Tempted to Settle

Thought life would look differently by now? Has that promise you have been waiting to come to pass delaying? Are you wondering what is the point in waiting anymore? We will discuss working through the temptation to settle and conform to the world when things don’t turn out the way we hoped. 

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I'm Alexa Lauren and welcome to my podcast, Heart of a Seeker. I'm gonna share a message today that I actually wrote a while back, but I feel like it's so relatable still till this day. And the title I want to give it, which is not the original title, but the title I want to give it today is Tempted to Settle. Tempted to Settle. Do you feel like you have been conforming? It says in 2 Corinthians 11, 2 through 4, for I am jealous for you with the jealousy of God Himself. I promised you as a pure bride to one husband, Christ. But I fear that somehow your pure and undivided devotion to Christ will be corrupted. Just as Eve was deceived by the cunning ways of the serpent, you happily put up with whatever anyone tells you, even if they preach a different Jesus than the one we preach, or a different kind of spirit than the one you received, or a different kind of gospel than the one you believed. We live in a world where conforming has become so easy. When things do not work out the way we hoped or planned, we lose faith and no longer stand on God's word. We begin to question so many things, and the idea of even waiting for promises to pass seems almost out of the question. We begin to think what we once hoped for or thought was just a figment of our imagination, and doubts begin to set in. Or maybe we just got tired, grew impatient of waiting because the promises has not yet come to pass and are on our terms. Do not worry about the tangible. Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. Hebrews 11 1. Stop looking with your natural eyes. It's being certain of what we do not see. Going back to 2 Corinthians 11 2 through 4, I want to point out the part that says you happily put up with whatever anyone tells you, even if they preach a different Jesus than one we preach, or a different kind of spirit than the one you received, or a different kind of gospel than the one you believed. So I want to ask you, are you seeking his truth through his word, or are you allowing or basing your beliefs solely on what other people are telling you? When you are not sure what you believe, or you are not seeking God, compromising begins to take place. Sometimes it happens so gradually before you know it, you are going getting out of position and doing things you normally would not do. You begin to doubt and make a doorway for the enemy to come in and feed you more lies, becoming complacent with a barely get by attitude. God created you and me for so much more, and we have power and authority through Christ. The same power that raised Jesus from the grave is the same power that lives in his believers. He gave us his Holy Spirit and He is our counselor and guide. By knowing God's word, you will then be able to identify false teachings about the Word of God and be exposed to the power and authority God gave us through Jesus, his living word. I believe we tie God's hands with our lack of faith. It's like saying, Okay, God, I sort of believe you can do it. But in Hebrews 11:1, it says, being sure of what we hope for. Referencing back to 2 Corinthians chapter 11, 2 through 4, I want to then go over the part that says, but I fear that somehow your pure and undivided devotion to Christ will be corrupted, just as Eve was deceived by the cunning ways of the serpent. We must make a decision to either be devoted to Christ or not. Are you sold out for Christ? If you are not, then you're still for sale. Meaning sooner or later you're going to allow the enemy to control you and tell you what to do. I have people tell me, I'm just not that strong, or you don't know what I have gone through, or I it's just not that easy, or it does not work for everyone. And a million other reasons people try to give. I understand we are all not the same. I know everyone has their own story, their own struggles, so to speak, and there is only one who fits all, and that is Jesus. His name has power and authority, which is given to you the day you ask Jesus to live in your heart and repent of your sins. Why would you want to live feeling miserable? Let the Holy Spirit make a home in your heart and let God take root. You keep rejecting Him and conforming to the world, but yet Romans 12 2 tells us to renew our mind and not conform to the world. Stop trying, stop tying God's hands on performing many miracles in your life, like Matthew 13, 58 said, and he did not perform many miracles because of their lack of faith, meaning, due to our lack of faith, we often can tie God's hands from performing miracles in our lives. Stand on the last word that God gave you. Be still and allow God to work behind the scenes and learn to wait for him. Don't allow the disappointments of life and the things that you've gone through to rob you from the blessings and the things God wants to do. Don't allow that to rob you from your joy, from your peace. Don't flirt with the idea of what the world has to offer. Because if you're honest, you know that that is just temporary pleasure. And it doesn't always bring everlasting peace or everlasting joy. And in the Word of God, it also tells us God gives us peace that surpasses all understanding. Meaning, we may not know why we're still waiting, we may not know why that promise hasn't come to pass, but God can give us peace through all of that, to be patient and to wait. Romans 4 20 says Abraham never wavered in believing God's promises. In fact, his faith grew stronger, and in this he brought glory to God. He was fully convinced that God is able to do whatever he promises. Has it ever occurred to you that maybe all this waiting and trusting the Lord is a test to help build your faith? The Lord may reveal certain things to us because he is testing our love for him, not so much for himself, but to show us where our heart is. Granted, he gives us the choice to do what we want, but he wants us to see if we will really stand firm and allow him to grow and mature us deeper than ever. Maybe it's his way of rooting us deeper in him, but often when things become difficult in our life, we begin to want to take power and matters into our own hands and not wait and trust God. We begin to be tossed to and fro and turn out more frustrated and disappointed in the end. I pray that out of all his glorious riches, he may be strengthened in your power through his spirit and in your inner being so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power together with all the saints to grasp how wide, how long, how high, and deep is the love of Christ, Ephesians 3, 16 through 18. I like when in Romans it says in Romans 4.21, he was fully convinced that God was able to do whatever he promised. Abraham didn't allow things to waver him. He began to stand firm, he continued to trust God, even if he didn't know what was going to happen or what to expect. Like Abraham, we should be fully convinced, or as one translation says, fully persuaded that God can and will fulfill his promises to us. Romans 4, 5 tells us, however, to the man who does not work but trust God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness. When we trust God, he credits that as righteousness. When we have faith, knowing that God is going to do what he says he's gonna do, and we honor him and know and give him his position, knowing that he loves us and wants to do what's best for us, he credits that as righteousness. Going back to our original reading in the beginning, God reminds us by saying, For I am jealous for you with the jealousy of God himself. I promised you as a pure bride to one husband, Christ. God desires you and wants the best for you, and would not want anyone or anything to harm you. He wants you all to himself, but yet you keep sharing yourself with the world. He wants you to be pure, childlike, pure of heart, mind and body. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Matthew 5.8. Why do you want to continue compromising? The tough times are only there to mature us and make us stronger and make us depend more on him. I know it's hard to wait sometimes, and sometimes we fear the outcome. But just remember Jeremiah 29.11, for I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to give you hope and a future. Through learning to trust the Lord and seeking him during the times, we get impatient. It's in the midst of all of all of it that our faith is strengthened and we learn who God is and his desires for us. I'll be honest, at times I have wanted to stray due to my own selfish desires, my impatience, and I have strayed and I have fallen short. And even in the midst of those times where I have fallen short and I've wanted to stray because of my impatience, you know, it's very common for us to get to a point in life where we might say, This isn't what I pictured my life like at this time. I didn't think by this age I thought I would have X, Y, Z, you know. And unfortunately, I know myself when I have fallen short, when I do begin to get impatient and I go back to some of my old ways and my old desires, I tend to turn from God. I tend to hide myself and I don't stay consistent with what he called me to do. And I remember recently I felt like I wasn't living my life the way I needed to be living it. I felt like I was still falling short, I was struggling, and I really just felt the Holy Spirit speak to me and tell me, do what I've called you to do, anyways. That through me doing what he called me to do, he would bring healing, he would bring the correction, he would continue to mold me. And that's why when I do these podcasts, I don't want you to think I'm perfect and that I'm living my life without sin, because the truth is none of us are sinless. And I've shared this in season one, but one of the things that was very powerful that a counselor once told me was she said, Do you expect to live a life without sin, a perfect life? I go, I would love, I would love that, you know, I would love to accomplish living a sinless life. And she was like, Well, let me tell you this. You're never gonna live a sinless life. But as you begin and continue to seek God, you will sin less. And as you continue to seek God, he will continue to change your heart, he will begin to align your heart with his. And the things that once enticed you, the things that once seemed exciting, the things that you once wanted to do, they're not the same anymore. Um, the going out and the partying isn't the same anymore. The sleeping around isn't the same anymore. The hooking up, especially in this hookup culture, isn't the same anymore. It doesn't give us or satisfy us, and we begin we begin to become aware of that. God wants to show us who the real us is, who the real me is, and not the person the world has tried molding us into. My heart was empty, filling it with whatever, thinking it would give me what I always desired, the love I desired. And I ended up broken down, alone in the end. Friends come and go, and even when we are in relationships, we can feel alone. But the Lord Himself goes before us and he will be with us. He will never leave you or forsake you. Do not be afraid and do not be discouraged, Deuteronomy 31.8. God just desires to have you to dwell in you and to live in you. Therefore, he sent his son to die on the cross for our sins. And even when we are faithless, he remains faithful because he cannot disown himself. 2 Timothy 2.13. I often will go back and remember what led me back to the feet of Jesus. And I remember those times where when I was younger, you know, sometimes we're like, we'll never be like that. I would never be like that person. And I saw myself becoming one of those people one day. And it all started with little compromises, a compromise here, a compromise there, to the point that it took me further than where I wanted to go. And when I remember that, I also remember how I felt. I felt alone, I felt dissatisfied. I felt like what I thought would bring me happiness, what I thought would bring me some kind of console never really did. It actually just made me feel worse. And so when we are in these moments of waiting, and when we're in these moments of struggling to see the promise come to pass or the things God promised us, I encourage you not to step in or give in to that temptation of going back. Don't give, don't go back to the very thing that led you to God's feet in the first place. I remember in Hebrews 2.18 when it says, Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. And it hit me, if I always give in to my desires, I will never be able to relate to someone going through what I've gone through. If I learn to resist the enemy, when he tries to pull me back in the world, one day I will be able to encourage someone else who is struggling. Therefore, encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you're doing 1 Thessalonians 5.11. When we accept Jesus as Lord and Savior in our hearts, in Christ, we through many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others, Romans 12.5. Therefore, we are to help one another and shine our light for the world to see. We each have a different function in the body of Christ, and not everyone is called to do the same. Ministry is not a church, but ministry is every day first into the Lord, yourself, and others you meet. You can meet them anywhere as a follower of Christ. We are called to go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creations. Mark 16, 15. Many of us have forgotten this, or maybe we were never taught this key principle of being a believer. We think going to church and listening to sermons is good enough. Or how about those who believe in Jesus but do not believe in church? In Ephesians we see that Christ gave himself up for the church. He believed in the church, he died for the church because it is his body. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but they feed and care for his their body, just as Christ does the church, for we are all members of his body, Ephesians 5 29 through 30. God sees our faithfulness, and when we truly are seeking him, it's a process, and the Lord knows each one of our hearts. He will reveal the areas in our lives he wants to continue working on to purify us. If you are faithful in the little, you will be faithful with large things. But if you are dishonest with little, then you will be dishonest with greater responsibilities, Luke 16.10. The Holy Spirit is the one who convicts us, but there is no condemnation in Christ, Romans 8.1. And we should never feel bad for what we have done in our past. I appreciate you guys sticking around with me today, listening to this message. I know it was a little different. I actually wrote these, I believe, in 2010. So this was written like 12, 13 years ago when I was probably, I don't know, I was probably 22 years old, 21 years old when I wrote these messages. I'm now 35. And I did interject some new wisdom and some new things that I've learned obviously over the years. But a lot of what I shared today was writings for when I was in my early 20s, when I had just been uh what I call a baby Christian. I had just been baptized in, I was actually baptized July 18th of 2009. And so I wrote these about a year later, both of these messages that I actually combined. And I also interjected, like I said, other pieces of information that I felt would tie the two together. But at the end of the day, at the end of the day, I really, like I said earlier, I want to encourage you guys not to go back. You know, if I can go back and see when I saw what I wrote in my early 20s, 13, 12 years ago, I was actually surprised to see how till this day I can still struggle with those feelings and I can still struggle with those thoughts. And I have fallen short throughout my walk over the last 13 years. And I have sometimes felt like I've fallen short. And I just want to encourage you that God wants us to continue to seek him. And I always try to remind myself why I named this podcast Heart of a Seeker. And the reason I named this podcast Heart of a Seeker, and I say this quite often throughout my different podcasts, is because, like David, who struggled with anxiety, depression, and committed adultery and murder, but yet he still sought God in the middle of all his struggle and his sin, he was still called a man after God's own heart. Why? Because he didn't turn away from God even when he was falling short. It's like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, when Eve does get deceived by the serpent, you know, eats of the forbidden fruit, and then they realize they're naked and they go hide. And God is going through the garden and he's like, Where are you guys? And they were hiding, they're like, Well, we realized we're naked. And he goes, And who told you you were naked? And so I share that because it makes me think of we can't hide from God or the presence of God. He already knows, and he already knows what we're thinking, what we're going through, what we're struggling with. But what I really do believe, and what he's trying to do in our hearts during these seasons of waiting, during the times we grow impatient, is he wants to develop us, he wants to mature us, he wants to produce the fruit in our lives that line up with his spirit. And it is hard and it is a long journey, and it does take years. I mean, I've been, I gave my heart to Jesus when I was 21 years old, and I still struggle and I still fall short, and I still feel like I let him down. And I do try to hide from him like Adam and Eve did in the garden, as if he can't already see what I did. So instead of hiding from him, I encourage you guys and myself to seek God like David did even in the midst of his struggle. So I hope this message encourages you today. Again, I know it was a little bit different, but I really wanted to share that message because I went back and read it and it really even ministered to me now today. And I really wanted to also share it with you all. Dear Lord, I pray for those who have lost their focus or their direction that you reveal it to them. Lord, I pray you draw your children near to you and give them a thirst and hunger for your word. I ask that you continue to mature them and ignite the fire in their hearts, that when others look at them, they will see the burning flame within them. The light that shines so bright because your Holy Spirit indwells in us. Lord, allow us to study your word and really understand it, that we will not be complacent, but instead those who can be cannot contain themselves and just have a yearning desire to spread your word so that others may prosper in you. Make us contagious so whoever comes in our path will catch the fire in our hearts and have the same thirst and desire for you, Lord. Lord, I always thank you for the opportunity to share your beautiful word and sharing the love of Jesus with everyone. You loved us first, therefore let us make it our ambition to love you just the same. In Jesus' precious name we pray. Amen. You can follow me at I'm Alexa Lauren on Instagram and TikTok and Alexa Lauren on Facebook. Thank you guys once again for joining. I look forward to next week.