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[Music] Welcome to Call to Freedom with Barber Carmac. This is Jimmy Lakey and I’m delighted that you are joining us for this half hour. You can reach Call to Freedom at box 370367 Denver, Colorado 80237 or by going to the website at www.freedomstreet.org. If you want to leave a message or order a word-powered daily reading Bible guide or a Freedom Street Express newsletter, you can call us toll-free at 1-877-917-7256 and leave your name and address including your zip code. If you want to talk to Barbara right now, she is expecting your call. You may call that same toll-free number 1-877-917-7256 to speak to her. And now, let’s join Barbara in the studio. Ready or not? Welcome to Call to Freedom. I know when Kimberly and I are talking right before the program Rachel has to interrupt us and say, “Guys, the radio program is going to be coming on.” Thank you Rachel. We have so much fun talking about the Lord. Oh friend, you are a masterpiece of God. Do you believe that? You are a masterpiece of God. Ephesians 2 tells us that, “Filled with purpose, eternally valued, infinitely loved.” That’s our God. That’s the creator of the universe who stooped down to be a human being. Oh, for a time. I think he was so happy when he got back to the Father in heaven. He was overwhelmed and overjoyed. But he had done what God had called him to do. He had died on the cross for our sins to never be remembered again. He had redeemed us from the curse of the law. And, “Oh, I pray that today you will long, long and desire to have more of him.” Not more of this world, but more of God, more of Jesus Christ. You are blessed to dispense for in him you live and move and have your being. If you would like to listen to previous programs, you can go to FreedomStreet.org and click on radio shows. You can also, you have the opportunity now to go to 670kltt.com. And that’s the homepage for this radio station. And go onto the /podcasts. And you can find call to freedom. And that list of wonderful Christian commentators and teachers. So that’s another way you can find that by going to 670kltt.com/podcast and get call to freedom on that, on that venue. And also when you go to FreedomStreet.org, you can click on the donate button and there you can donate to call to freedom. It’s real easy, really simple. Oh, so much easier than it used to be in the good old days. Those good old days, Kimberly, sometimes weren’t such good old days. Well, I don’t know. It’s all perspective, right? It is. All perspective. That’s right. Yes. And we were just talking about the saying that Darren, he used to like to tell us all the time, feelings and symptoms are liars. And you know, those are the good old days to remember that familiar phrase, right? The feelings and symptoms are liars. When you’re in the middle of a feeling or a symptom, it doesn’t feel like it’s lying to you. It feels like this is the fact right now, right here, right now. That’s right. And often it is the fact, you know, the fact of the matter is you might be feeling pain in your throat. And that’s the fact. And you can believe that you’re going to go down and be ill because the fact is telling you that, yeah, this is painful. So you can believe that you’re going down, you’re going to need to rest for a few days. You’re going to need time to recover. Your throat is going to be sore. It might turn into something else. Yeah. Okay. Those are the facts. Yep. You can believe that or the rest of what Darren used to say, feelings and symptoms or liars. God’s word is truth. Yes. That’s the key. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. God’s word is what we choose to lean on. And that’s the point we get to choose. We get to choose if we’re going to believe the facts or if we’re going to let truth override the facts. Yes. Yes. The truth is so beautiful. The truth is amazing. Second Corinthians 5.7 tells us that we walk by faith and not by sight. We walk by truth. The truth of God’s word in us. We get to choose faith over sight. So what we see or seeing is a sense, part of the five senses. So what we see, what we feel, what we smell, what we hear. Those things we can choose, all of that, we can choose to believe that that gets the most importance in our life. We’re free to choose that. We’ve been given the free choice. That’s right. Free will. Yes. So we are free to choose that or we can choose something that doesn’t make sense to those five senses. We could choose faith. We can choose truth. We can choose to believe what God has said over what we are experiencing right now. So if what we are experiencing looks bad and it appears that it’s just going to get worse. We can slide right into those feelings and slide into that sense realm and say, “Yup, this is where we’re headed.” That’s right. Or we can believe that God has made all things new. That He is working all things together for good. That He has plans for us that are for good and not for evil plans to give us hope for the future. We can believe those things. Those are truths that He has left behind for us in His word. And when we choose to have those as our solid rock, then we’re not just being tossed by every wave of every feeling, every sense. Oh, I saw that over here and I heard that over there. And we can feel just tossed to and fro in those waves. But His Word is truth. And it is a solid rock beneath us. That’s what we want to choose. We want to choose that truth. We had a wonderful missionary speaking at our church this past Sunday. And He got up and He said, “I need to ask you all to stop praying for revival.” Oh. I’m glad you said you need to stop. I think that got their attention. It does get your attention. What stop praying for revival? Why? Because He said revival is already here. You need to pray. You can see it. Yes. And it’s true. It’s true. Revival is right here. Right now, the best of what the Lord has for us is here. Now, we just need to pray that we can see it that way rather than seeing the world’s way. That’s right. And so I really appreciated the way that He started out that service because our feelings do come. You know, and what we see, it comes right at us. We see it. Come and at us. But what we see, what we hear, what our feelings are feeling. They’re not first. They are not first. When you are in Christ and you’ve made a decision to follow Christ, then you’ve made a decision to put Him first. What He says comes first. That’s right. So this past Sunday, I was so thankful for that word. I needed to hear it. It came right after praise and worship. And praise and worship this past Sunday. I was assigned to play the, it’s the auxiliary keyboard. It’s not the main grand piano. And I can play the main grand piano, but I wasn’t assigned to that this past Sunday. I was on a different keyboard where you can hear strings and you can hear some other really nice, you know, lovely sounds that fill in a little bit. So that’s what I had practiced. And that’s where, that’s where I was planted over there on the other keyboard. And I had been practicing in the key of D because that’s the whole set was in the key of D, all the songs that we were playing. And that’s what we practiced. The bass guitarist practiced in D, the guitar player practiced in D, the piano player and myself. We all practiced in the key of D. And when we got to the platform Sunday morning and started warming up, one of the singers looked over and said, this is not the right key. And the moment that she said that our main piano player, we didn’t know unbeknownst to the rest of us. He had had some digestive issues over the last few days and he stood up and he said, I, I, excuse me, I need to go for a moment. You all just continue rehearsing. Oh my goodness. Yes. And so we all kept rehearsing. And the guitar player said, well, we can play it in another key. And so he changed the key just five minutes before the service started. And the bass guitarist and myself, we weren’t able to make that adjustment as easily. And so he looked over at me and he said, can you go sit at the grand piano and play the main keys because our, our pianist hadn’t come back. I just looked at him and I said quite honestly, according to the fact, now see, this is the part that I want everyone to hear. According to the fact, no, I cannot go sit at that grand piano and play in this new key because I didn’t practice it in the new key. And the new key is actually a hard key for me. It has four sharps and three naturals. And the pattern is really different. So I can’t just automatically go to that key without practicing in it. Yeah, 10 minutes before the service. Yeah, it was five. Oh, my God. And we didn’t have that’s the cutoff time where you don’t, we don’t play anymore at five till we, that’s where we pray. And we just prepare ourselves. You know, because the congregation is sitting in their seats and you know, it’s so, so I’m trying to give you a good picture, you who are listening, that I know my capabilities. And I knew the fact was I can’t play in that key if I have not practiced in that key. And so when I told him I can play it if it’s in D, then he said, just stay there, just stay, just stay on your keyboard. Well, I tried to play all the intros from the keyboard because the main pianist was gone so they couldn’t hear the intros. And I was hoping the person on the sound board would catch that and raise the volume on my, my keyboard so that people could hear the introductions to the songs and, and he didn’t catch it. And the volume wasn’t that. And so no one, not the drummer, not the bass guitar player. No one could hear the intros. And so it was, chaotic, yes, in the realm of facts musically, it was it was a very confusing service. It was, yeah, chaos. And in that confusion, I started to feel anger. I was angry. I was like, okay, hold on. How can a singer just turn and say it’s in the wrong key and change everything that the band has been practicing for the last five days? Yes. And I wanted to be the mouthpiece that would go to that singer and say, you don’t understand what you’re saying to us. And because you don’t play an instrument, you don’t play the piano, you don’t know how hard it is to just change that key. And so that’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to be the mouth, you know, that that would go and say that. But, but I realized then I would be acting just the same as she was acting. And you didn’t you tell me that she had sung in the key of D and it was beautiful before. Yes, we had done it before. Yes. So you kind of add that into the equation and you’re like, wait a minute, why is there a complaint at all? You know? But then it causes us as human beings to want to complain right back. You know, let me tell you the facts. Okay. And that’s the temptation then is that we’re tempted to live in the fact rather than the truth. That God can do the impossible. There is nothing impossible for him. And what would be the reason for me to come back at her as a mouth, you know, for me to be the mouth and say, let me tell you what would be the main reason. Yeah, all of us are saying, oh, we would love to say that. Yes. The main reason would be because I’m uncomfortable in that key because I’m afraid I won’t be able to play it well and then it will look really bad, right? Oh, I will look bad. You will look bad. Yes. Well, that’s pride. That’s all that is. That is pride. And yes, I had to chase that down in my mind, you know, because what is the real reason? In the moment, you’re not thinking of real reasons. In the moment, you’re just uncomfortable. And your mad. I’m mad. I’m mad and I’m uncomfortable, you know. So Kimberly, do well is angry. Oh, my goodness. This precious joyful kind person is angry. Yeah. And then the sadness hit me because I don’t want to be angry when it is time to worship. It’s time to worship. That’s why we’re here. We’re here to worship. We’re here to put our focus on the one who created us for himself to be his perfect partner. And here I am. I’m complaining in my mind and feeling anger. I don’t even want that in the way, but it doesn’t just go away in a snap when you make a decision. Those feelings are so strong. They hang in there. You know, they just hang in there. And and so I was giving a sacrifice of praise. That’s what I was doing. I was like, Lord, you see me? I am on this keyboard right here. I want to be worshiping you and singing of how great you are that there is nothing impossible for you. You are the way maker. You make a way where there looks to be no way at all. And I’m saying these things all the while, feeling angry. And I knew I had to just keep going. We all been through that Kimberly. There’s not a person listening that has not gone through all of those emotional levels of our senses. Right. Right. And that’s why I wanted to talk about it because it is very familiar to all of us. Right. This is something that we’ve all walked through. What do you do with it? Well, I was in front of a crowd of people and behind all of the choir, the singers and so and on a camera. I want a camera too. Okay. The camera is recording. What am I really going to do with this? I am going to keep worshiping. I will keep offering this sacrifice of praise. It’s a sacrifice because I am dying to the feeling. The feeling of anger that wants to rise up and take control is being told, oh no, you will not. That’s the selfishness in us. Right. So self control has to be that that thing. Self is being controlled by love. Okay. Self has to lay down and die and let love take control. And that’s what was happening in those moments. And yes, it was three songs later. And I was still declaring the goodness of God and how wonderful he is, how beautiful he is. It’s a beautiful name that we worship. He is our way maker and he does redeem and restore declaring these beautiful things in song in music. Yes. Finishing and still feeling angry. Walking off the platform with my notebook in my hand, realizing, I, if I do this service one more time, which we had another service coming up later. If I do this service one more time, I need to be prepared now in this new key because I was playing in a key that I was so uncomfortable in and no one could hear my cues. So I knew I was going to have to step over to the main piano. Okay. Without practice. And trust God that he could do the impossible through me while I’m angry. Yes. Oh my goodness. What a set of confusing emotions right there. I really wanted to honor him more than anything else. And so I wrote down a few chords so that I could be prompting myself in the key of E. And I just said, okay, I’m willing. And without one moment of practice went to that piano and the next service played in the key that I have not practiced in. I don’t know that key well at all. And the facts are I cannot play in that key. In fact, if you asked me to go to the piano right now and try playing in that key, I know it would just be a mess because it’s not easy for me at all. And yet he anointed my hands and I was able to lead from the main piano. The whole band stayed together. The worship was so beautiful that the pastor interrupted the worship in order to call people forward for prayer and to just let healing flow. It was the most amazing service and I am now so humbled that God would use me in the midst of a feeling that was so ugly. Yes. You could have said, I can’t do this and walked away. But you stayed there, Kimberly. You stayed with the stuff, you know, as they did when they were going to battle in the Old Testament. There were men who stayed with the stuff and they didn’t want to reward them when they came back with the booty and stuff. But it was David that said, no, the ones that stay by the stuff are going to get the same reward as you guys did. Because that’s important to stay in there, stay in the middle of all those emotions. And believe that God will do the impossible. You brought up a great scripture from Isaiah 11. I don’t know if you want to read that at this point. It’s so good. It’s a prophecy about Jesus in the 11th chapter of Isaiah. And I believe that this has been transferred over to the new covenant and the church is now able to come into the spirit of wisdom and understanding and counsel and might and strengthen revelation knowledge and fear of the Lord as we grow in Jesus. And next verse of Isaiah 11, it says, Jesus will delight in the fear of the Lord. He will not judge by what his eyes see nor will he make decisions by what his ears hear. Now that’s profound. And that’s what we need to take as an example right now in this day and age. We will not judge according to what our eyes see nor we will make decisions by what our ears hear. Excuse me. We have to be like Jesus. Yes, in our decision. Yes. Yes. I was reading that in the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible. It says that he shall sense the truth by his reverence for the Lord. And in the footnote, it says, his sensing shall be truth because instead of leaning on the senses of his eyes, his ears, his mouth, his touch, instead of leaning on those senses, he’s leaning on the truth. So his sensing shall be truth by his reverence for the Lord. He puts the Lord first. And that is your right. Exactly what we want to do as the body of Christ. He’s the head. We are the body. So we no longer want to judge by what we’re seeing nor to make decisions by what we’re hearing. But instead let the truth of God’s word help us make decisions. Yes. And what a joy for me now to be able to look back on Sunday and say thank you for giving me the opportunity. That felt like persecution in the moment. You know, it was so uncomfortable. I felt persecuted. And maybe that’s too strong of a word. But it’s such a discomfort to have to be in a different key and play or do something that you are not accustomed to at all. And you really don’t believe you could do it to do that in front of many, many people and the camera recording it. That’s so uncomfortable that it did feel like persecution to me. So is that persecution? I had the blessed opportunity of saying, Lord, even if you want to make a fool of me, I’m here for you. I will be your vessel. And looking back now, I can see the miracle he did. It wasn’t my fingers playing. It was his. I can’t take any credit for that. And do we really know how good that feels to say I was a vessel for the Lord to use? And he did it. He used this body and he did it for his glory. That feels so much better than any kind of compliment or pat on the back that you could get for yourself to say that God was in the midst of it. And he did it through you is such a higher joy. Yes, he’s got you now. See, he wants us to all go into a maturity that we have not experienced. And so now you’re entering into a new phase of maturity. It’s like with people like Elijah. Can you imagine this singular man, one man who has come against all of the priests of Bale and Asherah, 900 of them plus the people of Israel and coming to them and challenging them to worship their Bale or worship the Lord. And setting up those altars, Kimberly, all by himself. It’s just yeah, it’s a new realm of maturity. And I don’t know what other word to use, but faith, a new realm of faith, believing to believe in God. Yes. And not by faith. Yes, Colossians 2, 8 and 9 says, see to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy. According to human tradition, according to elemental spirits of the word, the elements of this world. And not according to Christ for it’s in him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily in the passion translation. It says beware that no one distracts you or intimidates you by their attempt to lead you away from Christ’s fullness pretending to be full of wisdom when they’re filled with endless arguments of human logic. Logic. Oh my goodness. Yes. For they operate with humanistic and clouded judgments based on the mindset of this world system and not on the anointed truth of the anointed one for he is the complete fullness of deity living in human form. He’s inviting us to join him in that. Yes. That’s right. To join him in the fullness of deity living in human form to be a vessel for him and not just use our human wisdom and our human understanding. And don’t be tempted by that to walk according to the human logic and analytical reasoning. But instead, just be the vessel for the Lord. If I had if I had walked according to my philosophy, my human logic on Sunday, I never would have approached that piano. There’s no way because logically I knew I have not practiced in that key. I cannot play in that key. But if you walk according to logic, you miss out on the miracle of God using you as his vessel and playing through you. That’s amazing to me. And first Corinthians 2 12 tells us now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit who is from God. Right now we have received it. So instead of praying that these situations will break or that we will have revival, let’s pray that we can see that it’s right here right now that we have received it. The spirit who is from God who equips us for the better things in this life. Thank you. Thank you so much. We need this because most of us go by our senses, Kimberly. And we’ve got to move over. We’ve got to move over to that new level of faith in believing. God bless you. And thank you so much for this teaching. And to all of you out there, take joy. Thank you for listening to Call to Freedom with Barbara Carmack. You may get in touch with Barbara at Call to Freedom. Box 370-367. Denver, Colorado 80237. Or you may leave your message at 1-877-917-7256. Call to Freedom is a listener supported radio ministry. Barbara and her power partners invite you to come on board with us and become a network of hands holding up Call to Freedom Ministry. Power partner support Call to Freedom with Prayer and Monthly Financial Support. You will be blessed supernaturally. We invite you to visit Call to Freedom’s website, www.freedomstreet.org, where you can hear Barbara’s daily radio broadcast 24 hours a day or order materials. You may share your phrase reports in heart prize by mailing them to Call to Freedom. Box 370-367. Denver, Colorado 80237. Or you may email us at Barbara Carmack at FreedomStreet.org. Until next time, remember Jesus loves you, Barbara loves you, and take joy. [Music]
