Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome to the Life Refresh podcast. My name is Ryan Robinson, and if you are looking for a podcast that is designed to uplift, encourage and revive your heart, mind and spirit, you're in the right place. Welcome to the journey of becoming the version of you God designed from the.
[00:00:20] Speaker B: Foundations of the earth. Hello and welcome to Life Refresh podcast. You know it is your host, Ryan Robinson. Excited to be with you on the first podcast of 2024. I don't know about you, but I am glad that this 2023 has been a great year. We brought a lot of podcasts to you, a lot of great opportunities for viewers and listeners. But I'm really excited about 2024.
I'm glad you learned the lessons of one year to make sure you don't do them in the next year, right? So we've had Christmas, we've had all those kinds of things take place. So by the time of this recording, it'll be the week after, actually about a week after the new year. So it's January eigth.
I thought about this, and I'm going to get to our topic of today.
But as I was trying to figure out, most people are like, let's start the year out strong. We got our resolutions. Day one or one day, you might have heard that phrase utilize throughout social media, is this going to be the day you start, or is this going to be the day you wish you started? And start to say, one day, I will. And as many people know, I like goals. Everyone likes goals. I hope they do or have a vision for what they have for their life. But one of the things I realize is that when we are in this time of a new start, fresh start, new beginning, most people have a list of things that they want to accomplish, a list of New Year's resolutions, and a list of aspirations that they want to take care of by the end of next year. And the challenge I found with that is that is that particular thing that you are looking for, the thing that you are happening to aspire to or wanting to obtain, are you heading in the right direction, the right way?
I recognize that we can have so much of the hard work, so much of our energy going into a certain direction, but I recognize that maybe, possibly those items may not be what we need, or maybe we're going the wrong direction for the right goal, for the right motive. So we get stuck in what I call a holding pattern because we've either one gone the wrong direction and need to wait for things to clear up for us to go the right direction, or our end goal wasn't clear, so we're just kind of like, waiting for something to come up so that we can anchor ourselves to what we think we need to fit. Now, the thing is, for those who may know me personally and for those who are getting to know me, I am not handy by any means.
I have tools, but I'm not like, ryan's not building anything physically. Like, I'm not building a table. I'm not building a cat. I'm not building stuff. But one of the things that I've learned in hanging things is that you want to measure twice and cut once.
So we're going to go through the rest of January on this particular topic. Measure twice, cut once. And the reason why I did not have a podcast for the first week of 2024, not because I'm like, I don't really want to do it. No, I did it intentionally because sometimes, and I looked at my goals for the year and what I wanted to do, and I recognized it's all over the place.
I mean, one's in fitness, like health goals. Another one is fitness goals, another one is financial goals. And those are all good. But at the same time, I never sat back and was like, well, how am I actually going to accomplish the things I want to accomplish? I didn't have a clear how. I just had a what at the end. So you start going a million miles in one direction, 100 miles in one direction, with all your energy, recognizing that you have seven other things. So I never really put into a plan what I'm going to do in certain times, in certain places.
And of course, it will lead to overwhelm for any of us, which in this case, particularly in the first year. And as many of us know, the fitness industry and the gyms that have boosted themselves in regards to new memberships and new commitments to a new body and a new you. That level of excitement is going to quickly diminish once people start to sweat and people forget that they have a gym membership or they just get a gym membership, hoping that they'll return to it and they become numb to the bills that keep coming through once the monthly payment is due and pulls from your account. And unfortunately, we never have a plan. We just say, this is what I want to do, but we never look at how we want to do it.
In this case, I want to anchor our scripture. And believe it or not, there is a scripture around new things and new beginnings and those kinds of things. But there's one particular description or scripture here that I think is extremely important for us to anchor on. And it is found in Luke, chapter 14.
Luke, chapter 14.
And we'll start at verse 25. Now, this is when Jesus is talking to Pharisees. Now, Pharisees were the legalistic entity of the day. So they were what we call people who are.
They do the motion, but don't have the heart behind it. So they did the religious rituals. They did what was accustomed to it, but accustomed. But they did not have the motivation to illuminate what they were doing with authenticity. It was just checking the box. Okay, so Pharisees knew the Bible. They knew the law of Moses front and back. They knew all the things regarding God. They knew how to dress. They knew what it just. When it's not a part of you, it just becomes part of emotion. And you're just kind of like, all right, I'm doing the thing without having any kind of emotion. You're just a robot lifeless.
So this is the audience that Jesus is talking about. To provide some context. So he uses several parables at this particular Pharisee's house.
And goes through a couple of stories. And I'm going to one story he shares here is the cost of being a disciple. Okay. And I'm going to read the whole thing. And I'll bring this back to us here in a minute.
Since large crowds were traveling with Jesus, turning them to them, he said, if anyone comes with me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers or sisters, yes, even their own life. Such a person cannot be my disciple. And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.
So that's first criteria. It's like, all right, you want to be my disciple? This is the criteria.
Suppose one of you wants to build a tower.
Won't you first sit down and estimate the cost. To see if you have enough money to complete it? For if you lay the foundation and are not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule you, saying this person began to build but wasn't able to finish. Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Won't he sit first and consider whether he is able, with 10,000 men, to oppose the one coming against him with 20,000?
If he is not able, he will send a delegation with delegation, while the other is still a long way off. And will ask for terms of peace in the same way, those who do not give up everything you have cannot be my disciples. Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again, for it is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure. It is thrown out. Whoever has ears to hear, let him hear.
Okay, so it's a lot. It's heavy. And this is the piece of it.
And this not only applies to us being followers of Jesus or those who are subscribed to being followers to Jesus, it also applies to what we decide to put our lives to.
Is it really what you are called to do or seem called to do, and are you willing to pay the cost to be it or to do it? Jesus, he does this often where he does some very peculiar and very polarizing examples by which the listener has to make a decision.
One part of scripture says, if you don't eat of my flesh and drink of my blood, you have no part from me.
And people are like, oh, my God, did he really mean that? And then people went away, but then some people stayed because they were don't. Peter says, this specifically says, lord, where are we going to go? Like, we're with you say, are you not going to leave as well? We don't have anywhere to go. Jesus, we left everything to come follow you. So, I mean, at this point, you really can't surprise us on some stuff, right?
And Jesus says this thing about being a disciple is that being a disciple requires you to understand not just how to do, okay.
But what it will cost you in order to do.
Now this, we're talking about our spiritual lives here with Jesus, our eternity.
But I can also apply the same thing to what you aspire to become and do in your own personal life, particularly at the top of the. Okay. Most people said they want the six pack abs, and they want the v cut hip thing, obliques. And I said hip thing, obliques. And they want to have a healthier relationship, and they want to have this, that, and the other.
Okay, that sounds great. Okay. Now, the thing is, the idea of those angles are amazing.
I like the idea of having the six pack abs and nice chiseled obliques and all that kind of stuff to get right for the summer. I don't think anyone would be against having those particular assets. Now, the thing is, are you willing to wake up and work out in the morning every day?
Are you willing to be uncomfortable and be sore from working out and lifting weights? Are you willing to give up certain foods that you typically go to for comfort when you're feeling distressed or feeling sad? Will you grab that extra glass of wine at night? Or will you start to binge drink or go out and have a whole bunch of martinis or a whole bunch of Manhattans or whatever the old fashions, whatever your drink of choice is, if that is your thing. But you also can't have a whole box of pizza.
I'll tell on myself for that.
There's things that you cannot do.
There's a cost that you have to be able and be willing to pay in order to become.
I'm going to say that again. There's a cost that you have to pay in order to become blank. Okay. Jesus clearly puts in here, there's some things that you have to give up. You have to give up some relationships. You have to recognize that if anyone comes to me and says, there's some challenges with your family, whatever, there are things that if something came to it, you have to be able to say, my life is not my own. My mom's not my own, my dad's not my own, my wife's not my own, my children are not my own. I have to give up ownership of that. I have to give up my own life because my life is no longer mine. It was bought by the price that Jesus had paid on the cross. Therefore, it says here, whoever does not carry the cross and follow me is not their disciple.
It's not my disciple. So Jesus says so, meaning if you're not willing to carry the burden of what it is to be a follower of Christ, in this case, it makes it really difficult to be that person.
People who are followers of Jesus should, in many cases, be aspiring to exhibit these attributes.
Same thing with being a person who wants to hit fitness goals or be mentally well, or whatever the case is.
You have to be able to be willing to pay some kind of cost for it. And most people, like I said, are enamored with the ideas of what an end goal could look like for them versus actually doing it.
So we just like the imagination. We like our idea of it in many cases because we like the idea, but don't like the hard work, tough work, challenges, transformational things, the uncomfortableness of what it is to be what I claimed I wanted.
That cost will clearly let you know how willing you are to sacrifice what you currently are for what you're wanting to become.
And ladies and gentlemen, I would like to say, if we knew how much it cost us to do the things that we say we want to do and be the kind of person that we said we want to become. If everyone laid out all of the pieces, I gather you probably think twice before committing to it.
Most people don't sign up for pain others don't sign up for that.
If no one tells you that losing weight is painful, no one tells you that being vulnerable in your relationships is scary.
No one said that speaking up for yourself is terrifying.
We just write it down on a piece of paper and said, I'm going to be more outspoken this year and neglect to speak on the fact that it's fearful, it's scary, it's challenging, you won't be accepted. You might get written off, so on and so forth. So if we have these ideas and aspirations to grow and become, we have to remind ourselves that there is a cost to pay for the things we need to do and the things we like to become. And if you already know that, then cool, you're all good. You're all set to go. Let's go. Let's get 2024 rolling.
But if you haven't taken the time to see if this is the right thing for you, that if you're not willing to put in the work, then don't say it.
If you're not willing to transform, if you're not willing to be uncomfortable, if you're not willing to be a better person or a better version of yourself, quit kidding yourself. You'd be wasting your time. And you'll be doing like I said, you'll be stuck in a holding pattern.
There has to be a thing, and I speak on this often, says faith is a substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. A key component to faith is hope. Hope has its anchor in something, whether it is an outcome or in a person or an outcome generally, in most cases, is anchored in a person.
We usually say, have faith in yourself. Culture says that. But in Christianity and in the church, we say, have faith in God, because God is the only being who you can put your trust in. I believe.
But we always have to place our hope into something.
And sometimes we put our hope in things that are not strong enough to hold our hope.
And the challenge with all of this is, ladies and gentlemen, is that we don't want to place an idea that we have and the hope that we have for whatever that end goal is in the wrong thing.
It's tough. It's tough to reevaluate these things. I've had to go through my list of goals and, like, man, and be honest with myself about a couple of them.
Okay, more than a couple.
But I had to go back and be transparent with myself, like, hey, are these goals something I'm willing to put myself through right now? And if no is the answer, that's fine.
But I do want you to understand that in order to be, there has to be some kind of cost paid.
Whether it's getting up early in the morning to go work out, you're going to sacrifice some sleep until you figure out what that's going to look like.
There's always some even exchange. There's trade offs. I mentioned that in the earlier podcast that there's a principle of trade offs.
You can't have your cake and eat it too. You have to be able to balance it out with something. This costs that and that level of exchange, whether it be for hope or for, like I said, those outcomes that you are aspiring right now in the top of 2024, please know that it's going to cost you your old version of you.
It's going to cost the old the payment to become the new you is the old you.
I'm going to say that again for the people in the back.
The new you is going to cost you your old you.
And are you willing to pay that cost?
Something to think about.
Something to think about. Twice, actually.
Hence today's topic. So we're going to go through this series, you all of measure twice, cut once, and by the end of the month, you'll be able to walk through what it's going to look like for the rest of the year. Because if we don't get the first things right, we will literally lose our opportunity because we went in the wrong direction and that we lost our inspiration and we lost our concentration and we lost our focus because we weren't willing to take the time to do first things first in top of 2024. So if you found value in this, please share it with someone that you know. It's going to be a great podcast, great series to start off the year. I'm excited for it, y'all. There's some great things coming. But also, I just want you to know, God wants you to be the best version of you, the one that he formed from the foundations of the earth from the beginning to the end. He wants that version of you. And sometimes we need to take some time to figure out what that is. We'll catch you in the next podcast. Peace. Bye.
