Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Oh, we wish you a Merry Christmas,
and we wish you fear-free Christmas,
and we wish you a faith-filled Christmas,
and from all of us at D-Y-M!
That’s just one example of why my kids drown out my singing when I make up words to popular tunes.
Regardless of my kids, here’s another one I’m proud of…
—ehemm—
Let it go.
Let it go.
Don’t worry ’bout it anymore–
Let it go.
Let it go —
Just wait to see what’s in store.
We don’t know, what God has planned.
But if we trust in Him —
He’ll give us the strength to stand.
—*bow*—
I am proud of that one. They… are not.
(I promise I sang neither of those on today’s podcast episode.)
But today’s conversation is about faith.
Faith is what we celebrate at Christmas.
The faith we have in Jesus being brought into the world for us.
And this is the faith I want to remind you of during this season that often can get crowded up with all the holiday festivities.
I want to talk about how vital faith is for the miracle you’re looking for in your marriage.
I want to talk about how vital faith is for God’s hand in your life.
And how — I don’t want to block God’s miracles, because of my lack of faith.
There are nuances that I hope you’ll listen to from the episode.
But what about when you have faith and God doesn’t come through like you hoped? We walk through that as well.
Ultimately, from this episode this is what my aim is:
When we get to the other side of eternity and look back, I hope, hope, hope Jesus will “marvel” at our faith.
That I would not be offended by His choices, but I would have faith all the more regardless.
That I would not disappoint and frustrate Him by lacking in faith, especially after ALL the amazing experiences I’ve seen others have and those He’s given me personally.
May we each stand in that place of faith that moves mountains.
May Christmas provoke us to walk nearer and in closer relationship with and in awe of the man who came to us…
Jesus, who is Christ the King.
Love,
Belah
PS — I challenged you to pray about whether or not 2022 would be the year that you spent 3 months focusing on transforming your marriage.
And if it is — I ask you to schedule a call with a wonderful Clarity Advisor delightyourmarriage.com/cc who can guide you through your own story and see how we can help.
PPS — Those songs above are not copyrighted (yet–just kidding ;D ), so you can feel free to whip those out the next time you need a bit of extra faith and trust!
Transcription
0:02
Welcome to the delight your marriage podcast. You’re joining me belah rose as I dive deep into the beauty, power and truth about intimacy, learn not only the practicals, but the heart behind what making love is all about. delight your marriage. Hi, there, welcome. I’m grateful that you’re tuning in my goodness. And especially around Christmas time, I’m sure you’ve got so much going on. And my hope and prayer is that this episode would really just would grip you. I was gonna try to say it in a gentle way. But I really, my prayer is that this episode would grip you that it would grip you with the import of what we are actually celebrating. That the decorations, that the hugs and family get togethers that the food and presence
1:13
is so unbelievably tiny. When we recognize that the God who created the universe humbled himself to be in a human body, taken care of by human parents and family, and served and loved and became at the age of 30.
1:52
The person we get to experience when we open the Word of God, let us not get over it, let us not get over it. So if you only have time to listen to a minute and 45 seconds of me, you just got it. So good work, head on out and have a great day. If you want a little more of my thoughts, stick around. Aside from that, I want you to pray about making 2022 the very best year of your marriage ever. I want you to pray about that seriously. And if this next season means that you dedicate a quarter of the year to transforming your marriage, get on a call with our amazing clarity advisors go to delight your marriage.com/cc humans that by God’s grace have been transformed by the work in the programs that we offer here at delight your marriage, and they can walk you through if this would be the right fit for you, for you to dedicate three months of your life just three months to possibly transform yours years and decades. For your marriage, for your spouse, for your kids, for their kids. So I want to challenge you to pray over it. And if you’re saying yeah, I want to find out about this go to delight your marriage calm slash CC. And I’m stoked about what that conversation is going to be for you. All right, God bless you. And let’s talk on the other side of this awesome music
3:45
so if you’ve listened to me for a while, you know that I have a hard time syncing up my episodes with holidays, etc, etc. Mostly because I am I wasn’t raised in like a strong traditional church. So I didn’t get a lot of like, I guess it depends on the church we went to at the time different denominations I’m you might have noticed by now I’m kind of a conglomerate of all sorts of things. The thing that I like to focus in on is the word of God because we can all agree that that is important. When I look at that, the word of God and I say God, please show me Give me more revelation. I experienced the man, Christ Jesus through it. The Holy Spirit provokes me to faith. And that that’s the unity that I hope and pray that you have when you approach the Bible, not with this lens of how do we divide, but how do we unite? According to this book, how do we grow in that and certainly there’s theological conversations that are important, but let’s not allow that to divide us. Let us pursue God through the this word through allowing him to draw us closer because of it closer to Him. This has to do with your your marriage, I promise, because I was reading this morning in Luke. And basically, there’s, it will go to Luke nine, but I think we’re also Luke eight. This kind of gives you some perspective. So yeah, Luke 848. Jesus says, Daughter, your faith has made you well go in peace. Another one, verse 50, do not fear, only belief, and she will be well. Another one, verse nine, three, take nothing for your journey, no staff, nor bag, nor bread nor money, and do not have to tunics. And then verse two it before that it says he sent them out, to proclaim the kingdom of God to heal and to heal. Sorry, I’m reading this out of order anyway, right before that it says he called the 12 together and gave them power, and authority over all demons and to cure diseases. Here’s why. I’m saying these things matter. So he’s talking about have faith. That’s what made you well, do not fear. Only belief. It says, Do not even concern yourself with money. He gave them all authority, and power over demons and to cure diseases. He even says, Wherever you go, if they do not receive you, when you leave that town, shake off the dust from your feet as a testimony against them. What I read from that is say, Do not even care what they think about you. Because a lot of times our fear and our lack of faith is because our fear of what people think about us is not right. And then skipping quite a lot. But what I’m skipping over is Jesus feeding the 5000 from loaves of fishes and bread, right? A 5000 people, no big deal except the disciples saw it, the crowd saw it, the testimony of Jesus is going out 5000 people to see that kind of miracle. Listen, the word is going to spread. Humans being healed and raised from the dead, the word gets spread, the testimony of Jesus is heard. And then in 923, if anyone would come after Me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me. Verse 26, for whoever is ashamed of Me, and My words, of him, will the Son of Man be ashamed when he comes in glory and the glory of the Father and Holy Angels?
8:20
Okay, so then the transfiguration happens where Jesus goes up on a mountain, he leaves most of his disciples behind, he only takes a couple. And, you know, then Moses and Elijah are there. And the voices came from the cloud saying, This is my son, my chosen one, listen to him. When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and told no one in these days, in those days, anything of what they had seen on the deck next day, when they had come down from the mountain, a great crowd met them. And so think about the great crowd. The reason the great crowd is there is because they’ve been hearing about all these miracles, and many of them probably witnessed them. I mean, I’m thinking for me, if I saw Jesus, feed me and 5000 other people, out of just a handful of loaves of fishes of breads, you better believe I’m going to be at the next time, a crowd gathers, I’m going to be following him around. I’m going to see what happens. If I witnessed somebody raised from the dead, I am definitely going to be following him around. So a lot of these people actually witness Jesus. Now, remember, Jesus sent out the 12, he gave them authority, and they were out, doing what Jesus asked them to do. And so a man from the crowd cried out teacher, I beg you to look at my son, for he is my only child and behold, a spirit seizes him, and suddenly he cries out, it convulses him so that he foams from the mouth and she admires him, and will hardly leave him. And I begged Your disciples to cast it out, but they could not. And this is I think, fascinating. Jesus answered, oh, faithless and twisted generation, how long am I to be with you and bear with you? And I’m going to pause there. Now, it’s interesting. He’s not actually talking to the disciples dizzy. Another version says, how unbelieving and wrong you people are, how long must I stay with you? How long must I put up with you? And I think that I don’t think it was the disciples who were unbelieving, I don’t think it was the disciples who didn’t have faith, I think it was the crowds who lacked faith. Otherwise, he would have said it to the disciples, he would have directed it to the disciples. No, he was talking to the people, he was talking to the crowd. And I just wonder if we’re not in that spot where we have seen, we have heard of Jesus transformational power, but because he’s not standing in front of us, and in we’re not watching him in the flesh. Do it, we assume he’s not going to do it for us. We have witnessed the power, we have witnessed the transformation for others. But because we haven’t seen him in the flesh do it for us, we’re assuming it’s not going to happen. We don’t have that belief, we don’t have that faith. Now, I read all of that context, because these are people who knew better not to be afraid not to, not even to worry about material possessions not to be considering, but God has given them power from on a high, isn’t that what we have the Holy Spirit inside of us, we have power from on high, don’t we? Don’t we, in every area of our life, in every area of our life, we have power from on high. So if you’re struggling with anxiety, because of what people think you have power from on high, if you’re struggling with worries around finances, you have power from on high, if you’re struggling with healing in your body, you have power from on high, if you’re struggling with healing for your marriage, you have power from on high. Now, I think God is I don’t want here’s what I want. I want God to have free reign over my life. I want him to do what he wants to do. I want to have faith to free him up to do what I believe he wants to do. I think visualization, I think faith statements are key, keeping my mind in the right zone, rejecting what the enemy tries to lie to me in my
13:05
own thought life. So that God has the ability to do the work he wants to do. Because the problem with this crowd, and potentially with this father, is that he did not have faith enough that the people that Jesus gave power to could could. What they say and do would make a difference for him. He required Jesus in the flesh to stand in front of him so that this whole crowd would believe that the power that Jesus bestowed would actually work. I don’t. What I’m trying to challenge you on is if you have seen and heard miracles, for others, and I’m specifically talking about marriage, because that’s what I’m talking about all the time, but marriage and intimacy or or in in seeking transformation in your spouse seeking transformation in yourself. Maybe you’re seeking for healing, of your own trauma and your own baggage, your own background, your own choices in the past. If you are seeking that, and you have heard it work for others. Don’t allow the enemy’s lies to take hold. Now Jesus was disappointed with the crowds, lack of faith and unbelief. He didn’t blame it on the devil. He was frustrated at them. I do not want Jesus to be disappointed with my lack of faith. I want to have faith I want to choose faith every day. And what does faith do? How do we grow in faith? It says in the word faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word God, we have to be hearing the Word of God, we have to be ingesting the Word of God, we have to be hiding it in our hearts. If we want to walk in miracles, faith is the key. I’ve been also meditating on Mark 11.
15:27
It says, Have faith
15:27
in God, it’s chapter 1121, through 25, have faith in God. Truly I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, be taken up and thrown into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe you have received it, and it will be yours. Now, it’s important that we’re having faith in God. It’s important that we’re seeking to align our faith with God’s will. Believing that we’ve received it, what is belief, what is faith? Well, when I was meditating on this verse, I’ve recently had the conviction that I need to have versus I need to have God’s truth all over the place in my visual realm. And so if you were to walk around my apartment, you would be probably very surprised at how deficient I am at making things look pretty. Oh, that’s so true. But um, you know, it’s fine. I’m very content with it. But what I realized is I need to start having you probably would just call them signs, you probably wouldn’t even call it to the degree art really. But I need signs with scripture on it and reminders of what God has said and what he wants of me. And so anyway, I spent my Wednesday Wednesday is my my time to rejuvenate and unplug and but I spent my Wednesday painting on a piece of wood. Faith in God, it’s actually very big. And it actually has a map of the world behind it. But when I showed it to a friend, it took her quite a while to figure out that that was a map. So it might not look like a map. Anyway, so the map, and then it says faith in God, big bold letters. And then there’s different words around the map. One, ask, rest, trust, believe, joy, do not doubt in your heart. Believe in your heart. Those are the things I’ve got on there. Because when I think of belief, what is it, but resting in the knowledge that God has got? You know, I don’t have to strive and support myself. No, I’m held by the God of the universe. And here he is wanting to show himself strong, and I may very well be blocking it for my lack of faith. And that’s what was happening with this gentleman and in this crowd, that the people said no, we need Jesus in the flesh to do this. Otherwise, we can’t we’re not going to believe I mean that’s what Jesus was frustrated at them. He’s like, Listen, guys, I gave my disciples to you with power from on high. And and yet here, I’m, you know, gone for however long he was gone up in the mountain, doing what he needed to do. And he comes back and they weren’t able to, to drive out this demon. But, you know, the reason I really like it, you know, I pray that God would give me revelation in the Scripture. Because when I work with people, sometimes I’m just dumbfounded by their lack of faith. Husband will probably listen to this and make me take that port part out because he never likes when I’m like, something negative about people I work with. I also sometimes I’m just astonished by people I work with lack of faith, but I cannot jump up and down high enough for you to have to, to grow in your faith. You have to choose that for yourself. You have to discipline yourself To have faith for the miracle, you may have heard the story of my brother being raised from the dead, I really, really, really encourage you to go back and listen to that. Because I remember specifically, I’m going to get the podcast number here for you in a second. But I remember specifically,
20:23
when my mom told me that after him being on the side of the road without a pulse for 13 minutes, 13 minutes. And now, but I remember when the people, the doctor said, I had just arrived at the hospital, they had said to my mom, and my family, that he’s probably brain dead. Like that’s, that’s the risk. We don’t know how wrong you know what has happened. The risk is that he could be brain dead. And she told me that when I arrived, I said, I don’t care what they said. That’s not my brother. That’s not our that’s not what’s happening here. No. Like, we can’t let the seeds of doubt take root in our heart. We cannot let that happen. That’s our choice. And so there’s a beautiful, it’s episode 209. So if you want to scroll back to 209, it’s just something that will grip you, I really believe it’s the testimony of Jesus is just true, incredible transformation. But when you hear a story about Jesus’s transformation, that has to increase your faith. It cannot. You cannot agree with oh, it won’t happen for me. Oh, that’s that. But if Jesus came to the flesh, I would believe it. No. He said he has given you power from on high. That’s the Holy Spirit in you. Check it out in the Bible. It’s right there. If you believe that you’re going to heaven when you die. That’s the power living in you. That’s the access to faith. There are choices you have to make in your heart. And you keep making those choices. Jesus is so frustrated you faithless and twisted generation Why did you not believe I gave you humans that were that have the authority to cash these things out to heal these situations? Why don’t you trust what I’ve done. And now we have the Holy Spirit, we are in that group. And so whether it’s a healing that you need, whether it’s a transformation in your marriage that you need, if you’ve ever heard a transformation or a miracle on my podcast, it can happen for you have faith that it will happen for you. Now, here’s what I said in that episode tonight. And what I want to encourage you to listen to is you might be saying belah I’m really disappointed in God because I believed in this situation didn’t happen the way I believed. And the way I prayed and the way I fasted, and here’s what it is. Jesus went to his hometown. And he said that he was not able to do mighty miracles. In his hometown, he marveled. He marveled that he could not do mighty miracles in his hometown, for their lack of faith, for their lack of faith. Now, the only other time and the word for marveled I looked this up, only appears one other time. In the Gospels only one other time. And it’s when Jesus marveled at the centurions faith, when this insurance came to him and said, My servant is is sick, you know, would you come in here? Or would you heal him? And Jesus said, Yeah, I’ll come to your house. And, and he’s a no, if you don’t even I’m not even worthy for you to come to my house. I’m also a person who has authority and when I say to someone come, they come. And when they say go, they go. I know that. Basically saying, no matter where you are, you’re going to be able to heal this. The servant and Jesus marveled at his faith and said, Your faith has made you well. And he said, no other place in Jerusalem. No other person in Jerusalem have I found such faith. And easily this centurion, he was not a Jew. He
24:51
felt very unworthy. Right. He was actually the oppressor. He was part of the Roman Empire, the oppressors of Jesus’s people. so he could have counted himself out, he could have said, Jesus won’t heal my situation because all these different areas. But he didn’t do that. He came from hearing of Jesus’s power, he didn’t even need Jesus to come. He said, Listen, I’ve heard the stories, and I asked for you to heal him. And I know if you’re willing to do it, and Jesus was willing, he did it that was in his will. But I would never want my lack of faith to block the miracles that Jesus Himself wants to do in my life. I don’t want that to be true. I don’t want that to be true of me, or my ministry. We’ve got this really cool document now is a DVM team. It’s called the vivid vision. So in three years, we’ve got just this incredible vision of what God wants, if you’re interested. I was reticent to put this publicly, but I think I will, I’m going to tweak a couple of things that that I think are private to our team. But if you’d like to look at that, you can go to delight your marriage.com/visit vision. And, you know, and see where we’re headed. And if you want to be part of that, you know, let us know how, you know, let us know if you if you want to help certainly, being part of our programs financially helps us get there. But then also, other ways we can, we can kind of get you involved if you feel aligned with this vision. But the point is, that God really convicted me the other day, when I was feeling discouraged just about a little a little, a really little thing. And it really helped me to see what is at stake. When I look at this, you know, blobs on my board that I painted, that looks to me like the world, but apparently, barely, I’m the only one that sees it. But when I think about what’s at stake, what’s at stake for me not having belief, what’s at stake for me not having faith. What’s at stake for me doubting in my heart, what’s at stake, is this vision that we are intending and contending, and working for and having faith for transformation in families and marriages and kids futures, because of this work today. What’s at stake for me to be discouraged. And lacking the faith, the very well could be the miracle that God wants to do in my life. I don’t want Jesus disappointed with my lack of faith, I want to be one that he’s like, Wow. I want him to marvel at my faith. So if you have felt that God has disappointed you, because you have had faith, and he hasn’t come through the way you had faith for it. Here’s my encouragement is John the Baptist. Jesus said he was the greatest that was born of a woman. I mean, is that not everybody? Here’s the greatest. And yet John the Baptist was in prison. He thought, you know, he thought that Jesus was going to come in power and, and, you know, rectify everything here on Earth. And that’s the kingdom he was talking about. And so when he was in jail, possibly on his way to execution, John the Baptist asked Jesus, He sent His disciples to say, what um, Are you the Christ? Like, did we should we be looking for someone else? And Jesus says, To him, you know, tell John the Baptist what you see the blind are healed the the debtor are raised up.
29:02
And then Jesus says to the crowd, bless it is he who is not offended by me?
29:11
Bless it is he who is not offended by me? Later, John the Baptist was beheaded. And if John the Baptist was the greatest of all, didn’t he earn? Like, Didn’t he have enough faith? I mean, shouldn’t it have worked for him? I think that we need to align our faith with what we believe is God’s will. As much as we can discern it. We need to align our faith we need to clarify this vision piece that I was talking about was hard for me to come up with because it’s just hard to commit to a vision and feel like is this God’s will, you know, and I’ve tweaked it and tweaked it tweaked it, but I, I feel like we need a clear vision for us to move forward. And of course, it’s it’s going to be tweaked as new things happen, but we need that vision. And so John the Baptist had the faith, he had the faith.
30:18
And yet
30:21
it didn’t turn out the way that he thought it was going to. But it says Jesus says it bless it is he who was not offended by me. So I think the story is here, that I don’t want my lack of faith to block what God wants to do in and through me. And specifically for me, it’s what he wants to do through delight your marriage in in marriages and intimacy and families around the world, in people drawn close to Jesus as a result of this ministry and work an organization that we do, but I also do not want to be offended if he chooses to do something differently than I expect. I don’t want my my lack of faith to block it. But I also want his preeminence, his surpassing his will to surpass what I see what I think is what he wants in the earth. So I think vision, I think face statements, I think, consistently realigning our thoughts towards what he has shown us to be His will, to what we have discerned so far to be his will, is right, and will help us have faith and to to keep our belief high. But may we not get disappointed, if he chooses a will that is better? A will that is better. Because in retrospect, we know that it was more important that Jesus do what he knew was the thing to do, to die, to hang on across to suffer. He knew it was better. He knew that ultimately, billions, could come to know him many, many billions, right in history to now maybe more than who knows how many people but they could come to know him because of the sacrifice that he did for us. John the Baptist was driven by some kind of vision, some kind of faith, that that that God was doing and and the kingdom. He didn’t understand what that meant, but he trusted God. And we have to trust God. And we have to have faith that what we think is God’s will, is what is coming to pass. But we have to discipline our hearts that if God decides, even though we’ve had faith, even though we’ve been faithful and consistent, and grown, we cannot take it out on him. We need to not be offended by God. Even though, even though that’s up to him, that’s on him. I love thinking about God as a good father. A good good, good father. I’m thinking about children when they trust their father. And I love witnessing kids play around in in, you know, we’ve got young kids, and so we’re in playgrounds and stuff a lot. And even the younger ones, it’s just so fun to watch them because they just don’t have a care in the world. They’re just, you know, what, what their parents say is true, they believe is true. And I want that that’s what we’re supposed to have is childlike faith. When God says it’s true, we believe it’s true. And yeah, if we get disappointed, we’ve got to have all those feelings, which we talked about last week, you’ve got to have all those feelings. We’ve got to sort them out rightly. But it doesn’t mean that they should negatively inform our faith going forward. We cannot be offended by God. Now, let me say one thing that’s important, especially as many of you are believing for huge transformation in your marriage and your intimacy and you have suffered a long time. Most of the people that listen to my podcast and and come to the work are people who have been married decades, many, many decades, some longer than I’ve been alive. But God has done incredible transformations, incredible transformation. So I just want you to No, don’t, don’t put yourself in the category of this isn’t, this isn’t going to work for me because we’ve been married all Allah, Allah, Allah, whatever it is, it’s up to you, if you want to put yourself in that category and block the potential of transformation. It’s easy to get in this place of expectation. And I think there’s a big difference between belief and faith and expectation.
35:28
Expectation is often temporal. Did you like how I said that word that I’m not even sure is even a word. The point I’m trying to say is it’s time bound. It’s time bound. Often expectations, you know, as a wife, I definitely used to do this is, you know, take the trash out today. And then I’m disappointed and frustrated and angry and mad when he didn’t do it today. It’s time bound, or let’s say I, you know, say even in a good way, like, I’d love to go on a date. And I don’t say a time expectation. But in my head, I’m like, there’s a better happen in a week or two. Otherwise, we’re going to have another conversation. Hopefully, my, my heart doesn’t have quite that attitude, but it has in the past, for sure. But if we can, instead have faith and belief that God is in the long term, doing it, that we can have vision and clarity and faith that this is happening in the long term. It could happen today. And I’m going to have faith for it to happen today. And I’m going to pray for it to happen. But in a way of like, for example, this vivid vision is three years because that helps me to stay focused on it. But I’m not going to get disappointed. If it doesn’t happen in the three years as I’m expecting. Because I need to instead decide this is faith and belief. And this is the long term. This is not doubting. So yeah, goals are great. Having time limits to goals. It’s great. I think it’s important, it helps us stay focused. I specifically need deadlines. Otherwise I’m it’s hard for me to stay focus. That’s just something interesting about the way I work but but if if, you know if something doesn’t pan out, if something doesn’t work, right, I will be disappointed if there are expectations. Don’t have your faith and belief based on time. I don’t know who said this. It’s some famous football coach, I think and he says, I think it might be Vince Lombardi. And he says I never lost a game. We never lost a game. We may have run out of time, but we never lost. I love that. I love that. Your prayers availeth much whether you saw them now or you see them in 20 years or you see them on the other side of eternity. God’s perspective is bigger. God’s perspective is bigger than ours. Don’t have time bounds on it all. Have goals because they keep you focused, and there’s good stuff about it. But don’t let it affect your faith. If the time stuff doesn’t work out. God is so much bigger than time he created time. He doesn’t really care about time, the way we do. Our we have such little tiny perspectives the way that we have them. So yeah, but but like I said, for me, I need bounds I need. Yeah, boundaries of time limits, I need deadlines, etc, etc. It makes me more productive. It helps me to stay focused all of these things. But if I don’t get what I think God is wanting me to get within a certain amount of time. It doesn’t mean it’s God’s fault. He just knows more than me. And he knows that maybe I wasn’t ready for whatever it was at that time. Maybe the organization wasn’t ready for whatever it was at that time. Maybe the structure wasn’t ready, maybe whatever he needed me to learn he needed my character to grow. Maybe he needed me to suffer through X, Y and Z so that when I get to the other side of this, I can impact one person that matters so much, Hey, there’s this other insight that may be helpful for you. I wonder sometimes if I’m Anna NYAS, you know, a lot of times we we hear about Paul, right, obviously, because he’s pretty important in the way.
40:21
God used him. But I wonder sometimes if I’m not Anna NYAS, and a NYAS, was a faithful servant of Jesus, so much so that he heard Jesus so profoundly so clearly. In the middle of the night, he was listening. Not only did he hear Jesus, but he got up, and he went out. And he did what Jesus wanted him to do is pray for Paul’s eyes to be opened, and the scales came off. You know, the interesting thing I think about the whole story of Paul and Anand is Saul’s conversion to Paul is, God was the one that knocked Saul off the donkey and blinded him. But God asked a human being, to then do the next step of, of pray that the scales be taken off his eyes, and then be discipled. Paul, you’ll see if you read, you know, just Google the story of Paul in in and is and, and you’ll read that he stayed with those folks for a while, to get understandings and to get wisdom first. And then he started the work, but but it was important that he was with people. So the reason I say all that is, I wonder if I’m just an alias, and somehow somewhere in the world, who knows where, but somewhere in the Middle East, someone’s going to be provoked to faith in Jesus, and is going to by God’s grace, be a Paul, in their town, in their city in their family. Like, who knows, maybe my role is so much smaller. Maybe, maybe all I’m supposed to do is really impact that one person. And if I didn’t do this thing, for however long we’ve done it, I’m and take one imperfect step in front of the other and then sound silly in front of you all for however long. If I didn’t do those things, I wouldn’t have been able to impact that one person who’s supposed to be Paul, in their home, in their generation. And maybe that’s you, maybe you’re looking at me and thinking, I’m the Paul, maybe it’s you. Maybe God’s asking you, maybe he’s wanting you to stand up and be the faith and not be ashamed of the gospel, and dig into this word. And let it wash over you and have faith that not just your marriage can change, not just your intimacy can change, but that God would use you. And when you look back from the perspective of eternity, you’re like, golly, oh my gosh, thank God that I listened to that one episode, because God really shook me up. Maybe it’s you. Maybe it’s you that God’s wanting to shake up and take the scales off your eyes, and allow you to walk into what he’s asking to walk into.
43:35
So one day, I hope that God would give me the humility to really feel that way. Isn’t it funny, we’re all like, I think it’s the human condition. Right? We’re all the we’re all the center of our own story. So we all want to be the, the main character, right? But but if we could just pray that God would help us to be a bit more humble, like God, but I want to just be the main character. No, no, that’s not that’s not um, you know, I’ll do it. If this is what he wants me to be, you know, if he wants me to kind of be the focus for now, but let me Lord be then and is let me be content being that. Let me launch others into what you want them to be about. Yeah, okay. Well, that’s my encouragement. Here we are at Christmas, Jesus, the man came into flesh, he decided you were worth it, he decided you are worth coming to the human condition, suffering throughout his entire life. He didn’t get to be the man of wisdom and and know the Scriptures and, and live the Word of God at the age of 30 without suffering it and meditating on it and pursuing it with vigor. So much so that when he was 12, he was teaching. He was 12. And he was teaching. So, so So get on that and, and also recognize that it was all up into the beauty of Jesus living the life he lived, which is documented in the gospels, and, and then suffering on a cross what he said he would have to do I mean, he, he was so clear about it beforehand, and then it happened, and then went up to the Father, so that we can be with him. So that we can be with Jesus we can be with God the Father, then when we can do his next assignment, who knows what we’re doing next in heaven, it’s gonna be great. But let’s not squander today, let’s not squander this, you know, little 8090 100 years or, you know, however long you’ve got left, like not, let’s not squander today. Let’s do our best let’s let’s get into n n, n, n is frame of mind let’s not be offended, let’s grow in our faith. Let’s not be focused on the lack but focused on men, if it can happen for them, it can happen for me, God, I’m taking their story and the testimony of Jesus in what they have done in their life. And I’m applying it to mine. I want what you want done. And I’m not going to fall under fear or doubt. Instead, I’m going to purpose in my heart, that this is what you want for me. So Christmas is about Jesus. And you know, if it means that you need to fast from presence, and sweet food and normal holiday stuff, so you can get that in a deeper way. Hey, Mel, for that. So many thoughts on this podcast, but God’s grace, there has been one that mattered and was helpful to you. Let’s pray. Father, Jesus, and Holy Spirit, we ask that that what mattered in this conversation, to the person listening God, if they are to be that Paul, in their home, in their town, in their city, in their specific gifting in their specific passion and their specific lifestyle, Father God, would you give them grace to stand up and take that? And say, Yes, that is me. That is me. I’m going to dig into this word because I need faith. If that’s me, I need faith, if that’s me, and that comes through the word of God, you have given us such a gift, let us not squander what you have given us in the Word of God. You have given it to us give us grace to just day by day by day, little by little by little verse, just one verse a day, just one little thing, meditate on it stirred over in our heart, put signs up in our in our home, to remind us God give us grace to not stir us up. Let us not disappoint you with our lack. God give us grace I want we want to make you marvel at our faith. Father, and I pray also for me and for each of us that you would grow that desire. Grow the desire. Lord, we might have a small amount of a desire for more faith but grow our desire for more faith. This Christmas may be about faith and growth in it. Lord, we love you. We love you, Jesus. This is all about you. We worship you.
48:37
In Jesus name, amen.
48:41
You are amazing. And I love that we get to be friends. So thank you for listening. And I’m just wishing you a great day and a wonderful, wonderful Christmas. God bless you