"Fear Is A Liar... Unless..."

0:00 This is Jimmy and Annette. We are excited because we are living up in a down world and this is episode, yeah, believe it or not, episode number 27. Can you believe that? I can't. Every week I'm just like, what? I know.

0:40 Where does the time go? I know. Time is flying. Oh my goodness. I read an article recently that as you get older, time seems to move faster because you get all this history under you and it's time relativity. So it's not actually moving faster, but in your mind, because you have this larger span of years, it feels like it's going faster. Yes. Are you just bored? Is that why you're reading? I read, I'm a trivia freak. I love all kinds of news and information. I'm an information junkie. You are an information junkie. Yes, you are. Definitely. You always have been. I know. I love learning. I'm a learner by nature.

1:20 When I did the Strength Finders, Tom Roth's Strength Finders, it was one of my top learner. This last time we took it, it's in my top 10. It's like number six. So it's still in that 10 range. Oh my gosh. What happened? I guess I'm not learning as much. I don't know. Maybe you feel like you've learned enough. How are you doing today, Annette? I'm doing great. Dame Annette. We are on what day of our sabbatical? Have you counted the days? Actually, we are on, I do have it written down, we are on day 10. Day 10. Day 10, can you believe it? Of 56? No, it's 60 days. 60 days. Yeah. Wow, day 10. Although it really didn't start that Monday because honestly, that was our Sabbath.

2:07 Tuesday was a holiday. It was July 4th. So I would say Wednesday, it really started on the 5th. It did. We had Chris and he was with us last week on our podcast. It was so cool having him. He's going to be here all next week. So I'm hoping he'll be okay to do another podcast and we'll bring up another subject. We can do a follow-up with him. I know. Yes. That'll be good. That'll be rich. Because he is so good. By the way, he is on his sabbatical as well. So we've been kind of comparing notes and learning and going to town on that. So he'll be back with us just for a few days because during the sabbatical is get some time with us. So we're looking forward to seeing him next week.

2:49 So like I said, we were day 10 and it didn't feel like until Friday for me. Yeah, because he left Friday morning and then it felt like… He and Jackson, our youngest grandson. Okay. This is the day it's really beginning where we kind of set our own pace. Right. And we're by ourselves. The next morning really we got up and we decided, okay, this is how we're going to start our day. This is how we're going to end our day. I know. And it has been… Well, the first few days though, I talked to Tina and I said, Tina… Mr. Chevy's here. I know. He just came. He just heard that we were in here. Let him get up in your lap. Come on. Wait, hold on. Yeah.

3:29 Don't let him tear anything apart. I talked to… He can't even get up here. Come on. Come on. Jeff. He's not exactly athletic. Hey, Mr. Chevy. Welcome to the show. So I talked with Tina and I told her I was bored. And she's like, you're bored. I'm like, because I can't look at the business side of the church. I can't do any of the normal work that I do every day, not just five days a week, but every single day. So I've had to come up with kind of a new normal schedule. And I'm not bored anymore because I'm reading. I started reading a book by Beth Moore, which is her memoir. It's very good, very enlightening.

4:12 It gave me even more respect for her as a teacher. I've always had huge respect for her as a Bible teacher. She's phenomenal. It has really encouraged me to look at her studies again. I talked to Tina about maybe doing one of her studies, but her book is amazing. So I'm doing that. I'm doing a couple of devotions and just listening. Most people, when they go on a vacation, they do all this fun stuff. Our fun is getting in the Word, listening to teaching. We're so odd. We really are. But okay, so we may be odd compared to other people, but as a follower of Christ, when we gave our heart to Jesus, we decided we were going to be all in.

5:00 Now we had bumps along the way. We had to learn. We made a lot of mistakes early on. But there was a point where we just said, we're either going to go all in or we're going out because you can't do this halfway. You can't do it half-hearted. And so for us, we're all in. And so here's what…can I share this? So we were talking to Pastor Eddie Freeman. He is my relational pastor from Gateway, and he's become kind of a friend, a coach, a friend, and he really helped us kind of get a loose-knit plan, loose but flexible plan for this sabbatical.

5:40 And just before I even go deeper into that, what a sabbatical is, it is not an extended vacation. It's also not a work sabbatical. There's no such thing. In fact, that's about as antithetical as it can get. Which I read some articles on sabbatical, and it was all about work. People go study. And it's, wait a minute, the whole idea of sabbatical is an extended Sabbath where you actually cease from work. And you literally rest, you recover, you rejuvenate, and then you refill and restore. And that's the whole point. So you can literally park your brain. For me, it's the difference between reading books and studying to get prepared for the next week's sermon or message or counseling session.

6:27 It's more for me now, I get to actually read and study for just me and not thinking about this is going to be a series or this is going to be the next sermon. So I didn't realize how much I missed that because we're just on this regimen for years where we just every week we come up with a new message, a new thing, a new series, a new study, a new whatever, a new ministry. It just never stops. You can't get off the gerbil wheel, so to speak. So that's what sabbatical is all about, is really a time of rest and recovery. And for me, resting is learning how to enjoy the presence of God. And you can't do that if you're constantly doing. You and I have talked quite a bit over the last few weeks about whether we want to go somewhere.

7:13 And we keep going back and forth. Okay, let's go to the beach. Okay, let's do it. Because it's refreshing to do that. But then today we're relaxing in the pool and we're like, let's just don't go anywhere because what it'll do is it'll get us anxious being on the road because you've got to travel or in the air, looking for places to eat. You're just constantly... And why not enjoy just being home? Then when we go on vacation, do our traveling. There you go. I love that. But why not do a sabbatical where you're actually really resting? Have you noticed how much we're sleeping in? Unless I'm walking. If I'm walking, which I've only got it down to two days a week, I get up at 6.30.

7:57 But when I'm not, boy, we're sleeping until like 7, 7.30, 8 o'clock, which is amazing. Which is mind-bending for me. It is because we usually get up really early. I don't take naps and I don't sleep in. But I've been taking naps. I took a nap the other day, remember? I just went and laid down and I went, wow. Refreshing. It's because we can. When you're working and nonstop and doing what we do, you feel like you don't have permission to really take a break. It's not necessarily true, but it feels that way. It feels that way. And to people's expectations. They want you available all the time. They're going to private message you on Facebook.

8:39 They're going to direct message you on LinkedIn. They're going to text you because you gave your number out to too many people. Now everybody has your phone number. I mean, sometimes it can get overwhelming. And I've had people say, you didn't get back with me with an email. We had somebody leave the church because I didn't return an email. And I'm like, I get 150 to 200 emails a day. Grant you, most of those are junk. But it's almost impossible to keep up with the amount of information because in our technological world and through social media, we've made ourselves so available that people are getting less than the best of who we are because we're too available.

9:26 Let me just say this. It's not that we disdain that people want to talk to us. It's just that we only have capacity for so much. This is where the Lord has been reeling us in. I love what Pastor Eddie said. He said, if you had not already been practicing Sabbath, I would not even have considered coaching you and counseling you through a healthy sabbatical. And so it's true. We've done that to a degree. And so we're getting better at that and we're learning. Jesus, the scripture says, would withdraw often into lonely or desolate places to be with his father. What was he doing? He was recharging and refilling his tanks. So we're learning.

10:07 I feel like because we have the time, we'll reach our… I can't wait till the end of this. I'm not looking forward to it yet because I'm enjoying this, but I can't wait to see the end result because I feel like I'm getting so full of his presence. What I love is we in America are so blessed to have the opportunity to hear many different preachers preach the Word of God. And we don't take advantage of that enough. And then you've got people in China who, boy, you've got this underground church. It's not really underground, but they call it the underground church because you can't be known as a church in China.

10:52 And they have just one scripture that may be just from a torn Bible. And that's what they live on. And I can't imagine going through a place, living in a place where you don't have that opportunity like we do, where we can hear the Word of God. I can get on my phone and listen to it in five seconds. And so I'm actually… I am utilizing this time of rest to rest in him. And that doesn't mean just laying down. It means resting in him means to… I'm soaking in the presence of God in everything I'm doing with my devotions, with teaching.

11:32 I want to learn more because there's so much more to learn. We're never going to learn everything we need to learn before we see Jesus. Never. But why not use this time and use it wisely, right? Yeah. When we were talking with Pastor Eddie on the phone right before we started the sabbatical with our staff, there was a pastor that was sitting with him, Pastor Matt. Yes, you talked about that last week. And so that has really encouraged me. It really did. Because he said these words, which are really heartbreaking. Even you could see it in his countenance and how he just bowed his head. He said, I squandered mine because I answered the phone. I returned texts. I even met with people that were in crisis because he said, and I look back on it and I regret it because now I have to wait another five to seven years to do this.

12:22 I squandered it. And that word squandered, it just, it reminded me of the story of the prodigal son who squandered his inheritance. And he had that tone about him. And while it was a hard thing for him to talk about, it so inspired you and I to say, we're not going to squander this. We're not going to waste this. The only thing we're going to do that may appear to be work related is this podcast. But it's only because this is a kind of an outflow for us. It's not church related. This is our personal podcast. So yeah, totally. I totally get that. This has been, it's very refreshing.

13:03 I feel very refreshed already. I do too. Literally, I just can't imagine what it's going to feel like in eight weeks. The only thing that we do have going that's been kind of tough in the last few weeks is both of our daughters are seriously ill right now. Right. They're just going through some hard stuff physically. So those phones ring. Yes. Our youngest is having heart issues. She's 22, having heart issues. Was in the emergency room twice last week and today she's with a cardiologist. They're trying to figure out if she has some heart failure at 22. And then our 45 year old is having kidney issues.

13:44 So those are things that kind of weigh on us. But you know what? Thank God. We have hope and we have a God that we can go to and pray to and ask Him to heal them or find the answers to heal them. You know what I mean? Very good. Oh, so on target, babe. I feel like this gift of sabbatical has given us also the ability to focus in prayer. That reminded me. Yes. So praying for Alicia, praying for faith. We have time to do that now. We're not distracted by a lot of things. I've done a complete break from social media. Which I'm shocked. And I have felt little to no angst about that.

14:27 I did before we started, but once we started, I had so set my mind and I was going to do my daily devotional. I thought, you know what? We have a lot of readers and people said, oh, even at church on Sunday before we left for our sabbatical, I had people come to me and say, oh, I use your devotional as my daily devote, my one daily devotional. And I was like, oh, I might do it. And then I said, and I might not. And I decided not to. I thought, you know what? If I do that, it's going to keep me engaged at a level of trying to perform. I don't mean that in a bad way. I know what you're saying. An expectation, I need to produce something. And that's just work. And for you, you said your devotion really is for you.

15:08 It is. Always is. You just happen to put it out for them. Right. But then you can get caught up in, well, do they like it? Are they going to say, are you going to have faith? Are you going to have a naysayer on there, which you always have? And so you don't need to be sucked into that. No. So it's been really, for me, my morning, I would just call it a rhythm. We've settled into a rhythm here finally where we feel like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. We keep saying this is the greatest gift we've ever received. I'm still in shock. I feel so blessed every day. I'm thankful. And when I get up, I go, wait, I don't have anything on my schedule. It's really quite remarkable.

15:50 I've never experienced anything like this. So we both get up and we always take care of Chevy because he's the priority, trust me. So we get him to take care of. But you go to your office, I go to mine, and we have different things that we do. So what have you been doing in terms of devotionals? And these are things we would do anyway, but there's a different level that we're doing now, but we always do these. And usually I start with a devotional and then I go into my work and I start doing all the work. That's normal. I'm normal. Right. Which I'm not doing now. So I do our personal stuff. I always look at credit card. Anything that we have online that I can look at, I always look at to make sure because I always look for identity fraud on everything.

16:34 I'm very just aware, astutely aware of what happens in the world. So I look at that. But mainly I'm getting into my devotion and then typically I'm yelling, oh my gosh, because I heard something or read something that is so just, I mean, it just penetrates your heart. And then I say, okay, you need to read this now. Now, we're reading the same devotional right now because there's a devotional called, do you know what the name of it is? Is this the one with Bill Johnson? Bill Johnson, yeah. The Way of Life. The Way of Life. Yeah, The Way of Life. It's 41 days.

17:15 And we're on day five. And it's on the You Version Bible. Yes, which is great. And it's short, but it's so impactful. Profound. I think that's what I love about it because sometimes you can get in a devotion that's so long on You Version that you miss out on the nuggets that God wants to give to you to settle you. Oh my goodness. This has just been today. When I listened to it and I yelled, oh my gosh, I was just so glad that you got out and you felt the same way. I actually sent it to Tina too for her to listen to because it was quite powerful. Yeah. I was just coming from the other end of the house and I thought to myself, okay, she's just read something or heard something because you do that.

18:01 You react viscerally out loud. I do. And I do too. We're both enamored with God's Word and what we're learning. And so I heard you. And then I did my version of that and I did mine. And just for people listening though, this is a good help. So maybe you're looking for a Bible, maybe a Bible app. So the YouVersion Bible app is free, download it on Android. You can download it. You can get the web version of it. You can download it onto your Mac for Apple. So it is the number one Bible app in the world and it's free, has thousands of translations, thousands of languages.

18:44 They have done so much with it and thousands of devotional options where you can do read alongs, you can do… they have video pieces to it. I mean, it is one of the most comprehensive. It is a God-given tool to all of us. Well, and I love that it has a search engine so you can… for me, I was searching… For topics. Different. You can search topics or you can search people that you'd like to listen to, which Bill Johnson is one of those out of Redding, California. And I just put in Bill Johnson and he had several devotions. Most of them are five days, but this happened to be 41 days. I love that. And I thought, okay, this is the way of life. That sounds pretty interesting.

19:26 But every day has been wonderful, but today hit me hard. Talking about purity versus power. Wow. Wow. So let's talk about that in a moment because this is… God has been… just to let you all know that as we're continuing through this, there's another Bible app I want to say, or a Christian app that would be really helpful for it. It's called Lectio 365. You can get that on Android or Apple. Lectio 365. It is developed by a pastor out of England named Pete Gregg. It's G-R-E-I-G.

20:08 And he has a phenomenal voice for narration. And he did just recently, he and two other guys did a pilgrimage from Iona in Scotland, the island of Iona, to Lindisfarne, which is a 300-mile trek on foot. And it's a pilgrimage that you do. Which is very similar to the one in Spain. Yeah, the Camino de Santiago, which is 500 miles. Why have we not ever heard of this one? I don't know. I mean, well, I didn't hear about the Camino until not long ago. So because a friend of ours did it. Is this newer? No. Oh, no. It's called Aidan's Way. It's St. Aidan, who was from Scotland, Ireland, Wales, the UK.

20:51 And it's his journey that he did. He was an evangelist and made a massive impact on the UK with the gospel of Jesus Christ. And so people go back and retrace his steps on this. And this is through the highlands of Scotland. Can't even imagine. So it was one of the most beautiful places on the planet. I think we need to plan to go. That is, I want to visit that. In fact, I was going to write Pastor Pete and say, if you could pick any of the most scenic places on Aidan's Way, where would you go? And then I was actually going to do that and reach out to him. So they do a video each day after their trek and they unpack and talk about what God's speaking to them. And you can get that again on Lectio 365.

21:33 All of those videos are on YouTube. You can just look up Pete Gregg Pilgrimage or Lectio 365 Pilgrimage. And all of the videos from their treks, three weeks worth. And so I'm retracing their footsteps. I'm going through the devotional. So those are two devotionals, super helpful. Lectio 365 app and the YouVersion Bible app. And again, we're listening to Bill Johnson's The Way of Life. If that would help you and you're looking for something to get into, these are game changers. They'll change your life. So God's been speaking to you and I both. So as we stepped into this, again, not wanting to squander or waste anything, we've committed to getting into the Word.

22:19 But from the place of rest, we're not striving. We're not laboring. We're resting into His presence, resting into and in praying simple prayers like, Lord, give me a hunger for your Word. Give me a hunger for more of you. Give me a desire to draw closer to you. So those kinds of things are what I'm praying. And He is opening up the gates of heaven. I mean, it's like the heavens have parted over us. So, so far so good and we're just getting started. Do you feel the peace that's in this home? Well, today, that's my habit. I do a thing called the Monk Journal every day. You can look that up. It's online. It's called the...

22:59 I know, I got a lot of tools. Are they paying you? No, no, they should. But anyway, the Monk Journal is a way you can track your daily...it has a theme for the month that you write out. And my theme for the month is pilgrimage, sabbatical pilgrimage, day 10 is what we're on today. And then I do a habit every day and I'm doing the fruit of the Spirit. Oh, that's right. There's seven of those. Peace. So I did love, joy, peace from the other day when I started this. And then because it's a seven-day cycle, but it's nine, I'll double up a couple of those. So today is peace. And I've just...I have been resting in Him, been resting in you and I and our relationship.

23:39 We've had such a beautiful day together, relaxing together, cooking. Cooking. Oh my gosh. Every day. We are cooking every day because we have time to. It's been interesting. It's been a blast. Going to the store every few days, buying enough good food. Good food. Healthy food. And then cooking and saving money. Of course, groceries are expensive these days. It is, but it's a lot less than eating out. But we know what we're eating. Yeah, healthy. We're eating healthy. And so we feel good. And we've lost quite a bit away in the last week, I would say. Well, we decided to start our keto journey over again. We rebooted. We did that for four years and then COVID hit and we kind of dropped the ball after COVID.

24:22 And we've been looking for a time to reboot. So we have rebooted and man, we've run hard with it for 10 days straight. And yeah, we've both lost weight and we feel a thousand percent better. So much better. I can't even tell you. It's just unbelievable. We've rebooted and it felt like it didn't take as long this time. Our bodies just kind of remembered that. Exactly. And here we are. We're already back in it. So cooking healthy, good food, organic food, real food, live food, lots of salads and stuff. It's been so good. It's been invigorating. But also the fact that we're doing it together has been just really amazing. That makes it so much easier to do when two people decide to do something together like that.

25:06 It's powerful. It's very powerful. And we do this, we're not on sabbatical. We cook together. We do things together. We've made commitments to each other that we're going to do life together. So I have friends and my best friend, Adam, he and I do bro dates. We need to schedule another one. But we want to do things together. I drove over to another town. I traded a guitar with a guy. Again. And it was a good trade. It was a win-win for both of us. Both got what we wanted. But I was going to drive two hours, meet him, then drive two hours back. He was driving from Dallas. I'm driving from Fredericksburg. So we met in the middle in Colleen, Texas to do this exchange.

25:49 And I kissed you as I was leaving. I said, I don't want to leave. I know I love you that much. But you did leave and you went and got your guitar. Well, I had a commitment. It's okay. I had plans. And I'm happy about it. And so anyway, and I talked to him this morning via text and we're both happy. So it's a win-win. That's what matters. He's excited about his new guitar. I'm excited about my new used guitar. So anyway, so this has been a great journey for us. And we want to each week that we do our podcasts, we want to just kind of share our learnings and share what we're getting. And again, we're doing this podcast a little early. This is Wednesday, actually. So it normally would have been two weeks, but we're 10 days in because we're actually doing it early so that we can do a newsletter and talk about what we are talking about on our podcast.

26:39 We wanted to do the podcast before we write the newsletter because we want the newsletter to reflect some of the content so you'll know what's coming. Hopefully that'll help you. So I got a lot of people to thank, but we'll do that at the end. So let's roll into what we're learning. What is God showing us together? Go ahead. Oh, okay. I thought you were ready to roll. No, you go ahead. Well, I think part of what kicked it off is part of our journey on this sabbatical and our reboot. And we always go to the gym at least twice a week, if not more, but that's been our habit for years. But we decided to up our game a little bit. And so we used to, when we go to the gym, I'm just going to be honest, I've listened to rock.

27:23 I would rock out and just stuff classic rock just to get me pumped up for the gym. But something's been shifting in me in the last few months. It's me praying for you. Wow. No, I'm just kidding. Okay. This heathen husband pastor. No, I do love, because I'm a musician. You're a guitar player. Love music and love good guitar music. And so I do listen to a lot of instrumental music and stuff. But anyway, I've been leaning into different things. I've been leaning into actually listening to scripture. The U-version Bible has on these translations, you can actually listen to them read the Bible. So I went to bed with my AirPods on last night and listening, started at Colossians.

28:06 And I woke up, well, my earbuds died in the middle of the night. And so I don't know where I ended up. But I thought, you know what, why don't I have the Bible going? So going to the gym, I've been doing the same thing. I've either listened to the Bible or listening to a message. So on Monday of this week, we both listened to a message from John Bevere. Oh my goodness. So John and Lisa Bevere have been in ministry about 25 to 30 years, speaking. They're international speakers. They both authored many books. They're both powerhouses. Her too. I mean, she's Italian, so there you go. Well, she's Sicilian and he's Italian, so you can imagine. Can you imagine the powerhouses? Oh my gosh.

28:46 I bet that's loud. And four boys. Yeah, yeah. They have a big family. So he's been ministering and speaking all over the world. And I've always had a high respect for both of them and their ministry. And so he happened to be speaking at Gateway Church up in Southlake, which is a sister church of ours. We're connected to them through the network. So while Pastor Robert has been doing his summer getaway, he's been bringing in all these different speakers and he called it the summer of giants. And so John Bevere was there this last Sunday. That was one of the… Literally… That message is a game changer. I think I almost yelled in the gym when I heard this message. I think I almost fell to my knees and got born again.

29:29 I'm like, I need to get saved again. That message, I sent that to Tina and asked her to listen to it. I talked to her a little bit yesterday and I couldn't even convey to her what I wanted to convey through his message because it was so powerful. I said, you've just got to listen to it. And she wrote, she was like, oh wow. I mean, I don't even know what to say. And I said, I know. That's how I felt. Because he talked about the awe of God. So many of us have lost the awe of God, the fear of God. The fear of God. And I think that word puts people off.

30:10 Because I think, oh, we're supposed to be scared of Him. That didn't have anything to do with being scared. I think there's been some abuse through the years of that term. Yes. Hey, you better… God's watching you, kind of like Santa Claus. You know, you better watch out. You better not cry. Yeah, you better not pout. I'm telling you why. That is not God at all. God's coming to town. I mean, so we have this inordinate fear. And the Bible uses the term, fear of the Lord. And yet, we have redefined that word in a negative sense. And actually, it's a good thing. It's a positive. I jotted a couple of notes. Okay, yeah, sure. So, he asked the question, what is the fear of the Lord? And he said, it is not to be scared of God.

30:50 That's a real important distinction. It is. It's been classically defined from some of the not-so-bright Bible teachers through the years who don't bother to do their exegesis and study of the original languages, three languages the Bible is written in, Aramaic, Hebrew, and Greek. And you've got to study… You've got to. …and mine out the jewels and gems, especially on tricky passages or words that can be defined in different ways in different times or different cultures. And so, what is the fear of the Lord? It's not to be scared of God. He gives a scripture, Exodus 20, 20. Listen to this. And Moses said to the people, do not fear, for God has come to test you, and that his fear may be before you, so that you may not sin.

31:40 So God showed up to test them, and that his fear would be before them. What does the fear of the Lord do? It's… Remember, now, fear… Let me define what fear is. To fear God is to be in awe of him. So think about that as opposed to being afraid. It's like saying, he's awesome. Think of where the word awesome comes from. And that's such a popular word. Still in this cult, that's one of those terms that, you know, groovy came and went, right? Exactly. But awesome has stayed with us. But it literally means he is awesome. In other words, he's to be awed to give. And here's what it literally means. If you break the word down, it means to honor, tremble, revere, esteem, respect, value, and venerate him more than anything or anyone else.

32:28 I think that when we see God in person for the first time, we will be down on our knees. Or our face. That's what I mean. With our face. I'll be sucking rug. Exactly. Because we will be in such awe of him. But he doesn't want it. Yeah, he wants it now. There you go. Thank you for saying that, Annette. That is it. Right there. You better preach, girl. No, I love that because we sometimes treat God like he's just the buddy next door. Exactly. The dude, the bro. Hey, bro, how's it going? We have lost the fear of God. We sure have. We've lost the awe of God. And God, in his love for me, has been bringing that back into my space.

33:12 Exactly. And anyone who's been 10 minutes with me knows I'm a grace guy. And the reason is because I need so much of it. But I'm all about grace. All about love. And sometimes in those arenas of grace and love, we can forget that God is also to be revered. He's to be hawed. And he's to be honored. He's to be esteemed. Now, I remember when I was young. Now, remember, I didn't grow up in church. But when I was in the fifth, sixth grade, I attended church for a short time. I rode the bus to church like you did. And it was actually kind of cool. And I just remember, you know, boys will be boys, right?

33:52 So we'd be running through the church house and church mamas would stop us and say, boys, this is the house of God. You don't act up in the house of God. And we can laugh about that. But I remember that kind of marked me. It gave me a respect because she was like, this is a special place. You don't act like that in God's house. And you can take that as a negative. I took it as a good thing because it taught me to say, whoa, okay, this place, this is holy. It's special. But here's the thing. Because God lives in us, if we accept him as our Savior, we need to be holy everywhere we are.

34:33 It's not about going into the church. This is where I have a hard time with people who think they can only feel the presence of God in church. Yes. Hopefully you are feeling it in church. Every church should be hosting the presence of God. But I can host the presence of God right here in my own home when I'm doing my devotions. And a scripture or something that someone says points me to a scripture that illuminates where I just can't help but be in awe of who he is. That's the place I want to be in. I don't want to have to go to church to feel that.

35:14 But the church should also obviously be the place. All I meant by that is that's where I was first introduced to the idea of awe, of reverence of the Lord and where I was like... No, and I get what you were saying, but I also am thinking about people thinking that it could only be at church. You can't have that at home. We can turn on worship music running throughout the house and we can feel the presence of God. Sometimes it gets us down on our knees because we're just so moved by his presence because he loves us to worship him. That's what we're here for. We're going to be doing this for eternity.

35:56 Why don't we start now? Exactly. So, for me, I'm walking in repentance. Now, by the way, repentance doesn't mean I'm falling on the floor, weeping and gnashing of teeth. I'm so sorry, God. I messed up. I'm so sorry. No, it's more... Repentance is actually changing your mind. It means to align your mind with his, align your thoughts with his. So we think it means to say you're sorry. It doesn't. It just means to course correct, to adjust and to say, okay, Lord, I'm going to change my mind about this because I've been going this way, but I want to change my mind and go this way. So, in terms of that, I have been really meditating on this.

36:41 Lectio divina, it's a Latin term, and it's basically four-step process to processing the Word of God. The first one means you read the Word. The second part of that, of the four, is that you meditate on the Word. You spend time with it. You ruminate over it. You think about it. Then the third part is you pray about it. Okay, Lord, what does this mean to me? And Lord, how do I apply this to my life? And then the number four of that is contemplate. To contemplate is similar to meditate. You begin to think about how does this apply to my life? How can I work this into my life? So that's what I've been doing. I've been applying Lectio divina to this idea of the awe of God.

37:23 And it is changing so much, even just in the short time of being on sabbatical, of me thinking about what I do, what I say, even in the practical things. How I react, how I respond. Do I go passive aggressive if I don't like something, slam a door, or push something harder than I needed to? Do I step on the gas pedal? I was going to say, you were driving yesterday and you said even your drive was so peaceful because you just let your cruise go and you were just not allowing the things of the... This is the power of God's Word and the gospel, the good news and how it works into even the simple things.

38:06 So driving, actually before I left, I made up my mind I was going to be peaceful and drive this way. I wish I could have been there. You would have been speed up. Adam would have been proud of me. That's for you, Adam Curry. So if the speed limit was 70, I set my cruise on 72 because my car will go like one mile under, so it will show 72, but then it's actually, my speedometer says 71. So I drove 71 miles an hour in a 70 mile and much to the consternation of a couple of people behind me. And then I drove 76 miles per hour in a 75 because there was some spots on the road.

38:48 I had the most peaceful drive. I listened to a book by Pete Gregg that I'm reading called How to Hear the Voice of God. Oh, it is so good. And it's really about the Word of God. It's all about the Word of God. It's not about hearing some extra biblical voice. It's about letting the Bible speak to you. It's so good. I can highly recommend it. Pete Gregg, How to Hear the Voice of God. So good. And so I was listening to that on my earbuds or my AirPods. And then I just put the Bible on. I love to listen to the New International Version UK, a version edition. It's on the YouVersion Bible app. It reads to you with a British accent.

39:29 You're hilarious. I just love it. I'm trying to learn to speak. Why are we going in America? I don't understand. I know, it's weird, especially Texas. So anyway, I did that. The whole time it made my drive peaceful and restful. Instead of getting spun up and anxious, I just had the most peaceful time. So that's the application of what we're talking about. So in terms of the fear of the Lord, how do you apply that into real life and how do you do? So a couple of things I want to share with you. Listen to this. There's a Bible verse that addresses the idea of freedom in Christ. Now I, walking at grace, walking in these things for years, I've had people say, hey, you know what? I'm free in Jesus.

40:10 According to the book of Galatians, I'm free to do anything I want. And you can say, well, okay, sure, but here I want to share this with you. So there's a Bible verse that talks about the freedom in Christ not being an excuse to do whatever we want. And that's in the New Testament. It says this in Galatians 5 verse 13, for you were called to freedom, brothers, only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. And that is such a powerful verse. Such a powerful verse. In other words, and Paul said it in another place, that I'm free to do anything, but not all things are expedient.

40:52 Exactly. Are good for us. And so, of course, you're free to do what you want. God's not going to stop you, but that doesn't mean it's going to produce the good things that you're looking for. Well, and today when we were listening to Bill Johnson and he quoted this, I'm going to say this, in the kingdom, freedom doesn't mean I do what I want. Freedom means I have the ability to do what is right. That is a bombshell. I think I screamed. Thunder in my soul. That's probably when you heard me the first time I went, oh my gosh. So I was watching it on my iPad. I screenshotted that. I did too. In fact, I'm looking at it right now because it is so… I screenshotted it too.

41:33 Oh, how funny. I've got this right in front of me, literally. And it goes along with that verse. Exactly. Okay, let me say it again because it is so powerful. It is. I'm reading it right off the screen. In the kingdom, freedom doesn't mean I do what I want. Freedom means I have the ability to do what is right. Wow. Which that's righteous living. Booyah. That's living and right standing with God. He doesn't want us to do things that are evil just because we're free because we're in the new covenant. No, it's about having the ability to do what is right. What will honor Him. What will bless Him. And why would we want to do things that dishonor Him?

42:14 And then use freedom or grace as an excuse to say, oh no, I'm all good with God. We're buddies. But He's okay. He's a good God anyway. And I'm still going to heaven. No, I'm sorry. Yes, you're still going to heaven, but that's not going to cut it. To me, that's…I mean, you're walking a fine line there because you're not going to grow unless you walk in holiness. I mean, holiness in the fear of God, that's what walking…that's what trembling. You're not trembling because you're scared. You're trembling because you're in just…He is such an awesome God.

42:54 You don't deserve any of what He's given us. That's what the power of mercy and grace does. We don't deserve it, but He gives it to us anyway because He loves us. And so why wouldn't I want to do what He wants us to do? I don't want to squander my freedom and promise. I don't want to use that as an excuse to live and do what I want to do what makes me feel good in the moment. It's kind of like Jacob and Esau exchanged his birthright for a bowl of beans. He gave it away. He gave his birthright away. He gave it away for a temporary…just for a bowl of chili or beans, whatever this stuff was.

43:37 Poorage or whatever. Well, they made it out of an animal they killed. But anyway, so in the Bible, it says that he literally gave away his birthright. He gave away everything, his whole inheritance, because that was way down the line. He was young, so he couldn't see. And yet Jacob was able to get the blessing, and he did it for a bowl of beans because that temporary…that desire for a temporary fix, a temporary feel-good, we'd call it today and we know what it is. It's an endorphin dump. You just want some endorphins, so you do something. So you'd be willing to do something that's not pleasing. Sacrifice. You're going to sacrifice.

44:18 You're going to sacrifice something because it's not right in front of you and it's going to take longer to develop. You sacrifice that for the temporary dopamine pump. And that's part of maturing in Christ, is learning not to do those things. And one of the reasons we do that is because we have no fear of God. Exactly. Because we don't…actually, we don't really care. There's no instant consequence. No, we just don't care. We think, well, he's a good God. He loves us anyway, so that means I can do whatever I want. Really? And again, this fear doesn't go back to being terrified of God. It's to honor, to revere, to esteem, to respect, to value, to value your love relationship with God so much that you're willing to say no to something.

45:02 It would be like you as a husband saying, I value you so much, but I want to have an affair because that would make my flesh feel good right this moment. I would have a dopamine boost. Right. But do you really value me? No, not at all. You're having an…you know what I'm saying? So we just have it all mixed up. I would recommend, if any of you are interested in going a little deeper with this, because I really feel like the Lord wants to say something to all of us about reminding us of how holy He is, how pure He is. Because it is one thing to say, hey, I'm a friend of God. And the Bible even uses that term.

45:44 But more often, that's like one time out of thousands of verses. And we tend to camp out on that, which makes us feel good. But at what point do we as followers of Jesus begin to say, I'm going to go beyond what I feel good in the moment of and say what matters most in the long haul? So it's really playing the long game as opposed to just this short game that's temporary and subject to change. Exactly. I think and believe, I would be in agreement with Pastor Bill Johnson and John Bevere, God is calling His people back to a place of holiness and purity. And that doesn't mean, you know, we start wearing…girls have to wear dresses and grow their hair back out and guys have to cut their hair.

46:32 I mean, this is not about outward stuff. This is an inward position of the heart. It's a posturing of the heart to say, Father, I love you so much. Holy Spirit, I love you so much. Jesus, I love you so much. Direct me. Direct my steps. I'm willing to follow you and say yes to you. It's Isaiah before the throne of God in Isaiah chapter 6. When he saw…the Bible says he saw the Lord high and lifted up and the first word out of his mouth was, whoa. Whoa, I'm undone. Just whoa. Whoa. I mean, his response was, whoa. He says, whoa is me.

47:13 I'm undone. And I think that what's happened is we've…because we like this familiar friend mentality. I was going to say, it's familiarity. Yeah. We like that so much that we've just made God our buddy. We've let our guard down and just, you know, instead of keeping that reverence. Yeah. So it's a reminder because we all do this, not just…I mean, we do it. That's why when we listen to that message, it brought us to our knees, not physically. We're at the gym almost, but it literally was like, oh my gosh, Lord, I'm so sorry that I have taken you for granted.

47:57 It just literally made me…I went back through all the notes. We were able to get the notes off of gatewaypeople.com and we got the notes and we just started just going through those notes, all through those scriptures that he talked about, the fear of God. It was like, oh my goodness. It just resonated. And it was just like, Lord, forgive us for where we've taken you for granted and we have not revered you enough. It's refreshed my relationship with the Lord. Again, these are sabbatical learnings right now. These are things that we've said, Lord, take us through what we need to go through so that we can grow and we can learn and we don't squander this time.

48:40 So all we're doing is sharing what we're learning, what we're growing in. Hopefully, it'll encourage you. The one last thing is in Pete Gregg's book, he's talking about the Word of God. He's talking about this very thing about revering the Word of God. He said, we just treat the Bible like it's just…well, I'll put it this way. Oh, I lost his name. I'll think of him in a minute. The great statistician… Barna? Barna. George Barna said this about the Bible. It is the number one bestseller still to this day. The number one bestseller in the world. And New York Times took it off their list because it was so repetitive as number one.

49:23 They just felt like it wasn't fair to other people. So they literally took it off the list only because it's been the bestselling book for decades in a row. He said this. This is what George Barna said. It is the bestselling book that's never read. Wow. It's powerful. And so just as we land the plane on this part of the show, I just want to encourage you, if you have not spent time in the Word of God and the Bible, I want to encourage you. What I'm doing to help me, not just reading the book in my hand, but putting my AirPods on and having a block of time where we're going to go work out tomorrow at the gym. And I told Ann, I said, I think I'm just going to listen to the Bible the whole time.

50:05 Find your version that you like or the voice reading that you like because there's a bunch of them on the YouVersion Bible and let it run in your ears. Listen to it. I slowed mine down to 0.75 speed. Wow. It was very slow, especially in a British accent. Of course. But I'm driving. So I was just listening. I was like, I don't want to bite off more than I can chew. So I'm going to listen to it very slow so I can get it. But Pete Craig, Pastor Pete, was saying that we have just completely eradicated the value of the Word of God out of our lives. And yet we revere the Bible. We respect the Bible, but we don't read the Bible.

50:45 Doesn't that make sense? Well, I love what you shared with me that he said this week while you were reading that book in that he said so many people go through like a Bible in a year, which we did, the Bible in two years, but you can't comprehend and take in all that. I can't. I lost so much of that. But he said if you could just take one scripture and just meditate on that scripture, exegete it, look at commentaries, look at the Greek, the Hebrew, whatever Old Testament or New Testament that scripture is in, and dive into that one scripture. You're going to do so much more than reading the whole Bible. Do you remember everything we read in two years?

51:26 Oh Lord, no. I've read through the... I felt like we went through days where we're just checking the box. And that's exactly what we were doing. And we could say, oh, well, we've read the Bible. And I've probably read the Bible four times over my lifetime. But have I comprehended it? No. It's better to ruminate. To ruminate is what cows do with cud. They chew it over. It's gross. But they chew it over and over and over. They don't just chew it and swallow. They chew it and chew it and chew it and stay on it. That's what we need to do with the Word. So ruminate means...so we need to ruminate on God's Word, but do it in nugget sizes, like one passage or one verse. Just like we found when we were listening to that pastor a few weeks ago and he preached on Jude 1.1, we're called, we're loved, we're kept.

52:12 Oh, I can't get over it. I'm still on it. I still...I still have memorized that. I'm ruminating. I'm chewing on it like cud. And now Tina, you know, she wants to get tattoos put on her arms. I'm like, I'm still... Hey, no, that's really ruminating on it. Get tattooed. I'm still praying about that, whether I want to do that or not. You should. You should. I'm thinking about it. It has to be very little though. I mean, really little to where... Make it little and classy. Instead of big and sassy. It would have to be little and classy to where someone says, what does that say? And then I can tell them. Do it. Do it in small print. But honestly, that scripture, how many times did we read Jude? We've read Jude before because there's a scripture on down that talks about praying in the Holy Spirit and how it builds you up.

52:54 And that's the scripture that I always remember out of Jude because Jude only has one chapter. But Jude 1, 1, now that's my favorite verse. And so it's just amazing how you can just camp out on one verse and it just...you can camp out on it. We've camped out on it, what, two weeks now? I know. We can't stop. We can't stop. And the people that are around us can't stop either, which is awesome. I love that. So much so you're going to get it inked. Well, I'm still... Okay. Do it. All right. Do it. You only live once. Right? Right. That's true. All right.

53:34 Wow. So turn in the corner a little bit. We hope that encourages you. We just want to kind of...out of our buckets that are full, we have leaky buckets right now. They're overflowing and we want to share with you what we're learning and hopefully it'll encourage you on your journey. Couple of things that happened. Again, we didn't do a lot last week. We had Pastor Chris with us, our son, and who will be with us again. But also on Saturday, we went out with our dear friends, Adam and Tina Curry and who else? Christine... Christina and Kevin. Christina and Kevin. Christina is Adam's daughter. And she lives in Rotterdam in Holland. Holland. And Kevin is her boyfriend. That was really interesting. And I got to sit by Kevin. We went to a great vineyard called Augusta Vin, right?

54:17 Yes. And we had to join that. We've never been there before and it was absolutely stunning. It's in Fredericksburg, Texas. I have never seen one like that. That was impressive. It was beautiful. I felt like I was in another place like Sonoma or Napa or something. That was just a great place. Well, and we've heard nothing but good things about it. Anyway, I'm touting there because it was amazing. Beautiful, beautiful place. And we had a wonderful time. We spent the whole afternoon with them. And I got to sit by Kevin and I so enjoyed Kevin. Kevin is a music producer in Holland. And I got to sit and me being a musician, so we had a lot of nerd talk about deer and stuff.

54:57 Oh, yeah, yeah. You would not have enjoyed it. So it was nerd talk. But also, I just began to ask him questions about living in Rotterdam. So he lives in Rotterdam. And I'm like... And he's from there. Yeah. I'm like, tell me about growing up there. Tell me about what it's like to live in Holland. This is his first trip to America. So he's wide-eyed about everything right now. And he looks at a place. He doesn't look like he's from America. He looks very... Both of them. He's very European. Both of them look at a place. Both of them. It's hilarious. People were staring. Oh my gosh, they were. As people were walking through the room. I know. It's funny. It's hilarious. But you know what? It's so cool to meet somebody from another part of the world and just find out about their world. And so I just let him talk. And it was really interesting things he was telling me about.

55:40 That city was bombed terribly during World War II. It was destroyed, the whole city. So it was a beautiful historic city. Amsterdam didn't get destroyed. It is the beautiful historic and largest city in Holland. Rotterdam is the next largest city. So it's full on. But when they rebuilt it, they rebuilt it modern. Modern. So if you like the modern vibe, that would be the place to go. I know. It's got to be amazing. So he was just telling me about his life there and production, what he does in producing music and kind of things. It was just good getting to know him and getting to encourage him as a young man. And he had a lot of tats. I'm like, tell me your tat story.

56:22 You got a lot of ink there. And it all had to do with redemption. I know. It's very beautiful. So anyway, I just see really good things in their futures, young people. And Christina is just stunning. She's easy to talk to. She looks like a model. Supermodel. Tall and really, really thin and black, long hair. But such a tender heart. Yes. You could see Adam Curry's, his influence on her. That tender heart. Yeah. Beautiful. And just the love for children. When she found out I had worked as a case manager in a children's home, she just lit up because she's studying to be a social worker.

57:04 Right. So that gave us a really cool common ground conversation to talk about life as a social worker and what I learned and just the love of kids and love of people and making a difference in this world. So just cool to see two young people that have a heart to make a difference in their world. So anyway, such a beautiful visit with them. And of course, we always love getting our time. We got to have time with the Currys. Yes, always. In fact, Adam, I'm calling you out. We got to set a bro date, man. It's got to happen. Friday night we have a date with all of us. We're going to go see the Sound of Freedom. Oh yeah, the Jim Cavizio movie. I've already seen it. Which has been completely ditched by the New York Times and LA Times. They won't even acknowledge it and yet it's a number one at the box office.

57:47 Well, and Jim Cavizio came to Fredericksburg a couple of years ago and brought that movie to a restaurant, to one of our friends who comes to our church. She owned a restaurant. Got him in along with Lara Logan and her husband and they showed the movie to the people that signed up to come, which was one of them. It was an amazing movie, but I heard that they rewrote some of it or added some scenes since then, but it was powerful. There wasn't a dry in the house after the movie and it was very interesting to hear Jim Cavizio talk about it. When he does a movie, he's all in. He's all in.

58:27 He's a method actor. He's all in. He's definitely. He embodies the character. He's very godly. So, I can't wait to go see it on Friday. Oh, he's a lover of Jesus. In fact, when he was there that night, they did another gathering that night at one of the homes. Someone mentioned about the cross at Kerrville. In Kerrville, Texas, there's a 70-foot cross. It's a piece of art. They've built this incredible, it's up on top of a hill, overlooks the city. It's stunning and it's like stations of the cross and they have chaplains up there. I mean, you can go up there and walk through the stations of the cross. It's stunning. And so, they all went to see it at night and at night. It's really beautiful.

59:08 You can see over the city. While they were up there, Jim Cavizio gave his testimony and Lara Logan gave her heart to Christ. Wow, that is just so powerful. She prayed to receive Christ. So, Jim Cavizio led Lara Logan to the Lord. Is that not beautiful? I think Don told us he was thinking about coming to our church that Sunday. Yeah, he didn't come, but that's okay. I think he would be. I don't know what would happen if people… I mean, people would know who he is. So, anyway, just a beautiful story of God working through this. So we have an interesting tie to that movie in that you attended just this private screening of it.

59:49 Just the fact that culture, our world is dissing it and that I've even read reports where people are saying, oh, there's no sex trafficking problem in America. That's delusional. Oh my gosh. And that the movie is fake. It's not fake. It's a real story about a real man and Jim portrays that passionately. And so, we're supporting the movie by going to the movie and it exposes this issue of sex trafficking in our world right now, which needs to be addressed passionately. And the IT corridor that we live off of is one of the number one trafficking areas. It's horrible. Coming out of… We've got issues coming out of Mexico, of course, the border issue, and I don't want to get all crazy political, but this is real life.

1:00:32 This is where life happens. And as followers of Jesus, we have to stand up for righteousness and for the kingdom of God. So we pray that God would bring his kingdom on earth as in heaven. And that's what he intends. And so, that's part of our responsibility. So anyway, we're going to go on Friday night with the Currys, get a night out with them, hang out, get some good food. We can hardly go anywhere in Fredericksburg. We're trying to stay away for the eight weeks. In fact, when we went to Augusta Ven, which is between Fredericksburg and Kerrville, I thought for sure we would run into people. Didn't run into us. And it's not that we don't want to see our people. It pulls you back into a work mode, whether you want it to or not.

1:01:14 And we don't want them to talk about how much they miss us at church or how bad something was. How it went or how it went. We don't want to worry about anything. It like resets us back to zero. And so, we're only avoiding the people we love for this season because actually it was mandated by my coach, by my pastor. And our board was the first ones to bring it up. Y'all need to... Yeah, redirect your emails, get a new phone number. I mean, it's been pretty radical. So we only have two people that know. I know. Well, and I have emailed a couple of people that... What? No, we're going to... I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. ...somebody's house next week that lives out close to Stonewall.

1:01:54 They promise not to talk about the church. Exactly. Just friends. And that's okay. Just hanging out. Yeah. So anyway, it's been amazing. Hey, we love you guys. I want to share some shout outs. Can I do that? Yeah, do that. I mean, some amazing things. I want to give you the Adam, the Podfather Curry coming in hot this last week with 77,777. Total Strapper Boost. Did he come through again? I did not upload that, but I will give him a round of applause. Wow. So he writes this. Okay. Wait, you have a new toy, so that's why you did that. I know, I'm pretty excited. I'm super excited about my Roadcaster Duo. Yes, yes. It's got some new sounds on it, so I may have to use them.

1:02:37 He wrote this. All the sevens for the Triple Threats, the Strapper Boost, of course. I should have downloaded that. I will next time. Great episode and kudos for the engineering PJ. In other words, we had three mics on and I was able to get Chris on the podcast with us. We made it work. Sir Brian with an I. Finally, good to hear from you, Sir Brian. You've been a little bit quiet lately with coming in strong with 33,777 Satoshis. Man, I'm so appreciate it. He says this, looking forward to tonight's show. So you get some applause there. Coming in hot with 5,000 Satoshis is Gabriel Ashley.

1:03:18 I think this is the first time she's boosted us. So Gabriel, we want to say thank you for boosting. Thank you for listening to the show. We hope we're a source of encouragement for you. And then coming in with 3,300 Satoshis is Jay Moon. Jay, thanks for listening. Thanks for being a part. Thanks for supporting us. Also, we've had some contributions through our newsletter through Substack and some of our subscribers. So if you want to subscribe and become a subscriber to our newsletter, we put it out every week. Do give us your email and you can do that by going to livingupinadownworld.com. Living up in a down world.com. That's our website.

1:03:59 It's got all of our podcasts on there. Has My Daily Devotionals on there. You can leave a comment. You can write us. Or even better, you can leave a review, which is super helpful for us. So we've got some contributions through our newsletter. One is Steve Wise at $80. Steve, I just want to say thanks. So appreciate you blessing us with that donation. And man, bless you too and thanks again. And Julie Herbert, also dear friend of ours, who we love and appreciate, goes to our church and she is one of the main people out at Runs Great Creek Vineyards, which is another one we're members of, which we love.

1:04:39 So Julie, thank you for coming in at $80. We so appreciate it. You're a blessing. You're hilarious. I cannot believe you like all these sounds. I've got to find something cool. Now I have to find a really cool one. Okay, I like this. I'm going to do this. And really, our founding member at $150 came in. Drum roll, please. None other than Adam the Podfather Curry. What did I say? Adam the Podfather Curry. Oh my goodness. Bro, we love you so much. So anyway, that's our kudos.

1:05:21 And Chuck wrote us. He wrote us on our website and he says this, have you all heard about the book, Unoffendable? Oh, have we ever? I read that book backwards and forwards. He says your latest show reminded me about it. Adam might like it too. Adam would like that. That is a fantastic book about how to become unoffendable and live your life in a way where you're not spun up and offended by everything that's going on. And I highly recommend the book. Cannot remember the author of that book, but I love that book. Oh man. It's Brant. Brant somebody. Yeah, I don't remember. Anyway, sorry, Sheba. He's trying to jump up in my lap. I'm talking. So anyway, it's the book, Unoffendable.

1:06:01 Highly recommend that. And so with that, we want to say how much we love you and appreciate you and thank you. Okay. Too many toys. You're really going to play. I was actually trying to do this. Okay. So we're landing the plane here. We love you guys. By the way, check out Adam and Tina Curry's great podcast, Curry and the Keeper. You can listen on Fountain or you can go to their website at curryandthekeeper.com. God bless you. Love you. Say goodbye. All right. Goodbye. Bye.