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Don’t let anyone or anything outside of you control you. Don’t be anybody’s puppet. Don’t let anyone pull your strings. You are not a puppet or some preprogramed robot. God does not control people. He is not interested in controlling you. More on this later.

Some who are reading this feel like you’re a victim of a lot of things, even in bondage and you don’t know how to break free. The truths shared in this lesson will set you free from all sorts of bondages and controls that other things and people have put on your life. Jesus said the truth will make you free. Here is the truth.

Work your way through the passage and note that Jesus didn’t let His brothers tell Him when to go to Jerusalem or what to do when He got there. He was led by His Father and He chose when to go. Disciples in Jerusalem would not openly acknowledge Him for fear of the Jewish leaders. Thus, fear controlled them.

People tend to be controlled by pretty much anything. Hormones! A mother of two came to my office asking me to pray for her. She was pregnant. She said that with her other two children she was absolutely controlled by her hormones, which made her and everyone else around her miserable. I prayed for her and for the next nine months she gave timely testimonies that she had been delivered from hormone control. Some people are controlled by their emotions. Depressed people are controlled by their depression or chemical imbalances. Fear is a terrible master. Phobias control the lives of many people. Phobia of storms. Rejection. Rodents. Insects. You name it.

Even parents are not to control their kids! Instructing and disciplining them is not the same as control. We wish some parents would control their kids! One lady said, “I just can’t control my kids. They’re just wild.” I felt like saying, “I know, I’ve seen them in WalMart,” but I didn’t. You shouldn’t try to control your kids, but you can lovingly train them to obey. I once witnessed about 30 kids from a black preschool come into McDonald’s and they each went to a seat and sat there without getting out of them while the teachers ordered their food. What they wanted was not discussed in the restaurant. They didn’t fight or run around or talk loudly. They behaved perfectly. I told the head teacher before they left how I admired all this and he said, “It’s all how you train them.” He was right.

Some parents are controlled by their kids. I mean, the whole household is run by what that kid wants and wants to do. Believe it or not, that’s wrong. Meeting their needs is not what I’m talking about. I know a family who desperately wanted to be in church, but they couldn’t come because, “Our kid cries every time we put her in the nursery, and we just can’t stand that.” So, they quit coming. I’m pretty sure the Bible doesn’t say, “Do not forsake assembling together, except in the case of your child not wanting to come.”

People’s jobs control a lot of people. When I worked for GM they were giving out orders to work on Sunday and I told them I wouldn’t because I went to church on Sunday. They told me they could fire me for not coming to work. I told them, “So fire me. There are other jobs; I’m not working on Sunday.” I checked it out on the internet and found that the present day equivalent of my pay in 1969 would be $1800 a week for 40 hours, and they all worked ten hours a day for six days, time and a half for overtime. That’s $3000 a week, plus full benefits. But I didn’t care what they did, they were not going to control my life.

I’ve heard some people say things like, “He makes me so mad!” I say, “What is he doing making you do anything? He should not be controlling you.” Peer pressure controls many lives, especially teens. I always say, “Parents Rule,” but that isn’t reality in most kids’ lives. It’s “Friends Rule.” I’ve never seen a day when kid

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3/9/2025 The Power of Love: Holli Simpson

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(What Happens to Them and How You Can Keep from Becoming One of Them.)

What does happen to disciples who turn away from following Jesus? Whatever it is, it can’t be good. Peter did but when he repented he was restored. Judas did and ended up committing suicide. Whatever … this is important. It is very important.

First, we need to realize that people leave. We can’t take it personally. Adam and Eve left God. People leave church. Husbands leave wives. In this passage, disciples left Jesus. We can’t let people discourage us. Jesus didn’t. He simply said, “There are some of you who do not believe.” (v.64)

You can be a disciple without believing. You can be a disciple without being a believer. Judas was. Being a disciple simply means you are doing the disciplines. What are those? Reading your Bible, praying, going to church, tithing. You can do all those and still not believe, still not be a believer, still not be saved. The Pharisees did all those things and more, and they certainly were not saved. Jesus pronounced woe after woe on them in Matthew chapter 23:15, 23, 29, and yet we have v.33.

I’ve seen many faithful church members get saved! In fact, historic revivals usually begin with church members getting saved. Judas was a disciple and he wasn’t saved. Look at v.70-71, “Did I not choose you, the twelve, and one of you is a devil? He spoke of Judas for it was he who would betray Him, being one of the twelve.”

“Follow Me” was Jesus’ call to discipleship but His call to salvation was, “Believe in Me.” (v.35, 40, 47, and Jn. 3:16).

You can’t be a believer without being a disciple. In the mind of Jesus a believer is a disciple. In the Great Commission Jesus said to baptize believers in Mark 16 and in Matthew 28 He said to baptize disciples. In His mind they are the same. A believing disciple is not perfect, but he does believe in his heart and does the disciplines to some degree. In all your church going and Bible reading make sure you are a believer, which means to make sure all those things are in your heart and done from your heart.

Kids can grow up in church and do all the disciplines as long as they’re with their parents. When they grow up or leave home is when you find out if all of that doing was in their hearts. Here’s the test for all disciples – DO THEY CONTINUE? Hebrews 10:36-39 says this: “For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise: ‘But if anyone draws back, My soul has no pleasure in him.’ But we are not of those who draw back to perdition/destruction, but of those who believe to the saving of the soul.” Then in Heb.11 the author of Hebrews gives multiple examples of those who “died in faith.” (Heb.11:13)

Studies have always been consistent on this. About 85% of all kids who grow up in church do not continue to go to church when they leave home. My dad used to say, “As long as you put your feet under my table, you will do what I say.” Most kids, when they stop putting their feet under their parents’ table, stop putting their feet inside the building where the church meets. And don’t be fooled by thinking church doesn’t really matter. Young adults especially can be so deceived over this. “Mom! I know I don’t go to church anymore, but God and I are doing alright.” That’s a lie. If they are members of the body of Christ and are severed from that body, it will make a difference in their relationship with the Head of that body. Try cutting your finger off and leaving it on the table, then come back a week later and see if there’s a difference in that finger...