Embracing Trust as Our Guiding Beacon in 2024: A Year of Faith and Surrender

What's up, guys? Welcome to Demo with Moe. I'm your host, monique Simmons. We'll be discussing dating, engaged and married objectives from a young Christian's perspective. Are you guys ready? Let's dive in. Hey, what's up, guys? Welcome to a new episode of Demo with Moe. I am your host, monique Simmons. This is our first episode of 2020. For a happy new year to you guys. I hope you guys have had an exciting new year thus far. I hope you guys were able to bring in this new year doing what you wanted to do with the people that you love and care about. We're going to kick off this new year with Trusting God, with 2024. Each year, I know that most people start off with a new year resolution. I personally don't make new year's resolution and it's nothing that I have against new year's resolution. I just like to focus on a word for the year, an area that I personally want to focus on for that whole year. 2022, my word was intentional. 2023, my word was surrender. This year, for 2024, my word is trust. That's going to be my word for this year, where I really want to focus on in my life, in different areas of my life. I'm actually going to be working on and creating a prayer board with my girlfriend soon and I'm really excited about it. I know some of you guys may be doing your own prayer boards or vision boards or writing down your new year's resolutions or your quarterly goals or whatever. I encourage you to do whatever it is that will help you work on the things that you want to work on to achieve those things that you want to achieve, to better yourself or whatever that is for you that's going to help you be a better version of you, to become the best version of you this year. I really encourage you to do that. I really, really, really encourage you to do that. My word for this year is trust. I encourage you to find an area and I'm not just saying just I'll willy-nilly, just go out there and choose a word, but maybe taking some time in prayer and meditation and your silent time with God and your long time with God or journaling or whatever your thing is that, when you have your time with God, just maybe seeing what area do I need to focus on in my life this year? Am I maybe struggling, or where could I do better, or what is it that you want me to focus on, or what isn't in my life that I really need to pay attention to this year. Where could I be praying more? Where could I be growing more? What is it that you really want me to give to you this year? That's my thing, whatever your thing is. I encourage you to do that. But again, my word for this year is trust. Our episode for today is Trusting God with 2024, and I'm going to have some specific things and I'm sure we'll get into it later this year and I'll be talking to you guys more about it as everything unfolds in my life. But there have been some things over the past couple of years that I have been praying, a guide and talking to God about some specific focus areas in my life and I've seen God do some things. I've seen God answer some prayers from me and do some things, and this year I'm just being led to trust that more in some specific areas. But again, today we're going to be talking about Trusting God with 2024. So, even though there are some specific focus areas for me, some specific things that I'm going to be praying about, talking to God, about growing in focus areas for me Trusting God with 2024, the reason that trust is my word for this year is because I don't only want to trust God in those specific areas. I want to trust God in every area. That means the things that I don't even know that's going to come up for me this year, the things that's going to cross my path, the things that I'm going to come up against, the things that I'm going to face that I have no clue about yet, because that's life. I know things are going to happen. I know things whether good or bad are going to come up and I want to be able to trust God with it. So that's what we're going to be discussing today and I just want to encourage you, the same way that I am encouraging myself, as we go on to this new year with our goals, with our resolutions, with our desires, with the things that we are asking God for, that we are expecting from Him, with that boldness, with that confidence, with that assurance because that's what we're going to be discussing having that faith and that's what biblical faith is anyway having that hope, having that confidence and that assurance that God is going to do it, even though we cannot see it, it's not tangible, we can't put our eyes on it but we trust that God is going to do exactly what he said he's going to do. I really hope that in every area of you guys' life, in our lives, that we can get to the place that we can say that we trust God. So we're going to go to scripture today and I'm going to be coming from Hebrews, chapter 11. And I know for some of you you may have heard this and you'd like book automatically came on and you know exactly where I'm going with this. This is the scripture, where they talk about the faith heroes in the Bible, those people in the Bible who lived out their faith, and it gives the examples of exactly how they trusted God, they believed God, they have faith in God and not only with their words, but their actions reflected that they have faith in God and they believe him. And I'm using this because this is how I want us to live out in 2024, not just what we say with our words, not only saying we believe God, we trust God, we have faith in God, but that our lives line up with that, that we live out what we say, we believe, that our lives reflect, that we respond in a way that shows that we believe God, that we trust God, that we have faith in him and I encourage you. Matter of fact, I challenge you to go back and read this for yourself, because it's so much, I'm not going to read it all. I'm going to kind of jump through verses, but I'm going to give you the verses that I'm reading. But I want you to go back and please, in fact, read it with me. Grab your Bibles, your Bible apps. Technology is so advanced Now you can read while you're listening with me. But go back and read this for yourself and read it in its entirety so you can get full context, because I'm not reading it in its entirety. Again, I'm jumping from through verses, but I want you to go back so you can have full context of what's being said in these verses. I'm coming from Hebrews, chapter 11, and I'm starting at verse one and then I'm going to jump to verse eight and as I read the verses, I'm going to tell you which verse that I'm coming from. But I want you to go back and read chapter 11 in its entirety, hebrews 11 and one, and I'm sorry. I also want to let you know that I'm reading from the Living Bible translation, in case you're wondering, because my translation may look different, sound different from your version or your translation of your Bible. Hebrews 11 and one. What is faith? It is the confident assurance that something we want is going to happen. It is the certainty that what we hope for is waiting for us, even though we cannot see it up ahead. Men of God and days of old were famous for their faith. Verse eight Abraham trusted God, and when God told him to leave home and go far away, to another land which he promised to give him, abraham obeyed Away. He went, not even knowing where he was going. Verse 11,. Sarah, too, had faith, and because of this she was able to become a mother in spite of her old age, for she realized that God, who gave her his promise, would certainly do what he said. Verse 22. And it was by faith that Joseph, as he neared the end of his life, confidently spoke of God bringing the people of Israel out of Egypt, and he was so sure of it that he made them promise to carry his bones with them when they left. Verses 24 through 27. It was by faith that Moses, when he grew up, refused to be treated as the grandson of the king, but chose to share ill treatment with God's people instead of enjoying the fleeting pleasures of sin, he thought that it was better to suffer for the promised Christ than to own all the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking forward to the great reward that God would give him. And it was because he trusted God that he left the land of Egypt and wasn't afraid of the king's anger. Moses kept right on going and seemed as though he could see God right there with him. Verse 31,. By faith. Because she believed in God and his power, rahab the harlot did not die with all the others in her city when they refused to obey God, for she gave a friendly welcome to the spies. Verse 32 through 35. Well, how much more do I need to say? It will take too long to recount the stories of the faith of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jebda and David and Samuel and all the other prophets. These people all trusted God and, as a result, won battles over through kingdoms, ruled their people well and received what God had promised them. They were kept from harm in a den of lions and in a fiery furnace. Some, through their faith, escaped death by the sword. Some were made strong again after they had been weaker, sick. Others were given great power and battle. They may hold armies, turn and run away, and some women, through faith, received their loved ones back again from death, but others trusted God and were beaten to death, preferring to die rather than time from God and be free, trusting that they would rise to a better life afterwards. Verse 39 through 40. And these men of faith, though they trust the God and won his approval, none of them received all that God had promised them, for God wanted them to wait and share the even better rewards that were prepared for us. Hebrews, chapter 12, verse one. Since we have such a huge crowd of men of faith watching us from the grandstands, let us strip off anything that slows us down or holds us back, and especially those sins that wrapped themselves so tightly around our feet and trip us up, and let us run with patience the particular race that God has set before us. I don't know about y'all, but this is so encouraging to me and, again, I encourage you to go back and read this in its entirety so you can have full context of each one of these faith heroes, cause it's so many. It just paints the picture of these people stepping out and trusting God, having faith in God and God doing exactly what he said he would do, in spite of what it looked like, in spite of what it looked like with their physical eyes, but God doing exactly what he said he would do. After they believed, after they had faith, after they trusted him, god did exactly what he said he would do. So I encourage you as we go into 2024 and scratch that. I encourage us, myself included, as we go into 2024, as we go into 2024, we're here now, as we go throughout this year, no matter what we come up against, no matter what we face, that we have faith and that we trust God. No matter what it looks like, you may not be facing absolutely nothing right now as you're listening to this. Your life may be great, things may be looking on the up and up for you. You may not be facing absolutely anything, or what you're going through may seem minor to you and it's not hard. But I encourage you, even in the good times, even when things don't seem hard, still have faith, still have faith and still trust God. But no matter what you come up against this year, in 2024, again, my word for this year is trust, because that's what I want to do Trust God with your marriage and your romantic relationships. Trust God with your children. Trust God with your family and those relationships, whether they're in a place that you want them to be or they're not. You may have some broken relationships, some estranged relationships with people that you love. There may need to be some forgiveness taking place there. There may be forgiveness, but there hasn't been any reconciliation and those relationships need to be made right. And maybe you've done your part and the other person hasn't, but you need to trust God and believe God for that, if that's something that you're desiring, for that relationship to be made right. You need to trust God with your finances. Maybe your money doesn't look the way that you want it to look. Maybe you want to advance in your career. Maybe you want their promotion on your job. Maybe you've been looked over in the past. Maybe you've gotten complacent in your job and maybe you need something else. Maybe you need to apply for a new job and you feel like God has been moving you to step out in faith and apply for that job, but you feel like you're not qualified. Or you feel like you owe this job loyalty because you've been here for so long, but you feel like you're scared to step out and learn something new. Or maybe you feel like you're too old to start over. What am I going to do? Out there, so many young people? Or maybe you feel like you're too young and you're under-qualified and this is not for you. My resume doesn't line up for what these job qualifications are saying. I encourage you to trust God. I encourage you to step out and believe God. I encourage you to try God In 2024, that is where I am right now. I am trusting God in spite of what it looks like. In spite of what it looks like, because that's what faith is. Faith means you can. I'm believing, I have confidence, I have an assurance, even though I cannot see it. It is not tangible, I cannot touch it, I cannot look at it, but I believe that it is what God said it is. I believe that it's going to be so because God said it would be so, even though people may laugh at it, they may crack a joke at it, they may think I'm crazy. They may not believe with me, they may not stand with me, they may turn their backs on me, they may stop talking to me. They may not go forward with me. I may have to listen. People go. I may have to walk along by myself for a season, but I'll trust God. My money may look funny for a season, but I'm a trust God, because if we just ran in Hebrews, chapter 11 with these fave heroes, even with the examples that we was giving in those verses, you didn't get to see the whole story. So if you go back in each one of those examples that they gave you, go back and look at their whole stories and you can see how, in their situations, in the story where it played out, it didn't make sense in the moment. Their circumstances didn't line up. The people in their lives didn't always agree with what they wanted to do. It didn't make sense to everyone. Sometimes it didn't even make sense to them, but they still trusted God and I really hope you and I both in 2024, can do the same. That is my prayer for you, that is my encouragement to you. This year the we Go Forb Dead is no more talk, no more talk about what you say you believe, no more playing. And I'm not the one to play. I'm just going to be honest. I am not the one to play, but there are some areas in my life where I trust God completely, but there are some areas in my life where I want to be in control and I do not trust God. If I'm just going to keep it 100 with you, if I'm going to keep it above, there are some areas in my life where I will save with my mouth that I trust God, but my actions say something different. Go, look at yourself in the mirror. You are. You may have a mirror lady. You may have a mirror in your purse. If you sit in your car, you got your visors. If you in the house, you got a few mirrors. I want you to look in the mirror and be honest with yourself. I'm talking to you, but I'm not there with you. I don't know what you're doing. I want you to look yourself in the mirror because we can say with our mouth all day that I have faith and I trust and I believe. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, because God knows. You may be fooling everybody else. You may be fooling the people you go to church with. You may be fooling the people on your job. You may be fooling yourself sometimes, but the one person you can fool is God, because God knows us, god knows our heart, something people like to say all the time, but it's a true statement. God does know our heart, so our mouth service doesn't mean a thing, but something. If I really want to know, if I'm trusting God, monique, are you acting like you, like you believe? That's all I have to ask myself. Look yourself in the mirror, whatever the area is. Is it your marriage? Is it your finances? Is it your children? Is your career advancement? Is it you want to advance in your academics? You want to go back to school? Is it your family relationships? Is it your faith walk? What is it here? It is right now in your life that you may be struggling with, you're having a hard time with, if you feel like it's just going up against you right now. But you've been saying with your mouth I trust God, I'm believing God for this. I've been praying about it. I've been praying about this thing. I've been working on this thing. I've been reading the Bible. I've been, you know, yeah, you've been doing all the things that we're supposed to do. But I want you to look in the mirror right now, if you got to pause this and go find a mirror. Go look in the mirror and say am I acting? Am I living like I believe Because, let's say it's my finances. Let's say I've been, I've been struggling in my finances, I've been having issues in my finances and let's say I've been praying, I've been saying I believe, I've been saying I trust God, okay, okay. Now let's go back to the. Are you acting and you living like you believe, like you trust God, like you say you do? Are you still tired of it and giving your all for it? Are you still giving a guy his 10% or are you keeping it Cause you feel like you don't have enough? If you give guy his, I'm not gonna have enough money to pay my bills, so I'm gonna come up short. I'm gonna have to rob Peter to pay Paul, because then and I'm not calling you out I'm asking you to be honest with yourself. Am I acting? Am I living like I believe? That's all I'm saying. Because if I believed, if I believe guy to be who he say he is and to do what he said he's gonna do, because the word says, you bring your ties and offers to the storehouse and I pull you out of blessing, you won't have room enough to receive. So if I believe guy with my finances, I wouldn't have no issues, and I'm not even gonna say I wouldn't have no issues, because sometimes, when it comes to faith, we can still struggle, but our actions gonna reflect that we believe. So I may be struggling and having a hard time to give guy what he is, but I'm going to give guy what he is because, god, I trust you. So, even though I'm having a hard time and I'm struggling to believe and God, I know you said this but my flesh is weak and my flesh is calling you a liar and my flesh is saying I shouldn't believe and my flesh is saying my light bill is due and my flesh is saying our light's gonna get cut off if I give you this 10% and I'm gonna be short on my light bill. But your word says this and I'm trusting your word and I'm standing on your word and I'm believing you to be God and I know that I'm your child and I know you're gonna keep your word and you've proven yourself time and time again and I'm trusting you and I'm believing you because you are my God. So, even though I'm struggling in my flesh, my faith says give guy his 10%. So, again, that's just. This is just my unique. Now how I know when I'm trusting God is am I acting? Am I living like I believe? So my mouth can be saying one thing, but if I check my actions, if I check what I'm doing, do they reflect that I believe? Do they reflect that I have faith? Do they reflect that I trust God? And that's why my word is trust this year, because we can say we trust God. Man, that's so easy for a Christian to say, oh, I trust God with my whole heart. Okay, and here come God in a part of your life. You don't wanna, man, and we see how much you trust them. So, again, look in that mirror and you'd have that talk with yourself. You have that reality check between you and God about how you're living and whatever that area is that you're struggling with, and it's okay. But I just want you to be real with yourself and be real with God so he can begin to change you, transform you, renew your mind, purify your heart, cause that's what we want. Those are the things that we should desire as believers. We don't wanna stay the same way we are. We wanna be more like Christ. That's what we say, you know, as Christians we wanna be more like Christ. So we can't stay the same and we can't keep lying to ourselves that we're somewhere that we're not. So trust God with 2024. That's what I'm going to be doing this year. I'm gonna be holding my feet to the fire, I'm gonna be holding myself accountable, I'm gonna be calling out some things and not only looking in that mirror that you get to see your reflection back at you, but the mirror of God's word, because Paul talked about in the Bible how when a man sees his reflection in the mirror as soon as he walks away, he forgets what he saw. So you know, you think you all good. You know when you're judging yourself, when you taking a look at yourself, you can think you got it all together. I don't have. I'm trusting God, I have faith in God, I believe God in every area of my life. Man, I'm good, I'm straight. But then when you get in the word of God, cause as a Christian, as a believer, that is our mirror. When I get into the word of God and I begin to really see myself for who I am, I don't always like that reflection back. That's just me, though you may look dog on good and I look way better than what I used to. I'm talking about. I don't came a whole long way, but I still don't like a lot of the things that I see in that mirror of God's word. So again y'all, 2024, my word is trust. I'm trusting God with 2024. And, man, I encourage you to do the same. And when you get done listening to this episode, tag me on your social media pages and let me know what's your word for the year or what's your resolution for the year. Let me know. I would love to get along on your journey and see what you guys have. You know what you guys are looking forward to in 2024. But, as you guys have heard, trust in God is what I'm on for the year. I hope you guys have enjoyed today's episode. Remember I love you, but God loves you so much more. Bye, bye. ["i Hope you Guys have Enjoyed"]. I hope you guys have enjoyed. Follow me on Facebook at Demo with Moe. If you have any questions you would like answered here live on my podcast, email them to me at Demo with Moe at gmailcom. That's D-E-M-O-W-I-T-H-M-O at gmailcom. ["i Hope you Guys have Enjoyed"].