My Big, Dumb Mistake

0:00:00    Are you being the dumbest person you can possibly be? You might be. So check out this podcast, more faith, more life, and find out if it’s true. Hello, everyone, and welcome to another more faith, more life podcast. We’re going to talk about my big dumb mistake, which might be your big dumb mistake, too. And if it is, then it’s going to hinder you. It’s a big, dumb mistake that most Christians make, and I didn’t know about it. When I first became a Christian, I had to learn that I didn’t want to make that dumb mistake anymore. Well, what is that big dumb mistake?

0:00:29    Well, let me read it to you. I grabbed the book of James, chapter one, and this is verse 22. Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourself. Deceive yourself. That’s why that’s a big, dumb mistake. When I first became a Christian, I grew up before. It’s hard to explain. Going to church and being a Christian can be two different things. It shouldn’t be, but it was like, I’m not really serving the Lord, but I go to church as a kid, you know, up to the 8th grade or so and occasions, and I got older, college and stuff, Christmas and Easter type thing, you know, but I didn’t have a lifestyle, anything to do with Christianity. It’s not that I didn’t believe in God, I did believe in Jesus, but I didn’t believe in following him, not yet, at least.

0:01:15    And so growing up in that church, you heard sermons. They were short, but you would hear them on Sunday morning. It was an hour service, you know, and you’d hear a sermon. It’s funny, in our service and how long that twenty minute sermon really felt as a kid, like, oh, man, it went on and on. It was only about 20 minutes or so, but anyway, so I got around that atmosphere where every Sunday you would hear something a little bit from the Bible.

0:01:43    It wasn’t great preaching, but still they’d open the Bible and they’d read a scripture and they’d talk about it. And so every week, everybody there would hear from the word of God, the Bible, a sermon, etcetera. And it’s funny how you look at the people. I looked at the people and how attentive they were, because you weren’t supposed to talk. You could draw, but you couldn’t talk, couldn’t laugh, couldn’t do anything. You just had to sit there. And if you didn’t, you know, my dad would pop me on the ear or something, you know, and straighten up my brother and so that’s. That’s what it was.

0:02:17    And it gave you the idea that all these other people are listening so intent, because they plan on taking exactly what was said and going and doing it. But after I became a real Christian, then gave my life to the Lord and was filled with the Holy Spirit, began to experience spiritual things, I really dug into this, really. I mean, I threw myself into it because I wanted to head towards the ministry. Even though I was teaching high school at the time, I wanted to.

0:02:45    I wanted to go into the ministry, and so I threw myself into it. And then I realized what I was up against, because, number one, I had decided I don’t want to make that big, dumb mistake anymore. What was that? Well, I grew up around church and heard some things about church and some things about God, but I didn’t intend on doing anything different. I just was listening. And then that’s why I had to realize I had become that. So when I became the real thing and it really happened to me, and I really want to get ahold of God. I want to know the Lord.

0:03:15    I want to follow him, I want to serve him all the good things, then I realized how close I was to deceiving myself, because then I could listen to somebody, listen to somebody’s preaching, maybe, you know, today we would do it on the Internet or whatever, or tv or whatever, and you listen to some teacher, some preacher or whatever, and you listen real intent and you agree with everything they’re saying.

0:03:38    Like today, people can agree America’s not doing so well spiritually, or we need revival, or we need a fresh touch from God, or right now, there’s been a lot of discussion on the Internet with bad preachers and charlatans and people cheating people and preaching things that are not even in the Bible. And on and on and on it goes how bad the preaching is today. And I have to agree partly. So not everybody, but there’s some bad stuff out there not being preached that shouldn’t be taught anyway, but anyway, so I had to realize that that deception can be on you, that I could have spent all those years growing up as a kid soaking it in, but I didn’t have any plan at all, any decision at all that I was ever going to do anything different, even if I agreed with the sermon.

0:04:26    So when I became a real Christian, as I said, the real thing happened to me. I had to make sure I stopped doing that. I had to quit doing that big dumb thing, you know, that big dumb mistake. And what is that big dumb mistake? Listening to the word and not doing anything. It says, do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Do what it says. Now, same thing holds true today.

0:04:52    People start going to church, and they get used to these messages every week, and they start nodding their head and looking a tent. And, you know, if you look around the church, it looks like everybody’s getting it. Everybody understands it, and as soon as this service gets over, everybody’s   going to go do it. But after being in the ministry, then I go in the ministry, and I’m actually preaching this stuff. And I was traveling and preaching at the time at different churches, and, you know, and they look so intent, and then they nodding their head, and they’re like, yeah, I agree with every word, you know, so good. I agree with everything you’re saying.

0:05:28    And then the service would end, and nobody would do anything different. Nothing ever changed. So I’d come the next night to preach, and the service is exactly the same, exactly the same attitudes, people sitting exactly in the same seats. And there was no different that night than what I preached the night before. They should have applied that. But what happens is we deceive ourselves. And the Bible, this very verse says, this is what it is.

0:05:53    It’s like a person who goes and sees themselves in the mirror, okay? And they see what they look like, but as soon as they walk away from the mirror, they forget what they look like, okay? And so that example means you can look in the mirror and see who you are, but as soon as you walk away, you have no idea who you are. Got it? You know who you are cause you’re looking in the mirror. But it’s like a person who looks in the mirror, knows who they are, remembers what they look like, but as soon as they get away from the mirror, they forget, so they don’t make any change. They don’t even know what they look like. So you’re walking through life deceiving yourselves, thinking, thinking you know what’s going on, but actually, you don’t even know what you look like. You deceived yourself into thinking, this is how I look.

0:06:38    This is how I am. This is what I need to be. These are the decisions I need to make. But you’re not doing the word of God, and so you deceive yourself in thinking that you’re seeing when you’re not seeing. And so the reason I call it the big dumb thing, you know, that you could do is there’s nothing dumber than deceiving yourself. Aren’t there enough things out there trying to play tricks on you. First of all, we have a devil, right? The Satan himself, who’s a trickster. He’s a liar, and he wants to deceive you.

0:07:06    You have him, right? And then you’ve got, you know, other things in the world. Want to love to get your money, love to get your loyalty, you know, and all that stuff out there to deceive us. And so if we’ve got the world trying to deceive us. Cause they’d love to get some our money or our time or whatever from us, and then we’ve got the devil trying deceive us. I mean, we’re not going to be able to win this thing if we’re deceiving ourselves. In fact, if you’re deceiving yourself, why would the devil even spend any time with you?

0:07:34    People tell me, you know, like, the devil’s after me and the devil’s deceiving me. Or you got to be careful. You got to be careful. People say, you got to be careful listening to that guy. You got to be careful listening to that guy. Why? You don’t plan to do anything different. You don’t plan to. You’re going to listen to the bad guy, the good guy, whatever, you know, good preaching, bad. Preaching good ideas, bad ideas.

0:07:54    You’re not going to do anything different because we deceive ourselves. We nod and say, that’s good. Oh, yeah, that’s good. I like that. Or that’s bad. I don’t like that. But we don’t change anything because we just are the Christian culture that nods its head like we got it. And then we forget what we look like and we don’t know who we are anymore. And now we’re going out and we’ve deceived ourselves.

0:08:15    So if you deceived yourself, then you’re doing all the work for the devil, right? You’re doing it all for Satan. He doesn’t have to do a thing. So you may not think that you’re that person, though maybe you do, maybe you don’t. Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. All right, well, let me just jump up a couple of verses and see if you’re   going to do what it says, or you’re   going to look in the mirror and forget what you just heard and what you look like.

0:08:43    All right, my dear brothers, this is verse 19. Take note of this. Everyone. Raise your hand if you’re everyone. That’s right. Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry. All right, there you go. I just read you the word of God. So now are you deceiving yourself that says, well, I don’t need to do that. I don’t need to be quick to listen. I don’t need to be slow to speak, and I can get angry whenever I want to, even quickly if I want to. I can lose my temper if I want to. Well, there, you just deceived yourself.

0:09:17    You’re done. You’re done. You’re going to go about with some kind of deception on yourself, and you’re going to see yourself as not needing to do this. But when you hear the word of God, it looks in the mirror and you see who you really are. And then you’re supposed to take that word and apply it and start doing it because you want to change your appearance of who you are and you want to go back and look in the mirror and see again. Yeah, I did that. I’m different now. I’m not the same person that looked in the mirror before.

0:09:45    Cause now when I look in the mirror, I’m quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to anger. All right, but if you don’t do it, you’ve deceived yourself, thinking, I don’t need to do that. That doesn’t apply to me. It won’t make any difference if I do do that. But he’s listening and doing the word of God. So don’t merely just listen to it, but do what it says. How about this one? Now, this is just verse 20. Just a little bit down. I’m on one page. Just one page.

0:10:14    Okay. If anyone considers himself religious and does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. Oh, now we got two deceptions on the same page. One is you deceive yourself by hearing the word of God and not doing it and just nodding your head and everybody thinks you’re going to do it, but you never make any changes. And then down here, you deceive yourself because you don’t keep a tight rein on your tongue.

0:10:39    And you deceive yourself into thinking you’re religious and you’re okay and you’re a pretty good person. But you say whatever you want and things anti God things, anti-Word things, and you don’t mean to be anti-God. You don’t mean to be anti-Word of God, but it is. It’s contrary. You’re saying things that conflict with the word of God are contrary or with what the word of God says. And so you don’t realize you’re doing that. So you deceived yourself into thinking, I’m a believer, I’m a follower. Yeah, I believe in the Bible. But when we get right down to it, you’ve deceived yourself because you never do anything different.

0:11:13    You wake up every day the same person and you hear. You go to church on Sunday morning and you hear stuff and you sing stuff and you say stuff and pray stuff, but nothing ever changes. Cause you go right back to who you were right away. So you’ve deceived yourself into thinking you’re advancing to thinking you’re doing something with your life when actually you’ve deceived yourself. And if you don’t keep a tight rein on your tongue. So if you hear this, if anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless.

0:11:47    Oh, come on, you don’t believe that, do you? See, you listen to it and you say, oh, that’s the Bible. But are you going to go and live with worthless religion? Are you going to get shocked by that and go, worthless religion? I need to keep a tight rein on my tongue. Well, yeah, then it’s not worthless religion. And you’ll get rid of the self-deception that comes by saying whatever you want, whatever pops into your head. There’s no rules for your tongue, right? You just say whatever you want.

0:12:13    And so right there is learning. Are you going to do that or not? And if you say, well, I don’t intend to watch what I say, I don’t tend to be slow to speak or quick to listen. Slow to speak, slow to be. Oh, that’d be great. Wouldn’t it be great to meet a person that does that? Oh, you’d really like a. You like a person that quick to listen. Cause they listen to you. Cause you’re quick to speak and they’re slow to speak.

0:12:40    You like that person because they don’t do all the talking. They let you do all the talking. And then you’re. And then you can lose your timber. Cause the other person, maybe you’re married to somebody who’s slow to get angry, but that means you get to be fast. You’ve deceived yourself. You say whatever you want. You don’t do what the Bible says. So James Wright is here. He says, don’t deceive yourself. Don’t just merely listen to the word and so deceive yourself.

0:13:06    Do what it says. So you really need to get the intention as you open this book, I’m going to find something that it says to do and I’m going to do it. I’m going to start doing stuff. I’m going to read what it says. You just go down to the next chapter, chapter two. I’m still on the same page. I haven’t even turned the page yet. My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don’t show favoritism.

0:13:34    You know, don’t show favoritism to the rich or the, or the famous or the powerful or whatever. And then somebody else that is not rich, not famous, not powerful, okay, well, they’re just a low life, but somebody else comes in, really, oh, you’re going to give them all the royal treatment and say all the things they want to hear and goo goo and gaga over them and all that stuff he says, don’t play favorites.

0:13:56    Don’t play favorites. Okay, now that’s the word of God. It’s on the same page. If you plan, if you’re, if you play favorites, maybe you play favorites at work. You find the people who are the it in people and the power people and controlling people and all that, and you play to them. But if they don’t have any influence or any power, they’re just nobody, then you don’t, you don’t ever associate with them. You’re always trying to associate with the powerful and the popular and like that, you’re showing favoritism to those kind of people or the rich. All right, well, this says, don’t do it. Don’t show favoritism.

0:14:30    Well, then you, you need to hear that one time. So there you go. You hear it one time and then that’s it. You’re not going to show favoritism. You’re not going to be deceived. You learned right there. So without even turning the page, we realize, how deceived are we? How deceived are we? And that’s the dumbest thing you can do. My big dumb mistake, my big dumb thing was thinking that I could read this and not have to do it.

0:14:57    And I can still see clearly. I can still see myself clearly. No, you forgot what you looked like. This will reveal what you look like and say, this is what you need to do. Let’s look at it again without even turning the page. Quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to become angry. Do what the word says. Do it. Do it. Do it. Right. And if you’re religious, right, you keep a tight rein on your tongue. You know what a tight rein is?

0:15:22    When that horse rider pulls on that reins and pulls on it hard, right? Well, we know where kept a tight rein on it. That means the horse doesn’t get to go where it wants or whatever, and so keep tight rein so your tongue doesn’t get to go where it wants once. It just. It’s. It’s on fire. It just destroys and hurts. But you keep a tight rein on it. Right. So there’s some things right there. And then last, I haven’t even turned the page, and here it is. Favoritism. Don’t show favoritism.

0:15:51    Hey, you got a big assignment today, and when you hear those things and you need to say, I only need to hear it one time, that’s it. I may not understand everything in here, but when it says, do this, do this, don’t do that. Anybody can understand that. Children understand, do this, don’t do that. All right? And this is what I want you to do, and I don’t want you to do that. And you expect children to listen and pay attention and get it, right? You expect them to get it, but then.

0:16:16    But we give ourselves a free pass. We listen to God, who’s our father in heaven, and, you know, we want our kids to listen to us first time, and we’re shocked. I can’t believe they don’t listen to me and all that stuff. Well, I believe it. Cause you’re the same way. You don’t listen to anybody either. Yeah. Quick to listen, right? Slow to speak and quick to listen. Quick to listen to God. Right? Quick to listen to God. Get that.

0:16:43    Get rid of that deception. So it’s just an ideal situation. When we have God as our father, we got the word of God, we’re listening to the word of God, and we plan on doing what it says. In fact, we’re listening to learn what to do. That’s how I read the Bible. And when I read the Bible, I have a particular slant because I like to help people, just like I’m trying to help you today. I don’t want you to be self-deceived, so I’m trying to help you. Okay?

0:17:10    So I look for clues. That’s what I look. I look for clues, ideas, things in the Bible that people might miss along the way. They just don’t see it. Or maybe they’re so self-deceived, they don’t hear it anymore and really press it so they can understand how confused you can be and not know why you’re confused, the direction you’re going. You know? I said, I don’t even know quite where I’m going. So I just get up and go every day. I don’t really have what I’m doing anything, just trying to survive.

0:17:39    And you get self-deception because you don’t know why you’re not making headway. You don’t know why you’re not making headway with God. You don’t know why. Like, who wouldn’t want to be blessed by God? Who doesn’t want God to, you know, like some of the prophets of old, he said, the hand of the Lord was on me. You know how many wouldn’t like that? And the blessings of God and everything you do, you know, prospers and succeeds because the Lord is with you, helping you, blessing you, right?

0:18:07    You got the blessing of God on your life. Well, if you have that, then you’re going great guns. But you’re not going to get the blessing of God because you don’t know how to get it, because you don’t know how to discipline yourself, to say, I got to stop deceiving myself. I need to start doing the word of God. I got to do it. And you know what? You don’t have to hear 100 things. You don’t have to hear 20 things, hear one thing, hear one thing and say, that’s it.

0:18:32    There’s the thing I need to do right now and start lifting that self-deception. Next time you hear something else, say, hey, that’s me. It sounds like he’s talking about me. That’s what I do. Well, stop being so dumb about it and making the same big, dumb mistake of hearing it and you agree with it, and then you forget after you get away that you agreed with that, and you forget that you saw. You saw with your spirit, with the Holy Spirit.

0:18:56    You saw what you needed to do, and the Holy Spirit said, you need to do that. And then you walk away and you forget all about it, just like you forgot what you looked like in the mirror. But when you come back, what you’re supposed to is come back to the mirror a second time and you look different. And you look at yourself, say, I look different. I’m   going to remember what I look like, and I’m   going to go out and do what God says.

0:19:16    And so here’s what he’s saying to me, today or this week or this month, and I’m   going to get this. I’m   going to work on it till I get it. And so I’m   going to be quick to listen, slow to speak, not get angry, not   going to play favoritisms. And I got to keep, you got to keep a tight run. Rain on your tongue. Cause that tongue is a. It’s a. It’s a. It’s on fire. And it just wants to hurt people and it wants to control people and it wants to correct people and it wants to always be right.

0:19:45    And, you know, that’s why we need the word of God. We’re not that sharp. We’re not that good. We don’t see everything. We think we see everything. You know? I don’t. You very seldom need a deceived person that knows they’re deceived. You know why? Because if they know, then it’s not deception. Deception is you don’t know. So you’re deceiving yourself, but you don’t even know you’re deceiving yourself.

0:20:08    Then you look at your life and you don’t like the way it’s going. You don’t like what’s turning out. You don’t. How come I can’t get my marriage together or get finances together, get my head together, try to get my kids together in all the things, all the things that life brings and go, well, I don’t know why it’s not working for me. It’s working for somebody else, but it’s not working for me. Okay, you want it to work for you.

0:20:28    Start reading your bible and pick out things that you can do, even one thing. Don’t pick out 100 things or 20 things. You can’t do all those at once. Pick out one thing, two things that you can do that you can change, that you can work on, that you can believe God’s going to help you, the Holy Spirit will help you and make those changes and start releasing yourself from that big dumb mistake, that big dumb self-deception.

0:20:54    Self-deception. Because if you deceive yourself, you’re doing the work for everybody else. And including Satan, who is a liar and destroyer, but he doesn’t have to do it. You’re doing it to yourself. Cause you blinded yourself to who you really are. Start doing this and your eyes will be open and you’ll be able to do the things of God that you want to do. And you’ll also, if you just want to keep doing what you’re doing as far as work or life or kids or whatever, but don’t do it self-deceived.

0:21:23    Because you’ll be surprised how you’ll advance at work. God will show you how to advance at work, how to advance in relationships, how to advance financially, how to just be an easier person to get along with, how to be someone that other people want to know you because of. Cause you’re just such a good listener, right? Other people want to know you. Nobody wants to know a good talker. Everybody wants to know a good listener. Cause you got stuff you want to say.

0:21:48    All right, so I believe you’re getting this today. Don’t do the biggest dumb mistake you can and deceive yourself. Hear the word of God and then stop babbling, stop being a bobble-head at church, right? Just a bobble-head where you just bobble your head at everything they say. And preacher thinks, elders think, choir director thinks, worship leader thinks, everybody looks down the road and thinks, man, that person is just going to run out and do that.

0:22:10    But that’s the thing is we, we as Christians, we have a bad, bad thing on bad habit, and that is hearing the word of God and never doing anything different. And so we deceive ourselves. Well, I hope you go more faith, more life. And look at that, the donation you can make. Some people are starting to make some donations because you need to do it because you realize these are words that are not being preached today. There’s a lot of preachers out there, they’re preaching all the me stuff and self-stuff and poor me stuff, and it’s more psychology of Sigmund Freud. But all I just tell you what, this one page of the Bible is all I gave you. And it can be life changing and give you success and bring a lot better life than you have now. Cause you’re   going to see the word of God and do it right.

0:22:55    So go there, make a donation, go on, go get people to follow, tell people about the podcast, get people to cause your friends, this will help them. This is   going to help them. And then there’s some books that’ll help you. My last little booklet, it’s only five chapters and you can still, I guess you can still get it free on this website, I think, right? Is it still free or not? We don’t know either way, but it says $7 or free, whatever.

0:23:20    But it’s donate $7. Yeah, yeah. Don’t lay free, then donate $7. Right. Okay, but anyway, if you only knew a guide to the clueless generation. And so we got to get that. If you haven’t got that, you got to get it. And to follow up my older book, my absurd religion kind of follows on that. But this is an update that my absurd religion is mostly talking about church and how church works and some of the things that you, you did. Well, actually you do know, you just never heard anybody say it.

0:23:49    Now I’m saying what you’re thinking. Get that book. My Absurd Religion, where, if you only knew. Brings us up to date with where we are in America and in the world and what we can do about it, or what we should do about it. Well, there’s other books. When the Kingdom Comes, if you haven’t got that, that’s a classic on revival and in many languages. And get that. And then the new one we put on there was called follow the fire.

0:24:11    When the glory begins to move someplace else, you got to go with it. And we left the country, came to the city, and the glory came with us. So I wrote a book called follow the fire. And it was both those two books have been published by publishers. And so. But you can get them right now on morefaithmorelife.com.  All right. So great to have you today. Take this to heart. This will change your life. And that’s what I want to do. I want to help you get more faith in this word of God, and you’ll get more life, and everything will start getting better. Till next time. Bye.