Origin
Origin
Disarming Deception, pt 2, I Have Enough, I'm Good
Often the server will say, "Would you like some more tea?" Especially if you live in Texas! A common answer might be, "I Have Enough, I'm Good!" If this is our answer as a follower of God, "I Have Enough, I'm Good," that is a deception. Join us at the table of Origin as we disarm this deception with the Truth of God's Word.
Welcome to The Table of Origin where we are disarming deception with the Word of God. Today, our topic of
discussion is "I Have Enough:I'm Good." We started this season talking about dreams. We talked about the American Dream versus God's dream for us. We see how we've pursued the American Dream, going after more and better, and mixing culture and calling. Today, we're going to look at some of these subject
matters:those who may not have seen dreams come to pass, so you're walking away from dreaming at all; those who may have been offended or hurt by someone in the body of Christ, God forbid that ever happens, so you've distanced yourself from the church and possibly from God; those who may have prayed for something for a long time, but not seen your prayers answered, so you have lost hope. We're going to look at those who may not realize that they have a future, that God has a plan, that they are called. So we want you to ask yourself some
questions:Have I backed away from the Lord or from His people? Have I shifted my priority, and do I feel dead inside? Or, maybe I'm just sensing a lack of hunger for spiritual things? Could I have shifted my focus, and maybe now I'm looking somewhere else to fulfill my dreams? We get that you may not feel like you're dreaming at all, and that you are without hope and without a future. You may feel that way. But here's the deal. We all have a future. This is the fact. We get to choose to live in the natural or the supernatural, the ordinary or the extraordinary, the least or the more. So, Jina, do you have an example or an illustration that would help us wrap our minds around this deception?
Jina McAfee:As I was getting ready to talk about this, I kept thinking about the phrase, "No, I'm good." I heard myself saying it over and over again, in different situations. A waiter asked me if I needed more tea, and I said, "No, I'm good." I was at the grocery store, and the checker asked me, "Do you need someone to help you out with your groceries?" I said,"No, I'm good." The phrase just rang in my head. And I thought, in those instances, that response was fine. I could say,"No, I've got enough." But if Jesus asked me if I wanted more, it just doesn't work. It's always too soon to quit dreaming because God has a dream for you, right? So up front, let's ask some hard questions, some tensions. Here's one, "What do you think would keep a believer from wanting more in the Lord?" Here's what I want to ask our ladies at the Table, "Have you experienced seasons like this?"
ReGina Johnston:Seasons of not wanting more?
Kyli Rose:When we think of more, we'd typically ascribe it with something that would feel or look like it's a good thing on the surface. But sometimes, when God invites us to more, sometimes that looks like stepping out of a comfortable place. Sometimes that looks like being inconvenienced. Sometimes that means having to let go of something. Faith. We could ask ourselves, "Why in the world would I ever say no to God for more?" But sometimes that invitation to more is wrapped up in letting go and walking away. It's wrapped up in challenge and discomfort. And so in those moments, will I say, "Yes" to the invitation, even though on the surface, it doesn't feel good, it doesn't look good, but trusting that He's in the middle and inviting me to something deeper.
ReGina Johnston:I can attest to that. When Jina asked this question, my mind immediately went to a time when I was wanting more but didn't feel like God was meeting me there. I was wanting answers to my prayers. In fact, this morning, I had a conversation with God about that season, how in that season, it just did not feel like He was a God who answered prayer. It feels a little daunting to say that to almighty God, but I love that He lets me say that to Him because He's letting me work out my faith. So in that season because He didn't answer prayer the way I thought He would, because it didn't look like He rescued me in the moment, I got disillusioned as to whether or not He was even hearing me. If He's not hearing me, what should I then say? It was a very dark season, a very lonely season, a season full of questions. What I did not realize is that He was inviting me to more, because I got to know Him. It didn't feel like it in the moment, but as I look back, I got to know Him in some really deep ways.
Jina McAfee:So when I hear that, I'm thinking, really, you wanted more.
ReGina Johnston:I did want more. I wanted Him to answer my prayers, and they weren't like,"God, give me a new car." I felt like my prayers were according to His will.
Jina McAfee:That's one of the situations you just talked about. You're waiting for something, but you didn't see it come to pass like you thought it would. That is a very real situation. One of the things I want to look at is what the Lord says about wanting more in Scripture. I want to see that. In Revelation, chapters two and three, we find letters to particular churches, but there are also situations that can be seen throughout the ages in the church. As I read a couple of lines of a letter in Revelation 3, you're going to think, "I see this in the world today." Revelation 3:17 says this, "You say, 'I am rich, I have everything I want. I don't need a thing.' [But Jesus says to you:] 'You don't realize that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.'" It's like He is saying, "You've settled for less, but I've got more for you." And this is His answer to their problem. I love it, because He's calling them to more. He says, "Be diligent and turn from your indifference" (v. 19). When I looked at it, I thought, I know what indifference means, but I wanted to see what the dictionary said. It's a lack of interest or concern. So it's not on your mind. It's like you're indifferent towards the things of God. Another descriptor is the word "mundane." Mundane is lacking interest or excitement, dull. It made me think about how excited I was in the Lord when I first came to know Him. Dull even sounds like what it means. Mundane is of this earthly world rather than a heavenly or spiritual one. So it's when you're living in the things of the world and not the things of God. So, interesting.
Kyli Rose:So therein lies the deception. We want to really look at the truth. What is the truth? I love how you said, "I didn't feel like He was in that space with me in that season." Sometimes when He is inviting us to more, when He's inviting us to deeper, He's inviting us to new spaces and stretching us and challenging us. What you're feeling will actually make you want to say, "No, thanks, I'm good." There was a season when I was just taking care of little kids out in the country. It was just me and these two little boys, and I remember thinking,"Is there anything that God is even doing in this season?" I'm just cleaning up spilled milk and changing diapers and making snacks and more snacks and more snacks. But He was in the middle of that. And so the tension is whenever things feel mundane, is He doing something? Whenever it doesn't feel good, it doesn't feel like more, is He doing something? So what is the truth? The truth is there is always more, and whatever season you're in, there is always more. In Ecclesiastes 3:11 it says, "God has set eternity in the human heart." It's the idea that God has put in all of us this sense that this world is not all that there is, that we are living for something greater, that there is something beyond this, bigger than us, and that He has actually put that inside of our hearts.
Jina McAfee:We know that's true, because we know there's something more than fixing snacks, right? You're loving those boys, but, still, there's even more.
Kyli Rose:We see even more Scripture about the more. 2
Corinthians 3:18 says, "All of us who have had the veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord, who is the Spirit, makes us more and more like Him as we are changed into His glorious image." So we see that He is making us look more and more like Christ, and He will actually use those hard moments to invite us into more. He actually uses the mundane to invite us into more. He was doing something. He was actually teaching me faithfulness and anonymity. He was teaching me how to serve when I wasn't getting "Thank Yous." He uses marriage and relationships and community and kids. He is trying to help us die to ourselves so that we can look more and more like Christ, because He knows that is a life worth living.
Ephesians 3:20 says, "Now all glory to God, who is able through His mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think." I assure you, you want to ask Him for more, even if that more is packaged in hard or mundane, because it is going to be so much more than you could ask, think or imagine.
ReGina Johnston:It's worth it. Can any of you like think of a time where God actually removed the veil and showed you some of His glory?
Jina McAfee:I think about a time when I didn't really know Him at all, and I was needy. I knew I was needy. We were in a difficult situation, and I couldn't make anything happen. I couldn't do it. I knew all of a sudden, I could not do it. I sensed Him, in evidence around us, of what He was doing supernaturally in the natural. He provided for us in a way that was supernatural. And inside of me, He opened my understanding to know it was Him. I knew, without a doubt, it had to be God, this God that I didn't really know. He wanted me to know Him. And it was glorious. And it was life. It was life changing. It was like I was being awakened.
Kyli Rose:I think of a season several years ago, when I had plans to attend this school, I was going to marry this person, I had this plan, and all of it was just stripped away, every bit of it. Everything I thought was going to happen, didn't happen. I didn't get into the program. The person walked away. It was in that moment that the Lord was actually inviting me to go into a deeper place of knowing Him, trusting that He is who He says He is, that He was going to take care of me, that His plan was better than my plan. It was the most solidifying season of my faith, and it was the most painful simultaneously. But it set my feet in a particular course, in that season, the hardest season of my life, and I knew the Lord in a way that I had never known Him before. And He did invite me through to more. You can kick and scream in that moment, you can abandon the dream or even think God's not good, but I can confidently say that He provided for me. It was worth it. It was worth it to say, "Yes," to the invitation.
ReGina Johnston:Let me just say that Kyli, knowing the person I know, I can't imagine that anybody would walk away from you. But that's an aside. I'm just saying that Kyli Rose is an amazing person. Well, here's the deal: There is always more, and the invitation often comes through hardship. But there are some truths about God that we want to look at in the midst of this. The first thing we want to look at is the truth about Holy Spirit. Maybe you've heard people say that the Holy Spirit is not at work in believers today, or that Holy Spirit baptism was for the early church alone. Maybe you've heard that you can have Holy Spirit power without Holy Spirit baptism. So we're going to look at some of what the Word says about Holy Spirit. Can you tell us what difference Holy Spirit makes in the life of believers, Jina?
Jina McAfee:Let's look at the very first question you brought up. Maybe you've heard people say that Holy Spirit is not at work in believers today or was for the early church alone. God answers that question so clearly in Scripture. We see it in the experience and in the words in Acts 2. When Jesus was on trial, Peter was afraid to say anything, but after Holy Spirit is poured out, after the crucifixion and the resurrection, we see that Peter is a very different person. These are the words he speaks. Realize he speaking it to the same people that put Christ on trial, that crucified Him. He says, "Each of you must repent of your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. This promise is to you, to your children, and to those far away, all who have been called by the Lord our God" [all
who believe] (Acts 2:38-39). So clearly, Holy Spirit is promised for believers today, and we know it, because just like Peter, Holy Spirit has made a difference in our lives. I wouldn't know Christ, if Holy Spirit hadn't opened my eyes, and moved and worked. Holy Spirit is clearly needed to do the mission. Our mission is to call others to know Christ, right? Well, we can't do that without Holy Spirit. We've got to have Him. So no matter what you're doing, whether you're the mom of the two little kids out in the country, or you're a pastor at a church, or you're working as an engineer like my husband, you need Holy Spirit. Our passion comes from God. It comes from Him, so the desire for more comes from Him too.
Kyli Rose:The plan was always for us to be empowered by the Holy Spirit passionately pursuing Christ, the whole time from start to finish. We don't fizzle out. We're moving from glory to glory. We see the truth about what's God's plan is; so now we want to look at what His plan is not. We will look at three things God's plan is not and then dive into those a little bit more. God's plan is not a counterfeit faith. It's not a lukewarm life where you are straddling the fence. You've got one foot here and one foot on the other side. And it is not barely making it. In 2 Timothy 3:1-4, Paul in a letter to Timothy says, "You should know this, Timothy, that in the last days there will be very difficult times. People will love only themselves and their money. They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents, and ungrateful. They will consider nothing sacred. They will be unloving and unforgiving; they will slander others and have no self-control. They will be cruel and hate what is good. They will betray their friends, be reckless, be puffed up with pride, and will love pleasure rather than God." And here's the problem. Here's why."People will act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly" (2Ti
3:5). So an act.
ReGina Johnston:That's counterfeit faith. That's what Jesus is talking about here. Jesus talks about the lukewarm
life in Revelation 3:15-16. "I know all the things that you do, that you are neither hot nor cold. I wish that you were one or the other. But since you are like lukewarm water, neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth!"
Jina McAfee:That's a picture.
ReGina Johnston:I'm telling you, that's kind of a Whoa. 1
Corinthians 3:10-15 says,"Because of God's grace to me, I have laid the foundation like an expert builder. Now others are
Jina McAfee:I do not want to barely make it. That does not building on it. But whoever is building on this foundation must be very careful. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one we've already laid, Jesus Christ. Anyone who builds on that foundation may use a variety of materials--gold, silver, jewels, wood, hay or straw. But on Judgment Day fire will reveal what kind of work each builder has done. The fire will show if a person's work has any value. If the work survives, that builder will receive a reward. But if the work is burned up, the builder will suffer great loss. The builder will be saved, but like someone barely escaping through a wall sound pleasant to me at all. of flames." Our works, the things that we offer the Lord in the end, are going to be put through the fire, and what lasts is really what's eternal. So we're looking at God's plan, and what it's not. But now we want to look at what God's plan is.
ReGina Johnston:Nobody ever started out life when they were four or five, saying, "I just want to barely make it in life. I just want to grow up and barely make it."
Jina McAfee:No, some kids want to be president, or we want to be that ice skater in the Olympics.
ReGina Johnston:I want to be three things. I want to be a fireman and the president and a lawyer.
Kyli Rose:And they believe that they can.
Jina McAfee:One of my boys said, "I want to be a golf ball player and a fireman." He's not really doing either one of those, but he is living a full life. So the truth about what God's plan is, what He wants for us, is glory-to-glory living. So what does that even mean? What is glory-to-glory living? The Word says that He will grow us bit by bit and take us from glory to glory to glory. 2 Corinthians 3:18 says, "All of us who have had the veil removed can see and reflect the glory of the Lord. And the Lord, who is the Spirit, [He does this work. He] makes us more and more like Him as we are changed into His glorious image." We were talking earlier about how that work is done. And even when Regina said,"I wanted more, but I wasn't seeing it," looking back, she sees it.
ReGina Johnston:I still feel the pain when I look back, but I see it. And I know the farther and farther I get from it, the more appreciative I'm going to be of the process and the reward. I know that because I've experienced it in other ways.
Jina McAfee:When Kyli was talking about this story of the hardest time in her life, it propelled her into a pursuit of the Lord. So God works through all of those things. It doesn't look like what our minds think it will look like, but when we come to the end of our days, we think, "Oh my goodness, look at what God has done. He has taken me, and He has shaped me."
Kyli Rose:We're surrounded by these messages that attach our worth to our physical appearance and other worldly things, but the kingdom is so different. Life is not a slow decay downwards. The height of your spiritual life is not in your 30s or your 20s. I hear people say, "Oh, if I could only be 20 again." That is not Spirit living. He is saying that this thing has the ability to get better and better and deeper and richer. And it takes some some hard and some mundane to get there.
Jina McAfee:Just like you said Kyli, it's not the outward. We see the outward. Really what I see now in people is the joy on their faces, that radiance on faces of those who know Jesus. You can see the light and the life in someone's eyes. You can see what's going on inside. The truth is when we see Him face to face, the Word says, "We will be like Him." And what could be better?
Kyli Rose:Another part of His plan is for us to hunger and thirst for righteousness. Matthew 5:6 says, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled." You can actually have a hunger for the things of the Lord your entire life. It doesn't have to ebb and flow. Whenever we cultivate a relationship with the Holy Spirit, day in and day out. Oftentimes, just in the quiet of our living rooms, in those anonymous spaces that no one knows about, you're cultivating hunger for the Lord. You're cultivating hunger for His plan, and it holds us. We're blessed. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness; they will be filled. You're not going to come out on the other side of pursuing Jesus empty handed. He blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice; they will be satisfied. So that's a part of His plan for us to stay hungry and thirsty for the deeper things of the Lord for a lifetime.
Jina McAfee:We talked about eating the Wrd of the Lord. It's like we're filled, and we're still hungry for more.,
Kyli Rose:So one of my questions to you is how do you know that you're hungry? How do you develop hunger?
ReGina Johnston:In the natural or in the spiritual?
Jina McAfee:They're kind of similar.
ReGina Johnston:One does inform the other. Here's the thing I've heard from people who have fasted for 40 days, which I have not, but I've heard after three days, you kind of lose hunger.
Jina McAfee:Because you haven't eaten
ReGina Johnston:Your body just adjusts and begins to feed off of itself. You kind of lose hunger. And spiritually, if you are not regularly feeding yourself, you're not regularly hungry. So we're doing kind of a health kick right now, Jina, and I think you can speak to what it is to actually increase your food intake and what that does to you.
Jina McAfee:Before we started this program, we thought you would be healthier if you ate less. But we're hearing that you But of the right things. We can't eat trash. really have to eat more to fuel your body so that your body acts like it was designed to. Whole foods. Foods that either have a mother or are from a seed in the ground.
Kyli Rose:It's not popcorn from a bag?
Jina McAfee:We live in that fast food society, right? So we have to be very intentional to eat what's right for us.
ReGina Johnston:When you increased the amount of food you were taking in, sometimes you found out that you would have hunger pains two or three hours later. Like all of a sudden, I realized, I'm hungry, and it would drive me to eat.
Jina McAfee:In the same way, we can eat the living Word, the Bread of life, and we will hunger for more. That means we get in there and we spend time with the Word of God. It's a very healthy relationship. I love that He draws us to more. He's always drawing us to more.
Kyli Rose:If you're listening, you probably really relate to this podcast. Like you would love to feel a hunger pain. Maybe you haven't felt anything in forever. So what would you advise them? They're not feeling hungry. So what do we do spiritually? I want to be hungry and thirsty for the things of the Lord. How do we cultivate that hunger?
ReGina Johnston:I'm getting text messages in the morning from a friend who is in that spot of cultivating hunger. She's in the midst of a Bible Study right now, and she has basically made herself accountable to other women at the table, to be there in the Word, on the daily, if for nothing else, to say to the girls at the table, "I did this." But in it, she's snapshotting her journals or her SOAPS to me different times during the week. And she's letting that Word filter into her life in such a way that she's wrapping her history around it and wrapping her responses around it and wrapping her thinking and emotions around it in a way that it is causing her, because of her experience with it, to return the next day. While some days, it may be a check, she checked off. Other days, she's being so real and so raw with it, that there's no way it's not impacting her life in a transformational way. And because of that, it's increasing her hunger for it. So that's what I would say, just start. Just start feeding yourself the Bread of life and start wrapping it into your experience. Don't just read it and get it in your mind, get it in your heart and in your emotions, let your reasoning and your very life wrap around it and watch what God does.
Kyli Rose:One of the things I know you probably recognized is whatever you begin to feed your body regularly will be what it craves. You might not necessarily have the taste for it, but your taste buds are having to develop. They're having to want something different.
ReGina Johnston:It squeezes out the wrong cravings so that you will crave and eat the right things.
Kyli Rose:So even if you're not feeling it, begin to feed yourself the things that will bring life. It's an act of faith. You said that this is going to bring me life, and you said if I hang out in this space, that I will begin to hunger and thirst for more of it.
ReGina Johnston:And put yourself at tables, across the dinner table, on phone conversations, in relationships, with people who are hungering too. If you sit around people who aren't hungry, likely you're not going to be hungry either. But if you sit around people who are eating the Word voraciously, like, they have a big appetite for it, and they're excited and they're alive and they're talking about it, you can't help but want it too. lt's like they're eating cheesecake right there in front of you, and you say, "I want that too!"
Kyli Rose:That leads us right into our "How?" We've already started dipping our toes into it. But how do we live?
Jina McAfee:This is kind of an old word, and a lot of people don't understand it. It's repent. And so what does repent mean?
Kyli Rose:To turn. You are doing a 180
ReGina Johnston:Complete opposite.
Jina McAfee:It's like you've got a goal and you're going Because it's His will for you to be filled. towards it, right? And then you realize this isn't what you want. You know this is not where you need to go. And you turn completely around, like you're going the opposite direction. It's not just a little veer off of the path you're on, but a turn in the opposite direction. That's the beginning. When I talked about the time God awakened me, that was the beginning. It's where I thought, I'm trying to do this thing on He wants to live in you and through you. my own, and that is not where I need to be. I need this God who knows me, who provides for me, and I'm going to turn my life around, and I'm going to follow Him. I'm going to get in the Word. Remember the Scripture I read earlier from Acts 2:37-39 when Peter spoke about Jesus and the crowd said, "What must we do? What must we do to know God?" Peter said, "You've got to repent of your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins." This is the initial step, but we repent over and over again, because just like you do the initial turning towards Him, you can veer off of the path, and you can get right back on. So it's not a one time action. It's not a one time thing. How do we live? Daily be filled with Holy Spirit. There's a Holy Spirit baptism where you're first filled, but you've got to be filled and refilled. As you pour Him out, you need to be filled back up to continually pour Him out. God is in you. It's the most amazing thing. Ephesians 5:15-18 says,"Be careful how you live Don't live like fools, but like those who are wise. [I want to live like those who are wise.] Make the most of every opportunity in these evil days.[We know these days are evil, right? We see it all around us.] Don't act thoughtlessly, but understand what the Lord wants you to do. Don't be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead be filled with the Holy Spirit." Filled to overflow until He is just what comes out. The instruction to be filled is to "keep being kept filled." That is a daily thing. Do you feel dry? Stay filled. Do you feel dry? Let Him fill you. He wants to. Just ask. That's all you have to do.
ReGina Johnston:Another way we can live is to run after God with every ounce of what we have. With all of us, with our strength, with our mind, with our emotions, with our being. Just run after Him. Revelation 3:19 says, "The people I love, I call to account--prod and correct and guide so that they'll live at their best. Up on your feet, then! About face! Run after God!" I love that. So we should run, don't walk, don't saunter, don't put it off. Just get up and run after Him. That is the best way. If you've just found Christ, that's my best advice to you. Just run after Him with all you've got. That's where transformation will come to your life. That's where you'll get the energy and the motivation to keep running. So we want to end this podcast a little differently. A lot of times we pray it out, but this time, I just want to give a charge to those who are listening to this podcast. So here is the charge. I'm declaring this over you. You are
God's woman. So I charge you to:run from the ways of the world, run from foolish and harmful desires, chase after truth and justice, chase after holiness and love, run with all your might after God. And, we can say this last part together. Don't Ever Quit! Have a great day and join us next time around the Table of Origin.