 God's grace to carry wherever you are called to go. Well, that's what we hope for you today. We're so glad you're joining us on hope today on this wonderful Wednesday Passover's upon us. It's Holy Week. We are so glad you're joining us. I'm here with Tom Hollis and Amy Schaefer and Amy, tell us what we are diving into. We're talking about grace. Grace, listen, you might need this particular topic today because there is something during Holy Week and this weekend called Easter. And I know as a mom, there's a lot of preparations taking place. There's a lot of shopping. There's a lot of food. I've got to think about there's church stuff and it could get stressful. That is why we need our guest today, Crystal Ward, to talk about releasing anxiety and diving into God's grace and God's purpose. Now, Sidney, just wait and maybe Tennis, you know, in the next decade, you are gonna, this Easter weekend will take on a whole new picture for you. That's why my husband, I have like talked about like what we're gonna do for like, you know, with Resurrection Sunday, those kind of things not diving into that now, but Tom, what are your thoughts on that? Yes, there's always so much to think about when the family's coming over, but it is also the beginning of Passover today. And, you know, extending through to, I think, is it Thursday, Wednesday or Thursday next week? Anyway, just, I don't know if you have had a tradition, my family for several years in a row, we don't do it anymore. We kind of lost track of it. We would do a Seder and it's just great to share and to hear the symbolism in it and what it means for Christians. Yeah, and I think it's so important. You know, Jesus is our Passover lamb. And I just think of the story, you know, we read in Exodus about what was happening and how God was calling the Israelites out. And, you know, just even Tom and Amy, just thinking about, you know, things that are happening in our nation and world. I mean, we heard about the indictment that happened with former President Trump. We hear about things that are going on in the economy. We see all these shakings and these movings happening. But I think in this day and age and this hour and time that God is calling us as the body of Christ is that we're not part of the world system, that he is calling us out into a new system, into his kingdom system that operates different. And then it's like, when all these things are happening, Amy, I know like the anxiety and the stress, it's just a beautiful thing to know that we can just walk along with our Messiah and he will carry us every step of the way. We're in the world, but we're not of this world. We do operate in a different kingdom. That's what Jesus began to preach right away is the kingdom of God. And he came here to establish his kingdom on earth. And I know we all pray the prayer, you know, our Father who art in heaven, help be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done. So this holy week, this Passover week, let's believe this, that Jesus will reveal himself to people, even our Jewish friends, that as they're partaking in the Seder, that the blood, the bitter herbs that all they will see is Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. That's right, and that is a great, great thing to remember. Also, I just wanted to, you know, for this time of year, it is a time of hope, but maybe you're not in a situation where you feel a lot of hope. We always have our prayer partners available, the numbers on the screen, you can call, you can get ahold of somebody, somebody who's set aside this time for the sole purpose of praying with you. So take a value yourself of that, be getting that prayer and getting that encouragement because we all need that, Amy. As Christians, we all desire to have a close intimate relationship with God. That's what he desires for us as well, but sometimes distractions, busyness, anxiety, or self-doubt can hinder us from experiencing our connection with God. And that was the experience for our next guest, Crystal Ward, who is a Bible teacher, a podcast host, the non-profit organization Grace to Grow. And Grace to Grow is also the title of her new devotional, which is designed to help us, here we go, release anxiety and encounter God's extravagant grace. Crystal, welcome to Hope Today. Good morning, good morning, Amy, Sydney, Tom. I'm so glad to be here with you today. And I guess before we get started, I would like to say this, thank you to you guys for what you're doing to share the gospel and to encourage the church around the world. So I always like to start off with that. So we honor you and we're just so thankful for your willingness to share Jesus. Oh, wow, thank you. That's awesome. When we talk about the word stress, anxiety, I mean, people are out there right now. You can immediately think of situations and things you're dealing with. How did this topic come up to you so strongly that you're going to write a devotional about it? Because I dealt with it so much, you know, I just have had, it seems like 10 plus years of busyness in my life. And I have been a stay at home mom. I've been a working mom and now a work from home mom, because I know so many of us are doing these days. And it just seems that I was on the go for so long. But at the same time, I also have been a minister. I've been a pastor on staff at our church and a ministry leader for a long time. So I had to learn, Lord, teach me how to be close to you even amidst the busyness. And then there are things that have happened in my life that have really maybe caused but also uncovered anxiety in my life. I'm sure we'll get to that in a minute. And I had to learn how to work through those things and be close to the Lord while on the go. And I think that so many of us moms and dads and people that don't even have kids are living in that same place in our world today. And so I wanted to put together a book that really helps us to move from that chaotic place into an intimate, thriving relationship with the Lord. And that's what I hope Grace DeGro is for everyone that reads it. You start your book with a really intense, powerful story about your son. Can you share that story and why it was so important that you started with it? Yeah, well, and I think it's really important for the reader to understand that I've been where we are discussing. So maybe a little bit about me, I am married. I've been married for almost 19 years. I had to think about that for a second. We have three kids, one is 14 and 11 and seven. We are in the middle of getting ready for school at the moment. So if one of them barges through the door, y'all just pretend like nothing happened, it's fine. Look at how cute they are, you know? And so our youngest son, his name is Evan, when he was only four months old, he had a reaction to some medication that caused him to have over 70 seizures conservatively in 30 days. And honestly, I didn't really share about this story for a long time because it was so difficult for me that I felt like what I could only describe, we use this phrase loosely, but what only felt like losing my mind to have my tiny baby going through this. I wasn't sure if he was going to, I believed in faith, but I didn't have any physical, tangible proof that he was going to be okay, that he was going to have quality of life, any of these things. And what that really I think did for me is more than cause anxiety, I'm sure it caused it for sure, but maybe more so uncovered this lifelong battle that I had had with fear and anxiety and had to really go to the Lord and ask him to show me how to move past those things and to shake off all the fear that was in my life. And so it really started a process of that, a journey, really, and a lot of that is covered in the book. You say that you turned worship over to worry, praise over powerlessness and promises over lies. Tell us about the one moment where you're holding your son and you're by yourself and you just started worshiping. What did that do in that moment? Yeah, when you read about that, it really probably sounds more victorious than it actually was in the moment. I had been, like I said, just losing my mind with all of these seizures and all of these things that were happening. I mean, he was having at some days more than four a day and they were happening when he would come up out of sleep. And so there was this one day, it was a Sunday and my husband had taken the girls to church and I had stayed home with Evan and I was holding him in my lap because he would have them when he was waking up and he had fallen asleep. And I noticed as he was coming up out of his sleep, the signs of another seizure. And I had been playing worship music that morning, just trying to keep my focus right, trying to keep my mind where it was full of faith and hope. And in this moment, I'm looking at my baby and I see a sign of another seizure about to take place. And I just decided, you know what? If I keep doing what I have been doing, which is freaking out, then I'm gonna keep getting what we've continued to get. And I just decided in that moment that I would just worship and declare who God was. And it was so miraculous. The song that was playing at that moment was about Emmanuel, God with me. And I just began to declare that you are God with me. You are my healer. And it really was more out of desperation than it was victory. But I believe that it brought me to a place of victory. And I believe that from that point forward, things really started to change. They for sure started to change in me, but we also saw a change in our son. I will say this, that by the time we finally made it into a doctor's office, it took a while to get there because of scheduling. The seizures had stopped. And now to this day, he is seven. I like to say Evan is seven. He is a rampunctious, semi-annoying seven-year-old like all little boys tend to be. And he is so healthy and he loves Jesus and he actually loves to share Jesus to those around him. And so it is a beautiful story. But that moment, and maybe if I can minister to anyone that may be watching right now, you may be going through things that seem hopeless and seems so difficult. But a key factor to us walking through that thing, remember that Jesus is with you and he's holding your hand. But you'll also walk through it in a better place if you begin to declare who he is. Because praise actually shifts our eyes from the problem onto God and who he is and who he is in us and through us. He is Emmanuel, God with us. And so praise takes us from a place of powerlessness to a place of victory even in the midst of a trial when everything doesn't look the way we want it to look. Crystal, as I'm hearing about your son, it just reminds me of my daughter had seizures when she was younger. And in fact, the scariest moment of my life is when she had her first one. And we were in the car and to drive her to the hospital and be praying the whole way and not knowing what was going on because she was basically unconscious at that point. And just going through that, but trying to trust God through it. I think all of our situations, that one so seared into my memory, but anytime we have those kind of difficult situations, maybe not as severe as that, but we were coming through a season where we can't see God. What's your anchor? What do you have as an anchor for your soul in those times? One of the things that I've had to learn in my life through this issue, through other issues, we all go through things. Jesus doesn't promise to make our life perfect. In fact, he says that in this world, you will have trouble, but he says, but I have overcome the world and storms come, we live in a fallen broken world and we're not promised a perfect life, but we are promised that he will be with us at all times. And one of the things that I've had to grab a hold of is that God's grace is on me every single season of my life. It's that grace that empowers me and it's that grace that draws me to him even when life looks crazy or it looks troubling. In fact, if you go back to Exodus, we read about the children of Israel wandering in the desert. And scripture says that they were led by day by a pillar of cloud and then they were led by night by a pillar of fire. Now, a lot of the times in our Sunday school lessons, y'all remember the younger viewers watching us today may not remember, but we might remember the felt boards when we were in Sunday school and they would put all the little pictures on the felt boards, right? And they would stick up there. A lot of the times we picture this cylindrical cloud or fire, but actually in Hebrew, there is evidence that shows it can also mean a platform structure. And if you go to Isaiah, it actually talks about a platform or canopy-like covering of cloud and fire. So if you picture the desert in the day, it's scorching hot. I've been down there near that region. It is extremely hot, but at night it's cold, right? And so if you have a cloud over you by day and a fire over you by night to shelter you from the sun and from the heat, that's a picture of grace. And if we will lean into that, recognize that it is not of works. It is a free gift of grace when we know Jesus hovering over us at every single moment of our life and we can latch onto that and rely on the grace of God to walk us through. What a beautiful picture of God's grace. Now in your book, you not only tell about Bible stories, but also your book is full of other stories. For instance, tell us about the one about Mount Everest, the oxygen, and why is God's grace like oxygen to our souls? Hey, man, I'm so glad you talked about it. I don't get to talk about this story very much. It was a mountain climber named George Mallory who possibly with his partner that was with him was the first person to scale Everest. But we have no proof of that because they didn't have the proper oxygen tanks. And it was about 30 years later or so without looking at my book and my notes that another man actually scaled Everest because they had proper oxygen tanks. And George Mallory probably was the first but there's no proof because he passed away because of the lack of oxygen. And here's the thing, in our lives, we often suffer from a lack of oxygen from the grace of God, but also from the presence of God. You remember in Hebrews chapter four, it tells us to boldly approach the throne of grace where we will receive mercy and grace when we need it the most. And being with the Lord, being in his presence is a lifeline, a oxygen tank, so to speak. And when life is so chaotic and we are full of anxiety and worries and doubts and depression and shame and all of these things that plague us all the time, we often don't come to the Lord and spend time at his feet where his breath of life comes into us. You remember when Adam was created in the garden, the Lord came close and breathed the breath of life into Adam. And that's when he became a living being. And so I often like to teach in the book and then also through my ministry, prioritize time at the feet of Jesus because that's where he's gonna breathe that breath of life into you and you are going to be able to sustain what you need to walk with him and to go just through your day successfully and full of the presence of the Lord. You know, Crystal, this is Holy Week. We're right in the middle of it. Would you take a moment? Will you just pray for all of us out there that we wanna experience God's presence this week? We need to experience his hand on our life, his grace in our lives and maybe they are distracted and busy and stressed out and anxious over many things. Could you just take a minute and pray? I will gladly do that. And I just want to remind everyone that's watching today that grace is not something you can earn. All of the cool Easter activities, all of the preparations you may be doing as a pastor or any of these things, grace is free and it is not of works. And so there's nothing that we can do to earn God's presence in our life. It's actually made on the exchange of Jesus's perfect life. So I pray Lord over every single viewer today that we would be bold to approach you this week, to take full advantage of your grace in our life, to take full advantage of the presence of the Lord that you so freely gave us on the cross. Lord, I pray in the name of Jesus that our eyes would not be over all of the to-dos, the busyness, the cares, the worries that our eyes would be fully locked on you, that we would rest in you and that we would receive every single thing that you have for us this week Lord. Thank you for every single viewer Lord. I bless every one of us in Jesus' name as we celebrate you, the King, Lord of kings, the victor over death, hell and the grave. You are so worthy Lord. We love you and we praise you in Jesus' name, amen. Amen, so good Crystal. Crystal, before we go, are all of your kids gonna match for this Easter weekend? No, oh my goodness. We were literally on Amazon last night trying to figure out what everyone is wearing. I have no clue what I'm wearing. No, we never, we are not that family. I am not the Instagram Pinterest mom. We're doing good to get there. Okay, Crystal, don't stress. Make sure you just enter into God's grace and rest this weekend. Thank you so much for imparting into the such wisdom and beautiful pictures of God's grace in our life. When we come back in 60 seconds, we'll take a look at a scripture that shares about how precious the gift of God's grace is and what it means for our lives. We'll be right back. Cornerstone Television has believed in the power of prayer sits in inception 44 years ago. We invest heavily in our prayer line to provide you with 24 seven personal prayer knowing it brings breakthrough, healing and wisdom. Last year alone, we received over 65,000 prayer calls. If you had partnered with us, thank you so very much. And when you give this month, I am so excited to share with you my new book, Praying On Another Level. It's a 30 day journal to take your prayer life to a new dimension in God. You see prayer is how we separate good ideas from God ideas. It's how we unlock the door to revelation and it's where we get our strength to build up our spirit man to hear from God throughout our day. All that and so much more. So call us now at 888-665-4483 or give at ctvn.org forward slash donate to request your copy. It is time to take your prayer life to another level. A great conversation about grace with crystal award that we just had. And we have a great verse about grace as well. Ephesians two, eight through 10. And this is from the new living translation. It's a little bit different but really illuminates the verse. And here it is. God saved you by his grace when you believed and you can't take credit for this. It is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done. So none of us can boast about it. For we are God's masterpiece. He has created us a new in Christ Jesus so we can do the good things. He has planned for us long ago. Guys, I love this. I love that it's not about our goodness, our wisdom, our greatness. It's about the greatness of God, Sydney. It's that he creates us a new, not ourselves. You know, just one thing you've been just thinking about, you know, this weekend or this whole week about holy week and what Jesus has done for us and how he resurrected. The one thing that has just been sitting in my spirit is just we talk about God's grace and God's goodness and his love and his mercy is that there's a part of our lives. I just feel like, you know, there's a part like Jesus he saved us, but is he Lord of our lives because of the gift of grace that he's given to us? Do we surrender all? Are we obedient to him and just saying, like, you know what, Jesus? Because you've paid it all. Because you've done the ultimate thing, like you've covered me so much and what you've walked me through and brought me through. Are you Lord of my life? Do I literally take the time out to sit at your feet and be quiet and to be still and to hear what you were saying? You know, when Crystal was just sharing about her experience and her journey about those really hard times in our lives when we don't know what to do. And a lot of us have faced those crossroads in our lives. We have an opportunity and we have a decision to make to worship him and to say, you are good. You are still my father. No matter what you're walking through, no matter what you're going through, just have a question for you today. Is Jesus Lord of your life? Is he the one that you are willing to avail yourself over to and say, Jesus, I give it all to you. No matter what it looks like, no matter the fires or the storms or the winds or the waves or what the world is going through, I'm gonna trust you because it is your grace that carries me through every season. It is your love that lifts me when I'm in the pits of hell and you're the one that never leaves me nor forsakes me. And as it is Holy Week and as it is Passover, the greatest thing and the greatest opportunity we have day by day is to accept Jesus into our lives. So today, we just wanna ask you, do you know him as your Lord? Are you willing to lay down your life for him today? He paid the ultimate price for you and today is the day you can make that decision and it will change your life forever. Life may not get easier at the start but the most beautiful thing it is is that he will walk with you every step of the way. You know, there's nothing you can do to make God love you more and there's nothing you can do to make him love you less. He just loves you. You're his favorite daughter. You're his favorite son. So today, you don't have to behave before you come to Jesus. You just know right now that you belong. You're a part of the family and make sure if you did pray that prayer with Sidney and you did ask Jesus to come into your heart and he is the Lord and savior of your life, give us a call. We love to hear from you at 888-665-4483. This is Holy Week. This is like the Super Bowl of the ages for us Christians. This is when Jesus died and buried and rose again for our sins. Tom, we deserved it. We deserved the separation from God but Jesus took all of the punishment upon him on our behalf so that we could receive the righteousness of God in Christ. The only difference with this Super Bowl, we all get to win. We all get to be on the winning side. All we have to do is lay down our lives before him. Tomorrow, we're gonna have a very special, as it's Holy Week, we're gonna have a special time of communion and worship music with one of our favorites, Gene Watson. You don't wanna miss that, that's tomorrow. And then actually on Good Friday, we're gonna have a very special Good Friday prayer program with a lot of our Hope Today family. So join us for both of those programs because they're gonna be great, Sid. I'm just so glad that you are with us. And as like Tom just saying, I just really felt like God was saying is just to pray over you, to close out the show. You know, it is Passover. And we just declare and decree that in this season that his spirit will pass over you in your home, in your living room, if you're watching in a jail, if you're watching at a homeless shelter, wherever you are watching from, that the Holy Spirit would pass over you, that you are covered by the blood of the Lamb. And this week, this day, we want you to understand and to know how good he is. And so Father God, we just pray for everyone that is watching that in this season that they would come to know you in such a beautiful and tangible way that their lives will never be the same because that is the greatest hope that we have in Jesus is only him and him alone. We love you. Have a great day.