The Buddy Foy Jr Show

Shame Off, Pivot On

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Scripture:

Luke 15:11-32: Prodigal Son. 

Bible scriptures that emphasize the call to repentance:

  1. 2 Chronicles 7:14: “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
  2. Acts 3:19: “Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord.”
  3. Matthew 4:17: “From that time on Jesus began to preach, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’”
  4. Isaiah 55:7: “Let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts. Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.”
  5. Luke 15:7: “I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.”

We explore repentance as a visible pivot in daily life, sparked by a jolt of conviction during a trip to Turkey. We challenge shame-based views of repentance and offer practical ways to wear our “Christian uniform” through behavior.

• conviction sparked by public devotion in Turkey and Manhattan
• repentance defined as turning back to God through behavior
• repentance contrasted with guilt, shame, and punishment
• Isaiah’s relevance to today’s upside-down values
• forgiveness as the hardest first practice
• public prayer over meals as a bold habit
• praying immediately for people who ask
• conflict diffused through quick prayer and trust
• road rage, restraint, and growth as daily reps
• a weekly “Jesus gym” assignment for gratitude and prayer
• obedience as the path, not a magic button

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This is the Buddy For Junior Show — where faith, truth, and courage come together. Join us as we explore life’s deeper purpose and carry the torch of conviction. The show begins now.

Follow Buddy @BuddyFoyJr

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This is the Buddy For Junior Show — where faith, truth, and courage come together. Join us as we explore life’s deeper purpose and carry the torch of conviction. The show begins now.

Follow Buddy @BuddyFoyJr

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome. Welcome to the Buddy for You Junior Show. I appreciate everyone joining me. Quick favor out of the gate. If you're on Apple or Spotify, can you hit the follow or subscribe button? I really appreciate it. It helps with the algorithms. And can you also forward this podcast to one person? Quick reminder before we dive in here, folks, I'm not a biblical expert. I don't have a master's in theology. I'm a guy learning Jesus. I'm working out in the Jesus gym. Like the rest of us, I'm just sharing what I'm going through and what I've been working on for the last five years. So please read on your own. Verify everything I say. Today we're going to talk about repentance, what it is, what it isn't, what it looks like. And when faith pivots back towards God, what happens? Now, I've got a lot of DMs about spiritual warfare, Islam, politics. We'll hit those in future episodes, but today we're going to stay focused on a pivot, repentance. A quick recap for anyone who's new. My wife and I took an empty nesters tour through Europe, and then we hit Turkey. Walking into a mosque, something hit me like a spiritual sledgehammer. It was conviction, it was a little bit of guilt and a little bit of embarrassment. Not because I doubted Jesus, but because I realized how often I've been hiding him compared to how bold I am about everything else in my life. So what challenged me in Turkey was seeing this outward devotion in public. And I've noticed this before, folks. Years ago, my Jewish cloud, my Jewish clients in Manhattan would pause work, ask us to leave a meeting, and then a rabbi would come in, and I would see this devotion of their belief system in the marketplace. And that sparked my wife and I to get back to church, just witnessing that. So this Turkey trip did the same thing. Different faiths don't change my theology, but their devotion exposed how quiet my faith had become. Both back 20 years ago, when he then was going back to church, and then recently last month in Turkey. What I realized is this we don't have uniforms, folks, as Christians to announce who we are to the world. Our uniform is our behavior, and that's really what the Lord put on me in Turkey. And that's where repentance got real for me. Now, before I unpack repentance, here's a quick did you know about the Bible that surprised me this week. I'm gonna try to add these in here during the episodes. I learned the Old Testament isn't arranged in strict time order. I was reading Ezra, for example, this week, and Ezra mentions Jeremiah, but it appears before Jeremiah in the Bible. So that sparked me to figure out what's going on here. And I learned that the Bible's organized in themes, not timeline. Pretty cool, right? A little biblical trivia. And I'll definitely change the way I read the Bible going forward. Okay, now back to repentance. Isaiah hit me harder than almost anything I've ever read in the Bible. I think it, you know, and I've talked about this in prior podcasts, and I believe it's because I feel like I'm in a time machine. When you read Isaiah, I feel like we're living in those times, or Isaiah's living in ours and preaching to us today. In particular, 520 to 22, I'll put it below. It's just an upside-down world. Right? And that kind of put me down this foxhole over the years of being constantly confronted and researching this topic of repentance. So here's what I've learned from scripture or in scripture. Repentance is God calling people to turn back. So I want to be clear here. God's talking to his people to come back. He's talking to the Jewish people, get rid of your idols, come back to me. He's not talking to the institutions or the celebrities of the time or the influencers, not the politicians, but to you and me. And I believe it's very relevant today. Repentance is this. Repentance starts in our heart and it shows up in our behavior. I said this before with our uniform, our behaviors are Christian uniform. And if we start changing certain behaviors, and this is difficult because the enemy, the devil, constantly rips us back that we're not good enough. And I've personally gone through this, but there's a few things I've been sticking to that I hope are making me appear to be a changed person. Pivot back to God, it becomes visible in a way we live. Hopefully, it creates this domino effect around us, from our families to our friends, to our community. However, in my repentance journey, and I'm still on it, I've learned what repentance is not. Because I was wrong for so many years. I think it's important to unpack what it is not, to understand what it is. Repentance, I've learned in the Bible, is not guilt. It is not punishment, it is not shame. It's quite the opposite. It's not shame on you, it's shame off of you. Jesus took our shame, but the enemy tries to put it back on us over and over by putting us in these stressful situations. And when we're out of the practice of repentance, we take debate, or I take debate. Then we turn into repentance thinking of embarrassment when we should be thinking of repentance as enlightenment. God opening our eyes and inviting us back home. Think of the prodigal son. I'll put that below as well. Where the prodigal son spends all the dad's money, comes home, the father sees him in a distance, and the father gives a big celebration, and they butcher the fattest calf. The son was coming home embarrassed, ready to work the fields. And the father opened him with love, open arms, and celebration. That's a great example, and I think the greatest illustration that Jesus gives us of how the Trinity, God, Jesus, and Holy Spirit will receive us in this repentance journey. So I'll definitely read that again, folks, and I'll put it below. Repentance is not punishment. It'll be reinforced by the story I just mentioned. God does not crush you. And then say repent. He calls us to repent over and over again in the Bible. He calls the Jews to repent over and over again and stop living under what's crushing them. The idol worship of their time. And he warns, repent or punishment. Not, I'm going to punish you, you're going to learn, and then I'm going to make you repent. It's not how it works. So, what does it look like in real life? I'll give you some practices that I've learned from pastors from reading. And these aren't easy, folks. We haven't been brought up in this. This is not easy. This is not an easy pivot. The repentance is a little more difficult than those that grow up or have grown up in the Word on a daily basis. The hardest thing I'm finding is forgiveness, right? To forgive is to change the way you're thinking about someone. And that is a what is it, a heavenly spirit to turn back to God, because you're saying, I'm not going to hate. That's the devil march. That's destination devil. That's the devil trained, express train to hate people and not forgive. So just by the mere changing of a heart of hatred or non-forgiveness to forgiving, not forgetting, but forgiving puts you on the other track towards God. That's a hard one. Just practicing forgiving people who have hurt you. Doesn't mean you're back in a relationship with them. Just means in your heart, you're starting this path of forgiveness and learning what that means. Versus the pride train, right? Pride loves being right. Repentance is stopping the non-forgiving heart and pivoting towards forgiveness. Even if trust takes time, even if the relationship isn't the same, forgiveness is a Jesus train. It's a Jesus behavior. And if our nation as a whole, the Bible tells us this, started practicing this, we start seeing a more spiritual revival or more spiritual influence in our country. That's just one. Now let's talk about some easier ones. These might sound hard at first, but these get easier to practice for sure. Public prayer. Praying over your food. My family and I started doing this after a few families were doing it in our restaurants, in particular in Florida. And we saw the reaction of our staff in the back room being very inspired, going, whoa, man, our staff is really reacting to that in a very positive way. Let's start praying over our food. So that was very uncomfortable in the beginning, especially up north, where it's not like the South, as far as the outward expression being more southerly when it comes to Christ than the northern states. So we sort of praying in public up in New Jersey and New York. And that was uncomfortable at first, but now it's just autopilot for my daughters and my wife and I. Wasn't easy, folks. Now here's another one, another prayer. So prayer in public over food. Praying for someone. I have to give credit to uh Pastor Mark for this one. I'll have him on as well. Man, he he called us out a huge challenge one day. And folks, I'm not there yet. He said, stop telling people you'll pray for them. Instead, stop and pray for them right then and there. If someone says, hey, pray for me, I'm having knee surgery. Stop, turn, pray for them right there. Can I pray for you right now? They just asked you to pray for them. So that should be easy, right? Someone, hey, pray for my mother. She has cancer. Okay, I'll put her on my prayer list. That's great. But Pastor Mark's point is how about you turn? Hey, David, come here. What's your mother's name? Let's pray for her right now. Boy, can you imagine a nation that did that? The type of favor the Lord would just rain on top of that nation. That one act of public prayer alone.

unknown:

Man.

SPEAKER_00:

Folks, this works. I'm gonna give you a real-time example of my daughter. My daughter called me asking for advice about an interview she was having for a promotion. And I immediately, and this shocked me that I did this, folks. But this is what practice does. It's amazing how much it's like the gym. All of a sudden you're lifting heavier weight. All of a sudden you're not as sore. All of a sudden you're not as winded. It's the same thing biblically, and it blows my mind how it plays out. My daughter called, Dad, you know, can we can you help me? I need some advice on this interview that's happening for my promotion. I said, I'll tell you what, let's stop, let's pray. Lord, favor her. Whether she gets this promotion or not, Lord, trust, we trust your will and your timing. Folks, that's a huge pivot for my family. It's a pivot from control to trust. She ended up getting a promotion, by the way. But she received that. And I kind of, after after phone, I was like, thank you, Jesus, because that wasn't me. That was the Holy Spirit. That's not my behavior by default. Conflict. Another thing that happened to me, I always wish when you were sitting down with Christians and deeply spiritual people that grew up with the Bible, or you might, you know, I know former monks that just spent an enormous amount of time studying the word. Their default is always, well, what does the Lord say? Or, oh, the Lord told me to do this. And I remember leaving a conversation one time, I get in the car with my wife going, Boy, I'd love to be in a situation where I'm asking the Lord by default what to do about something, and be in a situation where I'm receiving him talking to me. And then years later, it happened. Someone was approaching me in this walk, and I felt aggressiveness. And I just immediately prayed. I said, Lord, if this person is approaching me for conflict, please change their mind. And if you can't change their mind, please change the way I will I receive this conflict, if that's what's unfolding right now. And I got approached, folks, it was zero conflict, it was a great conversation, and a relationship started to unfold. I have no idea if that was Jesus or if that was what was intended from the first place, but I accept it. Okay. Traffic. It's another common conversation I have with other Christians. Being in traffic, coming unglued, getting cut off. I have a really hard time with this one. And I put a cross on my car. And that still only works half the time. So I'm gonna have to go get a priest and put him in my passenger seat every time I drive down the street. Of course I'm joking, but just remembering when we get in those situations, we are trying to exhibit a behavior of change, if anything, to get our family back on the right track, to get our nation back on the right track. And the change starts with us. So what do we do to have our Jesus uniform on, to show people how to behave and how to give grace in a situation where they're cutting us off and flipping us off in the car? If you figure that one out, DM me. I want to figure that one out myself. I have my cross on my dashboard, I have the Bible in my truck, and that has helped me become better at handling being boxed in situations in my car. I'm not perfect, but I'm definitely a lot less angrier than I was a year ago. That's a pivot. Now, I want to zoom out. What if we did this as people? Forgiveness instead of grudges, prayer instead of silence, scripture instead of drift, gratitude instead of greed, obedience instead of hiding. Obedience meaning living our faith openly. What would happen in our homes, our churches, and our country? Folks, repentance is not a magic button. It's obedience. I'm gonna say that again. Repentance is not a magic button, it's obedience. And obedience brings us back in alignment with our creator, with God. So here's your Jesus, Jesus Gym assignment for the week. Okay. Let's all set our alarm for noon on our iPhones, on our Google, Androids. Just stop, say, Lord, thank you. I just want to thank you that I'm breathing today. Thank you for my family. Thank you for my job. If you don't have a job, thank you for getting me a job. This is gonna happen, Lord. Thank you. Lord, I pray for my sister. Lord, I pray for my brother. I pray for X, Y, and Z. Two, pray over your meal. Quietly, naturally, but don't hide. Don't hide your thankfulness for the meal you're about to receive. Let people see it. Four, I gotta work on this one, folks. This will be my assignment for the week. When someone asks for prayer, pray for them right there. This is gonna be a hard one for me. It's happened to me. Had a woman walk up to me in a bagel store when I was on a very stressful day with her son, and I looked anxious apparently. And she goes, Can I pray for you? I didn't even ask for it. And I needed it. Did I need that prayer? And she did. And man, I remember leaving going, first of all, thank you, Jesus. I needed that. Second of all, can you I can't imagine being at a place where I could do that and ask someone to do that for them. I've done it twice. And I was very uncomfortable. Anyhow, that's something I'm gonna work on. Try it for a week. Let's watch what happens spiritually. Folks, let's wrap this up. The Bible calls us to repent as nations, not as historical figures, not as political leaders, but as people of God. The repentance is a change in our behavior and it's shame off of us, not shame on us. It is not embarrassment, it's enlightenment. It is not punishment, it's an invitation back to grace. And it doesn't start again in Washington, it starts in our homes. It starts with me and you, one pivot at a time. Let's give this a shot, and maybe the Lord will restore our nation. We'll change what the kids call the vibe of America to be more heavenly spiritual versus the demonic spirit that we're in. Don't take the bait. Have a great week. God bless. We'll talk next week.

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Buddy Foy Jr

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