A special devotional dealing with anxiety (talk to yourself)
Well, how are you guys doing so good to be with you I haven't done a Facebook live in a while and I thought I had some time this afternoon. I would just hop on and and See how you guys are doing Thinking about doing some devotionals some live devotionals and getting into a very regular routine. Maybe three four times a week We have published some things that have been really helping people. I'm going to encourage you If you're on this page to scroll down You'll see other videos that we've produced over the last several weeks that have really been very positive and ministering to people We've also been publishing daily Devotions on fear dealing with fear. I think we're up to day 21 out of 32 You can also get those posts by the way by going to our website at otm.co Just otm.co you can go there scroll down the first page and as a place where you can sign up to Receive a daily devotional in several different areas.
This particular one is dealing with fear We wrote these years and years ago and they've been really blessing people So I encourage you to go there and discover those as well If you're tuning in This live broadcast I encourage you to let me see your name coming across the screen. I'd love to say hi to you This of course will stay posted this video on our site. You can pick it up later on as well Maybe that's what you're doing right now But I wanted to just share a quick devotional thought with you guys today that that the Lord kind of placed on my heart a few days ago because I know during this time of heightened fears sometime and anxiety We are very very prone to Not deal with our circumstances very effectively. And so I read something in Psalm 42 5 And we want to say to you is this if you if you are struggling right now with any kind of fear it for anxiety Here's my suggestion talk to yourself And by the way, by the way, it's okay to talk to yourself as long as you're sure it's you I mean, I discovered that a while back. But anyway, here's what I mean by that in Psalm 42 5 Most everybody believes this was David who is the psalmist here He ends up in a time of anxiety Talking to himself listen to what he says Why art thou cast down?
Oh my soul and why art thou disquieted in me? In other words, why do you so low? Why are you so anxious? And then he says this hope thou in God For I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance David knows where the peace needs to come from so he talks to himself He questions why is he so down and then he reminds himself of where his source comes from and here's kind of the commentary That's been written about this The the commentary says this why art thou cast down on my soul question mark as though he David were two men The psalmist talks to himself now listen to what he says his faith Reasons with his fears and his hope argues with his sorrows I thought that was really really good because that's what happens oftentimes with us are these present troubles to last forever That's really something for us to ponder. I see some guys are are checking in Hey Christian good to see you buddy Christian Lammer is a good buddy Joe and Stephanie DeMott, man I haven't seen those guys in so long so good to have you and And there's others that are on here that are kind of checking in so grateful for you guys So so glad you're you're kind of tuning in So my encouragement to you guys is that in the midst of all of this?
Really really drill down on your relationship with God and let me tell you why I don't believe in my entire lifetime. I'm sure you would probably agree just never been anything quite like this But we as followers of Christ need to look at this as a tremendous Opportunity for God to do his work through us Oswald chambers Says this that God won't do any more through you than you first allow him to do in you And guys I want to be honest with you We blew it after 9-eleven and the reason we blew it is because we weren't prepared as a church For God to do what he really wanted to do God could not do stuff through us because we weren't prepared We weren't allowing him to do stuff in us and I pray we don't make that mistake today I pray that before we try to go out and affect the world around us or try to talk to people about Jesus That we put our face on the floor We worship him we get close to him and ask him to start the revival right here right in Me and you so that we can go from the places where we are and we can reflect the life and love of his son Jesus to a dying world because guys I'll tell you something I don't believe it's ever been a more opportune time For another wave of the Holy Spirit to spread revival particularly in our nation than what we're seeing right now But it's gonna it's gonna be incumbent upon us or followers of Jesus to get really serious about About tapping into the power supply tapping into our relationships with him. So my encouragement to you today guys is Get serious man. Get your eyes off of the media. Get your eyes off of the news, you know I I read an article that I wrote about a year ago of it probably gonna republish it again You probably see it on the website The title of the article was this the great danger of our day dot dot dot uninformed opinions And by the way, I really believe that we are living in a day when there's no no such thing as facts anymore guys It's all about what I feel it's all about my emotions and so we don't have any discrimination when it comes to what is real and what is not real and You you want to struggle from some schizophrenia?
Let me tell you how you can do that Watch one hour of Fox News and then watch another hour of MSNBC You'll find yourself talking to yourself, but perhaps not the way David did we're crazy today guys We're crazy my advice to you get your mind off the news media, man Don't don't even pay attention to it Look at little snippets to kind of keep track and what's going on and the latest rules and regulations but focus your time on crawling up in Papa God's lap and Listen God is real He lives in heaven. I get this and God has an opinion And guess whose opinion don't count Yep, you got it yours and mine don't count. So I don't know about you, but I want his heart I want what he is seeing I don't want to rely on myself because it's gonna be filtered through all the garbage I let into my life and I don't know about you, but there's only one thing There's only one dimension. I want in my life and that I want to see his perspective Years ago God spoke to me when I was really in a very difficult place and this is profound I'll kind of leave you with this idea I'm crying out Lord. I really need your perspective and some of you may be crying out right now I'm saying the same thing Lord.
I don't know how to view what's going on in my life right now I'm not even sure what you want me to do Not sure how I could even qualify to be part of what you're wanting to do and by way of revival if that's coming I just I just don't know I need your perspective and as clearly as I've ever heard the Lord speak to me He said these words and guys this had to be God because there's no way I'm smart enough to come up with this He said very clearly Vince you'll never have a greater understanding of my perspective Until you first experience a greater awareness of my presence whoa that hit me and Immediately, I knew what he was saying what he was saying is Vince you're not you're not spending enough time with me You're not really sensing my presence. You're working your own agenda You got your own ideas and your own gifts and and guys we all have gifts and sometimes our gifts can take us pretty far But oftentimes they'll take us places where our character can't keep us or the depth of our relationship with God can't sustain us What God is saying is go after me go after my presence And then and only then will you have my perspective and then and only then will I use you in a mighty mighty way So my encouragement to you today is spend your time getting closer to God Even though you may think you've been doing that spend more years ago God told me Vince you need to spend more time with me And I made a commitment probably about four or five years ago to get up at five o'clock every morning and spend from five to eight Every day with the Lord reading the word praying and praising him and I gotta tell you guys do I do it every single day No, I do miss sometimes but honestly almost every day now I spend between two and three and sometimes as many as four hours reading the word praying praising God Maybe spending time with my wife doing the same thing So I want to encourage you you cannot out give God with your time or your money And if you will if you will invest more It'll come back to you in ways that will bless you be on anything you can imagine It has completely changed my life and I've been doing it now for probably five or six years I'm kind of ashamed that I wasn't doing it as much before but God is calling us to a new level guys He really is he's given you and I a platform from which to share the life and love of his son Jesus with people that come into our orbit and God forgive us if we're not prepared to be able to do that in a way listen that draws people to Jesus Not you and me That's what we really need to be able to do that can't happen unless we're spending our time on our face before God and really Getting to know him. I want to encourage you to do that and I know we've got a lot of other people that have joined in My own daughter Kristen, you know, she by the way Kristen is my favorite younger daughter Okay, so Kristen is joined in Larry Dean I see a bunch of people on here. Wow. A lot of people are kind of joining us.
I see James Sandra thank you guys so much for for tuning in to this broadcast. I'm gonna try to do more of them I'm gonna try to publish a time when maybe I'm thinking about maybe doing Monday Wednesday and Friday at 7 a.m That would be mountain time and to come on and then share some of these devotional thoughts and ideas with you guys If you think that's a good idea Please respond to comment to this video and let me know and maybe even let me know what times might you think you think might? Be good for you. And and I'll I'll try to make those things happen in the meantime. Let me let me pray for you Lord Thank you so much for those who are watching Lord, I know at times like this there's so much Temptation to be confused and to be fearful and anxious But at the end of the day Lord we we love you and we want your will in all matters and Lord our prayer Collectively today is Lord have your will in our own hearts Have your will with us help us Lord to be diligent and in crawling up in your lap Reading the word praying getting to know you at a level in a depth that we've never known you before we desire Your perspective Lord and we pray today that we would experience more of your presence in our life And then Lord teach us give us a vision for how we can use our current circumstances and the gifts that you've given us To reflect the life and love of your son Jesus to a dying world Because that at the end of the day is what we're here for we know that we believe that We love you Lord that you would even consider using us in such a privilege We give you all the glory and honor for what you're about to do Through this in Jesus name and all God's kids said amen Love all you guys Again comment, please let us know what you think Maybe sometimes we might come do this more often and we'll certainly pray about doing that.
God bless you