ś Don't get down when you're seeing the worst
ś Because the last will be the first
ś What a day I'm telling you
ś All things will be new
ś Living up in a down world
ś I'm excited to be with you
ś It is bright and early in the morning
ś Hey gorgeous how are you doing over there
ś I'm fired up
ś I'm excited we're getting to help people live up in a down world
ś Just getting started
ś Hey gorgeous how are you doing
ś Any time you get new equipment you really get excited
ś New gear
ś You sure are gorgeous this morning
I don't want to be gorgeous.
All right, you're gorgeous.
Wow.
Okay, now you're telling all my secrets.
No, no, no.
It's not even in the show notes.
I went off script.
Cute sounds like what you'd say about Chevy, right?
Yeah, he is cute, for sure.
I like the way Tina and Adam open.
Hello, my love.
Hello, my queen.
We can't copy them.
No, we're not gonna do that.
But I love that.
I love that he calls her his queen.
His queen.
Hello, my queen.
But he's got that radio.
You don't have that, honey.
Don't do it.
I do not.
That sounded really bad.
I'm so from Texas.
I'm such a West Texas.
Adam, I'm so sorry that he did that.
You have one of the best voices I know.
He does.
He really does.
I'm jelly.
I'm so jelly over that.
Yeah, totally jealous.
Yeah, you should be.
Yeah, but he's worked on it for 40 plus years.
That was his...
And he smoked for years too, so that helps.
And it didn't...
What?
No, it gives it that...
Ew, smoking is not good though.
No, it's that nice rasp he has.
Oh, I don't think...
I think he's just got...
I have one right now because of that drainage.
He's got the best radio voice.
He went into the right field for sure.
Totally.
You know what?
We listened to nearly two hours of no agenda yesterday.
I want him to know that we did that.
Adam, Podfather, Curry, brother.
It was so good.
It was amazing.
We were like cheering.
I mean, it was like, come on with your bad stuff.
So now we'll have to figure out how we can keep listening.
Work it in, yeah.
Six hours, I don't know, Adam.
That's a lot.
That's a lot for us.
It's a lot, brother.
It's really good information.
I would definitely recommend people,
if they wanna know what's really going on in this world.
Especially now.
That's a really good radio or a podcast to listen to.
No Agenda with Adam Curry and John Dvorak
and they are just deconstructing all of the misinformation.
It's a nice way to say it.
I was gonna say BS.
Everything is misinformation right now.
It is the craziest thing.
It's insanity right now.
And so yeah, I don't wanna dive off yet into that.
We'll probably roll into that at some point.
But first of all, we are living up in a down world.
This is Pastor Jimmy and Dame Annette,
affectionately known as.
And we pastor Bridge Church in Fredericksburg, Texas.
And we love doing a podcast.
We decided to do this a while back when Adam and Tina.
A year and a half ago in January.
We got to know them and Adam was like,
you guys are like natural podcasters.
You should just do it.
So we just basically bought gear.
I don't know where he got that from.
Plugged it in and just started.
And so we are now on episode number 72 today.
72.
They just crossed with a Korean keeper.
100.
So yeah, congrats to them for sure.
There's this amazing too.
Oh, amazing podcast.
So do give them a listen.
And so what's up in your world over there?
Well, we're being blitzed by the media coverage
of the DNC, is that what you're calling?
Yes, the Democratic National Convention.
I had a DNC when I was young.
And that kind of feels like that I know.
No, no, no, TMI, white TMI.
The DNC is a joke.
Oh, okay.
That's what I'm saying.
It's a joke.
The Democratic National Convention is a joke right now.
And what we're seeing is not real.
And people are buying into things.
And so yeah, I'm being, yeah.
I had to correlate it with the DNC I had,
because it really is the same.
So I know, what can I say?
Wow, too early, too soon.
I know, sorry.
So yeah, I mean.
But anyway, your message,
let's go into your Sunday message.
Well, let's change gears.
Okay, we are shifting gears.
We are.
Podcast whiplash.
Well, you did.
Sounds like Adam and Tina.
Before we do that.
Oh no, why?
We wanna invite people to go to our website.
Oh, you don't wanna do that at the end?
I'm gonna do it now and at the end.
Okay, you go ahead.
To go to our website, Living Up in a Down World.
Actually, we've received some notes since last week.
And they're not things I'm gonna read on air,
because they've got more personal nature.
But I wanna say thank you for those who wrote in
and encouraged us also, for Adam Curry.
Just, you know, Adam, he practices what he preaches.
And that is value for value.
That if what we're doing here adds value to you,
then you can simply add value back.
One of the main ways you can do that is by giving our link
out, sending our link to other people who may be encouraged,
who may be helped by our conversations about God,
about marriage, about the culture, about this world,
the Bible, scripture.
And so if it encouraged and help you,
then send it out to other people.
That's one of the best ways you can show value.
Other ways, go to our website, livingupinadownworld.com.
Click on subscribe, and that way you'll get
on our mailing list and you'll know
when our podcasts are coming.
But also you can also either through PayPal
or on any of the platform podcasting 2.0 apps,
like Cast-O-Matic, you got a face over there.
We just kinda noticed that we're under a boil use
for falling water.
What?
Yes. Boil.
Boil use.
We have boil our water. What if we have RO water?
It doesn't matter.
We have to boil our water?
We have to boil our water due to well issues.
Oh my gosh.
Oh, that'll be fun.
I know.
We had water this morning, but it was already.
It's RO water is what we use.
Yeah, it doesn't matter.
Really?
Yeah.
I thought that takes out everything.
No, no.
Anyway.
Okay, anyway, we digress
because it's on the surf of the web.
It just came up as a news flash where we live
because they're putting in that new well.
Wow.
We have to be.
Okay.
Due to well issues.
Oh, nice.
Yeah.
We have to boil our water until further notice.
Wow.
Yes.
Yeah, yes.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, yes.
Hey, first world problems.
Yeah.
Most of the world has to do that just to live
and don't even have the luxury of it.
So let's just be thankful, right?
Yeah.
So like I said, go to livingupandanddownworld.com.
Sorry.
You can show value on any of the podcasting platforms.
Check out more of the modern podcasting platforms
like Cast-O-Matic, Fountains, our favorite.
And you can do value for value on there.
You can send Satoshis and Boostergrams just to encourage
and love to hear from you.
But big thanks to Adam Curry, 77,700.
K-Y-B-O.
What?
I hit the wrong one.
What are you playing?
I can't hear.
I did K-Y-B-O.
Oh, well.
That was a striper boost.
I did the K-Y-B-O.
Keep your buckets overflowing.
Well, you need to do that too.
We do need to do that.
That's for sure.
So anyway, yeah, as far as our week goes
and what's been going on, man,
last week was a whirlwind week.
We talked about it on the show.
So we came back excited, enthusiastic, but physically tired.
So yeah, the last part of the week was like recovery.
Wow.
But it was good.
It was amazing.
So you were mentioning Sunday.
Sunday.
You were on fire.
And you got Brian Mandel, Pastor Brian, on fire.
And the church was lit up second service.
And faith asked today,
which service do you want us to put online?
We were like, second service.
Because you just lit a fire under everybody
with just going to the word
and speaking the word over ourselves
and living up in a down world, basically.
That's what it's about, isn't it?
And it was really, you kind of went back
to our old roots of walking by faith
and speaking faith over us,
speaking faith-filled words over us.
And it was really powerful.
Tell me, can I ask you a question?
Or I want to just give you something to leap off onto.
For you, in your walk with God through the years,
what is the difference between a passive Christian life
and a Christian life that's more active
and declarative in nature?
Well, the difference is, okay,
the joy of the Lord is your strength.
And the only way you can have joy in the Lord
is by getting in His word, singing His word,
worshiping.
When I'm down, okay, I shared this with you this morning,
but I think it bears repeating.
This is how you live up in a down world.
I remember as a teenager,
breaking up or being broken up with my boyfriend.
And as a teenager, you have these songs that...
Your songs.
Yeah, these are our songs
that are reminiscent of your dating, your courtship.
And typically, this is what's so sad.
And I know this for a fact,
that this happens with a lot of women.
I don't know about guys,
but with a lot of teens for sure,
is we'll, even after we've broken up,
we'll listen to those songs.
It'll just get us down and more down.
And then we'll continue to listen.
And it's almost like we enjoy being in that place,
although we don't need to be in that place.
We need to be in a better place.
There's a word for that.
We love to commiserate.
Yeah, for sure, for sure.
We just love to wallow in it.
Yes, we do.
And so I have found as an adult,
that when I get down, when I turn on worship music,
especially worship music that has the word in it.
Like for instance, today,
we were listening to Red Rocks worship.
Oh, I love those guys.
They're out of Denver, Colorado.
Yes, and we used to do some of the songs in church
and we're like, we haven't done these in a while.
So I was listening to them and it built me.
I literally felt like I was walking a foot off the ground
because it was the word of God in song.
Why do you think Psalms, songs in the Bible
is about it's songs?
Right, it's worship.
And why is it the most lengthy book in the Bible?
Because if you really think about that,
that's why we need to surround ourselves with worship.
Now, last week we surrounded ourselves with the Doobie
Brothers.
It wasn't bad.
It brought back old memories.
It was fun and nostalgic.
It's nostalgic, but this is what brings life to me.
This is what brings joy.
This is the joy the Lord gives me strength.
And so we actually went online to see
if there was a new album and of course there was.
It was in April and I began to listen to them
and I'm like, okay, here's some new songs for our church.
Because we're so inundated with bad press, bad news
that if we don't pull ourselves up by our boot strings,
is that the way you say it?
Bootstraps.
And put on things that are gonna lift us up,
we're gonna stay in that down depressive state.
Whether we're depressed or not,
it's a depressive state.
Absolutely true.
And so I found myself this morning
just in a whole new place.
And I feel like that's a word for people,
especially if you're a Christian.
If you're not a Christian, you don't understand these things.
And that's okay, you can get there.
But if you're a Christian and you're not walking in joy,
you're not walking in peace, put on some vibrant music,
not some music that's gonna bring you down,
worship music that has the word in it
that is gonna lift you up.
And it will lift you out of those circumstances.
So what you were doing Sunday,
especially at the end of both services,
you started reading Deuteronomy 28, one through 14.
And you were reading those and putting that
in a statement of who we are.
We're above only and not beneath.
We're blessed in the city, blessed in the field,
blessed in the country.
As you were doing that, our church,
you could feel the room change.
You could feel the atmosphere, especially second service.
And so I just, I think you're onto something there.
And I think as a church, it's not about being fake.
It's about allowing the word of the Lord
to bring us that joy and that faith
because that's where our faith comes in.
No kidding.
It comes by the Romans 10, 17, faith comes by hearing,
hearing by the word of God.
And so the more word we get in us,
the more faith we'll have and we'll know
we'll be able to discern the times.
And you use that word, I think on Sunday,
we've talked about it.
We need to discern the times.
We need to like the men of Issachar,
they discern the times and they knew what to do.
Do, yes.
So we need to be discerning.
But if we're not in the word, we'll discern the wrong,
we won't have the right discernment, correct?
Absolutely.
I would like to read the first part of Deuteronomy 28.
And I wanna encourage you to jot this down, make a note,
however you need to remember it.
It's Deuteronomy chapter 28, one through 14.
And when you read it, this is what we learn
gosh, this has been nearly 30 years ago.
Yeah.
We learned to read this in a declarative manner
because this is a promise.
It was a covenant promise made to Israel,
made to God's people in those early days,
but it was attached to in a part of the,
it's called the Deuteronomy covenant.
And also out of Genesis 13.
Which is an everlasting covenant.
It never goes away.
That's the point.
I think that's the problem.
It is an everlasting covenant,
which means it's still in, not in vogue,
it's still enforced today.
But the problem is as so many churches say,
we don't even live by the old covenant.
And that is erroneous.
I think that's just old news.
It's erroneous.
What we need to realize is the power of our words.
And when we take God's word and make those our words,
that's a double whammy.
That's a double shot right there.
It's like a double shot espresso.
I mean like, wow, it's a jolt, it's powerful.
What you say matters.
And even how you say,
the spirit in which you say it matters.
So I'm gonna read this scripture and then we'll just talk.
I wanna riff on that a little bit
because I want to teach people how to do this.
So that when they themselves try to read this
or start to read it,
they'll understand the power of these words.
All right.
So Deuteronomy chapter 28, starting in verse one.
It says this.
Now it shall come to pass if you diligently obey the voice
of the Lord your God to observe carefully
all his commandments.
All or some.
All his commandments, which I command you today,
that the Lord your God will set you high above
all nations of the earth.
And all these blessings shall come upon you
and overtake you because you obey the voice
of the Lord your God.
Little caveat here on the word blessing.
What a blessing is by definition is,
it is an empowerment to prosper.
Whereas a curse on the flip side of that
is an empowerment to fail.
He says all these blessings,
all this empowerment to have good success and to prosper
shall come upon you and overtake you because,
here's why.
And this is the only reason why.
Because you obey the voice of the Lord your God.
There it is.
Obedience activates blessing.
It's that simple.
Obedience, let me say it again, this is important.
Obedience activates blessing.
And it's not just because you're a Christian,
you have that.
There's the caveat there is you have to walk in obedience.
Not be perfect.
Give me a break.
Because there's only one perfect person
and he already died and came and he's coming back.
But you do need to diligently obey.
You need to, that's an area that we need to keep within us
that we want to please.
I love the word please.
There it is, I love it.
Versus obey.
I heard Pastor Allen Jackson say,
we need to please God.
I like that better because obey sounds like we're a slave,
but we are, we're bond servants.
But the thing is, how about we change that to please?
Ooh.
That is a beautiful word.
And it's not living to please God
so that we'll somehow get something.
No.
That's the mistake.
No, or get saved.
Because we're already saved.
It's a gift.
We're saved, we're born again.
We've received Christ as our savior,
made him the Lord of our life.
Yes.
And now we live to please God.
Why?
Because he's our father, because he loves us
and we love him.
We want to please him.
Just like I wanted to please my own dad.
But a lot of preachers that we've heard on TV
will do this so you can get that.
That is not this.
I mean, we do it out of love.
That fires me up in a negative way.
It does me too, because that's that prosperity message
that I don't like.
God's word.
Yeah, I don't like any of that.
I can't stand that.
That is not this.
So let me, we'll riff some more off that,
but let me go for it.
Blessed shall you be in the city
and blessed shall you be in the country.
Blessed shall be the fruit of your body,
the produce of your ground and the increase of your herds,
the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks.
Blessed shall you be,
or blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.
Blessed shall you be when you come in
and blessed shall you be when you go out.
The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you
to be defeated before your face.
They shall come out against you one way
and flee before you seven ways.
The Lord will command the blessing on you
in your storehouses and in all to which you set your hand.
And he will bless you in the land
which the Lord your God is giving you.
The Lord will establish you as a holy people to himself,
just as he has sworn to you.
If you keep the commandments of the Lord your God
and walk in his ways,
then all the peoples of the earth
shall see that you are called by the name of the Lord
and they shall be afraid of you.
Now it goes on, I'm gonna stop there
because that's a lot.
But I wanna just start by saying this,
somewhere down the line, we bought into the idea
and the worldview that we're supposed to live
a passive and weak Christian life.
When in fact, many, if not most of the events,
depictions and stories of people in the Bible
and in our American history,
that we herald as heroes and saints
for anything but passive and weak.
So the question is this, what happened to us?
Where did we miss the turn?
We became complacent.
Oh, sorry, are you going there?
No, I've got more to read.
Oh, sorry, you keep going.
What happened to us?
Where did we miss the turn?
Who told us to stand down, be quiet,
don't rock the boat, don't make a stink,
get out of the public square?
That's called the passive faith.
And I think, honestly, I have to say this,
a lot of preachers, a lot of churches,
I think we have made the gospel too easy.
Okay, maybe the gospel is easy
because it's supposed to be, but discipleship too easy.
People, we give them a pass.
You don't need to decide, just come to church.
We've told them inadvertently or intentionally
that it's easy, it's free, it doesn't cost you anything.
Just say yes.
It doesn't cost you everything.
It does.
It's literally laying your life down.
It is, but we've made that too easy
to where I think there's people that think they're saved,
but they're not because they don't think
about God during the week.
They go to church on Sunday,
they might read their Bible every now and then,
but they don't think about pleasing God.
They don't ask God before they make major decisions.
I know that because we've been there.
I've been there.
There's a big difference in who I was before
and who I am now.
I don't think it's just because I'm older
and don't have much time.
I think it's just because I really got a revelation
and not everybody has a revelation of who Jesus is.
So you and I were talking about this earlier.
This has been an ongoing conversation
and I want you to tell your story
and I'll tell mine, the short version of it,
is that when I was a brand new Christian,
in the fifth grade, I made a decision to follow Jesus.
Now, I was young, I was brand new, I knew zero.
And so I walked in aisle, I checked the box
and I got dunked in a hot tub called the Baptist tree,
but I didn't really know anything,
but something, it lit a fire in me.
It lit a fuse, I'll just put it that way.
And I always say I was introduced to Jesus then.
That doesn't mean I made him my savior and Lord,
but I was introduced to him.
That's the key right there.
A lot of people are just introduced, yeah.
Something happened on the inside of me
where I was so hungry for God
that I would ride a rusty old school bus
that they converted into a church bus to church.
They would pick me up in that old bus every Sunday morning.
Couldn't get my parents to take me,
couldn't get anybody else to take me.
So here I am as a fifth grader going into the sixth grade
and I'm jumping on a bus with a bunch of strangers
who would do that nowadays
because I wanted to be in God's house.
Now, that played out, I was in public school,
the next school year started, I got caught up
and I feel like the enemy just completely threw things
in front of me to get me off track.
Looking back on it, I didn't know it then,
but now as an 18 year old.
What exactly did you do?
As an 18 year old, I really stepped over the line.
This time I accepted Christ as my savior
and declared him as the Lord of my life.
That means I'm declaring him as master, I'm not.
He's God, I'm not.
He's savior, I'm not.
So I did that and at this point,
it's like all of heaven broke loose
and at exactly the same time, all of hell broke loose.
It was like the enemy was doing everything he could
to keep me from pursuing discipleship.
Now here's the interesting thing.
He's out to kill, steal and destroy.
So of course, yeah.
So the interesting thing is that
I had no one to disciple me.
This is the last week of my senior year of high school,
so I was moving.
And let's define the word disciple.
You had no one to teach you the things of God.
You didn't know how to get in the Bible.
You didn't know how to.
You didn't know where to start.
You didn't know where to start,
because that's the key.
Where do you read?
What do you do?
I mean, this Bible,
and I had a King James Version Bible, right?
Okay, that's the biggest.
I can't even understand Elizabethan English.
Exactly, you need a new living Bible.
Something, yeah.
Something.
And so I had nobody to show me anything.
But here's the deal.
It didn't stop me from pursuing.
There was a hunger.
It rekindled that hunger from before,
but this time it was empowered with the Holy Spirit
because I was born again, born of the Spirit.
And I'm telling you, no one could stop me.
I was reading no matter what.
I just opened my Bible and read like Bible roulette
because I didn't care.
It was God's word and it meant something to me.
So I wonder why is there such a difference?
Because even adults, I mean,
I can understand that as a child,
because then we go through hormonal phases as teens,
and we can get off track.
What about adults who get saved and say,
we're ready and I'm on fire and I get baptized
and I want to show, but then I...
You see them leave, you see like there's some people
that have gotten baptized in the last few months
and they're not in church anymore.
What do you think?
Do you think it's because of the weighty things of life
just come in and...
No.
Do you think they really got saved?
Here's what I think.
I think people mistake baptism
and making a quote profession of faith for getting saved.
I think they've replaced something that is a heart shift
and a mind shift and a spirit shift with a physical act.
The physical act should be an outflow
of what's happening internally, not the opposite.
So we'll do things to try to get to God.
Oh, then I'm gonna get baptized
because I was baptized as a baby.
We see a lot of that.
We see a lot of that in the Catholic community.
So we have a lot of people that want to be baptized
because they got baptized as a baby.
Now they're an adult.
We've actually do now a training class
to make sure they understand why they're doing this.
And to clarify that.
I almost think you need to do the training class
a month before and see if they're still ready
a month later.
Yeah.
At the end of the day, we're not gonna deny people.
I mean, fill up with the Ethiopian unit.
What prevents me from being baptized?
I know, but here's the thing.
I talked to you about this this morning.
I pulled out an old purse,
a purse that I used about a month ago,
and it had prayer points for our youth
that just went on camp.
And I looked at that and I was like,
they got back from camp over a month ago
and we had 20 kids get saved,
but how are they today?
And I told you this.
Yeah, we needed to pray before they went to camp.
And yes, 20 got saved,
but now is when we need to pray even more
because now they've gone back to school
and let's see if they're really saved.
Yeah, this is where they're really.
Or did they get caught up,
which is what happens so much of the time
is we'll go to some event camp
or a conference or some kind of retreat
and we'll be surrounded by Christian music,
Christians, no outside interference.
No phones, your phones are off.
No outside interference or influence.
And yes, okay, we're ready.
And then we get back into our daily routine of life
and then things change.
I think that now's the time to start praying
for all of those kids or keep praying and not stop.
I think that will be a good reminder for this Sunday
for our whole church
that the church really got behind our students.
They really took this on and we all had,
I had two students I was praying for by name.
And you reminded me, I've got their names.
I wanna see where they're at today.
I wanna know, I'm gonna talk to our youth pastor
and say, are those kids that got saved,
how are they doing?
Are you in their lives to help them get disciple?
Because that's when you know it's real
is if, okay, they've gone back to school,
it's been almost a week.
How are they doing now?
Because it is hard.
It is hard.
I loved camp.
I wanted to be at camp 24 seven every day because-
Everybody wants to stay at camp.
Yes.
And that's why people go,
oh, I wish I could work at the church because it's so,
you know, it's fine,
but it's really what we do outside of the church
that matters.
So think about it this way.
Once you say yes to Jesus and you really do,
you give your heart to Christ, you're like all in.
That is when the enemy comes in.
And now the battle happens.
And now you've got to,
it's the same principle when Joshua took the Israelites
over into the promised land.
The land was given to them, promised to them.
They still had to fight for it.
Once they stepped over, they had to occupy it.
And so we still have to occupy territory.
And a lot of that territory are old habits
that we have to submit to him,
but you got to occupy something to control it,
to occupy and then submit, occupy and submit.
And say, all right, I'm going to give this to you God,
because I've owned this.
Now I'm going to give it to you.
This habit that drags me down,
this habit that takes me out,
I've owned it, but now I'm giving it over to you.
So you have to occupy and then release.
And confess it to a youth pastor or someone
that they could help you with that.
Because not everybody can just,
okay, I'm not going to look at porn anymore
or whatever you do.
It takes-
Porn's a killer.
I mean, let's just be real.
That is taking-
Sexual sin is taking everyone out right now.
It's unbelievable.
We watched a-
A baptism video.
Great church down in Corpus,
baptized a bunch of people.
And all these teens and what was surprising.
The girls.
The girls that were hooked on porn, lust, sexual sin.
And they were saying, I'm letting go.
What they did, the pastor put them,
I can face it right before their bets.
So what were you testifying of basically?
What's your testimony?
And they'd say,
I'm letting-
Or what are you letting go of?
I'm letting go of pornography.
I'm letting, and we're like,
I'm letting go of lust.
These were like kids.
These were young people that are inundated
because of these screens that are so accessible.
It's the screens, it's what's the magazines,
it's TikTok.
It's everything.
It's-
So this onslaught,
but it's also pastors falling to this.
It's everyone.
I mean, this is so rampant.
It is.
And because our culture is so sexualized.
Now I'm not going to dive off in a hole here
because we need another hour show.
Right.
But, so let's get back to our original point.
But what I'm saying is,
you need to be able to confess that.
And I love that those teens did that.
Oh, it's beautiful.
So now the pastors that heard that
can go to them and say,
okay, how are you doing?
And the parents, and friends,
and everybody else.
How are you doing?
What can I do to help you?
Yeah, not just pastors.
Right.
It's not all on the pastors.
Anybody that they allow in their lives is what I mean.
But leaders that won't take advantage of them, hello,
because there are those too.
But that can say, what can we help?
How can we help you with this?
You know, eradicating this from your life.
Yeah.
Because it's,
the enemy knows your weaknesses
and he will come at you with those weaknesses.
Absolutely.
The Achilles tendon.
And it doesn't matter if you've been a pastor
for 41 years like you,
or in the ministry 30 years like me,
or two hours.
The enemy will come at you however he can
to get you to deny your faith.
Yeah.
And to get you to use a word that we're using a lot,
capitulate, give over to,
which is what that means.
It means to give up.
And then you walk in shame.
And God wants to take that shame away.
But you have to have a mindset of,
I wanna please God so I'm gonna avoid this.
But it does take time.
It is so hard.
So let's go back to where we started.
And that is using God's word.
Yes.
To become, as the Bible calls it,
it's the sword of the spirit,
which is the word of God.
And so now we gotta take that word,
and we've said this for years,
the word works.
But you gotta work the word.
So how do you work the word?
So let's land on this because I think this is,
this is gonna be helpful
because we could go all day on this topic.
I mean, literally.
What we did and we learned years ago
is we took Deuteronomy 28, the first 14 verses,
and we just broke it down into little bite-sized chunks.
What I do is I copy and paste onto a note on my computer,
and then I can separate the scriptures
and I can manipulate them in terms of being able
to read them one at a time,
as opposed to just this big group of scriptures.
And I just go down the list and I say it this way.
I'll say, Father, I thank you
that you have made me to be the head and not the tail,
above only and not beneath.
I'm blessed coming in.
I'm blessed going out.
I'm blessed in the city.
And I am blessed in the field.
As the enemy comes at me one way, he must flee seven ways.
And why am I blessed?
Because I obey the voice of the Lord.
And that's a short version of what I do.
I use, I do a lot of, you've got a face going on.
You're reading emails.
No, no, just go ahead.
It just keeps popping up more stuff with the boil.
So it's kind of like now they're offering bottled water.
It's not good.
We need to make sure we're okay.
But anyway, keep going.
No, I don't do that.
Because really I'm listening to what you're saying.
It just popped up.
Okay, so.
I'm gonna turn it off.
Thank you.
Pretend we're at lunch or something.
Yes.
Oh no, then I'd be on my phone.
No, I'm just kidding.
I know you would be.
It's a joke, no.
But keep going.
Because this is what we do.
We take God's word and we work the word.
And when we work the word, it has power
because what you say matters.
And the spirit in which you say it matters.
If you just read it, that's one thing.
But when you declare it.
It's because you're bringing it inward.
You're not just saying it as words.
You're taking it to heart.
And that's the key.
Keep going on that.
Because I wanna look up a scripture.
I'm gonna find it real quick.
How do you do it?
That's how I do it.
I used to do it around 20.
What are other scriptures or things
that pop into your mind?
Just in your random prayers.
Well, no weapon formed against me shall prosper.
And every tongue that rises against me,
you shall show to be in the wrong.
That's Isaiah 54.
Yeah, that's one.
For by his stripes I'm healed.
Because I've got some knee issues right now.
And I pray that constantly.
So we call it standing on the word.
Standing on the word.
I'm looking up a scripture.
That's why I'm the confession of your faith.
I love this scripture.
That with by your mouth you speak.
But what is it?
I know what you're talking about.
I know exactly what you're,
but by confession, I don't know this.
I don't know the...
Okay, that's called dead air.
That you're supposed to be...
Oh, sorry, I'm thinking.
I'm trying to think.
Hebrews 10 23.
It says this, let us hold fast.
The confession of our hope.
Yeah.
The Bible word means expectation.
Joy and confident expectation.
So let us hold fast the confession of our hope
without wavering for he who promised is faithful.
And so that's the principle right there.
We hold fast to that.
The whole fast means to hang on to
the confession of our hope.
And so take God's word, use God's word,
employ it and then deploy it into your life
and into the atmosphere.
And it'll make a massive difference in your life.
All right, so from a carnivore thing,
I'm not gonna spend time on this,
but this is important.
This is our little carnivore corner.
We are on day 410.
Wow.
We both went to the doctor yesterday.
I had my blood panel done and you had your knee looked at.
So we were sitting there together
and she's looking at my blood panel and she's like,
gosh, everything here looks amazing.
And I said, well, it's because we're on carnivore.
And she goes, you know what?
I have a lot of patients on carnivore
and they're all doing well.
I am ready to start looking into it for myself.
Our own doctor.
Finally, finally.
I mean, this is, I have a doctor in San Antonio
that's okay, but this one is in Fredericksburg.
She's our PA in Fredericksburg.
And it was nice to hear someone instead of saying,
no, you need to get back on statin.
You need to get back on.
She was asking me, so, oh, I see you have prescriptions here.
You're on ulcer, no, no, no, no.
You're on simisatin, no.
She said, you're off all those?
You're on this?
No, I'm off.
I mean, totally off of everything.
She's like, wow.
And then of course, and then anyway,
it's just interesting when a doctor notices and says, wow.
And I literally don't wanna go to a doctor
that says get off of it.
Oh, for real.
We feel too good.
I think what's happening with my knee is an injury,
which is totally different.
That's different.
It's called doing two deep squats.
No, I don't know.
I think it's from that injury.
Or it could be from weights
because I've, it could be my leg presses too.
So who knows?
Well, that too, yeah.
I know it does, but anyway,
I think it's just an injury and overuse, but we'll see.
I'll go back tomorrow.
But the thing is, is we feel great.
And when we eat heavy protein, it just builds us up.
Meat, beef, fat.
I mean, it's all good.
So if you have questions about carnivore,
write us at livingupinadownworld.com.
We call it a three-part, it's a three-leg stool.
Mind, body, and spirit.
And when those are in balance, life is good.
I'm just saying life is good.
Or as Dr. Kilt says, life is good.
God is good.
Keep the faith.
I love him.
He's a wild man for Jesus.
68 years old, nearly 69 now.
And he is going strong.
He's been a carnivore for like 15 years and he is a beast.
He's awesome.
So anyway, that's just what's going on with us.
We love you guys.
Thank you for listening and thank you for reaching out.
It was great hearing from you.
If you've never written this,
I'm gonna give you an assignment, super simple.
Go to livingupinadownworld.com and just write us a note.
Let us know where you're from.
It's, I love getting emails and notes.
Okay.
I love getting emails and notes from people
outside the country, outside our community,
in our community.
We just love hearing from you because it matters.
The fact that you're listening,
fact that you're tuning in is huge for us.
We just got a rig, thanks to Adam Curry,
where we now have two studio options,
where we can be at home with our studio
or we can be at our church with our bigger studio,
but we now have a portable studio.
So we're gonna be able to do our podcast
much more consistently because we wanna be with you.
We wanna encourage you.
That is our heart.
And I want you to know something.
God is for you.
He's not against you.
He is for you.
And so I wanna end with this scripture,
Ephesians chapter two, verse 10.
It says this, for we are God's masterpiece.
He has created us a new in Christ Jesus
so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.
So I wanna just encourage you today,
Annette does as well, that we are here for you.
That's Ephesians 2.10.
Check it out in the New Living Translation.
Whatever we can do to encourage you on your journey
and help you live up in a down world,
help you to live with a biblical worldview
and engage your culture head on
because we do not live by fear.
We live by faith in Jesus' name.
Have a great week.
God bless.
I'mации am