Going Back to the Word in Times of Trial with Elyse Fitzpatrick

How do you find hope and truth when life feels overwhelming?

In this insightful episode of Hearing God's Voice, Jeffrey Paul welcomes bestselling author, biblical counselor, and speaker Elyse Fitzpatrick for a powerful conversation about the life-changing truth found in God's Word. Drawing from decades of biblical counseling, Elyse shares how Scripture transforms lives—not through human effort, but through the work of the Holy Spirit.

Together, Jeffrey and Elyse discuss how to identify the lies we believe about ourselves, replace them with God's truth, and walk confidently in our identity in Christ. They explore biblical counseling, the renewing of the mind, affirming God's promises through Scripture, trusting Him in difficult seasons, and why the gospel is the foundation for lasting transformation.

Whether you're struggling with fear, insecurity, broken relationships, or simply longing to deepen your walk with Christ, this conversation will encourage you to return to God's Word and discover the freedom found in His love.

What You'll Learn

• How God's Word transforms lives through the Holy Spirit
• Identifying and replacing lies with biblical truth
• Living confidently in your identity in Christ
• The role of biblical counseling in spiritual growth
• Why the gospel changes everyday life
• Learning to walk by faith instead of feelings
• Building biblical affirmations from Scripture
• The importance of renewing your mind daily
• Finding freedom through God's unconditional love
• Why relationships are essential to healing and growth


📖 Key Scriptures

• Romans 12:2
• Ephesians 1:3–14
• Romans 8:31–39
• Hebrews 4:12
• James 1:22–25
• Philippians 4:8–9
• Psalm 23
• Psalm 103
• Romans 4
• Matthew 22:37–39
• John 14:20
• 1 John 4:19

🙏 Prayer

Heavenly Father,

Thank You for the truth of Your Word and the transforming power of the gospel. Help us recognize the lies we've believed and replace them with the truth of who You say we are. Teach us to walk by faith, trust Your promises, and find our identity in Christ alone. Renew our minds each day through Scripture, strengthen our relationship with You, and help us reflect Your love to those around us. May we live with confidence, knowing we are fully loved, fully forgiven, and fully accepted through Jesus Christ.

In Jesus' name,
Amen.


📚 Learn More from Elyse Fitzpatrick

📖 Worthy: Celebrating the Value of Women

Purchase on Amazon:
https://a.co/d/06YVko5Q

📖 Because He Loves Me: How Christ Transforms Our Daily Life

Purchase on Amazon:
https://a.co/d/05257Jnn


🌐 Elyse Fitzpatrick's Ministry
Visit Elyse Fitzpatrick's official website to learn more about her books, biblical resources, and teaching ministry:
https://elysefitzpatrick.com


📚 Get Jeffrey Paul's Abundant Life Journal + Workbook

https://renewingyounetwork.com/store

🔗 Get Connected

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https://renewingyounetwork.com

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https://youtube.com/@renewingyounetwork

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https://tiktok.com/@renewingyouwithjp

🎧 Podcast:
https://kite.link/hearinggodsvoice

❤️ Join the Community

If this ministry has encouraged you, we'd love for you to become part of the Renewing You community.

Together, let's continue growing in Christ, hearing His voice, and experiencing the life-changing transformation that comes through an intimate relationship with Him.

Transcript

Why the Gospel Changes Everything

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Well, in part what it means is I ask God to help me to know what it is I'm supposed to do, and then I'm walking by faith and not by sight, which means I'm going to try to do those things, always remembering that I'm not going to do them either consistently nor perfectly. But Jesus, here we get back to the gospel, Jesus has forgiven me for my sin and counted me righteous. Therefore,

Meet Elyse Fitzpatrick

SPEAKER_02 0:28

I can continue to strive to do what's right.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Welcome to Hearing God's Voice, and I am excited to introduce you to an incredible woman who has been helping people for multiple decades in regards to how to live their life through the biblical principles of utilizing God's word. And she does this professionally. So you're going to learn a lot. Please get your pencil and paper off because if you're going to listen to someone with this much knowledge and the gems, I'm sure that's going to come out for the Holy Spirit, we really want you to put it down on paper.

Biblical Counseling & Finding Hope

SPEAKER_01 1:04

So get it and get ready to really be entrenched in transformation that we're going to talk about in this particular podcast. It's just an absolute wonderful opportunity to have you on the broadcast. Friend of yours, Leslie, was with us not too long ago, and she spoke so highly about what you do. So why don't you let our audience know a snapshot of the spectrum of your ministry and counseling for people?

SPEAKER_02 1:29

Thanks. I'm really glad to be here with you. I became a Christian in 1971, and then for about 15 years or so, I would always have people come to me in the church, particularly women, but would come to me and ask me, I'm in the situation, what am I supposed to do? And so I in 1985 began to get training in biblical counseling. And uh finished that portion of my training in biblical counseling uh before 1990. So I was in that for about three years, and then I went ahead and got a master's degree in biblical counseling from Trinity Theological Seminary in Indiana. And so since then I've I've written books and done conferences and had a clinical practice for a number of years. I don't do a lot of that anymore because I tend to be so busy with writing and that sort of thing. That doesn't mean I don't, you know, counsel anybody, but it's not really my focus like it was. So that's

How God Transforms Our Hearts

SPEAKER_02 2:44

really been going on since 1990, so 30 years of writing and speaking and counseling.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

It's so intriguing because in the Christian faith, counseling has kind of not been brought to the forefront as important and as valuable as it truly is. And I know I'm gonna let you share how important that is because counseling has always been there. But just recently, Greg Groschel, Life Church pastor, had just brought out a new book about the mind and what you know, how he has gone to a counselor because he hit a wall and it was unable to get past that well with all the prayers, with all the ministry, with all the study. And I was so rewarded from that because we all need what the Holy Spirit does, which is counsel us, but we also need those that we can look at an eye to eye and really allow the Holy Spirit to flow through them biblically and how to take the biblical principles and transform our life. Tell us about transformation of life that you have seen and how the word has helped you generate that based on you know Romans chapter 12, verse 2.

SPEAKER_02 3:55

So, you know, again, Romans 12, too is that transformation of the life where we are not uh being conformed to the world, but we're being transformed. And how does that transformation happen? Well, first of all, the really great news for anybody who's a counselor is that it's not me. So that's the really wonderful news that I can come to someone in whatever format I come to them in. And if they come to me with a specific problem, I can point them towards the truth of scripture, but it's the power of the Holy Spirit that actually transforms lives. So, for instance, if someone would come to me and they're really struggling, perhaps with having what would once have been called very low self-esteem. You know, what we can do then is we can help them see you don't have to put your trust in yourself or in your own abilities, because Jesus Christ has done something for you already that's so important. What he's done for you is he lived a perfect life in your place so that you have this perfect record before God, and he died in your place so that all your sins are forgiven, and you've been adopted, you're part of the family. And what that means is that you are loved, you are perfectly loved, you're welcomed, you're accepted, and because of that, you can pursue whatever it is that the Lord has for you to pursue, and you can begin to love your neighbor because you know we remember that we love because God first loved us. Well, yes, we love God because he first loved us, but we also love our neighbor because God first loved us. So then we're free to love one another, which really is, I think, in some ways, the key to living a life that has shalom, that has peace and joy. When you know that you're free from trying to get love, and you can then begin to live it by laying down your life for others. So, in a counseling situation, you know, that's just a really broad brush, whatever, but when people come to you and you develop relationships, and I think that's so important that you develop relationships and you really hear the heart and you recognize whatever suffering the person is going through. And so much of what people go through, they're just stuck, they don't know what to do, but they've gone through suffering. And a lot of times they don't even know to call it suffering. And so to have somebody come alongside and say, Yeah, what you're going through really is suffering, but this is how I see God working in you, and this is how I think he's going to continue to help you. So, some of the best relationships that I have in my life are relationships that have been based that were originally based on counseling.

Can You Really Hear God's Voice?

SPEAKER_02 7:13

You know, someone came to me and wanted help. That's kind of how it goes. People come with a presenting problem, but for me personally, I'm speaking in very broad brush terms. The answer is always, what has Jesus Christ done for you? And how can you learn to live in the light of that?

SPEAKER_01 7:33

Let's unpack that because you uh you just encapsulated so much wonderful information. Uh, again, again, again, I'm gonna say this um because I appreciate the word's value in all cases. And you know, I know you know the Greek word logos, which is the written word, and rhema, which is the inner word, but you play a role in the koonia position, I believe, of God's voice. You bring forth because, not because you're a counselor, but because you're using the word of God and you just you just gave it as a disclaimer, and it's not me but he that makes this happen. The power of that changes the counseling into really hearing God's voice. It still is responsible for them then to take and apply it in their life, but you're there coming closer to them in a human level as Christ did as he walked on this earth. Here's something you also said that I want you to help us with. So many times, pains, because of all the neural pathways and all of the past and all that we've gone through, have created in our minds this is who we are, or this is always going to be. But most people don't even know that it exists. It's been so veiled from them. How do you help them get to that place of identifying these pains or difficulties that can be changed because of Christ Jesus?

SPEAKER_02 8:51

Right. So then the question is, and what I want to do is as I listen carefully, and again, ask the Holy Spirit for wisdom and insight, but as I listen, I want to hear the places in their life where they have believed a lie about themselves. So, for instance, I was talking with a couple who's had a lot of problems with their with their kids, and the dad said, I feel like when when I look at my life and my relationship with all our kids and everything, we're like the Adams family. Okay, that's a perfect insight, isn't it? It's a perfect picture into a lie that someone has believed about themselves. And so then what you want to do is you want to come into that and say, no, actually, this you know, first of all, God is working sovereignly and you are loved, you've gone through significant suffering, and this is how the suffering has changed you, but also this is what's true about you. And even going, let's say, to a passage like Ephesians 1, starting with verse 3, and Ephesians 1, 3, um, and following, it just talks about how we've been loved and adopted and called to be not only live a righteous life, but we've been called righteous. We spend all this time in the world, you know, and and the world is telling us all the all the time, you don't measure up, you're not good enough. And so we have this inner slave driver all the time telling us how to do better, you've got to do better, you're not, you're not measuring up. If I can then come along, let's say, with the help of the scriptures and say, no, actually, this is what the Bible has to say about you, this is what's true about you. And then again, the great news is I can't make them believe that. Only the Holy Spirit can do that. But I've seen that happen just over and over and over again. I don't mean to say every single time I've ever counseled anybody, it's gone really great. You know, sometimes I don't I don't have what the person needs. But I do know that if we can if we can identify lies that people have bought into, even lies that they've bought into as children. You know, maybe a little girl, um maybe her dad tells her, you know, you're you're not as pretty as your sister. I wish you were prettier. I wish you were as pretty as your sister. And people hear these things. I mean, the things people say to each other is so sad. So here's a woman then who has spent her whole life living under that lie. First of all, the lie that how she looks is the most important thing about her. And secondly, the lie that God doesn't make her beautiful, you know, the God makes us beautiful whether we can live up to the standards of the world. So, what are the lies that you're believing? What is truth that needs to come to that? What are your habitual ways of responding that that makes your life more difficult? So that kind of thing only happens in relationships when you're spending lots of hours together listening. And that is something that you know I'm I'm so privileged to do with so many people.

SPEAKER_01 12:43

Well, you know, it's interesting from the perspective of the rich young ruler who came to Jesus. I mean, this is Jesus Christ, and he couldn't accept that word of God coming from Christ and walked away.

SPEAKER_02 12:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:57

And then there's other ones. Go ahead, go ahead.

SPEAKER_02 12:59

No, he walked away sad.

SPEAKER_01 13:01

Sad, exactly right, exactly right. And there's the other one who's a prostitute that gets up and becomes a saint. It just is amazing that the impressions, the neuropathways of impressions, and I don't know if you know Carolyn Leaf, which has done a tremendous job on, you know, Christian-wise breaking down how the mind works that

Renewing Your Mind with Scripture

SPEAKER_01 13:21

God created us, but man interferes, the world conforms, the world tries to, you know, do its own transformation on us, and so we lose sight of that power. When somebody leaves your encounter of counseling, do you work with affirmations? Do you use any of those types of tools from the scriptures of turning a personal scripture into an affirmation? And how do you teach them to use that uh at this point, at least?

SPEAKER_02 13:47

Yeah, so I mean, I would even take something like let's let's just look at Ephesians chapter one. Okay, so what does Ephesians chapter one is just perfect for affirmations? So starting with verse three, what does the Bible tell me? Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavens in Christ. I mean, just right there. One verse. So, what's an affirmation then? Well, first of all, God is my father. Okay, so maybe I had a father who was absent or unkind, or said things to me that I've carried um or acted out in ways that uh shaped me. So what do I know from this verse? When I start thinking, okay, I'm still that person, I'm still like that person. No, actually, I have a new father, I've been adopted. Not only that, but he's blessed me with every spiritual blessing. So when I think about myself and I say, I'm just a loser, you know, uh, I've done, I've done too much, too wrong for too long, then I can say, no, actually, I've been adopted by God, and he says that he's blessed me with spiritual blessings, so everything I need has been given to me. Okay, that passage, I mean, we've just looked at a little part of one verse. So much, particularly in the New Testament, but also in the Psalms, so much is there that we can look at. I mean, verse four says, we've he chose us in him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in love before him. And that little passage there, holy and blameless in love before him, that doesn't mean we're supposed to be holy and blameless, though we are. That's actually an indicative. It means we are holy and blameless. So if I'm a person who feels like I've I blow it all the time, I'm not worth, I'm not worth uh God even blessing, I'm gonna say, no, actually, this is what the truth is about me.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

Abraham gave us a good example out of Romans chapter four, where he, you know, faced the facts that I raised up as my parents were loved me, the all those facts of his life, which in his life it was his age, but in turn, he believed more into what God had promised, and 20-some years before that came to pass. And you know, with that, if you take the very words of Jesus when he asked to pray how to pray, he said, our father, which got him in a lot of trouble, but he put this personal spin on the relationship of the prayer, unlike the Jewish, you know, people that would just pray out loud, they related, This is my father, as it is in heaven, so it shall be on earth. So now, if that leads us as a body of believers, as a Christian, to capture Ephesians 1:3 and take ownership to it, unlike the rich young ruler who goes away sad, we walk away, although, as Jesus said, you're still gonna have trouble in this world. That's that's a disclaimer he gave us right out of the box. But you'll have a peace that transcends you out of this episode of the facts of what you could have been announced that you have cancer, you could be announced that you're gonna get a divorce. Those things happen in life, but you and I can ride through them just like through Psalms 23, through the shadow of darkness. So, what you're what you're saying to our audience and to each and every one of us is that the word has the answers to every difficulty we have. The differentiation is that we have to believe it by faith, not earn it by faith, not gain it by faith or you know, self-will. And that that's really hard for people to do. I find in more of the ministry that we do, it's hard for them to go there. Do you find the same thing with the counseling that you work with? That it takes a while for them to cross that threshold and say, This is mine.

SPEAKER_02 18:08

I do find that, and that's such a great point, you know. Um, one time I was talking with a young woman, and I was telling her about the love of God and how the god how God had called her beloved and called her forgiven. And she said, Isn't God just kidding himself? See, I was and I was so happy that she actually said that because I knew she was dealing with it. But see, I can't, I can't make her believe that, but what I can do is I can continue to come to her with truth and then believe that the Holy Spirit, because I believed she was a believer, I believed she was a Christian, believed that he will make that real to her. So you're absolutely right. We don't earn any of this, it's all given to us by faith, but the faith itself, back in Ephesians, faith itself is a gift, right? It's it's not not by something I do, but it's a gift that's given to us. So then we ask the Lord. And what's really, really wonderful is you know, the Lord's response to us when we ask. If we ask him for bread, he won't give us a stone. If we, you know, if we ask him for faith, he'll give it to us. And that's what's so beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 19:42

I've got the opportunity to do a number of books as well, and one of them is how to hear God's voice through journaling. And of course, attaching it to scripture because it doesn't do good if it's a fantasy or you know, just an imagination. But it's amazing that when people hear God say, My beloved, and they take it in, when they take it in, when they really absorb it in, it's like the brand new love affair that a man and woman have for that that they say, you know, love at first sight or whatever it is, because it begins to give you a value so beyond your capabilities, because you can't earn that. He's given it to you. And as you connect with that love affair, what does God want more than a love affair with his beloved? And what more does he want to commune with you and share with you the destruction that's out there, how to get through that destruction until you get to him eternally? That's so powerful, but it it is challenging because the enemy does live and the enemy is out there, and the enemy is in here sometimes, and our history and everything else.

Looking Honestly at Your Heart

SPEAKER_01 20:50

So you must have a tremendous gift to be able to unpack people as a counselor to unpack that because some of it's well sealed. Again, within areas we can't see. What are some of the things that if somebody was doing some homework right now, how can they exercise to try to, as David says, search my heart, oh Lord, search my heart. Show me the parts that I don't know about at this point. Is there anything that you can recommend for us to really take to heart to learn how to get that place?

SPEAKER_02 21:19

First of all, um, Psalms tells us that in God's light we see light. And so what that means is that the only way that I'm going to really come to understand myself is by asking the Lord to give me light. There are things um I'm I'm not young, and there are things that I continue to learn about myself.

SPEAKER_01 21:41

Now, wait a minute, wait a minute. Psalms 103 says your youth will be renewed.

unknown 21:46

Thank you. I appreciate that.

SPEAKER_02 21:48

There are things that I continue to learn about myself, but we remember what uh Hebrews 4 says, which is that the word of God is sharp and powerful. And able to divide down to the thoughts and intentions of the heart. So if I want to know, if I want to understand myself, if I want to know what's hanging me up, what my problem is, where I need to grow, then the way that I do that is by looking at what James says is the mirror of God's word. It's a mirror. So I look at the mirror and then I let the mirror tell me so I can read a passage and see the places where I fail to believe it, see the places where I think, yeah, that's good for somebody else, but it doesn't work for me. Right? See the places where I need to ask the Lord to help me to walk in it, and then think about ways that I could specifically walk in it. So for instance, two commands. All Christians have two commands on them. Command number one, love God with your whole heart, soul, mind, and strength. Command number two, love your neighbor as yourself. So how do I do that? Well, in my life then, and I would help someone who would come to me for help, I would help them say, okay, how can you demonstrate love for this person within boundaries, of course, but how can you demonstrate love for this person? Make a list of the three things you're gonna do this week to demonstrate love. And what's amazing is that when you start to act, let's say, in a loving way towards somebody, a lot of times your emotions follow. So you you make a decision to do something, and then your emotion follows, and your and your faith is built. And then also I think it's really, really great to take yourself to scripture over and over again just to see what it has to say about you. You know, in God's light, that's where we see light.

SPEAKER_01 24:12

With that said, again, I could love to talk to you about the Bible all day long because you just have such a grip on it. It's beautiful. In life application, you know the scripture in Philippians 4, verse 8 says, think upon these things that are perfect, pleasing, and wonderful. Nine is put it into practice. Oh, wonderful minister, Bob Harrison, uh, increased ministries, good friend of mine, just he had a wonderful wife. They were doing ministry all over the country, I mean internationally. Well, he was a busy guy, and he was married to a beautiful wife, but in turn it began to become more and more shallow or taken for granted. And she was at the end. You know how a lady can get to the end of the rope, and no gifts, nothing was gonna change it. She was done. She didn't wasn't gonna go through divorce, but she was done.

SPEAKER_03 24:59

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 24:59

So she went to the Lord and said, Lord, please, I'm done with this. I don't, I don't want to love him anymore. I don't want, I don't, I'm done. And the Lord said to her, and she journaled this down, I want you to open your Bible right now to you know to Philippians 4 8. So she did. She said, He said, Now your homework assignment is this. I want you to write, starting right now, something that you like or love about Bob. Well, she said, for hours she couldn't get to that point of writing anything down because she was really hurt and she was really, you know, locked out. So she finally got that first piece down and she came back to the Lord and said, I've got two or three things. He said, Now keep on going. And he worked her through this exercise in a very intimate and gentle and loving way, so that she had a list back to even when she used to love him deeply. And then he said, Romans 9, I want you now to put it into practice. I want you to continue to meditate on this word day and night, like it talks out of Joshua. I want you to continue. I will do the rest, God said. I will work all things together for the good. I will change his heart. Don't try to change his heart. Well, the good news is that she did this. It didn't happen overnight, it didn't happen in a week or a month, but over the next 12 months, they became so close, their ministry increased incredibly, and they were really ministering together. And this wasn't a this wasn't a two-year-old marriage. This was, I think they were 26 in years in marriage at this point. But in turn, applying the principle of the word can even change other people without us having to try to change them. Do you find that same thing to be true?

SPEAKER_02 26:39

Right, absolutely. It's really an amazing thing how if you say, just by faith, by faith, I'm going to do whatever, think good thoughts, think kind thoughts about someone, how how frequently my heart toward that person will change. And then in response, a lot of times, that person will change. You know, the reality is that when we walk in faith and we say, okay, Lord, I don't understand why you want me to do this. It doesn't make any sense to me, but I believe you're calling me to do it. When we begin to walk in faith and seek to do those things, then it's it's shocking sometimes to me. It shouldn't be because I've been doing this for a long time and I know. But how a person's heart will be transformed.

Trusting God in Difficult Seasons

SPEAKER_02 27:33

And here we are back at transformation. So, what does it mean to walk in faith? Well, in part, what it means is I ask God to help me to know what it is I'm supposed to do, and then I'm walking by faith and not by sight, which means I'm going to try to do those things, always remembering that I'm not going to do them either consistently nor perfectly. But Jesus, here we get back to the gospel, Jesus has forgiven me for my sin and counted me righteous. Therefore, I can continue to strive to do what's right.

SPEAKER_01 28:10

Can we take another step too, because of your depth of understanding and everyday ministry and counseling? Trust is a big, big, big thing, and it's worse than the mirror. One of fact, one of the things that we do in the uh workshops that we throw and learn to hear God's voice is to break the mirror. I have a program called You Are Beautiful, and we actually make them, this is hard for them to do, but to break the mirror of their past so they can forget what's behind them and strive to what we set ahead of them, which is what Christ calls them to. But trust, once that trust has really been broken in the world around us, our family, our loved ones, our husbands, whatever it might be, now to trust what God, the unseen God, the fabric of faith, says to do, do you find it difficult? And if you do find it difficult for people to do that, how do you help them learn to trust again or to trust in what God is saying to them?

SPEAKER_02 29:04

I don't know any way to help people trust that is more powerful than reminding them of the cross. So in Romans 8, Paul says, if he, if God did not withfold his son from us, how will he not also with him freely give us all things? Now, how do I know that God is trustworthy? Well, you know, I can say, well, the sun came out today or this happened or that. Actually, the very best way to know that God himself is trustworthy is to look at what he did for me through his son. Okay, because there's nothing that even compares to what God has done by giving, by sending his perfect son to live and to die and then be resurrected in my place, so that I would have eternal fellowship with him. Now, if what I say about him is he is love, God is love, if what I say about him is that he loved me so much that he gave his son, then certainly he would be trustworthy when he asks me to do other things, because I know that he has my best interests at heart.

Women, Identity & the Book Worthy

SPEAKER_01 30:32

That's beautiful. You know, I just got done doing a woman's week on um the women of the Bible, and that was hard to pick. I don't know if you've gone through the Bible, I'm sure you have, but how many women have been so impactful through the Bible? Um, it's it's amazing it's not shared more from the pulpit, but that's another subject. The point of it is I had to pick five because it was a week that I was going to do a series. It was interesting because I brought the mother of God first, Mary giving her life over in faith, in faith, then the woman who washed his feet with her tears, then the woman who got a name at the well that he stopped everything to find her, then Mary Magnum, and she was probably the most incredible teaching for me after all the years of my studies in the scriptures, of what I find precious is my love affair with Christ. And she expressed it in such depth, in such real life, that when we really have a love affair, when we when we get to that point, and I pray that everybody listening in the audience, they have this love affair, because once it's there, it's a different game. Wouldn't you agree?

SPEAKER_02 31:45

Oh, absolutely. You know, we can we can live this Christian life and make it just all about uh duty or all about uh somehow earning God's favor, or we can look at it as this great explosion of love from God, who is himself three in one. You know, he's a trinity, which means that he's in relationship and loves relationship. So because of that, then he creates us in his image to be like that, to be in this relationship with him, where it's really based on not how good I am or even how much I believe, but how loving and kind he has been. And, you know, again, our passage from Ephesians tells us that from the foundation of the world, from before the foundation of the world, he called us to himself. So, you know, that to take that and then to take it, as you were doing, I'm so glad to hear about your, you know, your teaching that you did, but to take it then and to say, yeah, and this is for women too.

SPEAKER_03 33:02

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:02

A lot of times I think women think, well, you know, when I think about women in the Bible, all I think about is Eve and how she blew it, right? And there are so many women who over and over and over again God used in really shocking, surprising ways, ways that were way outside of the norm in their culture, right to push forward the gospel narrative, even back with Moses and you know, with his with his sister Miriam and his mom Jacobed and the two Hebrew midwives, these were women who took risks and saved a man who would become a deliverer. So if you if you go through scripture, or even you just take the you take the women who are part of Jesus' genealogy, that's interesting to me, that they're in Jesus' genealogy, you've got four women, and you would not have chosen those women.

SPEAKER_03 34:05

No.

SPEAKER_02 34:07

You have Tamar, you have Rahab, you have Ruth, you've and you have someone that in the genealogy is called the wife of Uriah. So you take those women, and what Jesus is saying is the spirit had the writer of that genealogy use those particular women because he wanted women to know it doesn't matter who you are, you can be loved and welcomed.

SPEAKER_01 34:36

The one of the five women that I taught on was Esther. And if she had not laid her life down to come before the king, there would have been no more Jews and the heritage would have been destroyed. That one act. Right. And she threatened her life was threatened. I mean, no matter how beautiful she was, there was a law that was there. You know, one of the things, I don't know if you've ever shared this with your patients and the people that you counsel, but one of the things that my wife and I had done even early on in our marriage was to read Songs of Solomon in the intimacy of the lover and the beloved, almost like the play that it's written in format. And it's amazing if you slow down and meditate on those very short verses and those the few chapters that are there, the intensity, if you pray and ask the Holy Spirit to really lead you, opens people's hearts because for the first time, no matter what's happened to them in their life, you know, they're seeing the real lover. And then we would take John 14, 20 that says, I'm in you, you and me, we are one. And that

Final Thoughts, Books & Closing

SPEAKER_01 35:44

becomes the intimacy of intercourse with the oneness of God and the triune God, as you said. That's where life changes. That that to me is the transformation that there's just nothing better. There's just nothing better at that point. Tell me about the new book that you're bringing, you brought out, and uh that I want my audience to hear about. That uh, along with all your videos, and we're gonna put all the links down below because I'm sure after they hear this and what you've shared with them, they're gonna be needing to have more time with you in one form or another. But tell us about your new book.

SPEAKER_02 36:16

I was actually privileged to write this book with a man who's a pastor in Iowa, whose name is Eric Schumacher, or Shoemaker, and the name of the book is Worthy Celebrating the Value of Women. And so what we did was basically what we were just talking about here together, is we began in Genesis and we went all the way through the Bible from Genesis to Revelation and said, all right, where are women valuable and proven worthy by God, the way that the Lord used them? And again, in very out of the ordinary ways, quite frequently, how did God use them in order to bring his kingdom here to the earth? Okay, so you've got, you know, even when you start with Eve, Eve was the first person, not only was she, you know, not only was she deceived and she sinned and fell, but she's also the first person in uh in Genesis 4, she's the first person who makes a statement of faith. She says, I've gotten a son by the help of the Lord. That's a statement of faith. And what we did then was we went through and we found about 25 uh specific items where we can say women were the first to do this. Okay, so you've got Hagar, who was, of course, Abraham and Sarah's slave girl, and she is the first one in scripture that gives a name to God.

SPEAKER_01 37:59

Oh, that's right. You call them out. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 38:03

First one. So we did that over and over and over again. Now you were talking about the woman at the well. Actually, uh, in Eastern Orthodoxy, uh, she is venerated as a saint, and she has a name they named her, I guess her name was Fautine. And so Fotien actually ended up, according to Eastern Orthodox belief tradition, as a martyr in North Africa. She went to North Africa with the gospel and actually with two sons and preached the gospel and was martyred there. Okay. So what's interesting and really amazing about Fotine is she's the first Gentile to whom Jesus reveals himself as Messiah. Okay, think about that. First one that he reveals himself, first Gentile that he reveals himself to as Messiah is this woman, is Phoeteen.

SPEAKER_01 39:07

Okay, and the first evangelist. I mean, she went back right, right.

SPEAKER_02 39:12

The first preacher of the resurrection is Mary Magdalene.

SPEAKER_03 39:18

Right.

SPEAKER_02 39:19

Right?

SPEAKER_03 39:20

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 39:21

So she's the first one. Now here's another one.

SPEAKER_00 39:23

I'll give you one more and then I'll um I should have had the book for my teaching series, it would have helped a lot of research time.

SPEAKER_02 39:32

Lydia, who uh we know, I think she's in Acts 16. Uh, Paul is praying, and we back the story up a little bit. And Paul is praying, and Paul says, Paul wants to go to a certain place, and then he has a vision of a Macedonian man. And the man says to him, Come over and help us. So Paul thinks, All right, I need to go to Macedonia. So he goes to Philippi. Now, what's interesting is he doesn't go and meet a guy, he goes and meets up with a group of women who are praying by a river. One of the women who are there praying by is there praying by the river is a woman named Lydia that the Bible tells us she was a businesswoman. She was probably single because we don't know anything about uh her, you know, her family. We do know though that she was wealthy, she owned a home, she had servants. Lydia, the Bible says that God opened her heart to believe what uh Paul had said, and then she's baptized. Lydia is the first baptized convert in Europe. And in her house is the first church that's planted in Europe. Okay, so you've got you've got this gorgeous history of women who God used powerfully to move forward his kingdom, and what our message is to the women is see how God used women and he values you and you he gifts you and you can do whatever it is he calls you to do.

SPEAKER_01 41:29

Wow, that I I I will get that book, but I I gotta I've gotta confirm something. I came from a mom who was like absolutely the incredible lady that I've ever known, plus my best friend. But I watched her in a man's world, quote unquote, um, not be hindered by the man's world that is so proclaimed as the wall, as the difficulty. It's there. Face the facts, it's there. But there is not only just in the biblical sense, but even in the world sense of women, there, and you know, my passion has been in my even my career doing hair and makeup and all the things we've done, has been women. And seeing women succeed beyond the limitation is what I hope your book continues to bring to women. Rather than fighting for the position, believe for the position, believe who you are, believe what he's called you, which is his beloved. I believe that would change the woman's culture completely across the map of the world, no matter what the cultures are, because God said that you're his beloved. And that that is beautiful. And I I just I I commend you for the aspect of that book. That had to be a lot of work in research and do and searching. How long did it take to do the book?

SPEAKER_02 42:48

Uh, I think we got it down done in maybe a year or so. But because I was working with Eric, and uh so we split up the different topics. It actually was not the worst of the hardest book I've ever written because I was writing with him. And it was actually really wonderful too, to have the perspective of a pastor.

unknown 43:13

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 43:13

And he's saying, Yeah, do you see this? And I'm saying, yeah, do you see this? And it was really great, you know, for us to go back and forth like that.

SPEAKER_01 43:22

There's another book uh book or tape series that I want you to just explain before we run out of time, which is because he loved me. You know, the butterfly, one of the books I wrote is Metamorphosis, and it's illustrated in the childlike nature, but it's got the impact of the ugly caterpillar turning into the beautiful butterfly because of a butterfly who confesses or proclaims the way to be transformed. What is your book about or your tape series about because he loves me?

SPEAKER_02 43:50

Yeah, because he loves me is I frequently say, I really only have one message, and the message is Jesus Christ and Him crucified. And his love for me, the gospel. So because he loves me is actually a taking apart of the gospel primarily for people who have heard the gospel their whole lives, but haven't actually seen it as it enters into their own heart and applies to them and transforms them. So how the gospel transforms your everyday life. Why am I transformed? Why am I not that person that I was 50 years ago? Well, beside the fact that I'm 50 years older. I've also lived in the light of the love of God for 50 years. That changes me. It frees me so that I don't have to always be trying to get love because I know that I'm loved already. It frees me from having to get a good opinion of other people because I know that I already have the good opinion of the only person who really matters, and that's God. And how do I have that good opinion just because of what Jesus Christ has done for me? So because he loves me is really the sort of, I want to say, seminal book that I've done. And off of Because He Loves Me comes everything else. You know, how does how does the gospel affect women? How does the gospel affect parenting? How does the gospel affect counseling? Over and over again.

SPEAKER_01 45:39

Well, I'm going to tell you, this I pray is not the last time you are a guest. Well, if you have heard even a part of this, you have heard some real important messaging from the Spirit of God. I really believe it didn't come from anywhere except that point of the biblical principles that were shared. So do me a favor, as I always say at the end of the program, don't turn this off and walk away as it says in James and forget immediately what you heard. Re-listen to it, take notes, just absolutely digest the value of what's been shared and then put it into your life, put it into practice. And remember this one thing until you join us again on Hearing God's Voice podcast, the beauty begins within you first and foremost because Christ lives within you. Have a beautiful day. We'll look forward to seeing you again on the next podcast or one of our Facebook or inspirational morning sessions. But until then, God loves you. See you soon.