Do you ever wish we could get back to Eden?
Every day we create. Whether it’s creating language, ideas, tools, relationships, the list goes on. But tied to this incredible blessing to create freely comes the responsibility to create that which is true, good, and beautiful. Today's passionate guest, Jessica Shakir, founder of the Beautiful Mind Academy, brings us back to Genesis One, Two, and Three for this deep dive into what it means, as imago Dei, to be co-creators with the Creator. How are you using your God-given calling to creativity? Every single person is creative. Join us as we consider how God’s nature and Kingdom can be reflected through you and your intentional creativity.
Do you ever wish we could get back to Eden?
Every day we create. Whether it’s creating language, ideas, tools, relationships, the list goes on. But tied to this incredible blessing to create freely comes the responsibility to create that which is true, good, and beautiful. Today's passionate guest, Jessica Shakir, founder of the Beautiful Mind Academy, brings us back to Genesis One, Two, and Three for this deep dive into what it means, as imago Dei, to be co-creators with the Creator. How are you using your God-given calling to creativity? Every single person is creative. Join us as we consider how God’s nature and Kingdom can be reflected through you and your intentional creativity.
This idea that God creates. He is the only one who can create something from nothing. He is the entity, elohim, to bring the cosmos from the chaos, to bring order from the disorder, to bring light from the darkness. And what then? Is our role? Well, I just simply get to echo heaven and I get to go to God to find out who he is and therefore who I am, and then live that adventure out with Him.
Luke Allen:Hi friends, welcome to episode one of season two of Ideas have Consequences, the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. If you are new to the podcast, on this show we examine how our mission as Christians is to not only spread the gospel around the world to all the nations, but our mission also includes to be the hands and feet of God, to transform the nations to increasingly reflect the truth, goodness and beauty of God's kingdom. Tragically, the Church has largely neglected this second part of permission and today most Christians have little influence on their surrounding cultures. Join us on this podcast as we rediscover what it means for each of us to disciple the nations and to create Christ-honoring cultures that reflect the character of the living God.
Scott Allen:Welcome everybody once again to another episode of Ideas have Consequences. This is the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance. I'm Scott Allen and I'm joined today by my team members Luke Allen and Dwight Voet, and we are blessed and excited to have back with us again Jessica Shakir. Jessica, thank you so much for coming back on the podcast.
Jessica Shakir:Thank you for having me. I'm a huge fan of this podcast, and so it is a great honor to be back, and I can't wait to chat with you guys already.
Scott Allen:We are so. Honestly, it's humbling to hear you say that. I thank you for that. That's a huge encouragement to us. For those of you, it's been a while since Jessica was on. I thought I would kind of reintroduce her to our audience here and Jessica, feel free to fill in any gaps here. I'm sure there's going to be a lot, but I find Jessica to be one of the most fascinating people that we've ever had on the podcast. Just her background is fascinating, she's the founder?
Scott Allen:Absolutely. She's the founder of a wonderful Christian ministry called the Beautiful Mind Academy. It's a global online community of Jesus loving women renewing their minds with the word of God and transforming their worlds through spiritual growth and trustworthy sisterhood. The goal is to help people live lives that are fully aligned with the truth and fully alive. Jessica has such a fascinating background. She formerly worked as a celebrity hair and makeup artist for 25 years and she had a clientele that included such luminaries as Kevin Bacon, rachel Hunter, the Backstreet Boys, eminem, and the list goes on. Jessica was back when she was working in Hollywood. Jessica, now you're in Alabama. Right, I am, yeah, yeah, so that was a big change, just a little change.
Scott Allen:Yeah, just a little change I was going to mention too. Jessica's training is in the area of beauty, especially working with makeup artists and television. She's been regularly featured on nationally broadcast television, including ABC's FabLife, the Dr Oz Show, steve Harvey, america's Next Top Model, things like that. So all of that's very interesting. But I know you would say, jessica, what's most important to know is just your absolute love for God and desire to see people grow in their faith, especially women, and I think where we really connect is well in a lot of ways. But you love, we love. To go back to the very beginning Genesis, chapter one and chapter two which lays out the.
Scott Allen:It's, like you said, the foundational pillars upon which the entire Bible stand the biblical worldview, the worldview of reality.
Scott Allen:And very often I think, christians kind of skip over some of that and jump right into the fall and the story of redemption. Of course that's huge and you know I don't mean to in any way, you know, say that that's not important. It's huge. But there's so much in Genesis one and two and I know you feel the same way, jessica, remind us again how did you first connect with the DNA and what was it that kind of drew you to our ministry?
Jessica Shakir:Yes, I found you guys on Instagram and I instantly began stalking you all. Like reading all your posts all your captions.
Jessica Shakir:And I'm thinking, oh my gosh, these are my people. You know you're talking about truth and goodness and beauty, and you're talking about as Christians redeemed by the blood of Jesus, living in the Genesis one and two reality. And my heart is just just overjoyed and I started sharing your podcast on my Instagram and telling my friends about it, telling my pastors and mentors about it, and then you all started saying that I would be sharing your story. And then a little conversation happened in the DM and I remember, months and months into being a fan of this podcast, your ministry, and because I could just see the anointing and God's heart in it and the need for it in our world and in the church. I remember one night I went to bed and I had a couple of podcast interviews scheduled and so I thought, wow, thank you, lord for these podcast interviews. And then something in me went. You know why, don't you dream a little bit? What would be your dream podcast that you would like to be on? And so I wrote down two podcasts Only two came to mind, and ideas that have consequences was number one. Well, what did you know? The following day, luke, we were DMing because I also shared a story of DNA. Luke said hey, I was talking with the team, we'd love to talk with you and perhaps have you on the show as a guest the following day, not even a full 24 hours after I wrote down Lord, I would love to be on. Ideas have consequences, and here I am back a second time. I'm telling you I was told my husband. I feel so honored and I can't wait to have a conversation around like a deep dive into the theological masterpiece that is Genesis, particularly chapters one and two and three. There are these theological pillars that hold up the rest of the Bible really, and I think about it like this If I wanted to know a story well, if I wanted to, you wouldn't binge watch a Netflix series starting in chapter or episode four. You would begin in the pilot episode, episode one, episode two. You get the character development, you get all the lines of the storyline and all the layers of character and so on and so forth.
Jessica Shakir:When I read if you can see, I have a pretty big colorful bookshelf behind me I'm an avid reader. I love it. I don't start at page 45. I start at the beginning because I want to comprehend and I want to really eat it up and talk with the author and enjoy my reading. And so I look at the Bible the same way a lot of Christians and I grew up like this.
Jessica Shakir:For a large part of my faith I'm like, hey, I'm going to read a Proverbs day or I'm going to go to the Gospel of John, and then we pop corn around the Bible. And it wasn't until my late twenties that I thought wait a minute, I want to know the whole story. Well, wait a minute. I want to know what is from the beginning to end. I want to get to know the metanarrative of this word so that I can really enjoy knowing God. And as I did, that, you guys, as I, you know, ignited my intellectual capacity as a human, because my emotional capacity is already ignited for the Lord. I love Jesus, I love the word, I love the family of God, and I had a personal relationship with the Lord. I knew that, and yet it wasn't until my late twenties, early thirties I'm forty two now that like turning on activating that intellectual part coupled with the emotional part Whoa, the Bible has come to life and my, my sweet savior, the living God, is like my best friend.
Jessica Shakir:I marvel with him at the work of his hands every day, and I have noticed that Jessica has become more fully alive as the Bible, the word of God, has become more fully alive.
Scott Allen:Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, that's so good. I you know we live at a time, I think, in the culture where feelings definitely trump, you know, kind of reasoning and thinking, and so I appreciate you. You know, having I mean following the Holy Spirit down the avenue of kind of reengaging in the intellectual side. We're created with both. You know this capacity to reason and to feel, which is wonderful, but you know, in our the time that we live in, I think feelings have just really trumped everything else.
Jessica Shakir:And so hey, jessica.
Scott Allen:I wanted you to talk a little bit more about beautiful mind Academy and and especially your, your current project, which is called co-create. I'd love to have you explain a little bit about what you're working on right now.
Jessica Shakir:I would love to so. The beautiful mind Academy was birthed in 2020 and it was quite the life changing experience that year for all of us. And at the end, a quick little backstory, if you will. I had a neck injury in 2019. I think I might have shared this on the episode the first episode we did, but that put me in bed rest for five months. It took a whole year of re, just healing and recuperating and gaining my strength back, and 2019 for me was my own personal pandemic year, if you will. I was at home a lot. I couldn't work because I couldn't move my neck, and so what started off being a pretty wretched year, just an arduous, painful year ended up by the end of 2019. I could look back. My mind site is always 2020.
Jessica Shakir:Thank the Lord, holy Spirit was just showing me that he was shifting the trajectory of my life and he was wooing me in this direction of being able to study and teach and disciple and mentor women. And so I started 2019 with a neck injury and had to take a step back from my 25 year careers and makeup artists. I was doing pretty well for myself traveling from New York to LA, new York to LA, and apparently it was too much for my body. And yet God took that and he used it for good and by the end of 2019, I got a business coach. I was working with a spiritual director, a mentor of mine, and I was on this path of I would love to walk alongside women in discipleship and mentorship and leadership, and in creativity and beauty. Above all, I'm a student of beauty. I love beauty. I've loved beauty all my life and in 2020, I launched a virtual event and I was preparing for this virtual event. It was a 21 day virtual event and we ended up being in June and we all know it happened in June of 2020. The world was on fire. People were just hostile to one another and fear was running rampant and little of me launched a 21 day virtual event called the Beautiful Mind Summit and we had pastors and authors and psychologists and psychiatrists and just women running in their lane doing really beautiful good work in the world for the Lord and with the Lord. And in that 21 day virtual event, we had 2,500 women from over 33 countries come through my virtual event.
Jessica Shakir:I was floored. I was a makeup artist before that. I didn't know how to run an online business and online ministry. But I was learning and from there I thought whoa, lord, you're bringing the nations right to my living room and my pajama pants and all I get to connect with women so comfortably. Before I was traveling the world and I love, love, love that.
Jessica Shakir:And yet now God was bringing women of the world into my life, into my heart, by way of the internet, these virtual events. And so I prayed and I said, lord, what do you have for me? What do you want me to do? And this tumultuous year of 2020, what is my role? And I just felt like a very gentle whisper create a safe place for my daughters to dwell. And so that's what I did, and I launched the beautiful Mind Academy, and we have women from all over the nations. We do various coaching programs, if you will, and mentorship programs and virtual events and classes. I bring in a lot of people, people that I learned from. I'd love for you guys to come on in one day and we do in person retreats as well.
Jessica Shakir:And so, from 2020 until now, I've been part-time this . Now I'm doing this full time. So I moved to Alabama. I stepped away from my job as a hair and makeup artist. I was difficult at the beginning but what I do now I am so delighted in and I see how God doesn't waste a thing. I see that my my heart for beauty and my eye for the aesthetics and my study of beauty and Jonathan Edwards helped me put language to this a few years ago that he posed a question one study beauty apart from studying God?
Jessica Shakir:No because to study one is to study the other, and so I've been a student of beauty all my life. But really more powerfully, more importantly, I've been a student of the creator of beauty, or, dare I say, beauty itself. And so now I get to explore biblical beauty with women through virtual events, and we're going through a program right now called Co-Create, and I am I just I'm so giddy about the work I get to do so often.
Jessica Shakir:I say Lord, this gets to be my life, Like I don't have to fly anywhere, go on set. I mean, I do fly now. Thank.
Jessica Shakir:God, I'm well enough to take trips, but I don't have to like go on set and be on set for 10 hours or 12 hours or longer. I could feast on your word, like this morning. I woke up at six and had a three hour geek out session with Jesus over Genesis, you know. And then from the overflow of my study time and with my alone time, I get to invite women into learning with me, and I'm really big on. It's not an invitation to learn from me there's that, yes but it's more of an invitation learn with me and and let's dive into the scripture. And I won't have all the answers, but I would love to help you find it. Let's go.
Scott Allen:Jessica, your work sounds amazing and it just.
Scott Allen:It's so exciting to hear your testimony of how God worked in that time, that challenging time for you, and is now using you to really teach and to encourage and help people all over the world. What a. It's just such a great, great, great reminder of the goodness of our God. And I also, just you know, I know we talked a lot about this on our first podcast, but beauty, and just your passion for beauty, and how that is rooted in God himself. God is the author, he is beautiful himself and then he's the author of beauty.
Scott Allen:I just think I just I'd like to remind our listeners, because I think even gelicles I know I did for many years they struggle with this idea of beauty. You know, the first thought is beauty is a subjective thing or it's not important. You know, I mean, you know, of course people like to make things, you know, typically beautiful, but it gets short shrift. And when you think about, when you combine it, you know we do truth, goodness, beauty, the truth and the goodness, or, you know, kind of ethics, if you will, righteousness. We don't think of those.
Scott Allen:We take those a lot more seriously. We don't think of those as subjective or not important. Right, those are objective, rooted in God. Right, and we get offended if people say, oh, it's just subjective, it's whatever you think, it is right. But we tend to think that way about beauty and I love that. You know we don't need to do that same deep dive we did, but I really love just the reminder that you know beauty is objective and it's rooted in God, and to push deep into beauty is to find, is to push into who God is and to learn more about him.
Scott Allen:So invite listeners to listen to the Go Back and listen to that first podcast. But I wanted to move on to your current work and have you explained a little bit more about co-create. What is that that you're working on?
Jessica Shakir:Yes, we've gone through two cohorts where we did a five-week intensive with 10 women. We did this through the month of September and we're currently doing this now in the month of November and we do a deep dive into Genesis 1, 2 and 3. Again, in five weeks you can just barely scratch the surface of the revelation and they're in the literary masterpiece and the theological masterpiece that is Genesis. And yet it's been so rewarding to, in community, feast on the word of God and have the word of God do the heavy work, what it awakens in women as we are again like, igniting the intellectual part of our being and partnering up with that emotional part of our being and those two together, man. It's been so exciting and it's also what I'm writing my book on the beauty of God, the glory of God and knowing God as creator.
Scott Allen:Say the title again. I'm sorry, what's the title?
Jessica Shakir:Well, I'll share. I do have a working title, but the idea the theme of the book is exploring the beauty and the glory of God and knowing him as creator, and how and why, do? We need to know him intimately as creator. What does?
Jessica Shakir:that do for our soul. What does that do for me as a woman in 2023? You know, and there's so much to it. So I really enjoy these seemingly archaic concepts, but these timeless truths and how they apply to our modern day lives. And so co-create came from an overflow of the studying I'm doing for my book and the writing I'm doing for my book, and I thought, oh my gosh, I have so much in my heart. I want to share this and I want to talk through it and I want to move through this with other women. Plus, I want to hear their feedback, and so I thought, well, let me do a five week intensive.
Jessica Shakir:So I put the word out and I had 10 incredible women join me in September, like I mentioned, and then 10 incredible women joined me in November, and we all have been, as I say, often geeking out over the word, and it is so much fun and it is proving to be revelatory for the way we live our lives as women, as image bearers image bearers of the living God, of the creator, and how we are invited to co-create with the living God to bring beauty, truth and goodness into every industry we're, in, every room we walk into, every Zoom conversation we get to have, every relationship we have. That Dr Robert Jeffress put it this way and I love it. It's cute, it's catchy, but it's actually really true. He says God creates the avocados, we make, the guacamole God makes the cherries, we make the cherry pie.
Jessica Shakir:And so, as I'm studying Genesis, and even right there in the beginning in Genesis 1, 1, B'rashi'i ba'a elokhim and I am not a Hebrew expert yet, but I'm practicing but this idea that God creates, he is the only one who can create something from nothing. We know that. We've heard that before In Latin. How do you pronounce it?
Jessica Shakir:I don't know how to pronounce that land, but I know how to spell it.
Jessica Shakir:And so God is the one that first creates something from nothing. He is the entity, elokhim, to bring the cosmos from the chaos, to bring order from the disorder, to bring light from the darkness. And what, then, is our role? Well, I just simply get to echo heaven and I get to go to God to find out who he is and therefore who I am, and then live that adventure out with Him. So I don't create something from nothing. I use what God has already created and entrusted me with.
Jessica Shakir:So this idea of co-creating with the living God and with each other was being really being highlighted to me as I was doing my studying. So what does that look like to co-create? So, while you have to dive into, well, what does it look like to partner with someone? And then one of the major themes in the word of God covenant. What is a covenant? What is God's role in the covenant, what is our role in the covenant? And so co-create kept being highlighted to me, and now I can't unsee it. You know everything I do.
Jessica Shakir:So what co-create has turned into is next year we're doing actually, a 12 month mastermind. It's a 12 month mentorship program for creative women, christian creative women who want to continue to renew their mind with the word of God and co-create is going to be, think of it as spiritual fuel for their creative soul. So as they create in the home, as they create in their workplace, in the marketplace, in their neighborhood, in their relationships, in their family, in their own self, it's always an invitation to partner with the living God, to co-create with the living God and be a part of his story, so the pressure is really off of us.
Scott Allen:Yeah, Jessica, you're putting so much on the table. You're setting it right and there's such big ideas. I feel like I want to go back and just kind of highlight them again, you know, for our listeners, because I just think there's such huge and important ideas and you know everything you're saying. I and Dwight, I'm Luke. I'm sure you guys would completely agree with this. It's just so vital. Because I think when we yeah, go ahead.
Dwight Vogt:I have a question on that. Why, yeah, why is that igniting the soul of women? I mean, usually you want to talk about well, you need to focus on something else to develop yourself, but you're talking about being co-creator. You're saying it's igniting their souls. It's like leading to. Why is that? Why is it so?
Jessica Shakir:important? The nature, yeah, the big picture is. And what first came to mind? I mean, we all know that the nature and the reality of truth, absolute truth, has the power to heal, to power to set free and the power to awaken. You know, is it at the end of the Gospel of Luke? Is it when Jesus takes that like seven mile miracle walk? I call it with the disciples, before they knew it was Jesus speaking to them. And, lord, help me with the references and addresses of your word.
Jessica Shakir:But it's at the end of one of the the Gospels and, yeah, it's the end of Luke and it's that last chapter of Luke. So the 24th chapter and verse 30 says it was, it was as he reclined at the table with him that he took the bread, blessed it and broke it and gave it to them. Then their eyes were open and they recognized him, but he disappeared from their sight. But previously and I invite you all to read this chapter is that they were talking. Jesus was talking to them, covering everything from Genesis to Malachi. Their heart was beating and bursting and then they do like, oh my gosh, we're talking to Jesus and their eyes were open. And so the power that truth has, for that matter, the power that beauty has. I mean, you guys teach it so beautifully that truth, beauty and goodness, they define each other. The power that is unlocked when we sit unrushed, dwell, hover, dare I say, over the word of God and feast on it together. It's not just when we do the co-create. There is a master class, there is a lecture, if you will, but I love facilitating conversation and igniting our imagination, allowing scripture, and I believe scripture should play the key role in shaping the human imagination.
Jessica Shakir:And so why is this for women? Why is it igniting them? Well, looking back, historically, women were not invited to the table on these types of conversations, these theological conversations. And in biblical times, you know, and throughout history, even now, unfortunately, a lot of women were never taught to read. You know, they didn't have the same opportunities as men did to, say, learn Torah in biblical times.
Jessica Shakir:And so I think women, we've grown up with this, maybe, even if it's not spoken, this unspoken resistance like oh, who am I? I'm just a woman, I'm not a theologian. Oh, who am I? I can't unpack the great mystery of the word of God. And yet, when we just start slowly and move through it and allow scripture to you know, unpack scripture, and with the help of theologians and classical thinkers, then our eyes are open, like those in Luke 24, verse 30,. Their eyes were opened, and weren't our hearts burning within as well? He was talking with us on the road and explaining scripture to us. So I just, I just love that. And yes, theology is a study of God. It's equally available to men and women, and aren't we all, then, in pursuit of being great theologians?
Scott Allen:I think you know the, the idea, and this comes, of course, from Genesis, chapter one, and it's one of the most. It's really the bedrock pillar and, in some ways, of our faith and of our whole civilization. It's this idea that human beings, male and female, are made in the image and likeness of God.
Scott Allen:And so when we want to understand who we are, you know, when we ask that all important question, who am I? You know, the Bible invites us to say look to God. That's, that's how you, that's how you learn about who you are, and that's very different from the secular worldview. The secular worldview doesn't believe in God and it invites you to look to the animal world.
Scott Allen:Right, you're, you're essentially an evolved animal right and animals typically don't create. I mean, there's some that use maybe a few little tools here and there, but one of the most powerful things, right that it you know that it means to be made in the image of God is is is this idea that we are called to be creators because God is a creator. You know, I just think that's such a powerful idea.
Scott Allen:We, we, you know that God created everything that exists and then he made us in his image and he didn't want the creation to end you know, at the end of the, at the end of the seven days, he wanted it to continue through us, and that's a huge part of what it means to be a human being.
Scott Allen:And I just was reflecting on this, Jessica, because I think, you know, nowadays we talk a lot about creatives. You know, there it's a category, it's a group of people, right, they're, they're the creative ones. I'm not. A lot of people think I'm not, I'm not particularly creative, and I want to say to them no, you are like that's that, you are made in the image of a creative God. You need to think more broadly about what that means, and I even love the way you earlier. We're talking about just all the ways we express this creativity. It's not just in making art or wine, or brewing beer or whatever people think about, you know, nowadays, but it's, it's in very simple things that you do every day, you know, in your home you know.
Scott Allen:I mean, we're all called to be creative and that you know that pleases God, you know.
Scott Allen:So, anyways, I just I want to underscore a lot of the things that you're saying because I think we in the DNA and I'll let you continue, but in the DNA world, you know, we talk a lot about the importance of work and vocation and how people are called in different ways to different, to different tasks and vocations, and they're all important in God's big economy.
Scott Allen:But a lot of times in this kind of current evangelical world that we live in, they get short shrift because it's a very narrow kind of worldview that says all that really is important there are spiritual things and the really supreme tasks have to do with evangelism and saving souls and, yes, those are supremely important things you know to be concerned about. But what gets unsaid or sometimes said is that everything else doesn't really matter, right, like you know what you know, your work let's say you wanted to be an artist or whatever it is that doesn't really matter, right, you know it doesn't have a total value and it just leaves people really broken, you know, because they're made to create and they've got a calling to create. We all do so, anyways, I'm just, I know I'm, I'm reiterating things that you're saying, I just think it's so important.
Scott Allen:Yeah just want to kind of underscore that again.
Jessica Shakir:I'm glad that you brought that up because let's talk about how men and women interact with that idea of work. Creatives. A little different, and from my perspective, is that even with my husband, like I'm the makeup artist, I like to paint, I like to write, I like to choreograph and dance, and the seemingly very creative skill sets and curiosities and passions. And yet the first creative assignment was giving to, given to the man in the garden, adam. Adam was given the assignment to name all the animals. That takes some massive creativity to say oh, giraffe, tiger, hippopotamus, you know. And so at the beginning in Genesis, chapter two is we read and whatever the man called the living creature that was his name, I'm not reading that God was like a helicopter mom or helicopter dad saying oh no, rethink that. No, let me think about this one. No, let me name that animal. I don't like that name. He passed on the assignment knowing full well that what Adam has in him is capable of being creative. Adam is very capable of naming other animals, I'm sure it delighted God.
Scott Allen:It was thrilling to him, I think, because that's how he made us. And you know we get a sense of this. I know I do. I have kids and you know, when they're newborns you get so excited when they start creating. You know, this first drawing, like this little drawing that they do and it's, you know, on one hand it's kind of like that's cute, but they, it's theirs, they imagined it in a sense. You're right, we don't create out of nothing, but in a sense we do. It was in their mind.
Scott Allen:And then it came out on a piece of paper with a crayon and we just put it on the fridge and we keep it there for months Because, man, that's so important, we're so excited about that, and that it's that that we're talking about, that's God's heart, that's who we are, and that all needs to be affirmed right in our worldview you know, that we are.
Scott Allen:You know that we are made to create, and we're made to create not just physical things too. We're made to create culture. You know, based on the Word of God and on biblical truth, we can create a way of living in our families, our sports teams. We're just creative people, and it's, it's part of what makes life meaningful. So I'm sorry you guys geeking out here too, but Never apologize for geeking out.
Jessica Shakir:I think like men don't realize how creative the creative capacity that you have. And historically it's been like, deemed a feminine thing, like, oh, my wife is really creative, but there's, it's innate. It's a natural thing in us being made in the image of the creator itself. You know what else is cool? This idea of what we might think of a masculine word and what we might think of a more feminine word, is that the word when God created Adam and when God created Eve we know that in the Hebrew he used two different words for create, and so when he created Adam, that word was yet sour, something like that.
Jessica Shakir:Look it up in your blue letter Bible app or concordance. But it's a Hebrew word meaning to fashion and to shape into mold, like that of a potter and clay. And it actually is the same word used in Jeremiah when God says before I formed you in the womb, I knew you like, formed you. So, men, you're actually fashioned and shaped by God, like God came close. God then and now is holding you with his hands, like lifting you up and shaping you. Well, I think fashion and shape. I think of a more feminine, you know word or visual.
Jessica Shakir:But the Hebrew word for created a woman in Genesis 222 is Bana. God built a woman will build. I've always thought like that's a man's job. My husband is a handyman and a work, a wood builder, and he just he created this bookshelf behind me and I think of him as the builder. But again, like unpacking scripture with the original language, knowing the cultural context of that time and content, again the whole men and narrative things begin to jump out like whoa. So wait a minute, god, you built me, I'm capable of building. Well, of course, I build families and build communities.
Scott Allen:Women can build cities, ministry or civilization?
Jessica Shakir:Yes, but we don't do it apart from men. We need men and women to rightly reflect the glory of God on this earth and rightly unlock the fullness of his blessing on earth.
Scott Allen:Absolutely that. You know dominion mandate that's given in Genesis chapter one and chapter two.
Scott Allen:And, you know, be fruitful, fill the earth. That's given to be fruitful. Multiply, fill the earth. And that's not just I think we think of that as just fill the earth kind of procreation. It's filled the earth with the truth, the goodness and the beauty of heaven. You know, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So it's much broader than procreation, as important as that is. You know, it's just, it encompasses this entire creative enterprise and it's given to men and women. Right, that's not just a job description for men or for women, it's for both. And you're right, jessica, they bring both, they bring unique things together to that enterprise.
Dwight Vogt:I want to go back to the Jonathan Edwards quote. You said God is the source of beauty. I remember hearing that from Darrell years ago and starting to think about it and geek out a bit on it as the source of beauty, because it's like I realized that I could. I could look at architecture built by somebody who wasn't walking with Lord, didn't know the Lord and yet had created beauty, and I could appreciate that beauty.
Dwight Vogt:I remember listening to a couple of singers who I knew weren't Christians, that didn't love God, but they were creating beautiful music and because God was the source of that beauty, I could love that beauty and it was I don't know what. For me, that was mind blowing that that beauty is not it's. God is the source. So you can love beauty wherever you see it. You don't have to, oh, I need Christian beauty, I need Christian art. No, you just need to appreciate the beauty that God creates. And and and then the question. Then, then, the other thing that blew my mind on beauty was that that God had created beauty. He is the essence of beauty, he has all beauty, and then he gives us the responsibility to make the cherry pie. He just makes a cherry.
Dwight Vogt:And then he says but I want you to make the cherry pie and I'm thinking he could make the cherry pie so much better, you know he could do. He could do everything we think we're doing. We're so good at creating iPhones and iPads and stuff. He could do it so much better. So we. Those are the kinds of thing that you know. If you keep that in mind, you not only know God is the source, but you have a humility about your own creative talents and yeah, and it keeps us from getting egotistical about how amazing we are, you know.
Dwight Vogt:But I think that goes back to. Genesis night. Anyway, I just appreciate your focus on beauty. I love it. You know what you said about sorry go on.
Luke Allen:My turn to geek out, you know.
Jessica Shakir:I'm just sitting over here thinking.
Luke Allen:I like what you said about responsibility, though, dwight, when when I hear the verse, you know it's the first command of God to us in Genesis be fruitful. In order to be fruitful, we need to be rooted into something. We need to be rooted into the tree and the source of that, and then we can bear the fruit. So we need to, you know, to create beauty, you have to create it in a reflection and an admiration of the beauty that God's given us. But that responsibility God gave us free will as well.
Luke Allen:As you guys are talking, I'm thinking about my day, and everything I do is creating. Essentially, you could pretty much say that you know you're creating an atmosphere of peace, or you're creating a idea, or you're creating a, you know, a fitness plan or whatever it is, and yet if we're not creating something that's true, good, beautiful, we're going to be creating something that's ugly, a lie or is destructive, and in that case, you're not being fruitful because you're not taking what God's given you and making it better. Taking the avocado, making guacamole, you're taking the avocado and you're destroying it and you're ruining it. So the opposite of fruitful, whatever that is. So you know, with great creativity comes great responsibility, in a way, is what are you going to do with that? And all of us as humans can create truth, goodness and beauty, but we all have the capacity as well to destroy and take what God made and made it worse.
Scott Allen:Yeah, I think it's a really good point, luke, you know, after the fall, genesis three, these innate kind of parts of what it means to be made in God's image, like creativity. They don't go away after the fall, they continue, but now they're marred, right. So we still create, like that's just how we're hardwired. We are hardwired by God. That's built into our creation. We still create, but now we create in a destructive way. Right, we create destructive things or destroy things, right, but it's still create. So, as Christians, then it's all about. You know, this is where redemption comes in.
Scott Allen:We're called to kind of redeem this act the activity of creation you know to align it with the beauty and the truth and the goodness of God. Right, yeah, so.
Jessica Shakir:This is what I love when brothers and sisters and Christ get together to just glorify God and feast on his word, just be with him, learn about him, dwell, because you all brought up so many good things and you know responsibility that word, I know it can maybe the connotation of that word to some feels heavy or I kind of lean away from it. But when I embraced this concept of radical responsibility, like radically taking responsibility for the choices I make and how I think and how I move through the world, things really started changing for me, like my thinking with God.
Jessica Shakir:My imagination began to be stretched because yes we have a choice, we have free will and it's always an invitation by God and the mandate to be fruitful and multiply. In verse 28 of chapter one, what came right before that is, god blessed them and then said be fruitful, multiply. So we are blessed to go.
Jessica Shakir:Be a blessing by the way we are fruitful, by the way we multiply, by the way we co-create with God and a lot of people today we get into this unhealthy mindset, this false ideology, and all it takes is one little degree of a wrong turn and it somehow turns into this big gapping wound. But a lot of people in the church are working and doing and striving because they want to be blessed. And do you love me, god? Am I good enough? But we have to remember we were blessed at the beginning. God is a gracious, generous God that loves to bless. In fact, blessing is a major theme of Genesis and so God blessed them and then said be fruitful and multiply, and Dwight to your point.
Jessica Shakir:I love Jonathan Edwards as well. I have one of his um adaption books in front of me and it says that Jonathan Edwards found in his study of beauty the very person of God. The study of true beauty was, for Edwards, the study of God and this devotional pursue. Edwards found rich and perpetual food for his soul. He discovered nothing less than the purpose of his life and the meaning of his existence. His life was to be a reflection of the beauty of God, a small mirror catching and sending back the rays of the Lord's divinity, winning him glory and honor until life on earth closed and life in heaven began. And when you take a posture of marveling at God, in that way that I am just now reflecting your beauty, you can't help but take the posture of humility, which is really just getting into position of rightful thinking. Andrew Murray, another what is 18th 19th century Logen theologian. I love him. He wrote a whole book on humility and say that again.
Jessica Shakir:While it's so rich, Sitting no, no, no, your quote, just say it again sitting in the position of oh, it's getting in that posture and taking on the position, the rightful position, as you are the creature and God is the creator.
Dwight Vogt:Right, let's.
Scott Allen:I like somebody. I mean this is you guys have heard this too about humility. Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less, you know. I like that. It's this idea that, yeah, it's not, it's not, it's not bashing yourself, it's just. It's understanding that who you are as a created being you know, and that there is a creator and you're not. You know, you're not, you're not the creator, you're not.
Jessica Shakir:God, yeah, you're not, it yeah.
Scott Allen:And you're not it Right? I mean, that's basic humility to me. I think it's just different than this idea that we often have of kind of bashing ourselves and and yeah.
Jessica Shakir:Spurgeon says humility is the proper estimate of oneself.
Jessica Shakir:Yes, but we have to remember how blessed and blessed and hallowed favor we have to know who we are in Christ, like he didn't. Just and here's another conversation I don't feel God needs us to do anything. I feel he desires and wants us to do. Who was it? One of you said he could make a better cherry pie. Do I, was it you like God, you can make a better cherry pie. Well, if he needed you to make a cherry pie, he might say oh, scoot over, let me do it. I can make a perfect one, but he wants to like that.
Jessica Shakir:That father embracing this child like artwork he wants to see you creating with him and yes. And so that, yeah, that humility plays such a key, vital role in understanding God and understanding us, and it doesn't take away from the honor that we carry and the glory that we reflect and the beauty that we embody.
Scott Allen:It's a big deal and I think we offer up the things that we create, as you know, as as Thanksgiving offerings to God. You know, you, you enabled all of this to happen and God says but you created it, you know, and I love that that you created it. You know that's what it means to be made in in my image, and there's so many things that I just love about this whole creative process. I just think, like one of the things I love about it, too, is is that when we create things because we're unique, god created us unique as unique individuals, so our creations are unique and we can create things that other people value, that they couldn't make. You know, and the whole kind of free market economy is based on that like, wow, what you made there is is really wonderful. You know, I'm willing to pay you money for that and it's just, it's the basis of everything.
Scott Allen:You know that it starts with this, this powerful idea of human creativity, and we add value to people's lives. You know, and they're gladly, you know, willing to to pay money. You know, as I am, you know for things that people have created useful things, beautiful things, and, yeah, I just it's. And back to your, your idea of God blessing in Genesis, chapter one you know. God bless them and said be fruitful and multiply. You're right, cannot run over that, jessica. That's just so fundamental and I know often in the DNA we're working in very impoverished communities around the world.
Scott Allen:And and people. They have a kind of what we call a poverty mindset. They're not, you know they're. They see themselves first and foremost as poor, and they are, you know they're. They're impoverished in many, you know significant ways. They live on less than a dollar a day and if you say you know you're blessed, they would say how right, you know, I don't see that.
Scott Allen:And it's good to remind people, all of us, you know, of just what that means. Look at your hand, just take a look at that, you know. Look at those fingers, watch them move. You know, is that valuable to you? Is that a blessing to you? You know? I mean, that's just one thing you know, and you could go on and on, and so it's. It's just helpful to remind ourselves that God has blessed us and then given us this capacity to use these blessings to create new things.
Dwight Vogt:So I have a question, Jessica.
Jessica Shakir:Oh, go ahead. Yeah Well, really quick. That reminds me of an episode that you all did in a conversation that you had about this poverty mindset and there is poverty in much and most of the world and the conversation. What's coming to mind right now is, instead of asking someone, well, what do you need? What can I give you, Ask someone what do you have to give? What is it? Yeah, what do?
Jessica Shakir:you have A passion a talent, a curiosity, what do you love? And then helping them building them up, like discipling them they have something to give their valuable their full of honor. And so I love that question and that conversation that you all had. So that just came to mind.
Luke Allen:Well, I love this idea of of blessing, though I think of when it comes to like an artist. I think we all can tell the difference between a movie made by someone who wanted to make a lot of money.
Luke Allen:So their incentive was I'm going to make this as attractive as possible for the audience that I want to reach versus the director that creates a movie purely from his own creative you know genius and just wants to make something unique and new and fully express themselves. You can say that any, any type of art and because one of them is made for someone else, trying to figure out what they want and somehow fit into that mold and create something like that, as it say. You know, when I was a little kid, if I wanted to create that drawing on that piece of paper with crayon, and I felt like, in order to be blessed, I needed to make it the way you want it to be, so I used your favorite colors and I would explain something that you liked so that you would give me approval, versus you blessing me and saying no matter what you create, you have the freedom to create whatever you want to create.
Luke Allen:I just love watching you do it. I'm going to create something completely different in that in that way, because it gives me that freedom as a creative, to just explore. You know and I think that verse really illustrates that beautifully You're blessed. No matter what you create, as long as it's true, good and beautiful. I love it. I'm excited to watch you create it I don't need you to, but I want to watch you do it versus the other way around, where we create so that we can achieve God's blessing. That's a totally different type of creativity.
Scott Allen:It's kind of fake.
Scott Allen:You're bringing up a really deep point to Luke that there's a deep connection between creativity and freedom. And again, this is also something that we read in Genesis one and two, that God created Adam and Eve with freedom, with a free will to. You know this capacity to make free choices. He didn't have to. He could have made them puppets or robots. That he didn't. You know, and you see them exercising freedom, wrongly of course, in their choice to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. God knew that that could happen and would happen. I mean, he had the foreknowledge that it would happen, but it was a risk he was willing to take because he wanted human beings to be free. I don't think they could have been creative without freedom. Jessica, any thoughts that you have on that, as you've been really reflecting deeply on on creativity and these first couple chapters in Genesis? Of course.
Scott Allen:Don't invite me to the party I'm going to show up.
Jessica Shakir:Luke, first of all, what you just said touched my heart so profoundly. And now I'm thinking of Matthew three, when Jesus started his public ministry by being baptized and this is a profound moment in time. And Matthew three 16, when Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water. The heaven suddenly opened for him and he saw the spirit of God descending like a dove and coming down on him and a voice from heaven said this is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased.
Jessica Shakir:This was before Jesus did any miracles preached to 5000, you know, taught in the synagogue, or actually we know a few clips of his young life, but this was before Jesus did all these miraculous moments in real time. And he we see that his father was well delighted in him. I'm well pleased. There was a blessing over Jesus, and so even Jesus and his earthly ministry carrying out his mission, carrying out his mandate, he did it from a place of I am blessed, my father's well pleased in me, and I just imagine it makes all the difference living from a place of I am loved and I am known by my father, by my father in heaven, versus I want to do this so I can be loved, so I can be known, and so that's really profound for me too, and I like connecting the dots with Old Testament and new, and so, scott, to your question yes, I imagine.
Jessica Shakir:So now let's go to Genesis two, 15, when the Lord God took the man and placed him in the Garden of Eden to work it and watch over it. And the Lord God commanded the man you are free. Which is pot of berries.
Scott Allen:You are free, exactly. I like to end on that sometimes because we always go you are free to eat, but just those first three words you are free, yes, and I picture it's so profound Go ahead. Sorry, jessica. I picture.
Jessica Shakir:No, no worries, and I picture. And this is me, I'm picturing. I'm picturing God kind of doing a twirl in the garden. And God's saying you're free to eat from any of this. Look, all of this.
Jessica Shakir:I already did for you, like any tree in the garden. So we first see God in this abundance, this generosity, this invitation, and then there's one no. There's all of this yes, and there's one no, but you must not eat from the tree the knowledge of good and evil, for on the day you will eat, you will certainly die. So God's yes came first and his only no was to spare us from death. And it's still the same today, god's abundant inviting you come co-create, come be fully alive.
Jessica Shakir:I want the joy of heaven in your soul. I want people on earth to know like the kingdom of heaven is good, because I'm a good king. And yet the no is to spare us from death. It always has been, and Satan's first lie was to lure us right into death. So, right from the beginning, god is inviting us into life and Satan is luring us into death. So choose this day whom you will serve. Choose this day life or death. And so I think it's profound that we remember his gosh. His permission came before the prohibition, and so many people get it twisted.
Scott Allen:That's right, absolutely. And, by the way, the prohibition. People wonder what? Why did God do that? Why couldn't they just do anything? I mean it was really, if you think of Satan's deception in luring them to eat from that forbidden fruit, it was an invitation to be like God. I mean, they were essentially saying, they were saying God is Satan, kind of put this idea in their heads that God is this bad guy and he wants to keep things from you and if you eat from this fruit you can be just like him, and that I think no, you can't, you never will, because God is God and you're not. Again, that goes back to our humility discussion. But that's always the temptation in the fallen human heart to be independent, autonomous apart from God, to be God.
Scott Allen:And that's the prohibition, that's the prohibition, yeah, but anyways, go ahead, dwight.
Dwight Vogt:Yeah, you guys have already touched on it, but you're. I think it's important for people who are listening to us to know that we think about salvation and we got to the fall. Now. He gave us a prohibition, we know we broke it and we walked into death. And the question is now he saves us, and the rest of the story is how does God save us? And I often ask what does he save us to? What does he save us for? And so many people say, well, he saved us to be saved.
Dwight Vogt:He saved you to share salvation with others, but what do you actually?
Scott Allen:save to do, to inhabit heaven after you die, or something like that, but actually he saved us to go back and really live what he planned in Genesis one and two.
Dwight Vogt:what we've been talking about, and I think, if you think about round anyway, bring it home, no no. Jessica, you can say it much better.
Scott Allen:You must be from Alabama, jessica, there, yeah, jessica can say it much better than me, so you just go ahead and finish my conversation here.
Jessica Shakir:I love that she brought us here. I love it Because, yes, we got to the fall. Now we're Genesis three. Satan threw the serpent, just that, luring into this false belief. And when you look at it, yes, and amen's got to what you said. I mean, even now people want to be gods of their own life, apart from the living God and the other thing, this theme, that the first thing that was attacked in that moment in Genesis three was God's word and his goodness.
Scott Allen:That's right. Does he really say that? Well?
Jessica Shakir:you know she got all twisted on the words like ah. And I think that the enemy today, well, we know he's just the same. He has the same tricks up his sleeve and he's still tempting women in that same way. Do you really know God's word? You don't really know God's word. You should just let the men teach and preach. You know there's the same invitation to be like timid and you know, shoot, I'm gonna get it wrong.
Jessica Shakir:And yes, we have to be very careful and hold the word of God as such dignity and honor and humility and such, and have mentors and have disciple and be in discipleship. But getting back to in Genesis three, it was the God's word and his goodness that were attacked. And isn't that the same thing in our culture today? You see another war breaking out, you see more famine and then the earthquake and people dying and people being abused, women being abused, children being abducted, and people right away are challenged and they almost like they can't even hold that truth anymore that God is good, so they kind of walk away from it. And yet God is still good and you have his goodness in you.
Jessica Shakir:And what if you could be a remedy to this problem that breaks your heart in the world, like, what if you're not just waiting on God? What if God is waiting on you, so to speak, like he wants your participation? And so one of the best ways to stand firm and to, I feel, to enter into spiritual warfare, to guard ourselves, is to get so well acquainted with the goodness of God and his word that we're never deceived again and, yes, we go back into you know, I'd like to go in a little bit of a different direction and ask you a question, because I know a lot of Christians.
Scott Allen:Their theology is such that when they hear a conversation, like we're having, about creativity and the creation of new things, new art, new resources you know culture, whatever it is what they hear is oh, that's nice, but it's not really that important. And then if they continue on in their thought, they will say it's all going to burn, you know, it's all going to be destroyed, and kind of. Then the only thing that's going to make it past, that is human souls, and kind of this whole creative enterprise really, at the end of the day, doesn't really count.
Scott Allen:How do you respond to that kind of? I know that's kind of moving now from the beginning to the end, but how do you? What are your thoughts on that?
Jessica Shakir:Yeah, well what?
Scott Allen:goes to mind, or have you thought about that?
Jessica Shakir:Yeah, for sure, because I was confronted with my body breaking down in 2019 and I realized I had put all this prioritization on my spiritual health and my emotional health and I wasn't being a good steward of this temple that the spirit of God dwells and, oh my gosh, where did that come from? And so I had to look at my upbringing, and so I recognized that ideology, scott, because for a little bit, I was under that that, oh, this is going away anyway.
Jessica Shakir:Oh, don't focus on the physical part of your body and the world. And yet we do live in a physical world. And yet, you know, let me take it back to, not just the garden, let me take it back to the beginning, the genesis of time, because this is what I'm saying. This helps to unlock truth for me that in the beginning, in Genesis one, we see God in his divine wisdom orchestrating this perfectly well-ordered, well-run cosmology, earth, everything in it, and there's a couple of, there's a lot of creative process. The creative process that we see blows my mind, because one element is take the six days of creation. I'm sure we all know this, but visualize so days one, two and three God created the form and now the corresponding. Let's say you number your page one, two and three on one column, and on the next column you number it four, five and six. So days one, two and three are when God created the form. The corresponding creation days, day four, five and six, are when he filled the form.
Jessica Shakir:He first created the form of Adam and then got so close that he breathed into his nostrils and filled this form. Adam became a living being, a soul. So God first created the physical reality and then he breathed the spiritual reality into it. And so on this side of heaven we can't compartmentalize spirit, soul and body. It's all to be stewarded well for the glory of God and the goodness of others. And so I had to face that reality, scott, that wow. Up until I was about mid when did that neck injury happen? Mid thirties, I actually wasn't honoring God with my physical reality as much as I could, as much as I do now. And so when we don't have an integrative approach on how we steward God's creation, we fall into one extreme or the other. And when that happens, tension, something pulls on you and then something breaks. So there has to be harmony in how we steward God's creation, including our physical selves. Did that bring clarity to that question?
Scott Allen:Yeah, no, I love what you're saying and I think when you talk about creativity, it leads you to just reflect on creation itself and it leads you to have a very high view of creation, God's creation, our creations. I think this theology that I'm referring to has a low view of creation. It could be our human bodies, right, or it could be anything else in creation cities, civilizations, whatever it is.
Scott Allen:It's a low view and I don't think it's correct. And part of the reason that I don't think that way is something that Darrow taught me and again I've seen this. I mean it comes from the scriptures, but it was him that taught me this. It's this picture of the new heavens and the new earth and it's really beautiful. It's repeated, actually, in several books of the Bible, especially you see it in Isaiah, and it's this picture of the new heaven and the new earth and the new Jerusalem and there's Jesus reigning in person in the new Jerusalem and the picture is one of the kings of the nations coming into the new Jerusalem with gifts, and it's a mirror, actually a reflection, of the first advent, which we're celebrating here soon, and the three kings right that came and brought gifts to Jesus when he was born. When he comes back, you're gonna see something similar. You're gonna see the kings not just three, but the kings of the nations coming into the new Jerusalem bearing gifts. And those gifts are described this way they're described as the glory and the honor of the nations, and I think it's to me. The way Darrell explains that and I think he's correct is that it's the fruit of the creative enterprise that's unique in each of these nations, because people are unique and nations are unique and it's just such a wonderful picture. God created us in his image to create, and we create as we're redeemed. We create what is good and true and beautiful, and it could be foods or it could be fabrics or music, and they're unique to the nations and they please God, they honor God and at the end those are brought into the new. In other words, they're not destroyed, right? They're not just kind of like, oh, it doesn't matter, all that's gonna be wiped out. This is a different picture. This is a picture that shows that it really matters.
Scott Allen:I remember teaching this one time to a group of pastors in Mozambique and they were literally it was in a hut and there was no electricity, it was by candlelight, and they saw themselves as being forsaken, poor, backwards, having nothing to offer. I mean, that was just beat into them because of their circumstances. And I talked about this passage of the glory and the honor of the nations coming into the new Jerusalem and how our job as Imago dea, as people made in God's image, is to take the things of God and to create goodness and truth and beauty and bring that as a gift. And I said, what's gonna be the gift that you bring, that the kings of Mozambique bring into, bring into the new Jerusalem? And I could just see their eyes light up, like we have something to bring. I had never thought that before, that we have something to bring that's unique. And I'm like, yeah, you do, and that's your job, to bring out that beauty and the redemption of God's work in Mozambique so that you can offer that as a gift. Anyways.
Scott Allen:I just think it's something that we need to kind of counter this idea that none of this really matters, it's not important, it's all going to be destroyed so.
Scott Allen:I mean again it's not to say there isn't gonna be a great shaking and a great burning. There is gonna be a tribulation and a fire and a purifying. But it is a purifying right it's. I think it's not unlike the flood right. The flood didn't destroy ultimately everything, but it did. It brought it down to the bear, the bear studs, the bones right, and so it could kind of be rebuilt again. So, but it's the same creation, if you will.
Jessica Shakir:So that's beautiful, that question that you posed to those men, those pastors in Mozambique. It reminds me of one of my favorite Christmas carols is the little drummer boy, because all he had was his drums, but he played. I played my best for him, you know.
Dwight Vogt:And that's what.
Jessica Shakir:God wants, like what is in your hand, what is that thing that God entrusted you with? What is your passion, talent, curiosity, that song is so powerful?
Scott Allen:for that very reason, because you know, this drummer boy is drumming, and at the very end of that song, the part that always brings tears to my eyes. And then he smiled at me.
Jessica Shakir:And he smiled at me, that's God smiling at you for what you created.
Scott Allen:That's very much, very much the truth of this. So I love that.
Jessica Shakir:Yes, oh, that's beautiful, dwight, you mentioned I just we would be remiss if we didn't talk about Jesus being the snake, the head crusher of the snake and the curse breaker and the redeemer and our way back into Eden.
Jessica Shakir:And the Hebrew word Eden means delight and pleasure, and when we think of the environment of Eden, which God created and then placed man and woman to work, to protect to. You know, guard it. It was full of delight, it was full of pleasure, and that word in the Hebrew, eden, also means luxury. There was gold in the garden. The garden was full of beauty, truth and goodness, and one of the most important parts is it was a place where we rested in the presence of the living God, our Creator, where we were invited to walk in the cool of the day with Him.
Jessica Shakir:And so it's only through Jesus and what he did and the blood that was shed, god becoming man, dying for our sins as a sacrificial lamb, but then rising again three days later and he's coming back again. This is the power of the redeeming blood of Jesus and what happened on the cross in Calvary. And so Dwight E brought up a really powerful question that I wish more Christians would ask ourselves. We know hopefully we know what we've been redeemed from, but whatever we've been redeemed for, we know what we've been free from death, sin, the wrath of God, all just degeneration.
Jessica Shakir:What have we been freed for? What is the mission going forward? What is the for? What are you doing with God? Everything we do with for God shouldn't be done with him, because otherwise who are we really trying to please?
Jessica Shakir:And so the more I dig into Genesis, the more I just weep over the reality of what Jesus did. And in Genesis 3.15, I'll read it when God said I will put hostility between you to the serpent and the woman in her seed, and between you and oh, and between your offspring and her offspring or her seed, he will strike your head and you will strike his heel. As we know, most Bible scholars call that the proto-evangeline and the first mention of the coming savior. Jesus crushed the head of the serpent. He crushed he oh, I get so excited about this he broke the curse Like we're not under death anymore, we're made for life. And are we walking back into Eden, walking back into delighting with him, taking pleasure with him, resting with him that's part of what we've been redeemed for and then go out into all the world to sample the nations, baptize them, teach them everything that God has told us to observe. So that's another reason why I got so excited about meeting y'all I love.
Scott Allen:I love so much this whole thing and this is really what our ministry is, jessica, disciple Nations Alliance. It's to live that out fully in the nations and it's it's to move away from this idea of Christian mission being to save souls out of this world, but to save souls so that they can be part of God's redeeming project in this world, in their nations. And this is very much what you're talking about right now. You know we have work to do now. You know we're never going to, it's never going to be perfect, right, until Jesus comes back again. There's this now and not yet, and that's true of you know, the whole of creation, but it's also true even of our own lives, right, I mean, you know there's, there's the justification that happens when we accept Christ and our sins are no longer counted against us and we are brought from death to life. But we're not perfect, you know, and we're not going to be perfect until Jesus comes back or we are with him and then we're in that glorified condition.
Jessica Shakir:So I have a quick question for you guys, if I may, so, as we geek out over the word and theology and structure thinking and our imagination, my question is what emotions are you experiencing right now because of that? What are you feeling right now, do I tell me?
Dwight Vogt:Yeah, I, I actually experience emotion the more I think I we have. I remember our pastor he would his best sermons made me think so hard and the result of that was I just felt, I felt joy, I felt encouragement, I felt inspiration, I felt vision. So, yeah, I, I usually thinking leads to the feelings for me.
Jessica Shakir:So good, scott and Luke, what about you, dude?
Scott Allen:Yeah, Luke, go ahead.
Dwight Vogt:I've always struggled with emotions because I'm a dude, so I have to think about this one for a little while. I feel, about this thinking I'm not. I'm not used to this question.
Luke Allen:I'm like what am I feeling? I'm thinking a lot of thoughts. I don't know what they're invoking in me, a few of the things that we've shared today about the way God treats us and the way God blesses us to be creative and the way, god you know, the way you were sharing in the baptism of Jesus. This is my son, whom I'm well pleased I'm a recently became a dad a few months ago, nine months ago now. Oh, congratulations. Yeah, it's, it's a fun season of life. But with this new season of life, I'm just, every time I pick up the Bible, I feel like I'm seeing, in this new light of the way God shares his love to us is the way that we should share our love to our children.
Luke Allen:So, there's so many principles around parenting here. It's getting me really excited, this conversation, which is I wasn't expecting this to be a conversation that would inspire me to be a better parent, but it really is and how can I help my son understand how he can be a co-creator and how, as God blesses me to be fruitful, how can I bless my son to be fruitful and then hopefully go and bless others? So it's exciting me to for being a dad.
Jessica Shakir:I guess that's that's the emotion, and wow, yeah, praise God, I had a lot to chew on yeah. Luke, what you just said brings home the initial thought behind this conversation of knowing God and knowing self. They happen interdependently and there's a book called day or by David G Banner.
Jessica Shakir:He's a Christian depth psychologist, and the name of the book is the gift of being yourself, and he suggests that true knowing of ourself demands that we know ourself as known by God, and true knowing of God demands that we know God not just as an abstraction or as objective data, but in and through our lived experience. He goes on to say both God and self are most fully known in relationship to one another, and so the fact that we've been unpacking who God is together in his word has now encouraged your heart, excited your heart, to be a dad with honor and bless your son and watch him co-create and grow. That's exactly the perfect illustration of that reality, like, the more we learn about who God is, the more we learn, and then say yes and step into the person who God truly created us to be in this world and into eternity. Okay, scott, what about you?
Dwight Vogt:I'm not forgetting.
Scott Allen:Yeah, I think for me. I'm very much relating to what Dwight said. I love thinking and reasoning. I just have always been really enamored with the world of ideas, but for me it's not disconnected from feelings and emotions, it's the source of them. There's just such joy in knowing the truth and living out the truth, and so to me they're very much interdependent, if you will they should be, and so that's the way I feel right now.
Scott Allen:just from this conversation and just your. I love your enthusiasm, jessica, just your passion for these truths. These are not just that's the other thing. These aren't just academic things like whiteboard things. These are real, living things that when you live them out, it just changes everything. Of course, well, listen. I would like you to, as we kind of wrap up this podcast, and we'd love to have you back on again, Jessica, but remind us again of yeah, tell us again.
Scott Allen:we're excited about the book that you're creating, right? This writing of books is very much a creative enterprise. Tell us again a little bit about that, and what we can be looking forward to is that gets close to release.
Jessica Shakir:I know you're still in the writing. I believe you're in the writing phase of it right now, so it's maybe a ways out there but just come back to that which is interesting in the writing phase, which is also coupled with my deep dive into research, which I love, so I get so I could do an eight hour rabbit trail and research and then go.
Jessica Shakir:Oh yeah, let me write, Let me articulate this, and so it's really exploring the beauty of God, experiencing his presence. A big part of why I want to write this book now is, well, it's been on my heart all my life and I feel the Holy Spirit wooing me, inviting me into like write this now.
Jessica Shakir:I want this to be encultured now, like, let's, let's get this out, is I also see within the church, and I first heard it this way by John Mark Comer and he said that there's a delight deficiency in the church and that broke my heart and I thought that a delight deficiency in God's people. Why, how? And just looking at that and observing that in the world and as, as new creations, as people who, who death has been lifted off of we've been able, the invitation to go back into Eden with God, to take pleasure with him, to delight in him, how are we not the most delightful people on this earth with what we have access to you and who we really are in our God? And so that stuck with me and one of. I'll just share this one and we could talk more later. But one theme is the power of wonder, the power of awe and wonder, marveling at God as a just a vital part of how we are formed spiritually.
Jessica Shakir:And so what does marveling at the living God do to your soul? It's healing Again, it invites you into that right posture of taking up, posture of humility. And so when I think about there's a delight deficiency in the church, I immediately think people have lost the art of marveling at who God is and from the works of his hands. So it's, it's really doing a deep dive in the deep dive in the exploration of Genesis and experiencing his beauty and glory and letting that change you so that we can go into all the world, influence nations, influence and minister and disciple people.
Scott Allen:Amen, Amen. Well, such great thoughts, Jessica, and it's just such a joy. I'm so, I just I'm so grateful that God and his providence connected us. You know, and again it means, it means so much. You know, your, your excitement for the work we're doing, and we feel the same about your work, and so I'm just really grateful that God allowed us this privilege of getting to know each other a bit more and becoming fans of each other's work so.
Jessica Shakir:I'm incredibly grateful to keep doing what you're doing and you know, just with men and women coming alongside each other to glorify God and to do our part together, man, the blessing of God will be unlocked fully when that begins to happen more and more. So thank you for doing what you do, you guys Love y'all All right.
Scott Allen:Thanks, jessica. Again, the name of the organization that Jessica leads and I encourage you to go to the website and check it out. It's called the Beautiful Mind Academy. I just encourage you to take advantage of the resources, the training that is available it's just rich and encourage you all to check that out. And again, jessica, thanks for being with us and for all of you who are listening. Thank you for for taking this time to, to, to be with us on. Ideas have Consequences. This is the podcast of the Disciple Nations.
Jessica Shakir:Thank you so much, love y'all.
Luke Allen:Thank you for joining us for this first episode of Season Two of Ideas have Consequences. If you're new to the show, feel free to go back to any of our previous 100 episodes in Season One. If you enjoyed this conversation with our honored guest Jessica Shakir and want to listen to our last episode with her, you can find that in Season One at episode 55. If you'd like to learn more about Jessica or any of the resources that we mentioned today, including the Beautiful Minds Academy, make sure to go to this episode's page, which you'll see linked in the show notes.
Luke Allen:Ideas have Consequences is the podcast of the Disciple Nations Alliance, dna. To learn more about our ministry, you can find us on Instagram, facebook, twitter and YouTube, or on our website, which is DiscipleNationsorg. If you'd like to help us share the show with more people, the easiest way that you can do that is by just leaving a rating on whatever podcast platform you are listening on, or you can always share an episode with a friend. Thanks again for joining us and we're hoping you're able to join us here next time on Ideas have Consequences.