You're listening to KFI AM six forty on demand Chip. Welcome to the Jesus
Christ Show. Hello Jesus, my brother. What's going on? Roughly?
I don't know. Ten years ago, I was heavily involved in a cell
church and things are going great, and then all of a sudden, my
prayer life became I don't know, for lack of a better description, putting
my prayer in a bucket that disappeared into the black distance. And when it
started to happen, I recognized it immediately because I was so used to feeling
the presence of God just in you know. I mean, I've drive him
to work, I talked to him and you know, moving on, I
just you know, always talked to him and he was always there and whatever.
And then this started, and so I recognized it changed immediately, and
I prayed with even more, with even more vigor, And you know,
I said, you know, what am I doing wrong? I know it's
me, because it's not him. It had to be me. What have
I done? What did I do? What am I doing? You know?
You know I asked my friends to do the same. My friends prayed
with me and for me, and you know, I was you know,
drop a bus on me, whatever it takes to open my mind or my
eyes or my heart or whatever I've done. And finally, after about five
years of doing this, I just kind of I don't know, I'm wondering
if I'm just full of baloney, you know, I'm I'm wondering, you
know, is this what it's to do? Most Christians not feel the presence
of God? Was it my imagination? No? It depends how you're feeling
him, Chip, I mean, are you saying that you felt God when
it was attached to certain things that you got that you wanted. No,
just mowing the lawn. He was just there. How has that changed?
I don't know. I don't know. I mean, the sel Church is
a part of fell apart, but we joined another one and that didn't go
real well either. But then sometimes when I hear those things, here's the
rule, Chip, straight out, If you are standing in front of a
building and you see it in front of your face and it's right there,
and then all of a sudden, a couple of years later, you don't
see that building, the likelihood of that building getting up and moving is slim.
Right, It's you that's moved exactly. So there you're the one.
The pillar of God stands firm. If you're not seeing God, usually it's
because you've moved away for some reason. And if you get caught up in
the movement of a church or the movement of a body, or a particular
teacher or anything, you get caught up just in that you lose the beauty
of what's really going on. And that doesn't mean that there aren't wonderful you
know, groups or churches or teachers that have great followings. It's not about
that. It's if you get caught up in the movement though. If you
just get caught up in that experience experience, then it becomes, you know,
simply about the experience and less about God. And sometimes people go for
that feeling. It's like we say on the program that that happiness is a
momentary feeling of joy due to happening. So people confuse happiness for joy sometimes,
and happiness is and joy, joy is constant. It's always there.
It's for those who understand that it's there even in bad times. It's not
something that, oh, someone gave me a cake, someone gave me money.
Oh things are going my way. Therefore I'm happy, It's always there.
Joy is the pure understanding and acceptance of existing and the complexity and the
intensity of what that means. Wow, I exist. That is a wonderful,
wonderful thing in good times and bad so for believers. Often you can
get wrapped up in an experience or a particular church, and I hear people
all the time chip that will will say, hey, you know what,
my pastor left, or my pastor retired. I heard recently of a pastor
who retired and has to tell people, you know, have signs and stead
of say, please respect my retirement because people didn't want to let him go,
right, and he had done God's work and he's he needs to spend
time with his family and himself, and people were just like at his door
thinking and that becomes a form of idle worship. That becomes, you know,
people losing the truth of who God is and thinking that God only can
only be seen, only be felt through certain things. Right, you know,
we you know, we hope the show lasts a long time. We
hope God has used and that's why we're here. However, people's faith should
not be built upon this program. Now, the faith, the face should
always be in the Father in this end absolutely, So where is he?
So, where is he in your life that you're not seeing him, feeling,
tasting, experiencing God. Well, that's what's funny, is is he's
really I mean what I used to take as I'm not making any sense,
it's everywhere. I mean, it's in the fact that I'm sitting on my
back porch putting my beautiful dog. It's you know, it's in the fact
that my daughters are inside pickering over a video game. You know, good,
good things exactly. Those are the things that you should be experiencing and
taking the simplicity, Yeah you know that that, Yeah, I guess that
could be it. You just get used to it, and this is it's
it's too easy to go, ah, well, God's there. Especially when
God is there and God's really present in your life, you take it for
granted. And that's why people say, oh, why am I going through
these trials, because it's the only time you recognize being Having a little distance
from God truly makes you go, oh my gosh, God is gone.
It's not oh well I don't really feel him. No, God is there.
When just God takes enough to go on the head of a pin out
of your life and you will feel as if the bottom has dropped out lost.
Perhaps, Yeah, it's just you have to appreciate that that he's there,
and you have to see it a little different. Sometimes building the steps
Chip, people will say, oh, this guy does such and such and
I want to do that too, Or you know, people see a huge
company that's successful and they go, oh, all I've got to do is
you know, well, there's a coffee house and they make tons of money.
I just have to make coffee on a street corner and have a cute
logo and some scones and I'm going to be rich. I'm going to be
a wealthy miser. Yeah, but it's not people forget. People see success
Chip and they try and copy success. Never copy success, always copy the
path to success, which is very different. A lot of times it's years
and years and years of straining and toiling and trying to figure out a proper
recipe or a proper path or raising the money or doing all these things of
it. No lady sees that. They just see the end result and they
go, oh, this is all I have to do. I have to
open a shop and I have to put coffee in it. No, there
was steps prior to that that were the most important part, not the end
result. Sometimes it's so easy to see the end result, or get used
to the end result, that you forget the steps it takes to get there,
and in forgetting that, you lose all of it. Emron, welcome
to the Jesus Christ Show. Thank you so much for taking my call,
my pleasure. We got just a couple of minutes here. So what's up,
perfect I was wondering if you could elaborate in the verse for me,
Matthew, Chapter six, verse twenty two, and I'll take that off here.
Okay, thank you. Wow, what a courteous caller. Chapter six
twenty two. So here you're looking at me talking about wealth, and it
starts out nineteen. We'll push back because I always tell you the understand something
you want to read before it, and you want to read after it.
So it started verse nineteen. Do not lay up for your self treasures upon
earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steel.
Then we'll jump to verse twenty two, which is the one in question
by you. The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your
eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. But if
your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If
therefore the light that is in your darkness, that is in you is darkness,
how great is the darkness? So this is me getting upset at the
Pharisees. And there the Pharisees were very big on gathering wealth, getting as
much as they can and gathering wealth. My point here was that they were
serving two masters and that they were not They were not able to use faith
or understand faith because they were never in need of God. They always supplied
their own stuff. They always got their own stuff. So the passage here
describing the eye is talking about if they're only looking at wealth, imagine the
old concept of having rose colored glasses. Well, if you have rose colored
glasses, everything you see will be rose colored. So if you are lusting
after and coveting after stuff, then you now the window to your soul.
Your eyes is now taking in only that lust and coveteousness for things, and
not learning about the necessity of God providing or any of those things. And
that it goes on to say that you're serving two masters, because it's showing
that they're serving wealth and the gathering of wealth and God when they have time,
and so it's splitting them. The darkness comes from the eye being sick.
This is implying that their eyes are sick because their eyes are bent on
gain and constantly getting wealth, and they can't see anything. If you've seen
somebody gambling or somebody who makes a lot of money, and all they think
about is making money, making money, making money, their eyes look dead
like that. They're not thinking about anything outside of it, and therefore the
inside of them is dark as well. That's what it's talking about. Joe,
Welcome to the Jesus Christ Show. Hello, and thank you very very
much for your sacrifice. I've read the accounts of your apostles on your comments
on the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and the Sodycees, and I now follow your
instruction for prayer. But my question today is on the role of churches and
religion everywhere I look nowadays, my understanding of the churches and religion is the
primary goal is the salvation of men's souls. But everywhere you look there are
churches involved in liberation theology and help with the environment and global warming and immigration
and social justice, what's going on with the churches? So you're concerned with
the church being involved in what would normally fall into politics. Yes, okay,
I think it's fair, and I'll address it specifically and then generally as
well. First, generally, it's imperative that churches are involved in many aspects
of what's going on in the world. It's helpful. However, there are
times where the church becomes lazy and they forget that their job is to change
hearts, not laws, and that if you change hearts, the laws will
follow. So it's easier to change a law than it is to change the
heart of man. So a lot of times churches focus on the political and
they lose their path. However, you mentioned some specifics global warming and the
like. Well, outside of the politics of that, you know whether it's
happening or not, or any of those things. You are called throughout scripture
to be good stewards of that which is in front of you, and to
be a good steward of the planet is to be reasonable. To be a
good steward to a human kind is reasonable and completely biblical. However, those
issues you raise are hot button issues and become political and politicized very quickly,
and what happens is they become emotional rather than intellectual, and people stop being
rational about Okay, well this is what we need to do, and you
should be able to protect this or to protect that or any of these things,
and it becomes an emotional issue and that becomes a problem. And then
the church puts their and promoteur on it, and it looks like, oh,
well, the church is saying, well, we believe this, and
then this particular Protestant church is saying we believe this, and that becomes very,
very problematic, and now the church loses it's place, which is the
spiritual compass and the compass of righteousness in the community, and now becomes just
another pundit and another politico and another voice spouting things on one side or the
other. And my response always has been, give to Caesar what is Caesar's
and give to God what is God's. So people get lost in those things,
and unfortunately there's not the balance. Sometimes there's people that say, hey,
Joe, and you may be one of them. I don't want them
near any political things, and that's not fair either. The church is in
the community, plays a part of the community, and is raising the community
and has a stake in it. And therefore the best thing a church can
do is raise people up in the way they should be. Raise them,
teach them the right things, teach them what the biblical scriptural decisions are on
things, and let them make the decisions out as they are in doing civil
things and being part of their civic duty. That's what's important. When the
church gets too involved, yes, that is a huge problem. Raphael,
Welcome to the Jesus Christ Show. Hello Jesus, Hi. I've had a
question for some time about how the soul or spirit actually exists within the body,
and then it leads me to the question of if it exists within the
body. So, in a word, assuming we each have individual souls,
in the event of let's say, an amputated limb, or if you donate
a heart or another organ like a kidney, does any of your soul go
with those parts or does the remaining body have any lesser soul as a result
of giving up the kidney for instance? No excellent question, but no.
You. Throughout scripture it refers to ashes, to ashes, dust to dust,
it refers to the clay. You know, the creator using you as
clay and your body being clay, the flesh being a container of vessel reeling.
And if you imagine it, it's like saying, if you donated your
car, does part of you leave with the car. No, you get
out of the car, and then it's just a shell. It's what you
use to move your body around in this world. Well, your body is
what moves your soul around in this world. Well, this is where it
gets a little complicated for me. Okay, years ago, I had an
ankle injury and my orthopedic surgeon made the suggestion that he could take a couple
cells of my cartilage out of my body, put it in a peatra dish
and let it grow, and as it would develop into a larger amount of
cartilage, then reinsert it and repair my ankles. So, while that cartilage
is out of my body, it is existing human tissue and it never died
up. In fact, it's growing. So if in the very near future,
science is able to take one or two other cells my body and create
a clone of being, does that other grouping of now very complicated human cells
that was my tissue initially have a soul. Well this is where the argument
goes. Now, how how it pertains to your question in this the specifics
of your question. No, your soul is not in that in those uh,
you know, organized of cells and parts of who you are. No,
but your your soul is never truly inside your body in that sense.
Your soul doesn't exist only inside your body. Your soul is a bridgeway to
a whole other world. Your soul is is that which connects you with God,
and your connection with God is completely other than an outside the body.
The cloning process brings up a whole other set of questions where I started.
Well, that gets into whether God is going to give a soul to that
other living being or whether it's just going to be tissue and assuming assuming,
and this is where science is taking it. Or you can theoretically have replacement
body parts for yourself as long as that other organism does not have a brain
that is allowed to cultivate as part of its development, I could theoretically have
a spare heart or a spare kidney. Right. That's that's the possibility of
the path that is being trodden on as we speak. Right. So,
if the other organism impact is allowed to develop a brain does not, then
the consciousness that would have come with that suggest that somehow a different soul is
created for that new being. Well, that would be on its face where
you would intellectually go absolutely, However, the theologically that that is all man
question, dealing with man. The placement of the soul is a God question,
and there's there is no there's nothing you can go to in scripture that's
going to point out specifically how that category would you know, fit in,
because that category doesn't exist really in scripture. So see that the only place
that the soul could then exist is in the brain. Well, that's where
that's where, that's where it's understood or actualized in one sense the way you're
experiencing it here. But for instance, in the Book of Acts, you
have Stephen being stoned to death, and there's some language in there that implies
that the bot that the soul was removed prior to the physical death of Stephen.
Yes, so so there there are some that would say, well,
you know, Stephen was still alive maybe physically, but the spirit had been
removed or the soul had been removed prior to that, maybe as a as
a form of compassion by God, and to being brain dead in a hospital
and being kept on life support possibly. So these are one of those philosophical
categories that go with, you know, many forms of study. You've got
theology implied there, you've got physiology, You've got all of these things that
are going to come together. And this is where understanding science where science leads
And does that mean, you know, does that show the face of God
or does it explain away God or these things? Well, my statement was
that all things that can be understood should be understood, but how they're applied
is where it becomes a moral or ethical issue. And so just because this
knowledge will exist doesn't mean that it should be pursued down in particular or what
seems like the logical path. That's where science and ethics have to meet.
But when it comes to the mechanics, you may mechanically be able to build
a body, but no, no scientists can build a soul. So they
can maybe replicate or use cells to perpetuate more cells, but scientists don't understand
what the soul is or how that activity or how life. They continue to
go back to the brain, but they're still trying to find out how the
brain pushes these things, because the brain would be for all intents and purposes,
mechanically a computer, and computers don't feel emotionally. They can replicate things,
but they can't create them in that sense. Even with artificial intelligence they
can make You can make a robot put its eyebrows down like it's sad,
or put them up like it's mad, but it doesn't. It's not experiencing
fear or anger or sadness. That is precisely where it becomes really difficult for
someone like me. But you can appreciate the knowledge of it. I can
appreciate the theology behind the the distinction between the spirit world that would require a
stole, and I still somehow have never released the idea that there is not
energy. So I really do believe that there is something much greater than us
that somehow is in effect well sure there, and all the things we've talked
about point to that. As a matter of fact, there was scientists some
time ago that created a simple life virus and like in a Petri dish,
and it was this big deal all over the scientific community. Man is created
life, and the theist went, uh huh, so what and they went,
oh, well we did it. You don't need God. And they
said you did what in a certain environment, intelligent life created life, which
is what the theist has been saying since day one that intelligence comes from intelligence,
not from randomness or chaos. And so there's yeah, there's That's where
my question really is. No, but what as it lies. As it
lies with the pieces and the parts, you're still looking at just the mechanics.
That is, even if they could create an entire human being that looks
exactly like you, it's not going to be you for many reasons, one
of just the mechanical reasons, because you are a product of your environment as
well as your genetics. And so the new environment, if it's growing in
a new place, unless it grew up the exact way at the exact time,
in the exact sense that you did, it's going to be different.
So if that's going to be different physically just physiologically different as to how this
being grows and adapts, then one must understand that likewise, whether God breathes,
the word numa or the word spirit comes from the word numa means to
breathe. It literally is the illustration of God putting his mouth on the mouth
of man and putting air into him. May I may ask you though,
in the case of the cartilage for my ankle, yes, sir, I
own the cartilage, sir. In the case of putting my body stem cells
into some patriotish that grows up into being a complete human that essentially is spare
parts for me, at what point would I not be then able to own
that other body? And if that other body was actually included a brain,
is it then its own sanctioned being or should I still have ownership just as
I would over the cartilage. Well there, essy. But there is the
debate at what point is this harvesting of organs of your own organs? Where
does it become a greater debate? And this is what's going on, and
this is why people are arguing saying, Hey, at some point you're going
to be stepping on the foot of God and you may find as a people
that there you'll get to that state, should it, you know, get
that far and and it won't be what you think it's going to be,
and it won't have that and and that's much further off than people think.
And there are greater problems with the cloning process than people think. And it's
not that the spirit is not something in the soul. It's not something that
is going to be an answered question in twenty five, thirty years, fifty
years, whatever, they figure out that issue of cloning. No, my
issue with my own soul is then is there something really here that I need
saves? Is there really something here that really is what is referred to as
the sinful nature? Is there's If the question of the soul becomes such a
basic issue as to how it exists and what it is needed from it,
you may have welcome to Earth to save my soul, as we all understand
it. But does my soul need saving? And the answer from you know
it is the Jesus Christ Show. So forgive me for stating the obvience.
But then the answer, the answer is yes, yes, The answer is
yes absolutely, because there are things outside of the mechanics of the biology you're
talking about that transcend that that science has not been able to even understand or
observe properly. Things like that. You know, having male female does not
match the evolutionary model. Having emotion does not match the evolutionary model. The
desire to love when it's against the contradictory to the desire to survive does not
match that evolutionary model, and those are the things that are outside of the
mechanics. So you keep saying, well, if you build a car,
if you build a car, if you build a car, and I'm saying
no, if the engine isn't put in there, the car means nothing.
The car is just physical form. Scripture says, be fearful not of the
person that can kill the flesh, but the person that can kill the soul.
So they're not combined in that sense. Also, when it talks about
birth or you know, people say born again, they think it's a denomination.
It's not. It's a theological term used in a conversation with me and
Nicodemus, and I'm explaining, unless you are born again, and he says,
I got to crawl up into into the womb again. No, born
of the water and born of the spirit. It's talking about being born in
a flesh, born of the of of the woman, and then born of
God. And they're two separate things. And even if science makes an entire
person of you, that doesn't say whether God is going to grant that thing
a soul, because there are other living things on this planet without souls,
And what happens that well it becomes mechanical. Jeff, Welcome to the Jesus
Christ Show. Thank you. My question is how can someone like me who
I am. I am probably one of the biggest sinners there is. I
hate to admit that, but I probably am be reconcile that to God,
who is holy. Well, why is there what kind of sin is in
your life that that it weighs on you such? I mean, are you
just in a complete state of rebellion or you're just a sinner because you're a
sinner? Well, I don't know if it's a sinner because I'm a sinner
or anything like that, And I'm really not sure if it's rebellion. I
know that there is a God, and I know that he is very holy.
Okay, because sometimes when people ask this, Jeff, they're talking about
something that has a foothold in their life that continues to come up. And
it's not that I when I say a sinner because you're a sinner, it's
not belittling the sin. I mean, all sin is bad. It's to
understand the difference between, well, there's something in my life that I that
I'm I've been struggling with for a long time versus being a human being and
falling short of the mark of God. Well, as you just stated in
not being human issues with adultery because I am separated, not legally, I
see. Really don't like that deal or even the word divorced at all,
But that you're okay with the word adultery, now, okay, we need
a one of them, be honest with you. I'm very sure God is
not. Okay, we need a one of them as well. Well,
it's really about you know, the term repentance, and you hear this all
the time, and it's this, you know, very religious sounding word,
but Jeff, it really just means to turn away from And if you if
you think of it this way, imagine a pillar, a big marble pillar,
and it's in front of you all the time, and all of a
sudden it's not in front of you. That's because you changed. Chances are
the pillar doesn't move, and that's how God is. So if God's not
in your vision, and God's not in your view, it's because you've turned
away from God, not because God's turned away from you. So the first
thing to do is to get on a path where you are seeking God and
seeking God's face and see God's will. That's what's imperative. That's also one
of the reasons why I called to speak with someone like yourself, who is
much more in tune with His ways and his will than I am, or
have her, probably ever have been. But yet I want to be well.
There's a big there's a big cheat sheet. It's a it's made up
of over sixty books. It's written over a span of yes, sir,
a span of one hundred or fifteen hundred years, by three forty authors,
or so thirty continents or three continents, times of peace, times of war.
I mean, there's a there's a big book there that will help you
understand things. And there's an old there's an old saying that sin will keep
you from the Bible, but the Bible will keep you from sin. So
if you spend time in scripture and you spend time with God, that's how
you get to know God better, and that's how you learn to see where
you're missing the mark. It's like shedding a little light on the situation.
Turn the light on first, see what needs to be cleaned, to what
needs to be done, and spend time with God, build a relationship and
turn away from those things. Don't you don't doubt you're bigger than that.
You don't have to fall into adultery or things like that. You build your
life in a way that you don't stumble into those things. Otherwise they'll get
a hold of you. Kfi AM six forty on demand