Podcasts about i'm god

Wednesday

Blessings beauties!  You all voted to now have IG Lives shared to the podcast for easier listening, so here it is!  As a presence of remembrance, I am here to share reminders of our true identity as God. These are 3 characteristics that inform me that I am indeed God & know they will remind you of the same Aquarian Value System

In Exodus 34, God introduced Himself by stating His name and His occupation as God. In the message "Hello, I'm God!" Skip examines God's primary character traits and how those define what our relationship with Him ought to be. This teaching is from the series 20/20: Seeing Truth Clearly.Links:Website: https://connectwithskip.comDonate: https://connnectwithskip.com/donateThis week's DevoMail: https://connnectwithskip.com/devomail

Words are powerful. People have written and spoken about God for millennia. But in the message "Hello, I'm God!" we get to hear from God Himself as He gives to us His own autobiography in His Word. This teaching is from the series 20/20: Seeing Truth Clearly.Links:Website: https://connectwithskip.comDonate: https://connnectwithskip.com/donateThis week's DevoMail: https://connnectwithskip.com/devomail

Thanks so much for tuning in to episode 36 of Don't Leave the House! This week Haley tells us about Doris Bither. Amanda talks about Father Divine in the first part of a two part episode. Sources for this episode are wikipedia and encyclopedia.com . If you would like to support our growth, you can do so at anchor.fm/dontleavethehouse or patreon.com/dontleavethehouse. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. Contact us at dontleavethehousepodcast@gmail.com. We TRULY appreciate you!!! --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/dontleavethehouse/support

Moses boldly asked God to show Himself. But God didn't give Moses what he wanted; instead He gave him what he needed. Skip looks at this unique encounter in the conclusion of the message "I'm God...and You're Not!" This teaching is from the series The Biography of God.Links:Website: https://connectwithskip.comDonate: https://connnectwithskip.com/donateThis week's DevoMail: https://connnectwithskip.com/devomail

Moses witnessed many great miracles and even heard God speak, but it wasn't enough. He craved something more—something we can all relate to. Discover what that is as Skip begins the message "I'm God...and You're Not!" This teaching is from the series The Biography of God.Links:Website: https://connectwithskip.comDonate: https://connnectwithskip.com/donateThis week's DevoMail: https://connnectwithskip.com/devomail

This episode is one of Tawni's FAVORITES! It's the episode she tells any new listener to start with. We knew we had to encore the episode to share it with our new listeners! Have you ever heard of confirmation bias? Confirmation bias is a psychology term used to help explain why we naturally favor information that confirms our preexisting beliefs or biases. We are always seeking proof that further backs up our beliefs while discounting examples that don't support our idea.  We do this without even recognizing that we are doing it!  For example: You may have heard that left-handed people are more creative than right-handed people.  Whenever you encounter a person that is both left-handed and creative you may place greater importance of this "evidence" that supports that thought you already believe. On the other hand, when you meet a creative right-handed individual you may just discount or overlook this experience entirely.   In this episode Tawni discusses with her dear friend Shana Blackburn, many fun and interesting examples of confirmation biases and how they can really impact your life.  When you look for something you are going to find it! This can be dangerous if our biases are focused on something negative. Whatever we choose to focus on you will find evidence of.  Shana is a wonderful example of using positive biases to impact her life for good.  She explains how she can use her personal mantra of: "I'm God's favorite", so freely and undoubtedly. It was so insightful and inspiring to hear how her positive attitude has helped her overcome very difficult situations in her life. She encourages us all to look for evidence that you too are God's favorite child! When we look for him in the details of our lives we will always find him.  "What you think you become, what you feel you attract, what you imagine your create." Budha  Originally aired 5/30/2019 Better Screen Time: If you want tools to help create a more tech-healthy family turn to Better Screen Time. They have a course specifically made to help families with teens. Untangling Teens and Tech course gives you step by step tools to involve your teen to create healthy habits in tech use.  Interacting with tech is a life skill that should be taught, not ignored or over controlled. If you want help teaching that life skill...click here. Use the code BECOMING to get 20% off this month only! Visit our website or follow us on instagram @becoming_for_teens

Are you giving up social media for Lent? Humorous meetings might be better. Candy and cheese shipment headed to space. I'm God lawsuit. Today in Texas History. An update with College Station Mayor Karl Mooney. Disney wedding dresses coming this spring.

This week we respond to President Trump's guidelines for prayer in school. FFRF litigation attorney Sam Grover tells us about the friend-of-the-court brief we filed in the U.S. Supreme Court dealing with state money for religious schools. After hearing atheist comedian and actor Patton Oswalt talk about "the insanity of faith," retired Kentucky postal worker Ben Hart tells us what it feels like, after three years of litigation, to finally mount his irreverent "I'M GOD" license plate on his vehicle.

“Sola Gratia” Sermon Series: Solas Ephesians 2:8-10 Istrouma Baptist Church – Jeff Ginn, Lead Pastor  10:45 AM Sermon January 19, 2020       Outline:   Saved by grace   For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2:8-9).      We have a problem   We have a provision                 Saved through faith   For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2:8-9).   Faith is a response      Faith is a requirement           Saved for works   For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them (Ephesians 2:10).             God works in us   God works through us       Ephesians 2:8-10 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.         “Amazing Grace” is, perhaps, the best-known and best-loved hymn of all time.  The beauty and simplicity of its melody (which you just heard played) is only eclipsed only by the hope and depth of its lyrics.    Listen to the first stanza: “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.  I once was lost, but now am found.  Was blind but now I see.”   The author of these words, John Newton, was, by his own admission, a “wretch.”  Now, that’s not a word we use every day. It means, “a miserable person; one who is profoundly unhappy or in great misfortune; a base, despicable, or vile person.”  You may think that’s an exaggeration on his part.  But he was a wretch.  He was a slave trader, a blasphemer, and a rebel.   You know the song, I trust, but you may not know the story of the author. So I want to tell you a little bit about the life of the man who wrote that song. John grew up in a home where his mother was an instrument maker and his father was a sea captain. His mother passed away when he was about 7 years of age, and so he was reared in those later childhood years by his father. He loved his father. He looked up to his father. His father was a sea captain, and so, get this, when he was 11 years old, John Newton went to sea. He made his six voyages across the oceans with his father before his father finally retired as a sea captain. Well, he had not gotten enough. He dreamed about the adventures of life on the open seas, but his dream was soon turned into a nightmare, and I want to tell you about it.    He boarded a merchant ship and plied that trade for a while. But one day, he was in a port and he was pressed into naval service. We don't understand that term because we have an all-volunteer military. There's no draft. You volunteer if you want to serve. But back in those days in Jolly Old England, you could be pressed into service; that is, basically, you’d be captured and you would be forced to serve in the military, and so it was with John Newton. So now, he's no longer living a carefree life of a sailor aboard a merchant ship. He is now in the Royal Navy.  He kind of chafed under the regimen of that life. He ran afoul of his captain and was whipped, humiliated and demoted. He contemplated either murder of the captain or suicide. Before that could happen, he was able to escape and got aboard a slave trading ship called the Pegasus. He did not get along with the crew and was cast off in Africa. He was picked up by a slave trader, and became a slave himself in Africa until he was rescued. He said of that period that he was “a servant to slaves.”   Later in life he wrote, “I sinned with a high hand, and I made it my study to tempt and seduce others.” Newton lived a hard life with equally harsh consequences.   God got his attention though. In 1748, Newton’s slave ship was nearly wrecked by an intense storm.  Surrounded by crashing waves, ferocious winds, creaking timbers, and the cries of the souls on board, John fell to his knees and pled for grace. He was born again on board that ship that tempestuous night.    He comes to know Christ and begins to learn of the word of God and how to live as a Christian, but he's still a slave trader himself. He captains a slave trading ship. He hauls many a slave across the oceans into slavery, but God begins to convict him about the wickedness of that. He becomes friends with a man named William Wilberforce who was the primary advocate in England for the abolition of slavery. John Newton became an ally in that cause, and of all things, this once slave trader, blasphemer, rebel, becomes a pastor of a local Baptist Church there in England. He began to be hymn writer, and he wrote those lyrics that we know and love, “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.”     God’s grace, which reaches anyone, anywhere, saved a wretch like John Newton—not just from the terror of that storm but from the grip and guilt of his sins. Newton wrote the song now known as “Amazing Grace” years later, while serving as a pastor in Olney, England.    Today, his lyrics still inspire, encourage, and instruct people about the radical reality of God’s amazing grace. It gives “wretches” like us hope.  It makes blind people like us see. And that is amazing! Only grace—sola gratia—is able to save sinners. For him, grace was amazing.    God help us if we ever get to a point where we're not just astounded by grace, that it would redeem wretches like you and me, friend. But that's the nature of his grace; it is amazing. We're going to look at that theme this morning in a message entitled, Sola Gratia, the Latin phrase which means “grace alone.” I'm going to base the message today out of; really, I think the classic passage in the Bible about grace. Open your Bible please to Ephesians chapter 2, and we're going to begin reading in verse 8 and carry it through to verse 10. I’d like us all as a sign of our respect for God's Holy Word to please stand as its read. Precious words are these. Give it your very best hearing. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.   Let’s pray.    [Prayer]   Please be seated.    We're celebrating 100 years here at Istrouma this month, and as we thought about this wonderful season of our church’s life, we thought we’re going to go back to some of the foundational principles upon which this great church has been built. Jesus himself, of course, is the Cornerstone. We're going to come to him in the next Sola series message. But we're looking at some of the great foundational principles, and among them are things like Sola Scriptura, which was our opening message in the series. There, I talked about how the word of God, scripture, is our only sure and sufficient guide to all matters of faith and practice, scripture. Then, last week, we took up the theme of Sola Fide, which is the Latin phrase for “faith alone.” Remember, we talked about the Philippian jailer who was terrified, near death. He fell down and he cried out, “What must I do to be saved?” The Apostle Paul answered him with words as clear as a bell, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved and your household.” Believe. That's how we're saved, Sola Fide.   Now, today, we're taking up the third of these messages, and it's entitled Sola Gratia, which is the Latin for “grace alone.” By the way, if you're new to Istrouma, we don't usually work in Latin here but this is an exceptional season of our church’s life, and it's fun for you to know these terms, even if we never revisit them again in terms of the Latin terminology. But bear with us; here it is, Sola Gratia, grace alone.   I want to begin in verse 8 and say that we are saved by grace. That's the first point, Sola Gratia. We are saved by grace. Look at the opening words to verse 8, “For by grace you have been saved.” You'll notice Paul is actually talking about something in the past, right? He says, “You have been saved,” not “You will be” or “You are being.” He uses the past tense because he's addressing this letter to the church at Ephesus. He's talking to believers. He says if you want to know how it is that you came to have life, it's by grace that you came to this life. It's by grace you have been saved. I know I'm talking to a lot of folks here that by grace you’ve been saved. But I am talking to some, and I don’t know who you are, but I'm talking to some who will be saved by grace. I pray that even this day you'll come to know the grace of God in truth.   What is grace? It is one of those church words. If I were to ask you to define grace, how would you do it? What is grace? A lot of people will define it in this way, two words: “unmerited favor.” What does that mean? “Unmerited” means you don't deserve it, and grace is God's unmerited favor to us. He loves us in spite of our sin. He forgives us in spite of our rebellion. He takes us to heaven though sin once stained us. It is unmerited favor shown us because of what Christ has done.   I'll give you an acrostic that I learned as a kid. I've always remembered it, and I think it's very helpful. If you'll take the letters of the word “grace,” I’m defining it for you, what is Grace? G-R-A-C-E. Write down beside each letter these terms:             G          God’s             R          Riches             A          At             C          Christ’s             E          Expense   Did you get that? Grace. God's riches at Christ's expense. That's what grace is. What are God's riches? God's riches would be his forgiveness; his patience with us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance; it’s heaven as our eternal home; it's abundant life, joy-filled life, peace, here and now. Those are God's riches, and they come to us at Christ's expense. In other words, those great gifts that I've named were not free. Someone paid for them that they might be ours, and it was at Christ's expense that they come to us. So that is grace. We are saved by grace.   I want to say two things about this. Number one, we have a problem. Houston, Baton Rouge, Luling, Lafayette, Monroe, South America, Africa, Asia, we have a problem. What's our problem? Our problem is, in a word, sin. I want to refer to jewelers for just a moment. I know we've got a couple of jewelers in our church, and I appreciate them so much, and I hope you’ll frequent their business. But these jewelers are very ingenious. If you say “I want to buy a diamond,” you know what a jeweler will often do? They'll take out a piece of black velvet fabric, and they’ll lay that black fabric down, and then upon that black fabric they’ll place the diamond or diamonds. Then they'll put a large spotlight shining down on those diamonds. Why do you think they put the diamonds against that black backdrop? It is so that you will be able to appreciate in all of their brilliance the beauty of the diamond. A diamond against a white counter may not glisten and shine as well as that diamond against a black backdrop. What's the point? You'll never fully appreciate the brilliance and beauty of grace until you see it against the black backdrop of our sin. That's why we're amazed by grace, that we, though sinners, can be forgiven and accepted by a holy and righteous God. When I see his grace against the backdrop of our filth and sin I'm amazed by it. Yes, our problem is our sin.    Let me show you this in the text. If you’ll look to verse 1 of this very same chapter it'll be very clear. Let me begin reading there in Ephesians 2, verse 1:  And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked [that’s describing us, folks], following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience…   Now, let me pause right there. He's describing humanity. You might be tempted to think that because we’re Christians we are above what he calls the “sons of disobedience.” You know, we can look down our spiritual noses at those “lesser humans.” We’re the Christians. But look at what verse 3 says. I love this. He says: among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh…   Folks, look. I once walked in the passions of the flesh. I did things of which I am ashamed. Just like John Newton; he didn't have much on me, if any. I, too, am a wretch, a sinner, and when I see God's grace given me against the backdrop of my past, and how I lived in the passions of my flesh, I'm amazed and I hope you are as well. Now, that's our past. That's our problem, right? But I've come to tell you good news, not bad news. That's bad news. Let me give you some good news. Though we have a problem, it is answered by God's provision, and that's the next sub point. We have a provision. You’ll see this as we continue reading this very passage. It says, Ephesians 2 verses 4 and following: 4 But God, being rich in mercy...   Let me pause to ask you to do something. As I'm reading this, I want you to watch for the word “grace,” and when it occurs, I want you to count it. All right, let’s see how many times it occurs in these verses. We are sinners. We once walked in the passage of our flesh. He says,  But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses [even then, he loved us, yes, he], made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and [he] raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. [And then verse 8, our key verse] 8 For by grace you have been saved...    How many times in what I just read, including verse 8, does the word “grace” appear? Three. Exactly right. Not once, not twice, but three times over he is stressing to us God's provision for our problem. Sin is addressed by grace, and by grace we are saved.    I want to give you an illustration that I hope will help turn the light on in your understanding of this. I'm going to tell you a make-believe story. It's the story of a father. This father had an only son, and he loved his boy as fathers do. The boy got old enough to go out on his own. One day the boy was out, and he was attacked by some thugs. They beat him and they robbed him, and in the course of their attack the young son was killed. It was a brutal murder, and the father was heartbroken, as you can imagine.    The father considered how he might deal with those who had murdered his son. He thought of four possible responses he could make. First of all, he could seek vengeance. Do you know what vengeance is? Vengeance is when you take the law into your own hands. Without police, without courts, without law, he would go and he would execute those that had killed his son. In vengeance the criminals would get worse than they deserve, because really, everybody has a right to a fair trial. Everybody has their day in court. Vengeance is inappropriate. God says, “Don't seek vengeance. Leave that in my just hands,” right? “Vengeance is mine,” the Lord's says. But he considered vengeance.   Secondly, he said there's another option. I could seek justice. That could be my response. Leave it to the police to find the criminals; leave it to the court to try them; the jury to decide on their guilt or innocence; and the judge to declare the sentence. Now if vengeance giving them worse than they deserve, justice is giving them straight-up what they deserve.    But then he thought of a third possible response. He thought, I could show them mercy and forgive them for what they've done and plead mercy in the court on their behalf. That would be unbelievable, would it not? I think it's beyond most of us to respond in that way. If vengeance is getting worse than what they deserve, and justice is getting what they deserve, mercy would be not getting what they do deserve. Yes, they deserve a sentence. They deserve prison. They deserve punishment. Perhaps they deserve execution. But mercy would say, “No.”    Then, there remained one possible response. Not vengeance; not justice; not even mercy, as great as it is. There remained the option of grace. Now if vengeance is getting worse than you deserve, and justice is getting what you deserve, and mercy is not getting what you do deserve, what would grace be? Grace would be getting what you don't deserve. What if in that story the bereaved father looked with pity upon the criminals and said, “Not only do I forgive you, I want to adopt you into my family, and I want you to inherit the riches that would have been my son’s. You say, “Preacher I can't stand the thought of that. That's unbelievable that anyone would respond in that way.” and I would say, “Yes, wouldn't it be amazing? It would. And that's why we refer to it as “amazing grace.”    Friend, we are those criminals. Do you not see that? It was your sin and my sin for which Christ was nailed to the cross, not for any guilt of his own. God in love looked down at his only beloved there. God could have sought vengeance upon us. He certainly could have executed justice or stopped short at mercy, but he went all the way, and he would adopt us into his family. Are you a part of God's forever family? Friend, if you're not, you may be this very day. How do you get into his family? You’re saved by grace.   Now, number two. Not only are we saved by grace, but, number two, we’re saved through faith. When you read your Bible, I think you know this now, but let me just say it, every word in the Bible matters. Every word. You can't even change the prepositions. You can't say you’re saved by faith. You're not saved by faith, you’re saved by grace, but you’re saved through faith.    Now, let's explore this just for a moment. Because God has been gracious in giving his son, you might be tempted to think that everybody's going to be saved. We’re saved by grace, and that's God's action in Christ on our behalf. He died for the sins of the whole world, 1 John 2:2 says. Well, if he died for everyone, and grace is available to everyone, then won’t everyone be saved? There are those who hold that position. It's called “universalism,” that everyone, universally, will be saved. Many of them will even say it’s because of Christ and his death on the cross that redeems everybody regardless of their response. But friend, I'll just say in response to that, and I don't have time to address it fully, I’ll just say they didn't get that idea from the Bible. The Bible teaches that there are two destinies, heaven and hell, and there are people who will spend eternity in heaven or in hell. So no, not everyone is saved, even by the grace of God, because you see, there is a response that is required of us, and faith is a response to God's grace. Now, if you would look there again at verse 8, “For by grace you have been saved [and we’re emphasizing those two words in bold] through faith.” Grace precedes faith, and that's very important, folks. Listen. Sometimes you’ll hear people say, “Oh, it doesn't matter what you believe, just believe.” It's as though if you had faith, regardless of in whom you put your faith or in what you put your faith, just believe, and you will be saved. You can believe in Muhammad, you can believe in Confucius, you can believe in naturalism and you can believe in pantheism and worship the trees and the rocks and the lakes, it doesn't matter what you believe; just believe. We’re saved by faith. No, friends, we're not saved by faith; we’re saved by grace, the act of God in Christ, but it comes to us through faith. That's the means by which we make it our own.   God alone saves, and it is through faith that that salvation comes to us. Our faith, I'll say it this way, our faith has a focus, and that focus is Christ. Remember last week when we were talking about sola fide, only by faith are you saved, and we were talking about the story of the Philippian jailer who was terrified that he might die. An earthquake had shaken the prison where he was responsible for the prisoners, and in his terror he asked this point-blank question, “What must I do to be saved?” And the answer was as clear as a bell, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.” Notice the answer was not, “Believe and you will be saved.” No, that would be to truncate the answer. It would be to omit the central part. It is not “Believe and you will be saved.” It is “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.” Take out Christ, take out his grace, his atoning death on the cross, and we will all be lost. It is grace that saves us through faith. Faith is our response to God's grace. I think of it this way, and perhaps this will be helpful to you. I think of grace as God reaching down from heaven to save a drowning world, drowning in our sins, and grace is him extending his hand to save us. I view faith as the response. Faith would be us looking heavenward and extending our hand to take the hand of grace. Here's the thing, folks, listen. When God's hand of grace is clasped by your hand of faith, salvation comes to you. His hand is extended. The only question that remains is, “Have you responded? Have you taken hold of that grace?” And you do so by faith, by entrusting yourself to him who died for your sins. That's how we get saved, by grace through faith.  Faith is a response, and second here, faith is a requirement. You must believe. When I say sola gratia, only grace, some might misunderstand and think we're saying you don't even have to believe. Sola gratia, only grace, that's all that's needed. No, it's “only grace” in a special sense. When the reformers like Martin Luther used that term, they were referring to salvation coming to us by grace apart from works. Would you look at these verses again? Look with me.  For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast   It's in that sense that it’s sola gratia. It's not God’s grace plus your good works. You know, there are a lot of people who think that God admits people or rejects people into heaven on this basis. Watch. They think that God has this big scale in heaven, and on one side God's going to stack up the bad things you've done, the lies you’ve told, the lust you’ve felt, the immorality of your life, the dishonesty and the pride and the prejudice. He's going to stack all that up on one side. Then, bless your heart, he's going to come over here and he's going to stack up the good things you've done, and it's going to teeter. If you've done more good than bad, whew! You made it in. But if you did more bad than good, uh-oh, you’re lost. That's how most of the world thinks. The problem is, that is not what the Bible teaches. Sola scriptura teaches that it’s sola gratia, only grace through faith. We're not saved by our works. You see, if you were saved by the good things that that you did, when you get to heaven you be like this. You’d put your thumbs under your suspenders and you’d be like, “Hey, Lord. Good to see you. I got here because of the good things I did. You know, I was a good guy. I was faithful to my wife. I gave money. I was sweet to the little old lady down the street. I never robbed a bank. I'm good.”    When we get to heaven, nobody's going to have their thumbs under their suspenders. You know what we're going to do? We're going to fall on our faces, and we're going to say, “God, how could you save a wretch like me? How great you are. How gracious you are that you would forgive me and save me.” It's all of grace, but it does require faith.     Let me give you an illustration. I hope this will help. Can you see what this is? I got this in the mail this week from some sweet church members. They sent me this as a gift. It's a gift card for $200 to Fleming's Steakhouse. I’ll get a filet mignon with that. They sent this to me. It wasn't my birthday. It wasn't my wife's and my anniversary. I had not mowed their yard. Just out of love, they sent this to us. Do you know what you call that? Grace. You see, I have something that's valuable here and I didn't pay one red cent for it. It's grace. But is my belly full? And do you know why my belly isn't full? It’s because I have to redeem this. The way it gets redeemed is through faith. You see, I have to believe that this is not a gimmick that this is not a fake gift card. I have to believe that it’s real. I have to believe that the magnetic strip on the back is still good. I have to believe that they haven't already spent the $200 and just sent it to me as a gag. A curse upon them if they did that! No, I know, I know. I believe this is real, and as soon as my wife and I can carve out the time, we're going to go redeem this. We're going to sit down. I think I'm going to get a filet mignon. Could I get an “Amen”? Wrapped in bacon! With a baked potato, lots of butter, lots of sour cream – and no scallions. And I'm going to eat that. My wife, she’s going to get whatever she wants. In fact, I think we may even take a couple with us. Haven't chosen who it is yet; we've got $200! And I'm going to eat that meal, and they're going to bring a bill. You know what I'm going to do when they bring that bill? I'm going to slap that card down on that bill – paid in full by the merits of another!  Now, what's the point? This is grace, but I must exercise faith. I must possess it. I must make it mine, and I have to exert faith to do so. Christ offers you something much more than a gift card to Fleming's Steakhouse. In fact, I would just say pitiful in comparison. Pitiful in comparison.    He offers us eternal life, and you don't pay a red cent for it. But somebody paid for it, and he didn't spend his money to do it; he did it with his blood. We were not redeemed with things such as silver and gold, but with the blood of Christ as of the spotless lamb of God. We’re saved by grace through faith. Faith is often expressed just through prayer. “Lord, I know I'm a sinner. Lord, I call on you to forgive me. I believe Christ died on the cross for me.” We make that profession through prayer and we acknowledge it and we receive by faith the gift he offers.    That brings me to the last point. Sola gratia, only Grace? There are going to be a couple of people that protest what I'm preaching, and here's the way the protest goes; I know how this goes. There's going to be one group, and I'll call them legalists. They're going to say, “You mean I can be saved just by the grace of God, by putting my faith in him? You mean I don't have to do good works to save myself? That's too easy. No, no, no, they say.” They reject it. They say it's faith and works that redeem. That's the legalist. And there's another category over here, and they're going to say, “Oh, I'm saved by grace through faith and I don't have to do good works? Awesome! I'll walk an aisle, I'll pray a prayer, and then I'll just live like the devil until I get to heaven, and then I'm in by the grace of God.” That's wrong too. It’s the legalist and it’s the lawless. I'm going to do what I want.   How would the Bible answer the legalist and the lawless? He does it perfectly, right here in this text. Now, look at verse 10, “We're saved by grace through faith for good works.” We’re saved for works. Folks, look up here. Remember I told you every word in the Bible matters, every word? It’s not just big words like “grace, faith, works.” Those are big, momentous, weighty words. Even the little words matter – “by, through, for.” They're called prepositions. Little bitty words, but they matter. You can't switch them and have the truth. Like you can't say, “I'm saved by works unto faith or unto grace. No, you can't invert them. They are just as God gave them. So while I'm not saved by good works, I am saved for good works.    Two things about this I want to stress: Number one, God works in us. I love this. This is so good! The Bible calls us his workmanship. You know, we've got some guys in our church who are craftsman. I can think of a couple of guys who do woodworking. They do some pretty exquisite work; I’ve got some of their crafts in my home. I think of some painters that we have in our church, great artists, and you know some of them. Well, did you know, we are God's work of art? The word here “workmanship” is the word poiema in Greek, and from it we get our English word “poem.” Listen, friend, listen. You are God's poem. They used it back in those days for a work of art. It could be a piece of poetry. It could be a song. It could be a painting. It could be a sculpture. We are God's – I put it to you this way – we are God's masterpiece. You’re not unimportant. You’re not without value. You’re not without gifts and talents. No, you’re the creation of God. And could I just say, we’re twice over the creation of God. I was his by virtue of creation, and now I'm his by virtue of salvation. I was a creation of God; he knit me together in my mother's womb, but I'm a new creation by means of salvation. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says “If any man, boy, woman or girl is in Christ, he or she is a new creation. Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” I've been made new in Christ. I am his creation and I am his re-creation. You’re God's masterpiece. You're his poem. You’re his painting. You’re his sculpture.    This isn’t so that we can look in the mirror and admire ourselves.  Wow, aren't I amazing! I am God's masterpiece; I'm God's workmanship! No. Notice we’re created in Christ Jesus unto, or for, good works. You were created for a purpose. You were created with a plan in mind. Listen, I've been living out the plan of God in my life for many decades now, and the journey following Christ is tremendous. Oh, the things God has done. And my task in life is to listen for the voice of God and follow the Spirit’s leading, and it's your job as well. He wants to use you to change this world.    I want to stress to you an opportunity coming next Sunday night. Folks, I know we normally only come here on Sunday mornings, but look at me and listen to me please, okay? I don't often ask you guys to go over and above, but I'm asking you to do it this coming Sunday. Come back to church Sunday night. Let's just repeat that together. Come back to church Sunday night. All right? 6 PM. Here's why. You're going to be equipped to do the good work of being an ambassador of the King. That's we’re made new creations. 2 Corinthians 5:17 is followed by 2 Corinthians 5:20: “We are ambassadors of Christ, and we’re making an appeal that you'll be reconciled to God.” And God wants to use you to help this world come to Christ, to know the grace of God through faith.  I'm going to tell you one last story. There's a great preacher, and I'm going to recommend him to you. He's a black preacher. His name is H. B. Charles, Jr., and if you like good preaching, look him up on YouTube. He told a story about a lady who was heartbroken. The reason she was heartbroken was she had received an heirloom from her grandmother. It may have even been passed down from a previous generation, but what it was was very simple. It was a handkerchief, and it had been passed down to her. It was a keepsake and she treasured it. But one day, she spilled a bottle of ink and stained that handkerchief. She was really sad and she was talking to a friend of hers telling what had happened. The friend said, “Send me the handkerchief.” It happens that her friend was an artist. He got the handkerchief, and he didn't tell her what he was going to do. He got the handkerchief, and using the stain of the ink as the starting point, he painted onto the face of that napkin a beautiful image. He made it a work of art. Now, H. B. didn't say what the work of art was, but I'd like to think it was the face of her grandmother. There was a face on the face of that napkin, and what was a mess became a masterpiece. She treasured that now that the stain, the mess, had become a masterpiece.   Why do I tell that story? You know why? You and I are like that handkerchief. The bottle of ink has been spilled on us by our sin and our disobedience, our trespasses. We look up, despairing because of the stain, and God in grace looks down and he actually takes those stains and he covers them, and he makes a masterpiece out of our mess. And the name of that is grace. Amazing grace.   Would you stand? Let’s sing together. 

“Sola Gratia” Sermon Series: Solas Ephesians 2:8-10 Istrouma Baptist Church – Jeff Ginn, Lead Pastor  10:45 AM Sermon January 19, 2020       Outline:   Saved by grace   For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2:8-9).      We have a problem   We have a provision                 Saved through faith   For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast (Ephesians 2:8-9).   Faith is a response      Faith is a requirement           Saved for works   For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them (Ephesians 2:10).             God works in us   God works through us       Ephesians 2:8-10 8 For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.         “Amazing Grace” is, perhaps, the best-known and best-loved hymn of all time.  The beauty and simplicity of its melody (which you just heard played) is only eclipsed only by the hope and depth of its lyrics.    Listen to the first stanza: “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.  I once was lost, but now am found.  Was blind but now I see.”   The author of these words, John Newton, was, by his own admission, a “wretch.”  Now, that’s not a word we use every day. It means, “a miserable person; one who is profoundly unhappy or in great misfortune; a base, despicable, or vile person.”  You may think that’s an exaggeration on his part.  But he was a wretch.  He was a slave trader, a blasphemer, and a rebel.   You know the song, I trust, but you may not know the story of the author. So I want to tell you a little bit about the life of the man who wrote that song. John grew up in a home where his mother was an instrument maker and his father was a sea captain. His mother passed away when he was about 7 years of age, and so he was reared in those later childhood years by his father. He loved his father. He looked up to his father. His father was a sea captain, and so, get this, when he was 11 years old, John Newton went to sea. He made his six voyages across the oceans with his father before his father finally retired as a sea captain. Well, he had not gotten enough. He dreamed about the adventures of life on the open seas, but his dream was soon turned into a nightmare, and I want to tell you about it.    He boarded a merchant ship and plied that trade for a while. But one day, he was in a port and he was pressed into naval service. We don't understand that term because we have an all-volunteer military. There's no draft. You volunteer if you want to serve. But back in those days in Jolly Old England, you could be pressed into service; that is, basically, you’d be captured and you would be forced to serve in the military, and so it was with John Newton. So now, he's no longer living a carefree life of a sailor aboard a merchant ship. He is now in the Royal Navy.  He kind of chafed under the regimen of that life. He ran afoul of his captain and was whipped, humiliated and demoted. He contemplated either murder of the captain or suicide. Before that could happen, he was able to escape and got aboard a slave trading ship called the Pegasus. He did not get along with the crew and was cast off in Africa. He was picked up by a slave trader, and became a slave himself in Africa until he was rescued. He said of that period that he was “a servant to slaves.”   Later in life he wrote, “I sinned with a high hand, and I made it my study to tempt and seduce others.” Newton lived a hard life with equally harsh consequences.   God got his attention though. In 1748, Newton’s slave ship was nearly wrecked by an intense storm.  Surrounded by crashing waves, ferocious winds, creaking timbers, and the cries of the souls on board, John fell to his knees and pled for grace. He was born again on board that ship that tempestuous night.    He comes to know Christ and begins to learn of the word of God and how to live as a Christian, but he's still a slave trader himself. He captains a slave trading ship. He hauls many a slave across the oceans into slavery, but God begins to convict him about the wickedness of that. He becomes friends with a man named William Wilberforce who was the primary advocate in England for the abolition of slavery. John Newton became an ally in that cause, and of all things, this once slave trader, blasphemer, rebel, becomes a pastor of a local Baptist Church there in England. He began to be hymn writer, and he wrote those lyrics that we know and love, “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.”     God’s grace, which reaches anyone, anywhere, saved a wretch like John Newton—not just from the terror of that storm but from the grip and guilt of his sins. Newton wrote the song now known as “Amazing Grace” years later, while serving as a pastor in Olney, England.    Today, his lyrics still inspire, encourage, and instruct people about the radical reality of God’s amazing grace. It gives “wretches” like us hope.  It makes blind people like us see. And that is amazing! Only grace—sola gratia—is able to save sinners. For him, grace was amazing.    God help us if we ever get to a point where we're not just astounded by grace, that it would redeem wretches like you and me, friend. But that's the nature of his grace; it is amazing. We're going to look at that theme this morning in a message entitled, Sola Gratia, the Latin phrase which means “grace alone.” I'm going to base the message today out of; really, I think the classic passage in the Bible about grace. Open your Bible please to Ephesians chapter 2, and we're going to begin reading in verse 8 and carry it through to verse 10. I’d like us all as a sign of our respect for God's Holy Word to please stand as its read. Precious words are these. Give it your very best hearing. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.   Let’s pray.    [Prayer]   Please be seated.    We're celebrating 100 years here at Istrouma this month, and as we thought about this wonderful season of our church’s life, we thought we’re going to go back to some of the foundational principles upon which this great church has been built. Jesus himself, of course, is the Cornerstone. We're going to come to him in the next Sola series message. But we're looking at some of the great foundational principles, and among them are things like Sola Scriptura, which was our opening message in the series. There, I talked about how the word of God, scripture, is our only sure and sufficient guide to all matters of faith and practice, scripture. Then, last week, we took up the theme of Sola Fide, which is the Latin phrase for “faith alone.” Remember, we talked about the Philippian jailer who was terrified, near death. He fell down and he cried out, “What must I do to be saved?” The Apostle Paul answered him with words as clear as a bell, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved and your household.” Believe. That's how we're saved, Sola Fide.   Now, today, we're taking up the third of these messages, and it's entitled Sola Gratia, which is the Latin for “grace alone.” By the way, if you're new to Istrouma, we don't usually work in Latin here but this is an exceptional season of our church’s life, and it's fun for you to know these terms, even if we never revisit them again in terms of the Latin terminology. But bear with us; here it is, Sola Gratia, grace alone.   I want to begin in verse 8 and say that we are saved by grace. That's the first point, Sola Gratia. We are saved by grace. Look at the opening words to verse 8, “For by grace you have been saved.” You'll notice Paul is actually talking about something in the past, right? He says, “You have been saved,” not “You will be” or “You are being.” He uses the past tense because he's addressing this letter to the church at Ephesus. He's talking to believers. He says if you want to know how it is that you came to have life, it's by grace that you came to this life. It's by grace you have been saved. I know I'm talking to a lot of folks here that by grace you’ve been saved. But I am talking to some, and I don’t know who you are, but I'm talking to some who will be saved by grace. I pray that even this day you'll come to know the grace of God in truth.   What is grace? It is one of those church words. If I were to ask you to define grace, how would you do it? What is grace? A lot of people will define it in this way, two words: “unmerited favor.” What does that mean? “Unmerited” means you don't deserve it, and grace is God's unmerited favor to us. He loves us in spite of our sin. He forgives us in spite of our rebellion. He takes us to heaven though sin once stained us. It is unmerited favor shown us because of what Christ has done.   I'll give you an acrostic that I learned as a kid. I've always remembered it, and I think it's very helpful. If you'll take the letters of the word “grace,” I’m defining it for you, what is Grace? G-R-A-C-E. Write down beside each letter these terms:             G          God’s             R          Riches             A          At             C          Christ’s             E          Expense   Did you get that? Grace. God's riches at Christ's expense. That's what grace is. What are God's riches? God's riches would be his forgiveness; his patience with us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance; it’s heaven as our eternal home; it's abundant life, joy-filled life, peace, here and now. Those are God's riches, and they come to us at Christ's expense. In other words, those great gifts that I've named were not free. Someone paid for them that they might be ours, and it was at Christ's expense that they come to us. So that is grace. We are saved by grace.   I want to say two things about this. Number one, we have a problem. Houston, Baton Rouge, Luling, Lafayette, Monroe, South America, Africa, Asia, we have a problem. What's our problem? Our problem is, in a word, sin. I want to refer to jewelers for just a moment. I know we've got a couple of jewelers in our church, and I appreciate them so much, and I hope you’ll frequent their business. But these jewelers are very ingenious. If you say “I want to buy a diamond,” you know what a jeweler will often do? They'll take out a piece of black velvet fabric, and they’ll lay that black fabric down, and then upon that black fabric they’ll place the diamond or diamonds. Then they'll put a large spotlight shining down on those diamonds. Why do you think they put the diamonds against that black backdrop? It is so that you will be able to appreciate in all of their brilliance the beauty of the diamond. A diamond against a white counter may not glisten and shine as well as that diamond against a black backdrop. What's the point? You'll never fully appreciate the brilliance and beauty of grace until you see it against the black backdrop of our sin. That's why we're amazed by grace, that we, though sinners, can be forgiven and accepted by a holy and righteous God. When I see his grace against the backdrop of our filth and sin I'm amazed by it. Yes, our problem is our sin.    Let me show you this in the text. If you’ll look to verse 1 of this very same chapter it'll be very clear. Let me begin reading there in Ephesians 2, verse 1:  And you were dead in the trespasses and sins 2 in which you once walked [that’s describing us, folks], following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience…   Now, let me pause right there. He's describing humanity. You might be tempted to think that because we’re Christians we are above what he calls the “sons of disobedience.” You know, we can look down our spiritual noses at those “lesser humans.” We’re the Christians. But look at what verse 3 says. I love this. He says: among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh…   Folks, look. I once walked in the passions of the flesh. I did things of which I am ashamed. Just like John Newton; he didn't have much on me, if any. I, too, am a wretch, a sinner, and when I see God's grace given me against the backdrop of my past, and how I lived in the passions of my flesh, I'm amazed and I hope you are as well. Now, that's our past. That's our problem, right? But I've come to tell you good news, not bad news. That's bad news. Let me give you some good news. Though we have a problem, it is answered by God's provision, and that's the next sub point. We have a provision. You’ll see this as we continue reading this very passage. It says, Ephesians 2 verses 4 and following: 4 But God, being rich in mercy...   Let me pause to ask you to do something. As I'm reading this, I want you to watch for the word “grace,” and when it occurs, I want you to count it. All right, let’s see how many times it occurs in these verses. We are sinners. We once walked in the passage of our flesh. He says,  But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, 5 even when we were dead in our trespasses [even then, he loved us, yes, he], made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— 6 and [he] raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, 7 so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. [And then verse 8, our key verse] 8 For by grace you have been saved...    How many times in what I just read, including verse 8, does the word “grace” appear? Three. Exactly right. Not once, not twice, but three times over he is stressing to us God's provision for our problem. Sin is addressed by grace, and by grace we are saved.    I want to give you an illustration that I hope will help turn the light on in your understanding of this. I'm going to tell you a make-believe story. It's the story of a father. This father had an only son, and he loved his boy as fathers do. The boy got old enough to go out on his own. One day the boy was out, and he was attacked by some thugs. They beat him and they robbed him, and in the course of their attack the young son was killed. It was a brutal murder, and the father was heartbroken, as you can imagine.    The father considered how he might deal with those who had murdered his son. He thought of four possible responses he could make. First of all, he could seek vengeance. Do you know what vengeance is? Vengeance is when you take the law into your own hands. Without police, without courts, without law, he would go and he would execute those that had killed his son. In vengeance the criminals would get worse than they deserve, because really, everybody has a right to a fair trial. Everybody has their day in court. Vengeance is inappropriate. God says, “Don't seek vengeance. Leave that in my just hands,” right? “Vengeance is mine,” the Lord's says. But he considered vengeance.   Secondly, he said there's another option. I could seek justice. That could be my response. Leave it to the police to find the criminals; leave it to the court to try them; the jury to decide on their guilt or innocence; and the judge to declare the sentence. Now if vengeance giving them worse than they deserve, justice is giving them straight-up what they deserve.    But then he thought of a third possible response. He thought, I could show them mercy and forgive them for what they've done and plead mercy in the court on their behalf. That would be unbelievable, would it not? I think it's beyond most of us to respond in that way. If vengeance is getting worse than what they deserve, and justice is getting what they deserve, mercy would be not getting what they do deserve. Yes, they deserve a sentence. They deserve prison. They deserve punishment. Perhaps they deserve execution. But mercy would say, “No.”    Then, there remained one possible response. Not vengeance; not justice; not even mercy, as great as it is. There remained the option of grace. Now if vengeance is getting worse than you deserve, and justice is getting what you deserve, and mercy is not getting what you do deserve, what would grace be? Grace would be getting what you don't deserve. What if in that story the bereaved father looked with pity upon the criminals and said, “Not only do I forgive you, I want to adopt you into my family, and I want you to inherit the riches that would have been my son’s. You say, “Preacher I can't stand the thought of that. That's unbelievable that anyone would respond in that way.” and I would say, “Yes, wouldn't it be amazing? It would. And that's why we refer to it as “amazing grace.”    Friend, we are those criminals. Do you not see that? It was your sin and my sin for which Christ was nailed to the cross, not for any guilt of his own. God in love looked down at his only beloved there. God could have sought vengeance upon us. He certainly could have executed justice or stopped short at mercy, but he went all the way, and he would adopt us into his family. Are you a part of God's forever family? Friend, if you're not, you may be this very day. How do you get into his family? You’re saved by grace.   Now, number two. Not only are we saved by grace, but, number two, we’re saved through faith. When you read your Bible, I think you know this now, but let me just say it, every word in the Bible matters. Every word. You can't even change the prepositions. You can't say you’re saved by faith. You're not saved by faith, you’re saved by grace, but you’re saved through faith.    Now, let's explore this just for a moment. Because God has been gracious in giving his son, you might be tempted to think that everybody's going to be saved. We’re saved by grace, and that's God's action in Christ on our behalf. He died for the sins of the whole world, 1 John 2:2 says. Well, if he died for everyone, and grace is available to everyone, then won’t everyone be saved? There are those who hold that position. It's called “universalism,” that everyone, universally, will be saved. Many of them will even say it’s because of Christ and his death on the cross that redeems everybody regardless of their response. But friend, I'll just say in response to that, and I don't have time to address it fully, I’ll just say they didn't get that idea from the Bible. The Bible teaches that there are two destinies, heaven and hell, and there are people who will spend eternity in heaven or in hell. So no, not everyone is saved, even by the grace of God, because you see, there is a response that is required of us, and faith is a response to God's grace. Now, if you would look there again at verse 8, “For by grace you have been saved [and we’re emphasizing those two words in bold] through faith.” Grace precedes faith, and that's very important, folks. Listen. Sometimes you’ll hear people say, “Oh, it doesn't matter what you believe, just believe.” It's as though if you had faith, regardless of in whom you put your faith or in what you put your faith, just believe, and you will be saved. You can believe in Muhammad, you can believe in Confucius, you can believe in naturalism and you can believe in pantheism and worship the trees and the rocks and the lakes, it doesn't matter what you believe; just believe. We’re saved by faith. No, friends, we're not saved by faith; we’re saved by grace, the act of God in Christ, but it comes to us through faith. That's the means by which we make it our own.   God alone saves, and it is through faith that that salvation comes to us. Our faith, I'll say it this way, our faith has a focus, and that focus is Christ. Remember last week when we were talking about sola fide, only by faith are you saved, and we were talking about the story of the Philippian jailer who was terrified that he might die. An earthquake had shaken the prison where he was responsible for the prisoners, and in his terror he asked this point-blank question, “What must I do to be saved?” And the answer was as clear as a bell, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.” Notice the answer was not, “Believe and you will be saved.” No, that would be to truncate the answer. It would be to omit the central part. It is not “Believe and you will be saved.” It is “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved.” Take out Christ, take out his grace, his atoning death on the cross, and we will all be lost. It is grace that saves us through faith. Faith is our response to God's grace. I think of it this way, and perhaps this will be helpful to you. I think of grace as God reaching down from heaven to save a drowning world, drowning in our sins, and grace is him extending his hand to save us. I view faith as the response. Faith would be us looking heavenward and extending our hand to take the hand of grace. Here's the thing, folks, listen. When God's hand of grace is clasped by your hand of faith, salvation comes to you. His hand is extended. The only question that remains is, “Have you responded? Have you taken hold of that grace?” And you do so by faith, by entrusting yourself to him who died for your sins. That's how we get saved, by grace through faith.  Faith is a response, and second here, faith is a requirement. You must believe. When I say sola gratia, only grace, some might misunderstand and think we're saying you don't even have to believe. Sola gratia, only grace, that's all that's needed. No, it's “only grace” in a special sense. When the reformers like Martin Luther used that term, they were referring to salvation coming to us by grace apart from works. Would you look at these verses again? Look with me.  For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, 9 not a result of works, so that no one may boast   It's in that sense that it’s sola gratia. It's not God’s grace plus your good works. You know, there are a lot of people who think that God admits people or rejects people into heaven on this basis. Watch. They think that God has this big scale in heaven, and on one side God's going to stack up the bad things you've done, the lies you’ve told, the lust you’ve felt, the immorality of your life, the dishonesty and the pride and the prejudice. He's going to stack all that up on one side. Then, bless your heart, he's going to come over here and he's going to stack up the good things you've done, and it's going to teeter. If you've done more good than bad, whew! You made it in. But if you did more bad than good, uh-oh, you’re lost. That's how most of the world thinks. The problem is, that is not what the Bible teaches. Sola scriptura teaches that it’s sola gratia, only grace through faith. We're not saved by our works. You see, if you were saved by the good things that that you did, when you get to heaven you be like this. You’d put your thumbs under your suspenders and you’d be like, “Hey, Lord. Good to see you. I got here because of the good things I did. You know, I was a good guy. I was faithful to my wife. I gave money. I was sweet to the little old lady down the street. I never robbed a bank. I'm good.”    When we get to heaven, nobody's going to have their thumbs under their suspenders. You know what we're going to do? We're going to fall on our faces, and we're going to say, “God, how could you save a wretch like me? How great you are. How gracious you are that you would forgive me and save me.” It's all of grace, but it does require faith.     Let me give you an illustration. I hope this will help. Can you see what this is? I got this in the mail this week from some sweet church members. They sent me this as a gift. It's a gift card for $200 to Fleming's Steakhouse. I’ll get a filet mignon with that. They sent this to me. It wasn't my birthday. It wasn't my wife's and my anniversary. I had not mowed their yard. Just out of love, they sent this to us. Do you know what you call that? Grace. You see, I have something that's valuable here and I didn't pay one red cent for it. It's grace. But is my belly full? And do you know why my belly isn't full? It’s because I have to redeem this. The way it gets redeemed is through faith. You see, I have to believe that this is not a gimmick that this is not a fake gift card. I have to believe that it’s real. I have to believe that the magnetic strip on the back is still good. I have to believe that they haven't already spent the $200 and just sent it to me as a gag. A curse upon them if they did that! No, I know, I know. I believe this is real, and as soon as my wife and I can carve out the time, we're going to go redeem this. We're going to sit down. I think I'm going to get a filet mignon. Could I get an “Amen”? Wrapped in bacon! With a baked potato, lots of butter, lots of sour cream – and no scallions. And I'm going to eat that. My wife, she’s going to get whatever she wants. In fact, I think we may even take a couple with us. Haven't chosen who it is yet; we've got $200! And I'm going to eat that meal, and they're going to bring a bill. You know what I'm going to do when they bring that bill? I'm going to slap that card down on that bill – paid in full by the merits of another!  Now, what's the point? This is grace, but I must exercise faith. I must possess it. I must make it mine, and I have to exert faith to do so. Christ offers you something much more than a gift card to Fleming's Steakhouse. In fact, I would just say pitiful in comparison. Pitiful in comparison.    He offers us eternal life, and you don't pay a red cent for it. But somebody paid for it, and he didn't spend his money to do it; he did it with his blood. We were not redeemed with things such as silver and gold, but with the blood of Christ as of the spotless lamb of God. We’re saved by grace through faith. Faith is often expressed just through prayer. “Lord, I know I'm a sinner. Lord, I call on you to forgive me. I believe Christ died on the cross for me.” We make that profession through prayer and we acknowledge it and we receive by faith the gift he offers.    That brings me to the last point. Sola gratia, only Grace? There are going to be a couple of people that protest what I'm preaching, and here's the way the protest goes; I know how this goes. There's going to be one group, and I'll call them legalists. They're going to say, “You mean I can be saved just by the grace of God, by putting my faith in him? You mean I don't have to do good works to save myself? That's too easy. No, no, no, they say.” They reject it. They say it's faith and works that redeem. That's the legalist. And there's another category over here, and they're going to say, “Oh, I'm saved by grace through faith and I don't have to do good works? Awesome! I'll walk an aisle, I'll pray a prayer, and then I'll just live like the devil until I get to heaven, and then I'm in by the grace of God.” That's wrong too. It’s the legalist and it’s the lawless. I'm going to do what I want.   How would the Bible answer the legalist and the lawless? He does it perfectly, right here in this text. Now, look at verse 10, “We're saved by grace through faith for good works.” We’re saved for works. Folks, look up here. Remember I told you every word in the Bible matters, every word? It’s not just big words like “grace, faith, works.” Those are big, momentous, weighty words. Even the little words matter – “by, through, for.” They're called prepositions. Little bitty words, but they matter. You can't switch them and have the truth. Like you can't say, “I'm saved by works unto faith or unto grace. No, you can't invert them. They are just as God gave them. So while I'm not saved by good works, I am saved for good works.    Two things about this I want to stress: Number one, God works in us. I love this. This is so good! The Bible calls us his workmanship. You know, we've got some guys in our church who are craftsman. I can think of a couple of guys who do woodworking. They do some pretty exquisite work; I’ve got some of their crafts in my home. I think of some painters that we have in our church, great artists, and you know some of them. Well, did you know, we are God's work of art? The word here “workmanship” is the word poiema in Greek, and from it we get our English word “poem.” Listen, friend, listen. You are God's poem. They used it back in those days for a work of art. It could be a piece of poetry. It could be a song. It could be a painting. It could be a sculpture. We are God's – I put it to you this way – we are God's masterpiece. You’re not unimportant. You’re not without value. You’re not without gifts and talents. No, you’re the creation of God. And could I just say, we’re twice over the creation of God. I was his by virtue of creation, and now I'm his by virtue of salvation. I was a creation of God; he knit me together in my mother's womb, but I'm a new creation by means of salvation. 2 Corinthians 5:17 says “If any man, boy, woman or girl is in Christ, he or she is a new creation. Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” I've been made new in Christ. I am his creation and I am his re-creation. You’re God's masterpiece. You're his poem. You’re his painting. You’re his sculpture.    This isn’t so that we can look in the mirror and admire ourselves.  Wow, aren't I amazing! I am God's masterpiece; I'm God's workmanship! No. Notice we’re created in Christ Jesus unto, or for, good works. You were created for a purpose. You were created with a plan in mind. Listen, I've been living out the plan of God in my life for many decades now, and the journey following Christ is tremendous. Oh, the things God has done. And my task in life is to listen for the voice of God and follow the Spirit’s leading, and it's your job as well. He wants to use you to change this world.    I want to stress to you an opportunity coming next Sunday night. Folks, I know we normally only come here on Sunday mornings, but look at me and listen to me please, okay? I don't often ask you guys to go over and above, but I'm asking you to do it this coming Sunday. Come back to church Sunday night. Let's just repeat that together. Come back to church Sunday night. All right? 6 PM. Here's why. You're going to be equipped to do the good work of being an ambassador of the King. That's we’re made new creations. 2 Corinthians 5:17 is followed by 2 Corinthians 5:20: “We are ambassadors of Christ, and we’re making an appeal that you'll be reconciled to God.” And God wants to use you to help this world come to Christ, to know the grace of God through faith.  I'm going to tell you one last story. There's a great preacher, and I'm going to recommend him to you. He's a black preacher. His name is H. B. Charles, Jr., and if you like good preaching, look him up on YouTube. He told a story about a lady who was heartbroken. The reason she was heartbroken was she had received an heirloom from her grandmother. It may have even been passed down from a previous generation, but what it was was very simple. It was a handkerchief, and it had been passed down to her. It was a keepsake and she treasured it. But one day, she spilled a bottle of ink and stained that handkerchief. She was really sad and she was talking to a friend of hers telling what had happened. The friend said, “Send me the handkerchief.” It happens that her friend was an artist. He got the handkerchief, and he didn't tell her what he was going to do. He got the handkerchief, and using the stain of the ink as the starting point, he painted onto the face of that napkin a beautiful image. He made it a work of art. Now, H. B. didn't say what the work of art was, but I'd like to think it was the face of her grandmother. There was a face on the face of that napkin, and what was a mess became a masterpiece. She treasured that now that the stain, the mess, had become a masterpiece.   Why do I tell that story? You know why? You and I are like that handkerchief. The bottle of ink has been spilled on us by our sin and our disobedience, our trespasses. We look up, despairing because of the stain, and God in grace looks down and he actually takes those stains and he covers them, and he makes a masterpiece out of our mess. And the name of that is grace. Amazing grace.   Would you stand? Let’s sing together. 

[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent="no" equal_height_columns="no" menu_anchor="" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" class="" id="" background_color="" background_image="" background_position="center center" background_repeat="no-repeat" fade="no" background_parallax="none" parallax_speed="0.3" video_mp4="" video_webm="" video_ogv="" video_url="" video_aspect_ratio="16:9" video_loop="yes" video_mute="yes" overlay_color="" video_preview_image="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" padding_top="" padding_bottom="" padding_left="" padding_right=""][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type="1_1" layout="1_1" background_position="left top" background_color="" border_size="" border_color="" border_style="solid" border_position="all" spacing="yes" background_image="" background_repeat="no-repeat" padding_top="" padding_right="" padding_bottom="" padding_left="" margin_top="0px" margin_bottom="0px" class="" id="" animation_type="" animation_speed="0.3" animation_direction="left" hide_on_mobile="small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility" center_content="no" last="no" min_height="" hover_type="none" link=""][fusion_text][/fusion_text][fusion_text]  Transcription (was completed by automated process.  Please ignore any speech-to-text errors) [00:00:01] Hi. How are you? [00:00:03] I'm good. [00:00:05] Great. Well, I'm so excited about today. To all of you out there listening, this is Danny Thomas again. And I'm super excited to be here on our next version of Sellers Calling You a Beatty. Michael. As you all know, Beatty is the CEO of Master Grabber and the creator, Agent Dominator, one of our top marketing experts in the real estate field. Beatty, I'm excited. What are we talking about today? [00:00:30] Well, today on this radical faith call, which obviously has nothing to do with the real estate marketing, we're gonna be talking about the topic of God's timing versus man's timing. Have you ever had those experiences in your life anywhere? Maybe God had indicated something was going to happen and it just keeps taking longer and longer and longer. It hasn't happened. Or, you know, you're seeking the Lord in prayer and asking for some sort of answer and or an outcome. And it just doesn't seem to happen quite as quickly as you want. [00:01:09] Ever had that goodness? Probably more times than I care to admit to. [00:01:17] And I got frustrated one day, I'm sure, probably many days. And I said, what in the world is going on? Right. God. Until I made this. And yet, where is it? Like Abraham or back when he was Abraham, God said, you're gonna have a son, Abraham. And you're going to have descendants like the stars of heaven. You know how long it took for Abraham to get that promise? [00:01:42] A very long time, 25 years. [00:01:49] And yet he never wavered on something that Lord hit me. I'm reading through Hebrews and he's talking about the men of faith. And one things that says that Abraham believe God for the promise and therefore he was willing to offer up his son, Isaac. And it hit me what that was really all about. I always thought that connection. And this has nothing to do with guys timing, but it kind of ties into it. And it dawned on me, faces in the amplified Bible says Faith is the title deeds of things we do not see yet. And so I was thinking was Abraham, you know, he has this title. The title Deeds says, through Isaac, all of these descendants are coming. And therefore, Abraham had no qualms about sacrificing his son because he knew the promise was good. The title, they would say, was solid and therefore nothing could sort that promise from coming true. So God, if you want me, I offer up Isaac. No big deal because I know something's going to happen because you can't fulfill your promise except through Isaac and therefore it's all temporary. I just thought that was kind of a cool understanding. [00:03:15] Yeah. Yeah. [00:03:17] So let's get into this whole topic of God's timing versus man's timing and where I think the problems come from. If I were to ask a couple of questions, kind of setting this up, the questions I would want to ask are going to be things like why does God delay in answering our prayers that are clearly according to his will? [00:03:45] And I think it's in James that if you pray according to his will, we know that he hears us. And if we know he hears that, we know that we will receive that for which we are familiar with that passage. [00:03:58] Okay. So we're asking clearly, according to God's will. Here's something that comes up a lot of times, especially for parents. Lord, I know it's your will for my child to have a personal saving relationship with you and you pray for that child. He or she is now 20, 25 and 30. And 35 and 40. And 45 and 45 and 50. Okay. And your keep do you keep praying? [00:04:24] And why isn't God answering that? Or maybe another question. Sometimes we act on God's promises and yet we don't see the results we feel we should have. I think Abraham was perfect. Just kind of a case study on that. He's living by faith. And yet where is this child? And then he has his child, Isaac, and he's living by faith. And now God says to sacrifice him. [00:04:50] And it seems like what God has promised and the fulfillment. [00:04:58] Something's missing in that. Gradient, does that make sense? [00:05:02] Yeah, absolutely. [00:05:05] Maybe another type of issue is God. I know you say I'm been healed. Why am I still sick? I'm praying for my healing. Or money. All these things in our lives where we can go back to scripture and we clearly see God's promise. [00:05:29] And we feel that that promise is spoken to us. The scripture gets into us that this is God's promise to us, and yet we don't see things happening. What's happening? There's lots of things that can be going on. Faith, belief, timing. But I want to try to bring some focus into timing on this call and to start off. I'd like you to read a passage for us. And the passage is Mark Levin versus 22, 23, 24. And just to kind of set the stage on this passage, disciples have just come to Jesus and asked a question. And Jesus is now going to teach them about faith. And that's kind of where we are. But within faith is timing. And this is what's going to be real interesting. So let me know when you're ready. [00:06:31] Okay. All right. I'm ready, Mark. Eleven, twenty or 24. Then Jesus said to the disciples, Have faith in God. I'm telling you the truth. You can say to this mountain, may you be lifted up and thrown into the sea. And that will happen. But you must really believe that will happen and have no doubt in your heart. I tell you, you can pray for anything. And if you believe that you receive that, it will be yours. [00:07:00] Ok, so here's we kind of have two things going along. We have faith and timing. Obviously, we cannot pray. [00:07:09] Without faith and expect to receive it, James says the person who doubts not expect to receive anything from the Lord. But then we also have an element of timing and the timing is in that very last sentence. So read that last part for me again. [00:07:26] Okay, I tell you, you can pray for anything, and if you believe that you received it, it will be yours. [00:07:34] If you believe that you've received it is received past, present or future tense. [00:07:44] Okay, so if you believe that you've received it. It's already years. That's what he's saying, right? [00:07:52] Mm hmm. When did you get it? Put the next part. [00:07:57] It will be yours, it will be yours. [00:07:59] This will be past, present or future. [00:08:05] I actually think it could be present and future will be. [00:08:11] Does that mean it's right now? [00:08:13] No, that's future. [00:08:15] Okay, so here's the problem that we're running into. [00:08:21] Past tense. I believe I've already received it, but future tense will be granted to me. Do you see the problem? [00:08:32] It's a problem because in our physical world, everything is based on a linear chronicle chronological time. But when you get into the spirit realm. Time really isn't quite so linear. And faith for the most part, has no time constraint at all. We may talk about that a little bit later on. I don't want to go there, but I just want to kind of pose the problem that the problem we're running into with God's timing versus man is God operates in a different frame than we do. And faith operates in a different frame. Faith says you must first believe that it is years that you actually hold that title deed in your hand. And then in the future it's going to be granted. You're granted. And so now we go, Lord is mine. Where is it? Right? You say I'm healed. Where's my healing? You say. He will be safe. Where's the salvation? You say you're going to get us out of this terrible mess we're in. When is it going to happen? Because I've been praying a long time and it hasn't happened. And so we have this constant stress in our life. If we're not careful, but this level of anxiety and level of confusion as to what's going on, and that's that's where the challenge starts to come. So I want to talk about two rooms. I want to talk about the spirit realm and the physical realm. And we see this used throughout scripture and even in our own vernacular, lots of different ways. You have the natural and you have the supernatural. [00:10:15] That's the same thing as the physical versus the spiritual, which is the same thing as the earthly realm versus the heavenly realm. All of these are basically interchangeable because there's this contrast between what we see in the visible world and what actually occurs in the invisible. Are you following me so far on that? [00:10:42] Yes. Yes. [00:10:44] So here's another question for you. If you were to put us on, put it on a scale and weight 1 as greater than the other. Are we? [00:11:00] More natural or supernatural? Or said another way. Are we more physical or spiritual? [00:11:12] Are you asking for my personal opinion? Yes. My personal opinion is that I am more spiritual than I am natural because I believe that my spirit is the only thing that's going to live for eternity, either in heaven or in hell and in my case, in heaven. So I believe that I'm more spiritual than I am physical. [00:11:32] Yes. And I would agree with that. And I would agree with it. For those same reasons. But I would agree with it for one additional reason. If you look at it as you look at authority and control, does the physical have authority over and therefore control over the spiritual realm? [00:11:57] Or do you think the spiritual realm has authority and control over the physical realm? Or are they completely separate and neither one impacts the other? Which one do you think? Which of those three options? [00:12:10] I think the spiritual has control over this goal, but I also believe that whatever you give the most control to or allow to control has the. The most authority over you. In other words. [00:12:30] Yes. Yes. Yes, I agree. [00:12:34] But if we can start with the premise. Or the truth that the spirit realm has authority and control over the physical realm and that there's something there. It doesn't mean that every single thing that occurs in the physical is driven by the spirit, but it does mean that in the hierarchy of things, the spirit realm has authority and impacts the physical realm much more than the physical realm impacts the spirit. It's kind of a one way direction on a two way. There are things we do in our lives that can impact our life. But I would say that those things we do in our lives impact our lives first and foremost, because they either neglect what goes on in the spirit realm or they take advantage of what goes on in the spirit room. When we focus on ourselves and on our own situation as opposed to focus on God, we get one outcome. But when we focus on and trust in the Lord, we get a different outcome. Does that make sense? Yeah. So what we do in the physical impacts, but ultimately if we do in the physical is either rejecting or neglecting the spirit or it is falling in line with the spirit. [00:14:02] And therefore it's still the spiritual side of what goes on that makes the impact in our lives. Is that. [00:14:11] Yeah, it's a matter of fact, I was thinking when you were saying that I was just thinking about creation, creation of the world God created. He spoke and the world came into being. But all of that came after the spirit. That to me, I mean, that was just something that popped in my head. I'm like, okay, well, clearly the spirit realm has authority because the created world came through the spirit realm. [00:14:40] Yes. Bingo. And so when we start to understand that, then things start to make a little bit more sense because we're so trained, we only look in the physical, we don't look in the spirit. [00:14:53] And I'm not talking about we have to have spiritual, spiritual eyes and see in the spirit realm like a like a quote unquote, a or. But we can't neglect what's going on in that room. So let's move into an element of the spiritual realm. And since you brought up creation, let's go there real quickly. Let's go to Genesis 1 1, Genesis 1 1. [00:15:22] Genesis 1 1. [00:15:24] Before you go out on me, I want to set the stage as we read these. We read them with an understanding of where we're going. I want to show us that God transcends time. That God is outside of the realm of time. And because he's outside the realm of time. What we think of this time or when something shouldn't happen is different from our perspective than his perspective. And I want to first take that up from scripture and then I'm going to give you kind of walk you through an example of how this operates within our lives. And it's really cool. So let's let you region says 1 1 1 1. [00:16:07] In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. [00:16:11] All right. So in the beginning, God created. In the beginning. God already existed. Does that make sense? [00:16:25] Yeah. [00:16:27] So we have this first statement of guys, the eternal existence. That exists. I want to say even before time. Give me a moment. I'll back that up scripturally. Let's now turn to John 858. [00:16:53] All right. John, eight fifty eight. Jesus answered, I tell you the truth. Before Abraham was even born, I am. [00:17:06] So now we have Jesus claiming that he existed not only before Abraham, but that Jesus exists eternally. That's what I mean. That means I am. It's not that I was or I was created. It's an eternal existence. The same as with the Lord. And we know obviously of God as these exist eternally so as Jesus because they're one. All right. So let's look at let's look at Titus. 1 2. This is going to be really cool. We're getting closer. [00:17:42] We want to be. Go ahead. [00:17:44] All right, Titus 1, verse 2. This truth gives them confidence that they have eternal life, which God who does not lie promised then before the world began. [00:17:58] Promised before the world began, the amplified Bible says, before the world or the ages of time began. So now we're getting a little bit closer that scriptures are starting to indicate God existed before time. But let's look at one final verse. Let's go to Jude. 1 and we're going to read 24 and 25. [00:18:30] June 1, 24, 25. Now all glory to God, who is able to keep you from falling away. And we'll bring you with great joy into his Gore's presence without a single fault. All glory to him. Who alone is God? Our Savior. Jesus Christ, our Lord. All glory, majesty. Power and authority are his before all time and in the present and beyond time. [00:18:59] And that call for all time. [00:19:03] And now beyond all time here, we have scriptural reference that says. God created time because God existed before time began. When we start to look at God's promises. And the impact of this whole thing called faith, believe you have received it passed. And then it will be years, future tense. We can't reconcile this problem in the natural because the natural is bound by time. But when we move outside of the realm of time now, it's really easy to reconcile what's going on. And the more we can understand from God's perspective, the more we can live in a way that honors, the more we live by faith and faith in a very simplistic type of definition. [00:20:01] I mean, it's multifaceted, so you can't just put it in a single box. But ultimately, faith is seeing everything from God's perspective because it's seeing it through his eyes and not our eyes through what he knows as truth, not what we think of as reality. This kind of forming making sense. So I want to I want to use a tube as an example. So picture a tube like a garden hose. Okay. So imagine right now you've got a 10 foot garden hose. With a 10 foot garden hose, it's hollow all the way through and I can put water in the front end of that garden hose and that water is going to travel through the garden hose and go out the other end. Are you picturing the picture right now? [00:20:54] Yeah, yeah. [00:20:56] So this garden hose, in essence, represents time. Time starts at the beginning. You put some water in at the beginning and then over time it comes out on the other end. If we were to look at the garden hose as time, then you could say that that garden hose starts in Genesis, the creation of the heavens and the earth, and it ends in Revelation, the new heavens and the new earth and everything that happens through Genesis, through Exodus, through first and second Samuel into Chronicles, into the mind all the way through the New Testament. There's this linear timeline that those events are traveling through this garden hose of time. [00:21:52] Picture that if we were to take a zoom in on that garden hose. Now, that garden hose can represent your life. And my life from the point that we born travelling through to the point that we die, everything in our life is contained within that garden hose because that garden hose is time. Now, here's something interesting in this garden hose. Let's assume that you you were to become like the old movie, Honey, I Shrunk the kids. Right. So you become really tiny and you get a an inner tube and it's really tiny and you start the journey at the beginning of that hose. All right. If there are waterfalls. This is a 10 foot hose. If there's a big waterfall at marker number four foot and you're just starting the hose, do you see those waterfalls? [00:22:58] No. [00:22:58] No. When did you get to see those waterfalls? When do you get to experience that waterfall, when you're going through the hose, when it was like right behind you. [00:23:08] About to take you out. [00:23:09] That's right. When you're right there. Okay. Now let's. Now, let's assume for a moment did that garden hose is made out of clear plastic. Okay. So you're the honey who shrunk the kids, let's say. I know I'm the guy who shrunk the kids and I shrunk you and you're starting on your journey through your hose and foot. Number four, there's a raging waterfall. You don't see it until you get there. But I'm outside of the hose. Do I see it before you get there? Oh, yeah. Do I see it as you begin your journey at the very beginning of the hose? Yes. Yeah. Not only do I see the waterfall at foot number four, but I see also what happens at foot number eight, nine and ten. Does that make sense? Yes. Why do I see it? You don't. [00:24:09] Because you're on the outside. [00:24:13] I'm on the outside looking in. So now let's take this hose a little bit closer. So let's say, for example, that I am God, I'm not. But let's say that I was in this example and you were Penny and I see you traveling through your homes. And in that traveling through, you ask me, I really want this special gift. And I promise you, I have already given it to you. Now, you're right now on foot. Number five. I put that gift at foot number six. Here's the question. Did I already give you the gift? [00:25:10] Have you already received it? No. Hold on. Pray you have received it. Have I given it to you? [00:25:22] Yes. If I've given it to you, then have you received it? Yes. Okay. When will you take physical, physical possession of that gift? [00:25:36] When I get to it, you get to it. [00:25:40] So now we start to get this understanding. How can you receive past tense? And yet it will be your future tense. Okay. And you can receive it because when God gives a gift, he's not operating inside of our homes. He's operating on the outside of it because he created the hose. He sees the whole thing. [00:26:12] Hmm hmm hmm hmm. [00:26:13] He's going to put that gift marker number six feet and says, I have given it to you. And then it's your job to go down the hose until you receive possession, but you have to believe. Okay, so let me share some other fun implications of this. [00:26:34] When was Jesus crucified? According to the Bible. [00:26:40] As far as age. [00:26:44] When was he crucified? [00:26:47] Well, he was crucified in 30, and it was a time after Passover. [00:26:58] And then when the time line. [00:27:02] Was he crucified? [00:27:06] Let's say he was crucified on. It was Passover the next day. I believe the day after Passover is when he was crucified. [00:27:18] All right. All right. So what year would that be, roughly? Generally speaking, let's say. [00:27:32] A lot of math, I guess we know about 33 is a calendar date. But here's the question. According to the Bible, Quinn was crucified. [00:27:51] That's a good question. [00:27:53] According to the Bible, he was crucified before the world began. [00:28:00] Yes. Do you remember that that's in Revelations crucified the lamb, crucified before the foundation of the world. [00:28:11] So how could he have been crucified before the foundation of the world and yet. Two thousand years ago, we see him up on a cross. [00:28:21] Yeah, that's really good. [00:28:26] What's the implication? The implication is. Kind of a lot. Boy, this could go really deep if I'm not careful. So let me make it simple. So let's go back to the timeline of just 2000 years. We're going to keep this kind of simple at the point of crucified crucifixion or at that point of of Jesus becoming the lamb slain for the righteous to make us righteous. [00:28:56] Then when you accept Christ as your savior. Are your sins forgiven immediately, immediately. [00:29:10] Is it only past sense or future sense as well? Okay, but you haven't committed those sins yet. So how can it be that when you ask Christ to come into your life, that you're forgiven for all past sins? And those that have yet to commit. [00:29:35] Well, because I'm not perfect and there's only one perfect person, Jesus Christ, because I'm a human and not perfect. It's very possible that I'm going to sin in my life. God's saying I'm going to go ahead and take care of that. [00:29:51] God's guarding all say I'm going to take care of it. But a little bit more. Let's look from God's perspective, not man's perspective. So I've got this. This 10 foot clear plastic garden hose in front of me that represents all of the generation of men from Genesis to Revelation. Somewhere around probably foot number five, let's call it somewhere halfway in that process. It could have been before or after the physical time chronologically when Jesus comes to earth and is crucified. And at that point, God says sins are forgiven. Right. [00:30:38] So when he says sins are forgiven, he's speaking that truth outside of the timeline, outside of the tube. And therefore, it impacts the entire to not only those who look forward to the coming of the messiah and their faith was counted to them as righteousness, but also those that come after that chronological point in time that look backwards to what Christ did. Their faith is counted to them as righteousness and righteousness means a sense have been forgiven. Follow me. Yes. Okay. So what that means is that chronological point in time when we say, Lord, forgive me of my sins, please come into my heart. Just say whatever little simple commitment that we make. It is in the spirit realm already done for our entire life. We have been made righteous in our life, not just to that point. That's kind of the technical reason. There is a very simplistic version of technical reason why when we've asked Jesus into our life, our sins are forgiven, including those that we have not yet done. We don't know we're going to do that, but God looks in that little clear plastic tubing, says, shame on you. But I've already forgiven you. He knows what's going to happen and it's all been forgiven. [00:32:11] Yeah. Yeah. [00:32:14] Okay, so then. We ask for a special gift or God gives us a promise of something to come. [00:32:24] And now we have a slight variation to this tube that I have to make to help illustrate what's going on within this timeline. Have you ever seen one of those little splitters that you can put on a garden hose that you screwed in one end and then it has basically to end so you can now have two garden hoses coming out of one? You know what I'm talking about? [00:32:47] Yes, I do. Okay. So that is a decision junction on this garden garden hose of our time. So now here's the point. I want you to understand. I want you to see if we can make this simple. So you're cruising along because I shrunk you. You're on your little inner tube going through your clear plastic tube of your life and you don't know what's coming ahead of you because you can't see it. But I as God, I see everything that's going on. I know what's going to happen before you even know what's going to happen. And therefore, I can say, Penny, trust me, I got your back on this one. Okay. [00:33:29] So now God says, first off, let me come back and ask a question. Do you think there have been any times when you've asked God for help? It would have been within his will that you receive that blessing, but for whatever reason, you never received it. [00:33:56] I'm not going to do. [00:33:59] Not that you just have been delayed receiving it, but maybe you missed out on the blessing deeply. That's possible. [00:34:06] I do. I do. [00:34:09] Yeah. Because we even see this back in that passage. What was it? Mark Levin, 24 What ever you pray and believe that you received them and they shall be granted you. What if we don't believe that we receive them? Is it possible that we miss out on those things that we've asked God for? [00:34:32] Yes, because I think even if it's there, if you don't believe, you're not going see it. [00:34:39] Yes, absolutely. So now this takes me into the decision junction and this is now another element of God's timing. God says first you ask. You ask me. I'm God and this little example, you asked me, God, I really want this special gift. And I somehow communicate back to you, says Penny. I've given it to you. Now, believe it. You're to believe that you've received it. [00:35:18] What I do at that moment is ahead of you. [00:35:22] We have a decision junction and I place that gift on the left hand junction. The left hand junction, actually, we'll call it the right him, because that's more biblically accurate. So on the right hand junction, you get to the fork. You can go left or right on the right hand junction. I place your gift to face. On the left hand junction, you bypass it completely. So now you come to the decision point. This junk decision junction in your life and you're trying to decide which way to go. Is it possible that you believe by faith and you take the right hand junction? [00:36:07] Okay. [00:36:08] And if you believe by faith and take the right injunction, then as you're going down that inner tube of life, you're gonna run right into the promise that I've given you because I place it right there. But is it also possible that when you get to that decision junction that you doubt? [00:36:27] And you end up going left instead of right. Sure. [00:36:32] Okay, so if you doubt you go left. Does that make. My God, my promise of giving you a gift null and void? In other words, did I lie to you? I told you I was going to give you this gift and you didn't get it. Did I lie? [00:36:52] No. What happened? [00:36:56] I chose the wrong path. [00:36:59] You acted by sight, not by faith. You acted in fear and doubt rather than by faith. And these decision junctions always come up in turbulent waters. And in almost all cases, the passive face looks like a raging waterfall and tumultuous rapids. And the task of doubt looks like calm water. Have you ever experienced that? [00:37:32] Yes. Yeah. Okay. So what we do in our natural is we go, oh, that can't be right. Right versus left. [00:37:42] That can't be correct. Right. That can't be correct. It's not going right. I must need to go left because how much easier it is. And God always asks us to do something bold and step out. Faith is living on the edge because faith is not living by sight, but living by God's word alone. It's doing what God says to do even when our naturalize say, that's crazy. And when we get to these decision junctions. [00:38:21] It is possible, I believe, to miss out on God's highest and blessed and greatest blessings for us in our lives because we choose the wrong path, because we make a decision by sight rather than decision by following him. And so this is that fork in the road. And let's read real quickly a couple other things. Go to first, Peter, 3 8. This is a passage that we're all probably familiar with. First, Peter, three, I just want to kind of illustrate what I think this passage is kind of saying. [00:39:04] All right. First, Peter, three verse eight, finally, all of you should be of one mind, sympathize with each other, love each other as brothers and sisters. Be tender hearted and keep a humble attitude. [00:39:20] First, Peter. [00:39:21] Maybe I am first here. [00:39:24] Okay, then maybe a second, Peter. But the one I was looking for is with the Lord. One day is a thousand years and years as one day. And just try to grasp that, because with the Lord being outside of time, you know, whether it's one inch or one centimeter, one foot on that timeline. He sees it all. There is no time within the Lord. [00:39:51] The time is only within our livelihood turn. One less, one less passage on this, James, 1, 6 and 7. [00:40:02] Saying. [00:40:05] All right, James. 1, 6 and 7. But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind. Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. [00:40:28] Okay, so we get down to that decision junction. [00:40:33] Can you see how easy it is to start to waver left, right or left, right or left? We pray to God. What are your eyes telling you has to be the best solution. When you pray to God, what are your eyes telling you? [00:40:52] Whatever. The easiest path. [00:40:54] Easiest path, right. And sometimes God's word says. The right path, not the left path. And so this is when we start to waiver. What happens is if we waver too long, we pass right on by where we ought to be and we go down that path of doubt. And this is what I think James is kind of talking about when we get to these decision junctions, not to expect anything from the Lord if we don't fully trust him. The things that he gives us, he gives us by faith. Spirit realm overrules the physical realm. He gives us in the spirit realm first because it's outside of time. He places it in our future some place. But it's us going through our physical realm, making the choices of faith that lead us to that promise that's been given first in the spirit room and then it manifests in the physical. But if we doubt and waver, we end up taking the wrong choices and we totally bypass where the Lord had for us and those great blessing. That doesn't mean that he can't move that blessing down the line again, but it does mean that we're missing the best path for our lives. And that's this whole concept of the timeline and kind of how it works, the implications on this. I think it's several. We need to remain persistent and safe if we take that low definition we've been working on. [00:42:28] Faith is choosing. To believe an act on God's truth rather than choosing to act. On the reality of the natural, it will never make sense. And usually when we choose to act on God's truth, the natural is saying, don't do it, don't do it. It's nothing but danger and hardship. And yet God is saying, come on. Trust me, you won't believe the blessings that await you if you just trust me. Okay. And so we have to remain persistent in faith because when God has promised. His promise will come true if we persistent faith. Hebrews 10, 35 and 36 basically says don't throw away your confidence, which has a great reward. And he says once you have done the will of God, you'll receive what was promised. He's talking about this whole thing, that these promises are received by faith, just like just like salvation is received by faith. I think the second implication is stop asking. And start thinking about this. Have you ever been in a time in your life? Let's call it financial, because I think we all go through financial struggles. Have you ever been in a time in your life financially where you're almost pleading with the Lord, help us, help us. We're about to sink. We need help. Have you ever been kind of desperate stage? [00:44:08] Yes. [00:44:10] Prior to getting into that, has God's word promise that he will take care of you as long as you trust him? [00:44:19] Yeah. [00:44:20] Okay. So when we come into that state where his work says he'll take care of us. [00:44:25] And now we're pleading. Oh, my gosh, I'm about to sink. Is that. Pleading a prayer of faith for prayer site. [00:44:36] Definitely it's based. [00:44:39] The site is fear based because the devil wants us to believe what we see because we'll get afraid and God wants us to believe what he says. And it's totally two totally different things. One other implication of this whole timeline concept is realizing that we can't see what God sees. And if God is promised, then we need to stop asking. Or maybe I should say stop pleading. And start thinking now if we take the story of Alija and the rain. Okay, so this goes back to the time of the Kings. [00:45:25] Israel and Judah has broken and have broken up. Ahab is now king and Elijah has. He's up on Mount Carmel. And he's just finished killing all of the bill process because they prayed for far to come from God to light their sacrifice. And it didn't. Elijah prayed for God to. Bring far down and it totally sucked up and burned up all of the sacrifice, the stones, the water and everything else. So there's just been this great victory. And then Elijah tells Ahab. Hop on your chariot and go before the rains come and you get stuck in the rain and everything was dry and dusty. Elijah believed God that it was going to rain. [00:46:17] Follow me so far. So we're at the stage where a promise has been given. Elijah knows what's going to happen. But then what does Alija do? Do you remember what he does right after he tells? They have to hop in his chair and go. [00:46:33] I don't remember, he goes up and he bowed down and he prays and he tells his servant, look out over the horizon and tell me what you see. The servant comes back and says, I don't see anything. So what is Elijah do again? [00:46:48] He tells me to go back and look again. [00:46:52] That's right. Elijah prays again and says, go back and look. Elijah does that seven times until there's a little cloud the size of a man's hand. So here we have how we should operate. First off, let me ask you a question. Do you think Elijah believed rains were coming? [00:47:14] Yes. [00:47:15] Yes. Why did he pray? Was he pleading with God, please, Lord, please, we need the rains, please. Or do you think his prayer was something different? [00:47:27] I think his prayer was thanking, thanking God for the rain, just believing that it's coming. [00:47:34] Yes, it's a different level of prayer. Different type of prayer. It's a prayer of Lord. Send the range, according to your word. Because I know they're coming. I thank you in advance for those rains that are coming. That is what our prayers ought to be when we come before the Lord. Not a prayer of pleading and fear, but prayers of anticipation and thinking because we know God's word is true. And then the third implication is sort of like Yogi Berra, you hear these Yogi Berra saying when you come to a fork in the road, take it. I just see this physical fork sitting there. And when you come to when you come to a fork, take the fork and the knife also there's a knife. But in this case, when you come to that fork in the road of your life, that decision junction always take the fork of faith. Because that's the only way that you're going to receive these abundant blessings that God has for you. Now, his overriding grace will still bless you, even in your abundant blessings are only going to come when we take those forks of faith. [00:49:01] So that's the. [00:49:06] Any final thoughts or comments before we wrap up this call? [00:49:12] I was thinking when you were talking about the path and choosing the path, it's usually rockier. The one that the Lord has tends to sometimes in the natural look like the one that you don't want to be on. And I was thinking about myself included, but I know so many others tend to pray when they're going down that path or deliver me like deliver me from this storm. Please make this storm stop. It's just overwhelming me and whatever. And it just hit me that a lot of times women are praying to be delivered from that. If God were to answer that, then we would miss the promise that he had set out for us, because if we're praying to be delivered or removed from that situation, we're not gonna be on that path anymore. And we're going to miss that promise. [00:50:05] What you were just talking about, the God's already put out a sobering thought, especially at those storms are brought about as a test. We all go through a wilderness in our life. [00:50:18] And I would think if you zoom in and out of our life, there's like a little wilderness is the wilderness is a time of testing before we receive a blessing. There are times when we're being attacked and there's some discernment there. But I think the main thing with all of this is I remember one time I was going through some really tough times financially with the business and I was pleading with God. I was pleading because I was afraid almost to the point of tears. And that's a moat. And so for me to be almost the point of tears, it was really dramatic. And I remember the Lord speaking to me and just see my spirit and saying something along the lines of, do you not trust me? Taking care of you all these years. Do you really think I'm going to let you down now? It wasn't quite those words, but that was the gist of it. And it really kind of shook me and I thought, you're right, I need to be. Acting in faith and not in fear, and I think that's the junction we come to the forks in the road. Which way are we going to act? Because Peter walking on the water, so long as he acted. Taking the fork of faith, he walked on the water. As he took the fork of sight and fear, he sunk. He missed out on God's greatest blessings for him. At that moment in his life, because he acted in fear. And that's the whole thing here, is it's all part of that timeline and which way you go. [00:52:03] Oh, well, Beatty, I think we're about out of time. This is great. Today, I really appreciated this talk. And just hear your insight and your wisdom on this subject. P011 [00:52:15] It was wonderful. [00:52:16] I appreciate that. All right. Well, until next time, we'll see you guys later. [00:52:22] All right. [/fusion_text][/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

In this episode, I interviewed the ever incredible Margaret Fox! We talked about how God has moved in her life and heart since she went on a 3 month mission trip to Thailand and Cambodia 2 years ago. I am so proud of what He's done and how He has guided her heart through this season of her life! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app

Today is World Suicide Prevention Day. I recorded this episode June 21 and thought to post it today in case it helps someone. When I recorded it, I hadn't planned it or written any notes. I was just thinking deep thoughts about a theory I have related to making decisions and suicidal thoughts. I noticed when I had thoughts swirling in my mind about what I can't do, it spiraled down into hopeless thoughts about having no reason to exist. When I make decisions/choices and take action on them, it doesn't matter what they are or how big they are, just the fact that "I can" and "I am" shifts my mindset completely. When I am believing and acting on the truth, that God has purpose for my existence and I can pursue and co-create it into existence by focusing on one decision at a time, my brain holds no space for thoughts that I have no purpose. I am actively proving it wrong. It struck me hard when I realized that changing the "I can't" thoughts to what I caught myself saying in the moment of acting on a decision: "I am [doing whatever action]". The "I am" part reminded me that it's the answer God gave in the bible of who he is. I'm not saying I'm God or we're each gods, but it seems like a thread of connection between God as our creator and the moment of action we choose to take, we are putting something into existence that didn't exist before. I don't mean art, but even something as simple as making your bed or washing your face or brushing your teeth. Stick with me here...when you take an action like these, the result of them would not have existed in the way you did it if you hadn't done it. We receive drive and desire from God to take action, we choose to take the action, and we do it by God's strength. Every single little decision/action is co-creating with God. That's freaking amazing. It's not up to us to assign a quantity value to how much purpose we have. I feel more peace surrendering the right to the timing of my death to God, and trusting that I can't see a complete perspective of the impact of carrying out my purpose in this life, but as long as I'm still alive, God has work for me to carry out together. Me and God. Even if the only thing I can bring myself to create on extra depressed days is clean teeth, fine. God is the Great I AM. And when I'm carrying out a decision together with God, I am [insert action like brushing teeth]. Anyway, it's worth it to me to publish this for the message. I just grabbed my phone and went to a room in my house with carpet and recorded from my phone, so the audio isn't pretty. Life's not pretty though, so there's that. If it kinda makes sense but doesn't help enough, or you want someone to help you sort through lies in your head about not having a purpose or that life isn't worth it, contact me! I'll keep this Facebook group or update this here if it changes, but join the group to connect with me and we'll go from there: https://www.facebook.com/groups/nicolewrage/ I love you and God loves you. Both are true, even if you don't believe them. Some days your purpose is to just breathe, so keep doing that, even if it's curled up in a ball on the floor, and reach out to someone who understands and loves you.

yoooo so we got super drunk and let whatever happened happen. from pro choice to pro ass-eating to supporting local businesses, we covered it all thank you to Jose for buying pizza and singing for us thanks to Lili and Nik for letting us call ya

Have you ever heard of confirmation bias? Confirmation bias is a psychology term used to help explain why we naturally favor information that confirms our preexisting beliefs or biases. We are always seeking proof that further backs up our beliefs while discounting examples that don't support our idea.  We do this without even recognizing that we are doing it!  For example: You may have heard that left-handed people are more creative than right-handed people.  Whenever you encounter a person that is both left-handed and creative you may place greater importance of this "evidence" that supports that thought you already believe. On the other hand, when you meet a creative right-handed individual you may just discount or overlook this experience entirely.   In this episode Tawni discusses with her dear friend Shana Blackburn, many fun and interesting examples of confirmation biases and how they can really impact your life.  When you look for something you are going to find it! This can be dangerous if our biases are focused on something negative. Whatever we choose to focus on you will find evidence of.  Shana is a wonderful example of using positive biases to impact her life for good.  She explains how she can use her personal mantra of: "I'm God's favorite", so freely and undoubtedly. It was so insightful and inspiring to hear how her positive attitude has helped her overcome very difficult situations in her life. She encourages us all to look for evidence that you too are God's favorite child! When we look for him in the details of our lives we will always find him.  "What you think you become, what you feel you attract, what you imagine your create." Budha

  Ephesians 2:6 He raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ.What does God do through us and to others? He does what is loving, true, and just, and he disciplines our will for the saving of our soul and for the blessing of other people. Proverbs 3:9 Honour God with everything you own; give him the first and the best. Your barns will burst, your wine vats will brim over. But don't, dear friend, resent God's discipline; don't sulk under his loving correction. It's the child he loves that God corrects; a father's delight is behind all this. Peter had to learn to have not so many ‘Not so’s Lord’ (Mat16, Luke 22, acts 10) JOHN 14:12 Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father. And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it. (Exodus 20:7Do not take The Lord’s name in vain…) Philippians 4:13 …I can do all things through Christ who empowers me (endynamoo) Jeremiah 9:24 I'm God, and I act in loyal love. I do what's right and set things right and fair, and delight in those who do the same things. We are empowered to defeat the powers of darkness from above. Daniel 10:12 Then he said to me, “Do not fear, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand, and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard; and I have come because of your words. But the spirit prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days; and behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left alone there with the spirit kings of Persia. Ephesians 1:19 and know the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.                   Ephesians 2:6 He raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ.What does God do through us and to others? He does what is loving, true, and just, and he disciplines our will for the saving of our soul and for the blessing of other people. Proverbs 3:9 Honour God with everything you own; give him the first and the best. Your barns will burst, your wine vats will brim over. But don't, dear friend, resent God's discipline; don't sulk under his loving correction. It's the child he loves that God corrects; a father's delight is behind all this. Peter had to learn to have not so many ‘Not so’s Lord’ (Mat16, Luke 22, acts 10) JOHN 14:12 Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father. And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in My name, I will do it. (Exodus 20:7Do not take The Lord’s name in vain…) Philippians 4:13 …I can do all things through Christ who empowers me (endynamoo) Jeremiah 9:24 I'm God, and I act in loyal love. I do what's right and set things right and fair, and delight in those who do the same things. We are empowered to defeat the powers of darkness from above. Daniel 10:12 Then he said to me, “Do not fear, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand, and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard; and I have come because of your words. But the spirit prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me twenty-one days; and behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me, for I had been left alone there with the spirit kings of Persia. Ephesians 1:19 and know the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in that which is to come. And He put all things under His feet, and gave Him to be head over all things to the church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.                                       

The mystery of what to do with our pain. Transform it or transmit it. 2Timothy 1:7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of an ordered mind. AN OVERVIEW OF UNHEALED FEAR DRIVEN UNTRUTHS ABOUT US VS.GOD’S TRUTH FOR US MIND-MINDSET (what are your thoughts about yourself) Spirit of fear -> disordered mind. I have no self worth, I am a failure, I am deprived, I am a victim, rejected, misunderstood, not heard, not appreciated. Is it true that you are worthless? How do you know? Has God told you this? So is it really true? If we think this is really true then this becomes our belief system – and fear has won over faith. What does God think about you? Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. (also Psalm 139:17How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God!) Prov 3:5 Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct your paths. Who would you be without that unhealed thought? LOVE-EMOTIONAL DISPOSITION - what are your feelings about yourself, and how does this make you feel amongst other people? Resentful, depressed, anxious, frustrated, angry, suspicious, irritated, covetous. If we fit in to one of these emotions and wear it like clothing upon our soul – fear has won over faith again. How does God feel about you? (Romans 5:8 – still yet sinners…) Jeremiah 31:3 “I have loved you, with an everlasting love. with unfailing love I have drawn you to myself. I will restore you, and you will again be happy… Philippians 4:6 do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Who would you be without that unhealed feeling? POWER-DOING LIFE (What does this make you do to yourself and others) Put myself (and other people) down, shut myself (and others) out, take a place over other people, punish myself (and others), try to control others. If we see ourselves doing these things then we need to find the grace of God to see this undone. Faith cannot live there. What does God do through us and to others? He does what is loving, true, and just (disciplines our will) Jeremiah 9:24 I'm God, and I act in loyal love. I do what's right and set things right and fair, and delight in those who do the same things. Philippians 4:13 Whatever I have, wherever I am, I can make it through anything in the One who makes me who I am. What would you do without that unhealed attitude? Proverbs 3:5 Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don't try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for God's voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he's the one who will keep you on track. Don't assume that you know it all. Run to God! Run from evil! Your body will glow with health, your very bones will vibrate with life! Honor God with everything you own; give him the first and the best. Your barns will burst, your wine vats will brim over. But don't, dear friend, resent God's discipline; don't sulk under his loving correction. It's the child he loves that God corrects; a father's delight is behind all this.

This episode of Meta explains how I went from Hard Solipsism to Monotheism in a heartbeat back in 2009. I was reading Descartes' "Discourse on Method" when the conversion happened. Basically, I said to myself, either I'm God or God is God, so if God is not God then I am God. But I know that I am not God, and that God is God because if I am wrong then I am also not wrong, since if I am wrong when I say that I am not God then I am God and God cannot be wrong. Therefore I know that I am not wrong when I say that I am not God. Therefore I am not God. But if I am not God then God is God. Therefore God is God.

Jes 28, 23-29 | Röm 8,28 - Be Dill and know that I'm GOD!

Full Force ruled Hip Hop and R&B in the 80's and 90's. The Brooklyn based group produced a string of hits ranging from UTFO's "Roxanne, Roxanne" to the Backstreet Boys "All I Have To Give". They even took the muscles and jheri curls to Hollywood as stars of "House Party" with Kid N' Play. Brothers B-Fine and Bow Legged Lou recall how hard they had to work to get discovered and how the sought out to be featured on TV One's Unsung. Plus the share an exciting new project that has reenergized their fan base.

FREEBIE: How to brand your creative online business or blog Get the PDF download!  http://bit.ly/2MgwuDo  This episode is all about why Designers need an Email List.  I see amazing designers focus their energy, time, and attention on social media while ignoring their email list... and while social media is important to growing your business...  it has nothing on email!  Listen to find out why. Is your freelance design business growing slowly online...or...worse, is it not growing AT ALL?!? Allow me to teach you today how to effectively brand yourself online and GROW your design business on autopilot. Be sure to subscribe for more design LOVE! Business tips + creative strategies: http://bit.ly/2LGqRNE    READ MY BLOG: http://www.laurenlesley.com/blog #laurenlesleystudio   JOIN MY FREE FB GROUP: http://facebook.com/groups/DesignTribeLaurenLesley    Wave at me on social:  Instagram: http://instagram.com/laurenlesleystudio #laurenlesleystudio Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/laurenlesleystudio Facebook: http://facebook.com/laurenlesleystudio   ..................................................................... LISTEN TO THE DESIGN TRIBE PODCAST: ..................................................................... iTunes: https://apple.co/2xZIPsy Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2LHe2TB  TRANSCRIPT: Speaker 1:                    00:00               Hey, what's up fools? This is Lauren with Lauren Lesley Studio and today we're going to be talking about why every designer needs an email list. Now you may be thinking, what is an email list and why does it matter? And if you're wondering that you are in the right place. Today we're going to go over why you need an email list in the first place. Why an email is different from social media, how to choose a provider and how to get subscribers on your list and how to craft your newsletter. Speaker 1:                    00:35               So the problem with social media, okay, so although social media is very important to growing your business online, you don't own it. So a few years ago, every business was trying to get as many people as possible to like their facebook page because then they would show up naturally in their facebook newsfeed. Well, facebook decided to change their algorithm because they own facebook, you don't. And now business page or pages are basically dead. So business has spent all this energy, all this money marketing, um, and everything trying to get people to like their facebook page. And then in the end, it didn't really make a whole lot of sense. It was totally useless because they didn't actually own all of these likes. I mean, facebook was, could just change it at any minute. Um, another reason why social media is a little bit harder than email is because it's difficult to contact your tribe directly if you're putting a ton of energy and a ton of money into social media, uh, especially a platform like facebook or instagram, you just Kinda have to cross your fingers and say a little prayer and hope people see your stuff in their feed. Speaker 1:                    01:55               Like what if they're not on their feed that day or they're, you're posting at the wrong time or you're posting at a time where there's too much competition. So it's difficult to contact your customers or get your leads directly. Speaker 1:                    02:12               Email lists, on the other hand, bomp bomp bomp allow you to contact your customers and leads directly in their inbox. So it's intimate. Um, you're contacting them directly on social. You're posting for the whole wide world. So that means something to your potential leads or customers. I'm a thoughtful email is a lot. It's just, it's more intimate, it's like chatting with a good friend and it's intentional, you know that someone sat down and crafted this email very intentionally where sometimes social just kind of looks like, Oh, here's a pretty picture. Hope you like it, you know? Cool. Also email subscribers are way more likely to become customers and existing customers are more likely to become repeat customers. Can I get a hell yeah?! Also with email lists, conversion rates are high. According to opt in monster article on May 29th, 2018. So this is very recently guys, there are 2.6 billion - billion with a b email - users versus 1.7 billion facebook users. So email is pretty much like double, Speaker 2:                    03:29               um, Speaker 1:                    03:31               the amount of facebook users are. So you just have a bigger audience to work with in the first place. Not everyone is on facebook. My cousin who's in his twenties is not on facebook. My fiance, who's, you know, 35 has a facebook account, but he literally never ever, ever, ever logs in. Unless I tell him, hey, you need to go contact this person or there's an event we're going to, you need to respond to. Some people just aren't that active on facebook, but everyone is on email for 58 percent of people email us their first check of the day so they may wake up and grab their phone and immediately what do they do? Look at their email or maybe they have breakfast, have their coffee drive to work, and then what do they do? They look at their email first thing, Speaker 2:                    04:20               um, Speaker 1:                    04:22               and only, I mean that's versus only 11 percent of people who look at facebook first part of the day. Um, and you also have to take into account different age groups, like what's your target audience? This and that. I'm someone checking facebook first thing in the day. They may be out on school break or may not have, you know, a huge to do list that day. So that kind of factors into also who you're trying to target. Okay. So 77 percent of people find promotional material acceptable in email. What that means, Hey, if you're sending a promotion, people aren't gonna be offended if you send them an email about it. They're like, yeah, that's cool. That's what email is for. This is where I want to look up sales and coupons and deals. Like I don't want to see it on my social media feed. I'm only four percent of people find it acceptable to see promotional material on facebook that's supposed to be this intimate time for their friends and family. That's what facebook was originally. It was supposed to be connecting with first your college friends. Um, and then it kind of extended and it's more of your family now and whatever, but that's opposed to be social. It's not supposed to be where you're shopping. Like you don't want to get on facebook to shop. Um, you want to get on facebook to see who had acute new baby or um, you know, who went to the beach last weekend. Speaker 2:                    05:51               Um, Speaker 1:                    05:53               so emails deliver an excellent Roi which is return on investment for those of you who might not know, um, which has 21 percent of the time versus a facebook and twitter ads are about 15 percent Roi. So get this guys, 66 percent of consumers have made a purchase because of a promo email. How cool is that? Sixty six percent. I think that's pretty good. Uh, versus only 20 percent has made a purchase based on a facebook promotion. So that Kinda shows you, hey, like people are kind of turned off by seeing, you know, promotions and ads on their facebook newsfeed. They're kind of like, Ugh, gross. Like I don't want to see that here. Um, but you know, in their email it's totally acceptable. Speaker 1:                    06:45               Email reaches 79 percent of the people you send it to 'em and this is the average global inbox placement rate. Just Fyi, facebook's organic reach. Get this guys, this is crazy. It's declined to about one to six percent, one to six percent. How crazy is that? What does Mark Zuckerberg doing? I mean, really, really? So you put all this effort and energy into, you know, posting something on facebook or instagram and facebook's organic reach, like they're literally, they're trying to force people to buy ads so that your stuff even get seen, which is crazy. Like they should not, I mean in my opinion, and this is my opinion, but I don't think they, I understand they have to get paid. Okay? Like, yes, everyone has to get paid, totally get that, but it's just not fair. It's just not fair to, you know, basically fuck with the algorithm that much to try to force people into paying for ads just to be seen on facebook. Speaker 1:                    07:47               Like, Hey, facebook, guess what? You're not that important email as a way better. I'm a statistics than and reach and effectiveness than you do. And so you're only hurting yourself. You're only hurting yourself. Facebook declining the organic reach, you know, maybe you could say, oh, ads have a boost that organic reach doesn't, but don't fuck with it and make it, you know, totally obsolete. That's just not cool. Like, no one's going to be on a platform if they can't, um, you know, share the cool things that they're doing. Um, yeah, so that means if you're, your pays, blah, blah, blah, I can't talk. That means if you're posting on facebook, only one to six percent of your facebook fans will actually see your posts, which really totally blows. So the bottom line is email has far greater reach than social media if you couldn't figure that out already. Speaker 1:                    08:47               So you're probably thinking, how do I get started? Well, I'm glad you asked. I'm here to tell you. So the first thing you want to do is choose an email service provider and I'm going to recommend three different options for you guys. So the first one is convert kit. Now I can't personally recommend convertkit because I've never used it, but I hear people rave about it all the time. So it may be one that you want to look into. Some of the pros are that it allows you to tag customers so that you can target them more effectively. And bloggers love it. Um, it's really helpful for small businesses and um, and sending like a content upgrades for your blog posts. It's easy to send those downloads and that kind of thing. Uh, some of the cons are it's $29 a month for the bottom tier guys. Speaker 1:                    09:40               So they have zero freemium option. There's no free option for if you're just starting out and it's not the most user friendly in the beginning. Um, I've heard people complain that, you know, um, they had a little bit of a hard time figuring out at first it's not as intuitive starting out, uh, the next email service provider that you could work with is mailchimp. Now, some of the pros of mailchimp is it's free for your first 2000 subscribers. That's pretty cool. I mean, you got to get mail chimp credit for this. Um, it's only $10 a month after that and then the tiers kind of increased from there. And one of the reasons I like mailchimp is because it easily integrates with squarespace. So I use squarespace for my, um, my website. And so mailchimp really easily integrates with them. So it's just like smooth sailing to collect emails from using mailchimp. Speaker 1:                    10:40               Um, and one little other pro is, it's an Atlanta guy, so like come on, we have to support them a little bit. Um, okay. So some of the cons, I will be honest about the cons. Uh, it's, there's no tagging. They have like groups in segmentation, but honestly like it's, it's very hard to, for me at least to figure out, I don't find that very user friendly or easy to manage. And I have heart. I've heard other bloggers complain, um, and really not recommend mailchimp because once they have a really large list, the functionality is not great. So that's something that also think about. They're like, hey, if I could have started with convert kit and I would've saved myself this huge headache once my list kind of exploded because then they had to go back and fix everything and like Redo a lot of their sequences and whatnot. Speaker 1:                    11:32               So that is just word on the street. And then the other Ma, a mail service provider that I do very much recommend and I have used them is mailer lite. Um, they are also free for your first 1000 subscribers, so it's not as many as mailchimp, but it's still great, like your first 1000 subscribers totally free. Um, and then after that it's only $10 a month as you incrementally increased here. So like for the first 1001 to 2,500 subscribers, it's only an extra, it's only $10. And then the next tier is only $20, et cetera. Um, so just as your subscribers increase, your fees increase. Um, the really awesome thing about mailerlite as well is that you can tag your lists to send more targeted emails. So let's say for example, um, as a designer, I, I work with a lot of real estate agents and I also work with bloggers I work with, um, I worked with like financial advisors, et Cetera. Speaker 1:                    12:37               So I might not want to send the same emails to my real estate agent customers as I do to my bloggers because they might have totally different needs and I might even be telling them about a product. Like I came out with this really awesome product. I'm God the real estate portrait Creator and it basically allows you to pick and choose some pre made options, literally over 70 faces and I'm adding more guys like if this is like a mega pack, awesome. 14 different houses and scenery. There's male realtors, there's female realtors on and on and on, different outfits. Um, and anyway, I would want to let my real estate customers know about that, but if I send an email to my entire list, then my, you know, blogger, customers are going to be like, I'm not a real estate agent. Why is she sending me this? Speaker 1:                    13:31               Like this is annoying. So like tagging your list is, is important. So that's the really awesome thing about mailer lite. I love them and I do use them in conjunction with mailchimp. The only con I can see so far is that it doesn't directly integrate with squarespace, which is the website I use, website hosting. I use and I think you can get around this with I'm doing a Zapier, a doing a zap, um, and it Kinda. Zapier basically connects different apps together. Um, and I tried to do that with mailer lite and I wasn't successful then I just kind of gave up because I didn't have time to spend hours trying to get it to work. So anyway, I'm still using mailchimp and as I'm a, I'm just in order to basically, uh, remember what customers are who are signing up for my email list. I'm just creating different lists in mail champs so I just have so many different lists in mailchimp. So eventually I can bring those over to mailer lite and just tag them. Um, and then I can target my audience really easily. Okay. So Speaker 1:                    14:42               after you choose a provider, convertkit, mailchimp, mailer lite, it's your choice. You have to decide what's best for you. I'm, you're gonna want to create a list for your email subscribers and you could just do like a basic one for now if you just have something very generic like a blog post that has, um, I dunno, organization tips or something that could be useful for anyone. Um, you could just make a subscriber's list will do for now. And then the next thing you want to do is you want to create newsletter signups all over your website. Now you want them to be strategically placed so that they're not too annoying, but at the same time like you want it to be seen. I feel like as as um, designers especially, but as any creative entrepreneur, we'd get a little bit nervous about, you know, annoying people, we don't want to annoy people, but I find that there's a healthy balance between pushing yourself a little bit out of your comfort zone and feel like you're being a little bit annoying. Speaker 1:                    15:44               That's probably the right amount because honestly guys, like people just get bombarded with everything. Email, social media, whatever everyday. So if you just send or you know, like anyway, you get the point, you do need them all over your website or nobody's going to see them and nobody's going to sign up. I'm so you're going to feel like slightly annoying probably if this is new to you, but don't worry about it, you're really not. And that's, you know, that's the way people are going to sign up if they want to. If they don't, they won't. Um, so you'll kind of be able to see if it's working or not. And so you may be thinking, well, okay, so I put these all over my website, but what if no one signs up? Okay, so sometimes you do have to entice people to give you their email address. Speaker 1:                    16:34               Why would they just, you know, people get bombarded with emails every day, so they're going to be a little bit hesitant, but what you can do, and this is a strategy that tons of people use and it's very highly effective. I'm offer a crazy, awesome freebie in exchange for their email address. Now, sometimes this feels like you're working for free, but if you can see the longterm picture, it's really totally worth it because you need leads coming into your business every single day. So you need to offer a really crazy, awesome Freebie, something that would probably you would normally charge for, but you just do the work once and people get to download it. It needs to be something downloadable. You don't want to sound like a hat because then you have to like pay for shipping every time someone gives you their email address, so you don't need to do that. Speaker 1:                    17:24               You just need to spend a few hours and create a really valuable pdf checklist. Um, she, she, um, as a designer I have offered for free real estate logos, so that's something that, uh, is really great for people that are just starting out and I hope I can help them out with that. Um, and then I hope they also see like maybe once they start earning some good money, they get some commissions, then maybe they want to come back and get kind of the full branding package, um, instead of just like a little house icon logo. Um, but that's a great starting point for my real estate agent customers. Okay. So you'll see here an example of my for, for your real estate logos, and the button says, give me for free logos and so they have to click on it and then enter in their name and email address. Speaker 1:                    18:18               Now, uh, this new law recently went into effect, uh, the GDPR, which I'm sure you got a million emails about, but you need to make sure every email signup that you have on your website is gdpr compliance. Uh, this is important, so it's not that hard. It's not that big of a deal, but what you do need is a privacy policy on your website and you can google, you know, how to do that for your business and just kind of like copy a template or something like that. Um, and then you need a disclaimer. Every time you ask for someone's email address, basically you just need transparency and telling them what you're doing. And so my disclaimer says, by signing up for this freebie offer, you agree to join our email list and receive occasional updates, we will never give your information to a third party and you can unsubscribe at anytime. Speaker 1:                    19:09               Please read our privacy policy here and I have a hyperlink to have my privacy policy so that everything is very clear and transparent. Um, and then if you're using mailchimp, I'm especially, you can do a double opt in, which is an even kind of an extra safety check. So you know, when people do sign up with your to get your free offer, your Freebie, they have to double opt in, which can sometimes be annoying because sometimes it goes to their junk folder and they don't see it and then they never get their freebie and are kind of wondering what happened. But you can try to follow up with those people, especially in the beginning. Speaker 1:                    19:46               Here is also an example of my landing page. So when you first go to my website, you'll see, um, what's up fool. I'm Lauren, Leslie, portrait, illustrator and designer. And then the very next thing you see at the bottom of the landing page is grab your free surprise and I'm asking for their first name and email address. So you know, people might not do that right away, but there is a little trick in sales that says people have to see things seven times before they buy. And I would be willing to bet the same thing is true with giving you their email address, so you just want to kind of make it very easy for them to sign up for your email address and put it all over your website. Okay. So the next thing you want to do is write a freaking email. It's gonna be weird. Speaker 1:                    20:33               At first it was weird for me. I didn't know what to say. I just was kind of blabbing on and then I was telling people about my new products and a few people on subscribed, which is always disappointing. But now I feel like I'm in a much better rhythm and I'm telling people that they actually want to hear about. Um, and I feel like I've really gotten comfortable with my own voice when I'm writing emails. Um, instead of sounding too quote unquote professional or Stoic, you know, you want to really put your personality in your emails, but the only way to get to that point is to start. So you just have to start somewhere. Don't worry about it, don't stress about it. And don't worry if people unsubscribe because new people are going to start subscribing everyday. Hopefully once you get that really awesome freebie up. Speaker 1:                    21:21               Okay? So your subscribers obviously signed up your email list for a reason. They love you and they want to hear from you and you don't want them to forget about you. So you know, if you, I mean, how many times have you gone to, you know, pinterest and then you ended up on some blog and it maybe it was a cool recipe or maybe it was something and you ended up subscribing for their email list, but then you never heard from them again and you totally forgot about them. But in contrast, maybe you did the same thing, but you hear from this person regularly and you were like, oh yeah, like if I need a recipe, I know I can go to this Vegan blog or whatever it is. Um, and it just like, Speaker 1:                    22:01               it just makes sure that you don't forget who they are. So you don't want your customers to forget about you. You spend a lot of time on this Freebie. Make sure that you are emailing them at least once a month. I would say like people say once a week, but at least once a month. I would email them when they first get their Freebie you want to send them, I would say three to four emails and you can space it out if you are scared about being annoying you, you could send the first email and then two to three days later a setup, a sequence where another email sends to them and then two to three days later another email sense to them and then you can kind of cool it and maybe email them once every week, two weeks, three weeks or once a month. But definitely keep emailing them because they're going to forget who you are if you don't and then you just wasted all this time and you know your potential lead is Kinda gone. Speaker 1:                    22:51               So you definitely want to do that. I'm not rules in next steps. I mean this is pretty obvious guys, but just don't spam people. I mean obviously that's probably the opposite of what you're thinking. You're probably scared to send an email in the first place because you don't want to seem spammy, but for those of you who are a little bit more ambitious, just, you know, don't spam the hell out of people like people hate that they're going to unsubscribe. Just bring value and be yourself and people will like getting your emails. That'll be fun. Oh, I'm going to be something they can kind of check when they're first getting out of bed or when they're sitting in a doctor's office kind of bored. Um, okay. So you. And then you want to set up an ongoing email sequence that's on autopilot so that way you're not having to like, scramble and Think, Oh my God, what am I going to email everyone this week? Speaker 1:                    23:43               You just want to set up a few at, I would say at least five to six initial emails just to get started. Um, and then you can tweak them later if you want to kind of change what they say or whatever. At first, do you want to thank them for signing up? Second, you want to give the full their freebie. They signed up for a reason, give them their Freebie, next, tell them your personal story. So we don't want to get personal all the time, like we don't want to be like, here's a picture of my dog today for like 30 days in a row because people are like, I don't, I don't get it. I don't care about your dog, like whatever. But if they are interested in something like getting a real estate logo from you or you're interested in their, um, recipes and maybe eventually you're going to buy their cookbook. Speaker 1:                    24:28               They want to know your personal story. They want to know who they're buying from and they want to really be able to connect with you. So share with them. Everyone has a story and everyone has been through something really shitty in their life but hopefully has a positive outlook on it. I mean, for me, like when I tell my personal story in my emails sequence, I want people to know, you know, that I'm not perfect and I'm not. I don't have this perfect life. Like my dad took his own life when I was six years old. And that really sucked, you know, and it still sucks, but I was really able to like dive into my art and in a way I think that my creativity kind of saved me. It was my strength, it gave me strength. Um, and then I kind of talk about, you know, my steps in my career, you know, how I was an art major in school. Speaker 1:                    25:17               And then I had my first job as a t shirt designer. I decided I wanted to do graphic design and not fine art full time. So that's what I did. And then, you know, that wasn't really a great fit. So I got my first or my second big girl job. I say my big girl job as a textile designer at a home decor company in Atlanta. And that's when I finally got to kind of say peace out Spartanburg, Spartanburg. It's my home. But I mean it just wasn't a good fit for me long term in terms if I want it to be a designer. Like I would have not been able to progress like I have in a big city like Atlanta. So that was just such a better fit for me and I'm so I really flourished here in Atlanta, so that's something that I tell my customers and they love it. Speaker 1:                    26:04               Like I've had people respond and be like, wow, thanks for telling me this like, and it hopefully makes them want to do business with me because they know that I'm a real person and I have struggles, but I also have successes and we're more alike than we are different. Um, so another idea for an email in your sequence is to share your best resources and tools. So if you use a program like a sauna or Trello, you can say how wonderful it is at project management. It helps you play in your blog posts or whatever your projects are in your business. You can talk about that. Um, you can talk about what kind of equipment you use, what books are you reading, if you have some cool business books that you're reading. I read entrepreneurial you by Dorie Clark who loved it, wrote a blog post about it. That's awesome. Um, recently read or I listened to the audio book, Anna Kendrick, scrappy little nobody. Oh my God, she's a freaking hilarious. You guys have to listen to her audio book. Don't read the book, listen to the audio book because she is so perfect in it and she's, her personality really comes through her voice and with her narrating the whole thing. It's just, it's pretty great. So that's another idea for your email list. Just share some cool resources and tools and like things that have inspired you in your business lately. Speaker 1:                    27:24               And then, um, at the end of your email sequence you can offer our prayer a, sorry, a paid product that is relevant to the Freebie that they wanted. So like my example of the real estate agents I'm giving for free real estate logos. But what I can do at the end of my sequence is say, hey, like I also have this paid product that's so much better than the four Fri logo. So like whenever you're interested, here it is. I hope you'll buy it Speaker 3:                    27:53               sometime at some point Speaker 1:                    27:56               and then you just want to make sure to remind them of how to find you on social. So I know this whole kind of videos about why email is so much better than social, but that's not to say that social isn't important. You still want to be able to connect with people on social. They want to be able to see your pictures. See that again, it's just another way for them to see that you are a real person for them to get inspired. It's just another point of contact. So while email is number one, you definitely also want to connect with your customers and leads on social, especially if they maybe a little hesitant to give you their email address. Maybe that's, you know, the second best thing you can do. Speaker 3:                    28:36               Um, Speaker 1:                    28:37               so, uh, I wanted to also let you guys know where to find me in case you ever want to work with me. My website is Lauren Leslie Dot Com a l a U R e n l e s l e y Dot Com. Lauren. Leslie Leslie as my middle name. I like the alliteration, that's why I chose it. Okay, so a click the link in the show notes to get the link to your email providers. And these are affiliate links guys. Um, but it's, that's great. It's a win win for you and me because with the affiliate links I can make a little bit of money, but still keep these videos totally free for you guys. So help us out. Speaker 1:                    29:19               Okay. So if you guys have any other ideas on why you love an email list or if you have any other email hosts, providers you want to recommend or any other ideas for an email sequence, please leave a comment in the notes below. And that way we can all share ideas. That'd be really great. And don't forget to subscribe to my youtube channel. Click the little button in the right hand lower corner and to get notified, click the little bell so that way you won't miss the next episode. And if you are on facebook, you can definitely join our facebook group. It's called the design tribe. So you can go to facebook.com/groups/design tribe. Lauren, Leslie, um, and I will also be live streaming videos in the facebook group, so that's a great place to find me. Thank you so much for watching. I'll see you next time. Bye guys.  

Hi. Okay. I'm figuring shit out. I'm figuring out my situation. I think I'm situated. Okay. I'm ... I'm in bed, that's what's up. Okay. What's happening with my internet, people? My internet ... I'm at home, the internet can't be going out. We're not in Bali anymore, but sometimes the internet in bedroom's dodgy because I'm up so high and I'm right next to the ocean. The ocean is like 50 yards away. Hello. Welcome to the Katrina Ruth Show where anything could happen and probably will. Hey Caitlin. Oh that made a difference didn't it? I have a special delivery coming in for me. Look at this, wine delivered to my bed. Can you please open the door for me - Yeah. - because I'm getting overheated already. Hello Melanie. Hello Amber. Hello [Luanna 00:01:20]. Hey Michelle, just manifested a live stream from me. Don't touch that. It's going to fall. Careful. Go downstairs with Phina. I'll be down soon. Can I stay with you? No, no, no. You've got to go downstairs with Phina. No. Come on. We'll do something fun. Lets go. No. Hey Angela. Hey Joe. Fine mommy. I love you. I hate you. Aw, that's not nice, is it? Okay. Hey Bobby. Come on. I'm coming. All right. How did I get the special emojis? Because I'm a ninja and because my team of ninjas ... He's left now. Not happy about it though. What he did before he left was pulled out my tripod balancing stand, which was a pirate book, so now we're going to have to resort to a Monster's University book to put under the tripod because otherwise the tripod's just balancing on the bed. I don't even know what I want to talk about. What did I say the title was? Oh that's right, because I know exactly what I want to talk about. Don't worry. All right, we have the Big Monsters on Campus, Monster's University tripod balancing stand is there. Welcome to the show. Oh do you know what, I just realised my team aren't online to share this live stream. I better share it over to my page. How'd ... That's all anyone what's to know is about the emojis. How? You be Katrina Ruth, that's how. Like a smart ass. You can do it in the Facebook Creator app. I didn't do it though. I'm going to share this live stream over to my personal page into the daily ass kickery and then we're going to get into the show and I just wanted to come on, have my wine delivered to me upstairs in bed. You found I'm cool. Damn that's a good wine. That's a new one. Seraphina went wine shopping for me. Smart ass. She's chosen an exceptional wine. Seraphina, who's arm you may have just seen appearing on camera bringing me the wine, is my amazing nanny/incredible at home personal assistant/she's a ninja in various aspects of my social media here at the Katrina Ruth Show. Okay, you know what, I just did this amazing, amazing audio for my Breaktheinternet.com members. Actually the programme hasn't even started. It doesn't start until tomorrow. Wait. That is such good wine. I'm definitely enjoying it. But it was pre-work. I did the audio as some pre-work, some additional pre-work. We already did pre-work two days ago and then long story short, I was driving along and I realised I wanted to create an audio and make some new pre-work for my members and I thought I'd talk about it a little bit here on this livestream, because it's such a powerful and important part of being as magnetic as fuck ... As magnetic as fuck ... Magnetic as fuck online, which has to do simply with being all that you already are and letting all that you are out. Who here has joined Break the Internet already and why will this live stream not share to my page? I'm going to ask Kelly too or I'll try and do it one more time. I'm trying to share it over to my personal page but it's just being a mother fucker and refusing to let me. Oh here we go. You know what, a lot of people ... Me, yes you have. A lot of people assume that I'm a natural extrovert, but if you get to know me I'm actually super introverted in real life and what I was teaching my members about ... If you're in Break the Internet, I don't think you've got this audio yet, it's still being converted and it's going to drop into the group in the next, however long. Very soon anyway. What I was teaching and explaining in that training was around how to let what's inside of you already out, because actually in order to show up fully online as a leader, as a powerful, revolutionary, bad ass leader, it's got nothing to do with already being a person who feels super charged with confidence or that you always know exactly what to say or anything like that at all. It's simply got to do with letting the real you out. That's kind of what I wanted to talk about today, but I'm getting kind of grumpy here because my internet's being super shitty and not letting me share my livestream over to my personal page. Can you ... And daily asskickery. All right, so I'll get Kelly to do it because otherwise it's just going to keep distracting me. Anyway, today I had my first day back in Australia. I haven't been here ... I've barely been here all year to be quite honest with you. I've been here for a total of two weeks for the entire fucking year I think, and today was my first day back again after being away again, again, in Bali, so it was a bit of a frazzle day just with the kids and running around and doing stuff and then tomorrow we're flying away again. Going away for a couple of days to my hometown in Melbourne for a six year old birthday party. Why would you not? Of course, for my nephew, and so it's kind of that slight feeling of never endingness is creeping up upon me. Where I get a little frazzled, I guess, when I think about it, but more so that I feel like it's going to impact my ability to show up and do what I want to do in my business or for example, I've been out all day and I've have an in and out of the car, driving around doing errands sort of day, and doing some bis stuff as well and doing some things for myself. I came home just now, 10 minutes ago, and I thought, well I can go live or I can go sit down and be a good mom and be with my children, who I haven't been with for two or three weeks. I have already spent quite a bit of time with them today actually, like early this morning before school and then during gymnastics for each of them and we did the park and we did a playground café and so definitely spent time with them. Now, coming onto live stream, I was like, well I could just sit down now, watch a movie with the kids and I'll definitely be online later tonight and do some more business stuff or I thought I could sneak up here into my bedroom and kind of like my plan was to sneak away so that they didn't notice, but obviously Nathan just came in and noticed, and just do a quick little live stream for you guys. Funnily enough or I don't know if this is funny or not, but for me that's what I kind of look at as my time. It's definitely not the only thing that I would look at as my time is to do a live stream, but it's definitely something where I was like, well if I go straight into that kind of evening witching hour with my children watching a movie and then cooking dinner and or playing Play Dough or whatever it is that we're going to do, there's that slight disconnect that I feel inside of me, where it's like I didn't fully honour my soul and then I feel a tiny bit shitty about it, right, I feel a little bit, not shitty at the kids or anything like that, I guess more so shitty with myself for not honouring myself and for not honouring what it is that I need to do. Also I haven't fully let out what's inside of me and so therefore there's this heightened energy. Have you ever noticed that? Maybe you've noticed this if you're a mom as well or a dad or could be to do with other things in your business. Maybe what you do is you go like, oh I really should go and do such and such admin shit in my business or I should go and finish off cleaning out my emails or answering people's inquiries and responses, but really what your soul needs and what would allow you to feel fulfilled and happy, would be to do some content for example and to show up and do a live stream or maybe write a blog post or share a story or essentially just unleash some form of messaging from inside of you. When we talk about showing up for all of you, a big of that, it's kind of what I said earlier, just letting that natural ... Oh my God. I don't know what I'm doing with my legs here. They're all tangled up in a pretzel. I'm going to give you a comment and then I'm going to keep talking. My page finally loaded over here. Okay, I just popped a comment in, which is about Break the Internet. It starts on Friday, US time on Friday, but we're right into pre-work now. We did an incredibly powerful pre-work exercise two days ago in the group. The group is out of control with bad assery. If you're in the group, how freaking good is it? Then I've just created a new pre-work training for today as well, which is essentially my favourite exercise that I've personally used for years now, in order to bring that extrovert, performer, entertainer side of me out, even as an actual introvert and even when I feel self conscious or I don't feel like showing up or I feel like I don't know how to really let that soul side of me out so that I'm speaking to people's souls and speaking to their hearts and getting the response, right. Break the Internet, it's called Breaktheinternet.com because it's just what I felt like calling it. Don't go the URL because it's not going to be my landing page for sure. I don't know what's at that website, I haven't even bothered to type it in. It's a day intensive smack down and it's ll about getting back to the real raw core of who you are and just unleashing the beast, so to speak, unleashing the soul beast. Letting people see and feel all of you and essentially in order to do that, as part of it, completely wiping off the table any sort of bullshit or drama you've got around feeling like not able to or self conscious or that you hold yourself back or you just don't share your full truth, you do some kind of half baked version of it. There's a lot of really deep powerful work that we're going to be doing this programme. You can read the pinned comment after we finish if you like and if it's speaking to you, you can just purchase straight from in there and jump straight into the group. It's on fire already and we haven't even started. This programme came straight out of my soul. If you read what's there, that's my entire sales copy is right there in a comment. There's nothing else, there's no sales page or anything like that and I wrote it in 10 to 15 minutes and it came from pure fury because I was shitty at myself and I wrote about this on Sunday last week when the programme came out of me. I was really shitty at myself. I was feeling like I haven't been letting all of me out. I've been in part, maybe not fully showing up and performing and doing what I'm meant to do because I've been travelling or whatever, bullshit, story, story, story, doing other things instead, but also that when I was showing up with my writing, with my speaking and being here or wherever I am, that I was holding something back, I wasn't letting my true soul out and I think that this just happens naturally. No matter how good you are, no matter how practised you are, and I'm pretty fucking practised at showing my soul on the internet, if we don't consciously set that intention that I'm going to give all of me, I'm going to let people see all of me, I'm gong to bare my naked soul to the world, I'm going to let my truth out, then we naturally just tend to let, I guess, some kind of a mask build up on us over time. It could be because maybe something triggered us or got to us or we had a moment of insecurity or it could just be that it freaking builds up, the same way that dustiness and dirt builds up on your skin. You got to shower every so often. For me it's like a soul shower. When I get into a good journaling session or a good [inaudible 00:12:26] work session, which is what I did on Sunday, where I kick my own ass and I really sat down and I was like, right, lets bring it bitches, I'm going to kick my own ass. In fact I'm going to share my journaling. Here's an unannounced bonus that I haven't even told anybody about, not even my members in Breaktheinternet.com, I'm going to share my exact journaling from Sunday, because what I did was, I did this empowered kind of rage and aggression filled journaling session. If I had my journal upstairs here I'd pull it out now and read a few bits, but it's downstairs and I don't want to risk getting the kids noticing that I'm not there again. They'll come running up here and then I won't be able to say anything. I did this kind of kick my own ass journaling session where I was really just like, this is bullshit and I'm sick of it and I just want to feel this and I want to let loose what's inside of me and I was empowered and I was passionate and I was angry, right, I was angry at myself. I started to get the idea for a programme and I knew that the first module will be, Get Angry. "Looking tan as fuck," says Karen. Thank you. I appreciate it, because like a normal freaking woman, the first thing I noticed was something I didn't like about myself when I jumped online. I should reframe that. Actually, lets reframe that a normal woman notices how fucking fabulous she looks, but the first thing that I noticed was that my hair was a little bit greasy and I started to get self conscious about it. All right, but I still continued on. I didn't jump off the live stream when I and noticed it. Anyway, I appreciate it Karen. Perfect time for a wine break. God damn that wine's good. I was getting angry and I knew that I was going to do a programme. I hadn't known that I was going to do a programme. I had no plan to launch something new when I sat down. I went down to the beach, the restaurant in front of the beach where I was at in Bali, Sunday afternoon, I was going to be going out for drinks at 5:00 PM and it was like 3:00 PM and I actually was just ... The reason I went down to journal was, I was like, I'm not going to enjoy my evening going out and we were planning a big night of going out and just being social and meeting new people and doing this kind of social connecting experiment that I've got going on at the moment, and so I knew that I wouldn't be fully in my flow zone with that. I just felt like I was shitty, right. I was shitty at myself because I knew that in my business I hadn't been fully expressing myself, I'd been hiding, holding back. Not in a ... I still show the fuck up, that's the reality, but it's about what we feel individually. I went and sat down to journal and the journaling got super fiery, it got super revved up and I just got into massive amounts of clarity and empowerment, but there was this aggressive energy to it and it was all coming from soul flow. What I was just saying, I'm going to share that exact journaling as an unannounced bonus into Breaktheinternet.com and that will be when we officially kick off tomorrow, so go to the pinned comment after this, read about Breaktheinternet.com, get your ass in there if you would like a 10 day intensive smack down from my soul to yours. The first module is going to be Get Angry, so it will be appropriate that I'll share my example of how I really reached into my soul and then when you read the overview for this programme you're going to see or you're going to feel that it came from a place inside of me. It didn't come from a thinking place of how do I come up with an offer or programme or something like that. It came from this place inside of me of aggressive energy, right. Sometimes when I download something from the soul it feels super, I guess, flowy and floaty and more of a so called light energy, whereas this feels a little darker and a little heavier, but in a completely beautiful way and you can just feel it when you read the copy. Well that sales copy took maybe 10 minutes to write, if that. I don't think it was even remotely 10 minutes and what happened was I would do my journaling like I said and then I wrote a blog post, which I very politely called You Snivelling Whiny Little Bitch, because I'm super friendly like that, and then somebody re posted it and talked about leaders online being violent in their languaging. I was Like holy shit, people who don't freaking read between the lines. Not my people, be on your way. Anyway, it was such a kick your ass blog post, but of course I'm writing it first and foremost for myself and it really just lit me up with love and power and rage and all those things definitely go together. I think that's obvious, right? For the right people they were like, holy fucking shit, I needed to hear that. After I wrote the blog then the programme just kind of flew out of me. I was not like, let me quickly whip up a programme offer before I go down to the beach club for sunset drinks and then going out into the evening. I was like, I need to unleash something inside of me or I'm not going to be a very good person to hang out with tonight and I'm going to be distracted and I'm not really going to be feeling in flow. I just was like, this is what I want to do for me before I go out. All right, so then I did that, programme just flew out of me. You can feel the energy of it in the post and it was that simple because it came from a place of showing all of me, right, which is the title of this live stream. It came from a place of, I didn't give a fuck, I wasn't thinking about what do I create to sell or what do I create to get people's attention, what do I create to be magnetic online. As soon as you start to think about, how should I be magnetic online? How should I be a powerful leader? How should I be anything? Well, you immediately, what you're doing actually is complete anti manifestation because you're saying that I'm not that thing, how should I be that thing? If I'm not magnetic, how do I be magnetic? That's stating that you're not magnetic, so that's what you're then creating and manifesting, right. It's like if somebody tries to be cool, it's like you're not cool dude. You're trying to be cool. You're a try hard, right, whereas if they completely themselves then they're cool as fuck in whatever way that is for them, right, and for us here's the thing, not everybody out there is magnetic and can be a leader and make a fuck load of money online and have an insane bad as following of people who just binge on their content like it's Netflix. That's reality, but if you're here ... Hey Matthew. Shout out. If you're here, then you know who you freaking are, right, but that doesn't mean you don't need to kick your own as snow and again. If you know that that's who you are and that's inside of you, then that's all you need to know. You don't need to ask how to do it, you just need to fucking be it. But how do you be it? Okay, you don't ask how to be it, you just be it. It feels confusing. I know, it's annoying. Lets have some wine and take a moment and then I'll explain. How? How? How did I unleash such a powerful programme that people are just like, holy fuck I've got to part of that, right, and when you read the comment about it you're like, even if it doesn't speak to you and you're like, no it's not for me, but you'll feel that it came from a real raw place. How? Because I didn't fucking sit down to ask myself how I can quickly make a few extra tens of thousands of dollars on the internet in a couple of days, which is what ultimately then happened and then some, because then it kind of triggered into a bunch of other stuff as well, not even relevant to this business, because it was like super flow had been activated. I didn't sit down to do that. I didn't even sit down to write about [inaudible 00:19:39] blog post. I didn't sit down to come up with a programme. I didn't sit down to actually do anything for you guys, sorry to tell you. I was not sitting down with you in mind. I was sitting down shitty at myself. I was sitting down because I wanted to kick my own ass. Natalia says, "I tuned into your live before I joined it." Perfect, we're on the collective energy wave length here. You just got the signal and then you're Like, oh yeah, I'll come and listen to the human version, but you're getting it anyway. I love it. That's the thing, right, I was giving myself what I needed. I was kicking my own ass. I was doing what I needed to do for me and as a product of doing that and as a product of reminding myself who I fucking am and kicking my ass to be who I am, something came forth from me, spewing like a fiery river into the night or actually it was the Bali sunset and it was very beautiful. Then I did that blog and that that was just to unleash my soul, because I freaking needed the release and I wanted the release and I desired the release and there will be no blanket till marshmallows. There is a blanket here and it's possible ... This is embarrassing for everybody, but predominantly for me. There might be a bowl of kind of stale chocolate licorice bullets in the drawer next to my bed. It could be an illusion. It might not actually exist or be real. We'll taste test. They look pretty old. I actually was like, I wonder if there's chocolate in that drawer, I know I used to put it in there sometimes. I think they're pretty old. I have no recollection. Lets test. They're fucking good though. I don't know what this round thing is. I don't trust it. Okay. I'm allergic to licorice. I'm just letting you guys know. Anything could happen now. That's probably why they're still in there, because I fucking love it. All right, lets manifest that I'm not ... Fuck I can feel it already. Don't worry I'm not going to pass out, but I can feel it already. I'm just a rebel. I just don't give a fuck. I'm just going to eat stuff that I react to. Okay, that was a reckless and kind of stupid move. I think the wine will help cleanse it through my body so that I don't have any more of a reaction than the one that I can already feel. I definitely have always been allergic to licorice, but you know, I'm reckless as fuck. As long as I drink plenty of water I can handle the allergic reaction. I sound like a moron, but I like chocolate licorice so much, but then I did kick my own ass about it later and people kept buying me licorice bullets because I think I talked about it and then I overdosed on them one night and I was fucked up for an entire three days. All right, so anyway, my soul's a little bit of an immature child at times I think and just likes to do stuff. I can feel the freaking flush coming. I'm making it up. I'm so full of bullshit. I'm just making the story in my head aren't I? I feel like I want to take my top off though because I'm getting a hot flash from it. All right, so anyway, we're talking about how to be all that you are on the internet. I didn't even use the word internet, just be all that you are in general real life. What's the name of this live stream? Let me check. Let me make sure I get it right because it's important and I might accidentally say the wrong thing, not that I've got any fucking clue what I'm saying anyway. Doing the damn work of being all of you. Well exactly right. Exactly right. I wasn't being all of me. I'd become the most boring person in the entire internet, if not the world, and then I did a live stream about that. Lets cleanse this licorice out. I only had two. Do you think it's appropriate that I just looked over at my books right then and I happened to, the first book that caught my eye is Russell Brand's book on getting past addiction? I think there's something to be said about that. It's a great book by the way. You know, I did the crazy ass livestream from the cab then on the way to going out, because I was so riled up and I talked about how I was the most boring person on the internet, but the point is that doing the damn work of being all of you, there's many things that could be said about that. I did an entire training for my members and it's not even part of the official content, it's just pre-work. I did that training today. It's dropping now or tonight sometime into the group and you can get that right away and then we start officially around about this time tomorrow, so Friday morning US time. What time is it even ... Nope. It will be even later than that. Whenever it is, we start on Friday. I don't even know when it is, all right, and I do the training on how to bring out the extrovert side of you that's in there even if you're a natural introvert and step into the performer, entertainer, leader and using the exact exercise that I've used for sometime now, where it's now automatic, I don't have to think about it, but how I kind of based it, what I based it on to step into my true entertainer, performer. That's just one side of it, because what I'm saying now, the other side of it that I'm saying now is, well what if you just always gave yourself the space and opportunity to be all that you are, right. What I did on Sunday, no I'm not going to go out socially until I've done what I need to do for me, because it's just what I felt to do and I was going into myself to deal with my own shit. I wasn't doing that to try and make a buck or an extra few bucks or whatever it was and that's just, you know, it's a trust thing isn't it, because I know that it seems like, well but if I never tried to make money or to build my following online or to get a sale, then how would I ever get there? I guess the question is, well do you trust that you're going to be the person who'll actually do the damn work, because for me it's just a natural flow and effect of being all that I am. When I be all that I am, I naturally am a powerful messenger and leader and I'm also a natural bad ass sales person. That's me being all that I am. I don't have to remind myself to do that. I've been selling since I was three years old, right. Nobody taught me. It was in my blood from day one. I just figured it the fuck out and I always had a side hustle and I did many things of somewhat disrepute and many things of grand repute I imagine and I was always making money. Sure, I learned some stuff about selling over the years. I learned some things about some things, but mostly I threw out everything I learned because all of the strategies that I use now and really what I'm teaching in Breaktheinternet.com is about getting back to who you are. All the strategies I use, how I show up now, this is the me who was there when I was three years old or five years old or ten years old. This is the me who was inside of me even when I was a really shy, awkward, super geeky, nerdy kid, that me was still there and would come out on the right occasion, right, and particularly when there was a hustle to be had or a creative endeavour to be dived into. Nobody needed to tell me, nobody needed to show me and I didn't need a rule book or to follow rules, it Just fucking happened the same way that it is now. You know, I jumped on this live and I was like, I'm not sure where this will go. I feel like it will be quite a quiet live and it's getting a little rowdy as it is. It doesn't really matter, but the point is, I did start to say this earlier and of course I lost it, I was saying why I jumped on this live was not, again, not to do a live stream, not to make a sale, not to even impart my glorious pearls of wisdom to you. It was because I was thinking about, am I going to spend the next two or three hours sitting down ... Is my cheek getting licorice puffy? Does my cheek look blown up like a squirrel's been in there with its nuts? That sounds bad. Is my cheek puffy as though I am a squirrel and I've been storing nuts in it or am I imagining it? That's how it looks to me. I jumped on the live because I was thinking about spending the next three hours doing, you know, being a mom and playing with the kids and I just knew that I'd feel a little like I hadn't let out what's inside of me if I did that and I thought I would do a quick 20 minute live stream and then I'm gong to feel good because I enjoy doing that and I like to let my message out and then I'm going to feel ready to relax and unwind and be with my children and go through all that and enjoy that time and space. Then, you know, as it happens, I found my flow, we're talking about some things. I'm sure it's impacting somebody in some way and maybe even someone's going to join Breaktheinternet.com, right, and that is a bonus and an outcome of me doing the damn work of being me. What does it mean for you to do the damn work of being you? Does it mean stepping up into different areas in your business in a practical sense or does it simply mean honouring what you need? I stood right there in my bathroom ... Visual to prove that there really is a bathroom there. There it is. It's real. It's got a huge bath. If it's daytime, if you're in that bath you can look out that window there and you'll see the entire fucking ocean, both of those windows there. There's all those books with Russell Brand's book over there. Best view ever when I wake up in the morning in my bedroom. I stood in the bathroom and my face was shiny, so then I was like, oh I'll put some powder on and do a live stream, but I was like, maybe I won't. I nearly went back downstairs. I'd already tod Fina I'm going to do a live stream. I was like, I don't need to, maybe I won't. I thought maybe I would just go chill with the kids and then I was like, no, because I can just feel that desire and that need to unleash something and that's who I am. When I'm being all of me, when I'm doing the damn work of being who I am, I'm letting out what's inside. You know, there's some many points through the day for each of us and I let many of them slip away because maybe I'm driving or I'm at the gym or whatever, but there's so many points for each of us through the day where you have a download, you have something pulling at you. I didn't even have really a download of being fired up about talking. I had a title, but I didn't have a fired up energy about all these things I wanted to say, but I had a pulling at me to share something, to say something, to just turn the camera on, to press go live and to just do my damn thing, right. There's many times for each of us through the day where you have an inspired idea or a little flicker of, oh this would be a post, and then you let it go. I think sometimes that's fine. You know, maybe you are fucking driving, you don't have to pull over every time you have an idea and do a live stream, but maybe sometimes you do, right. I swear to God, this cheek has gone puffy as fuck. All right, I'm trying not to get distracted by it. Maybe sometimes you do. Maybe sometimes now you could start to get more into a process of saying yes when you're being guided to take action from within. I could have said no to myself on Sunday. I could have said, it's already 3:00 PM, I'm supposed to be meeting my friend at 5:00. There's a fucking sunset that we're supposed to watch so you don't want to get there too long after 5:00, right. I was conscious of the time and I was grumpy and a bit tired. I could have said to myself, no look it's not a big deal, I'll journal in the morning, but something within me was like, sit your ass down and deal with what you're feeling shitty about inside of yourself right now and so I went and did it. Blog came out, fucking programme download came out. My entire energy state just shifted and changed in that moment. I'd been writing on a super flow wave, you know, like nothing else ever since and everybody's seen and felt it and jumped on board as well and that is what happens when you say yes to you. When you think about it, when I look back, all of these moments, so many moments in my business story, so many programmes, so many things that have made a serious fuck load of money, if I look back to where that came from, the things that have made the most money with the greatest ease and had the greatest impact into other people's lives, they 100% came from me saying yes to flow into my soul. In fact, I've never had an insanely successful programme that made me a lot of money, that came from a place of me sitting down and asking myself, what should I come up with to sell and make money? All right, so stop doing that shit. It's a waste of fucking time and it's draining. It all came from me responding to something inside of me, so you can see that in a very real sense, I wouldn't have this business and you wouldn't even be here, none of us would be here on this live stream or maybe in this world at all, right, because I created the world after all. The world I live in, I don't mean I'm God. This business wouldn't be here though if I hadn't of built a habit of saying yes to my soul. I thought that I was going to get on here and talk about doing the damn work of being all of you, relevant to, I guess, being more charged or fired up or magnetic or whatever online. I guess that is kind of what I've talked about, but it's come out in a different way, because here's the deal right, when you're saying yes to you, when you're doing what you need to do for you, the outcome will automatically be that the right soul mate people are magnetically attracted to that. If this is something that's speaking with you ... I'm going to read you my sales copy now because I like to read. It's time to get angry with yourself for being so restrained, so held back, so shockingly and appallingly and awfully careful. Don't you remember who you are? I should have scripted this so I remembered it. Didn't you come here to break the God damn internet and not with your ass, although if you aren't sure, why not. Don't you want to let what's inside of you out and aren't you sick of it eating you alive? That's how I feel when I'm not letting it out. I feel disgusted at myself. I think I'm going to re watch my own live stream from Sunday in order to just kick my own ass again, because I was just like, this is vile. It's a disgusting feeling when we are not being all of who we are. Okay, I'm just ad lipping on the sales ... Ad libbing, not ad lipping, on the sales copy. It's disgusting, it's nauseating and it's killing you, not so damn softly either. Well guess what? I see you. Yes I do. I've done the exact same thing. I already told that story. What you think I'm just being an asshole on the internet and yelling at everybody? Well, somebody did because then she re posted a bit of blog the next day and said I was a violent leader. All right, anyway, not one of our people. You know that my message is always first and foremost for me and today I came here to call to arms, all of us, to call to war, to call to fucking soul aligned bad assery, the women, the men, the you who was born for it and ready to fucking bring it. Breaktheinternet.com. No, there's no URL, I just like how it sounds. A 10 day smack down experience, you and me all the way in. Okay, all week long I've been saying that it's a 10 day intensive experience and I just read in my own copy that it's a smack down, so that sounds more aggressive than in intensive, so it's going to be even more brought than what we thought we were going to bring. Strictly limited to certified crazy critters who refuse to conform and know that they just can't refuse. I feel like something is missing. All right, no need to edit. For you if you strongly suspect that there is a way to do business and life which does not fucking involve doing what they tell you and that not so deep down you are quite certain that the way you're pussy footing around the internet, be honest biatch, and your life right now is never going to get you to the place you dream of. Not to mention it might kill you or somebody else with how freaking boring it is and then what sort of sabotage are you going to get into because you're so bored with your life. I haven't done anything this intensive and did, this is true, at this sort of price point for literally years. I'm ready to tear shit up and I've already started in the group. How bad ass is the Facebook group already for this programme? It's out of control with madness. I want the exact actual bad asses that are born of it here with me. All the ... Oh. Do you like how I just broke the fucking internet reading about Break the Internet. I think Mark Zuckerberg is messing with me. What was I up to? All right, I want the exact actual bad asses born for it here with me. Can't freaking pre prepare that shit. That was crazy. You'll be receiving daily deep dive content from me, in fact you're receiving it before you even start. You could wait like a crazy person til tomorrow to join up at the last minute and then you're going to be hustling your ass off to do the pre-work at the last minute when we're already starting the actual 10 day work. I mean, you're going to get it all to keep for life anyhow, but why would you do that? Why? Be a person who says yes to their soul fast. It's not just about saying yes to your soul, it's about learning to say yes to your soul fast. The faster you get used to saying yes to your soul fast ... Say fast more often. The more you do it without hesitation, the higher the results. That's a real thing, right. It's actually the same as what my mom used to teach me and what church used to teach me about getting into heaven, right. If you live in faith and commit your life, this is what I learned growing up, then you get in with pearls and gold and shit, but if you wait til the last minute before you accidentally die to ask for forgiveness, then you get in, as they call it, by the skin of their teeth. Well, however you might feel about that, that's the same thing with saying yes to your soul, for sure. If you drag it the fuck out and then say yes to your soul eventually ... Look at that bloody nail ... Then you're going to get some results but you missed out on a lot of the gold and glory and the flow zone things. That's true and if you get used to saying yes to your soul right away, that's where true abundance and receiving with ease ... Just broke again. What a MOFO. Okay, so anyway, don't wait to sign up, particularly because I might not be able to finish reading all of this and then you'll know nothing about anything except it is in the comments, so the link is in there to buy, to join me. Join me, join me, join me. Daily deep dive content, that's what I was up to. Insane shit going down. Daily ass kicking and alignment smack downs, of course. Precise instructions on how to reach into your soul and show us what is actually there. It could be scary. Okay, there's a lot I'm going to read here. As the result of this you will break the fucking internet with your true soul content. I'm going to read it fast. Are you ready for this? I could read it in an accent or I could read fast, you choose. Call in your soul tribe by demonstrating with fire and passion what you actually stand for and against. Polarise like a mother fucker and no doubt lose some people. Number four, probably lose weight and have insane sleep and sex because you'll be so in alignment and fired up. Warn the appropriate people for the latter, I'm not kidding. That's for the sex bit. Number five make new friends and met killer clients in this intensive and for collusion's of no doubt questionably epic levels. Number six, create and launch minimum one new offering, the kind that leaves people on the edges of their seat saying, "Fuck me please.' I don't think I thought about that when I wrote it. I've never re read this copy until right now. I didn't mean ... I didn't mean that they're going to be saying, "Fuck me please.' I meant that they're going to say, "Fuck me, please." Like, fuck me, that's amazing. Please give it to me, but when I read my own copy now it looks like I'm promoting that they're going to be saying to you, "Fuck me please." Like I said, I never re read the copy until now. It is what it is and that's all it is. Tear down a tonne of limiting beliefs, not to mention bullshit in your bis that you thought fucking mattered. I wonder why none of my team told me about that? They're just like whatever, that's probably something she should say. Learn how to leverage social media like a mother fucker. Where to post your shit and what to do with it. How to leverage, repurpose, get insane engagement and more. How I copyright with ease and flow. I'm still like, my mind is a little bit blown that nobody's commented on that to me all week. How I copyright with ease and flow, without re editing anything. It obviously still works. Oh my God, I'm cracking up at myself because now it says that I'm going to teach you how to do it with almost zero mistakes or edits required. Well almost is almost, okay. To make millions of dollars per year. Well that's a given. Including a paint by numbers formula which any monkey can follow and then promptly discard, of course. Why would you want to follow a paint by numbers monkey formula, but you can have it if you like and then you can toss it out the window like a cake. Promptly discard when your soul delivers the goods. I don't know if you noticed, but I just did an automatic bicep flex there. It's a little embarrassing so I'm going to draw attention to it in case you noticed and thought that I'm ... I don't know, whatever you thought, but now I've pointed it out so you can think whatever else you want to think. Okay, there's three more points. How to access your highest soul guidance on any situation and always know what to do. Of course. Exactly how I do my instant manifestation and mindset work each day. That might be my favourite bit, one of them. Every bit is my favourite, they're all my favourite bits. A fuck load more, which will no doubt come through me as we go. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Pre-work starts Tuesday. That already happened. Where are you? That's on. Pre-work's already on and the programme, Breaktheinternet.com starts Friday, May 25. Enough is enough. It's time to do what you God damn here to do. All the way in or all the way out and then there's an infusion self link. There's no sales page. I know you're going to need to write a letter. You're going to need to have a cup of tea. Maybe have some licorice bullets to soothe you. Have some wine. There's no sales page. You're going to deal with or not deal with it, whatever it is. Then get added to the closed Facebook group right away before we even start. If you sign up now I will add you. I will be online for many hours still. Linda Doktar is somewhere in my home. She may or may not be home right now, I don't know, but she's appearing and we will be up late. #Shenanigans. That to do with Linda but it's also right here in the sales copy. Normally there'd be a proper sales page and shit, but normally I don't go behind my team's back on a Sunday afternoon to randomly launch something. Normally, wait, we don't fucking do normal. I'll see you inside. Booyah. That the whole sales copy. Now I read it aloud for you and also found a few minor, could be errors, but clearly it's worked for me all week long, so I'll just leave it as it is. That might be all that I have to say about that. Thank you for coming and playing with me. Is there anything else that I want to tell you? Let me tune in. Let me consider. No. Nothing else is coming through me. I'm very excited to share the new pre-work into the group. I'm extra, extra, next level as fuck excited, level as fuck excited for what's coming over the next 10 days. This is a soul download. It's not a light, airy, breezy, beautiful, floaty, cover girl type energy. I don't know what that means, words Just come out of my mouth, and it's not that though. It's an intense energy, the work that we're doing here, as you can feel. It's an aggressive energy, it's a soul unleashing ... All right, I think obviously Facebook ended the live stream for me. That was all I had to say, except for, life is now, press fucking play. Read the pinned comment, get your ass in there. I'll see you there on the other side.

FFRF attorney Patrick Elliott describes our lawsuit over the state of Kentucky denying a personalized license plate that says "I'm God." Classical pianist Jarred Dunn performs Debussy and Chopin on FFRF's Steinway piano. Then we talk with FFRF attorney Andrew Seidel, who has become the Director of FFRF's Strategic Response team, about overtly theocratic public officials who don't know where to draw the line between state and church.

It's episode 10 so we're doing something special by including Top 10 lists throughout the show. We do music recommendations this week, Was Final Space too emotional, AP Bio never ceases to be funny, We don't get too tripped up on Netflix and Hulu recommendations this week, and We end the show with wrestling news per usual. We hope that Tye Dillinger would be proud of us with this reference. Outro: "I'm God" - Clams Casino

These are songs that the Lord has laid on my heart over the last several months. I'm not good at writing music out, so I had to record them on my humble little keyboard. I hope you enjoy! If you're blessed by one of these songs and would like to talk to someone about performance rights, please email me at thesonradio@gmail.com or contact Bull Creek Music Group at (770) 538-0100.

If you like Braunschweiger you're gonna love this! The fellas talk about a variety of subjects - go ahead skip around if you get bored! topics: its ok to party, but how? what in the world is epiphany? Why was Jesus baptized so what? debating and discussing some dude's 6 disruptive church trend blogpost. Sometimes God just says - I'm God you are not. deal with it. Why is the US hung up on Israel? are you annoying to argue with? you might be a sophist! MUSIC: intro i love my man by the dead bees, outro wild beasts by JA Hess