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Welcome to If Not For God, stories of hopelessness that turn to hope. Here is your host, Mike Zwick. Hey, this is Mike Zwick from If Not For God with Mike Zwick. I've got my good friend, Robbie Dillmore, here today. And I was saying, Lord, what do you want me to talk about today?
And I felt the Lord was telling me a word of encouragement. And I've got some Bible verses, Robbie. Good. I need a word of encouragement. Yeah, man.
That's always a good thing to have. I've got Hebrews 10, 24 through 25, and it says, And let us consider how we may spur one another on towards love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the day approaching. And, Robbie, I was thinking about this as I came over here today, and I said, you know what? when we're in the public spotlight, I guess, as you could say, to a minor extent, when you're on the radio or you're doing shows or your people are watching you on social media. Or you're a pastor and you're ministering at church.
Oh, which is what you're doing now. You do it a lot. Oh, yeah. I mean, but whatever it is that we're doing, especially when you're in the public spotlight, people, they'll reach out to you. But a lot of times they'll tell you what you're doing wrong and not always what you're doing right.
And so there have been times in my life where I have remembered and I have actually written down the times where people have told me, Mike, you're doing a good job. And the reason is, is because there are some people, Robbie, who I think just completely ignore any criticism that they may get for whatever reason. and I think they feel that if they ignore the criticism, then they're just going to stay positive or whatever. But I also feel like when you are on the radio or when you're a pastor, you can't just ignore all of the criticism because sometimes it's genuine criticism that you need to heed and that you need to, okay, I do need to work on this. And I don't know about you, Robbie, but in my own life, I feel like I'm always looking at everything that I'm doing wrong.
I'm always looking at everything that I need to improve upon. And yes, I do remember the criticism, and sometimes it kind of sticks with you. But there have been some times in my life where I've really, really appreciated a positive word, an encouraging word that a Christian brother or sister has given me. And I'm sure you feel the same way as well. Yeah, one of my favorite stories along those lines is when I taught high school Sunday school class for a number of years at Calvary Baptist.
And before I started teaching special needs, this is probably 35 years ago, so it was a while ago, but nonetheless, this story has everything to do with encouragement because we used to do a thing for salesmen, and you would appreciate this, being a salesman, that it was one of my favorite sales meetings to do. It was called the Mutual Admiration Society. And so the way it would work is you'd have to go around the table and tell this other person why you think they're the best car salesman you ever met in your life. Yeah. And it was just a beautiful thing.
Well, I decided, like, man, I ought to do this with my Sunday school class. And so the way I did it, God gave me the idea, I fully believe, was to take paper plates. And then I took this red yarn and attached the paper plates so that it would be on the people's backs. And then I asked all the students to go around the room and write on everybody else's paper plate how you think they reflect Jesus. And what I thought was going to be a one-minute exercise for this particular class, and it was a large class, probably 25, 30 people in it, turned out to be the better part of a half hour as they wrote on each other's plates.
They wrote absolutely beautiful, encouraging words like you've never seen. Like, it just amazed me at how well, you know, they encouraged one another on how they reflected Christ. And you may know that teenagers get told no and what they're doing wrong probably 40,000 times.
So they're not hearing a lot of you do this really well from any corner of their life. You know, it's a difficult situation.
So anyway, the people, they loved it. It was obvious that the class resonated and I could see the joy that was there and all those kind of things. But God had another lesson for me in this story. And here was the lesson. Two years later, three years later, after they'd graduated from, it might have been, our five-year anniversary after teaching this class, after they graduated, we had a reunion at Christmastime.
And so we're all sitting around, and most of the kids from the class came to this reunion because it was a really close class. We got along really well. And somebody said, of all the classes that you taught, that you heard while you were in Sunday school with Robbie and Doug Hill and all these people, which was your favorite? and they said, oh, oh, beyond a doubt, the paper plate class. And numbers of these kids still have that paper plate.
And they cherished it because they just had never really seen what other people see in them because Satan's so good at beating you up and you're so good at beating up yourself that, oh my goodness, when you actually see what you really look like to your friends and stuff, When you hear those, those things are phenomenally valuable to your soul. It's soul food.
Well, absolutely. And one of the things that I've seen, Robbie, is in my own life, I've had some experiences to where I've just had some tough times where I felt discouraged and I felt discouraged by others. And, you know, I think sometimes people want to help you out when they give you criticism. But I think sometimes people just want to be mean. And I think they're miserable and they, you know, hurt people, hurt people.
I'm sure you've heard that. But there is a there is an email that I got from my friend Sharon Hungerford. And, you know, Sharon, years ago, and it was May of 2021.
So it was over four years ago. And she said she was spending some time with the Lord And this is what she got In my time of seeking Abba I sense that I should ask him if he has a word for you The following is what I heard Always seek him for confirmation and test the spirit. Abba, do you have a word for Michael Zwick? He is my most prized possession, but he does not even know it. Tell him, Sharon, give him this gift from me.
Sharon says, yes, Abba. Michael, I formed you. I planned and purposed you. I am your Abba. You have looked to a man who chose himself over me and you.
You know rejection, as do I. You fight labor hard for my acceptance, my approval when you already have it. I could not love you more. I love your zeal for all things righteous. I love your courage to press in and through, even when feeling afraid, afraid of failure.
Michael, you cannot fail me. I will not let you. Selah. Pause and think about this. Michael, you are mine.
100% mine. Fear not, ever. And if you do, allow my perfect love to wash over you. Rest in this truth. If you never did another work for me, I love you and I am pleased with you.
I give you my rest. I see keys to a house. My love is everlasting. You are mine and I am yours always. Abba.
And she goes on to say Abba is the Hebrew person, intimate form of father, daddy, God, the children of Jewish families called their fathers Abba.
So, Robbie, when things get tough, I'll go back and look at that email. Do you have something that kind of reminds you to be encouraged as well? No, I have so many different people. That's funny. You brought up this topic because I actually quoted this situation because you think of people giving you feedback, right?
And faithful are the wounds of a friend, right? And so criticism often is, you know, and I honestly remember my mother listened to every radio show I ever did, especially at the beginning. And apparently I say, you know, a lot. And she would count them. She would like, Robbie, you know, you said I know 47 times in the show today.
Like that would not be unusual. And like, there was no hyperbole in that. I probably said that.
However it worked, you know, it was really, those were faithful wounds. But my favorite one was from Miss Beck, who you may remember was my 104-year-old mother at the nursing home where I do devotions. And one time I did this devotion and she, after I did the devotion, she says, Robbie, can I see you out in the hall? And I said, sure. And she goes, well, Robbie, I have to tell you, you are the most anointed, gifted speaker I may have ever heard in my life.
God is so with you and you speak so beautifully and so wonderfully and you are so talented. She said, but that's all the more reason you never have to use a word like golly. And I thought, what? And she said, yeah, you used Gali. And do you know that that's a euphemism for God's name?
And, you know, you can never benefit from using a euphemism of God's name. There's no possible way that you could use God's name for any other purpose than to bless God and have anything good come of it. and it was this rebuke, right? But it came in love like you never felt in your life. You know, here it came.
This was, you know, the truth and love. And I've never, ever forgotten the beauty of that moment. Like, thank you. Like, wow, these people, they love me enough not to want me to, you know, be in error, but by the same token, they want me to be encouraged. And so that's an interesting balance.
So, yes, we absolutely need letters like that from God and from our friends and encouragement that they often give us. But unfortunately, that too easily for me, and God knows this, will lead to pride, which is something I struggle with. And so, you know, I like it when, you know, somebody allows me to get down in my face where I belong and at the same time gives me, you know, something to encourage me like Miss Beck did. Absolutely. And so one of the things that I was thinking of, Robbie, do you remember Dear Abby?
Of course. In January of 1999, she came out with an article. And in the article, she told a story, a true story. It was a group of classmates. It was a class.
And the teacher said at the beginning of class, she said, today what we're going to do is I'm going to get a sheet of paper. and I want you all to write down something that you like about everybody in this class. Yeah, mutual admiration side. Cool. There you go.
So they did it. And at the end of the class for that weekend, she actually organized it and wrote everything positive about each person on their own sheet of paper.
So she gave it to them and that was the end of it. She thought that was it. And years later, not too many years later, one of the young students actually went over to the Vietnam War and died. And so she went to the funeral. A lot of the students actually went to the funeral.
And what happened was, was that when they went to the funeral, the parents of this young boy said, Here, this young man kept this in his wallet. It was from when he was a kid in your class. and it was all of the positive things that every that all of his classmates had written about right it was his paper plate it was his paper plate and they also found out that the other kids in the class they kept them in their wedding folders wedding books they kept almost all of them had kept this little sheet of paper with positive words words of encouragement that other people had told them. And you know, it's so easy to find fault. And I like what you said.
There are times, there are people who don't wanna ever give any correction or say anything, hey, you need to work on this at all. And I think that's kind of a ditch on the other side as well. But more commonly, I think the ditch is, is that when we don't wanna say anything positive, we don't wanna encourage somebody else. And I think sometimes it may be because you know okay I telling them something good It almost like we get jealous And there been other people have you seen you know somebody gets an award somebody a basketball player wins MVP instead of everybody being excited or happy for that person They criticize them And it's like, I don't see the Bible really talking well about, hey, you need to criticize everybody or talk bad about them. There's a lot of Bible verses, Robbie, that talk about encouragement, and it really does make a difference.
Yeah, you can't help it. you know, when you, that Gary Chapman put it well, that the words of encouragement are literally one of the five love languages.
Okay. That there are people, I'll bet it's your love language. I know it's mine. It is here.
Okay. I mean, you don't need to show them. You don't need to give me any gifts. If you tell me you love me, I'm, I'm, you know, or you tell me why you love me or all those kinds of things. They mean the world to me as most salesmen would probably, that's going to be something that we need to hear because I think salesmen are looking for that type of feedback.
But I am not one bit surprised that Dear Abby had that kind of response. As it turns out, I've seen it in so many people's lives that, you know, a word, because like you said, there's all these people beating up. Satan is obviously out to keep people hiding. you find fault in yourself in other words all this stuff happening but God made us right to reflect him and that's why it's there's a challenge because you think it's vain but when you're actually see that what you're doing is a reflection of God then you're bringing him glory through the way that you're reflecting him like your friend said in her email then all of a sudden it's a completely different ballgame that you're glorifying God by the gifts that he gave you, it's an amazing thing, not necessarily making much of yourself, but making much of Jesus. Yeah, you're absolutely right.
And so one of the things that I thought of, and here's another Bible verse that I like. It's Romans 15, 2. It says that each of us should please our neighbors for their good to build them up. There was a guy back in the 80s, and I don't know if you remember him. His name was Les Brown.
Do you remember Les Brown? Yeah. Oh, yeah. He was a motivational speaker. And one of the things that he said was, he says, if you want to be negative, he said, that's not something that you have to work on.
He said, you just be. And he said, that's kind of the natural thing. He said, but if you want to be positive, he said, that's something that you have to work on. And both of us, Robbie, being fathers, I think we probably know this more than anything. Number one, we were children ourselves.
But number two, we want to encourage our children. And if you're listening right now, I want to encourage you to encourage your children as well, if you have them. But there's a poem, and it's from the book, Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People. Great book. Great book.
And it's called A Father Forgets. And it says, listen, son, I am saying this as you lie asleep. one little hand crumpled under your cheek and blonde curls sticky over your wet forehead. I have broken into your room alone. Just a few minutes ago, as I sat reading my paper in the library, a stifling wave of remorse swept over me.
Guilty, I came to your bedside. There are things which I am thinking you, son.
So I had been crossed to you. I scolded you as you were dressing for school because you gave your face a mere dab with a towel. I took you to task for not cleaning your shoes. I called out angrily when you threw some of the, some of your things on the floor at breakfast. I found faults too.
You spilled things. You gulp down your food. You put it, you put your elbows on the table. You spread butter too thick on your bread. As you started off to play with, to play.
And I made for the train, you turned and wave your hand and called goodbye, daddy. I frowned and said in reply, hold your shoulders back. Then it began all over again late this afternoon. As I came up the road, I spied you down on your knees playing marbles. There were holes in your socks.
I humiliated you before your friends by marching you ahead of me to the house.
Socks were expensive. And if you had to buy them, you would be more careful. Imagine that son from a father. Do you remember later when I was reading in the library, how you came timidly with sort of a hurt look in your eyes. I glanced up over my paper, impatient at the interruption.
You hesitated at the door. What is it that you want? I snapped. You said nothing, but ran across in one tempestuous plunge through your arms around my neck and kissed me. Your small arms tightened with affection that God had set blooming in your heart, which even neglect could not wither.
Then you were gone pattering up the stairs.
Well, son, it was shortly afterwards that my paper slipped from my hands and a terrible, sickening fear came over me. What has habit been doing to me? The habit of finding fault or reprimanding. This was my reward to you for being a boy. It was not that I did not love you.
It was that I expected too much of you. I was measuring you by the yardstick of my own years. There is so much that was good, fine and true in your character. The little heart, the little heart of yours was as big as the dawn itself over the hills. This was shown by your spontaneous impulse to rush in and kiss me good night.
Nothing else mattered tonight.
Son, I have come to your bedside in the darkness. I have felt there. I've knelt there ashamed. It is a feeble atonement. I know that you would not understand these things, which I have told you in the waking hours.
Tomorrow I will be a real daddy. I will chung with you, suffer when you suffer and laugh when you laugh. I will bite my tongue when impatient words come. I will keep saying as if it were a ritual he is nothing but a boy a little boy i'm afraid i have visualized you as a man yet as i see you now son crumpled up and worry in your bed i see that you are still a baby yesterday you were in your mother's arms your head on her shoulder i have asked too much too much that's touching oh wow and where did you get that it was uh it was from the uh from the book Oh, yeah, from How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie, and it's called A Father Forgetts. It fascinating to me A that that hit you the way it did But I can kind of see that you know my father was not that way he was actually almost the opposite um of that man okay he he he found so much i mean he was almost too encouraging but the thing i that struck me is is god doesn't break protocol all that often and talk from heaven he just doesn't right he did when he gave the 10 commandments And he spoke those 10 utterances, which those weren't words of encouragement necessarily.
They're words of instruction.
However, when his son came out of the water, right, he let go. And what did he let go with? This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. That's right. And then again, on the Mount of Transfiguration, right?
There is in all his glory with his friends, you know, Peter, John and James. And he lets go again and says, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. Listen to him, meaning he has what it takes. And the point of it is, is that twice Jesus was not only affirmed by God, but he was affirmed. He was affirmed in front of an audience, a large group of people.
or in the case of John and James, his best friends. And you think about that. If Jesus needed that, how bad do we need it? And how bad do our children need it? And how bad do our friends need it?
And even how bad do our enemies need it? Yeah, because Jesus was fully God and he was fully man. And so I was asking myself that, well, did Jesus really need this or was it for the others who were out there so that they could see it? and maybe it was a little bit of both. You know, Jesus went through some very difficult times and there were times in Jesus's life where you saw his human side.
The night before Jesus was about to be crucified, he was sweating so much and he was praying. I think there might've even been some blood coming from or something like that. Right, great drops of blood. Drops of blood. It says sweat as great drop, you know, depending on how you want to read it, But it's an intense place.
Yeah, he needed it. There was another time where Jesus, he would need to get alone after going out and preaching to all these people. And so you really are able to see the human side of Jesus. And I'm wondering if you're listening right now. Yes, I know you want to get stuff done.
I want to help my kids. I want to help my wife. I want to help my mom. I want to help everybody to become better. But the truth is, is that a lot of times they can become better by hearing the good things that they're doing and they can do even a better job of those good things.
So in that same book, Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People, he told the true story of a janitor who was in the halls. Do you remember this? I do. And this janitor who was in the halls, this guy did everything wrong. I mean, he literally couldn't get anything right.
And so one day they scolded the guy. They told him what he needed to work on. They said, you need to do this, that, the other, and nothing seemed to work.
So one day, finally, this guy had a eureka moment. And he said, I'm going to tell, I'm going to find something that this guy is doing well and I'm going to tell him. And so he looked and he found, I don't know if he had a neat appearance and he said, you got a neat appearance or whatever. And he started to point out the good things that this guy was doing before too long. That was the best janitor in the whole school system.
If it worked for a janitor, if it works for your children, how much more could it work for you and me, Robbie? Oh, absolutely. And when you had said, is this for the people that are out there? Was this for Jesus? And I think it was clearly yes.
But most of all, when you think about it in your own personal situation, if you're in Christ, guess what? He was saying it to you. This is my beloved son and whom, just like your friend gave you. Those are true statements about you. Who decided that you were going to exist?
It was God, like Sharon said, that God decided who you were going to be before you were ever in your mother's womb. He knew you were going to come to Christ and he knew that you would literally be his son. And so when he is saying that, he is saying, Michael, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well placed. Listen to him.
So he's not only affirming that he's well beloved, but when he says listen to him, he's saying that what you have to say is worthwhile. And in your case, Michael, because what you're often doing is, in my experience, is glorifying God. And so there's a good reason to listen. Yeah, I want to listen. And you do a really good job of waking up in the morning and listening to God as well.
But there was a verse and it's John 6, 44. And it says that no man can come to me except the father which hath sent me draw him and I will raise him up at the last day.
So if you want to come to the Lord Jesus Christ, God is drawing you. If you're listening to the show right now, you may not have even known you were going to listen to this show. This may be a random thing for you, but it's not random to God. I know J.D. Greer comes on here and he said, did it ever occur to you?
that nothing ever occurred to God. And if you're sitting there listening, and if you've never surrendered your life to Jesus, you could do it right now. Just ask him to forgive you of your sins. Say, Lord, I ask you to forgive me of my sins right now. I turn away from my sins.
I surrender my life to you. And I give you all the days of my life. And thank you for saving me. And see, if you prayed that prayer, then that is the beginning of a beautiful relationship with Jesus. And some of you all who are listening have been through some very tough times.
I know you and I have, Robbie. Oh, it's a wonderful opportunity, right, to rediscover God and push into his word every day like this journey will be a journey like none other you've ever taken.
So it's that easy. If you believe in your mouth, I mean, you believe in your heart and confess with your mouth that he's Lord, you will be. Say, how awesome. That's a pretty good deal. If not for God.
If not for God. All right. For my YouTube channel, If Not For God with Mike Zwick, just like, subscribe, and hit that notification bell so you'll be alerted when we have our next video. This is the Truth Network. Thank you.
