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February 24, 2021 1:00 am

Going Parking...

If Not For God / Mike Zwick

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February 24, 2021 1:00 am

Men are encouraged to lay down their lives for something greater than themselves, to accept Jesus' righteousness, and to walk in communion with him, developing their true identity and taking on the stuff that will last for eternity.

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This is Darren Kuhn with the Masculine Journey Podcast, where we search the ancient paths to find ways that God brings light into a dark world and helps set men free from the struggles that we all face on a day-to-day basis. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it. Share it.

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Elite Plus is an eight-year annuity with a 3.75 API, one-year guarantee, and minimum guarantee of 2%, so lower your taxable income while increasing your retirement. PRCUA.org. That's PRCUA.org. Welcome to If Not For God, stories of hopelessness that turn to hope. Here is your host, Mike Zwick.

Oh, welcome to If Not For God today with Mike Zwick and how fun. We are going to go parking. We're going parking, Robbie. Yeah, you know, the gym that I go to, there are all these different parking spots, but right in the front of the gym, there are parking spots, and these parking spots, they say between Monday and Friday from the hours of 8 to 5, you can't park here unless you're with XYZ.

What I've noticed, Robbie, is that after 5 o'clock, when people can park in these spots or on the weekends when people can park in these spots, they're so used to in their mind thinking that I can't park here that they'll have to walk 200 feet and they'll go get another parking spot when they could have parked right up front. And what I was thinking was, you know, and we were talking about this this morning over at Wednesday in the Word, Ephesians 6, 12. You know that verse? It comes right before the full armor. Put on the full armor of God, yeah. Actually, starting in Ephesians 6, 11, it says, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil, for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against principalities, against rulers, rulers of the darkness of this age, against the spiritual host of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, take up the whole armor of God, like you said, Robbie, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day and having done all to stand.

Stand, therefore, having girded your waist in truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace. But what we were talking about and what I've seen is that if the devil, if he can make you think that you can't do something, well, then he's already won the battle because if you don't believe you're going to do something, why would you do it in the first place? You had a story about an elephant. I always heard that, you know, they would chain a baby elephant that they were going to use in the circus or whatever, you know, because he couldn't pull the stake out of the ground. He just assumed his whole life that, you know, they could chain him down with just a stake, something that wouldn't begin to hold a full-grown elephant.

But once you've trained him, you know, then you've got him. But there's a beautiful thing. It's interesting that you bring up Ephesians 6 and the reason why I knew it because I've been looking at it all week. And that word stand in Hebrew, if you allow me to just show you the word picture, because, you know, Hebrew, they're showing you a picture of something with the letters.

And so when you take the letters, it is like, it starts with a yud, which is like the hand of God coming down. So here comes the hand of God coming down and it's grabbing hold of righteousness, which is essentially like a tree. And you are, once you put on Christ's blood, right, you are right. And there's so much about the full armor that has to do with righteousness. So here's God's hand coming down, grabbing hold of Mike, who is righteous. Whether you believe that or not, like the elephant, you've been trained, you're not.

But you actually are, because you're under his blood, right? So here comes the hand of God. It's holding you.

And then the last letter is a bet, which has to do with the kingdom. So that means look up, interestingly. So if you're standing there holding God's hand in righteousness, looking at the kingdom, can anybody get to you? No.

No, right? And the idea is if you're in prayer, which, you know, Ephesians 6 in the whole armor thing has to do with praying, because here's where we battle against flesh and blood, not against flesh and blood, but spiritual forces. So that's happening in prayer.

And so here you are standing, right? And then the next word, or the thing you're supposed to gird up, which really has to do with putting on your wedding clothes, which again are righteous, which are white and all that clean, and then with the belt of truth. So here we have this beautiful, absolutely amazing word, truth, which in Hebrew is a met, which is the beginning and the middle and the end of the story. So truth, when you think about it, when Jesus came in Revelation, he said, I am the Alpha and the Omega. Well, he spoke Hebrew, so he would have probably said, I am the Aleph, I'm the Mem, and I'm the Tov. And the idea behind that word is when we look at the larger story of what's really going on and we put our life down, and we take up Christ's life, and we take up his clothes, and we put on that belt, and we stand with our hand in his.

It's like the woman caught in adultery to me when Jesus said, woman, where are your accusers? Well, if you're standing right there, let me just tell you, Satan doesn't stand a chance if you've got a hold of God's hand. That's true. And the thing about that hand, it's got nail marks in it.

And when you're holding it, you're going to be fully aware that you're standing there in his blood. Yeah. Isn't that awesome? It is.

It is. And one of the things that I heard you talk about was a battle. I heard you use the term battle. Well, if we don't realize that there is a battle out there, we're going to have a tough time. And everybody knows Philippians 4.13, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

What a lot of people don't know is the context. And I'm going to start off in Philippians 4.11. It says, not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am to be content. I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things, I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. And what he's saying there, sometimes you're up, sometimes you're down. But you keep fighting.

You keep fighting. And there's a verse in the Old Testament, maybe in Proverbs, where it says that a righteous man falls down seven times, but seven times he rises again. And Jesus actually said, going along with that, apart from me, you can do nothing. So, you know, it's saying a righteous man gets up seven times. Well, if you try to do this thing on your own, Robbie, good luck with that. See, I'd never realized there was a baseball game involved in Philippians, but apparently if he got abased.

Okay. You kept saying he got up. See, I'd never heard of him striking out in the whole thing. Yeah, yeah. A little baseball humor there.

Yeah, I mean the, but we were looking at something else as well. Albert Einstein was on a train one time. And when he was on that train, the conductor came up to everybody. He was checking their tickets. And Einstein was so embarrassed he could not find his ticket. And the conductor said, Albert Einstein, it's okay. We know who you are. We're not worried about it.

Just relax. We trust you that you bought a ticket. And he went on his way. So the conductor went back a few seats and he kind of turned around and he saw Albert Einstein on his hands and his knees trying to find his ticket. And he went back to Albert Einstein and he said, Mr. Einstein, he said, I told you it's okay.

We know who you are. And Albert Einstein says, I know who I am too, but I don't know where I'm going. It might be kind of important, Robbie, in this Christian life to know where we're going. And that ticket requires that you have on the wedding clothes. That ticket requires that you be in, you know, in that passage in Isaiah. You know, let's reason together, though your sins are red as scarlet, right?

I need to make them white. And the beautiful thing about Ephesians and Philippians is, again, as you are going into that relationship with God through his word and through prayer, right? By understanding these concepts more and more and being transformed into his likeness. Freedom becomes to a boundary.

And you're not tied to that chain on your leg that you think has you held down. And I'd love, you know, I host Kingdom Pursuits, as you know, which is how does God take your passion and use it to build the kingdom? And time and again, you know, there'll be somebody that sensed that God told them to write a book or God sends them to start a radio show. Or God, you know, in some way called them to start a movie or whatever it was. And, you know, I've interviewed all sorts of really amazing people that everybody knows their name. But I've interviewed lots and lots and lots of really amazing people that nobody knows their name, but they stepped into God's adventure. They took up their freedom, you see, that they saw. And even though, right, they're seeing the chain, they're seeing the whole elephant thing, they're seeing the parking place that you're not supposed to park in until after five. They still step out in God, right? Yeah. He doesn't call the qualified, he qualifies the called. That's it.

And he shows these people how to write a book or he shows these people how to do a movie or he shows them, you know, how to do a radio show. Yeah, there was an old motivational speaker, I think his name was Les Brown, have you heard of him? No. Okay.

But he was big back in the, I think his name was Les Brown. And what he said is he says, does anybody know where the wealthiest place is? Say the wealthiest place in Winston-Salem. Well, you might think of it differently. He says, no, the wealthiest place is in the cemetery. He said where people died with these great ideas, and we could say that the great ideas that God had given them and that they never acted on them.

They never acted on them. Maybe there's somebody listening today where you've been thinking about doing something and God has laid something on your heart and you haven't done it yet. Well, guess what?

Maybe you're listening to this for a reason. It's never too late. Right.

You know, the old saying that you miss a hundred percent of the shots that you never took. That's right. That's right.

That's right. You know, so many times I hear amazing stories where people just, you know, since God was wanting them to go down this path and make this choice, it seemed totally bizarre off the wall, you know, in both of our cases. You know, for me to be a radio talk show host, somebody had told me that I would have ended up, you're out of your mind. I can't even, I can't public speak.

It makes me nervous. What are you talking about? Right. Yet, you know, it more than amazing to me that I've had a chance to meet so many amazing disciples, walk with so many really cool people, see what God's doing in so many amazing ways as I just was obedient to something that made no sense to me at the time.

Sure. But being transformed by his word, you know, we begin to see what the possibilities are. That's it. And we were, heard a story, it was by Adrian Rogers many years ago, and he said there was this guy who bought this car. And he said when he bought the car, he said it was a brand new car. He showed it off to all of his friends. He came over. It was a beautiful car. They loved it or whatever. And he says, all of a sudden, these guys see, his friends see this guy pushing the car around town.

Nobody says anything. Finally, one of his friends says to him, hey, I don't know if you knew this or not, but there's this thing inside of your car called an engine. And he said, if you push the ignition right here and turn the key, he said, you, your car will start and it'll drive around. All you have to do is push the gas and you no longer have to push it around anymore. Well, these ideas that we, these ideas that we're talking about, that we're getting, if we try to act on these ideas on our own, even if they're good ideas, it's kind of like that guy pushing the car around town. But when you have the Holy Spirit living inside of you, when you have Jesus Christ, the son of God, he says, I am, what is it? I am the branch. You are the vine apartment for me.

You can do nothing. But that when we, when we have the Holy Spirit and when we ask him to help us with these things, that these great things that we want to do for God, all of a sudden it's like we've just pushed the key and we're just kind of sitting back on cruise control. One thing you can say for the guy, he had really strong legs.

He was in great shape. You know, that's a lot of pushing. It reminded me of, you know, I remember after I'd done the Christian Car Guy show maybe four or five years, I had gone to the National Religious Broadcasters Convention in Nashville and I was driving back coming across Tennessee. And I was just praying, God, I know you want more from this ministry than just me to tell people, you know, when's the best time to buy a car, how to save money when you trade stuff.

And, and, you know, not to drive recklessly and all the things that we were doing on the show. And, and as I was listening actually to another Christian radio station, I heard these guys get on and they started to talk about how they had formed up this team in their men's group and gone around because there were so many single women in their church that didn't have anybody to like, you know, fix their gutters or, you know, straighten out their car or whatever the situation was. And the first Saturday of every month these guys got together, of course they wouldn't go over to single moms by themselves, but they were a team of them that would, you know, four, five, six, whatever they would go.

And so as I listened to that, I was like, that's it, isn't it? You want us to start the Jesus Labor Love, which is car repair, labor for single moms and widows. And I went, I bet I could get, you know, car repair places to offer up the first Saturday of the month, which was my original idea. It changed a lot over time to where obviously when people that need their car fixed, they can't wait till the first Saturday. But I didn't know that at the time. I was just going with God gave me the idea and the way we went. Well, it wasn't long that we'd been doing this. And my good friend, if you know, is always on the show, Jerry Mathis with Ray's Body Shop was one of our repair shops.

And so this, you know, it was for single moms and widows. So here comes this widow, she's in her 80s, and she comes in to Ray's Body Shop and he says, can you look at my air conditioner? And of course, you know, Jerry's thinking, why are you coming to me with that?

But it was a body shop, but it didn't matter. She goes, he goes, well, she came in, she needed help. Well, let me just go see what's going on. So he goes out to the car and she says, man, I really need to get this fixed. I just, I was out in the heat all last year.

I thought I was going to have our, you know, it was really, really, she'd been driving around without air conditioning for over a year. And Jerry sits and he goes, well, show me, you know, where the problem is. So she starts sitting and she says, you feel that air?

It's not cold. And he says, well, you see that little snowflake button on the dash, right? If you push that, you know, boom, the light comes blue and next thing you know, she's got air conditioning. Now, you know, it's a classic example of somebody didn't know what they didn't know. But when you think about all the women are out there with their husbands, always were the one that helped them do all that stuff. And now all of a sudden he's out of the picture and who's there to pick up, you know, whatever.

And so that story is always blessed me to think, wow, God, how cool is it that you pop this little idea in my mind? Right. I didn't help the widow. Jerry did. That's right. That's right. But I got blessed as a result of just being obedient to God. That's what you want to do. And to this day, you know, that ministry continues to continues to bear fruit for Christ.

And we have all these volunteers who have been blessed all along the way. Sure. Right.

Just because I sense God wanted more. I ask him what it was. Yeah.

He pops that radio show I heard in my mind, like you may be listening to a radio show right now. And away you go. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I when I'm when I'm looking at this right now, I we were actually we had a Bible study or Bible study last night, Tuesday night, which is growing. And we were praying for all these people who were lost. And then we started praying for revival, praying for revival in this country.

And I saw a quote and it was by Gypsy Smith. And he said, if you want to if you want there to be revival in your city, in your country, in your state, he said, what you do is you go upstairs, you get some chalk and you put a circle around yourself. And you ask the Lord to start a revival inside of that circle. He said, once the revival starts inside of you, then it can start to spread to other people.

And that's the deal. And the beauty of that, maybe you wonder, God, how how does that work? Well, through prayer. Right.

Which is not easy. But we talked about at the beginning in Ephesians. Reach up, take hold of God's hand. Feel the nail marks. Take the blood of Christ over yourself that he paid right for everything you ever did so that you you don't have an accuser. You don't have Satan going, well, you know, you're the guy that used to do drugs. You know, you're the guy that used to, you know, get involved in all these relationships. And you're the guy that, you know, you got this accuser that's going to want to hold you back from whatever it is that God's trying to bring into your life.

You're the guy that hasn't read a book in 20 years. Yeah. And so to pick up that Bible seems a little awkward. Yeah. But when you're standing in that circle, holding on to Christ's hand, accepting his righteousness.

And then you look up and all of a sudden you begin to get thirsty. That's right. Like, wow, I didn't know that about the Bible. I didn't know that about the Bible. And I have never met a person that took a Bible and said, look, I want to see what this says that is with within. A week, two weeks, they're coming to me, they got 50 questions. Why does this mean?

How did this happen? You know, the whole but you know what, what Norman Vincent Peale told me when I started my journey, although he did it via a recording, was that, you know, you got to pray before you read and you got to ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you what this stuff means. And oh, my word, what an adventure awaits everyone who picks up that book.

That's right. And if you think about it, if we were talking about being in a battle, when you have the power of the Holy Spirit, it's a battle that you know you're going to win. I mean, like we've said before, we've read the end of the book of Revelation. We win in the end. I mean, you know, if if we were kind of going through this and I said and we weren't sure or we knew that we weren't going to win in the end. Man, that's a battle I don't know if I want to take on.

But but we know that we're going to win the battle. I heard a story about Napoleon Bonaparte. He he was leading his army into a battle and they were losing the battle, losing the battle. And he told he told the person who was going to supposed to blow the horn.

He said that I need you to blow. He sent somebody to them saying, I need you to blow the horn. We're going to retreat. Come back 10 minutes later, nothing happens. He sends somebody else to say, hey, we need to retreat. Blow the horn to retreat.

Come back 10 minutes later, nothing happens. Napoleon this time says, I guess this guy's not getting the message that we need to retreat. I'm going to go down there in person and talk to him in person and tell him to retreat.

He tells the kid, he says, hey, you need to blow the bugle. We need to retreat. And the young man says, but Napoleon, you never taught me how to retreat. He said, I never taught you how to retreat. Napoleon says and the kid says, yeah, you never taught me how to retreat.

Then blow the horn and we're going to charge. And they ended up winning that battle in our battle that we have. And it is, I mean, we do have a worthy opponent.

It's tough sometimes. But in our battle, we know that if we keep charging and we keep fighting, in the end, with the power of the Holy Spirit and Jesus Christ, we know that we're going to end up winners. Yeah, that's interesting. I hadn't thought about Napoleon in years, but the thing that I learned that he said, which is actually genius, but has everything to do with so much of how we experience our Christian life, is he said that I have learned that men will give up their life for ribbons. You think about, you know, any medal that you ever saw, like to be given a medal is to mean that you're significant.

And those little ribbons that warriors would get back in Napoleon's day, he learned that they would literally give up their life for a ribbon. Well, the beauty of the Christian life, when you think about it, is actually if you're buried in the likeness of his death, you are giving up that. But you're giving it up for something much more than a colored ribbon. You're giving it up for those wedding clothes. He is going to clothe you in his righteousness and give you a chance to come into the throne of grace, right? Because when you come up there in prayer and you're actually in the throne of grace with God the Father, right? Because Jesus said, on the way to the what? To the Father. And so you're up there with Jesus, the Father, the Holy Spirit, their illumination, and there, right?

You get an opportunity to become his son. Talk about being significant. I mean, talk about having value in God's eyes.

Non-man's eyes, who cares what they think? I mean, what we care about is what does God think, and the opportunity that we have to lay down our life. Well, you know, and when you were talking about that, the things that people will do for a ribbon, it says in Scripture, 1 Corinthians 9, starting in verse 24, Do you not know that all those who run in a race all run, but one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may obtain it, and everyone who competes for the prize is temperate in all things. Now they do it to obtain a perishable crown, but we for an imperishable crown. Therefore I run thus, not with uncertainty, thus I fight not as one who beats the air, but I discipline my body and bring it into subjection, lest when I have preached to others I myself should become disqualified. And what I hear from that, and what I hear from what you were talking about, Napoleon, we work. I mean, all of us do to a certain extent.

We work so hard to, you know, get likes on social media, or to make money, or for all these other things, or to get people to like us, and that stuff doesn't last. And what he's saying here in 1 Corinthians 9, why not give your life to something that you're going to be given crowns for when you get to heaven, given rewards. And you study the Bible.

You know that, Robbie, right? Something that will last forever. Take your life and use it for the kingdom pursuits. And, you know, I have really enjoyed for years and years and years, way before I got on the radio doing men's ministry. So many men will come up to you in men's ministry and they'll say, I just know I was meant for so much more than this.

Sure. And that's the truth. You are meant for so much more than this. And the beauty of the Christian life is, if you'll accept what Jesus actually did do for you, lay down his life, take up his cross, lay down your sin, take up his righteousness, and begin to walk in that and have communion with him, right?

Talk with him. He is going to begin to develop the true identity, the way he made you originally, to take on all the stuff that you were to take on and to do the stuff that will last for eternity. And, you know, it's an opportunity today, Mike, to pray with us and say simply.

Yeah. In 2 Corinthians 6, 2, it says, For he says in the time of my favor I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you. I tell you, now is the time of God's favor. Now is the day of salvation. And if you've never given your life to Jesus, would you pray with us right now? Dear Lord, I know I'm a sinner.

I know I've done stuff that's wrong for me. Forgive me of my sins. I repent, I turn away from them, and I look to you and I give my life to you, Jesus. In Jesus' name, amen. If not for God.

If not for God. Mike Lindell and all this generosity for causes for the kingdom by trying to shut down his business. You can't buy his pillows at Kohl's anymore. You can't get them on Amazon or you can't get them at Costco.

They're attempting to close his business because he stood up for kingdom values. What a chance to respond, especially if you need a pillow. Oh, I've had mine now for years and years and years and still fluffs up as wonderful as ever. Queen size pillows are just $29.98. Be sure and use the promo code TRUTH or call 1-800-944-5396. That's 1-800-944-5396. Use the promo code TRUTH for values on any MyPillow product to support truth.
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-12-22 03:45:06 / 2023-12-22 03:57:04 / 12

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