Growing in the Spirit - Episode 39

Join us for our One-Year Anniversary celebration!  

In this episode, the two discuss the crucial topic of 'Growing in the Spirit.'  What does it mean?  How do we discern if something is spirtual? They emphasize the importance of spiritual growth alongside physical growth, explaining how nurturing one's spirit is essential for a fulfilling and resilient life. Drawing on biblical references, they discuss the process of maturing in faith, understanding the role of the Holy Spirit, and the significance of prayer and feeding oneself with spiritual things. They also address misconceptions about the spiritual realm and provide insights on how to live a spiritually strong life amidst worldly challenges.  Listen in and follow along!

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Transcript

Episode 39 - Growing in the Spirit

[00:00:00] Justin: Hi, everyone. This is Justin Olbrantz. And this is Don Schaefer. And you are listening to The Wise and the Wandering podcast for those who know “the way” and for those who are led astray. And if you feel like you fall into either of those categories, Then you're in the right place. So, let's dive in.

[00:00:31] Justin: So Don, what are we going to talk about today? 

[00:00:34] Don: Well, today, Justin, I think we've got a very important message that people probably don't talk about a lot. Okay. But it's titled growing in the spirit. Growing 

[00:00:43] Justin: in the spirit. Yes. Okay. So not only are we growing. In the flesh the normal physical sense, but we're growing in a spiritual sense.

[00:00:52] Justin: Is that correct? 

[00:00:53] Don: That is absolutely correct Because , it's an area that you can't see but yet you can't because it's the way a person presents their [00:01:00] life You can tell how uh nurtured a person is and it's a process. It's a process that we're in all the time We should 

[00:01:07] Justin: be I know the bible kind of talks about it as being like wind the spirit is like wind, right?

[00:01:12] Justin: Yeah, so we know things are there. We just Can't see them physically. Yes, we feel the wind, but we don't see it or which way it's coming from which way 

[00:01:20] Don: it's blowing. Yes Yep, and that's you know, jesus talked about that as the born again experience where he's talking to nicodemus He says it's just like the way the wind blows, but you can see the effects of it You know and a lot of times in a person's life you can see the effects It's the effects of somebody that's walking strong in the spirit, and we get an education in life that we have to eat properly.

[00:01:42] Don: You know, if we want to be strong, we don't want to eat junk food because they say you are what you eat, and spiritually speaking, it's the same thing. 

[00:01:49] Justin: Yeah, so you have to constantly, just like your physical self, you have to, you know, be fed. You have to feed yourself. You need proper nutrition [00:02:00] to grow and to mature.

[00:02:02] Justin: To be strong. Yes. There's certain things that we need to put in our body. Vitamins, whatever the case is, so that our physical bodies are maintained well, such as the same for the spirit. And a lot of people don't realize this. A lot of people don't even understand how the spirit . the spiritual world works.

[00:02:25] Justin: They don't understand what spirits are. They think it's just something that's kind of evil, or they think it's something that's associated with magic or voodoo or something like that. And it really, it's not. I mean, biblically, if you look at, in a spiritual sense, , A lot of the Old Testament, but most of the New Testament talks about growing in the spirit, right?

[00:02:47] Justin: Most of the New Testament is written by Paul and he's talking about Exactly what we're talking about now maturing in the spirit , that ongoing process of maturing one's faith, right and deepening their [00:03:00] relationship with god. Yeah, and being aware of of that process and being aware of the things of God that are happening around them in a spiritual 

[00:03:09] Don: sense.

[00:03:10] Don: Yes And and you know Justin the thing that gets me sometimes is in Luke chapter 2 and verse 40 Jesus it says wax strong in the spirit 

[00:03:20] both: Yeah, 

[00:03:20] Don: you know I talked about you know a period of time from when he was 12 years old or whatever and uh was found at the temple that He waxed strong in the spirit.

[00:03:29] Don: You don't hear a whole lot about Jesus until he was 30 years old. But you know, I look at that and I say, what is wax strong in the spirit? This is probably the most important topic we could be talking about. Because this is life and death, you know, a person needs to be spiritually alive and you need to be strong in the spirit.

[00:03:49] Don: And a lot of times people never hear about this. They never get any understanding of how to do it or how important this really is. You look at the world and you see all the stuff that [00:04:00] people advertise as being important. But to be able to be spiritually strong and continue to strong, strengthen yourself as you're saying there, Justin, in a process.

[00:04:10] Don: You know, Lord, give me that. the process. I want to grow strong. I want to be able to handle life because life throws so much at us and the weak in the spirit are the ones that crumble. You know, people who are strong in the spirit, they can handle things that come their way. 

[00:04:27] Justin: Yeah, because , it's something that's built up just like any kind of growth in your life.

[00:04:33] Justin: It's something that's built up. You don't just All of a sudden become really like you were saying waxed strong. 

[00:04:39] both: Yeah. 

[00:04:40] Justin: Waxed strong in the spirit. Yeah. And this is Jesus when he's 12, right? Yeah. Which is interesting. He's in the synagogue and the temples and he's teaching the rabbis and the leaders of the time.

[00:04:52] Justin: And, they said he continued on. To grow in Luke it says he continued to grow in in stature and wisdom [00:05:00] So is that just physical stature or spiritual stature? I would say both I would say those things go kind of hand in hand, you know, we've often said in here that The soul is not the same thing as the spirit.

[00:05:13] Justin: A lot of times in like religious doctrines and stuff like that, they've said your souls are, you know, going here. The soul is the mind, will, and the emotions. That's the soul. So you have a soul, but then you have a spirit too. Your spirit is different. It's, it's almost like a sense of different things. It's, it's not easily defined, I don't think.

[00:05:33] Justin: But I will say that in Proverbs chapter 20, it says the spirit of man is. is the lamp of the Lord, searching all the inmost being, 

[00:05:43] both: right? 

[00:05:43] Justin: Okay. So it's the lamp of the Lord. So the primary way that God directs his children is through their spirits, right? There's that voice of God. There's that voice inside.

[00:05:57] Justin: You're, Hearing that when you're feeling that whatever it [00:06:00] is that sense that's a spiritual sense You know how god is directing your life when you start to become Obedient to the spiritual things and you start to get direction but that happens in the spirit You don't hear it. Some people I guess you could hear it audibly out of, you know, your physical ears, but most people, this is something that's happening in your mind that you would think of, right?

[00:06:24] Justin: As, as we know it today, , it's happening as a thought or whatever,, but it's a still small voice. It's, it's stronger than the others. It's usually what that, you know, uh, all the prophets of the time in the Bible have described it this way as being that still small voice that is guiding you. So, you know, Exactly.

[00:06:42] Justin: So, we need to depend on that voice inside. Yes, we do. And we need to look to that voice. We need to, , we need to want to grow the, the apparatus behind that voice , in our own lives. And that's, that's the point of this podcast is to [00:07:00] help people mature and grow in the spirit.

[00:07:03] Justin: We no longer are just based, we no longer base our lives. Our emotions, everything on our circumstance or how we're feeling. We have to look into the spirit. We have to see What is it that God? Wants over my life. What is it that he wants me to do? Because it's a lot of the times it's just we're on our own we're in this world We just have to deal with everything ourselves.

[00:07:27] Justin: We're our own gods in a sense we're just obsessed with pleasing ourselves and And making ourselves feel good and feel happy and if we're not feeling good You know, we let it dictate everything that happens around us. We put everybody else in a bad place because we're in a bad place Right, right but when you read the bible and you read this book and you You start to see the way paul and peter and even these apostles and the way they talk about their circumstance not Dictating their joy.

[00:07:59] Justin: Their [00:08:00] joy is not determined. It's eternal It's not determined by the way they're feeling because they are themselves Children of the spirit, right? 

[00:08:10] Don: And 

[00:08:10] Justin: they are born into something. They are they are now obedient To the spirit and the way the direction that god has for their lives And and what he's calling them to 

[00:08:21] Don: do.

[00:08:22] Don: Yes It's not Yes, and I, I'd like to, uh,, break this down real simple. You're right, you're talking about the soul and the spirit. Um,, I believe that inside of everybody there's a place for the spirit to dwell, you know, and, , God has made us that way. But I'm gonna say something that might be a little shocking to some people, but everybody that's born into this world is spiritually dead.

[00:08:42] Don: You know, no matter how pretty these babies are and little kids running around and stuff They all have to come to a place where they can be born again Where the spirit of god can put himself inside that person and a lot of times people in life They try to do things, they go through the [00:09:00] operations of, uh, maybe even going to church.

[00:09:03] Don: But you know, it has to be a place where you actually invite God into your life. And that's where Jesus was saying to Nicodemus, as we talked about, you must be born again. If you want to enter the kingdom of God, the things that God has got for you, you have to allow the Spirit of God to be birthed in you.

[00:09:20] Don: And that's where, like you're talking about though, you The Spirit of God will direct your life, depending on how strong it is. He will direct you and guide you and show you things and develop you. And the Bible even tells that you'll know them by their fruits, by the actions of the individual. Because when a person is born again and the spirit becomes strong, they act differently.

[00:09:43] Don: They see things differently. There's a different light that they walk in , and it's interesting because it all deals with. Prayer. You know, if you, if you want to open up this avenue, you pray and say, Lord Jesus, come into my life, be a part of me. I want, [00:10:00] you know, cause the Bible says anybody, you know, as a parent, when a child asks for food, do you give them a stone?

[00:10:06] Don: No, you know, you give them some food. Jesus says how much the father wants to give the Holy spirit to those who ask him. And that's where the gospel message is basically saying we need to ask. We need to pray. We need to ask God to fill us with His Spirit. And then once we have that Spirit dwelling inside of us, then it becomes the daily process of keeping that Spirit alive, of feeding it.

[00:10:32] Don: Because you can kill something inside you if it's not fed. Whatever is not fed dies. It's as simple as that. I go without food, I die. You know? But if I go without , feeding the spiritual side of me, then I die. I die. How do I know I die? My actions, my attitude. You know, these are all signals that tell you where you're at.

[00:10:50] Don: So when I see somebody saying words they shouldn't say, or doing things they shouldn't be doing, I say to myself, Hmm, there probably is a little spiritual lacking [00:11:00] inside of that individual. But the beauty of God, He's always there. He's the filling station, you know, you have you fill up your your car and you can run it But it runs out of gas.

[00:11:11] Don: It is not going no place. It's the same thing with the Spirit of God We need a filling station. We need something, you know getting into the Word of God Like you were saying Justin beautiful thing, you know praying beautiful thing hearing great podcast Beautiful thing. Yes These are things that fill you, fill you with an understanding, , gives God an avenue to allow you to become strong in the spirit, because bad situations come along and those who are spiritually strong can handle them.

[00:11:41] Justin: Yes. And I mean, even the Bible talks about it as being like a river. The spirit is a river of everlasting water, essentially. And it's, , the way things flow and we want to be flowing in that river. We want to be attuned to what's happening in the spirit. You know, a lot of the things that we [00:12:00] experience in the world today are spiritual actually in nature and we don't understand it that way.

[00:12:06] Justin: Certain sounds and frequencies and stuff like that. You talk about, you know, being spiritually dead and then all of a sudden if you're feeling that way, but you listen to a worship song, or you listen to some kind of Christian music, or you listen to something, just something upbeat. And then all of a sudden, your spiritual energy starts changing, right?

[00:12:29] Justin: And all of a sudden, you start becoming Happy are you becoming more joy filled just by listening to sounds and frequencies, right? So there's something There's a transaction that's happening there. It's 

[00:12:42] Don: yeah, 

[00:12:43] Justin: some people would just say what's energy or whatever the case, but there's more to it There's more to it than our world can even explain.

[00:12:51] Justin: This is why it's of a different world it's of a different realm, you know, jesus is telling His disciples, when they ask him how to pray, and he's [00:13:00] saying, Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. 

[00:13:07] both: Yeah. 

[00:13:08] Justin: So he's telling them, Bring it down.

[00:13:10] Justin: Bring it down right now on earth, not as it will be in heaven. As it is in heaven as it already is so there's something happening in the other realm and we need to bring it down right now It's almost as if we're seeing kind of into the future Because I do believe it happens this way the spiritual sense is not dictated by time The spiritual world is not dictated by time.

[00:13:32] Justin: It's eternal and actually everything is eternal You know, we we're kind of dictated by time here in this world, but what's eternal is eternal. . So when things happen, a lot of the times you will get a spiritual sense that something is going to go wrong in the future or that something might go right.

[00:13:48] Justin: But a lot of times this is going to go wrong. And we think that's just a worry that we have, or we think that's just instinctual or whatever. It is a spiritual sense that if you do not course correct, [00:14:00] Right now that inevitably could happen that could manifest itself. Whatever the case is right and a lot of the times our world and our lives our lives are basically just kind of narrowed down to just certain emotions that we have and Certain habits that we have or whatever the Cases that causes us to keep living in the same, , cycles or, or living with the same state that we're in, but a lot of this is actually spiritual, right?

[00:14:30] Justin: A lot of it is, , it's not when I'm feeling angry, it's, there is a spirit of anger, right? Not that I'm feeling fearful right now, or I'm, I'm living in fear. It's a spirit of fear, you know? So in 2nd Timothy chapter 1 verse 7 when Paul says God did not give us a spirit of fear, but that of power and love of a sound mind.

[00:14:54] Justin: So he's saying that the spirit that he gave you is power, love, self control, [00:15:00] sound mind. But he's also saying that he didn't give you a spirit of fear. So he's admitting right there that it's a spirit of fear. So , I always tell people this, you have to be careful about what words come after two words, I am, 

[00:15:16] both: because whatever 

[00:15:17] Justin: those are, you're going to identify with that.

[00:15:20] Justin: When you say I am, when you, when you take something and you make it your own, right? You've now, You put it into your possession. You've made it yours. And what happens, the greater thing around this is that you've come into agreement with it. So a lot of the things in the spiritual world are what we come into agreement with.

[00:15:40] Justin: You cannot come into agreement with something because when you do, it becomes what looks familiar to you. You take it on as your own. You allow it not to possess you. That's, that's, that's, that's a whole different concept. Taught wrong to people about possession. We're not possessed. We already [00:16:00] have an owner.

[00:16:01] Justin: We have an owner. 

[00:16:03] both: Our 

[00:16:03] Justin: life is not our own life. It is God's life through us. Our life belongs to God. We cannot be. Possessed so to speak because we already have an owner. We can't we can't transfer ownership. That's a lie That's told to us. What happens is the enemy the Evil spirits, whatever you want to call it.

[00:16:23] Justin: They have dominion in our life. It's all about domain and dominion And they become, they're within close proximity of you, right? And Jesus says, when you cast them out, he'll go get his friend. He'll bring seven more and see that the house is swept up and tidy and no one's home. And he'll bring seven more friends and come over.

[00:16:43] Justin: And that empty house is, The lack of the presence of Christ in your life, right? Because when you replace them as their spirits and you get them out you come out of agreement with it You know, I say I no longer say my anger. I no longer say [00:17:00] i'm angry because I don't agree with that That's not part of me.

[00:17:03] Justin: Yeah, so When I say , you know, I need to have anger management or something like that, I'm still coming into agreement with it. I'm allowing that to manifest in my life. When I come out of agreement with it, it no longer can attack me. Attach itself to me. So to speak. I know I'm going on a long rant here But I want to really make this known is because When I dispel those things out of my life, the bible talks about them as familiar spirits And they're familiar to you because you think they're a part of you and for many cases You might have thought they were a part of your personality your entire life, but it really never was it's all been lies But once you get that out and you replace it with christ the mind of christ Yes And you hold every one of those thoughts in captivity till the obedience of the mind of Christ, they can't come back in.

[00:17:54] Justin: This is true. 

[00:17:55] both: Because, 

[00:17:55] Justin: , it's no longer there's nobody home. 

[00:17:57] Don: There's somebody there. That's right. That's good. That's [00:18:00] good, Justin. Yeah. Familiar spirits. They are familiar with you. They know every angle, every button to push. And that's where it's, it's hard. A lot of times look at it, but we are in the battle of our life.

[00:18:12] Don: And a lot of times people don't realize that, but there's a lot of things going on around us. And when we get ourselves into a place with God, things start to change. All of a sudden we see life. a little bit differently. And like, you're talking about casting out all fear, giving us a sound mind. We start to become confident in what we do and we get into situations and whatever the circumstances might be, we can handle these things.

[00:18:38] Don: I know so much in life sometimes is very overwhelming, but we, if we can realize that That, , the Spirit of God, if we can fill ourselves with that and reach out to God and allow Him to continue to strengthen us, , we get to a point in life, and this is kind of a little bit rude, but we get to the point where we don't care, you know, like the [00:19:00] cares of the world sometimes overwhelm people because you're worried about where you're going to live or you're worried about how much money you're going to have, you're going to find food, you know, what's going to happen here and all this, but you get to a place with God and allow yourself to be spiritually filled, you know, and allowing that spirit to be strong inside of you.

[00:19:20] Don: You realize it's all in his hands. He wants to do it all for us. He's created us in weakness and not an ability to do a whole lot. We cannot make changes in our life. God makes the changes. No matter how good I want to be good, I can't be good unless God makes me good. And when we get to the point where we realize our efforts are fruitless, unless we come to God and say, Hey, Lord, I can't do this.

[00:19:46] Don: I, I myself cannot do this because I know, like, You know, we've talked in previous, , podcasts a little bit about the baptism of the Holy Spirit, where God fills you and stuff. Well, you know, I've talked with people about the baptism of [00:20:00] the Holy Spirit, and a lot of them are very educated, and it doesn't make sense.

[00:20:04] Don: You know, they get themselves in an educated mode, where they have to be able to, you know, figure out exactly what is happening with God. It isn't about me figuring out what God's going to do because we'll never understand exactly where God thinks and all this. We can't sit there and create in our mind who God is and what, how he thinks and how he operates a hundred percent.

[00:20:25] Don: God does what he does. The only thing is as Justin was mentioning here is we surrender ourselves to him. We say, you know what? I don't want the old master that was controlling me and I was doing all kinds of things because of that weren't good But I want a new master I want someone else that can create inside me something beautiful where I can be at peace with myself Where I don't have to sit there in such a turmoil where I can't sleep at night I can't operate the way I need to operate I am at total peace in life because I know the one that's in control of my life The one that is [00:21:00] directing my steps and leading the way and is preparing a place for me someday to be with Him.

[00:21:06] Don: And that's where we're in this process right now of becoming perfect houseguests someday to be with Him for eternity, if we allow God to do that. And that's where strengthening in the Spirit is such a powerful thing. 

[00:21:19] Justin: Yeah, , this is the ultimate preparation for that. So what we do here Is we're laying up our treasures ahead of us for the place that we will one day be in however, that is not to say that we just look forward to that and we Allow our belief in jesus christ alone To be the end of our spiritual journey.

[00:21:40] Justin: That's not where it ends. That's where it begins the revelation of jesus christ Working in your life and who he is and understanding him and knowing him and knowing what he did for us is . It's just the beginning of your relationship your spiritual relationship your spiritual growth, you know, [00:22:00] paul talks about how we need to get off of milk and You onto solid foods.

[00:22:06] Justin: And that's really what it is. A lot of people just get stuck on the milk, because if you go to church a lot, this is good, but church itself is supposed to be about the people. , it's supposed to be about the assembly of the people. It's not necessarily The cathedral or the building or whatever the, you know, the place of gathering is.

[00:22:30] Justin: It's about the people themselves growing in the spirit, growing 

[00:22:33] Don: in the spirit. Where 

[00:22:34] Justin: we, we witnessed , in,, in many cases, the early apostles, they witnessed the death and the resurrection of Jesus. They witnessed this, so we now need to. Pacify early believers. We need to pacify them with the gospel.

[00:22:51] Justin: But now we need to get them up into where we are. We need to grow in the Spirit because , Jesus didn't just, die, come [00:23:00] back and then say, okay, well, this has been good. And then I'll see you guys when I come back. No, he said, go out and make disciples of all nations. We were given clear instructions.

[00:23:11] Justin: So I think a lot of the times we need to ask ourselves, Don, when we go to church, what are we going to church for? Am I going to church so that I feel good and I get a good message? So my wife is in a good mood or my husband, if you're a woman is in a good mood, , you know, so that the next rest of the week is just good for us.

[00:23:30] Justin: So we can make it till next Sunday and we can do this again. Am I going there to feed? My emotional state or am I going there to grow my spiritual relationship with god What am I going there for I think we really need to as believers I think we really need to ask ourselves that because a lot of the times I don't think we're growing in the spirit a lot of the times I don't think that the Ministers themselves are actually ministering to our [00:24:00] spirits.

[00:24:00] Justin: They're ministering to our souls they're giving us messages that are very analogous and they're and very well worded and they're very creative In nature, right and they tie things together but at the end of it, it just kind of makes us feel good and and and it it lifts up our our mood and our, our happiness, but is it really bringing our spirits up?

[00:24:23] Justin: Is it really regenerating something inside of us? Is it deepening, like we're saying, is it deepening that relationship with God? Or is it just moving us to come again next Sunday? 

[00:24:33] Don: Yeah, and that's where I know what you're saying there is so true there, Justin, but I know, , basically what we're doing here is, uh, we're tossing out some seeds.

[00:24:42] Don: You know, the Bible talks a lot about seed and how it has to be planted, but it has to find fertile soil. It has to be, find the soil that it can be planted in, that it can grow. And I know my forefathers, just a couple generations ago, they came to our country here and they had a farm and they had seed.

[00:24:58] Don: But they had no place to plant [00:25:00] it. They had to remove trees, they had to get the rocks out, and it took years to prepare fields so that they could plant seed. And that's where, when we get ourselves to a place where we reach out to Jesus, what He does is He gets rid of the rocks, He gets rid of the trees, He gets rid of all the obstacles that good seed can fall into.

[00:25:20] Don: This is what repentance actually does. It says, Lord, you know, I really don't appreciate what you're doing. where my life is going. I realize I need you. I need a savior. I need somebody in my life because I want to be able to receive seed and allow it to be planted in my life. And um, and that's where, you know, you can go to church.

[00:25:40] Don: Sometimes this should be the most important part of your life, going to church, getting involved in prayer and getting with Christians or whatever it might be. Anything that can strengthen you spiritually, that should be the most. Utmost important part of your life. A lot of us we go through exercise routines.

[00:25:57] Don: We eat properly do all this sort of that's [00:26:00] great We keep our physical bodies. Well, but you know, it's our spiritual side that's going to last us for eternity This we're talking about the future here and to be able to get ourselves to a place where we understand that Spiritual growth is something that we need to be conscious of and we need to realize it's out there We can be a part of a lot of things but we need to Find something that feeds us and we have to become that soil that, cause there's seeds flowing around all over the place.

[00:26:28] Don: I believe God is trying to plant , something into somebody right now, but he's looking for fertile soil, you know, he's finding rocks, he's finding all this stuff. He has to clean up the land and then he starts planting seed. All the fruit that can become a part of your life if you allow God to do the process in you And allowing you to become spiritually strong in him and that's called the fruit of the spirits, 

[00:26:53] Justin: right?

[00:26:54] Justin: So you'll know them by their fruits We often 

[00:26:56] 

[00:26:56] Justin: say this and I find it interesting that you [00:27:00] said that don because it's so important to feed the spirit 

[00:27:03] Don: Yeah, 

[00:27:04] Justin: Uh, Wake up and read the word. Yeah You I've said this before, before you go to sleep, read the Word. A lot of the times people sit on, social media and they're scrolling and what's that thing called that you're scrolling on?

[00:27:18] Justin: What do they call it? They call it a feed. 

[00:27:21] both: Yeah. 

[00:27:22] Justin: So it's, , it's right there. Yeah. They're feeding you. They're feeding your spirit. I mean, this is no mistake why it's called a feed because they know,. Right. There's, that is a transaction that's happening. You're going on social media.

[00:27:36] Justin: Most of the things you're reading are not positive. They're feeding you with fear. They're feeding you with doubt. They're feeding you with negativity. That's what you're feeding your spirit. Yeah. So when you start to. Put that away and get into the word you're feeding your spirits with the things of God the things of God It's always fear [00:28:00] not I mean, I think it's like 300 sometimes and it's mentioned in the Bible to fear not So if you were to read that every day on social media fear not The spirit of fear wouldn't have much control in your life, right?

[00:28:13] Justin: You wouldn't be coming to agreement spiritually with anything like that, right? That's right So when you read the things of god the word of god when you become a person of the word 

[00:28:23] both: Yeah, 

[00:28:23] Justin: the word flows through you. It's living and breathing It's not just the bible These are there's spiritual elements of this because the more you read this the more you're feeding yourself with the things of god power love mind, self control, and this is how you get the fruits of the spirit.

[00:28:44] Justin: This is also how you get, like we talked about baptism of Holy Spirit. This is how you get the gifts of the spirit, right? There's the tongues, interpretation, , the nine gifts, essentially, you know, healing is in there, getting the gift of healing, the gift of faith, right? There is, [00:29:00] you will not get those gifts unless you ask for them, and you're not going to want to ask for these gifts unless you have awareness and knowledge of these gifts.

[00:29:11] Justin: So there's so much spiritual knowledge in this book. Bible in this book that you don't know about until you open it until you allow it to manifest in your life until you allow yourself the ability, the opportunity to come into agreement with it. Right. See, I'm trying to get very molecular on the spiritual level of how the agreements work.

[00:29:34] Justin: Right. Yeah. Because a lot of this is like. Right. Right. It's almost like legal court and what you come into agreements with is, is what can be used against you. You can be penalized with, right? You can be convicted of, you can be found guilty of, and this is what happens in our lives is then we find ourselves guilty, we convict ourselves.

[00:29:55] Justin: We are the, we're the judge, the jury and the prosecutor, right? We find ourselves guilty. [00:30:00] And then it's this constant state of suffering. And then all of our media, the media that we're. Into then starts feeding us that of the same nature so that we grow in the wrong way It's like we grow backwards. We grow into the state of suffering, right?

[00:30:19] Justin: Whereas it's still spiritual, but we're growing in a in a negative way. So When you focus on, and you're aware of the things of God, and you surround yourself, and you feed yourself with the things of God, you will become strong in the spiritual sense. You will become strong, , and you will you will start to develop skills, abilities.

[00:30:43] Justin: Gifts that you didn't have because you will be led into asking for these things I saw something somewhere where it said it took the word ask And I like how you said that because it's about asking and in the bible it says ask and you will receive Seek [00:31:00] and you will find knock and the door will be open If you look at the word ask a sk a stands for ask s stands for seek k stands for knock It's all about asking You will not know the, you know, the enemy's ultimate deception is to get you to believe that the spiritual world doesn't even exist because then he has total Control, domain, dominion over you, because if you don't believe it exists, you don't even know the battlefield.

[00:31:31] Justin: And if you don't know, you'll never ask. , if you never knew asking was even a possibility. 

[00:31:36] Don: Yeah, that's true. He wants you to remain spiritually dead. He wants you to remain a victim someday of life here on earth, but it's interesting you talk about, , You know the situations and stuff we go through and I remember watching this is a long time ago And I think it was billy graham.

[00:31:55] Don: He had what was called the hour of decision And he he would [00:32:00] preach a message and he would talk, you know about Making a decision. Yeah, and it was good because a lot of times in our life. It is all about a decision 

[00:32:09] both: Yeah, and 

[00:32:10] Don: you know, that's we're in this whole process of spiritual growth the message that's presented here We have decisions to make Every day, you know of what's important to us of what's of value if we're gonna allow God to do what he wants to do in our life Or we're going to be plugged into a worldly system that is going to create the heartaches, the pains, the judgments, and everything else, the miseries that we go through.

[00:32:34] Don: You know, God has got something beautiful. They call it the gospel, which is good news. And this is the good news. It's good news that God has got something beautiful. Big things for us and he's created an opportunity that we can tap into it But we have to let him do the work and we have to make a decision to do that And that's where god wants to richly bless each and every one of us.

[00:32:56] Justin: Yes. Amen Well, I think that [00:33:00] wraps it up for today. This was a good one. Justin. I think so, too Hey, we're glad you guys found your way here today And we hope you can join us again next week for another good word. Until then, stay blessed by the best. See you guys.