Introduction to Verity Podcast
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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.
Reflection on Season One and Future Plans
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Well, you guys were here. We are in the final episode of the first season. How crazy that time has flown that fast. And interestingly, I now have plenty of time due to the quarantine to work on our next seasons.
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material and I'm excited for what is coming. I'm having to decide between two topics. We're either going to do a series on the canon and the authority of Scripture or we're going to do a series on non-reformed or Wesleyan Arminian theology. I haven't decided which one we're going to do first. We will for sure do both. I'm just trying to figure out which one
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will come first. So that's a little peek at what's coming
Living in God's Strength and Moving Beyond Superficial Teachings
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next. We'll take a little break for a few weeks and then we'll start up again once I have the first couple episodes ready to go. So in today's episode we're wrapping up this whole season which has been kind of a deep dive into the chapter topics
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in Stop Calling Me Beautiful, my book that launched in February. And as we've looked at each chapter, I've read portions of the book and talked about it, but also shared some additional insights and thoughts and passages along the way. And so today we're looking at Chapter 12, the very last chapter in the book, and it is what difference would we make?
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What difference does it make if a woman lives according to the strength of God? If she stops listening to and embracing this pink fluff teaching? If
Women's Roles in the Great Commission
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she knows who she is in Christ, but also walks in Christ's power? Well, I think we know the answer. It would change the face of the modern church. Shallow Christian teaching keeps women, well, it keeps all people, but I'm specifically talking to women here, keeps women from fulfilling their great commission purpose.
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which in Matthew 28, 19 through 20, if you're not familiar with the term Great Commission, it was Jesus' last speech, last command to his disciples, where he said, go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And I'll be with you always, even to the end of the age. So in that command, which he issued to both men and women,
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It was implied that women would also be making disciples. They would be replicating themselves. And so we are not just to try to, quote, make a difference in our communities. We are to be the difference in our communities.
Spiritual Depth and Community in Discipleship
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so, as we go into this, we're going to talk a little bit about evangelism, but before we get to that, I want to lay a little foundation about our character and what community needs to look like. Now, we did a whole episode on community, so you can hop back if you didn't listen to that and listen in for an in-depth look at some of the things that hold us back, like fear, pride, insecurity.
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Let's just take for granted that we're walking in some freedom in those areas. We're pursuing maturity. We're seeking the Lord in His word for our community. What now does the intersection of our character and our community need to look like?
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Well, the first thing we need to understand is that spiritual depth is what changes our communities. But we don't help people grow by just grabbing the nearest soapbox and preaching in the street. I think there's a reason and a place for street preachers, but I think most of the in-depth work and discipleship is done in those
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one-on-one relationships, those small groups where people can really get to know each other and their struggles. So we change our communities by letting Jesus change our lives in front of, alongside, and within our communities.
Holiness and Vulnerability in Faith Journey
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am sure some of you right now could think of a situation where a coworker, an unbelieving relative, even a stranger noticed something different about you because of how Jesus has changed your life, how you follow him. Somebody noticed that and pointed it out.
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Our faith is a witness. People see our love for the Lord, our dedication to His word, our transformation into His likeness through the Spirit, and they realize this gospel is good for what it says. And this is why holiness matters so much. We have this new movement in the church. You know, actually, it's not that new. It's been around since the beginning. I should rephrase that. This attitude that holiness doesn't matter that much. Holiness is just legalism.
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And in this idea that how we act our character doesn't really matter. Oh, as long as you're nice to people, as long as you're kind and you're loving, that's what Jesus would do. But you know, the rest of it doesn't matter. But it does matter. It does matter because we are a set apart people and God expects us to be holy as He is holy.
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The beautiful thing about our God is He gives grace for that journey and the Holy Spirit who sanctifies us. So there are people who are you know in various stages of sanctification and maturity and so there's
Bowling Analogy on Vulnerability
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going to be different fruit at different points in their lives. But this idea that we don't need holiness because you know we're saved we're under grace is a complete misunderstanding of grace. It's the abuse of grace actually.
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which Paul told us, you know, do we sin more so that grace may abound? May it never be so. We should be thinking, Lord, I love you and I know you're holy, so I want to be holy like you. How should I be changing? What needs to align
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in my life with you and when people see that they see the transformation the gospel has worked in us and they can say wow that person is just different and you don't have to have some crazy testimony of coming out of drugs and alcohol abuse and you know multiple sexual partners to have a big difference in your life.
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I think those testimonies are amazing, but the girl who grew up in the church never really took her faith seriously. I've shared about my own walk with God, how for a long time I was very works-based to have the Lord work in you and change that.
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people will notice, they will see it, Christians and non-Christians. And so the gospel is revealed through our character and that requires us being in community and being vulnerable.
Growth Through Community Support
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So I wanted to give you guys this illustration that I think really kind of sums up what I'm talking about here. I don't know if any of you are bowlers, you like bowling. My husband loves bowling.
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I do not. And part of it's because I'm just really bad at it. And I just don't enjoy doing things that I'm bad at. It's something I'm really working on. But for most of our marriage, like I couldn't figure out why do I hate bowling so much? Like most activities, I'm fine with giving it a try. I like the food. I like eating pizza and you know, sitting down more than getting up.
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But what I finally realized it was about bowling is that when you're bowling, if you go with a group, it's repeated public failure. Think about it. So if you're bad at bowling, you get up, you fail in front of all your friends, and then you have the walk of shame back to your seat over and over and over again.
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That is not fun to me. Oh my goodness. And so I've tried to get better at it so that I can enjoy it a little bit more, but you kind of have to go and fail repeatedly to get better. So it's this like crazy cycle. So my point is I like to do things publicly only when I'm good at them.
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But that is not how life is, right? If we only ever do things in community that we're perfect at, not only can we be inauthentic, we can't be vulnerable, we can't be ourselves, we can't show, hey, I'm struggling through this, I'm learning this right now. And we often tend to feel about Christian community the way I feel about bowling. We only play the parts we're good at and only when they're visible. We don't want to be working through things.
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with our community. We don't want to work at having a stronger spiritual life where everyone can see that messy in between. So spiritual growth in community is going to look like letting God sanctify our hearts and being open about what he's sanctifying, asking for accountability.
Private Reflection vs. Public Processing
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when we're wrong, repenting to God and others, and based on the lives of the apostles in the early church, this is what we're supposed to do. We change our communities not by hiding away and preparing ourselves to emerge in this religious perfection, but by changing in, with, and in front of our communities.
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This really is the antithesis to pride. If we let other people see, you know, this is what I'm working through, this is what I'm struggling with, and insecurity and fear, they are going to be right there. And we have to be ready to commit those things to the Lord and let him work in us. But when we allow ourselves to be changed beside our fellow believers, our community itself is changed because people start to feel safe to share their own struggles.
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and deeper conversations about faith and life become welcomed or even normal. And I've seen this happen in our own community. I want to be sure that I'm clear here that this, when I'm talking about community, I do not mean processing your problems on Facebook or on Instagram.
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I am adamant, and I firmly believe this, and I'm sure there's people who don't agree, but I really see scriptural precedent that we are to process our difficulties, our struggles, the things that we're working through in close community and with the Lord in the Word.
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in prayer. So, you know, I see a lot of times people turning, and they meanwhile, but turning very recent lessons into these messages for other people on Instagram, you know, micro blogging type deal. And while I understand the heart behind that, it's really hard to process and embrace the change God's working in you when you're immediately spitting it back out for other people.
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Do you hear what I'm saying here?
Natural Evangelism Through Transformed Lives
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Your closest community can hear those things and work through them, but if you are just taking those things and immediately sharing them,
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it's harder to actually retain what's being learned. It's passing through you. You're like a little like tube instead of a vessel. You know what I mean? Like a pipe of information instead of sitting there with it and letting it change you. And so I try not to share what I'm struggling with, what I'm working through until I've worked through it with my husband, with the word, with prayer, and with my closest women friends.
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So, this pursuing vulnerability in community is not your online community, not the people following you, but the people who are closest to you, your church family, your brothers and sisters in Christ.
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Okay, so now we're going to move to the evangelism part of this. When you are being transformed in community, when you're pursuing a deeper relationship with God, this should result in some kind of outward action, right? When we talked about the quiet time, this would be the episode where the Instagram Bible won't free you, we talked about how
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there was a shift in devotional times for Christians. And when
Millennials and Faith Sharing Hesitations
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this shift happened, a lot of people went from pursuing their quiet times with the Lord for the sake of intercession, you know, I'm in the Word, I'm seeking the Lord, but I'm mainly also interceding for the world and for
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the people in my life to a focus on ourselves. So like, God, what do you have for me? What are you going to tell me about me? What does this apply to me? And that shift happened right around the 50s, the 60s. There was a lot more introspection. And then you had the 70s, of course, which really transformed just the world in general with the sexual revolution and
00:13:09
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a lot of more New Age-type spiritualism, and Christianity picked up some of that. And so we have to look at what Christianity really is. We have to look at what did the church fathers teach, what did the early church look like according to Acts and the epistles of the apostles,
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what was going on here because that gives us a guide for how to model our own walk with the Lord. And one thing we consistently see is that they were people who had an outward
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faith, an active faith. But when I say the word evangelism, I know that some of you have some baggage around this word. You are probably thinking of door knocking and tracts printed on million-dollar bills. Maybe you were a waitress and somebody left you one of those million-dollar bill tracts and no tip. That is the worst thing a Christian can do when eating out. Am I right or am I right?
00:14:13
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So we think of these tracks being handed out, door knocking, even bus ministries. I think a lot of these things have done some good, even street preachers and missions that go and preach the gospel during spring break on the beach. Oh my goodness, I've always just been so impressed by the boldness of those people. But there is another way that evangelism looks too.
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and it's much more daily. Now, according to a Barna research report, almost half of Christian millennials, so that's me and my compadres, mostly in their 30s,
00:14:51
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they think that sharing one's faith is wrong. You heard that right. They think it's wrong. Now, certainly there are a lot of factors why people wouldn't talk about Christ, fear, anxiety, lack of knowledge, but the most motivating reason to
Authentic Experience in Faith Sharing
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share your faith is your own powerful experience with it. So if more Christians experienced a vibrant walk with Jesus, one that transformed their daily lives, would talking about it maybe come more naturally?
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I think it would. So when we have an item that we love and we recommend and we think is just the next best thing to slice bread, we typically will recommend it to everybody we know, right? We're like, you've got to get this nail polish, you've got to get this book, it's so, so, so good, right? We have experienced how great it is, how it changed our lives, how it helped us, and so we want to talk about it. That's all evangelism is. So when people aren't motivated to evangelism,
00:15:50
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A lot of times it makes me think, well, what's their relationship with God like? Why wouldn't you want to share about what Christ did for you?
00:16:01
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Now, I think for some people, like I said, there's some baggage. They've seen it done so poorly. They've seen people be pushy, or they've seen people be almost like guilt tripping with it. And when you've experienced a bad example of evangelism, I can understand why you're like, I don't know how to do this well because I've only ever seen it done so poorly and, you know, pushing people away. So the first thing I want to mention here is, and this should be very freeing for you,
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This is not a sales pitch.
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It's not your job to land the sale. You don't need to get a certain number of people on your roster. And when you show up at the pearly gates handed into St. Peter, that's not what's going on here. We share our faith and make disciples, not conversions, disciples, people who confess faith in Christ, but who then continue walking with him. That's our goal, right? So this isn't about numbers. This is about.
00:17:02
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sharing who Jesus is with the people in our lives, showing them the hope that lies within us. And it's not up to us to save these people. It's the Holy Spirit's job to do the saving. We are just a part of his mission. We are getting the opportunity to share what he has done in our life by sharing his truth.
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And that's pretty incredible to get to be used by him. 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. 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.
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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.
Personal Evangelism Stories
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It's my brand new book, Stop Calling Me Beautiful, Finding Soul Deep Strength in a Skin Deep World. Stop Calling Me Beautiful is a book about going deeper with God.
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I'm going to talk about pursuing the truths 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. You can grab your copy on Amazon, or for more information, head to my website FeliciaMasonheimer.com and click the book tab.
00:18:33
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So one of the reasons I think people don't want to talk about their faith is, you know, the baggage, the fear, insecurity, you know, images from their past of poorly known evangelism. But also, if you have a shallow and defeated Christianity, why would that be worth talking about?
00:18:51
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why would you share something you barely believe yourself? This is not the kind of faith that early Christians were sharing. You hear me? There was a Christian life that was touched by Jesus. So for them, evangelism was like breathing. If you knew Jesus, you wanted to share about him. So I wanted to tell you a quick little story about one of my most powerful evangelism experiences.
00:19:16
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I might have told this earlier in one of the episodes, but I think I saved it for now because it is a part of chapter 12, but it's just one of my favorite memories from early in my walk. So when Josh and I were just married, so this would have probably been 2014 or 15.
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We were living in Lynchburg, Virginia. We both attended Liberty University and I worked there for five years. So I was working for the university and one of my jobs was during our large college for a weekend events we would have thousands of high schoolers come and visit the campus and during that time they got to do these activities and I helped to run one of the buses that took them from the campus to this off-site location for a ropes course in horseback riding and stuff like that.
00:20:09
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So they had a particular bus driver do it and he was the same guy every time. He was from Canada and I think his name was Jerry and he was not a Christian because he was just he was a bus driver who took people all over the United States. He took them on shopping trips. He could be chartered for anything and he happened to be chartered for the college for a weekend event. So what would happen is we had four events of the year and
00:20:37
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I would ride the bus with him for one full day each time he came. So eight hours, he's driving, I'm sitting behind him. The only reason I got off the bus was to get us both lunch. So it was all day with this guy. And the students all had their headphones in, so we were basically talking the whole time. So the first time he came,
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We're chatting and I quickly find out that he's not a Christian and he finds, you know, our campus just so interesting because, you know, it's the US. He found it fascinating that there were guns allowed on campus. You could have a personal carrier's license. So he was fascinated. But I'm thinking, do I need to like evangelize this guy? Because it seems like I'm supposed to.
00:21:22
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I'm the Christian here, and he's not, and I'm on a Christian campus. Isn't that kind of my job? I was still kind of at that point in my walk.
00:21:32
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But every time I prayed about it, as I was sitting in the bus, I just did not feel peace to say anything about Christianity to him. I just did not. So we just talked about his life and my life and his family and things like that. And the first time he came and he left, we never talked about my faith. The next time he came, same thing, whole time. I'm like, Lord, you want me to say something? I'll say something.
00:21:58
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Nothing. Nothing happened. So I just didn't feel at peace and I waited. The third time he came, so there would have been one more event, the third time he came, we're driving. And once again, all day, I'm like, Lord, I just feel like I should say something. But I didn't have peace to speak the gospel to him. At the very end of the day, the very last run of the day,
00:22:24
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He brought it up himself. He asked some just completely crazy question. I wish I could remember exactly what it was, but it was something like, you know, sometimes I wonder if there really is anything after this life and just open the door wide. And I truly sense that the Lord was saying through that to my spirit, consistent with the word,
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This is your opportunity. And
Scripture Engagement for Effective Faith Sharing
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so I shared the truth with them. I said, there is something after this life. And I broke down for him the problem of sin starting in Genesis. You know, we need reconciliation. Well, how is that going to happen? Building it to who Christ is.
00:23:08
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how we are saved and then what that looks like afterwards. He didn't make a profession of faith right then but he said hmm that's really interesting you've given me a lot to think about and nobody has ever described it to me the way you did before. When I got off the bus
00:23:27
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I could not remember what I said, which tells me that it was the Holy Spirit who gave me the words. But the words and the truths were stored up in my heart and in my mind because I had been exposing myself to Him in the Word regularly, every week, multiple days a week, seeking Him and letting that truth be put away in me. So when the time came to give a defense, I could. Everything was there and the Holy Spirit used Him.
00:23:57
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The students who got off the bus, there were about 40 of them or 30 of them, came up to me and said, that was amazing. I am so amazed that I got to witness that. So they got to hear the gospel shared with this man who did not believe.
00:24:17
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by being present during that moment where I got to obey God. And I'm not telling you this story to be like, oh my gosh, I'm like this amazing evangelist. No, clearly I was struggling with whether I should speak or should not speak. But what I learned through that is it's not about getting a salvation decision.
00:24:36
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It's not about me and my perfect words, but what it is about is the glory of God and the truth of God. And for me to share the truth of God, I have to be putting the truth of God in my life and in my heart.
Impactful Personal Faith in Community
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So if you're not in the word of God, you don't believe the word of God, your life doesn't show that you believe the word of God. Why would you ever share it with someone else? Defeated and shallow Christianity does nothing for anybody, nothing for you and nothing for the people who listen to you.
00:25:11
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It's so vital that we pursue a deep spiritual life because it impacts our world. It impacts the people around us, your godly community and the people who don't know the Lord yet. So the point of this whole series was to take you from a surface level faith to a deeper, more grounded Christian walk.
00:25:36
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And I hope whoever reads the book, whoever listens to the podcast has more excitement to grow in faith and in knowledge of the word, but ultimately that you will replicate yourself. I think I first heard this term in Frances Chan's book, Letters to the Church.
00:25:54
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This isn't about just becoming super smart theologically or just always knowing the answer. That's not what it's about. It's about being an example and being able to encourage people to look to our example. I think people tend to be worried that it's arrogant to tell people, hey, look at my example. But Paul said, now granted he's an apostle, but
00:26:17
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He said, follow my example as I follow the example of Christ, 1 Corinthians 11. He could say that because he was following the example of Christ, and we should be able to say that too. Paul was a human. He was a human with flaws just like us. And he followed the example of Christ, and that was the example that people saw in him.
00:26:41
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Our lives are the most tangible picture of what life in the spirit is supposed to look like. None of us
Bearing Spiritual Fruit
00:26:47
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are qualified for it, but we're showing who Jesus is and what he's done. It's amazing to be a part of such a mission. And the only way to have confidence in sharing our faith is to truly be going deep with the Lord.
00:27:07
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daily, be seeking Him, be walking with Him. That's how we have the confidence to share. So a shallow Christian is not going to replicate themselves because their faith is inward at best, but it doesn't make much of a difference in how they think, how they act, or how they live. People aren't motivated to share a defeatist faith. But for those who are ready to press into a deeper spiritual life,
00:27:34
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ready to walk by the Spirit, and outward-focused faith is characteristic. They share the gospel because they've experienced it with its overcoming power. Jesus said to the Jews who believed in him, if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.
00:27:57
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So, abiding in his word would be staying, resting, living in the original truth of God. And this is what disciples of Jesus do. Anyone can say that they are a Christian. But Jesus actually gives us some qualifications for being one.
00:28:13
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It's possible, it is possible, to be a fake disciple. Someone who says they follow Jesus, takes his name, goes to church, even posts quotes from the Bible. But if this person does not abide in God's Word and live by his Spirit, she's not going to be free.
00:28:29
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And worse, you won't fulfill God's great commission calling because she's not actually following him in the first place. He was so serious about this that Jesus repeated it in John 15, saying, if you abide in me and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.
Women Engaging with Scripture and Community
00:28:46
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By this my father is glorified that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples. Holy cow, y'all.
00:28:57
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Prove to be his disciples by your fruit by what you're doing the fruit of the spirit in your life And we want to bear that fruit we abide in him This was so freeing to me when I first learned this That it's not about working really hard to grow fruit or forcing yourself to do it It is about simply seeking the face of Jesus
00:29:20
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seeking him diligently. You can distill everything down to seek him first, and he will do the work in you. And then as he's working in you, as he's speaking to your heart, he's saying, do this, say this, choose this, maybe remove this from your life, and you obey, his voice gets louder. You understand his truth more fully. The life of obedience, the life of holiness,
00:29:50
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is this beautiful dance where we're delighting in the Lord and we become more devoted to Him day by day.
00:29:59
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So as I end this episode, I wanted to actually read the very last section of stop calling me beautiful because this this portion. Oh, I'm proud. You know, we talked about this last time. I just have a problem with crying in this this series. I don't think I'll do it next series, you guys. I promise I will not cry so much, although I am pregnant, so I can't make any promises. But this section.
00:30:23
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When I wrote it, I cried. Every time I read it, I cry. It's just, I think it's just so powerful. Okay, I will try not to cry through this whole thing.
00:30:36
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Would anyone believe Jesus as Savior simply because of how I speak, act, and live? Is Jesus through me that magnetic? Remember, this is not something we do on our own strength. We don't force people to follow Jesus through our good works.
00:30:54
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But if you're connected to the vine, the fruit of your life will not just prove you are a disciple, it will produce more disciples. At the end of the day, we fulfill the Great Commission by living every day, every hour, and every decision by God's Word and God's Spirit. Our testimonies point back to this. Our lives reflect this reality.
Conclusion and Call to Deeper Spiritual Lives
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This book is titled Stop Calling Me Beautiful as a call to trade the surface-level message for one of true depth and therefore true freedom.
00:31:21
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But you know what's truly beautiful? Thousands of Christian women diving deep into the Word of God for themselves. Thousands of women learning to walk by the Spirit. Thousands of women replicating their own spiritual depth in their communities. How beautiful!
00:31:37
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says Isaiah 52.7, are the feet of those who bring good news, who proclaim peace, who bring good tidings, who proclaim salvation, who say to Zion, your God reigns. And how beautiful you are when you live out the thriving, growing, multiplying faith that Jesus wants for you.
Connect with Felicia
00:32:03
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you are when you proclaim his peace, when you bring his good news, and when you share his salvation with those around you. How beautiful the woman who tells her world to the way she lives. My God reigns.
00:32:22
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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.