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Welcome to our first episode of Twelve24, A Ministry of Worship Transforms. My name is

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Lori True and I have the privilege of being your host. We want to empower you

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to live your best life through biblical inspiration and through connecting with

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Jesus in face-to-face worship. All right, well let's break that down. What are we

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going to be doing these podcasts and what does it mean? I've been a worship

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leader, worship pastor most of my adult life and for that time I was just

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intuitively known that worship can impact us in ways that nothing else can

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or better said like no one else can because let's face it, worship is not

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just something we do, it's a person we're encountering and that person is the very

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living God of the universe. So what's the difference between singing songs to God

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which we do in worship, right, and meditating on Him in worship? It's an

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interesting thing to think about. Well in both our attention and our focus is on

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God, it's on the Lord, it's on encountering Him, it's giving Him His honor

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and due and our allegiance and our praise but when we worship in a

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meditative way it's a little more directed, it's a little more focusing on

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a particular aspect or attribute of God and we focus on that, we focus on who He

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is and how He thinks of us in context with who He is and it's interesting what

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happens but so many of us may have this image of meditation of like someone

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sitting in a lotus position and chanting Om and that is derived from usually

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Buddhism and then other Eastern religions and perhaps mindfulness also

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that they will often teach in the schools and it's based on a premise of

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emptying your mind so you can reach some kind of enlightened state. So let me be

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really clear that's not the kind of meditation that we're going to be

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engaging in, not the kind of meditation that I yeah not what we want to be

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doing. The Bible though talks about meditation and instructs us to meditate

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on His Word, to meditate on the Lord and we're to do it often day and night and

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yet so often it's gotten kind of this bad rap. Well the reason that we don't

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want to empty our mind of everything is because then we're completely susceptible

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to everything that's in the atmosphere, everything in the spiritual atmosphere

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and let's just say there's a lot that's in the atmosphere that we don't want

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influencing us. We want to focus on the Lord so that He can influence us. It was

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in my doctoral dissertation a few years ago that I learned a little bit more

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what meditation has, meditating on a good God has the ability to do in our lives

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and I was just fascinated by this. Research has shown that meditating on a

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good God, that's really important we'll come back to that, meditating on a good

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God for as little as 12 minutes at a time has the ability to form new healthy

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neural pathways. It's so fascinating to me because they used to think that we

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were stuck with the neural pathways that we had and then at a certain age they

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just all began to die off and I'm so glad that's not the case because new

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neural pathways can be formed but the kind of God that we meditate on really

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makes a difference. So it is important that we meditate on who God really is

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and that is a good God. He's a vast God. He's so much greater than we are and

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when we try to grasp the greatness of who He is and those attributes of who He

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is, His characteristics and then how He feels about us, well we begin to align

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our thinking with His and those neural pathways grow and stretch and as I said

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those are in healthy ways. We get stuck in ways of thinking that are, let's

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face it, not always super healthy. There may be something that triggers us and we

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get stuck in anger or we get stuck in worry and we just begin to ruminate on

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it and our brain does this circular thing and we can't seem to get out of it

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and being able to meditate on a good God, for instance like the fact that He says

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do not fear for I am with you and you know He says don't fear in some

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translations 365 times. That's one a day. So if you were to meditate on one

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of those, if you had a problem with fear and you were to meditate on one of those

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and who He is every day, well that's it. You are not going to fear anymore

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because His truth will begin to change the way you think and when you naturally

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would go down that road of fear and worry then the new neural pathway begins

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to come into effect and you start thinking in a different way. Well that's

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really cool right? Just the 12 minutes of focusing meditating on a good God

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changes our neural thinking but there's something called the Hebbian principle

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and it says this neurons that fire together wire together. So you take two

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activities that have the ability to grow new neural pathways, in this case

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meditation and then another one that we'll be doing and that's music and you

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put them together and those neural pathways become stickier. They become

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more entrenched like a well-worn pathway. So when we first go down that road, let's

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say we meditate one day and we get these new neural pathways, if we don't

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continue to do it those neural pathways won't remain but when we combine the

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meditating on God with music in worship then it's just a little more entrenched

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and we have a greater chance of it sticking. So it's like accelerating

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those benefits. That's such a cool thing that God put this in place where He says

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to worship Him and He doesn't say worship Him because you're gonna go

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these benefits and that's not why we worship Him but how amazing it is that

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when we encounter Him, when we focus on who He is, we begin to understand who He

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is more, our relationship with Him grows and our thinking begins to change. I love

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what 2nd Corinthians 3.18 says and it says, but we all with unveiled face

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beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are being transformed into that

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same image from glory to glory just as by the Spirit of the Lord. It's a key

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verse for me, it's a key verse for this ministry because by gazing on Him, that's

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what we're doing in worship, that's what we're doing in this meditative worship,

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we're gazing on Him and as we do so it's like we're seeing a reflection. I love

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what the NIV says, we contemplate His glory as we contemplate Him. That glory

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it's like we reflect it and we begin to be transformed. That's the word that's

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used, in fact it's the same Greek word that is used for the transfiguration.

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We're actually transformed into an aspect of who God is which just, I mean

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honestly, just blows my mind. I can't really even grasp that with my finite

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mind but it's an amazing thing what happens and by contrast Psalm 115 shows

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what happens when we worship a dead God. Remember I said it was really

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important to worship and meditate on a good God. We'll listen to what happens

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when we meditate on or when we worship a dead God. So this is in Psalm

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115 and we are starting in verse 6 and the psalmist is talking about

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worshipping idols. He says well in verse 5, they have mouths but they can't speak,

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they have eyes but they can't see, they have ears but they can't hear, they have

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noses but they can't smell, they have hands but they can't feel, they have feet

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but they can't walk, they can't make a sound with their throat and those who

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make them will become like them. When we meditate on unhealthy things we begin to

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become like that. If we were to meditate on a vengeful God we begin to grow

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neural pathways but this time they're unhealthy and they begin to go in

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alignment with that vengeful way of thinking. Oh we don't want to be doing

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that. So we want to meditate on the truth of who God really is. Now as we do that

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it's so important that we open ourselves up to who he is, that we open ourselves

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up not just to know him because I promise you should go on this journey

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with us you're going to learn things about God you never knew. He's going to

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reveal things about who he is that just blows your mind because we can't help

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but have that happen when we come face to face with him. But it's not just about

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knowing him, it's allowing him to know us. He wants to know us which can we grasp

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the the privilege that that is? I know once again I can't really grasp that but

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I understand that it is beyond my wildest imagination to understand that

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the God of the universe, the God who's so bigger than anything that I can imagine

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wants to know me. But he cares about what I think, he cares about what I feel. He

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wants to delve into all the hidden places and show me, bring them into the

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light, those things those hurts that need to be healed, the insecurities that need

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to find their footing in who I am in God, those maybe places of bitterness or

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unforgiveness or maybe even anger at him, things I've been holding against him

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and he needs to show us the truth and he wants us to know that he's a safe place

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that we can do that, that we can be real with him. We know that music has a way of

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really impacting our emotions. I know that that's one of the reasons that God

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says to worship him through music because it does touch our emotions in

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ways that nothing else can. So we want to approach our time of worship with the

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Lord and meditative focus on him with opening our emotions to him, opening

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ourselves up, opening our mind and our spirits and asking him to encounter us

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in the place that we are. I would encourage you also that you may want to

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have your Bible with you because we will be meditating on Scripture as we focus

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on who he is and I'll always give you the verse. You can go to it and we can

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meditate together and we'll sing before the Lord and we'll meditate on

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that particular verse or a few verses. And then I also encourage you maybe have

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a piece of paper or notes on your phone or whatever it is where you can, as

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God reveals things to you, you can just quickly jot it down and kind of a data

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dump if you will because he may either bring someone to mind in the middle of

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our time together and it may be something to deal with right then but it

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also may be something to think about for later and you want to set it down so you

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don't worry about forgetting it and you can just focus on our special time with

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the Lord. And he may also be bringing up things that he wants to talk with you

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about and once again then we write it down. We're committing to kind of in

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partnership with him to say, Lord we want you to heal this in my life or maybe

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it's guidance or direction, something you've been praying for and a flash

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comes. Don't ignore that. That's him speaking to you. When we make ourselves

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open and we're in that place of worship we're focusing on him I promise you as

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you continue this you will hear his voice louder than you ever have before

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and he'll speak to you secrets about himself. He'll speak to you secrets

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about yourself and things that he wants you to know. You can trust that he's

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going to speak to you in that. So being able to write it down and come back to

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it and revisit it is a great thing so you can continue to be focused on him.

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These are invitations that he gives us and then you have the opportunity to

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accept them and grow with him in that. So we are the way the rhythm of what it's

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gonna look like. Our goal is to get them out three days a week. You can pray for

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me, pray for us as we seek to do that. We would love if we were able to

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do this every day but we're hoping to at least do it three days a week to start.

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And in each episode we'll start with that time of a little devotion if you

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will where really we are going to illustrate some aspects that we'll be

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focusing on that day in worship and that that initial time where we'll discuss it

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talk about it will be somewhere around five-ish minutes and then we'll move

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into the worship meditation which will be at least 12 minutes but we'll see

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where the Holy Spirit leads during that time. There's so much

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material that we can use in focusing on him. This podcast could go on till

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eternity because we will never be able to plumb the depths of who God is fully.

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We'll just be able to scratch the surface. Some of the things that we will

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be delving into the names of God, who he is, Jehovah Rafa our healer, Jehovah

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Nisi our banner, Jehovah Shalom our peace and we'll also be looking at the

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characteristics of who he is, his love, his joy, his peace, his kindness and

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isn't it crazy that those things are all fruits of the Spirit and he wants to

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impart to us. I love that. So there are these different aspects of who he is and

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then we'll also be looking at who we are in him, who he says that we are and some

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of our inheritance that we have in him as his children because that helps us to

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live out how he wants us to live in partnership with him because he sees who

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you really are in him and it's so so much bigger than anything that you could

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even ask or imagine and he wants to reveal that to you. He wants to transform

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you into that person as we become more and more like Jesus. Yes, that's what

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we're going after to become more and more like him. So if you like what you've

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heard at all then I just encourage you please like, subscribe and if you'd share

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this with a friend we would sure appreciate that too as we try to get the

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word out. We are starting from scratch here but this is something that God has

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put on our hearts. It's something that I have felt compelled to do for a while

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now. So I'm just excited to see where the Holy Spirit leads us as we follow him

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because let's be real. It is him that we're encountering. There is an

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intangible aspect of meditating on him in worship that no research can ever

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show because we are encountering the very living God. As we come to him we

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want to say, Holy Spirit I invite you. We invite you here with us. We invite you to

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do what only you can do. We invite you to move in us. We open ourselves up to

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whatever you want to do because we can trust him. We can trust him fully and

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when we do that he'll move in ways beyond anything you can ask or imagine.

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He'll move in ways that will blow your mind as he begins to transform you. He

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begins to transform your thinking. He then begins to transform your

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circumstances because you approach them differently. You pray differently about

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them. He'll give you strategies on how to go after the things that he sees for

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you and that maybe has been on your heart for a long time and you haven't

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known what to do. He will begin to transform the people around you as you

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pursue him in this. So I'm so excited that you're here with us. Can't wait to

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go on this journey with you. We're gonna have a great time and we're going to

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encounter the Living God who loves you more than you realize. So be blessed and

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yeah, let's do this.

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you