July 10, 2025 • 16 mins
Spiritual burnout is real, and it can happen when we approach our relationship with God from a place of desperation rather than balance.
• Overdoing spiritual practices can lead to exhaustion and confusion
• Binge-listening to sermons and excessive Bible reading can create its own anxiety
• The Word is designed to speak to us throughout our entire lifetime, not as a crash course
• God doesn't operate on our timeline or respond to spiritual performance metrics
• We can't force God's hand through busyness or spiritual cramming
• The Holy Spirit prays on our behalf when we don't know what to pray
• Rest and balance are essential parts of a healthy spiritual life
Affirmation: God doesn't need me exhausted to fulfill His purpose.
Pastor and Bible study leaders, EXPAND your online ministry.
My no-cost Not Guilty Newsletter diminishes guilt and fear.
Do your part to fuel the delivery of Christ’s forgiveness.
🙏Christ's love overcomes the guilt separating us from His boundless grace. Let's set aside our failings and take hold of His loving promises. 🙏
Guilt-free Faith serves up PEACE and POWER to Christian believers, pastors, and Bible study leaders.
🔥Videos, podcast, and Miracle Merch🔥 at GuiltFreeFaith.com.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Can you read the Bible too much?
Can you pray too much?
Can you go to church too much?
Jimmy James Johnson, guilt-freething.
If you're looking for guilt,you're in the wrong place,
because we all get down likethat.
Here we're going to get youwalking in victory today.
Let's get into it.
There's an underlyingassumption that we're all so
(00:23):
behind in seeking out the Lord,we're already so stingy in the
time that we give to the Lordthat of course we're not
overdoing it.
We're underdoing it.
But let me just say to you youcan in fact overdo it.
When I was in grad school, evenpeople who didn't have anxiety
or depression suffered underthat intense workload.
(00:46):
Because I actually had thoseproblems, I was even more
desperate for relief.
So I really ramped up mypursuit of God and his peace,
deliverance and healing power.
You couldn't find me withoutheadphones on binge listening to
someone's sermons.
My mentor warned me aboutoverdoing it.
(01:08):
He told me hey, man, goddesigned us for balance and even
taking in too much of the wordcan confuse and exhaust us.
We all know you can have toomuch of a good thing.
It's great to have a tastydessert after a great meal, but
overdo it.
You may have indigestion.
If you start eating bigdesserts after every meal, you
(01:30):
start to put on some weight.
Do that year after year and youmay be heading for diabetes.
So we see this principle inpractice, but we often don't
associate it with our spirituallife.
No one poses this question.
Do I mean that there are daysyou shouldn't seek out Jesus?
No, does that mean there's daysyou shouldn't read the Bible?
(01:52):
No.
Should you swear off church fora few months?
No, not necessarily.
But I can tell you this I waslistening to sermons day and
night, literally hours a day,going on walks, playing them
while I'm studying, so desperatefor that hope, for that healing
power of the Word.
And it can be very soothingSometimes.
(02:14):
If you're really in a panic oryou're overwhelmed, you need a
lot of the Word to come to youraid, to be in your corner.
So there is a time and a placefor that.
But let's speak about the otherside that people don't bring up
.
If you start listening to allkinds of sermons day in, day out
and you're just constantly onyour knees praying and all of
(02:35):
that, you can actually get to apoint of saturation where you're
just confused.
I mean, you're just exhausted,you're overwhelmed, Like you've
heard all these messages, andeven if they're from people that
you respect and believe to beteaching the truth.
There's so much nuance in theBible, there's so many layers,
there's so many things that theHoly Spirit has to reveal to you
(02:58):
in God's time, and that's notsomething that you can force.
I was feeling very sick, veryill, very troubled, very down,
sad, anxious, and here I'mthinking like I'm going to apply
the balm of the Holy Spirit tothis whole situation.
Right, and there is somethingto that.
But I think the way I was goingabout it demonstrated to me
(03:22):
that you can overdo it.
The idea that you're just goingto overwhelm your faculties
with prayer after prayer, pageafter page, chapter after
chapter, and you're going tocontinue with this like a
marathon.
That created its own type ofanxiety.
It was his own type of mania,and that desperation had me
(03:43):
devouring all these sermons atsuch a feverish pace.
I didn't really know what I wasdoing.
I was kind of in a haze.
People say, hey, the Bible has alot of contradictions.
Well, on the surface I can'treally argue with that.
I can certainly point outthings that seem like
contradictions, and if you'relooking to me to clarify and
(04:05):
argue away all of those orsomething.
You might as well switchchannels, because I don't have
all those answers.
I mean, one answer is theSpirit speaks to you and
interprets things for you as youneed them.
There's a time and a place anda season for everything, and
what I've found over the yearsof being in the Word is my
(04:26):
perception of what it's speakingto will change over time.
Now I don't look at that as afailure of the Word or, oh, the
Bible told me one thing and nowit's telling me another thing,
like when you're trying to walkin the Spirit and you're asking
the Lord to speak to you throughthe Word.
Sure, there can be confusion.
You may not get a revelation onsomething immediately.
(04:49):
There may be things you don'tget a revelation on while you're
still on this earth.
I can't speak for God or whyall the reasons that happens,
but I can say for certain thatyou will get different things
from the Word at different times.
And what that means is if youtry a speed course, you know how
people do programming bootcampIn eight weeks you learn 10
(05:13):
years of programming in Pythonor C.
Or here's a six-hour bootcampon how to be a bartender.
We like the shortcut, right.
We want the condensed littlepackage.
You know, rarely when we wantto do something do we want
somebody to say, hey, oh yeah,this is a 20-year path.
Like, how does that sound?
(05:33):
Hey, do you want to go toschool for 20 extra years to do
this?
That's not generally whatpeople want to sign up for,
right?
That's why you get the realestate crash course weekend,
bootcamp challenge, right.
Or you'll see things on YouTube.
Let's do the three-daychallenge, the 30-day challenge
and those have their place.
But I would submit to you thatthe word isn't like that.
(05:55):
The word is alive with thespirit and it's designed to
speak to you as needed, over thecourse of your entire life.
See, the Lord lives outside oftime.
The Lord isn't in a hurry.
Time isn't the issue for God.
God has his own time, he hashis own seasons.
(06:16):
His knowledge is above ours.
He can see the lay of the land,he can see the 10,000-foot view
of where you are in your lifeand where he's trying to take
you and riding with God.
Man, that ain't no.
It's not a crash course, it'snot a boot camp weekend.
It's not a speed reading course.
You can speed read through theBible, but that's not where the
(06:38):
power is.
The Lord is going to reveal toyou over time and hopefully, if
you're staying in the Word, youknow throughout your lifetime
you'll go through the Biblenumerous times.
Maybe sometimes you read itstraight through.
Maybe sometimes you're stayingin the Word.
You know throughout yourlifetime you'll go through the
Bible numerous times.
Maybe sometimes you read itstraight through.
Maybe sometimes you're studyinga particular passage or you're
like in a Bible study orsomething.
(06:59):
All of that's valid, but thegoal of the Word is not to
compact God's power and truthand knowledge into a weekend.
That's what I was doing as I wasflailing my arms for help, as I
was overwhelmed by my studiesand the pressure I was under, I
(07:22):
kept throwing out a lifeline.
Let me listen to another hourof this.
Let me listen to another hourof this, let me listen to
another hour of this person, andI realize now what my mentor
was saying was man, you got tolet the Spirit germinate and
develop and water those seeds.
God doesn't need you to listento 10 hours of sermons today to
(07:43):
heal you.
He doesn't need you to listento 10 sermons today to know that
he has a plan for you.
You to listen to 10 sermonstoday, to know that he has a
plan for you, a plan to blessyou and to look after you, and
nor is he promising to heal you.
So that's another way peopleget stuck.
They say, hey well, I'mlistening to a lot of sermons, a
lot of truth on healing, I'mfitting to get healed.
Okay, well, guess what?
(08:04):
It doesn't take much lookingaround to see that at least in
this life, you don't always gethealed.
That's one of the most difficulttruths that we have to face and
indeed one of the mostdifficult conflicts of being a
Christian.
Why does God allow these thingsto happen to good people?
Why doesn't God answer prayers?
Why doesn't God heal this?
(08:26):
Why doesn't God take this fromme?
Why doesn't God help me get upfrom behind on my bills?
Why is't God take this from me?
Why doesn't God help me get upfrom behind on my bills?
Why is God letting myrelationship fall apart?
And sometimes we're thinking,hey, let me just dig real deep
into a whole bunch of word, awhole bunch of truth, a whole
bunch of cassette tapes, videosand CDs.
And I'm telling you, man, thisis what I did.
(08:47):
You think I've exaggerated?
I'm not exaggerating, I waslistening to this and taking
this to heart and begging onthis and praying on this and
pleading on this day in and dayout.
And what happened?
Well, it added to my exhaustionbecause obviously there was a
lot of time.
I actually needed rest.
I needed to just be resting.
(09:09):
I needed to take my mind off mytroubles.
I needed to cast my cares uponthe Lord.
I thought I was doing that bygoing on these eight-hour
marathons of the sermons, butthat's not what I was doing.
I was taking it upon myself toactualize that deliverance and
that healing.
(09:29):
I was say no, god, like not inyour time.
This is how I'm going to forcethis issue.
This is my timeline.
So if I got to just keeplistening to this or keep saying
these words over and over, butGod showed me like I could tell
you right now, in retrospect,that didn't save me.
In fact, I got much more sick,much more seriously ill shortly
(09:49):
thereafter.
So you know that's not the magickey, that's not a shortcut.
You don't need to cram for yourrelationship with Jesus.
You don't need to cram to getyour deliverance, to get that
helping hand.
You don't have to cram to getGod to hear your pleas, your
cries out for help.
(10:09):
No, you don't need to.
That's not, thank God.
You do not need that type ofeffort in the flesh to reach God
.
God doesn't need all that.
He can hear you, he can see you, he can speak to you.
You won't have to sleep withthe headphones on tonight, going
to sleep to sermons.
I mean, I'm not saying younever do that, but I'm just
(10:32):
saying like I'm weighing in juston the opposite side of the
scale.
Some people will say you can'tget too much of a good thing
when it comes to whatever theword Christianity, god,
something in this spiritualcategory.
And I'm here to tell you thereare facets of that you can get
too much of, because we're nottalking about taking a break
from being a Christian or frombeing a believer, or talking
(10:55):
about renouncing your salvationfor the weekend.
That's not what we're talkingabout.
We're just talking about Goddoesn't need to have your nose
buried in the books 24 hours aday to handle your circumstance,
24 hours a day to handle yourcircumstance.
And you'll find that when youoverdo it, you will stop getting
(11:19):
the rest from it, it will stopputting you to peace and it will
start to irritate you.
It will start to grind on you.
And how does this happen?
One way to grind on you is,eventually you're going to be
like, well, god, like I've beenpraying and listening and
speaking, and where's my miracle?
So here you are, like you'reputting in all this work so
naturally, like in the flesh,like you're expecting a payoff.
Right, god?
You see, I'm doing this, I'mdoing that, I'm saying the word,
(11:42):
I'm memorizing the word, I'mpraying the word, I'm doing all
the things you told me to do.
Where's my?
And that disappointment reallybuilds up.
See, when you're doing that andyou're out of balance, when
that deliverance doesn't comethe way you want or quickly
enough, what a letdown that is,what a bitter disappointment
that is.
And then that creates afriction in your relationship
(12:04):
with God, because now you're notgetting what you want.
And you were already kind offrayed and agitated and down and
at the end of your rope, andnow it's like God, I'm putting
in overtime.
Can't you see me on my knees?
Can't you see me crying?
Yeah, yeah, he sees all thatman.
He sees and he cares, and, forwhatever reason, sometimes we
(12:28):
may come to find out, sometimeswe don't.
But we can't force God's hand byoverdoing it.
You're going to have to ask theSpirit what overdoing it means
for you, depending on the seasonyou're in.
But I just want to plant theseed in your mind that there is
such a thing as that.
The relationship that we havewith God through Jesus is one
(12:49):
that is supposed to bringstrength and refreshment.
It renews our mind, it renewsour spirit, it gives us hope and
power and the ultimate victory.
But sometimes we can get in ourflesh too much.
We can start trying to work Godlike the way we work on earth.
If I just work harder andfaster and take these shortcuts,
(13:11):
then that's how I'm going toget my money up.
That's how I'm going to losethis weight by starving myself.
There's so many circumstancesin which we have these very
earthly ways of thinking thatwe're going to really slug it
out, and sometimes that'sappropriate, sometimes it's not.
But you can't force God's handthrough your busyness, through
(13:33):
no matter how many prayers yousay or how many books of the
Bible you read.
Today.
God doesn't operate like thatand we should be thankful that
he doesn't.
That's more of the guilt-freefaith.
Put the performance on Jesus.
It's Jesus's performance, it'sJesus's righteousness that
(13:53):
deliverance flows through.
It's not because of somethingyou did or are doing.
No, it's because of thefinished work of Christ.
And now the Holy Spirit ispraying on your behalf, you see.
So notice the rest that's inthat.
Oh, wait a minute.
Yeah, jesus is the one thatwalked out this tough path for
(14:16):
me.
I mean, he's the one that mademe righteous in the eyes of God.
So when God looks at me, hedoesn't look at my sinful nature
, he looks at Jesus inperfection and in love and in
kindness and generosity andpatience.
The Holy Spirit that livesinside me is praying on my
behalf.
This is all biblical.
(14:36):
How often has somebody told youor referred you to that verse
about how the Holy Spirit ispraying on your behalf?
If somebody had come to tellyou that today and said hey,
jimmy, man, you look realuptight.
Man, the Holy Spirit's on yourside here, right, he's praying
for you.
Ultimately, you're going tocast your cares on him.
Oh, man, yeah, I almost forgotman, right, it isn't on me to do
(15:00):
this.
It isn't on me to carry theburden of making these grand
things happen on the spiritualplane.
Who am I to do that?
I can't do that.
I mean, I could call upon thepowers that the Lord outlines
for me in the Word.
But you know, even those powerslike I, just I'm only
inheriting them through theconduit of the Holy Spirit,
(15:21):
because Christ died for me andleft the Spirit for you, me and
everyone who calls upon his namefor salvation.
So let me leave you with thisaffirmation, because we have to
be reminded of this a lot moreoften than we are.
This is an affirmation that youcan rest in.
God doesn't need me exhaustedto fulfill his purpose.
(15:44):
God doesn't need me exhaustedto fulfill his purpose.
Can you read the Bible too much?
Can you pray too much?
Can you go to church too much?
Jimmy James Johnson, guilt-freething.
If you're looking for guilt,you're in the wrong place,
because we all get down likethat.
Here we're going to get youwalking in victory today.
Let's get into it.
There's an underlyingassumption that we're all so
(00:23):
behind in seeking out the Lord,we're already so stingy in the
time that we give to the Lordthat of course we're not
overdoing it.
We're underdoing it.
But let me just say to you youcan in fact overdo it.
When I was in grad school, evenpeople who didn't have anxiety
or depression suffered underthat intense workload.
(00:46):
Because I actually had thoseproblems, I was even more
desperate for relief.
So I really ramped up mypursuit of God and his peace,
deliverance and healing power.
You couldn't find me withoutheadphones on binge listening to
someone's sermons.
My mentor warned me aboutoverdoing it.
(01:08):
He told me hey, man, goddesigned us for balance and even
taking in too much of the wordcan confuse and exhaust us.
We all know you can have toomuch of a good thing.
It's great to have a tastydessert after a great meal, but
overdo it.
You may have indigestion.
If you start eating bigdesserts after every meal, you
(01:30):
start to put on some weight.
Do that year after year and youmay be heading for diabetes.
So we see this principle inpractice, but we often don't
associate it with our spirituallife.
No one poses this question.
Do I mean that there are daysyou shouldn't seek out Jesus?
No, does that mean there's daysyou shouldn't read the Bible?
(01:52):
No.
Should you swear off church fora few months?
No, not necessarily.
But I can tell you this I waslistening to sermons day and
night, literally hours a day,going on walks, playing them
while I'm studying, so desperatefor that hope, for that healing
power of the Word.
And it can be very soothingSometimes.
(02:14):
If you're really in a panic oryou're overwhelmed, you need a
lot of the Word to come to youraid, to be in your corner.
So there is a time and a placefor that.
But let's speak about the otherside that people don't bring up
.
If you start listening to allkinds of sermons day in, day out
and you're just constantly onyour knees praying and all of
(02:35):
that, you can actually get to apoint of saturation where you're
just confused.
I mean, you're just exhausted,you're overwhelmed, Like you've
heard all these messages, andeven if they're from people that
you respect and believe to beteaching the truth.
There's so much nuance in theBible, there's so many layers,
there's so many things that theHoly Spirit has to reveal to you
(02:58):
in God's time, and that's notsomething that you can force.
I was feeling very sick, veryill, very troubled, very down,
sad, anxious, and here I'mthinking like I'm going to apply
the balm of the Holy Spirit tothis whole situation.
Right, and there is somethingto that.
But I think the way I was goingabout it demonstrated to me
(03:22):
that you can overdo it.
The idea that you're just goingto overwhelm your faculties
with prayer after prayer, pageafter page, chapter after
chapter, and you're going tocontinue with this like a
marathon.
That created its own type ofanxiety.
It was his own type of mania,and that desperation had me
(03:43):
devouring all these sermons atsuch a feverish pace.
I didn't really know what I wasdoing.
I was kind of in a haze.
People say, hey, the Bible has alot of contradictions.
Well, on the surface I can'treally argue with that.
I can certainly point outthings that seem like
contradictions, and if you'relooking to me to clarify and
(04:05):
argue away all of those orsomething.
You might as well switchchannels, because I don't have
all those answers.
I mean, one answer is theSpirit speaks to you and
interprets things for you as youneed them.
There's a time and a place anda season for everything, and
what I've found over the yearsof being in the Word is my
(04:26):
perception of what it's speakingto will change over time.
Now I don't look at that as afailure of the Word or, oh, the
Bible told me one thing and nowit's telling me another thing,
like when you're trying to walkin the Spirit and you're asking
the Lord to speak to you throughthe Word.
Sure, there can be confusion.
You may not get a revelation onsomething immediately.
(04:49):
There may be things you don'tget a revelation on while you're
still on this earth.
I can't speak for God or whyall the reasons that happens,
but I can say for certain thatyou will get different things
from the Word at different times.
And what that means is if youtry a speed course, you know how
people do programming bootcampIn eight weeks you learn 10
(05:13):
years of programming in Pythonor C.
Or here's a six-hour bootcampon how to be a bartender.
We like the shortcut, right.
We want the condensed littlepackage.
You know, rarely when we wantto do something do we want
somebody to say, hey, oh yeah,this is a 20-year path.
Like, how does that sound?
(05:33):
Hey, do you want to go toschool for 20 extra years to do
this?
That's not generally whatpeople want to sign up for,
right?
That's why you get the realestate crash course weekend,
bootcamp challenge, right.
Or you'll see things on YouTube.
Let's do the three-daychallenge, the 30-day challenge
and those have their place.
But I would submit to you thatthe word isn't like that.
(05:55):
The word is alive with thespirit and it's designed to
speak to you as needed, over thecourse of your entire life.
See, the Lord lives outside oftime.
The Lord isn't in a hurry.
Time isn't the issue for God.
God has his own time, he hashis own seasons.
(06:16):
His knowledge is above ours.
He can see the lay of the land,he can see the 10,000-foot view
of where you are in your lifeand where he's trying to take
you and riding with God.
Man, that ain't no.
It's not a crash course, it'snot a boot camp weekend.
It's not a speed reading course.
You can speed read through theBible, but that's not where the
(06:38):
power is.
The Lord is going to reveal toyou over time and hopefully, if
you're staying in the Word, youknow throughout your lifetime
you'll go through the Biblenumerous times.
Maybe sometimes you read itstraight through.
Maybe sometimes you're stayingin the Word.
You know throughout yourlifetime you'll go through the
Bible numerous times.
Maybe sometimes you read itstraight through.
Maybe sometimes you're studyinga particular passage or you're
like in a Bible study orsomething.
(06:59):
All of that's valid, but thegoal of the Word is not to
compact God's power and truthand knowledge into a weekend.
That's what I was doing as I wasflailing my arms for help, as I
was overwhelmed by my studiesand the pressure I was under, I
(07:22):
kept throwing out a lifeline.
Let me listen to another hourof this.
Let me listen to another hourof this, let me listen to
another hour of this person, andI realize now what my mentor
was saying was man, you got tolet the Spirit germinate and
develop and water those seeds.
God doesn't need you to listento 10 hours of sermons today to
(07:43):
heal you.
He doesn't need you to listento 10 sermons today to know that
he has a plan for you.
You to listen to 10 sermonstoday, to know that he has a
plan for you, a plan to blessyou and to look after you, and
nor is he promising to heal you.
So that's another way peopleget stuck.
They say, hey well, I'mlistening to a lot of sermons, a
lot of truth on healing, I'mfitting to get healed.
Okay, well, guess what?
(08:04):
It doesn't take much lookingaround to see that at least in
this life, you don't always gethealed.
That's one of the most difficulttruths that we have to face and
indeed one of the mostdifficult conflicts of being a
Christian.
Why does God allow these thingsto happen to good people?
Why doesn't God answer prayers?
Why doesn't God heal this?
(08:26):
Why doesn't God take this fromme?
Why doesn't God help me get upfrom behind on my bills?
Why is't God take this from me?
Why doesn't God help me get upfrom behind on my bills?
Why is God letting myrelationship fall apart?
And sometimes we're thinking,hey, let me just dig real deep
into a whole bunch of word, awhole bunch of truth, a whole
bunch of cassette tapes, videosand CDs.
And I'm telling you, man, thisis what I did.
(08:47):
You think I've exaggerated?
I'm not exaggerating, I waslistening to this and taking
this to heart and begging onthis and praying on this and
pleading on this day in and dayout.
And what happened?
Well, it added to my exhaustionbecause obviously there was a
lot of time.
I actually needed rest.
I needed to just be resting.
(09:09):
I needed to take my mind off mytroubles.
I needed to cast my cares uponthe Lord.
I thought I was doing that bygoing on these eight-hour
marathons of the sermons, butthat's not what I was doing.
I was taking it upon myself toactualize that deliverance and
that healing.
(09:29):
I was say no, god, like not inyour time.
This is how I'm going to forcethis issue.
This is my timeline.
So if I got to just keeplistening to this or keep saying
these words over and over, butGod showed me like I could tell
you right now, in retrospect,that didn't save me.
In fact, I got much more sick,much more seriously ill shortly
(09:49):
thereafter.
So you know that's not the magickey, that's not a shortcut.
You don't need to cram for yourrelationship with Jesus.
You don't need to cram to getyour deliverance, to get that
helping hand.
You don't have to cram to getGod to hear your pleas, your
cries out for help.
(10:09):
No, you don't need to.
That's not, thank God.
You do not need that type ofeffort in the flesh to reach God
.
God doesn't need all that.
He can hear you, he can see you, he can speak to you.
You won't have to sleep withthe headphones on tonight, going
to sleep to sermons.
I mean, I'm not saying younever do that, but I'm just
(10:32):
saying like I'm weighing in juston the opposite side of the
scale.
Some people will say you can'tget too much of a good thing
when it comes to whatever theword Christianity, god,
something in this spiritualcategory.
And I'm here to tell you thereare facets of that you can get
too much of, because we're nottalking about taking a break
from being a Christian or frombeing a believer, or talking
(10:55):
about renouncing your salvationfor the weekend.
That's not what we're talkingabout.
We're just talking about Goddoesn't need to have your nose
buried in the books 24 hours aday to handle your circumstance,
24 hours a day to handle yourcircumstance.
And you'll find that when youoverdo it, you will stop getting
(11:19):
the rest from it, it will stopputting you to peace and it will
start to irritate you.
It will start to grind on you.
And how does this happen?
One way to grind on you is,eventually you're going to be
like, well, god, like I've beenpraying and listening and
speaking, and where's my miracle?
So here you are, like you'reputting in all this work so
naturally, like in the flesh,like you're expecting a payoff.
Right, god?
You see, I'm doing this, I'mdoing that, I'm saying the word,
(11:42):
I'm memorizing the word, I'mpraying the word, I'm doing all
the things you told me to do.
Where's my?
And that disappointment reallybuilds up.
See, when you're doing that andyou're out of balance, when
that deliverance doesn't comethe way you want or quickly
enough, what a letdown that is,what a bitter disappointment
that is.
And then that creates afriction in your relationship
(12:04):
with God, because now you're notgetting what you want.
And you were already kind offrayed and agitated and down and
at the end of your rope, andnow it's like God, I'm putting
in overtime.
Can't you see me on my knees?
Can't you see me crying?
Yeah, yeah, he sees all thatman.
He sees and he cares, and, forwhatever reason, sometimes we
(12:28):
may come to find out, sometimeswe don't.
But we can't force God's hand byoverdoing it.
You're going to have to ask theSpirit what overdoing it means
for you, depending on the seasonyou're in.
But I just want to plant theseed in your mind that there is
such a thing as that.
The relationship that we havewith God through Jesus is one
(12:49):
that is supposed to bringstrength and refreshment.
It renews our mind, it renewsour spirit, it gives us hope and
power and the ultimate victory.
But sometimes we can get in ourflesh too much.
We can start trying to work Godlike the way we work on earth.
If I just work harder andfaster and take these shortcuts,
(13:11):
then that's how I'm going toget my money up.
That's how I'm going to losethis weight by starving myself.
There's so many circumstancesin which we have these very
earthly ways of thinking thatwe're going to really slug it
out, and sometimes that'sappropriate, sometimes it's not.
But you can't force God's handthrough your busyness, through
(13:33):
no matter how many prayers yousay or how many books of the
Bible you read.
Today.
God doesn't operate like thatand we should be thankful that
he doesn't.
That's more of the guilt-freefaith.
Put the performance on Jesus.
It's Jesus's performance, it'sJesus's righteousness that
(13:53):
deliverance flows through.
It's not because of somethingyou did or are doing.
No, it's because of thefinished work of Christ.
And now the Holy Spirit ispraying on your behalf, you see.
So notice the rest that's inthat.
Oh, wait a minute.
Yeah, jesus is the one thatwalked out this tough path for
(14:16):
me.
I mean, he's the one that mademe righteous in the eyes of God.
So when God looks at me, hedoesn't look at my sinful nature
, he looks at Jesus inperfection and in love and in
kindness and generosity andpatience.
The Holy Spirit that livesinside me is praying on my
behalf.
This is all biblical.
(14:36):
How often has somebody told youor referred you to that verse
about how the Holy Spirit ispraying on your behalf?
If somebody had come to tellyou that today and said hey,
jimmy, man, you look realuptight.
Man, the Holy Spirit's on yourside here, right, he's praying
for you.
Ultimately, you're going tocast your cares on him.
Oh, man, yeah, I almost forgotman, right, it isn't on me to do
(15:00):
this.
It isn't on me to carry theburden of making these grand
things happen on the spiritualplane.
Who am I to do that?
I can't do that.
I mean, I could call upon thepowers that the Lord outlines
for me in the Word.
But you know, even those powerslike I, just I'm only
inheriting them through theconduit of the Holy Spirit,
(15:21):
because Christ died for me andleft the Spirit for you, me and
everyone who calls upon his namefor salvation.
So let me leave you with thisaffirmation, because we have to
be reminded of this a lot moreoften than we are.
This is an affirmation that youcan rest in.
God doesn't need me exhaustedto fulfill his purpose.
(15:44):
God doesn't need me exhaustedto fulfill his purpose.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!