Book of Psalms - Psa. 17, Vs. 6-8

Good morning, we will be in psalm chapter 17

Again just a not a full recap from last week, but essentially the the driving theme in psalm chapter 17 is the prayer life of David and The state of his being during his prayer life

We have him calling out to the Lord for deliverance but before he does that He ensures that he is in a righteous state then he cries out to the

Lord and he gains the ear or When you read further down in the chapter even the face of God he requests

God to pronounce his sentence and that that come forth from his face in other words

He's wanting the favor of God and he wants God's judgment to come from a place of favor

He's asking the Lord To examine him and says that you won't find anything wrong with me

Even if you continue to examine me because I've purposed that my mouth will not

My mouth will not even Transgress so we're gonna be starting in verse 6 again

The Last the last thought I had on verse 5 last week was about Hold up my goings in thy paths that my footsteps slip not and I reminded us of the

Study we did from a few chapters back talked about make my feet the hinds feet

So the idea there is that make me step where you step because a hind

Is a type of deer that can actually put its back feet exactly where its front feet land.

So when we see David here say hold up my goings in thy paths

It's like let me step where you would step Because if we do that if we ask the

Lord to have us go through a situation the way he would go through it then

We know that we'll have sure footing so today what we're gonna do is we're gonna expound a little bit on that concept on the idea of Looking more like Jesus when we are oppressed when we are

Wanting deliverance the importance of the righteousness that we should be striving for And how that's going to affect the prayer life.

Remember last week. We also talked about things that can they can hinder your prayer life they can actually cause you to Have your prayers hindered ignoring scripture was one of those just sin in general

Having unforgiveness for others Being selfish like asking that you may consume it upon your own lusts

Husbands treating their wives poorly These were all specific examples that we brought out in scripture last week that can hinder your prayer life

And we talked about the importance of just being in a state of righteousness today, we're gonna expound on that just a little bit

So we're gonna start with verse 6. It says I have called upon thee

For thou wilt hear me. Oh God incline thine ear unto me and hear my speech

Now The purpose of pursuing righteousness praising the

God of righteousness and and then petitioning for his royal judgment is that if we are in if we go about it that way and we start from a place of righteousness and And recognize that that righteousness is not our own because our righteousness is as filthy rags if we start from that place

When going to the father for Deliverance of any kind or for provision or for protection, whatever it is we ask him for There are two things

That are direct results of going it about it going about it that way one

You're most likely to gain favor when you are in right relationship with the

Lord and Does it stand to reason isn't it logical that if you

Gain favor from right relationship with the Lord. Obviously, they're just having a relationship with the

Lord Gives you favor It's just when we think of having favor.

We think of it as everything going right for us If you imagine that the

Lord or remember that the Lord chastises those whom he loves Right, he chastens.

I should say those who he loves That is a favor in and of itself even when things aren't going well for us and our

Relationship isn't in right relationship when we're not walking in experiential righteousness

We are experiencing the favor of God if he is trying to correct us Trying if he is correcting us

That's favor, it's just not the way we think of favor, right we think of favor as things are going well for us

And if we want things to go well for us then there is this conditional promise where if we are

Abiding in him and his words are abiding in us then whatever we ask shall be done unto us and so There's this idea of we gain favor

Through a right relationship with the Lord, but there's another thing that happens By having a right relationship with the

Lord and that is that it gives us confidence When we ask like the petitioner the person in David's case here.

Remember he's the plaintiff in the court case He's saying I have a problem with these people over here.

So I'm the plaintiff pronounced judgment on this case Expecting that the

Lord will look at all of the evidence, right and And Confidently saying you're gonna find nothing wrong with me.

He's got confidence in his petition to the Lord and so There there's other scripture that directly references that confidence

If you look at first John go to first John chapter 3 with me real quick And we'll just look at verses 19 through 22 and what you're gonna see is this idea of confidence come into play and But you're also gonna see a few other things that will be brought up in today's study.

So It says in verse 19 and hereby we know that we are of the truth and shall assure our hearts before him verse 24 if our heart condemn us

God is greater than our heart and knoweth all things. Okay, so there's the favor of the

Lord even when We're not in You we're not in a perfect Relationship with him right like when things aren't going well, and our hearts condemning us because we're feeling a little bit guilty

God's greater than that. He can fix that right there. We still have favor. Look what it says that next though It says then it says a beloved

Verse 21 beloved if our heart condemn us not then have we confidence toward God and Whatsoever we ask we receive of him because we keep his commandments notice how it's like cause and effect right like it's giving us the effect first and that is

Whatsoever ask whatsoever we ask we receive of him, but then it gives us the cost because We keep his commandments and do those things that are pleasing in his sight

So it's pretty clear wouldn't you say that like there is an advantage that we gain if we keep

God's commandments if we do what he what he commands us to do One we are more likely to get what we ask for.

There's what we would consider favor But two we have confidence when we ask You all see that any thoughts on that so far?

No, all right Go to verse 7 in our

Psalm chapter 17 now verse 7 Actually before we go to verse 7

I have one more thing I want to To share with you all in verse 6. I have called upon thee for thou wilt hear me.

All right, notice the confidence, right? You will hear me I've David has already done his his little be do have thing that we talked about a couple of weeks ago where He says hear the right

And he asks the Lord to listen to him in three different ways, but he basically states that he is righteous that he's calling out to the

Lord and That he requests to have God's ear

Here in verse 6. He's referencing what he's just done. I have called upon thee.

All right So now I made my call out to you Notice that he says for thou wilt hear me

Notice the way that's written like I Called on you and you will hear me

Now, is that a you're gonna hear me right now immediately You are hearing me

It may it may sound almost a little bit pretentious like not, you know, you're gonna hear me

Maybe there's a little bit of that type of boldness, but I think it's more of a feeling of trust like I know you're gonna hear what

I'm asking But there's an element of patience there because I've called on you.

You're gonna hear me And so there's confidence, but it's also coupled with patience

And I think that's an important thing for us to recognize is that if we are living righteously

We can go to the Lord boldly confidently But part of that righteous living is we've got to have the part of the fruit of the

Spirit which is long -suffering patience Right. So when we go to him boldly saying we know that you're gonna hear us

We know that you're gonna see it our way because we're in right relationship with you We know that you're going to give us our petition

But we're gonna wait on it And we know it'll come in your time might come in your way.

It might be a little bit different than we expect And here's what's interesting about verse 6, it's my favorite part of verse 6 is this last part says incline thine ear unto me and hear my speech

Seems pretty redundant, right? Seems like it's a

Just saying the same thing over and over again. Listen to me and listen to me but if you go and Look up in verse 6 if you go and look up the word for My speech

Here's what it means utterance speech word But this word Imrah is often used to describe

Word of God the Torah Okay, so When you read this incline thine ear unto me so listen to me and hear my speech

What kind of speech is coming out of his mouth These are words that will line up with God's words.

This is he's claiming it as his own speech But this word that he uses is very much in alignment with the

Word of God Which is so important like you have righteousness and It's reflected in the way.

He talks remember He said that he he has purpose that his mouth shall not transgress It can't transgress if you are saying things that come from the

Lord All right. So whenever you are in right relationship with God the words that come out of your mouth are going to be

God's words It's gonna be words that he put there and they're not new words Necessarily, it's not like oh the

Lord has given me a new word, you know Like the words that come out of your mouth will be in alignment with the written

Word of God In this case the Torah Any thoughts on that?

Why this morning? All right, we still waking up Let's go to verse 7

Show thy marvelous loving kindness. Oh thou that savest by thy right hand

Them which put their trust in thee from those that rise up against them David here is simply asking

God to be Who he is To do what he does

And to have what he already has You see it's it's surprising to me that that teaching we learned about the whole be do have thing

Is really everywhere in scripture. It's surprising and not surprising at the same time It's surprising because you just never really notice it until you start

Until you start having it in your mind, you know, like what as you study through It's something that's just kind of back there and you go

Oh, wait a minute if it's here too and it fits there and it fits over here like that makes sense because God's Word kind of all fits together as a whole and You're not gonna find an isolated doctrine anywhere.

It's gonna be throughout This is really cool to me because It's it's the whole be do have concept, but it's not from man's perspective

It's not like man should be this do that and have this this is from God's perspective

Like David is asking God to be who he is to do what he does and to have what he already has

Don't you think that's probably the easiest request to say yes to I mean, it's it's super easy to be who you are do what you do and have what you have like that Of course

God is gonna say yes to that kind of stuff He is marvelous he's loving he's kind he does show this by saving with his right hand

Those who put their trust in him and what does he have he has a people and he has an enemy

Those are things he already has and The David's enemies are

God's enemies anyone who is against God David is against him. He says I hate those who hate you right

There is another example of God's be do have found in Psalm 119 if you'll turn there with me real quick Psalm 119

Starting in verse 122 It's a very long

Psalm in 119 the longest chapter It's the middle of the book, yeah

It's the longest chapter and It's actually there's a lot of good stuff in here, but we're just gonna read three verses in Psalm 119

It's another time when David's talking to the Lord and he He formulates his prayer in this be do have

Methodology in this be do have formula here. He starts off talking to the Lord saying be surety for thy servant for good now as I get into this

I I'm starting to see this. I've been talking with brother

Myron who first brought my attention to this idea of be do have and He and I have nerded out over it a little bit like I've called him a couple times

He's called me a couple of times where we're finding it in other places and What's really interesting to me is that this concept

I don't want it to feel like I'm just taking a rabbit trail because what we're seeing here in Psalm 17 is the importance of Righteousness in your prayer life, right like righteousness preceding your prayers and your prayers being right in a right alignment with God's Word so that when you ask you can have confidence and Favor in your prayer life, right?

So the concept of be do have is intricately connected to how to do that All right, and what you're gonna see is that the concept of be do have from our perspective is

Intimately connected to the concept of be do have from God's perspective. And so what we're gonna do is we're gonna take

Both perspectives here and show you how they kind of fit together Because when they when you've got them fit together and you recognize that concept from both perspectives it helps you to understand

How to be righteous preceding the prayer, does that make sense? All right, so Psalm 119 verse 122

David is talking to the Lord again. We just saw an example in Psalm 17

Where he's there's kind of an implied be do have right here. We'll see it again. Psalm 119 verse 122

He says be surety For thy servant for good surety is kind of like me be the protection be almost like the insurance plan

Right, like you are you are the protection be the one who who vouches for me the one who covers for me

Like when I mess up you are the one that fixes it right be surety for thy servant for good

So there's a be he's telling God be this Then he says let not the proud oppress me.

There's a do right Like protect don't let the proud oppress me

Mine eyes fail for thy salvation. It's one of my favorite verses in the whole Scripture because it's like saying

God's salvation is a sight for sore eyes Like like this is the best thing I can possibly be looking at is

God's salvation Like boy, do I need that right now, right? And for the word of thy

Righteousness. All right. So there's the concept of righteousness here again. Here's another do deal with thy servant

According unto thy mercy. So make sure that whatever you're doing Lord. It's coming from the place of mercy and And teach me there's another do teach me thy statutes

It's interesting that when we first see this concept in Genesis, it's

God Telling man be fruitful Then he tells him three dues multiply

Replenish the earth subdue it. Those are three things to do and then have dominion over it here

We see David speaking to God and he says be sure it II Basically protect let not the proud oppress me a

Deal with thy servant accordingly, there's two dues and then thirdly teach me thy statutes

So we see God's be and then three dues for God and then

God has a half. What's the have? According to verse 125 in Psalm 119.

Okay. There it is. I am thy servant All right, so God Has a servant

He has a servant and he said and and then there it goes right back in to do because this Concept of be do have is actually a cycle be do have do be do have so he says give me

Understanding that I may know thy testimonies All right, so you go wait a minute, but that doesn't say

God has something you're kind of you're kind of Just implying

God has something because it says I am thy servant makes sense from a logical standpoint but that's kind of the point that I'm trying to get at see the way the the concept of be do have from God's perspective and from man's perspective fit together is exactly that David says

I am thy servant God has a servant but David is

The servant and what you learn from this is that God's have is our be right, so God has a people that speaks directly to our identity who we are and so if you're going to come to the

Come to the father and ask him for something You got to know who you're asking and you got to know what you're asking and You got to know if you are qualified to ask what you're asking

Like would you have a peasant or a slave of some sort come to the king and Ask the king

Please behead one of the one of the Dukes for me

Like that's not gonna happen you don't have you are not as a peasant you would not be

Qualified to ask for such a thing, right? And so in order to get the prayers answered

You've got to be in right relationship you got to have the authority structure proper, right and You got to recognize who it is.

You're asking what it is. You're asking and Who you are doing the asking so it's very important to understand the whole

Who are you in Christ? God has a people and Specifically he calls us his children right

He has children. So there's God's have we are the children

So we our identity our being is rooted in God's having There's more to this

God's doing is our having All right, notice in this verse it says let not the proud oppress

So that's something God would do he would protect. What would we have?

protection Because of what Jesus did on the cross first what he did leading up to the cross lived a perfect life

Then he died on the cross died a sinner's death because of what he did we now have salvation

So God's being I'm sorry. God's having is our being God's doing is our having

What do you think? God's being is What is it directly connected to if God's Having is directly connected to our identity our being if God's doing is directly connected to our having

What is God's being directly connected to? Could it be our doing?

Let's take a look Apart from me you can do but all right, that's

Away from my presence right I can do all things through who

Christ who strengthens me so God's being is

Directly connected to our doing we can't do anything without him being with us and so when we recognize that God's be do have is intro intricately connected to our be do have we begin to understand how

Important it is to have that right relationship with the Lord and that's why it's so incredibly

Cool to me that when David says hear my speech his speech is actually

God's speech Right, so like it is God Who works in us

I've got another verse here, let's see if I can find it I might have it a little bit later

If God here's another one if God be for us if God be for us

Who can be against us? All right. So think about what

God's being actually does for you in your doing You know how the scripture tells us that we are more than conquerors

Right. We are more than conquerors. What does that even mean? Have you ever wondered like what is more than a conqueror?

Because Maybe like a king but it doesn't a king become king by conquering

So even a king would be considered a conqueror a conquering king So what then would be more than conquerors?

I? Was pondering this the other day because it was actually last night. I was like, that's a weird way to phrase something

What does it sound like to you when you say more than conquerors? Maybe creator, but what does it mean for you?

To be like I'll tell you what it means to me when I just read it. I go. Okay It means better than a conqueror

It's better I don't know what better than conqueror is when it comes to my own personal walk with Jesus I want to conquer, you know, like I want to have a victorious

Christian life There's Matt's answer right there.

That's it nailed it. Here's why I've got a fly that's gonna bug me now, right?

Yeah Okay, okay good So Matt in case you didn't hear online

Matt said could it be that we are above The whole experience of conquering I mean if it's better than conquerors

Do we even have to conquer see a conqueror? Has to outdo his enemies.

That's how he conquers You're above border disputes, you're above treasure, you're above plundering, conquering, all this kind of stuff.

You already own everything, positionally we already own everything. So there's nothing to conquer.

And if there's nothing to conquer, that automatically puts you in a higher position than anyone needing to conquer.

So you're above them all. Yes So Ben just expounded on the same thought is what

Matt said Matt is you are above the the concept of conquering you are above that experience and Ben says we'll think about it like we already own everything because we are joint heirs with Christ, right?

And because we are joint heirs with Christ He owns it all Therefore we own it all and there's nothing to conquer.

If there's nothing to conquer, that's better than having to be the conqueror who has to go and get something he doesn't currently own because that's what conquerors do.

They go and obtain what they don't already own And that's exactly what we're experiencing here because A conqueror has to make his own doing overcome the doing of others, right?

Like you think of someone like Alexander the Great who went out and just conquered he would overcome people who were trying not to be overcome or he would overcome people who were trying to overcome him and he would win the battles, right?

But his doing was greater than they're doing so he gained this this status of being a great conqueror

But we're not conquerors. We are, if you will, connectors with the Holy Spirit.

We're connected with the Holy Spirit. And when we do that, when we when we hold on to the

Holy Spirit's hand, and we are in right relationship with God Then we are acting within the identity of God's children, right?

And He's done it all already The Holy Spirit trumps the being of others, right?

When we are connected to God's being that trumps the being of other people So when the scripture says, if God be for us, who can be against us, it's implying no one even has the ability to start with identity from which their activity and their property stems from, right?

So like the enemy Can't even be. And if the enemy can't even be, he certainly can't do.

So there's nothing to conquer because you got nothing to overcome. That's pretty incredible.

When you think about it, like, it's already been done. It's when we forget about that identity that we have in Christ, and we begin to strive with our own power that suddenly

We try to overcome and because we try to overcome, we try to conquer

We are actually stepping down from being more than conquerors. And so when we step down, that's when we start to mess up and we go,

I don't even feel like I can conquer this You ever had something where it's like, ah,

I thought I had this beat. Now I don't. And it got me. Well, it's because you're not acting as a more than conqueror, you're acting as a conqueror, you're trying to go and conquer it, and you can't do it in your own power

So if the enemy can't be, then they can't do. And if they can't do, then they can't have victory over you and me.

Conqueror must strive, but we are more than that. We are all called instead of to strive, we are called to abide.

What does it mean to abide? To live in, right?

And get it, Ashton, you got this. It's on Matt's head. It's on Matt's head. Get it That fly, it is going down.

So I want to, I want to talk a little bit about this concept of abiding because to abide means to live in.

So when we have this scripture verse that says, if you abide in me, what does that mean?

Live in the being of Christ, right? Live in his presence.

Live, like, within his proximity.

Get real close to Christ. And if my words abide in you, that means my words should have life in your proximity.

They should have life in your presence. And this is really important because Jesus looked at the

Pharisees and said, you search the scripture for in them, you think you have eternal life, but they are they which speak of me.

What does that mean? I mean, it's like, you can't even go and just read the Bible and memorize verses.

And you can memorize the whole scripture and it can be absolutely utterly useless to you.

If the words that you've memorized have no life in your personal daily walk, like they should come alive, they should be active, they should be working, they should be transforming your actions, they should be transforming your thoughts, they should be transforming your speech, like every part of your being should be transformed.

By God's word. I might need a bug.

Sorry, I got him, but it's kind of gross. Victory.

I'm listening to Matt here. I didn't have to do anything more than conquering this fly right now.

Okay, just a wet paper towel or something. I'm going to act the way the word tells me to act.

Most people don't do that. I'm guilty of that. I'll go in and out of doing that. But the times where I really stay on top of it, it really does transform everything around me.

Yes. So Matt's talking about like, for those of you online, just allowing the word to have life to him means just subjecting himself to the word, right?

Like, when I say to myself, I am going to respond the way the word tells me to respond,

I'm going to think the way it tells me to think. And putting effort towards making your words,

God's words, making your thoughts, God's thoughts, making your actions, God's actions. Remember, the whole

Heinz feet thing. That's the same concept. Like, let me step where you would step. Right?

Yeah, where you are. That's good. Where you already stick because you've already been through this. That's really good,

Matt. In fact, I think I have a note on that.

But that was good. Okay. So if we're supposed to abide in Christ, let's get back to our

Psalm chapter 17. And let's see just what that actually looks like.

This next verse in Psalm chapter 17 describes that in a unique way.

David, in verse eight says, keep me as the apple of the eye.

Now this is a phrase that we still use today, right? The apple of my eye or the apple of your eye, that kind of thing.

What does it mean? What does it mean to you guys? Now some of y 'all, I did a devo on this for Tradeway a couple of days ago.

So you might you might know where I'm going with this. But if you don't, if you haven't heard that devo, I'd like for you to try to answer this.

What does it mean the apple of the eye? Yeah. Which is it's very much that, right?

It's not improper to use it as the center of attention. Something that you enjoy.

Joy. And it's pleased with things like that in David.

So an apple being something pleasing, right? So when

David says the apple of the eye, then you would think what he's saying is keep me the center of your attention right now.

Please God. Keep me the thing that brings you joy, like find pleasure in me.

And to some degree, that's exactly what it means. But it's even cooler than that. Because when you when you look up, did you did you have another thought there, mom?

Right. So some have actually used this phrase to mean the pupil of the eye, like the center of the eye that you use to focus.

It comes from an old Hebrew, a Hebrew idiom that means the little man in the eye, or the little man in the reflection.

And what it denotes is, have you ever been standing really close to someone and really focusing on their face and you're you're talking with them, maybe a spouse, and then you really hone in on the eyes and you actually see yourself in their eyes, like you can kind of almost see reflection.

That's what this phrase actually means. Seeing yourself in their eyes, which requires you being extremely close, being extremely focused on their gaze.

And it usually only works best when they are looking directly at you.

Yeah. Now think about what that means. When David says, keep me the apple of the eye.

We tend to think David is meaning, Oh, God, I want to be your favorite.

God, I want to be your focus. But what it's actually meaning is David would have to be close enough to the

Lord and near enough to his face and so focused on what God's looking at.

And hopefully in this moment, it's God looking at him that David sees himself in God's eyes.

Yes. Yeah. Well, yeah, you can't really see that reflection when you're moving, can you?

And whenever I would disappoint you kids, I was like, look at me.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So mom brings out the idea that you got to be still to really see that reflection in somebody's eyes.

Like if you're moving around, you can't really make it out. But when you get real close, real still and real focused, that's when you see it.

And so it reminded her of the scripture that says be still and know that I am God. David here is talking about the little man of the eye, the reflection that I see in you in your eyes.

So when he says keep me as the reflection in you, that's literally what he's saying.

Keep me as the apple of the eye, he's saying keep me as the reflection in you. So there's

God's presence, right? We have to be close enough to see ourselves in that presence.

And if we have received the Holy Spirit, he already sees us in him.

So that's what's another interesting part about the way David phrases this, keep me as the apple of the eye.

Right? You would almost think with the way we read it, that it should say, help me keep you as the apple of my eye, right?

Like, help me be so focused on you that you can see your reflection in me. But he already sees that if you belong to him.

Like that's the positional righteousness piece there. How do we know? Go to,

I've got a verse here. Is it 2

Timothy, I believe? No, I'm going to have to minimize something so I can pull it up.

It is, yeah, 2 Timothy 2 .13. This will show you that because you have salvation, you have already asked the

Lord to be your Lord, right? He has already regenerated you. He's caused your desire to change that you would want to call on the name of the

Lord. And so now you are belonging to him. You're one of his children. When you are, even when you are in wrong relationship with him, when you are in a sin and you have not yet repented from that sin, he still sees himself in you.

How do we know? 2 Timothy 2 .13. Somebody read that to me.

Okay. If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful, for he cannot deny himself.

In other words, when you are not walking in right relationship with him, he stays faithful to you.

And the reason he stays faithful to you is he can't deny his spirit, which he has put inside you.

He already sees his reflection in you. It's that's the positional righteousness.

Right? So in a sense, he is already the apple of our eye. But our experiential righteousness comes when we see ourself in him.

Right? When we begin to walk closely with him, so close that we can see in God's word and in God's presence ourselves.

And that requires being still. It requires us being disciplined.

It requires us being close. Right? And so we have the positional righteousness.

That's taken care of. God did that. Right? Mattie Grace wrote a paper for school the other day, and it was great.

It was something having to do with the will of man and the sovereignty of God. And she literally ended it with a sentence that just said,

God did it. And I was like, yeah. But it was really cool because throughout her paper, she's talking about how the two work together.

They're not diametrically opposed, like the world, the flesh and Satan would have you believe. I mean, churches are destroyed over this concept that these two are diametrically opposed and has to either be that man has a will or God is sovereign and both are wrong.

It's not just God is sovereign, so man doesn't have a will. And it's not just man has a will, so God isn't sovereign.

It's that they both work perfectly together. Man has a will, is responsible for every one of his choices.

And God is sovereign and has control over man's desire to exercise his will.

And so when God changes our want to, as Pastor David says all the time, that's when we find ourselves drawing close to him and have experiential righteousness is what comes into play when we do that.

So we don't draw near enough to examine ourselves.

Remember, David talked about how, God, if you examine me, you will find nothing.

We talked about how when he said that, he had confidence in that because that means he would have had to self -examine.

Right? So David has a self -examination going on, and that's why he's confident that God will find nothing in him because he's examined himself.

Here is when he talks about keeping the apple of his eye, right?

Keep me the apple of the eye. He's drawing close enough to examine his own reflection in the

Lord. We don't do that. We don't look for our reflection in his eyes.

We tend to focus more on the other side, and that is, does God see us in him?

The answer is already yes. If you belong to him, he already sees himself in you. That's not the thing that's going to help you with your experiential righteousness.

I mean, it certainly can help to know that. It can help you feel washed.

It can help you realize, oh, I can get back in right relationship with him.

So it can help in that sense. But the thing that we're supposed to be striving for is seeing our reflection in him, being in an examination state of ourselves.

So what's ironic is we don't do this because we can't do this unless we have

God's help. We need God's help to do it, which is why it is important that we ask for that help, that we seek his face, which by the way, is how we get to repentance.

That is the way you get to repentance. Chronicles, if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves, pray, turn from their wicked ways, and seek my face, then while I hear their call from heaven, will come and heal their lands.

Humbling yourself is recognition of a higher being.

It is putting yourself in proper lineup of that authority. Like Matt said earlier this morning, praying is what we do to communicate our understanding of that higher authority in the authority structure.

So first, we subject ourselves to the higher authority, we communicate our understanding of that higher authority, and seeking

God's face is seeking the favor of God by examining ourselves and looking for areas in our own lives that don't look like a reflection in God.

Seeking his face is drawing near enough to him to examine ourselves through his viewpoint.

This is what delights the Lord. There's the verse

I was looking for earlier. God is at work in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

You see that? If it's his good pleasure, don't you think you're going to get favor from him? But it's also still a work he does in you.

During salvation, he gives unto them repentance. That's what happens, right? We meekly instruct those who oppose themselves that God, per adventure, would give unto them repentance.

Once we receive it, we are also imbued by his Holy Spirit. His being is then with us.

And we are then given a spirit of power, of love, and of sound mind.

We have the ability and love for God's word to begin to control ourselves and walk in repentance where before we did not.

We didn't have that ability. So what makes it all work? The presence of God. Presence of God and us connecting with that presence is what makes us get to the point where now we can have confidence that our prayers will be answered.

So ask him to keep you the apple of the eye because that's his doing too.

His doing is our having. We can have favor because of what he's done.

Any other thoughts before we close it up? Because we're out of time. Yes, ma 'am.

Oh, I love that. Yeah, the pupil or the eyes are actually the fastest healing part of the body too.

A lot of people think it's the mouth. It's actually the eyes. I have a doctor friend who told me that.

And he's actually an eye doctor. And so the fastest healing part of your body is your eye.

Well, think about what that implies when it comes to being close enough that you can see your reflection in the eye of God.

Like in the eyes of God, like you will experience much faster healing of whatever areas you're trying to conquer because you then get to the plane of no longer needing to conquer.

It's already been conquered. He conquered it. You just run to him and ask him to take care of it for you because it's done.

It's pretty cool. All right. Any other thoughts? Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for your word. We thank you that it's truth. We thank you for just how many levels deep we can go with it.

Like there's just always something new to learn from it. And Lord, we ask that you help us to align ourselves and subject ourselves to your word.

You say that you exalt your word above your very name. So it is so very vitally important.

Lord, help us to be kept the apple of the eye. Help us to examine ourselves and draw close enough to you to see if we are in alignment with you.

Or we ask also that you give us reminders every single day of who we are and whose we are so that we can begin to live as more than conquerors.