¶ Deepening Relationship With God
Hey, welcome to Doing Life with Ken and Tabitha. We are so pumped that you're tuning into this podcast. It has been designed for people just like you. We wanna do life with you, share our wins, our defeats, our ups and our downs, in hopes that you'll grow closer to God and to the people that you love in your life. Sit back and enjoy today's podcast.
If you just go to church one time a week, maybe two times a week, your relationship with the Lord will probably be five or six. That would be like you going to the gym once or twice a week. I mean it's a great thing that you did it, but you're not going to see the results that you think It'd be like you go into class once or twice a week.
So you don't study. It's like going to the doctor. They're like look, I need you to take these vitamins, I need you to do this, I need you to do that. You don't do any of it, but you expect to be well.
If you want to like to live at a nine, you got to have daily time in the word, daily time in prayer, daily time in worship. So it's not to minimize your corporate time, you need corporate and private time. Hey, what's up everybody. Welcome to another episode of Doing Life with Ken and Tabitha, we're so pumped to have you here.
We got a good one for you today, and let us just say Happy New Year once again guys, we are starting this new year off 2025. Yeah, we're here now, man, and we are ready. We just feel like we got so much good content that we want to release this year.
And so we're honored to have you with us. Well, hey, if you are new to our online family, we want to say welcome, we're so excited that you're joining us.
You know we pray that God will send people to our show, to our podcast, that can really benefit from it, because we want to be a voice of encouragement for you, we want to be a voice of victory for you and just a voice of help, and so we're so glad that you're here. We're praying for you and we hope this is a blessing for you.
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Absolutely, and you know we have something special here. We want you to grow closer to God, and so we developed this 60-day devotional. It's called Living at a Nine, you know, on a scale of one to 10, 10 being the best and probably only attainable once we get to heaven. As far as our relationship goes with Jesus, I think we can strive to live at a nine.
If we're living at a nine, always looking toward that 10, I think that we're always growing closer to God, and so we have this devotional. If you would like to have this, you can go to our show notes and grab one.
Yeah, our website is right there. You can grab one to help you get closer to Jesus this year. All right, guys, and if you're anywhere near Florida, come and hang out with us at Alive Church. We would love to have you.
And if you can't get here for some reason, but you're looking for a place to worship, you can join us every Sunday, 10 o'clock Eastern Standard Time. People are tuning in from around the world. You can be a part of our online family. Well, sweetheart, we got a good one for everybody today.
The entitlement of this episode is Deepen your Relationship with God. Pract of this episode is deepen your relationship with God practical steps for living at a nine that goes right along with our devotional In our church life. This is our year of communion.
The word communion simply means fellowship, social intercourse, and this is a year where one thing that we really want to help people with is just being close to. Jesus, we want to help you have a relationship like, out of all relationships that we have in our life, whether it be our parents, whether it be our friends, whether it be our children we want to have
the best relationship that we can with.
Jesus.
But, unfortunately, a lot of people believe in Jesus but they don't feel close to him, they feel like he's far, they feel like he's distant, and so one thing that we're trying to do and that's why we have this devotional is to try to help people live close to their maker.
What sticks out to you from that? I think your relationship with Jesus, of course, is the most important relationship in your life. We've been married for 25 years, and if my relationship with Jesus wasn't great, our marriage probably wouldn't be great.
I think every other relationship and everything else we do in our lives is second to that of our relationship and our connection with God, and so I think it's very important. If we can live in a nine with Jesus, we can live in a nine in every area
¶ Reviving Intimacy With God
of our lives.
You know, in a new year we have so many different goals, you know. We have the goal to make more money. We have a goal to lose weight, we have a goal to get in better shape. We have all these different goals, but I really feel like people's number one goal should be their relationship with the Lord.
You know, the scripture that we've always hung our hat on is Matthew 6, 33, and it says to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these other things shall be added to us, and so that is a scripture about priority. It is a scripture about you know. The scripture says that God doesn't want to be second.
He's a jealous God. Not jealous like sinful jealousy, but jealous Like he is number one and wants to be number one in our life is better when we put him number one.
However, sometimes we can actually go through the motions where we say I am a Christian, I believe in Jesus, but I'm having a hard time being close to him, being intimate with him, and I don't know for me, like, if I'm going to accomplish any goal in my life financial goal, fitness goal, whatever their goal is. I want the number one goal to be.
I want a great relationship with the Lord. I want a great relationship with the Lord, and so if we're talking about intimacy, what does that mean for you? Intimacy?
Intimacy? Um, I think, I don't know. Intimacy is closeness. I think, if I think about intimacy, I think I'm close enough to hear my whisper, um, and I think also in intimacy for me there's a level of trust, so I trust you enough to be vulnerable before you and therefore, you know, then intimacy comes. If that makes sense.
So our whole thing, living at a nine, is basically us doing a self-assessment of ourself and saying, on a scale of one to 10, where are we with God? 10 being perfect, one being the relationship is non-existent. We with God, 10 being perfect, one being the relationship is non-existent.
The average believer, I believe, is probably at a six or a seven, if you were honest and you asked them hey, on a scale of one to 10, where are you with God? Most people would say I'm at a six or a seven.
Now I've had other people say I'm at a two and three or four, and I thank God for the honesty, because the law of destination starts with the location. Before you get to where you're going, you first have to determine where you are, and one of the biggest deception, or the worst deception, is self-deception, that you think that you're somewhere that you're not.
So whenever you go into a mall and you say I want to it's a big mall and I've never been to the mall before and I want to get to Macy's the first thing that you have to do is find the map and back in the day they will have a map. Now, nowadays you have like LED maps.
Back in the day it would be a map, and it have a big red dot and the red dot would say what you are here. And in order for you to get to Macy's, you first have to determine where you are. So living at a nine is just saying where are you Like at the beginning of this year.
Why don't you just do a gut-wrenching, honest, what is that Evaluation of yourself? If you're at a five, why, if you're at a three, with the most important relationship in your life? Why, If you're at an eight, why Not saying that it's good or bad, just saying why? And then saying where do you want to be?
Okay, Because there is a distance between where you are and where you want to be. This is a year to close the gap.
And also, I think, just a little tool. I know cause. I've been there at times in my life where I felt like I was far from God.
But I think if you can look at whatever another relationship in your life say with your spouse, your best friend, your mom, your dad, your children and if that relationship is better than your relationship with God, that should be a clue. It's not. Your relationship with God isn't what it should be.
No relationship should be better, more intimate or closer than the relationship that you have with God.
Well, I would say nine out of 10 people can't say that.
Right, so it's a really good way to, because it's so we're like, oh, I'm good, I'm good with God. Yeah, I know God, I go to church, I do these things.
So I think, as a believer and especially if you've been a believer for many years and you're active in church, you give to God and you're a great person, you know, you can think, oh, yeah, I'm great with God.
But if you really want to be real with yourself, okay relationship on autopilot, Especially because I've been saved over 30 years and you can almost come to the place where it's like I know what to do, I know how to live. It's almost baked in, Even like tithing or giving to God.
That ain't something I have to think about, it's like actually automated right out of my paycheck. But I got to make sure that I don't just automate my relationship with God to where I put it on cruise control and then I'm missing one of the key ingredients to like revival and fulfillment, which is hunger, like hunger and thirst and pursuit and stuff like that.
And I just feel like for many of us this is a year of just pursuing the Lord again. This is a year to be zealous for God again. This is a year to have fervency for God, to say God, you are my great reward. I want your face more than what's in your hand.
I want to know you better and serve you more faithfully and our hope is to be able to stir that.
Yeah, and it's funny that you say stir, because this is what came to mind. You know, I think that some of us we want that intimacy with God and I know like even for myself there's sometimes I feel like, oh, I just I'm feeling a little stale in my relationship with God.
I want to have more of you, or I feel like, you know, I want to hear from you in a new way, maybe a fresh way or whatever. We can, as believers, intentionally stir up the pot, and I know our pastor used to teach us a long time ago that sometimes you have to stir up the.
Kool-Aid, you know.
So some of you all watching, or listening and you know what it's like to make Kool-Aid. Okay, cool. So back in the day we would make Kool-Aid. I mean, there was no juice, there was no 100% juice, there was the little Kool-Aid packet with the artificial flavor and coloring, and then you added all of this sugar into the pot with water.
You stick it in the refrigerator to get it cold. Well, when you take it back out of the refrigerator, most of the sugar fell to the bottom, and so you see this little white pile at the bottom, and so what you have to do is stir it back up so that it can be sweet.
But most of us in that era, growing up, took the picture out of the water, out of the refrigerator, we poured us a nice tall glass of cold Kool-Aid and then we drank it, and it was so bitter because we forgot to stir up the pitcher, stir up the pot, and I think in life as believers, when it comes to our relationship with God, if it's feeling like it's a
little sour, this isn't right. We have to stir up that pot, stir up our faith, stir up our worship life, our praise. You know our prayer life.
Intentionally. Isn't that scriptural? Doesn't it say to stir the gifts? That were put on you by the laying on of hands. Does it say stir? I think it does say stir. I feel like it does.
I know, when it comes to praying in tongues, you can stir yourself up in your most holy faith. The Bible says as well Motivate yourself. David said bless the Lord. Oh, my soul, tabitha, we're going to bless the Lord today.
Okay, all right. Well, anyway, what were we talking about?
We were talking about living it in nine and stirring it up, that relationship with God, having a thirst and hunger for a better relationship.
I would say for those who are watching, listening if you want a better relationship with God, having a thirst and hunger for a better relationship, I would say for those who are watching, listening if you want a better relationship with God, you got to seek for it. You know, god loves hiding. Seek, he really does.
He says it's in the heart of a king to search out a matter, but it's the glory of God to conceal it there. When you knock, it shall be opened, and when you seek you'll find. Seek first the kingdom of God.
So it's something where, especially if you're ever in a season where you feel like God's voice is not loud or where is the Lord, it is an invitation to pursuit, and so our hope is that this is a year or season where we can just stir up everyone who watches us online, people who come to our church. Let's go after the heart of Jesus.
Let's know him better and serve him more faithfully.
Do not be satisfied with being at a six or seven or an eight, let's live at a nine, and I believe it's possible for all of us to live at a nine, all right, and so what we're really talking about is deepening our relationship with God, because when you deepen your relationship with God, it affects every other relationship and everything else that you should do.
For the person that says why is this important? This is the most important podcast I think that we've ever done, because if you get this relationship right, it's going to impact your single life, if you're single. It's going to impact your marriage life, if you're married. It's going to impact your business life.
If you're a business person, it's going to impact your ministry life. If you're married, it's going to impact your business life.
if you're a business person, it's going to impact your ministry life if you're a ministry leader, there's people who are in ministry but don't have strong relationship with God, and so what we want to do is that we want to minister to people from the overflow of the personal relationship that we have with the Lord.
So we're talking about intimacy, and this is what I've learned about intimacy is that intimacy is not just a romantic term. It's not. You know, intimacy. You can be intimate with a sibling. You can be intimate with a child. You can be intimate, you know, if that's your child, your parent, you can be intimate with. Did I say a sibling, a friend?
Are you listening?
I'm listening, but I don't. I don't know.
Okay, you can be intimate with you intimate with people, but you can also be intimate with God. Okay, of course, you can be intimate with a spouse, but you can be intimate with God. So this is not just a romantic term, and what we've learned about intimacy is that it's not just spatial, it's relational. Intimacy is not spatial, it's relational.
What do I mean by that? Intimacy is not about you just being in a person's presence. It's about the relationship that you have with a person. That's how you can be 3000 miles away from a person and feel like you know they. You can be close but be far. So if it was spatial, then we would all feel close to God, because he's omnipresent.
That means that he's all over the place, all at the same time. But just because he's near doesn't mean you know, and so it's relational. It's about communion, the time that we spend with God.
Yeah, some of us have grown up, unfortunately, with mothers or fathers. We've grown up in the same house with them, but we don't have a close relationship with them, because it's not about your proximity, it's about the communion, like you said. Right?
So James, chapter four, verse eight, I want to read a few scriptures and tell me what jumps out to you here it says come near to God, and he'll come near to you, me what jumps out to you here.
It says come near to God and he'll come near to you. I love that. I think that you know God is like most people, to where we don't want to be around someone that doesn't want us around. Nobody wants to be a bugaboo, nobody wants to be the third wheel.
You know, we want to know, like, if I'm, if we're going to go out to lunch, I want to know that you want me there with you. You know, if I come over to your house, I want to know that I'm invited and I'm welcome in your home. I think God is the same way.
Okay, I hear the ball is in our court to make the first move. So if we move, he moves. So draw near To God and he's going to draw near to you meaning that he's already made the first move by putting Jesus on the cross for us. So now what we want in the relationship is based upon us Absolutely If we want more of him.
Our responsibility is to take a step towards him, and if we move towards him, he'll move towards us. I like to say we take one step towards him, he'll take two towards us.
It makes me, as the kind of person I'm kind of like an all in kind of person, and so for me, I know, if I take one step to God and he takes one step to me, I'm like, hold up, I'm about to take a sprint, I'm about to run a hundred yard dash, you know what I mean. Just so that I can. I want to get as close as I can.
¶ Growing Closer to God Through Relationships
It puts the ownership on me. Has there been times in your life where you felt far from God? Through you know, I think you've been saved now for probably 24 years or yeah, something like that.
It's funny how you remember numbers and years.
More than that. More than that, it's more than 24 years. You've been saved now.
I got saved when I was 23. Yeah, 98.
And so it's probably more like 26 years. But anyway, has there been a time since you got saved that you feel far from God, and if so, what did you do to draw near to him?
Yes, there's been times where I felt far from God, but for different reasons. Sometimes because I was far from God, like you know, as a beginner, as a new believer, and I had to learn how to access his presence.
I had to learn through praise and worship and through the word and I think that foundation set me up for later in life to where, as a believer, there were times where I feel like you're going to feel far from God. In the times of persecution, in the time of storms, when hard things happen, sometimes we feel like we're far from God.
I remember when I was fighting depression, I felt far from God when I was fighting cancer, in the middle of it, even though I knew so much and I'm like God. I remember just saying God, I feel like you're nowhere around right now. I felt so far from God and I'm like God. I remember just saying God, I feel like you're nowhere around right now.
I felt so far from God. And I think sometimes in those situations, those are growth moments. You always say don't just go through it, but grow through it when I knew in the moment, I know that I can't feel you're here, but I know that you're near, I know that you're with me. But it's always back to the basics.
If you spend time in the Word of God, if you know the Word of God, then you know God, and so I access the Word of God in the presence. You know, when you praise God, he abides in the praises of His people and so in worship I draw not close to God, and then through prayer.
So it's always been one of those three things, I think, in getting back to that closeness with God. But then there's been times I think again it's a growth moment where I remember, you know, like we have three kids and raising our children, they would always come to this point where about, you know, maybe nine months they'd start to want to walk and begin to
walk, and at first we were there with them and we'd hold them, make sure that they don't fall down. If they half a fail, we were right there to scoop them up.
But then they started to take steps and stuff and we would let them fall down on their own and I know as a mom like I would watch them fall where I knew they couldn't get hurt and I'd say, it's okay, it's okay, get back up again, you know, and we'd clap hands and say, yay, it was all me watching my child very closely because I knew they had to learn
how to walk on their own. I knew they had to learn how, when you fall down, you can get back up again.
And I think that God, our heavenly father, throughout our lives, 50, 70, 80, 90 years old, he will allow us to get into hard situations, and it seems like he's nowhere around because you're used to. As soon as you start to fall, he picks you back up again. It seems like that, but really he's right there. He's just allowing you to figure this out.
You're a big girl now. You're a big boy now. You can do this.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking when you said that you feel like God's far in the hard times. I feel like that's sometimes when he's the closest. So I think it can be different things for different seasons.
So for me, like whenever I feel like I'm really going so, my thing with your cancer battle, which was a hard time for me as a caregiver, was that I felt very close to God. In that time I could feel his grace, I could feel his direction, I could feel his like it's going to be okay. You're going to get through it and I guess it's just different things.
So if you feel far, that's an invitation to pursue. If you feel close. It's an invitation to just, I guess what would you say? Thank them and like enjoy it. Abide in the presence what about for people that are newer to their faith. What would be your practical steps? They're like this is a year that I want to be close to Jesus.
I want a stronger relationship with God. Is there anything that you would advise them to do, or things that you've done?
I mean, find a church, okay, you find a church. I did not change. I mean, the church is amazing. You know, there are wonderful, beautiful churches out there. I'm not saying that every church is perfect, but there's a lot of wonderful churches out there. The churches that I hear like, oh, bad pastors and all of these horror stories. I don't know those people.
I don't know those people, I know they're out there.
They're out there. I don't know those people, and so you know but there's some bad attorneys out there and bad doctors out there and bad school teachers and bad coaches. You don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Church is not our idea. Church is God's idea and church is never supposed to be filled with perfect people. It is a rock tumbler.
It is basically a bunch of sharp rocks getting together and God, by the power of his spirit, smoothing us out. It is a rock tumbler and really I don't know.
We was just having this conversation or we have a friend of ours who I don't know if they go to church, they like to do stuff at home and we were just having a conversation about and I was just like contemplating on what that means to be a Christian that just stays at home with their Christianity and how, outside the will of God, that is. Now to them.
They think, well, they have rationale and reason why that's healthy for them, but it is so not what the Bible says. You don't have elders, you don't have ministry gifts apostles, pastors, teachers you can't submit one to another. You don't have hard people that you have to forgive and still walk together, communication skills we learn all of those things.
So that's a huge one. Just having a good church, and I believe in a church so much. I would say this that if you're that person that says, well, there's just no good churches in my city, I would say, well, you need to move cities and find you a good church. That's how people say, well, I'm going to find a job and I'm going to find a church.
I don't believe that. I believe you should find a church and then find a job close to the church God's called you to. Why could we be so bold? Well, 1 Corinthians 12, it says that he places the members in the body as it pleases him. And us being where God's placed us is not based upon a career, a climate, what city I want to live in.
I believe if you can find that fountain, that brook where you're being fed from and drink from, then everything else in your life will blossom.
And I think that's why I said church, because church provides community. It provides moms and dads and brothers and sisters. It provides a place for your children to learn, but you also get edified and built up. I mean, if you're feeling bad, just go to church. You know you'll leave feeling great, you know.
So anyway, I think you, as a new believer, find a good church family.
But church alone ain't going to do it.
Right and.
I think there's a lot of people who just go to church and, honestly, if you just go to church one time a week, maybe two times a week, your relationship with the Lord will probably be at a five or six because you are just going. That would be like you going to the gym once or twice a week.
I mean it's a great thing that you did it, but you're not going to see the results that you think. It'd be like you go into class once or twice a week.
So you don't study. It's like going to the doctor. They're like look, I need you to take these vitamins, I need you to do this, I need you to do that. You don't do any of it, but you expect to be well.
If you want to live at a nine, you got to have daily time in the word, daily time in prayer and daily time in worship. So it's not to minimize your corporate time. You need corporate and private time, these two things together. And so back in the day I started with an hour with God every single day.
You don't have to do an hour, but everybody got 15 minutes. If you got to start somewhere, give God your first 15 minutes worship, prayer, study. But if you need time, just like you eat every day, you need to eat God's word every day. It is for spiritual nourishment.
So you got your public worship, but then you got your private, where you are going home and studying yourself and showing yourself approved, and so those two things, anything else you would say. If you want to live at a nine, I think read the word.
Like you just said, I would say worship. I grew so much in God when I learned to worship, and that is as simple as just going to a room when there's no one else there a bathroom, a closet, your bedroom, wherever you can get to get your iPhone, your Android, turn on a song, pick a worship song and sing it. Sing it to the Lord and you'll start out.
It'll just be a song, but the more you do it, you will learn how to worship and you'll access the presence of God and it's addictive. You want more and more and more of his presence.
Well, that's one reason that we created this living at a non-devotional here, because we go through the soap method of studying the Bible, where we give you a scripture and observation, application and prayer and for 60 days we've written, you know, a certain scripture and then some information about the scripture and then gives you space in here to kind of write down
what God's speaking to you. And this is simply a tool, a tool that will help people. Now, of course, you can go and read a chapter a day or you can read the whole Bible in a year, but this is just a tool that will help people have disciplined time with God.
But here's the third thing, and then we'll move on to the next scripture, because it's not just spending private time with God and going to church. Here's the third one is practicing his presence all day. That's huge for relationship with God, because some people like well, I gave God 15 minutes, but what about the next 20?
hours of your day.
I gave God 30 minutes in prayer, but have you prayed the rest of the day? So there is a set time that we have with God, which is a discipline where I go to the word, I study, I meditate, I worship and I pray, but then there's a prayer without ceasing, where now I might take a five minute praise break at work, I might talk to the Lord.
As I'm driving to work, as I'm doing business deals, I'm still in an attitude of prayer, I'm meditating on the word of God, and this is where Christianity gets fun, where you realize that the Holy Spirit is with you in every way and in every play and every day, like guarding you, guiding you, correcting you, drawing you, revealing things to you, he becomes your
best friend, and that's when this thing gets real good.
That's so good. I like to you know you say practicing his presence. I like to just it's just acknowledging every moment you get that God is with me. So you know, at any time, driving the car, like you said, grocery shopping, taking care of the kids, always acknowledging Holy Spirit, thank you for being here.
You know, just thank you, lord for that Every little moment of favor. The parking space Thank you, Lord, for that parking space Like just being grateful, knowing that my entire life is being orchestrated by God. So I'm going to acknowledge him in everything.
So good, so good.
¶ Daily Relationship With God
So what is your right now? What is your day-to-day relationship with the Lord? Look like you get up in the morning. You spend time. How much do you spend Now? I don't want people to copy you, I just want to see. What principles do you live by?
I, and sometimes throughout my life as a mom. I will say this it had to fluctuate because sometimes you know when you're nursing and you know you're up at 4am feeding the baby. I'm not waking up early and hitting some routine, I'm just like, okay, while the children are watching VeggieTales, I'm going to sit here and read my Bible.
And that was my time with the Lord. You know, I don't know, but our daughter actually sends me these crazy Veggie Tale clips all the time?
Yes, but she thinks they're hilarious and so, anyway, veggie Tales is fresh on my mind because she just sent me a Veggie Tales clip, but anyway, but in my time it was Veggie Tales. I'm sure there's other things, you know, 18 years later, that we would do, but you know I would. Yeah, my time looked differently. I would have worship, but the kids, they sat.
I turned on a song real loud and I wasn't in worship by myself, the kids were there with me.
So you make things happen. So so just help real quick for the mother who's getting up two or three times at night with a newborn baby, the man who works overnight right now and feels like the schedule maybe work a couple of jobs. Or someone who feels like what would be your advice to them of how do they create these disciplines and have that relationship?
Yeah, we feel like it has to be a certain way and it has to be all packaged up in a nice bow.
And it can be if you're in that season of life.
But honestly, yeah, most of the time it's not, like you know, for me in my life and so I think you know there have been times, like even now, we have a son who goes to 6 am basketball practice. You know, on Tuesdays and Thursdays that messes up my morning routine. It messes up your morning routine. No-transcript to say a scripture when I wake up.
90% of the time I'm waking up saying bless the Lord, o my soul and all that is within me. I'll bless his holy name. Or I'm saying this is the day that the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it. When I gain consciousness I want to proclaim the word of God and then I make it good morning Jesus, good morning Holy Spirit, good morning Father.
Like I'm just kind of it's in me to acknowledge God's presence and that he's there with me. I get up, I brush my teeth, I do things.
Brush them, girl Brush them.
Because I'm so sleepy in the mornings but I got to brush my teeth to wake up, brush them.
So anyway, I do all of those things, but my prayer time is I go straight then into a prayer time and I have 30 minutes allotted for my prayer time, but sometimes it's 15 minutes, sometimes it's 45 minutes, just depending on how long it takes me maybe to do something else, or you know whatever. But I usually pray.
Sometimes I'll meditate on the word because I like that. I'm an early person in the morning, so I like to just be there early in the morning. No one else is up and it's just quiet. I'm up, sometimes you're not. Those are the best. I just like to be up when no one else is. I just feel like it's good, me too, anyway. So I spend time with God.
I like to spend time with God in the morning because, or like my devotion time that steady, like I'm going to pray, pray purpose time, because if I don't, usually I'm not going to, and how many?
what percentage of days do you hit this devotion time? Nine out of 10, eight out of 10, five out of 10?
I mean out of a weekday. I'll say definitely five days out of a week, Because those are typically on a Saturday morning. It doesn't look the same because I usually sleep in on Saturdays, but I always have time to pray.
I'm probably like six out of seven days. Probably pretty consistent if of seven days probably pretty consistent. If not seven days, I mean that one day will look a little bit different. Um, but that's been for how many years? 20 years probably. It just becomes what you do, it's who you are.
It's like brushing your teeth, it's just yeah, I just feel like that's a major key for somebody, that this is a discipline and your flesh don't want to do it. I mean, we could do a whole podcast of what's hindering you in your relationship with God or what's hindering you going deep with God, what's hindering your disciplines, and a lot of it's just flesh.
Yeah, the thought is and I've had these thoughts at times in developing my discipline to be with God is that we have access to every answer, every question ever asked God has the answer, answer Every question ever asked. God has the answer, every bit of knowledge, wisdom, information, anything that we would need.
We have access to the creator of the universe and so in that quiet time, it's just like God, you could tell me anything. I could close my eyes and just imagine being in your presence. There's such a like. Why wouldn't I do that?
Right, right.
¶ Pursuing a Deeper Relationship With God
Well, here's a here's a. Here's a couple of scriptures. Jeremiah 29, 13 says you will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart and I think that's the key this year is don't seek him with half hearted. Yeah, seek him with all your heart all your heart. Philippians three and seven, it says.
But whatever were gains to me, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whose sake I've lost all things and I consider them garbage that I may gain Christ. I love Paul here because this is a scripture about priorities and also perspective.
His perspective is that everything else in my life, in comparison to me, knowing more about Jesus, is garbage. That's a fancy way of saying garbage. He's saying it's all trash. I don't care about anything, it's all just nonsense to me. I don't care about my car, my house, my clothes. I don't care about my assets. I don't care about any of that in comparison.
So it's a perspective thing. And then it's about priorities. He's saying Jesus is number one to me, god is number one to me, and I think that when we get the right perspective and priority, it sets our heart ablaze to want to know him better and serve him more faithfully.
I like what you said. The scripture before when you said to seek. God with all of your heart, because I don't know if you maybe you've been in a relationship with someone that was half-hearted, or you're friends with somebody that you can't trust them, you can't count on them.
And I think that sometimes we will go for God, We'll go to church, We'll be in relationship with him. We'll do all of these things until it becomes inconvenient or until it becomes uncomfortable. So you know well, I don't have a job right now. I'm just believing God for a job.
So you're loving God, you're going to church, you're praying and doing all these things, but then you get this job. Now you don't go to church, you don't pray because you don't have time for that now, because you have to. You know you have this job and that's a very.
That's one small situation, but I think we can apply that to so many different aspects of how we can love God with our whole heart, seek him with our whole heart, not only when it's convenient for us.
Right, so good. So I want to give everybody how to deepen your relationship with God. I got five simple keys here. This is not everything, but this is some things, and I want you to get your note takers or just keep these in your memory. Number one you got to surrender to him.
Surrender I think that's huge when it comes to having a deep relationship with God. I have to let go and let God Anything on that.
I think surrender is a really big deal. I think it's really hard for people to surrender Because you've got to give up control. Yeah, we have control over and especially today in America. We can control every second of every day. We've got our smartphones and our clocks and timers and everything, our smart houses, everything set up to be exactly the right temperature.
Everything is exactly the way that we like it. That is really a lot of control and not a lot of surrender, but when it comes to our lives, it's-.
God, I give up. You know better than what I do. Number two I would say you got to choose him. Okay, the scripture says that life and death, not life and death. It's in the power of the tongue. The scripture says I lay before you life and death. Choose the power of the tongue the scripture says I lay before you life and death. Choose wisely.
Choose life so that you and your seed can live. And so god has given us this wonderful thing called free will, and many people want to feel god first. But sometimes you have to choose god first, and I always say that feelings follow choices, and so if you choose to do what's right, you'll feel good about it later on.
So you gotta, this year, not focus on how you feel as much as what he said. So faith is not rooted in feelings, it's rooted in his word, and sometimes you just got to choose God Like I choose God over my friends. I choose God over popular opinion. I choose God even when it's not politically correct. I just want to choose him.
Number three it would be prioritize him, and this has to do with make him first in your money, make him first in your mind, make him first in your thoughts, making God first because he doesn't want to be second, third or fourth anything on that one. I think that's what happens when you give God the first part of your day. I believe.
I believe in the law of first fruits, which means that the rest is blessed by the first. And so if you give God the first of things, I believe it blesses the rest of things. You give God Sunday, it blesses the rest of the week. We do 21 days of prayer and fasting in January to bless the rest of the year.
I give God not just 10%, but the first 10% to bless the 90%. Whenever I give God the first of a thing, he blesses the rest of a thing.
Number four would be acknowledge him, and this has a lot to do with practicing the presence of God. What you said is that you get up in the morning, the first thing you do is acknowledge him, and acknowledging isn't just on Sunday or in spiritual moments.
I want to acknowledge him in traffic, acknowledge God in board meetings, acknowledge God at the settlement table, acknowledge God in the middle of negotiations, and that's how you have a friend that is brought into every situation.
You never feel alone. Someone's always with you.
And number five would be to seek him and I think that's what we've been talking about today to actively pursue.
God.
This will be a verb. This is not a noun, this is a verb. I got to go after God. I have to put action towards this, and my hope is that this will be a year where we can just raise up thousands of what we call God chasers. You know where you are chasing and pursuing everything that he is.
And so we do a thing at our church called the six-month challenge, and we want to invite you guys to take the six-month challenge with us. This is what I learned over the years that seasons can change in six months. You go from January, which is winter, to June, which is summer, in six months.
Many times when people start a new endeavor, they start and they stop in two weeks, or they start and they stop in two months and they never see the full fruit because they don't give it enough time.
And so we have a thing called the six-month challenge, because God gave me this revelation many years ago that your seasons can change if you can just give them six months, and I believe that a six months can change the next 60 years.
And so my hope is, when it comes to your walk with God, you're not just kind of sticking your toe in and saying I don't know. No, sometimes you just got to jump fully in. And so people who take this six month challenge, we've just seen amazing results. This is what it is. Take the next six months of your life and say I'm going to go all in for God.
What does that mean? That I'm going to do everything the Bible instructs me to do. I am going to disconnect some ungodly relationships. I am going to disconnect some ungodly habits and sinful ways.
I'm going to stop doing A, b, c and D. But here's more importantly I'm going to start doing A, b, c and D. I'm going to come to church as much as I possibly can. I'm going to spend time in his word every single day.
And why don't you just go six months, give it six months, and at the end of six months, if you don't see change in your life, you can say well, pastor King don't know what he's talking about, you have to never see me again. You can just disconnect us completely. But what if, at the end of six months, you say oh my God, I'm closer to God.
I hear the voice of God, more I sense the anointing of God, more, you know, I sense the favor of God, more. Ok, cat is out the bag, jack is out the box. Do it another six months and then do it another six months. If you ask even some of my pastors on staff, they said everything changed when they took a six month challenge.
This is the beginning of a wonderful year for you guys and we want to encourage you. Take the six month challenge, come join us and say God, I'm going to go after your heart. Don't just stop. This is not a new year's revolution. This is a revelation of a commitment from. January to June and let's see what God does.
All right, hey, we're out of time for today. We hope that you enjoyed today's podcast. If you're watching on YouTube, do this really quickly. Make sure you hit the subscribe button right now. Hit the alert button as well, because we want you to be the first to get the content as it is released.
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¶ Engagement With Community and Resources
If you're newer to our podcast or show, we want you to ask any questions that you have. We want to answer those questions. You can go to our show notes and email the address there, and we'll be sure to do that Every once in a while. We have a show where we just answer questions, and so we'd love to help you out that way.
And if you're ever in the Florida area we have campuses in Gainesville, florida, orlando Florida, tampa, florida and, who knows, maybe come into a city near you soon. If you can't get to one of our physical locations, we would love for you to join us online. You can join us every Sunday, 1030 Eastern Standard Time for live worship and a live word.
And if you ever want to say hey, when's the best time to come to Orlando, we have a thing called a live conference that comes up the first week in November. If you want more information about that, this is an encounter conference where people will come for three days and it will change the next 30 years of their life.
You can check that out in your show notes as well. All right, just know that you're not alone, that we're praying for you, that we love you, we honor you and we hope to see you again, real, real soon. God bless you.
Peace.
Peace.