Are you blocking love? This is the love chapter, giving it, receiving it, attaining it. Is there a barrier? Is there a reason people don’t like you, or is there a reason that you can’t like them? What’s the blockage? Could there be something that stops you from suffering long, enduring, seeking not your own? Is there something, a barrier? Right in the middle of a dissertation about love, he says, “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, and I thought as a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things”. “I put away childish things”. “I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child”.
Spake, understood, thought, hmm. Spake, understood, thought, S-U-T, SUT. Spake, understood, thought, spake, understood, thought, S-U-T, systems under test. This is how you test your systems. You test your systems through how you speak, how you understand, and how you think. If your life is not reaching an expected end, do you have the courage to test your systems? Because your systems need to go under test. Is it the way you speak, the way you understand, or the way you think that is stopping you from becoming what God would have you be? It is not the way you look.
Now we gettin’ into it. Now we gettin’ into it. The way you speak, the way you understand, and the way you think is your system, and your system is blocking the rain. “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things”. Good God of mercy. I’m trying not to unload it too fast. What we’re dealing with is an immature inner life, an immature inner life. Not outer life, the outer life is maturing, but the inner life has not.
Could it be possible, don’t nod, don’t nod, don’t move, ’cause you don’t want nobody know, that inside, you’re still a child? Reacting to stimulus like a child. Understanding your life like a child. A child, the reason that children go through trauma, when they’re young and people divorce, is that children think it’s all their fault. Are you blaming yourself for things that are not within your control? Do you understand like a child? Are you carrying weights and crosses that had nothing to do with you, that were completely out of your control? Are you being victimized by you?
Come on, here. Can you think with me? Oh, you’ve got to be my daughter, if you got what I just said. Because most people think if I can put away the childish things, I’ll be a man. He said I became a man and still had a childish system that had to be put away, because what was appropriate as a system is now inappropriate. Because I have outgrown the way I speak, the way I understand. oh, God, help me, and the way I think. I have outgrown the way I speak, the way I understand, and the way that I think. I’m too big to be bound by this system. I’m too big to be bound by this system. I am bigger than the system. The system can’t put me away, I must put it away.
And so, this is good, this is good. Y’all think this is good? I think this is good. See, so what I got down into, when I became a man, since the childish things were there for me to put them away, that means that I can develop to a point that, all of a sudden, I am developed outwardly, but not inwardly. Are you a man or woman loyal to a system of a child, and are you waiting on the system to leave, or would you put it away?
The put away in the childish things phrase is the same Greek word that is used in verse 10 for done away when they’re talking about, “We prophesy in part, we see in part, and all of that is done away”. The same Greek word is used here. It carries the idea that cessation has not occurred, but functionality is severely limited. It is not putting it away like destroying it, but it does mean that I put it away to the point that its functionality is severely limited. So, the childish speech, the understanding, and the thinking is still existent, but it is severely limited from operating in my life.
This is important. “When I was a child, I thought as a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things”. I put away the systems. Now, you can’t put it away if you’re holding onto it, if you’re defending it. Are you defending something that’s killing you? Are you defending something that’s kept… “don’t take it away, leave me alone. Get outta my face. I’m not talkin’ to nobody”. Are you defending a system that is poisoning your water? Have you ever noticed for how long you’ve been here you have not accomplished what you think is your destined purpose? It must be your system.
‘Cause I knew God was going to talk to your head this morning, because God wants you to change the way you speak. But the one I really wanted to get to is the way you understand. The way you understand a thing determines your expected end. And let me… I asked God to give me a way to help unearth the way you understand. Have you ever been mad at somebody about something you thought they meant, and then when you called them up, and you talked to ’em, you found out you was completely wrong, and immediately the relationship was repaired? It was repaired through understanding. The person is still the same, you’re still the same, but the way you perceive the thing has changed, and the relationship is healed.
Look at how powerful understanding is. Understanding is the truth you stand under. It is the truth you stand under. It is your version of what happened. It is your version of what’s wrong. It is your version of what needs to be fixed. And you could be hindering the blessing of God because of your version of your life. What you choose to see about your life, what you choose to focus on, because we all remember what happened, but we all emphasize different aspects of what happened.
If you don’t believe that, call a family meeting, and let everybody have something to say about what happened last September. We was all there, we all know it, but how we perceive it… oh, wow, no, hmm, yeah, Lord, thank you. That’s why I said, “In all thy getting, get an understanding”. As a minister, as a counselor, as a pastor, I have learned that you cannot help people that you do not understand. You can’t just start throwing random answers at people, you gotta listen before you speak.
Do you not know that when you go to a counselor, all they do is help you to understand you? You pay $299 an hour to get them to give you a different perspective on what happened to you. I’m not against counseling, I think it’s a wonderful thing. I think is a very powerful thing, and I would get it before I would miss the rain. I would get it every day before I would miss the rain, but you could cut down the learning curve if you would break the habit of always going back to the old system of processing what’s goin’ on in your life. Because I think, in your adult life, your little child is talking.
I’m gonna get out of there. Let’s go to Galatians. Let’s go to Galatians. Galatians 4:1-2, “Now I say that the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant”. As long as you are a child, you are differing nothing from a slave. You are a slave to the system. “Though he be lord of all”. He differeth nothing from a slave, Ernest? Though he be lord of all, he cannot operate in his lordship because of his system. It’s blocking the rain. It’s blocking the blessing. He’s living like a slave, though he be Lord of all. “And he is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of his father”. Because of his immaturity, he is under people. Oh, they can’t handle this. I’m gonna try y’all. He is under people that he should be over. You better preach it here. I’m going to say it again. He is under people that he should be over, but until he grows up, he cannot inherit what is rightfully his, and you’re following people you ought to be leading.
High-five somebody and say, “That man is preaching this morning”. I want you to touch seven people say, “Put it away”. Put it away. Put it away. Put it away. Put it away. Put it away, put it away, put it away, put it away. Put it away, put it away, put it away, put it away. Put it away, put it away. put it away. If God is talking to you this morning, give him some kind of signal, some kinda praise, some kinda sign. Somebody shout put it away. Good God of mercy, put it away, put it away. I gotta put it away. I gotta put it away. I gotta put it away. I gotta put it away. I got to distance myself from it. I gotta separate myself from it. I gotta get it outta me. I gotta move it aside. I gotta resist the temptation to react in my old system. I gotta feel it and resist it ’til it ceases to be mine. Slap somebody say, “Put it away”.
Sit down, I wanna talk to you a minute, one more minute, one more minute. I gotta get this, ’cause we gotta put it away. We gotta put it away. We gotta put it away. First, we gotta know that it is not us. Oh, God, can we embrace the fact that it is not us. The way I speak, the way I understand, and the way I think is not me, it’s a system. I can survive without it. Until you know that, you won’t kill it, because you’ll think killing it is killing you which stops you from being the new you. We’re going to a new normal, and in order to go to a new normal, we gotta put away old things, old systems, childish responses.
How do I put it away? I can hear you saying it. How, how, go deeper into how do I put it away. You cannot put away, number one, what you do not identify. You gotta identify it every time it shows up, and say, “You know what? That’s not the way I wanna understand it. That’s not the way I wanna speak about it, and that’s not the way I wanna think”. So, when the thoughts come, I have to resist the thoughts that come. The Bible said once you identify it, if you resist, number two, if you resist him, he will flee. This is resistance training. It’s pulling against it that’s gonna make you strong.
Every time it comes to control how you speak, how you understand, or how you think, the Bible said if you resist it, it’ll flee. The more you resist it, it’ll flee. The more you cut the thought off and abort it, it will die. The less you speak out what you thought, it will go away. The more you challenge how you understand it, and say, “Maybe it’s not that way”, the less power it will have to be your truth any longer. Am I helping somebody? If I’m helping, holler at me. Holler at me.
I was going through, I called a preaching buddy of mine, we were talkin’ about this over the phone. And I said for me, this is for me. I have only been able to let go of things to the degree that I had something to lay hold on. I cannot tell you to let go of a system and not have something to hold onto. After all, this is all you ever had. This is all I ever had. So, whenever I get scared, I go back to it, ’cause this is what I’m familiar with. Even if I’m familiar with something that’s killing me, and hindering me, and dwarfing me, and retarding my growth, it’s my normal. Even though it’s not normal, it’s my normal. It’s my normal. It’s my old normal. It’s my old normal, and I can’t let go of my old normal until I embrace my new normal.