"Do Not Be Deceived!"
EPISODE 175
Tell Yourself the Truth
This week we're starting a new 3-session Guided Study called "Talking to Yourself," where we probe the depths of our thoughts. Caution: things get "really real" as we start to tell ourselves the truth! What do we learn from Jesus' teaching style about eyes and ears that don't work correctly? How does this simple phrase, "Do not be deceived," pop up throughout the Scriptures? And what are we not seeing clearly in our own lives? And as a bonus, don't miss Ryan's true feelings toward beets and Bryan's thoughts on the combination of chocolate, strawberry, and vanilla ice cream. Find this Guided Study at biblegeeks.fm/talkingtoyourself!
Takeaways
The Big Idea: We get to choose which inner voice we obey.
This Week's Challenge: Acknowledge any falsehood in your heart and ask God to forgive you.
Episode Transcription
I almost feel like we should say that part together. Do not be deceived. Well, hello everyone and welcome to the Bible Geeks podcast. This is episode 175. I'm Bryan Schiele. I'm Ryan Joy. And thanks so much for tuning in. We are back as we talked last week about this sort of introductory conversation that we're having with ourselves, I guess, Talking to yourself is the name of the game here. As we begin a new guided study, this is something that we've been really covering since I think one of the first episodes that we had of our, what we used to call the daily downloads back in the day. The very first series we ever put together was this series, Talking to Yourself. Three little videos that we put together. I think it makes sense for us to revisit that and give it sort of the attention that it deserves. - I think so. you and I both have found this to be a helpful study as we've come back to it here in the last week or two and so I hope everybody else gets some benefit from it. Yeah, for sure. And so here we are, we're going to have this conversation but to kick this thing off, we're going to go back and revisit a conversation starter that we dropped on social media not too long ago and that was called "Which One Wins?" This is Talking to Yourself. Which One Wins? A grandfather tells his grandson, "Two wolves live inside each of us, one that wants to bless us and one that wants to destroy us. They fight for control of our lives." "Which one wins?" asked the grandson. "The one you feed." It's like Paul, who said, "I do not understand my own actions, for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate." (Romans 7, verse 15) He's still in control, but he's pulled in so many directions that he ends up doing something he, the self underneath all those voices, doesn't want to do. Ever feel that way? If so, it's time to face the facts and tell yourself the truth about your thoughts. So here's the big idea. We get to choose which inner voice we obey. Though our heads can fill with a cacophony of voices, none of those voices define us. We decide which voice is loudest. The one we feed will win. We can relate to Jesus' story of the prodigal son, as the boy sat in a pigsty and pined for better days. Ever feel lost, needing to come home? But Jesus teaches that coming home is a two-step process. Before the son came to his father in Luke 15:20, he came to himself in Luke 15:17. Why does he need to come to himself? Because as we sometimes say, he's not acting like himself. So he reasons with himself, considering his options. A brilliant strategy. And then he tells himself what he needs to do. Swallow his pride, own his failures, and beg for mercy. Most people would rather rationalize than do the hard, right thing. But he got up and went home. He could have told himself he was right or had a pity party. But would that have worked? We can all invent stories about our lives to make us feel better. But maybe we should stop listening to our own stories and start telling ourselves the truth. So here's the big question. the hard, right thing you need to do. So follow along with this guided study at BibleGeeks.fm/talkingto yourself, and may the Lord bless you and keep you today. Shalom. So there in that conversation starter, we introduced this big idea, which was we get to choose which inner voice we obey. And it is kind of hard to imagine that we have multiple inner voices. You'd think that we would just have one, but of course, any given day, we be trying to convince ourselves of all kinds of things. And sometimes those conversations that we have with ourselves, I think they can get pretty loud. It might be tempting to find the loudest voice in your head and listen to that. But from my own personal experience, I think it's usually the quiet voice that I need to listen to more. There's that strategy in a meeting where if you want people to listen to you, you sort of start talking more softly. So they have to tune in a little bit more. And I think that's really the focus of this conversation is tuning in to those quieter voices that may not get the spotlight or the attention and making sure we're intentional about what we're believing and what we're really telling ourselves. Yeah, facing the facts is what we call this topic. And I think you're right that sometimes there's an urgency to and like a loudness to certain thoughts and those aren't always the best thoughts to listen to. So last night our kids were looking out our patio at the mountainscape that's behind us. Beautiful view of the Mogollon Rim and I think Asher was noticing that the tree that was right next to us looked way bigger than the mountain. He said, "But you know it's weird because the mountain is actually much bigger, but look how much higher this tree is than the mountain." And I just thought, "Okay, here's a moment for a teaching lesson about life. And I said, you know, life can be that way too. You know, that the things that seem the biggest are just bigger because they're close to us, that's what's happening right now. And so we feel sad or angry or whatever it is. But really when we have some perspective, we can realize what the real mountain is. Our big question was what's the hard right thing you need to do. And that question makes me think of a poem by a writer I've quoted before. His name is David White and he says, start close in. Don't take the second step or the third. Start with the first thing close in. I love this. The step you don't want to take. Start with the ground, you know, the pale ground beneath your feet, your own way of starting the conversation. Start with your own question. Give up on other people's questions. Don't let them smother something simple. To find another's voice, follow your own voice. Wait until that voice becomes a private ear listening to another. Start right now, take a small step, you can call your own. Don't follow someone else's heroics. Be humble and focused. Start close in. Don't mistake that other for your own. And to me, boy, I didn't even realize when I was grabbing that, how much he talks about talking to yourself and hearing a voice. But the idea is I can't say what anyone else's next hard right thing is, but each of us has to humbly take whatever that next step is in our journey with Christ. A lot of times that is the step we don't want to take, the thing that you know you should do, the conversation you know you should have, the change turning something that has been a present part of your life into a past part of your life. I think this is a really powerful question you could sit with. >> Yeah. Maybe in terms of powerful questions, we should move into something that's maybe not so powerful in our icebreaker, maybe? - Yeah, so this is a more lighthearted way of engaging this conversation about truths. Bryan, what are two truths and a lie about yourself? We're gonna make a little game out of this to start us off. - Okay, two truths and a lie, a hard challenge, I know because we know each other really well, but here they go. I took karate lessons when I was a kid. I once ran away from home and my favorite ice cream flavor is Neapolitan. - Well, I'm pretty sure I've seen pictures of you in a gi somewhere. - Yeah, okay. - So I'm gonna say that the karate thing is true and you seem like somebody who would have run away from home, I think. (laughing) Not because you had a bad home, but because I think you're an adventurous soul. So I'm gonna say that your favorite ice cream flavor is not Neapolitan. - That is correct. I cannot stand Neapolitan ice cream for whatever reason. Chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry should not be anywhere in proximity with each other. Go ahead, why don't you take it on? - What's your take on Spumoni? - No, no thank you sir. - Another three combination, okay. So here's my three. I like most foods, but I hate Brussels sprouts. I went to seven different schools in four different states and I've enjoyed surfing, skydiving and snowboarding, but I choose skiing over them all. - See, there's a lot of like ancillary details in each of these statements. I think, because I know that you've moved around a lot and I know you really do love skiing, I'm not sure if you've been skydiving. I think maybe you have, but I'm gonna say that you don't hate Brussels sprouts just because that seems a little too obvious. - Yeah, yeah, you're right. We both went with two things about food as our-- - Exactly. - That's so funny. - Yep. - Yeah, I would say I like most foods, but I hate beets. That would be my pickled beets. Beats taste like earth and feet for sure. I could agree with that. All right, so let's move on to maybe something more substantive here in the conversation. And let's talk about something that focuses us on Jesus. And we're gonna go to this place in Matthew chapter 13, beginning in verse 13, that really points us to Jesus as the teacher and learning from him. And this is where Jesus is explaining why he teaches in parables. And what does this have anything to do with talking to yourself or telling yourself the truth. He says that he speaks in parables because seeing they do not see and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand. Indeed, in their case, the prophecy of Isaiah is fulfilled that says you will indeed hear, but never understand. And you will indeed see, but never perceive. And then he goes on to talk about how their eyes are dull, they cannot see any longer. And it's just a really challenging picture of the audience of Jesus' day. That's why he teaches in parables so that he is basically making them work for it. And so what do you learn here, I guess, about facing the facts from Jesus' conversation, why he teaches in parables? - Well, it made me think about some things that I was looking for the other day as I was packing. I was getting together stuff for this trip. I think I was looking for my belt, whatever it was. Adrienne told me where she thought it was. and she's by the way, like the ultimate finder of things, and I'm very good at losing things. And I immediately said, "No, it's not there." And I kept looking and she said, "I really think it's up in the loft closet." "Nope, I moved to somewhere else. I'm not sure where, but it's not there." So eventually she walked up and she got it. She right where she said it was, she picked it up and she handed it to me. And you know, you could imagine that's probably pretty frustrating when you know the answer. and somebody's just not listening to you. And I don't know why I didn't look in the closet, why I didn't wanna do that, but it was just sitting there waiting for me all along. And here Jesus quotes some words from Isaiah. These were words that actually Isaiah was told when he was called by God in Isaiah six about how people are gonna respond to his ministry. People aren't gonna listen to you, Isaiah. And like Isaiah, Jesus told people exactly how to find what they needed. And they would refuse to look in that closet see the painful truth. So they just busied themselves looking elsewhere. And if you look at these words of Jesus, I think at first they sound to me like a judgment on the people. And in some ways they are, but he's not withholding healing from these stubborn people. When you get to the end, you start to see when he starts to say, if they would only hear with their ears and understand with their heart and turn and I would heal them, you start to see this This is a frustrated mercy. He just wants to heal them. He just wants to save. He wants to forgive them of all the things they've done, not to beat them over the head with it. He wants to take away their sin and give them the life and goodness that he wants to bless them with, but they're fighting it off because they don't want to hear it. It just leaves me with this picture of children, you know, with their eyes shut and their ears covered by their hands, just la la la la la, like, I don't want to hear what you're trying to tell me. And it's also kind of like me saying, "No, that's not where the answer is. That's not where my belt is. I think I'll look somewhere else." And so it's just an invitation really that Jesus is always standing there. The Lord is always holding out healing, but we have to be willing to look at the hard things and see and hear the truth that He wants us to hear. And that's a really great point. I was thinking too about how I'm embarrassed to say that this morning as I was putting on my shirt, I put on my shirt backwards and what does this have anything to do with anything? Well, I looked down at my shirt and I discovered this tag inside my shirt and I'd never seen the tag before. I've had this shirt for a long time. I looked inside and the tag said, "Clarity is the ultimate currency." What kind of a shirt has that kind of a tag inside of it? Well, they put it in a place where if you put your shirt on backwards and look down, you would see that you'd made a mistake. And clarity is something you need when you're wearing your shirt backwards, because if you just leave the house with that shirt on backwards, you may not realize it. You may never even notice it until somebody points it out to you. And having this kind of clarity is obviously important when you're getting dressed, but it's more important, especially when we're thinking about the words of Jesus here as he is trying to get these people to put on their clothes the right way, to really put on their thoughts the right way, to put on the right kind of hearing and to clear things up, to quit letting their dull hearing and their blurry eyesight get in the way of them seeing what the power that he's bringing. And like you said, this healing that he's trying to offer them, that means like you were talking about that I have work to do, like I have searching to do, I've got some investigation to do. I gotta go looking around and make sure, did I put this thing on the right way? Or is there something I need to do to correct this situation? I think Jesus gives us these kinds of warning signs or these kinds of encouragements to stop and reevaluate quite often in the scripture. And throughout our lives, I think we need to be looking for this little tag that reminds us clear things up. Don't stay in this situation, don't stay like this. And that's, I guess, really the encouragement that he was trying to get people to see through this veiled teaching as he did in the parables, they've got to put in the work and so do I. - Yeah, otherwise you have your life on backwards. - Exactly. - You don't even realize it. Clarity is the ultimate currency, I love it. Buy the truth and sell it not. - Exactly, all right, so let's move on to our second segment here on the episode and that is scripture du jour. - What is the soup du jour? - It's the soup of the day. - That sounds good, I'll have that. - So what is better than one scripture du jour but four scriptures du jour? And we are going to go to a few places in the Bible that talk about not being deceived. Actually, that exact phrase is used at least four times throughout the scriptures, do not be deceived. And so Ryan, if you wanna pick off the first one, we'll dive right in. - Okay, this comes from 1 Corinthians 15, verses 33 to 34, and Paul says, do not be deceived. Bad company ruins good morals. And then he says, wake up from your drunken stupor, as is right, and do not go on sinning, for some have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame." And when you read all of these four passages we're gonna talk about, you immediately get why they begin with, "Do not be deceived." Because you could just hear the lies we tell ourselves, how they are being combated, I guess, with these passages. With this one, can't you just hear somebody convincing themselves that their friends don't have any influence on them? - Oh yeah, I'm a bigger influence on them than they are on me. - Yeah, yeah, they're not that bad anyways. what's the big deal and all of that stuff. In context, I think it's worth just noticing. This is in the big resurrection chapter in 1 Corinthians, 1 Corinthians 15. So this is bad company of Christians who are denying that we'll resurrect when Christ returns. And I think that highlights the connection between bad morals and false teaching. Sometimes we can think, be not deceived. Bad teaching is also corrupting. Like what's the big deal about bad teaching? Bad beliefs, false beliefs lead to false ways and sound teaching produces healthy godly attitudes and actions. If the dead aren't raised, why would we deny ourselves and live righteously? So Paul wants us to understand the truth that we will someday when Christ comes again, raise from the dead and be given bodies like Christ's body that are imperishable. I think it's easy also to misunderstand this and say, "Well, we must need to just stay away from everyone in the world. We're gonna we're gonna all become withdrawn hermit monks or Amish or something that makes us just stay completely away from all the people in the world." And I don't think that's it either. I think there's pretty clear teaching at the end of 1st Corinthians five and in Jesus life even about engaging with people, but that we need to have an honest awareness about the effects people have on us. And even if we can't see it at the moment, scripture is telling us we have to keep watch knowing who we associate with will rub off on us. And we just have to make sure we're attending to that and not making our company those without character. I love the fact that he follows that statement up with "wake from your drunken stupor." You know, we talked last week about sobriety, like sober thinking, and you can just see that almost visceral picture of you telling yourself things that are just so misguided and just almost inebriated in the way that you talk to yourself. And I think that's sort of an encouragement here. And even, you know, going to the next verse here, the second scripture du jour of 1 Corinthians chapter six, going back a few chapters, beginning in verse nine, it also has something to do with drunkenness there, which is kind of an interesting tie in. He says, "Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, thieves, nor the greedy, nor the drunkards, nor the revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God." And of course he goes on to talk about how they used to be that kind of people, but they were washed, they were sanctified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so it reminds me of that saying that there's no guilty people in prison. You know how when you get into a situation where you've been convicted of a crime, of course, pretty much everyone in that situation wants to convince themselves or at least put on the show that they didn't actually do it. innocent. It wasn't me, it was the one-armed man kind of situation. But that is an inconvenient lie because for us to convince ourselves that we haven't done anything wrong or that we're not guilty of anything is really just missing the point. We need to understand that we're not great and that we've all done things and hopefully we've been washed, hopefully we've been cleansed by the the blood of Jesus, but if we go on sinning and if we live lives in this sort of drunken, stupor kind of way where we convince ourselves that things are fine and that our lives are not as bad as they actually are, that we are quote-unquote "good people," are we going to miss out on the truth that we're not actually going to be in the kingdom? We're not actually going to spend eternity in heaven, and if I'm not careful, this could be me. This is definitely something that we are all capable of convincing ourselves of. And so when I find myself patting myself on the back or thinking that I'm doing a great job, this is a sobering verse to remember that I can deceive myself and it's real easy for me just to see right past all the things that God is seeing so clearly in terms of my own shortcomings. - Definitely. We have to change when we come to Christ. He wants us to leave a life of of sin and take on a new path. And that shows up in the next verse also in Galatians 6 verses 7 to 8. It talks about the eternal consequences of our actions. It says, "Do not be deceived." I almost feel like we should say that part together. Do not be deceived. God is not mocked. Wow. What a place to start. Like you're not going to make a joke out of what God is saying and doing, and you can't pull one over on him. God is not mocked for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the spirit will from the spirit reap eternal life. It makes me think of all the ways we try to get more than we give, like the get rich schemes, the can't miss investing tips. I think of those billboards that tell you how much you could win with the Powerball Lotto ticket or the Ugandan Prince emails, all that stuff. Oh, you get those too? You know him? And it's really not that different from the get to heaven schemes that we might come up with. I can have abundant eternal life in Christ without giving my all to him. But the verse before these verses, verse six, tells us we have to give to those who teach us. The verses after this, say verses 9 and 10, we need to keep doing good to everyone. And then more generally here in verse 8, we have to see that everything we do in life is like planting a seed. And what we plant now is the harvest we'll have to eat later. That is a sobering idea to go back to that word we're using. And it's something that we can convince ourselves that what I did today really is not going to come back around. What I do tomorrow is ultimately not that significant. What's the big deal in my little choices? But if we plant thoughts and actions that come from God's Spirit now, we'll enjoy the blessings He brings later and in the present of course, but much greater blessings someday in the future. And if we sow the things of the flesh now, we just have to know that is determining our destiny. And that is, I think, the passage of time there in the separation between when a seed is planted versus when it's harvested later on. The longer the time passes, I think the easier it is for us to tell ourselves the story that things are going to work out differently for some reason. And I think as we close this thing out with James chapter one, where James is talking about how God isn't the one tempting us. When we go through these trials, when we find ourselves in difficult situations, how it's It's not God that's tempting us. He says here in verse 16 of James 1, "Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above coming down from the father of lights." And so God is giving us good things. He's blessing us, even though it might be easy for us to think that God is the one responsible for all of our challenges and the difficulties that we're going through as well. I don't know if you realize this again, but Ryan and I are for the third episode, I think, our history in the same place recording together. We are actually at a cabin up north and there is a little book. I don't know if you saw it. There's a book outside and it is the Outdoor Survival Pocket Guide. And I was flipping through this book because I love outdoor survival. I'd love to know how to make it through a long difficult time out in the woods. And so I was reading some things in there about life-saving first aid and how to build shelters. And there's an interesting section in there about water and where you get water when you're out in the middle of the wilderness. And it spends a lot of time cautioning the reader. Do not drink just any water that you find, but spend a lot of time considering where the water came from. Go upstream. Make sure there's not like a dead animal laying in the water upstream polluting the downstream water. Make sure, you know, if at all possible, go find a spring or something where the water is being generated from a filtration system in the earth. Make sure that you know where the water is coming from. What's the source? And I think that's the encouragement that James is giving us here. Make sure you know what the source is of the things that are going on in your life. Are you facing difficulty and trouble? Are you going through trials and are being tempted? Be clear that is not coming from God and be clear that that's actually coming from your own desires. And when you experience good things, when good things are happening to you and blessings are coming your way, be sure that that is coming from the source that gives good blessings. I think he's saying this because it's easy for us to mix that story up in our minds because sometimes we want to try to attribute evil things to God and good things maybe to our own good fortune or something like that. But as James says here, don't be deceived. God is the one who provides these good and perfect gifts and his desire is for us to be blessed and not to face the kinds of difficulties and challenges that our desires pull us toward. That's such a helpful story, that example you found. And to take it one step further, going with this lesson, if there is a dead animal upstream, we have to walk upstream and go take it out. If there's something that's polluting the source, the water source is good, but we can contribute all these falsehoods and, you know, evil thoughts and different things. And we have to clear the way so that we're receiving the pure living water of God as He intends for us to receive it. Let's move on, I think, to our final segment here on the episode. And that is our Reach Out question. ♪ Reach out, reach out and touch someone ♪ - Okay, so our reach out question for this week is, Bryan, what are your blind spots when talking to yourself? Boy, this is another hard one. This series is gonna be not like that last series where we were talking about really nice things. (laughing) - Non-controversial, easy things to digest, yeah. This is where it starts to get a little challenging. And I don't know how you answer a question like this, to be quite honest. It is sort of the question, like, tell me all the things that you don't know. But you know, what are my blind spots? What am I not seeing? I think that question for me is something that just shines a light on the areas of my life that I don't spend a lot of time investigating the things that maybe I have overlooked or maybe they're the dark corners of my life that I just don't look at very often. As a lot of, you know, I'm an engineer and I like efficiencies and I like automation and I like to create systems for things and then just let those systems run and not have to think about them anymore. And I think if I've solved a problem once, I don't really need to revisit it again because the problem has been addressed. We don't need to cover that again. And so I feel like I'm very connected in a lot of ways to Jesus condemnation of the Pharisees in that they were so interested in traditions, all the answers they'd already figured out and they were already holding along with themselves. Like they didn't have to revisit those questions because they've already addressed it once before. And for whatever it's worth, I think the Pharisees and I have a lot in common in those ways because it is so easy for me to just say, well, I've addressed that before. We've already answered that question. Let's move on. And I think anything that I've gotten comfortable with or that I've done for a long time is probably where I find a blind spot. Like wagon wheels in deep ruts with all the systems and predictability that I want in my life. You know, a lot of things fit into that category. So I, I'm not sure I'm necessarily going to be able to be super specific, but when I come along an opportunity where I like breathe a sigh of relief, okay, you know, I get to be by myself or I don't have to open up to somebody and be vulnerable. I'll just be quiet and not really talk, or I'm not really going to challenge myself and push myself to do something that is uncomfortable or difficult or scary and I breathe a sigh of relief thinking, okay, I dodged that bullet. You know, or I didn't have to go through that or I didn't face that situation. Maybe those are like the warning signs on the road that I'm probably living in a place that I'm not being too considerate of. Maybe I've got a blind spot there. Maybe I'm not challenging myself. And so I don't know, there's a lot of things that I could probably fit into that category. But anything that I'm uncomfortable with is probably an area that I haven't really thought a whole lot about and maybe considered with a lot of clarity, I suppose. >> That's really helpful for me, thinking about that idea of the wagon wheel thing. When you have been in a pattern, when there's something that you're used to, it's another way of saying it, stepping out of the blind spot metaphor is the callousing. >> Sure. >> The things that I'm not as sensitive to this particular problem because I've just gotten used to it or something. I've been realizing more and more that I have a lot of blind spots and it's, boy, it is nasty work. Yeah. But it's weird because you feel like, man, I've been working on this for years. I thought I had really covered some ground here. And then you just slowly realize, dude, you have so much work to do and it's a problem. And I can tend to think of myself as being very giving and miss all the ways I'm expecting other people to make accommodations for me. That's something that I've started to notice. Just ways that selfishness sneaks up and I don't realize that. I think that self-justification continues to be an issue in ways that I hadn't realized. That when someone points out something to me that I need to work on, I can pretty quickly, even though I know this is not the way, I preach to myself on this and I know that I need to hear it and receive it and focus on myself and take the plank out, I can very quickly start to just notice all the ways that they are doing the same thing and just focus on that rather than zeroing in on myself. Again, I have a lot to work on but you know, it makes you grateful for not only God's patience but also his truth-telling and it makes me thankful not only for people in my life's patience and love but also their truth-telling and I'm blessed to have people in my life who do both of those things who are both patient and gracious but also hold me to account So I appreciate both of those things. Isn't it funny how? much patience is required when you have an area that you have a blind spot over. Like if you even think about the way that Jesus dealt with even his own disciples when they were seeing everything so clearly presented to them, but they didn't get it. Like even the disciples who were following him around were so close to Jesus how they were so confused and they could not see the reality that was right in front of them until it was, you know, much later in the game, much later after Jesus had died and they looked back on these things, finally realizing it. But at the time, Jesus had to be so patient with them. And that is one of the great blessings, I think, when we are in this growth stage, when we do have a lot of ground to still cover, and we see people around us who are just being patient, who are just waiting on us and helping us the best that they can and being honest with us. And yeah, I think that's a great blessing to just take appreciation of those people around us who exhibit that kind of long suffering and loving merciful attitude toward us. Amen. All right, so let's move on then after this challenging discussion, I think, to another challenge that we're going to ask you all to do along with us this week. I am ready to face any challenges that might be foolish enough to face me. And so our challenge for this week is to acknowledge any falsehood in your heart and ask God to forgive you. Not pulling punches at all here on the episode. I think we are getting into the meat of growth and getting honest with ourselves and telling ourselves the truth. If you've got falsehood there in your heart, if you're telling yourself stories that are not true, we've all done it. Don't feel bad about it to the point where it just cripples you. Do something about it and reach out to God and ask Him to take care of this. Because the truth sets us free. Right? That's the point of this truth seems valuable just inherently because it's true, but truth also has this effect of Liberation and so as we turn to the God of truth and we find healing in him He frees us from the ways we're stuck in these falsehoods. So prayer and reflection on scripture I think you used the phrase earlier something about illuminating the dark corners. And I think that's what prayer and scripture really meditating and sitting with scripture, maybe talking about scripture with others and holding yourself up to the scriptures can really be a flashlight that gets into those dark corners that usually can escape our notice. And that's where we're forcing ourselves to look, what we're trying to see. I think that Solomon gives us helpful words about turning our whole heart and soul over to God. So this is a passage in 1 Kings 8 verses 46 to 49 where Solomon says praying to God, "When they sin against you, for there is no one who does not sin, and you become angry with them. And if they have a change of heart and repent and plead with you in the land of their captors and say, 'We have sinned, we have done wrong, we have acted wickedly. And if they turn back to you with all their heart and soul, forgive them." And that is a prayer that we can bring back. I mean, there's this sense that God is there to forgive us, but there's also this clarity about what He needs us to do in order for Him to heal us. We have to bring our whole heart and soul, our whole life before Him, ready to change and turn to Him and trust in Him. So that leads right into, I think, our closing prayer where we're going to do exactly what we just talked about. Turn to God and ask for His help. And the suggested prayer in the study guide was, "Father, open my eyes to see." From that passage in Matthew 13, 15. So let's pray. Oh God of wisdom, God of truth, our Father who loves us, We ask you to draw near to us. We ask you that you would forgive us for every false way. You see everything so clearly. Our perception is so limited, sometimes clouded by things we let in, things we tell ourselves, ways we try to protect ourselves. When we pray that you would tear down all of the strongholds of Satan in our hearts and our lives, take our thoughts and our actions captive. We want you to lead us. We choose to live as your servants, whatever that costs. Open our eyes to see what we need to perceive. Help us. Strengthen us as we commit ourselves with renewed resolve again today to follow you wholeheartedly. We know we need your help and we ask for it today. We ask for mercy and we ask for you to be present with us and continue to patiently and graciously work with us and work in us. We pray all of this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. All right. So this was our first guided study session in this Talking to Yourself series. On the next episode, we are going to move on to the second session in that series, and we're going to talk about finding hope. If we left off this conversation on its own today, that might leave you with not a lot of hope. And I think the next step in this process is to to really understand that there is a way out of this challenge that we find ourselves living in a la Romans chapter 7 as Paul is really struggling with his own internal battle there that we talked about in the conversation starter. And so to prepare for the next episode, we encourage you to read along with us Matthew chapter 14 verses 30 through 32, a really popular story of Peter and some of his challenges that he went through walking on the water with Jesus, and then Psalm 42 and Psalm 43. Three times there in that Psalm, you will notice a repeating phrase used over and over again and we'll talk about that on the next episode. Lord willing. Yeah, don't get stuck in Romans 7. Make sure you keep reading Romans 8. Exactly. Keep reading. And we will do that on the next episode. So thanks everyone for tuning in to the Bible Geeks Podcast. You can find us on our website at BibleGeeks.fm. You can find show notes for this episode in your podcast, Player of Joyce, or at BibleGeeks.fm/175, and follow along with this series, Talking to Yourself, at BibleGeeks.fm/TalkingToYourself. Until the next episode, may the Lord bless you and keep you. Shalom. [MUSIC PLAYING]