(229) “What Is It Like to Walk with God?” - podcast episode cover

(229) “What Is It Like to Walk with God?”

Sep 10, 202445 minSeason 5Ep. 21
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Episode description

What does it mean for you to walk with God? The Busses take a dive into the Scriptures to help you have a better understanding. They look at how the heroes of the Bible lived in relationship with Him, and engage in a word study to show the many facets of the concept of “walking with God.” You will be encouraged to press in for a deeper relationship with God, to live in communion with Him so that your good works flow, not from a place of anxiously earning His approval, but from a place of loving obedience knowing that He is pleased with you!

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Podcast Episode 225: “If Nobody’s Perfect, Why Does God Command It?”

Keith Green Song: “To Obey Is Better than Sacrifice” (YouTube)

Podcast Episode 228: “Unconditional Surrender to God”

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Transcript

When we agree with God and habitually walk with Him, living life with Him His way, it makes us well pleasing to Him. It's that love and faith that produces the want to to line up with His Word and His ways. But the works that He's looking for are works of obedience, overcoming the works of the flesh by the Spirit and loving joyful obedience to His commands.

God promises in Joel 2 28 to pour out His Spirit on all humanity. Welcome to global outpouring, where we contend for that promise outpouring, we equip for that outpouring, so that we may engage in that very outpouring. I'm Philip Bus. And I'm Sharon Bus. Welcome to the podcast today. We are so glad that you're with us. We are pretty excited about this episode. I'm sure if you have read your Bible very much,

you know about Enoch. Enoch walked with God and was not because God took him. He didn't go by the way of the grave. So we're going to talk about what is it like to walk with God. Thank you so much for joining us today. We are so looking forward to sharing this information with you that the Lord has dropped into our hearts and we trust that it's going to be life changing for you and that you're going to get something deeper in revelation than you've ever had before. We

certainly have as we've been studying this. So before we get started, we want to encourage you, if you haven't already done so, to go to our website and make sure that you are on our mailing lists, our email lists, because this is how we can stay in touch with you. We want to develop a relationship with you and we hope that you want to develop a relationship with us. So if you give us feedback, that just means so much to us. You might not think, oh my little thing won't make any

difference. Yes, it will. It really helps us to know what direction to go if you give us some kind of idea of a podcast subject so that we can take it to the Holy Spirit. And if you just encourage us with how this is making a difference in your life, we'd love to hear from you. So there's a form there on our website, globaloutpouring.net. And also you can write to us on email at feedback at globaloutpouring.org. Those are two great ways to contact us and we will respond. Sometimes it

takes a little bit to get back to you if we're traveling or something. And by the way, if you would like for us to travel to your area, let us know. We'd love to pray into that and see what the Lord has for us. And by the way, don't let me forget, this is an important announcement. If you haven't already heard about this or if you haven't made plans yet, we want to encourage you to make plans to be with us for Convention 2025, Global Outpouring Convention 2025. We're going to be

holding it at the St. Louis Airport Marriott Hotel in St. Louis, Missouri. It's right across from the airport so it's really easy to get there. If you fly in, it's easy to drive from anywhere in the Midwest or even a little further east. Maybe you make it a two-day trip. It's not difficult to get there. It's really easy to get there and it's going to be over Memorial Day weekend, May 21st through 24th, Wednesday night through Saturday night. We just really want you to be there with

us. Get to know us better. Let us get to know you and get with people that are of like precious faith. It's just wonderful to see the relationships that get built when we get together. So today we're going to talk about what is it like to walk with God. Genesis 524, Enoch walked with God and he was not for God took him. The Amplified Classic says Enoch walked in habitual fellowship with God and he was not for God took him home with him. I like that. Yeah, I do too. What does the passion say?

Enoch and God walked together as intimate friends. Then God took him to himself and he was seen no more. Beautiful, beautiful. This is something that is on my heart for this podcast is that we understand about the works that go along with the walk. There's nothing mentioned here about Enoch's works. The only work that it mentions is his walk. His walk. Yeah. Yeah. So we're going to dig deeper

into what this walk really means. What does it look like? What does it sound like? So in the Hebrew, the word if you're interested in studying from Strong's, Strong's Concordance, the number is H1980 and the word in Hebrew is halakh. And the outline of biblical usage that we find in the Blue Letter Bible app, it means to go, walk or come. And I'll just give some of these because some of them are repetitive. It could also mean to proceed, to move, to go away, to live and this is interesting,

manner of life. But the word form, there's a verb form called hithpale. And in that form, it means to traverse or to walk about. And when you have a hithpale form, it expresses a reflexive action of one of the others that I read above, the call or the peel. It expresses a reciprocal action. Okay. Now think in terms of, well, what does reflexive mean? So I looked it up to help you out on the website called EnglishSentences.com where it talks about reflexive verbs. It means something that

someone or something performs an action on himself, herself or itself. For instance, I am teaching myself to speak Spanish. So teaching myself, it's I'm doing this to myself. I'm teaching it to myself. Right. Or be careful with those sitters. Don't cut yourself. I mean, the person who's doing the cutting could do this damage to themselves. Okay. So that's what reflexive means. It means that whatever you're doing, you're doing to yourself. So this word to walk,

walking with God is reflexive. So he's doing something to himself. I'm picturing it as the idea of walking with God in this intimate relationship. Is that how in the passion Enoch and God walk together as intimate friends? Yes. So there's something of the choice that you make that Enoch made. There's a choice that you make that you do to yourself. Like when you're trying to overcome your flesh and you're doing it by the spirit, right? You're Galatians 5. Go back to

Galatians 5. Over and over again, I always say that. Go back to Galatians 5. Because you see the works of the flesh and you see the overcoming of the spirit. The spirit builds the character of God in you. So when you're in the process of doing this walking with God and he's working by his spirit in you, you are working this thing by your choices, which is something you do to yourself.

Yeah. If I can add to in Ephesians chapter 2 and verse 8, you know, it's the scripture, for by grace are you saved through faith and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. I think that's a good place to mention that. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. That's a good point. It's not works.

It's not works in terms of like, you know, there are folks that are churchgoers that aren't necessarily walking in relationship with God, but they think that the thing that you're supposed to do as a Christian is do good works, like drilling a well for somebody who doesn't have water. Yeah. Or giving to the poor. These are good works and there's nothing wrong with the works themselves.

But if those works are not coming out of a relationship with God, those works aren't going to do anything for you. With hand stubble. Yes. You know, it's like in first Corinthians chapter 3, it talks about the works, your works and, and they would be tried by fire. Yes. Every man's works shall be made manifest for the day shall declare it because it shall be revealed by fire. That's in verse 13. And I remember June Lewis, one of our Bible teachers had this amazing, cause she would

write on a board. She was an artist and was writing illustrations. And she had a picture of this. It was an angel standing there with a bowl with his works in it. And they were all burning up. It's just like he had nothing. Yep. That's right. You're saved by grace, you know, but you have, you have no works. Right. So what kind of reward will you get if you don't have any works? Right. Well, the works.

At least you'll be in heaven. It might take you a few 10,000 years to earth years to, to catch up, you know, from things we've heard from people that have been to heaven. Yeah. You know, it's a, you know, this is bootcamp. You walk here on, on this planet, it's nothing but a bootcamp for all eternity. It's true. That reminds me of a story that sister Gwen told us, our founder of a lady

in Germany that became filled with the Holy spirit. She was a good Lutheran. Her daddy was a good Lutheran and she got spirit filled and started hanging out with these Pentecostals. Well, her dad was incensed. He thought this is a cult. This is something that, you know, we shouldn't be involved with. And he kind of persecuted her for the rest of his life. And then he died. And I don't know if she had a dream or if she had a vision. I presume it was a

dream. And he came to her and he said, daughter, you were right. And I was wrong. It's going to take me thousands of years to catch up to where you are. Wow. Because you've given yourself to the Holy spirit. Isn't that nice how God will just reveal that? Yeah. To you. Yeah. A dream or a vision. Yeah. So it comforted her that he got the message. Now there's lots of things that we'll understand when we get there. So maybe she'll have some stars in her crown for doing all that too.

Absolutely. I'm certain that she will. So I want to talk a little bit about this word to walk that's being used here and some scriptures so that we get some ideas of how else you might interpret it because the word appears a number of times, but it isn't always translated walk. Okay. So it also means like in Exodus 2, 5, and the daughter of Pharaoh came to her and said, the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river and her maidens walked along

the river. So that's the same word, halakh, walked along by the riverside. So you kind of get maybe a picture of Enoch walking along with God. And then in Exodus 9, 23, Moses stretched forth his rod toward heaven and the Lord sent thunder and hail and the fire ran along upon the ground. Interesting. So walking along, running along, going along, it has this idea of togetherness or along a certain path. You might say it that way. And then in Genesis 2, 14, where it talks about the third river

is Hittikel, that is which goes toward the east of Assyria. Same root. Same word, same word goes toward. Okay. So Enoch was going toward God. You could maybe say it that way. Genesis 3, 8, and they heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. Same word, walking. So he's going into the garden. And then you have in Genesis 6, 9, these are the generations

of Noah. Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations and Noah walked with God. And then Genesis 17, 1, when Abram was 90 years old and nine and the Lord appeared to Abram and said unto him, I'm the almighty God walk before me and be thou perfect. Now we had a podcast about what it means to be perfect. If you didn't hear that, you might want to go back and listen to it. Yeah, it's really good. I think it was a good one. Genesis 24, 40. And he said to me, this is Abraham also asking his

servant Eliezer to go and find a bride for his son. And he said to me, the Lord before whom I walk will send his angel with you and prosper your way. And you shall take away from my son of my kindred of my father's house. In Genesis 39, 4, and Joseph found grace in his sight and he served him. So that's the same word that served. Now that's interesting that walking with God is also serving him. So how did Joseph serve? He served very well. He was intent. He was wise. He thought ahead.

He served humbly. These are things that encompass this word. As we study it helps us to understand what this walk with God really looks like. Then Genesis 48, 15 is Jacob. And Jacob by this time has come with all the family. Joseph made himself known to his brothers and they all came down to Egypt. And Joseph has taken good care of them. And he learns that Jacob is kind of getting tired now.

So he's going to bring his two sons for him to bless. And he blessed Joseph and said, God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, same word, the God which fed me all my life long unto this day. And then he goes on and he blesses the sons Ephraim and Manasseh. And I just think it's beautiful how he says that his forefathers Abraham and Isaac walked before God. Now here's some places where the word is translated differently to give us some further understanding. So Genesis 8,

3 says the waters returned off the earth continually. So that's the word continually. This is talking about the floodwaters. They went off the earth continually and after the end of 150 days, the waters were abated. So it was just like this continuous motion. Maybe you could imagine it that kind of God pulled the plug and it all went back down into the earth. But the idea is that the motion was started and it kept going. So that's what this walk with God is about is that we walk

habitually with him, that we walk continually with him, that we just keep going along with him. And you know, if you stumble, you just keep getting back up and go again. It reminds me that song Twyla Paris, you know, sung some years back called the warrior is a child. One of the lines was they don't know I fall down. I go home and I fall down. I run home. Yeah, I run home and I fall down. And it's this continual running towards God. Yeah. And then in Genesis 12, 9, Abram journeyed going

on, same word, going on still toward the south. So he's going on. You just keep going on, keep on going. Don't quit, don't quit, don't quit. Then Genesis 13, 5 lot also which went, there's the word again. He went with Abram had flocks and herds and tents. So you get the idea that there's motion involved. We think of ourselves as walking toward God a lot of times, at least I do. I don't always think about walking with him. Now, here's what's really interesting. And this was a revelation to

me in the Septuagint. First of all, what is the Septuagint? The Septuagint was the first translation of the Hebrew Bible into another language. And at the time, a few hundred years before Jesus was born, the Greeks took over the whole area where Israel was. And a lot of bad stuff happened. But one of the things that was happening was that the Greeks were real into colonizing and bringing people into

their culture and bringing people into their laws and their ways. And of course, that didn't go well with a lot of Jews. And that's why the Maccabees rebelled and so on. But the point is that this cultural change was taking place. And as the children were being educated, then people wanting to do business with the Greeks were having to learn the Greek language. And it got to the point where not everybody was speaking Hebrew anymore or Aramaic, whatever they were speaking at that time.

And so they decided we had better translate this into Greek so that our Jewish people will still know what the book says. 70 scholars got together and they translated it. So 70 in Greek is septa. So they call it septuagint. So that's what the septuagint means. So there is a translation from the septuagint into English and it's the Brenton Septuagint translation. So here's what Genesis 524 says in this Brenton Septuagint translation. Enoch was well pleasing to God and was not found

because God translated him. It doesn't say that he walked with him. It says he was well pleasing. Now that is a very interesting translation. So that gives us another look into what's it like to walk with God. It's well pleasing to him when you walk with him. And what do you do when you want like if a guy going out with a girl, if you want to be well pleasing, you give chocolates, roses, or other flowers. Flowers, roses. And you treat her kindly. And open the car door for her. Oh yes,

I like that. So this word in the septuagint, now I'd studied this and kept digging deeper. So I'm going to give it to you. Don't let me lose you. You'll like this I think. In the septuagint, this word that in Hebrew means to walk or to go is translated with the Greek word Eurasteo. Now I am not a Greek scholar. You said it very well I think. Well I hope so. I mean I'm a Hebrew scholar wannabe, but I haven't even gotten that far with Greek.

I have a couple of Greek friends and that helps. So in the outline of biblical usage again in the Blue Letter Bible, it means to be well pleasing or to be well pleased with the thing. And the Strong's definitions are to gratify entirely or to please well. So Enoch gratified God. And that gives it a whole nother flavor. Doesn't it though? Yeah. Doesn't it though? And he pleased

him well. It's not just a little bit of pleasing, but he pleased him well. So this helps us to understand why the book of Hebrews, the writer of Hebrews says in 11.5, by faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death and was not found because God had translated him. For before his translation, he had this testimony that he pleased God. See it doesn't say in Hebrews that he walked with God because the writers of the New Testament were often referring to the septuagint for their

translation. And again, then it was translated into English. So that's why you see often where there's a quote from the Old Testament in the New Testament that the wording is a little different. It's because it's being translated from the septuagint rather than from the Hebrew. Interesting. So that's why we have the wording here. And then it goes on in verse six to say, but without faith,

it is impossible to please him. And there's the word again, Euristeo, to please him. Okay. For he that comes to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. So first you got to believe that he is. I mean, you can do good works without believing that there's a real God. I mean, the Buddhists do good works and other like in Islam, there are things that you're supposed to do. You give alms and things like that. You do good works and people

think that their good works will get them into heaven, but they won't. The only way to please him is to believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. So you better diligently seek him. And then in Hebrews 13, 16, it says, but to do good, here's some good works to do good and to communicate, forget not for with such sacrifices, God is well pleased. So our good deeds must come out of our faith in order for them to produce something that's lasting.

Because in first Corinthians three that you referred to earlier, that every man's works are going to be tried and there's wood, hay and stubble if they're burnt by fire, but there's gold and silver and precious stones that we're building with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble. Those are the things that people build on God's foundation with. And if you're building with wood, hay and stubble, it's going to be burnt up. But guess what? Gold and silver and precious

stones will endure fire and get purified and get purified even more. So it's that walk with him that's pleasing to him that is about relationship. That's what produces gold and silver. That's what produces gold and silver and precious stones. Like when Abraham was willing to sacrifice his son. I think we see that in James 2, it talks about Abraham and his works, but let's just go on and talk a little bit more about this word, Eurysteo. It comes from the Greek word Eurystos.

Eurystos. And that means well pleasing or acceptable. So however our walk is, when we're walking with him, it makes us acceptable. It reminds me of what happened with Dean Brexton when he got to heaven. Jesus looked at him and saw himself and he was in. He was acceptable because Jesus was inside of him. He had asked Jesus to come and be his Lord and savior. So it makes us acceptable when we begin that walk. And whatever walk we're willing to do, you know, you start

there. But you walk with him continually. That's what just makes him so happy. He's so pleased with us when we'll just walk with him. Yeah, it reminds me of that line from the song of Keith Green, to obey is better than sacrifice. I want more than Sundays and Wednesday nights. Yeah, and I want more than money. I want your life. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, it's about our life. It's about our walk with him. One of the words that it meant was

your manner of life. When you let God by his spirit, through his word, teach you the manner of life, his ways, doing life his way. Okay. So this word, Euristos from the Strongs means fully agreeable, acceptable or accepted, well pleasing. In other words, if we become fully agreeable with God's ways and walk with him, that makes us accepted and well pleasing. Hallelujah. So this word, Euristos comes from two more words. We're just breaking it down, breaking it down.

So it comes from you, which means to farewell, to prosper. It also means acting well. So your behavior. Behavior. Okay. And then Euristos means pleasing agreeable. So it's agreeable by implication fit. And that reminds me of Dean's expression when he got to heaven. He said, I fit, I fit. Yeah. Isn't that wonderful? Yeah. To know that we're going to fit in heaven. I love that. It means agreeable by implication to fit things that please or are pleasing. It also means reason.

So in John 8 29, here's that word, Euristos. And he that sent me is with me. The father has not left me alone for I do always those things that please him. Yeah. Jesus walked with our father. He's the example. He's the number one example. Enoch is good, but Jesus is the number one example of how to do it. Yeah. It's like we're on a fast this week. Yeah. And one of the things fast and two is like most of the internet. I mean, there's a few things that have ministry wise to look at,

but all the other, all the other things. And it's okay. Let's spend that time instead of doing that spending and get your Bible out up, you know, just turn on on Ephesians, Philippians, Corinthians, and, and just read the word instead of looking at because, because when you're sanctifying yourself to God in a fast, see a fast, if you're fasting for something, but it's not, if you're not spending with time with God, when you fast, exactly. I mean, so you're paying a price, but that's where it

turns into works. Yeah. Cause if you fast and you're not really committing yourself to the Lord, even if you're busy anyway, you try, you know, you can't, you change your mindset, spend more time in the word, whatever you can do. Otherwise, if you're just fasting for God's anointing in your life, but you're not doing, paying a price to get closer to him. Do you think he's really going to fulfill everything you want in that fast? Or you just turning it into a work because,

God do this for me, but I just don't have time to spend with you. It doesn't work. Yeah. It's like what Cameron said. He's our Iranian friend that, you know, he had a personal visitation of Jesus Christ when the Lord spoke says, Cameron, I'm Alpha Omega. I'm the first and the last. If you don't put me first, it won't last because it's contrary to my nature. Yeah. Ooh. I mean, you have to have a walk with God to hear that, right? You know, which he does. I thought, wow, it's contrary

to his nature to not put him first. Yeah. Ooh. Exactly. Exactly. It's about being pleasing in his sight. 1 John 3 22 says, and whatsoever we ask, we receive of him because we keep his commandments and do those things that are pleasing in his sight. Those doings, those are the works that please him. Those are the works that come out of our faith. They come out of our faith walk, our love walk with God. So if we go drill down a little deeper, this arestos comes from aresco, which means to

please or to strive to please, to accommodate oneself. I love this. Listen to this. To accommodate oneself to the opinions, desires, and interests of others. Oh. So if we're having that love walk with God, I'm going to change the way I think in my opinion. I want to get his opinion. I want to live by his opinion. I want to live by his desire. I want to live by his interests. That's that life of unconditional surrender that we talked about in our last episode. When you completely,

unconditionally surrender yourself to him, you're striving to please him. But I don't think the real thing is a striving that is works oriented. In other words, I'm going to do these works so that I will please him. It has to do with walking with him and listening to him, listening for what he says. And when he says something, go do it. Go do it. So the Strong's definition for aresco is through the idea of exciting emotion to be agreeable or by implication to seek to be so or to please.

So it just makes God happy. It excites emotion in him. Yes. When we choose him because we love him. And then Hebrews 11 6, remember we read this earlier. Without faith, it is impossible to please him for he that comes to God must believe that he is and that he's a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. Diligently. That's the key. So I was meditating on these things and I was reminded of the story of the Philippian jailer in Acts 16. Remember at the beginning,

I don't know if it was beginning of Acts 16 or the end of Acts 15, Paul has a vision. They're getting ready to go someplace else. And he has a vision of a man of Macedonia that says, come over and help us. And the first person that they meet is a woman. Well, she's not a man of Macedonia, but she's the first one that they connect with. And she accepts the message that they're bringing because she's probably Jewish and they didn't probably have a synagogue. So they went down by

the river to pray and that's where they met. So she was the contact person. She was the first contact person. Well, the next person that they run into is also a woman and it's the damsel that's following them and she's got a spirit in her and she's saying, oh, these men are the servants of the most high God and you need to listen to them. But it wasn't the right spirit saying that. And so Paul rebuked after a few days of putting up with it, he rebuked the spirit. Then they got in

trouble because the owner of the girl lost all of his money because the spirits cast out. So now she can't do any divination anymore. So they arrest Paul and Silas and they're in the prison, in the stocks and they've been beaten, beaten mercilessly. And they didn't have to be beaten because he was Roman. They were both Romans. Both Roman. They didn't say it until afterwards. Right. So they've been beaten and the jailer is charged with this, you make sure that nothing happens to these guys.

And then they begin to praise. They're praising God and praise breaks yokes. Praise will break chains. Praise will change the atmosphere and it changed the atmosphere in the jail and an earthquake shook the place and knocked all of their chains off and the doors were opened and the jailer thought, uh-oh, I'm dead. So he drew his sword to kill himself because he was sure that everybody had escaped. And just as he's about to do himself in, Paul says, no, no, no, we're all here. Don't do it.

Don't do it. Now I have a theory. Don't build a doctrine on it. This is just a theory. I think maybe the reason why Paul and Silas put up with this beating and being jailed without being accused properly in a court. Maybe do you think that it could be that the Philippian jailer was the man that Paul saw in the vision, the man of Macedonia saying, come over and help us.

I never saw it that way before. I just wonder. Maybe it was, might not have been. Yeah, because if they knew they were going to get beaten and go to jail, would they have gone to Macedonia? Well, yeah, that. And also my thought is that the jailer was there and Paul saw him and allowed this whole thing to play out because somehow he needed to get to this man. And he

didn't see the stocks in the background. Well, he probably, he probably had an idea that that was ahead, but maybe they were praising God because here they are with this man of Macedonia. And now the man of Macedonia is about to kill himself. Yeah. And Paul says, no, wait, wait, wait, we're all here. We're all here. And that amazing, the earthquake caused their chains to fall. I know that's just a remarkable thing about that. Yeah. I mean, the earth is shaken right.

So if you're in a jail, there might be rocks and plaster falling from the ceiling. Yeah. But your chains falling off. Yeah. That's crazy. That sounds angelic to me. Probably. Yeah. I would think so. So the jailer calls for a light and he comes in trembling and he falls down before Paul and Silas and he brought them out and said, sirs, what must I do to be saved? Wow. And that amazing. It took an earthquake. Yeah. And Paul and Silas said, believe, believe,

there's your key word. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you should be saved and your house. And they spoke unto him the word of the Lord and to all that were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night. That was midnight. It was midnight when this happened and washed their stripes and was baptized. He and all his straightway. That means right away. That means right away. Immediately. Before the sun came up. Yeah. This is all, this is all a night thing going on here.

And when he had brought them into his house, he set food before them and rejoiced believing in God with all his house. Now, do you see that his believing produced these good works? His believing in that moment, he starts serving them. Yeah. And that's what walking with God, being filled with faith, it causes you to begin to do things that are the right things to do. I remember hearing Jesse Duplantis talk about his experience going to heaven and he's talking with

David, the King David, you know, King David is doing stuff for him, serving him. And he says, King David, I should be serving you. You're the King. He says, Jesse, we're all servants here. Boy, that just went into me like an arrow because Jesus taught his disciples to pray this little phrase in the middle of the Lord's prayer, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So if in heaven, everyone is a servant, what should we be doing here?

Serve. Exactly. And Jesus told his disciples, if you want to be great in the kingdom of God, you got to be a servant of all. So serving is a part of walking with God. Serving others comes out of your God walk, out of your love walk with God, because once you have this love walk where you're receiving the love of God into your heart and pouring it back on him, guess what? You've got what it takes inside of you to love others and to love your neighbor as yourself and

to begin to serve your neighbor and take care of your neighbor and love people. So the scripture in James 2, I just want to go through that from the Passion Translation. Philip, would you read it? It's kind of here and there, verses 8, 14 to 23 and verse 26. Your calling is to fulfill the royal law of love as given to us in this scripture. You must love and value your neighbor as you love

and value yourself. For keeping this law is the noble way to live. My dear brothers and sisters, what good is it if someone claims to have faith but demonstrates no good works to prove it? How could this kind of faith save anyone? For example, if a brother or sister in the faith is poorly clothed and hungry and you leave them saying, goodbye, I hope you stay warm and have plenty to eat, but you don't provide them with a coat or even a cup of soup, what good is your faith?

Yeah. So then faith that doesn't involve action is phony. Yeah. But someone might object and say, one person has faith and another person has works. Go ahead and prove to me that you have faith without works and I will show you faith by my works as proof that I believe. That's good. You can believe all you want that there is one true God. That's wonderful. But even the demons know this and tremble with fear before him, yet they're unchanged. They remain demons. Yep. O feeble sons of Adam,

do you need further evidence that faith divorced from good works is phony? Wasn't our ancestor Abraham found righteous before God because of his works when he offered his son Isaac on the altar? Can't you see how his action cooperated with his faith and by his action, faith found its full expression. So in this way, the scripture was fulfilled because Abraham believed God,

his faith was exchanged for God's righteousness. So he became known as the lover of God, for just as a human body without the spirit is a dead corpse, so faith without the expression of good works is dead. Amen. Wow. It's strong. Yeah, that's strong. It's very, very strong. But this idea of not all of the works that I'm talking about are works like taking care of other

people. Some of the works that God is looking for in us while we are walking with him has to do with letting his spirit work in us and work out the works of the flesh and give us that overcoming that gives us that character of Christ that's described in the end of Galatians five where the fruit of the spirit is this love and this joy and this peace and this patience and gentleness and meekness and faith and kindness. These are the things that he's working in us and those are also

works that come out of faith, that come out of our love walk with him. So, you know, the first commandment is all about loving God. When you love him with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength, you will walk with him and please him. It's pleasing to him. When we walk with him in love and he'll give us orders and when we obey him out of our love for him and our faith and trust in him, it's pleasing to him. Abraham pleased God when he was willing

to offer his son and Abraham believed that God would raise him from the dead. And according to the book of Hebrews, so he was absolutely trusting. Okay, you gave me the son. You promised that through the son, I'm going to have all kinds of offspring like the sands of the sea and the

stars of the sky. You told me to kill him. Okay, you must have a plan. You know, things don't make sense to us, but what God was trying to do in that moment was get him to act out on Mount Moriah, like we've talked about before, to get him to act out on Mount Moriah, what God was then able to do in sacrificing his son in that same place. Amazing, absolutely amazing. But even though he didn't follow through with it, he didn't actually plunge the knife in, God counted it as though he had done

it. And that's a work of faith. That is a work of faith. So sometimes God will tell us to do things that don't make any sense to us, but we trust him anyway. Now I'll say this though, make sure that you're hearing the spirit of God. Make sure that you test the spirits because other spirits will talk to you and try to imitate the voice of God to you. And don't listen to them. You test them. And Mary-Louis taught me a wonderful prayer that she learned. I forget who taught her.

I bind the power of the enemy to imitate the ways of the Lord, seeking to copy his voice and manner of speaking to me. Oh, that's a great- Yeah. I bind the power of the enemy to deceive me or bring worry against me. Isn't that tremendous? Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's something we really need to practice. And it's part of our love walk with God because God wants us to test the spirits and he doesn't mind being tested. He doesn't mind you saying, did Jesus Christ come

in the flesh? That's how you test them according to 1 John. Did Jesus Christ come in the flesh? And if you don't get an answer, that's not God. Don't do what that thing said to do. And don't follow a prophecy that doesn't agree with the word of God or that doesn't agree with the spirit of God inside of you. There are folks out there profiting from the folks out there prophesying out of their flesh. So just walk with God, walk with our heavenly father,

walk with Jesus, walk with the Holy Spirit. Because when we agree with God and habitually walk with him, living life with him his way, it makes him agreeable with us. It makes us well pleasing to him. It's that love and faith that produces the want to, to line up with his word in his ways. You know, it takes a work of the spirit to make us want to do those things.

But the works that he's looking for are works of obedience, overcoming the works of the flesh by the spirit and loving joyful obedience to his commands. Beautiful. So Father, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we're asking you to help us and help all of our listeners to go deeper in their walk with you, to grow in their love walk, to grow with that desire to love you with all their heart, with all their soul, with all their

mind, with all their strength and be filled with your love. That there's a reciprocal action that takes place as we reach out, as we receive from you, as we receive your love, that will pour it back on you and then it'll spill out to those that are around us. Change us Lord by your spirit, in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. If you enjoyed today's podcast, please subscribe, rate and review this podcast on Apple Podcasts or

wherever you listen to podcasts. Your review helps the podcasting platform suggest this podcast to other listeners who are also looking for a great move of the Holy Spirit. Check out our website at globaloutpouring.org to find out more information, read our blogs, connect with us and donate. You can also browse our web store for life-changing anointed books. Until next time, this is Sharon Bus and I'm Philip Bus. God bless you with this overwhelming loving presence.

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