Curt Harlow [00:00:00]:
Hello, my friends, and welcome to another edition of the Bible Study Podcast. And we're here with world-famous podcaster and pastor.
Morgan [00:00:08]:
You've lost your frontal lobe. Dina's not here, you call her the frontal lobe.
Curt Harlow [00:00:12]:
Yeah, I— we don't— who needs a frontal lobe for every episode? By the way, Dina has the flu. Pray for Dina. And we have Kevin here who's got an amazing podcast. I kid about it a lot, but it's called Change the Odds, which is about changing the odds of how successful, happy, fulfilled your marriage will be.
Morgan [00:00:30]:
Marriage and family were never meant be a game of chance.
Curt Harlow [00:00:32]:
There we go. I like it. That's good. We need it.
Morgan [00:00:34]:
We got a tagline, Bri.
Curt Harlow [00:00:35]:
We need a tagline.
Morgan [00:00:36]:
The Bible study, you should read it.
Curt Harlow [00:00:38]:
You should read it correctly.
Morgan [00:00:41]:
Yes.
Curt Harlow [00:00:41]:
All right, we're talking, we're in our series Not Without. Of course, this podcast is the podcast that follows the weekend preaching sermon series at all 10 Bayside churches. And we are right now in a series called Not Without. We're examining core, main and plain biblical issues biblical ideas and comparing them to the state of our church. Are we going on without these vital things? We've talked not without God's vision. We've talked about not without faith in God. And we're talking this week, of course, a main and plain one, very important. Are we a praying church? We're not moving forward.
Curt Harlow [00:01:19]:
We're not getting into the next series without prayer. No better place to study prayer than in the the spot where Jesus taught us how to pray, the Lord's Prayer, or maybe more accurately, the disciples' prayer that Jesus taught them. Kevin, you want to read through, give us a little context of where we're at in the book of Matthew, and then read that through and we'll dive right in.
Morgan [00:01:40]:
Yeah, great. So Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, right? I mean, basically this is what the kingdom ethic actually looks like. And so every culture, every building, every organization has an operating procedure, right? I don't have to tell you to be quiet when you walk into the library. You know how things operate. Operate. Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount is saying, here's what—
Curt Harlow [00:02:00]:
You might need to tell me to be quiet.
Morgan [00:02:02]:
You might be an exception.
Curt Harlow [00:02:03]:
I get your point. It's a good point.
Morgan [00:02:04]:
Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount is saying, here's what the ethic of God's kingdom is like. And here's what I find fascinating is he's inviting us to live now the way we will live forever. So we don't have to stay in the ethic of this world. We can right now start living out the ethic of God's kingdom. Love it. So Matthew chapter 5, remember the Beatitudes? He sets forth who inherits, The kingdom of God kind of goes through many of the Ten Commandments contrasting that. Chapter 6 begins with, I think, a very important idea. "Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them.
Morgan [00:02:36]:
For if you do, you'll have no reward from your Father in heaven." So everything in chapter 6 then is how do we properly practice this kingdom ethic? And much of it is opposed to the Pharisees. So Matthew chapter 6, let's start reading in verse 5. "And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others." Truly I tell you, they have received the reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father who is unseen. Then your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like the pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. This then is how you should pray.
Morgan [00:03:22]:
Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread and forgive us of our debts as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. Many people stop there, but let's keep on going for a couple more verses. For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive you your sins. Matthew chapter 6.
Morgan [00:03:54]:
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God for it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Curt Harlow [00:03:59]:
Okay. Two thoughts to start us off. Actually, three thoughts. This prayer is so profoundly deep that you could not exhaust a life of study figuring out how incredibly beautiful it is and incredibly insightful it is. And incredibly, in this prayer, you can figure out who God is and you can figure out what you need. And at the same time, we use it to pray in locker rooms before high school football games. We are so skilled at taking the most theologically liberating stuff and turning it into religious babble.
Morgan [00:04:42]:
So can I interrupt with a pointless story that I find fascinating? So back in the South, church league baseball's a big thing. So the kids played church league baseball. And so I grew up Baptist, so we had our little team and the Catholics were always the greats because they would practice all winter. But here's what would happen is—
Curt Harlow [00:05:00]:
They have the basements.
Morgan [00:05:01]:
That's exactly right. Whenever you would come out, the home team would be the team to pray. So whenever we were the home team, one of our coaches would say this very Baptisty kind of quick prayer. Lord's Prayer, whatever. Well, when the Catholics came out, they in unison, every single one of them would say the Lord's Prayer. And there was nothing more intimidating in my entire life thinking we are about to get killed.
Curt Harlow [00:05:21]:
Yeah. It's like one of those rugby, the Australian rugby team or New Zealand, whichever one it is. Yeah. My experience with the Lord's Prayer is we're in a locker room in 45 minutes from the Canadian border in the middle of nowhere, Eastern Washington. High school of 200 students, and we're in the locker room. And the last thing we do before we run out the tunnel and break through the butcher paper sign the cheerleaders have made is we bring it in. And the Lord's Prayer sounds like this: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Morgan [00:05:54]:
Kill them!
Curt Harlow [00:05:55]:
Kill them! And even as a non-Christian, I thought, this is just What is this? This is the strangest thing. And what I think it is, it's our soul hiding from the truth of this profound prayer. We'd rather put it into a religious setting or a cultural setting than we would actually grapple with it. And I love the fact it starts off with don't do this, because these two are really profound. Verse 5, don't pray standing in the synagogue because you've already gotten your reward. And this is the good news for every person who does not like to pray for a long time. Don't pray with many words. Long is not more godly.
Curt Harlow [00:06:44]:
And then he says, do not babble like the pagans. So here's the good news. We know who he's talking about here. He's talking about the Jews because they're standing in the synagogue public area, and he mentions the pagans specifically. So now we can ask contextually, What was it that the Jews did? So a Jewish man would get up every morning and recite Deuteronomy 6:4-5 out loud. The most important concept in Judaism: Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is one Lord. Then he would cite 18 different memorized prayers. And you're showing that you were a literate, God-honoring, Torah-honoring adult was that you had mastered these prayers.
Curt Harlow [00:07:28]:
It's literally— I won't pronounce the Hebrew— it means standing prayers. I can stand up and say all of these. And Jesus immediately goes, well, you know, this prayer has nothing to do with how impressive you are. Prayer has nothing to do with performance. I can't tell you— I'm sure you've done this too, Kevin— the amount of small groups I've been in where I've asked someone to pray publicly for the first time.. And there's this feeling of like, if I get one word wrong, that I'm going to embarrass myself from my friends and a lightning bolt will kill me in this small group. And Jesus just— it's just liberating here. He's like, listen, there's no evaluation going on during this.
Curt Harlow [00:08:10]:
And if you are seeking an evaluation, you've hit it wrong. Then this is the really interesting one. Verse 7, do not keep babbling like pagans. So what's going on here? The tradition of the pagan prayer was appeasement. So the Jewish problem is appearance. The pagan problem is appeasement. So the idea here is I've got a plethora of gods, a universe of gods, and if I don't reference them, they will be offended.
Morgan [00:08:39]:
Time to check all the boxes.
Curt Harlow [00:08:40]:
Yes. I have 15 deities for me, but I get one deity against me.
Morgan [00:08:45]:
Like a NASCAR race car driver at the end of a race has to Mention every sponsor.
Curt Harlow [00:08:50]:
It's the Oscar speech where you forgot your agent or your mom. And so the idea here is of, I do not— what this says is the gods I'm praying to are egotistical, insecure, easily offended, chaotic, and unpredictable. And if I do not approach them correctly, I'll get their wrath. And Jesus says, listen, I'm not evaluating you. And you're not going to offend me. You're not giving me any appeasement. Then the brilliance of the prayer itself.
Morgan [00:09:24]:
Yeah. Because you can't. You actually can't appease me. That's the interesting thing there. And what I love here is this idea of— it almost protects us from two concepts. One, it protects us from the concept of turning prayer into rote memory and showmanship. So I know how to check all the boxes. But then it gives us the scaffolding to help us.
Morgan [00:09:50]:
So I think everybody, depending on where your religious background is, especially your denominational background is, you're either high liturgy or you're anti-liturgy. And this kind of shows that neither one are necessarily what we're shooting for. That we can't just do the liturgy just without heart, just in our head. At the same time, there is some meaning and some value in the scaffolding to help teach us how to pray. And the Lord's Prayer is something, it's more than just a model. It is something that we can actually pray and learn from.
Curt Harlow [00:10:22]:
Yeah, scaffolding's a perfect word. By the way, there is no such thing as no liturgy. Yeah, that's true. Even the people that hate liturgy, my wife used to go to a church where they had no order. And it always happened the same way. They're now ordered. And it was thought to be unspirit-led if you didn't have a long period of singing followed by whoever was moved by the Lord to preach, which was always Brother Don. So I don't know, Kevin, your Baptist background, my Catholic background, and I had a couple really good Catholic priest friends in my campus ministry days that were really true, sincere, great believers in the Newman House, which is the Catholic outreach to the university campus.
Curt Harlow [00:11:09]:
And I've been at some very moving liturgical services. No question. Where it's almost like— and having grown up in kind of people mumbling the responsive reading and mumbling the Lord's Prayer, not really into it. When you get into some of these that it really is used as a scaffolding and the thing that is being built is is truly biblical and God-honoring and Spirit-led is, you start to go, oh, I get what us Protestants are missing. We have severed our ties back to just the way that Christians have done it for forever and ever.
Morgan [00:11:50]:
So I like scaffolding. Here, the prayer gives me confidence where otherwise I don't have it. So anytime I pray the Lord's Prayer sincerely with an open heart, and this is my true confession, there's confidence in that. Because I don't know about you, and these aren't things that we're allowed to say normally as pastors, but prayer is a topic that I'm very uncomfortable with of, yes, I'll pray out loud. I'll pray it whatever you want me to pray it. I don't have a problem with that. But hey, Kevin, come teach us how to pray. I don't think I'm your guy that you want.
Morgan [00:12:20]:
I'll talk about everything else, but this one I'm not as confident on of. Clearly I pray, but I don't come at this with a boldness of I got this one figured out. How do you feel about that?
Curt Harlow [00:12:32]:
I think I'm the best person on the earth to learn about prayer from. I really do. I think—
Morgan [00:12:38]:
I think you're serious. You're actually serious.
Curt Harlow [00:12:40]:
This is my forte right here. And I'll tell you what, I have a friend named Alicia Sholey. Alicia is an incredible Bible teacher, incredible communicator, super heart, incredible intellect, and she is a devotional all-star. Like, she literally writes her books out of these encounters she has with God. Or A.W.
Morgan [00:13:05]:
Tozer. Him.
Curt Harlow [00:13:05]:
Yeah, very, very much so. And I have known Alicia and Barry Sholley for, you know, 30 years. I've never seen her touch the ground. She floats 6 inches above the ground, and she's always just got done meeting with the Lord. And I promise you, there's been several times her face was glowing like Moses. I am so not like that. I am. This is— I pray the Lord's Prayer every single day.
Curt Harlow [00:13:32]:
Kevin, here's how it goes for me. Our Father, who art in heaven, in Safeway, because there's bread and then there's milk. We're out— what's the thing? It's a baking soda or baking—
Morgan [00:13:42]:
I mean, I'm that ADD.
Curt Harlow [00:13:44]:
Yeah. And if this works for me, if this has built consistency and a prayer life in me. Now, it's not a lot of words, thank God. Doesn't have to be.
Morgan [00:13:59]:
You can supply those yourself.
Curt Harlow [00:14:00]:
I'm not going into the forest and melting snow 3 feet around me. But I used to think, I'll never be Alicia, so then I can't even have a prayer life. The second I started understanding this, I think the Lord's Prayer has 2 ideas. The first idea is get your perspective correct. Every time you pray, it's an opportunity to get your perspective correct. What's the perspective I want to get correct? I have a Father. I am not fatherless. My Father is in heaven.
Curt Harlow [00:14:32]:
My Father could beat up your father. My Father is hallowed, which means no matter if you've had the greatest father earth could provide, I got a better Father. He's separate. He's different. Yeah, all like some people don't like the father language with God because of family wounds. And I'm like, no, no, no, this is the redemption of that. This is the fulfillment of that. This is the pinnacle of that.
Curt Harlow [00:14:57]:
And then I have a job. I have a job today. My job isn't clerk at the grocery store. It's not pastor at Bayside. It's my job is I am a kingdom advancer. I am whatever vocation I have. The purpose of that vocation is your kingdom come, your will be done. And it's— and I know it can happen.
Curt Harlow [00:15:21]:
I know your kingdom can come because it's already happened in heaven. The order that's in heaven is what I'm bringing here on earth. So just think about this. You start every day going, I'm not fatherless. My father's got all the authority that ever was. He's a different sort of father. And he's given me a job. And it's the highest calling of a job.
Morgan [00:15:40]:
So fascinating. I don't think either one are wrong, but your approach there is that the opening reminds you that you're not alone, that you have a Father. Right. The opening to me reminds me that I'm not the father.
Curt Harlow [00:15:53]:
Oh, that's so good.
Morgan [00:15:54]:
Right?
Curt Harlow [00:15:55]:
That's so good.
Morgan [00:15:56]:
It's not about me.
Curt Harlow [00:15:57]:
So— Did you grow up with a dad? Yeah. We might have a difference there.
Morgan [00:16:00]:
I wonder if that might be the issue. And so the idea of our Father, not even just my Father, which is striking. You have to have equal access to him as I do. So literally we're sitting around the adopted table and I don't have any more right to my chair than the empty chair next to me. And God can sit whoever he wants to. I love it. Our Father. So I'm not in charge in heaven.
Morgan [00:16:24]:
Oh, this is a much bigger picture than what I want to play with. Hallowed be your name. No, no, no. What about What about me? What about my name and who I am? Now we're gonna contrast. I'm literally gonna start praying that your kingdom would come, your will be done, but I want my kingdom and I want my will, which means anything that happens, I'm gonna trust your sovereignty that this is the focus that's upon you on earth as it is in heaven. And now we get into the task.
Curt Harlow [00:16:51]:
It's a perfect example of how powerful this is to change your perspective to the correct one regardless of where your starting point is. And I love it. I think everything you have said there is powerfully true. Now, here's the other thing is, I think the order is correct, too. Without changing your perspective first, none of the second half works. And in fact, much of everything does not work. So, like, Louie Zamperini, and the Unbroken book and in the movie, he gets shot down in the Pacific and him and two other guys end up in the raft. Louie and one of his buddies, I think it's Phil and Mac, and I can't remember which one's which, but one of them is pretty injured, pretty bad.
Curt Harlow [00:17:45]:
And one of them doesn't have any injuries at all, but he's the most afraid. The one that is physically the best is the most afraid. And he's just freaking out. We're going to die. We're going to die. Sharks. We're going to die. We're going to starve.
Curt Harlow [00:17:58]:
We're going to starve. We're going to die. We're going to die. And we're going to die. And Louie says, I was too stubborn in my perspective to die. I was like, I ain't dying. And the other guy was too spiritual. He was like, I'm going to sing hymns and the hymns will sustain me and I will stay alive.
Curt Harlow [00:18:14]:
And the third guy was like, no, we're going to die. They woke up from the first night, and the third guy that was freaked out ate all the chocolate, which is the only rations they had in their survival kits. He ate it all on the first night. They didn't get any. That's the only guy that died. Wow. Because his perspective was a different perspective. And so to me, that's just the brilliance of that, of God going, listen, it's not that I need you to know how powerful I am.
Curt Harlow [00:18:41]:
I don't really have that insecurity. I need you to have the right perspective because everything is going to flow out of that perspective.
Morgan [00:18:47]:
It's kind of the idea of the direction of God, the truth of God is headed a direction. We can get it wrong a million ways, and yet his answer calls us all back. Right. However we got it wrong, this scripture is going to call us all back to the same point.
Curt Harlow [00:19:04]:
Yeah. It's the old illustration of when you want to find counterfeit money, you don't study all the different types of counterfeit money. You study the truth, which is here. So then you get in the second part. Give me your thoughts on the second part, and then I'll tell you what the right answer is.
Morgan [00:19:21]:
Well, I think my favorite part of the whole prayer— That's a joke, by the way. My favorite part of the whole prayer, I think, is give us today our daily bread. Yes. Because it's that simplicity of that daily trust in Jesus. I'm a future-oriented kind of guy. Right? Ella, our daughter with Down syndrome, is born. Literally, Jenny's like, what does it just take to feed this child today? And I'm already working out where's she going to go to elementary school and what do we need to start saving to do this? So I'm always the planner. And so this text is now confronting me back into, are you going to trust Jesus today with what you actually need? And then this idea of how give us our daily bread, it's not give me my daily bread.
Morgan [00:20:04]:
Right. So is it possible that some of the bread I have been given is actually for us?
Curt Harlow [00:20:08]:
Oh, that's really good.
Morgan [00:20:09]:
And how do I experience that generosity now and to recognize he's giving this through me, not just giving me so I can hoard it over here and have all that I need for the next few days.
Curt Harlow [00:20:19]:
This is such a perfect example of how in the English it's 6 words and you could write multiple dissertations on this. So give us today our daily bread is an echo back to liberation from slavery when the children of Israel got their daily bread from God in the desert. It is a reflection of the 490-some-odd times bread is mentioned in the Bible, always as a blessing from God. And if you get your Near East Bronze Age thinking cap on, you realize what a lifesaver bread is, what a technological breakthrough that preserving a large amount of your wheat or grain harvest throughout the year and for a longer time, what that meant to have bread, what it meant to be a person that works so hard fishing all night, then farming during the day to come in and have that amount of carbohydrates available to your body. I mean, it's just on every level. So I say this, I, when I teach on this, I always say this, I say, I'm going to say something right now, it's going to offend many of you, but I don't care. I'm going to stand up for the truth of scripture and I'm going to say it. God is not keto.
Curt Harlow [00:21:45]:
He's carbo. Because Anyone who has had bread baked fresh out of the oven, and if you're really blessed, butter and strawberry jam have been put on it, and taken a bite of just really good fresh-baked bread, I don't know if there's anything that makes me feel closer to Jesus than there is. It's just the perfect metaphor for Not only does God want to sustain us, not only is our body important to him, not only does he know the pain of hunger, the real pain of hunger, his answer to that is not broccoli. Mm-hmm. Broccoli is good. It's important. Kale. It's bread.
Curt Harlow [00:22:33]:
It's just beautiful. It's very, very beautiful. And then he says, forgive our debts as we forgive our debtors. And lead us— well, let's just stick with debts for a second. I want to make a point about all three, but forgive our debts. What does it— what does this mean, that we're to pray that we are forgiven and we forgive?
Morgan [00:22:54]:
Yeah, I mean, so I'm not a Greek expert by any means. We need Wesley Towne here for this. But I think back to Greek 101, basically, of that idea here, that aphiemi, right, of means to let go. And so the picture here is that literally I'm walking around through life holding the necks of people who have offended me in some way. And literally now it's the idea of I need to let them go in the same way that I want God to let go of me on the accountability of my sin. I need to let go of others and the freedom that comes from that. Because my fear in that moment is if I let go of this grudge, That's going to open me up for more abuse, to be taken advantage of, to all those kind of things. They're going to get away with it.
Morgan [00:23:38]:
Not recognizing that as I walk around literally carrying people in my fist, the exhaustion that comes from me and the freedom now that Jesus is inviting us into as we let go. And obviously that's the ultimate sign that we ourselves have received his grace.
Curt Harlow [00:23:54]:
I frequently tell people, you know what's making you weary? It's not the amount of hours you're working. It's not how much work kid is. It's the drama at work and the drama at home. When we are working hard but in unison, there's a weariness that's beautiful and wonderful and makes us sleep deep. And when we are constantly out of sorts with the people we live with and work with, it's a bone weariness that no amount of sleep will will solve. So I really like that idea. I think also debts is the perfect metaphor here. And to me, this is a beautiful poetry about the reality of justice.
Curt Harlow [00:24:41]:
So a child with the consciousness of God in him or her knows intuitively what a dad should do and not do. And they intuitively know when a dad is not giving them what is owed. A dad owes a child a dadhood that is in this way, justice-wise. And so this is why dad wounds and mom wounds and family wounds are so deep. I know a mom shouldn't behave this way. I know a dad shouldn't behave this way. Same thing in marriage. I know intuitively that a spouse should not be doing that.
Curt Harlow [00:25:21]:
I know intuitively that we should not be having this interaction, or you should not be doing that when I'm not around. And so every time you give me something, I know just as intuitively wise that I don't deserve, a debt of injustice has happened. And so I'm walking around with this leisure of going, God, my dad wasn't the way he should have been. My boss wasn't the way he should have been. My mom wasn't the way she should have been. My sister wasn't the way she should have been. And what Jesus is saying is, man, you cannot pay those debts and you cannot collect those debts, and you never will collect those debts. And you have those debts.
Curt Harlow [00:26:05]:
You've created those same debts. And in fact, the holding on of the debts that your dad gave you, your mom, your boyfriend, is making you into a person that causes debts. And so it's just this beautiful— he could have said, hey, when people screw up, forgive them. But it's the perfect metaphor of debt.
Morgan [00:26:26]:
And it's fascinating that this is the thing that Matthew then has Jesus coming back to. Of all the things in the Lord's Prayer that could have been so central. Our Father, what does that even mean? In heaven, all right, the idea of heaven and earth. The worship obviously is a powerful thing. The kingdom, probably what Jesus talked about the most that we talk about the absolute least. Everybody wants to talk about the will of God. What is the relationship between earth and heaven? What does this idea of daily dependence on God even mean? He could have talked about all the things, even temptation. I mean, that's where the interesting HBO kind of idea is.
Morgan [00:26:59]:
But of all the things that he comes back to then in verse 14, it's this idea of forgiveness. That is it possible that of all the things, this is the one that either we're going to struggle with the most possibly, or that this is actually kind of the one that kind of opens up everything else if we can start to get it.
Curt Harlow [00:27:15]:
I got to say, I've loved preaching on this passage since I was in college. And the end where he says, and you will not be forgiven if you don't do this. I don't think I got my— I think that is a more difficult thing to really explain theologically and put it right up against Romans and explain how does that work?
Morgan [00:27:40]:
What's the order?
Curt Harlow [00:27:41]:
What's the— and I've had my theories in the past, and I have my theory, but I will say I think the tension is there. I can't get enough theological redemptive theory around it to remove this idea that that should scare me. Yeah, that's exactly right. That I should— it's more of a visceral response than I am making bullet points in my salvation model. It's like Gordon Fee used to say, believe what you want about the Book of Revelation, but if you don't get to the end of it and feel very hopeful and very scared, you haven't read it correctly. And it's the same way here. This forgiveness thing is a big, big, big, big, big deal. Okay, let's talk demons and temptation.
Morgan [00:28:35]:
I leave that to you.
Curt Harlow [00:28:37]:
Okay, let me make my big point here. Okay, so look at this. So you got perspective, right? Perspective is I have a Father. I'm not the Father. I love both those perspectives. He's in heaven. There's more authority than I can imagine. Hallowed is his name.
Curt Harlow [00:28:54]:
He does everything right. He's separate in how right he is. And his—
Morgan [00:29:00]:
our—
Curt Harlow [00:29:00]:
my job is to have his kingdom come because it's the only important thing. It's already happened in heaven. And now this is the only job. That's my perspective. Then all the rest are about my provision. Where am I fueling myself in life physically? God wants to be my provider. And I think we undersell this. For most of human history, this would have been so hopeful.
Curt Harlow [00:29:30]:
God wants to give me literally daily bread. I'm not over-spiritualizing this. I'm not like, he wants me to feel my soul has eaten. No, God doesn't want your children to starve in the winter. God cares about your body, your spirit, your body, your intellect. They are you. Then it's— so that's our physical needs. Then it's our emotional needs.
Curt Harlow [00:29:52]:
God wants us to be in right standing with each other. He wants you to walk in forgiveness. He wants you to be a distributor of forgiveness. He wants you to let go of the necks and relax. And then there's a spiritual provision. I want to help you spiritually steer away from the sin that will so easily entangle you. And you are like a lamb among wolves. And so I want the evil one— I want to protect you from the evil one.
Curt Harlow [00:30:22]:
Whenever I read this, I immediately go back to the 12 coming back to Jesus after being sent out the first time. Jesus, even the demons submit to us. Wrong thing to celebrate. Wrong. Celebrate that your name's in the Lamb's Book of Life because you are a lamb among wolves. The only submission that demons are seeing is submission to me in you. If it wasn't for me, they would— you would be lamb among wolves. And so I think just daily understanding that, where I go, man, I cannot— I will not stand up against these temptations no matter how much I want without the life of the Spirit.
Curt Harlow [00:30:57]:
And I will not be delivered from the evil one without the power, authority, work, and care of Christ himself.
Morgan [00:31:03]:
Yeah, I love it. I love the circular nature of it. So at the end, If I am delivered from the evil one, then I will be able to resist temptation, which means I will understand how I'm forgiven. So I'll quickly forgive others, which will allow me to accept my daily bread and any more than I get than that happily begin to give away, fixating now on heaven, which changes how I actually see earth, allowing me to surrender to his will. 'Cause now I'm about his kingdom, 'cause I'm making much of his name. And that allows me to come back to the idea of our. Oh, why don't you come into this as well? Let's pray this together.
Curt Harlow [00:31:38]:
You might be my favorite reverse teacher of all time. I've seen you do this several times, and each time I go, that is, that is a beautiful backwards correct way of looking at this.
Morgan [00:31:50]:
It's the Arkansas.
Curt Harlow [00:31:51]:
It's perfect. All right, give me an application. This one should be a little bit easier, but what should we do about all this?
Morgan [00:31:56]:
Oh, I think there's a million applications, but I, I think in the end it is the simplicity of if they were still alive, Billy Graham, Tim Keller, Curt Harlow, and Kevin Thompson all need to pray this prayer, right? Drastically different places where they are mentally, theologically, all those kind of things. But there's a unity that is now found in the submission. And I wonder about the idea of as we pray this together, the power that comes from that. Yeah.
Curt Harlow [00:32:25]:
My encouragement is just to all the people that have somehow gotten the idea that having a prayer life means hours of agonizing. You know, I got a guy on my team named Matthew Hernandez, and his dad was telling me the other day, he said, my mom and dad would pray together an hour every day, and we would bow on their bed. And my mom would say, you just pray as long as you can. Mommy's going to be here for an hour. I'm like, man, geez, you won the lotto in moms.
Morgan [00:32:54]:
Let's not talk to Silas.
Curt Harlow [00:32:57]:
Exactly. And again, back to this way I started this. I'm not that guy. That's very difficult for me to sit still that long, to not start problem solving in my head that long. But this works. So here's my advice. Here's my application. When you wake up, don't reach for your phone.
Curt Harlow [00:33:15]:
Before you reach for your phone, before you reach for your slippers. I do this before I have a cup of coffee, which is miraculous. I lay there quietly in bed. Yes, you can lay in bed and it still counts.. And I pray this through like it's a scaffolding. And I stop at a different place almost every single day and elaborate there a little bit more. Some days I'm more worried about physically what's going on. Some days I'm more worried about relationship stuff that's going on.
Curt Harlow [00:33:43]:
Some days I'm very worried about my kids and the evil one. And it's just the Spirit kind of guides me. And I don't even know if guides is the right word. He gives me permission to linger at different places on the scaffolding and use it as a jumping-off point. And I would say my average prayer time is 5 minutes, and then there'll be some really weird, sweet, not like Curt Harlow moments at all, where I've been laying there praying and fellowshipping with God and really pouring my heart out for 30 minutes. And then usually I have to go to the bathroom, so that ends it. But But the point is, the first thing you wake up, this is very doable. And it really changes my day if I get my perspective right and I go, I'm not going to go out and provide for myself or expect anyone else to provide for me.
Curt Harlow [00:34:34]:
My Father in heaven is providing for me today. It works even for us ADD people. Great stuff. All right, my friend. What? Who, Bri? Who do we got next week? Oh, Jason Cain. Okay, so I, I'm afraid to tell you the topic, everyone, for next week because you want to tune in. It's a challenging one. I'm using that there, reverse psychology on them.
Curt Harlow [00:34:59]:
Um, it's not without sacrifice. Now why would that be challenging? Jesus was the most sacrificial figure, and we are following him. We should embrace, understand, practice sacrifice. We In fact, you cannot walk in without sacrifice and call yourself a follower of Christ. So we're going to examine how does that work and why is sacrifice the key to joy in life? And it really, really is. So join me and hopefully Dina will be back by then and Jason Caine next week. As always, thank you for tuning in to the Bible Study Podcast. Be sure to watch Kevin's Change the Odds Marriage and Family Podcast.
Curt Harlow [00:35:40]:
And all the Thrive Network podcasts. They're all, they're all spectacular, and I mean that very sincerely. Do share. Go ahead, just do it right now before you— no, just do it unless you're driving. Share this podcast and let's all study the Bible together.