In episode 143 of the No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast, host Greg Ryan introduces the metaphor of “climbing the mountain of God,” a visual diagram hosted on his website that outlines a spiritual journey. He grounds the discussion in Ephesians 4:11‑12, describing the fivefold ministry (apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers) and asserts that his primary gifting is teaching. Ryan explains that teaching is a distinct role that equips others to practice other gifts, using the Tiger Woods analogy to differentiate talent from the ability to teach that talent. He then presents two practical tools: a “God Time Calculator,” based on 2 Peter 3:8‑9, which converts ordinary minutes of prayer, worship, or study into “God time” to illustrate the vastness of divine chronology; and the NET (No Extra Time) concept, encouraging listeners to integrate spiritual disciplines into existing daily activities without adding extra time. Throughout, he emphasizes humility, the ordinary nature of his own life, and the importance of guiding others up the mountain with a knowledgeable teacher. The episode concludes with a prayer asking listeners to be quickened in their desire for God’s word.
Welcome to episode 143.
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.
Welcome to episode 143. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We have started to climb the mountain of God. I know you probably didn't even know God had a mountain, but he does have a mountain. In fact, you can find it on nodoubtonlybelieve.com/mountain. I have actually put it up on the website, and so you can look at it and you can kind of see the diagram that I'm talking about. But before I go back to talking about the diagram in the mountain of God, I want to clarify what I'm doing here. And, and I'm going to go to Ephesians, and it's in Ephesians 4:11 and 12. And he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. Now, the way I read this, these are called the five ministries of Christ, or the fivefold ministry or the offices of the church. I, you know, it doesn't really matter what you call it. I see there's 5 different stations or giftings that Christ gave to the church to edify or to build up the church. And we are, you and I are the church. So we each may have a little bit of this, but I just wanna give an example. And I believe, and I'm confident that God has given me the gift of teaching. And I'm not gonna apologize anymore for teaching you because I think that's what God has called me to do. Well, this is one last time I'm gonna apologize, but I'm gonna apologize for apologizing. I mean, I know that that's a sign of weakness and I try to remain humble. It is a gift. This is not anything that I've earned or that I deserve. It's just something that God has given me. He knows me better than I know me and he knows that I enjoy being in his word and that I like digging around in there and then bringing it to you. Maybe he gave me that. Maybe it was God-given. I don't understand all of that. I know that I am a teacher. That's why I'm here. I'm here to teach. God has done amazing things with ordinary people. God is famous for using ordinary people to do extraordinary things. And I telling you, in Jesus' name, they don't get much more ordinary than me. I'm just a regular guy. Just go about my day just like you do. But for whatever reason, God has given me a desire to teach you. While I'm digging in, I'm not going to tell you that I'm not getting anything out of this because I am. I'm learning a lot, and you cannot teach a topic without learning that topic first. And I have been digging around this word and this truth and this mountain for years, maybe decades. What I'm trying to do, and with my teaching gift, I want to try to compact all of those years, all of those maybe decades down to days or weeks or hours. How cool would that be? And that's kind of what I want to do. And with that in mind, I'm going to also have the link, the God Calculator, where it, it shows you the importance of doing things in God time. And if you're first— if you're brand new to this podcast, I want to welcome you to the— this episode. But I also want to tell you about this God Calculator that I created with my extraordinary math skills and the help of the Word of God. 2 Peter, and we all know how much I like the Apostle Peter. 2 Peter 3:8-9. But beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. And then Peter talks about the day of the Lord when Jesus is going to return. And I've told you multiple times, if you're a frequent flyer here and a fanatic, that we are one day closer today of Jesus' return than we were yesterday. I know this for certain. Jesus is coming back, and it is one day closer today, regardless of when you're listening to this, than you— than it was yesterday. I also want to take into account, I understand that God is not trapped in time, that this was just a symbolic representation of a thousand years to a day that you really can't compare God time to man time. There's no such thing as God time because God is infinite. He's— there's no end and there's no beginning. So we really can't wrap our minds or heads around this, but I just wanted to just show you the power of God time and, and just this breakdown that Peter— that the Holy Spirit— now this whole Bible is inspired by the Holy Spirit. There is one author, there there are multiple writers, and Peter was one of the writers that was inspired by the Holy Spirit, and he put that, you know, with God that one day is, is a thousand years and a thousand years is one day. So I did the math, and it is so cool. If you go over there and click on there, there's not anything to buy, there's no sign up. You just click on there, it's going to take you to— the only downside is it takes you to another website where I've got that hosted. It is a God time calculator, and you can plug in, say, 10 minutes of prayer, or 10 minutes of worship, or 10 minutes of Bible study. You just plug in your different times, and then it tells you in God time how many hours and minutes and years those minutes of praise and worship and reading. I think it's cool, and I wanna just encourage you to just get into God's word. You know I'm gonna say this a million more times. If Jesus tarries, I'm going to continue to promote getting you into the Bible. That is the main reason I'm here, is to get you into the word of God. Maybe you'll think, man, that guy's crazy, there ain't no such thing as God time, there ain't no such thing as a God calculator. Well, there is, because if you'll click on that link, I made it. So there is a God time calculator. Now, whether or not it represents God time, I wasn't trying to start a new doctrine. I was trying to give you a physical representation of a spiritual truth that God Spiritual time is much more powerful than physical time. I think there's a difference between spiritual time and physical time. When people think, well, I just, you know, I don't have time to study the Bible, or I don't have time to pray, or I don't have time to— I want to introduce a new term, NET time, N-E-T, and that stands for no extra time. And I think that's why I'm in this podcast realm because I believe you can do the— you can listen to podcasts while you're working out, or while you're mowing your yard, or while you're driving down the road. If you're driving down the road anyway, why not listen to something to encourage, empower, and inspire you? You can also turn the worship music on and drive down the road, and you can praise and worship, or you can also pray. So the net time is no extra time. So you can add to your day. A lot of y'all working out when you're listening to me, or you're doing yard work, or you're doing something else. And that is the whole idea of net time. You're not having to take new time or time that's dedicated to something else to do this podcast. Or maybe you're getting ready for work, or maybe you're driving to work, or the thing— whatever you're doing in the morning, or whatever you're doing in the afternoon on your drive home, the podcast will not add any extra time to your day. It's so— we're gonna call that NET time, no extra time. I think everybody's got that. I hope we got that now. We don't have to write that down. But I've said all of that to tell you that I have a teaching gift, and what I am called to do is help lead you into the Word of God and show you the truth that God has shown me. So bottom line, teachers teach, preachers preach. Evangelists evangelize, prophets prophesy, and apostles— I'm not sure what apostles do. They do apostolic things, I guess. Obviously I'm not an apostle. I'm sure you and I have heard or seen evangelists, and these are the people given the gift to just preach the good news and then just talk to. Billy Graham, I believe, had an evangelistic ministry or evangelistic gifting. There's a gift of prophecy in the body of Christ, and people have been given the gift of being a prophet, being able to see the events that are coming up in the future. And I, you know, I would like to say that I have a little of that because I look at that, but I sometimes I think that's just common sense where you look at it and go that we're about to have a train wreck, we're about to hit a wall here. The word of God says there are people in the body that have the gift of prophecy. Jesus has given them that to equip the church so that the church can see something coming. And the people that are talking about the end time and stuff like that, I— all of the end time teachings are dealing with the prophetic. So that's probably one of the reasons that I don't dig into that as much. I have not really felt a leading, if you need a good churchy word for that, to deal with the end time prophecy. I think we can all agree that we are in the end times, or we are in the last days. Why am I bringing up all this? I believe that we each have our own giftings, and we each have our own place in the body of Christ, and I believe my place is teaching. I think one of my strengths is I'm not trying to get into the pulpit. I am not trying to become a pastor. I'm not trying to become a prophet or an apostle or an evangelist. Here's my take on it: if you've got a teacher When they look, a teacher will look at something that's going on and try to figure out a way to make it easier for either you to understand or to enter into it. And why I believe that's important, if you're an evangelist and you have the gifting of evangelism on— resting on you, it is going to be second nature for you to just proclaim the name of Jesus and just to lead groups and groups and hundreds of people to the Lord. But to teach somebody to do that, that's a totally different animal. A real-world example of this would be Tiger Woods. When he was in his heyday, Tiger Woods was the best golfer to step on any golf course. In any tournament he entered, he was the golfer to beat. But Tiger Woods was not the best teacher. And if you asked Tiger Woods to show you how to hit the golf ball or to grip the golf club, he would know how to do it. It's a gifting. It just comes natural. But to have Tiger Woods teach you how to golf That's where the golf instructor, the golf teacher comes in. If you're looking to an evangelist and you see an evangelist evangelize, you're watching someone in their gifting. You don't need to learn evangelism from an evangelist. You need to learn how to evangelize from a teacher. And that's my point, is that each person has been given different giftings in the church, and my gifting, I believe, is teaching. It is to show you I believe that I can help you with the Great Commission better maybe than an evangelist could. An evangelist just does it because that's just his gift. He just goes out and does his thing and the Great Commission just happens. But you and I, just us regular people, regular folk in the body of Christ, it's more of a skill to acquire than just a talent. We're gonna dig in deeper on this as we go up the mountain, but I just wanted to set the stage. I am gonna teach you things that I've learned or things I've— through my years or decades of walking this Christian life. And if you're going to walk up the mountain of God, why not use the help of a guide or a teacher that had maybe been there before and has got it maybe narrowed down to 9 different stations or 9 different places where you might could slip or you might could need a little bit of help. So we're going to dig into that, and I just want to encourage you to come on back. I want to thank you for being here. Let's pray. God, I thank you so much for the person listening to this episode. I pray in Jesus' name, Lord, that you would just quicken in their spirit the need to learn your word. Holy Spirit, I thank you that you've never left us and you will never leave us nor forsake us, and that you will lead us into all truth. Holy Spirit, I am asking in Jesus' name that you would help this person listening to this episode to get into God's word, get into your word, and get into the work of God. 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 on the next episode.
Thanks for listening to the No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast at www.nodoubtonlybelieve.com.
