Walk Your Talk

"For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it." Hebrews 12:11

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I'm Alexa Lauren and welcome to my podcast, Heart of a Seeker. Today's episode is called Walk Your Talk. We spoke about vows last week, and this week we're going to focus a little more on how to actually be able to execute the vows that we set and where that stems from, which is self-discipline. I want to open us up in prayer. Father God, thank you for today. Thank you for your love, your kindness, your mercy. Thank you that even when we're struggling, even in the midst of uncertainty at times, that you are a lamp to our feet. I pray that this word would fall on good soil, that it would begin to penetrate our hearts, and that we would be able to execute the word and apply it to our daily lives so that we can learn to live a life full of peace on not just earth, but one day in eternity with you. The last week has been pretty crazy for me. I had a lot of things going on in work in my personal life, and something that I am currently realizing was I am a little bit overdue on this podcast. I personally had a hard time getting this episode recorded, and it's kind of interesting because we talked about our vows and what we said we're gonna do. And I have a personal commitment to release a podcast every Wednesday. So I just find it interesting how I really struggled with that this week, honestly. And I had to sit down and I realized that we need to do what we say we're gonna do even when we don't want to do it. And that's where self-discipline comes in. And that's something that really I felt was important to share and discuss. Hebrews 12.11 says, for a moment, all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. In order to be able to walk our talk, we need to learn to be self-disciplined. As we discussed last week in I Vow, what are we saying? What are we vowing or promising? This message stemmed from this movie I recently watched called Greater, based on a true story of this boy named Brandon Burslow. I hope I said his name right. Somebody that no matter what people said about him, no matter what people did, he still did what he believed he needed to do. He put God at the center of all that he did, sought him daily, sought him first, and also lived a disciplined life and didn't give in to what other people or people his age were choosing to indulge in at that time. And that began to get me thinking about my own personal life and seeing that often when we haven't put God at the center, we struggle a lot with other areas of our lives, which we will get into further in this podcast. And what I saw by when we do put God at the center of everything, how that really shifts the whole entire environment and life that we're living in that moment. In Proverbs 25, 8, it says, a man without self-control is like a city broken into and left without walls. And in Galatians 5, 22 through 23, it says, But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law. We need to begin training ourselves to be self-disciplined. Often our flesh desires worldly pleasures, which often lead us astray, and worse off than before, and can often lead us to spiritual death or even physical death, depending on the choices that we make. When we give in to our own desires and don't allow discipline to be our priority, and allow the spirit of God to lead us, we get lost in the mist. Per Hebrews 12 11, if we submit ourselves to self-discipline, it promises to yield peaceful fruit of righteousness. We serve a God who is constant and consistent. I cannot imagine if God gave us these promises in his word and did not fulfill them. I can't imagine what it would be like for God to make a vow and then he's like, oh, never mind, I was just kidding. I think often that's what we do. We make these promises and these vows like we talked about last week, and then we don't fulfill them. But the only way we can truly fulfill them is when we stay consistent and we stay constant in the things we say we're gonna do, and we do them even when we don't want to. And I think that's what's key. Even when we don't feel like it, even when we do not want to do the things we say we're gonna do, we made a promise and a commitment to do it. So therefore we need to follow through. And by doing that, we have to learn to train ourselves in the area of self-control and self-discipline to be able to execute these things. Titus 3 3 says, For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. Then in first Timothy five six, it reads, But he slash she who is self-indulgent is dead even while he or she lives. Ephesians four eighteen they are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to their hardness of heart. When our hearts are hardened and we do not allow our hearts to be teachable, we often begin to struggle with knowing what path to take and what to do. And as we read in Titus, Timoth 1 Timothy and Ephesians, the common theme here is when we give into our passions and our pleasures, we often then struggle with envy, we struggle with hatred towards others, and then it's hard to allow the love of God to flow through us because, like Ephesians says, the hardness of our own hearts, and we are darkened in our understanding because we don't always understand what we're doing or what to do next. And it says that when we give into our self-indulgence, we can even be walking and alive or living, but yet we're dead in our spirit because we have no clear direction on what path to take. Proverbs 1532 then goes on to say, whoever ignores instruction despises himself, but he who listens to the reproof gains intelligence. So when we allow our hearts to be teachable and we don't act like we know it or have it all together, and we allow God to guide us and allow him to correct us in the areas we are struggling, and we submit those things to him, that's where we begin to gain wisdom and understanding. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of your body, you will live. When we choose to live a self-disciplined life, there actually is a promise in it. And it says, for bodily training is of some value. Godliness is value in every way, as it holds promise for present life and also for the life to come. Often we are deceived thinking that the false pleasures of this world give us or will give us quote unquote happiness. But the truth is it's temporary and we are always seeking the next fixed, and we continue feeling empty, lost, and unfulfilled in the process. I remember when I was 21, I know I've mentioned previously that around the age of 19, God started ministering to me and speaking to me, but it wasn't until I was 21 that I really chose to submit. And the truth was the reason I chose to fully submit was because I realized that even having one foot here and one foot there, I was struggling, compromising, trying to still do the things of the world and wasn't willing to submit my heart fully to God. And with that, I started really struggling and was not sure what path to take. And I was trying to live this idea of needing to be this perfect Christian. And when I felt like I felt shell short of that, I was not willing to fully submit myself to God. And I continued to live in chaos and confusion because of it. I had gotten to a point where we often hear you have to be sick and tired of being sick and tired. I was really tired of me thinking that having relationships and giving myself to people was going to fulfill the emptiness of my heart and wanting and longing of affection and love. And I didn't realize that I had a very warped idea of what love was. I did not know the love of God, and I thought I could find that in men and relationships. But at a certain point, I was very unhappy and I figured I needed to seek God. Now, with that being said, for years I struggled with the struggle of sexual temptation. And that's often something that I don't really like to talk about, but truly I realized that my lies and thoughts of the world and that that would bring me pleasure and bring me some kind of sense of love and hope actually brought a lot of destruction to my life. I had this idea of how a relationship should be. I thought that I needed to be a certain way to be able to gain love and approval. And really what it brought was disappointments, emptiness, and brokenness. I often allowed my emotions to dictate my feelings instead of allowing the Holy Spirit to guide me and walk in wisdom. I often couldn't understand why I was struggling so many times with anxiety and then depression because I was regretting maybe past choices and things I had done, feeling like I had fallen short, or anxiety because I was frustrated in my current situation, wondering where there was hope and how would things get better. And I feel that I at times would be impulsive and wouldn't allow myself to just be still and allow God to guide me and be still and seek his presence and begin to realize what I was doing was wrong. And I'm talking about a really long battle. This was not something I struggled with for a year or two. This was something I struggled with for 10 plus years, even walking with Christ. And I often felt like I couldn't be used because of the fact that I did struggle with these things and these thoughts. And later I came to realize that I needed to take my thoughts captive and I needed to learn to train myself and be self-disciplined, even when I didn't feel like it, and even when I thought I wanted other things. And it was through self-discipline and self-control where I began to understand God's true peace. And honestly, a lot of my anxiety began to subside due to other external factors that were beginning to affect me internally. Romans 8 7 reads, For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot. Our lives become chaotic and hostile because we want to do things our way. What people often fail to realize is there is freedom and joy in self-discipline. We learn not to be moved by our emotions, but rather God's guidance and wisdom in spite of our feelings. We come to know the peace that surpasses all understanding. In Psalm sixteen eleven there is a promise. You make known to me the path of life, in your presence there is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore. God's presence brings fullness of joy. It's a promise. He also offers pleasures, but not as we think, per the world's standards. God gives us both earthly reward and heavenly rewards. The peace of God I have come to know is more valuable than the world's temporary offerings. On my own journey of learning to be self-disciplined, I have learned by submitting my work and labor to God, my finances, my body, my mind, my spirit. I have truly come to understand the peace that surpasses all understanding, even in the midst of whatever may come at me, whatever storm, whatever issue that might arise in a day. I have learned to not let it cause me to waver or move as easily as it did in the past. It has been more than financial. It has been more than anything else I could ever ask for. For years of struggling with anxiety, the reward of peace in Christ has been the most beautiful thing I have experienced in my life. In Matthew 16, 25, God tells us for whoever saves his life will lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. I think the biggest deception we have ever believed is that we don't need God, that we can do it on our own, that we are self-sufficient. And we begin to look to other things outside of God to give us peace. And the truth is we just keep seeking and seeking and seeking. And it reminds me of the episode where we talked about Feel Me Up, where we need to be connected to the source, who is God, who continues to fill us. When we look for things outside of God, we lack understanding, we lack wisdom, we lack clarity. Why? Because God is clarity, God is wisdom. And the truth is when we look to the world for that type of wisdom that we can't get from the world, we continue to run around in circles, lost and confused, not knowing what steps to take next. And I really encourage anybody that may find themselves lost or confused, even whether you're a Christian or not a Christian, and you're just like, I am so sick of the life I'm living right now. I have no hope. I don't know what to do. I recently shared with somebody and said to them, look, even if you don't even know what you believe at this point, the word of God has so much wisdom and it truly will transform your life if you just pick it up and begin to read. There's so many times that I didn't know what step to take, what to do next. And sometimes I would just open up the Bible and I would say a little prayer before and say, God, please just speak to me, help me. And I'd begin to just read and go through the different books and different pages. And I would just find so much peace and encouragement through the words I would read that it was through seeking him where I began to know who God was and his heart and not what other people told me and not what other people's version of God was, but reading his word really revealed to me who God was. And anybody can know God and accept him. And it's as simple as believing that Jesus died on the cross for your sins, that he rose again from the dead and asking him to forgive you for trying to do life your own way and allowing him and asking him to please come be a part of your life. And by praying that simple prayer and inviting Jesus to live in your life, you now have access to all the things and wisdom and the Holy Spirit to guide you through your life. I want to go ahead and close us out in prayer. Father God, thank you for this message. Thank you for your word. Thank you for your love, your mercy, your kindness. Thank you that you're a good father. And even when discipline seems hard and harsh, we know that it will produce great fruit of peace in our lives. It is a promise from you, and we will stand on that promise and believe what your word says, God. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.