Latest / High Level Wife Podcast with Chelsey Holm / Two Questions You Must Answer to Mature in Faith!

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Two Questions You Must Answer to Mature in Faith! · High Level Wife Podcast with Chelsey Holm

• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to the High Level Wife podcast.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Chelsea Holm, your hostess, and here we do marriage God's way.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: And uh we have Bible study once a week for High Level Wife, and it's one of my favorite times together.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: We're still studying Ephesians.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: We started Ephesians and we're still in Ephesians, and we will probably be in Ephesians for a while longer, but we are coming towards the end.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but this this this week um we got into chapter five, and we only went over two verses.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um, just call it my old school uh Baptist roots, but we go verse by verse, right?
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: And we dig into it.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so we only got through two verses, and that's kind of typical.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, if you want to go quickly through a book of the Bible, don't come study it with us in a high-level wife.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to suck the life out of every single word, um then come study with us because that's what we do.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so I just want to read these first two verses to you.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: It says, so chapter five, verse one, and I have the ESV, the English Standard Version, which I personally I love it.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's the best.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's straightforward.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um anyway, but you you do you.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't have this, go to the blue letterbible.org and you can actually pull up the ESV that I'm reading, and then your version side by side.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: So you can have parallel versions.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's really cool.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: I use that tool for Bible study because it also you can pull up the original Greek or Hebrew meanings and then parallel other passages where it's the same word is used.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so you can really use that tool.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I wish I was sponsored by them because I talk about blue letter uh bible.org all the time, but I'm not.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: So if they're listening, maybe you should sponsor me because I'm talking about you all the time.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, it's such a great tool to be able to study the Bible and to go deeper and to cross-reference and to understand the original meaning and intent of the word in the whole Bible.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: So, so chapter five of Ephesians, verse one says, Therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children, verse two, and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: Two verses, so much in this.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but I wanted to share with you what we discussed in Bible study, because I really it was really one of those moments where the Holy Spirit was just speaking, asking the questions and really digging deeper.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so that first verse, therefore be imitators of God as beloved children.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: If you have kids, you know actually how you are.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: If you've ever watched your kids play house and they're acting like you.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: So if you want an actual representation of how you truly are and how they're perceiving you, just go listen to them or watch them play house because it will give you genuine feedback.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: And at first, you if you're defensive, like, oh, that I'm not like that.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: Well, let me tell you, kids are imitators, right?
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: Monkey see, monkey do kind of thing.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so as I read this verse, I was thinking about that about you know how children imitate something and how they give such a genuine and accurate representation of whatever it is that they're imitating or whoever that is that they're imitating, um, because they are with that person at all times, right?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Like they know them, they they study us, right?
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so do we know God well enough to actually imitate him?
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: And so that was the first question that I posed in Bible study was in order to imitate God, do we know who he is, who he says he is, his character, how he acts, how he thinks, right?
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Do we understand now?
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: God is God and we are not, he is unsearchable and his ways are immeasurable.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, absolutely.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: We should spend all the days of our life seeking him first to know him more fully and more deeply.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because if we're going to imitate something, we have to study it.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: Because if we don't know it, how are we going to know what we're imitating?
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: And if we don't know who it is we're trying to imitate, but we're not doing any of the things, we're not thinking the same, we're not acting the same, we're not speaking the same, we don't have the same character, we're gonna be a poor representation, we're gonna be a false imitation, right?
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: Often imitated, never duplicated kind of thing.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so that's the first question I want to pose to you.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_00: Do you know God for who he says he is, how he thinks, his heart, his character?
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: Because oftentimes, and this is what I caution the wives on, and and this was my experience as well is we will until we learn who God actually says he is based on his own words and his written word, the Bible, the whole Bible, cover to cover, inherent, inerrant word of God, right?
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we will look at God through our lens of experience, or through the lens of the relationship we have with our own earthly father, or the lack of relationship we have with our own earthly father, or through the lens of some other person of authority in our lives.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_00: And that can give us a false, a false representation, right?
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so therefore, we're not actually imitating God the Father because we don't actually know him.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: So then the question is, well, how do you get to know who God is?
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: So many people want to avoid the Old Testament because it's boring.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: I just can't get into it.
• 6:45
  SPEAKER_00: I don't care.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's the best, it is the best book of books you're gonna read in your whole life.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: Go back to the old testament because you cannot understand Jesus' new covenant until you understand God the Father from the beginning, and Jesus was the word, right?
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_00: He was there in the beginning, too, right?
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Like you can't you can't have one without the other.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: So if you are only studying or or just reading New Testament, you've missed half the picture.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: You don't have a full picture.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: How can you therefore then imitate something that you don't have a full picture of?
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: So, how do you learn who God is and who he says he is firsthand?
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: You go to the old testament and you study anything.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, read the whole thing, absolutely, please do that.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_00: I am doing that now, but I'm doing that again.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: I love the old testament, I read the old testament every day, and then I read some new testament, and then I read some epistles, right?
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: Like, but God himself speaks to people in the old testament, and God is not a man that he should lie, God is not a man that he should change his mind, right?
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: How do I know that?
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: Because God said that about himself, right?
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_00: Like, what does he say about himself?
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: So if you don't know who God is, or you're looking at him through an earthly lens, we got to take all that off.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: If we want to be an imitator of God, we have to go to the source, God himself, to learn who he says he is and to see his steadfastness of character from Old Testament to New Testament, so that we can understand through the promises he made and fulfilled, that the promises he has not yet fulfilled in Jesus' return, we can have the confidence that those absolutely are coming because we understand God's character.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: So that was the first question of do you actually know God so that you can imitate him?
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: So then the second question is from that second verse, and walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: So there is so much in this, you know, we love to focus on the walk in love.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like everything is rainbows and butterflies, everything is, you know, just all love and peachy and all that.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: But it look at this, look at this.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: You got to look at the actual verse, all the words here, and walk in love.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's talking about as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: So it's giving us a picture of the cross.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_00: To walk in love is to sacrificially lay our lives down to cry out to the Father out of love for us, saying, Forgive them, for they don't know what they're doing.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: And he wasn't just talking about those who crucified him in that moment, he was talking about all of humanity, all of humanity.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so to walk in love means to die to yourself, to take up your cross and to follow him.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's what it means to walk in love.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's not rainbows and butterflies, it's literally dying to self.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: It is pouring yourself out as a drink offering of love, okay, as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: So think back to Old Testament.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: Again, you got to go back to Old Testament, you gotta learn, you gotta learn the first covenant, right?
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: To understand the new covenant, okay.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: When God made a cover covenant with Abraham, he he did something that was very unique in that like covenants were something that was common.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: It was actually a pagan practice.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: So God took something that that Abraham would understand.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: But what uh pagan covenants did was it was the one that was essentially signing the contract was taking it on them that they would they would sacrifice a bull or an animal, and then they would split the carcass in half, and then the they would walk through the carcass saying, you know, may what happen to this animal happen to me if I don't fulfill or uphold my end of the contract.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, God, in in all his holiness and goodness and kindness and love and justice and mercy knew there's no way we can ever uphold or fulfill our end of the contract.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: So God himself walked through.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: So God said, I know you can't uphold your end of the bargain, but I can and I will.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's my character, it's who I am.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so we have to understand sacrifices back then, too.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the sacrifices to God, right?
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: I just always think about my husband as grilling steak and how like glorious that smells, like just as a like fatty, like goodness.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: Just like so good, right?
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: A fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's the mental picture I get in my head.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: So to be a fragrant offering means we're literally laying ourselves on the altar before God, laying down our lives, laying down our will to do his.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: So the question is: do we understand love as Christ displayed love and gave himself up for us?
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: Because if we don't, how can we then therefore walk in love as he did?
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: So those are the two questions just from these two verses that I pulled out for that study, and it wasn't me.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_00: All glory to God and thank you for his Holy Spirit for giving me that insight because it's so powerful, and and everything hinges upon the answers to those questions.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: And if the answers to those questions are, I don't actually know who God is, or I am not looking at love through the lens of Christ's sacrifice and what that means for me today.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: We we can't we can't do anything about something that we're not aware of.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_00: So the first step is awareness.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so my challenge and and cry to you is to repent and to go to God and and and tell him how sorry you are for pretending essentially to imitate him without knowing him, right?
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: Imitating a version of him and ask his forgiveness and receive his forgiveness, right?
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: Repenting means to turn away from your sin and turn toward God, and that's what that's what I'm challenging you to do.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_00: And then and then ask God, teach me who you are, God.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: Teach me in your words, your character and your heart, so that I can be aligned with your heart, so that when I ask you for something, it's from a posture of my heart is aligned with yours, and you will give me the desires of your heart, and I will begin to walk forward in confidence, standing firmly and planted and rooted, rooted on the solid foundation of your truth and the belief and faith that you are who you say you are.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: And if the answer is the same, if you're not walking in a sacrificial love as Christ displayed for us and carried out for us, again, repent.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_00: Ask God's forgiveness and receive his forgiveness, and then ask him.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: God, what in me needs to die?
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: What of my worldly desires and fleshly passions?
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: What are the what are my own desires that are carrying me away into sin?
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: What of those need to die in me?
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_00: I have your Holy Spirit help me.
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: Help me, God.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: And God will, God will.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: So ask yourself these two questions.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: Get honest with yourself, and then go before the Lord in response.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: This is gonna change because right now, if you've never asked these questions or answered these questions or gotten this honest before the Lord before, let me just tell you, you are in for the most joyful ride of your life.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now, joy is not circumstantial.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, it doesn't mean that everything is gonna go your way, but you're gonna go God's way, and when you do that, your steps are certain.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_00: Your voice can be bold, and your actions can have big, audacious faith to back them up.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_00: You're gonna go from being a baby Christian, still drinking milk into maturity, into mature manhood to the measure of the statue of the fullness of Christ.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's back in chapter four.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: I will see you on the next episode.