There is No Plan B in Gods Kingdom Part 2

Welcome to episode 164, 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 164. Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, I want to continue on my message that there is no Plan B. God has created this plan for you and I so that we would know which path that we should take. We know, you and I, internally, as a, as a spirit filled believer, we know that we are to take this path, and we know that it's a narrow gate, and we know that it is a difficult way. But there's also a promise of light and easy, and I want to go to that real quick because I think, you know, we get kind of hung up on the fact that narrow is the gate and difficult is the way, and there are few who enter by it, or they find it. That is in Matthew 7. But if we go to Matthew 11 11. Assuredly I say to you, among those born of women there is not one risen greater than John the Baptist, but he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. And from the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and the violent take it by force. And I want to go to the same chapter, the same writer, and I want to go to 11:25. At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for it seemed good in your sight. All things have been delivered to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, nor does anyone know the Father except the Son and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal him. Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. And I know I have superior reading skills, and I know you get so fired up when I start reading the Bible, but unfortunately I don't have all of those scriptures memorized. But I just want to touch base on a couple of ideas. Yes, it's it's supposed to be difficult. But once you find that door, once you take that path, I want you to understand, you become— as we go up the mountain, remember I put on, I think it was the 7th stop on the mountain, and I'll have to grab it, but yes, it is the 7th stop where we have childlike faith. He said in 11:25, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes. We are kids, childlike faith. It says if you don't come to me as a child, you shall not enter into the heaven. We need to figure out how to, to get young in our mind, and how do we become childlike? And we just read this Bible and we believe this Bible. We just read it and we believe it. We don't have to understand the whole thing. There is so much that when my kids were young, they didn't understand much of nothing, but they did what their dad told them to do most times. It's so much easier as a father to have a son or a daughter that follows behind them in obedience and they obey. Obedience is better than sacrifice. And it's so much better to have my kids just trust what I say because, I mean, they're 5 or 6 or 8 or 10 and they haven't seen life like I'd seen life. And so they don't know what to worry about or what is coming around that corner, why they can't run and play in the street, or why they have to look both ways. It's not because I'm some ogre and so I don't want them playing in the street. No, it's because I try to keep them away from danger. And me being an imperfect father who knows how, or tried to figure out how to keep his kids safe, Don't you think the perfect Father in heaven has got this thing all figured out? This Father that is all-powerful, this Father that sees everything and is everywhere all at the same time, and he's all-loving and he's all-knowing— don't you think that that's the person that we ought to be following after? And don't you think that that's the person we ought to be listening to instead of somebody on the news Or instead of somebody, regardless of who you listen to, even in the pulpit, even me on this podcast, if I contradict anything in the word of God— and I'm telling you, my understanding is probably again like a babe. I've just got the boldness to where I'm going to speak into this microphone, and I've asked God, please forgive me where I mess up. I'm really trying not to mislead anyone, but I know my understanding of this word is not perfect. My understanding of how this all lays out is by no means— I had— I am never going to come to you and say I've got all this figured out. I'm walking in this thing just like you. But when I look at this from the eyes of a biblical worldview, and I look at it that the Bible is the word of God, and the Bible is the truth, and Father God does love us, and everything that he does He does because he loves us and he's looking out for us. And when I start seeing it like that, and I start seeing, hey, there is a heaven and a hell because Jesus talked about it— he talked about in spiritual terms plucking out your eye because it's better to enter into eternity with one eye than to enter into hell and fire and damnation with both eyes. Cut your hand off, it's better to walk into heaven maimed or with one hand than to enter hell with both hands. This is a spiritual truth. If you are continually doing something that's going to get you thrown into hell, why would you do that just to make yourself look good in hell? I, I don't want to be the absolute best sinner in hell. I can live with being the worst saint in heaven. And if everything that I'm doing in this podcast, if this means nothing, if this is wood, hay, and stubble, if this means nothing, I believe and I am totally confident I'm going to end up in heaven. And I have a confidence, it's not anything that I've done, because when— if anyone would ask me, what makes you think you're going to heaven? I'm going to say it's nothing that I did. I just took by faith everything that Jesus did. I didn't try to add anything to it. When I got saved, I didn't tell Jesus, man, you got a good thing when you got me. I thanked God for sending his son to die for me, and I took what Jesus did on the cross as if I did it. I had— didn't do anything. I screwed up, but I took by faith what Jesus did and I accepted by faith what he did for me, and I asked God to forgive me because I was nowhere near perfect, but he was. And I thank God, and I thank him daily for the— what he gave us. That is what I want to talk about. Come to me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Now, who is not weary? In this world that we're in, tired of fighting and tired of grinding and tired of all of this stuff. Here's the next sentence: Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. And rest— everyone is looking for some kind of rest. When we go on vacation, it is 7 days of not doing work. And I wish I could take 14-day vacation, but I have yet to take a 14-day vacation. And that may be a new goal, but right now, if I can get 7, I feel like I've won some big lottery. And I know we're not into lotteries here, but I feel like I've won big if I can get— if I can unplug for 7 days and just relax. That my soul, my mind, will, and emotions loves the fact that of just relaxing. Who does not want this promise of light and easy? For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. And so here is the key, I believe, into finding the yoke. You need to hook into God's kingdom. You need to hook into what Jesus wants to do in your life. You need to figure out where you are in the body, and you need to figure out— and this is only done by prayer and reading and what makes you come alive. And we've talked about the spiritual animal. I think that that's a key. I think that you are either a lion, an eagle, or an ox. I think if you figure out what God made you for, if you were to praise and worship, then just praise and worship. That brings you higher. If you are a prayer warrior, if you are into the authority and the power of God like a lion, that makes you come alive, then I say get after it. Hook in that yoke. Jesus was all four of these. Jesus was the Word. Jesus is the Lion of Judah. Jesus praised and worshiped his Father all the time. And Jesus was the greatest servant of them all. And so Jesus was our representation. And while we look at this, Jesus did all of these things. And as an example, I believe that none of us are nowhere near like Jesus, and maybe we just got one of these things. And so what we try to do, and what I try to teach, is figure out who you are. If you are an ox, get around some other oxes and find out what they're doing. And then, because if you're, if you're an ox, you may or may not praise like an eagle, but get around some eagles too and find out how— find out what music they're listening to and what brings them alive. My point is, there is a promise of light and easy. And the only way that we do this is if we hook in to what Jesus is doing. And Jesus is gonna do all the heavy lifting. If you hook your head in this thing and Jesus got his head in there and he's pulling and he's doing all the lifting, we're just following. He's teaching us as he shows us what to do. And this is his Holy Spirit. If we will just follow Jesus, if we will follow after his example, He will be the lamp unto our feet, and he will be the light unto our path, and it will just be easy. And I'm here to tell you that this podcast is getting easier. It's still not easy, but it is getting easier every day to come to you and talk into this microphone. In fact, I look forward to it. And before, when I started those first 30 days, I'm telling you, it was a struggle. But the things that we keep doing and the things that we continue on and the things that we commit to then they become a part of us. And that's what I think this is right here, is this is becoming a part of me. And I do believe, and I pray, that you are getting something out of this. If— and if I thought that maybe you weren't, I don't know that I would quit. I think I would. But I've heard, and I want to thank you when you call me or when you text me or when you write. And that's the other reason why I've started my YouTube channel, is so we can communicate a little better. Because some of you don't have my email and some of you don't have my text number. But I want to thank you for being there. Let's pray. God, I thank you so much for your word. Jesus, I thank you for the yoke, and I thank you for leading us and showing us. And Holy Spirit, thank you for never leaving us. And help us, Lord, be more like you every day. Lord, 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.

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