"Fighting Spiritual Battles and Winning!"

0:03 Don't get down when you're seeing the worst. Cause the last will be the first. What a day, I'm telling you. All things will be. This is Jimmy and Annette, and we are living up in a down world. At least that's what we try to do on a daily basis. We want to welcome you to our podcast today, and we are excited to be in the studio. Episode 102. 102, and this is two weeks in a row. This may be a new actual record. Are you sure it's not three weeks? Is it two or three?

0:48 Two or three. You know what? It may be three. It may be three. Wow. I don't know. Everything's a blur right now. It is. Are you feeling the same thing? Time is going by so fast. I don't even know what day. Is it because we're getting older or we're so busy or we're so filled with purpose? You know, I thought it was because we were getting older because... Most people, when they're older, it seems that way. But our younger daughter says time is going fast to her, too. She does. I don't know. She's 24. 24. Yeah. Yes. I have to think about it. I know. That's sad. We're old. I don't have brain fog, though. I mean, it's not that. It's just we look up and we're so busy. Hands to the plow. Yes. We love what we get to do. And so when you're having fun, time flies. Yes. And we are having fun.

1:31 Just for those, if we have any new listeners today, first of all, welcome to our podcast. Living Up and Down World is what it's called, like I said. But we are Pastor Jimmy and Annette, and we lead and pastor a church. We've been here nine years. It's called Bridge Church in Fredericksburg, Texas, and we love what we do. Yes, and we love the Hill Country. Oh, we love the Texas Hill Country. We've lived in many places in Texas, but the Hill Country is by far our favorite place to live. Now, the most pretty place we've ever lived was Midland, Texas. Ah, you're funny. Wow. That's the ugliest place we've ever lived. But I loved Midland. You grew up in that area. I did. It's changed a lot since I grew up in the 60s and 70s. Oh, my gosh. How old are you? No, I'm just kidding. I know. Me too. I actually prefer Midland to Odessa. I used to work in Midland, and I preferred that. I've lived in both Midland and Odessa. But there's nothing like the Hill Country. I know. It's special. Nothing like it.

2:34 It really is. Even people who come and visit here say that. There's just something special. It's kind of like the Old West. It's got that rural vibe, beautiful hills, and right now we're super green because we've had a lot of rain, which we're so thankful for. Because it's been about a nine -year drought. Yes. And so this has been really refreshing. It was actually cool. We walked at 645. We did our two -mile walk in our neighborhood, and it was 67 degrees. It was. It was beautiful. And we still had some storms in the air, some thunderstorms. So you could hear a little rumble of thunder every once in a while. Which I liked. And then we could see the clouds. Yes. We could see the storms, but they were far away. Yes. It was like perfect.

3:17 Even if it was sprinkling, it would be nice because it would cool you down. But it was pretty cool this morning. It felt so good. Just seeing the green and, of course, the sun coming up. This is the greenest June we've ever seen. Amazing. Yes. I walk outside or I drive into our neighborhood. Reminds us a lot of Tennessee. Yes. Reminds us of where we lived in Spring Hill, Nashville. Which is the most beautiful place we've ever lived. Nashville. Nashville's stunning. The most beautiful. The countryside especially. But this is the second most beautiful place. I agree. And it's right up there with it, with the green and the weather we're having. Especially where we live. Yes. Yeah. Wow. So what a fun time walking this morning. We've gotten back into our groove. Walking and lifting weights. I mean, those are like the two. Most important things we could do, especially at our age. And we ate ribeyes yesterday, part of our carnivore journey. We're switching from sirloin to ribeyes. We're stepping up our game a little bit. Oh, my gosh. As much as I love. So it's going to double our grocery bill. It will double. I mean, the top sirloin from HEB is actually a great deal. But it's not enough fat for us. We need the fat. So we stepped up to ribeyes yesterday. Oh, my gosh. That was amazing. It was really good. My stomach was telling me, hey, you had a lot of fat yesterday. I know.

4:27 Anyway, if you're a carnivore, you'll get that. But anyway, so yeah, carnivore journey's going great. I heard good news about the movie, the documentary we were part of. Yes, they did. It's called Healing Humanity. Yes, and they finished the filming and now they're in the editing stages. It's exciting. I'm excited to see what's going to happen. And then they're going to have a series come out too. So we'll be part of the series as well. They got a lot of footage. We're busy people. I know. But it's fun. And I'm glad that we're part of this community because it's given us a whole new genre of people that we are. getting some interesting, having interesting conversations with, with people from all different walks of life. And, uh, it's another way to bring the gospel into another, um, stream. And I love it.

5:17 It's been really wonderful. We were supposed to go to Seattle last weekend and we had to cancel because we just partly, I was just tired of traveling. We did a lot. We need to. For a little bit. And we're leaving next week for L .A. Right. I knew that was coming. Of all the places we're going. Oh, I know. That'll be fun. I was talking to our Bible group. And I'm like, we're going to L .A. next week. They're going, what? I'm like, I know. We're going to wait and see if the conference gets canceled. I don't think so. I think this is California. This is probably the time to have the conference. Think about it. They live there. Remember when we lived there and there were high -speed chases every day? Yes. And we're like, yeah, whatever. You know, I mean. Because when you live in a place like that, it's crazy. But we're flying into LAX. It may be better to fly into Ontario or John, is it John Wayne? John Wayne. We might look into that. I think John Wayne is Ontario. We'll kind of see. One of the reasons why we're going, for one thing, is we're going to a conference called Last Stand with Seth Gruber. Jack Hibbs is one of the speakers.

6:18 He is someone that we have followed for... A while, a good while. We're going to go to his church on Sunday. But another person that we found out was going to be at this conference is Victor Marks, who just happened. We just, okay, you've been following him for months, talking to me, going, I love this guy. And then we get a call, hey. Victor Marks is going to be in Fredericksburg. You think you could have him at your church? And we're like. From our friend, Rick Green at the Patriot Academy. And we didn't hesitate because that was one of the reasons, another reason why we wanted to go to this conference in LA. And now he's going to be at our church. I know, it's crazy. And you call him a door kicker. Do people know what door kicker means? Door kicker is kind of code, knuckle dragger code for like special ops kind of guy. So he was a specialized. weapons trainer in the military. He wasn't special ops, but he trained special ops. He trained people with weaponry. And he was also in the military, a competitive shooter. So he's a marksman. He's that guy. But he's done a lot since he got out of the military with special ops, Delta Force, various ones, working to do, they do rescues.

7:31 They go into dangerous, the most dangerous places in the world. And they literally physically rescued children from the human trafficking and sex trade. Wow. I mean, this is like. That's another level of special ops. So this conference we're going to has to do with anti -abortion rights. Yeah, pro -life. Pro -life. Yeah, cheering on life. And I'm sure he's going to be talking about what he does to rescue children as well. So it's going to be very well -rounded. I'm very excited. I've never been to a conference that started like 8 .30 or 9 in the morning and it ends at like 11 at night. Wow. It's going to be long. That's going to be a long day. But it's going to be very good. I'm tired thinking about it, but I'm also invigorated knowing that there's so many speakers and there's going to be a lot of worship, which we love. And I think it's going to be very refreshing for us. Well, it's going to fill our buckets in another element of, and that's the pro -life piece, that I'm excited about too.

8:34 I don't care how tired we are. Sometimes you just say, suck it up. Tell your flesh to get behind you. Well, the good thing about it is we'll go to that, then Sunday we'll go to church. Then we'll have a day to rest on Monday. That's going to be good. We need that. Then we'll come home on Tuesday, but we start our vacation where we're actually off work, except the following Sunday you're going to preach one time, but we're off until August. What better way to start our vacation than, you know, ending our time here with a conference. It's going to be, you know, take a lot of time and energy to be into. But, man, we're going to have all that rest time and go to the beach. That's why it makes it a little easier to have a crazy schedule right now. In fact, we've got so much going this week. On Saturday, we're going to divide and conquer. You're going to go to one event that we had planned. I'm going out to the Patriot Academy because Karl Marx, they're doing the final. Karl Marx? Karl Marx.

9:32 I knew you were going to do that. I knew I was going to have that footy and slip. Karl Marx is not a person we want to see, and he's dead. I knew I was going to have that slip. Victor Marx. Okay, rewind. Calm down. So Victor Marx will be speaking at the Patriot Academy. And he's going to be, it's going to be part of a. of a new video curriculum that Rick Green and the PA, Patriot Academy, are developing called Rebuilding Liberty. And I was blessed to be a part of that and share my testimony of scales dropping from eyes and why as a pastor. Did you let Rick know, by the way, you're going to be there? No, I didn't. Oh, you should. You never know. Oh, yeah, yeah. Because you need to connect with Victor. Not Carl, but Victor. I'm never going to let you live that one down. Well, when you're fighting against Marxism and it's on your mind all the time, it's kind of hard to make a jump from Mark to Victor. One of all the last names he has. I've never met anybody that had that last name. I don't know if I would claim that or not. Well, but his name is Victor, which I love. Right, but Marx is M -A -R -X. It's not even K -S. fault he was born in you know he's born so anyway i'm excited about victor being born here's another cool thing i mean so you're gonna go with tina curry to a piano dueling a dueling piano it's cool i've never been i'm really excited i think it'll be fun it's different And then Adam and I are going to go to the Patriot Academy. Again, divide and conquer. That's how much stuff we've got going on. But we're so excited.

11:02 We get to do this stuff. And I wake up every day. I mean, I'm getting up earlier and earlier. It's because I'm making you walk with me. Yeah, and I've got to have my time with the Lord. Well, I'm glad you're getting up earlier. So that you can spend that time with me. So I'm now, I've dialed it back to, I get up at 5 .15 every day and I go in there and spend time in the word. Not me, I'm up at 6 .30. Write my daily grind. I know. Then I hear your alarm go off and our dog, Mr. Chevy goes nuts. It didn't go off today. I woke up before the alarm. I know he heard you though. Cause he knows when you're up. I don't know. He's like intuitive. So he's at the door crying. I'm going, I'm going, Mr. Chevy, reel it in. Come on. Come jump back in my lap. He usually sits in my lap all morning while I'm getting. doing my daily grind and stuff. So a lot going, very happy to be doing that. Good news on the Godcaster, super excited, getting closer and closer to the app release date. We've got the public beta app version. Sorry, can't get that out to everybody, but oh man, I'm loving it so far. Well, I love it. I mean, we've got it on in our car because we've got the beta version and I can see who's singing and that. It's so exciting to have an app now that's going to give us that information instead of wondering, who was that? I want to download that song or whatever.

12:13 Well, Adam Curry is part of the development of this. And he and his partners, his team, they are constantly improving it. And by the time we get the full release, you'll be able to download it on your phone or whatever and be able to listen to it through Sonos. Can you download it on like an iPad? Oh, yeah, yeah. Anything but not a computer. It's going to be an Android. I don't know if they'll do a desktop version. It's not a need for that because you can go right to the website and listen to that. Yeah, I guess so. Anyway, Godcaster's coming out. Really happy for Adam and our team. I feel like I'm a part of it. The team getting that done. So that's good news. And also, we just want to always boost our friends and say, go listen to Curry and the Keeper. They're back in the groove just like we are. We've all been busy, but it's good. What? No, nothing.

13:05 Keep going. You're telling me not to say that. I don't mean it in a bad way. It's good busy. I know. There's bad busy and good busy. Everybody's busy. This is life. We're no different than anybody else. So anyway, so go listen to theirs. Curry and the Keeper, always amazing, always fun and funny. And according to Tina this morning, we saw her at the coffee house, which is you do your Bible study there. And I meet with Russ and she was like. It was so funny. She really spun Adam up last night, so I'm looking forward to hearing it. Yeah, we'll have to listen to it on the way to Kerrville today. Yeah, we can do that. All right, so let's talk about what we want to talk about. So if you're joining our podcast for the first time, our whole goal is to teach believers, followers of Jesus, and those who are looking at Christianity and examining it, what does it look like to live up in a down world? And we're not putting the world down.

13:53 We're just saying, according to Scripture, we live in a fallen world, hence the word down. So how do you live up in a down world? And so we know that for us, we have found our hope in Jesus Christ. First of all, he's saved us. We're born again, free from sin, free from our past, new life. Every morning's a new day, right? We get up and say, we hit the lottery and we get to do this, right? Hello. Good morning, Holy Spirit. Let's go. And so that's our life. And so I've been a pastor now 42 years. Yeah, 42 years, 41. I think I'm in my 42nd year. I'm losing count. How old were you when you became a pastor? I took my first church when I was 80 in 1984.

14:38 That's 41. Or 85. 85 is better. Okay. 85, so yeah. So that'd be 40 years. Year 41. I lose count anyway. A long time. It's Jesus Christ who gives us hope. He is our life. He's our hope. He's our everything. But in the second part of that is the word of God, the Bible, the scripture. And that is what change our, that changes everything. Knowing the word. So we always say this as a saying, the word works, but. You have to work the word. There you go. And so every week we'd like to have a topic of something that we feel is on our heart that we feel like God wants us to bring. to this podcast. And so today we're going to talk about spiritual warfare. Yeah.

15:23 The title of, I wrote a daily grind this morning because I woke up, I woke up thinking about the weapons of spiritual warfare. What are other, so we were told we're going to fight the good fight of faith. We're told we're in the spiritual war, but what weapons do we have? What do we use? And if you're hearing bumps, it's okay. We've got construction. They're doing the construction. We got the guys doing, they're checking air conditioning. Oh, I can't hear it. That's probably Russ setting things up. Oh, okay. I was going to say. I think they're at lunch. We're in a studio, but it gets really loud in here because we've got construction going everywhere. Constantly. Yeah. Building a new building right now. So anyway, a lot of stuff. So if you hear bangs and noise, don't worry. We're okay. It's all good. So here it is. The weapons of spiritual warfare. So listen to this. I want to read it, and then I want you to comment on this. In the words of John Eldredge, you were born into a world at war. To ignore the reality of spiritual warfare is to live a defeated life. God has called us to live a faithful, flourishing and victorious life. It's impossible if every step you take is laced with denial and despair. You possess spiritual weapons for pulling down strongholds, casting down anything that's against God and taking every thought captive.

16:41 Activate and engage God's mighty weapons to live a life that overcomes anything and everything that rises against you. Thoughts? Wow. The weapons of our warfare. You know, we all have these thoughts, these intrusive thoughts that come into our mind. I know I do a lot. We all do. And that are negative. And those... Negative thoughts are never from God because God thinks only positive things about us. He sees the end from the beginning. So when we have a negative thought about ourselves, let's just say about ourselves, not about someone else, but about ourselves, that's where we have to fight the enemy on that. And I think women probably have to more than men. I don't know. I can only speak for myself because I'm a woman. Right.

17:31 Thank you for clarifying that. But we talk about it more to other people, whereas men keep it to themselves. I'll just say that. You usually don't have a conversation with a guy saying, you know, I have this thought about, you know, I've got these. I've got love handles. Adam, I've got love handles, bro. What about you? How are you? Women do. We talk like that. And I have a lot of, especially lately, it's like the enemy is barraging my thought process with just these horrific thoughts constantly. And so I have to fight it. And so, but there's also things that happen to us. In the world that we have to fight things, people coming against us, challenges that we have in this world. And we have to have a mindset that it's not the person, it's the enemy using that person. A lot of times the person doesn't even know that they, you know, are that you have, you know, a problem with them or whatever, but you have to. get to the point as believers that you see, you know, through that person and that it's not them, that the enemy uses people all the time. And I think as Christians, we've got to have that mindset because we get, let's take, for instance, Moms of Liberty and the people that went to the school board last week because

19:03 they filed a grievance against our school board and because they won't, remove the porn porn pornographic books and they even somebody even read what was in it and they didn't want to hear it they were they were appalled Yet they don't want to take the books out, which doesn't make sense to me. And so some people have just come against those people that were on the board who voted five to zero against taking the books out, but yet they don't want to hear it. But they want our kids to have access. Just totally blows my mind. But some people believe. that those people are evil, and we have to have a different mindset. They're not evil. They're being controlled by an evil one. We want to pray for them, not against them. We need to pray that God will get a hold of them and that the truth will open up their eyes to the truth, basically. But as Christians, we have to come to a point where we're mature enough to recognize that and not go against the person. And I think that's one of the hardest things as a believer to come to grips with because we want to come against the person. And when I see people come against another person, especially on social media, And I know they're Christians.

20:30 It bothers me. But then again, I have to go, wait a minute. The person that's coming against that person is not mature in their faith. They don't know this. Maybe they've heard it, but it hasn't become revelation. So then the Lord says, well, then you need to have grace for that person. So there's a two -edged sword here. You know what I'm saying? No doubt. And that's a good example, though, of when we get angry when we see Governor Newsom. Let's just talk about that. We're going to L .A. next week. We haven't been to L .A. in how many years? I know. It's been a bit. 20, 30 years, and yet here we're going at the time of the riots. And Governor Newsom and others in the media are saying there's no violence here, yet we're seeing— Mostly peaceful riot. And you know what? These are mostly peaceful protests. And maybe they are peaceful with people, but they're destroying property. They're not peaceful. That is not peaceful. But we can't—I mean— As believers, we have got, and I'm going to say we as in me too, because I don't have it fully, but we have to get to a point to where we see the evil one behind Governor Newsom and these others that are acting and saying crazy things. They don't know the truth. So I have something to say. Okay. I'm sorry. I tend to take this over. I totally, totally agree. But what I want to say is this. If we prayed for people as much as we railed against them, As

22:01 much as we talked about them, as often as we posted or reposted a meme or reposted a post from somebody, if we spent that time, that energy, that emotional and that spiritual energy praying for them, do we trust God enough to believe that he can shift? the heart of another human being. If we don't, then we're... What's the point of this? What's the point of Christianity? What is the point of praying? I mean, we are called to be intercessors. Now, we are the hands and feet of Jesus. That means showing up at the school board, showing up at city council, being involved in the process, voting, all the pieces that we do. Absolutely. We're in the middle of it. But there's another level. I say it every Sunday.

22:45 America doesn't have a political problem. It has a spiritual problem. The issue is spiritual. It's the issue of the heart and the spirit. And so I am with you a thousand percent on everything you just said. And I'm not saying that I haven't participated in talking bad about someone, but the Lord is arresting me. This is what growing in the spirit. This is part of discipleship as a believer is he's arresting me saying, don't get in on that. Pray. This is what we as Christians should be doing, praying, not bashing. Now, can I be upset at what's happening? Absolutely. Look at what Jesus did in the temple when they were gambling in the temple. Yeah, you can get upset and you can do something about it by going and saying what you need to say publicly in the public square, so to speak. But we've got to get to a point as believers that we are mature. more mature and don't come against the person, but see what's really happening in the spirit realm.

23:50 I don't think we think about the spirit realm enough because we live in this world that we can touch and feel. And so we don't think that there's a bigger thing going on out there. We don't see beyond the veil or behind the veil. Yes. That, I mean, if you were to be able to peel. the world back reality back or unzip it and see what's behind it you would see so much darkness And so many minions of the enemy, spawn of the enemy that are working behind the scenes to try to create chaos, division, offense, all this stuff, confusion, all these things against humanity and mankind. And they're just using and leveraging what's happening around the world right now. It reminds me of... Yeah, Frank Peretti.

24:40 Frank Peretti. Piercing the darkness. Piercing the darkness. And I think we've talked about it on this podcast before, but it's been a while. But how he wrote this book and he put these characters in and literally talked about, showed what was happening in these characters' life. And it was, it wasn't. factual but it really was in a way whoops it really was in a way because he was showing what was really going on what was swirling in the spirit realm as these characters were going about their daily life i should get that book out i remember i was mesmerized while you're mentioning piercing the dog i'm thinking we need to read that maybe on the it's been an airplane or something because on our on our i remember reading it and it's like watching a scary movie, but yet it's, it was so real. And I remember he came to our church before I met you. He came to our church in Abilene, Lubbock. And I just was, he was an interesting man. I haven't heard much about him lately, but that, you know, it reminds me too, like one of the things that we, that brought this up. As talking about spiritual warfare, I have felt darkness in our home. I even had a dream two nights ago. And in the dream, there were two different snakes. One of them was I was reaching up into our headboard. And

26:13 there were, we don't have this kind of headboard, but there were actual openings. In the headboard, like cubby holes, where you could put things. And I remember I was reaching up. I can still remember this dream, which tells me something. And I could see the face. It was kind of about. six inches of a snake and it was the face and about six inches and the rest of it was inside, but I couldn't see that. And I remember, but this is interesting because I remember seeing that snake and I didn't know what it was at first. It was almost like I was coming out of a deep sleep or something. And maybe I was lifting up. I don't remember the context of the dream, but I remember kind of touching that to see what it was. And then when I, and nothing happened, which I thought was interesting. And then I sat back down and I kept looking at it and I went, oh my gosh, that was a snake I just touched, but it didn't bite. And it was really interesting.

27:11 I don't know what that means in the dream realm of, you know, knowing what your dream means. Where you don't get hurt or there's nothing, nothing has no impact on you. Yes. But I remember distinctly that part of my dream. And then at the end, I don't know if I had another dream or if it was at the end of a dream and there was another snake and you picked it up or something, but I don't remember anything else. Probably ripped his head off. You probably did. But two snakes. And I remember saying to you, we need to pray over our house because here's the thing. For those of you who are Christians and understand this, and you can address this, but when you feel darkness in your home, the best thing you can do is go through your house and begin to pray. and condemn that darkness that could be in your house sometimes darkness can come in through idols that you bring in you may bring you may have bought something from a company like what's the world market or something like that right you know what i'm saying came from that came from india or some yeah that someone might have put a curse on or whatever and put in makes you wonder that doesn't happen a lot i don't i don't know if that really i don't buy stuff like that. But sometimes people do have stuff everywhere, but also there can be people, strangers that have come into your home. Maybe it was a pest control or maybe someone working on your home or, or your, you know, whatever,

28:43 but somebody just coming into your home that has darkness around them. Sometimes that can, I don't know, can kind of stick around. If you have a friend that brings their dog over. And their dog has fleas. Yeah, that's true. You don't see them. But you feel the effects of them later. You may get a flea infestation simply because that dog carried fleas and got them on your dog. And now you're dealing with fleas. So that's a simple, kind of a goofy metaphor, but it's true. It's the same principle where things that are on people and even sometimes stuff can get on you. And it's the same kind of thing. And you don't see it. It's not something that's outward.

29:25 But you can feel it. You can feel it in the atmosphere. Because we live in a spiritual realm. felt lately because we've had all different kinds of people in our home. And I just feel like it's time that we go through the house and I love what we do is we open up the doors and we just command whatever is nefarious or evil to leave new. We don't invite them to leave, we command them to leave. We stand in our authority. So I've got a scripture that'll help our people do this. So let's say you're in your home and there's probably a month, not a month goes by or two months where someone comes to me at church and says, It says, I hate to be weird, but I've got some weird stuff going on in my house. I'm hearing bumps in the night or I felt a depression on my bed. Like somebody sat on my bed in the middle of the night. Which is what I have felt recently. It's happened to me in the past as well. You too, recently. Or, you know, something fell off the wall. I mean, they're like, there's something going on that's...

30:21 I'm not trying to be creepy or weird, but it's otherworldly. And I'm like, oh, well, you've got critters. I always say that. You've got fleas, basically. You've got an infestation. Well, what do you do? So go to 2 Corinthians 10, starting in verse 3. So I'm going to repeat that. So if someone listening to the podcast wants to hear that again, 2 Corinthians 10. Verses three through six. Could I read it? Yeah. So I want to read it to you so that you can hear it. And I'll give a little tiny commentary as I go. Verse three says this. This is the Apostle Paul addressing the Corinthian church, which was a train wreck. So they had stuff going on because they were out of a pagan background. He says this. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. And that tells you a lot, right?

31:05 We live in this earth suit, our bodies, the flesh, but we don't fight in the flesh. It's not about how much you work out or how fit you are. It's how spiritually fit you are. So it says we don't war according to the flesh. He says this, for the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, that means fleshly, but mighty in God. And then he says what they're for. So here's what the weapons of the warfare are for. They're for pulling down strongholds. Strongholds is anything that has a hold on you, anything that has a strong hold on you. That's what a stronghold is. It could be anything or something in your home, a stronghold. The second thing is, verse 5, casting down arguments.

31:48 In other words, your mind, you get in these mental arguments and your mind's spinning. You're getting intrusive thoughts like you were talking about. So you can cast those down. Every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. That means against knowing him. So anything that interferes with your ability to know him, those are intrusive thoughts and these can be cast down. The second one or the last one is bringing every thought into captivity. to the obedience of Christ. So there's the next piece of that. You can actually capture thoughts. How do you do it? Well, you do it, really it's obvious to me, but maybe not to you if you've read this for the first time or you're just starting to look at it. You literally get this on your mouth.

32:30 So here's, I'll say something like this. Father, according to your word, I stand in your authority and I pray the scripture over this situation. And your word says, for though... We walk in the flesh. Annette and I do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of Annette and my warfare are not carnal, but they're mighty in God for the pulling down strongholds. So, Lord, in the name of Jesus, we by faith pull down anything that has a stronghold on us. Any stronghold, anything that's not of you, we now give it to you. We renounce it and we give it away. We give it to you. It's no longer going to have a stronghold on our life. And then, Lord, we also cast down arguments. So by faith, we cast down. It's like we throw them away. We throw them away. Any arguments or anything that exalts itself against us knowing you. See, all I'm doing is taking the Scripture. praying through it.

33:25 And then Father, in addition to that, we take every thought captive. We bring it captive and we make it obedient to Jesus Christ. So any thoughts in my mind or in Annette's mind, and you're in agreement with me as I pray. Right now, we take those thoughts captive by the Holy Spirit, by the Spirit. We walk by faith and not by sight. So by faith, we take those thoughts captive. And we cast them down. We cast them away. We send them to the abyss. We send them to the pit. Get away from me. Get behind me, Satan. And we do this in the name of Jesus, Father, as we've invoked to the power of your spirit. We do this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. That is like taking a nice... A warm, beautiful shower when you've come in from working all day outside. Which feels so good. It refreshes you. After we walked this morning, you jumped in the shower, then I did after you, and we felt so clean and so fresh, and we got a fresh start on the day. This is cleansing your soul, cleansing your spirit. You're clearing your mind and literally rejecting and ejecting anything that would try to have a strong hold on your life. Right. How's that sound? Great.

34:36 Is that helpful? And then if you feel this in your home, you go through your home and we anoint our home. A lot of times we'll anoint the outside doors or sometimes inside above a door. Let me just very lightly. We don't like pour oil over our door frame. We put a little bit on the tip of our finger and it's a symbol. I'll draw a little cross just as a symbol. To say, you know, we're covering this home. We anoint this home, this threshold, this room in the name of Jesus. And we command anything that is not of God, you must leave now. And in our friend, Jim LaFoon, Pastor Jim LaFoon, he says, go open the door and kick them out. Eject them, evict them, evict them, get them out of the house. So we do it as a symbol. And we have to do it a lot because we have people. You know, like I said, different service people come in that we don't know. We don't know if they're practicing witchcraft.

35:32 We don't know what's going on in their life, but we carry things with us. That's why we need to carry the blood of Jesus. And then use the authority that God gave us. Yes. Just as an encouragement. You yourself can pick up things in the world. You can pick up fleas. I can get fleas just by being around somebody who has fleas. I've talked to people who say, I've gone to a restaurant or I've gone into a business and I can feel. We need to get to a point where we are cognizant of what's happening in a place. And if we feel that darkness, we should not stay. Yeah, we travel a lot. We're very blessed to get to do that. Oh, hotel rooms. So going into hotel rooms, it's a good idea to pray over that. soon as you walk in. Consecrate it to the Lord. Because you do not know who has been in there, what's been done in there. Exactly. And you go in there and you consecrate that space to the Lord. We need to do that next week for sure. Especially in California.

36:28 In traveling, sometimes you're flying into a city or flying over a city. I mean, you can, the more in tune you become with the Holy Spirit and the closer, the more you abide in the vine, which is God as a branch abiding in it. We abide in Him. the more sensitive you become to these kinds of things. So it's like a radar goes off, a warning light goes off saying, hey, caution. So anyway, good word. I hope this is helpful to you. We may stay on this topic for a while. I feel like it's really relevant because of the world scenarios right now. There's so much hatred in the world. There's so much division. The spirit of hatred has been released on the planet. And we just see humans, people. People hating people because one of them's red and one of them's blue or one of them's black, one of them's white or one of them's whatever. I mean, there's so much hatred released on the world. That means we've got to remain vigilant and always remember we walk in the flesh, but we don't war according to the flesh. And it's time to grow up as Christians.

37:29 We've got to become mature Christians and not look like the world. Amen. We don't, we should never respond and react the same way the world reacts. And we need to return hatred with grace and love, overpower, win the war. We speak the truth always because we love, but we always do it in love, in love and because we love. So anyway, I know it's easy to grab a keyboard and. you know, blow somebody up. That's not what we're about. Got to say a big thanks to Adam Curry, who boosted us, gave us a striper boost. Thank you, Adam. You're such a great supporter and such a great friend. And we're thankful for that.

38:10 Anything else I need to mention from the week? We kind of went quickly because we were on the way. We'll probably go have a podcast early next week. Yes, definitely. Since we're leaving. Definitely. Looking forward to it. We love you guys. And if you like this podcast, go to livingupinadownworld .com. Feel free to write a review there. Leave a note. We always get those. I love to write folks back who write us. And let us know you're listening. Great way for Value for Value to help us out is send this podcast to other people who you think it might help. Our whole goal is to equip you to win in life, to have a victory mindset, and to live up in a down world. That's our heart for you, and I think that just about is a wrap. So thank you for listening today. Annette, any last word as we head out the door? I think we did good. I think that's exactly what people need to hear because I know I needed to hear it. There we go. All right. Preaching out of our experience. Listen, you guys have an amazing week on purpose. We love you. And never forget, we get to do this. We are out.