Good Morning Beloved,
It bring such joy to my soul to be able to share the Word of God
the Creator of the heavens and the earth, with all you today
Thank you for coming..
Heavenly Father,
Thank You for Your saving grace
For we were saved for Your glory
And we are here on this earth to live and fulfill our purpose,
to be to the praise of Your glory
Call us to live in obedience to Your Word
compel us to live for Your glory,
Help us to do all that we do for Your glory, Your honor and Your praise
Renew our minds, refresh our spirits,
that we might grow deeper in our faith
and commune more deeply with You, the One true, living God
settle Your Word within our hearts
that we may grow deeper in respect to our salvation
create in each of us, a consuming desire for Your Word
In Jesus' name
Amen
Today's Message: Dig Deeper
"Deep calls to deep at the sound of Your waterfalls;
All Your breakers and Your waves have rolled over me.
The Lord will command His lovingkindness in the daytime;
And His song will be with me in the night,
A prayer to the God of my life."
Psalm 42:7-8
In digging wells for water, one must dig far beneath the surface
through rock and clay in order to reach clean water that lies deep below.
Digging deeper requires more work, more time
It takes more materials and that costs more money
No one wants to dig deeper.
We tend to like things that are on the surface.
The same can be said of our faith.
We like things to be nice and easy.
We like things that do not mess up our daily routine.
We don’t like to have to work to get something.
We love instant gratification.
Quick and easy, that’s how we usually want things.
Many believers today, both old and new, must continually grow spiritually.
A Christian that does not grow spiritually is equally a tragedy.
"Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord.
As Living Stones
And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God, you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ."
1 Peter 2:1-5
The concept here is that in the same way that a baby desires milk,
we should also desire the Word of God.
Peter warns us, in 2 Peter chapter 2,
"Many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned; and in their greed they will exploit you with false words; their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep."
2 Peter 2:2-3
Beloved, today I am calling each us to Dig Deeper.
I believe it’s time that we begin to look deeper into God’s Word.
I believe it’s time that we begin to pray deeper than we have in the past.
It’s time that our commitments to His church grow deeper.
Keep in mind, digging deeper means more work
It means more effort.
It means more time.
It means more materials
It requires more cost and more dedication.
Let me just make this clear,
We can’t have a deeper walk with God and expect to get it easy.
We can’t have a deeper walk with God without working for it.
It's going to cost us something!
Quick and easy are just not going to work!
Not if we want a relationship with God that has a profound impact on our lives
One that also affects the lives of those around us.
I want to remind you of our earlier text:
"Deep calls to deep"
If you’re struggling with depression, anxiety, worry,
financial difficulty,
relationships, sin, dig deeper
If you're feeling like you are not saved, dig deeper.
Pray
Fast
Seek Him, ask God to help
He’s waiting for you to turn your heart to Him.
He wants a deeper relationship with you!
If you want your life to change, you must dig deeper.
Don’t settle for a run-off walk with God.
That’s where all the crud is.
The rain waters wash all the junk into one place and then bacteria sets in.
Cholera, a bacterial disease, starts from this level of well.
That's how epidemics are started.
God is not shallow.
Jesus is not shallow.
We cannot afford to be shallow either.
We must dig deeper;
dig deeper by reading your Bible.
go deeper by praying
go deeper by making church a priority
go deeper by making commitments to God.
Peter, in conveying the same idea here in 2 Peter chapter 3:14-18.
"Therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, spotless and blameless, and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation; just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures, to their own destruction. You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness, but grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity. Amen."
And in 1 John 2:12, he says in a very important passage,
"I’m writing to you little children", John is not speaking in a general sense of the word, children, he is talking to believers, that we are all "spiritual children."
John, takes the idea of children, and that all of us are children, and he then divides us into three categories: infants, young men, and fathers.
He is recognizing that some believers, are spiritual infants, some are spiritual young men, being a little more mature, while others are spiritual fathers, having come to the point of spiritual maturity.
To break this down a bit further, in our spiritual infancy we know who God is, who Jesus Christ is,
as much as our children come to learn that we are their parents.
Next, John speaks of the spiritual young man, that is one who's gone beyond the stage of parental recognition. These believers have come to the point where they have overcome the evil one, Satan. Yes, we can arrive at that point of spiritual maturity in our lives, where we can overcome Satan.
I want to mention here one very important point, overcoming Satan does not mean you have overcome sin. Sin is in the world, it's in our flesh. We can fall into temptation without Satan being around
In 2 Corinthians, Paul reminds us, that Satan often appears as an angel of light.
What does that mean? It means he disguises himself, through false teaching, false religion.
He spends much of his time, infiltration the churches and organizations, typically dedicated to God, working to propagate false doctrine.
I do not at this point in my spiritual journey, think that I can be deceived by false doctrine.
And believe me, I do not make this claim boastfully, or with false pride. I say this, because I believe that I have studied the Word of God, diligently for some years now, that I believe, I now know what the Word of God says.
The Word of God, deserves our full attention.
As I stated before, Jesus wasn't shallow.
His commitment to you is not frivolous.
It is not cheap
It cost Him something
It cost Him everything
It cost Him His life!
And He gave it freely, willingly
for you and for me
Beloved, don't you believe that He deserves our full attention?
That we should also give Him our all?
Commit our lives to Him?
Willingly, freely?
The gift of our salvation didn't come without a price.
It cost Jesus something, it cost Him His life!
Shouldn't this incredible gift of salvation also cost us something?
Beloved, we shouldn't settle for the first spiritual experience with God we come to.
We must Dig Deeper!
Even if at first it seems as though we have what we need.
We must keep digging deeper.
There's more, far below the surface!
Once you find that deeper experience with God, we want to pursue that.
Then we have got to seal some things off, protect them.
So that they don't get cross contaminated by the world.
We can’t let our past cross contaminate our future.
Our spiritual growth doesn’t stop there.
It goes to a whole other level.
We've got to get into our Bible
We have to learn how to pray
We have to learn how to make God a priority in our lives.
In all of the busyness of our daily lives, we have got to make time for God!
"I am writing to you, fathers, because you know Him who has been from the beginning....
I have written to you, fathers, because you know Him who has been from the beginning..."
1 John 2:13-14
What a powerful statement!
A tremendous truth.
It is the epitome of our spiritual development and growth.
What John is saying to us here,
Now that you have ascended in your spiritual development to the point
where you not only know doctrine but in your spiritual growth, you intimately come to know the God who is
the author of it.
In essence, we can't read the Words of Scripture written on a page,
we have to dig deeper, really understand what the passages are teaching us, talk to Him
we have to walk more closely with God.
It takes time, it requires effort, but the result, is an enhanced and more fully enriched devotion to God, in an enhanced and more fully enriched life of praise and adoration toward God.
By which we development a deeper intimacy with the Author of the Scriptures, God.
Beloved, isn't that what we all really want?
To know God on a deeper, more spiritual level?
I've been studying the Word of God for some years now, and I have a pretty good idea, in a general sense, and admittedly, I don't fully understand every passage of Scripture ever recorded.
Today, I don't really read and study the Bible to find out what it teaches, to better know the Scriptures, I read and study the Word of God, so that I might better know the One Who wrote it. I hope that make sense?
To better help you understand my point, one of my favorite passages, is found in 1 Corinthians chapter 3.
"Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you thinks that he is wise in this age, he must become foolish, so that he may become wise."
I Corinthians 3:18
As we begin to see, God more clearly, gazing upon the His glory, from one level of glory to the next, as God reveals His glory through the Holy Scriptures, we are ourselves, being transformed, into His image. And making that the focus of our lives, we are then moved by the Spirit, from one level of spiritual glory to the next, that which is in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Spiritual growth then becomes a dynamic, an operative in our lives.
Focusing on the Word of God, the glory of the Lord revealed in the Word, the Holy Spirit will move you from one level of spiritual glory to the next. The Word of God reveals what the Holy Spirit, reveals through the Word. The Holy Spirit reveals the Word, through the Spirit of God. And it is God, that reveals both through the Word and the Holy Spirit.
"See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ. For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form, and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority;"
Colossians 2:8-10
Beloved, Spiritual growth is not directly tied to time, it's tied directly to effort.
We do not develop spiritual growth by virtue, simply by the passing of time. We develop spiritual growth by the work we are willing to put into it, by spending more time with God.
We invest our time, in the things that most matter to us.
I am fairly certain, we all know people, who have named the name of Jesus Christ for many years, but have failed to grow or have grown barely at all, since the day of their salvation. Because they have not invested their time to it.
"For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil."
Hebrews 5:12-14
We get out of it what we put into it.
The question is, are you investing yourself in the world or in a deeper spiritual relationship with Jesus Christ?
And now may the Lord bless you and keep you;
the Lord make His face shine upon you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you,
And give you peace.
Now and forever, in Jesus' name
Amen
Brian Monzon Ministries