Kingdom Case 29: 5 Reasons You are still struggling in life yet you know Jesus

Summary

In this episode, Jethro Casie discusses the five reasons why individuals struggle even after giving their lives to Christ. He emphasizes the importance of overcoming the old self, having a clear vision, the necessity of community and accountability, the role of faith, and the purification process that believers undergo. Each point is supported by biblical references and personal insights, encouraging listeners to reflect on their spiritual journey and growth.

takeaways

• The struggle often stems from not letting go of the old self.
• Being born again requires a continuous renewal of the mind.
• A clear vision is essential for spiritual and personal growth.
• Community and accountability are vital for overcoming isolation.
• Faith is the foundation that pleases God and activates our actions.
• The purification process requires patience and perseverance.
• Struggles are part of the journey, but they shouldn't define us.
• We must actively seek God's vision for our lives.
• Good deeds are necessary to manifest our faith.
• Building relationships with those who sharpen us is crucial for growth.

Transcript

Jethro Casie (00:00.254)
Welcome back to another episode of Case by Casey, Kingdom Secrets to Success. Today, I am excited for this because the Lord has dropped something mighty in my spirit. And we're to be talking about the five reasons why you're struggling. Yet you know Jesus, yet you've given your life to Christ. And the reason and inspiration for this is the past. Man, like

Since I've given my life to Christ, there's been a lot that's happened. And it started off just joy and peace and love and feeling the goodness of God. And actually it started off with rejection as well. But one of the questions that's been in my head is like, Lord, why am I, why do I feel like life is harder since I give in my life to you? And this is what the Lord had to say. So number one, and I just want to thank God because

We need to understand that this life is truly not ours, at least now that we've given our life to Christ. the number one reason you're struggling right now is because of your old self. You have not killed the old you. And what I mean by this is that many times, and I'll just speak from my life and what I've learned on this walk with Christ, right? Is that many of the time, the reason why I'm not moving forward is because I'm looking back on who I was.

I'm looking back on the way I used to do things before I knew Christ. I'm looking back on the old habits that I had and I'm trying to hold onto them. Right. But there's this, there's a few Bible verses and God is so good. But it says in second Corinthians, verse five or chapter five, verse seven, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old is gone and the new is here. So this is the question that the Lord is asking me.

He's like, Jethro, is the old you still alive or is the new Jethro here? Is the one who was in the world, is he still alive or is the new one here? Because a lot of times last year I was going through times of falling into bad habits for me, mainly sexual sin in terms of like temptation, pornography, lust, masturbation, all that. And I kept questioning like, Lord, why am I falling into the sin?

Jethro Casie (02:26.806)
And what he told me is that you're still holding on to your old self. You haven't fully given yourself to me. Like your life is mine, but you haven't given yourself to me. You haven't given your mind to me. You haven't given your body to me. You haven't given your time to me. Right. And I'm not perfect at all, but there's levels. And one of the first ones is understanding and having this mindset that you are struggling currently because your old self is still alive. You have not killed that old you and that

You have to understand that being born again is a lifestyle. It's not just you're born again and you go back to your old ways. Not that you're born again and there's no other process. There is a renewing of the mind that the Bible talks about, right? To have the same mind that was in Christ Jesus. And another verse that I like, says Galatians chapter two, verse 20. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.

The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. And when you understand that God has given himself for you, that Jesus has given himself for you, you would also understand that there is a struggling process. When you say that you have been crucified with Christ, that means you're going through what Christ has gone through. That means that you're taking on, he's taken on the punishment for you for sin.

but we still go through that struggle period to be more like Christ. Because what made Christ, what made Jesus the Christ, right? The Christos, the anointing that breaks everything is because he took on the punishment. And that's why it says in the Bible that because he, I believe this is it says, I don't have this verse on me, but it says that because he like did what nobody else was willing to do or took on the punishment for man, he was raised above all heavens. The second reason why

you're struggling after giving your life to Christ is you have no clear vision. And this is something that the Lord has been just dealing with me recently on. And it's because I've been resisting, right? A lot of the times, especially when we're coming from the world and we're, if you're listening to this, you're probably more of a person who has an entrepreneurial spirit, someone who is wanting to see a deeper revelation of God, have a deeper understanding, more experiences with God that

Jethro Casie (04:50.818)
You're listening to this podcast because the Bible that you're reading, you want to experience it. You just don't want to read these stories. You want to live these stories because your story in itself should be able to be like a Bible, a Bible chapter or a book in the Bible. But you have no clear vision. And the reason why is because you're not focused on what God has given you, but what God has given others. says in Proverbs 29 verse 18,

where there is no vision, the people perish, but he that keepeth the law, happy is he." And the Lord was just sharing this with me. And the law, right? There's the Old Testament law, but then there's the new law, and the new law is the law of love. So what does love look like? If I'm in a relationship, right? We're in a relationship with Christ, we can say. And love looks like being obedient onto his commandments.

Love looks like not even just the commandments where it's like the 10 commandments, right? Thou shall not kill, but the commandments that you put in your own heart that God has given you, because I believe that there's things that are individually a sin for you, but might not be a sin for others. And what I mean by this is Paul talks about, I believe it's in Corinthians, where he says that if I were, if I'm to eat like meats, that's not cleanse or pork or whatever the case is. And it causes my brother to sin. Like it's not a sin onto me because I don't.

Like I know I'm not under that law, right? That's not a sin to me. But for somebody else who might be that's a sin to them. And I say that to say that if you're saying to yourself, you're going to do certain things and you're not doing it, you're breaking a law. You're committing a sin because there's something, someone speaking to you, right? It's not always just, and even if it is from your mind, right? That's still going against what God has willed for you because who has given you your soul? Your soul is not.

Your soul, your spirit is of God, right? And your spirit influences your soul. So when you're having these thoughts, when you're knowing that you should be waking up earlier, reading, being more in your word, all this thing is a sin. Not to say that it stops you from your relationship with God, but what it does, it affects your vision. And when you begin to also focus on what God has given others, and it says in 1 Corinthians 7, 17, only let...

Jethro Casie (07:10.816)
each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him and to which God has called him. And in this day of social media, this is a verse that rings true because so many people, including myself, I spent a lot of last year trying to focus on things that wasn't what the Lord wanted me to do. One of them was the podcast. I wasn't focusing on the podcast because of like shiny object syndrome. but I can do this.

or I can do this or this person's online by my course. And when you don't, when you have an idea of who you're supposed to be, but you have no clear vision, that is when you're outside. That's when you'll make mistakes. That's when you'll be delayed because you don't know the vision that God has for you with the gifts that he's given inside of you. And then the question is, well, how do we know what we should, what, what are, how do we know the gifts that we do have?

And that goes into knowing God. And I did another episode on that, which you could listen to. But going into verse or point number three, you either have no community or accountability outside of yourself, or you're not active in the community that you were in. Many of the times what the enemy will try to do to us is,

keep ourselves isolated. And you know, the thing is isolation doesn't mean that you don't have people around you because you can be around a bunch of people, but not isolated. You can be going to church every Sunday. You can be even serving in church, but still isolated because you're not building those relationships. You're not actually getting to know the people who are in your community that God has a place around you. And if you don't have a community, the Bible says, ask and you shall receive literally the way that I found my church. And I'll do a full episode on this for people who were

still looking for a church because it's definitely not a simple decision. It's very important, I believe, in terms of what church you go to and what people you serve on there. But literally what I did was just ask the Lord and start looking around, start looking around. And eventually I found like, as the Bible says, like as you draw closer onto God, he draw closer onto you. And he led me to the church I go to now, Revival Culture in New Jersey. So if you don't have a community,

Jethro Casie (09:34.666)
Ask God, sincerely pray to him, ask him, because he knows that you need community, right? We're called the body of Christ, not the individual of Christ, right? We're part of a bigger body. And the reason why this is important, it says in Hebrews 10, 24 to 25, and let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds and giving and not giving up meetings together.

as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day approaching. So we're supposed to be encouraging one another. And this is prophetic because the part of the prophetic is to encourage you to lift you up. So when you don't have a community around you, you're actually lacking the prophetic. You can't begin to truly operate in the prophetic fully until you have a community of people around you, when you have accountability with you. And it's the famous verse that everybody loves to quote and I'll quote it too.

is Proverbs 27 17. As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another. But the question is who is sharpening you, right? Because one, can have a few options. You can have nobody sharpening you or you can have another dull. Say you're trying to get sharper, but somebody dull is in your life trying to sharpen you. That means you're never going to really you're actually going to up hurting that other person. And the third part.

is truly being around people who are even sharper than you. So you can rise to that level. They know maybe not God more than you, but they have a different revelation of who God is. And I actually think it might be fair to say they know God. They have a deeper revelation of who the Lord is right there. They pray more than you. They're in their word more than you. Not to say that this means that they're better than you, but they're investing more in their relationship with God than you are. And something that the Lord led me to was this video on this man was talking about.

You have to change your top five. And maybe I'll do a whole episode on this as well, right now, and the reason why I won't is because right now I'm going through this process of changing my top five and the top five is the people who you spend the most time with. Well, and it's different between your top five professionally and your top five personally. But just right now, think about the top five people who you spend the most time with. And then ask yourself.

Jethro Casie (11:59.85)
Is this are the people who I'm hanging out with where I want to be in life? Because if you want and you know, actually, you know, it's more important if you know that God has a calling of your life to be a singer, but you're the only person in your circle who sings or you know that God in life is calling you and I'll speak to myself, right? To to be a preacher. How can I not be around a community of preachers who are doing something similar to me?

Who am I gonna learn from? Right? Cause you can go to your pastor if you have a church or you can go to your mom or you can go to your dad, but is that the person that God has for you? Is that the person who's gonna sharpen you? Because you can have a different gifting. Like you wouldn't go to somebody who has the gift of healing to teach you how to prophesy cause they don't know. Or if somebody who knows how to cast out demons, right? But they have no gift of healing. So they don't operate. They won't function the same way. Not to say they can't teach you things, but you-

Like, and this is something that I've been taught is you sit under that anointing that you want to manifest. You serve under the anointing that you manifest. You align yourself with what you want to manifest or what God has given you to manifest. And then number four, and this is something that was a hard pill for me to swallow, but not as well in a sense, because when you're in it, you know that you're doing it is that you just lack faith and

The Bible says that without faith, we can do nothing to please God. Our faith is actually what pleases God. And Hebrews talks about faith, faith, faith, and says that all the people of old that we read about, the reason that they were where they are is because of their faith, their faith in God. And the Bible also talks about that your faith can be dead. So I look at it as there's alive faith and there's dead faith.

The Bible says something interesting in James chapter 2 verse 26, as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead. And God is just dropping this in my spirit now is that you can say that you have faith, but what actually makes your faith alive is deeds, just as what makes our body to function is our spirit. So when you aren't conducting anything, not say that your deeds do anything, but what they

Jethro Casie (14:24.118)
in terms of like the side of God, but what they do in the side of God and in the spiritual realm is that they actually activate your faith. That's why it's not until you move that God will show up in your life. God will never encounter you just staying still. Like even I believe on the story of on the road to Damascus, right? Paul was moving. Paul was going somewhere, even though he wasn't, I don't believe I wouldn't have to reread the story, but he wasn't going to encounter God, but he was still moving.

and he had an encounter with God, right? Because a lot of the times we can be doing something in our lives or wanting to do something in our lives and we're waiting for God to first move. And this is a mistake that I made because I didn't want to admit it at the time. I knew it, but I didn't do the deed, do the action, right? To overcome it. But I was operating in fear. And the Bible says, we do not carry a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind. And it's really

get that fear off of you, there's only one thing that you can do. It's to move, to take action. Praying will not take away your fear. That is one thing that I've learned. Father God, show me how to start a podcast. You have to literally just take the steps and He will show you. That's what I've absolutely learned. So, and another verse that says, says in Hebrew, this is one I was quoting, 11 verse six, and without faith, it is impossible to please God.

because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. So if you're not seeking him and also seeking him can be seeking the things that of him, right? So if you're trying to draw closer to somebody and make somebody like you or get to know you, you just don't seek after the person, but you also seek after what that person likes. If you're pursuing somebody in a relationship, that person likes to draw, you've learned more about drawing.

Not because you necessarily care about drawing, right? But because as you learn more about drawing, that's something that that person loves. And then actually, as you begin to learn more about that in a genuine manner, you actually begin to see how that person sees. Not fully, because it's them, but that's the power of when you start to earnestly seek God and the things that are of Him. You begin to see how He sees, right? You begin to have this mind of Christ. And the fifth and final step is...

Jethro Casie (16:48.462)
You're simply just in a purification process. You're trying to still get rid of the old you. And this is a part that where you have to be patient. I'm going through the Bible right now and so many of these stories are a story of patience. It's a story of having faith through years, through decades, right? Through a lifetime where you may not see the manifestation of the promise. And I'm reminded of the story of Abraham.

The story of, you can even say Joseph. Joseph took 14 years to finally get Rachel. All these different things that happened in the Bible, even Jesus, for a three year ministry, it took him 30 years to prepare. Patience. So understand that during this process, there's a purification that's happening, right? The Bible says in Malachi three verse three.

He will set as a refiner and a purifier of silver. He will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the Lord will have a man who will bring an offering in righteousness. So righteousness is a piece of purification, right? So to truly be righteous and Jesus Christ is our righteousness because he went through a purification, right? The man who never sinned. For us, since we have fallen of sin.

Right, Jesus, we accept that as our process, but there's still a purification process that we go through to offer, to bring an offering of righteousness onto the Lord. Not that our righteousness is anything, but it's also for people in the world to see because the Bible says our righteousness to God is like filthy rag. So when you're actually bringing that offering of your own righteousness, it looks like filthy rags. But when you bring the offering through the purification process that the Lord went through and what is that purification process?

might be wondering, it's picking up your cross, right? Jesus said, throw away everything that you have with me and come and follow me. Pick up your cross and follow me. That this Christian walk isn't supposed to be easy, but it doesn't mean you're supposed to be struggling. Struggling is completely different. I do not believe struggling is a thing of God. And I'd say you won't go through struggles, but you shouldn't be a person who is struggling with things. And at the end of the day,

Jethro Casie (19:12.366)
This is Psalm 66 verse 10, 9, right here. For you, God, tested us. You refined us like silver. So know that throughout all of this, this purification process that you're going through, it's a test. And you pass your tests truly by faith. And by that faith, you must manifest. You must have good deeds to push that faith alive, to make it alive. So begin to be clear on the vision that God has for you.

what he's given you to do. Know that you're struggling because of your old self and that you need to kill that old you. Make your right as the Bible says, and I believe Habakkuk, write your vision and make it plain. Write what the Lord has given you to do. Write what you think God has for you. Find the community of people who are around you. Find a community, begin to pray, ask God, show me, and begin to work on your faith. You can grow in faith, right? There's a faith the size of a mustard seed. So.

Grow in faith, ask the Lord to give you the courage, the ability to walk out in faith. That's today's episode and I hope this blessed you guys. In Jesus' name, amen.