You finally get the promotion. The new car is in the driveway. The retirement plan is mapped out down to every national park you want to see. And somehow, you’re still thirsty. Why does nothing ever feel like enough? A lot of us assume the answer is to want less, that being all in for Christ means turning down the volume on what we really want in life and quietly missing out. But when Jesus called His followers in Matthew 16, He didn’t say “if you’re strong enough” or “if you’re good enough.” He went straight to the engine of the human heart: “If anyone desires to come after Me…”
Desire isn’t the enemy. God created it. In this episode, Kimberly Faith and John McLarty explore the scriptures that show what the real problem is. From Matthew 16 to Ephesians 3:20, we see that the problem is us. We keep ourselves on the throne and thirst for things that are temporary and could never fill us, like broken cisterns that can’t hold water. Along the way, John shares how God completely changed the retirement he had planned, and Kim tells how God showed her she was thinking way too small about the Foster Children’s Boutique. When we put God in control of our desires, He changes what we want and need into things that truly fulfill us and last for eternity. This isn’t a prosperity message. It’s an invitation to give God the throne in every area of our lives and discover what it means to trade a life we could never keep for a life we could never lose.
Key Takeaways
Jacob Paul: 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: Well, dad, I’m very, very excited to talk about this topic, which is when will our desires actually satisfy us?
John McLarty: Well, I love all of our podcasts, Kim, but I think I think this one is particularly interesting and can be relevant, to us. You know, that’s one of the main things is that we open our hearts to… Because it’s God’s word and then to, to our listeners.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. I I think that… I appreciate you bringing that up because don’t want anybody who’s listening to these podcasts to think that we’re somehow preaching a sermon to somebody else. Every one of these is a topic God has examined in my heart and challenged me. And this particular topic came about when I was reading my quiet times have been in the book of Matthew since I think July now.
And I just never want to get over the richness of the words that Jesus gave us and the things that he said. And I was reading, and our topic comes from Matthew chapter 16. But I kind of want to start with this idea that I have assumed that when we’re asked to sacrifice and live obediently for Christ, that somehow God wants us to have less, that somehow the desires that we have wrong and they need to be modulated by God’s word because God wants us to have less longing, less… You know, in other words, less… More holiness means turning down the volume on what we want…
We really want in life. Does that make sense?
John McLarty: Well, and I think that’s a really common idea. I think of… You know, we have this idea of being very spiritual being a monk, living way off in a monastery, denying yourself of all pleasures and just living this very almost hermit like or just with a very specific group of people. And that’s how we define spirituality, or it’s a concept.
Kimberly Faith: Forsaking all worldly Yes.
John McLarty: Forsaking all worldly things. So yeah, I think a lot of people have that same concept, Kim.
Kimberly Faith: And so we live with this idea that to be all in for Christ means that we’re missing out. I think let’s just start with our passage, our main passage in Matthew 16.
John McLarty: Yeah. The idea that… Yeah. We have to… Any desire…
The idea of desires are wrong.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
John McLarty: You know, that idea of, you know, mocks and monasteries. But here… Yeah. Very interesting. So Matthew sixteen twenty four and twenty five, even that word kinda jumps out.
If anyone desires to come after me… Think about the change there. Uh-huh. If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. Yeah. And so today, we’re… You know, what we’re talking about is when does… When do our desires actually become satisfying as opposed to feeling like they’re they’re never met.
They’re never never anything’s… Nothing is ever enough.
John McLarty: Yeah. And it’s interesting that the road that that that leads that leads us there runs through this concept of a cross. Yeah. Yeah. Taking up our cross.
Kimberly Faith: Right. Right. And that’s… So, you know, think about that word desire, though. Jesus didn’t say, oh, if you’re strong enough, if you’re good enough.
No. He went right to the engine of our human heart, and that is what we want.
John McLarty: Our desires. Yeah. Yeah. And that’s… Jesus is so amazing.
You wouldn’t think he’d start there No. With with this concept he’s trying to get across.
Kimberly Faith: No. Because you always hear, you’ve to work harder. You’ve got to do more. You’ve to be successful. But Jesus is like, no.
You need to recalibrate your desires.
John McLarty: That’s a good word. So it’s not the very concept of desires that’s wrong. It’s what we desire.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. And that’s so refreshing because God made us. He created desire. And before sin even entered the world, Adam and Eve hungered. They were hungry.
They were thirsty. They delighted in things. They experienced pleasure. They experience these things. And we know from studying who God is in our concept study that God also has delight in things, right?
John McLarty: Yeah. That’s so interesting. So desire in and of itself isn’t the problem. I like what you said, it’s recalibrating our desires, redirecting our desires in a way pointed toward God, but through this idea of a cross,
Kimberly Faith: I denying like what you said, desire isn’t the enemy. It’s using our desire the way God meant it to be used. In And fact, I think desire is the evidence that we were created for a glorious purpose. And really, problem isn’t that we want too much. The problem is we want the wrong thing because we keep ourselves on the throne, and we want our desires to serve us rather than letting our our desires be recalibrated to what God desires.
And therefore, we serve him and he satisfies us, if that makes sense.
John McLarty: That’s so interesting because a heart that serves itself will never… Will not be fulfilled.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. Yeah. That’s that’s so
John McLarty: In God’s ways. I mean, there’s, you know, notions of fulfillment out there, but in that rich, deep way that God wants us to be fulfilled, a heart that is just serving itself won’t find it.
Kimberly Faith: It’ll always be starving. And I think we live in a world where that’s true.
John McLarty: Oh, that’s so true.
Kimberly Faith: People wonder why they have so much anxiety. Well, they’re starving themselves on their desires. And when we were talking about this podcast this morning on the front porch discussion, mom chimed
John McLarty: a lot of podcasts start. Well,
Kimberly Faith: mom chimed in, and as usual, mom just has so much wisdom. And and, she brought up Jeremiah two thirteen. And do you wanna read that?
John McLarty: Yeah. I’ll read that. It’s really relevant to this So John two… Jeremiah, excuse me, two thirteen. For my people have committed two evils.
They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewn themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water. Wow. That is a wow.
Kimberly Faith: Two evils.
John McLarty: And that so describes… You know, I think of I think of our life. I think of… That stimulated this morning the idea of my thoughts about retirement. So much planning is put into retirement.
I’m going to do this and I’m going to do that. It’s like hewing my own sister. And I’ll just say this, Kim. It’s like kind of a self confession. God completely changed my idea.
I mean, I’ve been kind of quote retired from work for ten years. Lynn and I are busier than ever, but then just being blessed. But it’s completely different than the cistern I was carving out for myself. And if I’d just stubbornly stuck to my plans for retirement, that would have been a cistern that held no water. So interesting.
Kimberly Faith: Well, it is…
John McLarty: It wasn’t, in the end, satisfying.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. And and, you know, I’m just in just thinking about this, and, you know, he he identifies, God identifies in Jeremiah two evils. And the first one is we walk away from the fountain. And the second one is we are wearing ourselves out digging a broken cistern that could never hold water. You know, it’s like we have this fountain.
I’m just using my overactive imagination here. We have this fountain that could fill us and satisfy us. And instead, we walk away from the fountain, we walk into the desert, and we’re digging out this cistern that is full of
John McLarty: Digging a well. A cistern’s a well, you know, or something that holds water.
Kimberly Faith: Right. And so we pour out our lives into careers and relationships, bank accounts, reputations. And no matter how hard we work, they never hold the water. They never… We keep refilling them, refilling.
They keep draining, and we’re always thirsty.
John McLarty: That’s a such a good example right out of Jeremiah two thirteen. Yeah. Yeah. But it starts off, they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, this source of true fulfillment, and hewn themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that hold no water. So so perfect.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. It’s, it’s really… I don’t know. I just think about, what Jesus said to the woman at the well. You know?
And when when she came to him… I mean, again, we’re not… This is a little bit off topic, but I think it’s totally relevant that when when she came to him… What did… I see.
What did she… It was John four, I think.
John McLarty: John four thirteen through through 14. This is incredible correlation between the Old Testament and the New Testament. Because here’s Jeremiah talking about the fountain of living waters.
Kimberly Faith: Right. Right.
John McLarty: Just ponder that a little bit. And here, John four thirteen through 14, Jesus told the woman at the well, whosoever drinks of this water will thirst again, But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst, but the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up unto everlasting life.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. That’s amazing. So he becomes the fountain inside of us that supplies our every need. So going back to what Jesus said about taking up our cross
John McLarty: Yeah. So let’s dig into what does that mean? What’s the cure? What’s the solution?
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. Because when Jesus tells us that, if you’re reading that from the mind of the flesh, the mind that thinks logically, well, how can building my bigger bank account, not be the cure? It sounds like he’s asking us to sacrifice everything good. In other words, deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me. Well, the cross isn’t something we want to see ourselves hung on a cross.
Right?
John McLarty: And that is a trap. That where we think as Christians, deny yourself, or even nonbelievers thinking about Christianity, Oh, I don’t want to get into this denying myself. That doesn’t sound good, denying myself.
Kimberly Faith: But it’s actually the key because it’s not emptying our heart of desire. It’s about getting off the throne so God can sit there.
John McLarty: And
Kimberly Faith: when he takes the center of our life, he fills us with his desires. And the Psalms are full of verses about delighting in God. You wanna read, one of those Psalms? Psalms thirty seven four.
John McLarty: And this… I just love this. It uses the word desires, but delight yourself also in the Lord, and he shall give you the desires of your heart.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. Yeah. And you Well,
John McLarty: that means the desires of your heart, and you used the word, have been recalibrated.
Kimberly Faith: Yes. Yes. Because you can’t delight yourself in God and be full of desires that are like… That treat God like a cosmic vending machine.
John McLarty: Right. And delight in yourself in the ways of the fulfillments of this world.
Kimberly Faith: That’s right.
John McLarty: And just go ask king Solomon about that. How that worked out for him. All of this is vanity.
Kimberly Faith: That’s a great example, dad. It’s just true. He gives us the desires that we were meant to have instead of the desires that we’ve developed through the broken cistern of the world, really. And then he doesn’t just give us those desires, he satisfies them. But it starts with making him the center of what we think about, what we talk about, and what we do every part of our life.
John McLarty: Kim, I believe I’ve heard you say often, God does my life better than I do my life.
Kimberly Faith: It’s so true, dad. It’s just so true. And, you know, I think what’s what’s amazing about the Bible, especially about the New Testament… Well, maybe the Old Testament. I don’t wanna I don’t wanna say one’s better than the other, but I guess I’m just so, enjoying Matthew so much that I just think it’s brilliant.
He talks about this trade off of basically taking up our cross in Matthew sixteen twenty four. And then in the very next verse, he tells us, hey, you know what? This is actually a really good trade. It’s really a bad trade for us to follow our own desires and be on the throne of our own heart, and here’s why. Do you want to read…
John McLarty: Well, yeah, I’m thinking about this. We’ve been putting this in the context of the Christian life. Here we are as a Christian just pursuing our own desires like retirement or whatever, the new boat or the new car, and that doesn’t really fulfill.
Kimberly Faith: But
John McLarty: Jesus is always multifaceted. Then this makes it very clear in Matthew sixteen twenty six that there’s a whole bigger picture to this. And he says, for what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? Right. What will a man give in exchange for his soul?
Kimberly Faith: I mean, the soul… We’ve said this a lot on this program that the only thing we’re taking with us are the souls of people. And when we talk about taking up our cross, the first step is salvation.
John McLarty: Our own soul. Our own soul. Absolutely.
Kimberly Faith: Right? Then, you know, I mean, so put that in perspective, whether it’s our soul or whether it’s the souls of our neighbor, our children, our parents, our cousins, our friends, our colleagues. There’s nothing that is worth the soul of a person. I can win every argument in court. I can close every deal.
I can build a beautiful house. I can build the most successful law practice. I can even build a great not for profit. But none of that means anything. I cannot ever bring back an opportunity to win a soul.
John McLarty: Well, you just think of that of an exchange rate or your bank account. But even in that verse, the idea of profit is there. What profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world?
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: You know, he’s the richest man in the world and loses his own soul.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. I mean, the self centered life is a bad trade every time.
John McLarty: Absolutely.
Kimberly Faith: And and, you know, later, I think we all think about, okay, so what does that look like? Mean, that’s what I’m thinking about. I’m thinking about, okay, I get all this, but how does really translate to everyday life?
John McLarty: Yeah. When people hear the word surrender, they think, well, I don’t have enough faith to pull that off.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. And here’s the thing. Jesus in the next chapter talks about this. You always hear people say, you’ve got to have faith. You just have to have faith.
Well, what does that actually mean? Do we need more faith, or do we need God to be, the object of all the faith we have? In other words, I feel like there’s… What we we focus on this thing called faith instead of focusing on the object of our faith, which is, again, what Jesus was saying about about nailing ourselves to the cross basically in a way of surrender. If I say I got to have more faith, but then in my everyday life, I’m walking by sight.
And let’s say I’m walking by sight in a particular case I’m handling, or I’m walking by sight on a person that I’m trying to win to Christ even. I have to learn to surrender every compartment to God in order and and make him in charge instead of me being in charge. And that’s what actually our faith looks like in real time. Does that make sense?
John McLarty: Yeah. And I think it’s really important to make a distinction here about the definition of faith.
Kimberly Faith: Yes.
John McLarty: Because we’re talking about God given faith.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: We’re just kind of in the the secular world, the idea of, oh, just have faith in yourself, have more faith. It’s like believe in yourself.
Kimberly Faith: Uh-huh.
John McLarty: And it’s this mental exercise that humans can do just to exercise more faith and you can… You know, it’s like a believe in yourself thing, and you can get this done. But God given faith is from God, And it’s all powerful.
Kimberly Faith: For by grace are you saved through faith
John McLarty: and It’s how we’re saved, and it’s how we operate, it’s how we are successful in the Christian life.
Kimberly Faith: Right. Well…
John McLarty: And it’s not us, you might say, pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps. Right. It’s exercising God given faith. So I’ll just read this verse out of Matthew seventeen twenty. The disciples failed to cast out a demon.
Right. And asked Jesus why, and he gave them this answer, because of your unbelief. But assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, move from here to there, and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.
Kimberly Faith: Right. Yeah. That seed isn’t trying harder.
John McLarty: Them trying harder.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah.
John McLarty: You know, this human idea of just believing more.
Kimberly Faith: Well, and it’s… And you think
John McLarty: In yourself.
Kimberly Faith: That’s right. And we’ve talked about this before that faith is a supernatural gift.
John McLarty: Absolutely. I
Kimberly Faith: was quoting Ephesians two just a minute ago, it says faith is a gift of God. Right? It’s a gift of God. And one of the things that we have to remember is that especially supernatural faith comes from God. We all have faith in things.
We’ve talked about this, what does 100% faith look like. And I sat down in this chair by faith. I didn’t know if it was going break or not. I had faith that it wasn’t going to break. But faith in God is faith in something we can’t see.
And it is something that we’re given, kind of like when when Jesus asked Peter, who do you say that I am? And Peter said, you are you are the Messiah, the son of the living God. That’s earlier in Matthew. Only know that because I just finished reading it in my quiet time. And he said, flesh and blood hasn’t revealed this to you, but the the father has revealed it
John McLarty: to My father, which is in heaven, revealed it to you.
Kimberly Faith: That’s right.
John McLarty: So he’s telling Peter, you did not figure this out Right. Who I am We don’t… On your own.
Kimberly Faith: We don’t intellectualize faith in God.
John McLarty: God revealed it unto him, and that’s God given faith.
Kimberly Faith: That’s right. That’s right.
John McLarty: That’s an understanding of what is the truth. Right.
Kimberly Faith: I intellectualize faith in this chair because I’ve sat in it before. But the faith in God is a is a gift from God.
John McLarty: That’s great.
Kimberly Faith: And, and Jesus is saying it doesn’t… It’s not the amount of faith that you have. It’s who you have faith in. And so Jesus isn’t demanding that his disciples, have this huge giant faith. He’s just saying real faith is nothing held back entirely in him.
John McLarty: It’s not the size of the faith.
Kimberly Faith: Right. The power isn’t in the size of the faith. And like I said earlier, our seed doesn’t grow by trying hard. Grows because it surrendered itself to the elements, so to speak. Which is the same analogy of Jesus saying take up your cross, right?
You have surrendered yourself to the process of God growing the fruit.
John McLarty: Yeah. And just speaking of fruit, I just had this random thought here that a seed doesn’t grow because it’s trying harder. It grows because it has the right source code.
Kimberly Faith: That’s exactly right.
John McLarty: And that right source code for the Christian life is is faith, God given faith. Right. Yeah. And then we then we can do these things.
Kimberly Faith: Know, we could really
John McLarty: go off
Kimberly Faith: on a rabbit on that one.
John McLarty: We could.
Kimberly Faith: I’m talking about the genetics of the seed and all that. But we’ll maybe say that for another podcast. So, you know, and again, going back, we’ve talked about 100% faith before, But we we… I think it’s something that we have to put into practice and put in into a reminder system in our… Like, I have reminders on my phone all the time I put in my phone.
And I probably need to have one on my phone that reminds me of it every fifteen minutes. Whatever you’re doing right now, make sure it’s surrendered to God 100%. You know? Probably wouldn’t be a bad idea.
John McLarty: Yeah. And that goes back to, you know, if God’s… God… If we… If delight in the in the Lord and delight yourself also in the lord, just requoting Psalm thirty seven four, and he shall give you the desires of your heart.
Right. So it’s that surrender. Right. But delighting in the lord is surrendering to him, and I think that’s a key here is that the the correct operation of faith is that we’ve surrendered.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. And then it’s everything. It’s your relationships
John McLarty: Your marriage.
Kimberly Faith: Your children.
John McLarty: Your career, your reputation. Your plans. Yeah.
Kimberly Faith: All your plans.
John McLarty: And we talked about that so much. It’s like the chase of little rabbit here. Lynn and I just went to a conference in Georgia. And it’s not that we were just you know, so spiritually led in the sense of, you know, walked into a room and showed us where to sit, but we surrendered the whole trip to God. Yeah.
And He did. He had His plans for that trip. And it was because, you know, we just surrendered it to him. It wasn’t like we were in near, you know, Atlanta, Georgia, and we did, oh, we’ve gotta see this and go to this restaurant. And we were just like, Lord, just just use this as you can.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: And, you know, it’s no big not patting ourselves on the back, but we wanted the desires of his heart. And he just granted that. And I’m telling you, it was very fulfilling to see him work in so many ways.
Kimberly Faith: Well, to me this is the really incredible connection. We put Christ at the center of every area, faith will produce fruit. Because every area that God touches in our life, that seed of faith sprouts. And, you know, we were talking about your trip to Georgia earlier on our front porch discussion. And, you know, I was just thinking, what a wonderful life it is.
You and mom don’t sit around wishing that you had some other life. And why is that? Because you continue to dedicate all the different compartments of your life to God. Whether that’s your Friday night Bible study where you have 20 people over and feed them all and have a Bible study. That’s a sacrifice, right?
That’s a surrender. Or whether that’s a trip to Georgia that you could look at like a vacation, right? But instead, you’re surrendering that to God for ministry opportunity.
John McLarty: And we say this over and over again, it’s not like we’re all… We’re perfect at this. But when you do it and you see you know, surrender is this soil, this fruit is the result. And then that becomes addictive. I mean We were talking earlier, why would I want to just go back to my own plans?
I’ll just say, one of my plans for retirement was to go travel around every national park. And now the Lord is showing me, you have a ministry. You’re not gonna do that. Not that I’ll never visit a national park, but that’s not the plan anymore.
Kimberly Faith: That’s not the primary plan.
John McLarty: Yes. It’s like you can just stay here and have a ministry on your front porch to the amazon.com delivery guy.
Kimberly Faith: Right. Well, and that goes back to verse 25, what Jesus said, whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. In other words, the real life that God has for us is hidden in him, and it’s waiting for us on the other side of our surrender.
John McLarty: I like that.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. And I love the prayer that Paul prays in Ephesians three twenty. It’s one of my favorite prayers. You you wanna read what… Well, mean, you can just read that part of it if you want to.
What what God will do, what God can do for us.
John McLarty: Sure. He will… What’s God able to do? He’ll provide exceedingly, abundantly above all that we ask or think of Ephesians three twenty. It’s kind of a theme verse.
Kimberly Faith: It is a theme verse. And I see it happen all the time. Our best plan for our life is always too small. And our greatest plan is always found when God is the center, when he is the biggest part of our life.
John McLarty: Now you know part of my career quote was a planner, which I didn’t even know how I ended up being a planner. But my default brain is to do a lot of planning, but it’s really been effective to just see God change those plans. Like you say often, He does our life better than we do our life.
Kimberly Faith: He just does. You know, I just had that kind of thought with some plans I was thinking about.
John McLarty: Speaking of plans.
Kimberly Faith: Speaking of plans, we had this foster kids boutique and I’ve been trying to figure out a way to be more efficient and effective with the resources that God’s given me to steward. In my mind, think, okay, need to sell this and pay off this debt and all these things. And maybe that means doing something different with the Foster Children’s Boutique. And I was having my quiet time yesterday and the Lord just… It’s almost like He just put me in my place.
He’s like, you were thinking way too small. You are thinking way too small. I have plans that are going to blow your mind and you need to stop thinking in the small numbers field and get out there and start thinking about the spiritual aspect of this foster kids boutique. One of the ladies that works in our foster kids boutique, and just for those of you who don’t know, you can read about this on our Go Faith Strong website, but it’s a boutique that we have started to five zero one(three) that basically any foster child can come shop for no money. They paid nothing.
John McLarty: A great ministry.
Kimberly Faith: And they can come once a month. And it’s nicer than an American Eagle store. It is the most beautiful store. We’ve got people from the community who have come in and volunteered their time and and beautiful hardwood floors, just this incredible decor.
John McLarty: Do stores donate to it?
Kimberly Faith: Oh, yeah. We… Like a shoe store, local shoe store, donate like $30,000 in I new brand mean, it’s… It is unbelievable. And the most important part of it is we have Bibles, we have gospel tracts for these kids’ age appropriate Bibles.
And one of the volunteers was in Walmart, and she was buying a bunch of Christmas stockings for last year for Christmas. And she saw this little guy in the store, and he said, Why are you buying so many stockings? She said, Well, it’s for the foster children’s boutique and fostering by faith. And he said, Oh, I got a Bible there, and my brothers and sisters did too, and we still read our Bibles. And I mean, I just thought, this is God.
Me thinking small, like I’ve got to downsize this or downsize not that my financial brain and my quote logic brain. Just… That’s just evidence that my faith has not been placed in God. It’s in my own intellect. And that’s what we’re talking about.
Because, you know, Jesus in this passage, the next passage actually, has told us that our life is not about just this life.
John McLarty: As wonderful as… I mean, to think about that ministry and the joy you get and the workers, the staff get from seeing the kids get a Bible. But then what about the child that gets a Bible and gets saved? And here they are in eternity.
Kimberly Faith: Exactly. And and that’s what Jesus promised in in, Matthew, sixteen twenty seven. He talks about how he will reward each, according to his works. You know? And so the surrendered life isn’t wasted.
Nothing that we give is actually is wasted.
John McLarty: Well, let me… There’s a verse there. This Matthew 16 is rich. Matthew sixteen twenty seven. For the son of man will come in the glory of his father with his angels, and then he will reward each according to his works.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. Yeah. That’s good. And, you know, we’ve talked about this this before about this, the 10000%. Right?
John McLarty: Right. So this isn’t for… Salvation isn’t on the line here.
Kimberly Faith: That’s right.
John McLarty: But believers, you know, it matters what we’re doing for the Lord. And there’s gonna be… You know, we don’t exactly know what that means. We had a podcast that explored it. But it says he will reward each according to his works.
Kimberly Faith: Right. Well,
John McLarty: part of that reward could just be, can you imagine Jesus just coming up and putting his arm around you?
Kimberly Faith: Oh, yeah.
John McLarty: Then, you know, I know you had some struggles, John, but overall, that was a job well done. Well Here’s, you know, here’s your cousin George. He got saved.
Kimberly Faith: Right. Yeah. And I think about… We we tend to get very earthly minded. I I think about, you know, when when we surrender our life and we don’t see the prosperity that maybe our neighbor has or something like that.
And I think in Matthew 19, actually, the disciples were kind of suffering from this. It’s like Peter’s like, hey, Jesus, we’ve left everything and followed you, so what do we get out of this? Jesus didn’t rebuke them.
John McLarty: He answered him.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. And how did he answer him? What did he say?
John McLarty: He said, assuredly I say unto you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands for my sake and the gospels who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands with persecutions and in the age to come, eternal life.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. That’s a hundredfold.
John McLarty: A hundredfold.
Kimberly Faith: No investment on earth comes close. This is kind of the heart of our message. This is not a prosperity promise. This is not a promise of an easier life, a bigger bank account. It’s it’s a promise that whatever we give, whatever that…
Whatever we lay down at the foot of Jesus feet of Jesus comes back to us not not just here, but in eternity in ways we could never even imagine. And when we think about the math of surrender, When we put God on the throne, He changes our desires because then we delight in Him, like you read in Psalms. We delight in Him, and then we stop drinking from those broken cisterns. We come back to the fountain, And our life becomes a multifaceted blessing, not just to others, but to us. You mentioned the things that you all are doing now, not visiting all the state parks.
And and I I never hear you or mom say, oh, I just wish we could just get on the road and go visit all the state parks. I… Our life is just missing so much. We’re missing now on so much. I wish we could travel.
I wish we could you know, I’ve never heard you guys saying that. You
John McLarty: Well, the contrast of that, Kim, is when we came back from Georgia, and we we just had the privilege of ministering. When I say minister, just sharing the gospel tract, a little encouraging. Lynn Lynn ran into a lady that she’d been praying for her brother for two years and just had this little little revival there in the elevator. And that’s such a blessing. We would…
Well, I… We wouldn’t trade that for a a free tour of the fifth… Of the national… All the national parks.
Kimberly Faith: Yeah. It’s because God has changed… When God changes our desires, I think you said this earlier, it becomes… Our life becomes addicting. And, you know, you you trade a life you could never keep for a life you could never lose.
John McLarty: Amen.
Kimberly Faith: And and the the precious, precious moments, the the gifts that God gives us as we walk through this life. And it’s a hard… It can be very hard. I mean, we all have persecutions. We all have troubles.
We all have people who don’t like us. We have people who reject us. That happens. But what happens when Christ is the center of our desires? We can actually have compassion on those people, not retaliation.
John McLarty: That’s… So Well, the verse… Just to make it clear, the verse said with persecutions. Yeah. So no no prosperity gospel here.
Kimberly Faith: Right.
John McLarty: But the prosperity of a fulfilled life.
Kimberly Faith: Yes.
John McLarty: Of of being, you know, just part of God’s plan. And what a plan he has. So that’s this idea of the surrendered life. We don’t lose our life. We gain the abundant life, and then think about the final payout in heaven and eternal blessings.
Kimberly Faith: Right. We talked about that a lot over the last Christmas.
John McLarty: The
Kimberly Faith: question that podcast with the title poses, When will our desires actually satisfy us? That answer is, we give him the throne in every area of our life. He changes our desires, and he gives us more than we can ask for or imagine.
John McLarty: Amen to that.
Kimberly Faith: If today’s episode stirred your heart, we want to invite you to go even deeper. At gofaithstrong.com, you’ll find a growing library of faith based resources designed to encourage, equip, and strengthen your walk with God every single day. Whether you’re searching for meaningful devotionals, real life testimonies, Christ centered blog posts, or soul stirring music, it’s all there, created to meet you where you are and lead you closer to where God is calling you to be. We believe that walking in faith doesn’t just happen on Sundays. It’s a daily pursuit.
That’s why everything we do at Go Faith Strong is focused on helping you live boldly for Jesus Christ. Our podcast is just one piece of the journey. There’s so much more waiting for you. Resources to inspire your prayer life, deepen your understanding of the scripture, and help you share the gospel with others. So visit us at gofaithstrong.com and explore, read, listen, worship, and be encouraged.
Your life matters. Visit us at gofaithstrong. Hallelujah. He rescued me.
