You're listening to KFI six on demand. Carol, Welcome to the Jesus Christ
Show. I love your show. Can you hear me? Okay? I
sure can, my dear, thank you so much. Questions one of theological
I was raised in the Methodist Church, and then I went to college and
I became an atheist. And I was an atheist foremost of my adult life,
and I am gradually trying to find my way back to Christ. Now.
The theological question is, first of all, it became obvious to me
that the world has really been in a battle of spiritual warfare, you know,
the and humanity of man and all of the horrible stuff going on.
I don't understand how God could lose to the angels, the bad angels,
if God is all powerful. Okay, well, let's look at a couple
of things. First of all, the world's not getting worse. The world's
as horrible as it's ever been. And there has been problems with the world
since day one. So I know that everyone thinks that their generation is the
worst experience. But that's because as people get older, things change, and
whenever things change, people think think the world is coming to an end.
So there are horrible things. There just are. But you can go throughout
the history of mankind and trust me, there were horrible things going on.
You will hear people say, gosh, you know, the fifties was such
a great time. Mid last century was just a great time, and then
you talk to people of color and women and they go, well, it
wasn't that great. So it depends who you ask and in the context you
ask. That's the first thing. Secondly, spiritual warfare is not a battle
against God against the devil, and there's that imagery, and I think that
Hollywood has perpetuated that as well, because you need a protagonist and an antagonist
in the story, and so the assumption is that God is in battle with
the devil at all times. That's not the case. What really is going
on, by way of scripture and the description about spiritual warfare is that God
has allowed the devil to have domain over the earth because people have free will,
and that choice that people have only has value because people can choose to
do wrong. For instance, Carol, if we look at a simple list
of things words that are associated with good things, good attributes, nobility,
honesty, bravery, courage, these types of things, right, the minute
you say them, you have to understand that the flip side of them is
what makes them have value. So bravery only has value if there's adversity.
Honesty only has value because people don't have to be honest, they can lie.
So with those battles going on in this place earth and in this world,
you're going to have two things tugging on the individual. You're going to
have God and those things that are good tugging, and then you're going to
have the devil and demons tugging and motivating and trying to tempt on the other
side. That's the spiritual battle. It's not God per se battling with the
devil and going, oh, I can't win, he's so strong. It's
mankind. It's God battling for man, battling man for man who is tempted
by evil. My second question is how do you know you're saved? I
pray throughout the day and I don't know that I've been saved. Well,
as far as salvation is concerned, Scripture makes it clear as to what needs
to be done. It says simply, and this is in Romans ten nine
and ten. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus's Lord, and believe
in your heart that God raised him from the dead. Yes, you will
be saved. Okay, For with the heart one believes and is justified,
and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. There's no magic potion or
anything like that. It is every day. It is a realization of those
things. Doesn't mean you won't have doubt or frustrations with the church or the
people in it or any of those things, or question or be frustrated with
things that you see taking place and Where's God? That's not what it means.
You are awesome. Thank you so much. You're welcome to me.
I ask you a question. Yes, you said that for a good chunk
of your adult life you were an atheist. Yes, What was the catalyst
that that made you move from a person raised in the church to someone who
didn't believe there was a God? My brother and his wife are active Christians,
but they do not push it on me. I have good friends who
are active Christians. They do not push it on me. When I see
how they live their lives, the examples that they set have made me realize
how far I have to go. That's lovely, and that's that and that's
your path back. But what brought what took you away from the church?
Why did you leave college? Oh, that'll do it. Yeah, And
that was before things got really really ugly. I've been to the Middle East.
I was in Jerusalem on Easter Sunday, and that was back in the
sixties, and I was very liberal, got very liberal in college and you
know, it feels good, do it kind of thing. And I really
don't know what happened, except gradually I began to realize that there is evil
in the world and that you do have a choice, and that the answer
for me is Jesus. Amen. Well, that's that's you know, everybody
has their journey that they have to go on in the process wrestling with these
things. Now, of course, you know biblic there is no conservative or
liberal when it comes to God. There are liberal Christians and conservative Christians.
But the important thing is that you find your way, your path back to
God. As many people, and I know, there is a lot of
battling that takes place in colleges, which is strange because if you look back
at the major colleges in the United States, their original mission statement was all
based in faith, and they have lost their way. That's not to say
that schools have to be faith based by any stretch of the imagination, but
it seems like rather than being a place of thought and education, they've become
a place to strip people of their faith and beliefs. I was a college
professor for a long time, and I saw a lot of that going on,
where students were being bullied from a teacher's lectern and the power of the
grade was scaring everybody into not being of their true selves. And I think
that's one of the things that opened my eyes. There's a lot of bullying
going on right now, and Christians are being persecuted everywhere, indeed, sadly
so. And I think that even more sad is the fact that Christians in
the United States don't understand how good they have it now. There is bullying
obviously taking place here, but people are not being killed or set apart or
put in jail for their faith like they are in other countries. Yeah,
I'm blessed or very blessed. So there's a need to stand up for your
faith and defend it. And what we have now is sadly is young people
running from the faith because it hasn't been instilled truly in and an understanding or
an ability to defend their ideas and thoughts, and they end up getting pushed
out and run from their faith instead of running to it. And it's a
shame. Carol. I enjoyed chatting with you, and I'm glad to see
that you are back in the fold. You can call any time with any
questions you have, but praise God that you have found your way back and
we're thrilled to have you. Diane. Welcome to Jesus Christ Show. Yes,
Hello, Hi Diane. How could I help you? Oh? Well,
first of all, I just want to thank you for all that you
did for us on that cross, and you've always been part of my life,
but it took me over forty years to put you first in my life.
Well, praise God, and the transformation has been such a blessing.
Thank you, Thank you, thank you. Jesus. I'm men okay,
So well, my it's two part question. You never referred to your mother
as mother. You always called her woman, and then on the cross you
gave her to John and she had I don't know how many daughters, it
doesn't state that, and four other sons. So and it was always kind
of understood that the children would take care of widows and their parents as they
hate. So that's my question, why didn't you ever call her mother?
And why did you give her to John? Okay, So there's a couple
of things going on there. First and foremost mother or the or the term
woman in scripture is not a mistranslation, but it's misunderstanding that it's a term.
It's like ma'am. In context, it translates to woman, and it
sounds a little terse, but that's not the case. It's actually a sign
of respect. It just is specific to the situation. So as far as
the mother's concern, you have to understand that scripture wasn't a document of every
single thing I did every single day. Scripture is a document that has a
narrative that is focusing on specific parts of who I am for the narration,
so specifically, it's focusing on my deity because that's what's important. Doesn't talk
a whole lot about my regular stuff. Just doesn't, so the regular home
life and things like that you don't see. What you see is exchanges between
my mother and me that have spiritual ramifications. Therefore, I'm setting apart myself
from my mother in the spiritual context. So you hear me say that at
the wedding at Kana, because I'm separating. I'm saying it is not yet
my time, So I am speaking as deity in that context, not as
her son. Secondly, on the cross, now, this is where Catholic
brothers and sisters and Protestant brothers and sisters might see things a little differently.
Is you have a circumstance on the cross that instead of giving Mary over to
her children. Keep in mind Protestants believe Mary had other children, that it
was given over to John because the concept is about the Christian family at that
point. That's why I'm referring to woman because I now again am standing in
that deity role. So it's different in context. That is the reality of
what's going on there. Not disrespectful in any way, shape or form.
Glenn, Welcome to the Jesus Christ Show. Good morning, Thank you for
taking my call, my pleasure. How can I help you? Well,
my question is I heard some older people referring to thinking back to the foot
Willson show. Huh, and he had a phrase, the devil made me
do it, yes, which kind of made me think, what power what
capabilities the satan possessed. Can he actually read my thoughts? No? Can
he know what I'm thinking? Can he make me act in a certain way
or no? The relationship between man and the devil is reactionary. So scripture
says that the devil can't read your mind. First Kings eight thirty nine says
that God alone knows the human heart, and so it's an interesting relationship that
man has with the devil. So the devil can't. Let's see, the
devil can't push you off a cliff, but the devil will scare you or
do things to make you not think clearly, and then you would jump off
the cliff. So there's a difference between the two. That people give too
much power to the enemy. The enemy really the way the enemy learns about
you. You've heard that saying speak the devil, the devil shall upear.
Well, that is a loose interpretation of scripture, and basically what it's saying
is that the enemy has no connection to you unless you give the enemy connection.
So when you talk about him, he appears because he's not reading your
heart. He just is. When people focus on the enemy, then the
enemy is present, but the devil can't be everywhere at once. The enemy
is not omnipresent or anything like that, and so people get confused. They
think of the devil as God's arch enemy, which would mean it would imply
that he's the same but opposite, And that's not the case. It's not
the same in power, shape or anything, authority or otherwise. But what
the enemy can do is poke at you, almost like an older brother or
something that sits there and pokes at you and waits for you to react.
And once you react, he makes note of what bothers you or what bugs
you, or what will get you infuriated, and reacts accordingly and builds a
case and a dossier on you based on those things. But the devil doesn't
have the ability to read your thoughts or to harm you in that sense.
The devil can only play with you or mess with you to a point where
you would harm yourself. I guess the second part of that question. As
I was reading the Seeking an Answer, there was a paragraph that said the
devil has the ability to sit on your shoulder and whisper into your ear.
Yeah, they call it. It's the difference between a possession or what they
refer to an oppression that the enemy will will do everything he can to tempt
you, but really you have to execute everything. There is no it's you
know, often referred to as a mouse with a flashlight. You remember the
old Tom and Jerry cartoons where you know, Jerry would make himself look like
a big, huge monster or something to scare the tomcat. But ultimately it
was just a flashlight and the angle of his shadow make him look bigger.
And that's the enemy has power, most certainly, but really the biggest power
is to cause doubt and fear in humankind. That's the biggest power that the
enemy has. And so the best way. That's why scripture says resist the
devil and he shall flee. It's really about resisting the enemy in the power
through Christ. That is the power. Maria, Welcome to the Jesus Christ
Show. Hello Jesus. I noticed Jesus that there are lengthy times in my
life when I'm not feeling the presence of God and the great joy that comes
from that. And when this happens, I still commune with God, but
it's just with the will. And my question is how important in God's scheme
of things is this feeling of his presence. Well, you just don't feel
a connection, right, Okay, Well, there's there's times where you may
not feel hungry, but you know that you're going to eat again. Or
there's times that you might be in a relationship and you may not feel that
kind of outpouring of a kinetic love, but you're still in love. Yes,
a lot of people misrepresent that and then think, oh gosh, you
know, I've fallen out of love, when really love is something you participate
in. People forget that. So if if there's a heater in the corner
of the room and you no longer feel the heat, chances are you're the
one that moved and not the heater. So that's you know, you have
to participate it in it in a way. That's it manifests in a real
way. Otherwise you're not going to have those real manifestations. So is there
something that a time that it takes place. Do you find a rhythm to
it at all? Does it happen during certain times of the years, certain
times of the week, certain times of the day. You know, it
happens just in spaces of time where days will pass or even months. And
I noticed that when it happens I I even lose words, you know,
But I still I get angry with myself, you know, And I still
you know, I still talk to God. But it's more like with the
will than it is with an a kind of experience. And I always feel
bereffed when when that absence is present, sure, and I know that it's
very just as real as when the presence is there. Well, I want
you to ask yourself two questions when you get in these situations. The first
question is am I a Christian? To which the answer is what? Of
course? Okay. Now I want you to ask a second question. It
sounds similar but as much different. Am I being a Christian? Ah?
And that is a different question. It is because there's a people get caught
up in the fact, oh I am a Christian kind of it's it's done,
but you're not, well, I am married. No. You if
people concern themselves and spend as much time on being married as they put into
getting married, they would see different results. People go, oh, the
wedding, and you ramp up to it and then it's done. And a
lot of times Christianity work similarly, where you have this epiphany or you have
something that moves you or some people are raised in a way that it becomes
natural and it's a natural progression for them. But then then what And it's
that participation, It's it's that marathon that's talked about in Scripture. It's that
consistency when it says pray without ceasing. In Scripture, the term there in
the original language is like a cough, an incessant cough. So I want
you to think about your faith that way, and I want you to ask
yourself. Am I a Christian? Am I being a Christian? Mark?
Welcome to Jesus Christ Show. Oh, good morning, Jesus can speak to
you. I don't do TV. I don't get a signal, so I
listen to the radio a lot. God bless you well, thank you and
you too. And a friend of mine told me about this show a while
back, so I've been an attentive listener. Uh I live in a highly
catholicized area, and the only in rouge that seems to be is to answer
the question. So I can go further with it. But I want to
know whether I'm wrong or not in using this uh I guess hypothetical explaining the
Trinity to people, They all seem to ask uh where they feed in?
And I won't know if I'm wrong in telling them. Oh, I said,
to be concise, to look upon it as somebody with a total h
h power of attorney. My wife and I give power of attorney to my
son in all matters. He is an effect asking for uh. That is
an effect acting for us and all that we do. But since I'm not
there at the time, he's representing me, is that wrong to say that
that's what that's what the Holy Spirit is doing here, comforting us and leading
us to Jesus. Absolutely, there is there is positioning. There is positioning.
However, what you're describing falls more into a mechanical or an economical trinity,
and that breaks down. There's a problem in that, right. So
I explain to him after that that, well, that's kind of representative how
he can be three people get the Holy Spirit can be here and Jesus they're
all the same. Yeah, it's it's it's one and three simultaneously. Think
of it this way. Mark time. Time is one thing, it's time,
yet yet it's three things simultaneously, past president future. You can't separate
them. You can use a clock or a calendar to separate certain days,
but really it's not separating time. It's just helping you understand or calculate time,
like today, I'm going to do this tomorrow. But past, president
and future are completely entwined all the time, never separate. Yet they're different.
So there, but yet they're all the same one thing. And similarly,
there's a scientific principle called the triple point of water, and that is,
under certain temperatures and press and pressure, you can get water H two
oh to be ice in its solid form, steam and its gas form,
and liquid in it's in its liquid form. All H two O, all
simultaneously at the exact same time are there in those three states. So when
you get into economic trinities, or when people say, oh, you know,
the trinity is like an egg. It's got the shell, it's got
the whites, it's got the yolk. That's an economic trinity. An egg
can be an egg without the shell. When you crack it open, it's
still an egg, but it's not it now. It's just a part of
the egg. It's not the whole egg. And at any point, the
Holy Spirit and Me and the Father are total and complete. The difference lies
in the state in which they're executed. So when I'm in the flesh,
I am limited by the flesh, but not by deity. So that gets
kind of confusing to some people. It's not that you're going to fully understand
it, but you can kind of wrap your mind around some of it.
Mark and I and I hope that helps. I love that you're talking about
it with family and trying to discuss it. Chris, Welcome to the Jesus
Christ Show. All right, thank you for you. First of all,
I was raised in the Catholic Church, Catholic school, the whole thing.
A while ago I became very disenchanted with the Church. And my question to
you is, we have free will. And if everything I do I try
to do from love, and I know I can't do everything, or I
could walk across the pool. But if everything I do from love, why
do I need? The Church is in God love? And if I try
to act that way? Isn't that? Where did you hear that God is
loved? Oh? It seems like I've heard that since in school? God
is love. I see it above the chalkboard. God is love? What
school, Queen of Angels? Oh? A Catholic school, yes, run
by a church. Yes, are you seeing what I'm doing here? I'm
seeing that, But so you the very thing, the very premise of your
question is nullified by the fact that even if you learned that one thing,
you wouldn't have learned that one thing if not from the church that is trying
to instill these things in you. And I don't understand why. It's like,
Chris, can you get nutrition from a pill? Yeah, pretty much.
You can find a lot of it that way. Why would you want
to Why would you want to live that way? Do you not want to
eat or drink or have you know, flavors and taste? Do you just
want to consume a pill and that makes you live? You're fine, no,
because that's not living, is it. No, it's not. No,
that's existing. And it's the same thing with the church. Now,
the church has its problems, and I've raised them on this show many times.
I have issues with the Catholic Church. I have issues with Protestant churches,
and I make them known. The Catholic Church is certainly not perfect,
but it is made up of people of faith, and people will let you
down. So the church as a whole will let you down. And that's
okay. That's going to happen, and they need to be called out for
it, and people like you and good people need to stand up against the
things that are done wrong in a church of any kind. Absolutely, However,
to look for excuses not to be in the house of God, to
look for excuses not to learn or to be with the people of God,
tells me that there's an issue. It's like saying, Hey, I love
my family. Why do I have to be around them? Why do I
have to see them in the holidays? Why do I have to experience them?
Why do I have to eat my mother's food? Why do I have
to I mean why? No one would ask that question because there is no
relationship there. There is no love. If you don't want that, so
you say that you do things in love. But running from God's people,
or running from God's church, or running away from things is not a loving
state. It's not a place. It doesn't come from a place of love.
It comes from a place of selfishness, a place of well, I
want to do what I want to do with my time. I don't want
to invest in the people there and the things that it will ask of me.
I don't want to be accountable to the things that it will ask of
me, and that has nothing to do with love at all. Wow,
I just feel like fits the up. I mean, I just feel like
I don't want to run from people, and just the opposite. I mean,
I want to help you, but I try to help people. And
I'm I why I just feel so bad now. No, I don't want
you to feel bad, because a bad person wouldn't have made this call.
A person who doesn't care would not have picked up the phone. This shows
that you have love. I'm just saying it's misguided. You're there. It's
human nature to want to have that space. It's human nature to want to
run from certain things, or to see the structure and the you know,
the organization, and I get that that is frustrating. You see the organization,
You're like, gosh, I feel like it's wasting my time because it's
a dance and it's filled with a lot of pomp and circumstance that mean nothing
nothing. I get all of that. But underneath all of that is what
I want you to see. Underneath all of that is is is the fulfillment
of you getting your gas tank filled each week and finding people that you can
connect with. That's what I want you to see and remember amongst all of
this craziness going on in the world, these simple words. I Am with
you always. KFI A M six forty on demand