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Fueling Faith: Practical Tips for Abiding in Christ for Daily Life
60 Plays1 year ago
In this episode, they explore practical and spiritual reasons for prioritizing scripture intake and reducing secular entertainment. They emphasize the need for a consistent spiritual routine and integrating faith and prayer into everyday life. Join them as they share personal experiences, practical tips, and the refreshing nature of seasonal changes and faith practices. Get ready to be inspired to deepen your connection to Jesus and incorporate abiding in Christ into your daily life.
Resources Mentioned:
Family Worship: https://www.amazon.com/Family-Worship-Bible-History-Your/dp/1433567229
Timestamps:
00:00 Abiding in Christ through consistent devotional time.
06:00 Family starts day with morning devotion and discussion.
08:38 "Family Worship" by Donald Whitney emphasizes simple practices.
10:06 Abiding in Christ: scripture, prayer, obedience, connection.
13:24 Sparking ideas and building habits throughout the day.
16:20 Use resources to strengthen faith throughout day.
20:22 Find importance in Jesus throughout your day.
23:48 Morning rituals: scripture, worship, prayer, involve God.
26:17 Spreading out impactful traditions for Christ.
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Transcript
Introduction: Abiding in Christ with Kyle Hess
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome back to the Grove Hill Church podcast. I'm Dan Sanchez, and today I'm joined by Kyle Hess. It's not Ridley this time. Kyle got up on the, I was going to say podium, but we don't call it a podium. We call it a pulpit in the church and preached this last Sunday on abiding in Christ.
Understanding 'Abiding in Christ': A Personal Growth Analogy
00:00:19
Speaker
So welcome. Welcome to the podcast, Kyle. Thank you, sir. I'm happy to be here.
00:00:23
Speaker
It's not the same thing as preaching in front of the congregation, though it's really just a conversation with me, the Dan, expanding on what you talked about on the Sunday sermon. So I'm excited to dive in because abiding in Christ is just one of those critical topics that all Christians should be coming back to all the time and not even just questioning like, if I'm doing it, but how well am I doing it and how much better am I doing it than maybe a certain period before last year, right?
Why Speak on Abiding: Insights from John 15
00:00:50
Speaker
Right.
00:00:50
Speaker
and it's kind of like that's a good topic to bring up like december 1st when people are thinking about like their their their gym personal records or maybe some weight loss or different things like that i'm like now let's keep it back to what really matters yes in christ i don't know if that was influential on how you pick the topic or not but it was kind of played a part you know you have you typically have those new year's sermons where you know new year new you will
00:01:16
Speaker
We want less of us and more of Jesus. I kind of reeled it back and prayed through it and God kind of led me to John 15 and that's abiding in Christ.
00:01:26
Speaker
man, such a good one. Is this a topic that you've spoken on before?
Societal Pressures vs. Spiritual Teachings: Abide First
00:01:31
Speaker
Is this something that's like near and dear to your heart? Or do you just feel like this is a good time for now? I've never spoken on it before. But just kind of the way that society is going and culture is going is we spread ourselves out, basically trying to prove that we're a Christian. And so we reach out and say, Hey, I did this, and I'm doing this, and I went to church.
00:01:48
Speaker
And then we kind of make an assumption that we are abiding in Christ when Jesus says it the opposite. He says, abide in me, and then we're going to go out and do those things together. We'll produce fruit, but you're going to abide in me first.
00:02:02
Speaker
Yeah, I think so many answers to Christianity come back to that simple fact of like abiding in God, and then he gives you what you need to do the thing.
The Vine and Branches: Dependency on Christ
00:02:13
Speaker
Yes, sir. I mean, that's why that's why it's such a plain example he uses with the vine and the branches is that branch
00:02:19
Speaker
absolutely cannot do anything without the vine. And so he's saying, hey, come to me, abide in me, get your resources, your nutrients, your health, your rest, everything you have comes from me and then we'll go together forward.
00:02:34
Speaker
So as I sat and meditated on the sermon, like afterwards, it made me realize like, it's, yes, we can abide in
Influences in Life: Choosing Godly Content
00:02:43
Speaker
Christ. We can even have our little devote time, which a lot of us, you know, it's hard to even hold that consistently. But let's just say we have a little 30 minute devote time.
00:02:51
Speaker
where we read the Bible, maybe we even journal and say a prayer. Every single day, you have to wonder, of all the things I have coming into me, how much of that is actually godly? How much of that is from the gospel, from the Bible, or from things related to it?
00:03:11
Speaker
You almost have to wonder if, especially around the New Year's, you are what you eat in your mind. How much of that is coming from Christ? How much of that is coming from good sources of things? How much are we abiding? Do you think about your life in that regard?
Daily Scripture: Beyond Sunday Sermons
00:03:28
Speaker
Yeah, that really is the importance of being in Scripture. Because if you think about your own day, and if I thought about my own day, I speak to different people. Most students have school or an education of some sort. Adults have their work life. We have TV. We have radio. We have radio commercials. And so there's so many things that
00:03:50
Speaker
can feed into us. And like you said, you are what you eat. So the intake of what we need to be taking in as far as scripture, definitely these days needs to be elevated more than it already is. For years, people have said, okay, I got that sermon on Sunday and I've got that Bible study on Wednesday. That's my intake. That's absolutely not enough.
00:04:13
Speaker
That's absolutely not enough. That is an hour, maybe plus a half hour in your week when we have so many other things feeding into us, when we need to be feeding on the truth of God's Word. And so that's the importance of abiding in Scripture, practically what that looks like for each person. That's on you. If you have that half hour in the morning, that's amazing.
00:04:35
Speaker
Some people hit the ground running right away, but too often we adjust Jesus to our life when we need to be adjusting our life for Jesus. So we need to set that time out, schedule that time, make that a priority, getting into God's word.
Family Devotion and Community in Christ
00:04:51
Speaker
You know, I want to ask you, like, what are some of the ways that you're doing it practically yourself and as a family beyond the devotional time to bring more of God's word of his Holy Spirit into your life? What are some things you're doing? It's a little easier, I think, when you're in full-time ministry, but let's say before you were in full-time ministry, what were you doing? I would say I'll kind of correct you there a little bit.
00:05:18
Speaker
The easier part of being in ministry and leading your kids is that they're basically with you at church every time you're at church. The hard part is, is sometimes ministry becomes a little bit of a job you feel. And so when you get home, what's the last thing you want to do?
00:05:32
Speaker
is talk about your job, right? And so when you get home, now I'm maybe taking a break from those types of things rather than just constantly feeding into my kids with scripture. I'm glad you mentioned you said me and my family, which is a funny thing because my daily devotion ends up on a recliner in my living room. Most people have like an office at home or a table that they go to. I go to this recliner in my living room. Typically, I'm the first one out there.
00:06:00
Speaker
Then my wife will join me and then my kid will join me. And then the other one sleeps in a little longer, but she comes in at the end and typically ends with all of us holding our Bible and having some type of discussion. And so we as a family start our day off and this hasn't been going on for a long time. This is something that we've recently adapted and we start our day off with that. And so throughout the day, I can refer back to my son or back to my wife
00:06:27
Speaker
on different topics or discussions that we talked about in the morning. So it's kind of an ongoing conversation throughout the day and typically we end it by wrapping it up at bedtime by discussing that same topic. So I would say that's like the most primary way I myself and influencing my family with scripture is that morning devotion.
The Role of Community in Spiritual Growth
00:06:48
Speaker
As you kind of called out what I said about it being a family thing, I almost wonder, I'm like, is
00:06:53
Speaker
Abiding in Christ, like we like to make that an individual thing, but I wonder how much of it's actually a team sport kind of a thing. And so, uh, that's one of the major points in abiding in Christ is staying connected to the fellowship of the believers. Yeah. And so, um, there is a very, very individual aspect to abiding in Christ. Uh, it's just like there's an individual aspect between my relationship with me and my wife, right? It's I'm her husband.
00:07:20
Speaker
I'm her only husband, thankfully, but I'm her husband. And so there's the individual aspect, but I look to other married couples to feed into us and to help our walk with Christ. And so same thing with abiding in Christ. There is an individual aspect to that, but then there's this community aspect that we absolutely need that community to keep us on course. I can't remember
00:07:45
Speaker
I can't state how many times I've been slapped upside the head by someone in my church saying, Kyle, you should be leading your family this way. What are you doing right now? And vice versa, where I've stood beside guys and said, hey, your family needs you. Why are you walking off on this path?
00:08:01
Speaker
The community aspect of it is huge to abiding in Christ. We need each other as that reminder. That's why he described us as the body. We all play a different part and we all bring something to the table when we're abiding in Christ.
Integrating Faith into Daily Life
00:08:16
Speaker
I remember a few years ago, a friend recommended a book to me that I think has been the most important book I've read in the last 10 years. And it's funny because it's actually a tiny book. I think I got the audio version. I think it was only an hour and 20 minutes long. It's practically a long podcast episode. It's so short. And I've read, I mean, I just got a whole bookshelf behind me. I read a lot. Most important book I read, it's called Family Worship by Donald Whitney.
00:08:41
Speaker
again, super short book talks about like the it goes into a little bit about like the history of the church and how much of its family focused and how we've gotten away from it, how we need to bring it back and how simple family worship can be like you guys are practicing that regularly in your home. We do it right before I come into work, like right after breakfast. It's like a 15 minute thing where we
00:09:01
Speaker
literally put on a worship song from like Hillsong or some somebody maybe a hymn from YouTube or it has the lyrics we sing through it we say we all say prayers and then I head into my day probably need to work scripture back into a little bit more but I think about that and I think about how many times I've even felt the Holy Spirit moving me during that little short time but then it's like it's all of us coming together right right as one other step of course hopefully you're reading your Bible that's I guess that's that can be corporate too but it is nice to read it individually right absolutely
00:09:32
Speaker
One thing I've wondered about is how do we abide in Christ when life gets really busy?
Key Elements of Abiding in Christ
00:09:39
Speaker
As you're going about your day, I know I jump into work and after that family worship time, dang, the gay gets away from me pretty fast sometimes. Like, well, I'm glad we have that in the morning.
00:09:49
Speaker
Once you start going and get plugged into the routine, it can be hard to remember to bring it back. Absolutely. Or some of the practical ways you've been able to bring it back and actually not just go off of the breakfast you ate spiritually in the morning, but then starve the rest of the day. Right. But get more sustenance throughout the day.
00:10:06
Speaker
Right, if someone's listening and they have a notepad and pen, here's four things, four things that really entail abiding in Christ, and that is the reading of Scripture. And Part B of reading in Scripture would be memorization of Scripture. Then we have prayer, staying connected with God through conversation. Obedience, so that's obedience to the Scriptures that we're reading, and then staying connected.
00:10:31
Speaker
And so as you go throughout the day and things get busy, work, family, trauma, whatever it may be, there's things that are gonna try to distract us from that abiding in Christ. It's like, I abide in the morning and then throughout the day I do terrible and then maybe I abide at night before I go to bed, right? The idea is that we are walking constantly with the Lord through our day.
Strategies for Keeping Christ in Daily Life
00:10:54
Speaker
And so when it says we're reading scripture, we're also memorizing scriptures. The importance of memorizing scripture is because what are we faced in the day when we get away from our scriptures, we're faced with temptation. Jesus dealt with temptation. He went, he was baptized, he fasted for 40 days and then he was led into the wilderness. And when Satan tempted him with things, what did he do? He quoted scripture to Satan. And so if the Lord of the universe is doing it and setting the example for me, when I come across
00:11:22
Speaker
Temptation, the best resource I have is memorization of scripture. I can't carry my Bible everywhere. Even as a pastor, I don't carry my Bible into grocery stores. Maybe I should, I don't know. But scripture memorization is the thing that wards off Satan. It's what we have as a resource in our heart. Also prayer. Pray without ceasing. We say that one all the time. Pray without ceasing. That is legitimate.
00:11:47
Speaker
We can have our intentional prayer lists and our time in the morning where we go through and we pray for our people. We pray for our church and we pray for our family. But as you're going throughout the day and a thought comes into your head, pray without season means offer that up to the Lord. Even if it's a tempting thought, offer it up to the Lord and include him in that conversation. He already knows absolutely.
00:12:10
Speaker
But opening that up keeps us connected and abiding in Him. Obedience throughout the day when we are faced with that temptation, obey. If we've been abiding in Scripture, Scripture is very clear about the decisions we make throughout the day. A lot of them are common sense and a lot of them
00:12:28
Speaker
You just learn throughout your life, but scripture details those. And so when we go, we're faced with those things, obedience. If he asks us to do something and pray over someone, then we want to obey that. And then staying connected. If it means through your busy day, shooting a text message to one of your buddies and being like, hey, I'm struggling. You can include me in that. That's a personal offer for you, Dan. If you're in that position throughout your day and you're overwhelmed and you're like, man, I need to be connected.
00:12:56
Speaker
that is one of the benefits of having those types of things like social medias or cell phones is we can be connected to someone instantly in the day by just picking up a phone call. If you're struggling with temptation or you found out your mom died or whatever it may be, there's resources, just a phone call
Prioritizing Spiritual Growth Over Secular Distractions
00:13:12
Speaker
away. So those are like practical ways that I would say just like make it a daily thing from sun up to sun down that you're abiding in Christ. It's not just a quiet time in the morning.
00:13:24
Speaker
All those things you just said sparked an idea in me because I think I thought about it before, but I was kind of like one of those, oh, that'd be it. And then I probably got hungry and thought like I need a sandwich and then forgot the idea.
00:13:35
Speaker
But I've been thinking, I'm like, you know, these little things, like we need to do them throughout the day, but sometimes we get going. It's hard to remember, but I know I've been able to build habits in the past by taking little small things and attaching them to other things that I'm already doing or putting them in places where I know I'm going to see them. You know what I'm saying? Like, I think there was a time where I actually keep an expo marker in my
00:14:00
Speaker
Near my toothbrush, you know one where you can write on a whiteboard and when I see it I'm reminded that I should write a note to my wife on the mirror like a little note or something It's it's an easy way and I'll forget for like a month or two. But because I keep it Eventually, I'm gonna bump into a bit. What is that? Oh, yeah, you know, I should write a note, you know And so I write a note and then she gets a nice note. It's a way bake it in because it becomes habit, right? I
00:14:24
Speaker
But even now I'm like, man, I have a, I mean, I have my own office in my house. I'm like, but I've been wanting to hang a whiteboard. I'm like, I really should be writing down some prayers of even things at work that I want to see happen. And it could be practical. Like, God, help me get this project done. I don't know how I'm going to get it done. I need your help. Let me, I'm going to put a name up on the board of somebody that I want to see come to you within my workplace.
00:14:45
Speaker
So you can have these things in a practical place where you're going to see it every day. And maybe every time before you go to lunch, you take out the card in the place that you're going to see it. Or in my case, I think I'm just going to hang a whiteboard by the door here of three max five prayer points. And I'm just going to give them quick 10, 15 second prayers. Got this, got that, got that. And then as I check them off, I can replace them. And it's glory to God, because I can maybe keep a log of all the answered prayer.
00:15:10
Speaker
I'm like, how am I not bringing more of God into this thing than I'm spending literally eight hours a day into? Right. And you can do that with the other points as well. Like you're talking specifically about prayer and I do the same thing throughout my day when I'm driving to and from places. If I know where someone lives or if I know where they work, as I pass their place of their house or their job, I'll pray for them. Sometimes it's
00:15:33
Speaker
Hey, you know, be with Dan. And then sometimes it's a very intentional, long prayer for you and your family. I don't necessarily know where you live. So that's never taken place when I pass your house. But I've had thoughts of you and then offer you up in prayer. And so I do that to now a lot of people. I know where a lot of people live. And so that's another thing.
00:15:56
Speaker
And then also being intentional about, like you said, writing notes to your wife on the mirror. Scripture tells us to put it on our door post, right? And so take Scripture on posting notes, take Scripture on whiteboards, take Scripture on your mirror in your bathroom, write those things down. We've had it on our kitchen cupboards before or inside of a drawer when you open it up and you see a verse. One for memorization, then two just to remind it, if there's a place of temptation for you,
00:16:22
Speaker
put a verse about standing strong in the Lord outside of wherever that place of temptation is. And then again, with the technology we have, we have resources, resources, resources. And so if you struggle with what you listen to on your way to work, instead of listening to that morning talk show with the crude language,
00:16:41
Speaker
We can listen to a pastor podcast. We can listen to another sermon. We can listen to the sermon slice after the sermon. And so we have those resources to us that basically every step throughout the day, you can have the Holy Spirit feeding into your life rather than just picking these points and these dots on the day where we're going, okay, that's where I'm going to have my quiet time.
00:17:05
Speaker
Or even worse, if you're saying, hey, I went to church on Sunday and I heard a sermon, I'm good for the week. No, we need to constantly be fed, constantly fed with things of the Holy Spirit. Yeah.
Balancing Entertainment and Spiritual Practices
00:17:18
Speaker
Man, I feel like I want to say something heretical, at least heretical, the woman will be like, amen. But I'm like, some of us just need a fast sports and watching sports and like just literally spend more time in the word.
00:17:30
Speaker
We're doing it doesn't even have to be like the word necessarily it could be sermons. It could just be worship music It could be something other than you know football and I know we're coming in coming into like the end of the season here But I'm like sure this is where a lot of time goes and where a lot of mental activity goes for me It's actually work podcasts and different things like that where I need to trim back and sneak in more Jesus into it I spend way too much time listening to marketing podcasts right and now and that was the part of
00:17:57
Speaker
sermon on Sunday when I was talking about God prunes us. He's the gardener. I don't get to say, I don't get to determine what is allowed in and out of my life, other than reading scripture. And I know what he's already showed me, but he's the gardener. And so I like to pick and choose and say, Hey, I gave him Sunday morning, but the six hours in the afternoon for the two football games, those are mine. Well, I need to be interruptible.
00:18:23
Speaker
I need to be if my family needs me, if my wife needs me, if God's calling me down to a town where there's homeless people, I need to go. Whether that's during a football game, recorded or not, we need to be available during the week for His purposes and His will. And I think we've kind of cut into this society where we choose when we want to give Jesus our all, right in the middle of that perfect worship song, right in the middle of that perfect sermon.
00:18:49
Speaker
And yet when we get back to our home or we're in our space or in our job, then it's like, no, this is what I do now. I'll come back to Jesus later. Yep. I feel like if you do, if you're doing this right, and I know your family's really big into like you, you've cut out a lot of media over there. I know you guys don't have Disney plus and a lot of stuff and we've cut out a lot of that stuff too, but it's, it's weird to other people. Like in my coworking spaces, they'll be like,
00:19:15
Speaker
Hey, what series are you binging right now? And everybody's like, Oh, I'm liking this. I'm liking this. And they're not talking about single shows. No, they're talking about seasons of things that they're binging every night and every weekend. I'm like.
00:19:26
Speaker
What are you watching Dan? I'm like, I, yeah, I watched one six part series like five months ago. I don't know. Like I didn't watch, I didn't watch a lot of this stuff. I'm doing other things. Yeah. I go to church a lot. I don't know. It's, it's, it's, it's twofold. I'd like to say it's all for spiritual reasons. Um, but initially, you know, we'd be watching something with our kids and we go, okay, that is not where, that's not what we want our kids seeing. And so we'd reel back.
00:19:51
Speaker
Um, but then as it, as you go and start dropping these subscriptions, uh, it's like you're getting paid. I mean, there, you know, 10, 15, 20, 30 bucks here. And so, uh, it's a, it's a double benefit. Yup. Yup. Not that any of those things are wrong, but like you got to wonder when they start stacking up sometimes it should look a little different if you're following Christ. And I know a lot of people are listening to these things. We're always throwing out these things to do things to do. I don't have the time is a common thing that people are throwing out. It's like, well, no, there's plenty of time.
00:20:19
Speaker
We just need to peel back some of the entertaining things we got going on. And sure. And, uh, one of those, that's like the age old excuse with, uh, I don't have time. And it's like, we all have the same amount of time is where you find your importance throughout the day. And so if you have five minutes for Jesus, but you have one hour or an hour and a half to watch a movie in the evening, what you're saying is this is important to me because I have an hour and a
Impact of Consistent Spiritual Practices
00:20:44
Speaker
half for it.
00:20:44
Speaker
and Jesus, I'll give five minutes. And so I know that's like pretty hurtful because if you listen to it, you're like, I see that movie as more important than Jesus if I look at the time spent with it. And so that's why it's important to include
00:21:01
Speaker
Jesus and include scripture and include prayer through your whole day you're dedicating it That's the whole idea of abiding in him is not stepping away and not trying to do things on your own But literally dwelling with him and when you do that You're faced with opportunities all day long to share the gospel to share your faith because it's undeniable when you have that joy and
00:21:26
Speaker
So far, we've talked about a lot of practical things. We talked about the four basics of just reading scripture, prayer, obedience, staying connected, practical ways to do that. You talked a little bit about staging the environment so that you're reminded about these things, right? Having scriptures in places all over the place.
00:21:42
Speaker
I talked about putting a prayer list on the wall where I would see it, so then I would be reminded to pray. I know people have set up reminders on their phones or on their smartwatches to just, hey, take a step back. You're going to pray at this time every day, you know? All practical ways to abide in Christ more in 2024.
Value of Traditions and Rituals in Spiritual Discipline
00:22:00
Speaker
And the one last thing I'd like to talk about is creating
00:22:04
Speaker
I don't know I find the older I get the more I start to respect like some of it like I don't know it's the older traditions and faith because I think Evangelicals got away from tradition from ritual I used to even like tradition and ritual throw that stuff out man. It's all fresh new wine skins, you know The older I get though the more I'm like no no no
00:22:28
Speaker
tradition and ritual is where you get into a regular rhythm of doing these things that we're talking about. And of course, they can become, you know, overly religious or like the point of life is to do the ritual when the point of the ritual was to serve, you know, your inner man more than the ritual, right? Do you have any
00:22:47
Speaker
rituals or traditions that you maintain, either old ones from like long ago or new ones that you've developed, you and your family that have helped you guys abide in Christ more.
00:23:00
Speaker
I'm going to confidently say I'm terrible at it. So it hasn't always been a morning time Bible study. It hasn't always been even a morning time devotion for myself and the different jobs that I've done. I've worked the third shift or the graveyard shift through the night. And so my morning is my night and things just get real mixed up. The things that I do try to be intentional about
00:23:26
Speaker
is having some type of time where I study God's Word. My last occupation was so random on the schedule that it wasn't like, hey, every single day at this time, that's when I'm going to study God's Word.
00:23:40
Speaker
And so there were times where it was like, hey, I've got a half hour or I'm gonna schedule a half hour or whatever it may be to get that in. I would say just traditionally for most people, it's in the morning when I rise, right? You get up in the morning and you start your day with it. I think it's one most profitable for you because you're putting scripture into your heart first thing in the morning and that's what you're gonna write off of.
Embracing Christian Traditions for Growth
00:24:04
Speaker
As far as me getting back to the question, any like,
00:24:09
Speaker
I sing in the car, worship songs to the Lord, and that sounds funny, but a lot of times I'll just shut off the radio and either a song from memory or a song from scripture and just offer that up to the Lord. And then prayer, praying out loud when I'm driving as well, even if it's dumb stuff, what my schedule is, what my calendar is, just including God in that conversation.
00:24:34
Speaker
What do you think about the Catholic, I guess broadly it's Catholic, it's Christian holiday. There's a whole calendar of things.
00:24:42
Speaker
Some of which we know like Christmas and Easter are the big ones, but then Lent Lent is coming up. That's a Christian tradition Do you take part in that? It's something I'm thinking more about like every single year I'm like, I think this just needs to be a thing that we do Absolutely, you know a lot of times it's hard to tell where something originated from who who's the host of it or whatever but if something is beneficial to your faith and
00:25:08
Speaker
You could steal it or hijack anything you want, really, if it's beneficial to bringing you closer to Jesus. And so lint, perfect. An idea where we set aside a time where we go, okay, what do I want to give up and offer to the Lord so I could more closely abide with Him?
00:25:25
Speaker
The problem we get is we have these specific dates where Lent is, and then we just give up the rest of the year, or we don't pay attention the rest of the year, or we don't care the rest of the year. Well, that's where we just don't... There's actually a whole calendar of stuff, but that one comes up more frequently as like a big mile marker, because it leads up to Easter, which is the big Christian holiday of the year in Catholic. And when we talk about Advent too, it's like the Lent version of Christmas.
00:25:51
Speaker
Correct. And and there's there's positive negative like we lead up to Christmas and it's a perfect time of year to share your faith. People are way more in a loving mood.
00:26:01
Speaker
They were already, the conversation's already about Jesus. Same thing as Easter, but when those two seasons are over, we just go back into our normal life and we float, right? I don't wanna just coast through life.
The Cyclical Nature of Spiritual Practices
00:26:14
Speaker
I wanna daily abide. I want my summertime to be just as impactful for the Christ than it is on December 24th when people are already thinking about Jesus. And so, yes, I attach to some of these traditions and these,
00:26:29
Speaker
these techniques to deepen yourself in Jesus, but I like to spread them out a little more. Fasting something I do frequently, fasting something I do probably on a monthly basis, whether it's a meal fast or a day fast, but things like that is things you want to keep going throughout the whole year.
00:26:52
Speaker
Yeah. And I think, I don't think they replace that and those, the daily thing is good. It almost, it's almost like, kind of like it's refreshing to hit new seasons of the year, like winter, like winter is fine, but then you hit spring, you're like, ah, spring's so nice and summer comes, summer's so nice, right? And then towards the end of summer, you're waiting for fall and then fall's so nice, you know? So it's like this constant refreshing cause things are changing. Right. Yet we still have the same four coming all, all the time. Right. Almost feel like these older traditions
00:27:19
Speaker
are like that. Like we can expect a certain season that has a little bit more of a focus on here and a little bit more of a focus here on this part of the year. Not that we don't do these things other parts of the year, but they kind of bring it back up. Right.
00:27:32
Speaker
as a regular cycle, I guess you could say, almost like maintenance, but for different parts of our faith.
Conclusion: Spreading the Gospel's Impact
00:27:39
Speaker
Sorry, I didn't really think through that until I was talking about the Newarks kind of coming back and I'm like, huh, I wonder if that's the reason why there's an emphasis on a calendar versus just do all these things every day. Right, right.
00:27:52
Speaker
So, man, this has been helpful for me, even just fleshing out what abiding can look like. There's so many different facets to it and ways we can build it into our lives. Hopefully this has been helpful for those who are listening, who want to grow in Christ this year and abide in Him more.
00:28:09
Speaker
So Kyle, thank you so much for joining me today on the show. Yes, sir. Happy to be here. And just for everybody listening, remember that... Oh, and I almost screwed this up. That the point of this podcast is to impact the life of every person with the whole gospel by any means possible. And of course, that includes this very show. That's the mission of our church at Grove Hill. So share it with somebody who might need to
00:28:35
Speaker
hear it and hopefully we can all start abiding in Christ more in 2024.