Why Consistency Matters More Than Intensity | Ep. 131

Do you find yourself going all in with Bible study, only to burn out days later? In this episode, we talk about why consistency matters more than intensity when it comes to a steady life in the Word. Anchored in Luke 8, you’ll see what faithful rhythms actually produce and what quietly pulls you off track. If you’ve felt overwhelmed, distracted, or inconsistent, this will help you build a sustainable approach to Scripture and grow in understanding over time.

👉 Listen to a related episode: How to Grow in Confidence When Reading the Bible | Ep. 129

Transcript

Why Consistency Beats Intensity

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is episode 131, and I'm your host, Satoya, and this is Equip the Next, where you get equipped to lead, disciple, and move the mission forward. So, why does consistency matter more than intensity? You don't want to miss this. Listen, if these podcasts have been a blessing to you, why don't you do me a favor and just leave a review? It really does help this podcast to be able to reach more people. Also, feel free to grab that free guide, the Bible studies guardrails, and be a part of the community. And if you would like to be a part of the community, but you don't want the free gift, that's fine. You can email me at hello at equipptenext.com. Just leave your name in the best email that you would like us to use. I promise I won't bug you, but um you'll get notified of when we do meetups, when we do Zoom calls, and just to be a part of community, hold you accountable. Yeah, so there's that. But today I wanted to talk about consistency over intensity. That is something that we are seeing a lot of the intensity part. And I want us to try to recalibrate ourselves so that we focus on consistency. That is important, okay? So when I'm focusing on that, I'm looking at certain things like understanding that lasting spiritual growth is usually formed through steady faithfulness, not temporary excitement. Okay, not the frills and the bells and whistles. That's not what consistency is about. And when those things fade, if you don't have consistency, then you will get frustrated, overwhelmed, and may just want to give up. And so we have to make sure that we separate those two. Ask yourself this question: Am I chasing spiritual moments or cultivating lasting roots? That's a big and heavy one. And we're gonna unpack it today a little bit, not gonna be exhaustive, but I think it's important that we follow this pattern of being consistent. That doesn't mean being perfect, but consistency is key. You wanna, when you're in a relationship with somebody, you want them to be consistent. Right? You want your job to be consistent with paying when it comes to paying you your check. When you will, if you work for someone, you want them to be consistent when it comes to paying you, you know, getting your check. But when it comes to God's word, we treat that very loosely, we take it for granted, and we're not consistent when it comes to his word. That's where we fall short. And we're all guilty of this, so that I'm not I'm not calling anyone out. Okay, but it's important that we understand that if we can be consistent with the things that are going on in this in this world, we can also be consistent in the word. So I wanted to pull from Luke, uh, the gospel according to Luke. Now, listen, um, I'm not gonna do an exhaustive teaching on this parable. This is the parable of the parables. I'm not gonna talk about that. Um, I actually shared that in our EFP group, which I actually opened up to anyone to come. And it we talked about parables, how to read parables, and we focused on the parables in the Gospel of Luke, since that's where the majority of the parables are, and we broke that down. So that's again why I encourage people to join us, you know, connect with us, because when we have these things and I send out invites, I only do that via email. So I'm going to be reading from the Gospel of Luke, um, chapter 8, and I'm gonna start at verse 14. I'm gonna read 14 and 15, and this is the latter part. This is um basically the um the parable of parables, and then now we're going into the the end of this um of this part, and Jesus is talking about the um the purpose of this parable, and it's really I'm gonna just kind of add this in here. It's really a heart posture. Okay, if I were to say that, it's really a heart posture that we're seeing here, but I'm going to read these two verses and get into the application part, okay? So it says, and as for what fell among the, let me see, okay, I gotta put my finger there. So as and as for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way, they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature. Okay, so kind of highlight that if you can, because we're gonna break that apart. Um, and then the the next verse says, and and for that in the good soil, they are those who hearing the word hold it fast in an honest and good heart and bear fruit with patience. Okay, so the reason why I want you to highlight, you can actually guess highlight both of those because we're gonna highlight and talk about that a little bit in detail as we kind of compare the intensity part intensity part and consistency. Because we see in verse 14, we see a intensity, we see the excitement, we see the thrill. Now, if you are a farmer or if you have a garden, I have a garden, I need to tend to it. We'll see how that goes. But anyway, if you have ever planted anything and you have seed, now typically, you know, if you have a small garden, you're you're gonna strategically put the seed down. But that doesn't even mean anything. But like if you're a farmer, you're usually just like scattering it. But it doesn't even, even if you put seed in the ground like you're putting it in yourself where you're not scattering it, it doesn't even matter because you still cannot predict what is going to happen to that seed. You're gonna have critters that are gonna come and get that seed, you're gonna have pets that are gonna go and dig and get the seed. You might have a seed that will plant its roots down. You might have um, I think I mentioned that I say birds, because I have birds around everywhere. So you might have that. You you're gonna you cannot predict and then say that, oh, if I put this seed in the ground, it is going to produce some good fruit. Even if it grows, it might not grow the right way. There's just a lot of things that factor are factored into when you're planting. And so when we're looking at this, and I'm and I've and I'm comparing it to intensity, right? Open air quotes. When we see things like when things are planted, when when you're hearing the word, when you're reading the word, when you're um fellowshipping, whatever it is, the the those seeds, those meaningful seeds that we see planted, you can walk away and be like, Yeah, I got a good word. And then it gets choked up by the cares, riches, and pleasures of life. And so it does not fully mature. And so we have this cycle. And then if we look at the other side of it where we have the good soil, those are the ones that who hear the word and they hold fast to it. They hold fast to that word. Okay, so let's talk about the intensity and how it gets choked up by the cares, riches, and pleasures of life. I'm gonna say, now, this is not exhaustive, but I'm gonna share three things in this world that can distract, distort, and disjoint you. So I just listed three things in this world that can distract, distort, and disjoint you. That's the intensity part. Because even though it sounds good and it's shiny, it can cause you to lack the maturity and growth in the word because we focus on the wrong things. Let's start with distracting. When we have worry, and I and I really think that social media plays a huge role in this. But worrying, doubting, looking at um keeping up with the Joneses, looking at what we could have, coveting um, all of these things, if we go back to the scriptures, um, you know, looking at the riches and the pleasures of life and the cares of life, which I think the reason why I brought up social media is because you'll see that, right? You see all of that. It's a distraction. It can distract you from the consistency of growing in his word. We've all been guilty of it. Doom scrolling, endlessly scrolling. It can distract you. And even though you get that dopamine kick, even though you get that high, that intensity, you lack the consistency of his word. Very, very much so, you know. Um, and again, we're consistent in all these other things. We're consistent in going to work, we're consistent in making sure that our boss pays us a check, we're consistent in you know, calling that friend, but when it comes to his word, we lack that consistency because of distractions. Distorting that's another one. Things in this world can distort us. What does that word mean? To twist, it's like to twist out of natural or normal or um original shapes or condition. That's what um a definition says. It's to twist out of the true meaning of something, to give false or an unnatural picture or account of. So I equate that to fake news, um, fear-baiting news, conspiracy theories, even. All of these things can distort, again, we're talking about intensity, we're talking about that high, we're talking about that kick. But those things can distort or twist our view of scripture. And so what happens is if we're, first of all, especially, especially when you're when you're watching different quote unquote faith-based content creators. I'm not knocking anyone, but you have to have discernment to know like what people are talking about. Like, is this from God or is this their opinion, or is this from you know, the word? Where what are you what are you listening to? So you got a lot of people with fake news, fear-bating news, and no one's pointing anyone to Christ or pointing you to understand the scriptures or to learn the Bible. And what happens is that when we're looking at all this stuff, it it can distort our vision and our perception of the word. So then when you open it up and read it, you're more confused than when you didn't read it. So, you know, and then that leads me to um the next one, which is to disjoint. Now that meaning is to disturb the orderly structure or arrangement of something, or to take apart, um, it means to take apart from one another, right? I equate that to division and confusion. Things in this world can disjoint you, us, because it plants confusion, especially when you have different people in the body of Christ saying completely different things, it can bring confusion, and I'm not talking about different things in the sense of like we just have different opinions of stuff, I'm talking about just blatant different stuff. So confusion and division can creep in. And this is what makes it difficult to really have consistency. If you have all this stuff going on, you have worry, doubt, uh, fake news, conspiracy theory, uh, fear, fear news, um, confusion, division in the body of Christ. You have all these things going on, and then you open up the word. I understand why it's hard to be consistent. I understand why you're like frustrated and overwhelmed and tired and burnt out. Because of the intensity that you're facing, your your body is probably just overstimulated with everything that's going on and hitting you. So now let's go to a place of consistency. And what does that look like? Well, when you're consistent or you have that consistency, it's being in the word can refocus you, it can strengthen you, and it can grow you. Being in the word, consistency can refocus you, basically recalibrate you, point you back to Christ, point you back to Jesus, strengthen you and grow you. See, when you're refocused, you're shifting, you shift your attention not on the the cares of this world and what's going on. I'm not saying to not per like to know what's going on, but I'm saying where it's a distraction and you are glued to it. It shifts your attention on him, on Jesus, on Christ. It shifts you, it strengthens your walk because it's it by default, it's going to build confidence. You're going to have that confidence grow. It's a process, but it's going to happen. The more you're in the word and the more you're consistent. Little baby steps, it doesn't matter. Consistency. You know how like when you're trying to learn something new, like say, um when you if you try to learn to ride your bike or something, or whatever you try to learn, the more consistent you were at doing it, even when you failed, even when you didn't understand, you still grew in confidence. You just did. You're like, you just grew because you're like, I got it, I got it, and you got better and you got better and you got better. Now, reading the word is not about getting better and better and better, but it's about understanding who he is and hearing him clearly and understanding the text more, especially when you're around people who can even break it down and study it with you and talk about it and answer some of those hard questions. And it also being in the word grows us, it unifies the body. We need that. So when you're examining this, when you're looking at it, you have to understand that you know the good soil receives and holds fast. Understand that it holds fast. And fruit comes through patience and perseverance. That's where that fruit comes. It comes through patience and perseverance. It is not something that happens overnight, it's something that you grow and you mature in. Those deep roots grow quietly. They're not loud. You don't have to be seen. No one has to know that you you read at home. It's your walk. You're growing in the Lord, you and Him. And as you notice, just as we compare these, consistency often outlasts intensity. It does. I mean, if we go back to like social media fads and stuff like that, that it comes and goes. It's up and down. It's consistency that stays. You know that. So as we look at the Christ thread, we can see the endurance and faithfulness of who Christ is. We see his love for us, his pulling, his sacrifice. And he didn't waver, and he wasn't caring about intensity, he was all about consistency, walking in the and teaching about the kingdom, teaching about the Father. And that is what we need to bring to the table. Listen, your challenge this week is to choose one sustainable rhythm in the word this week. Just one. Just pick one. We've been talking about rhythms for a while now, but I want you just to choose one this week. Remember, consistency matters. Love you. Well, that's it for today. Thanks for listening to the Equit the Next podcast. If this episode blessed you, I'd appreciate it if you leave a review and share it with someone who can use a little encouragement. Now grow in God's word and lead boldly.