Spiritual Wanderers: Why Some Christians Never Arrive

The Heart Test: Why the Israelites Never Made It (And What That Means for Us)

The Israelites saw miracles. They experienced deliverance. But an entire generation never entered the Promised Land—not because of their sin, but because of their unbelief.

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In this episode, I'm breaking down the sobering warning in Hebrews 3–4 and what it means for us today. If you've been delivered from your old life but feel stuck in the wilderness, this will challenge and encourage you to examine your heart, remember God's faithfulness, and hold fast to belief.

IN THIS EPISODE:
- Why unbelief—not disobedience—kept the Israelites out of rest
- The connection between Eve's doubt in the Garden and Israel's doubt in the wilderness
- What it means to "take up your cross daily" and guard your heart
- How trials expose what we truly believe about God
- The difference between starting the faith and finishing it
- Practical ways to soften your heart and resist the pattern of unbelief

SCRIPTURES:
- Hebrews 3:6, 14; 4:1-13
- Psalm 78:19-22; 95:11
- Deuteronomy 8:2-3; 10:23
- Exodus 17:7
- Romans 10:9-10
- Matthew 7:21-23
- 1 Corinthians 10:13
- Luke 9:23

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https://linktr.ee/brittany.durphey 

Transcript

Introduction and Personal Storm

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I have a very important question to ask you for today's episode. What if the storm that's breaking you down is actually the only thing strong enough to break you free? Hebrews 3 says that the Israelites had hardened their hearts. But here's what really wrecked me. They didn't know their hearts were hard. They'd seen the miracles, they'd left Egypt, but they were still carrying Egypt deep down inside of them. For the last three years, I've been in a personal storm. And out of those three years, two of them, I've been angry with the Lord. I was praying early, I was living consecrated, I was pursuing holiness. So I thought. And this storm, it just would keep raging. So much so that I cried out to the Lord and I said, Now, God, what did I do? I'm doing everything you've called me to do. It wasn't until year three that God showed me something that shook me. The storm wasn't happening to me, but for me. He was using the wilderness to rid me of the unbelief I'd been hiding under a mask of obedience. He wasn't trying to destroy me. He was trying to save me from the virgin of myself that would never make it into the promised land. And just like the Israelites, delivered from Egypt, but never arriving, it wasn't because they weren't religious, not because they didn't desire the Lord or that they wanted to do what he wanted them to do, but it was because they did not believe. I'd been delivered from my old life, but I was still wandering, going through all of the motions, but not truly trusting in God's heart. Deliverance is not the same as arrival. And unbelief will keep us circling the same mountain for 40 years. In this episode, I'm sharing what God revealed to me through my storm. The unbelief I didn't know I had. Because God's warning to them in Hebrews is the same warning to us. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts. God takes us through the fire not to punish us, but to show us what's really there. So we don't end up like them, delivered but never arriving. Welcome to the Big Bold Faith Podcast, a podcast dedicated to getting real, bold, and honest when it comes to living and fighting for your everyday faith. My name is Brittany Durfee, and I'm excited to be here with you today, as always. I've been awake for a little bit, but revived, rejuvenated, and excited for this word. I hope that y'all got your Bibles. I hope that you got your notes. Uh, there's a lot of scriptures, and we love that, right? If you're new around here, we are just professing, being ordinarily bold, like the men in Acts 4, uh, who people could see that they sat with Jesus. And I believe that's based off the intimacy um with the with the Lord at that time, knowing of scripture, worshiping him, getting this close to him, and it not just being the light, but also our fruit and the refinement process that has to come with that, y'all. Just keep it a butt. You're gonna go through some trials, you're gonna go through some storms that you don't want to do. And can I tell you this? If you do not know this, it's not your fault. It wasn't something you did, it wasn't a blessing, it wasn't a curse. It is simply a refinement process so that we can mature and become closer to the Lord. Yes, the Lord will use certain situations and circumstances that look like, you know, they could be evil, but God is using that for his good and the good of those who love the Lord and call it according to his purpose, and we are, so that we could be made holy and pure, so that at the end of our times that we can stand with an account before the Lord and tell him, hey, this is what I did for you. Not did for him, but like, you know, us in the refinement process. And here's the one thing I want you to take away from this episode. I want you to be able to have the ability to examine your heart honestly. We gotta be honest, y'all. Honestly, openly, transparently, and you identify where unbelief has been hiding beneath everything. Because it doesn't always look the same. And because the difference between wandering and arriving isn't how much we do for God. It's whether we truly trust Him with all of our heart, all of our mind, and all of our soul. All right, y'all ready to jump in? Okay, let's go. Can I start with where this all started? I'm a contextual person, so just give me a moment. I'm in the book of 1 Thessalonians, minding my own business. And if you do not know how to study your Bible, I have an episode before this episode that was just our last time, just going through where the Lord has been showing me how to study my Bible and what does that look like for me. And if you don't know how to do that, I would employ you to go watch that after this. But I think what's super important about reading and what I find so fruitful is finding kind of the cross-references. So I'll be in 1 Thessalonians and then something will take me to Hebrews or Matthew just to have an understanding of the parallel, what was happening, um, just understanding the context, right? We are not Jews, we are not, most of us are not Jews or Gentiles. We live in a different society and we don't understand the culture and context of that generation. It would be like if somebody was trying to understand today, when y'all be like clock it, they wouldn't know what that means. So they would need to come back and look at history and be like, where did the clock it thing come from? And that's what we have to do when we read our Bibles. We have to like go back, ask the Holy Spirit to come within us, to give us fresh eyes, to be able to read the scripture the way, um, and not into our own understanding, but into God's understanding, because sometimes we'll read the Bible as it applies to ourselves. And it's really supposed to be transformational. It's really supposed to be the word of God and love, and so many other things are supposed to flow from it. But on this nice cool Friday, I was minding my own business. I had meetings to do, and the Lord canceled my entire day. And I spent just time with the Lord in Hebrews, and it was this scripture, it's in Hebrews three, and I'm gonna read it through for you guys. And I think I might even get into Hebrews four a little bit because we hear Hebrews four all of the time, but it was Hebrews three that I needed to go back to to be like, what is this? And I'm gonna show you the power of understanding the context and the power of memorization when you declare a proclamation and an affirmation of the word. It hits differently when you understand the context. We can't just be out here like, uh any of the scriptures you want to say that are prosperity or blessings, it's different when you understand the meaning of it, that it's it just hits different. And we then you won't be praying these like outlandish prayers because you know what you mean, right? You're not gonna be like, Lord, please put out any me, anything in me that doesn't like that doesn't look like you unless you really mean it, unless you really want your heart to be about that life, unless you want to go through the refinement process. And uh we're gonna get into that. So Hebrews 3, which is verse 7. I'm reading out of the NLT, it goes, that is why the Holy Spirit says, Today, when you hear his voice, don't harden your hearts, as Israel did when they rebelled. When they tested me in the wilderness, there your ancestors tested and tried my patience, even though they saw my miracles for forty years. So I was angry with them, and I said, Their hearts always turn away from me. They refuse to do what I tell them, so in my anger I took an oath. They will never enter my place of rest, the rest being the promised land. Be careful then, dear brothers and sisters, make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving, turning you away from the living God. You must warn each other every day, while still today, so that none of you will be deceived by sin and harden against God. For if we are faithful to the end, trusting God, just as firmly as when we first believed, we will share in all that belongs to Christ. Remember what it says today, when you hear his voice, don't harden your hearts as Israel did when they rebelled. And who was it that rebelled against God, even though they heard his voice? Wasn't it the people Moses led out of Egypt? And who made God angry for forty years? Wasn't it the people who sinned or whose corpse lay in the wilderness? And to whom was God speaking when he took an oath that they would never enter his rest? Wasn't it the people who disobeyed him? So we see that because of their unbelief, they were not able to enter his rest. So many great, wonderful things out of here. Um, I'm also in the book of Revelation for some reason, um, but for a reason, if you know, if you know. There's so many things that like it's this awakening period of understanding who we are in the Lord. If I were to start with the beginning and how the Lord just was just so kind to show me this, what we learned from the Israelites in the scripture is that it gives us the perfect example of what happens when unbelief really takes root. In God's anger, he had promised them that they would never enter his rest because they rebelled against him by not believing his promises. He would, you know, get through through the desert. He would give them all of these wonderful, amazing miracles. He would, you know, deliver them through the Red Sea. He would give them manna. He would be a he would give them direction. My God, he would give them direction by day and by night. He would provide food for them. Uh uh, they call it manna, which is like the what is the food of the angels. Uh, I think Psalm 78 references, and they still were complaining in their hearts. Psalms 95, 11 mentions it shows us that they refuse to do what I tell them is what the Lord says. This wasn't just about disobedience. It was unbelief that cost them everything. And so many times, I believe, as believers, we think that our obedience, our goods, our works, our declarations, our proclamations, our affirmations, whatever other science that we have, we think that that buys us, I guess, favor, I would say. I'm trying to take it back in my sense of like, out of all of the things, even when I don't think that I'm working in my hands with the Lord and knowing that it's not by my works that I'm saved, but it's by grace. At the end of the day, I have to take a step back and look at my life to say, God, you're checking for fruit, but the fruit has to come from the heart, right? The like as a man think it so he does. There are things that come out of us that show us what we believe in and what we don't believe in. Even if you look at the non-believers or you look at a world that doesn't believe in God, there are things that they are 10 toes down on, and they don't have to say a word. They can just show you in their actions how they live, how they give, how they drive, what they say. All of that is the fruit of the heart. So we could say nothing, and the Lord would know everything about us. It there's a scripture that mentions who, like the the heart is deceitful above all else. Who shall know it? It's we we can't even know it. And I think that takes us the ability of to be humble and to say, Lord, I don't really know myself. I know what my mind says, I know what I desire and these aspirations outside of myself. But you are the person that can dive deep within my heart to know what it is that I believe and what I don't believe. I can be giving you a lot of lip service and not really be believing you to the the core of who I am. In Psalm 78, 22, go read this entire scripture, y'all. 78 is like wild. You will learn so much. And I I pray that you you see yourself in it. And I say that in a space, not out of judgment, not out of condemnation, but when we look at the scripture and it's able to be a mirror back to us, and we can honestly reflect and say, you know what, Lord, let me keep it a buck with you. Like, I've got some doubt in my heart. Like, I don't believe that. When we go through these storms and these trials, it's really a mirror for us to turn back to the Lord to say, oh God, I I really thought I could believe for this baby. I really thought I would believe for this marriage, but I don't. You take in too long. I don't see it working. I'm waiting. I've been praying, I've been fasting, I've been believing. And it's like, okay, once all of that clears up, right? Once it's been 10 or 12 years, are you gonna stay around with me? I think about that through marriage. So I think when I think about Lord, the Lord um being the groom and we being the bridegroom, and you going through, you know, you get through your first, you know, year of marriage, then you get through your five years, then your seven year, then your 10 years, then your 15, then you're 30. Are you are you gonna stick around? Do you still believe and have faith in me that this covenant is strong and it's ironclad? Like I just think it's something so amazing with that. But Psalm 78, 22 reads, for they did not believe God or trust to care for them. Even though the Lord was out here providing them food, water, quail, because they were complaining. They were like, Lord, we need some chicken with these biscuits. Like, what are we doing? And when I think about this, they had seen God, you know, do all of these things, yet they spoke against God. Can God really give us food in the wilderness? And I know some of us are looking at scripture. Again, let's humble ourselves for a moment, y'all. Let's stop looking at the Israelites like that's not every day of our lives. Can God really provide this job for me? Can God really give me enough to tithe? Can God give me really enough to do an offering? Can God give me really enough so I can be generous to the person down the street? Can God really give me enough to fill in the blank? It's us all day, every day. We the Israelites, we Adam and Eve. They had more complaints than praise us. I said this in a post a while ago, and I said, instead of just fasting physically, right? Which I think it does great with if you've never fasted before, pray on it, do it, do it for a couple of hours. Uh, I think that the Lord really just blesses you to open up your eyes to the things that we don't always see because we are just busy bodies and the enemy likes to distract us and to cover our eyes from the things that are very prevalent when you are in the spirit. However, I also think that we need to fast from our complaints. And it's the complaints that happen throughout the day. And if I'm honest, when I go to the, when I go to prayer, the Lord points out things to me, but I it's also throughout my day that I have to ask the Lord to say, like, you know, and I I do pray the prayer, like, Lord, point out anything in me that doesn't look like you, that doesn't reflect you, that doesn't make you happy, that is not honoring you. And the Lord, being the Lord, don't always talk to me in my prayer time um about it, but it sure enough be 12 o'clock. And I'd be like, oh, I have a patience thing with people that aren't on time. Let me just tell you. And I'm like, God, why am I impatient with people that aren't on time? Why does that wreck me? Why don't I have grace for them? Why am I not patient with them? Um, some of you guys are just late, just y'all late, like y'all just that. But you could just have anything in my face, just be like, Lord, I don't want to deal with them. I don't even want to do business. I don't want to pray for you. I don't want to do anything. And the Lord has to dig deep in me and be like, okay, why is that? And there are complaints that we start building throughout the day. This is why it's important to understand the company that you're around. Psalms one says, do not sit in the council of the wicked. When I think about that, I don't think about it as sitting in the council of the wicked to be able to help them to see the light. I think about sitting in the council of the wicked of the people that influenced you. And um, you know, y'all just be gossiping. We'll just say that. Y'all be gossiping, y'all be talking noise, y'all be saying stuff. And in that moment, it's complaints. I've even noticed a trend in America is that when it's like when you don't have anything really deep to say or to talk about, we end up complaining. So it's like you get together, you're like, hey, how you doing? Okay, I'm cool. And then you realize y'all don't got nothing else in common outside. You'd be like, you know what? Guess what I saw in the news? And y'all have something in common now. You have something to come two or three or gathered together to be able to complain. And I think that does nothing well for our heart, and it gives power to the enemy for his agenda, is what I'll say. And you we see this again, uh, another scripture, Deuteronomy 10 23, it says plainly, but you have rebelled against the command of the Lord your God and refuse to put your trust in him or obey him. Yes, you've been rebelling against the Lord as long as I've known you. Yet God has been patient. But their pattern was clear. And that's the thing that I'll say is when we think about God's mercy, when we think about his grace and being a kind God, though he's wrath, like he is a God of judgment, of just judgment, can I say? Can we think about every single day that we wake up and when we look at the word, or even in this particular scripture, when we're saying, God, I love you, God, I love you, I got I love you, and it we don't show fruit, yet God is faithful to us even when we're not faithful to him. He still provides and covers and listens to our little raggedy prayers, even though we haven't been consistent with him. When our hearts are turned, when we're uh when we're angry at our brother, when we're looking at the speck, when we're spitting lies, when we're in idle idolatry, when we're in uh sexual immorality, when we're in all of these things that do not glorify and will not inherit the kingdom of the Lord, yet the Lord is still patient and kind and just to hear us, to love us, to find mercy and grace upon us. So I want us to think about that whenever we're in a situation, whenever we say that we don't feel that the Lord is here, we have to assess, like, you know what, Lord, last week I was tripping. I was really tripping. I said some things, and you were so kind enough to wait a whole two weeks, two months to bring it back to my memory so that I may repent, so that I can find be glorified, or so that I'd be, you know, like be an extension of your glory, that I can be holy, that I can pursue the life that you've always called for me. Here's the part that I love about this scripture in Hebrews 3, 4, that I think is the part that really wrecked me, wrecked me. Hebrews 4 tells us that God's promise of rest is still available. The rest of our life after this world. But here's the thing: it did them no good, talking about the Israelites, because they didn't share the faith or belief of those who listened to God. I'm actually going to, I'll read chapter four because I think it's very important to understand kind of the the reader or the writer in this sense of them talking about if you hear the Lord, make sure that your heart is not hardened of unbelief, right? So now we have we have an aim, we have a goal. Lord, do I, what areas in my life do I unbelieve that I'm that I'm not believing of you? And y'all, this can be as small as yo, rent for next month. Lord, I don't believe I'm gonna get a job because I've been on unemployment for six, seven, eight months. God, like, do you really believe that the Lord is going to show up and not just live service? Like you move different, you act different. When you know you got people coming over and you have the faith to believe that they come into your house, you're cleaning your house. You're like, okay, let me get my house ready. Let me, let me be ready, let me be prepared. Hebrews 4 reads, God's promise of entering his rest still stands. This is Hebrews 4, uh 1, you guys. God's promise of entering his rest still stands. So we ought to tremble with fear that some of you might fail to experience it. That fear is reverence. For this good news that God has prepared this rest has been announced to us just as it was to them. But it did them no good because they didn't share the faith of those who listen to God. For only we who believe can enter his rest. Okay, can I just I I'm not a theologian, I'm not any of that. But what I felt when I read that like a week ago, in the saying that I feel, and this is a hard truth. Many of us we don't share the faith of those who actually listen to God. Many of us are gilded, looking one way on the outside, looking like the Pharisees, but deep down we are empty, we are grave, and many of us won't make it to rest. And rest would be eternity. And I know some of you guys are like, how is that possible? Like, I was saved by grace, I was baptized, I was doing all of those things. I'm personally gonna speak for myself. I don't know specifically, like again. We're reading the scripture together, you guys. Like, if y'all got comments, if y'all have directions, if y'all got other DM me. We're doing this together. I am not high and mighty. I'm just doing my assignment. I have an assignment. You have an assignment. We are all learning and uh we are all living and breathing, and we should be like teaching each other. But if looking at this and other scriptures that align with it, right? We see the scripture in Matthew, and I think I'm getting ahead of myself, but Mini will come in my name, like saying, you know, like Father, Abba, right? And he's gonna say, get away from me. I never knew you. And I'm thinking a lot of us go through the motions unbeknownst to us. And we don't actually love the Lord our God with all our heart, all our mind, and on our soul. And that grieves me because in that, the enemy has also the all the the enemy has also blinded us to think, okay, God, I'm saved. I'm fine. I can do whatever I want to do. I got saved. I said the sinner's prayer. I got baptized. I go to church, I do my tithes, and that ain't that's not it. That ain't even the requirement. Those are nice things, those are great. Do you love the Lord? Like you riding for the Lord, you knucking bucking for the Lord. Like, what are what are we what are we doing? Like, and that takes a certain level of intentionality, that takes a certain level of a heart posture. That takes every time you get in the car and you're driving and you, y'all not cussing people out, you were exchanging very harsh words with them. Are you taking that back to the Lord to say, God, there there's some there's some hardness in my heart. That little part of my heart, because what ends up happening, you Vez, is that uh incident, right? We'll just take the car driving um experience. What that happens is that shows up in some other part of your life. So it's not just you have road rage, it's also that you are impatient. And being impatient means you're impatient with your wife or your spouse or with other people. I do not have road rage, by the way. Maybe I do. See how we can be humble about that? Lord, I'm impatient, but I don't have road rage. But maybe I do. Maybe I just don't say it, but maybe it's in my mind like, yo, yo, suck us gun one more time. Y'all suck us going one more time. But we gotta be in a place of humility and pride and and and reduce our pride to be like, that's not me. That's not me. That's not me. Right? That's us as believers. That's not me. I don't struggle with that. I don't struggle with pornography. I don't have to deal with sex, that none of that. And it's like, okay, cool. But what other areas? Because sin is sin at the end of the day, y'all. Disbelief is sin. Pornography is sin. Anything that keeps us away from the Lord is sin. And at the end of the day, it's like, where are you going to the Lord? Where are you in community that you would be vulnerable enough to speak out said things to say, yo, I really want to be made right. Like, I don't know how to do this by myself. The Lord has pointed this out to me. I need you to keep me accountable because that's part of this walk. If, if, if, if I'm with you, I'm a I'm a call, I'm a call out. Girl, you said, dude, you weren't gonna smoke anymore. I'm just asking. I know that you said that the Lord convicted you. Sometimes we need the memory. Every time I read through scripture, especially in the Old Testament, I'm reminded of how the Lord always gave them these festivals. And the festivals wasn't for them to turn up, the festivals were for them to remember, was to remember. It's the same thing when we take communion. In 2 Corinthians, it says, like, not to take up the up this cup, just because uh if if you have certain offenses or you haven't gone before the Lord, like some people have taken judgment upon themselves to the point of death. And so when I look at those things, it's really a heart posture of remembering, right? If the Lord is asking me to remember and to take his communion um often in remembrance to him, I also have to remember what the Lord has brought me through, whether that's the deliverance, whether he saved me, whether his, you know, the gratitude journals are great, y'all, but the gratitude journals are only great when you're actually able to attribute who was the one who gave it to you. It's not like, oh, I'm grateful that, you know, I got the job. I'm grateful because I read the book or I got the position. No, Lord, let me say something. Let me thank Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior. Look, you need to have your own little personal award show. I just want to say real quick, let me thank my Lord Jesus Savior, that there was no harm that came across me. Thank you, Lord, that I was driving and these people were out here with road raids, that you protected me. Thank you, Lord. Let me give it a name, an attachment. When you do gratitude, you over here are like, I'm grateful. Who are you grateful to? So that your mind can remember that when you're in the storm, when you're in the trials, when you're in the tribulations, and you're like forgetting that the Lord God who saved you once upon a time, that the battle is his, that the one who went before you and all of your the the host, the army of hosts is your father. When you forget, you can remember and be like, oh yeah, Lord. And I think that's so powerful when we think about gratitude journals. Or for me, I do a microjournal and I go through things and I can tell you where I was last year and the year before. And what that does for me and what I need to continue doing, I'm gonna call myself out, is every morning wake up and be like, you know what, Lord? In 2023, we were here. Thank you, God, that we no longer are there. Or thank you, God, that this is no longer a problem or a situation. Thank you, Lord, for delivering me. Oh yeah, Lord, I remember that happened. We become, and I think that's a I think that that's a trick from the enemy. If I can get them to forget, then I can get a chance for them to forget their identity of who they belong to. Y'all following stuff? Okay. So Hebrews 4, it talks about good because they didn't share the faith of those who listen to God, for only we who believe can enter his rest. For only we who believe can enter his rest. Let me say it again. For we, for only we who believe will enter his rest. I'm gonna jump to six, four, six. So God's rest is there for people to enter, but those who first heard this good news failed to enter because they disobeyed God. So God set another time for entering his rest, and that time is today. God announced this through David much later in his words and already quoted. Today, when you hear his voice, don't hearten your hearts. Now, this, y'all, is the third time that in this within two chapters, it's saying, Don't hearten your heart. There are things that the Lord has asked of you, and I'm not gonna even say, like, you're calling, you're gifting, your assignment. We're really good about like the Lord has called me to do this, but the Lord also called you to forgive and you're heartened your heart. The God, the Lord has all also asked you to give and you've heartened your heart. The Lord has also asked you to repent and you've heartened your heart. The Lord has asked you to stop doing that one thing and you've heartened your heart, and he can't get to you. And since he can't get to you, you you're you're given over to the enemy, you're given over to the darkness. And what that happens is you won't enter into eternity, into his rest. Because you never really believed in the beginning. You were going through the motions, and I believe it. It's the lie of the enemy to encapsulate us in a way that it's like it's it's like a false religion, is what the mind came to me. And then realizing that this ain't it. And they have a big building, they got a pew, they do communion, they have all of the uh all of the components, but it ain't it. That's not it. I just I just want to breathe for a second because I'm like, do you guys understand the complexity of this? Do you understand the gravity of this? Do you understand the nature of us? Like, and then this is this is why it's so important where when I when I believe that the Lord is saying, take those, uh, you have to die to yourself, right? And take up your cross daily. When you take up your cross daily, you like when I think about just the heaviness of it, right? It's gonna take some work, but it also requires you to go to the Lord daily because you don't know what to do with all of the parts of yourself that are disobedient on a normal day. Like I'm I'm talking about disbelief of like, God, I don't I don't believe you for that. But like, God, what other areas do I do not disbel uh believe you for? Oh, God, I like it's it's been taking too long. God, I I I tried to make, you know, make this work. I tried to do what you call me to do, Lord, but it's but it's not work. So it's an area for me to reflect and to stand back, but it's also a part to be like, get in the secret place with the Lord and to repent and to say, God, I'm sorry, I don't believe. God, like this person made me experience it this way, and this is why I don't believe, or I've been hurt. And this is also where we bring our emotions, you guys. Let us not uh separate ourselves or antiquate ourselves to thinking, you know, my emotions are over here, and then my spirit life is over here. You are a three-part being, my boo. You are all the all the way body, a spirit, and you are a soul. And all of those components come together. And so my favorite verse or a verse that's really great in our community that we love to recite is Hebrews 4.12. It says, For God, for the word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow, it exposes our innermost thoughts and desires. Nothing in all of creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes, and he is the one whom we are accountable. When I read that, first thing that comes up to mind is Genesis, when they were hiding from God. It says, Nothing is hidden from God. So God knew when he was calling them and asking them where they were. He wasn't asking a uh a question of insight or knowledge. I don't even think he was asking a rhetorical question. I think he was saying, Do you know where you are? Do you know where your heart is? Do you know that you doubted me? That if we could become really asking the Lord, Lord, for the word of God is alive and powerful. But between we'd love to, we'd love to quote that, but will you proclaim it over yourself? Lord, your word. And if that is the truth, y'all, then we need to be in the word. Because if the word is the only thing that's going to separate us, bone and marrow, two sharper than two-edged sword, that's going to be able to expose the most hidden parts about myself. Y'all think I look all dandy and glorified. Y'all really, I'd be like, Lord, please point out in me. Because the world will tell you, no, you look fine. You're so kind, you're so sweet, you're the nicest person. I've never seen you had an attitude. Oh, that's okay if this Lord, please point out in me. Pull out the roots. I don't want any like, I don't want any bad fruit. I don't want when you come check for me, God, my God, like the fig tree. Looking lush, beautiful, gorgeous, ready, and I ain't got no fruit. I don't have your fruit, God. I might have the oh, I might have the fruit of the world, but I don't have your fruit. I don't have fruit that's going to satisfy your kingdom and your will. And when you when we look at that scripture about the fig tree and how it did not produce and the Lord cursed it and it died, I just wonder. I just wonder if a lot of us are in this this season where we think that we're producing something that we aren't. We aren't producing it the way that the Lord has has called us to be. Hebrews 3.14. It says, and I'm just gonna bring this back, for we have become partakers of Christ if we hold the beginning of our confidence steadfast to the end. This reminds me of revelation that there is a church, and I cannot remember which church it is. Um, this is an awesome time for y'all to drop it in the chat. Tell me which church it is, where it was saying, like, you know, go back to being what you were when you first, like when you first found me, right? Like, don't be a dead church. Don't be in this church that doesn't have this acknowledgement and love and desire for me. Go back to when you were first on fire for me. And a lot of us need to go back to that firing. Like, I think of a kiln just firing up the pottery of us being, you know, uh the clay of the master. Go back with that confidence and steadfast to the end, you guys. So, what does that mean? We have to walk out our faith every single day. What does that take like? That's going to the Father, that's going to God every single day to repent, to turn, to change from our wicked ways, to be humble enough to say, God, I could be right, but I could be wrong. I look like I have it together, but what else do you want to remove out of me, God? It says to the end, y'all. So that means to the end of your life, you have to keep going through this process, this refinement process, this process of being confident in the Lord and trusting the Lord with all your heart and all of your mind and all of your soul. All of those components, it's trusting, steadfast, consistent, faithful. That's what the Lord is with us. And we might not get it right every single day. Can I tell you that? That's okay with that. That's where his new mercies and his new grace come in every single morning. Lamentations three says, He's going through all of these emotions and it says, yet I dare to still hope in you, God. I'm lamenting, it's Jeremiah. I'm lamenting Lamentations 3. I think it's 34. Yet I still dare to hope for you, God. Let us get in the process of daring to hope for the Lord every single day. God's people hope in God. God's people are confident in God. They hold fast to God as they're as they boast, right? We don't boast in ourselves, as Paul says. We don't boast in anything but the word of the Lord. That's the human trait and the evidence that belongs to God's household. Here goes the point. We need to hold fast the assurance in order to show, to prove that we are partakers of Christ. And that's not easy. But the goal is to run after it, run our race, run it to the end, finish the trial so we will be made perfect. Those are where all these scriptures kind of tie in, y'all. So when I was doing the study, I was like, oh, this scripture coming to mind, this scripture is coming to mind. And that's why we study our Bibles by ourselves sometimes, because sometimes you just need a deep dive, two-hour study where you just could be circling stuff, getting lost in the word of God. And when you do, I believe Hebrews 4.12 will come alive, whether it's sharper than any two edge words, the Lord will consecrate you in a way and point out things in you because there's hidden parts about you that you don't even know about yourself. There are hidden rooms in your life that you've forgotten that the Lord wants to remind you of so that you may repent, so that you can grow closer to him, that you can come in intimacy and have a fear of the Lord, and so that you can enter into his perfect rest. With that, I want to just point out a few other things because I think that's like a good spot where the Lord, I feel like the Holy Spirit's like, y'all got it, right? I'm gonna point out, and I'm actually gonna drop in a bunch of other supplementary uh texts from the scripture so that you guys can have it, so that you can study it. I just think that the Lord is really calling us in this season to really be about that life. It is really what my thought is. Like there's nothing more to it because we got to stop faking that we have faith. We can go to church, we can even fake a spiritual language, tongues, um, we can fake worship, but you cannot fake belief at the end of the day. And so when the Lord and we're standing before him and he assesses our hearts to see if we ever really believed him, or is it that you're just believing him enough that you want to go to heaven, that you don't want to go to hell? That's not really like that's not belief y'all either. That lie that's gone around, like if you believe in Jesus as your Lord and Savior, like as you're saying, yes, that's the scripture. Yes, we stand on the word. But I think that we've we've watered it down to the thought of, hey, as long as I believe in God, I'm not going to hell. But what if like that ain't all that ain't all that's with it? But you only understand that when you get into the presence of the Lord. And I believe that in this season we have to get serious with the word and we have to get serious about who we love. Because why would you want to spend eternity with a God that you don't really mess with? And I'm just gonna say it like that. A lot of us are trying to like mess with God because we we just want to be like not in hell. We just don't want to burn up, we just don't want to be with a gnashing of teeth in the fiery lake. But you like you love God, what's wrong with you? Is is this, I mean, it's a song. But also, but you don't love God. Like, why do you want to eternity to worship him? To reference him, to bow down? You don't want to do that here on earth. You don't want to repent and be holy. Why would you want to do it forever? Why would you want to do it forever? So here goes a closing challenge, and then I'm gonna lead us in prayer. Um I pray that this script, like this whole episode blesses you, it's been wrecking me for like five weeks. I just need the Lord to tell me when to go. And I feel like this is the season for us to turn back to the Lord to repent. Um, I know that there's so many things going on in the media um and in the news, but our eyes really need to be up on Jesus in this season because in order to be able to discern those things, it becomes the intimacy and the closeness and the proximity of the Lord to understand his will, his strategy, what he wants, what his will to be done, and how to pray for nations, right? How can you pray for, how can you pray the Lord's prayer or pray God's will when you're not in closeness or proximity to know what his will is? Many of us are out here trying to pray for something that we don't really have the hearts to desire because we don't love the Lord. How can you grieve a nation versus condemn a nation when you don't have the heart of the Lord? And David had God's heart. Um, and he fell and he did crazy stuff. He was with Bathsheba. He was over here like doing all of these things, and yet he still had the Lord's heart because he trusted him, he went to him often, he spent time with him. All of those beautiful things. Here goes our closing challenge for today. Um I want you to soften your hearts. The rest is still available. If you're hearing this, the scripture says in three, num uh, what is it, three twelve. No, it is three thirteen. You must warn each other every day while it is still today, so that none of you will be deceived by sin and harden against God. I pray that this is your warning. I pray that your day is still today. Um, and that if you think that you have tomorrow, that you are only fooling yourselves because today, tomorrow is not promise, and neither is the rest of today. And so we have to be quick to respond and listen to the word of the Lord. Um, transformation does not happen overnight, it happens in a sequence of guesses and changes and mistakes and turning back to the Lord. But I really want you to hold fast to the message today. I want you to know that you have to believe. You have to soften your heart and resist the pattern of the Israelites. And there are certain things in you that have to fall to be able to get closer to God. And you don't always see them. It is like you living your life and you thinking that you're fine, but it's but it's a heart check. It's a doctor check, it's the great physician going inside of you saying, I notice that your cholesterol is up. And you're like, What are you talking about? Like, I eat healthy and clean. And it's him saying, This is what I need you to change in your life. And will you do it? Will you be um bold enough, but will you be obedient enough to surrender and to submit to the word of the Lord to change and to listen to him, even when the world's like, there's nothing wrong with you. I don't want you to wait until your trial. That's what I'm gonna say. Some of us are going through trials right now and we are learning. To say that you learn this and do this doesn't mean that you're not gonna have a trial. Can I also tell that to the people in the back? We won't have trials. So expect the trial, but I don't want you to wait until the trial to get this message on whether you trust in God or not. I want you to build your faith now, your belief of God. I want you to remember what he's done. I want you to rehearse his faithfulness every morning when you wake up with new mercies and grace. I want you to guard your heart against the complaints and the unbelief that you allow in the counsel of the wicked and the counsel of the world, and how you would come in agreement with certain things that the Lord has never called you to agree upon. So this week I want you to do two things. I want you to make a list of what God has already brought you through. Write it down when doubt creeps in and read it out loud. Read it daily because doubt creeps in daily. I want you to examine your words. Are you complaining in the season or are you giving thanks? Are you questioning God or are you trusting God? And you can do two things on that. You can question the Lord. I believe that the Lord is a good thing. Lord is willing to hear us, but do you trust him in your questioning? Or is your questioning giving you more doubt? Your words are always going to reveal your heart. And this is the last one accountability. Surround yourself with people that will be a mirror of God. Tell those people when you're struggling. Tell those doubts that you have with people. I don't believe God's going to do this. I've been praying for it too long. I've been believing for it too long. I feel like I always come up empty-hammen. I feel like my finances always a dollar too short. And it's been too long. And I'm starting to get impatient. I'm starting to get frustrated. I'm starting to get agitated. Should I even do this? And it has nothing about doing about walking away from the faith, you guys. I know some people think like, oh, okay, you're going to give up on God. You don't have to walk away from the physical faith to give up on God in your heart. That's the assessment portion. That's at the end of days when it's assessing your heart to see who loves the Lord their God with all their heart, all their mind, and all their soul. So uh the Israelites had this opportunity, and so do we. But they didn't enter because they didn't believe. Here goes another, and and we'll jump. I'm gonna jump into prayer. And here goes a scripture. I want you guys to pray. Here goes a little bonus. Pray uh Psalm 139, uh 23 through 24 that says, Um, just search me, oh God. Okay, search me, oh God, and know my heart. Test me and know my angel's thoughts, point out anything that offends you, and lead me along the path of everlasting life. If you're having the belief and faith for something in this season, take a step back and think about everlasting life. Not the 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 years we have here on earth, but everlasting life. The Lord's word in Isaiah 55 says it does not come back void. And so if you look at your life from an eternity perspective, God's going to answer, right? We've been promised a new life, we've been promised no more grieving, no more tears. We've been promised new bodies in the coming, the second coming and eternity with the Lord. So if it doesn't happen here, then it must happen there. But we have to, but we don't stand outside of time. Only the Lord stands out of time. And so I would employ you this week, if you're like wrestling with, but I've been praying, Brittany. I've been praying for 10 years, 12 years, lady with the issue of blood. We are here but a day, right? We are here for what a day. And out of that, I think we just look at the lens of God, if you don't do it now, gotta do it later. You gotta do it later. All right, let's jump into prayer. Dear Heavenly Father, God, I thank you for this message. I thank you, Lord, for your holiness. I thank you that the word is a two-edged sword, able to be able to divide between bone and marrow, God, of who we really are at the core of our being. God, you knew us and formed us in our mother's womb, God. Wonderfully complex, Lord, knowing the amount of hairs on our head and yet the wickedness that is in our hearts, God. Lord, I pray in the season, God, that we start to be refined and um walking more in a light to what you called, Lord, that it wouldn't just be religious obedience, that it wouldn't just be church attendance, God, but there that there would be a heart transformation in us that would cause us to repent, that would cause us to cry out to you, Lord, that would cause us to be bold and courageous about your word and spreading the gospel, God, being able to take back what the enemy thought that he would have in his dark mind, God, Lord, that we would be aware of the schemes of the enemy, God, but that we would also start with ourselves, that we would take a clear assessment, Lord, and that we would humble ourselves, Lord, thinking that we would never fall in this particular sin, God. But when you say it, God, that we would take it, Lord, that we would meditate on it, God, and that we would hold fast to the very end. God, I pray for accountability, God. I pray that you open up our eyes, Lord, to be able to see things that we never saw once before, God. I pray that the word continues to be in us, um, the hearts that are needed and necessary, God. I pray for people in this space, God, that are listening, that may not know you, that may have been going through the motions, God. But really, when they assess their hearts, they never knew you, God. Lord, I pray, Lord, that you would um just reconcile them back to you as your word is your reconciliation. I thank you for your son being the perfect sacrifice and the high priest, Lord, that was able to overcome the enemy and even the depths of the grave, God. Lord, I thank you that you give us new mercies and grace for every fault that we fall, and that you give us the ability to come before you, Lord, and to repent. You are worthy to be praised, God. We thank you for your word. We pray that it continues to transform our minds, our hearts, our spirits, our souls, and our body. In your Son's precious name, Jesus, we pray. Amen. This episode is brought to you in partnership with Sozo Digital Media.