King David's start and 2 Corinthians 10:3-5

It's episode 4, and we're gonna go, as we always do at the start of each episode, to John 1. In the beginning was the Word, and cue intro guy.

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.

All right, we've made it to episode 4. I want to thank you again. If this is your first time for listening, thank you for stopping by. If, if this is your fourth episode, God bless you. I am just starting, and I do appreciate you hanging around or just taking in what it, what it really sounds like to start. This would be in John— actually, this would be in Mark 4, chapter 4, where it talks about the kingdom of God is like a seed. This is, this is me being planted into the ground. This is the infancy process of what a podcast starts and sounds like. And I do appreciate you being here. I, I'm not going to delete any of these. I'm not going to try to get all polished up. I'm hope— hopefully that this will be, you know, we'll look back on in a year or two and go, wow. But you got to start somewhere, and that's what I want. I'm doing this to encourage you. I'm not the— I'm probably not the, the best or the brightest of any amongst us, but my word for the year. I see some people posting things and saying, you know, what's your word? The word that I come up with, the word that God gave me, is relentless. I am going to be relentless. I am going to continue to do this regardless of outcome, but I am going to— I'm just going to keep doing this. There's going to be somebody out there that needs to hear this, to see that someone after 28 years You know, I think one of the challenges is you see people that supposedly, and I'm putting air quotes up, have got it all together, and you associate that with because they read their Bible or they do this and that, and a lot of that is true, but everybody that you come into contact with has a story. Everybody has got a backstory. Everybody's got a life, and it all kind of runs together, and in the society that we're in, with all the Instagram and, and all of the other stuff that, you know, people putting filters on life. You know, life, life is lived. Life doesn't come with a filter. And if you, if you read some of the stories in the Bible, you, you read about King David, you read about Father Abraham, you read about all of these people, Gideon, all of these people in the past, when, you know, you, you see their little just little bits and pieces of their life. And King David, you know, you pick him up when he's, you know, he said he's ruddy young man. They say that, I mean, I've heard some commentaries, 13 to 15 years old when he killed the giant. But he, you know, he killed a giant, like 9-foot-tall giant. That is just crazy, you know. And before he killed the giant, Samuel came and anointed him king. I kind of try to put myself in those, in those instances. You know, David wasn't even invited to the banquet where they were going to pick a king. David, they said, you stay out here and, and, uh, guard these sheep or, or tend after these sheep. The prophet's coming in and, you know, we're gonna— they're gonna anoint one of, one of dad's sons as king. So you just sit out here. And Samuel, I want, I want you to see— I wasn't planning on talking about this. I, I love the way God does this with me, is, is he kind of moves me where he wants me. Samuel comes to anoint one of Jesse's sons, probably most in tune with God. The most powerful man in God's kingdom at that time was, was Samuel. And you'll find this in 1 Samuel 16:6-7. 1 Samuel 16:7 So it was when they came that he looked at Eliab and said, Surely the LORD's anointed is before him. 1 Samuel 16:8 And the LORD said to Samuel, Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him; for the LORD does not see as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart. And that is an incredible lesson that if you're listening to that, you know, you got to take— I mean, that is, that is wonderful because you can control— you cannot control what you look like. You can't control how tall you are. You can't control how, how big— I mean, heavyset, thin, your metabolism. There's a lot of things you can't control, but you can control what go— what you put inside of you and how, how you look at things. And, and that's the whole reason why I'm here, is to help change the picture you have on the inside of yourself. I can't do anything about your physical appearance for the most part. There's a, there's a few things I can help you with, but that's not this podcast. The thing that God looks at is the heart. And, and I want you to look at Samuel is here. He's, he's going to anoint a king, and they don't even invite the king there. He put all of Jesse's sons stands before the prophet, and God refuses all of them. And so they— he got to the end of the same— you got the end of the line. And he pretty much said— he pretty much— and in 11, Samuel says to Jesse, are, are all the young men here? Then he said, there remains yet the youngest, and there he is keeping the sheep. And Samuel said to Jesse, send and bring him, for we will not sit down till he comes here. Samuel knew that that one was the king. In honor of David— I mean, David's out there tending the sheep, he don't even know what's going on. He's far enough away where they got to send— so they can't even scream at him and say, hey David, come on. He's far enough away where they got to send somebody to go get him. So they're standing there waiting. So he sent and brought him in. Now he was ruddy and bright eyes and good-looking. And the Lord said, arise, anoint him, for this is the one. God picked David, the smallest, the, the runt of the litter, if you will. Um, that's kind of sometimes how I see myself. I don't see myself as powerful. I don't see myself as all that, you know. I don't have everything all together. I mean, I am in that Again, I think I've told you this, but of all the apostles and all the disciples, I recognize Peter as the one that's most like my personality. It's kind of ready, fire, aim. Peter's always getting into a mess, it seems like, and it seems like I get myself into more problems just because I don't wait. But it was Peter's disposition, and God— I mean, God's using it anyway. So I want to give you an encouragement and be a good cheerer that if he can use me, he can use you. So David is anointed king, and then he goes back out into the field. You know, not really what you would think, um, a king would— you know, his first act of being king, being anointed king, he goes back and tends sheep. I, I don't know, it doesn't say if anything has changed in his household. Or if, you know, if they enter all, you know, when he walks into the house, if they say, "All rise." I don't think that happened, but I wasn't there, so we don't know. They may have started treating him different. I doubt it, 'cause when we see the next story is where King Saul has a distressing spirit, and you can read the story. I'm not gonna read it to you. It's in the same chapter, 1 Samuel 16, but the distressing spirit of the Lord come off. It went on David and came off of Saul, And his servants said, surely this— I mean, it's kind of, it's kind of funny how you read it if you just kind of picture, you know, how do these servants know that? And they say, surely a distressing spirit is on you. And then they come up with this idea, you know, probably what you need to do is get somebody to play the harp and this distressing spirit will leave. And so King Saul said, man, that makes perfect sense, just find somebody that plays the harp. And they said Hey, we know about this, a son of Jesse's that can play. And of course it was David. So David comes, and so this is where we find out he can tend sheep and he can play the harp. And so when he's playing, the distressing spirit leaves, just like the servant said. The distressing— and there's another lesson in that that I'm not going to go into. There's so many rabbits I can chase, but I'm not going to do it. I'm, I'm going to fight the temptation to go down a rabbit hole, and I'm going to go back to the story that I wasn't even going to tell you anyway. And I guess this is what God wants you to hear. But the next story is him going to fight Goliath, and it is amazing. He— David is anointed king. He plays some music on the harp to get rid of some distressing spirits, and then he goes back to tending sheep. He is in He's, he's in the king's court and he has a job. I mean, the king hires him and he, he goes, he's back at, he's back in the field, he's back doing. So this is, I just want you to picture when you start seeing King David. I mean, King David had a life. King David was just like you or I. Now he was, he ended up leading one of the most powerful armies ever He united Israel and I mean, King David, it's incredible what he did. But King David was just a man. He started out just like you and I, or if you're a woman, but he came, he started out as a young man or a young, he wasn't a young woman, but you know, you're gonna start where you start. And instead of trying to be like everybody else, this is a growth process. This is a growth, it takes you from where you are One of the spiritual pictures for man is, is a tree. So if you start as a seed, you become a tree in the spirit realm. You know, when, when Jesus— some of the people say, I see, I see men like trees. And, and so that, that's a representation. And that's kind of— that's not even where I was trying to go with this, but it's a process. I just wanted— I want to tell you, this whole life you're living, it's a, it's a process. And I just want to encourage you that the Word of God, if you'll dig into this Word and you get it into your heart, this Word will change you. It—

I am—

God is not a respecter of persons. He is gonna— he's gonna use the Word of God with you the exact same way he did with me. He's gonna clean, clean you up. He cleaned me up. And that's really what I wanted to talk about this episode. I wanted to talk about the scripture that I used. I want to introduce you to a powerful scripture that helped me get cleaned up. When I, when I first got saved, like I told you before, it was 29 years away from God. And then I got, I got into church, found a church, started reading the Bible, was reading the Bible, was praying even before I found the church. But then I found the church, and it was like— I, I don't know if you've ever been in a church where You know, you're trying to get well, or you're trying, you know, you're doing your best. You know, I don't know what I'm doing, and I'm going to this First Assembly Church. Well, First Assembly, they're not scared to call people to the altar. I mean, I don't know if you've ever been to a church where, you know, if you've got sin in your life, or, you know, or whatever the, the case may be, but I, you know, my wife and I would, we went to this church and And it was incredible. It was like God was reading our mail. The pastor would be— he would be preaching, and he would start talking about something, and, you know, we would be listening, and all of a sudden he'd turn, and he wouldn't look at me, but I could tell God was speaking right to me. And he starts— whatever he was starting to— his message was on, it started just talking right to me. And, you know, "And if you've got this going on in your life, you need to get up to the altar." And you need to give it to God. And so I promise you, for the first year or two, it seemed like all I did was go up to the altar and ask God to forgive me. And, and it was, it was something else. I, I was always— it seemed like I was always going up there. It almost got to the place where it was laughable because, you know, there was one time when, you know, early on where Oh hey, I guess I did. That wasn't for me. So anyway, all of that said, while I was reading the Bible, I was reading it, I'd gotten through John, I read through all of the, all of the Gospels, you know, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, and, and I'd read all of that. And so I'd moved on to Romans, Acts and Romans, and, and I got to 2 Corinthians and I read For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for pulling down stronghold— pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. And those verses were in 2 Corinthians 10:3-5, and at the end of it is really where I want to concentrate. It says we're bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. When I first read that, I had— again, I got to go back to telling you that I had absolutely no idea about this Christian walk, and they may or may not have, you know. And I don't know if you've ever walked into a, you know, into a club or into a you know, when you're studying some new topic, there's a vocabulary that, you know, that you really don't know. And some of that goes on, or a lot of that goes on in the church. And so for someone that is just getting— just nicely been saved, maybe 6 months or a year, you know, if you throw a word out like sanctification, I didn't know what the heck that word meant. But I did— I could picture every thought into captivity because I was having— I was still having thoughts, you know. No one really explained to me what was new, what got saved, you know. I look in the mirror and I was the same person, and, you know, I was still having some of the same thoughts, you know. I mean, I knew something had happened, but I had no idea what. But the thought— bringing every thought into captivity— that was something I could do because I knew I was having the thoughts in my head, and again, I didn't know anything about nothing, and it said that Jesus was in my heart, and I knew my heart was below my head, so I would take the thought, if I had a thought, and I would walk it down to my heart. I would just mentally kind of take that thought and I would walk it down, 'cause it take it unto obedience, you know, take it into captivity,. And so I took it down to Jesus. A lot of times I had really no idea. You know, I had read that in John, you know, he— Jesus has called himself the Good Shepherd, and it said that the sheep hear my voice. And I can honestly tell you that I've heard God laugh. And I, you know, and I know some of y'all may be rolling your eyes, but there's 3 voices, and maybe more for, for me. But, you know, there's 3 voices that, that I can tell you that, that I have in my head. And, and I'm just going to explain this real quick, and I'll elaborate it on another podcast probably. But, you know, if you're working out— I— you could probably tell I don't work out a lot right now if you saw me. But when I was working out, you know, it was the voice that I— you know, like, you can't get one more set, come on, get this one, you know, come on, you big sissy. This is lightweight. You know, that without me saying it out loud, it's that voice inside my head that was me talking to me. And then there was another voice, and it was the same vernacular. It was me. It sounded like me talking to me, but it was these random thoughts. And I know you've probably had them. I've talked to many people and they're like, oh yeah, I get those stupid crazy thoughts all the time. Well, that, that is— I'm giving that credit to Satan. That is a demon or somebody throwing that thought in your head. I mean, just one of those random thoughts that just come out of nowhere. And so when I would have one of those thoughts, and because of the 29 years that I spent not following God, I did a lot of non-godly things. So you have thoughts. I mean, the programming was still the same. I had to clean that programming up, that thought process. So when I had a thought, I would make myself walk that thought, and I could literally hear God or Jesus, because he was there on my heart, I could literally hear him laugh and say, "No, no, Greg, that thought wasn't for me." So it was incredible how, you know, and I just did that, and I didn't tell anybody I was doing that, but I just, over the years, I kept doing that and doing that. I promise you, I'm getting to a point because when I— before I got saved, I mean, we went out to the bars and we drank beer and tried to chase women and all that stuff. And so my thought process was not right about women. I mean, I just— it just wasn't. When I had a thought that would come in, I would walk that down and God said, "No, Greg, that's not for me." So I got in a habit of doing that, and I didn't even realize I had changed until we were walking— there's a boardwalk here in Louisiana where my wife and I, we'd go shopping and we'd walk down the boardwalk on a spring or summer afternoon. And we'd be walking and my wife said, "Oh my gosh, did you see that?" And I turn around and look and there was a woman and she had a spaghetti top, you know, just a big white spaghetti top, and all I saw was her back. And I looked at her, I said, "Oh no, don't tell me she didn't have a bra on." And she looked at me and she said, "Oh, you're kidding." And I said, "No, I didn't see it." And she said, "Come on, you had to have seen that." And I said, "Really, I did not see it." And I really honestly didn't realize at what I was doing. But I had trained my eyes through this obedience and taking these thoughts, 'cause every time I had the thought, "Ooh, look at that, you need to go talk to that, you need to try to go get next to that," or whatever random thought, I would take that down to Jesus. Jesus said, "No, that's not for me." So over the course of the years of me doing that and the habit that I formed in doing that, I didn't realize that I had trained my eyes. I just, I wouldn't even look if I saw something coming up. I, I found, and, and it was probably another 4 or 5 months, we were walking in the mall or Boardwalk, back at the Boardwalk or something. I realized I saw somebody coming up and I, it was almost like it was identical to the same time, and I found myself, my eyes darting into a, you know, just looking into another store. As she walked by. And it was like, oh well, I think God has helped me train my eyes. I just don't look at it. And I didn't realize, because I had turned that— or God had flipped that switch off— that I didn't even realize that I wasn't doing it. But I had stopped, I guess for lack of a better word, gawking at women. I had trained myself that that I just wasn't going to look. So all of that said, that's— this has gone a lot longer than I want, and it didn't really, it didn't really go where I thought it was going to go today. But I want to get it out there, and I want— if somebody needed to hear that, God bless you. I'm glad, um, the whole purpose of this is to help you just through, through my— not stupidity, I'll call it ignorance. In the Bible. I didn't know anything, and I had— so as I was learning, I just used the Bible, and I would ask people, and I would ask God mostly. And, and through all of that in the 28 years, that's where I am today. So I appreciate you listening. I'm going to sign off here, and we'll pick this up, probably not this lesson, but we're gonna, we're gonna get into a more specific probably in the next episode, episode 5. So we've— we're going to get to episode 5. I'll get to teach about a specific topic that, that I really like, and we'll dive into that. Maybe take a little turn from me talking about my, my childhood and how horrible I am to maybe something that maybe God can use, maybe a picture that God has showed me. So anyway, I appreciate you. Sticking, sticking through this. If you have made it this far, thank you, and I look forward to visiting with you next time.

Thanks for listening to the No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast at www.nodoubtonlybelieve.com.