Transcript

0:00
Hey guys, welcome to the Christian point. In this week’s episode, we’re going to be discussing realigning your goals with a fresh start each day. And that’s gonna bring you more peace and purposeful happiness. Well, how are we going to do that? Well, we’re going to be discussing daily hang-ups that get in our way and tips to help you walk in faith and not fear. Faith comes from God while fears not of God. So we really have to think about it and make a daily choice to be stronger than our struggles. We’ll be right back.

0:35
Welcome to the Christian point podcast, where we are all about growing your relationship with God. As lifelong Christian believers, your hosts Zach and Linda McConnell explore topics that affect your world. Together, they are relearning and redirecting our path as we walk through struggles hang-ups, sins, and purpose. The Christian point is a lively discussion that will help equip you with tools to provide focus and encouragement from a biblical perspective. Always remember Christ is the point. Now here are your hosts, Zach, and Linda.

1:11
Our thoughts and prayers are around peace for the Ukrainian people this week, Zach, it is just absolutely devastating. We’re in this world of crisis. And we’ve seen this Russian Ukraine conflict play out on television and social media. And we really pray that God brings Ukraine protection and peace and resolution quickly. That’s right,

1:37
Linda, we want to welcome everyone to the Christian point. We’re your host, Zach, and Linda McConnell. And both of us want to thank you for joining in this week’s episode. As you know, Linda, can you believe it? We’re already at the end of winter in spring, it’s just around the corner. At least it seems like the other day, we were celebrating New Year’s with all the hopeful resolutions we wanted to start and in the meantime, well, it flies Yeah. And the days just go by, at the beginning of the year, it seems like everybody gets serious about something. They try to develop some new discipline. Some people spend time thinking and praying, what comes next? Where should I throw my energies, my passions?

2:17
Exactly. And our awesome God created a 24 hour period each day. And I love that we get to reset every morning. And I can ask for forgiveness, I can make better habits, and improve my walk in purpose. And that really will bring certainty to these really uncertain times. I really love that the Bible points to the number 40 repeatedly, I’m kind of a numbers nerd. And I encourage you to start a 40-day spiritual journey to help increase your satisfaction with God. But also, it’s going to improve your life and prepare you for eternity. The average lifespan is around 29,000 days. Isn’t that interesting? Like, put a number to it. So don’t you think it’d be wise to set apart 40 days to work on yourself by reading your Bible daily, praying and seeing how God has transformed you after 40 days you can even start a journal, and God considers 40 days to be spiritually significant. And that’s why he had to repeat so many times in the Bible. Bible scholars understand that the 40 points to trials and a probation period. So God was preparing someone for his purpose. He took 40 days, and that emphasizes the trouble or hardship they were going to have to walk through some of the really interesting Bible examples of the 40 includes, you can look at Noah’s life it was transformed by a worldwide flood for 40 days and 40 nights. Moses was transformed on Mount Sinai for 40 days when he was receiving the 10 commandments. The spies of the promised land were transformed by 40 days. Both Moses and Elijah were transformed when God gave them 40 days of strength from a meal while fasting. That’s just incredible. The city of Nineveh was transformed when God gave them 40 days to change with Jonas’s preaching. And Jesus was tempted by 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness. The disciples were transformed by 40 days with Jesus after the resurrection, and that’s an x one, verse three. And all of this is really interesting and thought-provoking. So my thoughts are taking action and improving yourself can become a positive godly habit if you continue it for 40 days. Really, during trying times I find comfort in the bible verse, Jeremiah 17 seven verse eight, bless it are those who trust in the Lord. They are like trees planted along a riverbank with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green and they go right on producing delicious fruit.

5:17
That’s right, Linda. And if you want a bigger vision for your life, sign up to be a “Gimper” for God. And I didn’t say “Gipper” I did say, “Gimper”. A giver is someone who does a little more than what’s required to go that extra mile. My dad was in the furniture business for over 50 years. And he would always tell me said you got to go the extra mile will take a sofa, and wood steam down the skirts just put on all the extra touches that it took to make things look just excellent for our customers. And that’s that kind of makes me think of Jay bez Jabez was more honorable than his brothers. And that’s in First Chronicles for nine. Jay bez wanted to do more for God. And We later discovered that God granted his request. So what did Jay bez do to rise above the rest? Well, something in Jabez’s prayer explains the mystery. The prayer can revolutionize your life. You’re walking your purpose. Jay bez was the Gipper. He went the extra mile. And he still remembered for his prayer in what happened next. You know, so what is the secret for enduring reputation a reputation of Jay bez Jabez prayed an unusual once long Senate’s prayer, things that ended extraordinarily well for Jay bez after that the prayers are simple and direct request to God that changed his life and made a permanent mark on Israel. You know, I’ve been praying this prayer for over a year, and many others have prayed it throughout their lifetime. God is unclaimed blessings just waiting for you. You just have to take confidence in the expectation that your heavenly Father will bring it to pass. Absolutely. You know, Jay bez was more than honorable than his brothers in his name, mint. I bore him in pain. And Jay bez called on God, the God of Israel praying oath that you would bless me indeed, enlarge my territory, that your hand would be with me, and that you would keep me from evil. That may not cause pain, but that was it. That was his simple but very powerful prayer.

7:24
Yes, act. I pride the Jay bez per two days, and it is so powerful, and I feel God has enlarged our territory and blessed us so richly, as we walk in faith to Him and pray with him daily. It’s such a simple prayer, but it just really makes a huge difference. It takes a lot of faith these days with the world is so much turmoil, oh my gosh, we’ve gone through COVID. And the holidays are over. And typically, during this time of the year, I’m still kind of struggling with my weight. And well, you know, you think about it, all those meals of Thanksgiving and Christmas. This past year, I had really started doing some daily intermittent fasting and found some success with that. But I’m going to take it to the next level. And this week, I am doing the fast kind of like, okay, what is 24-hour fast look like? And do this in prayer, make more time with God each day while I’m fasting? So what I thought about is what I’ve been doing is I’ve been fasting this week for 23 hours, and doing a low one low carb meal each day. And I put time away from first thing in the morning to read my Bible. I pray more. I praise God more. I even turn on some singing. That’s price music. And but the truth is, I’m not going to be giving up my morning coffee. No way. I’ll be God was so good. He created coffee beans, right? Yes, we rejoice in that. But please do not fast coffees. So we want the entire world to continue drinking coffee just for the safety of the world. But you know, at the end of February, beginning of March, a lot of people who’ve made some new year’s resolutions. They’re totally broken. Yep. And you’re saying right now Zack, I just feel so guilty. I feel like Doggone it. I’ve blown it. And I feel like a failure. Yep, I already ate that brownie when I wasn’t supposed to, or I didn’t fast exactly as I planned. And guys, we just cannot be so black and white. We just, we’ve really have got to cut ourselves some slack. And, you know, some people maybe they gave up something like a bad habit and they feel bad about it because they haven’t stuck with it. Or maybe they made a commitment to read the Bible from cover to cover in a year. And now they’re feeling like they’re so far off course, that they’re just completely disappointed in themselves. And they missed a day. And now they feel like Oh, I’m gonna have to double up so much. How am I going to get through this And what do you say to people who feel this way?

10:03
Well, we want to attempt to change your mindset. This is an opportunity and a passion, this is not an obligation. And if you make it the law, then you’re just going to break it. But you need to make it an opportunity to personally grow, then it’s going to be something you look forward to, exactly, you know, I’m going to be doing something that you continue. If a day or two is missed, then you just jump right back in. So I want to address the importance of God’s word. A friend of mine was struggling and felt a huge weight and he was kind of stuck. He was burnout. He felt very beat down, and he just needed some help. And I asked my friend, have you been reading your Bible? And he said, No. And I said, Okay, I want you to imagine this thing from going from one Sunday to the next Sunday, without eating anything, no physical food. So you had dinner on Sunday, and then did not eat anything on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Wow. Yeah. Then I told him, I said, Now, if you were to have an enemy up here, and get attacked, are you going to be able to defend yourself physically with the enemy? And he said that there’s no way. And I said, Well, that’s what’s happening to you spiritually. You’re drawn into a situation where you didn’t have the strength to say, no, because you stopped feeding your spirit with the Word of God. And there’s something really significant to be said about that. Reading the Bible for 40 days straight is a great start. But if you miss a few days, then jump right back into it, you know, add some podcasts that supplement it. Absolutely, you know, but there’s nothing like sitting down in reading the Bible. And I asked the Holy Spirit to open my eyes to teach me in to reveal Jesus to me, every time I read the Bible, I don’t ever want to read the Bible just on my own. Now, with the help of the Holy Spirit, yes, you know, there’s nothing that can really replace that time that we actually spin, feeding on his word. Because just as physical food is to our bodies, the word of God is to our spirit. That’s what Jesus said, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. So come up with a Bible reading plan. It’s something you can stick to, and go through the Bible in trying to do it in a year.

12:25
Absolutely. That’s a great idea. And yeah, you know, I have the YouVersion, that’s on my phone, and I keep up with it, it gives you a little star for daily streaks. And that gives you some encouragement. So it encourages you not to miss a Bible reading. But there are a lot of tools out there to help you with this.

12:44
Yet, you know, if you miss a day or two, don’t beat yourself up, or even a week, just jump right back in. So what if it takes you a year or a year, in a month or a year in two months, the fact is, you got it done, and you’re feeding yourself. And that helps your discipline to get through the Bible, in you’re being fed through the Holy Spirit in through His Word. And that’s what’s important. You’ll not become weak in Jesus said in Proverbs, The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. And I believe that we when we read the Word of God, we strengthen our inner being. And when we pray, we strengthen our outer being the two combined, it makes us able to live very healthy Christian lives, right, you know, lives that glorify God lives that represent Jesus well. And it’s just, I just really want to encourage you in everyone, if you haven’t done it, it’s not too late. Just plan on going through the Bible, pick out a translation, get through with one translation, then go to another because there’s not an English translation. That’s perfect. I mean, look, in English, we don’t even have the same words. Yeah, yeah, the words are in Hebrew in Greek, in some don’t have an exact correlation to an English word. So by reading different quality translations, you can think of it as looking at passages kind of from different angles, so that you get different perspectives, but you’re reading the same thing.

14:08
Absolutely. Zack, when you’re reading the different translations, you’re still looking at the same truth. But you’re getting it from different angles as you said, so just pick out a translation. And I know one of my favorites is the New Living Translation. And another is, let’s not translation to paraphrase, but the Message Bible, which really makes Paul’s writing so much more understandable, and provides me a lot of great insight. Also, there’s the passion translation, that’s a newer version, and it’s quite unique, and I bought one for you as a Christmas gift this past year. And I know you’re enjoying looking at the rest of the story at the bottom of the page. Yeah, that’s

14:47
why I do enjoy it. You know, it’s wonderfully refreshing. So make sure that you dedicate the time that you would have taken for whatever you were when you were fasting and replace that time. With time with God, you know, people in prayer and fasting is one of the things we can do for the Ukrainians right now. You know, Daniel would fast. And it’s a good time of year for people to go through fast. Now, don’t make it an obligation, make it an opportunity, make it something exciting. It puts you in a situation where you’re meeting with God in a unique and special way where he can speak to you. And fasting, it’s not a hunger strike, it’s just saying, God, I’m going to go without food until you speak to me, or I’m going to go without food until you do something, it should be God, I’m doing in taking more time for you. We don’t, we shouldn’t go in with those expectations. We just said I’m spending more time with you, I’m gonna lay that time aside, and I’m gonna replace that time with you.

15:51
Absolutely. I created a prayer closet for my daily reading. And that has in it my divas, my Bible, and several books, and I do this first thing in the morning, I read, I pray, I read my Bible in my prayer closet. And that gives me a place to go to where there’s just absolutely no distractions, and I make it a habit. I’ve been doing this for quite a while. And, you know, I, I think one of the most effective fasts we’ve ever had in our family is when we actually did a media fast. And we didn’t watch movies, we didn’t watch television, we worked it worked for our family because we did this at a camping site at a state park. And what was really great, well, there was no, there was bad reception. So that helped with keeping the temptation down. But it really did help our family, we were able to get away from the flooded, trans, get a hearing of all these movies and television, and just that all that stuff gets stuffed in your mind. And when you get away from it, you feel really resharpened our senses were resharpened as we turned off all those media distractions, and some people might have some medical challenges that they can’t fast. And, you know, I would love to say to everyone in my family, Hey, guys, we’re fasting Mom’s not cooking anymore. So too bad. And we’re just going to have water and lemon and some spices for 40 days or whatever, or for two weeks, whatever we think. But you know, I probably have anarchy on my hands. So I will continue cooking. But often these things are actually dulling you. So fasting can bring you closer to the Holy Spirit. And suddenly too fast because you need to get rid of certain things in your life, or you’re hanging out in the wrong places, and you know it in your heart or you’re around the wrong people. And that might be something that God says I want you to remove and separate yourself from this habit that is sucking up so much time in your life. Some people need to get away from social media. And it might not be all about food, it might be other things. Or it might be food and it might be other things are pulling you away from God too.

18:11
Well, what if I said that you could do have a more purposeful life by incorporating a 40 day fast? Now, let me be clear, I have done a terrible job of fasting in my life. But I want to reboot it, I want to have renewed passion for fasting and prayer. And I can picture the faces of our listeners. They’re like 40 days without eating. But I’m thinking other forms of fasting can be beneficial as well. It can also be path fasting from whatever keeps you from seeking and spending time with God. So if it’s sports, newspaper, it’s the internet, Facebook, television, whatever it is, just put it aside, spend time with God. Do you know what the kids that abstain from TV for 40 days? Their grades can go from a C and a D to A and a B, do you know that families can start to reconcile when the main distractions are eliminated, then we can experience a move toward God by the end of the 40 days. And it’s so really important that we understand that fasting is not necessarily about going hungry. We need to take extra time when that we create when we’re fasting and use that extra time to spend more time with Jesus.

19:24
Right? Well, unfortunately, a lot of people will just say, Well, I have absolutely no desire for that. They’re like, you know, I really don’t want to read my Bible at night because I’m just gonna fall asleep or I just have no hunger for God at night. Well, I remember God’s saying to me, Linda, if you’re not hungry for me, it’s because you’re filling yourself with other things. Ouch. You know, that really hurts. So a fast has the capacity to change your hunger and the same way as going from junk food to healthy food. When you first go from junk food to healthy food you’re like Wait, wait, wait. I What my chocolate brownies, they taste so good. And in comparison, there’s this apple. But the truth is, as you start to develop an appetite, it’s no different in the spiritual world, if you just begin to focus on the things that are going to build up your spirit, build up your relationship with God build up your family relationship. And if I want to have a hungry pursuit, I want to have a hunger for you God, he’ll actually show you those things that compromise your hunger for him. And when you remove those, everything else just seems to fall into place. For a lot of people, their hunger for God gets compromised by social media. And their hunger for approval from other people becomes a priority, or their hunger to see what everyone else is saying, is their priority? Or what is everyone else doing? Or what trips are they going on? And God is saying, Come on, I want you to come to me, I want you to draw near to me, and I will draw near to you. That’s right. So don’t just casually glance my way, have a focused pursuit. And it’s not too late to say, I’m going to reset my mind, I’m gonna reset my body, I’m going to reset my pursuit, I’m going to reset my priorities, I’m gonna pursue the eternal things. And I’m going to understand that God’s not arrival for my attention. And he is the one and only he is our Creator, He is my life, right. And so if people will actually set him in this place, in this high and mighty place, then they’re going to see him begin to draw them into a higher place into a higher pursuit and higher ways of thinking. So you know, I’m really excited that people do take a pause, they think about the excess clutter, bringing anxiety and they say, You know what, I need to reset myself, and I need to have some healthy boundaries back in place. You

21:55
know, let me jump in here. I want to reiterate one more time, what you just said, you said, God’s not responsible for our hunger. We are absolute. And so what we feed ourselves is what we hunger for. And that’s a very powerful truth. Right? You know, I think back on the times that I went for long periods, and I didn’t read the Bible. And then when I started reading it again, the Bible was a little bit difficult at first. But then it got to a point every couple of days, I couldn’t wait to start reading more. And then that same thing happens with prayer. If we don’t spend time with prayer, it’s a little hard to get in prayer first. But once you get into it, and you’re doing it, then all of a sudden, you can’t wait to get going. It’s a reset time. So appetites will change, desires will change, our thirst will change. And we’ll end up going after what we give ourselves and how we use our time and don’t just make it for the first part of the year. Let’s make this all year long thing.

22:50
Exactly. And if you blow it tomorrow, let’s just get up the next morning, and have mercy a new and just start again. Not all or nothing.

22:59
Absolutely. Go for it. Again, I guarantee if you do this for a year, it’ll be one of the best years you’ve ever had. Try fasting in areas you feel need to be removed from your life. Add more time with God. Read your Bible, pray short, continuous prayers throughout the day, and add the Jay bez prayer to your morning ritual. Do this for 40 days, you’ll transform your heart, your mind your spirit, your relationships will be a priority with God as he walks each step with you. And the reason I say this is because even if you do have difficulties outward, there’s still nothing like walking with God through a year, so you’ll be blessed.

23:37
Absolutely. Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode, and we would love to hear from you. Just check us out on our website, Christian point.com. Or you can connect with us through Facebook or Instagram. Please subscribe, like and comment. And most importantly, share this podcast with your friends. We are really excited about getting into new markets and how much of the world we’re now being able to be shared in. And it’s all because of our listeners because y’all been liking it and sharing it and we are so privileged that you have been with us and these conversations. And please be encouraged. Make the goal is for this your best year ever. And it’s going to be a new day and a new beginning. So go for it with passion. And please do send in your prayer requests. We would love to pray over you. God’s blessings and peace be with you and remember, until next time, Christ is the point. Thanks for

24:35
listening to the Christian point. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast and connect with us on Instagram, Facebook, or visit us on the web at TheChristianPoint.com. If you enjoyed the show, please share it with your friends on social media. Until next time, always remember Christ is the point

Transcribed by https://otter.ai