How to Build Truth Into Your Life

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Friday, October 1. Are you applying what you read in the Bible? Let's wrap up the series on helps to holiness with a lesson on how to build truth into your life. How many sermons have you heard in your lifetime?

How many spiritual principles have been declared to you? How many times have you walked out of a church service and said, boy, did I need that? Thank you, preacher. Thank you, pastor.

I really needed to hear that. How many times have you taken a pencil and you've scribbled out some notes of something you heard in the sermon and you said to yourself, I surely don't want to forget that. Or you sat there listening to the message and you said, well, I surely needed that because yesterday the very same thing happened to me. Or you've walked out and said to your husband or your wife, I'm really going to need that next week because I already know what's coming. But let me ask you this, how many of those truths that you heard, you jotted some note down about them and you intended to remember them and you intended to apply that in your life that you never got around to applying in your own spiritual life.

I want you to think about this, daddy. You think about how many sermons you've heard and how much truth has gone through your mind and I want to ask you how much of that truth have you taken time to share with your children and to work it into their life so that it becomes a part of their thinking. You see, one of the greatest crimes that happens in America happens between 11 and 12 o'clock on Sunday morning when thousands and millions of Americans go to church, listen to the truth expounded and go away and give it little or no genuine application to their life. If you are not allowing almighty God through his Holy Spirit to build into your lifestyle, to build into your thinking, to build into the pattern of your life, to build into your vocabulary and your language, the truth, then why listen to the gospel. This is why you can go to church 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, 50 years and the real truth is that some people, most people not see any more of Jesus Christ in your life than they saw two weeks after you were saved. God does not give us truth to hear, enjoy, pat some preacher on the back and move on. God declares truth in order that it may be absorbed, built into my life so that more of Jesus Christ is reflected through me because more of his truth is absorbed in me. Now, how does a believer build spiritual principles and truths into their life?

There are 10 words, all of them begin with a D. First of all is the word desire. If you do not desire to build into your life, if you do not hunger and thirst to know and to apply and for God to work in and through you the truths of scripture, friend, they won't be there. They do not come automatically. You're not a Christian automatically. You do not grow automatically and you certainly do not build into your life. Listen, every spiritual truth and every spiritual principle is like a building block. You do not need a big foundation for a lean to, for a little hut, for a tent.

But if you're going to build a gigantic 120 story skyscraper, you need a firm foundation. God is building saints. He's building giants of men and women who are filled with Jesus Christ and who are overflowing with him. And in order to do that, he must build into our life the principles to guide us, the scriptural truths that will give us warning, the assurance, the confidence and those principles by which you and I are to serve him.

But if you just listen to sermons and they just come and they just go and you get all excited and people go to Bible studies and they go hear all these famous preachers and they say, praise the Lord. Isn't he great? Isn't that super?

For what reason? God doesn't raise up super men. He raises up common, ordinary men to declare super natural truth. It isn't men who changes men. It is God's word that changes men and God wants the truth absorbed into the life of the believer.

But I want to tell you something. If you do not have a desire, if you do not have a desire to work these principles into your life, they're not going to be there. The second word on that one is the word decision. Now watch this very carefully.

Here's where Satan's tripped up more people. Wanting it, wishing it and desiring it is, that's only step one. If I really want it in my life, I make a decision. I will, I will pursue that. I will deepen my understanding. I will work that into my life.

I will pursue that until it becomes a pattern of my living. Let me ask you something. How many times have you heard truths that all of a sudden the light just dawned on you? Then I want to ask you the question, what did you do with the light? What did you do with the dawn? What did you do with your notes? What about the application?

Did you make a decision? Dear God, by the help of the Holy Spirit, I will absorb that into my being. I want that as a part of my life. You see, people hear sermons by the hundreds of thousands in a lifetime and never make a deliberate decision to apply that truth in their life. And listen, you're talking about seminars. There's seminars coming out of our ears, books to read, seminars, people telling folks how to get their marriage back together, how to relate to their children, all these. And what happens? Three weeks after the seminar is over with, they're back in the same old deal, fussing, fighting, carrying on.

You know why? Because they never made a decision to apply the principle in their life. Third word, and that is digestion.

You say, what do you mean by digestion? I simply mean this, that when you hear a truth, you go to the word of God and you find out what does the Bible really say about that? Get out of concordance or index your Bible and start searching the scriptures to find everything you can that relates to that. Then you meditate on those scriptures. Get on your knees before God or sitting in your living room, whatever it might be, reading and thinking about what does that say? God, what are you saying to me? Talk to the Lord about it. Read the scriptures, meditation, memorize the verses that mean the most.

Here's what you're doing. Your mind is absorbing God's viewpoint about that principle. As your mind absorbs that, you begin to think the way God thinks about that principle. Before long, his thought patterns have done what?

Filled up your old ruts. Now you're cutting new thought patterns because now you have begun to think the way God thinks. And I want to tell you, listen, I'd do anything in the world I know to get this into your heart. That won't happen just listening to sermons. You've got to meditate. You've got to digest what you've heard and you see, absorbing it. To absorb it, you've got to think about it.

You've got to talk about it, pray about it, memorize a verse or two, but meditation upon that in order to digest it. You see, only as it becomes a part of me, will I be able to live that out. All right, the next word. And that is two words, a definite application. Now let me tell you what I mean by definite application. If you'll think about some particular weakness in your life that Satan keeps hitting you on. When I mean definite application, let's say that you have a strong hold in your life.

All right. And there are certain circumstances in which Satan triggers that. All right, by definite application, I mean to plan in your thinking the way you're going to respond the next time that situation arises. Don't wait till you're in the middle of it and have to think about it, but plan ahead of time. Because all of us know situations that we've been in many times where Satan will trip us up and if we can pre-plan how we're going to respond, it is amazing what happens because of the power of the mind and the power of the Spirit of God within us. All right, the next is daily evaluation. It's one thing for me to apply it, but if I never back off and say, well, now how well did I do with that?

Let's say, for example, you go to work tomorrow morning or you go to school and you get tripped up and somehow Satan defeats you. And so what do you say? Well, I knew it wouldn't work.

No point in me trying. No. When you get along by yourself and you get in the Word and bring back a couple of scriptures that the Lord may have laid on your heart about that principle, you ask yourself the question now, how did I respond? Was I uptight? Did I jump quickly or did I think first of all, now that person's not my enemy. It is the devil who's my enemy, but Satan is using that person, but likewise God is using them for my own good. Did I think through the situation or did I just respond involuntarily without thinking out of habit because that's the way I've been responding. And what you'll discover as you analyze your responses, you'll discover that many things you do are just automatic reflexes of past patterns and habits that you want to change. So a daily evaluation of how you're working that truth into your life will make all the difference in the world. Then the word discussion, because I believe one of the most profitable ways to build a principle into your life is to discuss it. Listen, I can share everything and I do try to share everything God is teaching me from the Word with you, but dad and mom, you are the ones who can put it on a platter in the bite size that your children can take at this given moment.

I can't do that. All I can do is just give it out, but you have to apply it to your children. And you see, if you will begin to just talk to them and discuss with them, listen, you discuss with them what God's doing in you.

You may have to confess some things, repent of some things and say, well, I don't understand. And sometimes your kids are going to come up with a super, super insight that you never thought of. Don't say, well, you know, I thought about that, but I just hadn't gotten around to mention me. Your kids can spot that in a second. You will build truth into their life best by discussing with them what you feel and asking their opinion and asking them to explain how they feel about that. And what you're doing is you're getting them to think about it. And what that says to a son or daughter is, boy, this has got to be important. My dad talked about it the whole meal. If you were motivated properly that your son or your daughter would get a certain truth, friend, you'd be surprised how long you and your family could talk about a given scriptural truth. I'll tell you this. You will give your children no more precious valuable thing as long as they live as taking the truths that God is working into your life. It may be a teaspoonful sometimes, a fimbleful, a tablespoonful or a barrelful. This depends on what they can take. But as you talk about what God is doing in you and what that does, that builds up into their life, the building blocks that will make them capable of facing any and everything in life.

But talk about it, not just to your family, but to a friend or to someone that you whom you have confidence in or someone that maybe may not even be interested, but just lay it on them and see how they respond. The more you talk about it, the more you understand it. Now, I can't always explain all that, but I know in my own heart what happens as I begin to share what God is teaching me. The next word is discipline. We cannot be passive about absorbing truth into our life.

Discipline means that I am willing to recognize that I have a personal responsibility of getting that truth into my lifestyle. I can't be passive to say, well, Jesus will do it. The Bible says, not I, but Christ in me. So, you know, if he wants me to have the truth, he's just going to pour it in.

No, he's not. This happens to be my mind and by the act of my will, I govern how that thing operates. And you see, if I choose to absorb, to meditate, to search the scriptures, to talk about it, I will.

If I choose not to, I won't. And I cannot be passive. You see, Satan's always sitting right there on the threshold to snatch that truth.

So I can't be passive to say, well, yeah, I heard that. And after all, Jesus in me, he's everything. He knows everything.

When you have Christ, you have everything. So why should I worry about it? Because he's going to bring it up at the right time. Not if Satan has robbed you of the truth on the very threshold of your taking it and moving it into your life. So it's going to take discipline.

It won't be just something that happens haphazardly. The next word is dependence. And that is dependence upon the Holy Spirit, who is not only your inner teacher, but also your power. Now think about this. He says, Jesus says, it is expedient for you that I go away. If I go away, I will cross in the comforter who is the Holy Spirit, who will teach you and guide you into all truth. Now think about this. All of us are inhabited by the divine teacher who is the Holy Spirit.

Now think about this for a moment. That means that when you and I get into the Word of God, the master teacher will give us perception and discernment to understand what this book means. If somehow we cannot perceive it, he will guide us to the place of the person who will help us understand it. When our desire is to get the principles in our life, and we recognize our own inadequacy failures and weaknesses, and we are willing to say to Almighty God, I'm trusting in the power of the Holy Spirit to teach me these truths and to empower. Listen, it is the Holy Spirit's power that energizes and directs us as we move out in life to make daily application and evaluation. So we have an inner power within us motivating us to do that. The next word is the word determination. Because friends, you're going to be hit from every side with Satan's attempts to defeat you as we begin the very beginning with the problems we face.

So it isn't saying, well, I'm just gonna float, brother. I'm just trusting Jesus. I've got him in my life and that's it.

Everything's gonna be fine. No, you're going to have to will in your mind. You're gonna have to determine in your heart, determine your spirit. I will not be defeated by Satan's lies because every time he sends one of these things my way, I know where it comes from. All doubt and all you can and all it won't work and all that's not in the Bible and that's the wrong interpretation comes straight from the devil.

So you see, I do have a responsibility to persist in my pursuit of learning how to build that truth into my life. And then the last word is the word dismiss. You say, what do you mean by dismiss? I mean simply this and that is that you and I dismiss, dismiss as invalid, erroneous, every single doubt that Satan sends our way, every time he sends it through somebody else to say, I tried that and it wouldn't work. Or when Satan causes us to doubt, we get discouraged. Every doubt that comes our way, we're to dismiss it. I'm not going to accept that. Just forget that. I don't have to receive it because you see, as a believer filled with the Holy Spirit, we don't have to receive any of Satan's lies. Now let me ask you a question.

Where does this come from? That won't work. Look, do you think you're worthy of that? There's no way for you to accomplish that. Look how many times you failed.

If you think that it won't work, there's no way for that to work in your life. Where does that come from? Straight from hell, by the way of Satan and his demonic powers. He's the one who fires these fiery missiles of doubt into our life. If we're going to build truth into our life, we must dismiss every one of those as satanic and therefore not applicable in the life of a saint. And that's what we are. Not applicable in the life of a saint who is dressed with the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, loins girt about with truth, feet shoulder the preparation of the gospel of peace, the shield of faith, the sword of the spirit.

That's not applicable. And I do not have to allow those doubts to penetrate my mind and my life any longer. Christ who is within us is more than sufficient. And as I apply the simple principles that I'm sharing here, I guarantee you on the authority of the word of God and the power of the Holy Spirit, something will happen in your life.

And let me give you briefly what will happen. Number one, you're going to begin to experience an inner peace like you've not experienced before. Secondly, the word of God within us principles built into our life and acting upon those principles will provide a peace and a power like we have never known before. There's a third thing, and that is a prosperity in our life. I'm talking about a spiritual prosperity.

As long as we are absorbing and building and applying and believing and expecting the principles of scripture in our life, God will work them out and there will be a sense of peace and power and prosperity in our lives like we have never known before. And I simply want to ask you with all of my heart today, if what I've told you is the truth, don't you think that a wise man and a wise woman will determine in his or her heart to begin to apply, to build into that person's life the principles that you already know? You see, you know enough to start with. Start building in what you already know. And then as God shows you something new, grab hold of it, take hold of it, steadfastly hold to it until it too is also become a part, listen, of your thinking, your attitude, your actions. Then your lifestyle will be more like that of Jesus Christ. How do you build truth into your life?

You start with the desire to have it. And what I want to ask you is this, what do you want more in your life than the mind of God in you, for you, to you and through you? Thank you for listening to how to build truth into your life. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by intouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.