I Make The Choice To Care About Me

You're tuned into Made for Mondays with Justin Lester. Justin Lester is an average guy who refuses to let Mondays control him. Justin is a husband, dad, pastor, student and Jesus follower. He's done a lot, he's learned a lot, and he wants to see you at your best. Let's win Mondays. Hey, Justin, what's up today?

Well, hey everyone, Pastor Justin here. Thank you for joining us in on Made for Mondays. And I pray that this helps you and assists you. The purpose of this podcast is to grab a hold of you owning your Mondays and your Mondays not owning you. And so as we jump into this, our goal is to try to do this every single Monday to encourage you for about 10 or 12 minutes on tackling your Mondays before Monday comes and tackles you. And so let's jump right in. And I want you to think about this as you go into your week. A lot of us have really busy weeks. Maybe your weekends were spent actually doing your to do list for a week. The thing I want you to understand about work and never forget about work is that work is always going to be there. But when you leave a job or are fired from a job, what will happen is that they'll have a 30 minute meeting and they'll keep on moving. And I want to challenge you that you balance your life and own your Mondays before work and unnecessary things begin to take over you before you take them over. And so as you go into this week, a number of you may have a couple of things. I'm just going to name them out. You might have classes and papers and reading and podcasts and blogs and trying to make money, your children daycare, reading work, reading your Bible, building relationships, building your friendships, watching your favorite television show, reading the newspaper, watching news, engaging with people. You went to church, you're going to church, got something else to do in church, trying to volunteer, trying to find fulfillment in the world. And then you know, on top of all this is God. He was supposed to be the leader of it. But sometimes God comes in at the end of our life and I think it's a balancing act. And as you go into this week being pulled in every different direction, I want you to find your center as you begin this week. I don't want you to lose rest, I don't want you to resent other people and I don't want you to be so consumed with your. If you take that, you miss out on building yourself and living your life to the best it possibly can be because those are the things that give us a chance to Fall into sickness and insecurities and guilt and shame. And so I don't want to just tell you you'll be okay. I want to tell you that you can conquer it. And as you go into this Monday to live the life that God created you to live and not to live the life that somebody else is telling you to live, or to live the life that Western capitalism is telling you to live, consider the scripture. Consider the scripture. Matthew, chapter 11, verses 28 through 30 from the message translation. And it says this. Are you tired? Are you worn out? Are you burned up from religion? Come to me, get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take rest, walk with me, work with me, and watch how I do it. I want you to learn the unforced rhythms of grace. Because I, God, will not lay anything heavy or ill fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly. I want to challenge you today as you go into your day. Those emails that are sent into your inbox can be sent with pace. The text messages that you're getting can be texted out with pace. The television shows you're watching will not change your life and the status will be there. Because here's what I want you to grab today. Do not miss out on life changing moments this week because you're constantly trying to change your life, own how great you are as you jump into this great week. So I want you to look at how Jesus says, walk with me, work with me and watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of life. So what are the principles I want to give you? What are the challenges I want to give you for this Monday? As you go into this week, here's the first thing. Number one, there is no place to settle this week. There is no place to settle this week. God never calls us to settle. God called us to uproot, to uproot, to build, to plant, to move, to add, to grow, to dust your feet off. God is constantly challenging us to move. In the Gospel of Mark, one of my favorite gospels, the gospel writer literally tells us that as you see all over and over, the favorite word for Jesus was the word. Immediately, that Jesus was constantly moving. He was constantly moving and there's no place to settle. And the reason that God put you here is because God never shows us that we're settling, but we're constantly building his kingdom. And so whenever we settle, settling is not a God, not a God issue. Sorry, settling is not a people issue. Settling is a you and God issue. At the moment we get too comfortable in one space is the moment we begin to settle. So I want you to consider a couple of questions, right? What is the last book of the Bible you finished and how did that book encourage you? What insight has God recently given you that you can now apply in the places you are? Who did you recently lead to Christ and work in school or not invite to church, but lead to Christ? And who can you lead from this space and engage together with to build relationships? I want you not to settle this week because where busyness and frustration comes in is when we lose our focus, we lose our focus. So we get unnecessarily busy trying to find focus instead of being focused on doing the work that God called us to do. And so my first challenge for you today is do not settle. As you go into this week, I want you to make the choice to care about you. I want you to make the choice to care about you. Because you are valuable, you are important, and God has great desires and things for you, and God uses it. So the thing you can do, the second principle I'll give you, number two, is use the energy that you've been using to run to rest. Use the energy you have to run to rest. All throughout scripture, God challenges us to rest. And here's why. Because in resting, I can engage in the fullness of who God is. So I believe that you can actually worship in the workplace. And the reason I believe we don't worship often in the workplace is because we're worshiping our workplace. Destroy that idol. Your school and your workplace and places you engage are places of worship, but they're not places to be worship. God tells us all the time to seek him and will find life and avoid destruction. And God will and God will heap on the idols that we build. And my challenge to you in this world full of idolatry, to use the energy that you have to run away from God or to run away to things to rest with God. The third thing I'll give you today for this week is be bold with your boundaries. Be bold with your boundaries. Your boundaries will communicate to the world how much you respect yourself. Be bold with them. What walls have you create that keep your gift protected from anybody else even coming to try to attack it? Like, what music are you playing at your desk this week? What music are you playing in your classroom? What colors are you wearing to project out what you believe about yourself and believe about God? Are you praying over what you're wearing? Are you not compromising when you come into your carpool? What type of music you're listening to? Have you offered to start a Bible study at your job? Praying openly? Be bold with your boundaries and stick to your boundaries. Because when you make a choice to care about yourself, you're making a choice to be bold with your boundaries. Another principle I'll give you today as you go into this week. Rest is not a luxury. Rest is a necessity. Rest is not a luxury. Rest is a necessity. We can't concentrate on the things that God wants us to concentrate on because we keep doing things that don't matter. I want you to stop moving this week and don't let anybody else set your pace other than you. I remember when I used to coach little girls basketball. I coached third grade basketball for a year while I was in college and it was so much fun. We did this drill where we would pass the ball around the key and we challenge people to sweep through the defender's arms. The defenders would put their arms out and have to sweep through the defender's arms to get the strong ball movement. But there was this one little girl, she was so cute. She was so cute. We passed the ball to her, she grabbed the ball and she started sweeping. Start sweeping, start sweeping, started sweeping. And she didn't stop sweeping the ball. I'm sitting here like, girl, what are you doing? Like, you're sweeping incessantly. She just would not stop sweeping the ball. And I think that's what a lot of us do sometimes the defenders in front of us and we get so consumed with a defender that we don't stop sweeping. So I'm sweeping through emails and sweeping through staff meeting and sweeping through classes and sweeping through extracurriculars and sweeping through work and sweeping through so much stuff. And then we sweep at home. So we're sweeping through our family time and we're sweeping through our quality time and we're sweeping through our fun time. We're sweeping through self care. Rest is not a luxury. Rest is a necessity. Rest is your responsibility because without rest you begin to resent. Tired people are tempted people, because it's that temptation then to fall into the traps of life. Want to challenge you to find rest this week? Go for a walk outside your workplace, go for a walk around campus, listen to music, put some music on and just engage with yourself. Take a moment and close your eyes and sit back at your desk and just see God's space in your world. This week, the last thing I'll give you that I'll Give you and we'll go into this week. I'm going to pray for you as well. Is put God on your calendar on your workday. Where is God in your workday? And God can be beyond your lunch break. You set your calendar. So where is God on your work calendar today? Put God on your calendar. I put some time to just sit back and bask in his glory. Put some time to chill out and talk to God. Put God on your calendar. And I guarantee your whole week will change as you go into this week. Listen. Listen to what Matthew said once again. Jesus said this in the Gospel of Matthew. Are you tired? Are you worn out? Are you burned out from religion? Come to me, get away with me and you'll recover your life and I'll show you how to take rest. Walk with me and work with me and watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly. I want to challenge you today. The word hustle is not a great thing. Busyness is not business. God did not create you to find to be sleep deprived. You know sleep deprivation is a military tactic. God did not create us to be sleep deprived. God called us that we might rest, we might have time with him. We might not live by the rhythms of the world, but we live by the rhythms that God given to us. So let me pray for you today as you go into your Monday and you own your Monday and your Mondays don't own you. God, we are so very grateful that this Monday will own it. This Monday will grab a hold of the principles, power and the passions you put inside of us. God, lead us to be all that you have. God. And bring us to the rhythms of your grace, the rhythms of your mercy, the rhythms of your possibility, the rhythms of the future. God, we want all of you so God, saturate us today with your presence as we go into this week to conquer our Mondays, to win our Mondays. You will be on our calendars, you will be in our life and you will be in our space. And we honor and give you glory. Today it's in Jesus name we pray. Amen. I love you. We'll be here next week as we continue to be made for Mondays. God bless you.

This has been Made for Mondays with Justin Lester. Be sure to follow Justin online at MrJlester and online at www.jlester. see you next week. Go win. You were made for this.