Telling the Truth

Guest (Male): Welcome to Telling the Truth with Bible teachers Stuart and Jill Briscoe.

Jill Briscoe: What do I mean by living in the word means listening with all of me? Well, first of all, you need to bring your heart. What do I mean by that? It isn't a wholly academic exercise, although we must bring our mind as well. But we must bring our heart. We must listen with all our heart. Over and over again in Psalm 119, verses like this come: I called with my whole heart. Answer me, O Lord, from your word. I call to you with my whole heart, answer me. If your heart's not in it, you won't get much out of it.

Guest (Male): Would you say you're seeking God with your whole heart? Are you spending time reading what he wrote, the Bible? Jill Briscoe today on Telling the Truth with a message about how the Bible is as life-changing and relevant today as it always has been. She begins in just a moment.

Your generous support helps keep broadcasts like this one going out around the world so you and others can experience life through the biblical teaching and resources of Telling the Truth. And for just two more days, when you give, we'll send you Triumph over Temptation, an encouraging four-message series created by Stuart and Jill Briscoe to help you stand strong against temptation and grow in your faith in the process.

This offer ends tomorrow, so call now to request yours: 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388, or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now, if you can, turn with Jill to the Psalms as she starts her message, "Getting on Track."

Jill Briscoe: In Isaiah 40, it says if we wait on the Lord, he will renew our strength, and we'll mount up with wings like eagles. We'll run and not be weary, and we will walk and not faint. In my session today, I want to talk a little bit about how. How do you live in the word? How do you hear his voice? What's it sound like? How can we be sure it's his voice and not our imagination? When I'm reading the Bible and trying to listen to his voice, what does that sound like?

I just want, at the beginning, to try to throw out a whole lot of practical stuff as we walk through some of Psalm 119. My great heart cry is that you and I find ways to so live in the word and let the word live in us and through us, that that is what we give to our community, to our family, to our world, to our church. I'm going to take much of what I say from Psalm 119, Psalm 139, and 2 Samuel chapter 3. It's basically in those three places that I will be camping, if you wish, with what I want to say to you.

The first of my sessions is going to be "Getting on Track." That's obviously why I've gone to Psalm 139. Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts, or my inner life. See if there's any wicked way in me and lead me in the track, lead me on the road, lead me on the way to everlasting, the everlasting way. Of course, that's the last verse in Psalm 139.

Before we begin, let me talk about some very practical things. First of all, you need to listen with all of you. What do I mean by this? It's amazingly possible to sit through a whole sermon or a whole anything and listen with a little bit of you while the rest of you is very busy doing other things. All of us fight this. All of us must learn how to fight this because the devil doesn't need to do anything dramatic. All he needs to do is distract you, just distract you from the very thing God has brought you here to hear.

What do I mean by living in the word means listening with all of me? First of all, you need to bring your heart. What do I mean by that? It isn't a wholly academic exercise, although we must bring our mind as well. But we must bring our heart. We must listen with all our heart. Over and over again in Psalm 119, verses like this come: I called with my whole heart. Answer me, O Lord, from your word. I call to you with my whole heart, answer me. If your heart's not in it, you won't get much out of it.

There will be times in your life when there isn't a heart hunger to get the word, where you drift, or there's distance, or it's not the same as it was when you first found Jesus. There will be those times. Bringing your heart is something you can pray about. You can say, "Lord, I need to concentrate. I need to focus." What happens if you just begin the conversation? "Lord, help me, my mind is scattered. I'm all over the place."

Maybe you find it difficult in all sorts of ways to focus. Ask the Lord. "Focus me, Lord. Just help me to give you half an hour of my time, O Almighty God." That's not too much for him to ask from us. The Bible says, and especially in Psalm 119, do it heartily, with all your heart. Bring all you are to church or anywhere, to your group. Pray all the time. Pray about it. When you have a problem in prayer, pray about it. It never occurs to us. We think we better go and get a book or maybe talk to somebody about it.

If you have a problem in prayer, anything, say, "God, I really have a problem with this." Talk, begin the conversation, and then invite him from his word to address it. Now, it won't be absolutely specific, but it will be principles from the word. You're looking for principles you can then apply. Principles from the word. You're looking for principles all the time. Not just for taking a bit of scripture that might fit your particular situation. That's how God speaks to you on specific occasions.

Pray before you start. Ask him to help you focus. Bring your mind along. Spurgeon said a little girl said to him once, "What do you think your soul is?" And she said, "My soul is my think." I like that. My soul is my mind. My soul is my think. Spurgeon's comment was, "Methinks many have very little soul." Well, she got it right. Mind, soul, heart, it's difficult to define and split it up, and we shouldn't try.

You do need to bring your mind. You do need to be listening, not with a critical situation, but listening carefully to the scripture being unfolded. It says in Psalm 119, "Unfold your word." I love that. God wants to unfold his word. Just unfold fold after fold after fold till you see the whole piece of what he's trying to do or trying to say to us. Bring your think, okay? Bring your heart and bring your will, most importantly. Sit your will down and make it listen.

Just sit it down. Take the wristwatch off your soul when you settle into your quiet time or your sermon time or whatever it is. Don't read selectively. Don't read just for you. Read for whatever God wants to say to you about you or the world or nothing to do with you because the temptation is only to look for what you're interested in, which is you. Have you noticed that? Think back to your last prayer time. Did you go to prayer? Who was there? You, right?

When I step into the waiting room, or whatever you want to call it figuratively, I'm all over it. It's horrible. I'm just everywhere, and I can't wait to start and talk about me and mine and all my problems. We are everywhere. We are me-focused. We are so me-focused. What we have to do is learn silence and solitude. You can interpret that anyway you want, except to say we don't know anything about silence and solitude. And that is sad.

If the Trinity knocked on the door physically like angels and you opened the door and you said, "Oh, do come in! Such an honor to have you," and you took them into the sitting room and turned the radio down, would you do that? No. It's what kids do. Or the TV or whatever it is on. And not just kids. Find out what silence is all about. There's so much in scripture about "Be still and know that I am God." What's that? Do you know that? Do I know that in the depth we're supposed to know? Somehow you can't be still if there's a lot of noise and a lot of distraction.

Guest (Male): This is Telling the Truth. And today, Jill Briscoe talks about how to get on track with your relationship with God. A big part of your faith journey involves studying his word, and it involves commitment on your part, seeking God with your whole heart. Jill is right back to talk more about that in a moment. But first, we want to share a note from Mercer, who says, "Thank you for your clear teaching. Each of you brings unique insights and clarity."

Thanks, Mercer. That's the kind of encouragement your support today will bring to more people around the world as you help share the teaching and resources of Telling the Truth so others can experience life in Christ. And we'd like to encourage you with a powerful resource to equip you to not only resist temptation but conquer it and grow in your faith as you do. It's called Triumph over Temptation, a four-message series created by Stuart and Jill Briscoe to empower you with biblical truth to help you stand firm in the face of daily temptations.

Filled with the Briscoes' trademark wisdom and understanding of scripture, this series will help you remember that every temptation to do wrong is also a chance to do what's right. We'll send you the Triumph over Temptation series as our thanks for your gift of support today to help continue the Briscoes' legacy through the teaching resources of Telling the Truth. This resource offer ends tomorrow, so request your copy today when you call 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388, or give online at tellingthetruth.org. Let's head back to Jill Briscoe now for more.

Jill Briscoe: Bring your heart, bring your mind, but bring your will because if you don't bring your will and attend to the obey word, you may as well quit praying. God says, and you read, I hope, Psalm 119 right the way through, just find out how many times it says obey. Incredible. Unfold your words and I will obey you. Give me light of understanding and I will obey you. Lead me in the path.

If you look at the first few verses of Psalm 119: Blessed are they whose ways are blameless, who walk according to the Lord. Blessed are they who keep his statutes and seek him with all their heart. They do nothing wrong, they walk in his ways. You have laid down precepts that are to be fully obeyed. And then the next part: O that my ways were steadfast in obeying your decrees. Then I wouldn't be put to shame when I consider all your commands. I will praise you with an upright heart as I learn your righteous laws. I will obey your decrees. Don't utterly forsake me.

He begins in future verses to say: Don't let me stray from your word. I just want to fully obey it. If you don't want to fully obey it, you will never hear his voice. If you read selectively, or if you don't dare go deep with God in case he tells you something you don't want to hear, you won't hear his voice. There's no way. If you read right through that Psalm, that theme comes over and over and over again.

He's asking lots of things and thanking God for answering his prayers, but it's as if God is saying, "If I answer this prayer, what will you do with your life, David?" If I'm going to hear God's voice, I've got to say: anytime, anywhere, anyplace, anything. And my commitment and surrender must be without conditions. Then I'll hear it! But if I am coming with all these hidden agendas: Boy, I'd really like to get better so I can go on with my selfish, sinful life, don't expect to hear. When you read that Psalm, pick that theme up. If you show me your word, I will obey you. You know my heart. And God says, "I will. I will, if you are fully willing to do whatever I tell you to do."

I don't know what your prayer life looks like. In 1 Samuel, just let me remind you of that story without turning to it. Actually, I will turn to it because there's a fabulous word in here. Samuel chapter 3. Remember the boy Samuel is in the temple, given by Hannah, who never thought she could have a child. God gives her a child. She weans him, he's probably four years of age, takes him to the temple for training and gives him as she promised to the Lord.

The only problem is old Eli is far away from God. His two sons, as you can read in the scriptures, are sleeping with the women that worship at the door of the place and are so far away from God it says that they do not know God and were wicked men. This little baby child is given into the hands of old Eli far away from God and his two unrepentant, undisciplined kids who are horrible. And it says they don't know the Lord and they are wicked people.

This is his training! There was nowhere else to send him. Hannah trusted and she gave him into the hands of Eli. I think the little boy must have loved that old man. Now, he was given at the age of four. They say that he was probably about 12 when this happened. He'd been in the temple learning. His bed was just by the Ark of the Covenant, near the holy place. Old Eli had been doing his best.

One night he goes to sleep and his job is to make sure the lamp of the Lord never goes out all night. It's about dawn and that's when he has to make sure that it keeps going because of all sorts of spiritual reasons and laws in the Holy of Holies. Suddenly, the Lord visits Samuel and calls him, says, "Samuel, Samuel." He runs to Eli. It must have been such a human sounding voice. Eli says, "No, I didn't call you, go to bed."

He goes back. "You did call me! I hear it again!" Eli says, "Oh, go again." The third time, and then the old guy gets it. Probably God. This time say, "Speak, Lord, your servant hears." It's a wonderful story. It says in verse 7: Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord. The word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him in reality. The Lord calls him the third time and he gets up and he goes and then he's told what to do. He says, "Speak, Lord, your servant is listening."

The Lord comes and he gives him a task for a 12-year-old that has seldom been given to a 12-year-old in scripture. Unbelievable task. In the morning, tell Eli it's done, it's over. Judgment is coming on you and your family because you did not restrain your sons. You have brought disgrace. They are even doing things with the offering, the sin offering, that are unspeakable. Samuel, did you hear me? That's what I want you to tell him in the morning. That's the word of the Lord.

When he gets up in the morning, it says he opens the doors and he's doing everything except going in to tell Eli what the Lord said. Eli calls him, "Samuel, come and tell me what he said." It says he was afraid. The little boy was afraid. Eli offers him a curse. He says, "If you do not, if you hide it from me, may God deal with you be it ever so severely." He is saying God will curse you if you don't tell me. He tells him everything, hiding nothing from him. Eli says, "He's the Lord, let him do what is good in his eyes." The Lord was with Samuel as he grew up and let none of his words fall to the ground. All Israel from Dan to Beersheba recognized Samuel was attested as a prophet of the Lord. The Lord continued to appear at Shiloh, and there he revealed himself to Samuel through his word.

Guest (Male): Is your time alone with God something you just have to check off your to-do list? Or do you take the time to make it something more? Jill Briscoe picks up here on tomorrow's broadcast, as she's coming right back to answer questions about finding answers in the word of God and about trading your agenda for God's. Remember that through tomorrow, when you give a gift to support the teaching ministry of Telling the Truth, we'll say thanks with an empowering resource created by Stuart and Jill Briscoe called Triumph over Temptation.

We all face temptation every day, sometimes every moment of every day. While you may struggle with sinful desires and selfish motives, you must remember that every temptation to do wrong is also an opportunity to do right. You are not powerless to resist wrong. You have God's power within you to bring you through even the toughest challenges. In their four-message series Triumph over Temptation, Stuart and Jill Briscoe equip you with powerful biblical truth to help you triumph over temptation and grow your faith in the process.

Triumph over Temptation is our thanks for your generous gift today to help more people experience abundant life in Christ through the unchanging truth of God's word. Simply request your copy when you call today and give a gift to help keep Telling the Truth going around the world. Again, this offer ends tomorrow, so call 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388, or give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now, here's Jill to answer a few questions about getting on track with God.

Jill, tell us about a time when you had a problem, prayed and asked God what to do about it, and he showed you the answer in his word.

Jill Briscoe: There was a time hundreds of years ago when I was young. I was a teacher and lived in the UK in a big castle which was a Bible school and Christian outreach center. I had been working with young people who were not street kids, but were gathering in the streets in sort of groups or gangs from the local town. Many of them had come to Christ. I was getting quite a good reputation around the place for that nice lady that kept all those young people in her youth center and off the roads.

I began to feel good, although I was unaware of that sense of self-gratification because I was considered a lady that did good things. Until one day, one of those kids asked me to go into the pub with him, his pub, and talk to all his friends because he couldn't answer their questions about God. I remember my immediate reaction was, "Oh, I don't want to do that." So I said to him I'd pray about it, which was really not very honest.

I did decide to pray about it, and I said to the Lord, "Why do I feel uncomfortable about this?" My habit is when I have a question like that to read until I find a principle. Now, I know if I open my Bible, it's not going to say "Go into the pub, Jill." It doesn't do that. But it will give me a principle. I began to read the Gospels and I came to things like "Go into all the world and preach the gospel," but it wasn't that. I wanted something really specific.

It wasn't until I came to Philippians that night, I just read and read and just let it flow over me, looking for that principle, that I read this from Philippians 2: Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but he made himself nothing. Actually, the King James that I was reading said made himself of no reputation, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness, found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death.

It's that huge graph of grace from heaven's highest to the lowest point. It's all about down. He came down, down, down, down. I realized I like going up, up, up—up in people's valuation of me, that nice lady that does good work. What would happen if somebody saw me go into the pub? I realized I was concerned about my new reputation. So that was easy. Then I said, "Sorry, Lord," and got in touch with Trevor and said, "When are we going? What time should I meet you?" and in we went.

What you do when you have a problem in your journal, you put the problem down, and then during the course of the week as you are in the word, you're looking as well as for other things for the answer, the principle that will show you what to do about a given situation. That's one way he answers you through his word.

Guest (Male): Thanks so much, Jill. We hope today's message has encouraged you. Before we go, remember that through tomorrow, when you give to help keep Telling the Truth broadcast like this one going out around the world, we'll send you a copy of Triumph over Temptation, a four-message series from Stuart and Jill Briscoe that's sure to help you stand up to daily temptations and grow stronger in your faith as you do.

This special offer ends tomorrow, so call now to give and request Triumph over Temptation with our thanks: 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388, or give online at tellingthetruth.org. Thanks for listening today. Tune in again next time right here on Telling the Truth with Stuart and Jill Briscoe.