Latest / The Woman at the Well Ministries Podcast / 549 | Recommitments That Really Matter

Transcript

549 | Recommitments That Really Matter · The Woman at the Well Ministries Podcast

• 0:00
  God is in control.
• 0:05
  She's a happy girl. Hello, friends, and welcome back to another podcast of Woman
• 0:10
  at the Well Ministries, where we believe that all of us have to come to Jesus
• 0:15
  like the woman at the well in John chapter 4.
• 0:18
  Our highest priority is making God real in your life.
• 0:21
  Whether you are listening in our app, in your favorite podcasting app,
• 0:25
  or on our website at watwm.org, we invite you to sit down with us as we look
• 0:31
  to the scriptures to learn more about God and to strengthen your daily walk with Jesus Christ.
• 1:03
  Well, hello, everyone, and thank
• 1:05
  you for joining us in today's podcast of Women at the Well Ministries.
• 1:09
  My name's Erica Close, and I'm here with Kim.
• 1:12
  Hi, I'm Kim Miller, and I am so excited to spend the next few minutes with you
• 1:16
  as we are getting ready to usher in 2026.
• 1:20
  It's a new year.
• 1:22
  Yes, we're really excited. And I just have to say personally how excited I am
• 1:28
  to be able to sit down and have a conversation kind of podcast with you.
• 1:33
  If you're a regular listener, you know, we usually do those on Wednesdays.
• 1:37
  But you also know that you have been walking alongside me through the book of
• 1:43
  Deuteronomy for the last 34 weeks,
• 1:47
  except for last Wednesday, when we actually talked about the Christmas story in Scripture.
• 1:53
  I'm so excited, not just only about that, but that this is, we're coming into a new year.
• 1:59
  I'm excited as well. And I'm excited about how the Bible is.
• 2:02
  The Bible is steadfast, and it's true, and it never gets old,
• 2:08
  it never expires, and it's never out of date.
• 2:12
  So you may be listening to this podcast, which would be when it's aired live
• 2:18
  in its first intention, which would be 2026 or New Year's Eve just before 2026.
• 2:25
  But you may also could be listening to this, and you're ushering in 2030. Okay.
• 2:31
  And the truths will remain the same. And I love about the consistent.
• 2:37
  Constant truth that the message of God brings every time and all the time.
• 2:44
  I love that. And I'm excited that we are taking that lens about the truth of
• 2:49
  God's word and we're applying it to going into the new year.
• 2:54
  Right. Because so many people approach the new year with making resolutions.
• 3:00
  Right. They take the end of the year as a time to reflect on the year,
• 3:06
  to look at what went well perhaps in the year and what didn't go well in the year.
• 3:11
  And it's a time to make resolutions. But I almost think better than resolutions
• 3:17
  is the new year is a time for recommitment, right?
• 3:22
  It's a natural start.
• 3:25
  It's a natural do-over time, right? It's a natural time to say,
• 3:31
  hey, this is what I'm going to do next.
• 3:35
  But if we go through that lens of truth that you talked about,
• 3:40
  What we see is that when we are making resolutions or recommitments as Christians, it's not about us.
• 3:51
  No. Right? Typical resolutions are about willpower, right?
• 3:57
  And sticking to a plan and maybe checking— And bettering ourselves. Bettering ourselves.
• 4:03
  For our own benefit. By ourselves.
• 4:05
  Right. Right? I'm such a—I love a checklist. I love to check things off on a checklist.
• 4:11
  She makes checklists after she's completed something just so she can check it off.
• 4:16
  And it's true because I love to check things off on a checklist.
• 4:22
  That's a great feeling for me.
• 4:24
  But that's not how resolutions are supposed to work.
• 4:28
  That's not a recommitment. And the reality is if I have a checklist that I'm
• 4:32
  intending to use for an entire year,
• 4:34
  I know myself well enough that right around the beginning of February,
• 4:39
  I know that I'm not checking things off on that checklist.
• 4:43
  But that's because resolutions and of the type that we might make at the beginning
• 4:49
  of the year, that we might put on our checklist, are things that we just do in our own strength.
• 4:54
  They don't come through the power of the Holy Spirit as part of a relationship with the Lord.
• 5:03
  I think a lot of times they also don't even come through prayer about what the
• 5:08
  Lord would have you to do and what housekeeping God wants to have in your heart and in your mind.
• 5:15
  I think it it gets off from the start when we open the gate and it's all about
• 5:20
  me and I've totally neglected to consult him.
• 5:25
  I am destined for failure. Absolutely. You know, there's a verse that.
• 5:31
  I will say, Kim often quotes this verse to me when I get talking too much about
• 5:38
  exercise or something like that.
• 5:40
  But I think that this verse really speaks to where we need to be placing our
• 5:47
  focus, where those recommitments need to be.
• 5:50
  And it's 1 Timothy 4.8, and we read, For bodily exercise profiteth little,
• 5:56
  but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that
• 6:02
  now is and of that which is to come.
• 6:06
  And we might joke sometimes about bodily exercise profiteth little,
• 6:11
  but the second part of that verse, but godliness is profitable unto all things.
• 6:19
  So often our resolutions are about our bodies, right?
• 6:23
  They're about health, they're about exercise, they're about weight loss,
• 6:26
  they're about things about that are just so internal to us.
• 6:29
  But if what we had resolved to grow in us was godliness, we would find the profits
• 6:38
  of that in all aspects of our lives.
• 6:41
  So why don't we hop into some ideas about what we could actually have as resolutions
• 6:48
  or recommitments for the new year.
• 6:52
  If you were going to have a list of resolutions or recommitments,
• 6:56
  what's one that you might think would be profitable?
• 7:00
  Well, I've actually prayed about this. Okay. And I mean, I'm like everybody else.
• 7:05
  I'm coming into the end of the year and I really want to be more for the Lord
• 7:09
  in 2026 than I was in 2025, but I wanted to be more in 2025 than I was in 2024.
• 7:16
  And every year I want to be more. And I like to believe that my experiences
• 7:22
  in life and my walk with the Lord helps me be more like what He wants me to be.
• 7:30
  And so as I thought about that and thought about the, there's a lot of things
• 7:34
  happened in 2025 that really called upon my faith.
• 7:39
  And a lot of things happened that made me need to really think, where do I place my feet?
• 7:48
  What is my foundation for my feet?
• 7:52
  And it's really strengthened my faith.
• 7:56
  But if I was to tell you I'm working on three things because I think that is all the capacity.
• 8:03
  That really anyone has but certainly all that I have to give it my all and to
• 8:09
  carry forth the whole year so you only want one of my three or do you want all
• 8:15
  three you can you can give us all three my first one,
• 8:19
  is, and this is going to sound very odd to many people, especially those that
• 8:23
  know me, but I believe God asks us, and I believe he's asking me, to study his word more.
• 8:33
  Now, I have a ferocious appetite for the scriptures, and I have a tremendous
• 8:42
  love and thirsting for the word.
• 8:45
  So I spend a bit of time in the scriptures on a daily basis.
• 8:52
  But I also think he's working towards maybe looking at them differently.
• 8:59
  Like, I study in them, and I play in them, and I do a lot of topical studies.
• 9:05
  But I think he's really asking me to dig even deeper into some lessons that I already know.
• 9:12
  So for me, the first and foremost,
• 9:18
  what I believe that I'm really praying to shore up and continue is 2 Timothy
• 9:25
  2.15 charge to study to show thyself approved unto God.
• 9:30
  A workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.
• 9:34
  This rightly dividing the word of truth has really come to settle in my soul,
• 9:39
  not as just understanding what he really intends and means with his verses, but in addition to that,
• 9:48
  being able to rightly disseminate them and
• 9:51
  use them as tools in the correct situation in order to bring Jesus in and do
• 9:58
  whatever that situation calls for in a way that allows me to be successful in
• 10:05
  alignment with what his will for that situation is.
• 10:08
  So my first resolution commitment was,
• 10:14
  and in this case, recommitment, is to study the word of God more so that in
• 10:22
  every situation and circumstance in my life.
• 10:26
  I am able to rightly apply the scriptures. I love that.
• 10:32
  So my second one is I want to trust.
• 10:37
  Once I know what he says, and understanding that obedience is better than sacrifice,
• 10:43
  I have to trust him completely and fully in order to obey him always.
• 10:51
  And so Proverbs 3, 5 through 7, and this too is one that he gives for each of us.
• 10:59
  It says, trust in the Lord with all thine heart, everything I have,
• 11:06
  and not lean unto thine own understanding.
• 11:10
  Get myself out of the way. And in all thy ways, everything that happens,
• 11:16
  every situation, every circumstance,
• 11:19
  acknowledge his presence, his prominence, and his preeminence. I love that.
• 11:27
  And he, God, shall direct my paths. And here's the kicker. Be not wise in thine own eyes.
• 11:35
  Fear the Lord and depart from evil.
• 11:38
  So my first one is to study so
• 11:41
  i can apply it correctly my second one is to trust it and believe it so i am
• 11:47
  courageously and consistently and constantly trusting in him and his ways and then my third one.
• 11:59
  Is that once I have done that, this will just happen.
• 12:03
  And Matthew 5, 14 through 16 says, You are the light of the world.
• 12:08
  A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid.
• 12:11
  Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick,
• 12:15
  and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.
• 12:18
  Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify
• 12:24
  your Father which is in heaven.
• 12:26
  I want to, in 2026, be a beacon on a hill that draws all people within the view of my light to Him.
• 12:40
  And that's only going to happen if I understand His Word, claim His promises
• 12:46
  because I know them, rightly use them, and fully trust in Him.
• 12:51
  And then my works will glorify Him. and I'll have that opportunity to be a light on a hill.
• 12:59
  That's what I want 2026 to reveal in my life.
• 13:05
  I love that. I love that. I am certain that you are going to see those recommitments
• 13:11
  at work in your life and that the rest of us are going to see them at work in your life.
• 13:18
  So as I was preparing for today, I came across a list.
• 13:24
  Which reminded me of a book that I read a really long time ago.
• 13:30
  Probably 25 years ago, but it was a book that was written in 1978,
• 13:35
  so it was written a while ago.
• 13:37
  It must be an important book because someone out of the blue yesterday gave
• 13:41
  me the book, and I didn't even know it existed.
• 13:44
  And I just said, hey, I'm going to go find that book. It's on my bookshelf.
• 13:47
  I haven't touched it in a really long time.
• 13:49
  And I remember Kim looked at me, and she said, somebody just gave me that book.
• 13:53
  And I only remembered, like, one word of your title.
• 13:56
  And then when she gave it to me, I was like, oh, is that the book she said something
• 14:00
  like that? And I literally had, you know, the morning before,
• 14:02
  had pulled the book off the bookshelf. It was on your desk when I came home.
• 14:05
  That's funny. That's funny.
• 14:07
  So the book is called The Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster.
• 14:13
  And the book, like I said, it really has been around for a long time.
• 14:17
  And there are, you know, many different resources out there that are about spiritual disciplines.
• 14:25
  And this isn't a review of the book or, you know, anything like that.
• 14:28
  Except as I was reminded of the book and kind of brought back to the book and
• 14:34
  then when you were given the book, I thought maybe I need to actually go back
• 14:39
  and look at this a little bit.
• 14:41
  What impressed me about the book.
• 14:44
  And it goes deep into a whole list of disciplines is that in this case,
• 14:50
  the author talks about disciplines that are inward and disciplines that are
• 14:56
  outward and disciplines that are corporate.
• 14:59
  And so that there are things that are important to us as Christians that are
• 15:05
  important that we do, and we might consider them corporate, like people.
• 15:12
  Worship and celebration, right? Those are important things.
• 15:16
  So corporate meaning things we do with other people. Things we do with other
• 15:19
  people, right? So they're outward as well. They're outward.
• 15:22
  And so if you think, you know, like if you were thinking, you know,
• 15:25
  if one of your, you know, resolutions or recommitments was that you would go to church every Sunday,
• 15:31
  like experiencing worship together is a discipline, right?
• 15:37
  It's part of what it means to be a Christian. And in many translations that
• 15:42
  Romans 12, 1 and 2 says that's your reasonable worship. It's your reasonable service, right?
• 15:47
  Ours is a reasonable service and worship is a service. Yes.
• 15:50
  You know, the idea of service itself is in the list of his disciplines, right? Serving others.
• 15:57
  That's an outward discipline. It's not a corporate discipline.
• 16:00
  And though oftentimes we serve corporately, like we might go on a mission trip
• 16:05
  with a group of people, right?
• 16:06
  Or we might do a specific service project together. But often our service is individual.
• 16:13
  It's just something we do outward, right? For other people.
• 16:17
  He classifies living simply as an outward discipline because somebody might
• 16:24
  see that you don't drive the fanciest of course. Most people probably do see that. Right.
• 16:28
  You know, so there's all these things, all these different, you know,
• 16:32
  sort of practices that he lists as these disciplines.
• 16:38
  But as I was praying over this podcast and praying about this book and,
• 16:45
  you know, really asking the Lord, why did this book come back to me?
• 16:50
  You know, after so many years, why is it suddenly, you know,
• 16:53
  are you sort of reminding me of it? But what I felt the Lord say to me was, you know, the...
• 17:01
  Outward disciplines and the corporate disciplines can oftentimes get so,
• 17:08
  I'm going to use the word loud for lack of a better word, right?
• 17:12
  They get so big sometimes because they do involve other people.
• 17:16
  I think sometimes it's easy for us to neglect what Foster connects,
• 17:26
  calls the inward disciplines, which are study,
• 17:30
  which are prayer.
• 17:33
  Which aren't as big, live, and energetic, and wild, and fellowshipy.
• 17:39
  Exactly. There's no fellowshipy in the N-word.
• 17:42
  They're not fellowshipy. They're not something that people are going to see
• 17:46
  if you do them or if you don't.
• 17:48
  People notice if you don't go to church, right?
• 17:51
  People notice if you're someone who never serves in the church.
• 17:54
  You know, people notice a lot of those outward and corporate disciplines,
• 17:58
  which also means you have accountability there, right?
• 18:02
  You might have accountability, but a lot of times those inward disciplines,
• 18:06
  they're easier for us to neglect because who knows if we've neglected them.
• 18:11
  It's us and it's God. Right.
• 18:16
  As I was praying over that and really felt the Lord saying to me,
• 18:21
  you know, it's, let's look at those inward disciplines.
• 18:26
  What it said to me was, go back to 1 Timothy 4.8, where we started,
• 18:33
  for bodily exercise profiteth little, but godliness is profitable unto all things.
• 18:38
  This idea of godliness is being closer to God.
• 18:44
  And all of those inward disciplines are disciplines that when we seek those,
• 18:52
  when we're bettering our relationship with the Lord through those actions of
• 18:58
  meditation, prayer, fasting is listed in there, and study, when we're doing those things,
• 19:06
  our godliness is going to grow. grow.
• 19:09
  There's a verse in 2 Corinthians, and it's in chapter 3.
• 19:15
  It talks in, I'll just read chapter 3, verses 3 through 6.
• 19:19
  For as much as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us,
• 19:27
  written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God,
• 19:30
  not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tabernacles of your heart,
• 19:35
  and such trust have we through Christ to Godward, not that we are sufficient
• 19:39
  of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves, but our sufficiency is of God,
• 19:45
  who also hath made us to be able, ministers of the New Testament,
• 19:50
  not of the letter, but of the Spirit.
• 19:53
  For the letter killeth, but the Spirit giveth life.
• 19:57
  And what, in the context of all of these disciplines,
• 20:00
  what that verse says to me is that there are many aspects of our walk as Christians
• 20:08
  that we can put on a checklist, that we can turn We can turn into like the letter of the law.
• 20:15
  Like you have to go to church every Sunday. You have to tithe.
• 20:20
  You know, all these have tos. We can turn them into law.
• 20:27
  That's not what changes us. And that's not what's going to grow us into the
• 20:34
  people that God wants us to be.
• 20:36
  That's certainly not what he meant when he said renewing your mind. Exactly.
• 20:41
  That's not going to transform us. But we're going to be transformed by the Spirit.
• 20:47
  Amen. Right? Because the end of verse 6, but the Spirit giveth life.
• 20:52
  But, you know, Erica, so many times people, they say they want to be transformed,
• 20:58
  but they totally miss the boat on when we really give our hearts to the Lord.
• 21:06
  Second Corinthians 5, 17 says that old things are passed away and all things
• 21:11
  have become new, that we're new creatures in Christ Jesus.
• 21:14
  There's a regeneration when there's a true repentance and a full dependence.
• 21:18
  And the true repentance and the full dependence, what that really means,
• 21:24
  I think, which is what all these inward disciplines are calling us to,
• 21:29
  is to be someone who actually wants to hear from God.
• 21:33
  Yeah, our want-tos change. Our want-tos change. And we want to hear from God
• 21:38
  himself. We hear from God in prayer.
• 21:40
  We hear from God as we meditate on his word.
• 21:44
  We hear from God as we study. I actually heard someone today say,
• 21:48
  was talking about this word meditate in the Old Testament and talked about how in the Hebrew,
• 21:54
  when we read the word meditate so often in a Bible that's in English,
• 22:00
  sometimes the Hebrew there is what we would consider meditate,
• 22:05
  like to pause and to reflect.
• 22:07
  And sometimes it's memorize.
• 22:10
  Amen. Hallelujah. I thought about that because I was like, oh,
• 22:13
  we love Bible memory here at Women at the Well Ministries.
• 22:16
  So I think that what is just so important here is that...
• 22:22
  As Christians, when we are setting our resolutions, or let's use our new word for today.
• 22:29
  Recommitments like yours, which are study and trust from which we'll become, be the light.
• 22:37
  When I feel like the Lord is calling me to these inward disciplines,
• 22:42
  what's so important is that the resolutions that are all about listening to
• 22:50
  the Lord and spending more time with Him will ultimately transform our lives.
• 22:56
  And I firmly believe that if we get to that point where our.
• 23:05
  Disciplined in that they are where God wants them to be, right?
• 23:09
  Where we are constantly seeking him, seeking him in prayer, seeking him in his
• 23:14
  word, spending time with him and listening to him.
• 23:19
  The other parts of our life, number one, probably just get fixed on their own.
• 23:26
  Or number two, we realize they don't matter.
• 23:30
  That whole listening thing is pretty key, though. The listening is key. That's the whole thing.
• 23:34
  If we want to have, if we want to spend time with God, we have to listen to him.
• 23:41
  And if we don't spend time with God, what we're saying is, I don't want to listen to him.
• 23:47
  And that feels really bad to say.
• 23:50
  You know, I think he meant it. But it's true.
• 23:52
  I think he meant it when he said in Psalms 46, 10, be still.
• 23:55
  And know that I am God. That I am God. You have to, but being still is an action.
• 24:00
  It's a choice. It's a discipline. It's a discipline.
• 24:05
  So there are so many disciplines, right? And we can look up all sorts of different
• 24:10
  lists of disciplines, disciplines related to the Christian faith.
• 24:15
  But, you know, someone quoted me something about discipline a few weeks ago,
• 24:19
  and they basically said that we weren't going to get disciplined about something
• 24:24
  until what we really wanted was something we wanted enough.
• 24:33
  I love that because that goes along with something I've been thinking about
• 24:36
  for a while, and that is you can't say yes to everything and be excellent.
• 24:42
  And so being excellent, being well-read in the scriptures, being holy as he is holy—,
• 24:54
  Striving to walk hand in hand with Jesus all requires saying no to other things.
• 25:02
  That is so true. You just can't keep saying yes and be who he called you to be.
• 25:08
  You've got to say no to the things that hinder you from saying yes to the things
• 25:14
  he has purpose for you to say yes.
• 25:17
  Because those yeses are going to get you to whatever that thing is that is just so important.
• 25:27
  You can be asked to say no to things that aren't bad. Right.
• 25:33
  Or things that aren't wrong.
• 25:35
  For example, to be an elite athlete, you have to get a certain amount of sleep.
• 25:41
  And that means you might leave a football game on a Friday night at halftime,
• 25:47
  so that you can get home and get in bed so you can get up the next morning and do what you need to do.
• 25:52
  There's nothing wrong with being at the ballgame. There's nothing wrong with
• 25:55
  being at the ballgame to the end.
• 25:56
  But if you're going to be the excellent elite athlete, it may mean that you can't do that.
• 26:01
  And I say that not because that's a more important example, but it's one that
• 26:04
  you can fully understand.
• 26:07
  God will call you to do things, and it will require you to say no to other things
• 26:13
  that other people can do.
• 26:16
  And we have to be in a place where we can hear God call.
• 26:22
  So I believe when we're talking about these recommitments and these resolutions,
• 26:27
  mine, again, were to study trust and be the light,
• 26:31
  I believe all of those have both the inward, outward, and corporate dimension.
• 26:41
  And I think the key to this, looking at 2026 through the lens that God would
• 26:47
  have you, is with hope. Yes, I love that.
• 26:51
  Because he's hope. He's hope. And he is ours. Praise God.
• 26:57
  Well, I hope you have enjoyed our conversation about resolutions,
• 27:05
  recommitments, goals, but actually it's about a personal walk with Jesus.
• 27:11
  And we pray at Woman at the Well Ministries that each of you have a magnificently
• 27:18
  bright light for Jesus, more than you've ever been in 2026.
• 27:24
  Remember that you are loved. Jesus loves you.
• 27:37
  Thank you for joining us in today's podcast. You can visit the show notes for
• 27:41
  quotes from today's podcast and scripture references.
• 27:44
  We pray today has been a blessing, and we encourage you to reach out to us through
• 27:48
  our app, our website, or our Facebook page.
• 27:51
  You can find our app by searching for Woman at the Well Ministries in your app
• 27:55
  store or through our website at watwm.org. We're on Facebook at facebook.com slash W-A-T-W-M.
• 28:04
  If you visit our website, you'll be able to subscribe to Bible Bits,
• 28:07
  a daily devotion written by Kim and delivered Monday through Friday by text message.
• 28:12
  Woman at the Well Ministries is a nonprofit organization dedicated to serving our Heavenly Father.
• 28:18
  And it is through your loving and generous support that our ministry continues to bless others.
• 28:23
  To learn how to partner with Woman at the Well Ministries, please visit our
• 28:26
  website. Thank you to the Gospel Group Fudge Creek for letting us use their hit song, Happy Girl.
• 28:32
  We greatly appreciate your prayers. We are praying daily for our listeners.
• 28:37
  Remember that God loves you. You are loved.