Speaker 1: Welcome to Mortgage Talk with Mark Harriston, the program that
Speaker 1: not only talks about mortgages, taxes, and interest rates, but
Speaker 1: Mark and his guest talk real estate trends and you're home.
Speaker 1: He also answers your mortgage questions to help you make
Speaker 1: the right financing or refinancing decisions.
Speaker 2: Now here's Mark Hairston.
Speaker 3: Happy day, everybody, and welcome back to Mortgage Talk with Mark.
Speaker 3: And I'm your host, Mark Harriston, and I own Texas
Speaker 3: Mortgage Source. We handle all sorts of mortgage financing residential
Speaker 3: for building or buying or remodeling or building, so keep.
Speaker 2: That in mind.
Speaker 3: And I'm really really excited to have a good friend
Speaker 3: of mine on my as a guest today. I've known
Speaker 3: Bill for probably fifteen years now, maybe longer at least
Speaker 3: at least, and I've been trying to get him on
Speaker 3: the show for probably six months, but he travels all
Speaker 3: the time. So I finally corralled him to come by
Speaker 3: this morning, and I'm excited to hear his story a
Speaker 3: little bit more and share that with y'all. I'll give
Speaker 3: you a little backdrop on how I met Bill. I
Speaker 3: grew up in the Catholic tradition. I'm still practicing Catholic.
Speaker 3: But I met a woman back in two thousand and
Speaker 3: five who currently is my wife, named Sherah, and at
Speaker 3: the time, she was going to this kind of wild
Speaker 3: charismatic church called Cathedral Praise, and I thought, well, if
Speaker 3: I want to stay with this lady, I better show
Speaker 3: up and see what this is all about. So I
Speaker 3: started attending the Cathedral Praise along with going to the Mass,
Speaker 3: and I heard Bill preach one time there, and I'm thinking,
Speaker 3: this guy is different. As a matter of fact, I
Speaker 3: think I've never told you this, Bill, but I think
Speaker 3: you're the best preacher I guess preacher I've ever heard.
Speaker 3: If you call it that preaching, you know, wow, Yeah,
Speaker 3: because I've heard a lot of it over the years.
Speaker 2: No pure pressure.
Speaker 3: But I want to introduce you as a pastor and
Speaker 3: a preacher and evangelist and a speaker and a prolific writer.
Speaker 3: And we want to start here with your book in
Speaker 3: just a minute, but give us a little bit of
Speaker 3: about your background.
Speaker 2: Man, thanks so much for having me on the show. Welcome. Wow,
Speaker 2: that's an amazing introduction. It's going to be hard to
Speaker 2: live up to. No, I actually it's a kind of
Speaker 2: a long history, you know, with with the Gospel and
Speaker 2: with the Lord. Grew up in a missionary family house
Speaker 2: and living all over the world in other countries. And
Speaker 2: then your daddy was Avantil he was, yeah, and we
Speaker 2: were actually based in Austin here from the age I
Speaker 2: was five years old. We moved to Austin, Texas, and
Speaker 2: Dad was on the radio, which this station was other
Speaker 2: things back then, but this particular station, Jean Bender was
Speaker 2: working yeah, all the way back then. Yeah, and yeah,
Speaker 2: so yeah, we go way way way back. I feel
Speaker 2: like like a lifelong history with this station. Sure, but yeah,
Speaker 2: I started I started going to you know, church from
Speaker 2: the womb, and it kind of grew up with all
Speaker 2: kinds of different traditions. My grandfather was a Quaker, dad
Speaker 2: was Wesleyan Methodist, became Nazarene, met the Holy Spirit in
Speaker 2: the seventies and dived into the Word of Faith movement,
Speaker 2: the Assemblies of God and various Pentecostal denominations. Tracy and
Speaker 2: I went to Bible College in Dallas and Christ for
Speaker 2: the Nations left there and then a pastoring and an
Speaker 2: Assembly of God church here in town actually and built
Speaker 2: built an Assembly God Church here in town. And then
Speaker 2: from there we ran into Bethel Church and Reading California
Speaker 2: with Bill Johnson nearly twenty years ago, and that changed everything.
Speaker 2: In the middle of it all, ran into Bill Hard
Speaker 2: at Cathedral of Praise and ended up serving over there
Speaker 2: for a little while. That's where we met you. It
Speaker 2: was fabulous, Yeah, an incredible time. And you know, I
Speaker 2: would say, you know, the probably one of the strangest
Speaker 2: theological turns, not that it necessarily changed my particular belief,
Speaker 2: but in terms of expanding my perspective of how people
Speaker 2: interact with the Lord in terms of their faith and
Speaker 2: their faith journey. I was a Presbyterian pastor for three years,
Speaker 2: which was really a fascinating all over the board and
Speaker 2: a half. And then now we're back here in Austin
Speaker 2: and serving at Bethel Austin, helping to lead their School
Speaker 2: of Ministry. So I'm a lead trainer over at the
Speaker 2: Bethel School of Ministry.
Speaker 3: You know, I was so impressed years ago. I took
Speaker 3: you to breakfice coffee one day and because your message
Speaker 3: resonated with me on different levels and maybe some people,
Speaker 3: and it seemed to me at the time I could
Speaker 3: be wrong if memory serves me. You've also studied some
Speaker 3: of the some of the Catholicistics over the years.
Speaker 2: Oh, I love that, and I love the early Fathers.
Speaker 2: I mean like it would go way away, you know,
Speaker 2: further back, you know, you know the I mean, I
Speaker 2: love athanacious, huge fan of Athenation is Athanasius and his
Speaker 2: book on the Incarnation, and studied a lot around the Council.
Speaker 2: And I see in the architecture of the nice creating
Speaker 2: Gregor needs some and what these guys were trying to
Speaker 2: accomplish and asserting the divinity of Christ, you know, to
Speaker 2: make sure that people understood Jesus isn't just a man
Speaker 2: who attained a god like status because of his works
Speaker 2: or his piety or his devotion. Works, piety and devotion
Speaker 2: are great, but you know, they're not going to get
Speaker 2: you into a position of completely transcending your humanity to suddenly, oh,
Speaker 2: you become God. And that's essentially what you know, some
Speaker 2: of the folks were saying back in that day, and
Speaker 2: Jesus just a man, and so now we find ourselves
Speaker 2: saved by works, or at least perfected in our works.
Speaker 2: As opposed to what Athanasius was asserting was that we
Speaker 2: are completely saved and perfected in Christ, and Christ alones
Speaker 2: are surrender to both His grace and His faith for
Speaker 2: our salvation. That becomes the issue. So but he did
Speaker 2: he did lift us. I mean there's three, I think
Speaker 2: three elements. I don't know where you want to go
Speaker 2: with this today. But here we are like the dominant
Speaker 2: are tumbling here. But you know, there's theology, which is
Speaker 2: the study of God. There's and then there's beyond theology,
Speaker 2: there's theophony, which is the appearance of God. And that
Speaker 2: would be that would be I would say in Acts
Speaker 2: chapter two, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and not
Speaker 2: just God with us, but within us, making us His home.
Speaker 2: And then there is theosis. And theosis is union with God.
Speaker 2: And that is the fullness of the realization of the
Speaker 2: fact that it is His divinity that defines our humanity
Speaker 2: and not that we are God and He is us.
Speaker 2: We're there's a major distinction there. But as a child
Speaker 2: of God, like a child of a father, you find
Speaker 2: yourself being defined by the family that you're connected to.
Speaker 2: And that is that is what I would says. Theosis
Speaker 2: is and and Athanasians talked a lot about the Alsa
Speaker 2: So I love the early I love the early fathers,
Speaker 2: you know, uh yeah, Basle the Great and Quitas. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I thought was Quitas, Polycarp and Ignacious Will and all
Speaker 2: these I mean all these guys like mastrac Cart. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: my strec Cart was fascinating. Thought. Yeah, well that may be.
Speaker 3: That may be a preamble to something I want to
Speaker 3: mention up front for sure, is your new book. I
Speaker 3: think you said you've written eight or nine books or
Speaker 3: co author. This is the second one this year, second
Speaker 3: one this year. Okay, Well, I love the title. I'm
Speaker 3: gonna put it up here real quick. Make sure everybody
Speaker 3: can read this. It's called The Fire Is Not Optional. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 3: and it's basically recovering the Baptism of Jesus and the
Speaker 3: Gospel in the early Church. So what you're talking about
Speaker 3: now maybe reference of this, but you kind of talk
Speaker 3: about this new book and what inspire that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, A last fall I was I was studying in
Speaker 2: Matthew chapter three, and I was studying John the Baptist,
Speaker 2: and I get to the point in the story of
Speaker 2: John the Baptist, which I I've read, you know, many
Speaker 2: many times, but you know, certain things will stand out
Speaker 2: to you at certain times, and on this day, the
Speaker 2: part that stood out to me the most was the
Speaker 2: part where John the Baptist is addressing the crowd, which
Speaker 2: is filled with all kinds of people, including religious leaders,
Speaker 2: who were coming out to get baptized by him, which
Speaker 2: is ironically a new concept for these people. It wasn't
Speaker 2: like a mick of a bath where oh it's purification ritual.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's what these people were familiar with. But
Speaker 2: you would never do a mikvait in a dirty river,
Speaker 2: and it would certainly not purdue of your sins. And
Speaker 2: that's what John's doing. He's done and people in the
Speaker 2: Jordan for repentance, and so even religious leaders are coming
Speaker 2: out to him, and he realized Pharisees, Yeah, people are
Speaker 2: in the crowd. Like he realizes, man, the Pharisees and
Speaker 2: religious leaders of the community are here to get baptized
Speaker 2: by me. Wow, you know wow, I didn't know that.
Speaker 2: And in that moment he looks at him, he goes,
Speaker 2: he goes, you brewed vipers who warned you to flee
Speaker 2: from the wrath to come like it's like he's taunting him.
Speaker 2: He's smack talking yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, and then he
Speaker 2: realizes how much stock they're putting in him, and he goes, guys,
Speaker 2: the best I can do for use water. That's my paraphrase.
Speaker 2: What he says is is I baptize you with water,
Speaker 2: but there's one coming after me who's mightier than I,
Speaker 2: and I'm not worthy to loosen his sandals, and he
Speaker 2: will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.
Speaker 2: So what he does is when he realizes that people
Speaker 2: are putting so much weight on what he's doing, he
Speaker 2: makes sure to tell them, guys, you understand that I
Speaker 2: am a four runner for something greater, Like what I'm
Speaker 2: doing is a shadow, that's the reality. And so the
Speaker 2: best I can do for use water. But the thing
Speaker 2: that is to come that you actually ought to look
Speaker 2: toward is the baptism of the Holy Spirit and fire.
Speaker 2: And he doesn't say Jesus in this moment, but he
Speaker 2: knows who he's talking about. When he sees Jesus coming
Speaker 2: down the river to down toward the river Jordan, he says,
Speaker 2: behold the lamb of God, who takes away the sin
Speaker 2: of the world. Like he recognizes, whether prophetically or intellectually,
Speaker 2: he recognizes exactly what this guy is here to do.
Speaker 2: How's he going to do that? Well, he's already identified
Speaker 2: what Jesus is going to bring. The baptism of Jesus
Speaker 2: is the Holy Spirit and fire. And it's not something
Speaker 2: I would say that even the Pentecostal denominations today have
Speaker 2: a corner market on because a lot of people are like, oh,
Speaker 2: you get baptized, and you get all these gifts going
Speaker 2: on in your life. The fire of God is the
Speaker 2: consuming love of God that is absolutely purifying us. People say, well,
Speaker 2: it's fire of judgment, but he judges us in righteousness.
Speaker 2: In other words, he judges us as righteous, not based
Speaker 2: on what we have done, but based on what Jesus did.
Speaker 2: And so that's the beauty of this baptism of fire.
Speaker 2: It's in Malachi three he's called a refiner, and he
Speaker 2: is a refiner's fire, a launderer soap, and so an
Speaker 2: encounter with the fire of the Holy Spirit of God
Speaker 2: will change and transform you. That's really what it is.
Speaker 2: It's gold going into fire becomes pliable, and if there's
Speaker 2: any impurities in the gold, they're exposed. It exposed not
Speaker 2: for the purpose of pointing at them, but for the
Speaker 2: purpose of dealing with them so the gold can become pure,
Speaker 2: because that's the goal. The goal is not to find impurity.
Speaker 2: The goal is to succeed the goal be as purified
Speaker 2: as it can. That only happens when gold and fire connect.
Speaker 2: And so this is kind of the part that really
Speaker 2: smacked me upside the head when I read this, and
Speaker 2: that is I was noticing that there was this massive
Speaker 2: trend toward water baptism in the United States. Baptism revivals
Speaker 2: you were blowing up, you know, and you know, especially
Speaker 2: just in the last couple of years, thirty four or
Speaker 2: five years, that it was a major baptism revival that
Speaker 2: started at a church in Georgia and just blew up
Speaker 2: all over the United States. Which is good. And I
Speaker 2: don't ever want to disparage anything about baptism. I don't
Speaker 2: want to minimize any baptism in any form. But what
Speaker 2: I feel like we have done is we've actually minimized
Speaker 2: the baptism of Jesus by maximizing upon, or capitalizing or
Speaker 2: focusing on the baptism of John. In other words, we
Speaker 2: made the water of the necessity. We made the fire
Speaker 2: of the option, and for the people who are like yes,
Speaker 2: the fire of the Holy Spirit. I welcome the fire
Speaker 2: the Holy Spirit of my life. They have an encounter
Speaker 2: with the Holy Spirit of God, they may have a
Speaker 2: response to that. Both the gifts and the fruit of
Speaker 2: the Holy Spirit are meant to be manifest in our
Speaker 2: life because of those things, because of the fire of
Speaker 2: the Holy Spirit that touches us. When that happens, there
Speaker 2: is transformation. So I'm always asking people, how's the Gospel
Speaker 2: transforming you? Because it's not just a good idea, it's
Speaker 2: good news that changes you. Right. So the point of
Speaker 2: the book being the Fire is not optional, is to
Speaker 2: invite people back into not a place of minimizing water baptism,
Speaker 2: but a place in let's at least elevate the baptism
Speaker 2: of Jesus to the same. I would say focused importance
Speaker 2: that we put on water baptism to help us understand
Speaker 2: People say, well, you know what water baptism identifying with
Speaker 2: the death of burial and resurrection of Jesus. Okay, well, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's easy to see, except for this John was baptizing
Speaker 2: before the cross, So how is that identifying with the
Speaker 2: death of burial and resurrection of Jesus hasn't even happened yet.
Speaker 2: So I think from John's perspective, he was a placeholder
Speaker 2: pointing people toward towards this reality that there's something that
Speaker 2: you need that is coming to you. Oh and it's
Speaker 2: not going to come by me or this water. It's
Speaker 2: going to come in his baptism, which is a holy
Speaker 2: spirit and fire. A people say, well, didn't the Disciples
Speaker 2: baptized people. They did, absolutely, the baptized people in water.
Speaker 2: It was a mark, a symbolic mark of I'm leaving
Speaker 2: an old life behind, I'm dying to a former way
Speaker 2: of living, and I'm stepping into newness of life. But
Speaker 2: the Holy Spirit didn't wait around for us to get
Speaker 2: the order of well through the water first. And then
Speaker 2: it's not the way it works. In Acts, chapter ten,
Speaker 2: Peter goes to the house of a Roman Centurian named Carnelius,
Speaker 2: and when he gets to the guy's house and starts
Speaker 2: preaching the Gospel, the Bible says, in the middle of
Speaker 2: Peter's talking, the Holy Spirit falls and the fire the
Speaker 2: Holy Spirit falls on these people, and Peter recognizes it
Speaker 2: and says, in that moment he goes the same thing
Speaker 2: that happened to us is happening to these guys, and
Speaker 2: then he goes, we might as well get him some water.
Speaker 2: And so after the fact, Peter, it's not like God
Speaker 2: moves on Peter to dunk these people. Peter's like, well,
Speaker 2: let's just check that box. And again, I don't want
Speaker 2: to minimize water baptism. I just want to point out
Speaker 2: the fact that I think two thousand years after the Cross,
Speaker 2: after the Resurrection, and after the coming of the Holy Spirit,
Speaker 2: we have made the fire of the Baptism of Jesus.
Speaker 2: We've done one of two things with it. We've either
Speaker 2: relegated to fringe groups like the Pentecostals and the Assemblies
Speaker 2: of God and well, that's for the weird people that
Speaker 2: are out there that you know, speaking tongues and prophets
Speaker 2: I and do the weird stuff, right, And we've basically
Speaker 2: shoved that off to the side, like your strange uncle
Speaker 2: at a family gathering. It's like put them in the
Speaker 2: back room, right or we have and there's many denominations
Speaker 2: that have done this, and I'll go toe to toe
Speaker 2: on this one. We have mislabeled the fire of the
Speaker 2: Holy Spirit of God as a negative, as if it's
Speaker 2: the judgment of God coming down to just beat us
Speaker 2: over the head. Well, I will say that it is
Speaker 2: the purifying, transforming element of the nature and the character
Speaker 2: of who he is that takes everything that is contrary
Speaker 2: to who he is and burns it out of us.
Speaker 2: You call that judgment all day long. But some people
Speaker 2: will say, well, judgment is when God comes and beats
Speaker 2: up all the people who didn't vote like you, or
Speaker 2: beats up all the people you don't like, right, because
Speaker 2: we all have our list of people that we want
Speaker 2: God to drop the hammer on. Sure, and that's what
Speaker 2: we're hoping. A lot of people are hoping that's what
Speaker 2: the fire is, and I'm like, no, I'm not seeing
Speaker 2: that because you see too many instances where God touches
Speaker 2: people transforms them. There's this baptism of that transforming fire
Speaker 2: and what his gold doing fire, It becomes pliable and
Speaker 2: so it's now workable by an artist. Right, And that's
Speaker 2: what you see with people's lives. When they encounter the
Speaker 2: fire of the Holy Spirit. They're not selfish anymore. They
Speaker 2: become selflessly devoted, like a bond servant of God.
Speaker 3: Well, you know it's interesting because it's ironic on some level,
Speaker 3: because the scripture, the Gospel reading. The Catholic Mass of
Speaker 3: the day Sunday was at a luke where Jesus said,
Speaker 3: I've come to put fire onto the earth, and how
Speaker 3: I wish it was already claims.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's not waiting, he's not hoping. I just cannot
Speaker 2: wait to beat these people up. That's right, that's right.
Speaker 2: I agree with you. Well, Hebrews says our God is
Speaker 2: consuming fire, and John says in his epistles, our God
Speaker 2: is love. So the two things that said that God
Speaker 2: is is fire and love. You put those things together
Speaker 2: and you begin to realize the fire of God is
Speaker 2: the love of God, and the love of God is
Speaker 2: the fire of God. So an encounter with the Love
Speaker 2: of God will absolutely leave you changed and transformed. Well,
Speaker 2: I know you're on fire for the Lord. Come on,
Speaker 2: not just the coffee mark.
Speaker 3: That's right, Not just for this thirty minute segment. Yeah,
Speaker 3: for sure, let's shift gears for just a minute. Because
Speaker 3: a lot of our listeners are certainly online or Facebook
Speaker 3: or whatever, maybe not be religious people, you know, maybe
Speaker 3: they're just listened to the show for whatever reason. But
Speaker 3: this is a Christian radio show. It's a very appropriate conversation.
Speaker 3: But what can you share with folks who are and
Speaker 3: maybe in business. A lot of our a lot of
Speaker 3: our customers or our listeners are business people.
Speaker 2: And maybe the economy is not real good. How can
Speaker 2: you give them hope through your word or your message.
Speaker 2: So in addition to ministering and pastoring, Tracy and my
Speaker 2: wife and I I've been involved in a lot of
Speaker 2: business and nevers over the years, whether it's you know,
Speaker 2: marketing resources, books and things like that, and e courses
Speaker 2: and master classes and whatnot a lot of those things.
Speaker 2: So we know a lot about marketing, a lot about
Speaker 2: about is stepping into that influencer world. But there was
Speaker 2: a time where we decided we were going to start
Speaker 2: a business. Okay, and we actually no it was in Orlando, Florida, Florida,
Speaker 2: and we owned a restaurant and it was like a
Speaker 2: French restaurant, bistro, coffee shop, and just outside of the
Speaker 2: Disney World. Yeah, yeah, you know it was but it
Speaker 2: was really uh, it was catering to the tourist market.
Speaker 2: And so I had never run a restaurant before, but
Speaker 2: I always wanted to. It's kind of something sort of
Speaker 2: in the back of my mind. So it was like
Speaker 2: I felt like the Lord gave me, you know, it's
Speaker 2: like gave me this, gave me this grace to like, oh, okay,
Speaker 2: you want to get that out of your system. Deal.
Speaker 2: So here's what it. Here's what it did for me.
Speaker 2: And actually I'm super thankful for it. I had never
Speaker 2: fully understood the pressure that people who own or run,
Speaker 2: especially small businesses, are under and small businesses and I realized,
Speaker 2: especially from the associations that I was in, even though
Speaker 2: a lot of money maybe comes into the business, the
Speaker 2: amount of expense that people have, it's only going up right, right,
Speaker 2: And so the amount of expense that people have means
Speaker 2: that many business owners are you know, breaking even on
Speaker 2: life right right. In other words, their profit margins are thin.
Speaker 2: The profit margins are so thin, and so often like
Speaker 2: sometimes there was workers that we had hired that financially
Speaker 2: we're doing better in the end of the day than
Speaker 2: we were, even though there was right there was a
Speaker 2: lot of money coming to our hands. It was like
Speaker 2: it was there to sustain us, but everything left over
Speaker 2: it was like do I hire another person, or do
Speaker 2: I hire another three or four five people and take
Speaker 2: the pressure off of us, or do I work you know,
Speaker 2: eighty hours? Yeah, eighty five hours this week and have
Speaker 2: a little something to show for it, even you always
Speaker 2: want to try to put something away. Sure, and at
Speaker 2: the end of the day, my goodness, you know, we
Speaker 2: ended up. We ended up like biting the bullet, you know,
Speaker 2: and working it out and then all of a sudden
Speaker 2: looking at each other and I'm looking at Tracy, going
Speaker 2: who are you? And She's going to I don't know,
Speaker 2: who are you? And we're just like passing every night, right,
Speaker 2: strangers and so uh, you know, for years called out
Speaker 2: of that business. For years as a as a pastor,
Speaker 2: Mark I didn't understand. And I would say this to
Speaker 2: every pastor. Maybe this is an important word for pastors
Speaker 2: who are listening to the show, who have people in
Speaker 2: their congregation who are business owners, and you have this
Speaker 2: automatic assumption that number one, they have a lot of money,
Speaker 2: because a lot of money comes to their business. You
Speaker 2: think that they're keeping a lot of that. And I
Speaker 2: would tell you, in a lot of cases, maybe something
Speaker 2: they are, but in a lot of cases they aren't.
Speaker 2: A lot of cases, they're having to make a decision
Speaker 2: between whether they hire more employees and have a life
Speaker 2: and sanity and a marriage, or whether they don't hire more,
Speaker 2: work more and keep more money. I mean, it's like
Speaker 2: and then the other thing is they may wonder why
Speaker 2: their business owners aren't more involved in church. And I
Speaker 2: can tell you from experience, even as a former ministers
Speaker 2: pastor during that time while I was running that business,
Speaker 2: church was the last thing on my mind. Interesting, and
Speaker 2: the idea of going to church was not to serve.
Speaker 2: It was I need I need a break from the
Speaker 2: constant bombardment of faulty there right that that's constantly going
Speaker 2: on your head because you're always thinking business and juggling business.
Speaker 2: Matter of fact, I would say we had a business
Speaker 2: association in Orlando made up of you know, probably two
Speaker 2: or three hundred buiness owners at a given time. Of
Speaker 2: that group of people, I can think of two that
Speaker 2: regularly attended church. Interesting, most of them didn't. And it's
Speaker 2: I don't think it's maybe they didn't want to. It's
Speaker 2: just that they didn't have the bandwidth.
Speaker 3: The bandwidth it in the time maybe right now, And
Speaker 3: I'll use myself as an example. I'll sharing this a
Speaker 3: little bit before the show. You know, I've been in
Speaker 3: the mortgage space for forty years and the last few
Speaker 3: years have been tough, you know. And I've been in
Speaker 3: a real sort of emotional psychological funk, you know, not terrible,
Speaker 3: not depressed, not debilitating or paralyzing, but you know, a
Speaker 3: little down, you know. And I'm going to get some
Speaker 3: free counseling here using let's go a script on whatever
Speaker 3: you can share about, you know, the bigger picture, if
Speaker 3: you will, Because some small business people get stuck sometimes
Speaker 3: in their business, like most mentally, they can't see outside.
Speaker 2: Of it because it's so much to it, you know,
Speaker 2: So help me out. Well. You know, Jesus is talking
Speaker 2: to people during his time who they were business owners,
Speaker 2: they were leaders, political and religious leaders, but they were
Speaker 2: also at that time they were being crushed under i
Speaker 2: would say, under the wheels of a religious system that
Speaker 2: it becomes so burdensome that it was impossible to live
Speaker 2: up to. So Jesus looks at these people, and this
Speaker 2: is what he says, Matthew eleven twenty eight, Come unto me,
Speaker 2: all of you who all weary, like all of you.
Speaker 2: In other words, I'm not discriminating here to just reach
Speaker 2: out to certain groups of people. Here, come unto me,
Speaker 2: every one of you who are here's a qualification weary, heavy, laden,
Speaker 2: burdened down, you're carrying weight. That's it. I mean, I
Speaker 2: think that's probably the greatest blanket statement that he could
Speaker 2: ever give. And that's really everybody, everybody on some level, right,
Speaker 2: because real or imagine stress doesn't matter to your body.
Speaker 2: Your body still in process is stress. I was just
Speaker 2: talking to a relative in mind the other days. He
Speaker 2: works one of the actually one of the world's leading
Speaker 2: researchers in the developer of an understanding of how we
Speaker 2: fight cancer, and he was basically saying that cancer is
Speaker 2: your cell, the cell of your body, cells of your
Speaker 2: body reacting to stress and how they respond to stress.
Speaker 2: It's like a crowd of people and one person gets
Speaker 2: spooked and starts swinging at everybody around and now you
Speaker 2: have a Now you have a fight, and I have
Speaker 2: a mass stampede. Nobody knows what's wrong. Nobody knows that,
Speaker 2: and so what is it? It's a disease, disease, and
Speaker 2: so what happens. Peace needs to come to bear. In
Speaker 2: that moment, Jesus looks at humanity crushed in all kinds
Speaker 2: of ways, physically, mentally, emotionally, and he says, come unto me,
Speaker 2: and I will give you rest, and that rest in
Speaker 2: my experience. By the way. Oh man, that's the thing.
Speaker 2: It's like, you know, he might as well have said, hey, guys,
Speaker 2: I'm the source of rest. That's why it's called the
Speaker 2: Prince of Peace. But then he goes on and says this.
Speaker 2: He says, take my yoke upon you and learn of me.
Speaker 2: For I am gentle, I'm lowly of heart. In other words,
Speaker 2: I'm not I'm not going to look at you from
Speaker 2: a condescending posture. He's a king that postures himself as
Speaker 2: a servant to wash feet, right, and so he causes
Speaker 2: friends too, callus his friends, and he says, I'm gentle,
Speaker 2: lowly at heart. You'll find rest for your souls. That's
Speaker 2: your mind, your will and emotions. And he says, my
Speaker 2: yoke is easy, my burden is light. Now. The interesting
Speaker 2: thing about that scripture that often gets overlooked is what
Speaker 2: the yoke is. People will look at that in the
Speaker 2: English translation, they will go, oh, it's like two oxen
Speaker 2: or you know, pulling together and let's you know, let's
Speaker 2: let him do the pulling. And you know, Jesus take
Speaker 2: the wheel and that kind of thing. Okay, The analogy
Speaker 2: works but that's not what he's talking about here, Yolk
Speaker 2: was the teaching of the rabbi. It was the teacher
Speaker 2: of the day who was essentially burdening people down with
Speaker 2: reinstructions and things they had to do. So people were
Speaker 2: coming to the rabbis and go, what do I do?
Speaker 2: And the rabbis were saying, ah, I got six hundred
Speaker 2: and thirteen laws for you. You got to keep them
Speaker 2: all in order to be right with God. And the
Speaker 2: people were like, okay, first off, it's a lot of
Speaker 2: money to be right with God. So I got to
Speaker 2: sacrifice a ton because apparently I can never completely get
Speaker 2: free from sin. And not only that, but I got
Speaker 2: to keep all these rules and I can't keep them.
Speaker 2: And Jesus comes along and goes, come to me. There's
Speaker 2: only two come to me, says, come to me, everybody
Speaker 2: who's being crushed, and I'll give you rest. And what
Speaker 2: is he doing? He's freeing us from whatever's burdening us down.
Speaker 2: That's why was it cast all the cares on him.
Speaker 2: It's like we roll it over onto him. And that
Speaker 2: doesn't mean that we're not you know that we like
Speaker 2: advocate responsibility, but that means we have a business partner
Speaker 2: in Jesus. We have a business partner Christ. Now the
Speaker 2: Bible calls the Holy Spirit. Jesus calls the Holy Spirit,
Speaker 2: the spirit of truth, the helper, the spirit of truth,
Speaker 2: who will guide you into all truth. So it's kind
Speaker 2: of like having a business partner that's better than any
Speaker 2: AI program out there. It's like he knows, you know,
Speaker 2: he's thinking like so many steps ahead. He can see
Speaker 2: the end from the beginning. He's the Alpha and the omega,
Speaker 2: so he can see where he's taking you. But he's
Speaker 2: also aware of the process that we're going through and
Speaker 2: what that process is shaping and forming in us. So
Speaker 2: I would say there's two things in coming to Jesus
Speaker 2: to understand. One is that when we come to him,
Speaker 2: he's very well aware of what we're going through. And
Speaker 2: I would say, you know, Jesus, yeah, got a minute
Speaker 2: last what can I learn? Teach me? Teach me in
Speaker 2: this and then listen and let him form something in you.
Speaker 2: That's the refiner's fire coming and touching the gold. And
Speaker 2: the other thing is is just a simple help I
Speaker 2: surrender and that's that pliability of heart and going recognize
Speaker 2: that you're in this with me. You step into the
Speaker 2: value of the shadow of death. You're walking in right here,
Speaker 2: walking with me to lead me out of it, to
Speaker 2: show me that death is nothing but a shadow. The
Speaker 2: current slump I'm in. It's not the end of the story. No,
Speaker 2: it's not.
Speaker 3: And it's not occasionally. He's walking all the time. Yeah,
Speaker 3: you know, it's not like, oh Jesus showed up. No, no, no,
Speaker 3: it's all the time.
Speaker 2: It's all the time. That's where union comes in. That's theosis,
Speaker 2: that's a union with Christ, and that's what we have
Speaker 2: in the New Covenant. I love it.
Speaker 3: I can just remember that minute by minute i'd be
Speaker 3: in better shake. So you know, as expected, the time
Speaker 3: flew by.
Speaker 2: Listen to you, man.
Speaker 3: We had a lunch a few weeks ago, and it's
Speaker 3: just a continuation of that conversation. And I really I
Speaker 3: really enjoyed and love it. And I appreciate your time, Bill,
Speaker 3: appreciate what you're all about. Thanks certainly, wish your best
Speaker 3: and appreciate your friendship.
Speaker 2: And anytime, anytime you want to do this again, let's go.
Speaker 3: We'll do it again because there's more more to uncovered.
Speaker 1: All right, brother, This has been mortgage talk with Mark Hairston.
Speaker 1: Mark is a mortgage advocate with Texas Mortgage Source LLC,
Speaker 1: offering personalized mortgage solutions, fast customized quotes, great rates, and
Speaker 1: service with integrity. Contact Mark at Markhirston dot com Mark
Speaker 1: Hairston dot com. You can call our text Mark at
Speaker 1: five one two seven eight nine sixty nine sixty seven.
Speaker 1: That's five one two seven eight nine sixty nine sixty
Speaker 1: seven and come back next week for more mortgage talk.