Beth Moore - Minding The Store - Part 4
Okay, before we think in terms of the rich store of wisdom, salvation and knowledge, I want you to just think about stability for a moment. I did this with my team last night. I said we just went around the circle. But I mean, we're you, you're us, we all have problems. We all have great concerns and this world is so unstable. I read something the other day that really, I feel like in so many ways gave evidence to the fact that sometimes we wonder, are we in worse shape or have we always been like this? Well, his thing was, oh no. We're in pretty rough shape and really they, they blame a lot of it on social media of what it's done. They blame a lot of what our middle school girls are going through.
We're seeing self harm in our middle school and high school girls at an outrageous, an outrageous level. And what, what, what does it stem back to over and over again? This comparison, I'll never be enough. I hate myself and, or people are telling me they hate me. All of these things. Moms be courageous, have some, some kind of boundaries there. Watch what your kid is storing. Your kid is a kid. They do not have the maturity when they say to you when they're 14 and say to you, "You can trust me," because they can't trust themselves. I couldn't, I needed somebody to come along and go, you know what little girl? You're out of control, you're out of control.
I remember when someone very close to me said you'll be pregnant by the time you're 16. And I wanted so badly to say so why don't you help me? Why don't you help me? I don't, I don't know what I'm doing. I came from a background of sexual abuse. I never was taught a single boundary. None. I did not get to have any boundaries over my person. So what are you helping? Who just judge me? Might someone out there just simply help me. No, we'll just talk about you. Jesus. Jesus. I want to talk a moment about stability because when I look back over the course of my life and my upbringing and the abuse and the things that I have been through, none of them was as relentless as instability. It was just constant was anybody else raised in a situation that you're not, you're not saying you weren't loved. You were also mistreated by others.
And I mean, it's just so con conglomeration of things. But what could anybody besides me? Of course, if your mother is sitting next to you, you're like... And you're putting your hand up here and going... But was anybody else just raised in complete instability? And so I was asking, I talked this over with one of my coworkers. What when we go, I just could, I just have a little stability. What is it we mean? There are so many things that would have meant to me for one thing just knowing, I never knew if we were going to be all right, any day, any day ever. I never knew if we were going to be financially all right. I never knew if my parents were going to be all right. And listen, there were some lovely things in my home, some funny things in my home, some good things in my home. Stability did not happen to be one of them.
And I'm listen and this is what will happen if you single woman do not get this worked out. I'm married straight into instability and Keith would not mind me telling you that because we're not who we used to be. But we were, I'm telling you, we were two trains heading on this track straight toward one another and we crashed together, crashed together. I mean, if you don't, if you don't let God bring you some healing and let him get you some good, good solid therapy, you will repeat the same path. You'll be so mad at your parents for putting you through that and then you will do the same thing. Why? Because it is stored, it is stored.
Now, I'm gonna tell you something. We got some things so far in there. For instance, my abuse, they were going like, how do we unstore that I wanna say something to you? Because I think this is very, very important. What do we do when something is so deeply stored? We almost can't deal with it. I'm gonna tell you this. That's where you seek out people who have been trained in trauma therapy and work with God through it. I cannot recommend enough that if you have something so deeply stored for me, there were things that people would go well, how do I know the difference? Well, if I can just deal with it through very intensive persevering prayer and seeking God through his Word and that he and I are working out, particularly if it's a sin issue, then he and I are, I mean, if we can work it through, then, you know, that's what we're doing.
If I am doing everything I know to do and I still am so traumatized by it. I'm knowing then that God is giving me the freedom to be led of Him to get some good solid help. I'm a very big believer in good solid health. I have lost a good bit of confidence in some of the things that we have provided in the church. Now somebody here is gonna say, "I'm a church counselor and I resent that" and I'm gonna say you may be the exception. And so God bless you, keep up the good work. And if you're a licensed therapist with good training and trauma and you work for your church, God bless you. We need more of you. But I am getting nervous about stories. I've heard about being told to go right back under that roof and let him abuse you again.
No, ma'am, no, ma'am. No, ma'am. When I said last night, my heart, listen, gentlemen, thank, I'm so thankful that you're here. But my heart, God just called me to women's ministry. I think of you every day. You are what keeps me awake. I think continually, what is your well being? I think continually about the ya-yas. I think continually about the little girls, how do we bring them up in this world has so exploited them for their looks and what they can give to this world sexually. What can we do to guard our girls and raise them up in the fullness of Christ where they know their own value. And so last night, when I was reading the text, if you get hit on one cheek, all for the next, I'm not talking about domestic abuse. Keep in mind what the spirit of the text.
You see, when you're mistreated out there and you realize somebody has really been ugly to you and they cursed you, bless them back. That keeps you empowered. But if you're getting knocked around, get to safety, get to safety and get some help and work out what you are to do from there in Jesus name. Oh, just stupidity. What is stability when he says I'm your constant source of stability, what does he mean? Okay, he is the rock. We've been saying it's a rock on which we stand. He is the sure foundation. He is the cornerstone in that same loop six. If we had kept reading, we would have gone right into the house that is built on the rock. This is supposed to be calling back, echoing back to Isaiah that talks about that sure foundation, that rock on which we stand.
Now, I want you to get this picture with me. I was telling the team last night we were, I stood up and I did it with them. We are to put both our feet on the sure foundation of Jesus Christ, both feet. Now, if I were sitting down, we think we're both feet, I can do that sitting down. Oh, no, no, no, because your full weight is on your hind end in that chair. What is that chair to you? Your bank account, all that can go up in smoke. None of that is going with us. The Bible intentionally says over and over again, stand, stand, stand. And the thing about God is he's not into my left foot is on this, is on my job, and we, we need jobs. My right foot is on the Lord. No, no. In all of my job, in all of my earning, in my health and well-being, in my heart and in my mind, my future, my constant source of stability is God alone. God alone.
Now, I don't know what's going on with you. And I don't know if after you felt stable all this time, somebody close to you is really unstable right now and like you're going, I don't know how this is gonna go. I don't know how this is gonna work out. Sometimes, what can also happen is that somebody else's instability will trigger ours. Anybody know what I'm talking about? Like, ok, like for a while we'll be all judgmental like they're so unstable, and then after a while, we're going like, oh now I'm unstable too because it's just like, it's just contagious in the home, isn't it? I mean, one unstable part is too unstable. Three unstable, whole family, whole generation of unstable people. Other times it's us. I want to tell you something, I told this to my team last night.
None of us, not one of us is so stable, we cannot become unstable. I hand you Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel chapter 4, talk about a dude that had it together. God literally touched his brain and I mean, he was like down on his hands and knees growing his fingernails out like this, eating the grass from the field. The Lord had to bring him back around through his repentance because he thought he was God. Saying the Lord's gonna touch your mind and make you unstable. I'm saying this is a very unstable world and we're poorest people and it's getting inside of us. You gotta know who your source of stability is.
So here's the thing, here's the thing that you want stored, because think about it, I kept thinking about those three words. And so in a lot of ways, you're gonna have to take your own time with it so that you can work it out and you can picture it. I want you to think, what is it that is wrapped up in salvation, which is a word that always also means deliverance, rescue, help, salvation, wisdom, and knowledge. What is it? If that's my rich store, if God is my rich store, he's my rich storage. And that, that's what I have in storage that I can draw from at all times. And what does that do for me?
Well, salvation, obviously, not just salvation from the devil and from our own flesh that we might live in eternity forever. But also we're ever being saved. We've been saved from our sins and have eternal life when we receive Jesus. But I mean, he is just like saving us to the uttermost is what the book of Hebrew says in 7:25. That we're just constantly like he has saved, he will save. He's constantly delivering us either through something or from something or in something, anybody? Wisdom and knowledge.
Knowing what first I'm about to tell you, I've already got a lump in my throat because this is, this has been the joy of my life. But in Colossians chapter 2, starting in verses 2 and going on into 3, the Apostle Paul under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit says this, in Christ, we have hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. I know this is hard to understand before you've experienced part of it. But what the Apostle Paul told us in Philippians is this, he who had been to the tip of the influence he had known influence power importance. He had been highly esteemed. He was a Pharisee of Pharisees. He was like Hebrew of Hebrews. He was just zealous to a point that we couldn't begin to understand.
Then he'd also known what it was to be completely hated and abase. He had been to the absolute extremities. His eyes through a vision had been opened until to things that were in the third heaven in the throne room of God that he said, I can't. There's no words to describe to you what I saw. None. He experienced all of these things, and yet he said, there is one thing that is of surpassing value in all of life. And that is knowing Christ. I can't explain it to you. You have to experience it for yourself. And it truly, it just begins by going, "I want to know you. I want to know you. Jesus, I want to know you to the point that you are the most real thing in my life, more so than anything I could touch or see with my eyes. I want to know you. I want to know the wisdom that resides in you. I wanna know what you're like. I want to know what it means to be completely loved by you. I want to value what it means that you gave your life for me, that I might live with you forever. I want to know that."
Remember that we were told in one of the translations that he is our rich store. The Lord is a rich store, all contents prepaid by the cross. And you don't need to take any money with you because it's all been prepaid. All the salvation and deliverance you need. All the help and the rescue that you need. All the wisdom that you need. Come without doubting. Ask him for it. All the knowledge that would thrill your heart and enlighten your mind and enlighten your eyes. It's all there, it's all there. It's all there. I wanna remind you of some words out of Matthew 6, 19 and 20. Jesus says, "Don't store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves don't break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also".
Oh, don't make it all about here. You're not taking any of this with you. Store your treasures in heaven. And I realized that I don't know if I can explain this well. I kept moving my hands while I was trying to work this through with God trying to act it out. I said, okay, Lord, if I understand, I'm gonna look at my notes so that I can say it right. If I understand this exchange, here's what is happening, that when we store up treasures from heaven, and that's what's in the storage of the Lord. So, I'm gonna reach into that storehouse because I constantly need salvation, deliverance, rescue, help. I constantly need wisdom. I love growing in the knowledge that Jesus has for me. When I reach in there, I am taking treasures free of charge because they've been paid for. I am taking treasures into my storehouse. He says that when we take treasures from heaven into our storehouse, that what is stored is going to act.
That when I then begin to act out of what is stored, and I will always act out of what is stored. But when I take treasures from the Lord and I store them in my heart and then I walk out of that, and I become a benefit, a force for good in my sphere of influence, I become a person that that loves people, even my enemies, that loves my neighbor. When I act these things out, when I speak these things out, then he lays them up in heaven as treasures for me. Does it ever occur to you that there's not one good thing that he himself didn't give us? And then he acts like, well, it's just my joy to reward you with this. Why? Reward yourself, you did it. No, I love you. I can't wait to reward you.
Let me say that again because these are our truths that we're told that we have a storeroom. Really that well, he's saying I am your storeroom. So when you take from my storeroom of salvation and wisdom and knowledge and you store it up in your store room and then you act out of what is in that store room. I bless you by that act, building up your treasures in heaven. I'll have every bit of that in your condo when you get there. That just messes with me. How good can he be?
I gotta tell you about my friend Janice Meyer. My friend Janice Meyer, she is a little bit younger than I am, but pretty much my contemporary. I've known her for many, many years and she works, she advocates for the poor and primarily for them to have clean water and for them to have food. I'm talking about just like, food, food, food, food, food, food. One reason we want to give to the poor. I was listening to a star, I'm talking about a star. It was Natalie, was the podcast that you sent me. And I was listening to her talk about her, the poverty of her childhood. She's like, she's an award-winning actress, talking about the poverty of her childhood. And so the person interviewing her said, you know, what is it like to just be hungry all the time? She said, you can't think of anything else.
I mean, there's no thinking, "how do I live in victory," because your stomach is empty. And so my friend is a photographer. She goes all over the world into places where there is extreme poverty, extreme poverty and she takes pictures so that people will know what is out there. She's a very, very trustworthy person. And that's how she works. She goes all over the world. You can't even believe what her passport looks like. But she told me yesterday, we were texting back and forth and she said, I'm in Rwanda and she said, you know, Beth, I was here 28 years ago and she said at that time, I held all of these orphans and so all of these orphans whose parents had just been slaughtered and she said a lot of them are gone. But she said I will meet a lot of the very ones that I held on this trip. Y'all, that is building up treasures in heaven.
That is determining, I'm willing to do something hard where I have to really, I have to depend on the Spirit to do it. But I'm laying up my treasures in heaven and not on earth where all of this can be destroyed. I want to show you something. I've spoken, I've talked so much, after a while, I can feel the tenderness in my heart because then it begins to empty up and then I feel like crying. But this is so precious to me. I told you just so that you don't get any romantic notions about, well, if I was like her and I had a man that loved me like that, we'd have so many problems, but we are so devoted to one another. I have said before, we have fallen in and out of love at least 500 times. But we just, you know, so much... people say, how do you stay in love?
Well, I don't know, ask somebody that's done that. Was that inappropriate? But I'll tell you this, that I choose to fall back in love with him. We just so much stored, but he wrote this to me a long, long time ago and his name is Ivan because you're gonna see Ivan on it. It's Ivan Keith, and I call him by his first name and he calls me by my whole name and he just gave it, he just wrote it on a card a long, long time ago. And it travels with me everywhere I go. Every suitcase. Every time I travel, I take this with me. And it just says this: "I love you. You're my treasure, you're my treasure". My girls said the other day, you know, Travis knows him so well. He's such a handful. And when my girls said this about him, they didn't necessarily mean it positively. But neither one of the girls were home for his birthday here recently. And they said, "Mother, he doesn't care. He's got you". Jesus has given you this card. "I love you. You are my treasure".