This is Jimmy Nanette. We are coming to you from the heart, the very middle. The bullseye of the dartboard of the Texas Hill Country. Okay, that's crazy. I know. I threw myself completely off, so I just started rambling. I don't know. I'm riffing. It's called riffing. Okay. Riffing is when you kind of just go with the flow. Gotcha. It's like improv, playing solo guitar like I do. I'm just improvising. Oh, okay. But we are coming from the middle of the Hill Country. Right,
we are. Right in the smack and dab in the middle. Smack dab. Always wonder what that meant. Yeah, what does that mean? Smack dab. Smack dab. That's a weird thing to say. Well, hello, beautiful. Hello. You're gorgeous. When you walked up at this, so we were at the coffee house. This is a great coffee house here in Fredericksburg. And you're meeting with what, about 10 ladies doing a Bible study. Room full of ladies. 10
to 12, yes. And then the whole coffee house is filled with people from our church, the Bridge Church, which is just. So cool. I'm meeting with Pastor Brian there. We're hanging out and we're talking to everybody. I mean, just it was nonstop today. I love it. I love that our community is a community out in the community. Isn't it beautiful? It is. So, but when you walked up and you're wearing white, that white, what do you call it? So I need to wear white all the time. No, what
do you call it? It's a white vest. A vest, a vest. You walk up and I was like, wow. I so outpunted my coverage. Wow. I cannot believe I'm married to her. You're so funny. And no, I don't want anything. So I was just like, wow. How did you know I was thinking that? No, I'm just kidding. Because most people live in negotiation mode. We don't. No, we don't. We don't. Every day is Christmas for us. That's the way we act, right? Yes. How are you doing this morning? I see you're
doing some work over there. I am. I'll be okay. I'll be patient with that. I know you're multitasking here. Some of us have work to do. Wow. Well, I worked at home for a couple of days, but I also had a lot going on. And so I'm just, that's all. I'm just, until we get going on the podcast, I thought, well, I'll just kind of go through my emails and get it done real quick. Yes. I want to thank the folks for listening in today. And we're doing audio version. I made an executive
decision. Again. How many times have you gone back and forth? A lot. Because, you know, my heart is to get a good, positive, life -giving message out to people the best way we can. So we thought we would try doing the video. But the problem is with that, if you have an actual just video studio and a separate audio. studio, office, you can do that. We have to go back and forth, or we either have to keep this a full -on video, and then we can't work in here. Or
we tear it down every time. It was too much work. It was labor -intensive, and then it took other staff out of their jobs to try to produce this. So we, I, made a decision that I'm not going to pursue the video side of things, that we're going to stick with audio. We're going to stick with our format. You will do a video when you do your interviews, though. On interviews. And I was actually thinking about sticking with audio on interviews as well. Really? You can do that.
We'll see. It's your call. You can make the decision whenever you want. Yeah. I mean, it's fun playing with cameras and all that stuff. But you know what? I feel like it's the message that matters. It's not what people see. It's what people are hearing. And we feel like we have a message that's worthy to be heard because it's the word of God. I prefer not to be on camera anyway. So that's perfect. We all knew that already. I already knew that. So I thought you might be happy with
that decision. Well, literally, I was happy walking in, what, two days ago. Into the office and it was clear and I could breathe. It looked like an office again. I brought my couch back in here. I have a great, wonderful couch. I was in shock that you did this. But if the people that know us know that we like, we're very, we're minimalist and we like. We're neat nicks. And we're neat
nicks. We're neat. And because I'm having to work in your office while they're building my office right now, I didn't even want to be here because. I was more comfortable at home because walking in here, it was frenetic. And I can't work in a frenetic environment. You had no joy. No, no joy at all. So I'm thrilled. Now we can actually counsel people in here, have meetings. Which is what we do. This is what we do. But we had to look for a place. I know. And every
place is taken here. It didn't work. It did not work. And for so many reasons. And when we took all the equipment down and we moved it back into Faith's office. And we cleared this and we brought my couch back in and we set this up. I felt relief. I felt like peace. So, yeah, I was tired. You know, the whole YouTube thing, and I'm not going to knock people who do YouTube and all that. It's just it's such a little phrase I use. It's a competition, a competition for your attention.
Right. That's it. And it's such a. You're trying to beat algorithms. You're competing with other people. We just want to get the gospel out. We just want to get the word out. I don't watch a lot of videos. I listen to stuff when I'm driving down the road, especially on Hello Fred. I watch videos at home. Yeah, we'll watch some at home. Not a lot, just here and there. Mostly when I'm driving or doing things because I can throw my
AirPods on and go. And so anyway, we're going to stick with this format because that's what seems to work for us. And I want to get back into our rhythm because I feel like we get, we've been so busy. We've been crazy busy running and gunning. And I feel like we're, I'm finding some peace in not traveling. I've mentioned to you, we were able to be home almost every week this night. Every night this week. Wow. Maybe I'm tired too. But we leave in a week and a half.
We've got another trip coming up, and that's going to be exciting. But we've had some downtime this week to have our evenings back, and I've got to tell you, it's been so good for me, just in my peace of mind and my heart. Because sometimes we love what we do, so we do a lot of it, and we end up getting committed to a lot of different things. Then we look up and we're like, wow, we've had no time for ourselves. And you've got to maintain that balance because it does get
pretty crazy, doesn't it? Yep, it does. So anyway, yeah. So there you have it. This is episode number 101. Yeah, we finally broke the 100 barrier. And I'm excited. I feel such peace about doing it this way and being back and having you in my office with me. Well, I do have a couple of things I want to talk about. First of all, I want to invite people to go to our website, livingupinadownworld .com. We need a favor from you folks. We love all of you. Thank you for listening. Thank you
for supporting us. We've got James Barron, very generous, continues to give. Thank you, James. You are a blessing to us on so many levels. Also, Adam Curry with Strapper Donation always comes through with that and so appreciate it. And then we have regular givers that are on an ongoing basis. But thank you for that. But another way that you can support us and encourage us through just a value for value kind of thinking is to go leave a review for us on our website. Love
to hear from you. Love to hear what you're doing. You subscribe by going there. Again, livingupinadownworld .com. You can also pick up any of the archived podcasts that we've done. And we'd love to have you. Come check us out. And I do a daily devotional. It's under the title blog on there, but it's called The Daily Grind. If you ever listen to Hello Fred, you can go and listen to Hello Fred. That's our 24 -7 streaming music station. I mean, it's Christian music, contemporary Christian
music. It's worship. We've got some songs with some edge on it, which I like. But then we do, I've got The Daily Grind on there, the little clips and the messages, real short, just like little reels. And that runs 24 -7. And so our heart is to encourage you and have the signal going out there 24 -7 through the Godcaster so that we can encourage people. And so we'd ask you to check that out. But anyway, go to our
website, LivingUpToTheDownWorld. And then to access, by the way, Adam Curry and his team at the Godcaster have been working on an app. Are you with me? I am. I'm listening. I'm just letting you go through your spiel. Well, I'm just... Looking for engagement. Oh. I'm engaging you. I'm waiting for you to talk about the app because this is, to me, a game changer for Godcaster because it's been very difficult to describe it to people without. having their phone or their
computer handy. But this is just an app that eventually they're going to be able to just download out of the app store and work. I'm super excited. I downloaded it yesterday, got the beta version of it, and it works perfectly. And so I don't know how long it'll take for it to become public, but I would assume it's not going to be that long. So anyway, that's coming. We'll keep you posted on that. But also go to hellofred .fm. Or you can go to bridgefbg .com, either one of
those. And go to the top. Yeah. And it'll say Godcaster. You'll say Godcaster on the top, click on it, and it'll take you right there. And you can listen 24 -7. You can listen on your phone, computer, whatever you got. And man, it will encourage you and bless you. Well, something I want to talk about that I think will be very helpful to our listeners. I know this has been. For me through the years, this has been a massive
game changer. What I said to you before we started recording was the one thing that's probably been the biggest game changer in my life as a follower of Jesus is learning how to declare and praise the scriptures, learning how to speak the word of God. We know that the word works, but you have to learn how to work the word. Now, has this been a big thing for you too? Yeah, definitely. Do you remember when we kind of fell upon this?
Well, it was right after we were married. There was a book called Faith to Faith that you stumbled upon at my office when I was a realtor at Coldwell Banker. And that was like early 90s. It was early 90s. We got married in 92, the end of 92. So I would say probably 93. Probably 93. Yeah, 93. And it was praying prayers of faith, speaking and declaring the word and declaring faith over circumstances of your life. And that was probably the beginning for you, I think. And then we began
to. subsequently by other books that have to do with prayer. Yeah, the other one with Jermaine Copeland, Prayers That Avail Much. We've talked about that on here before, but I think we need to talk about it again. This is so important. This is one of those things that you need to come back to often because there are certain things in the Christian life that you need to always revisit. And this is one of them to go back sometimes. We call it redigging the old
wells. that used to produce life. And then, you know, we get, we move on, we forget them. They kind of get covered over with debris and life and stuff. Then you got to go back and re -dig those wells and they produce life again. So this is one of those things and it's learning how to declare and speak the word of God over your life. Can I share something? Sure. All right. So I wrote today, like I said, I do these daily grinds. And so what I do is I take a scripture
that's a theme scripture. Last night we were laying in bed and I said, Hey, what's off the top of your head? Give me a word. And you said, I got nothing. And let me tell you why, because I, you're going through the book of Acts. So I'm reading through the scriptures of where you're going to be going. And there's not a scripture that just stands out. Now, the one that's. going to stand out for me right now is where the man falls out of the window because you're going
to talk about that on Sunday. But that's not something that I can say, oh, you should do your devotion on that because that's kind of funny. Yeah, the youth fell asleep while Paul was preaching long. The Bible even says he was preaching on and on. Most of your church does that. You're so funny. I knew you were going to take that shot. I know, I had to joke about that. It's not true, but some do. Well, you know, because you can see them. But no, so I didn't have, and
you caught me off guard. I mean, I was literally about to go to sleep. And so I was like, what, what? Okay. So I just did the same thing. I thought, okay, what, when, when I have go -to scriptures, you know, like when, when, when life gets hard or something's happening, I just need an injection of faith. And who doesn't need an injection of faith on an ongoing basis? We all do. Right. Just to navigate this crazy world. And Isaiah 54, 17. Came right to my mind. First thing that
popped into my head. So I want to read it and I want to read the daily grinds so people get a feel for what that is. So it says this is Isaiah 54, 17 out of the New King James. It says, no weapon formed against you shall prosper. And every tongue which rises against you in judgment, you shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord and their righteousness is from me, says the Lord. And so the daily grind today's title is Kingdom Dynamics. declaring
the word. Through necessity, I learned the power of confessing and declaring God's word, not to attain or acquire something, but for protection and spiritual battle. There's something powerful that happens when you stand in your conferred authority and you speak the word of God into a situation and against your enemy, the devil. The declared word sets things in the spiritual realm into motion. You're operating in kingdom
dynamics. Something has to give. Here's an example of how to use Scripture as a weapon to rout the enemy. And I follow that with this example. And this is what I want to talk about today is how can we help people get the Word and then begin to pray the Word and pray the Scriptures so that they can fight the good fight of faith and they can get that infusion of faith when you're having one of those days. And it could be as... As simple as just woke up on the wrong side of the bed
and feeling funky. Or it could be as simple as you last night. You didn't get a good night's sleep. You woke up. You couldn't get back to sleep. And then about the time you're about to get to sleep, I start snoring and roaring. So loud that I could not sleep. Which I don't hardly do anymore. But for whatever reason. No, you were really tired apparently. I was ripping. Apparently. You were. I didn't know. But anyway, you didn't get good sleep. So you woke up kind
of groggy. A little bit on edge. Not in a bad way. You weren't in a bad mood. Well, because we were going to go walk this morning, but I literally, I just, I couldn't, I felt like it was not good for me to do that with just like four or five hours sleep. So you missed, we missed our morning walk. Missed our morning walk. You're feeling groggy and tired. You're still feeling a little groggy and tired. I am, I am. No amount of coffee may fix that. So, so people have the,
we all have these kinds of days. But this is typically when we let our guard down too. Explain that or share what you mean by that. Because when we get tired and we don't and we're weary, we've got a lot of things on our mind, you know, things happening in the world, things happening in your life. It's swirling around. It could be in your family. It could cause you to kind of. your faith to diminish, to where you're not standing on the faith that God has given us,
that we begin to have little setbacks. And then that's where the enemy comes in. And then he wants to take things and start twisting everything in your mind and distort everything to where it looks a certain way to you or feels a certain way to you, but it's not reality. And that's... what I feel like happens with most of us when we, you know, have lack of sleep or have the
stress in our lives that is going on. And so I feel like that's what we need to be aware of is we kind of let our guard down and the enemy, that's where, when he strikes, it's, it's like the, the, what's the scripture where the sheep one gets out and, You know what I'm talking about? No, you don't know what I'm talking about. It's the enemy. They're all in a herd. The enemy will strike at that one that's out. He'll get the straggler. Yes, he'll get the straggler because
he's outside of the flock. And that's what happens with us. Not that we're in some grave sin or anything like that. We just aren't all there. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I do. Yeah. So, you know, I've used the. I totally agree with all that. I mean, you nailed it, but it also reminded me of the three -legged stool that I've talked about a lot. You use that all our marriage. I've heard that. Three -legged stool
is different than a four -legged stool. You can get away with a leg that's a little off on a four -legged stool, but we're made up of three parts, mind, body, and spirit. And when any one of those gets off because something's going on, Whether it's your mind that gets you get spun out mentally, like right now, your mind and your body are a little bit off just because you're tired. When you're tired, your sleep deprives everything. So think about that three legged
stool. You take any one of those three legs and cut off an inch or two. It's it's no longer functional. Right. It's it's not functioning properly. Right. And so you got two of them working here. So you got body and mind that's that's not hitting on all eight cylinders. So you feel. You feel vulnerable, like the enemy, like he's trying to take you out, right? You feel that way. So what do we
need? We need help with that. We need an infusion of faith because faith, man, when faith comes, you feel like you can move a mountain, right? You feel like, you know, that peace and that joy and that life comes when you're full of faith. And so I want to encourage you. So I'm going to read this. And then I'll share a little bit and we can both share from this. But yeah, years ago, so I was never a big follower or fan of Kenneth Copeland because I didn't understand
him. I'd heard him on the radio when I was a brand new Christian back in the early 80s. And I just remember he was more excited than most of the preachers I heard. And I thought, man, I don't know who this guy is, but he's excited about it. You know, I didn't understand the difference in theology or anything. But when we were in the 90s. We were in a season where we needed an infusion of faith. We were going. More than normal. I mean, everybody needs it on a daily
basis, but more than usual. We were newly married. We were having conflict with the spouse situation, not my ex. And children that are coming into your life. They're going, who's this guy? Do I call him dad? Do I call him, hey, dude? You know what I mean? We were making all those huge adjustments, bringing our family together. and starting over. And boy, did we ever need faith. And two, we were trying to figure out what direction we're supposed to go. Remember, I had gotten
some offers from churches. We were trying to figure out what's next. And so we were, man, everything was crazy. So we needed faith. I'm walking through, you were working for a realtor. Rick Canup. Yeah, Rick Canup. Coldwell Banker. Coldwell Banker in Lubbock. Walking through the office after hours, nobody's there. Nobody's there. And I noticed this green book laying on a desk. And you took it off that person's desk. Well, I just picked it up because you were doing
something I had some time to kill. I'm sure I was probably doing a contract or something. Probably. So I picked that book up and it said, From Faith to Faith by Kenneth and Gloria Copeland. And I remember thinking, my first thought was, well, they're not really my cup of tea. I opened the book just randomly and it turned out it was a daily devotional book. And it was all scripture. All about faith. Everything was scripture. All about faith. And I just read the first one and
it just spoke to me right where I was. Turned the page, read another one because they're short. Spoke to me right where I was. I thought, there's no way this whole book is like this. I flipped over like three chapters, you know, just not chapters, but several weeks just randomly. Everything I looked at was like. This is what I need. I need an infusion of faith. And this guy's known as a faith teacher. So I need to hear more about
this. So that I went and bought that book and I wore that book out because it really did help me. Now, I'm not a big I don't I don't push Kenneth Copeland, but I'm not going to talk against him. But I know there's been a lot of bad things said about him in later years, especially. And I'm just I don't do that. I don't talk bad about other ministers and whatnot. But I will say in the early 90s when I came upon this, and they wrote that book back in the 80s, I believe. I'll
look it up. I'll say this. Do you know where that book is? No, I think I tossed it. But you can get it online. I mean, I feel like it served its life for me. But anyway, all I'm saying is that that was exactly what I needed. I needed something that would connect me with the Word of God and teach me how to work the Word of God. Like I said, the Word of God works, but you've got to learn how to work the Word. I find it interesting that they wrote this book, and it's
basically a book of prayers. And then Gloria Copeland, not Gloria, Jermaine Copeland, who is in no relation at all, wrote a book of prayers years later that we came upon. Again, another game changer for us. And it seems like we pick those books up at a time when we're desperate. Well, could that be the Holy Spirit? Our helper, counselor, comforter, advocate, friend is leading us to what we need. He's ordering our steps and delighting in the details of our life. So he
knows what we need in that season. Yes. And he leads us to that. Yes. So it's interesting that last night I'm thinking and I'm like. I'm like, what's a go -to? And immediately that pops into my mind. Why that book? Why did that come into your mind? Well, I think because that scripture came into my mind and this scripture is so about standing. It's so about, and here's how, let me just read you the statement, the declaration. Okay. This is how you do it. You take the scripture.
Let me read the scripture. Then I'm going to read the declaration. So it's Isaiah 54, 17. This is how you learn to work the word. No weapon formed against you shall prosper, and every tongue which rises against you in judgment you shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is from me, says the Lord. Now, here's how you would pray that or make it a declaration. No weapon
formed against me. So you personalize it. No weapon or us, you and me, no weapon formed against us shall prosper. And every tongue that rises against us in judgment, we will condemn. This is our heritage as servants of the Lord and our righteousness is from him. God is our protector. This is an add on. God is our protector and vindicator. No enemy or accusation can ultimately prevail against us because the Lord himself has spoken and secured our victory. Now, I don't know about
you, just reading that lifted me right now. Because it's the word of God and you're getting it into the soul of your heart. It literally works. And it talks about praying in the spirit, building yourselves up in your most holy faith. Some people think that's all about praying in tongues. I think that's... Praying in the spirit, whether English or not. Exactly. To me, when I pray the word of God, that for me is praying in the spirit. Right. I mean, it doesn't get any more praying
in the spirit than praying the word of God. Right. But then you personalize it and you turn it towards yourself and then it becomes personal. It becomes, it's for you. Right. In that moment. And so even as I read that, it lifted me just now. I mean, I felt, I'm sitting taller in my chair actually, because man, it just makes you go. Okay. I mean, how could it not? It's the Word of God and it
works. What I love about Jermaine Copeland's books that we have read, and I've bought books for friends, people that I know need the Word of God in their lives, and she has topical subjects. Every prayer is... set in a topical subject. So like, for instance, when we were wanting to adopt a baby and we were asking God to bring the right solution for us, there was actually a topic on praying for an adoption process to
go through. When we were looking to sell a house, praying for your house to sell to the right buyer when you're wanting to buy a house. Praying for God to show you the right house. When you're having children with mental challenges, praying for those things. Financial issues, praying for those things. Or just wanting to draw closer to God. Yes. How do you use the Word of God to do that? But to me, what I love about the topical is it's practical for that moment. Right. Situation.
Yes, because it's situational. And so I love her books. And I love Kenneth Copeland's books, too, because it taught us how to rely on our faith to believe God for whatever situation we were in. But hers is more topical. And I like that because I know a lot of people will have something go on in their life and they go, God, I don't know what to do. And you don't know where to start in the Bible. So you're thinking, OK, I can, you know, a lot of people, I don't even
know where to start. So you read Adam and Eve, you know, and you're like, OK, what does this have to do with me? You know, and the situation and I'm or even Matthew and you're reading about what Jesus did. But but people are like, but I have this problem. How can I get through this problem? And to me, when you have authors who have authored a book. that has topical solutions that are all biblical. They're not inserting their own preferences or their own ideas. It's
literally the Word of God. And to me, that's powerful. That's when the Word works. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Absolutely. Because you're... The person has literally, I mean, found scriptures that pertain to what your prayer need is for, you know, your prayer need is. And so to me, I love that. That's, you know, what's her name? Stormy O'Marty, and she wrote prayers for mothers, prayers for fathers. Prayers for a praying wife, a praying husband, and hers is topical for those
particular items too. And I love that because that's been a very good source for so many people. So to me, I think those books, they're almost better to me than just reading a book of people's ideas of what they believe. you know, that God has shown them because you're literally just reading scripture. And then what happens is it makes those books timeless because they're not written about a relevant circumstance. That's happening right. Yeah. Which, and we need those
too. I mean, that's not disparaging. It's just these books, because they're based out of scripture. And it's praying the scripture and then they carry through more time, especially prayers that avail much for sure. And especially new believers who don't know where to start. When you're a seasoned believer and you're more mature, you're in a whole different genre of people. But when you're a baby, which most of us are babies, honestly,
you know what I mean? Yeah, for sure. based totally on scripture, God can take that scripture and just totally give you revelation of who he is in that scripture. And I love that. So we have a tool that would be helpful to people. And this is so interesting because it's, I'm not going to say it was an afterthought on our website, on bridgefpg .com. We have a whole page called Daily Scripture Confessions, Building Your Life on God's Word. I put that on there, gosh, four
years ago, maybe, give or take. And it was because I had been going through a lot of scripture confessions myself and just daily get in the Word. And I thought, gosh, maybe this will help somebody. So I had Faith set up a page on it. What we didn't realize is that would be the most viewed page on our website. By far. By far. Because this is what people requested, too. People need this. This is real. This is why you did it. People
were like, I don't know where to start. So what I'm going to do, it's a little tricky to find on our website. I noticed just now as I just tried to find it, I thought, whoa, this is too hard. So we need to have her fix that. I want to fix that so that it's more clear because it doesn't have its own title. So, for example, when you go to the drop -down menu, I had to find it under Ministries. At the very bottom. Which is interesting. Well, okay, now I'm even
having a hard time getting to it from here. So we need to have an icon that just says prayers of confession. Yes. What I'm going to do, though, this will help everybody. Well, we're working on a new website right now. Yeah, we're doing it right now. And so I'm going to. Oh, wait, here it is. Daily Confessions right there. it's at the top it's at the top all of our stuff is at the top okay i'm looking at the new website I'm looking at the new version. It's not on there.
So we need to talk to faith about this. Hey, thanks everybody for helping us work this out. This is how we do work. Because it was right there. Yeah. So I'm going to go to the older one and it says daily confessions right there. It's very easy to find. The new one's being built out right now. So you go to daily scripture confessions, building your life on God's word. And here's what we did. I took scriptures and put the word into it. I call it identity in Christ scripture
confessions. And the question is, have you discovered how amazing your life in Christ is meant to be? This list reveals the truth about who God created you to be and how he wants you to live. And then you can go. Start down this, and I am complete in Him who is the head over all rule and authority of every angelic and earthly power. It's Colossians 2 .10. I'm alive with Christ, Ephesians 2 .5. These are short and to the point. I am free from the law of sin and death, Romans 8 .2. I am far
from oppression and will not live in fear. That's Isaiah 54 .14. So these are just short to the point. Quick blast. So go to bridgefbg .com. At the very top of the page, it'll say daily confessions. And I just listed a bunch of them. I mean, you could spend quite a bit. I mean, and they're all short, and all they are are scriptures with a reference to them, but they're converted into a confession or a declaration. This is so powerful. Now, over the years, I developed my
own kind of confession. based out of God's word, where you'll hear me say, and I'll do this in church sometimes. I'll just, I'll say, I'm not the head. I'm the head and not the tail. I'm above only and not beneath. That's out of Deuteronomy 27. I'm blessed coming in. I'm blessed going out. I'm blessed in the city. I'm blessed in the field. The enemy comes at me one way, he has to flee seven ways. All that is a scripture. And the way I say it is that's not bragging.
It's Bible. This isn't bragging. It's Bible. It's confessing what the word of God says about us. Been raised up together, seated in Christ in heavenly places. And everything is under my feet because Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father and all things are under his feet. I'm seated in him. Therefore, they're under mine. I mean, it's just a confession. I've done that through the years. I do it very naturally and easily simply because I've done it over and over.
Well, one of the ways you were doing it, you. And I remember this from Abilene, you would go in and meet with the mayor. And it was the very first time you went, especially, it was daunting for you because you didn't know how he was going to receive you. You had never met him. They even wanted to know, you know, why do you want to
meet with the mayor? Because most people who do come in with complaints, but you were coming in because you wanted to let him know that you wanted to bathe him in prayer and you wanted to know what the prayer needs were of the city. And so what you did, and I remember you telling the church this when you were on a Sunday morning or whatever before you were going to go meet with him. Grady Barr was his name, Mayor Barr. And you said, I'm going to pray this prayer before
I go. And you literally prayed and said, God, your word says I am the head, not the tail. I'm above only and beneath. And so you set yourself up. For success to walk into that meeting because you prayed the word of God over your life, knowing you were going into a place where there was immediate discretion on Grady Barr's part because he did not know why you were coming. And so that was a great way of walking in with your head up because the Lord says he's the lifter of our head and
he lifted. You're head up to where when you walked in, you had the confidence, but it was God confidence, not Jimmy confidence. That's a great example. Thanks for reminding me of that. I'll never forget that. Think about it. I was a young pastor going to see the mayor of a city. Yes. So I was, and I was not in my, I was not in the church office. This was in his office. And he wasn't necessarily, you didn't know anything about his faith. You
didn't know anything. But God. I don't even know why you went other than God put it on your heart. Yeah, I totally felt like, here's what I thought. I thought, if God's called us to reach a city, I'm going to start with the mayor. If he's the top dog, that's who I'm going to go to first. And that's what you did. And we ended up becoming great friends. But all that to say, thank you for bringing that up, is it caused me to walk into that office different. Now, I didn't walk
in with my chest stuck out and proud. No, it was a God confidence. A God confidence. It was a God. And you even said that. You said, we need to quit having self -confidence and we need to have God confidence. You preached that. I mean, of all the things, I mean, in Abilene that you preached, I remember those messages of faith. That's walking out your faith. You were actually using the faith. and belief that God gave you to go into places that could be difficult. Could
be awkward. You could get intimidated like you're going into a hard meeting. Speak the word of God over your life. And he wasn't a new mayor. He was seasoned. So for you to make that decision to go in there, you weren't just, you know, coming in to say, attaboy, you know, I'm glad you became mayor and I'm here. No. I was young. You were just a kid. I was like a kid to him. You were
a kid to him. So I had to build myself up through the word of God so that when I walked in, I walked in in God's confidence and in God's authority, not in mine. Because in mine, I was intimidated. I was shaking in my boots. But yet I was able
to go in. But think about people that are listening and how many situations they walk into that are awkward with family, with friends, with enemies, with work, workplaces that are volatile and how it can change if they could get a hold of what God says, who they are, and they could make those confessions. You don't make them because. that's what's going to bring it into existence. You make it because your spirit is going to receive
that and you're going to get to a place. You might not even believe you're the head and not the tail at the beginning. But your spirit, the more you say it, the more your spirit receives it, and then you can walk in with your head up. I see your spirit coming up just talking about this. I know. I know you're tired physically. But the fog is blowing away. It's like you're alive. Because of the word. I'm watching it right in front of me. I know you are. The word works.
I saw you light up, and I'm like, I'm lighting up. And the fog is lifting because I'm speaking the word of God. I am the head and not the tail, above only and not beneath. The funny thing is right before we started, you said, okay, you're going to carry the whole thing. Okay, we don't have to go through all that right now. No, I love that because I knew what was going to happen. I know. Because any time we talk about the word and how God sees us. You light up. We light up.
Why? Well, and there you go. It's because the Word works. Because it's the Word and it works. The Word of God works. Thank you for the Bible. Lord God, thank you for giving us this book. It's going to make me cry because why do we forget? Why do we allow ourselves? The tiredness was wearing on me this morning because I was so... I know. Here's the weird double jeopardy thing. We know the more tired and brain foggy we get,
the more we need the word of God. But we feel like we don't have the motivation or energy. It's like a double thing that happens where you're like, when you need it the most is when you have the least appetite for it and the least motivation to get into it. I got up and did my Bible time, got up at 5 .30 this morning because I thought we were walking at 6 .45. So I'm up, I'm in the word, I'm lit up. Like, I can't do it. I'm too exhausted. And then later when you got up, you
just blew by my office. Usually you come in and we talk and say good morning. And you just were off to, I was like, are you okay? And you're like, I didn't sleep good last night. And I remember Tina going through these weeks and weeks of not. Oh, not sleeping well? That's brutal. I haven't been at that place in years. So it was just really unusual for that to happen to me last night. And, but it does, it affects every. It impacts you. I was reading something on health yesterday
and talking about sleep is so important. And when you have sleep deprivation, it affects everything. Well, it does. It does. I couldn't even get up and go walk this morning, which I really needed to. But anyway, but you know what is even better than the walking is getting in the word and letting the word speak to you and you speak the word yourself. So let me ask you. I don't want to put you on the spot, but, you know, my go -to is Isaiah 54 and Deuteronomy 27. What comes to
your mind? Well, Deuteronomy 27 always comes to mind. Is it 27 or 28? No, it's 27. Yeah, you can look it up. Deuteronomy 27, the first 12 verses. That one always comes to mind. Faith comes by hearing, hearing by the Word of God, which is hearing the message of Christ. And any time I, you know, I get... Like a lot of people who work and I work. You're very task mode. I'm very task mode. So I have to kind of make myself start with a devotion or get in the word. And
sometimes I don't. I'm like, oh my gosh, I've got to get this done and then I'll do it later. And I hate that because it really sets the tone for your day. And so it's funny because I was thinking last night about. a book called The Blood of Jesus. It's a devotion that Dawn from church gave me. And I remember waking up this morning and I was looking to see if I could find it and it wasn't in the drawers. I'm like, where is it? It's got to be in my office somewhere
at home. And this morning in Bible study, that book was brought up because apparently she gave it to a lot of people that are actually in my Bible study and they were bringing it up. And I was like, I was talking to Tina and I was like, that is so interesting because I literally had that book on my mind last night that I want to go through that devotion because it's all about the blood of Jesus. Without the blood of Jesus, we would not be here today. I mean, we would
not be in Christ. So I've watched you just come alive this morning and hopefully our listeners notice the difference. And I don't think it's the caffeine because I haven't had that much. It's not the caffeine. It's the word of God. This is what it does. It's how it works. I'm watching it in real time. time, even as I read it, it did something in me. I was like, yes, there's something inside of you just says, amen.
Well, but I also love reminiscing where God worked in, especially in your life, when you're shaking in your boots, going to the, to the mayor. I mean, there's other times you've had to use that, you know, talk scripture and put yourself in that place. But that was because. You were going into an unknown territory. And it just, it literally made me think about how many unknown territories we go into, but we're not armored up. I think if you're going to go to Walmart, you ought to
pray the word before you go in. Come on now. I'm above only not, but I'm blessed coming in. I'm blessed going out. Those aren't just cheeky, cheesy cliches. It's the word of God, which is alive and living. But Jimmy, Sunday when you preached and you got to that point in your message where you started speaking that. You could feel the room change. The room shifts. It does. I mean, obviously you're preaching out of the book
of Acts, Acts 19, and so that's the word. But when you start changing it, you switch it to where I am this, I am that. And it's not about you. It's about who God is. There it is. The whole room just changes. You feel the atmosphere change. Yes. Literally. And we can change atmospheres. And we can do that at home. We can do it at our dinner table. We can do it. We can do it at Walmart or HEB. And we can do it in the morning when we feel tired and we just have to. But you know
what? It helps too. It's hard when you're alone. And I think about the people like Martha who's by themselves and they don't have anyone to help lift them up. We have got to become. the hands and feet of Jesus for those people and help them understand that. I don't know the best way to do it, but is I know she listens to this podcast, so she's going to hear this, but we need to be able to help people understand that they have
those tools. And that, so we need to help those people that are alone because for us, we were able to do it right here together. But for those that are by themselves, they don't, and they don't have that. We need to pray that the Lord will infuse the word of God in them and it'll help them be able to, to, to take that word of God and say it out loud. Because you know what? I can think it all I want and I can say, God, I know what your word says, but. because that's
usually what happens. But when you get it out there and you're saying it out there and you're saying it in your home out loud, or you're with people and you're telling them, I'm having a hard time, and you say, no, let me tell you what the Word says. And friends need to come around those people and be able to hold their arms up and speak that Word. It's important. You're spot on. Totally agree, 1 ,000%. The thing that always struck me about God's Word is you look at the
book of Genesis in the first chapter. And God said, let there be light. And God said, let there be night and day. And God said, let there be. I mean, he said he declared with his words. He changed the atmosphere, obviously, on a massive scale. Right. He spoke it into existence. He spoke the world, the universes. Then you see Jesus come along. Right. You see you see his son come along. And what does he do? He speaks to the storm. He doesn't think peace be still.
He says it. And even the way it's constructed in the Greek language, it's with an exclamation point. In other words, he yelled it. He declared it. Well, and when he was in the wilderness and the devil was coming at him, what did he do? He spoke the word. He says, and it is written. And then he declared it. It was always verbal. There's a verbal thing. God gave us a mouth, right? He gave us two ears, right? So we should listen more than we speak. It's a ratio there.
But we need to declare the word of God back out into the atmosphere. But you know what? We didn't learn this. I don't think you didn't learn this in seminary. I can tell you that. I did not learn it in my Baptist church. I'll say that. We didn't learn this in the Baptist church, me growing up in a Baptist church from the age of 10 on. I actually learned this in a spirit -filled, non -denominational church who taught me how the Word of God applies. It's applicable to me
today for this moment. Why? Why? Why did we not learn this in our denominational church? I mean, I'm hoping they do now, but back then we didn't. And not a knock on denominational churches or mainline churches, but let me just say it this way. I'm just talking about the ones that we were in. Right. And what I want to say about that is that they're very cerebral, very in the head. It's more about content and information.
What we've learned and understood in the Spirit is getting revelation as well as information. You've got to have both. And there's power in repetition. Repetition opens the doors for revelation. Revelation, that word literally means to be revealed or the layers peeled back. So when you say, I got a revelation from God, that means I understand something that I didn't see before. Something gets revealed. Something not seen now is seen.
And that's what happened as we ventured outside of our mainline denominational church world. And we met Christians who were living what I would say is a victorious life. Not perfect, but they were living with their heads up because they understood how to work the Word of God. And we learned that. And what's interesting is we learned it quickly. We felt like it resonated with us. It was total revelation just quickly.
One thing I love about being in the Baptist world and getting an under, you know, I got my undergrad in theology. I got my master's in ministry and theology. And so all of that. taught me to love the Bible, to love the word of God. But the thing I didn't get from that is how to work the word. So I knew the word was living. I knew it was alive, but I didn't know how to work it. And I don't like the word work. I like apply better. Well, you know what I mean. I know, I do. It's
a simple ism. It is. But yeah, we weren't really taught. You're funny. However, I didn't know how to apply it to me when the Bible said this. I do, I love my heritage, like you said. But I've gained so much more knowledge when we ventured out. When I was in my Bible study today, that's one of the girls I was sitting next to, Janie, who listens to this podcast, said that same thing. She said, I grew up staunch Catholic. Went to
Catholic schools, the whole thing. And I've learned more at the bridge in the last three years than I ever learned. And I hear this every week. There's not a week that goes by that I don't hear that from somebody because people do like to share that. And I love that they're sharing that because. I feel like it's because God has given us such revelation and I want him to continue to do that because it's infinite. And so we're never going to have enough. We're always going to be learning.
And if we ever get to a point where we know it all, then that's not a good place because nobody knows it all. But I understand what she's saying because of where we were and how we gained so much revelation. of applying the word. And so I think that's, it's really important. I'm so thankful for those tools. And that's really what these are. They're tools. It's something you add to your tool belt. It's not the only thing, it's a thing. Well, and it's Neil Anderson did
the same thing. Oh gosh. That's where I think we got our first little tool of. a bookmark or something because identity in Christ, who we are, how he sees us. And basically it's praying the same thing. It's the same thing. I mean, literally when I pulled this up and I'm going to put this link in the newsletter. So I want everyone that hears this to go to our newsletter, livingupinadownworld .com and you can click on to subscribe to it. And I'm going to add to it
the newsletter. Some of you will already get this, but those of you not just sign up for it. I'm going to add this link. And the link is to the Daily Scripture Confessions, Building Your Life on God's Word. Yes. And it'll just take you right there. You want to go try to find it. You can go to Bridge Church or bridgefbg .com. If you want to get there right now and not wait for the newsletter, bridgefbg .com, and then click on Daily Confessions at the top of the
page. That's it. It's that simple. Daily Confessions, it'll take you right there. And this will be a tool, but you want to build, you want to sharpen your tool. You don't want a dull ax. You don't just go get an ax and then never sharpen it. You want to sharpen it. And how do you sharpen it? Through repetition. I've always said this. Practice doesn't make perfect. Practice makes
permanent. And so you want to practice it. And as you practice it, it becomes more permanent and more accessible without having to find a scripture sheet or go find it. That's a great help. But you'll actually begin to memorize. It'll become automatic pilot. And when you get in a situation, you'll know what to do. You'll know where to go. Always say, if you know who you are, you'll know what to do. And so this would be a great help. Thank you so much, Annette.
Wow. I watched you come alive. I came alive. You're on fire. It's like I got an adrenaline rush. I need to turn the air conditioner on in here because it got hot in here when you got all fired up. No, it was good. Anytime you say you want to talk on faith, it lights me up. You're all in, yeah. I know. And so you probably knew that on purpose, knowing I was well. No, I didn't. It's interesting. I woke up thinking about this before you woke up. Wow. Because remember, I
went to bed with that scripture on my mind. Yeah, that's true. You did say that. And that's another thing, just as an encouragement to you. Listen, I know we all scroll our phones at night. We're laying in bed. But guys, I want to encourage you to do something. Even if you are scrolling your phone, at least the last thing you want
to do is get the Word. Look at the Bible. Always look at scripture before I turn the light off because I'm like, okay, I need to wash my soul of all the stuff, the dues and the misinformation I just took in. So we want to encourage you in this. I think we need to stay on this topic. I think this is something that is so important that when we come back next week, we need to stay on this. This is important and help our people really be able to get to and make the
word apply and work for them. Hey, thank you guys for listening today. We love you. Go to livingupinadownworld .com. Subscribe there. Go to bridgefbg .com and you can get the daily confessions. It'll be up in the corner. If you do get the newsletter, I'm going to add that link to the newsletter so you can just click on it and take you right there. We want to help you. We want to equip you. The scripture says that we're here to equip the saints for the work of ministry.
That's exactly what we're called to do. That's Ephesians chapter four. And that's why we're here. We love you. Anything, anything on the way out? Cause that was so good. Wow. Wow. I'm invigorated. I feel like I just had 10 cups of caffeine. It's better than caffeine. The word works way better than caffeine. But listen, we love you guys for doing this because it, it helped. If it. If you can see in 40 minutes what it did to me, look at what it can do for you. I know.
Check it out. All right, guys. We love you. Thanks for listening. Episode number 101. We love you more than you know. Have a great week on purpose.