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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.

0:00:02 – Jaime Luce
Welcome to the Jamie Loose podcast. I’m your host, jamie Loose. Thank you for listening today. All of my blogs, social and YouTube links can be found on my website, jamieloosecom. If you enjoy this podcast, you can support it by liking, subscribing, getting notified and sharing this broadcast. 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. Thank you so much for joining me today. It’s my pleasure to be with you And I had been spending some time this morning in the word myself and in prayer, and I don’t know if this has ever happened to you, but when I’m reading the word many times, the way that the Lord kind of pulls something to my attention or helps me to focus in or, better yet, to go along with today, there’s a way that I can hear him speaking to me.

It’s like a prodding in my spirit. But it’s that prodding in my spirit is a way that he’s saying okay, i have something to say to you. Are you tuning your ear to me? And if you’ll get your Bibles out today, i want to discuss with us and I’ll explain this. But there’s a difference between mountain top vision and valley vision. And we’re going to be reading, mainly we’ll read several portions of scripture, but we’re mainly going to be in Isaiah chapter 22 today.

And it was while I was reading Isaiah chapter 22, that I came across something when I read it. And it really it’s one of those things that when you’re reading, you think and maybe this doesn’t happen to you, but it does happen to me a lot where I’ll read it and think, hmm, what does that exactly mean? I know instinctively, like I know in my spirit, that there’s something more there, and it’s going to take some investigating on my part to find out what that is. And sometimes that investigation is easy and quick And it was simple and the Lord just wanted me to see a definition so I have better understanding and clarity. But sometimes he begins something in me because there’s something much larger. It’s almost like. It’s almost like he says get out your telescope And and we’re going to look at this because I want you to see something. And unless you look really close, you magnify this, you’re going to miss it. You’re not going to see this.

And you know, while reading Isaiah, there are so many portions of Isaiah that we are all so familiar with. That bless us. There are so many of the prophecies about Jesus and Isaiah. There are promises of what God’s going to do for Israel. But there’s a lot of words that Isaiah received that were warning words and correction words for all the nations surrounding Israel, people who were enemies of God. And so when I was reading, i was kind of reading in coming up on all the different nations, what God was saying to the different nations.

And when I got to 22, and I please, please, hear me in this, i’m going to, i’m going to start off, i’m going to read this to you. I hope that you will, with your whole heart, with your spirit, that you will make this your endeavor today to hear from the spirit not from me that I believe God has something he wants to say to his people. I’m careful how I say that, but I it can. It can begin a little rough because sometimes we are so easy on ourselves and this is not going to be a beat up on you session But we can be easy on ourselves to the point because of our comfort, we feel okay and we will base things off of how we feel, especially those of us who make the Holy Spirit a priority.

We try to use our discernment in collaboration with our feelings And sometimes that’s not right because the Holy Spirit can be telling you something completely contrary to your feelings. So I’m not wanting to, i’m not dismissing feelings. However, i want us to realize that feelings many times are not the right barometer. Feelings sometimes are the things that we just comfort ourselves with And in that comfort we cannot hear so well, i mean, think about it If it’s a cold day outside, real cold outside, and you are snug with all your blankets and your perfect pillow, in the perfect temperature in your room and you are nice and comfy, and there’s a noise that you’re not sure what that noise is.

You may think you know what. I don’t really care what that noise is. I don’t want to investigate It doesn’t worry me. I feel good right here, snuggled up in my warm bed. I don’t want to get up to go find out what that is right. Or we can be those who recognize no matter how comfortable I am, no matter how cozy I am, no matter how perfect this feels, i don’t get to stay right here necessarily the way I want to, and so I’m just prefacing this by saying I want you to hear me out to the end, please, please, listen to the end, okay, because I’m going to begin a little strong, but we’ll get there and you’ll get your encouragement, i promise, and I want to pray for you at the end. I really felt to do that today too. So if you will turn with me in your Bible so it was kind of a long intro, i’m sorry, but in your Bibles to Isaiah 22,. And again, get something to write with, because I’m going to give you some other scriptures to reference, but this is how it starts.

22, verse one says this message came to me concerning Jerusalem, the valley of vision. Now in my Bible, because I’m reading this out of the New Living Translation there’s a little star next to Jerusalem, the valley of vision, meaning that it says it different in another version. And so I can look at the bottom of the Bible and it tells me what that means. And in Hebrew it did not say concerning Jerusalem, the name Jerusalem was not given. It just said concerning the valley of vision. Now we know later, when we go through this, that he’s talking about Jerusalem, because he specifically says the walls of Jerusalem. So I’m not saying that that’s wrong, but I just want you to hear today I guess this text is referring to Jerusalem. Okay, the text is referring to Jerusalem. I’m not taking it out of context, i’m not putting something that’s not there. I want us to learn a lesson from what Isaiah was telling Jerusalem And he calls them the valley of vision. And boy, that kind of rocked me because I’m thinking it doesn’t go together. A valley and vision do not go together.

When you think of vision, having your vision, you think of being up at the highest point. You think of being on the mountaintop right, you think of being at the peak so that you can see out as far as you can see and get the best vision to get the lay of the land. You’ve I’m sure you’ve heard the saying you can’t see the forest for the trees when you’re down in the middle of everything, when you’re in a valley, you’ve got walls on both sides of you So you can’t see, except for just right here, what’s in front of you and what’s behind you. You have to navigate in valleys, just and follow the little gorge at the bottom. You don’t have vision, you don’t know what’s coming out in front of you, you can’t prepare for what’s out in front of you. And yet Isaiah says the valley of vision. And so I started to dig because I thought you know that doesn’t make sense to my mind. I don’t. I don’t understand what he means by that.

And in Isaiah, chapter two, verse 20, i’m sorry, verse two and three it said that Jerusalem was the place where divine revelation shone. Okay, so Jerusalem, this place he’s calling the valley of vision, was the place that God had chosen for for divine revelation. This was a, this was the place of where you’re going to see the best and hear the best. I mean, everybody came to Jerusalem. When you came to meet with God, you came to Jerusalem, and the meeting place was in Jerusalem, where you came to worship and to see and hear from God. Okay, but now this once mountain top place is considered a valley And it’s a place where great vision is now been exchanged for a place of great blindness.

And as I continue to read, i want you to go specifically to verses 12 to 14, because that’s where I’m going to go, from verse one through verse 11. There’s an explanation of, basically, the cities and chaos, and nobody knows what’s going on. They’re running to the rooftops, the city’s in an uproar, there’s terror, there’s revelry, bodies are lying everywhere, there’s famine and disease, there are enemies about he’s. He’s giving the the the picture that this is a bad valley. No one knows what’s happening because there’s no vision in this valley. And we come to verse 12 and I’m going to read 12 to 14.

It says at that time, the Lord, the Lord of heaven’s armies, called you to weep and mourn. So what’s Isaiah saying? He’s saying, in the midst of all this nonsense that’s going on, this craziness, the terror, the trouble that Jerusalem is dealing with, he said this time God had actually spoke to you and he called you to something about this time that you’re in. He called you to weep and mourn. Let’s continue. He told you to shave your heads in sorrow for your sins and to wear clothes of burlap to show your remorse. But instead you dance and play, you slaughter cattle and kill sheep, you feast on meat and drink wine. You say let’s feast and drink, for tomorrow we die.

I mean, we’ve heard that, we’ve even used that, you know, and I’ve heard that reused in movies and different things like that, and partly they might be saying, ok, we have to go to war tomorrow, so we might die. But they’re also having the attitude we only live once. You know you got to live and then you’re going to die. So let’s feast, let’s feast and drink, let’s go dance and play and do all these things. That and not that. There isn’t a time for those. But this was a time Isaiah is telling them.

The Lord told you, and specifically the Lord of Heaven’s armies, meaning there is a time when you have to be prepared for the battles that come, in order for you to stand, in order for you to do what I’ve called you to do And you will if you’ll obey. But I called you very specifically to this. I called you at this time to weep and mourn. I caused you to shave your heads and sorrow for your sins and to wear clothes of burlap to show your remorse. Now, i know that sounds like a heavy verse and you’re probably wondering, jamie, where are you going with this? What I felt so strong In fact? let me read 15. I’ll read verse 15 and this will help you understand. It says the Lord of Heaven’s armies has revealed this to me till the day you die, you will never be forgiven for this sin. That is the judgment of the Lord, the Lord of Heaven’s armies. That’s heavy. That’s heavy. We know there is forgiveness for sins.

So what was I did? What was Isaiah saying? He was saying that there is not just a difficult time that you might have to go through and get through and the things that you have to deal with, and not only do you need to listen and not only do you need to know what I’m saying, and not only do you need to have vision, have proper vision, to know what’s coming. So you know these things, so you know what to do. But he’s saying I specifically called you. It’s like knowing. It’s the warning that’s going out. There’s a warning going out. Isaiah has been giving the warning calls to all the different nations and to Jerusalem he’s giving this warning call. I’m, in essence saying to us today I am reiterating a warning. I’m reiterating it not to the people of Jerusalem per se, not in response to the exact same things that they went through, the same battles that they went through, but this was the warning that God was saying.

I call you in order for you to have vision, in order for you to know what it is that is in front of you, what comes first, what comes before the sight that we need, the vision we need. Well, we have to hear what God is saying. Number one, so that I can see what he’s telling me, right? I mean, if God’s giving me a vision, our eyesight and our ear and our hearing are connected. I need to hear his instructions. He may be showing me something and I need to hear what he has to say about it. And that’s important because God might show you something. But the right interpretation of what you see is very important. So you need to hear what he’s saying, not just see what he’s showing you, right? So these two things go hand in hand.

So God is using Isaiah as a mouthpiece and he’s telling them they’re seeing all this chaos. They don’t understand why they’re seeing all this chaos and God is telling them this is why you’re in the mess you’re in. This is the problem. And I’m looking at our society, i’m looking at my nation, i’m looking at the nations of the world and the wars that are going on and, of course, the rumors of wars that are going on, and everything that we’re seeing on every side. I’m looking at all of this trauma. I mean literally some of the things he said. This is actually happening. There’s disease and famine going on in the world right now. There is terrible uproar, revelry in cities, bodies that have been killed, lying everywhere. I mean, depending on what country you’re in, this is true right now And God is telling them why. And I know okay, i’m about to say this and I know this does not apply to every person If you know the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal savior and you have made living for Christ your life, you have asked God to remove your sins from you as far as the east is from the west, and you are ready and willing and probably active already in doing something for the Lord right Living for his kingdom, then I’m not specifically talking to you just yet.

Okay, you might be the Isaiah around in your sphere of influence. You might be the Isaiah who needs to give this warning, but there is a group of people who don’t understand why everything’s falling apart. All you have to do is watch the news and you realize you’re watching a bunch of talking heads who don’t understand what’s going on themselves. They’re simply parrots. They’re repeating what they’re being told to tell, but they don’t understand anything that’s going on. They don’t have any real understanding. They have no discernment. They don’t know what’s going on And then might be reporting on what they see, but what are they doing? What are they doing? They’re doing exactly this.

Let me read it again At the time of the Lord, the Lord of Heaven’s armies called you to weep and mourn. We should be weeping and mourning for what we see going on all around us, all of us, no matter what nation you’re in. He told you to shave your heads in sorrow for your sins. That is saying it’s time to deal with sin. It’s time to deal with sin We have and not. Okay let me finish my thought because I’m going to back it up but he told us to shave your heads and sorrow for your sins and to wear clothes of burlap to show your remorse. You no longer want to live a sinful life. You no longer want to be caught in the snares and the traps of living this life without Jesus Christ.

I know that so many of our churches I’ve talked about this recently and forgive me if it sounds like I’m repeating myself but we have gotten so comfortable and we have wanted to make people so comfortable that we don’t address sin in our churches anymore. We don’t like to tell people that they are sinners. We don’t want to use the word sinner, we don’t want to say that we sin, we don’t want to say that we were sinners or are sinners. We don’t want to call sin sin. We don’t want to address that we are actually misbehaving.

I mean, if you go back to the 60s, there was a psychologist named Dr Spock who came out and kind of upended what parents, how they had raised their children up to that point not to say that everything they did was right, but up to that point they believed in correcting their children. And he kind of introduced the whole time out and we don’t spank our kids? and basically, had you think that you could reason with a child who does not understand reasoning? yet They’re a child. They’re immature. I mean, it’s difficult nowadays. It’s so bad, and we’ve raised such a generation of people who were never corrected and were reasoned with an immaturity so that, because they are immature and because they cannot reason with you, they simply throw fits and the only way to get them to shut up was to give them what they wanted. And that’s what a lot of people did I mean a mass amount of parents raised their kids this way over the last several decades And we now have in power and those I mean those old enough to be in power and we’ve got generations of them.

Now It’s not just like one generation coming up, it’s like it’s your high school age, your college age, your married and having families in career age, and your seniors. Now We have a whole demographic of people who were raised to be told you can be anything you want to be. It doesn’t matter what your qualifications are. We all are equal. You all deserve the exact same thing.

We’ve been telling people a lie for years and it crept into the church and we didn’t want to correct them in the church either, because if we corrected them well, then they’d leave because they’ve never been corrected. So they’re not going to hear it from you either. If they didn’t learn how to be corrected when they were growing up from their parents, they’re not going to take it from a church leader. They’re not going to submit themselves to somebody. They’re not going to just offer themselves to take. Do what you tell me to do. I mean, we live in the who told you you were my, who gave you authority over me and you’re not the boss of me.

We’ve raised generations now people who think they don’t have to answer to anybody, that can just do whatever they want. So when trouble comes our streets, then instead of coming together and reasoning with one another as mature adults I mean, the Bible tells us to come and reason with one another as instead of being able to do that now we can’t even do that. We can’t even agree to disagree, we can’t even do that We now say if you don’t agree, you’re the enemy, you are bad, and we have divided ourselves into two camps and there’s no middle ground. You’re either on my side or my enemy And there is no way that the church can glorify God in that state. Because we are to be unified, we are to walk in unity and love for one another. We can’t walk in that kind of division, denomination pouncing on denomination.

You may have theological differences, but those are your brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ. If they have accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and they love the Lord, they have renounced their sin, then they’re your brother and sister and you can come reason with one another and you can have debate and it can be good and you can learn and you can still walk away and say I just don’t agree. I think the scripture says this and the next person can say and I think it says this that’s okay, i love you, you’re my brother, you’re my sister. But if we’re at each other’s throats and calling one another evil in the church, then the world has no hope. If we are not those who know how to walk in unity, then there’s no way the world can do it, because we’re the example for them. We are the example for them.

So I’m sorry, my nose is itching, and so this is really important that we get this. It’s really important that we understand this, because there is a real thing called sin and we have to deal with it, and not only were we to deal with it. God, it was so bad, Hear me please. Sin was so bad that God had to send his son, and brutally, with a bloody cross. Nail your sins to that cross and bury them. Kill them and bury them. Thank God for Jesus. Thank God for Jesus. That’s what sin’s payment is. Sin is real And God says you have to shave your heads, weep and mourn.

Okay, weep and mourn, shave your heads in sorrow for your sins. Now I’m not telling you to go out and shave your head, but what I’m saying is basically it’s a humiliation of putting your head down and weeping and saying I am uncovered before you, god, you see everything. I am a sinner and I need to be saved. If we do not address sin, how can anyone be saved? I mean, i guess that’s part of the point I’m trying to make. You cannot receive salvation unless you understand you were a sinner and you needed saving. Believing that Jesus walked on this earth is just a historical fact That’s not going to get you into heaven. It takes faith, grace and faith for you to believe in Jesus Christ, and you have to understand that you needed a savior. Your sin would have sent you to hell, but you had a savior who was willing to die for you and pay the penalty of your sin, so that you could be free from that sin, so that you could live a life unto Jesus Christ and have eternal life, that you would not be damned to hell. So we have to. We have. You cannot throw out sin. You cannot sugarcoat sin. You cannot say that sin does not exist. You cannot be careful to say that someone is living a life of sin. They need to repent of their sin. We have to face it. We have to face that.

I want to look for something that I put in my notes. You know we have. We have rightly wanted to lovingly and gently restore people. There are so many who are broken and bruised and we feel guilty Now hear me out. We feel guilty for telling somebody who’s hurting that there are center. And what if that person is hurting because someone has hurt them? We don’t want to tell them that there is center and they need salvation. We want to tell them this isn’t your fault, you don’t deserve this And somebody else is the center. But by us addressing sin for each one of us, we are not negating the sin of someone else. By me telling someone, even in their pain, that there’s only one way out of pain, it would be cruel of me. And this is where we get messed up in our thinking.

Because we think love, we have taken the gospel, the truth of the gospel, our Bible is a two-edged sword. This Bible is so powerful that it can cut and show you in between your thoughts, your motives, your intentions. It can go to the very heart of the matter for your life. This is not a weak weapon, and we can’t say that the gospel is a soft feather brush, that it’s just love. It’s just this tickly love feather brush that I touch you with. It’s not a magic wand that I wave at you and poof, you’re saved.

That’s why it’s wrong to tell somebody you just need to say this little prayer and then not train them up. If, yes, you say a prayer, yes, it’s that simple. But before the prayer, or at least during the prayer, you are repenting in deep remorse of your sin. You are facing that without Jesus Christ you would go to hell And people think but I’m a good person, but I’m a good person, i’m not evil, god would send me to hell. Then you don’t understand. I’m not being mean to you. You live in a fallen world. You are not perfect. None of us is perfect. None of us is without sin And the only measure of good is God. And unless you know God, you can’t possibly know good. So you can’t say that you’re a good person. If you don’t know God. You don’t know what’s good. And for me to say that you just say this little prayer and now you’re saved and your life doesn’t have to change. You don’t have any remorse, you don’t have anything in you that says I’m turning from my old life and now I’m going to Jesus Christ. Listen, we all have to walk it. We all have to walk it And at some point we have to face.

And the reason I started the way I started with us is knowing that some of us do love the Lord. We’ve accepted that he is Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God. We believe that with all of our hearts. But we are still ensnared. We might be ensnared by sins And we have to be those who say no more, no more. We cannot allow ourselves to stay in that place of sin.

If I don’t, if I keep doing what they were doing, i mean their response. They were supposed to be weeping in mourning, they were supposed to be in remorse And instead they’re saying let’s feast and drink, let’s dance and play. We can’t. I’m not saying that there isn’t enjoyment in life. There is, in fact but I don’t think that you can truly enjoy your life and have true joy without Jesus Christ. It’s all a false facade. It’s like telling me oh, what would be a good example? It’s like you know, going to the fun house, you’re going, you’re going to go and you think you’re going to have fun. Go to the fun house, but but nothing is set up for fun. Everything was a trick. You know, i don’t. I don’t do Halloween, but it’s trick or treat, and you think you’re going for a treat. You’re getting tricked. You’re getting tricked. You know we use the phrase don’t drink the Kool-Aid. I used to watch I don’t anymore. I used to watch all the time all these crime shows And they were always unearthing.

A person who would slowly poison another person by using that green. It’s some kind of car fluid I can’t think of the name of it something you pour in your cars and it’s sweet to the taste, so they would put it in food and put it in drinks, i mean, and it looks like Gatorade And so it’s. You don’t know, you’re drinking the poison, right? You’re drinking the Kool-Aid and it’s killing you And I can. I can say that this is harmless. I could put a snake in front of a child and say, oh, don’t worry, it’s harmless, it’s just a baby snake, but that snake has poison in it. If that snake bites that child, that’s not harmless. Gosh, i wish I had better examples for you off the top of my head.

But you, you have to hear what I’m saying. You’re tricking somebody. You’re telling them they can, can go on living life doing what pleases them in their flesh, staying comfortable, not making changes, as if that’s going to bring them life. It won’t bring them life, it will bring them death. It’s a trick. There is a life after this life. There is a heaven and there is a hell, and it’s up to us to be those who’d speak the truth. Yes, we speak it in love, goodness. Of course we speak it in love, but the message isn’t an ooey gooey love.

Jesus says that you’ve never done anything wrong and you don’t have to change anything about your life. You absolutely do. You absolutely do. You have to face that there is sin and that God judges sin. Now, for our sakes. He judged our sin through Jesus Christ. He judged his son instead of having to judge us. If we accept his son, if we turn from our sin, if we repent. But not if I simply say a prayer and I don’t repent and I don’t turn, because then what is the price? What is the payment?

Verse 14, the Lord of heaven’s armies has revealed this to me till the day you die, you will never be forgiven for this sin. Why wouldn’t they be forgiven? Because they didn’t repent, not because God won’t forgive. He will forgive, but you have to repent to be forgiven. We’ve removed half of the equation. We’ve told people that they can just be forgiven, but we haven’t told them that they have to repent. You can’t have the freedom and new life of Jesus Christ without repentance. You can’t have forgiveness without repentance. We have to folks. We have to face that. We have to live how God has told us to live. We have to take the word of God seriously. We have to know the truth of his word and live according to the truth of his word.

I want to give you a couple other passages, because I spoke of this a little bit ago, but I want to go back to it. At the beginning, i shared with you how your vision is marred. Right, you’re taken from a mountain top and now you’re stuck in a valley, and that it takes hearing in order for us to have right vision. So I want us to look at a couple passages of scripture, because I think these really nail down and submit what this means. I want you to go to Matthew, chapter 13, and we’re going to look at verses 9 to 13. And I’m going to read this to you out of the New King James.

And verse 9 says He who has ears to hear, let him hear. And the disciples came and said to him why do you speak to them in parables? He answered and said to them because it has been given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given. Now, what’s he referring to? Those who truly wanted to know, those who have an ear, let him hear. He’s saying there were some that came who wanted their ears tickled. They wanted to hear the nice stuff. They didn’t want to hear that. Their sinners. They didn’t want correction. They didn’t want to be told that God has laws and commandments and ordinances and it has expectations of us If we are followers of him. They didn’t want to hear that. But they wanted to see the miracles They wanted to receive from him.

And one passage he says you just came because you wanted to eat. You know I’d provide the food, i would do miracles and that’s what made you, that’s what you wanted from me. So that’s why you came. But he’s talking about hearing. Those who have ears to hear, let them hear. So there’s a group of people who want to know what. They want to know what can’t be seen.

He says the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven given to you. There are some of you. It’s given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but it’s given to those who hear. Okay, what happens when you receive from hearing the mysteries of heaven? That gives you clear eyesight, clear vision to know how to go forward.

Let’s keep reading verse 12, for whoever has has what Ears to hear, whoever has what and receives these principles that God’s giving them, whoever takes what God is saying and hears it to do something with it, okay, to him who has to him, more will be given. So the more I listened to what God’s saying, the more he’s going to talk to me, the more I’m going to hear. Do you need more instruction? Are you in a position right now and you feel like you can’t see your way out of the trouble that you’re in, and you’re not sure. But you’re listening with all your heart, you’re listening for God and you hear one little thing and, in faith, you take that one step with that one little thing.

I promise you, i can assure you if you will take that tiny step of faith when you hear God with feet, okay, you put feet, you put action to your hearing. When you hear God and you put feet to that hearing to you who has, you’re going to hear more. If you are hungry to hear more, if you need to hear more, you will hear more If you will be someone who has ears to actually hear, to actually do something with it. If you’re somebody who does that, you will hear even more. But whoever does not have even what he has will be taken away from him. That’s amazing. This is even a principle. We learned this in the principle of the talents and we know that the one who got the talents and did something with it, god gave him more. This also has to do with hearing. This is the way it works with God The more you hear him. The more you obey him, the more you do what he calls you to do, the more you will hear from him, the more you will receive from him, the more you will give you to do. The relationship grows because you’re willing to actually hear and do.

The blessing of the hearing is eyesight, is vision, an ability to see what you need to see, discernment. You need to make the right decisions to get out of the valley that you’re in and back on the mountain top. That’s what I want. I think that’s probably what you want. That’s definitely what I want. I want my vision back, the vision that comes from being on the mountain top with God, who has spoke to me, and I have heard him and I could see so far beyond where I’m at, to know the direction I need to go, the changes I need to make, the alliances I need to make, the problems that are there that I can avoid and the things I can do to make sure that I am not hindered on my journey. That kind of vision comes from proper hearing. That hearing means that I am willing to first address am I in right standing? Am I right with God? Am I where I’m supposed to be? Have I made my life about Christ. Have I truly repented? If I repent, then I know I am positioning myself. I know that I can not fear because I have feared God.

If I look at Revelation 2, verse 29,. It says he who has an ear let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. Folks, we are a part of the church. Now I know that the book of Revelation, the Spirit of God speaking to John, we’re getting that revelation. We talk to very specific churches, but this word is living and active. It’s living and active, it’s alive. It speaks to me now just as much as it spoke to them. Then I can hear God and I’m part of the church and I need to have ears to hear what the Spirit is saying to the church. It won’t be different than what’s in here. It won’t be contrary to the Word of God. It won’t tell me something that I can’t find in here, but it’s going to tell me what I need to know, right when I need to know it. It’s going to give me the direction that I need to take. It’s going to tell me how I’m supposed to walk, how I’m supposed to live, how I’m supposed to attain the things that God has promised me I’m going to find them here. But I’m going to find them here because I’m looking to see it and I’m listening to hear and I’m following the instructions that God has given me.

I know that we want to comfort and speak hope to a lost and dying world, but there is no righteousness in giving false hope. There’s nothing redeeming about giving false hope. If I really want to help bring salvation, if I really want to help bring healing and freedom to somebody and joy back into somebody’s life, then they must be set free from their sin. They must turn from the ways that they have been doing it. This even works, folks, when you understand that, even as a saved person, someone who has repented of their sin and is not living a life of sin anymore, there are times when God says okay, you’re going to need to get set free from something that has ensnared you, which could be.

You might have a particular mindset about something, you might have a particular way about doing something. And God says how am I going to get you over here if you just are determined? you’re going to always do it the way you always did it? What if he has new instructions for you? Right, so to be set free from your sin, you have to be made new and sometimes we have to do things new.

Sometimes that’s scary. I know that that’s challenging. I know we don’t always know how to do it and it might look a little messy at first. But no one gets mad at a baby for falling when they learn how to walk and nobody gets mad at them when they’re learning how to speak and when the in fact we think it’s cute. They get the words wrong and we kind of love it. And we kind of get sad when all of a sudden they don’t say it wrong anymore and they say it right.

There’s beauty in being young in the Lord and learning how to walk in the Lord, because there’s such a beautiful pure faith and seeing the heart of somebody who just wants to please Jesus. And whether they get it right or get it wrong, they have pleased the heart of the Father because they’re doing their best to grow. And if something happens to us, we get older and we think I’ve already grown, i don’t need to grow anymore. All of a sudden we act like we’ve arrived and there’s nothing more that we need to learn or do different. Shame on us. You haven’t arrived. You’re still on this earth in an earth suit. Excuse me, we all still have learning to do. We all still have growing to do. We all still have changing to do. We all still have sanctification that’s happening in us.

There’s not one person, there’s not one person walking around on this earth today who is just like Jesus in every way. Just like Jesus. There just isn’t. And at the point that you get to that point, god will take you to heaven because you’ll be too good for this whole earth. This is we walk, yes, we walk in the perfection of what Jesus Christ did. But we can always grow. We can always do better. We can always be more like Him, spend more time with Him, hear Him better, obey Him better. We like to get real comfortable in our attitudes and get real comfortable in our personalities. But what if God is asking you to do something that’s contrary to your personality? What if you’re quiet by nature and God wants you to speak up and be bold and share the gospel with somebody? That’s not easy. It’s not easy, but we can always grow. We can always be molded.

I was thinking of the beauty of the picture we see in Jeremiah, where the potter is forming the wheel. He says that he was making the pot, but then it was marred in his hand. That’s something to think about. You can be in God’s hands, you can be living your life for the Lord And stuff can still happen. And you are marred, even in his hands. And yet what does the scripture say? That he made it again. He didn’t leave it marred, he made it again into another vessel.

So that brings me great comfort because I can say Lord, no matter where the marring has come, no matter what troubles have left scars or things on my life or in my heart, on my mind, in my physical body, you can remake me into another vessel. I’m still yours, i’m still in your hand. You still have purpose for me. This is not the end. My marring, the scarring, the trouble, the brokenness is not my end. You have a job for me to do, you have a purpose for me to fulfill and you will simply remake me. You will simply mold and soften. I don’t know if you’ve ever watched a pot that’s on the wheel, but the clay is soft and wet and moldable And God knows how to do it without causing you great trouble and pain. God can do more in his touch in a moment than any person can do in a lifetime, with great pain, and it takes great effort to do It’s in the surrender, in being pliable, allowing the Lord to mold and make us, to shape us, to remove the impurities and to get rid of the things that have hindered us.

What does it say in Ephesians 5, 26? It tells us that we are cleansed by the washing with water through the Word. We take the Word of the Lord, we take the Word, we take it in, We make it ours and we are washed and cleansed. I received the Word, which is my washing. That washing is what? well, i was thinking about this because I wanted to give you kind of a picture to visualize this with me, and I could picture in my head somebody who has fallen into a mud pit and they’re covered in mud.

I actually did a mud run once and I will never do it again. I absolutely hated it. I don’t like being dirty. It was disgusting, but I was doing it for my friend, running with my friend, and when I got home, folks to wash the mud off of me. I was washing forever. It took forever. It didn’t matter how much I let that water wash over me. There was mud still, even my clothes, the clothes. when I tried to wash out my clothes I’m not kidding I ended up throwing the clothes away, but I didn’t want to throw the mud in the trash. So I was trying to at least rinse them out, and it didn’t matter how long I washed them, dirt kept coming out. I was astonished. I truly was astonished.

I mean, i’m using soap, i’m scrubbing, i’m in the shower. It’s not like I’m in a bath, i’m in the shower, i’m the. It’s running off of me. And you’re thinking where is it hiding? This is impossible. It was in my ears, i mean, it was everywhere and it took forever to get clean. And so I’m picturing that in my head. Right, i’m picturing that.

And I’m thinking we tend to look at sin and deal with sin like someone who is covered in mud and someone’s got a big bucket of water and they dump it over the person. Now, you’re cleansed, it’s all better. You’re all better, it’s not true. Throwing water on someone who is covered in mud will not clean them. They must be removed from the mud pit. They have to be completely washed and cleansed. They have to be given new garments, because those garments are no longer usable and then set on a dry path once they are done. And I was thinking about us with sin. We are filthy with sin when we have sin and we have to be made clean. Now I am forgiven. That’s the washing. But I have to keep washing. Why? Because there’s still dirt locked in crevices and hidden in places that I don’t even know it’s there that I think I’ve washed it all.

We think why did that pop up? Have you ever gone through something and you reacted terrible and you thought why in the world did I do that? I thought that I was the. I thought I conquered that a long time ago. Why did I react that way? Why did I respond? Why did I go do that thing? Well, you had some hidden dirt in there. We got to get that out. We’ve got to get the dirt out. How do we do that? The washing of the word You stay in the word.

You stay in the place of seeing what God has said, the instructions He’s given you, and hearing what He’s saying to you to tell you what you need to do. So He is cleansing you. He’s putting His new garments on you. You are now a part of the kingdom. You’re walking on a different path. You’re not walking, it’s, it’s. You know we’re. We’re not pigs. We don’t go play in the mud and get clean and go right back into the mud pit, and somebody who does that is not.

If you’re a person who has to get saved every week, then you’re not really getting saved. I’m not sure what’s happening. You’re probably fearful. You believe God, enough that you’re fearful, but you’re not being cleansed. We’ve got to be cleansed. We’ve got to be cleansed. Well, i want to wrap this up for you. We’ve got just a couple of minutes. Let’s look at the promise that God gives us. Okay, let’s go to second chronicles, seven, verse 14. And I’m sure you have heard this before If my people, which are called by my name, you identify with Jesus Christ, you call yourself a Christian, will humble themselves.

You’re not waiting for God to humble you, you are willing to humble yourself. You humble yourself and you pray and you seek God’s face to be seen by him and for him to be seen by you. That you want that exchange. You want that face to face encounter with God, that you know. Father, you can look at me and show me what’s in me. You can pray like David prayed.

Show me if there is any wicked way in me that we are humbling ourselves, we are laying ourselves bare. We are crying out to God and say God, you know, show me, tell me. And I turned, which means repent from my wicked ways. If they will turn from their wicked ways, their sin, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land. That’s why we had the issue we had in Isaiah, because they wouldn’t repent. That’s why their sin would not be forgiven till the day they died. They were going to hell. They’re not going to see salvation. They would not repent. They refused to live the life of comfort in the flesh and to do the thing they wanted, instead of listening and obeying what God was saying to them. We have to quit acting like there isn’t such a thing as sin.

I wrote down that telling a drowning person that they aren’t drowning will kill them. You can’t, in your endeavor and in your fear that you’re going to hurt them, be worried that you’re going to hurt them. You’re going to save them. If somebody is drowning, i’m going to grab them and drag them out of the water And it might actually hurt them, because they’re probably going to hold them by the head and the neck up out of the water. If I have seen you know I’ve used this before, but you’ve heard this before too. But if a child goes running into the street, i don’t care that it’s going to hurt, that I’m yanking your arm to pull you out of harm’s way. I’d rather you feel the pain of me yanking you out of danger than to allow you to be crushed by the car.

It matters. We have to care enough about the person to tell them the truth. What does John 8.32 tell us? And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. The truth shall make you free. If you need freedom, if you know somebody who’s living in sin and they desperately need freedom, the answer is they need the truth. They need to repent of their sin. They don’t need to just try to be a better person. They need Jesus, and the good news is he is still a savior. He is still a savior who loves to save.

I don’t know. I do know that many of you, most of you, are those who have already given your life to Jesus Christ. You’re already living a life of service to the Lord, that you’ve made that your life’s goal, to please the Lord, and you are pursuing him in every way. You know how. So my challenge to you is we’ve got to be the voice like Isaiah. We’ve got to call sin sin. We have to actually throw an actual life preserver to people who are drowning. We can’t tell them you’re going to make it, it’s going to be okay, and not throw them. Jesus Christ, you’re going to let them drown. We’ve got to be able to actually be bold and talk about what Jesus did for us and how he needs to change their life, because if they don’t do this, it is their eternity at stake. We’re running out of time.

But if you are that person today that you just by chance stumbled onto this podcast and you’ve actually listened till now and you realize that you don’t know Jesus, would you do the honor with me to allow me to pray with you today? If you have heard this and you’re saying that’s me, i know that I have sinned. I don’t understand all the stuff I’m going through and I don’t want to be here anymore and I don’t want to be stuck like this anymore and I want to know freedom and I want to be saved. I want to follow the Lord. I want to make Jesus my savior. I want to live my life for him. My life that I’ve been living is ugly and it’s hurting and it’s painful and it’s death and it’s destruction, and I want life and I want joy and I want peace and the Holy Ghost. I want to be able to live a life that is free from the bondage of this earthly death suit that we’re all walking around in Boy. I don’t even know if I’m explaining that well, i’m so used to talking to people who understand. But if you need to be saved, then there is a savior.

But I’m going to tell you the truth. It takes more than just praying a prayer. I’m going to pray with you, but it means to make him your Lord. If you know what it is to serve, if you’ve ever seen somebody serve, even seen a movie where someone serves, been in a really nice restaurant and been waited on, then you understand. It means to really care, to make their needs your job. So I serve the Lord. I make his need my need. I go and I try to meet the need. What is his need? He wants me to tell as many as I can, to share the gospel with as many as I can, to bring healing where there’s where someone is either broken or Jesus said of himself that he was the one prophesied by Isaiah, that he came to heal the brokenhearted.

If you’re brokenhearted, he came to mend your broken heart. He came to restore those who were sick in their body, to heal. He loves you with an everlasting love, but you have to receive that love. He’s paid the price. He’s already paid the price. He has made a way for you to live in heaven with him and to reign on earth. When he comes and reigns on earth, wherever we happen to be, whatever happens to take place, at whatever time, he does it. But he’s made a way for us to have eternal life And for that life to bless us here and now, while we are on this earth, in these flesh bodies and when we are in our glorified bodies. Even though he’s made the way, the cost was Jesus Christ and you must receive him. You don’t have to pay it. He paid it, but you have to receive him because he’s the payment.

So let me pray with you today. I’m gonna pray for both those who are saved and those who need to be saved. Father, we come to you right now in the name of Jesus Christ, your Son, who has washed us and cleansed us and provided everything we need for life and godliness. Everything we need you have already provided by your Son and the price he paid on the cross for us. Father, i pray right now for all those who have made their life and their mission your kingdom. I pray you open doors for them that no man can close and you close doors that no man can open, father, that you direct their path, that their vision explodes, you take them to the mountaintop and out of the valley and you bring them into a place of safety and security and blessing, father, that you would give them tools necessary, that you would give them the right partnerships, the right alliances, the right connections. That you would fill their mind with understanding and renew their strength like the eagles, give them what they have made of this day.

And, father, for those who don’t know you but want to know you, father, we pray right now that, as they repent of their sin, as they acknowledge before you that they can no longer live their life for themselves, but that they need a savior, that they truly need what is good, measured by the one who is good, to heal their broken heart, to mend their brokenness in their bodies, to heal their minds and their thoughts and their memories, father, that you would forgive them of their sin and heal their land, their family, their influence, their place of work and business. Father, i ask that you bring a quick understanding of who you are, lead them into a right church fellowship, that they would hear the word. Connect them, father, with those who will help build them up on their most holy faith and lead them into a life of total freedom and service in your name, whatever that means, in any genre and area of life that you’ve called them. I ask you, father, to bless the listeners today. May they know you more intimately than they ever have before and be filled with courage to go and do great exploits for your name and for your kingdom. And we pray all of these things in Jesus’ name. Amen, amen.

I pray that was a blessing to you today. I do encourage you get in your word. Stay faithful to the word of God. Stay faithful to the cause. Don’t be down and discouraged. God is on your side. If you’ve made him your Lord, he will show up. He is your provision, he is your protection. He is all that you need. He will provide for you whatever you have lacking, and he will make sure and do for you what you need done. I pray you’re blessed today. Take this message, share it, give it to somebody who might need to hear it. You can like and subscribe. Go to my website, jamieloosecom, or you can email me at mail at jamieloosecom. I’d love to hear from you. We’ll see you next time. Thanks so much for being with me today. Bye-bye.

1:07:22 – Jaime Luce
Thank you for listening to the Jamie Loose 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 jamieloosecom That’s J-A-I-M-E-L-U-C-Ecom. 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.