Hi, this is Joel and Victoria. Thanks for downloading our podcast. We enjoy spending this time with you. I hope you'll leave inspired.

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We're God bless you. It's a joy to be with you today. If you're ever in our area, please stop by and be a part of one of our services. I promise you, we'll make you feel right at home.

I like to start with something funny and I heard about this church service. One Sunday morning, everything was going great until a bolt of lightning hit the sanctuary.

When the smoke cleared, Satan himself was standing at the podium. People panicked and took off running as fast as they could. Everyone that is except one lady.

She sat in the front row just as calm as can be. Satan was appalled. He said, lady, do you know who I am? She said, I sure do. He said, aren't you afraid of me? She said, not in the least bit. He said, why not? She said, why should I be? I've been married to your brother for 30 years.

Say it like you mean it. This is my Bible. I am what it says I am. I have what it says I have. I can do what it says I can do. Today I will be taught the Word of God. I boldly confess. My mind is alert. My heart is receptive. I will never be the same. In Jesus name, God bless you.

I want to talk to you today about living at rest. Rest doesn't mean that you are on vacation, you never do anything. We all have to work and deal with challenges and interact with different people. But we are supposed to do it from a place of peace.

We are not stressed out, worried, fighting everything that we don't like. Hebrews 4 tells us to enter into the rest of God. That is a place where we know God's in control. We know He is fighting our battles.

But here is the key. Once you enter this rest, you are not automatically going to stay there. Life is full of peace dealers. There will always be people and circumstances trying to pull you out. If you are going to live in peace, you have to put up some boundaries and not allow everything in.

You can't watch the news 24 hours a day and expect to stay at rest. Your mind wasn't meant to take in all the tragedies, accidents, killings over and over. That is going to pull you out of rest. Do yourself a favor, turn it off. Be careful what you feed your inner person.

If you watch all the news about the price of oil going down and they are all in bankruptcies, it is going to cause you to live stressed out, worried, on edge. You can't feed on negativity and discouragement and expect to stay positive in faith field.

I like to watch the news of course to know what is going on in the world. But after about 15 minutes I have learned everything I need to know. I don't keep taking it in again and again.

The 24 hour news most of that repeats every 30 minutes. It was designed for people flipping on and off not to watch over and over. Put on some good news. Feed your inner person encouraging things that build you up and cause you to stay positive, hopeful and inspired.

One Friday night, Victoria and I went to watch this movie about a war. It was very violent. Heads were being blown off and people being tortured and families ripped apart. I went in there in peace. Simply wanting to be entertained. But when I left I was on edge. I felt like I had been run over by a truck. That whole night I dreamed I was in the middle of that war. Victoria kept waking me up. Joel you having a nightmare wake up.

What we take in through our eyes and ears eventually gets into our subconscious mind. If you're taking in all the negative, violence, discouragement that's going to depress your spirit.

The next day I had to get up and finish preparing my message for Saturday night and I learned my lesson. I can't take that in the night before and be my best the next day.

You need to be aware of what's pulling you out of that rest. Sometimes it's our own choices. If you get on social media and you're constantly comparing your life to everyone else's that's going to discourage you.

You'll never feel good about who you are as long as you're competing with others. Because there'll always be somebody more beautiful, more talented, more successful. That's a peace stealer.

Put up a boundary and say I am not going to live in somebody else's world. Obsessed with what they're doing, where they're going, what they're eating, what they're driving. I'm going to run my own race.

Listen, you can miss your destiny caught up in somebody else's life. Successful people are too focused on their own race to look around to see what everybody else is doing.

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