Notes from this week's podcast: Jo & Sydney: What Do I Have To Offer?

Jo: Reflect and then invite the Holy Spirit to wrap Himself around it to speak to your heart specifically. 

Are you truly abiding in Christ? Are you truly living every moment of your day in Christ, in relationship with Him? 

It's a personal invitation to life. (And life has a way of revealing the answers, if we stop and zoom in.) What comes out of you in those moments? Are we living, abiding in Christ? Or are we living in the flesh?

Ask this question to yourself:

(1) Does my response, when we're in chaos and things are overwhelming us, does my response reflect my relationship with Christ? Are you really depending on Him in the moment? Is Christ evident there?

(2) Am I resting in Him? Or am I lacking rest? What are you conforming to?

What an abiding heart does -- that's a heart at rest. It may be a sign that you've drifted from the Vine Jesus. And Jesus is trying to bear fruit through you, but you are trying to bear fruit through your own strength, power. It's time to stop.

(3) Who and what are you running after? Am I chasing the things of God or the things that one day truly won't matter at all?  

God is after your heart, not a piece of it, your whole heart. He wants you to love Him with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. 

He wants a relationship with you. And out of that love relationship, He wants to give you the desires of your heart. From the relationship will flow the fruit that you will bear in this short time. In that God will be glorified. 

Sydney: We have God's Word and that's what changes everything, as we believe it, cling to it, abide in what it says, and what the gospel tells us, what the life of Jesus tells us. Is it spilling over? Is our abiding changing us? 

Jo: What are we depending on?

Sydney: We have what we need in Him. Do we believe that? Do we believe He is our provision and gives us what we need? 

Are we depending on ourselves to muster up ___ to make it through the day, to raise successful children, to have a good marriage, etc.? Are we depending on the Lord as we're abiding in Him knowing we have everything we need through His divine power?

Jo: The way we know we believe it is that we put our trust in God in the midst of the circumstance. 

This Word is forever settled in heaven. It's yes and amen. 

He's given us divine power. 

To know God is more than just head knowledge. To know God is to be intimate, in a relationship with God. 

Sydney: He gives us His promises, His presence. It's what keeps us. It goes back to falling in love with God's Word -- depending, relying on Him and it changes everything. 

Jo: In knowing God, He keeps filling up our "gas tank." But if we're walking on our head knowledge, we'll run out of gas.

Are you walking in oneness? Is God, the Holy Spirit, filling up your tank, continuously, giving you the fuel that you need, the power that you need to truly abide in Him every moment? 

Sydney: With Christmas coming up, God's been giving me eyes to see this truth: just celebrate this beautiful truth of Jesus coming to rescue us because we have a life that was before this rescuing truth coming to us. 

Jo: Why did Jesus come? It was so that God would be manifested in the flesh, so that we could see Him and we could know Him by the evidence of a real life walking on earth. 

> Get in the Word and read the words of Jesus. 

Sydney: If we are abiding, our hope is that fruit will come. Do you have an intimate relationship with the Father? Examine: What are we conforming to, who are we conforming to? Examine the fruit. Examine. Pause. Are we growing in goodness in a heart of integrity? Self-control? Perseverance? Godliness? Brotherly affection with love? 

Jo: Are we really resting in Him? Or do we lack that spiritual rest? What am I conforming to? 

Sydney: Our hearts can be at rest through the busy because we know it's a focus. 

Jo: (Practically) Pull out our calendars. What are all the activities that we have added in the with the things that we normally do? And do you let people fill those slots with their activities? Or are you allowing God to put His thoughts on those specific slots? 

Let the Holy Spirit point the finger at the things that are going to steal your rest (over the next couple of months), and when the Holy Spirit points it, it should be yes and amen. 

Sydney: As we're approaching Christmas, your children will have so many opportunities to see the gospel shape your heart, stop you in your tracks, repent. Our hearts need rescuing. It's a beautiful story. 

We can put that into our daily life. Let the gospel turn your head. 

Jo: If you do get tripped up, stop. 

Lord, teach me in the moment what You want me to learn from that. 

Sydney: Do we have vision to see beyond the right now -- the momentary pleasures of this world? What do I want my family to look like in 10 years? What's the end goal? Are we nearsighted and blind? We don't want to live that way. 

Jo: Why is it so hard for us to do that with God?

Sydney: It comes with a trust that's developed over time. It's not immediate gratification. 

We forget the gospel, the sacrifice, the truth, the excitement of celebrating that goodness, the story of Jesus. 

Jo: Trust = to come back and attach yourself to God and so attach yourself that wherever He takes you in that moment, you simply go with Him. Often we categorize Him. 

Sydney: Depending on Him -- He's all that we need.

Conforming, abiding -- Are we becoming more like Christ?

Remember -- Let's not be near-sighted, blind, forgetful. 

Let it be your life, not tacked on. 

Stay in God's Word. 

And I hope that we can carry that through with us through this holiday season. It doesn't have to be perfect or uninterrupted. What is unfruitful is when we stop abiding and start operating from our own strength. Let's not do that -- become independent of God. Let's conform to Him and remember who He is this holiday season. 

Jo: Notice the red flags when we start trying to compete, getting jealous. Come back to the heart of God. Ask the Holy Spirit: How do you want me to live this out? 

Scripture for further study: John 15:5, Matthew 11:28-30, James 4:14, Deuteronomy 6:5, 2 Peter 1:3-9, Psalm 23:1, 2 Corinthians 1:20, Proverbs 9:10, Romans 12:2