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 02 :
Welcome to Call to Freedom. Today, God promises you His grace, grace for every moment and every need. When your hands and hearts are open wide, we can receive all that we need from Him, the shower of His amazing grace upon us. It’s wonderful to know that when you’re at the end of your ropes, God is there, and he’s there to take you and hold you tightly so that you know that it’s kind of like a newborn baby. They wrap them real tightly in little cloths and blankets because they want them to feel secure. Oh, what a wonderful security in knowing him. Oh, you are blessed to dispense for in him you live and move and have your being. And if you would like to listen to previous programs of Call to Freedom, you can go to freedomstreet.org and click on resources and it’ll lead you to radio shows. You can download newsletters and teachings and you’ll have some teachings that you can download. If you’re thinking of a friend and you think, oh, I really think my friend will enjoy that teaching by Darren Williams. Well, download it and take it to your friend. That’s a gift that’s immeasurable. It’s priceless. It’s better than anything. Any physical gift you can give that friend is the word of God. So go to freedomstreet.org and just kind of go around and look. And I also want to tell you that at 9 o’clock, Call to Freedom will be on KLTT at 9 o’clock at night instead of 1015. I want you to know that. I think it’s coming on next week. So if you don’t find your program on KLTT, at 10.15 it’s on at 9 o’clock and Rachel just gave me a thumbs up so that’s what it’s going to be it’s a new prayer adventure by Crawford Media and they want you to experience some prayer time this year because I believe prayer is so important this year it really is to get together and be like minded in our prayer requests and also the fulfillment of prophecy that’s coming about is amazing The memory verse for this week has been Matthew 28, verse 17 through 20. Jesus is saying this right before he goes to be with his father. Go then and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything that I’ve commanded you. And behold, I am with you all the days, perpetually, uniformly, and on every occasion. to the very close and summation consummation of the age. That’s what Jesus is saying to you today. I’m with you low. I’m with you always, even to the end of the earth and welcome to call to freedom. In fact, I shouldn’t say welcome. You’re part of call to freedom. So thank you for joining me today.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, thank you. Your memory verse is really what started me meditating on being conformed to His image, because He’s with us day after day after day after day. He never leaves us. He is always God with us, and being conformed to His image is what we’re destined for. And so I was coupling that memory verse of yours from Matthew 28 to the verse in Romans 8, verse 29. It says, for whom he foreknew, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the firstborn among many. We are the many. He’s the firstborn, and we are being conformed to his image. And that’s Romans 8, 29. Let me read it again. For whom he foreknew. Whom he foreknew. Okay. Who did he know before we were ever in existence? He knew all of us. He’s the one who formed all of us. So he knew all of us. If we’re all created by him, then he had the plan and he knew us before we were ever in our mother’s womb.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes. He’s a master designer. Yes. Yes. Absolutely.
SPEAKER 03 :
So he knew all of us beforehand. Yes. And that means all of us. This is just food for thought. You know, not everybody preaches this verse this way, and I’m not trying to preach it at all. I’m just saying from my own experience of realizing, oh, you knew me before. Anyone else? You knew me before you created me. You knew me. And so you have, Lord, you have predestined me to become conformed to the image of your son, Jesus. Well, becoming like God, that’s not something that we can do in our own effort. And that’s why we have to remember your memory verse from Matthew 28, that he is with us all the days, even to the end. He is all we need. And all He needs us to do is to be willing to become like Him. Since we can’t do that work on our own, we cannot conform ourselves to His image. We cannot become better to become good like Him. He’s got to do it for us, but we have to be willing And we need to ask Him to help us so that we’re not just so independent. Human beings love to be independent and they like to get the praise and the recognition for accomplishing something. So we certainly would like to have that pat on the back. Oh, you’re so good. Oh, you have such a good heart. No, I don’t, but God in me does. And I keep asking Him to help me be like Him. And that’s the only way that I have any goodness in me because my flesh doesn’t have it, but my spirit does. Becoming like him is not… Ignoring the uncomfortable teachings and directions that Jesus has given. Jesus, in this memory verse that you have given us, he’s telling us, teach those what I’ve commanded and I will be with you in those teachings. I will help you become like me. And we can’t just ignore the hard teachings. You know, sometimes it’s hard for a husband to hear that he needs to love his wife. It might be hard for a wife to hear that she needs to respect her husband. These are teachings in the Bible. It might be hard to hear that we need to honor those who are in authority over us, especially when the one that’s in authority over us, when our leaders are making decisions that are really hard to watch, hard to swallow. It’s hard to honor, honor them. But God is still asking us to honor. Don’t speak dishonorably about the one in authority over you just because you don’t like what they’re doing. Jesus never did that. He never dishonored the Romans that were in authority at that time. We hear that we need to love our neighbor as ourself. We also hear in the Bible that we need to love our enemies and do good to those who persecute us. Wow, those are hard commands. Those are impossible for humans. They are impossible, but not with God. With God, all things are possible. And that’s why we have to keep looking to him and asking him to help us. in the becoming. Help us become conformed to the image of His Son. And one of those ways that we can join Him is to recognize that our feelings are the parts of us that cause us to struggle. We struggle in loving our enemies and doing good to those who persecute us. We struggle because we don’t like them and our feelings are so negative toward them. So we need to be willing to say to those feelings, be uprooted and be cast into the sea. Those feelings are mountains to us.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes, and emotions and feelings, Kimberly, change every day according to the experiences we go through every day. They’re changing all the time. They’re in flux all the time, whereas the spiritual part, the heart of God, is all the same. It never changes. It’s unconditional love all the time. That’s right.
SPEAKER 03 :
That’s a good point. Feelings are really tricky.
SPEAKER 02 :
They are every day.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah, because they’re real. We feel them and they feel very real. They have influence in us, those feelings. But Jesus was not teaching us to follow our feelings. He was teaching us to follow him and what he has taught. And often I’m led to do something good for somebody else by a feeling, but that very same feeling might be vying for attention in my life and might lie to me about certain situations. Like when I had blood drawn a few years ago and it came back with high alerts for these markers in my blood that could indicate cancer in my system. And they were pretty sure. That created a feeling of panic. And that feeling of panic was real. But what are we supposed to do with panic when it rises up? Do we give into it and do we just let it lead us to all kinds of resources that we’re grabbing and making phone calls? Or do we calm down and do we sit before our God, the real source, not just resources, but the real source? You know, that’s what Jesus did. Can you even picture Jesus reacting to panic the same way we do? No, because Jesus did not react to panic. He did not react to the feelings. He acted like the Son of God who knew that it was going to be okay. And Jesus is the bread of life. We’re told that, that He is the bread of life. He has bread to offer. He has substance to offer that is not just like resources of this world. It’s much more. What He has to offer is much more healing. It’s much more satisfying. It’s much more calming and peaceful in this life. And He shows us how to walk in a way that we are not moved by our feelings, but we’re moved by the truth of who God is and how He loves us. And one of the ways that I enjoy seeing this, there’s a son of Jacob named Asher. Asher is the eighth son of Jacob. And the number eight is very, very meaningful. If you’re into numbers, eight is after the number seven, which is complete. So number seven completes everything. Eight is much more. Because seven is completed, then eight goes on to say, no, there’s more. There’s much more here. Eight is also a number of new beginnings. It’s also a number of being fortunate. The name Asher means happy and fortunate. It means to be straight or upright or on a level place. And Ashar is the actual progression of making decisions that bring us to a place of being set right, which can include happiness and prosperity. And it’s related to a really obvious correlation of righteousness. And righteousness can be a scary word, but it just means following right principles and right morals that the Bible lays out. Some people choose to follow those right morals and those right principles in order to procure wealth for themselves. And that can work out because the principles are good. But the true righteousness is making decisions to be more like God. That’s the true way of being right, is agreeing with him and saying, I am made in your image and I just want to be right with that.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes. Even in the conception, I believe this is true, even in the conception that produced Asher, Leah had not been able to give Jacob any more children. So she gave Zilpah to Jacob. Jacob. And Asher was born out of that. It’s through competition that this son came about. And there’s so much of that competition in this world. I’ve got to be better than the other. I’ve got to do more than the other. I’ve got to produce more than the other. And so here comes happy Asher.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, Asher has two different prophecies spoken over him. His father, Jacob, prophesied over him when Jacob was dying. And also Moses prophesied over the whole tribe of Asher. So Asher’s descendants became a tribe. And then Moses led those 12 tribes out of Egypt and into the wilderness. And before Moses died, he prophesied over Asher. And basically those prophecies are telling Asher that his bread is rich. that he will never be without bread and oil, that the oil, he will be able to dip his toe in the oil. Those prophecies are saying that there will be so much bread and so much oil, there’s more than enough, much more for Asher. So the whole territory of Asher was known for their prosperity. And this is fun because this is where in this territory of Asher, this is where God sent Elijah when there was a famine in the land. He sent her to the widow and her son who had that little bit of flour and the little bit of oil. And she was out gathering sticks, just a few sticks to make one more, just one more meal for her and her son so that they could die is what she said. Yeah, so they could die. And when the Lord sent Elijah to her, that flower and that oil never ran out through the whole famine. It was more than enough. It was not just more than enough. It was much more.
SPEAKER 01 :
Much more.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yes, yes. And this is also the territory where Jesus traveled to and he encountered the Syrophoenician woman. And we can read about it in Mark 7 and also in Matthew 15. And this woman called out to Jesus. She called out to him because she needed healing for her daughter. And when she called out to Jesus, she called him son of David. Have mercy on me. And she called him son of David in an attempt to get his attention. But he ignored her. And the reason why he ignored her is because when she used the phrase, son of David, that phrase was only used by the Jewish community at the time. And she was not Jewish. She was Greek. She knew, and Jesus did too, that she was trying to appear like one of his own, one of Jesus’ own people. But she was not one of his own. And Jesus ignored that. not because she was a foreigner and not valuable to him. That’s not why he was ignoring it. She was valuable to him, but he wanted her to come to him as her authentic self. And his disciples, she called out again and his disciples told Jesus, send her away. And Jesus looked at her and he said, this is what Jesus says to this precious woman. He says, it is not good to give the children’s bread to the little dogs. And here in America, that kind of sounds, I think that sounds like, well, that sounds offensive, doesn’t it? It sounds like he’s calling her a little dog.
SPEAKER 02 :
They would riot. Yeah, people are good at rioting.
SPEAKER 03 :
Yeah. And really, all Jesus is doing there is pointing out, you’re pretending to be a child, you’re pretending to be Jewish, and you’re not. And that’s all he’s pointing out. And he was actually being merciful to say a little dog, because a little dog is referring to a puppy. Puppies were allowed to be in the homes. Dogs were, for the most part, outside animals. And he was saying, you’re in the house. I want you in my house. But you’re pretending to be a child and you’re not. She this is important. This is really important for all of us, because if we are to become like Christ, we have to do it authentically in our approach to him. We’ve got to take off the mask or that attempt to appear to be something that we’re not.
SPEAKER 02 :
I’m wondering, Kimberly, how many people who call themselves Christians would have to take off layers of costumes that they have purported to be like someone or be a part of an association or a club or a church or whatever. And layer after layer, they have added to their personality and their character with a mask. And God wants us to be authentic. You’re absolutely right.
SPEAKER 03 :
Even different seasons of our lives, I can look back at the season where I was so involved with my children. As a mother, I needed to be very involved. I was their teacher, I was homeschooling them, and I needed to be right there in their midst. And mothers in general, not everybody struggles with it, but in general, mothers have a hard time letting go of their children as they get older and just letting them have their own life. But it was a season for you to be really involved. And now in this new season, if you hang on really tightly to your kids and you keep wanting them to stay in touch with you and be a part of their and you’ve got to see them a certain number of times a week or you need to hear from them, make that phone call. If you’re hanging on, it actually becomes more and more of a burden for you to carry and keep up the appearance of being involved. When you learn to let go and just authentically approach your new season, your new situation as being a little emptier than you would like it to be, but just come and say, this is, this is me. I’m empty. I’m empty nester now. And this is hard for me. Take the mask off and approach Jesus just right where you’re at. And let him do a miracle. The significance of this story here of the Syrophoenician woman is her admission to the truth. She admits it and she says, yes, Lord. Yes. She’s saying, yes, I am a little dog. I’m not a child. And she takes off her mask and she reveals her great and her beautiful faith in him by saying, yes. Even the little dogs lick up the crumbs from their master’s table. And she comes just as he is, as she is. She comes just as she is to Jesus. This is exactly where he wants us. to meet him is just like we are. He has miracles for us right where we are. And the crumbs, this is beautiful because the crumbs are what’s alluded to in the prophecy over Asher, that your bread will not run out. Your bread is rich. His bread is so rich that a crumb is much more than enough for a miracle. The crumb that Jesus gives to this woman who is now authentically saying, yes, I am who you say I am. And a crumb is enough. I’ll take a crumb. I’ll take a crumb from you, Jesus, because you’re the bread of life and your crumb is much more than enough for a miracle for me. Your crumb is much more than enough for provision in my life. Your crumb is much more than enough for healing in my life. So becoming like the Son of God and being made in the image of God is trusting that He has much more for you than you could ever imagine or that you could ever procure for yourself through the resources of this world. He is the source. not just any resource. He is much more than enough for everything that we need and that we long for in this life. And becoming more like him is following Jesus’ instructions and obeying his commands, even when it goes against your own feelings.
SPEAKER 02 :
Your own feelings, yes. When she humbled herself with those beautiful words, Yes, Lord, but even the dogs under the table feed on the children’s crumbs. And Jesus said, because of this answer, go your way. The demon has gone out of your daughter. So he realized that humility, that deep reality and humility that she actually spoke to him with. Oh, so good.
SPEAKER 03 :
Right. And it takes humility on our part to really listen and to follow his commands in every season of our life. Because he may have asked us to do something a certain way, like I was talking about mothers. Mother your children a certain way when they’re toddlers. Mother them differently when they’re teenagers. And then mother them very differently. when they leave your home and they’re out on their own. That mothering might feel empty and it might feel like it’s not enough. Well, that’s when we really press in and we pray and we join Jesus in His way of becoming like Him. We start interceding and praying and then He satisfies us. He satisfies our longings.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yes, blessed are those who hunger and thirst for his righteousness, and he will fill them. They will be satisfied, it says in Matthew 5, verse 6. So when we hunger and thirst, oh, we get satisfied with all his abundance.
SPEAKER 03 :
well that’s so good part of hungering and thirsting is realizing that we want to forgive the way he forgives and that’s impossible for us by ourselves but he is with us always so we can look to him for help in forgiving others help in loving others help in honoring others in their positions because with god With Jesus, all things are possible. And he will never leave you to figure out this life on your own. He has promised to always be with you.
SPEAKER 02 :
Oh, amen. Wow. I needed this, Kimberly. I needed this teaching today. And I pray that those of you listening are going to grow from what Kimberly has said today from Mark 15. and from Matthew 28, 20. Let’s do it. Let’s humble ourselves and get to know him in a deeper and deeper way. Oh, thank you, Kimberly. God bless you.
SPEAKER 01 :
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.
