What Runs Your Life Becomes Your God

David W Ebel: Hi, this is David Ebel with God Says Yes. I just want to talk for a few minutes from my heart about something that that is a a major concern to me. And as I listen to people, it seems to be something that I hear over and over again. the big thing is what runs your life becomes your God. I've mentioned that and I've preached about it, and I've had people come back later and say, I I heard it, I like it, but I don't get it. So I thought I'd take a few minutes and and maybe expound upon it just a little bit. in Romans 6, verse 16 through 18, it it it tells us that that we can only that what we can obey will become our master. So the paraphrase of it would be that if if something owns you, then you'll obey it. So in the days of slavery in the in the in the New Testament. If someone was owned, they were possessed as a as a possession. They didn't have rights. They were they were told what to do and they did it, and they were considered possessions. As we apply that to today, worry, fear, depression, loneliness, bitterness, anxiety, those are things that run our lives. Those are things that control us from the inside out. And as a result, you know, What o what we obey what we have. There's a scripture that says out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. Well if the heart is filled with all those ugly things, when you're in c in a crisis and you reach inside and you need a resource, you only have those resources. Now if you filled yourself with the word of God and you've lived his life and you've applied it to your life, that well, if you will, that was filled with bitterness and ugliness, now is purified by the blood of Jesus. And now it's filled with love and joy and peace and hope and long-suffering and all the other beautiful things that God has promised He would do inside of us. But the key to that is, you know, what's going to be their master? Now, Matthew 16, starting with verse 16 through 19, says, what we treasure will reveal the the direction of our hearts. So when you read those verses, I want you to know that it's not just reading them, it's applying them. Matthew six twenty-one says, For where your treasure is, your heart will be also. So in the verses surround right between surrounding that, Jesus is comparing the treasures of this earth earth to the lasting treasures of heaven. Now you gotta realize that as you is as we live our life here, we have the we've been in we have the investment of this world's thinking and judgment and plans and opinions, what our peers think and what others around us do. And it it becomes It kind of colors who we become. When we give our hearts to God, we begin again. And we and God begins to cut the ropes that tie us to that world that we were in. He takes the blood of Jesus and washes away those sins, those things that are not God. And he fills those with these beautiful things of through the Holy Spirit. And when he does, the things that we treasure now here with God. Are the things we will treasure in heaven because they'll be the same things. So that's really important. So, when we we verse 24 of it says, no one can serve two masters. Jesus was warning us that we can't if you'll you'll love one and hate the other, or you'll serve one and resist the other, you can't have it both ways. So when you give your heart to Jesus and you want him to be the one who runs your life, you got to think about the fact, the reality of it is. That you can't do that if you've got two different voices telling you what to do. If you've got what your friends think and you've got what people think, even parents or bosses or others in authority think, if they don't think what God thinks, you've got two masters. I remember as a new believer, I had a boss that wanted me to lie on the job. He wanted me to bald face lie and cover something for him. And when I refused him, he terminated me. Now in in the world we live in today, I could have sued him. But in the world I lived with God, I would have never bothered to sue him. I shook I sh I shook the dust off my feet like you would when you go to some place and it's dirty and you don't want anymore. I shook the dust off my feet and I moved on. And God gave me a better job with a boss that wanted me to live right and to be honorable to him. So, what runs your life becomes your God again and again and again. in Philippians three, seventeen to twenty-one, it's we're reminded that Paul encourages us to follow the example of Christian living. In eighteen he expresses the sorrow over those who don't do it. And then twenty through twenty-one, he reminds us that our citizenship in heaven is conditional to the life we live here, because when we give our lives to Jesus, from the inside out we're changed. And now we're like him, and we're forgiven for our sins, so we're new, so we have citizenship in heaven. But we don't wait till we get there to to live like we're citizens. We begin our live our living of of how we're citizens for the Lord. We live it now. We learn how to do it and we apply it today. We pray today. We live today. We fellowship today. We get in God's word today. And we apply those things today so that we are citizens of heaven already. It's not a new thing. Now, in in IV, in Exodus 23, it says, You shall have no other gods before me. That's pretty plain. I think it's important that we realize how plain that is. You should have no other gods before me. What's a God? What runs your life? So even before the New Testament was was written down, there was already scripture telling us that we can't have two masters and we and we and that we we have to obey God. the right one. We we can only have one way to do it. In in the verses one and two, God reminds us the Israelites that he delivered them out of out of slavery from Egypt. In thir in three he says, then, okay, you're delivered. Now don't have any other gods. If you remember the story as it goes forward, when they had other gods, God had to clear the gig the deck and get rid of the sinful ones, the ones who refused to let God be God. And they and they created golden calves and other images that were from other gods from the past. And when they did that, they no longer qualify to be part of God's. And he dealt with them appropriately. Well, because of Jesus, he doesn't open up the ground and swallow people now. But he does cut us off in the idea that no sin enters the heaven. So if there's sin in us and we don't accept the forgiveness that Jesus offers. Then that sin still is on us and we don't qualify for heaven. Our our when we when you when you try take tr you get papers to travel, get your passport, that allows you to go. But when you do things that are wrong, they take that passport and they don't want you back. And that's how it is with heaven. When you when you've given your heart to Jesus and you're living for Him, your passport is summoned. But when you willfully, intentionally Do things that God has asked us not to do. It jeopardizes your spiritual passport to heaven. Not that God doesn't want you there. The Bible tells us that heaven wasn't hell wasn't made for men, it was made for the devils and his angels. Heaven was made for those who live for God. That's pretty positive. That's pretty intentional. The principles, really get together. We could have no in in Romans, what we can only have one master. Matthew, we could what we treasure is the direction of our hearts. Philippians, what we continue to seek, becomes our God. And in Exodus, God alone deserves first place in our life. So in short, no matter what anyone else says, no what anyone else believes, no matter who teaches what, if it's not what the Word of God says plainly and clearly, and can be backed up with other scripture, you probably need to hold it suspect. And not swallow it whole. A poor fish sees the t the bait and he bites it not realizing there's a hook to take him into peril. When we start fishing in un uncharted territory where the truth is not always guaranteed, some of the people on TV or some of the people at some churches take what is the word of God and they and they bend it to be to what they want it to be because they want everyone to feel good and they want everyone to belong. Even when God says that to serve God and to really serve Him, Jesus said that if that if He suffered, we're going to suffer for our faith. And that not everyone's going to love us. Not everyone's going to like us. But for everyone that doesn't, God is going to bless us with peace and hope and these wonderful Christian friends who do want to live like you and do want to give you the strength and the courage and back you up. God has a plan for your life. That plan starts when you Stop listening to others and make a decision. I will serve God regardless. When it feels good, I'll serve him. When it really, really is rotten and it hurts like crazy, I'm still gonna serve him. When I get betrayed, I'm still gonna serve him. When I get blessed, I'm still gonna serve him. I don't serve him to get stuff. I serve him because he's worthy to be served. I don't worship him because someone demands me to. I worship him because he's God and He's done all this amazing stuff and I'm grateful for it and he deserves to be worshipped. And to do so is the least I can do for someone who loves me that much. How about you? What runs your life? What has become your God? TV. I remember years ago that a pastor I was I was listening to said that when he was a young guy training to be in ministry. They had a Bible study on Wednesday nights. And this one lady spoke up and said, I need a prayer request made. And everybody stopped, and the dear lady stood up. She said, Martha's husband is leaving him and taking all the money and leaving her alone. She's going to have nothing. It's heartbreaking. We need to pray that somehow God helps her. And the people said, Okay. And someone leaned over quietly and said, That was yesterday's version of the soap opera she watches. What what what she watched on TV had controlled her so the point where she had separated reality from fiction on television and blended them together and she couldn't sort them out. Why? Because TV had become a god to her. That's the CV the same TV that people say, I know you'd have bills that you need to pay, but you need to give God his first. Take an envelope right now and put that bill money in it. Write this address on it and send it in as a seed offering. You plant it now, and God's going to multiply it, and you're going to get it back a thousand fold. Well, I am here to tell you, after 74 years of living for God, I have given gratefully, but I've never given to get back. But I watched people do it and suffer because they gave and somebody got rich, but they didn't get it back. They had to figure out how to pay their bills without that money while somebody else bought their second new jet plane. What runs your life becomes your God. Where you get your advice from is really important. I went to a Chinese restaurant the other day and looked at the food and it looked pretty good. But I was already full, so I didn't get any. The next day in the newspaper, there was a health warning. And guess which restaurant was listed? With five negative stars, that they they was it was rated as an F rating and they were given three days to clean up their place or they were going to close it permanently. Food looked good. I could have taken it at as what it looked like and ate it. But if I consumed something that was bad, who would have got poisoned? If I if I consumed something that was not prepared correctly, who would have been bent over a toilet vomiting? Not the owner. The poor victim who paid for the privilege because they didn't find out before they went. That's how it is spiritually too. If you if you consume the wrong things. you're going to have the result of those those things in your heart and in your life. out of your out of the abundance of your heart and your mouth speaks. The Bible also talks about your eyes being a lamp unto your soul, indicating that when you see things, when you you view things, when you read things, that leaves an imprint on your soul. So when you read things you shouldn't, or watch things you shouldn't, you're now filling that well again with things that God didn't want there. So instead of you having a heart full of love and God's grace, you have a heart that's mixed with things that that are sinful and putrid and and not pleasing in the eyes of God, instead of a pure place. And that's why God can't bless everybody, because some people have made it difficult or even impossible for God to bless. Not because he doesn't want to, but because they've re they've rejected his love and his blessing. I don't want that for you. I don't want it for me. I want you to have all the best that God would give. So remember, out of the abundance of your heart, your your mouth speaks. But man, you know, what runs your life becomes your God. How are you going to know who your God is if you if you are bitter at people, or you can't forgive them, or you or you worry to the point you can't sleep at night. Develop an ulcer over the things you can't control. That's not God's plan. Those are how man manages God's plan. the reason why we have so many churches isn't because God needs tons of churches. It's because man has different views of how to serve God. There but Jesus was God's only outreach to man. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to God their Father, but through me. So I'm not against having lots of churches. But I'm grateful there's only one way to make sure we're pleasing God, and that's to obey Him, to learn His Word, to apply His Word, to live like His Word says, and to do what He asks us to do. Then when our heart is full, what comes out will be beautiful. And what runs your life will be God, and your life will be blessed. This is David Ebel with God Says Yes. If you haven't visited the website that presents our podcasts and all the ministry opportunities, the name of it is God SaysYespodcast.com. Come check it out. Put your email in. You just download it. There's devotions there for every episode. Come and be encouraged. Be blessed. Let God do mighty full mighty things in your life. Let me pray for you before we close. Heavenly Father, we praise you and thank you for this chance to be together. We ask that what I have shared will speak to hearts. It will encourage people. It will draw them closer to you. And Lord, I pray that people will realize that even though there's many ways to to to to get information. There's only one way that God has requested, and that's what you've told us to find in your word and in those who apply it to our lives. Bless everyone who's viewing and listening and make a marvel, a marvelous thing in their life happen in Jesus' name. Amen. Seek God, He'll be found. You really want to know Him? Seek Jesus. He is the way to God. Seek Him and watch your life become beautiful.