Sweet Grace For Your Journey

Episode 250-Towards Glory

As we’re running this race called life it’s good to remember that we are headed towards glory. 

‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬‬Suffering is part of living in our very mortal bodies. But suffering for Christ, either physically or in any other way, is not losing. It is winning. Romans 8:18 tell us that “what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory He will reveal to us later.”

2 Cor. 4:17 NLT echoes that. “For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever!”

I’ve know some great moments here on earth, sweet, intimate moments with my husband, loving moments with my children, beautiful moments exploring God’s creation, awesome times celebrating with family and friends. Multiply those by 1,000 and it still doesn’t come close to the glory that will be revealed to us one day. 

1 Cor. 2:9 NLT says, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love Him.”

It’s almost as if God is pulling back the curtain just a little to give us a taste of what is coming. In the great scheme of things, the suffering, the disappointments and pain that we encounter today are not such a big deal because we are in a race to the finish line. We are headed towards glory! Overcomers Academy Link: https://TeresaShieldsParker.com/Overcomers/

Episode 249-Run the Race

We have a race to run while we are here on earth. It’s leading us towards a heavenly prize God already has waiting for us. Of course, we know we have an enemy that does not want us to run the race or obtain the prize.

One big obstacle our enemy throws in our way is condemnation. He makes us feel condemned or ashamed, guilty, fearful, unworthy, forgotten, useless, good-for-nothing.  

God, though, tells us in no uncertain terms that we are not condemned. “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,” Romans 8:1 NIV says. Or as TPT puts it, “So now the case is closed. There remains no accusing voice of condemnation against those who are joined in life-union with Jesus, the Anointed One.” 

As a Christian weight loss coach, I talk to a lot of women who feel condemned and like there is no hope for them because they just love to eat or feel like they are addicted to certain foods like desserts. They try to stop. They know God wants them to get healthy, but they just can’t. 

When I was in this position and weighed 430 pounds, I felt condemned, ashamed and guilty. I worked through that but it took some time.

If you are feeling condemned, remember what Paul said in Philippians 3:12-14 NLT, “Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead,  I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us.”

We don’t live in the past so let’s step out of shame, guilt, worry and fear, forgive ourselves and then start running the race. That’s what Jesus is calling us to. His goal is for us to gain the victory prize He has waiting for us. 

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Episode 248-The Conundrum

A conundrum is a difficult or confusing problem or question. It’s like a mystery we can’t solve. In Romans 7, Paul shares a conundrum that I identify with and I expect if you are honest, you do too. 

Like any problem or mystery, I want the conundrum to be solved in 30 minutes like a good tv show. I don’t want to be left hanging to find out how things are solved for a week! Good or bad, I want it brought to end right now! However, for years I had no idea how to solve this issue that kept turning over and over in my mind. 

Paul is really bold about his issue. He doesn’t tell us what the exact thing is he is referring to, but in Romans 7:19 he tells us straight out: “I want to do what is good, but I don’t. I don’t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.”

Why can’t I do anything right? Why can’t I do the things that are pleasing to God? I want to do them, but many times I end up doing the opposite. Why is that? These are the questions Paul, is grappling in this chapter. And they are the questions we all struggle with.

None of us are perfect, even Christians, and we shouldn’t purport to be. In this chapter Paul makes that clear. He also tells us how the law shows us our sin, why we struggle with sin and what we can do about it.

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

Sweet Surrender: Breaking Strongholds: https://www.amazon.com/Sweet-Surrender-Teresa-Shields-Parker/dp/0986159247/

Episode 247-What War?

We are in a war. We may not realize it as we walk through our daily lives but we are. Romans 5:17-6:23 talks about this as a war between the power of sin and the greater power of God’s wonderful grace.

If we belong to Jesus, sin has no legal control over us. We are free to follow God. However, we are just as free to be entangled again in the pull of sin. 

Romans 6:6 TPT: “Could it be any clearer that our former identity is now and forever deprived of its power? For we were co-crucified with Him to dismantle the stronghold of sin within us, so that we would not continue to live one moment longer submitted to sin’s power.”

The whole purpose of Romans 6 is to remind us that we can choose to disentangle ourselves from the power of sin walk freely following God. 

Romans 6:23 MSG: “Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God’s gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master.”

Find the Spirit-Led Transformation course with action steps, challenge, transcript and video by joining Overcomers Academy. Go here: teresashieldsparker.com/overcomers/.

Episode 246-Patient Endurance

If you’re like me, somewhere along the line in Sunday School you learned the nine fruit of the Spirit which include: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. These are all great virtues we should be incorporating on our Spirit-Led Transformation journey. As I was reading Romans 5 this week, I realized that as Christians there is one of these virtues we rarely talk about. That might be because along the way someone somewhere told us to never pray for patience because if we do something difficult will happen that will teach us the hard way how to be patient. How to endure. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

Episode 245-This Thing Called Faith

Faith is foundational on our Spirit-Led Transformation journeys. Without it, we have no transformation. Without it we cannot be Spirit-led. So what just what is faith and how do we know if we are really living our lives based on faith?

I’m a words person, so let’s see what the dictionary says faith is. First definition is “complete trust or confidence in someone or something.” Second definition says it is a strong belief in God.

Hebrews 11:1-2 has long been the go-to verse to explain faith. In NIV is says, “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for.” But we read that and say what does that mean?

To help us understand better, let’s read this scripture the Amplified Bible, which has a way of explaining things better.

It says, “Faith is the assurance, title deed, confirmation, of things hoped for or divinely guaranteed, and the evidence of things not seen or the conviction of their reality. Faith comprehends as fact what cannot be experienced by the physical senses. For by this kind of faith the men (and women) of old gained divine approval.”

Remember the dictionary definition of faith we see that faith in God, or complete confidence in Him, comes from our foundational knowledge that we can trust Him to lead us. 

In other words, we must have complete assurance that God is leading us and the eventual outcome of where He is leading us is for our good and His glory (as it says in Romans 8:28). We have the title deed to whatever the outcome is that God wants to happen. We have the title deed to whatever God has already put in our hands!

Several years ago we reached a milestone on our financial journey and paid off our house. We now have the title deed to our home. It is ours. Whatever God is telling you and me, if we have faith then we have the title deed to that. It is ours. It’s not just guaranteed by a financial institution, it is divinely guaranteed by the God of the Universe, who just happens to be our Daddy. 

The next part is harder to understand because it is in the future. “Faith comprehends as fact what cannot be experienced by the physical senses.” God already sees it. He has called what we can’t see as if it has already happened because He stands outside of time and can see the whole picture of our lives. 

Our faith in God has to help us comprehend as a fact what we cannot actually see, touch or feel right now. We cannot experience it by our physical senses right this moment but we trust God and have faith that what He has said will come true. This goes back to 2 Cor. 5:7 where Paul tells us, “We walk by faith not by what we see.”  Friends, it wouldn’t be faith if we could see it!

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I feel like I really started living by faith around 2009, when I was 56. It took me lots of years to lose 250 pounds. First I had to totally surrender to God and trust Him for the next step on my journey. I had to get His lifestyle change plan for me and do what He said to implement it. I made a lot of mistakes on my journey and as such I am well-equipped to steer others away from my same mistakes.

One of the most beautiful and spiritual part of any transformation journey is learning how to have faith Jesus Christ, and to be led by the Holy Spirit in each step we take. Then the grace, mercy, favor and glory of God will surround us as we walk in tandem with Him. 

Is it easy? I mean some of the things Abraham did look easy. Who knows, maybe he was glad to get away from his mother and father and go somewhere that he had inkling of. However it definitely wasn’t easy waiting for the promised son. And I don’t think for a minute it was easy preparing to sacrifice his promised son.

Yet, through it all, He trusted God. I like to think it all started with that first step out the door of his homeland, going to a place God said He’d show him. That’s faith.

Let me ask you, what would it look like for you to have that kind of faith on your Spirit-Led Transformation journey? What would it take to do whatever God is whispering in your heart to do? 

It’s time. He’s calling you. Will you have the faith to take the next step? 

Father God, I lift your children to You today. Give them clear directions. Remind them of Your promises and help them take that next step on their journey whatever that may be. Make it clear to them. Give them faith to take action.

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

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

Episode 244--Why Forgive Others?

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

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

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

Forgiving Others Is A Process

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

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

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

Why Should We Forgive Others?

-Because God forgave us.

-Because God asks us to forgive others.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Episode 243- Forgiven

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

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

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

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

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

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

Episode 084-Flesh Versus Spirit

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

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

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

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

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

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

Episode 241-Finding Freedom

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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