In episode 209 of the No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast, host Greg Ryan reads a self‑written obituary as a spiritual exercise designed to help listeners view the end of their lives from the beginning, aligning their daily choices with God’s kingdom purpose. He opens with a biblical framing, citing Proverbs 25:2 and the Apostle Paul, and explains that humans face three enemies: the fallen flesh, the world’s system, and Satan. Ryan argues that our bodies are temporary vessels meant to build God’s kingdom, and that God sees the end from the beginning, working backward to fulfill His plan. He urges listeners to write their own “final scene” or obituary to give life direction, avoid drifting, and eliminate regret. He shares his own obituary, detailing his conversion in 1993, his work building a faith‑based clothing brand, his teaching ministry, and his family devotion. He provides a practical follow‑up: a binder with the obituary and a short summary for daily reading, encouraging listeners to create their own and revise as they grow. Ryan acknowledges the influence of Donald Miller’s StoryBrand framework, linking it to scriptural principles such as seeking the kingdom of God first. The episode concludes with a prayer asking listeners to use their free will to glorify God and build His kingdom, followed by a benediction and podcast sign‑off.
Welcome to episode 209, 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 209. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, I know that you have probably been sitting up all night waiting on me to upload this podcast episode because you were just so engaged with what I had, the content I had last episode, and that you were just wondering, oh my gosh, What's his obituary going to say? Well, you don't have to wait any further. I am about to read my obituary, and I want to remind you, if this is your first time here, this is like episode 209 or whatever it is, and we have had a lot of water under this bridge. And so what I'm doing is I am taking imperfect action as I follow after a perfect example or savior. And I am looking at how God does things, and our ways are not God's ways, and I understand all that, but you can look and read your Bible, and you can see clues, and you can kind of get an idea of what we should be doing as we follow after God. And part of what I have found is Proverbs 25:2, and it's a scripture, and I talk about it jumping off the page, but it is a scripture that I think is relevant in our day-to-day life, and it is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but it's the glory of kings to search out a matter. And I think if you and I, who God has called us kings and priests, and we'll get into the priestly stuff later on, but the king in me is what drives me to get in his Bible and figure out how to kick the snot out of Satan. The punk, and this world system that we're in, and it's all interrelated, and we have a, we have three enemies. Again, I'm just assuming that this may be your first time here, and if not, it's probably not gonna hurt you to hear it again. But the three enemies that we deal with on a day-to-day basis is our own flesh and blood. And when I say it's an enemy, it's not anything that we need to fight against or cut or be mean to or anything like that. It's just never gonna be glorified. This body that we're living in is in a fallen state, and it's one of the reasons God kicked Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden is so that they would not eat from the Tree of Life and be caught for eternity in this fallen state. God had better plans for them after the fall. So with that in mind, God has better plans for us, but it has nothing to do with this body. This body is what we use to walk on this earth and to, in my opinion, and it's a humble opinion, I got a 50-50 chance of being right, but I believe we are given this body so that we can build God's kingdom. When we come to the revelation that it's all about God and that we're all here to help restore the broken relationship between God and man, and I know that oversimplifies it all, but that's why we're in this body. Paul, the Apostle Paul, is out of his body. He is in heaven. He wrote a lot of the scripture in the New Testament. I think someone said it was two-thirds of the New Testament. Paul has run his race, and his body is now ashes or dust or whatever you want to call it. Paul is in heaven. His soul and his spirit are in eternity. So what we do with our body now, we're caught— our body is caught in time. And I don't want to get overly complicated on all this, but since we're caught in time, that means there's a beginning and an end. And most people just look at, well, we got tomorrow, we got today, we got this. What God does, he sees the end from the beginning. So he sees how it's going to end, and then he works backward. In my view, that's what I'm trying to do, and that's why I want to encourage you to think about the last day you're going to be here on earth and what is it that you want to have accomplished. Because I think the problem that most of us have, we just go through life. I, I call it like we just go drifting through life and we don't even realize. I talk to people a lot and I've said this, man, where did that year go? Like 2020, it was such a jacked up year, but where did that year go? And so You walk through this life, and if you don't walk with a purpose, then it's just kind of like you're drifting downstream, and you're allowing the punk, or you're allowing the world, or you're allowing your body to have authority over you. This is what I'm trying to do as we become disciples and we get into the Word of God. And again, here's the soapbox moment: if you're not in the Word of God and the Word of God is not in you, none of this is probably even going to matter. And I— you're probably not going to stay on this podcast because I am always talking about the word of God. Now, that don't mean that you've got to start quoting scripture every other word, and you don't have to say, oh, bless God or praise God every word or every other sentence has to be something like that. But when you start thinking about what God has done in your life and you start thinking about how wonderful God, Father God, is that's when you start diving into and see, you know, it kind of answers some of the questions. What is the meaning of life? What are we here to do? Or why are we here? And so with that in mind, I want to read you my obituary. And this is just something that I'm going to help you create, or you can create on your own. I believe this is important to see the end from the beginning, and so that your life has meaning, and so you're not laying on your deathbed and having regrets. I mean, I'm— we're all going to have regrets. To be sitting there and have people think, man, I didn't see that coming. Well, you should see it coming because nobody's getting out of this thing alive. So it just makes sense to start pointing our life toward a specific goal or purpose. The Apostle Paul says, this one thing I do. And so we're going to take that mantra, this one thing I do, and I may be taking that out of context, but we need to figure out one thing we need to do And this is, this is my obituary. For the first 29 years, Greg was lost and away from God. Then on January 10th, 1993, Jesus called again and Greg answered. Greg changed directions and was born again. He was never perfect but did his best to love God and love people. God gave Greg an idea and then helped guide his steps when Greg would listen. Greg partnered with God to build the most powerful clothing line in the world. It started small, and using faith, hope, and love, Greg grew the brand by teaching, empowering, and inspiring believers to grow in grace and truth. The company started in his garage and grew into a worldwide brand where God's saints created, prayed for, and shipped every item. Greg loved his family and spent as much of his time with them physically, and when he could not be with them, he prayed for them every day. God gave Greg a gift of teaching, and Greg spent the last 30 years of his life pouring into his brothers and sisters in Christ. Do not be sad, but celebrate Greg's life and his moving into his new home designed and created by his Lord and Savior Jesus. Now I understand that is hard to listen to, probably because of my superior reading skills, but I just wanted to give you that. That's what we're going to point towards. I'm going to have a thing in the show notes where we can actually write down our obituary and kind of put it into a binder. I've got this in a binder and I'm reading this every day. And I also put on— it's a, a short little summary just to kind of get me refocused every day. Now, this does not take the place of prayer. It does not take the place of reading the Bible and spending time with God and worshiping. This is just after you've done your thing and after you've got— it kind of refocus you. And, and I think if you can read this every day, and I'm, I'm planning on revising this as I see fit, but this is kind of what I believe God has made me for. And so when I start pointing my ship, or everything that I'm doing, toward this destination, I want the decisions that I make based on how I believe God wants me to live my life and what he's done for me and how he's doing things through me. This is kind of what I want to have happen. I'm helping God write my story, and I don't think God is upset at that. I think God is kind of happy with the fact that I've at least gotten involved in my own life story. And I think God wants you involved in your life story. We all have a story, and I don't think it's just based on fate. I don't think that, you know, the fickle hand of fate or whatever you want to call— I don't think it's just happenstance. I think you— God gave you free will. And I just want to encourage you to use your free will to write out your life plan or your obituary or whatever you want to call this. And then my little short summary, and I don't understand, I have superior reading skills, but I'm just going to read this. It's kind of a short little paragraph. And then I just, and the only reason I'm doing this is to give you an example. I mean, I'm a little bit embarrassed, to be honest with you, about writing this. I think it's important so that you can kind of get to thinking and ask the Holy Spirit, is this something you want me to do? Is this something that is needed? And, and if he says yes, or if he starts leading you, then come on, let's go. And I'd be happy to share anything that I'm finding out and anything I'm going on this journey with you. Here's a quick summary of my story. Greg Ryan dedicated his life to helping believers destroy their doubts and fears while increasing their faith. Helping each brother or sister in Christ discover why God created them. Greg taught believers to write the final scene of their life before eternity begins. He helped each person build a life for themselves to hear Father God say, "Well done, my good and faithful servant," as they entered into eternity. Well, there you have it. Now you know my obituary and my story summary. I I got this idea, and I've been praying about it from— Donald Miller has the StoryBrand, and he has a website that I've subscribed to, and it— this helped me refocus my attention to my story. And I think that this story is important, and I don't want to steal his idea because it's a great idea, but there's a lot of people that have used this. And so what I'm using is his wisdom and his— with his guidance, and give him a little credit for this. But I'm going to create the same thing on my site just to help you. That is what I felt God calling me to do, and I really hope that it helps you. It's scriptural. The scriptural basis is the kingdom of God. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. I just believe that this is a principle of God. This is God's way of doing things, one of the ways. He's got multiple, multiple ways, and this is not the only way, but I think this is important. I honestly, I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't think it was important. Let's pray. God, I thank you so much for the person listening to this episode. I thank you that they've made it to the end, and I pray in Jesus' name that you would lead and guide and direct them to make the decisions for their own lives. Lord, you've given us, each one of us, free will. You've given this listener free will, and I pray that they would use their free will to glorify you and to help build your kingdom, because I think that is— when we get to eternity, that is really going to be the only thing that matters. It's taken me a long time, Lord, to figure that out, but thank you for sticking with me and not mashing me along this journey. God, we thank you. We love you. We ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, thanks for being a part of this, and I look forward to visiting with you on the next episode.
Thanks for listening to the No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast at www.nodoubtonlybelieve.com.
