Use Your Best
Judgment and Discernment
We'll praise Jesus
today everyone, I just wanted to make a short message here on having good
discernment and having good judgment when it comes to being a child of Jesus
Christ. Because I think a lot of us imagine that if we're Christians, we will
just automatically have good judgment, or that God's just got our back. You know,
a lot of people do dangerous things, or they have poor judgment, and God has
not had their back. Now I have a few pretty light-hearted examples of this that
didn't lead to my death or anything like that obviously, but it did show me in
my past as I was developing as a Christian that God does not have my back in
poor judgment. And I’ve given these examples before, but they're just two
examples that I can think of off the top of my head. I probably have more if I
were to think about it. But one example was when I was working in the hotel
industry as a maintenance person, and the hotels would often have bedbugs, and
we would do bedbug treatment in the hotel rooms. And there's multiple ways that
you can do that, guys. You can tent a building and basically you put pesticide and
with a tent over the building you basically fumigate, and it kills off all the
bugs. You can do what's also called heat treatment. And you bring up the
temperature of individual rooms up to about you know 140 to 160 degrees. This is
very dangerous. It takes professionals to be able to do that, and if it's done
wrong, there are serious consequences. Well, anyways, that's what I was doing
as part of my job at the time. I was heat treating rooms, and these particular
rooms had they had fire suppression in the rooms, so they're fire sprinklers
that you have to have by code by the fire marshal and these had to be dealt
with. Well I either cut them off at corners at the time or I didn't think to
double check and so these were not all covered. And I remember specifically
during that time I prayed, I just prayed to God for success, but I didn't do my
part, I didn't follow through with the best judgment of double checking
everything to make sure that I had all my bases covered. And one of those
things that I didn't was this fire suppression system. So the fire sprinklers
were still on, they were not covered and when we went to go do the heat
treatment of this room pop the sprinklers went off and the sprinklers ruined
this room. It was a big problem. And I remember thinking to myself at the time,
man I just prayed, and I asked God to have my back, and my prayer was obviously
not answered. That let me know at that time that God wasn’t there for me. God
does not have my back if I don't have good judgment and if I'm not doing my
part. Now someone could just say well God doesn't exist, or it just happened
because, but in reality a lot of things happen because of our poor choices or
our poor judgment, call it our poor discretion and not always does God have our
back even to the point where people die because of bad discretion they get
themselves killed because they make a poor judgment. And these things are very
real. There have been times in my life and I'm sure in yours as well. Where you
made some kind of poor choice, and maybe you got close to death, but God you
know protected you and you saw the hand of God at work. I'm not saying that God
doesn't protect us, when we make poor choices, because obviously I’ve seen the
hand of God at work and so have you in many cases. For example when I was a
teenager I was a reckless driver. I would pass people on double yellows around
corners. I would drive on icy roads that were totally iced over. I remember one
time as a teenager passing a gas truck or a propane truck around a blind corner
on an icy road, and almost slipping off the road in my car into a ravine that
was like hundreds of feet down. And thanking the Lord when I got through that I
didn't die. But it was basically like suicide. God doesn't always have our back
on things like this. People have died for doing things less than I have. And it
was just the protection of God. But not everyone is able to come out without
being hurt, injured or killed.
Recently on the news I think within the last
couple days there was a case of a police shooting a black woman I believe. And guys
I don't know too much about this. I haven't researched very much about it. But someone
who watches my videos brought this to my attention and apparently this lady in these
police involved shooting, she said to the police officer before she got shot, in
the name of Jesus I rebuke you or something like that. I'm paraphrasing but basically,
she brought up the name of Jesus and I believe saying I rebuke you in the name
of Jesus. Now I don't know exactly in what tone she said that, you know, what
tone in her heart, was she mocking? Was she saying that just in a spiteful way?
Was she serious? Obviously, she didn't deserve to be shot. I'm not saying that
is just. But I'm looking at perspectives like this from a spiritual side, so
the question would be, if she was in the protection of God, if she was asking
for the Lord's protection, and if she truly was saying in the name of Jesus, I
rebuke you, why didn't God protect her from being shot in the head? So these
are things that we really need to consider as Christians. Because even though
people have prayed for protection, occasionally they still die. And so what we
need to realize about life is God doesn't always protect us from a flippant
word. You know he doesn't protect us from getting beat up, if we make somebody
mad. He doesn't always protect us from a flippant poor choice.
And obviously you and I, I'm sure have made
much worse mistakes than this lady did, she didn't deserve to get shot for what
she said it doesn't appear that she was particularly rebellious against police
officers, it appears that this particular guy was just extremely violent and
had hate in his heart. But spiritually we need to think through if we ourselves
are being responsible. Because we could think we're in the right all day long but
it doesn't matter if you're in the right all day long you're dead. You know there's
been cases where someone has a gun pointed at their face, and they're going to
hijack their car, and it would be better for you to just let that person take
your car and for you to still be alive, than to think that you're in your right
because it's your car after all and to try to drive off and have a bullet
through the side of your head. At the end of the day we want to be alive and
well and of course right with Jesus and right with our fellow earthlings, we
don't want to bullet through our head. We don't want to be dead.
I remember some
time ago, there was a biker in my town. And this guy was always for his rights
on the road. And this guy occasionally would get belligerent, and he would in
the bike lane come out to try to prove that bikes have rights too and they do. There
are bike lanes in my area. I'm sure there are bike lanes in your area. But one
day when this guy was riding, he was riding a bike lane near Yosemite National
Park, to prove a point he pulled out in front of, I believe it was an 18-wheeler,
one of those big rigs, to prove that he has rights too. And he was completely
in his rights to ride his bicycle the way he did, but that trucker was not able
to stop in time or was mad himself and just mauled over that bicycle with his
18-wheeler and killed him. That was the end of his life. So this guy was in his
rights, but he was also completely dead. So we have to use good judgment, good
discernment, and we need to make sure that we really have Jesus in our hearts.
We can't just say things flippantly. We can't take God's name in vain. You
know, if someone has a gun pointed at your head, it may not be the right thing
for you just to look at them and in one way or another say just anything. You
might want to just totally be quiet. And if you're going to rebuke the devil,
most of that all happens in your heart, in your mind. You don't even have to
say anything to rebuke the devil.
I can rebuke the
devil even in my sleep, and in my sleep, with my mouth closed, I can be
rebuking the devil. Sometimes I will have those dreams where I can't open my
mouth, and I learned that even in those dreams that you can't open your mouth
because the devil's trying to suppress you and he's trying to hold your mouth
shut, even in those dreams, in your spirit, in the core of your soul, you can
rebuke Satan, and he will flee from you. So you have to use discretion, and you
have to ask yourself, am I saying these things out of aggression, or am I being
cocky? And ask yourself these things, because even if you're in the right, you
may still be beat up, you may still be dead on the side of the road. So, as
Christians, let us learn to use our best discretion, our best judgment, and
realize that this fight we're fighting is spiritual, and if we want to
overcome, it has to happen by the Holy Spirit working through us.
So I want this to
be an encouragement to you and to others. Don't think that prayer doesn't work.
Don't think that rebuking the devil doesn't work, because we do have the power
to rebuke Satan in Jesus' name, but we also have to use discretion when not to
be antagonizing people. And I'm not saying in this particular case that's what
that lady thought she was doing. I'm just saying for you and for me, who are
still alive, let us use our best discretion, and let us fight the spiritual fight
against evil, and make sure we do it with 100% wisdom. One other example that I
have that I’ve given before, just about using wisdom, and not thinking that God
always has our back, was this story of when I was also first in my faith and
growing with Jesus. I had this bicycle. I believe it was one of those track
bikes, so not extremely expensive, but not cheap either. And my car was broken
down at the time, so I decided to ride my bicycle to Pep Boys to pick up a part
for my car. And so, I rode my bicycle over to the hardware store, and I didn't
have a bike lock, so I parked the bike right outside the Pep Boys, and I just
prayed, and I said, “Jesus, please don't let anyone steal my bike. Please let
it be here when I get back”. And I was serious about my prayer, and at that
time, I thought, we'll all have faith that it won't be stolen. Five minutes
later, after I'm done checking out in line, I come back outside, and poof, my
bike is gone. It was stolen. And I was asking myself, man, I thought you had my
back. You know, I thought, I asked Jesus to watch my bike. Jesus did not watch
my bicycle. He did not have my back, and that was a foolish decision that
lacked judgment and discernment on my part. Now, obviously, these are little mistakes
that I’ve made. I'm not trying to equate these with more serious mistakes that
others have made, or the evil that people do in the world. But what I'm saying
here, guys, is, we need to be responsible in everything in life, and we can't
just bring Jesus into it and claim that Jesus is the one who let us get hurt. I
can't say that Jesus is the one who stole my bike. We can't bring God into it
and act like we don't need to be responsible, and that Jesus just got our back
all the time. Make sure you have discernment. Make sure that you're saying what
is upright and pure. And ask the Lord to give you even discernment and judgment
beyond your years. That way, you don't fall into some kind of trap, and then go
down this rabbit hole of starting to lose your faith because you think Jesus
isn't with you, or won't protect you, or doesn't answer your prayers. I think a
lot of people could lose faith over something like that, because they think,
how could someone rebuke the devil, and then God not come to their aid? Well,
we don't know the full story, guys. But I do know that if we are truly praying,
if our heart is right before Jesus, we will see supernatural things take place.
We will see the work of God.
But we need to
make sure that we're keeping ourselves in the protection of the Holy Spirit,
and never being flippant, not just letting our tongue get the best of us, not
trying to antagonize people, not acting like the devil is not a true foe. We
need to stay very sober, very vigilant, and diligent on this straight and
narrow path with Jesus. Otherwise, Jesus might just come as a thief in the
night. And then what will we be able to say? We may not have an opportunity to
even know we're going to be shot in the head. We may not even have an
opportunity to know that we're going to die in a car accident. It may happen so
quickly that you die in your sleep or a brain aneurysm. You won't even have a
chance to repent of some sin you did yesterday. So Jesus said, he said that we
need to always be watching, be watchful and pray, So that we will not fall into
temptation, that we will not be taken. Otherwise, Jesus comes like a thief in
the night, and the thief will come to destroy your life. We want to make sure
that we're not destroyed, that the day when Jesus comes, that we were watchful
and that we don't lose our souls into hell. Make sure you cut off anything that
is hindering you. Jesus was serious about sin. He told us that if our arm
causes us to sin or our eyes cause us to sin, we should pluck it out or cut it
off, get it out of our life. So be serious to get things out of your life that
are causing you to lose discernment, causing you to fall into temptation. Get
those things out of your life so that you can walk sober and upright and be a
real watchman, a watchman over your own life, but also a watchman for other
people to warning people to get right with God, because you don't know when
you're going to die and meet Jesus. And your neighbor doesn't know when they're
going to die and meet Jesus. So let's warn people out of a sincere and loving
heart and call people to repent. That's all I have for today, guys.
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