Believe Big Podcast

89-Dr. Rob Reimer - Authentic - Peace, Love & Joy

• Ivelisse Page & Dr. Rob Reimer • Season 3 • Episode 89

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Today on the Believe Big podcast, Dr. Rob Reimer returns to talk about his new book, Authentic, which explores the connection between addressing our soul's issues and deepening our intimacy with God.

Rob shares how unresolved wounds, bitterness, and spiritual barriers can block the flow of the Holy Spirit, and encourages us to seek healing for a fuller relationship with God.

He also challenges the knowledge-driven approach of Western Christianity, urging us to focus on meaningful spiritual practices that actually transform our lives rather than mere rituals or habits. With thought-provoking insights, he emphasizes asking better questions, like whether our faith practices are genuinely working, rather than simply whether we’re checking them off of our daily to-do list.

Today's conversation offers a fresh perspective on discipleship, and encourages you to pursue authenticity and freedom in your spiritual journey.  Join us for an empowering discussion that will help you strengthen your connection with God.

Learn more about Dr. Rob Reimer:
https://renewalinternational.org/rob-reimer

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Ivelisse Page:

Hi, I'm Ivelisse Page, and thanks for listening to the Believe Big podcast, the show where we take a deep dive into your healing with health experts, integrative practitioners, biblical faith leaders, and cancer thrivers from around the globe. Welcome to today's episode on the Believe Big podcast. My name is Ivelisse Page, and it's an honor to be with you today. Today, we get to welcome back a special guest whose passion for God's kingdom has led him to help others through spiritual renewal. Rob joined us in season two of the Believe Big podcast to talk about Soul Care. Today, he returns to share about his new book, Authentic. Dr. Reimer is the founder of Renewal International and he assists pastors, leaders, and churches globally by equipping people to live in freedom in Christ and to walk in the fullness and power of the Holy Spirit. He has served as the professor of pastoral theology at Alliance University in New York and was the founding and lead pastor of a church in New England. Dr. Reimer is an author of eight books and he also teaches and leads conferences all over the world. Welcome back to the show, Dr. Reimer.

Dr. Rob Reimer:

Good to be with you, Ivelisse.

Ivelisse Page:

So you were actually with us two seasons ago. And in that season, you shared your favorite health tip, which is a life balanced physically, spiritually, and emotionally. And in the second episode, you shared that it takes two healthy people to have a healthy relationship. Now we're going to really challenge you and ask if you have a third favorite health tip for our listeners today.

Dr. Rob Reimer:

All right, so let's talk about Sabbath for a second. Um, so one of the principles that I try to follow in my life is Sabbath. I will say that I don't always follow it the way most people follow it. So the way most people follow it is they take a day off per week and it's usually Sunday or some people maybe are like in my profession as they're preaching on Sundays so they take Saturday. But what I have done is I've looked at Sabbath over the course of a year. And the reality is we have to have enough rest and enough, you know, balanced space of restoration and recreation and re-creation space to be able to carry us through seasons of busyness and pain and heartache and stress. So, for me, I always look at it over the whole year. So, for example, this year, I lost my very best friend at the beginning of the year. And, he died suddenly, unexpectedly, in January, January 8th. And so, I knew right away, this year, coming into this year, was going to be a year that was super hard for me emotionally. It was going to be way more draining than most years in my life. I just said to my wife when my friend died, I mean, he lived three miles from me. I spent regular time with him almost, you know, four or five times a week. I said to Jen, when he died, it was like losing my second wife. You know, I mean, it was just, uh, you know, that close. Anyhow with that I realized coming in this year, I just said to the Lord, this is going to be a huge sort of drain on my soul. So what do I need to do? And the first thing I heard from the spirit of God was I was always taking one retreat day every month. And I heard him say, go to two retreat days every month. And so every month this year, I've taken two retreat days. And as a result, while there's sadness, there's always sadness and grief you carry in this life with loss. There's also been joy and peace, and love. All year long, it's enabled me to stay reasonably healthy, especially emotionally and spiritually, in the midst of extreme loss. We went on to lose, uh, six other people that we deeply loved this year. It's just been a brutal year for loss. Most loss I've ever experienced in my life. And yet, that extra retreat day, the power of Sabbath over the long haul. Not just the weekly, but that yearly Sabbath concept really saved me this year in the midst of tremendous loss.

Ivelisse Page:

I'm so sorry to hear about all that loss, and, you know, real quick, what does that retreat day look like? If you're taking Sunday to just enjoy it and to live, like, what does that retreat day additionally from Sabbath look like?

Dr. Rob Reimer:

Yeah, so, for me personally, when I go to spend a day alone with the Lord, this is what it looks like. I will usually during that day, I'll fast most of the times. So I just fast breakfast, lunch, I'll eat dinner with the family. Then I also ride my bike, usually in the morning at some point, I'll take a 15 mile bike ride or something. And then I'll spend the entire day alone with the Lord. Usually I take the bike ride in the middle, especially if it's a little chillier, you know, I like it to, I like to ride when it's a little warmer. So I'll start with a couple hours alone with God. Then I'll go on a bike ride, come back and spend 3 or 4 more hours alone with the Lord. Um, so there's scripture intake. I'm meditating on scripture. There's a intercession going on there for sure. A lot of worship. And most of the times I don't even sing. I just sit and soak in his presence, and then I'll spend at least an hour, maybe two, in silence, just sitting before the Lord, quiet, just fixing my total attention and affection on Jesus and just letting him say what he wants or just kind of abiding and lingering in his presence for an entire day.

Ivelisse Page:

I love that. I, I, I need to incorporate that more as well. I, I feel like so many times and especially in our busy seasons that we keep pushing and you know, to have that time to just rest, to stay away from technology and to just listen, um, you know, says a lot for our souls. So I, I really love that you shared that tip today. You know, you, you have your new book, Authentic, and I'm almost finished with it. It is fantastic. Oh, thanks. Yeah, it is really a great book, and, um, it discusses, you know, finding true intimacy with God, similar to what you were sharing about these retreat days. How would you say the healing journey in Soul Care complements or differs from the journey towards a true personal relationship with God that you describe in this book.

Dr. Rob Reimer:

Yeah, so I think it's super hard to draw near to God if you have a lot of unprocessed soul issues. So one of the things that I believe is that it is often our unaddressed soul issues that keeps us from our next level of intimacy with God. They become these barriers to our life. Whether it is unaddressed sin, or it is unaddressed hurt, and we've carried around some bitterness, even, or anger, resentment, grudge holding stuff, or it's unaddressed wounds. When we have this stuff in our soul, it blocks the flow of the Holy Spirit in our lives. And so, if you want to draw near to God, and you want to experience more of his freedom and fullness, and you want to experience more closeness to Him, these things have to be addressed. And so I think it's a direct connection between our soul issues and our intimacy.

Ivelisse Page:

I agree. You know, often in religion, we get comfortable with things like rituals and habits. In Authentic, you discuss the risk of substituting real encounters with God for religious habits or rituals. Does Authentic address those breaking patterns in our faith life, perhaps in the form of religious habits that prevent genuine encounters with God, and, and how can believers become aware of when this is happening and what can they do to redirect their spiritual focus?

Dr. Rob Reimer:

So one of the great problems we have, and this particularly true of Western Christianity, right? So it's a very knowledge based concept in our Western educational systems, right? So it's, you know, you go to school, you master the knowledge of a subject. You write down the right answers, and now you get an A, and you get a degree. And so it's all about the mastery of knowledge. That's really what our education is about. But that's not what discipleship is about. It's never about that. And so we can trick ourselves into believing because I know all these right answers and I know all this right theology and I've read my Bible and I've prayed and I've done all these right things. Now I'm rightly connected to God. But, you know, Jesus looks at the Pharisees, and they're reading their Bible, they're praying, they're fasting, they're tithing down to the herbs in their garden, and he looks at them and says, Are you not in error, at one point, because you know not the Scriptures. They had memorized the entire Old Testament Pentateuch, right? The first five books, and they knew their Bibles, but they weren't living it. So they did all these right disciplines, and they killed Jesus. At the end of the day, you've got to be able to look at this stuff and go, is all this right behavior leading to right relationship? So you got to start evaluating things a little bit different, right? So one of the things I talk about in Authentic is you have to ask the right questions. Too often we're asking the wrong question. So we're asking questions like, are you spending time with God? And I would argue, well yeah, but even the Pharisees spent time with God, and they killed Jesus, so that's the wrong question. Can we ask better questions? So one of the questions, for example, about your spiritual practices is not, are you doing those things, but, is it working? That's a far better question to ask yourself. So yeah, do I want you to spend time Bible reading, prayer, worship, etc. Of course, but we just talked about it at the beginning. It was one of my health tips. I want to spend time in Sabbath. I want to spend block times alone with God, but is it working? That's the key question. So how do you know if it's working? That is something I think we need to evaluate. And you know, that's a big important question that you have to ask.

Ivelisse Page:

Yeah. And I feel that, you know, many times we feel better, right if we're checking off those boxes, like I read my Bible, I spent time in worship. And, one of the things that I learned during my sabbatical was to do life differently, not only in finding joy in the simple things in life, but even in my spiritual practices So, my spiritual director asked me, what have you been doing? And what do you normally do? So I shared and she's like I want you to put that all to the side and I want you to do new things I want you to draw what Jesus shows you throughout the day instead of journaling, if that's something you're always doing. I want you to go for prayer walks. When you're talking about forgiveness, pick up a stone along your walk and hold it as a representation of the things that you may be holding that you may not know. And at the end of the walk, throw it and release it to God. And so simple things like that that really opened my soul to something new and to experience God in a different way And I love that question is how do you know if it's working and I feel personally for me I know that when I'm experiencing the fruits of the Spirit then I am experiencing God in the way I feel I should I have more peace. I have more joy I have more love and patience and kindness and goodness faithfulness all of those wonderful gifts that he's given us is a reflection of how we feel when we're doing life right with him.

Dr. Rob Reimer:

Yeah, so when I'm rightly aligned with Jesus, then the emotion of Jesus begins to emerge for me. So think about it, right? The first three in that fruit of the spirit you just listed are love, joy, and peace. So when I am correctly aligned to Jesus, what should be bubbling up from deep wells within me are love, joy, and peace.. And they're not circumstantial. Think with me about Paul, right? He's in prison. He's getting the snot kicked out of him and he's worshiping and he's writing a letter to the church at Philippi talking about joy that's bursting in his soul. Like that ain't normal. But that's normal when you're abiding in Jesus. Why? Because He has complete joy. He is the Prince of Peace. He is love. So when I'm connected to the one who is complete in joy, the prince of peace, and the manifestation of love, guess what happens? Love, joy, and peace bubble up in my soul. So for me, one of the keys that I have to evaluate is, do I experience love, joy, and peace manifesting regularly and consistently in my life? Or am I experiencing irritation, aggravation, annoyance, and so on and so forth? Because that's not the fruit of Jesus. But I have had times in my life where I've been doing all the right things and not manifesting love, joy, and peace.

Ivelisse Page:

Yes. And you also talk about in the book about sustaining a deep connection with God over a lifetime, right? And this is hard for a lot of people to do, especially when they're finding themselves straying over time due to those challenges and circumstances that you talk about. What are some practices or daily habits that help nurture and maintain that depth in, in, in our lifetime walk with Jesus?

Dr. Rob Reimer:

So, one of the key things for me all the time is like, I have to constantly sink my roots into my eternal citizenship. As you and I are recording this, right, we just had an election. So let's be honest. I have friends on both sides of the political spectrum, okay? I have a ton of friends that, for them, they're looking at this thing and going, oh no, if so and so wins. Oh, the world is falling apart. And then I got a ton of other friends on the other side of the spectrum that if so and so the other party wins, oh, the world is falling apart. Let me say, no matter who won, and we know now that Trump has won, as you know, the next day here. Jesus is still on his throne, and he's not nervous. But can I tell you, Jesus wasn't nervous in World War II when Hitler was in charge. And Jesus isn't gonna be nervous, no matter what idiot stands on the throne, and no matter what horrible decisions they make. Jesus is the Prince of Peace. And my true citizenship is not in this world. I'm just passing through according to my Bible. I'm living for another kingdom. I live for that king of that kingdom that's eternal. And when I get that right, the disappointments of this life cause me to grieve the losses that should have not happened or the things that shouldn't have turned out the way they turned out. But at the end of the day, all the disappointment and grief of this world reminds me that I'm not really living for this world, that this world can never really satisfy, that it is the next world that I'm actually living for. And that causes me to sink deep roots in my eternal citizenship. When I do that, love, joy, and peace are an abundant fruit flowing in my soul.

Ivelisse Page:

Yes. But don't you also agree that as believers, that we are his hands and feet here and that biblical values need to be upheld and, you know, when, when things are going amok in our world, that we, we have the power, you know, to make sure that the leaders are following these biblical values and protecting life and, you know, all the issues of today. And so, yes, I, I 100 percent agree that our citizenship is in Jesus and either way, He is still on the throne. Absolutely. But I also feel like what is our role as citizens here on earth to make sure that we are sharing His life and being light in that darkness.

Dr. Rob Reimer:

Yeah, we have to be a light in the darkness, but let's be honest, there's always darkness. And it's not just in, you know, whatever political leader I have, because they all have darkness in them, and they're all very egotistical, for the most part, self centered people who, um, don't always make moral choices. And the reality is that darkness is in me, too, and in you. This is what it means to be a sinner. So, for me, a huge part of this thing is just recognizing if I'm gonna lose my peace over who's gotten elected, or over what decision some political leader is making, then I gotta tell you, I have more American citizenship than I do Kingdom citizenship. And that's not Paul at all. That's not Jesus at all. No matter what political leaders were involved in whatever they were doing, and again, Paul's getting thrown in prison and being threatened with death, and eventually killed, and yet it was never going to rob him of his peace, because he had deep, eternal citizen roots. That's a big deal. So, I think part of this is having these kinds of eternal perspectives. If you want to live a healthy life on Earth where you're undisrupted, by earth circumstances, you've got to have deeper, you know, sort of roots in your eternal citizenship. It's a big deal.

Ivelisse Page:

Yeah. And similar to those who are listening on this podcast from our community in the cancer world or on that cancer journey, you know, we have the storms of a cancer diagnosis and all that that entails, and the fear and the anxiety that tries to creep in. But when we are rooted in an authentic relationship with Jesus, we can have peace in the midst of chaos and overwhelm. And he can continue to guide us in our personal lives and in what to do.

Dr. Rob Reimer:

And this is the promise of God. It's the peace of God that transcends all understanding. So my point is when that gets robbed from us, we're living beneath our privilege. And a lot of times the reason it's robbed for us is because my temporal citizenship has become more paramount to me than my eternal citizenship. And so I, on a daily basis, have got to do that work of making sure my eternal citizenship is my primary citizenship in life.

Ivelisse Page:

Spirituality, you know, you talk about in the book often intersects with our emotional well being, you know, and how this impacts our physical health too. So can you share about how you address the emotional aspect of one's relationship with God, especially in times of struggle, like cancer or spiritual dryness in one's life?

Dr. Rob Reimer:

So for me, one of the things I do every single day as part of my spiritual practice is I process my negative emotion every day. So I just recognize, again, if we go back to the fruit of the spirit, when I'm abiding in Christ, what I should experience is love, joy, and peace. When I'm not experiencing love, joy, and peace, I would argue that one of the earliest indicators I'm starting to drift out of alignment with God is a negative emotion. So, I feel anxious, I feel angry, I feel sad. Now, in and of themselves, they're just emotions, they're not bad. The problem is when I don't address it. And I don't process it. And again, you know, here it is culture, right? So Western culture doesn't really process emotion generally very effectively, right? Jewish culture, super good at it. So think about the Psalms. Forty percent of the Psalms are lament Psalms where they're just drilling down on negative emotion and trying to get it out. Now they have a wide expression of emotional reality. They have celebration and joy and there's exuberance. And there's love and there's peace and, but then they have all this other garbage, the negative side of humanity. There's anger, there's hurt, there's grief, there's sadness, etc. There's fear. And they're processing that negative stuff to get back to love, joy, and peace. If I don't process it, it robs me of love, joy, and peace. I know I have thoroughly processed it. When love joy and peace begin to emerge again with consistency in my life. And so that's just part of what I do every single day. Every day. I just like, okay Let's take a quick emotional state of being. Where am I at? Where do I feel angst? Where do I feel irritation? Where am I starting to be a little bit hurt in life by people around me? And then I process that stuff. I do what I need to do. Um, listen, a huge part of this for me, I'm just being honest, right, is death to self. So just one of my basic learnings in life, the only time I find myself miserable in life is when I'm making life too much about me. I have never found myself miserable when I am centered on Jesus. When I am making life all about Jesus, I don't feel miserable. When I am centered on Jesus and focused on loving others, I don't feel miserable. You know when I feel miserable? When I'm making life all about me. It's like, what about me? What about my wants, my needs, my feelings, my emotions, my rights, my opinions? What about me? That is always the place where I start to drift out of alignment with Jesus. And ultimately, that's all really being a sinner is all about. It's just making life too much about us.

Ivelisse Page:

Yes.

Dr. Rob Reimer:

So, for me, negative emotion is often tied to just that.

Ivelisse Page:

Very true. So, at Believe Big, we also talk a lot about the importance of family, friends, caregivers, to someone who is on this cancering journey. You know, community is crucial. Not many people, believe it or not, have it. But, what role do community and relationships play in helping one live an authentic Christian life as described in your book?

Dr. Rob Reimer:

Well, so part of this, Ivelisse, is the fact that we all have a tendency to be a little bit deluded, right? We're all truth avoidant creatures. This again is part of what it really means to be a sinner. So the problem is, I believe my own press, And I have blind sides to my own darkness. This is why we need community. So let me give you an example, right? So you're in the kitchen of your house. You're cooking something really good, right? When you first start cooking and it smells really good, you're like, oh man, that smells really good. But you're in there long enough, you start to lose the smell. And then somebody else walks in and they're like, wow, what are you cooking? That smells amazing, right? Okay, change the illustration just slightly. You're in your kitchen, you've been there all day, and something starts to rot and smell in your garbage or your refrigerator, and you don't notice it because you're saturated in the atmosphere, right? But someone else walks in who hasn't been there all day with this dying smell, and they're like, Oh my gosh, what is dead in here? This is terrible. We need to get rid of this, right? Okay, this is why we need community. Because other people smell our garbage before we do.

Ivelisse Page:

That is so true.

Dr. Rob Reimer:

We get so used to our own garbage, we don't even smell it. So, the marriage crisis that Jen and I went through that I talk about in Soul Care, I mean, she was sniffing stuff out on me that I just blew past. And vice versa, right? And so the reality is, relationship is critically important to self awareness. And self awareness is the gateway to transformation. It doesn't guarantee it, but you absolutely can't get there without it. You know, we use a line in the U. S., right? We say, what you don't know won't hurt you. What you don't know about yourself is killing you and it's killing everybody around you. Self awareness is a gift, man. God doesn't shine light to make us feel bad. He shines light to get us free. But sometimes we're resistant to the light the Holy Spirit offers to us and the people around us? They're critically important for us to begin to see the truth about ourselves.

Ivelisse Page:

Yes. Yes.

Dr. Rob Reimer:

And then when we're dying, right inside emotionally, they're also there to love us and encourage us and support us and lift us up and pray for us. So there's not just that dark side, but I think the dark side usually isn't what we think about. We usually think about the second side, especially in your context.

Ivelisse Page:

Yes. That's so good. Now you talked about our Western culture, and you've led Soul Care conferences worldwide. You know, how has that experience influenced your perspective on what you wrote about authenticity and faith, especially across different cultures and Christian traditions.

Dr. Rob Reimer:

So one of the things that's happened as I travel around the world, I would just make, um, two observations that seem to be kind of universal. So first one, um, the single greatest problem we're having in the church today worldwide is we're making life too much about us, and not enough about Jesus. And the corollary statement, not enough about Jesus, is always true when you're making life too much about you. Okay? Which is why Jesus told us we had to pick up our cross daily and follow him. In other words, die to self and make it all about him. That's the only way you're ever going to experience freedom and fullness and abundant life. Other than that, you're always going to be miserable because you're making life too much about you. So we're making it way too much about us, too much about our rights, our opinions, our feelings, our emotions, just too much about us. But there's no freedom in that. So that's number one. That is a universally true. I've been on every continent on the planet. except Antarctica. And it is the condition way too often. It's human. It's the human condition. This is what it is to be a sinner. Your self bias is overwhelming. Okay, which again is why we need communication. Second thing, um, as I travel the church worldwide, we become very religious. Without death to self, you're going to become very religious. Why? Because you are doing all these religious things. Going to church, reading your Bible, praying, fasting, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Trying to be a good moral person, but you substitute learned behaviors and right religious phrases and right religious practices for authentic, deep experience with God. And you don't even know it.

Ivelisse Page:

So, in closing, you know, someone who's listening today, and this may all be very new to them. You know, someone who's new to their faith or has had limited spiritual experiences. What would be the first steps you would recommend to begin building a meaningful, genuine relationship with God?

Dr. Rob Reimer:

One, I totally agree with what you said earlier. You got to have some community, right? We need that. We need people to kind of hold up a mirror to us and go, Hey, do you see this? Have you noticed this about yourself? Like we need that. We all need that. So you got to get in community. You know, you can't produce a deep spiritual life with privatized religion. Privatized religion, when it's all just you and God, you and God, you and God. When you have privatized religion, it always produces pride that leaves you out of the opportunity of freedom and fullness. So the community aspect is super important. So I'm going to start by making sure I have friends around me that are dead serious about following Jesus. That's number one. Number two, I'm going to get serious about really reckoning with my self life. Listen, Jesus principle is you gotta die to live. You gotta surrender to experience peace and freedom and fullness. As long as you're making it too much about yourself, you are robbing yourself of the opportunity to experience all that Jesus has for you. You've gotta lay down your rights and pick up your cross and follow Jesus. And it is abundant life, deep connection, incredible peace, love, and joy, but it only comes with death to self. It doesn't ever come by being more self centered. So you gotta believe Jesus way is the best way. Third thing for me, I would say build a relationship with God, which means you got to spend time. Any kind of relationship, you got to spend time with the person. If you don't spend time with them, you're not going to have a strong relationship. Same with God. So you use spiritual disciplines, Bible reading, prayer, et cetera. You use those as opportunities to connect deeper to God, but make sure your goal in your spiritual discipline is to connect to God, not the discipline itself. So the purpose of reading your Bible isn't to know the Bible. The purpose of reading your Bible is to encounter the living God. If you read and gain knowledge without encounter, you'll be more like the Pharisees and less like Jesus. Make sure it's about encounter. That's true for every spiritual discipline. So make sure when you're doing those, God is your goal. And actually hearing him, connecting to him and loving him and loving people is your real goal of these spiritual practices.

Ivelisse Page:

I love that. Those are amazing. And I would just add one thing for the person who's listening who, you know, doesn't have that relationship and is even not even sure that God exists that I would challenge you to tonight, just ask Jesus to speak to you, to come into your dreams and to, uh, reveal himself to you and he will. And, uh, a side note as well, like you were talking about community and relationship, also to not focus so much on individuals like pastors and priests, but in Jesus himself. We are all fallible, and we all make mistakes, and and it's easy for us to feel the hypocrisy sometimes in churches that, you know, some Christians and non Christians have shared. And I think if we focus our, our attention on Jesus, as you were saying, and his word and spending time with him, on being his disciple, a follower of him, then that's what's going to really lead to true peace and joy and love that you talk about.

Dr. Rob Reimer:

Which I would argue, therefore, start in the Gospels and just read about who Jesus presents himself to be. What does he say? What does he do? Who is he? Really just focus on Jesus. He's the main story there.

Ivelisse Page:

Yes. Well, thank you, Rob, once again for joining us today on what it means to live an authentic life with Jesus. We really appreciate you taking time today for this podcast and we are going to put a link to your book and to the Soul Care website so that those who want to learn more can go ahead and click on that and find out more. So look for those in our show notes, but thank you again for joining us.

Dr. Rob Reimer:

Good to be with you.

Ivelisse Page:

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