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Hey, welcome to Pastor Rick Warren's Daily Hope. We are so glad you're here because today we're starting an amazing series called 40 Days of Prayer. And in this series, Rick will help you cultivate a powerful prayer life so you can experience breakthroughs in your relationships, finances, health and every other area of your life. So please don't miss a single day of this life changing series. Okay? So I'm excited to hear what Pastor Rick shares today in part one of a message called do you really wanna grow up?
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When we're not spiritually mature, we make dumb decisions. We build our decisions based on how we feel, which is a terrible basis for making decisions. Well, I just feel like doing it. Well, your feelings are wrong a lot of the time and you're manipulated by your moods. Mature people make decisions based on truth, not based on feelings. So many of the problems in our world today, national debt and other things like that happen because of immaturity that people don't know how to do what's wise, how to do what's mature. And so the Bible tells us that growth is God's will for your life. You know, earlier we had these little girls out here with Tosha and Christy, and they're cute, babies are cute, kids are cute. But a child that doesn't grow up, that's not cute, that's tragic. It is possible to grow old and not ever grow up. You know as well as I do, I know a lot of old people who are spiritually and emotionally immature. They never grew up. They grew old without growing up. God wants you to not stay as a baby in diapers. He wants you to be spiritually strong. He wants you to be a man. He wants you to be a woman of God. And that's what we look at every spiritual growth campaign. Growth is God's will. Ephesians, chapter 4. There on your outline at the top, verse 14 says this. We're not meant to remain as children at the mercy of every wind of teaching. In other words, you just fall for anything when you're immature. Instead, we're meant to hold firmly to the truth in love and to grow up in every way into Christ. We're not meant to remain as children, but we're meant to grow up. Circle the word grow up. We're to grow up in Christ. And what is the perfect picture of maturity? Look at Jesus. Jesus is the ultimate picture of spiritual, emotional, intellectual maturity. And to have the thoughts of Christ and to know how to respond like he did. Be a whole lot better in your life. Now, every campaign that we do is built on six pillars of spiritual growth. And before we actually get into the subject of prayer, which is an important thing for breakthroughs and miracles, and all that God wants to do in your life comes through prayer. We'll talk about that starting in the next session. And this week, I want us to look at why we do what we're gonna do the next 40 days so you understand the reason behind it. And there are laws of spiritual growth that you cannot violate. God is a God of order, and he makes things based on principles. He designed the universe built on principles of physics and the physical laws like gravity and the second law of thermodynamics and a lot of other laws are what guide the universe and make the universe actually work. And just as there are physical laws that God invented for the universe, there are spiritual laws that God has invented for your life. And if you wanna grow, you gotta cooperate with them. Why don't you write these down? Number one, the first law is, we grow when we feed on God's word. We grow when we feed on God's word. This book, this Bible, is your soul food. Now, you know that you can't be physically healthy if you eat junk food all the time. You can't be spiritually healthy unless you feed on the truth, feed on the word of God. Now, what kind of health would you have if every Sunday you ate this giant Sunday brunch buffet and just gorged yourself with all this food and the rest of the week you ate nothing? Well, it would harm your health, and it harms your health if all you get of spiritual truth is what you get on Sunday. That's not enough. You gotta eat a little bit every day. You've gotta feed your soul. Not just once a week going to church. You gotta feed your soul a little bit every day or you're gonna be a spiritual wimp. You're not gonna have the strength that you need in order to do what God wants to do in your life. Matthew 4. 4. Jesus says this. People need more than bread for their life. They need peanut butter and jelly, too. That's not what it says. Okay? People need more than bread for their life. They must feed on the word of God. And that's what God wants you to do, to feed on it a little bit every day. We wanna help you develop that habit, whether it's five, 10, 15 minutes a day. In Acts, chapter 20, the Bible says this, verse 32, Paul says the word of grace. That's the Bible. The word of grace is Able to build you up and give you all. Notice this. All the blessings that God has for his people. Would you like to have all the blessings that God has for you? Yes. And as your pastor, as your friend, as your spiritual coach, I want you to have all the blessings that God has for you. That's why we do these campaigns. And how do you get all of the blessing that God has for you? He says right there, the word of grace will build you up. When you get mature, then God can give you all the blessings he has for you. There's some gifts you can't give a baby cause it'll destroy em. There's some gifts you can't give a young child. It will destroy them. There are some gifts God wants to give you, but he's waiting for you to grow up. He says the word of grace the more you get into this book, he says the word of grace will build you up, build you up to maturity and then give you all the blessings that God has for his people. Now how do you do that? How do you feed on the word of God? Well, let's go back to what we call the hand illustration of five ways. And then the poem is the sixth way to get a grasp on the Word of God. Hear it. That's your pinky finger. Read it. That's your ring finger. Study it. That's your middle finger. Memorize it and then meditate on it. Meditate means to seriously think about it. And the poem is to ply. Now if all you do, the only spiritual input you get is by hearing. Like you come to church on Sunday. That's the only time you hear the word of God. Or maybe you listen to it on the radio. Then you only have a grip like this. And Satan can steal the word from you very easily. He can steal your joy, steal the promises, all these things. He can steal it from you. But because you don't have a grip on the Word of God, why we forget 95% of everything we hear within 72 hours. That depresses me as a pastor. By Wednesday, you have forgotten everything I said. Unless you happen to write it down. Which is why we never teach without giving out notes. Cause the shortest pencil's longer than the longest memory. If you hear the Word of God and then you read it a little bit every day, you've got a better grip. Satan can't pull it away from you as quickly. If you hear it and you read it and you study it, okay? And we have ways to teach you how to study the Bible. You Got a bigger grip when you memorize it. Now you got a really good grip. And when you actually think about it, that's called meditation. You seriously think about, what does this mean to my life? Now you got a grip, and when you apply it, that's the palm. Nobody is taking this out of my hand. They're not gonna get it out of my hand because I've got a solid grip on the word of God. For the next 40 days, we're going to teach you or reteach you how to hear, read, study, memorize, meditate, and apply the word of God, specifically in the area of prayer. And these are some habits. So we're gonna teach you how to do this so you get a good grip so you're not an immature baby and you forget all that stuff. But you know what God wants you to do. So that's the first principle. Here's the action step. We're gonna do for 40 days a daily time with God for 40 days. And I'm gonna ask you for the next 40 days to spend five minutes, 10 minutes, 15, whatever, half an hour, whatever. You got a little bit every day where you're gonna feed on the word of God, and that's gonna make you healthier. Okay? Number two, second law of spiritual growth. We grow when we learn in different ways. We learn when we grow in different ways. And let me explain this. God made us all different. We're all unique. There's nobody in the world like you. Never will be, never can be. Even identical twins are different in thousands of different ways. You have a unique voice print, a unique eye print, a unique thumbprint, fingerprints, handprint, a unique footprint. You have a unique heartbeat, and you have a unique learning style. You learn differently than the person sitting next to you learns. And so if you're going to grow, you've got to learn other learning styles. And you have to know what your learning style is. Notice In Luke, chapter three, verse 18, it says about John the Baptist in many different ways. John preached the good news to the people. How did he preach in different ways? Why did John use different teaching styles? Because we all learn in different ways. Which, by the way, is one of the reasons I don't do all the teaching here. I think it's important for you to hear the word of God from other people besides me. I don't want you to have your entire spiritual diet coming through one personality. Pastor Tom has a different personality. Pastor Buddy has a different personality. When they teach, they use different styles. And then I bring in the best teachers That I can from across America and around the world. Cause I want you to hear God's word more than from just me. I want you to hear it in different styles. And it doesn't bother me if you go, well, I like Buddy's teaching the best, or I like Tom's teaching the best, or I like that guy we had, or that woman we had, or whatever. That's good. We all have different styles of learning, so we need different styles of teacher. Now, let me explain this in a little more detail. Some of you are auditory learners. You learn by listening. You learn. You hear it, you get it. I got it, okay? All you have to do is tell me. I got it. You learn through the ear. If you're an auditory learner, you love church. Why? Because that's the primary way we use in most churches. What we're doing right now, sit still while the teacher instills. And everything you're hearing right now is going through the ear gate. And if you learn that way, well, that's good. Problem is, we forget what we learn unless we write it down. And the other problem is, a lot of people aren't auditory learners. There's some people say, I don't like to listen, but I like to read or watch. And so I'm a visual learner. Show it to me. Don't tell me, show it to me. And I see it, then I can do it. I can watch a video, I can read a book. And I learn through not the ear gate, but the eye gate. You're a visual learner. Some of you are actually oral learners. And you learn by talking. You learn through the mouth. And if you're an oral learner, you love small groups. Why? Cause that's where you get to talk. And so that's where you learn. You can't talk in a crowd this big, so you may not be learning as much. Whereas when you get in a small group, and if you're an oral learner, when you talk, your mind starts engaging. In fact, all of us know people who their mind doesn't really engage until first their mouth starts engaging. Now, don't look at them. You know who they are. And it's no different that some people learn through the ear, some people learn through the eye, and some people learn through the mouth. And actually, you don't really think about stuff until you start talking about it. And when you talk about it, you go, hmm, that's what I believe. And maybe you've never even thought about it. But as you say the words, your mind is actually activating. And so it's important for you to talk about what you believe because that actually helps you form what you believe. That makes sense. Now there are some people who say, I don't like to listen, I don't like to read, and I don't like to talk. They're called men. Okay, now that's a generalization. Generalizations are often generally wrong, but it is true. A lot of guys, they're kinesthetic learners. In other words, they learn hands on. They learn actually by doing it. Nobody learns to play football reading a manual. Nobody learns to play golf listening to a lecture. People go out and say, let's just go play catch, let's go shoot some hoops, let's go out to the driving range and knock some balls around. And you actually learn by doing. And those are kinesthetic learners who learn with your hands. It's hands on learning. And the average guy, I'll say, you know, something's wrong with the car. Let me just get under the hood here, I'll try to figure it out. Don't give me a manual. I'll just figure out how to put this carburetor back together. Or let me figure out how to plug in this stereo and how to wire it. All right? And I can figure out how to download that app and how to install that program. And I'll just figure it out by doing it. There's not right or wrong. So we learn in different ways. Now notice even God understands this. He made you. And so in Job 33:14, he says God speaks in different ways and we don't always recognize his voice. And so God speaks in different ways because people learn in different ways and we don't always recognize what's going on. You know, growing up in a pastor's home, my dad was a pastor and he's a pretty good teacher. But I would watch and say, how come people could be in my Dad's church for 20 years and they're still cranky, self centered, gripey gossips, mean to people and you don't feel like the gospel or the good news actually penetrating their heart. It's not changing them. And I think how in the world can they sit and hear the truth week after week after week? And it doesn't even change them. They're still self centered. Well, there's a couple possibilities for it. One is they're not taking notes. And so everything they're learning, they're forgetting all but 5% by Wednesday. And the other is maybe it's not Their learning style, if their primary style is not through the ear, but through the eye or the mouth or the hands, Sermons aren't enough to get them to maturity. They need more than that. So we're gonna use all four of these learning styles. And rather than just hitting it one time with a message, we're gonna hit it with hearing it and reading it and studying it and memorizing it and meditating on it and doing it, and the eye gate and the ear gate and the mouth. Does this make sense? That's where we're going. It's more than a simple sermon series. Much more complex. That's why it takes the better part of a year to produce our spiritual growth campaigns. All right, here's the third law of spiritual growth. We grow when we develop spiritual habits. We grow when we develop spiritual habits. I cannot overestimate with you the importance of you building good habits in your life. If you build good habits in your life, you're gonna have good character. And if you have good character, you're gonna have a great destiny. Your habits determine what you are, and what you are determines where you go in life. Your character is the sum total of your habits. Now, you can't say, for instance, I'm a kind person. I have the character quality of kindness. Unless you're always kind. Unless it's habitual to you, it's your habit to be kind. If you're only kind, 25% of the time, you're not a kind person. If you say, well, I have integrity, I'm honest. If you're only honest 25% of the time, you don't have integrity. Integrity means you are habitually honest, you are habitually doing the right thing. If I were to say to my wife, honey, I'll be faithful to you 28 days of the month. Partial faithfulness is unfaithfulness. Partial obedience is disobedience. I can't say I'm a faithful husband if I'm faithful most of the time. No, no, it has to become a habit in your life. Now, there are lots of habits you need to grow in your spiritual life. There are dozens of them. But in this next 40 days, we're gonna focus on four specific habits. And we'll talk about that in just a minute. But first, I want you to notice some scripture. How do you develop habits? Well, you develop them by repetition and by practice. John, chapter 13, verse 17. Jesus says this. Now that you know these things, you will be blessed if you what? Circle that practice them. If you do them, you practice Them you don't get God's blessing for knowing the right thing to do. You get God's blessing for doing the right thing, for practicing the right thing, and for making it a habit in your life. And the way you build any habit in your life is two ways. Through repetition and through practice. You often wonder, why is our spiritual growth campaign 40 days or 50 days? Sometimes we'll do 40 days of prayer, 40 days of purpose, 40 days of community, 40 days of peace, 40 days of love. We've done 50 days of faith, we've done 50 days of transformation. And we usually do 40 or 50 days. Why? I'll tell you why. Study after study shows it takes six weeks for you to develop a new habit. Six weeks. You have to do something every day. This is whether it's exercise, diet, or a spiritual habit or anything else. You gotta do it every day for six weeks before it actually becomes a habit in your life. It takes about three weeks to become comfortable with something. It takes another three weeks for it actually to get ingrained in your life. Now, for instance, you know, I don't have to tell you this. You know that to read the Bible a little bit every day and pray is a good idea. That it would actually make you stronger spiritually. But you don't have a daily time with God. And the reason why is you've never gone six weeks without missing. It's not a habit in your life. Here's what most of you do. You read the Bible and you pray for a day or two. And then you miss a day. And then you read your Bible for a day and you miss two days. Then you read your Bible for three days in a row. Prayer. And then you miss a week. And then maybe you miss a month. Well, you're not developing the habit. Cause you gotta do it every day for six weeks. Doing it that way. It's like rolling up a ball of string and dropping it. Rolling up a ball of string and dropping it. Rolling up a ball of string and dropping it. You keep undoing everything you're doing every time you miss it. So what we wanna do is try to develop some. Some habits in your life that you'll use the rest of your life. That will help you grow and be strong. We wanna develop in the next 40 days. And if you'll do it every day for 40 days, it'll become part of your lifestyle. Some of you had habits in the past. You dropped them off. This is a time to go back to what God wants to do. He says now that you Know these things. You'll be blessed if you practice them. What happens when you practice good habits, spiritual habits? You practice, you grow. Look at the next verse. Hebrews 5, chapter 5, verse 14. Solid food is for mature people. Now you know what I'm talking about here. Babies eat Gerber Pablum. They eat baby food. When you're mature, you get to eat a steak. A baby can't eat a steak. It's not mature enough to eat a steak. He says solid food is for mature people whose minds, notice this, have been trained by practice. That's called habit. Who minds have been trained by practice to know the difference between good and evil? One of the reasons you have a lot of problems in your life is you often make bad decisions. Cause you don't know which thing to do. Do I do this or this? Is this right? Or is that right? Is this wrong? Or is that wrong? Is this good? Is that evil? And you don't know. How do you make wise decisions? You become spiritually mature. Then you know the difference. Don't do that. You know, treasury agents in America, when the United States government wants to teach treasury agents how to identify counterfeit bills, they don't give them counterfeits to study. In fact, they never will ever show an agent a counterfeit bill. They give them the real deal, a real $100 bill, real $50 bill. And they say, study this. Look at it, memorize it, meditate on it, think about it. Immerse your life in it. Know it backwards and forwards, memorize what it looks like. And when you know the real deal. When they see a counterfeit, oh, that's counterfeit. See? How to know? I can tell in a second it's counterfeit. Why? Cause I know the real deal. Well, what about that? Well, that's counterfeit too. How do you know? Cause I know the real deal. The problem, why? A lot of Christians get bylined and sidelined. Cause they don't know the real deal. So they go, well, maybe that's okay. Just go do that. Maybe it's okay to believe that that's okay. Because they don't know the real deal. And so people sell them counterfeit ideas and counterfeit thoughts all the time. And they don't know the difference. Why they're not mature. How do you get mature habits? Solid food for the mature whose minds have been trained by practice. You do it over and over. Repetition and practice. Nobody gets to the Olympics on. I just hope to get there someday. You have to set up habits and be disciplined and do it. You know, friends over my life, I've met a lot of very successful people and I've met a lot of very unsuccessful people. And I'll tell you this, the difference between successful people and unsuccessful people is simply this. Successful people put the time and energy into developing habits and disciplines that unsuccessful people are unwilling to develop. These people are not willing to pay the price. Successful people are just normal people who decide to develop good habits that take them for the rest of their life. You determine your habits and your habits determine you. And these people over here, I don't know if I'm gonna do that. And the same is true in your spiritual life. The Bible says this in 1st Corinthians 9, verse 25 all athletes train hard and practice to get better. Now they do it to win a prize that won't last. But we practice to win a prize that will last forever in eternity. The habits you build into your spiritual life are gonna have payoff forever and ever and ever and ever in etern.
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Hey, thanks so much for listening to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. I hope you were as blessed as I was from today's show. And now here's Rick to tell you about today's offer.
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You know, we hear a lot about the importance of prayer, but we don't often understand how prayer works. I've put together a brand new six part Bible study. It's called 40 Days of Prayer. Now this study is gonna show you that really prayer is about a relationship, not fancy formulas. It's about getting to know God on a personal basis and realizing how deeply he wants to hear you talk to him and he wants to talk to you back. You'll stop worrying and you'll start trusting more. You'll pray with more confidence. You'll claim his promises and you'll see answers to your prayer. So join me and a lot of other Daily Hope listeners all over the world. As we unite together. We'll be praying with you and for you. You'll be praying as we spend 40 days in learning how to PR consistently and persistently and effectively and expectantly and successfully get this resource.
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You can only get it through Daily Hope.
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God bless you.
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Just go to pastorrick.com to get your copy of this great resource. That's pastorrick.com or just text the word hope to 70309. That's the word hope to 70309 and thanks so much for your support. Your gift to Daily Hope really helps us share the hope of Christ with people everywhere. Be sure to join us next time as we look into God's word for our Daily Hope. This program is sponsored by Pastor Rick's Daily Hope and your generous financial support.