[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. Call that same toll-free number 1-877-917-7256 to speak to her. And now, let’s join Barbara in the studio. Welcome to Call to Freedom. The work, the Lord wants you to do. The work that God wants you to do and we are assigned to different work. But the greatest work here is revealed in the stillness of trusting in Him. That’s what it is. That’s your trust in God. Do you trust Him? Do you really trust Him? Oh, I’ve come up to those kind of walls and said, “Lord, do I really trust you? Do I trust you, Lord, with everything in my life?” And then the truth comes out. We aren’t going to cover up the truth. No, we’re not going to put the truth under a basket or under a bushel basket or anything like that. We’re going to come up with the fact that we want the God of truth to reveal to us where we stand with Him. That’s so important, friend. It really is. So the work the Lord wants you to do is revealed in the stillness of trusting in Him. You are blessed to dispense for in Him you live and move and have your being. And before Kimberly comes on, I want to remind you that you don’t have to fight the devil. You don’t have to. No, relax in God’s arms because the Son of God appeared for this purpose that He might destroy. Destroy forever the works of the devil. That’s first John 3, 8b. So remember that when you’re thinking, “I’m fighting the devil all day long.” No, you’re not. You may be fighting your flesh, but you’re not fighting the devil. He’s defeated. God bless you. And welcome to the program, Kimberly. So that was such a great intro for what we’re talking about today because we don’t have to fight. We can trust that God has it. Yes. You and I have been talking about that all day. That’s what we started out talking about this morning. And when we learn to trust that this really is God’s story, it’s all His plan. He wrote it out. He’s the author and the finisher. Yes. Of our stories, every one of us, the journey that we’re on, we haven’t made any mistakes. We haven’t gone off the path. He knew exactly what was going to happen. And he knows how to restore, how to redeem, how to help us learn to trust Him. Yes. And so then we’re not fighting. We’re not the ones fighting. It’s not in our hands to do the fighting. It’s in His hands to do the fighting. No, yes. And so we go talking a little bit about Jesus and how you can actually call Him relaxed. You can describe Jesus as being relaxed. And we see it in the way that He was taking a nap in the boat when the storm hit. And the disciples were panicked. You know, the storm was rocking the boat. And these were grown men who were fishermen. Many of them were, not all of them, but many of them were very accustomed to the sea, to being in a boat, to fishing, and yes, to storms. So here comes a storm and they’re panicked. It must have been quite a storm. That might have been a really big one. I remember looking up the word for the storm and in the Greek it’s the word “lotty-lops”. “Lotty-lops” is, it’s like a tornado. So that’s a big storm? Yes. Were there any storms when you were in Israel? I did not get to experience anything that was violent. We did have rain. It was beautiful rain. It was just as the Lord would talk about that this land, this promised land, will be watered by the rains of heaven. And there were gentle rains that would last all day and soak us. But no, I didn’t get to see anything that was really violent like that. And just the way that we see Jesus taking a nap during a violent storm, that’s what he came to show us, that when something comes up that rocks our world, even if it’s just a thought in our mind, instead of trying to fight it on our own, bring it to him. Let the Lord know this is what you are struggling with, this is your battle right now. And he is happy to take it. He is happy to do the work for us. And we learn to trust that this whole life is in his hands. Yes. Yes. Second Corinthians 5/18 says that God has made all things new. And he has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus’ sacrifice. And He has given us that ministry of reconciliation. We can be reconciled to where we are at in life. We can reconcile ourselves to what it looks like right now for us. We can reconcile it because we can trust the author, the one who wrote our story for us. And when we lay down our pride and our arrogance, thinking that we’ve got something that we can do to make our lives better, to straighten them out, to fill in the blank, whatever you think you can do for your life, you can’t. You can’t do anything without Him. I love Philippians 4, 11-13. It tells us of learning the secret of being filled and going hungry. Learning to be content in whatever circumstances we find ourselves in. Of having abundance and suffering need, we can do all of this life. We can walk every part of this journey through Christ who strengthens us. And without Him, we can do nothing. So I was reading in Isaiah 61, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me.” I just want the listeners, anyone listening, to really think about how it’s the Spirit of the Lord God who is upon you. Because the Lord has anointed you. He has sent you as a herald of joy to the humble to bind up the wounded of heart, to proclaim release to the captives and freedom to the prisoners, to proclaim a year of the Lord’s favor and a day of vindication by our God. It’s His day. It’s His favor. He has anointed you to comfort all who mourn, to provide for the mourners in Zion. To give them a turban instead of ashes, that would be a crown. Instead of having your head covered with ashes, you would have a glorious crown of His. Festive ointment instead of mourning a garment of splendor instead of a drooping spirit. And they shall be called the oaks of righteousness. That’s you listening. You shall be called the oaks of righteousness planted by the Lord for His glory. And you will build the ancient ruins, raise up the desolations of old and renew the ruined cities, the desolations of many ages. Wow! What a great storyline! To walk out. And yes, if we’re renewing and rebuilding and raising up the things that have been ruined and devastated, that means that we will experience some ruin and some devastation. Now most of us listening to you, Kimberly, we see buildings that are torn down, destroyed, cities that are leveled by tornado. But this has got a metaphor meaning, doesn’t it? Yes, it does. Yes. And we can talk about the ruins in our own life, the things that we have lost, relationships that have fallen apart, and the times that we have felt rejection, those are ruins, the times that we have been fired, that we have lost a position or a career, lost a business, those are devastations. The times that we have lost a home, lost a car, a vehicle, you know, whether it’s in a wreck or where we’ve lost our own health in our bodies, those are desolations. And this scripture is telling us that they shall be rebuilt. Praise God. That those of us that come into alignment and agreement with the Lord, those of us who trust Him with all our hearts, and we do not lean on our own understanding, we can actually walk through those devastations and desolations, and we can come out on the other side, seeing, some of us have gone through so much that it has become a familiar thing. It’s a familiar thing to have lost in our lives. And for those of us that have had so much loss, we can learn to sing even in the middle of the loss. We can learn to give praise, night and day. Night and day means in the darkest of your moments, as well as the brightest of your moments. I recently had the blessed opportunity of rebuilding an ancient ruin. And this ancient ruin was with a friend, a friend of mine that I was friends with for decades before I ever had children. And she ended up siding with my daughters five years ago when our family was really split. She came back to our church really recently, and in these last few months that I’ve seen her, I’ve really seen a grief and a misery hanging on her. About three months ago, she was really transparent with me, and she let me know that returning to a church setting was actually really difficult because of the rejection that she has experienced in life. And you know, we all have experienced that. It’s not hard to see rejection even in the Christian circles, in churches. It happens all the time. That’s really, really hard because this is supposed to be the body of Christ. You know, to suffer rejection there is very devastating. And I just remember feeling led to apologize to her for any part that I may have played in her woundings. And I prayed for her that the chains of hurt and pain and rejection would just fall off of her and that her joy would be renewed. And I wasn’t even sure of what my part was in the wounding of her soul. I wasn’t sure that I had done anything. But I didn’t really consider that something that mattered. You know, when we are the hands and feet of Jesus, we just go with healing in our hands. And I don’t know if God plays a part in wounding us or if we wound ourselves by leaving his covering. You know, he’s got a shelter for us and he wants to cover us with his ways. We’re the ones who reject his ways. And I believe that’s how the wounding happens in us. And so he is our great comforter. Our Lord is the one who wraps us up and brings healing to us. He longs for us to be reconciled to him so much that he took the consequences of our rebellion on himself. And he’s asked us to be like him. So he reconciled us to himself and he’s given us the ministry of reconciliation. We’re made to do that to be like him. So that was not hard for me to want to bring reconciliation with this old friend of mine. The twist is she’s a counselor and she is recently counseled with four different people. She just told me this. Four different people have been dealing with DHS in their parenting. And you know, when DHS gets involved in your parenting, that’s a rough road. That is really hard. And I do know that from experience. For those of you who are listening that have not heard of DHS and you haven’t been involved in anything like that, it’s the department of human services. Those are the people that can take your children away if you get too much on your too many different reports. That’s reports given. So they’re a very powerful department in the government. They are. DHS, yes. Right. And she’s been working with these parents who are just brokenhearted over having to deal with DHS. And it just kind of nod at her. She finally apologized to me just very recently for reporting me to DHS instead of talking to me. And I sat there without flinching, without hesitation. I told her, “You are so forgiven and you are so it’s completely wiped clean. The slate is wiped clean. You are released. You don’t have to ever think about that again.” And as I was saying that to her, I was saying it because it had been so wiped clean in me. I didn’t even remember that she had reported me to DHS. Well, your mother remembered. Well, you can let it go too. We’ll just wipe this slate clean, mom. Because when people charge something like that without looking into the truth or the facts or the information given, and they just kind of bought because of their own willpower or their own opinions or prejudices, they decide to go on sides. And Kimberly, that can be so harmful. Well, like you are talking about this lady, and it seems like she has been dragging along this guilt from what happened many years ago. Well, yes, and it did feel like ruins when it first happened to me and trying to sift through the wreckage of my family, my relationship with my daughters, sifting through reports from DHS and what they were requiring of me, that felt like ruins, devastation. And don’t forget, Isaiah 61 tells us that we will raise up those ruins, that they will be rebuilt, that the desolations and devastations of old will no longer be desolate and devastated. You know, that is through the ministry of reconciliation. So where you might feel like there’s failure, it can actually be something that’s turned into pre-vailure, prevailing. And we don’t have to feel like there’s fail, that we have failed. But we can feel that we’ve prevailed. That’s right. In 2 Corinthians 5 verse 18 that you were reading, the 19th verse, Kimberly, is so good that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them. He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now in the literal Greek it says, he has placed in us the word of reconciliation. So so many times I say, oh, that’s not in me, Lord. I just can’t do that. I just can’t forgive. It hurts too much, Lord. It’s just too, it happened and it was too bad. I just can’t do it. Well, he’s placed in us, each of us that have received Jesus, the word of reconciliation coming together again. I believe it. Yes. Yes. I believe it. I’ve walked it out and that is a miracle to me. And so when I give you this testimony of this happening, I’m giving a miracle report because I didn’t remember. Wow. Holy Spirit can actually wipe something so clean. If you have ever been a parent and have had someone report you to DHS, it’s big. That’s a big deal. And I’m sorry, I’m laughing. It’s just so now it’s just so laughable, Kimberly. It really is. It’s not wonderful that we can that we can actually see that we have prevailed that we didn’t fail that we have prevailed. And one way that I could keep it in ruins is to hang on to the unforgiveness and the bitterness to keep recalling that to my mind and be bitter about it. But unforgiveness does not do harm to the other person. It is poison to me if I keep bringing it up. And so letting that go and letting Holy Spirit do a miracle of wiping it completely clean. That is the most amazing rebuilding of ancient ruins right there. That’s right. If you would have brought up to her as she was apologizing to you that, you know, when you did that, it hurt me so bad. You could have said something like that because your emotions were so strained at the time. And it might have hurt her more deeply instead of what what did you say? It didn’t even it didn’t even well. I didn’t even remember it. So I just told her. Yes. I just told her that you are completely released and totally forgiven. That’s not even something to be remembered. That’s so good. And so now you can lead the listeners into something like that too because there are some of you listening. You have not been reconciled to a person. I don’t care if it’s an ex-husband ex-wife, children, whatever it is. There is unforgiveness there and you haven’t been reconciled to them. And Kimberly, I would love to have you say something on behalf of being free of this and releasing it in Jesus name. Yes. Well, it takes the trust so good, it is so sweet to trust in Jesus. Right? It takes the trust. In fact, I was just reading again in Isaiah 30. It’s instillness and quiet that your triumph comes. It’s in repentance and rest. It’s in calm confidence and trust that your victory comes. And that is Isaiah 30 verse 15. When we are so confident and quiet and calm, you know, just calmly resting in this journey that has just happened to us. It’s happened. We can’t fix it. We can’t make it any different than what happened. It is part of our story now. Whatever that hurt is, whatever the devastation is, whatever the ruin is, it’s part of our story. It’s happened. So we can’t change it. But wow, when we trust the Lord, he can change it. He can do something that wipes it so clean. You don’t even remember that you don’t even feel the pain. When it’s brought up again. Yes. And that is true of me. I’m able to give this testimony because he did it for me. And that means he can do it for you. He can. And he will. The scripture out of Isaiah 27 verse 4. The Lord is speaking and he is saying, there is no anger in me. If someone offers me thorns and thistles, I will march into battle against him and burn them up. I’ll set them all on fire. So what I’m saying here is that our bitterness, our resentment, our unforgiveness is thorns and thistles. There are poisonous to us. And God wants us to bring them to him. When we bring those thorns and thistles to him, he’ll burn them up. He’ll set them on fire and they will not ever even be remembered. That’s a glorious piece of news right there. That’s miraculous. And the verse goes on to say, Isaiah 27, the last of verse 4, let him rely on my protection. Not on those thorns and thistles. That’s right. Let him rely on me. Let him make peace with me. Let him be my friend. You know, he is the one who chose to take all the consequences of these journeys that are broken and full of pain and sorrow and suffering. He was a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. He chose to take that for us so that we could live in the freedom with him. Where are the ones that make the decision whether or not we’re going to let it go and let him burn them up? Let him have it. There are two of my children who are in great opposition with each other very often. They’re my oil and water children. Their personalities from the very beginning, it was just oil and water. And last night, Matthew and I were praying for those ruins to be restored. And you know what? I don’t ever have to speak a word to them. I know absolutely for sure that they shall be restored. We’re asking according to the Father’s will, he wants us to be reconciled to each other and reconciled to him. And so we’re asking according to his word, according to his will. And then we know that he is in it and he will work it out. It’s not even up to us. It’s up to him. He’ll bring the right people, he’ll bring the right messages, the right songs, the right conviction to their heart. He’s the only one who knows how to get in there and do that. I have a tendency to want to be that mouth and do it. I know. I know. Parents can relate to you Kimberly. But wow, is it a wonderful thing to lay it down and say, you know what? This isn’t my responsibility. It’s not for me to do. It’s God’s responsibility and all I do is simply respond. My responsibility is a response to his ability. He’s saying to us, be still. Just be still and know that I am God. I’m going to take care of this. Do you really believe that I’m going to take care of us? Then let’s not hear anymore about this. That’s what God is saying to us. Oh, but God, I got such a great idea here. Why don’t we do and we go off on our own tangents. We do. We have a tendency to do that. Yeah. But when we recognize that we can do nothing without him, that it is Christ’s strength in us. It’s all him in us. And we’re simply vessels. We’re just walking it out. When we recognize that, that’s when the real freedom, the real rest, the real relaxation comes. Because he has it all figured out and we can truly leave it in his hands and let him do a perfect work. That’s right. Each one of us has an issue, Kimberly. Each one of us, it’s either finances or relationships or health, but we have issues and we just need to relax and rest in his care. That’s what you were you were teaching last week and that’s what you’re teaching right now. And that’s fear. And we can thank God for making us weak so that he can be glorified and his strength can be perfected in our weakness because he is a good, good father. And where we fail, he prevails. And that is how it should be that he would get all the glory. Yes, amen. To God be the glory, praise the Lord. Thank you so much for this teaching, Kimberly. I needed it. I really did to know that that forgiveness can flow even to someone who has offended us that we don’t even remember. I love it. I love how Holy Spirit heals. And so I hope that you’re listening today. You’re realizing that God has this for you. In Jesus name, I thank you. And I thank you, Kimberly and God bless you and everyone 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 Ministries. 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] [Music]
