In episode 298 of the “No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe” podcast, host Greg Ryan exhorts listeners to live by the Spirit rather than the flesh, grounding his teaching in Scripture. He begins by emphasizing the necessity of immersing oneself in the Word of God as the source of faith and spiritual growth. Ryan then delves into Ezekiel 1, reading the passage that describes the four living creatures and the accompanying wheels, and interprets the four faces—eagle, lion, ox, and man—as symbolic representations of worship, power/prayer, love, and grace/Christ respectively. He connects these symbols to practical Christian disciplines: praising God (eagle), exercising the power of prayer (lion), loving one another (ox), and embodying the grace of Jesus (man). Throughout, he weaves in other biblical texts—John 6:63, Romans 8, and 2 Timothy 1:7—to illustrate the contrast between walking in the Spirit and living according to the flesh, highlighting that believers are called to a life of power, love, and sound mind, free from condemnation. Ryan acknowledges human imperfection, stressing that grace covers mistakes and that believers should persist in seeking God’s direction through the Word, prayer, worship, and community. The episode concludes with a prayer invoking worship, love, and guidance, and a reminder to continue engaging with the Bible as the primary means of spiritual transformation.
Welcome to episode 298.
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'm gonna try to tie all this Ezekiel's wheel and walking in the spirit and not in the flesh and the four living creatures and the four pillars that I think we need to learn to walk by all into a bow. We're going to tie it all up in this episode. If this is your first time coming to my podcast or my YouTube channel, I want to encourage you to go back and listen to the other episodes. I think I did 6 or 7 of them, maybe 8 or 10. I don't know, I lose count. Remember, math's not an exact science, so we don't need to get caught up in the numbers on this thing. We just need to understand that we're just going to dig into this word. We're going to try to get this word of God. That's our job here at Jesus Mighty Men, is to allow the word of God to do what it is meant to do. And that is to grow inside of your heart and help change your life. And I want to remind you that I did not write one word of this Bible, but we use it on this podcast every day, and we want to start with the Word of God. And remember, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. That's really the only way we're going to build our faith. And if we're going to walk by the Spirit and not by the flesh, we have to do it by faith. So the only way— it's like one of those circle of life things— the only way to walk by faith is to get in the Word of God and allow the Word of God to get inside of you. Soapbox moment for you fanatics, there it is. It's kind of early into the episode, but I want to bring it. We have got to be in the Word of God. And Jesus told his followers, his disciples, his listeners, the words that I speak to you, they are spirit and they are life. That's in John 6:63. It is the Spirit who gives life. The flesh profits nothing. The words that I speak to you are spirit and they are life. So we know that the word of God is spirit. Jesus also said that Father God is spirit, and those that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. And I'll remind you that there are four faces. There's the face of the eagle, there's the face of the lion, there's the face of the ox, and then there's the face of the man. The face of the eagle is praising, worshiping. The face of the lion is that of power. I think power is in prayer. Power can signify the Holy Spirit when the Holy Spirit comes on us. There's a lot of things that the power represents, but that's the face of the lion. The face of the ox is loving one another. That is love one to another. Jesus said that the world will know that you are my disciples by the love that you have one to another. And the face of the man, I believe That is grace, the grace of God. That was Jesus became a man. He was the Son of God. He was in heaven and told Father God that I will come down and I will sacrifice my life for your people. And he did all of that. That is wonderful news. That is the too good to be true news. It is awesome. That is the gospel. But that is not a rabbit that I want to chase. Someone must have needed to hear that. With Ezekiel's wheel, when I was reading Ezekiel, and that's Ezekiel 1, and the four living creatures showed up. I want you to listen to what Ezekiel wrote in Ezekiel's description and of where the spirit is, that we have to be in the spirit. And the whole idea of me teaching these lessons in these episodes, we need to pull our spirit man out of the way the world is doing things. We need to concentrate spiritually first. I believe a lot of people have said God is first, my family is second, and then I am third. When in reality, most people live, hey, it's all about me. I am first, I am second, and I am third. Now I'm going to pretend that I love my family, I'm going to pretend, but I'm looking out for number one. And I know that's not most of you here, but when you start seeing, no joke, Christian person dying to self and doing things other than for himself. I believe God's got to get the credit. That's, to me, that's walking in the Spirit, is when you die to self and you start walking differently than the world walks. And I think that's found in Romans 12:1 and 2. We're not going to chase that rabbit. Let's go real quick to Ezekiel. And Ezekiel 1, we're going to start in Ezekiel 1:5 through 12. Also from within it came the likeness of four living creatures, 6 And this was their appearance: They had the likeness of a man; each one had four faces, and each one had four wings. 7 Their legs were straight, and the soles of their feet were like the soles of calves' feet; they sparkled like the color of burnished brass. 8 The hands of a man were under their wings on their four sides, and each of the four had faces and wings. 9 Their wings touched one another; the creatures did not turn when they went, but each one went straight forward. 16:2 As for the likeness of their faces, each had the face of a man; each of the four had the face of a lion on the right side; each of the four had the face of an ox on the left side; and each of the four had the face of an eagle. Thus were their faces. 16:3 Their wings were stretched upward; two wings of each touched one to another, and two covered their bodies; and each one went straight forward. They went, wherever the spirit wanted to go, and they did not turn when they went. 15:14 Now as I looked at the living creatures, behold, a wheel was on the earth beside each living creature, with its four faces. The appearance of the wheels and their work was like the color of beryl, and all four had the same likeness. 15:15 The appearance and their workings was, as it were, a wheel in the middle of a wheel. 15:16 When they moved, they went toward any of the four directions; they did not turn aside when they went. 20:12 As for their rims, they were so high they were awesome, and their rims were full of eyes all around the four of them. 20:13 When the living creatures went, the wheels went beside them; and when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, the wheels were lifted up. 20:14 Wherever the Spirit wanted to go, they went, because there the Spirit went; and the wheels were lifted together with them, for the Spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels. When those went, these went. When those stood, these stood. And when those were lifted from the earth, the wheels were lifted up together with them, for the spirit of the living creature was in the wheels. Now that was Ezekiel chapter 1, 5 through 12 and 15 through 21. Now that's a lot of reading, and I know that I have superior reading skills. We've already determined that. In previous episodes, but I just had to have you hear it one more time. And I just want you, as you have listened to these different episodes, I want you to be able to picture these four living creatures, this wheel in the middle of the wheel, and how it's separate. Because we are spirit, soul, and body. There's three parts to each one of us. We are built in the likeness of God. God is three parts one God. He is Father, He is Son, and He is Holy Spirit. You are spirit, soul, and body. And I believe that we need to— if we're going to be Spirit-led and we're going to learn to walk in the Spirit, we need to learn what that looks like. It starts with faith, and that begins in the Word of God. But we also have to understand that we are going to make some mistakes. That's just one of the rules down here. Now, Jesus did not make a mistake, and that is why He is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. We are going to follow after Jesus' example. And that's what we do here on these episodes, is we follow after the perfect example with imperfect action. I'm not here to tell you that I'm going to get everything right. I'm here to tell you that I'm doing the best that I know to do, but I'm going to mess up. I'm going to make mistakes, and that's okay because God is all right with us messing up as long as we don't just try to make some brand new doctrine out of our mess-ups. We are to make the Word of God the Word of God. As we read and meditate on his Word, we will learn what Father God and the Holy Spirit wants us to understand about God's Word. And I just believe that. It's changed my life. To close this up, I want to read one last scripture, and it's in Romans 8. And I've talked about this too. It is the grace of God. I believe this one verse kind of encapsulates the grace of God. And if we can just embrace this, we won't worry about making mistakes. We'll just continue to walk in the Spirit as best we can, and we will just move forward because Satan is a punk. He's going to continue to just pound us. He's going to continue to condemn us. And God says right here in his word, there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. Who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. I believe that we are to do our best, we are to walk in the Spirit as best we can, but we also need to know that we are going to mess up. We're not trying to mess up, but God's okay with it because he's already took all sin, every mess up that we make. God has already put that on his Son Jesus. So sin, messing up, is no longer the issue Our issue now is to do the best we can to give Father God all the glory and to do our best to love one another, to pray for one another, lift people up, to praise and worship God, and to get in his word. And I believe that's what we're to do. And I talked about 2 Timothy 1:7 and how all this ties together at the beginning of the episode, but I never did read it to you, so I want to give you that and close this episode out. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. And I think that if you'll look at those three things that God's Spirit gives us, it gives us power, it gives us love, and it gives us a sound mind. And I think that we can point to each one of those three things and point to one of those three faces. Again, the fourth face, I believe the face of the man, is Jesus. And we become like Jesus when we start imitating him. And the only way to truly imitate him is to look into his word, see how he did things, and then imitate how he did it as best we can. And that's why I just jump up and down all the time and talk about getting in the word of God and allow the word of God to get in us, is we have got to be in the word of God. That's rule number one. We have got to be in the Bible and get the Bible into us. And then these other three faces we are going to try our best to balance out in our life. And as the Spirit moves us in the direction, as we read in Ezekiel, wherever the Spirit wanted to go, that's the direction they went. And I believe the Spirit leads either in love to the face of the ox, in praise and worship to the eagle, or in power of prayer to the lion. And if you'll allow yourself to be led by the Spirit, the Spirit, the Holy Spirit will lead you in the direction that he wants you to go. And I think it's, it's imperative one more time to get in the word of God. And that's all I'm going to say about it on this episode. Let's pray real quick. God, I thank you so much for your word. God, I thank you for the ability to pray to you, the power of prayer. God, I thank you for the ability to praise and worship you. The eagle, Lord, I praise you. I thank you, Lord. You are wonderful. You are the only God, you are the one true God, and we worship and we praise and we adore you, Lord. And Lord, we love you and we love your people. We are— we love God and we love your people. And God, we pray that you would just continue to lead and guide and direct us, to lead us in the direction that you want us to go. You said that you would be a lamp unto our feet and a light to our path. God, show us our next step. 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.
