2 Timothy | 3:16-17

But we have to remember that it's not just spending time in this. It's spending time in this inviting God's spirit to use it to do the things that God does. Draw me near to Jesus and transform me into the type of person that you want me to be so that I can do the things that I've been created to do, which is to be a minister of reconciliation, to watch people go from death to life, from slavery and bondage to freedom, from darkness to light. [00:37:59] (35 seconds)  #DrawNearTransform

In Hebrew, the word for breath, the word for spirit, and the word for wind are all the same word, ruach. And the reason makes a lot of sense because if you see a tree waving in the wind, you see the leaves moving, you don't see anyone pushing it, you don't see anyone touching it, but it's moving. There's an invisible animating force that's moving the trees and bringing them to life. Just like when a human being breathes in and they have life. And once we die, we have no breath. Right? It's this invisible, and they would talk about it as God's invisible personal presence animating life. [00:20:14] (39 seconds)  #BreathOfGod

It's what it's saying is that when scriptures laid out for us the way of life and the way of death and we began to head in a sinful direction towards death, scripture has the power to stop us and say, hold up. You're headed towards death. Those things that you're doing, those things that you're thinking, the stuff that you're meditating on and chewing on, it is leading you to death. Stop. Pay attention. Beware. It's a great warning. It's a great way to say your behavior does not match up with God's character and it's leading you to death, you and your community. So stop. [00:24:15] (38 seconds)  #ScriptureWarns

If you've ever wondered, well, how come God hasn't hasn't like revealed himself to my mom or my cousin or my sister or my coworker or my neighbor? And I would say, he has. It's you. We are God's ministers of reconciliation. Like, this is the good works that God's prepared us to do. And can you imagine a greater purpose that we would get to be a part of changing people's eternity, bringing people from death to life, from darkness into light, from slavery and bondage into freedom. Like, we get to do that. [00:30:22] (33 seconds)  #WeAreMinisters

Oh, yeah. What what what does Solomon say all of these things that we're chasing are? Smoke. Smoke, heaven, a mist, the wind. It's empty. So even though it might look like something like smoke does, but you suck it up in there and it's nothing. A mist. You soak it up in there and is there any more is there any is it full now? No. There's still nothing in there. What about now? No. See, that's what it is. It's like chasing after these things that don't fill the void and the emptiness that is in the vacuum at the core of our soul. [00:07:59] (40 seconds)  #ChasingSmoke

what happens so often is is people do one of two things. Often, we either elevate this to the status of God and we worship it, and we just have relationship with this and this is the end of it. It's just I know more stuff about God, or we devalue it to the point where we ignore it. And and what we have to do is hold it rightly the way that scripture talks about it. And Paul says, look, this is an incredibly amazing beautiful gift from God. And what it does is it makes us wise for salvation through faith in Jesus. [00:16:04] (32 seconds)  #HoldScriptureRightly

What are these good works? What what is this thing, this purpose that God has given us? Well, second Corinthians chapter five talks about how God is doing God's stuff and what God's stuff is is reconciling the world to himself. That's what God does. God reconciles. He says, he reconciled us and then he now gives us the ministry of reconciliation. And Paul says, God is making his appeal through us. That I get to be a part of the process of God reconciling people to himself. [00:29:47] (34 seconds)  #MinistryOfReconciliation

It's God spirited onto the page and God spirited from the page into my head and heart and body. The spirit using his scalpel to do the things that he needs to do to transform, to change, to convict, to point to righteousness, and to train me, to walk with me along the way, to not leave me alone, but walk with me along the path of life as I continue down the road of God making me mature and complete, lacking nothing. [00:37:22] (31 seconds)  #SpiritTransforms