Tina : 0:00

Hello and welcome to Walk the Walk. I know I've been quiet here for a little while, but I feel like God has given me a new message, a new way of delivering a message to you, and I want to start that today with you, my friend Paul Veyon. That background music is music that he created just for me and my podcast, so I want to thank him for doing that for me. He's such an accomplished pianist. He just sat down and just started playing this song. He's wonderful. So, Paul, thank you so much. Well, God has put me on a path and, as you all know, I did my podcast for years and, like I said, I laid low and now I feel on fire again. Now, what I've been doing in my downtime has been writing these short little booklets that I'm putting on Amazon, and I chose to put them on Amazon only because it's just more convenient. I could have self-published these. Then have you order through me me take care of all the financial part of it, ship it, which probably would not have happened as quickly as it can through Amazon. Now, this journal that I'm reading from is one that I created and it's called Jesus, help Me, do Better, and it kind of goes hand in hand with the booklet, the book that I've written on Christianity Made Simple, and neither one of these are really. They're being reviewed to finally be published, so hopefully that will happen anytime. So if they're not out yet, they're coming soon. And if they are out, they're on Amazon and I will post where you can get those books. They're like $8.99 plus shipping and it comes straight from Amazon, which would be much quicker than what I can do for you. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to go through this journal and there are many prompts and I'm just going to pick and choose some of the journal's prompts and kind of help walk you through how you might want to answer them. Sometimes we read these and we're like I have no idea, and then after somebody kind of walks us through it, we're like, oh yes, now I know how to answer that. So the first journal prompt that I'm going to talk about is this is the actual question.

Tina : 2:47

The Bible talks about sin as more than just doing bad stuff. It's about being disconnected from God. How has sin affected your life? And I think sometimes this is a hard question to answer because we kind of forget, like you know, what sin really is. We think of sin as breaking rules which, yeah, that's true or doing bad stuff, where we're just not listening to God. But it's more of sin is just us drifting away from God and we become watered down. Now you know that watered down scripture comes from Revelation 3:1 5- 16. And it says because you are lukewarm, neither hot or cold, I'm about to spit you out of my mouth. You know, don't we hate it?

Tina : 3:46

When have you ever asked somebody their opinion and they're like, well, you know, it doesn't matter this or that, and you're like, no, I just want an answer. It's kind of like when you and your spouse go out to dinner and somebody says, well, where do you want to go eat, and the other person says, oh, I don't care, and then both of you go back and forth and one will say, well, no, not that. And the other will say, well, no, not that. And then, before you know it, you're both so totally confused. You just turn around and go home and eat a bowl of cereal, but have you become watered down and that's a sin. That means we are kind of drifting away more and more from God.

Tina : 4:32

Now, what is it that causes us to drift away, then there's a lot of things that are under your control and there's a lot of things that may not quite be under your control Could be a distraction of a new job, of a new marriage, having children. Maybe you've taken on a hobby that you didn't realize was going to consume you so much. Maybe you've taken a new job. I've known of people who have prayed for a new job that they really needed and, unfortunately for them, Sunday is their worship day and also the day that they're required to work. Some people have the opportunity to say I can't work Sunday mornings. Some people won't say I can't work on Sunday mornings only because you know they're afraid to. It's their new job that makes sense.

Tina : 5:32

Other things that take us away and pull us away from God is when we have children. We want to keep them happy, don't we? And guess what? That's the morning of their soccer games, their baseball games, their sports, and before you know it, we're wrapped up in sports on Sunday morning and church just goes on the wayside.

Tina : 6:01

Other things that may pull us away from God is prayers that go unanswered. You're tired. You're tired of praying the same thing over and over and you just feel like God's just not listening to me. Rather than wrestling with God through your prayers, you drift away. You become self-sufficient, meaning what do I need to go to church for? I mean, I haven't gone to church in six months and look, I'm doing just fine, I don't need God in my life.

Tina : 6:34

You get wrapped up in social media. You've had a bad church experience. You know, that's always amazing to me that people have a bad church experience but they never try to find another church or they don't work through the experience that they've had. It's kind of like a job. When you have a bad experience at your job, do you go in and quit every time? Of course not. You work through it or you bear it out or whatever. But we kind of like well, shoot, so-and-so at church made me mad. The pastor preached on tithing. I'm sick of tired of them thinking that I need to give them my money. Any type of experience you have at church, we tend to think I don't really need to be here anyway, so I'll just quit going.

Tina : 7:25

The other thing could be that you've decided I'm going to just stay home and watch church on the Internet or on the computer and pretty soon you're like oh, I'll just watch the replay and then pretty soon you're not watching at all. And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with watching church on the internet. As a matter of fact, I've had to do more of that since Jeff's stroke than ever, and I don't love it. I don't like watching it on the internet. I miss the people, I miss the connections, I miss the little things that you do not get to hear on the internet. So that happens, and sometimes it happens only because it has to.

Tina : 8:11

Jesus said in John 15 5,. Jesus said in John 15, 5, I am the vine and you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit. Apart from me, you can do nothing. We always need to stay connected to God. It's so, you know, we don't have God as a person right here beside me. Back in biblical times they did, they saw God, they walked with God, they saw him. Jesus performed miracles, they saw all of it. Sometimes you think, wow, if that's what I had, I would stay more connected. But I'm not so sure that's always true. But that's what God says. We need to stay connected to him, amen.

Tina : 9:03

We lose our fire, your faith gets watered down, we stop attending church, we sleep in, you start to not read your Bible. We start doing fun stuff on Sunday mornings if that's your worship day, People start asking you to do picnics and zoo visits and this and that, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that on occasion, but pretty soon it becomes your Sunday ritual. Some people say well, that's my only day off, that's the only time I can spend with so-and-so. You know, I think also, sometimes we pray, but our prayers become so fast and quick or not at all. We start to engage in things that don't reflect God's heart. We may restart bad habits, things that you have given up because you had that strength in God that you were going to church. Other people were keeping you accountable and now that you're no longer doing that, you find yourself back into your old habits. We start to follow the ways of the world, we compromise, we stand for nothing.

Tina : 10:23

It's not an easy thing to live in today's society. Things are changing dramatically. Things that we would never have dreamed are now happening, things that people accept and say, oh, this is okay, that's the way I was made, that's the way they were made. This is the year 2000, 2025. It's all okay.

Tina : 10:51

And then pretty soon, because you've drifted so far from the word of God and from God, you start to think well, maybe it is okay. When it's not, what are you going to do to get closer to God? Well, I'm going to give you a little action step here this week. Do a self-analysis. What is pulling me away? What steps can you take to get back, to be closer to Jesus? Now listen, if you're going to try to do everything at one time, you're going to burn, you're going to burn out. Write these steps down. If you've got this journal, write those things down that are pulling you away from him. And how can I get back? I'm going to start reading my Bible every morning at a certain time. I'm going to, before I get out of bed, I'm going to say a prayer. I'm going to reconnect to my church. I'm going to reconnect to my Christian friends.

Tina : 11:59

Those are action steps that you need to take to get you back closer to God. You know he's not like oh, I'm done with her, I'm done with him. He's like come on back, I welcome you back, closer to God. You know he's not like oh, I'm done with her, I'm done with him. He's like come on back, I welcome you back. You know connection's not about doing things or doing more. Connection is about being with him. I encourage you to reconnect. Let's pray.

Tina : 12:28

Father God, thank you so much for being near to me when I've become so far from you.

Tina : 12:34

Thank you for not waiting on me to be this perfect person that I think I need to be before I can come back to the church.

Tina : 12:43

You're waiting on me. If you waited on me to be perfect, god, we would never reconnect. But you know my heart, you know behind the scenes, you know everything about us and you know it's time for me and others to reconnect to you. Help me, guide me, put me on a path that I can't wander off. Put your loving hand upon me, my family, anybody that is even around me. Put your loving hand upon us, give us direction, close our eyes to what the world is doing and open them to what you want me to do. I thank you for joining me today and next week on our next podcast we'll be on. How does thinking about sin as you being disconnected, change your life? Now here's a great question Was there ever a time in your life when you felt connected? Those are the things we're going to talk about on our next podcast. Thank you for being here with me today and I'll see you or talk to you next time.