Latest / Armed Anchored Adorned / Adorned- your beauty is in how you love Him.
Transcript
- Armed Anchored & Adorned: was this for you today? You're not alone. God whispered these things to my soul first. And then he whispered, there's more. When you hear that, who do you think of? Who stirs in your heart when you hear there's more? Pray about sharing this with them. Yep, them. Yep, you. Remember, we don't go to church. We are the church. Every one of us has a start and a finish line. Every day we get to choose how we will run that race. Will we choose ordinary or counterfeit or will we choose that abundant life that Jesus died to give us? Welcome to the Armed, Anchored and Adorned podcast. I'm so glad you're here. Well hey there. I am so glad you're here. As always. Thank you for coming and hanging out with me. today ⁓ am ⁓ to go to I'm gonna go hit a water park with ⁓ youngest son, Lucre. ⁓ ⁓ so hence the Super relaxed look. I don't know about you, but like When I go to a water park in this stage of life, you know, honestly, I don't even know if Any stage of my life, I ever went to the water park and was like, ⁓ yeah, I f I felt really good about myself. I always had this. Insecurity, this feeling of like I'm I'm not as cute as them. There's all this comparison that swirled around in my mind. I know I'm not alone, but that may not be your story. ⁓ but yeah, it's one of those places where I I personally have experienced that comparison. I mean, don't get me wrong, it's not just at water parks. But it's a little fresh in my mind because I'm headed that way today. you know, So we we have had an opportunity to sit here with some of my beautiful friends and talked about and we talked about being anchored and ⁓ being armed. And I wanna take a minute. Or several to sit and talk about being adorned. ⁓ yeah, we're adored. We are totally adored, we are loved by the Lord, but I'm talking adorned. this was the word that was these three words, these three words up back behind me, armed, anchored, and adorned, were given to me as a whisper to my soul. years and years ago when I heard the Lord call me into ministry. I'm like, you're calling me into what now? And I just I heard these words and ⁓ so they've become really important to me, really precious. And I every chance I get I feel a stirring to dig a little deeper into each one of them. Adornment. ⁓ well, according to Google. ⁓ you know, because Google knows some things. So according to Google, adornment, something decorative added to make a person or thing more attractive. I heard that word, I kind of had an idea of what it was. But I wanted to know more about what God said about it and how he talked about it in his word. ⁓ when I first heard the word, I I didn't even go to Google. I kind of got went off of my concept, and then ⁓ I straight to scripture. ⁓ And scripture that I got was ⁓ first ⁓ 3, it's three through four. And I know we've talked about it, but The scripture is do not let your adornment be merely outward arranging the hair, wearing gold, or putting on fine apparel. Let it be the inner person of the heart. With an incorruptible beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is very precious in the sight of God. The more I look at this, the more I feel like he's calling out. Culture-bought beauty. Culture-bought lies of where our worth, where our beauty comes from as women. And then, you know, you also look at Proverbs 31, and there's this whole list of things of a woman, but at the end in verse, so Proverbs 31, verse 30, charm is deceitful and beauty is passing, but a woman who feels Fears the Lord shall be praised. Another word for fears the Lord, he doesn't want us to be afraid of him and not approach him. It is a reverence, it is a an awe, it is a deep love and respect. And again, putting him where he belongs in our life, in in our heart and mind. So, but man, I don't know if you really heard that first part. Charm is deceitful. So don't be pretending that you're charming. And, you know, that that's not something you need. That's not something I need. And beauty is passing. ⁓ do I feel that in my soul? Okay, so I am forty-seven. After forty-seven years of living, after twenty-one and a half years of being a mom, after becoming a mom, what it did to my body and my my whole self. Twenty four years of marriage almost. I'm I'm different. I look different. I feel different. I feel so different than I did 21, 24, 40 years ago, of course. and And that's a good thing. But man, does culture lie to us? And I I know I have been like, man, I I don't look like that anymore. I'll look at old pictures of myself. Or gosh, a few months ago, I was looking at a picture of me standing next to my daughter. She's 20. She's stunning, absolutely gorgeous, through and through. And Looking at me standing next to her, I'm much shorter. I'm I've got more pounds. I've got more I I just I look so different and I caught myself thinking, ⁓ I I I look at me next to her. Like I had a moment of thoughts of just It was almost I was arguing with God's creation because he knew I was going to age and and be at this point. And ⁓ gosh, I mean, you look anywhere and everywhere, and they've got a cream or a pill or a serum or a lotion, something that they can sell us to. Make us more beautiful. And I know I shared here a while ago about ⁓ it was a sweet moment for me, a sweet story, and ⁓ it was a beautiful reminder from the Lord. when I had day one hair and I had to he asked me to jump in and be renewed, and I was like, but Lord But Lord, my hair. And he was like, Your beauty isn't how you love me. We we don't live like that. I forget to live like that. I forget to live like that. I know it. But I have to be reminded. And that's why these words, I think the Lord really wanted to impress them deeply on my heart. He's like, no, no, no. I I want you to live like this is true. I want you to live deeply loved by me so that you see you through my eyes and you don't look through the eyes of culture around you. And you're not always trying to compare yourself to that person or this girl or this girl or this person or that person or that mom or I I can go on and on. I we can scroll and go on and on. And if we're not careful. If we are not, if we don't pay the most careful attention to what his word says, we will drift away into a life of comparison, chasing things that are not meant for us right here and right now. I'm not 20 anymore. I'm so glad I'm different. I'm so glad I'm different. I'm closer to eternity. I'm closer to saying goodbye to this. broken world. For some of you, that may sound really morbid and don't there's no concern for me. I'm I'm thrilled to be here for as many days as the Lord has me. But I will say I long for the day where I'm in his arms and I'm at his feet and I pray to God I hear. Well done, good and faithful servant. ⁓ But I need to remember every every line, every every change of my body, every gray hair that I'm covering with my hat today. And sometimes hair galler. That's that's a sign of what's to come. Like this world is fading. Beauty is passing. Fear the Lord. Have reverence for him. Live like you're his. I was, ⁓ so right after I was I was quickly corrected when I was looking at that photo and I had those thoughts. ⁓ and the Lord drew me to Lot's wife. So it's back in Genesis. In Genesis nineteen, verse twenty six, well, I mean just that that chapter nineteen, if you go and read through that, they are being told to leave a wicked, wicked city, a wicked culture. that is not intended for them. It will not it's not for them. And they're they're being told to leave to be saved. And And they said ⁓ the the they they were warned and were warned don't look back. Don't look back. And as they were leaving, ⁓ Lot's wife turned back ⁓ and she looked And it isn't just she looked back. It was that she was looking back longingly. Like, ⁓ I wish I was there again. ⁓ I wish, like, ⁓ I don't want to leave that. Rather than trusting what the Lord has for them and ahead of them. She was turned to a pillar of salt. Now you're gonna have to go and do business with the Lord if you feel like that was too harsh. I'm not here for that. ⁓ I'm grateful for the reminder, the the correction that I received through her story of I'm not gonna look back, I'm not going to focus on that, and that's not where he has me anymore. He has something new for me, he has something different for me going forward. I'm not going to look like that. I'm not going to be that person. I'm not going to look longingly on their life. And there's a reason he tells us not to covet. It it does something to us. So. He's like, don't look back longingly. Look ahead at what I have. Look back and be grateful for where I've taken you from. So you we can look back. I don't think that was part of that. That I don't think that was the issue. It's Don't wanna turn back. We don't wanna turn back. We wanna go forward. We wanna trust him. We don't want to go back, we want to go forward. culture where we live right here in America today in 2026. Culture values. Looking young. And s certain beauty is is valued. But look at it through God's eyes. Be adorned with his beauty, with you belong to him. That's our beauty. Our beauty and our value comes from loving and knowing him and being his. He is the king of kings. If we're his kid. That means there is a beautiful crown up here in the spiritual realm. This isn't our home. And man, is it hard to live like that? Like don't get me wrong. Don't hear me wrong. It's not easy to live like that. But I pray for eyes to see as he sees. For any comparison or looking back longingly to be squashed by the Holy Spirit. Lord, correct me quickly. Lord, draw me back to you and what you say and how you feel about it. And I'm definitely not saying we don't have responsibility with taking care of what he's given us. There are places where I have not necessarily honored him through taking care of my body. This is our temple. His Holy Spirit is to dwell in here. We have to make sure we take care of it. And whatever that looks like for you. For me, I have to move my body. I have to keep it strong. I have to put good things in, and I have to say no to some of the crap that the world offers. That's for me. I don't know what your boundaries look like, but that's what he's impressed on my heart right here and right now. If we're chasing the cultural lie. I pray that today we stop. We reject it. And we look in the mirror and we ask for fresh eyes. Lord, help me to see as you see. Help me to see what you have. Let me see your character. Let me see people how you see them. And be encouraged that with every year I'm closer to being with you. Pray for it. Pray for it. Another verse that I really felt was a great place to highlight when we're talking about comparison. ⁓ It's just such an easy, easy trap with the scroll, with going to a water park, going to the beach, going to the pool, going outside in life, going to the store, going to a school event, or ⁓ these are just things that are popping into my head right now. Going anywhere. We can be tempted to look. longingly at somebody else is what they have. And Proverbs, Proverbs 14, 30 reads or says, a sound heart is life to the body, but envy is rottenness to the bones. Okay, I don't know how you feel about the word rotten, but I don't want that in my bones, in my body. I Lord, remove it from me. But I've heard two whispers from the Lord recently. Your beauty is in how you love me. Your value is in how you love me. We need to love him, seek him, and the rest doesn't matter. Our value is in being his. That's our adornment. That is our beauty. We don't have to chase what others call beautiful. So I share this with With a heart of I need to hear it too. It is easy to get swept up in what we see around us. God, give us your eyes. Lord, we bring our whole selves to you, our whole hearts. Help us to see as you see, not as the world invites us to see or shoves in our face or demands of us to look a certain way, act a certain way. Help us to let go of the things of this world and not by the culture lies. But embrace what you see as beautiful and valuable. We know this world is a vapor for us, but you are eternal, and that's what we want to live for. Help us to see how you see and walk like we are fully yours, like we are adorned. with a crown that has been given by you through your son, then we get to walk deeply loved and valued. Always Not sometimes, not when we look a certain way, not when we do a certain thing. But we are yours forever and ever and ever and ever for your glory and our good. Help us to live every day like we know that's true. Forgive us when we slip into the comparison, Lord. Correct us quickly so that we can be free, so that we aren't filled with rot, the rot of envy. That we would have a deep awe and reverence and love and honor of you, Lord, and what you've given us. And give us deep hope and trust in who you say we are. We believe what you say is true about who you are and who you say we are. We are yours. In your holy name, Jesus. Amen. I hope you look in the mirror and just praise him for right where you are, right here, right now, and give it all to him. I'm gonna go and look like a drowned rat at a water park and have the most fun with my boy. And I can't wait. And any thought that creeps into my head, I'm going to snatch it captive and I'm going to lay it at the cross. Because that's what we need to do. They creep in. They creep in. But we have to recognize them and reject them. In the name of Jesus, for his glory, for our freedom and joy. So the day doesn't get lost in in what? comparison. So what's for dinner? Well we are going from one theme park to another. We live in Central Florida, so and we're letting some passes go. So we're going to a water park and then we're going to a theme park. So I'm thinking we're either having Chipotle like in between or we're gonna get a big old turkey leg. I'm not sure But I'm not cooking. Last night we had little pizzas and those are really great. Little you get non-bread. I shop at Aldi. I love Aldi. Little non-bread, some marinara, and then some of your favorite toppings. Super quick. Kids love it. Love that. Love quick and easy meal that everybody's happy with. So there's your bonus. Your bonus of what's for dinner. I would love to hear how the Lord speaks. Share with me. Share with me what he said, what you've heard about adornment. I would love it. Love y'all. See you later. Bye.