In this episode of the Lead to Serve podcast, Pastor Ed Taylor and Bob Claycamp explore the theme of "living in victory day by day," exploring how servant leadership and spiritual growth are intertwined with our daily walk with God. They emphasize the importance of ending each day with a clean slate through repentance and owning our mistakes, which is the place of true victory. The episode touches on practical ways to maintain a victorious life, like starting the day with Bible reading and prayer, and the significance of abiding in Christ. They also discuss the idea that victory is a gift from God, not something we earn, and how our proximity to Jesus leads us to triumph. It's important to trust in God's love and grace, even when life gets complicated. Whether you're dealing with personal struggles or just seeking to deepen your faith, this episode offers a heartfelt reminder that victory in life comes from a close relationship with Jesus.
Key Words: Lead to Serve, Calvary Church, living in victory, daily victory, Christian life, faith, grace, clean conscience, Bible reading, prayer, servant leadership, relationship with Jesus, strength, repentance, overcoming struggles, personal experiences, biblical principles, trust in God, unconditional love, faithfulness, victory in Christ, spiritual growth, daily practices, encouragement, community, overcoming challenges, God's promises, grace in life, triumph in Christ, living simply, reliance on God, healing from past experiences, defining victory, strength in trials, hope, love of God, prayer for acceptance, listener engagement, podcast community, Pastor Ed Taylor, Pastor Bob Claycamp.
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Calvary Church presents lead to Serve, a leadership podcast with
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Ed Taylor. Welcome again to another episode
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of the Lead to Serve podcast. We're so grateful that you've
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chosen to join us. We know your time is so
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valuable. So as Pastor Bob and I in this
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Season 6 are talking about ministry and bouncing around
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ideas and letting the Holy Spirit invade this studio, we're
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thinking of you like you were in here with us.
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There's actually a couple of empty chairs in the room with us
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and we can picture, I can picture you in here.
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Bob and I are on either side of the table looking at each other
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when we're talking. And that's what we invite you in
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on the Lead to Serve podcast. We're in a conversation about
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different topics. Some of them have come through
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e-mail. Some of them have come through
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suggestions. Some of them have come because
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that's the topic of the day. But we would love to have you
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join us. You know, our goal, you know our
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heart here is to help you grow in servant leadership.
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And by the way, as we help you grow, we're helping ourselves
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too. We're talking about these things
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and we're learning along with you, but we want to see you and
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see us grow in our servant leadership so that our lives
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glorify God in everything that we do and we believe, and we see
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this to be true. The better serving you are, the
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better leader you will become. We come to another episode
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today. The topic today is living in
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Victory Day by day. Welcome again Bob Klaykamp.
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Good. It's great to be here.
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Do you walk in Victory Day by day?
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Usually. Usually, yeah.
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There are days that but here. But wait a second.
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At the end of the day, it's not whether you've lived a perfect
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Christian life, it's you've owned your your sins, you've
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owned your things you didn't handle right.
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And you close the day with maybe repentance.
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You close the day with owning it.
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That's finishing well. That's victory at the end of the
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day. Do you walk in Victory Day by
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day and at the end of the day have a clean slate?
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Or do you go to bed sometimes days, weeks?
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I mean, we don't know your life. Are there days where you go to
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bed in defeat? Yes.
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I would say that, but the longer I walk with the Lord, the fewer
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those times are. But boy, when they happen, you
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it, it, you can't. You can't get away from it and
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you have to deal with it because you won't get any sleep.
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Yeah, you know, in the earlier days of my walk, my motive for
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not going to bed and defeat. Let me think of one real
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applicable example scripturally where the Bible says do not let
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the sun go down on your wrath that that you know, in marriage,
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but in life, it's a principle. It's very similar to what you,
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you said, like like settle it, get everything clean, go to bed
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with a clean conscience. Definitely don't go to bed
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angry. So kind of assessing.
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So in the early days of my walk, I did it because I felt like I
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had to like this is a command. I have to do it.
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And and so I'm working through Marie.
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We got to stay up till 5:00 in the morning, solve our problems
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and I'm not very healthy approach to walking in victory
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with that definition. But when I think of it this
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year, not just like again, we you guys as you're listening
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this not scripted. So we're this is right out.
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This is out of the gate like we're just talking through and
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it's sparking a thought in my mind today like I just really
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want to do it. I just want I want a clean
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conscience. I just really want to be right
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with the Lord. I don't want to waste any more
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time in my life. I really don't want to displease
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him. I mean, if I'm in the flesh, I'm
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selfish, then I'll let it go for a while.
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But I mean, I can say with all my heart I desire to be a good
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son. I desire to be a good servant.
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I desire to be a good friend. Like my in the spirit.
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My motives are I want to be more usable for God.
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I want to enjoy him more. I don't want to I don't want to
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let things go. I I just want a simple life,
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right? Isn't that what the Bible isn't
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the Bible tell us to live a simple life.
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I really want a simple life. So much of life and ministry,
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serving in a church or Even so much life and ministry in
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general, because that's most of my life is so complicated,
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difficult dealing with some of the worst sins.
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Like how did you get like, I don't even know.
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I don't even know how you got yourself in this mess.
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I I just want to help you out of it or you know, a hurt when I
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had this young young person wait from a young lady wait for me
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after service. It's been a busy ministry these
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last few weeks like I've been here super late talking to
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everybody praying with everyone. She waited.
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All the pastors help you guys all help me.
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But sometimes people just want to wait.
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And I understand now that I talked to her why she wanted to
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wait is a real real deep tragedy.
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Just bad all the way around every part of it.
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She's so young, got a couple kids and the father of her
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children passed away and just a real complicated thing.
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And we spent a good 45 minutes or so talking and praying and
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talking things out and helping. And at the end of the time she
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goes, I feel so much better. And you know, I don't want to be
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here at this church in the flesh and holding on to grudges and
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bitterness or whatever and miss out on her because that's why.
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You're there. She comes every week.
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She has a different name, sometimes different gender in
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terms not her in particular. Like sometimes it's a guy that
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needs help. Sometimes it's a woman,
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sometimes it's older, sometimes it's younger.
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Like they're here every they're here all the time.
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They're here when we answer the phone.
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And and so when you say walking in victory includes at the end
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of the day coming clean before the Lord settling my motives
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have even changed where I want to be.
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I want to enjoy the Lord. There is a selfishness like I
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guess a healthy covetousness. I want to covet deeper spiritual
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like I I want more. But as I get older, I'm a few
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years behind you, not very far, but a few years behind you.
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And if the motive is not only to be in fellowship with the Lord,
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but also you never know when she comes in, he comes in.
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You never know when they call, she call and I don't want to be
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in the flesh for them. We're told to be instant in
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season and out of season and to be ready for that.
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You just have to keep short accounts.
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Even when you're you get upset or you're frustrated or
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everything all has just turned chaotic.
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God is still in control, and he puts in the midst of the chaos,
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He put somebody in your life on purpose.
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Yeah. It was the verse that I thought
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of and I'm, I'm wanting this in my life is in First
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Thessalonians chapter 4 and verse 11.
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That you may also aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your
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business and to work with your own hands as we commanded you.
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And those, those are principles that I, I want in the noise of
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life and the noise of culture and the noise of the economy, in
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the noise of politics and in the noise of all of that.
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I want to live a quiet life. I want to mind my own business
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and to work with my own hands, be faithful to what God's called
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me to do. Kind of a summary of this whole
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season too, as I'm listening to it and talking it out with you.
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I love that. I love that angle of victory
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comes. Part of it comes by having a
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clean conscience at night and working things through things at
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night. Let's go to the morning though.
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How do we walk in victory in the morning?
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It it's not as complicated as you might think I would offer
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and Bob, you can offer on in response to this, but read your
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Bible and pray every morning and that's going to set the course
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of your life. You're in the word, you're
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seeking the Lord, you're enjoying him, you're longing for
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him If you don't read the Bible. My wife Marie, she has the Bible
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read to her. She receives better by having
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the Bible app just read to her the Bible and she's taking it in
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and she's soaking in. But victory comes from faith.
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It's a relationship with Jesus, abiding in Christ, drawing from
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his strength, his resources, looking to him, the author and
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finisher of our faith to reading your Bible, praying everyday.
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Victory is yours in abiding life.
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What do you think? How, how do you apply that?
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What do you think? What do you have to add to that?
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Well, when I get up in the morning, I know that.
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And this is just, I think in the last eight years or so of my
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life, as I get older, I'm learning more about God's heart
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to me and what is expecting of me and reading the Gospels and
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hearing how Jesus deals with people and how, because I've
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been really hard on myself, especially in the first years of
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my life. I was in a youth ministry
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situation that was quite intense, all capital letters,
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not cultic, but just intense, like a mission.
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So there was a lot of outward restrictions and outward
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disciplines and outward things that needed to be done.
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And I think it robbed me from really enjoying the Lord as his
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heart for me was just that he's happy that I'm with him.
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And so now here I'm 73 years old, walked in the Lord 55 years
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and I just want to enjoy him and have him and see him and
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understand him as he reveals himself in his words.
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So I I get up and I know he's with me and I know it.
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It's like having a having a friend coming in and just doing
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life with you. And I need that time to in the
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morning, just talk to him, thank him, or even calling me.
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It always goes back to him even calling me because I have no
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right for him to even search me out and call me.
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I was in the world's orphanage and and I was messed up and and.
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It was bad like that's our testimony and not everybody
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listening in has as bad of a testimony as we do.
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However, everyone listening was in a the same bad place.
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We were separate from God, dead in our trespasses and sins, and
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in need of the convicting, wooing presence of the Holy
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Spirit to bring us to Himself. Yeah, and just the fact that he
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did it, He chased me down, He boxed me and he gave me faith by
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which to believe. He put people in my life where I
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couldn't get away from. And then he reasoned with me by
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his Holy Spirit and. And it always goes back to that.
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And it's like, listen, I'm, you know, we'll work out these
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things, those issues, but you're still, you know, I want you to
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trust me that, you know, the Lord's speaking to me.
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I want you to trust me on this, even though you can't figure it
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out. I want you to trust me.
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And let's just do life together here.
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You want to finish well, finish every day well, that that means
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you finish your week well. If you finish every day well,
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that means you finish your, your year well.
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And so just finish well, and that doesn't mean you're
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perfect. Victory Day by day, victory may
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not even be what people think it is like.
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It's just this massive victorious life over the demonic
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realm. And we're always walking with
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strength and power and never I, I'm.
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I'm certain that most listening to us do not hold to that form
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of theology, but it's important we understand it so that we can
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minister to people and help them understand that victory.
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Kind of like success in her earlier episode, right?
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I define success equals faithfulness to me, victory
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equals faith. Just believe in God.
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You, you mention you use the word trust, but without faith,
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it's impossible to please God. We've all been given a measure
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of faith. The Bible says so we're not
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trying to muster it up and create it.
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The bridge between enjoying because you you had mentioned
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it. Everything in the Bible is true,
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Bob, whether we believe it or not, it's all true.
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It is God's word to us. Every promise is true.
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It's so much so that he even said that every All the promises
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in God are all the promises are in Christ.
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Yes and Amen. In case we couldn't come to that
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conclusion, there is a very specific scripture that points
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out the value of faith and being in Christ where that's the place
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of peace and joy and the bridge if enjoying it all is faith
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because it's going to be true whether you believe it or not.
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I mean, when you come to passages in the Bible, you don't
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understand. To me, that's like it's food in
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the freezer. You don't pull it out of the
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freezer and just chomp on it. You don't get it.
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I mean that there there are times that it's for later.
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It's not for now, it's food in the freezer.
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So if you don't understand it, just put a question mark by it
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and keep on going. It's in the freezer, so that's
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that's the picture in my mind. It's good because I keep I just
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tell people skip it, write it down, skip it.
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But that's a great you got to let it thaw and then you got to
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cook it. You know, there's a great
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illustration. There's another Bob ISM.
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We're going to write a book of all the Bob isms because that's
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a really good meant. That's a really good picture of,
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of, of how to deal with difficulties.
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You don't just throw it away, even if you don't understand,
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don't know what you know, you and then you leave stuff in the
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freezer so long that you don't know what what it is.
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You got to give it some time to figure out what is it.
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Again, one of the scriptures that I was reminded of.
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And this is in the heart of grace, right?
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We're, we're so grateful to be a part of a ministry and to have a
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pastor who set the the course of our ministry on the topic of
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grace. Even Pastor Chuck Smith writing
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a book Grace changes everything, an approach to life in Christ by
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grace is so important that we're not only saved by grace that we
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but we also live by grace. We're sustained by grace.
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We're we're we're given day by day victory by grace and we're
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going to be in the presence of God in eternity by grace.
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And one of the verses that always ministers to me because
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it's real and true is when Paul wrote to the Corinthians and he
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said, now thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumph in
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Christ and through US diffuses the fragrance of his knowledge
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in every place. That tells me in a very simple
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truth that if I follow the Lord, he's going to let me lead me to
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triumph in victory. That's why I'm close to him.
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I'm going to be in victory. 100%.
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Those that have addictions and stuff, I always try to remind
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them at the appropriate time. Like, I mean, look at you guys
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for the last 90 minutes, you didn't take a drink, you didn't
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smoke a pot you didn't like for 90 minutes because you were in
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proximity to Jesus. Yeah, you were in church and
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yeah, you're in Bible study. Don't, but you wanted God for
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this 90 minutes. That's why you're here.
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You want to God. You might be desperate.
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You might even if you came with your grandmother and you decided
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I'm going to go to church, but I know I'm going to go to church,
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so I'm not going to be drinking, so grandma doesn't have to smell
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my alcohol breath and whatever. It doesn't matter.
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Doesn't even matter. All those details.
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You're in a worship service for 90 minutes.
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And I always like to remind them, look, you were living in
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victory. You can do for 90 minutes.
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You can do it for three hours. If you can do it for three
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hours, you can do it for 10 hours.
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If you do it for, you can do it for days.
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Days become weeks. Weeks become months.
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Months become years. Years become lifetimes.
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Lifetime becomes a legacy to your family.
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But it starts with your proximity to Jesus.
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That's where victory is. He always leads us in victory.
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Yeah, if you're following. If you're following, I mean you.
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Yeah, he leads us. Yeah, you can't have to follow.
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But but where is he going to lead you?
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There is a destination that's abiding.
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Yeah, it's through the cross and that's the that's the denial.
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Jesus said if anyone come after me, let him deny himself.
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Take up his cross daily, which is an instrument of death, death
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to the flesh, and follow me. He's not pushing in your way, He
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wants you to follow. But the way of the cross is not
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a comfortable path, not a convenient path that doesn't
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allow compromise, and so you got to get that straight.
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When I taught through this passage in Second Corinthians,
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one of the principles that I shared with our church is that
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it's important to understand and to know that, like grace,
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victory is a gift. It's a gift.
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We can't earn victory even in our fighting for victory or
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battle. In spiritual warfare, we so
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often revert to our own human effort, whether we realize it or
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not. It's how good I got to put the
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armor on. I got to fight good.
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I got to stand, I got, Oh, I got.
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And it's so burdening and so difficult that we tend to avert
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from things that burden us. But this gift, this gift starts
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with leading. This gift starts with abiding.
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This gift starts with all the way back.
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Like you said, the gift of victory is something to be
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received. Why?
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He said, well, pastor, why would you say that?
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Well, because the victor lives inside of us.
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So by faith we access grace just as much as we access victory.
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As we allow God, as we allow Christ to express himself and
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his life through us, we'll experience a continual, regular
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victory over sin and temptation. It's not Jesus giving us victory
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as much as it is Jesus is our victory.
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He defeated sin and death on the cross.
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It is finished. Done and to me that that lays
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because I don't always remember. I mean I mean and I'm somebody
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that knows the Bible I've spent in you've got more time in the
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Bible than I do as well. But I don't always remember
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these principles. I don't always remember verses.
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I don't always remember, but I I do remember to run to the Lord.
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I do remember past victories. I do remember that He has
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promised to give me all things pertaining to life and godliness
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through the knowledge of Him. I do remember if I just simply
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follow Him, I'll say I do remember if I can open the
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Bible, God will meet me there. And living Victory Day by day is
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so essential. You won't make it if you don't
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look to the Lord, you won't make it.
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All these other things we talked about, endurance upumone like
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you. It all starts and continues and
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ends abiding in Christ. He's the definition of victory,
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like you said, But what does victory look like to him?
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And it's always processing, always going back to that Lord,
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what does it look like to you? What you know, I, I have my
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ideas and I'm so ambitious and I'm so want to please you and I
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want, I want, I want. And and that's where you just
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have to say, would you just rest?
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You know, because the come to me and Matthew 11 ends up with rest
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that that's the goal. It's like your kids and mine.
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There are behaviors with our kids that maybe bum us out.
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There's behavior from our kids that encourage us, but they
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never have to come to us and say, would you just love me?
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Like no, good or bad, I love you.
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Happy or sad, I love you. Whether we're getting along
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right now or not. I love you like that.
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We've got to set aside all those secondary things that come out
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of and from relationship and just come back to the you're my,
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you're my son or daughter there. There is nothing you need to do
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for me to love you. Nothing, nothing, nothing,
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nothing. Now our behavior might define
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how much we enjoy each other, how much we can enjoy life
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together, how much you encourage me or I or discourage me.
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That's true. But you, I mean, I can think of
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all my kids or my grandson. Like if you had the chance to
00:21:09
say you have nothing to do at all.
00:21:13
I love you explicitly. Yeah, and if, but if you grew up
00:21:18
in a family where you didn't have that and it was an abusive
00:21:23
situation, it's God has to burn into your heart the reality of
00:21:31
his love, which is on a different scale than what you've
00:21:36
experienced. And the a lot of the fight that
00:21:40
goes on is trying to cleanse, trying to wash from you those
00:21:45
incorrect word pictures and feelings and reactions that are
00:21:52
just like thumbprints on your soul from the sin.
00:21:57
And and the Lord is the healer. He is the the cleanser and and
00:22:03
he wants to break the chain so that in the people that you
00:22:09
interact with and maybe in your future life, if you have, if
00:22:12
you're not married, your future marriage, your future children,
00:22:16
that you can break the chain and not continue that kind of
00:22:20
pattern. That's destructive.
00:22:21
It's really good that you said that because even in building
00:22:24
the bridge with that illustration and the
00:22:27
difficulties that many have experienced at home is it's
00:22:31
still accessed by faith. Like, you're going to have to
00:22:34
trust God that He's going to take good care of you.
00:22:36
You're going to trust God that you're going to experience a
00:22:39
love you've never experienced before, a grace that you didn't
00:22:42
get the privilege of being modeled in the human realm,
00:22:45
maybe still not modeled. You know, adult children never
00:22:48
being affirmed by their parents, never receiving affirmation from
00:22:51
the people that they've valued or people that are important to
00:22:55
them in life. And it tends to keep you in a
00:22:58
defeated place. You just feel defeated that
00:23:01
we're almost done with this episode.
00:23:03
But Bob, I want to hear from you.
00:23:05
Maybe you can speak on. We always hear pastors.
00:23:07
You've said it, I've said it. When we teach a Bible study,
00:23:10
we'll, we'll tell the church, you know what?
00:23:12
We fight from victory, not for victory.
00:23:16
What are you trying to say when you say that?
00:23:18
Well, sometimes we're trying to find the strategy and the
00:23:21
formula to get to victory in what it looks like in our mind
00:23:28
and we forget that He has done the work, births God who works
00:23:33
in you both to will and to do for his good pleasure.
00:23:38
So there is that tension of he wants my involvement, He wants
00:23:45
my trust, but yet at the same time, he already knows what he
00:23:51
wants to do and he doesn't. He's no under no obligation to
00:23:54
tell me, but I'm just to trust Him and we're going to discover
00:23:58
it together even though he already knows.
00:24:01
And when I think of this victory, that's it's the best
00:24:04
illustration I can come up with yet.
00:24:05
It's it's kind of like being on a football team or a baseball
00:24:09
team where you've already been shown the game you're about to
00:24:14
play. You already been shown all the
00:24:16
plays and everything. Somehow you're still going to
00:24:19
play that game. But you know the end.
00:24:21
It's already a victory. So when you play it, when you're
00:24:24
out on the field, you're you're going.
00:24:26
If you knew you were going to win already, hopefully it would
00:24:29
not in because you have integrity.
00:24:31
You won't make you lazy. You won't sit on the sidelines.
00:24:34
You can't win that way. You still got to play the game,
00:24:36
still got to give your best effort.
00:24:37
You still got to be the player and the part of the team that
00:24:40
you are. But if you knew you were going
00:24:42
to win already, you would play with such confidence.
00:24:45
You would play with such strength, you would know, hey, a
00:24:49
bad it's OK, it's interception. Don't it's OK, it's OK.
00:24:52
Get back up. We got another play or it's a
00:24:54
crunch time and you know how nervous you get And when you
00:24:58
don't know the outcome of a game, which is the normal way of
00:25:00
playing it, and you're just so worried and so concerning just
00:25:04
like, and then you might be that you might be upset, but but if
00:25:07
you knew you were going to win, you're going to like, it's all
00:25:10
right, everything's going to be fine.
00:25:12
We're winners here. Like it's going to be fine.
00:25:14
How do you know? Just don't worry about it.
00:25:16
I was in the twilight zone wherever.
00:25:17
I know, I know what it's going to be like, but you don't need
00:25:20
to worry about it. We can have confidence because
00:25:22
we have one and life is very similar where we have to live.
00:25:28
We, we, we, we are living life. We do have relationships, but
00:25:32
according to the Bible, not only the Jesus Christ defeat sin and
00:25:37
death on the cross, but he rose again the third day.
00:25:40
He is the epitome of victory. And as we live the situations we
00:25:45
live in, that they aren't as bad as they seem because Jesus is
00:25:49
alive. Yeah.
00:25:51
And those that like right this second, there are so many
00:25:55
believers, faithful believers close to the Lord, believers
00:26:00
that are suffering torturous situations in prisons around the
00:26:04
world, unfair, unjust, false accusations.
00:26:09
Is there life, a life of victory?
00:26:11
Well, as Jesus sees it, yes. And so we really have to be
00:26:17
careful how we define victory. And it starts with Jesus and
00:26:22
walking in life with him no matter what happens in life.
00:26:27
John the Baptist, when he had his doubts, he was where God
00:26:32
wanted him to be, to fulfill a higher purpose of the last of
00:26:37
the Old Testament prophets suffering the same as all the
00:26:41
other prophets did. It didn't work out like he
00:26:44
thought and yet he was faithful. He didn't do anything wrong, it
00:26:50
was just how it was not. Only that he received the
00:26:54
encouragement that he needed by sending the message to the right
00:26:57
person. He, he went to the right source.
00:27:01
I have a tendency to get up in my mind and I have a tendency to
00:27:05
make little things and the big things in my mind.
00:27:07
Before you know it, I could have brought the little thing to the
00:27:10
Lord. But now I got this big
00:27:11
complicated thing and have to sort it out because I could get
00:27:15
through the layers of my mind. But every time I come to the
00:27:18
Lord, He strengthens me. Every time I come to the Lord,
00:27:21
He encourages me and let me clarify what that means.
00:27:25
That doesn't mean the problem went away.
00:27:27
It doesn't mean it's solved. I every time I come to the
00:27:30
world, Oh, he solve all my problems.
00:27:31
No, he is the solution like he will get me through.
00:27:35
He does get me through and he gives me the strength for today
00:27:39
and the hope for tomorrow. My pastor, Jeff Johnson would
00:27:42
say that all the time. God gives us strength for the
00:27:45
day, yes and hope for tomorrow yes and I can look to him and so
00:27:50
I think it's important that we we realize that God has victory
00:27:53
for you. You are in victory that it's
00:27:56
important that you realize that you look to him for victory,
00:27:59
that victory dwells in you and that you can live with a a very
00:28:04
strong forward moving life in Christ as you abide in him and
00:28:09
be useful for him. Be useful to him, but also enjoy
00:28:14
him like just you don't have to my kids are home.
00:28:16
They don't have to do anything that we're just together.
00:28:20
We're we're fine. We get to talk, we get to share,
00:28:23
but they have my love that period and and for those that
00:28:27
that can receive that today, receive it.
00:28:29
For those that are unable to receive it, then pray that the
00:28:32
Lord would give you capacity by grace to receive his love
00:28:37
unconditionally today. It'll encourage you and
00:28:40
strengthen you. Good stuff.
00:28:42
Thanks again, Bob for being here this season and today.
00:28:45
Yes, it's good. Lots of good discussions.
00:28:49
This is the lead to serve podcasts.
00:28:50
We're at the end of another episode, Season 6.
00:28:53
Great, great season, great discussions.
00:28:56
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00:29:25
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00:29:32
Till the next time the Lord encourage you, strengthen you,
00:29:36
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00:29:40
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00:29:43
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00:29:47
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00:29:49
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