Introduction to Set Your Mind Above

Learn a little bit about your host, yours truly, as well as what we hope to achieve together with this podcast in the days ahead! As always, set your minds above!

#SetYourMindAbovePodcast

Transcript

Welcome everyone to the very first episode of “Set Your Mind Above” – where everyday ordinary events teach us extraordinary eternal truths. My name is BJ Sipe and I am the host of the Set Your Mind Above podcast. I am so excited to have the opportunity to share my life and my thoughts with you, as I hope you in turn will do the same with me. In this first episode, I wanted to take a minute to introduce myself and explain what we hope to achieve with this podcast going forward. So without any delay, let’s dive right into it. 
 
 As I stated earlier, my name is BJ Sipe and I was born and raised on the West Coast of the United States. The past 7 years of my life I have spent in full time ministry, preaching the gospel of Jesus in places like Oregon, Texas, and now here in Kentucky. My wife Kylie, my two children Ava & Dane, and I all live in a small town called Danville where I labor as the evangelist for the church that meets on Lexington Avenue. I wanted to introduce these things about me now, because they will be frequent topics of discussion that I pull from in these episodes. 

So what do we hope to accomplish here? To explain that, we need to go back to my childhood when I was growing up in Oregon. I was raised in a home where Jesus was taught and discipleship was modeled by my Dad, Brian Sipe, and my mom, Kelly Sipe. Nearly every single day, my dad would find different opportunities to try and teach my brother and I a spiritual lesson. But he wouldn’t just do this by simply opening up the Bible, rather my he would frequently pull from ordinary things that we were doing as a family and use that as a starting point to teach us an important lesson. It didn’t matter what we were doing, it could have been taking a load to the dump, or helping someone move, or going to get our haircut, my dad found a way to use it to teach me about God. 

That has always stuck with me, and from childhood I was raised to constantly consider normal, everyday things and what they can teach me about spiritual matters. What I discovered is what my dad was doing was exactly what God called for the people of Israel to do with their children so long ago. 
 
 Deuteronomy 6:4-9 - “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.”

We ought to constantly be looking for opportunities to teach ourselves and others about Jesus in our day to day lives. If we limit our time for growing in the knowledge of God and his word to merely when we assemble with other Christians in a local church, we will never come to know God as we should. Much rather, we can learn important lessons about God and what he expects from us from just about anything. Whether it’s a natural event, an animal, a current event, our jobs, our children, our marriages, and countless others. The point is that God and the truths that he has revealed to us through his Word can be seen in the most ordinary things every day. The question is simply this: am I looking for them? 
 
 Colossians 3:1-4 – “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.” 

This is our challenge that I am issuing to myself and to all of our listeners, that we can train ourselves to set our minds on things above. That we do not merely see things for what they are, but for what they can teach us about faith, hope, and love. I am excited to take this journey with you and would ask you to do several things if you’re willing. First, be sure to share these episodes with those that you believe could benefit from them, especially with those that are still searching for their faith. Secondly, share the lessons that you are learning from everyday, ordinary events with me. There is nothing more encouraging than receiving a message from someone sharing a powerful thought that can help me to grow in my faith & knowledge of Jesus as well. 
 
 Be sure to tune in, Tuesday-Friday’s, as a new episode will be uploaded each day – 4 times a week. Be sure to follow the Facebook page for the Set Your Mind Above podcast for new announcements and weekly video sessions. Until next time know that I love you, that Jesus loves you, and may we all each and every day set our minds above.