Leon Fontaine - Perception vs Reality
Reality. What's your reality? Well how you perceive the things that happen to you. Are you what I call your B. S. Your Belief Systems. It's deep at the core of your being. You have beliefs. You've got a world view as to how the world works, why bad things happen to good people, why God doesn't stop the evil of. Your view on women men, marriage, sex, drugs in your view. Your world view has been established by the routine of your upbringing. Okay the culture that you came with and it also is the extreme emotion that you've gone through.
You see at your core you have a sub conscious what the Bible calls heart belief about why things are the way they are, how you fit into them which causes you to reach for more or back off which causes you to judge others and give up or causes you to change and grow. It causes you to get frustrated angry or cause you to relax and just go into incredible beautiful effortless change. All of this comes down to what do you believe and these beliefs are critical. So wherever you struggle where ever you can't get things to produce in your life. Why? So the church's develop doctrine scream at the devil, bind the devil? How long does he stay bound? There actually isn't a prayer about binding the devil. It talks about binding and loosening but is actually different.
Now we know we can deal with the enemy in our lives, that's no problem or we're begging and pleading with God as though God is determining every miracle. And yes, no, yes, yes, yes, now suck it up. Either no, no, no, no, no, yes, yes, yes, yes, flip for it or what do you think? The apostle, this vote on Leon's prayer lately. Like, I don't know what your world view, what your belief systems are but they're there. They're there. They control everything. The Bible says in John 1 something profound verse 17 says the law was given by Moses but grace and truth came by Jesus. Grace and truth came by Jesus.
The sciences cannot explain things like you know why creation? Why mankind? Why are things the way they are? You know the purpose of life is a bunch of stuff they never will focus on. Whenever I watch great debates between atheists and believers you know, I listen a little bit but you'll notice they just keep fire back and forth but the one thing I watch is kind of this. The demeanor of the atheist looks depressed, alcoholic. Looks unhappy looks perturbed, angry. Most of the believers that I'll watch and if I some of them I know, there's a joy, peace about them and I just right there kind of go, okay already made a decision. What do you believe? You see right now, the shape of your marriage. What's your marriage like? You know what truthfully is marriage like. Most of you won't know.
Most of us don't know. You know why? Because you have a belief system and a perception about your spouse. You've got believe you have about why they are the way they are, why they don't do this for you, why you don't that for you, why they're weak here, they don't do that here, and so you just kind of put up with it and you just you superimpose your beliefs on them and this and you lock them into your cage and they do the same to you. Okay now so you are living out literally you are living out a world that can be filled with hurt and heart ache and deception and painful and it's actually in many cases one of your own making. I'm not saying everything is bad. Things happen out there. Just talk about the way you look at stuff. The way you judge people.
You see Jesus taught us that we do not judge. Now he's not talking about judging people's actions. If you punch all 6 people in the front row and then move towards me, I'm gonna punch you first. Okay I have judged your behavior all the way up to me and you're going down, dude. Okay I'm not gonna judge your heart. I'm not saying you're a bad person. No, you're just going down. Okay we judge people's actions. You know, I met 5 people who want to babysit my kids and 2 were convicted felons and that one 's a rapist and I can't really judge. You can't say the rapist shoudn't, are you kidding me? Like wake up. Where's your common sense? You judge actions. What you don't judge is the intentions of the heart, the motives of the heart.
It's far too deep for you to ever understand and in relationships like close ones like marriage or your kids or anyone in your circle of friends, when you begin to go after judging their motives, their intentions which is usually the word why. Why are they doing that to me? Why are they not giving me what I need? You will always read it wrong because the heart's far too complex for you to ever understand why that hurting person with different belief systems being rise up acts the way they do and you think you know for you get offended now offense is in your relationship. You get angry because now you've got anger in your relationship. You just kind of settle in and get perturbed and lock it down.
Now that's in your relationship and you have no ability to change that person but people live this way. They judge people and so they live in these horrible lives and today I want to, I'm gonna unpack, I'm just gonna go in different directions and I love preaching to thinking people. That's you. That's a complement. I've been in religious churches were they'll ask me to come and speak and you can just see them go, because they just want a whole bunch of doctrine thrown at them. They don't want the doctrine tied to how do we think, what are the pressing issues of today, what are we struggling with this couples, as students, as leaders, as many women, what we dealing with out there? Just preach the Word. I understand that but the Word needs to be contemporary. It needs to be relevant. It needs to answer questions of people are asking. It needs to embrace your mind. I love church where people question things, where people have discussions.
They go, okay, I don't agree on that, good on you. You should never agree with whatever I say. You should check it for yourself in the Bible. Getting some good discussion. This is a journey. None of us know everything including me. So when thinking people enjoy the Word and enjoy your getting the Word and planting and conceiving it in and giving birth to a whole new way of living, that's important. It's beautiful. Over the years as I've studied other religions, as I've studied the science, some of the most brilliant minds, reading their stuff down through the years. I had to make a decision. What am I gonna believe?
Now most people are good at dissecting somebody else's beliefs. What they're not good at is having one. And how many guys sit in a plane where they'll look at me and we'll be talking then and then they'll questioning, finally find out what I do. Oh. Oh. Oh. Yeah, yeah, and I don't believe. And then they'll start, you know, debating with me a little bit and now I just kind of go, yep, cool, what do you believe? Forget about what you because Christianity has been talked around for 2.000 years, argued by the best in every which direction. So I just kinda go, yeah, yeah, you can believe whatever you want, what's the big deal? What do you believe? Oh well you know, at least I'm honest. Honest about what? About myself not knowing. Cool maybe we should, maybe should search little bit. If you could believe, what would you probably believe.
And some of the craziest stuff I've heard out there makes their beliefs crazier than my beliefs. In their mind you know it's Martians ceded the planet from another galaxy or there's a big bang. What was before the Big Bang? There was nothing before the Big Bang. Nothing before the Big Bang. There was a big bang. Who made a big bang? Where'd the big bang come from? Why'd that happen then? Everything you go, thinking minds gonna go, you have to want evolution because there's just so many great minds that have studied that kind of go this is like crazy. So in looking at it, I came to the Bible. Which is how I was raised and I began to recognize that Greek thought, Hebrew thought, other religious thoughts now we've got Muhammad. We've got Buddha. Some of these guys didn't wanna start religions. Some were just a word war. Some were just wise people and people made religions out of it.
And as I studied them these are these are ways to deal with life. Along came a mentally and emotionally. Along came Jesus and changed life. What a different concept. People's tumors disappeared, broken bones in front of an entire crowd would move into place and decrepit legs that had never locked would just change and be what not just by the Bible by other writings of history. That it was witnessed, the miracles of this man and then when you study the Bible you realize that 80 percent of the prophecies all through the Word have happened in the very city, in the very way that was predicted all through the Word. There's prophecies about one city being leveled completely and then it happened.
When you study history, you can check it out. Just the prophecies of Jesus that he would be killed by, there'd be nails in his hands. There'd be a crown on his head. The cities that he would live and where he would come out from where, what happened. That is impossible for even one guy to orchestrate himself even knowing the prophecies. When you begin to be open and honest and you study this book. This book doesn't become the wisdom of 40 man over the course of 1.600 years writing it. It becomes like Timothy who says scripture is given by the inspiration of God and it is profitable for living your life, for attacking every situation and knowing how to apply it to your world.
I've sat down, interviewed some of the most brilliant minds on the planet who accepted the Word and studied everything else and it's a wonderful, wonderful thing to finally just decide I put my trust in Jesus. I've seen everything else out there. I've seen how that book, holy book creates countries, how it treats women, how it treats kids, how it treats crime, how would it forgives, how you earn your favor if with that God and then I've seen Jesus and his grace and his goodness and his forgiveness and him dying for his, like I just I hope, I can't I can't articulate how I'm feeling. I'm so in love with the Bible. I'm so amazed by this Jesus and the wisdom and the truth that is here.
Many people around you struggle with Christian religious views because they're wrong. You know you got the extreme Calvinists. Everything that happens is God. I am really, everything that happens is God. Oh God is in control. So the babies dying of cancer right now screaming in pain. There's a purpose for that. Well you know and they don't know what to say then like thinking minds go, you're crazy. God's not like that. He doesn't do that. But when the world looks at our world view that God is love and God's in control, those two don't seem to work. God is a God of love and God's in control every moment. It's not an issue of, of course God's all powerful but He handed the authority of our lives and free will to us and our parents and our grandparents are having an effect on our lives in the way we were born and I know it's not fair but thinking minds want answers, not a bunch of religious rubbish, not a bunch of trite answers it say here and there.
So how bout you today? What do you believe about you? What do you believe about your marriage? What do you believe about your family, your future, your history? Are your belief systems are, is the way you think accurate or have you walked your spouse into something because yeah you know what they, you don't know their heart. You know their actions and you could talk about each other's act but you don't know their hearts. What about God? What about well you know, here's what I think, is what you think accurate? It's just what I think but why not pursue truth? It used to be it was a beautiful thing to pursue truth.
Great men of old, sages, men and women would pursue truth they would be open to truth and when people like that your truths, something happens that is transcendent, something happens it is miraculous, something happens is the presence of God touches you or you could just be a religious Christian get your fire insurance so you miss hell then you get all your promises so you can live good and then let's just serve God and what, no, no, no. There's a purpose to your life. When you discover purpose, it lights everything up. When you discover purpose, you're not wandering around going through the motions of life bored out of your tree, unhappy, depressed, down, because there's a purpose and this purpose is to follow Christ and to share the good news with people around you in this beautiful Spirit Contemporary way.
In Hebrews 4:11. It teaches us there verse 12 that God's Word is what discovers our internal condition. It says the Word of God is quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword. Well I'm quoting a different verse. The Word of God is living and powerful sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the vision of soul and spirit. That's your mind and emotion. Spirit is the real you. So it's discerning between those two and then it says of the joints, the marrow and as a discerner of the thoughts and the intentions of the heart. I thought we weren't supposed to judge? No, we don't judge but God's Word phenomenally discern, the word discern means judge in the Greek. It judges everything you think and say and so when you begin to embrace God's Word and embrace God's Word and study it and get after it and get out to church and learn and grow, it's not here's the things you can and here's the things you can't do.
One guy said to be in the back here is like, okay before I come in, I just tell me what can I do in this church and what can't I do so I know the list of good, the list of bad. I'll tell you whether I want to come. I don't know. I haven't really posted a list now that I think about it. You know and he goes. Really? Every church has got what you can and what you can't do you. Can you dance? Can you chew? Can you drink? What's the list? Well, we just accept people the way they are. Really? Come as you are and we don't care. You know what it is you believe and we have to learn to love you and do coffee and accept you and we can even become friends even if we have different beliefs.
Okay but now at the same time I've got to raise my kids in a world filled with alternative believes. So what do I do? Do I say to my little eight-year-old, you'll have to discover truth for yourself? Your truth you'll have to discover. My truth I've discovered but I want to inflict my truth on you, sweetie, because you can discover your truth and what religion you want to be. I have listened to parents talk to me about that all the time. I know you got to be kidding me. The Bible says that we are responsible for the beliefs of our children. Train up a child in the way they should go and when they're older they will not depart from those things and so although we're friends and you and I believe differently, you need to know I'm teaching my kids this. Really, yeah, you can recreation drugs all you want. I'm teaching them that go to Jesus for some joy and peace.
Okay I know you have sex anyway you want but I'm teaching my kids the most incredible, beautiful, wonderful way that a man can do this. Okay but they're going to still respect you, love you, befriend you, you can still be a part of our family. That's not the issue. The issue is I want truth. Because only truth will set them free. I don't want my kids bound. I don't want my congregation bound. I want them to know truth but that truth doesn't make us arrogant, condescending, looking down at people or judging people or creating a real havoc. It loves people but it doesn't back down from truth. What is truth? Well you know. Okay, stop. Jesus said I am that way, the truth and the life.
God's Word when you begin to study God's Word and listening, I know I'm hoping helping at least one person. I'm just getting my brain unpacking here but when God's Word begins to come in your eyes and your mind and it begins to go into your heart, God's Word begins to judge your heart. I know I feel so lousy. No, God's Word never makes you feel lousy. God's Word, it judges how you see things. It judged your motives for things. The thoughts, the intentions, the motives of your heart. The Word goes there and to your joy, you begin to realize that that's wrong. I don't want that. Good because God's Word will just take its place and it is like an operation.
You know God's Word is sharper than any two-edged sword, sharp as a scalpel that cut off that misbelief and God's Word takes its place and all of a sudden you can love people at a level you never could love people before. All of a sudden, the Word keeps coming in and you look at your at your spouse, you look at your boss, you look at your kids, your family in a way you've never seen it before and it's epiphany after epiphany as the thoughts of the old begin to be pushed out by the incredible truth of God's Word. No wonder the Word is so attacked that the Bible, I mean you cannot attack anybody in today's world. You can't attack Muslims. You can't attack Buddhist. You can't talk, attack anybody with sexual differences from gender but Christians? Anything you want. You won't get sued. You won't get attacked. No one's gonna shut you down. In fact, you'll be celebrated if you attack Christian beliefs.
So I think we need to use some wisdom and I think that when people really do want discussions with us that you don't teach them LAF. No, LAF is how we accept people. LAF is how we interact with each other. I love it because whatever you believe, we can still be friends, hang out do stuff, depending. I mean and but so I love you, accept you, forgive you. You love me, accept me, forgive me but what is true is a profound vitally important statement because your kids are growing up around your truth. This church is determining people who maybe you're here today and your life is a mess. You have been hurt, broken, raped, abused, raised up where you've been defeated, pushed down and you're here to learn truth at all you're gonna get is we just love each other and accept each other the way we are. No, that's how we accept each other but now what is truth?
What can I build on that is the rock, the solid foundation of Jesus Christ that's going to mean that 10 years from today my marriage will be intact and my kids will be loving God and things will be going on. Only God's Word can do that for you. You've got to learn His Word. Just study. Just enjoy the Bible, fall in love with these profound thoughts that are so deep that you'll embrace them in a shallow way and then a year later you'll read the same verse and see it at another level like God's Word gives birth to new thoughts all the time, the same verse. In China years ago, when I was a young teenager, my dad would bring in people from China.
Missionaries to Russia. Back when communism was so brutal in Russia that if you started a prayer meeting or church meeting, they would hear about it. They'd go in and club everybody, kill them, lock up the leaders. It was brutal and some of them, they were able to escape out, would get into our churches and teach us. In China where they would just kill them, line them up as because they wanted people to not believe in a God but these people would get one Bible. And they would tell me how they would rip every page of the Bible every one out one at a time and they would pass them amongst the villages so that one page would be in this home group. One page in that home group and you would memorize and you would study and you would learn and you would write out and you would pass this around.
It would have to be done incognito, traveling from post to post because if you ever got caught it will be your life or life imprisonment. Your kids, your wife there was nothing. It was just this massive attack on the Word of God and the reason I'm bringing this up is because they were so in love with the Word. What does God say? What does God believe? And it transformed their lives phenomenally just pursuing Christ's with only 1 page of the Bible. They might have gotten the book of Numbers or Deuteronomy or you know a whole page of the gaps and they're still going to memorize it because it's going to fit into the things that they learn and today I've got 100 Bibles on my iPad and almost everyone my house in different translations and yet there's so many people, you could hard to convince them to have devotions for 5 minutes a day yet contained within the Word of God is it's alive.
The Word of God is a living thing and as you read it it's not giving you the rules for your behavior externally. Okay it's giving you the software for the for the hardware that's built into you so that you begin to recognize who you are. You begin to recognize how valuable you are. This is how God created man and woman and why. This is the purpose of sex and where it will build you and where it will destroy. Everything is a thinking man and woman's ability to live long, blessed, happy, incredibly prosperous and still be able to work in a world filled with diverse beliefs and the Bible promises us that if you seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness the Amplified Bible says there in Matthew 6:33, His way of being righteous and His way of doing the life that when you do it His way that it has all these things you desire will be added to you.