How To Go From Work To Worship
Key Lessons/ Takeaways from Nehemiah's Testimony
Every Thursday we’ll release a new episode of “From Work To Worship”, where we explore how people’s calling becomes their calling card, how vocation fuels occupation, and how “to work” can be “to worship” when we understand who we were made for. This last Thursday, we released the full unedited version of the testimony of friend, musician, and business partner, Nehemiah Williams, the other side of PPDK Productions.
You can listen to the full episode here:
WHEN WORK BECOMES WORSHIP
This is the full testimony of friend, musician, and business partner, Nehemiah Williams. We released this in parts in culmination of the full so you can see the evolution of the story in stages.
Don’t forget to get tickets to our next show on February 1, where the both of us perform our testimony within our chosen spoken word medium: Nehemiah through song, Nathanael through jokes, and the both of them through poetry and storytelling.
Every Saturday we’ll be releasing a read only excerpt from this last week’s episode.
Check the other pieces/ episodes here:
This will be one of many pieces of content exclusive to Substack. We’re also exploring what bonus content we’ll offer subscribers. We’ll post the video accompanying said excerpt on our YouTube Channel. Please subscribe and follow us on YouTube below, this would vastly help us out.
Instead of an excerpt from the show, this week we present to you a reflection/ summary on some of the most important lessons/ takeaways from the testimony as whole.
If you actively and consistently pursue the highest good then you will find God, because that’s who he is.
God is: loving, all powerful, holds the world in the palm of his hands, knows you, created you, has a plan for you, and that plan is good.
First comes accepting the call through obedience to the teaching, then comes the encounter with the Holy Spirit through worship. In between, the Enemy tries to intercept your incoming embrace of the Lord by introducing a warring spirit.
Your faith walk and your artistic journey can be one and the same.
Where you praise the loudest will oftentimes be the place the Enemy seeks to tempt you.
If you don’t know you have the right to want anything, you will never know what to ask for.
Pornography has the ability to shut everything else worthwhile in one’s life down and slowly but surely cause one to become stagnant, complacent, and apathetic towards everything that should be important. It can make you numb, unmotivated, unable to act on behalf of your better judgement and best interest. It can turn you into a drone or zombie and cast one into depression and demoralization.
The addiction cycle follows from addictive behavior, to isolation, demoralization, then debilitation. One must live a life contrary to the addictive behavior and if one indulges haphazardly and falls prey to the temptation, the immediate solution is prevent oneself from isolation by finding accountability and community.
All systems of evil will counterfeit the good and deceive you into believing the good was never real to begin with.
You can’t outrun your demons because they know where you are. You must confront them.
Seek first the kingdom of heaven and his righteousness and all things will be added unto you. Take your eyes off the kingdom and all things will be taken away from you. The good news is, if you seek again the kingdom of heaven, all things will be added unto you faster than they will be taken away. This is the grace of repentance.
You cannot will yourself out of your biggest struggle.
When your work becomes your worship, this is your calling.
Your flesh will overtake you in isolation and if you think you won’t succumb to the flesh alone, then it is willful naivete.
The Enemy seeks to deceive you by making you overvalue your sensitivity (your pain), and making you undervalue your gifts (the exceptional way God created you)
One receives the call, then one is gifted with a blessing to be used for the calling, one steps into the calling, someone invests in the pursuit of the calling, then the Enemy attempts to deceive one by convincing them of their unworthiness, this is the exact moment when one must surrender to Christ, repent, and receive strength from the Lord to fight.
A higher power can keep one sober, but the highest power (Christ) can set one free.
The correct mindset for practice is critical, the correct for performance is exploratory. One must be playful and seek to experience as an audience member the gifts that God has allowed one to use for the spirit of joy and play.
One must sacrifice the desires of the flesh in order to worship in Spirit and Truth.
Pornography devalues everyone involved and only makes some people money.
Your belief, your voice, your time, your energy, and your attention are all more valuable than money. Pornography decimates the integrity of all of these things and the ability to form integral relationships in general.
Just because you’re in church doesn’t mean you’re not still struggling with sin. However, Jesus decimates all sin issues.
There are 12 step programs to deal with pornography such as:
There are 5 levels of being: your material (what you touch and own); your physical, your mental (the terminal or landing point between the physical and the spiritual: like an airport: like a power hub); your emotional; then the spiritual (the battery which powers the life)
All of them are layered upon each other starting with the spiritual.
Exceptional gifting only comes with exceptional sensitivity.
The path to the greatest treasure is by going through the darkest forest. (Carl Jung and Peterson echo this sentiment).
Worship and sin are oil and water, they cannot mix.
A career is the vehicle by which the calling can be explored to its highest point.
Music can send people to a moment as if a compressed zip file with all 5 layers of experience.
Meaning comes from assuming maximal responsibility.
A story doesn’t end, it just gets remixed and layered onto the master story.
If we got up that hill with a limp, then what more can you do with Jesus.
There has always only been two options, life or death.
You can listen to the full episode here:
WHEN WORK BECOMES WORSHIP
This is the full testimony of friend, musician, and business partner, Nehemiah Williams. We released this in parts in culmination of the full so you can see the evolution of the story in stages.
Get tickets to our next show and see Nehemiah perform his testimony through song, Nathanael perform through comedy, and them together through verse and poetry. We might even see Nehemiah perform an original song on the piano. Stay tuned.