The Highest Nature of the Soul - The Nous (Lenten Class)

0:01 [Music] the name of the Father the Son and the Holy [Applause] [Music] Spirit so as we've been hopefully realizing during the course of Lent one of the things that we're supposed to be doing is reorienting ourselves towards our God now this is not intended to be a lesson in auto mechanics or any kind of mechanics however the one part I was contemplating this week is the manifold the manifold lets the air into the combustion chamber on the intake

0:47 stroke and the air then is mixed with the fuel from the injector and after which the combustion cycle continues the manifold of the vehicle is a crucial component that plays a pivotal role in the engine it ensures a smooth and efficient flow of gases from the engine to the exhaust system allowing them to mix and combine optimally for the engine performance the intake manifold distributes the air fuel mixture to the engine's intake ports while the exhaust manifold draws air into the engine so just with a little brief explanation how many think that this part of the engine is pretty important right so if something goes wrong with this part right one time as a mechanic I don't know how many of you

1:33 know that I went to school to become an aircraft mechanic and at one time learning about these parts and everything like that there were specialized tools and everything that we had and when I was growing up we never took any of our vehicles to the mechanic we did it ourselves we took the manifolds off we replaced water fill uh uh water pumps everything that you could think of now one of the things that holds these parts together are what bolts right the Fasteners the manifold of the vehicle and the bolts that are used to hold thing together if the manifold is damaged or needs replacement a number of bolts would need to be loosened and most

2:19 of the time the bolt will come out easily with the right tools you got a good socket you get a Good Wrench you're able to pop them free however an extremely overtightened Bolt which we ended up encountering a bunch of those things especially with some of the vehicles that were 20 30 year 20 or 30 years old at the time uh an overtighten bolt that is seized through use weather and extreme hot and cold temperatures will need a lot more strength to turn it and then sometimes you have to even get a breakover bar right you have to get a a bar a cheater bar to put on there and try to pull it and then sometimes you need something like WD40 or some sort of sort of penetrating oil that is needed to spray or to put onto the bowl to hopefully God

3:05 willing loosen it up if it's rusted and seized and then sometimes when the stubborn rusen and seized bolt does not move because of the broken or damaged part we continue to apply force and sometimes with heat and sometimes with bigger tools we keep trying until it comes out or what's the worst case scenario epim what's the worst case scenario what happens to bolt if you keep forcing it just will not come out the head off you break the head off in some cases the bolt will snap you can't just ignore it right if you want to keep your vehicle you just can't ignore the bolt right you just can't take all the rest off and then clean it up put put everything back on there and then leave the one bolt out

3:50 that bolt is intended to be there to keep it all the right pressure and everything right when the bolt snaps additional tool required and those those rarely used and specializ and specialize in extracting the broken remains of the bolt that is Left Behind after the other attempts of extraction have failed what you have to do is you have to take a small drill bit and drill it into the bolt with care attempting not to Mar the threads of the engine block that would cause even more problems and once you drill that pilot hole you use a bolt extractor and is it has been done if you want to keep the vehicle especially if it you that's all you have and that's all you can afford the best choice obviously at that point if you can't get

4:36 it off is to take it to a specialist a person who has the knowledge of the engine and the parts to do the best job and the Bold brakes the mechanic already has the tools needed to extract the broken bolt so again when you break a bolt in an engine or you break a bolt on something and the thing that I learned about aircraft mechanics too is that not only are those parts very important those parts are so important that if they fail it can cause lots and lots of people to lose their lives a lot of people can die because of those things a vehicle yes your family can die that would be horrible but often times those parts are supposed to be exactly in there you're supposed to put those parts with a with a Precision torque wrench

5:23 and everything else as I was thinking about the bolt and how to use that to ract it I was thinking about our spiritual self right I was thinking about a spiritual manifold that we have which is St Paul talks about and the church fathers actually use a different word but I'm for this purpose I'm going to call it the new how many of you have heard the word noose read it right it also holds together by different fasteners like a bolt so what exactly is the news this past week a couple or actually last night we're in our study of Romans in chapter 12 the first couple of verses of Romans chapter 12 Paul teaches the

6:09 Roman Christians that he says I beseech you right I encourage you therefore Brethren by the mercies right compassion pity Mercy by the mercies of God that you present yourself right present to bring into one's fellowship or intimacy your bodies as a Living Sacrifice remember what sacrifice is right you come before God with an animal at that time when Paul is talking to them the pagans and the Jews and some of the they would sacrifice animals first of all for the atonement of sin and the pagans would also do so as to hopefully be something good during war if you sacrifice to Aries or if you want to say passage

6:55 right so he's telling these people that you have to become a living sacrifice holy acceptable which is your reasonable service so he says presenting your bodies is connected with the idea of live of a living right this word living is to be full of vigor to be fresh strong efficient active powerful and a person who has been resurrected with Christ right so it's a Living Sacrifice this calls the mind the Priestly service and by the way just because I'm a priest doesn't mean that the men of the home the household again if you've listened to anything I've ever told you you become your priest of your household right so spiritually speaking our bodies are brought to God's altar so

7:40 when St Paul is saying holy and acceptable right that word acceptable is well pleasing to God when we offer our body God intends it to be holy and acceptable sacrifice the standard for sacrifices made to the go made to God under the New Covenant are not any less than the standard under the old he Covenant we talked about this last night right in the Bible study what are some of the things what are some of the prerequisites for a sacrifice in the Old Testament does anybody know has to be unblemished and unblemished right there but it has to be there has to be no defect in it if it's a blind or lame or any serious defect you shall not sacrifice that to the Lord right God specifically talks about this

8:27 in Deuteronomy and what else does anybody else have any idea I know everybody there's a Bible Study last night already has the answers right but he shall he shall bring a ma it should be a male without blemish Leviticus and the idea of the sweet Aroma to the Lord is always linked to the idea of offering made by fire right you do the sacrifice and then it's lit on fire okay so there is a burning in this matter of a Living Sacrifice it also shows that Paul has a mind the burnt offering in which the entire sacrifice was given to the Lord in some sacrifices the one offering the sacrifice and the priest share in some of the meal but never in the burnt offering so this service refers to the

9:12 lurgical service and is better translated as worship just as man's failure to worship God led to his downfall now the true worship through the Liturgy is the first expression to Mankind's renewal okay so there's and in the in the Orthodox study Bible it gives you a couple of examples he said it says that first of all it's physical we are called to present our bodies for worship meaning both a physical aspect of our nature and the whole nature in general right when we come to God we're not supposed to be like some of the other people in the world where we reject our bodies yes we're supposed to again we're Exiles in this world but what are we supposed to do we're supposed to we are supposed to M Master our passions one of

9:59 the one of the things that we talk about right is anger right and if you're angry what happens right you there's two choices that you make as I talked about last week There's a anger that leads to sin and an anger that leads to righteousness right so the next part of the worship is something that's living right a contrast to the Old Co Covenant under which sacrifices were put to death under the New Covenant to die sacrificially means also to be Resurrected thus true worship is a living Dynamic expression of both a believer's faith and the Community of Faith so again it's important for us to understand when we come to God it's not only for ourselves to come before God right we're supposed to come to God with

10:44 all of ourselves right love our the Lord Our God with all of our heart our soul our mind and our strength but it's also important for us to remember that when we come together especially in liturgy that we come together in communal Faith to come before God and ask for his Mercy not only for ourselves but for that of the community that's why I've tried so hard to get Inspire everybody to take home that prayer list that we have with everybody's name on it and start praying for each other because if we're praying for each other we're going to start loving each other we're going to start having Mercy with each other so the third thing the or the Orthodox Study Bible says that it's supposed to be holy true worship is set apart from the world both in its form and expression worship

11:30 that is acceptable is patterned after the kingdom of heaven and is filled with virtue with that transcends Earthly existence when we are celebrating liturgy we're celebrating liturgy with the kingdom of heaven right Heaven and Earth become one at that moment again so holy that you can scoop up the dust from the ground and wash your face with the dust that's how holy that's how much we must understand that it's holy it's something separate when we're here we have to fight in order to keep our minds focused right to keep our minds sober and what happens right we we constantly are getting bombarded with these thoughts of sexual Temptations and violence and different things and we

12:16 have to keep on reeling our minds and remembering that we're working towards Holiness it has to be reasonable right he says it's a reasonable service the term means more than logical as Jesus Christ is the logos of God true worship must be Christlike logos likee which means it must be in Christ and according to Christ true worship is filled with the wisdom and truth of the Son of God the word made flesh to worship reasonably means to both worship and live according to Christ so not only are we supposed to live according to that standard here at the church but when we go home when with our spouses we when with on our own rooms and our bedrooms when we're on our jobs even when we're

13:03 driving all by ourself we're supposed to be worshiping we're supposed to be glorifying God because he sees all and knows all the Holiness we bring to the altar is a decision for Holiness right it's a choice we make a decision and yielding to the work of the Holiness in our life as we present our bodies a Living Sacrifice God makes our life Holy by by burning away our impurities what do we do right we're coming to God we're submitting ourselves we're humbling ourselves and it's he's starting to burn away those impurities right as the engine heats up right all those things that make us who we think we are are slowly starting to be extracted right

13:51 all those bolts all those Fasteners The Pride the vain Glory the passions the lust all those things we slowly start to just to take those out so the second verse he says and do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove what is good and acceptable and perfect will of God so he's do not be conformed right to conform oneself one's mind and character to another's pattern fashion and and fashion oneself according to to this world right we're not supposed to do it to this world we're supposed to conform ourselves to who Jus Jesus right to Christ this particular statement is

14:36 warning us of the World Systems right the things that are trying to make us and conform us we talked about it last night right media movies music everything that we encounter in this world is trying to conform us into the conform into the what the world wants us to be all right so the popular culture and the manner of thinking that is in Rebellion against God will try to conform us to its ungodly pattern and that process must be resisted do you think that that chains even changes even when become or Orthodox Christians when you become baptized and chrismated what what is the warning I always give everybody it gets harder right every step that you take it gets harder I never hide anything about that from you

15:23 from and you guys all right so again be transformed what is another word again if you're Bible Study last night but what is another word we can use for transformed transfigured transfigured right be transformed or transfigured to change into another form and to transform or to transfigure by the renew right this word renewing in the Greek means a renewal a renovation right a complete change for the better when you renovate a room you're taking it from one thing and you're making it completely into something different right well that's what St Paul's talking about to be transformed by the renewing of our mind right but is it our brain right no right the word he's using here

16:10 is the noose right I'm going to go into a little bit more detail in a second so this is the opposite of being conformed to the world the battlegr between conforming to the world and being transformed is held within the mind of the believer Christians must learn to think differently okay so he says we must prove what is good and acceptable in the perfect will of God as we are transformed on the inside the proof will be evident on the outside what does St Paul and what does St Paul talk about what what what do we start producing fruits right we are known by the fruits that we produce when we are around other people if we find joy if we bring joy to people it's that fruit that we give right and again one of the

16:56 hardest people it is for us to do that with is our spouse with our children but again we are supposed to do what is we are supposed to do that is good and acceptable and perfect will of God as others can see the good and acceptable and perfect will of God that is through our life so keep in mind that the mercy that God gives us has given us and will give us right that Mercy is a continual and Perpetual thing it's a constant thing that he works to get he he he does in Synergy for us we are at all times to pray god with everything that transpires when we get sick remember that it's even designed for us to come closer to Christ every single thing that transpires is in order for us to come closer to Christ we

17:42 are to come to God with the acts of intelligent worship choosing and deciding with our heart mind and soul our entire self again a Living Sacrifice so when we come to the church for Liturgy when we come before God we are supposed to come with all every part of us we need to work on conforming our minds to the the the noose right that spiritual manifold that that is a mixture of what we are and it's perfected by what God helps us to become through the Holy Spirit okay we resist the confirming of this world we're to be strangers and E and an exile in our actions and thoughts right at some point and I felt this many times I feel like I don't even belong in the world anymore I

18:28 I want my end to come okay so we to focus on God's word his words and his example and our fellowship with him throughout our life of the church and then we find oursel find our lives with an acceptable parameter of the will of God okay it's so hard for all of us or any of us even the biggest of the saints that we have if you would have asked them did you follow God's will perfectly they would say no right as you get closer and closer to God you really realize the decadence of who you are right the the depth of sinfulness the abyss of sinfulness that we become Our Lives will prove what is good and acceptable and perfect will of God with the produc again with the production of the fruit The Works that we

19:14 bear so going a little bit into the Noose the spiritual manifold okay so if the Noose is a faithful relationship to God which changes our relationship to the world again our faithful relationship to God will change our relationship with the world people will become our enemies sometimes our spouses will become our enemies sometimes our children Jesus Promised this right he said in the end days that that children will give their parents up to be put to death right we will know people that will willingly put us to death in order for that because if they have conformed themselves into the world to conformed to this world is to stand for and pursue the world's values and pleasures the Mind here The Noose is

20:01 more than just intellect it is a highly it is the highest faculty of human nature encompassing the mind and the Heart with the faculty one sees and comprehends God that's what how what the Noose does for us the spiritual manifold helps us to comprehend God and his mercies and his energies the news compromises alike the faculties of perceiving the understanding of those of feeling judging determining and in an nous sense the capacity for Spiritual truth the higher powers of the soul the faculty of perceiving divine things of recognizing goodness and of hating evil right St Paul even talks about this we're later on in chapter 12 we're supposed to abhor evil right have a

20:47 horror of evil and uh it is the power of considering and judging soberly calmly in impartiality that it's a very important statement right the power of considering and judging soberly right what does that mean to be a sober thinking right what does it mean to calmly think if we're Furious if we're angry are we going to be able to think clearly no no right that does not give us a sober thinking right when we are so enraged that we want to hurt somebody that is not impartiality either and when we come to God with our and I call it praying with prejudice right when you come to God and you're coming to him for an answer but you already got the answer

21:33 in your mind that's not coming to God conforming to the world or uh conforming to his will you're coming with God conformed already to the world okay so St Paul uses it again in Romans chapter 7 where he says he refers to the law noos of God which the law is the writer's noose all right as opposed to the law of sin which is in the body and then Romans 122 it's again where it talks about where we we we talked about it de demands the Christians should canot conform to the world but could tenderly be transformed by the renewing of their noose so that it will be able to be determined what God's will is that is what we must do that is what we must learn that is our goal to find out and

22:19 to work and to strive towards God's will 1 Corinthians 14 he also says when he discusses about speaking in tongues he says that a person who speaks in tongues that they cannot understand should prefer to also have understanding The Noose right and to better and it is better for the listeners also to be able to understand all right so again it's that part it's that emotional part it's that part of us that is comprehensive he also uses in the book of Ephesians where he says it discusses how non-christians have a worthless news while Christians should see seek to renew the spirit the pbna of their noose so he's saying that non-christians that spiritual manifold

23:06 that they have is completely broken cracked it's seized right and when you come to the realization who is the only one that can bring you to God Jesus Christ right Christ is the only one that can woo you to God when he calls you you have a choice follow it or deny it and what is what is the warning that Jesus says the denial of the holy spirit is the only unforgivable sin but if you repent can that be forgiven as well yes of course it can right but if you live your life your entire life rejecting and denying God of course it cannot be forgiven because you don't live in Repentance and then St Paul also uses it in 2 Thessalonians where he uses the

23:53 term to refer to being being troubled of the mind and then finally St John says in Revelation 17 here is the Noose which has wisdom so in Orthodox Christianity we call the Noose The Eye Of the Soul just as the soul of the man is created by God man's soul is intelligent and noetic St thasus wrote that God created being God God created beings with a capacity to receive the spirit and to attain knowledge of himself he has brought into existence the senses and the sensory perception to serve such beings God created us in a way to accept what he has to show us he has created us

24:40 in a way to accept truth that is the in the the Instinct that we have to accept God God created us that way he breathed his life into us all right Orthodox Christians Eastern Orthodox Christians hold that God did not God did this by creating mankind with an intelligence and noetic faculties angels have intelligence and noose where men have reason okay noose and sensory perception this follows the idea that man is a microcosm and an expression of the whole creation of the mro macrocosmos it is through the through it is through the healed and corrected noose and the intelligence that man knows and the experience and experiences

25:26 God so again we work on extracting all those things that that so we can remove that broken noose sa uh St David King David says right creating me a clean heart God right create in me the new heart that I need he's the only one that can do it so in this belief the soul is created in the image of God since God is trinitarian mankind is noose word and spirit the same is held true of the soul the heart the heart it is as it has noose word and spirit to understand this better first an understanding of what St Gregory palamas teaching that that a man is a representation of the trinitarian mystery should be addressed this holds

26:14 that God is Not Meant in the sense that the Trinity should be understood anthr anthropologically but but man is also to be understood in a Triune way or that the TR trinitarian God is not to be interpreted from the point of view of individual man but man is interpreted on the basis of the trinitarian God and this interpretation is re revelatory not merely psychological and human this means that it is only when a person is within the Revelation as all the saints lived that he can grasp this understanding completely the second presupposition is that mankind has and is composed of the Noose word and Spirit like the trinitarian mode of being man's

27:01 noose word and spirit are not hypostasis as we think of with the Trinity or individual existences or realities but activities or energies of the Soul right so the Noose is the working of our soul it's the thing that is working in us to make us more and more into going the toward the direction and working on the theosis that we are so desperately trying to move th through now during Lent whereas in this case with the god with God or the persons of the Holy Trinity each are indeed hypostasis so these three components of each individual man are inseparable from one another but they do not have a personal character when in speaking of the being that is

27:47 mankind so the new again is the Eye Of the Soul which some fathers also call the heart it is the center of man in which the true spiritual knowledge is validated this is seen as true knowledge which is implanted in The Noose and is always coexisting with it the Theologian Father John romanes he says the chief concern of the Orthodox Church is the healing of the human soul the church has always considered the soul as part of the human being that needs the needs healing because she has seen from the Hebrew tradition from Christ himself and from the apostles that is the region of the

28:34 physical heart their functions something that the fathers call The Noose in other words the fathers took the traditional term noose which means both intellect theonia and speech or Reason logos and gave it a different meaning they Ed noose to refer to this noetic energy that functions in the heart of every spiritual healthy person we do not know when this change in meaning took place because we know that some fathers use the same word noose to refer to reason as well as the anic energy that descends and functions in the region of the heart so from this perspective noetic activity is an activity essential to the soul it is functions in the brain as a as the reason it simultaneously

29:21 functions in the heart as The Noose in other words the same organ The Noose pray prays ceaselessly in the heart and simultaneously thinks about the mathematical problems for example or anything else in the brain so the Greek word again theonia refers to the mind or the intellect encompassing the faculties of understanding reasoning and thought we need God to heal our noose in order for us to think correctly we're supposed to be working on getting the frona the Orthodox thinking it is often described the inner workings of the Mind including our our intentions our purposes and the capacity for moral reasoning in the New Testament theonia is frequently associated with a transformation and

30:07 renewal of the Mind in the context of spiritual growth and Understanding God's will so as we start healing The Noose as God starts working in the Noose we draw closer to God and our mind starts thinking correctly when somebody wounds us the only way we're able to turn the other cheek is through the healing of the news think about the people that are being tortured and they glorify God and they even minister to the people that are torturing them that is only something that God can give you as a gift okay so the Noose or our spiritual manifold right must be functioning correctly if it is broken then we are broken we must begin to extract the bolts right the Fasteners that are being used and

30:54 replace the broken parts of us the Holy Spirit must be allowed to move within us that air right with a precise mixture of our humility faith and love coupled with God's grace mercy and love that will produce in us the desire to continue to move forward in our relationship with Christ so again it's a Synergy it's a working together it's a desire if you want to get closer to God you will get closer to God because God will make it possible because that's his desire for us he wants us to have his mind he wants us to have his thinking he wants us to live according to the glory that he is so therefore we can exhibit those glorious things to the people of

31:39 this world to give as many people the chance to repent and come to him right so most of the sins that affect us right just like that manifold I talked about at the beginning most of the sins that affect us can be easily extracted with diligent prayer and fasting I'm sure the most you that have come there are some things that you and I know there are things that all of you have come and confessed from your past that you don't do anymore when you came to Christ when you C when you decided to take that Journey all those things that used to be you you've already started to purge from your life those are the bolts that are coming out easily right those are the bolts that with the right tools were able to come out but some of the deeper and more prevalent sins are

32:27 Passions need more precise tools sometimes bigger such as more prayer and fasting which means that you got to dig in you got to pray you got to work you got to diligently work hard in order to conquer those things if the enemy can keep you bogged down with the things that you come over and over and over again to confession with then he will keep you there and you will grow complacent you will spin your wheels but when you decide to dig in deep God will give you the strength to do it tools such as reading the scriptures reading the church fathers in the lives of saints and attending most Services as we can those are more things that can help you extract those broken bolts that are within us and if the spiritual manifold is has a broken bolt the best

33:14 choice is to come to the specialist right just like going to the mechanic you come to the spiritual father to help us break the bolt out Drilling in the right places at the right time using prayer using anointing oil is our spiritual WD40 to break up the rust the spiritual rust and our heart that that has that's in our heart that is being seized by things like hatred lust selfishness and hard-heartedness and even laziness okay it is through confession and repentance that the Brokenness of our noose can be transfigured and be AC and into an acceptable sacrifice to God allowing us to learn the many virtues through our and accept uh virtues through our participation with the energies of the

33:59 Holy Spirit to remove the coolant leaks right one of the reasons why you replace is the coolant leaks the coldhearted selves that we are and that can only be thought by the mercy of God's love and the vacuum leaks right that will seal us and to complete us not allowing the Blackness and the Darkness to suck our joy from us and to break down the carbon build up in our hearts by breaking down our self-will and replacing it with the will of God through the Noose God will work his healing energies and will bring understanding of who God is in each of our lives in a deeply personal way okay it's deeply personal for each one of us my journey is not my wife's Journey my journey is not my son's Journey my

34:46 journey is not my spiritual children's Journey each of you have a deeply personal relationship with Christ even if you have been baptized or not if you're here and you're desire is to move forward God is already working in your life not through any intellectual reasoning right we cannot intellectualize oursel to the kingdom of heaven we intellectualize intellectualize ourselves in vain Glory we intellectualize ourselves into thinking that we are humble when we're not we intellectualize intellectualize ourselves and thinking that we are good people none of us are good people every one of us are stinky broken sinful

35:32 people and if we remember that when we see each other God will work in us even more because we're coming to each other in humility praying for each other but we allow God to work in our darkened Souls the darken noose and through holy illumination through baptism we know that God through the illumination of the Soul he works on us he starts working on removing all all of those things that we are so deadened in our souls through and when we become wholly illuminated we that that spiritual manifold starts becoming a whole thing that we need as we behave in the manner that it bring that brings glory to God in our thoughts and actions we become conformed in the

36:18 mold of Christ to become the people we are called to be any questions I know I went through it pretty fast but I was pretty passionate about it sorry if there's any questions does every does it all is everything make sense all right so just remember you got to be patient with yourselves right as you come before God I know a lot of my spiritual children come to me and tell me when I'm praying I'm getting all these evil thoughts in my mind you got you got to learn how to dig in you got to learn how to ignore those things and push those things out because the enemy will not give up the enemy will not cease his attack on you you have to work diligently on trying to

37:04 get that spiritual manifold in the right place so therefore when those thoughts come out like St pisio says the thoughts come in like in an airport and the it goes out again immediately it lands and leaves we have to continue working towards those things we have to continue working on adjusting ourselves and humbling ourselves yes so you don't acknowledge those thoughts right right you try your best to ignore him and you push him away right you and if you want to talk about them like you've done in the past before you come and talk to me about it but those things are meant purposely to derail you right and as you get closer to God you're he's also going to bring up the stuff that you've already been forgiven for you've

37:51 been forgiven for those things but I always tell everybody if you've forgiven for if you've asked God to forgive you for something that you did 25 years ago if that thing comes back again there's two things that happen it's either to get you derailed or you've come to this place in your life in your spiritual walk that it's time for you to repent in a different way okay some of the things that I've done because I am not because I'm no longer 20 now that I'm almost 50 my life and my journey has gotten closer to God so therefore I'm realizing the things that I did did that led me to make some of those mistakes my sinfulness some some of the people that I've hurt some of the people that I've wounded by my selfishness by my my my

38:38 self Desire by by my who I am so whenever you get those thoughts you have to again you stop but the most important thing you do the the biggest thing right is the the when you're doing the Jesus prayer if you're going Jesus Christ Son of God Mercy right if you're going as fast as you possibly can your is not going into your soul but if you're taking your time Jesus Christ Son of God have mercy on me a sinner you think the words and when that when that image of sex comes into your mind no Jesus Christ Son of God have mercy on me a sinner and it takes time it takes it takes work in order for you to get that mind right to become a living and acceptable sacrifice

39:24 to God because the enemy wants to Der you right from the beginning he wants to he wants you to remember who you once were instead of focusing on who you need to become but at the same time What do you do you focus on who you were only to the point where you're repenting for it right you remember those things you come to God and say I am I am a sinful and broken person and then when your wife does something to you right you go wait a minute I'm a sinful person too she she she just has the she she's angry now wait a minute let me have mercy on her let me have a let me have that Grace on her because God has given me Grace right and as I learn how to love my wife through her passions she's learned and had mercy on me through mine right and

40:11 that's the thing your spouse if you're married is one of your greatest allies because they know you intimately they know you in the bedroom they know you in the bathroom they know you everywhere the person that's second to that is going to be your spiritual father cuz you're able to come come and talk to your spiritual father whoever that be I mean ined mostly every all you guys are my spiritual children but the people watching online and everything like that God willing they have a spiritual father that is actively in their life concerned about them praying about them and working with them to work on replacing all those deadened and seized things in their life those broken bolts those spiritual bolts that they need to extract in order for them to repair themselves that make sense

40:57 anything else everybody's got it huh sweet nice all right well thank God glory to God name of the father Spirit bless you and protect you and keep you safe have a wonderful rest of your night [Music]