Hi, and welcome to Jesus Over Everything, a five-day-a-week variety show that mixes encouragement, the Bible, practical how-toes, and fantastic guests for the listener on the go.

I'm Lisa Whittle, and I welcome you to just five minutes with me, which I trust and pray will be five minutes well spent.

If you know me, you know I absolutely love the Old Testament.

Now, listen, I love the entire Bible, but I think one of the

reasons I love the Old Testament is because for so long I didn't love it, because I didn't

understand it. And now I want to give it all the love it deserves, because when I really dove in

and really studied it and Jesus began to teach me about it, I fell hard in love with the richness

of the ancient scripture. And today I'm going to talk about one of my very favorites

and related to this first thing's first idea on this Monday,

the step we simply cannot ever skip

if our relationship with God is going to work.

Far too often, I think we wonder why our relationship with God is at a stalemate.

We don't know why it's not working. He feels far away. We aren't sure why our prayers don't seem

to be going anywhere. We're going to church or maybe Bible study, possibly both, doing all the right

things that we know to do, but it's still off between us and God. I've told the story on here

before from the Book of Joel, where Judah has become complacent in their sin and idolatry.

They've become wealthy and self-centered, and Joel has warned them about what this kind of

lifestyle would eventually bring. So the book of Joel is that prophecy and warning, if you will,

for them to turn back to God.

We know from reading this passage, specifically chapter 2, that they were people that were not

afraid to put on airs. They were often more about their outward displays than truly doing heart

business. And we know this because God called them out about it and said, specifically in Joel 2,

...