https://vimeo.com/80968243

I'm Wayne Jacobson, and this is Engage. Ah, there you go. Remember the old days of trying to find the radio station you want to listen to? Sometimes it's hard because other stations are crowding it. Sometimes it's just so much noise and static, particularly at night. As more stations come in from further away, it's harder to find the one you want. I want to talk to you as we get to the end of these videos. I want to talk to you about the kind of things you want to learn to listen to. I think religion taught us to listen to the wrong things. We got focused on whether we had the right doctrine, and though that's not unimportant, you can have the right doctrine and not know how to live this life, not know how to listen to God. We learned about getting other people's approval and attending the right church or going to the right meetings or being under the right leadership or having the right look or pretending to be someone we weren't, acting better than we were, and somehow all those things were going to be helpful to this journey. I found over the long haul that they really aren't. Let me talk to you about eight things that I think are very helpful for people to kind of tune out the signals that are the noise and the static and the distraction and tune in more of that signal, which is having more God's heart in the way we live. Number one, be focused less on appearances. That's both material appearances, whether I've got the right clothes and the right look. It's also the pretending to be better than I'm not. More on what's real in my life. I hear people all the time say, well, if I do that, what are other people going to think? And if we're worried about what other people are going to think, you're not going to do well on this journey because you're going to try to meet everybody else's expectation around you. Learn to focus on what's real. What does God want me to be part of here? What might be on his heart? And follow that even if other people, maybe people close to you and people you love, don't understand. Secondly, the signal of guilt and fear. Religion teaches that those are valuable tools to get you to act right. What we learn about through the life of Jesus is that his love is what changes us. So leaning away from fear and guilt, just let it die. You're going to feel guilty if you don't do something. Don't do it. Let that guilt die. Then you can learn to live in the security of his love and affection that you really are a love child. And out of that love, you can do whatever he asks and whatever he wants to be part of your life. You don't have to rush around out of fear and guilt to try and make something happen. Move away from busyness and complication. Life of Jesus is pretty simple. It's simple and that we just need to follow him and do what's best on our heart each day. And if it's, they don't know what to do, then we don't have to do anything. It's not always about doing something. It's about living true to who you are in the light of who he is. So move away from busyness and complication. Have more margin in your life for yourself, for him, and for others that he might want you to engage. Fourth, lose confidence in your own ability. I think religion is notorious here. You can do this. Here's the five principles. You've got to work this discipline. You can make this happen. Paul said he lost all confidence in his flesh on this journey. It wasn't human effort that could ever accomplish the work of God. So you want to lean away from that which puts pressure on you to perform and lead into that reflection of God. What are you doing in me today and how do I cooperate with that instead of trying to make it happen on our own? In your relationships with others, I'd encourage less arrogance and confrontiveness and more graciousness in your life. Graciousness, patience to people around you. Not trying to force your opinion on others. Don't demand other people see it the way you see it. Learn to live inside the freedom of you having your journey, letting them have theirs. And there may be that honest moment you need that's difficult with somebody, but it's not going to come when you want it. It's going to come when it's in their best interest, not yours. Six, don't avoid the chaos. So much of our journey has been, well, if we just get things right, God will bless us. So I try to do whatever's easiest, most convenient, whatever's going to be most comfortable for me. We try to avoid the chaos of the world we live in. This is a broken world. There's plenty of chaos to go around. Don't live trying to avoid it. Embrace him in the chaos. Let life be what it is. Let it unfold. God has things to show you. There are ways you want you to pray about. He'll make that clear to you and you can go with that as well. Seven, move away from the conformity that other people want. It may even be people who are like spiritual leaders who want you to act and live and do certain things for them. Move away from the conformity of other people's expectations and learn to live in the fruits of the Spirit that love, joy, peace, kindness, tenderness. Learn to live in that space, not performance, not conformity to externals, but letting something real come from inside you. Your love for God leads you to love others in a way that will make you more gentle, more settled over time. And number eight, finally, less frustration and futility. Always evidence of the old creation working in us. We work hard, we do things. It just doesn't seem to be as fruitful as we thought it would. Or just we end up frustrated because it didn't turn out the way we hoped. Living on this journey with Christ leads to more buoyancy. I love that word. Heard it this summer from someone that said, their life in Jesus made them feel more buoyant, lighter, not so exhausted, not so trying to figure out everything and make it happen. But live in the freedom and buoyancy of the Holy Spirit that draws us into the life that God gives us. I hope those help you a little bit. When you're trying to find that signal, that way that God wants you to live, and I think our life is a constant adjustment. How do we find that today? Maybe different than where we find it tomorrow. But where we do, where we find that signal that finally comes in strong and clear, and we know how to live and how to follow Him.