1.9.25 – Mission Impossible Living

SPEAKER 02 : 0:09

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 370367, 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 04 : 1:04

Welcome to Call to Freedom. I blew in here. The wind, it’s an Arctic freeze. It really is today, friends. And I hope you’re warm and cozy and you’ve got a mug of hot cocoa or some coffee. We are in the middle. It seems like every year when the stock show is about to begin, I mean, we have got frozen chosen weather. That’s amazing. But we made it in on this morning. Rachel and I were talking on the phone and she was saying, well, I’m going to try to make it to KLTT. And I said, well, if you don’t, I’ll stay home.

SPEAKER 01 : 1:38

And you made it, Rachel. I made it. I was thankful. I’m down near Castle Rock, and so it was kind of sketchy down there.

SPEAKER 04 : 1:47

Yes, yes. And that I-25 from Castle Rock into Denver can really be dangerous sometimes because people want to drive so fast.

SPEAKER 01 : 1:57

Yes.

SPEAKER 04 : 1:58

And I’m glad you got here.

SPEAKER 01 : 1:59

Me too. Praise God.

SPEAKER 04 : 2:01

Yes. And keep a precious little meadow caged or something because she’d blow away. She would. Yeah. She’s only three pounds. I know. I know. Oh, thank you. Thank you for producing my show, Rachel. It’s a joy. Well, the Lord bless you and keep you, friend. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance, turn his face toward you and give you peace today. So important that we have the peace of God that passes all understanding. And you are blessed to dispense for in him you live and move and have your being. You can go to freedomstreet.org and listen to radio shows. You can go online with donations if you’d like to do that. We do have a meeting this Saturday. Now, if the weather is like this, no, you stay home nice and cozy. But January 11th, this Saturday, this Saturday, I’m looking forward to seeing you at my home. And I’m just, you know, this weather sometimes delays what we are hoping for. But I hope to see you on Saturday. We’re going to have praise and worship and have a wonderful study about our Lord Jesus and what he did for us. If you’d like to stay for lunch, I’ll be fixing a girl. It’s just apropos for Saturday, stew. And it’s really wonderful. It’s so good for you. And if you’d like to bring a side dish and your name begins with A through M, bring a salad or a finger food. And if your name begins with N through Z, bring a dessert. God bless you, and I hope to see you Saturday. You can call me at 1-877-917-7256. And I was raised on a farm in northern Colorado, only about, oh, 50 miles from Cheyenne, Wyoming. So I’ve got that kind of strong, strong kind of being. I’m a strong woman, and so I don’t stop much or postpone much. But if you feel like this weather is not for you, you just stay home. And in the Passion Translation, our verse for this week is Genesis 17, 1 and 2. And it’s when Abraham was 99 years old, Yahweh appeared to him again and said, I am the God who is more than enough, El Shaddai. Live your life in my presence and be blameless. I will confirm my covenant between me and you, and I will greatly multiply your descendants. Now, Tim Tebow has a Mission Possible devotional here, and it’s taken from Hebrews 13, verse 20 and 21. May the God of peace equip you in every good thing to do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ. What a wonderful verse, Hebrews 13, verses 20 and 21. He says in his devotional, living a Mission Possible life, means carrying out the good works that God has already prepared for you. We are each on a mission to make a difference and ensure that our lives count, a mission to help the hurting and reach the lost and the last and the least of humanity. This looks different for everyone. It might take you into the darkness of a rescue mission for those who are being human trafficked. It might keep you in your own neighborhood, breathing life and spirit into your children or your neighbors. When you are mission driven, you use your ability together with God’s empowerment to help, serve, guide, teach, pray, and lead others in innumerable ways, each as unique as a person’s DNA. In fact, helping, serving, guiding, teaching, praying, and leading others are perfect examples of what Mission Possible looks like lived out. Here’s a surprise for you. One’s mission is not really as mysterious as it’s made out to be. It’s more available to you than you ever imagined. You don’t have to go on a mission trip around the world or start a church. Has God ever pricked your heart to take a step in a particular direction to meet a need? Doing that is the essence of mission possible living. So keep taking steps to do good things for the kingdom. I’ve read three of Tim Tebow’s books, and I know that he has a mission’s heart. He was born in the Philippines to Baptist missionary parents, and he has a real calling on his heart for that area of missions. And he and his precious wife, they do all kinds of things for the disabled. And what about you? Do you have a heart to help others? It doesn’t have to be something big to get you involved with going into all the world and preaching and reaching people for Jesus Christ. Taking a moment to write a note to someone whom you admire. Oh, and I love your notes. Friends, when you send your donations to Call to Freedom, it’s not the check or the money order I look at first. I look at your remarks on the back of the insert card. I do. I love reading your remarks. And thank you so much for your edifying portions that you write for me. Call to Freedom, and for me and for Kimberly, who calls from Tulsa. And by the way, they got snow today. And she said, it’s really coming down, Mom. We might have three or four inches. And I thought, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that is rare. That truly is a rare occasion. You know, it might be just getting the focus off all the things that you personally have to attend to and begin to reach out. Getting rid of that. I call this a syndrome. The I, me, my syndrome. It’s all about me. It’s all about my stuff. It’s all about… I don’t have words to say. And becoming other-centered. And it took me a long time to get other-centered. And I know having children really helps getting you off of your me-I-my syndrome. But it’s something that we need to really work at, getting other-centered. I was drawn to Ecclesiastes because of Tim’s talking about being other-centered. And I realized that King Solomon was in the middle of an I, me, my syndrome in his life in Chapter 2. I’m just going to read a little bit. And then I’m going to talk about some other things here today. In Ecclesiastes 2, it says, I said to myself, and he’s the king, and he’s talking to himself here. Come on, let’s try pleasure. Let’s look for the good things in life. But what good does it do to seek pleasure? After much thought, I decided to cheer myself with wine. And while still seeking wisdom, I clutched at foolishness. Now, I want you to listen to me and write down or read Have it in your head every time he says I. Okay? Write it down. Every time he says I. I. I clutched at foolishness in this way. I tried to experience the only happiness most people find during this brief life in this world. I also tried to find meaning by building huge homes for myself and by planting beautiful vineyards. I made gardens and parks, filling them with all kinds of fruit trees, and I believe he also put peacocks in his gardens and many elaborate animals. I built reservoirs to collect the water to irrigate my many flourishing groves. I bought slaves, both men and women, and others were born into my household. I also owned large herds and flocks, more than any of the kings who had lived in Jerusalem before me. I collected great sums of silver and gold, the treasure of many kings and provinces. Are you taking it down? I hired wonderful singers, both men and women, and had many beautiful concubines. I had everything a man could desire. So I became greater than all who had lived in Jerusalem before me. And my wisdom never failed me. Anything I wanted, I would take. I denied myself no pleasure whatsoever. I even found great pleasure in hard work, a reward for all my labors. Hard work? I don’t believe that man worked hard. Do you see a pattern here? He said 15 times he said I in this one brief passage. And he says, he goes on, I looked at everything I had worked so hard to accomplish. It was all so meaningless, like chasing the wind. There was nothing really worthwhile anywhere. So I decided to compare wisdom with foolishness and madness. For who can do this better than I, the king? Oh, in thinking about that, I’m saying so many people in this world have that me-my-I syndrome. They really do. They think about themselves from morning till night. They do the things that give them pleasure. And I thought about this devastation that has just destroyed the coast of California and gone inland. And I only lived there for four years. I didn’t live there very, very long. But my husband, John, was a man who lived in Pasadena and in Los Angeles. And I think of all those precious people. They were totally devastated. As I’m reading Job now, I introduce Job right in the middle of Genesis. Why, you ask? Why? Because Abraham’s brother had a child, and he called him Uz. Yeah, he called him U-Z-Uz. And that’s in Genesis 22. So right away when I was reading Job, it begins with, there was a man in the land of Uz. And I thought, how many Uz’s are there? Are there Uz’s in that land? And the book of Job begins with a very prosperous, respectable, and good man who was devastated in just one day. Absolutely. The devil destroyed not only his home, but killed his children. He lost all his flocks. I mean, it says here in the very first part of Job, he had 3,000 camels, 500 yoke of oxen, 500 female donkeys, and very many servants. I look at this devastation in Los Angeles and I say, Father God, it’s happening. And then I read 2 Timothy where Paul is talking about the last days when it’s going to be absolutely destructive in every direction that we take. And the people I was. Yeah, I was glued to my TV last night and portions of this morning because the precious people are saying, why has this happened? It didn’t need to happen. And it really didn’t. It’s because of all the regulations in all the home building. in everything that’s taking place, and that’s why a lot of insurance companies have dropped Californians as clients because of all the regulations going on. There was no water. Why is there no water? Well, because Gavin Newsom has taken out three reservoirs from California, northern California, and then he blames Trump. It’s just amazing how we blame other people. And I believe Gavin Newsom and some of these left people have the I, me, my syndrome. And it’s all about making them comfortable and everybody else suffers. I was listening to one man who had lost his pets in the home. And, oh, I’m thinking, oh, my goodness. I’m grateful that only five people have lost their lives. What a horrible way to lose your life. And it didn’t have to be. And I remember I went to school in Pasadena, at Pasadena College. right up from Colorado Boulevard in Pasadena, up Hill Street, and it was right in the foothills of the San Gabriels, so it was real hilly. Altadena is right west of Pasadena. We had many friends, went over to their homes, enjoyed fellowship with them, a lot of time spent in the homes of people in Altadena and Pasadena, and I’m thinking, wow. What are they going through today? What are they going through? Losing everything. And here, Job lost everything. He was so depressed that when his friends saw him, his friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, And they saw him and they were so shocked. They saw him at a distance. They raised their voices and wept. Each of them tore his robe and they threw dust over their heads toward the sky. And I’m thinking, oh, I would probably be absolutely abject to what was going on. All these neighborhoods, people coming back to nothing. Even the high schools, the grocery stores, they can’t even go to the grocery stores that they used to go to. So they’re going to have to find places where they can live temporarily. And not all of them are millionaires. I know there were some homes. I know that one man paid $26 million for his home in Pacific Palisades. That’s a lot of money. But other people are just middle class people like you and I are. and they lost everything, everything. And Job just sat there with them. They did not speak a word for seven days as they sat there with Job. And I’m thinking, oh, what would you do if your house was destroyed? What would you do if you came home after going to work and your house had been burned with fire, it had gone up in smoke, and you lost everything? If you have a comment, I’m in the studio at 1 o’clock here, and if you’re listening at 1 o’clock, if you have a comment about what you would do if that happened to you, I’d like you to call in. I really would. It’s a time when we can come together and say, wow, I really want to be your friend. I really want to be there for you if anything like this happened. And I know when we lost our home in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and it burned, it was totally destroyed, and even the piano we had in the home was destroyed. And people around were so good about bringing clothes, about bringing dishes, about having us in a home, renting a home for a while, because our home was gone. Just like they were not nearly with the winds, the high winds, 90 and 100 mile per hour winds. And as I was coming into the studio today, it almost knocked me over. I’m so glad I found a parking spot close to the pavilion here, the high-rise pavilion. because the winds were so horribly hard and swift. And when I think of the people going back to their homes in the wind, still the embers flying through the air, they had to wear goggles to get into their neighborhoods. If you have a comment or anything you’d like to say about how God keeps us, doesn’t he keep us? He really does. He promised that no harm would come to us. Even Jesus said, and it was Satan here in Job that did all these things to Job. God permitted it because he knew Job’s heart. He knew that Job was a man of integrity. He was well respected. But it was Satan. And as we see here, the things that happened to us, the enemy is out to kill, steal and destroy. But we have that promise from Jesus in Luke 10, verse 19. Behold, I’ve given you authority over all the power of the enemy and nothing shall harm you. I believe that’s why the fatalities have been low here, because God is watching. His mercy is watching. I believe there needs to be a real change in not only California, but all these other states that are left-wing states. Why did you vote for a left-wing mayor, chief of police, chief of firefighters? And Larry Elder, who was campaigning to be governor of California. Why did you choose… Why have you been a Democrat all these years when your city and state are being destroyed by Democrats? I know I’m on a political soapbox right now, but I really believe that there’s going to be a change in the policy of the parties in the Californias and the Massachusetts and Washington, D.C. and New York because of the things that are happening here, folks. That there are things that need to be changed. And I’m praying that people that were so left and, you know, no, no Trumpers and they would never vote for Trump. I pray that their eyes would be open. I know that there’s a scripture in Ephesians. I’m going to go there in Ephesians one. And Ephesians is about the church of Jesus Christ. And I didn’t. I’m unclear away from my notes for today. I hope you don’t mind. But when we pray for people that are so hoodwinked by a political party or by the ideology of people around them. Then we can pray this prayer. And this is from Paul in Ephesians 1, verse 17. And he says that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. I pray that the eyes of your heart see the eye. Our heart has eyes and we may see things in the physical with our physical eyes. But God wants you to reach clear down there into your spirit eyes that they may be enlightened so that you may know what is the hope of his calling. He’s got a hope for each and every one of you. He’s got a hope for those people whose homes have been burned to the ground, everything destroyed, everything. And they showed some before and after of the Pacific Palisades and also Altadena. Their boulevards used to be so tree-lined and beautiful green trees. It was just black, just black with ashes. God is wanting you to fulfill your calling, my friend, and it doesn’t have to be like Tim Tebow. but to become involved in maybe your neighborhood, even with your own family. Get to know your family members, your aunts and uncles, those people that may have been gone a long time. I know that I’d like to reach out to some of John’s relatives. I’m going to call my cousin. Sandy, who lives in Chatsworth, who’s just north of that area, and just see how they’re doing today, because I do have them on my heart. But Paul is saying here that you would have hope in the calling that he’s called you to, the riches of his glory, and you have been an inherited person. saint of his, why don’t we look in 2025 at the things that could be possible with our relatives and our friends that they might come into the fold. They might know the Lord Jesus Christ. And then we wouldn’t have to say, well, those dumb relatives. No, no longer say that. Oh, and what is the surpassing greatness of his power towards us, who believe these are in accordance with the working of the strength of his might. Oh, I pray for the strength of his might for you today, my friend. I have a song that Rachel is going to play, the song sung by John, Isaiah 55. Ho, everyone who is thirsty, come drink.

SPEAKER 03 : 22:22

Oh, everyone who is thirsty in spirit Oh, everyone who is weary and sad come to the fountain there’s fullness in jesus all that you’re longing for come and be glad i will pour water on him who is thirsty I will pour floods upon the dry ground.

SPEAKER 1 : 23:07

Open your heart for the gift I am bringing.

SPEAKER 03 : 23:15

While ye are seeking me, I will be found. I will pour water on him who is thirsty. I will pour floods upon the dry ground.

SPEAKER 04 : 24:37

Oh, I love that. God is saying, I will pour water upon the dry ground. I will pour water on the burned ground. I will pour water upon every destructive and desolate place on this earth. Oh, because he wants you to find him. Oh, I pray and I hope you will pray for the people of Los Angeles and Pacific Palisades and Altadena and Pasadena. They would come to know the Lord Jesus. Most of all, come to know him as as the word of God says, come to me and ask. I will answer you and show you many things that you don’t even know about. Many times in the Old Testament he says, call to me, call to me and I will answer you. Well, friend, with you and me praying, we’re going to see many people come to the Lord Jesus. And then we’re going to see God performing great miracles like he did when our home burned. We didn’t have insurance. We didn’t have insurance. And God just provided the rentals that we needed, brought us back to Colorado from Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. And then we moved into a house that we could own, and we didn’t have any down bones. provided a way. It’s just he’s such a miracle worker. And I pray today that you would absolutely see his ability in us and his capabilities of knowing all these people that have had destroyed homes in this area, that they would come close to him. And I know there are many Christians in that place. I do. I know that. And they’re going to join hands with others in helping their brothers and sisters through this horrible, horrible time. Thank you for being with me today, for praying with me that they would find a way to Jesus’ heart because he loves them so much. I love you. Remember the meeting. Call me at 1-877-917-7256. Oh, God bless you and take joy.

SPEAKER 02 : 27:02

Thank you for listening to Call to Freedom with Barbara Carmack. You may get in touch with Barbara at Call to Freedom, Box 370-367, Denver, Colorado, 80237. Or you may leave your message at 1-877-917-7256. Call to Freedom is a listener-supported radio ministry. Barbara and her power partners invite you to come on board with us and become a network of hands holding up Call to Freedom ministry. Power partners support Call to Freedom with prayer and monthly financial support. You will be blessed supernaturally. We invite you to visit Call to Freedom’s website, www.freedomstreet.org, where you can hear Barbara’s daily radio broadcast 24 hours a day or order materials. You may share your praise reports and heart cries by mailing them to Call to Freedom, Box 370-367, Denver, Colorado, 80237. Or you may email us at barbracarmack at freedomstreet.org. Until next time, remember, Jesus loves you, Barbara loves you, and take joy.

SPEAKER 1 : 28:27

Thank you.