Team Courageous: Overcoming Fear and Self-Doubt

SPEAKER 03 : 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 01 : 1:04

Welcome to Call to Freedom. I hope your day is sunny. And if you’re just crawling into bed, I hope you have sweet sleep tonight. It’s so important that so many times I say, be near me, Lord Jesus. I ask thee to stay close by me forever and love me, I pray. Bless all my dear children and grandchildren in thy tender care and take us to heaven to live with thee there. I pray that almost every night when I go to bed because I know that Jesus is going to be near me. Be near me, Lord Jesus. And I know that he is. Oh, how blessed are all who fear the Lord, who walk in his ways. You will eat the fruit of your labor. What is your labor been like? Are you going to get fruit, good fruit, or are you going to get rotten fruit? You will eat the fruit of your labor. Blessings and prosperity will be yours. That’s from Psalm 128, verse one and two. And it reminds me as we walk in his ways that we are grateful and we have thanksgiving. In the last Express newsletter, the November at the bottom of page four, I have a little illustration that says gratitude is thanking God after he does it. And faith is thanking God before he does it. It reminds me of the scripture that I gave yesterday from Mark 11, verse 24. Therefore, I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, you pray and you ask. Believe that you have already received them. That’s gratitude, folks, and that’s thanksgiving. Thanksgiving in what you have already received from God, even though you don’t see it in the physical. You are thanking God for what he has done in your life. Praise the Lord. I’m getting excited about that. the Word of God. And we’re going to have wonderful teaching today by Kimberly Duell. Yes, Kimberly, are you online? I’m here. Can you hear me? Yep, we can hear you. Yes.

SPEAKER 02 : 3:08

Okay, that was a good test. I just love what you’ve been talking about this week, the team courageous. And I wanted to mention that again, because forming a team courageous and having us all on board. I told you earlier in the day, I want to be part of that team. I want to be on team courageous. And what you’re asking of people, and I don’t know if you have All your notes in front of you. And if not, I hate to put you on the spot. But I wanted to just kind of go back over that. First, it’s a remnant of people who will be willing to cast down their own inner thoughts of unbelief and fear. Those imaginations that cause doubt.

SPEAKER 01 : 3:54

Amen.

SPEAKER 02 : 3:55

Am I saying that well?

SPEAKER 01 : 3:56

Yes. Yes. Or they come against that doubt, fear, and unbelief. That is the evil trio that Satan always tries to push into our lives. The doubt, fear, and unbelief. Yes.

SPEAKER 02 : 4:09

So the second part of casting down the self-doubt and being willing to look at what God is doing through you is You know, that’s a tricky one in itself, because sometimes we judge ourselves as having made mistakes. And even in what we would call a mistake, God is still in control. So being able to cast down self-doubt and say, no, God has got this. Even if I misspoke, if I caused something that looks like an obstacle, God can remove it. I want him to remove it. This is team courageous. This is what Team Courageous will do, is not get so down on themselves that they go to a place of discouragement and hopelessness. That’s not what we want as His people.

SPEAKER 01 : 4:58

Yes. And the number three, I gave you to actually think of others, and the number three was was that when you see someone in need or someone has told you that they have an issue, you don’t say, I’ll be praying for you. On the spot, as a team member, as a team courageous member, you are saying, let me pray for you right now. Because that’s so important that we let them and agree with them right there on the spot. Because Kimberly, if you’re like me, I forget something five minutes later, I’m on to something else. And we need to remember those in prayer and pray for them right then.

SPEAKER 02 : 5:37

Yes. And even consider keeping an extra bill in your pocket, whatever that bill might be. If it’s a one, if it’s a five, if it’s a 10, a 20, a hundred dollar bill, whatever that is, consider keeping an extra bill in your pocket and just praying that that the Lord will direct you to who is in need and be a giver. So seed, being able to give a $1 bill here or there, a $5, a $10, just let the Lord lead you and be part of Team Courageous that is putting others first. When you’ve got a little extra, you can give and let someone else… I get so much joy out of being able to do that.

SPEAKER 01 : 6:21

Yes, I do too. I remember when your father was so sick, and we didn’t have health insurance God provided. Oh, he really did. But Darren came to give him communion one day, and I did not know Darren at that point. And when he came through the kitchen, and you and I, I think you were with me that afternoon, he just put a $50 bill in my hand. He says, this is for you. And walked out the door. And I remember that. I remember him putting that $50 bill in my hand before I even knew him. And I got to say, I thought he was boisterous and proud and arrogant. And I’ll tell you, Kimberly, I was so wrong. And Holy Spirit really showed me that. Sometimes we have an idea of what people are because we have been with them maybe five or ten minutes and we figured out their personalities are not and their personalities aren’t at all what our opinion of them is.

SPEAKER 02 : 7:23

And I think that goes back to the number one on Team Courageous of the things that we do when we cast down our imagination of what we think somebody’s like, or when we cast down unbelief or doubt, we’re casting down the doubting of the goodness in somebody. Yes. And we might be focused in on something that we don’t like. But what about focusing on what God loves in each person? Every being on this planet is made in the image of God. And it’s up to us to dig for that treasure, to find it and to look for the good things in others rather than looking for everything that frustrates us or irritates us.

SPEAKER 01 : 8:04

Yeah. Oh, that’s so good. That is so good. Amen. Amen. So I didn’t write down number four. Now that’s going the extra mile, and you’re just right on top of it. You really are. I’m typing it in right now so that I remember. You go the extra mile to bring an answer to those that have a need. And if that means, like you said, giving them money that you have, the Holy Spirit’s nudging you, you give that to them or handing them. I was talking about power packs, how beautiful they are for people that don’t have any scripture at all or even going far enough. I have a friend who gives away Passion Bibles translations and just going the extra mile. She said, I gave my passion away and now she has another one because I brought one to her yesterday. So we sometimes have to give things out of our own storehouse and God will supply. He’ll multiply. He’ll multiply back to us. Don’t ever think that you are losing something by giving something to somebody else. You’re not. God sees. He’s got sharp eyesight and he knows. And when you give out of a cheerful heart, oh, he comes back and multiplies back to you. That’s right. That’s right. Yes.

SPEAKER 02 : 9:24

And then I do want to visit your memory verse for this week, John 6, 45. Is that right?

SPEAKER 01 : 9:32

Oh, yes. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER 02 : 9:33

Yes. And they shall all be taught of God. I like how the Passion says they will all be taught by God himself.

SPEAKER 01 : 9:44

Oh, that’s so good. Because Jesus is God himself.

SPEAKER 02 : 9:49

Yes.

SPEAKER 01 : 9:49

Yes, that’s right.

SPEAKER 02 : 9:50

Yes. And if you are really listening to the Father and learning directly from him, you will come to me. That’s Jesus talking. You will come to me and you will come to Jesus. And I think if we look at that memory verse and say they shall all be taught of God, we need to recognize that God is working in every single human being’s life. Amen. And as we recognize that, then we are casting down our own judgments. We’re casting down our own ideas of what we think of people. So I’ve been spending some time with a younger generation. And I remember even talking about this on the air with you years ago. I remember when I would visit Sarah at the public school that she was going to. And I recognized that all of the students had such foul language. It’s language that we were not allowed to speak when we went to school. We weren’t allowed to say those words in our classroom. And now those words are just descriptives. They’re not even considered foul language anymore. They’re, they’re descriptive words that they use in all of their sentences. It’s, It’s just very common to hear all of these words and they use them to describe all kinds of things and people and situations. And I… I will hang out every now and then with my children’s generation, their friends, and that just stuck. They learned it in their school system and that’s how they talk. Well, I cannot be quick to judge that language. It’s not a language that I choose to adopt for myself. but I can’t judge it. So I need to cast down. I need to put down every imagination that they’re in the wrong and I’m in the right and God is not teaching them. I can’t do that. I can’t have that assessment of that generation. I have to trust that the Lord is teaching and that he is writing his goodness, his mercy, his compassion on their hearts. And one young man that I was speaking to this past weekend, His parents were not good parents. They were very neglectful. He was raised in a home where there was a lot of drug addiction and alcoholism and pornography. And he was exposed to all of it from the time he was teeny tiny. And when he realized that that is not a way to live life, not to really live. He became old enough to where he could disassociate himself from his family, and he chose better morals. And his heart, I can learn from this young man. His heart is so on fire for God. And I love it when we can see a younger generation that is so full of the love of God that we can learn from them. And that’s how I felt about this young man. Now, his language was not cleaned up. And so I just needed to have a filter for that, you know, and not judge it. Because otherwise I wouldn’t have seen his heart. His heart is amazing and beautiful. But I just had to filter through some of the extra language that I would not use. But it’s so much a part of their culture that that’s how they’re talking to one another. Yes. And I don’t judge that. No.

SPEAKER 01 : 13:40

No. I’m so glad you used the word filter because immediately I saw a furnace filter. And we get filters every year to replace the old ones because the old ones get all full of dirt and grime and all kinds of things. And that’s exactly what you’re saying, Kimberly. I just filter through those things. Instead of becoming a critic or a judgmental person, you’re saying you’re using a gift of mercy and love and compassion on this new friend. Right. Yeah, because they have been put down by so many. You were mentioning his own family. He did not grow up well, well-versed at all. So we give them… We give them that compassion and mercy that God has given us. That’s right.

SPEAKER 02 : 14:30

That is exactly how Jesus Christ came to this planet, not to go cleaning up everybody’s language, but to show them love. Right where they’re at. And that’s the kind of love I want to be showing others. In 1 John 4, verses 1 and 4, it says, Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God. Because greater is he who is in you than he who is in the world. And I know I cut out verses two and three there, but I think it’s really good to see that we’re testing spirits in us. Are we being critical and judgmental of each other? Are we not giving each other the kind of mercy, grace, compassion? because we’ve got set ideas on how we need to see it or how we need to hear it before we think it’s clean, before we think it’s good. And that’s where we want to test every spirit, test those spirits to see whether they are from God. And if we look back in chapter three of first John, I’m in first John. John is telling us how great the Father’s love is for us as He chooses to call us His children. Oh, how great the Father’s love for us that He chooses us to be His children.

SPEAKER 1 : 15:56

Yes.

SPEAKER 02 : 15:57

And then John says that if we are practicing lawlessness, that is sin. No one who abides in Jesus sins, and no one who sins knows Jesus. We must love one another to abide in Christ. We’ve got to have love for one another. And if we have hatred for one another, then we are murderers. That’s what it says. Oh, sometimes we we will say that we hate a brother or we hate somebody when we say that we hate someone. that makes us murderers. We’ve got to read the Bible for what it says. And then by chapter four of first John, that’s where we’re saying, we’re seeing test these spirits. we’re seeing definitions for Antichrist. And if you think of the word Antichrist, and John is saying that the Antichrist spirit is already here in this world, well, it is. Because in the natural human tendencies, we go against Christ. That’s what Antichrist is. It’s against Christ. So It might be kind of hard to understand what Antichrist looks like, and people have been pointing to one person or another, but looking at ourselves and realizing that sometimes we have attitudes, we have expectations, we have motives, we have agendas that go against Christ. And that’s what I am seeing as a definition for Antichrist. Anti means against or in opposition. Well, while we are on this journey in this life, the Lord is continuing to change us. And you and I were talking about how the glory of the Lord will fill the temple. I was reading in Isaiah 6, again, that the whole earth is full of His glory. I think of us as being the temple of the Lord. And when the Lord comes and fills his temple with his glory, he’s filling us with his glory. And when it says the whole earth is full of his glory, we are a piece of earth that’s walking around on this planet. We’re made from the dust of this earth.

SPEAKER 01 : 18:21

Millions and millions are walking on this earth and they’re the glory of God. It manifested on this earth to love, to love and to forgive and to bring joy to others. Amen. Wow.

SPEAKER 02 : 18:35

Right.

SPEAKER 01 : 18:36

So good.

SPEAKER 02 : 18:36

So the Lord changes us as he comes into our life and starts revealing to us his ways of love and goodness and kindness and patience. And we can either be filled with joy and gratitude as he is working in us, or we can be full of grumbling and complaining and resistance. And I gave, I don’t remember if it was last week or the week before sometime that I gave an example of Matthew and the years that he spent serving a very greedy boss and And I was complaining during those years. I know.

SPEAKER 01 : 19:17

You’re not the only one. Just today I was saying, Father God, all the years that I was complaining and discouraged and being negative, Father God, I’m going to make up for that. Every minute of every day I’m going to be thanking you and thanking you and thanking you. Yes. Singing his praises, right? That’s what I want to do.

SPEAKER 02 : 19:36

Just sing his praises because he knows how to work it all for good. And it’s up to us to choose not to resist the process. Ultimately, God will have his way. The earth shall be full of the glory of the Lord.

SPEAKER 01 : 19:53

Amen.

SPEAKER 02 : 19:54

That is what it says. And the earth is full of the glory of the Lord. That’s us. That’s us. Full of his glory. Yes. So resisting him makes this journey extremely difficult, not for him, for us. Why do we wanna make it harder? We don’t need to make it harder. We can actually come into agreement with him and choose to be joyful. And that’s the mountain moving in our life. That’s when we look and say, you know, the mountain of grumbling, the mountain of complaining, the mountain of self-pity, The mountain of pride that thinks that you have a better way to handle this. A better way than God. Those are the mountains that we want to have removed. And we can say to those mountains, be removed, be cast into the sea. And it shall be done for us when we just have a small amount of faith. Faith in what? It’s faith in whom? Yes, in him. Yes. Faith in him. that he really is working it all out. And when I mentioned that our church is going through some transitions and it just seems so hard to see when someone’s cleaning house, whether it’s in a business or at church, when you are seeing people let go and they’re asked to leave their position, whatever that position might be, It’s hard. It’s hard. And we can start looking at it and trying to form our own opinion of it. But this is exactly where we must believe that God is working. And instead of taking a stance against the leadership and against those who are who own the businesses, who are managing whoever our bosses are, the scriptures tell us that we must respect and honor those that we work for.

SPEAKER 01 : 21:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER 02 : 21:58

Our employers.

SPEAKER 01 : 21:59

Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER 02 : 22:00

And so when we see these things happening, it is imperative that we believe that God will work it all for good. God is still on the throne no matter what these decisions are through the bosses that we work for. So we’ve got to believe God is working just like he did for Joseph. You know, that did not look like a fair situation. But instead of grumbling, complaining and talking loudly about it, trying to sue somebody, you know, trying to take it to their authorities and trying to handle it in a way where you’re the one in control. No, that’s not Jesus’ way. That’s not abiding in Christ like 1 John 4 is telling us.

SPEAKER 01 : 22:48

Yes. I know that when I’m trying to clean up my house and I’m really going to do a deep clean, I’ve got to bring everything out into the middle of the room in order to get back into those cobwebs and all that dirt and all the leftovers from last year. And I have to make everything. What do I want to say?

SPEAKER 02 : 23:12

You put it out of order before it goes in order.

SPEAKER 01 : 23:14

Yes. Amen.

SPEAKER 02 : 23:16

Thank you very much. You know, that’s fun that you said that. We had a tree dug out of our yard just this morning. And it’s a beautiful tree. And it’s a Japanese maple tree. It costs thousands of dollars to buy one this size. And it was in the wrong place. And so it was starting to do damage to the fence line between us and the neighbor. And we had to move it out. or just cut it down. But it is an expensive, very expensive tree. I planted it when it was only three inches tall. Oh, that’s beautiful. And it’s just been growing and growing all these years. And so now that it’s as old as it is and it’s got a good-sized trunk on it, our yard guy was looking at it, and he goes, you don’t want me to cut that down. And I looked at him, and I said, you want to dig that out? I don’t want to dig it out. Oh. He came with he brought a team of three people. And you’re right. You know, sometimes when something gets moved, it looks like it’s out of place. It feels out of order. It doesn’t feel right. It felt really hard to see them digging that tree up out and creating this huge hole and a mess of dirt. But that tree is going to my friend. She’s in a brand new home that has no trees anywhere. It’s in a brand new little neighborhood that has no trees anywhere. And she’s getting a really beautiful tree. And he’s there now digging the hole to plant it in there. We laid hands on it and we prayed over it together. And we’re believing that it will be blessed in its new place. That’s how we want to be with other people. When there’s shifting and transitions going on, praying and believing they will be blessed in their new place. That is when we are abiding in Christ. And if we’re complaining and opposing and going in an opposite direction, we might actually be anti-Christ, against Christ. We don’t want to do that. No, no. Jesus said that I and the Father are one. And we’ve taken a couple of weeks now to describe the Father’s glory and the Father’s goodness. so full of compassion, full of mercy, full of forgiveness. He is passing that on to us. His glory is filling the temple and we are His temple and He’s passing that on to us. We get to choose whether or not we’re going to resist that Or if we’re going to embrace it and grow in his goodness.

SPEAKER 01 : 26:08

Oh, that’s wonderful. Oh, you’ve got more. Resist or embrace it. Oh, that is so good, Kimberly. We’re going to hear about more of that tomorrow. I think you can come on board again tomorrow and talk about that. all the things that we have to look forward to in the team. Courageous. Amen. The remnant, the remnant of God. We want you friend to join us in that wonderful fellowship because we are the remnant of Jesus Christ on this earth. So Kimberly, we’re looking forward to it tomorrow. God bless all of you that are listening. God keep you all of you safe and secure and take joy.

SPEAKER 03 : 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. Our 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 : 28:33

Bye.