S3. E22. 1 John Series Part 2
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there are a lot of high achievers that listen to this show that are wondering, " Okay, I have this desire for excellence. I want to be disciplined. Where do I channel this energy?" We want to be disciplined in remaining in Christ.
AKA, what am I saying yes to that keeps me saying no to God?
Welcome to Your Daily Bread podcast. I'm your host, Abbie Stasior, a registered dietitian and certified intuitive eating counselor. My prayer is that these bite-sized episodes will help you heal your relationship with food, improve body image, and ultimately help you grow closer to God. Now, I can't personally heal you, but I'm gonna be directing you to the one that can, and that is Jesus. Also disclaimer, I'm not a pastor, but a sister in Christ that's offering you some food for thought that you can take into your quiet time with the Lord as your daily bread. Let's dig in.
Hello, hello. Welcome back to your Daily Bread podcast. We are diving back into 1 John. We are in our 1 John series, and I am so excited [00:01:00] about this, y'all. Today we're gonna be talking about having congruence with what we say and our actions, and how to actually get closer to God. Because so many Christians say that they wanna be closer to God, but do our habits actually reflect that?
And that's the question that we're gonna be asking today. So Father God, thank you so much for this word, Lord. Thank you for placing this on our hearts. And Lord, thank you, for sending your Son Jesus to die for us on the cross, to be resurrected from the dead so that we could never be separated from you again.
We know that the cross is so much more than just forgiveness, but it is about reconciling our hearts back to you, restoring our friendship with you. So thank you, Lord, for the Holy Spirit that dwells within us so that we're never separated from you again. We are so grateful for that, Lord, and I just pray that this episode helps to awaken people on how they can practically spend more time with you in what is actually within our control so that, our times with you are [00:02:00] fruitful and we experience more and more of your peace and more of your presence.
Because everything changes when we are aware and attuned to your presence. So Lord, I pray that everything that's said in this episode is not what I want to say, but is what you want to say through me. Less of me, more of you, and I pray that this blesses and changes every single listener from the inside out, and it's in Jesus' name that we pray.
Amen. So we're gonna be diving into 1 John 3:18-20. And it says: "Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth. This is how we know that we belong to the truth and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence. If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything."
Y'all, this is the word of the Lord. When I read this scripture, this is one of the scriptures, this and last week's scripture, these were the two where I was like, " Oh, we need to do a First John series. I am seeing so much in this book." But what really got me was [00:03:00] how we set our hearts at rest in His presence.
And when I was reading this in my quiet time, I was like, "Lord, I just wanna rest in your presence. I am exhausted. I am overwhelmed. I feel like things in ministry are on the cusp of changing and growing, but I also feel so under attack and physically exhausted." I was going through it that day, and I was like, "Lord, I just wanna rest in your presence, and how do we do this more?"
'Cause I know that we all need this. It says it right here in the scripture, "let us not love with words or speech, but with actions and in truth." So we have to have actions behind what we're doing, there's other verses that say in James, like, "Faith without works is dead."
, Not that we are earning or striving, but there is a level of discipline that we need. And I find that with our relationship with food, with the stewardship of our bodies, we put our discipline and our works in the wrong place because we're hustling, we're striving, we're [00:04:00] earning, we're trying to earn approval and earn our right standing with God.
Like, no, that's already been secured by the cross. You are blameless in front of God's sight because of Jesus. So where do our works come in? And, what the Lord was revealing to me is that our actions can create an environment where your heart can rest in God. So we can't control God's presence, it's, always there, but you can increase and pray for an increase of your awareness of His presence.
You can cultivate an environment with less distractions where you can actually be attuned to His presence. You can quiet things in your life so that you can hear God through the silence. Silence is God's language, and sometimes our lives are too loud, our lives are too hurried and too busy, where we're not attuned to the presence of God, so we don't feel at rest , there are a lot of high achievers that listen to this show that are wondering, " Okay, I have this desire for excellence. I have this [00:05:00] desire to do things well, and I want to achieve, and I want to do things, and I want to be disciplined. Where do I kind of channel this energy?" And we want to be disciplined in remaining in Christ.
And 1 Thessalonians 4:11 says that we want to make it our ambition to lead a quiet life. So that's where you have to put your ambition, is what can I do to have more quiet, to have more silence, and solitude, and margin in my days? Because we are always going to be busy, but we don't have to be so hurried.
And there's a difference there, where you can be busy doing a lot of things, but when you're abiding in the Lord, and that's also coupled with margin and spaciousness in your days, you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you, and it's easier to go through a busy day when you are abiding, and really that's the only godly way to do it.
Otherwise, you're just striving in your own strength. So where I feel like we have to channel our energies for recovering high achievers, we need to [00:06:00] channel that ambition that we have to what 1 Thessalonians says, to lead a quiet life, and to create an environment that helps us rest in the presence of God.
So we need to fight and crawl our way through our busy schedules so that we can carve out time and space to rest in the presence of God and hear from Him. And that can be really hard. It can be hard to take off from work. It can be hard to say no to things, because they could be really good things, but they may not always be what God is inviting you into in this season.
'Cause when you say yes, yes, yes to everything, you're also saying no to something. And most of the time we're saying yes to so many things, and they may be good things, but that now what's being compromised and what we're saying no to is actually more quality time with God. So some things that we wanna do, if you want to channel your ambition, your high achieving nature, and get disciplined, we wanna channel all of that energy into creating an environment where we can rest in the presence [00:07:00] of God.
So that may be waking up 15 minutes earlier. It may be being more disciplined with leaving your phone outside of your room. Y'all, I have to do that. , Because I will not get up and I will continue to snooze and snooze and snooze. I know myself. I've tried , to fix it, but I, I know myself. I have to leave my phone away from my bed.
So I just leave it in my bathroom and I charge it in there, and my room is connected to the bathroom, so when I hear it, I wake up, I go to the bathroom, and I'm already like, "All right, my toothbrush is right there. My vitamins are right there. I'm gonna brush my teeth. I'm gonna take my vitamins, and then I'm gonna go into my quiet time."
Like it's, already waking me up. , , So that has been a game changer for me. Some of us already know that we know that we need to do that, but we're not doing it, so let this be a call to actually do what you know you need to do. , Maybe praying while you're walking during a lunch break or on a morning walk, eating without distractions, protecting the Sabbath, saying no to commitments Praying before we plan something.
[00:08:00] We really need to be disciplined with these things that we know that are good for us. 'Cause I feel like there's this sense of like when you're in diet culture, and you're just,, striving and achieving and white-knuckling and trying to, control everything, there can be a sense that when you leave diet culture, and you know, hey, that's not God's way, that's not working for me, that's not healthy, we can kinda swing the other way and be a little too lax.
And it's like no, no, no, we still want good boundaries. We still want to be disciplined, and the scripture is showing, hey, our actions do matter, and the way that we love is through our actions and in truth it says. So, our actions do matter, but we wanna make sure that we are making it our ambition to lead that quiet life and to be creating an environment where we can hear from God.
Because then our actions that flow out of that, you will hear from the Lord, and you'll receive His love. It will be a relationship, and you'll hear what He actually wants you to do [00:09:00] so that you can go be obedient with what He has called you to do, and you don't have to guess. I think that this is healthy.
I think that this, this is what God wants me to do. No, no, no. Get in your quiet time. Be consistent with that so that you know that you know that you know, yes, this is what I heard from the Lord. I've spent enough time with Him where I know His voice, and I know that this is what He said to me. This is what He wants me to do, and I need to be obedient to that.
And you won't be second-guessing your actions for your health as much if you have better quality quiet time with the Lord. And to be able to carve out that space in our hustle culture society where things are so busy and our schedules are so full, we have to fight like tooth and nail to be able to create that space and create that environment.
And so we need to be disciplined with potentially waking up earlier and leaving our phone outside of our room, eating without distractions, and turning the TV off or turning our phone off, stepping away from our work desk to go to a quiet place to eat, protecting the Sabbath, and saying no to different commitments, even if they're good things, so that we can get in the presence of [00:10:00] God.
And that's where everything changes. That's where you experience , more peace and more direction as well. So that's what really came up for me , with all of this. , -
And Verse 20, it says, "If our hearts condemn us, we know that God is greater than our hearts, and He knows everything." And when we spend time in the presence of God, He does change us from the inside out. , I talked about this with Jacqueline Renee when we had our guest episode on gluttony recently, so if you haven't listened to that, definitely go, back and listen to that 'cause it was a good episode.
And I was reading from some parts of the book Renovation of the Heart by Dallas Willard, and I was just so in awe 'cause I'm like, wow, the sentences he was saying, I was like, it is so clear that he has been in the presence of God because nobody could just have that type of revelation on their own, and to just say things with such peace and clarity
What struck my spirit was not just what he was saying I don't even remember exactly what the quote was, but what struck me was like, oh, this person has spent [00:11:00] time in the presence of the Lord. And we even see that in the Gospels. There's people that say to the disciples and about the disciples, like, " Oh, we can tell that they've been with Jesus."
And so you want people to say about you, like, " Oh, I can tell that they've been with Jesus," and that they've actually been changed from the inside out. And it says, "If our hearts condemn us," so we have to ask ourselves, " Is my heart condemning? Am I condemning myself? Am I berating myself? Am I always, seeing the negative in things?
Am I always so harsh and critical towards myself, or am I showing myself more warmth and understanding and grace, compassion, mercy as Christ would do? Am I receiving myself as Christ receives me?" God is greater, and He knows everything, and if He knows everything and He's greater and He's still showing you grace, mercy, compassion, warmth, and understanding then how much more should you?
You should. If God is doing that, and He's all-knowing, and He knows and sees everything, and He's still showing you that grace, mercy, and compassion, then you should show yourself that same compassion too. So I just feel like what's hitting , my spirit about this is that condemnation is an [00:12:00] indicator that you need to spend more time with God.
, That's what I'm trying to get at with this is like, ooh, you really need to be disciplined with getting, in the presence of God, carving out time , creating margin, fighting to lead that quiet life so that you can experience that restoration of the heart. You can go from condemnation to self-examination with the Lord, and you can show yourself more warmth, compassion, and understanding.
- Only God can do that, truly, and to really change you from the inside out, and change you from a heart level. So if you are someone that is very harsh, and critical, and condemning towards yourself, that's an indicator, ooh, this may be for me. I may need to spend more time with God. We all do. We all need to spend more time with God.
But I think condemnation for us is, should be an indicator. Instead of wallowing in it, and going down that shame spiral and that rabbit hole, we need to use that as an indicator, ooh, let me get with God, because something's in my heart. There's some sort of condemnation there. I need to renew my mind, [00:13:00] and Lord, create in me a pure heart and a steadfast spirit.
I think it's also important to note that peace is not accidental, right? We need to partner with God to create space to encounter him so that you can receive his peace that surpasses all understanding, and we tend to avoid this when we are just falling into busyness and being rushed and hurried all the time.
We don't create that space. So we need to be intentional about creating that space to encounter him, to receive his peace. And this also makes me think of Habakkuk chapter two, verses one through three, and we did an episode on this at the start of the year, where in that chapter it says that Habakkuk, put himself on the rampart, which is the elevated surface.
, So he got himself to a place where he could hear from God, and it says that he put himself in a heart posture so that he could be corrected. And this is the verse where it talks about, you know, "Write the vision on tablets, make it plain so that he may run who reads it."
Before that, before you can [00:14:00] get the vision from the Lord, - Habakkuk had to put himself in a place, in a position, and in a heart posture to hear from the Lord and be corrected by him. Not just assuming what God was going to say, but like, "Ooh, I don't know what God's gonna say. I'm going to go in with empty hands."
And it even talks about entering the Lord's presence with empty hands, , going in with nothing in the Book of Revelation as well. So some things that I want you to think about this week, some good discussion questions that you can take to the Lord would be number one, what habits help my heart rest in God's presence?
Is it journaling? Is it worshiping? Getting in the word? Movement? Is it, like, walking prayer? Is it silence? What is that? What distractions continually steal my peace? What distractions continually steal my peace? Number three, where do I need to create more margin? AKA, what am I saying yes to that keeps me saying no to God?
Where do I need to create more margin? And I had a really good friend say to me like a couple weeks [00:15:00] before the wedding, I was just, you know, venting to her. I was like, "I'm so overwhelmed. I got this, this, this, this, this." And she was like, "Okay, half of the things that you just named have nothing to do with the wedding.
Why are you doing all of these things two weeks before your wedding? Like, you need to be focusing on wedding and, like, wedding essentials and also, like, clients." Like, there were some real business things that I had to do to be able to take time off wedding week and the week for the honeymoon. She's like, "You need to focus on your work essentials and wedding essentials.
Like, that's literally it. Why are you doing all these extra things?" So she asked me, "What are two things that you can eliminate from your schedule this week? What are two things that you can just cancel?" And I looked at my calendar, 'cause I live by my Google Calendar, and the Lord highlighted those two things, and I felt bad about it, like saying no to those plans.
But it's like not saying no, it's rescheduling, you know? And, , people were so understanding. Like, , people get it, you know? And also, I feel like people also love canceled plans, not that we wanna be canceling last minute necessarily, but, um, but yeah. You can ask the Lord about that.
"Lord, I know that my schedule is too full. Reveal to me what I need to say no [00:16:00] to. What are you not inviting me into this week, this day, in this season?" And, people tend to be pretty understanding.
So I pray that this is helpful, and if you need help tangibly with your healthy habits, hearing from the Lord, partnering with the Holy Spirit. If you need help with your morning and evening routines, this is something that I help clients with all the time. It's not just about, what are we meal prepping this week and honoring our hunger and fullness?
It's, how are we creating space to be in the presence of God? What do we need to change about our morning and evening routine? How do we work within the schedule that we have and the things that can't change in our schedule? This is something I talk about and work on with clients all the time, so if this is something that you know that you need, and you need help with this, don't do it alone.
And head to the link in the show notes, and you can book a free call with me where we can talk about all of the things, and you can explore if one-on-one faith-based nutrition counseling is right for you. So I will see y'all next week, and I hope to see you on my calendar because you booked a call in the show notes.
See y'all next week. thank you for tuning in to this week's episode of Your Daily Bread [00:17:00] Podcast. Now, if anything about this episode resonated with you, I wanna encourage you to send it to three sisters in Christ who may also wanna steward their bodies better.
I read every comment, every review of the show, and I love hearing your testimonies and how the Holy Spirit is meeting you through these episodes. And if you haven't left a review yet, I wanna encourage you to do so 'cause it truly does help the show grow and it. Ultimately benefits the kingdom. And if you need any personalized support with your nutrition and your relationship with food or your body image, head to the show notes and you'll see all the different ways to work with me.
See you next week.
