A Set Apart Podcast Series with Leslie ludy:
A Steadfast Heart
Overcoming a Critical Spirit
When we are hosting a critical spirit, we cannot be emotionally healthy. A critical spirit is like a poison that slowly spreads, making us more and more emotionally toxic in our inner life. A critical spirit cannot co-exist with true joy, peace, gentleness, patience, and kindness. In this episode, Leslie explores biblical keys to avoiding a critical spirit and talks about how to handle weakness in others in a God-honoring way, and how this sets us up for both emotional and relational health.
Choosing Peace over Drama
When we build our lives around specific principles from God’s Word, we can avoid the emotional turmoil that comes from getting involved in unhealthy human drama and experience a peace-filled existence. In this episode, Leslie unpacks these principles and offers specific ways to apply them to our lives as modern women. As Leslie reminds us, choosing peace over drama is an important key to true emotional health.
Cultivating a Clean Heart
Allowing sinful habit patterns and unconfessed sin to remain in our lives will place a barrier between us and our God, which causes us to miss out on the joy, peace, confidence and security that comes from having a heart cleansed by the blood of Jesus. As Leslie shares, when we allow the God’s Spirit to gently cleanse impurity from our lives, we will experience the buoyancy of being set free from the controlling power of sin. This episode offers practical ways to walk through a spiritual cleansing process in cooperation with the loving correction of God’s Spirit.
How Honesty Impacts Emotional Health
Over the past decade or so, there has been a renewed focus on honesty in modern Christianity. But in many cases, it’s not the same kind of God-honoring honesty that we see in Scripture – it’s merely a venting of negative emotions. Being “raw and real” is touted as a spiritual virtue these days, but often it promotes a kind of “realness” that is does not promote true emotional health. In this episode, Leslie contrasts counterfeit honesty with Biblical honesty, and shows us how true honesty will help our emotions remain grounded in Truth.
How Faith Builds Emotional Health
In the modern Church, doubt is widely accepted – and even embraced, which can lead to a sense of despair, discouragement and even hopelessness. It can feel like an uphill battle to trust God and stand boldly on His promises when it comes to our own daily needs. Yet, the Bible makes it clear that He longs for us to give Him the opportunity to show Himself strong on our behalf. This episode challenges us to ask the question – are we willing to give Him that opportunity?
How to Handle Emotions
Many of us are led by emotion in our every daily actions and decisions, in our thought life, in relationships, and even in our life direction. As Leslie shares in this episode, emotions in themselves are not wrong, but they must be governed by the Spirit of God. In this message, Leslie unpacks principles for being led by Truth, rather than merely following our feelings.
Think on These
Things, Part Two
In this episode, Leslie unpacks practical ways to help our minds dwell on things that are lovely, true, excellent and praiseworthy. She shares four key ways that have personally helped her replace lies with Truth and keep her mind focused on God’s reality.
Think on These
Things, Part One
The enemy is continually baiting us to think about things that are not true. If we dwell on thoughts, mindsets and ideas that do not align with God’s Truth, then our emotions will quickly go in the wrong direction. We will be ruled by things like fear, pride, rebellion, and rejection, instead of keeping our soul anchored to Jesus Christ. In this episode, Leslie offers Biblical and practical principles for keeping our thoughts centered on God’s Truth, which in turn will keep our emotions grounded in Christ.
Emotionally Healthy Friendships, Part Four
Fair-weather friends are very common – those who will support us as things are easy and going well, but pull away when we are struggling or when a more exciting friend comes along. In this episode, Leslie unpacks the qualities of a truly faithful friend who will “love at all times” as it says in Proverbs 17:17.
Emotionally Healthy Friendships, Part Three
In this episode, Leslie focuses on the importance of finding friends who will build us up in our faith and speak words that edify rather than corrupt. Proverbs tells us that “life and death are in the power of the tongue.” Leslie unpacks the difference between honorable conversation and corrupt conversation, and helps us discern truly godly friends from those who are undermining our relationship with Christ.
Emotionally Healthy Friendships, Part Two
An emotionally healthy friend will desire to point us toward Jesus first and foremost, rather than make us emotionally dependent upon themselves. In this episode, Leslie unpacks the difference between true godly exhortation and unhealthy emotional dependence. She identifies the contrast between counterfeit comfort and true Biblical comfort. This episode brings awareness to the tactics of grooming and manipulation that can creep into friendships unnoticed, even within the Church, and helps ground us in the Biblical pattern for trustworthy, godly friends.
Emotionally Healthy Friendships, Part One
Why is it important to surround ourselves with emotionally healthy friends who are truly Christ-centered? Because those we allow to influence us can have a powerful impact on the direction of our lives. Our friends and influencers can either pull us away from Christ or help anchor our soul to Him. In this episode, Leslie offers important Biblical insights on how to determine a truly Christ-centered friend from someone who is dangerous and unhealthy to our spiritual lives and relationship with Christ.
Becoming Truly Happy, Part Two
In our culture, we have been trained to do only what makes us happy and brings us personal fulfillment, rather than to serve and pour out our lives for the glory of God. In this episode, Leslie unpacks Biblical principles that show us why choosing selflessness over selfishness brings true and lasting joy. This episode provides inspiring and practical ways to exchange circumstantial happiness for lasting happiness and true personal fulfillment.
Becoming Truly Happy, Part One
While the culture leads us to believe that happiness is conditional upon our circumstances, and comes from self-fulfillment, God’s Word tells us differently. According to God’s pattern, happiness is a decision of the will; a purposeful act of fixing our gaze upon Jesus Christ and anchoring our soul to Him. As long as our eyes are on Jesus, we can be happy at the soul-level, even if we go through difficulty. If we make our happiness conditional upon our circumstances, we will always be discontent. In this episode, Leslie walks through several “happiness myths” that we often believe, and contrasts them with the reality of God’s pattern for real and lasting happiness.
Finding True Emotional Health
Leslie launches a new series this week called A Steadfast Heart . “Emotional health” has become a popular topic in modern culture. But what is true emotional health from a Biblical perspective? In this week’s episode, Leslie takes a Scriptural look at what it means to bring our emotions under the rulership of Jesus Christ and aligning our feelings with God’s Truth. She contrasts the counterfeit “emotional health” so often promoted by our culture with true emotional health as defined by the Word of God, and offers practical ways to honor God with our emotions in our daily lives and decisions.