Why many Christians struggle the same as non-believers with the issues of life

Welcome to episode 336. In this episode, I'm going to talk about the thing that is keeping most Christians from walking in faith. And I know there's two things that we've talked about in previous episodes. I believe if you listen to this and you embrace this, it will help you tremendously as you go into the next year. But before we get started, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, in the previous episodes, I talked about The two things that are stopping faith, and that is fear and unbelief. And I believe those two things are really what hold us back from walking in faith. Remember when we started all of this faith walk, it said that we are to walk by faith and not by sight. And the way to take those steps is to get rid of fear and to get rid of unbelief. But this one thing, as I was praying and when I went to church Sunday, The pastor was talking about it and it was like the Holy Spirit said, Greg, you haven't talked about this yet. And so I'm going to give you this, and I believe this one thing, if you do this one thing, it will open up a whole new world in your life for walking in the Spirit and walking by faith and not by sight. And here it is, it is a big soapbox moment for you early on. It is get into the Word of God. Can you imagine me saying something like that? That that we need to be in the vine and let the vine get into us because we can do nothing, Jesus said, separated from him. And his disciples abide in his word. Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the word of God. I wanna give you an example, a story of somebody, we'll call it this Bubba here, that had some damage on his truck and he needed to get his truck in the shop and get it fixed. And if you remember, I had all of this hail damage on my truck and I had to put it in the shop. And I thank God for my brother and sister-in-law. They allowed me to borrow their vehicle. But I want to take this same example because it happened to me. And I just want you to picture that if you've got an insurance policy, I know a couple of insurance guys and they say that nobody reads their policy, that they really don't know what's in their policy until something happens and they call to say, hey, I need this now. I just had a wreck. What's on my policy? That's not the time to know what's on your insurance policy. Little side note, if you've got car insurance or house insurance, you probably need to read your policy and see what's covered and what's not covered. What I want to get to, what if on my insurance policy it had a free rental car? For as long as my car was in the shop, I was able to get a free rental car. If I put my truck in the shop and called up my insurance company, said, "Hey, my truck's in the shop. I need to get a rental car." The insurance company would say, "Oh, that's great." What's your policy number? I tell them, they say, yes, Mr. Ryan, you've got this insurance. Go get you a car, keep it under this amount, and we'll pay for it every day that your car's in the shop. Let's take that same example and let's say I've got that same policy, but I think, oh man, my car's in the shop. So I start calling around, hey, I need a ride to work. Hey, I need to go over here. Hey, and I'm calling everybody and I'm wearing them out. I finally get my truck back. My insurance agent calls and says, hey, Greg, just wanted to make sure everything happened okay. I didn't see in your that you got needed a rental car. Is there a reason why you didn't need a rental car? And I'm like, what do you mean? Then my insurance agent said, you had a rental policy on your car insurance. You could have asked and we would have given you a rental car. Now, I want to take this same example that if you don't ask for it, if you don't know it's in your insurance policy, just because it's in there doesn't mean that you can appropriate it to your life. You have got to know what you've got in order to get it to work, and that's the same as faith. If you don't know what's in the Word of God, how are you going to apply these truths to your life? And I just think that the body of Christ, Christians everywhere, are walking around powerless but with power all on the inside of them. You and I have the same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead living on the inside of us, But if we don't call that power out, if we don't hook into that power source, we're going to keep walking around. And Satan is coming to steal, to kill, and destroy. Jesus said that I have come that you may have life and have it more abundantly. We've talked about this multiple times. Do you want abundant life, or do you want to be killed, stolen from, or destroyed? I mean, we've got to pick a side, guys. We have got to get on God's team But we've got to know what's written in the book. We got to know what's our insurance policy. And this is not just an insurance get-out-of-hell-free card. We have got promises from God that are incredible. But if you don't know what's in the book, if you don't know the promises of God, Satan is not going to say, oh hey, you know, you don't have to take this beating. No, he's a punk. He's going to just keep piledriving. He's going to keep beating the snot out of you until you take your authority. And that's what I want to encourage you to do. In the next episode, we're going to talk about the promise that God gave to Abraham. It's in Genesis 12. We're going to go to that in the next episode. He gave that promise to Abraham, and he said all the nations of the world will be blessed. That is so encouraging. You and I are inside of this promise. We're going to look at what David did because it is a covenant promise to you and I. And when God makes a promise, when God says something in his word, he does not change. Now, you and I may say something and then not back it up with action, but that's not God. God's ways are not our ways. God, if he says it, it's going to happen. That's why we've got to get that faith to believe, hey, God said it, it's going to happen. Now, it doesn't have to happen like right now, and this ain't no magical genie thing. It's seed time and harvest. We've got to understand this faith walk. God reminded me Sunday that we need to understand the covenant. We are under a covenant promise to be blessed and to have abundant life. And if you don't believe it, you need to keep reading the Bible until you believe it, because God said, I have come that they may have a life and have it more abundant. Abundant life. Is God's promise to you, or you can take Satan's promise to steal, to kill, and destroy. We're going to pick a side. We're going to stand on the abundant life side, and we're going to stand on the side that says God is love. God is nothing but goodness and mercy and grace and faithfulness. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. That is the fruit of the Spirit. That's what God brings. God is love. He is all of it. He gives you the peace that surpasses all understanding. But we have got to understand that we've got to pull it out. We've got an enemy. We hate him. He hates us. So we punch him in the teeth every chance we get. We have got to know what's in the word. And if you remember back in Genesis 3, that's the first thing he did with Adam and Eve. Is he came against the Word. Has God really said? He's gonna challenge the Word. That's all he's got. He does not want you and I in the Word. He wants us in the world. He wants us in this worldview, not a biblical view. We've got to get in the Bible. I know I've been jumping up and down. I am excited about this. We're going to read our policy. We're going to read what's in this book, and we're going to start taking appropriate action and measures We're gonna kick his teeth in every chance we get. We're gonna bind these demons up. We're gonna cast them out in Jesus' name. Because if you submit yourself to God, then you can resist the devil, and then he will flee. That is James 4:7. We have got to submit to God, then we can kick Satan's teeth in. But until we've submitted, until we're in his word and allow this word to get in us, we have got a problem on this earth. If we're walking around in our carnal, fleshy, five-sense world and trying to beat Satan up by things in this physical realm, we're gonna get the crap kicked out of us. But if we get in the spirit realm, if we go where God is and where our spirit man is, and we learn how to fight that battle, totally different animal. And I just wanted to kind of open this door to these covenant promises. We have got to get in this word. We have got to allow this word to get in us. And we're going to pray because I'm feeling myself going into the next lesson. God, I thank you so much for your word. I thank you for the promises. I thank you, Holy Spirit, that you said you would never leave us nor forsake us. So we know you're here, but we also know, God, that it is to your glory to conceal a matter, but it is up to us to search out a matter. Lord, we are your kings. Help us to get into your word and to search these truths out. Lord, you have not hidden your truth from us. You have hidden your truths in your word for us. They are there. All we've got to do is just jump in and find them and then appropriate them to our lives. Holy Spirit, help us to be more like Jesus. Help us to learn your truth and help us to walk in faith. And not by sight. 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. Thanks for listening to the No Doubt, No Fear, Only Believe podcast at www.nodoubtonlybelieve.com.