David Guinn is a Liberty University alum and now resides in the Raleigh North Carolina area. He shares a devotions about relying and trusting God through pandemic times.
Transcript
Santiago Leon
Hello, hello and this is the is the Bible cast, where we usually share devotion. Share the word, the living word, especially, you know, with these times with the whole Corona virus, a global pandemic, and oh, you know, obviously, we need some positivity and one of the things is God and His Word. And today’s guest is a Liberty alum, and also we were colleagues back at Liberty University over 10 years. And, and I reconnected with him on Facebook. These past couple of weeks, I’ve been seeing his his Facebook, devotions, his encouragement straight from Facebook Live and the opportunity that Facebook like the tools that Facebook provides, it’s it’s quite incredible and, and how things are but no longer do Me. We have
Santiago Leon
Mr. David Gwynn here on the Insta Bible cast Welcome to the Bible cast David
David Guinn
Brown Santiago talked to the rock star. It is so awesome to be with you guys today.
Santiago Leon
So Dave, um, we didn’t really have this talk before, but we graduated the same class because I graduated in like, oh seven. Was that your graduating class for liberty?
David Guinn
Yeah, it was.
Santiago Leon
there you go. Same time, same place.
David Guinn
Let’s go, Hey, we’ll never forget all the memory. How we live large and in charge. It was a great time.
Santiago Leon
Um, so tell us what has been your life since Liberty? Yeah,
David Guinn
I’m married. Now. I have three kids. Two boys that are about to be 10 and 11. And then we adopted a little girl from Ethiopia five years ago. Her name’s Emma, and she’s been a joy to our family. It’s been awesome getting to love her heart back to life, and watch her fully blossom. And then we host a Chinese exchange student for the past three years, and she’ll be graduating here in a couple months and then headed down to the University of Miami for college. And so, outside of the family, I now run a ministry in Southeast Asia called standout where we, again want to love hearts back to life, in some of the hardest to get to places by empowering national pastors, with encounters with God’s outrageous love, and that being the springboard for us carrying love into villages That I’ve never experienced
Unknown Speaker
that love before. And the ripple effects that is having is absolutely mind blowing. It’s a real joy to be a part of. We currently live in in North Carolina, the rally area. Associate campus pastor at a rock star church, very life giving space called focus church. And we are really grateful for the opportunity to minister overseas as well as here locally in North Carolina.
Santiago Leon
And when did you like when a God called you to do ministry? In China?
David Guinn
Yeah. So I went to college to play golf. And I met somebody who had something that I did it. It made me question whether I was missing the point in life I ended up giving up golf. I heard God speak to me for the very first time. He said, Dave, you can keep playing golf, but you’re going to be miserable when you do it. Something so much better for you than this. That’s all I had. But I went on that. And that was the hardest decision I’ve ever made. But it was the most rewarding decision or one of the most rewarding decisions I’ve ever made. And that’s when I started a relationship with Jesus and I experienced his love and now I wanted to release in dispenses love wherever I went. And it started on college campuses, and then it turned into inner cities and then it turned into overseas and God started to give me a passion for for people not only right around me, but all around the world. And more doors started opening and then last year, January of 2019 we started our own ministry. in Southeast Asia, and it’s been absolutely incredible.
Santiago Leon
There you have it. We’re gonna go with prayer and then after that we’ll we’ll have Dave share what is the Lord speaking to him in his heart, Lord, we thank you Lord for today. Lord, we thank you, Lord, for this week, Lord, even though through terror, and through fear, Lord, You are there you give us hope you give us light, you give us peace. And and and and we pray for people out there that don’t have that, that that, that during these times that could find you in Jesus name. And we pray for this devotional cast, Lord, that You speak through David. And what do you have for people out there that need to hear this in Jesus name? David, please take it away.
David Guinn
Yeah, so again, thanks so much, Santiago for having me on today. I want to share three thoughts as we are in the middle of what you’ve already referenced with the corona virus. And I know that a lot of people have been commenting and sharing their thoughts. But I found these three thoughts to be incredibly essential to not only my everyday life, but especially when things are going unplanned. And to say the least, that’s what’s happening. Right now I call this breakthrough in 3d. How can we take breakthrough from a two dimensional concept on a piece of paper? And how can it become a three dimensional reality in our life? And so, when we think about this idea of breakthrough in 3d, I’m going to share three DS with you. So that breakthrough can be a reality for you today, and the first thing that we have to do if we want To experience breakthrough in three dimensions, is we have to rethink disappointment at the rethink disappointment. And the first thing that we need to understand is we’re under understand this concept of rethinking disappointment is that the purpose of a trial is to give you something, not to take something away from you. And the purpose of a trial is to give something to you not to take something away from you, James says, to consider it joy when you go through various trials. Why? Because he knew the trials, they didn’t have to defeat you, but the trials could develop you. So whenever disappointment comes, what I’ve started to do is not say, Are you kidding me? Or why me or Here we go again, or what are we going to do now or when it rains it pours good graces. This is just craziness. But instead, I say, I let disappointment serve as a notification, like on my phone, whether that be a Dean’s or whether that be a little one in the corner of my app. Notification thing, God, God’s about to give me something. This appointment comes as it becomes discouragement comes in convenience comes in God’s about to give me something. But the enemy wants us to think the exact opposite, that God’s mad at us or that God’s punishing us or that Gods doesn’t love us. But the author behind all death and disease and sickness and fear and worry and stress and anxiety is the enemy. But God can’t always use what the enemy intended for evil and turn it around for good and so when disappointment comes from the enemy, God says thing, don’t worry, I’m going to let the enemy’s plan backfire on him. And I’m actually going to give you something in the middle of your disappointment, not take something away from you. And the thing that he wants to give you, in the middle of your disappointment is an upgrade. Because every obstacle is an opportunity to receive an upgrade. Because every situation that you face, the corona virus, for instance, has already been assigned an outcome that God wants to generate. There’s always an outcome. We don’t know when that’s going to happen, how that’s going to happen. We don’t know how much longer when it’d be in quarantine. We don’t know if things are going to be completely shut down in our culture. But the reality is God has already assigned it an outcome. The joy that set before us is watching how God unfolds it. So let’s go back in To the Old Testament, Daniel was faced with the obstacle of being thrown in the lion’s den. Got it. But the reality is that God is already assigned the outcome of shutting the lion’s mouth. Now, Daniel didn’t know that the king didn’t know that the people who schemed against Daniel didn’t know that, but God did. And so as a result of Daniels confidence in trusting that God had already assigned an outcome that he wanted to generate, the king put his trust in God. So not only did the king get an upgrade, but the whole nation got an upgrade. Because of Daniels trust in a God even when it didn’t make sense. Now that’s just absolutely brilliant to me. God used a law that people wanted to take Daniel out with to be the catalyst for the kings. Salvation. What my god be trying to do in the middle of a coronavirus? What miracle moment might God be setting us up for what team? What dictator? What shift in government? Might God be trying to set up in the middle of us in the middle of a coronavirus as we place our confidence in a God who was studying for us and speaking Peace be still to everyone in ways in our lives. Here’s the reality how you think about disappointment will determine how you experience breakthrough. So number one, we’ve got to rethink disappointment. But number two, we’ve got to reroute doubt, reroute. Now, we live in in a GPS kind of day, no more of paper maps and gardens and tom toms. I mean, I’m sure people might use them, but more often than not, you’re going to pull out your smartphone, and you’re going to plug in your final destination. You don’t have to be good with directions. You don’t have to know where you’re going. All you have to do is plug and play baby. And it’s on like Donkey Kong. You can even miss your turn. And the GPS isn’t gonna yell at you. It’s not going to tell you what a failure you are. It’s not going to complain about your poor driving skills. No, it’s just going to say rerouting rerouting rerouting. And did you know that the devil has a GPS your enemy has a GPS any plugs you in as his final destination. So when doubt pulls up in his car called disappointment, and it thinks it’s arrived, and it’s about to unpack it back and set up shop. In the house, car, your heart. You need to stand in authority and you declare to your doubt routing, routing, the routing, because you will either reroute your doubt, or your doubt, will reroute you. When that shows up, you got to let it know that it has made the wrong turn. Come on with it that you best go ahead and make a U turn. And don’t ever come back actually while you’re at it now. Go ahead and unplug my coordinates from your memory because I will never be your final destination. You Santiago I’ve learned that you’ve got to speak to your situation. You just can’t think it. You gotta speak. I will not be stressed. I will not be overwhelmed. I will not be shaken I will not be moved. I will place my confidence in the one who is speaking Peace be still to every wind and wave of my heart. I will believe God to do what seems impossible. I will Stand still, and watch the salvation of the Lord, I will see a victory because of God’s explosive power. in me, when there’s power, in what we say it’s one thing to read the words, it’s another thing to receive the words. And then it’s quite another than to declare the word. I encourage people to do all three of those steps to, to read it, to receive it, and then to declare it. And what we want to do in this situation is we want to reroute doubt, which sets us up for a third dimension of breakthrough and that is renew. dependence, renew. dependence, dependence is not just a declaration, like I believe in God or I trust God, although I really encourage that. There’s certain moments of my life where all I say is four simple words. Jesus, I trust you. And it’s not cliche, and it’s not trite or trivial or religious. It’s, it’s genuine. But Jesus, I genuinely trust you right now. I don’t know what it’s going to look like. I don’t know how it’s gonna happen. But Jesus had strategy. So that’s really helpful. But that’s a declaration. But dependence isn’t just a declaration. It’s an action. That That means that there’s going to be some uncertainty in the middle of your action. It’s not all going to make sense. It’s not all going to be clearly seen. And so in moments like this, it’s it really brings us back to the place of Hmm, you know, I’ve kind of been doing this thing on my own, or, you know, I’ve kind of been on autopilot or you know, like In cruise control, and life and and it’s these moments where we can be shaken. And it’s like, we got I’m coming back. I’m coming back to the heart, I’m coming back to simple trust. And so if we can leverage these moments that we’re in right now, to reroute doubt into renewed dependence, I believe that we’re going to experience breakthrough in three dimensions, we’re going to receive an upgrade, and there’s going to be ripple effects that will happen for generations to come.
Santiago Leon
Amen. Wow. David, thank you so much. Yeah, like, you know, just what Dave said, you know, trust and reliance on God during these moments, is very important. I was talking to a person on LinkedIn the other day and you know, She was panicking. And I said, you know, put, you know, put your trust in God, put your trust in God, you know, don’t put trust in government over man. Put trust in God. And Jesus said, you will have trials in this world, you know, you will have trouble. Dave, can you pray for people out there that are panicking that people that you know, they are looking for truth? That you know, want to know Jesus? Pray for those people. Yeah,
David Guinn
actually, no doubt, Santiago. Leon, what I want to encourage you to do is if that’s where you find yourself today, I just want you to know that’s okay, the enemy would love for you to panic and then feel guilty about it. And so but the thing is, you don’t have to have it. You can, you can let go of it. And so I like to lead people into a time and I’d like to do that right now. Where that you can just release that. So wherever you’re at wherever you’re listening. I just want to invite To close your eyes to take a deep breath extends your palms up to heaven. And you might even want to picture whatever you’re experiencing right now in your hands, whether that’s panic, stress, worry, anxiety, fear, uncertainty, any of those things or others? Just imagine those they’re in your hands right now. And I just want to ask you a simple question. Would you like to get those diseases? If the answer’s yes, hmm. Just simply say and just repeat after me, Jesus. You can have my and then fill in the blank. You can have my panic. You can have my Fear, you can have my worry. I don’t want it. I don’t need it. Right, the power that this has had over my life set me free. And here’s the thing that always gives you something to replace what you’ve given him was something significantly better. Remember, it’s all about the upgrade. And so I just want to encourage you right now wherever you’re at. Just ask the Father, father. What do you want to give me and replace us and then fill in the blank? What you just gave God and just listen. He’s a good father and he gives good gifts to his children. It gets really good gifts to his children. And he wants to give you a gift. today. Remember the purpose of your obstacle isn’t to take something away from you is to give something to you. Mm hmm. just pause, rest and receive a good father this morning. Thank you, God. Jesus, we thank you that we can trust you. So I release an audacious faith over hearts right now. That is unshakable. And that is fearless. Some of you that’s your that’s your good gift this morning is greater capacity to trust God and to believe him for more. Thank you God received that. It would it would sound something like this. Jesus I choose to accept and receive the good gift of audacious things. Thank you God, or Jesus, I thank you that you are the Prince of Peace. It’s not just something you give. It’s who you are. Jesus Come on. I released the perfect piece over every heart right now. Did you receive that? I received accept. Good get the perfect peace. The garden protect my heart and mind. Firstly, perfect pieces. settling your heart is perfect pieces. shifting your perspective. This perfect piece is filling you up and giving you your breath back. Thank you God more for every heart right now in Jesus name calm Father we we also release overflowing Joy. Joy that doesn’t make sense. In your presence is fullness of it. Hmm, all the joy our hearts could ever handle. Come on do it God. We open up our hearts to receive over flowing and contagious joy. That doesn’t even make sense. How could you be so joyful in a time like this? Well, God’s about to give me an upgrade. Come on. God’s up to something big in the middle. Well, I don’t see it. Yeah, no, you don’t see it. Because God’s best work takes time. But as I wait, he’s renewing my strength. And I’m mounting up with wings like eagles and I’m soaring above The virus above the disappointment above the doubt above the fear. I’m sorry. So I released a greater capacity for your hearts to soar during season. more tricky, huh? Yeah, thank you got freedom, freedom from every heart, freedom to rest, freedom to remain freedom to be loved freedom to be seen, held, known and heard. Jesus we thank you for this moment. Thank you for coming in close. We thank you for a real experience of your life.
Santiago Leon
In Jesus name, amen. Amen. David incredible and if you guys You no need to submit any prayer requests or the praise reports you could do that through our via Twitter, you can always dm us or reply to us or on the Facebook ever able to able to leave a comment or if you want to privately leave a message with us as well on through Facebook and Twitter, but this is you know, this is what we bring, you know, we want to bring life to you and what Dave says you gotta you got to know Jesus and he’ll bring peace to you gotta let him in. And things like that. Dave. Kay, tell us a little bit. A little bit about how your church and what’s the plans during this whole a whole coronavirus situation.
David Guinn
Yeah. We’re going digital. Like, like so many across the country. And we’re calling it digital discipleship. And not only are we going to be live streaming See our content on Sunday. But we are doing zooms and Google meats for our life groups, and making it possible for us to stay connected and encouraged and cared for. While still pursuing more of God’s presence, we did that on Wednesday night for the first time I lead a group called New to faith. Which sounds like it’s just for new believers. But there’s a lot of people I found in, in the church world who’ve never been discipled. They’ve given their life to Christ and started a relationship with him. But nobody’s come alongside of them to journey with them. And so that’s what this space is created for. And we really had a memorable time with God through technology. It was significant, it was weighty, things shifted, things were broken off through technology and say we’re going to leverage technology the best way we can. And we’ve also either called or texted every single person in our church this week, just to make sure that they’re okay to to check on how their heart is to see their perspective on things to continue to believe for breakthrough in 3d. And so, these are the ways that we’re going to continue to do that until we have some new news on all the quarantine.
Santiago Leon
Yeah, and your church is in the Raleigh area, right?
David Guinn
It is. Yeah. Research
Santiago Leon
and and what’s the best way for people to reach out or have more information in a weaker church?
David Guinn
Yeah, focus church. Really simple focus dot church and they can find everything else about our church there. They can follow us on YouTube, Facebook, and we’d love for For them to be a part of what God’s doing there. And then if they want any information on what we’re doing overseas standout ministries.com, we’d love. We take teams around the world, to empower nationals to love hearts back to life. And if there’s somebody who would like to be a part of one of our teams, we would we would love to mobilize them, equip them, and then launch them into what I believe will be the most memorable experience of their life. And as they tell people for the very first time, about God’s outrageous love,
Santiago Leon
and then and how can people reach you for any more information?
Unknown Speaker
Sure, yeah. They’re free to reach out to me on my telephone number. I’m fine with that 919-632-9267 you can email At the Glen, the G UI in focus dot church or Dave at standout ministries.com You can also follow me on Instagram at Dave Glen Jr. are on Facebook and Dave Quinn do a Monday morning, Facebook Live called make Monday matter. And I also have that in podcast form on Spotify and iTunes and wherever you can find your podcast,
Santiago Leon
man. That’s awesome. Dave Gwynn is all digital connected. You can also find them on Instagram and Twitter. And of course on this podcast and of course, you can reach us at the Insta Bible app. To the web page, it’s above calm, and you can also search for us on Insta Bible app one On Twitter, and on Facebook is the Bible app and you can find more information about the app itself. And what we do. And we do have another podcast later on today with Eric Olson. from Idaho he’ll be sharing another devotional. So we have a double show today double duty so it should be very exciting on a crazy well not too crazy Friday that some days are a little bit more crazier than others, but Friday just kind of started so hopefully we’ll be peaceful and we’ve been hearing some good news about you know, new medication so hopefully that can span out a little bit more. But what Dave, really a blessing having you on and we’ll, we will keep in touch. I appreciate you coming on to this Bible cast.
David Guinn
Yeah, bro. Thanks so much for the invite blessings on you and all the listeners.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai