Taffi Dollar - Crazy Demands
I want us to look at this area of our life; I wanna talk about the busy heart. Sometimes, it’s not so much the activity outside of our heart, but in many instances, it could be the busyness on the inside of us that prevents us from entering into the rest that God has for his people. And so, you know, we’ve been talking about crazy busy, and we spent a lot of time with Martha and Mary, and looking at that situation, and Jesus when he was a child, and just… But I want us to begin this morning talking about the busyness of the heart, because it’s the busyness of our schedules can also be a reflection of the busyness of our hearts. And when we realize this, we recognize that many times our identity can be founded upon other things.
And so as a result, we load our calendars up, we load our schedules up with all these things, when really God wants us to go before him and get our directives from him on what he wants us to do, how he wants us to do it. And so we’re not putting ourselves in a position where we’re bringing stresses upon our lives, because we, realize that in this day and time, you know, it’s a badge of honor to be busy. And people have become so accustomed, and I certainly have to continuously remind myself of this as well. And so, we wanna look at some things because our identity that is not founded in Christ thinks that we’re never enough, that we don’t have enough, and that we emphasize so much on doing, instead of being.
And when we feel as if we have to do all these things in our calendar and throughout the day to perhaps please people, to pursue all these other things outside of God, and then as a result, it causes us to determine our value based on those things. So that’s what we wanna look at this morning for the time that we have. The busyness of our schedules and the busyness of the heart, and what we’re calling crazy demands in most instances that we can put on ourselves. And so, I want us to look at what’s really going on on the inside this morning. What is really going on in our heart? What’s really going on in your heart this morning? What is it that is defining your value? Others simply hate boredom, and other need things done their way. The reality is that busyness and too much responsibility can point to the issues of our heart, can point to the issues of our heart.
So let’s start in Acts chapter 7, verse 42 and verse 43, because busyness is a robber, and it can rob our hearts. And that’s what we wanna look at, is the fact that if we’re just being busy, because we think that our busy determines our value, then we’ll allow all these things to weigh on us, to have this heaviness about us. And then we open the door to frustration, stress, irritability, and then we aren’t in the position where we can experience the rest that God wants his people to have. Because there’s a rest for the people of God, and I don’t know about you, I want to benefit from that rest that God has for his people. And so let’s look at this, busyness can rob your heart, busyness can rob your heart.
«Then God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets, O ye house of Israel, have you offered to me slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of forty years in the wilderness? Yea,» he says, «you took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Remphan, figures which you made to worship them: and I will carry you away beyond Babylon». Let’s turn to the message translation, I really wanna look at what it says in the message translation of verse 42 and 43, if you could click over there. I’m gonna start over from the beginning.
«God wasn’t at all pleased; but he let them do it their way,» says that he wasn’t pleased, but God let them, you know, he’s a respecter of our decisions, and a respecter of our choice. He let them, «worship every new God that came down the pike, and live with the consequences, consequences described by the prophet Amos: 'Did you bring me offerings of animals and grains these forty wilderness years, O Israel? Hardly. You were too busy building shrines to war gods, to sex goddesses, Worshiping them with all your might.'» He says, «That’s why,» somebody say, «That’s why,» he says «That’s why I put you in exile in Babylon».
And so when we look at this scripture here in verse 42 and verse 43, he says that we were «too busy» that they were «too busy Worshiping other things with all of their might, building their shrines». And he says, as a result, their plan was adjusted and they experienced things that wasn’t God’s original intent. And so when we open ourselves up to busyness, it robs us of our heart, and it causes us to experience frustration, in some instances, resentment, impatience, and irritability. Frustration, resentment, impatience, and irritability. And so, we have to look at motives, we have to look at our motivation this morning. We have to look at the things that God spoke to them, because he says that, «God wasn’t at all pleased, but he let them do it their way».
And so God will let us be busy, God will let us choose the things that we wanna put in our schedule, that we wanna put in our life. But it wasn’t his best. It wasn’t the ideal thing, because they were in a place of building their own. And as a result, it opened the door, and they felt to live beneath what God had endeavored for their life. And so let’s look at some things here concerning this.
Now, turn over to Psalms 94, verse 19 in The Passion Translation, TPT. Let’s go to Psalms 94, I’m gonna kinda look at two scriptures here in The Passion Translation, that one in Psalms, and then the other one in Matthew chapter 13. We’re gonna go there next because I want us to look at this area, because it’s so vital that we recognize what’s going on on the inside of our hearts this morning. And we look at some of these areas of extreme busyness in our lives can point to a deeper problem. And he says some things here concerning uh the inner person, the inner workings of our life. Psalms 94. Psalms 94 verse 19 in The Passion Translation, if we can pull that up, and then we’ll go to Matthew chapter 13 afterwards.
So he says, «Whenever my busy thoughts were out of control, the soothing comfort of your presence calmed me down and overwhelmed me with delight». Because you know, it’s on the inside. It’s the busyness of the heart. It was the busy thoughts that he’s writing about here. He says, «The busy thoughts that seem to be out of control,» but he says, «Thank God for the presence of God,» that it can bring a sense of calm. Bring a sense of relief to being overwhelmed by overcommitment, and doing those kinds of things.
Now, let’s look at Matthew chapter 13 verse 22 in the TPT passion translation, Matthew 13 verse 22. Looking at what’s going on on the inside, because what’s on the inside in many instances is what we define as the value and what drives us and what creates demands on us and what moves us and motivates us. And so if there’s a busyness of the mind, a busyness of the thoughts, busy activity of the heart where it’s just activity, activity, activity, then it positions us to not experience the rest that God has for the people of God. So it says, «The seed sown among weeds represents the person who receives the message, but all of life’s busy distractions, his divided heart, and his ambition for wealth result in suffocating the kingdom message and prevent him from bearing spiritual fruit. Prevents us from bearing spiritual fruit».
Let’s look at the first part of that verse again, here in verse 22 he says, «It’s all of life’s distractions, can divide our heart, ambitions for wealth». We looked at that on Sunday, we talked about how, you know, ambitions and mammon, personal desires, not to say that there’s something wrong with personal desires. But getting over into a place of obsession, self-centeredness, it divides us from God and creates a wedge in areas of our life, and it says that we will «suffocate the message» and then it «affects us being able to bear fruit in our life» because everything else takes a precedent, and it crowds out the message, it crowds out the word.
All of a sudden, everything that we have created as our own selfish ambition begins to take priority over the things that God wants to do, and the things that God wants to speak to us. The direction and the path that God wants us to take, trusting Him in areas of leading us uh like the psalmist writes, he says, «The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He leads me into green pastures». And so when the Lord is leading us, then there’s a path that he is already carved out for us. There’s a level of trust that he wants us to get in, and not into a place of, you know, searching and frantically trying to figure things out on our own, on the internet, trying to run around and talk to this person, trying to discover what it was that they did, trying to contrive ways that we can duplicate and multiply the things that perhaps someone else accomplished and then do it in ourselves.
And then we get to a place where it didn’t work, then we go back and we try and find somebody else and try to ask them what they did. And so, you know, we’re busy trying to figure it all out, and God says, «Just come to me. Come to me and let me lead you and all these thoughts, can’t sleep at night, that are just weighing on you, keeping you up all night…» It’s something about going to sleep where God says, «Hey, I got it. I’ll take care of it». And we rely on him.
And so the distractions and the divided heart is what suffocates the message, the busyness, the activity, the crazy demands that we put on ourselves. That perhaps we, you know, have internalized the inner vows, the inner commitments, the inner things that we think that it is our responsibility to do. That perhaps somebody has said to us, and that we’re trying to measure up, and we’re trying to please them. We’re trying to do what they think is best, in their eyes, and jumping through the hoops and God says, «Trust me, and don’t be in bondage to what people think, because you’ll become crazy busy and have all these crazy unreasonable demands on your life weighing on you, heavy on you, and then it crowds out the harvest, the manifold breakthrough in our lives».
So that’s what we’re looking at this morning. Look with me over at Saul, I wanna look at Saul here in 1 Samuel chapter 15, 1 Samuel chapter 15, verse 24. Because we give in to people’s demands and expectations, and that’s what we want to look at. The giving in to the expectations, the unreasonable demands of people thinking that they determine how good we are, whether we’re good enough. They determine the striving that they think should be placed on us, and then as a result, we wonder why we get over into a place where pride enters in, and not trusting God, and doing more than what God even expects of us. Doing more than what God even expects of us. Look at what he says here in 1 Samuel chapter 15, this is, «Saul said unto Samuel, 'for I have transgressed the commandment of the Lord, and thy words: because I feared the people, and obeyed their voice.'»
And so we see here, the busyness that’s bad is not the busyness of work, but the busyness that works hard at the wrong things. Working hard at wrong things. Busy trying to please people like we see Saul did, fearing people, trying to please their expectation. Busy trying to control others, busy trying to do things that we’ve not been called to do. So we have to realize this area of our life, look over at 1 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 4. We must shine the light on this area, and recognize that this is an area where the enemy could easily hide out with spirituality, and religiosity, and rob us from living in the peace that God said that we should have. And so we can live like the Apostle Paul writes here, or we can make a decision to live counterproductive.
So he says, «For I know nothing by myself,» see that should be where we are. «I know nothing by myself». But you know, pride says, «I know some stuff. I know, I read books. I went to school, I sat down and had meetings, and was told, and studied other people’s experiences in their lives». But the Apostle Paul writes here, he says, «I know nothing». He’s probably one of the more educated ones, the more enlightened, illuminated. He says, «I know nothing by myself; yet am I not hereby justified: but he that judges me is the Lord». «He that judges me is the Lord».
Let’s look at what that says also in The message Translation I ran across, I forget what translation it was. But let’s see if it’s in there. Verse 4, 1 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 4. «Comparisons in these matters are pointless. I’m not aware of anything that would disqualify me from being a good guide for you, but that doesn’t mean much. The Master makes that judgment».
Says comparisons are pointless. Keep going to the next one. «So don’t get ahead of the master and jump to conclusions with your judgments before all the evidence is in. When he comes, he will bring out in the open and place in evidence all kinds of things we have never even dreamed of, inner motives and purposes and prayers». He says, «Only then,» «Only then,» because that’s what we’re looking at this morning, the inner motives, the purposes, the prayers, because you know, we can go through the facade and look so spiritual.
Oh my God, we got the knowledge to know how to pick them up, and put them down. And we can spin around, and we can do all these things. We got the most beautiful heavenly language… But it’s the inner motives, the inner motive, what’s really going on in your heart. Because that is where we live. That is where we experience life. He says, «Guard your heart for out of it,» «Guard your heart, for out of it flows the issues of life». And so it’s our heart that we wanna look at today, a busy heart, because the busyness of the heart is a reflection of the busyness of our schedule.