Transcript:
Hi everyone, welcome back to another podcast. If you are here for the very first time, I would like to welcome you to Soulish Femme, Real Talk with Glennavelle Manarang every Monday and Thursday. So, today’s topic is about my own experience. Let’s make the record straight. Maybe some of you are wondering what my channel is all about because we love to label people with stereotypes. Is she a pastor, a Christian who loves to talk about psychology, philosophy, whatever. Here’s the thing. There is no separation between secular and Christianity.
Some people make this distinction just because you talk about Jesus, they will conclude that you are a pastor or a teacher. I just happen to follow God and to believe in Christ because of what he did to me. This is exactly why I want to talk to you today. What led me to Christianity? I was brought up in Catholic. It was very religious. My grandparents who loved God. But it doesn’t mean they talk about Jesus. They went to church every Sunday. We did the rosary every night with my grandmother. However, I don’t think I have read the Bible as much as I did back in college. I knew as a child that something was off.
Although I loved going to church because it was embedded in our psyche as a child.
We were expected to be in church every Sunday. And my faith helped me a lot.
Especially when I came into this country in 1998 and I had to go through what I had to go through. My faith was one of the reasons why I stood firm on my belief and I faced a lot of challenges because of those faith that was truly was given to me as a little girl. However, when it comes to knowing Jesus Christ.
I did not know him personally until I became uh tw in my late 20s, let’s say I was 28 years old when I I had hunger for more. I felt like what’s the difference between you going to church every Sunday and I feel like my life was missing some important link until I have discovered the Bible and I have studied it ferociously. I have a hunger for the truth.
And when I decided to purchase my first Bible when I was 28, I have become so obsessed with it that I’ve read Genesis through Revelation.
Not in all sitting, in one sitting, of course, because it would be ridiculous. But for some reason, I knew that going to church was not enough. I felt as though there must be something missing that I’m doing because even if I was good in theory, doing the right thing, going to church, dressing up nicely, but I felt as if there was lacking in my life.
And that was something that I had to discover. One thing for sure that was lacking in my life was that knowing who the son of God is, which is Jesus Christ. He doesn’t like to play religion. And Jesus warned us about it, two-faced people who are considered hypocrites. And we see this everywhere we go. Just because you go to church on Sunday and do your rosaries every day.
But if you have not repented of your sin and when I read that part repentance, which is some of the Catholic do not talk about it as much as in the church, Christianity, the true Christians of God, when you read the Bible, God always talks about repentance. What is repentant? Is turning away from the things that of of this world. Turning away from God.
Turning away not of God but trying to deny yourself as what Jesus say if you want to be my disciples discipleship is one of Jesus Christ follower it is one of the prerequisite that God requires for us to follow Christ if you want to be my disciple he said you must deny yourself, pick up your cross and follow me. Many Christians think just because you are a Christian, it is a decoration that you can plaster it and it’s beautiful. It is not for the faint-hearted.
It has cost me a lot. When I became a Christian, I had to give up a lot of things in college. I could no longer did what I did. Smoking, sleeping around, drinking, clubbing, and hanging out with nonbelievers. Not to say that you shouldn’t be friends with non-believers. However, when I became a newborn Christian, I had to decide whether I had to hang out with the worldly people.
And God told me, you could no longer hang out with these people because they’re going to drag you back down to where you were. You have to hang out with a new one. So the beautiful thing about my experience was that even though I was letting go of my old self, which is the worldly proclivity of mine, God was introducing me to these new friends who actually led me to the church. The real church, which helped me grow with my Christian walk, who helped me about who God is, Bible study, knowing who God is and the son of Jesus Christ, which is I mean Jesus Christ is the son of God.
And so I have to really dig deep of who this man is that who this who is this Jesus anyway. I never really thought that Jesus want to have a relationship with me. I thought Jesus was just a name that people use casually or use as a in vain. But I didn’t know that he’s actually a spirit right now. He is also a man who walked on the earth who have also suffered like me. And when I studied the word of God I realized that Jesus actually said it also.
You cannot live like the world. You’re in this world, but you’re not of this world.
And this is what’s missing, I think, in the churches today because we thought that we must just pretend like Christianity is for people who want to be rich or people who wants to get their problems gone away. No, your problem will be doubled when you become a Christian. your faith will be tested even more when you become a Christian because that’s the point where God is going to tell you to get rid of a lot of your addictions. Let go of some of your friends.
Even cut out people in your life that are not good towards your destination, where God is calling you. That’s why Jesus said, “If you love your mom or your dad or your brothers or your sisters more than I do or your children, you are not going to be a part of my discipleship.” He’s not saying to cancel people. Jesus is referring that if you love your mom and dad or your spouses or your children more than me. He’s saying that if your allegiance, if your focus and your priority are more about people instead of Him, it’s not going to work.
That’s why he wants us to deny ourselves. Denying yourself means you have to let go of your addictions, where God showed me a lot of addictions in my past, such as being a shopaholic. I used to be materialistic. I was always in this world. He taught me about finances, about money. He taught me about discipline. Self-control is the fruit of the Spirit.
Glennavelle
Self-control is when you know that God’s Spirit is in you. When he can tell you, do not go there. You do not watch that. You do not hang out to those people because an evil company corrupts good morals. If you’re trying to really live a narrow path, there are so many things that you have to get rid of. You have so many things that you have to let go.
Even people even though it’s hard and it’s lonely because the narrow path according to Jesus is very few people will find it only few people are willing to walk in the narrow path because when you want to do what’s right for God you are going to have a lot of people thinking you have lost your mind and so many people actually question me whether I have hit my head on the wall because some of my friends would hang out with me on Saturday before and they would call me and says is what happened to you? You used to go out with us clubbing and drinking and smoking and all of a sudden you don’t want to do this anymore. You want to go to church and do your Bible study. What just happened?
And there are going to be a lot of questioning that the choices that you’re making that some for some reason people thought that you have lost your mind and because you really want to do what’s right. Exactly what Jesus say if you want to hang on to this life you will lose it. And if you lose your life for my sake, you will find it. It is the juxtaposition. It is counterintuitive when you think about it because it’s true. I hang on to this life. I did what normal teenagers did. I hang out. I partied. I smoke cigarette. I get drunk on the weekends.
But then I was empty on the inside. I was not happy. I was so depressed. And even if I went clubbing on the weekends and I felt like I was very happy on the outside, coming home in my old apartment, I had intrusive thoughts of harming myself. I was not the most peaceful person. I was always very angry at everything and everyone because of my past that happened to me. But when God truly had to deal with my heart, he had to really ask me to let go of that chaos.
Our Enemies
Let go of the noises. Do not perform. Do not be into this world. You have to really die to yourself. Dying to your flesh because we have three enemies. One is our flesh because our nature is rebellious. It is disobedience. It is part of the fallen from Adam and Eve. We came from Adam and Eve who fell into transgression. And then the world of course is our second enemy.
And the people in this world who are also well the world and people and Satan and Satan is the one who gives us this illusion that there’s nothing wrong what you’re doing. I was playing dressed up. I was playing Christian hypocrisy. I went to church on Sunday. I dressed up nicely. But then on Saturday on the weekends I would be sleeping around or smoking. And fornication is sleeping before getting married, which is a sin. I didn’t even know that because everybody was doing it in my circle of friends.
So I thought it was normal until you come across the Bible and you read God’s standard. Here’s the thing about people don’t understand that just because you dress up nicely, you cannot fool God. As I said, even if you take a shower thinking that you have cleansed your sin, God said you are cleaning the outside. But on the inside you are brood of vipers. You are you have filthiness in you. You have to really understand to examine your heart. You have to say that God exposed to me the sins that I’m keeping the unknown sin.
The sins that you have not confessed in your mouth. The sins that you’ve been hiding and running away from. Sin is not something that you can play around with because it gives birth. Sin gives birth. And the moment I realized that I was playing dressed up like a heathen, like I was hypocrite, you know, I was trying to look good on Saturday, praising Jesus, but then I was living a lie coming Mondays through Saturday. I was just like fooling myself. I was going back to the same old pattern. And Jesus is not impressed. When Jesus asked his disciples to follow him, they have to let go. They have to give up their career without even asking. And that will cost you something.
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