Growing In God with Gary Hargrave

• GIG275 Christ the King

  Growing In God Podcast Program Number: GIG #275 Title: Christ the King   Web Description: Why are the nations in an uproar? Because God has established Christ as King and has given all the nations to Him. God is not moved by their uproar, and neither should we be as believers in Christ. He is our refuge, He is our focus, and His unshakable Kingdom is the reality of our lives right now.   Show Notes: We read in Psalm 2 that the nations are in an uproar, and today we see how true that is. It is difficult to find a nation where positive things are happening. Every nation is facing negative consequences as people devise a vain thing. Like no other time in history, whole populations all over the globe are embracing vain and ridiculous ideas to believe in. Meanwhile, governments and rulers take their stand against the Lord, His will, His Kingdom, and His people. They counsel together against Israel and against Judaism and Christianity everywhere.   It seems like the world is spinning out of control. And as much as we pray for things to change, they just seem to go from bad to worse. That should come as no surprise to us as Christians. The Scriptures make clear that things will be difficult in the days before the Kingdom of God is established. And we are to be focused as believers on His Kingdom coming. So do not be focused on whatever is happening in the world. Instead, keep looking to the Father, to Christ, and to His Kingdom, knowing that God is in charge.   How is God responding to all the ridiculous ways the nations are acting in their defiance of Him? According to Psalm 2 He is laughing. In other words, He is not bothered. He is not losing control. He is not moved off His throne. God is securely planted as the One who is in charge. And He has installed His King on Zion, His holy mountain. That is where we stand in Christ. We can live today in His Kingdom, taking refuge in Him, seated with Him in the heavenly places, and proclaiming that He is ruling over every situation.   Key Verses:   •       Psalm 2:1–5. "The kings of the earth take their stand … against the LORD and against His Anointed." •       Psalm 2:6–8. "But as for Me, I have installed My King upon Zion, My holy mountain." •       Psalm 2:9–12. "How blessed are all who take refuge in Him!" •       Psalm 24:1. "The earth is the LORD'S, and all it contains." •       Ephesians 2:4–6. "God, being rich in mercy … seated us with Him in the heavenly places."   Quotes:   •       "This is the scream of people who are refusing the Lordship of Christ, the Lordship of the Scriptures, the Word of God in their life: 'The Word of God is not going to be our moral compass. It's not going to rule over our life and how we live it and how we act one towards another.'" •       "There is going to be a moment where God begins to respond to each and every one of these that He's dealing with, each and every one of these ones that think they are bringing about their will on the earth and their kingdom on the earth, including satan himself. They are going to be addressed personally by the Lord, and they are going to be terrified at His response." •       "Whatever you're experiencing, whatever we're going through, whatever will happen around us in this uproar of the nations, take refuge in Him. Keep your focus upon Him. Keep absolutely in the front of your mind and heart that He has installed Christ the King upon Mount Zion."   Takeaways:   1.    The nations are in an uproar. But they are in an uproar because the Father has granted the ownership of those nations to Christ. 2.    God is not shaken, and Christ the King is not shaken by whatever is going on in this world. He is laughing at the plans of the world because they are already thwarted by His Word as the God of all creation. 3.    We tell of the decree of the Lord that He is the King. We take refuge in Him personally. And we are those who proclaim that the nations are His, and He has installed His King upon His Holy Mountain.

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• GIG274 The Bronze Serpent

  Growing In God Podcast Program Number: GIG #274 Title: The Bronze Serpent   Web Description: Do you feel like you are being bitten to death by your circumstances and problems? Get your focus back on Christ. Renew and deepen your relationship with Him because He Himself is the answer. He Himself is the victory and the overcoming of any situation that we are in. And by believing in Him, we will not perish in our circumstances but instead have eternal life.   Show Notes: When the children of Israel complained against the Lord and Moses in the wilderness, the Lord sent them poisonous serpents. So the people repented and asked the Lord to remove the serpents. That however is not what God did. Instead, He told Moses to make a bronze serpent and lift it up on a standard. And if anyone looked at the serpent, that person would live. That story has great meaning for us today.   The children of Israel had become entirely focused on the material world rather than on the presence of God who was with them day and night. They were entirely focused on what they were unhappy about and what they did not have, ignoring all that God was providing them. As Christians we too tend to lose our focus on the Lord. We start to focus on what we are lacking and what we wish we had in the material world. We sometimes forget that we have the Holy Spirit to lead us and guiAde us, that Christ is in us, and that we can be filled with all the fullness of God.   Just like in the wilderness, we may be asking God to remove our problems that are like poisonous snakes biting us. But we should not be surprised if those problems do not go away. We should expect that God will give us something else to focus on. He may even be using our problems to get our focus back on Him. He is looking to bring us to Himself, to a life in Him, to a life in His Word, to a faith and a walking in Him that we may not be doing at the moment. Christ was lifted up just like that bronze serpent in the wilderness so that in Him we can have eternal life. He is our answer. And we need to live in Him more than we need to try to solve our problems.   Key Verses:   •       Numbers 21:4–11. "If a serpent bit any man, when he looked to the bronze serpent, he lived." •       2 Peter 1:3. "His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness." •       Psalm 103:2. "Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget none of His benefits." •       Luke 21:28. "When these things begin to take place, straighten up and lift up your heads." •       John 3:12–21. "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up."   Quotes:   •       "It seems almost impossible to think that we would get tired of having the Lord's presence with us day and night. But I think in all honesty, we do lose our focus on the Lord, and we tend to bring our focus back into the lower level or lower realm of the natural world." •       "Instead of taking away our problems, many times what He does is He gives us an answer that brings our focus and our relationship back to Him. Because ultimately, He's the answer." •       "You're going to get tired of this journey that we're on in these end times if you are focused only on what's going on around you. But if we can keep our focus looking up, looking upon the Lord and what He's provided, then these other things are not going to destroy us."   Takeaways:   1.    The children of Israel magnified their unhappiness about the wilderness to the point that they despised God's provision. And we need to realize how we can get so focused on what we dislike about our circumstances that we forget the Lord's benefits. 2.    God's answer to the serpents in the wilderness was not to remove the serpents but to get the people's focus back on Him. And God may not be answering your prayer by removing your circumstances but by getting your focus back on Him. 3.    When you see all the things beginning to happen in the end-time, raise your eyes above the material world and focus on Him and His Kingdom. Make Him your focus and make Him what you are journeying to.

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• GIG273 Faith Experiences the Invisible Now

  Faith Experiences the Invisible Now Growing In God Podcast Program Number: GIG #273 Web Description: It is with the heart that we believe, and the heart is the center of our emotions and feelings. That means faith is not actually a mental process. You are not trying to believe with your thoughts that something will happen. Instead, you are knowing in your heart, by the joy and love and emotions that come by the Spirit, that you already have fulfillment.   Show Notes: How do we measure our faith? It seems that the only gauge we use is a negative one. We measure how much faith we do not have when something we believe for does not happen. But there is a better way. In a message titled, "Living Faith in Action," John Stevens said of the promises of God that "we were to rejoice in them with faith. We were to lay hold upon them as though we already possessed them." The greatest measure of our faith is the joy we experience in knowing that we have what God has promised.   We associate believing with the mind. But according to the Scriptures, we believe in our heart. And scripturally the heart is the center of our emotions. The heart is where faith really comes from, and the heart is also at the root of what we feel. Our feelings then impact our physical bodies, our thoughts, and our behavior. So faith from the heart is expressed in emotions. If you want faith to heal someone, then the most effective way is not to mentally strive to believe but to feel the joy of the deliverance in your heart.   We know that the fruit of the Spirit consists of emotions like love, joy, and peace. These emotions are spiritually imparted, meaning we do not get them from the material realm but from the spirit realm. This is the principle that Yeshua (Jesus) taught us in the simplest of terms. He said to pray, "Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." In other words, the answer exists right now in heaven. And you want it to also exist in your life right now. So do not pray for it to happen in the future. Pray with the knowledge that you have it now, and your faith is bringing it into the earth.   Key Verses:   •       Matthew 6:10. "Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." •       Hebrews 11:3. "What is seen was not made out of things which are visible." •       Romans 10:10. "With the heart a person believes." •       1 Samuel 13:14. "The LORD has sought out for Himself a man after His own heart." •       John 10:10. "I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly." •       Romans 4:17–20. "With respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief but grew strong in faith." •       Hebrews 11:1. "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." •       1 John 5:4. "This is the victory that has overcome the world—our faith."   Quotes:   •       "On the Sabbath, God finished His creation; He finished his works. His works are finished and now they exist. What we are learning to do is to reach into what exists and to find the ways to bring that out of the invisible into the visible, into an effective function within the material world." •       "We don't hope that there's the restoration of Israel. We don't hope for the Jews to be brought back into the land. We feel the joy. We should be dancing like David in the street at the return of the Ark of the Covenant because we are dancing over the return of the people, the return of all the wealth that they have and all the blessings that are theirs. We're living in it right now." •       "Your faith is the substance of the thing hoped for. It's the evidence of the thing not seen. That is not wishful thinking. That's God's faith given to you to believe Him and to rejoice with Him."   Takeaways:   1.    How do you measure how much faith you have? Look to what you are feeling in your heart. 2.    Having faith for something means that you have already embraced it in your heart. You are not praying with hope that it will happen. You pray knowing that you have it right now. 3.    Our emotions are something tangible. Study your heart and the emotions that are there. Emotions trigger thoughts and then the thoughts come out of your mouth. And that is what is creative.

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• GIG272 From Generation to Generation

  Growing In God Podcast Program Number: GIG #272   Title: From Generation to Generation   Web Description: In the wilderness the children of Israel learned the consequences of not following the Word of God. And they set themselves to rehearse the Word repeatedly so that they and future generations would not fail to follow that Word. As Christians today we cannot expect that we will have the faith and success we need if we are not following what God has made real to us. And we must have the same determination to rehearse His Word.   Show Notes: Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles, remembers the time when Israel lived in tents for forty years in the wilderness. This was a time when one generation died off because of their disobedience and a new generation was taught the Word of God. They had learned from the wilderness that they lived by the Word of God, and therefore every new generation must be taught to live in the Word. This is why a special day is observed at the end of Sukkot each year. This day is called Simchat Torah, which means "the joy of the Torah."   Every year the Torah is read in the synagogue from beginning to end. And every year at Simchat Torah, this annual cycle repeats. It is a continual reminder of what Moses told the people before they entered the land: "Will you make the same mistake the previous generation made, which cost them forty years in the wilderness? Or have you learned your lesson? And if you have learned your lesson, will you be able to keep that lesson alive for yourself and for your children?"   We see then the importance that Judaism places on rehearsing the Word. Do we as Christians realize that it is just as important for us? We face challenges that seem too big for us, just as the giants in the land seemed too big for the generation that failed in the wilderness. But those giants were not too big for God then, and our challenges are not too big for Him today. We need to believe what God has spoken to us and believe in His power to accomplish what He said. It is all there in His Word. And we need to make rehearsing His Word a major focus of our times together and in our daily lives.   Key Verses:   •       Deuteronomy 8:1–6. "You shall remember all the way which the LORD your God has led you." •       Deuteronomy 6:1–3. "This is the commandment … that you and your son and your grandson might fear the LORD." •       Hebrews 12:5–9. "God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?" •       Romans 10:17. "Faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ." •       Deuteronomy 6:4–9. "You shall teach them diligently to your sons." •       Deuteronomy 11:18–21. "You shall teach them to your sons." •       Deuteronomy 31:10–13. "Their children, who have not known, will hear and learn to fear the LORD."   Quotes:   •       "We should come away from the celebration of Sukkot refreshed in the memory that God is all powerful, that He is able to give us what He's promised." •       "When we get together to fellowship, there should be a focus on worship and the Word. We can still barbecue and have fun and have other conversations. But what is the focus of it? What is the purpose of fellowship? The true purpose of fellowship is to get together surrounding the Word and the worship so that we're creating faith within ourselves." •       "Even as aliens we had the right to come and stand at the gate during Sukkot and hear the Word of God so that we could learn, and we could understand, and we could fear the Lord our God. And we could walk with Him and have long life and prosperity and blessings."   Takeaways:   1.    The battle is against forgetting. If we are reminding ourselves, then faith comes by hearing. If we hear it, then we can have faith to do it. 2.    We need to find the things that are foundational to our faith—who we are and what God has spoken to us—and we need the faith right now to walk in them. 3.    Let us not leave the Feast of Tabernacles. Let us enter a year of hearing the Word of God.

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• GIG271 The Feast of Tabernacles

  Growing In God Podcast Program Number: GIG #271 Title: The Feast of Tabernacles   Web Description: As we celebrate Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles, we worship in thankfulness for all that God has done for us in the season that we have just completed, and we prepare our hearts during the feast for the new season that is now beginning. So it is very important that we learn about the Feast of Tabernacles and think about what we are expecting God to do for us during this time.   Show Notes: Celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles puts us in a place of seeking God. We experience a new relationship with the Word of God as we celebrate this feast. In His Word we find instructions and direction for our lives in the coming year. Our cry before the Lord is that His Word will break our hearts and cause us to repent so that we will see the manifestation of the Word of God coming alive to the Body of Christ and coming alive to Israel in a new and greater way.   During the Feast of Tabernacles, we must "build our booths"—construct our lives—with a focus on God and His provision and not on the desolate wilderness. Because when we dwell in the shelter of the Most High, we will have a focus on God that will bring us to a place of trust and deliverance from everything that could come against us in the dark days that we may face in the coming year.   As we celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles, we also find the Lordship of Christ coming alive. We know that His Kingdom is established in heaven, but there will come a time when the age of Messiah will begin to reign in the earth, even as the Lordship of Christ reigns in our hearts. In this feast we find ourselves contending together in prayer to see the manifestation of the Kingdom of God in the earth now.   Key Verses:   •       Nehemiah 8:13–18. "The LORD had commanded through Moses that the sons of Israel should live in booths during the feast." •       Numbers 9:15–23. "So it was continuously; the cloud would cover it by day, and the appearance of fire by night." •       Psalm 91:1–16. "No evil will befall you." •       2 Corinthians 3:16–18. "Transformed into the same image from glory to glory."   Quotes:   •       "I believe this can be a transitional time for Israel and for the Body of Christ both, as we experience something tremendous in these days of Tabernacles." •       "The Lord tells us where to live, but how we live is something that we construct as part of this Tabernacle experience." •       "We're going to be living in maybe some very dark days during this coming year, but what we focus on is what God is doing for us." •       "We don't know what we face or what we're going to go through, just as they didn't in the wilderness know exactly what they would face day to day, but they knew one thing—the glory and the presence in the light of God was with them."   Takeaways:   1.    Prepare yourself as you think about the Feast of Tabernacles and what you expect God to do for you during this time. 2.    Build your booth—your life, your family, your community—in a way that they house us in His presence and create a constant focus on His glory. 3.    Abide in the shadow of the Almighty and let Him become your dwelling place so that the glory of His presence will begin to manifest around you. 4.    Focus on the Lord's presence so that you might be changed from glory to glory into that same Presence, but also that you might reflect that glory to others as it radiates from you.

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