0:00 All right, guys. It's time for another Eye to Eye. I'm with my buddy, Greg. We are going to discuss a topic that seemed to have been on my heart, what, about a week or two? Right. And I really, I've never talked about it with anybody. So I thought, you know, Greg, you're really good at this.0:30 easy to talk to, uh, smart in this area that I'm comfortable talking with you about it. And I know I'll get productive stuff from you. So one of the things I've noticed being a believer, okay. Every, and I've been through so many tribulations in my life and that's our topic. Um,0:56 that it's really been a... For example, when I had my first stroke, okay? Remember Pastor Davis? Okay? He came to me. The first thing he said, you are going through a faith builder. And I didn't understand that until I got out of my funk, what I was going through,01:26 initially with the stroke. And I'm like, wow, he's right. He's totally right. So what I want to talk to you about is, because maybe it's only me, but I don't think so. But I think tribulations, I hate to say it's a good thing, because it's not, but it's an important area for your relationship with God. So basically...01:56 yeah i i thought it was just me but i've talked to others so that's why i wanted to talk to you i'm sure you've been through it absolutely uh let me pause here uh just a second i'm gonna look up the scripture that i want to know take your time to share with everybody i can trim this up if you you know i literally walk02:22 Yeah. Yeah. I literally left my Bible sitting on my nightstand. So let me grab one from the office. Oh yeah. I'll get the, I'll get the big study Bible here. The big one. Yep. So the scripture in mind, right? Something in mind. Absolutely. Yes. Uh,02:48 When going through trials, when we were talking, what brought this up, what reason why Jack wanted to talk with me about it is I'm going through a pretty significant trial with losing my job recently, and it's kind of made me reset, rethink. Oftentimes, when you think about trials, they're not just interruptions. What God's been telling me lately is it's an invitation.03:18 It's not just an interruption in my life. It's an invitation. What is God wanting to teach me? God didn't take the job away from me, first and foremost. I know the devil is on this planet to kill, steal, and destroy. So I know it was the devil that took my job.03:38 Because he knows God has somewhere that he wants me to be. There are people he wants me to reach, people that he wants me to pray for. The devil wants me to put my head in the sand and be an ostrich and just ignore the world, cut off, ignore God, and just be woe is me all the time because here I am. I lost my job again. And just treat it as an interruption and just ignore the world.04:07 But God's telling me this is an invitation. And when pressure comes, I'm telling you, don't retreat. Oftentimes, if we stick our heads in our sand like an ostrich, we ignore what it is God can teach us during this time. And there's three bullet points I wanted to bring up. First one is pressing in. Then we'll talk about pressing through and pressing forward during times of tribulation, trials. You may hear me call them circumstances. Any words you want to put there.04:37 They're not easy. But when we press into God and we press through resistance and we press forward into purpose, I feel you'll be better on the outside, on the back end of any trial you're going through. So the scripture I wanted to bring up is 1 Peter 1, 6 through 7. So let me pull that up for everybody. So 1 Peter 1, 6 through 7.05:03 You know, there's going to be a day that I'm going to be able to pull it up right on the screen. And you can just, like, read it right off the screen. Just read it right off the screen. Well, if I was... Had the...05:16 This morning when I was gathering all my notes, I would have just typed it out on my notes. It would have been a lot smarter, and I wouldn't have to stop and go pull the Bible off the shelf. But I didn't want to wing the Scripture and miss anything as I read it out to everybody. Right.05:35 The Scripture says, so be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead, even though it is necessary for you to endure many trials for a while. This is 1 Peter, so this is Peter right here. These trials are only to test your faith, to show that it is strong and pure. It is being tested as fire tests and purifies gold.06:00 And your faith is far more precious to God than just gold. Oh, my God. That's perfect, dude. So when I think that trials aren't random, trials reveal true, genuine faith. And as you go through a tough situation, the main goal from the enemy, as I said, is to destroy your faith, is to get you to turn away from God and focus on your problems and just wallow in them. Right.06:27 Just draw back. You don't want to hang out with friends. You don't want to go to church. You just want to be miserable because you're mad. Don't let it. Because if you let it expose your true strength, it will produce endurance. Trials aren't the evidence that God stepped away. It's the evidence that he is developing something within you. So that brings the first point is pressing in. When pressure reveals what you believe.06:57 Not just what other people believe about you, what you believe about yourself. Before you can press forward in your life, you must press inward. So the pressure exposes what we actually believe about God's character, our own personal identity, and above all, what his promises are of our life. That's the main focus about pressing in. So when life tightens, your identity gets confused and it resurfaces again.07:25 all kinds of hurts and you just feel like your life's beginning to spiral. When I lost my job, yes, I went through a time, you've known me long enough, Jack, you remember I had four jobs in just three years where I would just get laid off, have a job, laid off, have a job. So I was very happy and successful for over six years at this job. And then when I get laid off, I'm going,07:52 Are we going to, is this going to the beginning of another financial spiral where I'm facing possible bankruptcy and all that, all these fears immediately jump into the back of your head as you're sitting there in a meeting with HR and they're telling you. It's called the whispers. Yes. And it's not just, I know we have the little animation where it's the devil and the angel, but oftentimes08:17 the worst enemy is our own mind. It's our own thoughts, our own fears that just kind of pop up. Yup. So when your identity gets confused and your, your life begins to spiral out of control, the question becomes, will you press into truth when circumstances start contradicting what truth you understood? So what does pressing in look like to me?08:47 returning to scripture instead of rehearsing your fears over and over. If you're fearful, you're covered in your field of fear, find some scripture, write it down and read it to yourself daily. That is something that God's just been working with me is find scripture, write it down, read it over your life. So if you're dealing with fear, speak it, speak, speak against it, find the scripture and speak it against it. When Jesus was being tempted by the devil and,09:18 What did he use? He used scripture to fight the devil. Scripture is our sword. That's what we use to take the battle back to the devil and attack him instead of just sitting there taking what he's given us. Worshiping, there's lots of definitions of worship. To me, worship is prayer, being in church, singing.09:42 leading the life group that my wife and I lead that is worshiping for me. That's doing those things that God's called me to do is worship before you even see movement in any kind of direction. So another one is trusting God's character over your own emotions. So I know who God is again, back to scripture, discover who God is in your life.10:13 say that over and over and over. I look at God. I'm a father. Jack, you're a father. The things I want from my kids so outweigh any desires of my own heart. I mean, you know my kids. They're beautiful, intelligent, talented. There's so much that I want them to be able to do10:37 that and i'm wanting to do for them right how much more does god want to do for us so that's what i'm saying god's character is so greater than even what we can imagine so don't let your emotions overtake you i know we talked before this uh my wife and i we you know it's been a few weeks now and there's not been a lot of movement so you get a lot of those emotions and frustrations and11:05 you get tied up looking at the money and you're looking at money going out and you're going, well, there's not that much coming back in. It gets a little emotional when you start looking at the tangible things. So another thing I look at is I refuse to let delay redefine who I am. So this may be a slight, when you look at your life, it's as a linear timeline. This is just a blip. This is,11:33 Trial you're going through this circumstance, whatever it is, for me right now, it's financial. In the past, I've had some health issues. I know there's people that are probably listening to this have major trials that probably make mine look insignificant. Right. Just because you have this small delay, don't let it define you. Whatever it is, don't let it define you. Focus on Scripture.12:00 continue to worship even before you see movement in that direction. I wish I had had those bullet points when I had my stroke. I would have went down those bullet points. I got you. Yeah, I mean, the first time Michelle and I went through this, you knew I was a young Christian, young father, and if there was a financial mistake to make, my wife and I did it. I mean...12:30 I was a poster child for Dave Ramsey's financial piece. Every stupid mistake you can make, my wife and I did it when I was going through trying to fix our finances, trying to fix everything. Instead of just letting go and let God, we were trying to fix it and do it for him. Because whether it was he wasn't doing it in our timing, he wasn't doing it the way we thought.13:00 we would always try and make things work. Right. So the next bullet point I want to talk about is pressing through. As you press through the trial, you build endurance. Endurance builds capacity. And there's several definitions you could use for capacity, but the way I'm wanting to explain it is it's your ability to receive, or better, it's your ability and your power to learn. The way I look at it is13:29 Your capacity is how your faith can grow. How much faith can you have? If you allow this trial you're going through to stretch you and build some endurance, the way I look at it is we've all bought balloons from the store. You get a balloon. If you were to take that fresh out of the package and blow it up, it gets only so big. But if you stretch out that balloon and build some resistance to it,13:59 you can make it this really big balloon. It has more capacity. So in the same way, if you allow this trial to focus your faith and build that endurance, the power you have to be able to learn faith and just your endurance, it tests and produces perseverance within your life, which then produces maturity. And as you build maturity, it gives you a capacity for more things.14:29 That way, when you get to the point where God is wanting to launch you out, you're ready. It means refusing to quit when God is still working. That's what pressing in means. That's what pressing through means. It means don't quit. Don't just stop. Many believers, I know many times in the past,14:58 I stop and fall short because the example I got here is the wall hasn't fallen. How easy would it have been for the Israelites, if you look at the story of Jericho, they had to march around that thing so many times. How easy would it have been for them to go, yeah, those walls are still there. They're not even a crack. They started having the naysayers. Or worse yet,15:27 The same Israelites years before, they're being chased by the Egyptian army. They come to the Red Sea. We're going to die. Greatest army in the world is coming down on us, and all we've got are several feet of water and cliffs. How are we going to survive now? They haven't seen the sea part. It's so easy for us just to focus on the problem and focus on the situation we're in that we ignore the15:57 that just because the answer hasn't arrived yet, God is still in that answer. It's in his timing, not our time. Right. So one of the things I've been focused on lately is, uh, we talked about it before you started. The recording was taking ground, uh,16:17 what ground is god calling me to take during this time the way i look at it is it's the inner ground it's what is god doing within me during this trial how can i take this that the devil is trying to attack me he's attacking my finances he's attacking my mental fortitude he's trying to get me to doubt everything that god has called me to do just through this one life change16:46 How can I take that ground away from him and move forward with purpose? So taking ground is taken through obedience before you even see a breakthrough in your life. Do you realize right now you're helping people go through their tribulation? And do you realize helping them helps you return? That's true.17:15 when I was a young Christian, I never really focused on the, the end result. I was just focusing on what is God doing through me? You know, I'm just great. I pulled my diaper up and run baby Christian and oftentimes fall flat on my face. I never really focused on the things that I would say, the things that I did affect people in the longterm. So as a,17:43 more mature Christian than I was back then I won't say I'm perfectly mature I'm constantly growing but I have I'm very conscious of the things that I say the the lessons that I teach have lasting eternal effects on people I know with this video it will reach hundreds of people the life group that my wife and I teach they18:08 they listen to the words that we speak and we have a lasting impact on lives. So I make sure that before we got on this call, that everything I have, I've backed it up with scripture. And we even talked about before the recording, what I originally wanted to talk about when we first tried to record, but we're having some technical difficulties. Well,18:36 When I prayed about it, it wasn't even what God wanted me to talk about. But it's weird because you're glitching, which is weird because you're glitching right now. How ironic. Right, right. So I still have – my internet's not the greatest. I'd love to upgrade it to a faster speed, but being unemployed is not – Well, you're supposed to have a good speed. You pay for a good speed. Yeah, it's –19:06 trying to get somebody on the phone and get through their AI system. That's a totally different story. Not to slam people. I'm not going to use a name, but the system you're on shares with other people. That's the problem, right? It's not fully dedicated and that's what we need you to have. Right. So as I was saying, ground is taken in obedience before you're even see a breakthrough, right?19:33 So pressing through means to continue to obey even when your results are delayed. So there are people that are listening to this. That's so hard. I'm just going to say it. There are people that it's not fallen deaf on me that there's probably somebody listening to this video that they've gotten a diagnosis that is life-changing.19:59 I know when you got your diagnosis, when you had your stroke, it was life-altering for you. There are people that are probably listening to this call that the trial they're going through is cancer. But they don't know if they have it tomorrow. But I'm saying if you press through and you believe that your healing is on the other side of this trial, that your healing is coming and God's spoken it to you, you believe it with all your heart, if you continue to obey, even when your results are delayed,20:26 and you stand firm before you even advanced forward, you let God strengthen your inner foundation. Your faith will be greater on the back end. If God was just a, if you have somebody who gets an instant healing, that's great that we've seen that happen. It's happened to me when I had that mass in my head last, uh, last year, a couple of years ago, uh,20:54 it just one week later after receiving prayer, it's gone. That's wonderful. But that, that kind of testimony only goes so far with people who are truly dealing with some major testimony stuff. Right. So if you continue to show obedience to the Lord, you're continuing to worship, you're continuing to just fight through things.21:22 your trial and show faith in god continue to read his word and do what it says you are building more capacity you're increasing your faith and on the back end of this when god does heal you i'm saying when i'm not saying if when god does heal you your faith will be greater than anything anybody can come against you right in fact i'll go as far as to say then21:50 you will be able to lay hands on people and speak with authority because your faith has already been through that trial. So you could speak with authority on God's behalf to those people. That is the faith that God is wanting to build while you're in this trial.22:07 So while I'm going through financial difficulties, on the back end of this, I will have the faith to fight through financial difficulties to where I can speak to those that are also going through financial difficulties, which is rampant right now in our country and in the world as people who are so far in debt, they can't breathe.22:30 Yeah. No, I agree. I've heard nothing but that from friends and family. So I want to, I want to share something really quick. Whether it is talk about it. When I was in the hospital after my first stroke, um, I said to God, I go, look, I go, what do I do now? I'm a mess. What do I do? Oh, nothing's working. Um,22:58 memory, brain fog, I mean, everything was screwed up. I said, what do I do? And the Holy Spirit came to me and said, you are in a valley, a dark valley. You need to find the light of Jesus in the dark valley, shining there. You need to stand in his light. And everything you're saying is exactly like that, stand in the light.23:25 whether you're pressing in, pressing on, pressing through. But I went looking for him. I prayed harder. My faith grew stronger. It was a huge training ground. So I don't know if I've ever shared that with anybody, but that's what I was told. That's good. Now, can I get a copy of your bullet points?23:53 Absolutely. Okay. I'll put it below this video. Okay. Perfect. Absolutely. So the third point that I wanted to talk about, I know I'm probably running low on time. Great. So the third bullet point I want to talk about is pressing forward. I know we haven't really talked about in this video about your identity in Christ, but you want to move from just your identity in Christ.24:20 You want to move from that, not for your identity. You're not pressing forward through your trial to find your identity in Christ. Your identity is already found in Christ Jesus. He already died for you. He's already rescued you. You're moving from that, not for that. You're not going to press forward to earn your identity. Your identity has already been earned on the cross thousands of years ago. You press forward because your identity is secured in that.24:49 So what does pressing forward look like? It's taking steps despite having any uncertainty. It's speaking truth over your life despite having fear. That's something that I feel is different this time because in the past when I lost my job the last time, there was a lot of woe is me, what ifs. My wife and I would call them what ifs in life. Well, what if we had done this? What if we had done that? What if we had done that?25:18 Maybe we wouldn't be in this situation. That's fear talking. Whenever you start saying, what if, and you're focusing on the past, you're focusing on your fears and making mistakes. The Bible says God is leading, lighting the path in front of you. He doesn't say, he walked, there's scriptures saying that he's walking behind you and beside you and all around you, but25:43 The one I'm focusing on is God's leading the path ahead of you. He has gone before you and taken territory ahead of you. Don't just focus on your past and be negative about all your mistakes you've made, because then you're just going to be filled with the woes, me's, and the fears in your life. So act on your calling despite having resistance against it. And what I mean by that is each and every one of us, we have a purpose.26:10 There's something that we do that we enjoy doing. For me, it's teaching. I'm sitting here on this phone call with you and doing this video call, even though I lost my job. I could have easily said, no, Jack, I don't want to do this. I just want to go play the Xbox today. But what you're doing right now, you're taking a bad situation.26:32 And God always turns it for good and you're using it as a weapon against evil and helping others go through it, too. And that's why I felt so strong about having this conversation. The other point is, I want to make sure people understand, don't just move. Forward and strive.26:59 just to try and make it better, move from a place of security, knowing that God's got his hands on you. He's already ahead of you. So anything you do is going to work for the better because God's ahead of you. If you keep your eyes on God and you do, you obey him, you do the things that he's asking you to do, read the scripture over your life, constantly, constantly,27:27 focusing and keep pressing forward, then you're not striving anymore. You're not moving from a position of striving to get by. You're moving from security in Christ. You're moving forward. You're pressing forward because you feel ready. You're pressing forward because you know who you trust in every day. So the final bullet point I want to talk about is, I feel like is a key component, key point to this whole thing is27:56 You want to take ground in the middle of the trial. Don't just sit still. Your breakthrough is just around the corner. Take ground. You look at it as it's warfare. It's a spiritual warfare over your life. Don't just sit there and take it.28:16 You don't just have a shield of faith sitting there to take the fiery arrows. He's given you boots. He's given you a sword. He's given you a breastplate. He's given you to take the fight to the double. So you are a believer the quicker you move on a tribulation, the better.28:36 As long as you're moving in the direction that God's calling you to do. That is what I believe. Yes. There is a time to move forward. There's a time to pause. But what I want the listeners to understand is this is spiritual warfare. This is the devil is attacking you. Take the fight to him. Ground is not only taken...29:04 after the breakthrough it's taken while you're in the waiting so don't wait right don't wait for your victory start taking ground before you even get there when the ground I'm talking about is not necessarily physical moving forward it's take the ground within you grow your faith take the fight to the devil within your own life within your family as a father29:29 I'm constantly preaching to my wife, to my kids, to my mother-in-law who lives with me. I'm the spiritual father of the house. It's my job to take the fight to the devil on their behalf. Right. And to teach them how to take the devil on spiritually. So sometimes the trial itself is the territory God's calling you to take over. Right. So30:00 Where my wife and I, for 18 years of our marriage, we've struggled financially. Over the past year, we have felt like God wants us to have a breakthrough in our finances. I'm not saying I'm going to win the lottery. I'm not talking about a quick get rich Ponzi scheme or anything like that. We feel like the territory he wants us to conquer is we aren't going to struggle anymore.30:27 We started making moves last year in obedience, and then all of a sudden I lose my job. This is the final step. But it doesn't mean we don't take territory during this struggle. Right. I know there are listeners that are all across the spectrum. I know there are people that are listening to this video who probably aren't believers in Christ. But one of the steps that I'm going to talk about right now is kind of controversial.30:56 It's the tithes. It's backed up biblically. People can argue how much. I'm not going to say it has to be exactly 10%. Some people, the way their finances are, cannot afford the exact 10%.31:11 Like the lady who gave all she had. She gave everything. She gave 100%. Was next to nothing, I heard. But it was 100% of what she had. Right. She didn't just give one mite. She gave both her mites. It's not the number. It's not the number. It's not the number. It's in the obedience. Yep. Yep.31:34 my wife and I during this drop I'm not saying this to brag I'm saying this as a testimony so that when we do have our financial breakthrough we come back to this video have a follow-up video and I can tell everybody the praise report and the evidence of my wife and I are tight we're tithing on our unemployment check when my severance gets here I'm going to be tithing on my severance check I mean32:01 We don't know if we're going to have enough money to get through the next few months. I've written out a budget. As long as everything fits the plan, we have enough to get through. But we are tithing. We're choosing 10% because that's what the Bible says in Malachi. It's 10% of your income. Everything that comes in this house, we are tithing 10% on, whether it's tax return. Everybody may not believe in that.32:28 I understand everybody's situation is different, but that is what we're standing on in faith. To break through our finances, we have to do something different than we have in the past. For those that aren't believers, for those that don't know the Bible very well, it is literally the one time God says, test me. He says, test me. That is correct. One time, and that's it.32:57 is the tithe. He said, he challenges, he talks about blessings from heaven, hundredfold. I mean, go read it. He literally doesn't anywhere else say, try me. Yes, that's correct. Yeah. So my wife and I, we have made a personal declaration that we're going, we're not testing God in this. We are believing in this.33:27 The way we've done it in the past, we're breaking away from that. We're changing the way we do our finances. I literally feel like we're going to do a follow-up video. I believe we're doing a follow-up video, too, and I'm excited for it to be able to share with everybody that God does move. So, in closing, I just wanted to close and kind of rehash everything really quick. Pressure does not mean you retreat.33:56 Delay does not mean you need to be in denial. And resistance does not mean rejection. We talked about resistance. That is a key component here is resist your own flesh in doing things your way. Resist the devil in every situation that you can. You press in because God's near. God is tangible in your situation you're going through right now.34:23 Press through because your endurance builds your strength. It builds your faith. Press forward because you know your identity in Christ is already secured by him dying on the cross and resurrecting. Your identity in Christ is already secured.34:41 So press forward. You're not being stopped through your trials, your tribulations, your circumstances, your cancer, your financial difficulties. You're being strengthened. If you take the steps and you press in to God, you will be strengthened. I truly believe tribulation is God's way of training you, strengthening you, growing you, everything. Absolutely. I believe that.35:09 Yeah, and by the way, if anybody's watching, pray for Greg and his family. I appreciate it. Pray for Greg's family and Greg. And we will have an update video. We definitely will. I'm excited about an update video because I've already got kind of what I want to talk about, so I'm not going to talk about it here. Okay. There's...35:36 the praise and breakthrough that is going to happen. Right. And we're going to thank God. We're going to thank God right now. Absolutely. No, he hasn't done anything. We know we have faith. We're going to show him our faith. Absolutely. So looking forward to it. All right. Let me let you go. You probably got a lot you're working on. Um, call me if you need anything and we will do an update video real soon.36:03 All right. That was good. I'll let you know. All right. Take care, Jack. Love you guys. Bye-bye. Take care. Bye.