In today's world, it's becoming harder and harder to stand up for what you believe in without coming under attack. When you truly believe it's also difficult to not stand up, once you defend your beliefs, don't you always feel great? Transformation inwardly often causes us to shout externally. It's a sign of our gratitude for all that someone did for us. When God reaches down and grabs your heart and soul, there's no choice but to give Him honor and praise! In this week's episode, Renée and Theresa share some ways the word of God instructs us to stand up for what we believe in!
In today's world, it's becoming harder and harder to stand up for what you believe in without coming under attack. When you truly believe it's also difficult to not stand up, once you defend your beliefs, don't you always feel great? Transformation inwardly often causes us to shout externally. It's a sign of our gratitude for all that someone did for us. When God reaches down and grabs your heart and soul, there's no choice but to give Him honor and praise! In this week's episode, Renée and Theresa share some ways the word of God instructs us to stand up for what we believe in!
Did you ever stand up for something you believe in? You know, you overheard someone say something you didn't like, and you just had to speak out, or maybe you had to defend your little brother or sister back in the day. How great did you feel afterward after you were bold enough to stand up and stand out and speak on behalf of what you believe in? Well, this past weekend, 15 people did just that right? In my own backyard, stay tuned to hear what they did. You're not to want to miss this.
Speaker 2:Welcome to episode 63 of the well-versed woman podcast. I'm Renee Taylor
Speaker 3:And I'm Theresa Morgan. You see Renee and I are two perfectly imperfect women who come to you week after week to share our faith and our life's journeys with you in hopes that it would inspire you to, to walk a life of faith
Speaker 2:With Jesus. Our journey has been about a relationship, a really cool, deep relationship that we have with the creator of the universe. And we want to share that relationship with you in order to get started, though, we know what's important is to plug into that power source plug into our creator. And we do that by setting aside, whatever we're doing right now, being very, still closing your eyes. If you're not driving in a car and taking some slow deep breaths for 20 seconds. So just be still those 20 seconds start right now.[inaudible] That's it. That's 20 seconds. And you know, if you've been listening,
Speaker 1:I'm going to encourage you to grow that still time to grow it before your feet even hit the ground out of your bed in the morning. But we've got a lot to talk about. So let's get started. We have a special guest here with us this weekend that was able to witness exactly what happened in my backyard this weekend, right?
Speaker 3:Teresa, we welcome today. Amy, such a beautiful friend of this ministry in such a beautiful personal friend of both Renee's and mine. Amy, welcome to the podcast. I just can't tell you how much it means for you to be here, uh, on this recording today. Well,
Speaker 1:Good morning ladies. And I can't tell you what a joy and a it's to be here with both of you. And I'm like Renee, I can't wait for all of you to get to hear what we got to witness this past weekend. I don't know about you girls, but I certainly felt like I was sitting in the gold seats, watching what transpired and what God did in and through the lives of these beautiful people that we got to witness. Here's the really cool thing. Well, there's a lot of really cool things. I don't know if I can pick just one, but we didn't even know some of these people they showed up in our backyard. We didn't even know these people, right? Theresa. They just had a yearning to come and share their story with us.
Speaker 3:They sure did Renee. And what a beautiful experience it was for believers in Christ that have walked with him many years or new believers in Christ. You know, the Bible says in the book of mark chapter 16, verse 16, that whoever believes in is baptized will be saved. Now the Bible, um, before we go in and talk more about water baptism, I just wanted to share with our listeners some scripture that talks about baptisms as a whole. We see in the book of Hebrews, most scholars believe that Paul wrote this book. We see that the Bible says, therefore, this is, uh, verses one and two, therefore leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ. Let us go on to perfection or maturity, not laying again. The foundation of repentance from dead works and a faith towards God of the doctrine of baptisms, of laying on of hands of re resurrection from the dead and of eternal judgment. So what I want us to focus in right now is the doctrine of baptisms. You will notice in that verse, the baptisms is a plural word. That means there are variety of baptisms that the Bible talks about. So the baptism that we witnessed on Saturday with the 15 people being immersed in the beautiful waters of skinny Atlas lake, that wasn't the water baptism. It is an outward sign of an inward occurrence that happens when we put our faith in Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1:Hmm. I love where you're starting Teresa of giving the overview for everyone and then diving into exactly what happened this weekend and the different people in the different testimonies that were talked about. So the three, again, Teresa that you're talking about,
Speaker 3:Yes. So there are basically three baptisms that the Bible talks about. The first is baptized or immersed into Christ. When one gives their life to Jesus, they are literally immersed into Christ. But what does that mean? It means that when one gives their life to Christ, the spirit of God, the holy spirit comes into their spirit. There's an immersion. Uh, there's a blending. If you will, into your spirit, the spirit of a human being that is a type of baptism that isn't an immersion of God's spirit, the holy spirit in our spirit. The second baptism that the Bible talks about is water, baptism, water baptism. And that's what we witnessed on Saturday is this outward sign of what occurred inside. And when we go into the waters of baptism, we can put our faith, right? The same safe that we put into when we accepted Jesus Christ, the same safe it's in us. When we go down into the waters of baptism, that is the faith that yes, we have been raised to new life in Christ. So I love Renee what you said in the introduction that it's individual standing up and saying to the world and a realization of, to themselves, I am alive in Christ. Isn't that beautiful? And then of course, the third baptism, which I think we'll teach on in a future podcast is the baptism in the holy spirit with the evidence of speaking in other tongues, which says that we are so immersed in the holy spirit just is going to fill us completely. So that as the Bible says, rivers of living water will flow from our heart so that we can begin to minister to others. So baptisms in the Bible is a big deal, Renee. Hmm.
Speaker 1:A big deal and really something that you don't have to be afraid of or have mystery around. The first one that Teresa talked about, I call kind of Amy. Like when you first come to that place where there's something bigger than yourself and you turn on or you make that commitment and you turn on that spirit, self inside of you. You know, the word says that we have to make that decision as humans, that we have to actually come to the place in life. We're born in the flesh, but we actually have to make a decision to be born in the spirit. Right? Absolutely. Renee, I think one of the things that is incredibly important is recognize that for so many of us or for so many of the listeners today that perhaps were baptized as infants. That's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about making a personal conscious decision to surrender our lives to Jesus Christ. Mm. And you ladies know, I love that word surrender, right? Because that is so hard for me, but it's the journey I've been on. I have to surrender over and over and over again to different, you know, things of this flesh, so to speak. But my spirit was awakened back in that moment that I said, no more, am I going to do this life alone? I'm going to get some help. And I've decided to follow Jesus
Speaker 3:Renee. I love that. And that feeds right into our next scripture, which is in the book of Colossians in the new Testament. Paul wrote this book, the apostle Paul in chapter two verses 11 through 13, exactly. Renee. When someone gives their life to Christ, there is a baptism. There is a circumcision of the heart. Let's listen to what Paul writes in Colossians chapter two, he says in him, meaning in Christ, you were also circumcised with a circumcision, not performed by human hands. So what he's referring to is the old Testament. When the Israelites were circumcised, right? The men were circumcised in the force, skin, nubs or flesh. That was an outward sign of who they belonged to. I'm going to continue your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off. When you were circumcised by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith, in the working of God who raised him from the dead, when you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave all of our sins. So when we realize in the surrender Rene, I love that when we realized that we need forgiveness of our sins in that Jesus paid the price in that the gospel is for all. And we put our faith in the gospel and we invite Christ to be Lord and savior of our lives. That is when the circumcision of the heart takes place. Renee and Amy, it's so exciting in God prophesied that this circumcision would take place. Back in the days of the old Testament, listen to this in the book of Ezekiel, the prophet EZQ prophesied, what would take place after the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. Let's listen to this. The Bible says, and God is saying, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh, meaning soft malleable. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and you will keep my judgments and do that. Isn't that beautiful? So God's so often will prophesize something and it will hold to the future. So what he is saying is exactly what happens in current day. When someone gives their life to Christ, there is a circumcision of our heart, meaning the spirit man who we truly are, and we're made new second Corinthians five verse 17 says, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation, which means in the Greek, freshly minted, all things have passed away. Behold, all things become new. So you can see that a death occurs, right? A beautiful death, where the old spirit is cut away, where the old spirit is done away with. And Christ does this miracle. And every believer makes us holy and righteous. So that's when the holy spirit can then step on in our spirit and become Lord of our life. It's wonderful in that he helps us to walk in the patterns and the principles they give life. Rene, such a beautiful occurrence in this is exactly what has happened to myself, to Renee, to Amy and all who have come to Christ in certainly that is what occurred to the 15 individuals who gave their life to Christ and then gave testimony up there through the waters of baptism and skinny. I was like, and Saturday,
Speaker 1:Right? So if you're listening and you know that you have surrendered, like we all have on this podcast, just surrender, just said, I am not doing this world alone anymore, or trying to navigate it on my own. That's an awesome step. And that means that forever, you will be with Jesus. Now, the people that came this weekend decided that they're going to take it a step further. And they so wanted to give testimony and public recognition to that decision. And that's a whole nother thing. In fact, it was, I don't know how many years after I surrendered that I actually got baptized and I got baptized right in these same waters, Peter and I, we got baptized together, which was so special and so cool. But I'm thinking Amy about Tim. I think, I think we need to share the story of Tim, just, just one person. And there were so many, but you were able to talk to Tim and hear exactly what he had gone through. I just want to say in this moment that when you come across an individual that has truly been saved, there is nothing like that. And there was a beautiful, beautiful man here by the name of Tim. And I won't go too much into his story, but the reality is he was ready to end his life. He just was, he found himself in a place of hopelessness and through, through just the Lord and the way the Lord works in the moment that Tim literally had a gun in his hand, a beautiful song came on, that reached into his heart. And all of a sudden he heard about Jesus Christ through this song. And in the middle of all of that, you put down the gun and surrendered his life to Christ, dropped to his knees is the story that he was sharing with us, put the gun away, put the drugs away, put the alcohol away and surrendered to Jesus Christ. Now here's what I love about Tim's story. We know that Jesus surrendered his life to the cross. Every step of the way he could have turned around. He didn't have to do it, but in obedience and out of love for you and for me and for Theresa and for Tim, every step Jesus chose to make his way to the cross. You walk through the gate of the garden. He walked up the hill to Calvary. He laid there like a lamb to be crucified nails and the feet nails in the hands. He made that willing decision to take those steps for us, for our eternity. And what I love so much about Tim's story is after he had surrendered his life to Christ, there was nothing not, COVID not 500 miles that was going to stop him from taking those steps to make the decision to be baptized. It's almost as if he was saying you did this for me, Lord. Yes, sir. I will follow you in a baptism. Yes, sir. I can do this for you. You did all of that for me. Yes, Lord. I will do this for you. And I have to tell you, watching Tim a veteran stepped down into that water being baptized when he came out of the water and I cannot help, I will never forget all of my days, the radiant, the radiant glow upon his face because he thought all that Jesus had done for me. I can do this for him. And it was one of the most beautiful experiences that I have ever witnessed to watch true life transformation. And I don't have a single shred of doubt that the rest of Tim's days will be lived knowing the power that now is in his life because of that connection with Jesus Christ inside of him.
Speaker 3:Um, and if I might add, I was in the waters, I was privileged and blessed to be there. And he came up in the water, drops sparkling in the sun. He raised his hand and he says, and I was so blessed as well, Amy and Renee, but I love that. I love that the way you shared really the gospel of Christ, Amy, so beautiful that Jesus did choose to take those steps and die such a painful death for us. And that is exactly what second Corinthians chapter five verses 20 and 21 testify to it says for, he made him meaning God, the father made Jesus Christ who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. Isn't that beautiful. It's not by works. That we are saved. It's by the pure simplicity of faith in Christ. The pure simplicity of saying I understand, I understand the walk to the cross. They understand the depth of love that the God man had and still has for us. And you know what I want to make that mind in that wonderful, wonderful fact and truth that when we put our faith into, in Jesus, there's a transference, the right standing with God that Christ had becomes ours in that is when we are born again and recreated the spirit. And that's where the place is. The holy spirit now lives. And as we allow him to rule and reign and lead our lives in tandem with his direction, we come into the abundant life that God provided for us. And as the scripture say in John 10, 10, that Jesus came right to give us new life in life and abundance.
Speaker 1:Hmm. Two things come to mind that hopefully just simplify everything that you guys just witnessed and testified to, which is why, what, what you did here, Theresa, the four, he made him who knew no sin to be sin for us. See, we needed a bridge between our humanity and God, because in our humanity, we are so imperfect. And God knows that. So Renee, you don't need to be perfect. This thing you've been striving to, to do and be your whole life, you don't need to be perfect because there is somebody who knew no sin and he became sin on your behalf. And when that gets in your molecules, it gets in your bloodstream gets in your soul. You realize Tim realized all that God did for him. And that's why. Number two, he got so excited when he came, because you think, oh, big deal, Tim, you went in the water, God died for you. And all you did was had to go in the water. No, he stood up for what he believed in. And when I said in the beginning, you know, when we go back to our thoughts, I can tell you every time I took a stand on behalf of someone else or for what I believed in, I always felt really great after. I always felt like, okay, you go good Renee, you stood up for that. You stood up for what was right. There is nothing greater than to stand up for the fact that you believe in the one true creator of the universe and that he died for me for imperfect Renee and made me whole made me perfect. Was the, I love that propitiation word. I always the reconciler of me to God because I can't do it on my own Teresa again, just what you said. I can not work hard enough as hard to workers as we all were to make this, this day special for everyone, we can't work hard enough to be pure and right in the presence of God, we, we just needed to raise our hand to accept him and say, we, we surrender.
Speaker 3:It is so true. Renee. And I just love, you know, I came to Christ on, uh, the book of Ephesians chapter two, verse eight, which says for it is by grace. You have been saved through faith. This is not of yourselves. It is the gift of God. Not by works. Should anyone boast? So it's a free gift. Salvation in Christ is a free gift. We put our faith. We also believe in our heart and confess with our mouth, the Lord Jesus. The Bible says in Romans 10, verses nine and 10, and we shall be saved. It's a simple, beautiful gift. And once that beautiful circumcision of the heart occurs, then it's a beautiful walk of faith. That is what we saw with Tim. Uh, he was going to walk out his faith and one of the steps he took was water baptism. But the rest of then our lives is doing what the Bible says in Philippians chapter two, verse 13, we're working out our salvation with fear and trembling, knowing that it has got all the while at work in us, willing to do and to choose according to his good pleasure. So once the occurrence happens in our spirit person, we work it out through our souls and life becomes that transformed place. The transformation that we saw in Tim of joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness do we stumble? Do we have struggle? Absolutely. But we have the God of the universe, the creator himself. We have his spirit within us. Therefore we can proudly say Renee and Amy, that we are more than a conqueror through him who love us and that we always have the victory through Christ Jesus
Speaker 1:Theresa. That's absolutely amazing. And Renee, I want to go back to what you said as a reminder. It is by grace. We are saved through faith. The baptism wasn't the act of salvation for Tim. It was the surrender where Tim went to his knees and called upon the name of the Lord and asked for forgiveness of sin. And through faith started that relationship with Jesus Christ. Was his baptism a requirement for any eternity with Jesus Christ? No. It was a great act of love and obedience on Tim's part to move forward.
Speaker 3:That's exactly right. I love that Amy, that you clarified that because that is absolutely correct. You know, I'm thinking about, oh, the robber, the thief that was also, you know, crucified. So there was Jesus on the cross in either to his right or to his left. I can't remember. There was an individual who looked at him and said, you are the Christ. Put his faith in Christ. At that very moment in Christ turned to him before he gave, finally gave up, his spirit, gave up his life and said, you will be with me in the fields of paradise. And he put his faith in Christ. It's a simple, believing. Salvation is a eternal gift. And I'm so grateful today, Amy, that you were able to join us. You are a gift. You are a gift to Renee and myself and you are a tremendous gift to the body of Christ. And it was such, it was such a great honor to serve with you on Sunday and to be part of the wonderful, wonderful experiences that these believers had. I want to thank you for that. I want to wish you all the best and safe travels back home, honey.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Theresa. Thank you. Listen, I will serve with you and Teresa any time, any anywhere, but more importantly, I just want to say, this is what church is supposed to look like. There was no building, there was no platform. There was no worship team. It was a group of believers gathered together, celebrating a life of faith, celebrating life, change, celebrating transformation, and experiencing a sense of community. I can't help it. But think back to that early church, as they were going from town to town, watching people come to know Christ and baptizing them wherever they could find water, you know, and it was, it was one of the most, I'll say it again. One of the most remarkable experiences. And I think sometimes, especially in the day that we live in, we think we've got to make it to a building, which by the way, we'll always encourage you to be a part of a Bible believing Bible teaching church. But it is to say when the spirit moves, you can come to know Jesus anywhere on a plane, in a hospital room, in a motel, in the car, in a parking lot. It doesn't matter where you surrender and when the opportunity arises, it doesn't matter where you're baptized. It doesn't have to be inside of a baptismal in a proper building. It can be in a river, it can be in a beautiful lake for that matter. It can even be in a[inaudible].
Speaker 4:It was,
Speaker 1:You know, again, I wish all of the listeners could have had a peak in because you know, I'll, I'll finish with this. You know, you know, there are moments when you're peeking in on something. Holy Saturday was the presence of the Lord was so tangible. So tangible and 30 strangers came together. 15 went into the water, but we all left as close family and friends. So, so true. Amy and Theresa, I almost don't want to end this podcast cause it feels like it's the, it's the ribbon on the, uh, the whole weekend event, but we will have to end it until next week. And we can talk more about baptism in the holy spirit, but we do have a foundational scripture Theresa for this podcast.
Speaker 3:Be sure to Rene, this scripture is just so precious and important and is really the cornerstone of this podcast. And it's from the book of Romans chapter 10, verse 17. It comes by hearing and
Speaker 1:Hearing by the word of God.
Speaker 2:Amen. Amen. Amen. I'm Matt. Thanks for listening. We are so excited. Do you know that you can connect with us through Facebook? We have a group called well-versed woman and you just ask to join that and guess what else you could do when you're in there? You could talk to us more about water. Baptism. People came from all over the place to get baptized in this lake and guess what you are welcome as well. We also have show notes to every podcast. That's where we include the scripture. Remember this is called well-versed woman because we want to be well-versed in those scriptures. Well-versed in that word. So you're going to want to download those show notes and make sure you remember and recite and look at the verses related to what we talked about this week and last but not least, we still have well versed woman journals. If you subscribe to this channel, great and review, we will send you one right in the real mail, the real old fashioned snail mail. So go ahead and subscribe, rate and review. And until next week we love you. Bye now.