Hi, from the Salvation Army, you're listening to Words of Life. Hey, and welcome back to Words of Life. We pray that you had an incredible Christmas with your families. Happy New Year. And once again, like we did last year, we're going to start off the new year by taking a look back at five of our favorite episodes of 2024. If you missed any of these episodes, head over to wordsoflifepodcast.org, and we'll have links to each of these series. And with that, we'll get started with the countdown.
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18 plus terms and conditions apply. Number five, Praying Through the Pain, an Easter series with Major Ruth Neu. Let's look at verse 14. He writes, For this reason, I kneel before the Father. We read about many saints in the Old Testament who knelt in prayer before God. Daniel, Ezra, and Solomon all prayed on their knees. We read about people coming to Jesus on their knees in the New Testament. Stephen, the church's first martyr, died while kneeling in prayer. Peter and Paul both knelt to pray.
And of Jesus, we read that he withdrew beyond them, knelt down, and prayed. Kneeling reflects an attitude of humility and submission. The important thing here is humility. It doesn't matter if we kneel.
It's all about a humble heart. James writes to the church, Humble yourself before the Lord, and he will lift you up. That is in James 4-10. Some of us cannot kneel, but our prayer has the same effect if we come to God in humble submission. When Solomon dedicated a temple to God, he knelt to pray. Perhaps Paul did, too, as he sought to dedicate the church, this new living temple, to God. And maybe we, too, should adapt this posture as if we're consecrating and dedicating our lives to the service of God. In this sense, consecration implies humility as we surrender ourselves to be used by God for God. We should close every prayer with the recognition of who God is and what He can do, not as a duty, but as a natural response of love to Him who created us and saved us and became our friend. That is what Paul is doing as he closes his prayer. He recognizes that God can do everything He's asked and much more because of His power and grace.
How does he know this? Because he prays earlier in the chapter, according to the riches of His glory, he knows that God is rich enough, full enough of blessings that He can do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think. Now that we have learned this great template for prayer, let us come to the throne of grace and humility, trusting that God is already at work in our lives, knowing that He is willing and able to bless us more than we can imagine, while giving us strength for daily living, knowledge to understand His love better, and appreciation for what He has already done for us.
May God bless you today and always. What are the essentials? Like what makes this important, effectual? What makes this different than just a little text group goofing off? And I guess if it's essential, then if it went away, the group would either cease or not be the same thing.
So what's important about our group? I think something we've mentioned in two episodes now is trust, right? It takes time to build trust. So I think time is essential. And then it takes, it takes some time to build trust because if you don't trust the people that you're talking these things out, if you think, if I say this, and this person is just going to go tell the world about how I feel about this, like that's a, that's a full stop. Yeah.
And I think to go along with trust also vulnerability is a key as well. You've got to be willing to take a step out onto the water, right? And see how it's going to work out.
Way to make it biblical, Jeremiah. Yeah, there you go. But you would, I think we would say that that didn't happen right away.
No, no, no, no. It takes time. I mean, that's the time element, right?
You can't, I don't know, you can't. Some, some people can. I don't think our group could all of a sudden jump in all of that at one time like we have now. I think some of us, I will say myself, I probably would have got a little shaky and said, no, no, no, I'm, this is, I'm out because there wasn't that time and that trust in order for, for me to feel that that this was that space.
So I think the time is very important. I think the other thing that is essential is courage. It's still, even though we know each other, again, we know each other as dudes, you know, we just know each other as guys. So it still takes courage. Even now, sometimes I, I, I have said, and I hear from you guys sometimes, Hey, I got something to share.
Not ready yet. I'm still thinking it through and whatever, but I just, just kind of prime in the pump, pray for me, you know, kind of a thing. Not cause we don't trust each other and just, I'm, I'm still sorting it through, but it takes courage to say, kind of share with you what's going on. Number three, a father's round table, how we disciple our families as husbands and fathers. You know, last week when we ended, we were really talking about discipling our children and what it means to be dads and what are the challenges and the rewards. And I'm grateful for all that perspective, but there's a woman involved that helped you with these kids. Amen.
Do you still find time for a date night? We do our best to be intentional with that. Again, our kids are watching us.
And so like, if, if we can't be that example of, or if I, right, cause I have two boys, Elijah and Jeremiah, if I can't be that example to them of showing them how to date their mother, like they won't be able to learn how to date themselves. And so like, again, it goes back to that again. And so whether it's, we're being cheesy and doing a movie night at the house because movies are expensive or if we're just, we're just going to long drive and we just talk and have a conversation just so we can see where each other is because if she's not okay, I'm not okay. It's that cliche of, if mama ain't happy, ain't nobody. So I've got to make sure she's okay. And she does the same thing for me.
She makes sure I'm fine as far as it pertains to my mental stability. How do you defend that field for your children? You know, social media being so out there.
So guarding your heart, that's the biggest deal. And so for our children growing up, they didn't get their first cell phone. They didn't get their first smartphone until they were 13, 14. Number one, so they had the responsibility, the level of responsibility to take care of something so expensive as that. But also number two, that they didn't really need that connection.
They were always with mom and dad. Well, now that they're older and they have the realm of Facebook, YouTube, Twitch, TikTok, you name it, all of those things. It's just coming alongside them and friending them on those same platforms.
Being in the same discord chat when my son is playing with all of his friends. For our daughter, Instagram, and the comparison that comes from that. You know, life has a filter on it. And we want so desperately for her to recognize the beauty that she is both physically, but also spiritually and who she is in God. And so helping her through that navigation of the world with a filter, just keeping her solid in the value that she is. Number two, a women's discipleship course with Natalie Runyon.
As a man, how can we really empower other men to support women in leadership? Well, I've been very blessed to have a dad who championed me as a little girl who told me I could be anything I wanted to be, which made going to college and picking a major really difficult because I really believed him. And then marrying someone who has just championed me. I say all the time that I'm still in ministry only because of Jesus and my husband. And so it's every day waking up to somebody more than one person, one man believing in me. It's having the two most important people other than Jesus believing in me. And a lot of that is just the encouragement to be who God has called me to be as a speaker, as an author, as a worship leader. And I believe that when the men in our life believe in us, we're unstoppable.
That we can do anything because we have that wind beneath us that is just kind of carrying us, even in hard seasons. So for men, whether it's our friends, it's our neighbors, it's our spouse, our dad, when you tell us you believe in us, you have no idea what that does. And when you act on that and you release us to do what God has called us to do, that's even more valuable is when we feel like we're not just being told we can do it, but we're being encouraged to do it. Question number one, Complete in Christ, a series on holiness with Bill and Diane Urie. So we're going to ask the question, how can I be entirely sanctified? I'm going to suggest our resource book said by giving everything to God and seeking Him expectantly until He sanctifies you entirely. I'm going to throw that out to our crew and let's start talking about how we can be sanctified people. First by faith, that's the starting point unto salvation and sanctification.
Yeah, I love the tradition on which we come. I love that focus that, you know, that we know that everybody needs a savior and he of course wants to save all people, but he can also save us to the uttermost. I love that, that direction of the entirety of scripture that he wants to, doesn't want to just do a halfway job. There is no such thing as half full salvation. Yeah, it's a full salvation.
I love our language. We'll be seeing how we talk. It's this unbounded life, this full life, this overflowing life. But the how I think is intriguing. I think that's where we get really messed up because as a preacher, I can, you know, focus on how to get people to an altar too much. What I'm really trying to do is say, look, whatever's between you and the Lord, yield that to him in whatever way he convicts you to do so. There's one way of doing it, but, but he's, he's very creative.
He can, he can do this in all kinds of ways. For me, it's interesting. You started with self Verne. For me, the day I was sanctified was the phrase in a preaching service, a sentence before you leave here, I want to ask you, the preacher said, are you full of him or full of self will? And I looked at my very evangelical life. I was an evangelical, all the right meetings, all the right prayer meetings, all the right stuff, all the right whatever.
But I was full of self will. I had really defined what I wanted my life to be as a Christian. And that's ridiculous. You can't define your life as a Christian and say anything about yourself.
I'm going to do this or be this. That's ridiculous. It's like a, it's antithetical, his Lordship or not. And that day radically changed the entirety of my existence. I feel like for one of the confusions about holiness is what you just said is the behavior focus. Holiness is not about that behavior thing.
And first that is the outflow of belonging to him. And I, for years and years, I was married to a holiness preacher and did not like my behavior. I was really, I had four little kids and I was like a screecher creature at home and was very defeated. And I wanted God to fix my behavior. And I did offer myself and I, and I over and over went to the altar and asked for him to do this thing in me. I wanted this experience so that my behavior would change. And he spoke to me one day and said very clearly, you want holy behavior more than you want me. And he said, you're clamoring after this experience. This thing you want me to do is more important. It's an idol in your life.
And he said, will you please just love me? The Salvation Army's mission doing the most good means helping people with material and spiritual needs. You become a part of this mission every time you give to the Salvation Army. Visit salvationarmyusa.org to offer your support. You can subscribe to Words of Life on your favorite podcast store or visit salvationarmysoundcast.org. Join us next time for the Salvation Army's Words of Life. Thanks so much for listening to Words of Life. We want to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the show. Visit lifeaudio.com where you'll find dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They have shows about prayer, Bible studying, parenting, and more. Thanks again for listening.
We'll see you next time. God's word will change our life, but sometimes it's hard to know where to start. Well, that's where I come in. I'm Jody Niznick, host of So Much More Creating Space for God, a scripture meditation podcast. And each week I guide you through a scripture giving you space to listen to the Spirit and pray about what's on your heart. Then we have a thoughtful conversation with guests to help us go deeper. Listen and subscribe at lifeaudio.com. The Historical Jesus Podcast is the sweeping saga of the life and times of Galilean Jesus of Nazareth, as well as the faith, religion, and church founded to honor and disseminate his acts and teachings. Join me, Mark Vinette, on this fascinating journey through time exploring the many great works of Christian theology, literature, architecture, music, and art inspired by the words and deeds of Jesus Christ.
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