This is Jimmy Nanette and we...
Well, I always have to mention Mr. Chevy because he's with us.
He is this time.
He was not with us last week because...
We were in Florida.
What were we doing in Florida?
Oh my gosh.
What were we not doing in Florida?
Having the time of our life.
It was so much fun.
I'm really...
I was sad to come back home.
I begged you to stay.
Honestly, no, I was too.
I felt the same way.
No, no, no.
But I just...
I'm Mr. Responsible here.
I felt like we needed to get back.
Why?
So we could sit here?
Mr. Chevy.
Oh my gosh.
Chevy was doing great with Faith.
Very, very good.
Now, I really wanted a few more days.
I know, but you always do that on trips.
You always beg for more.
It's like...
What can I say?
No, we got to get back to real life.
But we're not in real life yet.
We're still in solitude.
Well, and to Choo-ching and we didn't have reservations and blah, blah, blah.
There's a lot.
A lot of reasons, obviously.
Okay.
Next time.
I'm doing two weeks.
Okay, so before I sound like I'm just party pooper over here, I want to welcome our guests.
Those that are listening, this is show number 32.
Yeah, you got it.
Can you believe it?
32 episodes.
That just sounds like a lot.
It feels like we just started last week.
It doesn't to me.
It doesn't?
No.
It feels like they've been doing this for years because you're such a pro.
That's why.
Right.
I am a pro.
You've got the best voice.
Oh, here we go.
I'm in the world.
Okay, let's go ahead and talk about what we're going to talk about.
Keep eating the mic.
That will help.
I'm eating the mic.
Oh my gosh.
We're back in our bouncy room.
Actually, last week when we took our road caster with us, Adam listened to the show.
It was the best sound we've ever had.
Adam, the pod father and our executive producer, Curry.
We had what?
Towel, wood, floors, no blankets hanging up.
We were in a kitchen.
A kitchen.
Okay.
In a condo.
There was noise outside.
It was shocking.
Of course, we were on the beach, so there's the beach outside and there's people playing
music and vehicles going up and down the beach.
We were like, oh, there's no telling what's going to happen.
It came off really well.
It was way better.
The road caster performed.
Way better than I thought it would be because he complained.
Well, I don't want to say the word complain.
No, he pointed out.
He points out quite a bit of our issues.
That's why I pay him so much.
We're in our office, our studio, but not there.
This doesn't make sense.
We're good to go.
Hopefully.
I think a lot of it was me back in too far off the mic creating.
Who knows?
Anyway, we'll see how it goes today.
I'm sure we'll hear from you.
I guess I am the pro and you're not.
You know, there's a lot of truth in that.
By the way, speaking of Adam and Tina Curry.
I know.
Oh, here we go again.
Where are they right now?
Where we were supposed to be with them in Italy, but that's okay.
Next year, we're going to Japan.
All of us.
Yeah, we're looking at it.
We're looking at it.
I think it'll be an exciting trip.
I had a friend that Evan Archulette went to Japan with his family.
No, just with Memily, his wife.
Oh, I didn't know.
Yeah, it was just them.
He came back and he said, I would move there.
I would move there tomorrow.
Now, obviously, he went as a tourist.
He didn't know the whole culture, but from a tourist American perspective, what he liked
was how peaceful it was and how clean and orderly it was, which that fits right in with
Evan's mindset.
For sure, it's his personality.
But I would like to experience that cleanliness.
He said peace.
Peace.
Yes, yes.
There's just a, they really, as a culture, they strive for that.
I strive for that.
How do you strive for peace?
You know, you lean into, you receive, you accept.
So apparently, it was very impactful for him.
So that kind of inspired me of saying, you know, I would like to explore.
We've talked about it with Currys.
We may do it.
Yeah.
She wants to come back and start planning it.
You know, if we did that, then we might could do a crossover podcast there in front of Japan.
Oh, that's a good idea.
That would be fun.
So last week, Panama Beach, Panama City Beach, we worked out how many days?
I mean, so we're on a carnivore journey and we're also, so we're in the middle of our
sabbatical.
Maybe we're further, we're on the other half of our sabbatical.
We have a week from Sunday.
A week from next Sunday.
So we've still got a couple of weeks.
And we've been focusing on our mind, our body, and our spirit.
Exactly.
Spent the first few weeks really dialing in on the spiritual side of things.
Now, we didn't abandon the spirit to go focus on the others.
Right.
It's foundations and layers.
And so we focused on the spirit, really got some rhythms, some healthy, healthy devotional
rhythms where we both have our times in the morning.
We come back and what did you learn?
What's God speaking?
Sometimes we're texting each other from each end of the house going, oh my gosh, this quote's
amazing from, you know, whatever.
So when we came back together, that's amazing.
So we got our rhythm set in.
Then we went to focus on the body, on the physical, which we kind of started anyway
right at the beginning because we re-embraced our keto, our ketogenic diet journey, which
we did for years.
And then we, after COVID, totally botched that.
Yes.
Which most people did.
It's really sad.
Yeah, it was hard.
I've seen a lot of videos and people who said, I just fell apart during COVID because of
these lockdowns.
That's all I'm going to say about that so I don't get on our rant.
So anyway, that's not this show.
No, that's not this show.
We're living up in a down world.
But we do realize it's a down world.
Especially now.
So then we focus on the body.
So we started our keto journey and wow, just already we were like, it feels good to feel
good again.
Feels good to be eating right again.
Then we switched to carnivore.
We upped our game.
A little bit.
I would say more keto-for because we added fruit.
Ketovore sounds like your keto, but a little more.
We're actually more carnivore with a tiny bit of keto.
Just a tiny bit, which is just fruit because keto consists of vegetable salads.
Berries.
Berries, yeah.
Basic fruits.
And we're only incorporating maybe about one serving of fruit a day or every few days.
Right.
It just depends.
But we're really, really drilling down on the meat.
And that has been... So share your experience.
It was really hard because on the carnivore diet, you're supposed to eat a lot of fat.
And I was one that grew up with you don't eat the fat.
Everybody grew up that.
Yes.
And I was...
Well, I was all told fat will make you fat.
Exactly.
Or give you a heart attack.
I even went through a time in my life where I did everything low fat.
Well, not the carnivore diet.
You do everything with high fat.
That's why it's okay to do cheese, heavy cream.
But they want butter.
Lots of butter.
But your meat, you need to eat the highest fat content meat you can eat.
So now when we go into order meat from Smokey's Barbecue over in Bernie, by the way, I would
give a high triple thumbs up.
If I had three thumbs, they would all be up.
I only have two.
But if I had three, all three would be up.
It was phenomenal.
The guy running that place, I don't know who he is, but he was amazing.
We went in and said, we just want to order meat.
He's like, you came to the right place.
I mean, he was like, what do you want?
So he hooked us up.
He hooked us up.
So we had lots of meat.
Wow.
I said, I want marbled fatty cuts.
He said, no problem.
Boy.
But at the very beginning of this, eating this heavy meat was very hard on me and I
was nauseated.
It was hard on me too, our stomachs.
Not as much as me.
True, true.
It was very hard.
And I think I was telling Tina after a couple of weeks, I was like, I don't know if I can
continue doing this.
Yeah, I remember.
And then I hit this threshold and I don't know what happened.
I think it was about the middle of our time in Panama City Beach.
No, it was at the beginning.
Oh, early on.
Okay.
It was right before we got there.
Oh, I'm thinking when all the energy kicked in and we were like, whoa.
I didn't feel full.
I didn't feel heavy.
Gotcha.
Then the energy kicked in in Panama City like unbelievable energy.
Both of us.
And her and I, we would walk in our neighborhood and I didn't have any energy to walk and I
was having to really strive to walk.
When she gets back, it's going to brutalize her.
Yeah, but the heat is too much right now.
Right, but what I'm saying is you're on fire right now with energy.
The energy level has really gone.
And I would never have, I mean, in my mind, I can't comprehend eating fat and getting
thinner, too.
It doesn't make sense.
And we're definitely getting thinner.
I mean, I just went back and pulled all my old clothes out and started wearing them.
Awesome, too.
Wow, some really cool stuff.
Yeah, so it's amazing.
But it's not just about that, but it is about feeling.
It's about health and feeling good.
But I felt really good on keto.
Yeah, I did too.
Yeah.
And I don't know if this is different than that because of going through that couple
of weeks time when it was so bad.
Now I don't remember how great I felt on keto, but anyway.
Yeah, it's kind of hard to remember back.
Yeah, and I'm still leaning that I could go either way.
And I don't want to go off of ketovor no matter what.
For me, I'm sticking with carnivore because I've never felt better in my life.
And I had hypertension.
I was on blood pressure medicine and I took a risk.
I said, you know what, I'm going to go off this medication because I'm trying to get
off every supplement, every kind of medication.
I went off of it.
We've been checking your...
Dr. Jason Pete, here's this.
You did what?
So we've been checking your blood pressure every day.
Every day.
I did it incrementally until we went to Panama City Beach and I literally stopped my blood
pressure medicine because I literally had faith that this was going to work because
I've been really digging into the science of this and our bodies and I was confident
that it would work.
So while we were there, it was like 140 over 70 something or 80.
It's still a little high.
Little high.
But according to Dr. Ken Berry, that's really not high.
Those standards were set at a different time.
Well, it was 120 over 60 and now he's saying 140 over 80 is the new standard.
I'm not sure if that's correct, but that's what he says.
So we went along and I was bouncing around 140 on the top and you were a little nervous,
but I was like, no, no, I feel good about this because I have never felt better.
I've never had more energy.
I mean, brain fog gone.
I mean, it's...
But today, it was in the 120s.
Today, we got back and this is the first time I've checked it since we got back from vacation
and yeah, 120s.
It was like 120 over 72.
Yes.
Perfect.
I mean, literally perfect.
It's been complete my...
How long have you been off your medication?
About two weeks now at least.
I think it's been longer than that.
Maybe a little long because I started phasing it out.
I was doing it every other day.
So I was weaning off of it because I did read about it.
I did my research.
I made sure I didn't do anything stupid and it said I could go off my Ulsa Martin, which
is for cholesterol, which I'm so not worried about now.
And then it was the other was, you might want to wean off of that, consult your doctor,
blah, blah, blah.
And so I did wean off of it and then I went cold turkey.
I said, I'm done.
So I didn't even bring it with me on the trip on purpose so that I would kind of write it
out.
Anyway, all that to say is my hypertension is gone.
It's been completely reversed and healed.
Glory to God and thank you, carnivore diet.
This is the thing.
We're not just doing diets randomly.
We're literally asking the Lord, show us what's good for us because what's good for us is
not always good for other people.
And you have to determine what's best for your body and for, you know, good point because
everybody is different and some people can't tolerate just meat.
So thank you for saying that.
So I would agree with you and say we're not telling people they should do it.
You need to do your own research.
And what and what are your goals?
My goal was not to lose weight.
Well, you wanted a few pounds a little bit, but I knew that would come whether we did
keto or whatever that that would come off.
I knew that was going to happen, but it wasn't the ultimate goal was not primary.
Primary was health, overall health, getting rid of what's called visceral fat, which is
the fat around your organs, which is the dangerous fat.
The fat on your thighs is not dangerous.
The fat around your liver.
It's actually healthy.
Right.
It's actually God's gift to in case of famine, it's a primal thing.
Exactly.
Our ancestors had to store up fat for lean times.
It's different now, so we don't have to do that.
But that's why our bodies do that and respond that way.
So getting rid of that visceral fat is the healthiest thing you can do.
And ketogenic diet is great for that.
Carnivore diet is great for that.
We did keto is great, but I wanted to up the game.
What I don't go for it.
What I found out when I was doing the low fat diet years and years ago is they would
add extra sugar.
So you're you're you're eating low fat products, but they're adding especially if you're eating
a lot of processed stuff, which is so bad for you anyway.
They're adding sugar and taking out the fat.
Yes, they really have.
Introducing totally against low fat diets.
Yeah.
Well, and for us, we're not doing any processed food at all.
No, I mean, and that was the thing with the ketogenic diet that we were doing.
We were adding all these Atkins, Slim Fast, all these bars, bread, keto bread.
There's no such thing.
They're all still processed.
Let me say this again.
The food industry has completely contaminated the ketogenic diet by introducing all these
processed snacks.
Yes.
Peanut butter cups and clusters.
Does sound good.
But anyway, I digress.
All that it's fully processed and it will it will completely derail your ketogenic is
not pure diet.
Which is why when we tried keto back on a year ago and we were buying all that stuff,
we didn't do that the first time we started buying all that because, hey, this is available
now.
And I was doing workout supplements.
I was doing Spark from Avicare, which is full of sugar and caffeine, all that stuff.
So yeah, all those things we were doing, all these supplements was actually detrimental
to what we were trying to do.
So we're completely off all of those.
No sugar.
I don't remember the last time we had sugar unless it was accidental.
Yeah, I don't think so.
Literally nothing.
I guess it was just when we ate out at Panama City Beach, if any of the restaurants added
sugar to any of the meat.
Sometimes bacon's got sugar added.
We were very careful about even dying bacon.
We talked to each of the waiters and waitresses and said, this is what we're doing and this
is what we want.
And they were great.
Yes.
Speaking of that, let's move off of that onto the favor factor.
So we prayed before our trip, we prayed for Adam and Tina as they went on their trip to
Amsterdam, Italy, Spain, no, Amsterdam, Spain, Italy.
They're in Italy now.
And they're going back to Amsterdam.
They're going back to Amsterdam to spend time with his family.
But we prayed for them.
We prayed for ourselves.
We asked the Lord for favor.
Lord, would you grant favor with every clerk, every attendant, every ticket agent, every
airline, every steward or stewardess?
I mean, just we asked God for favor, so we moved in what's called, and those of you
listening, listen to this, heads up on this.
We moved in the spirit of appeal.
Father, we appeal to you.
Would you grant us favor?
It's a question.
Would you?
After that, we moved on to declaration.
And that's where we moved from appeal to declaration.
Now prayer of declaration is just what it sounds like.
We declare favor over our lives, who declare the favor of God on us according to God's
word in Psalm 30 verse 5.
Psalm 5 says He surrounds you with favor as like a shield.
Psalm 30 verse 5 is, "'Anger lasts for a moment, but his favor lasts for a lifetime.'"
So we declared God's word over us.
His word is His will.
So when you declare His word, you're declaring His will over your life.
It means His desire, which I love that.
His desire, which means His will for us is what He desires for us.
Isn't that beautiful?
Yes.
I love that.
I just heard that this week.
I want to encourage you in your prayer life, take both approaches.
Come in the spirit of appeal.
Come in the spirit of declaration.
Appeal means you're asking.
Father would you?
Don't say, Father, I just ask you to.
It doesn't make sense.
Father would you?
Then you move into the place of declaration because you now know you have the word of
God on it.
When you have the word on it, you can be quite clear.
I declare in the name of Jesus that favor will go before us.
It's exactly what happened.
From the moment we left our home to the moment we came back, it was unbelievable.
How many cool conversations did we have with waiters and waitresses?
I mean, everybody, we ran into them.
Even our waiter.
And locals.
Locals there in Florida.
Our waiter at that really nice seafood place.
Captain Anderson's.
Wow.
That was amazing.
Shane.
Yeah.
He said, his family's from Bernie.
We're like, what?
He goes, do you know where Bernie is?
Yes, we do all of our shopping there.
We go to the gym there.
We're 20 minutes from Bernie.
I was pretty shocked at that.
He was such a neat young man.
He was very respectful.
He was so great.
We kept hanging out at our table, even though the place was crushed because it's one of
the most, it's like top 10 in Florida for seafood.
Wonderful.
And he was just hanging out and standing at our table.
Our food was getting cold at one point because he was just hanging out with us.
But I loved every second.
I kept thinking, this is the favor factor.
This is God.
He's drawn to us for a reason.
Not because we're amazing, but because God in us is amazing.
And that happened everywhere.
So let me tell you a miracle that happened.
TSA?
Hey, I'm telling you, my Bible says miracles happen, according to Pastor Eddie Freeman.
My Bible says the same thing.
Miracles still happen.
TSA.
All right.
Just the very letters TSA puts the fear of God in people.
I mean, just like, you know, it's almost like saying the DMV.
That's another adult.
Oh, gosh.
That's for sure.
Please.
So we're at Panama City Beach Airport, which is a small airport.
It reminded me of that show, Wings.
Yes.
I loved it.
Everybody was nice.
Oh, it was so sweet.
Doing our baggage, doing our tickets.
And he was the pilot as well.
I'm kidding.
But it was a small airport.
But we go to International, which is shocking.
Nice airport.
We go through TSA.
I have to unpack everything.
I had four iPads.
No, three iPads.
You had mine too.
A laptop computer.
Three iPads, a laptop, and the Roadcaster Duo, which is what we're doing the podcast
through.
It's the equipment, all the microphone.
I had to unpack all of that out of my backpack.
I had my backpack.
My backpack weighed 70 pounds.
And it's not even that big.
But anyway, we got it all in there.
And I'm like, do I have to unpack everything?
We didn't have to do that in Austin, which was great.
So I unpack everything.
And my phone, get everything repacked because it took a minute for me to get everything
back together.
And you know how it is in those lines.
You don't want to err.
But there weren't that many people there.
So it wasn't that bad.
But anyway, we get up to our gate.
I feel my pocket.
And I'm like, my phone's not in my pocket.
Oh, it's in my backpack.
I go through my backpack.
It's not there.
And I realize I left it in one of those bins.
Which anybody could have picked up.
Not only was that my phone.
It was credit cards and my driver's license.
So I'd be more twerp about some of that than I would my phone.
You can replace the phone.
But anyway, so I was actually very calm about it.
I was quite shocked.
I decided not to panic.
Because you're a calm person.
But still, that's pretty unnerving.
It was.
And I got up.
I walked back to, which wasn't very far.
It's a small airport.
Hallelujah.
It's not the FW or Chicago or O'Hare.
So I walked back.
And I walked right through.
It says, do not enter.
To go back in, I walked right in and right up to the TSA agents.
And they're like, could we help you?
They were nice.
But could we help you?
I said, I left my phone.
And I said, are you sure it's here and it's not in your backpack?
I said, we checked our find my phone.
It's right here.
No, but you went back twice.
The first time.
They said, come back and check your backpack one more time.
I humored them, went back, checked the backpack, came back with find my phone.
I said, because my wife had the phone, you had the phone.
I told them that.
And they went into action.
They tore that place apart.
And then she said, just call it.
And you said, well, yeah, I don't have the ringer on.
She goes, I'll hear the vibration.
She turned off the fans.
So there were fans.
The airport was hot because it's hot everywhere in the world right now.
The world's on fire right now.
She turned off all the fans in that area, which was, I was like, this is amazing.
And she was so gracious.
And she's all right, everybody be quiet for a minute.
I mean, she told the whole six TSA agents to shut up and shut down all the machines.
And they said, call it.
So we called it and she said, I hear something.
They tore, they went through Ben after Ben after Ben and tore that place apart and found
it and she goes, I got it and she was so excited.
They all started clapping.
What?
Okay.
Don't tell me there's not still miracles.
Adam has a real hard time with TSA, but they had a good experience too.
So that's true.
We had a great experience.
They give a bad rap, but you know what?
Because they have a hard job.
They do.
People are jerks flying right now.
They are.
I know I said that was very direct.
But God had his favor on you.
And I just think that.
But first, you know what, when you first went back down to look for it and I was still sitting
there, I was just going, really God?
Everything has been wonderful.
Everything.
This is not the way I want to end my trip.
So I began to pray and I didn't even think about find my phone app on my phone until
you came back and you said, hey.
Hey, find my phone.
Because you're always checking up on me where I'm at.
Yeah.
That's true.
But God is so good.
Oh, God is good.
I'm just saying those TSA agents were great and they were fun.
And I got to tell you, I was so blessed by that.
And I just said, I cannot thank you enough for your attitudes.
I just went past Oralon.
I'm a practically loved.
I mean, it was crazy.
I've never seen that in an airport before.
I haven't either.
And it was so the favor of God.
A lot of times.
That's why when I came back, I was so happy.
Right.
I told you, we found it.
But not only did we find it, these people were amazing.
They've been over backwards to take care of me.
So yay for the TSA agents in the Panama City Beach Airport.
Which I want to go back as soon as we can.
We're going to go back.
That was such a good experience.
Okay.
The trip was, I'm going to dare I say it, use a word that some Christians get weird
about.
It was magical.
It really was.
It was enchanted.
But I felt the peace of God, the favor of God.
I can't even explain.
And not only that, just such a love for you.
Us getting away together.
Even though we've been here every day.
We have, but it's home.
It's a little different.
There's something special about going away together.
And I just, I'm already in love with you.
I already love you.
I'm in love with you.
Would I, if you could even say that I re-fell in love with you.
That sounds weird.
I don't know what words to use, honestly.
But literally it was one of my favorite times in our 30 years of marriage.
Why do you think I asked if we could stay a few more days?
I didn't want that.
I get it.
I so get it.
Well, because I do know once we get back in the groove a week from Sunday, it's, you know.
Game on, right?
Yes.
Yeah, we're back in.
But we're not the same people.
No, no.
God has done such a work in us that we will go back into our work life joyfully, by the
way.
I am getting excited about it because I know we're not the same people we were.
God has done such a deep work in us and I'm forever grateful.
Forever grateful.
I am too.
We're very blessed to have a board and staff.
We have a board of directors.
That are so...
Supportive.
Supportive of us.
Loving.
And want the best for us because they know that they'll get the best of us if we take
care of our temple.
That is true.
And take care of our marriage and our family.
It's kind of like when your parents are healthy, the family's healthy.
What's odd is we haven't hardly talked to faith except through text.
Our own daughter, our youngest daughter who's on staff at our church.
There's two times in seven weeks, six weeks.
Hardly just here and there.
But it's just because with her working at the church, we're really...
We're trying to be kind of separate from the church as much as we can and not get sucked
into it because we can.
Because our minds go there.
Once your mind goes there, it's hard to disengage.
And so...
But we do think about the people a lot.
We talk about them.
We miss.
I saw Amy when we went to the...
Cleaners today.
She'll be here and she'll hear that she loves our podcast.
Amy, we love you so much.
Amy Moore, she works at the cleaners and we had to go pick up our bedding.
And I so enjoyed talking to Amy.
I did too.
It was like, one of our people.
I literally felt that.
I didn't say anything to you, but I noticed that we just stayed there a long time until
car pulled up.
I know.
I keep looking to see if there were cars behind us.
Nobody was behind us because I think God wanted us to.
I talked to one of our church members that we love.
It was funny.
It was almost like we're desperate.
Oh my gosh, a real conversation with a church person.
I was like, ah, so good to see you.
But anyway, we love Amy so much and thank you, Amy, for listening to our podcast.
Just good to see you today.
Can't wait to see the church.
This is going to be a family reunion when we go back.
I know.
Well, I've had many dreams this week about going back.
It's freaky.
I know.
Why are we dreaming about this?
Because it's coming up really fast.
It's coming fast.
Fast, yes.
I don't have a lot of spiritual dreams.
I have freaky.
It's weird.
But when you do, you remember them.
When I do, I remember and I've been having some dreams.
Some of them are a little frightening and demonic and I know where that's coming from.
I know the source of all that.
A dark enemy hates what we've done.
He hates that we didn't take a sabbatical.
We received the gift of sabbatical and he hates that.
We haven't squandered it and we've worked through it.
All right.
We've gone on and on, but we're full.
Our tanks are full.
Pastor Eddie Freeman from Gateway Church in Southlake has been our coach and mentor through
this.
Although once we started, he's like, hands off.
Don't even text me.
I don't want to hear from you for two months.
You had to text him to ask him if he could preach.
You're not even supposed to be thinking about this.
It's coming up soon and you do need someone to fill the pulpit.
We've reached at our church twice and some little information gets through from time
to time and people have loved him and adored him as we do.
He has coached and mentored us well through this.
He set us up for success.
He's been meeting with our staff, which I love because they can draw some nuggets from
him that he... Because we're part of the Gateway Church's
network and he's just come in and really carried the load for us.
So thankful, Pastor Eddie and a dear brother and a dear friend.
I want to switch gears for the last part of the show and I want to talk a little bit about
some of the things we've been learning, some of our learnings within this.
A while back, I even said it in a message, maybe in the last message or two that I preached
before we started the sabbatical, which was now what, six weeks ago, however long it's
been.
It was basically a declaration and it was a declaration that I give up.
It's not often as a Christian you go, I just give up.
That sounds very defeating.
It sounds like, oh my gosh, he's not going to make it.
But really, I want to talk about the fact that I've given up and here's what I've given
up.
I've shared this on here before so I won't be laborious on this, but I want to give some
scripture background.
So for those of you listening, I want to share this with you.
It's just three learnings that we're getting out of the sabbatical, although there's millions
of them at this point.
But here it is.
It's a declaration.
I give up my right to be offended.
Now I shared this on a couple broadcasts, so I mean this isn't brand new, but I want
to reiterate because I'm the kind of guy that I don't get anything the first or second time.
I need repetition.
Most of us do.
And I remember hearing, we were watching a show called Holy Ghost or something by Darren
... I'm trying to remember.
You know who I'm talking about.
And he was interviewing Michael W. Smith.
And Michael W. Smith made a couple of statements, but he said one of the things he's endeavored
to do for the rest of his life is that he is endeavored to never be offended again.
This is a guy who's been in the music business for 30, 40 years.
And he's saying, I am endeavoring to never be offended again.
I thought he said that on the Jesus movie.
It was one of those.
I mean, it was that.
It was in that same vein.
And so we heard Pastor Bill Johnson, who we have high respect, high honor for, say this.
He says, I gave up my right to be offended.
And so I just morphed that into my own wording.
I give up my right to be offended.
And I have to keep that in front of me.
So I want to give a couple of scriptures on that and then we'll move on because I want
you to hear a couple of others.
Matthew 13, 21, listen to this.
Yet he has no root in himself, but endures for a while.
And when tribulation or persecution arises or offense arises on account of the word,
immediately he falls away.
Remember, that's the context of the four soils.
And he's saying that whenever persecution arises, immediately he falls away.
And that's so true.
Sometimes we're doing really good and then offense comes and it just takes us out.
Tanks us.
Knocks us off.
It does.
Because we end up...
And it eats at you.
I was going to say, what do we do with it?
Yes.
And it causes so much stress in our bodies and then we start eating improperly.
We start thinking improperly.
Our minds go crazy.
We spin out.
And we spin up.
Yeah.
Another verse, Matthew 18, 21, I love this.
Then Peter came up and said to him, Lord, how often will my brother sin against me and
I forgive him?
As many as seven times, Jesus said to him, I do not say to you seven times, but 77 times.
And what he's acting...
He didn't even say he's asked for forgiveness, did it?
So he's like, if a brother sins against me this many times, what do I do?
He says, you forgive him, period.
And actually, 77 times is a perfect number and it literally means infinity.
So there is no limit to our extending grace, mercy, forgiveness to others.
Another scripture, last one, Ephesians 4.31, 32, let all bitterness and wrath and anger
and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice.
Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you.
There it is.
I give up my right to be offended.
And here's the thing, family, I mean, anyone who's been wronged, there'll be 15 people
as you walk away from the cross of Jesus Christ, as you leave, as you move away, there'll be
15 or 20 people patting you on the back saying, you have every right to be offended.
And the only reason why we tell people about our offense is we want to get them on our
side so they can see we're right and they're wrong.
It's called validation.
Exactly.
And it's wrong.
And that's where I want to really grow as a Christian.
It's all about the flesh, right?
Yes.
So what we're doing, and I want to encourage you to do this, make this declaration.
I would write this down.
I give up my right to be offended.
Now at first, you go, well, if I say that, I'm afraid I'm going to be tested.
You're going to be tested anyway.
Oh, you'll be tested.
No, no matter what, because we live in a fallen world.
Bingo.
We live in a down world.
We're living up in a down world.
So one of the ways we live up in this down world...
Is do the opposite of what the world does.
Exactly.
Bingo.
That's what I'm telling you.
Awesome.
All right.
Second declaration.
So that was one we've already talked about, but I feel like it's good to bring it back
up just as a reminder.
But another declaration is this, number two, I give up my right to withhold encouragement.
How many times have you had this inkling, we call them God taps, a God pause moment
where you feel like, I should reach out to so-and-so.
I haven't heard from so-and-so in a while.
I hope they're okay.
I should text them.
I should call them.
Whatever.
I should email.
Whatever.
But we don't do it.
And in our mind, we justify that we sort of did because we thought about them.
But good wishes and good thoughts and good intentions don't do anything.
And you never know.
That person may have needed what you had to say right then, and you could have given up
that opportunity.
I reached out to somebody just this morning with something that was on my heart, an encouragement.
I reached out to them.
They wrote me back almost immediately and said, thank you.
I've been going through a difficult, rough, was their words.
I've been going through a rough time.
This is timely.
And that was a confirmation from the Lord, you heard me.
And so I've been trying to be very mindful of that.
I've limited my reach right now simply because we're on sabbaticals.
So I'm not like just blasting out texts and emails.
But I have a handful of people that are in my orbit that I continue to reach out to and
encourage.
Dear friend of mine, Mark Barry, I'm so excited for Mark.
Mark went in.
Mark's my age.
We were both guitar players in a rock band, a Christian rock band in college back at Howard
Payne University back in the mid-80s.
We both were dueling lead guitar players.
We wrote a lot of music together, had a lot of fun just touring and playing music.
And we've stayed friends, close friends.
He lives in Phoenix, Arizona.
And he was diagnosed.
He went in and he had his colonoscopy, you know, we're both 61.
And it came back bad.
They said, you've got, we've removed polyps.
We think there may be a problem.
Went in to an oncologist who did the test.
They came back and said it was cancerous and that they may need to look at radiation or
what's the other one?
Chemo.
And so they were talking about what to do.
They removed these polyps at the time.
They also disconnected his colon and did some...
Yeah, he's had a bag and all that stuff.
Colostomy.
That.
So he's having to deal with that right now.
And this dude is like an entrepreneur.
He's got businesses.
He's an amazing guy.
And all of a sudden he's like incapacitated because of this.
And they're saying, so they did all the blood work and I've been walking with him and texting
him every other day saying, give me an update, Mark, how are things?
How are you feeling?
How's your heart through this?
He has been doing great.
He's been praying.
I've been praying with him.
He just wrote me back today.
Can I read the text?
Sure.
Even said, please share this story.
I want people to know how good God is.
He said, good morning, bro.
Thank you for that.
It's something I sent this morning.
Encouragement.
Again, I gave up my right to withhold encouragement.
He said, that's sermon material right there.
He said, I would appreciate your prayers this afternoon because I have an appointment
at 2 p.m. to go over my blood work.
If it comes back clean, then I won't need any kind of treatment.
Thank you again.
I hope you all are doing well, blah, blah, blah.
And he says, I just had my doctor's appointment.
This is later today to go over my blood work, which is a determining factor if I was going
to need treatment or not.
And they said that my blood work was clean.
Wow.
So thank you, Jesus.
Jesus.
Wow.
And I said, I have been praying for you and boom, there it is.
I'm so happy for you, brother.
Now you can move forward and leave this behind.
He said, yes, and I would love it if you could use my testimony in a sermon sometime.
Wow.
The fact that I was diagnosed and completely clean within five weeks is nothing short of
a miracle.
Miracle.
God is awesome.
I want to thank you and your wife for your prayers.
Wow.
And he's got a corrective surgery on September 7th to take care of that colostomy and get
everything back and he'll be back to normal.
So praise God.
Wow.
Go.
Yay, Jesus.
Yay, God.
And yeah, just one of those things.
And so again, I've just chosen not to withhold encouragement.
And so I've been reaching out to people.
First Thessalonians 5 11, therefore encourage one another and build one another up.
I love that.
Yes.
Encourage one, build each other.
The word encourage literally means to inspire courage.
So when we encourage someone, it inspires courage within them.
Hebrews 10 24 and 25.
And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to
meet together as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another.
And all the more as you see the day drawing near.
We talked about this earlier today.
We feel like, and we're listening to a lot of great teachers who believe we're in the
last of the last days.
I'm not ever going to try to calculate times, seasons, or so to speak, but yet Jesus said,
be aware, be mindful.
Be vigilant.
Yeah.
Keep your eyes open.
And so encouraging one another and all the more as you see the day drawing near.
So the last one, and I want some comments from you on this because this has really been
powerful for me.
We heard this was spawned by some of what we've been listening to, what we've been growing
through during our sabbatical.
Number three.
So that last one was I give up my right to withhold encouragement.
Number three is this.
I want to encourage you.
You should write this down.
I give up my right to not take responsibility.
All right.
You got to think through that.
This is a thinker a little bit.
I give up my right to not take responsibility.
You know, the word responsibility, you can hyphenate the word response-ability.
Think about that for a second.
Response-ability.
And what it is, what responsibility is, it's the God-given ability to respond in a Christ-like
and biblical manner.
I want to read that again because I think that's important.
Responsibility, the God-given ability to respond in a Christ-like and biblical manner.
As followers of Christ, we've been given, we've been empowered and given the ability
to respond rightly, to respond biblically, to respond as Christ would respond because
Christ in us, the hope of glory lives.
And so I give up my right to not take responsibility.
Here's another way to say it.
I have the ability to respond to injustice, sin, unrighteousness, and immorality.
What I'm not talking about is jumping on your computer and crushing everything out there
on social media or getting your opinion out there in a sea of opinions because it's just
more noise.
It's more static.
It goes nowhere.
I'm talking about to intelligently address real issues, not by reacting, but by responding.
When we react, we're in the flesh.
When we respond, we can be in the Spirit.
Does that make sense?
Does that sound, does that resonate with you?
Now, yeah, absolutely, because I think it's hard because we tend to, when we see injustice
in some way, we tend to react to the situation instead of respond rightly.
And so it's where, it's like what our moms used to say, put your thinking caps on.
Well, put your thinking caps on before you speak and say something intelligibly and not
just say something that's from the flesh.
And what would, I mean, God, I mean, Jesus, I mean, he was in the temple.
He was upset because they were gambling in the temple.
And he responded rightly.
I mean, he was angry, but he didn't sin.
There's a difference.
He didn't react.
He responded.
And, but I do believe that we are so quick to react and we don't think before we respond
so much of the times, especially as Christians.
What are our values?
What are God's values?
Are our values lining up with God's values?
And are we using honey?
You know what I'm saying?
Yes, yes.
I know that saying you, you know it.
Come on.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
Honey attracts.
I know.
I can't think of what it is, but you know what I'm saying.
It's, it's, don't come in the spirit of this aberration where you're just a boring things.
It's the way you come.
Coming in anger, coming in indignation.
Indignation.
Yes.
Wrath.
It's a, it's a whole different spirit that you come in.
It's a spirit of love.
Yes.
I'm going to take, I'm going to, I'm going to take my ability to respond and I'm going
to speak into a situation that is, has to do with sin, unrighteousness, injustice, or
immorality.
What's happened is for Christians, we've been marginalized and silenced because we're
not out there beating some kind of drum, but it's time.
I talked about this in a sermon right before the sabbatical called Take a Stand.
There's going to be another sermon called I Give Up.
I'm giving up my right to not take responsibility.
So when we take responsibility, a lot of times when we, okay, think about how we say it.
Oh man, that person took responsibility for what they said, or they're a responsible
person because they show up on time.
But to truly take responsibility means I act upon the enablement of the Holy Spirit and
the God-given ability to speak into, not react, but to respond well, to think well, to respond
intelligently and spiritually and biblically into a situation which means government, big
tech, big pharma, everything that's going on in our world, education, food industry,
all the things that are spinning out right now, government, local, state, federal, we
need to be showing up at meetings.
We need to be responding, not reacting.
We need to be responding because we've been given the ability to do so.
So I give up my right to not take responsibility, which means it's time to take a stand, stand
up and say what needs to be said in love, in love, not in anger, not in protest, but
in love.
Exactly.
And that is what you're talking about where honey will get you a lot further than vinegar.
Exactly.
There you go, honey.
But what is that saying?
I can't remember the saying.
I can't remember the exact saying.
You can tell us what we're completely botching here.
Sure, I was told that as a child.
But I know exactly what you're saying.
You're going to attract a lot more with honey than you will with vinegar.
A lot more flies or whatever.
I think that's due with flies.
Gross.
So anyway, a couple scriptures here, Ephesians 5-11, listen to this, take no part in the
unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them.
Boom.
You know, as you're talking about this, this is what Steve Berger, this is his...
Oh, Pastor Steve.
His whole passion right now is exactly what you're saying.
It's exposing the darkness and speaking up intelligently.
And he is really taking a stand.
And he said it's time for churches, for pastors to stand up and not acquiesce to the culture
and become like everybody else.
We have got to be set apart from the culture because we're Christians.
We're supposed to be set apart.
We're not supposed to look like everybody else.
What I'm really thankful for is we have a group of parents, moms here in our community
at Fredericksburg, Texas, who are standing up and they're getting castigated in the newspaper,
getting castigated by...
Anyway, I'm not even going to go into details.
That it's worldly people.
It's people who...
But some people say they're Christians, but it has to do with pornography in the libraries.
That's just part of it.
There's a lot broader stroke than that.
But that's one thing.
And I'm so proud of Tracy and Tara and that group of women, Andrea and others who have
stepped up, Jeannie.
Yeah.
Nancy.
I mean, so many have stepped up and said, enough's enough.
We're tired of what you're feeding our children.
You know what's interesting is some of these people that are standing up don't even have
children and may have never had children.
And yet their heart for the next generation.
It's not even about just barking.
It's about taking responsibility.
They're taking their ability to respond and we're running with it.
I'm just so proud of them.
So the next scripture, listen to it.
So they're exposing them, the deeds of darkness.
Listen to this, James chapter 4 verse 17.
So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.
Wow.
Wow and ouch.
How many times...
I'm just going to be real transparent here.
Have I sat silent in a meeting or in a group or in a situation only because I didn't want
to be the outsider.
I didn't want to be the one guy who says, I don't agree with this.
But you stay silent because you want people to like you.
I'm too nice.
People pleaser.
Too nice.
Instead of going, you know what?
This isn't right.
And here's the thing, really again, what God's teaching me through the sabbatical is there's
a time to speak up and a time and you can do it and you can speak the truth in love.
And that's really our heart.
And that's my desire.
And so coming back into the world out of this hibernation of two months, I will not be the
same person.
I already know that.
And so anyway, these scriptures have really impacted me.
Here's another one, the last one.
This is Matthew 5 13.
You are the salt of the earth.
I was about to use the word salt.
Oh yes.
You are the salt.
Definitely.
We love salt, don't we?
Being on the carnivore diet where you have a new love affair with salt.
Okay, let's go back.
You are the salt of the earth.
You are the light of the world.
Let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory
to your Father who is in heaven.
I love that passage.
Where to be salt, salt seasons, it preserves, but they've got a little sting to it sometimes.
I mean, speak the truth in love.
Take response ability.
I hope you'll never read that word the same again.
I hope you'll never define that word the same again.
You have been given by God an ability to respond well and to respond in a responsible way, if
that sounds funny, double negative there, but that's what it's about.
So anyway, I hope you're encouraged.
Are you encouraged in that?
I'm encouraged.
Is Chevy encouraged?
That's what I really want to know.
He's been asleep the whole time.
He's crashed out in your lap again.
So as we land the plane, I've got some thanks to say.
You've had such a great response and I want to pull some of these up and say thank you
to some of our dear friends.
In fact, I'll just read some of these comments.
I'm going to start down here with Skippy.
Skippy, this is on Fountain Rites.
Wow, not only do you set...
No, wait.
He says keep it going, exclamation point, and a striper boost of all things.
So I've got to do a striper boost.
Thank you Adam, the Podfather Curry for the file, the striper file.
By the way, I loved striper back in the day.
I know you do.
So yeah, good guitar player.
So and then Adam, the Podfather Curry comes in with another striper boost of 77,777 sats.
He says, wow, not only do you sound wonderfully peaceful and rested, that's my favorite compliment.
It was.
That made me feel good.
We were really up.
We had a lot of energy.
We thought we had a lot of energy, but yet we were very rested and very peaceful.
He says the sound quality of this remote recording is outstanding in all caps, which makes me
super happy.
Congrats on another great episode and love from Amsterdam, because they were in Amsterdam
waiting for it.
So I have to just do this.
I love these pads.
I know you do.
I know.
Good guitar player.
From a user who did not put their name in here, it says, so happy you got away heading
to see, oh wait, this has got to be, this has got to be Julie Hipple.
What?
Get that right.
Hold on.
I have no idea what you're saying.
It's somebody from our church.
So happy you got away heading to Seaside with my daughter tomorrow for a few days.
Julie Herbert?
Yes.
Thank you, Hipple.
I'm not sure who Herbert is.
Sorry, Julie.
So yeah, but it's not on this particular.
And she gave a thousand sets and we are so thankful for that.
Thank you for doing that.
And I hope you had a wonderful time with your daughter.
Seaside?
Is that what she said?
Yeah, Seaside.
That's Destin.
Yeah, right down the street, right?
From where we were.
Beautiful.
Somebody named The Keeper.
Who could that be?
I wonder who that is.
Tina Curry.
Tina.
They're coming back this weekend.
I know.
We miss them.
I miss them and I miss Phoebe.
And so I'm ready for the Currys to be home and my little girlfriend, Phoebe.
She's not that little.
She's like 118 pounds, but she's still my girl.
So anyway, I miss them.
We miss them.
And we've been getting tons of pictures.
Every day we're talking.
Wow.
We have not missed a day ever.
It's hard to not have the spirit of envy.
But anyway, 25,000 sets.
Thank you, Tina.
She says this, you have the remote location recording down.
No excuses.
The road caster must always be packed on recording days.
Another great podcast.
Love you too.
And what do we say?
We love you back.
We'll be back.
Love you more.
And then the last one was, Jessie wrote this.
Jessi Workshop.
Try, oh, this is, you're going to love this.
Must have heard our carnivore conversation.
Try making a liver jerky.
No, thank you.
You love liver.
I don't.
I wrote Jessie back.
She said, I think from Miss Annette, that'll be a, Dame Annette, that'll be a hard no.
No.
Try making liver jerky.
We slice ours up, season with salt, pepper, garlic, and dehydrate it.
If you don't like it, they also make great dog treats.
Sheffy would probably love it.
The smell alone would do me in.
Speaking of food, we need to land the plane on this.
I do have one, a couple of letters.
Beautiful.
Just a couple of beautiful things.
So let me, let me find this.
This, I love this.
This is from one of our dear, dear, dear friends.
Peggy, Peggy Layden.
Peggy, we love you so much.
She wrote this.
Hi guys.
So glad to hear that you are at the beach and enjoying it.
The majesty and the ripples.
Also, just wanted to encourage you that I think you made a good decision to not travel
abroad during your sabbatical.
That made me feel better because I was feeling kind of ganged upon.
That kind of travel is a lot.
Love that you are getting lots of deep rest.
Can't wait to hear what pours from your teaching, Jimmy.
Me too.
I can't wait to get back.
I can't either.
I'm kind of trumpling it a bit.
I know you are.
Obviously.
And then we had some, also we had quite a few new people sign up for, to subscribe to
our newsletter.
Yes, to our newsletter.
So those of you listening, subscribe to our newsletter.
Go to livingupandadownworld.com.
Subscribe, subscribe, subscribe.
What's Sheffy doing?
No, he's funny.
He's so chill.
Subscribe to our newsletter.
I put it out every Sunday so that you are reminded that on Monday we will release our
podcast.
And then also we got another just a cool, I love this guy, David Wicker, Sir Bia's Grace.
Oh, yes.
So pleased to hear you had a favored vacation in our home state.
I didn't realize he was from Florida.
Looking forward to hearing all about it.
I'm an episode behind.
Not for show.
I'm going to share below.
So listen to what he says.
We had a great sermon today.
James 4.
Brother Jimmy, James, the book of James, and your promotion of giving up my right to be
offended and call to encourage go hand in hand.
The God who spoke in that Old Testament is the same one speaking today.
Yes.
Stole that from you as well to work over here in North Florida.
The message is clear.
Always really working on praying for those that I'm not in agreement with.
KTLD, keep the lid down.
I love that.
And then buckets leaking.
Absolutely.
It's a rippling.
Let's go.
I so love that.
Thank you, David.
We love you, man.
I'll write you back.
I hadn't had a chance to do that today, but listen, we got steaks to cook out because
we're in carnivore lion version.
It's getting late.
I'm hungry.
Yes.
I do want to say how much we love and appreciate all of you.
Thank you so much, everybody, for tuning in.
And we will see you next week on living up in a down world.
Bye.