ARE YOU FEELING LOST OR DISCONNECTED?
New Set! New Series!
This week we’re kicking off a 4 part series called RENEW and today we’re exploring 3 practical ways to reestablish your relationship with God.
Whether you’ve been feeling distant from God lately, or you simply want to deepen your connection with Him, these tips will help you get back on track. From taking time to repent, recommitting to your relationship, and re-establishing your connection with him, this episode will help you start your journey today.
So if you’re looking for ways to renew your faith and reconnect with God, be sure to check out this episode!
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Listen, I want fresh new life for you. So does God. I can’t provide it for you. I’m just a guy just like you. The great thing is that Jesus promises if you remain in me and my words remain in you. If you renew yourself by my spirit, here’s the deal. Streams of living water will flow through you.
And you will be renewed day in and day out. That’s the life that you were created for. Talk about a lot here on the podcast. Right? Created on purpose for purpose. And a lot of times we probably spend too much time talking about career and all these different things. What I want you to see from the get go, here is what God’s will is for your life: a continuously renewing, revived relationship with him where you’re ever everything of you spiritually is sustained by the Spirit of God.
Created on purpose and for purpose.
Everybody, welcome back to the Darren Earlewine Podcast.
I am so nervous about this episode because whatever comes out of my mouth has to match the new set. I’m so fired up about what we put together for the spring for this, a new season of the podcast, complete redesign of the studio. I know right now if you’re listening on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, if you’re an audio only podcast, you’re like, What? Huh? There’s a set. What am I missing? Hello? You’re missing out on this. You need to go right now.
Don’t even listen to this episode. Go to YouTube right now. Search my name. Darren Earlewine. Go to the channel, subscribe and start being a YouTube participant because you get a chance to see this. I even wore my I even wore a festive shirt for its Easter season. I was like, I got to get something that kind of looks like an Easter egg, bubam, here it is. Boom. Okay. Anyway, so stoked. Want to give a big shout out to our team, Darren Cooper, PJ Towle that put together. They’re the brains and actually the muscle behind putting together the entire podcast studio.
Teamwork makes a dream work that little tidbits for free. Thank you Jay Max. It’s true we got together dreamed up a whole new look for the podcast. They pulled it off. And I’m so stoked for what we’re going to bring to you in the new studio for this spring of 2023. We talked about this principle before about how do you find and create momentum for your life. And we’ve talked about it, right? New, improved and improving. Stole that from Andy Stanley. It’s still true.
Okay. So for us, you know, we’ve had this as I think our third redesign of the podcast studio. Why do we do it? Well, because we get bored A. B, because we want to continue to create momentum. And that momentum is for us, right? If you’re doing something long term in your life, right, it gets monotonous. You do the same thing over and over again. And sometimes for your own creativity, for your own life, for your own vitality, you need to change something up. It needs to be new. It needs to be improved. It needs to be improving. That’s true for your own life, but it’s also true for your audience.
You know what I hope for this is that that a bunch of you right now that haven’t ever checked out the YouTube channel jump over there, get us over the six, seven, eight whatever we are subscriber Mark help it grow so more people can know about it. So it’s for you. It’s for others. That’s what we’re all about and I’m excited about it. I’m excited about this season. It’s spring, right? It’s Easter season. Easter was just a week or so ago and I love this time of year, although we talk about it, right? I grew up in Arizona. I still have major Arizona weather hangovers here in the Midwest.
We film, I live in Indianapolis, Indiana. So where we film and record everything. And I love the spring because winter is gone. The tough thing about spring in Indiana, though, is it’s quite a tease, right? Because one day you’d be like, uh, what’s up 68 and sunny? And then it’ll snow six inches the next day. That’s okay. We can get by it because if you have snow in late March or April, you know it’s going to melt soon. You’re going to move on through it. But I do love the spring season. Baseball is happening and and I love it. And so one of the things I love about spring is the renewal of everything, right? Your grass has been dead.
It’s looked terrible. Guess what? Spring comes renewal. You got green grass again. All of your trees. They’ve looked dead. They’ve been dormant for months. What happens? Spring shows up. They’re renewed. There’s new life. They’re revived. And the colors, the smells, the just the excitement of spring. And what I want in this series, we’ve got a four part series, starting with this episode called Renewal. And that’s our heartbeat for you and your life, your relationships, your connection to Jesus, your business, your leadership, everything in your life.
We want you to be moving into a season of renewal. And so what we’re going to unpack over the next four weeks is just some concepts that have been very helpful in my life and I hope are helpful in your life to help you move into a a season and a time of renewal. And another thing that’s really great that’s back for this new renewed season of the podcast is The Buttons. Hello, can we get applause for this set? There it is. I got buttons again. Right? We’re not even interviewing people. You know, we have to go back to the cuts.
But guess what we might have given once while the end were back. You forgot about that, huh? It’s back at you. All right, We got the buttons. Whatever we need to do. I mean, we’re going to add some new ones in just to keep things fresh and exciting. I only have eight buttons, but we can. We can get real creative with these eight. Okay. Anyway, the buttons are back. It’s going to be great. I love it. We’re going to jump in where this whole idea of renewal comes from, folks, is this. Every year for the past couple of years, I’ve chosen a word for the year. And I think I’ve told you this before. Here’s what happened probably five or so years ago.
Ryan Ahldwardt that used to be on the radio show with me radio theology that we had, he worked here with us at Blackbird Mission. Ryan and a few of my other friends, Coop used to do: Word of the year. And I was like, what’s the deal with the word of the year? What is this business? And then what happened was I started cynical, right? And then as I was in their life for a year, I kept seeing how God was showing up and growing and developing and just kind of showing breakthrough in their life through that specific word that they believed that God’s Holy Spirit had kind of nudged them towards.
And I got mad. I’ll be honest. I was like, I’m missing out, right? I was cynical. I want a word. I need to see God move. So the next year I was like, Boom, I’m getting a word. And it has been truly transformational in my life to see how God gently nudges us towards a concept, a word, something that he wants to develop and grow us in, and then to see how he shows up. And so my word of the year, I I’m a type seven, so more is better. So I had to have two words. I can’t have one, right? So my words or my phrase for 2023 is this: renew and receive.
And the reason that renew is in the mix is because about 2 or 3 years ago, I can’t remember. Actually, I remember this. Renew was one of my words. That year. I had three words, right? And the other two I did. But I knew over the past couple of years that God kept saying, Hey, you know what I wanted to do in your life in that year of spiritual renewal? You never did it. And I’ve got all my reasons, all my excuses. We may hit some of them in these next couple episodes, but it was like I was saying, Hey, before we move forward, we got to go back.
We have to have this renewal because there’s new things in your life that I want you to receive. Because as I was working through my Word of the year for 2023, that was the the thought came first, was received, and then the Holy Spirit came back, was like, Hey. To be ready to receive what I’m going to bring into your life. I need you to go back into this time of renewal. And. And that’s where I’m at. That’s a journey I’m going to take you guys on. That’s a journey that I’m on. And I hope it’s it’s life giving and reviving for for for for me and for you as well as we as we journey together.
Right. Renew. We’re going to look through a couple of different definitions of the word renew. It basically means to resume an activity after an interruption is one of the definitions. Right? To resume an activity after an interruption. And isn’t that life? Like, how many years, how many months have you lived in your life where there weren’t interruptions? Like, I thought this was the way life was going to work. I had all this planned, this is what was going to happen. And then fill in the blank and interruption, Right? We spent a whole 17 weeks going through to my book.
Right? The Death of a Dream. That was a massive interruption in my life. And they made me massive. They made me small. But the reality is life is full of interruptions. It’s full of disappointments. It’s full of deaths, of dreams. It’s full of these things that that interrupt our life that stopped the progress that we had stopped, the momentum that we had. And then we’re left with a choice. Either. I stay where I’m at in retreat. Okay. I’m going to try to build every word I can in this podcast around the RE.
Okay. That’s how we’re going to reiterate it all. We get those interruptions and we often retreat. That hurt. That was disappointed. I disappointed myself, my spouse, my friends. Somebody has disappointed me. God has disappointed me, whatever it is. And now the disappointment, the doubts are leading me to naturally retreat from the front lines of moving into the future that God has called me to create. And when we get to those moments, we have to dig in and say, You know what, Listen, it’s time for me to renew because here’s what God’s agenda, here’s what God’s plan for your life always is.
His plan is always redemption. It’s always resurrection. That’s where he’s taken it. So you go, What does God want with my life? He wants renewal. He wants redemption. He wants resurrection. And my hope is through this podcast series that it’ll begin to lead us to where to where we need to be. And here’s where I think this has to happen. Okay, is I want to build this whole podcast, this this episode around this thought is that renewal begins and is sustained through reestablishing relationship.
Okay? The idea of renewal is about a re-establishment, right? It’s about resuming. It’s about re-establishment. And I’ve said this tons of times to you. I stole it from I shouldn’t say so. I researched it from Gary Smalley. Right. That your life is relationships and everything else is just the details. And so if you’re looking to experience renewal in your life, it’s going to begin and it’s going to be sustained through relationship.
Okay? Your life is a relationship and it basically breakdowns, breaks down into two areas vertical relationship with God, horizontal relationship with others. That is your life. Everything else you do, everything else you walk through is literally just the side details. The plot line. The core center of your life is relationships first vertical with God, then horizontal in relationship with others. And so for me, as I came into this year and I was, okay, God, what exactly does renewal mean? And what I knew and what he made clear to me is what he was saying is, I want you to renew your relationship with me.
Um, this can look different shapes and spaces for all of us, depending on where our relationship is with Jesus. For me. I came to Christ. I think I was eight. Could have been six. I think it was eight and been following Jesus ever since. And so this isn’t a new, this isn’t a new rodeo. Not the first rodeo for me. Right? I’m a follow in Jesus for a long time, and I’m really happy about that. But part of that means that that they’re there. Actually. You know what? No, it’s not different for me. It’s just it’s just another renewal.
If you’ve been following Jesus for a year, here’s my guess is in this year, you’ve had some cool breakthroughs, some great things, but you’ve had some disappointments, you’ve had some interruptions, you’ve had some things where you go, okay, I’m 365 days in. What’s next? What’s next is renewal. I don’t care if you’ve been following since I’m your eight or literally eight days, God’s heart for you is to constantly be in a process of renewal with him. A fresh start, right? A new commitment. So for me. That’s had some practical looks.
And next episode we’ll talk about the idea of what it means to to actually replace some things in your life. And we’ll get to that in the next episode. But for me, what I realize is I need to renew. And so for me, a couple spiritual disciplines that that I know needed to to be renewed was my commitment to prayer and to fasting. And you go, Darren, Oh gosh, those are old school. Like that’s not even cool. That’s not sexy. It’s not, it’s not cool. It’s not sexy at all. But it is the process by which we renew our spirits. Very rarely does God run at our pace of life to keep up with us and give us new revelation, to give us new renewal.
Often it comes through rest. It comes through slowing down. It comes from resisting a hurried, busy overfilled life. And so part of that renewal for me this year was to say, okay, God, I want to grow in my in my prayer relationship with you. Over the past six months, God has been nudging me towards this, this practice of centering prayer right where I talk all the time. You guys know, you listen to the podcast, right, Is there’s no talking, right? It’s not me just sitting there and talking to God. It’s literally me. Quiet. No talking silence, solitude.
Just being in God’s presence. And it’s not easy. It’s really boring. But you know what’s happening? It’s renewing my spirit. For years, I fasted every Tuesday for lunch, and for years now I went away from it. Why? Well, it got interrupted somehow. I can’t go back and tell you why I stopped. I just know I did.
In my relationship with Christ, I suffered. And so those are some things I say, you know what, God, I need this new commitment. I need this, this, this, this renewed relationship with you want going to bring some of these spiritual disciplines around to stay connected and in that. God’s giving me a fresh start. Right. Here’s another definition for renew, right? Is to revive, to give fresh life or strength to: to revive. And I think if you follow Christianity, you know what I mean? History, whatever.
If you pay attention to the news in the past month or so, right, the whole Asbury revival that happened down at that college and we talk about these seasons of these revival movements that happened, which are great, right? These massive renewal movements of God’s spirit. The reason I think a lot of times those are necessary and God instigates those is because we have been stuck in an interruption for too long. And he says, Well, I’m going to have to come here and do something out of the ordinary because what’s happening is my people are forsaking the renewing relationship that I offer.
And that’s where these scriptures I want to share with you guys today really jumped out at me as we look from literally from the beginning of Scripture all the way through some of the amazing things that Jesus says we’re going to look at in John chapter seven is that God desire is desire for us, is that there would never really be need for some massive breakthrough revival. Right? Because it’s not like there’s been an interruption and then the streams of living water have to start flowing again. It’s hard is that, you know what, We would just have a connection where what he has promised to do is continually renew us, to continually give us fresh life, to continually give us strength.
If you look back to God’s design in the garden, right, the idea was that humanity would live in a perfect paradise with the presence and spirit of God and be continually renewed in that. Obviously, Adam and Eve broke that trust, right? Sin enters the equation and now there is need for us to remember, for us to be renewed, for us to actually be revived regularly by God’s spirit. And as Jesus talked about this, this is interesting. In John chapter seven, Jesus is goes back to Jerusalem and some some context here.
The festival of the Tabernacles is going on, which is a week long festival, a huge deal, thousands of people there. And it was interesting they would all like basically set up almost like tent little compounds where they would stay. And it was it was a whole process to kind of look back to when they were in the desert and this whole deal. And the last day of the festival was the biggest, most exciting kind of greatest day of the festival. And what would happen throughout the day or out the days, right, is the priest would go and they would get these water jugs and they would come out and they would talk about the reviving spirit of God.
And and they would pour this water in the steps of the temple. And at the last day, what would happen is really cool. They would fill up these huge containers and they would do this blessing to kind of bring the last day. And the priest would then pour these containers and basically create like a small little flood of water going down the stairs of the temple. And in that context, we pick up what Jesus in verse 37 of John chapter seven, it says, On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, So picture this, right? All these thousands of people that are in the temple that the priests have just poured all the water down the steps and it’s this festival things And and probably for some people it was just like another religious festival.
Right. We’re back at the Feast of Tabernacles. We come with our family. We set up our tent. It’s basically like a big Woodstock, right, for the Jewish people. And we do the thing. Yeah, he’s pouring out the water. I get it right. And I’m sure you’ve probably been like that at church before, right? Maybe at a worship concert. Maybe it just something that has spiritual roots to it. You’re like, been here, done that. This is what happens. And at some point it was new. At some point it revived you. At some point it brought you new life. But now it’s just become religion. It’s stale, it’s old.
It’s like, yeah, okay, when do we get to get out of here and and go to my dinner reservation? Right. I think there’s probably thousands of people that were right there. There could have been some people maybe that were watching it going, This is this is dumb, right? This is useless. Okay. Yeah. You pour the water out. What’s the big deal? Like, it wasn’t that it was religious. It was just that it was meaningless to them. Jesus steps up after the water is poured out. And he says this. He says in a loud voice, Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink.
Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow within them. By this he meant the spirit whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that point, the Spirit had not been given since Jesus had not been glorified. Jim says, Here’s a deal. Anyone who is thirsty and he’s not talking about, Hey, let’s get down here and lap up some of this water we just poured out, right? I’m talking about physically, which is the spiritual thirst we have.
And when he’s saying, let anyone who is thirsty, guess who he’s speaking to? All of humanity.
If you break this down, right, we can go about 40 days without eating food. Our bodies can, which is kind of crazy, but it’s about a 4 or 5 day period. If you don’t drink any water, you’re going to die. God has hardwired our bodies to need to be renewed. Renewed need to be revived every four days, or we die if we don’t have fresh water. And there’s a lot of things that God has hardwired into us physically to help us have a blueprint of what is necessary spiritually. And so you may be to a point where you go, Man, I just feel spiritually dry, you know what I mean? I have some good momentum going in there.
And you passed a couple of years and then this happened, big interruption. And then I’m just I’m spiritually dry, if that’s you right now, then this renewal series, hopefully this is going to be an absolute right, like this tee shot for you. Because if you’re thirsty, would you say there’s no there’s no guessing game here. I promise I will give you a renewed and revived constant stream of living water of my spirit within you. The water in this right symbolize the Holy Spirit and our only true source of life.
And so if we’re going to break down everything I want to say in this series, it’s that is, if we’re going to have a continued renewed spirit, it has to be connected to deep relationship with Jesus, where the Holy Spirit is continually, constantly renewing us. And God has promised that that can happen. How does that happen? Well, renewal comes through remaining renewal comes through remaining. This is what Jesus said, right, John? 15.
He says, like this I’m the true vine. And my father was the gardener. He cuts off every branch of me that bears no fruit while every branch that does bear fruit, he prunes. So it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because the word I spoken to you and he says this in verse four Remain in me as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself. It must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. You want to bear fruit, right? You’re saying? Yeah. During a lot. I get it. This whole spring season, I’ve been wanting that. I want that in my life. It’s not an if you think that could happen for me.
Darren? Jesus says absolutely 100% guarantee it’s going to happen. If you remain in me and you allow my spirit to renew you. He says I’m the vine, you’re the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit apart from me. You can do nothing, right? If you do not remain in me, you’re like a branch that’s thrown away and withers. Such branches are picked up, thrown in the fire and burned. If you remain in me, in my words remain in you ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.
This is to my father’s glory that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples. As the Father has loved me. So have I loved you. Now remain in my love. This is the promise that we have. Continual renewal. Right? And this. Like I said, it’s been God’s designed from the beginning, all the way through. Where do we fall off? Well, we find we fall in line exactly where the Israelites did thousands of years ago.
So I want to offer you some compassion in this is if you’re at that place right now, you’re like, I suck as a Christian.
I’m terrible. I’m so spiritually dry. You know what I mean? Everyone else does a great job except me, which.
Is the way we beat ourself up. Usually I want you to know that you’re in good company. Like basically all of humanity ever. We go back to the Old Testament and there’s an amazing interchange between God and the Israelites in Genesis two, and Jesus hits on this a couple different times. But. I think it’s so beautifully shows that process that we that we undergo to allow these interruptions to break off this constant renewal we need in our life. It says this in Jeremiah chapter two, the Word of the Lord came to me.
Jeremiah says, Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem, This is what the Lord says, right? This is what God is saying to us. Because I remember the devotion over youth. How as a bride, you loved me and followed me through the wilderness, though through a land not sown. Right? God says, Listen, I remember when it started, right? When you had this new life in you. There was no need for renewal because you had this devotion. We were connected. It was this great relationship. And you even let me guide you through the wilderness, through tough places.
We have this great connection. He says this Israel was holy to the Lord, the first fruits of his harvest. All who devoured her were held guilty and disaster overtook them, declares the Lord. Hear the word of the Lord, you descendants of Jacob, all you clans. A visual. This is what the Lord says. What fault did your ancestors find in me? That they strayed so far from me? They followed worthless idols and became worthless themselves. They did not ask, Where is the Lord who brought us up out of Egypt and led us through the barren wilderness to this land of deserts and ravines, a land of drought and utter darkness.
A land where no one travels and no one lives.
And. I’d like to say I haven’t experienced this or I don’t do this, but I can be found guilty here. And maybe so can you. Like. I have never found fault with God when I get real honest. This happened. I’m upset about this. Or I’m feeling dry, spiritual, whatever it is, it’s as I look at it, I have to be honest with myself and honest with God. It’s not like God didn’t come through. I allowed myself to be taken to this. These dark lands, right? This utter darkness where no one actually wants to travel, no one actually actually wants to live.
But when I get there, oftentimes I don’t even ask where’s the Lord? Like, where am I at? What’s going on here? I just keep walking in that path. He says, Listen, I brought you into a fertile land to eat its produce and rich read its fruit and rich produce. But you came and defiled my land and made my inheritance detestable. The priest didn’t ask Where is the Lord? Those who deal with the law did not know me, and the leaders rebelled against me. The prophets prophesied by Baal following worthless idols. Therefore, I bring charges against you again, declares the Lord, and I will bring charges against your children’s children.
Cross over to the cross over the coast of Cyprus and look syndicator and observe closely. See if there’s ever been anything like this. Has any nation ever changed its gods yet? They’re not gods at all. But my people have exchanged their glorious God for worthless idols. Be appalled at this, you heavens and shudder with great horror, declares the Lord. Then he hits them with this verse 13. This where I want to focus on my people have committed to sins. They have forsaken me.
The spring of living water and have dug their own cisterns, broken cisterns that cannot hold water. There’s the backdrop of a lot of what Jesus was saying there in John seven. He’s saying, listen, here’s the deal. As humanity, what we end up doing is we forsake we forsake God as God in our life and we dig out our own broken systems. And this doesn’t take much to figure out on this one, if you think about it, is most of us all have a retention pond somewhere in our in our our neighborhood.
And, you know, if they don’t have the the fountain going, if the wind’s not blowing, if they don’t have people come out there and put massive chemicals in it, you know, the stench of a retention pond. Right. If you have a dog that likes to chase ducks or something, you’ve ever heard your dog jump in the retention pond. Maybe you’ve got a kid that thought it was a pool. They jumped in it. They got a little too close. They were fishing, fell in, had it happen in our house, they come back and you’re like, Well, here’s the bottom line. All the clothes have to be burned, right? Everything’s being burned, right? Boom, laugh, track, boom. Found it, got a joke, got it in. Right. You got to burn the quote.
It’s so terrible. It smells terrible. You’ve never thought yourself that’d be a good idea. It’s a nice, hot day. We need to make some lemonade. Why don’t we go get a little pitcher, fill up some of that retention pond stuff, Put a little eliminate in it. Be a great day. Get a barbecue retention pond, lemonade. No one chooses that. If you did, guess what? We’d probably happen. Diarrhea. I’m just going to say it. We don’t usually say it here on the podcast. Try to keep it a family show, but that’s probably what’s happening. You’re probably pooping your pants in the next 6 to 8 hours if you drink the retention pond, no one does that. Okay. Now we’ll all pay $4 a bottle for a Colorado spring water, which won’t even know if it’s from Colorado or spring.
It just says on the label. So we buy it, but we buy this. What is spring water? What is that? It’s living water. Meaning that it’s moving. Meaning that it doesn’t stay stagnant and means you don’t put it in a retention pond and let it grow bacteria and everything else that could kill you. Well, God’s saying, here’s what you guys are doing.
You haven’t found fault with me. And I promised to continually renew your spirit. But you forsake me and then you go dig your own retention ponds, your broken system. They can’t even hold water. When? Whole time. Here. I’m offering streams of living water in your life. So here’s what I want you to start doing. That’s the promise. Here’s the problem. We forsake God. We dig our own retention ponds. Here’s what I want you to try to do as we go through this, this, this series. I want you to begin to ask God to give you wisdom.
And it probably is not going to be that hard. God. What are the broken cisterns that I’m digging? What are the things that I’ve dug out for myself? My obsessions, my desires, my lusts, my addictions, whatever it is. What are those things that I’m that I’ve dug out for myself that I’m trying to find sustenance from?
Right. It probably has something to do with popularity. Probably has something to do with power. Probably has something to do with possessions. Those are kind of the three core things that we find that in. We’ve talked about Henry Allen’s three core allies of humanity, right? That it’s either I am what I accomplish or am what I do, I am what other people say or think about me. And then there’s I am what I have, which is not usually about possession, but more about security or information or freedom.
Those are usually a great place to start down the road of figuring out what kind of broken systems have I hewn out for myself that are not satisfying me? This process renewal for this year has been a process of me figuring those things out and going, You know what? I’ve got to forsake some of those things and come back to reestablish the relationship, because I know that God has promised that when I choose that relationship, when I reestablish that connection, streams of living water will begin to flow through my life.
They will bring me rest. They will bring your restoration. They will bring me new life. They will bring me peace. They will bring me creativity. They will bring me. The love of God and his spirit within me. So. I want you to think about it. We get these episodes every week, get seven days to process this one. If you’re listening to this series in a row and…
Here’s the three step process. If you get to the place where you realize, you know what? It wasn’t God, I got interrupted. And.
I’ve gotten lazy. I’ve gotten religious. Or maybe I’ve even gotten rebellious. And I forsaken the renewing relationship. Here’s what you got to do. You got to repent. A very biblical word. And you hear it. You’re like, oh, man, that’s super negative. That’s that’s where I feel bad, right? And beg God to forgive me. So I didn’t send me to hell. I felt there. No, here’s here’s what what repentance is. It’s agreeing with God. It’s that simple. Right. You want to renew yourself in 2023?
You want to start this process? You want to have a spring of of new life and revival coming through? You got to repent. You come to the point where you realize these things and go, You know what? Darren’s right, guys. Right? Listen, I agree. I agree with God. I have forsaken him. I have, you know, gone and I’m trying to drink out of the retention pond of spirituality in my in my backyard or the retention pond of worldly stuff. And it’s just not working. God, I repent. I change my mind. Your way is the best way. There’s step one. Step two is this Renew your commitment.
Come back. So you know what, God? It’s time for me to renew the commitment. I need to come back. And it could look different for you. Like I said, for me, it was. It was a commitment to fasting. It was a commitment to more prayer. And I’ll tell you about next episode. There were some things I had to I chose to stop doing to really jump start some of this. We’ll get into that in the next episode. And then the third step is very, very simple. You reestablish the connection. It’s all of this very simple. Maybe not that easy, but it’s very simple.
Listen, I want fresh new life for you. So does God. I can’t provide it for you. I’m just a guy just like you. The great thing is that Jesus promises if you remain in me and my words remain in you. If you renew yourself by my spirit, here’s the deal. Streams of living water will flow through you.
And you will be renewed day in and day out. That’s the life that you were created for. Talk about a lot here in the podcast. Right. Created on purpose and for purpose. And a lot of times we probably spend too much time talking about career and all these different things. What I want you to see from the get go here is what God’s will is for your life: a continuously renewing, revived relationship with Him where your every everything of you spiritually is sustained by the Spirit of God. That is his will for your life. He promises that you can have it.
He’s designed you for it. So do you need to repent? Do you need to renew that commitment? What does it look like for you personally to reestablish your connection? Listen, if I can help you at all in that process, don’t hesitate to reach out. You can email me: darren@blackbirdmission.com. You can hit me up on all the socials out there YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, all of them. Or you can also just text me 317-550-5070. Would love to help you in any of those steps.
Listen, I hope this has been encouraging to you. We’re starting this renewal situation, this this series. Love the new set. If you haven’t gone to YouTube yet and subscribed, please do like it’s obviously the podcast is free every week. My one ask right is just go subscribe to the YouTube channel and we can connect this way. I’d love to see it grow as just even a thank you to PJ and Coop for all their hard work and making this episode happen. So next week we’re going to jump into this idea of what does it mean to replace. Right in this renewal? Sometimes we have to replace going to talk to you about something I’ve replaced in my own personal life.
I think it’s going to be meaningful. I think it’s going to help you. And I can’t wait to talk to you guys next week before we do. Always, always, always. Don’t forget God’s for you, not against you. He’s near you, not far away. And he’s created you on purpose and for purpose. See you next week on the Daron Earlewine Podcast.