Hello and welcome to One on One. We are so pleased that you've chosen Christian programming to be in your homes and we are honored and blessed that you have chosen us, Buddy and Veronica McLaughlin, to come and to break the bread of life with you and bring the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ, this wonderful technology and wherever you're hearing this from. Just thank you for the body of our hearts, for taking the time out of your busy days to allow us to share the Word of God. We really sincerely believe that it will enrich your lives in so many ways.
Just receive it and enjoy it. Well, what you always say, we break the bread. Yes. It's a word of life.
So when we read the Word of God, it's life to us. We have to read the Word of God every day. If we didn't eat, we would become emaciated. And so many times Christians are walking around emaciated.
I mean, we've got to devour the Word of God. It's alive. The Word of God, when we read it, it brings a strength, it brings us encouragement. There's never been a time that I have not gone through a very difficult or just, it's any time in my day that I'm struggling or I need a word.
People are always saying, I need prophecy is good. We believe in prophecy. There are times that we work in the gifts of prophecy. And people are saying, I need a word.
What's God saying? What's God saying? Well, get in the Word of God. There's never been a time that I haven't needed a word that I go to the Word of God.
And God speaks to me. Yes, I do have people speaking to my life that I trust and I know that God is speaking to them. But when I need God, speaks to me directly. He speaks to my heart.
I go to the Word of God. So when we're breaking the Word of God with you today, when we're reading out of His Word, we're praying that that bread goes to you, that it will feed your spirit, not our words. Our words are nothing. But it's the anointing of God that comes in and it breaks the yoke.
And without the anointing, we're just tingling brass and clanging symbols. We're just talking heads that it takes the anointing of God. And the anointing comes from His Word. So we want to emphasize that today that we don't take credit for anything.
All about God. May we decrease that He will increase in everything that we do. So when you are listening to us today, we're praying that you were taking the Word of God and it is the life that you need. It's the bread that you need.
It's exactly what you need to get through this day. God truly does give us the grace for each day. But we need to take it. Yes.
There was an artist back in the 60s and she's still a lot of days. She's 93. And her name is Margaret King. And she was a very famous artist.
But she started out a very rough career painting pictures of people, of animals with big, sad eyes. And everyone thought that they were just the weirdest paintings. And again, she was back in San Francisco in the 60s. Now there was a lot of weird stuff going on in San Francisco back in the 60s.
And we love people in San Francisco. We have great friends in San Francisco. We have great friends in San Francisco. We love you.
We love you. We know that they need Jesus. But anyway, she all of a sudden she got married. And this guy started promoting her work.
And the thing was, he started promoting her work is his work. And then he had her convinced. It's a long story. But there was a movie in 2014 about it called Big Eyes.
And so anyway, he portrays these paintings as his and convinces her that because all of a sudden it's become so successful that they change the story that the empire is going to fall and he's taking all the credit for all the work that she's done. Well, as fate would have it, after 20 years of deception, she finally decides I've had enough of this crazy guy. I'm going to get a divorce. And they actually wind up in a courtroom.
And they have a paint off because he's still claiming because the signature legitimately, he put the keen K-A-N-E on the painting. So he could reproduce that. But he couldn't reproduce the paint. They had a paint off.
He had some excuse why he couldn't paint. In 45 minutes, she painted this beautiful picture. The judge said, I've seen all I need to see. This is her work.
You've taken credit for it. This is her empire. It's really quite a cool story. But it's much like when you look biblically in Jeremiah, Israel was all of a sudden getting pretty big about everything going on good for them and how tough they were and how good they were about everything.
It became pretty puffed up in themselves and started taking the credit for what the artist God was doing in Israel. God will not share his glory with any man. No, that will be cut low. And you see that even in, and I don't mean to get off point here, but I feel like I need to say this even in ministries that you cannot take the glory from God.
Anything that we are doing, it's not us. It's all about him. It's all about God. And it's all about what he wants to do.
It's for his glory and work through us. But when people get high and exalted and haughty, then the Bible says that pride comes before fall and it's not just in ministry. It's in business. It's in families.
We've seen it in all specters of humanity that when people build themselves up in themselves, then it's not long. And we all know people who are that way. We do. And it's tough.
They wind up pushing you away if you really are a humble spirited person who appreciates the fact that we're not all this, that we think that we are without God in our lives. I can do nothing without him. Absolutely nothing. And when I get the point that I think I can, I'm going to want to get myself in trouble because I ain't that talented.
It's just like starting this ministry. I mean, we're very humble mountain people. We're raised in the heart, both of us, in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains. And when God spoke to us to do television, media ministry, he's like, take back the airwaves, and give them the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
And so then we started having a conversation with the Lord and I'm like, well, we are here in the mountains. Where do we go? What do we do? And it was very humbling when God speaks something.
So anything that we have done, we can't take the credit for because we're just not that smart. We don't know how to do that. And how it began, we just said we are available for your service. And we ordered television equipment with the help of our church telling us what to order.
And we ended up in the front room of our house. We didn't know what we were doing. But we started off very humbly. And still we haven't forgotten where we have come from.
We have to know that God orchestrated all of this for His glory. And our prayer still is, buddy, to this day. May we decrease. What our words say is of no effect, but it's through the Spirit of God.
It's through His power. May He increase so that we can see this great harvest of souls before the coming of the Lord. He's coming soon. He's coming.
And we must be prepared. And we are like voices crying in the wilderness, prepare you the way of the Lord. So we can't forget where we have come from. And I think that's where we're going here with Jeremiah.
Israel, God's chosen people. They forgot where they came from. And it was obvious when you got your Bibles turned with us to Jeremiah in chapter 9, beginning verse 23. And it says, let's say the Lord.
Let not the wise man glory in His wisdom. Let not the mighty man glory in His might. Nor let the rich man glory in His riches. Let him who glories glory in this, that He understands and knows me, the Lord God.
I am the Lord exercising loving kindness, judgment, righteousness in the earth, or in these eye delight says the Lord. In verse 25 it says, behold the days are coming says the Lord, that I will punish all who are circumcised with the uncircumcised. Egypt, Judah, Edom, and the people of Amnon, Moab, and all who are the farthest corners who dwell in the wilderness for all these nations are uncircumcised and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in the heart. And that's what He is basically saying.
He said, if your heart is not circumcised, if your heart has flesh around it, then you it's not pleasing to me and I'm not going to stand for it. He said, in any wisdom God gives us the wisdom. It's God's glory. It is God who exalts and it's God who takes down.
We cannot forget. And at this particular time Israel forgot. And we're looking at the nations of the world today. It's just like with America.
America is still one nation under God. God loves America. But if America gets haughty, then things are going to happen in America and all across the world. Things haven't changed.
If He did this with Israel, God's chosen people, then He's going to do that with us as well. And so, He was just explaining it to everyone. Look, guys, don't get all about yourselves here. You're going to get yourself in the trouble.
God says, hey, look, He'll bring every kingdom in here. You're His chosen. But you ate the only ones. And He was warning, giving them a warning.
And He did that. And they didn't heed what He was saying. Jeremiah was a prophet who had a tough road. He had a tough road to go because he was a stubborn group of people who just had determined.
Had things changed, though, Betty? Even today, we see the stubborn group of stiff-neck people that things haven't changed. And God is saying, listen, this is not all about you. I will bring other people in.
I'm not going to share my glory. And I'm just, I mean, that's just where we are today. Well, you know, there are so many things to look at today as far as what we're experiencing, what we're seeing. And it's a culmination.
We're seeing us do the same things over and over again and looking for a different result, looking for something that is not going to happen when we know what the end result actually is going to be. We're not going to change it just because we want it to be different. And God says, look, you know, I'm telling you, you go down these roads, it's not going to be a happy ending. And that is got to be so painful for his people to realize that to be told you're uncircumcised in your heart that you can't strip away the things in your heart that would keep you from him.
It's a shame when all of a sudden you can't be clean in your heart toward God when God has carried you out through the millenniums. And it's the same today. You know, he wants to carry us farther today than he ever has. But we've got to realize we've got to put these things behind us that are unfleasing to God.
We've got to call them for what they are, that they are sinful by nature, you know, especially when you look at the fact that we allow babies to die, that we kill them prematurely, that is murder, plain and simple, that is a life that is created. And to abort that life is not pleasing to God. It is murder. And we will be held accountable for those lives that we're taking.
We as a nation, we as a people will be held accountable. So those are choices that we make. We can't get all puffed up in ourselves and we can't become the Lord God and say what lives and what dies when a life is created through the miracle, the miracle that God put into each of us to create a life. It is not up to us to take that creation away.
It is only up to the Creator to do that. And when we say we're going to do it, we put ourselves above the Creator. And that is going to come with a price. And I'm speaking to you from my heart today that this is not something that I say lightly.
This is something that I feel in my heart that is God's Word. We can't disguise it. We can't run from it. Because there's another scripture I want to read to you in James 1 17 that says, Every perfect gift is from the Father and life is a gift from Him.
Life is a gift from our Lord. But where are you? Maybe with your family. Maybe you're the Lord over your family.
Are you Lording over your family in a loving kind way? Not taking credit for all the things. I mean, I've got wonderful things that have happened in my life. I've got great people that are around me every day of my life.
I am so blessed. But God put me in that situation. God brought those people into my life. And I give Him the glory.
I praise Him for everything that we accomplish together. We don't do anything without Him. We praise Him and give Him the credit and the glory for all the wonderful things in our ministry, in our home, with our families, with our secular walk. Everything that we do.
I mean, I would love for someone to count the number of times in a week that I say praise the Lord. It would be a lot. It would be a lot. Because I praise the Lord constantly because it is God who deserves the praise and the glory.
I do nothing. I am nothing. I am nothing but a servant of the King. That's it.
When we lose sight of that, when we drift away from that principle and that foundation, everything else falls apart. It's humility. God wants the humility from us. We are nothing.
And Jesus was a prime example of that. Even before He went to the cross at the Last Supper, He girded Himself with a towel and He got down and He washed the feet of His disciples, all twelve, including Judas, including the man who was getting ready to betray Him. So the humility that we have to walk through this life with, we cannot be exalted in ourselves. It is not pleasing to God.
We have to give God the credit. We have to give God the praise. And yes, buddy, I hear you say praise the Lord. But anything that goes good, it's even the smallest of things.
When you find your glasses, when you've lost your glasses, I would hear Him say, praise the Lord. And I said, oh, He's found His glasses. It's constantly coming out of us because we acknowledge Him. God is looking at our hearts, but He to be circumcised.
And that means just to get the flesh out of us. It's time that we as Christians get out of this flesh and we need to love each other. We need to be humble with each other. And then Jesus gave us the sermon on the Mount with the Beatitudes.
And the first thing that He said, blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. The poor in spirit here means blessed are the humble. Blessed are the meek. Blessed are those because that you will have the Kingdom of Heaven.
Now that is what Jesus is saying. If you want all of the benefits of the Kingdom of Heaven, the healing, the riches, the joy, the contentment, the peace, the Kingdom of Heaven can be right here on this earth. If you want that, blessed are you who are humble. When you say humble, there's probably only a few people that come to mind in there.
A lot of people that we know who we love and different personalities. But Jesus wants us to walk this life with true humility, with true circumcised hearts so that we can reach others for His Kingdom. I don't want to miss that. I don't want to give God to give my blessings to somebody else.
I want those blessings. And in order to have those blessings for me and my family, I want to say blessed am I that I want to be humble before the Lord, going on with the Beatitudes. Yes. It's beautiful because humility means that you're acknowledging your helplessness without God.
That you are someone that without God in your life, that you don't have the direction, that you don't have the promise. It says we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. We can do all things through Him. It doesn't say we can do all things except we can do these on our own.
It says we can do all things through Christ. And when we try to do things on our own, we mess it up every time. When God doesn't get the glory in ministry, ministries will fall. When you try to take the credit for something that you're doing or a name, you know, we don't want a name.
We don't want fame. We don't want riches. We just want the glory of God to feel the earth and we want to be part of that. Yes.
I want to say God do wonderful things in lives. We want to see us be able to help Him chip away at every brick and air wall that is not about glorifying Him. That's really our heart's desire is to strengthen, encourage, and help and lift up and exhort God through everything that we would say. And you were talking about the Beatitudes.
Jesus was one of the most beautiful, beautiful speeches that he ever made, one of the most beautiful things that he ever said. And humility was the very first thing that he brought up. And the reason for that was is that none of the other things, the attributes that he says we should show as people could exist without the first. Yes.
And we need some of the traits from the attitudes. And let me say one more thing about humility. Being all about yourself, being proud, prideful, being proud is, is vice in heaven. I guess it would be probably the most polite way I could say that.
Because it's not going to be viewed in the heavenlies as something that's going to get you a ticket to heaven. That's not the way you get there. Basically, get you kicked out. If you have pride.
You can say I can handle it above God. And I'm going to get the attention. And I'm going to have the power. And there's no pride in heaven.
It's been kicked out eons ago. And it will not enter in. The early ages don't entertain it. That is one of the things I think that God says that he hates a proud look, proud heart.
He hates that. So we don't want to be involved in anything that God hates. We want him to smile upon us. So humility in being at the feet of Jesus.
And we see people who have been broken at the feet of Jesus, even the woman with the alabaster box, the humility that she had to be broken at his feet, the humbleness. That is basic 101 Christianity. And don't regard humility as weakness. It is strength in the kingdom of God.
It is. I remember speaking with someone and he was really trying to belittle me as a Christian. And I said, look, don't mistake meekness for weakness. Okay?
You're getting ready to get yourself across a line you don't want to cross. And that was good. We had that conversation. And it didn't sink in for years.
But he did come back to me years later and have a conversation which I was so pleased that we did. But speaking of the beatitudes, I just want to kind of go down the list to show you how important humility is. It says, you know, you can't be meek without humility. You can't hunger and thirst for righteousness if you already feel that you're righteous.
You can't be merciful unless you see the need for mercy. You can't be pure in heart if your heart's full of pride. You can't be a peacemaker if you feel you're always right. If you can't identify Christ through humility, then you're going to really struggle in being able to lead others to the cross.
And they're not going to see the cross when they can't see beyond your pride to that cross. Today, let's just take a breath. Okay? Let's take a moment.
And we're going to pray with you in just a moment because I really know that God wants to deal with a lot of people. This world promotes a lot of selfishness. It promotes a lot of self-servitude kind of things. You know, we know that some generation that we won't even mention has kind of been identified as a self-serving group.
We don't receive that. We don't. We know that they're just looking for something more than what they've seen. And we know that God can be that for them as well.
But we've got to put ourself aside. We've got to reach in to the very heart of God and understand that what's pleasing to Him is that we give Him the glory for all the good things, the goodness in our lives, the beautiful things that we see, that we praise Him. Even through the tough times we can say, God, we know you have a purpose for this and we are going to be your servants through it. Humbleness is so important.
Humility is so key. Don't leave yourself on the outside looking in because that's where you're going to wind up when you get yourself all puffed up with pride. If you've made mistakes and you see that pride is the cause, ask for forgiveness. Recognize there's something wrong and just say, hey, look, God doesn't care.
It doesn't phase Him that you've got an issue. What He wants to hear is your repentance from it. He'll help you through the rest of it. But you've got to ask Him to forgive you and ask others to forgive you.
Recognize your false, especially humbledness. Humility is so important in your walk with Christ. Can't emphasize that enough. But Veronica, let's pray.
Let's join together. God, we thank you that we have the ability to come before you today in all humility. Yes, Lord. God, we're asking you to forgive us.
Forgive us as a people. Forgive us as a nation. Forgive us, God. We come to you.
You said that if we would humble ourselves before you, 2 Chronicles, God, that we would cry out and that we would repent, that you would forgive us and forgive our sins and you would restore us and you will restore our nation. God, we need restoration. We need forgiveness. So we're coming humbly before you today.
God, we want everything that you have in store for us. We want your glory and we don't want to take any credit for it. God, we're praying that you circumcise our hearts today. Anything in our hearts that are not like you, take it away, cleanse us, God.
Cover us by the mighty blood of Jesus. Now, God, I'm asking for our nation, the babies that have been killed here and across the world. Forgive us, God. Forgive us, Lord.
We're crying out, God, so that we can repent, so that you can bring your blessings upon us once more, God. We are your nation under God and God, we're standing up right now with our hearts and our minds and our strength. With all of our being just saying, God, here we are. We're pouring everything out of our hearts for you today, God, to come in with our families, restore our families.
God, we give you praise and we give you glory in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, we love you. Yes.
And God loves you. And until we see you again next week, remember that God is always faithful. Hello, everyone. Veronica and I would like to thank you so much for partnering with Dev Song Ministries through these many years.
We appreciate your support, your love. We look forward each week to coming and being a part of your life in your homes. Bring you God's Word. We are so humbled to receive your praise reports of salvation, of healing, and restoration.
We are excited to take this gospel across the world. We know this next season is bringing great harvest for His glory. Thank you. And remember, the best is yet to come.
We hope this program has enlightened and enriched your life. This ministry is made possible by the grace of God and your generous financial support. If you would like to partner with our ministry to spread the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ, right? Call or visit our website at www.buddyandvaronica.com.
We look forward to visiting with you again soon. Until then, remember, God is always faithful.