Roger Marsh: A question for you as we start today's edition of Family Talk, do you ever wonder if you can give your spiritual life more power? I'm Roger Marsh, and if you've ever wondered that, today's episode is especially for you. Our special guest on today's classic program is Barry Meguiar. Recently, Barry sat down with our own Dr. James Dobson to discuss the Great Commission and how that can ignite your life. Just as Jesus says in Matthew 28, verses 19 and 20, "Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age."
A reminder that this program is included in our 2023 broadcast collection. We'll send you this 5-Disc CD set as our way of thanking you for your gift any amount in support of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute today. To receive yours, simply go online to drjamesdobson.org/2023. Here now is Dr. Dobson to tell us more about today's guest, his lifelong friend, Barry Meguiar, right here on Family Talk.
Dr. James Dobson: With us in the studio today is my dear, dear friend Barry Meguiar, whom I've known since he was a teenager. I was not, I was in my twenties.
Barry Meguiar: I was 14-years old when we first met, Jim.
Dr. James Dobson: Isn't that incredible?
Barry Meguiar: I knew you before that. Well, we started becoming friends when we were teaching you and Shirley how to water ski in the back bay in Newport Beach.
Dr. James Dobson: And I got it.
Barry Meguiar: And you got it. You were good. You should have seen Dr. James Dobson on water skis, man. He was awesome. He took to it quickly.
Dr. James Dobson: Well, I went on to have quite a career in that.
Barry Meguiar: Oh, yes. Of course. We better not talk about that, we don't have time.
Dr. James Dobson: We met in church, of all places.
Barry Meguiar: We did. First Church of the Nazarene.
Dr. James Dobson: It's so good to have you here and in the studio with us. She's not going to talk, although I wish she would. But your wife, Karen, is here and we've loved her for many years.
Barry Meguiar: 59 years married. I scored. I tell you what, this woman-
Dr. James Dobson: 59 years.
Barry Meguiar: All the miracles of my life, the biggest miracle I have to say is Karen staying with me. And she agrees.
Dr. James Dobson: Well, Shirley and I are coming up on 62.
Barry Meguiar: I know you are. I know. We were at your wedding.
Dr. James Dobson: Well, Barry has flown here today to Colorado Springs from Phoenix to talk about his new book and to talk about the passion of his heart, which is bringing people to Christ. If you're not familiar with Barry, you may recognize his family name from the products in your own home. Barry is the president and third generation leader of Meguiar's Incorporated, the top selling brand. Is that an accurate statement?
Barry Meguiar: Car wax, the number one selling car wax in America and in a lot of the countries around the world now, we're the top selling brand. So it's been quite a ride from getting into ... My grandfather, as you well know, started the business in 1901 and he and his son, my dad, buffed cars in dealerships. When I got out of college, that's what we were doing. We were buffing cars and that was how we sold our products. And we were doing about $600,000 a year. In 1966, my dad and his two brothers had retired and God inspired me to go retail, take the product retail. That was 1969 when I got approval to do that.
Dr. James Dobson: 122 years, Barry.
Barry Meguiar: Yeah. And you know what's really cool, my grandfather started with furniture polish. He was focused on creating a perfect finish. He wasn't a chemist, and God inspired him to create a product, put some very unusual ingredients in there to create a perfect finish on black lacquer furniture. Now, over half the horses' carriage manufacturer were in Indiana. He was in Evansville, Indiana. And his furniture polish began being used on the carriages, the horses' carriages, because they were all painted with black lacquer. So without his permission, his furniture polish became a carriage polish. Moved out to Pasadena in 1913 and was selling in all the shops. But those shops ended up being the painters for hot rodders. At the end of World War II, the guys came home from the war and started hot rotting their cars and wanting great paint finishes. And one thing led to another and they learned about our products.
I saw that as an opportunity, but we still had no names. So we started a TV show called Car Crazy. It ran for 18 years on Discovery networks all over the world.
Dr. James Dobson: 18 years.
Barry Meguiar: Before that, though, a man walked into my office, he said, because you're sharing your faith, God's going to enlarge your territory, going to enlarge your territory. It's going to give you a ministry apart from your business. And the next seven years, our hundred year old family business, doubled in sales. We went global. My TV show went ... Everything about our business is God. God has blessed every part of the business. And you know why, because my business has been secondary. I've seen it as my pulpit. What I live for every day is telling people about Jesus. And Karen and I have been doing that nonstop every day since 1973.
Dr. James Dobson: Well, that's one of the first things we want to talk about because if people in the secular world knew you were here today, and if we asked them what your passion was, it would be Meguiar's Incorporated. But that's not your greatest passion, it's Jesus Christ.
Barry Meguiar: No, it's true, Jim. I love my business. I'm passionate about great cars and making them look perfect.
Dr. James Dobson: But there's a greater calling.
Barry Meguiar: But you know what I figured out back in the seventies that when I get to Heaven, it's not going to matter how many bottles of car wax I sold. That's secondary. It's all temporal. We live that. But that's a pulpit for me. We're known throughout the car hobby and just about everybody knows us. And that's millions of people know that we are Christians, they're watching us. So it gives us a great opportunity. It's a platform. And we've seized that opportunity. And because of that, we have so much joy. We have so much fun. "Why are you always so happy?" Well, if it's because I'm always coming off one of these faith sharing opportunities. And when you have that, Jim, and you know this, we've both done it. But when you walk away from one of those encounters, you know God just used you. I look at it and say, God just used me. I peddle car wax and He just used me to minister to that person. I saw their life change in front of my eyes. I prayed for them.
Dr. James Dobson: Today, I want you to tell people how you do that, because you try to turn every encounter into a faith building experience.
Barry Meguiar: It is, everybody. Do you know that over 80% of the unchurched know the world's out of control? Duh. It's out of control. They're now saying, I'd like to believe there's a God. This is over 80% of the people around us. Where do we go? Over 80% of the people would like to believe there's a God. They're looking for somebody to tell them. So if you're starting to tell somebody, you think, oh, they'll just think I'm a lunatic. No, they're looking, they're trying to find somebody and nobody's telling them. How are they going to know unless somebody tells them? Nobody's telling them.
Dr. James Dobson: The big question is why are Christians reticent to share their faith?
Barry Meguiar: That's a big question. Yeah. I think, Jim-
Dr. James Dobson: They're scared to death.
Barry Meguiar: I've thought a lot about that. And there've been millions of people saved by our evangelism programs. I'm thankful for every one of them. They're godly, they're correct, they're right on. But most people don't go to evangelism programs. And then they say, well, I can't share because I haven't been to a program. But the fact of the matter is, Mark 13:11 says, "Don't prepare." And Luke 12:12 says, "The Holy Spirit will give you the words to say." So that takes all the pressure off. You don't have to be trained. And then it says, tell your life story. Well, I have a million life stories. Which one should I pick? And then someone would say, "Well, pick one person today to share your faith with." Well, okay, out of all the people that I'm going to be with today that are on their way to Hell, how do I pick one? How do I pick the right one? And what about all the rest? Do I just let them go to Hell?
It's absurd. It just doesn't even make sense. So when you realize that, basically just assume everybody around you is lost. And Jesus said, they'll know you're my disciple by how well you memorize your script. No, He didn't say that. He said, "They'll know you by your love." It's very simple. When I read that one day, it was that Rhema thing where just God speaks to you. You've seen it a million times. All of a sudden, boom. I thought, well, I can love on people. Folks, you can love on people. No training required. God didn't say go into the world, all you who have a certain personality or all you who are trained. Do you know who the best faith sharers are? New Christians. New Christians. You can't stop a new Christian from sharing the faith. You want to know why? Because God's their first love. You just saved me. You'd save me from Hell. And then you do the first work always.
When God is your first love, you're sharing God. You're sharing Him automatically. You share whatever you love. Folks, if you're not talking about God, I'm not saying you're not on your way to Heaven, but I'm saying you've left your first love and you need to be back to your first love.
Dr. James Dobson: Give in an illustration. You're sitting on a plane next to a guy you've never met, and you hope that before you land, you will have introduced him to Jesus Christ.
Barry Meguiar: So many stories, one comes to mind real quickly. I love to tell, and Karen and I sit beside each other. We travel together all the time. But once in a while, we get split. We just had it happen last week and we looked at each other. Okay, God's up to something. He's always up to something when something unusual happens. Always, always. So he sits me beside a young lady, attractive young lady, and I brought some papers out and the Bible so she'd know that I was a Christian. And she says, "Oh, you're a pastor." I said, "No, no, I'm not a pastor." I don't ever push. I never push. I've never offended anybody ever. But they're hungry, people are hungry. So I said, "I'm a businessman and I love God and I serve God. And He just does so much for me. Just gives me a happy life. It's just wonderful."
I leave it alone. If they're not hungry, they won't bite. I call it chumming. You know what chumming is? You throw out chum. You just throw out chum. Not everybody's hungry, but when they are, they start coming up the chum line. So she did. And she said, "Well, God's not very happy with me." I said, "Well, why not?" It's amazing, when you love on people, stop trying to get them saved. Your focus is on loving them. When God loves us, He's salvationing us. I gave you a new word. When He loves us, He's salvationing us. The whole point of His love is to bring us to Him and to bring us to Heaven. He's salvationing us. That's what He does. His love is all about salvationing. When we love on others, He's salvationing them through us.
In fact, Dr. Jerry Root from Wheaton wrote a great book, The Sacrament of Evangelism. He says, "When you join in, God is already sovereignly moving with that person, and you're the physical manifestation of what He's already telling them." So folks, every conversation, do you hear me, every conversation you have is not secular, it's spiritual. And you have an opportunity to allow God to speak in their life, and He has the words, you don't. And this young lady said to me, "Well, I'm in a relationship with another woman, so God could never love me." I broke out laughing. I said, "You so don't understand God." She said, "What do you mean?"
I said, "God loves you." "No, He can't." "No, actually He loves you. He loves you as much as He's ever loved anybody. We all have problems. And I'm not saying He's condoning what you're doing, but He loves you and He wants you to spend eternity with Him. He wants to forgive you and give you abundant life and understand all that He has for you." She says, "Oh, I've just been so guilty about this and I know I should get out, but I don't want to hurt the person." I said, "Well, your partner, He loves them too. Start calling on God. He'll allow you to step out of that into the fullness of Him." Well, by this time, we're starting to land. And while we're landing, I'm praying for her.
Dr. James Dobson: You said you never offend.
Barry Meguiar: I never offend anybody. People don't get mad at you when you tell them God loves them. And that's the single most important thing they need to hear. It's easier to share your faith with scoundrels than it is good people. Good people think they're so good, they're going to go to Heaven anyway. Scoundrels, they know they're lost. And the thought that God could love them, you got their full attention. And then God gives you Scriptures. He gives Scriptures you haven't even thought of. He'll bring to remembrance, this is a promise in the word. He'll bring to remembrance Scriptures you haven't even thought of. And all of a sudden, you're seeing this life change and you walk away from that. You go, wow. I picture Jesus. This is what I do often. When I walk away from one of those, this happens every day. I look up and I see Jesus smiling at me. We can grieve Him, but we can also give Jesus joy.
Dr. James Dobson: That's a wonderful thing when it happens.
Barry Meguiar: It gives Jesus joy. And when I see Him looking down at me and say, "Way to go, Barry. I set that whole thing up." He directs their steps and your steps, He puts it together.
Dr. James Dobson: Isn't it a wonderful thing when He says to you, "I saw that."
Barry Meguiar: I know.
Dr. James Dobson: I saw that and-
Barry Meguiar: Put a bounce in your step. I walk away. I just kind of do a little jig. I think, why am I full of joy every day? Why is Karen full of joy every day? We're always coming off of one of these experiences and looking for the next one. You're living for God. You're living the Holy God. He is 7 billion light years away, and He's right here and He's active in our lives. He chose to reach people through us. What an awesome responsibility. And yet, 99% of us are not doing it, and we're living in fear and wondering where He is. You folks, most of you are just a millisecond away, just a millimeter away for jumping into the joy. He says, when you bear fruit, I'll give you joy. I'll give it to you every day. My joy will be with you and your joy will be full. I'll direct your steps. I'll answer your prayers.
All this comes down to sharing your faith, the one thing we don't want to do. I think Satan is using fear as his number one weapon against Christians because it sterilizes. He paralyzes, but he sterilizes. We do not reproduce ourselves when we're in fear. When we're in fear, we're not in faith, so we can't share.
Dr. James Dobson: Describe what they're in fear of.
Barry Meguiar: They're in fear of everything. They're in fear of everything that's going on in the world or what's going on in our government, what's going on locally, in their family and their own health. There's a million things to be afraid of. But 365 times in the Bible, He says, fear not. And if you're fearing you're not faithing. And He says, without faith, it's impossible to please God. And He says in James 1, if you're wavering, if you have fear and faith at the same time, you're unstable in all your ways. Don't expect me to answer your prayers. So God won't hear your prayers no matter how much you pray, if you're praying and worrying at the same time.
Dr. James Dobson: Remind people of what the Great Commission is all about.
Barry Meguiar: The Great Commission. It must be kind of important, right? He did call it the Great Commission.
Dr. James Dobson: This is Jesus talking.
Barry Meguiar: Don't bother with anything else. Jesus says, this is the Great Commission. The question is, why did He do that? He did that because He knows what it'll do for us. And then they asked Him, what's the greatest commandments? What did He say? Love the Lord with all your heart, first love, all your heart, mind, soul. Not just, I love you, but God, I want nothing separating us. It's that kind of love. And when you do that, you're always doing the first work. And that part is, love your neighbor as yourself. If you love your neighbor as yourself, that's everybody around you, folks. You're as concerned for their salvation as you are your own. And so now, I'm going to do everything I can to move them closer to Jesus. Everything I say. So that changes how I look, how I dress, what I say, what I laugh at, what I indulge in. Everything changes because I'm in full-time ministry. Folks, every one of you are in full-time ministry. Do you not realize that everything you say and do is moving. Everybody watching you closer or further away from God.
Dr. James Dobson: That's in your book.
Barry Meguiar: Wow. That means you're in full-time ministry. You are.
Dr. James Dobson: You don't call yourself a minister.
Barry Meguiar: No, I'm not a minister. We're in ministry though. We're in full-time ministry. I'm not a minister. I sell car wax. Well, I sell a lot more car wax because I've honored God first and then He blesses the work of your hand.
Dr. James Dobson: Let's talk about your book. The title of it is Ignite Your Life. How does sharing your faith ignite anything?
Barry Meguiar: Because you know you're in the center of God's will. It's wonderful. You and I both know, you're just panning me here a little bit to say what you believe to your core. But when you're living for God, you're right where God wants you to be. That ignites your life. When you know nothing can happen to you unless it's good. What do you mean by that? Where'd you get that from? Well, there's a Scripture in Romans 8:28. All things work together for good. Yeah, yeah. But it doesn't work good for me. Well, you got to read the whole Scripture, folks. All things work together. This is God's promise to you. And it's real simple.
God says all things work together for good in your life, but you got to do two things. You got to love God. For those who love me, wholehearted love, and get this, to those who live for my purpose. God's purpose, there's no question about what God's purpose is. He came to seek and save the lost. Okay, move everybody every day closer to Jesus. Everybody. The operator in the phone, the waitress in the store, the person standing beside you in the line at Starbucks. Wherever you are, you have a chance to touch people, love on them. In a moment, you could do it.
Dr. James Dobson: To go back to your illustration, that person said, God doesn't like me. God's mad at me. Do most people feel that way?
Barry Meguiar: Oh yeah. And you know what, not only that, they can't even take it. It's hard for them to even accept it. No, I can't. I got in a taxi one time and this taxi driver, I said, "I'm going on a short ride but I'll give you a big tip." "I don't want a tip." I said, "Excuse me?" He said, "I don't want a tip." "Sir, why don't you want a tip?" "I'm a bad person. I don't deserve a tip." He just out of control, mean, angry little man, just tortured. And I get to be in his taxi. And I said, "Do you know God loves you?" He says, "No." I said, "Yeah, He loves you." "No." I said, "Sir, I'm a Christian. I know the Bible real well. And I can tell you, He loves you." Dead quiet.
I said, "You know what gets better than that? Do you know He loves you as much as He's ever loved anybody?" Dead quiet. And they were almost to the stop. I said, "Even better, do you know He loves you as much as He loves His own son, Jesus Christ? That's how much God loves you." He didn't know what say. I said, "Sir, God, put me in your taxi just now because He wants you to know He loves you and He wants you to spend eternity with Him." And then I give him a really big tip and I walked away. And that particular, I looked up. I saw Jesus smiling at me. Did I get him saved? No, but did I move him closer to Jesus? You better believe it.
We're one of probably 20 people that will influence that person before they make a decision. We don't know where we are along. If we're at the end, we have to know that there's probably 20 people before us that have shared their faith with this person. But no matter what they say, no matter how course, it doesn't matter, the more they're hurting, the more they'll lash out and you just keep smiling. God loves you anyway. It's so much fun.
Dr. James Dobson: Talk about your subtitle here, Defeat Fear with Effortless Faith.
Barry Meguiar: Well, it's absolutely true. Karen and I have understood it a lot. I was dying in the hospital a few years ago. You checked in with Karen every day. Thank you very much, you and Shirley, and they gave up on me.
Dr. James Dobson: God did a miracle right there.
Barry Meguiar: And God did a miracle, but we had no fear. We had zero fear. I had a joint venture partner a few years back, and I found out the next morning, he's going to throw me out of my family business. He sold out to a joint venture company and he was taking over the business, going to throw me off my board, and that's going to happen the next morning. I was 65 years old. 65 years old. I had no defense. I had no money, hadn't planned for anything like that. Now, my income's being taken away from me. My company's taken away from me. My reputation's being taken away from me. My whole life is selling car wax. I'm the car guy. More importantly, my testimony, that's Barry Meguiar, where's his God now? That's what I faced that night. Here's how I faced it.
I said, "God, I don't even want to pray, really, because I don't want to ask you for anything, because I'm good. I'm absolutely good. I asked you for nothing because of two things. One, you know I live for your purpose. I do it every day. That's what I live for. You know that. And secondly, I know you honor your word and you have said to us in Romans 8:28, when you do that, I promise you, I'll make everything in your life work for good." So I said, "Thank you very much." And I went to sleep. As God is hearing my voice right now, I went immediately to sleep. I did not toss and turn. I never woke up. I woke up fresh. I went to my attorney's office the next morning and within eight minutes, he totally turned my joint venture partner upside down. They were foul mouth and screeching, cussing at me.
There's nothing they could do about it. I just broke out laughing. I could have paced the floor all night. I could go, oh, please God, help me. Please. You don't have to do that. It was effortless. I didn't have to do anything. You know why, because I live for God's purpose. I don't live for my business. When you live for His purpose, Christians, I'm telling you, every one of you listen to me right now, you begin living for His purpose, nothing can hurt you, unless God wants it to hurt you and even when it hurts you, it's good. All the bad stuff still happens to us. We don't even ask for an out anymore. We never say, God, help us out of this. We just say, what's He up to now? He is always going to show us another miracle or teach us another lesson, or He is going to bring somebody into our life.
Folks, you're driving down the street and you have a flat tire and you're on the way to an important meeting. The typical reaction would be, "God, where are you now? I need you, God. Oh, thanks a lot, God." No, a better reaction is, "Okay, what you got in store for me?" And you go around and the AAA guy comes and changes your tire. His son just committed suicide the night before, and he's in tears as he is working, but he's got to work. And you never could have met this man had you not had that flat tire. I mean, everything, everything, everything in your life works for good. There's no bad news anymore. Living in the favor of God, we call it the fog. When you follow the nudge, you live in the fog. You know what the nudge is. God nudges you.
I'm talking to a secular person right now over a cup of coffee, whatever, and they're hurting. They're pouring out their heart to me, and I feel the nudge. I should pray for them. You just heard somebody has a tragedy. They just found they have cancer. I should call them. You see somebody hurting randomly and say, I need to go help that person and comfort them. When you follow the nudge, you live in the fog. Follow the nudge, live in the fog. Live in the favor of God. You live in the promise of Romans 8:28 that says, when you live for my purpose and not that appointment and not anything else, when you live, number one, for me and for my purpose, then you're ministering all the time. You're in full-time ministry. And when you do that, you step into His promise and He makes everything in your life work together for good. That's the end of fear. We haven't had fear, we haven't had anger for decades. It is possible. In fact, it's easy, it's effortless.
Dr. James Dobson: Barry, I need to jump in here because we're out of time and there's so much more that you have to say. I don't want to miss a minute of it, and so we're going to break here and now, but thank you for coming. Thank you for what you believe, what you've taught.
Barry Meguiar: Praise God.
Dr. James Dobson: And it's had an impact on me, and it's wonderful to have you here.
Barry Meguiar: Thank you, Jim.
Dr. James Dobson: And you'll be here tomorrow.
Barry Meguiar: Alrighty.
Roger Marsh: Live for God's purpose, indeed. That was the high energy testimony and practical life advice of Barry Meguiar with our own Dr. James Dobson here on Family Talk. Be sure to tune in again tomorrow for part two of their fascinating conversation. You will not want to miss it.
Now, I'm excited to share with you that all throughout the month of December, we have a special matching grant in place. This is thanks to a number of generous friends of the ministry of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute. And what it means is that every dollar you donate this month will be doubled. So your gift to Family Talk will help twice as many families, twice as many marriages and twice as many listeners will be encouraged to strengthen their faith. So prayerfully consider how you can partner with us financially and take advantage of this special opportunity to double your donation to the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute during the month of December. You can give a gift online at drjamesdobson.org. That's drjamesdobson.org, or call us at 877-732-6825. That's 877-732-6825. Thanks in advance for your financial contribution and most importantly, thank you for keeping us in your prayers as well.
I'm Roger Marsh, and you've been listening to Family Talk, the voice you trust for the family you love.
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