The Power of Love

Putting God first and loving others second offers the most fulfilling path in life, leading to genuine joy even amidst struggles. In this encouraging episode, Pastor Jack and the Meguiars share a candid conversation about life, love, God, and everything in between.

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You guys, this might be the most viewed podcast we’ve ever done because of the importance and relevance of what it is to not only love God, but love one another.
We’re gonna sit down with Barry and Karen Maguire. So get ready. It’s gonna be precious.
Real Life presents the Jack Hibbs podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints, and impact our culture.
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Now, open your hearts to what God’s word has to say to you. Here is Jack Hibbs.
Well, everybody, we have a very special edition of our podcast Gibbs podcast is going to expand today for good reason.
I have with us 2 very dear friends, 2 lovers of God, 2 lovers of one another, and they’ve got a story to tell.
Barry and Karen Maguire of the Maguire Auto, uh, Product Industry, uh, that’s what they’re known.
They’re known by that logo, by that name, but what a lot of people don’t know is the amazing world that preexisted before the world exists today as they are iconic in the auto world.
But not only the auto world, but in the Christian world, and you need to meet them.
So Barry and Karen, it’s really great to have you with us, and this is a special time because I just believe that, uh, this is unrehearsed, but I think the direction we’re going to go right now with this podcast will probably get a zillion hits and views because it should.
Because I’m going to I’m going to go away from what we would normally talk about.
And I want to ask you both, uh, tell us, how did you where did you meet?
When did you first cast eyes upon one another?
Let me just quickly say I often tell people, this is our testimony.
Mhmm.
They
hear me speak, but Karen can get up here and speak and tell me the same stories because it’s our life.
We’ve experienced this We
did live it together. Together. I mean,
just for from here, we had nothing. We had nothing. We had a low company doing $600,000 a year.
Was buffing cars and the car crash.
People, that’s, uh, I mean, that’s a lot, but
that’s a
little something then.
But it was a 6 year old business. My grandfather started 6 years
old at
that time. And the whole business was buffing cars and body shops and filthy dirty body shops on my side.
And that was what it was.
And so we were a tiny little family business, and she literally gave me $5 a week to live on for several years.
Now And I’d have money left over at the end of the week.
So, okay, before we get to that though, because I wanna know, where did where did you meet?
How did you meet?
That’s cool. That’s amazing. Go ahead.
Yeah. Okay. Uh, well, I’m a cougar. Okay? What does that mean? I’m 9 months older than him.
I see.
I see.
Okay. We met at Pasadena College, which was a few years ago.
Yeah. It’s now important but Nazarene University. Okay. But the time was Pasadena College. Okay.
And and, uh, so we met there.
We met there, and it was the night before he started his freshman year, and I was a big upperclassman, a sophomore.
Yeah. So
that was he can tell you what I had on.
Oh, yeah. That was that was a moment. Plus years later. Well, that that was 1960. 1960.
So 64 years ago coming up, uh, in the September, but 6 years or 6 three and a half years.
But but, yeah, I could tell you where we were. I could I could tell what she wore.
I I went to I didn’t have to go to to to college.
I was going into a family business. That’s the way I looked at it. Yeah. Thank you. I did.
But I said, I need to go I just wanna get a wife.
Well, I met her the night before my freshman year started. I was done. I could’ve just quit.
I didn’t. I went on and finished 4 years and was picking student body president and all that, but she dragged me through all my classes.
Right?
Yeah. But he did
because you’re
the brains. Aren’t you the brains
that I’ve heard? Yeah.
Is that you’ve got your accounting and math and all your skills?
Yes.
Yes. Well, I never business.
I never got business. 1 b in college. One b. She only got 1 b.
She took all these classes. She worked 40 hours a week, paid her own way, got one b.
But for General Motors.
And it but it
She made more money than him.
Yeah.
Did she?
Yeah. Oh, yes.
But let me tell you, that’s one thing This is getting really good.
There’s one thing we had in common, uh, that we we both have the distinction of getting 1 b in college.
Um, I didn’t I didn’t get any a’s, but I got a B. Yeah. And
I think it was a C that I got.
So it was she helped me through college, pulled me through.
I did?
And she has all the strengths I don’t have.
She is so organized, and she’s every penny, and I I just, you know, let’s go and build something.
And I see the big picture, and I wanna go. And Yeah.
I tell her I like to make money, and I like to spend money, and she takes care of everything.
And keeps you safe to be able to do that.
So you’re, uh, so so people don’t have the wrong idea because people we have a tendency to do this as humans.
Oh, what does Barry and Karen know about suffering? They they had they had the silver spoon, the golden spoon.
What do they know? Um, and that’s not that’s not the case.
And in fact, you guys it’s pretty amazing because the Lord has blessed you tremendously.
But if you were reduced tomorrow to pork and beans, you know how to do that.
We’re ready. Very ready. Our joy is now This might feel the same way. Stuff.
This stuff’s all gonna go away.
Yeah. Yeah.
And it may well. It can go away soon. Who knows?
So can you share, uh, after your I mean, I know we have to condense this time wise, but so you fell in love in the school and you were married and you did this family business.
Uh, you were given a $5 allowance, but eventually, things began to to come together.
Not for a long time.
Not for a long time.
Yeah. I mean, seriously, it was not like we had a a year of suffering.
Um, first off, um, my the business was started by my grandfather in 19 1, then there was 3 brothers continued on.
The oldest one of those brothers, uh, passed away.
So my dad and I owned half the company, and his half brother and his two sons had half the company.
Problem was they weren’t Christians. They, um, they did never wax their car. They couldn’t read a balance sheet.
They they didn’t trust anybody with a tie, and they couldn’t understand what I was doing.
I I wanna go retail. They wanna go retail. So they fought me, I mean, hard for 30 years.
Really, 4 years.
The business small.
To keep they didn’t want that. You know? They just they they didn’t wanna go.
They’re they were making more money than they ever thought they’d make, but they hated me so much.
And so every board meeting was a trial. And we had outside board members.
And because they might always win board votes by by one vote, I just sneak sneak by.
I really like it.
But we’re just right on the edge all the time and and very close to to bankruptcy many times.
And then, you know, we would they’re in charge of all production. That’s what they did.
And they would hold up shipping the big order to the big chain that was doing a promotion that next weekend.
Deliberately. Deliberately. It was their business, but, I mean, the things that so the the trials we had in business and and fighting through all that, of course, we had no money.
We had no stature. And how do we break into the business? That’s just trusting God.
And, you know But
we always drove a beautiful car.
Oh, yeah. We always had a good car.
You would have to because that’s your car.
That’s your car.
It was a company car. Yes.
But the difference I’ll just say very quick.
The difference was we we we were serving, giving, sacrificing, all that Yeah. With no joy.
We knew that we were missing joy.
Mhmm.
And so we prayed together about God. We want joy. How do we get joy?
How do we
get it?
We’re so busy doing everything.
Long story short, but through through an amazing guy, except in our life, uh, we we had more joy than we’d ever seen.
Um, he was getting it from sharing his faith, and we’d never put together sharing faith and having joy.
And you and I have talked a lot about it.
It’s it’s it’s the same it’s a 2 sided same coin, having faith and sharing faith.
Once we started on that path, it just opened up everything.
And so then we knew our business is our pulpit, not our business, not our God.
And so we started using the business.
So as I grew the business, I was making those sales calls and getting turned down.
Um, it didn’t bother me.
So you rather than focusing on business success, your vision, both of you, it was let’s use this company for the glory of God.
Absolutely. Absolutely.
So many people need to hear
that today. Well, so when I got turned down, I got turned down a lot.
You say I had a sore nose because of all the doors that were hitting.
I mean, no nobody knew us. Nobody knew. We’re alone. And I’m a punk kid from California.
And, you know, the retailers across United States, and most of them are Jewish.
They had no regard for me whatsoever. Yeah.
Yeah. Well, don’t forget, we started doing all of these trade shows. We did housewares trade shows, boat trade shows.
National hardware show, national boat show, all these shows. And and she was it was a tourist.
And and yes, he was an introvert. Alright? No. Oh, yes. I’ve never been an introvert.
No. No.
So we would have these little 10 foot booths at these huge trade shows, you know, and we would go in at night and even set the booth up ourselves.
We didn’t have a way to have
a shower. Yeah. So I would go out into the island.
I was looking for always looking for these red badges because they were the buyers.
And so I would I I would talk to them. I did.
She had them all warmed up. Now they’re happy than I than I did.
Then I would they would come into the booth, and Barry would sell them. We were quite the truth.
Going to these big receptions that were trying to network, you know, and I hid behind Karen.
I literally hid behind Karen.
That’s hard to do because she’s about
4 foot tall. Right? Oh my, she was taller than
I had 6 inches high.
She was starting the conversation, but when she got it going on, then I’d I’d blow the jump and say, I’m her husband.
You know? Yeah. But seriously, we went through that.
But every time I had a door closed, I loved doing those people. I loved doing them.
No matter what.
Yeah. No matter what. And I I would say, I understand. I’m gonna earn your respect. I’m gonna be back.
You would tell them that.
I would tell them that. I love it. I haven’t gotten there yet. I understand. Help me.
I said, what do I need to do? You tell me. You teach me.
So they all began loving on me and brooding for me, but I didn’t deserve it to be in their shells.
I would have been a failure, and then that wouldn’t have been good for anybody. So they taught me.
So at the national convention, the big trade magazine had a, uh, a dinner, and they asked me to come.
We didn’t wanna go. We’re dead tired, uh, because we didn’t lose our leave our booth for anything. Bathrooms, benefit.
We had to be there because we might lose a a a connection. Yeah. So I went there that night.
They said, we have we have all these word. Now this award, this is our vendor of the year award.
And all of all of you have voted who our vendor of the year is.
And and this year, it’s Barry McGuire from McGuire’s Car Wax. What? We’re not selling one of them.
We weren’t a vendor.
That’s incredible.
We weren’t a vendor. We’re not selling we were not we not one of them were our customers, and they voted me vendor of the year because they loved me.
Wow. And they wanted me and they wanted me to come, and they they wanted to buy the property.
You just gotta do some things before we dare put you on our shelves.
So that was when you start doing that, you just say, if I live for you and I’m and my focus on getting everybody into heaven, then it’s gonna happen.
I don’t know when, but it’s going to happen.
What what kind of story in the world says you get the award?
Yeah. That’s crazy. That’s crazy.
It’s just
You know what? We wrinkle effect of that down to college students. They go to Christian college.
They’ve learned all this. They’ve been probably all their lives. Now they’re gonna go on and get a job.
They forget everything. And if they’re hyperventilating about it, or they’re gonna get every interview or whatever. Stop it. Yeah.
Go in there and be be folks, and you wanna lead that people, but move that person closer to Jesus.
Yeah. If they turn you down, it doesn’t matter because God has the place. He will make it happen. Mhmm.
Stop trusting yourself. Trust God. Your job is to move then closer to Jesus. Yes. It changes everything.
Once you take your your folks off as what you gotta do and say, I’m going to use this opportunity to to lead people to Jesus.
And you know what? It makes them love you.
I mean, you can’t get feel bad when you tell them, you know, God loves you.
So and you’re manifesting that self that that to them.
Meanwhile, God’s got a whole plan, and all sudden, now we end up being the number one selling car wax.
Yep. You know? Or but it’s over a period of years and it happened overnight.
But in the meantime, we had all kinds of huge problems.
We lost our daughter when she was 49 years old.
That’s right. We’re
talking about a tragedy. I was dying in the hospital, and the doctors gave up on me.
We didn’t lose
our job. I never thought you were gonna
die.
She we were fine. I never thought you were fine. All over the United States giving their respects. You know?
It was so I was
I trusted god.
She said I even kept my tan. What what year?
That’s what that’s what Newport Beach will will help you with. Yeah. What So What year was that?
That was 2010. Yeah. Wow. And we had a joint venture partner.
Uh, my my family sold out to a joint joint venture company.
Vulture.
And and that’s true. And, uh, and they tried to throw me out of my business and and, uh, never lost my joy, and God took care of that so easily.
Would you
Well, he would walk I’m not gonna break it. You know this?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No problem.
You go girl. You go girl. I’m sorry.
I should not have done
that, No.
But when he would go to work in the morning, uh, we kind of had a balcony up above the front door, and I would quote him scripture as he’s going out the door.
Wow. Oh, yeah. Barry, wait. I got the scripture for you today, which would stay with me all day.
And it came down from above as though God was speaking Oh, Renee, Karen. Upon you.
This blessing fell like
her warrior bible study leader at all, and she’s just always there.
In the critical times of our life, we just talked our, uh, our our way through them and then committed to the Lord.
We said, God, we’re trusting you. We’re not
trusting you. But also also, the people that God has brought into our lives over our time together has been incredible.
People that we I know one of, um, one of the most important people in my life was Gwen Wilkerson, who was David Wilkerson’s wife, who was crossing the switchblade.
I just learned so much from her on what a godly Christian woman does. It was incredible.
They’re best friends for 40 years. Who works as best friends for 40 years? How did how did that happen?
God just brought he god if god knows you’re hungry, he’ll bring people into your life that will mentor you.
That’s true. Yeah. You know? That’s true. It’s amazing what he does. And I we look back now.
We say you can’t get to where we are now from where we were. You can’t. No.
And it’s not because we’re good. It’s not because we’re smart. We know that. But we have been faithful.
Yeah. That’s classic. That’s great. Not because I’m smart. Yeah. I was smart.
I got here for
a while. That’s right. That’s your move.
But but the fact of the matter is we’ve run to every evangelist in class.
We’ve run to every everywhere we can go, every special special speaker taking notes.
Our entire 6 years of living, we’ve sought we’ve we’ve chased after God.
We have.
He knows our hearts. He’s been our he’s been number 1 all the way through.
When you do that, man, he just he just enriches you, and he gives you more than you can ever expect in your understanding and knowledge and closeness and intimacy with God.
And and so, uh, I we’re just talking about it the other night. We have no fear.
We have no anger. We have no worry. We have no bad days.
We have bad days, but they’re good days because the bad days, God’s up to something.
Yeah. Well, I’ve seen That’s right. So many things that have come our way.
You know, after so many years, you realize God is there.
And and so now when things hit, I’ll say, okay, Satan, get thee behind me. You know?
And how it he’ll try to bring it back to remembrance again and again. Mhmm.
And I’ll just say, you know I trust God, and I’ve just given this to God.
And I I just tell God, I just can’t wait to see how you’re gonna work this one out.
Yeah. He does. He does. He always works out. Incredible. The one time,
um, I
was low head of Karen. We had a daughter who was often getting inside things and and distressing us, and I wasn’t worried, but she was.
Mhmm.
And and and and this went on for a period
of time. Mother.
You’re a mom.
And she’s a mom. Yeah. And she’s trying to fix her. That’s right.
And one day she came in to me, she says, okay. I give up. That’s true. And what’s that?
She’s I gave her to the Lord.
Yeah. Done. I just gave her to
Well, you
know, within 2 weeks I won’t go into this. Sorry. It’s amazing story.
Within 2 weeks, that whole situation cleared up.
It wasn’t about the daughter who was the the it was why I was here.
Right. And her heart. It’s
Guys wanted to get a hold of her heart.
That’s how he does it.
Yeah. And and he had most of her heart, but there’s just one thing, the mother
and the daughter trying to Isaac thing on the hilltop. Mhmm. Yeah. Mhmm. Right?
Right.
You have to give up. And then there’s the victory. People who don’t know the Lord, they don’t understand.
We can be speaking Chinese. They don’t get it.
Uh, they don’t understand where, you know, Jesus says, if you want to find your life, lose it.
But what kind of a silly comment is that?
But he says, if you hang on to your life, you’re going to lose it in the end.
Well, that’s ridiculous. The joy, the joy in life is actually us possessing nothing.
It’s him possessing everything. That can’t be true.
But to the world that doesn’t know Christ, they think we’re nuts.
And I used to think people were crazy until you come to Christ and he begins to move and work in your life.
I love what you said a moment ago, you guys, about the bad days. We, uh, the bad days.
My bad day is when I don’t wake up soon enough to realize that the bad day can be a really good thing.
Right? Because what you just said, the temptation is there to be whatever it is, even grumpy.
And again, I just read in a book recently about spiritual warfare, and I thought that was fantastic.
Whoever the author was said that when when they have a bad thought, temper or temptation, that they immediately stop and say, Satan, this is from you.
No. Mm And every time.
Yeah. Every time.
Yeah.
And I remind you, Satan, that without you, I wouldn’t be having this attack.
And this attack, my father knows about.
He you can’t do anything to me without my father knowing about it. Perfect.
And so because of that, you have to leave. Yeah. And it was just so practical.
It was so so conversational.
We had an individual who was attacking us for years, uh, destroying my trying to destroy my reputation on social media.
It’s still there today and did everything he could.
With 3 they have, like, 3 viewers, 3 followers, but
Well, I don’t know, but, um, well, no. It it hit, uh, it hit the news.
It was on KFI Radio here locally. It was on in the LA Times.
It was it was it was getting traction, and he made me look like an absolute Jesus lunatic fool.
But one thing, the register in Orange County Yeah. Would not print it.
No. They were very good
to us. They
would they they they would
knew us.
We’re in their backyard. They would not print that. That was that was quite amazing. Incredible.
But the end end result was we came down to a crisis, and it was horrible what he was about to do with us that day without going into details.
And we labored with it all night long, each of us, in our own way, praying and crying.
And we sat in bed that morning, and we said, there there’s there’s there’s no scripture that allows us to do this.
Right.
We have to turn the other chief. We have to go the extra mile.
I mean, the scripture is very clear. We both had we have no choice.
So in those moments, and we had a number of them through our lives, we prayed out loud to God, and we say, God, we trust you.
We forgive him, and we love him.
And once you love us love him through us, we would love him. Wow.
You know what that did? They did an anger not just for him, but for our entire lives.
We had no angry He was set free. We thank God for him.
This is a key.
Because God set us free from anger because of him. And then what happened to him?
How can you love me after all the crap I’ve Yes. Yep. Yep. Said that several times to me.
To this person. Yeah. Never.
I could’ve Never once. Never attacked him and all that. Yeah. We we we just refuse to do that.
You know what? Now I’m mentoring him, and he’s a Christian. He’s solid.
And and I think, what if I had said anything?
And I there was never one word I said to him that was bad.
Never once. You know, haven’t we botched up this thing about forgiveness? We think.
I think so.
Yeah. We think, uh, when we’re instructed, we read, we’re told you need to forgive them. Mhmm.
Why would I do that? I would never do that.
I don’t want them to have the satisfaction of knowing we’ve completely botched it up.
Well, you’re the only one
you think. Well, exactly. But people don’t realize that they think never will I’m going to forgive them.
You have no idea that God gave you the ability to forgive somebody to set yourself free. Mhmm.
Because until you do forgive them, they they own me.
They own you? Right. Exactly. They’re gonna be bitter and angry.
Everything they do is gonna stab you again and again.
Over and over said, he went on doing stuff, and we laugh.
We laugh when he was trying to hurt us still because that went on.
For years.
And we left. And we said he can’t hurt us anymore.
No. No.
There’s no way he can hurt us anymore.
I mean What a power.
It’s it’s this is this is where Christianity becomes real in your lives.
It’s not just a, you know, I’m on my way to heaven and we accepted Jesus Christ. That’s fine.
A lot of people are there.
But if you wanna have peace, the past understanding, you wanna have joy every day.
You wanna know God’s answering your prayers. You wanna know God’s directing your steps.
You wanna live in that sweet spot with God. Just live for him. Yep. Live for him. Share him.
That’s the number one thing we’re called to do is share him.
When we share him, God speaking through you, have answered you with God. It all works. It’s amazing.
It’s all one. It’s not despair type pieces. It’s all this is living for Jesus. You know? Yep.
Letting him shine through us and love people through us. It’s it’s it’s really special.
And, hey, 60 years of marriage. Can you believe this? She hung in there with for 60 years.
60 and a half.
And, uh, we, uh
Getting there.
Almost 61. It’s moving. Yeah.
Um, so I’m gonna do with the time remaining. I’m gonna do, like, a shotgun around real quick.
Just like real quick answers.
Okay. Okay.
Where where was your first kiss?
3 months, I went without a kiss. 3 months,
it was because he was slow
or embarrassing?
Yeah. You know, we went 3 yeah. I So should I move on
to the next question then?
But it was a different time. Okay. It was 1960. But I guess The sixties were crazy.
It was well, it was for some
Lisa, But
for us, there was
Oh, no. I have to think about it.
But seriously, there was such respect.
And it’s a it was a kid nobody even imagined that a day.
If you don’t go to bed the first night, something’s really wrong, you know. But but I didn’t kiss her.
It was 3 months before it was just the first time. Finally, take her to the dorm room. Yeah.
I kiss her for the first time. Wow. We’re 3 months in.
That’s amazing. 1st, uh, 1st apartment
or home
or back in those days.
1st apartment.
Was it apartment? Yeah.
Oh, yeah. Where where was it?
In Pasadena. Yeah.
Yeah. Stairway. 3rd floor. Carried all the furniture up the stairway.
Yeah. I had a guy chase me one time when I was coming home from work and I remember running.
It was not the safest place. Running? It was in Pasadena.
It was safe.
Yeah. Wow. But, uh, yeah. Yeah.
1st vacation.
Hawaii.
Oh, Hawaii. Of Hawaii.
Of course. Hawaii. Of course.
With my my my parents paid for it.
I don’t know if we ever go there again, but we’ve been there 60 times.
We we love the Royal Hawaii. We love Hawaii.
Yeah. Yeah.
Just the music. Just the boss and
the the whole thing.
Yeah. We went to Duke’s the other night for dinner and they’re playing the whole music.
It was just like, okay. That’s right.
Um, first first car. Now this is a big question because your car, that’s your world.
But first car, I think somebody said it was it was a company car at first. But
Well, yeah. But the first car is 50 7 Chevy. 57 Chevy. Is that a 2 door
or 4 door?
Black, bell, or hardtop? Hardtop. 22 door. 2 door. It’s white or hardtop.
White on top, black on top?
No. No. No. All black. We’re black car people.
All black. Oh,
yeah. All black. And, uh, so 2 door or 2? It’s a Bel Air.
So it’s 2 door coupe with with, you know, without a post, you know, it was
It’s in our garage.
I was
just gonna ask you. Do you have it?
So we, uh, we we dated that, and it’s a very special car for us to go around in today.
Oh my gosh.
That is incredibly awesome.
It is.
Um, what should I ask you before we wrap this up? What should I what should I ask you?
What do you want people to know? That that they’re not gonna know any
other way? I ask us what hap what’s happened to our love?
Is our love as strong now as it was back
in the first year? What’s happened to your love after all these years?
That’s a great question. Yay. We laugh.
It’s awesome. He gets better and
better and better and better. When you’re with the Lord, uh, I have all kinds of issues in my life with me.
She has all kinds of issues. You know? But she’s very
Can you hear Lisa going, hey, man. I understand.
Yeah. I mean, I’m a type a and, you know, it’s just like but she’s been very patient with me.
He rewarded me.
But, uh,
after 60 years, guess what he bought me?
I think I know, but I’m not sure. Go ahead.
A red Corvette. Z06. Z06. Yeah.
Yeah. A
what? So is it called a z06? A z06. Yeah. That’s kind of
the Hot.
High performance pet. But, uh,
And you drive it, don’t you?
I do.
But you know why you did that?
I hear I thought I yeah.
Here’s what I did for it was for her 60th pant. She always wanted a Corvette.
But I looked at I gave her a a nice gift when we when we all turned 80, when she turned 80.
But you can’t you’re gonna turn 80. That’s not by choice. I mean, you’re gonna turn 80. Right?
This is this is 60 years.
This is 60 years of putting up with me and all my ideas and and always wanting to go.
And, you know, I just like, just go. Let’s go. And she goes.
And and she never has said no.
This is what’s amazing.
She’s never said no. She’s never said I’m too tired.
Uh, I don’t know.
She’s never said, um, I I too old to do this. None of those.
We get up regularly at 4:30 in the morning in the dark to catch a plane.
She’s awake before me, and she’s smiling. We love our life together. We live our life together.
It’s just it’s so much is that because we’re good? No.
It’s because what the closer you get to God, the closer you get to each other.
To where you’re just you’re just it’s just God if if you don’t have God that’s in your relationship, you’re missing the best part because it just takes it and makes it like, I wake up every morning.
I just can’t believe this guy was still married to me, and we’re gonna face this day together.
And and every day has challenges. Yeah. But, um, and and when they’re bad, we just say she says, okay.
What are you up to now, God? Yeah. How are you gonna work this
one out? I just can’t
wait to see. What’s amazing, Lisa and I, uh, will look at your schedule.
We’re trying to figure out time to be together. The 4 of us. And, uh, I’ve got Lisa.
We have a pretty crazy schedule, honestly. Insane. But let’s no. No. Yeah. Well, it’s for us, it’s insane.
But when we look at your calendar, I honestly, we do not know how you guys do it.
And I and I’m not making this up. What Scott.
It’s not unusual for them to say, well, uh, we’re in California on Monday.
We’re in we’ll be in Detroit Wednesday. We’ll be in Miami on Friday.
We’re in all of these are shows and events for the company and all of these things that are going on.
And yet you guys not only maintain friendships with people, I want to just say to the world that one of the greatest joys that we’ve enjoyed having you guys in our lives is the quality of people, the type of people that you have surrounded yourselves with.
I don’t like the word surrounded yourselves.
I think your type of of nucleus, who you guys are, has drawn a certain type of people to you guys that love God, their mission, their on purpose like you guys are everyday.
They’re on mission. They’re on purpose and they love God.
And so the people that you have, uh, around you are not only drawing from you, you guys are not only going a 100 miles an hour plus, but they’re drawing from your example.
I mean, look, we celebrated with you guys recently, your sixtieth wedding anniversary.
And that room was packed with people who were saying, when I grew up, I want to be like them.
Well,
that is an epic that is a God honoring thing. Oh. That is so rare today.
Um, our our our goal is is first love Christians.
You know, he he said he said to the church, you’ve left your first love.
You’ve left you’ve departed me. I I know know you’re honoring me, you know, good teaching for bad, all of that, but you’ve you’ve you’ve something else is capturing you.
We have lots of Christians that we go out to eat, and we’ll bring up God and then immediately go to another subject.
Immediately.
So in our stage in life, and we don’t know what the future is gonna hold.
If things get really tough, I don’t want our friends turning us in. I want friends I can trust.
You know? Yeah. So we just look we we hang out with people who are first love Christians.
You you just We can talk about God. And they they’re talking
to God
all the time.
Or the sermons.
They’re they’re excited about the God. And talk about you, talk about our pastor, talk about our sermons, and
we’ll get together and we’ll find out what, um, what Dave’s doing in Vegas coming up soon at the stadium.
And then you find out what Dana’s doing regarding this or what what maybe doctor David is doing regarding the other church
on Sunday. We have these great conversations about your message.
Yeah. You know? Well, that’s exciting
to hear about. It’s just it’s just we’re all growing still from your message over lunch.
And and that’s not always the case with Christians. They’re often they won’t talk about the ball game or
something. There are people who will take pictures where you guys move into a restaurant on Sundays and take
it over. Oh, yeah.
And all and people are the place gets real quiet because your your table is big and loud.
All about God.
And the manager and the wages is saying, oh, no.
You’re speaking? No. I’m still doing? I’m still working. You have to do that.
You’re preaching. I’m still preaching, but
I hear people are saying, oh my goodness. We you know?
And it’s so precious because it’s like this this the storm that rolls into town of glory, and it’s just awesome.
But And we don’t like to leave.
You are kind.
Yeah. It’s
like with that that kind of connection with people, first love Christians, you you never wanna leave.
There’s no such thing as a quick, and then we gotta run. Nobody wants to leave.
That’s his holy spirit. I think that’s the spirit of god.
I’ve never seen anything
like it, but it’s back at 4:30.
And the first love Christian. Look for first
love Christian,
folks. If you wanna hang up, people who really love on you and be there
for you to take care of that.
What goes on, this crazy road. We don’t know what it is.
We need you to be surrounded right now with first love Christian.
So you guys, that first love Christian begins with knowing the gospel, and that is that for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten, only glorified one and only, by the way.
That word means that there’s no other saviors savior coming, that God gave his only begotten son, that whosoever, that’s you, that’s us, would believe in him.
That word belief is to pull up and put rest upon.
It’s like what we’re doing with this chair these chairs right now. We’re sitting on these chairs.
The Lord wants you to set your life upon him. Rest in him.
Yes.
And you will not perish, he says. This is the word of God.
He says you will not perish but have everlasting life.
And so bearing Karen have been faithful to do that.
And we just wanted to take a quick time to honor that so that you guys might know a little bit about them.
You can find out more by going to Ignite Your Life.
You can get a hold of their book and find out more.
They’re also available for viewing, uh, at the Real Life Network.
You can download that app free on your device and, uh, look at all of their programming that’s available about sharing your faith, keeping a Christ centered and a Christ focused life.
So, um, as always, you guys, our our jingle is what we mean.
It’s time for us to live out. That’s what the world needs to see. Right?
They need to see us living our life outside the walls of the church.
It’s time for us to live out what we believe in. It’s time for real life.
And Mary and Karen, thank you for being with us. Thank you. Love you guys Pastor.
So much. We’re so blessed by you.
We are blessed. We’re blessed.
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