July 19, 2024 • 39 mins
Hey, guys! Thanks for listening to this weeks episode of A Worship Warrior's Podcast. I hope you all grew closer to God through this episode. Remember to share with someone you love.
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Episode Transcript
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Holy Spirit, help me focus. Give me the energy I need, God.
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I'm so tired today, but I know that it is your will for me to record this.
I know that you're going to give me the energy I need.
I pray for every single person listening to this that you would just soften their hearts
towards your word. Soften their hearts toward anything that you say through me, God.
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I pray that if they don't know you personally, that they would realize that you're more than
just this guy who created the world and left everything else to us, God. That you're going
to be involved in our lives and not just involved, but you want to be the center of our lives
because you love us and you know what's best for us. And what's best for us is glorifying
you because then our lives are just going to be so filled with your fruit and so filled
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with love and compassion and peace and joy. And who doesn't want that, God?
So I thank you for every single soul listening to this and I pray that they would just realize
that they're more than what they are now. That they are worth it to the creator to have a
relationship with. That they are just worth me coming on here and praying for them individually.
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They're worth that and that they're loved. And God, I just pray that they would just see
that you are just amazing through the words that are spoken on this podcast today. And
Jesus, in my prayer, amen.
Hey guys, welcome back to our Worship Warriors podcast.
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Welcome back guys. Welcome back to our Worship Warriors podcast. If you're new here, my name
is Sarah Lee. I'm your host and I'm very tired today but I also know that the Lord is going
to give me the energy I need to do this. I'm also excited about this topic. I'm also not
excited about this topic though because this is a really hard topic and I'm really praying
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that I don't mess this message up and just really fully allow the Holy Spirit to speak
through me. We're not going to talk super in depth about everything so it's just such a hard topic
to do to live out. It's not really hard to understand but it is hard to live out. I don't
know. I just pray that this blesses you. I know it will if you just allow it to. The blessing is
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there. You just have to reach out and grab it and look at it. All right, so we're just going to jump
in. I'm not a beat around the bush kind of person most of the time as most of you know if you're a
returning person here. So today we're going to be talking about prioritizing God and what that
actually means. So last week we talked about guarding your heart and what that actually looks
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like it means and I had an analogy to explain it. So go back and listen to that. I was going to do
prioritizing your heart as the very first episode of season two but God really took me in a different
direction. He wanted me to do guarding your hearts first and I think that it's important
since he wanted it in that order specifically. So I think it's important that you go back and
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listen to that first. You don't have to but I mean if God wanted it in that order to come out
then maybe you should listen to it in that order. So just a suggestion.
All right, so let's just jump right in. What does it actually mean to prioritize God? Well first and
foremost I want to talk about this kind of messed up ideology behind what it means to prioritize God
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and that is that it's just so surface level and that's messed up. Prioritizing God should not
be portrayed as something that is surface level. Prioritizing God is so personal and so
level. Prioritizing God is so personable. It is so beautiful and it is literally a daily and minute
by minute thing. Action by action thing, thought by thought thing, word by word thing. Prioritizing
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God is literally a lifestyle. It is actually a lifestyle and it is the root. How do I say this?
Prioritizing God, imagine a tree. Prioritizing God are the roots of this tree and then this
the roots flourish up into this beautiful big tree and this beautiful big tree is
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worshiping God. So everything we do should be glorifying God which means it is worship. If you
are worshiping God it means you're glorifying God. So that could be in every action that you do if
you're glorifying God, you're worshiping God through that. If you are singing a beautiful song to God,
you're worshiping God. If you're praying, you are worshiping God by praying because you are
just in awe of him and you want to talk to him and you're glorifying him in that way.
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All these things that you do genuinely for the glory of God is worship and so that is your tree
but underneath that worship means that you're prioritizing God in that moment of worship
and if we are to make it a lifestyle as we should because God is just not a moment here and there
that we are like oh yeah I recognize that God created me and then you move on and do whatever
your flesh wants to and whatever the world is telling you to do then you're not really living
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for God and you're not really truly a Christian. You're not really truly following Christ which is
what Christian means a follower of Christ. So in order to prioritize God we need to make it a
lifestyle. So prioritizing God is the roots, worship is the tree. So we see worship on the surface
but worship underneath means that you're prioritizing God. Wow that was beautiful. I did not even think
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of that before. That was so beautiful. Thank you God. Okay at least I think it was. Maybe it's
only gonna bless me. We'll see. Hopefully it'll bless somebody else. Hopefully it was actually
you know it made sense. But anyway so prioritizing God like I said it's a lifestyle. So
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I believe that God wanted me to talk about guarding your hearts last week because if you don't guard
your heart then it's going to be really hard to prioritize God a lot of the time because you have
all of this yucky duck from the devil that you're just allowing into your heart and whenever you
allow all that into your heart it's really hard to discern what is from God and what is from the
devil. Well sometimes it's not like sometimes it's black and white like oh that is full on
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not accorded and like that is not God's principles. And so I think that's the
principles. So it's obvious but there are many times where whenever you are well for instance
when you're allowing all this duck into your heart like you're watching all these things that you
don't need to be watching you are saying you're allowing you know or like you're listening to
music that is just really just awful just disgusting stuff and you're just allowing it into
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your mind and your heart. These ideologies these things that you're allowing into your heart even
if you know it's not of God you're still allowing it in there and you're dirtying up the Holy Spirit's
home. The Holy Spirit is dwelling inside of you and you're dirtying up his home and so then whenever
the Holy Spirit is telling you to do something or to say something or reminding you of something or
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convicting you of something you can't it's really muffled because he's just covered with all of this
trash that you have allowed in his home and you haven't cleaned it up. You're not cleaning up his
home to where you can actually see him clearly and walk to him without walking on trash. You have to
clean up your home and it takes time to do that and it takes transformation that's what cleaning up
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that home is. That's transformation. We're going to talk a little bit about that in a second.
So you can't really fully prioritize God whenever you're not guarding your heart.
So I believe that that's why he wanted me to put that pod out there for that episode out there first.
What is prioritizing God? If you were to put a definition to what prioritizing God is,
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I have kind of put this definition together and I think it covers pretty much everything
but I believe that this really sums up the gist of what prioritizing God means.
Putting God's principles, will, guidelines, and time above our own.
Putting God's principles, will, guidelines, and time above your own. So let's talk,
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let's break it down a little bit and talk about that. So if you look up just the basic definition
in dictionary.com, if you look up the definition of prioritize, it says to organize or deal with
something according to its importance. I think I actually when I wrote these notes kind of compiled
two definitions but they basically said the same thing and that was this to organize or deal with
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something according to its importance. So prioritizing something, if you're taking the
world's definition that I just read, it's prioritizing something or someone so it could be in your
marriage, a friendship, a family member, a friend, whatever. If you're going to prioritize that person
then you're going to deal with them or interact with them according to their importance,
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importance versus the other things in your life and the other people.
So for instance, if you think your spouse is the most important person in your life and you need
to make sure that you're prioritizing them above everyone else, then you're going to do that.
You're going to deal with them or interact with them in a manner that shows that you are putting
them first. So that's just an example. Same with other things like objects or hobbies or your job
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or whatever it is. Like you prioritize those and the world sees how important it is to you
by how you interact with those things and do those things in level of importance in your life.
So putting God's principles, will, guidelines, and time above your own.
Let's kind of break that down and talk about that. So as we were talking about guarding your heart
that shows my first point here, which is it starts inwardly. Prioritizing God, it's not this surface
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level thing. Like we were saying, you start with a simple thing and then you start with a simple
thing. It's not this surface level thing. Like we were saying, you see the tree, but what's
underneath the tree? The roots. The tree literally, it's not possible for the tree to grow, for the
worship to come to surface. If you're not prioritizing God underneath, if you don't have
those roots for the tree, you can't see the tree and it doesn't grow. So it starts inwardly. Matthew
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15, 18 through 20 says, but what comes out of the mouth comes from the heart and this defiles a
person. For from the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, sexual immoralities, thefts,
false testimonies, slander. These are the things that defile a person, but eating with unwashed
hands does not defile a person. So like this is saying, but what comes out of the mouth comes from
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the heart and this defiles a person. So that goes back to also guarding your heart. So it starts
inwardly with what you're allowing into your heart. Prioritizing God starts with that. If you are
allowing trash into the Holy Spirit's dwelling place and if you're, or AKA what that means is if
you are allowing garbage principles, garbage ideologies into your mind and your heart, then
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what's going to come out? Those same principles. And you may not speak like, I believe in this,
if you disagree. Like say you are listening to a song that speaks just something that you just
know that is not of God, but you are listening to it, you're jamming out to it, you think it
sounds cool. So you listen to it anyway, you're like in the comfort of your own home and no
non-believers are in your home listening to this and hearing goes into this. So you think it's fine
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to listen to it. But then whenever you, but then you're learning the words of the song.
So even though later on down the road, you're not going to speak the words of the song as if
you believe it, your actions are going to show what you are listening to. You're not going to be
this godly woman or godly man to the extent that you should be if you were just constantly
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listening to these songs. And it really does tamper with your beliefs inside your heart,
inside your mind, whenever you allow this junk into you, that's into you. That's why you have
to guard your heart. So it starts inwardly. What does that look like when we say putting his
principles and will above our own principles and will? And also putting his principles and will
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above other people's principles and wills, like the world's the devil's. God's principles, for
example, like God really harps on us to be humble, like make sure that you are humble. You should not
boast about your own words, you should not boast about your own gifts, you should not boast about
yourself at all. Make sure if anyone boasts about you, it's other people, not yourself. So you should
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be humble. We should have integrity, we should be diligent and hardworking. You know, we should show
others love according to God's love, like we see in 1 Corinthians 4, yeah, 4, 7, or 7. Whoa, whoa,
words, Sarah. What is happening with my brain? 13. 1 Corinthians 13, 4 through 7, kind of 8.
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Wow, I had it in my head, but then the numbers were just totally mixing up. Okay, 1 Corinthians 13,
4 through 7 shows us what love is. So for instance, you know, abiding by the principles that we see
in that passage of what love truly is and loving others according to those principles. Or for
instance, like you read Proverbs, Proverbs is full of wisdom on how we need to live our lives as
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Christians, what to avoid and why to avoid it. And we see God's principles all throughout that. And
so living according to his principles is one way of how to prioritize God. So if someone, they want
you to participate in something, they invite you to something, or they invite you into a conversation
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that is just not Godly. And you know that in order to abide by God's principles, you
need to say no to entering into this conversation, entering into this place, whatever it is.
Or if someone is really being harsh to you and persecuting you or whatever, in order to abide by
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God's kindness, they know the kindness that he wants you to extend to these people,
then you have to turn away from your fleshly desire to yell back at this person or to say
something rude to them or maybe snarky or maybe where it kind of puts them down and makes you look
you know like you're better than them. You know you have to push those words down and put them
aside and then you be kind to them anyway. In another example, I really love this example,
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is going the extra mile. It says here, and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him
two miles. Give to the one who begs from you and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.
So go the extra mile. I love this. It says, oh let me read the verse before it. So 540 through 41
says, and if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if
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anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Bro, this is so good. Okay, so if any of you
watch The Chosen, you should if you don't because it's literally the best show ever made there. Oh
my gosh, I was so excited. I saw this coming whenever this part of the episode started and
I just loved it. So this is a metaphor in The Chosen. It shows that the Roman soldiers were
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coming up on Jesus and the disciples and they said, you guys need to carry our stuff. And
according to the law back then, that was they were Jews so they had to obey. They just had to do it.
And so they did it and it was humiliating, you know, whatever. And in this scene, I saw it coming.
I was like Casey talking to my husband. I said, Casey, they're going to do it. They're going to
take the analogy and they're going to, you know, they're going to put this metaphor to life in this
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like do it literally what it's saying in scripture just to really show what it means.
And along the way, the disciples and Jesus are walking and the Roman soldiers are just being
jerks to them. You know, they're mocking them. They're whatever, you know, they're just pestering
them and being bullies, like literally just big bullies. And so then they go that the law requires
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a mile, but they can't ask of them another mile according to the law, apparently. And so then
instead of stopping and giving them all their stuff back, all the disciples stop, but Jesus
just keeps walking with all of the stuff that he's carrying for one of the Roman soldiers.
And so he keeps walking and they're like, what are you doing? Like you don't have to keep walking.
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Your mile is up. Here's the mile marker. And Jesus turns around and basically just says,
here's a paraphrase, but he says, why would I just like, why can't I just go another mile for you?
Let's go guys or whatever. So they just keep going and they go a second mile and then they
stop at the second mile, give them back their stuff. They go back and get their stuff that they
had to drop two miles ago. And, you know, pick that up and then keep going to where their journey was
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supposed to be going. So anyway, I just thought it was amazing that they literally did that
in the show to show what this means. And so there's a principle for you. You know, if, if they,
if you feel led to keep going, someone asks you to do something and you're dreading it, whatever,
but you know, you need to do it. God is telling you to go and help that person with that thing.
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Maybe show them a little bit of extended kindness and love. Um, and instead of just doing what they
asked me, we do a little extra for them, you know, like, Hey, I know you just asked me to edit this
one paper, but I saw that you had another paper in the folder and it needed editing. So here,
I'll, I edited this one for you. You know, I don't know why that analogy or that example came to
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mind, but maybe someone needed to hear that. But, um, so yeah, just, that's an example of living by
God's principles, you know, and how do we know God's principles? We have to be in His word. We
have to read His word. We have to be familiar with it, you know, to know God's principles. Um, and
He also reveals it to you like the Holy Spirit does in time, like whenever you are evangelizing
to people or obeying Him in different ways, you know, the Holy Spirit is going to tell you to do
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things and those things are never going to go against God's principles because that would just
be hypocritical and God is not a hypocrite. So yeah, just some food for thought there. Um, God's
will, knowing that, you know, for example, knowing that whatever God has planned for your future is
going to bring the most peace, understanding, clarity, and joy for your life. Um, God's will
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really is the best for you. God's will is what's best for literally everyone's lives, even the ones
around you, like you doing God's will is going to benefit the other people around you as well.
God's will is what's best for everyone's lives because He literally is the creator of all. So
He knows what is most befitting for His creation, AKA you. You are His creation. He knows what's
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best for you. So His will is going to reflect that He knows what's best for you. He knows
how best we each individually function inwardly and outwardly and His will for our lives is going
to reflect that. And it's also going to reflect the fact that He deserves literally all the glory
because we can't take credit for any of this. It's only Him who can take credit. For us to go our
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own path and try to make up our own plans without God's plan in mind, we are being foolish and only
destruction comes from that. There's a verse, um, I don't know where my scripture cards are right now.
Um, I think they're in the elevator. There's a verse. It's in Isaiah. Um, I had it, I haven't
memorized, but I'm also, I kind of, oh, my dog's in the background. Sorry. I kind of mess it up
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sometimes when I try to quote it. Um, let me look it up so I don't mess it up. 53, five through six.
He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon Him was the
chastisement that we, that brought us peace. And with His wounds we are healed. It's this part.
All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to His own way and the Lord has laid on
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Him the iniquity of us all. Um, I like the NLT version of this. It says that all of us like sheep,
verse six, have strayed away. We have left God's paths to follow our own, yet the Lord laid on Him
the sins of us all. Um, the point of what I'm getting at with this passage is not necessarily
a salvation part of it. Um, but for this topic we're talking about how we have all
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gone astray. We've all gone on our own path. But we don't, every time you try to go your own way
and it goes against God's path for your life, it may not happen immediately, but down the road
you're gonna find destruction. You're gonna find depression. You're gonna find anxiety. You're
gonna find more and more, um, just chaos in your life and it doesn't really make sense and
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it just leads to basically death on earth. I mean, like, meaning just destruction, like just bad
things. And it, man, you gotta follow God's path because He really does know what's best.
So we've talked about God's principles, God's will, we've touched the surface with those things.
Let's talk about God's time. Okay, so this is one that I didn't really know why I put this in the
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definition, but I figured out why God wanted me to put this in the definition later.
So this is actually really interesting to me. Um, God's time, putting time with God above our
flesh's desires of what we should put our time into. I have two parts to this, to time. And the
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first part is this. So putting our, what people call our quiet time, or when you go into your
secret place is another way of people saying it. And basically what they're saying is setting aside
undistracted time where it's just you and God. No distractions. You put the phone away, you turn the
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TV off, you turn all of the noise off. If you have kids, you wait till they're in their rooms
playing quietly, or maybe they're napping, or maybe if they go to school, you know they're at school,
or at a friend's house, whatever. Like just when no one else is there to distract you, it's just you
and you're like, okay, God, I'm here to hang out with you. I want to talk to you. I want to be in
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your word. I want to be filled with your word. I want to reap the benefits of being familiar with
what you say in your word. I want you to tell me what, you know, I need to hear whether it be
conviction, whether it be confirmation, whether it be just your pure love, just oozing out of your
word and out of you and coming into me, God. Like just I want to be with you and whatever that
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looks like for you because that undistracted time with God can look different for a lot of people
and also not only that, but like it could look different for me today versus what it'll look
like next week. So it's different from person to person and from time to time within each person's
time with God. And so as long as it's undistracted and you're just hanging out with God,
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that is important and you need to be putting that time with God above all the other things
that your flesh desires. So like for instance, if you have time to just sit down and watch Netflix,
just watch your show or scroll on social media or read a book, not saying like reading a book is bad,
but like if you have had a long day and you haven't hung out with God or maybe you have,
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but you know you need to hang out with him again because you're just having a really hard day
or maybe it's been a few days that you haven't or maybe it's been a few weeks and you haven't,
you know you need to do that. You know you need to just prioritize him because he's going to help
your day get better. He's going to show you what to do to give you joy in the hard day and the hard
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moments that day. He's going to direct your path for the next week, for the next month. And you're
also just going to grow in every aspect just from hanging out with God and it's going to benefit you
and there's not going to be no negative impact on you from spending time with him. So you just know
you need to do it. Okay, put the remote down, put the phone away and just hang out with God.
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Spend a few minutes with him. Just talk to him. Just rant. If you need to rant to somebody,
don't rant to your husband. Don't rant to your friends. I'm not saying you can never talk to
your husband about your day. I'm just saying don't don't vent to anybody before you vent to God. Go
to God first and vent to him. Talk to him. You know pray. Just spend time with him before you pick
up that remote, before you pick up that book, before you go on a run, whatever. Make sure you're
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prioritizing God above all else when it comes to spending time with him. The other thing with time,
I thought this was so cool that God told me to put this in the definition here, is time management
according to what God wants us to do that day instead of things that don't glorify God or that
week or whatever. You know being wise with our time. Make the most of every opportunity in these
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evil days. Don't act thoughtlessly but understand what the Lord wants you to do. That's Ephesians
5, 16 through 17. That verse alone tells us we need to have good time management because you have all
these opportunities to glorify God with your time. Whether you be a homemaker, whether you be a
teacher, whether you be a firefighter, whether you be a doctor, whether you be a
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um I don't know, insert whatever thing here you know. Man you have opportunities whether you're
just going to the grocery store, whether you're going to a museum with your kids, whether you're
going to church. You have these opportunities to glorify God and you need to manage your time. The
things that you're doing at home and outside of home. Um manage it wisely meaning you need to make
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sure that these things are what God wants you to do and you may think like well I don't need to
make sure like this is what God wants me to do if I'm just going grocery shopping. Yes you do.
Like are you going grocery shopping at a time when you should be at home spending time with God and
said are you going to the grocery store whenever um you've had all week to go to the grocery store
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and you have been you know like you haven't spent time spent enough time with your kids and you're
you know it's like you're just not prioritizing your kids enough. Don't go to the grocery store
right then. Spend 20-30 minutes with your kids and then go to the grocery store. You need to make
sure you're prioritizing the things that God wants you to prioritize first. Um you know he's
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going to tell you when it's time to go grocery shopping. He's going to tell you when it's time
to do the dishes. He's going to tell you when it's time to go meet that friend for lunch because
it's going to work perfectly and smoothly if you just prioritize him in planning your day and
planning your week. Time management is very important to God. He's given you this time. Why
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waste it? Don't waste it on frivolous things. Make sure you are using the opportunity of this time
that he has given you to glorify him with all of the little tedious things that you have to do.
Make sure you're glorifying God and doing them when you need to do them. All right so the biggest way
to prioritize God. Man it it means self-discipline and self-discipline comes from the Holy Spirit.
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Prioritizing God means to put in first in our thoughts and in our actions. James 4 7 3 8 says
submit to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you draw near to God and he will draw near
to you. The devil is literally constantly and the demons they're just constantly trying to attack
us. They hate God. They hate us because we love God. The devil only cares about himself but God
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cares about him and glorifying him and he cares about a relationship with you. He loves you so
much. He loves me so much and the devil doesn't like that. The devil doesn't like that we love God
that we want a relationship with him. So everything he does is in retaliation of God's love. He hates
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God. He's jealous. He's prideful. He's greedy and we're also so selfish. We're selfish humans by nature.
We naturally because of our sinful nature gravitate toward temptation and sin. We want that instant
gratification. We want it so bad that doesn't last forever or have eternal benefits but it feels so
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good in the moment. That's situational happiness guys. In order to prioritize God we have to resist
the devil. We have to resist our own evil and selfish thoughts and it starts in our hearts.
Starts in our thoughts, our mind and then it goes to our actions. Like I said before with the tree
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analogy it starts inwardly meaning at the roots and then it flourishes into whatever is at the
like starting at the roots. So if we're prioritizing God then it's going to flourish into a lifestyle of
worship. If we are not prioritizing God and we're allowing junk into our heart then there's not
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going to be this beautiful tree. It's just going to be nothing. Like it's just going to be dead.
It's going to look like this gross thing underground that started out beautiful and then it's like wow
nothing came from that. Prioritizing God means that in every the essentially it means that in
every single moment of the day whatever thought comes to mind you have to basically be asking
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yourself is this thought showing that I'm prioritizing God? And then whenever you start to
do something whatever that action is you think is this action prioritizing God? Some people think that
we don't have to be constantly thinking that because there's no way you can prioritize God
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in every little thing. Let me tell you friend that is such bull. That is such a lie. You can prioritize
God in everything you think, everything you say, everything you do. Even if it doesn't mention the
word God that doesn't mean it's not prioritizing him. Even if you're just driving to work
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you can prioritize God by driving to work, providing for your family, providing for yourself,
and then stewarding your money well. You can prioritize God in everything. Going to the coffee shop
be a light to the world through your actions. You know it and then also like I was saying earlier
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self-discipline. You have to have self-discipline which comes through transformation which means
you're growing closer to God and allowing him to guide your thoughts, your guide your actions, guide
your words, and through that you're going to slowly be transformed into a very Christ-like person
to a godly woman or a godly man. As you do that you're going to have more self-discipline
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to say no to things and also to do things for the glory of God. Why is self-discipline so important
for prioritizing God? It's because when that temptation comes your way and you say no to that
temptation with the self-discipline you have, well then you're prioritizing God because you're saying
no to sinning, therefore you're glorifying God because you're not sinning. And that's the essence
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of prioritizing God is through every single action, every single word, every single thought,
you are having self-discipline to prioritize God. I'm going to leave you with one more thing. The
more we are listening to God, learning about him, and learning about us from God's point of view,
the closer we get to him, the closer we get to him, the more and more we see how sinful we are.
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But also we see how beautiful God is and how beautiful and perfect his plan is for us, for us
individually, for me, for you. And the more we see this, the greater our desire is to throw away
our selfishness, to resist the devil, to grab a hold of God's righteous ways of living.
And that's how we begin to see in small daily moments that we need to listen to God on how to
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react to things, think through things, speak about things in people, and act upon things.
And this is how we prioritize God. Guys, guard your hearts, talk to God daily, be in his word,
be familiar with his word, be vulnerable with him, and just live life with and for God.
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That is literally what living a life of worship is. It's just prioritizing God all the time.
And I don't want to hear any of this nonsense of, Sarah's not realistic to prioritize God in
everything. Like, we're humans, we're gonna mess up. Okay, yeah, you're human, yeah, you have a
selfish sinful nature, but you have the righteousness of God in you if you have the Holy Spirit inside
of you. Whenever you commit to a life of living for God, that's a commitment. And it's one you
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should want to do. And also, the closer you grow to God, the more you spend time with him, the more
and more time you're going to want to spend with him, the more and more you're going to want to do
his will, the more and more you're going to want to put his principles first and have time management
according to his time management, the more and more you're going to want to allow the Holy Spirit
to just exude righteousness out of you. So do we have an excuse? I mean, kind of, yeah, we're humans.
(33:34):
It's hard, because we're humans, but that doesn't mean it's impossible. You can never be wholly perfect
because you've already messed up. But from this moment on, you can make perfect decisions according
to the perfect God inside of you. That is very possible. You can make righteous decisions because
you have a righteous God guiding your life and in control. But it takes self-discipline to live that
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life. And I realized earlier that at the beginning of this podcast episode, I mentioned, let's talk
about the surface level of what the world says, prioritizing God is. And I totally just went off
and didn't explain my whole thought on that. But really what it is, is we get, like, if you were to
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look up, like, for instance, this is an example. And this is a very, very simple example of what
God is. And this is an example. And this is what I think of. You look up morning routines and how to
prioritize God in your day. You see mostly women do these, but there are men out there who do these
as well. When you look at their morning routine, they basically are saying, no, no, this is a lie.
(34:46):
This is a lie. Hold on, let me say this, because this is not true. But they're not saying this.
They're not believing this. I don't think most of them are. But what their video only shows is their
way to start your day off right so that you're prioritizing God. So what you're getting is,
OK, well, I need to make sure that my morning routine contains a undistracted time with God.
(35:07):
I wholeheartedly agree with that. I'm not saying that's wrong. That is great, in my opinion.
I think you should prioritize God first thing in the morning, because then it really does set your day
off right. But then the rest of your day, it's not like you turn off the video and then the rest of
the day, they're not prioritizing God. They're still talking to him. And who knows, they may sit
down another time that day and just read through Proverbs 2 or whatever. They're still, like I said,
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talking to him. And then also, they need to be prioritizing him in their actions and in their
thoughts and in their hearts, like I've been saying this whole episode. So it's not like you
prioritize God by spending time with him in the morning. That way, it puts you in a good mood for
the rest of your day. It's a daily and minute by minute thing, action by action thing, word by word
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thing, thought by thought thing. It's a literally all day, every day. And it's not as exhausting as
you think it is. It sounds exhausting to some people. It's not. It's honestly so beautiful and
it's so fun to experience. And it's so, so much joy and peace comes from living a life for God.
Am I perfect? No. Do I do this perfectly? I do not. Should I? I should. And that's why I'm coming on
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here to share with you my thoughts on what it means to prioritize God and how you're not alone in the
fact that having self-discipline is literally the hardest thing ever. It's so hard, but it's so worth
it when you are talking to God and allowing him to transform you in your self-discipline journey
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and prioritizing him and worshiping him with your life. So I think that's all I've got for you guys.
I know there was a minute or two there where I was kind of struggling with my words, but hopefully I
can edit part of that out so it runs smoothly. That way there's not like a break in the momentum.
But thank you guys for listening to this episode. I really am so tired. So I'm really, I know God
(37:07):
said some good things out of there, but I hope and pray that you guys just are blessed by this.
I hope you guys have an amazing week ahead and an amazing weekend. And if you don't work on the
weekends, then rest as much as you can. And if you do work on the weekends, just know that a day off
is coming soon. And if it's not, then pray to God to help you have a day off so that you can rest.
(37:27):
Because rest is biblical as well and rest is important and we need to prioritize that as well.
Also, the other thing is some of you have probably noticed for a while the whole time we've had this
podcast up, it's not on Apple podcasts. And I'm sorry, I know it's inconvenient for some people,
but it is on Spotify and it's pretty much on everything else except for like a couple tiny ones.
(37:50):
And there's a reason behind that. I won't bore you with the information of that.
But Apple podcasts is just not liking me right now because I don't have an Apple account for the
ministry. But I also don't really feel the need to put on Apple podcasts because I know God can work
through all of the other like the plethora of other streaming apps and stuff out there that this
(38:13):
podcast is on. So I just wanted to say I am aware it's not on there and I'm sorry if that's
inconvenient for you. But just about everybody who has Apple podcasting also has Spotify. So please
just go to Spotify and listen to us there. Or we're also on YouTube where the captions are on there
and there's like a little whatever cutesy picture thing up there or whatever that you can look at
(38:38):
and read the captions along. But all right, well I hope you guys have just such a wonderful weekend.
And thank you again for listening and make sure you share with someone you love because we want
to share God's word with others. And this is not God's word, but God's word is spoken in this and
there are principles and things from God in this. So we want to share that with other people and
just encourage them to listen to Christian content more often. So please go do that. All right.
Holy Spirit, help me focus. Give me the energy I need, God.
(00:07):
I'm so tired today, but I know that it is your will for me to record this.
I know that you're going to give me the energy I need.
I pray for every single person listening to this that you would just soften their hearts
towards your word. Soften their hearts toward anything that you say through me, God.
(00:28):
I pray that if they don't know you personally, that they would realize that you're more than
just this guy who created the world and left everything else to us, God. That you're going
to be involved in our lives and not just involved, but you want to be the center of our lives
because you love us and you know what's best for us. And what's best for us is glorifying
you because then our lives are just going to be so filled with your fruit and so filled
(00:52):
with love and compassion and peace and joy. And who doesn't want that, God?
So I thank you for every single soul listening to this and I pray that they would just realize
that they're more than what they are now. That they are worth it to the creator to have a
relationship with. That they are just worth me coming on here and praying for them individually.
(01:20):
They're worth that and that they're loved. And God, I just pray that they would just see
that you are just amazing through the words that are spoken on this podcast today. And
Jesus, in my prayer, amen.
Hey guys, welcome back to our Worship Warriors podcast.
(01:42):
Welcome back guys. Welcome back to our Worship Warriors podcast. If you're new here, my name
is Sarah Lee. I'm your host and I'm very tired today but I also know that the Lord is going
to give me the energy I need to do this. I'm also excited about this topic. I'm also not
excited about this topic though because this is a really hard topic and I'm really praying
(02:03):
that I don't mess this message up and just really fully allow the Holy Spirit to speak
through me. We're not going to talk super in depth about everything so it's just such a hard topic
to do to live out. It's not really hard to understand but it is hard to live out. I don't
know. I just pray that this blesses you. I know it will if you just allow it to. The blessing is
(02:29):
there. You just have to reach out and grab it and look at it. All right, so we're just going to jump
in. I'm not a beat around the bush kind of person most of the time as most of you know if you're a
returning person here. So today we're going to be talking about prioritizing God and what that
actually means. So last week we talked about guarding your heart and what that actually looks
(02:53):
like it means and I had an analogy to explain it. So go back and listen to that. I was going to do
prioritizing your heart as the very first episode of season two but God really took me in a different
direction. He wanted me to do guarding your hearts first and I think that it's important
since he wanted it in that order specifically. So I think it's important that you go back and
(03:15):
listen to that first. You don't have to but I mean if God wanted it in that order to come out
then maybe you should listen to it in that order. So just a suggestion.
All right, so let's just jump right in. What does it actually mean to prioritize God? Well first and
foremost I want to talk about this kind of messed up ideology behind what it means to prioritize God
(03:39):
and that is that it's just so surface level and that's messed up. Prioritizing God should not
be portrayed as something that is surface level. Prioritizing God is so personal and so
level. Prioritizing God is so personable. It is so beautiful and it is literally a daily and minute
by minute thing. Action by action thing, thought by thought thing, word by word thing. Prioritizing
(04:06):
God is literally a lifestyle. It is actually a lifestyle and it is the root. How do I say this?
Prioritizing God, imagine a tree. Prioritizing God are the roots of this tree and then this
the roots flourish up into this beautiful big tree and this beautiful big tree is
(04:34):
worshiping God. So everything we do should be glorifying God which means it is worship. If you
are worshiping God it means you're glorifying God. So that could be in every action that you do if
you're glorifying God, you're worshiping God through that. If you are singing a beautiful song to God,
you're worshiping God. If you're praying, you are worshiping God by praying because you are
just in awe of him and you want to talk to him and you're glorifying him in that way.
(04:56):
All these things that you do genuinely for the glory of God is worship and so that is your tree
but underneath that worship means that you're prioritizing God in that moment of worship
and if we are to make it a lifestyle as we should because God is just not a moment here and there
that we are like oh yeah I recognize that God created me and then you move on and do whatever
your flesh wants to and whatever the world is telling you to do then you're not really living
(05:19):
for God and you're not really truly a Christian. You're not really truly following Christ which is
what Christian means a follower of Christ. So in order to prioritize God we need to make it a
lifestyle. So prioritizing God is the roots, worship is the tree. So we see worship on the surface
but worship underneath means that you're prioritizing God. Wow that was beautiful. I did not even think
(05:44):
of that before. That was so beautiful. Thank you God. Okay at least I think it was. Maybe it's
only gonna bless me. We'll see. Hopefully it'll bless somebody else. Hopefully it was actually
you know it made sense. But anyway so prioritizing God like I said it's a lifestyle. So
(06:05):
I believe that God wanted me to talk about guarding your hearts last week because if you don't guard
your heart then it's going to be really hard to prioritize God a lot of the time because you have
all of this yucky duck from the devil that you're just allowing into your heart and whenever you
allow all that into your heart it's really hard to discern what is from God and what is from the
devil. Well sometimes it's not like sometimes it's black and white like oh that is full on
(06:28):
not accorded and like that is not God's principles. And so I think that's the
principles. So it's obvious but there are many times where whenever you are well for instance
when you're allowing all this duck into your heart like you're watching all these things that you
don't need to be watching you are saying you're allowing you know or like you're listening to
music that is just really just awful just disgusting stuff and you're just allowing it into
(06:53):
your mind and your heart. These ideologies these things that you're allowing into your heart even
if you know it's not of God you're still allowing it in there and you're dirtying up the Holy Spirit's
home. The Holy Spirit is dwelling inside of you and you're dirtying up his home and so then whenever
the Holy Spirit is telling you to do something or to say something or reminding you of something or
(07:15):
convicting you of something you can't it's really muffled because he's just covered with all of this
trash that you have allowed in his home and you haven't cleaned it up. You're not cleaning up his
home to where you can actually see him clearly and walk to him without walking on trash. You have to
clean up your home and it takes time to do that and it takes transformation that's what cleaning up
(07:38):
that home is. That's transformation. We're going to talk a little bit about that in a second.
So you can't really fully prioritize God whenever you're not guarding your heart.
So I believe that that's why he wanted me to put that pod out there for that episode out there first.
What is prioritizing God? If you were to put a definition to what prioritizing God is,
(08:00):
I have kind of put this definition together and I think it covers pretty much everything
but I believe that this really sums up the gist of what prioritizing God means.
Putting God's principles, will, guidelines, and time above our own.
Putting God's principles, will, guidelines, and time above your own. So let's talk,
(08:25):
let's break it down a little bit and talk about that. So if you look up just the basic definition
in dictionary.com, if you look up the definition of prioritize, it says to organize or deal with
something according to its importance. I think I actually when I wrote these notes kind of compiled
two definitions but they basically said the same thing and that was this to organize or deal with
(08:45):
something according to its importance. So prioritizing something, if you're taking the
world's definition that I just read, it's prioritizing something or someone so it could be in your
marriage, a friendship, a family member, a friend, whatever. If you're going to prioritize that person
then you're going to deal with them or interact with them according to their importance,
(09:09):
importance versus the other things in your life and the other people.
So for instance, if you think your spouse is the most important person in your life and you need
to make sure that you're prioritizing them above everyone else, then you're going to do that.
You're going to deal with them or interact with them in a manner that shows that you are putting
them first. So that's just an example. Same with other things like objects or hobbies or your job
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or whatever it is. Like you prioritize those and the world sees how important it is to you
by how you interact with those things and do those things in level of importance in your life.
So putting God's principles, will, guidelines, and time above your own.
Let's kind of break that down and talk about that. So as we were talking about guarding your heart
that shows my first point here, which is it starts inwardly. Prioritizing God, it's not this surface
(10:00):
level thing. Like we were saying, you start with a simple thing and then you start with a simple
thing. It's not this surface level thing. Like we were saying, you see the tree, but what's
underneath the tree? The roots. The tree literally, it's not possible for the tree to grow, for the
worship to come to surface. If you're not prioritizing God underneath, if you don't have
those roots for the tree, you can't see the tree and it doesn't grow. So it starts inwardly. Matthew
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15, 18 through 20 says, but what comes out of the mouth comes from the heart and this defiles a
person. For from the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, sexual immoralities, thefts,
false testimonies, slander. These are the things that defile a person, but eating with unwashed
hands does not defile a person. So like this is saying, but what comes out of the mouth comes from
(10:48):
the heart and this defiles a person. So that goes back to also guarding your heart. So it starts
inwardly with what you're allowing into your heart. Prioritizing God starts with that. If you are
allowing trash into the Holy Spirit's dwelling place and if you're, or AKA what that means is if
you are allowing garbage principles, garbage ideologies into your mind and your heart, then
(11:13):
what's going to come out? Those same principles. And you may not speak like, I believe in this,
if you disagree. Like say you are listening to a song that speaks just something that you just
know that is not of God, but you are listening to it, you're jamming out to it, you think it
sounds cool. So you listen to it anyway, you're like in the comfort of your own home and no
non-believers are in your home listening to this and hearing goes into this. So you think it's fine
(11:37):
to listen to it. But then whenever you, but then you're learning the words of the song.
So even though later on down the road, you're not going to speak the words of the song as if
you believe it, your actions are going to show what you are listening to. You're not going to be
this godly woman or godly man to the extent that you should be if you were just constantly
(11:59):
listening to these songs. And it really does tamper with your beliefs inside your heart,
inside your mind, whenever you allow this junk into you, that's into you. That's why you have
to guard your heart. So it starts inwardly. What does that look like when we say putting his
principles and will above our own principles and will? And also putting his principles and will
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above other people's principles and wills, like the world's the devil's. God's principles, for
example, like God really harps on us to be humble, like make sure that you are humble. You should not
boast about your own words, you should not boast about your own gifts, you should not boast about
yourself at all. Make sure if anyone boasts about you, it's other people, not yourself. So you should
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be humble. We should have integrity, we should be diligent and hardworking. You know, we should show
others love according to God's love, like we see in 1 Corinthians 4, yeah, 4, 7, or 7. Whoa, whoa,
words, Sarah. What is happening with my brain? 13. 1 Corinthians 13, 4 through 7, kind of 8.
(13:07):
Wow, I had it in my head, but then the numbers were just totally mixing up. Okay, 1 Corinthians 13,
4 through 7 shows us what love is. So for instance, you know, abiding by the principles that we see
in that passage of what love truly is and loving others according to those principles. Or for
instance, like you read Proverbs, Proverbs is full of wisdom on how we need to live our lives as
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Christians, what to avoid and why to avoid it. And we see God's principles all throughout that. And
so living according to his principles is one way of how to prioritize God. So if someone, they want
you to participate in something, they invite you to something, or they invite you into a conversation
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that is just not Godly. And you know that in order to abide by God's principles, you
need to say no to entering into this conversation, entering into this place, whatever it is.
Or if someone is really being harsh to you and persecuting you or whatever, in order to abide by
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God's kindness, they know the kindness that he wants you to extend to these people,
then you have to turn away from your fleshly desire to yell back at this person or to say
something rude to them or maybe snarky or maybe where it kind of puts them down and makes you look
you know like you're better than them. You know you have to push those words down and put them
aside and then you be kind to them anyway. In another example, I really love this example,
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is going the extra mile. It says here, and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him
two miles. Give to the one who begs from you and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.
So go the extra mile. I love this. It says, oh let me read the verse before it. So 540 through 41
says, and if anyone would sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. And if
(15:00):
anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Bro, this is so good. Okay, so if any of you
watch The Chosen, you should if you don't because it's literally the best show ever made there. Oh
my gosh, I was so excited. I saw this coming whenever this part of the episode started and
I just loved it. So this is a metaphor in The Chosen. It shows that the Roman soldiers were
(15:25):
coming up on Jesus and the disciples and they said, you guys need to carry our stuff. And
according to the law back then, that was they were Jews so they had to obey. They just had to do it.
And so they did it and it was humiliating, you know, whatever. And in this scene, I saw it coming.
I was like Casey talking to my husband. I said, Casey, they're going to do it. They're going to
take the analogy and they're going to, you know, they're going to put this metaphor to life in this
(15:49):
like do it literally what it's saying in scripture just to really show what it means.
And along the way, the disciples and Jesus are walking and the Roman soldiers are just being
jerks to them. You know, they're mocking them. They're whatever, you know, they're just pestering
them and being bullies, like literally just big bullies. And so then they go that the law requires
(16:10):
a mile, but they can't ask of them another mile according to the law, apparently. And so then
instead of stopping and giving them all their stuff back, all the disciples stop, but Jesus
just keeps walking with all of the stuff that he's carrying for one of the Roman soldiers.
And so he keeps walking and they're like, what are you doing? Like you don't have to keep walking.
(16:32):
Your mile is up. Here's the mile marker. And Jesus turns around and basically just says,
here's a paraphrase, but he says, why would I just like, why can't I just go another mile for you?
Let's go guys or whatever. So they just keep going and they go a second mile and then they
stop at the second mile, give them back their stuff. They go back and get their stuff that they
had to drop two miles ago. And, you know, pick that up and then keep going to where their journey was
(16:54):
supposed to be going. So anyway, I just thought it was amazing that they literally did that
in the show to show what this means. And so there's a principle for you. You know, if, if they,
if you feel led to keep going, someone asks you to do something and you're dreading it, whatever,
but you know, you need to do it. God is telling you to go and help that person with that thing.
(17:15):
Maybe show them a little bit of extended kindness and love. Um, and instead of just doing what they
asked me, we do a little extra for them, you know, like, Hey, I know you just asked me to edit this
one paper, but I saw that you had another paper in the folder and it needed editing. So here,
I'll, I edited this one for you. You know, I don't know why that analogy or that example came to
(17:36):
mind, but maybe someone needed to hear that. But, um, so yeah, just, that's an example of living by
God's principles, you know, and how do we know God's principles? We have to be in His word. We
have to read His word. We have to be familiar with it, you know, to know God's principles. Um, and
He also reveals it to you like the Holy Spirit does in time, like whenever you are evangelizing
to people or obeying Him in different ways, you know, the Holy Spirit is going to tell you to do
(18:00):
things and those things are never going to go against God's principles because that would just
be hypocritical and God is not a hypocrite. So yeah, just some food for thought there. Um, God's
will, knowing that, you know, for example, knowing that whatever God has planned for your future is
going to bring the most peace, understanding, clarity, and joy for your life. Um, God's will
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really is the best for you. God's will is what's best for literally everyone's lives, even the ones
around you, like you doing God's will is going to benefit the other people around you as well.
God's will is what's best for everyone's lives because He literally is the creator of all. So
He knows what is most befitting for His creation, AKA you. You are His creation. He knows what's
(18:44):
best for you. So His will is going to reflect that He knows what's best for you. He knows
how best we each individually function inwardly and outwardly and His will for our lives is going
to reflect that. And it's also going to reflect the fact that He deserves literally all the glory
because we can't take credit for any of this. It's only Him who can take credit. For us to go our
(19:08):
own path and try to make up our own plans without God's plan in mind, we are being foolish and only
destruction comes from that. There's a verse, um, I don't know where my scripture cards are right now.
Um, I think they're in the elevator. There's a verse. It's in Isaiah. Um, I had it, I haven't
memorized, but I'm also, I kind of, oh, my dog's in the background. Sorry. I kind of mess it up
(19:33):
sometimes when I try to quote it. Um, let me look it up so I don't mess it up. 53, five through six.
He was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. Upon Him was the
chastisement that we, that brought us peace. And with His wounds we are healed. It's this part.
All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to His own way and the Lord has laid on
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Him the iniquity of us all. Um, I like the NLT version of this. It says that all of us like sheep,
verse six, have strayed away. We have left God's paths to follow our own, yet the Lord laid on Him
the sins of us all. Um, the point of what I'm getting at with this passage is not necessarily
a salvation part of it. Um, but for this topic we're talking about how we have all
(20:21):
gone astray. We've all gone on our own path. But we don't, every time you try to go your own way
and it goes against God's path for your life, it may not happen immediately, but down the road
you're gonna find destruction. You're gonna find depression. You're gonna find anxiety. You're
gonna find more and more, um, just chaos in your life and it doesn't really make sense and
(20:42):
it just leads to basically death on earth. I mean, like, meaning just destruction, like just bad
things. And it, man, you gotta follow God's path because He really does know what's best.
So we've talked about God's principles, God's will, we've touched the surface with those things.
Let's talk about God's time. Okay, so this is one that I didn't really know why I put this in the
(21:06):
definition, but I figured out why God wanted me to put this in the definition later.
So this is actually really interesting to me. Um, God's time, putting time with God above our
flesh's desires of what we should put our time into. I have two parts to this, to time. And the
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first part is this. So putting our, what people call our quiet time, or when you go into your
secret place is another way of people saying it. And basically what they're saying is setting aside
undistracted time where it's just you and God. No distractions. You put the phone away, you turn the
(21:53):
TV off, you turn all of the noise off. If you have kids, you wait till they're in their rooms
playing quietly, or maybe they're napping, or maybe if they go to school, you know they're at school,
or at a friend's house, whatever. Like just when no one else is there to distract you, it's just you
and you're like, okay, God, I'm here to hang out with you. I want to talk to you. I want to be in
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your word. I want to be filled with your word. I want to reap the benefits of being familiar with
what you say in your word. I want you to tell me what, you know, I need to hear whether it be
conviction, whether it be confirmation, whether it be just your pure love, just oozing out of your
word and out of you and coming into me, God. Like just I want to be with you and whatever that
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looks like for you because that undistracted time with God can look different for a lot of people
and also not only that, but like it could look different for me today versus what it'll look
like next week. So it's different from person to person and from time to time within each person's
time with God. And so as long as it's undistracted and you're just hanging out with God,
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that is important and you need to be putting that time with God above all the other things
that your flesh desires. So like for instance, if you have time to just sit down and watch Netflix,
just watch your show or scroll on social media or read a book, not saying like reading a book is bad,
but like if you have had a long day and you haven't hung out with God or maybe you have,
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but you know you need to hang out with him again because you're just having a really hard day
or maybe it's been a few days that you haven't or maybe it's been a few weeks and you haven't,
you know you need to do that. You know you need to just prioritize him because he's going to help
your day get better. He's going to show you what to do to give you joy in the hard day and the hard
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moments that day. He's going to direct your path for the next week, for the next month. And you're
also just going to grow in every aspect just from hanging out with God and it's going to benefit you
and there's not going to be no negative impact on you from spending time with him. So you just know
you need to do it. Okay, put the remote down, put the phone away and just hang out with God.
(24:12):
Spend a few minutes with him. Just talk to him. Just rant. If you need to rant to somebody,
don't rant to your husband. Don't rant to your friends. I'm not saying you can never talk to
your husband about your day. I'm just saying don't don't vent to anybody before you vent to God. Go
to God first and vent to him. Talk to him. You know pray. Just spend time with him before you pick
up that remote, before you pick up that book, before you go on a run, whatever. Make sure you're
(24:37):
prioritizing God above all else when it comes to spending time with him. The other thing with time,
I thought this was so cool that God told me to put this in the definition here, is time management
according to what God wants us to do that day instead of things that don't glorify God or that
week or whatever. You know being wise with our time. Make the most of every opportunity in these
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evil days. Don't act thoughtlessly but understand what the Lord wants you to do. That's Ephesians
5, 16 through 17. That verse alone tells us we need to have good time management because you have all
these opportunities to glorify God with your time. Whether you be a homemaker, whether you be a
teacher, whether you be a firefighter, whether you be a doctor, whether you be a
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um I don't know, insert whatever thing here you know. Man you have opportunities whether you're
just going to the grocery store, whether you're going to a museum with your kids, whether you're
going to church. You have these opportunities to glorify God and you need to manage your time. The
things that you're doing at home and outside of home. Um manage it wisely meaning you need to make
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sure that these things are what God wants you to do and you may think like well I don't need to
make sure like this is what God wants me to do if I'm just going grocery shopping. Yes you do.
Like are you going grocery shopping at a time when you should be at home spending time with God and
said are you going to the grocery store whenever um you've had all week to go to the grocery store
(26:13):
and you have been you know like you haven't spent time spent enough time with your kids and you're
you know it's like you're just not prioritizing your kids enough. Don't go to the grocery store
right then. Spend 20-30 minutes with your kids and then go to the grocery store. You need to make
sure you're prioritizing the things that God wants you to prioritize first. Um you know he's
(26:35):
going to tell you when it's time to go grocery shopping. He's going to tell you when it's time
to do the dishes. He's going to tell you when it's time to go meet that friend for lunch because
it's going to work perfectly and smoothly if you just prioritize him in planning your day and
planning your week. Time management is very important to God. He's given you this time. Why
(26:56):
waste it? Don't waste it on frivolous things. Make sure you are using the opportunity of this time
that he has given you to glorify him with all of the little tedious things that you have to do.
Make sure you're glorifying God and doing them when you need to do them. All right so the biggest way
to prioritize God. Man it it means self-discipline and self-discipline comes from the Holy Spirit.
(27:24):
Prioritizing God means to put in first in our thoughts and in our actions. James 4 7 3 8 says
submit to God, resist the devil and he will flee from you draw near to God and he will draw near
to you. The devil is literally constantly and the demons they're just constantly trying to attack
us. They hate God. They hate us because we love God. The devil only cares about himself but God
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cares about him and glorifying him and he cares about a relationship with you. He loves you so
much. He loves me so much and the devil doesn't like that. The devil doesn't like that we love God
that we want a relationship with him. So everything he does is in retaliation of God's love. He hates
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God. He's jealous. He's prideful. He's greedy and we're also so selfish. We're selfish humans by nature.
We naturally because of our sinful nature gravitate toward temptation and sin. We want that instant
gratification. We want it so bad that doesn't last forever or have eternal benefits but it feels so
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good in the moment. That's situational happiness guys. In order to prioritize God we have to resist
the devil. We have to resist our own evil and selfish thoughts and it starts in our hearts.
Starts in our thoughts, our mind and then it goes to our actions. Like I said before with the tree
(28:53):
analogy it starts inwardly meaning at the roots and then it flourishes into whatever is at the
like starting at the roots. So if we're prioritizing God then it's going to flourish into a lifestyle of
worship. If we are not prioritizing God and we're allowing junk into our heart then there's not
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going to be this beautiful tree. It's just going to be nothing. Like it's just going to be dead.
It's going to look like this gross thing underground that started out beautiful and then it's like wow
nothing came from that. Prioritizing God means that in every the essentially it means that in
every single moment of the day whatever thought comes to mind you have to basically be asking
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yourself is this thought showing that I'm prioritizing God? And then whenever you start to
do something whatever that action is you think is this action prioritizing God? Some people think that
we don't have to be constantly thinking that because there's no way you can prioritize God
(30:01):
in every little thing. Let me tell you friend that is such bull. That is such a lie. You can prioritize
God in everything you think, everything you say, everything you do. Even if it doesn't mention the
word God that doesn't mean it's not prioritizing him. Even if you're just driving to work
(30:24):
you can prioritize God by driving to work, providing for your family, providing for yourself,
and then stewarding your money well. You can prioritize God in everything. Going to the coffee shop
be a light to the world through your actions. You know it and then also like I was saying earlier
(30:49):
self-discipline. You have to have self-discipline which comes through transformation which means
you're growing closer to God and allowing him to guide your thoughts, your guide your actions, guide
your words, and through that you're going to slowly be transformed into a very Christ-like person
to a godly woman or a godly man. As you do that you're going to have more self-discipline
(31:10):
to say no to things and also to do things for the glory of God. Why is self-discipline so important
for prioritizing God? It's because when that temptation comes your way and you say no to that
temptation with the self-discipline you have, well then you're prioritizing God because you're saying
no to sinning, therefore you're glorifying God because you're not sinning. And that's the essence
(31:34):
of prioritizing God is through every single action, every single word, every single thought,
you are having self-discipline to prioritize God. I'm going to leave you with one more thing. The
more we are listening to God, learning about him, and learning about us from God's point of view,
the closer we get to him, the closer we get to him, the more and more we see how sinful we are.
(31:59):
But also we see how beautiful God is and how beautiful and perfect his plan is for us, for us
individually, for me, for you. And the more we see this, the greater our desire is to throw away
our selfishness, to resist the devil, to grab a hold of God's righteous ways of living.
And that's how we begin to see in small daily moments that we need to listen to God on how to
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react to things, think through things, speak about things in people, and act upon things.
And this is how we prioritize God. Guys, guard your hearts, talk to God daily, be in his word,
be familiar with his word, be vulnerable with him, and just live life with and for God.
(32:46):
That is literally what living a life of worship is. It's just prioritizing God all the time.
And I don't want to hear any of this nonsense of, Sarah's not realistic to prioritize God in
everything. Like, we're humans, we're gonna mess up. Okay, yeah, you're human, yeah, you have a
selfish sinful nature, but you have the righteousness of God in you if you have the Holy Spirit inside
of you. Whenever you commit to a life of living for God, that's a commitment. And it's one you
(33:12):
should want to do. And also, the closer you grow to God, the more you spend time with him, the more
and more time you're going to want to spend with him, the more and more you're going to want to do
his will, the more and more you're going to want to put his principles first and have time management
according to his time management, the more and more you're going to want to allow the Holy Spirit
to just exude righteousness out of you. So do we have an excuse? I mean, kind of, yeah, we're humans.
(33:34):
It's hard, because we're humans, but that doesn't mean it's impossible. You can never be wholly perfect
because you've already messed up. But from this moment on, you can make perfect decisions according
to the perfect God inside of you. That is very possible. You can make righteous decisions because
you have a righteous God guiding your life and in control. But it takes self-discipline to live that
(33:59):
life. And I realized earlier that at the beginning of this podcast episode, I mentioned, let's talk
about the surface level of what the world says, prioritizing God is. And I totally just went off
and didn't explain my whole thought on that. But really what it is, is we get, like, if you were to
(34:20):
look up, like, for instance, this is an example. And this is a very, very simple example of what
God is. And this is an example. And this is what I think of. You look up morning routines and how to
prioritize God in your day. You see mostly women do these, but there are men out there who do these
as well. When you look at their morning routine, they basically are saying, no, no, this is a lie.
(34:46):
This is a lie. Hold on, let me say this, because this is not true. But they're not saying this.
They're not believing this. I don't think most of them are. But what their video only shows is their
way to start your day off right so that you're prioritizing God. So what you're getting is,
OK, well, I need to make sure that my morning routine contains a undistracted time with God.
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I wholeheartedly agree with that. I'm not saying that's wrong. That is great, in my opinion.
I think you should prioritize God first thing in the morning, because then it really does set your day
off right. But then the rest of your day, it's not like you turn off the video and then the rest of
the day, they're not prioritizing God. They're still talking to him. And who knows, they may sit
down another time that day and just read through Proverbs 2 or whatever. They're still, like I said,
(35:32):
talking to him. And then also, they need to be prioritizing him in their actions and in their
thoughts and in their hearts, like I've been saying this whole episode. So it's not like you
prioritize God by spending time with him in the morning. That way, it puts you in a good mood for
the rest of your day. It's a daily and minute by minute thing, action by action thing, word by word
(35:52):
thing, thought by thought thing. It's a literally all day, every day. And it's not as exhausting as
you think it is. It sounds exhausting to some people. It's not. It's honestly so beautiful and
it's so fun to experience. And it's so, so much joy and peace comes from living a life for God.
Am I perfect? No. Do I do this perfectly? I do not. Should I? I should. And that's why I'm coming on
(36:21):
here to share with you my thoughts on what it means to prioritize God and how you're not alone in the
fact that having self-discipline is literally the hardest thing ever. It's so hard, but it's so worth
it when you are talking to God and allowing him to transform you in your self-discipline journey
(36:42):
and prioritizing him and worshiping him with your life. So I think that's all I've got for you guys.
I know there was a minute or two there where I was kind of struggling with my words, but hopefully I
can edit part of that out so it runs smoothly. That way there's not like a break in the momentum.
But thank you guys for listening to this episode. I really am so tired. So I'm really, I know God
(37:07):
said some good things out of there, but I hope and pray that you guys just are blessed by this.
I hope you guys have an amazing week ahead and an amazing weekend. And if you don't work on the
weekends, then rest as much as you can. And if you do work on the weekends, just know that a day off
is coming soon. And if it's not, then pray to God to help you have a day off so that you can rest.
(37:27):
Because rest is biblical as well and rest is important and we need to prioritize that as well.
Also, the other thing is some of you have probably noticed for a while the whole time we've had this
podcast up, it's not on Apple podcasts. And I'm sorry, I know it's inconvenient for some people,
but it is on Spotify and it's pretty much on everything else except for like a couple tiny ones.
(37:50):
And there's a reason behind that. I won't bore you with the information of that.
But Apple podcasts is just not liking me right now because I don't have an Apple account for the
ministry. But I also don't really feel the need to put on Apple podcasts because I know God can work
through all of the other like the plethora of other streaming apps and stuff out there that this
(38:13):
podcast is on. So I just wanted to say I am aware it's not on there and I'm sorry if that's
inconvenient for you. But just about everybody who has Apple podcasting also has Spotify. So please
just go to Spotify and listen to us there. Or we're also on YouTube where the captions are on there
and there's like a little whatever cutesy picture thing up there or whatever that you can look at
(38:38):
and read the captions along. But all right, well I hope you guys have just such a wonderful weekend.
And thank you again for listening and make sure you share with someone you love because we want
to share God's word with others. And this is not God's word, but God's word is spoken in this and
there are principles and things from God in this. So we want to share that with other people and
just encourage them to listen to Christian content more often. So please go do that. All right.
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