As Christians, we have a secret weapon. It is not our education or history, nor our prowess or personality, although at times all of these may come into play. The real differentiator is the presence of One greater than ourselves, one who is rooting for our breakthrough, and planning for our prosperity.
TRANSCRIPT
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The scriptures really are the richest treasure that we have on this Earth. So just replete with wisdom and endless in what they can teach us, endless in the depths that we can plumb and draw life from. I mean, really, the it’s just I’m never cease to be amazed at how this book can continue to deliver year after year, decade after decade, century after century, and people never exhaust what can be discovered there. It really is so much like the character of God himself in that, you know, like four centuries and millennial, there are creatures around the throne of God who are continually awakened to the glory and the majesty of the one that they serve like day and night.
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They they cry, holy, holy, holy. Other than beyond any description, beyond any conception, this being that we call father, this being that we call God is way beyond anything that we can ever begin to conceive. And yet he is here with us. He is in our hearts. He is in our life. We are in connect, connected to him, related to him. And he has given us his words. And I think that this is the secret weapon that we have.
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You know, it’s not necessarily our education or our history prowess or our personality, although all of these come into play, God did not violate the men and the women that he used to record his words in the book. He worked with them. He inspired and filled them and guided them in what they did. And he inspires, fills and guides us in what we do as well. And this is the differentiator. It really is the presence of God, the presence of the greater one who lives in us.
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And he is rooting for your breakthrough. He is absolutely planning and has planned for your prosperity. You know, Proverbs teaches that we shouldn’t lean on our own understanding, but commit our works to the Lord that our thoughts might be established. I like the passion translation of the verse. It says, before you do anything, put your trust in God and not in yourself. And every plan you make will succeed. And then kind of a marginal rendering of this is literally commit your business to the Lord.
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And I say instead of hustling, we start hearing Jesus. Jesus said that he did nothing that he didn’t first see the father doing. And through that vital connexion he had with heaven, you know, he didn’t take one step apart from the blessing of God because of that, his steps were established, confident and unfaltering. Now, I wish I could say the same thing about myself, but, you know, despite my fumbling efforts at times, I am still learning to pry myself away from this stubborn self-reliance.
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You know, it’s really clinging habit that I need to break. And I’m sure many of you would relate to that. You know, this addiction to do it myself, you know, it really deserves its own 12 step programme. But, you know, but at the same time as kind of my some of my less successful efforts in that direction, I have been learning to lean more fully on God. And the results of that, leaning on him, leaning on his wisdom and leaning on his direction are evident in our lives and essay in partnership with Jesus.
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We’ve really built a tremendously fulfilling, satisfying lifestyle business from the ground up, and it’s really furnished us financially in ways that were previously unheard of for us. And to be honest, if you’d known me back in the day and my aversion to business, you would absolutely recognise that it’s. Totally a miracle of God’s grace work in our lives, and so I think there are two things that committing our business to the Lord means for us. It means No.
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One, that we recognise that our business ultimately belongs to him and no to that we accept that he is the senior partner and that he is passionately committed to our success. And so from this place of confidence in God’s commitment to us, in this place of confidence, in God’s commitment to you, it becomes a great deal easier to commit to him. You know, we’re not a holding on to things in the same way because we trust that his hand, these things in his hand will be much better administrated than if they are merely and as you know, carrying on reading there in Proverbs 16, again, from the Pashtun translation, verse 26, a person who is skilled in business discovers prosperity, which is great news.
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But the verse isn’t complete. It goes on to say, but the one he trusts in God will be blessed beyond belief. Like there’s like over and above, you know, God plans to give you a future and a hope to prosper everything that you do. And this is intimately tied to your intimacy with him. You know that verse that from Jeremiah 29:11, very popular verse for some like that’s the promise box, one that they reach for, you know, for.
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I know the plans I have for you declares the Lord plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future. But then the verse actually continues. The context of this is this vital connexion that we’ve been talking about. Then you will call upon me as like it continues in verse twelve. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart in a seeking God is isn’t is not a diversion from our business activities.
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It is business activity. You know, he is a great business man. He’s a great he is in the business of supplying the entire world. Yeah. He is in the business of raising people up to raise people up. He’s in the business of building people. He’s in the building business of building you. He can make the darkest and most hopeless situations turn around and become hopeful. You know, he was able to turn the cross into the instrument of victory as opposed to the instrument of death.
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There is nothing that God cannot do. And with him on our side who honestly can be against us and spending time in consultation with him and not, you know, it doesn’t slice precious hours from our productivity. It really is the source and the fount of all of our future success. And a spiritual commitment really forms a foundation upon which we can then confidently build our business for many years to come. And thankfully, you know, our father’s activity isn’t confined behind church walls.
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His presence and counsel have been woven in to the very fabric of our lives. I love the Hebrew meeting meeting. I love the Hebrew meanings of this word. Commit. If you if you look them up in the kind of theological word book or strongs, there are a number of different facets to this word commit. And one of them is to wallow, to wallow. And I just got this picture of like wallowing in the wisdom of God, you know, in the same way as you might, like, get Clive in a hot tub and sit back and like, let the warmth feel your body and just relax and just let the concerns of the day drift away.
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We can wallow in the wisdom of God. It’s not something we’re not us. We don’t just want to take a quick shower. Yeah. We don’t just want to dip our toe. We want to climb in and we want to fully commit and fully immerse myself in the wonder of God’s word. And another one is to roll together, you know, like this this idea of like rolling together with God, you know, committing ourselves one to another and allowing.
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Allowing him to take us on an adventure, you know. What are your plans for today? What hopes do you hold for your growth and your prosperity? You know, and if if, like me, you still have like that the vestiges of that addiction to do it myself? You know, we want to make sure that we don’t get robbed of these beyond belief blessings that the scriptures talk about, you know, as a result of wholehearted commitment to building God’s kingdom.
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Yeah. And building our business, building our lives, building our families in conjunction and in connexion and friendship and partnership with the king. Well, thanks for listening. Hopefully it’s been an encouragement to you today, if you want to connect any further, you can do so through my website at Davidleemartin.com. Have a great day.
