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Full Transcript:

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Welcome to Courageous Parenting Podcast, a weekly show to equip parents with biblical truth on raising confident Christian kids in an uncertain world.

Hi, I’m Angie from Courageous Mom.

And Isaac from Resolute Man Together pursuing the mission to impact 10 million families and their legacies for the Kingdom of God.

We’ve been married for 23 years and are seeing the fruit from raising our nine children Biblically. Based on the raw truth found in the Bible.

We can no longer let the culture win the hearts of children, as too many from Christian families are walking away from their faith by the age 18. And it doesn’t have to be this way. It shouldn’t be this way.

We’re praising the Lord that ministry continues to expand and impact more legacies. We couldn’t do this without you. Whether you pray for us, give us five star reviews or share on social.

Or even if you purchase courses and merch, or join the Be Courageous app community. Enjoy the coffee or support financially. We’re so thankful you are a big part of the 10 million legacies movement.

If you want access to all the episodes, show notes and other biblically based resources. Go to be courageous ministry.org.

Join us as we start another important conversation about effective parenting in a fallen world.

Hey guys, Welcome to today’s Courageous Parenting podcast. I’m Angie Tolpin from Courageous Mom, and I am actually on here today on my own. Isaac’s just not feeling totally himself, so be praying for him. But I’m excited to be talking to you about a near and dear topic. I think it’s relevant for everybody and this is the topic of our need to grow in order to thrive. Thriving is a ping word. It’s been a ping word for a really long time because everyone desires to be thriving. Right? When you hear that word, don’t you just go, Man, I don’t know if I’m thriving. I wish I was thriving. I think a lot of people feel that way. So we’re going to dive into what it means today. We’re going to talk about, you know, the need for growth. But what does growth actually look like? So think of today as an exhortation, if you will. When Isaac and I were talking this morning, he was like, Angie, you’re going to do a great job. What if you were to talk about this thing that we’ve been talking so much about lately? And I just was like, yeah, this this is a word not just for you guys, but it’s something that he and I have been talking a lot about. And so we’re going to dive in here real quick. But before we get going, I just wanted to thank you guys for joining us here on the podcast.

Every encouraging review email message on social media means so much to Isaac and I. The shares definitely help with getting the word out about the podcast. And you guys know that we’re super passionate about the 10 million Legacies movement and wanting to really impact other families for the Kingdom of God, for God’s glory, to be equipping the Saints, encouraging the Saints, whatever you want to call it. We are super passionate about that and we are really excited for the ministry to continue on. In addition, you guys might not know it, but Isaac has been in the works of creating the Resolute Man podcast, so I just want to do a shout out for his podcast because it is launching this week. Be on the lookout for that. He has put in a lot of work just trying to get this up and going. And the first episode is called What is a Man? So you can look him up on Apple, iTunes, Spotify, wherever podcasts are. It’s just resolute man with Isaac Tolpin. So that’ll be an encouraging word for all of you gents out there. For sure. Okay, so let’s dive in. Listen, a lot of people when we’re talking about this concept of thriving, sometimes people go, oh, well, that’s just not me for this season that I’m in or because of my circumstances. And if that’s you, if you’re thinking, you know, thrive in a more worldly view of success and different things like that, then for sure you’re probably going to be expecting things out of yourself and out of your circumstances that are unrealistic.

So I just want to encourage you guys that you can be thriving regardless of your circumstances. I believe that that that is a lie from the enemy to think that you can’t be thriving just because you don’t have your dream house or maybe you don’t have your dream job, or maybe you’re struggling financially with something, or maybe you’re in a season of sickness. I just want to encourage you that regardless of your circumstances, we can all be thriving. So we’re going to go over three real key elements in today’s podcast. The first is you must be growing to thrive, but you can’t grow if you’re prideful. So we’re going to talk about that. We’re also going to be diving into Scripture regarding the need for biblical friendships in order to continue growth in because the reality is, is we all have blind spots, isn’t that right? And so we need other people to lovingly speak truth and be willing to stick by our side and walk through it with us to help us get out of that bondage, to have accountability so that we are not struggling with sin, and also to exhort and encourage and teach us things, right? So we’re going to dive into that a little bit more deeper.

And then also the third thing is that you. Need. Obviously, you need Jesus to grow. Today, you know, we’re going to be talking about growth in many different areas. But the the real thing that I want you guys to be encouraged in is that in all things, we need to have a mindset and preach to ourselves the truth that we know that is found in the word. We’re going to dive into John First Corinthians as well, so that we can preach to ourselves the truth in those times when we get discouraged, when we’re pursuing growth, but we just feel like we’re hitting a lid or feel stuck, or we just feel like we can’t get past whatever hangup it is. Maybe you have even a sin like that you’re struggling with or that maybe you believe has been a generational sin and you just don’t know quite how to overcome it. The the truth that I want to encourage you with today is that all things are possible through Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He died so that we would be freed from bondage. And that is all bondages, whether it’s emotional trauma, whether that is verbal abuse or things that people have said to us that maybe have been a temptation for us to allow that thing that was said to us to become part of our identity. It he also died for us to be set free from the addiction to sin.

He died for us to be set free from our selfishness, from our pride so that we could walk in freedom and be the best version of ourselves, for God’s purposes, for him to be glorified. So we’re going to dive into what you need regarding Time in the Word and things like that, with an encouragement for moms, especially, who maybe feel like they’re so busy that they’re like, I just don’t have time to be learning new things or to be really pursuing growth right now. Angie And and I just want to encourage you that you actually can be pursuing growth. Yes. In every circumstance, whether you’re in postpartum, whether you’re pregnant, whether you are just had a baby or maybe you have many little kids in your homeschooling or maybe you’re home studying, maybe you’re running a business from home and you’re also a mom. There are so many ways that we can pursue growth, and I hope today is going to be an encouragement to you. Okay. So let’s dive in. You must be growing to thrive, but you can’t grow if you’re prideful. Obviously, there are many scriptures that we could potentially dive into. I’ve chosen a few today and I hope you guys are encouraged by them. The first one is James, chapter four, verse six, which says, But he gives more grace. Therefore, it says God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.

Verse seven says, Submit yourselves, therefore to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and he will draw near to you. And then it talks about cleansing our hands as sinners. Purify our hearts. You double minded just continues on this passage of Scripture. If you were to read before and after, it’s just such an exhorting, rebuking, encouraging passage of Scripture, it gives us direction actually in in what we need to be doing in our Christian lives on a daily basis, but especially in those moments in our lives when we are struggling with sin or when we’re we’re struggling with pride. Specifically, there’s a warning here. God opposes the proud. That’s a warning. But he does give grace to the humble. And the thing about humility is that I’m sure that if you hear that word and you’re thinking, Oh, man, I’ve struggled with pride in the past and maybe I’m not struggling with it like I did before. Well, the truth is, is that in our humanity, we do struggle with pride. All of us do at times. Like, have you ever been encouraged, I’m going to say encouraged with quotations around it. It’s really exhorted by a friend where maybe they come to you and they go, Hey, you know what? When we were talking and you said this, this offended me.

And or maybe they maybe you struggled with gossip and you said something about someone else and they hold you accountable to that. Or maybe there’s been a time where you have been angry with someone and you allowed your anger to control your emotions, and that was offensive to somebody, regardless of what the situation is or what the sin is. We all struggle at times. And really, if you get down to the root of many sins, it really does found itself in pride and selfishness. And so we all need to recognize that we’re humans. Like none of us are ever going to be perfect. Jesus was the only perfect that walked this earth. But praise the Lord that He gave us His Holy Spirit. For us to be able to lean into that can help us walk in His spirit so that we can fight the good fight when we start feeling that temptation to sin. But maybe you’ve experienced those times when someone’s come to you and it’s really kind of hard to hear at first, isn’t it? Well, that would be pride. Your ego. Maybe your ego is struggling. Maybe your ego gets hurt a little. But when someone calls out sin in your life, right? Maybe you were disrespectful to your husband in front of somebody. Maybe you were unkind or lacking compassion or sympathy for a child that was hurt when you were at a friend’s house for a playdate because you really just wanted to spend time with a friend.

Maybe you snapped at a kid who interrupted you. Listen. All of those things. We are all our own worst, worst critics, aren’t we? Like when we take time to be introspective, we could all be real downers on ourselves. And I think that there is a balance that we need to have as Christians. God calls us to be self-examining, to be searching our own hearts. And we want to teach our kids to do that as well so that we can rightly be walking in freedom. We walk in freedom when we’re able to let the chains of sin just bounce off of us where they just fall right off of us because we walk in the power of Jesus. And that happens when we repent of things. That happens when we confess things to other people, when we apologize, when we have restitution and reconciliation and restoration in relationship quarrels or conflict. Right. And so the truth is, is that everyone has room to grow and everyone struggles with pride at times. No one knows it all. And yet many people think they do. No one is without sin. Yet some people fail to acknowledge their sin because maybe they think that their sins are not as blatantly bad, quote unquote, as other peoples. And I would just say like Proverbs chapter six, verses 16 through 19 are very humbling because God in His goodness shows us that all sin defiles man and that it’s the sins of the heart that he cares about.

Yes, he cares about our actions as well. But really, our actions reveal what is in our hearts right. And so we need to be aware of this. And this could be incredibly powerful if we’re sharing these truths with our teenagers, especially like kids that are 12 teenagers headed into those teenager years, they they’re like hungry for purpose, yet they are tempted by the enemy to fall into temptation to sin. They fall. And when I say that, I’m not talking about like pornography or like the sins that maybe come to your mind at the top of your head, like laziness or maybe disobedience and playing too many video games, things like that. Like you may think of those things. And yes, those are definitely issues. But listen, there’s also the selfishness that that a child that age potentially struggles with as well. Thinking, man, why do we always have to do what mom wants to do, man? Why can’t we ever do what I want to do? That would be selfishness. There would be some pride there as well. But at the same time, we also want to really hone in on our relationships and engage in those deep conversations that come from self-examination, right? So everyone has room to grow. Let’s flip over to Proverbs chapter 11, verse two.

This is so encouraging, you guys. When I was reading this, I was like, okay, here we go. When pride comes, then comes disgrace. But with the humble is wisdom. Okay, that’s encouraging. It is encouraging because it’s saying, listen, if you’re humble, you’re going to grow in wisdom. If you grow in pride, then comes disgrace. That’s a warning. So we need to be really alert and aware, like God’s Word gives us a lot of warnings. Psalm 119 is another one that I just want to flip to real quick. Let’s see here. Psalm 119, verse 34, says, Give me understanding that I may keep your law and observe it with my whole heart. You guys, this is a thing. It is hard sometimes to observe the whole law with our whole heart. Isn’t that right? It could be hard to keep those commandments. It could be hard, right? It could be hard to be constantly choosing to walk in the spirit at times. And I just want to encourage you that in those moments when you maybe feel like it’s hard to walk in humility to to apologize, really, we need to be aware that we are we have a weapon called the armor of God. We have the sword of the spirit. And his word gives us exactly what we need to motivate us into the right actions that we need to be walking in as Christians.

So humility is a powerful, powerful fruit that we need to be seeking to be walking in, not in fake humility, not going, Oh, thank you so much when someone compliments us. But I didn’t I didn’t do that when we really did, that would be what is called false humility, but instead, like really, truly walking as a person that acknowledges who we are in light of who God is, we look at ourselves rightly and we understand our need for Christ, understand that we still have things to learn, understand that we still have things that we’re growing in and that we don’t know it all. This is incredibly powerful because when you come to that place. Then. Then you begin thriving because you have an open door to new growth, which is incredibly exciting. Listen, so once we have humility, once we’re walking with humility, it’s much easier to have a teachable heart. Right? Like obviously I’ve done in our homeschool blueprint, we have a whole session on cultivating a teachable heart with your kids, because obviously if you’re teaching them at home, that’s something that you want to try to encourage them in. But the truth is, is that pride and humility are at the foundation of even being able to build a teachable heart, to grow a teachable heart. And so humility really is at the foundation of any of us being able to learn anything. If you think about that, um, in addition, we need to talk about this concept of examining ourselves.

There’s a word I’ve used it actually in other podcasts, and I didn’t really realize that this could be something that could enslave people, but it’s the word introspection. Introspection can, in my opinion, it can be a good thing because introspection is the practice of looking within yourself and and looking honestly and seeing what you’re potentially struggling with or what you need to grow in. Right? Let’s just use patience. For example, maybe you are really struggling with being patient with specific people in your life, or maybe you have just been so busy that you’re you’re run down and you seem to have less patience with everyone regardless of what the situation is. Patience is a fruit of the Holy Spirit, is it not? And so if we have the Holy Spirit activated in us, if we’re walking and understanding that God calls us to walk with patience with other people, then we’re going to try our best to surrender our agenda, our selfish desire to get things done maybe faster or more efficiently or or to be constantly looking at the clock. And instead we’re going to be walking with grace with other people, which could come across as being more patient. But the truth is, is it takes being introspective to even get to that place, to recognize, you know what, I’m struggling with being patient. Doesn’t it want.

To take a moment and give you something for free if you haven’t got it already? Is the date Night one sheet? It is a beautiful document you can download that will have some key questions on it for your date night to just get in alignment about what’s most important for your family. No matter what time of year, it’s always important to recalibrate. You can get that by going to courageous Parenting.com and subscribing to our mailing list. Also, you can get all of our show notes and everything at Courageous Parenting.com. And I also just want to share real quick about the Parenting Mentor program. So many families are being transformed by going through this. It’s the six week self-paced program with live engagement from us and even direct interaction. So if you want to join us, here’s a little bit more about it and you can find out more at Courageous Parenting.com.

Stephen, I realized that we were getting too comfortable with the world’s vision of how to raise our children.

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We now have a game plan to how we want to raise our children. We have so many answers to the questions that have been in our mind.

It’s not just these hypothetical situations or it’s not just this. Here’s what I think you should do. It’s let me show you where in Scripture this is.

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One of the best things that we’ve done this year, one of the best investments we’ve made this year, and I could not recommend it more.

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But introspection by itself can be dangerous. In fact, introspection by itself. Some say that is is actually a trap that the enemy wants to get people into because he wants you to get stuck. They’re only thinking about the bad things that you struggle with, not allowing yourself to actually grow away from the thing that you want struggled with. So the biblical terminology or biblical vocabulary, as I like to call it, that we want to be using, is self-examination. Self-examination leaves. It doesn’t leave us in this place of just thinking about ourselves and about our wrong deeds or how we act or the negative things about ourselves. Self-examination actually leads us to the cross. Self-examination leads us to a solution. Ocean in Jesus Christ where we can repent and confess the things that we see. From the self-examination. And we can receive forgiveness from the Lord and be walking in the freedom and not allowing those things that we once struggled with to become part of who we are in our character. And this is incredibly important because if you’re going to be growing, yes, there are some things that do hinder us from growth at times. There are things that will hinder us from thriving, and the enemy is actually a part of that plan. He doesn’t want you to be thriving. He doesn’t want you to be bringing glory to God and to be sharing things and to be growing in the Lord. And so understanding that self-examination is just part of the process.

But you don’t end there because if you if you stop there and you’re just like very honest and you’re like, oh yeah, I’m this, I’m that, I’m this, I’m that, and you’re just dwelling on those negative things. I even think of Philippians four where we’re exhorted to think on things that are true, things that are noble, things that are pure things that are praise worthy. And the truth is, is that we need to take our examination and then put it at the foot of the cross and leave it there because Jesus died for those things and then walk in freedom free from the bondage of those things, being able to learn and grow and not even have to allow those things to enslave us. And so that that, my friends, is truly the beginning of being able to grow, is being able to let the things that are going to hold you back from growth go. Let them not be a part of who you are. I want to read to you from second Corinthians here, um, verse or chapter 13, verse five, which says, Examine yourselves to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves or do you not realize this about yourselves that Jesus Christ is in you unless indeed you fail to meet the test? And then it just continues on. And Paul even gives a prayer here. But we pray that God. That pray to God that you may not do wrong.

That’s verse seven. I just love the epistles because over and over again, there are prayers in here for us to be claiming in the name of the Lord, to be praying for ourselves. Be praying for our other friendships, for our husbands, for our kids. It’s so important. But this process of examining ourselves is important, but then also taking it to the Lord to realize this about ourselves, that Jesus Christ is in us. That is freeing, right? And so I love that that verse brings self-examination back to Jesus. Now let’s go to First Corinthians chapter 11, verse 28, which says, Let a person examine himself then and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. This is important. This is talking about the Lord’s Supper, communion time. And I think that this is often something that is looked over frequently within churches. And I just want to exhort you guys that communion is really a time of communion with the Lord. It should be a private interest like self-examination, time to where we’re able to take those things before the Lord and experience his forgiveness and his cleansing in that sense. Let a person examine himself then and then. So eat of the bread and drink of the cup. This is an important part of the communion process. And so if we’re going to church, for example, on a weekly basis, because we know that the Bible also exhorts believers to take communion as often as we meet.

Um, if we’re going on a regular basis, we’re going to be taking communion on a regular basis. I mean, as long as the church is doing communion on a regular basis, that is and that’s something that just a side note, that’s something that has always been very near and dear to Isaac and I, that the church would be obeying the word regarding trying to take communion as often as you can because there’s a necessity, a need that Jesus even knew for us to examine ourselves. It’s this process to also make sure that we’re in right fellowship with other people that we’re taking communion with. This is incredibly important for our spiritual health, for our physical health. So examining ourselves as part of the process. But the next part is having a contrite heart. Being repentant. Right. And so, like I said, in introspection, you can obviously get stuck and enslaved and and trapped in thinking bad about yourself all the time. And that’s not where God wants us. That’s where the enemy wants us. Instead, we take those things that people have said about us, things that we’ve said about ourselves, even acknowledging the truth of the struggles that we’ve had in our life. And we set those aside and we give those to Jesus knowing that he died for those things so that we could be walking in freedom and not be slaves to those sins anymore.

Understanding that when we repent and we confess our sins, Jesus Christ covers them. That is so powerful. Let’s read from Psalm chapter 139 for a second. It’s verse 23. Let me get there real quick, you guys. Psalm 139, Verse 23 says, Search me, o God and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts. And see if there be any grievous way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. This is so powerful because this is acknowledging like, Lord, I’m going to surrender to you, to search me and know my heart and test and try me and see if there’s any grievous way in me, like make it known. And then it says, and lead me in the way of everlasting. That is freedom. This is so powerful. The next scripture I want to just jump over to with you guys is in Job. It’s chapter 13, verse 23. This one’s super powerful. It says, How many are my iniquities? And my sins make me know my transgression and my sin. Job is even saying, Lord, like I’m in this trial, like, will you show me what I’ve done? And so obviously, this is this is something that God calls his righteous people. This is a practice that we want to get comfortable with. But it takes humility to ask people like, how can I be better? Envision yourself going to your husband and saying, Hey, how can I be a better wife? Or if you’re a husband going to your wife and saying, How can I be a better husband? What about your kids going to your kids? How can I be a better kid? You could literally do this in any relationship, but wow, wouldn’t that take a source of humility to be able to be brave enough to ask those questions? Because you’re inviting feedback and sometimes feedback is critical criticism, right? In a sense of like, Oh, well, I really wish things were this way, or I really wish you’d be better at listening to me or whatever it is, right? And so being having a contrite heart coming before the Lord, walking rightly before him.

But then there’s this element of like also that’s loving the Lord your God with your whole heart, mind, soul and strength. But then what is the second greatest commandment that Jesus said, Love your neighbor as yourself. So then taking that and going to them like that is loving to go, Hey, how can I love you better? How can I be a better friend to you? Having a contrite heart. This is so important. Okay, guys, so let’s talk about the need for biblical friendships to grow. This is actually really huge. Obviously, there’s verses like as iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens the countenance of another, which your countenance is obviously like the look on your face if you’re downcast, if you’re happy, things like that. And this comes from also speaking truth into one another’s lives and exhorting or spurring one another onto good works.

Because good works. Actually, they feel good, don’t they? They do. They feel good. It feels good to be walking in the things that God has planned for us. That is really important. We need biblical friendships to be able to grow because of so many reasons. And one is that we need people sometimes to be spurring us on to grow. We need people to be giving us ideas of ways that we could use our spiritual gifts, calling out those spiritual gifts within us. But obviously you can’t do that if you’re not walking closely in life with someone to where they can see what your gift is and go, Hey, Angie, I really think that you have the gift of exhortation or I think you have the gift of teaching or I think you have the gift of blah, blah, blah. And like when people call that out in me, I cannot tell you. It’s not just a good feeling, it’s that I feel like they know me because and they know me like on the level that God knows me in a sense, because I’m walking and using the gifts that he’s given me in my relationships with them. And that is an important part of being a part of the body of Christ. We need biblical friendships to be able to grow for that reason, because sometimes sometimes people don’t know what their spiritual gift is or what contribution they’re supposed to bring to the church.

We need one another to call those things out in us. I would also say that we need one another to challenge one another, to exhort one another, which is to challenge one another, to live better, as John MacArthur says, to challenge one another, sometimes going, Hey, you know what? I just wanted to talk to you because I kind of felt like when you said that that was kind of disrespectful or I was offended when blah, blah, blah. Like you have to have a solid relationship with someone to be able to go to somebody and say, I see this and I’m worried about you or I don’t want our relationship to be like this, or I want to challenge you to be better. But again, in order to be able to receive that, you absolutely need to be humble. Otherwise you’re going to defend yourself. Right? Hey, guys, listen. And I just want to say something like, I’ve been in that seat before. Yes. Many times. And I’ve also been on the other side of things. And I want to encourage you that the the the deepest biblical friendships are the ones where people are willing to say the things they’re thinking that are are going to actually produce fruit in the other person that are what’s best for the other person. A real friend is not going to allow another friend to stay in bondage.

A real friend is going to speak truth and love. And show by their actions, by their love for one another that they’re still hanging around, that they’re not running away for the hills. Right. They want to see growth in you. They want to help carry your burden, whether that’s like a physical sense or even a prayer warrior sense. And I just want to say, like that brings up another aspect. We need biblical friendships to grow us because we need people praying for us. Obviously, we are in a battle and there is a battle for people to be stuck in their sin and we need to be encouraged by other people to walk in the truth that God has for us. We also need people to hold us accountable. We also need people who love us enough to confront the sin and then help point us in the direction. If we don’t know which direction to go, that would be wise. Counsel. Let’s flip to Proverbs chapter 12, verse 15. This one talks specifically about the need for wise counsel. It says The way of a fool is right in his own eyes. But a wise man listens to advice. Clearly, you need biblical friends because you need wise advice. And if you don’t have biblical friendships and what I mean by biblical friendships, I’m talking about walking in life with each other well enough to know like, what is the fruit in their life? Or am I walking with the wise or am I walking with morally corrupt people? Because the Bible also says those a company of fools will suffer harm? Right? We need to understand that we become like who we hang out with.

So if we’re hanging out with people who are seriously taking their relationship with the Lord to a serious level where they are abiding in God, they are in His Word, they are trying to munch on it like it’s the bread of life. They’re trying to understand it and then they’re trying to apply it to their life and live it out and they want to grow that. Those are the kinds of people that you want to be in biblical friendship with. If you flip to Proverbs 15, verse 33. It says. The fear of the Lord is instruction in wisdom and humility comes before honor the fear of the Lord. This is huge. Walking in biblical friendship with other people who also fear the Lord, who have right understanding of who God is, knowing his omniscience, that he’s omnipotent, that he’s omnipresent, that who his son is believing the truth found in the Gospels, believing the whole word of God, not adding to it, not taking from it, but truly trying to walk on the biblical narrow road. Those are the kinds of people you want to seek out. Let’s flip to Romans chapter 12, verse three, which says, Let me see here.

I love Chapter 12. This is the whole chapter about not conforming to the the this world and what our spiritual worship is, which is, by the way, one of the founding verses of the Courageous Parenting podcast. You guys. But but listen to verse three. For by the grace given to me, I say to every one among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. Obviously, that’s going to be different for each person. Otherwise that wouldn’t even be in there for as in one body, we have many members and the members do not all have the same function. So we though many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another. And then it talks about having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us. Let us use them and then it continues on. This is so important that we are walking in believing this, believing the truth about this, teaching our kids this, teaching them how to find biblical friendships. Let’s go over to First Thessalonians chapter five. Verse 11 says, therefore, encourage one another and build one another up just as you are doing. This is so important. You guys like this is one of the reasons for biblical friendship. This world tears people down it. The enemy wants it to get us enslaved in this trap of thinking so poorly of ourselves that we can’t do anything.

He wants to disable us. He wants to immobilize the church. Once we understand that there is a spiritual battle for us to even be doing things that are productive for the kingdom, which might I say, we are called the salt of the earth, the light, the city on a hill. And God has called us to a great purpose, that we would be speaking truth in other people’s lives. And we can’t do that if we’re depressed and we’re cocooning up and and we’re allowing the lies of the enemy to put us in a position of defeat and inaction. So instead, we need to be walking in the truth of who we are in Christ, be built up, be encouraging one another, speaking truth, continuing to grow and actually giving one another permission. Can I just say like that is one step in the right direction in your biblical friendships is to invite people by giving them permission and saying, Hey, if you ever see me do this, would you please speak into my life or to confess things and go, Hey, I’ve really been struggling with X, Y, and Z, so if you see me do that, would you please come to me? Because I’m aware that that’s a problem that I have and I don’t want to do that anymore. Would you pray for me? That is how we have biblical friendships moving forward. So.

So obviously we need biblical friendships to be able to be set free from the bondage that we live in. Jude also didn’t have this scripture prepared, but there is also a scripture in Jude Go Read it that talks about pulling someone out of the fire. Obviously that’s two people right there, like one person that’s not in the fire, that’s walking and is a biblical friend willing to pull the other person out when they’re walking astray Like that takes guts. It takes courage, you guys. It takes loving God more than even that person because you want them to be walking in freedom. So understanding who we truly serve, we don’t serve one another in first and foremost. We serve God first and foremost, and then we love one another. And having those priorities straight makes a massive difference in our relationships. But we need Jesus to grow. This is the third and final point today. You need Jesus to grow. He produces fruit and our job is to abide, to learn from the word. Flip with me to First Corinthians chapter two, you guys, chapter two, verse 13 and 14. This says. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom, but but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept these things of the Spirit of God for their folly to Him. He is not able to understand them because they’re spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but he himself is to be judged by no one.

Lord, we have to understand that there is a call for us to rise up to be walking this way in relationship to one another. But we can only do that if we are abiding in Christ. We have to be preaching truth to ourselves, but we need other people to be preaching truth to to us as well. John 316 through 18 is another verse that talks about who God is and what He’s done for us. We need to be meditating on those. So let’s wrap up. You want to grow, prioritize the time with the Lord regardless of what situation you’re in, circumstances in life you can be growing. It starts with humility. It starts with repentance. It starts with seeking God learning and choosing to learn, choosing to understand that we have things that we need to grow in is so powerful. And we need to be honest. We need to be willing to repent and confess to other people and receive the forgiveness that Jesus died on the cross for both yesterday’s sins, today’s sins and tomorrow’s sins. And we move on. Walking in Victory. Thanks for joining me on today’s podcast. Hey, thanks for listening and being a part of the 10 Million Legacies movement. Go to be courageous ministry. Org For more biblically based resources Ways to switch where you spend your money that support the mission and information about the incredible be courageous app community for believers.

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