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For over 25 years Proverbs 31 Ministries' mission has been to intersect God's Word in the real, hard places we all struggle with. That's why we started this podcast. Every episode will feature a variety of teachings from president Lysa TerKeurst, staff members or friends of the ministry who can teach you something valuable from their vantage point. We hope that regardless of your age, background or stage of life, it's something you look forward to listening to each month!
Kaley Olson: Well, hey everyone, and thanks for tuning in to the Proverbs 31 Ministries podcast, where we share biblical truth for any girl in any season. I'm your host, Kaley Olson, and I'm joined by my co-host for today's episode, Wendy Blight. Hey, Wendy.
Wendy Blight: Hey, I'm so happy to be back, but I'm kind of sad it's our last one.
Kaley Olson: I know, I know, but it's all been really good stuff, and our teacher is also here Hey, Ellen, you're in the hot seat again.
Ellen Adkins: It's fun.
Kaley Olson: If you guys have been joining us for this whole series, then you know that this Advent podcast experience has been all about learning how Jesus really is the best gift. He is the solution to all our needs. And we've learned about that in like a really unique way this time. And like I said, in a previous episode, it's been amazing.
and more profound than I kind of expected it to be in the best way. Jesus really is the full embodiment of hope, peace, joy, and love. And we've explored what each of these words have looked like in the Bible by looking at why we need them. We need hope because we're broken. We need peace because without Jesus, we're chaotic. We need joy because we suffer and we need love because, oh
though I need to explain anymore. But Wendy, before we get started, I wanted to ask you, what's been something that's been impactful or surprising for you as we've talked about Advent on the podcast?
Wendy Blight: I think kind of what you said in a different way that those four words are always before me in my house because I have different Advent things, but never in my life have I spent time doing this, being a deep dive into each one, because even though I didn't do the other two, Ellen did, and we've talked about it, we've listened to it, then my own going deeper. Even though they're places I've journeyed, I've never brought them together with the Christmas story. And I think that is what's so special. I think...Advent will feel different to me from now on because of the things I've learned here.
Kaley Olson: Yeah, I think there's been something really powerful about the way that all of us have kind of processed the realness of our own life through the lens of Jesus and what he brings. And I think that that's the point. The point isn't to get to Christmas and open up the Bible and read the Christmas story and call it a day. I think the point is to remember that Jesus came for me and for you and for you and for you.
So before we get into the teaching, I do wanna pause quickly to encourage you to download the free First Five app to read even more daily teachings in this Advent series. It's really an impactful way to spend the first five minutes of your day. And in this season, I know if you're listening to this episode in real time, life is chaotic right now, and you're probably thrown off your rhythm. And the First Five app can be there to give you the reprieve you need and spend intentional time in God's word. And so we can link it for you in the show notes, but-
Wendy Blight: Can I say one thing? So one thing, we always talk about the app, but I'm the host of our weekend teachings. And I wanna put a plug in for the last...the last weekend of Advent, Eric Gagnon is teaching on like revelation, but specifically to about the, does the earth, he goes, does it really burn is the title. One of the best teachings I've ever heard him. So the last weekend of Advent, I say, don't forget to visit us on our first five weekend teachings on the app.
Kaley Olson: I'm glad that you mentioned that. I think Proverbs 31 is such a, of biblical teaching that sometimes you don't think about if you only follow us on social media or only listen to the podcast. It's kind of like the tip of the iceberg. And so when you download the First Up app, you do get those daily teachings, but on the weekend, there's an audio teaching, kind of like a podcast, but not really, but you get to hear more in depth. And so thank you for plugging that in, Wendy.
Wendy Blight: Yeah, you're welcome.
Kaley Olson: But let's talk about what we're talking about this week. Ellen, you're gonna help us look at why we need the love Jesus provides because we are hostile without it. I honestly, can I be honest? Please. Okay. Here's the conclusion that I'm tempted to jump to when I hear the word hostility. I start with seeing how hostile the word is, the world is, and how we as believers are called to love and bring the hope of gospel to a hurting world.
That's where I start. I look at how hostile the world does. And in a moment of true honesty, I also don't like the word hostile. Like I'm kind of hostile towards the word hostile. I wish that there was a different word. But while it is true that the world is hostile, I don't think that that's actually where we should start. And Ellen and I process this a little bit. Addressing hostility isn't like a rah-rah charge. And I think that that's what the world does.
who doesn't know Jesus wants it to be. It wants us to like address the hostility head on. And that's even what Jesus' people wanted. - It's true. - That's not what he did.
And it is necessary. And I want you to hear me say that, but we can't make a difference in the world unless Jesus has first made a difference in our hearts. And that's really where the hostility starts. I think about the Christmas song, Joy to the World. I will not sing it for you, but it says this, joy to the world, the Lord is come. Let earth receive her King. Let every heart prepare Him room.
Isn't that what we've been doing this Advent season? Really, it's kind of really holding up what's in our own hearts and opening up to receive the joy and the peace and the hope and the love that Jesus brings. And with this being the week of Christmas, I can't think of a better way to celebrate the birth of Jesus than to truly prepare our hearts. So here's the good news I'm gonna give you now, because Jesus came, He gives us a new heart, one that is soft, one that's capable of loving Him and others.
But in order to understand why we need a new heart, we have to start with where our hearts are. And that is in their natural state, hostile to God. And so Ellen, can you unpack why love is so hard for us? Why isn't it natural?
Ellen Adkins: Kaley, I think that is such a good question and I am glad that you asked it because you're right. It seems like something that should be natural. I mean, you open up the Bible and you start reading and it feels like this should just be something that's intuitive to us. I mean, even if you look at creation, we were created out of an abundance of God's love. Sometimes we think that
We were created because God was lonely or lacking something, but it wasn't that at all. It was out of an overflow of his love that we were created. We were also created for love.
We know through the scriptures that God is love and we're created in his image. This is where we get the two greatest commandments to love God and to love others. And so it seems like it should be simple, right? Like God loves us. We love God. We love others. Others love God. Others love us. It's just like the cycle that keeps going, right? But it is so hard and it just doesn't, work that way.
Kaley Olson: If that were true, there would not be a need for this podcast episode.
Ellen Adkins: I know. It's just like, what's the deal? What's the big hangup here? Well, I'll tell you what the hangup is. We don't need to read very far into the Bible to know that this is not the way that things are. We don't really have this ability to love God and love others rightly in our natural state. And That's because when sin interests the world, the human heart really turns in on itself. So instead of loving God, we love ourselves. And instead of loving others, we love ourselves. And even when we try to love other people, there's always some kind of a mixed mode of a mixed bag where, you know, it's mixed with selfishness or vain conceit or ambition. And
You know, you see this pattern repeated all throughout the Old Testament where God's people are constantly called to love God and love others. And, you know, that's the, you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and might. And,
The people of Israel, they impressed that on their children. It was just the heartbeat of who they were supposed to be. They said they're supposed to talk about it when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. That is like the core of who God's people are called to be, to love God and to love others.
And yet constantly you see them disobey these commands. So in the book of Exodus, you see, you know, the classic story of the golden calf where they're meant to be worshiping God. Moses is up receiving the 10 commandments and instead they're melting down their jewelry to craft idols to worship, turning away from the true and living God. And, you know, all throughout the Old Testament, you see, rather than loving and caring for other nations and being a light to the nations, they oppress and harm other people and themselves.
Isaiah describes as the whole head is faint, the whole heart sick. You know, that is just the condition of a heart sickness that we all have. And, you know, you see that pattern in the Old Testament, but you also see that pattern repeated throughout our own lives. Our own hearts are distorted and their capacity to love changes.
Kaley, you hit on this earlier, but before we became Christians, it says our hearts were hostile to God. It actually uses that language of hostility towards God.
And the way that we relate to each other, even if it's not marked by that full-fledged hostility, which again, it's kind of an intense word. I think of like strong, like hostile rebel forces.
Kaley Olson: I don't know why Bruce Willis comes to mind, but you know, it just does. I
Ellen Adkins: t's just like a really intense word, but it's easy then to think, oh, well, I'm not hostile. But I think that can show up in frustration, anger, annoyance, and selfishness. Yeah. It's really kind of bleak, but Romans 1 summarizes that end trajectory of a heart curved inward, describing a people that is senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. It's like, wow, that is that end trajectory of that inward curve of the human heart that just is distorted in its capacity to love God and to love others.
Kaley Olson: Yeah. I mean, Ellen, as you were talking about this kind of from like a biblical perspective, I have motherly perspective to bring to this because my three and a half year old is definitely at this point. And I, well, I have two sons. So one is almost four. And this is the one that I'm talking about. The other is 14 months. And I distinctly remember the feeling that I had when my sweet eldest son disobeyed me for the first time.
Wendy Blight: Wendy, do you know what I'm talking about? You know what I'm talking about.
Kaley Olson: And it was disobedience on purpose, willful disobedience. And I knew that he would do this one day But even that moment of toddler disobedience is evidence of hostility that's harbored in our hearts as tiny humans. It is going to come out. When a baby is born, it's almost kind of like they're a picture of innocence and pureness untainted by sin yet.
and full of a future purpose, but they don't stay that way. And we're all evidence of that. And I kind of feel like I'm living in limbo with my second oldest who I'm like, he's gonna do that one day real soon. And he's gonna shatter my heart. And I feel like this is just an example of how God feels about us. Not disappointed, like just like, oh man, she did it. I knew she would. The jig is up. And she did. I knew he would. And she did. But I think what I love is that when we know that He knew and He still loved us, but we still disobey Him. And Ellen, I just feel like we're caught in the cycle.
We know we're hostile to God. We know we're supposed to love. So where's the hope in this whenever our hearts are really so naturally dark because of sin?
Ellen Adkins: Yeah, that would be a real bummer note for us to end on. Again, Merry Christmas, Happy Advent, the inward curve of the human soul. But there is another story being written, a story of hope. And it's really a story of love because I think something that we can forget is that we assume that God loves the way that we love, which is kind of like fickle and half-hearted, but that's not how God loves his people. Despite...
God's love remained faithful and steadfast. Jeremiah 31 says, And that's like all that's right in the midst of really intense judgment for really severe sin due to their own lack of love. And he's saying, I have loved you with an everlasting love. I love it. Exodus 34 says,
The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding and steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin. And I think...
You know, in the Old Testament, we see this promise that we'll be given a new heart. 'Cause that's really the issue is that we need a new heart. We don't need a cleaned up heart, a heart that, you know, tries to do better. We truly need a new heart. And God promises that He will remove the heart of stone and give us a heart that is soft. And that's what's so beautiful leading into this Advent season and into the birth of Jesus is that
We know just how we are created out of an abundance of love. God sends his son out of an abundance of love. John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life."
And the scripture says that God demonstrates his own love for us in this, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. And we're called children of God. We who were once hostile enemies of God, he says, you are now my children. He says, see what kind of love the father has given to us, that we should be called children of God. And so we are. You know, scripture says that when we believe in Christ, our old selves have died with Christ and that we are now alive in him. And something really cool happens when we die to ourself and become alive in Christ. And that's, we have the Holy Spirit. We are given a new heart that is actually able to love God and others. And we're given the fruits of the spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, et cetera, et cetera.
And because we have the spirit of God in us, we are then able to show God's love in the way that we love one another. Because at the end of the day, our theology of love actually needs to lead to the action of love. It's not just love in theory. It is love in action. It says, anyone who does not love does not know God because God is love. If God so loved us, we ought to also love one another. I love it in 1 John that talks about how that's a love that's not just in word or speech, but in
action and in truth. And I think sometimes we like to pit those things against each other, like it's love or truth or action or words. And man, it's all of it put together.
And something else that I love, I don't know if you guys ever struggled with this, love kind of seems like a vague term. We use it really vaguely in our culture.
Kaley Olson: I love Wendy's outfits all the time. Yeah. I love Wendy's outfit.
Ellen Adkins: I love my niece. I love sourdough bread.
Wendy Blight: I love my favorite show. I'm like, do I really love Only Murders in the Building? No.
Ellen Adkins: But thankfully, the Bible actually spells out pretty clearly what love is. So in 1 Corinthians 13, it talks about how we can do a number of really good things, but if we don't have love, we're really missing the point. And it describes exactly what that looks like. It says...
Love is patient. Love is kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."
I think that's such, for me at least, a really convicting definition of love. And even as I was preparing for this, I was thinking about how it is really easy for me to think about showing love in that way, in that, you know, 1 Corinthians 13 way. It's easy for me to think about sharing that love with people that I just naturally like, you know, or care about. But Jesus actually calls us to take it a step further and to show that type of love to our enemies.
Luke 6 says, "Love your enemies as yourself. Do good to those who harm you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who mistreat you." Oof, that's a tough word, but that is the distinction of Christian love. Jesus himself says that even non-believers love people who treat them well, but he calls us to love our enemies. And that is only possible because of God's love for us and God's spirit in us. And the same God,
who loved us while we were his enemies, actually enables us to love those who we would consider our enemies. And we can step into this type of love because in Christ, we have nothing to earn, nothing to prove, and everything to receive. And that same love that sent Jesus to the cross is the same love that will carry us home into eternity. I wanna end with this from Romans 8.
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, nor the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all of creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
And so maybe if you are listening to this and you have not received the gift of his love in the form of salvation, that would be truly the best thing that you could do this Christmas season. You have nothing, you do not have to earn it. He came freely to give it. You have nothing to prove, nothing to earn and everything to receive.
Kaley Olson: Can I pause right here and say, we have surveyed our audience. Most of you go to church. Yeah. that doesn't necessarily mean that you know that you're 100% right with the Lord. And I feel like sometimes we're tempted to gloss over that and just assume, I listen to the Proverbs 31 Ministries podcast. That means I'm good. But you are the only one who can answer that for yourself right now. But Wendy, can I put you on the spot a little bit as like a chaplain and just, can you give them a prayer to pray, and then we can move on with our discussion. Can you do that for us?
Wendy Blight: Sure. Yeah, thanks for asking me that, Kaley. And I think the most important things that God looks for is that we come to Him, we recognize who He is, God, our Creator. We recognize that we're sinners, that we're not right with Him. And we confess that to Him. And we confess to Him that we know that we're not right.
then we ask forgiveness and say, Father, forgive me. I want to receive your love. I want to know you. I wanna be your child. And you confess that. And then you just say, thank you. Thank you, Lord, for what you've done in my heart today. Yeah, yeah.
Kaley Olson: Thank you, Wendy. I think it's important to do that. Oh, I agree. Because I don't wanna miss an opportunity for someone to really start something a relationship with the Lord and be able to then live out love rightly. Well, you can't do that without a relationship with the Lord.
Wendy Blight: And it is that simple. It is that simple. Just recognizing your sin, confessing it and stepping into a relationship with Him, accepting that forgiveness. Yeah.
Kaley Olson: Yeah. Can we like keep on talking a little bit about accepting, maybe not accepting forgiveness, but accepting love. This teaching, I feel like, If you are not mad at God, it's easy to see that He loves you. But I think that there might be some people who are resisting His love for whatever reason. Like, what does it look like for someone to truly accept and acknowledge the love that the Father has for you when you maybe have experienced what we've talked about in this podcast series? You've experienced suffering, you've experienced brokenness, What do you say to someone who is like, I just really think I'm the exception right now?
Ellen Adkins: Man, I'm thinking about some conversations I've had with a good friend of mine where she was walking through just some really deep suffering and kind of wondering, man, what is this from God? Like, how am I supposed to receive this? this situation from God. And she had a really profound conclusion. She said, I don't know what this is from God, but I know that it's not his wrath. I know that much. And she said, no matter whatever this is, I can receive it as an expression of his love for me because he will never be anything other than that to me. And again, that's such a hard thing to
feel. I feel like that's something where we can live with this head-heart disconnect where we know something in our head but we don't feel it in our heart. I don't always know the answer of how do we close that gap but I do know that whatever you're walking through, it is coming from the hand of a God that loves you and I think that can actually help us to be able to receive it and even if it is and we grieve and there's lament, we also can trust that God is loving you right now.
Wendy Blight: But I also think we don't know...
We may not know how to go to Him or talk to Him or ask Him. And so what I wanna say is just say, God, I don't even know if I know you. Maybe I've accepted you. Maybe I haven't. I don't even, show me. And I would be bold and I would say, I wanna believe in you. I wanna walk with you. I want what this is, but I don't know.
And I'm just gonna pray right now. Father, Kaley has a discerning heart right now that there are women listening, people listening who don't know you. And so Father, right now, we boldly pray in Jesus' name and by the power of the Holy Spirit that over these next seven days, that's a number of perfection and completion in the Bible.
We're gonna pray over the next seven days that you are going to just fall fresh in the life of these women right now, praying out to you. Show me, Lord, that you are real. Show me your love, whether it's through other people, whether it's through a sensation or a feeling in my bones and in my body, whether it's a circumstance, a door you open, a door you close.
I open your Bible and you speak to me through your word. God, show these women, show the ones who are desperately wanting to know you because you love them and you want to call them your beloved daughter. Jesus name. Amen.
Kaley Olson: And that really would be the best gift this Christmas is to really, really know that the Father loves you and that Jesus died for you and that you have the Holy Spirit to remind you of that love. Wendy, I know I saw you writing down a ton of notes. So do you have any thoughts you want to add before we wrap up in our Advent series?
Wendy Blight: I wanted to go back to what she taught from in the Old Testament, Deuteronomy, is called the Shema, right? Okay, it's the most, one of the, if not the most important passage in the Old Testament. So I wanted to read it. It says, "The Lord, our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.
"And these words I command to you today shall be on your heart." Okay, so He wants them to have them on their hearts. "You shall teach them diligently to your children." Talk about them when you sit at your house, when you walk along the way, when you lie down, when you rise.
I'll explain that in a minute. So when Lauren and I went on a trip to Israel with Proverbs 31, we sat in front of two old houses.
Old Jewish men, I don't know. I'm sure they have a specific name. Would you know what that is? I don't know. But they had, those are called phylacteries. Yeah, I know what you're talking about. So they bind this turban-like thing on their head and on their forearms. And on it is something called the mezuzah, M-E-Z-U-Z-A-H. And inside the mezuzah is this Deuteronomy passage. And they had to wear it on them because...
And so the difference for us when we come to the New Testament, when we come to Jesus,
We don't have to do anything to have God's pleasure. That was how they showed his love and honor and the command that he gave them. We don't have to do anything other than what we just talked about to tell him we want him, to invite him into our hearts, to accept the gift Jesus gave on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins, accept that gift.
and then walk into that knowing he's not on our foreheads or our forearms. He is in our hearts. Wow. And I love the difference. And I think that's a beautiful difference.
Kaley Olson: My mind is blown right now. Never I've heard that verse and I've seen those. Mezuzah. Mezuzah, thank you. We have one on our front door now. But I've seen those and I've never really put the, the two together. I think too, as we kind of wrap up our conversation on love, it's, you can't love someone that you're not willing to be in a committed relationship with. I'm speaking to myself too. I mean, like Ellen, you taught us so with grace, with grace, uh,
in humility, even though it was hard to receive, you reminded us that is not my natural bent. I am not naturally going to wake up and open up my first five app and read that every single morning. I'm naturally not going to wake up and be joyful. I'm not naturally gonna wake up and bring the peace. I'm not naturally going to wake up
and love God and love others, I have to like fight for it. I also have to fight for that relationship with the Lord and be in His word and learn to love His word and love Him. That's the only way that we can do it in this world. Until one day we are in the fullness of His love. You know, I think that's what's so hard for us as we listen to a podcast like this and we
finish it and then we go about our day and we forget. And when we forget that love, it also makes us forget how to really engage and interact with others, which leads to that hostility. And so as we close, I do wanna give one final thought on something that I was at a, kind of like a Bible study meeting the other night and the speaker talked to us about how to see other people. And I think when we're reminded how much of ourselves
is how much of us are sinners, which is all of us, 110% of us are sinners. When we forget that, it's easy to look at others and see them as hostile. But when I remember that I am naturally hostile towards God, I can see others with a lot more compassion and in a lot more need of love. That this gentleman was talking about praying when he goes somewhere.
God, help me slow down enough to see that person who is bagging my groceries as someone who is your son or daughter, but isn't just an adult, is also an infant. Help me see that person on the side of the road who I might be really tempted to judge maybe for the way that they look or the clothes that they're wearing or what they're asking for. Help me to see them as someone
someone who was born, who was supposed to be born with the full ability to love, but can't do it because of sin. Help me wake up and see myself that way too. And he said, every day, that's how he asked God to help him to see other people. And I'm like, man, I think that that would be a way to make the world a little less hostile if we were all willing to just see others truly,
the way that God sees them with that same compassion.
Wendy Blight: Just asking him and inviting him to open your eyes each day, all during Advent, every day, just wake up. But here's one other prayer for the person that isn't, the person who's struggling to,
God loving them, we talked about so much. The Lord just laid on my heart. I have three verses. I always pray each morning over my heart in places I struggle with. So you could wake up and there's a verse that says, see what great love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God. So maybe if you need every day to remind yourself of how loved you are, just say, thank you, God that you have lavished your love on me, that I am your daughter, a daughter of the one true God. Thank you for that gift. Remind me of that today.
So just simple verse speaking it over your mind to remind yourself.
Ellen Adkins: That’s so good Wendy
Kaley Olson: And isn’t God kind to use broken people to be catalyst and conduits of his love to others and I say that because God‘s using Proverbs 31 ministries in a mighty way even though we’re such broken people and we have one final story to share from a lady named Cindy who is one of our therapy and theology listeners and so will you read her story.
Wendy Blight: I’m a little late to the game on podcast I recently binged all the seasons listening every day to and from work on one podcast the shame of divorce was discussed 15 years of wearing the shame of being a divorced Christian was immediately shed for me hallelujah I’ve prayed for this thank you for the understandable theology explaining this in season 10 first episode. I’m crying tears of joy excited about this new freedom I feel, thank you for being vessel for God to flow through. I will be forever changed and so very grateful to Lysa, Joel, and Jim for the podcast.
Kaley Olson: I love that I love that friends no matter what you have been through God loves you just like Cindy story. It is always such a joy for us to hear how God is using Proverbs 31 ministries every day to reach women like Cindy and if you give a Proverbs 31 I want you to know that your generosity allows women around the world to access free Biblically sound resources like this podcast, daily devotions, the first mobile app, and so much more. So from us to you thank you thank you for joining us for this series thank you Ellen and thank you Wendy for the time and dedication you spent walking us through this content this last four weeks. From all of us ay P31 Ministries we hope you have the Merriest Christmas and as always we believe when you know the truth and live the truth it changes everything!