"She Called an Audible!"

0:00 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 new. Living up in a down world. Yeah we're living, yeah we're living, Living up in a down world. Oh! This is Jimmy and Ed, We are super excited to be with you on this Monday, As we are living up in a down world. Oh and by the way, Mr. Chevy is with us as well today. What's he doing today? Well he's just sleeping. But you know what, this is episode 23.

0:42 Can you believe it? 23! 23! That doesn't even make sense. 23 weeks we have been doing this podcast. Crazy, I feel like we literally just started doing this. It's so bizarre. But I'm happy about it, I'm excited. I'm thinking we're sitting there going, Okay what are we going to talk about? Oh my gosh. And then I called an audible. You did, thank you. And that makes me, you have no idea. Mrs. Rule Follower, Mrs. Linear Thinker, I'm Mr. Random Abstract, But you called an audible, I'm so proud of you. I keep doing that you know. And whatever you do with that, I'm happy with it. The fact that you actually called an audible. Well because we were going to go one direction, And I felt in my spirit we needed to go in a different direction.

1:25 Love that, love that. Yeah I was all geared up to do something different, And then you went, errrr. It's like that record sound, It's like oh no, no, we're going to do something different. Too bad you don't have any sound effects like that. Okay you have something. I know, it's an alarm. What I'm saying is like whoa, okay stop the presses. And that is going audible. I love that, called an audible. So first of all let me just say, I'm so proud of you and Tina. Tina Curry, you guys, Cockering the hills, What, two days a week? Two days a week. You walk also on a Wednesday. I walk Wednesday and maybe Thursday, Friday with someone else.

2:05 Four miles. Wednesday, Thursday. Four miles. And listen to our listeners, I just want you to know, first of all welcome to the podcast. We're thrilled that you're here. We're here to help you live up in a down world, And engage life instead of letting life engage you. Right. And so part of engaging life means sometimes tackling things that seem impossible or beyond you. And you two getting up and walking these hills, And you know, we've been doing this for a couple weeks. And this today, I think we were talking so much, Which we do talk a lot, But it wasn't that hard today for some reason. And I think it was because the weather was, It was a little cooler because we had some rain last night.

2:45 It was like a hundred degrees yesterday, Humidity like way over 50%. So it's like, feels like 110. Exactly. And yet we had this beautiful rainstorm come through last evening. I actually sat out on the back porch, Had a little drink for myself, Just a little enjoyment, A little beverage stuff. Just sitting and enjoying the rain, And had a massive, wonderful prayer time with my heavenly father sitting out watching the rain fall. While I was cooking your Father's Day dinner. I so appreciate it. It was amazing. It wasn't amazing. You think it wasn't? I'm just so thrilled. I made a roast and it was too tough. And all the meats, all the beef I've made recently have been so tough, That I'm kind of done with beef for a little while.

3:28 Let me ask you a question. Do I care? No, you don't. Because you would eat, If I gave you a sandwich with butter on it, You would say, oh, thank you. You're the most amazing wife. I've so said this before. I grew up a latchkey kid, oldest in the family. So I grew up on Tony's pizzas, SpaghettiOs, and Campbell's chicken noodle soup. And we don't buy any of that. Well, we do buy chicken noodle soup. But I don't buy any of the other stuff. I really tried to make you a beautiful, I actually had planned to put the roast in the crock pot yesterday morning. So that when we got home from church, or the night before, When we get home from church, it's perfect. Totally spaced it. We were driving to church. You said, oh no, I forgot to put the roast on.

4:10 I'm like, I don't care. So we put it on while we were making our sandwiches for Father's Day. Ham and cheese sandwiches. But then I made this nice dinner and I didn't enjoy it. I did not enjoy it. You have to understand, I'm so grateful for everything. I live a grateful life. That doesn't bother me at all. And you know, our daughter got sick, so she couldn't even come over and celebrate Father's Day. That was a bummer. She didn't even tell you happy Father's Day. But she did write a post on Instagram and Facebook. Very beautiful. That is typical of faith. That's true. That's true. Face to face, she's a little flat. And with the keyboard, she's amazing.

4:51 Yes. Well, let's get back to the walk. So I want to talk about the walk. So I was walking with Tina this morning and she said something that hit me so hard because it really helped me see the value she has in my life and her own values, her strengths, that are so amazing that it caused me to when I was listening to a message today while I was at the gym, it all came together. I was like, Lord, you're so good, how you put things together. So for context sake, sorry to interrupt. Context is I'm thinking about what listeners are, they're just hearing that you went on a walk.

5:32 But on Mondays, we practice Sabbath. This is a relatively new thing in our lives that we made a hard decision on, kind of coming out of COVID. Exactly. That we're going to take Mondays and Sabbath, which is biblical and it's actually a command of Scripture. Yes. It's all about rest, but doing things that you enjoy. But walking, I don't really enjoy. It doesn't bring you a lot of joy. No. It kind of does. But it brings benefits. And so what it does is it clears my head. To me, it's as good as going to a therapist. Now, some people need a therapist, that's fine. But to me, walking or any kind of exercise that I do is very much therapy for me.

6:15 But anyway, we're walking today and she was telling me, and I'm not going to say the organization, but that she has a lot of expenses coming out this month. And she shared that one of the expenses was a pledge that she made to an organization. And she's not real happy with this organization because they've kind of gone woke. But she, her and Adam made this pledge, I think about a year ago, to this organization. And this month, she needs to honor that pledge. And I made a comment to her. I said, but they're going against your principles basically. And she said, yeah, but I made a pledge. And I thought, wow. I love that.

6:55 Okay, how many people would, they would just stop. They would just stop their giving or they would, but they don't honor their word. And that told me a lot about Adam and Tina that even though that particular organization went woke, they're going to honor their pledge. Maybe they won't continue their pledge, but they're going to honor it because they made a commitment. Whoa, that's a new concept in this world. It says a lot about character. Yes. And character is what matters at the end of the day. It is. And it really got me thinking and I thought, wow, how many people say I'm going to sign a commitment, I'm going to sign a covenant, I'm going to, but they don't stick with it because they don't have that in them.

7:46 This is a principle and a truth that Tina and Adam have embraced. It's an honor thing too. They're honoring their word, but they're honoring the people that they gave their word to. Yes, which is huge. Powerful. So then I listened to this message today and there was a... While you were working out. While we're working out, we left. What did you do today, by the way? I know. I worked out four miles, I walked four miles, then I went, got in the pool to cool off because I was burning up. I mean, I'm sweating, I'm pouring. We drive to the gym. We drive to the gym and I do biceps and triceps, yes. You're a rock star. Well, I know, I'm trying. Remind me of...was that girl that was in Terminator 2?

8:29 Oh my gosh, if I could only look like that. She was ripped. Yeah, I don't remember her name. Well, thank you. That's so sweet. Those arms, those traps. You don't have your glasses on or something. No, literally, I'm seeing your arms right now. I'm working out hard. I'm really... Go girl. Because not everybody wants to do weights like that. Right. Since I was 29, I started working out with weights, so I enjoy it. It's not even about our bodies as much as about our head space. Again, it's therapy. So, I had lots of therapy. I always have lots of therapy before we have our podcast. So, in my journal, I wrote down temple care. Oh yeah, that's what it is. So, I'm sorry to interrupt, but I was proud of you. No, but that's okay. But there was a Scripture that this gentleman used that went off on me and then I came home and I said, you've got to...let's dive into this Scripture and it's Jude 1, 1.

9:21 And go ahead, I'll let you read it. I'll read the Scripture because as you were sharing this with me, you were so lit up over this amazing message. And anytime I see you like that, I'm like, okay, Holy Spirit saying, pay attention. Pay attention. And so, Jude 1, 1 says this. And Jude's just one chapter. It's not like eight chapters or four. It's one chapter. It's an odd book because it is one chapter. One, one, it's Jude 1. I mean, literally. And so, listen to this Scripture. It says, Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and a brother of James to those who have been...there's three things that are listed there.

10:01 In other words, this is a letter to them but saying everybody that's been... Yeah, to those who have been. So, to everybody. And listen to what it says. This is amazing. To those who have been called, who are loved by God the Father and kept by Jesus Christ. Okay, that went off. Called, loved, kept. I mean, when I read that, it was like, wait a minute. I'm called, I'm loved, and I'm kept. What? So, you shared with me from the message as I was listening to Coach Mullins. He was a football coach, football player, football coach.

10:42 Now, he's a pastor of a massive church. His name is Coach Mullins, or call him Coach Mullins. He's in Florida. And he was preaching for Pastor Robert Morris at Gateway because Pastor Robert is taking two months off to do part vacation, part study break to prep for the next year. And so, when you shared this with me and he told a beautiful story about his daughter having to have a major surgery during COVID. Can you share this story? Yes, oh yeah. In 2020, she had to have a major surgery. And back then, I think... They were in Florida. They were in Florida, and most of the country was in shutdown mode, or all of the country was in shutdown mode.

11:22 And hospitals... Follow what it is, lockdown. Yes, lockdown. And hospitals wouldn't even allow family members to come in while a person was having surgery, which is... Unbelievable. Can you imagine a child needing surgery and their parents can't even be with them? Don't get me started on that. I know. I know. I know. Exactly. Well, anyway, I'm sure she's an older adult, but still she called her parents and she was like... Or the day before the surgery and said, I'm scared. I'm really scared. And she talked to her mom and her mom went and got her husband, which is her dad, and said, our daughter needs you right now.

12:03 Our daughter needs you. Can you talk to her? And he got on the phone and he said, I want you to remember three things. You are called, you are loved, and you are kept. He said, I taught you this from a child. From a child. You have... I have instilled this in you as a child. And she wrote it down on the inside of her hand... Before she went into surgery. Before she went into surgery. And then she showed it to every doctor, every surgeon, every nurse, the anesthesiologist, and explained to them the story of her dad sharing that and how he had instilled that truth from the Bible, Jude 1.1, for her whole life.

12:45 Oh, that totally went off on me. I love what one of the nurses said, that is so powerful. I'm going to have that tattoo. I'm going to get a tattoo. And the nurse said, I don't even believe in tattoos, but I think I want a tattoo of that. I'm getting a tattoo of Paul loved and kept by God. So I came home, I was like, Jimmy, you've got to listen to this. This is your Sunday message. Not that you plagiarized, but when you hear the Scripture that just goes off on you, you got into what you did. You actually started studying that Scripture, and you went into the Greek. I went into autopilot at that point. You actually took it to a new place than he did, which is good.

13:26 This is what we do. There's nothing new under the sun. We're teaching from the Scripture, not from the message. That's what we do. We learn from one another. And it so went off in me, just like you said, it went off like a bomb. So what does called mean? When you read this to me, that went off in me again. So I did a little Greek word study. You may or may not know this if you're a listener, but the New Testament was written in Aramaic. Aramaic was one of the languages, but not as much. But the Greek language was the language of the world at the time. And so that's the common language to everyone, no matter where you're from. Most everyone spoke Greek, kind of like English is today, to be honest.

14:09 You can catch people who know English all around the world. Very similar. So Greek was the language of culture, and Hebrew, obviously, for the Israelites, but yet they also spoke Greek. So they knew these languages, three languages at least, that was common to them. So in the Koine Greek, Koine Greek is what's considered an ancient language. So a modern person who speaks Greek from Greece wouldn't speak in Koine Greek, but they're still very similar. It's kind of like us speaking Elizabethan English and speaking West Texan. So West Texan is far removed from Elizabethan English, but you'd still understand it, right?

14:50 Even though you'd say, oh my gosh, that's so proper, I don't speak like that. I say y'all and them and fixing to. So you guys... Which doesn't make sense. And then if you're from the north, it's you guys. Fixing to doesn't even... I know, you guys and all that. So we have all these aberrations, so it's the same thing. So in the original Greek language that scripture is written in, here's what the word means, the word called. It means divinely selected and appointed. That literally? Divinely. You might as well have put a firecracker on my head. I know that's kind of a weird thing to say, but literally... I was like, what? Okay, when we say we're called, a lot of times we'll say we're called to preach at this church or we're called to pastor at this church, but we're called as children of God.

15:39 God called us into his family. That means divinely selected and appointed. Isn't that beautiful? That is the most beautiful way to... What it does for me is how it speaks to me is it elevates me to say, if God has called me himself, has called me and selected me, chose me, we're chosen. Scripture even says we're a chosen generation, we're chosen. If I've been chosen by God, appointed and selected, that elevates my life to say, I don't want to live a normal life. I don't want to be like everybody else. I want to live above the fray, the norm.

16:22 We have to be separated from the world. We have to be. So, if you're new to the podcast and you're listening, you're going, man, I have some Christianity background, but I haven't really pursued that. I want to welcome you to this because this is for you too. Or maybe you're new and maybe you've never even stepped over the line to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord, as the Savior of your life. You're welcome here and I want you to listen to our hearts in this because I wasn't raised in church and wasn't raised in a Christian family. So it wasn't until I was at the very end of my high school years and out of high school that I actually stepped into this. So this was new to me at one point too.

17:03 But these are the kinds of things I needed to hear because of what they did, they inspired me to live up to this. But even if you've been in church all your life, you cannot know what the Scripture says or means. I mean, I was… I meet people like that every day. I started going to church at 10 years of age. My mom didn't go to church until I was in junior high. And I didn't…I don't think I heard either I heard some of this and it wasn't revelation. And now it's revelation. I mean it becomes…the older you get, the more…the New Testament, the Bible is revealed. It's called revelation.

17:44 You need to define what revelation is. It's kind of a churchy term. Yes, and it means to pull back or revealed. To peel back. Yes, and so to me it's like just that word called…man. Man, called by God, divinely so. Because when I think of called, I think of my dad calling me out on something or my dad calling me for dinner. You know something like that? Oh, I can hear my mom calling my brother now. We could hear her voice from the other end of the United Supermarket. We all can because we know her. We're on aisle 14. She's on aisle 1. She could call our name and we would hear it above all the chatter and noise and static of the store.

18:25 Yeah. But we're selected and appointed divinely by God. To me this is an identity scripture. Totally. It's a total identity scripture in knowing who you are. When we can get a hold of that we're God's masterpiece, we're His workmanship. He knew us before we were born. He created us. We are called Jude 1.1. You better preach. Oh my goodness. It just…I don't know why. I think because well a lot of the things He said when He was preaching that message today was talking about how when you have truth instilled into you in your life, in your lifetime, your childhood, you have truth, you have Bible principles instilled, they should come out when you get called out by your peers or whatever to do something that… Invited into something that you know is not good.

19:28 Is not a godly thing in your life. You've got a choice to make. It violates your values or your principles. You have a choice. So you choose either to fall into peer pressure and go against the principles and truth of your life or you say no. You know what? Yeah. And you don't have to explain to anybody. To me you don't have to explain, you just back away from it, walk away from it. Can I share the story that… Oh the story was… The coach shared… Yes. Share that. Coach Mullins shared this great story. So listen up because some of you will relate to this. I did because sometimes I was on both ends of this as a kid.

20:08 I was too. So I was the wild child in high school. I had a fast car and all that stuff so it kind of…it lent itself to getting in trouble. And so Coach Mullins, they used to hang out at a drive-in. Typical drive-in, come up, get your food. Drive through. Yeah, like your food. They come out on… Like a Sonic or something is what I was picturing. Oh yeah, we had Holley's burgers. Yeah, I was thinking about that for you. They come out and wait on you and they still do that actually which is really cool. And the kids have a drag that they… Yeah, you drive around downtown, get in trouble and listen to a lot of rock and roll and look for girls. And usually drink. Yeah, I wouldn't say that. Yeah, party. Party, party. So that was the culture I grew up in. And so Coach Mullins tells a story about he was invited by his friends and they said, hey, go with us.

20:56 We're going to go do something. And when he walked up to the car at the drive-in, they were all drinking at the time in their car. And he knew it violated the principle of his heart and what he had been raised with. And he said, no, I'm good. You guys… He was about to get in until he saw that. Yeah, and then he decided. And he just said, no. So he didn't. He says that later that day he was actually driving through town and he saw like a fire ball. I mean, he saw something weird, like just smoke and flame, a flash. And he rushed over there in his car to it and it was his friends. His friends. He would have been in the back seat of that car and his best friend… Passed away.

21:39 Yeah. Because they were… They got ejected from the car. Because they were doing a drag race. And nobody wore seat belts back then. No. Nobody. Nobody did. I think he said late 50s or something, but he said they were driving and they were drag racing. How many times have I been… I know when I was young, in a car, drag racing or… Let's go through this stop sign real quick. God really protected me, but not those kids. And if he would have been in the back seat, he would have been killed. So when he drove up to the wreck, all the, you know, the fire, the police, the ambulance had just gotten there too and they were all looking for the body.

22:19 I mean, these kids got ejected from the car. It was so bad. And he went to looking for his friend and he was walking through the grass and his foot… Touched. …hit a body and it was his best friend. It got to ambulance and he died on the way to the hospital. And he said, you know, if I had not had these principles in my life to understand that my grandmother, my mother, my father, my pastor all had said, you are called. You are called. Well, and he said that when he got home, he realized he had blood on his hands from his friend. And when he saw that blood, he realized, oh my goodness, that could have been me. He had blood on him.

23:00 But I chose not to do that. His hands, which is just mind-bending. So he understood because he understood that he was called, divinely selected, chosen and appointed. He didn't get in that car and it saved his life, literally. So here's a couple of scriptures. This may help you. The Bible talks about this. Ephesians chapter 4 verse 1 says this in the New Living Translation, therefore I, a prisoner for serving the Lord… This is Paul talking. This is Paul speaking. I beg you to lead a life worthy of your calling for you have been called by God. You have been divinely selected, chosen and appointed by God.

23:41 Why wouldn't you want to lead a life worthy of our calling? Which means there are principles and core values that you say… I love to say it this way. When somebody says, what's a core value? I say it's a non-negotiable. It's just something that cannot be violated. It will not be negotiated. You're not going to talk me out of it and I'm going to live by these principles. And these principles come from scripture, especially from Jesus' teachings, from the Apostle Paul… Which is why it's so important that we know the scripture. We've got to get in the Bible to know the scripture and live by it. And that we have these values and these core values built off of the scripture so that they become for us…the way I say it is it's like you're on a street and on that street there's a curb on the right, a curb on the left, right?

24:33 And then there's signs all along the way as you're driving. We've noticed something. I mean, you called it out this morning. We saw yet another head-on collision… Head-on collision in San Antonio where people are dying. In several. Several in the last six months. And I did a funeral last year of an EMS driver who was killed in a head-on collision in the middle of the night, like three in the morning as her and her partner were responding to a car wreck and someone was on the wrong side of the road, hit him head-on, killed her and I did that funeral which was heartbreaking. And it was because we're not watching for the signs. Exactly. We're not reading the signs. We're not following the signs. We're not following the rules of the road.

25:15 We're doing the things we want to do without any concept of boundaries. Sometimes people see that God's like this cosmic killjoy. But what He's trying to do is protect your life. There are things that were commanded in Scripture to be wise about not to take the fun out of life. It's so that you can live a full life. Yes. And you're not taken out before your time. And so this idea of being divinely chosen and appointed and selected is really powerful. To lead a life worthy of your calling. So if you've been called, we want to lead a life that's worthy of that calling. And you know what? Everyone has been called. Every person has been called. We just haven't all received that calling.

25:57 But we've all been called. Yeah, we may not understand exactly what that means. But that's what life is about. It's a journey where you're discovering. When my brother and I went to Ruedosa, New Mexico years ago, we hiked up one of the biggest peaks outside of Ruedosa. Sierra Blanca and that Apache Bowl. All that area. And Ski Apache. We hiked up to the top of Sierra Blanca in the summer. We thought this wasn't going to be a big deal until we got started. It was brutal. But we had to follow the signposts along the way. And every turn and twist, every new incline and rise and elevation was a discovery.

26:39 We discovered beauty. We discovered twists and turns. Then when we got to the very top, we got this blessing. We did not. First of all, you could see miles and miles all the way around from the top of the summit. But while we're up there, we heard a rumble. And it was the weirdest sound. I can't even, it's hard to even explain. What was it? It was a herd of elk. Oh my goodness. They ran right past us. Wow. And they actually ran right in front. I took a couple of pictures. Just reaching for my camera as they were running our way. I took a couple of pictures. We were on the top and a herd of elk ran by. We made so many amazing discoveries on that journey.

27:21 And that's what this is about. It's about reading the signposts and discovering along the way these amazing beautiful things that God has for us. Well, and that's why we get in the Word. But sometimes we get in the Word, but the Word doesn't get in us. Ah, nailed it. And so to me, sometimes scriptures I could read. I've read Jude 1, how many times? I mean over and over and over and over. We just did a two-year Bible reading. We read through the scripture. And sometimes you can hear someone say a scripture and it just comes. It's like a symbol that just goes off in your ears and you're just like, oh my goodness. That's what this scripture did for me.

28:02 And then Ephesians 4, 1, I love it. But then there's Ephesians 1, 11 in the message. This is the message of Pastor Eugene Peterson who translated scripture into what he would call the common man's language. Which I love. And it says, and this is 1, 11 and 12. It's in Christ that we find out who we are and what we are living for. Long before we first heard of Christ and got our hopes up, He had His eye on us. I love that. Long before, long before we first heard of Christ. Got our hopes up. He had His eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living.

28:45 Not living down, living up in a down world. Part of the overall purpose, He is working out in everything and everyone. If I was in church, I'd stand up and shout, hallelujah. This is one of those scriptures that brings a lot of definition and clarity that God has a purpose for your life. This is not, you weren't born just because. We don't just go through life and just keep doing the same thing. There's a purpose. You were born in this world for a purpose and part of that purpose is to make a difference. It's not about leaving a mark for you. It's about leaving a mark for Him. His glory, His honor. Wait. Is that Chevy? Is he snoring?

29:25 He's snoring. Okay, sorry. Keep going. We're boring him. I know. We put him to sleep with our excitement. This is what happens a lot of times when we read the Word of God at night. It puts us to sleep. Yes. That's what it just did for Him. But I love this. That God had His eye on us and had designs for us. He's got a plan for us for glorious living. Part of the overall purpose, He is working out in everything and in everyone. God loves people. He loves us that much. So He puts boundaries in, but it's for our own good. Exactly. It's like we put, when we build schools, we put fences around the schools so that children won't go out of those fences, those boundaries, and it's for their own good.

30:12 Exactly. It's to save their life and preserve their life. We think, oh no, God is the killjoy. He wants to keep us from having fun. Really? I think I'm having a lot of fun. I don't have to be out there doing drugs and drag races and all the stuff that the world ends up, or things I was doing when I was young. I'm enjoying life right now. I enjoy life when I hear scripture go off and it's like what? It blows up like a bomb inside of you. I can't stop until I have to tell you. I almost get a dopamine dump or an adrenaline pump when something goes off in you and you go, yes. There's an inner yes that yells out, I so agree with that.

30:54 That resonates with me. It's like a tuning fork going off in your chest. So the next point, I love this. Not only are we called, we're also loved by God the Father. God loves us, but let me say something to you as a listener. You need to hear this today. God loves you. Yes. On your worst day. On your worst day, in your worst moment, in the middle of your worst decision. God still loves you and still wants to call you home. Listen to this, Romans 5a. Love, love, love this verse. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

31:36 What that says to me is he wasn't waiting for us to get our act together before he was willing to give his life. When humanity gets it all figured out and cleaned up, then I'll show up. No, he died for us while we were sinners because we needed what his death brought. We needed a Savior. New life, new hope, and this idea of being loved, truly loved. Not like the world loves, but how God loves, which is unconditional. Powerful, powerful. Listen to this next verse. 1 John 4 and 9. Love this. This is how God showed his love among us. He sent his one and only Son, that's Jesus, into the world that we might live through him.

32:23 This is love. So he's just laying down. He's being very clear. This is love and here it is. Not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Now you and I have very different stories than that. I had a loving father. In fact, I reached out to him yesterday on Father's Day. This is a beautiful response and just I'm so thankful that he's still alive. He's 86 years old now. Oh my goodness. I know and still going strong. He's like the Energizer Bunny. He didn't quit. Your situation was different. You didn't have a father. I didn't. I didn't have an understanding of the love of God because I didn't have that understanding of the love of my own father, my own dad.

33:12 This was a hard one for me for many, many years until I got the revelation that God and my dad are two totally opposite people because God created me. He loved me from the beginning. My own father didn't have the love of God in him. God loved him, but he didn't understand that. So he never became a Christian until two weeks before his death. Do you think, for those that are listening, there are people who are listening right now and they've never had the love of their own earthly father.

33:56 Do you think that it's easy to use that almost as a template and we put that over God? We say, oh God's mean. You can't even compare. God doesn't love me because he's mean. We're thinking about our…we're projecting about our own earthly father. It's because of the word father, I think. It's the word father. It can be a bad word for some and for me it's a good word. It can be. It can be for others. It was a bad word, but Jesus wasn't. Jesus was a good word. But God the Father was a hard word for me because father, I didn't have a good father. So many in our culture, our society have been raised by horrible fathers. When I worked in the child care industry, worked for Butler Children's Home and dealt with kids, most of the issues were daddy issues straight up.

34:41 They were unwanted, unloved, they were rejected and abandoned. Others didn't know how to be fathers because their own fathers were. Exactly. It's generational. It's generational. But the depth of those scars and wounds and cuts were so deep that sometimes you would almost think apart from God, they can't be healed. There needs to be a move of God in their lives and encounter with a person of God. And that's what happened with me. And I got that revelation that God the Father is a whole new different person than my own father. My father was a human. God is divine.

35:21 He's divine. Jesus was divinely human, but God was human. I mean, was divine. My father was only human. He didn't even have the divine quality until he became a believer. I didn't get to grow up with that. It's sad. When I see and hear of men and women who had amazing godly fathers, my heart just drops because I only wish that I had a father that loved the Lord Jesus. It literally meant you had to overcome. I did. It's a lot harder to overcome. For me, it was easy to just receive God as my father and go, oh, God's good.

36:06 All the time, and all the time God's good. I've never doubted that in my whole existence as a Christian now for a long time. So for me, that was an easy jump because I had a good dad. But I also understand just the damage that can be done and how hard it can be to just say, oh yeah, God's my daddy. He's my father. He loves me. Some will struggle with that. Some will. Which my father's day was yesterday. That could have been hard on many. It could have been really hard. I didn't even honestly, this is what's so sad. I didn't think about my dad much. When I was thinking about Father's Day, I was thinking about you because you're such a good daddy.

36:50 I say daddy because that's what your daughter caused you. To me, it was about you. My dad's passed on. He's gone on. He's gone on to be with Jesus. Now he sees everything, all the mysteries have been revealed to him. He knows everything. So I don't mourn because I didn't have it good with him. You know what I'm saying? I'm sad that he lived the life he did here because he could have lived such a... You have compassion. Yes, I have much compassion. But I didn't mourn because I don't mourn what I had. I mourn what I wish I had.

37:31 That's the difference. Right, I get that. Totally get that. The last thing I love, the Scripture says, to those who have been called, who are loved by God the Father, and then the last part is kept by Jesus Christ. What an interesting word. Listen to this. Kept, that means held. That means covered. What a powerful word to be kept by Jesus Christ. So in Christ we're kept. This is our identity. 2 Timothy 1-7, listen to this. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. The ability to think well. This is what we've been given. He keeps us in this.

38:12 He holds us in this. This ability to not be impacted by fear, but to live above and beyond fear. So many people have been impacted by fear and live by anxiety. Oh, no doubt. This world has created so much fear. And we as Christians have to keep this Scripture, this Word of God in our hearts so that we don't allow fear to take us down. Oh my gosh. This idea of being kept and covered, I love this Scripture. I want to look up another Scripture because I feel like it really fits here.

38:53 While you're looking it up, I'm going to read Jude 1-24 because this one we were going through Scripture after hearing that message. To him who is able to keep you from stumbling. He keeps us from stumbling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy. What? Okay, so he keeps us from stumbling and he presents us before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy. In other words, he doesn't see our faults. He sees us whole. We are whole and perfected in him. We see our faults.

39:34 Wow. Listen to what the word, I looked up the Greek word while you were talking. That is beautiful. Listen to what the actual Koine Greek word, it's a word. Of kept? It's a word, tereo, tereo. And it means this, yeah, of kept. It literally means this, to guard. To guard. He guards us. To guard from loss or injury properly by keeping the eye upon. He's watching us and guarding us, thus differing from others which means to prevent escaping or whatever. He keeps his eye on us in a good way, a positive life-giving way. It actually implies a fortress or full military lines of protection.

40:16 Wow. Like to have a brigade around you. Wow. I live in Abilene, Texas which is, there's a military base there so I'm picturing being in the middle of that military base with military people around us. I always felt safe. We went to a lot of functions on Dias Air Force Base. It was always like, man, if there's a safe place, it's right here in the middle of all these soldiers and these amazing warriors. It means, this is so powerful. I love this. He's able to keep us from stumbling. So that is the Holy Spirit in us which is what happened with Coach Mullins, Pastor Mullins, is that the Holy Spirit in him literally pricked his heart and said, don't go in that car.

41:05 Reminded him of a principle. Yes. No, don't fall into that. Don't fall into that. He's like, nope. I have truth inside of me. Am I going to go against that truth or am I going to use that truth to make my decision? That's exactly what he did. I love that. Some other words as I'm looking at other words that relate to that. One is to preserve. Wow. Christ preserves us. That doesn't mean bad things aren't going to happen to us. Things happen. We live in a fallen world. Stuff breaks. Wheels fall off. Things happen. People abandon. People turn on you. Rejections.

41:46 Things happen. But he preserves us through that. The word preserve, it's like this idea of giving you endurance to endure through. So you don't succumb to it. You actually preserve and get through it. So kept, to be kept by Christ means you have now the ability to be preserved through calamity, through hard things. And knowing that even if calamity hits, let's just say a tornado comes in, because right now we're in tornado alley. It's happening everywhere in Texas. Not just Texas. I know that if that's how, I mean we're all going to die. We're all going to pass.

42:27 We don't live forever. But I know where I'm going to go when it happens. And there is a time. There is a time. I mean I think about that. I think the older we get, the more we think about our mortality. So I think about it a lot. I think I brought this up in our last podcast or one of them, because I do think about that because we're aging. And as we're aging, I know we don't have as much time and we're not going to live to be 130 years old. It would be a miracle. I don't know if I would want to live to be 130. I'm thinking not right now. No. But the thing is, is we all are appointed to die. But dying for a Christian is living for Christ.

43:08 It's living. We don't know where we're going. We don't. Our flesh dies, but our spirit soars. It continues. And so, you know, if we're kept, even if calamity came and we died today, we're still kept in Jesus because we just go to the next place. We don't die and it's over. So many people believe that it's just all going to be black. We're going to die and everything goes black. What? What a tragic way to live. They don't know what the Word says. They do not know the Bible. What I love about the Synod, also it helps us not only in the future, it helps us live fearless now.

43:48 Yes. I love the fact that Pastor Steve Berger out of Tennessee, he was our pastor in Nashville when we lived there. What I loved about him, he lived a fearless life. He still does. He's a fearless individual. The reason was is because he lost his 19-year-old son in a terrible car accident. I'm sure they were praying he would come out of a coma. All of that. But on the other end of it, it drove him to study about heaven. Remember, he came out of that with this fearlessness. I'm not afraid. If I live, I win. If I die, I win. Boy, that will change your perspective. It does change your perspective. So that you live fearless. It doesn't mean you live foolish. Exactly. It means you live fearless. Exactly.

44:29 It means you're not afraid of preaching the gospel, sharing your faith, helping people understand you're fearless. This fearlessness has so inspired my life. It has. In a huge way. You're not even the same person that you were before we attended that church. I agree with that. God really used Pastor Steve because he was kept by Jesus Christ. He got it. There you go. He understood. There you go. Listen, I want to give some shout-outs. This is so powerful. Our heart for you that are listening is that you would step into, at least take the first step on the journey towards Jesus Christ. One of the ways you can do that, and we can help you do that, if you'll go to our website, livingupandadownworld.com, you can write us on our website.

45:12 There's a box there. You can click on it, contact us. We want to hear your story. We want to hear your struggles. We're here to encourage you, to help you. We'll pray for you and pray with you along the journey. Feel free to write in. Feel free to contact us. Sometimes you just need a listening ear. We're here. We would not be doing this podcast just to do it. We're here because we feel like it's for a purpose. It may be part of that purpose is for you today. This is resonating in you. You're thinking, I need to come home. I need to come back to Jesus. We're here to help you. I don't know this Jesus you're talking about. I need help. Help me understand. We can share our heart with you.

45:54 Do go to our website. You can always obviously listen to our podcast. I do a daily devotional on there so that every day you can read that and be encouraged in your faith because that's my heart is to inspire, to encourage, to build up. You can be encouraged from the scripture and then also just from personal stories. We're here for you. Go there. Now, we also would always encourage you to listen on Fountain, the app. You can get that app on iOS. You can get it on Android. You can actually earn Satoshi's while you're listening. I also want to give some shout outs of people that have written into us and shared some things with us. I want to say this. Sir, by His grace, who gave us some sat, so appreciate you loving it forward, this value for value where you say, you know what?

46:42 What you're saying is valuable to me and it's adding value to my life. So, I want to add some value to yours. It's a beautiful exchange, we call it. I love what Sir, by His grace says. He says, stoked for y'all. Here's what he's talking to me. He's referring to last week, we talked about we're going on a sabbatical for eight plus weeks. I'm doing a digital detox and we'll still do the podcast because we don't consider this work. We consider it as personal. So, we'll still do our podcast on a weekly basis. And so, he says this, stoked for y'all. Our staff just implemented the sabbatical thing a year or so ago. It was tough for all the pastors because it is tough. We tried to back out, didn't we?

47:23 Oh, we sure did. We totally tried to back out, but we got called out by some friends. Because they said, there's no good time. We're like, it's not a good time. There's no good time. He says it was tough for all the pastors, but very rewarding. No talking about church, but I know y'all will be talking tons and tons about Jesus. Okay, this is funny that you said, I have to say this. I got approached by someone who invited us to an event in July during our sabbatical. We had planned it before the sabbatical. And she said yesterday, okay, well, we won't pray. We won't ask Jimmy to pray. We won't talk about God. I said, no, no, no, no, no. Praying is not work. We're Christians first. We're Christians first, period. Just don't talk about what happened at church.

48:03 If the speaker... But I love the heart. Because we're going to have different pastors preach while we're gone. I said, just don't talk about how good or bad they were or how you miss Jimmy. Just leave that out. Let's just be friends. Let's be friends. Let's just talk about life. It's kind of funny. It's going to be funny. Yes. And then he ends by saying, Jesus is the only name to remember. Thank you for your courage and Sir Bia's grace. Thank you for the sats, but also thank you for sharing just the encouragement there. You tell a little bit of your story. And then somebody named Adam Curry. All the sevens for the seventh year, a little Straper boost. I love the Straper boost. Oh my gosh. That's so awesome. Thank you, my friend. Sir Bia's grace also earlier than that said, they're all good.

48:45 Talking about the podcast, they're all good. This one was fantastic. That really... Which one was that? Last week? Last week. Wow. And then of course, Sir Brian with a wine. See, Sir Brian keeps changing his name. Why is he doing that? Sir Brian with an I. So now he's saying with a... With a wine. Not W-I-N-E, but W-H-I-N-E. That's so funny. He just gave us the big thumbs up. Listen, we so appreciate all of you. We've had other comments I wasn't able to access right quick, but so appreciate it. It means more than you know for us to hear from you because our heart is for you. So as we land the plane today, I mean, anything you got on the way out today?

49:25 Oh man, I'm just... Today's been a good day. Very good day. I love getting in the Word with you. It's just iron sharpens iron. It does. I love that scripture. I was in Proverbs 27. And that's what we do. We're weird as a couple, right? We are. We start talking about the Bible. We start talking about sermons and messages. And we get super stoked and fired up. And then we're like hilarious. That's what makes our life fun. That makes it wow. I love you. I love you too. Thirty years of wow and counting. We're just getting started. I got chill bunch when you said that. Well, I'm just saying, I love you. I love you too. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you too.