In episode 245 of the "No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe" podcast, Greg Ryan shifts focus from fear to anxiety, offering a concise devotional anchored in Scripture. He walks listeners through Philippians 4:4‑8, emphasizing rejoicing, prayer with thanksgiving, and meditating on virtuous truths as a remedy for worry. He supplements this with Proverbs 14:4 (the ox and the trough) to illustrate that productive mess is a sign of growth, and cites 2 Timothy 1:7 to refute a spirit of fear. Throughout, Ryan shares his personal struggle building a new website and course, describing technical setbacks, a chaotic workspace, and the anxiety that accompanies the process. He frames these challenges as opportunities for action, encouraging listeners to embrace imperfection, take steps forward, and rely on God’s peace. Ryan also discusses the value of the Word versus monetary pricing, noting that the true worth lies in Scripture, not the price tag of his upcoming course. The episode concludes with a brief prayer, a reminder to meditate on biblical virtues, and an invitation to stay tuned for future updates.
Welcome to episode 245, In the Beginning Was the Word. Amen.
The Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. Spending time in the Word of God is the best way to spend time with God. Welcome to No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast, where we will encourage, inspire, and empower you to live your best life in Christ. Here's Greg.
Welcome to episode 245. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, I told you in the last episode that I was gonna get off of the fear teaching, but I think this is a cousin— anxiety, nervousness, anxiousness. I think we need to address that before we move on because there's a lot of that worry. There's a lot of stuff like that going on in the world today. And I just want to just give you a scripture and just a little bit of comfort on how you and I need to handle our anxiety. And we're going to go to Philippians. Let's go to Philippians 4 and start in verse 4. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice! Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be known to God. And the peace of the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy, meditate on these. And I'm gonna stop there. Paul goes on a little bit, but if you will just Take their 5 scriptures, I think, if you do the math. I was told never to do math in public, but verse 4 through verse 8, it gives you a little bit of a diagram on how to get through this life when you have some anxieties or you have some worries. And I'm telling you, with me trying to build out this website, everything that could possibly go wrong seems like it's going wrong. And I know that's not the case there. I have had successes And I've had things happen, and I've had a lot of distractions, which tends to be my M.O. But I am getting after this thing, and I wanted to have the site up and everything available when I mentioned it back a week or two ago, but that's just not the case. And again, this whole podcast is about an imperfect man following after a perfect example. And part of the way we kick fear in the face, or we punch it in the face, is by taking action., and we have to take action. And sometimes it's messy. A lot of times it's messy. And I'm gonna go to a scripture right now where God's word allows us to have a little bit of mess, and it's almost expected. Well, the scripture I'm talking about is in Proverbs 14:4. Where no oxen are, the trough is clean, but much increase comes by the strength of an ox. And here is my interpretation of that verse, is that if you don't have anything going on, you can have a tidy desk or a tidy life. And if you're just sitting around waiting for Jesus to come back and nothing bad is happening, probably nothing really good is happening. But where there's things going on, you're going to have some messes. And the Bible says right here, and this is Solomon— if you want a wonderful book to read for just business or just life truths and wise sayings, Proverbs is a wonderful place to start. If you like little one-liners or if you like quick and easy pithy sayings or thoughts or verses, Proverbs is where you should be. But where no ox are, the trough is clean. There is not any mess where there's no work going on, but much increase comes by the strength of an ox. And I don't know if God's calling me an ox right now, and I don't even care, but there's a lot of mess going on in my world. My office is a mess. My organization skills, which are very minimal and they're tested almost all the time, They are under all kinds of stress. And I was reading his word when he brought back to my remembrance, be anxious for nothing. Because I've just got to let you in on a little secret. I've been a little bit anxious ever since I tried to put up this website and get everything talking to each other. And I think I've kind of sort of got it fixed, but now it put me behind creating the content for the stuff. Just been a mess. And this isn't a biblical saying, it is a saying that kind of resonates with me. And on this mess right here, if you're gonna have omelets, you're gonna have to break some eggs. And I want to just thank you if you've been trying to get into the website. I've had a couple people talk to me about how they can get in, and I just want to thank you for trying, and I want to thank you for being there. And I understand that it's probably frustrating on your end And I wanted to give you a scripture to help you because this helped me. Be anxious for nothing, but in all things through prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. And I went by memory because I flipped over to the Proverbs, and so my Bible's open at Proverbs. But I just wanted to reiterate, we are to be anxious for nothing. And if you have anything that's going on in your life right now that you're worried or nervous or anxious about. The Bible says to be anxious for nothing. Again, fear for sure is from the enemy. 2 Timothy 1:7 specifically says, for God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of sound mind. But it doesn't specifically come out and attack anxiety, worry, It is addressed in Philippians 4, I think it's verse 5 or maybe 6. It's verse 6. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. I don't know if that's exactly the way I said it before, but that's how I remember it the first time I said it. It says to be anxious for nothing. And then if you go on to the last, verse 8, where it talks about meditating. Finally, my brethren, whatever things are true— and I'm just going to list these things out— true, noble, just, pure, lovely, good report, if there's any virtue and if there's anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things. And I just want to leave you with this thought. This is going to be kind of a quick episode because I got to get back to building that website. And building that class, because I know there's people out there wanting to get in it. And I'm really wanting to get it done because, one, I want to clock out, and two, I really think it's going to help you dig into the Word of God. Not that I'm doing it perfect, but it's a way that I do it, and then you can use what I'm doing and what the Holy Spirit teaches you through that and how you can do it, and we can get this thing. Because the whole purpose is to get you into the Word of God. It is not to sell the course. In fact, one of my friends, George, thank you for listening, thank you for being there, but told me $17, there's no way he was paying $17, that was way too low. But I thank you, and we'll make some adjustments. It's really honestly not about the money, it's about to get a commitment so that you can say, hey, he didn't just give this to me, because I've found if you give something away whatever value you put on it, that's the value that someone gives it. And it's amazing because I've given many things away online, and you would be amazed at the people that don't even open the product up when you give it away. They say, "Oh yeah, I'll take that," and then they get it and then they never even open it. I've done that. I've bought things that I've never even opened online. If you put a value on it and you make them valuable, just just my putting a price on something doesn't make it valuable. It's the Word of God. I believe the value comes in the Word of God. And when you start getting into it and you see how, quote, easy it is and how little time you really have to put into it to really get the seed, the incorruptible seed inside of you, I think you're going to be amazed at how easy this Bible studying really is because the Holy Spirit is with you right now. The Holy Spirit is there. He is the author of this book. He had someone else write it, you know, he had a quote ghostwriter. He's the Holy Ghost that has a ghostwriter. That's kind of cool if you think about it. Paul wrote two-thirds of the New Testament, I'm told, but he's not the author. The author is God. And so Paul was motivated or inspired— I'm putting air quotes up, but that's what people say— he was inspired to write these words. And based on what the Holy Spirit wanted him to write, Paul wrote it. And it is incredible. I can't really even imagine where I'd be in my life without the Word of God. Back in 1993 when I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior, however many years ago that was, it's what, what's that, 29 now? Next year I'll be 30 years old as a Christian, January 10th, 1993 is when I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior. So January 10th, 2023, I think if the math works out, I think that'll make me 30 years old in the spirit. So that's kind of cool. But I just want to end this session real quick on the meditate on these things. If you think about whatever things are true, noble, just, pure, lovely, of good report, if there's any virtue, if there's anything praiseworthy, meditate on these things. Those things, if you put the Bible up against that whole list, you will find the Bible is true. The Bible is noble, it's just, it's pure, it's lovely, it's of good report. There is virtue in the Bible, and there is multiple things that are praiseworthy in the Bible. So Meditate on the Word of God. Paul is saying, "Rejoice, be anxious for nothing, prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, and then you'll have the peace of God that surpasses all understanding." I just want to encourage you with those words. Those are encouragement to me as I'm nervous and anxious trying to get this product out to you and make it available to you. It's still in process as you're listening to this episode. I am working as best I can back here on the back end of this episode and on the other side of this podcast, and I will have it available sooner rather than later. I really want to encourage you that there's something that you're doing. Don't take my, quote, failure as— if God's telling you to do something, go get after it. Do it. This is the whole reason why I'm here on this podcast, is to show you that it's not about being perfect. In fact, if it was about being perfect, I couldn't have done the first episode. It is not about perfection. It's about correction. And that's what I'm doing on the other side of this, is I'm correcting, is I'm making adjustments. And the course will be up and running, and I will let you know. I may do a special podcast episode. It'll just show up and it'll tell you that it's now available, and I'll have my hat in my hand and I'll have egg on my face. I can tell you it's energized me. It's got me after something. And I'm encouraged by it, but I am also a little bit anxious, and I did need this word today. Let's pray real quick. God, I thank you so much for your word. God, I thank you that you can just take me to the word that I need to hear when I need to hear it. And I pray in Jesus' name that you would help this listener find the word the same way I find the word, and it's with your help. Holy Spirit, I pray that you would just lead and guide and direct this listener. Be a lamp to their feet and a light to their path. God, we thank you. We love you. We ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thank you for being a part of this, and I look forward to visiting with you in the next episode.
Thanks for listening to the No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast at www.nodoubtonlybelieve.com.
