College season is upon us and it has us reflecting back on those exciting times. After graduation, life seemed all about blazing the trail to success. As a focused person, all seemed great, until I woke up one day and had no idea who I was. Most importantly I had no idea how life had gotten so off track. Have you felt this way? If so, this episode is for you!
College season is upon us and it has us reflecting back on those exciting times. After graduation, life seemed all about blazing the trail to success. As a focused person, all seemed great, until I woke up one day and had no idea who I was. Most importantly I had no idea how life had gotten so off track. Have you felt this way? If so, this episode is for you!
It is college season. It is back to college. And it reminds me of when I actually got out of college and I started my crazy career and worked like a dog. In fact, I lost myself in that process. I really feel that I had become somebody that I didn't even understand anymore. And it's taken me years through the grace of God and by his might and power that I've been able to unearth all that and get back to who he created me to be. I know so many of us have that question. Who am I, what am I here for? What exactly am I doing? You may have lost yourself, or you may be on the path either way. This episode is for you. So stay tuned. Welcome to episode 67 of the well-versed woman podcast. I'm Renee teller.[inaudible]
Speaker 2:The Morgan. You see Renee and I are two perfectly imperfect women. We come to you week after week with the hopes that you will listen to the podcast, understand what true faith in the Bible and in God's word is all about and apply it
Speaker 1:Your life. See true faith, true application of the words in this great book have to do with a relationship with our creator. He is the creator of the universe, and that relationship makes all the difference in your life. But before we get started to this week's episode, we want to start the same way we want to sit very, still close our eyes, take some slow, deep breaths and ask God to come and be with you this very minute right now, no matter what you're doing, if you're driving, don't close your eyes, but just be still and take some deep breaths for 20 seconds. We're going to start that right now.
Speaker 3:[inaudible]
Speaker 1:That's it. That's 20 seconds. And I'm going to encourage you to grow that time because it made all the difference in me connecting with God and allowing him that connection to download and remind me who I really am. But boy trees, I think, you know, you knew me back then. And I had really lost myself in those days. Right after college, I got out, I was so excited. I was ready to take every hill that there was to take. And honestly, I just felt like my career was the most important thing. And in that process, even though I believed in God, I spent very little time on my relationship with him. Very little time, having coffee and tea with him, so to speak, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2:Absolutely. Renee, you know, it's those quiet moments with the Lord. It's the, it's the prayer life that we've talked about in previous episodes that is so important. It's so special because of course, you know, God is a God who wants to do life with us. He's not someone who wants to order us, right? The love that he has for us, that love demands, free choice freedoms. So he wants to come along, collaborate with us in life. And that in the collaboration is where we find our true purpose Renee.
Speaker 1:So true. I mean, not only our true purpose, right? But really understanding who we are, what our giftedness is. And then of course our purpose and what we're here to do. But for me, I really had to spend an awful lot of time on that idea, who am I? And the reminder, Theresa, that as a believer, I was a child of God. And with the hat with just that statement that we are children of God comes all kinds of scripture in the word of God, that enlightened us to what that means Theresa, about who we are and what we're entitled to.
Speaker 2:That is so true. You know, I think that the most important truth of the Bible is that when we have an established relationship with Jesus Christ, when we invite him into our hearts to be Lord and savior, that is when we become the righteousness of God. Let's unpack and break this down just a minute. We see in the Bible in first Corinthians chapter five, verse 21, the Bible says, and this is Paul, the apostle who wrote it. The Bible says for, he made him Jesus Christ who knew no sin to be sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in him. So the first thing that takes place when we become born again in our spirit, we've talked about that is that the righteousness that Christ had for throughout eternity with dad, the right standing, this righteousness, this right standing with his father, this was, this is transferred to believers. When we put our faith in Christ, all humanity, sinful, we all carry the stain of sin in that is why when we put our faith in the work of the cross, that he shed his blood, and that was the remission for sin. When we put our faith in that a transference occurs, if you will. And we, we get to be that righteousness of God in Christ, the Greek word for righteousness. Renee is dikaiosune, it's spelled D I K I O S U N E. And it means justification made right with God just as if I had not sin. So this is our positional righteousness in God. So now in our spirits, the real loss we become made holy righteous and pure. The holy spirit slips into our spirit in now. Life is about taking that positional righteous righteousness in making it a behavioral or righteousness through our salt, in changing our behavior, our thoughts, we change how we look at life, because as we read the Bible, we see the right way of behaving Renee. And it's the right choices in life, right? The right ways of behaving that bring the press spirity and the joy and the health into this life that we walk on planet earth.
Speaker 1:Hmm. You know, it reminds me what we say so often, Theresa, that we are spirit that's who we really are. And so, because of what you're saying here, because of sin in the world, we need to be made right with God, our creator, the manufacturer of us and our spirit. We need that bridge. We need to be made right with God because of sin and get our spirits right with him. Then we can start getting all the downloads we need and building this relationship and understanding who he created us to be, who we are in our spirit.
Speaker 2:That's exactly right, Renee. So I love your opening. It was beautiful because you're talking about, I lost my way, but then he started redirecting you into the plan and the purpose for your life. You started flowing in that, you know, like a fish out of water, right? Who's gulping for air. Once that fish gets back into the water, they start flowing right in the right habitat. And that is, that really is the story of the Bible. That once we become positionally, right with God now the holy spirit dwells in our spirit in now we can start flowing and swimming, uh, in the beautiful ocean of God's direction, which is so crucial because Renee, you had already become positionally righteous with him. Now what you were doing is allowing him to come in and collaborate with you, instill, give you choice, right? Rene, you, he didn't pound you into making the directional choices for your life. It was out of the relationship that your life began to change.
Speaker 1:So true. And I just come into mind is my sweet husband, Peter. And this idea that when it's all because of love, right? That's what, what you were saying brought to my mind is I ha I had Jesus in me, but he gave me choice because he loves me. He gave me choice to continue to choose right with him, to continue to choose growing my relationship, just like with Peter and this idea that in my relationship with Peter, once that love bond became so clear to me how much he loved me, it was then easy for me to do what was right in the relationship to do what I wanted to do to please him, to, to make Peter feel good. You know, I'll just say a little story. Last night. It was late. We had worked all day in the garden and, uh, he wanted pancakes. So he wanted pancakes so bad and you know, all his allergies and I did not want to make those pancakes. So I'd kept coming up with all these easy things to feed him. And he was being so gracious and kind, right. Just like God does with us. Like, well, God, how about this? How about that? And God is so gentle with us. And then, you know, Peter's like, oh, it wasn't really that good. And I, I finally surrendered and said, you just want pancakes, don't you, you just want pancakes. And he said, I really do, but it's okay, honey. I mean, what a depiction of how our relationship with God works, you know, and, and of course I made the pancakes because I made them out of love. I didn't want to do it. It wasn't, but it was the right thing to do. And, you know, I get that way with God, right? Like, oh, I don't want to do this, or I don't want to do the Hatter, but I know after growing with him and being with him that, oh, I see that's the right thing. And of course I felt so good when I was done making Peter pancakes because he was so happy. And it's the same with God when we stay in his well, and we know we're in Israel, we're like, oh, okay, okay, Lord. I know that's what I was supposed to be doing. And I feel so much better that I heard from you and that I'm doing
Speaker 2:Well. That's beautiful. It's it is a beautiful example of how God works with us, right, Renee, once we are born again, once we have given him our heart. Um, and so that's one thing that I just wanted to give our listeners a few more scriptures about, um, you know, Romans chapter 10 verses nine and 10. Uh, again, we're talking about right, standing with God, the Bible says that if you confess with your mouth, the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart, that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved for, with the heart. One believes unto righteousness, this right, standing with God and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation, Ephesians two verses eight and nine. Say for by grace, you have been saved through faith and that not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, not of works lest anyone should post. So the Bible really does a wonderful job. Renee of spelling out that we can't work for our salvation. It's none of, all of us have sinned. The Bible says all of us have fallen short of his glory. The Bible says in Romans 3 23 in also to make it crystal clear that we can't work for this beautiful gift of salvation or right standing with God, Galatians chapter two, verses 20 and 21 say that I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me in the life, which I now live in the flesh. I live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God for if righteousness or right standing comes through the law, right? Keeping all the rules and regulations and working for it, then Christ died in vain. So we can see that the death of Jesus is what sealed us for salvation. And when we put our faith in, in that, in invite him in to be Lord and savior, Renee, that is when we become right with God, we can't work. There's no works good enough because we have sin. And we've talked about that in previous episodes. But again, it goes right back to this beautiful love that God has for us, Rene, that he said, there is no human that qualifies to be sinless. I'm coming down myself in the person of Jesus Christ. And he did what we could not do. And even after we give our life to him, he continues to do that. It makes pancakes for us all the time, Renee, right?
Speaker 1:That's so true whenever we want, but I love that Theresa. And it struck me today. Then Christ died in vain. And so many people do believe that Christ died on the cross for our sins. But imagine the opposite, almost thinking of that, that if you don't believe that he had to do that, then he died in vain. Oh my gosh. I remember that movie, the passion and I, I can barely watch it. And I know so, so many who saw it felt the same way. Probably everyone felt the same way, but imagined that that suffering and that death on the cross was in vain. So I love that scripture reminding us all again, that if righteousness comes through the law, keeping those works, then what Jesus did for us, that we saw in that movie was senseless and useless. I can't even, I can't even begin to fathom that. And the other piece of this same again, it's the Galatians chapter two 20 and 21, the life, which I now live in the flash because we're still here in the flesh on planet earth. And we're still the real us in spirit covered in flash. But we live by faith in the son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Like those are, you know, we talk a lot. She said about meditating on the word and meditating on just those scriptures, those lines within that scripture is so profound to just sit with that for a while, right?
Speaker 2:Oh my goodness, Renee, it will change your life. If you realize when one understands the depth of his love is what was exemplified on that cross. That was the depth of his love to do for us. What we were not qualified to do for ourselves in, when we put faith in that we become born again, we become in right standing with him. And then we continue to put our trust in him for the remainder of our days here in this life. And he continues to love us, to guide us like at the beautiful shepherd that he is, that we've talked about also in previous episodes that you know, he is our shepherd. We shall not watch, right. He makes us to lie down beside green pastures. He leads us beside still waters. He restores our soul. What a beautiful Psalm, 23, it's beautiful. And it shows the ever present love of God in our day to day lives. You know, Renee, I was thinking about today's podcast and I was thinking it was always about faith. It was always from the time God came into the earth and made a covenant with Abraham, right? The Abrahamic covenant was made back in the old Testament. We're not going to get into old Testament doctrines, but the Bible says that Abraham believed God. When God said Abraham, you're going to be a father of all nations. And he went on, you know, to tell him what he was about to do for Abraham and the Israelites in the people. And Abraham believed God. And it was accounted to him for righteousness. Isn't that beautiful. We can find that in Romans chapter four, verses two to five, you can also find it in Genesis 15 six. The Bible says for if Abraham was justified by works, he has something to boast about, but not before God for what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God. And it was accounted to him for righteousness now, to him who works, the wages are not counted as grace, but his debt, but to him who does not work, but believes on him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted to righteous for righteousness, Nick, beautiful. It's always been throughout eternity that we can't work and be good enough to receive salvation. It's a gift from God. And the Bible says in John chapter one, verse 12, to as many as received Jesus Christ, this gift, those become children of God. Beautiful, beautiful. And then we continued to grow up, right? We continued to grow up in him. So
Speaker 1:Back to the beginning where we were talking about who am I, you know, I am the righteousness of God in Christ. And that is where it starts. And from that we can grow deeper and deeper into what he purposed us to do here, Theresa, right? I mean, it has to start with understanding that we're not going to just work to be who God created us to be. We, once we accept him, once we agreed to follow him, we automatically get to be children of God, children of a king. And then from that, we can grow into what he purposed us because he did purpose. He did have a purpose for each of us when he created us.
Speaker 2:That's that's correct, Renee, that, that is it. And how beautiful are the plans of God for each one of us? You know, I'm thinking of Jeremiah 29 11, that God says, I know the plans and the thoughts I have for your life, right? Thoughts to, to benefit you, not, not harm you. And then the next scripture goes on to say, and when you search for me with all of your heart and you will find me beautiful, he just is there waiting for us to look in his direction. And he comes running Renee, running to us to aid, into grow us and to bring us into the purpose and the plans that he has for our life in the first place. And once you're flowing in that, you then understand who you are and whose you are in, what you were made for in there is no greater satisfaction in life when you're flowing in the plans and the purposes, um, right. Renee.
Speaker 1:So true Teresa, that's a great way to sum it all up. I mean, it's that simple, as simple as you stated at that, it starts with God. It starts with the one who created us. And our only job is to stay connected to him so that he can continue to direct us. I love that.
Speaker 2:I do too. And I think perhaps our next podcast we'll talk about the, you know, being in him, what the Bible says. There are so many scriptures that talk about in him, right? What, what does that mean in him? It means literally he is in us. We are in him. And if we allow the precious holy spirit to lead and guide us more and more of who we were created to be, will start to unfold and it will even surprise us. It's, it's, it's a wonder, it's just a wonder, I'm, you know, I've been walking with the Lord 27 years, almost 28 now. And, um, you know, he, he's constantly surprising me with even greater depths of the plan and the purposes for my life. And there's always, you know, as Renee and I know there's always something new, there's always a new degree of revelation and he's right there with us, Renee leading us into their plan.
Speaker 1:He, so is Theresa and we love to start with the word and our favorite scripture, which is apropos for this week, for sure. Absolutely. Renee Romans 10, 17 faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Thanks for listening. Bye. Now we love you. Thanks for listening to episode 67 of the well-versed woman podcast. We'd love for you to subscribe, to rate and review. We'll send you a journal right in the mail. We also have a Facebook community group called well-versed woman just as to join that. And you can ask us questions and interact with us anytime of the day and last but not least the show notes to every episode include the scriptures that we talked about. We reminded you to meditate on the scriptures and the ones in this week's episode are so important and so key. So you're going to want to download those, print them out and meditate on them. But until next week we love you. Bye now.