From Knowing About Jesus to Knowing Jesus

But who are we giving our loyalty to? - Yeah. - You know, are we giving our loyalty to the world and putting that above God, which then makes everything in shaky? (upbeat music) - Hello there, you're listening to The Girl Talk Podcast. My name is Carol. - I'm Kelly. - I'm Trisha. - And we're glad you've joined us today. Are you double-minded? Well, first of all, what does that mean? Double-minded. What comes to mind when I say the word double-minded? - You're having two minds? - No, not having two. - I mean, wouldn't that be nice? So when this one gets tired, you can take it off, plug it in. - It's your spare mind. - Well, I like that idea. - Double-minded, I think, for the sake of this conversation means when you take something outside of the realm of being a believer and you use it to kind of inform your faith. Let me take an example. I know a lot of people, and a couple of years ago, we did this at anyagram that tells you a little bit about your personality and what your strengths are and some of the ways that if you're living an unhealthy life, you might be drawn. A lot of people got into that a couple of years ago. There's lots of podcasts on this very interesting stuff. But a lot of people feel like that's kind of mixing things up for us spiritually. So where do you stand on that? What do you think? - I mean, yes, I think it mixes things up spiritually. I think they can be really good tools that can help you understand yourself a little bit better and kind of what your defaults are. But I think we have a tendency to, because it is tangible, because it is something that can be printed on a piece of paper, measured, like because there's books about it, and like how-to books. This is how you interact if you're in anyagram-- - Sure. - Three, verb, you know, wing two or whatever. This is how you interact with other people. There's how-to guides on that. It feels tangible and something like we can, like a how-to guide, a step-by-step guide, that we can implement. Whereas leaning on the Holy Spirit to tell us who we are is, feels can feel less tangible. It's not printed on a piece of paper. Kelly Branden, you are this person. - Or one, two, three steps to become a better person. - Right, yes. Yeah, okay, so what about you, TK? - I think those kinds of things can be beneficial in their place, exactly like what you're saying, but whenever you replace the Bible, and those words of wisdom with some other words of wisdom, I think it's shaky ground. I think if it tries to replace your faith, or tries to replace your prayer, or tries to replace your Bible reading, then it becomes a problem. But I mean, I think those things are interesting. If you wanna learn about yourself a little bit, I've never really been able to get a ton out of those things, but I know my husband likes them a lot. - Yeah, or to elevate that above scripture, to say, oh well, this is just the way that I am, and I can never change or be anything different. I think that is when we get into trouble. Let's talk about something that's not quite so close to the line, 'cause I think that anyagram was actually started as kind of a religious thing. Didn't it, doesn't it have origins? - I think it does, but I might be totally wrong with that. But let's talk about stuff like horoscopes. - Mm-hmm, yeah. - Or I say that's not anything to play with. - All right, yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it says so in the Bible. - Right, you don't go to diviners. You don't go to astrologers or whatever. - Yeah, yeah, absolutely. - They're like using tarot cards to determine things that's definitely forbidden in scripture. - Absolutely. And so those kinds of things are totally different. But finding out, I find it interesting, because I think when you find out more about your personality, sometimes that can help you in your relationship with God, as long as you're not elevating it to that extent. Here's what I mean, I've been reading this book, and the author makes this statement, you cannot be emotionally immature and spiritually mature. - Okay. - So basically he's drawing a line, he says those two travel together. So you can't be spiritually mature beyond what you are emotionally mature. So those two things kind of happen together. And he comes at it from the stance of discipleship and saying that what we do when we don't go back and heal those old wounds and deal with the stuff in our past, is that we, he from a pastor's standpoint, says we raise up leaders or disciple people in the same things that we haven't healed in our past. - Basically. - And I wonder what you guys think about that, think about that as far as really embracing what we've been through and taking our past and using it to help us grow, 'cause I think that's what God wants us to do. - Yeah. - Right? - Right, absolutely. - I mean, I think, yes, we go through all of these experiences in life, in part of actual maturity, spiritual maturity, physical maturity, spiritual maturity, emotional maturity, all of that is intended to help us look more and more like Jesus. And so if we are not taking the experiences, the mistakes, the ways we've gone wrong, even the ways we've gone right, and learning from those, and using that to filter that through scripture and say how does this make me, how does this experience help me look more like Jesus, grow to look more like Jesus, then we're missing the whole point of a Christian walk. - Yeah, yeah. - And we're not able to then become the fullness of what God created us to become, if we allow ourselves to be stuck in the who we were before Jesus. - I'm gonna ask you this question, but I wanna lean into Trisha's kind of counseling background, too, as we do this, is do you think that could be one of the reasons that there is oftentimes a disconnect between what we know in our heads and what we feel in our hearts as far as our relationship with God goes? In other words, I feel like a lot of times people follow Jesus and it's all external stuff. They read the Bible, they do all the things and check all the boxes. But they can't marry the two of what they've been through or what their past is. And so sometimes there's a disconnect, is that, do you think that's part of the disconnect of knowing the things and actually living the things? Does that make sense? - I'm trying to make sure I understand. So you're saying there's often a disconnect between understanding what we're supposed to do, but applying it to our lives. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Yeah, I think absolutely that's the case. Yeah, I mean, I think that's part of the journey of maturity is understanding what you just read, how it relates to your life and what God's asking you to do in response to what you've read or what you're hearing from God. I think part of that too is the difference in character and behavior, that we are very concerned with changing our behavior, with changing how we act, how we show ourselves to be Christian, how we show the no longer doing the external sinning, where we're very concerned with our behavior, with the way we're seeing, and changing our behavior as it relates to being Christian. So I'm going to do this better. I'm going to act better in this way. I'm going to show that I'm better, not from a performance perspective, but from a behavior perspective. And we tend to not be so concerned about our character. And the part of the point of the Christian walk is to change our character to be more like God's character. And that gets deeper into the heart and into the mind and into the soul changing, not just the way we act. - Yeah, just about the way we think. - Yeah, it's about the way we operate. - It's the internal piece that we don't want to admit needs to be changed. - Yeah, so maybe the difference is that we disconnect the behavior from the heart. You know, we think if we do enough good things, or if we do enough good things to outweigh the bad, then that's going to be a fruitful relationship. I don't think anybody ever told me that, but for a long time, there was a disconnect because some of the hard things I had gone through, I just couldn't marry the two. I couldn't marry what I knew about God and my life experience into anything to make sense. And I stopped trying to, and I just took that to the Lord. Here's what happened to me. And I found such freedom in that because when you invite God into that journey, he shows you things that maybe you didn't see before. And that's when it became like a more real relationship with me as opposed to it being more religion of things that I knew in my head, but I didn't always, like I couldn't always justify those things in my heart. When I finally said, okay, Lord, here's what's happened to me. Here are some of the things that I've experienced and to have him walk through those things with me with a trusted friend and a biblical counselor to say, oh, God was right there. God was right. I think, you see where I'm going with that? You just sometimes need somebody to close that gap for you. Sure. Yeah. Sure. And I think for - For me, it took on a different meaning when that happened. - I think our experience is shape who we are. - Sure. - It shapes everything about us. - Right. - We know everything about us. But first God creates us in a specific way. And then our experiences then go to refine us into what we are today. - Yeah. - Good and bad. They've been filtered through different experiences that have then shaped us into who we are. And if we don't reflect back on that and see where God was in those moments, then we are missing half the equation of it. - Yeah. Yeah. So something else comes to mind and this may be a total right turn and if it is, I guess that's okay. But in James, it talks about being a double-minded man. A double-minded man is who's unsteady in all that he does. And the reference that that's talking about is when you pray and ask God for something. And then don't believe that he answers it or that he has an answer, right? Not that, it's not the answer that you want it. But he says, "When you ask you got to believe or you're a double-minded man, I have seen that play out in my own life so many times." Like we ask God for things. And then he gives you something and you're like, I didn't even believe you for that, you know? And there is an unsteadiness. There's a, I liken it to standing, having one foot on solid ground and you know the proverbial other foot on a boat that is drifting away, you know? It's unsteady, you can't get your footing about it. How would you, what do you think double-mindedness looks like in that context of our lives as a believer? - Yeah, I think one of the things that, that scripture, James 1.8 also says the NIV version or the NLT version says, "Their loyalty is divided between God and the world." And so I think it also speaks to where are we, not just seeking that advice and seeking those, the answers to questions, right? You know, are we giving our loyalty to the world and putting that above God which then makes everything shaky because there's only one unchanging truth and that's God's truth. When we have one foot on the boat of the world's truth, it is drifting and it drifts in and out on whatever wave it crests on and as the tide goes in and out of the world and culture, it gets, our boat keeps moving. And so we have to be rooted and grounded in God's truth and in the big-teeth truth only because otherwise that loyalty being divided gets us all squirrely in our head. - Yeah, and that's not our truth, their truth, your truth, my truth. That is the truth. - The truth is the only one. - Right, right, right, right. I think it's important to mention that this is hard. - Yeah. - I mean, it's so easy to sit here and say, I need to be completely single-minded, not double-minded, but have loyalty and have faith and be pursuing God at all times. It's so good and it's, if you're struggling with it, you're not alone is what I want to say. And issues of faith are really challenging, especially when things happen that make you just, that just knock you down to your knees. And I think it's important to acknowledge that it's hard and God will help you, do it. He helps me do it because there are definitely times when I'm not the person that I need to be. I'm not following God's single mindedly. I'm not doing the things that I need to do. I'm not having the faith that I need to have. So, but God will help us with that. And I love knowing that. I'm thinking about, I'm doing a Bible reading plan and recently was reading about Saul, King Saul, who was kind of anointed at that point. And then he did not wait for God. He did not have the faith to wait for God. And so he took actions in his own hands. And because of that, God did not anoint him anymore. And he went to, you know, like, mediums or whatever and all that stuff. And he actually, he ended up sacrificing to God, but not the right way. So he did the right action. He just did it in the right time, in the wrong timing. So it's important to realize number one, I think that this is challenging. Number two, God will help you. And number three, we've got to wait on God because he has the right timing. - Yeah. - So I think that's just an important thing to think about as we think about double-mindedness. - Yeah, yeah. And I also think that it's important here to, you know, go back to the disciplines of our faith. You know, I don't always feel like, I should as a believer. I mean, I don't know about you all, but you ever wake up on the wrong side of the bed? I mean, that's totally yes. - That's why we do some of those things and we build them into rhythms in our lives because in those times when you don't feel it or when you're tired or when you're lonely, you're not, your natural rhythm is not to go to those things because we're born sinful. And so if you can build those things into your life that become a natural part of the reflex of life, then those are the things that you go to. And God can speak through. I always, the girls in my life group laugh at me all the time 'cause I say on the Sundays you don't want to come to life group. That's when you need to come the worst. - Yeah. - For sure. - On those Sundays that you don't want to come. And I think that's one of those things about us that God knew when He created us, that those rhythms are important. They are a means to an end, not the end itself. They are a means to get closer to God, to connect with God, but not a checklist. And that's what we tend to do. I think going back to your earlier statement because it's something we can measure. We can say, okay, I rent my Bible every day this week. I put a check by each day. And so I should be good. Well, you might as well be reading a comic book if you're not paying attention, you know? - Right. - But the thing about, the thing that's freed me up in this area, especially because I tend to be, I operate in fits and starts. I mean, I'll do really great for a while and I'll follow the way and it's been the story of my life, my whole life. And recently, I felt the freedom to fail. Because here's the thing that failure does. It helps me to look back, okay, this is how much further I've come since the last time I fail. And B, it's an opportunity for God to teach me something new about Himself. And that is so freeing for me because for so long, it was about the lists and did I do everything absolutely right in the right order on the right day? Did I do all that and God's just saying, "Hey, Carol, you don't have to make it that hard. Just when your mind gets off me, just bring it back to me." When your time gets off of me, bring your timetable back to me. Yeah. When you say something that you shouldn't have said or you snap at your child, just come back to me. Just come back to me, you know? You're going to be a prodigal. We all are, no matter the best behaved person here, which I'm not, but is still a prodigal. And I think one of the things about God's warning for us not to be double-minded is a reminder also to tell us that you just got to come back to me. Just come back to me, just come back to me, just come back to me. Do you think part of that is because you know how good the relationship is with God, how satisfying it is? So the attempt to try to better our behavior will always fall short because there's no true satisfaction there. But when we really experience the relationship of knowing and being loved by God through Jesus, when we experience that, then we want to come back time and time again. And then we know we're forgiven. Like you said, when you're hearing that from God, it's because of your relationship with Him. So the thing I think that helps us with not being double-minded is to seek that relationship, not the behavior, not the externals, but seek the relationship because that is the healing part. And that's the part that helps us remain steady when things feel shaky. Yeah, let me focus in on the word relationship just for a minute. If you go into a classroom and the person stands in front of the classroom and lectures, what is that called? Professor? Professor class teacher, right? Teacher. Well, you don't-- you can sit in that class and you can learn things, but never have a relationship with the teacher other than you sit in their class every day, right? And I think for so long, I sat in God's classroom and I learned all the things, but I didn't have a relationship with the teacher. And I'm sad to tell you, I've wasted more years than I care to mention doing that and saying, but I turned my son to sit on time. I did all the homework. I passed the test. I could give you the right answers, but I never had a relationship with the teacher. And I think that's what we wanted to get you to today. Double-minded can come in all. sorts of forms. But you're right. It's about having a relationship with the one who knows us better than we know ourselves. Yeah. Yeah. He's not surprised. Like you said, when we mess up, he's not surprised to know how much we need him or disappointed because disappointment means he didn't know that that's what we were going to do. So he can never be disappointed in us because he knows. Yeah. And we want God to be the one to change us. You know, we want we want to become more and more like Jesus every single day. And that starts with saying God searched my heart. And if there's any offensive thing in me, change it. Leave me in the way everlasting. Yeah. Because I want you to be my guide. I want you to hold my hand through life. I want you to continue to refine me through the fire, through experiences, through the joys of life, through your word, through prayer. I want you to be the refiner of me, not the world, to be the refiner of me. And because we know that you know better. He's the only one who can. And no one's ever walked out of a classroom, go in that class, change my character. I can only say that because I know it's true because I did it for so long. And I'm thinking also of the passage. And I don't know the address right now. When when Jesus says to the disciples, who do you say that I am? And I feel like that's really the question that Jesus is asking us each and every day. Yeah. You know, who do you say that I am? Am I just a teacher? Am I just teaching you how to behave in the right way in this world or am your savior? That's where we want you to get to. So I say that because I feel like growing up in this part of the country and the Bible belt that a lot of us grow up knowing the right answers. And some of us miss the beauty, the richness, the unsearchable gifts of relationship with Jesus. And I miss too many years of that. And I don't want you to miss it. And I know Kelly doesn't want you to miss it. And Trisha doesn't want you to miss it. That's why we do this every day. And so just say this. If you're like, I'm not sure. That's totally fine. It's I'm glad you're here. If you're a hundred percent sure we're glad you're here too. But if you're not a hundred percent sure, would you just text the word Jesus to eight one eight nine one. Now there's nothing magical going to happen texting Jesus to eight one eight nine one doesn't save you. But we're going to send you a resource where you can get some of those questions answered. We can we can show you what the scripture says about that personal relationship that is yours. But you've got to take that step. And so we just asked that you'd do that and text the word Jesus to eight one eight nine one what we want you to live the abundant life that God has promised us through Jesus his son through his death burial and resurrection. That is the true source of joy. And everything else is going to fall short. And so if you want to do that, please get in touch and let us know if you do that because we'd love to celebrate that with you. And we'd also love to give you some other resources. If you need them, if you don't have a Bible, hey, get in touch with us. We can we can find one. We'll find one. We'll find one for you. We want to make sure that you have the tools that you need to grow in your relationship with Jesus. So thank you so much for being here today. Hey, and before you go, wherever you listen to this podcast, if you like, subscribe, if you'll leave a comment, all those things help more people to learn about the girl talk podcast, not so they can know about the girl talk podcast, but so that they can know about Jesus. That's why we do this. And if you do that for us, we sure would appreciate it. And you know what, we're going to save you a seat. Next time we gather around these microphones for the next Girl Talk podcast. We'll see you then.