Overcoming Spiritual Weariness: How Intimacy with Jesus Brings Strength & Renewal

Feeling Weary? Here’s How to Find Strength in Intimacy with Jesus

Ever feel so drained that no amount of rest seems to restore you? In this episode, Cecily unpacks the weight of weariness—how it affects not just individuals but the church as a whole. More importantly, she reveals how cultivating a lifestyle of intimacy with Jesus can transform exhaustion into endurance.

How do you fix your eyes on Jesus when life feels overwhelming? What are the key ingredients to deep, lasting intimacy with Him? Cecily shares simple yet powerful ways to stir up adoration, thanksgiving, worship, and communion, along with the disciplines needed to stay the course.

If this resonates with you, you’ll want to dive deeper. Get Cecily’s book, Repurpose Your Pain, on Amazon and her website here.

🎧 After listening, take a moment to sit still with Jesus, reflect on what spoke to your heart, and share your thoughts with a friend who needs encouragement.

Takeaways

• Weariness is a lethal threat to the church and can cause us to lose our faith, joy, energy, motivation, and momentum.
• The antidote for weariness is intimacy with Jesus, which requires commitment, diligence, patience, stillness, discipline, and sacrifice.
• Basic ingredients for intimacy with the Lord include sitting still, stirring up adoration, thanksgiving, worship, communion, reading the Word, and giving the Holy Spirit time to speak.
• Developing a lifestyle of intimacy with Jesus is the highest pursuit and the best use of our time.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction

00:45 Series: Repurpose Your Pain

01:40 Pursuing Intimacy with Jesus

03:06 Understanding Weariness

04:36 The Lethal Threat to the Church

05:34 Learning from the Lives of Faithful Christians

07:01 The Importance of Fixing Our Eyes on Jesus

08:30 The Urgency of Maintaining Intimacy with Jesus

10:53 Repurposing Weariness through Intimacy with Jesus

13:27 Upcoming Episode on Weariness

14:35 Recap and Preview

15:21 Basic Ingredients for Intimacy with Jesus

17:48 Sitting Still and Stirring Up Adoration

19:15 Thanksgiving and Worship

20:12 The Difference Between Praise and Worship

22:07 The Importance of Communion

23:05 Reading the Word for Revelation

23:34 Giving the Holy Spirit Time to Speak

24:33 Discipline and Protecting Tabernacle Time

26:01 Commitment and Diligence

27:24 Patience and Stillness

30:25 Discipline and Sacrifice

41:05 Conclusion

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 0:45 Series: Repurpose Your Pain
• 1:40 Pursuing Intimacy with Jesus
• 3:06 Understanding Weariness
• 4:36 The Lethal Threat to the Church
• 5:34 Learning from the Lives of Faithful Christians
• 7:01 The Importance of Fixing Our Eyes on Jesus
• 8:30 The Urgency of Maintaining Intimacy with Jesus
• 10:53 Repurposing Weariness through Intimacy with Jesus
• 13:27 Upcoming Episode on Weariness
• 14:35 Recap and Preview
• 15:21 Basic Ingredients for Intimacy with Jesus
• 17:48 Sitting Still and Stirring Up Adoration
• 19:15 Thanksgiving and Worship
• 20:12 The Difference Between Praise and Worship
• 22:07 The Importance of Communion
• 23:05 Reading the Word for Revelation
• 23:34 Giving the Holy Spirit Time to Speak
• 24:33 Discipline and Protecting Tabernacle Time
• 26:01 Commitment and Diligence
• 27:24 Patience and Stillness
• 30:25 Discipline and Sacrifice

Transcript

Transcript: 

Cecily (00:00.714)

Hi everybody, and welcome to the Higher Pursuit Podcast, where we are pursuing God's highest and best for our lives together. We all have different backgrounds and challenges, but thank God, he has given us truth to hang onto and apply to our lives that will bring change no matter what circumstances we're facing, no matter what our background is, no matter what we are facing in our lives. So with that said,

Let's dive right into today's episode of the Hire Pursuit podcast. And this time we are in a series titled Repurpose Your Paint.

Cecily (00:45.218)

Hi everyone and welcome to the Higher Pursuit podcast where we are pursuing God's highest and best for our lives together. We all have different backgrounds and challenges, but thank God, he's given us truth to hang on to. And we can apply that truth to our lives no matter who we are, what we're facing, what our background is, what our religious background is, what our skin color is.

We can take that truth and apply it to our lives every single day. And that's what the purpose of this podcast is, is to bring that truth to us so we can all jump in and grab ahold of it for our lives. So with that said, let's dive into today's episode in our series titled Repurpose Your Pain. And today we're going to be discussing repurposing our weariness. Come on.

by cultivating a lifestyle of intimacy with Jesus. And more specifically, we're gonna be chatting about what that intimacy looks like and what it's gonna require. I think that's kind of the big thing right there. I think if you're walking with the Lord, pretty much everybody wants to be walking in a lifestyle of intimacy with the Lord, but it's the how and what is that gonna require

that we really need to address so that we can experience that. But first of all, let's talk about weariness. I mean, what is it? I think we all know what it feels like, but let me tell you, when I wrote the book, Repurposing Your Pain, and I did the chapter on repurpose our weariness, I discovered that the word weary itself comes from an old English word.

by weary. And what that meant was it referred to shepherds who were watching their sheep. And the wolves would come along and they would find a sheep that was either off by itself or a weaker sheep or maybe it was a mother that just gave birth or a smaller lamb. And they would chase that sheep. They would nip at its heels and bite at its heels.

Cecily (03:06.922)

They wouldn't just go in for the kill. They circled the sheep and they keep nipping and nipping and nipping at the heels until the sheep was so exhausted. And that's what the shepherds called wearied that the sheep would eventually just lie down and it would succumb to the final attack of the wolves. And I feel like so many of us are feeling that way. We're feeling like

the pressures of our lives, the pressures of this world, the darkness and the oppression of the world, we turn on the news or whether you are reading something online, like it's just such a huge pervasive oppressiveness that is coming at us day after day after day. And so this is happening globally. There's a global weariness that's coming over people where they're feeling like

The demands of their lives are just too much and that life itself is taking more than it's putting back in. But this is especially a lethal threat to the church. People are just overwhelmed by the demands on their time. They're struggling to find motivations for tasks that they know they should do, but they don't have the enthusiasm to do it anymore. People are becoming underwater.

under emotions like anger, sadness, bitterness, grief, fear. And these emotions that are constantly coming at them are making them feel exhausted and hopeless. Does any of this resonate with you? Are you ever you struggling with this at all? Are you struggling to feel joy? Are you finding it hard to worship and pray? Are you feeling a coolness?

creeping into your heart towards the Lord. And what about this? When you go to sit still in the Lord's presence, are you struggling to be still in His presence? Because I know so many people are. You know, when I was a young Christian, when I was a young Christian, I read a book called God's Generals. And in that book, the author Robert Slayerdin, he did a lot of research

Cecily (05:34.018)

on men and women of the faith that had amazing ministries. They saw miracles, signs, wonders. They were amazing evangelists who led thousands of people to the Lord, or like I said, you know, miracles or missionaries. And what he studied was how they lived their lives. And then finally, did they finish well? And I was shocked to find out

how many men and women of the faith did not finish well, or even at all. Some of them died having renounced their faith or they died in a lot of heresy or pride. And so when I read that book, and I think it was probably the author's point of the book, was for us to read that and to say,

Wow, Lord, I want to finish well. What is it going to take to finish well? Because honestly, in this Christian life, how we start is not one third as important as how we finish. We want to finish well. The whole parable of the 10 virgins, the five foolish and the five wise virgins, that whole thing is all about finishing well and making sure that we're ready.

when the Lord returns, if he comes physically for us, or if we die and then he returns, either way we wanna finish our race strong. And recently for me, as in like the past couple of years, I've been doing a lot of reading in the book of Hebrews and the book of Revelation. I feel like everybody's reading the book of Revelation right now because everybody's aware of the fact that, you know, man, we're in the last day, so...

I'm not alone in all of a sudden thinking, I probably should pay attention to this book and what it's saying. And it's not really the revelation of the last days. Let's make that clear. It is the revelation of Jesus Christ. And so as I'm reading the book of Hebrews and the book of Revelation, both books specifically paint the picture of who Jesus is. So beautifully paint that picture, but the reason

Cecily (07:59.682)

those books paint the picture of who Jesus is, is because if we don't have our eyes fixed on the Lord, we are not going to be able to endure, not just regular old life, not just the regular old challenges, but if things in this world continue on this trajectory of getting more and more fraught with division and sin.

and darkness and wars and rumors of wars and famines and disease and all of the things that we're seeing just kind of become exponentially elevated in the world. If we don't maintain our focus and our intimate relationship with the person of Jesus Christ, the effects and the consequences of that are going to absolutely decimate the church.

It's going to cause us to lose our faith, our joy, our energy, our motivation, our momentum. And in those two books, I noticed that the book of Hebrews, it was written to a group of believers who were experiencing persecution. They were experiencing the loss of their property due to persecution. And things were getting more and more challenging. This is a group of believers

who were most likely living under the crazy persecution of the emperor Nero, who went completely loco at the end of his life. And he was the guy who eventually burned Christians at the stake. But that wasn't what was happening yet in the book of Hebrews, because the writer says, you haven't yet suffered to the loss of your lives. But the writer of Hebrews was saying, what you are going through right now,

is causing some of you to back off of your faith. And you have to keep Jesus in front of your face to be able to stay true to your faith in the face of persecution, in the face of challenges. And then Jesus in the first couple books of Revelation, he's addressing seven churches. And at the end of every single address to those churches,

Cecily (10:24.626)

He says to each one of them, and to him who overcomes, you will receive, and then he gives a specific reward for overcoming, for enduring. And some of those churches, he had prophesied that they were going to experience persecution or even more difficulty. So in my book, Repurpose Your Pain, I discuss the way that we repurpose our weariness through deeper intimacy

with Jesus. And the reason I wrote that is because in my study of Hebrews and Revelation, I saw that truth. I saw that was the secret sauce for Christians being able to hang on to their faith in all the weary seasons of life. For some of us, we're going through a long season of grief. We lost somebody close to us. Or maybe it's the death of a dream

that we thought was going to be the rest of our lives, whether it was a vocation and a job that we've lost or a lifestyle that we have lost, whether it was a relationship that we've lost. And when we go through those seasons of weariness where things seem so hard for so long, and it seems to be taking everything out of us, then what are we going to do?

Where do we receive that nourishment? Where do we go plug in to get our energy back, our motivation back, our joy, our zeal, our passion? I know some of you listening to this, it has been a long time since you felt passion for the Lord. Everything in your life has been so hard. You have had attack after attack after attack.

And now you're in that reflex mode of waiting for the other shoe to drop. You're not living in faith, you're living in fear. And that fear is draining your joy. It's draining your faith. So in today's episode, I wanna talk to you about what it's going to take to combat that fear, to combat the complacency, to combat the anxiety.

Cecily (12:51.65)

to combat that cycle of feeling so drained and not being able to fill ourselves and refuel ourselves. I'm going to talk to you about what it's going to take to repurpose our mental, emotional, and spiritual fatigue into strength, vision, and momentum. If we're gonna finish well, we must

keep that fire burning for the long haul.

Cecily (13:27.839)

So.

Cecily (13:35.574)

It's urgent that we learn how to combat weariness and repurpose it into godly passion because weariness is one of Satan's most potent strategies to sideline and hijack believers. But before I jump into what I wanna chat about today, I wanna let you know that next week, I'm gonna have a lovely young lady, Alison Loiselle on the show to discuss the effects of weariness that she's been dealing with

since the untimely death of her mother two years ago. Ali's been struggling with a long season of grief. And maybe you are struggling with a long season of grief or feeling overwhelmed or drained by the cares of your life. And if that's you, you don't wanna miss that episode. And if you know someone who might be encouraged by Ali's story, then make sure to share the link to the podcast with them on social media or personally.

So to recap what we're gonna talk about today, the antidote for weariness is intimacy with Jesus Christ. Now the cure for weariness is not going to be found, believe it or not, in a vacation, in more time off, in having more date nights or a different job, or oddly enough, even in less stress. The intimacy with Jesus that we're looking for

It's not a cookie cutter answer. There is no cookie cutter answer for this as intimacy with the Lord can change from day to day and from season to season.

Cecily (15:21.902)

There is no cookie cutter answer for how we foster intimacy with Jesus. Because how we do this can change from day to day and from season to season. The Holy Spirit is our counselor. He's our teacher. He's our guide. And he leads us into paths of peace and deeper rest and intimacy so that we can

be refreshed. But the method by which he does this might change. So we don't pursue methods. We pursue a living shepherd. We pursue a person, Jesus Christ. And he is worth that effort. In my book, I said, in the same way that we as humans cannot survive underwater without bringing oxygen with us, I discovered that there was no way

I could survive a season of weariness without carrying my own oxygen supply of the presence of the Lord." So let's talk about what the basic ingredients are for intimacy with the Lord and maintaining a lifestyle of intimacy with the Lord because that's really what is important. It's not about that like one hit wonder where

We do a few things for a short burst of time. We feel the relief and then we just go right back to those old habits. No, we're going to start implementing the basic ingredients for a lifestyle of intimacy with the Lord. And then we're gonna allow the Holy Spirit to put those ingredients together in the way that He knows we need for that particular season.

So one of the basic ingredients that I've discovered is being able to sit still with the Lord and stir up adoration. This is a tough one. I'm not gonna lie. We're gonna talk about all of these things later on, like what the challenge is for each one of these ingredients. So I'm gonna just put these out there right now. But sitting still with the Lord and stirring up adoration in our heart is absolutely critical.

Cecily (17:48.214)

You can do that through meditating on the word. You can do that through worship music. You can do that through just allowing your heart to focus on an aspect of Jesus and allowing the Holy Spirit to really teach you and deepen your understanding of that aspect of Jesus, whether it is His holiness, whether it is His righteousness.

whether it's his goodness, his compassion, his mercy, his ability to heal anything, his wisdom, his boldness, whatever those aspects are of Jesus that would stir up that adoration, we have to sit still and allow the Holy Spirit to unveil that to us. Jesus does that as we pursue him. He unveils himself.

to the hungry heart. A next ingredient for another ingredient is thanksgiving. It's so important for us to come to the Lord with a thankful heart. The word of God says that we enter his gates with thanksgiving and we enter his courts with praise. So we can't even get close to the Holy of Holies before

offering up thanksgiving and praise. And thanksgiving has that added side effect of reminding us that everything's not really that bad all the time. We always have something to be thankful for. And when we stir up that thanksgiving, it literally starts impacting the way our brain functions. Studies have shown that it changes

even the chemicals that are released in our brain when we start focusing on Thanksgiving. Another basic ingredient for intimacy with the Lord is worship. And worship is not the same as praise. With praise, we're praising God for something He's done for us, in us, to us, or through us. It's about us. We're somewhere in that equation. But worship, it's not about us. That's when we are

Cecily (20:12.798)

admiring, adoring, and worshiping Him for who He is. And that is where real power of intimacy comes in. Because you know, sometimes, I've been in some circumstances of my life where I've struggled in praise because the thing that I feel like I absolutely need God to do or needed Him to do, He's not doing. And it feels like He's not.

jumping at my beck and call, I asked him to do something that I thought was urgent, and he didn't just jump up and produce the result. And so my mind in those circumstances gets antsy and sometimes angry and upset, feeling rejected or abandoned by God. But when I worship the Lord for who He is, I remind myself, Cecily, it's not always all about you, and you don't have all the answers.

His ways are above your ways. His thoughts are above your thoughts. He is eternal. He is sovereign. He is the beginning and the end. He doesn't just, he's not just eternal, but eternity is in him. So when I worship God for who he is, it begins to put my perspective back in place and bring alignment to

who I am in the equation and who God is in the equation. Another basic ingredient for intimacy with the Lord is communion. I often take communion almost every day because the body and the blood of Jesus are what it's all about. From beginning to end of our written recorded word of God, the logos, it's all about Jesus. It's all about Him.

And when we are taking part in communion, we are remembering Jesus. We are remembering his sacrifice. We are remembering who he is, that he is now the resurrected Lord of glory, that he is the alpha and the omega, and that because of his resurrection, we can live in victory. Because of his blood, we have atonement for all of our sin and cleansing.

Cecily (22:36.318)

And so taking communion is a vital aspect of living in intimacy with the Lord. Another basic ingredient is reading the word, not just reading it for study, but reading it for revelation, saying, Holy Spirit, show me Jesus in what I'm reading. Let me see him in the scripture, not just to get smarter, to be puffed up with more knowledge, but...

to really have revelation of Jesus Christ so that I can live for Him and love Him more deeply. And then I guess the last basic ingredient is giving the Holy Spirit the time and the space to speak, using prayer as conversation. This one is probably one that the Lord has driven home the most to me.

besides the power of communion over the last couple of years. Just the vital necessity to carve out time in my schedule so that I can hear from the Lord, so that I can do all of these things. I can develop my intimacy with Him. And in the beginning, it was awkward. In the beginning, it was hard. In the beginning, I stumbled and fell.

And I still do. I absolutely still do. I still make the mistakes that I made before. I just make them less frequently and I repent and turn from those mistakes more quickly. Mistakes like I used to bring my phone into my tabernacle time, thinking I was going to use my phone as a tool to dig into the word. But my phone became this enormous distraction to the point that even though I carved out a no phone zone,

and said, I'm not going to look at my phone. I'm not gonna look at social media while I'm in my tabernacle time. I'm not going to reply to emails or check my calendar. I ended up by doing all those things. So I had to put myself and my phone in separate rooms during my tabernacle time. And when I don't do that, I still fall prey. It's crazy. So I've learned a few things along the way on how to protect

Cecily (25:02.806)

that time and space that I've given to the Holy Spirit to speak to me. But when I do, I am never disappointed. I'm never disappointed. I'm always refreshed. I'm always rejuvenated. I always receive something. Sometimes it's more obvious than others what I've received. But I really encourage you to pursue those ingredients of intimacy with the Lord. Now the pursuit

of intimacy with him is going to require a few things from us. And these are important to know because at some point down the line, you're going to have to make a decision. You're going to have to make a decision what you want to pursue. Are you going to pursue a life that resembles the way the world is living their lives? The tyranny of the urgent? The crucible of the calendar?

Are you going to live under the pressure of success and a financial goal? Or are you going to live under the freedom of pursuing the Lord, of hungering and thirsting for righteousness, and hungering and thirsting for more of and more of His presence? Because if you are going to take the latter,

thirsting and hungering for more of his presence, that's going to require some things from you. First of all, it's going to require commitment. Just as it takes with anything that we desire to start and finish, it's going to take commitment. Whether you start a class, a pursuit of a degree, whether it's a new workout routine,

or a healthy way of eating, every single good thing that we decide to pursue and make a lifestyle out of, not a fad, but a lifestyle, it's going to require commitment because there's gonna come a time, in the beginning, of course, we're excited. Of course, we see the benefit of it, and we jump in with both feet, but then there comes a time where we hit hardships.

Cecily (27:24.114)

and we hit a doldrums, so to speak, where it seems like all the wind is out of our sails and we're just not going forward. And that's where our commitment becomes like the outboard motor that you can put on a sailboat when there's no wind. Like, well, if there's no wind, I'll make my own motion. I'll get my own momentum going. I will stir myself up in the things of God.

In the book I wrote, our connection to the presence of God is

Cecily (28:07.518)

In the book, I wrote our connection to the presence of God needs to be a lifestyle. It cannot be a place we visit, it must be the place where we live." And that's a mouthful, but it's the truth. The Lord wants to dwell with us. He wants to dwell, that means make himself at home in our heart. And he wants us to dwell, abide,

live with him, not visit. I have been on vacation in some really beautiful places and every time I'm on vacation in these places, there are always people that actually work there and live there. And I think to myself, man, what must it be like to wake up to this?

every day to wake up to this sunshine and these palm trees, this beautiful view, those gorgeous sunsets and sunrises and you know, oh man, what must it be like to actually live here? And that's what the world thinks when they see a Christian who is actually living in the presence of God. We have the constant oasis. We have the beauty of the Lord's presence.

But instead of going there from time to time, the Lord says, dwell here, dwell with me. The only problem is that to dwell in the presence of the Lord, it's going to take us, take the requirement, it's gonna require us to press past our flesh. Getting into the presence of the Lord and being in the presence of the Lord is the most amazing.

refreshing, beautiful place to be. It's overwhelming, it is invigorating, it is nourishing, but the path to get to the presence of the Lord and to stay in the presence of the Lord, that takes commitment. That takes this next ingredient, diligence.

Cecily (30:25.15)

Earlier I mentioned scheduling time to come away with the Lord. I can't stress this enough. You put other things in your calendar. You probably schedule in your dentist appointments or doctor's appointments or parent teacher meetings. You might even schedule when you're going to work out or when you're going to have a date with your spouse or your boyfriend or girlfriend. You probably schedule these things in.

to make sure that you remember, that you're prepared, that you don't schedule other things over those important things. You wanna make sure you've got time to get to your appointment. We use our calendars as tools for our daily lives. And if you consider dwelling in the presence of the Lord, part of your daily life, and cultivating a lifestyle of intimacy, why wouldn't you schedule that in

so that you make sure that other things don't crowd it out. And then once you schedule that in, have the honor and the reverence to follow through on your commitment. We as a society are so bad at following through on our commitments, even when we have scheduled an appointment, that many doctors' offices and dentist's offices, they require a 24-hour cancellation, even hairdressers.

will require a 24 hour cancellation now. They want you to have to let them know if you're not gonna show up. It's really sad that they have to make it known to us that if you can't make it, there has to be a 24 hour cancellation. And for a doctor or a dentist, they might say, or we're gonna charge you 50% of the visit or whatever. Same thing with a hotel or a vacation. With airlines, you can't even cancel.

It's too bad, so sad. You're out your money. And so why do doctors, dentists, hairdressers, hotels have to put that clause in? Because as a society, we're just so selfish that we'll just not show up for something and not have the honor or the respect for the other party that we're leaving hanging to even let them know, I'm sorry, I'm not gonna be able to make it.

Cecily (32:51.946)

And we do that with the Lord all the time. We'll make a commitment and then just feel like, oh, well, I don't know, it's just, I'll get to it another time. Or God knows my heart. Oh, does he know your heart? Do you know your heart? Because when we constantly do not show up for our appointments with the Lord, and we don't have honor and reverence to follow through on our commitment to the Lord,

then our heart is showing. It just shows that we don't have honor and reverence for the Lord, and that we're not really desirous to dwell in that intimate place with Him.

Cecily (33:38.654)

The next ingredient that we need to have is patience. Patience and waiting on the Lord and developing that lifestyle of intimacy is such a vital ingredient. There are times when I think I am going to go crazy, fighting my mind that jumps around and it's so hard sometimes to be patient.

and wait for the Lord to speak to me.

Cecily (34:15.87)

Another basic ingredient that we need to have in developing a lifestyle of intimacy with the Lord is patience. When we, I can't speak for you, but for me, when I go into what I call my tabernacle time, sometimes my mind is so jumpy with the things that I need to do. And I know that my day is very, very packed.

like moment to moment to moment, I have things that need to get done. Some are time sensitive. And so I'm feeling like, okay, Lord, like let's get to this. Give me some goosebumps. Let me feel your presence. Let me have some tears. Like let's get on with this thing so that I can bust out of here and go get the rest of my day going. Wow. That is so irreverent.

I put these demands on the Lord like, chippity chop, come on Holy Spirit, let's get moving. And that is so prideful and it shows my immaturity when I act like that. When the most important part of my day is sitting in His presence, every other thing should be second. There should be nothing more important, but tell that to my brain sometimes.

Tell that to my body sometimes that just can't sit still and rest and just be in his presence. Tell that to my thoughts that are going down the whole list of my calendar items that I have coming up. So patience, just like it is in any other area of our lives, is something where we will need to

stretch and grow and develop so that we can wait on the Lord, wait for the thought, for the vision, for the impression of Jesus that ignites that love and that worship and that adoration that fuels us. The worst mistake that we can make and I'm saying this because I have made it

Cecily (36:44.014)

thousands of times is to get up and leave that place out of impatience and not to allow the Holy Spirit to stretch our ability to wait on the Lord and to develop more patience on the inside of us. The next basic ingredient that we need to have is stillness. And like I said, we have to learn to sit still

and take control of those racing thoughts. But the word is so clear, 'Be still and know that I am God'. I mean, it is such a strong command. Be still, sit down, be still, take control of those jumpy thoughts. And know that word for 'know' in the Hebrew is that knowing like Adam knew Eve

and had a baby. It's the most intimate kind of knowing. It's to be connected, to be pursuing, to be desiring, not just to know about someone, but to truly know them and become one with them. And the Lord says, we can know him that way. Yes, he's the God of the universe, but praise be to God.

He has given us the ability to know Him. What a joy and a delight. Then the next basic ingredient that we can have is discipline. In my book, I wrote this. "To the natural mind, taking time away to be with Jesus does not seem like a productive thing to do when the schedule is already exploding. But in reality,

Taking time to be in the presence of the Lord is the best use of our time." This is so absolutely true. It's hard with the way that we're wired in our society now, where we are so task-focused, where we are so driven by the demands of our jobs, our children. You know, we feel like we've got to mold our children into the next...

Cecily (39:10.034)

NFL athlete or the next Einstein or the next ballerina. We have to do all, we have to pursue all the demands of what the world system says, successes, et cetera, et cetera. And so it doesn't seem like it is productive when our schedule is exploding to just sit with the Lord, to just love him.

and adore him, but it absolutely is the best use of our time. I've had to say out loud to myself, Cecily, there is not anything more important that you're going to do today than this right here. I have had to correct myself out loud and tell myself that. I've also had to say out loud to myself, I would...

be better spending eight hours in the presence of the Lord and one hour in front of my computer than the other way around. And when I say those things out loud, I expose my faulty thinking. And it allows me to be able to repent before the Lord and say, Jesus, I am so sorry that I've had my priorities upside down. I'm asking that you will help me align my heart

align my priorities and Holy Spirit, please pour out the grace to help me to be still before you and to know that all of the rest of the productivity of my day is going to be more blessed because I gave you this time. And the last basic ingredient I wanna chat with you guys about is sacrifice.

It is a sacrifice to carve out time to be with the Lord. It's a sacrifice of our time. Sometimes it's a sacrifice of our space. I've seen some really cool things on Instagram where people have pulled things out of a closet, cleared out a closet so that they have a space to pray and they'll make that their prayer closet. That's a sacrifice.

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I mean, where did all those clothes and shoes go? I don't know. But they take that closet and they say, this space is becoming holy ground. Unbelievable. It's a sacrifice, obviously, of our time. It's a sacrifice of our focus. And the Bible tells us in Romans to offer ourselves as a living sacrifice. We're not.

Thank God, ever going to have to be the sacrifice that Jesus was. He was the only one who could sacrifice his life to lay it down for us, to redeem us. But now we're called to be living sacrifices where we lay down our priorities, we lay down our desires, we lay down our agenda, we lay down our calendar, we lay down our relationships, our money, our pursuits, and we say, you Lord are the pursuit.

You are the important pursuit. This is the best pursuit of my day, right here, right now. And everything else will be blessed because I pursued you first. You know, I can give into my flesh in this life, but then I lose Jesus eternally.

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or I can crucify the lusts of the flesh and gain what will last eternally. I can let the cares of this life and the busyness of an uncontrolled calendar dictate the depth of my intimacy with the Lord. Or I can set a guard around my tabernacle time and watch fire descend upon the altar of my sacrifice. I can open the door of my eye gate and ear gate

to watch and listen to and partake of anything that my mind and body thinks that it wants or needs.

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I can open the door of my eye gate and ear gate to watch and listen to and partake of anything that my mind and body things I need. Or I can allow the Holy Spirit.

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counselor to set spiritually healthy walls around me.

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so that I don't become wearied and constantly fighting against the intruders that I allowed in.

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I can say yes to things that other people say yes to, and I can use that as an excuse as to why it's no big deal. Or I can listen to the voice of Rabbi Jesus, who may be telling me that for my calling, those things are not the best. Those things are gonna deplete me and may eventually disqualify me if I put them above the pursuit of the Lord and his wisdom.

So I know what we talked about today is definitely a challenging topic. I don't think that an entire book, the book of Hebrews, would have been written to a group of people about enduring and pursuing and keeping Jesus in front of their eyes and magnifying Jesus if it wasn't

one of the most critical topics of the Christian faith. And as I look at the world around us and where things are and where things are headed, I feel like this is the most important topic. It's one I'll probably be talking about till the day I die. Our intimacy and our pursuit, That's why I named our ministry, Higher Pursuit Ministries, because our pursuit of Jesus is the highest pursuit. It is the highest and the best and the most critical

pursuit of our lives. There is nothing that we are going to engage in our entire lives that is more important than our pursuit of Jesus, dwelling with him and making a place where he dwells with us. So I hope that today's message was an encouragement to you. And if you are struggling with weariness, if you are struggling in a season of weariness,

then just know that pursuing the presence of the Lord is what is gonna refuel you. You will be like those five wise virgins who have an extra supply of oil in your lamp that will get you to the end of your race so that you will finish well. But it's only by having that extra supply of oil, the presence of the Lord, that will cause your lamp to burn bright all the way to the end.

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So thank you so much for joining me for today's episode on repurposing our weariness into a fiery passion for Jesus that will endure to the end so we can finish well. If you enjoyed today's podcast, if you got anything out of it, then I encourage you to share it on social media so other people can benefit. And if you haven't already, then subscribe to this podcast wherever you're listening to it, whether it is Spotify or Apple podcasts or...

higher or on YouTube and I would also love it if you could

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Well thank you for joining me for today's episode of repurposing our weariness into a fiery zeal for Jesus, through which we will overcome, we're going to endure to the end, and we are going to finish well. Amen? Yes we are. That's you. So if you were challenged by this or you were encouraged by this podcast, then I just ask you to share it on social media so other people can benefit.

And if you haven't already, subscribe to this podcast wherever you're listening to it, whether it's Spotify, Apple podcasts, or on YouTube. And also make sure to join my email list, which you can find on my website at higherpursuitministries.com. Guys, we are on this pursuit of more of Jesus together. None of us have arrived, that is for sure. But my goal for this podcast is to offer you something nourishing that will strengthen and encourage

and mature you as you pursue Jesus in your everyday life. So until next time, may you walk in all the favor of God, and I'll see you in the next podcast. God bless.