Shownotes Transcript
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Hi, I'm Ange. And I'm Ari. And this is Girls Gone Bible. We are a faith-based podcast where we talk all things spirituality, mental health, anything to do with everyday life, and specifically and above all else, we love Jesus. We love him so, so much. How are you, Ari?
We're really good. We had the greatest weekend. We went to Monroe, Louisiana for Sadie Robertson's conference. It was the most spirit-filled event.
Gosh, I just love her. Her humility and pureness, the way she loves people is something that makes my heart so glad because it is so rare nowadays. And when she speaks, it is out from her heart. She loves the people in Jesus. And it's like, oh, it's so inspiring. So
That was really fun. You had to see me and Angela in Louisiana. It's like we literally are Paris and Nicole in The Simple Life. We go to this breakfast place, you guys, and we are at breakfast. And the waitress comes over and she's like, what would you guys like? And Angela goes, do you have?
milk, cappuccino. And the lady's looking at her with her hands crossed. She goes, huh? Now we have a coffee. And then, of course, with cream. And I was like, okay. Okay, yeah, I'll just do that. And they asked me what I want. And I'm like, do you think I could substitute the bacon with the turkey bacon or do you have like turkey sausage? Chicken sausage. She looks at me, she goes, uh-oh. Uh-oh.
It's unbelievable. Oh, man. Me and you in the South is so funny. It's actually. Going back to, Sadie is just like...
For me to be at Sadie's conference to begin with, because you and I didn't grow up going to conferences. We didn't grow up in a Christian church context whatsoever. And so conferences are new to us to begin with. And then to be invited to Sadie's, even to attend, is one thing after I've been watching Sadie for years. When I turned 25, I started watching Sadie's podcast and like her sermons.
And I would be like, who is this girl that is just so well-spoken and so spirit-filled and just so beautiful and kind and sweet? And then so to be invited to her conference, to speak on a panel with other beautiful women of God was like just so unbelievably wild. I'm sitting there being like,
I'm meeting people like almost being like, I don't know. I don't know why I'm here, but thank you so much for having me. We're literally ridiculous. You know, okay. It's not okay. We have to tell you what this is like for Ari and I because it's so funny. Ari and I going to like everybody accepts us with open arms. They really do. But Ari and I are like we stick out like a sore thumb. I don't know what I'm doing today. I go, where am I? I know. Where?
Where am I? And we like literally stick out like a sore thumb. We go to these places and like Ari and I are from the northeast, like we're from the east coast. We have spent no time in the south. And it's like a whole different world. Like we don't we aren't I never even had new people from the south, like the Midwest, the south.
And so we're in these spaces with these beautiful people who have been faithfully walking with the Lord their whole lives. Like they are like you can just see they're pure. They're perfect. Like it's just so beautiful. Ari and I just come in there trucking being like, what are we talking about? Hey, everybody, if it weren't for Jesus, I'd be living under a bridge right now. Like there is no.
Like there's, it's just like such a stark difference between us because. Good word, good word. Stark? Is it S-T-A-R-K? I have never said that before. Where did you get that word? I don't know. It's really good. Sometimes. I don't know if I use that correctly.
I don't even know where Arkansas is. Anyways. But like, it's just so funny that Ariana, it's just like, I love our faith so much because we come from such an interesting place where we're like, the reason we're so on fire is because we are like, we come from a really bad spot. I can't go back there again. I need Jesus. You know what I mean? So you have to hear my mind when I go on the stage. Yeah.
The dialogue in my mind, the enemy's being like, what are you doing up here? And I'm like, no, no, I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. Right? Right? Today we're talking about backsliding in the faith. Ari and I have...
had a beautiful journey with Jesus. Backsliding in the faith is so real. It happens to people all the time. Ari and I have had our own instances where we have been on fire for Jesus and then all of a sudden,
You find yourself either falling, stepping back, staying behind, not moving forward. It's a whole thing. So today... Why are you laughing? I'm not. You're smiling at me. Oh, I'm sorry. So we're going to be reading out of Genesis chapter 32 today.
We're going to read the story about Jacob wrestling with God. And you guys know who Jacob is. I'll give you a little bit of a backstory. Jacob is the son of Isaac. Remember Jacob and his brother Esau. Esau. Esau. Esau.
Jacob basically stole his brother's birthright. The name Jacob means heel catcher. He schemes, he manipulates, he maneuvers in a way that is just not really that godly, but God's favor is still on his life. And so we get to this point where he is wrestling with God and
And I look at this whole situation as like he is wrestling with God in a, it's like this wrestle of life, a lifelong identity issue where he is like in the thick of it with God. And this is all metaphorical.
When this person comes to wrestle Jacob, it's really a metaphor for him wrestling with God. During the night, Jacob got up and took his two wives, his two servant wives, and his 11 sons and crossed the Jacob River with them. After taking them to the other side, he sent...
over all his possessions. This left Jacob all alone in the camp, and a man came and wrestled with him until the dawn began to break. When the man saw that he would not win the match, he touched Jacob's hip and retched it out of its socket. Then the man said, Let me go, for the dawn is breaking. But Jacob said, I will not let you go unless you bless me. What is your name? The man asked. He replied, Jacob.
Your name will no longer be Jacob, the man told him. From now on you will be called Israel because you have fought with God and with men and have won.
"Please tell me your name," Jacob said. "Why do you want to know my name?" the man replied. And he blessed Jacob there. Jacob named the place Peniel, which means "face of God." For he said, "I have seen God face to face, yet my life has been spared." The sun was rising as Jacob left Peniel, and he was limping because of the injury to his hip.
Even today the people of Israel don't eat the tendon near the hip socket because of what happened that night when the man strained the tendon of Jacob's hip. This is such an interesting story to me and I find myself, I really relate to Jacob so much in this because I find myself wrestling with God all the time. I think we all wrestle with God, even the ones of us with the most faith are constantly wrestling with God.
I think about specifically this moment where it says, when the man saw that he would not win the match, Jacob is so incredibly stubborn. He is so incredibly stubborn and it happens with so many of us where God gives us need
nudges and signs and he encounters us and he comes and we still are too stubborn to submit. We're still too stubborn to see him and we're still questioning and we're still doubting and we're still wrestling with him until God has to take such extreme measures and get our attention. And in this moment, he says he touched Jacob's hip and
And wrenched it out of its socket. And I think about how all God had to do was reach out and touch him. And a touch from God will absolutely change your life. And it gets your attention and it wakes you up. And so often God has to do that with us. And I'm sure you guys all have a moment in your life that you are like, you're asleep, you're stubborn, you're passive, you're not...
you're not aware of God the way that you should be. And he has no choice but to come in and rip your hip out of its socket. And like, I know that he's had to wake me up like that many times. Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's we are all
We all go through this thing where we're trying to just go by our own strength, and then he takes it away, and it hurts, and it's that limp in our walk. But then later on, we end up thanking him for that limp in our walk because it changed us for the better. And we learn that we cannot go by our own ways but by God's way. We can't do it by our own strength. So we end up thanking him later for taking that out of our hip.
I love this moment where, because he says, what's your name? And Jacob, and he replies, Jacob, which means deceiver. And then God said, your name will no longer be Jacob. And the
The new name is a promise of a future walking with God. This is a turning point in Jacob's life. And I love, and I'm going to talk about it a little later with Peter, but I love how God always gives us a new name because he always makes us new. And in regards to backsliding,
we always have an old us and we have a new us. And so often the old us wants to rear its head so badly. And it is an everyday fight to make sure that our new self, our new name is the one that stays. And we keep the old one. I mean, he's been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ in me, but still old Angela.
If I let her in, she'll come in. You know what I mean? And so I just love the idea of God giving us a new name because I am new. I am redeemed. I am different. I've been... I am a new creation. And what I love too is in Scripture, it says that we're all going to be given new names in heaven. And I love that so much because...
I just think about everything that we go through on earth. I love that we don't take it with us. I love that heaven, like, especially recently, I feel like
With all the suffering that goes on and all the things that we deal with in situations that seem hopeless to me, my eyes are so set on heaven. And that is my hope. Like my first hope is Jesus. And then my final hope is heaven. Yeah. Jesus in heaven where it's all going to be new. Our names are going to be new. There's no mourning or crying or pain. And I'm just, I look forward to that day. In hard situations, in hard times, that's what I always look towards. Yeah.
Yeah. I wonder what our names are going to be in heaven. What do you think it's going to be? I hope it's something really good because I like my name. I like our names together. I hope that they coincide in heaven. I hope we have the same letter again. Yeah, like...
Giselle and Genevieve or something. Giselle, huh? I don't know. Kind of like that's Brazilian. Right? That's beautiful. I love this story so much. You know, this story just shows God's grace. He didn't see him for who he was, but he gave him a new name because he sees him for this person that he is now. And that's so beautiful. God's grace. He's just...
You know, he let him do his own thing. He let him wrestle. He let him... He did. He let him act the way he wanted to. And he's like, okay, you want to still keep going? And then boom. And I just... It just shows the story of God's grace. It really does. If I know anything, it's that God never condemns us for who we are in the moment, but he always gives us the ability. I was actually just reading, and I think it's Revelation 3 or 4 maybe, where...
God is talking about Jezebel and he's saying like, you guys are letting Jezebel in your church and blah, blah, blah, but I'm giving her time to repent. And I had a moment where I was like, that is so crazy that he's even giving Jezebel time to repent. And I think about like with us, even when we started Girls Gone Bible, God was looking at us being like, this is who you are right now, but
but I know who you're going to be coming and I'm giving you the time to repent. And so there is so much grace. Last thing in this.
I think what really speaks to me the most in this is when he says he was limping because of the injury to his hip. So Jacob would spend the rest of his life limping. And I feel like I too find myself with a limp, like a natural limp. I feel like I have one foot in heaven and one foot on earth. And I'm constantly wrestling between the two. Between faith and a lack of faith. Between trust and mistrust. Between joy and
and between suffering. It's a forever wrestle. There is so much tension in the kingdom of God. And in journeying with God, there's just so much tension. But I think as painful as it can be sometimes, it's the beauty, like the dichotomy and how polarizing these things can be. And I really want to speak to this one part of
that I thought was so interesting. So I read on a little bit and in Genesis 32, Genesis 32 verse nine, Jacob, because as I said earlier, Jacob, like he has all his, his name literally means deceiver. It's what he's always done. And God is trying to make him into this new person. God is constantly encountering him, favoring him, blessing him, but he's always falling back. And we literally see it in scripture here where,
where in Genesis 32 verse nine, it says that Jacob prays and he prays this beautiful prayer. He says, I am not worthy of all the unfailing love and faithfulness you have shown me your servant. Oh Lord, please rescue me from the hand of my brother Esau. And so he's like having this wrestle because he thinks that Esau is going to come and he's
get revenge on him. And so he's freaking out to God and he genuinely has so much purity in his heart in this moment. And he's humble and he's real and he's genuine. And this is like the new Jacob who's showing his face. And when you're in the presence of God, purity and humility is a natural response to being close to God. But then...
you can literally go to verse 20 and it says, he's basically telling his people and his herdsmen like, go ahead of me and bring Esau and his people these gifts. And it's a way of, it's like a manipulative tactic where he's resorting back to his old ways.
And he says, Jacob thought I will try to appease him by sending gifts ahead of me. When I see him in person, perhaps he will be friendly to me. So the gifts were sent on ahead. So you literally see in real time him go back and forth between old Jacob and new Jacob. Like this is how easy it is to backslide if you're not careful. Yeah.
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Like a story? Yeah, definitely. When I really first came to Jesus, I got sober at 23.
When I was 24, 25, I went through this breakup with the, I was dating somebody for like two years who was with me when I got sober. He was like an angel and like got me through such a difficult time in my life, like very, very beautiful situation. But I knew it was the first time I ever heard God's voice and I acted on it. Like I knew God wanted me to lay this relationship down.
And so I end this relationship and I enter into a full relationship with Jesus. It's my first time I start reading the Bible and it's my first time where I begin to pursue purity. And it's my first... Oh my gosh, I didn't know this. Yeah. This is my first time hearing it, guys. This is the first time I ever decided... It was my first time where I became aware I was so in love with Jesus. It was my first time ever feeling conviction. I remember being like...
I was so on fire for God that I was like, my body belongs to Jesus. I'm not giving it to anyone. And I really like genuine. I was so excited. I remember being like pursued by guys that I would have really liked before. And I was like, no, I belong to Jesus. Like for about a year, I was so on fire and completely like living in purity and everything. Yeah.
And then, as we all know, there is a honeymoon stage with Jesus, just like with everything else. When you first begin to encounter the love of God, I mean, it absolutely wrecks your life. That's why we all, like, run on the street trying to evangelize and tell everybody, like, we want to tell everybody about Jesus because we're so in love. We're so on fire. But naturally, like every relationship in our lives, the honeymoon stage does not last forever. Mm-hmm.
And it got to a point where I didn't know that the honeymoon stage doesn't last forever. I didn't know that you would have to begin to
you have to continually seek that love of God because the emotion, like originally you're just so like emotionally driven that it's like easy to be on fire for God. Whereas then you have to like actively receive God's love and actively spend enough time. And also I had no community in my life. I was walking with the chief. - She didn't have me. - I definitely didn't have Ari. I was completely walking alone in my faith, completely not even one Christian friend.
And then I remember I got to a point when you have no community and you are the holiest person you know and there's nobody holding you accountable. I don't have one person in my life who pursues purity. I don't have one person in my life who like nothing. Like there is no I don't have any barometer as to like what's OK and what's not. And the conviction that I was originally feeling, I began to be desensitized to it. Yeah, that's what happens. I think loneliness crept in a little bit. Yeah.
And I started dating and everything changed. I was still so on fire, still so in love, but I began to let sin back into my life because I had no community yet. And I backslid. And it was only like a year. And I still love Jesus completely. And I was still like in the Bible, in the word, evangelizing on fire. But like my conviction completely dimmed.
I became so desensitized. I let unbelief come in my heart. I didn't believe God when he said that you had to stay pure. And so I just, I let the enemy really, you know what it is too? When you're not mature in your faith, you make so many excuses. Like I just thought God loved me. I just, I think...
The revelation of how much Jesus loves you without the fear of the Lord results in so much arrogance. Oh, yeah. I think that's what happened with me where I was—I had no fear of God, but I knew that Jesus loved me. And it was like you— Not a good— It's okay. Exactly. Yeah.
And so, and throughout my sin, I was still able to like encounter Jesus. I was still encountering the Holy Spirit. I was still entering into God's glory and like his manifest presence. And so I was just... Yeah, you were like, I can feel him. So he's here. So what's the big deal? He was definitely there, but I was robbing myself of so much peace, so much joy. At the end of the day...
pleasing God is what matters above everything. You know what I mean? And so, yeah, that's my story of backsliding. And it really wasn't until I got community. It wasn't until I got Christian friends that I was like,
Oh, yeah. I'm going to parties where everybody is like drinking and blah, blah, blah. Like, of course, I feel holy and righteous and good. Like there is no I'm I'm the best there. You know what I mean? But it's not until I'm faced with some people who are living right that I'm like, oh, that the confrontation was like so, so rough for me. Yeah. You know? Yeah. But how what?
We sit on our legs, so, you know, I said for too long. Tell me about yours. Well, my story's pretty crazy. I...
My life flipped upside down so fast. God was like, I'm not playing with you. You're going to find me. I'm going to push you into this thing and you are going to change real fast. So you better get your act together. But I met Angela shortly after I found Jesus and
You know, I was discovering the Bible and we were reading about sin, but I, same as you, like I didn't know the implications of actually following it. I just said, oh yeah, don't do that. Okay. Oh, well. Totally. You know what I mean? Yeah. And so I just kept living the way I wanted to. And it wasn't until I really,
Got into an intimate, deep relationship. Started Girls Gone Bible. Saw the blessing that he had put in front of my face that I didn't actually really deserve or nor was I qualified for. It wasn't until he gave me Girls Gone Bible and I...
then was having these young girls be like, can you guys touch on sin? I know I talked about this a little bit in the purity episode, but then, and then I was like, oh, well, why does that doesn't feel good when somebody asked me that, but I still was like learning and trying to figure out what this feeling was. And am I doing the wrong thing? And I don't know. And then I, it was like one day I got hit in the face and same thing when we got some community and
I realized that having that one foot in, one foot out was making me so sick. I couldn't understand why I was saturated in prayer, in the Bible, in
I love Jesus with all my heart, but he's supposed to give me this peace, but why wasn't I feeling this peace? And then it just hit me. And I had the revelation of, I really don't need you and you need to obey these and you need to listen to what I'm... You can't just read this and not actually follow me. If I'm gonna give this to you, you actually need to follow me. So that's when I started to pursue purity, but I'm gonna be honest with you guys.
This has been really hard. You know, it is really difficult when you are trained, when your mind is trained a certain way your whole life. I had to learn all this stuff by myself. My mind was literally trained a certain way. And the root of sin is pride and ego. And those are two things that I had. Mm-hmm.
You know, here I am. I'm sitting here being like, I'm a grown woman.
Like, I, why do I have to, like, completely change my ways? Like, I, this is ridiculous. Like, I had so much pride and ego that I was like, this is crazy. Like, why, why? Like, I was, I'm a good girl. Like, why do I have to change? And it just felt worse and worse and worse. And I wrestled with God. And honestly, up until recently, I wrestled with God. Yeah.
You know, one of the things that can be so deceiving is you see people that are seem really happy and they're having fun and they're like living these really what we think is like
happy good lives and they're with their boyfriends and they're living with them and they're traveling with them and I had a moment of being like wow they seem really this seems good but they're not following the will of God so I so it became confusing to me a little bit do you ever feel like that have you ever felt like that yeah I mean yeah but I mean in that specific thing I'm like we have no idea what goes on behind you know what I mean but
I think – I don't know if you guys have ever felt like this, but this really – for me, like, this has happened to me a couple times where I have been deceived by looking at other people. Totally. And it's just like I don't – and so, like –
It's just like I think about when you see these celebrities or people with power and money and it looks so glamorous and they have everything as it looks on the outside. And then later down the road, you see that they're
actually have addictions. They're lost. They're broken. They're so depressed. They get chewed up and spit out because like the scripture says, the peace that I give you, not as the world gives, but as I give you. And that can be deceitful because it can look like there's a peace in the world. But actually the peace that with the power, the money, the glamour, that's actually death. And so
Yeah, I've backslided in that way, comparing myself and being like, you know, is this wrong? I think there's this verse, it's Jeremiah 2.19. It says,
Have no awe of me. In other words, have no fear of me. When you don't have the fear of God in your heart, it is so easy to backslide. I lacked so much fear and it made me so wishy-washy in my heart. I've said it so many times.
about how my life really changed when I was given Girls Gone Bible because it was everything that I've ever wanted but didn't even know that I wanted. Girls Gone Bible absolutely trumped every plan that I've ever had. Every plan I ever had for my own life paled in comparison to what God had for me.
And it instilled such a fear in my heart that now I get to walk this beautiful walk of being like, I am not going outside of what God asks me to because I love him and I fear him and I respect him. And so without a fear of God, it is easy to backslide.
And we've talked about it so much, but community is everything. Community is absolutely everything. If you don't have people around you who are a reflection, a mirror to give you a reflection of yourself, to see you clearly, to call you out, it's almost impossible. If you're the holiest person in the room, you're in the wrong room. That's something that
I learned. I don't want to be the smartest or the holiest or the one living the most right. I want to be with other people who are so on fire for God that their fire affects my heart and their fire literally transfers into my heart because that's what we need. We need fire. And
I think in my situations, idols, idols. When we think about idols, we can think about like new age and like all these things, but really it's anything that you put above God. For me in my situation, I think being on fire for God and being like having this revelation of like, oh my gosh, my body belongs to Jesus. This is amazing. And then
letting loneliness creep in and letting the desire for affection creep in. I put this thing above God and immediately, immediately my first love, which was Jesus, took a backseat and he was no longer my first love. And it says in Jonah 2, 8, that those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God's love for them. So me letting an idol creep
take place, take precedent before God, go above God, it made me turn away from God's love. And it all begins with God's love. He's my first love because of the revelation that I have of how much he loves me. And so me letting something go above him, I lose that love.
And of course I lose the fire. And of course I lose clarity. And, and then I become desensitized and just a little bit of sin goes a long way. And that's what I've learned. A little bit of sin makes you so desensitized. The conviction is not as loud. You start to doubt, you start to question, but it's not that bad. Can I do this? I mean, it really is so, so easy to backslide. It's
crazy and that's why it happens that's why people get saved all the time and then they go and then they dwindle that's why there's so there's so much and i will say it i say it all the time but it's a lack of discipleship people need somebody to walk hand in hand with otherwise it's impossible you can't stay on fire by yourself it's too hard
This episode is brought to you by NoCD. When you're struggling with your mental health, knowing that you're not alone can mean everything. And that's why Ari and I are so open about our own experiences with depression, anxiety, and OCD. And it's why we want to shed some light on a part of mental health that can be so hard to talk about, which is religious OCD, also known as scrupulosity OCD. People usually have a pretty good idea of what depression is or what anxiety is,
But OCD is still so misunderstood. And it's not just about hand washing and organization. It can focus on anything that you care about. And when OCD attacks your relationship with God, it can be truly devastating. Religious OCD often involves unwanted, stressful, and even blasphemous thoughts that go against your beliefs.
Thoughts like, "Did I pray correctly? I need to do it again until it's perfect." "Did I do something to offend God?" or "I have a hard time focusing in church so I feel like I've sinned." These thoughts can lead to intense guilt, shame, and compulsive behavior. But what you need to understand about religious OCD is that it's not a sign that you're a bad Christian.
It's a serious but treatable condition and with the right care you can take its power away. That's where NoCD comes in. With NoCD you can do live face-to-face video therapy sessions with a licensed therapist who deeply understands OCD as well as your faith and how important it is in your life. They'll help you work through these thoughts using Exposure and Response Prevention Therapy or ERP, the gold standard treatment for OCD.
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If you think you might be struggling with religious OCD and you want to learn more about therapy with no CD, go to nocd.com and schedule a free 15-minute call with their team. That's nocd.com to learn more and book a free 15-minute call. You guys know how important this topic is to me, so I just pray that you would reach out and get help if you need it. That's another thing why people backslide in the face. It's sin. Yeah. And we...
And honestly, I'm preaching this to you guys because I'm walking through it with you guys because my walk has not been a straight line. And I'm going to be really honest with you guys. It hasn't. It's been hard. I've fallen short. And it's been a journey for me. And that's why, like, I want to speak to you guys who are like, I can't. Am I...
How can he even look at me like I've fallen so many times? And I just want to tell you guys the mercy and love of God is he's bigger than your mistakes. You know, I have sinned and I have been like what sin has done to me. I'll never forget it.
I remember I fell short and I like really just felt so bad that I couldn't even get on my hands and knees and pray. I was, I felt so sick. I felt so shamed. And I love the scripture that says, if you kept a record of our sins, who could stand? I mean, it's true.
The Spirit of God cannot work through a hardened heart. When we are in sin, sometimes our hearts will harden so much that we will turn away from God because we don't think we can come to Him. But we fail to forget who our Jesus is. He is...
Oh, God, he's sitting there being like, hello, I'm right here. But the Spirit of God cannot work through a hardened heart and shame. The Spirit of God works through conviction. Conviction is the greatest power that we have to turn to him and be like,
Man, Jesus, I fell short with the godly sorrow to repent. I think about all the time, the woman in the Bible that came into the Pharisee's house and literally was washing Jesus's feet with her tears. And he looked at her and he said, my daughter, I love you. Your sins are forgiven. Don't sin no more. Go and face. She had the faith.
She had the strength to come into that house and wash his feet with her tears. Amen. You know, and so I just want you guys to not be in shame and not feel bad and not turn away from God when things like this happen. Turn to him. Run to him. If you're going to turn, you turn towards God and away from sin, not away from God and towards sin. I love what you speak to so much.
One of my favorite verses in a psalm ever is, you don't desire sacrifices in altars, otherwise I would bring them to you. All you desire is a broken and repented spirit. All he wants is us coming to him in the middle of our mess. And we're here to say to you guys today that you're gonna make mistakes today.
You are, we all are, me and Ari do. Your favorite pastors and your favorite leaders, they make mistakes too. They probably repent daily if they are smart, they're supposed to. Like we repent all the time, just turn towards Jesus.
And there are so many people who legitimately leave the faith completely because they're in a moment of failure and then they doubt their salvation. They doubt if they're even really saved. This happens to people all the time where they sit there and they're like, maybe I never really got saved.
Or we can speak to the fact that sometimes God will radically heal you of something like a mental health disorder or an addiction or something. And things will start to creep back in. And then you question completely if Jesus even was at work in your life. And the truth is he was. But there are things that will do everything in their power to rear their ugly head back
back in your life. Do not doubt the fact that you're actually saved because you are. You are saved by grace through faith. Your salvation is real. The work that God has done in your heart and in your life is real. Just because you're in a moment of failure, don't let it completely derail you. Get back
and go towards Jesus. It's okay. I'm not saying that your sin is okay, but I'm telling you, don't let the enemy sit here and talk to you crazy in your mind and make you think like, oh, I messed up once. I've got to throw it all away. If that was the case, I wouldn't be a Christian today. If that was the case, I wouldn't have Girls Gone by. I wouldn't be up here because I made mistakes and I'm going to continue making mistakes. But I know the grace, grace,
We hear the word grace so much that it begins to sound just like any other word. But grace is a supernatural power that stands in the gap between what we do in the natural and what only God can do in the supernatural. That's grace. So his grace is what is sufficient for us. And his grace is sufficient for you to never fall. But he promises in his word that there is the potential for it.
So what I want to preach to you guys today is to have proactive, offensive, and sacrificial faith. I think one of the best ways to combat backsliding is to sacrifice. Because when you sacrifice, it costs you something. Mm-hmm.
It costs you something. For me, the reason I fast and pray and spend hours the way that I do is because it costs me something. It means something. So there is no passivity in my faith. I'm always on the offense. I'm always proactive as opposed to being reactive. Because if I just wait to pray,
and ask for prayer and have quiet time and go to church. And that's another thing. If you are a recreational churchgoer instead of actually somebody who is involved, heavily involved in the church, of course you're going to backslide, you guys. It's a serious walk and you know the powers that be that want to do anything in their power to derail you and take your faith away from you. You know what it is and you know it's serious. And so you have to take it seriously. Mm.
That's so good. You said something about how you can feel like you have been delivered and then all of a sudden that comes back. And that is another thing that has really made me feel like I want to backslide in my faith. I preach to you guys all the time that I was delivered from my mental health. And this actually happened to me recently where
My obsessive compulsive thinking came back a little bit and I was not feeling well. And then I started to get the thoughts, he never delivered you. Look, you haven't changed. You're just the same. And then the thoughts came, then those thoughts came of,
Wait, is he real? Wow. Am I doing this all for nothing? Like that is why, and I was talking to Angela about this, being mentally strong. When you, even when you don't feel good and you don't feel like it, we still have to chase after God's heart. And how do we chase after God's heart? Through his word. If you want to seek God's face, it's through the word of God. I am...
I have fallen in love, I feel like, with Jesus all over again. It is absolutely wrecking me every single morning. I have a girlfriend. Her name is Madison. And she has been the light of my life. I would hear Angela say to me all the time how you don't understand what it was like being able to disciple you and just spoon feed you the Bible.
And so now I have the pleasure of being able to do that with a friend. And it is, you have no idea. I wake up at 7.30. My girlfriend is so excited. She is on fire for Jesus. She is so eager to learn. And so every morning she texts me at 7.30. I'm waiting by the Bible at 8. There is nothing like someone who's hungry for Jesus and wants it. Yeah.
Because I have a lot of friends that want to read the Bible, but then they don't keep up with it. And she is persistent. And so I get up at eight and I am back in John, Luke and Mark. We're in Matthew. We're in Matthew right now. And I have read these books three or four times. And so I'm going back and reading them and teaching her.
And I'm learning. It's like I'm reading it for the first time again, and I'm falling in love with him all over again. And so it's like I feel like I'm new in my faith again. It is insane. And so if you feel like you're just kind of stale in the faith and you're backsliding a little bit, find a partner, find someone.
Disciple someone. Get someone to read with. Get hungry again. Our dependency comes from hunger. We need to all get hungry, even when it's hard. That's like the number one thing. Get hungry for him because the way he will speak to you through these scriptures, it's
It's impossible not to fall in love with him. It's impossible to backslide when you're so engulfed in these scriptures and you're reading him and you're spending the intimate time with him every single morning and not just like sitting there praying, actually sitting there in the quiet time and just soaking in his presence. One thing I've been doing every morning is...
I don't do, I, it's, oh, my mornings are my favorite thing in the world because I did go through a minute where I was like, I'm tired. I don't feel good. And I'm just like, I have no joy. I have just been sitting with him or those early mornings and just soaking in his presence and that worship and the way he
He loves me. And the way he loves you guys is something when you experience that love of him, just by sitting with him in his presence, you can't help. You won't want to go back there. Trust me. You want to be so faithful to him because the love he will give you in your weakness. That's why he says, my strength is made perfect in your weakness.
He doesn't expect us to be strong. He actually doesn't expect us to do right all the time. Actually, we're ignorant to even think that we are going to be perfect all the time. And so...
ignorance is saying, oh, I will never fall short. I will never not be faithful to you, Jesus. That's ignorance. No, strength is saying, I am weak right now. Lord, I need your help. I don't feel good. I feel like I'm going backwards. Can you give me the strength to have the faith and intimacy with you? Can you speak to me in these scriptures when I read your word? Can you help me? Can you fight for me? Can you intercede for me?
Yeah. And trust me, He will come through with you because He is a God of mercy. He's faithful and He loves you. I love that so much. I love what you say about everything that we do stems from love. Every single thing, the only way to be fervent and strong in your faith is
It comes down to love. We read it last week in 1 Corinthians 14, that you can have everything in the world, but if you don't have love, you have nothing. Even if you have faith, you have hope, but you don't have love. Love is the greatest of all of these. That's right.
And there's always an old us and a new us. And I love this story of Peter in Matthew chapter 26. We all know the story of when Peter is going to deny Jesus three times. And Peter, it says in verse 33, Peter declared, even if everyone else deserts you, I will never desert you.
Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, Peter. This very night before the rooster crows, you will deny three times that you even know me." "No," Peter insisted, "even if I have to die with you, I will never deny you." And all the other disciples vowed the same.
And I just think that this is so interesting that Peter was so overconfident in his love for Jesus and his ability to be faithful.
And you can see that the issue here is that he was focusing more on his love for Jesus than Jesus's love for him. We cannot love Jesus correctly in our own strength. And that's what I've learned every single day. You guys, life is hard. The suffering is great. There are more, more,
moments that I can't even lift my arms to worship because I'm so weak. And I yell out and I say, Jesus, would you show me how to love you right? Would you show me how to worship you correctly? Because if I do it in my own strength, I will never love you correctly. So the more that we focus on how much Jesus loves us rather than being so self-centered and we don't do it on purpose, but we are so accomplishment and, um,
achievement based that we focus more on what we've done for Jesus and what we're doing for Jesus than simply how much he loves us. And I think about the difference between John, the beloved and Peter. Peter is constantly talking about Jesus. I love you. He's like so crazy and reckless and unstable. He's like, Jesus, I love you. I will do anything for you. I will die for the gospel. I'll die. I'll even go to prison for you. I will die before I ever deny you.
And John the Beloved is constantly throughout the gospel just being like, "I am the disciple whom God loves. I am John the Beloved. I am Jesus's beloved. He loves me. He's so engulfed in how much Jesus loves him."
And just to go back to Peter, I think this is so unbelievably interesting how in Luke chapter 22, verse 31 to 32, it's another version of this story about when Jesus is telling him, you're going to deny me. And Jesus says, Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat, but I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers. He's foreshadowing the fact
that Peter will deny him three times. But what I think is so interesting is that he doesn't call him Peter. He calls him Simon. He calls him his old name. And as we know, his name used to be Simon. Jesus gave him his new name, Peter, which means rock. And I will build my church upon this rock.
And he calls him Simon. And I just think that that is so sad. And just like Jacob went back to the old Jacob instead of staying strong in the new Jacob, like we have to constantly work at being our new selves, the new Angela. Old Angela, I could go back to her right now if I wanted to. I could literally start doing everything that I used to do. I could be involved. I could have the same attitude, the same behavior if I am not strong.
so unbelievably fervent in following Jesus and being the new person that he created me to be. He made me new. He died on the cross so that I could become this person. So I could have that grace to fill in the gap. And I just want us to all steer away from being like Peter in the sense that he always, he was a little arrogant with it. He was arrogant.
There's so much ego in it. Whereas John the Beloved, I want to be like John the Beloved. I want to sit and bask in the fact that I know Jesus loves me. And that's what keeps the fire in my heart. Because if I come to him just in my own strength and my own achievements, and that's something that I personally have to work against. I love Jesus so much. I, that I
I can constantly be like, "Jesus, what do you need from me?" He constantly has to break performance off of me because if it was up to me, I would read 85 chapters of the Bible a day. And he constantly has to be like, "Would you just let me love you?" Every single day. And so let's all focus on being more like John the Beloved and just receiving the fact that God loves us so much.
I love that. And on the way there, I was sitting there being like, I don't know who I am. My identity is so rocked because there's this thing that happens, you guys, where we receive our identity in Jesus and it's so strong, but we can't negate the fact that we also grieve our old identity. We're also, while we're giving our new identity, our other one is also we have to let it go.
And so there's some sort of wrestle there where I'm like, I'm wondering why my identity is so rocked. I lived my whole life being a certain way. And Jesus completely flipped my life upside down. And it's so beautiful and like beautiful.
It's only, it's supernatural. Only God can do the things that he's done in us, in our hearts that he has. But like, I'm sitting there, I'm looking at the way we used to talk and I'm like, of course we struggle with identity sometimes. We're completely different people. What I've learned more than anything, we walk with a limp because for me personally, I am forever walking in tension.
I'm forever walking in this wrestle with God of what was and what is now. I'm walking in this tension of who I once was and who I am now. And it's, I'll always be limping. And that's why it'll always be this awkward walk. And if you fall and if you go back and if you resort and if the thoughts come back and the mental health issues come back and the lust comes back and the addiction comes back and the
whatever it is, just understand that we all go through it. Me, her, you, and everybody else in the room right now. There's always something that's pulling you back. But again, that's why we say, let's move forward. Of course, you're going to backslide if you're not going forward. If you're running towards Jesus, there's no way you can go backwards. You know what to do. I have so much faith in you guys that you know exactly what to do. And if you're in a situation right now, I just want to tell you,
Repentance is the most beautiful gift that we have. The fact that God gives us the ability to repent, and if you don't know what repent means, it means to make a 180, to turn away. Ari said it earlier, don't turn away from God, turn away from sin and towards God. Repentance, if you're in a situation where you've been backsliding, you've been resorting,
All you have to do is repentance. Repentance closes that gap. If you feel like you've walked away from Jesus, look at repentance as something that just brings you right back to Him. That's what I look at repentance as. Of course I stray. We all stray away. It's so normal. But just repent and come back to Him.
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You know what the best thing you can do is? Be proud of yourself. Yeah. Enough with the beating. We have to stop beating ourselves up. When we stop, like...
Like being paralyzed in the shame and we start lifting ourselves up like Jesus lifts us up and be like, no, no, no. I'm proud of myself. Look how far I've come from that person that I was. I'm not going to stay in victim mode. I'm going to be victorious because I have come a long way.
the way we speak about ourselves is everything, you guys. Some of us didn't grow up learning how to love ourselves, learning how to speak to ourselves in a kind and loving way. So let's
all learn how to speak to ourselves in a loving way. Let's start seeing ourselves the way Jesus does, loving and kind, because when we start loving ourselves, we do better. When we don't think we're good enough and we're just, you know, downing ourselves all the time, we stay stuck in the sin because we stay stuck in that death. But when we are actually saying, no, I'm proud of myself, we don't ever want to go back there. Some of us didn't
grow up knowing how to love ourselves, right? So we have to learn to be mentally strong, to mentally be there for ourselves.
Isn't it funny how everybody says all these good things to us and the way Jesus loves us, yet we don't know how to love ourselves? I have been loving Psalms lately. They have literally been healing my mind. I'm not kidding you. I am obsessed with David. I literally can't get enough of David. I want you guys to literally go back to Psalms. I want you to speak Psalms out loud. There is not a Psalm that you haven't been through that you're not going through.
We have to understand that these thoughts of negativity, of self-hate, of saying, oh, you're not, your sin is too big. You're dirty. You're not clean. You just, you're never going to change. Jesus doesn't love you. You're not worth it. That's why we, all of a sudden, we walk into our house and we start thinking that, well, all of a sudden, I'm depressed. All of a sudden, I start having these thoughts of, I don't want to do this anymore. Why is that? Because...
We are letting deception get in our mind. We have to be stronger than those negative thoughts. We have to understand that negative thoughts, they don't belong to you. They don't belong to you. They didn't originate from you. So when those thoughts come in, I literally want you guys to rebuke those thoughts because they do not belong to you. We have victory over our thoughts. We are not going to let these thoughts overpower us anymore. I will not allow it from you guys.
My biggest goal for all of us is to have victory over negative thinking. It is what keeps us back in life. It is what keeps us in bondage of depression and shame and sin. And we don't have to live that way because Jesus is bigger than that. You think Jesus is intimidated by the enemy? No, he literally...
enters him into heaven. So he says, what's up, saying? What's going on? He has no power. And when we realize that the devil has no power and those thoughts come in, we know what it is, we can literally start laughing at them and be like, get out. Amen. And then they flee. Amen. I love that so much. Preach. The way to battle those thoughts is literally intimacy with God.
I have to spend extra time in my quiet time, in my, in my quiet place. I have to, I know in the mornings I have to spend extra time because I battle thought. So I have to really pray. I really have to ask God to protect my thought life. That's, I say it every single morning, protect my thought life. I plead the blood of Jesus over my mind, body, and soul, protect
my thought life. So if you're someone who struggles with self-worth and the bad thoughts, make that a priority, not just in the mornings, throughout the day. You pray that all throughout the day. Protect my thought life, Jesus, that those thoughts come in and protect me. That is our weapon. He is our weapon.
Prayer is our weapon. I think when you start to notice that your prayer life is beginning to dwindle, you can bet that you might be backsliding. If your intimacy with Jesus is starting to lessen and diminish, you can probably bet that you're backsliding. And I know for me, like when I've noticed, there are some times where like, because you could go a second, you could go a couple of days without really realizing. And then all of a sudden you're like,
Why don't I feel good? Why don't I have control? Why can't I take these thoughts captive? What's going on? And then it's like, oh, because I've been neglecting my intimate time with Jesus. Of course, this is happening to me. I really quick want to read from Revelation chapter two. It's called the message to the church in Ephesus. So basically,
The writer is writing to the Church of Ephesus, and this is all about the first love. This, when I first read this, I literally bawled my eyes out and broke down in tears because I realized that the reason why I'm able to be so on fire for God is because I've never lost my first love.
And this specific passage spoke to me so much because it kind of talks about how you can do all these things. You can be so committed. You can have discipline. You can do the duty. You can have correct doctrine. But if you don't have your first love, it ultimately means nothing. Right.
And so it says, write this letter to the angel of the church in Ephesus. This is the message from the one who holds the seven stars in his right hand, the one who walks among the seven gold lampstands.
So basically he's telling them first all the right things that they're doing. You have discovered they are liars. You have patiently suffered for me without quitting.
Do you understand? Like looking from the outside in, these people are doing everything right. You would think that they would get to heaven and God would be like, here you are. You loved me so much. You did everything right. But then it says, but I have this complaint against you. You don't love me or each other as you did at first. In another translation, it says you've lost your first love.
Look how far you've fallen. Turn back to me and do the works you did at first. If you don't repent, I will come and remove your lampstand from its place among the churches. Like I said, their duty, their discipline, and their doctrine were all right.
But it wasn't coming from a place of love. We cannot lose our first love. When you see pastors fall and leaders mess up and all these bad things happen, you can bet that they lost their first love. And what's the scariest thing is that you could be in dead religion and be doing everything right, but what does it matter? Jesus cares so much more about us loving Him
than what it looks like to the outside, than what we can accomplish for Him. I've heard it said that you can do so much for the kingdom, but what is it for when you don't know the King? He is all that matters. Losing your first love means that your heart is no longer captivated by Jesus.
It's all that matters. He wants us to be captivated by Him. He wants us to be so, so enamored by Him. And the way that we do that, it says in Scripture that we love because He first loved us. Like we said earlier, you can't do it in your own strength.
So receive the love of the father, receive the furious love of Jesus that will change your entire life. That will give you a limp because you will never be the same after receiving it. But you don't do that by achieving. You do that by surrendering. You have to surrender. Don't try to do all this stuff.
I am guilty of it. I can be so because maybe I didn't receive love properly. Maybe I thought it was all about what I could do. Maybe I always had to prove myself. Maybe I never felt like I was good enough. And so I just work, work, work. As long as I get it right, as long as I do enough, as long as everybody's happy, then I'll be loved. But God doesn't work like that. It's a gift. His love is not like our love.
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into a loving relationship that's not based on the person you're supposed to be, but based on the person of who He is. He loves you so much, and I don't know what you're going through. I don't know where you're at in your faith. I don't know how shaky it is. I don't know how much
and doubt and wrestle. I don't care if you're wrestling day in and day out with God, being like, but I doubt you. I don't really believe you. I don't really know. Guess what? He still loves you and he's still inviting you and he's still extending his behest
beautiful hand to you asking you, please, son or daughter, would you just join me? Would you just let me in enough so that I could break down your wall so that my love, my love that will literally penetrate every doubt, every unbelief, every issue, every addiction, every sin, just let my love in. Don't do anything. I'm not asking you for anything. All you have to do is receive. He's inviting you to receive that gift today.
today his love and his salvation and ari and i are gonna ask you guys if you've never received jesus before we're gonna ask you guys to pray with us because the love of god will change your life and it's so worth it and being in relationship with the creator of the universe the one true living god there is no other
I don't care what anybody says. Any other God is vapid. It's empty. It's dead and it's not real. There's only one. His name is Jesus and he's alive. He's alive. His love is alive and it transforms. It heals. It sets free. I'm going to ask you guys to pray this with us. Heavenly Father, I believe the scripture that says that Jesus Christ is your eternal son.
I believe he went to the cross and died for my sins. I confess to you that I'm a sinner. I need your forgiveness. I'm asking you to save me. I'm trusting you to do it right now. I accept the forgiveness of my sins. I accept your gift of salvation. I accept you as my personal Savior. Fill me with your Holy Spirit and be the Lord of my life. In Jesus' name.
If you guys just said that prayer with us for the first time, welcome to the family. And I'm just going to pray over you right now that God, the one true living God, would wrap his arms around you right now. That the love of God would absolutely penetrate the deepest parts of your heart, that your innermost being, the parts of your soul that need healing, that need help.
that he would love on you, that he would encounter you, that he would send an army of angels to encamp around you, to minister to you, to convict you, and above all, to love you because love is the greatest of all these things. May the Lord Jesus bless you and love you. I pray that you would experience God's love for real, that it would wreck you where you are right now.
And anything that stands between you and God's love, we rebuke it right now in Jesus' mighty name. We tear down any misconception, any false ideas that you have of who God might be. We tear them down right now and we let God's love in.
Beautiful, Ang. The prayer warrior. Oh, you. Oh, you. Oh, you. We love you guys so much. We just, we hope you can leave today just not feeling shame. Yeah. Knowing. I think the greatest, one of the most comforting things for me and you is when you don't feel alone. Yeah. And your past and what you've done and just all your mistakes.
And I just hope that it comforts you guys to know that you really do have two sisters that have made so many mistakes.
And Jesus really, I mean, I wish you could have seen us before this. And he really was looking at us being like, I don't see you as you are right now, but the women that you are going to be. And for all my brothers and sisters that are listening to this right now, Jesus is saying the same thing to you right now. You may not be the person that you are.
You're not quite there yet and that's okay because you have no idea. He sees you, who you're going to be. And we are so proud of you, the fact that you listened to us. - So proud. You should be so proud of yourself. You're growing and we're all growing together. And I love you and Angela loves you.
And I just hope you leave here today not feeling any bit of shame. Please. And stop backsliding. Get back in the Word. Pick your chin up, straighten your shoulders, put your chest out, and you pick your head up and you keep walking forward as the son or daughter of Jesus Christ that you are. We're going to leave you with this, Jeremiah 322. God says, return, faithless people. I will cure you of backsliding.
And then they say, yes, we will come to you for you are the Lord, our God. That's right. We love you guys so much. And we're so proud of you. We love you. And we're on this walk together.
We love you so much. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May he make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. May he turn his face towards you and give you peace and love and conviction. And conviction. We love you so much. We love you.
