Simple Faith With Rusty George

Rusty George: It's common to spend hours looking for a therapist only to find a long wait list or that your values don't align. This process can be discouraging and can create even more hurt and despair. Saga mental health and relationship centers is here as a trusted source to offer a network of vetted and trusted Christian mental health professionals to support you in your journey towards healing and wholeness.

As a nonprofit organization, saga's goal is to help people in need and ensure that they can find a therapist easily and be confident that they will receive wise biblically backed counsel to stand against the chaos of today's world. If you need help or know someone who does go to saga center.org.That's www.sagacenter.org.

Following Jesus isn't always easy, but it's not complicated. Join us each week as we work to make faith simple. This is simple faith.

Well, hey everybody. My name's Rusty George. I'll be your host today. Thank you so much for joining us today. The podcast gonna be short and sweet. I'm gonna give you three books to read this summer. Our goal on simple faith is to make following Jesus a bit more simple, and sometimes we just complicate it too much, don't we?

We got so many things we're supposed to do and believe, and say, and, and feel. Uh, I want to give you a few things that will really help you in your journey and help simplify that. And I want to first of all thank and, uh, just remind you of our sponsor this month, and that is saga counseling s aga counseling.com.

A lot of people come up to me and they say, boy, I'll tell you what, after Covid, I am just exhausted. I am just beat, uh, my anxiety levels are high. My relationship with family isn't good. I really need some help. Is there somebody you can recommend I could talk to? And I always say, yeah, saga counseling. And when you go to saga counseling, you're able to find a great person to help you in your therapy.

But you can also even meet online. So if you're listening to this, you don't live anywhere near where Saga Counseling is located, you can contact them via their website. Make sure you do that. I've sent countless people there. Everybody is satisfied and loves it. And that is. S A G a counseling.com. All right.

Today, what should you read this summer? I know there's a lot of you out there that when you think about reading, you get cold chills because you think, ah, I haven't read a book since high school. Not a problem. I'm gonna give you some audible options as well. But there's some of you, they just love to read you like a good fiction book.

You like to curl up on the, you know, the beach chair by the pool and, and read something. Or maybe even, you know, out by the pool. Or possibly when you're on a jog, you're gonna listen to it on, uh, your AirPods. Or maybe you're in the car and you're not driving, uh, but you're riding along and you wanna read something.

I, I wanna bring us back to a couple of verses here that give us kind of our foundation for this. Colossians chapter three. The Apostle Paul says, set your mind on things above, not on earthly things for you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. And when Christ who is your life appears, then you will also appear with him in glory.

I love that phrase, set your mind on things. Such a, a, a great idea, but it's not just anything. It's on things above. I'm hesitant to even think about what I tend to think about during the day. I think about work, I think about to-do lists. I think about my calendar, I think about my wife and my kids. I think about what are we gonna watch on TV tonight?

I think about who's playing who and my litany of sports teams. I think about, uh, money. I think about cars and if they work and I think about food and what am I going to eat and when am I gonna eat? Will I go to the gym today? Um, all the little things that we tend to think about during the day. But I love what Paul says.

Take some moments and set your mind on things above. Paul definitely knows we have shopping lists to carry out and kids to pick up and life to do, but it's where our mind drifts. It's the daydreams. It's the thoughts that we kinda let run outta control that often take us places we don't want to go. I'm talking about anxieties and worries and fears and what ifs and all the transference and the projections that we do when it comes to relationships.

And Paul says, before you do any of that, stop and set your mind on things above. Another time. Paul writes a letter to a church in Rome, and we read this in Romans chapter 12, verse two. Paul says this, do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you'll be able to test and approve what God's will is his good and pleasing, and perfect will.

Wow, that's a good one there. When you think about it, he says, set your mind on things above, and when you do, you're gonna be transformed. By the renewing of your mind, what does the renewing of our mind look like? Well, it has a lot to do with, you might have a negative train of thoughts in your mind. I can't do this.

I never could. Everybody said I'd be a loser. Look at them. They're right. But to set your mind on things above is not a self-help kind of think positive thing. It's a look what God has done. Look how valuable you are in God's eyes. Look how he sent his son to die for you. Look how Jesus loves you. Look how the Spirit is always with you.

Suddenly you are putting words in your mind that the Holy Spirit can use to articulate his language to you. So with that in mind, I want to give you a few books to read that I think will help your mind over the course of this summer. Hey, let me interrupt this podcast for just a second to remind you, if you're not taking care of your mental health, nobody is.

Step up and go check out saga center.org to find out more. All right, back to our show. Now, I think these are all great books, but you might just wanna pick one and go with it this summer. One is better than none. Two's better than one. And three is of course fantastic. But the main thing is that you read and you read.

Well, here's what I mean by that. I get into seasons where I feel like I just gotta get a lot consumed, and I'd read and read, and read and read, and I think I haven't really considered what they've said. A wise person once told me, read the same thing over and over again. Let that dive deep into your soul and let that transform your mind.

Read things that direct your attention to Jesus. So I wanna give you a few of those and pick up one of these this summer. The first one is this, and I've been talking about this one for a while. Uh, the invitation to a Journey by Robert Muholland. This is such a great, great read because it really gives us the idea of how to follow Jesus in every aspect of our life.

Specifically the Christian disciplines invitation to a journey, a roadmap for spiritual formation. It's a great little paperback, cost you about $13 on Amazon. It was written by Robert Moholland, and then there's some extra stuff in there, uh, from Ruth Haley Barton. It's great stuff. If you've ever thought, boy, I just don't really even know what fasting and prayer and the disciplines of the Christian life have to do with my life.

Boy, this book really makes sense of it all. It's not a fly through read. Read it like you're eating a fine meal. Savor it as you go. But certainly a great, great read. Okay, here's a second one. This one's a little bit easier to digest, and you can probably pick this one up on Audible as well, but it's Winning the War in your Mind by Pastor Craig Groeschel, and that's spelled G R O E S H C H E L.

If you get close, it'll help you out. Winning the war in your mind. I think all of us have had some bout of anxiety or stress or mental health issues over the past few years, but this book really gets to the heart of it. I would encourage you to pick this up. You can get this on Audible. Listen to it, read it, digest it.

Great. Great stuff on why we think the way that we think and how we can change some of the thought pattern, how we can change some of the thought patterns that we get stuck with. Many of us get into what I like to call think holes, where we get stuck thinking negative things about ourselves, our situation, and certainly our God.

In fact, they say that most marriages can be healed if a person will not only just stop speaking negative things to the person, but we'll start by thinking positive things about that person they're married to. Thinking the positive things about that person turns into, I cannot believe I get to be married to this wonderful, loving person because it transforms your mind.

Jesus certainly knew what he was talking about when he told us to fix our mind on things above. Paul certainly knew what that was all about when he wrote that down and when he tells the church to be transformed by the renewing of their mind. So as you think, there you go. And so when the war in your mind, here's the third one.

It's an old classic by my favorite author, Henry or Henri Nouwen, N O U W E N, and the book is called In the name of Jesus. It is a short read. Henri Nouwen was an incredible professor at an Ivy League school who decided to leave it all and go work at a home for the mentally challenged. He did this in a way to serve and to love and to live in the name of Jesus, and he loved being at a place where no one knew his name or had read his books.

He just got to serve. And he talks about what it means to live your life in the name of Jesus. It is a quick read, but it is a transformational read. Pick up the book in the name of Jesus, okay? For all you guys out there that you claim you never read, or for all you women out there that the guy in your life does not ever read and you've bought him a stack of books and they're all on his bedside table with a bookmark.

Two pages in. Here's one for him. You can get it on Audible. You can even get a five day devotional on it, on you version. And the book is simply titled Move, and it's by a pastor and author named Brian Tome, t o m e. Uh, for further fun, he's got a great podcast called The Aggressive Life, and he is a man's man.

Little bit crass at times, but always brilliant and a lot of fun things to stay towards, guys that will challenge them and kick 'em in the pants. So pick up that book for the guy in your life. Uh, if you're a guy, you're gonna love that book. It's kind of a devotional read. You can read one a day. Um, but it's simply called Move by Brian Tom, that's your.

Extra one. So I promised three, but I gave you four. So that's a lot to, to take in, but I wanna make sure that you're picking up something over the course of this summer. Try out a new podcast, like The Aggressive Life, um, or pass on this one to somebody else. But make sure that you pick up one of these three books, possibly four if you so choose.

All right. Next week we'll be back with brand new content for Simple Faith. I'm gonna give you some simple prayers to pray this summer. All of us wanna pray for our family and friends and kids, but we don't always know what to say. I'm gonna give you five things to pray as we make Faith even more simple.

Thanks to Saga Counseling for sponsoring this podcast, and we will see you next week.