In this episode of Call to Freedom, Barbara Carmack guides us through a thoughtful discussion on staying anchored in faith through turbulent times. From Psalm 119 to the Beatitudes, learn how to embrace humility, practice forgiveness, and rely on divine strength. Tune in to discover how trusting in God’s righteousness and love can transform your perspective and fill your life with peace and satisfaction.
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 Calda Freedom. I’m so glad you joined us today. I want you to know that the Lord is faithful. God is faithful when you trust in him. He’s faithful to all his promises. And I’m sure that he has promised you something. And according to the word of God, he’s going to bring it to pass. His love is towards all that he has made, all of creation. You are included. Praise the Lord. So much is going on in the world right now. Shootings and attacks. ongoing pressure in the Middle East and President Trump trying to negotiate a peace deal between Putin and the Ukraine. So much resistance to the truth. And in Isaiah 520, it says they’re going to call evil good and good evil. But don’t be anxious, my friend, or on the edge of your emotions. No, Jesus knew it was going to be like this right before he left. And I’ll tell you, he can read. You can read about it in Luke 21 and Matthew 24 in Jesus own words. Remember the assuring song. He’s got the whole world in his hand. Well, he’s got the whole world in his hands. He really does. And Isaiah 5 verse 16 says, the Lord of hosts will be exalted in judgment and the holy God will show himself holy in righteousness. Praise the Lord. He’s going to do it, friends. He knows exactly what’s happening. He’s got it on his schedule and he knows what’s going to happen.
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That’s so true. Yes. When it says that the heavens are his throne and the earth is his footstool, just imagine he is at rest with what’s going on because he knows how he’s working it all together for good.
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Yes, he does. And you are blessed to dispense for in him you live and move and have your being. And I’ve got a call. The monitor is black, but Rachel just told me that there is a call. So hello. Hello.
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Oh, this is John from Loveland.
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Hi, John. How are you?
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Oh, I was worried about a few things, but I gave it up to Jesus. Praise the Lord. Led him to all worry.
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That’s right. Amen. Praise the Lord.
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Because it says, don’t be anxious about anything. Instead, pray about everything.
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Oh, so you’re taking the word and you’re bringing it into your own life.
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Yes. Oh, praise the Lord. I memorized forever, O Lord, your word is firmly fixed in the heavens.
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Yes, and you know the address.
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Psalm 119, verse 89. Yes.
SPEAKER 06 :
Nice. The memory verse for this week. That’s wonderful.
SPEAKER 04 :
Praise the Lord.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah. Can you keep me in prayers? Yes. Of course.
SPEAKER 04 :
We do all the time, yes.
SPEAKER 02 :
Oh, okay. Did you get my letter?
SPEAKER 04 :
When did you mail it? I mailed it about three days ago. Well, not yet, but we’re going to check with the post office and probably we will receive it because I’m always looking forward to your little notes and your memorization on those notes. So thank you, John.
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Yes, you’re welcome.
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Okay.
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Okay, I’ll let you go so you can do your program.
SPEAKER 04 :
Thank you, John. God bless you and keep you. Oh, I love hearing from him.
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I was just thinking about the memory verse, and here he calls in and he starts us out with that. That is beautiful.
SPEAKER 04 :
It sure does. Oh, praise the Lord. Just want to announce before we get into those beautiful Beatitudes. The Beatitudes are beautiful. You need to say that. The Beatitudes are beautiful. We’re going to have a brunch on Saturday morning at our favorite restaurant. That’s August the 9th. And at 945, if you want to meet at my home, that’s absolutely okay. And some of you know where the restaurant is, so you can meet us at the restaurant at 945 or a little bit before 10. and we’ll have a wonderful brunch. Oh, the restaurant serves great food. And then at 11 o’clock, we’re going to have Bible study. If you’ve never been and you’d like to come and you’d like to meet us at the restaurant, whatever is best for you, call us at 1-877- 917-7256. Oh, we look forward to seeing you. It’s going to be a fun time. Wonderful fellowship. And Kimberly is here. You were at the last meeting. I was? Yes. I came for the last one and I’m still here. You haven’t left. You can’t get rid of me. Oh, well, good. I’m glad. So we’re going to have a great time on Saturday. And the weather, I know it’s in the middle 90s right now. On Saturday, it’s going to be in the upper 80s. So it’s going to be a gorgeous day, beautiful day.
SPEAKER 06 :
we’re just thankful for the way that the lord provides a cloud by day and the sun will not smite us by day that’s right we’re so thankful for the way he covers us yes so psalm 119 i don’t want to move off of that uh john got us started in verse 89 forever oh lord your word is settled in heaven and i i really like the message here i’m gonna i’m gonna Have you read it in the message already? No.
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But I like what John said also. Firmly fixed.
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Firmly fixed.
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That’s right. Yes.
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Read Psalm 119 in the message. It says, Lord, what you say goes and stays as permanent as the heavens. Your truth never goes out of fashion. It’s as relevant as the earth when the sun comes up. Oh, that’s beautiful.
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So as long as the sun comes up and even after that, forevermore, verse 90 says, it’s going to be that way forevermore. God’s faithfulness to us. That’s right.
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So beautiful. Through all generations.
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Yes. Yesterday, we started with Matthew 5 in the Beatitudes. Blessed are the poor in spirit and those who are hungering for more of him, who are humbled by the very fact that the creator of the universe is looking down upon us and wanting us to be blessed. Jesus is saying this in his very own words. Praise the Lord.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes. We’re tagging, aren’t we? Yes. Matthew 5. We started out with, Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And then the next… The attitude verse for what delight comes to you when you wait upon the Lord. Now, most versions say blessed are those who mourn for you will be comforted. And I like this translation about waiting upon the Lord because the word for mourn and the word for weight in the Hebrew are very, very similar. They have the same spelling. It’s the same root. Yes. So when we mourn and we’re grieving a loss or we’re grieving even not being able to reach a dream, we can learn to wait on the Lord in that. And we find ourselves comforted in a greater way, in a deeper way than we would be if we were grabbing for our dream in our own efforts, in our own strength.
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Yes. I love what it says in verse 4 in the Amplified. Blessed, forgiven, refreshed by God’s grace are those who mourn over their sins and repent. See, now when you’re mourning over your sin, it doesn’t take but a few words. Father God, forgive me, I have sinned. And he says, you’re forgiven. and they will be comforted. The burden of sin will be lifted from your life. Praise the Lord. That is so good.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yes. I think it also, there are other versions that say blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. So, Waiting upon the Lord, mourning, is not something that we have to try to avoid. I think, in general, humans do avoid emotion. Emotion can be hard when you get angry, when you are grieving and upset. Some people think that they might get stuck there. They won’t know the way out of the grieving. They won’t know the way out of feeling so sad. And it is when we realize that our God has emotion, too. He created us in his image. And so the emotions that he has, he put them in us as well. And so not being afraid of those emotions, being able to sit in them and share them. So you’re not alone in them. You’re sharing with him emotions. And that’s the way that we come to him in prayer. We come to him with our emotions, what we’re feeling. And I know that Darren really pointed out that feelings and symptoms are liars. I understand exactly what he’s saying and agree that our feelings can cause us to react in a way where we… are believing lies. When we’re feeling left out, we’re feeling really hurt, we’re feeling a loss, we can feel like it’s been unfair and God has been unfair to us. That’s the lie. So it all depends on our reaction to the feeling. When we choose to say, Lord, I know you are with me in this feeling. Help me know you better. Help me grow deeper in relationship with you in the midst of what I’m feeling. That is when we are strengthening our relationship with him. We’re learning to trust him.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s right. I realized that when some people are focusing on their feelings more than anything else, and you know the story, Kimberly, of me being in bed for two days with what I thought was strep throat, with a rag around my neck and all kinds of things happening, taking some antihistamines and all that kind of stuff. And finally, I went into the kitchen one day, And I said, Darren, I have symptoms of strep. And he said, you can believe that lie if you want to. He was really strong in that, Kimberly, because sometimes we do believe the lies of the symptoms. And he said, let’s take communion. we took communion and that pain was gone i i could have said oh no you don’t understand i am in pain darren and you well how dare you say this to me that it’s a lie because i’m feeling it and i didn’t i didn’t i trusted darren to be the teacher that he is and i said okay we took communion and And less than an hour later, it was gone. All symptoms, all pain, everything was gone. So we can believe that God is going to take all that pain when we rely on him and not on the symptoms and the feelings.
SPEAKER 06 :
Absolutely. I agree with that. We also know that our Lord is so good to give us one step at a time in getting to know him and to know his heart. And to build the trust with us and let us learn to trust him, he will show miracles. Does that mean that he does it every single time? No, I can say no, that I have not experienced that in my life. That’s not the same way that he speaks to me in my pain. And when I have experienced pain again, again, And I’ve approached him and said, I’m believing now for a miracle. And I do that every time I see miracles that come in different ways. And sometimes the miracle is a heart change where I’m saying to him, you know what? You can have your way. I trust you so much with my body. I trust you in my life so much that if I am feeling pain, I want you to know you can have your way in the middle of it. Now, I’ve experienced a miracle that’s different than the miracle of healing my body. I’ve experienced a miracle of no stress, absolute peace, total comfort while I still feel the pain in my body. Yeah. And that is miraculous when you get to that place, too. It is also a miracle when when you’re still feeling the symptom in your body, but you’re at complete rest. Now, this reminds me of Jesus when he was sleeping in the boat. There was a storm that came up with him and his disciples. And, you know, there’s actually five occasions in the Bible. There’s two in Matthew and then there’s one in Mark, one in Matthew. Luke and 1 and John that talk about Jesus and a boat and his disciples. And there’s different stories. There’s a couple of different occasions. I believe that Matthew actually wrote both of them down. And one was when the disciples were in the boat by themselves and Jesus was praying. He came out in the storm and walked to them in the boat. That’s one occasion. There’s another occasion where Jesus told the disciples, we’re going to the other side and he gets in the boat with them and they get partway out on the lake and the storm rises up and Jesus is sleeping. He’s totally at rest in the middle of the storm. He’s at complete and total rest while he’s resting. The disciples panic and they decide to wake him up because they’re feeling like he doesn’t care. They’re feeling like the reason why he is sleeping is that he doesn’t care. No, the reason he’s sleeping is because he is at total rest, at peace. He knows Father God will come through for him in the middle of that storm. He knows that they don’t necessarily need a boat to get to the other side. So if the boat sinks, he knows maybe they’ll be able to breathe underwater or they’ll be able to walk on top of the water. He knows that they’re in a good place. That’s what we want to grow to. We want to grow to that kind of trust where we know that we are at peace and at rest in every storm.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes. So if you’re mourning today over your sin, over something in your relationships, know that God’s grace is going to comfort you and the burden of sin is going to be lifted. Praise God. In verse 5, blessed, inwardly peaceful, spiritually secure, worthy of respect, and I’m reading from the Amplified, are the gentle, kind-hearted, and sweet-spirited, and self-controlled people. for they will inherit the earth. Wow, what a blessing. And here we find, Kimberly, that all these blessings and all these beatitudes include humility. They involve humility. It’s involved in every one of them. So blessed are those who inherit the earth, are the peaceful, the spiritual secure. Those who are so secure in God’s love, they will inherit the earth. Praise God. And I don’t know if I want to inherit the earth, but we are going to have the authority over everything that happens to us on this earth. God has given us that authority.
SPEAKER 06 :
Right. Thank you for getting us back on track there, because I think earlier I jumped to the I have these notes in front of me where I mixed them all up because I was lining them up with the seven deadly sins that people talk about and how we have a tendency to sin because we’re not trusting what God has for us in these beatitudes. So, yeah, I jumped there. But you’re right. This one blessed are the gentle, blessed are the humble, blessed are the meek. The humility that we have is what Jesus had sleeping in the boat. He was so humble, just like a child saying, you know what? I can’t control. Well, he could because he’s God.
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Because at one point he says, peace, be still. And the storm was gone.
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How about this? I choose not to control what is going on.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, he wanted because I trust because I trust he wanted to focus on the unbelief that the the disciples showed when the storms came and their emotions became the focus of what they were looking at. Right. Not the trust in God.
SPEAKER 06 :
And doesn’t he also, he wants to focus on that. Doesn’t he also want to give us an example of a trusting heart? Yes. So a trusting heart, you know, instead of… Which they didn’t have at that point, at that time. You know, I think our prayer life actually becomes like those disciples. Wake up. You’ve got to do something. I need this. I need you to rescue me. I need you to bail me out of this financial situation. I need you to provide a new home, a new car. I need… I need you to intervene in my relationship.
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Don’t you think that he is actually showing them it’s a process? And they are brand new in this. They’re really new in this whole adventure with Jesus. And so I think he realized the unbelief in their life. But he said, I’m going to teach you how to really walk on water like Peter did. I’m going to teach you how to walk on water.
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And I’m going to teach you how to sleep in the storm. That’s right. I’m going to show you that it’s possible to do that. So I’ve actually put myself in their shoes and I’ve watched myself because I’ve done it in life, right? I’ve stressed out and I’ve panicked over situations in life. And then I go back and I look at myself in those situations again and And I try to imagine myself handling it differently. Like, what could I do differently? Well, maybe I could just lay down right next to Jesus and take a nap with him because I can trust that whatever is happening, God will take care of it. That is how good he is. His word is faithful through all generations and it’s going to be okay. Yes, it is.
SPEAKER 04 :
Well, verse six. Oh, I love this one. Blessed, joyful, nourished by God’s goodness are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Those who actively seek right standing with God, for they will be completely satisfied. And when someone tells me about their relative or their friend who is not born again, I use this scripture again. In Matthew 5, verse 6, as a prayer for them, fill in their unsaved loved one’s name. Blessed is George, is Jane. Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Father God, open their eyes to a better life that they have than they’ve ever had before. and they will seek right standing with God, for they will be completely satisfied. That’s a wonderful verse for you to use with a loved one who may be not saved, not born again, who’s a little rebellious, that you pray that they hunger and thirst for God, for more of God’s righteousness. He’s going to do it. He’ll fill it up. He’ll fill them up. He really will. Praise the Lord.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah. And righteousness is a big word. We like to define it as being in right standing with the way that God thinks and the way that he does things in life. Yes. And those who hunger and thirst for righteousness being satisfied, we want to get to that place where we are contented. Yes. Where we have contentment and we’re satisfied and fulfilled in life. Amen. And sometimes that doesn’t happen unless we let go of our ideas, our opinions, and the way that we might be envious of other people. Comparisons are a huge trap and they keep us, they prevent us from being fully satisfied because we’re, we’re looking at some other standard rather than God’s standard in our lives.
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So
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Being in right standing with him and his righteousness, that is where we want to be hungering and thirsting is for his perspective.
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Yes. One thing that Darren said about righteousness is you can go before the very throne of God. With no sense of inferiority, no sense of fear, no sense of guilt, no sense of condemnation, and no sense of unworthiness. That’s God’s righteousness in you. It’s a blessing. It’s absolutely truth. And you can know when you are born again, when you say that prayer, Jesus, I make you Savior and Lord of my life. God’s righteousness, that’s Jesus’ righteousness is in you, not righteousness of our own. We don’t have any. Our righteousness is as filthy rags, as Paul says in one of the epistles.
SPEAKER 06 :
I’m glad you brought that up because I think sometimes we have that salvation experience. We let Jesus cover us. And then we think we’re on our own. And so then we’re trying in our own works to look good, be good. And that gets us into trouble. We’ve got to consistently keep turning our heart toward him and say, I need you every moment.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes, every moment. Well, here’s your verse, Kimberly. Verse seven. Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. That one I skipped to. Right, right. Yes. Amen. Oh, and we want that spirit of… Humility really is a merciful kind of a spirit. It’s that kind that doesn’t look at the wrongs that have been done. It’s a lot like, forgive me for stumbling around, it reminds me a lot of 1 Corinthians 13. It doesn’t look at what was done to him. It doesn’t hold any grudges. He’s just allowing God’s love to pour forth from him even if he’s been done wrong.
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Again, I believe that’s because you trust you really trust that God wants to work a better good. In fact, when it says in the in the word that vengeance is mine and it’s talking about the Lord saying vengeance is his word. It’s not mine, it’s his. When it talks about that, it means that he has better ways of rectifying the situation than you do. And if you’re holding on to unforgiveness and you’re trying to make a way to make it right in your life, to justify that, to make it fair, that’s going to pale in comparison to the way God wants to make it fair. And here with this tender mercy, I also think of compassion. When I think of tender mercy, there’s compassion there. We can trust that it’s God’s compassion that actually fuels his anger. Because when someone is wronged, he wants to make it right.
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But towards you, his compassions fail not. They never fail towards the one who loves him. Right. The one who has made him Lord of their life. Yes.
SPEAKER 06 :
I think I’m just trying to balance that out because between you and me, I’m always talking about compassion and you might be saying, okay, but God has justice that he needs to bring in. That’s right. Absolutely. They rise at the same time. As great as his compassion is, that’s how great his justice, his anger that wants to wipe out the wickedness that hurt you in the first place. That’s how great it rises. So we want to let go of ours, be forgiving, tender hearted, and let mercy roll so that he can take it and he can work it.
SPEAKER 04 :
Yes. As you see, Kimberly is a merciful, compassionate person. She has a personality that is different than mine. She took after her father. And I have a personality that has been coded with that justice thing. And it has been tendered by God. God has made it a more gentle look at what is wrong and what is right in this world. And you know what? Both personalities work together. We need each other. They really do. They work together. So don’t feel slighted if you have a little bit different personality than the two of us might have. God is needing you in the body of Jesus Christ just as well. That’s right. God bless you and keep you and take joy.
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