Join hosts Barbara and Kimberly as they explore the depths of spiritual resilience through God’s word. This episode emphasizes the importance of Scripture in understanding God’s protection and wisdom. From personal stories to inspiring biblical references, learn how to anchor your faith securely in the eternal rock that is God, ensuring stability and peace during life’s most tumultuous times. Listen and be inspired to trust in the all-encompassing compassion and mercy of God.
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 :
Welcome to Call to Freedom. Welcome to Call to Freedom. Oh, these weeks are going by and pretty soon we’re going to get into the holidays. And wow, we just need to be steadfast and faithful in what God has called us to do, my friend. We really do. And I’m so glad that you’ve joined us today. Kimberly has more to talk about with the debt and credit issue. that she’s bringing to us every day. And it is such a revelation to me. I’m excited because if God can zero in on my heart and tell me that he cares for me enough to take the burden, even the debt burden, out of my life or to be with me while I’m paying that debt, to give me assurance, reassurance that he’s there. He’s going to take care of me. He’s doing the same for you. He is your refuge and underneath are the everlasting arms. His arms are outstretched towards you today. Oh, I’m so glad that you trust in him. I pray every day for you that your trust will be deepened and deepened. So that when you get into a situation that you’re questioning in your life, oh, Lord, I don’t know if I can get through this. You’ll say, come on, come on closer to me. I want to take you. I want to hold you in my arms. I want to show you that I’m here for you. That’s our God. That’s our wonderful, eternal God. And even in Joel, I’m reading Joel right now. Well, you can read it in one setting. There’s only three chapters in Joel. And you talk about and Joel talks about the locusts and how they eat everything in front of them. And then God says in chapter two, you shall have plenty to eat and be satisfied and praise the name of the Lord, your God, who has dealt wondrously with you. And that’s what he has. He’s done wondrously with me. He’s dealt with me in ways that I never could comprehend in this life. So I hope you’re trusting him today. You are blessed to dispense for in him you live and move and have your being. And if you would like to contact us by emailing us, you can go to Barbara at FreedomStreet.org. I still want to say Barbara Carmack. Kimberly at freedomstreet.org or hello at freedomstreet.org. And if you’d like to listen to programs, you just go to that website, freedomstreet.org. I remember one huge organization asked if Darren would like to sell the website. And he said, nope, the Lord gave me this, freedomstreet.org. That was 34 years ago. So it’s been a pleasure selling. to have FreedomStreet.org represent not only Darren Live when he was here, but also Call to Freedom. God bless you, and as you go into Freedom Street, you can go to all kinds of different places now. Our webmaster has updated everything, and it’s looking really good. In fact, you can get a Bible guide. If you don’t have a Bible guide and you’re just kind of skipping every day, opening your Bible and then going in and out, don’t do that anymore. You can do it on a regular, congruent basis, chronologically through the Bible. It’s so good. It really is good. So I encourage you to go to freedomstreet.org. And you can give if you find that these lessons are helping you, are improving your life with God. You can give on that website also. The memory verse for this week is Matthew 5, verse 16. And yesterday we were talking about it. Let your light so shine before men. that they may see your good works and i want to just read the footnote of matthew 5 in the passion translation because jesus here is talking not only about light but three verses previously in matthew 5 13 he’s talking about salt and rabbis in history have equated salt with wisdom after speaking of salt jesus speaks of lighting a lamp It was common practice in the time of Jesus to put salt on the wick of a lamp to increase its brightness. The salt of wisdom will make your light shine even brighter. And I pray that when you get into a fix, when you get into a place where you think it’s Go to God. Ask him for his wisdom. It’s much better than any worldly wisdom. Don’t go to a lawyer when you can go to God and ask him for his wisdom, my friend. Wisdom, you are my sister, and understanding, you’re my intimate friend. Praise the Lord. Well, Kimberly, are you there?
SPEAKER 03 :
I am. And yesterday I realized that you were introducing the memory verse, let your light shine before others in such a way that they may see your good works and glorify your father in heaven. And I grabbed right onto that good works part and started talking about your memory verse. being that we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works. So that was my first day back in a couple of weeks, and I think I confused everything, but it’s all about good works, and we can’t get to that place of good works without digging deeper into his word. Wow. And so that’s what we were talking about is digging deeper and not just staying on the sand. And we looked at Matthew 7, 24, and how that man built his house on the rock. Jesus is talking about a man who built his house on a foundation of rock. When you want to find a foundation of rock, you’ve got to dig for it. It’s not going to just be a foundation of the sand or the topsoil on top. You’re going to have to dig. And so as we want to grow and become more mature and have a brighter light because of the wisdom within us, we’re going to have to dig. We need to dig.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, I told a lady the other day I was talking to over the phone, and I said, you’ve got it in your head. I remember Dave DeWell saying this. You go 18 inches from your head knowledge, because when we memorize the word, it’s in our mind, in our head. We’ve got to go down into our heart, Kimberly, and that takes some digging. It really does. And just listening to Holy Spirit on a moment-to-moment basis, so important. It really is. Yes.
SPEAKER 03 :
yeah yesterday we uh ended the program talking about how how we will have storms in this life in this life john 16 33 jesus tells us that in this life you will have tribulation so there are storms that come in this life we want to do our digging and studying and growing in wisdom, maturing before the storm hits. Because when the storm hits, if you’re trying to do the digging at that point in time, it’s a little bit late. And panic can set in and really prevent that wisdom from going deep. I’m not, I shouldn’t say that any time is ever too late. It’s never too late. If you’re in the middle of a storm right now, start digging because the Lord will give you solid rock to land on. And when we read stories and we watch movies, the ones that are really good stories and good movies that are worth our time have some kind of conflict in them. At the end of the conflict, we feel like we have learned something from that movie or from that story. There’s a maturing process that happens when we learn and when we grow. And there’s a satisfaction and a fulfillment. Like the end of the story, okay, this is a good story. And I’m not sure, but it seems that you can’t really count it all joy unless you dig deep. So you’ve got to be willing to go through a storm, to go through a conflict, to dig deep. Then you can count it all joy. And that scripture is from James 1. We were reading verses 2, 3, and 4. I think I started in verse 2 yesterday. count it all joy when you encounter various trials and i started to talk about the accounting uh in it’s an accounting term that the greek word for count it all joy and i yesterday i said credit and debit let me let me say uh the gains and the losses of life so if you sit down and you’ve got a paper in front of you and you draw a line and it’s like accounting. On one side, you’ve got all of your income and everything that’s coming in, your savings, your counting, everything that’s in the black. On the other side, what accountants would say is in the red, you would have your debt or the payments that you need to make, the obligations that you have to pay something off. So that’s the other side. Now, the side in the black is where we count it all joy. Okay, so maybe instead of just writing credit at the top, you could write joy. You could write the faithfulness, trust. You could write in there some of the fruits of the Spirit. This is what God is giving us as gifts. And James 1 is saying, count it all joy. Okay. So anything that you might have put on the other side of your paper in the red, the things that are a debt to you, the things that are weighing you down, that are an obligation to you, that feels like heavy responsibility, move it over. Move it over to the other side of joy. Count it all joy. Joy.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yeah, and don’t take it so personally when you’ve got a debt. God is willing to go deep. I’m so glad you said that, Kimberly. He’s deeper than you can dig. He created this world. He’s deeper than you can dig. I remember Corrie Ten Boom saying, you know, our God is deeper still. When we go down deep, our God is deeper still. When we go into a hole that we don’t think we can get out of, he’s there. He’s there. Oh, it’s so wonderful. That’s right.
SPEAKER 03 :
Sometimes our debt feels like a hole that we’ve gotten ourselves into. It does.
SPEAKER 04 :
It does.
SPEAKER 03 :
There is no hole so deep that our God is not deeper still. I love that.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, I do too. Yes.
SPEAKER 03 :
And we get to invest. We get to invest for our heart’s sake. And I like how you mentioned that we might know something in our mind and have it memorized, but we want it to get to our heart. And we need to guard our heart and not just dwell on the things of this world that are very surfacy, the things that are on the sand and the topsoil, but dig deeper, get to the heart, build a foundation, and know who your God is, because He’s really good. He’s really good. Everything He does is really good. And when we’re considering a debt-to-income ratio, He is so good. He is beyond our wildest dream and our imaginations. He is that good. We can’t dream better than He is. We really can’t. And some of us might think that we can dream pretty big. I think I can dream pretty big. But I can’t dream anything better or bigger than our God. So when we start really digging into the word, we’re transformed and we are settled. We’ve got a peace that is very secure. I was actually inspired to talk about this because someone told me his story of researching tents so that he could take his family camping. He wanted to take his family out to a campground and set up a tent, but he wanted the tent to be really secure. He really wanted his family to be covered well and safe. So before they even thought about leaving on a camping trip, he really invested a lot of time He did his research. He studied all the different tents that were available. And he went to different stores to look at the different displays. I think his family, he was telling that they were getting very restless and impatient with him. They were like, just buy a tent. We want to go. That’s right, buy a tent. But he really did a lot of research and bought the one that had the sturdiest frame and the best weatherproofing and the strongest, longest pegs to drive deep into the ground. So he felt really assured because he did. He put a lot of time into it, put a lot of effort. He dug deep. Right. So on their camping trip, they stayed at a really popular campground. where there were many other tents set up. And that night, a really big storm blew up. And his kids actually slept soundly through the whole storm, but his wife was nervous because she heard some rattling and she asked him to go outside and check on the tent. And he tried to assure her this tent was not going anywhere. He was really confident that his research and the time that he put into finding this tent provided them the very best covering and so he was so sure of that he knew that this storm was not going to be an issue but she was still nervous so he complied and he went out in the rain to make sure everything was secure and when he came back in all soaked he again reassured his wife that this tent was not moving this tent was going to hold And so they did eventually fall asleep. And the next morning when they woke up, they found that all the other tents were gone. And he said some people had decided to just pack it in and left during the storm, but others, their belongings were all swept away in the wind. But his tent and his family, his family was dry and his tent was standing. And the time that it took him to research and to find this tent really paid off.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes.
SPEAKER 03 :
So that’s what inspired me to start talking about digging deeper in the word of God, because there will be storms in this life. And when those storms come, we want to be prepared with that wisdom, that wisdom that causes our light, the wisdom that is associated with the salt of Matthew 5. Mm-hmm. It causes our light to be even brighter. So in a scenario like that, like him researching this tent, you know, we can feel pretty good about ourselves for the time and the effort and the financial investment that we put into a really great piece of equipment. And it is good to search. Yes. But let’s not forget about the people who conceived the design in the first place, the company who built those valuable things that protect us. Let’s not forget about our God who gives us wisdom, who leads us to safety, who guards and protects us when the storms come.
SPEAKER 04 :
Amen. And he’s promised us, Kimberly, even when we go through those afflictions, that if we are looking to him, they are light afflictions. And I’m getting that from Second Corinthians for momentary light afflictions, because we’re looking to the glory of God. We’re not looking at that situation that we’re in. We’re looking beyond that to what God has prepared for us. And it’s really wonderful because we’re not looking at the things that are seen. See, and that’s something that I’ve had to train my spirit or train my soul and my body by my spirit that I was not going to look at the situation. I was going to look above that, the things that are above and not the things on this earth.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s good. That’s such a good point. And that’s digging deep. That’s going a little bit deeper and learning to trust the word of God.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s right.
SPEAKER 03 :
And James 1, verses 2, and I’m going to go on to 3 and 4 in the Passion Translation, says, My fellow believers, when it seems as though you are facing nothing but difficulties… See it as an invaluable opportunity to experience the greatest joy that you can. And that’s what we’re talking about. Move those difficult experiences that you would think are negatives, move them over into the positive column on your paper, on your accounting paper. Yes. Verse three, for you know that when your faith is tested, it stirs up power within you to endure all things. We need that. We need that kind of power. The testing of your faith produces endurance and let that endurance have its perfect result. The Passion Translation says, then as your endurance grows even stronger, it will release perfection into every part of your being until there’s nothing missing and nothing lacking.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, praise God. That’s where we want to be, Kimberly.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s it. The New American Standard says that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. When we are in the middle of a storm, that is when we need to see that we’re lacking nothing. And you can start digging deeper right in the middle of that storm to find out that there is a source. He is the source and all resources are available to you because of your source. And he is the one who will make you complete, perfect you in a way where you lack nothing. So when we dig deep, we know who god is and who we are to him and that is such a reward to find out who he really is to know him so we can sit through any storm with confidence with patience we can actually fall asleep and sleep in the storm like jesus did with his disciples when he went out on the boat And the storm hit the boat, and the disciples were all panicking. And, you know, we have to remember, these were all fishermen. They knew the water. They knew boats. They understood them. And for them to panic, that must have been a pretty good storm.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s right. But Jesus was sleeping. That’s right. He was sleeping. We have a friend who, she was going home, and this unlicensed driver hit her. hit her precious car, and she immediately knew who to call. She called her son. Because when we get into these situations, sometimes we need someone to call, someone who’s peaceful, someone who’s calm, someone who’s going to bring peace to our situation. And have some And have some wisdom, yes, about who to call and what to do in that situation. And so it’s important that you have people around you that are peaceful and calm and steadfast in God. Because I know some people, when they get riled, when something happens unexpectedly, oh my goodness, they just go into turmoil and go round and round and round. and are so emotional. And so, Kimberly, it’s really important that they have people around them, friends who they can call and say, listen, I just got myself in a jam. Could you please pray for me right now? Even if they are not there on the scene, like this son came to his mother’s rescue on the scene, but it’s important that we have friends that can pray for us. It really is, yes.
SPEAKER 03 :
And when we are… feeling alone, to remember that we’re not alone. That there is always someone with us and He is for us. That’s how we need to know God. We need to know how good He is. We want to grow in the belief of that, in the faith and in the trust that He really is good. I know years ago somebody was trying to describe to me the joy of the Lord being my strength, and I was in such a dark place and had been for quite some time that I wasn’t sure that I believed. But they were so insistent. You know, if you don’t believe, then just let this be an experiment in your life. And trust that the joy of the Lord really is out there for you. And we started with something small, like making eye contact with babies when I’m out in public. And I started, I don’t remember if this was two decades ago, 15 years ago, something like that. But I just remember thinking, oh, I just don’t think I could get any joy even out of a little one. You know, why would I make eye contact with them? But I started playing these little games with babies when I would see them if I was out at the grocery store or getting gas or wherever I was. And it was so cute how they would just smile and then kind of hide. and then they would want to see me again. So they’d open their eyes and look again and smile, and then they’d hide. And there’s joy in that interaction. Our Father wants us to make eye contact with Him and find out that He is so full of joy. He is so full of love. He is so full of mercy and compassion. In 2 Corinthians 1, it tells us that He is the Father of mercies. He is the God of all compassion. There is no compassion and there is no mercy without him. So we want to be making eye contact with him. We want to be connecting with his joy and his love for us. And when we forget how good he is and get to that dark place like I was in all those years ago, it’s so important to be in this place where you’re willing to read, to find him again.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes. Because maybe we’ve misunderstood. That’s right. I know that when David was running from King Saul, and Saul was going to have him, he was wanted dead or alive. Saul didn’t care if they killed him. And he wrote Psalm 18, Kimberly, and it talks about the rock. I love you, Lord, my God, my strength, my solid rock. my fortress deliverer in whom I take refuge. You are my shield of faith, the horn of my salvation. I call upon you, for you are my God and worthy of praise. I mean, he did the whole nine yards of God. I mean, he had so much descriptions about God. And I go to that psalm often because I know that he’s our rock, our fortress, our refuge, our horn of salvation, Kimberly. And he keeps us no matter what comes along.
SPEAKER 03 :
he’s going to keep us that’s right yeah we’ve we have to know that about him and we’re not going to know it unless we’re reading his story we can read a lot about him in this world and in this life we can read you know little quips that are on uh car tags on bumper stickers or on our calendars or things that we’ve plastered on our refrigerator we can read about him But we’ve got to learn to dig deep into his story, into the Bible, into the Torah, the word that he has given to his people so that we know him better. And when we know him, oh, there’s something about knowing him that causes our eyes to be opened to his patience. his wild patience toward us and everyone else he has the best endurance he can endure any kind of insult any blasphemy any injury and he still pours out mercy and compassion on us And he has made us in his image. So learning to dig deeper with him and know him means that we become unoffendable on that journey. We can actually endure any insult or injury and know that we are safe in every storm.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, praise God. Yes. So stretch out those pegs from your tent and allow God to really reach in there and be grateful for it. Thank you so much, Kimberly. We love you and we appreciate so much your teaching.
SPEAKER 01 :
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.
Join hosts Barbara and Kimberly as they explore the depths of spiritual resilience through God’s word. This episode emphasizes the importance of Scripture in understanding God’s protection and wisdom. From personal stories to inspiring biblical references, learn how to anchor your faith securely in the eternal rock that is God, ensuring stability and peace during life’s most tumultuous times. Listen and be inspired to trust in the all-encompassing compassion and mercy of God.
