Welcome to the Truth in Love podcast with your hosts, Kimberly Faith and John Mack. The Truth in Love podcast seeks to present God's timeless truth through the lens of his remarkable love.
Kimberly Faith:Welcome back to Truth in Love podcast. I'm here with my dad, John Mack. And It's
John McLarty:great to be here again.
Kimberly Faith:Yeah. And this is, so we've kind of our biblical prosperity or prosperity for the new year, however you wanna look at this, is where we've got part 2. And, we're hoping we're we're hoping and praying this might be the end of this, this the last podcast, but you never know. We'll wait till we get to the end and figure out what happens. And so last time we talked about what are our assets, available for everyone to invest in their spiritual prosperity, and we talked about our testimony of salvation, the holy spirit, the word of God, church, and prayer.
Kimberly Faith:And, so now we we wanna talk about today, how do we use our assets to become prosperous. And I kinda wanna I kinda wanna, I guess, talk about what we're you know, if you're if you're at if you're you know, okay, I have these assets for warfare. Right? I have these these 5 assets. How do I accomplish the victory?
Kimberly Faith:Right? You can't just approach that willy nilly. You have to really think about your strategy. You have to focus. Intentional.
Kimberly Faith:Intentional. That's right. The word. And and I think when it comes to we get very intentionally focused on spiritual I mean, physical prosperity. I sat down and and I went through 3 years of law school.
Kimberly Faith:That was very focused. It was very intentional. But we need to be spiritually focused, very intentional if we want to accomplish a spiritual prosperity, a kind of prosperity that cannot be taken from away from us ever, the kind of prosperity that will be, will be enjoying now and through eternity. Right? Then we need to have a a focus.
Kimberly Faith:You know, and what's interesting is is Jesus gave us, like, the cliff notes. He's like, look, it all boils down to love God and love others. Right? And so if we're using our own personal testimony to take the time to share the gospel, if we are that's loving others. Right?
Kimberly Faith:And that's loving God because we're obeying God. Right? Each one of us, if we're if we're praying without ceasing, which is what the bible says to do, then we're showing our obedience to God and we're loving others because we're using that tool to win people to make their lives better. If if we are, you know, studying god's word, we're we're sharing our testimony. We're in we're being obedient to the holy spirit, all these tools.
Kimberly Faith:But, literally, we have to wake up in the morning, and this is one of my my things I've I've started doing is I wake up in the morning, and I start thanking god before my feet hit the ground because thankfulness is so vital for our our our growth. That is intentional, though, because most of my views laying there thinking, oh, I gotta get my coffee or whatever, brush my teeth. But if we start intentionally saying, when I first get up and we we do this in all areas of life. I have to go run 5 miles or I have to go I'm gonna do that 5 AM so I get it out of the way. I'm gonna make this healthy breakfast.
Kimberly Faith:But if where our first thing is, god, I wanna be intentional about serving you today and loving you and loving others. That takes us to the door to start being being spiritually prosperous. And and so focusing on spiritual prosperity and focusing on the right kind of treasure. Right? I mean, that's part of it is we we shift ourselves from, I have a job to do at the law office to I have a mission field at the law office.
Kimberly Faith:Right? And, so, you know, I I I don't know. What what are your thoughts about because we're we're gonna talk about how to put these tools in practice today as one of the things we're gonna cover. Would you have any initial thoughts about that before we
John McLarty:dive in? Go back to our previous podcast, the idea of this prayer list. And so I'm really going to promote this idea of a pot of a prayer list, a written prayer list Mhmm. To our audience here because that's intentional. That makes prayer intentional.
Kimberly Faith:Right.
John McLarty:And I've always prayed, but that challenge, that prayer list makes it more intentional.
Kimberly Faith:Mhmm.
John McLarty:And I have the same prayer list, and then when I say to somebody, oh, I'm gonna pray for you, I've said that all my life. Right. And then 5 days later, I forget all about it.
Kimberly Faith:Right. But
John McLarty:I'm gonna add that name to the prayer list.
Kimberly Faith:Mhmm. I
John McLarty:pray for them. So that's just an intentional, you know, way to make prayer more intentional.
Kimberly Faith:Right. And part of prayer is thanksgiving, and and I think that, something the lord's been teaching me, and this is also another intentional habit, is Paul Paul wrote for us to give thanks in all things. Well, I mean, being thankful is a state of mind. Right? Do you know people who aren't thankful?
Kimberly Faith:They complain about everything. You know people who are kind of ambivalent. They never give thanks so they don't complain. Then, you know, other people who are, like, they give thanks for all the good things, and that's kinda what we sometimes fall into. But Paul was giving thanks for being in jail, for being beaten, for having this whatever this thorn in the flesh was because then he was saying, then the power of Christ rests upon me more fully.
Kimberly Faith:Well, we're talk I mean, it this is called the battlefield mindset. Right? If you know you're gonna go you're going out on a mission to capture Saddam Hussein, right, or whatever, you know, whoever it might be or just you have a hard hill to take. You don't have an ambivalent, mindset about the trouble ahead. You're getting prepared for
John McLarty:it
Kimberly Faith:mentally. And I cannot I don't think I don't think when you compare Saddam Hussein to Satan, there's really a question about who is the greater enemy because Satan is the Very true. It's I mean, he is he is the the evil one that destroyed every he destroys everything. Right? So we need to be serious about prayer.
Kimberly Faith:You think the people who went out to the, you know, the the the unit that that killed Saddam Hussein, you think they weren't completely in touch with their the best intel, the best coms, everything? Of course they were because they had to be. Right?
John McLarty:And they practiced the mission.
Kimberly Faith:That's right. That's right. And there was no lack of intensity there. I mean, if they weren't intense, they probably weren't gonna be on the team. I want God to put me in.
John McLarty:And that's a good example of lackadaisial Christian living. Yeah. That's the norm.
Kimberly Faith:That's right. And we aren't here. I mean, I I think about this is what I think the lord lays on my heart is, like, this intensity is is, kind of motivated by the fact that I think about what if, like, I'll use the example from yes the last podcast from last week about, seeing that man who had his head on the on the truck. Right? What if he was not born again?
Kimberly Faith:Because I don't know. And what if the only gospel message he heard was from my tract? And what if I didn't give that to him? And someday, I'd be standing before god, and god says, this man never had the opportunity because you didn't listen. You were not intensely focused on warfare.
Kimberly Faith:Oh, good.
John McLarty:And and that's very legitimate.
Kimberly Faith:It is.
John McLarty:That's a true motivation. And we've all experienced that.
Kimberly Faith:Right. Right.
John McLarty:But we need to learn we need to learn a lesson from that because we've looked we've had we've had those failures. I know the exact feeling. We're not done. Right. Not given the track and then opportunity passes.
Kimberly Faith:Right. And if and if you're listening to this podcast and you, like, are feeling very ambivalent about what we're talking about, like, you you don't feel passionate about doing this. Look. I've been there. I've been there.
Kimberly Faith:And the reason I was there was, number 1, it wasn't because I wasn't saved because I was I did truly give my life to Christ, but it's because I wasn't surrendered to God and I was miserable. Because the fact is when your soul and spirit are born again, you have Jesus Christ inside of you. And so what you create by disobedience, by living differently than what the Bible says to live, which is what we're talking about. Right? When you choose to live in physical prosperity instead of spiritual prosperity, which is disobedience.
Kimberly Faith:Right? And that's your passion, in other words. Prosperity, which is disobedience. Right? And that's your passion, in other words, is is to pursue physical prosperity instead of spiritual prosperity.
Kimberly Faith:You create an anxiety inside of yourself that tears you up. You never have enough because the righteousness of God dwells in you and you're basically taking a healthy spirit and soul and shoving mud into it. You're feeding it with mud and gunk and bad stuff. Right. And so you're creating a spiritual worse than a spiritual stomachache, a spiritual disease that that just eating you up.
Kimberly Faith:Now you can't lose your salvation. But man, why would you wanna live miserable? I did that for years years years. And when finally, I got to the bottom of the spiritual I mean, of the physical gunk, and it clogged my veins so much that I was just gasping for air. The lord showed me his goodness and was like, here.
Kimberly Faith:You this is the clean water you can drink, and here's I love you so much. Would you please just turn around and come back to me? And, you know, I think about the the the the passion of Jeremiah, and and and I think about what god said about the repentance of Israel. And he said god said in Jeremiah 2912 to 14, he said, then you will call upon me and go and pray to me, and I will listen to you, and you will seek me and find me when you search for me with all your heart. I will be found by you.
Kimberly Faith:This is the God of the universe who created everything, and he's saying, look. If you will just turn around and seek me passionately, guess what? I'm waiting for you, and I'm gonna give you and Jeremiah is the same one that wrote about how how God wants to prosper us. Right? He wants to prosper, but he's not he wasn't talking about giving us more land or more money.
Kimberly Faith:He's talking about this satisfaction that we talked about in the first podcast.
John McLarty:That's great because there's a there's a trick of the devil that we can have both.
Kimberly Faith:Right.
John McLarty:Like, we we can have this worldly worldly success in the flesh and just and just just, open sin and still be blessed.
Kimberly Faith:Right.
John McLarty:Well, what you just said and just the truth of the bible, you can't. Right. If you want the abundant life, you've got to you've got to let live you know, that that we can be perfect, but you've got to want to live a a life that's pleasing to God. Right. And that's such a there's so much confusion and deception in Christian about that.
Kimberly Faith:Yes. But, oh, I know
John McLarty:I can go to this Dabble. And the other and dabble Mhmm. And still have the abundant life. No. No.
John McLarty:You can't.
Kimberly Faith:You can't. And and it's kinda like, you know, I I like to think about it this way because I like very graphic things because it it jolts me out of my sense of complacency. But I think about you know, there's 2 examples to think about. I think about, like, if if you and I were, you know, hanging out every day and every morning when you saw me, I punched you right in the face. Right?
Kimberly Faith:I mean, you're not gonna wanna hang out with me. Well, our sin is worse than a punch in the face, you know, and to God. Right? And and I also think about this, why would God's spirit wanna cuddle up next to us and guide us and lead us into his spiritual prosperity if we're committing the same sins that crucified his son?
John McLarty:Just thumbing our nose at it.
Kimberly Faith:And and and and basically saying, you know, your crucifixion, you can die for the you can your blood's good enough to cover all these extra sins, and we'll just use your blood. It's so it's just so wrong. You know? It's so wrong in so many levels.
John McLarty:And we And see, that's not self righteousness. If we try to live that way
Kimberly Faith:Right.
John McLarty:The world wants to view that as self righteousness. Right. It's not. It's Right. It's knowing the voice of God, not wanting to grieve the spirit.
Kimberly Faith:Right. And
John McLarty:then you have the abundant life, and it's so blessed.
Kimberly Faith:That's right.
John McLarty:It's not it's not self righteous for the sake of self righteous. It's self righteousness because it brings fulfillment. And and
Kimberly Faith:It brings spiritual prosperity. It does. And it produces the fruit of the spirit, which if you compare the fruit of the spirit with the works of the flesh in Galatians, you know, you have love, joy, peace, goodness, kindness, gentleness, meekness, all these good things that everybody wants that money can't buy, and then you contrast that with hate, lasciviousness, murder, envies. Who wants to live that way? Right?
Kimberly Faith:But it's not self righteousness, it's the Holy Spirit. And the world matter of fact, Jesus kind of addressed this. He talking about people just living in hypocrisy. Right? He said in Matthew, 7, he says, many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and done all these wonderful works in your name?
Kimberly Faith:And he's gonna say, dude, I never knew you.
John McLarty:Never knew.
Kimberly Faith:I never knew you. You were never mine. So when you when you consider these self self righteousness, that's exactly what it is. It's never gonna weigh up, it's never Jesus doesn't even know those people. And if we're producing our own righteousness, then there's a big problem because we can't.
Kimberly Faith:And and Right. So if you're if if you're listening to this podcast and you're not excited about spiritual prosperity, oh, man. Check your salvation.
John McLarty:Check your salvation.
Kimberly Faith:Because because Must
John McLarty:be born again.
Kimberly Faith:It's a big deal. It's a really big deal. And if and if you die and you do not have have not accepted Jesus Christ as your lord and savior and relied only on him for salvation, you're not gonna wanna be spiritual prosper spiritually prosperous for the right reason because you wanna glorify God.
John McLarty:And salvation is in conjunction with this repentance. Right. You have you desire. You want to do that 180 Yes. And live that different life.
John McLarty:And
Kimberly Faith:that's the inward transformation that takes place when we're born again. You know, I think to be to hourly conform to the rule rules of the bible without the influence of the holy spirit is the most miserable existence ever.
John McLarty:Yeah. There's actually a verse that said I can't remember it, but Paul says that. If you're trying to do this without Christ, you're the
Kimberly Faith:You're the man most miserable. The most miserable. And and it's true because and and that's goes back to our design, body, soul, and spirit. You know, if our soul and spirit are spiritually dead, the only spiritual influence we're subject to are the evil spirits, the the the not not God's spirit. So we're basically trying to conform this flesh to do the good stuff without any spiritual direction or or even, you know, and and Christians, even born again Christians, we fall into this trying to do God's work without God.
Kimberly Faith:Mhmm. We do. Absolutely. You know, which is which is such a mess. It just it just produces frustration and misery.
Kimberly Faith:So let's let's look at we're gonna look at Psalms 37.
John McLarty:Great.
Kimberly Faith:Because this is, I think, God's recipe for our spiritual prosperity, and God doesn't hide the ball. And I I think that, you know, we've got we've got, I'm gonna just read start reading these verses in Psalms 37. Good. He says, trust in the lord and do good. Dwell in the land and feed on his faithfulness.
Kimberly Faith:Delight yourself also in the lord, and he shall give you the desires of your heart. Commit your way to the lord. Trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass. Rest in the lord and wait patiently for him. Do not fret because of him who prospers in his way, because of the man who brings wicked schemes to pass.
Kimberly Faith:Cease from anger and forsake wrath. Do not fret. It only causes harm. For evildoers shall be cut off, but those who wait on the lord, they shall inherit the earth. A little that a righteous man has is better than the riches of many wicked.
Kimberly Faith:For the arms of the wicked shall be broken, but the lord upholds the righteous. The lord knows the days of the upright, and their inheritance shall be forever. They shall not be ashamed in the evil time. In the days of famine, they shall be satisfied. The wicked borrows and does not repay, but the righteous shows mercy and gives.
Kimberly Faith:For those blessed by him shall inherit the earth, but those cursed by him shall be cut off. The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and he delights in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down, for the lord upholds him with his hand. I have been young, and now I'm old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his descendants begging bread. The mouth of the righteous speaks wisdom, and his tongue talks of justice.
Kimberly Faith:The law of his God is in his heart. None of his steps shall slide. Mark the blameless man and observe the upright, for the future of that man is peace. But the transgressors shall be destroyed together, and the future of the wicked shall be cut off. Now what strikes me about these verses is the great contrast between the promising future of the righteous and the horrible life of the wicked.
John McLarty:Exactly. So what
Kimberly Faith:do we That's a
John McLarty:great passage.
Kimberly Faith:It is such a great passage. So and we've talked we actually, in the introduction of this, we kinda talked about what it means to be righteous.
John McLarty:Righteous is doing things God's way.
Kimberly Faith:Right.
John McLarty:Which is God's right. He's righteous. If we're in sync with him
Kimberly Faith:Right.
John McLarty:We're righteous. It's it's so different from the world thinking of self righteousness. Righteousness is just doing what God God what's God's mind would be. Absolutely. It's pretty simple, really.
Kimberly Faith:It is. And and, you know, the we we kinda touched on this before we read Psalms 37, but we have to remember that we only our own good works are as filthy rags. We talked about that in Isaiah. But when we are made righteous through Jesus Christ, who is the only one who can make us our soul and spirit righteous, that's when we can produce the works of righteousness. We have we're empowered because we're in touch with Jesus who is righteous.
Kimberly Faith:Our spirit communes with Christ, and our soul is filled with righteousness, but we can't do it on our own.
John McLarty:And think what this really revolves around. God's mind would be to love God and to love others. Right. Right. And that's righteous.
Kimberly Faith:Right. And it and it's and it would be
John McLarty:And all those manifest how that manifests itself.
Kimberly Faith:Exactly.
John McLarty:But it's love God and love others.
Kimberly Faith:Exactly. And and, you know, people you know, I think that this for some people, this this where they don't understand body, soul, and spirit, they don't understand the gift of salvation, redeems our soul and spirit. For God to say, live righteously and then say that our fill our all of our best acts of goodness are as filthy rags, That would create a conundrum for people if they didn't understand that, first of all, our our spiritual righteousness comes from god. It does not come from us in our good works. Our good works are a manifestation, like you said, to love god and love others, of what's inside of us.
Kimberly Faith:That's a manifestation that only comes from god. And, you know, of course, all the beatitudes, which we did the first, I don't know, 9 podcasts were about the beatitudes or the I guess it was 3 through it was 9 podcasts last year. And those are the manifestations that the righteousness of God is in us. But it's still a choice.
John McLarty:Right.
Kimberly Faith:It's still a choice.
John McLarty:And you know, it's it's not to say to condense it down to love God and love others is not some license for sin in every other way. Because to be a thief
Kimberly Faith:Right.
John McLarty:Is unloving.
Kimberly Faith:Yes.
John McLarty:You know, to do things that are contrary to God's commandments are unloving to him.
Kimberly Faith:Right.
John McLarty:And to others. And to others.
Kimberly Faith:Right.
John McLarty:So It's it is there's a lot there of our behaviors, but it all boils down to loving God and loving others.
Kimberly Faith:And and love is selflessness. So when we decide Jesus said, take up your cross and follow me. Right? And what is I mean, we do that when Let
John McLarty:every man esteem others more than himself.
Kimberly Faith:You do that when you're a parent. Right? You you you say, oh, I'm gonna serve this this helpless child. Mhmm. But we also need to do that for each other.
Kimberly Faith:You know, we need to take up our cross. I'm gonna do the dishes so mom doesn't have to. Right? I mean, that's just a real simple example. But one of the things because we're talking about how do we put these tools into practice.
Kimberly Faith:One of the things I wanna bring up before we start that is I just wanna in Psalms 37, I wanna just go over this list of promises that the these are these are these are prosperity promises for today. In other words, we've got this great future, right, and it's already secured. But I just have this list of things that the lord says, hey, if you will be righteous, if you will live a righteous life, live in my righteousness, I'm gonna give you the desires of your heart. You think about the greatest desires of your heart. Right?
Kimberly Faith:Maybe it's maybe somebody listening, you know, would love to get married. Maybe somebody listening would love to have a child. Maybe well, those desires are not they're they're legitimate desires. God created you with those desires. But what he does, and and and I I can testify to this, is he actually gives us even greater desires because our desire like like my children are all grown.
Kimberly Faith:Right? I love being a mother and I would love to be a mother again. But the Lord gives that desire spiritual legitimacy. So what do I do? I have all these spiritual children that come into my home.
John McLarty:I'm very aware of that.
Kimberly Faith:Well, I got that from y'all, so you know, and and and I get to be their their spiritual mama, right, and and bring them to Christ. And there's nothing I do you know, I had one of the girls tell me. She said, I just you just spend so much time with me, and I know you're a busy lawyer, and you, you know, I know that I'm taking a lot of your time. I said, stop. Stop.
Kimberly Faith:This is one of the most satisfying things in my entire life, spending time with you, seeing you grow, hearing your story about how you're now teaching people how to know Jesus. Just stop. This is wonderful. And so, when he gives us the desires of our heart, it is the desire that we didn't even know we had. We have these physical desires, but God says, but there's a spiritual counterpart that you don't even know about.
John McLarty:And that's spiritual prosperity.
Kimberly Faith:That's right. That's right. And he so he gives us the desires of the heart, back to Psalms 37. We're gonna inherit the earth. We're going to
John McLarty:That sounds prosperous.
Kimberly Faith:It does sound. We're gonna be satisfied even when there's no food. We're gonna the lord's gonna guide ourselves. The creator of the universe is gonna guide our steps. He's gonna catch us when we fall.
Kimberly Faith:He's gonna speak wisdom and justice through us, and in us, our inheritance will never perish, and he's gonna be our deliverer and defender. That's just a few of them, you know. Is there anything that you can think of, I mean, if you own the whole all the property in the United States of America, is that first of all, that's not security. You can't you can't defend that. You're always gonna be wondering if somebody's gonna take it from you.
Kimberly Faith:Do you have that fear about anything in your life that's spiritually prosperous? I mean, the spiritual prosperity God's given you? Well,
John McLarty:I'm thinking of a companion verse here, which is Linn and I's life verse. It's Proverbs 3, 5, and 6. Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. So, no, if this if you have that heart to follow God
Kimberly Faith:Right.
John McLarty:And he directs your paths, he's going to lead you into that spiritual prosperity.
Kimberly Faith:Mhmm. Mhmm. And it's it's irrevocable.
John McLarty:So it's irrevocable. It's irrevocable. That to answer your question, no. That can't be that can't be taken away because it's not based on material things.
Kimberly Faith:And can you imagine that people and I and I know there are a lot of religions that that teach you can lose your salvation, but, you know, that would, of course, make god a liar, you know. I mean, you either have present tense eternal life or you don't. Right? Otherwise, it's not eternal life. And there's we won't get into that chase that rabbit right now, but Jesus you know, the Bible says that Jesus came to become sin for us.
Kimberly Faith:He who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in him. What we know about God is he's always righteous, but but if he made us the righteousness of himself, what a gift that is. And that would be enough, you know, that we would have irrevocable this irrevocable gift of salvation. But lord says, no. Guess what?
Kimberly Faith:You get to live this life with confidence. You get to live this life with my peace, peace that passes understanding. The kind of peace Paul had sitting in a in a filthy jail. Right. And, you know, and and saying I have everything I need.
Kimberly Faith:You get to have a love that doesn't expect anything, and you get to experience the giving and receiving of that. You get to have be kind to people who are unkind to you and walk away satisfied, not not wounded. Right? I mean, just think about those things. That's what God's saying.
Kimberly Faith:This is spiritual prosperity. Then on top of that, wait, there's more. When you go to heaven someday, because that's secure, you can't nobody can take that from you, You're gonna have the you're gonna have this beautiful blessing of people who come up to you and say, thank you for handing me that track to that gas station that day. I accepted Jesus Christ as my lord and savior, and I don't know if I would have ever heard the gospel just that way. And I'm here today to rejoice with you.
Kimberly Faith:We can't even wrap our mind around that.
John McLarty:We can't. When I think about the judgment seat of Christ and what, you know, and then, you know, having rewards in heaven. Right. And, you know, we always think of rewards as a present or I get a plaque or something. Right.
John McLarty:But those rewards are going to be just what you described. Somebody coming up to us. Or how about Jesus coming up
Kimberly Faith:Oh.
John McLarty:And saying, you know, you weren't perfect, but you you you wanted to serve me and and and good job, thou good and faithful servant.
Kimberly Faith:Right.
John McLarty:Oh, that we could achieve that. Right. But but, you know, I we fixed that time you went back to the guy Mhmm. That you had left, and
Kimberly Faith:Right.
John McLarty:Jesus was actually kind of giving you that sense.
Kimberly Faith:Right.
John McLarty:Good job, Kim. You you circled back.
Kimberly Faith:Yeah. Or
John McLarty:there those people were again.
Kimberly Faith:Right. And you
John McLarty:oh, that's this is it.
Kimberly Faith:It was and it was the kind of joy I couldn't contain.
John McLarty:You couldn't be there.
Kimberly Faith:Glad to see them. I was like like, they were a lot of lost family or something, and they were just taking like, who is this crazy woman? That's your reward. But, you know, the fruit of the spirit can't it's undeniable. You can't it's not like they thought I was some kind of crazy person that need to be 96'd.
Kimberly Faith:Right? It was no. This person genuinely has something to share with me that they because they care. You know, why else would you shout across the parking lot? Oh my gosh.
Kimberly Faith:You're you know? And so and and so here's kind of the you know, as we kind of wrap this up a little bit. Yeah. What why don't we see more Christians? People who claim that they're born again, who are living in complete satisfaction.
Kimberly Faith:The the complete satisfaction we're talking about of the spiritual prosperity. Why do you think there's so and I'm I'm gonna tell you, I'm gonna make myself part of this. I did walk around and was more interested in physical prosperity and not happy, not satisfied, always wanted more, always nervous, always anxious, and and the lord has flipped that switch for me. Now I'm not saying I don't fall back into that. Of course, I do.
Kimberly Faith:But why is it that you don't see more Christians who are on fire. They're intense about their their life is so satisfied, they have to share it.
John McLarty:I've got 2 answers.
Kimberly Faith:Oh, good.
John McLarty:So one of them is from, and I won't turn there, but it's Ephesians, 424. Put on the new man. Put on the old. Even though we're born again, we're saved. We have not a daily, maybe even a minute by minute decision to put on
Kimberly Faith:Jesus Christ. That new
John McLarty:man, Jesus Christ. Let this mind be in you, which is in Jesus Christ, or put on that old filthy garment.
Kimberly Faith:That's good.
John McLarty:And these decisions we make every day. And then the companion to that, though, is Romans 12:1 and 2. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And, but verse 2, and be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind that you may prove that which is good and acceptable and perfect will of God. And I thought of somebody that decides to start working out.
Kimberly Faith:Mhmm.
John McLarty:This is It's decisions, day by day decisions, but it's a process Yes. To be transformed. Yes. And it's intentional, but it's long term. Mhmm.
John McLarty:So if you just you say I'm gonna work out. I'm gonna go build this nice body. Right. And you go do it one day. Right.
John McLarty:And then you want this immediate result. So we don't no. That doesn't happen that way. So, you know, in today's world, then we wanna do is, you know, some lotion or
Kimberly Faith:Right. Liposuction. Right.
John McLarty:But true physical health is work.
Kimberly Faith:Yes.
John McLarty:You have to lose that weight, to get the muscles to whatever it is.
Kimberly Faith:And it shows. It shows.
John McLarty:It shows. Yes. That it's a long term process. And we need to So that's why it's a it that's why we're still you know, it this applies to us. We're still working on this.
Kimberly Faith:Right. Every day.
John McLarty:Every day. But it's a discipline.
Kimberly Faith:Yes. And and that's what you're saying is is such a such a good example because we're such a microwave society. You know? Exactly. We wanna look good tomorrow.
Kimberly Faith:Right. And, nothing works that way, you know, unless you literally go in and get, like, all kinds of surgery done, and then that that may go south too. It usually does. It's not healthy, but you can't cut corners with god. And it's and why would you want to?
Kimberly Faith:You know, a a person who is an athlete enjoys that athleticism. They and, really, when you get the mindset to do it, you are you actually enjoy the workout because you're Right. You're getting good at it.
John McLarty:You didn't yes. Yeah. Yeah. It becomes fulfilling.
Kimberly Faith:And it becomes drudgery. And it also becomes addictive and it becomes contagious, you know, if you have a good attitude about well, our spiritual prosperity becomes contagious
John McLarty:Serving God.
Kimberly Faith:When the fruit of the spirit is flowing out of us because that's attractive to even the most morose person that's attractive. That feedback That's right.
John McLarty:When you go back and that guy you thought would be maybe grumpy or Right. And he just seems to his eyes light up.
Kimberly Faith:And he comes over and hugs me.
John McLarty:Because you gave
Kimberly Faith:him a try. Right. Right.
John McLarty:You expected a sour attitude.
Kimberly Faith:That's right. And and I I I go back to the words of Jesus, I guess, that, you know, he said, in Matthew 6, he said, don't worry, saying, what what are we gonna eat? What are we gonna drink? What are we gonna wear? You know what?
Kimberly Faith:That's what the world seeks. He said, your heavenly father, he already my goodness. He created everything. Don't you think he can take care of your next meal? Right?
Kimberly Faith:He said, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness Perfect. And all these things shall be added unto you. I I I think I missed this message for so long in my in my Christian life.
John McLarty:And we hope that we sing that in Sunday school.
Kimberly Faith:That's right. Kids. Right. Yeah. Right?
John McLarty:Is it Ziggy first. But it's so fundamental So fundamental. To what we've just discussed.
Kimberly Faith:And and so we wake up in the morning, and we're like, okay. First, I'm gonna, you know, feed myself, I'm gonna drink some water, I'm gonna have some coffee, I'm gonna go make the next buck, I'm gonna spend the next buck, I'm gonna pay the bill, I'm gonna you know? And then the at at the end of the day, we're like, what did I do today? I existed. But when we get a we we wake up in the morning like, god, thank you for another day to glorify you.
Kimberly Faith:Help me invest this day in what it matters. Help me to listen. Help me to pay attention. And that's seeking his righteousness. That's seeking to live in the way that he has for us.
Kimberly Faith:You know, righteousness That's
John McLarty:a great way to start the day, that thought.
Kimberly Faith:It it absolutely is. And and here's what that hard. You lay there and you can think grumpy thoughts or dreading thoughts or I got this problem. I gotta deal with this attorney today, or you can just say, god, you know, I'm a cast all my cares on you, so let me just take a minute and thank you for everything. Start thanking him, and you'll I'm amazed when I start thanking God how much less I sin because you can't be grumpy and be thankful at the same time.
Kimberly Faith:You can't be discontented and thankful at the same time. You can't be jealous and thankful at the same time. It's amazing how much thankfulness changes your mind. It's like you said renewing your mind. Thankfulness is like the key, and you think about Romans chapter 1 where where the Bible says that when they became thankful, they didn't acknowledge God and were unthankful.
Kimberly Faith:Their fruit was sharpened.
John McLarty:Be joy joyful and sullen
Kimberly Faith:at the
John McLarty:same time.
Kimberly Faith:Exactly. Exactly.
John McLarty:And and,
Kimberly Faith:you know, when we're when we're really passionate about seeking the righteousness of god and his will for our life, then you you you don't have really that you can't seek righteousness without seeking his riches. You're not gonna have this god just gonna add the stuff to you. You know, this last 2024 was a very hard year. But when when I was saying, lord, this law firm belongs to you. My time belongs to you.
Kimberly Faith:My bank account belongs to you. My house belongs to you. I'm just a caretaker. All he did, he actually went around and made more money than I made the year before, and I didn't have any I mean, I just was, like, there doing, you know, doing the manual labor, so to speak. And it's kinda like I was the the mine worker.
Kimberly Faith:He said, oh, here over here is the vein. Go over here and dig over here. Okay. Now go back to helping the people, you know, and, oh, here's another one. And I didn't have to worry about I was actually more worried about how I was gonna give give stuff away than having to make more.
Kimberly Faith:That's a good problem to have.
John McLarty:So you focus on spiritual prosperity and you get that. Right. And the lord blessed. Mhmm. He took care of all these things shall be added unto you.
John McLarty:Right. And it didn't matter whether that was in you could've just survived Right. Financially and that would've been okay. Right. But god chose to say, look what I can do.
Kimberly Faith:Well and and and you've mentioned earlier that this is a path. Right? This is a journey. And for the for the for the last 3 or 4 years, especially due COVID, there was a a real hand to mouth experience in in my law practice. But what was interesting this year, like, it should've totally tanked because of the whole thing that happened at the beginning of the year.
Kimberly Faith:But instead, I just was giving it to god. Matter of fact, there was I think I've said this before, but this time last year, I was asking God, do I even need to practice law anymore? You know? And the lord said, yes, but we're starting over, like, okay, from scratch, which was totally fine. But then it's like the Lord said, okay.
Kimberly Faith:You're gonna focus on spiritual prosperity, and I'm gonna actually give you more resources to invest into spiritual prosperity. So when that happened, I was I was like, okay, Lord. I was kind of a little bit afraid. I was like, where do you want me to put this? Which which mission field?
Kimberly Faith:And we ended up, you know, really supporting, the Panama ministry that puts pub the learn with Jesus books into the public schools, which is so beautiful. But it's just like, I didn't need anything extra because I was so full of the spiritual prosperity that really, do I need to go buy new clothes? Not really. I mean, do I need a new car? No, my my little Toyota has 200 and 30,000 miles on it.
Kimberly Faith:It still runs like a dream. You know? I don't really care about that because god changes our desires. He he shows us the wisdom of investing in spiritual prosperity and as you said, the satisfaction. Right?
Kimberly Faith:And that's just it's great.
John McLarty:This is exciting. Oh my goodness. We're rolling into 2025. Right. And, it's beginning and spiritual prosperity is is the key.
John McLarty:And we can't change the past Right. But we can change the future.
Kimberly Faith:Absolutely. And when we love god more than we love anything, we we he our the love that he gives us in return wants us to make his ways our ways And then he gives us the spiritual prosperity and just this unimaginable satisfaction. And suddenly we're like, wow. Why did I not understand this before? How did I not live this life before?
Kimberly Faith:And really, you know, if you're listening to this and you don't know what we're talking about, we I get it. I get it. I'm still learning this. I don't know about you, dad, but I mean, I'm still learning this spiritual prosperity thing.
John McLarty:Absolutely.
Kimberly Faith:And but it's so worth it. It's so worth returning to the Lord and just putting him first, you know? That means you read his word, you study his word, you get in in a good church, you use these tools, you use the holy spirit speaking through you, Use your testimony of salvation. I encourage everybody I disciple. Write out your testimony tract.
Kimberly Faith:Put pictures in it. Make it a little booklet. Spend the money to print it. It's less you know, one tract is less than a cup of coffee. And and it costs less than a cup of and then hand those out to people.
Kimberly Faith:That's where a good place to start. You know? Go minister at maybe go minister at the park by taking your guitar down there and playing, you know, music. And people will will come and you can talk to them. Go to the nursing home and and maybe sing with the the residents or maybe just make them cookies and take them down there.
Kimberly Faith:And there's so many opportunities.
John McLarty:Build your prayer list.
Kimberly Faith:Build your prayer list. Exactly. Contribute your your time and your resources to a good church to make it better. And or even a church that's struggling to make it better. Right?
Kimberly Faith:There's just all these opportunities, and we are in a warfare. And it matter your life matters. Your life matters. My life matters. We can make all the difference for somebody else's eternity.
John McLarty:Somebody else. Somebody else's souls is the heart's faith.
Kimberly Faith:Well, this has been great, dad.
John McLarty:It's wonderful, Kim.
Kimberly Faith:Yeah. And, I'm so glad that we, that the lord led us to talk about biblical prosperity. I really I hope and pray that that whoever's listening to this will just be on fire for 2025. Absolutely. And, just all the things, you know, God has more for us than we can ever ask for or imagine.
Kimberly Faith:That's huge. That's huge. And so thank you for joining us, and, we, we're I'm not even sure what the next podcast is gonna be on. I guess the Lord will have to show us, and that'll just part be part of that that spiritual prosperity journey. Right?
John McLarty:It's more in 2025.
Kimberly Faith:Alright. Thank you all for joining us.
Jacob Paul:You've been listening to the Truth in Love podcast with your hosts, Kimberly Faith and John Mack. To discover more answers to the big questions in life, visit us at gofaithstrong.com.