Friday Recap @ da Chapel New Year’s Eve Afternoon Service
Pastor Joshua Goodin
2 Corinthians 13:1-12 (NIV)
“A Spiritual Audit”
What do you need to get in check so you don’t find yourself being guilty of the things in the past in the future? Do you think you’re in a place to crossover into a new year still doing some of the things you did this year? Take some time and look within yourself, and ask yourself are you living out your life in the way that Christ has called you to live? Are you living a life pleasing to the master? Are you just a church member or are you a disciple? Do you come to worship out of obligation, or do you come to worship because you understand it’s an opportunity to fellowship with the saints but serve the true and living God, and to hear from him speaking to you through the servant? Why do you come to church? Why do you turn church on at home, so you can say you went to church that day, even though the entire time service was going on you were doing something else? It’s ok if you’re not in the physical building, if you’re going to be virtual still be in tune with what’s going on in the church. When you are at home participating in worship, the keyword is participating. You can’t have bible study on your laptop and the tv next to you, and the only time you’re paying attention is during commercials. Be careful that you don’t allow Covid to make you an unfaithful believer. It’s a struggle to stay focused because the people in your home are doing everything else around you. Be in worship as a household. The church has lost its sense of identity.
*Test Yourself. The surest way to test if you’re in the faith is when you go through storms in your life, what's the first thing you do? When you get a negative report from the doctor what’s the first thing you do? When people walk away from you what’s the first thing you do? Sometimes the surest way to test your faith is by putting your faith in crisis mode. What happens when you have more month than money? Just because you have an ease pass, doesn’t mean that you can ease past at any speed you want to. You’re guilty of just easing pass. When you try to ease pass you have to pay more than you were supposed to, instead of taking your time to go through it. Some situations and storms you can’t just ease past because your faith is not really tested when you blow through it, but as you go through it Remove the question of how long Lord, from your vocabulary. If he allows you to go through it the Lord is walking with you and will equip you with everything you need to get through.
*Know yourself
You can’t pass a spiritual audit because you don’t know yourself. You allow other people and things to define who you are. You are not defined by the mistakes you made. What you’ve done, the mistakes you’ve made, God has forgiven you for them, you don’t have to keep being defined by the things that happened in the past, this is your present. When you allow the past to define you, what defines you directs you. You’ve been navigating in the wrong directions because you have been allowing the wrong things to define you. Make up in your mind that you know who you are, and you are who and what God says you are that will be the direction for your life. You’re not defined by where you’ve been, but by where you’re going. It’s not that God has forgotten you, you forgot some of the promises and covenants you made with God in the past and the things and assignments you were supposed to do you allowed yourself to walk away from. You have to revisit those journals and notebooks you wrote in that you spoke vision, promise, and purpose in your life. You have to revisit your dreams. You say you can do all things through Christ that strengthens you, but then you allow your age and finances to tell you what you can and can’t do, the devil is a liar. Everything God has put on the inside of you will come to pass before he takes you out of here. You’ve been holding back some things, there are some visions and things that God has given you that you’re getting ready to give birth to. People told you that you couldn’t do it and there were restrictions in this new year even though they tell you their restrictions, God is not in a box and he can do what he wants when he wants however he wants to do it.
*Ask yourself, is Jesus living on the inside of you? What’s living on the inside of you, because you have a way of trying to bury Jesus even on the inside of you. You do that when you try to do things your way. The Lord will stay idle and still why you figure it out your way because he knows when you’re done trying to figure it your way that you’ll come to The Way. You can’t keep wasting time doing it your way, that you mess up and make a complete mess of things that didn’t have to be a mess. At what point in your life will you learn do you come to a place where you realize that in order for you to live out your faith fully, you have to learn how to exchange your will for God’s will. When what you will for your life is what God wills for your life that’s when you know you’re walking in his perfect will. Exchange of will requires sacrifice. Where God is trying to take you will require some shedding. There are some things and people you have to shed off you in order to walk into your promise. Sometimes you get frustrated talking to certain people, because they are not on your level, and you keep allowing yourself to be around them, and the only thing they will do is keep you flat. You need people that can think bigger than you think or more creative than you are and people that will tell you that you’re wrong. You stay complacent and comfortable because you don’t want to hear that you’re wrong. Stop expecting God to dwell in places that aren’t productive. If it’s not producing then it’s got to go. You’re a mature Christian when you can ask yourself some deep questions about your life, where you are, and where you’re going. You run away from these questions because you won’t get the answers you want to hear.
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