In episode 72 of the No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast, host Greg Ryan continues his series on the four living creatures described in Revelation and Ezekiel and links them to the four foundations of the church. He explains that each creature has four faces—man, lion, ox, and eagle—and focuses on the face of the man as the most important because it represents Jesus, the Word, grace, and salvation, serving as the cornerstone of the church. Using a real‑estate analogy, he illustrates how a mis‑measured corner can ruin a whole structure, emphasizing the need for a correct spiritual foundation. Greg then introduces a new identity shift: from “Jesus fanatic” to “Word fanatic,” presenting the acronym FANATIC (Follower, Action, NOW/Knowledge, Affirmation, Together, Invincible, Conqueror) as a practical framework for believers to immerse in Scripture, act boldly, stay together, and live invincibly. He urges listeners to take action, reject perfectionism, embrace community, and rely on faith (citing Peter’s boat incident and Hebrews 11:1). Throughout, he mentions plans to create a visual representation of the creatures, acknowledges his own artistic limits, and ends with a prayer that listeners become Word fanatics.
Chapters
Welcome to episode 72. We started the same way every time. I love consistency.
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 72. We're going to continue our discussion on the 4 living creatures and the 4 foundations of the church. And I want to remind you that the, the creatures can be in Revelation 4, I think it's 6 through 11, and then Ezekiel 1, I want to say it's 5 through 16. Ish, but it's Ezekiel 1, chapter 1, and it's, it's Revelation 4 chapter— I mean, chapter 4. I know that for certain. And if you got to read a little extra verses in between, I think we're going to be okay. The face that I want to talk about today— now there's 4 living creatures, and each living creature has 4 faces. So with a lot of 4s in there, I want to make sure that we're picturing the right thing as I'm talking about these creatures. Now these creatures do not turn. I think that's where the wheel in the middle of the wheel goes. I think the wheel is what guides these creatures, and I know the wheel is the Holy Spirit. So it says the Spirit leads them, or the Spirit guides them. And so that's kind of the picture that I want you to see. We're gonna— I am gonna work my best today. I've got somebody else on it, somebody that's creative. I'm not very creative as far as artistic, and I'm going to try to get them to, to build this creature, at least a picture representation. You know, each one of us is picturing a face of a man, and then the face of a lion, and then the face of the eagle, and then the face of the ox. You kind of got to get your picture. And I think that's one of the cool things about the podcast is that in your mind— and it's kind of like reading a book. If you've ever read a book and then you've gone and watched the movie and you thought, uh, I don't know, I like the book better. Now the podcast, if, if you start picturing in your mind the four living creatures and then the four faces on the living creature, because if I was to draw this thing out, it would be horrible. It wouldn't even be close to what you have in your mind or in my mind because I can't draw. But I'm going to try to get somebody with some artistic ability to, to put this creature, at least put it on paper so we can put it in the computer so we can look at it and get an idea of, you know, a picture representation. It's probably not going to look anything like when we get to heaven, and I'm excited to see this creature. I— this is, this is wonderful. I mean, when you start thinking about God and all of the things that we're going to do in heaven, one of the most wonderful things is just discover the depth of all of creation and all of God, but all of the things that he created. It is so— God loves variety. And I have no idea what this creature is going to ultimately look like, but I'm, I'm excited about seeing him. Enough of that. I want to go to the face of a man on the first living creature, or the first face that I'm going to talk about on the living creature. It's the face of the man, and the man represents Jesus. The man represents grace. The man represents the word. The man represents Salvation. I believe this is the most important face because the Bible says that Jesus is the chief cornerstone of the church. It is the stumbling block. It is the one that is— that was laid first, and all of the other four foundations come off of that. You got to have a— you got to have the corner. You— if you're going to build a house, you've got to have the corner set But you have to know, you know, and, and if you're in a subdivision— because I'm in real estate— if you're in a subdivision, they've got setback lines, and you know, on the side and on the front, and you can't be too far toward the back. You know, there's a lot of things that have to happen. But if you mess up the first measurement, if you mess up the first corner, all four corners are going to be messed up. So this corner right here, I think, is the absolute most important And I have got to go to Psalm 138:2 again. I think it's a fascinating verse, and we're going to read it together. I will worship toward your holy temple and praise your name for your loving kindness and your truth, for you have magnified your word above all your name. And I know I've said this a couple of times or multiple times, I just think that this is a wonderful picture of the word. And I am gonna today, you know, because if you've been with me, this is episode 72, and if you've been with me this whole time, I want— first of all, I want to thank you. If you're just coming in, I want to welcome you to the group, but I'm going to kind of give you a little insider baseball. You know, we got to get, we got to get some insider terminology going. You know, when, when someone walks in, if they, you know, if they're not going to talk like us we kind of— oh, you're new here, aren't you? I'm just kidding.
I—
but I do want to get us a new word and kind of a— and not even that the groupie thing, but I think it's so cool because I've called myself a Jesus fanatic, and you've probably heard me say that before, but I am— I am fanatical. But I'm going to define that today on this podcast because I'm going to change it. We're going to tweak that Jesus fanatic because if you listen to the beginning of every podcast, I talk about John 1:1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and the Word was with God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. So instead, if we are— if we're talking about the Word, and you know how I've been beating the drum about getting on the Word and getting on the Word and getting into the Word and letting the Word get inside of you, we are going to take this face, this foundation of the church, and we're going to take Psalm 138:2 And we're going to anchor this with— we're going to change us from a Jesus fanatic. We're going to change ourselves to Word fanatics. I just want you to let that sit there for a minute because I think this is kind of— this is the beginning of something pretty cool because I think we can put Word fanatic across, and I think I will with the 1211 Apparel, put Word fanatic across the chest of a shirt. And then just let somebody ask, hey, what is that? What does that mean? Well, we know the word is Jesus, but fanatic, I mean, I think the term I'm looking for is a caustic or a similar, I don't know. You know, English is not my first language, but it's the representation, a word representation of different letters. Whatever that is, someone would probably just screaming into the speaker right now, or they're driving down or working out. For each letter of FANATIC, I've got the F as follower. I've got the A, the first A, as action. And I had the second, the N, as knowledge. And I know, I just, I've got a distorted sense of humor. You know what, you know what the N's for? I think it would be so funny to tell people, hey, the N's for knowledge. I don't even know why the K's there. But I've had to change it because I got us to have a word that starts with N for the people that are keeping score here. I've got NOW. N-O-W, NOW. The second A is for Affirmation. The T is Together. The I is Invincible. And the C, I'm still working on the C, but I've got Conqueror. And see, I want to get us to a place that we are fanatical, but we know what we're standing for. And to be a follower of Jesus or to be a follower of the Word. And there's things, you know, you can love Jesus and not love his Word. And I believe that's part of the problem. You know, I mean, multiple, 27, 30 different problems in the quote church today. And I'm talking about myself too, but I do, I've dove into the Word almost from the beginning. Not the love for the Word, 'cause if you dig into the Word, you can't get too far off base. And it says you got to know the truth. And that's another one of those N-words that starts with a K. You know, we could have put know the truth. What are the K there for anyway? I'm sorry, I know that's another rabbit. So I'm going to go to the A, the first, the action. We've got to take action, I believe. And that's one of the things God's teaching me with this podcast, is that you've got to jump in, and perfection is not the goal. Again, I've said this multiple times, but we are— if you are perfectionist you're going to just stay stuck. I mean, we just got to get out of the boat. Peter— yeah, Peter failed. I mean, he jumped out of the boat and yeah, he sunk. You know, it sure was a good thing that Jesus was there, but Peter took action. Peter got out of the boat while the other 11 were sitting in there wondering, what the heck's Peter doing? You know, we have got to take action to destroy— that's one of the ways we destroy fear is taking action. The end for now— I mean, you You know, in Hebrews, I think it's 11:1, "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Now faith. You gotta take action now. A fanatic follows the word. He takes action now. And then affirmation. That's kind of a fancy pants word for gratitude. You know, where you're affirming and you're reaffirming and you're saying, "God, thank you for putting me in the body." You're affirming your position as a child of the King, and you're a King of Kings. And I don't care if you're a man or a woman, you are a king. Jesus is the King of Kings. Now it says in Revelation that we're kings and priests, so there's, there's two different stations, but I think we have dominion. We're gonna— I'm not gonna chase that rabbit. I'm going on the fanatic thing. The T, together. And this is that you should never be alone. You should never ever be alone. The enemy comes as a roaring lion to see who he may devour. He doesn't have permission to devour anybody. And if you're together, he's not gonna— he's not gonna chew on you. He's not gonna— he can't attack a crowd. He wanted to. He's a punk. He's a coward. He's a lion with no teeth. He's a bee with no stinger. He is a coward unless you give him power. And we're going to learn that we're not going to give him power, and not as a fanatic. We're not going to give the punk any more power. We're going to start taking power from him. We're going to start— the gates of hell shall not prevail against the church. You and I are the church, but we got to go get after it. And we don't need to go by ourselves. Jesus sent disciples out in twos, you know. He did not send them out by themselves. And that's— I mean, that's another key, is we don't need to be by ourselves. Loneliness is, is a big deal, and it's real. We need to be a community of believers, and we need to lock arms. And it says, you know— and I, I don't have my scripture out, and I'm going to talk about it tomorrow, but because this is going longer than I was wanting it to go, but I need to finish up on my fanatic, and that is the invincible. We are not ever gonna— we are more than conquerors. And the invincible and the conquerors, it's kind of why I was wanting another C, and I'm still working on the C, but I like the conquerors and the invincible together, is that we, we are more than conquerors. We go from victory to victory. We are greater— is he that is in us than he that is in the world. So when we, when we bow down and we put on the armor and we present ourselves a living sacrifice, We stand up invincible. And God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and a sound mind. We have got so much going for us. We just need to learn to get, get it out of what God's put in. That's why I'm here. And I'm telling you, I got so pumped up. I don't know if you can tell, but I am a fan. You knew I was a fanatic. I mean, I'm 72 episodes in this. And I am not slowing down. I'm just catching, I'm just catching my first wind. So I want to thank you for being a part of this. And I talked to a friend of mine, and that's why we need to kind of stick together, because he's given me some good information. And, and I'm going to try to figure out a nice sound, you know, where like a prayer or a way that I'm going to sign off of every podcast. You know, I always say thanks for listening, but I'm praying about that. And if you've got any suggestions, go ahead and And while I was signing off, I did the same sign-off, but I've edited this. This is an edited version, and I came up with— we're going to do something, and I'm going to pray that God would make you a Word fanatic. So I am going to deem you a Word fanatic by making it to the end of this podcast, and I pray in Jesus' name that you become a Word fanatic and you get in, you dig in, and you start getting fanatical. Thank you for being a fanatic with me, 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.
