In episode 264 of the No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast, host Greg Ryan explores the spiritual tension between serving God and serving mammon (money). Framing the discussion within his ongoing "Us Versus Them" series, Greg shares his personal struggle to reconcile his ministry calling with practical financial needs, including his work in real estate, a clothing line, and the costs of producing the podcast. He cites Matthew 6:24 (no one can serve two masters) and Deuteronomy 8:18 (God gives the power to create wealth) to ground his reflections, while warning that Satan uses deception and pride to keep believers in strongholds. Greg discusses the difficulty of distinguishing between ministry and business, his fear of asking for money, and his desire to give freely while remaining financially sustainable. He confesses his lack of clarity, prays for guidance, and encourages listeners to meditate on Scripture, recognize spiritual deception, and seek God’s direction in their own financial and ministerial journeys.
Welcome to episode 264, In the Beginning Was the Word, and 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.
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, I want to continue our teaching on Us Versus Them, and we're going to kind of make a little segue to picking a side, because I believe there's only two sides. And that's why I got the Us Versus Them theme, and we're going to kind of pick apart one or two verses in the next few episodes. And I really want to go to this one because it's the one I'm struggling with. And since it's my podcast and I know that I've got some issues, and I was just driving with my son, we were going to take family photos this weekend, and we were talking, and I told him, I, you know, I apologize to him. I said, man, I'm a little bit jacked up because I think we're all deceived. And I don't know, I've talked about this multiple times, but we have this understanding that we think we understand a topic, but until you get into the truth, you really don't know the truth. Until you are intimate with this Bible and you know it backwards and forwards, which, I mean, it's going to take a long time to get there, but when the Holy Spirit opens up something to you, and I, I think that this is what God is showing me, that I am just kind of messed up on this financial stuff. And I've got, you know, I've been doing okay in real estate and I've got my, I'm sporting my, if you're watching on the YouTubes, I'm sporting my RE/MAX shirt today because I'm going to and from real estate. And I've told you, I've got another career. So I'm just doing this to kind of help you and help me as we go through this life. But I'm by no means got it all figured out. And I want to continue to talk to you about this us versus them. And I wanna use my example because I am an imperfect man following after a perfect example. And I think that, and I wanna use the us versus them theme as I'm trying to get through all this stuff in my head, God versus mammon. And I'm gonna go to Matthew 6, I think it's 6:24. Yeah, it's right here, I got it picked up. No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. Satan has just pounded me on this, and I have got some soft spots. And I believe because of this us versus them— again, I've said that like 27 times on this episode— but I think that the body of Christ, there's a lot of us that are deceived, and we're walking— because the cool thing about deception with on Satan's side is the person that's deceived doesn't know that he's deceived. So you're gonna fight and you're gonna kick and you're gonna claw and you're gonna say, by God, I know what I'm talking about because I understand this word and I understand that I am deceived, until I get a breakthrough from the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. And I'm just here to tell you that I am struggling on this God and mammon. I know I'm serving God, but I also have to have money to do things. This podcast costs money, the water bill costs money, the gas to put in my car costs money. You're feeling the same thing. We've got inflation going on, and I'm not here to talk about the political environment or anything like that, but I'm here to say that the spiritual realm is fighting each other. And I believe that we're butting heads, and I, I just think that there's a lot of lies and there's a lot of deception going on, and I am part of that. And I was brought up in a poor family. My mom, God bless her, she did the best she could, and she was a fighter. I loved my mom to death. She passed away in 2014, but But I think that she had helped me, and I'm putting air quotes up, helped me understand money by going to the negative side of it. I made decisions in my life and spoke words out of my mouth that I think have hurt me as I've grown older. And so with all of that said, I believe that Satan takes a little bit of truth and then he just blends it into our life experiences, and he blends it into our upbringing and what our parents teach us and all of that stuff. And so we get the person that we are today is based on the experiences that we've had and the life that we've lived. And if we stay closed-minded and we stay set in our ways, we— Bible calls that a stronghold. We have got to break some of that up. And that's what I'm doing in this episode, is I'm breaking some of this stuff up because I have for too long, and you know, I tell people I don't worry about what anybody thinks or what anybody says, and to a degree that's true, but I don't wanna teach a, quote, prosperity gospel and say that God wants everybody wealthy and God want, you know, you can do this or you can do that. I don't think the Bible teaches that, but I do believe that the Bible is clear that God owns the cattle on a thousand hills. God is not poor. Now, Jesus became poor so that we might become rich, and I think that that is true, but rich is not just money. Rich is peace of God. Rich is the grace of God. Rich is love and having family, and all of that stuff just goes into this little pot of wealth, and I think that God just just supernaturally helps when he has to. And I'm praying that God will break down some of these strongholds in my head because I have a hard time differentiating between a ministry and a business. I don't have any problem when I'm on the business side, but as I'm starting to get into the clothing line and teaching ministry and all of that stuff, I find it harder and harder for me to ask for money. And I don't know if you've ever had that problem, and I honestly don't know if it's the fear of success or the fear of failure or the fear of if this thing don't work out, then I'm just gonna have to drop it and go away. I mean, I, I think all of those are combining in where I am right now. And if you can relate to this, I hope that this is speaking to you. But you know, if you're fine with with money and you're fine with all of this stuff, I think that we got to understand that we have struggles in other areas. And I want to take you back a couple of chapters to Matthew, and it's 4, when Jesus was tempted. And I want you to hear when Satan starts speaking to Jesus. I'm going to pick it up in Matthew 4:3. Now when the tempter came to him, he said, if you are the Son of God, command that these stones become bread. And I wanna stop there, and you can read Matthew 4, the temptation, when Jesus is in the wilderness, but I just want you to hear Satan's, one of his key things is questioning the word of God. And if you don't know it, Jesus is the word. So Satan really didn't have a chance with Jesus, but Satan can beat up on you or I if we don't know the word. I take some of these things and I meditate on them, and I know that God in the Old Testament, he gave us the power to get wealth. I think that's in Deuteronomy 8:18, I think. But he said, you shall remember the Lord your God because he gave you the power to create wealth. I'm gonna have to go to it. I'm sorry, I've got it. And it is Deuteronomy 8:18. And you shall remember the Lord your God for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may establish his covenant which he swore to your fathers as it is this day. So God gives you the power to get wealth, but God's not going to put money in your pocket. God is not going to just materialize a winning lottery ticket. That's not how God operates. God operates by seed time and harvest. He said these will remain. When Noah came off of the ark He said, these will remain: seedtime and harvest, hot and cold, spring and summer. It— and again, I'm paraphrasing, but he said he put into place the springtime and harvest, the kingdom of God. As I struggle through this life of mine, that as I start kicking the door down and I start getting after this monetization, because I, I want— on one end, I just want to be spiritual and I want to be in this word, but on the other end, you've got to have money. So I am, I'm working through all of this. Some of the stuff that I've got inside of myself is bad teaching or it's bad understanding, and I'm working through that as I'm trying to transition from real estate into teaching and into clothing line and all of this stuff. It's been a struggle because now I'm thinking, well, you got a ministry, you got to be a 501. I don't want to be a 501. I want to be a restaurant. Restaurant type. I want to— if you eat of this food, I want you to, just like you would at a restaurant, I want you to pay the bill. The other side of that too is I want to give away food. I want to be able to give away food. And that, that's what I think I'm doing here with the podcast and with the YouTube and with some of the teaching, is I want to be able to just give away what God has given me. And I want to do it freely, and I want to encourage, empower, and inspire you to do the same thing. But I just want to tell you as we dig into this, that we have an enemy, and it is not anybody that we can see. This is an enemy that's slimy. He's got over half of the body of Christ that the last time I saw Barna survey thought that Satan was not a true person, but like a concept. And that is so far off that it is nowhere near biblical. But he is very slimy, and he's very good at what he does, and he's deceiving. One of his best weapons is deception and pride. He uses pride. Anytime you can go into something thinking you know everything, I believe Satan's got you. So I just really— this is kind of one of those podcasts that I feel like I'm whining. I'm really not whining. I'm trying to open up. I'm trying to give you a peek behind my pea brain and at some of that I'm struggling with that I am gonna— that I'm working on and I'm working through. And I really honestly believe that I own the most powerful clothing line in the world because it's based on the Word of God. I'm working on how I can deliver that to people and get people encouraged. I've got a bunch of other things going on, but I just want to encourage you that God's not done with you. He's not done with me, and he's not in a hurry. As I read the Old Testament and I see where they skip 10 and 15 years and sometimes 20 years, to where you— the Bible is just silent about what's going on. So God's not in a hurry. And so I just want to slow down. I want you to just meditate on what God's talking to you about, because it is a us versus them, and the them is very evil, very deceptive, very angry, and very bitter and hateful, and he divides, and he's just pulling things apart, and I just want to bind him up in Jesus' name and cast him out of my life. And I want to cast him out of your life too. And I'm going to stop right here because I feel myself rambling on. We're going to pick this back up. I'm just getting started with this money thing. They say confession is good for the soul, so I'm confessing to the fact that I don't have all this money thing figured out. I am working on it. I know, you know, they say the first thing is to know you got a problem. So I'm telling the world, hey, I've got a little bit of a problem. I'm working out the difference between a business and a ministry. I want to pray. God, I thank you so much for your word. I thank you for this listener, and I thank you that they've made it to the end of this rant. And I thank you for your word that we can't serve you and money. And so there is a spirit behind both of those, and Lord, we, we lean towards your spirit. Holy Spirit, I pray that you would just lead and guide and direct us. Lord, 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.
