This content argues that spiritual growth and a deeper connection with God are not achieved through mere religious practices, but by actively allowing God's grace, embodied by the Holy Spirit, to inhabit and transform one's soul by removing sin, attachments, and personal defects.
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This is probably going to be one of my least popular videos because this is the hard stuff.
The stuff that we don't want to hear. It's what Bonhoffer rightly called the cost of disciplehip.
I think a lot of us will say, "I go to church. I pray. I read my Bible. I'm practicing my faith as
best I can. But I just don't feel like I'm getting anywhere. My faith is still weak and filled with
all these doubts. I can't say I'm any closer to God. And I definitely don't have any of that inner
peace or joy. And if I'm being totally honest, I don't really think I'm any better of a person,
just a lot more judgmental. And what really scares me is I don't even know if I really love God,
as I should, or anyone else for that matter. And it's like we've kind of plateaued in our
faith and we get all worked up and anxious and kind of like that rich young man who 2,000 years
ago asked Jesus the same thing. We say, "I'm doing everything I'm supposed to be doing here,
but I want to go deeper. I want to be holy. What am I missing?"
Well, it took me way too long to get through my thick wooden skull. That if my faith was a little
weak, my prayer life stunk, and all that goodness, love, and joy was non-existent. That it wasn't
because I wasn't doing something. It was because something or someone was just missing. We can't
conjure these things out of thin air, just as a wood burning stove can't conjure heat out of thin
air. The heat comes from something on the outside that's put there on the inside by something or
someone else. And that's what transforms all that cold cast iron into exactly what it was designed
to do, generate warmth. Now, the stove can't conjure that heat on its own, but it certainly
can enkindle it and inflame it on one hand and smother and extinguish it on the other. So, just
as a stove can achieve warmth on its own, we can't achieve holiness on our own. And that thing that
is missing is what we call grace. Grace is the life of God, the wisdom of God, the love of God,
and the power of God actually, tangibly, and visibly living through us. And that powerful
holym grace only comes from the Holy Spirit of God actually living in us. So the question is never
well what am I doing or not doing. It's is the Holy Spirit of God alive in me right now or not.
This is the greatest aim of the Christian life and everything else we do are just means to this end.
So, in this video, I'm going to talk about the three ways we smother and extinguish that fire
and how we can inflame it and finally make some breakthroughs to deeper spiritual perfection.
Now, the first one is obvious. It's sin. But look at it this way. Imagine you're inviting
a very special guest to come stay in your home. Now, what would you do?
I'm sure you would scrub that place from top to bottom. Well, our soul is like our home,
and we're inviting the Holy Spirit of God to come stay with us. And sin is like the
mold and mildew covering the walls, those stained, saturated carpets, those dark, dingy, dusty rooms.
all that questionable material we hide in the basement. So ask yourself, is my soul a suitable
place for the Holy Spirit of God? Grace don't mix with sin. It's funny cuz I keep hearing my dad's
voice in my head telling me over and over when I was a kid, just keep your room clean. Sage wisdom.
We are the inkeepers of our soul. And we have to keep that room not only clean, but warm,
cheerful, welcoming for our guest. If it's a dump, they're going to go somewhere else. So,
how do we clean the room? Well, ultimately, it's grace that's them. But it starts with us
confessing our sins, doing penance, and repenting. Now, just a few things about confessing. First,
we have to actually be sorry. The Bible says to have a contrite heart. Well, the word in the Bible
that we translate as contrite actually means that shattering into a million pieces is the word used
in the Bible. So, am I shattered over my sin? And if you're not sure about that, watch this video.
I'll tag it at the end. And the second thing is this. We have to have a firm intention to change,
to do better. As I've said before, the word that we translate as repent is metaninoia,
which means a complete reorientation from one way of doing things to another. Think about it.
Imagine your spouse apologizing to you for something and they're not really sorry and
they're not really going to change. Is that even really an apology? And if it's not, can you even
forgive them? Now, God, who's infinitely just, will infinitely forgive us no matter what it is,
if we mean it and if we're going to do something about it. So, keep the room clean every day.
Okay. Now, a lot of us think, "All right, I got the sin under control.
I'm doing good." And we kind of stop there. But that's just the beginning.
If we're sticking with the same analogy here, and sin is like the giant mess in the room,
then our attachments are like, "Imagine if your friend invites you to stay in their home." Or,
"Let's kick it up a notch. Imagine if the love of your life invites you to come stay in their
home and you're all excited, but when you get there, you find the rooms already filled with
all these other people and things and noise and flashing screens and shiny
things. And that person you really wanted to be with, their attention is spread out,
occupied among all these other things. And it hits you right away. I'm just one thing among many.
God don't share the room with anybody or anything. As a matter of fact, he designed the room for
himself to live in for all of eternity. And we use it for storage. Or the more proper way to put it,
which hits a little harder, is God designed your soul as a temple. And in that temple is an altar
only for himself. What are all the idols that are cluttering my altar that I really worship?
Our attachments, very simply put, are all those unhealthy or excessive desires for some worldly
thing that gets in the way to us really uniting with God. I heard somebody say once that if you
want to know if you're attached to something, just imagine if that thing were taken away. If
that causes you some kind of pain or sadness, then you're attached. Remember when Jesus told
that rich young man to detach? He walked away sad. Now, our attachments are millions of things.
our latest dopamine hits, all those distractions and stimulations, our stuff like our cars,
our clothes, our homes, they can be our ambitions like our careers, our success, our bank accounts.
We can be attached to some need like our need for approval, to be praised, to be seen a certain way.
We can be attached to patterns of thinking like our overthinking, our negativity, our obsessing
that my life has to be a certain way. We can even be attached to good things like our relationships,
our security, our own bodies, or even spiritual things like our spiritual pride or those warm
fuzzy feelings from God. Sometimes I fear, have I become too attached to this ministry?
I know this could all sound a little harsh, but Jesus even put it more harsh when he said, "If you
love these things more than me, you're not worthy of me." Ouch. Now, he's not saying we all have to
become monks and live in the middle of the woods. He's saying I have to be first. I'm the only thing
you should be attached to. Don't worry about all that other stuff. I know what you need better than
you do. Let me take care of you. But I have to be first. My spirit has to be alive in you. See,
there's the key. And this certainly doesn't mean we can't have anything or enjoy anything.
It just means we're not going to care about them anymore. Because even if we were the masters of
this entire universe, doesn't even come close to one tiny little drop of the full-on glory of God.
I've always loved the line from Paul, and I'm paraphrasing here, but he basically says,
"I've had everything and I've rotted in prisons, but I don't really care because I've always
had the one thing that matters most. That's freedom. That's detachment. And this is just
basic psychology here. Doesn't it seem easier to have your heart and mind set on one thing
rather than torn to shreds by many? And isn't that freedom just to let go? I would bet you
that 99.9% of what keeps us up at night and what keeps us miserable has to do with some attachment.
So, how do we detach? Well, it's kind of a lifetime thing, but here's some ideas. First,
we have to make the choice. Imagine two tadpoles living in a pond, and one tadpole says to the
other, "I hear there's a whole other world out there filled with all kinds of treasures and
wonders." "Nonsense," the other tadpole says. This puddle is all there is and all you'll ever need.
Jews.
Second, all our attachments and sin for that matter, we let in through our senses. Imagine your
heart, your mind, your soul is like a giant tank. And the only way in is through the senses. Jesus
said it, "Your eyes are the lamp of your soul." And then take a mental note throughout the day.
What is it I'm letting in to my heart, my mind, my soul? What am I watching? What am I listening
to? What am I feeding myself that inflames my passions, my appetites, my desires that
is getting me hooked? Then we need to take a warrior mentality and guard those valves.
And the second part of this is once we let these things in, that's when we start playing with them
in our mind and our thoughts. And this is where we create our heaven or our hell. So we have to
once again take that warrior mentality and guard our thoughts from every little suggestion that
will lead us down the wrong path. And this takes us to the last one. And this is the hard part.
Jesus said, "If you want to follow me, deny yourself. If you want to find your life,
you have to lose your life." He told that rich young man, "If you want to be perfect,
detach and follow me." So, we remove these things by denying these things.
So ask yourself what little pleasure or indulgence or comfort can I deny myself today? Now only you
can answer that but it can be little things like maybe I don't eat as much or watch as much or
scroll as much and oh by the way all these things are designed to inflame our passions. This takes
discipline and sacrifice. But if you wanted to become an Olympic athlete, it takes discipline
and sacrifice. Now the idea here, and this is important, we're not doing this to pour ourselves.
That's ridiculous. Or is just some exercise of discipline. We're doing it for him. We're doing
it to say, I choose you over all these things. And not just in word but in action. And it's not
so much what we do, it's the intention and purpose for which we do it. And that's when the power of
God really descends into our soul. I could sum up this whole section with one line. To the degree
in which we detach ourselves from this world, to that same degree, God reveals himself to our soul.
Okay, this one's only for the really brave. I think the enemy likes to get us all hyperfocused
on one or two of our major sins, and we all know what those are. when meanwhile there's something
much more dangerous and often hidden to us underneath the hood. Imagine a very complex
engine, say for a spaceship, and it's got all these parts that all have to work together,
all designed for one thing. Now, imagine it breaks down and one of the engineers comes up
to you and says, "Yep, this thing's busted." All right, figure it out and fix it. Now,
we wouldn't have the slightest clue what was wrong with this thing. So, the best thing to do would
probably be to find the engineer, the designer of the thing, and ask for some help. Well,
our souls are complex and have all these different movements inside, all designed for one thing. And
sometimes something can be a little off, and we don't have the slightest clue of where to begin.
So, the best thing to do would probably be to find the engineer, the designer of the thing,
and ask for some help, who, oh, by the way, should be living comfortably inside us. Now,
this is the hard part, and I'm telling you, just be warned. God is dying to tell us what
our defects are because ultimately, those are the things that are keeping us from doing what we were
designed to do. This prayer, I assure you, will be answered. So ask in your own words, "Lord, show me
my defects." The first time I did this, 5 minutes later, I was talking to someone. And I'll admit,
I was getting super irritated and judgmental. And all of a sudden, all these alarms start going off
in my head. You're impatient. You don't understand them. You're uncharitable. You think you're better
than them. Ouch. and on and on and on to the point I was like, "Okay, God, I I got the message here.
Thanks. I got a lot of work to do." Now, the indicators of these defects are usually some
sort of small disturbance in our peace, like an annoyance, some grumbling, or some little disees.
Now, in some weird way, these defects are actually a good thing because they're pointing us to some
specific virtue or grace that we're missing that we need to become holy. For example,
if I'm irritated with people all day, I'm probably lacking patience or understanding. If
I'm judgmental and think I'm better than everyone, I'm lacking humility. If I struggle with anger,
I'm lacking meekness. If I struggle with lust, I'm lacking temperance and purity. If I'm weak
and timid, I'm lacking courage. If I'm lazy and unmotivated, I'm lacking fortitude. If I keep
making one mistake after another, I'm lacking prudence. If I'm filled with fear and despair,
I'm lacking hope. If I don't love God and neighbor as I should, I'm lacking charity. And if my faith
is weak and full of doubts, I'm lacking faith. And I could go on and on. And there's lots of
these. But here's the cool part. Just as God is dying to point out all our defects,
he's dying to give us the virtue or grace that we need to overcome those defects. So just ask
ask for those virtues like you're asking for a million dollars or a cure for cancer. Ultimately,
these virtues are far more important. Now, here's the thing. It's not just some kind of magical
thing happens where we sit back and okay God make me virtuous and God does all the work. What good
would that do for us? So we got to work with the grace. I picture it like remember when we were
kids and we had to sell candy bars and at first your teacher would give you just a couple candy
bars and if you sold those you go back with your empty box and they give you more and more candy
bars and the more candy bars you sell the more stuff they give you to sell. I remember there was
a girl in my class who was practically selling cars by the time she was done. But if you're
like me and just ate your candy bars, well then they take away the few candy bars you have and
give them to somebody else. That's kind of how I think it works. The more we practice a virtue,
the more God can increase and perfect that virtue in us. And you'll see this right away.
For example, that person who irritated me and I was judging them. the more I just humbly said,
I am not better than anyone. Help me understand them and be a little more charitable here. It's
like these floodgates opened. I could see a little bit of their pain, their experience, and why they
acted the way they did. And I understood. And I was filled with this love of them. And that
certainly didn't come from me. That was all him. The more we just take those little first steps in
virtue, the more the spirit is going to perfect and increase those in us one millionfold. And the
same thing goes for the big ones, the ones we call the supernatural virtues. the more we just say,
"Lord, I know you're right here with me, even though I can't sense you." Or, "I'm just going
to have hope even though I'm scared to death." Or, "I'm just going to say I love you right now,
even if I don't really feel it." then he has something to work with, to inflame, to perfect.
Now, here's a very important part. We can practice virtue for all kinds of reasons.
For virtue's sake, which is good, for our own sake, our own vanity,
which isn't really virtue at all, or for his sake, for his glory,
for the sake of conforming to the source of all virtue itself, Jesus Christ.
That's when I'm telling you, you're going to see over time the spirit will gradually take
over. So if we're going to be lovers of something or if we want to be perfect in something, let's
make it virtue. And for those with their eyes open, everything is an opportunity for virtue.
Okay, that's a lot and this has gotten long, but if you want to really give this a shot, try this.
And I would suggest doing this with someone that you can share with. And if you don't have that
person, you can find someone on the Discord. Take three weeks. And in the first week, pray, "Lord,
show me my sins." Period. And don't take over the conversation and tell him your sins. Let him
show you. And then just go through your week and wait. And either share them with someone if you
want or write them down. And then ask yourself, am I really sorry over these? And if we're not,
ask for true contrition. And then for each one, write down three things I'm going to do different
to avoid, to change, to overcome that sin. And then at some point towards the end of the week,
make a really good confession. Week two, pray, "Lord, show me all my attachments."
And several times throughout the day, take a mental snapshot of that altar in your soul.
Does it look like this or like this? And then ask yourself, how's all this stuff getting in? And
what can I start letting go of to guard those valves and start clearing out the temple? And
finally, pray, "Lord, show me my defects." And then just go through your week and listen for
those little indications. And once we know the defect, we'll know the opposite virtue to pray
for and start kicking into action. And not for our own sake, but because we're followers of his will.
So the idea here is we're really thoroughly cleaning out that room. And if we do,
it's going to leave a little bit of a void. And this is when all that practice of our faith really
starts bearing fruit. And if you want to get into a little more deeper prayer, watch this video.
I'll tag it at the end. The word holy basically means separate from. Separate from the world and
the world's ways. separate even from myself and my old ways of doing things. This is dying to self,
dying to our old life so that a new life can live through me. Now, some of us may be thinking, well,
that all sounds great, but that sounds really hard and no fun. Well, it's got to cost something. And
I believe that struggling we all do with it despite the cost is worth more to God than
hours of our sweetest prayer. And don't worry, he does 99.9% of the work. And you'll see right away
the more he starts setting up shop in our house, the more painfully obvious our sin is going to
become. the more we really just couldn't care less about all the worldly attachments and the more
his virtue, not mine, is just going to blossom in us like automatically. And I'm telling you,
the otherworldly joy and pleasure we get from just the slightest little taste of
his life beating in me is worth more than all the joy and pleasure we could get from
this entire universe. You'll see. So the only question left is what would I give for that?
If you're still here, thank you. And I want to thank you all for your support. These videos
take a long time and we couldn't get them done without your help. So if you in any way have
found anything worthwhile in these videos. First, it's not me, it's him. And second,
please consider helping us fund the next video or two. I'll post some links below of how you
can help. So thank you. I love you all and thank you Lord for getting us through another
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