Sadie Robertson Huff - Live Original https://liveoriginal.com Sadie Robertson Huff Mon, 19 Aug 2024 19:21:18 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.1 https://liveoriginal.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/cropped-favicon-32x32.png Sadie Robertson Huff - Live Original https://liveoriginal.com 32 32 The Danger of Compromise https://liveoriginal.com/the-danger-of-compromise/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-danger-of-compromise Thu, 08 Aug 2024 19:16:33 +0000 https://liveoriginal.com/?p=230158 Recently, we posted a message that I shared at Liberty University this past winter on YouTube, but I felt that I wanted to share it here on the blog as well! It has been on my heart to share about the danger of compromise. Recently, I binge watched a show that I am a bit… Read More »

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Recently, we posted a message that I shared at Liberty University this past winter on YouTube, but I felt that I wanted to share it here on the blog as well!

It has been on my heart to share about the danger of compromise.
Recently, I binge watched a show that I am a bit embarrassed to say. I wish I was about to share that I binge watched The Chosen, even though I did binge watch that and I loved it! However, the show I was watching is called Love is Blind.
Some of my friends were very into watching Love is Blind and they told me you have to watch it! So we watched the first episode together and I loved it! It was hilarious. I was so intrigued as we watched it together at a girls night! We made it through two episodes and the next night I started watching the third episode by myself. Christian, my husband, then walked in and asked what in the world I was watching. I told him “boy, sit down, this is so good”.
So we watched this show, and I have to be honest with you, this is NOT a good show. If you watch this show you know what I am talking about! It does not exactly align with our morals. So…I’m watching this show and I start to feel convicted. However, I was so invested at this point that I ignored my conviction. And you know what’s worse? I then start excusing my conviction. I told myself that I never watch this type of stuff, everyone watches it, it’s not that serious so it’s not that big of a deal. I kept trying to ignore my conviction and I kept watching the show. Unfortunately, I ended up watching the entire season ignoring this conviction.
Sadly, about halfway through the season I went to another level. I didn’t just ignore or excuse my conviction but I started to think of all the good reasons as to why I was watching Love is Blind. I started telling my friend that it’s actually a good thing that we are watching this show because it is teaching us what not to do in marriage. I also thought this show is now helping me relate to people more so I can talk about ideas like this on my podcast. All of a sudden I tried to convince myself that it wasn’t just an excusable thing to watch Love is Blind but a good thing!
What I really want to talk to you about is that it can get really dangerous when you get good at looking and sounding spiritual. This is especially problematic when you know the right thing to say and you know how to make it look good when in reality your heart is in the wrong place. It is a scary place to be and that is where I was.
And before I lose you and you think, this is so un-relatable and watching that show really is not that big of a deal, compromise actually is a really big deal. Compromise has big consequences and it always starts out small but ends up being a really big deal.
I was actually watching a sermon during that time of my life where I heard Brooke Ligertwood say compromise is convincing yourself it is okay to do the wrong thing if it is for the right reason, and that is really where I was at. I told myself that it was okay if I was doing the wrong thing because I was doing it for the right reason!  But here is the thing, I have gotten good at knowing how to convince myself that something is good, and that is really dangerous. Now the Bible shows us how dangerous that is. Of course, it talks about the path that seems right for men but in the end leads to death (Proverbs 14:12). However, it really plays this out in the story of Judas.
Maybe you’re now thinking “oh my goodness, this is so extreme. Are you comparing my life to Judas because I was watching Love is Blind?”. The answer is no. But what I am saying is that if you ignore your conviction and you continue to compromise, these little things can end up being a really big thing. And honestly when it comes to the life of Judas, before it got bad it was actually looking pretty good! Judas was one of the 12 disciples, he was in close proximity to Jesus. Of all the people, he was one of the twelve! He wasn’t so bad, he knew how to do the right thing, he was following Jesus. He dedicated his life to doing this. But, it was these little compromises that ended up having really big consequences.
In John 12 we see a foreshadowing of maybe what was to come in Judas’ life. It says “Six days before the Passover celebration began, Jesus arrived in Bethany, the home of Lazarus—the man he had raised from the dead. A dinner was prepared in Jesus’ honor. Martha served, and Lazarus was among those who ate with him. Then Mary took a twelve-ounce jar of expensive perfume made from essence of nard, and she anointed Jesus’ feet with it, wiping his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance.”
Many of us have heard that part of the story, this woman fully devoted her life to Jesus, pouring out her perfume. However, it is the next verse that I want to focus on. It says: “But Judas Iscariot, the disciple who would soon betray him…” So this is hindsight, this is looking back and saying Judas was there and was about to betray Jesus. Judas says, “Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor?”. How spiritual of him! How good did that sound! It wasn’t like his intentions were obvious! It wasn’t like he was just sitting there making fun of her. It was not clear that his heart was in the wrong place. It actually sounded good that he was requesting that it be given to the poor.
And see, that is the reason why compromise is such a big deal. It is normally something that no one else can call you out for. It is something that no one else sees. You look good, you sound good. However, only YOU know the conviction in your heart and only YOU can be obedient to follow that.
In James it talks about if you know what is wrong and you continue to do it for you, it is a sin (James 4:17). I knew watching Love is Blind was wrong but I continued to do it, so that is why it was a big deal for me.
John 12 goes on to say: “He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it”. Honestly, that is why we compromise right? It’s because it helps us. We compromise because we want to have fun, we want to be relatable to people, we want to climb a ladder, we get to enjoy that satisfaction. We compromise because that specific thing in the moment just seemed better than listening to our conviction.
I love how John Piper talks about the essence of good and evil. He speaks to the fact that the essence of evil is not just breaking God’s commands rather it is desiring something over God. It is in those moments of compromise that we just desire what we are feeling and experiencing in the moment more than we want to follow God.
Maybe this message sounds discouraging to you as it is not some hype up message. However, that is because I believe God really does have a full life for you and He wants to do something incredible for you. He has a life for you that is meant to be lived to the full. And I believe that it is the compromising you are a part of that is keeping you from the fullness of that life! Now what is fullness?
Once I was preaching a message about fullness and I asked the crowd how many people wanted to live in the fullness of God. And I was shocked, only half the room raised their hands. Why would you not want to live in the fullness of God? Why wasn’t everyone raising their hands?
I think it is because we know that to live in the fullness of God, it requires us following him fully. And so many of us want to be one foot in with God and one foot in with the world so we can still be cool, relatable, have fun, and have worldly satisfaction. But with those things people question why they don’t experience complete fullness. It is because they have yet to fully dive in.
So, what exactly does fullness look like and what does it promise? Fullness of God is amazing. God is love – that is who he is. Fullness is the fruit of the spirit: love, joy, peace, etc. But even if we were to stop with just those 3 fruits of the spirit, isn’t that what we all desire? To be loved, to have peace in an anxious world, to be joyful in a depressed generation, to have hope that this world is not our home and there is something better to come (TYJ!), that we would have peace that surpasses all understanding, joy as our strength, love eternally, purpose, passion, family, community. The fullness of God is everything you ever wanted. Compromise temporarily satisfies but God offers eternal hope, eternal good.
Why am I sharing this message that seems so serious? Because there are serious consequences to compromise and there is seriously good news in Jesus.
When I think about compromise and convictions, I remember one time Jennie Allen preached years ago. She came up on stage and said she was about to confess the biggest thing she ever confessed. She shared that she doubted God. And I remember being like and…? I mean, I’ve doubted God, is that really that big of a deal? But Jennie felt so convicted by it, she felt so bad and she was so disturbed that she let herself get to the place of doubting God. And I remember thinking at the time that that seemed relatively small to make such a big deal about. But do you know what’s so amazing? I started thinking about this recently because of how incredible Jennie’s ministry has been year after year. She touches millions of people around the world every year with her ministry. And if she would’ve allowed that compromising voice in her head that doubted God to grow and fester, it could have destroyed her ministry, her marriage, and other godly things in her life.
In James it says that sin once conceived eventually gives birth to death. So it seemed like a small thing but the consequences of it would’ve been great. However, her responding to it led to so much fruit. These things may seem like a small deal but they have big consequences.
For example, cheating on tests in high school may not seem like a big deal career wise but if I was getting brain surgery and the surgeon said he cheated his whole way through medical school I would not allow him to do surgery on me! All of a sudden his compromise is a big deal! Or if I were to get on a flight to Nashville and the pilot said he cheated his whole way through aviation school, I would not get on his plane!
What I am trying to say is, it might not seem like a big deal to you to compromise on certain things but it can be detrimental for someone else. Therefore, we cannot compare our convictions to other people’s convictions. Other people may not have the same calling as you so they won’t have the same convictions as you. If you know it’s wrong and you continue to do it, it is a sin for you.
I am a speaker, I get on stage with a microphone, I have a podcast, where I am constantly speaking publicly on that platform, so it is not good for me to sit and watch a show that is dropping F-bombs and having inappropriate language. From the heart so the mouth shall speak (Luke 6:45). So it is a big deal for me, I need to protect my heart and protect my mind.
Sometimes I feel like we say these things are “gray areas” but in all honesty, that’s just a way for us to say we are just going to compromise. There is not a lot of gray in the Bible. The Bible is very clear.
But here is the thing, don’t feel guilty or ashamed for your convictions. Christian once told me to not feel so much shame when I feel convicted, rather receive it as a gift that God loves me so much that He says I am better than that. I love that perspective – conviction is not meant to shame us. Lean into God when you feel that shame – be thankful that He loves you so much that He knows you are better than that. Ask God to constantly convict and purify your heart!
In Genesis 1, God created light and He separated it from the darkness, and every superhero movie agrees with that. I’ve never seen a movie where the hero and villain want to team up. Gray literally means a color without color – it is nothing. And you were not called to be nothing! You were called to be the light of the world! We live in a dark world, and it is getting darker. Even though that is scary, the answer to the darkness is you, Jesus in you! You are the light of the world! You are the answer to the problems going on in the world. It is a big deal to live in the gray.
Another example of this compromise is my 2 ½ year old daughter Honey. Every day I have to remind her that a fire will burn her. She loves to touch fires! And the other day I saw her walking up to the fireplace and she was looking at me, she knew it was hot. And she laid down next to it and said “I’m just going to just chill by the fire.” Her comment made me think of the fact that that is how we deal with sin, we just want to get right up next to it and “chill” by it. But I told Honey, and I am telling you, you can chill by it, but that fire, or sin, will burn you if you touch it. And if you know you are tempted by it, it is probably best you don’t just chill by it. We have to get serious about the things we know are bringing us down. We have to get serious about the things we know the enemy is using to kill and destroy our life. We have to be strong enough to say no, I will not keep hanging out by the fire.
This has been a problem since the beginning of humanity. In Genesis 3 it says “Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say…”. Isn’t that exactly what we say about gray areas?
The rest of those verses say “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ ”
Now I think this is interesting because Eve actually knew what God said. I think that is important to note because you can know what God says is true and still, when tempted, fall. But look what changed, she went from knowing that was true until the enemy said “you will not surely die”. The enemy is telling you it’s not that big of a deal.
But in verse 5 it says the enemy said “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” This is something that I fear for our generation. We want to be the ones that define good and evil. However, God has already defined this. There is already the Way and already the Truth to get to the Father.
In verse 6 it says, “When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.” This shows that your compromise does not just affect you but it also affects those around you. Especially if you are a leader and Christ-follower, others may think well they are doing it so it is okay for me to do it. We bring people into our compromise, into our sin.
Verse 7 then states “Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.” See, that is the danger of sin. When we sin and feel that shame, we want to hide from God. But don’t hide from God because in verse 9 it says “But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”. God was looking for them, He doesn’t want you to be stranded in your shame.
Now, for those of you who feel convicted by this message and want to live in a life where you do not compromise, 1 John 1 says “This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.”
I love how it says we can’t be living in light and in darkness. But also, if you say you don’t have sin you are lying to yourself. So the answer to all this is to let the blood of Jesus redeem you.
1 John 1:9 says “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” So if you are worried about living in the fullness of God because you think that is too much of a task to take on, the hard part is already done. Jesus already paid the price for the transformation. And he didn’t even end it there, he sent the Spirit to live in us, to convict us and call us to a life of fullness. It reminds you of the Truth and the heart of the Father.
If you don’t want to live in your sin anymore, lean into the blood of Jesus. If you feel convicted, thank God that He is calling you to greater things. And if you are worried that people already know you as you currently are and it will be so hard to break that and be someone else, that is the power of the gospel! The reason Jesus being alive is so cool is because He once was dead and now He is alive! So for you to transform into a new creation and look like a totally different person from now on, you get to be a walking miracle and testimony of the grace of God. There is no shame in that, that is one of the coolest experiences we get to be a part of as Christ followers.
Why I’m so glad I felt convicted watching Love is Blind is because I used to watch shows much worse than that and lived that lifestyle and felt no conviction. And I would much rather be convicted watching a show than living a life feeling no conviction and without the Holy Spirit. I have been there and it is not full, it is incredibly empty.

In that same time of my life I was at the height of my success but the emptiest I have ever felt because I was without the Spirit of God. And I will no longer choose that life because I know there is more for me. To experience the fullness of God on this side of eternity is the greatest gift we have ever been given.

 

Watch the full message linked here – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9W0rpBi92jI&t=89s

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Our Best Advice: Relationships, Community & Marriage https://liveoriginal.com/our-best-advice-relationships-community-marriage/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=our-best-advice-relationships-community-marriage Thu, 02 Feb 2023 18:32:07 +0000 https://liveoriginal.com/?p=226875 As we recently shared the first Sisters and Friends episode of the year, I figured it was only fitting to share it with you here on the blog! My mom and I sat down to talk about all things relationships, community and marriage. Here’s how it went! I wanted to talk to mom about the… Read More »

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As we recently shared the first Sisters and Friends episode of the year, I figured it was only fitting to share it with you here on the blog! My mom and I sat down to talk about all things relationships, community and marriage. Here’s how it went!

I wanted to talk to mom about the things that she walked through and learned in her college years because I know many of you are college students navigating that season of life. But even if you’re not a college student, we unpack so much more in this episode to tune in for. 

First off, we dove into discussing mom’s relationship with my dad. They began dating at a young age and quickly decided they were going to get married. However, right before they took the next step, they broke up and soon after, mom went off to college. Mom went into college with a lot going on, such as the breakup, a new city, meeting new people, etc. So, I asked Mom to describe what that was like as she began a new journey with all those emotions. 

Mom mentioned how crazy it is that it’s been 32 years since she and my dad began dating. She was 17 years old at the time and they both instantly knew they were in it for the long haul. They’d been in youth group together and had basically grown up together since third or fourth grade. Because of this, marriage was talked about within the first couple months of their relationship. They decided to get married the following summer, and when they mentioned it to Mom’s parents, it was clear that they didn’t see it as the best idea. After all, Mom and Dad had no plan and no money. They were genuinely living on love. Plus, mom DID have a scholarship for college to Harding University, where her parents had gone. So, her parents had a point. Looking back, mom sees the wisdom in the things they were saying. But at the time it was really difficult. At the end of that summer, mom chose to go to college. Well, Dad had decided that if Mom went, they were going to break up. So, they did, and mom was devastated. She cried all the way to Harding and one of her friends came and stayed with her in her dorm for a few days to console her. 

I love that her friend came and stayed with her because in those moments it is so important to bring community in. And often those are the times that we push community out because we don’t want anyone to see us in a vulnerable state. Mom talked about how vital it was for her to have someone she could truly open up to during that time and help her through a season of major transition.

I asked Mom to talk about the process of her and Dad getting back together. She said that two weeks after the breakup, Dad called her dorm room and said he’d had a change of heart and that maybe long distance wouldn’t be so bad after all. He basically poured out his heart saying he wanted to get back together. Mom said it was a really great regrouping time for them as a couple for her to say “I love you, but there are things that need to change in our relationship.” She used that to encourage anyone who might be in a similar situation. She mentioned that it’s not always the answer to breakup. Sometimes it takes just sitting back and admitting there are some things that just need to be restructured. Well, Mom and Dad ended up getting back together, but Mom did let Dad sit in it for about an hour before she gave a final answer to him. 

The truth is, you need people like Mom’s friend who you can confide in, knowing that they love you and your partner equally and want what’s best for both of you. You need friends who will trust you enough to believe that your partner is a good person, and it might just be a bad moment.

A couple months ago, Christian and I were walking through a really difficult time. A lot had been going on and it was just chaotic. We needed to get back on track, so I suggested that we start taking communion in our house. Well, at the time, we’d been ignoring and not wanting to address many of the things we were walking through. So, our first communion in our house was when everything we had been feeling came out. It was certainly a hard conversation, but I find it beautiful that when we came to Jesus, truth came out. Although it wasn’t necessarily pretty, it’s what needed to happen. I love that because this scripture speaks to the situation so well:

“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his faultbetween you and him aloneIf he listens to youyou have gained your brother.” (Matthew 18:15)

Next, we dove into the topic of roommates. Mom’s freshman year of college, she had a roommate she’d never met before, which is extremely common. Many people either move into an apartment or college dorm with someone they’ve never met. Sometimes it clicks and it works, but sometimes it’s difficult. Eventually, mom became really close with her roommate, even though they were a lot different. She actually ended up being a bridesmaid in Mom’s wedding. I asked Mom to talk a bit about what that was like. She only had one semester with a roommate before she married my dad. But she said even that one semester helped her so much because when my brother Will went to college, he’d been planning to room with one of his friends for years. Initially, when he found out he was going to have a third roommate, he was not thrilled. But mom was able to share her experience with him encouraging him to have a positive mindset about the situation! Mom reminded us that in situations like these, you have to trust that through others, God is going to teach you something. Oftentimes, people try to get out of these situations before God has time to work in them. Mom encouraged everyone to give it a full year in college for God to do something, whether it be the roommate, the major, or whatever else you may be having difficulties with. And then if you still don’t think you’re where you need to be, make a move.

You have to give it time for your roots to grow. When I was little, I would take apple seeds and plant them outside my house. But I never marked where they were, so I could never properly water them. I think about how I was throwing seeds in all different places, and I gave none of them time to nurture and grow. I think a lot of us do that. We are unwilling to stay in one place and water that soil and see what beauty grows from it. Because we get frustrated by the process, we just go to the next place and plant new seeds. But you’ll never get the tree unless you stay and water that ground. There’s a process to growing where you’re at. There’s a process to community. There’s a process for most things. Mom talked about how difficult it was when my sister Rebecca moved here from Taiwan. Her first semester was incredibly difficult because she had broken English, wasn’t making friends easily, and was struggling to stay in contact with her family because of the time difference. If she’d been given the option after the first semester, she probably would’ve chosen to go home. But the second semester rolled around and she was thriving. She was making friends, going to prom, and having a great experience. Now, she’s been here for 16+ years and is married with two kids!

Back to the roommate situation, I wanted to mention that not everyone is going to be your best friend. This is something I’ve had to learn as I’ve gotten older. Some people might be a great friend. You can still laugh and have fun with them, and even cry with them. But they don’t necessarily have be your best friend. And then some people will be your best friend, and often when that happens, it just comes naturally. For instance, my friend Laney will always be one of my best friends, and it came naturally. All of this to say, you don’t have to put pressure on any of your friendships to be your very best one. You have to be content and confident in the relationship you do have with your friend. 

I wanted to circle back around to my mom and dad’s relationship. Once they got back together, they got married the following January. So, by Mom’s second semester in college, she and Dad were married and Dad was beginning his first semester in college. The following summer, they actually went to Hawaii with Mom’s parents as their honeymoon, since they didn’t have much money. Three months into marriage, they still didn’t have a set in stone plan, and they were still broke. I asked mom to give us a picture into what that season looked like, the silly arguments over money, and the types of meals they would eat on a budget. Mom mentioned just how tight their budget was. She and Dad worked at a call center for a while. The people who call and ask you for money — that was my parents. Eating out was not an option, except for the occasional Little Caesar’s pizza for cheap. Monday’s menu was hotdogs with hormel chili. Tuesday’s was fried frozen chicken. She remembered one time when she and Dad were in the grocery store, they had $5 left over from their grocery budget and Dad wanted to buy a pack of baseball cards and she wanted to buy a magazine. It turned into a full out fight over who would get to spend the extra money. 

Here’s another example. Some of Mom and Dad’s friends had loaned them a washer and dryer, so they wanted to do something nice in return. They took them to dinner at Shoney’s and it cost $40, which was way out of their budget. Mom said she still remembers the feeling of seeing the check and wondering how they were going to eat for the rest of the week. I love that she mentioned this story, because nowadays I feel like there’s so much pressure on young wives to have it all together. They’re expected to have all the snacks cut in the perfect shape and to be both healthy and perfect. Seeing how perfect other people’s meals can be through social media and other outlets will feel like you’re not doing your role well enough. But sometimes, there are seasons in life when ramen noodles and hotdogs will just have to do. For example, during this season of my life, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich is a great dinner. Cereal is just fine. Mom pointed out that looking back on the moments she shared, they’re such sweet and fun memories. Take note of all the ways you grow and the things you learn during those times in life.

One thing I love about my parents’ relationship when they were first married is that even though they were broke, they still had fun. It didn’t keep them from being hospitable. Many people think they can’t be fun or hospitable because they don’t have anything or they might not have the “coolest” house. Mom spoke into this topic well. She said the first time they had a couple over in their tiny apartment, she made spaghetti. However, she had no idea how many noodles to make to properly accommodate the amount of spaghetti sauce. So, needless to say, there were plenty of noodles left over. Dad began throwing spaghetti noodles at Mom, which turned into a full on food fight with their friends. There were noodles everywhere, even until they moved out of that apartment. They would have holiday parties at their house and everyone would bring something, which usually consisted of rotel cheese dip and hotdogs. The fact is, people don’t care what your house looks like. They care about being together. 

Mom reminded us that we have to be the one to invite people sometimes. So many times we sit around and get sad because people aren’t inviting us places, but it might just be that you need to invite people to do things. Christian and I found ourselves in the place when we first moved back to Louisiana. I was throwing myself a pity party because we weren’t getting invited to a Bible study our friends were having. But then I had an epiphany — Why don’t I start a Bible study. I could be the one to text and invite them over, and now we’re all great friends! Mom chimed in with some good advice. She said that if someone says no when you invite them, don’t take it personally. Invite somebody else! 

I wanted to mention that Mom was an Art Major in college. While here and there, she’ll use her artistic ability, for the most part she isn’t really using her degree. I think someone needs to hear that because often in college, you think, “this is it.” You think that if you make a wrong decision, you might miss the call of God on your life. I just want to remind you that you cannot miss it if you’re truly following the Lord. I love what 2mama posted recently. She said that if you’re doing whatever you’re doing for the glory of God, then you’re doing what He called you to do. Don’t put so much pressure on yourself now to think that whatever you decide now will determine the rest of your life. It might shape your life, but it won’t be the end all be all. God has your future and God has your now. 

I hope this is all encouraging to you! Here are some questions to think about as we wrap up:

Look at the people around you in your life. How can you steward those friendships well? 

How can you use what you have to have fun and to host well? 

How can you work towards growing in your relationship, even if that means restructuring things? 

Where are you that you actually need to water the ground where you’re standing? Seeds can easily be thrown in the ground, but you need to take some time to be intentional and see growth. 

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Called Out for Compromise https://liveoriginal.com/called-out-for-compromise/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=called-out-for-compromise https://liveoriginal.com/called-out-for-compromise/#comments Mon, 16 Jan 2023 18:06:41 +0000 https://liveoriginal.com/?p=38042

Anyone watch Love Is Blind? So good. And so bad. If you watch it, you know what I mean. I never watch shows like this one. The “F” word is thrown out so casually, and it’s very worldly, but it sucked me in.

As I was watching and couldn’t stop watching, I started feeling guilty. But here’s what happened with those guilty feelings. I would just silence my internal dialogue. But my silencing attempts were not stopping the guilty feelings. I had to think of something better to keep the “binge watch state of mind” alive, so I began telling myself all the good reasons for watching the show. You know, like, how this show is helping me learn about relationships… this show is giving me content… I need to know what’s going on out there, etc.

Around that time, I was listening to a sermon from Brooke Ligertwood. She said something that convicted me in a moment. I stopped the video, thought about it, rewound the video, listened again, and then stopped it again to write it in my notes.

Here’s what she said:

“Compromise is convincing yourself that it is okay to do the wrong thing if it is for the right reason.”

I have to be honest; I haven’t listened to a message in a while that made me feel “called out”. But this one did because it is something I do more often than I would like to admit. In fact, I have “justified” my actions at times like this for as long as I can remember and never felt convicted for it. I don’t remember ever being “called out” about it. Maybe I have not been “called out” for it, because from the outside looking in, I always had a good reason for my actions. Again, the justifications…it helps me understand people better…I can relate to people more…I could show people you can love Jesus and…

I have heard it said that when people train to identify counterfeit money, they begin with studying genuine money. They study the real thing, learning all its details and characteristics so well that they can easily spot when something is off. So, here’s what I am being convicted of today: We don’t learn more about Jesus from studying the world, we learn more about Jesus from studying the word. You might need to read that sentence again. Anytime your heart (or mine) tells your otherwise, that is most likely the voice of compromise.

More often than I like to admit, if you searched my heart, you would see conviction covered up with piles of comprising statements that I said so beautifully and convincingly that I began to believe them myself.

You see, the only way to “call yourself out” of compromises is to humble yourself and confess what your convictions are really saying. It takes an honest and willing heart to admit that you have been doing the wrong thing and disguising it for the right reasons. This is something a friend, a family member, not even your own mother can teach you; it is only the job of the Holy Spirit working within you and your willingness to listen.

In John 12:1-8, there is a story told about Mary who took a pound of expensive oil and poured it all out on the feet of Jesus. Judas was sitting nearby watching this go down and Judas says, “Why was this ointment not sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor?”

Judas was doing just what I’m talking about. He was doing the wrong thing but disguising it for the right reason. But Judas literally had Jesus in the room with him to call him out. The bible says in the next verse, “Judas said this not because he cared about the poor, but because he was a thief, and having charge of the moneybag, he used to help himself to what he put in.”

It is important that you call yourself out for the compromises in your life because your compromises don’t just affect you. You are likely leading others to believe in your compromise because you have learned to eloquently disguise it with a spiritual message, just as Judas tried to do. Judas was hiding his “compromise” by giving it a spiritual twist, but Jesus was not fooled. Sounding spiritual never has made the wrong thing right.

Other topics of compromise found in the church and in my own life look like –

· Setting or not setting boundaries before marriage.

· How much you can drink and why you drink.

· What you listen to and watch.

· Words that you say, and things disguised as a joke.

Think about what you might be leading others around you in or to. Are you leading out of a place of compromise in your own heart or are you leading out of a place of conviction about God’s heart? The fruit of your life will tell the story. Leading with conviction starts first with living an honest life with yourself, then you can lead others with conviction based on God’s word, not the words of the world.

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WTG: Our Best Couples Advice https://liveoriginal.com/wtg-our-best-couples-advice/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=wtg-our-best-couples-advice Thu, 15 Dec 2022 19:18:27 +0000 https://liveoriginal.com/?p=37955

What’s up, friend! I’m so excited to share this Sisters + Friends episode with you! This one features some of mine and Christian’s best friends, Freddie and Parker Amos. I’m sure you already know Freddie, as she’s been on the podcast and is our counselor at Live Original. But her husband Parker joins us in this conversation as well and it is so great! 

We talked all things relationships, marriage, friendship and more. Christian and I kicked off the conversation by addressing a little tiff we had earlier that morning. Long story short, it led me to my first piece of marriage advice: Do not start on the defense. Remember you are on the same team working toward the same goal.

I then asked if Freddie or Parker had any relationship advice to give from any of there communication flops. Freddie answered by saying it varies for her and Parker. She said that for her, she has to assume that Parker is going to respond while having her best interest at heart rather than assume the worst in her. She also has to remember that it’s not just about her when they’re trying to resolve something. It’s about their marriage and also what will be best for Parker rather than assuming she knows what’s best. 

It truly is so easy to assume what is best instead of bringing it up. It’s also true that we often do wait to address an issue and I have found that the longer you wait, the more the problem multiplies. This could all be resolved by taking time to address the problem even though it might not be fun. 

We then began to tell the story of how we all met and became friends. Christian and Parker were kind of the OG’s. Without their friendship, Freddie and Parker wouldn’t even live in Louisiana. Parker said the first time he remembers meeting Christian, they were in high school. Parker lived in Auburn at the time and Christian was still living in Florida. They met at a rush event for a fraternity that they were both considering rushing at the time. He knew Christian as the “cool surfer dude from Florida.” This was so funny to me because when I met Christian, I thought he looked like a hot lifeguard haha. 

Christian chimed in and said it took a few months for Parker and him to become good friends because he was still in his crazy phase and Parker was not. But they ultimately became friends through church. They developed such a deep friendship, and I always say that Christian and I probably wouldn’t have started dating without Parker. I asked Christian to take us back to the conversations he had with Parker leading up to when he began pursuing me. 

This is a great example because often when people start pursuing someone, they keep quiet about it or it’s not actually much of a pursuit at all. It gets isolating and bad. But Christian had his friends as a part of mine and his relationship before we were even in one. 

Christian mentioned that he typically is an indecisive person. So he needed people in his life to speak into this relationship. He and Parker talked through what mine and Christian’s relationship would look like, how Christian would lead, etc. Parker gave Christian plenty of dating advice during this time, and eventually, it became Parker’s turn. He began dating Freddie!

Parker began sharing about the beginning of his and Freddie’s relationship and what that looked like. They met during their freshman year of college at an event called the Oaks Retreat at Auburn. Parker said that when they met, he remembered her by her unique name and her super cool lifted jeep. He quickly found out she had a boyfriend, so he kept his distance. But eventually, when they broke up, she became pretty vocal about the interest she had in Parker. Everyone was so excited when Freddie and Parker started dating. It’s important to note though, that once Freddie broke up with her ex boyfriend, she and Parker didn’t immediately start dating. They took some time and space before jumping into another relationship. It’s also important to be intentional about not bringing baggage from past relationships into a relationship with the person you’re going to marry. Not that some of that won’t come in somehow or need to be addressed, but it is important to still take that time and space before jumping into a new relationship. What I saw with myself is that I kept repeating the same cycles in my relationships. The reason I didn’t fall into the same situation with Christian is because, for one, he led better than anyone else I’d dated. And also, the Lord had truly prepped my heart after my last breakup by reminding me to just slow down. 

Freddie went on to share how cool it was that when she met Parker, her heart desired both Parker and time to herself. The Lord was so kind to grant her both. He allotted her the time she needed outside of a relationship, and at the right time, began her relationship with Parker. Parker mentioned how in college, everyone is seemingly trying to find the right person instead of being the right person. If we would just focus on being the right person God’s called us to be instead of looking for that person first, it would all work out much better. He sees their story as a great example of God displaying this concept. 

I would say this to people as a practical piece of advice: Listen to the sermons and podcasts on dating. Read the books on dating. Do all the things. I did this before I met Christian, and it truly got my heart posture right. I think it’s great to prep for the relationship way before you ever get into the relationship. I believe this shows God that while you are surrendered to His plan for your life, you’re also preparing for what He has for you. 

Another topic I wanted to address was community. We’ve talked about community in dating, singleness, and other seasons, but I wanted to talk about community in marriage. Often, when people get married, they begin to isolate themselves, which is a very dangerous place to be because you definitely need couple friends in that season. I remember at Freddie and Parker’s rehearsal dinner, the amount of friends who stood up and spoke so much life over them and blessed them was such a beautiful thing. Many of those same friends are still walking through life with them. For Christian and me too, all the people who spoke life over us and encouraged us are still walking through life with us. It’s so important to hang on to those relationships. 

So, I asked Freddie and Parker what it looks like for them to be in community in marriage. Parker talked about how they both prioritize each other having individual friendships too. For example, Parker having a friend like Christian to encourage him and hold him accountable will allow Parker to be a better husband for Freddie. When he is in community, he is healthy as a husband. He mentioned the importance of prioritizing this, because isolation leads you to believe that you are the only one walking through a situation. Community will help you pick up on the things that might seem a little off in your relationships. They’ll call you out and hold you accountable, even when you aren’t willing to be honest about what’s going on in your life. 

Also, when you’re dating someone, you don’t want to say anything negative about that person and lead your friends to think poorly of them. Even though you might love your person, we’ve gotta be real … your friends can turn on a dime, am I right? They can think your person is the best one minute and the worst the next. So, when you’re married, it’s important that you don’t throw your spouse under the bus or talk bad about them. But instead, bring your friends in to speak life into your relationship. At that point in your life, you should have friends that trust and love both you and your person enough, to where if you say one thing, they won’t automatically think of you as a bad person who talks negatively about their person. They’ll actually be more concerned about how to fix the problem at hand in the best way. 

Christian then reiterated the idea that you can be in community, but not actually be open and transparent. For example, that same morning, Christian and I had a little argument, and we told Freddie and Parker about it. As it turned out, they had actually had an argument of their own that morning too. They could’ve kept it to themselves when we were sharing about ours, but they didn’t. They let us in to what they were walking through. And that is what true community should look like. Your struggles actually help each other. 

Christian and I used to get really bummed about not having community with other couples. In fact, we would get our feelings hurt when we weren’t invited to other people’s small groups. For those looking for community and feeling like they just can’t find the right group, I would encourage you to start your own! Christian and I recently started a Wednesday night Bible study at our house that has been so fruitful. Sometimes we have to look at the things we’re complaining about and think, “Actually, can I fix that problem?” This was certainly a situation that Christian and I could fix.

Next, I addressed a big topic in relationships: comparison. This is so important to talk about because it is so prevalent. The minute you get discontent with who you’re with because you compare them to another person, it will mess up your entire relationship. There have even been times in mine and Christian’s relationship when this topic surfaced. When we had Honey, I remember saying things like, “Oh, other people’s husbands are so helpful.” Looking back, I was comparing Christian, in a sense, to how helpful other husbands were, even though I would never want to be married to any of those people. I love Christian and I’m so attracted to him. Even more than just that, I love everything that he is and how he serves our family. But because I compared him to someone else’s husband based on one thing, all of a sudden I started getting mad at him for little things that he wasn’t doing. I’ve just seen the potential for this topic in our marriage to be such a destructive thing. It wasn’t that I was comparing him in a physical appearance, but I was comparing him in terms of helpfulness. Typically, when we think of comparison in relationships, we think of females comparing themselves to others. And while that does lead to discontentment in who we are, we don’t think about comparison affecting an entire relationship, especially in a marriage. 

Freddie chimed in by mentioning how important it is to avoid comparison in relationships. Instead of allowing ourselves to make excuses, we should remind ourselves, “Actually, my relationship is so important to me and I’m going to prevent myself from letting my eyes wander.” Like Freddie said, things don’t change when you’re even in a serious relationship with the person you do love. You still have to protect yourself in the same ways. 

Christian and I had just been listening to Ben Stuart’s message on David and Bathsheba, which I highly recommend if you’ve never heard it before. One thing Ben talks about is the fact that God gave us curiosity. But he reminded us to make sure we’re using our curiosity in healthy and beautiful ways because it leads to innovation. He said that if we are lazy with our curiosity, it can lead to sin. 

When Christian and I are watching a show and it looks like things might be about to get inappropriate, Christian gets on his phone and won’t watch whatever is happening on the screen. I appreciate this so much because it shows that Christian isn’t concerned with being curious about the screen. But instead, he only has eyes for me. I think many people believe that we don’t have control in an instance like that. And we do, but we have to fight for it. 

At Christian and Parker’s Bible study in Auburn, week after week, guys would talk about how they were trying to quit porn. One week, they finally put their foot down and asked the question, “Are we actually going to quit?” So, I asked the guys what that looks like for a man who admits he struggles with porn to actually take hold of something like that? Christian said that a lot of it starts by finding the common denominator. For someone, it could be late at night before bed, making the effort to not be on their phone. For someone else, it might be not taking their phone when they go to the bathroom. Covenant eyes is also a good idea. It’s a locked down browser that only allows you to search certain things. You have to be aware of which situations you struggle with the most. You have to go much further than just “Yes, I struggle with it.” You have to ask yourself, “Why am I struggling with it?” and “What situations do I let myself go there?” 

Parker made the point that your fight with lust does not end once you get married. If anything, it increases, because the enemy wants your eyes to be anywhere except your spouse, especially when you’re having conflict and things get hard. He said that with any sin, you have to ask yourself, “Is this better or is Jesus better?” It’s definitely a fight, but that’s why it’s vital to have people who can hold you accountable. 

Everyone talks about how everything changes when you get married, but we wanted to talk about some of the things that don’t change. When I was pregnant with Honey, everyone told me that my whole life was about to change. Well, there were actually a lot of things in mine and Christian’s lives that didn’t change once we had Honey. We’re still who we were before. We still have friends over. We still travel. So, that’s not necessarily always true that everything changes when you get married or have a baby. A lot changes, but not everything. I think some people have this idea that all their problems will change when they get married. Freddie mentioned that getting engaged, married, or having a baby will not solve your problems. Those things will actually challenge you a lot in your relationship. 

I asked Freddie and Parker to mention some things they thought might change when they got married, but that have actually stayed the same. Freddie began sharing about struggles, whether it be sin or body issues. Marriage does not come in and make all those things better. It actually makes them harder, because it’s no longer secret to you. Parker sees those struggles all the time. But you have the option to either stay in your sin, or change something. 

This led us to talk a bit more about the struggle of comparison. When my parents first got married, my dad used to get really jealous for my mom if other guys would look at her. A lot of people might have thought that he wouldn’t be jealous anymore once she had a ring on her finger. But when you have a deep lie inside of you, a ring doesn’t just change that. It changes when you decide to let the Lord heal that in your own heart. If you think anything other than God is going to heal a sin in your life, it’s not going to happen. Only God can take a sin and redeem you. 

Parker said that when he got married to Freddie, he didn’t think he’d have time to do all the fun things he loves. But he still gets to hunt, fish, have time for music and all the things. It’s even better now because he gets to share all those things with Freddie. He said it’s important to find someone who’s going to encourage you in the things you love, as that’s what Freddie does for him. 

Marriage is a serious thing. It takes intentionality and God being at the center of it. Then you will be able to be the best version of yourself for your spouse. It’s such a beautiful and fun thing, doing life with your best friend. For a culture that doesn’t value marriage, it’s very sad to see. Marriage is one of the greatest gifts that God has given us, as well as having children. A lot of people think that when you have kids, your life is over. But in some ways I think that our life began once we had Honey. And in so many ways it made Christian and me who we are. 

These things that God designed and gave us in life, like marriage and family, are such beautiful things and the enemy will 100% be after your heart in them. But if you just follow the Lord’s leading on those things and are intentional about following His voice, you will find so much fruit in it all. At the same time, if you’re single and just don’t desire that yet, rest in the place God has you. God has you there for a reason. Singleness is a beautiful thing too. Paul actually said it’s better that you stay single. There’s beauty in all things that God creates. Being able to be content where you’re at brings so much fruit and blessing.

If you want to hear our full conversation, be sure to listen HERE!

The post WTG: Our Best Couples Advice first appeared on Live Original.

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Keeping the Fire Lit https://liveoriginal.com/keeping-the-fire-lit/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=keeping-the-fire-lit https://liveoriginal.com/keeping-the-fire-lit/#comments Thu, 18 Aug 2022 17:18:06 +0000 https://liveoriginal.com/?p=34702 Advice we can all learn from

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I absolutely love one of the stories found in Matthew 25. It’s about the ten virgins and it’s always captivated me because when I was younger and read “the ten virgins” in this story, I was always a bit confused. But I began to replace “virgins” with “bridesmaids” to make it a bit easier to understand. And if you study the culture of Jewish weddings, it’s really interesting that the way they did weddings is so different than how we do them. And I honestly thank God because their way of doing things would be stressful. Weddings are already stressful enough. But let me explain how they did them. There were three different stages of a wedding process. So, you get engaged, then there was a commitment process, and I’m not too sure of all its details. Then, before you actually get married, the bridegroom (AKA the future husband) would go away to get the home and basically their whole life together ready for them. Well, in the meantime, the bride didn’t know when the bridegroom would return, meaning she didn’t know when the wedding day was going to be. So, every day she would have to prepare as if that were the day she’d be getting married. That is some major stress, am I right? Not only would the bride have to be prepared, but also her bridesmaids. We all know being in a wedding takes a lot of work, right? Which makes this even crazier! The bridesmaids would have to light their lamps because oftentimes the bridegroom would come at night and needed the way lit for himself. So, the bridesmaids’ job was very important. 

I love how Jesus relates this story to what it’s going to look like when He returns. 

“At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take along any extra oil. But the wise ones took oil in flasks along with their lamps. When the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and fell asleep.

At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here is the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’

Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’

‘No,’ said the wise ones, ‘or there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’

But while they were on their way to buy it, the bridegroom arrived. Those who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet, and the door was shut.

Later the other virgins arrived and said, ‘Lord, lord, open the door for us!’

But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I do not know you.’

Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.” Matthew 25:1

That’s a pretty intense scripture. It’s basically just reminding us to be prepared for the returning of Christ. For we don’t know the day or the hour. 

Well, recently we were kind of talking about this in our office because I needed to delete social media for a couple weeks in order to step away for a second. And I was feeling a bit convicted by stepping away because I always tell people not to hide their light. I encourage them to use social media to shine their light, actually. So, I was a bit hesitant to delete it, even though my soul was desperate for a break and to just be with the Lord. Then I was talking to my team about it and realized that you need oil to light the lamp. And if I don’t have oil, my lamp is not going to be very bright. It was in that moment that I decided to make the decision to take a break. So, I wanted to use this space to talk about what it looks like to get your oil and have a light that sustains. In verse 2 of the passage above, it says that 5 of them were foolish and 5 were wise. My guess is that for most of us, when we think about foolish people, we think about people who are living their lives recklessly and foolishly. We don’t necessarily think about ourselves. But for these women, it wasn’t as obvious that some were foolish. They’re all friends with the bride and they obviously have somewhat of a respectable reputation that they would be asked to be a part of the bride’s day. So, what made them foolish?

Here are a few things they were: 

  1. They weren’t prepared. 
  2. They were lazy.
  3. They weren’t involved.
  4. They were complacent.

When you think of foolishness like this, it’s honestly pretty relatable. Sometimes I’m all of these things. Well, then there were 5 wise people. 

Here’s a few things they were:

  1. They were wise.
  2. They were prepared. 
  3. They were thoughtful.

All of these things are truly a requirement in order to have light. Recently, I was in my jeep and my low oil signal was on. Well, I ignored it and after a few days it changed to “oil required.” Something had shifted. The reason I hadn’t gone to get oil was because it would have required me to go and sit for a minute, and I just didn’t have time for that. It’s little things like that that don’t really seem like a requirement that actually end up being really detrimental later. A lot of times we can put them off, and all of a sudden, you really see how crucial it was to sit and receive what you needed. Wow, that’s such a word for just sitting with the Lord. It’s easy to get so busy and neglect time with Him until all of a sudden we have nothing left to give. If you’re seeing the low oil sign, go ahead and address the problem. 

When the foolish people took their lamps, they didn’t have any oil, so it actually meant nothing. I think a lot of times you can bring your lamp places and think you can get by just because it looks like you have a lamp with you. But in all reality, your lamp alone won’t do anything for anybody. It’s your oil that’s going to change people’s lives. We have to make sure we have what makes our lamps have meaning and purpose. And that is the Spirit of God. The religion side of it may be the lamp, but the relationship side of it is definitely the oil. 

On the other hand, the wise didn’t just have enough. They had extra oil in their flask. At first, my mind thought, “Well then give them the extra oil!” But it’s really important to realize that somebody else’s oil cannot light your lamp. Their light can lead you, but it can’t light your lamp. Only the light of Jesus can. So, yes. Surround yourself with great people who are preaching Truth. But remember that getting oil for yourself isn’t something anyone else can do for you. So, even though they had extra oil, it couldn’t help any of the others out because the oil was an individual decision. 

When my oil light came on in my car, it was a true reflection of my spiritual life at the time. When I saw that light I could feel my spirit saying “low oil, need maintenance.” So, for two weeks I just paused for a second and sat with the Lord. And even though my life was still really busy for those two weeks, it just rejuvenated me in a new way because I knew the maintenance was needed. Most of the time, you’re the only one who can truly see the signals in your life and know the shift you need to make. It’s your decision to get the oil you need. 

When I returned to social media, it was cool to see the words the Lord had given me during that break that I was able to share with other people. My oil refill meant giving up social media, but it can be any area of your life. You know where the maintenance is required. And it’s always worth it. You know what’s awesome? I got the oil changed in my car, and I felt peace again. I took my social media break to spend time with the Lord, and when I came back to social media I felt peace. The minute that you actually respond to the problem, you begin to feel peace. God can fix those things. The problems don’t always go away. Sometimes it can take months, years, or however long. But you’ve got to respond for it to ever be fixed. 

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Tackling the DMs https://liveoriginal.com/tackling-the-dms/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=tackling-the-dms Tue, 19 Jul 2022 19:51:34 +0000 https://liveoriginal.com/?p=32090 Advice we can all learn from

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What’s up, fam! I’m so excited to share this Whoa That’s Good episode with you featuring my favorite person! Christian and I got to sit down to answer your DMs a couple weeks ago and I just HAD to share it on the blog! Here are a few of our best pieces of advice for some of the questions that you guys asked. Let’s dive in!

  1. “My boyfriend and I have been dating for several years. We’ve done devotionals together and several Bible studies, but he’s decided he no longer wants to do those things. We still go to church together. How do I navigate this situation without seeming controlling since I want to go deeper with my relationship with Christ?”

Christian kicked off his response by reminding us that anyone can pretend to be someone for the first six months. Whether it’s going to church or actually a personality thing, once you filter through that and reach an extended period of time, it’s possible that a person’s true colors will show and reveal that they might have been faking it all along. A lot of people say, “He was so great at the beginning. If we could just get back to that point we’d be good.” Unfortunately, who he acts like now is probably who he really is and he was just faking who he wanted to present himself as in the beginning. This could also be the same circumstances with a girlfriend instead of a boyfriend.

The truth is, anyone can go to church. It doesn’t necessarily mean they’re a Christian. I think in a relationship, you want Christ to be your 24/7. I want Christ to be that in my relationship with Christian. Jesus shouldn’t just be something you bond over on Sundays. He should be a point of conversation in our everyday because He is the number one person in both of our lives. That’s when your relationship is truly centered on God, and not just an afterthought.

  1. “What is the best advice you could give for a newly engaged couple?”

I think the best advice, especially in the engagement season, is just to know that you are not preparing just for a wedding – you’re preparing for a marriage. I’m so glad Christian and I received that advice and lived that way throughout our engagement season. It allowed me to not really stress about the details of the wedding because that wasn’t where I was placing value during that season. Value was placed on what our marriage would be like. This was shown through marriage counseling and asking all the questions of “how were you raised?”, “what are our expectations?”, etc.

So, I put so much of my thought process into preparing for our actual marriage and not just a wedding. Does that mean that everything went perfectly on our wedding day? HA, no. My hair literally turned pink the day before. But it was still awesome! And we felt so ready for marriage because we used our engagement season to prepare. Your wedding is one day, but you’re married for the rest of your life.

  1. “Is it okay to spend time with the opposite gender when you’re in a relationship?”

So, for instance, would it be acceptable for Christian to spend time alone with another woman if he and I were dating? Christian and I have always had a boundary of never spending time alone with the opposite gender, even to this day. Or if someone of the opposite gender DMs me, I’ll likely bring it up to Christian in casual conversation. Of course, not necessarily if it’s a super close friend or something of that sort. You know, you look at people and think, “They’ll never cheat.” And that’s not always the case. It’s not that people necessarily set out with the intention to hurt the other person, but one thing can lead to another. So, we set pretty strict boundaries because we don’t want the door to ever be open to that.

I heard somewhere that Billy Graham wouldn’t even get on an elevator if there was just a woman on it. Strict boundaries can be set without being crazy and controlling or jealous and envious. I was in a relationship previously where we didn’t trust each other at all. But with Christian, I fully trust him and he fully trusts me. It’s not that we think we would do anything. We just don’t want to put ourselves in a position where we would have to make a tough decision or make a moment awkward that doesn’t have to be. There’s so much room for the enemy to feed when you’re alone with the opposite gender, especially when you’re in a relationship.

  1. “What would you tell your younger self who felt like they were never going to find the right one for them?”

I would tell my younger self to chill. I was so obsessed with who was going to be my future husband, which is fun to think about. But thinking about it from the context of if God has created someone to be my husband, he will come at the perfect timing. And Christian did. But I wish I had enjoyed my seasons beforehand more than I did. I wish I’d focused more on where I was at in the moment rather than everything that would come. Christian chimed in by mentioning that he was a big rom-com fan growing up. So, he always pictured his story would play out a certain way and never really stressed too much about it. He said we really are living out the rom-com he always pictured!

  1. “How do you respectfully co-exist with people in your life who believe differently with you?”

I had to get out my phone for this one because I was rereading my journal I started last year on my birthday and finished on my birthday this year. It’s basically a compilation of things that I experienced, prayed for, etc. Last year I wrote this in my journal and I thought this was really reflective of many of my prayers last year. This is what it said:

“I feel like I’m sitting about watching the world lose their mind. The hard thing is knowing how can I help. Proverbs 14:12 is so present in our generation right now. ‘There is a way that seems right to a man but in the end, it leads to death.’ The seriousness of this makes me want to speak out, but I know the culture will cancel me the minute that I do. It’s hard to navigate.”

I watched this video of this girl from North Korea who said that she knew speaking the truth was a risk, but not speaking it was even worse. So, then I went on to say, “If I don’t speak the truth, who am I really helping? If I do, am I causing too much harm that limits me helping. God, I’m genuinely asking. It feels like a wrestle, and I don’t know if I’m just comforting myself in my excuses or using wisdom. God, I know Jesus reclined with the sinners and how did He speak truth and yet keep the sinners at the table?”

I wrote that and I remember praying that prayer so much last year. This prayer of “I want to help, but if this helping is hurting then I won’t help.” Then I remembered that Jesus was fully love and fully truth. And I just asked “How it was possible to sit at the table with people who think so differently than me and they stay at the table because they know that I love them and genuinely care about them?” Then I thought about it. Jesus spoke truth into people’s lives while also loving them well, and not everyone DID stay at the table. Not everyone did believe He was the Son of God or even liked Him. So, the risk of standing on the Word of God is that some people will think you’re crazy and that’s just a part of it. He even said that if the world hates us, just remember that it hated Him first.

But just to answer this question in one sentence, be as much like Jesus as you possibly can be. That doesn’t mean shy away from the truth. Jesus is the truth. But while Jesus was fully truth, He was fully love. So, show people love, truth, and grace all at the same time. I think when you come in to a situation and you’re there to love instead of judge, it creates space for co-existing. It’s okay to co-exist without conforming to the pattern of the world. You can stand on the Word of God fully and still love people well.

  1. “How do I start my own ministry?”

My best advice is that if you want to do ministry, then do ministry where you’re at. Ministry is loving God and people well. If you can’t do that in your community with your people, I hate to say it, but you’ll never be able to do that on a huge platform. Having a platform and doing ministry is a huge blessing to reach so many people, but it is not for the faint of heart. It is definitely hard and there are so many aspects of it that you don’t see. That’s why I would say to not just wish for a platform to do ministry. Do ministry well where you’re at. Essentially, we should all be doing ministry. If you are a believer, you should consider yourself a minister of the Gospel because that’s what we’re called to do. God’s not going to ask you to do something that’s outside of your capability or ability to do. If He’s calling you to ministry, then He’s already equipped you to do that ministry. Look in your hands and see what you have. How can you serve in your church? How can you serve in your community?

I think so many of us want to have our own ministry and one of the reasons I decided to give Live Original the name it has is because I didn’t want it to be about Sadie. I wanted it to be bigger than me and I’m thankful to say that I’m trying to build something that will really outlive me. So, my prayer is that when I die, this message will still be going and people won’t be talking about Sadie, they’ll be talking about the message of the Gospel. I think when you’re trying to build a platform, you try to build it for yourself. But when you build the Kingdom, it’s actually not about you, it’s about the world around you. Ask yourself how he has called and equipped you. Christian reminded us to start with our family, friends, and the people we work with. It all starts with having conversations about faith and asking people how they’re really doing.

  1. “How do you balance dressing cute and staying modest?”

We’re certainly in a culture right now where it’s the norm to show more skin. I remember in high school it seemed like the guys only noticed the girls who showed more. And I would think, “No guy will ever notice me if I cover up all the time.” But the right guy and right people will actually treasure you for the modesty that you have. Christian’s actually probably stricter than I am with what I wear because he has so much respect for me. And I’m truly so appreciative of that. I think modesty ultimately boils down to respect for yourself and for other people.

Personally, when I workout, I can usually wear whatever I want, since I go to an all-girls gym. But if I go to a different gym, I’m cautious about what I wear because I want to respect the guys around me and I want to respect myself. God made you beautifully and wonderfully and gave you a body to steward well. You were made more than enough. So, you don’t have to go flaunt your body to be more than enough.

  1. “How do you get over a person who made you believe they liked you, then they ghosted you? Would it be wise to wait on them or move on?”

Christian said it plain and simple: “Move on girl.”

But really though, it goes back to respect. You’re worth more than someone just ghosting you. They better have a pretty dang good reason when they get back from their little ghosthood. Christian said that most “ghostings” he’s seen have just been manipulation. It’s different if there’s a logical reason for it, such as someone’s phone breaking. But Christian said he feels like a lot of time it’s linked with manipulation and a need to keep you on the hook type of thing.

I mean, let’s be honest. If we’re actually trying to figure out who the one is for us, what’s the point in playing games? Just respect yourself enough to not wait around for this guy or girl to come back around every so many months. I remember when a friend of mine walked through this. A certain guy would text her every three weeks or so, and she would just hang on to that. She’d talk about it and read into it so much. One time when he ghosted her, we looked at Instagram and saw that he was ENGAGED. Like what?! She was so crushed because she was always hanging on to that next text. You don’t want to get in a position where someone is just stringing you along as if you’re a plan b. Someone will come along and treasure you so much that they’ll respond in a timely manner because they care about you. Christian did such a great job of that when he pursued me. There was never the question of whether or not I’d hear from him. Wait for that person, sis!

Wow, these were all great questions! I hope that these questions don’t just stay between me, you, and Christian. I hope they extend to conversations with your family, friends, significant other, or whoever it may be for you. Just to throw this out there, if something we said doesn’t align with what you believe is true, throw it out the window. But if it aligns with the Word of God, I hope that you know you can apply some of this truth to your life. Have the BEST day, friend!

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Our Best Relationship Advice https://liveoriginal.com/our-best-relationship-advice/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=our-best-relationship-advice Thu, 07 Apr 2022 17:55:34 +0000 https://liveoriginal.com/?p=28257 Advice we can all learn from

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Today’s a GOOD day on the blog, because I get to share a WTG episode I recorded with one of my favorite people – my husband! Christian and I get to answer some questions about relationships, faith, life, and all the things. I’m so excited to share this one with you! Let’s dive in to the DM’s!

Question 1: What were some things you did intentionally while you were waiting for each other?

There are tons of people out there waiting for their person and wondering what to do in the process. So, I thought Christian would be the perfect person to answer this one since he has great advice on the topic. Christian said prayer and building a community of guys around him were the two key elements in his season of waiting. In the season before he and I started dating, he was very intentional about spending alone time with God, and having bible study groups and prayer nights. He truly believes that time in his life prepared him for our relationship.

This same idea applies to girls as well. Find good Godly community with other girls who are seeking the same purpose! During that season in Christian’s life, he wasn’t just preparing himself for our relationship. He was becoming the man he wanted to be. He was focusing on the Lord and himself which is so important. You have to have a moment in your life when you’re focusing on who God is and who you are so that when you go into a relationship, you’re a whole person.

I love what I heard said once. They said that whenever two people become one, it’s not fifty-fifty. It’s two becoming one. And so many only have fifty percent to give because they were focusing on other things the whole time and never took the time to know yourself. But whenever both people truly know themselves and are rooted in who God is, two people becoming one make such a strong one.

Question 2: What would you tell your younger self who felt like they would never find the right person for them?

I think I would tell my younger self to just rest and wait. You don’t have to try to figure out who your person is. It’s just going to happen. When you say you have to “find love,” you’re putting a lot of pressure on yourself because if you have to find something, then you have to go searching for it. If I’d tried to “find” Christian, I genuinely don’t know if I would’ve found him because I wouldn’t have been looking where he was. I never would’ve thought my husband would be in Seaside, FL, the day I happened to be there on vacation with my friends. I’m so grateful we found each other, but the fact is that we didn’t have to search.

You just have to show up each day with a willing spirit, present yourself in such a way that you’re ready to meet your person, and be in relationship with someone. And when you show up each day like that, you’re positioning yourself in the place to be able to meet your person. I think God makes that intentionally happen. So, I don’t think we have to find our person. I believe God connects your steps to each other.

Question 3: What have you been learning from God recently?

Christian said a lot of times when he thinks about God, he thinks “Father,” “Redeemer,” all these amazing qualities of God. But it recently hit him that God is his Creator. When he prays, it’s to the One who physically created him. All his attributes were created by God. I remember looking out at the ocean on Christian’s and my honeymoon and thinking, “Wow. The God who created the ocean created me.”

And the crazy thing is that when God made the ocean, the stars, and moon, He said it was good. When we look at those things, we think they’re amazing. And then He made us, He said it was good. But when He made man and woman come together, He said it was very good. That is so humbling to think about. And when you look at God as the One who created you, you begin to feel much more confident and loved. It also pushes you to want to further that relationship.

Question 4: Does God speak to you in dreams?

My answer is yes. I would love to share one of these instances with you! Before I tell this story, I want to say that if you’ve never had a dream from the Lord before, that is not a bad thing. That does not mean God’s withholding something from you. There are incredibly spiritual people who have never felt like they had a dream from the Lord. I will say, though, it is something to pray for. I used to hear about this girl who had God dreams and I wanted them so badly. So, I started praying for them and they started happening. It’s not like I have one every night. I probably have one once every three years. The way I can tell that it’s a God dream is when there is a moment in the dream when I feel the Lord speak.

Years ago, my team and I really wanted to go to a conference. At this point, we were hosting tours and gatherings, and decided we wanted to get poured into. Well, we saw the Global Leadership Conference was being hosted in London. So, we bought our tickets as regular attendees. A couple months before we bought our tickets, I had a dream that I was in a green room, which is the room the speakers gather in before an event. In the dream, I was looking at a map of places in the world where revival had broken out in. These places were colored in. Then, Pastor Michael Todd, who I’d never met at that time, walked in the room and looked at the map and said, “This is a divine holy moment.” Right after that, we started singing the song “Set a Fire” and all got down on our knees because the presence of God felt so heavy. I woke up and wrote down the dream.

Months later, the people from the Global Leadership Conference see my name in the sign-up list and reached out asking me to do a Q&A. This was all in March. So, I get on this call with these pastors from London and Nicky and Pippa Gumbel start speaking to me. They said, “I don’t know if you know it but this is our GLOBAL Leadership Conference. So, we’ll have leaders from all over the world representing.” Then Pippa said, “That Monday night of the conference, you’ll be speaking, along with Pastor Mike Todd.” As soon as she said that, I knew it sounded familiar. Like I had lived it before. I went back to November in my book with my dreams, and read out loud to them what it said. They had chills.

Fast forward to May. We’re in the green room and they bring in a map and say, “If this is the dream you had, we’re going to pray into it.” So, we prayed over this dream that revival would happen all around the world. After Pastor Mike and I had preached, Nicky asked me to come back up and pray for an anointing on my generation like never before. The presence of God was so thick in the room and all of a sudden, Mike Todd starts singing “Set a Fire” and everyone is on their knees praising God. This was definitely one of the craziest experiences of my life, and it was undeniably because of the Lord. But when you look at the God of the Bible, God spoke in dreams all the time. So, why wouldn’t He speak to us in dreams?

Isaiah 26:9 says, “My soul yearns for you in the night; in the morning my spirit longs for you. When your judgments come upon the earth, the people of the world learn righteousness.”

It’s basically this prayer of longing to see God. Before I go to bed at night, I tell God that my spirit longs to see Him that night. I encourage you to keep a prayer journal by your bed and always write things down if you feel the Lord speaking, whether it be in a dream or any other time.

However, not every dream means something. Both Christian and I have crazy dreams that don’t necessarily mean anything. For instance, you might dream about your biggest fear, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to come true. I dream about losing Christian, but that doesn’t mean I actually will. I have to remind myself not to panic. I don’t think God speaks in fear. We need to have the wisdom to discern what is significant and what’s not.

Question 5: If I want to break a bad habit, where do I start and how do I do that practically?

I used to have the bad habit of being sensitive. My mom used to call me “Sensitive Sally” because it was so extreme. This habit drove me crazy. If someone looked at me wrong or said the wrong thing to me, I would be convinced that they didn’t like me. And I would get so upset about it. I feel like I grew out of that by making the conscious decision to grow thicker skin. Thank God I broke that habit because if I heard all the opinions I get from people now and was still as sensitive as I used to be, it would be terrible.

Let me say this to the person who is sensitive or anxious, you actually can control you. At the end of the day, you are the only person who can choose to change you. So, if there’s something about you that bothers you, fix it. Don’t stay in it. Ask God to help you in doing so.

As far as sinful habits go, Christian had a great take on handling them. He said that at some point, you have to lean into your conviction. And if you’re truly a follower of Christ, you should have conviction.

Hebrews 10:26 says, “If we deliberately keep on sinning after we have received the knowledge of the truth, no sacrifice for sins is left.”

Christian went on to say that though we still struggle with things and battle sin, there’s a difference between habitually sinning and turning from sin. However, if we do sin, we have one as an advocate for us.

“My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.” (1 John 2:1)

I asked Christian to address one of the biggest struggles in our generation: pornography. I know his friend group had an incredible breakthrough from this and I wanted him to share. He started by talking about his friend group in college. Week after week, we would ask for prayer over our struggle with pornography and lust. Finally, after a few months, we all asked, “What are we actually going to do about any of this?” We took the initiative to actually do something about it. We began to hold each other accountable and slowly watched each other’s struggles deteriorate. If you struggle with something and don’t make a change, you can get comfortable in it. But the moment you decide to make a change and repent, everything shifts.

For people listening, I think there’s a couple takeaways from Christian’s experience:

  1. They held each other accountable as a group. They didn’t try to do it alone.
  2. They actually did things to help them stop. It wasn’t just a weekly check-in. They were intentional about holding each other accountable. And they hung out so much as a group.

If you’re walking through something right now that is a sinful habit, I encourage you to get with someone dealing with the same thing and decide today that it will no longer be a struggle. Yes, it is going to try to fight, but y’all will be fighting back. That doesn’t mean that you won’t mess up every now and then, but it is saying that you’re not going to let it own your life. Practice the things you have to put in to play to make sure it goes away. Because when you are fighting a giant like that, you have to know how to fight back.

I pray all this advice speaks to you and meets you where you’re at, friend! xoxo, Sadie

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The Truth vs. My Truth https://liveoriginal.com/the-truth-vs-my-truth/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-truth-vs-my-truth Tue, 22 Mar 2022 17:07:15 +0000 https://liveoriginal.com/?p=27912 Advice we can all learn from

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Friend, I’m so excited to share my message from Jennie Allen’s women’s conference, IF:Gathering 2022, with you! This message is so needed in our world today and I encourage you to watch the full version here 🙂

 

Jennie actually asked me to preach on a specific topic. She asked me to preach on the difference between my truth and God’s truth. That’s a big topic. And if you’re in the Millennial or Gen Z day in age, you know that’s a really big battle that we’re facing. You see everywhere, “live your truth.” Literally, Christian and I were in LA recently and there was a huge billboard that said, “We the youth, live your truth!” It’s everywhere. This message is parading saying your truth will set you free and it’s the best way to live. But friend, I’m here to tell you that is a lie.

I want to start by giving some background on what this generation is believing when it comes to “your truth.” Urban Dictionary is a database where the most liked definition of a term becomes the proposed definition. So, here’s what Urban Dictionary says “my truth” is:

“A non-negotiable personal opinion. This is a convenient phrase for avoiding arguments because people can contradict your opinion, but not your truth.”

That’s actually kind of scary because there’s a generation that can put “my truth” behind whatever they’re feeling in a moment. And as long as it’s their truth, you can’t argue it. Used to, it seemed like the truth was pretty straight forward. We almost all knew that telling someone the truth was the most loving thing you could do. Like, if someone sitting across from me at lunch has a giant spinach leaf in their teeth, the best thing you could do in that moment is to tell that person that they have spinach in their teeth. It may be awkward, but it’s loving.

But nowadays it gets really tricky because you could literally tell someone they have spinach in their teeth and they could say, “No I don’t.” And they would stand strong to that statement because it’s their truth. Circumstances like this can get you questioning what actually is true.

What’s really difficult is when nothing is true, then what is love? What is freedom? What is anything if we don’t have a foundation of truth? It seems like this is a problem that just our generation is facing, but this has been around for a very long time, even back in Jesus’ day.

In John chapter 18, Jesus is talking to Pilate because at this point in the story, the Jews were so fed up with Jesus. He was challenging everything they believed and they were ready to get rid of Him. Since they wouldn’t kill people, they thought that if they made Jesus look bad enough to the Romans, they might crucify Him. So they turn Him in and Jesus begins having this conversation with Pilate when the truth becomes super confusing. Here’s how the conversation goes:

“Am I a Jew?” Pilate replied. “Your own people and chief priests handed you over to me. What is it you have done?”

Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.”

“You are a king, then!” said Pilate. Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”

“What is truth?” retorted Pilate.” (John 18:35-38)

You see, this question dates all the way back to when Pilate asks Jesus, “what is truth?” Pilate had to have felt like the truth was so confusing because the Jews were saying one thing about Jesus and Jesus was claiming another. After this moment, Pilate goes away and tells the Jews he finds no guilt in Jesus. He begins claiming his own truth.

“With this he went out again to the Jews gathered there and said, “I find no basis for a charge against him. But it is your custom for me to release to you one prisoner at the time of the Passover. Do you want me to release ‘the king of the Jews’?”

They shouted back, “No, not him! Give us Barabbas!” Now Barabbas had taken part in an uprising.” (John 18:38-40)

Barabbas was a robber. This sounds crazy, right? Here Jesus is, healing the sick, making the blind see, feeding the 5,000, and Pilate doesn’t personally see any Guilt in Him. And the people still chose Barabbas. That’s what happens when you don’t have a foundation of truth. Whatever the majority says is true becomes true to you. Pilate knew there was nothing wrong with Jesus. But because the crowd said, “Give us Barabbas,” the truth changed. We live in a generation that allows the majority to rule. Whatever Instagram, Tiktok, or the news says is the truth. We don’t even need to fact check it. If everyone says it’s true, then it must be true.

Proverbs 12:15 says this:

The way of fools seems right to them, but the wise listen to advice.”

I don’t want to be a generation of fools thinking our truth is the right truth. Just like when the people wanted to release Barabbas, a criminal who was actually dangerous, it didn’t make sense. Your truth is not really concerned with what makes sense or what’s better in the long run. Your truth is always going to seek what is the most comfortable thing in the moment. And Jesus made them so uncomfortable. Your truth allows you to stay the same. THE truth requires change. It requires repentance and a heart shift toward Him.

“So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:31-32)

When I was preparing for this message, I couldn’t remember where that passage was in scripture. So I googled, “Where is the verse when Jesus said, ‘and the truth will set you free’?” The first thing that popped up said, “Who said the truth will set you free?” And it showed a list of people who have said this great line. Along with all these names was Jesus.

As I was reading this, I realized that’s the problem. That sentence is not true for anyone to say but Jesus. And do you know why it’s true when Jesus said it? It’s because when He said, “You will know the truth and the truth will set you free,” He was literally talking about Himself. He knew that He holds the power beyond the grave. He knew He would resurrect from the dead to life. So, that’s actually true for Him to say.

His truth actually will set you free. Now, if I say that MY truth will set you free, it holds no power. It’s not true. Here’s a reminder that may seem obvious but I think we forget sometimes. The reason why the truth is powerful is because it’s true.

I want to mention something that Christian often says to me. He says I’m the most beautiful girl in the world. While this really is so sweet, deep down, the practical side of me thinks that that’s just not true. I know that sounds a bit silly, but I’ve seen some gorgeous women in this world. But what’s so powerful to me is when he says, “I love you.” I love this because I know it’s true. Even after all that we’ve been through together, he loves me. And the fact that that is true makes it so powerful.

We have a generation that would rather be puffed up than set free. They’d rather be told they’re the most beautiful girl in the world than “I love you.” They’d rather be told the thing that makes them feel the most god-like than be completely loved by God. But being loved by God is so much more powerful than any moment of power that you could ever feel.

I was on Instagram one day, and this whole idea of my truth vs. the truth is stuck in my head when I scroll past one of my favorite influencer’s post. I follow her simply because I like her clothes. There’s no real spiritual tie there, just to clarify. She began talking about Wonder Woman. And for those of you who don’t know, that’s my favorite movie.

So, I click to the next slide and begins talking about how thankful she is that women have a heroic figure like her to look up to because little boys have had these their whole life. Superman, Spider Man, Black Panther. Then I click to the next slide and she says, “All of this got me thinking that maybe that’s why I don’t relate to God, because He’s a man. That’s probably why it’s never worked for me. So I heard someone talking about a woman version of God and I started praying to her. It’s been so empowering for me and my daughters.”

I sat back and thought about how tricky situations like that can get. Because she had me with Wonder Woman and the idea of her being an inspiration. But it got tricky when she took it to her relationship with God. See, if I didn’t have ears to discern the truth, it would have been easy for me to look at my own self and wonder if the same concept would work for me.

Then I clicked a few slides further and someone asked where she found that concept in scripture, and she literally said, “I actually haven’t. But if you find it, let me know.” There was no fact checking that took place to support her argument. But once again, the truth is powerful because the truth is true. Prayer is powerful because there is a real God in heaven who I am praying to. And yes, I call Him my Father. But that doesn’t mean I can’t relate to Him. He’s the one who knit me together in my mother’s womb and made me in His image.

Here’s the thing. Praying for your own empowerment won’t get you anywhere. It won’t stop the war going on and it won’t heal the sick. We have to pray for the power of God.

The enemy plays a game with us every day that we all know. Two truths and a lie. We played that game last year actually. We went out in Atlanta and asked a girl these questions:

  1. The “a” in Chick-fil-A stands for grade A meat.
  2. Chick-fil-A is closed on Sundays.
  3. Chick-fil-A only uses born again chickens.

Y’all. She chose the first one. She legitimately chose the third one to be truth. What?! That’s hilarious now. But why did number 3 seem true? It’s because it was a lie mixed in with the truth. The enemy plays this same game with us. He says, “Oh you overslept this morning? True.” “Oh you’re not where you want to be in life? True.” “You’re worthless.” All of a sudden that lie seems true because the other two were true.

Let me tell you another thing the enemy does. He says, “Oh, you love your best friend. Your best friend’s beautiful. You’re attracted to your best friend.” And you think, “Wait a second. Is that true? Because the other two things were true, so maybe that means this its true.” When we’re not rooted in a foundation of truth, we begin to search those lies and see if they might be true so that we can be free. But we don’t stop long enough to say, “I find my true freedom in you, Jesus. You are the way, the truth, the life. I’m following You to get to everything my heart desires, which is God.” He is love, truth and power.

We look at the story of Jesus and Barabbas and wonder why they picked Barabbas. Well my question is, why do we choose Barabbas? Barabbas was known for three things. He was a murdered, a robber, and a rebel. These sound a lot like steal, kill, and destroy. The same characteristics of the father of lies.

You see, in life there will be a daily choice to hear the voice of truth or the lies of the enemy. Because the truth is we have a Savior and an enemy. Don’t choose Barabbas just because it’s more comfortable in a moment. Choose Jesus, because although it requires change from the inside out, it is purifying you in such a way that you can stand before a holy God blameless and truly feel the power of what freedom really is.

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God Still Loves You https://liveoriginal.com/god-still-loves-you/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=god-still-loves-you Tue, 01 Feb 2022 17:29:17 +0000 https://liveoriginal.com/?p=27066 Advice we can all learn from

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Friend, today. is. the. DAY. Who Are You Following? is out now! That feels so surreal to say. I can not wait for this message to get into your hands! As you flip through the pages, I sincerely pray that this book helps you navigate through some of the challenges we face with social media and leads you to the heart of Jesus! If you want to go through the book with me, be sure to grab your copy HERE and join the book club group inside the LO sister app
Now, I want to share an excerpt from chapter 8 with you!
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“Are you that duck girl?” That question used to reallllly get to me. Sometimes I would simply reply yes, because I obviously knew what they meant, but I have to admit there were times I said no. I even would tell the pastors at churches where I was speaking not to say anything about Duck Commander or Duck Dynasty when they introduced me, not because I wasn’t proud of it, but because it seemed like that was the only thing people knew about me. I was trying to start something new, like ministry, speaking, and writing, but it felt like I was just stuck being “that duck girl.” I did not want to be known just for what I had done; I wanted to be known for who I was.

The struggle between who we were and who we are is a tension that many of us know well. It can be difficult to let go of our past and how we used to be known to others, whether it involves positive or negative experiences or a little bit of both. It can feel hard to be confident and worthy of stepping forward in a new way—especially in the age of social media, where it seems our past is never far behind.

We live in a time when everything is posted for everyone to see. Most posts are fun and filled with good memories, but some are meant to hurt or embarrass others. And some posts show people in situations they never should have been in. Mistakes, misjudgments, and moments of weakness and rebellion live forever online, preserving our lowest moments. I have had friends whose reputations were clouded because of posts from a not-sogood past—not only others’ posts about them but their own posts when they were living a wilder life. Girls have told me how they weren’t accepted into a sorority or they didn’t land their dream job because of damaging posts, texts, or tweets from years past that have stayed with them.

It can be difficult to convince those around you that you’ve changed. I’ve talked to people who have turned their lives around only to struggle with others accepting their new life choices. It is tough when you get past the hardest part of forgiving yourself and then have to face the people who want to remind you of what you did. I’ve seen people gripped by fear that pictures they sent or words they posted online will come to the surface one day and they will be humiliated. That shame about who they used to be often keeps people from becoming who they are meant to be.

When we hang on to the past, we get stuck where we are instead of moving forward to where we’re going. Whether we do it to ourselves or it’s pushed on us by others, it’s unfair that online records force some of our worst moments to relentlessly haunt us. But just because life happened and the pictures show something from our past doesn’t mean we have to stay stuck. There is a way for us to let go of past mistakes and transgressions, and that way is with Jesus.

Paul, a man who had a bad past himself, put so plainly why we can and need to move forward and not stay stuck where we are or where we were: “What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:1–4 esv)

The question then becomes, How do I become who I am when everyone knows me for what I did or who I was? I’ve heard this so many times, and I’ve even lived the story.

When Christian and I started dating, we talked about Jesus all the time. We shared podcasts with inspirational messages, Bible passages we were reading, the latest worship song we loved, and anything and everything Jesus was doing in our lives. That was naturally how our relationship formed because that was who we both were and what we both talked about.

Christian and I formed this relationship based on who we were at that time. This was the only version of Christian I knew because of who he was when we met and who he consistently was as we started dating. He and I didn’t grow up in the same place; we did not meet until he was going into his junior year of college and I was living in Nashville. I didn’t know Christian’s past and he didn’t know mine. I never knew who he used to be and he didn’t know who I used to be before we each drew close to Jesus. And it turns out, Christian was pretty wild in high school and lived a very different life than the one he lived by the time I met him.

After he graduated high school, Christian went on to college and his first semester was also pretty wild. Just your stereotypical college start. One night at a party, Christian was shotgunning beers on a balcony, and this guy walked up to him and said, “I thought you didn’t drink!” The guy said this because Christian had joined his fraternity saying he was a dry pledge, even though he did drink—he just knew it was something he probably should not have been doing. But that night, on the balcony of his frat house, he looked at the guy and said, “You’re right. I don’t drink.” In that moment he realized that what he was doing was not aligning with who he wanted to become.

Christian walked two miles home that night in the rain. He got back to his dorm, got on his knees, and prayed to God. After that, he turned his whole life around. He got involved with the church and started serving, and he made this amazing group of friends who shared and supported his values. They even started a Bible study on campus that very quickly grew to have more than one hundred guys! He totally changed. It’s pretty incredible. Really, it’s a miracle. It’s one the Bible says will happen when you give your life to Jesus.

Even though Christian had become this new creation and was on fire for God when we met, I started to notice that some “past posts” were still making him feel the need to hide. When Christian would go home, he felt as though his family all knew him as his high-school self because that was the last version of him they’d seen. They didn’t know the man he had become. He tended to revert back to the same attitude he had in high school when he was around people who knew that former version of him. He really struggled with going back to the place that held so much of the past that he was not proud of. He wanted to be who he was, but pressing past the past is hard. He wondered, How do I press past who they knew me to be and show them who I actually am now?

Now, I didn’t know any of this during our first visit with his family—so that made for some weird moments. When I casually brought up Christian’s relationship with Jesus in front of his family, I noticed he didn’t want to talk about it. I thought it was super strange he was being so evasive and awkward, because with me he was always so open and confident about it.

The funny thing is, all his family members are believers who love Jesus and love Christian. But the enemy has a way of making you feel stuck. And as long as he can keep you stuck in who you used to be, he does not have to worry about the miracle you have become.

I encouraged Christian to share his story with his family. Part of his hesitation, though, was that telling them how far he had come would expose the whole truth of who he was before. His family had never known just how wild he had been, and it would be hard for him to tell them. But he did it anyway. He finally told his parents all about how he used to live and what had changed for him when he got to college. He shared that he was on fire for the Lord.

Of course, his parents were so proud of him. They are such loving parents. The honest conversation created a freedom with his family to talk openly about what God was doing in his life and to be proud of where he was.

You might feel caught in that same situation. When we are becoming someone new and feel God doing something in our lives, we need to fully step into it. And yet too often we fear that people are going to hold us in that place where we started, so we end up holding ourselves captive there and don’t let ourselves actually be free. Christian had to let go of who he had been to fully step into who he was becoming.

The Bible says when you die with Christ, when you’re baptized, or whenever you give your life to Jesus, the old self is gone and a new self has come (2 Corinthians 5:17). “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4 esv).

Baptism symbolizes that you are burying your old self and are washed clean under Jesus’ blood, and when you come back up you are new. You are no longer the version of you that people used to know. You’re starting a new life. When Christian gave his life to Jesus, he was letting go of his old self and becoming someone new. So, of course, he was going to act differently than he used to. That’s how it should be. That is the power of the gospel. Christian experienced exactly what the Bible describes: he became new.

I have heard people comment that God does not seem to perform miracles like He did in biblical times. Many in today’s culture question if God is even capable of performing miracles. Maybe that comes from not seeing any of them for themselves. Maybe that comes from never asking for a miracle. Or maybe they did ask once, and God did not provide the miracle they were expecting, and they are upset because they don’t understand why.

Regardless of where you stand on God being a miracle working God, I have to say that I believe with my whole heart that He was and still is because I have seen it. And no, I have not seen a mountain physically move, but when someone goes from old to new and from dead to alive, that is a miracle.

Jesus gives us the opportunity to embrace Him in His death and resurrection and become a new self. Don’t doubt that this miracle can happen for you. You get to walk with Jesus and live a better life.

The post God Still Loves You first appeared on Live Original.

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What Are You Seeking? https://liveoriginal.com/what-are-you-seeking/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=what-are-you-seeking Tue, 25 Jan 2022 16:43:27 +0000 https://liveoriginal.com/?p=26933 Advice we can all learn from

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Hey friend! Excited to share with you an excerpt from chapter two of my new book, Who Are You Following?, available for pre-order now! I can’t wait to walk through this book with my friends in the LO sister app, and I would LOVE for you to join me in doing so! Join the book club group inside LO sis today 🙂

In the Bible Jesus’ disciples knew exactly who they were looking for, and when they found Him, they stopped “scrolling” and dropped everything to follow Him. That seems like a wild concept: to be able to just drop your plans in life and follow someone you have never met. But many of us do that all the time without even realizing it. We follow people on social media that we have never met and will most likely never meet, and we begin to change things about ourselves without even realizing we are doing it.

It might not happen overnight, but in time you will start to look like who you follow. You can’t help it. The first time I saw bike shorts, I looked at a friend and said, “I’ll never wear those.” It’s now two years later, and I have three pairs. Have you ever noticed how friend groups all start looking alike? It’s incredible how fast a trend can take hold.

Many of these things are just silly, like fashions, dance moves, or even phrases that come and go, so what’s the worry? We may not be really changing our lives, but this shifting of our values— the things that we once said we would never do and now find ourselves doing—can happen on a deeper level. Maybe it was a thought shift from caring about who God says you are to caring more about who people say you are. Or maybe it was a priority shift from putting others first to only caring about yourself and doing what makes you the happiest. We are all being moved and shaped by the people we follow in much more important things: our beliefs, our morals, our values.

Now, back to the disciples. Let’s read John 1:35–41 to understand why they decided to follow Jesus the moment they saw Him.

“John was standing with two of his disciples, and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!” The two disciples heard him say this, and they followed Jesus. Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, “What are you seeking?” And they said to him, “Rabbi” (which means Teacher), “where are you staying?” He said to them, “Come and you will see.” So they came and saw where he was staying, and they stayed with him that day, for it was about the tenth hour. One of the two who heard John speak and followed Jesus was Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, “We have found the Messiah.” (esv, emphasis added)

A little backstory so that we can understand the gravity of this moment: For hundreds of years there were prophecies that a Messiah was coming. At this point in history, John the Baptist had been out in the wilderness preaching about the coming Messiah. There were many people who believed and were waiting for the prophecies to be fulfilled. So on this day, when they heard John say that Jesus was the one they’d been waiting for, they asked Jesus where He was staying and immediately followed Him.

Now that you know the context, you can understand why, when Jesus asked them, “What are you seeking?” they didn’t answer with, “We don’t know.” Instead, they said, “We have found the Messiah.” They’d finally found what they were looking for. So they dropped everything they were doing and began to follow Him wherever He was going.

I love how immediately after gaining this following, Jesus turned and asked, “What are you seeking?” He gave them a moment to reflect on their intentions. He sought to make sure that they weren’t just aimlessly following someone because they heard it was cool or because they just thought He seemed legit. They were able to commit to following Him because He was who they were looking for, and they knew He was leading in the direction they wanted to go.

We need to be more intentional about what we are looking for so that we can be intentional about who we begin to follow. This is true not just on social media but also in our real-life relationships, including future friends, spouses, mentors, or work associates. If you do not know what you’re looking for in a future spouse, you will end up in situations you never imagined yourself in. If you don’t know the kind of person you want to be friends with, you may join friend groups that lead you away from your desired version of yourself. If you don’t know the job you want, you may sign up for whatever opportunity comes your way, even if it’s not helping you move toward your goals. The disciples set the best example for us because they knew what they wanted and where they wanted to go—and so the second they saw Jesus, they dropped everything else and started following Him.

Matthew 6:33 says, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (esv). Notice that the verse does not just say to seek the kingdom, but to seek the kingdom first. Many of us may have Jesus on our list of things we are following, but if we are honest, He is nowhere near first place in our searching, and then we wonder why we don’t experience the goodness of His love and the life that He has for us. We want the blessing of Jesus, but we don’t want the commitment of following Him. This verse tells us all these things will be added to us if we seek Him first. So it’s as simple as can be: if you seek God, you will find the things of God. Whatever you seek you are going to find, so the question of “What are you seeking?” might be the most important one to answer.

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