Getting Back to Our First Love: Jesus

Hey, this is Tim, and welcome to the Student Life Podcast, where we explore the everyday challenges and big questions of life through a biblical lens while navigating the realities of a secular world. Enjoy.

Hey yo, what up? So I'm your host, Tim Pratt Jr., and you got to bear with me on this one with my voice. I'm still working through this, this hoarseness, um, just with my voice, of course, but I do wanna get into the heart of this. And so we're gonna call this one, "Getting Back to Our First Love," which is I'm talking about Jesus. And so straight out the gate, one thing I wanna be absolutely clear on is that I don't desire for you to see me as a teacher trying to correct you, but just a fellow brother to you, a fellow disciple that's just saying how I believe the Lord is speaking to me And I do believe it's a word for some of the people that rock for me, but just to slow ourselves down, not to be lazy, but to be faithful and fruitful. So again, this is not a critique. Critique is more of a confession. Like, I love Jesus and I'm sure you love him too. Like, if you're rocking with this podcast to some degree, even if it's just curiosity about him, I look, I love the local church. I love the church as a whole, which collectively is us. But I love the church. I love the local church. But lately I've just been feeling the Lord drawing me back to that first love. And what I mean by that, not in the context of just doing more for him, but being with him. So again, I want to be very, very clear that this is not about like a desire. I mean, I'm sorry, this is more about desire than it is disappointment. Um, so this is desire, not disappointment. So again, with me, uh, it's just an invitation into what I'm saying and just being with Jesus. So this is not to be overly critique. I know we live on a lot of that. I know there's a gray area in our lives, and if you just give me some time, like I said, I will unpack it and just what I mean about getting back to our first love, learning how to be present with Jesus without an agenda. Again, not because the work doesn't matter. Like, he has called us to be about our Father's business. But however, I do believe that true presence comes first, and we live in such a turbulent, busy, distracted world that is always pulling. And you've probably heard me say this many times again, it's a quote, that if the enemy can't influence you to sin per se, habitually sin, he will influence you to stay busy, because both have the same effect. And so what we see here is that when it comes to this, um, I want to really work— walk this out very carefully and biblically because this is not to be judgmental. But if you just give me some space and bear with me, I pray through the power of God that this will all come together. So many of you probably remember a passage of scripture from Luke 10:38-42, uh, and it's dealing with Mary and Martha. Very familiar, familiar passage of scripture, uh, but I'm not going to read it here. But I do encourage you to go read and meditate on Luke 30, uh, Luke 10:38-42. And one of the things that we see is that Jesus did not rebuke Martha for serving. That was never the rebuke. He truthfully, I believe, just gently exposed the distract, uh, the distraction around, or maybe the anxiety, as some of us may say, or just her busyness. But however, in that very moment— now keep in mind, we want to stay in context of the whole council. And a lot of times what people do is isolate passages of scripture, and, and I like to use the term over-index. But let's, let's be clear to this moment. And so Mary chose presence over productivity in that moment because it was like, what is more important other— because Jesus was in the flesh. So what was more important than sitting at the feet of Jesus? And again, Jesus is not dismissing responsibility. He's not. He's reordering priority. And, and that's the vein— if I can just park right there for a little bit— is that a lot of times in life, the issue is not per se the local church. Now, it does depend on your leadership. It depends on what type of shepherd that you have. I'm not going to get in unpack that. Like, you have to really trust God and read your Bible and pray, uh, it, it— but the culture does matter of your local church because some ministries are very lazy and some are very on the other end of the spectrum where it's just no space for you to even think or your family. And then some seem like they don't do any at all. And then so you kind of swing that pendulum in the middle where you do desire to have balance, or some say rhythm. And so Um, the thing is, and I really need to stop that, and so I'm calling myself out on this, I'm not gonna edit. Um, but the thing is, is the issue isn't work versus like worship. And when I say worship, I'm not talking about how we have adapted to always think like, again, worship within the local church setting, like I'm in praise and worship moment. No, I'm talking about worshiping with a a life— I'ma say lifestyle— a posture of worship, worshiping God in spirit and in truth. Like, right now in my house, as I'm sitting here recording this podcast, I can have no music. I can stop this podcast, I can start praying right now, read my Bible, and I can go up into worshiping the Lord, uh, just by myself. Uh, and so the thing is, is that and I just did it again. But it's— help me, Holy Spirit— it's more of like work with attentiveness. Like, that's what I'm trying to say, is work with attentiveness. Is attentiveness— attent—

to—

I'm— by ambushing this word— being attentive, being attentive. The word hermeneutical. Um, so we desire to be very attentive, and what I mean by that is A lot of times I think we can be in this consistent state of like, I gotta do this, I gotta do this for Jesus, I gotta do this for Jesus. And when we look up, uh, we're more reactive versus having the space to be very intentional and flow from what that, that rest, being in his presence, communing with him, studying his word. I heard one pastor say, uh, communing is talking to God, so prayer is talking to God. And studying his word is hearing from God. And I love that because we are the only ones that, again, you hear me say this, like to separate the two. I don't think there's nothing wrong with engaging the scriptures and deeply understanding, doing the work and studying. I, I don't believe that there's nothing wrong with that. But what happens is, is that when it all becomes of knowing about Jesus and not spending time hearing from God praying and communing with the Lord, it does turn into more of an intellectual, hey, look at me and look at what I know. But then for people that like have a posture of just communing and they pray but they don't take the time to study and work with the text and do the work— the Bible says, study thyself and prove unto God, and we can go on, but to rightly— I'm paraphrasing— but to rightly divide the word of God. So again, if something can be rightly divided, that means it can be wrongly divided. And sometimes people over-index on just, well, I just commune, I commune, I pray, and I have the power of the Lord. But you out here really truthfully getting it wrong because you don't know the scripture. And sometimes it's not power so much per se, it's just hype. And, uh, it's hype like a very— and this word is getting a bad name because I hate what charisma and charismatic and people assign that to. Let's be honest, like Pentecostalism. But charismatic is— I don't believe that one, uh, denomination has just like— and I'm trying to use my words, uh, carefully here, but I just really hate this stereotype, uh, because I believe anybody can be an extremist. So you can be an extreme charismatic just like you could be an extreme Bible nerd but thumping and beating people with it. So again, I just wanted for clarity, so So I'm not taking shots at any denominational preference here when I use charismatic. I just want to clear that up for people that might have not rocked with me. But sometimes I believe when I use that word, people automatically think I'm talking about like Pentecostal or Church of God in Christ and things of that nature, and I'm not. What I am saying is that anytime someone tries to suspend your ability to think— because God gave us a mind We love him with our— with all of our mind, with all of our heart, our soul, our bodies. Like, it's so— when things are just happening, all this screaming, and a lot of times we can— sometimes it really can be emotionalism. Like, let's just keep it real, it can be emotionalism. And then it is times that it is the true glory of God. And I believe that it's emotionalism when we don't have a prayer life away from these experiences. Uh, so our experiences start to take place over just sitting with the Lord and spending time with him in his word. Again, um, I'm not trying to get deep into that because this is not that conversation, but I am saying I'm just trying to prove the point that it's not about work versus worship, it's just about being attentive. And so Martha's service, service became an agenda that pulled her away from Jesus himself. And that is what the point that I'm trying to make. Like, a lot of us are becoming local church junkies, and we are worshiping the local church and not Jesus. We're worshiping the experience and not Jesus. Thank you, Holy Spirit. That's what I've been trying to get to. Uh, that's— we're worshiping that. We're worshiping our shepherd, our pastor, and not Jesus. And that's why we feel like we always need, like, these things to be intact. For us to truly worship, for us to truly be with Jesus. And the reality is that if we're not careful— again, I have no problem with these, I love these settings. Look, I desire to be a pastor. Like, uh, I'm an associate pastor now, but I desire to be like a pastor of a local church one day. I do. So of course I love these things, um, But at the same time, I never want people to worship myself or the local church, uh, at the expense of truly pointing them to Jesus. Like, even people in general, when I hear like certain possessive words like my people— no, these are Jesus' sheep. Yes, you're shepherding over him, but they're his people. And I want to direct— I don't want people choosing family having to consistently choose, uh, between ministry and family. I want ministry. I want to teach people how to be faithful, but faithfulness doesn't mean saying yes to everything. Like, I don't want all relationships to be at the expense of your yes. And so this is what I believe the Lord is really showing me in this moment, is again, yes, we need community, and most importantly, we need him. We need the vertical. And the horizontal, but we don't want a lot of times the vertical— uh, the horizontal things to put, uh, to put tension or put the vertical relationship at the expense of the vertical relationship is what I'm trying to say. Thank you, Holy Spirit. So again, you can be busy for Jesus and still miss him. Like, you can. We all can. We can be busy for Jesus and still miss him. So when we stay with this, um, help me, Holy Spirit, because I'm kind of just really speaking from the heart right now, uh, with a few notes. But prayer becomes transactional, uh, like worship. It becomes fuel for activity. And what I mean by that is when we go to God and we commune commune with him, it's more of a transactional prayer. Like, keep in mind, like, he knows our heart. We can be saying one thing in our heart, can be saying another, and we haven't just sat with ourselves long enough so God can show us what's really in our heart. Because again, this goes to when we're always busy and always connected, how do we really sit and God reveal what's really there? And like a few days ago from this recording I was in the shower and I was crying because of what the Lord was showing me in some areas I had to wring out and confront. And I don't want it to just become the fuel to get things done. I'm like, no, Lord, I want to just be with you. And time with God, uh, I wanted to just like my devotion. So like, prime example for me, a lot of times my preparation to speak or preach or whatever is, is not separate of devotion because I can start chasing a rabbit hole and it can become like, what does the ministry need? What do I need to do for people? What do I need to prepare? What do I not know? I gotta get ready for the podcast. I gotta get ready for a sermon. And I'm like, so it's more of like my time with God, it becomes more of preparation for ministry, for work. And I just kind of had that really lean in and ask myself, okay, Tim, when is the last time you've just sat with Jesus and didn't ask him for anything? Like, anything. And that is where I want to be. My wife hears me saying a lot, like, I just want a slow life. And so now we're praying and asking God for wisdom, to give us help, to give us direction and navigate it to get there. Like, we know we have to make some hard decisions. We know we're going to make some sacrif— sacrif— uh, these words have me in a chokehold today, uh, sacrificial decisions. And so that is like what is going to have to be. And I just believe, again, this is not me developing a posture of laziness. This is not. But this is about formation. It's, it's helping bring formation within my household with my kids. But it starts with me. And so slowing down with Jesus isn't about avoiding the work of God by any means. That's not what I'm saying. Is doing the deepest work that God wants to do in us, and that is where I desire to be. I really believe that if we are not careful, a lot of times we will unintentionally— some of us intentionally, but unintentionally— put people in the situation where they are making more sacrifice— sacrifices that the Lord did not call them to make, all because they're chasing up behind a local church or a pastor. Again, I love— again, I love pastors. I'm not trying to bash them, but I'm saying, man, we have to be very careful and mindful and make sure that we haven't gotten too far from our first love. And you can read that in Revelation 2:1-5, um, and like, say, in context, when this, this comment was made, uh, it was the Church of Ephesus. So to be very doctrinal Here the church was very doctrinal sound. It was very hardworking and faithful. Like, Jesus didn't even accuse them, is sin so much in account, but he says they had left their first love. And so one of the, like, the distinction that we have to make is that they didn't stop doing good things. They stopped from doing them from a place of love. In other words, I would say that it was just— I would say in my life, and again, I don't want to, uh, what they call iso Jesus the text or isolate the text, but this is where I believe God was— has been really dealing with me on. It's like, okay, Tim, you're doing a lot of good things, but you're not doing them, uh, by just being with me. Because even when you come to me, really the deep desires in your heart is for me to do something for you. And that is again what I'm just trying to convey here. So again, I'm not calling for ministry to disappear. Uh, I am not calling for you to get like walk away and start bashing pastors, uh, looking at your pastor sideways and say either we too lazy or we do too much. That's not what I'm saying. What I am saying is that, uh, you can have the right beliefs the right systems and the right activity and still need to return to the presence of Jesus because you are missing— we collectively speaking are missing him. So I just again want to say very, very clearly that I love the local church. Uh, vision matters, systems matters, structure matters, leadership matters. It really does. But hear me, and I believe God just like— hear me when I say this, please. When ministry becomes the place we meet Jesus instead of the overflow of meeting Jesus collectively with other believers, something is seriously off within us. I'm gonna say that again, and I'm gonna try to say it again. When ministry becomes the place that we meet— like, we feel— that's what I should say. We feel like we're, we needed— we, we're meeting him in his presence instead of it being more of like an overflow with other believers. If this is the consistent posture that you're in, I would ask that you just pause and examine some things in your life, because I know I had to, because something is off. So I am again not anti-vision, I'm not anti-leadership, I'm not anti-pastorship, I'm not anti-, leadership or any of that thing, anti-community, or saying that you don't need to serve and volunteer. I am more pro-presence, pro-presence, and just deeply being with Jesus. So the, the church, the local church per se, again, because we can worship local church and still miss Jesus. There's going to be a lot of people that love church in the context of local church. And I believe that they're not really safe because they live a life that's in opposition to Jesus Christ and they're comfortable with it day in and day out. Monday, Tuesday— let's just say that the typical Bible study is Wednesday. Monday, Tuesday, it's okay to never spend time with the Lord, never get in their word. Wednesday, they kind of get in it for an hour. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, never. It's like you just see the immaturity, you see a life that's in total opposition, and then here comes Sunday, you want to shout and be seen. I don't— I just, again, I'm not putting you in heaven, hell. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying you're a very immature believer, uh, if you are. And I don't believe that you're really just dying to self. And I'm, again, I'm preaching to myself as well, because the church was never meant to replace our intimacy with Jesus. It was meant to protect and deepen it. Like, that is what I'm like— the core of this this whole podcast. And I'll just leave you with this, uh, so slowing down— let us just slow down together. I pray that 2026, that you're able to slow down in some areas if you can, even if it's just mentally. Like, I get it, we're in some hard times. People might say, I'm working two jobs to provide for my family, I have this going on, man, the, the local churches in this state— like, trust me, I, I sit in a relatively pretty decent seat on both sides, within the secular and within the ministry. I get it where you always on, always have to declare vision, always working towards something, to have to see things before other people. However, we still have to cultivate and build in rhythms to rest and also make sure that we're doing things, especially as men leading our household if we're married with kids. Um, I said a lot of stuff that I'm not gonna keep saying, we, we, we, failed in the context of my wife, and I'm taking responsibility. I failed at it. So I'm right now praying and asking God to how to set order based on the text, the Bible, what he has called me to do. And if that brings tension, it brings tension, but it's one that I'm going to walk out boldly in humility and sensitivity through the power of God. And, uh, so again, we— I just— my desire is for us to slow down together to listen more, to being known, to being present, to not always being like on or, uh, robbing ourselves of presence with people. Uh, sometimes returning to our first love just looks like starting something new or disassociating ourselves from, uh, uh, like stuff so we can give life to something else. It's like, just again, it's, it's like, think about Jesus when he removed himself from the crowd. Like, Jesus would do this often, and I think it's something we should model. So my prayer, uh, for everybody that's listening is that the Lord— like, you are able to get in the presence of the Lord, pray with him, get in your word, pray, read, study, study your word. Don't just look— always look for being spoon-fed or feeling like you have to be ignited around people. Um, like, it doesn't have to always work like that. It's nothing wrong with it because it is— again, community is beautiful. But my prayer is that we learn how to walk this thing out and truly seek the true presence of Jesus. Because if I can say this, is that he called— if he called us to do anything, if he has called us— to do anything, or before— let me say that— before he has called us to do anything, he has called us to be with him. Before he has called us to do anything, he has called us to be with him. And that is my prayer, and that is my desire, that we all are able to walk in a little bit more within 2026 and onward. So man, be blessed. I love you all, and I pray that this podcast spoke to you or touched you in some kind of way. And as you'll hear on the outro, I'm asking that you share this, like share this with friends and families. And again, I pray in 2026 that I'm able to bring on more voices and get into some bonus content— context, uh, content, I'm sorry, content. And so man, I love you all, always praying for you all, always feel comfortable able to reach out, uh, if you want to have a conversation or just want to talk all things Bible, all things life. Uh, if I can't understand it, I'll point you to somebody that I believe can. So again, I love you all, always praying for y'all. Be safe, and I pray for that you have a great 2026.

Thanks for joining me today on the Student Life Podcast, and remember, learning never stops and wisdom grows as we seek truth in both Scripture and Life. And until next time, keep walking faithfully and thinking deeply. Be blessed.