Welcome to Equip the Next—the podcast where hungry believers learn to study the Bible with clarity, see Christ in every passage, and grow into confident disciples.
If you’ve ever wanted to go deeper in God’s Word but felt overwhelmed—or sensed a call to disciple others but didn’t feel equipped—you’re in the right place.
Our focus is simple: Grow in God’s Word. Lead boldly. Live with purpose.
Each episode blends practical Bible study tools, Christ-centered interpretation, and clear discipleship guidance—rooted in clarity, context, and spiritual depth that makes Scripture feel accessible and transformative. Whether we’re walking through a passage or tackling a spiritual growth topic, you’ll find steady encouragement and biblical clarity to help you stay anchored and confident in your faith.
Meet Your Host:
I’m Latoya Morris — a story-driven, Christ-centered Bible teacher helping believers understand Scripture with clarity, confidence, and real spiritual depth.
For over a decade, I’ve coached leaders, guided women in faith and purpose, and taught the Bible in a way that makes it come alive—through narrative clarity, context, and Christ-centered insight. With a B.A. in Marketing Communications, 12+ years of coaching experience, and seminary training, I bring together practical wisdom and solid biblical understanding in a way that feels steady, clear, and grounded.
I created Equip the Next because believers deserve clarity, not confusion. My mission is simple: help you understand the Word, see Christ in every passage, and grow into a confident disciple who can lead with truth and purpose.
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Has disappointment with Christians changed the way you see God? In this episode, we talk about how church hurt, bad teaching, and painful experiences can quietly distort our view of God—and why Scripture must have the final word. Through Exodus 34 and 1 John 4, you'll see what God reveals about His own character and learn how to test what you've believed against the Bible. If you're questioning who God is because of what people have done, this conversation will help you separate human failure from biblical truth and know God through His Word.
💡 Don’t just listen — live it. Want help studying Scripture in context? Grab your free guide: Bible Study Guardrails → Get Your Copy Here
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• Email: hello@equipthenext.com
FYI:
Equip the Next provides biblical encouragement and spiritual guidance and is not a church, pastoral authority, or counseling service. This content is consumed voluntarily and does not replace involvement in a local Christian community or professional care.
This is episode 146, and I'm your host, Atoya. And this is Equip the Next, where you get equipped to lead, disciple, and move the mission forward. So are we allowing scripture to shape our view of God or people? You don't want to miss this. Usually somewhere in the description, but it's bonus episode, the equip method. That is just a method that I suggest there's a lot of methods. There's soap method and different methods. But I developed the equip method if you want to dig deeper in your word and you were looking for a simple Bible study method you can use. So feel free to check out that bonus episode. It's the equip method, and that'll give you um some tips on how to uh dive deeper in God's word. You can tell this is not prerecorded. Okay, anywho, so feel free to check that out. Again, if you are um new, thank you so much for stopping by. I greatly appreciate it. Never take it for granted. If you have been listening to a couple of podcast episodes, maybe you've been binging in the car, I greatly appreciate it. If you would follow or subscribe, depending on where you're listening, um, what device you're listening on or what platform you're listening on. And feel free to share it. It really does help the ministry to be able to reach more people effectively. Um, I would greatly appreciate that. Send me a hello email at hello at equipthenext.com. I would love to hear from you. It's always so um encouraging to hear people from just different parts of the world, and so that just would really encourage me. Anywho, let us digress.
Today we are we're gonna be talking about letting scripture shape your view of God. See, because a lot of times we allow people to shape our view of God instead of allowing God to shape his view, right? Is this like somebody might hear about you and through people, and they've already kind of developed their outlook and perception of you before they even heard you, met you. How do you feel about that? You like, why didn't you just ask me? Why are you going and listening to other people? Right? It's the same thing. How are we allowing people to shape our view of God? There's nothing wrong with teachers, by the way, and leaders, because they help you. But I'm talking about when we deal with people who are not representing him in the best way, and that's how we can it can kind of go completely left. So our experiences can influence how we see God, but scripture reveals who he truly is, and that's the key. That is why it's important to read his word, because our experience can be way off in a bad way. Like we can have really bad experiences in life, especially again. Um, I think I shared this in previous episodes. If you don't have a certain relationship with your father, maybe your father wasn't there, maybe your father was a tyrant, whatever the case may be. You might have a loving father, and that's great too. But whatever the situation is, um, it's important that we distinguish the fact that those experiences don't get to dictate how God is. Just like the example I gave. What people say about you don't get to determine who you are or how you are. Maybe that was your past. Maybe you're not like that anymore. Scripture reveals who God is, who he really is. And that's why it's important to understand it. But a lot of times people don't know how to read it or what, like maybe they're overwhelmed, which is why I wanted to share the equip method um episode that breaks it down. But I also want to just talk about and highlight some things
here. So I always like to ask a question. And this question for this episode that I want you to ask yourself is ask yourself this question: Is my picture of God shaped more by scripture or by disappointment? Is my picture of God shaped more by scripture or by disappointment? Because if you allow disappointment to cloud your view of God, even if you read scripture, you are going to look at it isogenically, which means you're gonna put yourself, your circumstances, your culture, your background, your experiences into the scripture. That's what a lot of leaders do when they misquote scripture. And you are going to take that life experience and you're gonna place it in the Bible. What was never there, what was never meant to be there. And so I want you to be honest with yourself. We need to shed all of that off, start from scratch, and make sure that we have a clear picture of God and the scripture will tell you a clear picture, and having people who hold you accountable and being around a godly community and a church or a leadership group or whatever that actually studies the Bible for all it's worth. That will help you. But sometimes disappointment can lead us on a different way, a different path. I'm gonna read a couple scriptures, throw them at you, and then we're gonna briefly talk.
I'm gonna go to Exodus 34. Um I'll start at five and six, and then I'll I'll read seven A. How about that? So it says, The Lord descended in the cloud and stood with him there and proclaimed the name of the Lord. The Lord passed before him and proclaimed the Lord the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. I'm gonna pause right there, because no one really talks about that part. They tend to focus on the latter of seven seven B visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation. And um sorry, let me go to a little bit over it. So um when I go transgression and sin, then it says, but who will by no means clear the guilty? Sorry, visiting the iniquity of the fathers and the children and the children's children to the third and the fourth generation. Okay. We we they focus on this is Old Testament, and this is um when Moses makes new tablets and you know, the whole story. And so we have to look at it in context, first of all. Now, I'm not gonna look at it in context because this is not an episode where I'm gonna deep dive on a particular passage. I want to focus on the healing aspect, and that's what these episodes are about for the month of August, is following Jesus through disappointment. And so I wanted to focus on that because we we kind of overlook some signs and some clues and right there in the word about who God is. God's get God gets vengeance, God does not like evil, God um, we see some, we see God, you know, um definitely rebuking and correcting some folk. Okay, that's neither here nor there. But people really overlook the fact that he's merciful, he's gracious, he's slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. Um like nobody really talks about that. We skip that largely because of past hurt. Remember, I said if you are dealing with hurt, or if a leader is dealing with hurt, they're gonna highlight hurt text or hurtful text or take text out of context to hurt, and so some people they that's all they'll get is the hurt. Um, let me go on to let me see if I should go into my phone or if I should go try to see. I have notes for first John, but I don't know if I have it for this part. Let me see. Yeah, I'll go into my phone app.
So I'm gonna go into 1 John, and I'm gonna go to uh 1 John 4, and I'm gonna do 7, 8, maybe 9A. So we see here that God is love, and it says, Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love. And this the love of God was made manifest among us that God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him. I want to pause there because a lot of times because of disappointment, because of hurt, we forget to highlight that God loves us. Sure, we might say, you know, for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, like we might quote that, but you rarely hear people stop and explain and expound upon the fact that he loves us truly, because we only see him as a wrathful God, we don't see him as a loving God. And if we if you've been through disappointments and you've been through hurt and you've been through pain, sometimes you cannot see his love. And I understand, and that could be hard because you might feel like, where is he? But again, we have to understand that we cannot put him in the same um um space as flawed humans in a fallen world. We have to separate that. We have to look at the fact that God reveals his own character through his word. That is why it's important to read the word for yourself and to be around people who will
teach the word. We have Equip the next, um, we have our EFP group, equip for purpose group, that we are now currently reading the Bible chronologically together. We're having discussions, we're having a wellness check-in once a month where um it's just how do we apply practical the things that we've learned in a practical way, um, dealing with different things. It's just really good. And um, you know, you might be at a Bible-believing church that teaches the word. God is going to reveal his own character, just like you're going to tell people how you are. You don't need like messengers. And we have to understand that experience influences our perception. Just like I said, when you read the word, and you have a lot of leaders right now that are broken, hurt, discouraged like you, disappointed like you, only they got a platform and a mic. And they haven't been delivered and healed because they simply don't have the time because they got to get ready for the next sermon. Who are they gonna tell that they're weak and vulnerable? Sometimes they're by themselves, right? But if we uh if we allow it, scripture will correct distorted views. If you allow it, it will correct distorted views usually in yourself first. Before we go, you know, like I said, um, with exposure culture, everybody wants to expose this pastor and this but let's look at ourselves. Scripture will allow that to happen, to minister you, not to condemn you, not to condemn you, but to convict you. You see, our confidence in God's word is strengthened as we know his character more clearly. They go hand in hand. It's like peanut butter and jelly. It goes hand in hand. Allow scripture to shape your view of God. Now that could be tricky if you don't know how to study the word, or if you're you've studied it incorrectly because the maybe the person just didn't know. Or maybe there's a you know, there's a lot of false teachers out here. It's understandable. We've all been there,
okay? You had to unlearn a lot of stuff, but don't let that change. There's something going on. Um, what is the term? I think the term is like deconstruction. Yeah, people are like deconstructing, deconstructing their faith. And it's okay if you're like, I call it unlearning, like just unlearning stuff that was taught to me in error, right? But when you just deconstruct from God, when you remove your like you're no longer even rocking with God and you're questioning stuff. Sometimes people go down a long rapid trail, they don't need to go down. It can really mess up what he's trying to build, which is a relationship. Don't allow it to happen. Take control. You have a free will, take control over the relationship you have. Open your word. And if you don't understand it, it's okay. We got tons of episodes. This is episode um 146. So we got a lot of episodes. Um, but you also have, you know, look for a local church in your area, look for a local community, look for one or two people and go to coffee with them and do a Bible study. It don't have to be big, it just needs to be relational, in my opinion. So when we look at the Christ thread, we're looking at his truth and his love and his character. And how the revelation of who he is, because Christ is in all scripture, it will be revealed.
So I'm gonna challenge you this week to read one passage passage this week that simply reveals who God is. And I'm gonna throw a little bonus your way because I also want you to discover his attributes, find out his attributes. And hopefully you will grow a deeper relationship through his word, and you will grow a deeper relationship through the time you have with him in prayer, fellowship with him, and understand who he is based on how he says it, and not allowing your disappointments to lead the way. Bless you. Well, that's it for today. Thanks for listening to the Equip the Next podcast. If this episode blessed you, I'd appreciate it if you leave a review and share it with someone who can use a little encouragement. Now grow in God's word and lead boldly.
