The Journey Begins the same for everyone

Here comes episode 2, In the Beginning Was the Word, and cue the 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.

Welcome to episode 2. I made it back, and I'm glad you're here. Uh, there's 3 things that I want to always remind you of. The first thing is you are God's favorite. Again, if God had a refrigerator in heaven, your picture would be all over it. Number 2 is God is not mad at you. He's not even a little bit upset. And he put all of the sin and everything. Jesus took it all for you and I so we don't have to. Number 3, regardless of when you are listening to this episode, you are one day closer to Jesus' return. So let's get busy living for him, and let's get on to my favorite scripture. Again, I'm going to remind you, everybody, everybody needs to have a favorite scripture. Mine is Revelation 12:11. And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to the death. Love that scripture. I don't think I can say it enough, but it kind of— it gets me fired up every time I hear it. So you're probably going to hear it more than you want to. Now, in the last episode, I told you I was going to share my backstory, but I want to— and I think I mentioned, I don't remember, but I think I mentioned the scripture that I read that released me into the, into the opportunity to even have this podcast. For, because for a long time, all the, all the doubt and insecurity, all the stupid stuff that I've done all my life— the, the accuser of the brethren is one of the names for Satan, and he does a really good— he's really good, he's really good at that in my head anyway. I don't know if you struggle with that, but to to seem qualified to, to come to you to talk about God. I'm not sure anybody is qualified, but you know, somebody's got to do it because it says faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. So somebody has to share their faith and somebody has to share their testimony. And again, I segue back to Revelation 12:11. I always try to find a way to, to weave that into my conversation. But the scripture that when I read this, it kind of jumped off, and I get a lot of scriptures that jump off the page while I'm reading. One, this particular one, because, you know, I've constantly beat myself up. You know, I love reading the Bible. I love teaching people. But when it comes to doing something like this, always back off and go, no, no one really cares. You're not qualified. You don't have the proper education. All of those things go through my head. But in 1 Corinthians 1:26-29, and I, and I'm going to read it, and it's— I'm not— pardon me, I'm not going to read, read it. I'm going to go by memory because I've— I've— what I'm going to try to teach you to do is plant the word of God into your heart, and I have planted this scripture into my heart But it's, it's sometimes difficult for me to remember it as I am because I've got— this is my second episode and I've kind of got things rattling around in my brain like, man, you're, you're talking too fast or you're talking too slow. I've really never done this, so I'm still extremely uncomfortable with speaking at a microphone in an empty room. But here goes. In, in 1 Corinthians 1:26 and 29, it said Paul says For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things that are mighty. And the base things of this world and the things that are despised God has chosen and the things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in his presence. And I, I may have, I may have chopped that up a little bit, but that is how I remembered. And really what that told me, and, and I, I've said already that, that Satan is called— I call him the punk, but he is the accuser of the brethren. And if you'll notice, Paul started that scripture, that those verse out, for you see your calling, brethren. And it just kind of, it just jumped out at me like he was speaking directly to me. So to say that I'm not qualified, I am not qualified, but my calling is I am weak, I am not mighty, I'm not very wise. I tell people, if I'm the, if I walk into a room with 3 or 4 people, I am very confident. It's not knock on myself, but I'm really confident that I'm not the smartest person in that room, and I am very comfortable with that. I'm, you know, I don't try to be the most intelligent person, but I do, I do try to be a little bit. My wife would say I'm not very observant, and it is, that is a true statement. I am not very observant when you start looking at, um, things on the wall and furniture and decorations and stuff like that. But when I, I, if I see somebody hurting or if I see people, you know, acting mean or, or angry or ornery at somebody, I tend to, I tend to go for the underdog. So I, I mean, I don't know what that means, and I didn't even have that in my notes, but somebody, somebody wanted, needed to hear that. But I really, I just want, I want to read that. And I'm doing this, this podcast to try to take the pressure off of you because I know you deal with fear. And because I am— I mean, I know you, you probably deal with perfectionism. I do. I'm— why would I put something out that's not perfect? But how are you going to get perfect without putting something out? And, and in all honesty, perfection is not the goal. Perfection is— has never been the goal in, in the— your Christian walk. But for whatever reason, I have no one ever really come out and told me that. I, I just assumed that I was supposed to be like Jesus, who was, by the way, perfect. So what I want to do is take the pressure off and, and release you from some unrealistic standard you've got in your life. I mean, I— God had one superstar, and it wasn't you or me. So I mean, really, I'd like for you to reset. If you've got a goal to be like Jesus, I, I want you to reset the goal of, you know, trying to imitate Jesus. And, and God is the perfect Father. And, and just imagine, I kind of got a picture of— and I, and I remember, I remember picturing a little child trying to step in his father's footsteps on the beach. And if you can imagine the father, you know, he's taller, he's bigger, and we're talking about a little 5 or 6-year-old child. Walking in the beach, and he's trying to mimic his dad, walking in his footsteps. And the father don't know he's doing it, but he looks back and he sees the little boy stepping in his footsteps. And, you know, the most twisted among us would slap the little boy for missing the sand. But in all honesty, what you're going to do, even an imperfect father, I I mean, I would look back, I would— it would make me smile seeing my son trying to, to be like his dad. All, all Bolo boys want to be like their dad. And our perfect Father in Heaven sees us trying to imitate his Son, and it's got to make him smile. He's the perfect Father. He, he's not looking to punish us, he's looking to reward us. And I, I kind of want to change that picture in your head if I can with with God's not mad. I mean, he really isn't. But, but here's the truth: you have one life to live. You know, there's really no second chances. There's no do-over. You can't flip the, the hourglass of, of time back over and, you know, let it run again. So I, I want you, in the time you have left and while you're listening to this— and, you know, and I'm talking to myself too— but I want you to see God as, as your friend, your best friend, and, and I want— and your Savior. And I want you to, to see Satan as a punk and as your enemy. So with that in mind, I want to, I want to tell you— I told you I was going to tell you about a little bit about my story. I want to tell you about my life and how I grew up and to help you get to know me and realize You know, I haven't always been Bible Man. My mom and dad were married, I think I'm getting the numbers right, you know, but I've got to remind you that math is not an exact science, so these numbers, and no one really cares, but I kind of want to get the numbers right, but I think it was around 1960 when they got married. I know my mom was 17 and my dad was 18, and then one year later they had my brother in 1961, and in '63 I was born. Now, my mom and dad divorced when I was 5, and back— I want to say, again with the math, I want to say it was around '68. And, you know, that was— I don't know, I thought about Googling, but it don't matter. I don't know what the divorce rate in 1968 was, but I don't think it was as high as it is today. And so, you know, my mom had two young boys. She's right around 25 years old, living in a 3-bedroom, 1-bath house, about 1,000 square feet, barely making it. And so that, that's the first year, first 10 years of my life. I can't remember ever having my dad living in the house. And then my mom remarried my stepdad, and not long after that, we we moved out of the city and into the country on a dirt road. In fact, we moved right across the street from a church, which we— no one in our family, and that's going to be for a different episode, but no one in our family ever went to church. It just, it just wasn't a thing. So I grew up, I grew up with, with no church background whatsoever, but I was comfortable with sports. If there was anything that you You roll a ball out, any sport that had a ball in it— football, basketball, baseball, any kind. I liked pool, uh, shooting pool. I like anything with a ball. Now, my brother was really good with anything with an engine. He raced motocross. He was really good at that. He loved snowmobiling. And, you know, I mean, I just— I did— that didn't take for me. I didn't dislike it, but I didn't like it like he liked it. And we went on, and I lived in that house, and it was in Michigan. I don't know if I told you that, but I lived in that house in Michigan until my— the beginning— at the end of my sophomore year.

My—

I think it was my junior— it was before my— it was the summer of before my junior year in high school. We moved to Louisiana, and I've got to tell you, I had absolutely no idea I knew it looked like a— I knew it looked like a boot. And Michigan, if you know, it looked— I went from a mitten to a boot. But, but that was about all I knew. I thought maybe I was going to have one foot, you know, in the bayou or in the swamp, really. I didn't even know it was a bayou then. It was a swamp. And, you know, there was going to be an alligator in my backyard. I mean, it was all of that stuff. So I had no idea., but we moved down because the General Motors plant, my mom and dad, uh, and stepdad, and actually my father too, worked for, um, General Motors in some capacity. But that's kind of my, that's kind of my growing up. And, and you know, the, the podcast, what I'm gonna use is I'm gonna use stories to, to kind of highlight where I was and you know, where I am now, just so you can see, you know, everybody, everybody's gotta start somewhere. And I probably need to get to the spiritual stuff, but I spent the first 29 years, and I tell people, not knowing God from a billy goat. I had absolutely no idea about salvation. Over the course of the first 29 years, I don't remember when I started drinking, but I learned to drink beer, and my time was occupied with sports, and friends and drinking and chasing women. So for the first 29 years, I mean, I was not chasing God. But I went to college and got my first— I graduated and got my first grown-up job in Huntington Beach, California. And so I'm not telling you all this to just say, you know, I was horrible. But, you know, we all have a past. All have a life. It's, it's not good nor bad. I mean, there's, there's some things in it that I think I did good, and there's some things that I did was horrible. But I'm telling you this because it was my life, and I was, I was never going to go to church. I, I thought it was a waste of time, you know, the, you know, just at my mindset then. I had friends that would go to church, you know, they would do things on Friday night. I'd go out with them and they would do things, and I was comparing myself to other people. Because I didn't know to compare myself to God. So I was comparing, I was like, "Man, I'm not that bad." Well, a particular friend that I'm thinking of, he would go out and do things I would never dream about doing on Friday. Then about 10:30 or 11:00, he'd say, "Ah, I think I'm gonna go home on Saturday night." And I, "Where are you going?" And he said, "Yeah, I think I'm gonna get up and go to church tomorrow." And I was like, what? So that, I mean, that's kind of my witness. I mean, good, bad, or indifferent, I'm just telling you exactly as I remember it, what it was. But, you know, in the best tee times, I was a golfer growing up. I mean, after about 21, 22, I started playing golf. And the best tee times were Sunday, Sunday morning around 11 to 12 o'clock. And if anyone asked, I wasn't anti-God. If you asked me, I probably would have thought I was pretty good and, you know, God liked me. And all of that changed January 10th, 1993. I was at a business meeting trying to figure out how to make money, and a speaker told the audience he was going to prove Jesus was real, he was God, and he walked on the earth about 2,000 years ago. Well, he did a great job of hooking me. With some curiosity, and I'm like, "Yeah." But he said, "You know, we got to get up. You got to get up." It was Sunday morning. It was optional church service, and I was like, "Ah, I don't go to church." But I really wanted to know about this Jesus guy, and so I got up and went, and the Holy Spirit showed up, and I have never been the same since that day. And it's— it has been an incredible ride. I spent the first 29 years not knowing God, and now it's about 28 years. I think it's right at 28 years, a little over, to where I have been doing my best to try to follow God. So I, I'm not going to keep rambling on on this deal. I'm— I just want to kind of get the get the ball started. I've got plenty of episodes. I've got plenty of voice left for the next episode. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna kind of tell you my journey from, from the time I've got saved and, and what my instructions were and how I tried to follow and how I messed up and, and all of the bumps that went on when I started and where I am today. So I want to, again, I want to thank you for listening. I want to encourage you that if, if you haven't subscribed to the podcast, I have— I am challenged, I've been challenged, and I'm going to accept it, and I already have. For the next 30 days in a row, I'm going to do a podcast. So I'm going to have at least 30 podcast episodes on here. I'm probably going to then go— I don't know, I— if I'm— this is a little more difficult than I thought it was going to be. I, I really thought that just talking wasn't a big deal. But this is kind of a big deal to try to get all my thoughts into a, into, uh, where I can at least sound coherent. But I'm gonna, I'm gonna bring the my God testimony and what he's done for me from where I was to where I am now, and hopefully to encourage and inspire and empower you. So hit the subscribe button, and I wouldn't mind a review if you so, if you so choose. But thanks again for listening, and I look forward to talking to you soon.

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