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CTP (S3EJanSpecial2) No Limits Church with Charles Matthews

• Joseph M. Lenard | Christian Activist & Author in Politics • Season 3

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CTP (S3EJanSpecial2) No Limits Church with Charles Matthews
Exploring more of the fascinating intersection of Activism, Community Engagement, Faith / Religion, Human Nature, Politics, Social Issues, and beyond  
We explore how real change happens when relationship with Christ replaces hollow religion and how grace partners with free will to build a life without limits. Charles Matthews shares his journey from addiction and severe illness to purpose, boundaries, and a church built on transformation.
• growing up in Portsmouth and finding purpose beyond hardship
• addiction, recovery and why willpower alone is not enough
• religion versus relationship and the problem with churchianity
• love with boundaries and emotional stewardship
• righteous anger as fuel for healing and action
• health battles, healing and a renewed mission
• practical ways to discern, forgive and still use wisdom
• links to connect: Dominion Publications and KPTV broadcast
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SPEAKER_00:

Hello, welcome to another episode of Institutionalist Podcast. I am your host, Joseph L. Wonder. That's L-E-N-A-R-D at the French Now that's wonderful about it. Thank you for tuning in. As Brandon used to say on his show, let's get on with the show. Hello everyone. A special introductory segment before getting into the episode. The remainder of December. Merry Christmas to all. And since I'll be using this opening through the rest of December, two a week now, Tuesdays and Thursdays, the rest of December, as well as January and February. Get on with an interview. Hello, everyone. Welcome to another Christitutionalist podcast. Going to join me today is Charles Matthews, No Limits Church International. So oh, I'm gonna have a whole lot to say. But we are welcome to the show, Charles. How are you?

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you for having me. I'm great, great to be here. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00:

Where were you born and raised and where are you now? Any significant places you've been in between, that sort of thing?

SPEAKER_01:

I was raised here in Tywata, Virginia, um, city called Portsmouth, Virginia. Um, raised uh downtown Portsmouth, actually. And um, I will say that I was raised in uh one of the one of the most uh uh how can I say um kind of challenging projects in the in the country. And uh I had a very tough background, and all I can say is by the grace of God, uh I'm here now and and doing great. Uh been through a whole lot, uh, you know, and uh God bless me to see the other side of that. And so uh just being here with you tonight is is just proof positive that God's grace is more than enough to get you out of anything that you can go through in your life. So yeah, it's Bob, it's great to be here.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh my audience knows I can't resist the lame puns and the word play and that. So maybe cover the kids' ears. I guess this will be a PG 13 episode because I gotta joke from the port's mouth as opposed to the port's anus for the middle for the transcript. We're we're laughing, it's a joke, people. Can we relax? I I know that's a bit of a crude bad one, but I can't pass right well. No limits church. Uh, I had conversations with a other couple people today, interaction on social media the other day. Someone uh said he's leaving, you know, the more traditional structured religious churches to kind of form his own thing, which I'm sorry, in my opinion, is kind of cultish. And as Dennis Quaid says, I don't know if you've ever heard him coin the term churchianity, right? A whole lot of churches, the building with a steeple does not automatically make it a church of Christ, and that's what that person was indicating. And I had others join in on me after he mentioned it too, is like they just want the kumbaya, Jesus leave out all the tough love parts of the Bible. Uh the tough love parts are there for a reason, too.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, sir.

SPEAKER_00:

Just being kumbaya around the campfire all the time is a Matthew 23 snake viper blind guide that you know if it feels good, it's great, do whatever, you'll always be forgiven, and everybody gets in heaven.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, right.

SPEAKER_00:

Not necessarily so.

SPEAKER_01:

No, you know, I you know, I I believe that uh relationship defines what it but the difference between what people call organized religion, uh, that has never helped anybody. You know, uh I've I've been around a while now in ministry, actually, uh for over 20-something years, and uh I've seen some bad stuff happen in the name of religion. And uh the I'm I'm concerned that the Christ that a lot of people are preaching now um has more to do with uh their own brand, people's own brand of what they want Christ to be like, opposed to who he really is. Um he will accept you as you are, but he won't leave you the way you are. And so you know, but you have a lot of role to play in that, of course. Right. Um but the grace of God supersedes any religion, and um I'm I'm grateful to know that his grace goes beyond. Um, I mean, just to be honest with you, uh, if I call you Joseph, yeah. Um I had a very, very strong uh uh drug habit, you know, you know, it gives me PPG 13, but my nickname used to be Scarface, uh, you know, if you know what I mean. And um yeah, and um, and so it it took more than religion to get my life together. Um, it was a grace from a real Jesus that understood real issues, um, to touch my life that well, I had real problems. And so um religion don't help, but relationship with Christ does.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and we're all given free will. We have our choices, and God will accept us but wants better of us and from us, and we are to want, we are to want to be better, right? Two songs I I I quote and and go into in my the book of Kennedy Project Carpe D and we are to want to be better, we want yes, you shall be known by your fruits. What are you what are you sowing that we're reaping? Can you, as Michael Jackson said, look at the man in the mirror and ask him to change his ways and be better, want to be better, not just a coaster life. Rick Springfield, I often cut quote his karma song, which is kind of his version of Michael Jackson's Man in the Mirror, where it says, Every bit of love I give to another, you know what I believe, it comes back to me, right? And you don't have to be Christian or of any faith to understand that karma concept. You surround with good, you try to put good out. That's what if you constantly negative and spiteful and hateful, you're surprised that's what comes back to you. That's just kind of the way this fallen world works.

SPEAKER_01:

You mentioned our church name, it it really inspired me, you know, the No Limits Nations Church. It's inspired from that very same concept that there is no limits to what God can do in your life, you know. If if you just say yes, he doesn't require that you daughter B T and Cross, uh, well, I say the back, he don't call you daughter I and Cross of B T. But what he desires is just your heart. And then he will, and then if you yield his heart, his heart, your heart to him, then he will do the rest. And there are no limits to what can happen in your life. Um I am proof positive because you're talking about looking at a gentleman that that I'll get paid Friday and sniff my whole check up and it'll be and it'll be gone, you know. And what a miserable life, and you can't get free from that just by like you're saying, saying coombayah, it ain't gonna happen, you know. You know it takes it takes a real encounter with the living Christ um to be free from that, and I'm grateful. And thus, my wife and I was inspired to name our church that because there's no limits to what God can do in one's life. And as you say, if you sow that type of desire, you can reap that type of benefit.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, our job to try to sow good, uh it's like changing. Uh, I had a conversation with another guest about remembering our role, we can't force, we're all given free will, they have to want to come to Christ in their own free will. Yes, holding a gun to their head isn't a legitimate conversion. Yes, yes, yes. Islamic radicals think that is their way, but yeah, yeah. But my point being, there's a lot of people trying in a way to put limits on God with with just the kumbaya parts. That guy's gonna leave the church for his own humanist club to make him feel better. He's not teaching all of Christ, and he's trying to put Jesus in a box, limits on him.

SPEAKER_01:

You can't superimpose your own, uh, your own uh how can I say this? Your own desire, how you how how you want Christ to be. Um, you know, and and when you talk about free will, I told you this way. You know, it's kind of like a person going this morning and say, I'm gonna pull a gun on you and say, You wanna marry me or else I'm gonna blow your head off. You know what I mean? No, no, nobody wanna get nobody wants to get married uh by force. Hopefully there's some love involved, okay? Um you know, hopefully, you know, and then the marriage will become um it is designed, and this is why now I know why Paul used marriage as a backdrop to describe how Christ loved the church because it is a union, but like you say, between two hearts willingly to submit themselves to Christ, and out of that union comes a change of life. I think people uh Joseph are trying to serve God with with their own willpower. Your willpower is not strong enough. Um, you need something more than that. I know I do. Um it's like the guy that said, you know, I love I love chocolate chill cookies, is in front of me. I I'm not gonna bother with it. Yeah, okay. The cookies are gonna be gone in the next five minutes. You try to use your willpower to get it done, and it's not gonna happen. Um, I I didn't use willpower to get free from a cocaine habit. It was an encounter.

SPEAKER_00:

I I think it's part of the equation, right? Yeah, yeah. Again, the free will and and indeed some willpower it to want to change, and but as you said, you needed help, especially help, especially from upstairs to supplement and bolster your your will and willpower to yes, right? Lord, give me strength, right?

SPEAKER_01:

And that's the part that you that's good part you bring up. That's the part that you will to do. Lord, I have a I have a desire for this, you know. That's the part I will. I Lord, I want this. It's not like I'm trying, I'm not playing games, you know. Lord, if you don't help me, I'm telling you that it's not gonna work. I need you. And um sometimes, you know, people, I hate to say this, it's not God's will. People have to come to the end of their rope to understand that you need more than just your own human effort. And sometimes when we put our own human effort before the Lord, it's like, why did Christ die for? Why why would why why would he die on Calvary if we could do it all ourselves? By now, the whole thing would be round by now, we all be in heaven, but it's just not the case, you know. Um, you know, and but but you make a you bring a good point that one would have to desire this so that it can be an exchange, if you will. Lord, here's my heart, here's my will, and I receive what you have for me. And out of that union comes a new life that only God can give.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and there's we are to even love our enemies. There's the of course various kinds of love that's laid out in the Bible. Yeah, and I I joke in my the book of Kennedy Project Carpe, DM. Some people make it so difficult to want to or be able to love them. Sometimes a from afar is better, right? I will I love you to death, which like with my uh well, you know, in a divorce, you may still love the other person, but I can't be under the same roof with you anymore, kind of thing, right? The love is so hopeful, it didn't give in and turn over to hate. But loving someone doesn't mean necessarily being able to live with someone, and as I joke too, right? The serenity prayer, dear Lord, give me the peace and tranquility to not smack the crap out of this idiot that deserves it.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, you know, love also love also gives you wisdom, you know. Um, and you know, some things are not just that good together, you know. Um, if you cross that battery post uh uh uh the wrong way, you can blow something up, you know. Um after a while you realize that there are that's this all the time in our church saying you will become bankrupt if if you have if if your if you become a if you have friends and all they do is just take, take, take, take, take, take, take, take, take, and never give back to you. I'm I'm referring to your emotions. If you pour into them and pour into them, and all is just give me, give me, give me, you're gonna become emotionally bankrupt. That relationship is not going to go anywhere. Um now you don't give to get, but it should be a mutual thing where I'll pour into you, you pour into me. I shouldn't be the one always giving because love requires that both give, and this would it's a joy to do that. Now, some people are just selfish. Yeah, I found out I love them for I can love them from afar. Otherwise, otherwise, I would kill myself trying to love somebody who don't want to receive it that way.

SPEAKER_00:

Relationships require work, we're not just necessarily talking marriage here, right? A husband and a wife aren't always gonna agree on everything, and there has to be uh occasionally some give or take, or write the agree to disagree and just not go there again on that thing. But even just general friendships, it as you're alluding, it requires work, it requires some give and take because no two that the whole soulmate thing bothers me at times that compatibility again. If you think there's this magic person that you're going to agree with all the time, that's just sorry, not really a realistic expectation. Even identical twins, they may look alike, yeah, but their brains, they nature are nurse and nurture can think differently, yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Right, right, right, right, right. You know, in our church every Thursday Sunday, my wife and I do something called Relationship Sunday. We teach together side by side, not only on marriage, but but all aspects of relationships, you know, friendship, marriage, all of that. And we talk a lot about the things we're talking about right now, about the importance of having healthy relationships and learning how to respect yourself the way God has, God wants you to see yourself the way He sees you. And um, so that you don't so that so you don't discredit yourself or dishonor yourself by allowing other people to destroy you or to walk all over you. You should be able to um is is is is a way to love. Well, here it is the cross. You have a you have a vertical beam and a horizontal beam. The vertical being the horizontal beam is from God to us, horizontal is from us to each to each to each other. So we endeavor to take the love from from the vertical and use it horizontally toward it toward each other. And and doing the horizontal love thing, sometimes you're gonna encounter people who don't want to fit in that, they want to just superimpose their ways on you, and you can still love them, but sometimes, like you say earlier, sometimes it's not always healthy for you emotionally to just pour your time into them, otherwise, you want to hurt yourself. Uh, and then Satan has a way of condemning you because you're trying to use wisdom, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00:

But yeah, now you mentioned like abuse, and I talk about that all the time. Turn the other cheek, loving even your neighbor, forgiveness and grace isn't open-ended into affinity, right? You people are entitled, bad things happen to good people at times. Good people can have bad days. We're all entitled, we're human, we're frail, we're flawed. Uh turn the other cheek means, right? Martin Luther King Jr. is even, right? Content of character. Maybe somebody that's not really their character, they have a bad day. So you're not to judge on that cover or that one appearance. And yes, you've turned the other cheek, but as you said, it doesn't mean contextually with the rest of the Bible, including 12 scriptures that tell us we are to judge ourselves and others biblically, not hypocritically, but it doesn't mean Jesus didn't say always allow yourself to be abused. If someone shows their free will to always choose evil, then you need to then treat them as the evil force they are, not continually give in. The the old uh uh Edmund Burke quote, right only thing necessary, evil prevail, good people do nothing. If you're gonna kept keep letting evil get away with things, yeah, that's not the spirit of turn the other cheek and forgiveness and grace God is referring to when you look at the whole Bible in context.

SPEAKER_01:

Well said, well said. You know, Jesus didn't play. Jesus said, Don't cast your purse before a swine. Okay, so he laid it out real strongly. You know, uh he didn't play around like I would. He would say, if if he Saying if you go to the house and they receive you, leave your blessing. And if you don't leave and take your blessing with you, you know, he would just then in one scene he beat the people out the the temple because it was made commercial of the house of God. So Jesus didn't play. There's a time for everything under the sun. There's a time to uh be strong strong, it's a time to be thorough, a time to be pleasant. And you know, and and as you here's my thing, as you grow in grace, you learn how to discern between the times to act to function in those ways. You you'll find out you you discern just between the time to be thorough and the time to be patient. Yeah. And sometimes, you know, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, absolutely. And uh right, a part of the Kumbaya Jesus crowd, right? They don't want to talk about the overturning of the tables. Hubris is a sin and it's a problem. Jesus never said anger is a sin, Jesus himself experienced it and did what he did. But it so what we do with our anger as a natural human emotion and condition is what matters. Do you channel that anger into doing things that make things better? Or do you get violent? Do you write?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, sometimes, like I said, anger can become a good catalyst. Um, you know, especially when you see, for example, this may this may sound very far-fetched, but um, I've been through a lot physically uh I just went through uh extreme, well, I had renal failure for a long time. My my kidneys completely shut down. And uh I had renal failure last stage. I had I also had um um prostate cancer at the same time, and uh went through surgery at the same time, and they the doctors wrote me off. They said, well, you know, if you don't get a kidney, you know, there's a hope for you. Um, you know, and I went through a uh a month of four and a half hours dialysis. This no limits God to be talked about, delivered me from all of that. I see the night before you as a living miracle, no kidney failure, no uh prostate cancer, new lease on life. Um and when I talk about anger, I'm talking about anger in reverse. Now I'm doing everything that was stolen from me in the beginning. I'm doing everything now that I that was lost, that I lost when I was with all that disease and sickness. Now I I'm angry but in a good way. So I'm gonna take my my new lease on life and do everything I'm called to do while I have it with my life because God spared me. You know what I mean? So I I've learned how to turn that anger into power now, and now I'm gonna take this newfound life and do everything that heaven designed me to do. You know what I mean? So, yeah, it's it's it can be a great catalyst.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, you mentioned uh remission. I I for those viewing on the video, you could see right my bald head. I know I'm not a 1980s neo-Nazi, right? I I didn't choose the herdo when I went through chemo chemo for leukemia in 2010. It came out and I decided, oh, I'll just keep it shaved now. And I save a ton of money on shampoo and conditioner. Uh-oh, where'd where'd you go? You're looking like your camera toggled off somehow. And the other, right, normal emotions, as long as we can hear each other, I think we're okay. But emotion, right? Like Star Trek 5, I think it was. Uh Spock's long-lost half-brother, we knew nothing about. Let me take your pain, and Kirk saying, No, I need that. That's what makes me who I am, right? Our experiences, good and bad, the anger as well as the love and the pain as well as the joy, make us who we are today, and hopefully make us a better person. Like people who have been bullied, there's that example. Well, I don't want to be like that person. I don't want to do to others what that person did to me. That bullying may not have been fun, but it made you a better person today, in a way. Yes.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. And I um um I am let me see. I I do apologize, Joseph. I uh I don't know what happened to to my my camera, but uh I I I it's it's that's kind of strange. But but I really I I really uh can you know what you said say it resonates strongly with me, and um I think it's a it's it's a very, very powerful thing. And you know, God bless you, sir. You you know, you you you came to that situation, and besides, you look good with a ball head, man. You look pretty pretty cool with a ball head.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, a fairly proportional head for it, yeah, not too many divots up there and whatnot. So yeah, yeah, indeed. So oh oh there you're back.

SPEAKER_01:

You're back now. Okay, we're twins actually. We're we're bald twins.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, yeah. Goes Twin Sons of Different Mothers, right? That's right, that's right, that's right, that's right, that's right.

SPEAKER_01:

That's right. We know I shave her the morning. I mean, I I don't know what's what the assessment is about hair, man. I I enjoy to me it's it's it's time management. You shave your head in the shower and you out of there. No tripping.

SPEAKER_00:

Again, save ton of money on shampoo and conditioner, time not having to blow dry hair, all that management out the window. You don't have to worry about it anymore. Yes, it it does make it so much easier. Well, I'm gonna go ahead and start to wrap us up anyway. Uh, I try to keep my shows 30 minutes or less, so you know, get too long, people don't tune in, right? The tick tock and twitter attention span, I call it these days, right? Just give me the headline or the sound boy. Well, details matter, of course, right? Yeah, uh, so is there a website for folks to reach out to you?

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I have a um you can look at my uh I have a website for my books called uh Dominion Publications. I have three books on that on that website. Um Dominion Publications. Also, you can um look at my Facebook page, which is at Bishop Matthews50. Um, you can look on Facebook and see all things we're doing. Um, and yeah, so those are the two places you can check me out at. I also can um on KPTV every Wednesday at 5 30 um for a broadcast. So yes.

SPEAKER_00:

All right, is Dominion as in the Dominion of the Kingdom of God, not the voting machine company. No, no, no, yeah, and publications is that dot com or yes, dot com.

SPEAKER_01:

Also, cmcmatthews54 at gmail.com is another another uh place you can reach out to me or different things, uh, for appointments, things of that nature. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, well, can't pass on the puns. One just came to me. But so it's great, no limits church. Hopefully, a cop doesn't catch you because there are speed limits normally.

SPEAKER_01:

Right, right, right, right, right.

SPEAKER_00:

You can take your church out on the Audubon, but not the local streets around here. Absolutely, absolutely. I can no matter how lame the pun is, I can't help myself put to go there. Understanding. Understand. Oh, so thank you, Charles Matthews, for stopping by. Thank you for having me. Take care, God bless. Thank you, sir. All right, bye-bye. Like and subscribe to Christitutionalist politics podcast and care episodes. We need your help. Thank you for having tuned in to another Christitutionalist podcast show. I really appreciate that you stop by. Again, please like, share, subscribe. We need you to help spread the constitutionalist movement. Thank you again. Take care. God bless. Love you all.

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Joseph M Lenard

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