It has been said that mentoring is a mutual relationship with an intentional agenda designed
to convey specific content along with life wisdom from one individual to another.
Mentorship is a basic Biblical principle.
The Book of Proverbs opens with an exhortation to listen to the words of the wise.
There's a make or break factor in this that makes darkness nervous.
In this episode of Keep It 100, we open up the conversation on mentoring community and
having the right voices in your life.
Be tuned till the end for the life-changing principles on accountability.
Everybody, greeting to all the Keep It 100 tribe.
Welcome to Keep It 100 with Sean and Christa Smith.
Hey, everybody.
We are so excited you're here.
Do we have an episode for you?
We believe that the content and conversation of this show could be a game changer.
Oh, I tell you what.
I am so excited about this topic.
Before we dive into that, I want to talk about what happened last weekend.
Sean and I were local here in the Vacaville area.
We live in the Bay.
It's about 45 minutes from us.
We're at this incredible church and I did the women's conference on Friday and Saturday
and then Sean followed up and did the Sunday service.
And I tell you what, the power of God broke out in the place.
We saw salvation.
We saw deliverance.
We saw breakthrough.
It really was truly incredible.
And I don't know about you, but Sunday service was like off the charts.
It was what?
Three and a half hours?
It was three and a half hours long.
And Kali, when you have a service that goes over three and a half hours, let me just say
to the rest of the United States, it was a move of God.
It truly was.
I mean, we saw such a hunger.
We released service and since service was over, the people stayed.
I mean, people just wanted because when the presence of God is in the room, people will
stay.
So I want to encourage our listeners.
I don't know where you're at in your state.
I don't know if you've been able to gather in person or not, but I want to encourage
you as Sean and I begin to gather where states have allowed it.
We are seeing unprecedented amount of hunger and desire for God and the church is going
after the bride.
I want to speak some encouragement to the Keep It One Head of the Tribe.
God is doing something.
And get ready because revival is coming to America.
Amen.
I agree with that 100%.
I love that.
Today, we're talking about this topic of what we're calling mentoring, community, and having
the right voices speak into your life.
We think this is such an important topic because we know this really affects really the development
of who we are and also walking out the fullness of who God designed us to be.
You know, we were watching just last night, right?
30 for 30, which some of you have not watched.
VPN does these mini documentaries.
They've done one on Michael Jordan, Bruce Lee, but they had one on superstar generational
player, Michael Vick, which many people might know he was a quarterback, but he ends up
going to prison for dog fighting.
And as we're watching this thing and it ended very awesome, it was just really a redemptive
story of this young man in his twenties that literally some mountain and achieve things
that no other person really had.
Two things jumped out at me.
Number one, when he was young before he goes to prison, he is offered the opportunity to
be mentored by coach Tony Dungey, who's a strong believer, hall of fame coach, just
kind of a motivational man of God.
But Michael Vick initially declines it, says he really doesn't have time for that.
And without that mentorship in his life, he makes bad decisions.
He goes to prison.
And then once he's in prison, he asked for coach Dungey, the initial coach that he turned
down his mentorship.
He now asked for that mentorship and that ends up giving him a second chance in NFL.
And of course, Mike Vick turns out great.
And Mike Vick, new point news, new point news.
He's ghost.
But the second thing that jumped out to me was the company he initially kept with some
childhood buddies that just weren't good dudes in general.
They were the ones running the dog kennels.
They were the ones that were organizing the dog fighting and had drugs around his compound
when Michael Vick wasn't even there.
Michael Vick was back in Atlanta.
And then it was interesting that once he got out of prison and now he's wanting to make
right decisions, he distanced himself from these wrong voices in his life when he got
a second chance.
And as a result of that, you could see that all the self professed bad decisions and association
took place in his twenties.
And then when he gets a second chance, you begin to realize he gets a mentor.
He gets the right voices.
He gets good community.
And in fact, they even shown speaking at a church and you begin to see there's the reason
why this guy finished well.
It's so true.
Watching the Michael Vick story was really powerful because it really is a display of
who you surround yourself with really affects your destiny.
And Michael Vick really was connected to some people that were making super unwise decisions
and their unwise decisions, although he wasn't physically present at what was going on, their
decisions affected his destiny.
They affected his life.
He ended up going to prison like Sean said for almost two years.
And we really saw him make a comeback, but it's because he changed the voices in his
life.
And friends, that's what we're talking about today because so many of us and maybe some
of you as listeners, we really lack from spiritually mature relationships in our life.
And so many times we surround ourselves with people that are like us and they have, they
don't have the gray hairs on their head.
They don't have the wisdom.
They haven't lived the life.
Everyone around us kind of, you know, is similar.
And although I get, we enjoy people that are similar to us.
There's really a benefit of people that have different life experiences, deeper maturity.
They really are a vantage point for you to learn from and mature from.
And I believe that when Mike Vick brought Tony Dungey back into his life for the first
time and allowed him to be a voice of counsel, it literally shifted his destiny because Tony
Dungey was the one that advocated for him to go to the NFL and helped him reentry his
career, which was unprecedented at that time.
No one had done that.
Gone from prison, gone back and had a super successful career.
That was incredible.
And so again, it was that voice of mentorship.
It was that voice of accountability that was calling Mike Vick higher that I believe
is the power of accountability, the power of mentorship and really the power of community.
And so many times when we don't have that voice in our life, it can result in poor decisions
and also poor relationships.
We don't have anyone modeling to us what healthy relationships do in our life and mentor relationships,
model health.
You know, statistics back this book, according to LifeWay research, 45% of unchurch young
adults identify the opportunity to receive advice from older people with similar life
experiences as very important.
Wow.
And then 68% of church young people say advice from older people with similar life experiences
are very important.
So 45% of the unsaved or unchurch, 68% of the church.
So the conclusion is the younger generation desires mentorship with more experienced
people, more experienced Christians, obviously for those of us in the church world.
This is so important because it's a generation crying out that I want mentorship.
And you know, the reality is every single one of us need a mentor, every single one
of us need community, every single one of us need those voices speaking into our life.
Whether you are the CEO of a Fortune 500, whether you are entry level, beginning your
journey, you need someone speaking into your life because we all know at the end of the
day, we're all pretty impressionable people.
And we all like to think that we're independent, we're free thinking who make up our own mind.
But the reality is all of us are heavily influenced by the company that we keep.
You know, we also have to be very selective as to whose advice we embrace.
I love what you say, Kristin, not everybody should have room at your table.
Your table is your inner circle.
That's right.
And I want to give you a core philosophy to not be advised by anyone who isn't advised
by the word of God.
Come on.
Now I'm talking about deep life speaking into my life.
Of course, I'll take advice from people in areas of expertise.
I'm watching YouTube tutorials or different technological things I don't understand.
But in terms of speaking in the direction and purpose and identity of my life, I am
not going to be advised by anyone who isn't advised by the word of God because God isn't
obligated to bless someone else's opinion.
And if he isn't blessing their opinion, let me tell you what, you're really finding out
and instead of getting a bless, you're getting a mess.
Oh, that is so good.
I should know about that because all right, keep it 100.
Here's a keep it 100 for real moment.
I had a criminal record at nine years of age.
Many of you that listened to our podcast know that my dad was murdered when I was nine years
of age and I developed at that particular time a real offense towards those who are
in authority.
And at the same time, I came across a group of some guys that lived next door to me.
I still remember them.
Stephen, Hercules, and Edgar.
And Edgar was probably a year and a half older than me.
His brothers were like five or six years older than me.
They kind of introduced me in the hood, West Oakland, y'all, to a life of crime.
So first we hit up Tony's liquors.
I kind of steal maybe a little payday bar, a little Snickers bar, little M&Ms.
And then we moved from there to Safeways.
I was sticking popsicle down my pants and I was kind of getting good at robbery.
I'm like, hey, dude, maybe eventually I could get me a car this way.
I was feeling pretty good when you feel like you get that adrenaline, you're getting away
with it.
And then I made the mistake.
I went to a, they used to call them kind of variety stores.
They were kind of like Target.
And so I went to it.
It was actually Payless, but back in the day, Payless, today is Payless shoes.
Then Payless was like Target.
And so I had this janky bike and it was a Fixie and I thought, I don't want anyone to steal
my bike.
So I'm going to steal a lot.
So I had a shirt in.
This was my plan.
I had this kind of flannel like shirt.
I was going to drop my shirt over the lock, pick up my shirt and lock together and act
like I'm still looking at stuff and walk out the store.
And I got me a brand new lock for my janky old bike.
The only problem was I didn't know they had closed surveillance cameras.
So when I walk out of the store, this man and the woman, they're not dressed in security
or plain clothes.
They grabbed me by each arm and I look at them and I goes, sir, ma'am, I'm not your
kid, which was kind of funny because of their race at my race.
They grabbed my shirt and they shook out the lock.
And all of a sudden I immediately started crying for two reasons.
One, I knew I was caught.
And two, I knew my grandmother was going to beat me down.
They called the police.
I begged them not to.
And the police initially tried to call my grandmother and she didn't answer.
My mom couldn't be reached at the time.
So they took me down to juvenile hall, put me in a cell.
It smelled like urine.
I remember it.
But I remember when they put me in a car, two older black ladies looked at me and you
imagine seeing a nine year old kid in the back seat of a car and they just shook their
heads.
I remember just that sense because I think growing up, I was just a little more concerned
about the community and older people and what they thought.
And as I reflect over that period of life, by the way, that record was sealed when I
was 18 because I learned my lesson.
I learned my lesson in terms of the crowd I keep.
I learned my lesson in terms of the voices that speak in my life.
And the good news is from that point on, if guys was doing drugs, if guys were stealing,
I didn't allow them in my inner circle.
You may be in the hood.
I may not at you.
We may play a little ball in the park, but you are not going to be in my inner circle.
And so I learned my lesson about the voices, about community, and even about mentoring.
I tell you what, you are such an incredible picture of really allowing voices in your
life to become the man who you are today because you didn't have those role models growing
up.
There was quite the opposite.
And what I love is the man who you are today is such a man of integrity and you mentor so
many people.
And in a sense, giving them the next generation what you didn't have.
And I think that's incredible.
You know, the reality is so many people are hindered from having authentic mentoring relationships.
And I really think one of the main things that hinders people is a desire to stay comfortable
for their comfort zone.
And they want to avoid conflict.
Conflict is scary to people, but the reality is authentic Christianity.
It's, you know, it's a lot of things, but easy isn't one of those things.
The path of least resistance is not the path to your purpose, friends.
We live in a society that's obsessed with convenience, self gratification, pleasures,
things being instant, but we all know relationships take time.
You have to be intentional and available to grow them.
Mentor relationships are not your buddy, buddy, chill relationships.
They are relationships that are going to have growing pains.
They're going to be uncomfortable, but I'm not looking for a buddy when I have someone
speaking in my life.
I'm looking for someone to call me higher, but so many of us want that quick, comfortable,
no conflict.
And then, friend, the reality is you don't want a mentor, you actually want a fan.
That's so good.
Oh my goodness.
That's powerful.
The second hindrance from authentic mentoring is that we live in a culture of unlimited
options.
You ever pull up to Jack in a box, like I don't eat fast food, right?
I don't, at least I don't eat that fast food.
You can get option fatigue looking at their menu on the thing because it, or you go eat
a cheesecake factory, they throw you that phone book that's got all them options.
It's too much.
And it's so thick.
Yeah.
We live in a world where we're inundated with choices, endless avenues to entertain us,
satisfy our senses.
And I think with that, it comes with a mindset that really has caused a consumer Christianity
that all of a sudden far too many believers have an opt out.
So it's like, if I don't like what they're saying here, I'll listen to this podcast.
I'll listen, I'll go to that blog.
I don't like that blog.
So now I'll read this book.
I'll listen to this teacher.
I won't go to this church.
I go to that church.
And the Bible talks about those that heap up teachers according to their own itching
ears.
And you compile that with the fact that we have this rise in spiritual ambiguities.
It used to be things were more black and white.
And now people are fighting to try to make more and more gray area.
I think in some instances that we've stretched the teaching of grace, we've twisted it so
much we've given it a hernia.
And so it's like, we got to get back to the point of you may have a culture of unlimited
options, but if you want to grow, you have no other option, but to get some authentic
mentoring in your life.
That's so good.
And that's what made me to point three.
The third hindrance from authentic mentoring is what I call the pendulum reaction to legalism
or abuse.
Now it's true.
Some people have been exposed to extreme legalistic teaching.
That means where people have not just told you what the word has to say, but they've
thrown in their own opinion in terms of what you can or cannot do.
And they've taught it as, as it's the Lord's and it really isn't.
And then all of a sudden some people come out of those churches hurt, upset or wounded.
And then they begin to misinterpret discipline coming from spiritual leaders as legalism
or control when in fact it isn't.
And now you got things like hashtag church hurt movement.
And the bottom line is, is you have to trust people in your journey.
You won't call to do this thing alone.
And if you just have a pendulum reaction and fight against discipline, you have to understand
the Bible says that to those whom the Lord loves, they call that he calls them sons and
daughters.
He disciplines.
Discipline is going to be a key to you walking in the fullness of your destiny.
As one teacher says, we want to arrive at the grave empty, meaning that we fulfilled
our purpose and did what God called us to do.
You know, I was reading this article to Christa in the leadership journal by Lewis McBurney.
And he said, there are four reasons why people reject essentially what we're talking about.
And he says, those four reasons is I fear rejection.
I feel embarrassed.
I resent control by hostile people, which is kind of the point we're talking about.
And four, I don't like facing my negative feelings, which is what you were talking about
just in point one.
It's so good.
What you're saying is so rich because really, if we grab ahold of these, these are the things
that hinder so many people from having mentoring relationships.
If they can recognize these and overcome them and allow people to speak in their life, like
we said at the beginning of this episode, these are game changers.
I believe some people have been hindered because believers haven't caught the vision of passing
the download of wisdom and life experience.
And I'm really talking about maybe the older generation at this moment, although I want
to hit multiple ages in just a minute.
But you know, for older people, this maybe wasn't modeled to them.
There was very much a culture in the older generation.
And again, I'm not a part of that generation, but I've observed it come carry my bags, do
stuff for me, you know, kind of be my gopher, but there's no intimacy.
There's no personal relationship.
There's no dialogue of being able to take off the mask and be like, Hey, this is what
I'm facing in my life.
Can you speak to this?
Can you give me some counsel for this?
There wasn't an unpacking of your personal life with the people that you served.
It was very much like I serve you, but there was no innocence pouring out and they viewed
just being in their mere presence was them mentoring you.
And that's not mentorship.
Mentorship isn't someone carrying my bags.
Mentorship isn't someone picking me up from the airport and dropping me off to make things
convenient for me.
Mentorship goes both ways.
You have to get ready to receive it, but I believe all of us are called to also pour
out.
And like I said, this is not, I just spoke about the older people, but this is not just
an age thing.
I think there's also a lot of younger leaders that are getting released finally, they feel
like they're so excited to finally be released.
I saw this, you know, throughout my life and not for me personally, I've actually, I can
say before the Lord, I've actually really always been excited to release people, but
I saw other leaders that were younger, that were getting released, that struggled seeing
people raised up around them because they didn't even feel like they were fully released.
So it was really hard for them to see other people released when they didn't even feel
like what was in them had been fully tapped into or unlocked.
But I believe if you have that mentality that you believe other people can't be released
until the fullness of you, that's a scarcity mentality and scarcity is not in the kingdom
of God.
We live in the kingdom of God that has abundance.
So if you have a scarcity mentality, which means there's not enough, there's not enough
to go around.
But the reality is if you have a kingdom mentality, all of us are called to make disciples and
help people live out the kingdom of God and everything about our life should be pointing
people to Jesus, discipling people and raising people up and recognize if people surpass us,
great.
That means we have shoved people deeper into God and let their lives inspire you to go
deeper.
That mentorship is actually about raising people beyond your limitations, but into the
fullness of who they are in Christ.
I love that.
That is so profound right there.
I really absolutely just wholeheartedly believe that and I've seen that and I believe things
are changing.
So I'm so glad you talked to that.
The fifth thing that hinders people from authentic mentoring is wanting the cheerleading without
the coaching.
I've had different people come to me and say, Sean, I'd love for you to mentor.
I love for you to mentor.
And some of them I've begun to embark upon that and I began to realize what you really
are saying is you want cheerleading without the coaching.
You want to aim in corner without an Omi challenge.
And I just feel like I see where there are people that they love the candy compliments,
but they don't want the constructive criticisms or corrections.
And let me just say to you, if you're not allowing someone to move beyond cheerleading,
then you don't really have a mentor.
You just have exactly that.
You got a yes man.
And what you need is you don't need a yes man.
You need a God man or a God woman giving you advice that comes from the word of God.
And I think about what many people have in their life is that you take Luke Skywalker.
Everybody knows the whole Star Wars.
I mean, it's been in so many generations now that thing has more miles on it than a Grey
Helm bus, right?
But Luke Skywalker has C-3PO that kind of translated for him.
That was his bumbling buddy, but he would have never reached his potential without a
Yoda.
It was a Yoda in his life or Obi-Wan Kenobi that helped teach him how to grow.
So you got to understand, you can't just have C-3PO's in your life that are just making
you laugh and causing you to feel good about your chill life.
You need to get some Yodas in your life to get you trying to balance the ship while you're
upside down and rocks on your head.
It's not just the cute little baby Yoda on the new Mandalorian.
The old school Yoda, that dude was like, there is no why, only dude.
And so I'm telling you, you need to get a Yoda in your life.
I love that.
I think a biblical example of this, Christa, is the king and first kings chapter 12.
His name is Ray Abarney.
That's so good.
He was a son and he was given an opportunity to become king.
And so the first thing he does, okay, so you just took office.
Okay, now we're about to have 2020 elections, right?
So imagine this thing multiple, multiple years ago.
Ray Abum, first thing he does is he asks advice of the elder.
So he goes to the gray hairs, say, what do you think I should do?
None of them becoming king.
And so they were talking to him about handling the transition with grace.
This is experience talking to you, handle their transitions with grace.
But then it says Ray Abum gathered the young guys that he grew up with and asked their
advice and he said, Hey man, your dad waste should be like your fingers.
Another way of saying your dad went easy on him.
You need to be hard.
You need to raise taxes.
You need to make it about you.
You need to let them know who's in charge.
And so they're giving them different advice.
And so here's the problem.
Ray Abum should have went with the seasoned, but instead he went with the sexy.
And I see that so often today rather than going with the seasoned voices in your life
you're going with the sexy voices.
But you have to understand, you don't want to, when I say sexy, I mean, was hip or was
cool.
But you have to understand Ray Abum split the kingdom, sabotage his reign as king and
his destiny was impacted as a result of that.
So if you learn anything, your life is going to follow your counselors.
Don't reject the advice of elders.
That's so good.
Wisdom is found in the council of elders.
That is so good.
So the word encourages us to seek advisors, Proverbs 15, 22 says plans fail for lack
of counsel, but with many advisors they succeed.
The trick is to listen to the right ones.
And that's exactly what you're talking about.
I mean, the reality is he was given a council from the wrong voice, meaning Ray Abum listened
to the wrong voices.
And he was given counsel, sound counsel from the right voices, but he was persuaded by
the younger, like you're talking about the sexier voice.
Sometimes when we think something is seasoned and mature, we think it's boring.
We think it's predictable.
Speak to that.
But the reality is just because it's hip, it's cool, it's fresh, it's new, it's different.
That's not a bad thing, but it also doesn't mean it's the right thing.
And so sometimes we have to recognize, don't be persuaded, don't be seduced by the shiny
package in the way things come, but go to the soundness and the fruit of what's being
released to you.
You know, the reality is I know in my life, I so many times have pulled on the counsel
of my kitchen table.
There's only so many seats at my kitchen table.
And I have a set of counsel that are trusted and they're seasoned.
And I know that I can turn to these people and they will speak truth to me.
They will give me an honest opinion.
Not what I want to hear, but they'll preach to me the word of God.
And they always point back to the Lord and they always empower my relationship with God,
but they call me to a place of waiting on God in His truth, but not being persuaded
by the seduction of culture or the sexiness of the current age.
And I think that's what's so important is you've got to find your voices that are trusted
and seasoned in your life.
You know, if I could sit down with King Ray Abom and talk to them, what to look for in
a mentor?
Because obviously he grew up with young guys and as we've kind of described, they were
probably exhibiting certain characteristics.
And I imagine if you looked at the elders, they exhibited.
So what do I look for in a mentor?
Shauna Christa, hey, help me out with that.
I need some mentors in my life.
What I look for.
And I think one of the things that's very important is does their life manifest a mature relationship
with Christ?
Like if I'm looking for a mentor and I have mentors in my life, one of the first things
I look for is does their life manifest a mature relationship with Christ?
Because you don't want to make a Xerox of a bad copy.
It means that the reprint just gets worse.
So good.
And so so many people, they're getting people in their life that don't manifest a mature
walk with God.
And so if you're allowing immaturity to speak to your immaturity or hurt to speak to your
hurt or wound to speak to your wound, it just exacerbates the whole situation.
Second thing, if I could say, hey, Ray Abom, we're sitting down over a mocha latte.
The second thing I would tell them to look for in a mentor is does their life and lifestyle
challenge and convict yours?
You know, I think what happens is that we mistake a mate for a mentor.
In other words, mate like the Aussies would say a friend.
We all of a sudden mistake a buddy for a mentor.
You may have a guy that's your buddy and he may be cool.
Maybe using a couple of years older than you, but don't mistake an associate for an advisor.
It's easier to confuse a buddy for a trusted teacher.
But what you've got to ask is when you look at that mentor, what governs their heart and
affections?
And if it's just trying to get paid, just trying to get the latest and greatest more
junk in the trunk, you probably don't need just that person in your life as a mentor.
And of course, stuff like authentic holiness.
And you got to make a distinction between a spiritual mentor and a spiritual buddy.
We all need spiritual buddies.
We need friends in our lives.
We need people around us.
You know, I think Joshua had a Caleb, Caleb had a Joshua, but they both had a Moses.
And so you may have a spiritual buddy, but you got to have a spiritual mentor.
You know, what you said is so good because when we apply these things, we can really
see the value of the mentor.
Another thing I want to add to that is, you know, you need to really look for someone
who can discern God's activity in your life and recognizes your potential in you.
And I think that's so important because so many times we're around people that may not
actually see us for who we are.
You want a mentor that actually believes in you, sees you, and you're a diamond in the
rough.
I know for me, I had people in my life that called out what was in me before I even saw
it.
And before I even had the confidence or the belief within myself in certain areas.
And that's the beauty of mentorship is when someone believes in you, their confidence in
you, you grab ahold of that and you become more confident in who you're called to be.
So you're not looking for a brother or sister to be your mentor.
You're not looking for a peer to be your mentor.
You're looking for a mother or a father in the spirit, an auntie or an uncle, a grandma
or a grandpa.
You're looking for someone older and more mature because a mother or father is comfortable
with you soaring, but siblings, peers want to compete with you.
A mentor can't compete with you.
You can't have competition and grow.
So it's really important who those people are and that they're farther along in the
journey than you.
Another thing you're going to really want to look for when you're looking for a mentor
or having a mentor in your life is do they contribute or enhance the communities that
they're a part of?
Now, this is really important because I want someone where I want to emulate, we touched
on this a bit, but I want to expand on it.
They emulate who you want to reproduce.
Like Sean talked about, do you want a Xerox copy of that?
You look at their life, their marriage, their parenting or they're a part of their community,
their job, how they're connected to church.
If there's someone that's been wounded or offended in a church and they're staying home
and they're critical and they're a part of the church hurt movement, they're probably
not a solid mentor in helping you be a part of community or helping you develop and what
it is really valuing the power of church and community because there's not a value
for it in their lives.
And if they're not contributing to the local church, if they're not contributing to community,
how in the world are they going to help develop that in your life?
So you really have to understand that if they have apathy or disconnection in their life,
that is not a good sign.
You have to read the signs and we have to understand that community teaches you to work through
conflict and challenges and for you to be and more like Jesus.
But if your mentor isn't living that life, just recognize you got to be wise about who
pours into you.
That is so good.
Okay.
The fifth thing and final thing that I sit down and I would share is that you're looking
for a mentor, do they have strong mentors themselves?
That's so good.
Are they getting fed?
And when I'm saying are they getting fed, I'm not talking about from books and blogs
because when you're from books and blogs, you could selectively listen to the blog and
read the book of the people that you want to.
I don't know that you can always call that mentorship, but if you're allowing someone
to could see you eyeball you, then they could begin to speak the inconvenient truths.
It's kind of my way of saying those truths that you may not want to hear.
Everybody wants to grow in an area.
I can, I can listen to a blog, I can read a book on what I want to grow, but a potential
mentor who doesn't have personal mentors themselves might falsely arrive at the conclusion that
they've arrived.
And the truth be told, not everyone's opinion should have equal weight in your life.
And so if they don't weigh trusted season biblical Christ centered mentors in their life,
then when they speak, their words shouldn't carry the same weight in your life as others
that do.
That is, I love that.
That is really profound.
And the reality is we're talking about mentorship and relationships, but the truth is true harmony
among Christians is as important as it's ever been.
So when we're talking about community to our Keep It 100 tribe, we're talking about it
with us as individuals and then also us corporately, but we're really talking about us as the church
together with one another because God designed community.
He designed covenant.
He designed connection.
So when you and I were created, we were actually created for community.
We were created for connection because we were created in God's image and God created
community.
He created covenant.
And therefore if we are not living in community, we're not living in connection or covenant,
then we're actually not living in our true design.
And that's really important.
The fullness of your identity is not fully lived out unless you're connected to other
people.
Other people are part of your destiny.
You do not walk out your God destiny isolated or alone.
And community, the definition of it for us to really understand it, let me break it down
for you.
The definition defines community in this way, a unified body of individuals with a common
character, with common interests who share joint ownership and participation in something.
So as a church who embraces the valued community, we feel strongly that there has to be unity
between us.
We should all share common character, one that reflects the character of Christ.
That is so good.
And I think about, as you're sharing, I think about my early formative community.
We were a bunch of college students on a secular campus that were in a Christian club, so
to speak, actually a Christian movement.
And it was so important because inevitably as a baby Christian, but it's true even now,
Christ and I are part of a community of believers locally and in part, and Christ even serves
on the board of our church.
And inevitably you're going to face trials, troubles and tragedies in life.
This is in fact a sin marred earth.
But God intends that you would be supported, strengthened, encouraged and empowered through
a community of believers.
So when you run from community, you're running from your support system.
You run from your community.
When you face storms and temptations of life, you have just unplugged yourself from the life
of support system that could bring strength.
And I really believe that it's so important that we draw the strength from the community.
And I think about the first great awakening grew out of the Holy club because the Wesley
brothers and Whitfield, they gathered together to pray, to hold each other accountable.
They read certain books.
And as a result of that, it launched the first great awakening.
You know, relationships are our reason for existence.
Relationships with God and with our fellow man.
And so we have to understand Satan would love nothing more than to keep you and I isolated.
But we know isolation is never the answer.
This is where the enemy is going to deceive you by saying, you're not good enough.
You're probably not a Christian.
No one's going to really like you.
If they really know what's going on with you, you're not going to be accepted.
They're not going to let you into the inner circle.
But I want you to know, don't believe the lies of the enemy.
Don't allow the lies of the whispers that the enemy's trying to pull you out of relationship,
pull you out of covenant or pull you out of community.
The reality is the enemy wants to tell you that things are easier without community.
But friends, we want to tell you today, you have to have relationship.
You have to have community.
You have to allow people to speak into your life.
Hebrews 18 one sums this up beautifully says whoever isolates himself seeks his own desire.
He breaks out against all sound judgment.
When you say that, it also triggers and makes me think, Christa, that the bottom line is
that you are God's appointed means to keep your brother and sister from falling into
sin.
Another important aspect of community is the Bible, let's just know in Ecclesiastes,
two are better than one for they receive a better reward for their labor.
For one falls down, the other can lift them up.
There's another one that says that one alone can't stay warm, but two together can stay
warm.
It's a way of keeping that fire going in your heart of passion for the Lord.
So if that's the case and we know the Bible is true, then every exchange with others counts
for eternity because we're either weakening people's affections for God or strengthening
them.
In other words, we're either bringing the fire or in fact, we're dousing it.
And Proverbs 13 20 tells us that we'll be significantly affected by the people we choose
to relate to.
Either we become wise by associating with those who are wise or we'll have bad consequences
by associated with those who are not wise.
As always to the Keep It 100 tribe, we want you to walk away with some takeaways and we
have a few for you with this episode because we believe in the power of mentorship, those
that are speaking to your life and the need for a community.
First takeaway I want you to walk away with is accountability is important and necessary
for to every Christian in order for them to reach the wholeness and their potential in
God.
Here's the reality friends.
We're more likely to end well with this in place.
And this is what I mean.
When you want to get fit, what do you get a trainer?
When you want to eat right, you get a nutritionist.
It doesn't make sense that you would do this in your spiritual walk.
Accountability makes us stronger and more effective in our walk with God.
And it helps you see the gold in your life, therefore making you stronger, therefore helping
resiliency in your life, which we talked about in a previous episode.
You need to have people that help bring perspective and strength to your life because it gives
you confidence that you know God's with you and he's going to get you through the storms
of life and even more than the storms, you have a destiny and a purpose you're called
to walk out.
The next takeaway is accountability is a safeguard because what accountability does,
it gives you a second set of eyes.
It guards you against poor judgment and self deception.
You know, I'm thinking about that whole again, that story of Michael Vic to bring it full
circle.
What if he'd have had Tony Dungey from the beginning?
What if he never would have had to go to prison, which that was actually not just ruling that
sent a man to prison for dog fighting for almost two years over that, but that's another story.
But what if he had Tony Dungey in his life, then he would have never been bankrupt.
He would have had those friends and it ended well for Michael Vic, but accountability is
safeguarding.
And some of us, we have to recognize the devil shooting real bullets.
He's really coming after folks.
We've seen men and women of God fall.
We've seen them.
We believe in restoration.
We, we thank God we serve a redemptive God, but just like the case, maybe accountability
could keep you from falling in the first place.
And it's funny because they have research in a new study, Kristen, his new study comes
out of the research that says the average person is holding on to 13 secrets, five of
which was never told anyone.
We know this, the enemy, the adversary of your souls, he has authority to traffic where
there's darkness, where that darkness is found in the world or that darkness is found in
your heart.
And whenever you're holding on to secrets and things that you're keeping secret to protect,
the enemy has the ability to traffic there.
So we need to be accountable.
And I have an accountability partner shot out to DB and we call each other every week.
And I'm so glad that that guy is able to see things in my life and counsel me, he's older
than me.
He's got more gray in his afro than I do in mine.
I recommend that is so important because accountability is a safe ground.
Accountability is also something that requires commitment and perseverance.
And the reason is transformation requires commitment.
Commitment to be honest enough with yourself to own your blind spots, your responses, your
feelings because we all know we're responsible for our attitude, our thoughts, our actions,
and our behaviors.
No one can make us any way.
We have to make the choices to change.
We can have people speak into our life, but we have to make the choice to receive the
correction or receive the encouragement and actually run with it and walk at the fullness
of who we are.
But we all know if you want to stay the same, then you don't have to do anything.
But if you want transformation, transformation requires you to be committed to being uncomfortable
and refusing to stay where you're at.
Therefore, accountability requires a perseverance.
You got to push through in order to see transformation in your life.
Friends, with the Keep It 100 Tribe, we want to thank you for tuning in for yet another
episode.
We pray that this content continues to transform and impact your life.
We believe that every week, God has something for you.
We just want to thank you for tuning in and we want to continue to ask you, will you rate,
review, and refer us?
We'd even actually love for you to share this link of this episode on your social media
platforms.
We want to hear your word out.
And again, invite people, your friends and family, you think that could benefit from
this content.
Our whole passion is to disciple and equip people that want to go deeper after God.
You can always find us at www.SeanandChristasmith.com and as well as on Facebook at Sean and
Christa Smith Ministries.
We'd love to hear how this podcast has impacted you.
We've heard so many great reports from so many of you that really encouraged us and
it really, as you do that, it spurs us to want to get deeper and to bring more material
that we believe will help you.
Speaking of that, you'll want to tune in next week because we're talking about leadership.
Act like the leader you are because everyone is going to lead someone.
And you're also going to hear from a university president that has written a book on leadership.
He's an amazing guy and a friend of mine.
You do not want to miss it.
And remember, Keep It 100 Tribe.
We hope you enjoyed today's episode of the Keep It 100 podcast with Sean and Christa Smith.
Keep up with us on Facebook and Instagram at SeanandChristasmith.com where you can discover
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