Seeking God’s True Identity

SPEAKER 01 : 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 06 : 1:04

Welcome to Call to Freedom. I’m so glad that you joined us today. These are the last days of July 2025, and it’s not going to be any longer. We are in the last week. That’s right. And you’re still with us. And it’s such a wonderful thing. Is it the whole month? I think so. I think the whole month of July you’ve been here. It’s just been a wonderful thing. But it’s been in the above the hundred degrees down where you live. And so I’m

SPEAKER 02 : 1:31

Yeah. And it has been here too. We’ve had some triple digit temperatures here in Colorado, but it’s different here. And so I’m, I’m happy. I’m happy that I’ve had the opportunity to spend this much of the summer with you.

SPEAKER 06 : 1:46

Well, I have a scripture for you, friend. You’ve been listening for a long time. And I hope that our daily program builds you up into that wonderful confidence. And this is a scripture from Philippians 1.6. You can be confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. And we’re here for you. We want you to know that we are going to pray for you. If you want to contact us at either Barbara Carmack at Freedoms or Barbara at Freedom. I’m trying to get used to this new thing that Chris has given to us. Barbara at Freedom Street dot org or Kimberly at Freedom Street dot org. And you can email that way or you can actually contact. Call me at 1-877-917-7256 and leave your number and I will call you back. I promise.

SPEAKER 02 : 2:41

Yes, I will. You know, also on that website, we’ve been mentioning ways that you can donate. I want to bring that up because we were just at the post office and we picked up some letters. And for the last, well, the last how many years that you’ve been on the radio, including with Darren, you have received the donations and any support, your support from through the mail, through checks. That has been the main source. And so now that we are making that switch, we tend to mention that donate button fairly often. We certainly do not mean for that to sound like any pressure because we are not a pressure ministry and we know better than that. We know who our source is. We love, love, love all of you who have decided to to be, um, a part of the ministry, to be a part in your giving. There are those who are only able to support us in prayer. Wow. Do we thank you for that? Because we need that. And those who come by and help by pulling weeds in the yard. Thank you so much. We just love each and every one of you and all the ways that you support us. And we just know that generosity breeds generosity. So as we continue to give. And mom, I watch you do that all the time. You said something this morning about how you were stingy. And I looked at you like, what you are not at all. You are a very generous person, constantly giving, constantly supporting the efforts of people who’ve had natural disasters, the home of refuge. Oh my goodness. How many hundreds of thousands have you given to the home of refuge and, and you’ve let yourself be a vessel where it just goes through you. Even though you still have some debt and I just, I don’t know too many people. I don’t like to mention age. You don’t like it when I do, but I don’t know many people your age that would have that kind of faith. to continue a ministry, a job that requires you have to pay to do this job. You have to pay thousands a month to do this job because airtime is not, it’s not free and it’s not cheap. So I just want to say thank you to you on the air in front of everyone here live. Thank you for that, for that example. And that is my heritage.

SPEAKER 06 : 5:17

And I’m really grateful for that. To God be the glory. And Kimberly, you’ve known from the very beginning. You were in that station wagon in 1971 and 72 when we started traveling across the United States. And we were living by faith. Nothing was coming in for us. That’s right. And your father was in between earthly jobs. And sometimes we’d get to a destination like Pennsylvania and have a few cents in our pockets. That’s right. And God just always has supplies. Always. I have known he is always there. He will always be there. Yes.

SPEAKER 02 : 5:58

And that’s the kind of faith that you are encouraging us today to grow in, to grow in that kind of faith, to seek the Lord with all of our hearts and to know him. And I’m interrupting. I totally interrupted your whole flow. I think you haven’t had a chance to get to Hebrews 11, six. I know.

SPEAKER 06 : 6:16

And I just want to say to you who are listening, we have such a good time here, but sometimes we complete each other’s sentences. Yeah. It’s a family thing. But you are blessed to dispense, my friend. It is so much better to give than to receive. I know that my precious webmaster, he’s just been hard at work. He’s remoting all the time. And he said, well, I was going to give you a bill. You know, this is all online, but I have reduced the bill. I said, oh, don’t you dare. I want to pay the whole full amount. See, that’s what I’m talking about. Who does that?

SPEAKER 02 : 6:51

Everybody wants a deal. They want a discount. Yeah, they want a discount. No, never. But not you. You just tell him, no, you are worth more than this. Do not lower my bill. I love that about you.

SPEAKER 06 : 7:03

Well, you know that we were in a retail business for seven years before your dad went to be with the Lord. People would come down and try to get people would come into the store and try to get him down on his prices.

SPEAKER 02 : 7:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER 06 : 7:17

And there’s a point. It’s so discouraging. It is. It is. And so I know that I am willing to pay top dollar for the food I eat, the dresses I buy, the clothes, everything that I have. And the people. And the people. Yes. Think of the people first. the people first thank you for that so friend you are blessed to dispense for in him you live and move and have your being it is in him trusting in him well when i thought about that word seek this was the last verse you know when when i mentioned seeking what verse do you think of first of all and i’m asking the people on that are listening right now what is the verse that you think of Well, it’s seek you first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. Well, this scripture came up. Hebrews 11, 6. Without faith, it’s impossible to please God. And I thought, whoa, what does that have to do with seek? Well, listen to the rest of it. For he who believes that God is and he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. That’s without faith. You can’t please God and you must be a diligent seeker of God.

SPEAKER 02 : 8:33

I think in our seeking, what we end up finding is true love. And that’s what that verse is saying. That without faith, it’s impossible to please God. For you must know that God is.

SPEAKER 06 : 8:49

You know what? I like to interject right there. That God is. Not just that he exists. But I take Exodus 3. And I take that he is the I am that I am. I interject that every time I say that person in my heart.

SPEAKER 02 : 9:09

And I take first John and say, God is love, right? Because he is all of that. We can’t put him in a box. He’s God. So those who believe that God is love, that he is the I am that provides everything, that he is good. Those that believe that you are increasing your faith to meditate on those things. That’s right. And that’s where he rewards those who are diligently seeking his true identity.

SPEAKER 05 : 9:44

Yes.

SPEAKER 02 : 9:44

And that is your true identity in him. That’s who you are. You were created to be like him. You were created in his image. And as we continue to choose good things, good, make good choices in this life to bless others. The way that the way that I see you do that, mom, the way that I see you say, oh, don’t you lower my bill? I’m going to pay you the full amount. And the way that you say that he’s worth more than that full amount, that is who our God is. Our God says we are worth more than we can imagine. Yes. I love that. So finding our identity in him, finding our identity in Christ is a way of finding our identity in love and knowing that he is good. Finding our identity in all the fruits of the spirit. It connects us with Holy Spirit and with who God is in us and what his plan is, his supernatural plan.

SPEAKER 06 : 10:46

Because do you know why this book, this Bible that’s in front of us, do you know why it was written? It was written for us. It was written for us. It even says that in Romans 4 after describing Abraham’s wonderful faith. And this is meant for us to read and to practice and live by. Absolutely. You have the Passion Translation of Hebrews 11, verse 6. I do.

SPEAKER 02 : 11:12

Let me put my glasses on. So good. I don’t trust myself without my glasses right now. It says, and without faith living within us, it would be impossible to please God or we are powerless to please God. For we come to God in faith, knowing that he is real and that he rewards the faith of those who passionately seek him. Passionately.

SPEAKER 06 : 11:40

Oh, I love that. Your car is not in neutral. Remember, if you put your car in neutral, you’re not going anywhere. You might destroy the engine trying to. You have to get off of neutral. Either go forward or backward. And here it says you’re passionate towards that. You’re going to be fully equipped to seek God with all your heart. It says in Proverbs 8, verse 17, I love those who love me. Now, this is wisdom talking, but where does wisdom come from? God. I love those who love me and those who diligently seek me will find me. God promises that all through his word, Kimberly.

SPEAKER 02 : 12:23

Right. I like that you mentioned this Bible is written for us. What this Bible is telling us about God is that he is good all the time, all the time good. If you are reading your Bible and you’re not seeing his goodness, then that’s a great time to sit down with yourself and say, what am I going to believe? Am I going to believe the truth of the word or the truth of my feelings or the facts of my feelings? Because one of the things that I had to learn is that some of what I was feeling was not lining up with what I was reading. And when I was reading scriptures like this in Hebrews 11, 6, and seeing that faith, what he loves about our faith, he rewards, that he rewards those who are seeking him. Well, how can I seek him if I have all these bad feelings about him? If I’ve got some bad feelings about the way he’s handled situations in this broken world, then how can I seek him and how can I grow my faith? I can’t. It makes it really hard. OK, well, then what am I going to do with these feelings? And there have been times when I have literally just fought with my feelings when when I haven’t been feeling great and I’ve had negative thoughts and I have just flat out said, no, this is not truth.

SPEAKER 06 : 13:53

That’s right. Yes.

SPEAKER 02 : 13:54

And I refuse to believe my feelings and these thoughts over the word of God and what this word says about him.

SPEAKER 06 : 14:02

That’s right. That’s one of Darren’s favorite quotes. Feelings and symptoms are liars. God’s word is truth. And boy, I went through a lot of incidences with him where the word of God proved that feelings and symptoms are liars. We cannot believe how we feel. We cannot take into how we feel. as the barometer for our day. We might start out the day not feeling all that good. And Kimberly, that’s why we go to the word or we go to prayer right away in the day. Oh, Father God, thank you. This is the day that you have made. I will rejoice and be glad in it. And just either go to that Bible or have something on your phone, whatever makes you feel like you’re a conqueror through Christ Jesus. You do that. You get out of that emotional, it’s almost like a pit, the feelings.

SPEAKER 02 : 14:58

And you and I have both had papers on our wall, post-it notes and all kinds of places, whether it’s on our mirrors or refrigerators or just places where we can remind ourselves of the goodness of God to continue to seek that in our lives. And not be so wrapped up in our feelings or in our thoughts, our opinions of how we think things are going. But be wrapped up in his beauty. He’s beautiful. And we want to continue to seek that beauty. It is when we talk about seeking his face, we’re talking about seeking who he really is. seeking his love, seeking the beauty of his holiness. He’s so set apart from the way that we think and our opinions. He’s so much greater and so much higher. And Jesus, when he came to live as a human being, he was 100% perfect human. That means that he felt all the feelings that we feel. And he felt them in a way that led to compassion. It led him to laying down his life so that we would have freedom, so that we would be whole. That’s what we want to be meditating on and seeking daily. It was more than enough. He is more than enough. And there’s a song that we love to sing, that we love to listen to. Oh Lord, you are beautiful. Your face is all we seek. I think this might be a good time to listen to that song.

SPEAKER 06 : 16:30

Oh, okay. Let’s do it.

SPEAKER 04 : 16:31

Oh Lord, you’re beautiful. Your face is all I see And when your eyes are on this child Your grace abounds to me Your face is all I seek And when your eyes are on this child Your grace abounds to me Help me trust to live it, Lord And when I’m doing well Help me to never seek a crown For my reward is giving glory to You Oh Lord, please light the fire

SPEAKER 03 : 18:23

That once burned bright and clear Replaced the lamp of my first love That burned with holy fire

SPEAKER 04 : 19:06

Help me to never seek a crown For my Lord is giving glory to you Oh Lord, you’re beautiful So beautiful Your face is all I see And when your eyes are on this child, your grace abounds to me. And when your eyes are on this child, Your grace abounds to me.

SPEAKER 02 : 20:13

Hmm. That’s so beautiful. Yes. I’m just trying to recover.

SPEAKER 06 : 20:17

Yes. Keith Green wrote that song in the 70s, and he was new on the gospel scene. He was one of those flower children, and their house was always running with doors open, both front and back doors, and people just coming in and out all the time. Hmm. It’s really interesting to know that he was seeking God with all his heart. I believe that he was just starting out. In fact, when he was 11 years old, he’s in the Guinness Book of Records as being the youngest to have a contract from a record company. At 11 years of age, he was one of those beautiful prodigy. Oh, they could play the piano and sing. And so he was on What’s My Line and he played a tune when he was 11 years old. But he filled maybe center and how many people? How many people does maybe say? I don’t know. Maybe 10,000. 10,000, yeah, because we’ve been to basketball games when the whole place was just cheering. But can you imagine a whole building of 10,000 dedicated believers who went only to seek God, singing with him, Oh, Lord, you’re beautiful. Your face is all I seek. And when your eyes are on this child, see, we realize that God, God is looking at us all the time. Kimberly, just when we were about to get ready for the program today, you said, Mom, look out the window. I’m so glad we had a window.

SPEAKER 02 : 21:51

I know. I love having this window right here. And actually, the phenomenon is still continuing. It’s not as bright, but there are these wispy clouds that are up really high right now in the sky. And the sun is just at the right angle, and it’s producing a rainbow on the wispy clouds, but not anywhere else because it’s not raining. And it’s just on the wispy clouds that they’re colorful. And right before the show, it was so bright and so brilliant. It was like something that you would think was maybe CGI, you know, like computer generated. And here was Father God just putting this beautiful bright rainbow in the sky right before our program began today. And that just became my message in my heart. Look up, Father. Look up, look up the promises. His promises are still so beautiful and true. And no matter what circumstance we find ourselves in, you know, I’ve, I’ve had people letting me know that they’re overwhelmed with their business and they’re, there’s someone in their business that’s trying to sabotage their, their success. I’ve had other people telling me that they’ve had a poor report medically and that causes anxiety and, Others who are overwhelmed with parents who need them, aging parents who need them, but they also have young kids who are still at home and those kids need them too. There’s so much in this life that can distract us.

SPEAKER 05 : 23:25

Yes.

SPEAKER 02 : 23:26

from the beauty of our God and his promises are still the same. When we choose to still ourselves, to be still and know that he is God and tap into that love and that beauty, he really does take care of all of these issues. He affirms and confirms to us that he knows every story and that he is so big. He’s so in charge that it doesn’t matter what kind of twists and turns have come to our life, whatever the enemy has thrown at us. God is more than capable of extorting what the enemy has done, turning it and working it for good. He has not forgotten anyone, not in any part of their journey. And when we start feeling responsible to confront that coworker or to make our parents feel more secure in their place or to help our kids as they’re growing and really struggling in their teenage years, whatever it is in our studies or in our finances, whatever the distraction is, If you choose to let your faith grow in a very good God, then your heart becomes at peace. And you know, you can testify. He has never dropped you. He has never let you down. He has never allowed this whole world. According to those who believe in climate change and it’s really ruining the earth. Look at us.

SPEAKER 06 : 25:05

It’s not ruined after all these years. That’s right. I know that today President Trump was in Europe and he had a circle of European presidents and a prime minister of England. And he didn’t stay in America. When he’s seeking people, he goes to the people. He goes to them and makes sure that these people hear what he has to say in person. That’s our God. Today he was saying, I am trying to influence you to ban the windmill, or what we call it, and to also close those borders.

SPEAKER 02 : 25:45

You know, I like that you point out that that’s our God. We can see little facets in every person when we choose to. If we look for the good things in people, we can see facets of our God and who he is to go to those places that might seem hostile. It might seem dark, but he goes. He goes to proclaim love, to build a bridge, to say, I like you.

SPEAKER 06 : 26:10

Yes, he’s right there where you are. Some of you may not feel that, but believe the word of God, that God is love and he’s encircling you. You are his child forever, my friend. So remember that today. We’ve got so much to talk about in seeking God and his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things that you are concerned about and anxious about on a daily basis. he’s gonna bring it to pass that’s right complete it perfect it and accomplish it accomplish it praise the lord god bless you and keep you and take joy

SPEAKER 1 : 27:00

877-917-7256

SPEAKER 01 : 27:21

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.