What Does Your Ministry Look Like?

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This is kind of a great thing, and I'll tell you what. Where pop culture, current events, and theology all come together. Speak your mind. And now, here's today's Truth Talk Live host. What does your ministry look like?

Well, I'm not a pastor.

Well, I'm not, I don't lead a church. If you are a Christian. You all have a ministry. Is every believer a minister? Do you see your work as worship?

Do you see your marketplace as ministry? We want your calls 866. 348-788-4-866-34 Truth. This is Michael's Wick. You know what?

I've been thinking about this a lot. You know, I think sometimes we see the lead pastor or the assistant pastor or the associate pastor or the worship leader.

Well, they're in the ministry, but I'm not. Every single one of you Have been given your set of gifts that the Lord has given you. And you have an opportunity. To be able to share those gifts and help other people. And you see, we're not here to belittle the church.

We invite people to the church. We want them to come and learn and grow and be around other people. But what is your ministry? I don't care who you are. We all have a ministry.

You know, and as I look at this, I'm thinking about Romans chapter 12. And I'm looking at Romans 12, verse 5. It says, So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and everyone members of one another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy, according to the proportion of faith, or ministry, let us wait on our ministering, or he that teacheth on teaching, or he that exhorteth on teaching. On exhortation, he that giveth, let him do it with simplicity.

He that ruleth with diligence, he that showeth mercy. with cheerfulness. What is your ministry? We've got a mic. out of Tennessee.

Mike Shreve out of Tennessee. Are you there, Mike? Are you there, Mike? Hey there. Hey, Mike.

Let me welcome to the show today, but I wanted to ask you: what is your ministry? Yeah, can you hear me? I don't know if you can hear me. Can you hear me, Mike? But we're asking people what their ministry looks like.

And we can hear you, Mike.

So I don't know if you can hear me or not, but that's what we're asking. What does your ministry look like?

Can you hear us?

Okay. Anyways, I guess we'll wait for there's something going on with his phone or whatever, but we're going to have other people call in as well.

So we've got Mike who called back in. He's calling in right now. But what does your ministry look like? And while they're waiting on Mike, this is what I wanted to tell you. I don't care what you do.

I don't care what you've got going on in your life. You. Can be a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ. You know, I have sold life insurance now for 22 years. And in the time that I've been selling life insurance, one of the things that I've learned is that my work is my greatest ministry.

And I remember when I was growing up, I heard Charles Stanley, he used to talk about that. He said, your workplace where you work is your greatest ministry because you're able to see people one-on-one. Yes, you can invite them to church, and that's a good thing. There's nothing wrong with that. But you've got to realize that there's some people that you see at your work who are never going to darken the door of a church building.

And you are going to be the only church that they ever see in their lives. And so on this past Sunday, we actually did an outreach ministry with a group that we meet at every Wednesday morning, or Wednesday night, I'm sorry, in Prospect Hill. And we all went out there. We passed out tracts. We prayed for people.

We were the hands and the feet of Jesus. And I remember there was a woman named Jackie who really stood out to me on Sunday. And she said, it was like her mouth had hit the ground. And she said, I can't believe it.

Somebody's actually talking to me about Jesus in a Walmart. She said nobody's ever done this before. But you see, the sad thing is, is people see people like that all the time who are Jehovah's Witnesses. They see people like that all of the time who are Mormons. But see, regular people, just like Michael Zwick, there's nothing special about me.

I'm not the pastor of a church. I'm not slick or smooth or anything like that. But I've got the good news of Jesus Christ. And I've got a Mike Shreve. Are you there, Mike?

Can you hear me this time, Mike? Hello. We can hear you. Can you hear me? Hello.

Can you hear us now? Can you not hear us? Hello there. Yeah, well, I can hear you if you want to go ahead. But if not, we've got a John out of North Carolina.

Can you hear me, John? Can you hear me, John? I can't. I don't know. It must be something on their side.

But this is what I was going to tell you. No matter what you've got going on, you can work at it yourself. And so, you know, there was a my wife had actually told me one time, she said that motherhood is my ministry. Motherhood is my ministry. And she's actually got a shirt on, and it says that motherhood is her ministry.

And I said, What do you mean by that? She said, My job is to raise up godly, God-fearing children who love the Lord Jesus Christ and who are going to make disciples of all nations. You see, Mike, I go out there myself, and I go out and I share the gospel, and I'm on the radio, and I do this stuff on social media and all that stuff. And she's more quiet, but does that mean that her ministry is any less than mine? Absolutely not.

It's not at all. It's no less at all than my ministry is. And so, this is what I'm telling you. I don't care what you're doing. You have an obligation and you have a purpose in life.

We talked about that last week. You know, I have a friend of mine named Tony Jackson. Who had Tony Jackson? Who had I talked to him earlier, and I said, Tony, what is your ministry? What does your ministry look like?

And he's going, Well, I don't really have a ministry. And I said, Well, hold on just a second. I said, what are you talking about? You don't have a ministry. I said, you do have a ministry.

Your ministry is, you do prison ministry. He goes, oh, yeah, I forgot about that. It's kind of a big thing, right? I mean, he goes out once a week and he meets with people who are in prison. And they bring them to a room, they meet together, they share the gospel with them, they love them.

You talk about a ministry, that's in the Bible right there. That's in the Bible. It tells us to visit the people who are in prison just like we were in prison ourselves. And then I started to say to him as well: I said, Tony, I said, think about what else you do. I said, you have a ministry where you do every Saturday morning, or almost every Saturday morning, at 8 a.m., and you host a show, and it's called Now Try Jesus Ministries on Like the Triad, the Truth Network sister station.

So I don't care what you've got going on. I don't care what you think you're doing. You may think that what you're doing right now is insignificant, but God sees you. God sees what you're doing. I don't care if you're the pastor of a church.

I don't care if you're a mother who is raising godly children. I don't care if you're a mechanic who hands out tracts to people and tell them that Jesus loves them. I don't care what you're doing. You have a purpose. And don't let anybody ever belittle you or don't let anybody ever belittle what you're doing because they think it's not, you're not the leader of a church.

You're not the pastor of a church. It doesn't matter. What matters is, is are you doing what the Lord has asked you to do? You know what says in the Old Testament? It says, Give me neither poverty nor riches.

He says, so if I'm too poor, then I'll be forced to steal, right? And I'll profane the name of the Lord, but don't give me too much. He says, because if I have too much, then I may look around and say, who is the Lord? I did this all on my own. Yeah.

But you know what? You've got an opportunity right now. to minister wherever you are. Wherever you are, and the biggest lie that the devil can tell you is that God can use somebody else, but He's not going to use you. That is the biggest lie that the devil could tell you, but it's not true.

For it is by grace we are saved through faith. It is the gift of God, not anything that we've done of ourselves, so that nobody can boast. I know that because I've been forgiven and I've been loved by Jesus and I've been saved by grace, that I can share that good news with somebody else. I don't have to be a pastor. I don't have to be a foreign missionary.

I can do it myself. 866-348-7884-866-34TRUTH. We'll be right back and we want your calls. God bless you. We'll be right back.

All right, guys, we are back and we've got the owner of the Truth Network. We've got Stu Epperson right here in the radio station.

So let me ask you a question, Stu. Let me ask you a question. What does your ministry look like to you? What does your ministry look like to you? And I think they're getting this set up.

I don't know. Are we still waiting? The ministry Of the idea that everyone's a minister, I mean, the idea really goes back to one of the key Reformation. Axioms of The priesthood of the believer. You know, that we can go directly to God.

We don't have to have an intermediary. There's one intermediary. Between God and man, that's Jesus Christ. And so, honestly, as a believer, everything I'm involved with, everything my hand finds to do, I do with all my might. to the glory of God.

Colossians 3.23. I do heartily as unto the Lord, as unto the Lord, and not unto men. And so sometimes we forget that. We kind of become myopic or become nearsighted. Right.

And from a pastor's perspective, I love pastors, and I talk to pastors all the time in the The the common They want their people to step up. And they are equippers. You know, Ephesians 4:12, equipping the saints.

So the pastor is the super discipler. Paul discipled Timothy, who discipled other men. If you look at 2 Timothy 2, verse 2, he said, The things you've learned from me, you teach other men who will teach others also.

So there's four generations of discipleship in that one verse. And so. At the end of the day Michael, if you're out there listening, Your pastor is not doing brain surgery. Your pastor is not teaching. elementary school.

Your pastor is not an interpreter. Down at the clinic, you know, where there's folks that don't speak English that's helping interpret, your pastor can't be a PA, he can't swing a wrench, yank a wrench, and be a mechanic underneath the car. He doesn't work at the plant, he's not in textiles. But guess what? You are.

Yeah. And so when he pours into you, he's reaching the football team you're coaching. When he pours the word deep into you, so the model that God gave us is the pastor feeds the flock, he goes deep in the word. That's right. He's studying 15, 20 hours a week for his sermons to just go deep in that word.

He's feeding the flock. He's discipling them. There's one-on-one. There's times, you know, Sunday morning, there's men he's doing breakfast with to pour into. And then he is, in effect, going into those hospitals, going to those schools, going to those textile plants.

He is, in effect, going into those maternity rooms with young moms who are pouring into that. That's the greatest ministry of all time. That's right. Where would any of us be? Where would that pastor be if it weren't for mom pouring into us, right?

And so. Every one of us is a minister. The marketplace is an amazing ministry. I think it was Billy Graham says the greatest mission. Front in the 20th, 21st century is the marketplace.

That's right. Your job, because you might be the only Jesus to ever read. You know, Howard Hendricks, a great professor of Dallas Seminary, he was teaching a class, and one of his students came up to him afterward, just really sad, crestfallen, just upset. He said, Dr. Hendricks, I don't know what to do here.

He said, I work at a plant, probably 500 people. I'm kind of slugging my way through seminary, trying to get my degree. I'm working hard. He said, Dr. Hendricks, there's probably not one believer.

He said, I'm probably the only believer in that whole. operation over there. He says, How do I quit? What's a good way to just tell my boss I'm done? How do I get out of there?

And Dr. Henry said, Hold on a second, buddy. Hold the phone. He said, you mean God has entrusted you with 500 souls to lead to Christ. You are in a beautiful position, young man.

Go back there and let your light shine. And I'll tell you how you let your light shine. You let your light shine by being to work on time or early. You let your sight shine by being, don't, you know, by clocking out at the right time. You let your light shine by working the hard, working the most efficient, being diligent.

Look at Joseph in the Bible. Look at Daniel. These men were faithful at their post. Look at Lydia. She made the best fabrics of purple.

Look at Paul. He made the best tents for the glory of God. And look at all the people you can bring to Christ by working excellently.

So it doesn't mean you clock off or you cut out of work in the middle of the day. Or you stand on your cubicle and you preach the gospel loudly and interrupt everyone's workflow. No, it means you go in intentionally. Asking God to open the doors, you know, permission-based evangelism is powerful. You say, Lord, open the door.

And you know what's gonna happen?

Someone's life is gonna get sideways. And you're the only guy they know that has a little Bible verse at your desk. You're the only guy they know that happens to see, that happens to have a relationship with God. And they say, Hey, listen, I just lost my mom. Or hey, I just got this diagnosis.

Who else do they turn to? And that's a great golden opportunity. They're asking you.

Well, and I like what you said, Stu, about you work hard. You know, most people go and they do their jobs and they do just barely enough. to get by. And that's all they do, or whatever. And then you try to tell somebody about Jesus and say, and they may say to you, why would I want to listen to you about Jesus?

You slack off at your job. Or, you know, hey, I'm going to tell you about Jesus, but I know that you're cheating on your wife or you're cheating on your husband and you're cheating on your taxes. You know, I heard somebody say one time, Stu, they said that you can't sell a dream if you're living a nightmare. That's exactly right. You can't sell a drink.

And we've got some callers on the phone. We've got a, I think we've got a Todd. He was waiting first. Can you hear us, Todd? Hello?

Can you hear us?

Hey, Todd, welcome to the show.

Okay. All right.

Well, callers can't hear us, but we can hear them loudly. Yeah, we can hear the callers. Let me say this: if you call in, we'll bring you on. Yeah. And then just start sharing what's on your heart.

That's right. So if we've got some callers waiting, we can hear you. They can hear you, but you just get on and you share your heart. And I know Manuel was good at this. He's out of cross-exchange.

Are you there, Manuel?

Okay. Well, we'll get them on, but I just really want to keep tracking on this idea. Yeah. Michael, because I really believe that, you know, Fred Hagee, it breaks my heart when he shares a statistic that like 90% of believers have never led someone to Christ. Mm-hmm.

So imagine if every believer And imagine if every person that went to work Mm-hmm. That's truly a Christian. If they were just Ask God. Just pray. Don't look for some.

mechanical Or or You know, don't look for some procedural Or some model or some template. Just pray, God, show me a way today to intentionally. share Jesus to intentionally tell people about you. And if that would happen, it would transform the workplace.

Well, and I believe it was your friend J.D. Greer who when we went to his church years ago when we lived in Durham, and he said this, he said, Who is your one? You know, we say, I'm going to go share the gospel with a thousand people, or I'm going to knock on a hundred thousand doors. You know, we set these big goals that we know are not attainable. And then, after about the first few days, we throw up our hands and we say, We can't do this.

You know, I had a friend of mine named Nanette who used to, she would tell me, I said, What are you doing to share the gospel? She said, Mike, this is what I want you to do. She said, I want you to pray for one person each day. You know, if you've got to start off with that, if you've got to talk to one person and, you know, share the gospel, if you say, hey, I don't know what I'm going to share. I don't know what I'm going to say.

Then, Stu, I know you've talked about this. You could share your testimony. What happened to you? That's the greatest thing. John chapter 9, what the guy says who was healed?

He says, Hey, look, look, all I know is this. I don't know all this theology. He says, I don't even know who really Jesus is totally, but I know this. I was blind. I was lost.

I was in darkness.

Now I can see. Yeah. This is real. And so you effectively can share that.

Some of the most effective evangelists, the Samaritan woman. She didn't have theology training. She had a very Messed up life. If anyone was dysfunctional, she was. All these marriages, all these broken relationships.

But next thing you know, She empties the whole town. Yeah. To come to bring to Jesus in John chapter 4.

So, just again, come see the man who told me everything I ever did. Yeah. And it transformed that whole area. Go ahead. Yeah.

And they say the phones are working.

So I've got my friend Tony Jackson. Are you there, Tony? I'm good to go. I'm good. All right.

We're in here, buddy. What do you think about this? What's your thought on this thing, man?

Well to be honest enough and let me First. First, say this part right here. I thank all for you guys at the radio station with this ministry that you're sharing. On going, but uh Salvation of many. God's destiny.

And it's awesome and stuff just to think that we can be a part of what God is calling us all to do. Yeah, my part in I call the ministry of this right here. I'm involved with what you call Project Ministry, as Mike said earlier, stuff. Thank God for Mike. in his ministry, but I'm also involved in a lot of groups That share Jesus and reach out to those that are in prison.

Five minutes free. Oh, like there's so much stuff that I just do out of obedience and don't even realize that it is a minute.

Well, Antonio, I'm going to tell you: if you can hold on for just a second, we're going to get you on the way back. But 866-348-7884, the phones are working again, so call in now. We've got Stu Upperson, the owner of the Truth Network, here with us. We'll be right back. Okay, call back to the talk line.

All right, guys, we are back. What does your ministry. look like and I'm going to try to put it in the order of people who called in. I've got a manufacturer Out of Burlington, and can you put Daniel on as well? It's funny, they called in at the same time because they're both in the same ministry.

Can you guys tell us about your ministry? Dan, you want to start first, brother? Sure. Yes. Hi, Mike.

So, can you hear us? Because I'm hearing myself. I can hear you just fine. Just go ahead and talk. You're good.

Okay. Yes. So Emmanuel and I serve in a ministry known as CrossExchange in Elon, North Carolina to students and the larger university community there, reaching them with the gospel of Christ. Apologetics and reaching them through worldview engagement. Would you like to share any other uh information on that manual on your end?

Yeah. Um, foundational to our ministry, we really want to reach the campus life and the students and the folks in the community in a very big, impactful way. Um and we've been doing that for quite a while now. And Daniel and I have been a really great team and it's been a great joy to just do evangelism, apologetic, trying to really cultivate disciples for the kingdom of God. And our next big visit is a Christian study center.

Oh my goodness, man. And you guys have some amazing stories of where you just started sharing the gospel with people. And maybe at first it didn't look like it was going to go anywhere, but I'm sure you kept praying, you kept talking to the people, and eventually the Lord showed up. Is that right? That is right.

We had the opportunity many times to share with students that are nonbelievers of other faiths With Jewish students and Muslim students, we were able to share the gospel, the resurrection of Christ, the first time before they had ever heard of that. And so being able to ex uh express the gospel and express biblical truth to a I I you know students can emb um And individuals that have never experienced Christ or heard the gospel is a great blessing. That's awesome. And if people want to learn more about your ministry or if they want to donate, because as they used to tell us, there's no nation like Donation, they can go, what is your website? Yes, the website is crossexchange.org.

It's C-R-O-S-S-X. D H A N G E dot org. Guys, I want to thank you guys for calling in. And you guys do something. Do you still do the Thursday night thing?

Yeah. We do. Would you share about that menu? Yeah. Um, we we would be uh changing that a little bit coming up semester.

We're probably going to do one something different every other week.

So for one week, we're going to probably have the Bible study. We're still debating if we're going to keep that on Thursday or not, but stay in tune for that. But every other week we're going to have a uh a book club. And we're excited to be see how we're going to navigate what book we're going to choose and how we're going to equip the students to really engage with the content of the book. But those two options are a great way for people to get involved, discipleship and to really learn more about Gospel Strife.

Awesome. And so you can go on Facebook and cross X, like the letter X change. You can find it on, you guys are on Instagram. You guys are on anywhere else. Facebook.

Yes. And Instagram, Facebook, and our website. And your website, which is cross exchange, crossexchange.org. And I want to thank you guys for calling in. Thank you.

Yes, sir. I've got a Todd Felkel out of McLean'sville, North Carolina. Todd, what does your ministry look like? Can you hear me, Todd? Uh-oh.

Are we having an issue with the phone with Todd? I guess we can't hear him. But, all right, we've got a Christie out of Mebben, North Carolina. Can you hear us, Christy? Hey, can you hear me?

I sure can.

So, Christy Real is actually part of a ministry that I'm a part of as well. We meet every Wednesday night over in Prospect Hill, and we have seen the Lord moving, but I was telling them a little bit earlier, Christy, about how we went out to the Walmart this past Sunday. Yes, we did. And we had Such a good hand. We met Yeah.

all kinds of folks, pray for all kinds of votes. Yeah, and when one of the people, I think I lost you for a second, but I was telling them about a lady named Jackie who was shocked. She said nobody had ever, nobody had ever talked to her about Jesus before, but she said it was so interesting. I met another couple of, it was just a couple of older ladies who were at the front of Walmart just sitting there. And I asked them if they needed prayer.

And they just were so on fire and so excited that somebody was telling them about Jesus and somebody was praying for him. And one of the ladies, she actually said this. She said, I am looking for a place to go deeper into the word of God. And I shared with her, you know, the Truth Network. I shared with her my website and stuff like that where she could follow or she could follow me on Facebook.

And so I tried to give her some tools. But, you know, I think sometimes, Christy, can you hear me? Yep, I can hear you.

Okay, I thought I lost you for a second, but I think sometimes we think it's going to be a whole lot harder than it actually is. Yeah, I think sometimes we do.

Sometimes we just have to get out of our own way and go. And but really our confidence is in the Lord alone. And sometimes I think What Sorry, I'm getting feedback, so it's throwing me off a little bit. Just keep talking. I can hear you.

You're good.

Can you hear me? Yep, I can hear you.

Here we go.

Sorry. Um no, what I was saying is that Sometimes we forget The ministry to the Son of God alone. That we get so busy ministering for God that we forget to minister to God. Ooh, that's good. What what do you mean by that exactly?

I think sometimes that That What people have had a revelation that Christ is the Lord and there's a call to ministry That they just pursue the ministry and pursue telling everybody about Jesus. and we forget to go to the secret place and burn. And let God just love us and and fill our cup and And it's a overflow of that that you actually administer out of. Yeah. It is.

And Christy, I know this happened to me after we saw the big victory over at Walmart, where, you know, we were excited. We were praying for people. We were sharing the gospel, handing out tracts, just doing some big things. And we saw God doing some big things. I know I personally felt like I was getting attacked, but you said that I wasn't the only person in the group who that happened to.

Yeah, I you know, it's so funny after After there's any kind of move of God, you know, I feel like these demons just come up. They just try to harass you a little bit. Yes, part of it. You just move them out of the way and just keep going anyway. You do, and I know you've been through your fair share of adversity, right, Christy?

Yeah. I feel like I live in adversity. What do you mean? How so? Yeah.

Well, I think You know, there's always going to be giants in the promised land until you kick them out. And when you're advancing territory and you're taking back the kingdom, advancing the kingdom of heaven, destroying the works of the devil. You're going to be a round devil when you're taking that territory that they occupy. That's just the bottom line. And when you're dealing with people that are occupied by devils, You're gonna deal you're gonna deal with certain Irritate.

You are, you know, it's funny. I've been doing this for a while. I don't remember a time, maybe there was, where I'm taking the phone calls like I have been today, and the people just can't hear me say anything. But I think it's interesting that it comes up as a day as today where we're talking about what do you do in your personal ministry? Because, Christy, I think a lot of people out there just think or they just say, Hey, that's the pastor's job.

I go to church, I give him my money, and I leave the church, and I've done everything that I'm supposed to do. But the truth is, to me, my ministry begins once I leave the church. Once I go to work, my work is a ministry. When I go sell insurance, I'm able to share the gospel. When I go to the grocery store, I'm able to share the gospel.

I think one of the biggest lies that the devil will tell Christians is this is only for the pastor, but each individual Christian has their own ministry that they can do. That's exactly right. And the pastor's job And along with the five Paul, the apostle, prophet, preacher, teacher, evangelist. The purpose is to equip the saints to do the work of ministry.

So one person Can't do it all. They can't get them all. And certain people have access It can reach people that other people can't. That's true. And so I think we've seen this when we meet on Wednesday nights.

that there are many different members of the body But we all have a specific purpose. You know, and when I look at, I. When I look at 1 Corinthians chapter 12, It says now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren. I would not have you ignorant. You know.

That you were Gentiles carried away unto these dumb idols, even as you were led. But then he says, Now there are diversities of gifts. But the same spirit. And you've been talking about this recently as well about the different gifts. Yeah, we do we have been talking about gifts, and I personally believe that gifts are more called than talk.

And as soon as people realize that these are spiritual gifts. And and this The Lord will start pouring it out. But what we've been talking about is is a The gift and the call of God are without repentance. And so people can walk in high level gifting and for character. It ought not be that way.

But all the gifts are They operate through love. That's why First Corinthians thirteen is on the heels of First Corinthians twelve. It talks about gifts, and then it talks about the operation of love. How if you do all these things. Apart from love, you're nothing.

You've done nothing. Yeah, and one of the when I think about this, it's sometimes it's easy to write a check. You know, sometimes, and now for some people, that may be hard. And that may, that's one of the gifts. That's one of the gifts that it talks about: is you have the gift of giving.

There's people who enjoy giving, but honestly, it's easy to sit there in church, write a check, put it in the plate, and then move on with your life. And you say, Hey, I've given God my 10% or whatever it is, and then I've moved on. But I think it's a lot harder when somebody's going through a tough time to call them up and say, Hey, why don't we have lunch? To call them up and say, Why don't we sit down and talk? I want to minister to you.

I'm here for you. I want to listen to you. That actually takes time and not just money. 866-34TRUTH, 866-348-7884. We'll be right back after this break.

What is your ministry? All right, guys, we are back for the last segment. This is Michael Zwick. We just had Christy Real. We had Manuel and Daniel from Cross Exchange.

We've had a lot of people on. And so, anyways, what I was thinking about over the break is this: when you sum it up, when you really sum it up, this is it. What is your ministry? And so, the greatest, you know, the first thing that we have to do, we have to make sure that we're right with the Lord, right? You know, thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.

Are you spending time in the word of God every day? Because if you're not spending time with the word of in the word of God every day, you can get real weird real quick. But if you're not spending time in prayer, you can dry up really quickly.

So, we have to make sure that we're spending time in the word. We have to. To make sure that we're spending time in prayer. And you know what I do when I wake up? I'll just tell you guys what I do.

When I wake up in the morning, and I didn't used to do this, but I said, I'm going to set aside, say, the first 30 minutes or the first hour of each day, and I'm just going to sit in my bed and I'm going to pray.

Well, why do you sit in your bed? Why don't you get up and move to a chair or go downstairs or something like that? Because I know that once I leave, once I go downstairs, once I go somewhere else, or once I pick up my phone, that time that I've got with the Lord is going to be messed up. And so, once I'm finished with that, once I'm done spending time in prayer, then a lot of times I'll go downstairs and I will read my Bible. You know, it's funny.

We used to sing a song, and it was: Read your Bible, pray every day, and you'll grow. Grow. Grow, and then we would sing. Neglect your Bible, forget to pray, and you shrink. Shrink.

Shrink. So that's the first thing we got to do. We got to spend time in the word, we've got to spend time in prayer. And, you know, I'll start speaking in tongues sometimes first thing in the morning. That's what I do.

May not be what anybody else does. That's what I do. You know, what else I do is I'll wake up and I'll say, Lord, who can I pray for today? You know, for years and years and years and years, we have been praying for a revival to occur, for a revival to happen in Alamance County, right where I am. And we've been praying for that revival.

We've been praying for a mighty move of the Holy Spirit. We've been praying for a mighty move of God. And now we've seen it.

So, you know, the mistake that I've seen with a lot of people is once they start to pray for something and then they see God move, then they stop praying. And then all of a sudden It stops. The revival stops. The move of God stops. And they go, Well, we were doing all the right stuff.

We prayed for all those years. Don't stop praying. The Bible says to pray without ceasing. After that, after we've taken care of ourselves, we've got to take care of our family. I pray for my children.

I pray for my wife, my mother, my immediate family. The Bible says that somebody who does not take care of his own family, especially his immediate family, the Bible says that he's worse than an unbeliever. That means that I can go out and I can win the whole world for Jesus. But if I'm neglecting my family, the Bible says that I'm worse than an unbeliever.

So we need to take care of our family. After that, then we go out and we reach the whole world for Jesus, just like we did on Sunday over at Walmart. The Bible says in Matthew chapter 28, verse 18, he says, And Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.

Amen.

So does that mean that Jesus is constantly with us? You know, sometimes I meet people and I think they get lonely and they're looking for people to be friends with or they're looking to be accepted. The Bible says right there that Jesus is with us. If you're a Christian, if you're a blood-bought Jesus, a blood-bought son of God, a blood-bought Christian who has been bought by the precious blood of Jesus Christ, that means where I go, Jesus goes. That means where I go, the Holy Spirit goes.

And I'm here to tell you something. I wouldn't want anybody in place of that man. I wouldn't want anybody in place of Jesus. I wouldn't want anybody in the place of the Holy Ghost. I wouldn't want anybody in the place of God.

If God be for us, then who can be against us? And see, what that means is that when you're afraid to go talk to that stranger about Jesus, when you're afraid to hand out that track over at Walmart or over at Foodline or out in the workplace. What an opportunity that you have to be disciples of Jesus Christ. To go out there and share the good news about Jesus, to tell people that Jesus loves them, to pray for them. You know, I remember J.D.

Greer said years ago, he said, one of the best ways to share the gospel, if somebody doesn't want to hear it, he said, you pray for them. I remember my dad. Who wasn't a Christian until maybe the very end of his life. But he said to me one time, he said, Mike, he says, I don't want to hear any more about Jesus. But he paused for a second and he looked at me and he said, but you can pray for me.

You can pray for me. There will be people who don't want to hear anything about the Lord Jesus Christ, but they'll allow you to pray for them. Not all of them. And you know, one of the things that I do, and I got this from a guy named Rob years ago, sometimes I would go up to people and say, Do you want me to pray for you? And they'd be like, No.

Some people would say okay, but a lot of them would say no. But I changed it. This is what I ask them. Let me ask you a question, Dawn, if I'm talking to Dawn. If you could ask God, if you could ask God to answer one prayer for you today, what would you ask him for?

And then I pray a prayer. And I'm not just praying around a rinky-dinky prayer that, you know, with no enthusiasm, the Bible says. That the effectual, fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.

Well, it says of a righteous man. That means you've got to be living your life the right way too. I didn't say you're going to be perfect. I'm not perfect. But the Bible says in the Old Testament, it says that people are praying and the Lord isn't answering their prayers.

It's because they're living in iniquity. They're living in sin. It says right there, if you're openly living in sin, that the Lord won't even hear your prayers. But I don't care how far you've gone. I don't care what you've done or who you've done it with.

There is room at the foot of the cross for you. You know, Jesus said in John 3, 16, He said, For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. You know, Romans 3.23 says that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Nobody's perfect. But Romans 6, 23 says that the wages of sin is death.

It says, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let me tell you something. That's good news. You say, Well, how do I know if I'm going to heaven? 1 John 5:13 says this.

He says, I have written these things unto you so that you may know that you have eternal life. Let me ask you, listener: if you're listening right now, do you know that you have eternal life?

Well, I I think I might. You know, there's a lot of things that I may gamble with. One thing that I'm not going to gamble with is where I'm going to spend eternity. Jesus said, He said, if you commit yourself to him. You have to throw away everything else, deny yourself, take up your cross daily.

Take up your cross daily and follow Jesus. Repent of your sins. That means you have to turn away from the iniquity that you've been doing. You surrender your life to Jesus, not just say a prayer, you surrender your life to Jesus. And then you can know that you're going to heaven.

Because you have committed everything to him. You know, even the disciples asked, they said, Lord, what is it going to take for us to get into heaven? And he starts telling them all these things. He says, You're going to be persecuted. You've got to give up family.

You've got to do this. You've got to do that. And he said, Lord, we've done all these things. And he said, Yeah, you're going to get a great reward. If you're following the Lord Jesus Christ, I don't care how tough your life is.

There's a guy named Nicholas something, he's got millions of followers. I've been watching him. And he goes out to these pride festivals. And when he goes out there, he shares the gospel of Jesus Christ. And he said, You must repent.

You must turn from your sin. And there was one of these festivals, he's out of Kentucky, but there was one of these festivals that he flew into over in Oklahoma. And when he flew in there and he started preaching the gospel, they stole his stuff, they started physically assaulting him. But he was rejoicing. He had the opportunity to get the cops involved and to file charges against these people.

He said, no. He said, that's not what I want to do. He said, I'm not here to file a lawsuit. I'm not here to throw people into prison or anything like that. He said, I am here to share the good news of Jesus Christ.

And he said, I hope some of these people will repent. And there were a lot of people who did not want to repent. There were a lot of people who said, you know, I want nothing to do with you. They were playing loud noises in his ears. They were doing everything that they could do to get this guy off track.

But you know what he did? He kept sharing the gospel. The Bible says that a righteous man falls down seven times, but seven times he rises again. And it's a guy named Nicholas Bowling, B-O-W-L-I-N-G. First name is N-I-C-H-O-L-A-S.

He's got 506,000 followers on Facebook. He's got 1.5 million subscribers on YouTube. But he doesn't live an easy life. Yeah, Lord, yeah, there's a lot of people who are watching what he's doing. But they don't want to do it themselves.

You know, it's kind of like Fred Hagee told me that time. He said, Mike, he said, I always thought the idea of evangelism was somebody else would do it, not me. And let me tell you the good news about this is when we went out to Walmart this past Sunday, people are willing to listen. Fred Hagee said that 70% of people surveyed said that they would be willing to listen to an enthusiastic gospel presentation if somebody shared it with them. The problem is that not a lot of people are sharing it.

If you're listening right now, you can share it in your workplace. You can go out in the streets. You can go wherever. Go to the highways and the byways. Tell people that Jesus saves and Jesus is coming back soon.

Guys, I want to thank you guys for listening today. My name is Michael Zwick. I have a show that'll be on tomorrow on the Truth Network at 12 o'clock noon, and it's called If Not for God with Mike Zwick, and you can follow that on the podcast or wherever you follow your podcasts. You can follow me on Facebook, Michael Zwick. I've got 16,000 followers there.

You can follow Michael Zwick 4007 on TikTok. And I want to thank you guys for listening. Be a blessing to somebody else. You are blessed to be a blessing. God bless you and have a great weekend.

This is Truth Talk Live with Michael Zwick. Truth daughter.