January 29, 2024 • 36 mins
Witness a masterful portrayal of how the complexities of life and faith highlight the significance of our relationship with God. Reflections on thorns in our lives, often avoided, are painted as opportunities for growth in faith, as we await God's healing touch. The episode concludes with an inspiring call to emulate the eagle's endurance facing adversity and invites listeners toward unwavering trust in God's benevolent grace. Experience personal growth and spiritual awakening in this enriching voyage into the heart of biblical interpretation.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:09):
I'm your host, Glenn Cruz, and as an ambassador of the kingdom of God,
I am so honored and excited to be with you again, as it is the will of the king,
both politically and spiritually,
because we represent a government that is the kingdom of God.
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Welcome, fellow citizens. I petition and pray that our Lord and King,
our Savior, has blessed you this past week and know that he's blessed me and my family.
He's blessed my wife and my daughter.
And I know that he has because one of the things I know is we're still here.
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We're still able to wake up and function and go throughout our day with the strength,
that's manifested by our Lord and Savior, because no one in this home has the
human strength to push the way we have for the past year and a half.
So that leads us into today's topic, topic which is going to be out of Isaiah chapter 40 verse 31.
(01:23):
But before I get into that I want to I want to provide some context for this.
So in Isaiah 39 it speaks about the king's son of Babylon at the time.
Now Hezekiah he was sick. He was the king during this time when Isaiah was was
when, when Isaiah gave this prophecy.
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And it's a second part of a prophecy that he gave Hezekiah, but Hezekiah was
sick and he was just now recovering from his illness.
So what the king of Babylon, you know, he was doing, he was sent,
he sent some letters and some presents to Hezekiah to, to wish him well,
that he gets healthy and stuff like that.
(02:07):
And Hezekiah at that time was, Because, you know, he was at that once he got
those letters and received those letters,
he he wanted to show them his his his his wealth is basically what he did.
He showed him his wealth in return because what he wanted to do was kind of
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show that he can partner up and help contribute an alliance against the Syrians at that time.
To help defeat the Assyrians. And, you know, obviously we know that Israel ended
up in captivity underneath Babylon.
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And because he showed them his wealth and all that stuff, you know,
this right here is kind of where Hezekiah,
where he sinned, because he was using his wealth as before people in a systematic way.
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And they were still going to get captured anyway. They were under captivity.
But it wasn't because of Hezekiah's sin that they ended up going into captivity.
But it was also because of the corrupt leadership of Manasseh and then Hezekiah's
son also at that time. So, you know, a lot of things went into play with that.
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But Hezekiah didn't help with giving or showing his trying to display his power through wealth.
And it didn't work. So during that time, Isaiah comes in, you know,
he goes and visit Hezekiah unannounced to to give him word.
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And this wasn't the first time that Isaiah had done that.
So what he did was he went in and gave this prophecy to Hezekiah and basically
told him that they were going to get captured.
So this happened shortly before Israel was went into captivity underneath Babylon.
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Right. So the now we move up to verse the chapter 40. and this kind of where
the prophecy occurs that Isaiah has given him.
And, you know, in the beginning part, it was when he first spoke,
you know, the word says, comfort, comfort, my people, says God, says your God.
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It says speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her, right, that her warfare is ended.
So he was initially talking to Israel and he wanted to provide them some comfort for what was to come.
Right. But it. So this comfort that was to come, it started out with Israel.
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But because of what the Lord says in verse three, it kind of moves it into a
national what I would say a national event.
National audience, which would be every one of God's believers, right?
Because in verse three, it says, and a voice cries in the wilderness,
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prepare the way of the Lord.
And if you recognize that, that is a prophetic exhortation that's told to Israel
to prepare them for the revelation revelation of the Messiah's arrival.
Right. So now when you bring up that, that's also mentioned back into Mark is
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mentioned in Luke three is mentioned in John one.
So, you know, and Elijah was also a part of that, you know, so we kind of been
in Elijah, but Elijah was also a part of, this forecoming prophecy as well.
So with Isaiah bringing that up and the word of God,
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mentioning that, you know, so that kind of moves into the greatness of God and
what he was just talking about in Isaiah 40.
And, you know, if you get time, you know, I would suggest that you just just
kind of go back and read Isaiah 39 and Isaiah 40.
But what I want to do is I kind of want to talk about Isaiah 40 and verse 31.
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Because, you know, like I said, we've been in this mental health crisis.
You know, series for a while now. And I've been in that series because the,
the, the spirit has the spirit of God has, he's wanting me to do that.
You know, it's, it's something that I'm dealing with and my family is dealing
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with. My wife is dealing with it.
You know, I may be talking about it from, from my perspective and I only can
speak from my perspective,
but I know we're talking with my wife that,
you know, her perspective is totally different because she's actually the one
that's fighting mortality and I'm not,
you know, so my perspective is different and I consider mine's more of a fleshly
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perspective of all this.
Right. So it's not to make, you know, my story is sad.
It's not sad because, you know, God's perfecting everything,
but he's definitely perfecting my flesh and, and, and he's, he's given her some thorns too.
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So, but it's just different, right? Because like I said, she's one facing mortality
and I'm not right now, you know, cause I'm healthy and she's not.
And that's just the reality of it all right now. But back to the text.
So what I like to talk about is how we We renew our strength during this time
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when we're going through trials, you know.
So in Isaiah 40, verse 31, let's take a read of that.
And it says, but they who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength.
They shall mount up with wings like eagles and they should run and not be weary.
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They should walk and not faint.
Now you know if you've been in church of any
amount of time I'm sure at some point
you've probably heard that verse and you know
we we like to use it as a I would say a feel-good verse every time I hear it
it's more of a motivational type of of context and it's that's fine but when
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you're seeking the Lord for your help hope.
I have to. And this is where becoming a Berean is important because you have
to go into the background of the word.
Right. And see and understand in the context of how this was given,
God was providing comfort for the trial that was coming for Israel.
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And he also provided comfort for us in the future.
Right. Right. So this is not just a national, just an Israel promise.
This is actually where it bleeds over and ties over to all believers in the kingdom. Right.
So let's just break this down a little bit. It says, let's take verse 31.
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It says, but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength.
So once you kind of look that up and do some research on that,
looking at some commentary here, it says,
There is a general principle here that patient, praying believers are blessed
by God with strength in their trials.
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It says the Lord also expect his people to be patient and await his coming in
glory at the end of the fulfilled, the promises of the national deliverance.
This is when believing Israel would become stronger than they have ever been. in.
So that's how I said that it kind of blends in over from Israel's belief.
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And, you know, God still has a they still have a special place in the kingdom,
you know, but their disobedience got us engrafted in.
But God hasn't removed them from their place of being the chosen people. Right.
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So, you know, once they all start to believe and turn the corner,
then, you know, that prophecy will be fulfilled.
But when we kind of look at waiting on the Lord's strength.
There's a verse here that says 2 Corinthians 12 and 8 and 10.
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So we're going to go to 2 Corinthians and we're going to go to 8 and 10.
So I think I told you 2 Corinthians 12, verse 8 and 10.
So it says here, and this is Paul talking now, right?
It says, three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me.
But he said to me, and this is the words of Jesus, it says, My grace is sufficient
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for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness.
Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weakness so that the power
of Christ may rest upon me for the sake of Christ.
Then I am content with my weakness, insults, hardships, persecution and calamities.
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For when i am weak then i'm strong
so it says here
three times paul pleaded that the
hindrance of his his ministry would would be taken away from him right and and
in paul's prayer to jesus he was just kept asking him to remove it and the thing
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that he wanted him to remove was the demons that That were attacking him.
It was a threefold repetition where Paul requested.
Just like Jesus requested three times at Gethsemane.
Right. So both Paul and Jesus both requested.
For the cup to be taken away from him. And both times it was denied. But. But.
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What's granted to them was grace to endure and finish the assignment.
So the lesson for us here is we can ask God to take it away.
And if he happens to take it and if he takes it away, we have to be careful
of who we allow to take it away. Right. Because.
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God doesn't take away our calamities. what
he does is he provides strength renewed
strength to continue the assignment
that he wants you to to to do and when he does that you should see changes within
yourself you should see changes of you know someone who's going through this
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trial with you you know there has to be be changes that you will see.
The blessings are not the material things that you see.
You know, those are just, what are those? You know, I will, I will call those commodities, right?
But the thing that, that is worth
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anything to God is, has your character become more like Like his son.
Period. Has your heart changed during your trial?
And if it has, then you're able to make different decisions.
You're able to make what I would think a better decision.
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And you would think about life as more, you know, then life becomes more about
how you can change and how you can help others. than about yourself.
And that's tough because like I've mentioned before, we're, we're,
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we're, we're selfish people.
We think about ourselves first and then we want to, you know,
think about others second,
but being a caregiver for me, I'm having to think about everybody else first
and the flesh eats me up daily about it, right?
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And the easiest thing to do is really the hardest thing for me to do because
I have a covenant with my wife.
I have a covenant with God and I want to be around for my daughter.
She means the world to me. And we don't get opportunities to raise kids that
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God has ordained us with, right?
It's they're not they don't belong to us, but we're just given to them,
you know, given to us to raise for God.
And I just want to do the best that I can to raise her so that she can complete her assignment.
The reason why she's here. Right. So.
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But, yeah, that's that's what Paul was dealing with.
So when you say three times and then you hear this next verse,
it says, well, he doesn't take it away, doesn't address it.
And all that the Lord says is, hey, my grace is sufficient for you and my power
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is made perfect in your weakness.
Right so god wouldn't
remove the thorns from paul that he requested but he
continually supplied him with the grace that he needed because us as humans
we are the weaker instrument and when we have grace you know i'm starting to
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understand in the supply of grace.
When I show up at work every day, that's grace because I could have made a different
decision not to go, not to show up.
My heart could have led me somewhere else, but because my heart is activated
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right now to please God, he's like, man, I'm going to give you you grace.
I'm going to help you push through and get everything done in the mornings, drop Abigail off.
And I'm going to give you the right mindset to keep pushing.
It's going to be tough, but I'm going to give you the mindset.
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I'm going to give you grace to make it through.
To say the right things, to bite your tongue, even though you're frustrated
and you're going to go to work and you're going to allow people to tell you
what to do there because they have bought your time.
They bought your time. So for the next eight hours, since they bought your time,
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you need to perform well as if you're working for me because I allow them to buy your time.
That's grace, Right. So I try to give my all where I can and where I can't.
It's just, man, I just apologize to God because I'm just in a whirlwind right now.
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That kind of explains that verse, or at least that portion of the verse.
Now, let's go to the second half of that verse. Let me get back to it here.
Isaiah 40 and 31.
You have to forgive me. I'm kind of kind of flipping through here.
But let's go back to where the second part, it says they shall mount up with wings like eagles.
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So, you know, I hear about eagles and all that stuff all the time.
You know, that reference of eagles is made throughout the Bible.
So I wanted to look up some more different commentary and I found some through
Fawcett and David right back in 1882.
And what they said here sparked me on a journey to to do some additional research.
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But this is what they said about this verse. It says they shall put forth fresh
feathers as eagles, as said to the renovated themselves.
The parallel clause renew their strength confirms this.
The eagle was thought to mount and renew his feathers and win them his strength in old age.
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However, in the English version is favored by the descending climax, mount up, run and walk.
And in every attitude, the praying, waiting child of God is strong in the Lord, unquote.
And that was some commentary.
But what fascinated me was renew the feathers.
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So I was like, I typed in in YouTube, renew the strength of of eagles.
How do eagles renew their strength?
And this was this floored me because I never knew this.
When an eagle renews its strength, an eagle can live about 70 years.
Right. But the only way an eagle can live that long, they have to renew their
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strength is what they call it at 40 at the age of 40.
And what they do is they fly really high to the highest peak that they have a mountain.
And what they would do is run again, fly against the mountain to break their beak.
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And once they do that, they're they're in this this awful pain,
from what I understand, and they wait to heal.
So during that time, they're not eating. They're waiting for their beak to heal
because it's shattered.
And the reason why they do that is because as they get older,
their beaks become so rounded down that they're unable to pick up and eat food
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because their beaks, you know, the top was already rounded if you look at an eagle.
So what they do is they break it and then
it grows back and once it grows back then
the next thing that they do what they were talking about
here Fawcett and Brown was renew
his feathers and with them his
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strength is is coming so I
was like and in that video I saw if
the explanation nation is afterwards what they
would do is pluck out all the old feathers
and that's painful right they're plucking them out themselves so
that new lighter feathers will
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grow and that's how they renew their strength they
become young again and they're able to live an additional 30 years all the way
up to 70 and I was like man so I sat there and I thought about that not I meditated
on that because God put that in the word for a reason.
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And it shows that even a time of renewing our strength, pain is still involved.
There's necessary pain that's still involved.
And in order to reach that growth potential,
that extra, you know, to gain that strength to carry on for for another 30 years,
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I don't know how long it takes for the beak and all the feathers that process
what, you know, what they go through,
but as the eagles, I mean, but I was like,
is this stuff that we have to endure?
You know, when we're asking God to renew our strength daily.
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Right, there's a process that it must go through and even renewing.
And that's why it says, weight because whatever we
ripping off in our
flesh it takes time to heal from that
and when you think about it the things
that that thorn that is on you if he
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just take it away you'll never fix it
and it'll slow you down for future and you will never renew your strength and
that's something that I'm going to be focusing on here the next couple of weeks
is you know whatever God has been trying to take out of my life out of my flesh these thorns that.
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Keep poking me those are the you
know when you remove those thorns it takes time to
heal you know we normally in the
natural we what you get hit by a thorn bush it's like you know you're taking
neosporin and you know you you tend you tend to rise in the or not tenderizing
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but taking care of the wound and all that stuff right so it takes time for it
to scab over heal you know and then eventually,
you know, your skin smooths back out and the pain is gone and all that stuff. But it takes time.
And that's the same way with renewing our strength.
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Now, God can can provoke a miracle and give it to you the next day,
you know, but that's not how that's not how God wants to work.
And his word shows that his word tells us that it's it's time. It's patient.
It's waiting, you know, so like for my wife, cancer is her thorn.
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It's not because, you know, she did anything bad because we're all sinners.
But the good thing about it is that we're all healed from sin because our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ.
But we still have these bodies that houses sin that we can't get rid of.
It's a thorn. Sin is a thorn.
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Right. Right. So and the wages of sin is death.
And that's why cancer promotes death, just like everything else promotes death in a sinful bodies.
So, you know, but he's renewing her strength each day.
Physically, she's unable. She has no strength.
I mean, she can barely sit up two or three hours a day with with the family.
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I mean, she really is out of it daily.
Nausea, dizziness. I mean, so, you know, telling her, well, God's going to renew your strength.
I mean, it's, you know, she's been dealing with this for a year and a half daily and she still holds on.
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So God is renewing her strength.
It's just very, very slow. and we have to go through this and just sit in the
waiting room and wait and ask for these, ask for the strength each and every day.
But there's a process that she must go through to, to, to do that.
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And I can't go through that process for her, but I can go through the process with her.
And that's what I'm trying to do. You know, and I, I know days are difficult and.
I'm having to clean and just do all these different things.
You know, it's not about me, but I'm explaining the things that I'm going through
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and what I see as far as and what the flesh is telling me.
So let's just take for today. You know, it's Sunday.
You know, she had great intentions. She woke up this morning and she was like,
I'm going to do some laundry.
I'm going to separate laundry. laundry and by the
time she separated laundry she was so
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dizzy that she was like I just need to sit down
I don't feel good I feel nauseous and she
was out all day so the laundry was separated I have baby and it's right after
church we just finished you know watching church on stream stream and here it is. I'm cleaning.
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I'm having to unload dishwasher, fix baby girl breakfast, put in laundry.
She wants to play. I have a mountain of things to do.
And here I am running around doing this all day today.
And here it is the end of the day.
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And I had enough strength to
do to wash baby's clothes
she had to close that i was
able to hang up her clothes put away her clothes fold our clothes i still have
one load left it's 9 30 right now 10 o'clock i still have one load left right
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i still have a few dishes in the dishwasher but and i have and i'm doing doing this podcast,
but I had enough strength to do that today.
And I didn't think about it. And I was like, that's some renewed strength that the Lord has given me.
He put me on his wing and, you know, and that's one of the things that Eagles do with their young.
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They will put them on their back and fly them to teach them how to fly.
You know, So they would put them on their backs and soar high and let them fly.
And then they would catch them back on their wings if they couldn't do it.
And this is how the eagles teach their youngin how to fly.
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So this is what God is doing for me. He's teaching me how to gain this strength.
Now, I wasn't perfect in my, you know, sometimes I was frustrated today.
It's like abigail kept calling my name daddy daddy daddy so it's like what stop
calling my name i just left the room you know so and then i'm catching myself
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but at the same time i'm like,
okay lord what what i have this stuff to do and she's doing this he was like take.
Stop what you're doing, go up there and see what she needs. So then I go up
there and she's like, I wasted water and she gets in trouble by doing stuff.
You know, she's a toddler.
So she's going through learning, you know, there's consequences for doing things
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that you're not supposed to do.
So she's concerned about getting in trouble about wasting water in the restroom.
And I was just like, okay, baby, you're in the restroom. You're your own towel.
You wasted water is fine.
I'll pick it up i'm gonna give you a towel next time be careful right so these
are the things that help me realize okay this is how i'm renewing my strength
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i'm asking him i can't do this he was like yeah you can just stop what you're
doing on the task and go see where she is and then go back,
right so this is how those conversations go so i tell you these things you the
listener is so that that this is why your relationship with God is so important
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because it's not like I hear an audible voice,
but what I do hear is instructions internally that the Holy spirit,
the helper that God has sent us because of our Lord and savior,
we have this helper who, who directs us in council, right?
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And I have to listen to that council a lot.
You know, I would like to talk to friends, but I don't want it to become a bashing
seminar about how bad I feel.
But it would be nice to know that I have friends that I could talk to that could listen.
But I think at this point, it's a hard sell for me as a man to ask people to chat with me.
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So then I end up chatting with God. But what happens is I become a loner,
you know, and and that's that's not good.
But it is good in a way because it it keeps my avenue to hear God.
But at the same time, right now, you know, the prescription that my doctor gave
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me, my family doctor gave me was I thought that he was going to increase my meds.
And he didn't.
He said the prescription that you need right now is buying some of your time
back from your family because if you don't, it's not going to end well.
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Because he's been in this with me for, you know, he's been my doctor for the
past seven years since I've been here. So he knows me, my family doctor.
And the information and the things that he gave me was not normal for a doctor.
You know, he didn't feed medication.
He told me that he didn't want to do that because I wouldn't like the side effects
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and the side effects wouldn't be good.
So what he prescribed me was buying back my time. He was like,
and I know it's difficult, but if you don't get time for yourself,
for personal growth, right?
And everything that God's been working with me on is natural stuff.
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It's, you know, getting enough sleep, getting enough food, the right food to eat, nurturing.
That's why I was in Elijah for so long. But then it's like, also,
you got to have experiences that you can talk about and that you can grow.
And when the doctor asked me, he was like, what has been the last time that
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you've been out and done something by yourself for an hour or two?
And I said, I sat there and I thought and I was like, oh, it's probably been
about three or three years or so ever since the baby was born.
And he was like, you have no new experiences that you've created.
You have nothing to look forward to, nothing to talk about with other people outside of caregiving.
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If that doesn't change, it's going to be hard for you to break out of this cycle
of depression. And that's where I'm at.
But I have hope in God and I and I love God. and I understand that this is my thorn and I accept it.
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And I pray that whatever thorn you have in your life, you look at your thorn different.
Look at what God wants to remove.
And then you wait on the Lord to help you heal.
And he's going to give you strength to do that. He's not going to give you a time frame.
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That's why he says his grace is sufficient.
Right. So that's the end of the podcast today.
And I pray that you got something out of it today,
and I hope that you'll be able to to to listen to this and go back through Isaiah
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31 and study it for yourself.
Look up at the eagles and just kind of meditate on that word today.
Right. Right. But if you have ears to hear the call of God at this moment and
he has asked you to be willing to submit to him and become a part of the kingdom,
repeat this confession after me.
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I confess with my mouth that Jesus is Lord and I believe in my heart that God
has raised him from the dead.
Thou shall be saved. That's Romans 10 and 9.
And if you said this with a deep personal conviction without reservation that
Jesus is sovereign over me and everything that I have in my life,
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this phrase includes repenting from your sin,
trusting in Jesus for salvation and submitting to him as Lord and King.
This is the volitional element of faith.
Until next week kingdom citizens may.
Music.
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The grace of our lord jesus be with you all and i appreciate you listening i
don't take it for granted and i pray that you have a blessed week blessings.
I'm your host, Glenn Cruz, and as an ambassador of the kingdom of God,
I am so honored and excited to be with you again, as it is the will of the king,
both politically and spiritually,
because we represent a government that is the kingdom of God.
(00:31):
Welcome, fellow citizens. I petition and pray that our Lord and King,
our Savior, has blessed you this past week and know that he's blessed me and my family.
He's blessed my wife and my daughter.
And I know that he has because one of the things I know is we're still here.
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We're still able to wake up and function and go throughout our day with the strength,
that's manifested by our Lord and Savior, because no one in this home has the
human strength to push the way we have for the past year and a half.
So that leads us into today's topic, topic which is going to be out of Isaiah chapter 40 verse 31.
(01:23):
But before I get into that I want to I want to provide some context for this.
So in Isaiah 39 it speaks about the king's son of Babylon at the time.
Now Hezekiah he was sick. He was the king during this time when Isaiah was was
when, when Isaiah gave this prophecy.
(01:46):
And it's a second part of a prophecy that he gave Hezekiah, but Hezekiah was
sick and he was just now recovering from his illness.
So what the king of Babylon, you know, he was doing, he was sent,
he sent some letters and some presents to Hezekiah to, to wish him well,
that he gets healthy and stuff like that.
(02:07):
And Hezekiah at that time was, Because, you know, he was at that once he got
those letters and received those letters,
he he wanted to show them his his his his wealth is basically what he did.
He showed him his wealth in return because what he wanted to do was kind of
(02:29):
show that he can partner up and help contribute an alliance against the Syrians at that time.
To help defeat the Assyrians. And, you know, obviously we know that Israel ended
up in captivity underneath Babylon.
(02:49):
And because he showed them his wealth and all that stuff, you know,
this right here is kind of where Hezekiah,
where he sinned, because he was using his wealth as before people in a systematic way.
(03:12):
And they were still going to get captured anyway. They were under captivity.
But it wasn't because of Hezekiah's sin that they ended up going into captivity.
But it was also because of the corrupt leadership of Manasseh and then Hezekiah's
son also at that time. So, you know, a lot of things went into play with that.
(03:35):
But Hezekiah didn't help with giving or showing his trying to display his power through wealth.
And it didn't work. So during that time, Isaiah comes in, you know,
he goes and visit Hezekiah unannounced to to give him word.
(03:56):
And this wasn't the first time that Isaiah had done that.
So what he did was he went in and gave this prophecy to Hezekiah and basically
told him that they were going to get captured.
So this happened shortly before Israel was went into captivity underneath Babylon.
(04:18):
Right. So the now we move up to verse the chapter 40. and this kind of where
the prophecy occurs that Isaiah has given him.
And, you know, in the beginning part, it was when he first spoke,
you know, the word says, comfort, comfort, my people, says God, says your God.
(04:43):
It says speak tenderly to Jerusalem and cry to her, right, that her warfare is ended.
So he was initially talking to Israel and he wanted to provide them some comfort for what was to come.
Right. But it. So this comfort that was to come, it started out with Israel.
(05:08):
But because of what the Lord says in verse three, it kind of moves it into a
national what I would say a national event.
National audience, which would be every one of God's believers, right?
Because in verse three, it says, and a voice cries in the wilderness,
(05:32):
prepare the way of the Lord.
And if you recognize that, that is a prophetic exhortation that's told to Israel
to prepare them for the revelation revelation of the Messiah's arrival.
Right. So now when you bring up that, that's also mentioned back into Mark is
(05:56):
mentioned in Luke three is mentioned in John one.
So, you know, and Elijah was also a part of that, you know, so we kind of been
in Elijah, but Elijah was also a part of, this forecoming prophecy as well.
So with Isaiah bringing that up and the word of God,
(06:22):
mentioning that, you know, so that kind of moves into the greatness of God and
what he was just talking about in Isaiah 40.
And, you know, if you get time, you know, I would suggest that you just just
kind of go back and read Isaiah 39 and Isaiah 40.
But what I want to do is I kind of want to talk about Isaiah 40 and verse 31.
(06:48):
Because, you know, like I said, we've been in this mental health crisis.
You know, series for a while now. And I've been in that series because the,
the, the spirit has the spirit of God has, he's wanting me to do that.
You know, it's, it's something that I'm dealing with and my family is dealing
(07:09):
with. My wife is dealing with it.
You know, I may be talking about it from, from my perspective and I only can
speak from my perspective,
but I know we're talking with my wife that,
you know, her perspective is totally different because she's actually the one
that's fighting mortality and I'm not,
you know, so my perspective is different and I consider mine's more of a fleshly
(07:36):
perspective of all this.
Right. So it's not to make, you know, my story is sad.
It's not sad because, you know, God's perfecting everything,
but he's definitely perfecting my flesh and, and, and he's, he's given her some thorns too.
(07:56):
So, but it's just different, right? Because like I said, she's one facing mortality
and I'm not right now, you know, cause I'm healthy and she's not.
And that's just the reality of it all right now. But back to the text.
So what I like to talk about is how we We renew our strength during this time
(08:19):
when we're going through trials, you know.
So in Isaiah 40, verse 31, let's take a read of that.
And it says, but they who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength.
They shall mount up with wings like eagles and they should run and not be weary.
(08:39):
They should walk and not faint.
Now you know if you've been in church of any
amount of time I'm sure at some point
you've probably heard that verse and you know
we we like to use it as a I would say a feel-good verse every time I hear it
it's more of a motivational type of of context and it's that's fine but when
(09:04):
you're seeking the Lord for your help hope.
I have to. And this is where becoming a Berean is important because you have
to go into the background of the word.
Right. And see and understand in the context of how this was given,
God was providing comfort for the trial that was coming for Israel.
(09:28):
And he also provided comfort for us in the future.
Right. Right. So this is not just a national, just an Israel promise.
This is actually where it bleeds over and ties over to all believers in the kingdom. Right.
So let's just break this down a little bit. It says, let's take verse 31.
(09:51):
It says, but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength.
So once you kind of look that up and do some research on that,
looking at some commentary here, it says,
There is a general principle here that patient, praying believers are blessed
by God with strength in their trials.
(10:13):
It says the Lord also expect his people to be patient and await his coming in
glory at the end of the fulfilled, the promises of the national deliverance.
This is when believing Israel would become stronger than they have ever been. in.
So that's how I said that it kind of blends in over from Israel's belief.
(10:37):
And, you know, God still has a they still have a special place in the kingdom,
you know, but their disobedience got us engrafted in.
But God hasn't removed them from their place of being the chosen people. Right.
(10:58):
So, you know, once they all start to believe and turn the corner,
then, you know, that prophecy will be fulfilled.
But when we kind of look at waiting on the Lord's strength.
There's a verse here that says 2 Corinthians 12 and 8 and 10.
(11:19):
So we're going to go to 2 Corinthians and we're going to go to 8 and 10.
So I think I told you 2 Corinthians 12, verse 8 and 10.
So it says here, and this is Paul talking now, right?
It says, three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me.
But he said to me, and this is the words of Jesus, it says, My grace is sufficient
(11:46):
for you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness.
Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weakness so that the power
of Christ may rest upon me for the sake of Christ.
Then I am content with my weakness, insults, hardships, persecution and calamities.
(12:07):
For when i am weak then i'm strong
so it says here
three times paul pleaded that the
hindrance of his his ministry would would be taken away from him right and and
in paul's prayer to jesus he was just kept asking him to remove it and the thing
(12:29):
that he wanted him to remove was the demons that That were attacking him.
It was a threefold repetition where Paul requested.
Just like Jesus requested three times at Gethsemane.
Right. So both Paul and Jesus both requested.
For the cup to be taken away from him. And both times it was denied. But. But.
(12:56):
What's granted to them was grace to endure and finish the assignment.
So the lesson for us here is we can ask God to take it away.
And if he happens to take it and if he takes it away, we have to be careful
of who we allow to take it away. Right. Because.
(13:20):
God doesn't take away our calamities. what
he does is he provides strength renewed
strength to continue the assignment
that he wants you to to to do and when he does that you should see changes within
yourself you should see changes of you know someone who's going through this
(13:44):
trial with you you know there has to be be changes that you will see.
The blessings are not the material things that you see.
You know, those are just, what are those? You know, I will, I will call those commodities, right?
But the thing that, that is worth
(14:05):
anything to God is, has your character become more like Like his son.
Period. Has your heart changed during your trial?
And if it has, then you're able to make different decisions.
You're able to make what I would think a better decision.
(14:28):
And you would think about life as more, you know, then life becomes more about
how you can change and how you can help others. than about yourself.
And that's tough because like I've mentioned before, we're, we're,
(14:48):
we're, we're selfish people.
We think about ourselves first and then we want to, you know,
think about others second,
but being a caregiver for me, I'm having to think about everybody else first
and the flesh eats me up daily about it, right?
(15:08):
And the easiest thing to do is really the hardest thing for me to do because
I have a covenant with my wife.
I have a covenant with God and I want to be around for my daughter.
She means the world to me. And we don't get opportunities to raise kids that
(15:30):
God has ordained us with, right?
It's they're not they don't belong to us, but we're just given to them,
you know, given to us to raise for God.
And I just want to do the best that I can to raise her so that she can complete her assignment.
The reason why she's here. Right. So.
(15:52):
But, yeah, that's that's what Paul was dealing with.
So when you say three times and then you hear this next verse,
it says, well, he doesn't take it away, doesn't address it.
And all that the Lord says is, hey, my grace is sufficient for you and my power
(16:13):
is made perfect in your weakness.
Right so god wouldn't
remove the thorns from paul that he requested but he
continually supplied him with the grace that he needed because us as humans
we are the weaker instrument and when we have grace you know i'm starting to
(16:38):
understand in the supply of grace.
When I show up at work every day, that's grace because I could have made a different
decision not to go, not to show up.
My heart could have led me somewhere else, but because my heart is activated
(17:00):
right now to please God, he's like, man, I'm going to give you you grace.
I'm going to help you push through and get everything done in the mornings, drop Abigail off.
And I'm going to give you the right mindset to keep pushing.
It's going to be tough, but I'm going to give you the mindset.
(17:21):
I'm going to give you grace to make it through.
To say the right things, to bite your tongue, even though you're frustrated
and you're going to go to work and you're going to allow people to tell you
what to do there because they have bought your time.
They bought your time. So for the next eight hours, since they bought your time,
(17:45):
you need to perform well as if you're working for me because I allow them to buy your time.
That's grace, Right. So I try to give my all where I can and where I can't.
It's just, man, I just apologize to God because I'm just in a whirlwind right now.
(18:10):
That kind of explains that verse, or at least that portion of the verse.
Now, let's go to the second half of that verse. Let me get back to it here.
Isaiah 40 and 31.
You have to forgive me. I'm kind of kind of flipping through here.
But let's go back to where the second part, it says they shall mount up with wings like eagles.
(18:35):
So, you know, I hear about eagles and all that stuff all the time.
You know, that reference of eagles is made throughout the Bible.
So I wanted to look up some more different commentary and I found some through
Fawcett and David right back in 1882.
And what they said here sparked me on a journey to to do some additional research.
(19:00):
But this is what they said about this verse. It says they shall put forth fresh
feathers as eagles, as said to the renovated themselves.
The parallel clause renew their strength confirms this.
The eagle was thought to mount and renew his feathers and win them his strength in old age.
(19:27):
However, in the English version is favored by the descending climax, mount up, run and walk.
And in every attitude, the praying, waiting child of God is strong in the Lord, unquote.
And that was some commentary.
But what fascinated me was renew the feathers.
(19:49):
So I was like, I typed in in YouTube, renew the strength of of eagles.
How do eagles renew their strength?
And this was this floored me because I never knew this.
When an eagle renews its strength, an eagle can live about 70 years.
Right. But the only way an eagle can live that long, they have to renew their
(20:15):
strength is what they call it at 40 at the age of 40.
And what they do is they fly really high to the highest peak that they have a mountain.
And what they would do is run again, fly against the mountain to break their beak.
(20:36):
And once they do that, they're they're in this this awful pain,
from what I understand, and they wait to heal.
So during that time, they're not eating. They're waiting for their beak to heal
because it's shattered.
And the reason why they do that is because as they get older,
their beaks become so rounded down that they're unable to pick up and eat food
(21:02):
because their beaks, you know, the top was already rounded if you look at an eagle.
So what they do is they break it and then
it grows back and once it grows back then
the next thing that they do what they were talking about
here Fawcett and Brown was renew
his feathers and with them his
(21:24):
strength is is coming so I
was like and in that video I saw if
the explanation nation is afterwards what they
would do is pluck out all the old feathers
and that's painful right they're plucking them out themselves so
that new lighter feathers will
(21:44):
grow and that's how they renew their strength they
become young again and they're able to live an additional 30 years all the way
up to 70 and I was like man so I sat there and I thought about that not I meditated
on that because God put that in the word for a reason.
(22:06):
And it shows that even a time of renewing our strength, pain is still involved.
There's necessary pain that's still involved.
And in order to reach that growth potential,
that extra, you know, to gain that strength to carry on for for another 30 years,
(22:28):
I don't know how long it takes for the beak and all the feathers that process
what, you know, what they go through,
but as the eagles, I mean, but I was like,
is this stuff that we have to endure?
You know, when we're asking God to renew our strength daily.
(22:51):
Right, there's a process that it must go through and even renewing.
And that's why it says, weight because whatever we
ripping off in our
flesh it takes time to heal from that
and when you think about it the things
that that thorn that is on you if he
(23:12):
just take it away you'll never fix it
and it'll slow you down for future and you will never renew your strength and
that's something that I'm going to be focusing on here the next couple of weeks
is you know whatever God has been trying to take out of my life out of my flesh these thorns that.
(23:36):
Keep poking me those are the you
know when you remove those thorns it takes time to
heal you know we normally in the
natural we what you get hit by a thorn bush it's like you know you're taking
neosporin and you know you you tend you tend to rise in the or not tenderizing
(23:56):
but taking care of the wound and all that stuff right so it takes time for it
to scab over heal you know and then eventually,
you know, your skin smooths back out and the pain is gone and all that stuff. But it takes time.
And that's the same way with renewing our strength.
(24:16):
Now, God can can provoke a miracle and give it to you the next day,
you know, but that's not how that's not how God wants to work.
And his word shows that his word tells us that it's it's time. It's patient.
It's waiting, you know, so like for my wife, cancer is her thorn.
(24:40):
It's not because, you know, she did anything bad because we're all sinners.
But the good thing about it is that we're all healed from sin because our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ.
But we still have these bodies that houses sin that we can't get rid of.
It's a thorn. Sin is a thorn.
(25:00):
Right. Right. So and the wages of sin is death.
And that's why cancer promotes death, just like everything else promotes death in a sinful bodies.
So, you know, but he's renewing her strength each day.
Physically, she's unable. She has no strength.
I mean, she can barely sit up two or three hours a day with with the family.
(25:26):
I mean, she really is out of it daily.
Nausea, dizziness. I mean, so, you know, telling her, well, God's going to renew your strength.
I mean, it's, you know, she's been dealing with this for a year and a half daily and she still holds on.
(25:47):
So God is renewing her strength.
It's just very, very slow. and we have to go through this and just sit in the
waiting room and wait and ask for these, ask for the strength each and every day.
But there's a process that she must go through to, to, to do that.
(26:07):
And I can't go through that process for her, but I can go through the process with her.
And that's what I'm trying to do. You know, and I, I know days are difficult and.
I'm having to clean and just do all these different things.
You know, it's not about me, but I'm explaining the things that I'm going through
(26:30):
and what I see as far as and what the flesh is telling me.
So let's just take for today. You know, it's Sunday.
You know, she had great intentions. She woke up this morning and she was like,
I'm going to do some laundry.
I'm going to separate laundry. laundry and by the
time she separated laundry she was so
(26:52):
dizzy that she was like I just need to sit down
I don't feel good I feel nauseous and she
was out all day so the laundry was separated I have baby and it's right after
church we just finished you know watching church on stream stream and here it is. I'm cleaning.
(27:15):
I'm having to unload dishwasher, fix baby girl breakfast, put in laundry.
She wants to play. I have a mountain of things to do.
And here I am running around doing this all day today.
And here it is the end of the day.
(27:38):
And I had enough strength to
do to wash baby's clothes
she had to close that i was
able to hang up her clothes put away her clothes fold our clothes i still have
one load left it's 9 30 right now 10 o'clock i still have one load left right
(27:59):
i still have a few dishes in the dishwasher but and i have and i'm doing doing this podcast,
but I had enough strength to do that today.
And I didn't think about it. And I was like, that's some renewed strength that the Lord has given me.
He put me on his wing and, you know, and that's one of the things that Eagles do with their young.
(28:23):
They will put them on their back and fly them to teach them how to fly.
You know, So they would put them on their backs and soar high and let them fly.
And then they would catch them back on their wings if they couldn't do it.
And this is how the eagles teach their youngin how to fly.
(28:45):
So this is what God is doing for me. He's teaching me how to gain this strength.
Now, I wasn't perfect in my, you know, sometimes I was frustrated today.
It's like abigail kept calling my name daddy daddy daddy so it's like what stop
calling my name i just left the room you know so and then i'm catching myself
(29:09):
but at the same time i'm like,
okay lord what what i have this stuff to do and she's doing this he was like take.
Stop what you're doing, go up there and see what she needs. So then I go up
there and she's like, I wasted water and she gets in trouble by doing stuff.
You know, she's a toddler.
So she's going through learning, you know, there's consequences for doing things
(29:33):
that you're not supposed to do.
So she's concerned about getting in trouble about wasting water in the restroom.
And I was just like, okay, baby, you're in the restroom. You're your own towel.
You wasted water is fine.
I'll pick it up i'm gonna give you a towel next time be careful right so these
are the things that help me realize okay this is how i'm renewing my strength
(29:58):
i'm asking him i can't do this he was like yeah you can just stop what you're
doing on the task and go see where she is and then go back,
right so this is how those conversations go so i tell you these things you the
listener is so that that this is why your relationship with God is so important
(30:18):
because it's not like I hear an audible voice,
but what I do hear is instructions internally that the Holy spirit,
the helper that God has sent us because of our Lord and savior,
we have this helper who, who directs us in council, right?
(30:39):
And I have to listen to that council a lot.
You know, I would like to talk to friends, but I don't want it to become a bashing
seminar about how bad I feel.
But it would be nice to know that I have friends that I could talk to that could listen.
But I think at this point, it's a hard sell for me as a man to ask people to chat with me.
(31:13):
So then I end up chatting with God. But what happens is I become a loner,
you know, and and that's that's not good.
But it is good in a way because it it keeps my avenue to hear God.
But at the same time, right now, you know, the prescription that my doctor gave
(31:35):
me, my family doctor gave me was I thought that he was going to increase my meds.
And he didn't.
He said the prescription that you need right now is buying some of your time
back from your family because if you don't, it's not going to end well.
(31:57):
Because he's been in this with me for, you know, he's been my doctor for the
past seven years since I've been here. So he knows me, my family doctor.
And the information and the things that he gave me was not normal for a doctor.
You know, he didn't feed medication.
He told me that he didn't want to do that because I wouldn't like the side effects
(32:19):
and the side effects wouldn't be good.
So what he prescribed me was buying back my time. He was like,
and I know it's difficult, but if you don't get time for yourself,
for personal growth, right?
And everything that God's been working with me on is natural stuff.
(32:43):
It's, you know, getting enough sleep, getting enough food, the right food to eat, nurturing.
That's why I was in Elijah for so long. But then it's like, also,
you got to have experiences that you can talk about and that you can grow.
And when the doctor asked me, he was like, what has been the last time that
(33:05):
you've been out and done something by yourself for an hour or two?
And I said, I sat there and I thought and I was like, oh, it's probably been
about three or three years or so ever since the baby was born.
And he was like, you have no new experiences that you've created.
You have nothing to look forward to, nothing to talk about with other people outside of caregiving.
(33:33):
If that doesn't change, it's going to be hard for you to break out of this cycle
of depression. And that's where I'm at.
But I have hope in God and I and I love God. and I understand that this is my thorn and I accept it.
(33:55):
And I pray that whatever thorn you have in your life, you look at your thorn different.
Look at what God wants to remove.
And then you wait on the Lord to help you heal.
And he's going to give you strength to do that. He's not going to give you a time frame.
(34:15):
That's why he says his grace is sufficient.
Right. So that's the end of the podcast today.
And I pray that you got something out of it today,
and I hope that you'll be able to to to listen to this and go back through Isaiah
(34:36):
31 and study it for yourself.
Look up at the eagles and just kind of meditate on that word today.
Right. Right. But if you have ears to hear the call of God at this moment and
he has asked you to be willing to submit to him and become a part of the kingdom,
repeat this confession after me.
(34:58):
I confess with my mouth that Jesus is Lord and I believe in my heart that God
has raised him from the dead.
Thou shall be saved. That's Romans 10 and 9.
And if you said this with a deep personal conviction without reservation that
Jesus is sovereign over me and everything that I have in my life,
(35:21):
this phrase includes repenting from your sin,
trusting in Jesus for salvation and submitting to him as Lord and King.
This is the volitional element of faith.
Until next week kingdom citizens may.
Music.
(35:42):
The grace of our lord jesus be with you all and i appreciate you listening i
don't take it for granted and i pray that you have a blessed week blessings.
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