Taking Up Your Cross Daily Breaks Spiritual Cruise Control

Comfort can make you dull. Routine can make you drift. And sometimes the most “spiritual” thing you can do is admit you’ve been on cruise control and you didn’t even notice. We open up Matthew 16:24 and let it read us: if we want to follow Jesus, we deny ourselves, take up our cross, and actually walk it out. Not as a deep-cut doctrine, but as the basic, foundational move of Christian discipleship. 

From there, we get practical about the cost of calling. Obedience can cost comfort, relationships, and the ability to blend in, but it also brings a satisfaction you don’t get from easy choices. We talk about Peter’s confession and Peter’s rebuke, why intimacy with God matters more than labels, and how King David models a pursuit that refuses to stay at a safe distance. We also wrestle with the difference between academic Bible study and real-life application where pressure, fear, and spiritual resistance show up. 

Luke 9 pushes the conversation into daily decisions: you can’t carry somebody else’s cross, and you can’t grow if you never reassess where God is leading you. We share stories about missed exits, leadership that accidentally micromanages, and how staying too long can rob others of growth. We close with Colossians 3 and a clear question for any believer: where are your heart and mind set, and who told you what you believe? What’s one thing you need to lay down so you can follow Jesus more cleanly?

https://wofoyo.org/              #wofoyo

Transcript

River Jordan Organic Farms Ad

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This episode of the Woe Foyo podcast was brought to you by River Jordan Organic Farms. You know you've been rubbing elbows with the movers and shakers and breaking bread with the well-to-do. Sure it can be nice on occasion, but when you do it too much, it can leave you feeling sluggish, bloated, and just plain out of touch. You need a break. You need to simplify. You need to head on down to River Jordan Organic Farms and talk to John. At River Jordan Organic Farms, we have premium, pesticide-free locust and wild honey that don't have to be cultivated or artificially grown. Eat like the good lord intended. Eat clean. Also check out our seasonal clothing line made from the finest camel hair and our premium handcrafted leather belts. Also, if you're in the mood for dessert, try our award-winning grasshopper pie. Why King Herod liked it so much that he named it winner of the Silver Charger Award two years in a row. We also hear Stepdaughter's a fan. River Jordan Organic Farms has food so natural, you'll not only be able to see the hypocrisy and corruption you were missing before, you'll also have the energy to call it out. Come on down and ask for John. They even let you have a dip in the creek before you go. We call it shooting the bull. And it's amazing. We start out shooting the bull, and pretty much the Holy Spirit takes a go at it, and next thing you know, he's running things. So uh Bones once been going on with you, man.

SPEAKER_01 2:10

Well, I won't say that the Lord ain't been talking. I'd say maybe I ain't listening. But I was just reading as we were waiting to get booted up and get all of our equipment on and everything. And I was flipping through my Bible. Probably this is the one that this is my uh King James and Amplified Parallel Bible, the one that that uh I was into when I first got saved. And it probably has the most notes in it, the most markings. It was uh the one I probably received most revelation in. The one I did the most study out of anyway. And I was just flipping around through it and everything. And I came to a passage in Matthew, and a lot of times I'm in my Bible and I'm reading and the Lord speaks to me, or I hear the Holy Spirit speaking or whatnot, I'll I'll put a little dot beside the verse and then I'll make a corresponding dot at the bottom of the page, like an asterisk or something, and and annotate what's going on. I was in Matthew chapter 16 verse 24. And what's going on here? This is the where uh Peter gives his confession of faith. Jesus asks Peter, you know, who do men say that I am? And verse 13. And you know, we get Peter's response to that, you know, you're the Son of the Living God, so on and so forth. But then in verse 24, it says, Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. And they amplified, you know, just adds to it a little bit. And Jesus said unto his disciples, If anyone desires to me uh be my disciple, let him deny himself, disregard, lose sight of, and forget himself and his own interests, and take up his cross and follow me, cleave steadfastly to me, conform wholly to my example in living and if need be in dying also. And I got one of them little asterisk beside that verse. What did I put down here at the bottom of the page? And I wrote uh this is entry-level Christianity. Oh yeah. This is and I tell you what, that stung, that stung me for a moment. This is not if you want a deeper walk with Jesus, if you want to broaden your relationship, if you want to walk in more power. No, this is the very first thing after being saved. And man, I tell you what, especially when you hear it in the in the amplified, it adds a few more adjectives to it and stuff like that. Uh kind of explains it a little bit more. But uh we see here and we realize that you know, if you want to be a disciple of Jesus, it's gonna not only is it gonna cost you something, but you're gonna you're gonna have to lay some things down. It talks about giving up your your interests, you're losing yourself, all these different things. And I had to ask myself as I was reading that, and I could hear the Holy Spirit in the back of my head, my own head, asking me, Can you say that can you say you're doing that? Are you doing that? Do you have some areas of improvement? And I was like, Oh man, Lord. So I thank the Lord for opening up to this page for me today because that one stung. I think we I gotta I gotta readdress that on some level.

SPEAKER_00 6:05

Yeah. Uh first of all, I wanted to thank you for reading my mail. I really appreciate that. Somehow, uh somehow, the this little mental conversation I've been having with the Lord on the drive to the Wofoyo studio in Jackson, as opposed to the one in Hannibal, uh, yeah, man, that's that's pretty much it. That's it. Like, you know, there's there's things that that would be easy to do, uh-huh. And and then there's the things that you're called to do. Right. And the thing is, it's easy to set aside a whole bunch of things going, oh, this is my calling, this is my calling, this is my calling. It's easy to do that. And we've talked about the importance of not doing that, but at the same time, once you know what you're called to do, that does become a priority.

unknown 7:06

Yeah.

Intimacy With God Over Labels

SPEAKER_00 7:07

And it cost you something. Bottom line, uh, it cost you some comfort, it cost you some areas where you could be doing the same thing everybody else is doing. It could cost you and cost your relationships, had it happen with me. And uh I'll tell you this: no greater satisfaction. About the closest thing I could say to that level of satisfaction is when you see your kids do well. Right. But there's no greater level of satisfaction than knowing you were doing what you were supposed to be doing, and then you see the Lord bless that and it bear fruit. The thing is, once you get out of the way, um what happens right after this, thou art Peter. You know, blessed art thou, Peter. Flesh and blood is not revealed it to you, but my father who is in heaven. Now, what happens three verses before this, from that time, Jesus began to point out to his disciples that it was necessary for him to go to Jerusalem and suffer many things from the elders, chief priests, and scribes, and to be killed and to raise up on be raised up on the third day. And yet Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, God forbid it, Lord, this shall never happen to you. So in this addressing right here, he says, says to Peter, he turned and said, Get behind me, Satan, you are a stumbling block to me. You're not setting your mind on God's purposes, but men's. So what he's saying there is, even though you have a calling, even though you have this great revelation, you know, you're you're increasing in a different kind of knowledge that these other guys ain't getting right yet. Uh, even though all that's the the thing, you still got to deny yourself. And the thing is, the the denial of yourself, you know, you were saying, well, this is basic Christianity. I remember learning that lesson, like I said, being raised Catholic, uh, they're teaching that second and third grade. So when you say it's basic Christianity in that system, it is foundational. Now, does it have its flaws? In my opinion, yes. But as far as that, learning how to set your own ego aside and learning how to at least learning the concept of crucifying the flesh, losing your life for the gospel's sake, losing your life for uh Jesus Christ, setting your interest aside so that his take priority, man, that that is foundational in that system. And and in every system, it really is. Because true Christianity isn't about Catholic or Protestant or any of these other things, or whether you're episcopal or charismatic or non-denominational or whatever label you want to try and have. You know, there's people in all those systems that have a sincere walk with Jesus Christ. Right. And then there's a lot of people that probably want to, but don't quite know how. It's like you said, for the warrior, uh, intimacy looks different. Yeah, it does. You know, and and that that mentality of I'm going to pursue this, even if it kills me. You know, we we've talked about David and the tabernacle of David, and I was reading that account again just yesterday about bringing the ark up, you know, from Obed Edom after the Uzzah incident, and stayed there about three months. And Obed Edom knew how to stay in his lane, but Obed Edom's house prospers that whole three months till David figures out how to get it right. But when he sets it up, it's not according to the tabernacle of Moses, it is a tent, a priest, you know, some kind of altar, and David and talking about the shadow of your wings, he's seeing the shadow as the sun rises come through that that tent and the shadow uh of the cherubim on the Ark of the Covenant. That's the shadow of your wings, and it it's recorded that God would speak from between the cherubim. So he he's in there even after Uzzah dies. He said, Well, I've done my research, but I'm gonna get as close to possible with this intimacy of God. And that that's why um my old buddy Dan down in Mississippi, you know, talks about King David was the first New Testament believer in an old Old Testament setting. It's that intimacy, it's that desire. It's uh if he kills me, it kills me, but Lord, I'm gonna pursue you.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

Right. He he's what we would call an old soul. Um it can be very easy to read the scripture, to read over it and say, okay, I I that's what I need to do. I see that's that's what we got to do. It's very easy to to grasp this concept from the standpoint of academia, uh, from the standpoint of knowledge. Uh so you know, this, you know, for from doctrine or a theological standpoint. Um, it's very easy to grasp that because you know you can read it, you can know it, you can understand it. Um but putting it into application is another thing altogether. Um because when you go to put stuff like this into application, you go to put it into play, um, well, the enemy comes and meets you on all fronts. We can see that because, well, it right there, Jesus rebuked rebukes Satan because Satan was uh influencing Peter uh right there in the scripture before it. Putting these things into practice are not as easy as what it sounds. It's not as easy as just knowing the scripture and and having that uh academic knowledge. It takes uh it takes prayer and and relationship, and then at some point in time, I think it does take choice. It just you gotta make the choice to put this out of your life or to bring this into your life or to make that decision or this decision. But I know from my own experience when I first got saved, those choices were very easy. Or at least they they seemed easy when I look back on them and everything. Um Holy Spirit got filled with the Holy Spirit, lit on fire, baptizing the Holy Ghost, all those things. Um walking in power or walking with power was was not difficult. Um but as you grow older in Christ, um revisiting scripture like this, number one, is very, very important. Um number two, it can be a little bit more difficult. Life likes to creep back in on you. Uh what they say about boiling frogs, you don't you don't put a uh a frog into boiling water, you put them into room temperature water and and and then turn the heat up. Well, I think life does that to us uh if we're not careful. Next thing you know, uh we're living for Jesus, we're living for the Lord doing all these things. Next thing you know, a few years down the road, uh we realize that we're not as on fire as what we used to be. Uh and then if we're really gonna take a good self-in-inventory, uh, we can look back on it and go, oh, well, I'm probably not as on fire because I'm not living for the Lord like I've like I used to or like I was. Um and for whatever reason. I mean you d everybody's got different reasons for why that might be happening. And it's not always a matter of going back into sin or anything. Uh it can just simply be, uh I know for me, I think it comes down to being a very independent person. Oh yeah. And getting used to, you know, walking, walking with power, walking in that power, doing these things. Next thing you know, uh you're just you're just kind of on cruise control. Uh and it can be very easy uh to re to kind of forget that, hey, knucklehead, you you still need to you still need to tap into that power because you know, you need to check in. You need to check in every now and then. So it's it's more than just academia, that's for sure.

Daily Cross And Personal Responsibility

SPEAKER_00 15:52

Definitely. In the corresponding passage over in Luke, uh chapter nine, verses twenty two through twenty-four. I'm reading out of the New American Standard, saying the Son of Man must suffer many things to be rejected by the elders and the chief priests, priests, and scribes, and be killed and raised on the third day. And he was saying to them all, if anyone wants to come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake is the one who will save it. And when you were talking about that and reading along with you in this idea of you know crucifying, crucifying your flesh, taking up your cross, I think what a lot of times happens because this walk we have with the Lord is an individual walk, now there's some corporate manifestations to it. Right, right. But when it all boils down, it's you and the Lord. And if you and the Lord ain't strong, then no matter what organization you belong to, you you'll end up being the weakest link in that. And if you don't grow that relationship, what can happen is the organization's not going to be as robust as it could be. It's just not, it's gonna be revealed that you know, one of the reasons things aren't going the way it is is because you. It's it's it's Jonah on the ship. Yeah, you know, hey, the reason things are messing up is because of me.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

Somebody ain't pulling their weight.

unknown 17:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:40

Yeah. And I'm the one in trouble. It's my wall, isn't where it's supposed to be, and now the whole ship's in trouble. Well, in looking at that, I think one of the things that really hems us up, though, is Jesus said, Take up his cross. That translates to us is to take up your cross. And a lot of times, due to measuring our experience by the experience of others, you know, we recently talked about, you know, the application of saints, you know, the example of saints. Right. And man, they're great if you use them as examples, they're bad if you make them idols. And the same with our modern preachers. If you get too focused on that, you can fail to realize what the Lord's calling you to do. And so the application of it is when we start to say, oh, well, our walk isn't where it should be with the Lord, it isn't that the passion has died per se, but we failed to identify our cross. Yeah. We're trying to take up somebody else's cross based upon some example we were given. And they took up their cross and praise God that they did, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the way them taking up their cross looked is going to be exactly 100% the way that it looks for us. What the Lord is calling us to give up and set aside and where our agendas might tend to try and creep in. Bones, it's going to be as different for you as it is for me. Right. And don't get me wrong, we both know we've been around long enough to know there probably going to be a little bit of overlap, but it's not going to be 100%.

Stop Carrying Someone Else’s Cross

SPEAKER_01 19:28

Just like there, there were, you know, there were two trees there in the center of the garden in Eden. Well, there was more than one cross. There were three crosses up on Calvary. You know, you can either be eating from the tree of life or eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And uh you'll you'll uh you'll you'll find out which one you're eating from through your walk uh eventually. I think we spoke a little bit about about this in our last podcast. Sometimes you can just get into uh you can get into a ministry or you get into your calling and you're just there and you're there and you're there and you're there. And then you the next thing you know, you're there for years and maybe even decades, and you you really haven't reassessed to see if that's where you're still supposed to be. Uh that's kind of that spiritual cruise control, you know, that I'm talking about, um, where we hadn't checked in with the Lord again and say, hey, um, where do I need to be right now? Well, you know what? I'm glad you asked, because I tried to call you out of here 10 years ago. Yeah. You know, so be it. But uh, and it wasn't God's fault, it was, you know, our fault, and and not not necessarily out of malice or blatant sin, but just we were walking in the white is what it was.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

Yeah. You you were talking about um it was either last episode or the episode before that where you were talking about uh a pastor that you knew. And and that's kind of where kind of kind of the assessment. He'd been doing that for so long, it just kind of burned out. Yeah, and uh it reminded me you were talking about nobody asked where you want to be. Uh I was relaying the story to a uh brother. The Lord was when he called me out of the church that I was real active in, uh that me and my family were real active in. Something wasn't right. I'm frustrated. I'm sitting there, and and I hear the Lord says, turn on the TV. I'm washing dishes, uh, chilling out over my folks' place and uh washing the dishes. And they they had it set up to where you could kind of watch a TV in the living room from the from the dining room and from the kitchen area. Um and uh turn it on. No, I'll turn it on a different channel. Turned it on to a channel I don't particularly like. And there was a preacher I don't particularly like. More for style, but but uh and also more recently, just substance. But that day, the Lord spoke through that man directly to me and let me know that the reason I was miserable, because he had been trying to call me out, and he said, He was talking about Abraham, get out of the land. And he said, you know, God's saying to some of y'all, he done called you out of that place. He was he was telling you two months ago, but you've not been listening. And I go, Well, crap. Okay. Um, yep, thanks. Uh yeah. Still ain't my favorite preacher, but you gotta, you know, he was being used that day.

SPEAKER_01 22:46

You can't cast out the stake for the bone, that's for sure.

Knowing When It’s Time To Move

Leadership That Does Not Choke Growth

SPEAKER_00 22:49

No, um, and that happened. Let me tell you a couple other things that I can relate that to. You know, when you stay on longer, especially in a leadership role, and if you're a pastor, that is a leadership role, but the model is servant leadership, always remember that. So you're always gonna have somebody to serve. The Lord will always bring people across your path that you can show the love of Christ and disciple by serving. There's always going to be those. But I was also relaying a story at my current job. They had somebody coming in for an interview, doing the in-process, going through personnel, all that. And his dad uh used to be one of my immediate supervisors. And great dude. The fastest hands I've ever seen on a human being. He was uh Sambo. He was big time into that, quickest hands I've ever seen, and dude's about 6'3, just big, big man. But he can micromanage you and micromanage and micromanage. And and there's I always contrast him and another guy, the the other guy said, Well, he did it right. He gave you every detail of the way he wanted it done, and he would stand on you for a little while, and then he would gradually back off and then check in on you, and he would check in on you less and less, then less and less and less. He made sure you learned it, but he wasn't a micromanager just out in this, you know, just because that was his nature. He wanted it done right, and he wanted to make sure that you knew every little detail. And so I've had both of them guys supervisors. But when he when this guy that was the other micromanager, the super big dude, when he moves out and takes a different assignment, the supervisor above him, we have we have an incident happen and we've had this happen 10 times while I was getting supervised by the immediate guy. And he says, Hey, why didn't you do that? Where's this piece of paperwork I need? I'm like, What are you talking about? He said, No, you're supposed to fill this out. He said, You've been here, you've been here three months, blah, blah, blah. You know, and I said, Well, here's the deal. And the, you know, the not immediate supervisor, supervisor above him, he was like, Oh. He said, Here, let me show you how to do this. What it happened was this supervisor would take that piece of paper out of my hand every time because he wanted it done right. And so if you don't move on and you want to run everything, what happens is you're choking your people out of the learning experience. Um, if you're going to do it all, and all it took was uh a dude named Ray. Uh, he showed it to me, had to show me one other thing to reiterate, and I and I've learned it my second time. Never had never had to ask again. That's all it took. And so that was what it was a leadership lesson, but we do this with discipleship. Discipleship is leadership, discipleship is mentoring, discipleship is service, it's just centered around Jesus Christ. But if we if we don't move on when we're supposed to move on, what we don't think about is whose opportunity to learn and to step up and serve, whose opportunity are we robbing from them by trying to stay on and stay in our routine?

SPEAKER_01 26:40

It's a very instrumental place to be. Number one, you're at a place where uh it's time for you to move on, but for the leader, um that's a place where the the leader has to make that known to you if you're not gonna if you're not gonna see it on your own. Man, that's a very delicate place for a bunch of people, for everyone involved, really. But uh yeah, you're right. If if you don't move on, you're hindering the the person behind you, uh hindering their opportunity uh for growth, and and you're you're robbing them of their their their chance to uh to progress as well. Um but uh we don't always see it like that sometimes. I think there's I think there's a certain level of comfort by staying right there. Uh we know just enough to keep ourselves out of trouble, uh, but we don't want to take the next step because the next step brings forth a lot more responsibility that we really probably don't want. Uh so yeah, that that's a very hard place to be.

SPEAKER_00 27:44

Yeah. And I think there's times where, well, one of two things is gonna happen. It we when a person is being discipled, and you might be in an organization, you might be in a group, just and it could be very, it doesn't have to be the church, you know, like a physical church. It could just it could be any organization, really. But when the Lord has called you, there there's that, like like you said, it's delicate because somebody is learning about all they can learn and they're capping off. So there either is one of two things that has to happen. Either the Lord will move you out of the way if you're the leader, because it might be about you and you having to go, and you having other things you need to step up and do for the kingdom. Or it might be time to take a break and enjoy a little bit of alone time in the wilderness, get your bearings, uh, so to speak. And the other the other option, though, is if you're supposed to stay there in that leadership role, and the person learning and being discipled, if they're capped out, the Lord might move them on. The key thing as a leader, though, is you have to recognize that. You don't always have to like it, but you better recognize when the Lord's doing it, not when people are throwing a fit because they got corrected on something, not because there's style differences, not because any of these other petty reasons that preachers reil. Oh, it's because you did this, and no, because you're not happy. You do. And a lot of times there's truth to that. A lot of times there is. Sometimes, however, and it's more times, and a lot of people will be willing to admit, sometimes the Lord's just called somebody out so they can grow in a different way. And there's and there's a lot of people in leadership roles that don't want to let go. Why? Because, well, from a logistical perspective, that's that's tithe money that's coming in to help make things run, especially if they're faithful. You know what I mean? That's uh that's some volunteer work who's gonna fill this void here. It might be, as you and I have experienced, uh, depending on you know who who we were helping at the time, it might be a confidant that I can I can pull you to the side and vent out a little bit of my frustrations, ask you to pray for me. Maybe ask some advice. It might be that, and now I'm losing that. Yeah. Especially if you're removed from the situation and that person's still in it, and all of a sudden God calls you out. And now if they're asking you for advice, you're like, I can pray about it, but I really don't know what's going on over there. You know, so so those are all some real tangible, practical things that happen. And so from that logistical perspective, it goes, you know, what what am I losing out? What am I giving up? What is what is the cost, to which the reply is take up your cross. Yeah.

Colossians 3 And Heart Direction

SPEAKER_01 31:12

The the root to all of that, the fundamental uh the fundamental basic to all that is is fear. There's a fear, even on the leader's part, there's a fear. Um, which you know, uh I think is normal, I think it's natural. Um, but that's what taking up the cross does uh is uh helps you to deal with that fear. Um the truth is you're not gonna continue to grow by staying stagnant. That dog just don't hunt. Um Colossians chapter 3, starting in verse 1 says, If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God, set your affection on things above, not on things that are not in things on the earth, uh, for ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. I think the NIV says it since then you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, so on and so forth. Um what jumped out at me when I was reading that, uh, since you've been raised with Christ, um what I get there is since you have the relationship that you say you have, then set your heart on things above where Christ is at. Um you'll find out just how you'll find out just where your relationship is at um just by seeing where your heart is sitting, where is your heart pointed at? Is it pointed, is it set on things above where Christ is at? Um, you know, uh where is your mind? Is it set on things above, not on earthly things? Well, if your relationship with Jesus is where you say it's at, then yes it will be. Um but that relationship and the fruits from that relationship will will always they'll mirror each other. They'll be they'll be they'll be evident. Um so let your let the fruit tell you what's uh you know what the relationship is is is looking like and if you don't like where your mind is at, if you don't like where your heart is at, then instead of uh putting another set of boxes on the refrigerator to check, then maybe you should just take another look at your relationship, uh readdress the relationship. And it may and it may not be that you know you have intentionally drifted off from the relationship or you're doing something wrong. Once again, you know, are you on cruise control? Uh just come back, get get your center, you know, and and go from there.

SPEAKER_00 33:59

But uh I was uh I was going to go uh pick up my daughter the it was last week. And she was over um hanging out with my ex-wife, and uh she said, get get get got a call, said, Hey, would you mind uh picking up anointed? That's my daughter's name is Anointed, good old biblical name. And I'm like, oh well, I've worked some overtime, first off, so I'm kind of in a rush, and it's been a long day. And I know I have no problem, I can't pick her up, but this time because I just got off work. Hey, I'm on my way. It'd be a pleasure to talk, you know, pick her up, talk to her, get to spend some time. Um, she just recently got through dealing with some things and and doing well, so you know, I always treasure that time, I guess, spend with my daughter. And I'm thinking about all these things. I was like, man, it'd be good to have a conversation, you know, have a conversation with her and all that. And um cruise control was on, it'd been a long day, and I'm on autopilot and blaze right past that exit.

SPEAKER_02 35:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:21

Ain't no bad intentions, and and it wasn't anything that couldn't be corrected. There's another exit, uh five miles down the road. So I hit that exit, had to backtrack about another three and a half, four miles from that. You know, so that is what it is. The the key thing is just realize when you're on autopilot, but it's kind of hard to do because you're on autopilot pilot.

SPEAKER_01 35:45

Exactly. You know, if if you knew it, then you you you'd you'd turn off autopilot.

Crucifying Flesh Without Self-Harm

SPEAKER_00 35:51

Man, that was is like an old uh old saying. Uh Gerald Martin was manager, the customer service manager. You know, uh Martin's automotive up there at the Anna exit over on 57. Any of y'all in southern Illinois want good work done, they will charge you for it, but it will be done right, I guarantee. There you go. Uh Martin's automotive, they don't pay us a thing. But especially if it's big work, I'll still take my vehicles over from Missouri to there to get them worked on. But I took a car over there, the Mennonites. And so very plain spoken. There isn't a lot of flair, but they're very honest people. And Gerald goes, Well, Chris, it's an intermittent problem. And the problem with intermittent problems is that they're intermittent. So you don't say. It's pretty simple. Yeah. It's a pretty simple fix. But the interesting thing is there's a passage in scripture where Peter's saying, Lord, we done left it all. And Jesus said, You're going to get it back. I'm paraphrasing. If you've left your family, you've left this, you've left that, all these things and houses and all, he said, you're going to get them back this present time. God's going to make it up to you. If you, if you're willing to, you know, take up your cross, if you're willing to crucify your flesh, uh crucify, basically what this means is we're not advocating like there's some uh monks that would go and do like self-flagellation and stuff and inflict pain on their bodies. That's not what we're talking about. Crucifying your flesh simply means that your way of doing it is subservient, and sometimes you got to make that non-existent. Sometimes you got to literally put that way of doing it to death because it is in direct conflict with what God is wanting you to do. It's mission contrary.

SPEAKER_01 38:38

Yeah, it's mission contrary and contrary to God's nature and character.

SPEAKER_00 38:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:45

Um, because it was the old man way, and God has created you and made you a new creature. Um, so there's there's that way of looking at it too, is you know, sometimes when we get saved, it can be very easy to forget that we're a new creature, uh, because new creatures still have old habits, and we've got to kick those old habits, and those old habits can be hard to kick um because there's a reason why they became habits in the first place. Um, so yes, there's a level of comfort in it. There's a level of comfort in it, amen. So we've got to be able to uh we've got to put aside those those things and get out of our comfort zone. Um, you gotta get out the boat and walk on the water sometimes. Uh, you know, and ma'am, you can you can preach that in church all day long, but at some point in time, you've got to get out the boat. Um whatever whatever circumstance that might be for you. Um, but uh he's gonna call everybody out of the boat at some point in time.

SPEAKER_00 39:50

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 39:51

More than once. So, and I and I say that so you don't get out the boat, and 20 years later you're still, you know, cheering yourself on because you I got out the boat 20 years ago. All right, well, where are you at now? You're back in a boat. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:07

Peter got out of it twice and didn't even have to be told the second time.

SPEAKER_01 40:11

Amen. It's uh yeah, it's okay to be afraid to get out of the boat. Yeah, just get out of the boat.

SPEAKER_00 40:16

But it it's amazing when you do get out of the boat. The very things that you wanted that you were trying to get your way, your way sucks.

SPEAKER_02 40:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:30

And when you start doing things, when you put that desire, um, it can even be a lust. Yeah, you know, uh it and not necessarily just limited to sexual lust, but it can be an intense craving, it can get to the point of idolatry where this is, you know, this is it, this is it, this is it. And what you find though is if you're willing to crucify that, if you're willing to put that to the side or even bury that sucker, what you end up with is God's version of what you were actually desiring. And it's gonna be better. Yeah. Um, and you're gonna be looking at the way it looked for me was man, I prayed for this and prayed for this, and I tried to work my butt off to get this and that, and it was always with this goal, and it wasn't working, and then the next thing you know, started doing things God's way, and it was real subtle. But I looked after 10 years and all the stuff I wanted, all the stuff that I tried to use the word of faith preaching and all that stuff to name it and claim it. Uh, when I just trusted God and got out and did what he said, he knew the desires of my heart. I ended up with a good chunk of all these things that I was desirous of. Come to find out, some of that was godly desire. It's just that I had a very flawed way of thinking. Poor execution. Yeah, and uh um a bad idea, a bad idea is a seed just like a good idea is a seed. And so we had to weed out that bad idea so that the good idea could yield its fruit, so that the word could yield its fruit. And the next thing you know, the the Lord knows the desires of your heart, and next thing you know, I got them.

unknown 42:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:27

But it's not like there wasn't a price of I'm not gonna get this my way. Peter's saying, You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Amen. Peter, you actually want to see this happen. Thing is, it's gonna happen my way, not your way.

Manifesting Versus Hearing The Spirit

SPEAKER_01 42:45

Yeah, there's something interesting in all that. Um, because looking back during that time, you you had your ideas and what you wanted to do, and I've had my ideas, what I want to do. We've all had those ideas, things we wanted to do, and we go forth and try to do them. We're gonna uh name it and claim it. Uh today I think they call it manifest. Uh we're gonna manifest it. Uh anyway, um, and some of that stuff is done. We we say that that was that was good teaching. We had good teaching, you know, that was good church teaching. Um, but knowing, I think seeing where we're at now and looking back on, at least for me, I look back on on the things that that probably I stumbled upon and and acted a fool on. I look back on it now and said, Man, you weren't you were reading, I was reading my Bible through the lens of somebody else's revelation.

SPEAKER_00 43:46

Amen.

SPEAKER_01 43:46

That was the problem. If I'd have just read God's word for myself and listened to the Holy Spirit, I'd have been a lot better off. Um, but once again, you know, talking about uh intermittent problems being intermittent. Um Uh I didn't know that uh that's what I was doing. At least I didn't think I knew. Um so you can have what you think is good teaching, but you have to ask yourself sometimes, where did I learn that? Who told me that? Um is God telling me this? Is the Holy Spirit telling me this? Or am I listening to someone's preaching? Because I look back on our experiences, and if a preacher has to spend 30 or 45 minutes up to an hour unpacking something to make his quote unquote revelation, and I got questions about that. Um because there's probably more there's probably more flesh in there than there is uh spiritual revelation. That's not to say that there's not any revelation in it, because there most likely is. That's what brought him to that point in the first place. Um but the the more times that I hear folks take longer, more and more time to unpack a simple truth the more you hear the flesh come out more than anything. But you know, just that's my big thing, is start asking yourself, uh, who who told me that? Uh where did I hear that? Uh don't be afraid to ask those questions of yourself. And if the answer is not, well, the Lord told me that in scripture, the Lord told me that uh in prayer, then you know, readdress it, go back and relearn it because it could be junk.

SPEAKER_00 45:34

It it really don't mean much till it's yours.

SPEAKER_01 45:38

Right, right. It's just somebody else's promise, not yours.

SPEAKER_00 45:41

You know, you were talking about manifest this, manifest that. The the problem is when you get into idolatry, all of a sudden you can become infested because you tried to manifest too much. Yeah. And you started trying to do it from a bad source. That happens.

SPEAKER_01 45:56

Yeah. Yep. You'll you'll start attracting some very unclean things.

SPEAKER_00 46:02

Yeah. Yeah. Where'd that come from? Oh, you made this your God instead of Christ.

SPEAKER_01 46:07

Amen. Amen. And you'll wonder um what's influencing you all day, uh what's speaking into your ear, uh, why you're why you're so anxious, why you can't find peace. Oh, yeah, it's because you done invited a boogeyman into your life, and you know, can't shake it until you know until you repent of it. So there you go. That wasn't that hard.

SPEAKER_02 46:35

No.

SPEAKER_01 46:35

That didn't take 30, 30, 45 minutes to unpack that. Nope. Uh but uh but nonetheless, so uh in all honesty, you know, like O boy said, the thing about intermittent problems is yeah, they're intermittent.

SPEAKER_00 46:52

Well, the other thing about an intermittent problem, let me tell you, that intermittent, it shows up at the worst possible time, the most inconvenient time. And uh the the thing is, if you have those intermittent problems, um best to get them dealt with, any any potential cause, because it will show up, especially in the life of the believer, it's gonna show up at the most embarrassing time as it can, yeah, just to show you that he's God and you ain't.

Final Challenge And Where To Listen

SPEAKER_01 47:22

Had a buddy of mine that used to say uh uh it doesn't happen much, but you see it all the time. And it's and I think what I know what you're talking about. It doesn't happen much, but but you see it all the time.

SPEAKER_00 47:40

Hey everybody, thanks for listening. We hope this challenges you and causes you to grow. You can always check us out at woefoldio.org or subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Audible, or even check us out on YouTube. Remember, folks, if you're gonna grow, you got a woefoy. Get in the word for yourself.