Notice with Lazarus he got a miracle and he was brought into new life, but it took others to unwrap him and so here's the thing. One of the keys to you growing and changing is you must have relationships which stimulate growth, so I don't like being in a group which is a social club. I can just go in and visit a group and have a bit of a social time, that's wonderful, but I really need to be with people that stimulate me to grow. Have you connected in that kind of way? If you're in a team are you welcoming connections that will help you and stimulate you to grow? You've got to welcome it into your world. You welcome it. People can do it but you've got to welcome it, otherwise they get a bit nervous about it because you suddenly turn into a monster the moment someone says something to you. That's not very helpful you know.
Okay then and here's another couple of things. Be courageous and face truth. Be courageous and face the painful truth. In Proverbs 28:13 it says if you cover your sins you shall not prosper, but if you confess and forsake them you find mercy [if you cover them. 00.35.23] So if we cover our failures everyone sees them anyway. Cover your weaknesses, hey, people aren't silly, they see them anyway. If you cover up stuff it's seen. It always has an effect in your life. The Bible says if you cover it up or conceal it or clothe it, dress it up so it looks better than it really is; if you try and have a life that's a pretence you can't prosper or go forward. Now believers, we are called to go forward, to grow from one degree of glory to another. That means one degree of believing God, trusting God to another. To do that we can't cover over where we're failing, making mistakes.
We need to actually do what the Bible says to do, but if we confess and get rid of it, if we confess and deal with it then we experience mercy coming to our life. Now that word 'confess' is the word 'yada', the same word Adam knew his wife Eve, he was intimate with her. In other words if I am aware of where I'm missing it and I consciously own that and address it and put it off my life, I will always encounter mercy from God and from people, tremendous promise. Kindness, graciousness, willingness to give you another go, but the key thing is you've got to actually own it so the word 'confess' there is a word if I'm aware of where I'm going wrong and do something about it to change, then I'll always experience grace. In the New Testament the word 'confess' is [homologa 00.36.53] meaning if I will say about my life what God is saying about it and then change, He will give me grace.
But if I will minimise or defend myself or cover the thing, or try and say it's better than it is, if I will do that I won't find grace. I won't prosper at all, see? So that's a key to growing. You've got to be able to be willing to face painful truth and it's often embarrassing, you cry and you weep. I remember more than one time in my journey being on my knees weeping before God over seeing and perceiving my failure and how it hurt people, things in my life that were broken that needed to be repaired, things that I was lacking in. I've wept many, many times in the secret place before the Lord over those things and then worked to try and change. When you do that you find God pours out grace. God will help you. God will walk with you. Some people say how can he get away with all those things and God hasn't smitten him from heaven? Say simply because there's humility and there's a brokenness and God is working because God's not looking at how bad it is. God's seeing the heart that'll respond and He can work with that heart. God can work with that.
David murdered and committed adultery, lied, did all kinds of things, but God sees a man after my heart; I can work with someone who'll respond like that. Understand that? Don't have to be perfect with God, [you 00.38.12] have a perfect heart which means I'm open to respond and tender when the Holy Ghost speaks to me. When you do that that's when your life can really begin to shift, but if we're resistant and walled and hard and God speaks to you or speaks to the church and you're just walled off, it's not changing your life in any kind of way, then you're not growing at all. You're not going forward.