#448 Clinging

Welcome to Kingdom Writers, where we help equip and empower Christian writers of all genres to share your unique gifts with the world. We're your hosts, C.J. and Shelli Hitz.

This podcast is filled with spiritual encouragement as well as prayers to help you overcome the resistance you face as a writer. Your story matters.

Welcome to the Kingdom Writers Podcast. My name is Shelly Hitz, one of your hosts. This episode is an excerpt from our virtual writing retreat we host every month inside our membership Christian Book Academy. You can join us with a special coupon code just for podcast listeners and this will get you 50% off your first month. Use the coupon code podcast and this way we can help you take a step of faith and finally finish your book. So go to ChristianBookAcademy.com and enter the Coupon Code Podcast at checkout for 50% off your first month. Come join us at our retreats and all the other things that we offer throughout the month and I pray that the encouragement from this episode blesses you. So today CJ is going to share some encouragement for you as Kingdom writers on this topic of clinging. And cj, why don't you share that with us?

Yeah, so I guess this is a little bit of afterglow from Easter and I hope you all had a fantastic Easter celebrating with your families.

You know, I just wasn't quite ready to let it go. I wanted to share a little something regarding an Easter story, a resurrection story. And so for that we're going to read a passage in John 20 and I'm going to read 11 through 23 here, so hang with me. And then we're going to just observe a couple things. But it says here in verse 11 of chapter 20 of John, Mary was standing outside the tomb crying. And as she wept, she stooped and looked in. She saw two white robed angels, one sitting at the head and the other at the foot of the place where the body of Jesus had been lying. Dear woman, why are you crying? The angels asked her. Because they have taken away my Lord, she replied, and I don't know where they have put him. She turned to leave and saw someone standing there. It was Jesus, but she didn't recognize him. Dear woman, why are you crying? Jesus asked her. Who are you looking for? She thought he was the gardener. Sir, she said, if you have taken him away, tell me where you have put him and I will go and get him. Mary, Jesus said, and she turned to him and cried out, rabboni, which in Hebrew is teacher. And by the way, just a little Side note that that word rabboni, is an intimate name for teacher. And so it was almost as if Mary was saying, my teacher. Out of all the teachers in the world, there's lots of them, but this one, this one is my teacher. And so I thought that was interesting. But here are those words Jesus says in verse 17. Don't cling to me, Jesus said, for I haven't yet ascended to the Father, but go find my brothers and tell them I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God. Mary Magdalene found the disciples and told them, I have seen the Lord. Then she gave them his message. That Sunday evening, the disciples were meeting behind locked doors because they were afraid of the Jewish leaders. Suddenly, Jesus was standing there among them. Peace be with you, he said. As he spoke. He showed them the wounds in his hands and. And his side. And they were filled with joy when they saw the Lord again. He said, peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you. And then he breathed on them and said, receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone's sins, they are forgiven. If you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.

And so this is the word of the Lord.

So one of the things that I wanted to quickly just point out, you know, I think that we read those words, and any one of us in Mary's situation.

Would have rightfully wanted to cling to her master, to their master, her teacher, the one that she had walked with, supported for these last three years in Jesus's public ministry. But I was looking this up, and Jesus's words.

Do not cling to me were not a rebuke, but rather they were a comfort that he would be around a little while longer. Mary's response to Jesus offers us an opportunity to consider whether we truly love Jesus.

And here's a question for all of us. Are his death and resurrection just historical facts to us? Or like Mary, do we love him enough to cling to him and then fulfill the tasks that he's given us? Now.

I'm very well aware that the amount of women that we have as CBA members certainly outnumbers the men. And we certainly want more men in CBA and continue to pray that the right men at the right time will find cba. But I do want to honor you women as well. And in this moment, in this particular time, especially even as Mother's Day is coming up, we honor women all over the world as mothers, as just women. There are many women, like Shelley, who doesn't necessarily have a child, but has been a mother in many ways to many. And for. For all of you who are women, I just, I. I think it's.

Pilate or any other dignitary is not the chief priest.

Nor Peter or any of the other of the first disciples, but to a weeping woman with a shady past.

And isn't it exquisite that his first words are not a proclamation of power.

But a simple pastoral and playful question. Why are you crying? And I just find that so intriguing that in so many situations, women around the world have been demeaned, they have been put down, they have been walked on, they have been seen as less than. Many cultures today still practice this. And do you know that in this culture that Jesus walked in, one woman alone could not be a witness. It generally took two, two women in order to be a witness. And yet Jesus approaches her and says to her, he says, go and tell my brothers. Go and tell them that I'm alive and well, that I'm going to be with you a little while longer before I ascend. Go tell them this good news, that Jesus commissions this woman who had this shady past. And let's quickly look at the other reference that we see with Mary Magdalene. I'm going to turn to Luke 8:1:2. It says, soon afterward, Jesus began a tour of the nearby towns and villages, preaching and announcing the good news about the kingdom of God. He took his 12 disciples with him, along with some women who had been cured of evil spirits and. And diseases. Among them were Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. I find that just intriguing. And this is the person, a woman, no doubt, that had this shady past. Who knows what caused her to be filled with seven demons? And we don't have to know, but Jesus comes to her and says, you're the one that I'm going to commission first to go share this good news by resurrection. Do you realize that Mary Magdalene in many denominational circles around the world has been called and referred to as, listen to this, an apostle to the apostles, because of her having the privilege of being able to, in a way, share this news, this good news, first and foremost with these men who really at the time were cowering, were hiding.

Inside a room, a locked room. And so I just find it so intriguing that God commissions a woman first to go and share this good news. So imagine yourself in that room. Now that Jesus has appeared to his disciples, then how do you feel as Jesus appears.

He breaks through locked doors to be with us. He commissions us as his apostle, as if we've Never let him down. He does that with Peter. He does that with all the other disciples that scattered. He does this with Mary, the one who he had cast out seven demons in her past, the shady past. All of that. He says, I commission you as.

Messengers for me. Now you're going to share this message. And then he breathes on us and says, receive the Holy Spirit. And I want to challenge all of us to put ourselves in that place. We are people that Jesus is commissioning now as Kingdom writers, and he wants to breathe his Holy Spirit upon us, to give us those divine words that would flow through us only with his touch. Without that Holy Spirit, we can write words. But those words, in my opinion, aren't going to have the eternal impact and the weight as those who are breathed on by the Holy Spirit. And so with that, as men and women, because there are men and women both who are listening to this, but emphasizing even the dignity that Jesus treated women with and the respect that Jesus treated women with in commissioning a woman first to go and share this best of news with all of that said, I want to say, receive the commission.

Even as you cling to Jesus. And he says, there's more work to be done. I want you to go and share this. There will be lots of time for clinging, by the way.

But there's also now time for clinging to him in our writing. Though he's now been ascended, he intercedes for each of us in prayer. And we have this intimate relationship with him. And we have the Holy Spirit now guiding and directing us. We cling to God on this planet in 2025, as Mary Clung to Jesus all those years ago. And so I commission each of us to say, are we willing to share what God's put on our hearts? Are we willing to share this message, weave it into our writing and be people, even with our shady pasts, to go forth with the words that he's given us? And I want to close with this prayer. I didn't write this prayer, but I love this prayer. And it goes like this. Holy Spirit.

Breathing deeply now I receive you joyfully.

I relinquish my sense of inadequacy and receive again your commission to go out through these locked doors, to proclaim that you live, to make disciples, and even to forgive their sins in your name. Amen.

And I want to encourage all of you to let your words out of those locked doors, send those words out, out. And God is going to do something special with those Kingdom words. And some of those words are going to be written today. And Tomorrow. And that's what excites us most. And so that's my word for you today, this afterglow of Easter.

Yeah, it's a good message any time of the year. And we always need that reminder. And I think there's so many details and so many things that are going on when we're working to write, publish, and market a book. There are so many details that it's so easy to get focused on all the details, all the steps, all the things, and not fix our eyes on Jesus. And the whole point of our lives is to share him, is to be a reflection of him. And so to be that light on the hill as Matthew says, that we would shine our light, not so people could say, wow, good job. Lynn, you published a book. No, it's to say, wow, look at God. What God is doing through my life, Jesus has changed me. And it says, you know, we share our good deeds so that people may give praise to our Father in heaven. And so it's just so, so good to always be reminded to fix our eyes on him. And I have been reminded of that this week as well, of just take a deep breath, spend time in prayer, even if it's writing out your prayer like a two way journal for a few minutes and inviting the Holy Spirit into every part of your writing. That's what we help you to do, is to partner with God while, while you're writing. And so cj, why don't you pray for us with this theme that you shared today?

Yeah. Father, we thank you so much for just the celebration that we can have of the resurrection. Thank you, Jesus, for.

The victory that you won on the cross, but also being raised from the dead and opening up the way for the rest of us to one day be raised from the dead. We thank you, Holy Spirit, for breathing, for being upon us, for filling us, for guiding us in our writing and the way we live our lives. And.

I thank you, Lord, that you chose for your reasons to.

Commission a woman first to go forth and share the good news with her brothers that you had been risen and that you were going to be making appearances, you were going to be ascending to the Father. Thank you, Lord, for that. We are amazed at the way you interacted and treated women in your walking with them, that you didn't see them as less than, but you.

Walk closely with them. Some of your best friendships, I think of Mary and Martha and, and so many others that supported you in your ministry. And we just thank you, Lord, that these stories are written down for us. They they're written here for a reason and we thank you for that. And so, Lord, would you commission us to go forth in the words that you want us to write and may those words hit their intended targets all over this world. And we'll give you the glory and the honor, Lord, because we know that they're only empowered by your spirit. That's the only lasting fruit that's going to happen is things that are empowered and blessed by the Holy Spirit. And so breathe on us today, Holy Spirit, and we'll give you the glory. And we ask this in Jesus name, Amen.

Amen. If you're ready to take a step of faith and finally finish your book, we have a few ways we can help you. First of all, you can join our free Writing Week challenge to create a writing habit in just 15 minutes a day. Thousands of writers have taken this over the years and it is incredible the progress that you'll see. So join us at Writing Week. And again, this is completely free Inside our Book Writing Lab workshop. You can choose your book topic, write an outline and create a writing plan in just 90 minutes so you'll finally feel confident that you'll actually finish your book. Get started@bookwritinglab.com and finally you can get more support and personalized feedback from myself and our team by joining Christian Book Academy. And because the honest truth is most writers stay stuck and never finish their first draft. But inside Christian Book Academy we help you partner with God to write your book so you can become a published author. So finally ditch your self doubt and take a step of faith so you can finish your book. Join Christian book academy@christianbookacademy.com and get 50% off your first month by using the coupon code Podcast at checkout There's a special coupon code for for our podcast listeners. We love you. So come over to ChristianBookAcademy.com, use the coupon code podcast and we look forward to working closely with you. Would you like more? If you are enjoying this podcast but want more, I have something exciting to share with you. We have released what's called a private podcast. So a private podcast you will not find by searching in Apple. You have to know specifically how to subscribe to it. It's more private, exclusive and it just can be more relaxed behind the scenes. And my new private podcast is called Hits Blitz and it's wisdom for writers that you're going to learn from my 18 plus years of experience in publishing and online marketing so that you can move forward in God's Call to Write. I am best known for injecting energy and enthusiasm into everything I do and inspiring those around me to take action. I encourage you to listen in to this exclusive private podcast. It is free, 100% free. You don't have to pay for it and be prepared to be inspired by my next hits blitz so you can sign up@trainingauthors.com hitsblitz and if you have any other writing friends that you think could benefit from it, definitely share it with them. They can go to the same link trainingauthors.com hits blitz to get access. Again, this is a private podcast so you cannot get access to it any other way. It's completely free. All you have to do is sign up and then you'll get all the information on how to add it to your podcast player of choice. So I can't wait for you to join me over there. I share a lot of things behind the scenes and more content just in a real time basis. So it's more like chatting with a friend or following someone on stories on social media. Except you don't have to get caught up in any of the algorithms. You'll just have this in your podcast player and be able to listen in wherever you're at, whatever you're doing. Some of the listeners told me this week that they were listening while waiting in the Target parking lot, while brushing their teeth. You can fit this into the pockets of time that you have, so I hope you'll join me. Come over to training authors.com forward/hitsbullitz.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Kingdom Writers. We believe that you, as a Christian writer, have a specific role to play in the Kingdom of Heaven to impact lives for eternity.

And because of this, we choose to pour out our lives into encouraging writers like you to not only tell your stories, but to take the courageous step of self publishing your stories. Stories in books that will outlive you and leave behind a powerful legacy. This podcast is sponsored by Christian Book Academy where we help you give birth to your books. We invite you to join our community of Kingdom writers.