Choose Life (with Kathy Gray)

0:00:00 – (Steve Gray): Hey, nobody likes to be told what to do, right? But God has a will that he wants us to know about. But I’m going to teach you how you get to be empowered to make your own choice on the next More Faith, More Life podcast. Hello, everybody, and welcome again to a More Faith, More Life podcast. We’re so glad to be together. We’re going to talk about some great things today, about how do you place your heart, your mind and your strength, your emotions, where do you put them? In a changing world when things are changing and people talking about wars and rumors of wars and of course, you know, things are changing in the government.

0:00:37 – (Steve Gray): Where do you put yourself? So you’re walking by faith that still produces life. And we’re going to talk about that in a minute. But first, I want to introduce, just in case you don’t know, our friends that know us, of course, would know that this is Kathy. She’s been my wife for many, many years.

0:00:52 – (Kathy Gray): Many, many years.

0:00:53 – (Steve Gray): And she’s been in the ministry. We’ve been in the ministry together as a team ever since, pretty much since we decided to follow Jesus. And so we’ve been working on some things, and I just decided it’s time that maybe she should just join me on the podcast. Having her here is going to make it a lot better for you. You’re going to do.

0:01:11 – (Kathy Gray): Oh, really?

0:01:12 – (Steve Gray): You can fill in the gaps.

0:01:13 – (Kathy Gray): Thank you, Lord.

0:01:14 – (Steve Gray): Well, you’re prettier than I am. And so they can look on the dad camera if they want to.

0:01:20 – (Kathy Gray): Well, I’m excited you’re giving me the chance.

0:01:22 – (Steve Gray): Yeah.

0:01:22 – (Kathy Gray): Yeah.

0:01:22 – (Steve Gray): So I think. I just think it’s going to reach more people and help more people, because that’s our goal, Kathy, is you and I are solid. If get people to walk by real faith, right, then it’s going to produce more life.

0:01:35 – (Kathy Gray): More life.

0:01:36 – (Steve Gray): Yeah. And of course, in the middle of between that faith and that life is a person. Jesus. This is not blind faith, you know, this is not. I’m trying to do it. And there’s no person there. There’s a person that we have faith in, right? And that person said, I am the way, the truth. I am the life.

0:01:55 – (Kathy Gray): I am the life.

0:01:56 – (Steve Gray): I’ve come to give you life, abundant life. So at the end of the. At the end of the road of every day of your life is life. But you got to start by faith in this person. And maybe you’d say this too, not because you’ve been a Bible reader for a long time. You read the Bible every day. I see Your wife read it every day. It’s faith in the whole system. And that whole book you’re holding.

0:02:23 – (Kathy Gray): Right, Right.

0:02:24 – (Steve Gray): You know, you’re reading your Bible. You don’t want to just have faith, for I believe Jesus is the savior of the world. Great. I do, too. There’s a whole lot of other stuff there to put your faith to that will produce life. And of course, do that every day. I heard you other day, by the way. She preached a great sermon at Revive Church. If you want to get it on the faith of Abraham, you can go to our website or you can go to our app or YouTube wherever. Yeah, yeah. And you can catch that. It was really, really good. Now, what was I saying?

0:02:54 – (Steve Gray): So she’s been walking by faith for a long time, and we have seen the result in it, and I want to have that result for you. So today we’re going to talk about a lot of things, but I have. I have a little bit of a. Do you have anybody here married? Raise your hand. Okay. I have a little bit of a pet peeve, which you could have without being married, but I want to tell one that we have. Okay. So the other day we’re out and we’re doing some business and stuff like that, and we’re driving around and she.

0:03:30 – (Steve Gray): I. So I’m saying, are you hungry? Would you just like. I bet you’re hungry. You probably like. It was like two in the afternoon or something, so we kind of skipped lunch. And it’s a little early for dinner, but I thought, you know, you need to get something to eat. Well, you know, there wasn’t too much around, so. There’s always one place you can find though, right? What’s that one place?

0:03:48 – (Kathy Gray): McDonald’s.

0:03:49 – (Steve Gray): Golden arches and our current grandkids. Is that right? Zion. Love McDonald’s. Brooke, when she was growing up, she do, you know, we used to hide her eyes. We’d drive and we’d see McDonald’s. We didn’t want to go. We’ve been to too many of them. So we’d put our hands over our eyes and she’d be fighting. What are you doing? What are you doing? We’d make some excuse so she wouldn’t see it so we could go somewhere else.

0:04:11 – (Steve Gray): But anyway, so the only. So here’s my pet peeve about this, I guess, if that’s the right word. But anyway, so we’re going to McDonald’s now. Okay. So we, you know, pull up and there’s all the cars in front of us, and now cars are piling up behind us, right? And so then you pull around and everybody knows what you do. You pull around to the sign and there it is. And we’re sitting there. And we’re sitting there and there’s cars behind us and there’s cars in front.

0:04:38 – (Steve Gray): Kathy, we need to order. Order what? What are you doing? Why are you sitting and looking at this?

0:04:45 – (Kathy Gray): Yeah.

0:04:45 – (Steve Gray): And what are you saying? Are you trying to. What?

0:04:47 – (Kathy Gray): Well, I’m trying to make a decision. I, you know, I want to see what all is being offered today at McDonald’s.

0:04:52 – (Steve Gray): I, you know, and I talk. Kathy, it’s McDonald’s. Everybody knows the menu. People know the song. They know all the songs about all the food. And I’m going, kathy, you. You know what’s at McDonald’s? Just order. Look at the people behind us. They’re like, who’s up? There’s this an alien or something. Never been to McDonald’s before. It’s McDonald’s. Okay. So we had this conversation.

0:05:19 – (Kathy Gray): Yes, we did.

0:05:20 – (Steve Gray): And finally, you know, she ordered the same. I can’t remember. It was. Guess what? It was a McDonald’s hamburger that time.

0:05:29 – (Kathy Gray): Yes.

0:05:29 – (Steve Gray): The reason is the time before that.

0:05:32 – (Kathy Gray): Yes.

0:05:33 – (Steve Gray): Then. So, same scenario. We’re there, cars are backed up, we’re in the drive through and all that. And one other thing. I’m in a hurry. We’re in a hurry. We need to be somewhere. But I wanted to get her something to eat before we get there. But we’re on a schedule, okay? So now all these cars are lined up. We’re on a schedule. She’s staring at the menu again, trying to decide what she wants. And without mentioning to me, she yells out, because, you know, if they yell across, you can tell them your order. She yells out, I’ll take a fish sandwich.

0:06:02 – (Steve Gray): I go, a fish sandwich? How can you take a fish sandwich? That’s the longest sandwich they have to get. And you have to park then because they don’t have them ready. They don’t have them ready, and so you have to park. So we had to fish sandwich. So now we’re in a hurry, and now we drive over here and park and we’ll bring it out to you. And she got her fish sandwich, but we had a little bit of weight and we were a little bit late.

0:06:31 – (Steve Gray): So being married, that’s the story. But there’s more to it than that, because understanding what McDonald’s has is very much like holding that Bible. See, she has faith because she knows what’s in that book. I have faith because I know what’s on that menu. I already know, right? We’re out driving half a block away, and I already tell you what I’m going to get. We don’t eat fast food hardly. Like, hardly, hardly, hardly ever. But once in a while, you got to be fast.

0:07:09 – (Steve Gray): But when she got up, she was like, well, I got to choose. I got to decide what I want. Now, why would I put that into this More Faith, More Life podcast? Because in the book of Deuteronomy, in the last chapter, God says this. I lay before you. Life and death, blessing and cursing. Choose life. Now, here’s what most people do, Kathy. They do. Exactly. I’m only joking about the McDonald’s. I mean, it did happen, but I’m not.

0:07:43 – (Steve Gray): That’s not that important to me. But the point being is, I knew what I wanted before I got there and before I looked at the menu. I looked at the menu, but I really knew what I already wanted. I just need to know which number it is, you know? And so when I pick up my Bible, I already know what’s in there, and I already know what I want. But most people do. What you did at the minute is they kind of know their Bible, but every day they get up and try to decide what they want.

0:08:15 – (Steve Gray): And I’m as. And if you’re a Christian, if you’re a believer, I’m saying it’s the Bible, it’s the kingdom of God. You know what you’re supposed to do. You know how to live. You know what you’re even supposed to want. You’re supposed to want to love God with all your heart, serve the Lord, seek first the kingdom of God. You know, love with all your heart, treat your neighbor like you would, you know, all yourself, all that’s there.

0:08:40 – (Kathy Gray): Yeah.

0:08:40 – (Steve Gray): So it’s like, that’s what people do, though. They get up or they go to church or whatever, and they go like, well, what are you doing with your life? And you go, well, I’m trying to decide what I want. I’m going like, you’re trying to decide what you want. You can’t be a Christian and do that. A Christian has already decided, as you know, that song goes, I have decided to follow Jesus. And Paul wrote and said, was it Paul or Abraham that wrote fully persuaded?

0:09:07 – (Steve Gray): Paul wrote, I am persuaded.

0:09:08 – (Kathy Gray): Well, they were both persuaded.

0:09:09 – (Steve Gray): Yeah, but one of them. One of the translations says fully persuaded. For one of the guys, they’d already made up their minds. They were like Pastor Steve pulling in the parking lot. He already knows what he’s going to Order. And so that’s what I brought it up. I had a little fun with her. I can tease her about that and she’ll probably still do it, you know. And by the way, we actually went to Burger King too.

0:09:34 – (Steve Gray): We’ve been out a little bit. I just told them we hardly ever do it, but we did it and it was the same thing. So anyway, but what a great application because people, most people do a lot of fast food, especially got little kids, they’re going to fast food. But you know, Zion, our girls, you know, they go, they order the same thing every time, don’t they? Chicken fries. Yeah, chicken fries with ketchup.

0:10:05 – (Steve Gray): They’ve already made up their mind. And that’s where your faith goes, is a lot of. You know what, I’m going to back up and let you do this. Because you spoke on faith on Sunday, I was just about ready to say, you know what you want and you know what you should do that, but that doesn’t mean the world around you does what you want, right? So you need faith. Talk about that a little bit about where you’re to look and how you feel when the circumstances, you know, the world could change pretty rapidly right now, and who knows what’s going to be.

0:10:38 – (Steve Gray): But how are we to think?

0:10:40 – (Kathy Gray): Yes, well, we are to always keep our eyes on Jesus, I think, keep our eyes on the kingdom of God, because there’s so many distractions, there’s so many things bombarding people and needs in the world and the economy and blessing, blah, blah, and all that stuff, that it’s very easy to start being driven by all those things around us. The circumstances, the people, the needs, you know, the fears that are floating in the air.

0:11:08 – (Kathy Gray): And so. But our strength comes from within, from Jesus, and he never changes. And so just like Paul and Abraham, they were fully persuaded that God has the power to do what he’s promised. Then as you’re saying, we already know what we want. We want what’s in God’s word. And so we hang on to that. And we know the Word is promised. Not a fish sandwich or not a Burger King, you know, have it your way. But the Word is promised stability and strength and confidence and provision and fearlessness and all that we need.

0:11:44 – (Kathy Gray): And so we need to shift our focus and quit looking at the menu the world’s offering us, but lift up our eyes like God told Abraham, and look at those promises. And God said to Abraham, if you look all around, east, west, north, south, everywhere, if you can see it, you can have it. But for Us, the seeing is in our hearts and the seeing is in our spirit, man. Because we see Jesus and we see all the promises and because we’ve decided, like you just said, we choose life. We’ve already chosen life.

0:12:21 – (Kathy Gray): And then that life is in the world. Word.

0:12:24 – (Steve Gray): By the way, I’m sorry, I was going to say, by the way, I’ve got good news for you. After Jesus was resurrected, he went to the beach and he fixed a fish dinner for the guys. So they did have fish.

0:12:37 – (Kathy Gray): Yes, yes, they did. I just thought it probably. Yeah, so never mind.

0:12:43 – (Steve Gray): So. So apparently, yeah, when we get glorified bodies, we. You’re at least going to get to eat fish. So I just wanted to.

0:12:51 – (Kathy Gray): Well, I hope it’s better quality than McDonald’s.

0:12:54 – (Steve Gray): Yeah, but anyway, the other part about that is, we’re laughing about it is when you drive up to that menu, I said, you know, I already know my choice before I get there. And then you’re like some people, which is okay. It’s only example. But yeah, if I say too much, we might be arguing about menus and McDonald’s and Burger King after this podcast is over. So I don’t want to go there. But. But it is true, the Bible, God was emphatic. The word of God was emphatic about that.

0:13:26 – (Steve Gray): I’m laying before you, Everybody listening. Life and death. What blessing and cursing. Well, what do we want? Everybody? You know, you have to want life and you want blessing. You don’t want death and you don’t want cursing. How do you get life and blessing? He says you have to pull up to that menu and know what you want and choose. You have to order it. You choose it. How can I help you? God says you choose life. I can’t choose it for you, but you can choose it for you.

0:14:06 – (Steve Gray): And so it’s this life that we’re talking about. More faith, more life, all that. It’s a choice. And people are lacking sometimes the faith to understand their choice is going to affect that life. Their choice is going to affect your blessing. So in churches and religion we’ve been in forever, you know, you’ll see people just. You said this the other day, I just remembered the day or day before. And you said to me, you know, we don’t want people to pray prayers that Jesus didn’t pray or intend.

0:14:47 – (Steve Gray): Remember you said that. And you said, because Jesus didn’t pray, if it be your will, right now there is a scripture that says we should check out before we make plans for the future, we should consider the will of God whether we should go here or whether. So obviously, I mean, Jesus did say in the garden of Gethsemane, not my will, but your will be done. Right? But that’s a lot different. If I say, not my will, I’ve canceled it. And your will be done. Then saying what you said, like, well.

0:15:21 – (Kathy Gray): Well, you know, God, please heal this person. If it be thy will. Well, we already know what the will of God is. The will of God is healing. Or, you know, we pray God provide and take care of my family and bring in that goodness and that substance. Or bring this answer, then tag it with if it be thy will. Well, then we don’t know the promises. And really, we should know his will. That’s how Jesus operated. I mean, he spent all night praying and getting God’s marching orders for him. The next day, he knew that God’s will, and then he went out and did it. So when he met the blind Bartimaeus, saying, oh, you know, Jesus, have mercy on me.

0:16:09 – (Kathy Gray): Jesus already knew. It’s God’s will. It’s my will, and it’s my father’s will to say, what do you want? And then blind Bartimaeus said, I want to be healed. I want this. And so I think just a lot of it has to do with getting settled. We already know what God’s will is. And if you have to end every prayer with if it be thy will, then I don’t think you ever read your Bible, actually.

0:16:35 – (Steve Gray): Yeah. Well, just that scripture alone tells us what his will is, and it simplified. Okay, so the will of God’s maybe a little more complicated than this because, you know, there’s a lot to God and his choices that he makes. But if you just want to narrow it down and say, okay, what is your will for me? I just told you what his will is. Blessing, not cursing, life, not death. He wants you to live your life to the fullest. So when you’re.

0:17:03 – (Steve Gray): When you’re in that or you’re in a situation and like you said, which way you look, because circumstances around us can change. They can get hard. Relate, relate. We’ve been married a long time. Relationships are hard sometimes to be with the same person all the time and figure out. So some of you in relationships that are maybe difficult, or you have kids that you’re struggling in, their behavior at school, or they don’t do their homework, or they watch what, you know, whatever it is, financial.

0:17:35 – (Steve Gray): Let me, Let me. Let’s stop on that one. You know what? I had another scripture. We’re not Going to get to it. We’re going to be stuck in this one, but it is so good. Get this. Some of the biggest battles in churches over the years and when you preach it, is that word blessing. People don’t have not only the faith, they don’t have the understanding, what I made it as clear as can be. Choose blessing, choose life, choose the blessing, don’t choose death. Okay, so then exactly what you’re saying.

0:18:07 – (Steve Gray): Then when they get into a financial situation or difficult, or the house payment or check, paycheck to paycheck, and you know, just difficult things, and then you try to say, listen, we can turn this around because God’s will for you is blessing. And you know, people withdraw and even get angry and say, no, no, that’s not it. You know, and they’ll start arguing with you about being blessed.

0:18:35 – (Steve Gray): How can you do that? I’ve had preachers heard preachers get up in their own churches and preach against prosperity. Yeah, said, well, you know, got these rich quick people, Christians who want God. You just ask, and again, I think, what are you saying? You want to be prospered and yet you don’t believe in prosperity. You’re double minded. What do you want? Should we say, nobody give anything in the offering today? Because we certainly don’t want to prosper.

0:19:06 – (Steve Gray): We don’t want the church to have any money. And so there should be no question, just like, right, I’m right there at McDonald’s, you’re at McDonald’s. And I have no question that’s the one I want. And I know it just like that. But others would say, I’d say blessing. And they go, well, I said, what are you doing? Choose life, choose blessing.

0:19:28 – (Kathy Gray): Right, Come on, choose it.

0:19:29 – (Steve Gray): It’s right there. Just choose it, go with it. And maybe you’re going to have to learn a few things, how to connect with God a little better to get that going. But that doesn’t matter. You need to get that theology, that idea in your head. God’s not trying to hurt you. He doesn’t want you to fail. He’s not afraid for you to have money. He’s only concerned that you love money. Which people that don’t have money love money.

0:19:54 – (Steve Gray): You don’t have to have money to love money. We always think that people that have money must love money. Are you kidding me? That people don’t have a quarter and they love money. Those are the concerns. But once you get past that, then, you know, like, you could probably tell this just as well. Me, whatever circumstance you’re in, though. The bottom line is what? Blessing. The bottom line is.

0:20:18 – (Kathy Gray): Right, Right. Yeah.

0:20:19 – (Steve Gray): And once I know that, now you can put it together for me. Once I know that, then I’ll choose to walk by faith which produces the life. Life. And I don’t. I’m not thinking. If it be thy will to bless me, maybe it’s your will that I fail. Maybe you’re. Oh, yeah, how about this one? How about the people say, well, maybe God’s trying to teach me something. I had a guy say that to me, says, and it been going on for a long time. He says, well, you know, maybe God’s trying to teach me something. I said, well, what’s wrong with you?

0:20:52 – (Steve Gray): Hurry up and learn. Right? Hurry up and learn. Then. Then you’re the problem. It’s like God’s going to continue to educate me in stupidity my whole life and it’s never going to turn around. He’s trying to teach me something. Wendy, just hurry up and learn and then we’ll get beyond it. So what we want you to learn today is we want to understand the word of God. God says, I, this is what I’m going to lay before you, but you’re going to have to pull up to the menu and say what you want.

0:21:20 – (Steve Gray): And you need to. In my case, my advice is decide what you want before you get there because there are people behind you in their cars. No, but the point is made. You make God says, choose it ahead of time. Don’t wait for your circumstances to fall apart or you. Or you get afraid or the stock market. This doesn’t sound good. Or whatever. Or well, or you go to the doctor. You mentioned healing and health and prayer. You go to the doctor and you get a bad report and then you scramble.

0:21:55 – (Steve Gray): Oh, I got to start believing in blessing. I started believing, healing. I got to start believing God’s good. I got to go. Well, you have to. I’ve got to remember what that McDonald’s menu is, you know? No, you know what the menu is before you get there. You know what the Bible says. You know, that it’s a place of blessing. And you know, God wants to bless your life and it’s his choice that he’s put before you that you can choose.

0:22:19 – (Steve Gray): He chooses to give you the choice to live by faith and the more faithful, the more life. And then we can, I think today we can tag onto it too. The more faith, the more life, the more blessing, right? Yes. So just get that in you. Whatever you’re going through, God still wants to bless you. He’s going to help you get out of it. And if you listen to people like us, you don’t have to listen just to us.

0:22:46 – (Steve Gray): But if I was floundering around in a church that was just telling me to hang on and hope it gets better, I’d want to hear somebody teach some faith to me and say, you tell me how God can help me get out of this. How do I get out of this mess? And that’s what we do. We help people get out of their messes and get walking by faith until it’s more life. Well, Kelly, I hope these people will tell their friends and tell about this podcast.

0:23:10 – (Steve Gray): I try to tell them. Oh yeah, and I’m going to try to have her on here as many weeks as I can. So you be sure and check back next time too. And we’ll be talking about something that’s important then too, from the word of God and life. And maybe I’ll find another pet peeve. I don’t know. We’ll see. No, you know what’s going to happen? She’s going to find hers. She’s going to look all week long to try to figure out a pet peeve she can talk to you about and tell you about hers next week.

0:23:38 – (Steve Gray): But tell your friends about it. You know, you can go and get products at https://www.morefaithmorelife.com, especially my book, If You Only Knew: A Guide to The Clueless Generation. I wrote this tiny, you know, five chapter book because people are busy. They don’t have time to read. A lot of times, not everybody has time to read a lot. You can download it, I think for free still, but you can also buy it and have a hard copy.

0:24:01 – (Steve Gray): Five chapters. But it will open your eyes to what’s going on in the world today and what not the government and not another government, not the president and not a senator and not a house of representative, but what the preachers are supposed to be preaching and what the people are supposed to be doing. And it will turn this thing around. If you’re hearing, if there’s, if there’s bad things look like going to happen, they might be predictable, but they’re also preventable. And that’s what we want to help you prevent bad things, trouble, they can be stopped. And so get that book and some other things. There’s a music CD on there.

0:24:37 – (Steve Gray): I happened to catch a song by accident on my own phone that was there. Oh yeah, it’s me. You can get that. It’s called You Will Restore. And so tell your friends and get a part of this. You’re going to hear things here that you’re not going to hear anywhere else. That’s why it’s worth if you listen to whoever you want to. But it’s worth to listen to this, too. So till next time, Steve and Kathy, say bye.