Latest / How to Faith a Life Podcast with Faith Womack / The Lie Christians Love Right Now with Tasha Calvert

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The Lie Christians Love Right Now with Tasha Calvert · How to Faith a Life Podcast with Faith Womack

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: If you're listening to the How to Faith a Life podcast, where we wrestle with questions of how to flip a life of everything to Bible studies, Bible studies.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: This is your place to wrestle with the hard questions and dive deep into what scripture really says.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: Review this podcast so other people can find it and share with other believers who want to ask the hard questions.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: Now, with all that said, let's begin.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: Hi friends, welcome back to the How to Faith a Life podcast, Ministry of Bowlin or Mysteries.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: Today we have Tasha Calvert with us.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm so excited for this conversation.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: She's been on the podcast before, and that's because Tasha is a very real mentor in my life.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_01: She's somebody that I run to for advice, for guidance, for prayer.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm so excited to dive into this conversation.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: If you don't know who Tasha is, she's a Bible teacher and author, and her new book, Set Apart for More, is debuting this spring.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: What is the official launch date again?
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: April 21st.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: So it's coming up.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_01: Please grab your phones, pre-order it.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: I'm very excited to dive into the conversation with you.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be one of those that I think will compel us not only to like want to know the Lord and live unto him better, but also really wrestle with some things that I think people just kind of bury and put away.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, make it into a checklist.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: So first off, let's talk about the book.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: What's the heart behind the book and what led you to write Set Apart for More?
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I think probably from a young age, I was always looking at the way that people are set apart.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you know, I didn't grow up in the time of social media, but I've always been attracted to stages and the people on them.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_02: They're usually, you know, powerful, pretty, successful, influential people.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think there's something to be said for just that desire that a lot of us have to see people that are a little different in some way.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that's actually something that God puts in us.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_02: I just think that for so long in my own life, I'll just go first and admit that I was looking for some way in which I could be set apart.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_02: And that's a hard way to live, especially as a Christian, because there is that desire that God places in us, but also the fulfillment of it is actually not where you would think.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_02: And so for many years, I was seeking to be set apart in, you know, as like the one who can get up and talk, the one who's in the front of a room.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_02: You know, there's even things that are fun, like I'm the girl mom, I've got four daughters, you know, like that's one thing that sets you apart.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_02: But those identities and those monikers that we wear just don't satisfy that deep desire that God's placed in us to be set apart for more.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_02: And so that was kind of the genesis of what I wanted to write about.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_02: I is I think lots of us are looking to be set apart, but scripture is actually very clear on what that's supposed to look like and how that need is going to be met in our life.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_02: And it took me an unusually long time to figure that out.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_02: So I want to give everybody else a leg up.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: So when scripture talks about being set apart or consecrated, living differently, it's often tied up in holiness, like you talk about in the book.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: But I think us as Christians are immediately like, oh, I don't want to talk about that.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: That sounds very like pious, be more, do more.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: It's just kind of like a boring thing.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: Why is holiness exciting?
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: Why is that actually really good news?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I think it's good news because, first of all, it's not incumbent upon us.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: Like if you look, when I first started researching for the book, the tagline of it, by the way, does have the word holiness.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_02: It's the transformative power of living your whole life for a holy God.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_02: And so you've you've hit the nail on the head.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: And what I realized is in the old testament, oftentimes commonplace objects like bread and bowls and altars and things like that are declared holy because of their proximity to God.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think when I was able to unlock that there's nothing that I have to bring to the table for God to produce holiness in me, there was kind of like a weight off of me.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_02: And that became exciting because I really think at the end of the day, what keeps most Christians from wanting to pursue holiness, to be declared holy, is they think that's just out of their reach because we know what's in our minds.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_02: Like even if, even if we can look the part and check all the boxes, I think most of us recognize oh, I am way too common, I am way too cynical, what you know, fill in the blank, whatever it is.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I'm not good enough to be holy.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, Faith, it was kind of funny.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_02: I used to go around like in small rooms where I would talk like I if I went over to a Bible study or something and someone would ask me to speak, and I would ask the women in the room, I would say, okay, how many of you have a friend that you would say is generous?
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_02: And everybody's hand would go up.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_02: And how many of you have a friend that you think is kind and fun and loyal?
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: And I would say all the things and literally without hesitation, the entire room, everybody would raise their hand.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_02: And then I would say, and how many of you have a friend that you would say is holy?
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_02: And people would like look around awkwardly, like, is anybody gonna brave this airspace?
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_02: And then I would say, okay, how many of you would describe yourself as holy?
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: And again, like it's it's crickets in there, and I realized that there's a lot of things that we have embraced in the Christian walk, grace, mercy, love, justice, all the things, but holiness isn't that, and so what excites me about holiness is it's God's plan for us.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, he tells the Old Testament, he tells the Israelites in Leviticus 11, 44, and then it is echoed again in 1 Peter, be holy as I am holy.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_02: And so if the living God is willing to lend his holiness to our existence to empower and enliven us in that way, why wouldn't we want that?
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_02: That's how he's designed us to flourish and to be set apart.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_02: It is an exciting thing, although I think to your earlier point, most people think of it as like prudish or overwhelming or uh, I don't know if holiness is really my vibe.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm here to tell you it's your vibe.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: It's your vibe if you're a Christian.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think we think of it as like a boring thing.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's not something we really delight in, and yet God delights in making us holy and transforming us.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: I think of Romans 12, too, you know, to be set apart into this transformed new way of living.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_01: But what does that practically look like for us with very mundane, not holy-looking lives?
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: I'm sure, you know, so many other people feel like me of it's like, well, maybe God has made me holy and has called me to be holy in this dark world, but my life feels so normal, so not holy, so muddy and messy and broken.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_02: So the framework that I set forth in the book is kind of four-pronged.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I kind of use it as like a definition.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's not a definition in the traditional sense, but basically what I set out to say is that holiness is a sacred otherness that originates from God, is extended to us through his spirit, is manifest in our character, and strengthened in Christian community.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think when you kind of break down those four areas, you get some pretty practical, like a roadmap, if you will, of how to join God in the holiness that he wants to produce.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_02: I tell a story in the book, you'll get this.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: Not everybody has given birth to a child.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_02: There's kind of different schools of thoughts when you get pregnant about how you're going to handle the birth plan.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_02: And so my daughters are, well, I want to be all natural.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_02: I guess, like my oldest daughter, I guess her plan was to like bite down on a piece of leather.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_02: She was gonna go all natural.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_02: And that was so intimidating to me.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_02: I was the opposite.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_02: I went into the hospital and I was like, hi, my name's Tasha.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_02: So glad that you're gonna be my nurse today.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_02: Want you to know I'm gonna cooperate in every possible way I can.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_02: If you say push, I'll push.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_02: If you say breathe, I'll breathe to the best of my ability.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_02: But at the end of the day, it's your responsibility to get this baby out.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_02: And that was really what I thought about it.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_02: And honestly, holiness is a little bit like that.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_02: It's like we want to, we want to cooperate with the Holy Spirit.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_02: We want to do what God's word says to do, but at the end of the day, he's the one that's gonna do it.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_02: And so, really, the book gets kind of practical about how do we allow the sacred otherness of God to be manifest through the Holy Spirit in our life and to be strengthened with his body.
• 9:01
  SPEAKER_02: And so there's some things, um, I call them holy habits that we can do in tandem with the Holy Spirit's work in our lives that will strengthen and begin to produce holiness in us.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_01: Quick pause.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: This podcast isn't sponsored by a brand or a company.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: It's actually just a ministry of Bible Nerd Ministries.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: And the reason we get to have conversations like this one is because of our Patreon community.
• 9:28
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• 9:30
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• 9:37
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• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: All right, let's get back to the conversation.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: I love how you take these overwhelming concepts like holiness and you make it very practical, very simplified.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: So give me an example from the book or even that you learned through writing the book of how it can be practical, actionable things that we get to do in tandem with the Holy Spirit to grow in holiness.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_02: Well, it has to be simple because I'm not super smart.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_02: So I'm gonna find the simplest, simplest way to do that.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_02: But I think a lot of times it is just knowing your Bible well enough to know where to go when you're having stress or decisions or joy or whatever.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_02: And so, really, the most practical thing I can say is something that you point your listeners to all the time, and that is being a student of God's word, knowing what the the scriptures say, because really he tells us everything we need to know in his word.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_02: It's it is not a mystery.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, I would say the most foundational of the habits is to just be somebody who has a practice of reading God's word.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_02: And you don't have to be a scholar, you don't have to, you don't have to be super smart or go to seminary.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_02: You do have to be somebody who says, you know, every day, hey God, I want to hear from you.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_02: I understand this is my lifeline.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_02: And um, and so I'm just gonna trudge through it day after day after day.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm I'm going to ask that you'll reveal yourself to me in your word.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_02: And he will.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think that's probably where our habits begin.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_02: But I also think there's just some understanding that to be holy, you know, first, I love the way the NIV says it.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_02: I want to read it in the NIV, but Paul in writing 2 Timothy says in chapter one, verse 9, he has saved us and called us to a holy life, not because of anything we have done, but because of his own purpose and grace.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_02: This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_02: And so when you think of it in that way, that like before the foundations of the earth, this grace, this call to holiness was we were birthed into it.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: And so he's going to give us the roadmap.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_02: So when you understand a holy life, that's all-encompassing.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_02: And so one of the things that I think is important is for us to tear the veil between the sacred and the secular.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_02: And I think that is sometimes hard.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we could go into a lot of the reasons for that.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_02: I think even quiet time culture kind of sets us up for failure in that sense because it's kind of like, okay, give this little 30-minute period to God during the day.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: And then you go about and you do all the other things as if they are so separate.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: And the reality is that the Holy Spirit indwells us because he's with us at all times.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: So that means that we get granular in the book about like, what does it look like to hold your finances holy before God?
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_02: What does it look like to hold your body holy before God?
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: What does it look like to hold your friendships and your speech and your time and all the other things?
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_02: And I think when you begin to look at yourself holistically as something that the holy presence of God wants to invade every area of it, then you begin to start to chip it away at your flesh that sometimes stands in the way of holiness.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_02: You know, it's so interesting to me when I really was starting to get pensive and reflective about holiness in my own life.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_02: What I realized is that I was the one often creating the noise that kept me from hearing God clearly.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't think I'm alone in that.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_02: I think, I think sometimes we have these preconceived narratives or we have an idea of the right thing instead of allowing God to produce righteousness in us.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we're just so accustomed to to wanting to check a box and to, you know, get done with a task and move on.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_02: And that's really not the brain work of holiness.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_01: I love how it's tied up in grace.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: I think we often love grace, right?
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_01: But we forget that grace demands something of us, that it takes a whole life.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: But I think we make grace into something of I just benefit from and it doesn't rule and reign and transform my life.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I love how you highlight that.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: But again, I think that's not exciting for us.
• 14:25
  SPEAKER_01: We get excited for grace, grace, grace, grace, grace, continuance in that grace way abound.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_01: Like we get excited, Loki, for that.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_01: How do you think the church has misunderstood holiness or devalued holiness through probably quite a number of years?
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: And what would you like the conversation around holiness to change to be?
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: Like, as far as how the church, and I always want to be clear, I'm not calling out my church, I'm not calling out your church, I'm calling out the body of Christ.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_02: And I would say, even probably more narrowly, I think the Western church, in which we're all of a part of, has become very influenced by autonomy.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I I talk about this a lot, but I think there, you know, uh even in the book, we contrast kind of the American dream, which we all love.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_02: Like I'm a big American, I love America, I love democracy, I love freedom, all the things.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_02: But I do think this concept of the American dream, which is any little girl and little boy can be anything they want to be in the whole world, sets us up unfairly for a correct understanding of holiness, because really holiness is, yes, something that we personally experience and are called to, but it is not without community.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: And that's why that fourth part of the definition is so important.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think understanding that it is incumbent upon us as believers to not only hold ourselves to be a holy vessel, but to be engaged with the body of Christ and to spur each other on to holiness.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_02: And I think if holiness could make its way back into the assembly of God's people, it would be easier for all of us to individually pursue that.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_02: But the two foundations that I set out in the book of holiness are God's word and God's people.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I think sometimes we would prefer to work on ourselves individually rather than hold ourselves in accountability with other people.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_02: And really, holiness is always gonna fail in that sense.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_02: And I think this is important.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we you use the word exciting or like what what would why would people want to do this?
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_02: I I think what should excite us about the opportunity to be in a holy alliance with our brothers and sisters in Christ is that what happens when we're not is that the enemy is able to pick us off faster.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_02: Isolation is a tool of the enemy.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_02: And I think at the end of the day, most of us want our faith to not just be strong, but be effective.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_02: And I think God designed faith to be effective.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I think we lose the efficacy of our faith when we try and practice it only to terminate on ourselves, and that is just not what we see in scripture.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, we're called to be a holy priest, uh, you know, a royal priesthood, a holy nation.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_02: That isn't one priest and one person.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_02: That is that is a community.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I think there's something that we've lost somewhere along the way about our embodied close-knit fellowship with other believers that we're gonna have to regain to really get this conversation on holiness started.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_01: So you and I are both in in-person church ministry, like highly involved in in-person church ministry.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: And after COVID, I don't know if y'all feel this, but especially like in our church and in our church ministries, it's been so hard to get people involved other than maybe Sunday morning.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_01: We just started a small group and nobody came to the first gathering.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_01: We invited like 30 people, nobody came.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it's so hard to get people committing and and even willing to tithe even just a part of their time with their kids, with with food, free food, you know, all the things.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: How would you encourage the Capital City Universal Church, not just your church or my church, but like the church on getting involved in their community and seeing the value in being in a community that spurs them on towards holiness?
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_01: Like, what does that actually look like?
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_01: Why is that so much better than just sitting at home on your couch and watching a sermon or doing your own private Bible study?
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, let's be real.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like it it does take longer to Bible study with other people.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_01: Their prayer requests do take some time to listen to.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: You know, they may show up late or the kids might interrupt.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: You have to hire a babysitter or whatever it may be.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: What does this practically look like?
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_01: And how would you encourage the church towards a community pursuing holiness?
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_02: Well, I think there's two things that come to my mind when you're asking that question.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_02: The first is you're not gonna gravitate towards that.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_02: The other night, I was literally at a restaurant and the waiter had airpods in.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_02: And I mean, you know, obviously he must have like had muted whatever when he was taking our order, he was talking to us.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_02: But like in general, we are so accustomed from shutting the world out.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_02: We're so accustomed to getting any type of information we want on what they call second screens.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_02: Did you know that even movie producers in television are starting to have to think through the second screen because people aren't even devoting an entire screen to what they watch anymore because they're gonna be watching a movie on over their television and then holding up their phone in their lap, maybe watching two or three things.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_02: All that to say you're not gonna gravitate towards this.
• 20:00
  SPEAKER_02: You're gonna have to ask God to give you a holy longing for his people, to put in you, just as everything else with holiness, it is going to have to be that God stirs that in you.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_02: It is not going to be what you have been discipled by this culture to long for.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_02: We long for different things.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_02: Our affections most often are set elsewhere.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_02: And so I would say first pray.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_02: Pray and ask God to give you a longing for his people, to give you an affection for them, a desire to be in relationship with them.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_02: But then the second thing I would say is, and similar to kind of what I said earlier, which is that there will come a time.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_02: In fact, scripture tells us in this world you're gonna have trouble.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_02: And there's going to come a time when you are going to need people.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_02: And it will not, information from scripture, though it though it's wonderful and God can use it and will use it, will be insufficient to something that's going on.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_02: You need God's people.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_02: And so my encouragement would be don't wait until you're in that crisis.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_02: And sometimes it's not a crisis, faith.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_02: Like, I don't know if you've ever had the experience of sometimes we're not, we were just both talking before we start hit record about where we've been.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_02: Like you and I both been all over the place lately.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't know about you, but like I was in Pittsburgh Airport a couple of days ago.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_02: It's the nicest airport, like the coolest thing.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_02: There was like this tunnel that you go through with lights and everything to get in.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I was sitting there thinking, like, I wanted to share that with somebody.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I know that sounds silly, but there is just something beautiful about having people to experience joy or pain, highs and lows with.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_02: And so God has given us as believers those people, and they are the Body of Christ.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: They are our brothers and sisters.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think if we can use some holy imagination, if you will, to understand what life could be in relationship with his people, cheering us on, being there to encourage and support and be iron-sharpening iron.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_02: I think there's something beautiful that we miss when we don't have that.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_02: But you're right.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_02: People are giving us um less and less time.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I will just go on and call it.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's I think that's a work of the enemy.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_02: I think he's it's distraction and busyness and pursuing your own personal desires and comfort is something the enemy is getting the Western church with.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: Quick pause before we get further into the conversation.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_01: Last year I flew to Kaungwari, Kenya, and saw firsthand one of the most thoughtful mission models I have ever encountered.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_01: Us Bible nerds are working together to fund 2,000 water filters through the Bucket Ministry.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_01: They don't just bring clean water, they come back three times for discipleship, sharing the gospel and helping new believers get connected to the local church.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_01: And they do it by hiring local missionaries, discipling neighbor to neighbor in the local language.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: If you want to be part of that work and join us Bible nerds, we'd love for you to join us in support of the Bucket Ministry.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_01: All the information and all the links are in the show notes.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: All right, now let's get back to the conversation.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_01: As you were sharing, Joe came home and I forgot to tell him that we're recording a podcast.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_01: So you know Joe.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_01: He's we're on sometimes, sometimes we'll meet at a coffee shop.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: Tasha and I will talk and we have great conversations.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_00: And Joe will be there in the corner working on his sermon or whatever.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so Joe came home.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: He gets home, innocent dude sitting down to work on his sermon and Nehemiah, whatever.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: And he's blowing his nose.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, oh no, I'll mess up the podcast recording.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: People will hear him blowing his nose in the background.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: Let me let me text him to be.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_01: And it's like, wait a second, let me be present with what you're saying because you're literally saying there's blessings in community.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, it reminds me of how beautiful God can make the everyday, ordinary, mundane of having to blow your nose.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like that's actually beautiful that I have a husband at home working on a sermon, you know?
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_01: That's actually a beautiful opportunity to remind me, hey, let me ask if I can pray for his sermon, pray for him in preparation.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like that we we get so caught up in comfort and entertainment and like putting ourselves on the throne that we miss the beauty of being surrounded by other believers and that life, the ordinary mundane of even blowing your nose, can be an opportunity for the gospel, as crazy as that is to do that.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_02: No, it's not crazy.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_02: You're exactly right.
• 24:35
  SPEAKER_01: When someone reads this book or even thinks about ordering this book, and they're like, Okay, I know I'm called to be set apart.
• 24:41
  SPEAKER_01: I know I feel this inner calling for my life to be different and to live unto the Lord and do have holiness.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_01: I want the Lord to rule and reign over my life.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_01: But like, Tasha, I don't know how to even work towards that.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: I don't even know how to make time towards that.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: I have zero honest motivation towards that.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_01: What would you tell the listener?
• 24:59
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I imagine her driving down the road right now to take her kids to school or doing the dishes.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_01: How would you encourage her towards that in very practical, actionable ways?
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_02: We have included some very practical things.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_02: So, like on page 112, I'm looking and you can see like these bullet points.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_02: And and basically it's like, let's assess where you are.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_02: So, like, I'm not giving you a checklist that's going to make you holy, but I'm giving you some tools to here's a good place to start to assess your heart.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_02: Like, where are you?
• 25:32
  SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, how often do I read my Bible?
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_02: Am I reading devotional or Bible adjacent reading material more frequently than I'm reading the Bible?
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, am I an auditory learner or a visual learner?
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_02: Like asking yourself some questions that might give you some information to help you get into God's word.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, a lot of what you do, Faith, is just, you know, showing people you get on on social media and you open your Bible and you show them how to do that.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_02: You're not doing it for them, but you're showing, you're giving them tools in your belt.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's one thing that I'm really thankful that we were able to do on the chapter about finances.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_02: I am not good with finances.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, my my husband does not let me near them.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_02: And that's with good reason.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_02: But there's still some ways that I need to understand our finances and our resources in relationship to God and holiness.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_02: And so there's some practical questions in that chapter, like, hey, print this out and use it every six months and just kind of re-evaluate.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_02: And so, you know, I wouldn't say it's like the Vogue magazine quizzes that we take to see like what skin type we have.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's not that, but I do think there's there's some practical information in there that's gonna help the reader to get a grasp of where they are and where they might could take some steps forward.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_02: You know, at the end of the day, a step towards holiness is a step towards God.
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_02: And so really that's kind of some of the things that we put in the book to allow readers to know how to take those steps.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's funny, as you were talking about this, I was kind of listening to my own hesitancies or my own heart.
• 27:20
  SPEAKER_01: And it's funny, like, if I'm not delighting in holiness, I'm not really delighting in God.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_01: If I don't enjoy these things, I'm not really truly enjoying God.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_01: I'm enjoying like what God can do for me.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_01: Like maybe I follow God because I want his benefits.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_01: I want him to just do it for me.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: But like hearing you talk about this, it's like, oh yeah, it's challenging my understanding of do I truly delight in who God is and what he delights in, his heart for me and for his people.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_02: And do you ever even ask yourself that?
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's kind of, you know, like I I don't think we even gravitate towards those types of questions most of the time.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_02: I think most of our questions look at us like, am I doing okay?
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_02: Am I fulfilled in my relationship?
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_02: Am I feeling confident?
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_02: And just even you expressing that shifts that to am I delighting in him?
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_02: Is he glorified in what I'm doing?
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_02: And so having having somebody else or a resource or you know, something that is pushing us to orient ourselves towards God, who is the embodiment of holiness, that's the first step.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_02: So you got it?
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yay! You don't have to read the book, Faith.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_02: You got it.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no.
• 28:37
  SPEAKER_00: I definitely need to read the book.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'm so excited to read the book when it comes out.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_01: Man, it's gonna be just so what's needed for the church.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_01: But how did the Lord grow you in holiness as you were writing?
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_01: I know we kind of became friends as you were finishing up writing and editing through this book.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: How did the Lord grow you in holiness through this process?
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_02: Well, honestly, I can point to a very specific way.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't say this all the time, but there's no reason I wouldn't.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_02: I kind of set out to write a snarky book about holiness.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_02: Interestingly enough, it was really pitched more like how to pursue holiness in a world that's chasing blessing.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_02: And really, I was kind of irritated at like, yeah, here I am trying to teach the Bible, and everybody just wants to be blessed, not holy, you know.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_02: And boy, I was so judgy looking at all the other people.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_02: And so what I would say is how the Lord grew me in holiness was like, hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, how about before we look outside the circle?
• 29:37
  SPEAKER_02: You look at that clank in your own eye and stop looking at the specs and everybody else's.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_02: And so I will just unabashedly say, I went first.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, and I think the Lord has used the writing of this book to convict me, to open my eyes to some things, to give me some greater understanding of the women that I often serve and recognizing, hey, don't think that they are behind you.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_02: You're you're just as flaw.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_02: But also he's helped me see he's so much better.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_02: And at the end of the day, there is nothing I could produce in my flesh, not even a checklist of things that I would consider godly or holy that compare to allowing his spirit to transform me and to work in my life and and lead the way.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I wouldn't trade it for the world.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: Amen.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_01: All right.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: So where can people find you and find the book and pre-order the book?
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_02: So the book is gonna be anywhere.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, uh obviously Amazon or lifeway.com has has that.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_02: And you can find me.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_02: I've got a website, touchcalvert.com.
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_01: And it's set apart for more.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_02: Set apart for more.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_02: The transformative power of living your whole life for a holy God.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_01: I think this is exactly what the church needs today.
• 30:59
  SPEAKER_01: I think this is what I need today.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you so much for writing it and coming and sharing about it.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, it's my pleasure.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for having me, Faith.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_01: If you're listening to the How to Faith a Life podcast, where we wrestle with questions on how to live a life of faith, from everything from books to Bible studies, even Bible study tips.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_01: This is your place to wrestle with the hard questions and dive deep into what scripture really says for the Christian walk.
• 31:20
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• 31:23
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