As we conclude our exploration of 'The BE YE's', we dive into the essence of Christianity, discussing how the Holy Spirit gives the fortitude needed to face life's challenges. We connect our trials to the eternal, illustrating how perseverance in the present will bear fruit in future rewards.
Join us as we continue to journey together, seeking to deepen our faith walk, and encourage you in yours. Together, we can foster a community ever-growing in the likeness of Christ.
As we conclude our exploration of 'The BE YE's', we dive into the essence of Christianity, discussing how the Holy Spirit gives the fortitude needed to face life's challenges. We connect our trials to the eternal, illustrating how perseverance in the present will bear fruit in future rewards.
Join us as we continue to journey together, seeking to deepen our faith walk, and encourage you in yours. Together, we can foster a community ever-growing in the likeness of Christ.
Hello and welcome to Simpli Edify's podcast. Our goal is to encourage women as we navigate the messiness of life through biblical studies, personal stories and practical tips that bolster our walk with Jesus daily. Thank you for joining us in our episode today.
Estie:Welcome back. We are going to attempt to finish up our study on the BE Ye's found in the New Testament and there's quite a few left, but we were talking together right before we started and a lot of it just is talking about being complete in Christ and our maturity in Christ, and so we're going to kind of focus on that. But April's going to read through our list that we have and also some verses that correlate with each one of them.
April:Yeah, these last ones. There's a lot, but they all kind of just go together in an overall arching theme. So the first one we have is be steadfast, and this is our first. Corinthians 15 58 says Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord for as much as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. And then we have be wise. Ephesians 5, 17 and 18 says Therefore, be not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is. And then it goes on to say and be not drunk with wine where it is excess, but be filled with the spirit, speaking to yourselves and Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs singing, making melody in your heart to the Lord. Then we have be doers.
April:James 122 says but be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving your own selves. For if any man be a hearer of the word and not a doer, he's like unto man beholding his natural face in a glass, for he beholdeth himself and go with his way and straightway, forgeteth what manner of man he was. And then we have be patient and sober. Be also patient. This is James 5 8. Stablish your hearts for the coming of the Lord. Draweth nigh. Judge not one against another, brethren, lest ye be condemned. Behold, the judge standeth at the door.
April:And then 1 Peter, 4, 7 and 8, says but the end of all things is at hand. Be therefore sober and watch unto prayer and, above all things, have fervent charity among yourselves, for charity shall cover the multitude of sins. And then, last but not least, we have be ye perfect. Be therefore perfect, even as your Father, which in heaven is perfect. And that verse with the definition of perfect. We know that this sight of heaven, we will not be sinless. So, in context and defining the word there, it's talking about a mature faith, a mature Christian, mature believer, striving for mastery in this life. So we have again just to go over Be steadfast, be wise, be doers, be patient and sober, and be perfect and mature in Christ.
Estie:Well, I'm glad that perfect doesn't necessarily mean sinless perfection, because that would be too much for this girl Too much for any person, for sure.
April:Yeah, I found it interesting, especially when talking about being sober and patient, those verses that I read about patient and sober. In James and Peter it says Be patient, establish your heart, for the coming of the Lord is drawing night. Okay, so we're being patient, waiting for the Lord to come. The verse directly after that says Grudge, not one against another, lest ye be condemned. We're talking about our relationship with other believers, right, how we're supposed to interact with other believers. And then in Peter it says but the end of all things is at hand. Be therefore sober and watch unto prayer. Above all, have fervent charity among yourselves. So both of those passages have be sober, be patient, the Lord's coming. And then how we're supposed to be interacting with other believers as this time is approaching and what our role and responsibility is towards other believers. I found that kind of interesting.
April:Especially when people talk about the Lord coming, I've noticed that it has a tendency to have a little bit of a gloom and doom type air to it. Like, look at the world today, the Lord's coming back. It's not like, oh, jesus is coming back, we're so excited. It's just like a way that it's said, a way that it's presented is like more on the negative side almost, and it's never followed up with it's. It's rarely ever followed up with. So how are you doing in your walk with the Lord and your walk with other people? You know what I mean.
Estie:It's not usually more about prepping for Digging your heels and be prepared for all the chaos that's gonna happen, like doomsday. Yeah and yes, yes, and I do think that's what I was gonna say. I think that we, when we're talking about looking forward to Christ's return, which is every single day it's getting closer, regardless of the state of the world, Every day we're getting closer to it.
Estie:So it is something we have to be looking for, but we sometimes get so far-sighted that we're just looking at that and we get kind of negative, like you were saying. Or we Are so near-sighted and we're just focusing on care. I need to be like this. I need to do this that we're either too like inward focused or too forward focused, but we're not really focusing on the the fact that we need to live out our Christianity right now with other believers, regardless of whether Christ is coming tomorrow or whether he's coming a hundred years from now. Our relationship with other Christians still needs to be a priority. And and our, our witness with other people, how we engage with people who aren't Christians those things Also need to be a priority and something that we take care of Regardless, because I think sometimes we get like us against them mentality, but the more we talk about like doomsday type things, it's, you know, us against the world, but we're still supposed to be reaching the world.
April:Yeah, as far as, like, being being sober, like this, doesn't mean that like you go around with a Bloomy look on your face and you can't ever have fun or enjoy life or anything like that. But it's. It's an aware right, it's an awareness of your surrounding and who you are as a believer and that your Testimony means something and it should mean something. It you should be taking, how you live your life soberly. You should be Asking yourself what do my actions, my thoughts, my words Say to everyone around me About what I believe, who I believe, and in that type of thought process. That that's what it's talking about when it Refers to being sober, like we're not doing just whatever we want, right, we're not allowing other influences. When, when we talk about sobriety, as far as, um, like addictions and stuff like that, what? What do those addictions do? They take control of essentially who we are as a person. So when you talk about sobriety, it means you're in your right mind and you're not affected by alcohol or Drugs or something else.
Estie:Your, your brain is functioning how it should be and that can cross over into things like Not allowing your mind to be taken over by things aren't true mm-hmm?
Estie:And and focusing on what is important.
Estie:And I was thinking about where we're reading through together the New Testament, and so we've been reading through, like Matthew, mark, luke, and I think what struck me is how Jesus had this like ability to be very warm and and almost like light-hearted at times and kind of even funny, I think, but then also very quickly and when, when it was important, be so serious, mm-hmm, and Never, ever losing sight of what was important.
Estie:If we obviously this was Christ we're talking about, so duh, but I just I, you know listening to it, because I was listening to it on my Bible app and I was thinking how, in all of this perfection that Christ was, he was still human and he was such a good example of putting the first thing first. Yeah, and having that mindset of I am living in this world. We still have to eat. I was saying so many times he talks about feeding people, or like we need to eat, or these people need to eat, or feed the child, like so many times. So he focused on like the here and now, but then always was focusing on the important things of the kingdom of God.
Estie:And that needs to be our mindset as well, and our goal is to have the mind like Christ right. So I just think it's important that we find that balance I guess with you, yeah.
April:So as we move on, also along the same lines as sobriety, like, comes wisdom, knowledge. We can have a ton of head knowledge about the Bible. We can have all of the. If you grew up in church, you're going to have all of your verses memorized right from like, maybe Awana's or Bible clubs or stuff like that. Like, you can have all of this head knowledge and it can really do you no good because there's no wisdom, there's no real like.
April:How do I apply what I know? How do I actually live this out and what is God's will? Right? So, in context of this verse, be where for being unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is, and then it goes right into which was like hand in hand with the sobriety part of it. Right, and be not drunk with wine, we're in his excess but be filled with the spirit. Okay, we're not going to be unsober with wine I mean that, literally, is what it's talking about but we're going to be filled with the spirit. So what is wisdom? It's being filled with the spirit. And how are we filled with the spirit?
Estie:And not letting other things control you Right.
April:We're filling our mind with Psalms, hymns, spiritual songs, singing, making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things. It goes on to submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God, like it has it in those verses basically bull appointed for us. That happens a lot. That happens a lot. What we're supposed to do.
Estie:When we read our Bible in context Right. So often the answers to all the who, what, why, how, are there for us.
April:It's not like a complicated thing to process either, because God made it simple for us, right? He didn't want it to be some trick or something like magic words like abracadabra, you know, like it's not trying to trip us up. He lays it out very plainly for us. Is just our, our sinful nature gets in the way and complicates it, right? So, yeah, I thought those two aspects of being sober and being wise just kind of like fit right hand in hand together.
Estie:Yeah, and you can. If you meet someone who is wise, like, if there's someone you're like, you're thinking of like, that's the person I would go to when I'm not sure about something. They might be one of the like, a funny person or a lighthearted person, but they're going to have a sobriety about them. You know that's like one of their defining traits. I believe you're going to know that they are going to be serious about what matters. They take God's word seriously.
Estie:Yeah, they do go hand in hand, and that's one of the things. When you're, you know, with our kids, we're hoping that they are developing these things, but these are also signs of like maturity that have to be developed over time. And you can't expect a young child or a baby Christian to necessarily be wise or to be sober or all these things, because there's something that they have to grow in and we do that and we teach them through God's word and through knowing how to fill their minds with the right things. And that might sound like a no brainer, except that there's a lot of time young people are just even people are Christians but we spend filling our minds with lots of things that have nothing to do with God or His word.
Estie:I see that so much. I'm working with kids and so that's just a practical, just from a practical standpoint of training yourself, training your children, training, helping the people around you see how they can spend that time in God's word with the right kind of music, with the right kind of influences. Just that makes sense.
April:Yeah, where to be an example of what a Christian who is wise, who is sober, who is patient, who is all of these things mature, is towards other people.
April:We're supposed to emulate that, but we're also supposed to teach and encourage and build up and put into, invest into the lives of others who maybe aren't quite as far along on their journey, which goes into the next be, which is be doers right. Be doers of the word and not hearers only deceiving your own selves. For if any man be a hearer of the word and not a doer, he's like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass, for he beholdeth himself and go with his way and straightway forget as what manner of man he was, but whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty and continueeth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the word. This man shall be blessed in his deed. And I read that whole passage again because I feel like it gives a full clarity of what it means to be a hearer but not a doer, right, and it gives that example.
Estie:Yeah, it's such a good. It reminds me when people say tell it to me like I'm a child, Mm. You know, explain it to me like I'm a small child, like that's kind of I feel like what he did, like that's such a vivid and it's a kind of example you can use, yeah, easily with a child to explain this concept, but it applies to us as well. It's just if you're staring at yourself with something in your tooth and you walk teeth and you walk away and then go smiling at everybody.
April:That's so silly.
Estie:Why would you do that? Right Makes no sense. And the same way, if you see something, if God reveals through his word things that you need to change, and you just go, yeah, I'm fine. Right, you can't in, walk away. That's more than silly, that's sin. But right, we often see the need to do things as well. We're talking about actually doing, doing things and we walk past opportunities to do all the time, especially when there's other people around who you know are gonna fill in the gaps. Right, or when no one's watching and you can get away with it.
April:The rest of that passage goes on and it talks about what pure religion is, and it's to visit the fatherless, the widow, and to keep yourself unspotted from the world. And it talks about your tongue and keeping you know your tongue, bridled, and if you don't like, your religion is vain, it's empty. Because if it's you know your religion isn't affecting who you are and what you say, then what good is it? And so, yeah, that whole passage, I highly recommend going through the book of James. It is very convicting. I love James.
Estie:I will go to. James is my go-to. It is my absolute go-to book because it's so full of wisdom and I desperately recognize that I need wisdom All the time, always. And I like how, like you just said, it's so practical. There's no like. I wonder what this means.
April:Right, keep reading and you'll find out.
Estie:Yeah, it's very, very simplistic and, yeah, I love it.
April:Yeah, we know that as believers, we are given commands. These be yeets, right. These are not even like a full, exhaustive list and we can look at it and we can say, you know, well, this is just too difficult, this is too hard, this is unachievable, right, and we can have this kind of like well, I can't do it, so I'm just going to give up and not even try, and it's not. That's not the purpose of these. We've talked about this before. We talked about this before we even started the series too is that this is about what a Christian is supposed to look like, right, with the power of the Holy Spirit, when we walk in the spirit, when we are in the word, when we're fulfilling our call as a believer. Right, and we are going to mess up sometimes, but we're just strive for mastery.
April:The program that my kids are doing for classical conversations it talks about how the goal is not necessarily perfection, but mastery, right, and remembering these concepts and applying these concepts to what they're learning.
April:It's mastery over these concepts. And a master will still like, if you think about, you know, a master marksman. They're still going to miss sometimes, right, but it's they practice to not miss, right, they don't practice to miss. And they don't not practice. They know that missing is going to be part of it, but it's the process and it's the memory and it's the. It becomes a natural reaction when we practice right. So the more we practice, the more it becomes a part of who we are and then we become more masterful in that right. And when you talk about a master right, you're talking about like in being in control of something, and Christ is to be our master, and when he is our master, we can find mastery in these issues, conquering the wills of the flesh, and we can allow his spirit to guide us into that mature faith which is, you know, what we've been talking about be there for perfect right. Does that mean you're never going to miss?
Estie:No, no, I just found a letter that my mom's pastor's wife wrote to me when I was born, and so I was a newborn baby when I got this little card and my mom found it recently and gave it to me and the end of it she wrote the verse she said one day in the future you'll need this verse.
Estie:And it said come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. And the rest of that passage talks about, basically, it's not saying go have a nap, it's saying all this hard stuff that I've called you to do, I'm going to help you and you don't have to do it alone. Our rest comes from leaning on Christ and not our own effort. And if we look back at these things that we've been through, we've talked about, they could seem overwhelming and they could seem like impossible Just living the Christian life the way that we know we need to live it. It would be impossible in our own strength. But when we recognize and finally get to that place we're able to genuinely rest in Christ and lean on Christ, I think that we kind of find the answer of how to make it work Right.
April:Which, as we look at the last one. So be steadfast, therefore, my beloved brethren. Be steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, for as much as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. That's just like an encouragement there, like be steadfast, don't give up. Even when you fall down, pick yourself back up, keep going. It's not in vain, it's not empty. We know that Christ has told us we have reward waiting for us and it's going to be.
April:You know, this earth is so temporary and I've just been thinking about that a lot lately, like how temporary this world actually is and how everything that we do here, this is our one chance to affect eternity. Our one chance to affect eternity, and that kind of gives us, when you think about it like that, it gives us the sobriety that we need to know there is an end coming and what I do here matters. What I do here matters a lot and it's not just waste, and I can buckle down and I can commit and I can do what God has called me to do, because I know that eternity is what awaits.
April:You know, and when what I'm doing over here is going to get me what my eternity will look like over there. You know, like what Christ talked about the sufferings on this earth as we were just going through the Gospels together, like that's something that kind of struck me. He talks a lot with his disciples, like what you suffer here on this earth is it will be your reward in heaven. You know what we go through here on this earth, how we live down here, is going to be how we're going to. You know our reward is going to be that much. Our reward is going to be that much greater in heaven.
Estie:So to keep that in mind, yeah, and we sometimes want everything to like work out this side of heaven and we kind of have that expectation of like if I'm going through something bad right now, I'm going to see this beautiful end result on earth and that's not actually ever promised us. We can know that God's working out something for our good and his glory, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we're going to get like a fairy tale, happy and happily ever after ending either. Think about all the amazing, like the people who have just sacrificed their life for Christ. Often their lives end in hard ways. That's why our mind has to be on eternity, because that is where the reward is going to come, like you were saying, and that's why we're supposed to have that mindset of the Kingdom of God, realizing it's more than just our temporary comfort. We really focus a lot on our immediate comfort and that's like the standard of whether things are good or bad, and that's a hard thing to shake. But we need to set our mind on things above.
April:Yeah, go ahead and read that passage in Romans.
Estie:This is from Romans 5. Let me just read the passage.
April:And I feel that ties what we've been talking about all together, like tribulation work as patience, patience, experience, experience, hope, right, and it's a process toward maturity. It's a process of understanding what God's will is for us, with the wisdom and the Holy Spirit, and we have that hope, just like what we're talking about. We have the hope that eternity awaits us in the promises of God. We have hope in that and we don't need to be ashamed, we don't need to be like what is this? Why are we doing this? It's not worth it. It's not feeling like it's empty or vain or all of the trials that we face here on this earth, that it's not worth it. We have hope. We know that tribulation it works, patience it works in us to produce mature believers and to produce a closer walk with the Lord. And then we have the hope that once we get to heaven, we'll see the why, we'll see all that God has for us. We can't even fathom it.
Estie:I really think a lot of our questions are going to just dissipate when we see Christ. I think that the things that are so heavy on our minds right now just really won't matter when we're with Christ. I'm not saying we won't get any answers to any questions. I don't know how all that will work, but I truly believe that the burdens that we carry will be lifted.
April:Yeah, the hymn. When we see Christ, it just speaks to that so clearly. It's just absolutely truth. It will all fade away. Yeah, that's why speaking to yourselves in Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs is so important. It is.
Estie:I'm just so many times in the last few weeks even I've sat down. I'm just sitting down folding clothes, which is probably my least favorite thing to do in life.
April:I just paid my daughter $5 to fold clothes. We do chores for money After they've done their regular chores. I was like hey do you want? To earn money. I've done that with some stuff, not with my personal clothes.
Estie:That's a good idea, that's a really good idea.
Estie:But a lot of times, because I'm just sitting there and miserable I was also praying and I don't remember I asked for. I asked God a question. I can't hear him, but I was like I don't know what to do about this. Instantly a verse came to mind and that just gave me clarity in whatever I was stressing out about. And I'm like you know, if I didn't have that scripture memorized, it wouldn't be there to recall. And I'm not saying good job on me for memorizing it. I don't even remember when I did. I was probably a kid when I did. I'm just saying it's really helpful.
Estie:It's really really helpful to know your scripture and to have it, something that you can fall back on. And, honestly, there are times where I don't remember the whole verse. But I remember the truth of a verse Because it is ingrained, whether it's fully memorized or not. And if you're not good at memorizing, don't be like I can never do that If you read something over and over and over again, whether you have it memorized or not, the weight of it is going to be in your mind and the truth of it is going to be in your mind and you're going to be able to recall the truth, whether you remember word for word the passage or not, and then you can use that little phrase that you do remember and look it up on your Bible app.
April:Yeah, the convenience of technology, yes.
Estie:When all those little.
April:You know how they would have the things in the back of your Bible where you could look up like basically the concordance thing, but it was just a very small one I can remember, like being little and trying to look up like because I've always been the absolute worst at remembering references Like I can't I just something about the numbers just makes it more difficult for me I can remember.
Estie:the first is almost word for word.
April:And it's either 323 or 623. But I will find it.
Estie:I've had to highlight the Romans road because I can't remember all the references. I just have to like highlight it so I can flip through and find it. Yeah.
April:I remember using that as a kid and being like, oh yeah, this is great. And now I'm like I wish I had this. This is so much easier on a Bible app. Just put it to two words and it generates all the verses. Yeah, it makes it so much easier.
Estie:It is really nice, and it's one of those things like it is an absolute like. Use it, absolutely. Use it because it's available to us and do it because it does really help. You can do such great word studies that way too. Just, I want us to research. I just want to read verses about hope. Yeah, and there they are yeah, all right.
April:Well, thank you for joining us in our series on the bees, and I know this one covered a lot of ground, but I just we kind of going through them, we were like these kind of all just tie together and instead of, you know, belaboring the point in the series, just decided to kind of condense it. Anyhow, we are looking forward to in this new year, addressing some other type of issues and topics that maybe we haven't really explored some kind of cultural issues and things that we've seen in as far as like trends in you know, Christian circles and beyond.
April:So, yeah, stay tuned. We're looking forward to some interesting topics here, as always. Thanks for listening, and if you care to share with a friend, we are honored that you chose simply edified to be a part of your day.
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