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He is- The Character of God: He is Faithful, Steadfast, and a Friend · The Father's Business Podcast

0:03
SPEAKER_00: The Father's Business was founded by Sylvia Gunter to encourage people to a deeper relationship with God.
0:09
SPEAKER_00: I'm Elizabeth Gunter Powell.
0:11
SPEAKER_00: And I am Kimberly Roddy.
0:13
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Father's Business Podcast.
0:15
SPEAKER_01: We are so glad that you've joined us.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: Well, welcome back, everybody, to our podcast.
0:21
SPEAKER_00: We're continuing in our series called He Is, which focuses on the character of God.
0:26
SPEAKER_00: And today we want to dive into the themes around God is faithful.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: He is steadfast.
0:34
SPEAKER_00: He is our loyal friend.
0:36
SPEAKER_00: And for some of us, those themes may feel very comforting.
0:40
SPEAKER_00: And yet, every time I hear about the faithfulness of God, I have to be honest that there's a little part of me that goes, well, there's some times in my life that I can point back to where I don't really feel like he was that faithful.
0:56
SPEAKER_00: Like if he was faithful to me and was standing by me and being my loyal friend, then why did those really hard things have to happen?
1:06
SPEAKER_00: So we want to dig down into scripture today and ask the Bible what it says about God's faithfulness, his steadfastness, and his desire to be our friend.
1:18
SPEAKER_01: Elizabeth, I think we begin with the passage that we've been looking at the last few weeks in Exodus 34 in verse 6.
1:25
SPEAKER_01: It says, as God passed in front of Moses, he proclaimed who he was.
1:29
SPEAKER_01: And he says, I am the Lord, the Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.
1:35
SPEAKER_01: And we see that idea even there in that passage that we have talked about from the from the beginning.
1:40
SPEAKER_01: I think another key passage to kick us off and help us think about this idea is Deuteronomy 7.9, that scripture says, Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations.
1:59
SPEAKER_01: In Lamentations 3, 22 and 23, we read that because of the Lord's great love, we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail.
2:07
SPEAKER_01: They are new every morning.
2:09
SPEAKER_01: Great is your faithfulness.
2:10
SPEAKER_01: And that verse reminds me of the great hymn, Great is Thy Faithfulness, which is a rich, powerful hymn.
2:17
SPEAKER_01: That takes me back to like historically in my family.
2:21
SPEAKER_01: Our family was pretty musical.
2:23
SPEAKER_01: And two of the songs that I think about, if I think about my mom and I think about my dad, and I think about what are what are some songs that that they clung to, they had to do with the faithfulness of God.
2:36
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
2:37
SPEAKER_01: And so I think that throughout my life, Elizabeth, I if if I'm talking personally here for a minute, I do think that sure, I I question, I've shared that I really question the goodness of God.
2:49
SPEAKER_01: Um I think the faithfulness of God has always just kind of, I don't want to say it comes simply to me because that's not true or fair.
2:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
2:58
SPEAKER_01: But I do think that I, I don't think I have a hard time believing that God is faithful and sensing and knowing that he's gonna show up.
3:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
3:07
SPEAKER_01: And that, and that's what the faithfulness is, that steadfastness.
3:10
SPEAKER_01: It's it is it is God showing up.
3:13
SPEAKER_01: Now, it means that he's reliable, that he's trustworthy.
3:18
SPEAKER_01: You know, we have to remember that our definition of him showing up may not be him showing up.
3:25
SPEAKER_01: But as far as the character of God showing up and being faithful throughout time, I think that's where I can I can really cling to some of these Old Testament passages in particular that I was just reading that talk about how great his faithfulness is, how he is a faithful God who keeps covenant.
3:46
SPEAKER_01: And we've we've also talked about that idea of covenant, right?
3:49
SPEAKER_00: Yes, we've talked a lot about covenant.
3:51
SPEAKER_00: And I think that's that duality of my heart and soul and mind, is you you know deep down that he is a covenant-keeping God.
4:02
SPEAKER_00: And then at the same time, there are those moments, much like we talked about in the Safe in the Father's Heart podcast, where my mom, because of the struggles she dealt with with her earthly father abandoning her, that she struggled to believe that God was really there for her.
4:19
SPEAKER_00: So I think there's this duality that can go on inside our hearts and minds where we know deep down in our spirit, we know in the depths of who we are, God is faithful.
4:29
SPEAKER_00: And uh, before we get into the covenant part of it, Kimberly, I love that verse that you read in Lamentations 3.23, where it says they're new, his mercies are new every morning.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: And I love that there, it's not recycled, it's not stale.
4:45
SPEAKER_00: I think of it kind of like bread, like if you go to a bakery and you get bread that's baked fresh every day.
4:52
SPEAKER_00: How much better is that than bread that's been sitting on the shelf for days and sometimes weeks, uh, depending on where you buy your bread?
5:00
SPEAKER_00: And that is the the delight and the lavishness of God.
5:05
SPEAKER_00: Because you your opening verse you read for us out of Exodus says that he's abounding in these things.
5:10
SPEAKER_00: There's always there's been this theme through these podcasts we've done that he's not just these things, but it's this lavish amount of it.
5:17
SPEAKER_00: And that's where we get into that covenant relationship.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: We've mentioned this word a couple of times in our podcast, the word Hesed, which is used in that scripture in Exodus.
5:26
SPEAKER_00: It is about covenant.
5:28
SPEAKER_00: It's not, yes, it is about love, but it is so much more about his faithfulness and his steadfastness.
5:35
SPEAKER_00: It is this covenant, I bind myself to you type of feeling in that word hesed.
5:42
SPEAKER_00: And I ran across a quote by Michael Card, who was a wonderful Christian musician and did a lot of Bible studies and even wrote books.
5:50
SPEAKER_00: And I read this quote from him that said that Hesed is when the person for whom I have no right to expect anything gives me everything.
6:00
SPEAKER_00: And that is such a beautiful picture to me of I don't, I have no rights to demand anything from God, and yet he gives us everything.
6:10
SPEAKER_00: And we saw the fulfillment of that when he gave us his son, when Jesus died on our behalf so that we could have this covenant relationship with him.
6:18
SPEAKER_00: And so it doesn't matter about my performance, and it doesn't matter about your performance, Kimberly.
6:25
SPEAKER_00: It is all based on the character of God.
6:28
SPEAKER_00: And that is why it's so important for us to know who he is, because who he is changes everything.
6:35
SPEAKER_00: We can't muster up enough of anything to deserve a covenant relationship, a friendship with God.
6:44
SPEAKER_00: And yet he has said to us, I'm choosing to bind myself to you regardless of your behavior.
6:50
SPEAKER_01: I think one of the best places to see that in the Old Testament is where that Exodus and those Deuteronomy verses were coming from, is the people of Israel.
6:59
SPEAKER_01: They were in a cycle of seeing God's faithfulness and then living their own way, to put it simply.
7:05
SPEAKER_01: And and what did God do every every time?
7:08
SPEAKER_01: He said, I am your covenant-keeping God.
7:12
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't based on what they did.
7:14
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't uh it wasn't based on how he felt.
7:19
SPEAKER_01: Um it was based on the reality that he told them, I am your covenant-keeping God.
7:24
SPEAKER_01: This is who I am.
7:26
SPEAKER_01: I will forgive you, I will show up.
7:28
SPEAKER_01: There will be consequences, there will be realities, and yet I will provide food for you every morning when you wake up.
7:40
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
7:40
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's what I think about when you're talking about the bread.
7:43
SPEAKER_01: Like when they woke up every morning, they had the manna they needed for the day.
7:48
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
7:48
SPEAKER_01: He he covered them with a cloud by day.
7:52
SPEAKER_01: And he gave and he gave them fire by night.
7:55
SPEAKER_01: He was faithful to to show up.
7:59
SPEAKER_01: He was reliable.
8:00
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure they worried, will it be here tomorrow?
8:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
8:04
SPEAKER_01: Do I really deserve it?
8:06
SPEAKER_01: Will he withhold it tomorrow?
8:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
8:10
SPEAKER_01: I I'm sure they were human.
8:12
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure.
8:13
SPEAKER_01: And yet he continued to to keep his covenant to them, like he said he would do.
8:21
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
8:21
SPEAKER_01: And and in the New Testament, on this side of the new covenant, we see that those promises are to us, his children.
8:30
SPEAKER_01: And that he is faithful to us over and over again, that he will not betray his character.
8:38
SPEAKER_01: Now, now, does that mean I'm gonna not pay the price or have discipline, so to speak, when I sin or when I choose to deny him or walk away from him?
8:51
SPEAKER_01: No, there there are even emotional consequences that I'm gonna experience, whether he pours out any consequences on me or not.
9:01
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes there are consequences that he pours out through his discipline, also out of his faithfulness, because he also has to remain faithful to his holiness, right?
9:11
SPEAKER_01: Right.
9:11
SPEAKER_01: And so I think about Peter denying Jesus three times.
9:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
9:16
SPEAKER_01: What was Jesus' response to Peter?
9:18
SPEAKER_00: It was a beautiful way that he reconciled with him, that he he met with him and spoke with him and not only said Peter, we're okay, but then commissioned him to be the one to go take care of his flock.
9:31
SPEAKER_01: Right.
9:31
SPEAKER_01: And that's where we see the faithfulness, the steadfast covenant love, and and the friendship of God with him.
9:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
9:40
SPEAKER_01: And yet, what I'm referring to when I say there's emotional consequences is I wonder how many times Peter heard a rooster crow and he felt shame after that.
9:49
SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
9:50
SPEAKER_01: You know?
9:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
9:51
SPEAKER_01: Even in the midst of Jesus showing up to him face to face.
9:56
SPEAKER_00: Right.
9:57
SPEAKER_00: And sitting down with him, yeah, and being having a conversation.
10:01
SPEAKER_01: Right.
10:02
SPEAKER_01: And being his friend, you know?
10:04
SPEAKER_01: Like that's where we've really got to distinguish the lies of the enemy.
10:09
SPEAKER_01: Those feelings of shame and condemnation, when they creep in, it might genuinely be a response of sorrow that we feel to something that we've where we've betrayed God or you know, our relationship with him.
10:23
SPEAKER_01: But yet when we have sought forgiveness with God, when we've looked up towards him, he he has forgiven us and we don't have to walk in that shame and condemnation.
10:31
SPEAKER_00: Right.
10:31
SPEAKER_01: So that's where we've got to be real careful.
10:33
SPEAKER_01: Like Peter could have let the enemy lie to him every time he heard a rooster crow.
10:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:39
SPEAKER_01: And he he could have said, Jesus, man, he didn't love me.
10:43
SPEAKER_01: He didn't forgive me.
10:44
SPEAKER_01: But that's not true.
10:46
SPEAKER_00: Right.
10:47
SPEAKER_01: Because God's faithful to himself.
10:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
10:51
SPEAKER_00: And God isn't fickle.
10:53
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't change his mind about how he feels about us.
10:57
SPEAKER_00: Now there are times in scripture where someone's gonna be like, now wait a minute, you know, God changed his mind, you know, and well, yes, he changed his mind in order to save a people, but who God is at the core of his character, it doesn't change.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: There is an unbreakable covenant that God has made to be true to who he is and true to his people.
11:19
SPEAKER_00: And that is a beautiful foundation for us to build a friendship with God.
11:24
SPEAKER_00: It's not just his steadfast love, it's his steadfast forgiveness.
11:28
SPEAKER_00: It is his steadfast mercy, his steadfast grace.
11:32
SPEAKER_00: Like every characteristic that we're gonna talk about throughout this series, you can come back to this thought.
11:38
SPEAKER_00: One, it's gonna be in abundance.
11:40
SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be far more than we could ever ask or imagine, whatever characteristic we're talking about.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: And two, it is going to be fateful.
11:48
SPEAKER_00: And Kimberly, as you were talking about the people of Israel and they had the cloud during the day and the fire at night, and and they had manna every morning.
11:57
SPEAKER_00: I have to admit there was this little judgmental part of me.
12:00
SPEAKER_00: I know you're shocked that I'm judged I'm I'm being judgy, but I was like, how could they ever question?
12:06
SPEAKER_00: Like, if I had fire at night and cloud during the day and food on my lawn every morning, how could they ever question that?
12:12
SPEAKER_00: And then yet immediately the Holy Spirit's right there going, Elizabeth, the sun rises every morning.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: The moon is out at night.
12:20
SPEAKER_00: You and you cling to that idea that the moon is round, whether you can see it or not, you trust that it's there and it's always round, regardless of your understanding of it from whatever phase of the moon is in.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: And I give the same things to you.
12:35
SPEAKER_00: And I think part of my challenge as I've prepared for this podcast, and as we're even as we're talking about it, is I spend far too much time trying, or the enemy maybe helping me think about the times where it feels like God wasn't there when I was abandoned or when he didn't show up, versus how much of my day do I spend trying to actively look for and celebrate the faithfulness of God and the big things and the small things?
13:04
SPEAKER_00: And that's really hard because I mean, our whole, our whole nature, our whole culture, everything is let's focus on what is negative or what's not going right.
13:13
SPEAKER_00: You know, like that's there's some energy in that that is attractive versus developing a heart of gratitude that goes, you know what?
13:21
SPEAKER_00: I woke up this morning.
13:23
SPEAKER_00: That's the faithfulness of God.
13:24
SPEAKER_00: The sun was in the sky when I got out of bed this morning.
13:27
SPEAKER_00: That's the faithfulness of God.
13:28
SPEAKER_00: The earth is still rotating on its axis.
13:31
SPEAKER_00: That's the faithfulness of God.
13:32
SPEAKER_00: There's so much I think I take for granted, just assuming that it's going to be there for me, rather than celebrating the faithfulness of God in every aspect of life.
13:42
SPEAKER_01: Elizabeth, I think if we can remember what you just said and the reality of that, that God is faithful in the small, in the big, in all, how can that affect the way that we live each day in a greater way?
13:56
SPEAKER_01: Second Thessalonians 3, 3 says, But the Lord is faithful and he will strengthen you and protect you from the evil one.
14:03
SPEAKER_01: The amplified version says, Yet the Lord is faithful and he will strengthen you and set you on a firm foundation and guard you from the evil one.
14:11
SPEAKER_01: The ESV says he will establish you and guard you against the evil one.
14:15
SPEAKER_01: So I think in that verse, we what I'm thinking about here is in his faithfulness, he he strengthens us and he sets us on a firm foundation to protect us, to guard us, to keep us.
14:28
SPEAKER_01: And yet, because we often forget that he is faithful and we doubt his faithfulness, I think that we allow ourselves to be unprotected.
14:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
14:39
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
14:40
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
14:41
SPEAKER_01: That makes sense.
14:42
SPEAKER_01: I think it's a little bit like most of us know that you don't leave a child home alone until a certain age.
14:49
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
14:50
SPEAKER_01: And that age can depend upon the child.
14:51
SPEAKER_01: So we won't get into that argument on this podcast.
14:54
SPEAKER_01: Right.
14:55
SPEAKER_01: But I think we all know you don't leave a toddler home alone.
14:58
SPEAKER_01: And and I think about like if a toddler doesn't have protection, if they don't have that firm foundation yet because they're still growing and they don't know all the do's and don'ts, then when they go to step up, when they go to climb up on the couch or on a chair and then they fall off and bump their head, there's consequences for that, right?
15:16
SPEAKER_01: That they they didn't know.
15:18
SPEAKER_01: So we we have parents around them and caregivers around them that protect them from doing those things.
15:25
SPEAKER_01: And I'm just thinking, like, how often does God protect me because of his faithfulness?
15:32
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not even aware of it.
15:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
15:34
SPEAKER_00: I think it's very easy to get lulled into this thing of, well, I I drove from one city to another and back, and nothing happened to me, nothing happened to the car, whatever.
15:45
SPEAKER_00: And that's just to be the expected norm.
15:47
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, when you run into another car, it's called an accident.
15:52
SPEAKER_00: It's not what's is supposed to happen.
15:54
SPEAKER_00: And I'm grateful for that, but how many times do I credit that to the faithfulness of God versus how many times do I just say, well, that's just that's just life.
16:04
SPEAKER_00: That's just how it's supposed to be, is I'm able to travel from one place to the other and back safely.
16:09
SPEAKER_00: So just like what you're talking about, Kimberly, I think there there is this need to understand God is far more actively involved in our lives than we can ever possibly know.
16:21
SPEAKER_00: And even in seasons where I have tried to train my eyes to see and my ears to hear all the goodness of God in my life throughout the day, I know that God's up in heaven going, oh baby, there's a thousand more ways that I'm taking care of you that you don't even know about.
16:36
SPEAKER_00: So there's so much more abundance to God's faithfulness than our minds can comprehend.
16:43
SPEAKER_00: But what I think we need to do is train our minds and allow God to build that garrison around our minds and give us the mind of Christ to as much as possible be able to celebrate the faithfulness of God because hard things are gonna happen.
16:59
SPEAKER_00: And there's gonna come times where the word of God and knowing that he's a faithful God doesn't match up with the way we feel, especially if we get betrayed by someone we trust deeply in an earthly relationship, whether that's a friend, a spouse, a parent, and all of a sudden you feel like you're getting the rug ripped out from underneath you.
17:23
SPEAKER_00: We need to have our mind trained.
17:25
SPEAKER_00: We need that, as you're talking about those verses, that beautiful verse you just read about him establishing around us his faithfulness, so that when on an earthly level something happens in a relationship and that rug is pulled out from underneath us, we're not completely thrown.
17:43
SPEAKER_00: I mean, we're gonna be thrown, but we're not so thrown to the point that we also question who God is in that moment.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: And that's really, really hard.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: People let us down, and then and we can also feel let down by God.
17:57
SPEAKER_01: So when we look at Hebrews, well, in Hebrews 10 in particular, there's this passage.
18:02
SPEAKER_01: Hebrews talks a lot about how do we how do we anchor to this hope that we have?
18:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
18:06
SPEAKER_01: And then and in Hebrews 10, 23, it says, Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.
18:15
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
18:16
SPEAKER_01: So how does God's faithfulness, Elizabeth, anchor us in that uncertainty that you're talking about?
18:23
SPEAKER_00: I think God's faithfulness is what allows us to have an anchor because we have to rely on his unchanging character.
18:33
SPEAKER_00: We have to rely on the fact that who he was in the beginning is who he will be in the future and who he is for me right now.
18:41
SPEAKER_00: And he cannot be unfaithful because his faithfulness comes from who he is, and who he is does not change.
18:49
SPEAKER_00: And that allows us to, as you just read from that Hebrews passage, hold fast.
18:54
SPEAKER_00: And as as we're reading through these scriptures and talking about our part versus God's part, I think back to the times we've talked about in spiritual warfare where we're told that our part is to stand and that can feel like, well, that's not doing anything, that's just standing.
19:09
SPEAKER_00: But there is so much required of standing.
19:11
SPEAKER_00: And I think the same is true of this idea of holding fast, that it is a choice that I'm going to make to trust in the unchanging character of God who was faithful in the past and will be faithful in the future.
19:26
SPEAKER_00: And even if I can't see it in this moment right now, and it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, I've been promised that he is steadfast, that he is faithful, and that he's my friend.
19:37
SPEAKER_00: And my friend is going to show up somewhere.
19:40
SPEAKER_00: And so I think the the whole understanding and needing to always be reminding ourselves, speaking the truth of scripture over our own hearts of who he is, is so that we can hold fast in the unchanging faithfulness of God.
19:55
SPEAKER_01: So talk about that a little bit further in those, like how do we do that in those moments where we feel devastatingly betrayed?
20:03
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
20:04
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, Kimberly, you and I both know our stories well enough to know.
20:08
SPEAKER_00: We've both been there.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: Um, and there is nothing that hurts deeper, in my opinion, than betrayal.
20:15
SPEAKER_00: And so if anyone is listening to this and they feel like God hasn't been faithful, or you're in the middle of a situation where a group of people that you thought were there for you are not, first thing I want to say is, I am so sorry.
20:30
SPEAKER_00: And your pain is so real and so deep, and it cuts down to the core.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus understands because Jesus was betrayed not only by Judas, who was one of his closest followers.
20:46
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you think of all the people that interact with Jesus, Judas had a lot of face-to-face time with him and shared a lot of things with him.
20:55
SPEAKER_00: But in some ways, you already mentioned Peter, like everyone's scattered.
20:59
SPEAKER_00: There, there were very few people left there for Jesus when he was in his darkest moments.
21:05
SPEAKER_00: And that's that's natural.
21:06
SPEAKER_00: It was fear.
21:07
SPEAKER_00: There was, there was so much, there's a lot going into that story.
21:10
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus knows what it feels like to have that feeling of such deep, the I mean, there's a sting to it.
21:18
SPEAKER_00: It's almost almost feels like a knife cutting into you feeling when you've been betrayed.
21:23
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes when that happens, we start to project that onto God.
21:27
SPEAKER_00: And that is where the, I think the struggle comes, and that's where this anchoring ourselves steadfastly in his character has got to come in, which is he cannot be unfaithful to me because he is faithful, even though everything I'm seeing in front of me does not look like faithfulness.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: I've got to go back to that Lamentations verse that you read to us at the beginning, Kimberly, that says that his mercies are new every morning, which his concept of mourning and our concept of mourning may be different.
21:56
SPEAKER_00: I want that to mean in the next 24 hours.
21:59
SPEAKER_00: But for him, the next morning, the next season, the next chapter, it may take a moment.
22:06
SPEAKER_00: But I think in the end, whether on this side of eternity or some of their questions aren't going to be answered till the other side of eternity, but eventually there are going to be answers to all the questions.
22:18
SPEAKER_00: And we're going to come to see over time, over staying in relationship with him, that he is faithful.
22:25
SPEAKER_01: And I think the next question would be how do we remain faithful?
22:30
SPEAKER_01: We've talked about because God is these things, being his children, we should also reflect these characteristics.
22:36
SPEAKER_01: So particularly in the in the middle of people being unfaithful to us or betraying us or hurting us, how do we offer and reflect back to them the faithfulness of God, that attitude of being trustworthy or reliable?
22:51
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes I think we may need to not be faithful and remove ourselves.
22:55
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
22:55
SPEAKER_01: But but there are also times where we're called to still offer that steadfastness of God to others.
23:00
SPEAKER_01: What what does that look like?
23:02
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's hard.
23:03
SPEAKER_00: That's what that looks like.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: That's that's hard.
23:07
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
23:08
SPEAKER_00: There you go.
23:09
SPEAKER_00: There's your answer.
23:09
SPEAKER_00: It's hard.
23:10
SPEAKER_00: And that is where I think the friendship part with Jesus comes in.
23:15
SPEAKER_00: I find it interesting that it's after Jesus has said all these beautiful things about I am in God and you and He is in me and you're in me and you're grafted in the vine, and all these types of beautiful analogies about what it means to abide with Him, to stay steadfastly with Him.
23:33
SPEAKER_00: That's when all of a sudden this verse comes along where Jesus says, I no longer see you as servants, I see you as friends.
23:42
SPEAKER_00: And it's this deep relationship connection that Jesus wants with us.
23:46
SPEAKER_00: And I think for our human relationships, it's got to start there.
23:51
SPEAKER_00: I've got to be continually trying to abide with him and he with me so that I even know, God, is this my time to stay steadfast and show your steadfast loyalty in this moment?
24:04
SPEAKER_00: Or is this a situation where I do need to remove myself?
24:09
SPEAKER_00: Because I don't want anyone to hear that we are, we are condoning just blind faithfulness to anybody, regardless of what behavior is coming towards us.
24:19
SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, we don't need to be a type of people.
24:23
SPEAKER_00: And I have been guilty of this at times.
24:26
SPEAKER_00: Well, if that's how you're gonna be, then I'm just gonna leave.
24:29
SPEAKER_00: I'm just gonna, you know, that whole attitude, I'll just pick up my toys and go home because I don't like the way you're treating me.
24:36
SPEAKER_00: And so in every situation, we've got to determine, God, it's my assignment to stay in this and show your grace and your mercy and your forgiveness to this person who is not being faithful, loyal, forgiving, gracious towards me, because there is a place where God calls us to be a reflection of all those things.
24:59
SPEAKER_00: Or is this a situation that for a season I need to kind of pull back?
25:04
SPEAKER_00: My blind loyalty is not owed to this particular person because of these circumstances.
25:10
SPEAKER_00: And in every situation, I think you've got to be able to ask God and follow God's lead, the spirit, the Holy Spirit lead, to know is this a laboratory that you want to teach me something in and reveal more of who you are to myself and to the other person involved?
25:26
SPEAKER_00: Or is this a situation where you know what?
25:29
SPEAKER_00: We need to kind of pull back.
25:30
SPEAKER_00: There are certain people in my life that anytime we try to have a person-to-person conversation, it can start out well.
25:38
SPEAKER_00: And then all of a sudden, here comes the jab from the side.
25:41
SPEAKER_00: They are intentionally trying to say something to hurt me or wound me.
25:46
SPEAKER_00: Maybe for a season until some healing can happen in both my life and theirs, we need to pull back on that relationship and go, you know what?
25:54
SPEAKER_00: If you have anything you need to communicate with me, you can do it over email, you can do it over text.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: But you and I don't need to have that on-the-phone conversation, in-person conversation right now.
26:06
SPEAKER_00: And so it's about asking God, where are the boundaries in healthy relationships?
26:10
SPEAKER_00: Because I don't in any way want anyone to hear, regardless of what abuse or other type of things might be going on in a situation, you need to remain faithful.
26:21
SPEAKER_00: Because I mean because this is this is a hard one, because we want to show the faithfulness of God, the graciousness of God, the mercies that show up every morning to people in our lives.
26:33
SPEAKER_00: And yet sometimes that's that's not the healthy, safe thing to do, Miss Mediator.
26:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I do believe that sometimes sometimes showing mercy to someone is removing yourself from them.
26:48
SPEAKER_01: In our Ruach journey study, we talk about ungodly burden bearing, and there's this idea that sometimes, Elizabeth, as you say, people want to stick their straw inside us and suck the life out of us, you know?
27:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
27:01
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes that can look passive aggressive and that can be in the form of hurt and betraying just to get attention or feed something, right?
27:14
SPEAKER_01: Right.
27:14
SPEAKER_01: And and so that's where I think wisdom comes in to really recognizing, okay, I need to take the straw out.
27:24
SPEAKER_01: I don't need to give them access to a straw to make and that doesn't mean that we're not offering them mercy or steadfastness or faithfulness.
27:37
SPEAKER_01: It means that we're recognizing that something is off balance there.
27:41
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
27:42
SPEAKER_01: And maybe someone is seeking, I mean, in some ways we can just call it idolatry.
27:47
SPEAKER_01: Right.
27:47
SPEAKER_01: Maybe maybe people are seeking to get something out of us that they need to be seeking to get out of God.
27:53
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
27:54
SPEAKER_01: We need to redirect them to God by just if if we can't verbally point them towards God, then we remove ourselves.
28:01
SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, Kimberly, as we teach about that godly burden bearing versus ungodly burden bearing, there's three questions that we ask that I think that's what we're both trying to kind of circling around, which is, you know, God, is this mine to carry?
28:18
SPEAKER_00: What part of it is mine, and for how long?
28:22
SPEAKER_00: And I think in every situation, I think what you're trying to say, Kimberly, is it's not about blind faithfulness just because, well, God said we should be faithful.
28:30
SPEAKER_00: It's about having that deep friendship with God, having that, that ongoing conversation with him and going, okay, God, for today, in each of my relationships, because each relationship may be in a different state, what is mine?
28:46
SPEAKER_00: What is my part?
28:47
SPEAKER_00: And for how long?
28:48
SPEAKER_00: And and to really follow his heart.
28:51
SPEAKER_00: Uh, because there are times when I have wanted to walk away from a situation and God has invited me to stay in it in order to show his love and mercy.
29:00
SPEAKER_00: And then there's been other times where I have had to walk away and not be a part of a relationship anymore.
29:06
SPEAKER_00: And I've had people question whether that was the Christian thing for me to do.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, well, I'm not gonna sit here and reveal a lot of details of things you don't really need to know.
29:15
SPEAKER_00: But yes, I feel like God has released me from this assignment for this season because there are things that He needs to do in my heart and in the other person's heart.
29:23
SPEAKER_00: What we do want to challenge ourselves to do is in most of our relationships, like when I'm going to the store, how can I reflect the steadfastness, the faithfulness, the mercy, the love, the all of who God is?
29:36
SPEAKER_00: How do I reflect who God is to the people around me?
29:40
SPEAKER_00: We talk about a lot around here.
29:42
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot going on in social media and people throwing comments out and doing all sorts of things.
29:47
SPEAKER_00: How do I season my words?
29:50
SPEAKER_00: How do I season my conversations so that people, when they hear me speak, when they see the way I act towards others, they go, wow, that.
30:00
SPEAKER_00: That really is a reflection of the faithfulness of God.
30:02
SPEAKER_00: Easy to say, harder to live.
30:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
30:05
SPEAKER_01: I often use the phrase respond rather than react.
30:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
30:09
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes that's what it looks like to be faithful.
30:12
SPEAKER_01: It's to just be quiet.
30:14
unknown: Yeah.
30:15
SPEAKER_01: Because I need to pause sometimes and remember God's faithfulness.
30:21
SPEAKER_01: I don't automatically think of God's faithfulness when something comes at me that may not feel faithful or loyal or loving, you know?
30:30
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
30:30
SPEAKER_01: Um, and so I need to pause sometimes and go, wait a minute.
30:33
SPEAKER_01: I don't have to retaliate.
30:35
SPEAKER_01: I don't have to explain.
30:37
SPEAKER_01: I just need to be quiet.
30:38
SPEAKER_01: I I saw a post the other day where someone said I it was on social media, so it was relevant to Instagram or Facebook or whatever.
30:45
SPEAKER_01: And it said, I saw a post and I had a feeling, but I didn't need to talk about it.
30:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
30:50
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's true sometimes.
30:52
SPEAKER_01: Like you we don't always have to respond, you know.
30:55
SPEAKER_01: I think one of the key things to remember is that we are human.
30:58
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
30:59
SPEAKER_01: Our steadfast love is going to waver.
31:02
SPEAKER_01: We are going to be unfaithful.
31:04
SPEAKER_01: And yet we seek to be holy as God is holy.
31:07
SPEAKER_01: We seek to follow Him as His children.
31:10
SPEAKER_01: And we remember that unlike us, His steadfast love never wavers.
31:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
31:16
SPEAKER_01: His mercies are new every morning.
31:19
SPEAKER_01: He is faithful.
31:20
SPEAKER_01: And so it's like Psalm 89.8 says, Who is like you, Lord God Almighty?
31:26
SPEAKER_01: You, Lord, are mighty, and your faithfulness surrounds you.
31:31
SPEAKER_01: It is all around you.
31:33
SPEAKER_01: It is an essential part of you at all times.
31:36
SPEAKER_01: And so as you walk through this week, we encourage you to look for the faithfulness of God.
31:43
SPEAKER_01: Because as we said earlier, I think there are times where we don't even see it and recognize it for what it is.
31:49
SPEAKER_01: It's like the tree right outside your window that you see sometimes because the leaves start to change, but the rest of the year, there's a tree there.
31:57
SPEAKER_01: You know?
31:58
SPEAKER_01: And so feel free to show up on our social media feeds through Instagram or Facebook or go to our website and send us an email and let us know how you are experiencing and seeing the faithfulness of God because that encourages all of us to continue in this walk.
32:13
SPEAKER_01: And we bless you to receive the faithfulness of God this week and to experience him and see him as he is true to his character.
32:22
SPEAKER_01: He is the faithful one.
32:25
SPEAKER_01: He will strengthen you and protect you from the evil one.
32:28
SPEAKER_01: His faithfulness reaches to the heavens, to the skies.
32:31
SPEAKER_01: So we pray that you will receive that and see that and experience that and know him in all of his fullness this week.
32:41
SPEAKER_01: I want to thank you for listening to the Father's Business Podcast.
32:45
SPEAKER_00: This podcast is made possible through donations by people like you.
32:49
SPEAKER_00: To donate, go to www.thefathersbusiness.com.
32:54
SPEAKER_00: Be sure to follow us at thefather's biz on Instagram and Facebook.