We'll be right back.
Don't get down when you're seeing the worst.
Because the last will be the first.
What a day, I'm telling you.
All things will be new.
Living up in a down world.
Yeah, we're living, yeah, we're living.
Living up in a down world.
Oh!
This is Jimmy and Annette, and we are coming to you live
from the Bridge slash Living Up in a Down World studio
at Bridge Church in Fredericksburg, Texas.
How are you doing, beautiful?
I'm great.
You look stunning today.
We've been working out.
We did.
We've had a busy day.
We have had a very busy day.
I mean, it was kind of cool starting off.
We made lunch, I cooked dinner,
so we'd be ready for the night.
We went to work out, took care of the dog.
Now we're here.
We went grocery shopping.
Oh yeah, grocery shopping.
It's been a day.
It has been a day.
And then here we are on a Saturday.
Saturday.
Kind of different.
But we're not live.
We're not.
I don't know why I say that,
because we're live when I say it.
It's weird, isn't it?
Oh, okay.
I know.
Welcome to Living Up in a Down World, everybody.
What episode are we on now?
We're on number 87.
Wow.
I know, we're getting there.
I mean, they're just coming, and it feels good.
Well, if we were more frequent, we would have more,
but during the holidays, we kind of took some time off.
Yeah.
But it was good.
We needed that.
We needed the downtime and just recovery,
because things with our church are just going
a thousand miles an hour right now.
Yeah.
Church is growing.
It had nearly 700 people there this Sunday.
We had over 200 on Wednesday night back to the church
as we're doing our Walking with Jesus discipleship journey.
That includes the youth and the lady study.
Yeah.
But I mean, over 160 just for a discipleship class.
That's amazing.
I remember back in Abilene, not 15, 20 years ago,
when we did those classes, do you remember?
There'd be 24 people there, and that was a big class.
We're talking about one class with 160-plus people.
It's like a university class where you go in and it's all full.
It really is.
It's an auditorium, and the only drawback is you can't have
any real interaction, but the material is so good,
and we're going so deep.
We talked about how to have a biblical worldview,
and we're spending five weeks on that because it's so important.
You've got to start thinking about what you're thinking about.
You said that about 10 times on Wednesday night.
On purpose.
Oh, I know.
I know you.
I want that to get in people's brain.
I think it's in their brain, for sure.
Because once people don't ever pause or stop in the midst of a day
and actually think about what they're thinking about.
So that's what this is all about.
It's learning to be intentional,
and what is shaping the way I see the world around me?
What's informing my perspective or my perception?
So we went really deep, I mean, 90 minutes straight on that,
and it was powerful.
And wow, I've got a lot of feedback from that, too.
Now, the last podcast you did with Jenny, the Combs,
and that went well, I heard.
Yeah, that was really good.
I was here, but I wasn't in here to hear it,
but I heard it went over very well.
It was powerful moving.
I mean, just hearing what happened to the J6ers,
January 6th, what, 2020.
Four years ago, wait, 2020?
2020.
It just turned 21.
Yes.
So the election was in 20, January 6th.
So four years ago.
So that's when all that went down.
And so she is, I mean, in a very real sense, a survivor,
but really she's a thriver.
She's on fire.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, on fire.
So anyway, that was great.
So if you didn't get a chance to listen to that podcast,
go back.
That's last week's number 86.
And listen to that with Jenny McCollum.
It was powerful.
And it went so well that our producer, Adam Curry,
wants you to do more interviews now
because he really liked the way the program went.
He liked the format.
And so I think that's a good idea.
I did, too, actually.
I think it's a great, well, I remember at one point,
you wanted to just do an interview with me.
Just let me just interview you.
But I wanted to converse.
I didn't want it to just be my interview.
But I think it's good that you're going to have people
from the community, Rick Green, Trey Blocker, Matt Long,
others that, you know, Angela Smith.
I was thinking of Angela Smith, Tara Pash.
I'm going to bring in a lot of different people.
You can.
From different areas.
Randy Brawley.
Absolutely.
Yeah, so we can get a lot of people in here.
And I still haven't landed on a name yet.
Hill Country Conversations, Hill Country Connections.
I mean, the interviews.
It just needs to be very simple because I agree.
It's going to be simple.
Really like simple.
But Hill Country, we live in the Hill Country.
It needs to be something that will just roll off the tongue
very well.
Yeah, we'll think about it.
We'll throw it out to Perplexity AI.
We can interview Adam Curry.
I'll interview Adam Curry, absolutely.
He and I have talked about doing a podcast together.
Well, we talked about doing all four of us,
and that still hasn't happened.
We're all running and gunning.
And he's added a lot more to his plate than he can almost handle.
But he loves it.
He thrives on it.
He thrives on that energy.
He's amazing.
Yeah.
He's amazing.
Yeah, he is.
And he's my best friend on planet.
I mean, on planet Earth.
And she's my best friend, Ms. Tina Curry.
So it's pretty cool.
She's off at a conference right now.
She is.
And so he's batching it with Phoebe.
Yes.
And his big dog.
And they're batching it, at least for a couple of days.
Yeah.
She'll be back tomorrow.
Tomorrow.
So yeah, she's up in Dallas, Dallas area.
All right.
So hey, I want to talk about weird stuff.
Yeah.
Well, we had some weird stuff happen to us over the weekend.
Wow.
Wow, wow.
Right.
Last weekend.
I mean, we'll start.
Just kick off, and then I want to jump right in.
And for those of you, when we talk about weird stuff, what are we talking about?
Well, we're talking about spiritual warfare.
There we go.
Things that happen that aren't in the norm.
Just things that are totally out there.
So, for instance, I'm in church.
We're at church Sunday morning.
You're not preaching last week or this week.
Pastor Brian.
Pastor Brian is preaching, and he's preaching on a message, a teaching that he actually
gave when we did the block for our discipleship program called Faith.
And so he picked a couple of, one of the lessons out that he wanted to reteach in a sermon
format, and you did the same, and you took two weeks to do one.
He's taking two weeks.
And he chose the covenant in faith.
Which, right there, when you just say the word covenant, most, I'd say a lot of Christians,
I would dare to say most don't even know what that means.
Don't even know.
No, they don't.
And so you think, oh, what is that?
We have a covenant.
And he didn't obviously advertise it that way, or people might not have watched or come
to the church.
That's so good, though.
It's powerful.
And while he was preaching, during the first service, I started to feel like I was about
to come out of my skin.
I was fine during worship.
I was fine before church, talking to people.
And while he was preaching, all of a sudden, I literally just, I had this almost like panic
attack.
I think I've only had one panic attack in my life, and that was when we were on our
way to a new church that was interviewing you and I, and they wanted me to give my testimony.
And I was terrified, because I don't think I'd ever given my testimony.
Remember, we were in the car, we were driving, and I was out of control.
That was the only time.
Well, I couldn't be out of control, because I'm in church.
But my heart's racing.
Yeah, my heart's racing.
I feel like I'm going to come out of my skin.
I feel like I'm either going to throw up, right there, you know, close to the stage,
because we're on the front row, or I'm going to pass out.
I couldn't tell which one.
It was just all over me.
Luckily, the service was ending right before we were about to go into our last song, which
we always do an ending song after the preaching.
And I turned to you, and I said, something's wrong, and I don't feel right.
I don't feel good.
And you said, go to the office.
So I went into the office, and I laid down on the couch.
I sent you to the office.
You sent me to the office.
But I came, and I laid down on the couch, and I didn't want to turn it.
We have a TV on.
I could have even watched part of the service on the TV, and I didn't.
But I was just laid there.
So what did you do?
Because, of course, I looked at you and saw the look on your face, and you turned to me
and said, I'm not doing good.
And I'm like, what's wrong?
And that's when I said, well, just go to the office, get some water or something.
So I didn't know what was going on while you were gone.
Well, all I could do is I got some water, which I had already drank plenty of water,
but I got some water, and I just laid on the couch.
And I just started reading in Genesis where he was preaching because I wanted to just get it inside of me
so I could get ready for the second message.
And I just started reading it, and finally, Naomi came in, and she said, are you OK?
And I said, no, I'm not.
Something is wrong.
And she began to share with me that Brian had a lot of spiritual warfare leading up to him preaching.
And so she said, do you want me to pray?
I said, please, pray for me.
So she prayed for me, and I told her I was reading the Bible, and she said,
why don't you just let it read to you so that you could just close your eyes?
So I did that.
And then finally, the second service started, and I could hear the music going,
and I waited till it was all over with, and it was time for the preaching, and that's when I went in.
And I actually felt better.
I felt like I was able to calm down.
I couldn't figure it out.
And then the next morning, I didn't get a chance to talk to Pastor Brian about his message
and tell him what happened because I'm trying to think, is this because I need more water, electrolytes?
What is going on with me?
And he told me, he actually wrote in his report to me the next day, some of our employees,
all of them write reports to us about what's going on during the week, what they're working on,
just so that we can kind of see where everybody's at.
And he said he experienced the highest form of spiritual warfare while he was preaching,
which nobody could tell.
He said it was like he couldn't even get the words out of his mouth.
He didn't know what to say.
But you would never know listening that he was feeling that way.
So it was almost like that was in his head, but what was coming out, the Lord was just letting it come out.
It was so clear. I would never, ever have known.
So I caught him between services because you were incognito, right?
I was in here.
So I go out and I hang out at the Connect Center.
So what I do, we have hundreds of people in church, and I go out to the Welcome Center,
and I just hang out in the hall, and that's where the party is.
So you weren't with me, so I was going to go check on you in between services,
which I didn't even get a chance to go to the bathroom between services.
There were so many people, it was so just wild, but it was great.
And so I go over to PB, Pastor Brian, when the music's starting for the second service,
whenever I said, man, you did a fantastic job.
That was really good.
And he goes, really?
I mean, he looked ahead, this horrified look on his face.
I said, yeah, it was fantastic.
He goes, man, I'm under attack.
I'm under warfare.
He said, I felt like all my words were jumbled, and mine was foggy.
He said, like, brain fog.
He said he had trouble getting words out.
Never saw that.
Would have never known it at all.
So isn't that an odd?
So what was going on in his mind and what was actually happening
were two different things.
His mind and his spirit, what was happening, he just felt like he was being besieged,
and it was coming off like I'm dumb, I look stupid to everybody.
And yet, we're on the receiving end going, this is fire.
This is amazing.
That's pretty crazy.
So I went back over, I said, oh, man, you got this.
I said, hey, the reason this is happening, this is the discovery.
This is the discovery.
This is what is just unbelievable to me that we remembered this
and can express exactly what this is.
Yeah, so I was talking to him, music's going.
I mean, we're just on the front row, and I got my arm around him and said,
hey, you just preached on the covenant, our covenant with God.
If the enemy knows that if the church gets this message
and understands their covenant with God, that it's game over.
That's what I told him.
I walked back over to my spot, prayed for him, of course, in my spot,
and I just was like, wow.
Then it brought back a flood of memories of the past years.
Memories of the same thing happening, not in the same way,
but the spiritual warfare that we experienced when you would teach on the covenant.
So, explain what the covenant is.
Well, the covenant goes back to Genesis.
In fact, I'm just going to pull it up in the Scriptures here, Genesis 12,
having to do with Abraham, who was Abram before his name was changed to Abraham.
And so, let me look it up real quick while I'm on here.
Just a second, I have to find it.
So, we're going to go to Genesis, like back close to the beginning,
like Genesis chapter 12.
So, in Genesis chapter 12, verse 1, the Bible tells us this,
Now the Lord said to Abram, Go from your country and your kindred
and your father's house to the land that I will show you.
I will make of you.
He starts to tell him what he's going to do.
He gives him promises.
I will make of you a great nation.
I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you.
I will curse and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
The very next verse, which is verse 4, Genesis 12,
So Abraham went as the Lord had told him.
So, Abraham just obeyed.
It doesn't look like there's any time differentiations,
literally as though the Lord told him what to do and he did it.
You've got to understand, these are real people.
It would be like you, if you're a husband and you're listening to this,
you getting a word from God and then you going to your wife and saying,
Hey, we're leaving.
What's the first thing she's going to ask?
Where are we going and why?
And who told you we're leaving?
I'm going to be asking a lot of questions.
It's going to be a battery of questions for sure.
So you've got to understand, Sarah had to do the same thing.
So I'm sure he had to say, all I know is God told me what to do
and we're going to take the next step.
What a powerful picture of obedience there.
I'm going to do the next thing he tells me to do.
And Abram was committed to that.
I think, for me, I think that a lot of people don't know if God is talking to them.
They don't know when God is talking to them.
You know what I mean?
Because it sounds like our own voice.
And so how do you determine if it's God or if it's you?
So we're going to go into a different topic now.
Well, I mean, it has to do with the covenant.
Okay, all right.
I'm just trying to answer this for the audience.
I know you are, but it's going to take us down another path.
So the short version is this.
There are three voices in your head.
There's yours, there's the devil's, and there's God's.
And the sad and the hard part is that they almost always sound like your voice.
But you have thoughts that come to you and you know they're not of you.
And sometimes they're, well, sometimes you don't, unfortunately.
So here what I do is I ask the question, is what this voice in my head is saying, is it true?
There's the first question.
So you're looking in the mirror and you're looking, you're saying, and you're thinking,
man, you're so stupid.
Nobody cares about you.
No one listens to you.
They were right.
You've never made anything of your life.
You're not worth it.
Nobody really cares what you think or what you have to say.
You have nothing to contribute.
You're worthless.
I mean, the enemy will take you down those roads, and you'll just stand there in the mirror
and take it because you think these are your thoughts.
But anytime you've got words that are malevolent like that, that are dark, that are nefarious,
that are accusatory, like telling you who you are and what you are
and reminding you of what you did 15, 20 years ago or two hours ago,
this voice of accusation, the Bible calls the devil the accuser of the brethren.
And so he's an accuser, like a prosecuting attorney.
He's like, who's that guy, Jack Smith, that just quit?
He was going after Trump.
He's like that.
He's just coming after you and coming after you.
He doesn't let up.
He looks for anything to accuse you with so that if you make an agreement with that accusation,
like in your mind, you go, you know what, you're right.
I am stupid.
You know you're right.
I don't have anything.
You know you're right.
I don't matter.
Why am I even alive?
Why am I even here?
I mean, it'll go dark real quick because that's how the enemy works.
And at that point, you have to arrest it.
And when you make an agreement with what the enemy's voice is saying,
which again, sounds a lot like your voice,
you'll think you're thinking that, but he actually inserts things.
He'll insert thoughts into your psyche where you're like,
you weren't even thinking like that, and then suddenly you're going down this dark road.
That's how I identify the enemy, if it's not true.
Because what is true?
What I think?
No.
And to me, that's easy to identify as a Christian because we know the difference in right and wrong,
evil and good, but it's between our voice and God's voice.
So the way I measure up, okay, is this true?
By the way, I do this in nanoseconds now.
In the early days, you had to think about it.
But I think about it and I think about what God's Word says about me.
So if I'm looking in the mirror and I'm getting all these negative words, voices,
you know, this berating thing, disparaging thing, I'm just like,
no, that's not true because God's Word says I'm a saint.
God's Word says I'm holy.
God's Word says I'm a masterpiece.
I'm righteous.
God's Word says I'm the head, not the tail, that I'm above only and not beneath.
I'm blessed.
I mean, you can just go down the list, but when you know God's Word
and you've hidden it in your heart, as Scripture says in Psalm 119, verse 11,
your word, if I hid in my heart that I might not sin against you.
But when you hide God's Word in your heart, then it becomes like a file that you can access.
When you're in a crisis or when you're getting berated with these terrible thoughts.
Does that make sense?
So that's how I identify the voice of the enemy.
First of all, is it true?
Second of all, is it redemptive or punitive?
Is this something that may be negative, but it's redemptive in nature,
which means God's trying to correct me.
God's trying to help me.
God's telling me not to do that or not to say that, not to go down that path,
not to drive down that road.
So is the voice now redemptive or punitive?
Punitive means it's punishment.
It's just to hurt you.
It's just to punish you, just to torment you.
That's how I identify the voices.
Does that make sense?
Yes, but again, I'm asking how do you determine if it's God telling you to do something or if it's your flesh?
A lot of times that's a tougher question because...
I know.
It comes up a lot.
People ask me quite a bit.
So what you have to do is you have to discern...
So here's what I do.
If there's something comes to my mind and I feel like it's a directive,
like it's telling me to do something, then the first thing I do,
and it's the best thing I'll ever do, is I go to God's Word and go,
does God's Word align with what I'm being told to do?
That may not meet down to the specifics of, you know, turn right here, turn left here,
you know, whatever, submit that proposal, whatever.
But is the nature of that directive biblical in nature?
Again, is it true?
Does it have the sound?
Does it resonate in my heart as true?
Does it sound like something God would ask me to do?
Is it something I can easily do or is it something I have to stretch to do?
Well, if I can easily do it, and He'll tell you those things too,
or is He asking me to do something that's uncomfortable like He asked Abraham,
leave your family, your father, and go?
That was God's voice.
I bet Sarah's like, who told you that?
I can imagine that conversation.
I would be asking all sorts of questions.
That could have been a rough conversation.
So anyway, that is a little bit of a side issue,
and it takes some time to talk about.
So back to where we were going because we're chased a rabbit.
Well, I felt like that was important.
It is important.
So back to what we were talking about, weird stuff.
So things were happening.
I have not experienced that that I can remember.
It was unbelievable.
But what did it remind you of?
Well, once you brought it up, I thought, oh my goodness.
And you know what?
If you think about it, Jimmy, you have not preached on the covenant
since we've been here.
And so it's been a really long time.
Not intentionally, yeah.
I've touched on it here in the Arabic.
Not intentionally, that being the subject.
So tomorrow, he's preaching on part two.
So I've got to be worded up, spiritually armored,
because I don't want to go through that again tomorrow.
And I don't want him to go through it.
And he recognizes, because you talked to him about that.
We talked about it at length, what happened.
And so I've been praying for him specifically this week for that.
So that he'll have the mind of Christ as he's preaching.
But also that people will understand what God has done for us
and what he wants for us.
He wants only for good for us.
He wants to prosper us.
He wants us to grow in the knowledge of him.
And he wants us to walk victoriously.
He wants us to have faith and walk in faith.
That's something that a lot of Christians have never been taught, though.
They've never been taught that you can actually live a victorious life,
that you can overcome.
And the reason is because a lot of churches have never,
a lot of churches have walked in what's called pietism.
Pietism is the belief that we're not supposed to engage culture.
We're not supposed to be entangled with the world in any way.
Forget about being salt and light.
Forget about actually going out into the culture and making a difference.
No, we're just going to have our Bible studies and our church services over here.
And then we're going to let the world go to hell in a handbasket.
And there are churches that believe that.
So pietism really impacted the Lutheran church through John Wesley
and some of them, and Methodism as well.
I was going to say Methodist.
And that's still there.
It is, it's residual.
And what it tells you is don't get involved in politics.
Don't think about serving on the school board or anything like that.
This does not compute with me because if the church is not supposed to get
involved with politics, how do we teach people how to live in this world?
Because we have to live in it.
We don't conform to it, but we still have to live here.
So if we never get involved in anything and we just let everybody else
do the voting, everybody else, we're going to have evil rampant,
which is what's happening right now.
Which the word salt, you've got salt and light.
Jesus said you're the salt of the world, you're the light of the earth,
the light of the world, salt of the earth.
And He said that.
So what those two words mean, salt is something that preserves.
So we're the last bastion of preservation on the planet right now.
The Christian faith, the Word of God, teaching people how to live this life,
how to not steal, how to not be corrupt, how to be honest,
how to have honor and dignity and all the justice and truth and righteousness.
That's what we're here to do.
And I love the way Kirk Cameron uses the word heavenize.
He said we're here to heavenize earth.
That's what salt and light, salt preserves, what does light do?
Light exposes.
It also drives out darkness because light and dark can't occupy the same space.
So if the light is in our government, guess what?
It can't be there.
Darkness has to flee.
So if we pull back from culture and say we're not going to engage at any level,
then we have let go of the war.
Paul said to Timothy, he said fight the good fight of the faith.
He said don't be afraid.
He said you've not been given a spirit of fear but of power and of love
and of a sound mind.
He said you've been called to engage your world.
Piatism teaches that we sit back and we let the world happen to us
instead of us happening to the world.
The great commission that Jesus taught, he says go there for and make disciples
of all the nations.
And if we don't do it, they're going to get their information,
the people are going to get their information from the news,
and that's as corrupt as anything.
So why wouldn't a preacher want to share what's happening in the world
and correlate it with what the Bible says
so that we can combat that?
We already have precedent for this.
You go back to the first 150 to 170 years of the founding of our country
beginning in the 1600s with the 1606 Jamestown, the covenant they made,
the compact they made, the charter.
They called it the Charter of 1606.
Well, they talked about the reason they came to America was to evangelize the world.
And that's what the charter said, that our country was built
and that was the first that and the Mayflower Compact are two documents
that actually were pulled from and set precedent for what we now call
the Constitution of the United States, the Bill of Rights,
and then even before that the Declaration of Independence.
So all those things work together.
Now, so here we are in this world, but here's the thing,
there will be resistance.
Always.
Weird stuff. I'm just going to call it weird stuff.
Weird things are going to happen.
Sometimes we'll think weird things happening because there's some scientific explanation.
There's some physiological thing or something in the area of physics
that caused that to happen, but there are things that happen that are of another place.
Supernatural.
Supernatural, otherworldly, spiritual in nature,
and there are dark and malevolent forces that hate us.
And the more you step out, and I always use the term move the needle,
you're actually moving things.
Which is growing. You're growing in your faith.
You're using your faith. You're acting on your faith.
As you do that, you act on your faith, you grow in your faith,
and you're helping others to do the same because that's what Jesus said,
go and make disciples.
So when we're doing that and we're sharing the good news
and we're spreading it, there will be massive opposition.
We somehow think as Christians, hey, if we're just nice, everybody will get along with us.
If everybody's getting along with you, you're not moving the needle.
You're not making disciples.
So I guess we're doing pretty well. We're moving the needle.
We're over the target is the way I like to say it.
We're not just over the target, we are the target.
Now the target's on our back, but that's okay.
It's the price we pay.
I love what Dietrich Bonhoeffer said in his book, The Cost of Discipleship.
Jesus bids a man come and die.
And he talked about the cost of discipleship.
If your discipleship doesn't cost you anything, that's not discipleship.
And so we've got to be that salt and light.
But when we are, we stir things up.
Let's just put it that way.
So all that's precursor to say that what led up to Sunday morning's weirdness
and then other weird things that happened.
I wonder if anybody else experienced anything, but we just don't know.
Yeah, we don't know.
I mean, there'll be some people that have a lot of what I would call spiritual sensitivity.
They kind of a barometer for spiritual activity.
And I'm sure they were like, ooh, something's up.
You can feel it in the atmosphere.
I usually don't have that kind of barometer, but apparently I do now.
What's interesting is I had a great day.
And it's not because I'm ignorant or anything.
It's because I came in with a mindset.
I was already in a good mindset.
So I was not. I wasn't in a good mindset.
I don't know. I was in a warfare mind.
I knew where I was going with it.
I was excited.
Worship was amazing.
I knew the message he was going to teach on because I'd heard it on our Wednesday night study.
So it was just out of nowhere.
So isn't it like the enemy to if he can't get to me because I'm great up, I'm armored up, he gets to you.
And then I'm going, wait, what's going on?
Well, then that gets to Pastor Brian.
That's not all about me.
I don't want to make that all about me.
It's about all of us.
You did. You made it all about you.
Well, he'll go through me to get to you.
Oh my gosh. Wow. I quit. I'm out.
No, just wait and see if you know what's interesting.
I think Naomi, Brian's wife, has said this is he and I are so much alike.
It's almost like we're a carbon copy of each other.
We think alike.
We we it's saying I'm married to Pastor Brian.
No, I'm not.
But I'm saying the fact that he and I felt that at the same time was quite odd because I had no idea until he shared that with us.
And so I just find that interesting.
And well, I know you are.
What are you looking at?
I'm going through the word.
I'm going through the Bible.
I was going to look up Second Corinthians 10.
Listen to this description.
For though we walk in the flesh.
This is Second Corinthians chapter 10 verse three.
For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh.
For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds.
We destroy arguments in every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ.
Being ready to punish every disobedience when your obedience is complete.
There's that right there.
Just the first part, though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh.
So there is a spiritual war happening and it's happening 24 7.
But it's happening in this spiritual realm.
But every once in a while it's almost like it breaks the plane.
It breaks the fourth wall.
And suddenly you can see it.
And you're like, whoa, whoa, whoa, where did that come from?
What's funny is it's always been happening.
We just didn't see it or we weren't sensitive to it.
I always believe that the Lord gives us those moments where we it breaks the fourth wall and we see something.
And I don't mean just seeing it with our eyes.
I mean, we sense something.
We feel something.
Sometimes it's negative.
You feel like, well, what is going on?
Something's wrong.
Something's up.
Weird stuff.
When weird stuff happens, that puts me on point to say, OK, I need to remember my identity.
First of all, I need to remember who I am.
Right.
I'm a son of the most high God.
That is why I came in here and I just got in the work because that's what I needed more than anything.
I didn't need to, you know, wallow in self-pity.
Oh, my, what is wrong with me?
Kind of thing.
I knew I needed God at that moment more than anything.
And that's what you do.
Now, let me ask you a question.
Have you experienced when was the last time you experienced major warfare that you can remember?
I mean, it happens often.
I know.
But something that was very like visceral.
I mean, I'm not I'm not a feeler like that.
I'm a feeler on my emotional side, but not on like sensitive physically.
So I don't get sick like all of a sudden I'm sick.
My stomach's churning or something because something weird is going on.
I don't register that way.
So I'm not saying I'm impervious to it.
It's just usually it's mental war for me.
It will be stinking thinking.
I'll get depressed or, you know, feeling down or or.
I remember Pastor Ron in California.
Yes, that's what was going through my mind.
I mean, the whole time I was in there feeling bad, I was picturing what happened to him.
Yeah, Pastor Ron.
Yeah.
So some people had to carry him out.
He was having such a visceral reaction while someone else was preaching.
I'll never forget that.
I remember that's how I felt, Jimmy.
And I literally.
Twice.
Yes.
And I really felt like, oh, my gosh, Jimmy, I hope you're not going to have to carry me out.
It was that kind of.
But I'm not this is not typical for me.
So it was very out of the ordinary.
Yeah, so so so you you came in here and you had to remember who you are.
The reason why it's important to know who you are, because when you know who you are, you'll know what to do.
Now, let me define that a little bit.
When you know who you are, you begin to understand who you are in Christ.
Your authority, your authority.
But it's not about understanding who I am in me.
I have nothing to bring to the table.
No, no.
But in Christ, I've been made the righteousness of God, according to God's word.
In Christ, I'm the head and not the tail, Deuteronomy twenty seven tells me twenty eight.
But in Christ, I can cast out demons.
So I'll get there quicker than I was going to.
I'm just saying let's just get to the chase.
But let's but let's also take people there.
Yeah, let's help them understand there's there's a progress here is a process.
First of all, you got to understand who you are.
Now, when you understand who you are, you understand what you have authority over, because that's another really important piece.
A lot of people don't understand that God has given you jurisdiction in this world.
That's hard to comprehend.
Sometimes I'm all over Genesis right now.
That's what I'm reading.
Genesis.
You know what?
I love the Bible.
Although it's very pornographic.
Hello.
I'm like there is some rough stuff in there.
I was kind of read over and over.
But when you read with a different mindset and you're like, oh, OK, they got the father drunk and slip with them.
The daughter is some crazy stuff.
Yeah.
So listen to this in Genesis chapter one, verse 26.
You had to go there.
I know.
I'm sorry.
You just wandered off.
So everybody will be like, oh, I think I want to read Genesis.
Genesis one twenty six.
Listen to this.
Then God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness.
Now, I love that it's let that God said, let us.
There you go.
It's not just there you go.
I know I'm going on another rabbit trail.
I love that because that means it wasn't just God.
It was not God.
Jesus and the Holy Spirit right there and the host of heaven.
Yeah, that's another thing for another time.
The heavenly host.
There is already heavenly councils.
There's so much more.
Why don't we just think God is alone?
So then God said, let us make man in our image after our likeness and then let them have dominion.
That word right there is so critical because that that word means domain.
So when we say the kingdom of God, you know, Jesus referred to it many times, you know, the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven, you know, all that means is is the place or the king's domain.
The word kingdom means the king's domain, kingdom, king's domain.
So he says this and let them have dominion that in other words, we're going to give them jurisdiction.
We're going to control authority.
If you look it up in Webster's sovereignty, dominion, sovereignty or control.
It's the territory.
So he's given us supremacy, domination.
He's given us control over the things of the air, of the things of this world.
How about I give it to you out of the Hebrew?
You got Webster's there, which is good.
Let me give it to you.
The original language in the Hebrew, it means to rule.
It does mean dominion.
It means to take, to prevail, to reign and to rule over means to have dominion, to dominate, to tread down.
In other words, you can actually walk over it, to have dominion, rule, subjugate, to cause, to dominate, to scrape out, to pick up and scrape out because it's yours.
You're dominating it.
You're capturing it.
And so that word is very heavy, very powerful.
It's super powerful.
So, but you ever ask a Christian, what's your authority in Christ?
And they don't know.
And they'll go, what are you talking about?
What are you talking about?
I'll say, well, what do you have dominion over?
They won't know.
Well, what do you have jurisdiction over?
This is a tragedy because it's like, it's not giving somebody who just joined the army and they go through boot camp and they teach them about war.
They tell them how to shoot a gun, but they never shoot a gun.
Then they tell them they're going to be out there and they're going to get guns to do it.
But then they never get a gun.
Or if they're given a gun, they've never shot one before because they didn't train them for war.
And a lot of churches, and I'm not, I don't want to knock down churches, but I'm just saying the truth is we've not trained our people for war.
Right.
Spiritual war.
And yet we've been teaching this for over 30 years.
We've not trained them.
And I'm saying broad strokes.
Broad strokes, yeah.
We've been doing it a long time, but a lot of churches have not taught people.
People will say when you mention it, they'll say, I've never even heard of that.
Exactly.
And it's going to be something that I've never heard and I've been in church all my life.
Even on the covenants, because the covenant is what outlines your jurisdiction.
This is part of the covenant.
This is the Genesis covenant.
And then it says this.
It says, and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth.
Hello.
And over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.
So God created man in his own image and the image of God created him male and female created him and God blessed them and said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it.
There's again that same word.
Now we would come back to the word we said dominate, but it literally means the same thing.
You were to have dominion over it.
It says subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the heavens, over every living thing that moves on the earth.
Here's the problem with climate change people.
Oh, here we go.
Keep it simple.
I won't even go long on this.
It's really simple.
The people that have lost their minds over climate change have actually made a God out of earth.
Exactly.
It's an idol.
And so what happens is it's upside down.
We were told by God that we have dominion.
We are to subjugate the earth.
We are to have dominion over it.
It doesn't mean to destroy it.
Right.
But it does mean that we rule the world.
What happens with people who have bought into the climate change lie and this toxic untruth as false teaching is that now the world has dominion over them, which is exactly opposite.
It's inverse of what God wanted.
And they're worshiping climate change.
They're worshiping the world.
They're worshiping the earth.
It's it's it's hard for me to believe that there are people out there that are so involved in climate change that it's taken over their whole life.
We see them every day.
We see them at the grocery store.
We see them when we're out about in town where we live, where we work and where we play.
We're we're surrounded by people who have bought the lie that we're somehow destroying the earth as though the earth is a living thing like an animal, like a creature.
But it's not.
It's inner.
It's what God gave us.
It's called terra firma to put our feet on and we are to have dominion over it.
There'll be somebody who listens to me.
They'll go, I don't like what you're saying, but I'll say, go to God's word and see what the word says.
Genesis, chapter one, starting in verse twenty six and following.
We're told we have been given the ability to have dominion.
So take control.
So when that comes now, here comes spiritual warfare.
Suddenly the enemy is telling us, hey, back out of this.
Don't touch this.
That's my territory.
Or you can't have that or don't go into politics.
Don't mess with any.
That's my realm.
I'm the prince of the power of the air.
But we say, wait a minute.
We've been given dominion.
We've been given the ability and the right to rule and reign.
We have biblically legal grounds to be here.
And that's why I never apologize for wherever I'm at bringing the gospel, bringing Christ, because I've been called by my God to be salt and light.
So what's the difference?
And then we'll end with this.
But what is the difference in because I've heard people say there's a dominion theology and speaking on dominion because dominion theology can be a dangerous place.
Right.
No, I mean, because really, I mean, we make these these are categories are manmade, you know, dominion theology, you know, where you do Arminian or Calvinist.
You know, we make all these things.
This is man's teaching.
I'm looking at God's word and saying this is what God says.
This is the scripture.
So I don't care if you call it dominion theology, dominion teaching.
I don't care.
I'm just going to tell you, I'm going to do what God's word tells me to do.
And God's word tells me that when he made man, let them have dominion over the fish of the earth, over all the earth and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.
So I'm not walking in some theology.
I'm walking in what the Bible says.
That's the difference.
And in Christ, this teaching, this Old Testament, early beginnings, early foundational teaching comes back to life.
It comes back alive in us.
But here's the now the application is this.
Once you know who you are, your identity, you know what?
What you've been given jurisdiction over, authority over, and it's over all the earth.
It's under our feet.
We're not under the earth's feet.
The earth is under ours and we sit in Christ in heavenly places where everything's under our feet.
So what does that mean?
That means that now because I have a covenant with God for this, I now have the legal right, the legal right to claim this is true.
When you know something's true, you'll pray for it, stand for it, fight for it, and believe for it, and you will not be moved off of it.
So this is where the application comes.
You now have jurisdiction.
You now have authority.
And when you know that and you can be confident in it, then you can stand up against any devil in hell that comes against you, anything that comes against you.
Isaiah 54.
No, nothing that comes.
No weapon.
No weapon formed against you shall prosper, but every tongue that rises against you, you shall show to be in the wrong.
That's Isaiah 54.
Why can we do that?
Because we have jurisdiction.
We have dominion.
We have authority.
So let me give you a prayer.
You were looking at something.
No, no.
Go ahead and nod.
I think you should get to the prayer.
This is by John Aldridge.
And I'm going to put this in our, I'm going to copy it and put it in our newsletter so you'll have it.
It's a great prayer.
You can go Living Up and a Down World and subscribe to the newsletter and this will be in number 87.
So I'll go do that later today or tomorrow.
So that will go out.
So you'll have this prayer.
So you don't have to try to copy it or anything.
But I'm going to read it to you.
John Aldridge with his guys in Wild at Heart up in Colorado Springs were talking about this on their podcast on Monday after we'd gone through all this craziness.
I mean just wild stuff.
Also with our cabinets, I mean just chaos.
You shouldn't have even mentioned that.
Well we're not going to go down that road yet on this.
But here's the thing.
That's just another element where the enemy has tried to encroach and create distraction.
Distraction and chaos.
Chaos, desolation, all of that to take our attention away and get us off our mission.
And so I mean it's so bad it could result, I'm not claiming this will happen, but it could result in a lawsuit and all that.
So because it's a long story but a very terrible unjust thing happened to us.
And things like that don't usually happen to us.
No, this was quite out of the ordinary.
Again, weird stuff.
Last week.
Weird stuff.
So I get in my car.
I'm going to go meet Tommy Hayes, one of my favorite human beings, for lunch on Monday.
So I'm going from here at the church over to Hill and Vine.
Which is just five minutes down the road.
It's probably seven minutes down the road.
But it's down the road.
But from the moment I got in my car until I drove up in that parking lot over there and parked, I went to war.
I fought.
I used the basis of this, but I put my own words in it.
But this captures it in a shorter version than what I did.
And when I walked into that restaurant I was so built up on the inside because I had been doing warfare.
Because I know who I am.
I know that I have been given this authority and dominion.
So I get back from lunch, you're back from lunch, we're scattered, we're going different directions.
And then you say, guess what?
I just got a call and blah, blah, blah.
We had some breakthrough.
And I said, when did you talk to them?
And it was literally just a few minutes after I had prayed this prayer.
I connected the dots immediately.
And it's not because I'm so bold and smart.
It's because the Holy Spirit led me to do that.
He said, you need a breakthrough so I'm going to give you a breakthrough.
And that's exactly what happened.
And so here's the prayer.
I just labeled it because I just took it off of John Eldridge's podcast.
Just transcribed it.
Praying with authority.
Because that's what we have to understand.
We have authority, but we've got to pray with authority.
And here's how he would do it.
And I'm just going to read it out loud.
In the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ as His partner and friend and in His name,
I bring and command the creation and glory of the living God against all chaos,
trying to get into blank.
What is He trying to get into?
Your life, your relationship, your work, whatever, a decision.
Whatever your realm is.
Just get specific right there.
I bring the breath and the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ and of our Father,
the Almighty, breath and glory of the living God against this darkness and desolation.
And we send it utterly to its destruction in the authority of Christ.
We banish chaos, disruption, desolation, and disorder from our realm.
And we send it into the abyss in Jesus' name and authority.
Amen.
That's a warfare prayer.
That's throwing it down.
It's a great way to end the show.
It is. It's powerful.
Hopefully you'll have that printed before the show goes out.
So that people can...
Yeah, I'll put the show out.
I'm going to put out a newsletter.
So go to livingupinadoworld.com and subscribe to...
Did I get that right?
Livingupinadoworld.com.
You're right.
You've been right today.
I've been hitting it.
It's a miracle.
I'm actually saying it right.
Shock.
But go there and you can subscribe for this.
I'll keep it on there for a few.
If you miss the one from this week, next time it'll be on there.
So, hey, thanks for joining us for the show.
We talked about some weird stuff today.
We did.
That's going to be the title of the show, Weird Stuff.
So look for the show.
If you want to recommend to somebody that will help them and encourage them,
we'll probably pick up on and give some updates as we go.
This is important that we bring people along with us in real time on this.
That's good.
Hey, anything else you want to say on the way out?
No.
We do need to give some thank yous to Jill for giving us...
Yes.
I think it was $80 this week, so that was very sweet of her.
And I know we had some sats come in.
Well, Adam Curry, of course, the pod father, he's blessed us with sats.
And man, there's just people...
We may not name everybody by name.
It's hard to do that on this, but we just want to say thank you for supporting the podcast
and supporting us.
Thank you for the notes we got.
I got to hear from a couple of people this week.
And I just want to say thank you for reaching out.
You can do that through our website.
It's so easy.
And hey, we want to invite you to join us in a prayer.
I got a prayer project.
I want to invite our listeners to go in with us.
So I'm going to start a new podcast, but it's going to be about interviews.
It's going to be interviewing people.
We're going to put it on Hello Fred, which you need to check out.
Go to our website, our church website, bridgefbg.com.
Scroll halfway down the front page and click on Hello Fred.
It's a 24-7 streaming radio station that we've developed along with Adam Curry.
Adam's really the brainchild.
I just kind of help provide some content here and there.
But it's got words of encouragement on it.
It's not like preaching and stuff.
It's real short, but to the point and then just great music.
And we just continue to update it.
And you'll get 24-7 encouragement online anywhere you've got your phone or iPad or computer.
I cast it on our Sonos and it works great.
So go there and check out Hello Fred.
We want to encourage you.
We want to bring you along.
And here's what my ask is.
We need a name for this podcast.
Now, we're Hill Country.
So I mean, this is all this is.
So you want to say Hill Country?
It doesn't have to, but it kind of rings well because we're going to be interviewing a lot.
But maybe not everybody.
But I don't think everybody's going to come from the Hill Country.
And you may have some like you're going to have you hope to have Texas Justice John Devine.
I mean, he's in Austin, which is the Hill Country.
But he may be talking about the whole state of Texas.
So I think you're limiting yourself there.
You may be right.
So if you have you got any good names for a podcast, it's an interview podcast.
Really, really dealing with what's happening in our current realm.
I mean, this is engaging culture.
What's happening around us?
Got a good thought.
Send it to me through livingupandadownworld.com.
Just write us a note.
Anyway, we'll keep you posted on that.
Really, really appreciate you.
Annette, what do you think?
You've got a sleeping face.
I'm just glad to be back.
It's been a long time.
You've been out of the saddle.
Welcome back.
We'll talk about what happened.
Hopefully, we won't have to have a lawsuit.
But we'll talk about it on an upcoming show.
All right, folks, keep living up in the down world and have a great week on purpose.