... ... ... God... Jesus... Father... The Overseer... Our Creator, our Savior... Forgive them...

DELIVERED! (DELIVERED!) SAVED! (SAVED!) HEALED! (HEALED!) NOW! (NOW!) ... When Jesus went into Hell, by the spirit of God, He... Don't you remember, He was made to be sin. He did not commit sin. He was made to be sin.

Amen! Glory! You remember when Satan tempted Jesus. Glory! ... In Hell, He suffered the total price for sin. No human being... He's the only one that ever has or ever will suffer that kind of price. So you did... you ain't committed all sin. You certainly never had all sickness and all disease. But He did. He went into the lower part... He went into the pit of it all... Deeper than any man, but... 'course, he suffered it... He didn't leave out one tiny, small thing of your spirit your soul your body your health your finances I mean, did you know, did you know that even your hairs are numbered? You think about that! That means that you have a right--right to claim the original count! Well, don't look at yourselves, then! Oh, you're bald. No, no no no no don't do that... No, He's the God of my hair the same as He's the God of my heart and lungs and everything else, Lord,,,God... Amen! (Amen!) Speak words of life. Amen! Yes. Now, think of that. Think how powerful the new birth is.' ... Jesus died. He didn't just assume something for free that He's nice and then just kinda float out, no... Spiritual death. Physical death. Mental death. Agony beyond imagination. ... And God's set is over. Amen! ... ...Gives you word for word what God said. Word for word. ... ...And I am a Father to Him and again He is a Son to me. ...called Him God...

We have rejected God's design. We have said, "There is no Creator. There is no Designer, therefore, there is no Definer. I can define me. I can act out on anything I'm feeling, any way I want to identify, whatever I think about who I am, that is who I can be." And, when we reject the Creator, then anything goes. And, what we see inside Target right now... perfect visual display of our hearts and our minds for where we at--where we're at as a society. I mean, we are Romans 1, where it talks about, you know, "They have left their Creator, and worship the created instead." We are making our own rules, we are defining ourselves, we have rejected the Creator, and this is the natural place where you'll land. When we reject the Creator, the one true God who made us, then, yeah, it's only natural that we're gonna turn to Satan... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ...a pink shirt that I pulled, and I took a picture of it, it's of a woman, almost like a cartoon type of character, like a comic book character, and she's--it's a picture of her kind of laying down, dreaming, and on top in bold letters it says "BUSY THINKING ABOUT GIRLS." A WOMAN BUSY THINKING ABOUT GIRLS. A shirt! For young women to buy. It's normalizing this idea... ... ... ... There is no true, lasting happiness outside of our Creator, our Savior. ... ... ... And now there's instruction on what it means to live life as a man or woman, given to us by the Creator! I mean, how awesome is that? I pray we will stand firm on the truth of God's word because He is where purpose, life, identity, hope, salvation, it can only be found in Him. (I only transcribed some of the points where there is only one voice. If, for whatever reason, you want to hear her say all of these things one at a time, you can find her video on YouTube. I personally would NOT recommend it.)

Okay, we'll wrap it up with one positive. Let's be clear, to be discriminating and critical is necessary. To be judgmental and hypercritical is wrong. That brings us to one positive statement, and we've got time for just one. After all, it's only one word, and we probably can't think of much to say about this word. It's the first word in the third sentence of verse 37 and it's the word "forgive." Forgive. Now think for just a moment about the kind of transformation that would be brought about in our relationships if we were to take seriously this one dramatic directive. Forgive. It's one word, apoluo, it actually means “release.” And the bondage in which individuals and families and couples and churches and groups live can be traced, in a vast majority of cases, to an unwillingness to obey this one simple directive: “Forgive.” It’s not the same as “Excuse.” It’s not the same as “Deny.” It’s not the same as “Just forget about it for a while, and it will just all pass over and be gone.” It is actually an act of the will, driven by the Word of God, enabled by the Spirit of God, to recognize that although this person is habitually this way, is a total royal pain-in-the-neck (he said, without a spirit of censoriousness at all) and the person is this way, that I am still to forgive him. Shakespeare says, Though justice be thy plea, consider this— That in the course of justice none of us Should see salvation. We do pray for mercy, And that same prayer doth teach us all to render the deeds of mercy. Chinese proverb says, “The man who opts for revenge should dig two graves, for he will go in one of them.” George MacDonald says a striking thing when he says, “It may be infinitely worse to refuse to forgive than to murder.” You say, “This is overstating the case, surely.” Listen to how he puts it: “It may be infinitely worse to refuse to forgive than to murder, because the latter”—namely, murder—“may be an impulse in the heat of the moment, whereas the former is a cold and deliberate choice of the heart.” And that is absolutely true. Every time that I refuse to forgive or you refuse to forgive from the very bottom of our hearts, it is a cold and deliberate choice. And every time that you and I make that cold and deliberate choice, we entomb ourselves; we live within a dungeon of our own construction; we are trapped in the bondage of our own unforgiving hearts. And those of us who have made a career of harboring bitterness and of holding grudges should not be surprised at the chaos of our lives, no matter how well we’ve concealed it with whatever we’ve enjoyed in terms of physical things, or material things, or whatever else it is. There is not a thing that is invented on the face of God’s earth that can deal with this. Do you want to know how to stay in your marriage? Forgive! That’s it! That’s all of it! Forgive! All the other bells and whistles you can add at different times, but if I refuse to forgive my wife, I will never make it, and if she refuses to forgive me, she will never make it, for God knows how much offense I cause her. How do you stay in a church when somebody ticks you off? Pretend they don’t tick you off? No! Admit they tick you off, and forgive them. How do you stay as the pastor of a church? Forgive! It’s the whole business in one word. “Without being forgiven, released from the consequences of what we have done, our capacity to act would, as it were, be confined to a single deed from which we could never recover. We would remain the victims of its consequences forever..." If we’re prepared to take this seriously, I think it will make a dramatic impact in our lives. I don’t know the details of your lives; I just know there’s enough in my life that can be covered by this. Maybe there is in yours. Send us out, Lord, with that thought uppermost in our minds, so that the principle may be applied: Be merciful, be full of steadfast love, just as your Father is full of steadfast love. For Jesus’ sake we ask it. Amen.

O LORD, the God of my salvation, I have cried out by day and in the night before You. Let my prayer come before You; Incline Your ear to my cry! For my soul has had enough troubles, And my life has drawn near to Sheol. I am reckoned among those who go down to the pit; I have become like a man without strength, Forsaken among the dead, Like the slain who lie in the grave, Whom You remember no more, And they are cut off from Your hand. You have put me in the lowest pit, In dark places, in the depths. Your wrath has rested upon me, And You have afflicted me with all Your waves. Selah. You have removed my acquaintances far from me; You have made me an object of loathing to them; I am shut up and cannot go out. My eye has wasted away because of affliction; I have called upon You every day, O LORD; I have spread my hands to You. Will You perform wonders for the dead? Will the departed spirits rise and praise You? Selah. Will Your lovingkindness be declared in the grave, Your faithfulness in Abaddon? Will Your wonders be made known in the darkness? And Your righteousness in the land of forgetfulness? But I, O LORD, have cried out to You for help, And in the morning my prayer comes before You. O LORD, why do You reject my soul? Why do You hide Your face from me? I was afflicted and about to die from my youth on; I suffer Your terrors; I am overcome. Your burning anger has passed over me; Your terrors have destroyed me. They have surrounded me like water all day long; They have encompassed me altogether. You have removed lover and friend far from me; My acquaintances are in darkness.

What it meant to me, to be a Christian... Now, I believed that Jesus was the Son of God, that a personal relationship with him was the only way to be saved, ie the only way to go to Heaven when you die. And this belief defined everything for me. This, this was my worldview. It gave me purpose and meaning. "Lord, I'm frustrated about us. I just feel guilty that it's not clicking, like I'm just bad, or wrong, or lazy, or something. I'm tired of feeling pressure and guilt to spend time with you. Lord, I would quit trying altogether if I didn't know how stupid and mindless that would be. To whom shall I go?" Meaning, "where would I turn if I turned away from God?" The whole point is that Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. This is the truth. You find the truth, the truth sets you free. Truth, truth, truth. The whole point of the Bible, why people defend the Bible and say that the Bible is inerrant, without error, it is from God, it's, it's, you know, written by God through people. The whole point of all that is because it being true is paramount. You got the two words, "belief" and "system." And, I thought a lot about the belief, but I cared a lot about the system. If I'm just signed up for all of this, I know I'm safe, eternally. I trust that, like, if I don't know everything that I should believe or everything I should be doing, at least I will--it's all there, and I'll get to it. These are just a few of the questions I always avoided: "If I don't have to believe that God ordered His chosen people to slaughter men, women, and children by the thousands, then why would I? If I don't want to believe that every religious experience of any person who is not a Christian is ultimately illegitimate, then why would I? If I don't have to believe that anyone who doesn't have a relationship with Jesus, ie the majority of people who have ever lived, are going to spend eternity being literally tortured in a fire, experiencing never-ending pain and suffering, then why, no pun intended, in the Hell would I believe that? If I can somehow accept the idea that Hell exists because of God's holiness, why would I believe in a God who would choose to create that particular world where people have no choice whether or not they're going to be born, but then once they are born, if they don't adopt the correct understanding of God, He will punish them forever, why believe in that God if I don't have to?" Here's what I wrote: "Since moving out here," that's to LA, "and combined with ----- sharing his evolving perspective, I have slowly given up trying to be the Christian that I feel like I've been trying to be all these years. I've concluded that I'm not going to do the things I've always done, (the right things, the spiritual disciplines,) and expect different results (intimacy with God). Or even more directly, I'm gonna give up feeling guilty for not being better and doing better at Christianity. And this experiment has felt good. Freeing. For the most part. Everything except feeling like I'm letting ------ and the kids down. At this point, I'm not sure if God exists." So, I would call myself a hopeful agnostic, meaning I don't know, but I hope. I hope there's something. The question that I've gotten from some people who are close to me, love me, is "What do you think happens after you die?" I don't know. I'm reasonably certain that you don't burn in Hell because you were intellectually curious and honest, to put it bluntly. But honestly, I'm more interested now in what happens while I live. It's not so much "what happens after you die?" but "what happens while you're alive?" And I'm trying to answer that question, but it's one of the reasons I'm in therapy. It's honestly one of the reasons that I get up every morning and do 20 minutes of back exercises. Honestly. It's one of the reasons that I think more about what I eat...because the only thing I know that I've got is this life. If God exists, or however God exists, I just can't believe that--I--that me being open, and sincere, and as loving as possible, and as honest as possible is disqualifying me from receiving God's love. I just--I can't accept that.

What is God to you? I mean, God is everything. God... I recognize him as my Father, my guide, my light. He's my shoulder to lean on when I'm struggling, or who I praise when things are going great. He's the reason and meaning behind everything, to me. There will be times where I'm on a run, and I'm just like "thank you God for, like, putting me in this amazing situation. Like, I can't believe that I get to be running, and I get to smell the sage," and like, for me, I think I spend the most time thinking about God in the times that I'm grateful. I see God as kind of the overseer of everything, but also someone that I--it's a way for myself to be grateful for things. And, like obviously when there's hard times then I am angry at God, but like I I spend more time like in my happy joyous moments is when I am always like "wow, like, thank you God for like putting these people around me or for letting me live in this place or for like putting me in this situation that I know is hard now but it's gonna be so much better later." That type of thing. In the past, I really struggled with breakups, and heartbreak, and everything, not really understanding the purpose and reason behind like pain and discomfort and how to move forward. But for me being able to rely on God now going through that is just -- acknowledging that the pain is part of my journey and He has implemented that in my path and in my life to learn from and grow from it. Being able to acknowledge that and know that there is a reason behind it has helped me get past the pain and move on. We were at church camp over the summer. It turned into like a worship night type thing with music and everything and so we were all singing, and it was this camp in the woods out in like King's Canyon. We were singing all of these songs and I didn't know any of the words to them. All of the sudden there was one song that popped up where I knew the words, and so I was singing it, and I just-- it was so weird, and I was just so happy. And like, I had this physical calm and peace and joy wash over me, and like it literally felt like a wave going through my body. And it was like the only time like I felt like God was there, in that moment. When or where do you feel closest to God? Like, in your daily life? It's been a lot hard nowadays, just because there are so many distractions. I'd definitely say, when there's nothing in front of me that's allowing me to have any sort of thought or distraction, like no screen, no person, so basically when I'm alone. So a lot of the times it ends up being like the shower, or when I wake up, or when I'm going to bed, just like those small moments when there's nothing, like, detracting, like my train of thought. And it always just leads to Him. I--I am such like a nature, like wildlife, fish nerd, that like, sometimes I'll get like when I learn new things or like I get so excited about like ecology just like the way things work that's another thing that I'm always like just so amazed, like when I look at ecological systems and things like that and the way that--how everything works together and how every little thing affects every other little thing, or like I look at how fish can like have swim bladders so that can control their buoyancy, and like that kind of thing where it's like literally how in the world did this happen? Like obviously evolution, but like in my brain I'm like "it--it--it's so complex, like, it's so cool that it happened," and I'm always like "Eh, you really knew what you were doing! Like, putting all these things together!" With my line of work and the people that I work with and like the kind of things that I am interested in, I get like that a lot where I'm like "this is crazy! I can't believe that this works!" I'm trying to think of when my faith has wavered, I wouldn't necessarily say that it's wavered but I definitely felt like myself drift away from it. I'll say I went through a breakup a few years ago, end of 2020, and it was with a guy who claimed to be like a Christian and perfect in all of these ways, and he was the opposite of that, and it was hard for me to believe, or hard for me to trust other Christians or God when someone like this who claimed to be one was so awful. I had to spend a lot of alone time after that, actually. And praying has really helped a lot for me too. Just being alone with my thoughts and I try--I don't hear God, but I try to envision like what He would want me to hear and what He would want me to do and that was something I really had to rely on too. I just don't think faith is logical. I don't think you need logic to explain it. And those situations I tried to use logic to explain it when---it just doesn't help. One thing I learned, and I did learn this by like reading the Bible more and going to church more like socializing with more Christians is that there are people in this world like wolves in sheep's clothing. People who identify as Christians who claim to be, you know, good people, despite like going to church every day, or not every day, every week, and reading their Bible, like you want to hope those people are as good as you are and are as faithful as you are but... you have to realize that just because there is bad in the world doesn't mean it should overtake the good. As you've been studying the Bible more, are there any particular verses or stories that, like, really give you comfort in moments when you're struggling or in crisis? I mean, I think the Gospels are the most important part of the Bible because it shows us that Jesus's disciples, like, were imperfect too, and to be a follower of Jesus and for Him to love me in return, I don't need to be perfect, and as much as I should try to be, He'll love me regardless, at the end of the day, and I think that's really important what keeps me going because if I was trying to fit myself in a box, and I could never fully fit in that box, it would be really hard to get through every day. /// The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s sake. Yes, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; My cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days of my life; And I will dwell in the house of the Lord Forever. /// To you, what does it mean to be Christlike? I think there are a lot of components. For me, like in my daily life something I think about, like, I'll catch myself doing if I'm being judgmental, like I try to fix myself from doing that because like Christ does not judge. He loves us, despite our flaws. Patience. To, like, care for everybody as yourself, and I feel like so much of modern Christianity, at least the loud people, are focused on hate, like I feel like, that's not what it--it's about. Being the best person I can be, and just trying to continually better myself, not for me, but for those around me. To not have like that selfish drive to do that but to...a better impact on everyone around me. If He, as a person, was here, now...yeah, what do you think the situation would be like? Um, I think He would be doing similar to what He was doing in the Bible, and trying to teach people in the community the ways that we could be and should be better. You know, it's funny, I could see Him being like a big, like, social media influencer, but like in a good way. Like, a TikTok of Him like walking through, like, the woods, like... saying something spiritual. Yeah. Like a following in that way. Not like a physically, like, people following him, but like a social media presence. And just, like, a wanderer, like moving to different region--I don't know. I could see that. Can you think of a specific time, or maybe something in general when you've disagreed with any church's teachings that you've, like, encountered? Yeah, it was actually a few months ago, at the church I went to. I don't remember the exact sermon but I remember our pastor saying something about how Jesus is not your friend. Like, you should always be on your knees praising him, which, I do agree with praising Jesus, but I also feel that our relationship with Jesus can be viewed as a friendship. I just think that Jesus was sent here, he's the Son of God, he has this holiness to Him but he's also human. One thing that people should be able to love whoever they want to love, and that it's none of anybody else's business to tell them that they could or could not, and I think that, like, if you wanna get an abortion you should be able to get one if--like it's literal healthcare. Like, that kind of thing. And when the church said that you should not view Jesus as your friend, you know I disagreed with it, but I also acknowledge that everyone's interpretation of the Bible is different and relationship with Jesus and God and even if you don't wanna acknowledge Jesus or just that there's a higher power, like, everyone's feeling towards that is different, and I think as long as you have some sort of relationship and acknowledgement of a higher power... that's the only thing I think is important. I think the details are...they are what they are, we're probably all wrong, and at the end of the day, as long as you have something to believe in that helps you be a better person, that's all that really matters.