In episode 53 of the "No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe" podcast, host Greg Ryan introduces the show, thanks listeners, and announces plans to launch a YouTube channel. He shares that the word God gave him for the episode is “surrender,” positioning it as a crucial element of spiritual warfare and the armor of God. Greg weaves together several biblical passages—John 1:1, Romans 12:1, James 4:7, Exodus 4, Ephesians 6:10, and 2 Corinthians 12:10—to illustrate how surrender, humility, and weakness enable divine strength. He uses the Old Testament story of Moses’ rod turning into a serpent as a vivid illustration of surrendering one’s own control and confronting fear. Greg also offers a personal testimony, recounting his acceptance of Christ on January 10 1993, his age (57) and 28 years in the Lord, and his ongoing struggle to fully surrender each day. The episode concludes with an encouragement to let weakness become a conduit for God’s power, a brief prayerful reflection, and a promise to continue the series.
Welcome to episode 53.
John 1:1, 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 53. If this is your first time listening, welcome aboard. You've missed, um, I don't know if you've missed a lot of good content, you've missed 52 episodes of content. Well, enough of that. I thank you for being here. And if this is your 53rd time or visit, thank you so much for all your support. I love the reviews and the comments and talking to y'all on the phone for those of y'all that I know and those that don't. I'm starting a YouTube page so we can have a little conversation, and there's some other things in the pipeline. But my word for the year, I think I've already told you this, is relentless. So I am just going to stay with this. I'm going to continue to— I don't know if I'm gonna— maybe I'm underwhelming you with all of this information or all of this teaching, but I'm enjoying it. It's— it takes me an awful lot of time. It shouldn't probably take me as long as it does. But I'm still learning. I think that's with anything, anything that you start, it's going to take you a minute to figure it all out. And it's taken me a while. And so I am, I'm growing at this. And remember, we talked about the power of the seed. I mean, I'm still— I don't know that I've even broke through the ground yet, but I have gotten 50 episodes under my belt, and it's kind of given me an idea of where I want to go with it. And so I'm just going to go with it. We're going to start the YouTube channel up probably in the— I thought I was going to do it this week, but my computer is acting up. So I've called my IT guy to handle that up, and we will be getting that fixed, and we will start the YouTubes. So look for that if you lean towards the YouTubes. I want to get into our lesson today, and as I woke up this morning and as I was praying about what I was going to talk about, God gave me a word, and I, I don't know if it was for you or me or both of us, but the word he gave me was surrender. And I thought that was just so profound. I was not about to talk about surrender. I was talking about the armor of God and spiritual warfare. But as I started going down and, and praying about the surrender and what we needed to do and how that would apply, I believe that it is so necessary and a huge part of spiritual warfare. I mean, in the prayers, I think back in 5, because I did that so I could remember, is 5 prayers, my 5 daily prayers, it was in episode 5, so I at least got that right. But one of the prayers is the second step or prayer is that I present myself to God a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable, which is my reasonable service. In Romans 12:1, and it also goes hand in hand with James 4:7, which says, submit yourself therefore to God, resist the devil, and he will flee. So the submission or the surrender is a vital part of putting on the armor, but because you have to— got to be in a proper position before you're going to be able to stand. Because what we're going to find out, and based on the word that God gave us this morning, was surrender We're gonna find out that the best way to fight and the most powerful position to be in is that of surrender and that of weakness. And let me read you a scripture with this in mind, with the surrender. The word that I got from the Lord today was surrender, and it, and it is— I think if you'll just let that kind of seep in and let this word just kind of get into your soul, I I, I think it's going to do something. It, it has, it has changed me for the day, hopefully for the rest of my life. But it, it's pretty, it's pretty humbling when I'm, you know, I'm telling you, to be honest, I was not even in— I, I've never really considered the surrendering part of putting on the armor, but God wanted me to talk about it, and so here I am. And we're going to go to Exodus chapter 4, and you know how I love talking about Old Testament, or maybe you don't know, but I love talking about Old Testament stories, and they're so, they're so rich. But you can, you can— this is Moses, and in chapter 3, he had had the encounter with the burning bush, and the Lord talked to him through the bush. But in chapter 4, in verse 2, so the Lord said to him, what is in your hand? He said, a rod. And he said, cast it on the ground. So he cast it on the ground, and it became a serpent, and Moses fled from it. Now I want to stop there. Moses had been asked— I mean, Moses is a shepherd. He'd been on the backside of the desert. He had tried to do things his own way. And I think a lot of us— maybe, maybe it's just me, but I had tried to do things my way for the first 29 years of my life, and it didn't work out too good. And finally, I accepted Jesus January 10th, 1993. And it's taken me a long time to get here. I mean, it's— I'm 57 years old, 28 in the Lord, and I am— I mean, I surrender every morning, and I've talked about it in this episode. When I, when I pray, I go, I present myself to God a living sacrifice. But I really— I mean, I still, I feel like there's more to give. So I'm doing my best to dedicate this time on the podcast and the time it takes me to edit. I I pray about this, and I, you know, I'm not doing this haphazardly. I mean, I guess I am to a degree, but I'm trying to be led by the Lord. And so when I, when I heard surrender, I then started thinking about and researching what, you know, what that would mean. And then I, I saw Moses, and Moses is such a great story because he tried to do it his own way and he killed the Egyptian. You know, he thought he was going to He thought he was going to be all that for God, killed the Egyptian, and that got him banished or cast out. And for 40 years he's on the backside of the desert. And it brings us to this— he— God had already talked to him in the burning bush, and then he pretty much told him, hey, I'm going to use you. Moses then kind of same way with me on this podcast going, no, I don't think I'm gonna— I, I think I would prefer to do something. Why don't I just sit in the corner and pray, Lord? Why don't you just let me just keep being over here on the sidelines? And so God puts Moses in the battle, and Moses then questions him, said, look, you know, I screwed up. You know, his, uh, the punk, all of those failures come to light and all of the stuff. He spent 40 years raising his father-in-law's sheep and goats. So he's in the desert. He's more of a shepherd, got a staff, and that's kind of what he's leaning on. That's kind of what he uses to kind of guide them and to protect the flock and to protect himself from the wild beasts. So this— the staff is— has got significance to Moses. Actually, it was 4:2. But God said, what's in your hand? And he said, a rod. And then God tells him to throw it down, cast it down, let go of it. And, and I— the significance The picture that I get here, and with surrender in your mind, is Moses has tried to do life in his own terms, his own way. And like you and I, or— and I keep trying to throw you in the same bucket I'm in— life has a way of beating you down, or it did me. And so I, I keep rehashing all the stupid stuff that I've done and all the mistakes and You know, and so I think God wants— is saying, look, just let that go, surrender that, throw it down. And so when he throws it down, you know, he's thinking, I'm just going to throw this stick down, I don't think there's any way in the world, or there's any— and God has got a sense of humor, you know, there's snakes, there's poisonous, probably venomous snakes. I am certain that, that there— this was probably a viper, or it was a, it was a bad snake. We're going to figure this out later. But when he threw it down and it turned into a snake, Moses fled. Moses hit the pavement. He started, he started hitting the brick. He was ready to go. And I want you to just think of, you know, when you get surprised by something. Moses, I don't, I don't think you could have surprised him anymore when he threw the stick down and it turns into a probably the most deadly snake that he's ever seen. In the desert. And then God tells him something that's right out of the wrong way to handle the snake manual. He says, "Grab it by its tail." If you know anything about snakes— and I'm not a big snake guru, but I'm pretty certain that you're supposed to grab a snake behind its head so that it can't bite you. If you grab the most poisonous, baddest snake in the desert by its tail, normally trouble's going to happen. So he was— I believe this was him sacrificing or surrendering his life. It was like, this is gonna— this is probably gonna kill me. So when— I just want you to think about in the surrender part, when we have to— when God said surrender, the word that he gave me today, this was, this was the picture. In the weakness, in our weakness, God is, God is made strong. And I think that's in 2 Corinthians 12 or 13 in there where Paul is, is saying that, you know, in my weakness God is made strong. And I just think God is trying to tell you and me that, look, lay it down, let's get weak so that when, when we're weak God can be mighty. So if we want to, if we want to be in the mightiness, and I want to go all the way back to Ephesians 6:10, finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. God is saying, in order for you and I to be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might, it starts first with us being weak so he can be strong. I think that's a good place to end it, but I want to end with a scripture reference on that. It's 2 Corinthians 2 Corinthians 12:10. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong. And I, I want you to just kind of let that mill over. I'm going to stop this episode right here. I've got a lot more to say, but I'm looking at my clock and it's past my 10-minute mark. So I want to thank you for being a part of this, and I look forward to talking to you on the next episode.
Thanks for listening to the No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast at www.nodoubtonlybelieve.com.
