S1E1: Kingdom Living in a Culture of Pressure

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There are two kingdoms. There’s the kingdom of this world, and there’s the kingdom of God, the kingdom of this world, and the kingdom of God. And every day, each and every day, we have to make a conscious decision. About which kingdom we are living in. Am I living in the kingdom of this world by the culture and the way of this world?
Am I allowing my choices and my decisions to be influenced by the culture? Or am I allowing my choices and decisions, my behavior to be influenced, um, by God’s word, by Christ? So it’s the culture or is it Christ and we. I think we know this intellectually as Christians and as followers of Christ. The reality to live this out daily though creates a tension, I believe, in our hearts and in our minds.
So I wanted to just touch a little bit on the understanding that God gives us the confidence in God gives us the competence to live in this kingdom in His word, in in, in the kingdom of God, in the way that he desires for us. I think sometimes we. Can feel that what God is asking is too difficult. Like how in the world do you expect me to live according to your will?
According to your way? According to your word. And in some areas of our lives it, it can feel easier. And in other areas of our lives it can be a little bit more challenging. But I would encourage you, as you’re thinking about this teaching tonight. To think about where you’re feeling challenged in your life, to think about where you’re feeling the most challenged as it relates to living as God would have us to live in our thoughts and our behaviors and our actions.
And oftentimes we will see that this really begins in our heart. Jesus told his disciples that it’s not necessarily the words that you say in your actions come from what is in the heart. So oftentimes we are trying to deal with. Outward behaviors without dealing with the inner issue, which is really the issue of my heart.
He said, out of the abundance of your heart, the mouth speaks out of the abundance of your heart. The mouth speaks, and we carry all of our emotions in, our feelings, in our heart. Not physical heart, but when our heart totality of who we are, right? He said, love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and all your strength, and that really means a wholehearted commitment unto him.
So tonight I just want to challenge, um, each and every one of us to, when we’re listening to this teaching, to think about the areas where we’re feeling challenged, where it’s not as easy, right, to follow that which God, um, is calling us to, to follow or to be or to do. So there are two kingdoms. The kingdom of this world and the kingdom of God.
The question is, which kingdom are we living in, especially as it relates to wherever we’re feeling challenged. That could be challenged in our relationships with, um, ourselves, how we see our about ourselves. He said, love, love God with all your heart, with all your soul and all your mind. But then he went on to say, what?
Love your neighbor as you love yourself. So there is an understanding even theologically, that loving God and loving my neighbor also comes with the understanding that we are already loving ourselves. But the reality of it is some of us are. As committed to ourselves as we say that we wanna be committed to other people.
And so when we’re thinking about, um, this kingdom of the world, the kingdom of God, again, I’m gonna say, um, ’cause some of what you’re gonna hear is not gonna be new, but it’s not always about getting a new revelation. Sometimes it’s about staying with the revelation that God has already given and making a decision to live in that place, not just one time, but over and over and over again.
The Christian life is not a sprint. It is a journey. It is a long time life commitment, and we have to be in it for the long haul, in the good, the bad, and the indifferent. And what that means is that there are gonna be times and seasons of my life where it could appear that it feels a little, for lack of a better term, easier.
To live as God will call me to live. And then we’re gonna find that there’re gonna be seasons in our life. Well, we are like, listen here. Now listen, hanga, I know you’re not calling me to forgive. I know you’re not calling me to have joy in the midst of sorrow. I know you’re not calling me to accept what’s going on around me.
In hopes and belief that in time all things are gonna work together for good. We know the scriptures, but as I’ve shared. Some of the other women knowing a scripture and living a scripture are two very different concepts. In living the scripture as God has given requires our e, requires our time, requires our commitment.
There are two kingdoms. The kingdom of this world and the kingdom of God. And I just wanna lift up this scripture so you all don’t think I’m doing a Ted Talk Talkings. Pastor says the time has come. He said, this is our theme scripture. Our kingdom fellowship, the kingdom of God has come near Repent. And believe the good news, so the kingdom of God is now.
It is now. We have the ability right now today to live in the fullness, in the freedom that comes through living in relationship with God through Jesus Christ. He says, repent. In other words, I need to turn around from the direction in which I was walking, and now I need to turn into relationship with God through Jesus Christ, and I need to believe the good news.
And what is that good news? The good news is that Jesus Christ came on this earth. He lived. Amen. We’re in the season of Advent. We’re celebrating his coming, but he came into this earth. He said, I’m sending you into the world that he might. Be. He might live in such a way that we can begin to understand how God is calling us to live, but also that he might ultimately die for us and for our sins.
And then we believe also that at some point he is gonna be coming back again. So he’s saying the time has come, the kingdom of God has come near. I need you to repent. I need you to turn around. I need you to believe that which I am giving to you, and I believe that’s what God is still saying to us today.
The kingdom of God is now and I need you In those areas where you feel challenged in those areas, where you feel tempted in those areas where you feel like you still have some growing to do that, I need you first of all to check and repent. Is am I living in the way that God has called me to live in the way that God has called me to live it?
I also just wanted to share theirs. Because sometimes we can believe that living as God has called us to live is not possible for me. Reverend Ken, just possible for you because you’re ordained and you’re a minister. It’s called for Lady Shauna because she’s married to pastor wildly. Sometimes we just have these perceptions in our minds about people.
The kingdom life is acceptable to anybody who’s willing to allow God to rule and reign in their heart and mind because one definition of the kingdom of God is the kingdom of God is present. Whatever. God, wherever people allow God to rule and reign in my heart and in my mind, that’s one. There are many definitions we can give to the kingdom of God, and we don’t have enough time right now to delve into all of them, but one that I lifted up to the women several weeks ago that I really want us to lean into is that when I say that I’m living as a woman of God, when I say I’m living in the kingdom of God, what that means, what I’m saying is that I’m living in such a way that I allow that.
To rule and reign in my heart and in my mind. And what Mark one 15 helps us to understand is that the door has already been opened. Some of us are praying, God, open the door, make a way. The door has been opened, the way has been made. And what is in my heart and mind is to, we wanna remove barriers. We wanna remove obstacles that are restraining young adult women and women from living in the fullness and the freedom of the kingdom life.
That’s what happens when we begin to live into this, into this ideal of living in the kingdom of God. I no longer have barriers. I no longer have obstacles that keep me, that restrain me, that limit me from accessing the fullness and the freedom that comes when I believe in Jesus Christ. And there are what I call five C for kingdom living, clarity, commitment, competence, courage, and community.
And I’ve shared. On a couple of these clarity and commitment with some of the other women a couple of months ago, but when I’ll say that I want to live in the kingdom or I’m living the kingdom life, we say it all the time. We’re living a kingdom life. One. That means that I’m going to have clarity of what the kingdom actually is and what it is not.
Amen. It’s not a person that it’s not, it’s not a popularity contest, so there are going to be times because you are living counter-cultural. I said there are two kingdoms. The kingdom of this world and the kingdom of God. So when I choose to live in the kingdom of God, that means that I am gonna be challenged to go counter-cultural.
I go against the grain. If you read Matthew five through seven, Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, he begins to tell his disciples how they are expected to live. He says, I know that you heard this talking about what was happening in the, what was said in the Old Testament, which is the law. He said, I haven’t come to replace the law, but I have come to do what?
To fulfill the law, and therefore I need us to have clarity, a part of our challenges that we’re, sometimes we can get confused about what it really means to live in the kingdom of God because we’re thinking it’s more, it can be about a popularity. Context. Context. So it’s about my comfort. It’s not about any of that.
It is about being, having a desire and a heart to allow God to come in and change my thoughts, and change my mind and change my heart so that I am aligning with his will and his way for my life. It’s gonna require commitment. I share love God with all your heart, with all your soul and all your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself.
It’s gonna require confidence and not so much confidence in ourselves, but confidence in God. Sometimes we talk about having self-confidence and we should have confidence in ourselves, but it’s a little bit of a misnomer because when I’m in the kingdom of God is not so much according to the word of me having confidence in self.
It’s really more about me having confidence in God and the confidence that I have in God that enables me to believe in myself because I begin to understand it’s not based on what I can do, but it’s based on what God has already done. It’s not based on what I can do. It’s based on what God has already done, and we’re gonna get in, get into that this evening, and it’s about having courage.
When we are saying that we’re living in the kingdom of God, we’re poised in position for kingdom living, it’s going to require that I can step out and have courage boldly and take my faith and move forward the things that God is calling us into in this season when we cannot sit back and allow ourselves to be stuck in a spirit of fear.
God said, I haven’t given you a spirit of fear, but a power and of love and of a sound mind. So when God is calling me, when I position in poise for kingdom living, God is gonna call me to be courageous. I’m gonna have to do some things that I may not necessarily wanna do, not because I think I can give them, but because I believe in the God what in me.
And ultimately it takes community. It takes a community of faith. And this is why I’m so excited about, um, keeping your poise and the community of faith that ladies Starling continues to build with young adult women seen the ages of 22 and 35. That’s why I’m excited about what God is doing in the women’s ministry in this season because there are no long rangers in the Kingdom of God.
There are no long rangers in the gospel. Everybody needs somebody. In the minute that I begin to believe that I don’t need someone in my life that is also making a decision to walk down the path I’m walking, that is a lie from the pit of hell and it will be the enemy of God that will try to cause you to separate yourself and say, no, I can do this on my own.
That is not biblical. It is not helpful and it is not holy. We need to be very clear that we are a community of faith. We are Kingdom fellowship because we have Kingdom fellowship with Jesus and with each other. Okay. Alright, so where I live in the kingdom of God, I allow God’s word. God’s will in God’s way to influence my thoughts, my words, my behavior, and my decisions.
And I hope that I’m not offending anybody by just going very basic right here. I understand that this is something that we might understand intellectually, but I am encouraging and praying that I don’t just understand it intellectually, but that I make a decision tonight to consistently live by this thought.
To when I live by this thought, when I allow God’s word will and way to influence my thoughts, words, behavior, and decisions, then everything that I’m doing, all that I am is going to be wrapped up in my relationship with God, through Jesus Christ. I’ve shared it before. My testimony, my witness, and the way that I read Bible is that everything rises and falls on my relationship with Jesus.
We do a lot. We have a lot of other things happening. We have ministry opportunities, we have promotions, we have marriage, we have going to college. We have all of these other opportunities and pathways, but hear me very clearly according to the biblical narrative, all of that well wise and fall on my relationship with Christ, and I begin to develop further my relationship with Christ by ensuring that God’s word.
It’s influencing my thoughts and my decisions that I’m reading the word of God, meditating on the word of God, that I’m allowing God’s word to, as pastor said, like you just are just consistently getting God’s word in. I think Pastor shared some time a couple of weeks ago about the word of God or how you can have different ways of getting the word of God in you.
And one of my strategies is I do, I listen to the word of God. I listen to it often. So I’m listening to you version in my car. I’ve made a commitment. I’ve even. We are saving money and making sure that we’re able to live the life that God will have us to live and we wanna be able to give to the kingdom.
So I just recently got rid of my cable. Some of you all may have done it already, and I’ve just chosen to do streaming and on demand, but I also did it intentionally because this year, in 2023. My intentionality is to draw closer to God in ways that I’ve never drawn closer to him before. I’m not looking for a new promotion, not looking for new money.
I’m not. All of that would be great, amen. And Hlu. But if I put God first, that’s what God said. Jesus said to his disciples, in my view, at the end of the sermon, I’m like, he says, seek the kingdom seeking first, the kingdom of God. All of these other things are gonna be added unto you, and what I believe the enemy continues to do, he has no new tricks.
He tries the same thing every time. Even when Jesus Christ, before he started his ministry in Matthew chapter four, he attempted to tip Jesus to worship him. He said, I can give you all the kingdoms of this world. Go back and pray it for yourself. I can’t get into it all right now. But he said, I can give all the kingdoms of this world if you will bow down and worship me.
Jesus said, ah. The Bible says worship God and God alone, God is one, worship him only. And so even if the enemy attempted to tempt Jesus and move him away from his calling, what more do you think he’s gonna do to us to try to move us away to, for living for him? He’s gonna put all of temptations, all types of pressures, right?
All types of concerns in our pathway for the sole purpose to get us all our focus. And the next thing you know, we look up and we find that we’re an maze of our own making and we’re trying to figure out how to get out of it simply because I didn’t follow God’s word. I didn’t follow God’s will. I didn’t allow his way to influence my thoughts, my words, my behavior, and my decisions.
Here we go for tonight, Colossians one 13. We’re gonna hang on in Colossians and we’re gonna hang out in Second Corinthians tonight. Colossians was written by Paul when he was imprison, one of his imprisonments. And the intent of Colossians is to respond to cultural pressures that were attempting to turn people away from Jesus.
So even at that time, they had cultural pressures that were challenging them. Their devotion to Jesus Christ. Right. So Colossians one 13 says, where he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son. He loves in home, we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
This is past tense. He has rescued and he continues to rescue, but he has rescued us. So Paul is setting up an argument with the Church of Colos. To help them have an understanding of what they already have in Jesus. See, the enemy of God will try to make you look at what you don’t have. Instead of focusing in on that which we already have, the enemy of God will try to cause us to focus on what I cannot get.
As it relates to living for Christ, instead of focusing on all that I had the ability to do because I’m in him, that is such a trick of the enemy and the culture in this world is influenced by the devil himself. He is a warring lion. He goes around looking to see who he can devour. He is a lie, and the truth is not in him, and he’s tricky.
He’s crafty. So you can begin to think that you are moving in a direction that appears to be correct. But the Proverbs is very clear that there’s a way that seems right unto a man, but the end of that way is death. So that’s why I always have to be conscious that I am aligning myself with God’s word and his will and his way, even in my profession, even in my career, even in my relationships, even.
And my desires and my pursuits, the heart can be deceitful. And so we have to be very clear about what is that motivating factor here? Am I being motivated by God’s will for my life by God’s word, or am I being motivated by the fact I just want more and I just wanna appear that I have more? So he says He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness.
So Jesus Christ has already rec rescued us and brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves. In whom I have redemption. So when I have redemption, that basically means that. Jesus Christ paid for my sins. I have been you. Words say I have been redeemed. I have been bought with a price, and in that redemption, I am brought into reconciliation with Christ.
In other words, I am now brought back into a right relationship with him. That’s why I keep saying kingdom living is possible. Don’t allow the enemy to fool you to faith that the area where you are being tempted and tested is so impossible and that you aren’t able to align yourself with God’s will for your life.
Because when I align myself with God’s will for my life, then I open up myself for God’s blessings and God’s miracles. Listen, God’s love is unconditional, but some of God’s promises are not.
I’m pausing for a fact. His love is unconditional. It is everlasting for ever. But there are promises of God that we can attempt to claim in the Word of God, but they have conditions to them. For God will work all things together according to my good. Yep. We use that scripture. Here’s the condition for all those who are called according to his purposes.
So if I’m living in the purpose of God, am I able to claim the promise of that script?
In who we have redemption and we already have the forgiveness of sins. God, in First John, he says this, we all have sinned and that when we sin, we simply just need to ask forgiveness for our sin. And God is what Some of you all know this just in faithful to do what? To forgive us of our sin. So. Through Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection on the cross, I have forgiveness, but some of us continue to live in the guilt, in the condemnation of what we’ve done, and when I live in the guilt and condemnation of what I’ve done, it will only be a matter of time before I find myself walking away from the one who will give me, who has given me, and who gives me the power to continue to live in his promise.
We all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and it’s not just about the big sins. We think about sex and drugs and the sins of the heart, envy, jealousy, selfish ambition, lying.
Those are sins too, right? So some of us are no longer doing some of that other stuff. But when I talk about somebody behind their back, when I allow my tongue to be used for evil, then the same tongue tries to go and praise God because it’s, it is about our continued transformation in him. So I don’t want us to feel bad about ourselves.
What I’m saying is that when we talk about forgiveness of sin, simply means missing the mark. That’s what said remains. So whatever God has called me to go here, I’m going here. But he has redeemed us and he is already given us forgiveness of sins. So I already, so what’s your point, Reverend Kendrick? That means that I already have the ability to live in the fullness and freedom that God has given me in the kingdom.
It’s already in me. I don’t have to jump up and down five times. I don’t have to run around the church. I have to have an understanding. Paul often prays. I pray that you have an understanding to know the will of God in Christ’s Jesus for you. I pray as women, we have an understanding that I don’t have to work for God’s approval.
I can be in church all day and all night. None of that. Somebody said to me, Reverend, you’re the hardest word, woman. The kingdom of God. Do you know, first of all, I’m not, but do you know that we can do all of that and still not be in alignment with God for our lives because only God knows the, and it’s really not about what other people think of me at all.
The only opinion that matters in the kingdom of God is gonna be God’s opinion of me. And is there a place in my life? Well, God is saying, I need you to go higher. I need you to have a higher perspective. I need you now to come up to where I am, because where you are right now is too low for what I have for you, but just consistently choosing a path that you’ve had previously.
You’re falling prey to what’s going on around you, but I need you to follow my will and my way. Because why? Because I’ve made the way for you. That’s really all I’m saying. All he’s saying is to the Colossians, you don’t have to fall to the culture of this work. So the pressures, and I wrote them here in my study.
There were two pressures that they were facing. One was called mystical polytheist. Jesus was just another guy. He was another de. They had gods of money. They had gods of sex, they had gods of music. They had gods of love, gods of nature. There were many deity that they would worship. And so for them, what they were being challenged with, the culture now, and this sounds very familiar to today, is that Jesus is another guy, just another dead.
The reality of it is we sometimes, without even realizing it, can build up and heck have, uh, source worship and have other gods in our lives. Right? The other one was they had pressure to observe the law of the Torah. So there were Jewish Christians, so back then everybody was Jewish. Jesus was Jewish, right?
But they had a Jewish Christian community because those people that were Jewish were now repenting and turning their lives over to Christ and choosing to believe in him. But they had a division because the Jewish Christian community was trying to tell the new Christians that they had to do everything as it relates to the tour.
So they had to follow all the laws of diet, the laws of the sacred days, the laws of circumcision. So they were trying to get them into this work’s righteousness. You have to do this, you have to do this, you have to do this. And Pauls, no, Jesus Christ paid it all. All to hear my out and I don’t have to follow all of that because now I have my faith in him and it’s through my faith in him that makes me right.
It’s through my relationship and my faith in believing in who he is. Okay, let’s go on. I’m almost stumbling outta time already. I got Hus 1 21 through 23. Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your own minds because of your evil behavior. So again, living in the kingdom of God. Means that I willingly allow God’s rule and reign over my heart and over my mind.
Now, there was a time he was telling them where you were alienated from God, and there was a time where we weren’t even thinking about God. I know we had sanctified saved, filled with the Holy Ghost now, but there was a time where we were not a part of God’s kingdom. Well, we were alienated from him. We were apart from him.
We were enemies in our minds and in our thoughts because of our behaviors. But what he’s saying is now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you wholly in his sight without blemish and free from accusation. This has already taken place, so he has reconciled me by Christ’s death, his physical body, his depo across.
I am now reconcile, means I’m back in right relationship with gun. I have no blemish and I can no longer be accused. I’m free from accusation. Here’s a condition if you continue in your faith established and firm, and do not move from the whole held out in the gospel. So reverend, so so how do I live a kingdom life in this culture?
How do I live a kingdom life when I’m working with people that aren’t same? How do I live a kingdom life when I’m married to somebody who doesn’t believe in Jesus? How do I live a kingdom life when I’m dealing with my own temptations and I’m dealing with my own self-motivation? How do I live a kingdom life?
Rev, it sounds good. He says here, if you continue in your faith, what is your faith? Your faith in Jesus Christ? The moment that we accepted Christ as Lord and Savior of our lives, Paul says, we became a new creation. All things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new. In the Gospel of John, he says that immediately when I accepted Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior of my life, I have become a child of God.
I am no longer just God’s creation. I am now God’s. Stop it. And I have a right. Ephesians tells us, if you read the book of Ephesians, that I have an inheritance in him. I’m blessed by him. I’m chosen by him. I’m plowed out of darkness into the marvelous light. So I can live this way. I can live the kingdom life if I continue in my faith.
The enemy, God must get you off your faith and sometimes he’ll use sorrow to get us off our faith. Many of you’ll know recently my father passed. It’s probably been the emptiest in one of the emptiest and saddest times of my life. I never thought in the, in the shit. I’m telling you ladies daughter, I just wasn’t ready.
We’re never ready for dad. I just didn’t realize how much I loved my dad until he was gone. I showed love and we had a great relationship, but, and my point is that sometimes when we have sorrow. If we have sorrow absent of faith, right? That’s why he says we grieve, but we don’t grieve as those who do not have hope.
I have sorrow, but it’s my state in God that I believe God meets me right where I am. And he said, I will never leave you, Kendra and I will never forsake you, and I can take that same sorrow and I can bring you comfort. That’s my second. If I choose to allow the sorrow to overtake me, then what am I doing?
I am now beginning to allow the sorrow to be like my God. Right? So I, I, I pull away. I don’t go to church ’cause I don’t feel like I’m tired. I don’t get on Bible study ’cause I feel, I don’t feel like it. I’m tired, right? I don’t serve in a ministry. Why? Because I, I don’t feel like it. I’m tired. And so I’m using this as an example to say you use your own places.
Remember I asked you think about where you’re being challenged. Think about, ’cause we all have places in our life where Christ, I want that place right there. Because remember, kingdom living is where God rules in God reigns in our heart and our soul, and in our minds, and in our bodies, right? And so we’re all evolving.
Oh, he says, if you continue in your faith established and firm. Do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. What’s the hope held out in the gospel? The hope held out in the gospel is that Jesus came. Jesus lived. Jesus died. Jesus rose again, and he, because He loved me, but God so loved the world. He gave His only be because that whosoever believed it in him shall not perish, but had everlasting life.
So I know that this world is not all that there is, and that gives me hope that I had eternal life and that one day I’m gonna see my dad again. This is not it. And when in when I had this hope as held out in the gospel, it allows me to be established. It allows me to stand firm. This is the gospel that you heard that has been proclaimed every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.
Let me move ’cause we gotta get ready to go. Okay. We’ll be going Colossians two, six through 10. So he continues this argument. Remember he’s talking to a church that’s feeling pressured. They’re feeling pressured by the culture and they’re also collect pressure by the Jewish Christians. And neither one of those pressures aligned with who Paul had taught them.
Who Christ was and his supremacy and what that means for me. So then just as you received Christ Jesus’ Lord. So I want us to think about ourselves. I want us to think about where we are, just as I received Christ. Jesus’. Lord, continue to live your lives in Him. Hold it. Wait a minute. Live your lives in Him The opportunity.
Prepositional phrase in him.
So when I live my life in him, it’s just in the Gospel of John when he said he’s the branch, we are the V, and we can’t do anything, separating it from him. And sometimes we’re attempting to serve, we’re attempting to be a spouse. We’re attempting to be a student, we’re attempting to do and to be without the one who gives us the ability to do.
And sometimes that’s why it’s so stressful. The Old Testament, he said, not by might, not by powers in the book of Zacharia, but what by my spirit said the Lord Jesus said, I’ve given you my Holy Spirit, my confided. And he is gonna empower you and he’s gonna enable you to go forth and do what I’ve called you to do.
He said, I’ve given you my spirit, so I have to live my life in him. So how do I live this kingdom life? I live this kingdom life in relationship with him, and we have to all decide for ourselves what that looks like practically. Right? I understand it intellectually. Well, what does it look like practically?
So I would ask you, what does living your life in him look like for you? Right. Rooted and built up in him. So just as, um, you have a root of a tree that goes down in a ground, in the ground, it is rooted and is strong and built up in him. In other words, I’m rooted in him, but then I grow in him. I And how do you grow in him?
I grow in him through my relationship with him. I growing him through his word, I growing, growing him through worship. I growing him through experience. I growing him by having knowledge of what other people are going, what other people are going through around me, by other people’s experiences. I also grow in him.
I can look at Lady Sha. I can see her life. I can look at another sister Christ. I can see their life. I may not have to know all that’s going on behind the scenes, but I can look and see testimony after testimony and how God is bringing other women through. And God uses that to help me to be built up in my faith.
And this is the word that I used on Friday night. Strengthened in the faith as you were taught in overflowing with thankfulness, a part of our job. As teachers and preachers is to help you to be strengthened. There’s something that you already know about him. There’s word that you already have. But just like when you go to the gym, I don’t go that often, but when you go to the gym and you use weight, you become strengthened.
And as you lift, the more you are able to lift. And so a part of even tonight is about you being strength. So that what you already know. When you walk away from this tonight, you’ll be like, yeah, that’s me. I can live a kingdom life. Yeah. That’s white. Jesus Christ died for me. Yeah. That’s white and forgive and yeah.
That’s why I remember that scripture. Again, that’s the intent of tonight. That’s what I want you to walk away with. It’s not always about having something new. It’s about taking that which we already have and already know and consistently applying it and reapplying it. That’s the hard work. That’s the hard press.
So see to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world, rather than on Christ. So see to it that no one takes you away with, you know, the horoscope. No one takes you away with all these mystical things that we get ourselves into.
You know what I mean? All of these kind of self-help, and I get it. I read self-help books as well, and I, but we have to be very clear that in and of itself is not going to allow me to live the life that God wants me to live. Amen. For in Christ. This is where I wanna go. All the fullness of the deity lives in bodily fooling.
So what is he saying right here? So what he’s saying is that in Jesus Christ, the fullness of God lit all, all of who God was, is in Jesus Christ. And in Christ you have been brought to forms. So what does this mean? It means you are complete. Through your union with Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority.
I wanna share this. This is one of the scriptures that really helped me in my young adult season as I was growing in my relationship with Christ, because I didn’t have an understanding that everything that I already needed to live in him. I had, I was consistently looking at other people, but I didn’t realize that I was already complete in him.
So for somebody tonight, I want you to be very clear. You are already complete. If you have a relationship with Jesus Christ, you already have fullness. You already have everything that you need. You are positioned for it. You are poised for it because it’s already in you. I’m already complete the fullness of of God that lives in Christ.
I also have this same sense of fullness in me. Why? Because I’m in relationship with him. The enemy of God would have us to compete and to compare ourselves, and then we can feel that we’re not complete. And as I share with the women on Friday, I really am praying that we release this sense of competition in this sense of comparison.
That we embrace the fact that I have, I am full and complete in him. And listen, when I know that I’m full and complete in him, it enables me to see the same in another sister. So instead of competing and comparing, I begin to celebrate because I can celebrate her and celebrate me at the same time. And so I’m already completing him and he is the head over every power and authority.
Jesus Christ is a supreme authority. He is the head over every power and authority. So whatever power and authority is attempting to try to influence me, speak to that and remind that power and authority. That you are a child of God. You are a daughter of the king. That you have been rescued from darkness, that God has brought you out of darkness, into marvelous light, that you already are delivered, you are already free, and whatever other power, whatever other authority, whatever issue is attempting to, to control me.
I need to speak to it through the word of God. The challenge is we don’t know what we already have. And so the enemy is banking. The, not only do we not know it, but we don’t know, uh, the fullness and the power that it brings. Because if I knew the power that I had in him, it’s an Ephesians where Jesus had to remind where, where Paul had to remind them, the same power that is in you is the same power that raised Jesus Christ from the day.
Wait a minute, wait a minute. So what metric? Why? Why am I walking around fearful? What’s not walking around, doubtful, not walking around thinking, not me, or it can’t be done. Well, this is too much for me. Or how could God want this for me? The same, walking around allowing generation after generation in my family, the same power that raise Jesus Christ of Meddin.
It’s the same power that I have in me, but I have to tap into it. I have to turn off the turn on the faucet. I have to turn it so that I’m able then to walk and live in that which God has for me. Okay. 8 48, we gotta get ready. Stop. Lemme do one more. I did complete in him. We’re fully complete. Nothing lacks in our salvation.
Um, our understanding of salvation may grow and the appropriation of the blessings of salvation may increase, but Christ. In Christ, we have all there is in the fullness of salvation. That was one of my, one of the quotes that I, so our understanding of salvation may grow. In other words, I may have greater understanding about what it means to be saved, and I may continue to grow and appropriate and call those blessings into my life.
As time goes on, that might increase, but in Christ right now, everything I need, I already have the, the primary purpose of Colossians. I took this from a Bible project. I was looking at a video. No part of human existence remains untouched by the loving and liberating rule of the rise of Jesus. Nothing that I do is untouched by him.
Our suffering, our temptations are compromised. Our moral character, the power dynamics in our homes and in our families. All of it must be reexamined and it must be transformed in the light of the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Amen. And Hallelu
Second Corinthians three, four through six and second Corinthians four was a very familiar scripture, but basically what one of the, um, arguments that Paul had when he was defending his call. In other words, when I, when he, when I’m defending that which God has called me to do, who God has called me to be in the kingdom, he understands that the confidence that he had in himself was through Christ before God.
That he wasn’t competent in himself to do what God was asking him to do. But your competence comes from God. So I begin to understand that it’s my competence in God over and against the competence I feel like I have within myself. So sometimes God is calling us to live and to do and to be, and we can begin to feel that we don’t have the ability to do it.
I know you’ve heard this phrase before, that God doesn’t call be equipped, but he equips the call We all are gonna find because we’re Kingdom women. We’re all gonna find ourselves in places. On platforms that we don’t really have the ability or the power to operate in and amongst ourselves, ’cause that’s how th works.
But understand that the competency is not coming from you. But my competency comes from God. It comes from his ability working in me. The, the spirit of God that lives in me has the ability and the power. It’s by his grace that he enables us. To walk into platforms that I may not feel that I’m ready for, or I may not feel that I have the ability to walk into.
But I remind myself that I am not where I am because of anything that I have done. But I am where I am because all that God has done for me. And as a result of that, I can’t sit on the sidelines. As a result of that, I cannot be courageous as a result of all that God has done for me. I have to give my whole life back to him.
Right? That’s what Paul said. I give my whole life back to him and giving my whole life back to him means at some point I’m gonna find myself in a situation where I am gonna be willing, be asked to take a risk and to step out into something. I may not even know how it’s gonna turn out, but I’m stepping out into it because I believe that God has called me too.
Thank you for tuning in to Keeping Your Poise Podcast with me, lady Shauna Watley. I’m so grateful to share this time with you. If this episode, encourage your Walk with God, don’t keep it to yourself. Be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode and share it with a friend. Together we’re building a community of empowered, faith-filled women walking in purpose.
Until next time, stay poised and stay blessed.