E55 Why God May Not Be Moving the Way You Want — And What True Sacrifice Actually Looks Like

EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:

Jen Cudmore (00:00)
Sacrifice is a normal part of life, right?

I think as women, it’s really easy to sacrifice for our family, to set aside our own needs and desires for our kids and our husbands and whatever’s going on in their lives. And we’ll give up our time or money or skills or spiritual gifts to love on our friends or serve at church. But in general, think women tend to feel like they need to be all things to all people. And it’s easy to forget that our creator, our savior actually deserves sacrifice too. When was the last time that you presented yourself

as living sacrifice to God according to that scripture in Romans 12. it is your spiritual act of worship. So how often do you actually go to him and surrender? what does that even mean to present your body to God as a sacrifice? We’re going to dive into all of this today, so stick around.

Welcome, thanks for joining me today. I’m Jennifer, the host into the depths podcast. This is where we have discussions that go below the surface. We dive into who we are and break free of who we’ve been. And

I feel like my topic today is a little bit different, but it’s been on my mind and so I wanted to tackle it. And so I just finished reading a book about the Holy Spirit and you know, I like to do a lot of studying and reading and just like always, every time I read a book about Holy Spirit, I feel like I get mad. Like I don’t find what I’m looking for in that book and it really causes a lot of frustration. And here’s what I mean. Like I don’t want to read a book that’s just gonna give me a bunch of facts about who he is.

I can find that in the Bible. I want practical steps so that I can get to know him on a deeper level I want to be that vessel that he uses for signs and wonders and miracles. How do I get that? How do I get that anointing? What is there something that I can do to facilitate being able to be used by God to do things like that? To facilitate his glory and

For most of my life, I…

I spent in conservative circles and there’s not much of an emphasis on the glory of God or the gifts of the Spirit. And so I personally, myself have not witnessed very much of those kinds of things and I would really like to be part of a great movement or like some, you know, big manifestation of the Holy Spirit doing something really ⁓ amazing. And I haven’t gotten to do much of that. I mean, I feel His gentle presence all the time. ⁓

But I just want more. want that fire that so many different people talk about. You know, I’ve had conversations with Holy Spirit. I’ve developed a friendship with him. He’s very elusive and mysterious most of the time, at least in all of the ways when I am encountering him. But I hear so many stories about other people who get these really fantastical manifestations where like there’s immediate physical healing, like ⁓

body parts that get healed, like people who couldn’t walk begin to run around the building or that feeling like.

Feeling like your body is on fire not in a bad way But ⁓ I was reading a story the other day of somebody feeling like there’s a warm fire on her back every time she’s in the presence of the Lord and I was like that would be really interesting or You know seeing a glory cloud like it says in in the Old Testament when the Israelites were traveling or you know getting hit with holy laughter or you’re just laughing for like 20 minutes I mean these kinds of things

sometimes I wonder like, or really it’s kind of whining to the Lord. Like, why didn’t he choose me to do some of those things? I just find it very curious. And after I quit feeling sorry for myself, you know, usually I come back to these truths. You know, I don’t get to choose how God shows up. I don’t get to choose the way he wants to interact in my life or

you know, be my friend. And so I need to stay humble and watch my expectations, which can sometimes be a challenge. Flashy, big, elaborate, fantastic encounters. I mean, why do I think that that somehow is much more important than experiences that are small and quiet? And I feel like this is a legit question that I should ask myself more often. Really, like those types of experiences may be glamorous, but that doesn’t make them better.

So we need to be careful of our expectations. And then another question is like, why am I taking it personally that God hasn’t chosen to give me some sort of really dramatic encounter? Like honestly, that shows that I’m probably not ready to steward his glory if it were to come my way, right? So I remember years ago, I was asking God why he hadn’t given me the ability to pray in tongues. And you know, I had heard that

if you just ask for the gifts, he will give them to you. Some people operate in the different gifts of the spirits to different levels, but we all have access to all the different ones. And so I was like, well, I’ll just ask him.

to learn how to pray in tongues and my attitude was like my my approach to that question was if this is gonna be helpful if learning how to do this will further the kingdom and make me better in my purpose and my calling then I want it like I don’t want to miss out on something just because I’m uncomfortable or I don’t understand it and so my prayer came from a place of genuinely wanting to be a better person and do more for the Lord but what he showed me and you know I prayed it was probably a few months and nothing

happened. So I was like, he must not want to give me that gift and I just need to be okay with it. But I specifically asked him one day, was like, Lord, why? I’m just curious why. And he said, I cannot give you the gift of praying in tongues right now because you think it makes you more holy. And that was like so humbling for me because I thought, my gosh, I thought I had the right motives. But honestly, when I looked deep in my heart, I did think that people who could pray in tongues were more spiritual and more like mature in their faith.

And that’s really not how it works at all. And so I had to get a new perspective. People who have that ability aren’t better than me. And so that’s the same. People who have really dramatic encounters or get to experience miracles, it doesn’t make them any better Christians than me or you. So whichever category you fall in, whether you’ve been around miracles and signs and wonders multiple times or you’ve barely seen any, neither

Either way is right or wrong, neither one is better than the other. And so let me just point that out really quick for you so that there’s no shame around that. But I’m choosing to approach this stuff.

not from a place of comparison, but from a place of like, I already know the Holy Spirit is with me. Like 24 seven, whether I feel it or not, when you repent, when you choose to become a believer, when you follow Jesus, the Holy Spirit resides inside you. That’s not disputable. What I’ve been wanting to see is more of that manifestation of feeling his presence in a big way, seeing mighty moves of the Lord, right? But

I don’t want to chase after dramatic encounters or experiences for the wrong reasons. It’s got to be about him and what he wants to do and not about me and what I think I would like to have. And ⁓ if he has chosen not to show up like that in my life,

It doesn’t have anything to do with my worth or value, right? Same for you. If he’s, if he’s choosing not to do those big flashy things for you, it doesn’t, it’s not because you’re not good enough. And that’s what I sometimes get tempted to slip into is, he must not like me as much as he likes other believers or, know, whatever those silly lies are that the enemy tries to feed us. So that temptation to feel like we’re not enough or that there’s something wrong with us, right? Maybe I’m not, you know, maybe I did something wrong.

and he doesn’t find me worthy of being able to manifest his spirit in a big way. So I’m trying to be patient and hopefully someday maybe I will have some really big encounter and I’ll really feel like the fire of God. But if he doesn’t, I think I’m at the place where I’m okay with that. And the reason I’m bringing all of this up is because it leads to the whole idea of

You know, that question that’s still in the back of your mind. What if there is something that I could do to invite God closer, to give him the opportunity to move in bigger ways in my life? Are there some things that I can do? And I think the answer is yes. Have I unintentionally stifled the Lord and his ability to do some of those flashy, elaborate, ⁓

sort of bigger expressions of his glory. I think that’s a good question to sort of take a minute to ask yourself and not from a place of shame and condemnation like, my goodness, I did something wrong, but from a place of true genuine curiosity because there are…

a few things that we can do and let me explain. So I heard this phrase several years ago that I really was, took me a while to wrap my head around it, but it was so profound. said, fire doesn’t burn on an empty altar.

And so let me pause here and just say like I’m not talking literal like in the Old Testament it used to be a very real altar and they would you know build the fire but ⁓

This is more figurative for us today, right? It’s a symbol of if we want to see the hand of God in our lives more often, if we want to feel more of his presence, there’s some things that we can do because he is holy and we are not. And so in order for him to move closer to us, we’ve got to shave off some of those things in our life that is not holy because he can only come so close. He’s God, he’s perfect. He can’t be near that. And so this is kind of a big concept.

but it means that we need to take our journey seriously of learning to let go of some things and get rid of some things in our lives and strive towards righteousness, right? If we have unconfessed sin in our life, if we’re excusing bad behaviors or bad attitudes, that is gonna put a barrier between us and the Lord. He can only come so close and he can only… ⁓

relationship is only going to grow to a certain point

What about ⁓ refusing to deal with the wounds of your past? Refusing to get the healing that you need and overcome some of the junk that’s happened to you. That creates a rift between you and the Lord. That stuff gets in the way not only of your relationship with God, but also your relationship with others. Like it is extremely important that we get healing for the bad things that happen to us. Not just in our childhood, but as an adult too, right?

But then sometimes our priorities get out of whack, right? So we’re giving our time and our attention to the things of the world and that can cause division between us and the Lord. And that creates that distance and prevents him from showing up bigger because the things of the world can become idols to us. And so what does that look like? think.

Entertainment is the biggest one. That’s just Jen’s opinion. But I mean TV, social media scrolling, video games, sports, shopping, substances, I mean any kind of substances or alcohol. There’s so many things that can become idols in our life and it’s super easy to make excuses and pretend like they’re not affecting us in a negative way, but they are. So how much time are you spending on entertainment? And I’m not talking about work like right? We do have to use electronics for work, but

⁓ You know a lot of times we’re allowing electronics to dominate our lives for entertainment value and that is not what God wants for us I know God has convicted me many times you’re out of balance. You’re watching too much TV. You’re reading too many novels You’re eating too much junk food. It is super easy because we live in a fallen world We’re gonna get sucked into some of that stuff But we we need to learn how to recognize it and not stay there think of the scripture in first correct first

Corinthians 10 23 that says everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial Moderation is the key. It’s not that we can’t participate in any of those things What matters is how much we’re giving it our time and attention and how versus in comparison to how much we’re giving God our time and attention and doing things for the Lord like It’s just something that we really need to pay attention to so that we’re staying in balance.

and here’s the thing a repentant heart is extremely attractive to God he cannot resist human humility when we lower ourselves before him and we’re like whoops I messed up I’m sorry Lord let me you know get back to putting you first he’ll he loves that he will come rushing in he will be there and have a heartbeat to

bless you and give you favor and help you So learning to approach life from that attitude of, am I starting to get out of line in any areas? let me get back over here so that I’m learning to stay on the path of righteousness. God tells us.

in the bible be holy as i am holy and obviously we’re imperfect so we can only go so far but how much effort are you putting into learning how to be holy and living that out in your life i think so many christians don’t really try that hard

Or we go through phases where it’s just not as important to us or we’re just distracted. Maybe we have the desire, but there’s just other things that are getting in the way. So, you know, in the Old Testament, the way to show repentance of sin was to sacrifice ⁓ an actual animal on a real altar and offer it to God for atonement. Thankfully, we don’t have to do that anymore. Jesus came and died. That covers our sins. And so we don’t we don’t need any more shed blood.

because Jesus was enough. But the New Testament talks about a different kind of sacrifice. And so I even wanted to just like read it from the scripture. This is the NIV version. says, I urge you in view of God’s mercy to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. Doing this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the patterns of this world. And so I think that’s worth

like what does it mean to offer your body as a living sacrifice? How do we actually do that? I think it’s similar to, it goes back to like what are the ways that we sacrifice for the humans in our life? know, it’s by putting other people’s needs and desires above ourselves. So what are God’s needs and desires?

How can we put his needs and desires above our own and sacrifice so that he’s first, so that we’re doing it for him before we’re doing it for ourselves or even others?

God doesn’t require some big dramatic gesture like selling all your belongings and moving to a third world country so you can solve the hunger crisis. Like that’s not what it’s about. It’s about our heart posture. It’s about, know, like the Bible says, don’t conform to the ways of the world. Live different. So do you look different? Is there anything in your life that looks holy or righteous? Are you working towards that?

Let me give you a couple of examples. And these are just a few that I threw together. So they’re a little bit generic, but like, we’ll get out of bed early to drive our kids to games or practices. We’ll get out of bed early to catch a flight for a vacation or a work trip. But we can’t get out of bed early to spend some extra time with God reading our Bible or praying or doing a study.

We’re gonna stay up late watching our favorite TV show or scrolling through reels, but we can’t stay up late to attend a church service or minister to people in need. I know for me, this was a big one. I would go to a Bible study or a small group and I would leave as fast as I could because I was tired and I was ready for bed and I go to bed early. So I was like, it is past my bedtime. See ya, I’m gone. And God, like that doesn’t honor the Lord. What if I were to sacrifice my sleep?

a little bit of my sleep for a positive healthy reason by honoring God and either know loving on the people in that group or spending time in worship and whatever it is and we’ll stay up late and sacrifice sleep for entertainment but we won’t do that for the Lord that seems out of balance right we will

spend our time and our money and our resources supporting our children in their extracurricular activities, but then we don’t bother investing any time or money into our own personal growth so that we can become the person that God designed us to be and actually fulfill the purpose and calling that God gave us. Now I’m not saying don’t do those things for your kids. I think that’s important, especially ⁓ like as it’s our job to help to shape them into who God designed them to be. But

Our personal growth?

is just as important as our kids is. So are we out of balance in that we don’t take any time to invest in who God wants us to be and we’re putting all of our resources into trying to give our kids a better life? We need to pull that back into balance. Like if you become a manager, you need to take some classes and do some research on how to become a better manager. If you are called to the music industry, you’re going to have to spend some time developing those skills, whether it’s an

instrument or your voice or whatever, right? So we don’t get to just put that to the wayside. Sometimes we do have to make sacrifices so that we can invest in ourselves and move forward in our gifts and our calling. those were just a couple of ideas that came to mind. Hopefully those will get you thinking about like what does that look like for you? What, you know?

what kinds of sacrifices would the Lord be wanting you to make? I have found that sacrifice generally requires either time or money. Those are the two big things in our lives and we prefer what’s easy. We prefer what’s free, but God actually wants more from us.

And not just from us, but it’s for us. And that can be hard to recognize. A year ago, you I was praying over our finances, asking the Lord for a solution because we wanted to get ahead in some things. And God’s solution ended up being sacrifice. And it was not the answer I wanted. I wanted him to just drop some money in our laps, fix the issue so that we could move forward. But he told me if I wanted to pay off some bills and get ahead financially, that I needed to give up my car.

Like literally I needed to sell my car and go, Tim and I start sharing one vehicle.

That was a big ask and I knew he was right and it took me a couple of months. I mean, it was very, very painful. I like my freedom. I like being able to go do whatever I want, whenever I want and to have to coordinate with him every time I needed to drive somewhere was a huge ⁓ inconvenience. And basically the Lord was like, are you going to choose to be inconvenienced so that you can get ahead and make your life better? And of course I did not want to. Right. And I also had to

part of my social life because it meant I couldn’t go out and do things as often with my friends or my family. But through this sacrifice, God has taught me a lot. It has been over a year now since Tim and I have been a one-car household and there have been some challenges, but through it all, God has really made me a better person. He’s grown me. He’s helped me learn to be content like it says in the scriptures. I think it’s Philippians where Paul talks about, have learned to be content in all circumstances. That’s what I want. I want

be able to say that, right? I don’t want to be so desperate for comfort and convenience that I can’t be willing to sacrifice something.

for the Lord or for others. you know, sometimes God is gonna require sacrifice to test our devotion to him, to help us become a better person, to grow us and stretch us. I heard a story once that just blew my mind, but it was so profound. was this woman who ⁓ gave up, she stopped drinking diet coke

And she explained that the reason was that the Lord had asked her to stop drinking it. ⁓ on one hand that can seem like such a non-issue. Like what is the big deal? Unless she was like excessively drinking, you know, six cokes a day or something, who cares if she drinks diet coke? But what it was, it was simply just a little

it was a meaningful gesture from her saying god You are more important to me than my favorite drink And so i’m gonna choose to give up my favorite drink for the rest of my life Because you are more important to me than that drink and that really convicted me so much at that point in my life My favorite drink was a latte. I was I would either get a actually I think at that point I was I was drinking a hazelnut latte a couple times a week and god was

asking me, hey, would you be willing to give up your latte for me? And it really was a struggle for me to get to that place where I was willing. And it was several months. I finally did it. And I went several months. I did not drink a latte. And

It really made my relationship with the Lord stronger and sweeter because I was willing to sacrifice something so small. It felt really big, but honestly, looking back, it’s really small. And ⁓ my heart was just so determined to enjoy my favorite drink,

I mean, I loved latte so much that I was actually afraid God was gonna ask me to stop drinking them. Like I was worried about it. Like that shows you right there that he was not my priority. That he was not my first love. And so it was…

a huge struggle for me at first, but I was determined to do it and I finally was able to do it. And I went several months without drinking a latte and that was a huge time of growing for me. But.

Then, after a while, because I had sort of proved my devotion, he did give me permission to drink lattes again. And I felt like they just weren’t as fun anymore. I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as I used to. So, I mean, I’m at the point where I probably don’t even drink one latte a month now. And I’m okay with that. Whereas it used to be just a huge deal to me to think about not being able to have a latte. And so I just share that to get you thinking about what are some areas

where maybe you could sacrifice to show the Lord more of your devotion to give him more of your heart.

So let’s push aside.

Any guilt shame condemnation you might be feeling right now because I know the enemy is trying to convince you that you’re got it Not a good enough christian because you’re not sacrificing enough for the lord. That is not what this episode is about I am simply trying to inspire you and invite you to think differently This conversation is an invitation from the lord to begin seeking different ways where you can put him first and make sacrifices for him If you’re not seeing god move as much in your life as you would like

Could it be that you’ve crawled off the altar? Could it be that you need to offer yourself as a living sacrifice? Have you allowed the things of the world to become an idol? Is there an area in your life where you’re out of balance? Where do you need to make some sacrifices for the Lord?

As you go about your week, let’s explore the depths of this final thought. How can you present yourself as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to the Lord? What would that look like? Today, what could you do? Tomorrow, what could you do? And the next day, and the next day. Does it have to be some giant grand gesture? And it doesn’t even have to be something that’s bad for you. Most of the time it’s something that’s good for you.

What are you willing to let go of to prove to the Lord that He’s first in your life? Bless you, friend. Have a great week.