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Welcome to the Seek24 podcast.

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I'm John Michael Lucido and I am so glad that you are here.

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This podcast is a place of community collaboration and inspiration, created to invite and encourage you deeper into relationship with Jesus.

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So here we go.

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Just two weeks ago I was running some errands in preparation for this conference and one of those errands was going to a little store called Ulta.

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Now, for those of you who are laughing, there you go.

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Some of the ladies know what I'm talking about. This is a beauty supply store and, to be honest, I don't frequent this store very often.

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The last time I purchased makeup was actually before COVID.

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See, I'm a mom of four kids aged five, four, two and one.

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Yeah, that's right, it is a party.

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I mean, I'm sorry, I'm like a walking meme if you've seen me around conference here with my double stroller and like four little toddlers just spilling out of it.

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It's beautiful, it's beautiful, but I don't really go to this store.

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But I enter in and I walk up to one of the beauty technicians it's a fancy name and I was like okay, I need all the things, I need everything, please help.

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So she brings me over to her station and I sit down and we start to have a little conversation and I mentioned that I'm married.

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She's like oh, how's marriage treating you?

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So I just look at her.

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Oh, it's such a gift. In six years we've been able to have four blessings, four children in our life.

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Now she's taken aback by this.

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I know that this isn't the most common thing that you've heard to have four kids in that short a period of time.

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So of course her response is whoa, that's a lot, you must be really busy.

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So are you done then, or are you going to have one more? All right, I've heard comments like this many times and I didn't blame her for it.

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Unfortunately, we live in a culture that is very anti-family and anti-life, so I knew exactly what to say and I just looked back at her, smiled as big as I can and I said my husband and I hope to welcome as many children as the Lord invites into our family.

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Amen, amen.

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And it was her response that was different, because usually when I make a comment like that, then someone might scoff or say something really sarcastic to kind of undercut it and move on in their life.

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But she just looks and she goes, huh, isn't that something?

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And starts to ask more questions. She starts to ask about my husband and I, our relationship, how we got to be where we are and decide these things in our life, to have such a big family.

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And she didn't realize the can of worms that she was opening because the story between my husband and I, it's a wild ride, right.

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The highlights of it is that he asked me out five times over six years, yep.

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So when she started asking that question, I had the opportunity to share with her each moment and some transformations that the Lord was doing in my life, the healing that I had to go through and that he had to go through in our relationship, and that, of course, prompted a lot more questions.

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So she continues to ask. She's like on the edge of her seat, asking I share that we're missionaries We've been missionaries for 12 years as our family, that I have my own personal apostolate helping women seek full freedom due to our over-sexualized culture.

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And she just looks and she's like Kelsey, now, a meeting like this, generally, when you go in and get a little bit of makeup, maybe take 20, 30 minutes with the amount of stuff I needed.

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This was a two-hour conversation and as we're continuing or as we're wrapping up, she looks at me and she says Kelsey, I have to tell you this has been a really hard week, an even worse year, but this conversation has changed everything.

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She then looks at me and says can I give you a hug Sure.

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And there we are in the middle of Ulta in Overland Park, Kansas, embracing two strangers.

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Right, yeah, and encounters like this I mean that exact encounter has never happened to me before, but encounters like that have happened to me all the time.

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I think when you allow the Holy Spirit to come into your heart and come into your life and you follow the promptings, crazy things will happen.

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Crazy, beautiful things will start to happen.

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I remember years ago, I was in my second year as a missionary.

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I was just walking through the grocery store and I started to cry.

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Okay, yes, I know women are emotional, but this is not normal, okay.

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So, going through the grocery store, I start to cry and my heart is aching and I don't understand it.

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I'm looking around and I'm seeing these strangers, these people who I don't know, I've never met them before, and I'm yearning for them and I realized that that is not my heart, that is feeling, that that is Jesus's heart.

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For a brief moment he switched out my heart for his and every single person I was encountering.

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I felt their hurt and their pain and the separation between them and God and the longingness that I had.

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It was overwhelming and I just wept middle of aisle six.

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And it's because, as I was a missionary, my heart was being transformed.

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I had started doing a daily holy hour.

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I was going to mass every day, frequenting the sacraments, going to confession much more regularly.

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I was sharing the gospel, I was leading Bible studies, I was having spiritual conversations with these women that I was working with and my heart was being transformed.

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And it was amazing, with these women that I was working with and my heart was being transformed.

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And it was amazing. And you guys have had that experience this week, maybe the transformation.

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You've been working on your heart for a long time before you got here, praise God.

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But maybe this was the first time that you really spent time with Jesus in adoration, that you went to Mass every single day.

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This might have been the most times you've gone to Mass in a week in your whole life.

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Yeah, going to confession, encountering each other, hearing some incredible truth.

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At each moment of that transformation, it has changed your heart.

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And so we come to today, this final day of the conference.

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Where do we go from here? Because we know that we're made for a relationship.

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We've spent our time dwelling with him. We know that relationship was broken long before we existed and that we have broken it.

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But Jesus Christ came, the incarnation, god, became flesh into our life and he brings us to him.

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And then we have the option to choose, because when he first came, he first came to be with us, his beloved, and die on the cross.

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So then we have the opportunity to say yes to him, to follow him.

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He says follow and be his disciples.

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Now when I'm curious as to what that means.

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Like what does it mean to be a disciple? We hear that term thrown around a lot in the church.

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So let's look at the first call of the first disciples.

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We're called to be a disciple, we're called to follow him.

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What does that mean for our lives?

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John, chapter 1, verse 35 through 42.

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This is the call of the first disciples and it reads the next day again, john was standing with two of his disciples.

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This is John the Baptist.

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Now John the Baptist had a few followers, people that he was preparing for Jesus.

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Now John the Baptist, he looks at Jesus as he walks and says behold the Lamb of God.

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The two disciples heard him say this and they followed Jesus.

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The two disciples who've been following John the Baptist, who were deep, close, intimate friends with him.

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They knew that John knew their hearts. They knew that John willed the good for their life.

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And so when John says, here is Jesus, here's the way, the truth, life, here is the man you want to follow, they trusted him, they believed him and so they followed.

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Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them what do you seek?

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A question hopefully you guys have answered this week.

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And Jesus said to him Rabbi, which means teacher, where are you staying?

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He said to them come and see.

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They came and saw, followed him was Andrew, simon, peter's brother.

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He first found his brother, simon, and said to him we have found the Messiah, which means Christ.

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He brought him to Jesus. Jesus looked at him and said so you are Simon, the son of John.

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You will be called Cephas. Now, in this passage, there's three things that stand out to me, three things that happen when these disciples are called.

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The first is that they follow Jesus.

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They leave behind their entire life.

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They leave behind all the things that they have been maybe keeping them from that relationship with God.

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They abandon it and they follow him immediately.

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That's the first thing we do as disciples. The second is they stay with him.

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They stay with him, they learn from him, they pray with him.

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But the third thing, the third thing is interesting.

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One of the two who heard John speak and followed him was Andrew, simon, peter's brother.

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He first found his brother, simon, and said to him we have found the Messiah and brought him to Jesus.

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The first thing Andrew does before he abandons everything and follows Jesus, before he stays with Jesus, is he goes and he gets his brother and brings him along with him, which means that a fundamental aspect of discipleship is to bring others along with us.

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It's mission. Have you ever heard the term missionary discipleship?

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I find it kind of redundant.

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I mean, I get the point.

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I understand what they're trying to say with to be like a disciple going on mission.

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They want to emphasize that. But we see here, in God's design, mission is a part of discipleship, it's a fundamental part of it, and this is nothing new.

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In the church document Evangelii Nuntiandi, it says the church exists to evangelize.

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It is her deepest identity.

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Even the word mass means to be sent.

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We see this over and over and over again.

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But what does this look like practically?

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How do we live that out? We just heard a lot of examples of evangelization and sharing our faith, and the awkwardness and the fear, yeah, but how do we do it realistically?

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Well, let's again look at scriptures, see what Jesus did.

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So Jesus calls his disciples, he has his 12 apostles and he starts investing deeply in them.

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He shares his life with them, he breaks bread with them and he's teaching them and over and over again, they're falling more in love with him.

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Sure, he gives some large talks at the mount and at the sea of Galilee, but some of those don't really work out.

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A lot of times people are rejecting him in those large speeches.

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So he continues to go back to his 12, his deep, close, personal friends.

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And then, after his resurrection, after God conquers death and proves he is the almighty, the divine, the omega, what does he do?

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He goes back to his 12 apostles.

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He shares life, he breaks bread and he teaches them to do the same.

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Now, I only had a glimpse of the love that Jesus had for each person in that grocery store, but I gotta tell you it is far beyond anything you can ever imagine, and I know how much Jesus desperately wants the hearts of every single person.

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And that changes how I live my life.

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It makes the cost of discipleship not as heavy.

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But I'm a little confused by this, because Jesus goes back to the 12.

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He shares life, he breaks bread and he teaches them, and then he says go, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and then he leaves, goes back with his heavenly Father.

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I don't know, if I was God, I think I would have done things a little differently.

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Okay, I just conquered death, proving to everyone that I am God and that I can do anything.

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I think I would have gone back to the mount and said okay, guys, you know a year ago, all those things I said hey, look now.

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Guys, yeah, I'm actually God, I meant what I said.

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Now, you should do that. Okay, I can just poof over here and go over to the Corinthians and the Thessalonians and be like hey, you know, you heard what happened at Calvary.

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Yeah, that was me, I'm God, and so just believe in me and practice these things.

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Okay, we got that. Okay, romans, hey, you should stop killing people and doing all these terrible things over here.

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Yeah, because I'm God. Okay, pagans, after the resurrection, I think we could have used some more time with him hanging out showing people.

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But no, he entrusts the rest of the world on a group of men who, not so recently, had just abandoned him in his time of need.

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A group of men who were so broken and weak.

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A group of men who are so broken and weak and God knew this because he made them.

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It doesn't make sense. Why? Why was this the way that God designed it To reach the world?

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A couple months ago it was my mom's birthday, and my mom is a master baker.

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I'm pretty sure she could start her own bakery if she wanted to.

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So she usually makes cakes for her kids and her grandkids, so I think it would be a nice gesture if I was able to make the cake for her for her birthday.

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And, of course, my kids are ecstatic about this idea and they want to help.

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They are all about it. We're like grabbing things in the aisles of how we're going to decorate this cake, and so we start making it and it goes as well as you think it might.

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With four toddlers. There's flour walking over, batters hitting the floor.

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You know we like put the frosting on it.

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It's lopsided as they're throwing things on it and just getting so and so excited.

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I don't know if you like marshmallows, but they love marshmallows, and apparently my mom now does too.

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And so as we present this cake to my mom, I see the delight in my children's faces, how much joy they have of having an opportunity to participate.

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And I got to see it too while we were making it and singing songs and maybe breaking down some tantrums.

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We were just having a great time together, and you see that that is how much Jesus loves us.

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Jesus doesn't wanna just sit over here and watch it all happen like, yes, yes, you all, good job.

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Okay, he wants to participate with us.

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He wants to get messy, because I could have made that cake a lot better on my own Right.

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It wouldn't have been lopsided, there probably wouldn't have been chunks of butter or sugar stuck throughout the batter.

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But to participate and to delight in my children, to be a part of it, that's what Jesus wants for us too.

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He wants us to be a part of it.

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He loves us that much. He loves us that much.

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And so the apostles, he shares with them.

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They go and they do exactly what Jesus did they go town to town and they stay with them.

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They share their life, they break bread and they teach others to do the same.

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And we have the second half of the New Testament is just them writing letters, and you see how intimately close these disciples are with one another.

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Because until someone knows our heart, I don't know about you.

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I don't really trust that they know what's best for me.

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There's a lot of unsolicited advice in the world, especially on the internet, and whenever I hear an opinion speaking into my life, it's like you don't know what I've been through.

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You don't know some of the trauma that I've experienced, some of the crosses that I'm personally carrying.

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You don't get to speak into that, but someone who has shown up every single day, who has walked with me in those moments where I am just a puddle on the ground.

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Some of the crosses that the Lord has asked me to carry have been so heavy.

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But those are the men and women in my life that I allow to show me hey, kelsey, you're not on the right path here.

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This is what's going to bring you joy, this is what's going to bring you happiness.

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So I don't know the people that the Lord has called into your life.

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I think a lot of times we look at and we talked about this earlier.

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We look at what we think could help us reach the world.

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Okay, kelsey, I'm going to be a disciple, I'm going to reach the world.

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I want to follow Jesus, I want to tell everyone about him, and it's so good.

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But in our world of social media, we think that means, in order to reach the world, in order to make an impact, I need to be an influencer.

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Right, I need to make some really good reels, get a whole bunch of likes.

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But I'll tell you what. Here I am, speaking in front of 20,000 of you, and while I am so honored and humbled and I think I speak for all the speakers I'll say what a gift.

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But do you know how many people are outside of this dome that I will never have the opportunity to reach?

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But you can?

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I can't speak into their lives because I don't know who they are.

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I don't know what hardships they've been through. I was walking through the grocery store.

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I'm literally two feet away from them, but I don't know their hearts.

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They're not going to listen to me.

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The hardness of hearts. People weren't listening to Jesus himself.

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The way God designed it is he invested his lives in people for them to go.

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Invest their lives in individuals and people and bring them to Jesus.

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That's how we're going to reach the world.

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One part of the story I didn't include from this woman at Ulta Her name is Camilla, so say a prayer for her Right before I leave.

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We exchange a little bit of information and she hands me, like my bag of stuff.

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As I'm going. She looks at me and she says Kelsey, look, all this mission work, all these things you're doing, whatever it is you do, do it bigger.

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There was kind of some silence.

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I was like whoa and I knew what she meant.

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Do it bigger. Because in that conversation she had encountered Jesus.

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I saw it and when she had that small encounter with Jesus she knew it was meant for the world.

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That's how our hearts are designed. We encounter him and we just need to share it.

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So we encounter him.

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She encountered him and wanted the world to know it.

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Do it bigger. But what she didn't know was that conversation right there, the exchanging of information.

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That was me doing it bigger by having that conversation with her, in the hopes that maybe we'll have another encounter in the future by walking with her.

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That's how I can reach the world.

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So I don't know the people that God has put in your life, the coworkers, people in your parish, ministries, your classmates, who are the individual people that God has placed in your life.

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We've got 20,000 people here. If each person had two people that they shared life with, broke the bread with, they taught throughout this year, there would be 60,000 people next year, then the next year 140,000.

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It would be incredible, but only you can reach them.

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All of us are called to this.

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It is a fundamental aspect of discipleship.

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We live our lives in such a way that people can encounter Jesus.

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I once heard that your life might be the only Bible that someone reads, and so be a living witness.

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Share your life, get messy, let's do it bigger, because someone who had a small glimpse of the heart of Jesus into the world.

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He desperately wants everyone to be known, and we feel it.

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I can't do it alone.

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Let's do it bigger and together let's reach the world for Jesus Christ.

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God bless.

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Thank you so much for listening, friends.