January 1, 2025 • 40 mins
Diary of a Worship Warrior is a series within the podcast A Worship Warrior's Podcast in which Sarah shares her many thoughts, beliefs, latest life events, and struggles in an informal and mostly impromptu way. She likes to call this series, Holy Spirit Lead Babbling. In this episode, she talks about her goals for 2025, how she didn't make a New Year's resolution list or board this year, self-discipline, and the Holy Spirit inside of us. As always, her discussions are relatable and genuine.
Links for this episode:
Ashley Hetherington's Website: https://thehoneyscoop.com/
Ashley Hetherington's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPhZ8nmPCWhvZbyaFzZ83NQ
Jesus Freaks TV: https://www.youtube.com/@JesusFreaks_TV
Check out my:
Website: https://www.worshipwarriorlifestyle.com/
Blog: https://www.worshipwarriorlifestyle.com/blog
FREE Digital Resources: https://www.worshipwarriorlifestyle.com/general-7
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hey guys, welcome back to our worship warriors podcast.
(00:08):
Well what's up everybody?
Welcome back to our worship warriors podcast.
This is like so random of me to just record this right now because I literally have not
put an episode out there in like, I don't even know how long.
It's been a few months or at least a couple months.
I don't remember.
(00:28):
Well no, longer than a couple months.
Wow, it's been a few months.
Yeah, I just kind of fell off face to the earth with this ministry for a short bit,
but it was a good thing.
I needed it.
Yeah, and I also was not planning to record this until not even five minutes ago.
I was working on some stuff behind the scenes and I was like, you know, I don't really have
(00:52):
structure to my thoughts at the moment, but there's a lot of thoughts and maybe someone
can get something out of it.
So, yeah, and if this is posted, then the Holy Spirit led me to post it and we'll see
if it's posted in a week or two.
So anyway, but it is currently when I'm recording this, December 30th.
(01:15):
We are one day away from being January.
Well, I guess two days, I guess.
But yeah, so like we have one day left of December and then it's 2025.
Which is crazy.
This episode is just going to be me kind of rambling about some things, but it's not like
like there's there's good thoughts to it.
Like there's a lot going on.
(01:36):
But yeah, so it's almost 2025.
And yeah, if you're new here, my name is Sarah.
Sarah Lee, not the baking company, Sarah Lee.
I'm sure a lot of you are thinking that because everyone makes that comment.
I am 24.
I'm married to my wonderful husband, Casey, and we have a beautiful little boy.
He is two.
(01:56):
His name is Markham.
And I have a ministry here online, Worship Warrior Lifestyle, where I basically just put
whatever God leads me to out there about living a life, a lifestyle of worship.
But we are also warriors.
We are soldiers of God if we are Christians.
And when you are born into this world, you are you are already in a war.
(02:20):
Satan hates you.
He doesn't.
He hates God.
And he despises you, he wants to destroy you.
That is scripture.
And honestly, I can just tell you from experience, it's true.
So I am fighting the fight every day.
It is so hard living in this world in general, but especially as a Christian.
And but the good thing is, as a Christian, I do have hope and I do have God and he is
(02:43):
the best thing ever.
And so that's what this is about.
It's just living life here on Earth.
And it's about all the things.
There's not really any one specific thing.
It's just all of the things that God leads me to talk about within that.
So it could be anything and everything.
So yeah, that's who I am.
And that's this ministry.
Yeah, we have a website, a blog, a podcast.
(03:06):
Like I've said, I've been kind of in my eight, but I am here and there's still some good
stuff out there that the Holy Spirit has prompted me to put out there that you can read, go
back and read or listen to lots of episodes you can listen to.
So yeah, anyway, I've had some thoughts though lately and not just lately, it's been for
a while.
I've been going through a lot of things spiritually and the Lord has really been teaching things.
(03:33):
And I know it's stuff that a lot of you could probably relate to or some of you at least.
I know at least some of you.
And yes, I don't really know where this is going, but we're going to just talk about
some of those things.
You know, the first thing that's on my mind I've been really going through is my husband
and I have been trying to find a church home for literally, it feels like a freaking decade,
(03:56):
but it's been at least a year.
Honestly, I think it's been almost the entirety of my son's life and he's two.
And two years old, when you talk about how you have a two year old kid like, oh, that's
not very long or that's not very old.
But then you talk about how you've been trying to find a church home and going visiting different
(04:16):
churches for almost two years and it's like, wow, that's a long time.
It is like it's a long time.
My son was born in, let's see, September 2022.
And we went to this amazing church at the time we were we had been there for a while.
And then he I don't remember if he was one yet.
(04:38):
I feel like he wasn't quite one.
But actually, no, I think he was one.
So maybe it was like half of his life that we've been.
So it's been like a year.
OK, so I lied.
So it's been probably a year or so.
It's still a long time to just be going from church to church.
And that entire time, we didn't have a community like at all.
My husband had like no guy friends.
(05:00):
I had very few girlfriends and very few meaning like, well, as far as like good close Christian
friends that I could really just pour my spiritual life out to and talk to a lot.
And we were going through ebbs and flows of being like around each other and talking a
lot because we were going through such different things in life and our day, our weekly life
(05:23):
just didn't align at all and not even like our monthly life didn't align at all.
Nothing aligned.
We are so close and we do talk a lot more now, but I just didn't have a constant friend
that was a Christian.
And so it was really lonely at times.
I do have a good friend who's not a Christian, but it's just really hard to speak about spiritual
(05:44):
things when you just don't have a Christian community.
You're around your son all day and another little boy.
I watch another little boy.
So you're just around kids all day and I love them and I love my job, but it's just not
easy.
Felt a lot of loneliness that I had never really been through in that way before.
(06:05):
So that was new.
And my husband didn't really have a community at all.
He had one guy for a while that would mentor him, but it's not the same as having a good
friend that you can rely on.
At least not, I say mentor.
It wasn't really a mentor.
They did a Bible study once a week, but they didn't ever get super, super close.
(06:27):
So anyway, we just had a hard time with that.
So I know a lot of you can relate to that, but God is good and it's been well.
So the friendship thing, not having a lot of friends and not having any friends really,
that went on for longer than the year though.
That was it just then.
We did have a good community at the church we were at, but it was too far away.
(06:48):
It was like a 45 minute drive, so we couldn't even hang out with those people.
Not very easily.
You'd have to go way out of your way on both sides to hang out.
And we couldn't just invite people over to our house for dinner, like our apartment for
dinner or whatever, because I always felt bad because they would have to drive 45 minutes
at least, some of them further.
Some of them would be over an hour.
(07:09):
So that's just like, it's just not realistic.
And that's the main reason we knew God was leading us to go somewhere else, because we
just couldn't find community.
And that's what you need in a church.
You need community.
You need a family.
And we just couldn't have that there.
And it was really sad because it was an amazing church, but yeah, it is what it is.
But anyway, so we, God is good though.
(07:31):
We've been going through the lonely spell with friends and stuff for a while.
And now we do have a church that we're going to, and we are going to become members at
Plan To and soon-ish.
And when we get through that process, it'll be a little bit.
But anyway, so I feel very comfortable.
(07:52):
At least people are amazing.
It's the same church my parents go to, which y'all, you don't know my whole life, but it's
just crazy that I'm going to the same church as my parents.
I didn't think I would be doing that for a while, if ever again, really.
It just surprised me where we ended up.
But God has a sense of humor and he knows what he's doing.
So anyways, we ended up there and we just literally just last night started going to,
(08:16):
I guess, so most churches called a community group.
We just started going to this one.
Last night was our first meeting with them.
Well, not their first meeting, but our first time going to it.
And it was really good.
We already knew some of the people in the group.
So that was, it was kind of easy to just step in and be comfortable, you know, so that was
(08:37):
nice.
And a lot of them are around our age and yeah, it's great.
So we're finally, finally finding community and it's just perfect.
So really great.
And I also just joined online, like literally yesterday or two days ago or something two
days ago.
(08:57):
You have to pay for it, but you, you do a monthly or an annual though.
And I think it's 15 bucks a month or you can do for the annual.
It ends up being 10 bucks a month in the long run.
So I just joined it and it's called The Tree and it's by Ashley Hetherington.
And a lot of young women, Christian women know who she is in the Christian online influencer
(09:22):
community or whatever.
She's amazing.
I've been following her YouTube for years and I really wanted to join The Tree a long
time ago, like when she first came out with it and it's just, but I couldn't find it.
Well, I don't remember.
I think I could afford it then, but I don't remember why.
I think I just wasn't as close to God.
So I didn't really, I knew I wasn't going to actually follow through and I, you know,
(09:46):
when you're not close to God, you don't want to have to be held accountable for things
because you don't want to do those things.
Oh, I don't know if I said that right, but hopefully that made sense.
But anyway, and so I didn't join it and it's a good thing I didn't because I think it would
have gone to waste and I wouldn't have appreciated it as much as I do now or will now because
I literally just started it.
But I did join it a couple of days ago and it's just an online community of a bunch of
(10:12):
young girls and maybe some older, I don't know the ages in there, but probably mostly
younger ish.
And yeah, just Christian women wanting to grow closer to God and actually need accountability
and have that accountability and they have challenges in there for you to do.
They have different Bible studies and devotionals that come out, things that you don't get just
(10:36):
on her YouTube channel.
And I just joined that and I'm super excited to see how this helps me grow.
But yeah, I just am very excited.
I followed her journey for so long and I just think it's so fun to be able to get to be
a part of this now and get to benefit a lot from it.
(10:57):
I've already had a little bit of interaction from some people in the group, so that's really
fun.
Yeah, and I may not have any like strong friendships come out of this, but I might, you never know.
But I at least have a community to help keep me somewhat accountable, even if it is just
online and that is better than what I had before.
So that's really great.
(11:18):
So anyway, that's been going on.
So if you, I guess that would be an encouragement to you if you've been trying to find community,
just keep praying and be faithful to God.
You know, I would say just keep being faithful to God.
I was, God is still faithful to you though, even if you're not faithful to him, but you
can't, that doesn't mean you just not do anything.
(11:41):
You know, you still need to be faithful to him because you actually won't, I believe
you will not see the results of God's faithfulness as much if you are not faithful to him because
you're going to, in the end, if you're not faithful to him, then you're not even living
a life with him and for him.
So those things won't be happening.
(12:03):
The things that could be happening in your life won't be happening, at least not as much
or at all maybe, if you're not following him and living a life with him and for him.
So yeah, I feel like I'm stumbling a little on my words, but the Holy Spirit is here,
(12:24):
so I'm believing that it's making sense, at least for the most part.
But anyway, so yeah, what I was going to say along with that was even if you're not faithful,
God is still faithful to you and I believe we all need to hear that at some point in
time, sometimes multiple times if you're me, you know, often because this year I 100% was
(12:46):
not faithful the entire time to God.
I went through some really low points, not, maybe not like I, well, low points meaning
mentally I just was struggling with some things.
We all struggle mentally, you know, and we go, like I was saying earlier, we go through
ebbs and flows with things and we should never be going through ebbs and flows with God,
(13:06):
but the reality is that we oftentimes we do, like we all have at some point.
And if you haven't, I mean, I'm not saying everybody has, I'm sure there's some people
who like I know a guy who I'm a little jealous, you know, not like an unhealthy, you know,
sinful jealousy, but like I just, I wish I had this testimony where when he started following
God, he went hardcore and he's still to this day 10 or 11 years later, I can't remember
(13:30):
exactly, he is still faithful to God.
And I'm not saying he's never sinned, obviously, like he's a human being, I know he's sinned,
but he has just been faithful to God overall, like the 100% of the time and that's amazing
to me.
And so I definitely have never, I can't say that, but yeah, I, God has really renewed
(13:53):
me and renewed my, my faith, my mind, this, the past few months and well, the past few
years, but like the past few months, there's just been a lot of stuff going on with me
and it's been really beautiful.
It's been really hard, but it's been really beautiful.
Yeah.
So just stay faithful to God and you will see the fruits and even if you don't see exactly
(14:18):
what you were hoping you'd see, you're going to see something even better.
You're going to see what you need and it won't only benefit you, but it'll benefit the people
around them.
So be around you.
So be faithful in that, you know.
Yeah.
So that's a big thing that's been going on lately.
Also the big, big thing that's going on right now with everybody since it's the new year
(14:40):
is your new year resolutions.
And you know, I, I'm fine with new year resolutions.
I don't have anything against them.
I've done them before.
Last year I did them.
I failed half of them, but there were a lot.
But honestly, like I think you still need to have some sort of a mindset goal shift
or goal list or something, you know, something for the year to come, whether it be mid year,
(15:01):
quarter, way through the year, beginning of the year, whatever, because it just reminds
you of this is, you know, this represents a new, like a fresh start or maybe a continuation
and a growth from what you went through this past year.
But, and I think it's good to have dreams and goals.
I think it's healthy.
I think it's a thing that you could really use to glorify God.
(15:22):
And even if you fail half of your, like, say you have 20 resolutions or whatever, like
don't, I don't know.
I mean, I guess it depends five, five to 20, whatever you have.
I think that that's fine.
But then you also need to remember that it's not, your list is not God.
God is God.
And you need to open your, like have your list in your hands and give it up to God and
(15:46):
say, all right, I just, the main thing that I need to have is self-discipline and stick
with you, God, you know, be faithful to you, stay in your word, talk to you and not push
you aside or push you behind me and have you guide the way you be in front of me the whole
time.
And then we'll see what happens with this list.
(16:07):
But I think it's important to, to make lists or however you do it, you know, just so you
know, vision.
Oh yeah, that's good, God.
Okay.
So I think it's important to have dreams and goals and lists or however you do it, your
vision boards, whatever, because God could really show you things through those things.
(16:31):
And say you make a list, what I was saying earlier, this kind of ties into what I'm thinking
now.
So God brought it back.
Good job, God, because I didn't know where I was going.
So you could have your list of 20 things or whatever, but say the end of the year comes
and you've only actually stuck with literally one of those things.
Well, you know, the trying to succeed and failing with all the other ones is going to
(16:52):
show you and like, it's going to grow you a lot.
Oh, sorry, my phone's ringing.
Hold on.
It's going to grow you a lot, but it's also going to show you so many things about yourself
that you probably didn't see before, or it's going to show you what you need to work on.
It's going to show you what your strengths are.
It's going to maybe your failure at those things is not, it's going to help others grow
(17:14):
closer to God.
And then maybe the one thing you succeeded at, you can say, man, I had self-discipline
with all these things.
I was obedient to God and he was so faithful and all of these things happened to me and
to others or whatever, you know, it was through me having self-discipline through this and
using the Lord's strength to have self-discipline for this.
And that's amazing.
Like, if you can stick to at least one thing on your list all year long, girl, that is,
(17:38):
that is wow.
I don't know that I can even say I did that this year.
And you know, a lot of those things may, you know, the things that you failed, maybe it
wasn't that maybe it was God showing you I didn't really want that on the list.
Like that wasn't a priority that you needed to have.
So I'm showing you that that's not a priority, but this is.
And so, yeah, it's like so many good things could come from that.
(18:00):
But yeah, I think I think it's 100% important to have goals and dreams and lists at the
new year, throughout the year, whatever.
My thing this year, though, I was going to lead into this eventually, but I don't have
a list and I 100% fine with that.
My list is not a list.
It's not a vision board.
(18:21):
But I have it in my head.
And this is what it is like.
Well, it's a lot of things.
But the main thing is I just I don't want to fail anymore.
I want to have I want to have a strong relationship with God and I don't want to distance myself
from him, not one bit this year.
And that seems so simple, but it's not because you say that and what that entails is so many
(18:46):
things.
That means having self-discipline in all areas of my life.
And that means if I do fail one day, I'm not going to keep failing the next day.
I'm going to get back up and say, I failed yesterday.
I failed this week.
But this week is going to be better.
This day is going to be better.
And I'm going to like I'm going to.
It's not.
(19:06):
It's a choice to have self-discipline.
And I want to do that.
I was talking to my husband the other day and I was writing.
I don't remember exactly how it came up.
I think it was something we've been going through this Philippians study together.
And I think I think one of the days in our study book or whatever prompted this or whatever.
(19:28):
I think yeah, I think that's what it was.
It prompted me to do this or inspired me to do this or something.
And I wrote down the things that I was really struggling with and literally all of them
had to do with self-discipline.
And you know, I've thought about this before, but it really got me thinking again about
self-discipline and I would I can't say my laptop's making noise.
(19:51):
I can't say that every single thing I'd have to think about everything to be able to say
that this statement.
But I would say most things, if not everything, leads back to self-discipline when it comes
to our struggles.
And honestly, I want to say everything, but again, it may not be everything, but most
everything leads back to self-discipline.
(20:13):
All of our mental health issues that we go through, all of our emotional issues, all
of our spiritual issues, all of our physical issues, most of the time lead back to self-discipline.
You know, yeah, I mean, I'm just going to leave that there.
If you say, oh, no, it's not Sarah, really think about it and maybe it is.
Maybe you didn't realize it was, but it is.
(20:35):
And yeah, ask God about it.
You know, maybe you're struggling with something and you don't know what the core issue is.
You don't know how to address it.
It might be self-discipline.
And yeah, you know, struggling with a sin cycle, that's 100% self-discipline.
You know, struggling with your health.
Well, maybe you need to exercise more.
That takes self-discipline.
Maybe you need to eat better.
(20:56):
That takes self-discipline.
You know, maybe it's you don't know if you have a health issue or not, but this.
Oh, sorry, I bumped the mic.
Maybe something's going on and it could be because of a health issue.
Go get a scan of your body and figure it out and then pray about it before you do anything
else.
Like don't just listen to the doctor.
Pray to God first.
You know, say, is this something?
Can you show me God?
(21:17):
Is this something I can I can have self-discipline with or is there something I can have self-discipline
with to heal this part that I'm struggling with, you know, physically?
And yeah, I mean, it literally could be anything.
I don't know.
Those were just some random things that popped in my head.
But struggling with addiction.
Oh, that's a sin cycle.
I guess I covered that, you know, just self-discipline, man.
(21:37):
And how do you have self-discipline?
Well, you have self-discipline through God.
Like you just the first thing you need to do to have to have self-discipline with any
area in your life, you have to first have self-discipline with your relationship with
God and then the self-discipline and all the other areas come.
(21:58):
Something like one example that a lot of people can relate to because everybody talks about
it all the time.
Working out, exercising.
Some people gag at the thought of working out, but working out could literally just
mean going for a 30 minute good walk.
So let's just think about it that way.
Let's just say exercise in general in order to have exercise in general.
Or to have, sorry, to have self-discipline with exercise in general, I personally, this
(22:23):
is me, Sarah, talking about my life.
I am not going to exercise as much as I need to.
I'm not going to be moving my body as much as I need to if I personally am not in the
Word.
I know this from experience.
I'm not going to keep up with making sure that I am moving my body enough to where it
is a healthy body inside and out if I am not in my Word and talking to God on a daily basis.
(22:45):
I know this from experience.
Everything else is the same thing.
You say, okay, well, Sarah, these other people have self-discipline about things.
Yeah, you know why?
Oh my gosh, this is something else God has been teaching me.
I was wondering how people, like you could go on YouTube and you see all these like,
well, if we're sticking on the topic of health and fitness, you see all these people, non-Christians,
(23:08):
very worldly people, exercising all the time.
They have healthy bodies.
They are eating right.
And you're like, okay, well, they have self-discipline.
And they're not in their Word.
You are 100% correct.
But you know what?
Self-discipline comes from God.
God gives us morals.
As people, we have these morals.
And if you don't believe in God, then where are your morals coming from?
(23:34):
If there's no God, then there's no good or bad.
There's no such thing as good or bad.
So where is your good and bad coming from?
Why do you have morals?
Did they just pop out of nowhere when the Big Bang happened?
No, that's stupid.
That is so stupid.
You have morals because God has morals.
And he instilled his morals inside of you.
(23:54):
So even if you are not a Christian, you know it's not okay to just walk up to someone random
and shoot them in the head.
It's not okay to lie all the time.
It causes problems.
You see the fruit of that.
It's not okay to be hateful toward people.
You see the fruit of gossiping.
That is hateful.
Don't gossip.
You know it's not right.
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You know it in your heart.
Why?
Because God instilled morals inside of you.
So self-discipline comes from God.
And it is obvious to anyone with a brain that you need to have self-discipline in order
for anything to have results in the future.
You know, speaking again on health and fitness, if you are overweight and it's causing health
(24:41):
problems, if you are unhealthy physically on the outside, you need to address that so
that you can have a healthier lifestyle in the future.
But you're not going to be healthy in the future if you don't have self-discipline with
what you're eating or going to the doctor and addressing a certain issue or talking
to God about a certain issue with your health or exercising enough and eating healthy.
(25:02):
I can't remember which one I said already.
But anyway, you have to have self-discipline with those things.
And if you don't have self-discipline with those things, then you're never going to see
results of you being healthy.
Same with if you're struggling with a, I don't know, struggling with addiction to a drug,
(25:22):
you know, or alcohol or whatever.
You have to have self-discipline to get away from those things so that you stop getting
black out drunk all the time and doing things while you're drunk that you don't need to
be doing because it's affecting yourself and others negatively.
You know, you're struggling mentally because of your addiction.
You're having physical health problems because of your addiction.
(25:44):
Like it literally could be anything.
You're having nightmares because of your addiction.
Like literally anything.
You're hearing voices, you know, because of your addiction.
You have to have self-discipline.
And God instills this mentality of, I know I need to have self-discipline to get away
from these things.
I see worldly people, non-Christians, who have self-discipline.
(26:06):
It's because they see the future and what it could be and they just do it.
And a hundred, like I am proud of those people for doing that thing.
But here's the thing.
Here's the difference between if I had self-discipline and a non-Christian had self-discipline.
Mine has eternal results.
Those people are going to have self-discipline and it might benefit them while they're here
(26:26):
on earth, but it's literally doing no actual good for them or the people around them because
they're still going to end up in hell.
Whereas if a Christian were to have self-discipline and stay in their word and have self-discipline
in their relationship with God, and then they also have self-discipline in other areas like
in health and fitness, their self-discipline, health and fitness might be an encouragement
(26:50):
for others around them, non-Christians and Christians alike, which then could lead those
other people closer to God because you have that self-discipline, health and fitness because
you have self-discipline in your relationship with God and God is telling you that you need
to have self-discipline in that health and fitness area or whatever area it is, in that
addiction area, whatever.
You get, you know, you have self-discipline in those areas, they lead you closer to God,
(27:12):
they lead others closer to God and those people could be saved.
Those people are going to heaven.
It has eternal benefits and that is the difference in self-discipline of the world and self-discipline
of God.
They're, they look very similar, but the outcome of them, the things, the fruit that comes
from them is so different and the devil, oh, he is so, that's the thing, he's not sneaky.
(27:41):
How's it going to say sneaky?
He's not sneaky.
He's so open about his tactics.
We're just idiots, honestly, but he's so open about his tactics.
We're just, we just miss it.
We're so simple-minded, we're foolish and man, he takes these things and he makes it
seem like they're the same, like, oh, it's no big deal that Sarah has self-discipline
(28:03):
in her, you know, fitness journey, her health journey, whatever the heck we're talking about,
addiction, like we were talking about, whatever, you know, like that's great, but so does Bob
over here who's not a Christian.
So it doesn't make a difference whether you're a Christian or not and have self-discipline.
He makes it look like they're the same.
That way you don't feel like you need God to have self-discipline, but you do in order
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to have self-discipline that matters because you're literally, it's just like having self-discipline
in an area of life when you're not saved and you're not leading others to God, literally
a waste of time.
I mean, it's not a waste of time.
I'm not saying you don't need to have self-discipline because you don't need to live a miserable
life stuck in addiction.
You know, you don't need that.
You don't need to be, you know, and maybe God can use you as a non-Christian having
(28:50):
self-discipline in those areas.
You know, he can use that to glorify him to where one day maybe you will see that you
need him and that without him you could, I don't know, whatever, like he can use those
things to glorify him and you could be saved from that.
So I'm not saying it's pointless completely, but what I'm saying is if you don't have God,
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self-discipline most of the time, most of the time, it's not going to have fruit that
lasts eternally.
And that's just sad.
And it makes me angry that the devil is, like we're allowing him to do a good job at his
(29:35):
job.
He can't do a good job on his own.
We are the ones allowing him to do a good job.
We are the ones who are making his job, like making him actually good at his job.
We are the, let me say that again, we are the reason the devil is good at his job because
we just allow him to do whatever he wants in our lives.
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And a big thing in this world that he does a good job at is pretending like self-discipline
between Christians and non-Christians is the same, but it's 100% not.
Man.
Hmm.
I just pray that my self-discipline leads others to God.
(30:25):
I really do.
So my New Year's resolution is just self-discipline this year, whatever that looks like.
I know that it definitely looks like staying faithful to God, no matter what.
But then so many things, like I can't even count how many things could happen underneath
(30:51):
that main goal.
So it's really exciting.
I don't sound excited, but I am excited.
I'm so excited.
I'm already tired just thinking about it though.
Like it's going to be so tiring, but I know that I'll find rest.
I know that I will because when you are in the spirit, he is a spirit of rest.
(31:15):
Like your spirit is at rest when you are in the spirit, in the Holy Spirit.
And for anyone who might be listening to this who doesn't really know some of the basic
and maybe more complicated Christianity terms, and maybe you're not saved, so you're really
confused right now.
But what I mean by that is the Holy Spirit, if you are saved, you have accepted God's
(31:37):
beautiful gift.
God the Father, there's the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.
They are three in one.
I'm not going to explain that right now, but go to the Word, kind of read up on that.
Maybe the Lord, I'm going to pray right now in my heart that the Lord will reveal that
to you what it means.
Anyway, but God the Father, part of the God of the Trinity, sent his Son Jesus Christ,
(32:08):
who we hear about more than the other two.
When we talk about history and stuff of God, we talk about Jesus a lot.
Well, Jesus Christ is God, but he's the Father Son.
He's God the Father Son.
And he came onto earth in the form of a baby.
That's why we talk about that at Christmas.
We celebrate Jesus' birth at Christmas.
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He was born as a baby, grew up perfect, sinless life.
He never once did anything wrong.
He never had an evil thought.
He never had a hateful thought.
He was tempted, just like we were.
Scripture says that.
The devil tempted him, but he turned away from that temptation.
He didn't even think about doing it.
He was like, absolutely freaking not, because God is so much better than what would happen
if I sinned.
(32:52):
My Father knows what's best.
You Satan, get out.
Get away.
You're not going to be any Satan.
So he lived a sinless life.
And because of that, we sinned, which means we are separated from God when we sin, which
means that when we die, we can't live with God forever because we disobeyed him.
(33:12):
We would go to hell.
Jesus Christ came to earth as our sacrifice.
He was perfect.
So in order to defeat death, you have to be the opposite of death, which is life.
Because we are sinners, we now are grouped into that, the death side.
We can't be perfect.
We can't be life because we've already messed that up.
(33:34):
There's no chance that I'm ever going to be perfect completely now because I've ruined
that.
But because Jesus Christ didn't sin, he is perfect.
He is whole.
He is life.
So in order to defeat death, you have to always use this example of going into a boxing ring.
Who is the only or what is the only thing that can go up against death?
What is the complete opposite of that?
(33:56):
Life.
So life, Jesus Christ went in the boxing ring against death, Satan.
And he defeated death.
He defeated Satan.
And how did he do that?
You have to first, in order to defeat your opponent, you have to confront them.
So Jesus Christ confronted, life confronted the enemy, Satan, death, punched him in the
(34:18):
face and said, no.
And how do you actually, like what is the literal way of confronting death?
You have to be in the presence of death, which means you are dead.
When you're in that presence of death and you're confronting it, what Jesus did is he
came back to life.
That is how you defeat it.
If you don't defeat death, you stay dead.
But if you defeat death, you punched in the face, you confront it, you punched in the
(34:41):
face, you knock it down, you step on its head, you kick it, whatever the heck you want to
do, do what you want.
It's death.
Do it all.
You walk away.
You walk away from it.
And that's what Jesus did.
But we can't do that on our own.
But God, or Jesus Christ is God and he did that.
And since he's the only one out of anyone who could ever defeat death, he is the only
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way that we can get to heaven.
Because he is life.
And heaven is life.
Hell is death for eternity.
Heaven is life for eternity.
So we have to go through the one who defeated death in order to get to heaven.
So salvation, when we are saved, when we refer to that, means that you know all of that,
(35:23):
that I just explained to you.
You believe it in your heart.
You believe it in your mind.
And you say, God, I want to accept this gift.
I want you to be the God of my life.
I want you to guide my life.
I want you to tell me what to do, because you know what's best.
I want to have a relationship with you because you created me and you love me and you're
intentional with me.
And I want to love you back by obeying you and talking to you and being in your word
(35:46):
and listening to you.
And that's what that is.
When you believe that and you want those things and you say that to God, you're saved.
You're his forever.
And then when you die, you'll go to heaven.
But we gotta, that's not the end of it though.
That's just the beginning of the rest of your life here on earth.
And then when you die, you go to heaven.
That's the rest of your eternity.
(36:07):
So how do you start living for God?
Well, whenever you're saved, whenever you accept God's gift of salvation, everything
I just explained, he now, because of what Jesus Christ did for you, he made a way for
you to have the Holy Spirit inside of you.
And when you have that Holy Spirit inside of you, literally, the Spirit of God is inside
(36:31):
of you.
And the Spirit of God will guide you and prompt you and tell you, hey, I don't really think
you need to go hang out with that person.
Or hey, I think you need to go talk to that person and make sure they're having an okay
day.
You know, they might need a hug.
They might need you to pray for them.
Let's just go check on them.
Or it could be maybe, you know, in the form of a dream, the Holy Spirit shows you somebody
in your dream.
(36:52):
You wake up and you pray for that person.
You might find out the next day that that person was having a hard day that day and
you prayed for them.
You know, it could be anything and everything, you name it.
But also what the Holy Spirit does inside of us is Galatians 5 22 through 23 says, the
fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness,
self control against such things.
(37:13):
There is no law.
What that last part means is no one could say anything about love, about you loving
someone.
No one could say anything about you being joyful.
No one could say anything against you being having peace.
No one could say anything against you having patience or kindness or faithfulness toward
toward someone being loyal to them.
(37:33):
You know, no one could say anything about having against you about having self control
or gentleness or whatever.
Like no one could say anything against those things because there's nothing wrong with
them.
And when you have the Holy Spirit inside of you and as you grow closer to God in your
relationship with him, as you get to know him better, as you allow him to as you have
self discipline with these things, you will exude these fruits.
(37:55):
You will exude love, you will exude joy, peace, patience, kindness, and so on and so
forth because the Holy Spirit is inside of you because God is refining you through the
spirit inside of you and through your actions and through your obedience.
Because I have the Holy Spirit, I can have self discipline because my flesh is weak,
(38:17):
but the spirit inside of me is stronger than ever.
And he is the reason I can constantly I have access to God's strength all the time to say
yes for self discipline.
So it is work for me, but I wouldn't be able to do any of that work if it wasn't for God.
Wow, that was beautiful.
Thank you, God.
So yeah, there's salvation and maybe it was a good reminder for any Christians who are
(38:40):
maybe listening to this.
So yeah, I'm sure I could always talk about more, but that's what was on my mind, I guess.
Also there is I'm going to promote something.
Jesus Freaks is a kind of basically like a show.
It's a show that was made by Ashley Hetherington and Allie Yost and their little team of people
(39:04):
who helped them make this, who filmed it and edited it and all of that.
And the first season came out on YouTube.
It's geared towards young women.
And yeah, they're two single best friends who traveled across the country on a whim basically
because God led them to and they feel they don't feel alone from God.
(39:24):
They know God is with them, but they just feel very it's just hard because they're living
in the middle of LA and that the devil has his foot in that area for sure.
And not just his foot, but his hands, his whole body is there.
And so he's they're really struggling with some things, but they know God wants them
(39:45):
there.
And what they thought was not what they thought God wanted for their lives was just a lot
different from what's going on.
And so it's just a really raw and real thing.
And they just share that with us.
And I think that it's really good for you to go watch.
And they have a lot of good conversations, hard conversations that a lot of us can relate
(40:05):
to.
So Jesus Freaks first episodes for free on YouTube.
Allie Yost, Ashley Hetherington.
All right.
Well, I have a baby in here.
He's crying, so I need to go.
But thank you guys for listening to me ramble up.
Here he comes.
Anyway, hope you all have a great week.
Happy New Year.
Hey guys, welcome back to our worship warriors podcast.
(00:08):
Well what's up everybody?
Welcome back to our worship warriors podcast.
This is like so random of me to just record this right now because I literally have not
put an episode out there in like, I don't even know how long.
It's been a few months or at least a couple months.
I don't remember.
(00:28):
Well no, longer than a couple months.
Wow, it's been a few months.
Yeah, I just kind of fell off face to the earth with this ministry for a short bit,
but it was a good thing.
I needed it.
Yeah, and I also was not planning to record this until not even five minutes ago.
I was working on some stuff behind the scenes and I was like, you know, I don't really have
(00:52):
structure to my thoughts at the moment, but there's a lot of thoughts and maybe someone
can get something out of it.
So, yeah, and if this is posted, then the Holy Spirit led me to post it and we'll see
if it's posted in a week or two.
So anyway, but it is currently when I'm recording this, December 30th.
(01:15):
We are one day away from being January.
Well, I guess two days, I guess.
But yeah, so like we have one day left of December and then it's 2025.
Which is crazy.
This episode is just going to be me kind of rambling about some things, but it's not like
like there's there's good thoughts to it.
Like there's a lot going on.
(01:36):
But yeah, so it's almost 2025.
And yeah, if you're new here, my name is Sarah.
Sarah Lee, not the baking company, Sarah Lee.
I'm sure a lot of you are thinking that because everyone makes that comment.
I am 24.
I'm married to my wonderful husband, Casey, and we have a beautiful little boy.
He is two.
(01:56):
His name is Markham.
And I have a ministry here online, Worship Warrior Lifestyle, where I basically just put
whatever God leads me to out there about living a life, a lifestyle of worship.
But we are also warriors.
We are soldiers of God if we are Christians.
And when you are born into this world, you are you are already in a war.
(02:20):
Satan hates you.
He doesn't.
He hates God.
And he despises you, he wants to destroy you.
That is scripture.
And honestly, I can just tell you from experience, it's true.
So I am fighting the fight every day.
It is so hard living in this world in general, but especially as a Christian.
And but the good thing is, as a Christian, I do have hope and I do have God and he is
(02:43):
the best thing ever.
And so that's what this is about.
It's just living life here on Earth.
And it's about all the things.
There's not really any one specific thing.
It's just all of the things that God leads me to talk about within that.
So it could be anything and everything.
So yeah, that's who I am.
And that's this ministry.
Yeah, we have a website, a blog, a podcast.
(03:06):
Like I've said, I've been kind of in my eight, but I am here and there's still some good
stuff out there that the Holy Spirit has prompted me to put out there that you can read, go
back and read or listen to lots of episodes you can listen to.
So yeah, anyway, I've had some thoughts though lately and not just lately, it's been for
a while.
I've been going through a lot of things spiritually and the Lord has really been teaching things.
(03:33):
And I know it's stuff that a lot of you could probably relate to or some of you at least.
I know at least some of you.
And yes, I don't really know where this is going, but we're going to just talk about
some of those things.
You know, the first thing that's on my mind I've been really going through is my husband
and I have been trying to find a church home for literally, it feels like a freaking decade,
(03:56):
but it's been at least a year.
Honestly, I think it's been almost the entirety of my son's life and he's two.
And two years old, when you talk about how you have a two year old kid like, oh, that's
not very long or that's not very old.
But then you talk about how you've been trying to find a church home and going visiting different
(04:16):
churches for almost two years and it's like, wow, that's a long time.
It is like it's a long time.
My son was born in, let's see, September 2022.
And we went to this amazing church at the time we were we had been there for a while.
And then he I don't remember if he was one yet.
(04:38):
I feel like he wasn't quite one.
But actually, no, I think he was one.
So maybe it was like half of his life that we've been.
So it's been like a year.
OK, so I lied.
So it's been probably a year or so.
It's still a long time to just be going from church to church.
And that entire time, we didn't have a community like at all.
My husband had like no guy friends.
(05:00):
I had very few girlfriends and very few meaning like, well, as far as like good close Christian
friends that I could really just pour my spiritual life out to and talk to a lot.
And we were going through ebbs and flows of being like around each other and talking a
lot because we were going through such different things in life and our day, our weekly life
(05:23):
just didn't align at all and not even like our monthly life didn't align at all.
Nothing aligned.
We are so close and we do talk a lot more now, but I just didn't have a constant friend
that was a Christian.
And so it was really lonely at times.
I do have a good friend who's not a Christian, but it's just really hard to speak about spiritual
(05:44):
things when you just don't have a Christian community.
You're around your son all day and another little boy.
I watch another little boy.
So you're just around kids all day and I love them and I love my job, but it's just not
easy.
Felt a lot of loneliness that I had never really been through in that way before.
(06:05):
So that was new.
And my husband didn't really have a community at all.
He had one guy for a while that would mentor him, but it's not the same as having a good
friend that you can rely on.
At least not, I say mentor.
It wasn't really a mentor.
They did a Bible study once a week, but they didn't ever get super, super close.
(06:27):
So anyway, we just had a hard time with that.
So I know a lot of you can relate to that, but God is good and it's been well.
So the friendship thing, not having a lot of friends and not having any friends really,
that went on for longer than the year though.
That was it just then.
We did have a good community at the church we were at, but it was too far away.
(06:48):
It was like a 45 minute drive, so we couldn't even hang out with those people.
Not very easily.
You'd have to go way out of your way on both sides to hang out.
And we couldn't just invite people over to our house for dinner, like our apartment for
dinner or whatever, because I always felt bad because they would have to drive 45 minutes
at least, some of them further.
Some of them would be over an hour.
(07:09):
So that's just like, it's just not realistic.
And that's the main reason we knew God was leading us to go somewhere else, because we
just couldn't find community.
And that's what you need in a church.
You need community.
You need a family.
And we just couldn't have that there.
And it was really sad because it was an amazing church, but yeah, it is what it is.
But anyway, so we, God is good though.
(07:31):
We've been going through the lonely spell with friends and stuff for a while.
And now we do have a church that we're going to, and we are going to become members at
Plan To and soon-ish.
And when we get through that process, it'll be a little bit.
But anyway, so I feel very comfortable.
(07:52):
At least people are amazing.
It's the same church my parents go to, which y'all, you don't know my whole life, but it's
just crazy that I'm going to the same church as my parents.
I didn't think I would be doing that for a while, if ever again, really.
It just surprised me where we ended up.
But God has a sense of humor and he knows what he's doing.
So anyways, we ended up there and we just literally just last night started going to,
(08:16):
I guess, so most churches called a community group.
We just started going to this one.
Last night was our first meeting with them.
Well, not their first meeting, but our first time going to it.
And it was really good.
We already knew some of the people in the group.
So that was, it was kind of easy to just step in and be comfortable, you know, so that was
(08:37):
nice.
And a lot of them are around our age and yeah, it's great.
So we're finally, finally finding community and it's just perfect.
So really great.
And I also just joined online, like literally yesterday or two days ago or something two
days ago.
(08:57):
You have to pay for it, but you, you do a monthly or an annual though.
And I think it's 15 bucks a month or you can do for the annual.
It ends up being 10 bucks a month in the long run.
So I just joined it and it's called The Tree and it's by Ashley Hetherington.
And a lot of young women, Christian women know who she is in the Christian online influencer
(09:22):
community or whatever.
She's amazing.
I've been following her YouTube for years and I really wanted to join The Tree a long
time ago, like when she first came out with it and it's just, but I couldn't find it.
Well, I don't remember.
I think I could afford it then, but I don't remember why.
I think I just wasn't as close to God.
So I didn't really, I knew I wasn't going to actually follow through and I, you know,
(09:46):
when you're not close to God, you don't want to have to be held accountable for things
because you don't want to do those things.
Oh, I don't know if I said that right, but hopefully that made sense.
But anyway, and so I didn't join it and it's a good thing I didn't because I think it would
have gone to waste and I wouldn't have appreciated it as much as I do now or will now because
I literally just started it.
But I did join it a couple of days ago and it's just an online community of a bunch of
(10:12):
young girls and maybe some older, I don't know the ages in there, but probably mostly
younger ish.
And yeah, just Christian women wanting to grow closer to God and actually need accountability
and have that accountability and they have challenges in there for you to do.
They have different Bible studies and devotionals that come out, things that you don't get just
(10:36):
on her YouTube channel.
And I just joined that and I'm super excited to see how this helps me grow.
But yeah, I just am very excited.
I followed her journey for so long and I just think it's so fun to be able to get to be
a part of this now and get to benefit a lot from it.
(10:57):
I've already had a little bit of interaction from some people in the group, so that's really
fun.
Yeah, and I may not have any like strong friendships come out of this, but I might, you never know.
But I at least have a community to help keep me somewhat accountable, even if it is just
online and that is better than what I had before.
So that's really great.
(11:18):
So anyway, that's been going on.
So if you, I guess that would be an encouragement to you if you've been trying to find community,
just keep praying and be faithful to God.
You know, I would say just keep being faithful to God.
I was, God is still faithful to you though, even if you're not faithful to him, but you
can't, that doesn't mean you just not do anything.
(11:41):
You know, you still need to be faithful to him because you actually won't, I believe
you will not see the results of God's faithfulness as much if you are not faithful to him because
you're going to, in the end, if you're not faithful to him, then you're not even living
a life with him and for him.
So those things won't be happening.
(12:03):
The things that could be happening in your life won't be happening, at least not as much
or at all maybe, if you're not following him and living a life with him and for him.
So yeah, I feel like I'm stumbling a little on my words, but the Holy Spirit is here,
(12:24):
so I'm believing that it's making sense, at least for the most part.
But anyway, so yeah, what I was going to say along with that was even if you're not faithful,
God is still faithful to you and I believe we all need to hear that at some point in
time, sometimes multiple times if you're me, you know, often because this year I 100% was
(12:46):
not faithful the entire time to God.
I went through some really low points, not, maybe not like I, well, low points meaning
mentally I just was struggling with some things.
We all struggle mentally, you know, and we go, like I was saying earlier, we go through
ebbs and flows with things and we should never be going through ebbs and flows with God,
(13:06):
but the reality is that we oftentimes we do, like we all have at some point.
And if you haven't, I mean, I'm not saying everybody has, I'm sure there's some people
who like I know a guy who I'm a little jealous, you know, not like an unhealthy, you know,
sinful jealousy, but like I just, I wish I had this testimony where when he started following
God, he went hardcore and he's still to this day 10 or 11 years later, I can't remember
(13:30):
exactly, he is still faithful to God.
And I'm not saying he's never sinned, obviously, like he's a human being, I know he's sinned,
but he has just been faithful to God overall, like the 100% of the time and that's amazing
to me.
And so I definitely have never, I can't say that, but yeah, I, God has really renewed
(13:53):
me and renewed my, my faith, my mind, this, the past few months and well, the past few
years, but like the past few months, there's just been a lot of stuff going on with me
and it's been really beautiful.
It's been really hard, but it's been really beautiful.
Yeah.
So just stay faithful to God and you will see the fruits and even if you don't see exactly
(14:18):
what you were hoping you'd see, you're going to see something even better.
You're going to see what you need and it won't only benefit you, but it'll benefit the people
around them.
So be around you.
So be faithful in that, you know.
Yeah.
So that's a big thing that's been going on lately.
Also the big, big thing that's going on right now with everybody since it's the new year
(14:40):
is your new year resolutions.
And you know, I, I'm fine with new year resolutions.
I don't have anything against them.
I've done them before.
Last year I did them.
I failed half of them, but there were a lot.
But honestly, like I think you still need to have some sort of a mindset goal shift
or goal list or something, you know, something for the year to come, whether it be mid year,
(15:01):
quarter, way through the year, beginning of the year, whatever, because it just reminds
you of this is, you know, this represents a new, like a fresh start or maybe a continuation
and a growth from what you went through this past year.
But, and I think it's good to have dreams and goals.
I think it's healthy.
I think it's a thing that you could really use to glorify God.
(15:22):
And even if you fail half of your, like, say you have 20 resolutions or whatever, like
don't, I don't know.
I mean, I guess it depends five, five to 20, whatever you have.
I think that that's fine.
But then you also need to remember that it's not, your list is not God.
God is God.
And you need to open your, like have your list in your hands and give it up to God and
(15:46):
say, all right, I just, the main thing that I need to have is self-discipline and stick
with you, God, you know, be faithful to you, stay in your word, talk to you and not push
you aside or push you behind me and have you guide the way you be in front of me the whole
time.
And then we'll see what happens with this list.
(16:07):
But I think it's important to, to make lists or however you do it, you know, just so you
know, vision.
Oh yeah, that's good, God.
Okay.
So I think it's important to have dreams and goals and lists or however you do it, your
vision boards, whatever, because God could really show you things through those things.
(16:31):
And say you make a list, what I was saying earlier, this kind of ties into what I'm thinking
now.
So God brought it back.
Good job, God, because I didn't know where I was going.
So you could have your list of 20 things or whatever, but say the end of the year comes
and you've only actually stuck with literally one of those things.
Well, you know, the trying to succeed and failing with all the other ones is going to
(16:52):
show you and like, it's going to grow you a lot.
Oh, sorry, my phone's ringing.
Hold on.
It's going to grow you a lot, but it's also going to show you so many things about yourself
that you probably didn't see before, or it's going to show you what you need to work on.
It's going to show you what your strengths are.
It's going to maybe your failure at those things is not, it's going to help others grow
(17:14):
closer to God.
And then maybe the one thing you succeeded at, you can say, man, I had self-discipline
with all these things.
I was obedient to God and he was so faithful and all of these things happened to me and
to others or whatever, you know, it was through me having self-discipline through this and
using the Lord's strength to have self-discipline for this.
And that's amazing.
Like, if you can stick to at least one thing on your list all year long, girl, that is,
(17:38):
that is wow.
I don't know that I can even say I did that this year.
And you know, a lot of those things may, you know, the things that you failed, maybe it
wasn't that maybe it was God showing you I didn't really want that on the list.
Like that wasn't a priority that you needed to have.
So I'm showing you that that's not a priority, but this is.
And so, yeah, it's like so many good things could come from that.
(18:00):
But yeah, I think I think it's 100% important to have goals and dreams and lists at the
new year, throughout the year, whatever.
My thing this year, though, I was going to lead into this eventually, but I don't have
a list and I 100% fine with that.
My list is not a list.
It's not a vision board.
(18:21):
But I have it in my head.
And this is what it is like.
Well, it's a lot of things.
But the main thing is I just I don't want to fail anymore.
I want to have I want to have a strong relationship with God and I don't want to distance myself
from him, not one bit this year.
And that seems so simple, but it's not because you say that and what that entails is so many
(18:46):
things.
That means having self-discipline in all areas of my life.
And that means if I do fail one day, I'm not going to keep failing the next day.
I'm going to get back up and say, I failed yesterday.
I failed this week.
But this week is going to be better.
This day is going to be better.
And I'm going to like I'm going to.
It's not.
(19:06):
It's a choice to have self-discipline.
And I want to do that.
I was talking to my husband the other day and I was writing.
I don't remember exactly how it came up.
I think it was something we've been going through this Philippians study together.
And I think I think one of the days in our study book or whatever prompted this or whatever.
(19:28):
I think yeah, I think that's what it was.
It prompted me to do this or inspired me to do this or something.
And I wrote down the things that I was really struggling with and literally all of them
had to do with self-discipline.
And you know, I've thought about this before, but it really got me thinking again about
self-discipline and I would I can't say my laptop's making noise.
(19:51):
I can't say that every single thing I'd have to think about everything to be able to say
that this statement.
But I would say most things, if not everything, leads back to self-discipline when it comes
to our struggles.
And honestly, I want to say everything, but again, it may not be everything, but most
everything leads back to self-discipline.
(20:13):
All of our mental health issues that we go through, all of our emotional issues, all
of our spiritual issues, all of our physical issues, most of the time lead back to self-discipline.
You know, yeah, I mean, I'm just going to leave that there.
If you say, oh, no, it's not Sarah, really think about it and maybe it is.
Maybe you didn't realize it was, but it is.
(20:35):
And yeah, ask God about it.
You know, maybe you're struggling with something and you don't know what the core issue is.
You don't know how to address it.
It might be self-discipline.
And yeah, you know, struggling with a sin cycle, that's 100% self-discipline.
You know, struggling with your health.
Well, maybe you need to exercise more.
That takes self-discipline.
Maybe you need to eat better.
(20:56):
That takes self-discipline.
You know, maybe it's you don't know if you have a health issue or not, but this.
Oh, sorry, I bumped the mic.
Maybe something's going on and it could be because of a health issue.
Go get a scan of your body and figure it out and then pray about it before you do anything
else.
Like don't just listen to the doctor.
Pray to God first.
You know, say, is this something?
Can you show me God?
(21:17):
Is this something I can I can have self-discipline with or is there something I can have self-discipline
with to heal this part that I'm struggling with, you know, physically?
And yeah, I mean, it literally could be anything.
I don't know.
Those were just some random things that popped in my head.
But struggling with addiction.
Oh, that's a sin cycle.
I guess I covered that, you know, just self-discipline, man.
(21:37):
And how do you have self-discipline?
Well, you have self-discipline through God.
Like you just the first thing you need to do to have to have self-discipline with any
area in your life, you have to first have self-discipline with your relationship with
God and then the self-discipline and all the other areas come.
(21:58):
Something like one example that a lot of people can relate to because everybody talks about
it all the time.
Working out, exercising.
Some people gag at the thought of working out, but working out could literally just
mean going for a 30 minute good walk.
So let's just think about it that way.
Let's just say exercise in general in order to have exercise in general.
Or to have, sorry, to have self-discipline with exercise in general, I personally, this
(22:23):
is me, Sarah, talking about my life.
I am not going to exercise as much as I need to.
I'm not going to be moving my body as much as I need to if I personally am not in the
Word.
I know this from experience.
I'm not going to keep up with making sure that I am moving my body enough to where it
is a healthy body inside and out if I am not in my Word and talking to God on a daily basis.
(22:45):
I know this from experience.
Everything else is the same thing.
You say, okay, well, Sarah, these other people have self-discipline about things.
Yeah, you know why?
Oh my gosh, this is something else God has been teaching me.
I was wondering how people, like you could go on YouTube and you see all these like,
well, if we're sticking on the topic of health and fitness, you see all these people, non-Christians,
(23:08):
very worldly people, exercising all the time.
They have healthy bodies.
They are eating right.
And you're like, okay, well, they have self-discipline.
And they're not in their Word.
You are 100% correct.
But you know what?
Self-discipline comes from God.
God gives us morals.
As people, we have these morals.
And if you don't believe in God, then where are your morals coming from?
(23:34):
If there's no God, then there's no good or bad.
There's no such thing as good or bad.
So where is your good and bad coming from?
Why do you have morals?
Did they just pop out of nowhere when the Big Bang happened?
No, that's stupid.
That is so stupid.
You have morals because God has morals.
And he instilled his morals inside of you.
(23:54):
So even if you are not a Christian, you know it's not okay to just walk up to someone random
and shoot them in the head.
It's not okay to lie all the time.
It causes problems.
You see the fruit of that.
It's not okay to be hateful toward people.
You see the fruit of gossiping.
That is hateful.
Don't gossip.
You know it's not right.
(24:15):
You know it in your heart.
Why?
Because God instilled morals inside of you.
So self-discipline comes from God.
And it is obvious to anyone with a brain that you need to have self-discipline in order
for anything to have results in the future.
You know, speaking again on health and fitness, if you are overweight and it's causing health
(24:41):
problems, if you are unhealthy physically on the outside, you need to address that so
that you can have a healthier lifestyle in the future.
But you're not going to be healthy in the future if you don't have self-discipline with
what you're eating or going to the doctor and addressing a certain issue or talking
to God about a certain issue with your health or exercising enough and eating healthy.
(25:02):
I can't remember which one I said already.
But anyway, you have to have self-discipline with those things.
And if you don't have self-discipline with those things, then you're never going to see
results of you being healthy.
Same with if you're struggling with a, I don't know, struggling with addiction to a drug,
(25:22):
you know, or alcohol or whatever.
You have to have self-discipline to get away from those things so that you stop getting
black out drunk all the time and doing things while you're drunk that you don't need to
be doing because it's affecting yourself and others negatively.
You know, you're struggling mentally because of your addiction.
You're having physical health problems because of your addiction.
(25:44):
Like it literally could be anything.
You're having nightmares because of your addiction.
Like literally anything.
You're hearing voices, you know, because of your addiction.
You have to have self-discipline.
And God instills this mentality of, I know I need to have self-discipline to get away
from these things.
I see worldly people, non-Christians, who have self-discipline.
(26:06):
It's because they see the future and what it could be and they just do it.
And a hundred, like I am proud of those people for doing that thing.
But here's the thing.
Here's the difference between if I had self-discipline and a non-Christian had self-discipline.
Mine has eternal results.
Those people are going to have self-discipline and it might benefit them while they're here
(26:26):
on earth, but it's literally doing no actual good for them or the people around them because
they're still going to end up in hell.
Whereas if a Christian were to have self-discipline and stay in their word and have self-discipline
in their relationship with God, and then they also have self-discipline in other areas like
in health and fitness, their self-discipline, health and fitness might be an encouragement
(26:50):
for others around them, non-Christians and Christians alike, which then could lead those
other people closer to God because you have that self-discipline, health and fitness because
you have self-discipline in your relationship with God and God is telling you that you need
to have self-discipline in that health and fitness area or whatever area it is, in that
addiction area, whatever.
You get, you know, you have self-discipline in those areas, they lead you closer to God,
(27:12):
they lead others closer to God and those people could be saved.
Those people are going to heaven.
It has eternal benefits and that is the difference in self-discipline of the world and self-discipline
of God.
They're, they look very similar, but the outcome of them, the things, the fruit that comes
from them is so different and the devil, oh, he is so, that's the thing, he's not sneaky.
(27:41):
How's it going to say sneaky?
He's not sneaky.
He's so open about his tactics.
We're just idiots, honestly, but he's so open about his tactics.
We're just, we just miss it.
We're so simple-minded, we're foolish and man, he takes these things and he makes it
seem like they're the same, like, oh, it's no big deal that Sarah has self-discipline
(28:03):
in her, you know, fitness journey, her health journey, whatever the heck we're talking about,
addiction, like we were talking about, whatever, you know, like that's great, but so does Bob
over here who's not a Christian.
So it doesn't make a difference whether you're a Christian or not and have self-discipline.
He makes it look like they're the same.
That way you don't feel like you need God to have self-discipline, but you do in order
(28:28):
to have self-discipline that matters because you're literally, it's just like having self-discipline
in an area of life when you're not saved and you're not leading others to God, literally
a waste of time.
I mean, it's not a waste of time.
I'm not saying you don't need to have self-discipline because you don't need to live a miserable
life stuck in addiction.
You know, you don't need that.
You don't need to be, you know, and maybe God can use you as a non-Christian having
(28:50):
self-discipline in those areas.
You know, he can use that to glorify him to where one day maybe you will see that you
need him and that without him you could, I don't know, whatever, like he can use those
things to glorify him and you could be saved from that.
So I'm not saying it's pointless completely, but what I'm saying is if you don't have God,
(29:14):
self-discipline most of the time, most of the time, it's not going to have fruit that
lasts eternally.
And that's just sad.
And it makes me angry that the devil is, like we're allowing him to do a good job at his
(29:35):
job.
He can't do a good job on his own.
We are the ones allowing him to do a good job.
We are the ones who are making his job, like making him actually good at his job.
We are the, let me say that again, we are the reason the devil is good at his job because
we just allow him to do whatever he wants in our lives.
(29:59):
And a big thing in this world that he does a good job at is pretending like self-discipline
between Christians and non-Christians is the same, but it's 100% not.
Man.
Hmm.
I just pray that my self-discipline leads others to God.
(30:25):
I really do.
So my New Year's resolution is just self-discipline this year, whatever that looks like.
I know that it definitely looks like staying faithful to God, no matter what.
But then so many things, like I can't even count how many things could happen underneath
(30:51):
that main goal.
So it's really exciting.
I don't sound excited, but I am excited.
I'm so excited.
I'm already tired just thinking about it though.
Like it's going to be so tiring, but I know that I'll find rest.
I know that I will because when you are in the spirit, he is a spirit of rest.
(31:15):
Like your spirit is at rest when you are in the spirit, in the Holy Spirit.
And for anyone who might be listening to this who doesn't really know some of the basic
and maybe more complicated Christianity terms, and maybe you're not saved, so you're really
confused right now.
But what I mean by that is the Holy Spirit, if you are saved, you have accepted God's
(31:37):
beautiful gift.
God the Father, there's the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.
They are three in one.
I'm not going to explain that right now, but go to the Word, kind of read up on that.
Maybe the Lord, I'm going to pray right now in my heart that the Lord will reveal that
to you what it means.
Anyway, but God the Father, part of the God of the Trinity, sent his Son Jesus Christ,
(32:08):
who we hear about more than the other two.
When we talk about history and stuff of God, we talk about Jesus a lot.
Well, Jesus Christ is God, but he's the Father Son.
He's God the Father Son.
And he came onto earth in the form of a baby.
That's why we talk about that at Christmas.
We celebrate Jesus' birth at Christmas.
(32:29):
He was born as a baby, grew up perfect, sinless life.
He never once did anything wrong.
He never had an evil thought.
He never had a hateful thought.
He was tempted, just like we were.
Scripture says that.
The devil tempted him, but he turned away from that temptation.
He didn't even think about doing it.
He was like, absolutely freaking not, because God is so much better than what would happen
if I sinned.
(32:52):
My Father knows what's best.
You Satan, get out.
Get away.
You're not going to be any Satan.
So he lived a sinless life.
And because of that, we sinned, which means we are separated from God when we sin, which
means that when we die, we can't live with God forever because we disobeyed him.
(33:12):
We would go to hell.
Jesus Christ came to earth as our sacrifice.
He was perfect.
So in order to defeat death, you have to be the opposite of death, which is life.
Because we are sinners, we now are grouped into that, the death side.
We can't be perfect.
We can't be life because we've already messed that up.
(33:34):
There's no chance that I'm ever going to be perfect completely now because I've ruined
that.
But because Jesus Christ didn't sin, he is perfect.
He is whole.
He is life.
So in order to defeat death, you have to always use this example of going into a boxing ring.
Who is the only or what is the only thing that can go up against death?
What is the complete opposite of that?
(33:56):
Life.
So life, Jesus Christ went in the boxing ring against death, Satan.
And he defeated death.
He defeated Satan.
And how did he do that?
You have to first, in order to defeat your opponent, you have to confront them.
So Jesus Christ confronted, life confronted the enemy, Satan, death, punched him in the
(34:18):
face and said, no.
And how do you actually, like what is the literal way of confronting death?
You have to be in the presence of death, which means you are dead.
When you're in that presence of death and you're confronting it, what Jesus did is he
came back to life.
That is how you defeat it.
If you don't defeat death, you stay dead.
But if you defeat death, you punched in the face, you confront it, you punched in the
(34:41):
face, you knock it down, you step on its head, you kick it, whatever the heck you want to
do, do what you want.
It's death.
Do it all.
You walk away.
You walk away from it.
And that's what Jesus did.
But we can't do that on our own.
But God, or Jesus Christ is God and he did that.
And since he's the only one out of anyone who could ever defeat death, he is the only
(35:01):
way that we can get to heaven.
Because he is life.
And heaven is life.
Hell is death for eternity.
Heaven is life for eternity.
So we have to go through the one who defeated death in order to get to heaven.
So salvation, when we are saved, when we refer to that, means that you know all of that,
(35:23):
that I just explained to you.
You believe it in your heart.
You believe it in your mind.
And you say, God, I want to accept this gift.
I want you to be the God of my life.
I want you to guide my life.
I want you to tell me what to do, because you know what's best.
I want to have a relationship with you because you created me and you love me and you're
intentional with me.
And I want to love you back by obeying you and talking to you and being in your word
(35:46):
and listening to you.
And that's what that is.
When you believe that and you want those things and you say that to God, you're saved.
You're his forever.
And then when you die, you'll go to heaven.
But we gotta, that's not the end of it though.
That's just the beginning of the rest of your life here on earth.
And then when you die, you go to heaven.
That's the rest of your eternity.
(36:07):
So how do you start living for God?
Well, whenever you're saved, whenever you accept God's gift of salvation, everything
I just explained, he now, because of what Jesus Christ did for you, he made a way for
you to have the Holy Spirit inside of you.
And when you have that Holy Spirit inside of you, literally, the Spirit of God is inside
(36:31):
of you.
And the Spirit of God will guide you and prompt you and tell you, hey, I don't really think
you need to go hang out with that person.
Or hey, I think you need to go talk to that person and make sure they're having an okay
day.
You know, they might need a hug.
They might need you to pray for them.
Let's just go check on them.
Or it could be maybe, you know, in the form of a dream, the Holy Spirit shows you somebody
in your dream.
(36:52):
You wake up and you pray for that person.
You might find out the next day that that person was having a hard day that day and
you prayed for them.
You know, it could be anything and everything, you name it.
But also what the Holy Spirit does inside of us is Galatians 5 22 through 23 says, the
fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness,
self control against such things.
(37:13):
There is no law.
What that last part means is no one could say anything about love, about you loving
someone.
No one could say anything about you being joyful.
No one could say anything against you being having peace.
No one could say anything against you having patience or kindness or faithfulness toward
toward someone being loyal to them.
(37:33):
You know, no one could say anything about having against you about having self control
or gentleness or whatever.
Like no one could say anything against those things because there's nothing wrong with
them.
And when you have the Holy Spirit inside of you and as you grow closer to God in your
relationship with him, as you get to know him better, as you allow him to as you have
self discipline with these things, you will exude these fruits.
(37:55):
You will exude love, you will exude joy, peace, patience, kindness, and so on and so
forth because the Holy Spirit is inside of you because God is refining you through the
spirit inside of you and through your actions and through your obedience.
Because I have the Holy Spirit, I can have self discipline because my flesh is weak,
(38:17):
but the spirit inside of me is stronger than ever.
And he is the reason I can constantly I have access to God's strength all the time to say
yes for self discipline.
So it is work for me, but I wouldn't be able to do any of that work if it wasn't for God.
Wow, that was beautiful.
Thank you, God.
So yeah, there's salvation and maybe it was a good reminder for any Christians who are
(38:40):
maybe listening to this.
So yeah, I'm sure I could always talk about more, but that's what was on my mind, I guess.
Also there is I'm going to promote something.
Jesus Freaks is a kind of basically like a show.
It's a show that was made by Ashley Hetherington and Allie Yost and their little team of people
(39:04):
who helped them make this, who filmed it and edited it and all of that.
And the first season came out on YouTube.
It's geared towards young women.
And yeah, they're two single best friends who traveled across the country on a whim basically
because God led them to and they feel they don't feel alone from God.
(39:24):
They know God is with them, but they just feel very it's just hard because they're living
in the middle of LA and that the devil has his foot in that area for sure.
And not just his foot, but his hands, his whole body is there.
And so he's they're really struggling with some things, but they know God wants them
(39:45):
there.
And what they thought was not what they thought God wanted for their lives was just a lot
different from what's going on.
And so it's just a really raw and real thing.
And they just share that with us.
And I think that it's really good for you to go watch.
And they have a lot of good conversations, hard conversations that a lot of us can relate
(40:05):
to.
So Jesus Freaks first episodes for free on YouTube.
Allie Yost, Ashley Hetherington.
All right.
Well, I have a baby in here.
He's crying, so I need to go.
But thank you guys for listening to me ramble up.
Here he comes.
Anyway, hope you all have a great week.
Happy New Year.
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