Latest / ToddTalks--Spirit By Design: Your Weekly Survival Guide / You Do Not Fall Away All At Once You Drift Until You Gear Up Again with the Armor of God

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You Do Not Fall Away All At Once You Drift Until You Gear Up Again with the Armor of God · ToddTalks--Spirit By Design: Your Weekly Survival Guide

• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: What happens when you stop wearing the whole armor of God?
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Whether by design or by drifting away, by choice or neglect.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome again, my friends, to Todd Talks, Spirit by Design, where I help you set yourself up for spiritual strength and success in this crazy, chaotic world as we prepare for the Lord's return.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Today I'm going to cover the seven stages of spiritual decline, how to counter it with putting on the whole armor of God, along with a description of what that actually means and how you can apply it to your daily life.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: The pattern of decline shows up over and over again in Scripture, from the Nephites, the Jaredites, the Israelites, and it has been echoed by modern prophets and apostles.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: Contrary to popular belief, it isn't usually rebellion that causes our decline, but gradual spiritual disengagement or apathy.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, we get comfortable and we stop doing what we should.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Little by little we drift away.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: So let's map out what happens.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: What are the seven stages of spiritual decline?
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: Sadly, most of the time we take off our spiritual armor piece by piece without even noticing it.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: First off, we have spiritual drift.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: This is the neglect of daily connection to God.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: You don't quit.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: You just become inconsistent.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_00: Your prayers become shorter, more rote, and then skipped altogether.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Scripture study becomes occasional, then rare.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Your spiritual sensitivity begins to dull.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: You've felt this, I've felt this.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: At some point in each of our lives, we find ourselves inconsistently neglecting the basic practices that God tells us will keep us centered on Him.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: And we do it more than once.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's something we constantly have to fight.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: You're not actually choosing darkness, you're just not choosing light.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: The sword of the Spirit is weakening in your hand.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: The second stage, truth becomes flexible.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Your convictions soften, and things that used to matter become less important.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Truth becomes influenced by culture, television, not revelation.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: Cultural norms change and you flow with the crowd rather than recognizing that truth is constant and unchanging.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: Worse, you start interpreting commandments rather than following them.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: You seek to justify your sins.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, you begin to adjust truth to fit the lifestyle that you want to live instead of changing your lifestyle to fit the constant truths of the gospel.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: The third stage, you begin to justify small sin.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_00: Behavior follows belief.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: Once you start to compromise your morals and attempt to justify your actions, saying, it's just this once, or everybody's doing it, it can't be that bad.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: Or God understands.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Once that happens, your moral code, your lines in the sand don't just disappear, they start to slip further and further away.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: They shift.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: And there goes your righteousness.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: And if I might add, that's when you really start having self-deception and self-esteem issues.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: I did a whole episode about the shift that's going on in the world.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth stage, loss of spiritual sensitivity.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: When you sin, the spirit ceases to abide with you.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: It can't dwell in unholy temples.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_00: So the spirit becomes harder to feel to feel.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: This is good if you want to feel less, if you want to feel less guilt, but it also is a precursor to worse things to come.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: You no longer will be able to receive guidance either.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: So less guilt, but less guidance in your life.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: It becomes harder to feel peace, clarity, and prompting, and you can have increased emotional volatility or numbness towards life.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: Why do so many people involved in sin get into drugs and alcohol?
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because they're trying to feel or to numb their feelings.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: You don't realize you've become lost until the spirit is quiet and you've lost peace.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: The fifth stage faith weakens under pressure.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: At this stage, you're really on your own.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: Trials hit differently.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: They hit harder.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: Doubt feels heavier than belief.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Questions stop leading to seeking answers and just lead to distance and distraction or anger.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: God feels further away.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Sad thing is, he's not.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: He's right there.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: He's willing to help.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: But you've put a barrier up to prevent you from feeling him.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Faith requires constant nourishment.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: Just like when learning a language, if you don't use it, you lose it.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: Faith that isn't fed or nourished starts to fade into the background or disappear altogether.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: In the sixth stage, you have identity confusion.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: You forget that you are a child of God, you forget who you really are, and you start to define yourself by your struggles, labels, or worldly perspectives.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Your eternal perspective fades and you are dominated by either shame or pride.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: When your identity shifts, your behavior follows.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, the seventh stage, spiritual disconnection.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_00: This is where you become completely vulnerable to manipulation, to the adversary.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Prayer is rare or absent.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: Scriptures feel irrelevant.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Sin feels normal and God feels distant or unnecessary.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: At this stage, you're no longer wearing the armor of God.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: You've completely opened yourself up to the world.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: The sobering truth of this is that it isn't a dramatic shift usually.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's a gradual diminishing of the light of Christ inside you.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: It is common.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: It happens to almost everybody if we are not eternally vigilant.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: It is, however, reversible.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: But the longer you are in these stages, the harder it is to reverse to get back to the light.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: Think about drug rehab.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: The longer someone is addicted, the more difficult it is for them to get clean and stay clean.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: This is why we need the guiding direction of the Holy Spirit with us at all times.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: What can be done?
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: If as you listen to this, you notice that you might be in one or more of these stages, or multiple of them, how can you reverse the situation?
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: How can you essentially, like a drug addict, go to spiritual rehab?
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: It starts with the armor of God.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: In falling into the stages of decline, you slowly removed all of your protection and armor.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: To get out of it, you have to pick up the same armor and strap it back on.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: Before I cover the counter pattern, the daily habits that will reverse the decline, I want to go over the armor of God, what it is, what it stands for, and why each piece is important.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: Then I'll go over the patterns which you will see in the armor to reverse spiritual decline.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: In Ephesians 6, 8, 10 to 18, the Apostle Paul teaches how a disciple of Christ stands spiritually strong in a world of opposition.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: We are told to put on the whole armor of God.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: There are multiple layers to the armor.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: If you've ever seen war movies from old samurai or medieval armor, you know that there are many layers that made up make up the armor.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: So let's discuss what each piece means.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: First, the belt of truth.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: Truth holds everything together.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_00: When we live honestly before God, we don't have to worry about guilt or shame.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: You live honestly not just with God and your fellow man, but yourself.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: Too often we lie to ourselves.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: The belt of truth stands for truth.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: It rejects deception, especially self-deception.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: Without truth, nothing else works.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: Second, the breastplate of righteousness.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: A breastplate protects your heart and vital organs.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Spiritually, it protects your desires, motives, and identity.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: It means choosing obedience even when it's hard, aligning your life with God's standards, and letting Christ's righteousness cover your weaknesses.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: It isn't perfection, it's direction.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: The breastplate of righteousness shows you which way to go.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: Third, shoes of the gospel of peace.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: Shoes give stability and enable forward movement.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: We can walk confident with and in Christ.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: The shoes of the gospel keep us grounded and not shaken by chaos.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: It enables us to carry peace into conflict and not be overcome by fear.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: Peace becomes your footing, and you are not thrown by the changing environment around you.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth, the shield of faith.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: The shield stops the fiery darts of the adversary.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: Doubt, fear, temptation, accusation, ridicule, shame.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: The shield allows you to trust in God even when evidence is unclear.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: It is acting on belief, not just feelings, and it deflects lies before they penetrate to attack your mind.
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: Faith is not passive, it is a defensive power in motion.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: Watch Roman or medieval fights.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: The shield was not just defensive, it blocked attacks, but it also pushed back.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: It smacked heads and deflected blows.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: The shield of faith is both defensive and counteroffensive.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: Fifth, the helmet of salvation.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: A helmet protects your head, your mind, your spirit.
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_00: I wear one when I go riding a motorcycle.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: It helps you remember that you are a child of God.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: It helps you think clearly and think eternally or celestially as President Nelson urged us to do.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: It guards against despair, shame, and identity confusion.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: Most battles, especially spiritual battles, are won or lost in your thoughts, in your mind.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: We have about 70,000 thoughts a day or more.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: The helmet protects you to make most of those thoughts good and not bad or negative.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_00: Satan tries to make most of them be negative.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Sixth, the sword of the spirit.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: The sword is the offensive weapon.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: I love swords.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: I collect them.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Swords, daggers.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: I have always loved swords.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: As an offensive weapon, scripture and truth are used actively against falsehood, speaking truth against lies and receiving revelation to urge you to action in the direction the Lord wants you to go.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is the sword of truth.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_00: It highlights justice and righteousness and blocks the attacks of the evil one.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: In Ephesians, right after discussing the armor, Paul talks about prayer.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: Prayer is the often overlooked power source.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: It provides us with a constant connection to God, real-time guidance and strength, and spiritual awareness and endurance.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: Prayer is active, not passive.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: Prayer is what activates the armor.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's like the mini generator in Iron Man's suit.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: In discussing the armor of God, Paul wasn't just describing protection.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: He was describing spiritual transformation.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: When you put on the armor of God, it means you intentionally choose Christ-like attributes every day.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: You gear up on purpose daily to fight drift.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: You recognize that there is no fence sitting, that life is not neutral.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: It is a spiritual battleground.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: In Latter-day Saint teachings, this connects deeply with our being told to take upon us the name of Christ, being armed with righteousness and the power of God and enduring to the end.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: Putting on the armor of God is actively pursuing and living covenants made with your Heavenly Father daily.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: On a daily basis.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: As a pilot, before a flight, I don't just hope the airplane holds together in flight.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: I go through a pre-flight checklist, I walk around the airplane and verify that everything is in order.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: I check the landing gear and make sure there are no cracks in the gear or the wings.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: I do a physical and mental check and certify that I'm good and safe to fly that day.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: Once in the airplane, I secure my clearance, I check the engines and systems, make sure that I have everything needed to safely fly.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: These steps can be compared to truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, the word of God, prayer, all things necessary for a safe flight through life each day.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_00: When you put on the armor of God, you stop living casually and start living consciously as a disciple of Jesus Christ.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's the difference between reacting versus preparing, hoping versus standing for truth, drifting versus fighting with spiritual intention.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm not saying it's easy, it's a daily battle.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: You have to choose daily.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_00: Some days you'll win, some days you'll lose.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: But consistently trying is the most important thing you can do.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: Going back to the armor, modern apostles and prophets' teachings emphasize various key aspects of the armor of God.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: President Nelson has repeatedly emphasized that truth is under attack and that we must hear the Lord and seek truth through revelation in order to survive in the last days.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_00: Dal NHO's present has warned that truth is increasingly treated as relative rather than eternal in this fallen world.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: Today, truth must be spiritually discerned and not just socially agreed upon.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_00: Satan, on the other hand, attacks truth by flooding the world with noise, misinformation, and half-truths.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: He promotes my truth and your truth and everybody's truth and uses distraction so that you never actually delve deep enough to anchor yourself in eternal truth.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: Jeffrey R.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: Holland taught that Christ's grace covers us, but we must still choose righteousness daily.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: We must repent daily.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_00: David A.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: Bednar emphasizes small, consistent acts of obedience become spiritual power.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: Righteousness is less about perfection and more about alignment with Christ.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: Satan, on the other hand, doesn't want us to exercise righteousness.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: He attacks it by normalizing sin until it no longer feels serious, encourages justification so that you don't feel bad, and then flips shame and discouragement onto your head and either numbs your conscience or crushes your hope of change.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: Peace, however, comes through living the gospel of Christ and from receiving the Holy Ghost, even in chaos.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: Quentin L.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: Cook has said that disciples of Christ must be peacemakers in a contentious world.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: Peace is not the absence of conflict, it is spiritual stability even when there is conflict.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: Satan fights peace by amplifying anxiety, outrage, and fear.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: He promotes contention as normal or even virtuous and keeps you emotionally reactive instead of spiritually grounded.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: Even more modern tactic that is happening today is to tell young adults that all of their anxieties and stressors in their life are the fault of their parents, that their parents cause them trauma, amplifying their anxieties and causing them to push family away.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: Anything to destroy the family.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: Neil A.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: Anderson teaches that faith, on the other hand, grows through choices and experience, not ease.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: While Dieter F.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uchdorff often reminds us that doubt is not the enemy, but dwelling on doubts and neglecting action is.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: You see, faith, the shield of faith, is a decision to trust God daily.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: Satan plants small doubts in our minds that grow over time if allowed to take root.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: He tells you, if God loved you, this wouldn't happen.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: And he encourages you to be passive in your spirituality.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: As I've stated time and time again on this podcast, this year I feel called to teach all of you how to strengthen your ability to receive personal revelation, have faith in it, and most importantly, act on it.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel is a plan of action, and when you act on the revelation you receive, you receive more, and you can overcome the fiery darts of the adversary by acting and living the path that God wants you to follow.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, Ezra Tav Benson taught that the Book of Mormon is a primary weapon against deception.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: The Word of God is not passive reading, it needs to be used, lived, and becomes power, spiritual power, when we use it daily.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_00: We need to pray daily for repentance and personal revelation.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: Consistent prayer builds a relationship with God.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: Prayer shouldn't be just ritual or rote memorization.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: It needs to become a lifeline to your Heavenly Father.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: I've noticed my prayers have strengthened a lot over the last several years, especially as I've focused on increasing my spirituality.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: That takes us to the counter plan, the counter pattern.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: What daily habits you can use to reverse decline.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: You don't fix spiritual collapse with one big moment.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: You rebuild it with small, consistent, intentional actions.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: First, daily prayer as a reconnection to Heavenly Father.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: Daily prayer counters drift, not repeated prayers that don't mean anything.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: But morning and night speaking with your Father.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: In the morning, ask, What would you have me do today?
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_00: In the evening, give an accounting of what you did and express gratitude for what the Lord has done for you.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm definitely not perfect on this account, as I've said.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm working to be more accountable and expressive, real and not robotic prayers.
• 20:32
  SPEAKER_00: Those have power.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: Second, daily scripture study.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: This anchors you in truth.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: Studying the scriptures helps counter the distortions of the truth and strengthens your faith.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: Ask questions while you're reading, and as Nephi said, feast upon the words of Christ.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: Don't just read the words, look for ways to apply what you read in your daily life.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: This will sharpen your sword of the spirit.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: Third, intentional obedience.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_00: Act immediately on promptings you receive.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_00: Choose the harder right rather than the easier path.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: Build integrity in small unseen decisions daily.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: Repent daily.
• 21:18
  SPEAKER_00: These actions strengthen the breastplate that protects your spirit.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: Fourth, remember who you are.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: President Nelson counseled us to think celestial.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: We are children of a heavenly father.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: You have divine potential.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: Filter your decisions through your eternal identity and reject labels that contradict truth.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: Doing this enables you to put on the helmet.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: Fifth, seek and protect the spirit.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: Seek to receive revelation.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: Seek to have the spirit with you.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: Remove noise.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: If the contact content that you're watching, listening to, or reading doesn't permit Spirit to be around, remove it.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: Harder said than done, or easier said than done.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: But important, if you can create quiet moments daily to listen, the spirit will speak to you.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: Act always on even the smallest promptings, and your spiritual signal clarity will increase.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: Sixth, act in faith, even when you don't feel like it or don't feel it.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: Move forward without full certainty.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: Choose to believe.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: As Almatot, if you can but choose to believe and act on that belief, even though it be as small as a grain of a mustard seed, by acting on it, you nurture it, water it, and allow it to grow in your heart.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_00: It'll grow to unimaginable size.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_00: Keep your commitments even when Satan is trying you.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, seventh.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: Live with the gospel outwardly.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: Be a servant leader.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: Serve someone daily.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: Share the light that is growing inside you.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: Don't contend, but be a peacemaker in conversations.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: Doing this will shod your feet in the gospel of Jesus Christ and give you a firm footing in a messed up world.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: Bottom line is this the seven-stage decline happens when your spiritual armor is neglected.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: And when you counter that neglect and intentionally put on the armor daily, you will grow.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's that simple.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: You won't be perfect, it won't be dramatic, but the key is consistently consistency.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: If you can consistently make these changes and focus on acting and not on just being a passive spectator in your own life, but choose to be a disciple of Christ, he will help you strap on the armor and be protected from the evils and craziness of this world where Satan wants to lead you down to misery and woe.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_00: I know that you can do it.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: It just takes consistency.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a daily practice for you, for me, for all of us.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: This has been Todd Talks, once again, giving you the tools to improve your spiritual life.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: If you find this useful, please share.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: Help me break through Big Tech's algorithm so more people can listen and learn.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: And as always, have a blessed day.