Dale McDonald: Welcome to Atlin Family Church Engaged Faith. Once again, I'm Pastor Dale. I'm so glad that you joined me today. I realize there's more people coming in to the podcast or video I just wanna let you know different ways you can connect with us. we're not just the videos, we're also a local church. Which we're very excited about that right here in Atlin BC. If you happen to be in Atlin, stop in and join us every Sunday morning at ten AM, right here in our church office, home, cabin, all of the above. and also Wednesday night we have Bible study as well. So if you wanna, you know, just check that out. It's a little more I was gonna say informal, but all of our services are informal. this is Atlin come as you are as they say. but yeah, just we get together, we talk about the word, share what God's doing in each other's lives. it's just such a a great time to get together and to meet new friends and grow in the Lord at the same time. I mean, it doesn't get any better than that, right? So today, like I'd mentioned, I wanna show some ways that you can connect with us and so just bear with me, I'll just share my screen here for a bit. starting with hopefully you can see that. Our website. That's our main connection online, I suppose. it's our hub for all the different videos that we put on. you can see them there. it does take you to our YouTube channel, which I'll show you in a second. up at the top you can see news news alert or bar Bible study. that changes obviously with whatever is going on and happening at the moment. But yeah, you can just scroll through it. it's our local connection online. And like I'd mentioned. So different things. There's online church you can join if you're not in Atlin. the Learning Center is where I put all of our videos that we put online. different events that we have. Right now it's primarily getting together here in our home right here in Atlin. news events, and if you don't know anything about us, you can certainly go to the about page. I encourage you to do that. And it just goes through who we are, what we believe, and then, our our team right now is my wife and I. our mission and purpose, with ministries you want to make sure that the the ministry is aligned with the word of God. We are, we are non denominational, full gospel message, so that you get the truth of the word with no religion, I guess is the best way to put that. so I do encourage you to read through that, take some time, get to know us. Sorry about moving the things around so much. And of course our contact page, if you have questions, you can certainly reach out for prayer. as it says, we're certainly here for you. You know, whatever you're going through, good or bad, we like to celebrate the victories absolutely. but we all know that life isn't all about victories. Sometimes we need a friend and that's certainly what we're we're here for. And then of course the giving page makes makes it easy if you feel led of the Lord to give into our ministry, we certainly thank you in advance for that. we couldn't do what we do if it wasn't for your generosity and you know the Lord working through you as you bless his ministry. So do appreciate you in that and I do also appreciate all the new people that are signing up for our Facebook page, which I'll just quickly change to that here. Give me a second. Okay, and so Atlin Family Church is our Facebook page. You can search it and find it. you know, and just start following you can stay in the loop it's a little bit more posts and stuff as far as sometimes I'll put scripture on, sometimes, you know, short videos, whatever comes to mind. so yeah, and you know, the one I have pinned that we're We are very excited about. If you haven't heard, I'm now a licensed pastor. and how it works is you don't need to be licensed to teach the word of God, but in the province of BC you do need to be licensed under an accountability, an overseeing body, which I now am as of recently. And I did take some time, some prayerful time to just get the Lord's input as to who he would want me to align with And so now that that has been completed and we we have our our family, if you're planning on getting married in twenty twenty seven, reach out to us because it does take some time, it's a process. and we can start that plan. it's exciting but at the same time there's certain things that need to come into play. So we can certainly help you with that. So spread the word. If you're not getting married, if you're already married, that's great, good for you. my wife and I will be celebrating our forty third anniversary, October first, so go us. it's such an exciting journey, you know, for anyone at any age, especially when you know that God wants the blessing of a a man and a woman together. in him, walking with him, engaging our faith with him. That's his plan. And we certainly encourage you to reach out to us so we can get you started on the right path if you're, not familiar with Christianity, or you've been in Christianity for a while, maybe you've stepped away or you just want want us to walk with you during the the this whole process. We're here for you. So well back out of that and last but not least I will go to One last page. And that is Engage Faith, which some of you are engaging with us on YouTube. YouTube is primarily where we put all of our videos. we do have another platform that puts them out to multiple different platforms. So, you know, I may mention YouTube most often because that's where all of our videos are archived and it's also linked back to our website. So YouTube works well for what we're doing at this point. and again there it's Atlin Family Church Engaged Faith. So you can just search it and we'll come up. And again, it has all of our videos, our shorts, live that we we've done some live broadcasts as well. all of our different videos. I really appreciate you checking that out and connecting wherever you are, let us know. we'd love to connect with you. the one thing I didn't mention and I will go back for that because it really is something that I did wanna point out. to you. So back on our website, let's just go to back to the homepage. The one thing when you're on the website, remember to sign up for our newsletter. And just scroll down. I've got it pretty much on every page, you scroll near the bottom. the newsletter, you just put your email in there and subscribe, very simple. But it keeps you in the loop. It brings you into the family per se. to just let you know what we're doing locally, what we're d gonna be doing online. that's exactly what it is. It's a newsletter. I will often have scripture that the Lord's put on my heart. part of a blog maybe. I I you know, I do whatever comes to me on there, but it it's our direct, hey, if we have some some information we want the family to hear, that's the way to connect. So whether you're here locally in Atlan or online, either way, you're family, just feel free to go to our website, sign up for that newsletter. And you know, I promise I won't bombard you. It's typically, once a month. This depends, obviously, If there's something on my heart, I want to share it. So yeah, feel free to do that at any time. And so today I'm wanting to get back into the teaching. And I'm very excited to continue the it's a five part series, and I've entitled it Christian Boot Camp. And If you haven't saw the first ones, there was a different a longer title, but the Lord says, Mm, no. What you're teaching is more more like Christian boot camp, so hey, I went with that. And really what it is, it's just to recap a bit. it's five different disciplines or elements of the Christian walk. Number one being faith, number two prayer, hearing God, which we'll be talking about today. Obedience is another one. And the last one, righteousness and holiness. And so the second element, with prayer, prayer is communication, right? And I I believe way too many people get it wrong. I know before when I was young in the Lord and I was learning, whenever I got in trouble, I would pray. Okay, that's that's a good time to pray, yes. but that's God wants way more than that for a relationship. and what it did is it it gave me comfort because I was reaching out to to God, the creator of the universe. at that point I didn't know anything really about it. I just hoped. It was more that. I would pray, I would hope, and then try to get through the situation, right? And I think you know, I don't think I'm so different in that. I believe a lot of people start there. But unfortunately, I truly believe there's a lot of people within the Christian walk that's maybe actually been a Christian for a long time, they may still be there. I'm hoping that's not you. I'm hoping that as you've watched the last few videos and and going forward with the the rest of this series, that you can start to locate where you're at and move forward. That's God's heart. He doesn't want you to stay stagnant. He wants you to move closer to him, move in a higher level with him, I just can't stress that enough and encourage you enough that we need as a Christian to communicate with God. I touched on it in the last video. prayer is not talking to God. So if you miss that video I'd mentioned make notes. Prayer is not talking to God. It's talking with God. I brought up the fact that, if we sit down with our best friend and we just do all the talking, you know, we're just talking at them, we're not talking with them. It's pretty rude. And it's no different with God. He wants to communicate and communication is two way talking and listening. Giving time For the other person to respond, and that's really it's building relationship, whether it be with friends, new acquaintances, but especially with the creator of really everything, you know, God. he expects us to talk to him, sure. He expects us to share what's going on in our lives. He already knows it, he knows everything about us, but he wants us to express it, and then he wants to have input into it. it's no different than a father with their children. He you know, we want to hear about our children's, experience at school maybe or in their jobs. And, as a parent we want to have input into that. We want to help them avoid situations if we possibly can. God is no different. He's our father, remember. So, I brought up a few scriptures and we talked about what prayer isn't. And prayer isn't vain reputation or babbling. And when I read that one I hadn't actually that word hadn't stood out before, but it's to the point. And so just keep that in mind. You know, this is the word of God. This isn't Dale's opinion. Matthew six, seven through eight, let's just read it again with the New Living Translation. When you pray, don't babble on and on as the Gentiles do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating the words again. And again, don't be like them. For your father knows exactly what you need even before you ask him. Like I'd mentioned, he knows us through and through. And I'd also mentioned that prayer is not to convince God. I've been there, I'm sure you probably have too, if you're honest. God, do this, do this, do this, and this is a perfect outcome. Thank you. I'm hoping it all happens, right? Well God knows the best outcome. We don't. So, you know, that's where the okay Lord, this is a situation, this is what I'm seeing. but He has a perfect answer for us. So that's why it's so important to express what's on our heart, absolutely, but then wait for him. Give him a chance to to answer and to give us the right answer. concerning our situation or our decision. that's just respecting God for who he is. He wants the very best for us. So let's give him the time to respond that information to us so that we can walk it out. prayer is really it it's to get God's wisdom on our situation or what we're going through. It's to add to our knowledge, which is usually very limited, but that's just reality of humanity. And God God knows everything. He knows our weaknesses, He knows our strengths because He's given them to us. I cannot encourage you enough. give God the time to respond. And I mentioned last video, every step we take in Christ will be conceived in prayer, but born by faith. And what I meant by that is we will get wisdom from God. And it'll be all of a sudden it'll be inside of us and go, Wow, that that's new revelation that's from God. That's God speaking to me. especially when we take the time to listen. And then from that point, what that thing was or what that information was will come to pass as we engage our faith and apply our faith. there's so much that works together to completely change the world as we know it. If we can move beyond talking at God and then going about our daily business. when we have the creator of the world wanting to work with us, I can't comprehend why someone would say, Help me Lord, and then go about and do it ourselves. It doesn't doesn't compute with me. God's on our side. He loves us. He loves you. He wants the very best for you. I can't express that enough. And I'm still grasping, I'm trying to comprehend the length and the breadth and the the height of love according to the scripture. It'll take a entire lifetime to get even a glimpse of the love that God has for us. And yeah, it's just so wonderful when we start to understand how much he wants to be involved in our life. And just to read a just a a few more scriptures to recap from last time, we are instructed to pray with our understanding and to pray in the spirit. So when we pray in tongues, our spirit prays the perfect will of God. So that's praying beyond What my brain knows. it's praying the perfect will of God. It's the language that God has given me through my spirit. I pray that out even beyond what I can understand. And it's so wonderful to be born again, baptized in the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues, so that we have that full communication with our Creator. Just Well let's read Ephesians six eighteen. Pray in the spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert, be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere. And first Corinthians chapter fourteen verse fifteen. I will pray in the spirit, and I will also pray in words I understand. I will sing in the spirit, and I will also sing in words I understand. I've been there, I'm praying, in my understanding, I'm praying in the spirit, I'll be the first to say, I'm not a singer, I don't have a singing voice. But as I'm praying in the spirit, I just I want to worship, I want to go higher, I want to give him more of myself and it just flows in a spiritual song and it's such a beautiful place. If you haven't experienced it and you want to know more, reach out. We can certainly walk you through how to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. it's for everyone. It's not for just pastors. It's not for people that have walked in in Christianity for many, many years. We know people that, they're born again and they get the Holy Spirit the exact same time. Lovely experience. I took a little while. I'm more of a thinker and a watcher and so and there's a story behind that. I'm smiling because Rena Mae my wife, knows the story but I'll share that with you at some point. but we're to pray in confidence. And you know I'd mentioned that last video. So when we pray, we go into the presence of God with sincere hearts but also fully trusting him. It's not like we're going to an abusive father. We're going to a loving father. We're going to a a father that loves us far more than than we can comprehend. But we need to develop the trust so that we can be fully open with him. I mean he already knows us, so we may as well be open, you know, and and admit it, whatever it is. and just create that communication, build that relationship. So just to recap before I get into the next teaching, remember prayer is not talking to God. It's talking with God. That's so important. It's a two-way communication, talking and then listening for the response. that's what I'm going to be talking about today. it's the third concept or element in the Christian walk and that's hearing from God. the truth is God speaks to everyone, but only born again believers recognize his voice. Isn't that sad? Like he's speaking to the entire humanity, to all of his human creation, Only born again people have positioned themselves to start to develop that relationship and come back to him. I cannot understand people who say they're building their belief system on what they've experienced or what people have told them or what they've learned online. You have the creator of the universe wanting to talk to you, wanting to build a relationship with you. Why would you trust other people that don't have a relationship? Or why would you trust experiences? Those experiences are based on situations that if you'd had God you probably wouldn't have gone through them? I know, I've touched on it before, but it's mind boggling. God loves us all so much. He wants to build that relationship. He wants to talk to you. we have to be listening or you know, it's to our benefit to be listening. I do hope you're getting it. so hearing from God is how we take the steps. So as I mentioned, God speaks to everyone, but only born-again believers recognize his voice. And when he's speaking to us, I can't can't describe it. It's just, wow, the creator of the universe is speaking. I've heard his voice. I recognize his voice. I want to be obedient. I want to please him. And hearing his voice. is how we take the steps, the steps in our lives to complete the plan he has for us, which is the best life we could ever have. We can't imagine it because God is so much bigger than we are, but as we hear him, we can take the next step and then the next step. And it just starts to unfold. you know, the the plan that he has starts to be fulfilled. We start to see his timing, start to see things changing and it just such a wonderful walk. If you haven't experienced it, then I'm just gonna say it, you're missing out. I believe, in the world we're in, we can't survive just based on our past experiences or what you know, speaking to people that don't know or don't have a relationship with God. we're coming to a point that it's going to be critical to know the the creator of the universe, have him work through us, so that we can navigate in the world as it keeps changing and frankly becoming more evil and anti-Christ. There's going to be a separation in humanity, the ones that are following the Lord and the ones that aren't. for the longest time I believe it was, you know, kind of lukewarm. There's a lot of people that yeah, I believe there's a God and they went through most of their life not doing anything with that or seeking God as to what he would like to do with them and through them. I truly believe we're in the time that, the fence is gonna start shaking. And if you've been sitting on the fence You're gonna find yourself on one side or the other. And I pray with all of my heart that you fall on the God side. There's no life like it, and it's literally life and death. Our world isn't getting any better. Not sure if you've noticed that. We're in a cycle of more and more spirit of Antichrist. it's becoming more and more critical to hear our Father, to know where we're to be, what we're to do. And yeah, I I'll leave it at that, but I do hope you're hearing my words today and take it seriously because we're in a very critical time in our lives. So it's time to engage our faith. There's a plug for our YouTube channel. you know, God speaks through his word as well. There's there's different ways that we can hear God. I was just reading this morning and as I was reading his word in the Bible, it just stood out. It was like it was highlighted in my spirit. Well that's one way God speaks to us. He will reveal his word. It's called revelation. and he He speaks and our inner voice goes, Hey, pay attention. Let's read John ten twenty seven. My sheep listen to my voice. I know them, and they follow me. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. Remember I mentioned before there's going to be a shaking, you're going to fall on one side or the other? Are you a child of God? Are you going to fall on the Antichrist side or are you going fall on the children of God side? Again, I pray. There's only one choice for eternity, and that's with God. Let's read John ten chapter ten verses one through five. I tell you the truth, anyone who sneaks over the wall of a sheepfold rather than going through the gate, must surely be a thief and a robber, but one who enters through the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. A gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep recognize his voice and come to him. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. After he has gathered his own flock, he walks ahead of them, and they follow him because they know his voice. They won't follow a stranger and they will run from him because they don't know his voice. Now that's referring to getting that relationship to a point that when we hear the voice of the Lord, we know that's the Father. And when we hear the voice of the enemy, we also recognize okay. That is the enemy, and we can resist that. The Bible is very clear that as we resist the enemy, he must flee. And further definition is as in terror. So let's read John fourteen twenty-three through twenty-six. Jesus replied, All who love me will do what I say. So we can't Just stop there for a sec. We can't do what he says if we don't hear him. And, that's partly through hearing his voice with within our spirit, But it's also when we read the word. If we're read just reading the word to read the word, you know, going through the Bible like it's an ordinary book, are we really hearing him? when I read, I read it as Lord, this is you speaking to me. What is it that you'd want me to hear today, to see today, to act on today, to engage my faith on today? So just reading on, my father will love them, and we will come and make our home with each of them. Anyone who doesn't love me will not obey me. And remember, my words are not my own. What I am telling you is from the Father who sent me I am telling you these things now while I'm still with you. But when the Father sends the advocate as my representative, that is the Holy Spirit. He will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you. And as a born-again Christian, you have Holy Spirit living inside of you. This is the temple of the Lord, our body. Holy Spirit's there to teach us as we just read in this word, everything, everything that Jesus mentioned in the scripture, he's there to remind us of it and to help us to develop that relationship with the Father. let's listen to him. That is such a big part of prayer, as I'd mentioned. if we ignore the Holy Spirit in our lives, like how limited. We will have such a a low level of life. I'm not sure if that's a good way to put it, but we'll live so far below the bar that God wants for us Unfortunately some some won't survive that. You know, it it's so entrenched into today's world and anti Christ thinking that we will go so far from God we may not get back or we may start living dangerous lifestyles. it's just a bad road to to go on and tempt fate, if I may. So when we invest time, and that's a good way to put it, we're investing in the relationship. We're taking our time to building that relationship with God. as I'd mentioned, we learn to recognize his voice, his personality, his emotions. God is not some storybook character in a land far, far away. He's in heaven, but he's also within us, as I mentioned. His spirit coming to live within us as we become born again. and, as we face eternity at the end of our life as we know it, As our bodies die, we will go to Him. The scripture says to be absent of the body is to be present with the Lord. So we will make our home with Him for eternity. again, heaven is far beyond what we can comprehend as a human, but it's going to be much more than we can imagine. let's get back to the world we live in. God wants to work through you. He wants to bring glory to Jesus by working through you, having his anointing flow through you. And we bring glory to Jesus when we continue his ministry. I've mentioned that in other videos. When we accept that we are his hands, his feet, his voice to the world around us, like wow, it's a Whole new world to us. and it's far, far more than we could ever experience in this low life before we met Christ. it was just that was just so superficial, not real. thank God for his mercy. During that time as we were walking and finding him and developing, relationship with him, but as as we move forward it gets deeper and more and more rich. and that's really what I'm encouraging you to experience. When we choose to believe God and his word and act on it, that's really the introduction to the next element. And that's obedience to God's word. So when we hear God, when we're listening to God, when we're developing that relationship and that communication through prayer, adding our faith to it, bringing all of the elements together, similar to the boot camp example that I'm using so in boot camp, you're bringing together your your strengths, your training, you're developing and honing in your skills. as we're going through these videos, I'm hoping you're seeing the the parallels. as a Christian, we don't start out knowing it all. We don't start out with all the skills, we're like newborns, we have to practice and then sometimes we stumble and fall down and we get back up. but God is not like a earthly human father. God is full of mercy, he's full of grace. And so when we stumble, we can get back up. we repent of our mistake, where we missed it, and he's right there to move us forward and to continue loving us. I really encourage you to stick, with me through the next couple of videos as we move forward in this series. putting them all together as in boot camp, all the different training, that being developing our faith, praying, listening to God as we've talked about today, and then the next step is obedience to God's word. It'd be pretty pointless if we heard God and we said, Yeah, hey that was God and we do nothing with it wouldn't be that smart So tune in next video and I'll be talking about the obedience to God's word. like I'd mentioned I've heard people say I'm waiting on God and it sounds really spiritual, but the truth God is waiting on us. He's waiting for us to take our place in him. And as we do that, we're gonna start to experience the best life that he has for us. a life that we can't comprehend when we take the time to listen to God, He's an encourager. he'll never beat us up with his words or his attitude or his tone. It's always I love you, come higher. I'd mention in other videos that I felt his emotion when he's corrected me. Well, that's still in love. You know, if I'm going down a wrong road. I would hope my father would say, Hey Dale, wake up. You're going down a road that's gonna hurt you or cost you or you know, where whatever it may be. It's still love for correction. Do I look forward to it? No, because that means I've missed it. I look forward to, when he feels happy with what I've done or I can feel his excitement as I move forward in steps of faith. if you haven't experienced that, there's so much more for you. So much more that he wants for you. That he wants to get to you, to work through you. So join me again next week. I really appreciate you tuning in today and have a blessed week.