The Restored Podcast
We are living proof that God can and will restore any life, any marriage, any family that submits to His will. Join us as we share our testimony of how God can take a situation and restore it to His purpose.
The Restored Podcast
The Road to Restoration
The journey of restoration begins with true repentance, a heartfelt recognition of our shortcomings and a commitment to change. By understanding grace, embracing forgiveness, and engaging in spiritual disciplines, we open the door to profound healing and transformation in our lives.
• The definition and significance of true repentance
• The difference between grace and condemnation
• The role of unforgiveness in hindering restoration
• Practical steps for fostering forgiveness in relationships
• The importance of committing to spiritual disciplines
• The gradual nature of the restoration process
• The power of prayer in personal transformation
Thank you to the Restored Podcast with Frank and Darcy Montgomery. So when we talk about restoration, we are talking about something being restored and that means that it's being brought back to its original condition. I think when God restores something, he brings it back to the condition that he originally created it for.
Speaker 2:Wow, I've never thought about it that way, but that's a good perspective.
Speaker 1:So I think we should name this episode the Road to Restoration, because we're going to talk about you know what that restoration looks like?
Speaker 2:And what it needs to occur.
Speaker 1:And where it begins.
Speaker 2:Is repentance Honest, true repentance, true repentance.
Speaker 1:And maybe somebody's listening that is not a Christian or doesn't know what repentance is. And first of all I would say that we have, and this is gospel. This is the gospel. We have to admit that we are sinners in need of a Savior. We have to believe that we are sinners in need of a Savior. We have to believe that Jesus Christ is Lord, he is God in flesh and he died on the cross for our sins. He made that ultimate sacrifice for us and then we have to confess those sins and whenever we confess those sins, we ask for forgiveness and we repent of those sins. And to repent means that you turn your back on, you turn away from, but that is absolutely first in the restoration process.
Speaker 2:Absolutely.
Speaker 1:And so.
Speaker 2:And when we truly repent, that means to walk away from and change. I mean we have to make a conscious effort to change.
Speaker 1:Right. It doesn't mean that you're never going to do that again. Your desire should be that you never do that again, but chances are you're going to screw up, you're going to mess up. We live in a fallen world. We are flesh. Our flesh desires things that maybe aren't pleasing to God, but we have to continually be in that mindset of I don't want to do that. It's not. You know, for so long I struggled with pornography You're well aware of that and I would ask for forgiveness. And then I would find myself doing it again later that day, or the next day, or you know, and it just seemed like this evil cycle of I'm asking for forgiveness, but yet I keep doing it.
Speaker 2:And how did you get past that, and how did you finally repent, to where that's not an issue anymore?
Speaker 1:Well, first of all, I had to recognize that, even though I was asking for forgiveness, I felt like I was beginning to abuse the grace of God, and Paul teaches us in his writings that grace abounds, but that doesn't mean that we keep sinning. That grace is there. I would feel condemned. You just don't lay there in that condemnation and say, oh, that's who I am, that's who I'm always going to be. That grace gives you the freedom to pick yourself back up.
Speaker 1:Yes, I messed up. God still loves me, god still sees me as righteous and whenever I ask for forgiveness, he forgives, he forgets about it and you move on. Our mind wants to stay in that. So when I realized truly what grace was and that just because I mess up doesn't mean that's who I am and that's who I'm always going to be pretty easy. But it also happened where I began filling my mind with other stuff. Whenever I had an alone time with my phone and my first instinct would be hey, let's go see what's new on this website. I would open up the Bible app, or I would turn on worship music, or I would pray. I would spend that. You know, whenever that temptation came, I would turn to God instead of turning in to that temptation, and that's what we have to do as Christians. We're called to be Christ-like, and in order to be Christ-like, you have to know Christ right.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:So, in order to know Christ how do you get to know Christ? You spend time with him, whenever. We were dating for that very brief period, but even after we were dating, to get to know each other, we spent time together. We spent learning each other, getting to know what you like, what you dislike, and so that's what you do with Christ. And the way you do that is by reading the word of God, reading the Bible. You want to know what God is like. Read the Bible. It's all there, from Genesis to Revelation. You want to spend time with him, pray with him, pray to him, talk to him, allow him pray with him. Pray to him, talk to him, allow him to talk to you, spend time in worship. And when you do those things, you know.
Speaker 1:The Bible tells us to renew our mind, and I don't know the exact study that was done, but there was a study done not too long ago that proves you can change the neural pathways in your brain, the way your brain reacts to things when you do things, and we look at those, maybe, as habits, saying that once you do something for 14 days in a row, it becomes a habit. Well, what you're doing by doing those things 14 days in a row is you are changing your neural pathways in your brain to where that becomes automatic for you. Your brain automatically says I'm going to read my Bible. Your brain automatically says when you get angry, I'm not going to react in rage. Your neural pathways say when you see me, I'm talking personal. Right here, when you see a woman walking down the road scantily clad. Right here, when you see a woman walking down the road scantily clad, instead of thinking impure thoughts, because you've changed those neural pathways in your brain, you don't think that anymore.
Speaker 1:And that's what it means to become Christ-like and that's what I really think repentance is about. We say repent and you're never going to do it again. Well, fact of the matter is you're going to do it again Now, hopefully, if you're repentant from something, what we would consider on earth to be horrible murder, horrible murder, ie. Hopefully. You know you don't do that again. But you know, oftentimes it's those little things. It's how you react in anger.
Speaker 2:I mean it could be as simple as an attitude or a mindset that needs to be fixed.
Speaker 1:And so I think, when people are praying for restoration and they are not seeing that restorative power of God take place in their lives, my first thought to them would be take a look at yourself.
Speaker 2:Do a heart check.
Speaker 1:What is in your life that is preventing you from growing closer to God? What in your life is preventing you from being more Christ-alike? And again, it might not be something major. It might be something as you know defiance, rebellion.
Speaker 2:Right and I have struggled with that and I had to repent from that and I had to, like you said, fill my mind and my heart with the word music and prayer. And when I did that, things started changing. And not only that, I got excited about those habits that you were talking about. Like I get excited to read the Bible every morning, and before it was a chore. So God changed that in me to help me draw closer to him, to fully repent and start my path to restoration.
Speaker 1:But even when it felt like a chore for you, you still did it.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And I mean that's what we're talking about renewing your mind on a daily basis, living in that repent, repentful state.
Speaker 2:A lifestyle of repentance.
Speaker 1:I was trying to say that, but you got the words that couldn't come to my mind. You live that lifestyle of repentance and understand that there will come a time when you make a mistake, but it doesn't mean you wanted to make that mistake, and so that is the first step to restoration.
Speaker 2:And that conviction and condemnation you talked about. It shouldn't be condemnation, it should just be conviction to help you fix that problem.
Speaker 1:Right, god will convict, the Holy Spirit will convict you. The Holy Spirit will never condemn you If you are feeling condemned, if you are feeling condemnation that is 1,000% from the enemy. Yes, god will never condemn you. And it goes back to what we were talking about earlier. It's that grace that when God convicts you, that grace to understand. He's convicting me of that because he doesn't like that, but he's not condemning me.
Speaker 2:Right and I just want to make sure that was understood that God does not bring condemnation, he brings conviction. The enemy brings condemnation.
Speaker 1:So you have to go through that repentance for restoration to even begin. And most of the time, you know, the first thing that's restored is our relationship with Christ through salvation. But other things might need to be restored because sin has destroyed them. And so it begins with that repentance and you trying to be more Christ-like. And I wanted to get into something that I think everybody struggles with, whether you believe it or not, and I think it goes hand in hand with repentance. So I grew up Every day with my parents, at nighttime we would read the Bible and we would pray before bedtime and my mom would pray her prayer.
Speaker 1:But before she prayed her prayer, us kids would say the Lord's Prayer. And we did that every day. And as I've gotten older and I've studied more, and you know, in Matthew 6, where the Lord's Prayer is, jesus is saying and when you pray, pray like this. But I think it goes much deeper than him just telling us how to pray. I think there's more significance to it. And if you look in there, part of the prayer is forgive us our trespasses. We're asking God to forgive us of our sins. But right after that, as we forgive those who trespass against us, so as we are asking God to forgive us of our sins, we in turn have to be forgiving other people of what they've done to us, and when you don't do that, that unforgiveness in your life takes a hold of you.
Speaker 2:And it can destroy so much.
Speaker 1:It can destroy so much because it's like a cancer. If you have that unforgiveness in you, it'll spread. It'll spread to other parts of your life. It'll become anger inside of you. It'll become you know lust inside.
Speaker 1:Bitterness, resentment, you name it. That unforgiveness will morph and spread. It's like a cancer in your body. If it goes untreated. If it goes, you know you just ignoring, hey, there's something in your body that's not good for it it'll spread and it'll take over and it'll, you know, methodically go through and you know, take over different organs and just spread throughout your whole body. And that's the same thing that unforgiveness does. If you leave that unforgiveness there and do not treat it, it will spread, it will take over your body and it'll cause you to do things that you don't want to do. Like you said, it'll cause you to become bitter and angry.
Speaker 1:And when I think about unforgiveness, I think about my own life and how that unforgiveness for so long caused me to be an angry person. Long caused me to be an angry person. I had gone through life telling myself that I had forgiven my biological mom and her boyfriend at the time for things that happened whenever I was younger. But in reality I hadn't forgiven them at all. What I had done was push it down inside of me and try to block it from my remembrance. And I remember at times after I would blow up and things had calmed down and you and I were talking and you would bring that up and I would get mad again and say you can't do that. You can't bring that up because I have forgiven them, I've moved on, but in reality I hadn't.
Speaker 2:And I knew that.
Speaker 1:And so a lot of people think that unforgiveness means that you're going to be reconciled with that person, and I think deep down in my life, in my heart, that's what I thought it meant to forgive, and in no way did I want to be reconciled with my biological mom. I had a mom and dad who loved me, who chose me, who took me in, who raised me, who taught me right from wrong, and I felt like, if I forgave my biological mom, that I had to be reconciled to her. Don't get me wrong God is a God of reconciliation and if I am living Christ-like, as I should be, I feel like God's dealing with me right now, because I do feel like I am at a point to where I could be reconciled in that relationship. But unforgiveness doesn't mean that you're reconciled to a certain relationship, and I think that prevents people from forgiving somebody.
Speaker 2:And forgiveness. When you do forgive, you have to make that choice and intentionally, I am going to forgive this person and then pray blessings over them.
Speaker 1:Right. You're giving that hurt that they caused you. You're giving that hurt to God.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And so when you give that hurt to God, you are not going to dwell on it anymore, you are not going to think about it anymore. Now Satan will be in your ear quick. Remember what sister, so-and-so did to you. Remember what your mom's boyfriend did to you and how your mom reacted. I would hear that all the time. And so when you forgive, you're giving that to God and you're saying God, it's yours, I'm no longer going to be hurt by it, I'm no longer going to feel those feelings that I felt from that for all those years.
Speaker 1:And one of the ways, like you said, is to pray blessings over that person. If you are struggling to forgive somebody, simply start in your prayer life by praying for them, praying for blessings to come to them. Pray for their finances to be blessed. Pray for their health to be blessed. Pray for their health to be blessed. Pray for their marriage to be blessed. Pray for their job situation to be blessed. Pray for everything their family to be blessed. And you pray for them to be blessed the same way as you are praying for your own self, the same way that you pray. God bless my family. God bless my finances. God bless my finances. God bless my job, bless this, bless that. Pray for them the same way that you would pray for yourself. And if you were struggling with unforgiveness, after a little while of praying those honest prayers to God to bless that person, you'll stop holding on to that.
Speaker 2:And you actually get into living a lifestyle of forgiveness to where things do not offend you. You do not get hurt easily.
Speaker 1:Right. And I mean we're called to be Christ-like and if you look at the nature of Christ, at the nature of God, his nature is to forgive.
Speaker 2:And the Bible talks a lot about forgiveness all over the place. At the nature of Christ, at the nature of God, his nature is to forgive. And the Bible talks a lot about forgiveness all over the place and gives examples, One thing that comes to my mind.
Speaker 1:It's not biblical, but, you know, throughout our marriage you would reach out to different people to try and help me. And one of our former pastors became aware of our relationship and how it was and he began counseling me. And one of the things that he told me to do was to write a letter to my biological mom, Write a letter to her, Tell her all about how I feel, how I felt, all those things. And I didn't do that at the time. But later on, whenever I was going through the BIP class and the you know it, just it came back to my remembrance that Randall had told me to do that all those years ago, and so I did that. I wrote a letter in the office one night after BIP class to my biological mom. Now, I never sent it to her. She has no idea that that letter ever existed, but I wrote it. I got those emotions out of me and onto paper how I felt about her, how I felt about the whole situation. Now that letter is long gone. I burned it a few days later in the fire pit.
Speaker 1:But I would recommend, if somebody is struggling with something that they're holding on to, you know, write a letter to that person, you don't have to mail it to them, you don't have to give it to them. But what it does is it gets those emotions that you're feeling, it gets it out of your body. You've expressed those emotions, You've expressed those feelings, and then you know that's a practical thing that we can do here on Earth. But you give it to God and you say God, it's yours, I can't carry the weight of this hurt anymore. Only you can carry that hurt. So I'm giving it to you now and I'm not going to be hurt by it any longer.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I had my own unforgiveness that we struggled with when we got married.
Speaker 1:What do you mean?
Speaker 2:You know the relationship with my dad and my stepmom. I held on to that. I did the same thing you did. I thought I had forgiven it. I blocked it, I pressed it down and mine came out differently. I was very withdrawn. I guess you would say I wouldn't let anybody get close. Walls were built up and through watching you and seeing you, seeing how you dealt with it and how you learned to forgive and reading the word and consciously making an effort, I was able to. Now I live in a lifestyle of forgiveness. I don't get offended anymore. I was easily offended and I don't live with that anymore.
Speaker 1:You still get offended. I mean, it's our natural instinct.
Speaker 2:Right, but it's not like it was.
Speaker 1:Not to get offended but you can handle it differently when that immediate reaction because, again, going back to our flesh, we are are flesh and our flesh wants to react certain ways. But you know, I've seen it, I've seen it in you and I'm sure if I took a better look at myself I would see it in myself at times I see it in you but I've seen it to where you know. That first immediate reaction I can see is Darcy was just offended by that person, but then within a few minutes a few minutes, your attitudes change, and what that is is that's the Holy Spirit coming in and reminding you.
Speaker 1:Hey, you are forgiven, Forgive.
Speaker 2:Right and, like I said, I try to constantly walk in that lifestyle of forgiveness, because before my cutoff game was strong, I would hold resentment. Yeah, it wasn't a healthy place. It wasn't a godly place to be place to be.
Speaker 1:I really, I really like where we're at right now in this podcast, and I think that this podcast may be a little shorter I don't know, I'm not sure about the length of time it is. It feels a little shorter, but I think we're at a good stopping point and just to go back over. In order for restoration to begin, it has to start with repentance, that repentance in our heart and in our life and that become a lifestyle of repentance and then, through that repentance, we are trying to be more Christ-like on a daily basis. And if you're doing those things, your behaviors will change. You know, you learn, and that's where it comes into. We have to do our part that's our part is to change our behaviors. God will help us if we're doing those things, those biblical chores, as you like to.
Speaker 2:I call them biblical disciplines, spiritual disciplines.
Speaker 1:If you're doing those spiritual disciplines, you are spending time in the Word of God, you are praying to God, and not just praying to God, but communicating with God, talking to God and allowing Him to talk to you, and you're worshiping. If you're doing those spiritual disciplines and we can get into more spiritual disciplines that there are, but if you are doing those three main ones, your mind will be renewed.
Speaker 2:Your life will change.
Speaker 1:Your life will change and restoration will take place. And again, it doesn't happen in the blink of an eye.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 1:You know, I think about somebody, an example that comes to mind, somebody that's wanting their finances to be restored. They pray, you know God, restore my finances. I'm tired of living paycheck to paycheck. I'm tired of not having this, I'm tired of not having that, I'm tired of not having that. God, restore my finances. And they're praying for that and they're not seeing anything. And they get a check in the mail that they weren't expecting. Maybe it's a refund on overpayment of auto insurance or you know some overpayment of taxes or something you know. And their first reaction when they get that check in the mail, I know my first reaction would be we can go out to eat tonight. We don't have to cook or clean the kitchen.
Speaker 2:Trust me, crazy, that that's your go to.
Speaker 1:But what you don't realize is, as we are taking our steps, doing our part in the restoration process by becoming more Christ-like, by doing those things, god is doing his part too. He is good and faithful. That was sent. You know, was God beginning the process? But maybe we don't see it like that, because we are expecting God to do it immediately. And you know, you get that little check. Ok, I'm going to put that towards credit card debt or some other debt that I have. Or maybe you're all caught up on your bills and don't have credit card debt. I'm going to put that in savings, I'm going to invest it, I'm going to use it wisely, and when God sees you using it wisely, when you are a good steward of those finances, he will send more. Steward of those finances, he will send more. But I think we have to open our eyes and realize that, hey, just because we don't see the big move, just because we don't see the full restoration, doesn't mean that God isn't working, doesn't mean that God isn't in the restoring process of your life. And so I just want to close with a prayer.
Speaker 1:Today I feel like closing with a prayer and so, dear God, thank you for this conversation that we've had today. Thank you for being such a loving and graceful God that you would forgive us of our sins, that you would send your son to die on the cross so that we can be saved. I pray that if people are struggling, that they would turn to you and that they would look to you for all the answers. They would look to your word. Father, help us to be more like you. We praise you and we thank you for your love, for your restoration, for everything that you give to us. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen.
Speaker 1:Amen you were listening to the restored podcast with frank and darcy montgomery.