Last Updated on December 14, 2025 by LookingUntoJesus

[Romans 8:18 NIV and 2 Cor. 4:17 NIV] -> Gal. 1:15-16 KJV – what stands out? -> “it pleased God” “to reveal His son in me”, I want you to connect both of those quotes into this -> with our cooperation with the Holy Spirit’s good work, the more we grow into the spiritual maturity of Christ, the more that pleases God. We will see a gradual tangent of converging greater into His interests (John 3:30). That’s a good signpost that things are going the right way, we lose the unspiritual hypnosis that once had gripped our time because the Holy Spirit will gradually cleanse out unpleasing tendencies that don’t belong to our testimony. In Psalm 1:6, God has a plan for us, and wants us to proceed in specific ways throughout our lives. In Proverbs 6:23 NIV, it is part of a Christian life, for the Holy Spirit to correct us into a spiritually abundant life with Christ; this is what we signed up for -> Phil. 1:29-30, sometimes we can be extremely unaligned with the Word, so the Lord will use special circumstances to specifically move us in a way that can help present and future generations with the Church in mind. There is a corporate mindset of God that we need to be mindful of, and also be willing to understand that it isn’t coincidence that our ministries become more spiritual, as a result of suffering and struggles, they “work together for good” in the Body of Christ. For example, something that God introduced into your life, and you were wiling to learn from that, apply that; beneficially, 200 years down the road, the fruitfulness of the Holy Spirit’s work would be tremendous (Psalm 33:11 + 1 Cor. 3:6-7). You have to keep that in mind, otherwise, if you look at circumstances as isolated incidences, and all random, it won’t make sense. Paul had to go through a lot, didn’t he but you see how spiritual and alive God’s Word became to Him? The juggernaut spiritual generational impact that pleases God continually to make people more like Christ? There is a Holy method that God uses with suffering, difficulties, challenges and struggles that will somehow lead to His Son, with Whom He is well-pleased, increasing in our lives individually -> corporately. Back to Proverbs 6:23 NIV, we have to understand that the teachings in the Bible that we value, ought to hold the same logical value, as when He teaches us individually through the circumstances of life, in His own way, just like the situations the characters had to face in the Bible. The times that we did yield, we found unmistakable life in that way of His. What we have to do, is in every situation that we find ourselves in, we need Christ/God/The Holy Spirit + the Lord’s Word to cast light because the circumstances of the world just has too much darkness, outwardly and inwardly (Jer. 10:2 NIV -> Isaiah 8:20 NIV). Not to just interpret things, apart from His Word + His leadings (Jer. 6:16 NIV and/or Matt. 7:7 NIV). Something that has been standing out to me lately is Psalm 32:8 NIV, how much we take it upon our selfhoods to make choices, and it isn’t a spiritually mature way that Christ would handle matters (Romans 12:2). Do we actually do this Isaiah 30:21? Actually listen to what God wants us to do? Out of 25 situations, what is the impulse? We can work on that, so that in Phil. 1:9-10 NIV, we can move in step toward the best spiritual outcome. Since most of the time Col. 2:6 NIV, isn’t really being applied; instead of “continue to live your lives in Him”, the alternate path we are taking is “continue to live your lives” (Job 33:14-16 -> Prov. 3:6). I find that Col. 3:15 of peace is a good indicator (Isaiah 40:31 NIV – “they will run”), and when we do things outside of His spiritual steps, depending on your spiritual sensitivity, there’s an inward nasty unrest (Proverbs 14:12 and James 3:17). In Judges 2:2, imagine you are given many practical situational tests where you constantly select a) b) c) d) multiple choices, how many would we get right, regarding the choices that the Holy Spirit wants us to go forward with in our own lives? (Psalm 123:2 – do we look within our self or to the Lord’s guidance? Remember this 2 Cor. 5:7 -> Amos 3:3 NIV -> Phi. 2:2), that would complement God’s will for us. The self-choices that we make, often bring about what we see in front of us (reflect: Psalm 37:7 + Exodus 33:15)? In Deut. 8:2, there is a possible route, if you think about that verse differently, where we can do our best with Christ, using Gal. 5:25 NIV in following “all” of the way of the Lord; would you picture with me how beautiful and where we could be spiritually, as well as, the Body of Christ would be generationally; how “pleased God” would be? Majority of the time, we embark upon something else, despite the Lord preparing steps and paths for us to proceed with Him -> Psalm 25:4-5 NIV. I’ll end with 1 Kings 19:12. LET US CHANGE THAT WITH HIM! THE BIBLE SPEAKS A LOT ABOUT DOING STUFF WITH CHRIST/GOD/THE HOLY SPIRIT/THE BIBLE!

John 21:25 – If you think “The Last Supper” by Leonardo da Vinci was a cool painting, I’ll show you something else. It’s called “The Wedding at Cana” by Paolo Veronese. What do you notice about the painting? For me a) the colours b) the way they treated Jesus like a background actor c) people weren’t paying attention to Him d) what would Jesus face look like with how we treat him? e) He wasn’t treated with any importance f) they seemed very distracted by their own riches g) Jesus doesn’t like their outward social life. What I just showed you is a way that I train my eyes to see + contemplate the hidden stories in my day, to extract spiritual value, and to look into verses; all with the help of Jesus. This can dramatically help your sermons, the way you evangelize, using everyday scenarios much like the painting exercise we just did, you can share something that stood out to you in your day with verses that are no different than my creative process with the Lord, in the Storytime Verses section. In the very under-utilized John verse but with so much literal spiritual reality, we all have a very special story to tell about our walk with the Lord, I believe that this is a great way to communicate our Testimony with Christ. Let’s go back in time, specifically 5 years ago, what stood out to you in that year? Go through your photos, like the painting exercise. For me, I had a dinner table worth of junk foods, the verses that come to mind are the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and the Tree of Life [(Gen. 2:16-17, 3:1-3) Storyline A]. So you can ask the Lord, if He is leading you to a sermon about “choices.” Let’s go back 10 years, for me, I was happy, just being myself. The verse that come to mind about how we all have a unique role in the body of Christ [(1 Cor. 12:27) Storyline B]. So you can ask the Lord, if He wants you to share about how “your individuality can build-up the church.” Let’s go back 20 years, I was on vacation and I remember the air from the mountains, try to include an ambience one. The verses that come to mind are when Moses was at Mount Sinai [(Exodus 19:18) Storyline C]. Now I want you to, without erasing much of Storyline A,B,C, -> attempt to put them together into a coherent spiritual sequence. When I look at the examples above, I would say Storyline B,C,A is the way I would plot my material, so in my sermon, I could move from our uniqueness in the body of Christ -> to the Holy Spirit continually refining us -> to making better choices to build-up the church. Telling and expanding the stories like I did in Storyline A,B,C + along with adding more verses, when prompted. You can go back more years and keep going = more material. Ultimately, make sure that the material glorifies Christ and edifies the church. Now after you write it all up, pray further, that the Holy Spirit can help you string everything together; after you finish quilting everything. This is the main part where you add/delete/edit, cause you never know what the Holy Spirit can use, LET THE HOLY SPIRIT ULTIMATELY BEAR WITNESS. Even what we consider as an insignificant story can be turned into spiritual value, for example, I talk about a lot of random things in my Storytime Verses section but somehow it all works together for good. PEOPLE IN THE AUDIENCE LOVE TO HEAR PERSONAL STORIES OF PEOPLE WALKING WITH THE LORD. WHO CARES ABOUT THE non-Biblical EXCESSIVE LITERATURE REVIEWS IN YOUR SERMONS THAT JESUS DETERMINES NOT TO BE SPIRITUALLY FITTING (if that is the case). WE WANT TO HEAR ABOUT YOUR STORY WITH CHRIST, JESUS, GOD, THE HOLY SPIRIT, WHAT SCRIPTURES PROMPTED YOU! THAT’S GOLD. Writing sermons can be fun, I use to treat it as standup. You should do that too, find your spiritual vibe. You have your own testimony with the Lord, and people like autobiographies. There use to be a show called A&E Biographies, HUGE AUDIENCE. Your life with the Lord is interesting. There’s endless material, talking about your walk with the Lord. Aside from Jesus, God, the Holy Spirit: you are the best subject matter expert about your relationship with the Three! Also, start journaling verses and scenes, in your day Deut. 10:12!

Hosea 1:2 and 1 Cor. 6:15-16 – do those verses conflict with each other? The answer is no, there are so many verses in the Bible that have clauses in them, which enables God so much freedom to do, as He wants, and just looking at those two verses isn’t the bigger picture. God’s Word doesn’t contradict, and He won’t violate His own nature either but we need to be mindful of what this says in Romans 11:33b – “his ways past finding out!” We humans are bound by restrictions, with the way we think, we draw these limits for God that He can only move certain ways, according to a finite knowledge of the Bible. What the Bible shows time after time is that God’s people male or female under a unique anointing goes beyond some ecclesiastical office title, the Lord’s spiritual authority in someone can go above whatever system or limitations that the world has in place. People would say, “just look at the New Testament!” What about the Old Testament? Look at Deborah, avoid looking at just some outward office, is there a unique anointing that made her function the same as a spiritual elder? Where God expressed Himself? It doesn’t depend on some title but how God transcends our thoughts about the guiding functions of His people to what we perceive as a “specific” Divine pattern with only a few variables. God can use as many variables, as possible. Let’s say that we prevent women completely from doing this or that in a church, God has a Divine order that, during emergency situations + other scenarios, He can act and choose, whatever and whoever He wants, He isn’t regulated by any legalism or ordinances, He does what He wants and writes the rules. So if God selects a male or female for a specific role or function, under extraordinary circumstances, and we attempt to quench that, from quoting a small number of verses like I did above to draw a conclusion; I think that’s dangerous. So let’s not sanction the Holy Spirit, from doing what He did with Deborah, and the modern day Deborahs that are denied opportunities because we are unable to see that “Christ is all, and in all” (Col. 3:11b). Look at it as whether Christ is governing, in that vessel. Any male or female can be anointed as a vessel of Christ to carry out His prerogative, gender itself didn’t interfere with His purpose. So to summarize everything into one point: ask yourself, “Is this a unique situation, from God’s perspective, and not my own interpretation of events?” As the Bible is filled with a lot of unique events, that defies human thought. We have to make sure that we are seeing the Bible, differently, and not some intellectual assent of ours. The Pharisees asked the Lord what He thought but of plenty times it wasn’t really acknowledging what He said but their own intuitions and how smart they thought they were. In 2 Cor. 3:6, it’s worth to examine, if the Lord is trying to communicate something, an organic spiritual movement from Him that is Spirit-led, don’t just look at things on the appearance (1 Samuel 16:7) and say things like “oh that’s no job for a lady”, I still can’t believe people make decisions like that. Inward seeing what God is looking at and toward ought to be a focus. In 1 Cor. 2:16 – we have to stop being atheistic with our own wisdom and ask Christ, His overall thoughts, seek Him on the matter because we have so many blindspots, can you really understand the abstraction of the Bible? What’s next? We remove eating fruits from trees at church or avoid the colour red or I can’t go hiking in the wilderness because I’ll be more prone to being tempted? How we see things and how God sees the matter is entirely different. If God wanted to do something right now, even like take another Enoch into Heaven, I’m sure He can justify it, and it wouldn’t be contrary to His Word; we don’t understand God’s Word well-enough to determine the limits of His powers and choices. Let the Spirit bear witness, as to whether something is from Him. Look at the Spirit of the Scripture, they are complementary. Whatever God decides, His thoughts are higher than ours, and we need to keep that in mind, when we approach scriptures.