Episode 246-Patient Endurance

If you’re like me, somewhere along the line in Sunday School you learned the nine fruit of the Spirit which include: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. These are all great virtues we should be incorporating on our Spirit-Led Transformation journey.

As I was reading Romans 5 this week, I realized that as Christians there is one of these virtues we rarely talk about. That might be because along the way someone somewhere told us to never pray for patience because if we do something difficult will happen that will teach us the hard way how to be patient. How to endure.

After the list of virtues, Galatians 5:23 TPT says: Never set the law above these qualities, for they are meant to be limitless. In other words, all nine virtues are things we should desire to have in our lives in limitless quantity, especially patience.

We may not like learning to be patient, but apparently God feels it something we need. In Romans 5:3 we read a bit about why this is. “With joy let us exult in our sufferings and rejoice in our hardships, knowing that hardship, distress, pressure and trouble produces patient endurance.”

All the bad stuff we have to go through in this life helps to produce a virtue God wants us to possess. We need patient endurance to get through whatever is going to be thrown our way in this life.

Hebrews 10:36 TPT really sums up what this entire episode is all about “You need the strength of endurance to reveal the poetry of God’s will and then you receive the promise in full.”

As always the action steps and challenges for this lesson will be in the Spirit-Led Transformation course along with the video and transcript. This course is only available in Overcomers Academy.

Go to: teresashieldsparker.com/overcomers/ to join.

Episode 244--Why Forgive Others?

An important step on our Spirit-Led Transformation is forgiving others. It’s actually a command from God. He demonstrates exactly what He wants us to do for others when He forgives us. He is teaching us by example.

Most of the time, this feels like a really hard thing to do so we sort of just put it in the back of our minds and leave it there. We have a problem with forgiving someone who has done us wrong because we want them to be brought to justice.

However, you aren’t bringing them to justice or hurting them by not forgiving them. You are only hurting yourself. It does you no good to hang on to the wrongs someone did to you. It’s only keeping you further away from God because God clearly says we must forgive others or He won’t forgive us.

Forgiving Others Is A Process

Forgiving others is a process we go through to disentangle or release ourselves from others who have hurt us and let God take care of us and them.

It’s the reason Jesus tells us in Luke 6:37 to “forgive others and you will be forgiven.” It’s the reason Paul reiterates that in Colossians 3:13, “Forgive anyone who offends you. Remember, the Lord forgave you, so you must forgive others.”

God wants us to demonstrate His principles of forgiveness in our personal lives and interactions with others. We want retribution, but He asks that we show them mercy and leave everything else up to Him.

Why Should We Forgive Others?

-Because God forgave us.

-Because God asks us to forgive others.

-So we demonstrate God’s forgiveness to the world.

-Because we understand God is the only one who can judge.

-Because it releases us from that person’s control over us.

-Because it is the only way for us to be at peace.

God wants to use His not-so-secret weapon of forgiving others to set you free to live in peace and demonstrate His forgiveness to the world at the same time.

Action steps and challenges for this lesson and others in the Spirit-Led Transformation series can be found in Overcomers Christian Weight Loss Academy: https://Teresashieldsparker.com/overcomers/

Episode 243- Forgiven

Forgiven. It’s such a great word. This is the second in our series of Spirit-Led Transformation because understanding the depths of being forgiven can set us free to follow God with all that we are and all that He made us to be. However, when we feel like we are not forgiven and feel deep shame and regret, we are stuck and cannot move forward.

Forward motion on our transformation journey is what we want. The devil will continually remind us of our sin if we let him. He knows that will keep us from any forward motion.

Before we are ready to begin our Spirit-Led Transformation, we have to accept Jesus as our Savior. Then we can begin to walk in tandem with God. Some of us, and I have lots of fingers pointing back at me, have had to learn that the hard way.

On this episode I share how I came to know Jesus as my Savior. Crazy enough, it happened because I stole candy from the grocery store. At seven years old, it made me realize I was a thief, which made me a sinner.

After accepting Jesus because of God’s grace, I was forgiven for everything I have ever done. All my flaws, mistakes, debts and sins have been wiped away by an Almighty God, who could rightly hold me guilty for everything I’ve done wrong. Instead in His grace, He forgave me. And let me tell you, that’s a really good thing because I’ve had to confess a lot of stuff since then as well.

Overcomers Academy link: https://TeresasShieldsParker.com/Overcomers Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TeresaShieldsParker Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/treeparker/

Episode 084-Flesh Versus Spirit

This episode is going to be the first in a series I’m doing based around the book of Romans. It’s really a book that talks to us about Spirit-led Transformation so that will be a topic we’ll be exploring for the next several months.

Because these episodes are so foundational I am putting them into a course that will include the transcript, action steps and challenges. Those last three will only be available to those in Overcomers Christian Weight Loss Academy. So if you want the deeper dive you will need to join us there to get this course and all the other things we provide in that group.

In talking about the flesh we need to define what it is, what sin is, why if we allow our flesh to lead us it will lead us astray and why following the Holy Spirit is the right way but we many times resist it until we have no other choice.

Two favorite scriptures from this episode are Romans 2:2 TPT, “God is always right, because He has all the facts.” And Galatians 5:16 TPT, “As you yield to the dynamic life and power of the Holy Spirit, you will abandon the cravings of your self-life.”

Then there are two of my favorite quotes, “Your flesh doesn’t care about your eternity because it’s not going with you.” And “Flesh cannot fix flesh.”

Overcomers Academy link: https://Teresashieldsparker.com/overcomers/

Episode 241-Finding Freedom

One minute I was sitting in the green metal lawn chair in my uncle’s front yard, talking and laughing with my aunt while cousins and our children played hide and go seek.

The next minute I felt the bending and eventual collapse of the rounded legs of the chair as they slowly lowered me to the ground.

Even though I’m sure the sight of a 430-pound woman sitting on a pile of metal was funny, all laughter stopped. My uncle jumped up to help me.

Being super morbidly obese I always tried to blend into the wallpaper and not make more of a spectacle of myself any more than I already was.

That day, however, the proverbial cat had been let out of the bag.

I’m fat, really fat. I break lawn chairs like twigs. I can’t be trusted to sit anywhere.

I knew I had a problem. I denied it constantly. I tried to push it under the rug. However, I could no longer ignore the obvious.

I was a really good Christian. I didn’t drink alcoholic beverages. I’d never done drugs, smoked cigarettes, had sex before marriage, gone to an X-rated movie, watched or listened to pornography. I went to church every Sunday. I taught Sunday School and small groups. I worked in ministry. And I was a glutton.

Overcomers Academy link: https://Teresashieldsparker.com/overcomers/

Episode 240-What God Wants

I’ve learned since childhood that I should listen to God. I knew He wanted me to give up sugar and flour and eat more meat, fruits, and vegetables. However, I continued to do the opposite. I was like the people of Jeremiah’s day. “We will not listen to your messages from the Lord. We will do whatever we want … For in those days we had plenty to eat, and we were well off and had no troubles!” (Jeremiah 4:16-17 NLT).

My desire to do my own thing regarding what I ate and how I didn’t exercise or listen to God about my health was not working. As a matter of fact, I was eating myself into an early grave. I was eating myself to death and thinking I was having a great time doing it.

Because of what I had done to myself, in 1999 I found myself lying in a hospital bed awaiting the results of an angioplasty. The very rude cardiac surgeon came into my room, looked at me and without compassion said, “You don't need open heart surgery. You need to lose at least 100 pounds and keep it off or you'll be dead in five years.” Then, he promptly turned and walked out of the room leaving me very alone. My world came to a screeching halt. I had just been given a death sentence.

Overcomers Academy link: https://teresashieldsparker.com/overcomers

Episode 239-King of My Heart

Who or what is King of your heart, the most important thing in your life?

The first stanza of the song, King of My Heart says, “I’m in a war every minute. I know for sure I’ll never win it. I am David up against Goliath and it’s a fight for my attention. I’m being pulled every direction.”

However, David’s real giant was not a huge hairy man, but a beautiful woman named Bathsheba. He saw her. He wanted her. He took her even though she was married and knew it was wrong.

I so relate to David because I had a love affair too. His name was Sugar and He tasted so good.

Let me tell you when something takes over as King of your heart, it’s not easy to dethrone it. But, here’s how.

One-on-One Coaching Link: https://TeresaShieldsParker.com/one-on-one-coaching/

Overcomers Academy Link: https://TeresaShieldsParker.com/overcomers/.