Dharius Daniels - 4 Ways To Study the Bible

Well, what’s up, everybody? Come on into the office right now! I’m so glad to be with you again, as always. Pull a chair up on the other side of this desk and let me know where you’re watching from. Like each week, it seems like I’m seeing new cities or new states. I’m talking about places like Idaho! So, I’m really excited about the reach. Georgia always shows up strong, and Jersey and Cali and the Midwest too! Hey, just whatever you’re representing from, I want you to know that I’m honored that you see this teaching ministry as a trusted source of spiritual nourishment for you. I am honored by your trust!

Listen, this is what I believe. It’s also what I teach when I teach leadership, and it’s this: that leadership, at its core, is influence. Influence is different from authority because people may not choose who is in authority over them. Like a police officer—you don’t choose a police officer; somebody else chooses that police officer. You may go into a work environment and not choose your supervisor; someone else does. So, you can’t choose who has authority over you to some degree. You don’t choose that, but you can choose who you allow to influence you, and I am truly honored by your trust. I’m really excited about each time we’re able to get together!

Listen, if you’re watching this live—and I keep saying that because once these are over, we leave them up for people to watch later—but if you’re watching this live, I want you to make sure that you tune in to Change Church, our live streaming broadcast, this coming Sunday. This coming Sunday is Palm Sunday! I want you to tune in; we have an incredible worship gathering planned for you, and our worship department, Change Worship, is releasing something super exciting. I am also making a major announcement, and I think some of you, many of you, a lot of you, are going to be encouraged by it. It’s going to affect some of you directly or, for others, it might affect people you know, so you can let them know what God’s about to do.

So, hey, let’s keep that in mind, all right? Let’s not waste any more time. Everybody good? Drop an emoji that shows me your mood! If you’re watching this live, just drop that smiley face if you’re happy or a sad face if you’re not. Drop an emoji; let’s see how everybody’s doing. Okay, good stuff, good stuff!

Well, listen, as you all keep dropping that, I want to jump right into our time together tonight. I’m really excited about this. We’re in this series called Fire Starters, and you all have just been so amazing with your support! I think I’m going to continue this for a little while longer. I’m going to shift to something else besides Fire Starters; we’ll end Fire Starters next week, but I think I’m going to continue this a little longer than the Lent season—that was my plan—but hey, let’s see what happens!

Anyway, last week we talked a little bit about the importance of diet, and I used this analogy: I said I walked into a gym one time, and written on a chalkboard was this inspirational statement. I call it a sticky statement: «You can’t out-exercise a bad diet.» My argument is just as that is the case naturally and physically, that is also the case supernaturally and spiritually. We cannot out-exercise a bad diet; we are what we eat. What we take in is somehow going to make its way out. Watch this: if all we’re consuming is negativity, then, in some way, what we’re going to be contributing to the lives of others is negativity. Somebody put this in the chat: «You contribute what you consume.» If all I’m doing is consuming negativity, then that’s what I’m going to contribute to the life of someone else.

So we talked about the importance of having a balanced spiritual regimen. If we want a strong spiritual life, foreign worship is important, prayer is important, serving is important, but so is the diet. What’s that? That’s the study of scripture. I think we spend a lot of time articulating the importance of doing this without necessarily teaching you how to do it. So, that’s what I want to do today. I want to get right into it. This is going to be probably the most practical teaching we’ve done in this Fire Starters series, right? Because I’m doing this on Wednesday nights in the office. It’s not fancy; it’s just straight truth, no chasing, and I’m doing it this way because I want you to feel like it’s just me and you, and you’re sitting across the desk from me, and I am literally mentoring and discipling you into how to apply some of the truths that maybe you’ve heard your entire life.

You’ve got revelation, education, inspiration, but you’ve been struggling with contextualization and application. What’s that? So, you’ve got to contextualize some of these things that you hear from the pulpit, right? Everybody says, «Love your enemies.» Okay, that’s the truth, but you’ve got to figure out, okay, in my life, in my context, the seasonal life of men, and the situation that I’m facing, how do I contextualize that and apply that? I want to do that when it comes to the Word of God, so this is going to be super practical. I already know it’s not going to be deep enough for some people, but man, I’m a people builder. I’m committed to building people, and I can tell you through pastoral experience that so many people struggle in this area.