4:13 Podcast: Can I Survive the End of the World As I Know It? With Amy Lively [Episode 296]

Amy Lively: It is an acronym that stands for The End Of The World As We Know It. And, you know, it's not a fun little jingly song that we used to hear on the radio. It is the end of our hopes and dreams, the ends of our plans and ambitions, the end of what we thought our world was going to be like. It will someday be the end of all things when Christ returns. But I think all of us at one time or another have had this TEOTWAWKI moment. We remember where we were standing, what we were wearing, what the weather was that day when we have this moment that changes everything.

Jennifer Rothschild: When problems pour in, our peace can run out, our hope can drain away in the face of troubles. And in these uncertain times of personal crisis, national chaos, and global catastrophes, it's easy to wonder if it's the end of the world, or at least the end of the world as we know it. Well, today, Bible teacher and author Amy Lively is going to pour you a Venti-size cup of hope. She is going to guide us through the beautiful story of Peter and show us how to set our hope on Christ alone 100%. She is going to help us understand that when the end of the world as we know it looms, it's just the beginning of the power of Jesus.

You are going to love this insightful Bible study conversation today, so, K.C., here we come.

K.C. Wright: Here we go. Welcome to the 4:13 Podcast, where practical encouragement and biblical wisdom set you and I up to live the "I Can" life, because you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you.

Now, welcome your host, Jennifer Rothschild.

Jennifer Rothschild: Hello, our friends. We're glad you're back with us again, and welcome. If you're a new friend, we're just so glad you've joined us. That was K.C. Wright, and I'm Jennifer, and we're here to help you be and do more than you feel capable of as you're living the "I Can" life of Philippians 4:13 along with us.

And by the way, y'all have been leaving such kind and encouraging reviews. And so I am going to shamelessly ask you again, if you have never left a review, please do so. We've told you before, it makes a difference. You make a difference. So if these messages of hope-filled encouragement and practical biblical wisdom are ministering to you and helping you, then you know it's going to help somebody else and minister to somebody else. So would you please be part of that ministry by leaving a review. And as K.C. would say, leave a kind review.

K.C. Wright: Please.

Jennifer Rothschild: Not just any review.

K.C. Wright: Please.

Jennifer Rothschild: We don't want a mediocre one or a slam review.

K.C. Wright: Don't be ugly. Jesus said, "People will know that you're my followers by your love."

Jennifer Rothschild: Yes. So love, love us.

K.C. Wright: It matters what you say with your mouth and with your fingers.

Jennifer Rothschild: It does.

K.C. Wright: It really does.

Jennifer Rothschild: But in all seriousness, though, we do want an honest review, we really do.

K.C. Wright: Yeah.

Jennifer Rothschild: We're just playing around.

But we hope that today this conversation will encourage you, because I think, K.C., there is an encouragement deficit in the world.

K.C. Wright: Oh, come on.

Jennifer Rothschild: Isn't there?

K.C. Wright: Yes.

Jennifer Rothschild: And, you know, when you look at the original Latin that we get our English word "encourage" from, it literally is this combination of phrases that -- well, you know, the middle of encourage, c-o-u-r, that is, in Latin, heart.

K.C. Wright: What?

Jennifer Rothschild: Right? And so when you are encouraging someone, you are infusing courage into their heart. You are, like, heartening them.

K.C. Wright: Wow.

Jennifer Rothschild: You are giving their heart something that their heart needs. I know when K.C. shows up for us to record, that's what I feel. His mere presence and friendship is an encouragement. I hope that the words you hear today on this conversation for you are an encouragement, they infuse strength into your heart. And I know what you're going to hear from the Word of God through Amy Lively is going to encourage you. She's going to fill your cup with hope today.

So let's introduce Amy.

K.C. Wright: Amy Lively is a writer and speaker with a degree in Christian Ministry. Her previous work includes "How to Love Your Neighbor Without Being Weird." She has been featured on Focus on the Family, Family Life Today, and many other great programs. She lives in Colorado, but don't be surprised if you find her often on the beach in Florida. That is definitely her happy place.

Jennifer Rothschild: Me too, Amy.

K.C. Wright: Same. Yes. Get ready to be filled. Here we go.

Jennifer Rothschild: All right, Amy. I already talked about, in my introduction with me and K.C., that I've known you for a long time and got to see how God has just built this message in your life, and it's just so fun to get to talk to you. But I got to say this new book, something in it I have never heard of. And I'm like, what is up with Amy? Has she lost her mind? Okay. You've got this word you use, and I'm going to try to pronounce it.

Amy Lively: Okay. I give hints for pronouncing words all throughout the book. So let's see how it goes.

Jennifer Rothschild: I'm going to try this one based on your hints. TEOTWAWKI. TEOTWAWKI?

Amy Lively: Exactly. TEOTWAWKI. Exactly. Yeah.

Jennifer Rothschild: All right. Amy, now, your book is written in English. But what is that? What does that mean?

Amy Lively: It is an acronym that stands for The End Of The World As We Know It. And, you know, it's not a fun little jingly song that we used to hear on the radio. It is the end of our hopes and dreams, the ends of our plans and ambitions, the end of what we thought our world was going to be like. It will someday be the end of all things when Christ returns.

But I think all of us at one time or another have had this TEOTWAWKI moment. We remember where we were standing, what we were wearing, what the weather was that day when we have this moment that changes everything. Yeah. It's something that I think we can all relate to, whether we've had -- oh, I don't know. Maybe finding out you're losing your sight when you're 15.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah. How about that?

Amy Lively: Yeah, yeah. Or the loss of a marriage, the death of a vision, the loss of a dream. Sometimes it's a long slow slide into the end of the world as we know it and you wake up one day and you just realize, wow, how did I get here? This is not what I ever, ever planned or wanted or prayed for my life.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah, I think you're right, we've all had those moments. And it's interesting you said we can remember where we were, what we were wearing, because it makes this imprint on our soul that's very deep. And that's when, like, we're the most desperate for some kind of clarity or some kind of hope. And so enter the title of your book. Okay? Your book is called "Can I Borrow a Cup of Hope?" I love that title, by the way.

Amy Lively: Thank you.

Jennifer Rothschild: So I want you to unpack it, because we've had those moments that you just described. And even if we haven't had a big catastrophic one, like you said, we've had the slow fade sometimes. Like even watching the news, you know. Even our own world, as we're watching things around us, we're like, oh, my gosh, I think it's coming to an end. So from whom or where do we borrow this cup of hope?

Amy Lively: Well, 1 Peter is very clear. Our hope and faith is in God. It's so empty -- it's like drinking saltwater to just say, you know, Oh, have faith. Your faith will get you through. It's our faith in what? We have to really clarify what our faith and our hope is truly in.

And 1 Peter was written to people whose worlds had completely changed from the newly resurrected Christ to intense persecution. So they had lived that. And what Peter told them was to set their hope fully on the grace brought when Christ is revealed. And Christ is revealed in those moments of desperation and thirst and craving for hope more than any other time in our lives.

Jennifer Rothschild: I love how you pointed out that verse. Because I was going to ask you why 1 Peter, but clearly you just explained that. But it's interesting that the hope is in the grace that is in Christ when he is revealed.

And it's interesting, Amy, I've had moments in my life where I've realized that what I thought was grace, you know, that I was relying on, was really my own drive or dogged determination, or whatever, until that crumbled, and then I realize, oh, I had my hope in me, not in the grace that is in Christ. And so have you had any moments like that where you've realized, oh, that's where my hope really needs to be, that's what my faith needs to be in?

Amy Lively: Oh, absolutely. Like, almost every day when I realize that I'm in my own head planning, dreaming, scheming how even the day is going to go, let alone how my relationships are going to go, my career, my bank balance, my family. We all have this map in our minds of how we want things to go, and it's not until we can truly, truly say, wow, if nothing ever changes, I'm still with Jesus. I am sticking with him. It's not about happy outcomes, it's finding joy no matter what comes. And that's truly where joy comes in. Because Peter also talks about rejoicing in our suffering, which I think is a little ridiculous.

Jennifer Rothschild: It's not my first response.

Amy Lively: No, not my first one. Like, Oh, I stubbed my toe, hallelujah. And that's just a small example.

But the true rejoicing comes because we do see God's grace. And our hope is in the grace, but it's at the revelation of Christ he is revealed. He will be revealed. And that is his grace, to come to us through Scripture, through a Spirit, through song, and through people and through comfort and through peace, and he comes to us in those moments of suffering.

Jennifer Rothschild: He is near to the broken-hearted.

One of the things that's interesting to me also, Amy, is in your book you write about Peter's wife. Okay? But she's not even got a name in the Bible. We don't even know what her name is.

Amy Lively: I know.

Jennifer Rothschild: So I'm curious why you talk about her. Like, what is it that's so special about her, and what have you learned from her or what could we learn from her?

Amy Lively: Oh, so, so much. We know he had a wife because he had a mother-in-law who Jesus healed. And then Paul specifically says that Peter traveled with his wife. And if I know anything after being married for 33 years, I bet she looked at this little letter before Peter mailed it out to all these churches. And so Peter being married, his relationship with his wife was probably the basis for his words to wives and to husbands and about relationships and family, so he would have lived that out with her.

We know that Peter's death is not in the Bible. All the books in the canon of the New Testament were written before Peter was killed. But we do have really solid early church historians who recorded those things for us. And what I learned was that Peter and his wife, according to an historian named Eusebuis, were both martyred for their faith on the same day. And that tells me that she stuck with him.

I mean, we know from all the stories about Peter that she would have been so close to Peter's life and Peter's walk with Jesus. She would have been waiting for Peter when he got home late, when he met this man on the shore who told him to cast his net on the other side. She would have held Peter as he wept the night that he denied Christ. We know she was praying with him when he was in prison. And they would get to the end of their lives together, when they are both facing their own death because of their faith in Christ, that they did this together as well.

But what Eusebuis said was that when Peter saw his wife -- he calls it being summoned home. Not being killed for her faith, but God calling her home. He called out to her and he said, "Oh, remember the Lord. Remember the Lord." And I know that when Peter ran up to the empty tomb and stuck his head in there and then saw the risen Christ and was filled with the Holy Spirit, that this is what enabled them to look at their own suffering, their own TEOTWAWKI time. This was definitely the end.

Jennifer Rothschild: Right. It was literally the end of the world for them.

Amy Lively: Yeah. With joy, with true joy, and remembering what Christ has done and what he has given to us. So I love the story of them together.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah. I've never heard that, and that's beautiful. I love that. And may we all remember the Lord when we are summoned home.

Amy Lively: Remember the Lord, yes.

Jennifer Rothschild: That's beautiful.

Amy Lively: Don't you want a friend like that? A friend who's seriously not going to say, like, "Oh, you don't deserve this," or, "God won't give you more than you can handle," or even, "I'm praying for you." We want the prayers of the saints and our friends, but somebody who just says, "Hey, remember Jesus." In everything you're going through, remember Jesus. Just remember the Lord is the reminder that we all need every day.

Jennifer Rothschild: I love that too, Amy. Because it's interesting, in our well-meaning attempts to encourage, we can almost feed this self-centered need within us. Like, "You can do this."

Amy Lively: Yeah. That's what I do to myself.

Jennifer Rothschild: I know, right?

Amy Lively: Yeah, right.

Jennifer Rothschild: But when we say, "Remember the Lord," it takes our eyes off of us, which is far more strengthening. Wow. Right there is a cup of hope that's brimming right over. That's beautiful.

One of the chapters in your book is called "How to Survive the End of the World." I love this, by the way. I just think that's so practical. And you took one passage from 1 Peter and you pulled five ways. Okay, so -- because I write books, when someone starts to say something like that to me, my mind immediately starts racing, oh, my gosh, do I remember the five ways? So I'm going to give you a chance.

Amy Lively: Okay.

Jennifer Rothschild: All right. But I would --

Amy Lively: I have them in front of me already.

Jennifer Rothschild: Oh, good. You are prepared. Okay. Because we want to know, what are these five ways that we can survive the end of the world according to 1 Peter? So share them with us.

Amy Lively: Well, the passage is from 1 Peter 4:7-11. And Peter says, "The end of the world is coming soon." And we've talked about how that can be the end of everything or the end of our own hopes and dreams. But these all apply no matter what kind of situation we're facing. But he says, "The end of the world is coming soon, therefore." And that's where we get the five tips.

And the first thing he says is be earnest and disciplined in your prayers. So the first tip to survive the end of the world is to pray mindfully. That's a very focused prayer. I mean, Peter is famous for falling asleep during his prayers, not just in Gethsemane one, two, three times, but also at the transfiguration he fell asleep. Now he uses a word that means wide awake. Pray wide awake.

This is one of the reasons I love Peter. Because for every command that he gives us in this passage, we have a story in the Gospels of how he failed to do it. And that gives me so much hope for myself that with transformation and with maturity and with growth, we can do these things as well. So pray mindfully is the first tip to survive the end of the world.

Next Peter says to show deep love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins. That's the second step, is to just love one another so well. I think when we're suffering, my instinct is to blame maybe, to isolate. And instead, Peter is saying, no, we got to get out there and love people truly. This is a stretched-out love, this root of love -- soulfully I call it. Love soulfully means to stretch out your arms just like Christ did on the cross. It's sacrificial. It's probably going to hurt. The cross hurt Jesus. And to love like he did will take more of us than we think we're capable of. But that is his second command.

His third command is share cheerfully. In the 1 Peter 4 passage, it says cheerfully share your home with those who need a meal or a place to stay. And again, going against every instinct I have --

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah.

Amy Lively: -- is what -- and now I'm supposed to open my home? I think it means open ourselves to relationships and community when we're hurting. And also to not forget that sometimes serving other people and sharing what God has given us is the way out of our depression, our anxiety, our being so caught up in our own hurt and pain and even plans and busy lives.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah. It's a good word, because you're right. I love how you've pointed out even that your instinct is to almost do the opposite of all these things. It's counterintuitive. And that's why we listen to the Word not our feelings.

Amy Lively: Oh, so much.

Jennifer Rothschild: That's so good. So good.

All right, so what's the fourth one?

Amy Lively: The fourth one is God has given you each a gift to serve one another. So the next tip to survive the end of the world is to serve gracefully. So this is -- gracefully means filled with God's grace, not in our own strength, not thinking of, okay, this is what I'm good at so that's what I'm going to walk in. We're going to use those gifts as God intended them to be used. And it's also -- this is the beautiful thing about spiritual gifts. God has given other people gifts, that we don't have, that we need when we're facing the end of the world. So it's allowing ourselves to be served by the spiritual gifts that exist in our community as well.

And then finally Peter wraps up with, "Do everything with the strength that God supplies, and everything you do will be glory to God through Jesus Christ. All glory and power to him forever and ever." He just erupts into this praise. So praising God joyfully is the final strategy that we employ.

And I love that Peter got all of these tips straight from Jesus. We see Jesus doing each one of these things even just on one night of his life, on the night of the Last Supper. He prayed with his disciples. We have chapters and chapters of his prayers. In John 17, it says that he loved them to the end when he was washing the feet of the disciples. He shared everything he had. He broke bread with them, he served them -- oh, so full of grace and truth -- and then he praised God. They sang a hymn together and he praised God right up till his dying breath. And so Peter got it from Jesus. We get it from Peter. And that's why we want to know Peter, so we can know Jesus.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah. Okay, that's such a beautiful correlation I've never thought of. I love that, Amy.

Okay, listeners, we got to get this book because this has got such depth in it, I can tell. I appreciate the integrity with which you've correlated all these different Scriptures. And I love that everything Peter is telling us to do is something he failed at. Everything Peter is telling us to do --

Amy Lively: Oh, so badly.

Jennifer Rothschild: -- is something he learned from Jesus. I mean, it's just -- how beautiful. That right there, that's us. That's family life in the family of God. I appreciate how practical that is. And what I appreciate too, Amy, is when the world as we know it feels like it's coming to an end, sometimes we're just reeling emotionally and we can't think, okay, what do I do? What do I do? I love that Peter lays out five things. You have showed us very clearly what they are.

So literally, our friends, if your world's coming to an end, Amy just gave you a Scriptural to-do list. You just do what the Scripture says and watch how the Lord will carry you with his grace. So good, Amy. All right, we're getting to our last question, though, Sister.

Okay. So something else you write about is a prayer that never fails. Okay? Big claim. So tell us what this prayer is that never fails and how we can begin praying it when we feel like our world's coming to an end.

Amy Lively: It is another example of something that we get straight from Jesus' lips. That's the only place that we could ever claim to have something that never fails. And it is a prayer that really turns our suffering upside down and inside out. And it is four words that are very easy to say, but so, so hard to live. Are you ready? You ready to hear the --

Jennifer Rothschild: Yeah, I'm ready.

Amy Lively: -- four words of Jesus' prayer? Okay, it's from John 12:28. And Jesus is praying, and he says, "Father, glorify your name!" "Glorify your name, Father!" And that prayer, it's not asking for God to take all the pain away; it is asking him to sustain us through the pain. This is a prayer God will always answer yes. I have glorified my name and I will glorify it again. That is how his words are recorded back to Jesus. Yes, I've done it, and I will do it again.

This is a prayer that shifts everything from what's happening in our lives and turns it back to our Father. And it asks him to take every hard thing, every test of our fate, every trial of our heart, and just testify to his grace. It gives him the responsibility for every outcome. It helps us to lay down our lives, it opens our eyes to who is watching us go through these trials and how we might just show them where our empty cup of hope is being filled up day by day by day.

Jennifer Rothschild: Prayer turns our suffering upside down. Those four words in John 12:28, "Father, glorify your name," that is the prayer that God will always answer. I love that.

K.C. Wright: Yes. Prayer shifts everything from our world to the Father. So ask him to take all that is hard and make it for his glory. That's what prayer is. Prayer is simply asking. Ask and you will receive.

So you need to go deeper with Amy's book. If you do, it works really well with small groups, so you can do it there with friends. And also she has a devotional at the end of each chapter, which I know will infuse some hope into your heart. Okay? We will have a link to her book at 413podcast.com/296. And, of course, as usual, we have a transcript there too just for you, so you can read it or share it.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yep. All right, dear ones. Until next week, you can drink deeply from the cup of hope that is Christ. And you can share a cup of hope with those who are also thirsty, because you can do all things through Christ who gives you strength. I can.

K.C. Wright: I can.

Jennifer and K.C.: And you can.

K.C. Wright: Now back to these podcast reviews.

Jennifer Rothschild: Oh, yeah?

K.C. Wright: It's not about us --

Jennifer Rothschild: No.

K.C. Wright: -- it's about reaching one more heart for Jesus.

Jennifer Rothschild: Amen.

K.C. Wright: However --

Jennifer Rothschild: Oh, here it comes. It's about to be about us.

K.C. Wright: However, we -- first of all, our hearts give you a standing ovation for leaving a kind review.

Jennifer Rothschild: Yes.

K.C. Wright: But peradventure, if you also leave a kind review and mail Jennifer chocolate, and then mail me a duck for my Jeep, I mean --

Jennifer and K.C.: You'll definitely get a shout-out.

K.C. Wright: -- we go next level in our prayer life for you.

Jennifer Rothschild: Is this like the prosperity gospel --

K.C. Wright: Oh, no.

Jennifer Rothschild: -- the podcast Prosperity Gospel?

K.C. Wright: Oh, no. Please, no. If you do this, this will happen. Oh, no.

Jennifer Rothschild: Okay, that's funny.

K.C. Wright: Yeah, that is funny. Okay. No, seriously, we love you. See you next week.