How Seeking Jesus Changes Stress, Marriage, And Daily Life

Transcript

Why Faith Suddenly Felt Real

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Alright, Vince. Brought you in here today to talk on the podcast about Jesus Christ. And maybe some other stuff. But for the people that listen to our podcast with Greg and I quite a bit, they know over the last few episodes or weeks, like I've spoken more openly about my faith and recently finding it six months ago or so. And I want to say, you know, I don't know if I've ever told you this because I don't tell anyone thank you ever, but I want to say you are a huge part of it. Just like watching you and seeing how you carry yourself with Christ has been eye-opening to me. One of the people I do look up to in this field, so I figured I'd bring you on and talk to you about it.

SPEAKER_00 0:41

Wow. Well, I appreciate that, man. Thank you. And honestly, before when you texted me this morning and you asked me, you know, let's do it, jump on this podcast. I was like, man, dude, to watch the way you're able to seek God. See, most people I see when they get brought to the door of Jesus, they stop seeking. They they finally find them, and then they stopped the whole entire mission, they were odd. But with you, I've noticed you not only just started seeking, but you really are pursuing the face of Jesus. And I really respect that about you.

SPEAKER_01 1:17

Dude, when I figured out or when I told myself this is true, I'm a believer, it became like an addiction. Like part of me was just like, oh crap, I got 30 years to catch up on. Yeah. And then like the more and more and more I read, like the more addicting it becomes, or the more interesting it becomes, or the more like life lessons and just little tidbits I'm able to take away and place into my life. And I could tell you this, and I've said it a few times, like, since I've accepted Jesus or I've surrendered, dude, nothing in my life has gotten worse, and a lot of my life has gotten better, like in many freaking areas, and I have found that it's so it's incrementally better, and it and things could just improve day by day by day by day, just by reading something or understanding something at a deeper level. So, you know, I and I see a lot of Christians like that that, like you said, they they believe in God, but they don't believe God, if that makes sense. Like they kind of just, you know, they believe in the Bible, they believe in the resurrection, they believe in all the stories that they were told as kids and they're supposed to, but I think there's a much deeper level that everyone's faith could go into of like really believing God. Absolutely. Because I mean the Bible tells you, or yeah, the Bible itself tells you to read the dang thing. It tells you to stay close to the scripture, stay close to Jesus. You know, in the New Yeah, New Testament, you know, there's a lot of like, you know, Jesus walking with you every day, you know, the Holy Spirit is always there. And when you're believing God, not just believing in him, but believing him, it it takes it to a whole whole nother level. Like, there's three things in my life that I focus on right now work, just to support and take care of my family, my family, and God. Those are like 99.9% of my life. I mean, I'm either talking about it, thinking about it, or doing one of those three at all freaking times. And I'm telling you, life has gotten better, less stressful, less anxiety. I feel like I could just be more of my new self, less held back, less less of a jackass, and then just more open to crazy things that are happening, not crazy things, but like more open to divine things that are happening every day in life.

SPEAKER_00 3:32

I love that. So there's two things I want to touch on.

Believing God Versus Believing In God

SPEAKER_00 3:35

We'll get to the second one, that last piece you just talked. But the first, you talked about believing God and then believing in God. And for me personally, there's a scripture that I when the once I read it, it finally clicked. It was Philippians, it's I believe either 3-8 or 4-8. But it talks about I count it all a loss without knowing the surpassing worth of Christ Jesus. And it's Paul. He's speaking about hey, this is a guy who is a Christian murderer and killer, the worst one of them all, gets blinded, receives grace from Jesus, and now he brings the Bible the furthest, further than anyone has ever. And then he says, No what? I would still count it all a loss if I didn't know Christ Jesus. And that moment when I read that scripture was, oh, this is more than just believing in him, this is walking with him. And then it goes on to say, to be like crucified in his death and resurrected in his resurrection. And that first piece, man, that transformed my entire just the way I looked at Jesus. It brought me into a deeper intimacy. So to go on to that second point you made about you know being open to what opens when you enter into that deep intimacy with Jesus is signs, miracles, and wonders. And divine power, exactly what you're saying. So I'm curious to see, to know more about what has your journey been like so far in watching those just modern day miracles happen, whether it's small or something big or something literally from the Bible.

SPEAKER_01 5:22

So I try to not use that miracle word because I think that miracle word is bigger than we throw it around to be. Okay. Um, I like to use, and I've recently tried because it took me weeks to figure out what word I wanted to use, but

Noticing Divine Patterns In Daily Life

SPEAKER_01 5:35

like divine intervention or divine experiences. And that's for Brittany and I both, that's like been the biggest one that we've seen, you know, doing our Bible study and just and and really just figuring out what it is and what it means to us. But I mean, we've had a couple you could say unexplainable, and maybe you would even overlook them if you weren't in tune. For example, Orion this weekend decided to go to mass with me. That's my older daughter, 15 years old. And it was just after, it was the day before we went to Mass. So Saturday, we went to a walk in the park. We did, I don't know, 20, 25 minutes. Brittany, Orion and I, my younger daughter's out of town right now, but uh we're walking in the park and she actually starts, you know, opening up and asking some questions here and there. And I'm like, okay, that's cool. Answer them to the best of my ability. And then I ask her if she wanted to go to Mass with me the next morning. I go to the 7:30 Mass because I'm old and you know, have life and want to get stuff done in life. Yeah. And I was actually kind of surprised because she said yes. So we go to the mass and we're, I don't know, going through some of the hymns, and we're on like, I don't know, the third one. And it's it's just a it's one of the ones that on the sheet isn't labeled like where it is in the hymn book. It's just one little line, very, very simple, maybe 15, 20 seconds of the mass. And she picks up the hymn book to look for it. And this book is 12, 1,500 pages. It is a big, big book. And everything's listed on the sheet of the mass that week, except for that one, because it was so quick, it would be pointless to even try to find it if you knew where it was. So I kind of look over out of the side of my eye, see her do that, and I'm in my brain thinking there's no way you're gonna find it. Let's just move on to the next one. And she opens the book and turns right to the page, and it's it's just one line on a page full of other typing, just right to it. And it was funny because that Saturday, that's what she was talking about, and Brittany and I were explaining to her, telling her about some of the things that we've, you know, seen kind of strange in life, or you know, something happens in that day, then you do your Bible study and you read that scripture that day. And I'll I'll tell you a few of those. But yeah, she turns out of 1200 or some, some, some odd pages, turns right to it, looks right at it, my eyes catch it right away. I don't even read what else is on the page, my eyes catch exactly where that line is of just the music notes and the words. And I look at her and I'm just like, shake my head and just go back to you know, the warship. And then as we're driving home and she's like, Dad, is you know, that kind of what you and mom were talking about, just like, you know, things like that. And I'm like, you could definitely see it that way. I'm like, you had a one in 1200 plus chance of turning to that page. And that's it. And you just right to it. And I was I was shocked. So that was one of those things where like I'm like, okay, God was trying to give her a sign because she said something crazy, and I think she's twisting this a little bit, but this is where God plays a weird role in everyone's life. Is when we were on our walk, she made a statement about how I told her back when she was she she related a house that we had in Oregon that was a rental house on top of a hill. So I know what house this is. This was was her being six or seven years old. And she was talking about how she used to pray and believe in God, and then apparently she asked me about it one day, and I was like, There is no God, there's big bang theory, blah, blah, blah. Which I don't know if it's completely true because I've never in my life really shamed someone or even cared. Like, I've always, like, I sit told you, been kind of agnostic where I'm like, yeah, there's maybe something, I don't really know. But she told me that I mentioned like the big bang theory and stuff, and I'm like, I've never really believed in the big bang theory. That stuff doesn't make any dang sense to me. That's just ludicrous science. And by the way, it is proven that it's not how we were taught. But, anyways, so she says that, and then I start thinking deeper on deeper on it. Because my first thought was like, oh gosh, I've got a lot to make up for now. I'm kind of a jackass. And then I start thinking deeper, I'm like, Orion, like, we we didn't like I didn't have this conversation with her, but in my head, I'm like, talk to Britney about it later. I'm like, we didn't have these conversations back then. We, you, you actually didn't have any like Christian friends. Because when we moved to Arizona, she had some friends that took her to CCV. And Brittany and I have always been okay with that. Like, if you want to go explore, do your own thing. We're not gonna keep you away from God. We just at the time didn't believe, didn't really go down any of those paths. So I started thinking deeper, and I'm like, how did she have that memory and experience when we never brought it into the house back then? And she, to my understanding, and I even talked to Britney to confirm, didn't really have any friends that took her to church. You know, we had just gotten back from Alaska, so yes, Alaska's, you know, pretty Christian and pretty faith-driven state, but we didn't have any friends that she went to church with or anything like that. We kind of just lived out in the valley by ourselves. We had friends and stuff, but no one that would have had that on her life. I think her babysitter back then was a Christian. And, you know, if she talked about it, I'm totally fine with it. So maybe, maybe those things got there. But the fact that she says she remembers praying kind of on the edge of her bed every night, and then, you know, it kind of sucks if she remembers having a conversation with me like that. I don't know if that's exactly how it went, but you know, to this day, I'm like, uh crap, I gotta make up for that. But that was a goofy one as well. But Britney and I, I mean, have had the most strange connections. Like one of the big, big ones is there was one day Britney and I kind of got in an argument, or you know, I got pissed off at her over something semi-stupid. It was something that I did believe, but it was definitely something that I angered a little more than I should have. And in my front room behind our couch, we've I've got this like little seating area with two chairs and like a table, kind of like you and I are sitting in now. And on it, I've got this 30-day devotional. It's godly husband, something like that. I might be slaughtering the title, but it's just 30-day devotional, how to be a better husband. And I'd been reading it pretty regularly, one little devotional chapter a night. And it was like day 16 or something. I was angry with Britney and I came home that evening, and like I didn't even want to talk because I knew if I talked, I was gonna say something mean and wrong again. So, like, I literally sat in that chair for about an hour and stared at the wood flooring and just like trying to figure my thing out. And I saw the book and I'm like, I should read it, but I'm not really in the right mindset to read it. Like, maybe nope, nope. And I kind of went back and forth on it for that hour, and I chose not to read it that night. So, fast forward the next morning or sat fast forward the next afternoon. I go home, lunch. Typically, I go home for lunch for about an hour, eat, and then I read something just to reset my mind and get my mind right. So I pick that up and read it. And it's the devotional is about anger and marriage. And I'm like, oh crap. So I read it, go through it, and I was like, I don't know if I should have read this last night because I might not have been in the right mindset, but this is definitely last night. So I take a few pictures, text it to Brittany, and she replies back. She goes, That's crazy because today was the first time I've ever prayed in my life, and I prayed that someone would say something to you, or you would read something today that would recap last night. And I'm like, that's weird.

Seeking Then Trusting God Fully

SPEAKER_01 12:30

Because I was pretty disciplined about reading that every day until day 16. Something just told me, Don't pick it up, it's not the right day. Read it the next day, and I mean it just verbatim was like, maybe you were right in your thinking, but you were pretty you handled it in the complete wrong situation. And I was like, yeah, that's pretty much it. So there's just been, you know, that one. There's been yeah, I'm not I'm not surprised that that happened like that.

SPEAKER_00 12:52

You know, it's uh God tends to meet you right where you're at. You know.

SPEAKER_01 12:57

Well, and it seems like they're happening daily, and Brittany and I were talking about just I think it was Saturday, about how how often little things like that are happening in our lives right now that we would have never paid attention to. And then we were uh we were talking, we were talking about like you and Tommy and the twins, you know, people that are pretty vocally, you know, talk about things like this. And I'm like, honestly, I kind of feel bad because part of me, anytime Vince or one of the twins was talking about like one of these connections with God, and this is how it happened. Like, my brain went, no, dude, it happened because that person was right there at the right time and that happened at the right exact right thing. And I kind of feel like God is testing Britney and I to a certain degree of like, look what I can actually do when your eyes are open. So, like almost slapping us in the face with like, look what this is. Like, it's cool because it is strengthening my faith, but at the same time, like part of it's kind of overwhelming of like, did I miss all this my entire life, or is this because of the connection?

SPEAKER_00 13:59

The way I like to break that down is and it's in two parts, right? When you don't believe in God, you have to seek him first, and that's exactly what you did. But there's a second piece to that, and then once you seek him, you can now trust God because all of a sudden, there's evidence, he starts to become more reliable, and yes, it takes a degree of faith, but those two pieces I put in that order because what you can't trust God if you don't seek him. Yeah, it doesn't work like that. You flat out, it's like back to what we started the podcast with. It's like there's the people who don't seek God, they're happy. They're happy. There's the people who seek God fully, and they're experiencing the fruits of the Spirit, right? The love, joy, peace, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, self-control, patience, or forbearance, depending on what translation. And then there's the middle where you seek God, but you also still seek the world. And this person, they're at a civil war in their heart, and they're honestly the most miserable. So we see a lot of Christians like this, believers like this, who are miserable as believers. And it's like you might that's why it's like go all in or it's all out. It's not an in-between, because if it's in between, then you're not gonna be happy either way.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

That's what I was I was talking to, I don't remember who it was the other day, but they were asking me about it, and they were, you know, I f I'm I'm trying to get there, I'm trying to believe, and I go, dude, it's this simple. It's 99%, which is 0%, or it's 100%.

SPEAKER_00 15:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

I go, there's no in-between, there's no gray area when it comes to this, because true Christianity and surrendering no longer makes it theory or just belief, like it becomes a truth. And once you realize that it's a truth, and I'm not talking relative truth, our entire society is destroyed with the confusion of what truth is because we've gone to this narrative that truth is relative. Truth is not relative, it's you know, I'm breathing oxygen or I'm not. It's that dang simple. If if I breathe too much carbon dioxide, I go to sleep and then I die. It's that simple. There's no ifs, ands, or buts about it. But we've come up with this thing in our society that there's a relative truth, that you and I can have different beliefs.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

My truth.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

Yes, and both of them are right, yeah. Which doesn't actually make sense and is confusing our entire society because we might believe two different things, but uh one of us, or maybe neither of us, is right. Correct. And it's kind of like if I believe two plus two equals three, and you believe two plus two equals four, we both believe those to be truths, but the only truth is the one that you believe, which is two plus two equals four. So for me, going down this like journey, the minute, the minute I accepted that Jesus Christ died on the cross, was resurrected three days later, that to me was the truth. The minute I convinced myself that that was a truth and no longer just a story that may or may not have happened, and I was like, man, there's enough evidence pointing toward this. Like nobody can argue it with facts. There's more evidence and facts that point toward it than there are against it. So I kind of went, Oh crap, that's real. And then from that point, it happened that quick, that quick, just snap of a fingers that quick, like I kind of just surrendered to the Bible and I surrendered to Jesus, and then all of a sudden, New and Old Testament, everything in that became truth and no longer just stories or theory. And then there's the next level of like, okay, what does that mean? This is a guide to live my life, how I am supposed to, you know, live, what Jesus came on earth to do, to give man the freedom, to give man everything that they need to seek and grow his kingdom. And I went, well, first thought was I'm kind of a piece of crap. I got a lot of things to fix right now. And then the second thing was like this huge just drop of stress and anxiety and just going like, dude, I found the map. I found the blueprint. It's that freaking easy. Now, just because you find the blueprint in the map, you still gotta, you still gotta study, you still gotta go along with it. But it, but it it, dude, it changed so freaking much. Like just simple stuff, you know how Andy always has that one like, hey, if you want to, you know, get with your wife more, like do the dishes. Dude, okay, so I tried it. But like, you know, you you're a dude over there doing the dishes, like, hey babe, look what I'm doing. What's happening later? But like, and I understand it where it is helpful, but if you're doing it for your own self-fulfilling reasons, like it doesn't make sense. And I hated doing the dishes, I hated doing things like that, like I hate cleaning. But then when I changed my mindset, like, okay, for example, the you know, great husband in the Bible is written in text of basically, you know, you love your wife as Christ loved the church. So I'm like, okay, what does that mean? I gotta break that down. You know, he served the church, he gave to the church, he helped grow the freaking church. So that means I need to serve and help grow her. So then when I started doing the dishes, like it became a form of worship instead of just simply doing the dishes, a task of, hey, now it's, dude, I don't even, I I don't even think about doing things like that anymore. Like I've just I've eliminated finally in my life, I've eliminated all white space on my calendar. Dude, if I find white space, I'm either reading, and if I catch myself reading or I catch myself doing, you know, even going through scripture, and I look back and Britney's doing something, and I'm like, crap, I need to go give her some help so she can go do what she wants and she can grow as a person. And it's just, it's, it's just that

Turning Chores Into Worshipful Service

SPEAKER_01 19:35

freaking easy. I'm working, I'm spending time with my family, I'm reading to become better, go to the gym, whatever those are, things that better who I am. And if if I can't better who I am or better my family, it doesn't exist. And if I'm doing something that doesn't get closer to one of those areas, it's just it finally became easy. It finally became no longer a habit or a discipline that I was trying to instill. And it wasn't like the whole 66-day thing, it takes 66 days to create a habit to make it easier to or harder not to do than just to do, or whatever that psychology says. It wasn't even that hard. It was to me literally just surrendering, and then like the next day or the next minute, it was just seeing things through a different perspective.

SPEAKER_00 20:17

What I hear you saying is the difference between discipline and devotion.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

Yeah. I like that. And then for you, like you also mentioned something while you were speaking, like once you did surrender, you know, kind of some of those feelings that that you felt that also went away. But you know, the question like with your daughter, with Orion, like, oh man, like was I do I got some like work to do here? And that's like really what I'm like burning for more than ever right now. Like, I always knew how to calling before I ever met the Elliott group, before I ever met Andy, I was writing a book with my mentor specifically on Gen Z and Gen X and how they they intersect together, right? Because majority of you know, parents and kids, your whole life, let's say it's a sport or a game, you'll intersect on that and you'll bond on that, but eventually they're gonna grow up. Once they grow up, you guys just keep growing this way until you find that next intersection, right? And that's why it's so it's so cool to hear you say, Oh Ryan, you know, wanted to go to mass with you. That's super special. And with that, what I the biggest thing I see with kids, like this is gonna be I'm gonna show Jonathan the blind spots that he might not be able to see because they're working with all these kids right now, the way they perceive a parent says something to them, it's normally never what the parent says, but it's what they felt. Yeah. And I'm like, man, I watch it over and over again, and it's like because of what they felt, they want to feel seen and heard. Because now they feel misunderstood. And I I I watched it with the Elliot kids. I watched it with uh all the guys in our brotherhood.

SPEAKER_01 22:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:10

This is what we're working on.

SPEAKER_01 22:11

Even both of my kids have, you know, had connection with you. Holland. I think she's done your Bible study with you and the kids a couple times. And very first time was last week. Yeah, wants to be more part of it. And then Orion, I believe, at the last little thing at the Elliot's house we had, sat down and talked to you with a bit. I don't know what the conversation was about, but I'm pretty that kid's smart. Like very analytical, very smart kid. I mean, she even asked me last night, and and this is one of those divine moments that I've noticed now. So she comes and she just started reading the Bible. Uh, we bought her a Bible and it's got like a Bible study guide and stuff in it. And she was on Genesis 1, 2, and 3 creation, and she started having a lot of questions. You know, Adam and Eve, Adam original sin, what could have been, what could have been before? And then the question started getting like super deep about how could nothing be created from nothing and all those type of questions. And what if this could happen? And then what if there was infinite universes and all, you know, what the secular world kind of teaches people, but also just stuff that she was trying to put together in her head. And what was really crazy about it is right now on Angel, are you familiar with that? The uh Netflix TV, yeah, yeah. The Christian-based one, it's LDS, but yeah, they don't push LDS too much. It's very Christian-based, clean, not only just Christian shows, but it's also got other shows that are clean on there as well. Anyways, there's a there's a documentary on it right now that's I forget the what the name it is. I should know the name because it's really freaking interesting if you're a nerd. But it talks about science and Christianity and how they come together and this and that. And a lot of people don't realize this. You know who started modern, like what we consider modern science? No. The Catholic Church. Really? I was one of the first people that pushed it, funded it. Yes. So, anyways, it's talking about the Big Bang and how physicists are now basically to the point, like, even through Einstein, through Hawkins, yeah, Hawkins, like they're all kind of starting to push to the point where, like, okay, this whole Big Bang theory, how we explained it, this evolution theory of Darwinism and all that, there's no actual evidence. Yes, the Big Bang does have some evidence, but the evidence falls apart when you get back to creation or when you get back to the original time, because through science, nothing can exist of nothing. And now, through, you know, for example, uh the theory of relativity, which is still a strong theory today, it it brings back to a singular point where time didn't exist, matter didn't exist, nothing existed. And they cannot explain in a mathematical or physical way how anything could happen without a creator. And now even physicists are now going to intelligent design theory way more than just random or not physicists, but people who study uh both the creation of day one, zero, whatever, but also through evolution that everything is so perfect and so perfectly random that they're going back to an intelligent design theory. And, you know, there's some Albert Einstein never technically became Christian, but he did say his greatest mistake was his his constant variable that he used to basically he did the theory of relativity, which has now been proven to five decimal points that that mathematic equation works for how the universe is expanding. However, he he left a quotation in there, he divided something by zero to basically take out God from possibly being it because he couldn't get the theory to totally make sense. Two years after that, there was a Russian physicist that found it and said, your equation's wrong, you can't divide that by zero. And then about 10 years later, Hubble, I forget his first name, but the guy that the Hubble telescope is named after, brought him to his big telescope thing. What do they call those? Wherever the big telescopes are, and had him look out into the universe and and and prove to him that galaxies, further away they are, they're they're moving at a faster rate, and this and that. And even Einstein, at that day, or post that day, published that the number one mistake I made in my career was the constant variable, and he goes, Now my goal in life is to understand the brain of God. Because at that point in time, he realized that I made a mistake mathematically. Mathematics cannot explain what's going on, and there's gotta be something of intelligent design or some sort of creator that started all this. Even Hawkins, once again, atheist, gets to the point in his theory where they can't explain the creation. They can get all the way back there. And then even Hawking started something called quantum it was the quantum universe theory or quantum something or rather, quantum expansion, I think it was, which was basically this really long study of how the universe works and all the magic and everything crazy and how perfect it is, but it still failed to explain day one, which they know there was a day one. They they're all pretty much on the on the idea now that it it it ha the universe is not eternal. But because of that, if the universe isn't eternal, if the universe, if we used to not have time, if we used to not have matter, if we used to not have space, then something that is eternal, that doesn't have time, would have had to have created all of that. So yeah, then my analytical brain goes, well, if you go back to Genesis, it kind of tells you how it happened, and that's a pretty good explanation. And that's and that I mean, Genesis written what 3,500 years ago, 4,000, 5,500, something like that. What would have been that? Was it 3500 BC? Not sure, actually. Something like that. So I don't know, four or five thousand years ago is when these stories started becoming spoken word and written word, had a pretty good explanation to how the heavens were created. And then, you know, you can go crazy. I my thing is, dude, like I'm not only like addicted to the Bible, but I also want to read all the

Kids, Questions, And Being Heard

SPEAKER_01 28:10

scripture that's outside of the Bible. Because holy crap, that dude, that brings your faith into such another level. Like the book of Enoch. I've been seeing that a lot recently. Dude, it will it for me. That was actually the first that that was the book that I read. I'm like, I want to read this book of Enoch that they kicked out of the Bible. What's so cool about this? Because the Ethiopian Bible still has it, Catholic Bible does not, the Protestant Bible does not. So I'm like, why is this so cool? And then I read it and I'm sitting there going, dude, this is a biblical explanation of how space, the universe, stars, the sun, the moon all work. It's it's a little bit off of what we understand today, but it describes it near perfectly. I'm like, that makes sense. And then, you know, Enoch rose to heaven as an angel and blah blah blah and came back down and did a bunch of stuff. I'm like, that's the aliens. What I used to believe is aliens, that's called angels. Yeah. And I'm not saying every single encounter is, but I'm just saying, like, that book really got me thinking. And then, you know, another thing that I talk about that's outside of the Bible is, you know, there's, for example, we go back to the resurrection, we go back to Jesus Christ. Something really unique and cool about Jesus Christ is, dude, it doesn't matter what you study, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, Christianity, they don't actually, none of them ever say, well, they they all say that Jesus was a great moral teacher. The Buddhists, the Hindus, Islam, and Christianity all believe that he was a great teacher. They all state that he performed miracles. They just call it something different. Like, even the Jews, even the Romans, excuse me, did not want him to be the Messiah, did not want him to be the Son of God. So if they wanted to break the story, all they would have had to write is, He says he performed this miracle, it didn't happen. It's not what they wrote. They wrote when he healed the blind, when he rose the the guys that couldn't walk and healed the sick and all, you know, pulled out demons. They never said that he didn't do it. They called him a sorcerer.

SPEAKER_00 30:07

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 30:08

They called him a black magic, they referred to it as black magic and all this stuff. So it's like, okay, so the people who wanted to kill the story agreed with it, you know, have a little different interpretation of what they saw or what he was. But I'm like, they never said he didn't do it. So that's like that's what I find fascinating. Is if you read outside of the Christian scripture or what was published, excuse me, in the Bible, it's like they still talk about the same things. It's from that history or from that age of history, it's the most documented thing there is significantly, like 10x or almost 100x more documented than anything else that exists from that time in the of the world.

SPEAKER_00 30:48

So it's just like the gospels, right? You know, when people try to disprove the gospel by saying, Oh, there's miniature differences, that's what makes it more true. Exactly. Well, yeah, that's like what makes it more true.

SPEAKER_01 30:59

It's like if you and I witness someone right now get murdered right in front of us, and the guy was wearing a, I don't know, it was Memorial Day, so he was wearing a US flag shirt, right? Like a flag colored shirt because he just got done barbecuing. You and I might report, like, yeah, dude, he blasted the dude in the freaking face with a gun. It was scary as hell. Like, I don't know what happened. But you might report, oh dude, he was wearing a blue shirt, and I might report that he was wearing a flag shirt just because of those little itty bitty things we're not gonna see, or ah, he was wearing white Nikes. Yeah. No, he's wearing gray Nikes, man. And the thing is, you're completely right. It actually, in a court case, if you were going, you know, beyond a reasonable doubt, trying to convince a jury and a judge and all that fun stuff, is if the stories were so perfect that everything was identical, they would actually probably try to toss the testimony out for collusion. We got together, we talked about it, we you know, per perfected it. They actually look for those inconsistencies in the story to prove that it wasn't colluded on. Yeah. So there, I mean, there's that, there's, I mean, there's there's all sorts of stuff. And and those are the type of things that I love studying because it just builds the faith more. Like that book I told you about, I don't have enough faith to be an atheist. Super, super good book that just like I mean, especially for the Big Bang. Like, I mean, the synopsis of those couple chapters are like, dude, I don't have enough faith to believe in that crap. I'm like, gosh, you're right.

SPEAKER_00 32:19

Well, to the gospel's points, it's like Jesus doing all these miracles. You know, it's hard as a believer to really like understand that he said, I'm gonna send that helper that you will do greater works than even me.

SPEAKER_01 32:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:34

And Pentecost Sunday was this past Sunday. Yep. And you know, it's like we we know the story of the disciples are waiting for the Holy Spirit to come. It came like a mighty rushing wind into, and then tongues of fire fell on every single person's head. And then after that, this is what makes Pentecost Sunday so special. Because if it was just that, I don't think it would have actually carried on into modern day. And the reason I say that, they gained utterance, it said, from the Spirit, and they started speaking tongues, and there's the Galileans, and then there was the disciples, and they're starting the Galileans come and they're like, they're speaking in our tongues, but what they were speaking was repentance and remission of sins, for forgiveness of sins, salvation, and it having all four of those components: the mighty rushing wind, which is the audible, the tongue of fire, which is the visual visual, the utterance, which is the vocalized, and then the fourth is the transformation, and the fourth is where they were preaching this repentance. So you see they preach it to 3,000 men that day, and it says in the Bible, 3,000 were saved. Well, if we go back into the Old Testament, they're up at Mount Sinai and Moses, right? God pretty much tells Moses, like, hey, you need to like go get your people. He like, God's like disowning his people right now. He's like, Moses, you need to get your people. You need them together. So there's the 12 tribes, and Moses tells them something along the lines of whoever believes in X, like, come follow me. And one tribe came out of the 12. And then it says in the Bible in the Old Testament that many died that day. It's in Exodus, I think, 28, 13, or 16, and many died that day. And it was specifically 3,000 died that day. Fast forward, New Testament. Now, no longer is there a law that says, Oh, you can't make it in the heaven because you're not acting in accordance. New testament comes, sends the Holy Spirit. Now 3,000 could be added. And it was just so interesting, though, just

Science, Creation, And Intelligent Design

SPEAKER_00 34:50

that Pentecost for that full circle, full circle moment, because now it empowers us, like, okay. What more can Jesus do? And this is what I'm currently experiencing as we speak. I always thought seeing Pentecostal like churches, like people are like, I don't know what's going on. I'm like, that is not, even as a believer, like I just refuse to believe it. But it says all through the Bible, you'll heal the sick, you'll cast out demons, you'll prophesy. And as of really the past since January, slash December, you know, I have visually seen when I laid hands, like it says the lame, they'll their backs will straighten, right? And uh Luke, I think it's chapter 11 or 13. There's this this man or woman, and Jesus puts his hand on her and he's like, Alright, you'll be healed, and be by her faith, and her back straightens. At a launch pad with Steve Weatherford, this was in March. Yeah, and I brought my dad out, not a believer, watched this go to Catholic school, but he just did that because he's like, if I send you to public school, you're gonna end up like me. So I'm gonna put you there, but I don't believe in God. And every time he was in church, he's sleeping or just on his phone the whole time. Didn't care about God at all. It was really my mom's thing. But I brought him out there and he decided to give his life to Christ and to get baptized. So we're in front of a church, he gets baptized. Me and Steve were just like completely just like, wow, like what just happened in eight hours? Go from I don't know any of you people, I don't like any of you people, you're not gonna be my friends to getting baptized is already just amazing in itself. And then I see this man, and it's a homeless man, and he's walking, he's completely bent over. You can't, his back is just like like glued to the floor shut. And I go, what's your name? He's like, it's Jeffrey. But Jeffrey, you know Jesus loves you, and he knows the plans that he has for you, right? He's like, Yes, I do. I was like, If you die today, where do you where do you think you go? He's like, I'm going to heaven. I was like, Alright, I love it. I was like, what do you need prayer for? He's like, uh, my family, and he's like, and I need some finances. And I pray for protection over his family. I pray for his finances that he'd just be blessed. I just let him go, and he's hobbling away. And then I just felt this, it was just like my heart just had a nudge. I'm like, Jeffrey, do you believe Jesus can heal your back? And he turns around. He's like, Yes, I do. He's like, matter of fact, he's like, I'm supposed to have surgery next Saturday. I'm like, I just start laughing at this point. I'm like, you're not gonna need surgery. I was like, come here. I was like, do you believe Jesus can heal you? He's like, yes, I do. And I said, okay, by the confession of your faith, let it his will be done. And I just laid my hands on him and I'm praying in Jesus' name. We're just asking that the Father would heal him and straighten his back. And in real time, his it in my my hand, it felt like his spine just started straightening. Straightening. I'm like, what the heck? This is this is interesting. I've seen miracles like prior to this that like of healing that like I prayed, but like this one was a just a different level. And by the end of the prayer, he's fully standing up tall. He turns around and he just walks into the sunset, and we never saw him again. Two weeks later, this is in Texas, keep in mind. Two weeks later, I get a call from one of my buddies named Mason. He's like, You're never gonna believe who's here right now. I'm like, No way. He's like, Jeffrey is standing in front of me, completely tall, and he came up to me and he's like, Where's that man that healed my back? And he's like, Well, first of all, Jesus healed your back, but he's like, My back is he, and he's just like rejoicing. And I that that when that happens, and it's happened several times now, even with Jackie, you know, that wasn't just like Andy didn't really understand what happened, but I felt all my spirit. I was like, Jackie, do you need like healing in your stomach? She's like, Yeah, I have gastritis. She's like, I've had it my whole life. I'm like, let me pray for you. I was like, Do you believe that Jesus can heal you? She's like, Yes, I do, I believe it. I was like, all right, and by your faith you are healed. And I pray for her, and she's just right on the floor. I was like, that was the first time that's ever happened. I've seen it, but I I've never done it, like personally. It's not me, it's it's God. But as this is happening, it's so new to me that it's like exciting. So what I've been doing is I've been starting to look to the towards the text again because that's the logos. Because the Rhema is when the spoken word is coming to life. Like Jesus says we're gonna be able to do this. The Holy Spirit, he gave us the Holy Spirit which dwells in you and me, where it makes it possible, but it's very uncomfortable for us humans to hear it from another person and actually believe it, just like Jesus said. Like, woe to the ones who believe without seeing. But their faith is even greater than the ones who see. But that is just like a fraction of multiple things. Talk about demons. I was with the Elliots at Impact Church. I'm sitting in the back row, Sophia goes up to the front of the altar, she's kneeling down there. I'm just like already like happy because she's down there. I'm like, that's it when me and Ian are just like, wow, bro, this is so cool. I get this poll on my heart. Like, we run to the front. I jumped over three rows of chairs and I ran to the front. And there's 1,500 people here because it's not a normal service. It's like everyone's gathered around the the uh like the pulpit for like some kind of little worship concert event. And I get up there, like God, why am I up here? Like, what do you why do you have me here? I'm just praying, Holy Spirit reveal, reveal, reveal. And I see this woman. I'm like, ah, I see. And these little girls, like maybe like five, six, seven, eight, nine, are

Outside Texts And The Case For Jesus

SPEAKER_00 41:40

like trying to like pray for her. They don't know what's going on. She's like just freaking out, she's like shaking all weird, she's erratic. And I just asked her, I was like, what is your name? Because when you do that, it's like they have to speak. And she's like, She's like, Jezebel. I was like, Oh, okay. And I was like, I want to speak to the woman. And she comes back into this is like right in the middle of a service, like 1,500 people. Imagine the kids are literally behind me, witnessing this happen. And uh, so is Jaden Hamilton and his wife. But I go, Do you want to be free? And she came back too, and she's like, Yes, I want to be free. And right when she said that, just like this crazy scream head snatches back, and I just start praying because she gave me the authority. She's like, I want to be free. Okay, then you will be free in Jesus' name. And these kids have witnessed now multiple, like, just unexplainable. Like, where Sophia came up to me and that's why she got baptized. She's like, Vince, she's like, happened to Rafa right in from their house. She's like, honestly, she's like, I've seen so many things. She's like, I can't figure out an explanation for it. She's like, the only thing it could be is God. And she got baptized the next day. That's why Jackie got baptized. So that in itself is like it's a lot.

SPEAKER_01 43:17

It's a lot. Do you know about the Christian charisms? I'll have to get you some literature on it. It's it's basically as a Christian, you know, we're all disciples or evangelists, you know, go out there, spread the word. And the charisms are things that each Christian carries. And, you know, you could have them all, you could have a little bit here, you could suck at this one. So it's going to be things like preaching. So priesthood, that's gonna be the verbal, healing, admin type stuff. There there's different names for 'em. We went in the uh the Catholic study thing, Brittany and I do every Sunday post mass, they went over them. I'll I'll get you the pamphlet they gave us because I think you would love to read it because it's You you if you told me that story six months ago, I would have I would have been like, I don't know what I would have thought. Yeah. It wouldn't have been like, dude, I mean, I got like goosebumps on my legs. That wouldn't have happened. Yeah. Yeah. But like I'm just hearing it and I'm like, dude, you've got the charism of definitely healing. And I've seen it. And I like I haven't witnessed it in person, but I could speak. I mean, because I'm very, very close to Andy and Jackie. I know what you know, the big, big things you've done with their family, which is absolutely amazing. But your ability to heal and your ability to speak to people is, I mean, what one, what was attracting me to you when it came to like actually listening to you and actually listening to the words coming out of your mouth. Because the way you carry it is you carry it, you don't well, it's like we were talking about the other day when I was telling you about my bishop, how he had the you know, things written on the board where it was beauty, goodness, truth. It's like when you're talking to someone, don't lead with the truth. Because if they disagree with you, you're gonna immediately get ref friction. And you don't do that. You're really good about like leading with just the beauty of how you live your life and like the smile that's on your face and like the people like watching you go around and actually like want to help people. Six months ago, like honestly, I was kind of jealous of it because I didn't understand it. I'm like, I like, is it fake? Is it like, is it just to make money? Like, what is this? And I didn't understand it for a lot of people, which is weird because on my heart, it was there to do, but I couldn't like actually like I couldn't get the joy from it. I couldn't understand what it was really like, what the what the feeling was, like what it was to not do it for the money solely and do it for the person. So I was always kind of jealous and I always kind of just didn't understand it. And then like when I surrendered, it like opened my eyes to a new thing where it was like I could see the goodness that you or the beauty that you lead with, and then through your words and actions, I see the goodness of how you portray it in your own life and portray it with other people. And then from there having these conversations, like I took it as a truth. Like that conversation six months ago six months ago, I wouldn't have taken as a truth, I would have taken as like very unique, very weird, very strange, yeah. You know, psychology, hypnosis, this and that. And I still believe there's a little bit of in some denominations of certain churches, there's a little bit of hypnosis and goofiness going on. But I'm also now starting to see that a lot of what I thought isn't that, is some sort of energy, some sort of spirit, the Holy Spirit that is, I mean, getting into people's lives. And you know, I haven't had, I wouldn't say I've had a divine intervention like that in my life

Pentecost Power And Real Healing Stories

SPEAKER_01 46:40

yet. Maybe I have, I just didn't notice it. I mean, I'm sure I did, dude. Like, I mean, shoot, man. I took a ran out on a motorcycle ride one day. I was blacked out of my mind drunk. Freaking, for some dumb reason, decided to leave the neighborhood with her, got on throttle a little bit, just I don't know, blood went to my head, blacked out, woke up in a wheelie, and luckily I've ridden enough that I just, you know, was able to put the bike back down, but she's screaming behind me and stuff like that. I'm like, you know, I didn't have a helmet on. I should have been dead that day. I don't know why I'm not. So like maybe I have, but just being more open to it now, it's just you you see so many different things, and you have just it's like it's like we have our five senses, right? I think we have six. We have the sense of the Holy Spirit. And the problem is most of us, and I think I could say most of us, because the United States has gone a very secular way, which is I think what you're talking about, I'll get to that in a second. We've gone very secular. So I think most of us don't have that sixth sense, and that sixth sense is the Holy Spirit. It's something that we fully in our human capacity can't fully understand, but we can continue to try to, it's like trying to grow to perfection, right? You know you're never gonna become perfect, you're always gonna be a little bit behind perfection, but like you can always try to get a little bit closer to it. You kind of need to get closer to that sixth sense every single day, that Holy Spirit. And I want to back up a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 47:55

You talked about hold on before you go to your next thing. What you just said was like I want to unpack that to get closer every day to the Holy Spirit. Because I want to make sure I'm hearing what you're saying and understanding it. I agree there's an intimacy, right, that you have to work on to get closer with the Holy Spirit. But like for those watching, and I want to hear your take on this. Like, for me personally, when it I'm I've been in positions in my life where I'm like, I need to get closer to the Holy Spirit every single day, where it became a performance thing, and it became me quite literally trying to put, like, all right, I gotta do this because the Bible says to do this, and then I have to read my Bible and I have to pray. And it almost became so routine it was a have to that it was a have to, it was it became an obligation versus obedience, and I think this is another like you're gonna talk about discipline and devotion, obligation versus obedience. There's I did I didn't start moving the way I'm moving now with the Holy Spirit until I I I had to make the decision. I had to make the decision because God gave me free will to say, you know what, Lord? I go to church on Sunday, I read my Bible, I mean, I literally lived with Adam for six months. That was the whole story in itself, and there was a lot of wounds that came with that with pride, right? Where I like had this mindset where I was like now better than people, and I had to learn like God is not a God of pride. I just wasn't taught that. I was introduced to him in a condemning way almost. But with that, that obligation versus that obedience, I started walking in obedience with God once I decided to stop having all control and selfish ambition. And that's why it's like empty yourself. I had to empty myself in order to be obedient. You had to surrender in order to even give yourself the opportunity to be obedient. But go on to what you're saying again.

SPEAKER_01 50:15

Okay, let me go back there. This is my finger to remind me to go back. I agree with you 100% because I used to look at the Bible religion, Christianity as a form of obligation to do a bunch of stuff that you didn't want to do. But when I got closer, it became Yeah, being obedient. Surrendering being obedient actually made it easy to do. It actually made it a lot stressful. It just gave me a playbook, and I'm like, oh, that's all I gotta do? Cool.

SPEAKER_00 50:40

Well, the sacraments and traditions feed the obedience.

SPEAKER_01 50:44

Yes. And then it's there's not a single thing that I've changed in my life, and there's been a lot, by the way. Not a single thing that I've changed in my life to be closer to God that has made it worse, that has made additional stress, like going to mass every Sunday, you know, that's an hour and 10, 20 minutes, you know, drive there, mass, drive home, probably an hour and 30 minutes total. Not has not eliminated one thing in my life, has only made it better. The hour and a half study Brittany and I do afterwards, you know, there's three hours of my day right there where it's at the parish, at the church, and it hasn't limited me from doing anything. It's actually made our Sundays a lot more pleasant, to be honest. But what I was saying is earlier you were talking about writing, you know, writing a book a while ago for Gen X and Gen Z. I want to know what you think about this because I read a study. This was four or five months ago. Oh no, it was right around Easter. So gosh, a lot happens in a short time. So it was about a month and a half ago. And it was talking about how Gen Z specifically, so that's going to be people who are about 15, 16 years old to about 25 years old right now, are finding Christianity and going to the church at higher rates than they've ever seen before. And a lot of them, the number one reason they're giving is because it's finally something real they have in their life. Which I read that and and I was a believer at that time. So it actually hit me because I'm like, oh, I totally see that because I'm 37. I grew up in a time where the first year I went to college is when Zuckerberg allowed college students to have a Facebook prior to everybody else being allowed to have it. So I was cool. I had the.edu, so I was able to have a Facebook. So like I, you know, I had a MySpace, I had all that. So like I'm on this verge of like, we didn't have internet, we had dial up, we had AIM, MySpace, Facebook, and like we created this meta world that doesn't actually exist. And it's the most unrealistic thing, yet people worship it and give it more power than anything else in their freaking life. Yeah. They live by their, they live their life by it, they live their anxieties by it, their depression by it. Like everything Facebook is ruined. It's it's ruined your ability to free think. It's ruined your ability to have a quiet moment with yourself, it's ruined your ability to pay attention for longer than six seconds to anything in life. Like Orion yesterday, we're watching that documentary, and she's like, Dad, could you turn the subtitles on? And I'm like, What are you deaf kid? And she's like, I just can't pay attention that long if I can't have something to read because I focus on something else. And I'm like, oh my gosh, you're I I see it. It's real. But no, Gen Z is running to the church at a faster rate than any generation in history ever has. And the top-quoted thing was because they needed something real in their life. Yeah. I was like, I totally see that. I think it's good. I think it's good for America. I think it's the further we separate from Christ, the the the crazier America's gotten without having a moral guide. And like you look at our teachings, I mean, they'll teach Jewish history, they'll teach you know, about the Roman gods, they'll teach about the Egyptian gods. And I was discussing this with Britney the other day, and she's like, Well, yeah, because that's not, and I go, it's from the exact same time period. Wow, yeah. Well it is, it's from the exact same time. Like, I always thought the Roman gods and the the Greek gods, it was was thousands and thousands and maybe millions of years before Christianity. No, it's from the exact same time period. So why? And I could go in conspiracies on that, but I won't. But why do we not teach Christianity? The biggest, I mean, our country, I know we have freedom of religion here, and you know, you won't get persecuted and stuff. On our dollar bill, it says trust in God. In the Bill of Rights, it has language of that. I can't quote it off the top of my head, but why are we separating from it? What evil or what negative impact can happen by believing, or even if you're not a believer, following the Bible to a certain degree. Just a really if you don't believe, and I've said this forever, if you're a non-believer, the Bible itself, for the most part, is a really good self-development book. It's that simple. So why are we not teaching it? Why are we separated? Like, I grew up in the generation, if you were across to school on like your shirt, you might be asked to change your shirt. Like, it's absolute insanity. Yet now kids go to school, and I drop my kid off at you know, her school, and freaking half of them aren't dressed. I was like, what has freaking happened to society? And you know, you you you talk about things like Epstein, right? People are always, well, that type of evil. I'm like, the crazy thing is that type of evil exists and we're not pissed off about it. Some of us are pissed off about it, I'm pissed off about it. But most of society, a general populace, was like, that's really bad. He's a bad dude, but you know, it doesn't affect my life at all. It affects your life a ton. Maybe you weren't there, but it was just one other thing that was taken. It was just one other thing that we've allowed to be like, ah, we could, we could just pedophilia, we could just kind of push it forward. And it it's crazy we got there, but it's because we took God out of school. It's because we took a moral code. Because science doesn't prove good versus evil. Right? Hitler, could we both kind of agree he was kind of a bad person? Right? Okay, what if you were Heimler? You loved Hitler, you thought he was the greatest guy in the world. So science only proves good versus evil in a prospective way. But what I perceive as evil, others perceived as good. They were doing something good for the nation of Germany. However, if you and I I know some people would be like, Hitler was Christian. No, he wasn't. He took Christianity, turned it to his own language, rewrote a Bible for his own people, and you know, hail Hitler. They were worshiping him. Like he wasn't Christian. He really It's the beginning of idolism. Yes. He really twisted that crap up. So maybe he believed in God, but it was a messed up way. Anyways, so without I mean, I I don't believe there is evil per se. I believe evil now is the absence of good. When you don't have good, when you don't know what moral way to step, evil can easily come in. The devil can come in, and you know, like we talk a lot about here, it's it's not always this big flash, and you're like, oh my gosh, that's a dem demonic thing coming in and destroying my. No, a lot of times it's just saying, like, you know, yeah, don't, you know, you don't need to go to mass this Sunday. You're too busy, or don't pick up the Bible, or yeah, go ahead and eat that cheesecake. You're okay. Like, that's the demons that are at us, but we've allowed it to grow from like, oh, I shouldn't eat McDonald's every day, which is bad by the way, to yeah, the Epstein thing, you know what? Trump's about to release things about the aliens, and that's way cooler. I'm gonna focus on that. Like, that's where we've allowed demons and the satanic secular knowledge to infiltrate our society, that that's okay.

SPEAKER_00 57:33

Yeah, it tries to make a gap in what the devil wants of lit little things, just the little things.

SPEAKER_01 57:41

I was listening to Father Mike Schmidt yesterday.

SPEAKER_00 57:46

He's really good. I like him. Very good. I've watched him since I was I was in Catholic school.

SPEAKER_01 57:50

Yeah, his his podcast just hit about a month ago or so, hit a billion downloads. That's insane. Now I know he's got you know thousands of episodes out there with the Bible in the year, catechism in a year, and everything else he does, but still a billion people. I mean, he's probably brought more young people to the church than I mean, I'd say anybody right now. He's really blown up and he's he's very, very he's very easy to listen to. He just explains it. But he was talking about you know the word fear of God or the phrase fear of God, and I've never really understood that before. I point to my chest because one of our shirts has it on it. So people that have no idea what I did that. But he explained it in a way that I was like, okay, that makes a lot more sense to me. It's not so much to fear God Himself, but it's to fear your separation from God. I was like, I wish someone would have told me that. Them t-shirts would have made a lot more sense. It's like, why are we so scared of that guy? Like, I get it, but also it's like, why are we publishing it? But yeah, I just I had a misunderstanding of

Charisms, Obedience, And Avoiding Performance

SPEAKER_01 58:45

it. So when he said that a couple days ago on whatever catechism, day 76 or whatever I'm on right now, chapters five or paragraph 520 something. Yeah, I was like, okay, I get that. That makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 58:56

But that's what makes obedience happen. That's actually how it works. There's a misconstruction, is that the right way to use that word?

SPEAKER_01 59:06

Misconstrued, misconstrued. Contusion, illusion. That's not the word. Go with it.

SPEAKER_00 59:12

Everybody knows what you mean. You know what I mean. Of the fear God means like the Old Testament. The literally like the fear, like there's gonna be wrath. Like if you sin, like there's gonna be hell and fire coming to take you out. And I mean, yes, he says there's eternal damnation and gnashing of teeth. That is what in a lake of fire, yes, that is there, but the church, I feel like now more than ever, or maybe I just my eyes were closed to it, but I feel like in the j the time we live in, they're finally showing the grace that God has. I don't know. I could just have been blind to it for the past 20 years of my life.

SPEAKER_01 59:59

I think yes and no, I think it swings both ways. I think there is a misinterpretation of the scripture that is heavily pushed by the devil for young men and older men who basically are taking pieces of scripture and justifying why they can have a meaningless, lazy life. How they cannot be the best provider for their family, and and you know, the well, you know, money is the root of all evil. Read two words before that, but yeah, the context. The love of money is the root of all evers evil. So I guess three words. It's saying don't worship money, but other parts of the scripture say it is your duty to build a fortune. As a matter of fact, God tells you that you are gonna give inheritance not to your kids, but your grandkids. So if you're broke and you can't even give inheritance to your kids, you definitely can't give any inheritance over to your grandkids. So there's there's this thing that people have portrayed that they use the Bible to hold themselves back as like, oh, I'm just waiting for God's time. And yes, there is God's time. That is undeniable, but God's time will not ever happen without you taking action to make it happen. That's in the scripture as well. So using the Bible to be lazy, using the Bible to not take take action or do it is where a lot of people got messed up. The other thing I see is I do believe prior to Jesus, it was a little bit rough for the Israelites. Correct. And then Jesus came and was like, okay, we're gonna fulfill some of those covenants because they don't make sense right now, they're not applicable. Half y'all can't do them, half y'all keep running, and also I've got to help atone a lot of you for your sins because we kind of messed up here a little bit. Not messed up, it was all part of the plan, but you also had to open some people's eyes to bring them to Christ. So Jesus came in and fixed that. The other thing, and Father Ryan at the at the parish we go to actually spoke about this a month ago to us at the little hour and a half Catholic Catholic or Cat or basically OCIE quest program. Learn all the stuff. So he spoke to us about that, where a lot of people view the Christian religion as very passive, very loving, very joyful, which it absolutely is. That's like the whole premises of it. However, if you read scripture, like as a man, you're supposed to be like Jesus, right? Well, when the Israelites were doing some shady stuff in the temple, you know, some money laundering, a bunch of other stuff, usury, prostitution, all sorts of stuff, Jesus went in there and wrecked some havoc. Yeah. And not only did he go in there and destroy the temple, but he actually made manufactured his own whip prior to going in there. So it wasn't an act of, oh my gosh, I gotta break this. It was a premeditated act to fix a wrong with violence. So I'm not saying go like destroy and whip a bunch of people, but I'm saying like there has to be this level of the Christian man who wakes up and actually goes out and fights for what him and his family are destined for. And not just waiting for things to come their way, and not just waiting for things, and it doesn't even just mean in the business sense, but like as a Christian, it is your job to evangelize. Yeah, it's not your job to go force your facts down someone's throat, it's your job to go show someone why Christ is good, why it's been great to your life, and then bring them over to the church in a Christ-like fashion. Jesus did not go out there and preach on the mound and tell everyone straight away, like, this is how you have no, he showed them his love, he showed them their compassion. People went like, who is this guy? He's crazy as heck. And then all of a sudden, he built the following. He built the or the disciples started to follow him. And and then he had the sermon on the mound, and then people and the how is it 3,000 people or whatever it was were like, Oh, that's great. I want to hear more of that, and blah, blah, blah. This is the greatest thing ever. Why aren't you taking my money? Then he has his disciples go out and and and go out on the land and start bringing people together as he's going through his little tour of the freaking world. And people didn't come because he went out and said, I'm going to tell you the truth. I'm going to tell you how we're going to escape Rome. He went out and showed them who he was. He went out and did it without, you know, financial needing to get financial reward. He did it in a way where he, you know, for like this the story about the prostitute that was thrown before his feet, and he just goes down, writes something in the sand, and looks back up, writes something else in the sand, and then looks at everybody and says, For those without sin, throw the first stone. Yep. That's how he led. But he didn't do it completely passively. He brought you in with love. He brought you in

Gen Z, Secular Life, And Moral Drift

SPEAKER_01 1:04:55

with goodness. He brought you in with goodness, and then he told you the facts. Yes. So there's a lot of Christian men that need to, you know, be out there doing that with their family, doing that with the people they work with, doing it just in the world. Yet there's a lot of people, kind of like you said earlier, that are content. We're, you know, just going to church and being a good person, and by mean all means be content, be a good person, go to church. But your purpose on earth is so much freaking more than that when you surrender.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:25

Well, you actually don't know your purpose or your meaning.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:27

No.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:28

And it's it's hard to say that you are a believer if you don't actually follow him. Right? You know, even the the demons believe in God. But so back to your point about men today as Christians, right? We talk about like this soldier of God at the Elliot group. Dude, a soldier of God, look at Jesus. He said, I didn't come to bring peace, but a sword. And he's like, and that sword will divide h homes. That's what that's what the text says. And that's not in a way to be afraid, but that's in a way of like, hey, like I'm showing you the truth, but also Jesus also showed us parables. Why? Because they couldn't understand the mysteries of God if they didn't. Yeah. So there's these two dynamics where Jesus shows, I almost like to say it like this: like there's the warrior, there's a king, there's a magician, and then there's like the servant. And like Jesus is able to play all four of those roles at the same time as needed. And that's like my personal belief, if you lack the fruits of the spirit, it's very, very difficult to play all four of those roles. I don't think it's possible to experience the fullness.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:51

Because it's either you're all angry and you're playing what one role and you don't know love, joy, or peace. I have conversations with men all the time, and they're like, man, and they just they're like, How am I ever gonna experience it? I'm like, with Jesus, that's the only way, yeah. Especially the world what we do here at the LE group, I've watched too many men transform their entire lives, transform their entire businesses, their homes, their families, everything, but they're still have a hole in their heart, and they literally can't understand it. They they can't understand it until they meet Jesus. And for those watching, the best way I can break this down for you guys is to look at these four things in your life. This is what is gonna block your heart from being able to experience if there is something more for your for you, and I guess the way you feel, quote unquote. The first one is selfish ambition. The way that one works is self-control. So most people are like, well, God, you can have everything else, but when it comes to my finances and when it comes to my I don't know, my my business, I'm not gonna allow you to have any of that. But you can have the rest. And they probably literally are placing a limit on God. The second is any form of unforgiveness, resentment, or bitterness. It says right in the text, it's like if you can't forgive others, your trespasses cannot be forgiven. So unforgiveness, bitterness, resentment. And the way I look at it, it's like if you're holding a grudge and I was like, Jonathan, like you hit me really hard and you punched me. You did actually do that a couple times. I might actually be holding resentment. But if you hit me, and all of a sudden I'm like, man, dude, I just want that guy to just feel this anger I have. Like, oh man, I may I'm I know he just feels like this this hate I have towards him. And Jonathan's over here just minding his own business. He doesn't even remember what even happened, he doesn't even care. What's happening is I'm literally

Four Heart Blockers And A Simple Invite

SPEAKER_00 1:09:05

on fire in from the inside out, burning up, and you are just catching the ashes and the smoke, the little smoke inhalation, you're like, and it's not even phasing you. But here I am just burning up, and I'm the one thinking that I'm making you feel a type of way when only the person that's getting hurt is me. And then the third one is rejection, and rejection comes in the form of words, right? Life and death is in the power of the tongue. So words spoken over you that you allowed to shape your a label that you allowed to shape your entire identity, or words spoken over yourself, right? That self-talk, where you're now placing limits on who you can be when God says you can do all things through Christ Jesus, and then the fourth is evil thoughts, right? So this is shame, this is envy, pride, ego, jealousy, comparison, lust, sexual morality, fornication. Those in likeness of that. Those four, those four things that I say block the heart. And if you want the opportunity to be like, no what God, I don't believe in you, but I don't want to feel these things on my heart. If any of that related to you, I just encourage you to just say this Holy Spirit, I just invite you in. Because in the Bible it says, Oh, search my heart, oh God. And then invite the Holy Spirit to change your heart. And invite the Holy Spirit to fill you up with the likeness of God and see what happens.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:50

That's real. You need to do a zoom call on that.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:55

I did a whole sermon on that actually. Did you? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:59

That's deep, dude. Anything else you want to say? I probably ended on that. That was killer.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:03

Let's do that. Cool, Bonathan. Appreciate you, man. Thank you. Yes, sir.