pod 11 - pt 2- pt1

The speaker discusses the importance of the Bible as more than just a book and emphasizes the need to view it as a means of building a relationship with God. They also discuss the accessibility of the Bible today and the tendency to take it for granted. The conversation then shifts to the significance of prayer and the challenge of staying focused and listening to God during prayer. The speaker highlights the importance of having a genuine and two-way conversation with God, rather than treating prayer as a mere religious exercise. They stress the need for honesty, trust, and devotion in developing a relationship with God. The speaker concludes by reflecting on Jesus' interactions with people and the importance of engaging in conversation and asking questions in order to build relationships. They urge listeners to pursue a genuine relationship with God and to understand the depth of His love for them. Yeah, it's so good. I think it's crazy how, like, the Bible, like, so many people underestimate the Bible, like, oh yeah, it's just a book, but it is honestly, like, so much more than that. And I saw something recently that changed my whole perspective on it is, for a while I've always seen it as like a tutorial book for your life, but I saw something recently where it's like, with Jesus, it's a relationship, and it shouldn't be, the Bible shouldn't be a tutorial for your life, it should be, like, your messages between God, like, that building of your relationship, really, it should be such a deeper connection than just a book you read to make your life better. It should be, like, something that you connect to with God to actually build that relationship, and to show love to Him as well. It is crazy how, just by reading your Bible, and I've seen it in my own life, just by reading my Bible, it actually helps me, like, if I do it first thing in the morning, that changes my whole day. And if I do it just before I go to bed, like, it just, it's a good way to start on your end of day, and even just make day better any time. Yeah, it's so good. Yeah, like, when you're reading, I think it's important to read it, especially, like, with Paul's verse, a lot of the time I read it as if it's speaking to me, because I feel like, then, if we're just reading it and thinking, oh no, I don't do any of this stuff, it's fine, but it actually applies to us, and how we should live. Yeah, that's so good. Yeah, that's really good. I think it's like, the Bible today is so accessible. We can get it on our phones, and it's available in so many different languages. We forget that, in the New Testament, when they were reading the Bible, they had to gather together and read it from a scroll on a Sunday, in a temple. It wasn't like, hey, they took it, it was portable with them, and they were walking around with it. And we have it so accessible, so easy to read it whenever we want, and yet we can take it so much for granted. I'm like, we should really, like, we should memorise and know the Bible better today than they even were in the New Testament, but unfortunately, I think sometimes we just take it for granted. Yeah, go to church and they've got the papyrus scroll, and just opening it up, and, oh, what verse is it today? The original Dead Sea Scroll. You should have preached from it on Friday. It would have been great. Too good. Actually, I was going to say something, and I just forgot exactly what I was going to say. The question. Something with the Bible. That happens to me all the time, Seb, so don't worry. Have faith, it'll come back. No, you say something. Yeah, no, I think one thing I was wondering is, with faith, do you feel like, like, obviously the Bible is super important, but do you feel like having a healthy prayer life with God is also incredibly vital with faith? Because if you go back to, like, Sunday school, everyone's like, yeah, read your Bible, pray, go to church on Sunday, and that's how, like, you have a really good life with Jesus. But I feel like it's the most easiest thing to say, but it's the hardest thing to actually apply to our lives, is even to just get to church on a Sunday, or even to just pray to God first thing in the morning, it's crazy that we actually struggle with that. But what do you think about faith and actually having a healthy prayer life, and how that can help us? Yeah, 100%. I think that praying can be one of the hardest things to do, because as you go to pray, I don't know whether you've experienced this, it can be so easy to be distracted. Oh, yeah. So you go to pray, and then a thought comes in your mind, you get distracted, you think about something else. I find the same thing with the Bible, to be honest. Sometimes you can read the Bible, and then you can be easily distracted, and I wonder whether we get distracted, and why they are so hard, is because they can be the most beneficial thing. Yeah. I think particularly with prayer, it's one of those things that we can be short, sharp, we can be doing all of our requests to God, and putting our list to God of the things that we need. I think one of the underrated elements of prayer is also listening to God, and just taking some time to say, God, what are you speaking to me about? And it's simple. Yeah. I think when we forget that, we can make prayer almost like a religious exercise, instead of remembering it's a relationship, God's speaking to us, as we're speaking to Him as well. And sometimes we're like, here's my list of 20 things I've got to put this 30 out, and we're going through all these things that we want God to do, and then we're like, all right, I'm done, amen. Yeah. God's probably at times going like, there's so much I want to say to you, could you just zip this for a moment, and just listen to what I'm trying to say to you? I think it's remembering that it's like a two-way conversation, where we can pour out our hearts to God, and just be real and be honest, and just talk to Him like we talk to a best friend, and then remember that He wants to speak to us as well. I think it's really important, prayer, because we go through things we don't understand, God's big enough for us to share that with Him, and share our heart and be honest with Him. I'm encouraged by that, when I look at the Psalms, I'm like, they are just full of stories of people that are going through the highs and lows of life, pouring out their failures and their disappointments to God, but then at the same time, putting their trust in God. All of those things are happening at once in the Psalms, I think it's encouraging that that's what prayer's like, just being real before God, not trying to fake it. That's so good. I mean, He can already see our hearts, so there's nothing you could already be hiding from God, so you might as well just tell Him what's on your heart. Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah, I think it's, yeah, I understand. Imagine going out for dinner with God, and all you do is just say, oh, I need this, I need this, I need this, I need this. Was that that meme? Yeah, sorry, yeah. I need all this stuff, and peace, I'm leaving. Imagine going out to someone with that, and all they do is ask things from you, and then just leave you. And then you're just like, oh, well. Yeah, it's true. Like, when you pray, you pray like, oh God, give me guidance, and then you just, after the prayer, just go on your phone, and not even listen to what God has to tell you. Yeah, I think it's so hard. Like, it's different to, first thing, it's hard to prayer, but then to actually pray and let alone listen to God, like you said, it's a two-way conversation. Like, when you're speaking to your friend, you don't just talk and ask all these questions and tell them to do all this stuff, and then just leave and not let them say anything. Like, it's a conversation, it's actually talking to God. It's actually having that friendship and relationship, and we've spoken about this so many times on the podcast, that you can't become friends with a person you don't speak to, you can't become best friends with a person you don't know, and you can't love someone that you don't even have a relationship with. To actually have that relationship with God, it's like any relationship in our lives, you have to have the devotion, you have to be speaking to them, you actually have to give them the time, the commitment, the trust. And honestly, something that convicted me a lot is, if you have more love for your partner or a person you're in a relationship with more than God, then you've got it all wrong. The way that we have a relationship with God should reflect even less on our next relationship we have in life, because God is so much greater than that. We're talking to the Creator of us in the universe as well, but it's so different how we feel like, oh yeah, I want a relationship, but we're already in one. We're already in a relationship with God, and that's the one that we should be working for, so we can be ready for the one that He will provide to us. I struggle with that so much, but it's so good to actually give God the space to actually speak to God and have that relationship with Him. I love Jesus' interactions with people in the New Testament. So many times when He's interacting with people, He's actually engaging them and asking them questions. It's like, you are the Saviour of the world. You are Jesus. Why are you asking questions? We should all be asking you questions, but to me, that is showing Jesus' desire to engage with us. He's asking questions. He wants conversation. He wants you to speak your heart. He wants to do that. That's how Jesus conveyed and spoke to people and had messages with people and built relationships with people. He asked questions and He was in that conversation. When I think about it, I think, man, if it's Jesus, He could just literally have just walked around everywhere just saying, I don't need to ask questions because I know all the answers. I'm just going to tell you this, tell you that, tell you this, tell you that, but He actually took the time to say, hey, I'm going to ask you a question. I want to know you. I want to see what's going on in your heart. I reckon that speaks a lot to how God wants to have a relationship with us. Yeah. I'd hate to think that our prayer time is not like that, where we're just like, dang, I'm going to tell you all these things about God, then I'm out. Yeah. I think it's just so hard. It's so good when we have that relationship. Yeah. I think if we, like a lot of people who call themselves Christian but then don't pursue a relationship with God, I think if we truly understood even a droplet of the love that Jesus has for us and God has for us, through dying on the cross, a sinless death, dying on the cross for us, even though we don't deserve it, I think even if we understood a droplet of that, we'd want to desire a relationship with Him so much greater. Yeah. That's true. That's such a good way to put it, Seb. Yeah. With faith and the Bible and everything, we've spoken about it before, the Bible is the greatest love story of all, and the greatest commandment, we're speaking about it on Sunday, is love Him and love everyone. Love everyone as your neighbor, love your enemies, and I think love is also a really incredible part of faith. When you're in a relationship with your partner, you have faith in them that they're not going to betray you or do something behind your back. There's that trust and the commitment. You have faith that they're going to be by your side and going to help you out and that you can actually trust in that, have confidence in that, have hope in that, and not only have hope, but have full faith in that, and that love, we can see that in God, and it's faith that we know isn't going to let us down. We know it's not going to mess up because it's from God, and I think it's just such a reminder that faith is such an important part of love in day-to-day lives, but also in a really important part of our relationship with God. Yeah. Yeah, it's really good. Yep. Yeah. So if you have been persecuted, how have you been or remained strong in your faith when facing that persecution? Yeah, that's a great question. I think we are blessed in this country that we forget. We have our moments of maybe persecution as Christians, but our lives aren't at risk. We can go freely to church on a Sunday. I think it's also good to put in perspective that we are so blessed with the freedom that we have, and there are Christians and Christian brothers and sisters around the world that can't meet together, that can't profess their faith, that would literally die for their faith. I mean, that's next-level persecution, right? But in our own ways, yeah, we have elements of persecution here in Australia where friends can laugh at us, friends can mock us about our faith. We see the church all the time. They can get ridiculed around the world or in the Western world, and for the way that we do church, and there's lots of things that people pick at. Really, what they're really picking at is Jesus. At the end of the day, they're not picking at us. We might get hit along the way, but they're actually persecuting Jesus. So for us, it's like, for me, I'm like, I think, well, when that happens, it's like, what's the joy to be persecuted and to be linked with Jesus, even in the midst of it? It doesn't always feel nice, and it isn't always something that we want to go through, but I think actually persecution, in some ways, is good for us because it reminds us that it doesn't have to be a popular message for it to be the right message. Just because people are going to ridicule us or say things about us, that actually doesn't mean that my faith's any weaker. It actually reminds me that what I stand for is strong, no matter what another person's opinion of it is. My foundation is Jesus, and I'm proud to be linked with him, and I think that that's part of being a Christian, that there will be moments to do that. I think what we have to do is be careful that we don't shrink back as Christians, but we still stay courageous and still keep sharing our faith and not be afraid of that. I think the longer that we are a Christian, it can be easier to become comfortable in our faith and not step out and do that. I'm inspired by both of you. We're going on a missions trip in Bali at the end of the year. Seb, you've got next year some big plans for missions, and that puts you in an uncomfortable environment to share your faith and to do that. I think that's inspiring because that's not the easy option. The easy option would be to, like, I'm just going to go and live my quiet faith and not share it. But you both, through this podcast, through the way that you live, through just being so open about your faith, you put yourselves in positions where people ask questions, or people could mock you, or people could speak up against you, and I think that all takes faith. That's all part of just putting yourself out there and being courageous. I think, as I said before, it's easy, the longer we go in our faith, just to get comfortable and to sit back. But I always want to be a person that is trying to endeavour to live by faith and be courageous in those things, even if there is persecution that's going to be there. Yeah. I think with, like, uncomfortability, there's a piece in the faith of uncomfortability. I feel like to be uncomfortable, you're not called to be comfortable, but there's a piece when you are uncomfortable because you know it's in God's hands. You know, there's that whole thing of live by faith and not by sight. If I couldn't see anything, I would be pretty uncomfortable, like, oh, where am I? Where am I going? Like, in life, like, oh, what do I do next? Like, I want to see the way, I want to do the next step, I want to know what to do next. But if you have that piece, I feel like there's a piece in not knowing what's next, because if you know the way that everything came in your life, you're not going to step out into the next day. You probably won't even want to leave your house the rest of the day, like, if you know how you would die and how the next day is going to be or the trials you go through. There will be many situations where we will really struggle and we won't want to step into that because, oh, it's hard, it's a struggle. But you can have a piece in not knowing and you can have a piece through your faith in the uncomfortability to know that there's going to be things that come, but God is going to come, but God is there, God is working, God is greater. And if we live by faith and not by sight, even if there's those situations where, like, I don't know what to, because for me, I want to know all the answers, I want to know the exact way to figure it out. And it can be a real struggle to not know, because that's uncomfortable for me. But if we have that piece in the uncomfortable to know that, yeah, I'm not going to know the way to do it in this situation, but God does, and God's with me, God is there for me, God is always helping me. That's the most greatest thing. That's the coolest thing. And it's just so cool. Yeah. I think a lot of the time it's the what if that's actually greater than the uncomfortability or the persecution itself. Definitely. The what if this person says this thing, what if I'm uncomfortable in this situation? And then you actually go and do it and it's not nearly as bad as you thought it would be. Yeah. And the worrying and anxiety that leads up to it is actually far, far worse than the result of what actually happens. Yeah, true. Yeah. I remember in high school we did this thing called Exo Day, and I did it in my local high school, and it was a Youth Alive initiative, and the whole idea behind the day was to share that life is excellent with Jesus. And I was maybe in year eight or nine at school at the time, and I went to try and do this day at our school. We got a pro skater to come in, we had music, we had giveaways, we had all this stuff. It was just over a lunchtime, and there was like a celebration to say life's excellent with Jesus. And so I had to get up at assembly to tell my school about the day and what was organized, and then share that message at the end that this whole day is to just let you know that life is excellent with Jesus. And I remember doing that, and I said that, and then literally like all of the people at my school just like laughed at me at assembly. And I was like, oh man, up until that point I never really thought like this wasn't popular or this wasn't cool. And I was like, I felt like after that moment I was like, oh, I felt like so like deflated that everyone was like laughing at me, and then people were saying to me stuff at lunchtime and all that kind of stuff after that moment. And I was like, oh, that's so weird, and I felt like really deflated. Anyway, we did that event, and then that Friday night after we did the event at school, we did a big Friday night rally, and a whole bunch of people from my school came to our youth group on that night and got saved. And I thought to myself, you know what? People laughed at me at assembly. As crushing as that was as a year eight or nine student, as deflating as that was, that was worth it. Because on the other side of that, people gave their life to Jesus, people come and got connected to another local church and youth group, and I'm like, man, I would do that every day of the week. At the time I felt completely crushed, but I'm like, persecution often leads to other people getting saved. It leads to opportunities. It leads to miracles. It leads to God's power coming into situations that we can't manufacture on our own. I think, man, look in the Bible, look at when the disciples were persecuted, it was often the time that the church grew. Yeah, definitely. I think, you know, we don't want it, but God always uses it, you know, to continue to build His church. For sure, yeah. I mean, look at the disciples. Half of them got murdered, beheaded, and so many awful ways of dying. But I bet you if you asked them, would you do it again, they would say yes, because what they stood for and they believed in, the thing that back then they were absolutely torn apart for, like literally, but now it's saved billions of people. Like the words that they've written are in the most famous book of all time. Their names are in history, and most of their names are like the most used names in history now as well, because of the mark they've left on the world. It's crazy how, and they wouldn't have even seen it then. They would have just been these weird guys that believe in this Jesus, and they would have been absolutely set apart from society and really looked down upon. But they had faith and knew that God is working, and I might not be able to see it now, but it's going to be worth it in the end. And look how many people, like not only disciples, but every single person in the Bible has left a mark on history. It's crazy how without that, who knows where we'd be. It's so cool. That's the biggest part of their testimony of faith, I reckon, is the fact that many of them died for their faith. Like, if it was a conspiracy that they came up with, we're going to create this story about Jesus, and we're going to come up with all these miracles that happen, and we're going to do this, and make this whole thing up, then at the point of when you were going to die for it, you'd be like, oh, I'm tapping out. I'm going to make the whole thing up. But the reason that it's so powerful is because they actually were willing to die for what they said and spoke about and believed in, and to me that's one of the biggest parts of their story as an evidence of why Jesus is real, and one of the things we can look at that they weren't just corroborating a conspiracy, they were all willing to die for it because they believed in Jesus, and in their hearts they knew it was true. That's so cool. Nice.