Discipline Five - Simplicity - Reordering to God's Priorities

Let's analyze the world each of us live in.

o It is busy, right? More to do than time permits each day.

o It is also distracting. Many things draw and tug at our minds trying to get our attention.

o It is also evil. There is darkness pressing in around our hearts and souls each moment as the last days breathe down upon is.

Now, if I could offer you a secret that could make you powerfully godly in a busy, distracting, and evil world – would you be interested? How about if I offered to show you a proven technique that has always worked – in any time, in any place, and under any pressure? Sounds too good to be true? No it is even worse than that. It is too simple to be actually considered. So here goes. Please turn with me to Hebrews 11.

What do Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Job, David, Ezra, and Daniel all have in common with Jesus? Listen as we stand and read Hebrews 11.1-10.

All of them held on to God's Word and turned it over and over in their mind until they digested it into their life. In Hebrews 11 we can start, there we find a roster of those who heard God's Word and held on to it.

o In Abel's life it is called OFFERING TO GOD (11.4). Think of Abel living with his flocks, seeking the Creator of the Universe, and dying for his testimony in Genesis 3-4.

o Enoch's life it is called WALKING WITH GOD (11.5-6), Enoch lived in one of the worst times in history. In fact his description of the time just before the Flood is the ungodliest verse in the whole Bible. Turn there if you'd like, it is Jude 14-15.

o In Noah's life it is called OBEYING GOD, (11.7) the world was ending, and Noah had to work for 100 years building a boat. And all the way his mind was on the Lord.