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I love this verse. Psalm 16:7. I will bless the Lord who has given me counsel. King James, my reigns. It means your guts will also instruct me in the night season. And they can look at that and think, what’s he talking about, man. It means, you know, in your gut. I took a photo earlier of my gut. Moving on. Now, joking aside, I really do think that we know that we know on the inside. Sometimes we’re a bit frightened to follow the gut. It’s a bit frightened to kind of act on those things that God has put on the inside of us, because maybe they don’t fit the usual mould. They don’t fit the path of least resistance. They don’t fit with what we think Ministry should be. Or is this okay? But I know in my gut that that business is to finance my own writing. You know how I’m going to reach the uttermost parts of the Earth by writing books. And I started on that journey a long time ago, and I need to conform my world to that reality so I can fulfill my destiny. I think we are really driven by our values.

00:02:19.830]
You can measure where you’re at. You can measure the kind of where you’ve set your course. You can look at where you’re heading, and you can then backtrack and think, what values are driving me here. And sometimes we can fail to take time to truly discern, to approve and prize what is excellent, of real value. He prayed that they might learn to sense what is vital. We do so many things, and yet not all of them are vital for our call to be fulfilled. And we need to learn to approve and value what is of real value to us and to the call and to the path that God has prepared for you to walk in, because you’re going to be driven by that. And so I’ve been driven by a lot of things. I’ve been driven by a desire to be able to turn around to people at times and say, I told you so. A grown man pathetic told you I could do it or to shape up against someone else. These are values that we can take on. They’re not the values of the Kingdom, but they’re the values of the world.

00:03:48.300]
Some of us are so driven by the desire to make money and look good and drive the right car or wear the right shoes or whatever, we tend to forget that when we get to the end of this thing, all of that stuff will be swept away and it’ll just be us. But naked, all of those accolades, ultimately, there’s got to be something deeper on the inside that we’re driven by something. I’ll tell you what, it’s got to be. It’s got to be the voice of God. It’s got to be the voice of your dad speaking to your heart, saying this is the way walking in. It not a pastor, not some TV evangelist, not the latest greatest book that’s come out that everyone’s now understand me, they’re all good things. But, hey. And the key thing is that those values then have to be translated and boiled down and defined into habits. If our life on this Earth is not ultimately affected by the words of heaven, then what are we here for? We can claim to have all of this highfaluting Christian ideals, but if they’re not being lived out in our everyday life, they really count for nothing.

00:05:20.630]
And that takes a great deal of discipline. It takes a great deal of dedication, and it takes guts to be able to cut things off, like you were saying, to be able to cut things off and say, actually, this is what my dad has said for me to do. And I know that if I will just set my course and I will do everything I can to conform my life to fulfil that which the father said for me to do, I’m going to be the most effective and most efficient Minister on this planet in fulfilling my Ministry. This is a good one. The word walk there, it’s kind of off the screen, but it means to be to walk as a companion, to follow as a companion, to be occupied with, or to regulate one’s life. What is regulating your life? Now, we’re gone from values which are kind of the kind of bedrock that we come from. But unless those values are boiled down into habits that are lived out on a daily basis, it’s not regulating your life. And yet here we see that God has created us for good works, that we should walk in them, that we should regulate our life by those works that he has ordained for you personally, specifically uniquely, to walk in again, you know, in your gut.

00:07:38.910]
But the Spirit is also going to bear witness. The Spirit himself will bear witness when you just know, man, I just know that this is what God wants me doing. I just know it’s what God wants me doing. I’m scared to do it. I know it’s going to cost me. I know I’m going to have to any decision. The very word decision means to cut something off, like scissorscision, incision decision. It means to cut things away. Every decision we make ultimately means that we decide for something and decide against something else. I’m going to put that aside, and I’m going to follow this course to be led by the Spirit of God. That word led means to lead by accompanying the word walk, to follow as a companion, to lead by accompanying. What are we getting here? That this is not just Lone Ranger. This isn’t just Super Christian. This is like coming alongside the very word Holy Spirit means the one who comes alongside the standby. And what he wants to do is come Holy spirit. What he wants to do is come alongside and he wants to take a step and he wants me to follow.

00:09:22.870]
It means to lead by accompanying. It means Emmanuel, I’ve got works that are prepared for you. I’ve already provided so you don’t have to worry about how we’re going to finance this deal. You don’t have to worry about how you know I’ve got the right people lined up and they’ve been lined up since before the foundation of the world. It’s a chill. It’s all good. You don’t have to hustle. Yeah, just here and this is the way we’re going to walk today. Just come on to lead by accompanying. To lead by accompanying. And that makes it makes it a lot easier when you know that you’re not trying to carve out your own path. You’re not slashing through the jungle with your Indiana Jones outfit on. I was at comic Con yesterday, man some of the outfits there. You’re not slashing through the jungle. It’s okay. Jesus has slashed through the jungle and there’s a path already cut for you.

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Thanks for listening to today’s episode. Hopefully, it was a blessing to you. If it was do please consider leaving a rating and a review on whatever platform you are listening on. I also would love to encourage you to cheque out my new book, faithful creative. We’ve got a package of resources designed specifically to encourage you in your Christian creative call. You can check that out at faithfulcreativebook.com and if you choose to pick it up, use the promo code podcast for 50% offs. You’ll get it for half price. Have a great rest of your day and God bless Jesus first. Everything else follows.