about God in their Christianity faith.
10:22 And I think to myself, you know,
10:24 I can never get to that point
10:25 because of me really understanding
10:28 who Jesus is and getting to know Him.
10:30 Once you read about Him, you study about Him,
10:32 and you read what He says, how He speaks, how He talks,
10:34 and how He does things, and what He does for people
10:37 and just experiencing His spirit,
10:39 you just naturally say,
10:40 "Man, I wanna be like this guy, you know, I wanna be like Him,
10:42 I wanna be close to Him,
10:44 and next to Him as much as I can."
10:45 So I think when you get to that point,
10:48 you automatically begin to make pure choices
10:51 and you begin, your whole mindset
10:52 begins to change
10:53 just because you're attracted to Jesus.
10:55 You know, and that
10:57 automatically lead you to pure choices.
10:59 However, in saying that great thing that we've said it
11:03 and the idea of how it is,
11:05 we know that even in our Christian journey
11:07 as beautiful, as great, as lovely as His picture is,
11:10 how Jesus looks, we have fallen off,
11:12 we made, it has setbacks.
11:14 So let's now be a little real
11:16 and maybe a little transparent to our viewers
11:18 because there are many people like us
11:20 who have to start it off with that image of Jesus
11:22 in front of them.
11:24 Trying to make pure choices but have faltered off.
11:26 So what do you really do?
11:28 How do you come back
11:29 when you have made impure choices
11:32 in your Christian journey?
11:33 Well, I think one of the things we talked about was
11:37 you gotta feed the spirit and starve the flesh,
11:42 and to me a choice is a decision
11:45 you make every day, right?
11:46 So for me, it starts first thing in the morning.
11:48 I know, for me it's easy, my phone literally,
11:51 is usually right by my bed, and the first thing I do
11:53 when I wake up in the morning is check Facebook or Instagram
11:56 or Twitter or see whatever it was that I missed.
12:00 And I saw this Instagram picture that said,
12:02 you know, you gotta have 39 Bible apps on your phone,
12:06 but the first thing you check is Instagram.
12:08 And so for me the first practical step I had to make
12:13 was to choose Jesus
12:14 at the beginning of my day, first.
12:16 Amen.
12:17 So before I check any social media
12:19 or anything like that,
12:21 I had to make sure that
12:22 I was checking it with Jesus first.
12:23 So that was my first checkpoint of the day.
12:26 Our Lord, helped me get my choices,
12:28 help me get my mind right, help me get my thoughts right,
12:30 go with me through this day.
12:32 Then the next step in the day, all right, Lord,
12:34 I'm getting dressed now, what am I gonna wear?
12:36 Do you think this is the good idea?
12:38 You know, and just really being transparent with God.
12:41 I think this shirt is kind of dull,
12:44 but it's a little revealing, should I wear this shirt?
12:46 Should I not wear?
12:48 And just be honest with God
12:49 and as you start to involve Him in your day,
12:52 He starts to help you with those choices.
12:54 I think it's easy, I love where Kim is going with this
12:59 because we've gotten this detached view of God like,
13:04 He is so far, He is high up there,
13:07 sitting on a throne, with a gavel in His hand,
13:12 thinking, "Oh, Korey, oops!
13:14 There you go, you know, you didn't do that right."
13:16 "Oh, John, you know, do that right."
13:19 But that's really not what God is
13:20 or we seem to think that we cannot be real with God.
13:24 He only wants to hear the fluffy stuff.
13:26 But our relationship with God is like
13:28 a relationship with anybody else.
13:30 Well, not quite anybody else, but I wanna be real.
13:36 If I wanted, I want depth,
13:37 if I'm in a relationship with John
13:39 and I want depth in our relationship.
13:43 I will spend time with John, I will be real with John,
13:46 I will allow John to see who I really am
13:50 so that he can know who I, you know,
13:52 so we can both know each other,
13:53 and I think it's the same thing with God.
13:55 You want God to see the real you,
13:57 He already knows your thoughts.
13:59 He already knows that you don't feel like praying
14:01 so just you can be real with Him and say,
14:04 "You know what Lord?
14:05 Today I really don't feel like praying,
14:07 but you know I wanna spend time with You.
14:10 Help me want to spend time with You."
14:13 Yeah. That's a good prayer.
14:14 Yeah, I agree with you 100%.
14:16 I think it's futile for us to try to, you know,
14:18 mask or cover up our inconsistencies with God.
14:21 You know, as Bible says he, we're already naked
14:23 before Him anyway and I think this speaks to,
14:25 you know, one of my favorite stories again
14:26 is a prodigal son.
14:28 I think, Kim may have touched on this at the beginning,
14:30 in order for us to really have relationship with God
14:33 and really desire and want to make pure choices,
14:35 then we have got to come to the end of ourselves.
14:38 And I think the prodigal son,
14:39 when he found himself in that ditch with the pigs,
14:41 you know, he looked around and is like,
14:42 "What am I doing here?
14:44 Why am I here?
14:45 I'm at the bottom of the barrel, I have nothing.
14:47 I could be home with my father where there is everything.
14:51 He loves me, what in the world am I doing here?"
14:55 And I think we have to recognize the path
14:57 that we are going down on right now
14:58 is not gonna take us anywhere good.
15:00 And so I need God more than anything right now.
15:04 And I love, you know, there's a quote that says man,
15:06 "The pain of staying the same must be greater
15:09 than the pain of change."
15:10 We've got to realize,
15:12 I would rather go through the pain of changing my life,
15:15 than going through the pain of staying the same
15:17 and not making pure choices or getting better.
15:19 Yeah, I love that.
15:21 So, you know, and that's man,
15:22 that's some good comments you've made.
15:24 And you know, thinking about going a little further,
15:26 you know, and just really being honest.
15:28 A lot of times, when people keep making
15:30 so many mistakes and keep messing up
15:33 and keep making those impure choices
15:34 and keep staying the same like you're saying, you know,
15:38 it gets kind of discouraging.
15:40 And he'd say, "Well, you know, man,
15:41 I don't know if I can do this anymore.
15:42 What's the point of even trying?"
15:44 Maybe just go back to why you shouldn't be trying.
15:46 But let's start with that, what if someone is tired
15:48 of trying to live a Christian life?
15:51 You know, the question is beautiful.
15:53 I would have said this before the question,
15:55 but I think it's still appropriate.
15:56 You know, I think we think too hard
15:59 about Christian journey, Christian life.
16:01 I think we try really hard because of how we pray to God,
16:04 because he's so complicated, he's so far,
16:07 we gotta go above and beyond the call of duty.
16:09 But God says I want
16:11 and Kim says the best word ever,
16:13 relationship.
16:15 When I'm, you know, I'm engaged,
16:17 you don't have to tell me
16:18 how to be in a relationship with my fiancée,
16:21 I know how to relate to her.
16:22 You know what I'm saying?
16:24 I want to be with her for the rest of my life
16:26 and even though we are currently
16:28 1000 plus miles apart, I spend time with her.
16:31 Just like you said with Facebook,
16:33 when I get up in the morning, first thing I do is I text her
16:35 or I check to see if she's texted me.
16:37 If she hasn't text, I call. If I don't call, she calls me.
16:40 If we're not calling, we're on FaceTime.
16:42 Amen.
16:43 When we're not on FaceTime, you know what I'm saying.
16:45 Come on, Korey.
16:46 And when we're on FaceTime,
16:47 sometimes we maybe in a deep-seeded conversation,
16:50 other times we may be just looking at each other.
16:52 I may be doing work,
16:53 she may be doing something completely different,
16:54 but we're still on FaceTime.
16:56 You know, I just maybe looking at the back of her head.
16:57 In the presence...
16:58 But the key is
17:00 we stay in constant contact with each other.
17:03 And I think that's what we missed that about God.
17:05 You know, we think that God wants contact in this way
17:08 or this time or in what do one method.
17:10 God is just saying, just be with me.
17:13 God spends constant contact with us all the time.
17:15 He speaks to me through you, through a text,
17:17 through John with encouraging word,
17:18 through Kim hitting me up.
17:20 You know, God is always dropping something on me,
17:22 blessing a family member, you know,
17:23 even speaking personally to me.
17:25 And He's saying, "I just want that from you,
17:27 just stay in contact with me."
17:28 And as you do that, you know,
17:30 the thing about relationship that's so beautiful is,
17:32 the same fiancée who I love and will do the most for
17:35 is the same fiancée that I may have to rebuke
17:37 because, you know, I may see something
17:39 that I seem to rebuke
17:40 or that she may have to rebuke me.
17:42 There are moments where we don't,
17:43 where we may be mad at each other
17:44 and we'll still be on FaceTime.
17:46 Yeah. Yeah.
17:47 You know what I'm saying, it's just about
17:48 staying in constant contact
17:50 and I think that's the beauty
17:51 of this whole Christian journey.
17:53 All right.
17:54 I just wanna say that I think that it's all about choices.
17:56 I know that sounds a little cliché(C),
17:58 but if I decide that I want food
18:01 and I need to eat,
18:02 I don't want to eat just once and be like,
18:04 "Okay, I ate, never gonna eat again."
18:07 It's a constant choice that you make every single day.
18:12 We make choices every single day
18:14 to get up and go to class, get up and go to work.
18:17 I don't just decide once I'm gonna get up
18:18 and then automatically it happens every day
18:20 for the rest of my life.
18:22 I have to decide
18:23 and even though I'm not married,
18:25 I'm sure, you know, you're engaged, you're married,
18:26 that you have to choose your wife,
18:27 you choose your wife every day.
18:29 I have to choose God every day, even when I don't feel like it.
18:33 Sometimes we get so laid by feelings,
18:35 we forget that we have to make choices.
18:36 So it's a choice.
18:38 I might not feel like serving God.
18:39 I might not feel like being pure.
18:42 But I need to keep choosing it every time.
18:45 I may have messed up, twice, three times,
18:47 I messed up last week, and then this month,
18:49 and then last night.
18:50 I'm gonna get up today and choose to be pure today.
18:53 And when I get up tomorrow
18:55 and then choose to be pure tomorrow.
18:56 Yeah.
18:57 And honestly, it's tough, it's a struggle
18:59 and often times we think that God is gonna, you know,
19:02 flip a switch in us and make us now we don't like
19:04 anything evil anymore, you know.
19:05 But it's a struggle, we have to fight
19:07 to keep making those pure choices,
19:09 but like we're saying, as you're with Jesus
19:11 and you're in that relationship,
19:12 it becomes a choice that almost becomes automatically,
19:14 like you said, routine like,
19:16 eating and everything like that.
19:17 It becomes part of your life, you know,
19:20 but let's now really deal with some practical things.
19:24 Now one of our Sabbath school lessons
19:25 is talking about discipleship, right?
19:28 And really, you know,
19:30 the disciplines and the discipleship.
19:31 So what are some disciplines that have worked in your life,
19:35 we're gonna go to the screen in few minutes.
19:36 But what are some disciplines in your life that has worked
19:39 in building your relationship with Jesus?
19:41 I wanna start with Jeanne, go ahead.
19:44 I have found that journaling helps me
19:47 because I have a very active brain
19:49 like it's constantly moving and working,
19:53 there're like 10,000 things
19:54 literally in my mind at any given time.
19:56 So sometimes it's hard to like
19:59 just be still in God's presence,
20:03 but I have found that when I journal,
20:05 like I journal my prayers in the morning,
20:08 I find that I'm able to because I'm concentrating
20:11 and I'm writing,
20:12 I'm using more than one of my senses,
20:15 I find that it actually allows me to converse with God.
20:19 And after doing that for a while,
20:21 it actually can help me be still, you know,
20:25 because I recognized that it is part of my worship.
20:28 It's me expressing to God what I want to say
20:32 and concentrating on what he also wants to say to me.
20:35 Okay, all right.
20:36 Quickly, John. Yeah, reading.
20:38 Reading is big for me, man.
20:39 I mean, books, the Bible
20:41 and also from time to time in the morning
20:43 I'll take up my guitar and I'll play
20:45 and I've been playing the hymn for a while.
20:46 Just looking at the words
20:47 and what they're saying has really helped me in,
20:50 you know, just drawing me closer to God,
20:52 I'm spending time with Him early in the morning.
20:54 But reading and just, as the word says, you know,
20:56 storing that word up in my heart,
20:57 it helps me for like a better phrase,
20:59 not to sin against Him.
21:00 Yeah, all right. Kim.
21:02 On two things, I've been going to the gospels,
21:04 and just really painting the picture with my senses.
21:07 What would have been like to go through that
21:09 and I kind of write that down journaling.
21:10 But serving, I mean, the hardest thing you can do
21:14 when you're struggling is to stay in the struggle.
21:15 Sometimes you gotta get out,
21:17 go do some community service with your church, you know,
21:21 go help some friends, go shovel,
21:23 you know, your next door neighbor's
21:25 snow out of their driveway, go feed the homeless.
21:28 Get involved, do something that works against those urges
21:32 or whatever it is you're struggling with.
21:34 So for me that helps and then praise and worship.
21:35 Turn on a jam...
21:37 There you go. Yeah.
21:39 Amen. Kim kind of took my answer.
21:42 I would say anything that takes your mind off of you
21:46 is beautiful.
21:47 And just like you said service
21:49 because if I can go back to beginning,
21:51 God gives, God loves without expecting love
21:53 in return.
21:54 And Jesus said, be perfect do the same thing.
21:56 We ought to engage other people in relationships.
22:00 Serving, I'm talking about calling people, instead of,
22:02 you know, who wants to sit around
22:05 and think about what's wrong with them all time.
22:06 You know, I'm such a sinner, I mean, after a while,
22:09 you gonna be a sinner if you keep calling yourself
22:10 a sinner.
22:11 So take the attention off of you.
22:13 Go do something nice, spend time with people,
22:15 spend time with friends, do things that you enjoy doing,
22:18 just live life, but take your mind off you.
22:20 Serving people is probably,
22:21 I would say the number one thing to do.
22:23 Do stuff for other people. Amen.
22:25 And for me, I think it's been, recently being married.
22:28 Being able to have that devotional time with my wife,
22:31 I mean, and even trying to think about ways
22:33 to make her happy throughout the day
22:35 and stuff has really kind of gave me
22:36 to be in relationship with Jesus
22:38 and showing me whatever He does for me.
22:40 You know, I'm trying to do the same thing for her.
22:42 So that's been powerful for me.
22:43 All right, now let's go the screen
22:44 and see what these students have to say.
22:49 The thing about cliché(C) is that they're true.
22:51 They're true. No one just wants to hear them.
22:53 So when someone says that your relationship with God
22:55 is gonna be the thing that's gonna change this,
22:57 it is.
22:58 As you sweep the house in your heart,
23:02 as you sweep it out and the sin moves out,
23:05 you need God to move in because if you, if it's open,
23:08 if it's open, the demons are just gonna come back.
23:10 So you need to wake up in the morning,
23:13 have a devotional life.
23:14 You need to be in constant communication with God.
23:16 And it may sound like a cliché(C) but it's true, it'll work.
23:20 Yeah, that's it.
23:22 That was good.
23:23 Passionate young man, I mean, it's true.
23:25 You gotta be intentional about this thing.
23:27 You can't just think it's gonna happen, you know.
23:29 You have to be really intentional about it
23:31 and taking your devotional life seriously.
23:33 And I think I really wanna encourage everyone
23:34 who is watching to really make that a big part in their life.
23:37 I mean, the journal thing you said,
23:39 I mean, someone may say, you know, "Really?
23:41 I don't have time for that."
23:43 But if you're really intentional
23:44 about the relationship with Jesus,
23:45 you're gonna find a way to start doing that, you know,
23:48 your praises, you know, your services,
23:50 you're gonna find a way to do that.
23:52 All right, we have one more I believe,
23:53 let's see what they have to say.
23:57 I would say definitely to be constant
23:59 and immediate in prayer.
24:01 There's a lot of times when we're like, you know,
24:03 "I really do need to work on my relationship with God.
24:05 I really do need to stop doing this or stop doing that."
24:08 And just like when that thing, as soon as that thing happens,
24:11 like just immediately, turn to prayer
24:13 and tell God exactly what's going on
24:15 and be transparent with Him.
24:16 And even when your friends are having difficulties,
24:18 don't say, "I'll pray for you."
24:20 But pray for them right in the moment.
24:21 So that you're showing them the you're an example
24:24 for exactly how it should be done.
24:27 Wow, I love that one
24:29 because don't we always say that,
24:30 "I'll pray for you."
24:32 We never do. Yeah, we never do.
24:34 I mean, at least I try to say a word of prayer in my head
24:36 but it not, stop and pray with them right then.
24:38 But, you know, prayer is a powerful,
24:41 powerful tool that we have.
24:43 You know, we take it lightly sometimes,
24:44 we don't pray as much as we should.
24:45 Bible says pray without ceasing, right?
24:47 And so we really have a tool and access to God
24:50 that we can use through prayer.
24:53 So it's been a good discussion but before we close today,
24:56 I wanna have some rapid fire questions
24:58 to kind of, see if you all can answer
25:00 some questions on your feet.
25:01 Do we get some points? Yeah, you do get some points.
25:04 Okay, here we go, here we go.
25:06 Answer it, real quick, real quick.
25:08 Why do you think it's so hard,
25:09 why do you think it's easier to compromise?
25:12 Kim?
25:13 Because we're inclined to sin, feels good.
25:16 If it didn't feel good, then we wouldn't sin.
25:17 So I think we're inclined to do
25:19 because we're inclined to flesh.
25:20 Yeah, what do you think? Why is it easier to compromise?
25:21 Yeah, absolutely, I agree,
25:23 it is easy because mostly the majority of the world
25:25 is doing the same thing.
25:27 So we wanna fit in with everybody else.
25:28 Okay, next question.
25:29 Do you think that the church,
25:31 people in the church are more promiscuous
25:32 than the people in the world?
25:34 Jeanne?
25:35 I think the church is the cross section
25:36 of the society.
25:38 We're just talking about it.
25:41 It's a cross section of the society
25:42 and unfortunately the church should hold standards
25:46 that are higher than the world,
25:48 but I think in today's world, unfortunately,
25:51 our church does not do that.
25:54 I don't think so. I don't think it's good to generalize.
25:56 I think that there's a lot of people in the world
25:58 who are not as promiscuous as we think they are.
26:00 And I think that's something our young people need to hear
26:02 that just because you seen on television
26:04 doesn't mean everybody is doing it.
26:05 Okay, all right. Another question.
26:06 Why you think our society is over sexualized?
26:11 Kim?
26:13 Because Satan is the counterfeit for everything.
26:15 So sex is the counterfeit for love
26:18 and so it's over sexualized because it's a copy,
26:21 a counterfeit for what God wants to give us
26:23 which is true intimacy.
26:25 Okay. John?
26:26 Yeah, sex tells better than anything else in this world
26:28 and I believe it's the most addictive thing in this world.
26:31 Okay, all right. You wanna tell? Go ahead.
26:34 We don't use to sell drugs there.
26:37 That's how you set out the fire.
26:40 Who knows what's going to fall back from here.
26:42 Okay, here we go, another question.
26:44 Is anything wrong with having sex before marriage?
26:47 Why?
26:48 There's everything wrong with having sex before marriage.
26:51 Just of the top of my head, God says, no.
26:55 Because God said no. Give me some wise.
26:58 Give me some wise.
27:00 It's definitely danger because it's the attachment
27:01 that you make with the people
27:03 that you have sex with those do not go away.
27:09 Get that. Okay.
27:11 Yeah, 'cause sex is ready to bond you,
27:12 so why would you wanna be bonded
27:14 with 12 different people?
27:16 That's just, yeah.
27:18 Okay. All right.
27:20 John, other question,
27:21 why do you think men struggle more with porn
27:23 and stuff like that and addictions like that?
27:25 I think men are more visual, women are more emotional,
27:27 and I hate to say this, brothers,
27:29 but women tend to think more
27:31 and I think we tend to act on impulse
27:33 more than anything else.
27:34 I disagree.
27:36 I think that women especially in today's society
27:38 are struggling with porn just as much.
27:41 You'd be surprised
27:42 as how many women struggle with porn.
27:43 It looks different, but it can be the same thing.
27:45 Okay. Well, that's where we want to finish it off.
27:47 The Bible says, I'm gonna close with which says in Romans 12:2,
27:50 "Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world
27:53 but be transformed by the renewing of your mind."
27:56 Let God do that for you
27:57 and remember to always make pure choices.
27:59 God bless you.


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Revised 2017-06-08