Welcome back to the Millennium Mustard Seed. I'm your host Rod and I have a micro message for you from Carly Tebbs acceptance as an idol. This one hits close to the heart and I know it's going to be helpful to hear Carly's reflection. Recently, Prince and Carly have both been helping with the podcast. They've joined the MMS team, if I can say it that way. God has called them to lift our arms up in time of need and to help with some audio stuff. And this is not a one man show
any longer. It's an honor to have like Minds coming together and joining just to be an end time remnant voice. There's so much that they have to offer and it is honestly genuinely an honor to have them stepping up and contributing to the MMSI. Hope you enjoyed this micro message from Carly. We'll be doing this intermittently and also Prince will be reading some scripture and giving reflections as time goes on as well.
Let's get into this acceptance as an IDOL audio message from Carly. So my circle of trusted friends and family, the people that are most dear to my heart, that I walk with day after day after day, who I'm vulnerable with and whom we share, you know, forthright, candid, intimate conversations. We all go to the same church, and my brother-in-law is the pastor of that church and his wife, my sister-in-law is a pastress if if that's even a
word. But she's a minister in her own right and and we're we're all there. We are all in the house together learning to do ministry together. Now we all used to go to the church. The church I talk about in part four with Rod. We all went there together and and when that whole thing imploded we all kind of went our separate ways. Of course in some ways we're we're family a lot of us are are related by marriage. But we we weren't going to church together anymore and we
all it it did scatter the sheep. It really did. And so you know Fast forward and and 12 years later we're all in this church together and we're all learning to be doing ministry together and there's a growing curve there. It's it is a opportunity to really have the Lord search our hearts inside ministry, doing ministry together. And it's been a beautiful and challenging experience.
And recently it came to my attention that there were two families that were negatively impacted by something I had said, and they left the church because of me. And I felt so embarrassed by what I had said. And I started questioning God, did you not want me to share that? Did? Am I supposed to be something other than I am? And if you guys have listened to any of my interviews here, you know that what you see is what you get. I'm really just coming with the this is what behind the mask
looks like. I'm I'm not about the Christian mask. I'm pretty forthright. So in one instance I had asked this person in in the church we are trying to to work out the next stage in a project and I'd ask him where does your business acumen meet your spiritual gifts Like? What does that look like for you? How? Where's the overlap? You know, what is the sweet spot right in there, you know? And he answered the question
really well. And and since I asked a vulnerable question, I offered to be vulnerable because to me that seems fair. You know, if somebody does self disclosure, I then offer self disclosure because it keeps the the playing field level. And so I just, I know I didn't do a good job. In the moment I could feel myself rambling a bit and not being completely concise. But I had I had shared with him that I'm I'm an intercessor, but my my my calling is more over land and gates in the land.
It's more for the redemption of territories. And while I do intercede for people, it seems as though for me, the Lord often takes me up above areas over territories and and to set things right. So I shared this with him and to me that seems not outrageous. You know, that's pretty Biblically sound to me, to me. And then another family had been offended by the language I use when I pray.
And I can't tell you exactly what that language is, but they ended up being very offended that the pastor would have gone to a Bride ministries advance, you know, conference and confronted the pastor. And we was aggressive and weird, and they left the church as well.
And from the time I came into the body of Christ in the church, in the four walls of the church, I was warned that I would not be understood, that I should keep to myself, that I should not tell my story because people wouldn't understand. And let me tell you, when people did start to hear about my story, I was met with prayer meetings against me. Like the witch hunt for the witch I was desperately asking
the Lord to deliver me from. Being became a regular occurrence in the church and I I really was. I really felt relegated. I really felt rejected. But but as the Lord would have it I I wanted Jesus more than anything else and and and it hurt but I was like if this is what it is you know OK whatever we're rolling.
So anyway I found this out in our in our leadership meeting and it hurt my heart Like it really hurt my heart that I would have just by virtue of being myself offended somebody to the point that they would walk away from the church. And and my my wonderful husband pointed out to me that you know that really they might be blaming you but it has more to do with something that's unresolved inside of them. And and while that that felt right and that sounded right.
I couldn't deny the fact that I was a deeply embarrassed. I felt like I don't I don't need to be in the church like I'm cool to be with Jesus in the closet with my close little circle of friends and family for the rest of my life. I don't in fact need any of and I got really mad that night. I came home and I was hot. Mad. I was heated and I was telling Prince and all the things and I was, you know, I was being rather vulgar.
OK, Mask off. I did drop some Effenheimer's here and there and I I needed to get it out. It was like I just needed to have emotional diarrhea. If you ever get a stomach ache and you feel like I just need to puke to get this out. It was that. So I did that and and it was rough and the Lord pointed a few things out to me that I think might benefit others to
contemplate. One of those things is that when you're working in the Church, when when you are in a position of leadership, you you have to learn to be able to discern the difference between the enemy attacking and God coming for your idols. And it can feel very similar in the moment. Because at first when this came about, I was like, Satan is roar walking around like a roaring lion looking for whom he can devour and he has spotted me. But that wasn't actually what was happening.
But it felt very much like that. Because I'm like, man, I'm just being under attack and stuff. But later that night, the Lord pointed out to me, He asked me a question, Carly, why are you at this church? And I was like, well, 'cause you you told me to to come here. You you, you said to be here. And so I'm here. And and he said, well, and what are you supposed to do there? And I said, I don't really know. Apparently I'm not supposed to pray or talk to anybody or share
anything about myself. So I, you know, I was being snarky with Jesus, but he's got big, strong shoulders so he could take it. And he said, you know what? You have an idol. You actually idolize being understood and accepted by people in the church. You value that more than you value my word to you. You value that over obeying me. And he was right. Because this isn't the first time in my life that when I have felt misunderstood or not accepted, I got really ugly.
I I felt really emotionally destabilized. And that is the marker of of protecting a false identity. That's a marker of protecting an idol. And the idol is that of being accepted and understood by other people. And if I can't get that, then God, I might not obey you, you see. And I had to agree with him that he was right because he's he, he was right. And the process that unfolded after that was it wasn't it wasn't a quick easy like, Yep, God, you're right. Here's my idol.
All right, I'm going to go make some soup now. It was like my heart was so affected by the truth of this it. And he what he showed me in the best way I can really describe it to you is like if you have a dead tree in your yard, that dead tree representing at the idol and you were to cut it down, you could just throw the top, you know, the tree in the in the chopper and just chop it up, ship it away. But you still have the stomp right and all the roots and God is coming for the roots.
Now when he shows you an idol in your heart, when he asks you to repent about something, you are valuing over him. He wants the roots. Now you have a choice. You can ask him to just cut the tree down and keep it pushing. But when you, when you are able to sit with him or contemplate just how deep the truth he's telling you is, he'll go for the roots. And it can be a mourn, really
mournful process. But the thing about God is that his love is so. I mean, it guts me because while I have idolized basically myself, right, my desires over him, when he comes to minister to me about that abhorrent thing, he's so loving and tender. He never comes with condemnation. He's never standing there, arms folded, scowling at me, nose in the air. He's always like, I love you so much. Let me take this root. Let me get this other root. Let me set your soil back right.
Let me plant some flowers. Oh, I love you. I love you. I love you. What kind of God is this? So for a couple days, I was, I was feeling that uprooting out of my heart. the IT, it affected my soul. Like all these thoughts around all the ways that this idol has negatively impacted my life. They were coming up. There's one piece of the root, another area. This had impacted my relationships. That's another root. And he's pulling it out and he's so tender and he's so loving.
But I can't pretend like it isn't a grievous process, because it is. But this is the depth to which his faithfulness goes. He doesn't leave anything. He's so thorough. He's so thorough, and it's his. It's his responsibility to clean up our heart, and it is our responsibility to give him our willingness, our yes, our agreement to open the door. And so as I went through that process, I realized, thanks to the Holy Spirit, that we often separate the ideas of of doing and being.
Like I said to him, I don't know what I'm doing here. Like, what do you want me to do? And he said to me, Carly, you have to stop thinking of doing and being as two separate things, because you are there. By virtue of who I am in you, you are doing enough. You are obeying me. My presence is finding an outlet through your being there. Because we carry him, we affect the atmosphere. It's been said so many times that we we should avoid having a religious mindset. It's not a Martha mindset.
It's a merry mindset. When you go somewhere, you have an effect on that territory, on people, on the atmosphere, both physical and spiritual, that you just don't understand. I don't understand, but he pointed out to me that because he is in US, greater is he that is in US than he that is in the world. And we're either going to trust him to be who and what is needed in the moments of life, or, you know, we're going to have to repent and and let him speak to
our hearts. Ellie, I've been feeling like I'm Luke 1. Gotta make a move. Go in a world. Out of the world that I'm still trying to do. Don't care if they judge me. Father God. Just being vulnerable. I can gain a word to lose my souls. If I would, I lose. You said the path was narrow. You say this was no tightrope. I need time to repeat. So if I die, please let me die slow. Just thankful it ain't done no more.
You came and cut the light on. You just want us to step in there so we can get our shine on. I've seen them demons casting out their body. Have my mind, bro. They're trying to kill my flesh. I want to show you what side on because you can't be in love in the world if you want to love Christ said you. Got to keep it on you got that shot shot. Would you rather? Be loved by. Man or loved by Christ said. You got to keep it on.
You got the shot. The shot, the Hey, would you rather be in love with the world or in love with Christ? This is Boy Head Brad and thank you for tuning into The Millennial Muscle Seat, my favorite podcast.