The Kingdom Cowboy
Join Andy Taylor, seasoned church leader in candid discussion about the Father, His children and His Kingdom. We’ll be talking about the emergence of the True Church and the unfolding manifestation of the Kingdom of God. We’re living in the midst of what the Bible calls, perilous times. But despite this, the True Church is rising up as a force to bring His kingdom into this earth. As Jesus said, “I will build my church and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it”. This is happening now, today!
Episodes
Episodes
Monday Mar 04, 2024
The Awakening is here! #12
Monday Mar 04, 2024
Monday Mar 04, 2024
Summary:
The Awakening and the Kingdom of God already exist and are moving, but it takes a real spiritual awareness to see it manifesting in the earth at this time. As God’s people, all it takes is a desire and an obedience to see it start happening more every day. When Jesus was teaching the disciples to pray, He was loosing His Kingdom on earth, as it is in heaven. That means we don’t have to wait until we die to experience it, but we can start experiencing it right now, here in the earth.
Show Notes:
In Andy’s book, The Best Kept Secrets of the Kingdom, he brings out 20 keys that will help to get a realization of the Awakening and what it’s about. This book was written with the regular guy in mind, with short chapters that can easily be read in a short time.
The Awakening is happening at this very moment. If we are in tune with things that God is bringing (things like the Damar Hamlin situation on the football field, the Asbury Kentucky gathering, and the Michigan Wolverine football team- where 70 players got baptized this last year), we can begin to see that there is so much more to come as this Awakening progresses.
What is happening in India and Iran looks different that what we are seeing in America.
Preparation on our part is so important at this time, because the Kingdom of God is coming with you, or without you.
Everything is changing, and that’s hard for people who are in a religious mode. Today is just like what happened when Jesus was alive here on earth. The religious people were stuck in their traditions, and Jesus was bringing change.
When God starts to talk to you about the Awakening and the Kingdom, lean into it.
Quotes:
The Church is going to be a glorious organism (not an organization), which will have the answers for all of the negative things that we see our in the world right now.
The Kingdom of God already exists in its fullness and perfection, but it hasn’t completely manifested, or emerged into the natural realm.
Every time we forgive someone, pray for someone, or every little thing you do, the Kingdom of God is manifested in the earth.
As we give God access to our heart, He begins to do the work that needs to be done. He is conforming us into the image of Jesus.
The Body of Christ is never going to be what it is supposed to be, until all of us find our place in the body and function there. When we do that, there’s a supernatural anointing on us that’s above and beyond anything that we can do.
The Church is not the Kingdom, the Church is the facilitator of the Kingdom.
References:
Matthew 6:33
Revelations 3:20
Ephesians 4:11
Matthew 16:18
Takeaways:
God is moving and manifesting His Kingdom on earth right at this moment. However, as His people, we need to wake up and start connecting with the Father to be able to see it and start experiencing it right now.
Wednesday Feb 28, 2024
Distractions - The Awakening #11
Wednesday Feb 28, 2024
Wednesday Feb 28, 2024
Summary:
God the Father wants so much to talk to us, but we have to have a real desire to hear what He is speaking. It takes time and a discipline to slow down long enough to connect with Him and learn how to enjoy His presence. In this podcast, we have been given some really practical steps on how to come into His presence, eliminate the distractions that come to keep us from hearing Him, and discover that it’s not the answers that He has for us, or the things we think we need from Him. The greatest discovery comes when we come to the realization that He, God our Father, is the real prize, that He is all we really need.
Show Notes:
We think it’s important that you hear the Lord, and there are a lot of practical things presented here that we can do to get our hearts and minds into a place where we can hear Him well.
The rule of 100 (this stands for 100 hours divided by the number of days in a year, which comes out to be 18 minutes per day) was devised to help all of us focus on a particular discipline to improve our skill. This really holds true when we are seeking the Father to hear Him speak to us.
Distractions are the biggest hurdle we experience when trying to hear the Father speak to us, such as our phone or our watch. When either of them ring, your mind automatically turns to them.
Here are some practical things to do when trying to hear God speak to us.
Make it a priority in your life.
Practice gratitude.
A great starting place is to leave your phone and/or watch in another room when waiting on the Lord.
Keep a note pad close, to jot down things that you think God is saying to you.
This is something that you have to want to do, because you have to take the time to do it.
If this becomes a desire and drive for you, when you start to get a taste of Him you will want more.
Because of our desire to hear from the Father and all that God is beginning to do in the world, the enemy sees the move of God escalating, emerging and growing, so he will do all he can do to distract us. It’s so important for us not to fall for his tactics of distraction.
Hebrews 12:27 refers to everything that can be shaken will be shaken. So, when we see Him shaking the financial system, banking system, school system, and human system, then we are not moved by it.
Quotes:
If you spend 100 hours a year working on a particular discipline by practicing it 18 minutes per day, you will be within the top five or 10% of people in the world with that knowledge and understanding.
If you are not hearing the Lord, the chances are pretty high that the problem is not on His end.
Most of us have gotten pretty good at hearing the Lord on the run as we go through our day, but there’s so much to be said for taking a time where it’s just designated for hearing the Lord.
Any good communication is two way; talking and listening. I have learned that to listen has been more beneficial to me than the things I need to ask for.
When we spend time with the Father, it’s not the thing that the Father gives, does, or says. The real prize is His presence.
There is a shaking going on right now and at the same time, there is an awakening. Think about what happened with Damar Hamlin at a Buffalo Bills game in the NFL. Another one is the outpouring of the Holy Spirit that happened at Asbury College in Kentucky.
References:
Psalms 100:4
Isaiah 5:20
Hebrews 12:27
Takeaways:
We are discovering that it’s not what God can do for us, or the things that we think He wants to talk to us about. The testings and discipline that He puts us through, and the time that is required to eliminate the distractions so that we can really connect with Him, are to create the bottom line. The bottom line is that we discover that God Himself is all that we really wanted all along; to be with Him and to just enjoy His presence.
Saturday Feb 24, 2024
Distractions - Using the Calm App #10
Saturday Feb 24, 2024
Saturday Feb 24, 2024
Summary:
God, our Father, has a great desire to talk to us and commune with us. The problem for us is getting to a place where we are able to hear Him. This podcast is geared to help us get to that place, by using simple tools like the Calm App to teach us how to get past and/or eliminate distractions that keep us from really hearing what He has to say to us.
Show Notes:
God speaks in all kinds of ways, if we can get our receptors out there and pay attention. The key to this is putting a real priority and a high value on hearing the Lord.
When you start listening to these people talking about health, fitness and nutrition, so many of these folks put a pretty high value on meditation to help you into those disciplines. And we aren’t talking about Transcendental Meditation, spirit guides, or those kinds of things.
Meditation has gotten a bad reputation among Christians, because of these Eastern philosophies, but it is spoken of at least 20 times in the Bible.
Using the keys on the Calm App helps you get mindful and helps you to get in the moment.
If you set some time aside to get with the Father, don’t you think it’s important enough to do all you can to eliminate distractions, like your phone, watch, or other things that tend to pull your attention away from Him?
The Calm App takes you through different steps, like deep breathing and relaxation by focusing on different parts of your body, which helps us on how to discipline our mind and deal with stress, so that a lot of these distractions can be eliminated.
The Calm App also guides you in your meditations by using calm music like ocean waves.
Quotes:
What we are going to talk about today are distractions that will cause you to miss some of the biggest things that you could have for your life.
It’s not hard to hear the Lord, but a lot of people struggle with just the thought of that.
First off, make it a priority to get your heart and mind into a good place when you are going to take this time to spend with the Lord.
It’s just possible that what the Lord wants to speak to you is more important than your Instagram, your Snap Chat, or your Facebook feed. So, those things are really, really distracting. Do you want to sit and talk to the Father, or do you want that time with other people?
References:
1 Peter 5:8
Takeaways:
This podcast offers some great tools to help us when we are trying to spend time hearing from the Lord. It really points out how much distractions can rob us from getting into a place where we are able to hear Him and what He wants to speak to us. The enemy uses distractions against us. Because of that, we have to make it a real priority and have a drive to push those distractions out of the way, so that we can be successful in our walk with Him.
Tuesday Feb 06, 2024
When God Is Silent #9
Tuesday Feb 06, 2024
Tuesday Feb 06, 2024
Summary:
When it seems like God has withdrawn from us or is being silent with us, it is seldom because He is mad at us or that we have done something wrong. As we get deeper into our relationship with Him, He starts speaking to us in various ways. But when we go through a time of not feeling His presence or hearing His voice, we can start to get very introspective. It is likely that God just wants you to get closer to Him by spending time with Him and/or spending more time in the written word (the Bible). We all have to remember that the most important thing is not what God says to us or what He gives to us. The most important thing is HIM, and just enjoying His presence, being with Him.
Show Notes:
When we start entering into a relationship with God, He wants to speak and commune with us in many different ways.
A lot of Christians tend to experience a small still voice when God speaks to them. It is a voice that you hear in your heart and mind, but you don’t hear it with your natural ear. There are, however, some people who do actually hear the audible voice of God.
When it seems like God is silent toward you at times, it is so easy to think that you have done something wrong, and are being punished for it. In most cases, that is not true at all.
When you are in a time of not hearing God that much, it’s so easy to think that you have to get busy and do something, when all the time God just wants you to stop and just enjoy His presence.
Asking God when you really, really need to know something isn’t bad, but you might find that when you go to the Lord without an agenda, and you are not there for anything, your list of wants and needs greatly decreases. “I’m just here for You, Lord”.
Quotes:
The average person out there who doesn’t go to church, when they hear someone talking about hearing God, they can automatically think that the one talking is hearing the audible voice of God.
Sometimes God will withdraw the tangible evidence of His presence and His voice to cause you to draw closer to Him.
Let’s not forget that God does speak to us through the written word, and maybe that silence is to drive us back to the Word, back to the Bible.
As we grow and deepen in our relationship with the Father, these are some of the things that we begin to understand, that even if we have messed up, He still wants to talk to us.
References:
Hebrews 13:5
John 11:27
Isaiah 55:8-9
Romans 12:1
Takeaways:
As we grow in our relationship with the Father, we start to sense Him and hear Him more. We get used to feeling Him close to us, but there are times when He seems to withdraw His presence and His voice from us. When this happens to us, it is natural to think that you have done something wrong, or made God mad you in some way. Most of the time, that’s not the case at all. In most cases, God is just pulling us into a deeper place with Him, and is wanting for us to press into the written word (the Bible) more.
Saturday Jan 27, 2024
Can Anyone Hear God? #8
Saturday Jan 27, 2024
Saturday Jan 27, 2024
Summary:
God created everything for one simple reason; to have a people that He can love, commune and talk with, and have a close relationship with. There has never been a more important time than now to develop a relationship with the Father and learn His voice.
Having a drive to be close to Him and making it a priority in our lives makes God happier than any of us can understand at this point.
Show Notes:
It’s so important to make it a priority if we want to hear God. The secret is getting in the mode of listening for Him to speak to you.
The first thing I always tell people on the subject of hearing God is to learn to relate to God as Father, which sets everything else in proper perspective.
The love that the Father has for us and the relationship that He wants to have with us is probably the very most important thing in life.
God loves it when you take the time to be with Him and come without an agenda. That allows the Lord to tell you what your agenda should really be. That’s hard for some people, because they have all these things that they really feel like they need to hear the Lord on.
There’s coming a time when everything that can be shaken will be shaken. That’s why now it more important than ever to get a close relationship with the Father, and learn to hear His voice and what He wants to speak to you in this season that we are in spiritually.
Quotes:
“Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God”. So that just says that the sustenance for our life really comes from the things that God says.
I’ve been on a mission to help people know that they can hear God.
I think you can make trying to hear God too hard. It’s really pretty simple. One of the most important things is to stay in the mode.
I’m a huge proponent of taking time where it’s just you and Him, but we can also hear God on the run, in our daily lives.
I told the Lord recently while waiting on Him that He always shows up. In a still small voice He told me, “I never show up. I’m always here. You’re the one who shows up”. There’s never a time that God doesn’t have time for you.
Anytime you want to get together and spend time with the Lord, He’s always game for it. There’s never a bad time for it. It’s always a good time.
References:
Matthew 4:4
John 6:44
Romans 3:23
Romans 6:23
Take Away:
There has never been a more important time than now to develop a relationship with the Father and learn His voice. All that God created boils down to one thing; that He have a people that He can love, can commune and talk with, and have a close relationship with.
Monday Jan 22, 2024
Listening To God - Worship - What Is The Lord Saying To You? #7
Monday Jan 22, 2024
Monday Jan 22, 2024
Summary:
Coming into an ability to hear what God wants to say to us should be one of the greatest things we ever reach into the Father for. Any good conversation should be two sided. Always talking and never listening won’t get you very far in your walk with God. It’s not our pastor’s or shepherd’s responsibility to go and get a word from God for us. We have to develop an ability to hear from Him for ourselves, and the directions He wants us to take.
Show Notes:
We are encouraged to pray to the Lord, but we need to also listen. Listening is a tough skill to learn. A good conversation should always be two sided.
It’s natural for people to want their opinions heard, so they tend to talk over others. But when you’re listening to the Lord, who are we, to talk over Him?
One of the biggest challenges when trying to hear God are distractions and how to deal with them. As we keep reaching in to hear Him, the blessings, favor and power of God start to come through.
A key to help you with these distractions is worship. Just start telling the Lord that you love Him, praising Him and showing Him adoration, which calibrates your heart and lifts you up into a better place.
Andy learned early on as a shepherd to encourage people, especially younger ones, who expected him to tell them what to do concerning situations, to go to the Father themselves for their direction, rather than having him tell them. This caused them to connect and interact with the Father.
Quotes:
I believe there’s a steady flow of information pertaining to us, about us, coming from the throne of God all the time. So we need to learn how to get into a place where we can hear that.
When you start to hear the Lord and see the blessing, favor and power of God in the things that He says, it really helps.
We learn through repetition and leaning into that relationship with Him. We learn the sound of His voice and the ways He speaks to us. It’s learned behavior.
People think that the holy guy, the pastor, the shepherd, apostle, prophet, or evangelist is the one who is supposed to hear God. My responsibility is to tell you that you can hear God as well as I can.
God would rather talk to you about you than He would like to talk to someone else about you, which makes sense from just a purely logical position.
References:
Hebrews 13:5
Take Away:
It’s not the responsibility of your pastor or shepherd to go to God for direction for your life; it’s your responsibility to hear God and to know what He wants you to do, and where He wants you to go. To do this, you have to learn to listen for His voice and allow Him to speak to you, as you commune with Him. Being able to hear His voice is one of the most treasured things you can ever have from the Father.
Friday Jan 19, 2024
Hearing God - He Wants To speak To You #6
Friday Jan 19, 2024
Friday Jan 19, 2024
Summary:
God longs to have sons and daughters that He can commune with, who can be functional contributors to what He wants to bring forth. He is doing everything He can to draw us in close enough so we can hear Him speak to us. There are many ways that He speaks, and it so very important that we take the time and stay close enough to Him to hear Him. The problem is not whether God is speaking or not, it’s whether we are listening or not.
Show Notes:
Andy’s book, “Reading The Bible For All It’s Worth”, is written in bite-sized format, with each chapter being three to four pages long. You can read very few pages and get little keys to help yourself understand the word. This is important because you’re not going to enjoy the Bible if you don’t understand it.
Andy recommends the New Kings James Version of the Bible because it’s easier to read than the King James Version, but he found it to be really, really true and close to the King James Version.
It’s so very important that we understand that God wants to speak to us and He communicates to us in a wide, wide variety of ways.
The more you make it a priority to hear God, the more it will happen.
Going to the Father with no agenda is so much better than going to Him with a long list of things you want Him to do. Rather, just come in and say, “Here I am, Lord”.
God tells us everything that we need to know, in precise timing. Andy suggests that we should approach our time with the Lord that way.
There are times when God, even though He is always with us, seems to get lost for a season where you don’t feel Him. By doing that, He helps us to draw closer to Him.
Quotes
If you stop and think about it and boil it down to the simplest element, it’s your relationship with the Father. God is what He is, but Father is who He is. Knowing He is Father is not the same as knowing Him as Father.
Dads want to talk to their kids, they want to communicate.
I believe there’s a steady flow of information from the throne of God, from God toward us, about us, and to us all the time. So I get tuned in, get into the Spirit, pay attention, and start learning the ways that God speaks to me.
This could be the greatest move of God that there’s ever going to be, and, you know, time will prove whether we’re right about that or not. The worst thing that can happen in our household is if that doesn’t happen. To me, if it doesn’t, our people just got over prepared.
People who pray hear God better than people who don’t.
Recently I said to the Lord, “You always show up”, and He said in a still small voice, “I never show up. I’m always here. You are the one that showed up”.
Sometimes people are not hearing what God is saying because He’s not saying what they want Him to say. We have to understand that everything that God says to us brings life.
References:
Matthew 6:5-6
John 10:27
Take Away:
The Father is doing everything He can to draw is in close enough so we can hear Him speak to us. There are many ways that He speaks, and it so very important that we take the time and stay close enough to Him to hear Him. The problem is not whether God is speaking or not, it’s whether we are listening or not.
Monday Jan 15, 2024
Reading Your Bible and Being Born Again #5
Monday Jan 15, 2024
Monday Jan 15, 2024
Summary:
It’s through being born again, reading the Bible, allowing the Holy Spirit to come along- side as our helper, and using the measure of faith that God has given, that we are able to grow, become mature in the Lord and find our significance in the Body of Christ. For most of us, it’s not being religious about reading the word, but it’s about enjoying what we are reading that makes us reach in for more.
Show Notes:
Andy talks about the first book that he wrote, Reading Your Bible For All It’s Worth.
Most people prefer to read books with shorter chapters so they can feel some sense of finality without having to read 25 to 35 pages to get there.
Most of us really want to hear from God, and one of the key ways is through reading the Bible.
To be able to understand the Bible, it’s very important that you be born again.
The Holy Spirit is our teacher and starts to give us the mind of Christ, because the Spirit of God lives in us. He’s always there to help and comes along side of us.
We all have been given the same measure of faith, the same measure of faith that Billy Graham has. It’s whatever you do with that faith that dictates whether it grows, or whether it lays there dormant. You have to use it or it has no effect in your life.
Quotes:
God’s gifted all of us in certain ways. One of the ways God has gifted me is to take some pretty complex scriptural issues and make them really, really simple. So that’s what I’ve done in the book.
So my book, Reading Your Bible For All It’s Worth, has no chapter more than three to four pages, so you can pick it up anywhere, thumb through it and find a tip that will help you.
People are not going to read their Bible if they don’t enjoy it.
If we are going to find our significance and find our place where we can function in the Kingdom of God, we have to get into the word until the word gets into us.
When we get this awareness brought on by the Holy Spirit that we need to be born again, then it’s a simple matter of just receiving it.
Most people have a spot in their life where they really felt like God drew them. No man comes to the Father, unless He draws him. It’s not our doing, it is the Father’s doing through Jesus with the help of the Spirit. All we have to do is just cooperate with the plan of God.
References:
Romans 12:3
Romans 10:17
Take Away:
“Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God” (Romans 10:17). It’s only by us enjoying God’s word and desiring to grow and become what it says, are we going to mature and find our place to function in the Body of Christ.
The Vision
“Then shall this gospel of the kingdom will be preached as a witness to all the
nations and then the end will come.” Matthew 24:14
From the many indicators it appears we are definitely in the last days. And, while the outlook on the world scene would look bleak and hopeless to many, the Kingdom of God is emerging and advancing at a rate never seen before.
Our goal with the Kingdom Cowboy Podcast is to communicate the importance of the true Church and its mission and mandate from the Father. This should be the finest hour for the Church of the living God and her people. We approach the message of the Kingdom, and its demonstration of agape, with signs and wonders accompanying, with great sincerity and diligence.
The goal here, at The Kingdom Cowboy Podcast is to make that as simple and palatable as possible by totally trusting the Father for the results, so the children of God will fulfill their prophetic destiny, and the Church will be what Jesus intended it to be. It’s a great time to be alive! Let’s make the best of it!