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Join me on this enlightening journey as we explore practical tips for spiritual growth in the new year, drawing wisdom from Psalm 15. As we welcome 2025, I invite you to approach your spiritual journey with curiosity and openness, allowing the Holy Spirit to guide your understanding of the scriptures. Emphasizing the significance of fasting, we discuss how abstaining from food can strengthen the spirit and diminish the flesh’s control, paving the way for a deeper connection with God. Prioritizing spiritual development alongside physical and mental well-being ensures that our growth is both meaningful and enduring, guiding us to live this year in the presence of God with eternal significance.

Listen in as we explore the art of living in God’s presence, focusing on the practices drawn from Psalm 15 that enhance our relationship with the divine. By breaking down the imagery and language of the Psalm, we uncover the path to God’s presence and how it applies to our lives. The conversation emphasizes the balance of living with God in our everyday world and spiritual journey, encouraging a deeper connection with the divine. We also examine the profound impact of integrity and sound, drawing parallels with the biblical story of Moses, to highlight the importance of aligning one’s heart and intentions with God’s will.

This episode encourages you to identify the fault lines in your spiritual life and align your goals with truth and integrity. By emphasizing honesty with ourselves, others, and God, we maintain an upright life, seeking counsel from those we trust in the Lord. Reflecting on the miraculous experiences that can occur even amidst chaos, we highlight the importance of sincerity in our relationship with God, urging listeners to seek Him not just as a provider of material desires but as a source of spiritual transformation. Stay connected for spiritual growth and share the message with others who may benefit, and remember, more resources are available at jaimeluce.com, including my book “You Don’t Need Money, You Just Need God.” Thank you for being part of this journey, and I look forward to welcoming you again next time.

Where to dive in:

(0:00:00) – Practical Tips for Spiritual Growth

Spiritual growth and intentionality in the new year, drawing insights from Psalm 15, emphasizing fasting and prioritizing spiritual development.

(0:07:53) – Living in God’s Presence

Living in God’s presence in 2025, using Psalm 15 as a guide, through 5 practices for a deeper connection with the divine.

(0:15:02) – The Road to Spiritual Growth

Seeking God’s guidance for balance between spiritual and physical lives, finding fulfillment in relationships, work, health, and mental well-being.

(0:19:13) – Walking Uprightly Before God

God’s guidance sets personal boundaries for our well-being, shifting our focus and understanding His Word as a guiding lens.

(0:34:31) – The Impact of Integrity and Sound

Sound and music impact focus and communication, aligning with God’s will leads to true change and purpose.

(0:40:32) – Seeking God’s Presence Daily

Living in God’s presence and power, sincerity in relationship, integrity and honesty, transformative forgiveness, blameless life in Christ.

(0:50:03) – Identifying Fault Lines for Spiritual Growth

Examining fault lines in our spiritual lives, emphasizing honesty, seeking counsel, and staying in God’s presence for growth in 2025.

(0:58:58) – Stay Connected for Spiritual Growth

Encourage sharing and staying connected by subscribing for updates at jamieluce.com, with gratitude for audience and invitation to join next time.

About your host: Jaime Luce’s testimony has daunting personal mountains and treacherous financial valleys. She was trapped in day-to-day stress and couldn’t see a way forward. But how she started is not how she finished! And she wants you to know God has a plan for your life too, no matter how tough it seems. Today, Jaime has been married to the love of her life for almost three decades, owns two companies, and has become an author and podcaster. God’s way is always the blessed way!

Free chapter of Jaime’s new book: You Don’t Need Money, You Just Need God: https://jaimeluce.com/book/

Connect:

– Website: https://jaimeluce.com

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– LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaime-luce-00395691/

Full Transcript

This transcript is auto-generated and not perfect. We hope it blesses you.

0:00:00 – Jaime Luce
Welcome to the Jamie Luce podcast. Happy New Year. It’s 2025,. Shockingly, we made it through another year and as I was praying and considering this year just for myself, the Lord really began to show me something while reading the scriptures in Psalms. So today we’re going to be reading while reading the scriptures in Psalms. So today we’re going to be reading out of Psalm 15.

I would encourage you, whatever your plan of reading is, even if you don’t have a plan, when you’re reading the word and you’re taking time to spend time with the Lord, try to be as curious about the word as you can Like. If you read something and you just think that you know, I don’t know why that’s in there, and you just skip over it, instead of dismissing, instead of just continuing to read, allow the Holy Spirit to spark your curiosity about why is that in there. So many times we skip over some really awesome, awesome stuff. If we would just allow the Holy Spirit to prompt us in. There’s a reason I put that there. There’s a reason why you sat there and said now, why is that there? What does that mean? I don’t understand that. Those kinds of thoughts are intended to pull you deeper into the word so that you’re able to find really what the Lord is speaking to you, something very personal.

And as I was looking at the scripture this year, I you know, of course it’s a new year. What do we all do? And there’s going to be a million podcasts you can listen to that are going to talk about something, about changing your habits this year and doing things different this year. And again, that’s my thought process too, and again, that’s my thought process too. I mean, it’s a natural thought to be thinking about. Okay, we finished a year and we’re starting a new year, and I typically I don’t want to say that I do this. It’s not the same every year. It could be very different every year but I do try to give the Lord the first of the year by prayer and fasting. The duration may change or what type of fast it is, it may change.

Let me clarify by saying fasting is food. If you take a break from social media, that’s fantastic. That’s just good brain health. That’s just really good for you to do as a practice. Just good brain health. That’s just really good for you to do as a practice. If you say I’m not going to watch TV or I’m not, you know I’m going to give up my video games and I’m going to. That’s fine, those are all things. But this isn’t lent. I’m not giving something up. This a fast is to not eat food to literally cover the mouth. So I, so I encourage you, if you’re someone who fasts um, to truly understand what fasting is. It’s.

It is when you don’t feed the body. What you’re doing is you are telling the body that you do not have control. Flesh does not dominate. My spirit will be in control. The spirit of God I am giving preeminence to, to guide my life, to, to speak clearly to me so that I can hear that my, my spirit grows and my flesh dies. It’s a there’s an understanding.

When you tell your flesh you don’t have control and that I’m giving the Holy Spirit control, what I’m really doing is I’m saying I’m making my flesh weak. When I don’t eat, you can get tired, especially if you’re someone who takes in a lot of caffeine and you cut out caffeine or you know whatever you tend, if you’re someone who works out a lot and you take in a lot of protein and all of a sudden you’re not taking, you’re really hungry, but you’re making your flesh weak. So when you weaken your flesh, then we can claim the promise of God that says in my weakness you are made strong. Wrong the the truth that my spirit man now grows and has um exponential power available to me because I have not relied on the abilities I find in my flesh, not in my own strength, not in my own abilities, but in what the Holy Spirit is doing inside of me. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit and it is the temple of the Holy Spirit that the presence of God is hosted. It’s where he lives. So if the purpose of fasting is to cause my spirit man to be strengthened and to be built up so that my flesh is humbled before the Lord and I am being purposeful and intentional about saying that I want the Lord to be Lord of my life I want you to direct. This year. When I came across Psalm 15, I realized this was not just something I was sensing for myself that the Lord wanted to do within me, but this is also something that I want to pass along to you.

I really believe that if you are someone who cares deeply about being intentional about your spiritual growth, you know some people get real intentional at the beginning of every year about their physical health. They get into a gym, they wanna eat right, they wanna make sure they’re sleeping right, they’re putting into practice good leadership skills and growth skills, and those are all wonderful and do them. I have nothing against them, do them. But, folks, if we don’t grow spiritually, it won’t do us a bit of good to have strengthened our physical bodies and helped us to think clearer in the natural. No matter what’s going on in this physical world, there is an eternal world that is more real, more present and eternal. It is something that will last forever. It is something that can’t fade or be diminished, and we have to care about that. So my goal today in bringing this to you and I might break it into two, we’ll see how much we get done today is to show us how to live 2025 in the presence of God.

Hi, my name is Jamie Luce. I wanted to share with you some information about a brand new book entitled you Don’t Need Money, you Just Need God. It’s a playbook for miraculous provision, and I want to share it with you because it solves the problem we are all facing right now. The economy is going crazy, gas prices are soaring, there’s wars and rumors of wars. We’ve got everything hitting us all at once, with interest rates rising. You need to know what to do, and so many times we think we need the money, but you don’t need money. I’m telling you, the answer is you need God, and that’s exactly what we want to teach you through this book. We’ll give you practical ways to know what to do and how to do it, so that you get answers. Now you can find my book on Amazon. You can also go to jamielucecom. You can also find this book at you don’t need money, you just needucecom. You can also find this book at youdontneedmoneyyoujustneedgodcom. This book is available today.

So here we are how to live in the presence of God in 2025. I’m going to read to you Psalm 15. And if you will learn to do these things that we find in this passage of scripture, you will have a guaranteed, a better, stronger, deeper, more vibrant relationship with your Lord and savior, your creator, who has a great plan for your life for this year, who has a great plan for your life for this year? And if you will adhere to what this scripture says, make this your year’s scripture for the year. Take this and make this your scripture. Print it out, put it somewhere, put it in your Bible, make it into a bookmark in your Bible and have it printed out and read it Every time you think of it. Read it, remind yourself, and I promise you if you will do these things.

I have listed five things found out of this scripture, five things that we can do to live 2025 in the presence of the Lord. So you’re going to want to take some notes. I’ve got a lot of scripture to give you but this first point is where it is the springboard for everything else. You’re going to want to get as much as you can from this first part, and it is. This was like transforming for me in my own thought process, in my own understanding of just some of the words found here. So, when I’m talking about getting curious about the word, this is what God does with me and where I find the most beautiful and the most impactful, the deep things of God that he’s trying to say to me. That are, they are revelation to me. They give me. Revelation is like light in a dark place where, all of a sudden, you have eyesight and you couldn’t see before, and this is one of those things. So let’s read the scripture and then I’m going to go through and we’re going to break them down Psalm 15. And you know, of course, when these were originally written.

I don’t know if they had titles on them or not, but mine is titled who Shall Djourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill? He who walks blamelessly and does what is right and speaks truth in his heart. Speaks truth in his heart. Who does not slander with his tongue and does no evil to his neighbor, nor takes up a reproach against his friend, in whose eyes a vile person is despised. A vile person is despised, but who honors those who fear the Lord, who swears to his own hurt and does not change, who does not put out his money at interest and does not take a bribe against the innocent. He who does these things shall never be moved.

Now, when I first read this, it seems almost you know the language sometimes for us can get in the way and you’re thinking okay, sojourn, who likes to use the word sojourn in their normal vocabulary? And you kind of, we kind of, if we hit a word that is not in our normal vernacular. It’s not the way we usually speak. We tend to kind of tune out the minute we hear something that doesn’t click, we kind of tune out and yet we’re missing things. When you’re reading scripture you’re really missing things.

If you tune out, to sojourn simply means you’re on a journey. You’re going on this journey and it says David is saying oh Lord, who can go on the journey into your tent? The tent of meeting was the place where God’s presence resided. Moses would go into the tent and the cloud would descend. God’s presence would come, everyone could see the presence of God there and he would stay in there and God would talk to him face to face. So he’s saying oh Lord, who can do this? Who has the ability to come into your presence, to speak to you face to face, to live in your presence?

A tent is a place you dwell, it’s where you stay, you remain, you live. We would say in the house, you stay, you remain, you live. We would say in the house. Who can dwell and journey to live in your house, to be in your house? And I’m not just talking about going to church, I’m talking about living, dwelling, living out my journey, I sojourn. Who can do this? Then he takes it even further who shall dwell on your holy hill? On the holy hill, on the mount, was where God gave the commandments for living On this mountain was the place that God came and showed Moses his goodness, his glory, that the power of God manifested on the mountain.

So King David is saying how do I have your presence where I live, in my house, in my natural realm, here, and how do I live in your presence spiritually, for you to do, to speak to me, for you to show me the miraculous, to show me your glory? I see two things here, and you’ll see them again later in the same Psalm. But it is the balance of God in our secular world and God with us in our spiritual sense, in the spiritual world. So there are two worlds here. We live in both. We live in the already, not yet. We live in the tension of God with us, but we are still living out this world in our earth suits, in this flesh, and we deal with people who are not all sanctified and we ourselves are still being sanctified.

And so there’s this, there’s a balance going on, there’s a juggling act, so to speak, going on, and David is feeling this and he’s asking the Lord how do I do this? Who are the people who can do this? Who have you and they live with your presence in their physical, fleshly world and they experience you spiritually and every benefit that comes with that. This is where the Lord arrested my attention, and I believe that if you will really allow the Holy Spirit to speak to you right now, this is going to arrest your attention too. This is some powerful stuff I’m getting ready to give you, and it will, if you can be honest with yourself about your walk with the Lord and not tell yourself it’s good, it’s great, it’s good enough that you would sit yourself right now in a posture of asking the Lord, lord, how do I do this? And show me let me be honest with myself and with you that I will hear what you have to say about where I’m at with you and where you want me to be, Both in my natural world and the things I do, whether that be going to a secular job, raising children, having a marriage, because all of those things are touched and affected greatly by the other side, which is our spiritual life.

If I am dead to my spirit, then this flesh world has no hope. Nothing I do in this will produce anything good. There is none good, no, not one, and it is only the goodness of God that and we’ve talked about this many times on this podcast but that you can’t determine yourself what is good. Only God can tell what is good. We can argue with him all we want, but we’re not the creator, we are not the one with the end say, we’re not the one with the final word. God is, and so he tells us what is good.

And to be able to tap into and lay hold of what is good, that means that I have to be able to allow the Lord to tell me, to dictate to me what I’m doing right, what pleases him, what he considers worth my effort, the things that I should be putting my hand to, and not be the things that need corrected in me and through me. All of those things have to come through the voice of God to me. That’s my spiritual man, that’s the growth of spiritual man. And if I allow that to be the first, why do we hear in Matthew? He says seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, what he says is right, what he determines is good, and then, if you do that, then all of these things will be added to you.

If you’re struggling with raising your kids, if you’re struggling in your job and your finances, if you’re struggling in your marriage, if you’re struggling in your physical body whether that be health or addictions, whatever things might be mental health you’re struggling with your mind, with your thought life. Those things cannot get better outside of Jesus Christ. They just can’t. Even if there is some temporary relief, even if you feel like things are a little bit better, they are not truly good without God, and so I have to know that my attention and the effort that I give to whatever I’m trying to accomplish this new year has to be first my relationship with Jesus Christ, being in his, his presence, being transformed by his words, taking what he says, both in the tent and on the mountain. On the mountain, he may be giving me laws for my life. He might be saying, jamie, I don’t want you doing this anymore.

These are the no’s to you, these are the thou shalt nots to you right now. Do not do these things. This will lead you away from me. If you do these things or participate in these things, they will lead you away from me. They will lead you down a path that is not healthy for you. They will lead you in a way. That is confusion for your life. They will take you in a place where it makes you dull of hearing. You won’t be able to hear what I’m saying to you. God never tells us no, just to be an ogre, just to say don’t have fun, just you know to say you just have to follow my rules and do it my way.

And it’s hard for people. If you were raised in an environment where all you ever heard was no. If you were raised in an environment where all you ever heard was no, because I said so. Or you heard um, we just don’t do that, that’s just something we don’t do. You weren’t explained why you don’t. There’s no meaning behind it. You felt like your life, um, was lived without joy Then. Then it’s hard to hear no.

It’s hard to hear the Lord say I don’t want you to do this. And I’m not talking about the 10 commandments. We know what those are. I’m talking about a personal list of things that the Lord may be saying this year. You know I don’t want you going to that place anymore. I don’t want you listening to this kind of music anymore. I don’t want you conversing with that person because they gossip or they speak negative things into your life or they tell you things contrary to what I’m telling you.

It could be anything. It could be your choice of entertainment, it could be the people you surround yourself with, it could be your thought life. If God is speaking to you and saying I don’t want you to think those thoughts anymore, you’re not going to get rid of those thoughts by telling yourself constantly Don’t think about it, don’t think about it. Don’t think about it, because the minute you say don’t think about it, you’re thinking about it. You have to learn to put your mind on the things that he does want you thinking about, that he does want you meditating about. Now we know he tells us to meditate on his word day and night. Make it like the front lit. So put it on it. It’s like saying put a pair of glasses on that.

Have the scripture on it that everything you see is through that lens. You see God’s word, you see what he has planned for you, you see the things he has spoken to you, whether that’s the encouragement that he has given you for the day that you can do this, that with me all things are possible, that you can do it, because in my weakness his strength is present, his strength will do it, his power will make it happen, or whether it is the correction in my life, don’t go there. If you feel that, check, you hear that whisper, you know the nudge and you say don’t, and you do it anyway, then that means I’ve got some pride in there. I’ve got some. I’m not gonna listen to you, god in there, I wanna do it my way in there, and that needs some filing. That’s the iron, sharpening iron. Let the iron, the sword of the Lord, let that do some work and shave off those areas in your heart and maybe he can show you why that’s a tendency.

I’m not here to beat you up for it. If there’s something in you that is just like a punch reaction, you just you hear something and you just don’t have the restraint in you and you just do what you want to do. I’m not telling you that you’re bad or wrong for that. What I’m saying is become curious with God, become real with him, let him be your Lord and your father and let him speak to you. Let him talk to you about it, where he says okay, why did you feel you had to do that? What is it that you think is going to happen or not happen. If you don’t do that, what is it you’re actually afraid of? Let the Lord have conversations with you about truth. Okay, so I’m getting into it. That’s a lot before actually giving this to you.

But let’s look at verse two. He who’s going to be able to dwell in his tent and dwell on his holy hill, who’s going to be able to do this? He who walks blamelessly and does it, does what is right and speaks truth in his heart. That’s the first verse. I want us to tackle that verse. And I don’t know about you, I don’t know what version of the Bible you’re reading, but, like I said, this one is. This version is. Let me look it up and I’ll tell you which one I’m reading from today.

I’m reading from the ESV, the English Standard Version, and it uses the word blamelessly he who walks blamelessly. And immediately the inclination is to feel like are you kidding me? I’m not perfect, I cannot walk blamelessly, so I can’t do this. I can’t be the one who sojourns in your tent and dwells on your holy hill. I’m sorry, that’s just. I can’t do it. I can’t be blameless. I’m not blameless, I’m disqualified because I can’t be blameless.

And this is where curiosity has to come in, and so I got out my app that I have. I have this app called the Logos. It’s for people who really love to dig deep and get into the word for ministers and preachers and whatnot, teachers, anyway, other versions. Instead of this word, instead of the word blameless, it uses the word upright. Now, if I would have read upright, that would have conjured other thoughts than blameless for me.

The word upright conjures in my mind. I don’t know what it conjures in yours, but in mine the word upright conjures thoughts of okay, live right, live right, do. What is the upright, the upward, towards God, right thing to do, the thing that is toward walking towards God versus walking away from God, doing things in my flesh versus doing things in my spirit. If I sit there and mull over the word upright, what do I think that word means? Okay, so that’s what I think it means. But I go to my app and I look up okay, in the Hebrew, what does this word mean? And the word upright. This is so powerful, you guys.

This, this opened up so much to me today. I pray that it does the same for you. But if you want to walk in the presence of the Holy spirit and live in his presence this year 2025. We have to walk upright. We have to walk blameless before him. And here’s what that means and this opened up a whole world to me the word blameless or upright they’re synonymous.

Uprightly and blameless means complete us uprightly and blameless means complete, unscathed. So I’m going to read these to you. I’m going to give you these words, but then I’m going to take you into the whole thoughts behind them, the pictures they paint. So be thinking about these words. If you’ve got a place, you can write these down. Write these down Complete, unscathed, unscathed. That’s such a great word. Intact, intact. We’re walking this year intact, without fault. Now that again can throw people off. But just wait, be patient.

I want you to think about things. When you go to court, you’re in a situation where some there’s a in court, you have a prosecutor and you have a defendant and you have the one who’s making the accusation, you have the one who is defending themselves against the accusation, and the idea is to find out who is without fault and who is with fault. Okay, so, or where the fault lies. It may not be with the person, it could be with, but without fault means that you have been found not in a place of responsibility for the wrong. Okay, so I want you to again be curious. Put on, as my teacher used to say, put on your thinking caps. Put put on your thinking caps and let’s think about these words and the depth of these words.

There are such power in word. That’s why God gave us his word. Think about that. The God of the universe, the creator of everything, who has no beginning and no end, who sustains everything by his word, everything is held together by his word, the. It’s his word. It’s his word, the power of this word. We need this word. If you are not taking time to be in the word, you cannot possibly be living in the fullness of who God is and what he is saying to you and the power that is available to you.

Words without fault, without responsibility, free of blemish and Jesus said he’s coming back for our churches. That’s without spot or blemish, without wrinkle, impeccable. Don’t you love to go and see like? Okay, so I think I mentioned this to you a couple of podcasts ago, but for Christmas, my husband and I went with my parents to go hear a singing group who sings a cappella, and the name of the group is called Voktiv, and their vocal ability and the, even the oh, what am I trying to say? Even the music that was written I’m not giving the correct musical term, I’m drawing a blank, but the score that was written for each voice in particular and then as a whole, was impeccable. It was so beautiful and so perfect and it brings us great joy when we see and experience things that are done impeccably. It’s impeccable, you. It is remarkable, it is without flaw, it is without blemish, it feels perfect, it is okay, I’m getting ahead of myself it is honest.

The word upright and blameless we are still giving you what the word blameless and upright means. It is honest, truly honest, it is devout. That word devout means integrity and completeness. Okay, devout, this was really beautiful. This is really um, the word integrity. I want us to think about the word integrity, devout, integrity and completeness. This word blameless and upright means it’s absolute, it is a in the sound. What am I trying to say? The sound of my life. If I want to live in the presence of God, the sound of my life needs to be a sound of blameless integrity, devout, complete, absolute integrity. Now, I know the tendency in the word integrity, that we’re talking about character, that’s not a misuse of the word, but there’s more to it than that. This is what I felt was just revelation. The Lord was speaking into my spirit by using this word and the word integrity.

When you say the integrity of something, meaning the integrity of the chair that I’m sitting in, I need the integrity of this chair to be complete so that when I sit in it it doesn’t fall. The integrity of the whole of something, the integrity of a sound of something, is its fullness. It is its wholeness. It’s that it is unscathed, it is intact, there’s not a fault in it and we’ll go back to that in a minute, because there’s something about being without fault. Its integrity is whole. The sound of uprightness in my life, the sound of walking blameless in my life in the presence of God, to be able to live in his presence, is that it is fully honest, that the integrity of my surrender, of submitting to walking blameless and upright, according to what he says, is good, that integrity produces a sound and that sound is what creates the culture in my life, around me, surrounding me.

Sound impedes, sound interrupts If my husband is saying to me something in one room, but I have the television on in the other room and I can’t hear him because sound is impeding my my ability to hear Music impact. Music so impacts me that I can’t think other thoughts or try to think of something when I’m hearing music, because my mind will want to sing along with the music. It captivates, it captures, it takes the control. It captures, it takes the control. So I have to remove the music. I’m that person who the funny memes are made about, that when I’m driving and I really need to think about where I’m going to turn or what I’m going to do, that I turn down the radio. I’m that one because it’s impeding my ability to think the thoughts I need to.

Because the music, the sound, is so impactful, it is so present, the integrity of it captures and it is an impeding force. So the sound of my life, the integrity of the sound of my life, is what reverberates from me and affects my life. It affects the people around me, it affects the culture in your home, it affects your relationships, it affects you at work. What you are giving out is what’s going to affect the things around you, and the more perfect, the more integrity there is to that sound, the more you are affecting and impeding the things that are trying to come to you.

If you have integrity of sound, that means when you come before the Lord and your heart is so honest before him and the integrity and the blamelessness of your desire before him to live in his presence, to be a person who gets to experience his glory, you become like Moses, where the honesty of what you’re dealing with is and what you’re desiring from God opens up that communication and then God can come and, face to face, meet you and put you in the cleft of the rock and cover you and protect you and show you nothing but his goodness. That his goodness passes by you, that everything he says is good is not only what he tells you is good but is what he gives you his goodness. It’s why Moses would say if you don’t go with us, if I can’t take your presence and go with you and sojourn with you along this journey with your tent, your presence in my life, if I can’t have that, we’re not going. I will not go without your presence. If you get that kind of integrity of sound about your relationship with the Lord and his word in your life, then you will see a massive shift in your life in 2025. Moses said I’m not going to go if you don’t go with me. Is that your heart cry? Because if you want a different 2025, it’s not going to be found in the gym and it’s not going to be found eating the right foods. It’s not going to be found. Those things are good and beneficial going to be found. Those things are good and beneficial. They’re good and beneficial, but they are not going to save and change your year.

God is the one who lifts up and puts down. God is the one who determines it. In one of the other Psalms I don’t know if I wrote this one down for you today or not, or if it was in something else that I’m getting ready to give to you, but it is the knowledge that God holds kings in his hands and the way they’re going to go and the decisions they’re going to make. He holds them in their hands. It says it’s like they are like water in his hand that he pours and does what he wants. However, he wants that water to go, he does that. They’re in his hand and our lives, instead of being subject to not, if we’re not living upright, not living this blameless life, not living an honest life, not being honest with where we really are with the Lord, where we really are in our marriage, where we really are in our workplace and what we give, where we are in ministry, what we’re actually doing for the Lord.

If we are not in honesty about those things? Because you can be doing all those things and not be honest. You can be participating in all the right activities, but your heart is far from the heart of God in doing them. It’s not the activities that are holy, it’s what your heart is doing. It’s why obedience is better than sacrifice. It’s a heart posture that says I want what God wants. I’m telling you, folks, if you want this year to be a really wonderful year in your life, it won’t matter what’s happening in the world around us.

If you are living your life in the presence of God and the power of God on his holy hill, you’re going to see the miraculous, no matter what’s happening down below. When Moses was up on the mountain, he’s literally not just conversing with God, but watching God with God’s finger right. God wrote on those tablets the 10 commandments God manifested physically. Even though it’s spiritual. He manifested physically and impacted the physical realm on the mountain at the very same time that down below the mountain the people are living crazy. They’re making a golden calf, they’re doing things, lewd acts, behaving horribly in the way, in vile before God. So so bad that God wanted to burn them up, consume them. It was bad. Do you understand that, at the same time that there’s debauchery and bad things going on in the world, aaron fell as a leader. During that time, you could have fallen leaders and all kinds of mess happening all around and everybody’s acting out and doing wrong, and you can still, at the exact same time, be on the mountaintop in the presence of God, being shown unbelievable things and experiencing the supernatural impact in your life forever you don’t have.

If you live in the presence of God, it won’t matter what’s going on in this world, it won’t matter what’s happening, but we have got to come to that place that we say, god, I want you. What do I want more than anything this year? I’m not asking you for anything, god. I’m not asking you to change this, give me that, do this, do that. What I’m asking you for is that I’m able to walk in your presence, live in your presence, receive from you both naturally and spiritually. I want to live in your presence. That’s my request this year, lord If you can come to a place where you truly want God. If you’re still in a place, be honest. Are you still in a place that you, you really want God? Because you want him more like a Santa Claus? You want him more like a doting parent, you want him more or a grandparent? You know that every time you come in to see him and they give you money and they want to go, take you where you want to go and do what you want to do, that they just want to say, okay, whatever you want, that they just want to. Are you wanting a God to be your genie, that you rub the lamp? You come and you pray and you read your scriptures for the day, and to you that’s like rubbing the lamp. Okay, now I want God to come out of the lamp and grant me my requests.

Folks, we’ve got to be honest. Be honest. If I want his presence and I want to be impacted by his presence, I want my life changed by his presence. I want my natural affected physically by God. I want the spiritual to manifest physically and change my physical surroundings and my life, to affect my finances, my relationships, my physical health, my future, my plans, whatever. If I want my physical impacted by the spiritual and I want God to do that I have to first be honest about where I’m at with the Lord. I have to come to terms with that.

Honesty is so important because the sound of my life has to be an integral sound. It has to be whole, it has to not have cracks. It needs to be intact, it needs to be unscathed, wholesome, it needs to be unimpaired, innocent, having integrity of God’s way. Integrity of God’s way both in work and law. This was the meaning of the word, the word blameless and upright. This is what this means that to be wholesome, to be unimpaired, to be innocent and having integrity of sound of God’s way. That means the sound of my life says that I live God’s way. That’s the sound people hear. It’s what they’re impacted by when they meet you. They are impacted by the sound of your life. They just know that person walks in God’s ways, that person acts and walks in God’s ways, both in work and law.

Here’s the part where we see this again. Work and law fits the tent and hill. It is both secular life and spiritual life. The secular life is this world and its activities. The spiritual life is our spiritual practice and our spiritual relationship and what we get out of spiritual practice and receive from God, in that Having this kind of integral sound in your life means living what is complete, entirely in accord with truth and fact. There’s that honesty, again With truth and fact, again with truth and fact. That fact is the evidence when we’re in court, like I said to you before about being blameless, finding, being found without fault, without the responsibility, when we see this, we those are the facts of the case. We lay out the facts and what are the facts? Those are the things that we can show, that prove what we are saying.

So do yourself a favor, get out a pen and paper and write down what the facts are in your life, about your relationship with the Lord. I want you to write out what are the good facts and what are the bad facts, okay, meaning what are the things that you are the good proofs of what is happening in your life and the things that can show your relationship with the Lord, that you know. Those things are the nurturing parts of your relationship with the Lord, where you see that, as well as the facts of um, knowing that if you have come to the Lord, no matter what sin has been found in your life, no matter what things have happened in your life, no matter where you come from, no matter what who you are and what your background is and all of those things, that if you simply come to him and you say, lord, I’m a sinner, I need you. Save me that knowledge, those facts that he does. He wipes them away. You don’t have to worry. This is not a place where you’re writing down your sins per se. You are forgiven. If you are in Christ, you are forgiven. You are not to carry the guilt anymore of that. You are not to carry the shame of that anymore.

Please understand what I’m saying when I talk about bringing the, the, the, the faults and the uh, the facts. I guess, not the faults, the facts. I don’t want you listing all the bad things you’ve done. If they’re under the blood, they’re under the blood. If you’ve not confessed them, just confess them. Let’s remove that, let’s get that out of the way. The facts that God loves you, that he holds and harbors nothing against you. If you are under the blood, you’re under the blood. You’re saved, you’re sanctified, you’re in a sanctification process. So those are all the good facts, those are all the right things that make you in right, standing upright with God.

But I want you to also write down the things that are the facts about where you might be missing it, where there is a crack, where there is a fault line. When we use the word without fault, what the Holy Spirit spoke to me was I live in California, so we have fault lines in California and fault lines cause earthquakes and the fault lines are like. They’re like cracks, it’s. It’s the plates, um, cross over one another or they go back and forth against each other this way, and and they are not in unity. They are. They are, um, if a plate slips one under the other, um, or if they rub against each other, they are. They are separate plates, okay, they are separate from one another. They are not in unity, they are not one whole plate and a fault. Then we have the minute there’s an earthquake. We can see where there are cracks in the earth, or cracks in your house, cracks in foundation. We see the cracks that the earthquakes have produced and they show where there are imperfections now, where there are problems and potential problems I want us to also think about in our relationship with the Lord.

This year compared to last year, I need to look at where were the fault lines, where were the places that those were cracks in my relationship with the Lord. These line up when I say that we want to get before God and hear him, and if he says I don’t want you to do this anymore and I want you not to be with that person anymore, and those kinds of things, those can be fault lines. Those can be places where they bring separation between you and the Lord or they cause a division or they cause an impasse, where one plate jumps over the other, where your will comes over and supersedes over God’s will and it causes friction and it causes a problem. If we have a tendency to not want to do what God wants us to do and we have a resistance in our spirit, we have a stubbornness in our spirit. Go back, I’ve done episodes on that. It’s really important to know what stubbornness is. But we have to deal with those things and know am I getting in the way? Is my attitude getting in the way? Do I have resentment against the Lord or people? Where are the fault lines located at.

Find out what these facts are so that you can address these things, just like if you were going to write a list of all the things you want to do in the new year, all these goals and aspirations. Well, I’m saying let’s come up with the goals and aspirations based off of the facts, based off of the truth of where are the fault lines in our life, where are the cracks? Where is there no longer a strength of integrity in the, in the foundation? If, if the foundation does not have integrity, we’re in trouble because everything eventually will crumble. It’s why the parable is in the scripture for us to know that I have to build on the rock and not on the sand. Sands shift, they don’t, they’re not solid. There is no integrity in a sand, a foundation made of sand. The integrity is found when it’s built on the rock. That’s why we build cement underneath our homes as foundations. We need to be living what is complete, entirely in accord with truth and fact. So this is definitely going to be broken up into at least two, maybe three, because I think this is where we’ll end up parking it for today, but if you want a new 2024 this year, it really is imperative that we first determine that our goal is to sojourn in the Lord’s tent and to dwell on his holy hill.

I’m going to give you just a couple scriptures that represent this living in honesty to be honest with yourself, be honest with others so that you do what is right. Take this one verse and, like I said, we’ll go through all of the verses, but today we’ll just hit this one verse. The essence of this verse is to be honest with yourself and others so that you do what is right, so that you live upright, so that we are able to have an upright and blameless life. And Romans 12.3 says and this is where we get honest with ourselves. So write these down, maybe do some study on them. Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment. This is where we get honest about where we’re at. Where are the fault lines? What do I really need to be concentrating on? On my relationship with the Lord this year and subsequently with others.

If my honesty with the Lord is imperative, it’s first, it’s foremost, but it’s also that I have to be honest with those around me, that I am in relationship around me. I must become honest with them. I can’t live in the dark and expect the light to shine from my life. To have an integral sound coming forth from my life, honesty has to be not just with God, but in my life as a whole, my life as a whole.

Ephesians 4.25 says, therefore, each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor. Find those people in your life that you can live honestly with. If you can’t be honest with someone for real reasons, I need to be careful how I say this. You need to live honestly. It doesn’t mean that you tell everybody everything but you don’t live dishonest. So there’s a balancing act that needs to take place there and you may need to get some counsel. You may need to. Um, you you need to definitely maybe talk with somebody that you you trust in the Lord, not just that you trust, but that you trust in the Lord. Okay, to help you navigate those things, but it comes first by being honest with the Lord, because being honest with him and allowing him to make whatever corrections and give you and tell you what you need to do and what you need to think and how to think, and all of those things need to come first so that you know how to address the people around you.

Proverbs 16, 28 says a perverse person stirs up conflict and a gossip separates close friends. This is honesty in speech, but this is also a guard about how you speak and what you speak. This is as much as I would say. Fast from food. You need to fast. Do not speak against people. If the scripture itself says speaks truth in his heart, um, and it goes into who does not slander with his tongue, I’ll save all. I’ll save those for next time, but that’s what this is talking about and we’ll leave it there for today. We’ll leave the proverbs verses for next week.

Um, I, I really do pray that this has um stirred you up. I hope it has helped you to see the possibilities for this year from a different place, from a place of um, from a place of needing the lord in 2025. For, however, you need your life to be different. It starts with being in his presence and staying in his presence. Let me pray for you, father. We just thank you for seasons and time changes and the ability to be able to understand that, yes, there might be a season where I mourn, but this could be a season that I laugh that this might have been a long season where I have planted, but now I can live a season of reaping.

And when we come to a new year, we understand that and and we get hopeful for what a new year and what the possibilities may be that things will be different this year, that we might get breakthrough where we need breakthrough. And I, father, am just asking you today that you would take the seeds of this word and you would plant them deep into the hearts and minds of the people who have listened to this today, and that it would be transformative for them, that they would hunger and thirst after your righteousness, your uprightness, your blamelessness, and that they would want and desire to live in your presence, to receive from all of your goodness, to be shown your glory, oh God, and impact their lives. This year, I am asking for your miraculous touch over each one today, that they know and sense your presence today and that they are impacted by your presence today. And it is in Jesus’ name that we ask these things. Amen, amen.

Thank you for taking the time today to listen to this. I would love to hear from you. It’s been a pleasure hearing from several of you on YouTube making your comments. I do return and and make comments back and and I interact with you there I do. I have received prayer requests recently and I just know I’m praying for you. I appreciate you so much. Thank you for taking the time to invest in the Spirit, invest in the presence of God today. I pray it’s a blessing to you If this was go ahead and give us a thumbs up like this episode.

You can share this with those you know that need to hear it. If you’d like to make sure and know when we have new material, just subscribe. You’ll get notified every time a new episode comes out. If you want more information about this minute, you can go to jaimeluc.ecom. That’s j-a-i-m-e-l-u-c-e, and everything I have is available there, as well as if you’d like to get a hold of my book. You Don’t Need Money, you Just Need God. Thanks again for being with me today. We’ll see you next time. Bye-bye.