NRB Chronicals 2022 - No Longer Mere Mortals

Jesus said, Blessed are the persecuted and they are suffering big time right now. This is Bible League International and 19-year-old Aria was beaten by her own father and violated by local authorities.

You know what her crime was? Simply that she gave her life to Jesus Christ after leaving radical Islam. They need Bibles in order to endure and persevere. And that's why Truth Network and Bible League are teamed up to send God's Word to 3500 persecuted believers around the world at $5 a Bible, $100 Synth 20, call 800-YES-WORD, 800-YES-WORD, 800-YES-WORD, or give at truthnetwork.com. So, oh, I gotta tell you that I just sometimes wonder, I shouldn't be pinched to be so blessed that God would allow me to be on the convention floor, the National Religious Broadcasters Convention, and meet so many amazingly gifted people that know God in so many unique, wonderful ways. And they have perspectives that just really marvel, I marvel at what God's challenged them to do, what the adventures that they've gone on with God. And I have such in front of me, Carrick Butler. And Carrick is a pastor of a fairly significant church, it sounds like in Georgia, but he's also a podcaster.

What's the name of your podcast, Carrick? Faith in the Morning. I love that. Faith in the Morning. Do you come out every morning? Every morning. Monday through Friday, every morning, to help you start your day with faith and encouragement.

So Faith in the Morning, and you're on Spotify and Apple. And so how long is Faith in the Morning? How long does that usually go? My goal is about five to seven minutes, just to really help you to start your day. I'm a coffee person, so it's enough for you to get your coffee ready while you're listening to it, or while you're driving, getting going, to help you start your day with faith and encouragement. So if you're like me, I do it daily also.

Usually, the goal was to be seven minutes, but every once in a while I go along like 10, and then every once in a while I run out at about six. Yeah, I understand. But I love it. I love it.

And there's nothing like having that. So if you're like me, God gave you something cool this morning, and now you get to share that. Yes. So He gave you Faith in the Morning.

Yes. Have you ever heard, I think this is more than amazing, that when King David, you know, was king, that he would, and it says this in the 119th Psalm, it says, I rise at midnight to establish praise because of thy righteous judgment. So that's the verse. And then he talks about later that he rises before midnight to prevent the night watches. That he had this like miraculous alarm clock. That he had this harp that he would hang in such a way that when the wind changed at midnight, because the wind's going one direction before, and we're talking about midnight in reality, not midnight by the clock. Yeah, we're talking about at one point in time, you're exactly in the middle of the night. And now the sun begins to come up. And when that would happen, it would blow the wind through this harp. It would wake him up.

And as that Psalm said, he rose at midnight to establish praise. Wow. Wow. Right. Yeah.

And he and people in Jerusalem, from what they say, would hear him singing and like, well, if King David can get up at this early, you know, I can get up at five. Yeah. Or whatever. And so how cool is that, that you and I both, you know, I think we share that. Like, God gives us something really cool.

So before we get to your book, and I know we got to get to it, but tell me, like, what has God given you recently that you just feel like, man, I get to share this this morning? Well, one of the things I was doing recently, I was encouraging people to talk back because, you know, talk back to like teach kids, don't talk back. But there's some situation when they talk back to you. Like, you know, in Mark 11 when Jesus walked by the fig tree, one verse says, and he answered the fig tree. Now there are things, there are situations, circumstances that they talk to us in all the ways.

The recent thing is when gas prices went up, those signs talk a lot. But the thing is we can either go into fear or we can remember what the scripture tells us. We can remember that God is still provider. That's his name. We still remember he's our shepherd.

We can still remember his promises of provision in the scripture. We can talk back and say, you know what? I know gas is going up.

I know inflation is a problem. I know all these things are going on, but you know what? My God is my shepherd.

I shall not want. You know what? He knew gas prices were going up. He still has a plan for my life. And so I encourage people to talk back instead of going into worry or anxiety, but talk back. What did God promise you? What is God saying? And in those moments, like Paul said, turn to prayer. And so instead of carrying the care, turn to prayer in those moments, like it tells us in Philippians. Yeah. I don't, I don't know if you're familiar with John Eldridge's ministry out of Colorado, but I love what he often says about that.

And as soon as you said that it lit up my world. Cause I was thinking, yeah, that's one of the coolest things is to ask God, ask Jesus specifically the second question, like you feel like he just told you, you know, that you need to go, you know, talk to your wife and apologize for that. And rather than just say, okay, well, I need to go apologize. Ask the second and third question, like, well, when would be good to do that?

Like, how would you have me lead in with that God? Like, See, that's wisdom. A lot of times we've just run off and do stuff and they didn't, he wants to be asked. He has wisdom for us. Wisdom comes from him.

That's what promises wisdom comes from his mouth, but we have to ask the questions and God is not afraid of our questions. He actually likes our questions because he has so much. He wants to share so much.

He wants to pour into his children. Right. Right. And so when you said that I immediately thought, yeah, that is a gift. It's a truly, it's a gift to stop and say, okay, I sense you tell me to do that. Yeah. But now I help me.

Yeah. And I think if he will help us, it's like what Jesus said again and again, in John 14, 15, and 16, that the Holy spirit is our helper. And so the thing is, that's an honest prayer. You know, like he says in the gospel, he said, help my unbelief. That is an honest prayer. I teach people, Hey, you're struggling. Ask God to help you.

That is honest. Don't pretend when you come into the presence of God. The presence of God is not the place for you to pretend. The presence of God is for you to be real. God, I need your help here. And here's where faith comes in that by the time I'm praying, I believe God heard me.

So I believe I have the right to be real. I believe I have the help and I can do what I need to do, but we have to be honest when we come to God. We have to be honest and ask for help and he will help us. So let me tell a story since, you know, I just, it flipped a switch in me that I was like, yeah, this is so helpful.

It's really, really, really helpful that I had this friend I sold cars with for years and years and years. His name was Johnny Hendricks. And I won't go into the whole story of how I should have shared Christ with him a lot earlier, but essentially he ended up in this coma and he was dying. And his family called me and they actually wanted me to go in there and pray and I'm praying and I'm like, Oh man, God, please. And they're wanting to pull the plug on it because he's no brainer.

He has a diabetic coma that was caused by pancreatic cancer. And so I went out to my favorite place to pray. And I don't know that I've done this a lot and I don't necessarily recommend it, but I just made a deal with God. I just said, God, if you will give Johnny some more time, I promise you, I will either introduce him to you if he doesn't know you or help him to get to know you better if he doesn't. And so one day, two day, three day, four days, he, a couple of times they're wanting to pull the plug and they're friends of mine.

I'm like, do not do that. I just, since God is going to do something four days, he sits up straight in the bed. Okay.

Yeah. Now this is a proud man and I've been knowing him for a long time and he just isn't the kind of person I could talk to. Like I didn't know how to share Christ with him. So when he sits up in the bed, I'm like, okay, I got to go pray. Cause I know God did his part of it, but I really don't know how to share you with. So I go out at the exact same place. I'm like, God, I'm now I'm at a loss. I like you did it, man.

I think that's unbelievable. What do I say? How do I get, how do I reach him? I don't want to just talk to him. I don't want to beat him over the head with the Bible.

I want to say something that's effective. And God gave me this wisdom. Unbelievable. Yeah. He says, because he knew I'm a car salesman.

Yeah. And he said, Robbie, Johnny is a car salesman. And that's all he had to say to me because immediately I knew what he was saying. He was saying Robbie to a car salesman, a deal is a deal. That's good.

And so I go back in Johnny Hendricks, Davie County, North Carolina. He's got his ball cap on. He's sitting there. Cool guy. So I'm like, Johnny, what Robbie? And I said, well, I made a deal with God. What kind of deal did you make with God, Robbie?

Well, I made this deal that if he would bring you out of this coma, that I would either introduce you to him or help you to get to know him better. And I'll never forget his words. As long as I live, he looked at me and he said, Robbie, you better get to it.

Wow. I mean, that was his exact words. He didn't say, yeah, I'd like to introduce me. He just said, well, whatever it is you're supposed to do, you better get to it. Cause he knew.

A deal is a deal. So I started out in the Gospel of John. We started doing a Bible study for like three weeks. One day I come up to his house after he got out of the hospital and cars were everywhere. And I think he's died. You're a pastor.

You understand when you see cars, I'm like, oh man, this can't be good. But instead his house is full of people. Another pastor friend of mine. Well, I'm not a pastor. This pastor friend of mine was there. And as soon as I walk in the door, he said, Johnny, tell him what's happened. He said, man, you know, yesterday, how you came in, we talked about how Lazarus, the whole story about how God is a resurrection. And you talked about four days late, but right on time. And I said, yeah. And he said, well, my sister came in right after you left and she plops in a CD by the gators four days late, but right in time. Wow.

And I realized that was me. Yeah. And he accepted Christ and he called this pastor and he came over and like, man, yeah, Johnny died two weeks later. Okay. But, oh, what a life he lived for those two weeks. Yeah. And there's no explaining all that that went into all that.

But I said all that taking up all your time, but I'm going to make this a double long episode because that was the kind of thing that stuck in my mind. Like, you know, you don't always have to have, if you don't have the answer, I didn't know how to share Christ with him, but man, God gave me the stuff. Yeah, he did. It's the wisdom of God. Right. It's, you know, it's what I call like in the book about having a mind of Christ.

Now I have computers and, um, cell phones have operating systems. Believers have to operate on the mind of Christ, the wisdom of God, that God has wisdom. I love reading through the book of Proverbs.

I go through it so many times a year because it's wisdom for everyday life. You know, you mentioned Psalm 119 earlier, and this is a scripture that I held onto during 2020. It says, the entrance of his word gives light or another tries to down folding up his word. So when I saw that, so I said, if it's the entrance of his word gives light, it gives understanding to the simple.

That means I can be innovative and I can know what to do. And so when I read the word of God, I'm expecting to have insight, not just into the word, but into life because he gives wisdom. Like he gave you that example of how to talk, what exactly to say that is wisdom.

That is exactly what you need at the moment. You have the knowledge, the wisdom is the correct application of that knowledge. And God wants every single Christian to operate in wisdom. He doesn't just me or you to do it. He wants all of us.

It's available to all of us. That's what Proverbs is for is from his mouth comes with wisdom. And we have to operate by this wisdom of God in these days. Right.

Which how cool is this? Cause the name of Derek's book, I mean, Carrick's book, I'm sorry, the name of Carrick's book. Now that we get to that is actually no longer mere mortals, seven secrets to living the supernatural life, which is a lot of what you're talking about, right? Right. Because when we think about David and Goliath and David, you know, when people talk about David and Goliath, they're talking about, well, you know, David was the underdog, but as soon as he stepped on the field, he was not the underdog. He was already anointed to be king. He had a covenant with God. He knew God, he was not the underdog.

As soon as he stepped on that field, he was the champion. And so many of us have Goliaths in our life today, but Goliath has to fall because we're not the underdog. We have a relationship with God. And as soon as we're born again, we're no longer a mere mortal. As Paul, as Peter says, we are born again from the incorruptible seat of the word of God. As you said in John three, we're born from above.

It's also translated. So something happened to us as soon as we were born again, and we have to stop, start operating differently, stop thinking of ourselves before, as before we were born again, but seeing ourselves as the Bible sees us. And that's one of the things with this whole purpose of the book, help us to change our mindset, to see ourselves as God sees us, to see ourselves as the Bible sees us so that we can do what God has called us to do.

And we can reach people. We can bring people to the kingdom of God because we're not limiting ourselves to our own way of thinking or walking into the way the Bible says we should see. So like, wow, you can tell, man, I talked to Carrick for the next four days, but just, you know, I open up this book and I'm not shocked at all to see that the opening secret number one is hunger. You got that from a sermon somewhere like the one on the mountain. If you hunger and thirst after righteousness, you will be filled. You have to hunger for this. You have to hunger for wisdom. You have to hunger for the life that God has for you.

Because think about this, it's natural. If you're hungry, you will rearrange your schedule to eat. If you're a little hungry, you'll get a snack, but if you're really hungry, you'll go get a big meal.

You'll get what you want. And the thing is, if you really hunger after the things of God and what God has for you and for wisdom, then you will rearrange your schedule to pray. You'll rearrange your schedule to read the word. You'll rearrange your schedule to tell people about Jesus because you're hungry.

And that's what has to set our priorities, hunger for God, hunger for his ways, hunger for his righteousness. And that's how we begin the journey into the superhuman life. So really, really cool. I mean, really, really cool. And again, he was talking about the verse in the pay section, which has to do with God's face and the light that's coming.

So when he says the entrance, I mean, it's like he's turning his face towards you and you get a chance to see this. Yeah. Okay.

As he did that for the Jews in the desert, you may know that often there's a correlation between Torah or the Bible and the manna. Yeah. Right.

And so talk about hunger. Yeah. I don't know if you've ever heard this, but I love to listen to rabbis lecture. And so they know some stuff about this that I think is really beyond cool.

Yeah. What they teach, the reason that the Jews were upset about the man in the desert was this stuff was so pure, like they talk about in the 119 Psalm, that like thy word is pure, therefore thy servant loveth it. It's so pure that the second they put it in their mouth, their bodies ingested, they didn't never make it to the stomach, so they never got full.

I mean, it had everything their bodies needed the second they put it in their mouth. Interesting. Wow. Okay. Yeah.

The challenge with that is like any good carb, the second you eat it, you hunger for more. Yeah. Well, think about that when it comes to the word of God. Yeah. Like it is pure. Yeah. It is pure to the point that when you take it at the simple, right? And immediately it's ingested when you get it, like, oh my goodness, your body gets all that it needs with no draws.

It's 100% pure. Yeah. And it comes with the side benefit of hungering for more. Yeah.

And I have never met anybody. I've yet to meet the person that said, well, I sat down to read the Bible and then I quit. Yeah. Like, once they begin to get that word, you know, once they begin to, that it develops this hunger and like the more they get, the more they want and how awesome like hunger is the gift of gifts.

Yeah. And one of the things that helps people hunger is when they understand that there's more, because a lot of people think, especially if they've been saved for a while, well, I've seen everything. No, you haven't. There's no way to exhaust the almighty God, one who's more than enough. It's like, we think like, oh, I've seen something.

Yeah. You've seen something, but there's still more. He's our shepherd. We shall not lack. We shall not want.

He's the almighty God. He has more for us. And that's one of the things I talk about with hunger. There's more, you might experience some great things, but there's still more. You might've experienced miracles.

Great. But there's still more. We can't just say, well, I've arrived.

We haven't arrived. There's still more. And by the time we get to heaven, we'll still be learning. It's like, oh man, there's more. That's the character of our God.

He's more than enough. Oh, that is exactly right. And interestingly, and you may know this, that the word more has to do with the letter Mem, which also has to do with Christ because M Messiah. Yeah.

Okay. Well, if you look in the 119th Psalm, under the Mem section, you'll notice it says, I have more wisdom than mine enemies, right? Because of thy commandment, I have more wisdom.

I have more understanding than all my teachers. It's more, more, more. And that is the messianic message. Like, man, it's more, and it's more, and it's more. And therein lies the beauty of what you're like, man, it's just beyond beautiful. So you can see, we are no longer mere mortals.

And I can tell you right now, you need to be listening to Faith in the Morning. And you need to pick up this book. Is it at Amazon and everywhere? It's where every book is sold. So Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Books-A-Million, Mardel's, Target, Walmart, wherever books are sold.

No longer mere mortals. And then do you guys have a, some people might be in Atlanta and they need a church. So what's the name of your church? Our church is called Faith Christian Center.

Our main campus is located in Austell, Georgia, but we also have campuses in Fayetteville, Georgia, Marietta, Georgia, and Duluth, Georgia. Wow. How cool is that? You've been pastor for eight years.

You can see why, like God has called him with an amazing thing. And then if you've got a website. Yes. You can reach us at fccga.com. FCC. I bet the GA has to do with Georgia. Yeah. Faith Christian Center, Georgia.

So fccga.com. Exactly. What a joy, man. What an awesome thing to be able to spend time with you. That's what I say. I said our being Chronicles blow my mind.

It's like, Oh God, look what you, look what you're doing in Georgia. So cool. Thank you for spending time with us. Thank you for this opportunity. You're welcome. Thank you.