February 13, 2026 • 29 mins
As we began this "Encouragement for the Way" series, the challenge was to read a chapter a day in the book of John. No doubt some of you likely finished your journey through John a week or two ago, and some of you may have started and just kind of fell off. Regardless of where you are that's absolutely fine. The point of regularly reading our Bibles is not to complete a checklist. It's simply about consistently spending time in the Bible and learning more and more what it looks like to walk with Jesus.
In this episode I share my takeaways from chapters 6-10, reflecting on themes of grace, belief, and the transformative power of Jesus in our lives. I hope this episode will encourage you, spark some enthusiasm, and maybe even challenge you a bit.
Get all the Scripture references and resources mentioned in this episode: https://jennyzentz.com/podcast133
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Be multiplied. No matter how little you have or
how insignificant you feel or how minimal you think your
resources are, if you take whatever you have and you offer
it to God, you say God, this is all I have and it doesn't look
like enough to really do anything, but you can have it if
you want it. When you place what little you
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have into the hands of the Master, he will take it, He will
bless it, and He will multiply it.
Welcome to the Intertwined Life podcast.
I'm your host, Jenny Zenz. I am a wife and a mom on a
mission. I've got a passion to help women
discover practical ways to applythe power of God's word to our
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everyday stuff. I truly believe that our walks
with the Lord should be seamlessly intertwined with our
everyday lives. It should affect every move we
make and every breath we take. So come on, let's do life
together. You've got this because he's got
you. Hey friends, welcome back to the
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Intertwined Life podcast. And for those of you watching or
listening who are part of Rock Harbor Church, welcome to part
six of our Encouragement for theWay which we are doing as a part
of our Get Fit initiative for 2026.
As we are just walking together on my podcast, Intertwine Life
and as a church family at Rock Harbor Church in Melbourne Reach
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Florida, to look at the ways that being fit in our lives
spiritually, physically, mentally, all those ways are
interconnected and intertwined so that we can fully walk with
the Lord in the way he intended.So one of the challenges that
we've done is we were talking about going through the book of
John and the challenge I gave was there 21 chapters in the
book of John, read slowly a chapter a day through the book
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of John, ideally starting in early January.
Well, right now I'm recording this, it is February 11th.
Some of you may have done that, flown through a chapter a day,
done your little checklist, got it.
Now what? But some of you, life happens.
And what we need to also know, and that's why I haven't been
giving extremely intense step bystep guidance through this
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process, is because walking withthe Lord, we're going to have
UPS, we're going to have downs, we're going to be on it and then
we're not. But thankfully our walk with the
Lord we need to show up in however form we are.
And some days we feel like we'vegot together and some days we
feel like everything is piled ontop of us.
But we can show up and we can walk with the Lord and get back
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on track when we get off track. And it is a slow day by day
walking with him. That's what discipleship is.
It is walking daily with him constantly connected, having
that dialogue being in the word.So we know because the disciples
in the Scripture had Christ walking with them in physical
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form. If our faith is in Jesus as the
Savior of our souls, as the onlything that can give us what we
need to reconcile us to God, theforgiveness for our sins, He's
the only way to get there. And if we our faith is in him
for that, then we have the Holy Spirit inside of us and we walk
with that spirit day in and day out.
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But we also have the Word of Godto help us understand who Christ
is, what Christ did. And as we learn the character of
him by reading His Word and reading about him, the things he
did, the things he said, the ways he acted, we will become
more and more like Him. Because whoever you spend time
with, you become more like and, and I think that sounds pretty
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good. Let's spend a lot of time with
Jesus because I'm pretty sure wewill benefit.
Our relationships will benefit, Our family will benefit.
Trust me, your marriage will benefit.
Thank you, Lord. Parenting will benefit.
Our nation would benefit. Our communities would benefit,
but we can't control everything else out there.
But what we can do is choose forourselves to Daily Show up, to
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daily open His word, to daily sit before the Lord and say,
God, teach me. Show me what you want me to
know. Teach me how to be more like you
and to learn more about what youwould do in any given situation.
And then Lord, make me sensitiveto the power of your spirit
inside of me, that nudging of your Holy Spirit.
So these are just practical waysto talk to the Lord, to walk
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through Scripture, to walk out discipleship, which sounds like
a real church Inese Christianesekind of word, how we walk out
that daily life with Christ. So we've been looking at the
book of John. So again, if you haven't
finished it yet or you finished a long time ago, either way, I
did an episode, I guess about a month ago, a little less with my
takeaways from the first five chapters of John.
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So I've done a few other interviews.
If you've missed those, please go back and grab some of those.
They have been really good because like I said, this is
part six of our Encouragement for the Way podcast series.
So in today's episode, I'm goingto talk through chapter 6,
probably through 10, something like that.
And all I'm doing, I'm not teaching verse by verse.
I am just saying when I sat withthis, this is what jumped out to
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me. These are my takeaways.
So this may just help you if if you're reading and sometimes we
read, but we don't really internalize what we're reading
or we read to get through it, but we don't really stop and
think about what does that actually mean or what was going
on or what was going on in the minds of the people who were
hearing and saying and seeing these things.
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So I just want to slow us down in our reading of scripture.
And this is just to give you an idea of some things that jumped
out at me and you may have had totally different things jump
out at you. And I'm probably not going to
mention all the things that jumped out to me, but keep a
notebook next to you. I have this notebook and I
chapter 1, chapter 2, and I justwrite down as I read like
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chapter 5, verse 5. This man had been an invalid for
38 years. And then Jesus asked him if he
wanted to become well. And that's something I talked
about. And so I was like, hmm, I had my
own moment with this when Jesus said, do you really want to be
well? So all of that is back in the
other episode, but that's just an example.
I just write down the things that jump out and just sit with
that slowly with the Lord. And that's why a chapter a day,
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you don't have to take a whole book a day.
You know what I mean? Let's just process this slowly
and walk daily. So I've said that enough.
So let's move on. So chapter 6, one of the first
things that jumped out to me, wesee him feeding the 5000 and Oh
my goodness, I love this story. This is where the crowds have
come to Christ. They have asking Jesus to show
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them miracles, to teach them things.
And they've been following him for so long.
They're starving, they're hungry, they're out in the
middle of the wilderness, so to speak, where they don't really
have a McDonald's or anything nearby.
And the disciples are saying, hey, hey, let's send these
people home because they need toeat.
And we're really tired and it's been a really long day or a
couple days. And Jesus is like, you feed them
and they're going, what are we going to do?
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And we see that Andrew comes to him and says, there's this
little boy here. And he has five small barley
loaves and two small fish. I mean, this could have been
really small. When we think 5 loaves of bread,
we think that's a pretty big deal.
I'm pretty sure they weren't that big because what we're
understanding is these five loaves and these two small fish.
These, this was the boys lunch. He was out there, his mom had
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probably packed him a lunch so that he could go and play all
day. And this child has gotten in
with this crowd and is followingJesus and listening to Jesus.
And what I think is really cool is the other side of that.
Not only did Andrew just say, hey, this little boy has lunch
over here, there's only food I see anywhere.
But this little boy had to at some point in his childlike
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faith, look at 5:00. So we would say 5000.
We're talking 5000 men. They were also women and
children. So it was a much larger number
than just 5000. And when we see this lunch
appear, this little boy in his childlike faith must have looked
at 5000 and known there's no waymy lunch could be 5000 people.
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But if you want it, Jesus, you can have it.
And Jesus took it, blessed it and multiplied it and it fed
5000 people plus 12 baskets of leftovers to be picked up.
So the message I take away here is be multiplied.
No matter how little you have orhow insignificant you feel or
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how minimal you think your resources are, if you take
whatever you have and you offer it to God, you say God, this is
all I have. And it doesn't look like enough
to really do anything, but you can have it if you want it.
When you place what little you have into the hands of the
Master, He will take it, He willbless it, and He will multiply
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it. And that is one of my favorite
takeaways in so many things thatChrist did.
I love that visual. So that was one of the things
that really jumped out to me there.
Also I want to note something important, what I found when I
read chapter 6. Let's look at verses 3535 says
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Then Jesus declared I am the bread of life.
Whoever comes to me will never go hungry.
Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. 36 But as I
told you, you have seen me, and you still do not believe.
And verse 40 says for my Father,it is his will that everyone who
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looks to the Son and believes she'll have eternal life and I
will raise them up on the last day, meaning when he returns and
the resurrection of the dead to go to heaven to be with him.
So clearly we see here it is possible to seek Christ, to
learn about Christ, to kind of get to know Christ and yet never
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put your faith in him. There is a step that needs to
happen. So there are plenty of people
who say, yes, I go to church. That's not the end.
Going to church is great. You learn about Jesus.
But until we come to a point where we look to the Son and
believe, we put our faith in Him, we trust in him for the
forgiveness of our sins and for the new life that only He can
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give. Until then, we're not guaranteed
that eternal life. And we also aren't able to fully
step into the incredible life that Jesus died to give us right
here, right now. And even though it doesn't mean
life is always going to be easy when our faith is in Jesus, but
it means we'll never walk alone.So it's possible to go to church
every day. It's possible to keep the
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Christian calendar if you're in like high church where you do
the liturgical calendar and all that.
It's possible to check all theseboxes of religion ritual and not
actually put your faith in Jesus.
So there is a difference betweenfollowing Him, getting to know
Him, looking at Him, questioningabout Him, wondering about him,
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and then making a decision for yourself as an individual to
step into a personal relationship with him as your
Lord and Savior. So OK, I'm taking a really long
time to get through some of thisstuff.
Chapter 7, we see that his family is taunting him.
This is Jesus and his brothers are mocking him and making fun
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of him, like, oh, why don't you go show yourself?
And we see that this is not something that was uncommon to
Christ himself. And many of us have experienced
difficult times with friends or families or others where we're
feel like we're trying to walk out God's call and it's not
being taken seriously or it's not being appreciative or it's
being even mocked. One line I wrote down was don't
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be baited. Be led by the Spirit.
They were baiting Christ. They were trying to get Jesus to
step outside of what He knew in His time and in His place.
What was the right thing to be doing right then just by
taunting Him? But He did not let that get him
off track. He was led by the Spirit of God
to walk in the timing and the way and the attitude and the
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mindset that God had called him to.
And then I want to see where Jesus foreshadows the coming of
the Holy Spirit and makes this invitation to all.
It's clear it's whoever, whoever, anyone.
If you look in Chapter 7 at verse 37, it says on the last
and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said
in a loud voice. He wasn't whispering this just
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to his like inner circle or those close to him.
He stood and he said in a loud voice, and we don't always see
him doing things in a loud voice, but he is proclaiming to
all those who were gathered for the festival, whether they were
Jews or people who had been adopted into Jewish culture, who
had decided to come along and bepart of that tradition and
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recognize God. Because you see that there were
also people who would come for the festivals who maybe were not
born Jews, but who recognized the God of the Jews and so then
fell in line with the customs and the practices of the Jewish
people. They're all gathered.
And Jesus stands up on the last and the greatest day.
And with a loud voice he declares, let anyone who is
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thirsty come to me and drink, whoever believes in me.
As the Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow
from within them. By this he meant the Spirit whom
those who believed in him were later to receive.
Up to that time, the Spirit had not been given since Jesus had
not yet been glorified. So mean the Holy Spirit had not
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come to dwell in the hearts of his people yet because Jesus was
walking among us. But he said, when I go, I'll
send another. We'll see that in a few
chapters. And so he stood up and he
declared to everyone, whoever believes in him and comes to him
and trusts in him, rivers of living water will spring up in
them, meaning they will be filled to overflowing with the
living, powerful Holy Spirit of God.
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Awesome promise of the Spirit right there, foreshadowed of
what was to come later that we find in the book of Acts after
Christ's ascension when the HolySpirit comes for the first time
to begin to dwell in His people.In chapter 8, we see the woman
in adultery brought before him. And there's so many ways to go
with this story and there's so much to unpack here.
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But one of the things I want to note is this is the time where
it says Jesus stooped down and started to write in the ground.
And he told them, anyone who is without sin, cast the first
stone. And then he starts, He's just
writing in the ground, quietly writing in the ground.
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And people began to leave from the oldest to the youngest as
they began to realize that they weren't sinless.
So none of them had the ability to actually cast a stone at this
lady. What is so interesting is so
many times there's all these different theological thoughts
and some really great commentaryon what was he writing, What was
he writing? And there's a lot of lot of
different things there that it could be, and some make really
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good sense and sound really awesome.
But here's what I want you to know.
There's a good chance that sincewe're not told in Scripture what
he wrote, that's not the point right now.
That's not the point. It could be really exciting.
There could be a lot of really cool things that he did that
would cause them to have this reflection and this reaction.
But if it's not there, it's not the point.
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So let's focus on the main thinghere.
And the main thing here was you who are out sin.
You cast the first step. And then after that, as they
left, Jesus looked this woman inthe eye and what he told her
was, I don't condemn you, but goand sin no more.
He did not say it's OK you be you follow your own truth.
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You know, whatever it is, He still spoke truth into her
situation. He forgave her and he commanded
her to go and sin no more. So that's a powerful thing right
there. Chapter 9.
I love the story of the man bornblind.
What I love most is where the people are saying, Master, who
sinned, that this guy was born blind.
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And Jesus says this amazing thing where he says no one
sinned, this happened, that the glory of God might be seen.
So what we need to know is sometimes a trial, a sickness, a
tragedy is a result of sin because our sins do have
consequences. But do not think that just
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because you or someone else is going through something tragic
that it means that, Oh well, they must have a a big sin in
their life. That is not Scripture.
Jesus is telling us sometimes these things come simply so that
he can be glorified. And if you look at First
Corinthians 12, I'm sorry, Second Corinthians 12/9, one of
my favorite verses of Scripture,Paul was told by God, my grace
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is sufficient for you and my strength is made perfect in your
weakness. There are many times that our
weaknesses show the glory of God.
I say many times, maybe every time when we are weak, he is
strong when the world sees our weaknesses, but they see that
Holy Spirit strength in US shining, then they know that God
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is the one who gets the glory. And whether it's your weakness
of a disease or your weakness ofsaying things you shouldn't say
and putting your foot in your mouth, maybe it's foot in mouth
disease, I don't know. But man, God can be glorified in
our weakness. So no, give those things to him.
And if something comes up in your life, it's not wrong to
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say, OK, Lord, is there something out of step with me
that that brought this? Is there a reason?
But if you don't feel any conviction, you don't feel the
Lord show you anything that you need to Ridge your life of, then
you just say, Lord, I'm walking with you.
I'm trusting you day-to-day. I thank you that in my weakness,
your strength is made perfect. And through this, Lord, show me
and teach me anything you want to teach me.
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And above all else, may you be brought glory.
That is how we live with an eternal perspective.
So I love that part of Scripture.
I love what that shows us. I also love how later when they
came to this man in verse 25 of Chapter 9 and they're like who
did this and what happened and blah, blah, blah.
And they're asking all these questions and finally he's like,
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you know what? I don't know.
All I know is I was blind and now I see love it.
The fact is, we do not have all the answers, and regardless of
where you are in your walk with the Lord, you're always going to
have things you don't fully understand.
There are going to be things that the greatest theological
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minds of the world of all time will not be able to grasp and
understand until we see Him faceto face.
But what we can do is share our story.
And when people start peppering you with all these questions,
two things. One, I don't know.
All I can say is that I'm at Jesus and things are radically
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different and I can't explain itall, but this is my story.
But then the next thing is you can say come and see, just like
the woman at the well. Come and see.
Invite them to church. Introduce them to someone who
has helped you along your walk, who can help them go a little
bit deeper. Give them a book of the Bible.
Say, hey, what? Read John, learn a little bit
about it. I don't have all the answers,
but I was blind, but now I see. So our stories are powerful no
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matter where we are and how muchwe understand.
Share your story and invite people to just come and see.
And then chapter 10, we learn about Jesus as the Good
Shepherd. And it is so kind and so
compassionate. And the more we learn about
shepherding and understand aboutthat occupation and what sheep
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are actually like and all the things of that day, the more
beautiful this imagery becomes, the more we understand.
And if we look at, I mean, he's going to lead us gently and
kindly, and he wants us to recognize his voice.
He says that his sheep will recognize his voice.
How? Because they spend time just
hanging out in the fields together, and they know their
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master's voice. And there's a promise there that
you will know his voice if you are his.
So trust in that, have confidence in that.
And in your prayers just say, Lord help me to more clearly
know. Your will for my life, to know
what you'd have me doing in every given moment, to hear you
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guiding me along the way. And you can say, Lord, I know
that. In John chapter 10, you tell me
you're the Good Shepherd, and you tell me that your sheep know
your voice. Lord, my faith is in you as my
Lord and my Savior. I am your sheep.
You tell me I know your voice. Help me, Lord, to truly know
your voice and to believe that you have given me the ability to
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know and to hear and to recognize when you speak.
And so stand on that truth, claim that truth, but also find
some, find some freedom and the pressure being off when you can
lean into that and know that God, if I'm your sheep, I know
your voice because you told me Ido.
So I don't have to work so hard and be so nervous and afraid
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that I'm not going to get it andthen I'm going to miss it.
I can rest as your sheep gently in your presence and again, keep
showing up, keep being in His word.
The more we spend time with the shepherd, with the Lord of our
souls, the more we will recognize His voice.
So I love that imagery of Him being the Good Shepherd.
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And also he's the only way. If you look at verse 9, I am the
gate. Whoever enters through me will
be saved. They will come in and out and
find pasture. So he is the way there used to
be the the sheep at night would be corralled in like a cave or a
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pen and the the gate the shepherd would lay down at the
mouth of that. And the only way to pass in and
out was through the shepherd. He's the only way.
Jesus is the only way to heaven.He's the only way to a right
relationship with God. He's the only way to be filled
with the power of the Holy Spirit.
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He is the way and He's not exclusive saying I exclude all
these other people. He says whoever, whosoever wants
to be united and in perfect union with the God of the
universe, who is the lover and creator of your soul, come
through me. I'll take your sin, I'll cover
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you with my righteousness so that you can be presented to the
God of the universe as holy and blameless and enter into a
relationship where God is your daddy, your ABBA, OK, He is the
way. And so through Jesus, we have
all these things and then he warns us and also gives us this
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incredible, incredible blessing.He says in verse 10, you know
the thief, this is Satan. This is the the enemies of our
soul, Satan and his and his his friend group, his gang.
They just want to destroy anything that tries to bring
glory to God and they want to keep us from God.
And if they can't keep us from accepting him, they want to keep
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us from a deep walk with him in any little way possible.
Says the enemy comes to steal, to kill and destroy.
But I have come that they, us, his sheep may have life and have
it to the full. The amplified version says they
may have and enjoy their life and have it in abundance to the
full till it overflows. So that is an incredible
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blessing and an incredible promise.
If you saw in 16 where he says Ihave other sheep that are not of
this sheep pen. If you were not born a Jew,
that's you and it's me. These are the gentiles, his
chosen people that he came to and through first are the Jewish
people. But then the sheep outside of
that pen, the other sheep, that's us.
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He brings us into that pen. He brings us into the fold.
When we put our faith in Him, weare grafted in and adopted into
that family and given their right, as we learned earlier in
the book of John, to become children of God.
He says, there I have other sheep that are not of this sheep
pen. I must bring them also.
They too will listen to my voiceand there shall be 1 flock and 1
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shepherd. One flock meaning the church
with a capital C Jews and Gentiles.
No matter where we come from, nomatter what background we come
from, when our faith is in Him, we are all on even ground level
playing field. We're all in the same sheep pen.
We become the church, the one church, the one body of
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believers. And we see in 27 through 28, He
says my sheep listen to my voice.
I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life and
they shall never perish. No one will snatch them out of
my hand. If your life is in Christ and
you have accepted Him as your Lord and Savior, you are secure.
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You are in Him and He is in you and nothing can snatch you out
of His hand. That is the what's a lot of
times in church and he's we'll call the security of the
believer. No one can take back what God
has done. No one can take you from Him.
You don't lose your salvation because if you couldn't do
enough to get yourself saved, you sure can't do enough to keep
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yourself saved. And if no one can separate you
or pull you out of God's hand, that means even you can't pull
yourself out of God's hand. What He has done is done.
What He has declared and established is true.
And it reminds me of Romans chapter 8.
I'm going to start at verse 34 and end this episode with this.
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Who then is the one who condemnsNo one Christ Jesus who died
more than that, who was raised to life, is at the right hand of
God and is also interceding for us right now.
Jesus Christ is seated at the hand of God in the throne room
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in heaven, interceding for us, praying for us.
Jesus is praying for us right now.
Goes on to say, who shall separate us from the love of
Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or
persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him
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who loved us. For I am convinced that neither
death nor life, nor angels nor demons, neither the present nor
the future, nor any power, neither height nor depth,
anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from
the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
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All right, guys, I'm going to stop here for now.
I wish you many blessings. So much strength, Lord, May your
word fall on fertile grounds in our hearts.
Take root and help us just to crave more and more and more of
you, to come to know you more and more, to hear and recognize
your voice, and to be confident as your sheep that you are in
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complete control and that come what may in our weakness, your
strength is made perfect and nothing can separate us from
your great love. We thank you and praise you for
these things in the name of Jesus, Amen.
All right, guys, I'll be back before too long with some other
great interviews as well as moretakeaways from the book of John.
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So stay connected, subscribe if you haven't, and I'm just gonna
do a shameless plug, okay? My podcast on Apple Podcast is
super close to hitting 100 reviews, 105 star reviews.
Thank you, Lord, and thank you to those who reviewed.
You've all given five stars. Yay.
I always say if you had do not feel like you have a five star
experience with my teaching or the podcast, Just pretend like
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it didn't happen. OK?
But if you have enjoyed the podcast or any time that we have
had together with teaching and sharing and opening the word and
doing interviews, if you listen on Apple Podcast or if you could
just jump over to Apple Podcast,even if you're not on there
right now, find the show and give it five stars to help me
hit that 100. That would be so, so amazing.
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I'd be so thankful because when a podcast hits 100 reviews, it
makes it more discoverable by others, and it just helps us
continue to spread God's word and to help people find
practical ways to apply the power of God's word to our
everyday stuff. So I'd appreciate that if you're
willing. Have a great week.
I love you guys, love doing thisjourney with you, and I'll be
(29:01):
back soon. Hey friend, if you enjoyed this
episode and you got some good stuff out of it, there's a few
options. You have 1, you could click that
little subscribe button. And also, if you would review
this podcast, Oh my gosh, if youlike what you heard, get on
there. Give it a five star review.
(29:23):
If you didn't like what you heard, just pretend it never
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me, just take a couple seconds and do that.
Not only would I be crazy excited, but also it would just
be a great way for us to partnertogether, for you to help this
podcast be seen by more women out there.
And you could be a part of helping more women discover
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these practical ways to apply God's Word to just everyday
stuff. So I would love it, love it,
love it if you could help me outin one of those two ways.
Be multiplied. No matter how little you have or
how insignificant you feel or how minimal you think your
resources are, if you take whatever you have and you offer
it to God, you say God, this is all I have and it doesn't look
like enough to really do anything, but you can have it if
you want it. When you place what little you
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have into the hands of the Master, he will take it, He will
bless it, and He will multiply it.
Welcome to the Intertwined Life podcast.
I'm your host, Jenny Zenz. I am a wife and a mom on a
mission. I've got a passion to help women
discover practical ways to applythe power of God's word to our
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everyday stuff. I truly believe that our walks
with the Lord should be seamlessly intertwined with our
everyday lives. It should affect every move we
make and every breath we take. So come on, let's do life
together. You've got this because he's got
you. Hey friends, welcome back to the
(01:07):
Intertwined Life podcast. And for those of you watching or
listening who are part of Rock Harbor Church, welcome to part
six of our Encouragement for theWay which we are doing as a part
of our Get Fit initiative for 2026.
As we are just walking together on my podcast, Intertwine Life
and as a church family at Rock Harbor Church in Melbourne Reach
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Florida, to look at the ways that being fit in our lives
spiritually, physically, mentally, all those ways are
interconnected and intertwined so that we can fully walk with
the Lord in the way he intended.So one of the challenges that
we've done is we were talking about going through the book of
John and the challenge I gave was there 21 chapters in the
book of John, read slowly a chapter a day through the book
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of John, ideally starting in early January.
Well, right now I'm recording this, it is February 11th.
Some of you may have done that, flown through a chapter a day,
done your little checklist, got it.
Now what? But some of you, life happens.
And what we need to also know, and that's why I haven't been
giving extremely intense step bystep guidance through this
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process, is because walking withthe Lord, we're going to have
UPS, we're going to have downs, we're going to be on it and then
we're not. But thankfully our walk with the
Lord we need to show up in however form we are.
And some days we feel like we'vegot together and some days we
feel like everything is piled ontop of us.
But we can show up and we can walk with the Lord and get back
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on track when we get off track. And it is a slow day by day
walking with him. That's what discipleship is.
It is walking daily with him constantly connected, having
that dialogue being in the word.So we know because the disciples
in the Scripture had Christ walking with them in physical
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form. If our faith is in Jesus as the
Savior of our souls, as the onlything that can give us what we
need to reconcile us to God, theforgiveness for our sins, He's
the only way to get there. And if we our faith is in him
for that, then we have the Holy Spirit inside of us and we walk
with that spirit day in and day out.
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But we also have the Word of Godto help us understand who Christ
is, what Christ did. And as we learn the character of
him by reading His Word and reading about him, the things he
did, the things he said, the ways he acted, we will become
more and more like Him. Because whoever you spend time
with, you become more like and, and I think that sounds pretty
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good. Let's spend a lot of time with
Jesus because I'm pretty sure wewill benefit.
Our relationships will benefit, Our family will benefit.
Trust me, your marriage will benefit.
Thank you, Lord. Parenting will benefit.
Our nation would benefit. Our communities would benefit,
but we can't control everything else out there.
But what we can do is choose forourselves to Daily Show up, to
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daily open His word, to daily sit before the Lord and say,
God, teach me. Show me what you want me to
know. Teach me how to be more like you
and to learn more about what youwould do in any given situation.
And then Lord, make me sensitiveto the power of your spirit
inside of me, that nudging of your Holy Spirit.
So these are just practical waysto talk to the Lord, to walk
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through Scripture, to walk out discipleship, which sounds like
a real church Inese Christianesekind of word, how we walk out
that daily life with Christ. So we've been looking at the
book of John. So again, if you haven't
finished it yet or you finished a long time ago, either way, I
did an episode, I guess about a month ago, a little less with my
takeaways from the first five chapters of John.
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So I've done a few other interviews.
If you've missed those, please go back and grab some of those.
They have been really good because like I said, this is
part six of our Encouragement for the Way podcast series.
So in today's episode, I'm goingto talk through chapter 6,
probably through 10, something like that.
And all I'm doing, I'm not teaching verse by verse.
I am just saying when I sat withthis, this is what jumped out to
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me. These are my takeaways.
So this may just help you if if you're reading and sometimes we
read, but we don't really internalize what we're reading
or we read to get through it, but we don't really stop and
think about what does that actually mean or what was going
on or what was going on in the minds of the people who were
hearing and saying and seeing these things.
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So I just want to slow us down in our reading of scripture.
And this is just to give you an idea of some things that jumped
out at me and you may have had totally different things jump
out at you. And I'm probably not going to
mention all the things that jumped out to me, but keep a
notebook next to you. I have this notebook and I
chapter 1, chapter 2, and I justwrite down as I read like
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chapter 5, verse 5. This man had been an invalid for
38 years. And then Jesus asked him if he
wanted to become well. And that's something I talked
about. And so I was like, hmm, I had my
own moment with this when Jesus said, do you really want to be
well? So all of that is back in the
other episode, but that's just an example.
I just write down the things that jump out and just sit with
that slowly with the Lord. And that's why a chapter a day,
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you don't have to take a whole book a day.
You know what I mean? Let's just process this slowly
and walk daily. So I've said that enough.
So let's move on. So chapter 6, one of the first
things that jumped out to me, wesee him feeding the 5000 and Oh
my goodness, I love this story. This is where the crowds have
come to Christ. They have asking Jesus to show
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them miracles, to teach them things.
And they've been following him for so long.
They're starving, they're hungry, they're out in the
middle of the wilderness, so to speak, where they don't really
have a McDonald's or anything nearby.
And the disciples are saying, hey, hey, let's send these
people home because they need toeat.
And we're really tired and it's been a really long day or a
couple days. And Jesus is like, you feed them
and they're going, what are we going to do?
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And we see that Andrew comes to him and says, there's this
little boy here. And he has five small barley
loaves and two small fish. I mean, this could have been
really small. When we think 5 loaves of bread,
we think that's a pretty big deal.
I'm pretty sure they weren't that big because what we're
understanding is these five loaves and these two small fish.
These, this was the boys lunch. He was out there, his mom had
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probably packed him a lunch so that he could go and play all
day. And this child has gotten in
with this crowd and is followingJesus and listening to Jesus.
And what I think is really cool is the other side of that.
Not only did Andrew just say, hey, this little boy has lunch
over here, there's only food I see anywhere.
But this little boy had to at some point in his childlike
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faith, look at 5:00. So we would say 5000.
We're talking 5000 men. They were also women and
children. So it was a much larger number
than just 5000. And when we see this lunch
appear, this little boy in his childlike faith must have looked
at 5000 and known there's no waymy lunch could be 5000 people.
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But if you want it, Jesus, you can have it.
And Jesus took it, blessed it and multiplied it and it fed
5000 people plus 12 baskets of leftovers to be picked up.
So the message I take away here is be multiplied.
No matter how little you have orhow insignificant you feel or
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how minimal you think your resources are, if you take
whatever you have and you offer it to God, you say God, this is
all I have. And it doesn't look like enough
to really do anything, but you can have it if you want it.
When you place what little you have into the hands of the
Master, He will take it, He willbless it, and He will multiply
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it. And that is one of my favorite
takeaways in so many things thatChrist did.
I love that visual. So that was one of the things
that really jumped out to me there.
Also I want to note something important, what I found when I
read chapter 6. Let's look at verses 3535 says
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Then Jesus declared I am the bread of life.
Whoever comes to me will never go hungry.
Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. 36 But as I
told you, you have seen me, and you still do not believe.
And verse 40 says for my Father,it is his will that everyone who
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looks to the Son and believes she'll have eternal life and I
will raise them up on the last day, meaning when he returns and
the resurrection of the dead to go to heaven to be with him.
So clearly we see here it is possible to seek Christ, to
learn about Christ, to kind of get to know Christ and yet never
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put your faith in him. There is a step that needs to
happen. So there are plenty of people
who say, yes, I go to church. That's not the end.
Going to church is great. You learn about Jesus.
But until we come to a point where we look to the Son and
believe, we put our faith in Him, we trust in him for the
forgiveness of our sins and for the new life that only He can
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give. Until then, we're not guaranteed
that eternal life. And we also aren't able to fully
step into the incredible life that Jesus died to give us right
here, right now. And even though it doesn't mean
life is always going to be easy when our faith is in Jesus, but
it means we'll never walk alone.So it's possible to go to church
every day. It's possible to keep the
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Christian calendar if you're in like high church where you do
the liturgical calendar and all that.
It's possible to check all theseboxes of religion ritual and not
actually put your faith in Jesus.
So there is a difference betweenfollowing Him, getting to know
Him, looking at Him, questioningabout Him, wondering about him,
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and then making a decision for yourself as an individual to
step into a personal relationship with him as your
Lord and Savior. So OK, I'm taking a really long
time to get through some of thisstuff.
Chapter 7, we see that his family is taunting him.
This is Jesus and his brothers are mocking him and making fun
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of him, like, oh, why don't you go show yourself?
And we see that this is not something that was uncommon to
Christ himself. And many of us have experienced
difficult times with friends or families or others where we're
feel like we're trying to walk out God's call and it's not
being taken seriously or it's not being appreciative or it's
being even mocked. One line I wrote down was don't
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be baited. Be led by the Spirit.
They were baiting Christ. They were trying to get Jesus to
step outside of what He knew in His time and in His place.
What was the right thing to be doing right then just by
taunting Him? But He did not let that get him
off track. He was led by the Spirit of God
to walk in the timing and the way and the attitude and the
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mindset that God had called him to.
And then I want to see where Jesus foreshadows the coming of
the Holy Spirit and makes this invitation to all.
It's clear it's whoever, whoever, anyone.
If you look in Chapter 7 at verse 37, it says on the last
and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said
in a loud voice. He wasn't whispering this just
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to his like inner circle or those close to him.
He stood and he said in a loud voice, and we don't always see
him doing things in a loud voice, but he is proclaiming to
all those who were gathered for the festival, whether they were
Jews or people who had been adopted into Jewish culture, who
had decided to come along and bepart of that tradition and
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recognize God. Because you see that there were
also people who would come for the festivals who maybe were not
born Jews, but who recognized the God of the Jews and so then
fell in line with the customs and the practices of the Jewish
people. They're all gathered.
And Jesus stands up on the last and the greatest day.
And with a loud voice he declares, let anyone who is
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thirsty come to me and drink, whoever believes in me.
As the Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow
from within them. By this he meant the Spirit whom
those who believed in him were later to receive.
Up to that time, the Spirit had not been given since Jesus had
not yet been glorified. So mean the Holy Spirit had not
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come to dwell in the hearts of his people yet because Jesus was
walking among us. But he said, when I go, I'll
send another. We'll see that in a few
chapters. And so he stood up and he
declared to everyone, whoever believes in him and comes to him
and trusts in him, rivers of living water will spring up in
them, meaning they will be filled to overflowing with the
living, powerful Holy Spirit of God.
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Awesome promise of the Spirit right there, foreshadowed of
what was to come later that we find in the book of Acts after
Christ's ascension when the HolySpirit comes for the first time
to begin to dwell in His people.In chapter 8, we see the woman
in adultery brought before him. And there's so many ways to go
with this story and there's so much to unpack here.
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But one of the things I want to note is this is the time where
it says Jesus stooped down and started to write in the ground.
And he told them, anyone who is without sin, cast the first
stone. And then he starts, He's just
writing in the ground, quietly writing in the ground.
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And people began to leave from the oldest to the youngest as
they began to realize that they weren't sinless.
So none of them had the ability to actually cast a stone at this
lady. What is so interesting is so
many times there's all these different theological thoughts
and some really great commentaryon what was he writing, What was
he writing? And there's a lot of lot of
different things there that it could be, and some make really
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good sense and sound really awesome.
But here's what I want you to know.
There's a good chance that sincewe're not told in Scripture what
he wrote, that's not the point right now.
That's not the point. It could be really exciting.
There could be a lot of really cool things that he did that
would cause them to have this reflection and this reaction.
But if it's not there, it's not the point.
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So let's focus on the main thinghere.
And the main thing here was you who are out sin.
You cast the first step. And then after that, as they
left, Jesus looked this woman inthe eye and what he told her
was, I don't condemn you, but goand sin no more.
He did not say it's OK you be you follow your own truth.
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You know, whatever it is, He still spoke truth into her
situation. He forgave her and he commanded
her to go and sin no more. So that's a powerful thing right
there. Chapter 9.
I love the story of the man bornblind.
What I love most is where the people are saying, Master, who
sinned, that this guy was born blind.
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And Jesus says this amazing thing where he says no one
sinned, this happened, that the glory of God might be seen.
So what we need to know is sometimes a trial, a sickness, a
tragedy is a result of sin because our sins do have
consequences. But do not think that just
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because you or someone else is going through something tragic
that it means that, Oh well, they must have a a big sin in
their life. That is not Scripture.
Jesus is telling us sometimes these things come simply so that
he can be glorified. And if you look at First
Corinthians 12, I'm sorry, Second Corinthians 12/9, one of
my favorite verses of Scripture,Paul was told by God, my grace
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is sufficient for you and my strength is made perfect in your
weakness. There are many times that our
weaknesses show the glory of God.
I say many times, maybe every time when we are weak, he is
strong when the world sees our weaknesses, but they see that
Holy Spirit strength in US shining, then they know that God
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is the one who gets the glory. And whether it's your weakness
of a disease or your weakness ofsaying things you shouldn't say
and putting your foot in your mouth, maybe it's foot in mouth
disease, I don't know. But man, God can be glorified in
our weakness. So no, give those things to him.
And if something comes up in your life, it's not wrong to
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say, OK, Lord, is there something out of step with me
that that brought this? Is there a reason?
But if you don't feel any conviction, you don't feel the
Lord show you anything that you need to Ridge your life of, then
you just say, Lord, I'm walking with you.
I'm trusting you day-to-day. I thank you that in my weakness,
your strength is made perfect. And through this, Lord, show me
and teach me anything you want to teach me.
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And above all else, may you be brought glory.
That is how we live with an eternal perspective.
So I love that part of Scripture.
I love what that shows us. I also love how later when they
came to this man in verse 25 of Chapter 9 and they're like who
did this and what happened and blah, blah, blah.
And they're asking all these questions and finally he's like,
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you know what? I don't know.
All I know is I was blind and now I see love it.
The fact is, we do not have all the answers, and regardless of
where you are in your walk with the Lord, you're always going to
have things you don't fully understand.
There are going to be things that the greatest theological
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minds of the world of all time will not be able to grasp and
understand until we see Him faceto face.
But what we can do is share our story.
And when people start peppering you with all these questions,
two things. One, I don't know.
All I can say is that I'm at Jesus and things are radically
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different and I can't explain itall, but this is my story.
But then the next thing is you can say come and see, just like
the woman at the well. Come and see.
Invite them to church. Introduce them to someone who
has helped you along your walk, who can help them go a little
bit deeper. Give them a book of the Bible.
Say, hey, what? Read John, learn a little bit
about it. I don't have all the answers,
but I was blind, but now I see. So our stories are powerful no
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matter where we are and how muchwe understand.
Share your story and invite people to just come and see.
And then chapter 10, we learn about Jesus as the Good
Shepherd. And it is so kind and so
compassionate. And the more we learn about
shepherding and understand aboutthat occupation and what sheep
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are actually like and all the things of that day, the more
beautiful this imagery becomes, the more we understand.
And if we look at, I mean, he's going to lead us gently and
kindly, and he wants us to recognize his voice.
He says that his sheep will recognize his voice.
How? Because they spend time just
hanging out in the fields together, and they know their
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master's voice. And there's a promise there that
you will know his voice if you are his.
So trust in that, have confidence in that.
And in your prayers just say, Lord help me to more clearly
know. Your will for my life, to know
what you'd have me doing in every given moment, to hear you
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guiding me along the way. And you can say, Lord, I know
that. In John chapter 10, you tell me
you're the Good Shepherd, and you tell me that your sheep know
your voice. Lord, my faith is in you as my
Lord and my Savior. I am your sheep.
You tell me I know your voice. Help me, Lord, to truly know
your voice and to believe that you have given me the ability to
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know and to hear and to recognize when you speak.
And so stand on that truth, claim that truth, but also find
some, find some freedom and the pressure being off when you can
lean into that and know that God, if I'm your sheep, I know
your voice because you told me Ido.
So I don't have to work so hard and be so nervous and afraid
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that I'm not going to get it andthen I'm going to miss it.
I can rest as your sheep gently in your presence and again, keep
showing up, keep being in His word.
The more we spend time with the shepherd, with the Lord of our
souls, the more we will recognize His voice.
So I love that imagery of Him being the Good Shepherd.
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And also he's the only way. If you look at verse 9, I am the
gate. Whoever enters through me will
be saved. They will come in and out and
find pasture. So he is the way there used to
be the the sheep at night would be corralled in like a cave or a
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pen and the the gate the shepherd would lay down at the
mouth of that. And the only way to pass in and
out was through the shepherd. He's the only way.
Jesus is the only way to heaven.He's the only way to a right
relationship with God. He's the only way to be filled
with the power of the Holy Spirit.
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He is the way and He's not exclusive saying I exclude all
these other people. He says whoever, whosoever wants
to be united and in perfect union with the God of the
universe, who is the lover and creator of your soul, come
through me. I'll take your sin, I'll cover
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you with my righteousness so that you can be presented to the
God of the universe as holy and blameless and enter into a
relationship where God is your daddy, your ABBA, OK, He is the
way. And so through Jesus, we have
all these things and then he warns us and also gives us this
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incredible, incredible blessing.He says in verse 10, you know
the thief, this is Satan. This is the the enemies of our
soul, Satan and his and his his friend group, his gang.
They just want to destroy anything that tries to bring
glory to God and they want to keep us from God.
And if they can't keep us from accepting him, they want to keep
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us from a deep walk with him in any little way possible.
Says the enemy comes to steal, to kill and destroy.
But I have come that they, us, his sheep may have life and have
it to the full. The amplified version says they
may have and enjoy their life and have it in abundance to the
full till it overflows. So that is an incredible
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blessing and an incredible promise.
If you saw in 16 where he says Ihave other sheep that are not of
this sheep pen. If you were not born a Jew,
that's you and it's me. These are the gentiles, his
chosen people that he came to and through first are the Jewish
people. But then the sheep outside of
that pen, the other sheep, that's us.
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He brings us into that pen. He brings us into the fold.
When we put our faith in Him, weare grafted in and adopted into
that family and given their right, as we learned earlier in
the book of John, to become children of God.
He says, there I have other sheep that are not of this sheep
pen. I must bring them also.
They too will listen to my voiceand there shall be 1 flock and 1
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shepherd. One flock meaning the church
with a capital C Jews and Gentiles.
No matter where we come from, nomatter what background we come
from, when our faith is in Him, we are all on even ground level
playing field. We're all in the same sheep pen.
We become the church, the one church, the one body of
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believers. And we see in 27 through 28, He
says my sheep listen to my voice.
I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life and
they shall never perish. No one will snatch them out of
my hand. If your life is in Christ and
you have accepted Him as your Lord and Savior, you are secure.
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You are in Him and He is in you and nothing can snatch you out
of His hand. That is the what's a lot of
times in church and he's we'll call the security of the
believer. No one can take back what God
has done. No one can take you from Him.
You don't lose your salvation because if you couldn't do
enough to get yourself saved, you sure can't do enough to keep
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yourself saved. And if no one can separate you
or pull you out of God's hand, that means even you can't pull
yourself out of God's hand. What He has done is done.
What He has declared and established is true.
And it reminds me of Romans chapter 8.
I'm going to start at verse 34 and end this episode with this.
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Who then is the one who condemnsNo one Christ Jesus who died
more than that, who was raised to life, is at the right hand of
God and is also interceding for us right now.
Jesus Christ is seated at the hand of God in the throne room
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in heaven, interceding for us, praying for us.
Jesus is praying for us right now.
Goes on to say, who shall separate us from the love of
Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or
persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him
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who loved us. For I am convinced that neither
death nor life, nor angels nor demons, neither the present nor
the future, nor any power, neither height nor depth,
anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from
the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
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All right, guys, I'm going to stop here for now.
I wish you many blessings. So much strength, Lord, May your
word fall on fertile grounds in our hearts.
Take root and help us just to crave more and more and more of
you, to come to know you more and more, to hear and recognize
your voice, and to be confident as your sheep that you are in
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complete control and that come what may in our weakness, your
strength is made perfect and nothing can separate us from
your great love. We thank you and praise you for
these things in the name of Jesus, Amen.
All right, guys, I'll be back before too long with some other
great interviews as well as moretakeaways from the book of John.
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So stay connected, subscribe if you haven't, and I'm just gonna
do a shameless plug, okay? My podcast on Apple Podcast is
super close to hitting 100 reviews, 105 star reviews.
Thank you, Lord, and thank you to those who reviewed.
You've all given five stars. Yay.
I always say if you had do not feel like you have a five star
experience with my teaching or the podcast, Just pretend like
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it didn't happen. OK?
But if you have enjoyed the podcast or any time that we have
had together with teaching and sharing and opening the word and
doing interviews, if you listen on Apple Podcast or if you could
just jump over to Apple Podcast,even if you're not on there
right now, find the show and give it five stars to help me
hit that 100. That would be so, so amazing.
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I'd be so thankful because when a podcast hits 100 reviews, it
makes it more discoverable by others, and it just helps us
continue to spread God's word and to help people find
practical ways to apply the power of God's word to our
everyday stuff. So I'd appreciate that if you're
willing. Have a great week.
I love you guys, love doing thisjourney with you, and I'll be
(29:01):
back soon. Hey friend, if you enjoyed this
episode and you got some good stuff out of it, there's a few
options. You have 1, you could click that
little subscribe button. And also, if you would review
this podcast, Oh my gosh, if youlike what you heard, get on
there. Give it a five star review.
(29:23):
If you didn't like what you heard, just pretend it never
happened, OK? But if you would do a review for
me, just take a couple seconds and do that.
Not only would I be crazy excited, but also it would just
be a great way for us to partnertogether, for you to help this
podcast be seen by more women out there.
And you could be a part of helping more women discover
(29:43):
these practical ways to apply God's Word to just everyday
stuff. So I would love it, love it,
love it if you could help me outin one of those two ways.
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