Scripture In This Episode:

Matthew 24:3 – “Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?”

1 John 2:15 – “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”

1 John 2:26 – “These things I have written to you concerning those who try to deceive you.”

Malachi 3:6 – “For I am the Lord, I do not change; Therefore you are not consumed, O sons of Jacob.”

Hebrews 13:8 – “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”

Proverbs 3:6 – “In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.”

Proverbs 2:1-16 – (Refer to the Bible)

1 Peter 5:6-7 – “Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time,  casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you.”

Ephesians 4:13-16 – “Till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.”

1 John 2:15 – “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”

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Full Transcript:

Welcome to Courageous Parenting Podcast, a weekly show to equip parents with biblical truth on raising confident Christian kids in an uncertain world. Hi, I’m Angie from Courageous Mom. And I’m Isaac from Resolute Man. We’ve been married 20 years, and I’ve seen the fruit in raising our eight kids biblically based on the wrong tree found in the Bible.

We can no longer let the culture win the hearts of children. Too many children from Christian families are walking away from the faith by age 18. And it doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way. Join us as we start an important conversation about effective parenting in a fallen world.

Welcome back to the Courageous Parenting Podcast. Hey, everybody. We’re so excited to see you today. We are.

And we’re getting ready for a big RV trip. Every summer is our goal, at least. Lord willing that we take off for at least four weeks with our family and go somewhere. And so we’re preparing for that. And that means that we have a lineup of podcast episodes for you. These are some interesting topics. You know, we usually prepare them one at a time, but now we have the next five prepared that weave together and are pretty compelling, I think.

I think everyone’s going to gain a lot from them. And you’re going to share what some of them are. Just give them a sneak peak. A taste test.

Yeah. So today we’re talking about critical thinking in an uncertain world. Wow. Is that ever important right now? Yeah. Something we’ve been thinking a lot about and and teaching the kids about, practicing for a long time, talking and trying to give you some of our tips and what we’re teaching our kids and what we do to get outside of the noise and try and figure out what’s real. Yeah. But then next week, take few opinions, but definitely take the right view. That’s right. So what to consider in choosing a mentor or receiving wisdom from somebody. Yes. Like that. OK. The next one is God has a unique plan for your family.

This one is. It might not sound like what you think it is. Yeah. We’re going to be covering a few different topics. One of them is actually family size. Yeah, like family planning. Right. Because a lot of people just assume we’re going to talk about stereotypes in that one. I mean, give me a little little sneak peek.

Just because we you’re excited about because we have eight kids doesn’t mean you necessarily should. God has unique plans for every family. God has unique plan.

So that’s pretty cool. And the next one will be patriarchy versus gender roles or healthy family.

We haven’t decided quite yet.

But those are the topics we’re going to be covering. We’re going to speak against patriarchy.

That’s. But we are also going to talk about the biblical gender roles and how that works. So that’s a tough topic. That’s going to be a two part series. Yeah. Two episodes on that. Mm hmm. So, anyways, a welcome get ready for a string of interesting episodes in us speaking the truth from the bible and our experiences and what we believe is edifying for Christians today.

Ok. So, you guys, we are really excited to cover this one, which is on the critical thinking in an uncertain world. Speaking of uncertain world, you know, biblically, we have a lineup of scripture that we’re going to be weaving in to this talk, as we normally do. So make sure you go to courageousparenting.com and hit that menu and then click on podcasts to get the show notes. All of our podcasts are there at the show notes, the scripture references and the free, courageous parenting workshop, which is totally available for anybody. Yeah. So just wanted to put put a plug in for that. But we are going to start by reading in Matthew Chapter 24. So if you guys have your Bibles and your journals with those open with us and once you drive and unless your driving. That’s right. Don’t don’t get that out. OK. So how about do you want to read this one, Isaac? You got it. You’re already on already. So, Matthew, 24:3.

I’m going to go into the second part of it where the disciples are talking to Jesus at the Mount of Olives.

Ok, it says they say, tell us, when will these things be and what will be the sign of your coming and the end of age. OK. So it’s asking like when is and time’s coming. Jesus and Jesus answered them and said to them, take heed that no one deceives you, for many will come in my name saying I am the Christ and will deceive many. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars, rumors of wars. Are we hearing rumors right now of all kinds of different things? Are we hearing these things or are we seeing them with our eyes? Right. And I would say both in some cases. That’s right. Well, and that’s what it says here. So it says you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled for all these things must come to past. But the end is not yet. It’s not yet. You guys for nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom. Those are two different things, right? And there will be famines and pestilence and earthquakes in various places. All these are beginning of sorrows. Then they will deliver you up to a tribulation and kill you and you will be hated by all nations. For my namesake. Persecution is going to be intense. Mm hmm. Right. And then it continues on. And we wanted to share if you skip down, we want to encourage you guys to read all of chapter 24. But verse 21 says for then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been seen since the beginning of the world until this time, nor know nor ever shall be.

You know, I was thinking because obviously we’re an online ministry and we get some arrows hit towards us once in a while.

Recently, we’ve had some major ones and I just start really. As you know, we should not be alarmed by that. If we’re doing God’s work, we’re proclaiming his name. That’s going to happen. And so instead of just wishing it didn’t happen, we just have to be prepared for it to happen. And we’re not going to recede.

We’re going to move forward and stand firm. That’s what the whole armor of God is about, right? We don’t like shirk back persecution is going to happen. And, you know, as interesting, we’re talking about this critical thinking in an uncertain world. What is an uncertain world? Well, I just read that verse on tribulation that no one has seen the kind of tribulation that’s going to happen. That is the definition of an uncertain world and an uncertain future.

And so we really felt like that was a very opportune scripture. But then if you flip to 1 John 2:15. There’s actually quite a few. We’re going to just do a few versus here in the way I read some more at the very end of the podcast. But if you go to verse 26, it says these things I have written to you concerning those who try to deceive you.

But the anointing which you have received from him abides you and you do not need that anyone teach you. But at the same anointing teaches you concerning all things and is true and is not a lie and just it has taught you you will abide in him.

So we want to encourage you guys that the first thing in critical thinking is to abide in him.

Absolutely. His word is so important because there are so many things happening right now. And there’s as we speak, there’s riots around the United States. But that’s not just in the United States. There’s been riots in Hong Kong and different parts of the world for various reasons. And there’s also the locus in Africa that are happening. There’s Covid-19 and people being unemployed around the world and struggling with businesses failing.

Right.

All kinds of things. Right. We could go on and on and on. And if you listen to any news, whichever way you do it, you’re hearing of wars and rumors of wars, whether it’s people fighting its people or, you know, official war.

You know, we’re pestilence. You’re hearing a famine, you’re hearing of disease. You’re hearing there’s a lot of things out there all over the meat and the disciples in that scripts.

The first scripts you read were asking, Jesus, what’s going to happen in the end? He’s describing what’s going to happen before he comes back. So we should, of course, try to do the best we can to contribute to society and help people and be a positive contribution. But at the same time, we should not be fearful because we know how things happen.

Right. And it shouldn’t be shocking that we can be sad, you know, that things are happening and we can pray for God’s will to be done. And for him to show us how we can be a light enough time and love people the way he would.

But it doesn’t mean we should be fearful and raising our kids. It doesn’t mean we should be fearful about our marriage or family or I have chosen all of us. Are part of this generation. So be encouraged. And there is right now, because the truth that’s our first point is the word is unchanging. Can we count on very many things in this world? No. To be what can we count on? The word of God is unchanging. And that’s where we can get truth. There is no fake news in the word of God. Yeah. So right here it says in Malikai for I am the Lord. I do not change. Therefore you are not consumed. Whose sons of Jacob. So it does not change. And the Bible is so relevant from the beginning of time to today.

That’s right, Malachi. Those Malachi 3:6 you guys. So if you, you want to meditate on that scripture and just even talking to your kids about this, that the Bible is the same yesterday, today and forever because it’s God’s word it was with him in the beginning and he doesn’t change. That’s what Malachi saying. I am the Lord and I do not change.

You’ll likely be shifty parents, meaning shifting your decisions about things a lot if you’re not grounded in the word of God. We need to be reading the word of God more than ever. OK. Are you in the word daily? Not just out of a discipline and checking off the box, but a deep desire to be closer to God. To have more of his wisdom so that I can impart that wisdom upon my family, make better decisions sometimes that decisions look different than the world around you. And but you can have confidence in them because you’re reading the word of God.

That’s right. And you’re standing for truth. And you’re defending him. Another passage of scripture that’s really encouraging is in Hebrews 13:8. I love this because it’s a it’s similar to Malachi 3:6.

It says Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. Do not be carried about with various and strange doctrines, for it is good that the heart be established by grace.

And I am so encouraged by that because it’s not you know, we believe in the Trinity, Father, Son and the Holy Spirit, and we believe that God’s word was with him in the beginning, like it says in John Chapter one and all throughout Scripture. It’s in alignment with it’s with itself now that it’s unchanging. That is relevant to the uncertain world. Yeah. God warns us about what’s going on and how we should respond too Right.

So number two out of our six, keys here. Critical thinking is multiple things can be true at the same time. And when you hear that, you’re like, oh, I totally believe. Yeah, I believe that. Well, I want to challenge you. Is your thinking actually incorporating this principle? Or are we just landing on our biases? We’ll talk about more about biases and point four here. But it’s really important that we stay somewhat objective and take a look at any given problem, whether it’s a business problem, a family problem, marriage problem, something happening in the world, how your family’s going to respond to it, persecution coming against you, whatever the challenge is, multiple things can be true at the same time, because we know that God is at work, but we also know the enemy is our work. That’s right. And both can be working at the same time.

It’s interesting because when you were talking, it just reminded me that for those of you who are listening, and are married. And here’s a little marriage advice that has been encouraging to Isaac and I to be able to step out of things and be objective in the moment helps us to actually communicate fully and not be remaining in our offense, you know, and not be that doesn’t give the enemy a foothold to put thoughts or doubts in our mind that we then have to practice taking every thought captivity because it’s like big exercise. Right. If we able to step away from the disagreement or whatever it is and think objectively and take our rose tinted glasses off. Be willing to see ourselves humbly. That changes everything. And that is true for this. Yeah, because how many people say, like, I’ll just even say one thing. With Covid or with the situation that we’re going through where people are just like, oh yeah, it’s not real. And that’s like the one point that they go on know and they go and they just say one thing.

If you just say it’s not real, you’re discounting the reality that people have died.

And all of the work that the hospital workers are doing on the front lines that are super angry when people say that. Right.

Or you can say, well, OK, let me clarify. Not all of what they’re saying is true. OK, true. But what is causing this? OK. What are decisions are being made. OK, well, what is the enemy also doing?

So there’s some positive decisions but maybe being made maybe there’s an enemy also working in to do some other agendas and you have to have a and at the same multifaceted thinking process that is not just grounded on where other convictions are that you have that give bias towards your view, but instead you have to kind of taken all the data that you can and go, OK. There’s probably some things that don’t understand. Here’s the things I do understand and draw some conclusions from that. But I’m finding myself increasingly, the more I learn, the more I don’t fully understand what’s happening so I can be assertive about certain aspects of it. But if I come in and go, I know everything about this and here’s my here’s my stance.

It’s this. Then they walk away. Right. That is not necessarily only arrogant.

It’s actually arrogant. Right. To think that you could possibly know everything when clearly like, I just even think about people in leadership of the country. Right. They’re not going to necessarily tell all of the people in the country absolutely everything. Because the truth is, I don’t think the country can handle the truth like the full everything. They couldn’t handle that. Right. There would be complete chaos. There is chaos had one.

There’s diplomatic challenges of sharing everything, too. If you share everything you know about maybe another country, their involvement with things. Yeah. That could hurt other plans that are happening to put a danger or different. So we have to we have to be wise. If we understand and educate, I fully educate our family and she does as well.

And it’s superimportant right here in Proverbs 3:6 it says well, right before it says trust in the Lord with all your heart and not on your own understanding. And then it says in all your ways, acknowledge him and he shall direct your paths. So this really is talking about decisions. Well, that’s what decisions do they actually direct your paths every time you make a decision? There’s positive and negative ripple effects because of that decision that is directing a path your family’s going down that you are going down and your family’s following. So that’s really important to have wisdom and understand the multiple things could be true. At the same time, we’re in a fallen world. We are, yeah. It is a fallen world. And you know what? God is not the author of everything that’s happening. Is God sovereign? He’s absolutely sovereign, meaning he has complete control over everything. But it doesn’t mean he’s creating everything.

We have free will and there’s human will, which is oftentimes very fleshly, very selfish.

And when someone acts in human will, they can hurt other people. Yeah, and that is sad. And then there’s that. The truth that we know from scripture, it talks about this in 1 Peter, which we’ll we’ll dig into in a little bit. But we have an enemy constantly going around trying to scheme and do things. And there are fiery arrows definitely being thrown by who? The enemy.

So that’s why I, I really despise the saying and I always have. Everything happens for a reason. And if I am dealing with a challenge and someone tells me that, I will say, get your Pollyanna phrase away from me because here’s the deal, OK? I kind of understand what’s behind that and what they’re probably meaning. So I am pretty polite around it, but inside I feel that way. because here’s the deal. God can redeem anything. I’ve had many challenging things happen and God redeems them.

But it doesn’t mean God was authoring that thing to happen now. Did God allow it to happen? Yes. So there’s some semantics here. God is sovereign. He allows things to happen, but he’s allowing a lot of things to happen as we’re in a fallen world because he fixes it all in the end.

And we know this even from stories like Job, like the devil went Satan, went to God and asked permission to be able to do the things that he did to Job. He did them to Job. God didn’t do them to Job. Yeah. God allowed it because he trusted Job to be faithful and that he trusts us to be faithful when he gives us tasks, when he gives us trials and we have to remember like. That is such an encouragement to me when I’m going through something hard is that wow God has entrusted me with something, what is he entrusted it with me for? Not for my own gain. Although he loves me and there’s probably some I can learn from it, but he’s trusted me with it to bring glory to his name.

So bad things can happen to good people. And God doesn’t always author these things, but he always tries to redeem it for his saints.

But you know what is interesting about redeeming like even think about the word sanctification, which is an ongoing process of refining. Right. That we actually have human will. We have to choose to partner with Christ by surrendering ourselves to be in the learning, teachable heart posture. True. Otherwise, sanctification doesn’t actually happen. It just as a trial and a hard thing that you walk through. And so when it comes to like God redeeming things, yeah, he he actually invites us to participate with him. Yeah. But we have to surrender to that. We have to walk and abiding in him to actually experience the fruit of the sanctification. Right. So it’s it’s like God is doing it. He gets all the glory. But we have to recognize that we have to surrender to it. Yeah. And there are multiple levels. It’s like a spectrum of how much people surrender things. Right, because the human flesh is to come in and in self preserve and control and take things back. And we might be aware of all that. You guys, we got to be aware.

Now, if your doctrine is different than what we’re talking about here, no problem.

We can have some different beliefs about what the Bible says and still love each other. But hopefully this challenges you to read your Bible about these things. That’s right.

so we want to share from James 1:12-13 says, Blessed is the man who endures temptation for when he is a has been approved. He will receive the crown of life, which the Lord has promised to those who love him. Let no one say when he is tempted. I am tempted by God, for God can not be tempted by evil, nor does he himself tempt anyone. But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin and sin. When it’s full grown, brings forth death.

There is man’s responsibility and that super important. He doesn’t want robots. We do have free will and we do choose poorly sometimes.

And that is a catalyst for bad things to happen. It doesn’t mean necessarily God authored it. He’s allowing us to experience things.

But he does warn us like the very next verse we didn’t plan on reading says do not be deceived.

We’re talking about critical thinking in an uncertain world. Do not be deceived. That’s our responsibility to not be deceived, to take the thoughts captive. To go through this processes are of abiding in him, going to his word, making sure that we’re in alignment with what God has said. We’re testing things. um realizing many things can be true at the same time and not just finding one thing going “its the devil”. Yeah, right. Like all this persecution up, it’s. Well, yeah, actually that can be true. But it’s there are also many other things true at the exact same time. One being Lord, search my heart. Oh, God. Is there any wayward way in me? Is there a lesson I need to learn? Yeah. That that’s actually the theme and message of redeeming childbirth that I wrote back in 2012 is God what lesson do you have for me to learn? Like what is in my mind, what is in my heart? I want to grow spiritual growth. Right.

And that only happens when we’re asking those hard questions, but do not be deceived. Verse 17. Every good and perfect gift is from above and comes down from the father of lights, amen.

So point three is critical thinking with the Holy Spirit. Before we dive into that, though, let’s hear from people that have gone through the Parenting Mentor program real quick, which is one of the major ways that funds are ministry and we pour out in that program. And it’s a way to be more personally connected to us, too. We have a great time. Let’s listen.

Steven, I realized that we were getting too comfortable with the world’s vision of how to raise our children, but Angie and Isaac have done in creating this is literally phenomenal.

This program provided awesome scripture based teachings and just some really great practical applications.

This class has just really rocked my world.

It has given me a vision for not just the different things that we might focus on as parents who are trying to raise our kids biblically, like how our kids are behaving or what we’re doing with discipline, but also the things of heart.

We now have a game plan to how we want to raise our children who have so many answers to the questions that have been in our mind.

It’s not just these hypothetical situations or it’s not just this. Here’s what I think you should do. It’s let me show you where in scripture this is.

Do your legacy a favor and yourself a favor.

And just do it. it’s the best things that we’ve done this year, one of the best investments we’ve made this year. And I could not recommend it more or no longer fearing dark days ahead.

But we’re so excited to raise the lights to be leaders for the next generation.

Awesome, so let’s dive into critical thinking with the Holy Spirit. So have you ever wondered when is it OK to follow my gut? My gut instinct? Well, I would say it’s usually good to follow your gut instinct. If you’re walking strong with the Lord. But if you’re not for walking strong with the Lord, I would question your gut instinct. See, the Holy Spirit prompts us and sometimes that’s intuition like what I feel I should do. But God is counter intuitive to the world. So if we’re not walking in the spirit, we’re not reading the word we’re not. Our prayer life isn’t vibrant when we’re not feeling the Holy Spirit walking strong with the Holy Spirit. Then what can happen is we’re trusting our intuition that looks too much like the world. But if we’re walking strong, our intuition will be more counter-intuitive to the things of the world. And we can trust that. And so that’s how, you know, I would be if you’re making important decisions, which you always are as a parent. You’ve got to be walking strong.

Yeah. And I think that, too, we need to encourage our kids and encourage them to you know, some people say, oh, like listen to your gut. Right. Yeah. And actually, that’s the opposite is what’s taught. I believe this is OK. So this is personal opinion. It’s not scripture. But I personally believe that the way kids grow up in the education system and with authority and with doctors actually steals that confidence in knowing yourself and and listening to those. That’s that small voice that sometimes says, don’t go down that road and say no to drugs. Don’t do this. Don’t do that. Right. And there’s so much pressure that there’s and there’s so many thoughts and so many voices that children don’t know quite what to listen to. And then they become the adults. And the doctors are like, no, you don’t know what’s wrong with you. I know what’s wrong with you. Right.

And so I think it’s a combo. Right. We down, though. We discern anything and listen to the experts, but at the same time, trust with the spirits telling us.

That’s right. And and that’s the thing is when you are a when you’re a believer and you have received the gift of the Holy Spirit that Jesus gave for everybody to have like everybody can have this.

If you’re a believer and you have the Holy Spirit in you and you have you have been given spiritual gifts. You actually and those gifts like spiritual discernment, I even think of. Right. Like, do you trust yourself when you have a bad feeling? Or when you’re like that? That doesn’t sound like right. Teaching. I was just reading scripture and that’s kind of off of what I know is true in the Bible.

And instead of just going with your own thoughts, instead of just going with their thoughts, you actually dig more into the world word to find truth. Right. And and that’s prompted because the Holy Spirit in you that’s going now. I don’t know about this. Right. Yeah. We listen to that as a point.

So there’s several things. First of all, sometimes we have to look at what’s logical. What we’re trying to make a decision. And I have critical thinking about a thing happening in the world or whatever. So first of all, what’s logical? Sometimes we miss we skip the logical part because we’re emotional now. We emotional being emotional is not bad, but we do need to think logically as part of this and then we need to be knowledgeable. So if we don’t want to just jump to conclusions without having enough knowledge, I look at knowledge as the dots, pieces of information. You need enough of the dots so that in wisdom you know how to connect the dots.

That’s right. And I think that this is important, too, even when you’re dealing with, like conflict to recognize that there’s actually two sides to every story. And so when you hear something and and you have to be on alert realizing that there are gossipers, there are manipulators there, you know, like you can’t just take everything for face value. You need to test it, you know, to get knowledge. You need to go seek out the other person and hear their side. And like, that’s our responsibility in the critical thinking process. Whether it’s hearing rumors or being led astray, because the whole thing that we’re talking about is do not be deceived. There are many false teachers. There are many Antichrist, there are many deceivers.

And can I just say, too, that even among the body of Christ, there can be people who are walking in human flesh.

They’re being protective and insane things. Right. And so we just have to be alert and aware. We need to test this. We need a test at all.

So now if you’re if you have the logic and then you have enough knowledge, enough dots. Now with the Holy Spirit, you can use wisdom to try and connect those dots. As long as not we’re not hanging too much on our biases that we have. There are convictions about the way things are.

And I like to sometimes suspend my biases and we’ll go over this next along enough to take in enough of the knowledge and the dots and create some wisdom and then pray to God and ask for help and understanding how to make a decision, whether it’s a siblings that are writing to something more major.

Yeah. And I think that it’s important that we recognize you guys hear us talking constantly about taking the rose tinted glasses off. The rose tinted glasses are your biases. That’s actually a fun way of saying your personal and social biases, your historical biases, your controlling biases. There are many different kinds of biases out there, and it’s important that we evaluate and go. OK. Hold on a second. Am I just being biased? Am I not really seeing the truth here? Because if that’s true, then that’s too painful.

Sometimes we need a positive disruption in our thinking process. What I mean by that is we have a rhythm. A track record that we’re looking through, a lens in deciding things on, and sometimes we need to have a purposeful disruption of that to acknowledge I do have biases and to disrupt that long enough to get to real critical thinking. I need to tell a quick story. There was a time when I was frustrated. I was in the business world I was succeeding at a very high level. A lot of fruitfulness in our family and in business. Everything looked great, but I had a spiritual agitation, meaning that I felt like I wasn’t making the kind of progress that God really wanted me to make. Which isn’t just financial. Right. And so I found myself. I read this book and I started thinking about how to think better. And I sit in, suspended myself from technology for an hour or two every Friday. And I would sit in a coffee shop and and have a journal open and I’d write one sentence or problem at the top. And I would just force myself to suspend all of my experience, what I know long enough. And I pray to let the Holy Spirit to give me new information that wasn’t biased based on how I look at everything or how I do everything in business or these kinds of things. And then new things would come about. That was I would have never thought of unless I suspended my bias. So I call that a positive disruption. You’re thinking process and spending time with God without distraction to really understand and hear from him on things which is important.

So we have a couple other scriptures that we want to share with you. I want to encourage you guys. I mean, in these podcasts, we are definitely like we’re we’re using a lot of different scriptures in the Bible, in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. And it’s really encouraging. That’s good right now to see that God’s words unchanging. That’s not how our church services are, right.

It’s more expository preaching on Proverbs two. We just don’t have the time to dig into all of the scripture. This is why I’m bringing up and I really encourage you guys to read all of Proverbs two, which has to do with listen to the Holy Spirit. It says here in verse one, My son, if you receive my words and treasure my commands within you so that you incline your ear to wisdom and apply your heart to understanding like we should our heart, like we need to go search out for understanding.

Yes. If you cry out for discernment. That’s what we all need right now. We need to be crying out for discernment and lift up your voice for understanding. If you seek her as silver guys, we should be seeking this more than any kind of success in life or anything. Right. And search for her as hidden treasures. Then you will understand the fear of the Lord and find the knowledge of God. For the Lord gives wisdom from his mouth come knowledge and understanding. He stores up sound wisdom for the upright. He is a shield to those who walk up rightly. He guards the paths of justice and preserves the way of his saints. Then you will understand righteousness and justice, equity and every good path. We’re all like wondering, OK, what’s the right path? And, you know, he he’s gonna tell us. When wisdom enters your heart and knowledge is pleasant to your soul, discretion will preserve you. Understanding will keep you to deliver you from the way of evil, from the man who speaks his verse, things from those who leave the parts of uprightness to walk in the ways of darkness, who rejoice in doing evil and delight in the perversity of the wicked, whose ways are crooked and who are devoured devious in their paths to deliver you from the immoral woman, from the seductress who flatters with her words.

It just continues on and on you guys all throughout scripture we have these these urges. God is urging us.

He’s beseeching us seek me, cry out for discernment, seek for understanding.

And what we’re talking about with Bias’s is we have to set those aside and just seek God, which is point for how to overcome your biases.

We have personal, social, lots of different biases. And often you hear the word these days is that we’re triggered. And a lot of times our past experience hurts, pains. Things like that will trigger us when we see something that’s associated with from our past and that can really steer us in an emotional level to not think right sometimes. And so I think it’s really important to pray and include God in this, because sometimes also our biases can be resistant to change. Like we want to just believe whatever keeps us comfortable, whatever keeps us in not feeling bad about something. We want to just fix that instead of changing something. And we have to really look at that, OK? Are we just. Moving towards staying in the same relationship or moving towards so says it’s a self-preservation or the status quo because it’s easier. Or is there a real problem here and a reason for that relationship to change or reason for something? I think of the path of least resistance. We naturally are looking for that path of least resistance when Angie and I have learned is that sometimes really tough things need to happen that go against the path of least resistance or actually a path of resistance. And it’s not because we want to go on the hard path, never. But what we’ve learned is all the times where we’ve chosen the hard path over the easy path. It has really been fruitful in the long run.

Yeah, it has. We have another scripture here from 1 Peter 5. I just want to read a little bit before he’s talking. It says, God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble, therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God. Who who do you humble yourself under the mighty hand of God. And then. That he may exalt you in due time, casting all your care upon him, for he cares for you to be sober.

Sober mindedness is huge. It’s one of the qualifications of being an elder or even a deacon is crucial for all of us. And you have to think sober mindedness is removing your biases, even maybe removing your experiences and standing in the present about what is happening. Looking through the word of God and listening to the Holy Spirit and asking for discernment and maybe even getting wisdom from others you can trust. Now, right next episodes can be take few opinions. Particular right views will teach you how to accept some. But that’s really, really important so that you can make a decision.

Yeah, I think that too, when I think of sober minded because the same be sober and you mentioned that that’s a qualification of eldership and that particular sober minded is actually time out. Humility like not being High in your own eyes and thinking of yourself in a certain way. But it’s also a quality of being mentally alert. We’re called to be alert, awake, aware of what’s going on in the world and to be self controlled and so sober minded by not making decisions based upon your biases, which sometimes your biases are influenced by your feelings, too. Right Like if you’re angry. For example, you could act out of that anger and so you have to step back. That doesn’t mean that it’s what you just you get can’t allow that to be a motivation or a determining factor. It’s not that you don’t experience that. The Bible says in your anger, it says, be angry and in your anger, do not sin. Right. So that is a human emotion. God is a jealous God. He has a holy anger. Yeah, but we’re not to sin in those things. We have to have self-control, which the Holy Spirit is actually what allows us to have self-control.

And that’s a great Segway into point five, which is we must have humility. Right. Humility is so important. I have experienced being prideful in my life and being humbled in that pride and in the pain that I experienced in that. But on the other side of it, how fruitful was, in retrospect, how thankful I am that even though it was hard, God changed me through that. And that’s super important. I think we all, myself included, need to be aware of the great potentiality of moving to pride right in any given year and actually have a healthy fear of it because it actually becomes a wall in your relationship with God.

Being able to discern and hear him and know what you’re supposed to do in situations.

Right, because it’s a sin to be prideful and to think of yourself more than you ought to, because then you’re not actually seeking God in the same way and willing to do the hard things even. But what’s interesting to this as be sober, be vigilant because your adversary, the devil, that’s because, you know, because there is an enemy and he is walking around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour, resist him steadfast in the faith, knowing the same sufferings are experienced by your brotherhood in the world. And so when we’re overcoming, we are going to overcome trials. Life happens.

We are going to overcome the consequences and repercussions and ripple effects of other people’s human will, decisions that sometimes causes pain. You know, we are going to overcome tribulation. We are going to overcome because of. But guys, any overcoming is not because of us. It’s because of Christ. Because in Christ, we can do all things right. And because he’s the one who saving us, he may be using us to do something because he does ask us to act and to stand firm as an acting. It’s an action, actually, to stand up, to speak for truth. And we’re going to have to do that in this uncertain time, which is point six.

We. Have to stand firm and it’s hard to know when to stand firm and when not to. That’s this whole episode. That’s what we’re teaching you. How do you know when you stand firm? How do you know when you make hard decisions? How do you know what choices to make that put you down a better path than others? And I’m telling you, it’s not always obvious. It takes looking going through these processes and really looking at God. But what we don’t want to be is like the wave of the sea as it talks about. All right. We don’t want to be shifting constantly and pushed to and fro by opinions of others. In fact, standing firm sometimes will look very different than some of the Christians around you. In fact, some of the Christians around you may even mock you for may even think you’re making a mistake.

Well, things like that that we’ve definitely experienced that a lot over the years, just even in our parenting. And I bet a lot of you can relate to this. Right? Like maybe you have some believers in your family or friends right. In your neighborhood and you make a decision to not do something or to do something that you choose not to homeschool or you choose not to send your kid to camp or whatever. Right. And they start mocking you because they disagree with you. And what you’re doing is you’re you’re you’re trying to follow God and you’re listening to him. You’re seeking you’re praying about it, whereas maybe they don’t even necessarily do those things. They just do what the rest the culture does.

Right. Or maybe they do pray about it. But God tells them it’s okay for them to send their kid a camp. But God tells you it’s not OK for you can teach your kid to camp. That can be true, too. And so it’s not the same for everyone.

We don’t want to tread on each other’s liberties now. So there are there is Christian liberty. There is God telling different people different things for different reasons. And we need to love each other when we respect each other and we need to trust each other. But, you know, sometimes you’re going to make decisions and you’re going to feel it’s going to be hard because everyone around you sometimes or a lot of people around you will think you’re doing the wrong thing. And there will be a few that think you’re doing the right and yourself. And that’s a hard thing to move forward from. But if you crumble every time the opinions around you are awaiting you a certain direction. Well, you’re not going to be as fruitful as you could be as long as you’re in the word.

You know, we always ask ourselves, I mean, she can share something with you when things come up like that. Like the scenarios I was telling you about, like parenting decisions or whatever. One of the things that Isaac and I do, aside from seeking God, aside from prayer, because those are the first things we do. We try to step aside objectively. We go, you know what what what decision will we make if no one was saying anything, you know, like if there was no opinions? And then we come to our conclusion and we’re like, that’s when we need to make. And then the second question we ask is, if we don’t do this and we do that, are we going to regret it in 10 years from now because we don’t want to live with regret. And you have to ask those two questions about every decision instead of everything you really do. You say, if I didn’t have all these opinions, all these voices, all these fears, all these things, what would I do? And am I gonna have regret in future?

But you know, it efficient for Isaac. I found that verse that you were talking about. And it’s really important that we read this because this God has just warned us in all the scriptures that we talked about, about not being deceived. And then he warns us again here, any Ephesians 4:13. So he’s talking in verse eleven and twelve. He’s talking about equipping the Saints. And he’s, you know, giving some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, some to pastors and teachers, equipping for the saints the work of the ministry for edification of the whole body.

And I says, till we all come to the unity of faith and the knowledge of the son of God to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, that we should no longer be children tossed to and fro and carried about with every kind, every wind of doctrine. That is the verse right there that we should no longer be children.

He is literally saying, if you’re tossed to and fro and you’re believing one person, then then they talk to you. Somebody else talks you and you believe something else. Then someone else talks to you. You believe something else.

You are literally being like a child tossed to and fro, being carried about with every wind of doctrine by the trickery of men in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting. But speaking the truth and love may grow up in all things into him. Who is the head Christ, from whom the whole body joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effectiveness working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.

Amen. And I want to clarify something. Your experience is valuable. So when out earlier when I was talking about, you know, pushing your experience aside to get to clear thinking, sober mindedness, that’s true. But then you need to then rely again back on your experience and test it against your experience also. So that’s definitely an important part of it. And some of that experience is really helpful. But some of it can just keep us comfortable in our safe place and so we need to know when to stand firm.

That’s super, super important in First John to fifteen. It says, Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the father is not in him for all that is in the world. The lust of the flesh lust of eyes and pride of life is not of the father, but is of the world. The world is passing away and lust of it. But he who does the world. God abides forever.

So that’s the ultimate thing to put all this through the lens of. Is this the will of God?

Yeah. And I just want to just before we’re ending here, I’m going to read on a little bit further, because in verse eighteen, it says Little Children. It is the last hour. Now, here’s what we’re talking about.

Uncertain times end times. Little children. It is the last hour. And as you have heard, that the Antichrist is coming. Even now, many antichrists have come by, which we know that it is the last hour they went out from us. But they were not others, for if they had been others. They would have continued with us. But they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us. But you have an anointing from the holy one. And you know all things I have not written to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and that no lie is of the truth.

Who is a liar. But he who denies that Jesus is the Christ. Amen. We have to test everything through that.

And are you willing to even sometimes forego a relationship for doing what God wants you to do? That’s a good question to think about. And you won’t always have to do that. But sometimes that is true sometimes.

And God wants he. He desires for peace. He desires for restoration. For reconciliation in all things. But you guys, we don’t compromise standing for truth. We don’t compromise being courageous Christians in an uncertain world. Right. Like that. We would do that. And it’s like we’re losing part of our identity. You know who we are in Christ.

And so as you’re being fed many different things, whether you watch the news or you’re on social media and you’re hearing of wars and rumors of wars and and all kinds of things, and we would just encourage you to be very careful, be vigilant, abide and him pray hard, be objective, ask yourself, ask your spouse as people closest to you. Am I being biased? Is there anything I’m missing? Because there are usually many things true at one time and then you’ll be able to teach your kids this.

And how important is that? It’s incredibly important for the world. They will be launching into.

All right. See you next time.

Hey, thanks for listening to this episode. We wanted to quickly tell you about our six week online parenting mentor program.

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