Reminder: If you have completed discipleship with anyone, please fill out the completion for at the bottom of our BPL page “TheAIMChurch.com/BPL/” and have your discple fill out the assessment form. We need the completion forms fill out by Sunday, July 19th to allow for enough time to prepare for our graduation on August 9th.
The Lord has opened the door through a divine connection to a pastor in India for Chad to speak on a zoom call to some of the leaders at the Faith Church. The time on the flyer below is for India, the service will be Friday July 17th from 10 AM – 11 AM. They will start with praise and worship, with the message to follow around 10:30 AM. If you are interested in joining, the zoom information is on their flyer below. The pastor, David Livingstone, speaks English and will be translating the message for his church.
What Are You Looking At? . . . God’s Word or the World?
Do not let [God’s Word] depart from your eyes. Proverbs 4:22a
Words are powerful, as seen in 1 Peter 3:10, “He who would love life and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips from speaking deceit.” James even refers to our words as the rudder of a ship, such a small member that steers the entire ship or body (James 3:4-5). This is why God said in Isaiah 59:21, “My words which I have put in your mouth, shall not depart from your mouth.” We should be speaking only what God has said whether through His Word or by His Spirit. Jesus obeyed this by only speaking what the Father told Him to speak (John 12:49). We can do this also, but we need to understand the process behind what causes us to say the things we speak.
Have you ever seen a child fall, cut themselves, and keep playing? But then once they look at their injury and realize there is a little blood, they start crying and saying they are hurt. It is almost as if they were being ruled by what their eyes were telling them. Our eyes are powerful tools that can be used for good or bad. This is why God tells us in Proverbs 4:20-22, “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 they are life to those who find them, and health to all their flesh.” God is saying do not remove My words from before your eyes. This is important because Matthew 6:22 says, “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light.” Whatever is before your eyes is feeding your whole body / soul / heart. Whatever is in your heart will come out of your mouth (Luke 6:45). Whatever comes out of your mouth will ultimately bring life or death into your path (Proverbs 18:21). We are called to walk in agreement with God (Amos 3:3). However, we can only do that if our words are lining up with God’s Word. For this alignment to occur, we need to be in God’s Word daily. We need to memorize the Word, and we need to be affirming ourselves in areas where what we see may contradict the Word of God.
Do Not Waver, Continue to Speak God’s Word!
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful. Hebrews 10:23a
It is no wonder that we are to keep God’s Word before our eyes to illuminate our body and path (Proverbs 4:20-22), because His Word is a lamp (Psalm 119:105). The issue arises when we remove the Word from before our eyes. The enemy will throw things before us in an attempt to get you to speak your circumstances and not what God has said. For example, it is easy for us to memorize and affirm our health by quoting Isaiah 53:5 and 1 Peter 2:24, “By His stripes I am healed!” However, when you wake up with a cough and a tickle in your throat, what do you say? Do you say oh, I am sick, or do you continue to say, “By His stripes I am healed!” When you look at your bank account, do you say you do not have any money, or do you quote Philippians 4:19, “My God shall supply all my needs…” When you face a difficult task, do you say I can’t do it, or do you quote Philippians 4:13, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” And Luke 1:37, “For with God nothing will be impossible.” It is easy to speak God’s Word when everything is going well. However, you must also speak the Word through the trials (James 1:2-4). You can fertilize your lawn 6 days of the week, but if you spray it with roundup on the seventh it will die.
The enemy comes in when we stop speaking God’s Word and start speaking what we see in the world. This is why Colossians 3:2 says, “Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.” Stay focused on God’s Word, not what is around you. Hold on to the Word and do not speak anything else. Hebrews 10:23 says, “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.” James refers to the one that wavers as a double minded person (James 1:6-8). He even says in verse 7, “Let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord.” Commit today to be single-minded, keeping God’s Word before your eyes by memorizing 1 scripture a week, and speaking His Word over every area of your life.
