Welcome to 721 Live. I'm Sam Hunter, and I am glad that you're with us today. We are going to continue our conversation about bumping your trajectory. How do we get closer to Jesus? And specifically, how do we bring him into the details of our lives? How do we bring the Holy Spirit into the details of our lives? And we'll talk more about that in just a moment. Let me first remind you that 721 Live is the radio arm of 721 Ministries. If you go to our website 721ministries.org, you'll see a lot of different tools, past radio shows. You'll find a lot of things about us and the things we have to offer at 721ministries.org. and we have our book site puttinggreenblog.com puttinggreenblog.com where we have our two devotional books and we have a new book out called The Missing Link and next week we're going to actually talk more and more about this book The Missing Link and how we learn to live with the power of the Holy Spirit. Now, we have been talking about how to bump the trajectory of your spiritual walk, how to go to a deeper level. And the real challenge for most of us, and I'm sure you listening to me right now, would be, OK, I can do a quiet time in the morning and feel very close to my heavenly father, to Jesus. I can feel warm and fuzzy. And about 8.15, that's all gone, because the world comes crashing in, the phone starts ringing, things start going wrong, or my to-do list takes over. How, Sam, do I bring this in throughout the day so that I don't have this binary life of spiritual and secular? Well, I want to offer a tool today, and we call it outset and reset. And we mentioned this last week, but I want to tease it out a little bit more. Outset and reset. At the outset of the morning we invite Jesus in, and then during the day we reset. our perspective, our focus, to involve him in the details. Or I might say we start off the morning in conversations with Jesus and our Heavenly Father. We invite the Holy Spirit into the details of our day. And then we have to pause because we've, during the course of the day, if you're like me, you've gotten distracted and we have to involve the Holy Spirit back in. So I love this quotation that someone told me once, if you want things to be different, you have to do things differently. That's very plain, obvious, honest truth. If you want things to be different, you have to do things differently. And certainly, what we're going to talk about involves doing things differently, but it also talks about being different, the posture of your heart. I remember a story about a management consultant who was brought into a business and they wanted him to help them. They weren't achieving the goals that they had or they weren't realizing the profits that they thought they should be able to realize. So they brought him in, they paid him a lot of money. He spent several weeks interviewing key employees as well as production employees. He went through their management systems. He looked at their books and then he produced his report. And his report said, your current system is perfectly designed to render the results you are now getting. Your current system in your life, my friend, is perfectly designed to render the results you are now getting, that you're now experiencing. So I ask you, do you want things to be different? Do you want to keep growing in all areas of your life, Or are you satisfied just coasting? You see, I hope to be, and I am frequently looking for ways to bump my trajectory, to go to a higher level, a deeper plane, especially in my walk with Jesus. And I use the word walk intentionally because walking is so often a measure of our life of faith. And Isaiah puts it this way. The Holy Spirit prompted him to write it this way from Isaiah 40 verse 30 and 31. Even youth grow tired and weary and young men stumble and fall. but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not be faint." They will walk and not be faint. See, that whole thing about soaring like eagles with wings, when I'm soaring with emotion on a spiritual high, my focus and my devotion to my Heavenly Father, to Jesus, that's so much easier. And I gotta tell you, I like running, too, as Isaiah mentions. I like running because that feeds my inner achievement drive. But to walk, to walk calmly, calmly, quietly, and constantly throughout the day with Jesus in a conversational walk, talking with him about what we're doing together, as Dallas Willard would say, that's not so easy, is it? See, I like movement. I like motion. I like measurable mountains. But that is not the way of a disciple of Jesus. And that was not Jesus's way. Bob Munford, in his book, Take Another Look at Guidance, says, when Christ's abiding presence becomes our guide, then guidance becomes an almost unconscious response to the gentle moving of His Holy Spirit within us. Isn't that beautiful? Isn't that the A plus life to the full? When Christ's abiding presence becomes our guide, then guidance becomes an almost unconscious response to the gentle moving of His Holy Spirit within us. How am I going to live that out? And let me suggest this practice of outset and reset. Outset and reset. At the outset of each day, I invite Jesus and the Holy Spirit into my day. I invite Him into the details of my day. I actually carry a day timer. I know that's old timey, but I carry a day timer and I have my list of things to do. And I try each morning to pause and invite Jesus into each of those meetings, into each of those errands, into each of those tasks, into this radio show, to ask the Holy Spirit to be a part of it. At the outset, I invite Jesus. I invite the Holy Spirit to come into the details of my day. And you know, Jesus makes a remarkable promise about this in Revelation 3.20. He says, Here I am. I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and it will eat with that person and they with me. See, eating with someone in Jesus's culture is not a grab and go. It is a long process. It is a process of fellowship. And Jesus is saying, I will be with you. I will be with you throughout the day. All you have to do is open the door. Are we to take Jesus literally? Is it really that simple? I just open the door of my heart and in he comes? Yes, it is that simple. We don't have to make it complicated. Now, we must mean it, and we must want it. We must want him to come in. And perhaps your prayer may at times be, Jesus, help me to want to invite you in. But he knows your heart, and he's not expecting you to be perfect, even in your wanting. You open the door of your heart, he'll take care of the coming in part. You see, that's a wonderful start to your day. If you start this practice, and it will take practice, it will change your day, and it will change, it'll transform you if you invite him in. But what about, as we say, the 10.30 on Tuesdays or the three o'clock on Wednesdays when you've gotten into the day? If you want to continue this relationship and for it to go deeper, you have to find a way to involve him into the details. I have a friend who, when she went off to college, and her boyfriend went to another college, she missed him so much, she told me this recently, that she would write him a note every day. And she would just write down her thoughts on and off about what was going on, and then she would put them together and mail them once a week. And I remember vividly her thoughts on this practice. And I use that word practice specifically. She said, it just makes me feel closer to him. I felt like he was with me throughout the day when I was doing this. Isn't that what we want? Jesus, the Holy Spirit with us throughout the day. So see, I try to make a practice of resetting and involving because I've gotten off, I'm spinning off, I'm doing my thing during the day. This can happen to me. It happened earlier this week. I had a lot of things I wanted to prepare for and I was really starting to grind. It was all Jesus stuff, but I was starting to grind. I could feel my neck tightening up. You know what I'm talking about, don't you? That shoulder tightening, and I could sense my focus becoming more myopic, you know, more tunnel vision, and Sam taking over, even with the best of intentions. So I pause. I reset. And I really do this. And I step back and I say, Holy Spirit, I'm getting ahead of myself and I'm getting ahead of you. I'm going to slow down and ask you to come in and help. I want you to be ahead of me. I want you to help me with this. I don't want to do this on my own. And he does. It's like putting into practice what Jesus says in Matthew 7, 24. Therefore, anyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on rock. I'm just trying to put into practice, throughout the day, following Jesus, allowing the Holy Spirit to move, to guide me, to give me that energy, that clarity, that creativity, so I follow his teachings. And so when he says, come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and humble in heart and you will find rest for your souls. I try to put that into practice. I slow down and I talk to Jesus and say, I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm starting to white knuckle. I'm starting to get myopic. I'm starting to tunnel vision. Let me slow down. Let me reset. So we have the outset in the morning, I invite Jesus, I invite the Holy Spirit in, and then during the day, I pause, I reset, and I involve him back in the details. And that will change your day, and it will change you, and it will transform you. So let's keep going with that. I was reading Psalm 34, eight and the Holy Spirit says through David, taste and see that the Lord is good. Taste and see that the Lord is good. And imagine I went to a coffee event not too long ago and I walked in and they had all these various coffees and it just smelled wonderful. And at each table, they had a different kind of coffee from a different kind of country and a different kind of brewing. And they had all this written material, and so they would give you the written material and they'd talk to you about it, but they wouldn't let you taste the coffee. You couldn't taste it and see that it was good. So in turn, nobody bought any coffee. Now, I'm making that up, because of course they would let you taste it, because you're not going to buy it unless you taste it. And when you taste that the Lord is good, you are going to pursue Him. Jesus said in Matthew 5, 6 in the Beatitudes, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Are you hungry? Are you hungry? Do you thirst for more, for a deeper relationship? Are you really pursuing this? Or, Have you drifted into being lukewarm? We know what Jesus had to say about lukewarm. He didn't like it. He wanted to spit us out of his mouth if we become lukewarm. And we have to be careful as followers of Jesus. I was reading an article about a film that was talking about the Christian church in Iran. And if you're a Christian in Iran, you are subject to persecution every day of your life. You may be killed at any point. The persecution and the potential for persecution is unbelievable. And so the film cites one Iranian couple who had the opportunity to come to America, move to America to escape this persecution. And after living in America for a matter of months, the wife decided, don't miss this, she wanted to move back to Iran, telling her shocked husband, there is a satanic lullaby here. All the Christians are sleepy and I'm feeling sleepy. See, we cannot be lukewarm. We want to keep pursuing this relationship. We want to keep going deeper. So I'm going to give you another opportunity, another set of tools. And I call it the armor of the four P's. The armor of the four P's. Your perspective, your purpose, your priority, and your power. your perspective, your purpose, your priority, and your power. And I actually worked up these business cards that had these four Ps on them, and I gave them out to all the men, and I keep one by my Bible because I want to start each day reminding myself who is my perspective, who is my purpose, who is my priority, and who is my power. See, my perspective each day, I want to remind myself that I am surrounded by Jesus, that I live in a God-saturated world. And when Jesus starts his famous prayer, our Father who is in heaven, he actually said, our Father who is in the heavens. And he meant by that, our Father who is all around us, the air around us, not just somewhere way off in heaven, But here with us, we live, you live in a God-saturated world. Now in a moment, I'm gonna have our producer play a song, very familiar song, a beautiful song, a beautiful song by Mercy Me, If I Can Only Imagine, I Can Only Imagine. But I want you to listen to the words as beautiful as they are. And then afterwards, I'm gonna point something out to you. So Mr. Producer, can you play that for us? I can only imagine what it will be like when I walk by your side. I can only imagine what my eyes will see when your face is before me. I can only imagine. Yeah... Surrounded by your glory, what will my heart feel? Will I dance for you, Jesus, or in awe of you be still? Will I stand in your presence, or to my knees will I fall? Will I sing hallelujah? Will I be able to speak it all I can only imagine? Isn't that beautiful? It is beautiful, and I love that song. But if we're not careful, the message is, when? One day. what it will be like, what my eyes will see when that day comes. Now it is a beautiful song and I'm in no way throwing off on it. I love that song. But what I want you to do with that song is realize it doesn't have to be one day when you have died and you're standing in Jesus's presence. Bring that forward to your life right now. Realize that you are standing with him as we speak that the Holy Spirit if you're born again is indwelling you you're surrounded by a Sea of God you are swimming through a sea of God you live in a God-saturated world He is all around you and see if I can start my mornings with that perspective imagine what that will be like. Imagine how having that perspective of his constant presence would change your day. You would, as one friend said, you would take the high road, not the low road. You would not power up, you would power down. You would not try to control things because you would see how silly that would be to try to control things. You'd act better, of course, but that really wouldn't be the issue. You would sense such peace and joy and confidence and comfort because you have him with you, if you had that perspective. You're walking into a business meeting. You're walking into a difficult situation. You're in a difficult situation. Imagine your perspective being changed by his ever, always presence. So with my index card that I gave out to the men that has perspective, purpose, priority, and power, I want to start each day with a perspective that I'm getting ready to walk through the day with Him by my side, with the Holy Spirit indwelling me, surrounded. surrounded by God's kingdom. I live in God's kingdom. Can you please take this and put it into practice? Start with, what is my perspective today? And then you will have to reset that throughout the day and involve him back in. And remember, I live in a God-saturated world. I live in the kingdom of God. He is all around me. There was never any sense that you had to call out to get angels to come from somewhere far away, that the kingdom that God on his throne was somewhere far away, Jesus wanted you to know when he said, our father in the heavens, that he's right around us. That he started in the air around us, and then all the way out to the third heavens. That he saturated our entire universe. If I could get you to set your perspective, then your purpose. I wrestle with one of three purposes each day. My purpose, That'd be number one, solely my purpose. Number two, inviting and involving the Holy Spirit into my purpose. And then number three, wanting to be invited and involved in the Holy Spirit's purpose for me. Now the first is all about Sam, self, my purpose. I don't like that. The second is an improvement. I want to invite and involve the Holy Spirit in, but it's still about my purpose. The third wanting to be invited and involved in the Holy Spirit's purpose for me, that's where I want to live. I want my purpose to be His purpose. Now, I have a day timer, as I said, and I keep a list of things to do. I'm a little obsessive compulsive about my day timer, as a matter of fact, and I have my list of things that I want to do, that I need to do, that I'm going to accomplish. I'm in no way saying that you would sit in a closet and pray and think, Jesus, the Holy Spirit's going to take care of your day. No, I'm out moving, but I want to reset my perspective that I'm moving in His kingdom, and therefore I really want His purpose. So if I get interrupted in my purpose, I see immediately, okay, maybe He's moving in. Maybe He has a different purpose for today. Because see, I want to be in His purpose, not mine. I want Him involved in everything I'm doing. And I want to be willing to be interrupted by his purpose. And the one thing I certainly don't want is to be off of his purpose and into Sam's purpose completely. Because I heed the words that Jesus said in Luke 16, 15. You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of others, but God knows your hearts. What people value highly is detestable in God's sight. So I want my perspective each morning to be I live in his presence. Then I want my purpose to be his purpose. And then I want my priority to be his priority. I want to seek first His priorities, His kingdom in everything I do. And truly, seeking first is a matter of the heart, isn't it? If I start each day with my outset, inviting Him in, and during the day I practice my reset involving Him in the details, I will more and more seek first the kingdom of God. and not the kingdom of Sam. Now, can I just pause? I want you to think about this. His presence, his purpose, his priority. Make yourself an index card. Put it by your Bible. Put one by your Bible, put one in your day timer, or whatever it is you put it in your car, so that you can, because this is going to take practice. This will not happen quickly, because the world is out there to distract you. Satan certainly seeks to distract you. So if I outset invite him in and then during the day I reset and involve him and look for his priority, then I will more and more live in the kingdom of God. And then the last one is power. Because each day I have a choice and each day you have a choice as to which power source I will choose. I can rely on Sam's power. or I can ask for and lean into the power of the Holy Spirit. Now, my friend, I truly believe it is really that black and white. It's my power or it's His power. I mean, Jesus promises us this incredible Holy Spirit power in Acts 1.8. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you. His last night with the disciples, John 14 and John 16, he says, you'll be better off with the Holy Spirit than you'll be with me. You'll do greater things than I'm doing with the Holy Spirit. Power. And that's why next week we'll talk about this new book, The Missing Link, because it's all about learning to live with the power of the Holy Spirit. Presence, purpose, priority, power. Each day, I want to take the time to reset myself and understand where it is I'm living and in which power source I'm living. Because my friend, if you want things to be different, you have to do things differently. And I hope you want things to be different. I hope that you will start putting into practice the things that Jesus has taught us, that he has promised us. Make yourself an index card. On that index card, start with presence. Excuse me, start with perspective. And then next to that, put presence. And then purpose. And then priority. And then power. And each morning, look at that index card. And remind yourself, I live in a God-saturated world. I am surrounded. It's why Jesus kept saying, why do you worry so much? I live in a God-saturated world. I live in the presence of the kingdom, of the king. So why would I worry? Why would I control? Why would I stress? Let me set my perspective each day that he is always present. And then my purpose. I've got my day timer. I've got my list of things to do. but I want it to be your purpose, Father. I do not want it to be Sam's purpose. I'll do what I have in front of me, but you redirect. You move me in the direction you want because we are promised that he has a purpose for each one of us. He has a purpose for you. We read it in Ephesians 2.8, for you are God's workmanship created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which he prepared in advance for you to do. Don't you want that? You remember Paul in Philippians says, I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. He wants to take hold of that, those good works which God prepared in advance for you to do, the A plus life to the full. I want to stay in his purpose. I want him to be my priority. So I will seek first His kingdom and His righteousness. And then I will continue to pull myself back and reset during the day and say, Holy Spirit, I want to live in Your power, not my power. I want to live in your power and therefore I will wait on you. The key to living in the power of the Holy Spirit is to be willing to wait for Him to guide and for Him to give you that power source, that energy, that clarity, and that creativity. May you choose to bump your trajectory each day as you go deeper in your interactive relationship with Jesus. I'm Sam Hunter and this is 721 Live. So long. God's peace to you. I hope to see you next Friday.