Join Barbara Carmack and Jimmy Lakey on an enlightening journey through spiritual wisdom and encouragement. In this episode, they delve into the transformative power of gratitude, emphasizing the importance of maintaining a grateful heart in all circumstances. Drawing from 1 Thessalonians and the teachings of Paul, the discussion highlights how humility and thankfulness are cherished by God and serve as a defense against life’s adversities.
welcome to call to freedom with barbara carmack this is jimmy lakey and i’m delighted that you are joining us for this half hour you can reach call to freedom at box 370-367 denver colorado 80237 or by going to the website at www.freedomstreet.org. If you want to leave a message or order a Word Power Daily Reading Bible Guide or a Freedom Street Express newsletter, you can call us toll-free at 1-877-917-7256 and leave your name and address, including your zip code. If you want to talk to Barbara right now, she is expecting your call. You may call that same toll-free number, 1-877-917-7256 to speak to her. And now, let’s join Barbara in the studio.
SPEAKER 02 :
Welcome to Calda Freedom. Whatever the weather, whatever you’re going through right now, we’re just going to lift up our hearts and thank God because God blesses those with a grateful heart because it’s a real source of humility. And that’s what God loves. He loves a humble heart. I was reading in Thessalonians, 1 Thessalonians, and Paul is saying here, admonish one another, encourage one another, see that no one repays another with evil for good, but always seek after that which is good for one another and for all men. Read Rejoice always, always, always, always rejoice. No complaining, no grumbling. Even with the drought, no complaining. God has it all in his hands. He knows what he’s doing. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. That’s 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 18. In everything give thanks, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. Do not quench the spirit. Do not despise prophetic utterances. That’s spirit. We’re going to talk about precious Holy Spirit today. But examine everything carefully. Hold fast to that which is good. Cling to it. Cling to that which is good and abstain from every form of evil, every form questionable. Paul was even talking about when your brother sees you eating something that he doesn’t eat. Is he going to question your spirituality? If you are sensing that a brother or sister are questioning what you are doing, then you abstain from it. You don’t continue in it. Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely, and may your spirit, soul, and body be preserved complete without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he who calls you and he also will bring it to pass. So God is describing here are three parts. Every human being has a spirit, has a soul and has a body. Spirit is the one that gets born again. And we get a brand new spirit. Second Corinthians five or 17. And then soul is your mind, your emotions, your thinker. That’s what you’re thinking. And we got to change that, too. We got to transform that by the renewing of the word. And then our body is what we live in until we go to be with Jesus. And now we’re going to be brand new. And Jesus himself says, when I come back to see you, I’m going to come back in a new way. Hmm. So Jesus himself is going to do that.
SPEAKER 04 :
I love that you just came right out of the gate, encouraging us to be thankful, to be grateful and to not complain. It reminds me of a quote that I heard from Hannah Whittle Smith, the author. She said that a heart or a thankful, a thankful soul finds comfort in everything, but a complaining soul finds comfort in nothing.
SPEAKER 02 :
Ooh, that’s really good. Yes. Because then it’s like if we’ve gone through a really hard day and we haven’t been thankful, even in the things that have happened that day, we get home exhausted. It’s true. Absolutely exhausted and can’t do anything right. that we were thinking we were going to do, we wind up doing nothing but maybe watching television or just hanging out.
SPEAKER 04 :
And even what you might have planned, it’s not comforting to you. You might just watch television, it’s not comforting to you. There’s nothing that satisfies. But when you’re grateful, when you’re thankful, you find comfort in everything. Yes, that’s right. Even the tough stuff.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah. I am amazed, Kimberly, as I see all this congestion at the airports. I mean, we’re seeing thousands of people for blocks in line that there hasn’t been a riot. Really, I’m amazed. You know, it’s working patience in people, isn’t it? It really is. Oh, my goodness.
SPEAKER 04 :
And maybe a heart of gratitude, too.
SPEAKER 02 :
I’m so glad that I don’t have to go anywhere right now because it would be very discouraging. To go there and have to wait for six hours to get to a flight or miss your flight and have to stay over for another flight.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, I think we have to actually rearrange our priorities. We have to maybe not prioritize the trip, but instead prioritize the people around you.
SPEAKER 02 :
That’s right, yeah.
SPEAKER 04 :
And that can make us grateful, too.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes, I’m certainly amazed at the crowds and how peaceful they have been, really. Maybe we don’t see… Well, if it were happening, if there were riots happening, it would be on the news. It would, because they love to report the negative and all of the stuff going on. Well, you are blessed to dispense, for in him you live and move and have your being. And if you would like to listen to the programs that we give every… every day, Monday through Friday, you can go to freedomstreet.org. And if you have your smartphone, you can just click into freedomstreet.org and you can download anything there. The radio shows, you can download the newsletter. Chris has made it so easy for you to download certain things. Also, you can donate there online. So I appreciate that so much, what Chris has done for our website. Boy, it needed a rehab. It really desperately needed a rehab. So we’re grateful for that. This verse for this week has been John 15, verse 12. And we’ve been kind of. Settling into John 15, and today we’re going to talk a little bit about John 16 and Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Truth. But in the message translation, John 15, verse 12, this is my command. Love one another the way I loved you. This is the very best way to love. That’s the best way to love. Put your life on the line for your friends. You are my friends when you do the things I command you. I’m no longer calling you servants because servants don’t understand what their master is thinking and planning. No, I’ve named you friends because I’ve let you in on everything that I’ve heard from the father. Oh, Kimberly, that’s beautiful. Knowing that everything that Jesus taught here in the New Testament that we have at our leisure time, At our convenience is everything that we need to know to get into heaven and also to live that godly life here on earth. Right. To find comfort in anything, right? Yes. Amen. Yes. So we’re going to start in John 16. A little bit, just a little bit in John 15. Jesus is talking about the world hating you because it hated him. And so many of you want the people of this world to like you. You go on social media and you say, oh, I’ve got a thousand likes from people that you don’t even know. And so you think you’re really hot to trot and you’re not because the world is going to turn their back on you when it really gets pressure time. And Jesus is saying here in verse 21 of Isaiah, John 15, they will do all this to you, inflict all this suffering on you because of you bearing my name and on my account. Jesus is saying right here, it’s because of me that you’re going through persecution. In this world, you will have persecution, but be of good cheer. I have overcome the world. And then in, let’s see, the 26th verse, we go into the comforter, the counselor, the helper, the advocate, the intercessor, strengthener, standby. That’s Holy Spirit for you. He’s your first aid kit. He truly is. You see on television right now people getting these first aid kits regularly. And you can spend hundreds on them. They got all the pills, including ivermectin. And when you get sick, you just go to that little box and you get your little thing that’s going to help you. But here in verse 26, when the comforter. the counselor, the helper, comes whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who comes and proceeds from the Father. He himself will testify regarding me, but you also will testify and be my witnesses. Okay, Jesus is saying, Holy Spirit’s going to come, but when he comes in you, then you’re going to be a witness to the world around you because you have been with me from the beginning. Praise God. And here, beginning in John 16, verse 1. Do you have the passion, Kimberly? I do. Okay. Why don’t you read that? Just verse 1, or do you need me to go on from there? Go on to maybe 7, yeah, verses.
SPEAKER 04 :
Okay. I have told you this so that you would not surrender to confusion or doubt, for you will be excommunicated from the synagogues. And a time is coming when you will be put to death by misguided ones who will presume to be doing God a great service by putting you to death.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes. And we know when Paul was Saul before his conversion, that’s exactly what he was doing. He thought he was giving God a doing a good service for God.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right. Oh, and he had all of the scriptures and the law memorized. And so did these disciples that he was putting to death. And yet there was a very different defining law line between who Jesus is, the relationship with him and the written law and the rules. A very, very defining line there. Verse three says, and they will do these things because they don’t know anything about the father or me. That’s not having a relationship. That’s right. I’m telling you this now so that when your time, when their time comes. you will remember that I foretold it. I didn’t tell you this in the beginning because I was still with you. But now that I’m about to leave you and go back to join the one who sent me, you need to be told. Yet not one of you are asking me where I’m going. Instead, your hearts are filled with sadness because I’ve told you these things. But here’s the good news. Here’s the truth. It’s to your advantage that I go away. For if I don’t go away, the divine encourager. The divine encourager. He’s also known as the redeemer from the curse. Wow. The divine encourager will not be released to you. But after I depart, I will send him to you.
SPEAKER 02 :
And Jesus said right before he ascended, Kimberly, that he would go to Jerusalem and after waiting, the Holy Spirit will be poured out on all flesh. And boy, they went to Jerusalem and they really persevered. Now, I’m wondering how many went to Jerusalem and And we’re in the upper room. How many did it start? You know, 10 days after when Jesus departed. I’m sure a huge group of people said, we’re going to go do this. We’re going to do this. And then after 10 days, there were 110 in the upper room. And they were willing to wait it out until Holy Spirit came. The divine encourager. What did you say? Another name for divine encourager? The redeemer from the curse. The redeemer from the curse.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, that’s so good. He has other names here, too, that are listed out. So the Greek word that’s used there is the parakletos. It’s a technical word that can be translated defense attorney defense. It means one called to stand next to you as a helper. There’s also a counselor, comforter, advocate, encourager, intercessor. I mean, he’s interceding. He’s intervening. He’s interrupting a course and helping the helper.
SPEAKER 02 :
Now, we know, we’ve heard, if we’ve watched any kind of television at all, we know from especially legal programs and shows that the defense attorney is always on the side of the one who is charged for a crime. Yes, and we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
SPEAKER 04 :
And here is Holy Spirit as defense attorney.
SPEAKER 02 :
We have all been charged with a crime, and we would go to hell if it weren’t for our precious Holy Spirit. And he goes on to say, when he comes, and this is Jesus speaking, he will expose sin and prove that the world is wrong about God’s righteousness and his judgments. Now, verse 9 says, I have had a problem understanding 9 and 10 and 11, Kimberly, from the New American Standard from previous translations. But here in the Passion, he kind of makes it clearer for me. And it says, “…sin, because they refuse to believe who I am.” And sin entered this world through Adam. So we know that God is going to show us that because of the sin, because they refuse to believe in him, they will not receive salvation. But you have received salvation because you have believed. And verse 10, God’s righteousness. Righteousness is Jesus because through him we are righteous before God. And when we stand righteous before God, not charged any longer with a sin, with a crime, we are standing before God without any fear or guilt or inferiority or unworthiness before Father God, the creator of the heavens and the earth. Right.
SPEAKER 04 :
I think as I put all of these together, verses 8, 9, 10, 11, it’s something that I look at and I see that we can all in our human ideas have wrong thinking about God’s righteousness and his judgment. And sin is anything that separates us from him. It’s any thinking, it’s any actions, it’s any old patterns that separates us from our God who has made us for himself. Pride is simply anything that disagrees with him. And so that original sin in the Garden of Eden was just simply pride and what separated them. They were in fellowship, walking with the Lord in the cool of the day. That was what they were meant to do, Adam and Eve, human beings. That’s what we were meant for and made for, is walking with him, closely with him. And we were separated by our reasoning, our rationalization, coming up with our own idea and our own opinion. That’s pride, because you’re saying right there, well, I don’t think I like what you asked me to do, Lord. I’m going to do it my own way. And so then then that separates us. And that’s what sin does. Sin separates us from the one we’re made for. And so when we don’t understand that God, his righteousness and his judgments want to bring us back to his heart, he has a heart of compassion. He has the Holy Spirit. He has a way, an advocate, a helper. and an advocate to bring us back into oneness with him.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes. Now, when we sin, when we sin, God still loves us. God loves us unconditionally. So when we sin, God loves us. Okay. Once you understand when we sin, God loves us, but it’s that sin consciousness in us that senses a separation from God and we just kind of lean back and we get lukewarm, and we don’t read the Word like we should, and we are in a sin kind of a lifestyle until we get back with God and confess those sins. He accepts you, friend, as a wonderful, wonderful child of His. And when you sin, all you have to do is confess that sin. You’re right back with Him. And He has never… separated himself from you you have separated yourself from him yes so this is so good and he when he comes he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment because that sin comes from the enemy and boy we all like kimberly have said we all have sinned and come short of the glory of god verse 9 concerning sin because they did not believe in me In verse 10, concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer behold me, because now I’ve given you Holy Spirit that will lead you into that righteousness that I am. Praise the Lord. And then in judgment related to Satan, because he already is defeated, the ruler of this dark world has already received his sentence. If we do not share in Jesus righteousness, then we share Satan’s judgment. It’s just that simple, simple and to the point. And I’m glad the passion has these footnotes. Kimberly, if we do not share in Jesus righteousness, then we share Satan’s judgment. And then Jesus goes on to say, oh, I have so much to tell you. But when I go, the truth giving spirit comes and he will unveil the reality of every truth within you. He won’t speak on his own, but only what he hears from the father. And he will reveal prophetically all truth. to you what is to come all that is to come and so many of you sense already jesus is right around the corner you sense that in your spirit because it’s true and he will glorify holy spirit will glorify me on the earth for he will receive from me what is mine and reveal it to you praise the lord I heard a really wonderful little quote today, Kimberly. When you exhale the spirit man, exhale the old flesh, the old human spirit, then you inhale the spirit of truth. You exhale the spirit of man. and inhale the Spirit of Truth. It’s beautiful. 1 Corinthians 2, 10-12, it took me right there. He says he will not speak on his own. The Holy Spirit doesn’t speak on his own. Everything that he tells you in your spirit, he gets from God himself. And 1 Corinthians 2, 10 through 12 explains it a little further. It tells us that everything we receive in our spirits, we receive from God through Holy Spirit who searches all things. Read it. Oh, it’s so good. 1 Corinthians 2, 10 through 12. He searches all things, even the depths of God on our behalf. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Now that’s the spirit man before salvation. Even so, the thoughts of God, no one knows except the spirit of God. That’s why when you’re born again, you get a brand new spirit. And Holy Spirit is now. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, praise God, but the spirit who is from God that we might know the things freely given to us by God. Freely, freely you have received, freely give. Praise the Lord. Oh, that’s so good. And so everything that belongs to the father belongs to me, Jesus says. That’s why I say that the divine encourager will receive what is mine and reveal it to you. Soon you won’t see me any longer. But then after a little while, you will see me in a new way. And that’s when Jesus, after the resurrection, was in a transformed body. And Kimberly, when we die, when we go to be with him, we’re going to have a new body. Hallelujah.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, I believe that that’s all something that we can apply to today, right now. When we die to our own ideas and our own opinions, our own agendas. And we let the Holy Spirit take over. And sometimes we do that in the very situations we find ourselves in, at our workplace, with our coworkers or our boss, in our homes, with our families and those relationships, our neighbors, our communities. When we find struggles with other people, it’s hard to lay down our own ideas of how it could work better.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes, it is.
SPEAKER 04 :
But when we yield and lay down and die to ourselves, die to our opinions and let Holy Spirit take over with his righteousness, it’s a different kind of rightness than we want to make. When we want to make something right, that’s different than how Holy Spirit handles it. And when Holy Spirit takes over and ushers us into new life, we are transformed today In our new mind, we are transformed into a into a joy, into a peace that we haven’t experienced before because we’re laying down our ideas, our opinions and our goals even.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 04 :
And who when you go on in this chapter two of First Corinthians. It goes on to say, who has ever intimately known the mind of the Lord well enough to become his counselor? Now, he’s the one who counsels us. And yet this goes on to say, Jesus has. Jesus has known his mind intimately like that. And we possess the mind of Christ. Isn’t that beautiful? We have the mind of Christ when we lay down our own mind and our own way of doing it.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes. Oh, praise God. In John 16, verse 23, I’m going to go right down to 23 because we don’t have a whole lot of time left. For here is eternal truth. Whenever you see the truth thing in a verse, you want to look at it and really zero in on that. When that time comes, you won’t need to ask me for anything. But instead, you will go directly to the father and ask him for anything you desire. And he will give it to you because of your relationship with me. So as believers, when we pray, we have learned. Father God, in Jesus’ name, we’ve learned prayers to say, and it’s not a rule or a regulation. I mean, if you just have a few short seconds and you don’t have time to say all these long words or all these things to complete your prayer, all you need to say is, Father God, help me. in Jesus name, help me. And he’s going to come to your aid. He’s always there willing to help Kimberly. Always there. Yes.
SPEAKER 04 :
And I believe that’s really just asking him to help you yield because Jesus was so yielded, so surrendered to the father that it even says in some of these passages that he has so much more he wants to say, but he is not allowed to at that moment in time. He can’t. He even said to some Pharisees, I have some things I want to tell you and condemn you for, but I won’t because my father has not told me that I can.
SPEAKER 02 :
He was yielded. He was. And at the very end of chapter 16 here, and I hope you go through 15 and 16 and into 17, John, he says, and I’ve never been alone. The father’s always with me. And that’s a promise you have, God says in Hebrews 16. 13 verse 5b, I will never leave you or forsake you. And everything I’ve taught you is so that the peace, peace, friend, which is in me will be in you and will give you great confidence as you rest in me. For in this unbelieving world you will experience trouble and sorrows, trials and tribulations. But you must be courageous, for I have conquered the world. Oh, that’s beautiful. Praise the Lord. He has conquered the world that we live in, Kimberly. And what a joy to know every morning when I wake up or when you wake up, you might do an evening shift or a night shift. When you wake up, you know that you’re in God’s hands. You’re in God’s hands. The whole world he has in his hands. And one of these days, we’re going to be united with Jesus Christ and with the God of the universe. What a day that will be when our Jesus we will see. God bless you and keep you and take joy.
SPEAKER 1 :
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SPEAKER 01 :
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