Well, it's always so much fun to be on the conference floor of the National Religious Broadcasters Convention.
And when you have a show called Kingdom Pursuits, you got poster children walking all around that are God's taking their passion and is using it to build the kingdom. And I have with me right now, Dr. of Ministry, Cliff Sims, and his book, Surviving Spiritual Stress, Biblical Solutions to Overcoming Life Stress Factors. And COVID didn't bring any stress on, did it, Doc? Well, actually, I wrote this book before COVID broke out, and then it was finished around May. And then my publisher said, Cliff, this is a timely book. And I said, Yeah, probably is.
Probably God's timing in all of this. Yes. And so, wow, I mean, it was there. You know, I'm sure with your education, you realize Second Corinthians chapter one, right?
God comforts us with the comfort that he comforts others with. Yes. So when I see a title like that on a book, I'm usually thinking, wow, I bet you there's a story. Well, I don't know how much of a personal story. But there are, I have some personal illustrations inside those chapters, I'm dealing with each one of those stress factors. So what you did was you actually, you kind of, you broke down some stress factors that are in the book.
Yes. There's, you know, talks about anger and fear, disappointment, lust, bitterness, jealousy. There's nine stress facts, talk about temptation. And what I do is, I usually have a biblical character that had suffered from one of those factors. And many times they overcame it.
And if they did, then I kind of outline the steps that they took to overcome that. And you know, I'm a firm believer that all the answers to humanity's issues are in the scripture. So all these, you know, and I majored in psychology, and I'm not trying to mess around with a psychologist, but I'm just saying that man doesn't have all the answers. God's word does, you know? And so if you think you do, you're like, Joe, you know, just make it hell. Yeah, so yeah, man doesn't have all that many answers.
No, but what a beautiful thing. So as you say, you know, the scripture has given us tools, obviously, yes, but what a neat thing. So of these stress factors that you wrote about, which story do you just, man, God, this one is right on the money? Well, I think probably the one on disappointment, because under disappointment I cover depression, because disappointment leads to discouragement, which leads to depression. In fact, in the book, and I'll try to find the page here in just a minute, but in the book on disappointment, there's actually a chart that shows how when people in their lives have their dreams, or what their desires are, and then you follow the arrows here, and you make a decision, and if you get discouraged, then you can go two ways. You can go to disillusionment, or you can denounce the discouragement and then start heading back the right way. And on the top of the chart, it deals with the fact that God gives us abundant life.
He gives us abundant life. But if we choose the wrong direction, the enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy, which leads to death. And you know, I have arrows that no matter where you are on the journey downward, you have the opportunity to turn around.
Only problem is some people get to the point of no return. Now, I'm not saying anything's impossible with God, but that's the way I've outlined the chart. John Owen, great author of ancient times, wrote these words. It was called in the Complete Armor of God, I think was the name of the title of his book, but he said that one of the biggest affronts to God is despair. That you would hold the concept that he can't pull you out of the ditch.
Essentially, he's going to be the one that does pull you out of the ditch. That's right. But I'm curious, which Bible character when it came to despair and disappointment, which one did you use for that? Joseph. Oh, wow.
Talk about somebody who had some setbacks. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And he, you know, he, I mean, you know, most people that find themselves in a situation like that when they're 17, especially today, would, you know, where they're completely isolated and alienated from their home, from their family, from probably a career that is going to go nowhere but up because he was a very talented, skilled individual. We know that as we see what God did with him while he was in prison.
Highly favored would be an understatement. Absolutely. And so we see some decisions and some choices that he made along the way. And obviously, you know, he had no dependence on, I mean, his dependence was totally upon God. I mean, he had no, but, and because he trusted, because he had that, and because he had nothing else to trust in, God used that, you know. And I think that's part of our human problem is that we have so many things that we fill our lives with that we sort of kind of put our favor in, our trust in, you know, and all that. And God's kind of, okay, God, when I need you, I'll, you know, I'll call on you, you know, but that's not the way it works, you know.
And Joseph is a good example. And I think people that go through life and they face disappointments is because sometimes we have expectations, you know, we have goals, we have expectations. And sometimes when those, and we live for those expectations and goals. And when they are not met, then that, that's when the disappointment starts setting is that, well, wait a minute. I thought this was what I was supposed to be doing here.
That dries up your bones. Absolutely. And it's, it's, it's, yeah.
What a beautiful, yeah. Um, yeah, that's pretty exciting. And so you show the steps, you know, Joseph would be a good example of that.
So another one of the stresses that you mentioned, I'm just going to see how good my guesser was last lust. Okay. Yeah.
So I had two main Bible characters immediately came to mind. Right. One of them was kind of, well, they both were strong. Yes.
One of them's a little better with a slingshot, but I figured you were going to go there. Uh, but who did you pick for that one? Well, actually somebody related to him. Okay. So his son Amnon. Oh, wow. That one didn't end too well.
No, it didn't. But remember Amnon lusted after his half sister. Right. Okay. And of course we know that this began with David, the predisposition to act that way. He had this curse on his family. Absolutely.
Sure. Now that doesn't mean that Amnon didn't have a choice, right? He, you know, proactively went that direction, you know, and you, if you read through the scripture and, and actually in the lust, in the lust chapter, I actually have another diagram. It's actually a list of the differences because, you know, it talks about in that passage that he loved her, that he had a love for her, but we know that it wasn't love. So what I do is I distinguish between lust and love and in some of it's alliterative, but it gives the characteristics of what lust is and what love is.
And I love these slides to say, since you can't see his list and I can, I'm going to tell you guys that, man, this is a neat book. It says gradual degree, a degradation versus progressive edification. Progressive. Like look at that. Look at that. And when you know the story of Amnon, Oh my goodness, wasn't, I mean, how in the world after what happened, could he hate her? I mean, that was just one of the heartbreakers of scripture immediately. Right. I mean, it wasn't like, I mean, you know, there wasn't like some time pass.
He was, she was still in the room and had her kicked out of the room. You know, it's just one of the, yeah, one of the things, but that's a beautiful chart. Again, on page 84 of the book is surviving spiritual stress, biblical solutions for overcoming life stress factors. So, you know, a lot of authors have different places they would rather you go to get their books. Where would you have people go get yours? It's actually available anywhere. If you just, if you type in the title in a, in a search engine, uh, you can go to Amazon and get it.
Yes. And so, you know, as always, we'd ask that you not only order the book, but then go back and review it. Authors, it means so much to them for you to, to put in your review and, and, and because especially, um, you know, how many books have you read? This is my first book. So you can imagine, put your heart and soul into a book, you write it out there. And so how you can encourage people to talk about words of life is to, is to take the time to write a review after you get a new book like this. Again, it's surviving spiritual stress. Cliff, you're here at the national religious broadcasters convention because God's given you a vision for something.
And so what would you leave with our listeners that you were hoping you would get to say in this, these interviews that you're doing today? I think one of the things that I've always, it's always been on my heart is, and a lot of people that know me very well would, would agree with this is I have it in my heart that I want to help people, but I found out that you cannot help people that don't want help. You just can't help people. I've learned that the hard way. God has to, but the second, that's right. The second thing is, is you can't help people that won't help on their own terms. Yeah. God learned that one too.
Yeah. So I thought, what kind of, what kind of a way can I use to in, in what kind of mode, mode, what kind of way can I get out when people are suffering from these, these stress factors, how can I get it out where they can have a reference tool when they're suffering from something like this that they can go to? Because this is not, I mean, I think the book is enjoyable because there's lots of illustrations and there's a lot of stories and a lot of things that support the particular stress factors. But one of the things that they can do is they can use it as a reference book, just like the scripture, because it's chock full of scripture, right? And they can read through and the chapters are not long. They're four or five, six pages long.
There's not like I've written an encyclopedia on this particular stress factor. And what they can do is they can read that. They can read it in five minutes, six minutes, and then going to the very source of health, which is the scripture itself. And it's, it's topical so that they don't have to thumb through the Bible, trying to find something that they need. It's just right there for them. So that's the message that I want to get out.
I think the book title is, even though it's, it's kind of like, she, she, she sells seashells by the seashore, you got to a liter of title. It's, it's exactly what it is surviving because we're going to all go through these things. So how do I survive the spiritual stresses?
All right. And again, and go through those, the list of stresses that, that, that are written about in your book again, so that people can relate, say, okay, so we have your fear. Yeah, we have, uh, we have, uh, bitterness, temptation.
Um, I, I can, I can give you the, the, the title of the chapters, which, and because the, the title of the chapters are not the same as, as the, as what the particular, uh, stress factors. The first one is who made you do it, which is temptation. Second is the Bible pill for bitterness. The third one is turn disappointment into his appointment.
Oh, I like that. The fourth one is don't worry about it. Fifth one is fear. What are you afraid of? Six is jealousy. Be satisfied with what you have, not what you don't have. Seven is anger.
Do you have reason to be angry? And that comes from the book of Jonah, obviously. You remember that? And then, yeah, that's right. Oh man. That's a great thing.
Lust is be careful to last what you see and then death facing the final stress. Right. Wow. That's awesome.
Again, the books are reviving spiritual stress. Dr. Cliff Sims. So awesome to talk with you here today. Thank you, Robbie. Good to be with you.
Same here. All right. Bye. Bye.
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-09-23 03:47:06 / 2023-09-23 03:52:52 / 6