Guidelines to a good leader (Mini series #2)

 In this episode of the Bible Gal podcast, we continue our mini series breaking up the scripture 1 Timothy 3:1-13 into chunks, and diving deep into the guidance and instructions God has given us on how to be good church leaders. 

In this episode we cover: 

1. 1 Timothy 3:4-7
2. Proverbs 31:15,1721,27, & 28
3.  Raising up children to serve, respect, and obey the Lord, to be children of God. 
4. The importance of managing our own home and family first which is our priority second from Jesus, then we can focus on managing our church.
5. As new believers, not being discouraged, but encouraged to grow to one day become leaders
6. Respecting God, and always speaking of/about him with the highest respect as he deserves.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to the Bible Come House, and I'm Megaman Amber. I'm just a power certainly one woman, empowering women to step into their on-the fire for the Lord mentality. I'm encouraging us to live in their faith, to grow, and to believe in the calling that God has for us. My vision is to help women break the chains of their past of inner struggles and fears to create new chapters that only our father can write for us. I'm on a mission and passion to empower you and all the women out there. This is going to be your new favorite podcast for daily devotionals and Bible study chats.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of the podcast. Today we are going to continue our mini-series of the guidelines to a good leader. So today will be part two of the scripture that we have been reading. For those of you who are jumping on for the first time or did not watch the last episode, we are going through the scripture, 1 Timothy chapter 3, verses 1 through 13. And last um episode, we got through verses 1 through 3. And then this episode, we will be going through verses 4 through 7. But before I get started, I would just like to um start with prayer. Um just for this day that breath in our lungs, Father. I just lift up every single listener to you. And I just pray that wherever they are right now, whether they are driving or whether they are at work or at home, Father, I just pray that wherever their travels are going to leave them today, Father, that they will get there safely, get home safely, that they will um have travel saf safely. And I just pray that you protect them over that um as they move around and go everywhere. Um I just lift up every single listener that you open our hearts, that you open our minds, that you fill us up with your Holy Spirit, you fill us up with your word, your daily bread, that um that you teach us something, that you speak to us today. Um amen. Alright, so um we are going to get back to it. Um we are gonna start in verse four. So uh in First Timothy chapter three, verse four says this He must manage his own family well, having children who respect and obey him. So I want to just start by saying this real quick. Kids will be kids, right? Like I don't want you guys to get the attention that um you know, I I know this is just it can be a touchy subject, and I don't want anybody to think that I'm saying or the scripture is saying, you know, that your kids can never act up, that they can never disobey, that they can never um, you know, act out or, you know, act crazy, right? Because at the end of the day, kids are kids and they're still learning and they're still learning how to control their own emotions, they're st still, you know, testing and learning right from wrong and all the things. And so at the end of the day, I just want you to give yourself grace in that if you already have kids and if you don't have kids to just keep that in the back of your mind that you know you're saying, Oh, well, I'll do this when when I'm a parent, but I'm not gonna do that, and you know, and you look at other parents and uh parenting styles and you say, Oh, I'll do this but not that, or whatever. Um, I just want to say if you give yourself grace because uh you just never know how your kid is gonna be, and at the end of the day, kids are kids, and that is why we have God um to help us to give us strength and grace and all of this. However, raising children in a home um where, you know, you're praising and serving the Lord should not be an optional thing. This should be something that is is mandatory and something that, you know, if you have a very strong relationship with the Lord, or maybe you're growing your relationship in the Lord, um, and this is something kind of new for you, and you guys are, you know, maybe you're coming back to the Lord and you know, you really want to get better um with your relationship and with your um di devotion and um and stuff, then you know, you really need to be thinking about the kind of atmosphere in your home that you want for your child as you're raising them, right? Um, I'm just gonna be real honest. Life is rough and there's some crazy things that go on out there, and there's some tough situations um that go on out there every single day 24-7. I'm a teacher. I have um worked in child care and preschool for like eight or nine years, so I'm not gonna do the math, but for a really long time, and I've seen some pretty crazy situations in my time. Um, and then I recently moved to uh the school system, and I have been in an elementary school and a high school, and I just want to say that when I say that crazy things happen, and there's so many crazy home situations and stories that I've heard, like it is the exact truth. I'm not exaggerating in the lightest bit. So, you know, think about us as adults and how bad we need God in our life to strengthen us and to help us get through life, right? Like, even more so, these kids who are still learning to control their emotions um and still learning how to how to do life, right? Like, so are we, but even more so than that they're still trying to figure this all out. And so, you know, giving them the option of having God in their life just should not be a thing. They should say, you know what, like we're gonna do God, and you don't have to approach it in like a uh like looking down on them demanding way, like you know, I said you will praise the Lord, you will praise the Lord, you know, because that might push them away um if they feel trapped. Um and if you think about it, we have talked about in the past, um, you know, when you are a leader, you you use up your uplifting, you're encouraging, you role model, you teach, right? And so that's what you know, that's kind of the approach that we should be taking here, um, to try to get them to respect and obey you as a parent, right? We want them to be encouraged, we want them to um, you know, be disciplined, we want them to be motivated and um uplifted to be these uh cute little wise little children in Christ, right? So, you know, praising the Lord, serving the Lord should not be an optional thing. Um, but that means we should be doing things like when we get up in the morning at six o'clock in the morning and we get on our church zoom, or you know, we're half awake and we go get coffee from the kitchen and we sit down in silence and read the Bible. That's a perfect opportunity to let our kid come in with us. And I know that you know it's still important for us to have our quiet, intimate time with just you and the Lord. But I also want to encourage you to, in these intimate moments, let your kids see that, okay. If you don't have kids, I encourage you to keep a mental note of this, or if you do have kids, it does not matter. Um, during this topic, this is still something that you should, you know, it's it's just still good information. Um, but yeah, so if you're up, if you're up really early in the morning, I just encourage you to, and it doesn't have to be every morning because if that's the only time that you really get with the Lord in your crazy busy day, and that's your intimate, you know, quiet one-on-one time, then that's fine, but to still encourage the kids to see your relationship with the Lord, don't just say, you know, and this is all honestly, this is I I know this is my um personal experiences, but this is what I have learned through God and through the Word, um, and through my personal experiences, because when I was a kid, I did go to church every Sunday. Um, and I was a Christian and I was religious as a child, but I will say, and and and my parents did go to like a life study group or Bible study group. Everybody calls us something different, right? But they did go to Bible studies once a week. Um, and us kids did go and run and play, but and so we did kind of see that a little bit, but you know, it wasn't really modeled in the home how important, you know, it is to have a very close relationship with the Lord and how important it was to obey God. Um we did go to a I went to a Christian school up until I was in second grade. Um, so I did get I did get that for a little bit, but then when it started, when I started becoming old enough to for it to really rem I guess I don't want to say really matter, but where I really started remembering things and really started applying things on my life, um, it kind of fell off. And so I have learned the hard way as becoming a parent that you know it's something that you need to model in your home. So um there's a song called Talking with Jesus, and so he's praying, and his kid interrupts him, and the kid's like, I'm so sorry, like I see that you're you're really having, you know, like a very serious moment. You're very I'm gonna let you be, I'm gonna walk away. And and the dad in the song is like, No, this is a perfect opportunity for for this, you know, like come with me, come pray with me, come talk to God with me. Um, and so they do, and so the song continues to go on to say how he does this over and over again, and how beautiful it is that when his son grows up, he gets to see that he is talking to Jesus every single day too. Um, so I just encourage you to continue to, when you're um not letting, you know, praising the Lord and serving the Lord be an optional thing, but let your kids see what you do. It's okay if you go to a Bible study, you know, to let your kid interrupt the Bible study and and say, hey, when they're like, hey, can I pray too? Instead of being like, oh no, you know, we'll do that later, like say yes, encourage them, allow them to, you know, to lead the prayer, allow them to have something to pray for, you know, and just try to encourage them and incorporate them in your daily life with the Lord. And when you're going to church, you know, when they come out of church, you're you're not just okay, what do we want for lunch, but what did you learn and and have build a conversation on that and you know, in the morning, you know, try to sometimes maybe incorporate them um on your daily devotion, um, you know, allow them to see that and you know encourage them to pray with the Lord every morning and stuff like that. So, you know, as they continue to grow with the Lord, they um they have something to go off of, right? They have a model that was used to know how you know how to go about it. And they weren't just told something. It wasn't a do as I say, not as I do, but it really was a do as I do. Um, it really was something that they were learning by seeing you, they were learning by hearing you, they were learning by watching you, right? They were learning by doing with you. Um so you know and also teaching your kids to respect and obey you as an authority is definitely out of love. If the kids don't respect and listen to you, then they're not going to respect and obey God because they're children and it God is invisible, right? At the end of the day. So you need to get a grap, a grap, uh, grip on you know, trying to figure out and again give yourself grace because this nobody's perfect, and we're obviously all winging it here as parents, but um, or if you want to be a parent one day, you we're gonna be winging it as much education as you can give yourselves. Um, there's still going to be moments where you're like, God, um, what in the world am I supposed to do? Um, but yeah, you we need to really try to model respecting others, respecting our own parents, even if we don't have a great relationship with our parents as adults, we really need to model and you know, respecting other people, respecting our own parents, respecting our elderly, so that they can see and learn the importance of having respect for people, and and then they see us having respect for our creator, they see us having respect for our parents, right? And so then as we teach them and as we tell them, you know, to have respect, and and as we, you know, have these lifelong lessons when you know they don't give respect for for somebody, right? Like the most common thing is when you're like at a birthday party or you're out somewhere and there's elderly, right? And as a kid, you would just sit down on the couch, and usually, you know, there was if it wasn't your mom, your dad, it was somebody in the room that was like, Hey, you need to respect your elders, like get your butt up and let the old you know, the older person sit there. Um, right? So, like things like that, but like if you've seen a parent model that, like, okay, like you're five years old, you're coming into the room. I want you to picture this real quick. You're coming into the room, there's people sitting on the couch, right? And your grandmother comes walking out from the kitchen and she goes to sit down on the couch, but the couch is full. Um, but you're not sitting on it, right? So you just coming out to ask a question. But if your mom gets up off the couch and says, Here, grandma, come sit down, I'll stand, right? You are modeling that respect. You're not just telling them, but you're modeling it, them, modeling it to them. So then later, when this happens to them and you're saying to them, hey, you know, get up so that you know you can respect and allow your elders to have that seat, then not only are you teaching that to them, but then you're modeling it to them. You have modeled it to them as well, so that they are seeing that you are putting your money where your mouth is, right? Um, and so by doing that, that that kind of really gets them to understand the sense of respect and having respect for you in the home. Um, and and then, you know, they're starting to learn the concept of respect, and so then they see the way you respect God and and how they see the way you have the relationship with him, right? And so it's really important to make sure that we don't miss that piece. I think so many people nowadays, from my experiences of being a teacher, so many kids and students really miss out on on that. Um, and here it says in in verse four how important that is to have children respect and obey his family and respect and obey God. Um so we're gonna move on to verse five here. It says, For if a man cannot manage his own household, how can he take care of God's church? So, in this verse, there's a pretty big meaning that we're on unpack here. Um, I love to use the term he drops the mic, right? And he kind of does, he kind of drops the mic here and he exposes us or confronts us, I guess I should say. In in in basic broad terms, let's start there. If you can't handle teaching and raising your children, how in the world are you going to teach and raise a church, right? And or teach and raise other people to Jesus. That's really the overall basic meaning here of the word. Um, but we are gonna get even deeper than than that. So even on a deeper level, let's look at some things in other scriptures that we need to have um in order to raise a household, right? Okay, so we're gonna look at this in the women's terms, um, because most of us are all women here. Um, and if you ever want to have some uh, you know, terms for the guys here, I would absolutely encourage you. Ephesians chapter 5 is a great area to go for this. But I kind of decided to really harp more so on the women's side, as that's really most of where um all of my listeners are and um where everybody listens, so I really just wanted to look at it in this view, right? So we're gonna be looking in Proverbs 31, um, under the scripture of the wife of a noble character, because it hits on so many points of who this woman is, but it hits on certain points of who she is for her home and who she is for her family. So we're gonna hit on some of those. So um in Proverbs 31, verse 11, it says her husband can trust her, right? So she's trustworthy to her husband and to her family. Um, excuse me, I'm super stuffy. I was at a birthday party yesterday outside in the cold. Um, and so I have a stuffy nose, and there's no way around it, honestly, so I'm so sorry. Um, but yeah, so you're being trustworthy to your husband, you're being trustworthy to your family, you're not lying behind their back. Um, you know, you're not being, you're not, you're not cheating on them or, you know, things like that, right? Like you're being trustworthy, they can trust you. Um, and so then in verse 15 of Proverbs 31, it says she gets up before the morning or before dawn, depending on what uh dialect or uh translation you're in, and it says to prepare breakfast for her household, and she plans the day's work for her servant girls, right? So she's preparing home cooked meals for her household, she's packing their lunches. Um, she's getting up before the sun comes up to prepare breakfast, to prepare the school day. Maybe your kids got school, and so you know, you're setting up their outfit options and their book bags and the breakfast, or maybe your husband gets up really early and flies out the door like mine does, and and is a construction worker, and um I'm so preaching right now, packing his lunch, and I'm not gonna lie, half the time sometimes I pack his lunch, but sometimes he packs his own lunch. But um, so please give me craziness. But she's getting up before dawn and she's packing and she's and she's preparing um for her home, right? Um, I have a church friend who um either super late the night before or super early in the morning gets up and prep and meal preps and for dinner um for her home. Right, and I'm just like, oh my gosh, like I strive to be that level of preparing for my home. Um, and so that's what she does. She she gets up and she prepares for her home. And not only does she prepare for her home, but then it says here that she plans the days for her servant girls. Okay, guys, we don't all have serving girls, okay, anymore. But what we do have is people that we're bringing to Jesus. What we do have is disciples, what we do have is friends in Christ, right? What we do have are um people we have led to Jesus, and so we're planning the day's worth of work for them, right? And that doesn't necessarily mean like, okay, you're gonna go do this, this, and this, right? I mean, maybe if you're a boss and and you can think about it in a work sense, but what I'm saying here is you're playing you're planning the day for what you might say to the people you're trying to bring to Jesus. Um, or the people you have brought to Jesus, you check on them. Hey, how can how can I pray for you this morning? Um, let's chat what's going on in your life. Let me pray for you. Uh, you know, things like that. Like, hey, you're going to church on Sunday. You're, you know, you're you're planning the day ahead of time, thinking about what who you're gonna say to these girls, or who you're gonna say to the to these, you know, it doesn't have to be girls, so you're guys, whoever that you're reaching out to Jesus and you're speaking to and you're doing his work, um, you know, you're planning that in the morning and you're not just letting your day slip by you and you get super busy and you forgot to text them or you forgot to reach out to them, and next thing you know, you know, you go to work and or maybe you then you go to school, or maybe you know, you pick up your kids and then you prepare dinner and you let the dog on, blah blah blah, right? And then just life grabs you by the hair for the rest of the day. Um, and then you forget, and so like that's why it's super important to do it in the morning, anyways. I'm getting off on a side tangent. Um, so she gets up early and she's preparing for her home. That's that's the point here. Then in verse 17 of Proverbs 31, she says, She's energetic and strong and a hard worker. So I really feel like that's a self-explanatory way, but she has energy for the day ahead, she's strong spiritually for whatever comes her way. She works hard, she gives it her all, right? She she doesn't she might wake up tired because I know I'm a new mom, and oh my gosh, you know, sometimes broken sleep is worse than only getting a few hours of sleep. And I wake up and I am like my hair is barely hanging on in my hair tie, and I'm like stumble into the kitchen as as my boobs are so overloaded with milk that's so TMI, I don't even care. And I'm like, oh my gosh, coffee hit button, right? But then I'm like, you know what, let me pray real quick because like there is some kind of inner this level of energy that I can only get from spending time with the Lord, and so you know, I'm like, let me get this energy for him from him. Um, because yeah, the caffeine might help open my eyeballs a little bit more, but really I'm I need this, I need energy on a deeper level. I need social energy, I need energy to keep going, right? And then the caffeine's not gonna give me that. Um, I really need that from the Lord. Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry. Um, getting raspy. Um, she's spiritually strong for whatever comes her way. That means that she's strong, and no matter how bad work's gonna hit the fan, or you know, the kids go off to school and you realize you have so much to clean and catch up on, or whether you've got to go to work, leave work, go to class, you know, then you gotta go to clinicals, or you gotta go to your observation hours, right? If you're in college, uh you know, um trying to give as many examples to relate to people, right? So you've got all this stuff going on. Maybe you gotta go pick up your kids from daycare, you gotta be home for them to get off the bus, right? Whatever it is. And you don't know what what it's gonna face. Maybe your kid comes off the bus crying because somebody beat him up on the bus. Or maybe you're at work and there's a coworker who completely causes a huge scene at work. You get stuck in the middle of it, you have no idea how to handle the situation. Um, right? Or maybe you go to class and you weren't prepared for the test and maybe you Did poorly on the test because it was a pop quiz and you weren't prepared for it and you didn't study for it. I don't know, right? But you're strong spiritually. You have you are strong to handle that situation. You've got real good relationship with the Lord, and you're like, you know what? It's okay because I have the Lord with me at all times. Right? And so you you work hard, you whatever you do, you do it at your very best. You run around like a chicken with your head cut off, because I know a lot of us women do, but you do it at the very best that you can. Um, and then in verse 21 of Proverbs 31 says, She has no fear for the winter for her household, for everyone has warm clothing, right? So she prepares for her future. If there's something that she knows her family's going to have to face, she is prepared to help them be successful to get through it. Okay, that's really what this is saying. She doesn't have fear for the winter because her kids are clothed, right? So, sure, in a literal sense, maybe your kids need a bigger size for the clothing, and you made sure that you prepared them for that, right? But it's also saying that like she knows that I'm gonna give a personal example. In the summertime, my husband is a construction worker, and so he looks works really long, crazy hours in the summer. And I know ahead of time that the summer is a hard season for us because I work inside. Um, and actually now I the past few school years I've worked in the school year, so I'm off on the summer. So all I want to do is be outside, okay? And I just want to soak up the sun and sunbathe, even though I don't tan, and I just want to be outside and I want to be up late because it's summer and yeah, and he doesn't. He comes home and he's tired and he's worked eight to twelve hours a day, and he's exhausted, and the tire, you know, the sun really beats him down, and he's tired and grumpy and aggravated. And um, I know that that's gonna happen every summer. I know that. So I prepare beforehand, right right about now, right? It's April right now. Right about now it starts to get warm out. And me and him will start having this conversation about hey, like it's it's gonna start being that season soon. Like, let's mentally prepare for it. You know, hey, it's it's getting warmer now, let's make sure you're getting enough water. So when we're going grocery shopping, it's hey, it's gonna be like 85 degrees tomorrow. Like, babe, let's make sure we're drinking enough water, let's let's make it sure we're getting some gatering, you know. Maybe I'm on Amazon looking up like cooling packs to keep them cool, you know, and I'm preparing mentally that he might be grumpy when he comes home. And so those might be the days that I make sure the house is clean with a home cooked meal because that really just helps him just a little bit more on those, you know, like think about it a long, hard day, and you don't want to come home to a mess, right? And so I know we all gotta give ourselves grace, but what I'm saying is I prepare on those days, knowing ahead of time, hey, he's gonna come home extra grumpy, extra tired. Let me set out his let me set out his PJs for him, right? Let me make sure there's a clean towel hanging so that when he's jumping in the shower, he's prepared just to be able to come home and relax. And so I prepare him for that, and I'm trying to do the best to prepare him for those hot, long summer days, and I try to prepare him for when he comes home to be able to give him the best support that I can give him, right? So that's just my personal example, but that's what this is saying that you are preparing your home to whatever it is. Maybe your child's going through puberty, right? That's a that's a great example too. Um, maybe your child's gonna go to college, maybe, maybe you don't have a children, maybe um you're just preparing your boyfriend because he's got a new job next week. Um, right? And so you're thinking about things that you can prepare your your household for the future here. Um, and then in verse 27 of Proverbs 31, it says, She carefully watches over everything in her household. She suffers nothing from laziness. She keeps an eye on what comes in her home. I've talked about this before. The energy that people bring, the shows that are watched, the music that's listened to, the words that are spoken. She protects her home from anything that opens the door to the enemy. She's not lazy about it. She's alert, she's self-aware, she knows it. I'm gonna give another personal example. I got a lot of these today. Um in the middle of the night, I had like this super weird nightmare. I have them sometimes, and I don't honestly even remember what it was, but all I remember was it was like about some kind of weird demon ghost that was scaring me half to death. And that's all I remember. It was it was like freaking me out. That's all I know. So I woke up out of my nightmare and I was like kind of having some anxiety there because I was like, what the heck was that? And I really felt led on my heart to pray for my home, and I was like, you know, I'm a little freaked out. I don't really know if there like really is something in the house right now, or if I am just trying to be prepared for my home. I don't really know, but I'm not gonna suffer from laziness right now, even though it's two o'clock in the morning, and I'm gonna get up, I'm gonna walk to the kitchen for to get my Bible. Why was my Bible in the kitchen? Don't ask questions, I don't know the answers to. I had no idea. But anyway, I walk to the kitchen, I grab my Bible, I open it up, I open it up. Um, the Lord's like Isaiah, so I think I'm opening up and I'm scrolling through it and I find some scripture. Um, and and the scripture was that I didn't need to be afraid that I was strong and that the Lord was my helper and that he was gonna get me through the tough times. He was gonna get me through the tough times, and I was like, okay, so the Lord wants me to pray over the home. He's saying I'm strong, I can do this, I don't need to be afraid, I need to pray over my home for whatever reason. I have no idea. There was like no like ghosts in here that I'm aware of. But I started praying over the home and I started walking around from room to room at two o'clock in the morning praying for my home, and I was like, you know, rebuking anything that could be here and put and asking for protection. And I go into the nursery and I'm praying over the baby, and I'm working into working, walk-I can't talk today. Walking into my bedroom and I'm praying over my husband, and in the bedroom, and in the bathroom, I'm praying over the bathroom in the closet. And, you know, so I I just kind of walk and it was around and was praying for the house. And so what I'm getting at here is I was watching over my household, I wasn't suffering from laziness. I could have woke up from a nightmare, I could have been like, that was weird. That was that was weird, and then I could have just went back to bed. Or I could have just like laid there in bed half a half awake or sat up in bed half awake and and prayed over my home like that. But I was like, you know what? No, I'm not gonna do that. I'm not gonna suffer from laziness. I'm gonna get out of bed, I'm gonna go get my Bible. We're gonna make sure we're doing this right. There's whatever's going on, if there's anything going on, it ain't coming in my house, it ain't gonna stay in my house. That was kind of the attitude I had. So I was like, I ain't suffering from laziness, I don't care what time it is. I'll get up and I will pray over my house because honey, I'm gonna throw them Bible hands, okay? Anyway, so I was alert, I was aware. I was like, we're not doing this. We are going to pray over the household, we're gonna make sure we're watching over it at all times. And then um, my last example here is Proverbs uh 3128. Her children stand and bless her, her husband praises her. So, my sixth point here is she's seen for her good, godly character. She has the heart and the light for her home, and she works so hard, and her family sees that in her. Her family sees that light, her family sees that godly character, and so that her children bless her, her children praise her, her children give her hugs and kisses, they say thank you, mommy. Her husband praises her. He says, Thank you so much, babe, for you know, thinking about me and cooking me dinner, or thank you so much, babe, for packing me my favorite cheesesteak in my lunchbox. I don't know, right? So let me like real quick recap that because I know I was talking for a while about this, but so the point was here that we have to manage our own household if we're gonna take care of God's church. And so I'm only on the first point of that here. But so I looked into some of the things that we need to do for our household, and so my six points were um that we are preparing for our household, we're preparing meals, right? We're getting up before dawn, we're preparing meals, we're preparing lunches, we're preparing clothes, whatever, we're preparing our family for the day ahead. Um, that we're being energetic and we're strong and we're being a hard worker spiritually for the day. Um, that we don't have fear for the future, but that we are prepared. We see, not that we see the future, right? That's okay. Anyway, I don't know why I thought of that. But we see what's gonna happen in, you know, in in the near future for our family, right? And so we try to prepare them to be as successful as we can to help them get through that. Um, that we watch over our home, that we're not lazy from that. Um, and our last point is that, you know, we have so much beautiful, godly character that our children and our husbands see that. Um, so now think about all of these things I just said in comparison to her church. She has to have the spirit of love inside of her first for God and for her family. If she is not this woman behind closed doors, if she is not this woman in her home where she's most comfortable with in a smaller size with the people who are closer in her inner circle. How in the world could you ever expect somebody like this? How could you expect her to do this in a larger size with responsibility with more people? That's what Scott says. Okay? I don't know why I said it like that, sorry. But I also want to say the word church does not mean, I mean it does mean, but it also it doesn't just mean her physical church, but that she is the church. I know my church talks about this a lot. Wherever she goes, whoever she speaks to, whoever she's leading to Jesus, whoever she's doing life with, whoever she's walking with, that is also the church in her. So that means the leader not only needs to focus on raising up her family and managing her family and her physical church that she goes to on Sundays, because that's you know, then she also is this character that she also manages her her actual church. You know, however you're involved, you know, you you actually do those things in your actual church. But wherever she does God's work, wherever her heart is the church, whoever she speaks to about Jesus, she will manage, she will take care of her family first, yes, but then she will take care of and then she will manage all of her church. So let's go back up. Let's look at these six points real fast. Whoever she's speaking to about Jesus, whoever she is being the church for, whoever she is being the church to, she's bringing the church to people by reaching out and speaking the gospel into people's lives and being the light and being the heart into people who are broken, right? And and praying over them and loving them and bringing them brownies when they have a rough day. When she's being the church for people, she gets up early to help prepare them. Maybe she gets up early and she stops and grabs them coffee also with you in the morning for some emotional support support to be the light in their lives. You know, she's energetic and strong and a hard worker. And when you have a coworker or a friend who's you're trying to bring to the Lord and you know, they're having a mental breakdown, you're energetic, you're strong, you're you're a hard worker at being there for them, at modeling that for them. You know, you're you don't have fear for the near future, but you know how to prepare somebody. Maybe you have a friend who you're bringing to church and they're having a toxic relationship with their with their significant other, and you see this breakup brewing, right? And so you prepare them for that. Um you watch over them and you don't suffer from laziness, but you pray protection over them. You pray, you know, guidance and you pray clarity, you pray peace, and you pray health over them. So you you watch over them, you don't suffer from laziness, but you make sure that you're praying for them in the morning, that you're praying for them, that you're interceding for them. Um, and that they see your godly character and that they will bless you, that they will praise you because they see the godly character and the kind of godly leader that you are, right? So that that's the point here. That wherever you do God's work, that whoever you speak to about Jesus, not just your family, not just your physical church. Yes, that those are also very important, but also let me recap again the church is where you go, is who you're speaking to, all of the church. All right, and then in verse 6 here, a church leader must not be a new believer because he might become proud, but the devil would cause him to fall. Let me say this can be hurtful, but let's view this in the way that God intended it. This means out of love and out of warning for new believers, out of love, right? Now, when you're a new believer, this does not mean you can't bring people to Jesus. It's still the commandment for us. However, when we are new in faith, our focus needs to be more on building our relationship with God and our knowledge and our understanding of his word. And so the priority right now is of us shedding our old worldly skin and our old habits to become more godly, to become more like Jesus, to heal the wounds of the past traumas of the curses of our lives. Right, when I was starting to come to Jesus, yes, I was bringing people to Jesus, but I needed to focus on my relationship with him, making sure that I was putting him first in my life, making sure I was getting up every morning um and and doing devotion. And I was I used to smoke pot a lot um for my anxiety. And so when I was coming back to the Lord and he was healing that in me, um, I was also still smoking pot. So I had to shed that, I had to drop that, I had to stop doing that. Um, I had to shed off of that part of me so that I could get closer to the Lord, and I couldn't be a leader in that moment by doing those things. I needed to shed off some of that old skin. I needed to shed off some of that mean girl nature that I had in me and get closer to the Lord and get closer to my understanding to him and get closer to his word and closer to, you know, and I had to heal my wounds of my old past trauma. And I've had a lot of I had uh teenage dad drama and I had boy drama and I had all this trauma with boys and guys, and I had to let that go, and I had to really let God heal me in order for me to be a leader for others, right? And that didn't mean that I still didn't lead to people to Jesus during those times, but it meant that I really couldn't have that leader responsibility until I became more um, you know, I don't know, more seasoned in my faith. And that's not saying that new believers aren't enough. He's saying that as a new believer, the transformation quite hasn't hit yet. We're still going through that transformation, you're still learning how to have godly wisdom. So he wants to protect you from the devil. That's that let me get that here. That he's protecting you from the devil. He's not like throwing you down here, he never throws us down. He's protecting you from the devil, he's protecting us from getting hurt, he's protecting us from falling down, he's protecting us from our prideful human selves. That we can be prideful sometimes, you know. This should be encouraging um reading this verse by saying, you know, I want to learn how to keep that fire for the Lord mentality, and I want to learn and I want to be encouraged to learn how to get to a place where the Lord trusts me to lead, and I want to learn more about the Lord so that I can be more seasoned in my faith, right? To be encouraged. Um, and then in verse seven here, which is the last verse I'm talking about today. I'm talking so long. I see that I've been talking for like 36, 37 minutes. It's a long episode, and I've been trying to break up the verses so that it's like chunked and there's still so much to talk about. That's why it's a mini-season series. Anyway, in verse 7, it says also people outside the church must speak well of him so that he will not be disgraced and fall into the devil's trap. So it's so easy to fall into the devil's trap if we are not careful that we are aware of his plan is to kill to steal to kill, steal, and destroy, or steal, kill and destroy. I forget the order. Okay, but his order is to do those three things. And so whenever we're out lifing right outside of the church, what I mean lifing, like going to the grocery store, going to work, whatever, doing life, that you aren't somebody who just goes to church and then that's it. But it's important that you speak well about God outside of the church, that you never take him for granted, say things that are downgrading to him or you know, lower than who he ever is and his power, that you're respecting, that you fear him of how high he is, that the words that come off of our tongue when we speak about him in our everyday lives honor him and never say his name in vain, saying things like, Oh my god, um, that we really should be straying away from because he is so much more worthy and powerful, um, than than saying, like making a, you know, a phrase about him or making fun of him. Um, because the devil lets us to think that it's okay to speak to God like he's our bro or that he's our buddy, right? To to to to downgrade him as in his power and to think it's just not, you know, it's not a really a big deal to make jokes about who he is or you know to say his name out of context. Like I said earlier, like, oh my god, right? Like he the devil wants us to think that that's not a big deal, but it is, right? We need to put God on a higher pedestal. We need to speak highly of God, we need to not disgrace him because that's what the devil wants us to do. So let me wrap this up here. I'm gonna give away some takeaway points of all the verses I just read. Um I only have four, I just have one for every verse. So the first one is that we're raising up our children to serve, to respect, to obey your parents, and well, you as parents, and to obey the Lord, to be children of God, to model that for them. Um, as with the teaching, uh, my second point is the importance of managing our own home and our own family first is our priority second, obviously, from Jesus, but then we can focus on managing our church and really focusing on how you're managing your family and who you're becoming managing your family so that you can then expand and and manage and lead your church. Um, my third point is as new believers, let's not be discouraged by this verse, but uh but that we are encouraged to grow, that we are encouraged to be on fire for the Lord, that we are encouraged to one day become leaders, right? Um my fourth point is respecting God and always speaking about him with the most uh highest, utmost respect that he deserves for who he is. Christ Jesus. Praise the Lord. Thank you, Lord. Um, so I'm gonna close out in prayer um and then we will be done. Dear Heavenly Father, I thank you so so much for this message today. You really have spoken through me today. Um, and I'm just so grateful for it. And I just pray over every single listener that was listening today, Father, that they have a takeaway from it, that whatever uh it is that they, you know, that you spoke to their heart, that they walk away today, changed a little bit more, that they walk away and saying, I'm gonna change that in me. And so I just open up a time, Father, where we repent, Father. We are so, so sorry for the things that we have done that have hurt your feelings. We're so sorry for our sins and for not being good leaders. Um, and and I just repent for that, and I say, please help us as I intercede for all of these listeners. I intercede for myself, Father. I say, please give us grace. Do not take your presence away from us, do not take your Holy Spirit away from us. But Father, continue to help teach us, to help guide us to become better children of God, to become better leaders. Um, and I just thank you so much again for this day and for the breath in our lungs. Amen. Alright, guys, I pray that you, I really just pray that you guys have a great day today, or if it's the end of the day, I hope you had a great day. Um, before I go, I also want to just mention about the prayer requests. Um I have in a Google form that is in my Link tree, in my social media, um that you can send me a prayer request, and I would just absolutely love if you filled out, filled it out. So it's like a personal way to to connect with me about a prayer request. Um, I've had a few responses, and it's been really, really amazing and beautiful to see the way that I've been able to like actually reach out and make connections with people and actually like chat and get to know about people, and it's just been really awesome. So I just really encourage you to go ahead and send me a prayer request and let's get connected and to be able to talk and chat and get to know each other. Um so yeah, thank you so much for listening, and I'll see you guys next time.

SPEAKER_00 42:25

Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. If you'd like to hear more, there are new episodes that drop every Monday and Thursday. If you liked what you heard, please help your gal out by leaving a review. You can also give using the link below. I'd love to pray for you. If you have any prayer requests, please send me an email to your Biblegal at gmail.com, which is also in the links below, along with all my other social media so you know where to find me. And remember, sisters, walk holy in faith this week. God is with you every step of the way.