The American Soul
The American Soul
Striving to Hear "Well Done, Good and Faithful Servant"
Faith and gratitude form the foundation of both personal relationships and national identity, as we explore how making time for God and our spouses reflects our true priorities and values.
• Making time for God through prayer, reading his word, and listening is essential to spiritual growth
• Our spouses should be our "one out of seven billion" with eager, enthusiastic attention to their needs
• Scripture teaches that thankfulness should be our sacrifice to God, not just ritual offerings
• We must use our talents to improve this world despite its imperfections and sorrows
• John Adams believed American independence was achieved through Christian principles combined with liberty
• Liberty cannot exist separated from Christ's principles, regardless of one's political ideology
Check out our reading of my children's book "Countryside" on our other podcast, available on Apple and all major platforms. You can also purchase the book on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
The American Soul Podcast
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Hey folks, this is Jesse Cope, back with another episode of the American Soul Podcast. Hope y'all are doing well, wherever y'all are, whatever part of the day you're in. I sure do appreciate you joining me, giving me a little bit of your time and a little piece of your day. I will try and use it wisely. For those of y'all who continue to share the podcast with others, tell others about it and offer support, thank you so much. I'm very, very grateful, especially for those of y'all that continue to pray for me and for the podcast.
Speaker 1:Father, thank you for today. Thank you for you, father, and your Son, Jesus Christ, and your Holy Spirit. Thank you for your love and your mercy, your grace and your forgiveness of sins. Thank you for all of your many blessings, the ones we admit and the ones we don't. Draw us close to you. Father, please Guide us through the day. Be with those who are anxious and afraid, those who are heartbroken, those who are sick and injured. Comfort them. Be with those around the world who are suffering, persecuted, raped and tortured and pillaged and plundered because they follow your Son, jesus Christ. Help us to offer them whatever comfort we can. Help us to defend liberty here in America and around the world to share it with others. Help us to stand against evil. Help us to fear you, father, and not man. Help us to get our priorities in the right order, to focus on the things each day that you want us to focus on. Forgive us our greed and our selfishness, our laziness, procrastination, judgment of others, callousness, lack of gratitude. Forgive us when we turn away from you and help us to do better. Be with our leaders. Help them to rule in fear of you Governors, judges, senators, representatives, generals, admirals and be with all those in the military and law enforcement. Comfort them. Be with their families. Be with those who listen, father. Thank you for them. Be with, be with their families. Be with those who listen, father. Thank you for them. Be with them and their families and please guide my work. Father, in your son's name we pray Amen.
Speaker 1:Have you made time for God today? Have you made time to read his word, to talk to him, listen to him? I need to work on that one. And if you're married, have you made time for your spouse? Are they your top priority? And it doesn't matter what they want to do, folks. It doesn't matter if it's baking a cake or going for a walk, or sex, or cooking, or cleaning, or holding hands, or just sitting and talking, or going for a drive. This person that we married is supposed to be our one out of seven billion. Our attitude ought to be whatever they want to do, whenever they want to do, wherever, however often eagerly. Our answer ought to be yes, eagerly, and if it's not, we need to look in the mirror quite a bit.
Speaker 1:Let's see 2 Corinthians, chapter 8, verses 16 through 24. But, thank God, he has given Titus the same enthusiasm for you that I have. Titus welcomed our request that he visit you again. In fact, he himself was very eager to go and see you. We are also sending another brother with Titus. All the churches praise him as a preacher of the good news. He was appointed by the churches to accompany us as we take the offerings to Jerusalem, a service that glorifies the Lord and shows our eagerness to help. We are traveling together to guard against any criticism for the way we are handling this generous gift. We are careful to be honorable before the Lord, but we also want everyone else to see that we are honorable. We are also sending with them another of our brothers who has proven himself many times and has shown on many occasions how eager he is. He is now even more enthusiastic because of his great confidence in you. If anyone asks about Titus, say that he is my partner, who works with me to help you. And the brothers with him have been sent by the churches and they bring honor to Christ. So show them your love and prove to all the churches that are boasting about you is justified.
Speaker 1:Psalm 50, verses 1 through 23. The Lord, the mighty one, is God and he has spoken. He has summoned all humanity from where the sun rises to where it sits, from Mount Zion, the perfection of beauty, god shines in glorious radiance. Our God approaches and he is not silent. Fire devours everything in his way and a great storm rages around him. He calls on the heavens above and the earth below to witness the judgment of his people. Bring my faithful people to me, those who made a covenant with me by giving sacrifices. Let the heavens proclaim his justice, for God himself will be the judge. O, my people, listen as I speak.
Speaker 1:Here are my charges against you. O Israel, I am God, your God. I have no complaint about your sacrifices or the burnt offerings you constantly offer, but I do not need the bulls from your barns or the goats from your pens. And I own the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird of the mountains and all the animals of the field are mine. If I were hungry I would not tell you, for all the world is mine and everything in it. Do I eat the meat of bulls? Do I drink the blood of goats? Make thankfulness, your sacrifice to God, and keep the vows you made to the Most High. Then call on me when you are in trouble and I will rescue you and you will give me glory.
Speaker 1:But God says to the wicked why bother reciting my decrees and pretending to obey my covenant? For you refuse my discipline and treat my words like trash. When you see thieves, you approve of them, and when you spend your time with adulterers, your mouth is filled with wickedness and your tongue is full of lies. You sit around and slander your brother, your own mother's son. While you did all this, I remained silent and you thought I didn't care. But now I will rebuke you, listing all my charges against you. Repent all of you who forget me or I will tear you apart and no one will help you. But giving thanks is a sacrifice that truly honors me. If you keep to my path, I will reveal to you the salvation of God, proverbs 22, verses 22 through 23. Don't rob the poor just because you can, or exploit the needy in court, for the Lord is their defender. He will ruin anyone who ruins them.
Speaker 1:Do we serve God with thankfulness? Are we truly grateful for the blessings he bestows upon us and do we, not only as individuals but as a nation, do we truly repent of our wrongs? We expect these blessings from God. Even people that don't believe in God, even people that don't believe in Jesus Christ, they expect these blessings to continue. On the United States it's impossible, folks, or your country, wherever you are, pretty much all of Western civilization we expect these blessings to continue when we don't turn back to God. And it doesn't have anything to do with a particular denomination, folks. It doesn't matter whether it's Greek, orthodox, roman Catholic, baptist, methodist, church of Christ, lutheran, whatever else. Pick your poison. What matters is are we truly reading scripture? Are we truly following God's commands and turning to him? Are we honoring him in the way we act in our marriages? If we're married, are we illustrating that relationship between Christ and the church? And if we're not, if we're not folks, then we got problems and we do, and you can see that in our country and in our marriages today.
Speaker 1:Ooh, shuler, colfax, vice president, under Ulysses S Grant, man derives his greatest happiness not by that which he does for himself, but by what he accomplishes for others. This is a sad world, at best a world of sorrow, of suffering, of injustice, falsification. Men stab those whom they hate with the stiletto of slander, but it is for the followers of our Lord to improve it and to make it more as Christ would have it. The most precious crown of fame that a human being can ask is to kneel at the bar of God and hear the beautiful words well done, good and faithful servant. Folks, there's not a lot of things I can probably say completely honestly, 100%, but I can tell you that my greatest hope, goal, desire, wish in life is to one day kneel at the bar of God and hear the beautiful words well done, good and faithful servant. Do I always act like that? No, am I human and I fail? Yeah, more than I act like that? No, am I human and I fail? Yeah, more than I even want to think about. Is that my goal? Is that what I hope to hear one day God say because of his son, jesus Christ, covering me in his blood. Yes, as a Christian, I can't imagine that there's anything we ought to be striving for more than hearing that, because that will mean that we have truly served God, loved God, loved his son and followed his commands. And it's.
Speaker 1:You know, my grandmother had a saying. She used to say life's not fair, it's just life. And that sounds really harsh, but it's also true, and it's a good thing to remember, folks, that this is not our world. I get caught up in it too sometimes. God, I'm sitting here trying to do what you want me to do. Yeah, I know I'm not perfect, but I'm trying. And why don't I have this? Better job, or more money, or better health or a better whatever? More money or better health or a better, whatever picture, you know, whatever your poison is? Um fame, fortune, marriage, land, cars, savings account. But but you know, mr Colfax, here this is a sad world. At best it's a sorrow-filled world of suffering and injustice and falsification. We stab each other with slander, with words. What's our job as followers of Christ? It's to improve it, to try and make it better, right.
Speaker 1:I think we too often allow people that reject God and reject Jesus Christ to convince us that, since we can't have a perfect world, we shouldn't even try, or they make a false idea of what a perfect world would be. Our goal, though, folks, maybe I should say it this way I think a lot of Christians, we use being humans that are prone to failure. We use that as an excuse. Prone to failure, we use that as an excuse. We should be grateful for the blessings we have. We should also use the talents and the skills God's given us to the utmost to try and make this world a better place. Do everything we can to aim for Christ, to aim for perfection, and that's both true as us, as individuals, and that's true of our nation, as America, and our laws and our constitutions and our institutions. We ought to strive to have them be as close to Christ as possible.
Speaker 1:June 28, 1813, john Adams sent a letter to Thomas Jefferson. Miss Jefferson, the general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the only principles in which that beautiful assembly of young gentlemen could unite. And what were these general principles? I answer the general principles of Christianity, in which all these sects or denominations were united, and the general principles of English and American liberty, in which all these young men united, and the general principles of English and American liberty in which all these young men united and which had united all parties in America in majorities sufficient to assert and maintain her independence. Now I will avow that I then believe, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God and that those principles of liberty are as unalterable as human nature and our terrestrial mundane system.
Speaker 1:There is no liberty without Jesus Christ, without the principles of Christ, principles of Christ. That's why, when we see socialist, communist, leftist, muslims being elected in America, you know that liberty is not only at risk but it's being defeated. You can't be a person that subscribes to socialism, communism, leftism, fascism, nazism, islam, buddhism, hinduism, atheism, mother natureism. You can't be a professing any one of those and defend or maintain or increase liberty. And any instance in where that actually happens with someone who follows one of those ideologies is just an instant where they happen to follow the principles of Christ. In that moment it's kind of like the clock thing right Like a clock is right twice a day, even if it's set wrong, something like that. Some of y'all know that Any time someone who doesn't follow the principles of Christ actually gets something right, in that moment they are following the principles of Christ and they just happen to have stumbled in it for whatever reason and there's multiple reasons.
Speaker 1:If you haven't had a chance yet, we're reading through a children's book that I've written called Countryside over on another podcast. You can find it. It's out there in Apple and all the different places. You can also buy the book on Amazon and Barnes and Noble and a bunch of places. If you get a chance, love for you to join us. If not, glad you're here. Hope you come back to the podcast and we'll talk to you all again real soon. Looking forward to it. God bless you all. God bless your families, your marriages, america and your nation, wherever you are around the world.