Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:05] Pastor Chuck Allen here. And yesterday we talked about what's in your heart. Today, let's talking about shaping that heart, shaping it with one word. Focus now on the weekday podcast. One of the things that Bobby and I attempt to do is give you a tangible, practical piece of scripture and then some. Some takeaway as to how you can walk it out in your everyday life.
[00:00:32] So today I want us to walk through Romans 12:2. Listen to what the text says. Let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.
[00:00:44] Now, that's not surface level change. It's heart transformation.
[00:00:49] Sometimes you and I, we. We try so hard to fix our hearts with a hundred different resolutions or commitments. But what if God's asking for just one change? Maybe even just one word, One word that becomes an anchor for your soul. Something that's almost like building an altar. Almost. Something that reminds you of the goodness of God when it feels like it's all slipping away. Or something that reminds me and you of his presence and his power and his provision.
[00:01:24] One word that becomes an anchor. Keep that in mind. Now, if your word is peace, maybe it's peace because chaos has had way too much control of your life.
[00:01:34] If it's faith, maybe it's because you've been leaning on your own strength for so long and it just doesn't seem like you're getting anywhere.
[00:01:42] Maybe it's courage because God's calling you off of the safe shore to jump into the deep.
[00:01:49] I don't know what your word is. I don't know what it was this past week. I don't know what the word the Lord would give you today. But I do know this.
[00:01:58] I know that for most of us, it involves something that we are struggling with in letting go of.
[00:02:06] Not so much something we need to run toward, but something we need to lay down.
[00:02:11] When I think about things like peace, it's usually because I'm in desperate need of peace, because I've allowed chaos to creep into my life because I haven't built sound and soulful boundaries. It could be faith because, well, I just get caught up in the pride that I can do it all. Or it could be courage because like my kids when they were little and they were learning to swim, jumping off the edge of that swimming pool into my arms, and then eventually the ability to hold their breath and jump and. And not drowned.
[00:02:46] Sometimes I think we need to just find a word that we can just really just be a bedrock for our life. Something to say. This is where God wants me to grow this is where God wants me to go. And this is the kind of things he wants me to sow along the way.
[00:03:04] Well, whatever that word is, write it down somewhere. You're going to start seeing it every day.
[00:03:11] Something that reminds you, this is who God's calling me to be. He's brought me this far. He's not going to leave me alone. He's going to carry me to where he wants me to be, with peace or faith or courage or, in my case, capacity to recognize that I'm not supposed to do it all, that I'm supposed to let him do the heavy lifting.
[00:03:31] Well, write it down. Get it in your mirror. Get it on your dashboard. Get it beside your coffee maker. Let it remind you this is where my heart is pointed, and this is where God wants, wants to carry me. And over time, the spirit of God will take that one word and use it like a seed, and it starts to reshape your thinking, your actions, your reactions, and, my friend, even your prayers.
[00:03:57] So today's challenge is literally just say God, what one word do you want me to grow in my heart this year? Now, let's just say you did that with me Sunday at Sugar Hill Church, along with a few other thousand people. Well, maybe you did it with me at the corner gathering Sunday evening.
[00:04:13] Maybe you watched online.
[00:04:15] But what if the Lord has challenged you to think more deeply than you did in that moment, to focus your faith one word at a time and let God do the transforming of this concept that when he moves in, he rearranges the furniture in our soul so that it looks like Jesus lives there, not where it looks like, well, you and I are in charge, but where, where he is.
[00:04:39] So today, let one word, one focus be this thing. And let God transform you into a new person by changing the way that you think. Again, not surface level change, but heart transformation change. So if we were to pull back the windows and the doors and the curtains of your soul, get past the blinds and get past all the masks, would we see a heart where Jesus resides? And if so, go live that. Thanks for joining me on today's weekday podcast.
