Let's Connect
The Official Podcast of Connect Church in Rockdale, Texas, where we want to help you live a life that matters; one that is both on mission and has a purpose to know Jesus and make disciples.
Let's Connect
Episode 3 - The Busy Life Trap: How to Keep Faith a Priority
A transformative journey unfolds as we discuss living a scripturally focused life. We explore the distractions that keep us from deepening our relationship with God and emphasize the importance of community among believers.
• Overcoming distractions to prioritize faith
• Recognizing the value of a community of believers
• Understanding parental responsibilities in spiritual upbringing
• Embracing scripture as a guide, not just a set of rules
• Addressing the common excuse of being "too busy" for God
Welcome to let's Connect, the official podcast of Connect Church in Rockdale, texas, where we want to help you to live a life that matters, one that is both on mission and has a purpose to follow Jesus and make disciples. So let's get started, all right? Welcome in to episode number three of the let's Connect podcast. This is the official podcast of Connect Church here in Rockdale, texas. I'm your host, bill Whitmire, and I'm here, as always, with our pastor, ken Ansel. Ken, how are you doing today? I'm great, bill. How are you? Well, I'm not freezing.
Speaker 2:The weather's great the weather is great.
Speaker 1:It's perfect spring-type weather right now. So last week we talked a little bit about the plans with our church and how we really intend to help folks have a relationship with God. And so this week, you know, after we discussed some things and I think what we need to talk about is how do we live a scripturally focused life? You know, it is so easy in the world today, you know, and I think you know, we almost think about well, I'm not sinning, I'm not doing this bad thing, I'm not doing this bad thing, I'm not doing this bad thing, but what is it that we can get sucked into? So many other things that keep us away from God. So what is it that we need to do? And we've got a myriad of things that we can talk about, but what is it that we need to do to live that scripturally focused life? Wow, not to put you on the spot or anything.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's good. I'm kind of I'm like a sponge, soaking in what you said. Yeah, there's no doubt. Wow, that's a lot. Lots of times we get focused on the rules, right. We look at scripture, we look at the Bible, we look at maybe we go back to the Ten Commandments. I always think about as a disciple. You know I'm a student learner, so no doubt we spend time in the Word, we learn what God wants and then we're to be a doer Like James. 1.22 is my favorite. Don't just be hearers of the Word, but be doers of the Word. And I know WWJD was popular. I was never a really big fan of that. Sometimes it's hard to know what Jesus would do, but we always know what will glorify God. So maybe focus on that. But I think about just as a disciple of Christ man. I'm following him right, so I am doing what he would do. As far as being active daily, doing the things Jesus would do, what do you think about that?
Speaker 1:I think you're dead on. I mean, we spend so much time doing other things and our lives get so focused on other things. I was reading something the other night and it was an article that was in the—I think it was—I don't even know where it was now, but I was reading it and what it said was and I wrote this down it says Satan keeps us too busy. Oh yeah, you know, and with our daily lives. I roll out of bed in the morning and I try to grab my devotional every day and I'm, you know, going to read that day's lesson in it.
Speaker 1:And it's so easy to roll out of bed and think, oh man, did I put those clothes in the dryer last night? Or you know what's a dog barking at outside, and I mean just those things on a distraction basis. But then you have the other things that come into your life. You know, oh, I've got to take little Johnny here, or I've got to do this, and I've got to do this, this and this, or you know, the nurse called me and I need to go do this, and Satan always seems to find those distractions and that hinders a lot of people, and the fact is is that we kind of make excuses for that. We're like, well, I had to do this, you know, and it's always like we didn't have to read the Bible that day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, excuses, obviously, you got to take little Johnny to wherever Johnny needs to be school sports, for sure. But yeah, so often you told me earlier that so often we pursue things that in the end won't matter. And I think a lot about how many days I've wasted of my life not following Christ, not filtering my life through the Word of God. And you know there's a lot of things Hebrews tells us to throw off, the things sin and other things that hinder us from running the race that Christ has marked out for us. And you know tennis isn't bad in and of itself, right.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:But, man, I mean I get addicted, obsessed with things. You know, I can remember, several years ago, I mean I'm playing tennis three nights a week, you know that's. I mean I think that's a lot, and I'm not saying I was wasting that time, but just using that for an example.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it goes into. You know, we try to find things to occupy our time. And when you live, when you leave, when you live a scripturally focused life, those things are already there. A scripturally focused life, those things are already there, you know, in Ephesians. You know you're saved by faith through God's grace, and the works come as a fruit of that grace and a fruit of being saved.
Speaker 1:And how often do we think about doing the things that God would want us to do? You know, so many of us consider church, going to church on Sunday, that's the God thing. Or going to church, no, hey, I'm going to go to Bible study too. So twice in one week I've hit the old magic mark. But when was the last time? You know, we talked one day about or just earlier today, actually about. You talk to that friend, you talk to that neighbor and you say, hey, are you going to church somewhere? You know we go to Connect Church here and they'll say, well, you know, I just have the church of me, I'll get into my Bible on Sunday or I'll watch, you know something, columbus Street Baptist Church or something like that on TV and I don't really need to go to church, and that gets into that place where the church is looked at as just a building and not a community. And that's what God wants. He wants us in that community of believers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and that's somebody that's really missing out on God's plan and God's plan for their life. Yeah, maybe at some point in your walk with Christ does the light bulb go off and you move from have to to get to Like I get to go and worship on Sunday, I get to hang out with the men of Connect Church on Monday. But I mean I was telling you the other day, you know, at 18 years old, I didn't, I was having to, I didn't feel like it was a privilege and honor to be someone Christ died for and have my sins forgiven, and then I get to live this awesome Christian life.
Speaker 1:Yeah, my sins forgiven and then I get to live this awesome Christian life. Yeah, and yeah, I mean that's the thing is you get to that place where and for many years I was there, especially when I was first in the Navy and stuff and I had little bitty kids and you know that's the worst time. You need to get those little kids into that church. You need to be that father that's in that church.
Speaker 1:But you know I didn't go to church, and so the rest of the family didn't go to church, and it wasn't until really until my older children were 10, 11, 12 age that we started going back to church, and even then, though, it was more about hey, this is the right thing to do, I need to get my kids into church, but I wasn't fired up. I really wasn't living that scripturally focused life.
Speaker 2:I was living that hey, here I am Check my ticket. I'm in church this.
Speaker 1:Sunday and I got my kids with me. So I get extra credit this week and I feel bad at times because I don't think I did what I needed to do as a father, as a biblically-centered father with my kids, and so, you know, the nurse and I have made it our passion. One of our passions is to reach out to our kids and help them focus on what's important in life and let them know that this is a very real thing in our life.
Speaker 1:You know being Christ-centered is a very real thing in our life. You know being Christ-centered is a very real thing in our life. It's very important to us, and it's important to us that they find that too. We don't dance around it anymore, and I think most folks and myself for many years included. You dance around that with people you know. There used to be the big three you don't talk about in public, and religion was one of them, and so for many years I didn't do that, and now it's like why, why not?
Speaker 1:Why aren't we doing that? You know?
Speaker 2:Wow, that's a good question. Why don't we do that? Yeah, I have no idea, but we'll have to Google that. Yeah, you know, you talked about scripturally sound life. There's a high percentage of people, church-going people that aren't in their Bibles on a regular basis. We might call them biblically illiterate, but they're really illiterate. I mean, they can read, they just won't read. And I'm not getting down on anybody.
Speaker 2:You said earlier you have to make time for Christ because we're in a relationship with Christ, just like we have to make time for other people that we're in a relationship with. So, whether that's get up early or whip your Bible out at lunch, but we need to spend time in the Word, because how can we do what we don't know to do and how can we really get to know Christ? One of the ways we get to know Jesus is through His Word. We get to see Him living out His life, and I think there's a shift happens there when we stop looking at the Bible as a rule book and a book on how to have a relationship with God through Jesus. Something has to change there. And then I would just get back to the person. You said that they're going to watch Columbus Avenue or whatever. I would ask them how do you reconcile the way you live with Scripture? Because it's clear in Scripture that every Christian is going to be a part of a local body.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean the epistles of Paul are written to churches, about getting people into a church, meaning a group of believers, not a building, you know, because a lot of them were home churches. Then you know people meeting in other people's homes and getting together in other people's homes to be a group of like-minded Christ-centered folks. I told you earlier, I heard today someone say what are you more worried about? Getting your child into Harvard or to heaven? And that's a huge deal when you stop and think about it. You think about and I'm not trying to degrade anybody because you want your children to do as well as they can, you want them to be better than you. But what does that mean? Does that mean richer than you? Does that mean more famous than you? Does that mean you know what does that mean? Or do you want them to start earlier?
Speaker 1:As a Christian, I remember one time I gave my testimony about you know, I guess six or seven years ago to a group and one of the gentlemen after the end he said man, that is a powerful testimony. That's really amazing. I said you know it is. But what's an even more amazing testimony is that guy that can get up and tell you that he or girl, guy or girl get up and say you know, I was saved on this date, I was baptized on this date and I've never walked away from God. How powerful is that? I mean, it took me a while and I think it takes a lot of people a while. They think, you know that when we're saved and when we come to Christ and we join the church, you know it's all you know, candy and nuts after that and everybody's happy and we're, and it's not.
Speaker 1:Being a christian is a hard life, because this is not. The earth is not where, it's not our home. You know, I told you this one time when my grandmother, she, passed away. She was 100 years old, she passed away just a few years ago and the night a few weeks before her actual birthday, we had a birthday party for her and I was sitting with her, we were talking and and she just told me you know, her birthday was about a week away and it's over Christmas break, so everybody could be there. And she just looked at me. She said I think on my birthday it's, something special is going to happen and I'm like what? And she says I'm going to go home. Well, we moved her out here to Texas from Georgia, probably 15 years earlier, and I said, grandma, I don't know if you can handle that trip.
Speaker 1:She goes, I'm not talking about Georgia and even then I was a little denser than I should have been because I still didn't quite understand it. And it didn't hit me until a couple of days on her birthday January the 5th of 2018, she went into the hospital and two weeks later she had passed away. And I remember I was there a day or two after she was admitted. I finally had, you know, they finally let her have visitors and I went in and I was talking to her and that was when it just listening to her and talking to her she was at that place where she really felt like her work on earth was done.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 2:That's a good place to get I thought man going home.
Speaker 1:I never thought of heaven in the terms of going home until that very moment. It hit me so powerfully that that's how strong in her faith she was. I know, especially in the days when I was younger in the Navy and I was real rebellious. I know, especially in the days when I was younger in the Navy and I was real rebellious, and she would say things and I just thought, oh man, grandma, Shake your head and now so much of what she said back then just makes so much sense now that it didn't.
Speaker 1:You know, I never could quite grasp, and I believe that there's a lot of people out here that don't grow, a lot of people in the world that don't grasp the fact that when you have that relationship with God, things are not always going to be rosy but you don't want anything else.
Speaker 1:That's where you're comfortable, that's where life makes sense. You long for that, you love that relationship and, yeah, it means you may lose some worldly relationships. But you need that relationship with God above anything else, moving forward and working, letting God work through you, not just doing something, because you know, I think God wants me to do this. God's going to tell you what he wants you to do. I'm going to go work at the thrift store. I'm just going to do that every Saturday and that's my godly duty. Well, that is a very wonderful thing, but that may not be what God had in mind for you. You know, I don't think Noah you know, I don't think Noah ever thought God would have him build a boat in the middle of nowhere, and he wasn't a carpenter.
Speaker 1:And then all of a sudden, God says Noah, I want you to build me a boat, Not just a boat, but a huge ship. And I mean, I'm sure I don't know for a fact.
Speaker 2:I didn't know, Noah, so I think my kids think I was probably around at that time.
Speaker 1:But I would imagine that there were things that he was doing in his life that he felt like were God-centered things. But just because those were, or he felt they were, doesn't mean that they were. And so, as people, you know, we get into that place where we have to stop and think are we doing really? What's in this book?
Speaker 2:what's in our scripture.
Speaker 1:Are we really paying attention? Are we really letting God work through us and we get so busy doing everything else we miss things. I got this volunteer event here. I'm going to go play golf because I want to get that handicap down. I want to get ready for the member guest tournament or for the club championship or whatever. I've got to take little Johnny out. He's got traveling baseball.
Speaker 1:It bothers me a lot that so many folks that do traveling baseball do it on the weekends because it eats up their church time. We talked about it earlier, about you can get them into heaven or you can get them into Harvard. What are you going to work on? Which one's a sure deal and which one's a tougher deal? It's the same thing with anything that we get one's a sure deal and which one's a tougher deal, and it's the same thing with anything that we get that's a distraction. I think I remember you saying one time in church that those things that we can't wait for, those things that we long so heavily for, they take that place of that time with God and that relationship with God.
Speaker 2:Yeah, action steps with God and that relationship with God. Yeah, action steps. I think there's a ton of people that want to be a great Christian, but the Scripture talks about zeal without discipline or, you know, zeal without self-control. And where we fall short lots of times is, you know, the road to heaven is paved with good intentions, and so is the road to hell, you know. So we've got to move beyond good intentions and actually take some action steps.
Speaker 1:That's great, yeah, for certain. I mean, you know, I think folks focus so much on rules. They focus so much on this. I remember somebody telling me one time well, like you know, growing up Baptist, you don't dance you know, don't dance.
Speaker 1:And you just, you had all these rules, but you know you had all these rules in the Old Testament and then Jesus just reset the whole thing. You know we have the Ten Commandments and people worry about the Ten Commandments and this, that and the other Certain churches have, you know, regular sins and then carnal sins, and this, that and the other. But you know Jesus came and he said two things that refocused everybody and that was to love me with all your heart and to love your neighbors as you love me.
Speaker 1:And if you think about it, those two things right there, if you follow those two things the other 10— You'll get the rest right. You'll get all of them right, yeah, and we focus so hard on—I remember being in church as a kid and memorizing the Ten Commandments, yeah yeah. That was a big deal. Oh yeah, and we did, and I still do the acronym in my head, you know, nick H Maisel, that's it I have that in my head the rest of my life.
Speaker 1:But I don't know that we actually focused as much on the New Testament when Jesus said love me with all your heart, mind, spirit, and love your neighbor as you love me. And that's where, if you want the simple way to follow, that scripturally correct life or scripturally centered life, those two things right there are the most massive step you can take towards that Christ-centered life.
Speaker 2:Right on. You want me to pray this out of here? Sure, all right. Holy Father, we love you, we're amazed by you. Thank you for saving us dying on the cross, for us coming out of that grave, for us and giving us the Holy Spirit. Father, we just pray for those that are listening and for Bill and myself. Help us be scripturally sound in the way that we live. Help us be willing to take a hard look at our lives and then have enough courage and strength to do the things that we need to do that enable us to walk closer with you. We pray these things in your son's name, amen, amen.
Speaker 1:All right. Well, that's episode number three in the can, and we'll be back next week with a new episode of let's connect. Thanks for tuning in.