October 15, 2022 • 56 mins
God’s way is often unconventional. Anti-cultural. Anti-world. He chose the foolish things to confound the wise (1 Corinthians 1:27 KJV). We have to be "foolish" enough (from a worldly POV) to allow God full control. To give Him our heavy burdens in exchange for His lighter ones. Along that journey, everything is challenged. Is this God or is this me? Does my works prove my faith? Who, or what, is my faith in? Our thoughts and actions have been transformed over the last couple of years by allowing God full access through obedience. We do life differently now and our feelings are starting to catch up.
Questions
1. How am I following a path that only God has the blueprint to?
2. Is this God or is this me?
3. Who or what is my faith actually in?
Questions
1. How am I following a path that only God has the blueprint to?
2. Is this God or is this me?
3. Who or what is my faith actually in?
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
What's good, y'all. It's Markand Jade, God both here. We're
just a couple of millennials who metat the peak of our careers as a
beauty influencer and a corporate cool kidwho decided that life wasn't enough without God.
Our platform and this show are allabout how our journey to healing and
how following after Jesus really changed usand our marriage forever. We aren't your
(00:23):
traditional churchgoers, and we appreciate thatabout ourselves. Through our testimonies, we
hope that you find relief, comfort, revelation, and most importantly, the
spirit of God. Let's get intothis episode. Why don't you share about
the memo and like that? Imean, you posted about it today,
(00:50):
Yeah, so why don't you let'stalk have a larger conversation about that.
I'm I'm writing now our thoughts aboutthe memo and kind of like where it
goes from here, finally feeling likeGod has given me their capacity to expand
(01:15):
where we are beyond justifiable study andI'm trying to I'm a visual person,
so I honestly I didn't skip thestep. I skipped completing the step of
finishing putting my thoughts onto paper tostart to put what I already had on
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paper creatively into something to share.So I eventually caused my laptop and I
honestly felt a rush of like juststuff, and I wouldn't call anxiety,
but I would just say my ownexpectation of myself. And I had to
(02:02):
stop, and I took a deepbreath, and you came to my mind,
and that stopping brought a feeling,an overwhelming feeling of gratitude and appreciation
(02:28):
for you, And that's where thatmessage came from. And so essential message
I can't we're recording, but themessage was essentially just a very random thank
you, because when I'm thinking aboutwhat I'm doing, what we're doing,
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my mind immediately goes to you don'tknow what you're doing, like this ain't
about like or you've gone to schoolfor this and you've been prepping and training
specifically for this thing to have theexact steps that one hundred thousand people over
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the span of a thousand years havedone, and it's gotten these results.
A little bit different because your personalityis different, but you've been trained for
this thing that everybody does versus likethis is really a different space this isn't
(03:38):
something that you knew you were preparingfor your whole life. You were exactly,
but you didn't know that all ofthese steps, all of these things,
all of these experiences, all ofthese relationships, stuff that didn't happen,
(04:00):
all of this was to bring youhere. And it doesn't look like
everything else. It actually looks likenothing else. And so thinking about that,
my mom went to, Yo,this woman is trusting this man who
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the way we parent, the waywe marry, like live this life out.
I didn't have examples of this.I didn't have one. I didn't
have one that I could say,Okay, if I just put this on
on to if I put this way, this filter onto mind, it's going
(04:55):
to get those results. And Iwant those results. It's always been like,
well, take a little bit ofthis, take a little bit of
that person O kind of like howhe did that, Take a little bit
of that. But it was neverlike crafting after even the Church and the
Bible, and I wasn't in theBible for myself to even understand what God's
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weight was to put that on.It was always just like you know,
a little points and I'm pulling frompeople to not get to this point where
it feels like uncharted territory. Itfeels like Dann like I wish I had
that to do, because that wouldmake this easier. It would also but
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while making it easier, would takethe place of God, which is why
it's not that way, Which iswhy it's not that way. And you
know, as you're talking, it'swild because I think this is another part
of you that I really need youto put some respect on God's name in
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the sense that He has prepared youfor this moment He has Like I think
sometimes again, it's like you getback into old habits of like, well,
this is how I've always approached somethingnew, so like I feel more
comfortable when there's a path laid outfor me that I can calculate and strategically
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understand and have like an awareness oflike where I'm going like in front of
me. And I think that whenI think about how I am able to
really trust your process and trust inGod and what He's doing in our lives
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right now, it's because I've experiencedit before, Like I think that I
don't even think about it enough anymore. But when I took that leap of
faith after grad school, and chosenot to go into a higher education position
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and like focus on lipstick and curlsfully. That was the first time in
my life I had ever gone outsideof a structured environment, and I was
scared, but there was this partof me that felt a thrill from it.
And once I was starting to livethat out, it really showed me
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like, oh my gosh, whenyou trust God instead of going up through
with the plan that you thought of, it's so much bigger. It's so
much like more in so many waysthat that is exciting. And so when
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I think about it, I'm ahuman perspective. From an experiential perspective,
I experienced very structured. I'm amilitary kid, so like I grew up
on military basis, military parents,like very very structured. Have been in
some sort of like program childcare scenario. Since I was probably what six to
(08:20):
eight weeks old as a baby,I never stayed home with my parents.
I was always in some after schoolprogram, some school thing, went to
grad school, like, so fromsix to eight weeks old till I was
twenty three, twenty four years old, I'm in very very, very structured
environments where the path is laid outfor me. And I can calculate,
(08:41):
and I can plan, and Ican But when I took that leap of
faith and said, okay, God, you want me to be an influencer
full time, like you want meto be a YouTuber, which at a
time, I didn't even tell peoplethat I made YouTube videos because people would
be like, what do you meanyou do YouTube? Like what do you
mean by that? And it wasembarrassing. It was kind of like I
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have to explain to everybody this islike twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen times,
but I started in twenty ten.So for years it was like this thing
that like I literally did not talkabout because I felt like people didn't understand.
So there would be moments in pocketswhere I would tell people about it,
but I wasn't even I'd be,you know, riding in ubers and
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stuff like that, and people belike, well, what do you do,
And I'd be like, oh,I work in marketing, Oh I
work in digital content. Like Iwould never say, well, I would
never not say but most of thetime because it just felt like y'all not
gonna understand what I do anyway,So like I don't even want to go
down that road. But I sayout that to say that is the human
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experience that helps me like not feelthis pressure that I think you're feeling of
like the unknown, because for me, I'm so used to living like that
in a professional sense, especially it'sjust now carried over into like our personal
life for real, And I actuallyappreciate that freedom and that lack of responsibility
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of like having the plan, becauseit's honestly too much to carry on top
of actually trying to live through theplan and understanding that there's going to be
variables that happen that are going todisrupt your plan every time. So like
it's easier, in my opinion,to be at will to whatever God has
(10:43):
for me than to have all theseexpectations and goals and things set in front
of me that I'm trying to upholdand continue to be committed to. So
I have a couple of things withthat, right, because you said a
few things that even and I've neverthought about until now. But then I
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also want to come back to thatlast point because of so many times in
scripture that we see that we justoverlook it, or we've taken other scriptures
out of context to give us thespace to have control still with our doing
and our works to where we justifiedand say like, well, faith of
our works is dead, and there'sa big piece of that that we often
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talks amazing. But we wind.When you're talking about, like you know,
having to explain to people what YouTubewas and like what you were actually
doing before it was the thing todo, my mind goes to so Jeremy
shout out, my big brother,Jeremy Smith. He comes on a Bobble
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study and I remember the first timehe honestly called me about surprise when he
told the story. But at thetime he was probably the one that knew
the most about who why it usedto be on the Bible study at that
time. Yeah, to be ableto understand honestly, Yeah, like the
oldest one that knew me when Iwas out here to understand like the new
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me and the transformation that is today. And he was like, man,
it's crazy because like I remember,like Mark used to get so frustrated with
us because we wanted to talk aboutsports in our college days of been athletes
and the shoes and the crap thatwas going on to work and like that
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was we stayed surface and Mark wouldalways want to like talk about real stuff
and it would be weird and hewould like, you know, he went
into a group chat one time andjust went off on a group because we
weren't talking about real things that wewere actually going through and dealing with.
Yeah, And so he was like, now people like reach out to me
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and they're like, yo, likewhat is Mark going? And I say,
like, this is who he reallyis, Like Mark's been like this,
but it was one of those thingsthat they could see their frustration from
me, but couldn't fully understand whereit was coming from. I didn't even
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understand where it was coming from.And so now having this community of men
that is the memo that is like, that's the that's why we do what
we do, that's the that's whatbrings people. People come on and for
the first time they're like men talklike this, Black men talk like this
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and not like Chad brought this uplast night not being corny. Yeah,
like he always thought that, like, you gotta be corny to actually live
for God. And being a partof the memo has been like him been
able to see other men. Heliterally said, yo, I look up
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to automn on here because to seeother men that aren't corny, that are
creative, that are you know,doing all these great things, but submit
to God in this way and transparentin this way. It made me think
about how, even back then,before I could explain it to people,
why I wanted to even have thosetypes of conversation, what that yearning was
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in me, that was happening wellbefore there was a Bible study or an
environment created for that. I wastrying to create my make my environment that
before that was even a space allocatedfor it. Yeah, and I've never
thought about that. I've always kindof overlooked that, especially like that's home
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in my life because of all theother stuff that was going on that I
was distracted by, you know,work and my career and all of that.
If you're going to your point ofjuggling both of those things is hard.
Like think about, you know,Jesus saying, bring me your heavy
burdens and I will give you rest. Oftentimes that's our plan. That's literally
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what that is. The burden isthe plan that we made up in our
head that we you know, tookfrom something somebody said to us when we
were younger, or something we sawor something we were drawn to or or
or or the very gifts that Godgave us. God gave us these gifts
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not to be our primary, butto be a support for our primary.
That is His will for us.But oftentimes because that gift is what got
us praised when we was kids fromour parents, got us praise when we
were kids from our peers. Thatjust continued, so we became thirty forty
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year old versions of that. Yeah, that's still look at my gifts.
Yeah, look at my gifts.I do this so well, look at
my gifts. Meanwhile, God islike, yeah, but that's not why
first of all, I gave itto you. Or you get stuck in
a mindset, in a like astate of reminiscing constantly of a time when
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you got praised for chasing the high, Like like, we just continue,
that's all that. That's We're gonnadrugs, We're gonna go porn. In
all of these instances, we're chasingthe first time. We're continuing to chase
that feeling that we had the firsttime we did that. Yeah, not
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realizing that to do that, weare just bulldozing through people. Yeah,
through our own feelings and emotions yea, through the desire as a God has
for us through our actual purpose,like we're not even worried about it and
at all. And sometimes it's noteven you know, like chasing the high
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of something external. It could bechasing the high of whatever stroked your ego,
whatever made you feel good about yourself, and that when you open up
that door, then that's going toknock on everybody's door. Because even people
who may think, well, I'venever been, you know, in a
place where I had like a pornaddiction or had an issue with drugs,
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or I had you know this orthat, But I bet you there's something
that has stroked your ego so muchthat you have you have either recognized in
the past or you have yet torecognized that there's a there's a pride and
an ego there that still inhibits youfrom feeling the wholeness and fullness of what
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God wants for you and idea inyour purpose and understanding your purpose. And
because it's like I keep hearing likepeople the other side of it being like,
well, I'm not really good atanything, Like I do a lot
of different things, but there's notone thing that stands out for me,
Like I keep feeling that I mean, but that's what are we having moltim
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no, no, but my point. But my point is is that even
when you're in that place, it'spointing back to you're looking for something or
someone to stroke your ego, yourpride, and that's not even the goal.
Like you just want to feel goodabout yourself in some way, shape
or form. And what we're sayingis all of these outwardly things, whether
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it be from people you know,addictions, whatever it is, all of
accolades, titles, fame, money, all those things are all temporary counterfeit
ways to feel good about yourself.And in all actuality, there's a reason
why it feels good because it feelsgood to your flesh. But that is
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the very thing that God is tryingto help us recognize as his children,
is that, Yeah, you thinkthat that feels good for your flesh,
but I have something that makes youfeel good spiritually to where it don't matter
what state your flesh is in,you still feel this goodness because you were
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made to want that goodness from Me, from God, not from these other
things. But you were built forthat. But again, it's like that
battle between spirit and flesh will alwaysbe something that we tussle with because of
the fall of man, but likewe have to be very cognitive of that
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because it literally blankets our or entirelives in so many different ways. And
if you don't have this like rootunderstanding of like what this battle is,
you will be making major decisions inyour life based off of how you feel
today or how you feel in thisseason, and then you'll end up in
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another season and you'll be thinking,why in the hell did I do that?
Or why did I go to thatschool for four years? And I
knew I wasn't supposed to be there. There was something in me that just
knew that I was only going therebecause my parents wanted me to go,
or I saw everybody else going,so like I felt like I had to.
And if you feel like you likeyou've made decisions like that from that
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place of fear or insecurity or whateverthat may be, searching for stability,
searching for anything, that's how youknow, yeah, you made a decision
without God involved, because God isnot of those things. Out is of
peace, of kindness, of goodness, of joy, and there's a there's
a calmness and a contentment that comeswith decisions that God has given you a
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placed on your heart and you abidingin those decisions. But it doesn't mean
that even if you did make thosedecisions out of fear or whatever, that
you can't get back on track.But it's just a matter of, like
you got to be real with yourselfand you have to acknowledge that you know
what I am out of step.And that's hard because it's usually not one
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decision. It's usually multiple decisions thatare made over time that you have to
like break down and understand and reallywork through before you can even really like
get back to or not even getback to get to what God has for
you, because it could be soforeign from what you think you're supposed to
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be doing that like at one point, like you in twenty nineteen could not
have fathomed you doing what you today. Like I'm talking about even two years
ago, we didn't even like usingthe M word in this house because we
both were like freaked out by itand like genuinely still had spirits in us
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that like did not want it andwe're repulsed by it, like on a
real level, and our flesh wasstill wanting to flesh, so like we
were not here for it. Butyet and still we surrendered that and said,
Okay, flesh, you gonna haveto quiet down and sit down somewhere
because my spirit is being led somewherethat I know God is calling me to,
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and I'm choosing that. And that'slike a a manual decision. It's
not something you're gonna just naturally fallinto. You know, sometimes you feel
like I just ended up here becauseit just made sense in that. But
like a lot of that is notnatural. A lot of that is you
felt called and you were led,but you just may not have understood how
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like spiritually that was operating. Itmay have felt natural to you because you
may just have been the spirit ledyour whole life. You just didn't have
the language to explain it that way. But at the same time, you
could be more logical and you couldbe more like strategic and plan and so
everybody's different, but it's important tounderstand like what kind of person are you
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and recognizing like how am I makingdecisions in my life that you know will
affect the next, you know,coming season of my life or the rest
of my life. Hey, areyou enjoying the show so far? We'd
love to hear what you think giveus a review wherever you're listening, and
definitely hopping our dms on social media. We love hearing how this show is
(23:41):
leaving an impact on your hearts andyour minds. Now, let's get back
to the show. It's purpose thing, right, because I think you know
what you were going into were likedeeper steps, but I think to pull
back. Most people don't even understandthat there is a difference between their purpose
and their gifts. And because ofthis search for purpose, we grab onto
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anything versus going to the creator ofall things, and we make our gifts
our purpose. Gifts were never intendedto be purpose. Out of cousin over,
he was asking me about like hispurpose and like how he finds his
purpose. And ultimately, our purposecomes from the same person that created us.
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If we're not getting that from him, anything else is lesser than anything
else, whether that purpose came fromsomebody said earlier, from a family member,
from a tradition, anything outside ofGod that we are using to identify
our purpose or to have our purposerevealed is off, especially when we go
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to our gift, because that's literallypraising the gift and not the giver slash
creator of said gifts. What isthe first step from disconnecting from Well,
my gift ain't what gives me breath? So how do I put that off?
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Not necessarily put it off, becauseI feel like we're still using it.
So it's like, but how howdo we redirect our our our scope,
our lens that we're no longer lookingat that for our purpose but looking
to him for our purpose. Howdid you do that? I mean,
it came down to what was goingon in my heart and in my head
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so before so what I hear assoon as you said that was before I
can even worry about my purpose.It's almost like this. Just imagine you
are coming to your daddy's house andyou know that that's your daddy house because
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somebody said that's your daddy house.While we're to the duddy. You've never
talked to this man. You've neverspoken to this man, you've never seen
this man. You're not going todo it. A man opens a door
and you're like, well, Iguess I'm supposed to ask this person,
like what my purpose is, orwhat my career is, or what I'm
supposed to be doing on earth.But I don't know. I haven't spent
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time with them. I've broken breadwith him. I don't even know if
this there could be somebody else inthe house that's the man, I don't
even I have no clue. Butif you were to live in your daddy's
house, based on the time thatyou spend with your daddy, based on
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the mills that you've had with yourdaddy, where y'all have had conversations void
of a phone, void of TV, void of social media, where it's
just been me and you daddy havingconversations, spending time, we get it
to know who you were before me, who you gonna be after me,
and then through that process you learnwho you truly are. So I knows
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that God boasts are kind because ofthe time that we spend, because of
the way that she sees me cheather mother, not because she just randomly
stumbled upon it and it was like, oh, shoot, okay, I
guess this is it. Because thisis it versus having a relationship, that's
where it sounds when you said myheart, And like those types of things
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that take time to change, therearen't things that you can just get a
new heart. It's like there's aset there are seasons of unlearning. There
are seasons of trial and error.There are seasons of getting to know who
God truly is. That out ofthose seasons not because I knocked them to
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do, and just as God's mypurpose, but I got to know my
Father, and out of getting toknow my Father for who he is,
my purpose was just revealed to me. It wasn't something that I was searching
for. Jesus talks about two differenttypes of treasure within the same two scriptures.
First, a treasure that's seeing avalue by people and a thing something
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material that rusts and moths can destroyit. But then he talks about a
treasure that's not seeing my people,that is in heaven that takes a level
of faith. And when we gotto the point of talking about that level
of faith that it takes to notbe able to see a treasure, like
if I go to work for eighthours or forty hours a week, then
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I'm going to see a paycheck.So it's like for those of us that
have been working out of work asI was sixteen, you've been working.
You've worked most of your life aswell, so we've been we're unknowingly programmed
that if I do this, Iget that. Well, God is nothing
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like the world. So what tendsto happen is even though faith without works
is dead. True, however,that works contextually is an obedience not in
my will exactly. It's predicated onthe faith being present. It's not based
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on works build my faith. It'sflipped. Faith without works is dead.
So my faith is dead if Idon't actually do something to prove that I
have faith. But it starts withfaith. So see that's the spiritual route
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of a physical manifestation of something.So your faith will bear fruit in how
you live and how you talk andhow you walk. But it's not about
the works and like the way youwalk, in the way you talk,
building your faith and like actually makingyour faith grow bigger. That's that's out
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of context. But even like whenyou describe works, and I would say,
have I storms, because I feellike if we look that works there,
well I can, it wouldn't bethe same works as we assume in
our mind as it pertains to likestuff that we do. Because that's part
of the conversation last night, whichlike we talked about that thin line.
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I bought up. Hey, look, with a lot of things and God,
there's a thin line between I'm dippinginto myself. I'm dipping into my
flesh, and I'm in the spiritthat God wants me to be in.
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There's a thin line between those things. So it's like it's one thing to
quote unquote have faith but not donothing. It's another thing to have faith
and try to do everything. Sofor example, if God said do three
steps, and that obedience is worthdriving my faith or my faith is in
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me being obedient versus God said dothree steps, but I'm like, okay,
I did. There's three steps God, but I'm not there yet,
so I'm like, well, I'mgonna do three more steps. Because faith
is that works is dead. It'slike, but did God tell you to
do that? Facts? Did Guytell you to get that extra degree?
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Or was that your way or wasthat your way of doing what? What
you knew that what you have faithin God for, but you tried to
do yourself. Kind of similar tolike Abraham and how God said You're gonna
have a son, and because ofthat situation, Abraham put his works in
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to birth Ishmael when God was like, no, that wasn't No, Sarah's
gonna give you your son, rightright, So your works wasn't too overwork,
so that as if God needs youto do it, it's actually in,
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hey, do what I told youto do. Be obedient. So
if that was go to have sexualGod sexual with your wife, and then
the rest requires faith that I'm gonnado what I said I'm gonna do.
I want to do the thing thatyou can't do. Not Oh well,
I'm gonna work my tail off andI'm gonna make sure that we round a
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clock doing this. And it's likethat's not God, nor is that faith.
That's your will, willing, somethingthat you desire to come to pass.
And then you will be able tosay, well, because I did,
I got this position, because Idid I work one hundred dollars that
week, I got this big paycheck. Where do you need God? Where
(33:42):
did faith come into play? Thatwas a big conversation last night because for
a lot of us, we areliterally taking leads to faith where where where
what we're doing to man would beconsidered very minimum, whereas that's what God
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told us to do. So whenGod brings to pass his premises, I'm
mark gonna be able to take creditfor it. They won't be able to
take credit for it. Whoever won'tbe able to take credit for it.
You're gonna look at say, shoot, I worked ten hours this week,
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but the outcome, the output,it's as if I worked ten thousand hours
this week. How and that messageup with with with with our very creation,
look not our very creation, thatmessage with how we've been trained in
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the world to view everything. That'swhere hustle culture comes from. That's where
I gotta go get it myself comesfrom. It's like we will hustle and
then say to God be the glorywhen God wasn't in any of that.
The only the only hand God hadin that was giving you the breath to
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do it, giving you the physicalmeans to do it. Outside of that,
I don't even argue that because likeGod is not in stress, God
is not anxiety. So listen tothis James, Chapter two, verse fourteen
(35:44):
through twenty six. You're really yes, because it's gonna be good. This
is well. Let me read Iwas gonna read King James, but I
read it in King James. Yeah, all right, what doth it profit?
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My brethren? Though a man sayhe hath faith and have not works,
can faith save him? If abrother or sister be naked and destitute
of daily food, and one ofyou say, unto them, depart in
peace by a warmed and filled notwithstanding, ye give them not those things which
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are needful to the body. Whatdoth it profit? So basically that is
saying the faith part is you seeinga brother or sister who is naked and
without food, and instead of actuallygiving them clothes, you tell them to
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have faith, go have peace andfaith and like, but not give them
the actual clothes. Yeah, verseseventeen. Even so, faith, if
it hath not works, is deadbeing alone. YEA a man may say,
thou hast faith, and I haveworks. Show me thy faith without
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thy works, and I will showthee my faith by my works. Thou
believest that there is one God.Thou doest well. The devils also believe
and tremble. But wilt thou know, o vain man, that faith without
works is dead. Was not Abrahamour father justified by works? When he
(37:32):
had offered Isaac his son upon thealtar, seest thou hath faith route with
his works? And by works wasfaith made perfect? And the scripture was
fulfilled, which saith. Abraham believedGod, and it was inputed into him
for righteousness, and he was calledthe Friend of God. Ye see then,
(37:57):
how that by works a man isjustified and not by faith alone,
not by faith only. Likewise,also was not rehab the Harlot justified by
works when she had received the messengersand had sent them out another way.
For as the body without the spiritis dead, so faith without works is
(38:22):
dead. Also in every single instancein these scriptures, you can't have works
without faith, but you can't havefaith without the works in the sense of
it's spiritual and it has to havea physical manifestation. Faith is dead without
(38:50):
a spirit body like connection to actuallymake the faith appear. Yeah, but
you can flip it and do theworks, but it's a dead thing because
it has no spirit, has nofaith. So you can be out here
giving to the poor, working thatfood shelters, doing all the things,
(39:15):
going to church every Sunday, readingyour Bible, but if you don't actually
believe in what you're doing, it'sfor what, Yeah, And the belief
justifies though how I said, it'sthe belief justifies the works. So it's
(39:47):
to ultimately believe something. What youdo or don't do shows that. So
for example, people that also goeswith God. So if I say I
have faith that God is going todo this, but then I go into
(40:13):
hyper mode to get it down myselfthrough my works? Do I have faith
in God? That's the question athand. That is exactly what these scriptures
are saying to myself. It's literallylike, oh, vain man, like
(40:37):
that faith without works is dead?Like how vain of you to think that,
like your works are enough without thefaith attached, because it's the faith
end. What's ultimately the question,what do you have faith in? See,
(40:58):
we assume we can only have faithin God. Faith ain't just a
Christian term, right. You canhave faith in your training, yep,
that could have been void of God. You can have faith in gifts that
(41:21):
God gave you that's still leaving Godout of it. You can have faith
in your tradition. People have faithin spells and in sage like so and
other sorcery. And it's like whenwe say we put that faith works dead
(41:43):
or we plucked that out, youhave to specify where your faith is because
the faith of our works is dead. Is simply saying, hey, faith,
whatever God told you to do,that's all you need to do.
Now, somebody else could. Nowthis has messed me up for years of
(42:06):
my life, especially even when itcomes to the promises of God, because
now that I'm over here living inthe promises of God, it's like,
but for other people to have this, they're doing all these things and I'm
not. Am I doing enough?God? Second guessing it? Like literally,
(42:27):
yeah, well God, I didn't. I didn't have a college degree.
God, But I'm over here,like should I be here? And
that's where you have to find restand trust in the relationship that you have
with him and get into what Godsays about you and about how He provides
(42:49):
for us in his word, Likeand that's the thing I think we most
of our lives. We can bothsay that we grew up with Christian values.
You definitely grew up in church.Me I was like kind of here
and there, but not really.But still my parents consider themselves Christian.
I consider myself a Christian. Igot baptized when I was a kid,
(43:09):
but also baptized when I was likea grown adult. And even with all
that being said, there is sucha thing as living in just the carnal
aspect of Christianity, and a lotof people are stuck there in this very
(43:30):
like human experience, like very physicalexperience of like what they think Christianity is
so because it feels very like,Okay, I'm supposed to just read my
Bible and like hear God talk tome. But like I don't know anybody
who actually has real experiences with that. And the people that I see that
(43:52):
are quote unquote in positions of poweras pastors or whatever, or people that
have been going to church all theythe whole life, they acting just like
me, or they doing other stuffthat I'm like, you just like the
world or whatever, and they're carnal. And what I think is that what
also happens in this whole thing.It's like we are spiritual beings, so
(44:15):
we are attracted to spiritual things.So those of us who believe in God
that are misunderstanding how he operates completelywill get swayed into believing in you know,
mercury retrograde and like you know,your horoscope being the thing that's going
(44:37):
to tell you what your personality typeis and what to expect from your future
partner. And I mean because Iused to be into all of that,
I used to get my charge spreadand everything. I remember when that really
become a thing where people were askingI was like, I don't know,
never have I cared no, Butlike that's you. I'm talking like a
(45:00):
lot of us who are like naturallymore inclined to the spiritual things, especially
women, because we really are,we get pulled into these other ways of
doing it, these like fabrications fromfallen angels, you know, and that's
a whole other topic for another day, but like we fall into that stuff
(45:22):
actually seeing like real false miracles throughthose things, like oh my gosh,
I knew that we were going tobe a match because you're a cancer and
I'm a Capricorn, and like thoseare supposed to be because like I used
to really think that way and notunderstanding that like that is so not the
(45:42):
way that God has ordained us oridentified us. And what happens is we
end up getting so reliant on thecharts and the moon and all those things,
and it's like God is so focusedand so desiring of us to connect
with him spiritually and have him listen. The power of the Holy Spirit far
(46:07):
surpasses anything you could ever feel orunderstand from like a horoscope reading or a
birth chart or any of those things. It's that now that is real power.
But it's again, it's like whenyou don't have an exposure to it,
or you don't have like an understandingof that part of faith, then
(46:30):
you lose out on so much ofwhat it means to like actually live in
Christ and actually walk with the HolySpirit and really be able to navigate life
the way we've been navigating it towhere it's like, yeah, we don't
just think we're gonna make it allhappen, we really do wait on God
and say, Okay, Lord,should I take this brand deal? Should
(46:52):
I go to this thing today?Should I drink this thing? Should I?
Like literally like asking him. Godsaid, Mark, we're going to
Memo with all your the free timeI saw her kids and the wife,
We're going to Memo. And whenI obeyed that in action of okay God,
(47:13):
an example of faith with the rightworks, obedient work. Okay God,
you told me to do this,I'm going to do it. Shut
down a brand. Now my momwent to Okay, well, now if
I'm not gonna bring the money thisway, and now I got to figure
out a way to bring money anotherway. So let me go get a
job to add my works because offaith in me, not faith in him.
(47:38):
But that's not for me to do. So my faith in God said,
okay, shut down the brand.Now I'm going back to you God.
Now what's next? And this withme? The next day he said,
testimony service. Now that is anotherwork that doesn't look this ain't paying
(48:00):
me God, But my faith isin you, not in me. So
I'm going to obey and and takecare of my home. And while that
doesn't look like a whole lot,first of all, it is a whole
lot Jesus, Like nobody and onetells you when you're own home and y're
all the other things going on,and then the kids and then the pregnant,
(48:22):
why it's a lot. Okay,So that nothing to to to to
sneeze at. However, none ofthat stuff will go away if I had
a full time job, yea,So it would just be now the burden
(48:44):
of knowing I got to work andthen I got to take care of everything
else. So it's like oftentimes Godwants to give us something lighter, but
because it doesn't look like the world, because it doesn't look like what we've
experienced in the world, we discountedfor well, I face with our work.
She's dead. Let me go grind. Yeah, right, And we
(49:07):
said all that to come back tosay, what you have your faith in
matters? Yes, because if youhave faith in anything but God, that
means I gotta do it and atsome point, at some point you won't
(49:30):
be able to carry it and itwill break down. And at that point
is when we like to call onGod and say, Lord, how did
I get to this place? Ineed your help? Please just give me
out of this one situation. Ipromise, And it's like God is like,
I'm giving you what you asked for. You wanted to go do this
(49:51):
job you wanted to. I waspleased with you, just like doing the
function that I called you to bein. And if it's and it's like,
well, how do I know whatGod wants me to do If I
don't have this like super spiritual strongrelationship with him right now, that's okay.
(50:13):
Start just go learn about him.Start read about him, and then
read specifically about how he provides whenit comes to his children. So for
example, like that I can't rememberwhich scripture it is and you probably know
this better than I do, butit's like the scripture where it talks about
(50:36):
he takes care of the lilies andthe birds and make sure you six I
want to say, like twenty threethirty four or something like that. Yeah,
but it's like he makes sure thatall of creation has food to eat.
(51:00):
You even know job before they evennotice that a description. Well,
I didn't, I didn't. Ifyou don't know how God is a provider,
if you don't know his character,if you don't know those things,
go learn about him because that's goingto give you the reassurance and the like
context to understanding what to even expect. And also like how he moves and
(51:22):
how he talks and how he uhoperates in people's lives. And you'll start
to notice that he's actually been talkingto you for a long time. You
just didn't recognize his voice because hetalks to all of us. His Holy
Spirit talks to all of us.He's never stopped. He's chasing you.
(51:42):
You there's four hundred and seven unionbetween Melica and Matthew. First off,
bus are removed that I wasn't silentfor four hundred years. Stop and he
ain't silent now, he ain't silent. Now you think all this is going
on in the chilling God. Stopabout the Bible, just so we're clear
(52:04):
we are in and the Bible likewe're still writing, Yes, as God
is doing miracles and doing things inour lives, We're still like, that's
the Bible. That's I'm writing theBook of Mark as we speak. Jade
is writing the Book of Jade aswe speak. So when we share these
things, we share our testimonies,we share. That's the same thing as
David. What David didn't share withsomebody or somebody's someone was writing um scribing
(52:30):
for David his life so that yearsdown the line, people could look at
his life and say, Wow,God's patterns, God's principles have not changed.
And you don't see that or knowthat until you really start to get
to know him in his word.Right, So getting that Bible, y'all,
(52:52):
but like going with an open heart, like have faith, read it
like it's real, not like Davidis just a character in a story.
But read it like it is.That's that's what that's what. David is
no different than you. David wasnot a superman superhuman David. You want
(53:15):
to go Solve, You want togo Matthew, you want to go Gideon
Joseph, you want to go Jacob, Abraham, you pick pick anybody in
the Bible not named, Yes,you would not name Jesus. You picked
them on women included no different thanyou when they had the Holy Spirit a
(53:38):
body in them. Actually, wehave more power than even they did because
we have access the Old Spirit allthe time. Yes they didn't, like
they didn't even have that access.The only difference was so like it's consent
to but talk about David and Goliath, and everybody was talking. David could
(54:00):
go, David knew if you readthe whole, if you leave Verst and
Second Samuel, David knew. Thisain't because of me. This is because
of the Spirit of God working inme. And guess what that would be
more men than David to kill multiplegiants. That's in your Second Samuel Bible
(54:24):
as well. So it's like thedifference between Solomon and David and Saw all
these men was there was a versionof them with God working in them,
and there was a version of themwith God not working in them. We're
no different, except we have accessto the Holy Spirit to work in us
(54:45):
at all times and at any timethat we decide to tap Him in it
she baby. Well, y'all knowwhat that sound is YouTube kids, which
means that there's a kid in here. So so I think this is a
(55:13):
good place to call it a day. And definitely if y'all are interested in
any I know, we jumped arounda lot in this one, so there's
multiple topics here. So if youhave baby he pause that real quick,
just real quote. If you haveany questions or thoughts, definitely email us
(55:37):
at Team at the guiboatlife dot com. That's our email, but obviously you
can always hit us up on socialmedia as well. Is that if there
is a topic you want us todive blush you baby, that you want
us to dive into deeper. Becauseagain, there was a lot in this
episode, feel free to reach outif we can dive in deeper, bring
(55:57):
more scripture into the conversation to supportbecause that's something that we would definitely we
can easily prepare beforehand. But yeah, so that is our episode for today.
Peace out, Mark and I hopeyou enjoy today's episode. It's truly
a pleasure to be a part ofyour day. Keep up with us on
social media, but also feel freeto email us at Team at the gooidboatlife
(56:21):
dot com. If you got anyprayer requests or questions that we can answer
until next time. Chat soon Bye,
What's good, y'all. It's Markand Jade, God both here. We're
just a couple of millennials who metat the peak of our careers as a
beauty influencer and a corporate cool kidwho decided that life wasn't enough without God.
Our platform and this show are allabout how our journey to healing and
how following after Jesus really changed usand our marriage forever. We aren't your
(00:23):
traditional churchgoers, and we appreciate thatabout ourselves. Through our testimonies, we
hope that you find relief, comfort, revelation, and most importantly, the
spirit of God. Let's get intothis episode. Why don't you share about
the memo and like that? Imean, you posted about it today,
(00:50):
Yeah, so why don't you let'stalk have a larger conversation about that.
I'm I'm writing now our thoughts aboutthe memo and kind of like where it
goes from here, finally feeling likeGod has given me their capacity to expand
(01:15):
where we are beyond justifiable study andI'm trying to I'm a visual person,
so I honestly I didn't skip thestep. I skipped completing the step of
finishing putting my thoughts onto paper tostart to put what I already had on
(01:38):
paper creatively into something to share.So I eventually caused my laptop and I
honestly felt a rush of like juststuff, and I wouldn't call anxiety,
but I would just say my ownexpectation of myself. And I had to
(02:02):
stop, and I took a deepbreath, and you came to my mind,
and that stopping brought a feeling,an overwhelming feeling of gratitude and appreciation
(02:28):
for you, And that's where thatmessage came from. And so essential message
I can't we're recording, but themessage was essentially just a very random thank
you, because when I'm thinking aboutwhat I'm doing, what we're doing,
(02:53):
my mind immediately goes to you don'tknow what you're doing, like this ain't
about like or you've gone to schoolfor this and you've been prepping and training
specifically for this thing to have theexact steps that one hundred thousand people over
(03:15):
the span of a thousand years havedone, and it's gotten these results.
A little bit different because your personalityis different, but you've been trained for
this thing that everybody does versus likethis is really a different space this isn't
(03:38):
something that you knew you were preparingfor your whole life. You were exactly,
but you didn't know that all ofthese steps, all of these things,
all of these experiences, all ofthese relationships, stuff that didn't happen,
(04:00):
all of this was to bring youhere. And it doesn't look like
everything else. It actually looks likenothing else. And so thinking about that,
my mom went to, Yo,this woman is trusting this man who
(04:30):
the way we parent, the waywe marry, like live this life out.
I didn't have examples of this.I didn't have one. I didn't
have one that I could say,Okay, if I just put this on
on to if I put this way, this filter onto mind, it's going
(04:55):
to get those results. And Iwant those results. It's always been like,
well, take a little bit ofthis, take a little bit of
that person O kind of like howhe did that, Take a little bit
of that. But it was neverlike crafting after even the Church and the
Bible, and I wasn't in theBible for myself to even understand what God's
(05:17):
weight was to put that on.It was always just like you know,
a little points and I'm pulling frompeople to not get to this point where
it feels like uncharted territory. Itfeels like Dann like I wish I had
that to do, because that wouldmake this easier. It would also but
(05:39):
while making it easier, would takethe place of God, which is why
it's not that way, Which iswhy it's not that way. And you
know, as you're talking, it'swild because I think this is another part
of you that I really need youto put some respect on God's name in
(06:02):
the sense that He has prepared youfor this moment He has Like I think
sometimes again, it's like you getback into old habits of like, well,
this is how I've always approached somethingnew, so like I feel more
comfortable when there's a path laid outfor me that I can calculate and strategically
(06:25):
understand and have like an awareness oflike where I'm going like in front of
me. And I think that whenI think about how I am able to
really trust your process and trust inGod and what He's doing in our lives
(06:46):
right now, it's because I've experiencedit before, Like I think that I
don't even think about it enough anymore. But when I took that leap of
faith after grad school, and chosenot to go into a higher education position
(07:08):
and like focus on lipstick and curlsfully. That was the first time in
my life I had ever gone outsideof a structured environment, and I was
scared, but there was this partof me that felt a thrill from it.
And once I was starting to livethat out, it really showed me
(07:32):
like, oh my gosh, whenyou trust God instead of going up through
with the plan that you thought of, it's so much bigger. It's so
much like more in so many waysthat that is exciting. And so when
(07:59):
I think about it, I'm ahuman perspective. From an experiential perspective,
I experienced very structured. I'm amilitary kid, so like I grew up
on military basis, military parents,like very very structured. Have been in
some sort of like program childcare scenario. Since I was probably what six to
(08:20):
eight weeks old as a baby,I never stayed home with my parents.
I was always in some after schoolprogram, some school thing, went to
grad school, like, so fromsix to eight weeks old till I was
twenty three, twenty four years old, I'm in very very, very structured
environments where the path is laid outfor me. And I can calculate,
(08:41):
and I can plan, and Ican But when I took that leap of
faith and said, okay, God, you want me to be an influencer
full time, like you want meto be a YouTuber, which at a
time, I didn't even tell peoplethat I made YouTube videos because people would
be like, what do you meanyou do YouTube? Like what do you
mean by that? And it wasembarrassing. It was kind of like I
(09:05):
have to explain to everybody this islike twenty thirteen, twenty fourteen times,
but I started in twenty ten.So for years it was like this thing
that like I literally did not talkabout because I felt like people didn't understand.
So there would be moments in pocketswhere I would tell people about it,
but I wasn't even I'd be,you know, riding in ubers and
(09:30):
stuff like that, and people belike, well, what do you do,
And I'd be like, oh,I work in marketing, Oh I
work in digital content. Like Iwould never say, well, I would
never not say but most of thetime because it just felt like y'all not
gonna understand what I do anyway,So like I don't even want to go
down that road. But I sayout that to say that is the human
(09:54):
experience that helps me like not feelthis pressure that I think you're feeling of
like the unknown, because for me, I'm so used to living like that
in a professional sense, especially it'sjust now carried over into like our personal
life for real, And I actuallyappreciate that freedom and that lack of responsibility
(10:20):
of like having the plan, becauseit's honestly too much to carry on top
of actually trying to live through theplan and understanding that there's going to be
variables that happen that are going todisrupt your plan every time. So like
it's easier, in my opinion,to be at will to whatever God has
(10:43):
for me than to have all theseexpectations and goals and things set in front
of me that I'm trying to upholdand continue to be committed to. So
I have a couple of things withthat, right, because you said a
few things that even and I've neverthought about until now. But then I
(11:03):
also want to come back to thatlast point because of so many times in
scripture that we see that we justoverlook it, or we've taken other scriptures
out of context to give us thespace to have control still with our doing
and our works to where we justifiedand say like, well, faith of
our works is dead, and there'sa big piece of that that we often
(11:24):
talks amazing. But we wind.When you're talking about, like you know,
having to explain to people what YouTubewas and like what you were actually
doing before it was the thing todo, my mind goes to so Jeremy
shout out, my big brother,Jeremy Smith. He comes on a Bobble
(11:48):
study and I remember the first timehe honestly called me about surprise when he
told the story. But at thetime he was probably the one that knew
the most about who why it usedto be on the Bible study at that
time. Yeah, to be ableto understand honestly, Yeah, like the
oldest one that knew me when Iwas out here to understand like the new
(12:11):
me and the transformation that is today. And he was like, man,
it's crazy because like I remember,like Mark used to get so frustrated with
us because we wanted to talk aboutsports in our college days of been athletes
and the shoes and the crap thatwas going on to work and like that
(12:37):
was we stayed surface and Mark wouldalways want to like talk about real stuff
and it would be weird and hewould like, you know, he went
into a group chat one time andjust went off on a group because we
weren't talking about real things that wewere actually going through and dealing with.
Yeah, And so he was like, now people like reach out to me
(13:01):
and they're like, yo, likewhat is Mark going? And I say,
like, this is who he reallyis, Like Mark's been like this,
but it was one of those thingsthat they could see their frustration from
me, but couldn't fully understand whereit was coming from. I didn't even
(13:22):
understand where it was coming from.And so now having this community of men
that is the memo that is like, that's the that's why we do what
we do, that's the that's whatbrings people. People come on and for
the first time they're like men talklike this, Black men talk like this
(13:48):
and not like Chad brought this uplast night not being corny. Yeah,
like he always thought that, like, you gotta be corny to actually live
for God. And being a partof the memo has been like him been
able to see other men. Heliterally said, yo, I look up
(14:09):
to automn on here because to seeother men that aren't corny, that are
creative, that are you know,doing all these great things, but submit
to God in this way and transparentin this way. It made me think
about how, even back then,before I could explain it to people,
why I wanted to even have thosetypes of conversation, what that yearning was
(14:31):
in me, that was happening wellbefore there was a Bible study or an
environment created for that. I wastrying to create my make my environment that
before that was even a space allocatedfor it. Yeah, and I've never
thought about that. I've always kindof overlooked that, especially like that's home
(14:52):
in my life because of all theother stuff that was going on that I
was distracted by, you know,work and my career and all of that.
If you're going to your point ofjuggling both of those things is hard.
Like think about, you know,Jesus saying, bring me your heavy
burdens and I will give you rest. Oftentimes that's our plan. That's literally
(15:16):
what that is. The burden isthe plan that we made up in our
head that we you know, tookfrom something somebody said to us when we
were younger, or something we sawor something we were drawn to or or
or or the very gifts that Godgave us. God gave us these gifts
(15:39):
not to be our primary, butto be a support for our primary.
That is His will for us.But oftentimes because that gift is what got
us praised when we was kids fromour parents, got us praise when we
were kids from our peers. Thatjust continued, so we became thirty forty
(16:00):
year old versions of that. Yeah, that's still look at my gifts.
Yeah, look at my gifts.I do this so well, look at
my gifts. Meanwhile, God islike, yeah, but that's not why
first of all, I gave itto you. Or you get stuck in
a mindset, in a like astate of reminiscing constantly of a time when
(16:26):
you got praised for chasing the high, Like like, we just continue,
that's all that. That's We're gonnadrugs, We're gonna go porn. In
all of these instances, we're chasingthe first time. We're continuing to chase
that feeling that we had the firsttime we did that. Yeah, not
(16:48):
realizing that to do that, weare just bulldozing through people. Yeah,
through our own feelings and emotions yea, through the desire as a God has
for us through our actual purpose,like we're not even worried about it and
at all. And sometimes it's noteven you know, like chasing the high
(17:10):
of something external. It could bechasing the high of whatever stroked your ego,
whatever made you feel good about yourself, and that when you open up
that door, then that's going toknock on everybody's door. Because even people
who may think, well, I'venever been, you know, in a
place where I had like a pornaddiction or had an issue with drugs,
(17:34):
or I had you know this orthat, But I bet you there's something
that has stroked your ego so muchthat you have you have either recognized in
the past or you have yet torecognized that there's a there's a pride and
an ego there that still inhibits youfrom feeling the wholeness and fullness of what
(17:56):
God wants for you and idea inyour purpose and understanding your purpose. And
because it's like I keep hearing likepeople the other side of it being like,
well, I'm not really good atanything, Like I do a lot
of different things, but there's notone thing that stands out for me,
Like I keep feeling that I mean, but that's what are we having moltim
(18:22):
no, no, but my point. But my point is is that even
when you're in that place, it'spointing back to you're looking for something or
someone to stroke your ego, yourpride, and that's not even the goal.
Like you just want to feel goodabout yourself in some way, shape
or form. And what we're sayingis all of these outwardly things, whether
(18:47):
it be from people you know,addictions, whatever it is, all of
accolades, titles, fame, money, all those things are all temporary counterfeit
ways to feel good about yourself.And in all actuality, there's a reason
why it feels good because it feelsgood to your flesh. But that is
(19:11):
the very thing that God is tryingto help us recognize as his children,
is that, Yeah, you thinkthat that feels good for your flesh,
but I have something that makes youfeel good spiritually to where it don't matter
what state your flesh is in,you still feel this goodness because you were
(19:33):
made to want that goodness from Me, from God, not from these other
things. But you were built forthat. But again, it's like that
battle between spirit and flesh will alwaysbe something that we tussle with because of
the fall of man, but likewe have to be very cognitive of that
(19:56):
because it literally blankets our or entirelives in so many different ways. And
if you don't have this like rootunderstanding of like what this battle is,
you will be making major decisions inyour life based off of how you feel
today or how you feel in thisseason, and then you'll end up in
(20:18):
another season and you'll be thinking,why in the hell did I do that?
Or why did I go to thatschool for four years? And I
knew I wasn't supposed to be there. There was something in me that just
knew that I was only going therebecause my parents wanted me to go,
or I saw everybody else going,so like I felt like I had to.
And if you feel like you likeyou've made decisions like that from that
(20:44):
place of fear or insecurity or whateverthat may be, searching for stability,
searching for anything, that's how youknow, yeah, you made a decision
without God involved, because God isnot of those things. Out is of
peace, of kindness, of goodness, of joy, and there's a there's
a calmness and a contentment that comeswith decisions that God has given you a
(21:08):
placed on your heart and you abidingin those decisions. But it doesn't mean
that even if you did make thosedecisions out of fear or whatever, that
you can't get back on track.But it's just a matter of, like
you got to be real with yourselfand you have to acknowledge that you know
what I am out of step.And that's hard because it's usually not one
(21:30):
decision. It's usually multiple decisions thatare made over time that you have to
like break down and understand and reallywork through before you can even really like
get back to or not even getback to get to what God has for
you, because it could be soforeign from what you think you're supposed to
(21:51):
be doing that like at one point, like you in twenty nineteen could not
have fathomed you doing what you today. Like I'm talking about even two years
ago, we didn't even like usingthe M word in this house because we
both were like freaked out by itand like genuinely still had spirits in us
(22:14):
that like did not want it andwe're repulsed by it, like on a
real level, and our flesh wasstill wanting to flesh, so like we
were not here for it. Butyet and still we surrendered that and said,
Okay, flesh, you gonna haveto quiet down and sit down somewhere
because my spirit is being led somewherethat I know God is calling me to,
(22:37):
and I'm choosing that. And that'slike a a manual decision. It's
not something you're gonna just naturally fallinto. You know, sometimes you feel
like I just ended up here becauseit just made sense in that. But
like a lot of that is notnatural. A lot of that is you
felt called and you were led,but you just may not have understood how
(23:00):
like spiritually that was operating. Itmay have felt natural to you because you
may just have been the spirit ledyour whole life. You just didn't have
the language to explain it that way. But at the same time, you
could be more logical and you couldbe more like strategic and plan and so
everybody's different, but it's important tounderstand like what kind of person are you
(23:21):
and recognizing like how am I makingdecisions in my life that you know will
affect the next, you know,coming season of my life or the rest
of my life. Hey, areyou enjoying the show so far? We'd
love to hear what you think giveus a review wherever you're listening, and
definitely hopping our dms on social media. We love hearing how this show is
(23:41):
leaving an impact on your hearts andyour minds. Now, let's get back
to the show. It's purpose thing, right, because I think you know
what you were going into were likedeeper steps, but I think to pull
back. Most people don't even understandthat there is a difference between their purpose
and their gifts. And because ofthis search for purpose, we grab onto
(24:07):
anything versus going to the creator ofall things, and we make our gifts
our purpose. Gifts were never intendedto be purpose. Out of cousin over,
he was asking me about like hispurpose and like how he finds his
purpose. And ultimately, our purposecomes from the same person that created us.
(24:34):
If we're not getting that from him, anything else is lesser than anything
else, whether that purpose came fromsomebody said earlier, from a family member,
from a tradition, anything outside ofGod that we are using to identify
our purpose or to have our purposerevealed is off, especially when we go
(24:57):
to our gift, because that's literallypraising the gift and not the giver slash
creator of said gifts. What isthe first step from disconnecting from Well,
my gift ain't what gives me breath? So how do I put that off?
(25:18):
Not necessarily put it off, becauseI feel like we're still using it.
So it's like, but how howdo we redirect our our our scope,
our lens that we're no longer lookingat that for our purpose but looking
to him for our purpose. Howdid you do that? I mean,
it came down to what was goingon in my heart and in my head
(25:42):
so before so what I hear assoon as you said that was before I
can even worry about my purpose.It's almost like this. Just imagine you
are coming to your daddy's house andyou know that that's your daddy house because
(26:03):
somebody said that's your daddy house.While we're to the duddy. You've never
talked to this man. You've neverspoken to this man, you've never seen
this man. You're not going todo it. A man opens a door
and you're like, well, Iguess I'm supposed to ask this person,
like what my purpose is, orwhat my career is, or what I'm
supposed to be doing on earth.But I don't know. I haven't spent
(26:27):
time with them. I've broken breadwith him. I don't even know if
this there could be somebody else inthe house that's the man, I don't
even I have no clue. Butif you were to live in your daddy's
house, based on the time thatyou spend with your daddy, based on
(26:48):
the mills that you've had with yourdaddy, where y'all have had conversations void
of a phone, void of TV, void of social media, where it's
just been me and you daddy havingconversations, spending time, we get it
to know who you were before me, who you gonna be after me,
and then through that process you learnwho you truly are. So I knows
(27:15):
that God boasts are kind because ofthe time that we spend, because of
the way that she sees me cheather mother, not because she just randomly
stumbled upon it and it was like, oh, shoot, okay, I
guess this is it. Because thisis it versus having a relationship, that's
where it sounds when you said myheart, And like those types of things
(27:41):
that take time to change, therearen't things that you can just get a
new heart. It's like there's aset there are seasons of unlearning. There
are seasons of trial and error.There are seasons of getting to know who
God truly is. That out ofthose seasons not because I knocked them to
(28:03):
do, and just as God's mypurpose, but I got to know my
Father, and out of getting toknow my Father for who he is,
my purpose was just revealed to me. It wasn't something that I was searching
for. Jesus talks about two differenttypes of treasure within the same two scriptures.
First, a treasure that's seeing avalue by people and a thing something
(28:25):
material that rusts and moths can destroyit. But then he talks about a
treasure that's not seeing my people,that is in heaven that takes a level
of faith. And when we gotto the point of talking about that level
of faith that it takes to notbe able to see a treasure, like
if I go to work for eighthours or forty hours a week, then
(28:48):
I'm going to see a paycheck.So it's like for those of us that
have been working out of work asI was sixteen, you've been working.
You've worked most of your life aswell, so we've been we're unknowingly programmed
that if I do this, Iget that. Well, God is nothing
(29:11):
like the world. So what tendsto happen is even though faith without works
is dead. True, however,that works contextually is an obedience not in
my will exactly. It's predicated onthe faith being present. It's not based
(29:38):
on works build my faith. It'sflipped. Faith without works is dead.
So my faith is dead if Idon't actually do something to prove that I
have faith. But it starts withfaith. So see that's the spiritual route
(30:03):
of a physical manifestation of something.So your faith will bear fruit in how
you live and how you talk andhow you walk. But it's not about
the works and like the way youwalk, in the way you talk,
building your faith and like actually makingyour faith grow bigger. That's that's out
(30:26):
of context. But even like whenyou describe works, and I would say,
have I storms, because I feellike if we look that works there,
well I can, it wouldn't bethe same works as we assume in
our mind as it pertains to likestuff that we do. Because that's part
of the conversation last night, whichlike we talked about that thin line.
(30:52):
I bought up. Hey, look, with a lot of things and God,
there's a thin line between I'm dippinginto myself. I'm dipping into my
flesh, and I'm in the spiritthat God wants me to be in.
(31:14):
There's a thin line between those things. So it's like it's one thing to
quote unquote have faith but not donothing. It's another thing to have faith
and try to do everything. Sofor example, if God said do three
steps, and that obedience is worthdriving my faith or my faith is in
(31:38):
me being obedient versus God said dothree steps, but I'm like, okay,
I did. There's three steps God, but I'm not there yet,
so I'm like, well, I'mgonna do three more steps. Because faith
is that works is dead. It'slike, but did God tell you to
do that? Facts? Did Guytell you to get that extra degree?
(32:01):
Or was that your way or wasthat your way of doing what? What
you knew that what you have faithin God for, but you tried to
do yourself. Kind of similar tolike Abraham and how God said You're gonna
have a son, and because ofthat situation, Abraham put his works in
(32:28):
to birth Ishmael when God was like, no, that wasn't No, Sarah's
gonna give you your son, rightright, So your works wasn't too overwork,
so that as if God needs youto do it, it's actually in,
(32:52):
hey, do what I told youto do. Be obedient. So
if that was go to have sexualGod sexual with your wife, and then
the rest requires faith that I'm gonnado what I said I'm gonna do.
I want to do the thing thatyou can't do. Not Oh well,
I'm gonna work my tail off andI'm gonna make sure that we round a
(33:15):
clock doing this. And it's likethat's not God, nor is that faith.
That's your will, willing, somethingthat you desire to come to pass.
And then you will be able tosay, well, because I did,
I got this position, because Idid I work one hundred dollars that
week, I got this big paycheck. Where do you need God? Where
(33:42):
did faith come into play? Thatwas a big conversation last night because for
a lot of us, we areliterally taking leads to faith where where where
what we're doing to man would beconsidered very minimum, whereas that's what God
(34:09):
told us to do. So whenGod brings to pass his premises, I'm
mark gonna be able to take creditfor it. They won't be able to
take credit for it. Whoever won'tbe able to take credit for it.
You're gonna look at say, shoot, I worked ten hours this week,
(34:34):
but the outcome, the output,it's as if I worked ten thousand hours
this week. How and that messageup with with with with our very creation,
look not our very creation, thatmessage with how we've been trained in
(34:57):
the world to view everything. That'swhere hustle culture comes from. That's where
I gotta go get it myself comesfrom. It's like we will hustle and
then say to God be the glorywhen God wasn't in any of that.
The only the only hand God hadin that was giving you the breath to
(35:19):
do it, giving you the physicalmeans to do it. Outside of that,
I don't even argue that because likeGod is not in stress, God
is not anxiety. So listen tothis James, Chapter two, verse fourteen
(35:44):
through twenty six. You're really yes, because it's gonna be good. This
is well. Let me read Iwas gonna read King James, but I
read it in King James. Yeah, all right, what doth it profit?
(36:07):
My brethren? Though a man sayhe hath faith and have not works,
can faith save him? If abrother or sister be naked and destitute
of daily food, and one ofyou say, unto them, depart in
peace by a warmed and filled notwithstanding, ye give them not those things which
(36:29):
are needful to the body. Whatdoth it profit? So basically that is
saying the faith part is you seeinga brother or sister who is naked and
without food, and instead of actuallygiving them clothes, you tell them to
(36:49):
have faith, go have peace andfaith and like, but not give them
the actual clothes. Yeah, verseseventeen. Even so, faith, if
it hath not works, is deadbeing alone. YEA a man may say,
thou hast faith, and I haveworks. Show me thy faith without
(37:09):
thy works, and I will showthee my faith by my works. Thou
believest that there is one God.Thou doest well. The devils also believe
and tremble. But wilt thou know, o vain man, that faith without
works is dead. Was not Abrahamour father justified by works? When he
(37:32):
had offered Isaac his son upon thealtar, seest thou hath faith route with
his works? And by works wasfaith made perfect? And the scripture was
fulfilled, which saith. Abraham believedGod, and it was inputed into him
for righteousness, and he was calledthe Friend of God. Ye see then,
(37:57):
how that by works a man isjustified and not by faith alone,
not by faith only. Likewise,also was not rehab the Harlot justified by
works when she had received the messengersand had sent them out another way.
For as the body without the spiritis dead, so faith without works is
(38:22):
dead. Also in every single instancein these scriptures, you can't have works
without faith, but you can't havefaith without the works in the sense of
it's spiritual and it has to havea physical manifestation. Faith is dead without
(38:50):
a spirit body like connection to actuallymake the faith appear. Yeah, but
you can flip it and do theworks, but it's a dead thing because
it has no spirit, has nofaith. So you can be out here
giving to the poor, working thatfood shelters, doing all the things,
(39:15):
going to church every Sunday, readingyour Bible, but if you don't actually
believe in what you're doing, it'sfor what, Yeah, And the belief
justifies though how I said, it'sthe belief justifies the works. So it's
(39:47):
to ultimately believe something. What youdo or don't do shows that. So
for example, people that also goeswith God. So if I say I
have faith that God is going todo this, but then I go into
(40:13):
hyper mode to get it down myselfthrough my works? Do I have faith
in God? That's the question athand. That is exactly what these scriptures
are saying to myself. It's literallylike, oh, vain man, like
(40:37):
that faith without works is dead?Like how vain of you to think that,
like your works are enough without thefaith attached, because it's the faith
end. What's ultimately the question,what do you have faith in? See,
(40:58):
we assume we can only have faithin God. Faith ain't just a
Christian term, right. You canhave faith in your training, yep,
that could have been void of God. You can have faith in gifts that
(41:21):
God gave you that's still leaving Godout of it. You can have faith
in your tradition. People have faithin spells and in sage like so and
other sorcery. And it's like whenwe say we put that faith works dead
(41:43):
or we plucked that out, youhave to specify where your faith is because
the faith of our works is dead. Is simply saying, hey, faith,
whatever God told you to do,that's all you need to do.
Now, somebody else could. Nowthis has messed me up for years of
(42:06):
my life, especially even when itcomes to the promises of God, because
now that I'm over here living inthe promises of God, it's like,
but for other people to have this, they're doing all these things and I'm
not. Am I doing enough?God? Second guessing it? Like literally,
(42:27):
yeah, well God, I didn't. I didn't have a college degree.
God, But I'm over here,like should I be here? And
that's where you have to find restand trust in the relationship that you have
with him and get into what Godsays about you and about how He provides
(42:49):
for us in his word, Likeand that's the thing I think we most
of our lives. We can bothsay that we grew up with Christian values.
You definitely grew up in church.Me I was like kind of here
and there, but not really.But still my parents consider themselves Christian.
I consider myself a Christian. Igot baptized when I was a kid,
(43:09):
but also baptized when I was likea grown adult. And even with all
that being said, there is sucha thing as living in just the carnal
aspect of Christianity, and a lotof people are stuck there in this very
(43:30):
like human experience, like very physicalexperience of like what they think Christianity is
so because it feels very like,Okay, I'm supposed to just read my
Bible and like hear God talk tome. But like I don't know anybody
who actually has real experiences with that. And the people that I see that
(43:52):
are quote unquote in positions of poweras pastors or whatever, or people that
have been going to church all theythe whole life, they acting just like
me, or they doing other stuffthat I'm like, you just like the
world or whatever, and they're carnal. And what I think is that what
also happens in this whole thing.It's like we are spiritual beings, so
(44:15):
we are attracted to spiritual things.So those of us who believe in God
that are misunderstanding how he operates completelywill get swayed into believing in you know,
mercury retrograde and like you know,your horoscope being the thing that's going
(44:37):
to tell you what your personality typeis and what to expect from your future
partner. And I mean because Iused to be into all of that,
I used to get my charge spreadand everything. I remember when that really
become a thing where people were askingI was like, I don't know,
never have I cared no, Butlike that's you. I'm talking like a
(45:00):
lot of us who are like naturallymore inclined to the spiritual things, especially
women, because we really are,we get pulled into these other ways of
doing it, these like fabrications fromfallen angels, you know, and that's
a whole other topic for another day, but like we fall into that stuff
(45:22):
actually seeing like real false miracles throughthose things, like oh my gosh,
I knew that we were going tobe a match because you're a cancer and
I'm a Capricorn, and like thoseare supposed to be because like I used
to really think that way and notunderstanding that like that is so not the
(45:42):
way that God has ordained us oridentified us. And what happens is we
end up getting so reliant on thecharts and the moon and all those things,
and it's like God is so focusedand so desiring of us to connect
with him spiritually and have him listen. The power of the Holy Spirit far
(46:07):
surpasses anything you could ever feel orunderstand from like a horoscope reading or a
birth chart or any of those things. It's that now that is real power.
But it's again, it's like whenyou don't have an exposure to it,
or you don't have like an understandingof that part of faith, then
(46:30):
you lose out on so much ofwhat it means to like actually live in
Christ and actually walk with the HolySpirit and really be able to navigate life
the way we've been navigating it towhere it's like, yeah, we don't
just think we're gonna make it allhappen, we really do wait on God
and say, Okay, Lord,should I take this brand deal? Should
(46:52):
I go to this thing today?Should I drink this thing? Should I?
Like literally like asking him. Godsaid, Mark, we're going to
Memo with all your the free timeI saw her kids and the wife,
We're going to Memo. And whenI obeyed that in action of okay God,
(47:13):
an example of faith with the rightworks, obedient work. Okay God,
you told me to do this,I'm going to do it. Shut
down a brand. Now my momwent to Okay, well, now if
I'm not gonna bring the money thisway, and now I got to figure
out a way to bring money anotherway. So let me go get a
job to add my works because offaith in me, not faith in him.
(47:38):
But that's not for me to do. So my faith in God said,
okay, shut down the brand.Now I'm going back to you God.
Now what's next? And this withme? The next day he said,
testimony service. Now that is anotherwork that doesn't look this ain't paying
(48:00):
me God, But my faith isin you, not in me. So
I'm going to obey and and takecare of my home. And while that
doesn't look like a whole lot,first of all, it is a whole
lot Jesus, Like nobody and onetells you when you're own home and y're
all the other things going on,and then the kids and then the pregnant,
(48:22):
why it's a lot. Okay,So that nothing to to to to
sneeze at. However, none ofthat stuff will go away if I had
a full time job, yea,So it would just be now the burden
(48:44):
of knowing I got to work andthen I got to take care of everything
else. So it's like oftentimes Godwants to give us something lighter, but
because it doesn't look like the world, because it doesn't look like what we've
experienced in the world, we discountedfor well, I face with our work.
She's dead. Let me go grind. Yeah, right, And we
(49:07):
said all that to come back tosay, what you have your faith in
matters? Yes, because if youhave faith in anything but God, that
means I gotta do it and atsome point, at some point you won't
(49:30):
be able to carry it and itwill break down. And at that point
is when we like to call onGod and say, Lord, how did
I get to this place? Ineed your help? Please just give me
out of this one situation. Ipromise, And it's like God is like,
I'm giving you what you asked for. You wanted to go do this
(49:51):
job you wanted to. I waspleased with you, just like doing the
function that I called you to bein. And if it's and it's like,
well, how do I know whatGod wants me to do If I
don't have this like super spiritual strongrelationship with him right now, that's okay.
(50:13):
Start just go learn about him.Start read about him, and then
read specifically about how he provides whenit comes to his children. So for
example, like that I can't rememberwhich scripture it is and you probably know
this better than I do, butit's like the scripture where it talks about
(50:36):
he takes care of the lilies andthe birds and make sure you six I
want to say, like twenty threethirty four or something like that. Yeah,
but it's like he makes sure thatall of creation has food to eat.
(51:00):
You even know job before they evennotice that a description. Well,
I didn't, I didn't. Ifyou don't know how God is a provider,
if you don't know his character,if you don't know those things,
go learn about him because that's goingto give you the reassurance and the like
context to understanding what to even expect. And also like how he moves and
(51:22):
how he talks and how he uhoperates in people's lives. And you'll start
to notice that he's actually been talkingto you for a long time. You
just didn't recognize his voice because hetalks to all of us. His Holy
Spirit talks to all of us.He's never stopped. He's chasing you.
(51:42):
You there's four hundred and seven unionbetween Melica and Matthew. First off,
bus are removed that I wasn't silentfor four hundred years. Stop and he
ain't silent now, he ain't silent. Now you think all this is going
on in the chilling God. Stopabout the Bible, just so we're clear
(52:04):
we are in and the Bible likewe're still writing, Yes, as God
is doing miracles and doing things inour lives, We're still like, that's
the Bible. That's I'm writing theBook of Mark as we speak. Jade
is writing the Book of Jade aswe speak. So when we share these
things, we share our testimonies,we share. That's the same thing as
David. What David didn't share withsomebody or somebody's someone was writing um scribing
(52:30):
for David his life so that yearsdown the line, people could look at
his life and say, Wow,God's patterns, God's principles have not changed.
And you don't see that or knowthat until you really start to get
to know him in his word.Right, So getting that Bible, y'all,
(52:52):
but like going with an open heart, like have faith, read it
like it's real, not like Davidis just a character in a story.
But read it like it is.That's that's what that's what. David is
no different than you. David wasnot a superman superhuman David. You want
(53:15):
to go Solve, You want togo Matthew, you want to go Gideon
Joseph, you want to go Jacob, Abraham, you pick pick anybody in
the Bible not named, Yes,you would not name Jesus. You picked
them on women included no different thanyou when they had the Holy Spirit a
(53:38):
body in them. Actually, wehave more power than even they did because
we have access the Old Spirit allthe time. Yes they didn't, like
they didn't even have that access.The only difference was so like it's consent
to but talk about David and Goliath, and everybody was talking. David could
(54:00):
go, David knew if you readthe whole, if you leave Verst and
Second Samuel, David knew. Thisain't because of me. This is because
of the Spirit of God working inme. And guess what that would be
more men than David to kill multiplegiants. That's in your Second Samuel Bible
(54:24):
as well. So it's like thedifference between Solomon and David and Saw all
these men was there was a versionof them with God working in them,
and there was a version of themwith God not working in them. We're
no different, except we have accessto the Holy Spirit to work in us
(54:45):
at all times and at any timethat we decide to tap Him in it
she baby. Well, y'all knowwhat that sound is YouTube kids, which
means that there's a kid in here. So so I think this is a
(55:13):
good place to call it a day. And definitely if y'all are interested in
any I know, we jumped arounda lot in this one, so there's
multiple topics here. So if youhave baby he pause that real quick,
just real quote. If you haveany questions or thoughts, definitely email us
(55:37):
at Team at the guiboatlife dot com. That's our email, but obviously you
can always hit us up on socialmedia as well. Is that if there
is a topic you want us todive blush you baby, that you want
us to dive into deeper. Becauseagain, there was a lot in this
episode, feel free to reach outif we can dive in deeper, bring
(55:57):
more scripture into the conversation to supportbecause that's something that we would definitely we
can easily prepare beforehand. But yeah, so that is our episode for today.
Peace out, Mark and I hopeyou enjoy today's episode. It's truly
a pleasure to be a part ofyour day. Keep up with us on
social media, but also feel freeto email us at Team at the gooidboatlife
(56:21):
dot com. If you got anyprayer requests or questions that we can answer
until next time. Chat soon Bye,
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