Endurance Through Daily Choices in Faith

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"Whether or not you endure in your Christian life is going to depend upon the person you are, the person you are becoming. Are you going to be God's man or woman? I use man in the generic sense, of course, or are you going to be your man, which is really the world's man? Are you going to be Christ-dependent? Are you going to be self-dependent? What are you going to be? What am I going to be? Who you become, who I become, will be the cumulative result of the daily choices that you and I make." [00:02:12]

"Guard your heart because it is the Wellspring of life. Guard what comes into your heart and your mind because that will move you toward what you're going to become, and that will determine whether or not you're going to endure. Psalm 1: Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of Sinners or sit in the seat of mockers, but his Delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law, he meditates day and night." [00:04:04]

"This person is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither, and whatever he does prospers. Prospers in the biblical sense, which isn't always the same as the way the word is often used today. But it's like a tree that's planted by streams of water. Now, the tree doesn't really have any choice about where it's planted. We have choices to make. Where are we going to plant ourselves?" [00:05:37]

"Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly, defend the rights of the poor and needy, and we ask ourselves, how do you do that? Well, we had done it in different ways, but one of the things that happened to me in January of 1989 is I went to actually in December of 1988, I went to my fellow elders and I asked their permission to participate the next month, which would be January of 1989, in a peaceful non-violent civil disobedience gathering at an abortion clinic." [00:09:55]

"One of the lessons that we learned, and it's perhaps an endurance lesson, is that we stand before an audience of one, that's Jesus Christ. And you know, sometimes people just aren't gonna like what we do, and if your goal is to be popular, you really should find something else other than the Christian life because the Christian life is not going to really fulfill that goal for you." [00:17:02]

"The person you will become is being built piece by piece, and what builds that person is your choices that you make today. A week of those choices has an outcome, and it will make you into something, and the month and a year of those choices has an outcome. And I was talking with Jerry Bridges yesterday, Jerry said to me, he was asking me what I was going to be speaking about, and I told him a little bit, and he said that one time he heard Dawson Trotman say, you are going to be what you are now becoming." [00:39:36]

"Discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness. That's the purpose to which God has called us, and if you have that purpose, then you realize even though exercise sometimes is really tough, even though practicing the guitar is tough, even though sometimes opening the word of God when I'm really really tired or when I'd like to sleep an extra hour or whatever, or when I'd really like to watch that football game or basketball game or whatever it is, maybe sometimes that's hard, but you know what, there's a purpose for it." [00:43:01]

"Discipline yourself with a purpose in mind, the purpose of godliness. So these little decisions of discipline that we're to be making hour after hour, day by day, are not pointless. They are full of point. They are what God has designed for us to make us into the godly people he desires us to be. It's not automatic, it's not by simply our effort, but Spirit-empowered discipline that follows Jesus and puts ourselves in the place where, like the tree by the water, the tree that doesn't choose to be by the water, but we do." [00:44:57]

"Run in such a way as to get the prize. Others do it to get a crown that will not last; we do it to get a crown that will last forever. Therefore, I don't run like a man running aimlessly. I beat my body, I make it my slave, so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize. See, do you see how Paul is saying, I do this, I take actions, I discipline myself like an athlete does." [00:45:39]

"At the end of this life, what will you wish you'd done more of? What will you wish you'd done less of? And then why not ask God to empower you to spend the rest of your life closing the gap between what you'll wish you would have done and what you are now doing today in the little choices of life that will make us the people we one day shall be." [01:09:52]

"Father, help us to go out strong. Help us to lean forward to the Finish Line. I want to go out on task, on track. I want, if I'm in a hospital and I've got a disease and maybe by then I have Alzheimer's, I want the people around me to be drawn to faith in you because they see in me, even in a diminished me, or maybe it'll be an enhanced me, a genuine love for you." [01:10:05]

"Help us to see that our lives consist of small choices. Empower us to Choose Wisely, to experience the joy of your presence and anointing and empowerment in our lives, that one day we may stand before you and hear you say those words, well done, my good and faithful servant, enter into your Master's Joy. Lord, give us today the foretaste of that Joy." [01:11:00]

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