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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 jamieluce.com. 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 Luce Podcast. Thanks everybody for joining me today. I’m really happy to be with you.

I want to dive into several passages of Scripture with you today. My heart is really a little heavy with the subject matter, just because it boy. How do I say this So for a big group of us, there are those kinds. Let me put it this way there are those kinds of people who want to know truly what is the truth and they’re willing, in their search for truth, to look at things in a way that may confront their own ideas, it may confront their emotions, it may confront what they’ve known, but they are willing to honestly look for the truth And if that means that it confronts them or challenges them, they still want to know, because they know truth is what makes you free. And we’ve been talking about this on and off through the last several episodes and over the last month or so. But I came across something today while reading Jeremiah and I wanted to jump on here and share it with you because I realized I saw this over and over again and I will give you several places where I’ve seen it.

But this is common in our human nature As Christians. Our goal is to become more like Christ, to look like Him, to emulate Him, to think like He thinks, to feel what He feels, to establish His kingdom here on earth by us serving Him and accomplishing the growth and the advancement of His kingdom. Your will be done here on earth as it is in heaven. So it’s a desire in our hearts, or at least in our hearts. It’s a desire in our hearts, or at least it should be, that we go from being carnal people who live to satisfy the flesh and are remade, have gone through, or are going through, i should say, the process of sanctification by knowing what God’s will is for us, humbling ourselves and then allowing the Holy Spirit to shed light in our lives on what He wants from us, where He wants us to make those changes. He, of course, by His grace, empowers us to make those changes. But that takes our cooperation. That takes us saying I will work in partnership with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, it means that He is the paraclete, the one who comes alongside of us to help Him or to help us. But that means we partner with Him. He won’t do a work in me that I refuse to allow Him to do. That takes partnership. That takes me being willing to conform my will to God’s will.

And so this is what I want to talk about today, because if you’ll go in your Bibles with me, get out something to write with, this can not only going to give you something today. That is in Scripture, that we see in Scripture, but this is one of those messages that is very practical. This is about how we live our lives. Okay, and some of us need help. I need help When I say some of us, i’m not pointing the finger at you. I am learning to not allow my personality and my tendencies of being a people pleaser because we’ll see in Scripture where that went wrong and instead focusing on the very important fact that I need to please God first. What action am I going to take? What decision am I going to make that pleases God? I have to please Him first. People come second, but you please God first. So let’s go to Jeremiah 42.

And in these passages I’m going to give you a little background first. So Jeremiah has been warning Judah of the impending. Not just probability I mean, it was a probability if they would have listened but the warnings that God kept giving that Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, was going to come And even though they had built these walls to protect themselves, the siege was on and Nebuchadnezzar was going to win. Babylon was going to take control. And the people who were there, god’s warning was if you do not turn from doing it your way and instead, obey me, do what I’d asked you to do.

If you don’t do that, certain destruction is coming. Certain destruction is coming. If you and he kept telling them, if you will do what I tell you to do, you can avoid this. This, this doesn’t have to happen, this doesn’t have to be. And you might be in a situation today where you think but I’m already in the situation, i’m already there That let me remind you that life doesn’t stop. No matter where you are. There is another decision to be made. No matter where you find yourself right now, no matter how much trouble you might be dealing with right now, your tomorrow doesn’t have to look like today. This is not final. Where you are right now is not final. However, it is incumbent upon us to know the right next move, the right next decision, so that we can move away from destruction and move into the blessing of God, to move into what his plan is for our life, to understand him, to know his ways and to be able to live accordingly, so that we fulfill the purpose he has for us, and to fulfill it. When you fulfill God’s purpose, you fulfill and satisfy the longing of your heart. The longings in our heart are put there because of how God created us. So I want you to live a satisfied life, an overcoming life, and I want you to be able to do that in wisdom, that we can learn from either the well-made decisions or the poorly made decisions that we see in Scripture, as well as what we’ve seen in one another’s lives. So here’s the history The people of Judah had been exiled to Babylon.

Nebuchadnezzar came. They didn’t listen. The warnings came, they didn’t listen, and the siege was on. The people were taken, the king himself was captured. He was forced to watch the killing of his sons and then they poked his eyes out. I mean, it was pretty dramatic. And now in his, he removes all the people, exiles them to Babylon, except for leaving just a few of the poor of the land. That he left there under the care of a man who would be their governor and told them to take care of the crops and the land, and in doing so they would have provision for themselves and they would be serving the king, but they could be doing it from their own land. They didn’t have to go into exile away from their land.

Okay, after a turn of events, the governor is assassinated, okay, and the people realize that they are in grave danger Now they’re going to end up exiled out of their land. They are terrified of what’s going to happen. They know that there’s now going to be a struggle for this land and who knows what will happen to them. And they go to Jeremiah and they ask Jeremiah, please for us, will you ask the Lord what we should do? Because they knew Jeremiah. This is what’s crazy people. They asked Jeremiah to go hear from the Lord. Why would you ask somebody to go hear from the Lord if you didn’t believe that they could hear from the Lord and get a word from the Lord?

And yet these same people ignored every word of the Lord that this man had received before, acting as if he was wrong and couldn’t get a word from the Lord. It shows their double-mindedness. It shows that what they were looking for was something that they wanted, only words that pleased their ears. They only wanted to hear what they wanted to hear, and this is a confrontational thing. When we’re only willing to hear what we want to hear, we will never grow from the place that we are at. You might get out of one frying pan and end up in the next. You won’t be able to escape this life of trouble, constantly doing the same thing over and over again, constantly ignoring the word of the Lord. So if you’re wanting different, if you want different, then it means truly going to hear what the word, what the Lord has to say to you. But then you have to listen, you have to do it. So they go and they ask Jeremiah. And Jeremiah agrees to ask the Lord for them.

What should these people do? And because Jeremiah this is the crazy thing, jeremiah obeying God the entire time, doing exactly what God told him. And it was hard for him to do. They put him in prison, they treated him wrong. They almost starved him to death. He went through so much telling the people the truth and them not hearing. He’s known as the weeping prophet because he just cried about this circumstance, his own and his people who refused to be comforted by the Lord and dealt with rightly went.

You know how hard that is if you’re a parent and you want your children so badly to make the right choices, because you know that the right choices will lead to the right results, and that’s what you want for them, what you know. The good thing is that you’re wanting for them and it’s right there. But they don’t wanna do that. They want to do it their own way. They don’t wanna hear instruction, they don’t wanna be told. And so then they make these wrong decisions that we know and have warned them that will lead to death, will lead to destruction in their life, will lead to problems and trouble.

And yet it’s a condition, folks, it’s a heart condition we’re talking about today. And Jeremiah tells them I’ll ask the Lord for you. But you’re lying to me, because what they said to Jeremiah was if you’ll ask the Lord, we promise you that whatever the Lord says, we will do it, even if we don’t like it. I mean, their words sound like they have repentant hearts. Their words sound like they learned their lesson. Their words sound like we finally understand. We realized we weren’t listening because we didn’t like what you said. But it doesn’t matter now, because we’re gonna do it. Even if we don’t like what you say, even if you tell us something that we don’t wanna hear, even if God confronts us, we’re gonna obey God. Okay, it sounds right. But Jeremiah says to them and calls them out on it and says you’re lying, that’s a lie, because I’m gonna tell you what God says and you’re still gonna be rebellious and you’re still gonna be hard-hearted and you’re still not gonna listen, and it’s gonna lead to your ultimate destruction. Oh God, that’s heavy, that’s a lot.

I want so badly for us folks to be free from the clutches of the tricks and the snares of the enemy. But sometimes, guys, it’s not the enemy, sometimes it is our own flesh. It is our refusal to hear what we don’t wanna hear and do what we know we’re supposed to do. That’s a hard thing. That’s a hard thing to deal with us. It’s the reason why Jesus said that you are not to confront somebody else about their issues until you remove yours first. Get rid of the plank in our own eye before we can even begin to deal with the speck in our brother’s eye. I can’t make right judgments until I deal with my heart, until I deal with the real issue. What’s really going on in me? Why do I keep ending up in this mess? Why do I keep making these mistakes over and over again? What is it in me that I am not willing to either see or do what I need to see and do Right? And again, folks, i’m talking to me too. I’m talking to me too.

The older we get, the more of these life lessons we see and recognize, and we hope that we haven’t recognized them too late. But I am here to encourage you. We don’t have to stay this way. We don’t have to keep making these mistakes. We don’t have to jump from fire to fire. We can learn from the scriptures that God has been so gracious to us to make sure they are recorded for our help and our purpose in him, to grow us into completion. That’s what the word perfect means that we are complete in him, that we are mature in God and we do things the way he wants us to do them.

Let’s look at Jeremiah 42. And I’m gonna read you from the new living translation versus oh gosh, i’ll start in verse four And I’m gonna read you quite a bit of scripture here. So stay with me. Okay, they’ve asked him what to do. They said on verse three pray to the Lord, your God. We will to show us what to do and where to go. And verse four all right, jeremiah replied I will pray to the Lord for your God and ask I’m sorry, i will pray to the Lord, your God, as you have asked, and I will tell you everything he says. I will hide nothing from you.

Then they said to Jeremiah may the Lord, your God, be a faithful witness against us If we refuse to obey whatever he tells us to do. Whether we like it or not, we will obey the Lord, our God, to whom we are sending you with our plea, for if we obey him, everything will turn out well for us. That blew my mind as I’m reading that, because that is absolutely true. What they are saying is absolutely true. If you will do what God has instructed you to do, whether you like it or not, whether it’s easy or not, the result is that everything will go well with you. If you will obey the Lord, it will go well with you. Let me go ahead and read. I’ll read on 10 days later, the Lord gave his reply to Jeremiah.

So he called for Johan and son of Korea, and the other military leaders and for all the people, from the least to the greatest. He said to them you sent me to the Lord, the God of Israel, with your request. And this is his reply Stay here in this land. If you do, i will build you up and not tear you down. I will plant you and not uproot you, for I am sorry about the punishment I have had to bring upon you. Do not fear the king of Babylon anymore, says the Lord, for I am with you and will save you and rescue you from his power. I will be merciful to you by making him kind so he will let you stay here in your land.

But if you refuse to obey the Lord, your God, and if you say we will not stay here, instead we will go to Egypt, where we will be free from a war, the call to arms and hunger, then hear the Lord’s message to the remnant of Judah. This is what the Lord of Heaven’s armies, the God of Israel, says. If you are determined that’s important if you are determined to go to Egypt and live there, the very war and famine you fear will catch up to you and you will die there. That is the fate awaiting every one of you who insists on going to live in Egypt. Yes, you will die from war, from famine and disease. None of you will escape the disaster I will bring upon you there. This is what the Lord of Heaven’s armies, the God of Israel, says. Just as my anger and fury have been poured out on the people of Jerusalem, so they will be poured out on you when you enter Egypt. You will be an object of damnation, horror, cursing and mockery, and you will never see your homeland again. Listen, you remnant of Judah. The Lord has told you do not go to Egypt.

Now, remember, Egypt represents everything God delivered them from, everything God delivered them from, and the thought of going back it’s like the scripture that says a dog returns to its vomit. It’s like going back into all the ways that you used to live, going back into all the old habits, going backward. Don’t forget this warning I have given you today, for you are not being honest when you set me to pray to the Lord, your God for you, and so many people do this We’ll, instead of us praying and hearing directly from God because we really don’t wanna hear him and we don’t want the responsibility of having to go to him and having to be right before him so I can gladly come before him and ask him instead of that, bearing that responsibility, they wanna send Jeremiah, they wanna send somebody else. And what do we do? Instead of us praying, we’ll ask all these other people hey, will you pray for me? Hey, will you pray for me? And yet we don’t ever intend on hearing. We don’t ever actually intend on taking what they say the Lord has said, or advice from those who were trusted. We don’t really intend on listening. And Jeremiah says you weren’t being honest when you sent me to pray to the Lord, your God, for you. You said just tell us what the Lord, our God, says, and we will do it. And today I have told you exactly what he said. But you will not obey the Lord, your God, any better now than you have done in the past, so you can be sure that you will die from war, famine and disease in Egypt, where you insist on going There. It is again where you keep demanding, where you are insisting these words that he keeps using.

What was the other one I read to you. You’re determined. There is a word for this And I want. It’s a condition of the heart, of the heart. Well, that’s a slip there, isn’t it? The actual condition of the heart is called having a hard heart. But when I read the same passages that I’m gonna be reading to you in a couple of different translations, sometimes the word hard heart was substituted with the word stubborn. Ouch, does that affect you the way that affects me? Stubborn? Now hear me out on this.

Stubborn, when you are standing for the right things, when you refuse to be moved off of the right foundation, when you know what God has told you and you refuse like when Nehemiah was rebuilding the walls after this period of time where they were exiled and they go back to the land and they’re building the walls he refused to come down from that wall to mess with stuff that was not important, to be distracted and to be taken away from the work God had called him to do. He refused that. That’s a wonderful way to have stubbornness in your spirit. A stubbornness for the will of God, a stubbornness to do what God has called you to do. That’s a wonderful thing. But if that stubbornness is used not for the will of God but for your will, it is a disastrous thing. And I’m talking to me too. Being stubborn only works if it’s God’s will. It only works when it’s God’s will. It’s being stubborn does not work when it’s for your carnal flesh. It just won’t work. A hard heart let me explain this to you.

A hard heart causes another condition. The condition a hard heart causes is blindness. And it’s not a physical blindness, it is a spiritual blindness. It is a blindness that leads to self-destruction. So I want you to see how this plays out. I want you to see that this has happened over and over in scripture. It’s not me picking one place and showing this to you. I’m going to give you several places. Okay, i want you to go to Exodus, chapter five, and we’re going to read verse one and two. I’m going to turn there with you Exodus five versus one and two.

Now, this is Moses having to go before Pharaoh. Okay, don’t go back to Egypt. God did all this miraculous stuff to deliver his people from the condition they were in in Egypt, and God wants to remove you from the condition that you are in. The reason he came to save was to remove us from our fallen condition. And in this passage I’ll read you the two scriptures that Pharaoh is showing his stubbornness and the condition of his heart.

Okay, it says after this presentation to Israel’s leaders, moses and Aaron went and spoke to Pharaoh. They told him this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says let my people go so they may hold a festival in my honor in the wilderness. Is that so, retorted Pharaoh? And who is the Lord? Why should I listen to him and let Israel go. I don’t know the Lord and I will not let Israel go.

Okay, this response is letting us see his character. He’s saying absolutely not, i don’t want to let you go. You’re under my control, under my influence. I’m the one with the power. He is in his own condition, making life worse for everyone else. He then, in his stubbornness, in his refusal to let them go, now makes their burden even harder and says now you got to go make bricks. We provided the straw. Guess what? Now I’m not going to provide the straw. You go find it on your own time. I just made your work harder. I just made it more difficult for you and your stubbornness, folks, my stubbornness. We make it more difficult for those that we are dealing with. We make it more difficult for the people around us. If I’m having an issue with a relationship close to me and all I am doing is using stubbornness, for whatever reason, no matter why I’m wanting to hold on to my position, when I am stubborn, i make life harder for everybody else.

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I’m not helping the situation. Can I say it that way? I’m not helping the situation. Let’s then go, because something happens. Oh, I should have looked it up for you.

There’s a passage in Scripture that says that when we quit listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit long enough, eventually God basically just turns our hearts over to a reprobate mind. We just are turned over. He just lets us go full hard into it. He just gives us over to it. It just it takes, he lets it take control. His hand is off and he just lets it take control. And that’s a danger that we need to look out for That. If the Holy Spirit has been convicting us or plotting us about something and we just keep telling him no and resisting him, at some point he’ll say, fine, he’ll take his hand off. And when he does he’ll let you. He’ll let you do what you’re wanting to do. You want to give yourself over to that. It’s going to let you, but it’s going to be destruction for you.

So let’s go to Exodus seven, and I’m going to read you verse three, chapter seven, verse three. And this is where Moses keeps saying Lord, i can’t go back to talk to Pharaoh again. The last time that I did, he made it worse for the people. He was so stubborn. He made it worse for the people. This is his condition, this is the condition of his heart. Already, this is who this Pharaoh is. He’s already had this heart because he took all this people out of fear for his own empire. He made all these people his slaves. This is who this man is And in that condition, in his condition, god tries to speak to him, god sends his messenger to speak to him, he refuses. He remains in his stubbornness and his pride and his arrogance And he has set himself up Pharaohs think of themselves as deity. So he has set himself up as God. So he’s not going to listen to your God or whoever you say is God, because then that would mean he’s not God.

And we don’t like thinking that we aren’t in control of our decisions for our life. We do the same thing, we just don’t see it that way. But we are setting ourselves up in a position of pride, thinking no one’s going to tell me, no one’s going to correct me. But, folks, if in this world and in the condition we’re living, nobody wants to be corrected, nobody wants to be told the truth, nobody wants to be free, and if, leading to our destruction, we have to deal with this. We cannot go along and do it the way the world is doing it. We cannot remain in this hard-hearted position, in this stubborn position, in this refusal to bow our knees, to humble ourselves and be a humble people. If we aren’t willing to do that, we are leading to our own destruction. We are marching straight into it with energy and vigor. It’s not even like we’re fighting it, we’re just going along.

So this is what God says you go anyway, and this is what happens. Verse three this is what God says. This is what God is saying to Moses and to Aaron, because God says, moses, go, let Aaron say it for you, since you’re afraid to say it. You’ll be like the prophet and he’ll be the mouth. You’ll be like God, he’ll be like the prophet speaking for you. I’ll make it this way before Pharaoh, and this is what he says, but I will make now. This is God. He’s turning Pharaoh over. The condition of Pharaoh’s heart is being turned over. I will make Pharaoh’s heart stubborn so I can multiply my miraculous signs and wonders.

In the land of Egypt. God’s getting ready to send the plagues and show just how mighty and how powerful he is and that he is higher, mightier and more powerful than Pharaoh is. He’s about to humble Pharaoh because of the stubbornness of his heart and turn him over into that stubbornness. Then, if I go over to verse 14 in that same chapter Exodus 7, 14, it says then the Lord said to Moses Pharaoh’s heart is stubborn. All of the trouble Pharaoh lost his life pursuing Israel, pursuing Jacob through that water, pursuing him and refusing to do what God asked him to do. And in that refusal he lost his life. It was destroyed along with every other person that he drug in there with him, every bit of that army who went chasing after him, every person connected to Pharaoh who was doing that same thing and pursuing that same thing ended up dead in that red sea. Their hearts are stubborn. That is what it is when we have a refusal to see, it is pride and stubbornness, and if it’s left unchecked, it will lead to destruction.

I want us to think about this, because in our life now, when we think we know better how to handle self-preservation, better than how God would handle our self-preservation, we self-sabotage ourselves into total destruction. This is what Jeremiah was dealing with with the people of Israel. They went to God because they didn’t want to be destroyed. They were looking for a way to preserve their life. That’s why they sent Jeremiah to get a word from God. But in that asking they kept their stubbornness of heart and refused to hear what God was instructing them to do.

And in that refusal, even if you think you know better, even when you think, yeah, i’ve heard you, but I still think this is better, and if that refusal is in contrast to what God wants for your life, in contrast to what God’s word teaches, in contrast to how God would have you deal with the situation, in contrast to, even if you see that you have done the same thing over and over again, you keep making the same decision, you keep fearing the same thing and then therefore, hiding from the same thing, or you can that self-preservation kicks in and you refuse. And I’m not talking about the kind of self-preservation that saved your life. I’m talking about the self-preservation where you’re afraid to not be in control anymore, the self-preservation that says I’m right and I have to submit. I’m not right, i think I’m right, i’m not right And I don’t want to humble myself. I don’t want to. What if that will embarrass me? What if I have to do something God doesn’t want me to do?

That’s exactly what the people of Israel were facing. They said even if we don’t like it, even if it means we have to do things we don’t like folks, you have to do what’s necessary in order to avoid the complete destruction. We’ve got to be wiser than that. If we are looking for and asking God for direction, we have to be honest with ourselves And we have to be looking to see if we are even willing to follow the instructions that He’s giving us. Am I asking just because I know I should, and that makes me feel appeased that I asked the Lord. Do I even go so far as to twist it and say I think this is what God wants me to do? I really think this is what God wants me to do, only because it makes you feel better.

If you think that’s what you’re going to do, even because if you think that if I do this, that’s the only way I feel comfortable, so that must be God, well, i can tell you that God doesn’t always care about your comfort. He does not care if you’re comfortable. He will do what’s uncomfortable to save your life. He will do what’s comfortable, i mean, for this whole group of people in Israel. Jeremiah told them over and over again Nebuchadnezzar is going to come and do this because Israel as a whole has been disobedient for so long and ignored me for so long, turned against me in every possible way, broken all my covenants and commandments, and because they have destruction is coming. But if there’s a remnant of you who don’t want the destruction on your life and you’re willing to do what God says. Then Jeremiah told them God says go ahead, submit yourself and humble yourself before King Nebuchadnezzar, and if you do, he’ll treat you kindly. But you’re going to be there for a long time, so go ahead, plant vineyards, plant your crops, build houses, let your kids get married, live life. You’re going to be here a while, but don’t worry, it’ll be okay. You’re going to be okay. And so many times God is saying listen, i know this is going to be difficult for you and you’re going to have to do some uncomfortable things that you didn’t want to have to do, but your prior decisions got you here. Now I’m going to try to keep you safe while we maneuver getting you out of here. So you need to follow my instructions now.

But if we are only ever asking to justify the fact that we said we asked God and have no intention of following his instructions, we will self preserve right into destruction and right out of the will of God and the blessing of God for our life and right into the curses of a fallen nature and a fallen man. We’ll just go hand in hand right into that ugly furnace. Or are we willing, folks? There is an opposite to this. Are we willing to listen to God? Are we willing to say Lord, i truly do want your answer for my life. Help me, give me grace to follow your commands and do what you want me to do, so that I am able make me able because you are able make me able. Or are we in the trap of always asking God, asking family, asking friends, but never listening to hear, never listening to do? Are we being hearers of the word only and not doers of the word, as James says For Pharaoh?

He was warned that he would lose his position, his power and his influence for not listening to the Lord. He was warned you’ve got a big God here who can do a lot of stuff. He could have remained Pharaoh. He could have remained in power in Egypt. He just needed to let the Israelites go. But he lost both. He wanted to keep power over both.

I looked up, I Googled the word stubborn just to see what the definition was. I love that. This is really good. You guys Having or showing dogged determination Remember I read you that word If you’re going to remain determined. Dogged determination not to change one’s attitude or position on something, especially in spite of good arguments or reasons to do so It’s a stubborn refusal. Learn from experience. Then I went to the King James and I read Exodus 714, sorry, 714, and it says this and the Lord said unto Moses Pharaoh’s heart is hardened. This is the one where he says hardened versus stubborn. He refuses to let people go. Let the people go. I looked up the word hardened in the Hebrew and it means heavy, oppressing, weighty, difficult, dull and unresponsive, or thick. If you ever heard people say they’re thickheaded, that’s what they mean. They’re very hard-hearted, they’re stubborn. I know that we think stubborn is not a condition of our heart or that we’re hardened, but it is. It is the same word. It was just simply translated so that we could hear it in today’s vernacular. Instead of saying hard-hearted, it said stubborn.

In the NLT, let’s look at Genesis 4, verse 6. I want you to see this. This is the story of Cain and Abel. I told you I’d show you several people. So we’ve looked at Pharaoh and now we’re going to look at Cain and Abel. We know that both Cain and Abel, as brothers, brought an offering to the Lord.

Obviously, by Scripture, there must have been a known expectation about the offering they were to bring, because it said that Abel brought an acceptable offering. So that means that they knew there was something that was considered acceptable and not acceptable. And Abel brought an acceptable offering. Cain did not. And God saw Cain’s response.

And let’s look at verse 6. It says this is God speaking to Cain. Why are you so angry? the Lord said to Cain, why do you look so dejected? That’s an interesting word, because we can hear from God and then we can pout and look dejected. Why is that? Why would I feel dejected by hearing what God has to say? Why would that cause that kind of response in me? Because that’s not what I want to hear. You’re going to make me do something I don’t want to do. That means you think you’re in competition with God, that he wins and you lose. I mean it’s showing some heart condition that Cain was dealing with to feel dejected. You will be accepted if there are conditions. God does have conditions. Why do you think there’s 10 commandments? There are conditions that we have in our covenant with the Lord. You will be accepted if you do what is right. But if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out. Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you, but you must subdue it and be its master.

Folks, this is Cain ended up killing his brother and being cast away to be a nomad. He lost everything. He lost everything And the only reason his life was spared because they would have killed him. He said they’re gonna kill me when they find out what has happened to me. So God put a special mark on him so that people wouldn’t kill him. I don’t know what that mark was, i don’t know how people knew what that mark was, but whatever it was, they knew you’re not gonna kill him. God has said don’t kill him. That was the mercy of God. But his refusal to control this and to submit himself and let go of his stubbornness and his determination to have his own way, his rebellion against God and his brother And all it was with his brother was jealousy. His brother was doing it right. His brother had done nothing wrong to him that we know of. He just did what was acceptable and it made Cain angry.

We’ve got to watch our attitudes, folks. Our heart, the Bible says, is deceitfully wicked. Who could know it? Who could know it? God knows it. God knows it. He knows how to prick our hearts.

Now I want you to turn to 1 Samuel 10. We’re gonna look at verse nine. 1 Samuel 10, verse nine. And this is now Saul King. Saul, okay, the very first king of Israel. And Saul turned and started to leave God. So this is when God is choosing Saul to become the first king. This is in his choice of picking him, and God always enables us to do the work he’s called us to. When we say yes to God, we partner with God. He enables us, he helps us in this process. Okay, and as Saul turned and started to leave, god gave him a new heart and all Samuel’s signs were fulfilled that day. So God had told Samuel such and such is gonna happen, and this is the man that I’m choosing. And Samuel obeyed God and did what he told him to do. And then we see that, because of that, god gave Saul a new heart that day. Now let’s fast forward. Saul’s been a king for a while. He’s had power and prestige for a while. He’s now the man of great influence And everybody listens to him. It’s no longer. He no longer thinks of himself as small. He now thinks he’s great.

And let’s go to first Samuel 15. Over just a couple of chapters, first Samuel 15. And let’s look at verses 20 to 23. And this is when Saul was supposed to wait for Samuel to come and offer up an offering to the Lord. They were facing a battle and Saul was afraid. He was afraid because the army’s advancing and the people are scared. So the people are putting pressure on Saul to go to battle and to do whatever he’s supposed to do. And Samuel, very sternly, gave him very specific instructions to follow from the Lord, and he told him to wait until he got there. Well, he didn’t. He didn’t wait. He did what was contrary to God’s word, contrary to what the will of God is, contrary to God’s commandment, and he did what was unlawful and he offered up sacrifices to the Lord. That was not his position, he was not a priest, and so this was very, very wrong. God was very upset with Saul for doing this, and so much so that his whole life is gonna change. This was the decision that brings destruction.

And Samuel confronts Saul and tells him what you did is wrong. And this is what Saul says But I did obey the Lord. Saul insisted, and we do this. I mentioned this earlier. We think we say well, i prayed, i asked the Lord, he told me to do that. You better make sure that’s really the voice of God. Saul insisted I carried out the mission that he gave me. I brought back King Agad, but I destroyed everyone else. So he’s saying well, i sort of obeyed, so I did all this, but I just didn’t do that. Then my troops brought in the best of the sheep. Now he’s blaming his troops, because we all know the troops take the direction from their leader. Saul’s the one who gave them the command of what to do. Now he’s blaming them. But then my troops brought in the best of the sheep, the goats, the cattle and the plunder, so that we could sacrifice to the Lord, your God, in Gilgoth. So what he’s trying to say is no, i did all this for God.

Here’s the self-justification, self-preservation. He’s saying oh, no, no, no, no, what I did was actually I did it for God. You see, i didn’t do it for myself. I really didn’t do this to disobey. It wasn’t disobedience, i obeyed. And see, I have the King right here, see. See, I did this and that wasn’t my fault. They did that. That wasn’t my, i didn’t do that. I mean, he’s just giving all these excuses. But Samuel replied.

This is verse 22. What is more pleasing to the Lord Your burnt offerings and sacrifices or your obedience to his voice. Listen, obedience is better than sacrifice and submission is better than offering the fat of Rams. Rebellion is as sinful as witchcraft and stubbornness as bad as worshiping idols. And the NLT is actually saying that, lighter than the King James says. King James actually says it is just like It is as meaning. It is the same as It is the same as witchcraft. So because you have rejected the command of the Lord, he has rejected you as King.

That day the decision was made God rips the kingdom from Saul In the heavens. It’s done. It’s gonna play out in the natural over the next several years, but in heaven decision was made. And then God tells Samuel go anoint me the next King. So David is anointed as a young boy. A replacement’s already been made for you. You blew it And we’ve got to be so careful.

We’ve got to be so careful If we are willing, if we are willing to do it in God’s way. Folks, it doesn’t have to be this way. I know this sounds heavy and hard, but the truth is I’m telling it to you because it doesn’t have to be this way. So the warning is going out. I’m like Jeremiah today and I’m sending out the warning because the opposite of this is true. If you will hear and obey the voice of the Lord, he will preserve you, he will bless you, he will take care of you, he will meet your needs, he will make sure that everything that you need is provided. He is your provider. God has a way of escape for you, but we’ve got to listen and obey.

Let’s go to Ezekiel, chapter 11. I’m wrapping it up, ezekiel, chapter 11, verse 19,. Because if we are willing, god can do for us what he originally did for Saul and give us a new heart. Ezekiel 11, 19,. And it says this and I will give them one heart. What does it mean by one heart? It means not divided. You won’t have a double-mindedness, you won’t have a divided heart.

That goes this way, sometimes with God, and the other way the other times for you, that you will no longer have a divided heart. You will have one heart. So he says I will give you one heart and a new spirit. I will put in their. I will put I’m sorry, let me read it again And I will give them one heart and a new spirit. I will put in them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh. Do you see where the hard-heartedness comes? It’s in our flesh, it’s in our carnal man. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh. What does he mean? I’ll give you a pliable heart. I’ll give you a soft heart where there was once a hard heart.

I will give you a heart that wants to walk in obedience to my word. Why? Because he’s a tyrant. No, because he wants what’s wonderful for you. He wants what’s good for you, what’s the best for you. He wants to bless you. He wants to care for you. He wants to be your good shepherd, who gently leads his sheep, who protects his sheep, who provides for his sheep. God wants to take care of you. He wants to deliver you. He wants to bring you out.

The answer, the answer of how to get there, is to walk in a humbleness of heart, to walk in obedience to the word of God, to do the hard thing. If you’ll remember, if you’ve been with me for very long, i did an episode called Choose Your Heart, and that’s because you will be faced with decisions that no matter if you do it God’s way or not. Do it God’s way. Both of those ways are hard. Both of them are hard. There’s no easy sometimes. There’s no easy decision to make. Sometimes it’s going to. You’re gonna feel it no matter which way you go. The difference is you can feel it once for all, meaning I’m not going that way anymore, or I can feel it the decision for the moment, and then I’m gonna be in that same position again.

If I’m not willing to have the hard conversation, if I’m not willing to look at myself and examine. Am I someone who is listening to hear or am I someone who is listening just to respond? Am I listening to hear what God has to say or am I looking for something that he says that I can justify and do my own thing? If we want to live blessed folks, we’ve got to face this. We’ve got to face this in ourselves and we’ve got to face this that this is what’s going on in our countries, in our nations, in the world.

We have a stubborn, hard heart and we have got to humble ourselves before God. He says that if we will humble ourselves, if we will turn from our wicked ways, then he will hear from heaven. If we need a new answer, if we need deliverance, there is deliverance and there is an answer. Jesus is the answer. He’s always the answer. His way is always the way. Even when there seems to be no way, jesus has a way. And if we will ask him with humility and say Lord, you alone know the path you have chosen for my life, i want what you want for my life.

Help me, father, and be like the boy who brought his son to Jesus and say I do believe, but help my unbelief. Father, strengthen me. I’m usually weak in this area, but I’m going to do it. Lord, Give me strength. This is going to be hard for me, but gird me up, lord, help me, holy Spirit, come alongside. Fill me, holy Spirit, with your power and with your ability. Help me to do what I know you’re asking me to do And, if you will, your answer is just on the other side. God’s best for you is on the other side of your obedience to his word.

Take this message to heart today. Let’s do some self-examination. Let’s look and see what, lord, are you saying to me about my circumstance today? Holy Spirit, what are you saying to me? What is the way that I need to go? Let me pray for you, father.

I thank you for everyone listening today. I pray that, no matter what decisions they are facing, no matter how scary or big these mountains seem, you are the God who moves mountains. You’re the God who makes a way in the wilderness. You’re the God who provides streams of water in our desert. Father, i’m asking you, as they ask you for your way in this, that you speak clearly and loudly into their spirits, that they would know your voice and that they would have hearts of humility to hear you and to obey your voice. That leads to their deliverance and their blessing. Father, I pray that they will hear today, have ears to hear. He that has an ear to hear let him hear what the Spirit is saying, and may they receive every blessing and every help from the Holy Spirit to do your will, your way, god, and we ask these things in Jesus’ name. Amen, amen. Thank you so much for being with me today. I pray that you take this message, make it yours, make this was an encouragement to you or instruction for you, or you know somebody who this will bless. I encourage you to share. Give me a like there that will help me with the algorithms and share this message If you’re listening to this on podcast.

I encourage you to give us a rating. That will help us as well. If you want to know when the next episode comes up and is live, then simply get notified. Subscribe right there and ring the bell. We’ll get a notification to you and you’ll know every single time that there’s a new episode available for you. If you’d like to hear old content things that are already there my website is jamieloosecom, and everything is there. I also have a blog on there that I periodically am adding to, and you can read those, as well as anything else that I have for you. You can get ahold of my book. You don’t need money, you just need God there at my website, or you can go to Amazon to get that. So again, thank you so much for joining me with them. It’s been a pleasure to be with you today, and we will see you next time. Bye-bye.

0:58:16 – 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.