Episode 4: Fireside chats with Michael Van Vlymen and Dr. Bruce Allen

hello everybody again this is uh bruce and michael or michael and bruce i was doing alphabetical but we've been discussing the word between our recordings here and i thought we'd start in psalm chapter one because again this will answer a lot of the questions people keep asking why why is it taking so long how come it's not working et cetera et cetera so let me read this to you psalm 1 1-3 it says blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked now see wickedness can be those who talk disbelief doubt fear gossip slander we can go on and on so they don't walk in the counsel of the wicked nor stand in the way of sinners nor sit in the seat of scoffers but his delight is in the law of the lord and in his law he meditates day and night so there's your key you meditate you you ingest you think on the word of god day and night he's like a tree that's planted by streams of water that yields its fruit here's your key also in its season there's a season for breakthrough in everybody's life and its leaf does not wither it all that he does he prospers so even a plant knows you know you've got to have the water you've got to go through the seasons before you bear the fruit and walk in the fullness of it seems like nature has more wisdom than a lot of christians nowadays amen so we have to be people of the word be passionate about the word you know i call it the god of the word and the word of god or the same thing so you're passionate for the lord spend as much time as you can with them and and again people always come up well like brother i can't do that i keep remembering your story i'm a pastor i'm busy i work so many hours a week i don't have the luxury of all that time free time to pray 70 hours a week he said and i'm or whatever it was and i laughed and said because you you were working 60 to 70 hours a week and still spending nights in prayer well you know it gets me about that bruce is is people think well you're in ministry you've got all the time in the world i don't know i know you know this is true but when people say that to me i remember my dad being a pastor of a church and you want to talk about having a swamped schedule it is literally 24 hours a day that you are on call if you're not uh praying for the people if you're not ministering if you're not studying for what you're going to be teaching listening to god's voice then you're going to the hospital because people are not uh they're not having emergencies when it's convenient for the minister or the or the pastor literally you know two or three nights a week there'd be phone calls and you know where dad would have to get up from his supper table and he would have to just go and do so it's not like people in ministry are given extra hours you know to spend waiting on the lord and pursuing that kind of life no that's not how that works and uh i remember when i was the associate pastor my dad and i had pioneer to church in linwood i was putting in 12 and 14 hour days six days a week and then still had to be there sunday morning and i thought there's something wrong with this picture you know but um that's the way it was and i didn't mind it so much but i remember even at that time feeling this call to the nations and so i would look there used to be websites out and i don't know if they are now but looking for christian placement in in ministries around the world you know like pastoring or that type of thing and the the the list of requirements for us a past senior pastor not even the ceo of a major corporation had wear so many hats and be able to do all those things and i thought you have got to be kidding me that's insanity isn't it so we've made it a job not a calling it was crazy so thank god i wasn't called to that type of thing but but you know the fact is that people you know a lot of people have time excuses or reasons you know this is my reason i can't do it but literally everyone is given 24 hours a day and and we have to choose what is important to us and you know i get it that people have packed schedules but you know what um they are still able to invite god into their lives to be a part of every moment of it yeah yeah if you haven't exactly this book everybody you need to read this book that's brother lawrence practicing the presence of god every day he was working but he was practicing by talking to the lord or meditating on the lord all day long and he impacted his generation and generations since the 1600s amen so there's no excuse that works why don't we just get honest and say i'm too lazy to put in the extra effort i mean seriously hey did she bring me a cup too oh sorry oh well just one i'll enjoy it for both of us oh thank you so the truth is we we just come up with excuses we come up with more excuses for failure than more than more confessions of success you know it's funny how that can happen even in the midst of god speaking to us because you know i've you know the thing about you know asking god okay what do i do next what i do next that's you you really have to do that as an ongoing part of your life because i've gotten to the point many times where i don't feel like i'm getting the breakthrough i should or i'm having feel like a dry place and you know i start complaining over myself and making excuses well i don't have time i you know i i can't do it because of this or that and what it all boils down to is am i willing to just ask him what comes next and take that step um because he's not going to ask me to do something i can't do and and he knows the path that we're supposed to be on you know i think he's always going to have to do something you can't do yeah therefore it requires faith that's very true you know that's something he taught me years ago i'm not going to ask you to do what you well he might start me with something i can do but then the next step he's going to ask me to do something i can't do it's like uh okay lord no really just take the next step no boy it's dark there's a big pit what are you talking about you never walk on water until you step out on the water that's something so but i finally you know it's interesting you talk about dry times richmond i just went through a difficult season and you know in the midst of all of those dry times in those dark times the only thing that comes out of me is i trust you lord and i love you lord i i mean emotions aside questions aside what are we going to do aside i just i trust you lord and i rest in that now did did the lord have to build you up to that place where where your reaction is i trust you it's a choice you know each each time you put your faith in god and trust him and he sees you through it strengthens that confession that i trust you lord so the first time is i'm trying to trust you lord the second time is okay i i trust you lord and the third time is i trust you lord look at what uh it was a david or job said though he slayed me yet will i praise him why that's the level that's the measure of trust we've got to get to or abraham take your only son the promise i gave you for your life put it on the altar and kill it okay i trust you he didn't even bat an eye by then he was like okay because he knew god could raise him from the dead that's the place we got to get i was thinking about the uh who was it the three uh hebrew uh young men in the fiery furnace right it's like um they had faith that whether whether or not they were being delivered they had faith in their god right and so they were going to take that step into the furnace i mean they were being thrown in obviously but but they weren't going to uh bow to the pressures of the world they were gonna follow god and his and his uh and worship him only and uh exactly and the world at that time called that failure they're gonna die they threw him in a fiery furnace god called it success yeah and he delivered exactly so i like that example and you've never been there though have you uh maybe a couple not not not actually at the furnace but you know well fiery furnace of affliction that's what we can call it sure we've all been there yeah yeah and it's funny how a lot of times uh people around you can try to give you the easy way out well brother you tried you know i'll tell you something that happened because when um when i was first learning from you about uh waiting on the lord and things like that i had a question in my mind i thought well this should be happening faster than it is you know as far as a regular ongoing lifestyle and here i am praying and waiting on the lord and it seems like it's been months of literally going to my to my time of prayer i call it a prayer chair but very often it's actually the prayer floor or the prayer closet or walking around walking around but literally months um praying through the night and i'm thinking something should be happening and so the people around me that consider themselves you know religious uh people of authority and i guess i did too kind of uh said oh well god doesn't want you to try that hard brother just pull back pull back and you know if it's gonna happen it's gonna happen if god wants it to happen it will happen now my flesh really liked that instruction you know and so uh but you know i gave the lord one chance to give me a a different instruction and you know how that is the thing that we don't recommend where you flip through the bible and just stick your finger in right right well of course i don't i also don't recommend that but i did that and the scripture it falls to is jacob contending with for his blessing and it's like oh okay now who do i listen to because this is kind of a random thing with the bible and and the preacher told me this you know about if it's going to happen so i listened to the preacher i quit praying through the night and you know what all that did was extend my dry time for about three months because that was three months that i didn't press president and pray you know i i'm listening to this voice well if it's gonna happen it's gonna happen i don't see that not looking back i don't see that in anywhere in the bible if it's gonna happen it's gonna happen what verse is that uh first flesh three i'm getting an echo is that me or you it could be me okay yeah again we have a culture of easy believism we want as least amount the least amount of effort that we have to exert to obtain the greatest benefit you know i've shared this with you and in our schools i've had people over the years young young people come out oh i would give anything to walk with god like you do just anything to have those experiences and finally i got so tired of hearing that and i know he was genuine in what he was saying but it was like okay let me pray lord kill him give him years of brokenness years of wilderness wandering years no no no i don't want that i said you said you were will you'd do anything well that's how i got here and then once i got his attention i could say no that's not doesn't mean that's what it's going to take you but you've got to stop saying you've done all the work now give me all the success no we all have our own walk and because we all have our own walk we're accountable to the same master jesus and he will take us at his pace not our pace and i might have been a little bit you know thick skulled and more difficult than most because that's and that's why it took me so long but that's that's irrelevant i wouldn't trade a moment of that past for where the lord has me now and the intimacy i have with him now if that's what it took so it's all uh i don't know it's relative it seems when that revelation of truth comes like that it really blows things open once you you realize just you get that revelation that god is faithful that god will speak to you that his word is true when this becomes revelation and not just words that you've heard it seems to open things just exponentially for for the things of the kingdom to overrun around our lives but it's it's and it seems like such a simple thing it's not profound you know as far as worldly wisdom it just seems so too simple almost that people uh tend to dismiss it they need they need to be they need who was it that needed to do something difficult instead of uh dipping in the muddy yeah yeah the leopard so name in the leper yep yeah we have to be careful of that god's ways are not our ways but you know what if we follow his ways he'll take us exactly where we need to be at the right time and in the right place and i think people should be encouraged by that yeah you know it's interesting if i'd heard that when i was a teenager i would have gone yeah but so that's nice but how do i get you know because we had a lot more but as we've walked with the lord we've learned the truth of some of these things that we didn't have that the knowledge of back then and i can't say this any other way than to say passion for jesus have a passion for the word of god and the god of the word everything else follows because if i'm passionate about my relationship with god if i make jesus my best friend there's always a dialogue going on i always invite him into everything i do i'm always listening to what he has to say how else i don't know how else to tell you i'm not going to give you religious protocol you know say so many of this and 23 of that and see no just spend time with the lord he'll sort it out yeah yeah absolutely unless you want the religious path so then i'm saying 17 years of upper division study 70 hours a week of work all nights in prayer at least four times a week and beating yourself yeah flagellation yeah but no trust the lord he knows he knows what you need better than you do so if you're pursuing if you're not let's say let's say jesus is not the central part of your life that you're pursuing spiritual life for the sake of encounters experiences visions what what is the danger of pursuing those things above a relationship with the lord oh deception of course the the devil will give you all those experiences if you want them and he'll lead you down the garden path you i mean you had an encounter with an angel said stop doing that why because you're opening the door yes to the demonic because you were enjoying the experience more than a relationship with god and you wanted it just for the experience and that's always dangerous and we have a whole build we have whole movements and ministries built upon the wow factor of supernatural signs and wonders and all of these things and it's no wonder they go astray because you don't build people's faith based upon those things you base it upon the intimacy in the word and those things follow but we've made we've taken the minor and made it the major and so we've shipwrecked many lives and when jesus ceases to be what your life is all about then that's i think that's also when issues of character and honesty and all of those other things come into play because uh if if our life is not really pursuing christ but trying to do something else then uh we're not being changed into his likeness we're being i think we've been changed into something else then well remember what you focus on you in power yeah that's very true good or evil so you better focus on that which really is eternal that glass you don't need miracles in heaven yeah just saying that's true focus on jesus that's the eternal relationship in covenant i was just reading uh first second and third john again yesterday and uh the whole i mean everything john talked about you know the beloved that leaned upon his breast he was the the the apostle of love but i mean you just read those things and everything's wrapped around the motive is love the operation is love the eternal reality is love everything operates by love faith worth it by love and god is love so again passionately pursue jesus that becomes operative faith becomes operative because faith works by love and god is love and you've redeveloped this relationship and the more i know him the more i trust him and we could go on and on you know what is that evil evil friends corrupt good morals see so those you spend time with influence you you ever noticed kids your kids growing up when my kids were growing up their friends they started talking they're slaying and started doing some of those things and sometimes i'm proud of my son he was more of a leader because they would start taking his but that's not the point the ones you're with you start emulating you start talking like you start acting like is it any wonder the church is in a mess because we're trying to act like each other instead of follow jesus oh man that's that's a big that's a big thing that the lord had to deal with me upon or deal with me with is because you know i had this idea that i could be with people that were not on the same page with me that i could have fellowship with people that you know didn't believe that god still did miracles that i could fellowship with people that really weren't passionately pursuing god for that relationship and that it wouldn't affect me and oh man was i wrong i mean i probably held up breakthrough in my own life in certain areas for years because i kept this i kept thinking out of a human compassion if i just spend more time with him if i just spend more time with him he's going to see he's going to understand and you know what it never happened but it did affect me in a negative way sure it pulled you pulled but now not my wife cortana she didn't pull me down but my just i got to make that clear she knocked you down but uh you know i come home sometimes from from having a fellowship with fellowship with someone and she'd say why do you do that is the lord telling you to do this because you come back and you're depressed and you know it takes you a day to come out of this strange you know uh you got slime yeah you get slimed and it's like and it still wasn't enough to wake me up but uh you know i'm awake now i think you helped me too i've gone over time and i keep getting an echo on your end yeah sorry about that i can try uh i'll try a different microphone oh we'll do it next time but okay good good discussion so we'll continue on next time all right i'll see you guys next time again thank you everybody what's your website michael uh riverofblessings.org okay riverofblesings.org that's michael and mine is stillwaters internationalmissions.com so we have both sides covered the orgcom or the comorg yes something like that and we're gonna we got a school coming up in the middle of march in uh cincinnati what's the dates the 8th through the 12th in powell ohio is actually powell is an apologist outside okay so uh we'll have those flyers up on our website too yeah absolutely super till next time i'm going to see everyone there yeah bye

Channel: Bruce D. Allen

Views: 1,884

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords:

Id: cA4DaqxOKBE

Length: 23min 23sec (1403 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 28 2021