Faith and Hope How to begin to pull it all together

Welcome to episode 128, 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 Ryan.

Episode 128. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. If this is your first time joining us, welcome. You may be a little confused by this lesson because I am going to try to tie together the previous episode and then move on to the conclusion of the small topic I decided to take on, which is faith and hope. And if you're a frequent flyer to this podcast, welcome back, you fanatic. Well, let's get back to the lesson on hope. And we're talking about— remember, we were talking about the thermostat on the wall, and it has to be connected to the HVAC, the heat and air conditioning system. And using that analogy, I want to put together a couple of verses to illustrate how I will go about doing this. And the first verse, because I was talking about debt, and a lot of the problems that I've had are self-inflicted, but mostly because I did not save wonderfully well for my kids' education, and I just made up my mind that they were not gonna get done with college and have any college debt. So taking that burden on, I mean, not trying to pat myself on the back, but they're— every one of them walked out of college without any student loan debt, and they also walked out— I got them a credit score of over— every one of them, I think, has a credit score of over 700. So we got that going for them, but the problem with that is that Mona and I, in an effort to keep them debt-free, because I didn't have a couple hundred thousand laid up in an account, we would pay as we went. It seemed like it just kept getting more and more expensive every quarter. And if you've got any kids in college, you can probably relate. And if you don't have children in college, I would suggest, I would encourage you to start throwing some money into an interest-bearing account if you're planning on having them go to college. But this is not a financial podcast, this is a biblical podcast. And so now that I have a problem and I've come clean, I'm not totally debt-free and I hadn't done everything right. And again, I tell you, perfection is not the goal, it's imitation. I've already asked for forgiveness for my poor stewardship skills and my inability to Save the money ahead of time. And if you've listened to this podcast before, you know that I have a ready, fire, aim mentality, so I jump off into it. But I also have a character flaw of waiting till the last week or so before the test. When I was in college, when I was in high school, I would always cram. I was a crammer. I was not a preparer, a long haul, read a little bit every day, every day. And stay on top of things. Now, I went to class and I paid attention in class, took notes, but I never really looked at the notes again until it was time for the test. And when the teacher announced, hey, we're having a test next Thursday— this Thursday— well, on Monday, Tuesday, I started getting after it. And so that, that's kind of that same personality. That's kind of how I got after this college education fund, is that, oh my gosh, My kids are sophomores. I might need some money in a college account. That's why I ended up with some debt. Well, now that we've disclosed the problem and we understand that there's an issue, now we need to go to the Word of God to try to figure out how to solve this problem. And so what I'm doing now in my walk, in my Christian walk, instead of reading all the, the whole Bible through in a year, I'm looking for things to help motivate me or to encourage me that God's got this and that he will work through me. And some of these scriptures are— you're probably very familiar with, but one of them 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 I'm, I'm reading that scripture, and it's God give me the power to create wealth.. And so I then go to one of our popular scriptures in this podcast is Matthew 6:33, but seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. So when I'm thinking about what is the kingdom, about what's God's way of doing things, and it's seed time and harvest, and that is what this podcast, these episodes, all these 120+ episodes that I've put I'm in my mind and in my spiritual eyes and ears and mind, I'm looking at that as seed. I've got 127— this will be 128, I think— but I will have those episodes in the ground. They are out there in the world. They're not coming down unless Apple or Spotify or whoever pulls them down, but they're forever going to be out there. So that's seed in the ground. And so I'm just watering them. I haven't done a wonderful job of promoting this. In fact, I've done a horrible job. Of promoting the podcast. But the seed's in the ground, and when I figure out how I'm going to promote this or what I'm going to do, I'll— I can— I'll have those things there and I can point to them as it starts growing. I can say, hey, look back at this, and I'll have those things that if, if I can get organized— and that's another character flaw is I'm very unorganized— I believe we'll be able to see the hand of God on this ministry that I'm doing. But it's a business. This is not going to be I'm not starting a church, I'm starting a ministry to help. And I'm not sure, I'm still praying about who exactly I'm helping, but I'm thinking it's probably going to be men 40 plus because I'm getting up there in age. I'm not sure the 20 to 30 year olds want to hear from me. I'm not sure that they don't. I'm still praying. I know it's going to involve the Bible, and I know it's going to have some form of encouragement or community or teaching. It's going to be all of those things, but I haven't just nailed down exactly what I'm going to do when I grow up. But I do know it's going to be based on the word, and I'm still digging out some other scriptures. And one of the scriptures I read, I think, 2 episodes ago was Psalm 1. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in his law he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that bring forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf shall not wither, and whatever he does shall prosper. Now that's one, that's one to kind of dig into if you're trying to quote prosper. And another one that I love is in Joshua 1:5, no man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you. Be strong and of good courage, for to this people you shall divide as an inheritance the land which I swore to their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous, that you may observe to do according to all of the law which Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go. This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have I not commanded you, be strong and of good courage? Do not be afraid nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. Now I know I've got superior reading skills, and I know y'all are so fired up whenever I get to read many verses in a row. But if you start reading that Bible on your own, and faith cometh by hearing, hearing by the word of God, it's just got to get you fired up. If it doesn't get you on fire or fired up, then your wood may be a little bit wet. Because I think the word of God is like a flame. It just kind of sets you on fire if your heart's right and if your mind is right and you start getting into the word. And it says meditate on it day and night. Psalm 1 says that. Joshua 1 says that. Greg has said it multiple times on these podcasts. You have to be in the word of God. If you're not putting the word of God in you, and if you're not putting your eyes in the word of God, you're getting the crap kicked out of you by the punk, by the world, and by your flesh. It's just as simple as that. If you are not in the word of God, if you're not meditating on it— and again, we're not— when we talk about meditating, we're not going Huh, what we're doing is we're reading it, we're digging it around. And to go back to my analogy now with the thermostat and with the heat and air system, the thermostat— if you can now, you start picturing now the thermostat is starting to be prosperous or wealthy or getting this debt paid off. And so you start ticking the thermostat set, and I almost did a Star Trek analogy to stun. Sorry about that. But we have our thermostats set to prosper. And so then we start looking, we start looking into the word of God, and we start looking at what does the word of God say about being prosperous? What's the word of God say about your financing, about being a good steward? Where does it start? What, what should I be doing? What am I doing wrong? What am I doing right? And you start digging in and you start reading some of this in the, in the context. Now, when you go through and you do your daily read or your daily Bible study, You're studying. I'm studying with a purpose. I'm studying to get something done, and I'm studying to get something done in the spirit realm and then have it manifest in this physical realm where all my debt is. And when I say all my debt, you know, I'm not just this side of bankruptcy, but I have more debt than I want to be carrying at 58 years old. I wanted to be debt-free at this time in my life, and I'm not. So that's the confession that I'm doing right now. Again, Perfection's not the goal, imitation. And we're going to mess up. If you thought that I was perfect, if you're tuning in for the first time and you think that this guy talking about Bible, no doubt, no fear, only believe, that he's got it all figured out, this guy does not have it all figured out. But this guy knows where to find the answers, and this guy knows where the truth is. The truth is Jesus, and Jesus is the Word of God, and the Word of God does not lie. And if I just stay in the Word of God And I pray and I ask the Holy Spirit. It's almost an unfair advantage because now that I've set my sights on this thing and now that I've cursed the debt in my life in Jesus' name, now the debt's got to go. Now, now it's just my faithfulness and my ability to stay with it and to stay on it and to ask and keep asking and seek and keep seeking and knock and keep knocking. And I start talking to God, say, I'm talking specifically to God. In the mornings for myself. Now, I'm not begging him, I'm thanking him, because it says with all prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. It says to be anxious for nothing, but through all prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, make your request known to God. So I'm thanking God. I'm saying, God, thank you for everything that you've done in my life. Thank you for my kids. Thank you for my friends. Thank you for my ability to do a podcast. Thank you for the roof over my head. You know, I'm thanking God in the morning, and then I say Oh, by the way, did I tell you I got some debt? Yeah, I got some debt. Yeah, I screwed up. I was miserable at saving for my kids' college. But hey, God, I know that you've forgiven me. I know that you knew that I was going to mess up, and I thank you for not mashing me any more than you already have. But I thank him, and I just move on, and I tell him what I'm— I say, look, I need to have some ideas. I need to get some ideas on what you need. How can I build your kingdom? And one of the things that I found is I'm walking through this life and it's taken me a long time, but if I start building God's kingdom, if I start getting in involved in what he wants me to be involved in, then he kind of gets alongside of me and he start— it starts getting light. And tomorrow's podcast, I'm going to finish this. I just looked at the clock and I've been going awful long, and I apologize, but I was really just getting started. But tomorrow, I think, is the last podcast on the hope and faith, and I hope and pray that I can pull it together. God, thank you so much for the person listening to this podcast. God, thank you for your word. Jesus, thank you for coming and living a perfect life as an example, and so I can see what perfection looks like. And God, thank you that as I mess up, and not on purpose, but as I mess up sometimes daily that you are there to say, it's okay, just get back up, just get back up and let's try it again. And I thank you, Lord, if the person listening to this has messed up, I thank you that you're not mashing them either. And Lord, all you got to do— all they have to do is get back up. And Lord, I thank you for sending your Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth. God, we love you, we thank 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.