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001 | Why The Instagram Bible Won't Free You | Theology AMA
848 Plays5 years ago
We know that the Word of God is the Power of God. It transforms us. It strengthens us. It shows us who God is and how He interacts with man. It's how the Holy Spirit speaks to us primarily.
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Transcript
Introduction to Verity Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome to Verity. I'm your host, Felicia Masonheimer, an author, speaker, and Bible teacher. This podcast will help you embrace the history and depth of the Christian faith, ask questions, seek answers, and devote yourself to becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ. You don't have to settle for watered-down Christian teaching. And if you're ready to go deeper, God is just as ready to take you there. This is Verity, where every woman is a theologian.
00:00:30
Speaker
So I'm sitting here at my desk looking out at the cows, which is my view from my office. And I just realized as I'm about to start this episode about quiet times that I didn't have my own quiet time today.
00:00:46
Speaker
And you might be kind of surprised by that admission if that shocks you or you think, oh my goodness, Felicia Masonheimer is talking about the Bible and she was not in her Bible yet today. I just think this episode is going to bring you a lot of freedom because when we get to the topic of seeking God in the Word,
00:01:05
Speaker
and having a quiet time with the Lord, I think there's a lot of confusion and guilt that goes along with that conversation.
Understanding God's Word Beyond Aesthetics
00:01:13
Speaker
So today's episode is called, Why the Instagram Bible Won't Free You. And it's actually the name of the fourth chapter in Stop Calling Me Beautiful. And since this series, this semester is focusing on many of the topics found in the book, we're going to start here.
00:01:31
Speaker
Now, I'm not just starting with this topic because it's the fourth chapter in the book. I'm starting with it because it's foundational to everything else we're going to be talking about in the next few weeks. Here's why. We know that the Word of God is the power of God, right? It transforms us. It strengthens us. It shows us who God is and how he interacts with man.
00:01:57
Speaker
It's how the Holy Spirit speaks to us primarily and what He brings to mind. So we know that the Word of God is vital, right? The author, I believe it's in Hebrews, said that it pierces between the soul. It pierces our hearts and it divides us and shows us what is true.
00:02:18
Speaker
As we are going into this topic, I just want to encourage you that this is not meant to result in more guilt. It's meant to guide you to freedom and that freedom will lead to diligence in exposing yourself to the Word of God.
00:02:37
Speaker
So let's start by talking about the Instagram quiet time. I think you're all pretty familiar with this once I describe it for you. It involves highlighters, maybe a couple different pens, maybe a journaling or note-taking Bible, probably a candle, an armchair, and could happen anywhere between 5 and 7am. Does that sound familiar?
00:03:01
Speaker
Okay, we see pictures of this on Instagram. Hey, you know what? You've probably seen pictures of it on my Instagram. Guilty as charged. But here's the thing. We've taken this image of what approaching God looks like in some capacities, some days. And we've decided that the only way to see God, the only way to know God is in that context.
00:03:27
Speaker
We have this expectation that we need 30 minutes and a perfect quiet day or morning to meet God deeply. And if we don't have that, then we're not going to be able to go deeper with Him. And I want you to step back from that and ask a kind of tough question.
00:03:44
Speaker
Where is that in scripture? Let's look at some of the great saints in scripture and even throughout church history and let's ask how many of them had a candle? Well, maybe they did have candles because they didn't have electric lights being real here. But how many of them had a candle for a nice environment and a cozy armchair when they were seeking the Lord? Not a lot of them.
00:04:11
Speaker
Many of them didn't even have access to a Bible in the form that we have it. They had to store up that knowledge in their mind and keep it with them and then approach the Lord in prayer. So we have this expectation today that a quiet time needs to look a certain way when many people throughout church history didn't even have that opportunity.
00:04:32
Speaker
And so when we don't have a quiet time that looks like we see on Instagram, we get frustrated and maybe we give up or we feel guilty all day and think, oh man, I'm not a good Christian because I'm not seeking God this way. And so I just really want to return to what we see about worship and seeking God and studying the word in scripture and let that be our guide for how we pursue Him.
00:04:59
Speaker
It's not the Instagram quiet time. Surprise, surprise. Okay, I'm going to actually read to you about the origins of the quiet time. And I thought about trying to retell this to you, but I figured just reading the story in the book itself is the best way to do this. So this is on pages 61 and 62 if you own Stop Calling Me Beautiful or you're going to own it once it
The Evolution of 'Quiet Time'
00:05:24
Speaker
launches.
00:05:24
Speaker
The term quiet time was first popularized in a pamphlet published by the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. It was quickly adopted by Campus Crusade for Christ, The Navigators, and Billy Graham. What used to be called the Morning Watch, a time focused on reading the word and intercessory prayer, prayer on behalf of yourself, others, the church, and nations, changed in focus from praying to God to listening for God.
00:05:51
Speaker
One of the characteristic elements of evangelical devotion prior to 1920 was a strong emphasis on prayer. The word was the basis for it, time was spent on it, and lives were changed through it. The earliest evangelical church fathers and writers, such as John Wesley, George Whitefield, and later Charles Spurgeon and Oswald Chambers, regularly espoused the necessity of prayer for a thriving Christian life, which included both appealing to and listening for God.
00:06:21
Speaker
The term morning watch reflected the military mindset of many Western Christians of that time. They recognized life as a spiritual war, and their time with God was part of the battle. But with the change of terminology in the 1940s came a slow change of devotional dynamic. As evangelical culture emphasized listening for God, devotional time with him became less about prayer and obedience and more focused on passive spiritual disciplines, things like silence, stillness, and meditation.
00:06:50
Speaker
Before, time with God was outward focused. Prayer and time in the Word were meant to drive the believer to action. During the shift of focus from corporate action to individual pursuit, time with God became primarily inward focused. Cultural Christianity emphasized the individual as opposed to the believer's effect on her community.
00:07:10
Speaker
While quieter spiritual disciplines and listening to God's will for our individual lives are vital to our pursuit of Him, they become lopsided when they become disconnected from their purpose, building a faith that leads people to take action in the world. This brings us to today. The resulting quiet time culture continues to emphasize listening for God, meditating on the Word, and being quiet and still. It also suffers from a severe case of self-focus.
00:07:38
Speaker
We come to God because of our relationship with Him, but we've forgotten that this relationship is meant to be a driving force for evangelism. Thus, what we learn in our Instagramable quiet times makes us feel good, but doesn't create Christ followers who know what following Christ looks like or how to spread the message of the Gospel to others.
00:07:57
Speaker
Time with God in the 21st century is primarily focused on learning what God wants for us. We read the word to learn how to apply it to us. We pray to ask God more about ourselves. We listen to hear God's message for us. The morning watch is no longer a part of a bigger story. Devotional time has become more focused on personal fulfillment and less on eternal significance.
00:08:23
Speaker
So the concern here is not that we are talking to the Lord about our problems. I'm not saying we need to stop that. That's a part of walking with God, is that we get to bring our burdens to him and he carries our burdens. There is a wonderful personal nature to our Christianity that makes it individual, that makes it special among all other religions in the world.
00:08:46
Speaker
However, Christianity is an active faith.
Authentic Worship Beyond the Visuals
00:08:50
Speaker
It's not just about what we can get out of God. Unfortunately, today's quiet times and devotional structure are very self-focused. It's truly self-improvement wrapped up in a faith package.
00:09:04
Speaker
And that's not what God is ultimately after. Yes, He changes our character. Yes, our character impacts the world. But our seeking God is to worship God. And we have a really great model for what a quiet time can look like, what seeking God can look like in the life of King David.
00:09:26
Speaker
We notice, if we look at the Psalms, that he didn't just seek God in the morning. Now, there are a couple passages that indicate he did. We have Psalm 5.3, for instance. He did seek God in the morning, but we also know he sought God on his bed, Psalm 63.6. We know he praised God privately, Psalm 103.1, and publicly, Psalm 27.4. He delighted in God's law, Psalm 25.4.
00:09:54
Speaker
and he worshiped God through music. Psalm 95.1, we see that David's devotion was not just a style or time of day or place of worship. It was a posture of his heart, and that's what worship should be for us. We should be pursuing a worship of God that is not dependent on a coffee mug or a candle or the perfect circumstances, but a heart that's willing to seek him no matter
00:10:25
Speaker
Now, if you're wondering, okay, worship, what does that mean? I thought worship was just when we went to church and we sing a bunch of songs. So that's a little confusing. I think when we use the term praise and worship in a church service, actually the whole church service is worship.
00:10:42
Speaker
from the tithing and the offerings to the singing to the message. It's all worship of God. Isn't that kind of a cool reframe? Those services are meant to elevate and glorify God and that's what worship is. It's offering the worth of God and turning our attention to that.
00:11:00
Speaker
But when we want to cultivate a worshipful heart, there are a few things that scripture tells us about what that looks like. 1 Chronicles 16, 29 says that a worshipful heart ascribes glory to God and rehearses His goodness. Psalm 99 says that a worshipful heart emphasizes His holiness. Psalm 96 tells us it changes our posture and it leads us into humility.
00:11:27
Speaker
Daniel 3 tells us that someone who's worshipping God recognizes idols for what they are and does not attribute worth to anything but God. John 4 says that worship is led by the Spirit and it's based on God's truth.
00:11:43
Speaker
So, we can see that worship is this heart-based action and that being in the right circumstance or having a journaling Bible or having highlighters in all the right colors
00:11:58
Speaker
is not necessary for us to worship God through His word. We don't need to have all of these trappings in order to seek Him. And in fact, they may be a bit of a distraction because when we don't have the trappings, then we get discouraged or we think we can't come to the Lord because the circumstances aren't perfect. When in fact, it would be so much better if we came to Him regardless, whether we're washing dishes or on our commute or on our lunch break,
00:12:27
Speaker
And yeah, we don't have every single thing that we need, but we're coming to Him in prayer. We're rehearsing the verses that we've stored up in our hearts. We're committing intercession to Him on behalf of our friends and our family. We can worship God anywhere and we see this model here in Scripture and it's absolutely beautiful and it's so freeing.
00:12:50
Speaker
So we know that drawing near can be tough. Seeking God without the perfect circumstances, it can be hard. It's a bit of a reframe. But I want to talk about drawing near and why it's not always easy.
00:13:06
Speaker
When I was 18, I was living at home, I was working full-time as a secretary, and I was doing online college. So I had my own little life going on. I had my own room, my own car, and pretty much all the time in the world. Living at home, no rent,
00:13:24
Speaker
I was living the dream, really. And in that season, I had so much time to seek God in the morning. And I remember I would do these long quiet times where I would go in, I'd study the Bible, I would listen to worship music on a CD because it was eons ago, and I would pray over different prayer requests. And it was wonderful. It was great. But it was my season.
00:13:50
Speaker
Fast forward a couple years and I was still working full time, still in college, but now I was paying my own rent and had different commitments. And my quiet time wasn't that elaborate and I didn't have as much privacy. And sometimes I didn't have time to spend that much time in the Word before I left for my commute. And so I started doing my Bible study in 30-minute increments, sometimes on my lunch break at work.
00:14:17
Speaker
Sometimes I would do it in the morning, sometimes I had to do it in the evening because my season changed. And then if you go forward a few more years, I'm married and we just moved to Pennsylvania and I was just learning how to make friends where I didn't know anybody and joining a new church and
00:14:35
Speaker
I had a whole new quiet time routine with a baby that woke up early. I remember coming downstairs to my dining room table and I had a basket sitting in the middle with my Bible and my very first Give Me Jesus journal by Well-Watered Women. This is in 2015, so five years ago. And I read the Bible chronologically for the very first time that year. And my quiet time looked like me holding my baby on my knee and writing with my other hand as I read those passages.
00:15:05
Speaker
Our seasons are going to change what our quiet times look like and if we expect them to look the same season to season, we're going to get really discouraged and we're going to actually miss the point because the point is worship, right ladies? The point is we're seeking God.
00:15:23
Speaker
and we don't need perfect circumstances to do that. If we expect it to be perfect, we're actually placing an expectation on ourselves and on worship that God Himself doesn't even have. There is no rule that you can only meet God in the morning.
00:15:40
Speaker
There isn't. I think it's often the most convenient time. It is nice to have that quietness to focus and pray and I'm not saying that's a bad thing at all. But now in my current season where I have two little girls, one is four and one is two, sometimes I don't get up super early and make time for my quiet time and I have to do it later in the day.
00:16:02
Speaker
So for instance, today we were out late last night, didn't get up as early as I wanted. And then my nanny came at 8 30 and I didn't get to start my quiet time. So I am going to be doing that this evening before bed. I'm going to spend time with the Lord in a new time. I'm flexible because I know my God is flexible. What he cares about is, are you coming to him? Do you have a heart that worships in spirit and in truth?
00:16:31
Speaker
Now let's step back a minute and think about why this even matters. So maybe you're like, okay, I see I have the freedom, but I don't really even want to approach God at all.
Intentional Spiritual Growth
00:16:41
Speaker
I don't really want to open my Bible at all.
00:16:44
Speaker
I hear you, and thanks for being real. But here's the big important concept you have to grasp and take away. Spiritual depth and maturity never happen by accident. If you want to grow with God, you have to intentionally expose yourself to the heart and spirit of God.
00:17:06
Speaker
See, God's not going to push Himself on you. He will call to you. He will convict you. The Spirit will say, hey, come meet me. But you have a choice and He will let you walk away. Your choice is to approach Him and to seek Him. I love the verse that says that God rewards those who earnestly seek Him. That's such a promise.
00:17:28
Speaker
So if you seek Him, He will reward that. He shows up to meet us when we meet Him in the Word. I always remind newer believers and people recommitting and coming back to the Lord, you're not the only one showing up when you come to the Word. The Word of God is living and active. It's there to transform your mind and your heart. And so if you show up, you take the faith step to show up and meet the Lord. He's going to meet you there.
00:17:57
Speaker
I think all of us have been at a women's conference where we were told, you are a beautiful daughter of the Most High King.
00:18:04
Speaker
And it's true, but it's not the whole truth. The beauty of being God's daughter has some backstory and it's left out in a lot of messages preached to women. So if you're tired of hearing the watered down Christian teaching and you're hungry for a deeper spiritual life, I have something for you. Coming so soon with a launch date of February 18th is my brand new book, Stop Calling Me Beautiful, finding soul deep strength in a skin deep world.
00:18:33
Speaker
Stop Calling Me Beautiful is a book about going deeper with God. I'm going to talk about pursuing the truth of who God is and who we are in relationship to Him, how to study Scripture, how legalism, shallow theology, and false teaching keep us from living boldly as a woman of the Word. I'm so excited to put this book in your hands. If you're ready to pre-order, you can grab your copy on Amazon, or for more information, head to my website FeliciaMasonheimer.com and click the book tab.
00:19:03
Speaker
So say you've picked a time in a backup time to meet the Lord, you're ready and dedicated to make a habit of seeking Him in the Word to let the guilt go. Here are some common disruptors that might be causing you to get off track in your walk with God.
00:19:24
Speaker
The first one is uncertainty. So uncertainty is common for all of us regardless of our stage of life, but I think it's especially hard if you're a new believer or you're new to studying the Bible for itself without the dependence on a devotional.
00:19:40
Speaker
You might not know what to read, where to start, or how to study, and the lack of focus actually sabotages your time with the Lord. So to counteract uncertainty and to be intentional in seeking the Lord, I recommend choosing a book of the Bible to study each month. You can start anywhere, and you can take as long as you want. You can take two months or three months in one book,
00:20:02
Speaker
You can do it in a shorter period of time, it's whatever works for you. But if you're starting out, I would say take something short like 1 John or 1 Peter and study that for a solid month. This way you know exactly where you need to start when you sit down.
00:20:19
Speaker
When I teach on productivity, one of the things I bring up a lot is if you don't have an intention, you don't have a goal, you aren't sure what your next step is, you're going to find distractions, you're going to get distracted by little tasks or your phone because you aren't sure what's next. You have to command yourself.
00:20:40
Speaker
to go to the specific task that you've set aside. And the same goes with seeking God in the Word. When you know where you're starting, it's much easier to start seeking from that point. So uncertainty is the first disrupter to your walk with God. The second one is distraction. I think we're all familiar with this.
00:21:04
Speaker
Distraction is when we need to pick up our phone and take a good picture of our quiet time and then we're on Instagram answering DMs and scrolling and then we check Facebook and email and oh man 30 minutes went by and now I need to leave for my work.
00:21:17
Speaker
Rather than doing that, what I would recommend is keeping your phone off and going straight to your quiet time when you get up in the morning. If you have to check your phone, make sure that you set a timer or you watch the clock to put it back down and then go down and spend time with your Bible.
00:21:37
Speaker
Another thing I found helpful is to not use an app-based Bible reading plan. So I did this last year, I used a chronological Bible reading plan that was on YouVersion and I loved it, but what I found was I would have to hop on my phone to get the passage I was reading and then I would stay on my phone.
00:21:58
Speaker
So this year I printed out a Bible reading plan and I just put it right in my Bible and that has been super helpful for me. Another option is you could use a YouVersion or online Bible reading plan, but what I would do is go in and then write down the specific passages you need to study in your planner for every day that you will be studying them.
00:22:21
Speaker
So if it's Monday, you know Genesis 34 through 35, Psalm 19, wherever you are, you write those passages directly in your planner so you don't even need to look at the Bible app and you won't get distracted. The third disruptor to our walk with God is inconsistency.
00:22:38
Speaker
So this is largely a habit-based disruptor. It's a personality thing where we aren't consistent because we struggle with consistency in general and everybody struggles with this. It doesn't matter whether you're super productive or not, everybody struggles with consistency at some point. But this happens the most when we let uncertainty and distraction characterize our time with God.
00:23:04
Speaker
What's enjoyable about a half hour spent trying to focus and sit still? Not much. We need to be consistent in order to begin to enjoy this. And I often say that the feelings and the emotions that are positive about seeking God, they come with time as you faithfully show up. If you only seek God when you feel like it, you're not going to be consistent.
00:23:30
Speaker
You have to understand that this is a relationship that matters eternally and that means that you're going to have to show up regardless of how you feel about it, but the emotions change as we expose ourselves to the heart of God. So to be more consistent, set a lower bar.
00:23:45
Speaker
Big goals don't work when you're already struggling with consistency. So instead of meeting God for, say, an hour every day, choose three days of the week and a flexible time to meet Him. It's better to start somewhere than to start nowhere or to set a monstrously high goal and not ever meet it. So choose a realistic timeframe, a realistic meeting place, and, you know, whatever it is that you need in order to be consistent in meeting with God in His word.
00:24:16
Speaker
The fourth disruptor is depth. So depth is a struggle for many Christian women. When we lack focus and are distracted and inconsistent, we default to quick studies and devotionals. These give us a surface knowledge of scripture, and thus they give us a surface experience with God. And because going deeper takes time, it's usually the first thing to go when our schedules get busy.
00:24:45
Speaker
But if we truly want to live an overcoming life and we want to experience the living water Jesus promises, we have to take time to go deep in study and prayer. It has to be a priority. That might mean just a part of a passage, but it's the word itself and you're writing down your thoughts and your notes and your questions and you're looking the stuff up later or you're looking up root words and you're really digging in.
00:25:09
Speaker
instead of saying, well, I don't really feel like doing this, it's hard, I'm just gonna grab Jesus Calling. You will not grow deeper if you don't do deeper work. You have to show up.
00:25:23
Speaker
So the last thing I want to mention as we close this episode out is that the goal of your quiet time, your seeking of God, is not something Instagram worthy, but worship of Jesus Christ.
The True Goal of Quiet Time
00:25:37
Speaker
He loves you. He wants to know you and empower you and take you deeper with him. But that can only happen if you're willing to show up and let him do that transforming work. You don't have to wait for perfect circumstances,
00:25:53
Speaker
the perfect situation, perfect coffee, you don't have to have all that. We come to the Lord bringing our brokenness and we exchange it for His overcoming power. But this exchange can only happen if we make meeting Him a habit. Coffee and Jesus are great, but at the end of the day, you only need Jesus. Don't wait for the coffee. Just come to Him.
00:26:21
Speaker
Thank you for joining us for today's episode of Verity. You can connect with fellow listeners by following me on Instagram at Felicia Masonheimer or on our Facebook page by the same name. Also visit FeliciaMasonheimer.com for links to each episode and the show notes.