This is the Truth Network. Welcome to If Not For God, stories of hopelessness that turn to hope. Here is your host, Mike Zwick. Hey, this is If Not For God with Mike Zwick, and I hope y'all are doing well. I want to ask you something today.
The Bible says in Philippians 4.13, it says that I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me. But do we believe that? Do we really believe that we can do all things through Christ which strengthen in us? You know, one of the things that I've always thought of was this, is that yes, we say all the right words. We know all the right things to say.
If somebody asks us how we're doing, we say I'm blessed and highly favored. But do we really believe what we say we believe because if we really believed what we said we believed, I believe that our lives would be a whole lot better and that our lives would be a whole lot different. And so when I think about that, I'm reminded of the Chinese bamboo tree. You know, it takes five years for the Chinese bamboo tree to actually sprout up and to grow up and it grows up to about 90 feet. And during that whole time during the first four years and 11 months, what people have to do is they have to feed the tree.
They have to put water on it, put fertilizer on it. And if at any time during those first five years, during the Chinese bamboo tree growing up and rising up, if there's any problem them at all, if they stop planting, if they stop harvesting, if they stop fertilizing that tree, then what's going to happen is this. That tree is going to die. And in our lives, I think, I wonder how many times in our own lives have we looked at something and we've said, hey, I have a goal that I want to achieve. And I know that the Bible says in Philippians 3, verses 13 through 14, it says that I press on towards the goal for the higher calling in the Lord Jesus Christ.
I wonder how many times we've given up a little bit too early. And if God, if we would have just listened to God, and if we would have kept going, how much greater our lives would have been. You know, the Bible says in the book of Proverbs 24, 16, it says that a righteous man falls down seven times, but it says that seven times he rises again. And how many times in our lives have we been trying to do something in our own effort? Have we really hustled for the Lord and we've maybe just given up too early where the Lord would have done big things for us, where the Lord would have come through in a mighty way and in a big way, but we just quit.
You know, one of my favorite poems says this, it says, rest if you must, but don't you quit. You know, a lot of times we're looking and we're going and we're trying and we're striving to go after what the Lord has us to do. But what happens is, is we stop before we win. You know, I've told this before. There was an old story of a guy that I used to listen to named Les Brown.
And he said that he had been playing, say, Connect Four or Checkers with his son all night. And finally he said, all right, son. He said, that's enough. He said, we've worked hard enough. We tried long enough.
I beat you every time it's time to go to bed. And his son said this to him. He said, it is not over until I win. And I wonder how many times in our own ministry, how many times when we're trying to serve the Lord, I wonder if the win that we had, If that win was just around the corner, if that person that we had been praying for for all of those years was about to receive Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, and we said, well, Lord, I've tried hard. I've done all that I can, and I guess that it's just over because I haven't seen it yet.
It's not over until I win. You know, Hebrews chapter 11, as we know, is the faith chapter. And I love what it says because a lot of these people who are in this faith chapter, they work hard, they try hard, they're striving. But what happens is, is many of them give up before they get. Many of them have not given up before they can win.
And I wonder if they would have just gone on a little bit longer, how much better it would have been for those people. In Hebrews 11, 1, it says, God testifying of his gifts and by it he being dead yet speaketh. By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death and was not found because God had translated him. For before his translation he had this testimony that he pleased God. But this is what it says.
It says, but without faith it is impossible to please him. for he that cometh to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. And I wonder, I wonder maybe, maybe this is the case that many of us give up the fight before we've had the chance to win. And the reason we give up is because deep down, we don't really believe that we can win. You see, we have to fight.
We have to hustle. We have to go after what the Lord has called us to do. You know, I heard somebody say years ago, they said that many people say, I'll believe it when I see it. But you know, that's not a biblical view. The biblical view is this.
It's that we'll see it when we believe it. And it's the opposite of what the world has told us. We're waiting around until we see something. And I'm telling you right now, a lot of times you're waiting for something but you not going to see it until you believe it And so what faith is is the opposite of everything that this world has told us This world tells us that, hey, you just got to wait. You got to play it safe.
The opposite of faith is playing it safe. You know, and I heard a lady years ago, she was over at Winston-Salem First. It was Darla Lakes, and she got up there to speak. and she said, the reason that I was always negative is she said, because I was always negative. She said, because as long as I was negative, I was never disappointed.
She said, but when I realized that when I was negative, I was never going to see the big things that God had in store for me. Let me ask you a question. Do you want to see the big things that God has in store for you. Because if you want to see those big things, you've got to take a step and you've got to get out, take a step out in faith. And so many times we just have to be willing to take that first step.
You know, a lot of times people are looking at, you know, how do I take step five and six? And they've never taken that first step. There was a guy named Zig Ziglar that I used to listen to years ago. And one of the things that he said was this, He said one day he had a lady who came up to him after his speech that he was making. He was speaking to a crowd.
And the lady, you know, was recommended. You know, somebody said, you need to talk to this lady. She needs a lot of help. And the lady started talking to Zig. And she said, he said, well, what's the problem?
And immediately she began to talk about all of the problems that she was having in the place at the workplace that she was having where the boss was no good and they weren't paying her enough money and they weren't treating her with respect and there were problems and there were this that and the other and and finally Zig stopped her and he said this he said listen he said I think your problems are about to get worse she said well I came to you for help it doesn't seem like you're being a big help he says because if you don't change yourself your problems are never going to get better. And a lot of times we have this victim mentality that we want to change everybody else, but we don't want to change ourselves. And Zig said, he said to the woman, he said, I want you to get out a notebook. And he said, I want you to write down all of the things that you love about your job. And he said, she just stood there.
And he said, no, I need you to open up the notebook and I need you to write down all of the pro all of the good things that you love about your job. And he said, she just stood there again. And he said, this time he said this, he said, ma'am, he said, unless you open up that notebook and are willing to write these things down, it's been really nice to meet you. And he said, she reluctantly took out that notebook. And when she took out the notebook and she started to be grateful for the things that the Lord had given her, number one, she was paid well.
She was paid above average. She had benefits. She had two weeks of vacation and she started to look at and she started to think about all of the things that she loved about her job. You know, it's hard to be grateful and at the same time being disappointed. It's hard to have a grateful attitude and to be filled with gratitude and praise for the Lord when we're complaining.
And so what this lady did is he said every night, he said before you go to bed I want you to look at those look I want you to look at those attributes of your job that you're so grateful for and he said I want you to say them out loud and he said about four weeks later that same woman came to him and she said this she said you're not going to believe how those people at that job have changed he said all of a sudden they're nicer All of a sudden, I'm more grateful for my job. And we all know that it wasn't the job that had changed. It wasn't the job that had changed. It was that woman's attitude towards that job. You know, the Bible tells us, if you want to know, how are you filled with a heart of gratitude?
How are you filled with a time where you can just really praise and thank God? I would start in the book of Psalms. You see, especially in the 140s and after that, you look at Psalm 148. This is what it says. It says, praise ye the Lord.
Praise ye the Lord from the heavens. Praise him in the heights. Praise ye him, all his angels. Praise ye him, all ye hosts. Praise ye him, sun and moon.
Praise him, all the stars of light. Praise him, ye heavens of heavens, and ye waters that be above Let them praise the name of the Lord, for he commanded and they were created. He hath also established them forever and ever. He hath made a decree which shall not pass. Praise the Lord from the earth, ye dragons and all deeps.
Fire and hail, snow and vapors, stormy wind fulfilling his word, mountains and all hills, fruitful trees and all cedars, beasts and all cattle, creeping things and flying fowl, kings of the earth and all people, princes and all judges of the earth, both young men and maidens, old men and children. Let them praise the name of the Lord for his name alone is excellent. His glory is above the earth and heaven. He also exalted the horn of his people, the praise of all his saints, even of the children of Israel, a people near death unto him. Praise ye the Lord.
You know, it's impossible. If you want to be depressed, you can be depressed. But I'm telling you what, if you want to be happy, if you want to be filled with praise, read the word of God. You know, they found that people who read the word of God and spend time praising and worshiping God are happier people. They deal with less depression than others do.
And so instead of going to a, instead of going to a psychiatrist or a psychologist, why not start in the word of God? I'm not telling you to, you know, if you're, if you're going, you know, if you want to go to your doctor, go to your doctor, that's fine. But I was looking at a guy who was in a coma for 18 days. And he said, during this time in his coma, he had a vision or he was able to go up and he saw a part of heaven or whatever happened And he said that when he saw that vision of heaven what happened was this is he saw the vision of heaven and he saw that everything that was in heaven was praising the Lord. Praise the Lord with everything that you've got.
If you're dealing with depression, praise the Lord. If you're dealing with depression, put on some praise and worship music, and it will be amazing how much the Lord will touch you, how much the Lord will speak to your spirit. You know, and you say, well, sometimes I read the Bible and it's good to read the Bible. But what I do is I read the Bible out loud. And every day, you know, I have children who are almost nine, almost eight years old, and I've got a four-year-old.
But what I do is every single day that we wake up, we read the Word of God. And not only do we read the Word of God, we read it out loud because the Bible says that faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God.
So yes, I read it with my eyes, but when I'm reading it with my eyes, I'm getting many senses involved. I'm speaking it out. I'm speaking it out. You know, the Bible says that death and life is in the power of the tongue and those that love it will eat the fruit thereof.
So I'm speaking the word of God out loud. I'm hearing the word of God when I'm speaking it. And I'm also seeing it with my eyes.
So I'm getting many senses involved when I read the word of God. And many times I believe that there's something that we have and it's called paralysis from analysis.
So in other words, we sit around and we analyze and we think, and don't get me wrong. There is a time to think and there is a time to devise a plan. The Bible says that we get help. We get help from the Lord when there's a multitude of counselors. I ask people, you know, what do you think of this?
Godly people that I know, what do you think of this? And it's good to have wise and godly counsel. But here's the other problem. Many times I've heard directly from the Lord, the Lord has told me to go. And what happens is, is a lot of times the Lord speaks to us directly and he tells us to go.
but what do we do? We start asking all of these other people what they think. And the Lord may have a work for us to do, but if the Lord has spoken to you something, if he's spoken something to you directly into your heart, then you need to do it. It doesn't matter what anybody else has told you to do. You know, there are some things that the Lord has told me to do that may not make sense to anybody else.
you know, I started going and praying outside of the abortion clinic. And when I started talking to other people about this, and when I started, I wanted to get other people to come with me. And by the way, some have, you know, I have a friend of mine, a Koi Hanner. He's gone with me to the clinic. Shane's gone and some other people as well, but many other people.
So, well, that's not a good idea. You know, it's negative or you're not going to make a difference or this or that, the other, you know what? I don't care what you have to say. If the Lord has told me to do something, then I need to do it. If the Lord has told you to do something, then you need to do it.
But see, there's some things, there's some directives that are directly from the word of God. And it says in the book of Matthew, Jesus said it right before he left. He said, preach the gospel to all creation. And see, the problem is with something like that, we get scared, we get nervous because we don't know how people are going to react to it.
Now we need to plan. We need to organize. We need to have a plan for what we're going to say. But many times when you go and you speak, you speak the word of God to people. Many times I feel like I've done everything wrong, but yet they receive Jesus as their Savior.
The Bible says that unless the Lord builds the house, the laborers labor in vain. unless the Lord builds the house, the laborers labor in vain. And what I'm telling you right now is that God has a plan for your life. I don't know if you remember there was campus crusade for Christ and they would come up to people and they would say, God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life. And that's true.
God does love you and he has a wonderful plan for your life. But I'm here to tell you as well that Satan hates you and he has a terrible plan for your life. And unless you stay in this word every day, unless you pray and unless you read the word of God, it is easy to fall away. We've all known people who have been walking with the Lord. They've been on fire for the Lord.
And then six months later, they're back out in the streets. And you say, well, if I have a supernatural experience, then I may stay with the Lord. And you might. I mean, there's been many people that I've prayed for who have had, you know, ailments and all that. And I prayed for them and Jesus healed them.
Praise God. And they were glad and they were excited. But many of those same people who said, I want to stay with the Lord. I want to worship the Lord. I'm going to do this, that, and the other or back out in the streets.
You see, the Bible says, Jesus said that he who endures till the end shall be saved. Or do you have that? Do you have that endurance in you? Do you have that fight in you? Do you have the guts to fight?
Because the devil's going to keep fighting you. But I'm going to tell you this, resist the devil and he will flee from you. And how do you resist the devil? You resist the devil by staying in the word of God. You know, there was an old story that I heard of a young boy who was a gymnast.
And he said that he kept practicing every day and he was practicing and practicing and practicing. And finally, the day was there for him to go out and for him to do his thing and to be a gymnast in the main stage. And they had their first meet and he got so upset and he was so nervous and he was so scared. And he said, coach, I can't do it. I'm sorry.
I'm going to have to bow out. And you know what the coach said to him? He said, throw your heart over the bar and your body will follow. Throw your heart over the bar and your body will follow. You know, those who hesitate lose.
It's good to analyze. It's good to prepare. It's good to plan. It's good to do all that stuff But never one time has there been a map that has moved one person Never one time has there been a book that has made somebody move You have to take action I remember when I was in college and I was going to go out and sell books door to door. We had a guy named Kevin Johnson, KJ, who came out and he was teaching us the ropes about how to sell books door to door.
Kids books and all of that. We went 80 hours a week. you talk about some hard work. It was 80 hours a week over in Minnesota and Michigan for two summers. But he told me he had this whole table of pennies.
And he said, I want you to sell me all of these pennies. And I said, well, this penny is good. It's clean. It's this, that, the other, whatever. I said, you need to buy this penny.
And so he said, okay, okay, okay. And then he said, I'm going to sell you these pennies. And he said, do you want this one? Do you want this one? Do you want this one?
Do you want this one? In other words, what he was saying is this. It's good to prepare. It's good to plan. It's good to know what you're doing.
He said, but the more people that you talk to, the more success that you'll have.
So I knew, I knew a lady who is a Baptist and she had a Jehovah's witness who would always come to her house. And I didn't understand this at the time, but with Jehovah's witnesses, what they have to do, they have to have a certain amount of ministry time each month to remain a Jehovah's Witness.
So even though this Jehovah's Witness knew that this lady wasn't going to convert to that religion, she said, I want to get my 15 minutes in, so I'm going to keep talking to this lady. And so eventually what she realized was this, she didn't really care as much about converting somebody or helping somebody. She just, what she wanted to do was to just get her time in. And I think many people, as many times as Christians, we continue. And by the way, I don't believe in Jehovah's Witnesses or anything like that.
It's a false gospel. It's a false religion.
So I just want to tell you that. But what I'm saying is, is this many times as Christians, we continue to try and to work on that same person that we've been working on for years. And I wonder if God is telling us, you know what? Remember what Jesus said in the Bible. He said, you share the gospel with somebody.
You tell them the good news. You tell them the truth. He said, and if they will not listen to you, he said, you take your shoes off, you dust them off. And he said, it'll better, it'll be better for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town. And so sometimes, yes, we share the good news with somebody, but if they don't want to hear it and if they're, if they're not receiving it, we move on and we go to the next person because there are so many people who are out there who can listen to the good news.
There's so many people that we can affect. We just have to do it. You know, another thing that I was talking about was this, is that if we want to be able to reach people for Jesus, we have to have a plan and we have to have a rock solid schedule. That same guy, KJ, I was having a tough summer selling books one summer. And I said, there's this other guy named Quentin who's selling a ton of books.
He's doing really well. He's doing this, that, and the other. And I said, he's doing this stuff. I said, but the thing is, is that while he's doing it, I said, I want to know the secret to his success. I want to know what he's doing.
And I was expecting this guy, Kevin, to tell me, well, he's got the secret closing method that's working really well for him. And that's why he's selling. Or, you know, he knows how to connect with people or this. He didn't say any of that stuff. He said, Mike, he said the guy has a rock solid schedule.
And so just like the ocean, when you see the sand and the ocean and the waves, they keep beating against the sand. They keep beating against the sand. What they're doing is, is they're consistent. In our Christian life, in our Christian walk with Jesus Christ, we can't read the Bible for one day and then just be done with it. A lot of times people go in spurts and they're saying, I'm going to read the Bible four hours a day, every day, a week or whatever.
And then after about two days of that, they give up. You see, I would rather you say, I'm going to read the Bible for 10 or 15 minutes a day and stick with it long term because you know you can do that. Start small. You know, instead of say, hey, I saw this guy, you know, John Hyde or I saw Smith Wigglesworth or whoever it was. they were praying for eight hours a day and I want to do that.
Let me ask you this. How many hours a day? How much are you praying right now?
Well, I say a prayer before my meal.
Okay. If you're doing that, that's better than nothing. But why not start and say, hey, I'm going to take 15 minutes. I'm going to get rid of all the distractions and I'm going to pray and I'm going to listen to God. Stay small and get them all.
What happens is, is we try to swing for the fences. and then we get frustrated. You know what? I'm not saying that you can't pray for eight hours a day, but most of those people who were praying for eight hours a day, they probably started small. They probably started for 15 minutes.
And then the other thing I would tell you is this, is what you need to do is you need to make a plan, write it down. In 1950, there was a group of people from Yale University. And what they did was they, they wrote, they, they found the people who wrote down their goals versus the people who did not write down their goals. And I'm talking about your spiritual goals. How many people are you going to share the gospel with?
How many people are you going to pray for each day? How much time are you going to spend in prayer? How much time are you going to spend reading your Bible? But what I'm saying is you got to write it down. There were two sets of people.
There were 3% of the people who had written goals down and the other 97% who were graduating from Yale did not have their goals written down. The 3% who had written goals down out earned all the other 97% combined when they studied them and they looked back at it 30 years later. Yes, you've got to stay consistent, but you've also got to write your goals down about what you want to do for the Lord because Jesus is coming back soon. What are you going to do for the Lord 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.
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