What is a heart that's fully devoted look like? Today a challenge to go all in spiritually. Stay tuned.
When God finds a heart that is fully devoted to him, it makes him stop. You know what that tells me? That hearts that are fully devoted to God are rare.
Welcome to Bold Steps with Mark Jobe, president of Moody Bible Institute and senior pastor of New Life Community Church in Chicago. Today, we begin a three part message series that focuses on what it means to be fully devoted, what it looks like to be all in spiritually. And Mark, I think this is a subject that deserves a lot of attention.
It really is. And Wayne, you know, this passage speaks to my heart because when Asa was young, He depended on God and relied on God. The more seasoned and experienced he got, the more he depended on his experience, his network. And I've often prayed, Lord, as a leader, um, I want to I want to keep that simplicity of a child. Don't ever let me get to the point that I think I can. My network, my relationships, my experience can sabotage that genuine, simple dependence on God.
We cannot coast, can we?
No we can't. And so this is a powerful message.
Yeah it is. The title is When God Stops. And if you miss any part of today's broadcast or want to listen again. All of Mark's teaching is available online at Bold Steps. Radio.com. Now from our series Fully Devoted, here's today's message based in Second Chronicles 16. Mark Jobe with today's bold steps.
I was at my son's high school graduation grant, I believe it was on a Sunday. And so we got there a little bit late, entered into the auditorium. It was packed out. We managed to get a seat, two seats together. My wife and I barely squeezed in, and then the first thing that my wife said is, where's Grant? So I looked over the sea of heads and they had all their graduation caps on, so they all looked the same and they had their graduation gowns on, so
they all looked the same. And so I was scanning row by row. Let me see. No, no. Does that look like him? I can't really tell. I thought I found him. I looked a little bit closer. No, it wasn't him. I was going row by row trying to find. Where is Grant? Like, where's Waldo? Row by row trying to find. Where is Grant? Then finally I saw, I think I found him and I looked over. Sure it's him. I pointed to my wife. It's him. Do you see him? Look right over there. Second or third row? Over. Do
you see him? And she said, aha, I see him now. Don't lose him, because we finally found him. There's a passage in Scripture that said, God does that. In fact, it says that the eyes of the Lord go to and fro throughout all the earth. He scans cities, neighborhoods, communities. His eyes go back and forth. It says in the Hebrew that literally it says, the eyes of the Lord go back and forth, scanning, looking. Can I find one? Can I find one? Lands on Chicago, 77 neighborhoods. Can
I find one? Goes up on the north side, Rogers Park, Evanston. Can I find one? Goes down to the loop. Can I find one? Goes to the southwest side of Chicago. Neighborhood by neighborhood. Garfield. Can I find one? Goes home by home, home by home. Can I find one? Can I find one address by address? Can I see one? Where is it? What is God looking for that's so unique,
that's so rare, that's so hard to find. And finally, when he sees one, his eyes stop and he says, aha, I got one, You say, what is so rare that God is searching for what is so unique that even God has to search for them? This verse of Scripture tells us that what God is searching for, that makes God stop at your address is one thing. When God finds, hear me. Hear me now. When God finds a heart that is fully devoted to him, it makes him stop. You know what that tells me? That hearts that are
fully devoted to God are rare. Second Chronicles chapter 16, verse nine says, for the eyes of the Lord range throughout all the earth. Another translation says, for the eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout all the earth, that he may strongly support those whose hearts are completely his. Or those whose hearts are fully committed to him. What this passage tells me is that if you position yourself with a heart that's fully devoted to God, that God
will strengthen you, pour out his power upon you. God will stop and say, I found one, and if I found one, I'm going to pour power upon this heart. Strengthen this heart, because I found a heart that's fully devoted to me. So I wonder today, if God were to scan these rows back and forth from front to back, from end to end, whether he would stop in your chair, whether the heart of God would stop and say, yeah, I found one that's fully devoted, not halfway devoted, not
partially devoted, not somewhat interested, not semi lightly committed. But if you would find a heart that says, aha, I found a heart that's fully devoted. Second Chronicles is really about a man by the name of Asa. King Asa. And I want to tell you a little bit of his story, because this passage is in the context of King Asa's story. And I'm going to begin reading in
verse two. It says, then Asa brought out the silver and gold from the treasures of the house of the Lord and the king's house, and sent them to the king of Aaron, who lived in Damascus, saying, let there be a treaty between you and me, and between my father and your father. If you're taking notes, I want you to write this down. Fully devoted heart refused to give what belongs to God to others. Let me give you the story of King Asa a little bit and
give you the context. King Asa was a king that started when he was young and when he started being king of Judah, of the Israelites. He was devoted. He was zealous. He started out wanting to follow God with all of his heart. He was a righteous king in Israel. Sometimes you had a good king, a bad king, a good king, a bad king. No, Asa was one of the good kings. He had a zeal for God. He wanted to follow God. He wanted to turn the nation
back to God. He prayed. He called unto God. He had this fire and zeal about him that was compelling. People saw it and knew it. He was a man that was trying to seek after God. But as he grew, as he changed, as he went forward, something in his heart started to shift. Something in his heart started to change. Oh, he still believed in God. He still followed God. But something. The zeal, the fire, the drive, the The passion seemed to grow less and less the older he got. In
the beginning, he was naively zealous about God. In fact, an entire army came against him and was about to threaten and wipe them out. They could have wiped them out. And instead of organizing his armies and instead of going to battle, what he did is he prayed. He got on his knees before God. He called a fast. He prayed before God. He called up unto God, God, spare us, deliver us, help us. Because I can't do this on
my own. And God miraculously turned the whole situation around and King Asa came out winning simply because he called upon the name of the Lord. You know, there's something about. Young faith that's endearing. How about it? Something about first believing. You just start believing in God. And you're young and your faith is zealous and you're new to it, and suddenly you've been awakened from your spiritual deadness and you're excited about God and you do crazy things. Your car
stops and can't get it started. So you lay your hands on the hood and you say, in the name of Jesus, I pray. Father, start this up and you go in and try it again. And if it doesn't work, you go out again. Lord, in the name of Jesus, I pray, come. Power the Holy Spirit, revive this car and you see your car start. You see things, crazy things that people are saying. You're nuts. Why are you doing that? Why? Because God has awakened you. You're excited
about God. You pray like a little kid would pray. You pray with faith, with zeal, with excitement. You can't wait to get to the house of God and worship God. I've had some of you tell me that when you first came to God and God started working in your life, you couldn't come to a worship service without crying. You'd come in as soon as the song would start playing. You didn't know why you felt awkward. Some of you have told me you had to leave the auditorium because
you just start weeping and crying. Why? Because the presence of God was so sweet and powerful. You just felt moved in your heart by the presence of God. You find yourself reading the Bible, getting up and saying God spoke to me, being excited, calling up a friend and saying, hey, I may sound crazy to you, but guess what? I read my Bible. I feel like God spoke to me. You see signs and there's zeal in your heart and you want to talk to people. You come early to worship.
You raise your hands and something inside is moving you. Why? It's young faith, zealous faith. Faith that simply says, I trust God. But with time something happens. Sometimes, if we're not careful with time, with time we become more seasoned. With time we become more well, we know it. We become more self-reliant. We become more educated about religious things. We become more knowledgeable. And sometimes as our knowledge grows, our fire goes down. And sometimes as our familiarity with
God grows, our passion goes down. And sometimes what we find ourselves with greater knowledge, but with less passion, we exchange one for the other. You know, the Bible says that in order to enter the Kingdom of God, you must be like a child. And you wonder why, like a child, I think it's not about not knowing. It's not about naivety. It's about the simplicity of faith that a child has when the father walks in and they say, daddy,
when a little kid walks in. When, when my kids were small, I'd come to the door and when they were old enough, they were 3 or 4. They would run to the door. They wanted me to hold daddy, daddy and I'd pick him up and throw him daddy, daddy. And I'd try to hold them all at the same time. Why? Just the simplicity of a little kid excited that their dad is home. And if you hear them talk to
their friends. My daddy is stronger than your daddy. I mean, they believe that their daddy could lift up cars and and their daddy could almost do anything. There's this. My daddy can do it. Wait till I call my daddy. My daddy is here. The simplicity of. Yeah, I know my daddy. If he's here, everything's okay. The simplicity of a child. And Jesus said, if you want to enter the kingdom of God, the kingdom of God belongs to
those whose faith is like that of a child. Asa started that way, but something changed inside of his heart. In fact, now it tells us in Second Chronicles that early on in his career. He trusted God and prayed and God answered. But this time around, the same thing happened. The armies came against him, and this time around he was less passionate about his faith. He was less naive, less sincere, less zealous. This time he decided to make
a treaty. And so he actually went into the house of God, into the temple, and he took all the gold and silver appliances and cups out of the house of God. And he took them all, and he got some from his own house. And he went and he brought the treasure before the king of Aram and said, hey, I'll give you this treasure, and let's make a treaty this time instead of going to God. He took that which belonged to God and gave it to someone else.
You're listening to the Bible teaching of Mark Jobe here on Bold steps. We will continue in a moment. Let me remind you that all of these daily lessons can be found on our website, bold steps org. You can also hear us on most of the major podcast apps by searching for bold steps with doctor Mark Jobe. Just remember, click that subscribe button while you're there and leave us a message. Also in a five star review to help
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And I was thinking about that. The natural tendency for us as we grow older to become more self-reliant. The natural tendency to become more self dependent instead of God dependent. The natural tendency to lose our zeal to become a little bit more cynical. To become a little bit less passionate. I'm not impressed by a new believer that's zealous about God. I'm impressed by someone that's walking a long time in
a zealous about God. You know, I'm not really impressed by a young dating couple that's only started to date three months, and they're all over each other and just looking at each other's eyes. Can't sit in church without rubbing each other's hair and get as close as they can. Like, are you 1 or 2? They can't tell. Because, yeah, they've only been dating a short amount of time. What I'm impressed with is someone that's been married for 20 years and they still have a zeal and desire for
one another. What I'm impressed is long term zeal. What I'm impressed is a zeal and a fervor that goes beyond the infatuation stage. But that goes for a long time. Let me tell you what I'm impressed with is not a new believer that zealous about God. What I'm impressed with is someone that's walked with God for 25 years and has a passion and zeal for the things of God.
That's what impresses me. Something about Asa had changed. Instead of the simple, sincere faith of going to God, now he's making deals, now he's actually taking things from God and buying off his enemy. Now I want to tell you that it worked. But how many? How many of you know? Just because it works temporarily doesn't mean that it's good in the long run. You may do something right now that fixes something temporarily, Rarely, but that long
term has a devastating effect upon your life. King Asa went into the temple, gathered the stuff and gave it away. I thought to myself, how do we do that today? Oh, we don't go into the temple, get things and and sell it. But we do it with our life. When we came to Christ, when we came to God. I was 15. When I gave my life to Christ, knelt in the basement of my grandmother's apartment, and I said, Lord, I know I could go in a lot of different directions.
I was a sophomore in high school. My friends were partying. Everybody was going in their direction. I was being pulled one way or another. I kneeled beside my bed and I said, I know that I know about faith and I know about God because I was raised in it, but I have to. I have to choose. Will that be my God? Will that be my faith? Will that be my journey? Or is that the faith of my parents. At 15 years old, I knelt beside and I said, Lord, I'm going to follow you. I'm going to give my
life to you. You will be my Lord, whatever the cost. And when I got up, I felt it like I have just given my life to Jesus. When you come to Christ, you say, you're Lord of all. My heart belongs to you, God. But you know, it's interesting that we can take well our time that really belongs to God. And you look over your week and you say, really? How much of your time have you actually given to God? I mean, really, if your life belongs to God, how much of your time have you actually spent on the
things that belong to God? You say, hey Lord, my energy belongs to you. Lord, how much of your energy has actually gone into something that is God centered? Your praise? Oh, you give credit to people. You thank people at your job. You thank family members. You think other people. But really, how much of the credit have you given to God? And are we? Are we taking it from the house of God, from the things of God, and giving it away, and have very little that we can offer to God?
How much of your talents? Some of you here are extremely gifted, extremely talented. God has enabled you to do things. Some of you are mechanical, some of you are artistic. Some of you are creative. Some of you have verbal skills, relational skills you have. You are uniquely qualified and uniquely empowered by God for certain things. But you're taking really all of that God is giving you and using it on things that have almost nothing to do with anything
remotely related to God. Maybe good things, maybe nice things, but really, how much of it really belongs to God? Asa, as he grew compromised in his life. Asa as he grew his priorities, his resources. Instead of going to God, he started taking what God had given him, what belonged to God, and started giving it away in his own compromise.
I'm talking about hearts that are fully devoted. Number two, not only does a heart fully devoted refuse to give what belongs to God to others, but also secondly, a heart that is fully devoted puts their reliance on God above all else. Notice what it says in verse seven.
At that time, Hanani the seer or the prophet came to Asa, the king of Judah, and said to him, because you have relied on the king of Aaron, and have not relied on the Lord your God, Because you've relied on others and haven't relied on the Lord your God, you will not have a full victory. You see, what had happened is that Asa had stopped trusting God and he started trusting himself.
You're listening to the Bible teaching of Mark Jobe on bold steps, and be sure to join us Tuesday when we continue with part two of this message titled When God Stops. Mark, let's take a moment to talk about our bold step gift, the six conversations. Now you are a college president. I think it's appropriate that we have a guest who know something about that.
Absolutely. I take my hat off to all college professors, and our guest today is actually a professor at Penn State. You know, as a college professor, she has a unique perspective on how younger generations engage in conversations. And so, doctor Heather Holloman is our guest. And welcome, Heather.
Thank you.
Heather. Speaking generationally, you see that young people, college students maybe interact a little bit different than previous generations. And so let me ask you, what changes have you noticed and how does your book, the Six Conversations address those challenges?
Well, because there's such a reliance on their phone for texting and just the communication through social media, my students have really lost the ability to engage in meaningful conversation face to face. Most, most what I'm seeing is they're not really good at asking those first questions and then
follow up questions. They've sort of lost that art of interpersonal curiosity, and I tell them it's their number one professional development skill to thrive in the workplace, to become a curious person about other people.
You know. That's so true. Yeah. When when people are looking down at their smartphones and just engaging via social media. I've noticed a lot more awkwardness in just having natural conversations.
So, Heather, can this book help us as parents relate to our young people?
Yes, immediately. In fact, I give readers six ways to be naturally curious about people in their life and not be, and learn how to ask really good questions of especially young people. And so once you ask that first question in any of the categories of what it means to be human, parents will know how to ask a really good follow up question. And with young people, they love the social category. They love to talk about their friends. They also love to talk in the physical category. New things.
They're listening to new foods. They're trying new things they've done with their rooms, things like that.
Hey, I love that. So if you are a parent or a grandparent and you're saying, I really want to connect with my teenager or my college student and get involved in some spiritually more deep conversations, but they seem to shut down very quickly, this book may be a great resource for you.
And we'd be happy to send you a copy of the six conversations. When you make a donation of any amount to support bold steps. Call us at 800 Moody. That's (800) 356-6639 or give online at Bold Steps. You can also send your gift through the mail by writing to us at bold steps. 820 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois 606 ten. Remember to request the six conversations when you write.
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at Bold Steps. I'm Wayne Shephard. We'll see you again next time when Mark continues this message titled When God Stops. That's coming up Tuesday here on Bold Steps with Mark Jobe. Bold steps is a production of Moody Radio, a ministry of Moody Bible Institute.