The discipleship journey through life learning to abide in God's word

Welcome to episode 210, 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 210. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, I am going to take another turn. I know you get tired and get a little twisted when I start turning this vehicle around. I've got to kind of give you an idea if you're going to continue on this path with me or this journey with me, who really needs to keep walking with me and who probably needs to go. To a different podcast and go maybe check out another Christian podcaster, and I'm going to be okay with it. Since my dad died, I think I've been doing a little more soul searching, if you need a term. I don't know what I've been doing. I've been spending some quiet time, just me and God, and trying to figure out with the time that I have left here on earth, what am I supposed to be doing for his kingdom? And I've come up with, I think I'm going to continue to do what I'm doing but I want to do it specifically for people who want to be disciples of God. I don't want somebody just coming in here to see what I'm talking about or just to see what this yahoo from Louisiana thinks about God. I want people who are fired up about Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, about Father God being the one and only true God. I want people who declare Jesus as their Lord and Savior and Father God as their spiritual And I want people that want to get closer to God, and I want people who want to be in the Bible. Jesus says that his disciples will abide in his word, and they shall know the truth, and the truth shall make them free. This is John 8:31 and 32, and I may have butchered that. I'm gonna pick it up real quick. Let me grab my Bible. And since I had to grab my Bible, you know that I do not have this mesmerized or planted inside of me. Then, this is 8:31, then Jesus said to those Jews who believed him, if you abide in my word, you are my disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. The only true freedom in your life that you will ever have is knowing the truth. If you do not know the truth, which is Jesus, soapbox moment number whatever number we're on, This is a huge, huge deal. If you are not in the Bible, if you are not in the Word of God, then you are deceived. And we just need to get that out on the table just straightway. Either your body is pulling you and working against you because the enemy— your body and your spirit man are at enmity from one another. That's what the Bible says. They're actively fighting against each other. And you're never— your body is never going to be fully redeemed. You're going to get a brand new, fully redeemed body, and it's not going to fight against your spirit and your soul. But right now, the one you're walking around in is fighting, and it's fighting every step of the way. And you have to submit it. And the only way to get your body to submit is to get the truth into your spirit man or into your soul. So when something comes up and you've got to, quote, fight against what your 5 senses are telling you, you've got to be able to, by faith, use the Word of God. If you don't have the Word of God in you, then you got nothing to fight. I mean, you can say, "I'm a Christian," and you've got your spirit man, and all of that's going to be good. God's not going to be mad at you, but when it comes time to fight your body and your 5 senses and what you see, taste, hear, smell, and feel, or whatever all 5 of them are— we know what they are, I just don't know if I just said all of them— But if you're fighting against those 5 senses, you're going to have a struggle when it comes time if you don't have the Word of God inside of your soul to fight against what your 5 senses or what your carnal body is telling you. So that's step 1, the world system that we've talked about. If you don't know the truth, then you're going to enter into this world system and you're going to get all wrapped around the axle because— ask me how I know— because I get wrapped around the axle all the time. I'm telling you, this is an imperfect man going after a perfect example or Savior. Jesus took his time when he was here on earth. He didn't get in any hurry. He spent time with his disciples. He spent time with his family. He spent time with his friends. He spent time with his God. He knew who he was every minute of every day, and he stayed in the moment. He didn't get too caught up. He knew why he came. He came to die on the cross, but he did not live in the future knowing that he was going to die. He knew he was pointing himself towards the cross, but every day he lived in the moment, and that is an incredible attribute, and that's one that I'm striving to get better at. I've got to tell you just straight up, I'm not very good at this one because I constantly look back and go, God, why did I do that? Or I'm looking forward to think, wow, what if I do this and this, then next Thursday I'll have this and this and this. I do an okay job of living in the day. I'm really learning and I'm struggling just like maybe you are to live right now in the present. And I just want to encourage you, that's what we're here to do. If you're going to stay with me and stay on this journey, We're probably going to call it the Christian Discipleship Journey Through Life or something fancy pants like that. But anyway, we're, we're going to do this thing by abiding in his word. And that's what I've been doing for most of my Christian walk. It's been 28 years, so it's taken me a minute to really dig this in and get this down into my heart and into my soul. I'm telling you, this is getting real in this world. If you can't feel the tension between the two realms, the physical realm and the spirit realm. And if you can't tell that we are fighting against something that we really can't see, and it's an entity, or it's a worldview, or it's Satan, or it's some kind of punk out there, we are fighting against entities that have not our best interest in mind. It's just evil. And if you can't call it evil, And if you can't see that they're just making the people in leadership, or the world leaders, or business leaders, or Fortune 500 leaders, or CEO, all these people with, quote, power, they are making decisions that are harming the individual. And they're trying to, quote, get more money or more power for themselves. And they don't care who it hurts based on the decisions they make. And it just fires me up the more I look at it. The more I just see, I'm just going to call it out, that it's just pure evil. And they're not looking after people. They are looking after a concept or some kind of decision or some kind of plan that we don't know what's going on. But some of these backroom, these dark office meetings or whatever, smoke-filled rooms that people are deciding our fate, I'm tired of it. And I'm going to call on the word of God. I'm tired of any kind of deception that's going on. And I want to look into the Bible. And I want to read what God says about me, and that's where I'm going to anchor my life and my faith and everything from here on out. And that's what I want to encourage you to do. I want to encourage you to get into God's word, because if we know the truth, the truth will set you free. And the only way to know it is to abide in his word. Another scripture that we have talked about multiple times and one that we're going to use Another anchor scripture is, is found in Matthew 13:44, where Jesus is talking about the kingdom of heaven and what it's like. Let's pick that up in Matthew 13:44. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid, and for joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant seeking beautiful pearls, Who, when he found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a dragnet that was cast into the sea and gathered some of every kind, which when it was full, they drew to shore, and they sat down and gathered the good into vessels, but threw the bad away. So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come forth, separate the wicked from the just, and cast them into the furnace of fire. There will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.' Jesus said to them, 'Have you understood all these things?' They said to him, 'Yes, Lord.' Then he said to them, 'Therefore every scribe instructed concerning the kingdom of heaven is like a householder who brings out of his treasure things new and old.' And that is a mouthful, and that is found in Matthew 13:44-46. And it starts from 44 to 52. I don't think we're ever going to have a problem with having too much scripture in our lives. And I know I've got superior reading skills, so I know it's just amazing to hear me read on a podcast. And the only way I know to get it to you is just to read it. And the only way I know how to read it is how I read it. So if you're here, then you're just going to have to deal with my superior reading skills. But if you will go to Matthew 13 and start at verse 44 and just read this and read what Jesus told his disciples, and you can go into the whole chapter of Matthew 13 where he's talking about parables, and Matthew 13 is a pretty good chapter if you want to just dig in and start reading and meditating on. I want us to understand that sooner or later, and it's sooner for me, like right now, We need to decide to go all in. There's power in a made-up mind. That's why I'm here on this podcast. I said I was going to be relentless. Now I've made a few tweaks and changes. I'm doing the podcast a couple times a week now. I may go back to 3 times a week. I don't know. I'm still praying about interviewing people and bringing some different perspectives onto the podcast so you can listen to it. I mean, I haven't talked to a lot of people yet, so I need to find out if that's something that even interests you. I mean, I, in my mind, I'm thinking we can bring some more views in, or at least see how other people besides this Yahoo in Louisiana is thinking, and we can maybe have some kind of discourse about, you know, what they see and how they see it. And you get a different angle because I— God knows that I'm not the most knowledgeable about every subject in this world. In fact, there are so many people that are so much smarter than me that it's laughable that I'm even here, but here I am. And the last scripture is again another popular scripture, and it all is going to come together in this podcast, but it is Proverbs 25:2. It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings is to search out a matter. And you and I are kings, and we are kings and priests, the Bible says. But we are to go out and we are to conquer, and we are to take dominion over. And in this life, this world needs conquering. And I read the Bible, and it talks in Acts where the early church began, when they were describing the new church, or the people of the way that they called them. And they said in Acts 17, and I think it's 6, But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some brethren to the rulers of the city, crying out, "These who have turned the world upside down have come here too!" And I think that that is— may— could be our battle cry, because if you don't feel like you're walking on the ceiling in this upside-down world, I think the only way we're going to turn it right side up is to bring the gospel, the Word of God, and to flip the switch and turn this upside-down world right side up like they did in Acts. So that's all I'm going to have for that for this episode. Let's pray. God, I thank you so much for the person listening to this episode, and if it resonated with them, I pray in Jesus' name that they would get stirred up on how they can get into your word and abide in your word and start to learn how to become a disciple. Because we— what the world needs today are more disciples. So God, I pray that this person will be stirred up, and if they're— this is not for them, I pray that you would help them find a great podcast that they can attach themselves to and to start encouraging that person and start building up their world. God, 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.

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