Where Are the Real Christians? Healing From Tragedy + Political Divide Ep 25

What if the loudest Christian voices are not the most biblical? We open a raw, Spirit-led conversation about moving from disillusionment and division to a Kingdom-first life—where Jesus, not party lines, sets our loves, our language, and our loyalties. Starting in the fire of conviction, we trace a seven-phase healing journey into realignment and renewal, naming the subtle ways ideology creeps above Christ and how that trade drains our witness of love and power.

Guided by Amos 5 and 2 Timothy 3:5, we hold up a mirror to religious performance and unmask the idols that thrive on outrage. Then we get practical. You’ll hear why unity requires work, how repetitive injuries and daily slights harden our hearts, and what supports keep us soft and strong: rooted church life, scripture rhythms, honest community, therapy, and spaces where leaders are seen and sharpened. We unpack the limits of left vs right—justice and compassion, morality and purity—and the Kingdom that integrates what our tribes divide. The test is simple: fruit and love. If we can’t mourn with those who mourn or bless those who oppose us, we’ve lost the plot.

A surprising workplace story shows what happens when we bless an adversary and watch God shift the room. From there, we lay out what real Christians do and what we’re not here to do (legislate hearts, idolize power, weaponize shame, ignore justice). Renewal looks like surrendering preferences to scripture, trading cynicism for expectancy, and recovering a desire to see the greater works Jesus promised.

If this stirred something in you, share it with a friend, subscribe for more conversations like this, and leave a review with one takeaway you’re acting on this week. Let’s be known by our love—and the fruit it grows.

Stay in the flow—subscribe wherever you listen, watch on YouTube, and download free devotionals at iamkelleyjohnson.com.

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Keywords: Christian women, Spirit-led living, Holy Spirit, faith podcast, women in leadership, working ...

Transcript

Picking Up in the Fire

SPEAKER_00 0:00

If you haven't listened to part one of this conversation, I really encourage you to go back. I shared a very personal journey through anger, grief, and spiritual disillusionment that ultimately led me to ask, where are the real Christians? In today's episode, we pick up right where I left off in the fire. And this is where God turned the mirror back on me and began to realign my heart.

Bonus Format and Housekeeping

SPEAKER_00 0:28

Hi friends, this is Kelly Johnson, and you're listening to a bonus episode of In the Flow. This is where I step outside of our normal season themes to share what God is placing on my heart. Sometimes a story, sometimes a prayer, but always spirit-led. If you're new here, make sure to check out past episodes and full seasons where we go deep on themes that really matter. And don't forget, you can also watch the video version of In the Flow on YouTube. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss a beat. Now let's get into the flow together.

Disillusionment With Christian Voices

SPEAKER_00 1:07

And I think as I was in that sort of unraveling process, I was kind of doom scrolling on social media and I was listening to what some people were posting and saying. And I think the divide between it between different Christians was it's not new, but it is definitely very exhausting. And um I think that's when, as I kept sort of questioning and asking the Lord, okay, well, is this it? Is this it? Because they're a prominent voice in Christian spaces. Is this what I'm supposed to be feeling? Is this what I'm supposed to be thinking? Nothing felt quite right. And again, I went back to this question of where are the real Christians? Because what I'm hearing from big Christian influencer or big Christian pastor here and there, it just seemed to miss the mark. It just didn't seem as if I was hearing what I needed to hear to help me move forward. And so it was through those questions of, okay, is this it, Lord? Is this the way I'm supposed to respond? Are they right? Am I wrong? Am I right and they're wrong? Like, what's what, Lord? Because I'm really not sure.

The Mirror Turns Inward

SPEAKER_00 2:24

And through that process, that's when I kind of transitioned into what I call the next phase, the fire, the fire of the Holy Spirit and the refining fire of Holy Spirit. And that's when God turned the mirror on me, right? He didn't turn the mirror on social media, on culture. He turned the mirror on me. And we all know the scripture that says that we should focus on the beam in our own eye and not the stick in someone else's eye. And that's what happens when we submit to the fire of Holy Spirit. He will show us ourselves. And that's hopefully an invitation that we will all go into. It hurts, but I also know it's God's mercy that he shows us ourselves and he only shows us ourself so that we can grow and become more like him. More like him, not more like our political party, not more like our pastor, even, um, or a Christian influencer. The idea here, the whole goal here of a real Christian is to become more like Christ. And so that is the journey that I hope that we are all on. And I think as a part of that fire phase of the Holy Spirit just really igniting in me this recognition or this realization that maybe I'm holding on to my own ideology more than I think I am, and

Fire to Realignment

SPEAKER_00 4:09

that it's time for me to realign. So kind of move into that realignment phase of aligning to the kingdom, aligning to scripture, letting go of my own preferences, my own biases, my own comfort zones. That's a big one, in order to really receive the kingdom, to receive what all that God has for me, and not just receiving what God has for us, but also to be more like Him in the world, to be that salt and that light. I think this realignment phase can be really difficult if we feel like, or if we know that remember the shaking phase when the tragedy occurs that I was talking about and all of those personal experiences we have. I think the realignment phase, the movement away from kind of our old thinking, our old thought processes, desires, beliefs, ideologies.

Unity, Fatigue, and Repetitive Injury

SPEAKER_00 5:15

I think the realignment phase can be difficult and maybe where some of us are get a little stuck, is when there are what I call repetitive injuries, when there's repetitive trauma. I've shared with you before, I have felt that disappointment around the divide between black Christians and white Christians. So that's not new. And the divide between the two communities is also not new. It's hundreds and hundreds of years old. And um, you know, I would love for it to end immediately, but I don't know if it will. At least not, it's not gonna end if we all keep going down the path that we're on. I will say that. God can do anything, but he needs us to participate in bringing unity. And I think that calls for unity are important, but I think sometimes we underestimate how much work is required for true unity. Unfortunately, I think the word unity is used as a euphemism for conform to what I think. Think like I think, let go of what you think, and just think like I do, and we'll be good. We'll be unified. And so, in that realignment process, that's when the Lord starts to show us where we might need to shift. Okay. And I just want to kind of quickly add that, you know, I mentioned earlier when we have sort of those repetitive injuries, those repetitive traumas, it can be difficult to realign to what the Holy Spirit is telling us. I just want to add that when there are those like small everyday moments that show us the divide, um, it's exhausting and there's a lot of fatigue. And I think it's also where the enemy can try to keep us from moving forward. I think sometimes we try to sort of self-preserve, we try to protect ourselves from the harm, from the repetitive injury, from the small everyday moments. Um, I shared with you two in one day, right? And it's it's not uncommon.

Resourcing Ourselves for Healing

SPEAKER_00 7:36

And so we have to acknowledge that if we are experiencing those everyday moments that revide that remind us of divide or remind us of injury, I think it's really important for us to make sure that we equip ourselves with the right support resources. Finding a great church, doing our own devotional time, finding community, a therapist as well. We have to have those resources because unfortunately, we live in a fallen world. I'm unfortunately, by the things I say and do, I'm going to injure someone, unfortunately, and vice versa. People are going to injure me, they're going to injure you. We can't escape those small everyday moments that create harm. So what we have to do is get better at having a kingdom response.

Announcements: Mastermind and Study

SPEAKER_00 8:35

It's one of the reasons why I'm creating a new Christian leadership mastermind for women leaders. It's called Raya, and you can learn more about it on my website. But I know that as professional women, we need a safe, authentic community where we are not only safe, but we're seen and we're strengthened. We're strengthened in our walk with the Lord. We're strengthened in our leadership, and we're strengthened through peers who are on the same journey. So check that out. If you're looking for ways to strengthen or broaden your community, go to my website, imkellyjohnson.com, and click on Raya, and you can learn more about that. Hey, I just want to take a quick moment to make sure you're aware of my Bible study about diversity and inclusion. It's a six-week study called Infinite, The Power of Love. We start off in the garden and we use examples of Jesus to really highlight what scripture says about issues like diversity, inclusion, and social justice. It's a great resource for small group studies. I hope you'll check it out. You can grab a copy on Amazon and I'll also put a link in the show notes.

Amos 5 And Modern Hypocrisy

SPEAKER_00 10:05

Okay, let's get back into this process, sort of this seven phases of healing that I have been going through, I am still going through, that I'm hoping will be a resource for you as well. I want to share with you what the Lord showed me after I went through kind of that fire phase and as I entered into realignment. And in my quiet time, I think it was like a Saturday morning. I was like, okay, Lord, I don't know what to do. Um, I don't know how to respond to this. Um, I thought I had a particular message for this podcast episode, and it just was not sitting right with me. Remember, I said earlier that this episode is not what I originally recorded. What you're hearing right now is not what I originally was going to put out there. And I'm so glad that the Lord stopped me because my heart was not right. And again, I'm just being very transparent. So in my quiet time, I'm doing like a read the Bible in one year plan. And so I opened up the Bible app and I look at what my reading assignment is, and it's the book of Amos, in particular, Amos 5 really stood out to me. And as I'm reading through Amos 5, I'm like, whoa, this seems, this seems kind of like where we are in America. And I'm gonna just read a little bit of Amos 5 to you right now. I know Amos is considered like a minor prophet. It might not be a passage that um you're super familiar with. I know I wasn't personally. And I ended up reading this in several translations because I'm like, is this, am I reading this correctly? Is this um is this saying what I think it's saying? I will read Amos 5, starting at verse 20. Yes, the day of the Lord will be dark and hopeless without a ray of joy

New Testament Lens on Power

SPEAKER_00 12:02

or hope. I hate all your show and pretense, the hypocrisy of your religious festivals and solemn assembly assemblies. I will not accept your burnt offerings and grain offerings. I won't even notice all your choice peace offerings, away with your noisy hymns of praise. I will not listen to the music of your harps. Instead, I want to see a mighty flood of justice, an endless river of righteous living. Was it to me you were bringing sacrifices and offerings during the forty years in the wilderness? No, you served your pagan gods, Sakuth, your king god, and Chiwan, your star god, the images you made for yourselves, so I will send you into exile to a land east of Damascus, says the Lord, whose name is the God of heaven's armies. So I know that's really heavy, that's a heavy passage, but the summary of it really is that the Lord was not pleased with the children of Israel's hypocrisy. They were going through the motions, they were being really churchy, they were being really religious, but their hearts were not right. They were worshiping

Ideology Above Christ

SPEAKER_00 13:15

idols, right? Their hearts were not turned fully to God. And so I encourage you to read that for yourself and ask the Lord to give you insight and wisdom about it. But it stood out to me from the standpoint of how religious we can be as Christians in America. But are our hearts really right? And I know that my heart has not been right. I know that the Lord is highlighting that for me. And given the amount of chaos and tension, I have to believe that there's some things that we all need to examine in our own hearts to just make sure that we are truly aligned with the Lord. And so in that realignment phase, that is what the Lord highlighted to me. And I think that, you know, if some of you might be struggling, well, that's Old Testament, you know, that's fire and brimstone, God, we're under the new covenant, you know. Um, the old and the new tell the full story of Jesus. The New Testament quotes and cites Old Testament and Old Testament passages foreshadow and prophesy Jesus the Messiah. And so we can't dismiss the Old Testament, I guess is what I'm trying to say. But I do also want to read something from the New Testament, and that's 2 Timothy 3.5. I think 2 Timothy 3.5 kind of says very succinctly what Amos 5 says. And in 2 Timothy chapter 3, verse 5, it says, They will act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly. And that was a light bulb moment for me because what I began to see in myself as well as the broader church is that we we have begun to cling and elevate

Spectrum, Skin Care, And Overused Strengths

SPEAKER_00 15:20

politics as the answer to our problems. And the answer is Jesus. The answer is relying on him to transform us as individuals first, to not just kind of, you know, point the finger at other people. And I realized that while I was accusing and blaming other people for doing these things, I had to realize that I'm just as guilty. I'm doing it too. I have my own political ideologies. I think we all do. And I don't think it's bad for us to have kind of a particular leaning necessarily. But when we elevate our political ideology as well as our economic ideology, any ideology, it could be about education, whatever, right? Whatever we elevate above Christ is not good. And that's what occurred to me, or that's what the Lord started to highlight for me in this realignment phase, the areas of my life where my beliefs, my preferences, my ideologies were starting to creep up higher than what scripture says, higher than what God can do. I was starting to put confidence in man, confidence in the way that I vote, bringing the way I vote, bringing a certain outcome or comfort zone to my to my well-being. And I cannot place my confidence in an election, that if I vote this way, then this will happen and my life will be better, right? No, my life will be better as I put my trust in God, as I um obey what He says

Capturing Thoughts, Capturing Fruit

SPEAKER_00 17:14

for me to do in His scripture, right? So I know this is probably really, really deep, but we're not here. I'm not here to, you know, to necessarily like go viral, although I do hope you will share this. If you haven't already downloaded it, my free devotional, God's Not Impressed With Me, goes even deeper into this conversation. Especially if you're feeling spiritually dry, disillusioned, or just out of alignment. It's free, available on my website, imkellyjohnson.com, and the link is in the show notes. I just want to make sure that you have some resources that will hopefully help you go on this journey as well of healing, of realignment, of resetting how the Lord might might want you to, or how the Lord might be inviting you to. In this realignment phase, one of the things that I had to come to grips with is that how deeply I have have gotten swept into kind of my political preferences, my political ideologies. And earlier I said, I don't think that those are necessarily bad to maybe have a particular way that we vote. I think it's really about how

Beyond Left and Right: Kingdom

SPEAKER_00 18:47

far we elevate them and where we put our confidence. If our confidence is in our vote, then we've misplaced trust. I actually think so. Let me give like a little bit of an analogy or a metaphor. I think all of us, even those who might consider ourselves middle in the middle, we consider ourselves moderate, we may not consider ourselves right or left. I think that all of us are probably a little left or a little right leaning. And some of us are far left or far right, right? So there's it's a spectrum. And I was thinking about skincare. I know this is kind of cheesy, but many people have combination skin. I have combination skin. Okay. Some people have dry skin, some people have oily skin. And I think our political and economic ideologies are kind of like our skin. It could be combination, it could be very dry, it could be very oily. But for those who perhaps have combination skin, if you buy like a moisturizer, sometimes it'll say combination skin, or it'll say like combination to dry skin or combination to oily skin, right? So there's even with combination skin, there's usually a leaning towards either the oily or the dry side. And I think we have to kind of own up to where are we on this spectrum of political and economic ideologies? We have to be honest with ourselves, right? And within that, I actually think that perhaps the Lord wires us to be to lean in a particular direction. He can use all of it,

What We’re Not Called To Do

SPEAKER_00 20:36

right? If it's redeemed, if it's coming through, if we act and vote and think the way that the Holy Spirit is guiding us, then the Lord can use it, right? Have you ever heard this expression, an overused strength can become a weakness? So it's used kind of in professional settings, right? Someone can be a great driver, they get results. But if they leave a lot of casualties behind them as they're getting those results, it's an overused strength that's become a weakness. And so I believe that when we overly rely on our political or economic ideologies, they can become an overused strength. And we know from scripture that God will not allow anything to be elevated above him. So let me give you some scripture references for that. 2 Corinthians 10, 5 says, we demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of

Love Your Enemies: A Work Story

SPEAKER_00 21:39

God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. And so that's the piece that I think the Lord is highlighting to me, that we have to make our preferences, our ideologies obedient to Christ. And if we do that, then we minimize the risk of harm to others, right? If we take captive thoughts that are not like Christ, not just the ones that are important to us, but if we take captive all of our thoughts and all of the fruit that we're producing from those thoughts or ideologies, then we will make them obedient to Christ, right? I think that when we know that we're probably exalting or elevating our ideologies and our preferences more than we should, if we have a hard time being around people who have different ideologies and beliefs from us. I think that that's a big litmus test. And I had to really face that for myself, right? Like it's easy to get into our own camps and to stay there. Why? Because it's comfortable, right? We belong, we know exactly, or we think we know where people stand, and that feels good. Um, especially if I am trying to avoid those repetitive injuries that I talked about earlier, right? So I'm just bringing all of this up to showcase, to help us maybe kind of figure out where am I? Have I lifted up my political ideologies, my political party higher than where it should be? I'm not saying we shouldn't vote. I'm not saying we shouldn't participate in civic activities. But what I am saying is that we have to make sure that they have the right place and that we're approaching them honestly and fully, recognizing that if we are more right-leaning, then the focus is typically on morality and purity. If we are more left-leaning, we are typically more focused on justice and compassion. And the thing about that is when we focus on

Prayer Shifts the Room

SPEAKER_00 24:05

where our political party focuses and we ignore kind of the other end of that spectrum, or we dismiss it, or we minimize its importance, we aren't really reflecting the full heart, nature, and character of God. Because God is all of those things. God, He's all of that and more. He's all that and a bag of chips, right? So God cares about justice, compassion, God cares about morality and purity and many, many, many other things, right? I'm using those two kind of anchors just to quickly highlight where sort of right-leaning and left-leaning politics tend to focus and they tend to ignore the areas of focus of the other party or they dismiss them, right? They they prioritize them less. And I think that's where we get into some murky water because we're not fully representing Jesus. We're not fully representing the Lord when we only focus on our preferred or most important areas that yes, they represent God, but they don't represent the full, the wholeness of God. I hope that makes sense. Ultimately, I believe that it's time for us as real Christians to move from the left and the right to the kingdom. I want to say that again. I think it's time for us, those of us who desire to be real Christians, to move from left to right and into a kingdom focus. Because the kingdom encompasses all of those things and so much

Wrestling in the Spirit

SPEAKER_00 26:02

more, right? I couldn't even list them all in this one podcast. God is so vast, he is so good, he is so comprehensive, he is the alpha and the omega, right? He is omnipresent, he is all-knowing, but we have reduced him as Christians who lean to whichever party, we have reduced him. And I think that that's not a great place to be. I don't think it's ideal. I don't think it's his best. The bottom line is we're not called to legislate morality. We're not called to oppress others, we're not called to ignore hypocrisy, to uphold injustices. We know these things in our head and maybe in our heart. But unfortunately,

What Real Christians Do

SPEAKER_00 26:54

when we cling to our political ideologies so tightly, we lose sight of those things. We're not even called to make Christian nations. Think about that. If we go to the Great Commission in Matthew 28, verse 19, it says, Go you therefore, it doesn't say go you therefore and make a Christian nation. That's not what it says. We're supposed to engage individuals, we're we're called to make disciples, right? And I'm concerned that our current approach to Christianity in America, I'm concerned it's doing the exact opposite. Why? Because no one ever hated anyone into loving Jesus. No one ever hated anyone into loving Jesus. That's not even the example that Jesus gave us when he was on the earth. Jesus ate meals with the tax collectors, right? Jesus restored and healed and shared the basically the gospel with the Samaritan woman. He wasn't even called to Gentiles, but in his mercy, he told her everything about herself, right? And brought salvation not just to her life, but to her whole village. And you know, she was an outcast and yet he didn't show her hate. When the woman was brought to Jesus, who had been caught in the very act of adultery, and they were wanting to stone her, Jesus starts writing in the sand or in the dirt. And it was like, okay, well, the first person who's without sin, you throw the stone. He could have easily followed the law, right? According to the Mosaic law, they were justified in stoning her. But that's not what Jesus did. And so I think it's time, I know it's time for me. I'll speak for myself. I know it's time for me to really evaluate. Am I responding?

Judged by Fruit, Known by Love

SPEAKER_00 29:07

Am I thinking in the way that Jesus wants me to? And how am I, how am I engaging with others? How am I, what kind of fruit am I producing? I think that we have, we've lost our ability to rejoice with those who are rejoicing, to mourn with those who are mourning. Um, that's in Romans 12, verse 15. And I think we have forgotten or we forget sometimes how we're supposed to react to our enemies. Matthew, verse, Matthew 5, verse 44 says that we should bless those who curse us and pray for those who persecute us. Ouch. Right? Like that is so hard to do. Um, I know it's hard for me. I know, I don't. Even want to do it right? Like, let me just be very real. I don't want to do that. If you're my enemy, if you harm me, the last thing I'm thinking about is blessing you and praying for you. But as I was preparing for this episode, the Lord reminded me of a situation where I actually did practice that. And so I want to share that with you. It's a little bit of hope. I shared some ugly, kind of rough stories at the beginning of this conversation. So I want to share something

Renewal After Realignment

SPEAKER_00 30:29

that that's positive. This was many years ago. Goodness. I won't say I was early in my career, but it was, it was probably a good 18, 15 years ago, probably longer. But anyway, I worked for a manager who was not a great manager. He had a bad reputation in the company. He was known for not being a very kind of pleasant person. He was known for being extremely demanding. And we just didn't have good chemistry. Okay. And so I reported to him. And just to kind of highlight how he was, I want to share this with you. He was, he was persecuting me, kind of in the in a modern day way, he was persecuting me. And the way he was persecuting me was through my compensation. So even though we didn't have the best relationship, um, he promoted me to a director. But when I got the promotion, I really didn't get much of a pay increase. And I was, I was really shocked about that. And I asked him about it. I was like, you know, I thought a promotion would have at least warranted about a 10% increase. And I think I maybe got, I got somewhere between three and five percent. It was barely above what the annual merit increase was at the time. And so I questioned it, but he was like, well, this is all that I can do. And I was like, okay, well, fast forward, you know, I was promoted. Okay, great. And I found out that the company was had hired a third-party consulting firm to do a compensation analysis on all directors and above. And again, I was a fairly new director at the time. But this manager, my boss, he excluded me from the

Reflection Questions and Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 32:25

process by not telling me that I needed to fill out some paperwork in order for my compensation to be assessed. And so one day I run into the head of HR and she was like, Hey, Kelly, have you turned in your paperwork for the compensation study? I'm like, What? You know, I didn't know what she was talking about. She was like, Yeah, like, I don't know if it was that day was the deadline or like tomorrow was the deadline, but the the deadline was coming up really, really fast. And she was like, I don't think I saw your paperwork. And I was like, No, I didn't know anything about it. And she was like, What? You mean your manager didn't tell you? And I was like, no. And so I hurried up, I turned in my paperwork. Long story short, this third-party agency or consulting firm who's known for compensation assessments at major companies, they came back and they identified that I was one of just a few individuals that had inequitable pay. So as a director, I should have been making more. And there weren't, thankfully, there were not a lot of people that were in that situation, but I was. And it was so bad that the company had to make pay adjustments like every, I think every six months over the span of 18 months, just to get me where I should be in relation to my peers. That's how bad I was underpaid. And he was preventing me. He was a blocker from me getting the compensation that I should have fairly gotten based on my position, the responsibilities, all of that stuff. So I share that as just an example of the kind of situation that I was in as I was reporting to this person. And as I mentioned before, he just had really unrealistic expectations about the work that should be done. And one day I was in a one-on-one meeting with him, kind of a normal meeting, and he starts to

Closing and Ways to Connect

SPEAKER_00 34:25

ask me to do something. And I'm like, I don't want to do this. It doesn't even make sense. It was like overkill, right? And so I start praying in the meeting, silently, of course. I'm not moving my lips, I'm not saying anything out loud, but I start silently praying for him. And I just asked the Lord to bless him. And I just, I don't know what I was specifically praying, but I was, I definitely asked the Lord to bless him. And the next thing I know, he goes, you know what? Never mind, forget it. That's okay. Don't forget what I said. You don't have to do that. I was like, whoa, that was fast. And that had never happened before, right? I had dealt with his unrealistic expectations and demands for a very long time. And to see the switch happen so quickly in that moment, just by blessing someone who had a track record of persecuting me, was a big moment in my faith walk. And so I know that the Lord reminded me of that story as I was preparing to share all of this with you. Um, and I hope it blesses and encourages all of us to remember, to remember that we should bless those who persecute us. We should pray for those who spitefully use us. As scripture tells us in Matthew 5. And so I just want to highlight that if we feel like the other side is oppressing us, it's an invitation to pray for them and to bless them. We should bless and pray for leaders in our cities, states, national governments. We should pray for global leaders. It's easy to rely on, hey, my pastor said this, so I'm gonna vote this way and I'm gonna feel confident because, you know, they're gonna turn things around, right? It's easy to go towards that or to put our confidence in that. But I believe that this scripture about blessing our enemies is a great reminder of how we should really respond. We know scripture tells us that we wrestle not with flesh and blood, but with principalities, rulers of darkness, and demonic forces. And so if we keep our focus in the spirit realm as we pray, then that's what we're ultimately called to do as believers. We should be shifting the natural realm by what we do, how we engage in the spirit realm. As we get ready to wrap up this conversation, again, I hope it's highlighting some things for you or maybe giving you some food for thought. But as I go back to the question, the big questions that I've been asking myself, where are the real Christians? I just want to remind us what real Christians are called to do, right? I've already talked about blessing our enemies. Um, but when we get back to the basics of what we're called to do, we're called as real Christians to pray, to give, to fast. That's highlighted in Matthew chapter 6, right? So Matthew chapter 6 tells us that we should fast, pray, and give. John 13 tells us that we should love one another. Romans 12 tells us that we should be transformed by the renewing of our minds. Luke 9 tells us that we should take up our cross and die daily, meaning we humble ourselves, we we we let go of our kind of fleshly human ways, and we take up the cross of Jesus and we be look and act and think like him. Matthew 10 says that we should heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the leper. James chapter 1 and Luke 10 tells us that we should care for widows, orphans, and foreigners. Matthew 25 tells us that we should be good stewards of our resources. And Matthew 5 again tells us that we should love our enemies. Here are some things that we should not do as real Christians. Real Christians, we're not here to legislate morality. We're not here to idolize power or party affiliation, we're not here to use fear or shame to control people. We're not here to neglect or ignore justice. And we're not here to just look good on the outside in a religious way. And so that I believe is the invitation for us to really get back to the heart of who God is calling us to be as his people. Jesus said in Matthew 7 that you will know them by their fruit. And again, in John 13, Jesus says that they'll know you are my disciples by your love for one another. Like if at the end of the day, when we get to the pearly gates of heaven, as my grandmother would say, America is not gonna be the one standing on my behalf at that throne of judgment, right? The people that I elected are not gonna be standing there with me. They're gonna be in their own line. They're gonna be going up to the judgment seat on their own as individuals. And so we have to think about if I'm going to be evaluated by how I ultimately love other people. Personally, I know I have a lot of work to do. I have a lot of work to do. And it's not what we vote for or who we vote for, it's not what we post on social media, it's not our denomination. It's our love, it's our fruit, it's the power of God that we demonstrate. It's our obedience, it's our obedience to Christ, obedience to the word. Those are the things that really highlight our faith. And lastly, I just want to share sort of the last couple of phases of this healing journey that I've been on. Renewal. I think realignment is probably where the big, big shifts happen, or at least it did for me. Um, but then comes the renewal. After realignment is the renewal, and in this phase, I begin to move from offense to what does God say? I surrender, I begin to surrender my preferences. I begin to acknowledge the work that I still need God to do in my heart and in my life because I want to be known for loving people. I don't want to be known for my label or labels. I want to see the greater works that Jesus said that we would perform. I want to see them happen. I want to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living, as David said. I, that's my desire for all of us. I want my life to be intertwined so intimately and so intricately with the heart of God, with the word of God, as it's mentioned in Psalm 119, verses 1 through 8. A life intertwined with God fully. This, these are just a few examples. There's more, but these are just a few examples of what real Christians do. When we allow God to transform our thinking and our actions, we will bear better fruit. We will sound more like him, we will look more like him, we will love more like him. And it's always a work in progress. I hope that this isn't, this isn't a message or a conversation of judgment or condemnation. If anything, I'm exposing my own heart, my own weaknesses, my own fears, and my own struggles. And I'm sharing them with the hope that maybe it will help your journey of where you are. And as you walk through healing from tragedies of all kinds, hopefully what I'm sharing today in this framework will be of a support to you. I'll leave you with just a few reflection questions to consider in your own quiet time. And again, be sure to check out the resources that are available on my website. I am Kelly Johnson. Click on the resources tab. And there's a free devotional called God Is Not Impressed With Me. So here are just a few questions for you to consider. Number one, where have you been shaken? What are those personal experiences, those personal moments? Where have you been shaken? What burdens are you carrying that need to be laid down? What lens are you seeing through? And is it truly a kingdom lens? What kind of fruit are you producing? How can you be better known by your love? These are all questions that I am actively asking myself as well right now. I hope that this blesses you. I know that this was a very hard episode for me to share, but it definitely felt necessary. And we'll see where we go next with this conversation. Um, I'd love to kind of bring in conversations with a therapist and perhaps a pastor. We'll see how God leads me on whether or not we continue this conversation. But I would love your feedback. I would love to know what's resonated with you. You can message me on Instagram or on LinkedIn. And I hope that you will share this with your friends, with your colleagues, and your church members. I hope you'll share this as a resource for others as well. Thank you so much for being on this journey with me. Thank you for keeping an open mind at heart as you listen to this. And I pray that the Lord will continue to just speak to you as we wrap up this special episode of In the Flow. Thank you so much for being here. Don't forget to subscribe, like, and share so that you'll be aware of when I drop new episodes. Until next time, thanks so much. Thank you for flowing with me today. Subscribe to In the Flow on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube, and be sure to grab your free devotionals on my website, iam KellyJohnson.com. Until next time, stay in the flow.