Faith on the Go: Ep: 1 The Curse of Familiarity: Rediscovering Reverence

0:00 Hello, and welcome back to the Diary of a Black Woman podcast. We're listening to our first Faith on the Go monthly series. We just concluded the Eyes Wide Open series where we learn the power of praying in the Spirit and how to see what God is showing us with clarity and conviction. But here's what we must understand next, that what God reveals to us is holy. What we see from Him is sacred, and what we hear from Him is not common. And how we respond to His voice really does matter. This is why we're launching this new series, because too many have lost the reverence of the Holy God.

0:47 We're hearing from God, but we're treating His word like it's optional. We're entering into his presence without honor, and the danger is real. We're getting used to glory without being changed by it. This is not just a teaching, it's a warning. A call to return to God with holy reverence and holy fear. A moment to check your posture before the king. So welcome to the curse of familiarity. When we get too casual with God, too common with His presence, too careless with His sacred.

1:28 We don't just lose reverence, we risk losing the glory. But this series isn't about shame, it's about awakening. It's about returning to holy reverence fear and walking in the holy awe of the Lord God Almighty. I'm your host Connie Morris and this is Diary of a Black Woman podcast with our Faith on the Go series. So let's go. I'd like to open up in prayer with our favorite person of the Bible, Jabez. So let's make this declaration. God, we thank you that your hand is upon us. Our territory is continuing to expand. Please keep us from harm.

2:15 And our prayers, thank you for hearing our prayers. And we know that you hear and you do answer them. Thank you that we walk free from pain. we walk in truth, and we turn back to a deep intimacy with you, O Father. We walk healed, we walk in power, and we walk boldly in our divine purpose. So I have a new episode here, and it's Faith on the Go from our Diary of a Black Woman podcast. And this came about just from what, you know, I've been seeing just showing up at church or just how people treat the Holy Word of God. And some of my favorite scriptures are in here about how do we honor God?

2:59 We just cover Eyes Wide Open where we pray in the Spirit and God shows us things. But what do we do with those holy things? So let's just go over what we don't do, what we shouldn't do with it. The world is no longer recognizing the power of God. How many of us need the power of God to survive? I know I do. Raise your hand if you do. because the church no longer takes him seriously. We gather in his name, but we don't tremble. We quote his word, but we don't obey his word. We ask for miracles, but we offer no reverence. And we speak of relationship, but we really walk in familiarity.

3:45 Well, welcome back to Faith on the Go, Diary of Black Women. I'm your host, Connie Morris. And today we're going to begin the sacred journey into what the Lord has shown me is spiritual cancer in the body of Christ. It's called the curse of familiarity. This message is not going to be entertaining, but it is to be for an awakening for the ones who know that something is missing in the church. And maybe, and just maybe, it is the fear of the Lord. Now, many of you probably never heard of what that, what is familiarity and what that looks like.

4:25 And why would we use such a strong word like curse? Why is it called a curse of familiarity? Because familiarity is not like a closeness. You know, it's not like it's a friendship with God. It's when we've grown so close to being so used to His presence that we actually stop honoring His presence. You know, what does that look like? You know, some of it is obvious. Some of it, it'd be like, you know, you show up at church late. Church starts at 10, you walk in, the worship, you used to show up early. You know, you used to show up early, but now you just show up any time you want to. And then you expect a seat in the front row because you've been a member of the church for a certain amount of years.

5:09 So there should be a seat for you because, you know, you've been a member for oh so long. That's the familiarity of God's presence. You just show up when you want to. You decide to serve on a certain, maybe you're an usher, a greeter, or whatever you decide on in the ministry or health team. But you don't honor that. You just show up when you want to. You're on the schedule. They put you down, but you don't okay it. You don't say, yeah, I'm showing up. You just don't show up. That's familiarity because you've been there. I don't have to show up. You should have called me earlier. We get a little kind of secret attitude. So familiarity happens when the sacred becomes common, when the awe becomes apathy, when routine replaces reverence.

6:00 You still go to church. You still pray. You still serve, sort of, kind of, but something's missing. Something's not there. Something's gone. The trembling is not there. The reverence, the fire is just not there. The voice of conviction is just not there. You come to church like you're going to the grocery store. You show up at church like you're showing up at your friend's house. You know, you serve any kind of way. You just, because you walked in the door, we should just be happy you showed up. That's not honoring God. God told you to serve, not to man, but unto him.

6:44 So what happens when familiarity shows up? What does that steal from you? Familiarity is a thief. It doesn't show up loud, but it robs you. The awe, you stop being moved by the presence of God. The presence of God is moving greatly in the sanctuary, and you're still standing, everyone else is on their knees, everybody has fell on the floor in honor of the presence of God. And you're still standing, looking around, and in your mind, you're saying, it doesn't take all that. The awe is gone.

7:26 Honor. You stop respecting the spiritual things. Instead of you honoring the spiritual things of God, you just don't respect it anymore. You used to walk in, in the church lot and you see trash kind of floating around in there. You'll go pick it up and put it in the garbage can or even in the restroom or whatever. You're honoring, you're honoring the church, right? The spiritual things you used to pray. You couldn't miss a message, but now the message is missing you. Obedience. You start responding when God speaks. Now he yells and you still don't respond.

8:09 You're like, it still don't take all that. I don't need to respond the way I used to respond. Why? Because we think that we get seniority in the church that we can kind of disrespect the Lord or disrespect his presence. We know that Moses and a lot of times when God moved, Enoch was three, he walked with God, was it 300 years? It was like a long time. There is no seniority in the spirit. There is seniority when it comes to serving God. He sees that, but you're never too old to obey him. And so seniority, familiarity robs you of the awe.

8:49 It robs you of the honor. It robs you of the obedience. You become numb. You become busy, but barren. You look like you're busy about the Lord's business, but you're not producing any fruit. You're in the building, but you're not in his presence. So here's the danger. What you treat as common, you will never carry with power. And that can cause a lot of emotional turmoil because you're in the building. You think you're serving God with all your heart, but you have lost the awe. You know, what happens? You'll say, no one ever prophesies over me. Well, God talks to us all the time.

9:31 He talks to you all the time. But are you listening? So let's walk through the word and see what happens when we dishonor God. This is not to scare you, but it's just to wake you up. We had Nadab and Abihu, a strange fire in the sanctuary. That's found in Leviticus chapter 10 verses 1 through 2. They offered an unauthorized fire. So fire came out from the Lord and consumed him. We know that the Lord is a consuming fire. So if you play with fire, you will get burnt.

10:11 And so we know that Nabdab and Abihu, I might be messing up those names, but go to Leviticus 10 through 1st chapter 10, 1 through 2, and you can look it up. It says they were priests, sons of Aaron in ministry. So they were raised up in the church. They were raised up in ministry. And so as they were raised up in the church and raised up in ministry, they knew what to do and what not to do. But they got into the church and they were playing with the fire. And they offered worship God did not ask for, and the fire they mishandled, and it killed them.

10:56 God doesn't accept anything just because we offer it. It must be holy. So we have these two sons who were the sons of the priest playing with fire, became too familiar with the holy things of God. And God, it says, so fire came out from the Lord and consumed them. Boom, they were dead. Playing with the holy things, and they were killed immediately. Uzzah, the casual touch of the ark, 2 Samuel 6, verse 6-7. This is not to scare you, but to show you that even though you don't see God, even though we do feel him, he's still watching.

11:46 And he is still holy. So he reached out and took hold of the ark, and God struck him. So Uzzah was holding the ark of the Lord, and it began to shake as they were carrying it. And Uzzah thought that he can catch the ark if it fell. So Uzzah grew up around the ark. He was used to it, but he forgot it was holy. Familiarity made him casual, and one unclean touch ended his life. So we see two people here so far that played with fire and got burnt.

12:28 We see here in Eli's sons, defiling the offering that's found in 1 Samuel 2, verses 12-17, and chapter 4, verse 11. It said they had no regard for the Lord, and they died. These were leaders. They were priests. So the people that are dying are not the ones who didn't know what they were doing. They purposely was playing with holiness. So these were priests. They were leaders. They're supposed to set the example, but they abused the offering, slept with women at the altar, used their position for personal gain.

13:15 God warned them. They didn't repent. He judged them. Leadership without reverence is rebellion So we see Eli's sons, they defiled the offering Not only did they defile the offering, they disrespected the offering, We read here that it says, they slept with women. You can read it in your Bible. They slept with women at the altar. Now, as we read this, you can pretty much think about what's going on in the real world. I don't watch the news. I don't follow different churches online, so I don't really know what's going on. But sometimes some of that stuff happens to hit the main, some of my news feed, and it kind of fall right into this story. how God holds leadership accountable for what they're doing in the church.

14:07 And most of this, no one's died yet, but if we keep playing with fire, those people will get burnt. I love when he says with the Eli sons that God warned them they did not repent. I never think that God would just, in my opinion, knowing God, how he talks to us and gives us 150,000 chances, right? But sometimes we're not listening. We get so disrespectful that God hasn't did it on the first time. He hasn't touched us on the hundredth time. But that hundredth and one time might be your last time.

14:48 Let's go on to Judas. Judas, a kiss without a heart. You can find his story in Luke 22 verses 47 through 48 and Matthew chapter 27 verse 5. Judas, are you betraying the son of man with a kiss? Then he went and hanged himself. Judas walked with Jesus. He ate with him. Judas wasn't a stranger to Jesus. He was not a stranger to Jesus. But when the all died, betrayal took place. He kissed Jesus and sold him out. How many of us has done that?

15:33 How many of us praise the Lord on Sunday or Wednesday, whenever you praise the Lord, but then sell them out on every other day? The kiss without a heart. What looked like affection was actually apostasy. Proximity to the holy is not the same as purity before the holy. Proximity to the holy is not the same as purity before the holy. So my question to you, have you grown familiar? Has worship become a routine? Do you skim scripture without conviction? Do you pray and never expect to be changed?

16:19 Do you serve but don't tremble? If that's you, this is not condemnation. It's a divine invitation. You may have never been taught this. Maybe your church trained you to perform and not to fear. Maybe you didn't know that God still watches. He still weighs motives. He still expects awe. He still expects to be reverence and worship. But today, you know... And today, you can come back to reverence. We're going to do a quick prayer, but I want to just kind of do a quick review about what we just read, because that was really heavy.

17:06 So let's talk about what happened while strange fire in the sanctuary. Nadab and Abihu, they were sons of Aaron, so they were priests of God, and they were in ministry. They offered worship that God didn't ask for. God has a particular way he wants to be worshipped. We got Uzzah, the casual touch of the ark. He grew up around the ark. He was used to it, but he forgot it was holy. Eli's sons, they defiled the offering. They were leaders. They were priests, but they were sleeping with the women at the altar. It's like sleeping with women at the church as leaders, using their position for personal gain. They ignored God.

17:51 The kiss without the heart that Judas betrayed the Son of Man with a kiss. He got so familiar for being around him that he lost the awe. That happens when you maybe work at the church, and the pastor, he's friendly and he's fun, and you see him as a man, but he walks with the mantle from the Holy One of God. And when you get too familiar with him and you lose that awe, you can actually be a Judas. And have you stopped reading your Bible? Have you stopped what you have drawn you close to God from the beginning?

18:35 What was it that kept you safe from sin? Do you show up to your post as routine? Does God show up in the temple, the tabernacle, as though He's here and I don't feel Him? Right? What do you do? Is that you? It's not a condemnation, knowing that He still watches. So let's repent and let's do our declarations and we'll close in prayer. Let's repeat after me. Lord, forgive me. Forgive me for walking on holy ground with dirty shoes. Forgive me for being casual where you were calling for consecration.

19:16 I renounce the spirit of familiarity. I return to wonder, to trembling, to holy fear. Restore reverence in me. Let me never treat your presence as common again. Let me worship. Let my worship be weighty again. Let prayer be pure again. You are holy, and I will take you seriously again. In Jesus' name, amen. The declaration, say this aloud. I break the curse of familiarity. I choose reverence. I choose awe. I choose obedience. God is not common. He is holy, and I will tremble again.

20:00 This is the word of the Lord, not just a podcast, not a performance. It's a prophetic invitation to repent and return to awe. Next episode, we'll walk slowly through the lives of Moses and Uzzah. Two men, two different responses. One removed his shoes, the other reached out his hand. One was caught, the other was killed. Until then, walk softly, worship deeply, and take God seriously. I'm Connie Morris, and this is Faith on the Go, the Diary of a Black Woman podcast.

20:40 And this is your call to reverence. Amen. Until next time. See you later.