EP 62: 4 Ways to Lead Yourself Spiritually

There's a prayer that the psalmist is writing and he's

he's basically praying keep me from lying to myself.

It created a whole new category for me where I thought, wait a

minute, if they're praying keep me from lying to myself, that

means it's possible that I am lying to myself.

And how would I know? Like how would I even know if I

am self deceived? Hey everyone, and welcome back

to the Greatest Church Podcast. I'm your host, Whitney Manus and

I'm here with my Co host, Scott Mzengo.

Hey Whitney. Hey, see you.

And in the studio today we have Daniel Moore.

He has been here 16 years and has worn many hats in our

church. So he's got great perspective on

just our church, our ministry, shepherding scripture and more.

And we'll get to our topic here in a minute.

But first, welcome Daniel. Thank you.

Glad to have you. I'll have you just do a quick

intro. Tell us a little bit about your

current role on staff, your family, and maybe a fun fact in

there. OK.

Yeah. No, we have been here at Grace

for 16 years, three children, 1710 and eight years old.

So it is a busy season and we really enjoy it.

So this last year I got to come out of the Pelham Campus pastor

role to really work with our central staff.

So I oversee all of our campuses and then oversee a good chunk of

our central ministries as well. That's great, yeah.

And we are. We're grateful for all that work

that you do. We're just coming out of

graduation season and you'll have your first graduate in a

year. In a year, yeah.

Crazy enough, yeah. That's what happens when they

get to 17. Yeah, I know.

That's awesome. It's going to be fun.

It'll be a fun year, so yeah. Well, we hope you all are having

a good summer and every summer we just want to talk about how

we can continue to stay engaged spiritually.

It's so easy with different changes of schedules to get off

a little bit. So today we're going to talk

about leading ourselves spiritually.

We know that the goal of a Christian life is to become more

like Christ, but oftentimes it's easy to think like maybe the

Holy Spirit will just sanctify me by osmosis, or if I'm under

teaching and in community, then it'll just happen, right?

But as my dad would say, our spiritual health is something

that only we can be responsible for.

So Daniel got to teach a class to Spiro, which before we go too

much farther, could you explain a little bit of what is Spiro

and just how this even how this topic came about?

Yeah. Spiro is a group of 20

somethings, typically young, 20s, young to mid 20s that are

members of our church and leaders where they have full

time jobs in the marketplace. And they make a one year

commitment to serve at their campus for about 10 hours a week

and take on some real leadership responsibility and then be

developed between that responsibility and a weekly

class. That's great.

And then did you get asked to teach this class or did you get

to pick the topic? I did not get to pick the topic,

so yeah, no, I was asked just to teach on what it looks like to

lead yourself spiritually and it turned into a good exercise for

me. Just have to think through that

and even clarify exactly what that would mean.

So context is a big part of my personality.

I like and need context in most things I'm doing.

So with anything about leadership or I think about what

you are leading towards, you have to know where you're going.

And so thinking about relationship with God, thinking

about spiritually, where are we and what are we doing?

And just one of the easiest ways for me to find an anchor in that

is just to think about, even in reading Scripture, we are in

between Acts 1 where Jesus ascends, and Revelation where he

promises to return, and thinking about living in that in between

time. That's the context from which I

started thinking through. How do you lead yourself

spiritually? And if you were going to try to

put language to that, what were some ideas or some categories

you would think through? Yeah, no, that makes a lot of

sense and it's helpful terminology too.

We talk about spiritual formation and sanctification and

all of these are kind of similar terms.

But this idea of leading ourselves, of taking some

ownership and even slowing down to make sure that that's a

priority and and hectic life is great.

Yeah. And to Orient our personal

responsibility with the role that the church plays.

And I think when you are a part of a, a healthy local church,

which we're very, very proud of the work that we get to do here

at the church, always trying to make sure that we're healthy,

trying to define what that is, even as a as a corporate entity,

as a church. But still you have a personal

responsibility to lead yourself. Like your dad said, no one else

can do that. So I think it's a great, it's a

great question, Daniel. And it seemed like a really

receptive audience of, you know, young adults who are coming out

of students in college and trying to figure this out for

themselves. So how did you begin to take

this conversation and form it into something that was

instructive? Yeah, I mean, I really looked at

my own life and just try to think about how, how have I had

to do this? What does this look like to lead

our family and even just leading here at the church.

What are the things I've noticed or things I've seen?

But so much of it for my story is just ways in which I have

felt God kind of take different passages of Scripture and make

them sit on me. It's one of those things where

you're not just reading it, you find yourself kind of getting

stuck there and having to stay there and meditate on it for

days or weeks. So.

So this is biographical to a large extent, correct?

Yeah, very much so. And I think that's what we would

just ask the audience as they're listening to, not try to

template necessarily anything that Daniel says.

But take the big ideas, the principles, then overlay them on

your own spiritual experience and just kind of see, see where

you're at. Yeah, absolutely.

And before we kind of get further into some of those

points, I think both of y'all mentioned this idea of the goal,

like how would we define for us as believers?

There's kind of a few tears to it, but like what is the goal on

the wall that we're shooting for when it's not just knowledge for

knowledge sake? It's not just to become a good

person. So like, as we're leading

ourselves spiritually, like what are we trying to become?

Yeah, Godly, I think that's really what it is, is a growth

and godliness and being transformed more and more into

the image of Christ. Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah, and I think about second Peter 1 is one of my anchor

texts, you know, which says by his divine power, he's given you

everything you need for living a godly life.

And we often just kind of rush past that and we we substitute

like eternal life, like salvation equals eternal life.

And that's not what that's not what he's talking about.

So if we've been given everything that we need, then

the question is how do we take the resources that God has given

us, you know, through his word, through Spirit, through

community, and put that into practice and respond to God so

that this growth and godliness is actually taking place?

Yeah. And it looks a little different

for each of us, but there are some common denominators.

And I think reflecting on personal experience, just like

why we share life change stories, it's really helpful to

to help others be catalytic in their thinking.

So that's that's really where we're trying to go today.

Yeah, that's great. No, I love that.

I'm still in my 20s, so all of this is still for me, too.

Yeah. So then what?

What were some of those things that were helpful for you,

Daniel? Again, like you said, some of

these are personal. There's probably takeaways for

all of us. And then at the end, we'll talk

about what that could look like for us individually.

But yeah, where do you start? Yeah, the first one for me was

communing with God through His Word.

So more so than just reading the Bible, I think we always kind of

hear this need to read the Bible.

But if you go back a couple of years, I was even feeling the

need for us personally to read through all of Scripture again.

This is where reading through Scripture came from.

There are ways in which we do a lot of Bible study as the church

and but they're also ways, and I mean, in the 16 years that I've

been a pastor here, where we're noticing, we want everyone to be

able to read the Bible on their own and feed themselves.

And so we created reading through Scripture as a way to

just help us read on our own, but also show up to a group and

be able to have reflected a little bit and then share with

other people, Hey, here's what I'm seeing in God's Word.

And here's, as I reflect on it, here's what God's showing me.

And there's this, we see it in in our church, there's this

desire for change, there's this desire for life change.

And sometimes I think we wonder where the power for life change

comes from. And we all know it's the Holy

Spirit. But at the same time, the felt

experience of that is just lacking for a lot of people.

Yeah. And So what I, what I started

noticing was the more that we would read and just write a

little bit each day and spend time, you would see these themes

popping out of Scripture that I mean, I've read through the

Bible before, but there was this rhythm of dependence and prayer

and seeing like, just for me personally, like one of the big

themes was seeing the fear of the Lord all throughout the

Scripture, not just in a verse, but then you even see it in

practice in other places. And you're like, OK, God really

does mean this. He is going to do what he says.

Well, then even the practice of solitude like this is one of the

things I noticed just as we're going through it ourselves and

our group was there are these ways that we want to listen to

God and we want to practice solitude, which I think a lot of

people want to practice solitude right now.

The world is so busy. We're, we're clamoring for some

of that, but then once we actually go to listen, if we

don't have God's word inside of us, what we find ourselves doing

is listening to our emotions or listening to culture.

And in those moments of solitude, I was just noticing

where even listening to God had become disconnected from his

word. So this idea of communing with

him through his word, there, there's a constant feeding.

Romans 12 talks about how we should not copy the behaviors or

customs of this world, but we should let God transform us into

a new person by the changing the way you think.

And I see you play out there, but the big one for me was

Galatians 5 and the idea that we get to let the Holy Spirit guide

our lives. I mean, verse 25 actually says,

since you were living by the Spirit, let us follow the

spirits leading in every part of our lives.

And learning to do that through His word and depending on him

was was a really big deal. Did you find that it got easier?

Was it difficult in the beginning and it got easier to

think less of yourself and more of God as you were reading?

Or are what were some ways that you tried to cultivate that self

forgetfulness and really try to engage scripture as it was

presented? Yeah, when you read the entirety

in that fashion, I think your curiosity gets stirred and you

start to see how this is really not about me.

Like this is all about God. He's revealing himself.

He's revealing himself through his people.

He's leading them. And then when you just start to

connect those dots and trace that story throughout scripture,

you realize how much we are a small part of his story, more so

than us trying to fit him into our story.

Yeah. It's funny, I was I have a

illustration that is very timely to this.

I was with my mom and she likes to shop at a couple stores in

town that I wouldn't normally shop out.

And I'm not going to say what those are.

Well, I mean, they have a little bit of everything, put it, put

it that way. And one of these stores has a

lot of, you might call it like chinky kind of stuff.

And some of it is Christian stuff and a lot of as seen on TV

stuff, which is quite fascinating.

But one thing that I that I saw was this.

It's called my mood Bible verse audio player.

And so you choose a verse based on how you feel.

So your choices are happy, thankful, angry, anxious, lonely

or sad. And you push a button and you

get a preloaded spirit lifting Bible verse.

So I feel like I'm showing it to you now.

You can't see at home 'cause you're just listening.

But I feel like best represents our culture and and what you're

describing is the attempt to get out of the me centered movement

towards reading the scriptures. Yeah, very much so.

That feels like, I mean, this is a, a, a, a pretty rough version

of just reading the Bible, you know, even pulling certain

verses. But I think this notion of

reading the Bible verses, communing with God, that is

definitely worth reflecting on. And so Danny, you, you talked

about Galatians 5 and like letting the Holy Spirit guide

your life. And there's a contrast there in

Galatians 5 between flesh and then being guided by the Spirit.

How does that kind of factor into this idea that you had

about understanding where we might struggle, where we might

be deceived? Yeah, no.

Understanding deception is a huge part of living and trying

to follow Jesus in broken bodies and asking him to sanctify us.

So I mean it goes all the way back to the beginning with the

way in which Satan deceived Adam and Eve.

I think about Romans one and the way it talks about how we have

traded the truth about God for a lie.

And but where where it really hits me.

Years ago we had a pastor's retreat and I remember there was

a point, I think I was, I think I was 30 and I think I was the

youngest pastor in the room. And all of us are out there.

Jim Taylor was doing a devotional.

It wasn't even the main topic for the session, but he's doing

a devotional to get to get the session started.

And he talked about Psalm 1/19/29.

And there's a prayer that the psalmist is writing and he's

he's basically praying keep me from lying to myself.

But the way that Jim showed us that was, it created a whole new

category for me where I thought, wait a minute, if they're

praying keep me from lying to myself, that means it's possible

that I am lying to myself. And how would I know?

Like how would I even know if I am self deceived?

Like there's so much irony in that of how do I know?

Am I deceived right now? Am I deceived and thinking that

I'm not deceived? Exactly.

No, that's exactly right. So when even when you're

communing with God through his word, you know that you need

other people around to help make sure you, you are thinking

clearly, you're seeing yourself clearly the importance of

confessing your sin. I mean, and even this is what

region really helped me with a few years ago whenever I did it,

being able to confess without control, like just being able to

really confess. I think one of the reasons why I

wanted to do Regen was I felt like there were some SIM

patterns that weren't egregious, but they were just kind of

staying on simmer and I really wanted to be free.

And through going through Regen, what I finally kind of realized

was I had really confessed 95% of my sin and I just would round

up. But then actually getting to the

point of going, no, I want to be free.

I'm going to confess this final 5%.

That's actually what led to freedom.

But it is the deceptive schemes that allow us to kind of twist

that and turn inward. And we need to know where we're

blinded to those things. So how did holding on to that 5%

allow you to control? I mean, controlling image a

little bit, confessing generically but not

specifically. And then in my conscience I

would feel like I've confessed enough and then the Spirit would

just kind of prompt me to go. But you didn't really confess it

all. So.

But I think a lot of it really is around trying to be faithful

and follow Jesus while holding on a little bit to our image.

Yeah. No, that's good.

That's good. So communion with God and then

understanding deception and particularly the deception that

stands in the way of us fully being able to commune with God.

What was the third big idea that you that came to you as you were

putting this talk together? Yeah, this is a little bit of a

turn, but the the third idea was around building the church and

the way that God does that. And we think about how if we

have the Spirit of God within us, then we also have spiritual

gifts or we have personal giftings.

And even Hebrews 9 hints at this.

But there's a passage in Hebrews 9 that talks about how much more

will the blood of Christ cleanse our consciences and allow us to

really serve the living God. Well, that's, that's what I'm

talking about with building the church.

Like we are free and we have new life in Christ and we're able to

commune with him. We need to understand deception.

But if we have this context, then we know that our life is to

be spent as an agent of reconciliation and building the

church in these ways. So we've been studying First

Corinthians this spring and particularly chapters 13 and 14.

You know, you, you see these encouragements to like in 14, it

talks about since you're so eager to have the special

abilities that the spirit gives, seek those gifts that will

strengthen the whole church. So this this point around

building the church in the unity that comes with it.

Where it where it's really hit me personally is in chapter 13

with the idea of love. So it does not matter what type

of gift you have. Like I like I would say some of

my gifting is around leadership, but it does not matter how good

of a leader I am if I don't love people.

Like it doesn't matter what I could oversee or what I could

organize or what I could empower or lead towards if I am not

actually loving the people I'm leading.

And that that's another area where I think it's amazing that

God invites us into this, living in between Acts 1 and

Revelation, we get to be a part of building his church and

having his Kingdom come onto earth like it is in heaven.

Yeah. And it's, it's if you take what

we just talked about, about deception, you can see how it

applies here as we're talking about our giftings, because we

often become deceived. And what I've got is the most

important thing. Or oh, if like we convince

ourselves, if I just had the gift that somebody else had,

then that's what would allow me to be useful for the church.

And that's why we have to have both the Spirit and the

community around us to help us see objectively the gifts that

we do have. Well, and to put your identity

in your gifts, you know, I, I learned probably several years

ago from doing this that I was valuing gifts over grace.

Your gifts can really stand out and can hide sin like you're

talking about and and maybe over shadow really the work of grace

in your life for the short term, but over the long term it's

you're going to your sins going to outpace your gifts.

And if grace is not present in your life, God's grace, the

goodness, the new life, then you will find yourself being exposed

or hiding or whatever. And, you know, I thought Jim

Taylor a few weeks ago when he taught on that passage,

particularly First Corinthians 13, the first part, I thought he

did just a, a great job of giving us some, some categories

and some ideas. And a couple things that came to

to my mind that I like to do is I like to look at that list and

grade myself on a curve, you know, and just think, oh, well,

I'm doing OK. You know, it's like, let's let's

do a totality roundup. And I'm doing better than I used

to be. So I don't really have a lot of

application on that. And that's the first mistake.

And then I think the second mistake is to look at that list

and look at it through the lens of other people and like, oh,

well, this is what Whitney needs to work on.

This is what Daniel needs to work on.

This is what my wife and my kids need to work on.

And I just encouraged our congregation not to do that and

to really just take, take the step, you know, and not be

deceived and not, not let that diminish, but see the see the

bigger picture of, of building, building up the church.

So then we kind of started this conversation talking about

godliness as our goal. And but some of that has to be

also rooted in there's this world that we're living in right

now and there's complicated nature to all of that and trying

to figure out how to be godly in the world that we're in.

But then there's also something that we know as believers comes

after that. So ultimately, like how should

we kind of develop this focus? Like what should we be focused

on as we are trying to pursue leading ourselves spiritually

and becoming more like Christ? Yeah, there's a there's a

passage in Luke 12 that I was teaching back in the fall.

I was actually teaching with Mev back in the fall.

And the chapter is great. I mean, it is one that most

people would know around the lilies of the field and where

your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

And right after it, the very next verse in verse 35, I think

I'm seeing how much is connected to the same thing where Jesus is

saying, hey, don't worry, seek the Kingdom of God above all

else. And then it says and be dressed

and ready for the master's return.

He's basically saying, it's like your master has gone away and

you should be prepared at all times for his return.

You should keep the lamps burning.

You should be dressed. And the what it alludes to is

what happens if you're not prepared?

And what if you start to believe that your master's not going to

be back for a while and you start to lose focus, or you

start to enjoy the pleasures of this world too much?

And that question is one that I I've thought about a lot.

How am I living with a real anticipation of Christ's return,

if at all? And I I think it's it's just

easy for us to lose focus of this.

It's not all bad things like it take saving like here's a a

couple of personal examples for me, take the idea of saving.

It is not a problem to save. It is a wise thing to save and

yet there are ways that I get consumed with saving and

investing and start to just focus on that too much that then

takes away from how much I'm anticipating Christ return.

Or it's not a problem to go on vacation.

I think vacations are great. I love to play golf.

So last summer I got to do a trip of a lifetime with with a

golf trip with some friends. But it's amazing to me how

quickly I can over indulge in that and let my imagination be

captured by the next trip and the next trip and all of that at

the expense of the ministry opportunities that are right in

front of me. So that's what I mean.

Thinking about and living in light of Christ's return keeps

my focus on building the church, keeps my focus on communing with

God, keeps my focus on growing and godliness.

For these purposes, and I'll just tell you a quick story, one

of our members at one of our campuses is has become a friend

of mine. He's about to turn 91 next month

and I got to have breakfast with him this last week.

And really even with his age, he is still so focused on this

point that if he is alive, God has him here for a purpose and

he needs to be disciple in people.

And as we were having breakfast, there was this point that I even

asked because he's, he's outlived a lot of his family and

a lot, most of his friends. And I just asked him about this

passage and what he would, what he thinks about with Christ's

return. And he actually stopped and

said, sometimes I wonder if God is keeping me alive in order so

that I could see Jesus's return and that that was emotional for

him. And then it became emotional for

me. But but that is what I mean like

this, this focus around I am not living for myself.

I God is doing this work, I'm invited into it.

But each of these, if you notice, have really been a

different passage of Scripture that God has used to shape me

and to help kind of drive some of these points home.

Yeah, no, that's so helpful and encouraging.

But even that question of am I ready?

Like I have to stand before the Lord?

I mean that feels so heavy. Do you have any thoughts for us

on just how do we know if we are doing this well or how do we

know if we're not doing this well and to be self aware and

not self deceived? Yeah, no, absolutely.

So I, I don't think these 4 categories are, you know, the

only four ways that you can think about leading yourself

spiritually. There are 4 categories that I

have kind of taken passages of Scripture that have been

important to me or God's used to shape me.

And I've tried to zoom out a little bit.

But I, I don't think the response is just for everybody

to go live all four of these out.

I think the better response would be what are the passages

that you have studied where God is using to shape you and change

you and how have you been attuned to God through His Word?

It is not a quick process and I think that's another thing that

I really appreciated about reading through Scripture is

stretching it out for a year and a half for sure.

It's actually not as important that you read every verse as

much as it's a long term rhythm of you reading and reflecting

and sharing and how that starts to train you to commune with God

and meet with Him there. Couple of things I've heard you

say as you've really been a, a, a proponent of RTS is taking

something that can feel like a duty.

If we're like you got to read your Bible, you got to read your

Bible. Good Christians read their read

their Bible. And how do you do that in a

rhythm with the right perspective, focusing on God,

the character and nature of God. That really turns it into a

delight that seems to get at, you know, turning going from

duty and delight to delight seems to get at this idea of

reading versus commuting. And then it seems like the, the,

the cascade or the waterfall effect goes, goes down from

there to your other points. And I love this idea of seeking

first the Kingdom of God and everything else being added.

And because we, we live, we, we like to live in a binary world

where it's like good and bad. So you talk about savings or you

talk about a vacation or a hobby, like it's not good or

bad. It's just, it's like, what's

your perspective and what's your priority?

And like seeking first like that takes some, that takes some real

thoughtfulness around that, like where am I putting my time?

Where am I putting my energy? Where am I putting my, my, my

emotions? And that the promise that if I

do seek first, then then everything else will be added in

the sense I think that it just it, it, it falls in line in the

priority that God has for us and that it has to be an individual.

It has to be an individual exercise, you know, And so I

thanks for giving us a window into just kind of where you've

been the last couple years. And I appreciate you sharing

that with our Spiro group and now sharing it with us.

So. Now I agree.

I think that's so helpful, such a good reminder.

And again, just as we're in the summer, we we don't want to

coast, we want to, we want to lock in as the kids say and

really just use the time that we have.

I mean, during the school year it feels like we're all running

around and saying I'm just busy and I wish I had more time and

if I had more time then I could do this.

And then we get to summer and we're like, I kind of want that

time to be for me. And that's just, we have a

different choice that we we can make.

And I think that these are great thoughts.

Yeah. And I will say we, we talk a lot

about spiritual leadership and it can, it can imply taking

responsibility for other people. And that's really important.

And our church is built on just the, the, the nature that other

folks will take responsibility, spiritual responsibility for

others in community and in different leadership positions.

But I think that's why this topic is so important is like,

if you're not leading yourself spiritually, then you're really

not. You're really not fit.

Yeah, really not fit to lead someone else.

Yeah, it's complicated and tough, but that's why we would

encourage all, Yeah, go find your passages, whatever the

three or four things are for you that you need to go sit with,

what you need to go bring to the Lord and commune with Him on.

And even just looking for ways that we're self deceived, ways

that we can use our guests to love others, and the ways that

we can look forward and keep our focus on Christ's return one

day. So guys, thanks for this.

Conversation. Thanks for coming in, Daniel.

Yeah. Good to see you and thanks.

So before we go, if you'd like to see the My Mood Bible that

Scott referenced during today's conversation, we've included a

photo of that in the show notes for you.

And if you're enjoying the Grace Church Podcast, we would love

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