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About the episode:

Jaime Luce’ testimony has daunting personal mountains and treacherous financial valleys. She was trapped in day-to-day stress and couldn’t see a way forward. But how she started is not how she finished! And she wants you to know God has a plan for your life too, no matter how tough it seems. Today, Jaime has been married to the love of her life for almost three decades, owns two companies, and has become an author and podcaster. God’s way is always the blessed way!  Learn more.

Related reading:

• How To Heal Through Responsibility and Faith
• How To Use Your Kingdom Authority In Prayer
• Plug Into A Warfare Prayer Source
• Have a Different Spirit
• Be A Good Gardner

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Full Transcript

This transcript is auto-generated and not perfect. We hope it blesses you.

0:00:03 – Jaime Luce

Welcome to the Jamie Luce Podcast. I’m your host, Jamie Luce. Thank you for listening today. All of my blogs, social and YouTube links can be found on my website, jamieluce.com. If you enjoy this podcast, you can support it by liking, subscribing, getting notified and sharing this podcast. Another way you can help is by rating and reviewing on Apple Podcast. My hope and goal in every episode is to give you tools found in Scripture, either by teaching, discussions, testimonies or interviews that encourage and equip you as you navigate living a real Christian walk in a difficult world. I would love to hear from you Whether you have a comment, question or prayer request. You can email me at mail at jamieloosecom. If you’re watching on YouTube, drop me a comment. I’d love to partner with you on your journey of faith. If you’re listening today on any podcast platform, take a screenshot and tag me and I’ll post it to my Instagram story. And now join me for today’s episode. Welcome to the Jamie Loose Podcast. It is my pleasure to be with you today. I hope your day is going well and I want to quickly kind of give you a synopsis If you were with me last week or in the last episode we talked about being honest about what we feel with the Lord, but also how we feel about the Lord with the Lord.

Sometimes we get really bogged down in our own minds, in our own hearts, about how we feel about God in the circumstance we’re in. So we might be blaming God, we might be saying this is your fault, or why have you left me, why aren’t you here to help me, why aren’t you doing anything? And I wanted to encourage us first with that, to remind us that God does care, he is with us. He maybe has called us to walk through a difficult situation, difficult season, but in that he is with us, he has not left us, he has not called us to do it alone, apart from him, apart from his goodness, apart from all of his provision, and that he is not disqualifying you because of your frustrations, because you feel like you’re struggling to deal with it, because you’re angry. You have not been disqualified Today.

I’m going to hone in on that a little bit more. I’m going to talk about what really is the qualifier and what is the disqualifier for us in our, in our oh God, what do I want to call that In our life as a Christian, if we call ourselves a Christian, if we call ourselves a disciple, whether that means I am in ministry in the technical sense, in the vocational sense, or not, no matter what I’m called to, no matter what I put my hands to, no matter what I call my job, I, if I call myself a Christian period, there is a qualifier, there is a disqualifier. The disqualifier is not your emotions. The disqualifier is not if you’ve made mistakes.

I want to correct our understanding today. I want to give you hope, I want you to have encouragement, but I also want you to have good, strong truth from God’s word, to know what it is to call, call ourselves disciples, and what does that mean and how should we be living? And so I again, if you missed last week, it’s really important that you listen to the last episode because it matters that we understand we are just people. We are created with emotions. There are times when we are overwhelmed. There are times when things are tough. There’s times when we’re angry. There’s times when we’re sad and sometimes we’re even mad at God. Sometimes we want to die because we think it would be easier. And yet I want to encourage you that God sees you. Feeling that way does not stop you from accomplishing God’s will. That is not the disqualifier. He cares how you feel you can be honest with him, all of those things.

But today I want to answer a deeper question and I want us to look at a passage of Scripture that I think many people get confused about. I myself have really pondered this Scripture. You know, I love it when there’s a Scripture that has nagged me and I’m not sure, lord, what exactly are you saying here? What does this mean for my life? How do I practically apply this Scripture or passage? And I love when he all of a sudden gives me the revelation of it, the insight in it, the meaning in it for me and what that means for me, what that means for my life, what that means for my decision making, what that means for the path I will take. And I had that actually happen to me this morning about a particular passage, and I’m so grateful to the Lord for that.

But I want us to look at this one, because I think this one, for many of us, gives us hangups, even if we understand it. I think we get hangups with this, and that is turn with me in your Bibles to Matthew, chapter seven, and we’re going to look at verses 15 through 28. 15 through 28. And I want us to really, if you really take your walk with the Lord seriously, I want you to really open your hearts and say open up your minds. Open up your hearts, and I don’t mean empty your mind like Eastern religion and all these kind of weird things. I mean open it to the Word of God, to open yourself, to be willing to hear. He who has an ear, let him hear and let God talk to you today. Okay, because, if you, let me give you this from our last episode, we talked about Moses, we talked about King David, we talked about Jeremiah, we talked about Elijah and we talked about Jonah. So I just picked a handful, literally, of men who dealt with very, very strong emotions and frustrations, both with people and with God and how God responded to them. Okay, today we’re going to go specifically into David’s life a little bit more, but I want us to read this first. So here is the passage in Matthew 7, verses 15 to 28.

Beware of false prophets who come disguised as harmless sheep but are really vicious wolves. You can identify them by their fruit, that is, by the way they act. Can you pick grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles. A good tree produces good fruit and a bad tree produces bad fruit. A good tree cannot produce bad fruit and a bad tree cannot produce good fruit. So every tree that does not produce good fruit is chopped down and thrown into the fire. Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruits, so you can identify people by their actions. Not everyone who calls out to me, lord, lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. And, in the Hebrew, whenever you see something that is repetitious, when it says it more than once, it’s telling you to bring. There’s great importance and value in the fact that it’s being repeated.

Okay, and so by someone saying Lord, lord, they’re actually saying that almost like a term of endearment, like I really call you Lord, but, lord, Lord, you’re my Lord, I’ve called you my Lord, I’m your disciple, I’m your child. I want you to keep that in mind as we read this, because this is somebody who calls themselves a disciple. This is somebody who believes that they are following Christ, someone who calls themselves a Christian. Okay, we need to look at this, because many in the world today call themselves Christians. The word Christian no longer means a Christ-like looking like Jesus Christ. We’ve taken the word Christian and made that to be whatever a person determines as good in their own mind. They say I’m a Christian because I think in my eyes I’m a good person. I am a Christian, I measure of what is good and I say this is good. Therefore, yes, I’m a Christian. Okay, so these are.

We need to know truly if we call ourselves a Christian or if we hear others calling themselves a Christian. We cannot accept at face value the word Christian. We cannot assume that we are talking about this in the same way, and I’m not talking about theological differences, I’m talking about people who actually call something godly, righteous, right, good versus evil. How will I know the difference and when? I need to know the difference in people, because there are people purporting themselves to be good and this is right and that you are wrong. If you do not agree, if you do not believe like they believe or think like they think, it does not matter what they think, it matters what God says, period. You and I, folks in our own natural state, do not get determined what is good or evil. God alone is good, god alone determines what is good and evil, and I need God to define what is a Christian. So what is Jesus himself saying? That someone who purports to be a harmless sheep, a part of the flock, somebody who says I’m a Christian, I need to be able to discern who is a Christian and who is not, what is righteous, what is evil? Okay, and he is giving us the example.

Many times in scripture, god uses a tree to represent a person, just like how in the Psalms, you will be like a tree planted by rivers of living water. Right, we will bloom all the time. Our leaf will never fail. Okay, god is saying. Jesus himself is saying that we are like trees and you can tell what kind of tree it is based off of the fruit. You see hanging on the tree that I will not pick up grapes from a thorn. Bush, grape’s come from grape vines. Okay, I will not pick and I will not have a good tree produce bad fruit. If it’s a healthy, living tree, it’s not gonna have rotted fruit. So let’s look at that. Let’s go back to verse 17. A good tree produces good fruit and a bad tree produces bad fruit. A good tree can’t produce bad fruit and a bad tree can’t produce good fruit. So every tree that does not produce good fruit is chopped down and thrown into the fire. Yes, just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, you can identify people by their actions.

Not everyone who calls out to me, lord, lord will enter into the kingdom of heaven. Only those here are the qualifications to those who call themselves Christians, who say Lord, lord and identify Okay, identify as His. Go around telling people doing things in the name of Jesus, lord, lord, will enter into the kingdom of heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my Father in heaven will enter. On Judgment Day, many will say to me Lord, lord, we prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name. But I will reply. I never knew you Get away from me, you who break God’s laws. Okay, let’s actually read just a little bit further. I’m going to read. Let’s keep going.

We’re not down to verse 28 yet, because here he builds. He talks about a tree and its fruit, all telling you about the exact same thing. He’s just giving multiple ways to explain it A tree and its fruit. Then he talks about those who actually call themselves or identify based off of their works. Okay, he’s saying this is really interesting. He just got done saying you can tell by looking at what they do, by their actions, if they’re mine.

And yet these people are saying Lord, lord, and we serve you, god, and we’re doing miracles, we’re casting out demons. I mean, this is serious stuff. They’re saying this is our fruit. That’s what they’re saying. This is our fruit. So it must be something else, not just those actions. There is a qualifier for the action. There is a qualifier for the action.

Okay, let’s look at that. Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it is wise, like a person who builds a house on solid rock. Though the rains come in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the winds beat against that house, it won’t collapse because it is built on bedrock. But anyone who hears my teaching and doesn’t obey it is foolish, like a person who builds a house on sand. When the rains and floods come and the winds beat against that house, it will collapse with a mighty crash.

When Jesus has finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, for he taught with real authority, quite unlike their teachers, or of religious law. So Jesus says your fruit is a determiner of what kind of tree you are, that I can judge a tree by its fruit. But what do we do about those who their fruit looks good? Okay, the fruit looks good. It goes further than that, because a tree’s fruit is based off of what kind of tree it is Okay, based off of what kind of tree it is. What kind of DNA is in that tree to produce that fruit, okay? So this is what we need to really look close at, because this is the difference.

This is the question why this passage gives us great understanding into who God is, his character and how he thinks and he wants us to understand. We get really discouraged sometimes and really tripped up with the failures of men or our own mistakes, and we do not know how to think about it or judge it righteously. The men most used by God this is why we get confused. The men most used by God had either huge failures or major complaints and frustrations toward God. How is that okay? How is that good fruit from a good tree? Do you see where I’m trying to show you that this can look very confusing, but I’m going to show you it’s not and it will encourage you. It will encourage you that it’s not, but I want you to see how this is very confusing for people. Why was it that God allowed these failures in these men and how did God deal with them? And why did he deal with them that way? Because God himself was frustrated many times, all through.

If we look at Exodus, joshua and Judges, book of Jeremiah, amos and Hosea, you can look through the entire Bible in the Old Testament and see that God was frustrated continually with the people of Israel. He was continually frustrated. He sent all these prophets and all of these kings to help them follow his law. Okay, he had the same will in the Old Testament as he does in the New Testament. He had commands and wishes in the Old Testament just as he does in the New Testament.

I’m going to show you the congruency here. There’s not a different God of the Old Testament than there is of the New Testament. He’s not a different God, jesus and God and the Holy Spirit, the Trinity. They are not unified. They don’t have differing thoughts or ideas. They are unified. It is one will, one thought, one purpose. It is not different.

And we can’t look at the Old Testament and say that God was that way and he thought that way then, but now he’s different and he thinks this way. Now. God said of himself. I am the Lord, god. I changed not. He’s the same yesterday, today and forever. We have to see what is he saying. Why does God choose who he chooses? What is the qualification and what is not the qualification? You can be doing great things okay Quotation marks here Great things for God. You could be casting out devils. You could be healing the sick, you can be doing great miracles and wonders, but God said that that was not the determiner, that was not the fruit. We think that those actions prove if that person is righteous or not. We even do that with ourselves. We give ourselves credit for righteousness by doing quote unquote good works and we think that that’s what God is looking at. And we determine whether we think we are qualified or disqualified based off of those quote unquote good works. Well, if that were true, then you’re not saved by faith, you’d be saved by works.

I love what Paul said. He said I don’t get to boast in anything but my weakness. If I’m going to boast in anything, it’s in my weakness. What does he mean by that? He means folks. I didn’t do anything righteous. There’s nothing good in me. I was a murderer of God’s people. I was persecuting God. It was God alone who saved me from my sin. It was God alone, his goodness, his righteousness. Not my own, not my good works. The only thing I can boast in was how bad I was at it, my weakness. That’s what I can boast about, how bad I was at it.

And so we can’t look at what we think are quote unquote good works, because if I’m looking at that as the fruit, I’m looking at the wrong thing. Then, if I look at that, then I’m going to say when I mess up, that’s bad fruit, I’m a bad tree, I don’t get to enter the kingdom of heaven. Do you see the confusion? If I’m looking at my works? Now, don’t get me wrong. We know scripture teaches that they will know us by the works that we do. But those are things that follow. Those are just the side effects of what’s actually taking place in me. Okay, so we have to see that even though we make mistakes, even though we do good things, that is not the qualifier or the disqualifier. Thank God, because every time we’d make a mistake, if that was the disqualifier, we think he can no longer use us. I must not be a Christian. I’m not good enough. I just can’t do this. I’m not good enough. Okay, folks, you’re not the one who produces that. The Holy Spirit is who produces that.

So let’s look at David. Okay, david was on the one hand, if we look at all of his mistakes. He was a murderer, he was an adulterer. He was not a good father in the sense that his children were a mess. His kids were a mess. His own son turned on him, betrayed him, tried to take over his kingdom. There was a lot of turmoil in David’s life. He wasn’t loved by his brothers. Now it looks like later in life they came to appreciate because he became king. But on his road there they looked at him as being the least. It wasn’t like he had this great family life. His father completely ignored him as the youngest son and didn’t even bring him before Samuel. It had to be Samuel saying go get him. And that’s because David’s father, jesse, looked on the outward appearance. He looked at the fruit from the outward appearance. Jesus is telling us by this passage that there is something further to look at, that the fruit is not the works. Okay, there is something else. It is an outcome, it is a fruit. But we need to look at that because, on the other hand, david was a man who was a giant slayer. He was an enemy conqueror, a phenomenal king. His people loved him. He was a woman rescuer.

I love the story of Abigail. Her husband was an idiot, complete moron. He was about to get killed and everybody who was associated with him was going to die because of his behavior. But Abigail was smart enough to go to David and say my master, my husband, he’s a moron and he shouldn’t have done that. And here I have gifts for you. I have everything you need. I have the food and the supplies, everything you need I have for you, but please, please, don’t kill us. And David said you are a wise woman and God kills Nabal, kills him, kills her husband. And then David hears about it and he takes that smart woman, abigail, and makes her his wife, rescues her from a life of being a widow and not having to, eventually being the wife of a king.

So we like to look at David, when it came to women, as the negative David. He also had some very wonderful qualities about him when it came to the women too. We have to understand that. He made a promise to Bathsheba. He kept his promise. He wasn’t all evil. And we like to look at people and judge them and say you are all good, you are all bad. And we look at even our own family members. You can look at your own husband or wife and categorize them because of mistakes and say they are all good or they’re all bad, and we lump everything into one and we’re not being righteous in doing that.

Each one of us has wonderful qualities about us and each one of us has weaknesses and failures about us, things that we wish we could do better, things that we’re working on, things that the Holy Spirit is doing in us to to continually. Like the word says, he will be faithful to complete what he has started in you. He has started to work in us. It doesn’t mean it’s completed yet, but he’s working on us and that takes something in us that shows if we are actually his disciple. Those truly being a disciple will come out. There’s a way to know it. I’m getting there. I’m getting there. I’m first explaining to you the deception and the confusion so that you can understand the truth when we get there. So how is it Because people love to say this how can God say of David that he was a man after God’s own heart, when David made so many mistakes when he was a murderer and an adulterer.

We love to throw that out there. We love to point out his massive failures and say how can God say that he was a man after my own heart? Well, god tells us why. He can say that. God tells us. God was very aware of David’s humanity, very aware of his weaknesses and folks. God is very aware of who you are, very aware of your humanity, very aware of your great strengths, that he has put in you, the callings and giftings that he has given you. He is also very aware of your fallen nature and who you are as a human being. He came to this earth, was born of a flesh, born of a woman, so that he would understand how weak we are in our flesh, that we can become sick, that we can have attitudes, that we can feel and have emotions about things, that we can be strong one moment, like we talked about in our last episode.

How Elijah can one moment be taking down all the prophets and bail hundreds of them and call down fire from heaven, do great exploits for God and then, the very next minute, be afraid and running from God and saying kill me. I can’t do this? Why do you want me to do this? I’m just dead. I’m the only one pours me, you know, self pity, and yet God is saying, no, that’s not right. You don’t have all of it, right, elijah? You’re not quite right. And he doesn’t beat him up, but he feeds him, tells him to take a nap and gives him new instruction, makes up for his weakness by giving him such strength in that resting and eating time that he had strength to go for on a 40-day journey based off of what he ate, drank and slept. That’s pretty amazing.

God didn’t disqualify these men because of their great failures, great attitude problems, great egos. Jonah had a really big ego, you know, we have to see that these are things we all deal with, things that we all experience as humans. And God is not disqualifying you because of the mistakes you have made. He’s not disqualifying you because of the weaknesses that are in your flesh. Man, there is another element that determines if, on that day, when we are to enter the kingdom of God and I say Lord, lord, whether I enter in or I am turned away and told I was, I never knew you, you were a worker of lawlessness. There is a, there is another qualifier. Let’s look at Acts 1322. Acts 13, verse 22, because God did say of David this is what is recorded of David, but God removed Saul okay, a man who blew it.

Now the disqualifier is exactly what we’re gonna talk about for Saul. God removed Saul and replaced him with David, a man about whom God said God said this I have found David, son of Jesse, a man after my own heart. Here’s the qualifier he will do everything I want him to do. He will do everything I want him to do. Let’s look back at Matthew. We read past the passage in Matthew and we need to see what God said. Let’s look at verse 21.

Not everyone who calls out to me, lord, lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my father in heaven will enter. Folks, the qualifier is not how good you think you are, not, that you haven’t made mistakes or won’t make mistakes. The qualifier is are you obedient to the will of God? When God tells you to do something, when God gives you a command, are you willing to do it? Are you obedient to do it?

Why was Saul removed when we just read that Saul was removed and David was chosen instead? Because when God gave Saul commands, he would only do the part of God’s will that Saul wanted to do. Saul would then finish with Saul’s will and God removed the kingdom from him. He didn’t remove the kingdom from Saul because Saul thought in the very beginning, of lowly of himself. Actually, when God chose Saul, he said I’m the least, I’m the least of every tribe and I’m the least in the tribe. That’s the least. He didn’t have a big ego. He didn’t have. He was, he thought very small of himself. He wasn’t disqualified because he was just the one who went, who was sent to go finding donkeys. He was just doing, you know, running his dad’s errands. He was a nobody. His attitudes were not the thing that caused him to lose out. It was the fact that he would choose his will and disobey God’s will. David was chosen even though he made mistakes, even though he did things he shouldn’t have done. He would repent and do God’s will. He would do what God told him to do.

Folks, how do we judge in this life right now, when we have pulpits with ministers wearing religious clothing saying that God, they are standing in the pulpit of God. They are standing in a church building, beautiful buildings built in the church when they were first built to honor God, to be a place of worship, and these people are now standing roped in priestly garments, so to speak, saying that God is queer, saying that God is doesn’t identify as a female, as a male, as a female. Saying that God is doesn’t identify as a female or a male because he accepts and says it’s okay to have sexual relations with anybody and that you do not have an identity, that God has no identity. Therefore, you have no identity. When God himself, in his word, said that we have an identity, that we were created in his image and if we have identity, god has identity. He said that we were formed male and female. He told us that we were not to lie with someone of the same sex and identity.

He has given us very specific commands and laws to follow so that not because he’s a tyrant, so that we will not have the curse, so that we will live a blessed life, a healthy life, a prosperous life. He has put borders and parameters on us to bless us and not to curse us, so that we could live free, not bound. His commands are not binds that tie us. We are not bound, we are set free by God’s laws. It is quite the opposite. God’s kingdom is opposite to how we do things here.

To go up, you must go down, you must humble yourself. If you want God to use you, if you want to be used in his hand, you cannot think more highly of yourself than you ought. The Bible is clear. It states it over and over again that to do it God’s way is not the way of man. Fallen man is to go against the way that God ordained to choose this flesh that dies versus living, and choosing God and eternity that is blessed Life versus death.

We have to see what the qualification really is If we want to know if somebody truly is a disciple. If I need to know for myself, am I truly a disciple of Jesus Christ? It means that when he speaks and when I become aware of his will, I obey his will. Now, does that mean that I don’t have humanity, that I don’t make mistakes? No, I come to my father, like I spoke about in our last episode. I come to my father and I say this is what I feel, this is what I’m thinking, and I allow him to correct me, I allow him to show me the answer and how to do that right. I allow him to give me his will in it, his will in it to receive his help in it. I am able to do that based off of coming to him with my humanity in subjection to him. I am humbling myself before him. I am not doing it on my own thinking my own righteous acts prove. I do not get to look at whether something that I did was something that was godly, and that I get to do that and that makes me his disciple.

Standing in a pulpit does not make me righteous. I could be a wolf in sheep’s clothing. What is the difference? The difference is that I am doing God’s will, that I am choosing to be obedient and not disobedient to the call. I have to be obedient to the call, not disobedient to the call. That determines if I am a disciple, that determines if I entered the kingdom or I am rejected. Folks, it is our choice. God is not putting it on us. He’s laying before us the choice life and death. Choose life, choose life. Let’s look at John, the book of John Matthew, mark Luke, john, matthew, mark, luke, john. We are going to look at chapter 8. We are going to read verses 44 and 45.

Because those wolves in sheep’s clothing, men and priestly garments were attacking Jesus and calling him the devil of the devil. That is what the world is doing right now, in every form and fashion, in every possible way, at a sporting event to honor the Pride Month. Gay pride, I mean pride comes before a fall. When we’re lifting up pride, we’re saying pride is how you have the answer, pride is how you live. We’ve got it wrong. That’s not the Bible. We never exalt pride. God says I resist the proud, I resist the proud. And yet at the end of a ball game, we have people, men dressed up as women, as nuns, who perform homosexual acts and debauchery on a cross, with Jesus supposedly hanging on the cross. It’s the most vile, disgusting thing and we have this being promoted in every platform, every platform. This is being promoted and those who are doing this are saying that they represent God in love, that they represent what Christianity is, that that is what represents who God is. They’re calling Christians evil, saying we’re the ones who are evil, those who are of our Father, the devil.

Doing just like scripture said with those who were priests in priestly garments coming against Jesus, saying that he was of the devil and that he was the one who was evil. But let’s look at what Jesus said about that Chapter 8, john, chapter 8, verses 31 to 47. Jesus said to the people who believed in him you are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings. What does that mean? You’re obedient to what I tell you to do, faithful to my teachings, and you will know the truth. And the truth will set you free, he’s saying. If you are obedient to what I say, you will find freedom. It makes you free, not bonded, not living in bondage. But we are descendants of Abraham, they said. We have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean? You will set free, you will be set free. Jesus replied. I tell you the truth Everyone who sins and is a slave of sin, a slave, is not a permanent member of the family, but a son is part of the family forever. So if the son sets you free, you are truly free.

Yes, I realize that you are descendants of Abraham and yet some of you are trying to kill me because there’s no room in your hearts for my message. I am telling you what I say when I was with my father, but you are following the advice of your father. Our father is Abraham, they declared. No, jesus replied For if you were really the children of Abraham, you would follow his example. Instead, you are trying to kill me because I told you the truth which I heard from God. Abraham never did such a thing. No, you are imitating your real father, they replied. We aren’t illegitimate children. God himself is our true father.

Jesus told them if God were your father, you would love me, because I have come to you from God. I am not here on my own, but he sent me. In fact, this scripture proves the people who like to say Jesus never said he was God, never said he was deity. He’s telling you right here. I am from my father in heaven. I spent time with him in heaven. Anyway, I’m not here on my own, but he sent me.

Why can’t you understand what I am saying? It’s because you can’t even hear me, for you are the children of your father, the devil, and you love to do the evil things he does. He was a murderer from the beginning. He has always hated the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, it is consistent with his character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. So when I tell the truth, you just naturally don’t believe me. Which of you can truthfully accuse me of sin? And since I am telling you the truth, why don’t you believe me? Anyone who belongs to God listens gladly to the words of God, but you don’t listen because you don’t belong to God. Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow.

This whole exchange is the answer to the culture today. You can call yourself good till you’re blue in the face. There is a judgment day coming that will determine where all of our works are laid bare. And it doesn’t matter if you said you did good works. It doesn’t matter if you said you healed the sick. It doesn’t matter if you did miracles. It doesn’t matter if you said you delivered people from demons. What matters is did you hear what Jesus said, his commands, and did you obey them? That’s it.

You don’t get to determine if it’s God. You don’t get to tell Jesus he’s not God. You don’t get to say that you’re right and he’s wrong. You don’t get to make your own religion. I mean, you can. You can live by it, but you’re not going to enter the kingdom of heaven. That true freedom only comes from walking in obedience to God and what he has said. That’s the truth.

I am not disqualified because I mess up, because I fall down. In fact, the Bible tells us that a righteous man falls seven times, but he gets back up. Folks, how are we able to get back up? Maybe we need to jump to that. How then do we get back up? How then do we get back up? What we need to understand is how deeply we need to rely on the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit when we are truly converted, when we have said I am not living a life of sin anymore.

I might have to walk this earth in a human body, learning how to be conformed into the image of God, in a human body with a human system, inside A human-ness, meaning. There are triggers I get hungry, I get angry, I get happy, I get tired, I get sick. This body has human tendencies that I have to walk in this body. But I am saying no to sin. Sin is a spiritual thing. Sin is walking in disobedience to God. That is what sin is walking in disobedience to God. So if I have truly converted, turned from my sin, turned from a life of sin, and I am facing God and I’m saying I’m now walking to follow you, I am a disciple of yours. If you say to go here, that’s where I’m going Now, I might stumble as I’m walking that way. I might fall down, I might feel something, I might get angry while I’m walking that way, but my disqualification is not that I got angry, it’s that if I say I’m not going to walk that way, do you see the deep the fruit is not the act by itself, it’s whether the act I do is obedience or disobedience.

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I have to follow God. I have to live in accordance to the Bible. Do you know that right now, the whole AI thing? There is now a church who the pastor is completely AI generated. It is rewriting the Bible and it puts the face of Jesus. I’ve seen this myself. I saw this video myself. There is video of an AI character that looks kind of like the way we think Jesus would look, the way he’s seen in many portraits and things, and he is talking as if he’s kind of using biblical things but saying it in a much more relaxed, almost slang vernacular. Very slangish, very and I’m not against easy to.

I’m reading from you from the New Living Translation. I’m not downplaying that we can say things in a way that they’re understood. I’m saying it’s changing the word and it’s using it to an audience who doesn’t know the word. It’s so deceptive. It is so deceptive. We need people who will stand up for truth and say only Well, this passage just said only what God says is true and only then will you be free and not in bondage and I have to then submit myself to the work of the Holy Spirit.

The men that God chose first were just men. They’re human, they have humanity. That’s why we forgive one another. We’re just men and women. We mess up and I love my brothers and sisters. He says don’t tell me that you love God if you hate your brother. If you don’t forgive your brother, I expect you to forgive them the way I forgive them. I expect you to understand they’re human. They make mistakes. They get into debts, debts with people. The very example God used was that a man came to him who owed him a great debt. Folks, we owe people debts, we do things wrong, we screw up, we hurt people, but we forgive one another. We say God, you forgave me, I forgive them. They’re just human. They really messed us up, but I’m going to wipe away that debt. I’m going to forgive them, I’m going to love them.

But you need to know who the sheep are versus the wolves. I don’t need to. I can forgive somebody, even if they’re a wolf, but that doesn’t mean I go and hang out with the wolves. Right, I’m a sheep. I hang out with sheep. Sheep don’t hang out with wolves. Get it right.

Did Jesus go hang out with sinners, not to hang out with them? No, he went to minister to them to convert them. He wasn’t living their lifestyle, he wasn’t participating in their lifestyle. That does not make you righteous. We save people out of their sin. We don’t go enter into it with them. You may go to where they are to pull them out, but you don’t go where they are to hang out with them, to just do life with them in there. That is contrary to the word of God, contrary. So, regardless of men and women’s mistakes or lapses in faith, you look at Abraham he totally got into fear. Twice he asked his wife to lie and say she was his sister and not his wife in order to spare his own life, even though that meant she could be harmed. That’s some pretty big mess ups. And even though they may have had grave sin, like David murder and adultery they would still do what God called them to do. They didn’t give up on their obedience to God.

And now, because of salvation and the work of grace thank God for grace we are being continually conformed into his image by his grace and by our acts of obedience to his word and commands. We are being sanctified and we are being regenerated and being made new. He does this because of the great love he has for us and we love him because he first loved us. Oh, how we need the Holy Spirit. The will of God is to do the will of God. If you’re not sure what to do, it’s that simple. The will of God is that you do, as will I do that by reading this book. I do that by honoring following God’s example.

We need to understand that God has not allowed us the luxury of disqualifying ourselves because of our fallen flesh or our weaknesses, because he has provided for us already by the power of the Holy Spirit in us. The gift of the Holy Spirit is the answer to our weaknesses and our fallen condition. You have all ready by our salvation. God has already, by our salvation, made a way to reconcile us to Him and the work and the purpose that he has planned for us. We are without excuse. We are without excuse. I don’t get to use my failures as an excuse to disqualify myself because God didn’t.

We will either choose obedience to His commands or we will choose disobedience. The answer to that determines whether we are men after God’s own heart or whether we are wolves in sheep’s clothing, liars and deceivers going around calling ourselves disciples, followers of Jesus Christ, christians. It will determine whether we enter the kingdom of God or not. Folks, or whether we cry out Lord, lord, and all we hear back is depart from me. I never knew you. It won’t be whether I was weak or whether I made mistakes. It will be whether I obey. That is the qualification, that is the fruit of my tree. I want to so earnestly warn us, remind us, encourage us, choose obedience.

If you failed, the good news why we call this gospel the good news is that he will forgive you. He will wipe your mistakes, your failures, your sin, your disobedience If you will repent. It is the gospel from Genesis to Revelation If you will repent, he will forgive. It is that simple. Whatever destruction was planned, blessing can take its place. We walk away from sin, we walk away from disobedience. We choose obedience and the conformity to look like His Son.

We receive the gift and the work of grace by the Holy Spirit in us to change us, make us new and to be made and molded into the image of Jesus Christ, just like when God spoke to Jeremiah, someone who complained to God about God’s calling on his life. He took him to the potter’s house and said I want you to watch, tell me what you see. And Jeremiah tells how he sees a pot in the potter’s hand that you and me vessels of clay, and yet it was marred. The pot was marred in God’s hand. And he takes us, though. We have Mars and scars, and it says that he remade it as was pleasing to him. He remade the vessel that was pleasing to him, and God will take all of those things and remake us. He takes our repentance, he takes our mistakes, he takes the things that are shattered in us and he puts us back together and remakes us. A pleasing vessel in his sight, useful for his purpose, useful for obedience, useful for the kingdom, and in it we find our freedom, in it we find his goodness, in it we find his promises and in it we find eternal life.

Can I encourage you today? Let’s really take a good look at our own fruit. Jesus tells us that we have to remove the log in our own eye before we are able to properly remove the speck in somebody else’s. So before we go running around making our judgments and looking at everybody else’s fruit, which we are to do. We are to judge the fruit. However, here’s the difference we are not to judge the world. Do you know that? The scripture teaches we don’t judge the world? People misuse the scripture. Judge not less GB judged. We misuse that. We are not to judge the world. The world is fallen in sin. They’re going to hell. God will judge them, not my.

I shouldn’t be angry at a sinner for sinning. They’re sinners. I shouldn’t expect anything more from them. They’re sinners, not saved. No grace to be saved. So I don’t. I’m not angry with them. I’m not judging them. I’m not. I’m not looking at them and judging their fruit. Their sin is their sin. We are to judge in the body of Christ. We are to love one another. We are to confess to one another so that we can be healed. We are to judge righteously the fruit of one another and, if need be, do you know?

There are whole passages where Paul teaches how you confront a brother who’s wrong? We are actually to judge the fruit, but the qualifier for that judgment is that I judge myself first. I have to judge myself first. I have to self examine first and say is there any wicked way in me. Lord, let me look at me, let me judge this fruit. Am I truly yours or am I choosing my own will, my own way? Have I truly laid down my will? Am I doing like Saul and I’m and I’m lying to myself that I I obeyed a little bit over here, but I disobeyed over here, and I and I lump it together and I say but I did it, I did what you said.

I’m obedient, because God says that partial obedience is disobedience Period. If I don’t want him to pull from me the thing that he has called me to do, if I don’t want him to rend the kingdom from me we talked about how to enter the kingdom If I don’t want him to rend the kingdom from me, I must be like David and obey. I have to repent when I’m wrong. I have to. I had an episode that just aired recently and I talked about. You have to face the truth and I have to look at it honestly. Am I really doing this? What what God has told me to do? Am I really being honest with myself? Because I can’t fool God but I can fool myself and the consequences can be great for doing so.

We’ve got one life to live folks. Now, if you’ll say yes, you have all of heaven back in you, up every resource you will ever need back in you, up every strength you need in your weakness to back you, up every grace to do what you could never do on your own, to make it possible that you could do the impossible that’s available to you when you are truly in the kingdom. So let’s make that decision today. Let’s say God, I am truly yours, I am turning away from this life that I had before and I choose obedience to you and your will to date. I love you, father. I love my life unto death. I give it to you. Use me, make me a coin in your hand, spend me God for your purposes, remake me, remold me and make me yours and you will see the massive, vast difference and you will be able to witness and bear righteous fruit that proves you belong to him.

Thank you so much for joining me today. Be encouraged in the truth, in the word of God. His power is unfailing and his love toward you never ending. Thanks so much for joining me. Do me a favor, would you, if this was an encouragement to you, will you hit that little like button? That helps us great deal If this message, if you feel someone needs to hear it, please share this message with those that you know could really benefit from it.

We need the truth in this day and age, folks, I’m not saying I have the answer. I don’t, and I am human, just like you, and I make mistakes too. But I have to come back and say, oh God, forgive me, make me into your image. I don’t want to be a wolf, I want to be a sheep. I want to follow you, lord, your voice and your voice, only your way, and your, your plan, and we can each encourage each other to do that. So share this message, click that little bell and get notified when a new message comes out. If you’d like to get any more information, visit my website, jamieluce.com. You can email me at mail at JamieLuce.com. That’s J-A-I-M-E-L-U-C-E, and that way you can get a hold of all of my content, whether that be on podcast, whether that be on YouTube, whether you want to read a blog. I’ve got lots there for you, so please visit me there. Thank you again. So much for joining me. We’ll see you next time. Bye-bye.

1:02:22 – Jaime Luce

Thank you for listening to the JamieLews podcast. If you enjoyed today’s episode, please rate and review the show on Apple or Spotify and subscribe wherever you listen. For more, visit JamieLuce.com that’s J-A-I-M-E-L-U-C-E.com. You’ll find a free chapter of her new book. You Don’t Need Money, you Just Need God and a fresh word from Jamie on the blog each week. See you next week.