Why Do People End Their Prayers With Amen? - Ask the Pastor

You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.

This edition of Ask the Pastors features Gary Hashley, Tim Hebbert and Brad Kilthau.

Brad Kilthau
We've got a question before us that might seem very simplistic, but I think it's something that we obviously need to talk about. And the question is just simply this, "Why do people end their prayers with amen?" You would think that maybe we would just know this, but when you start thinking about it and understanding where some folks come from in the church, maybe we do need to talk about this a little bit. Because you know, everyone's familiar with the word, 'amen,' but are they familiar with what it means and why we really use it at the end of our prayers? Some thoughts that I put together on this question is: I believe that a lot of people just believe it's a mere ritual in the church. You know, that's the way the church has always finished the prayers. That's the way we're gonna finish them; with 'amen.' And then there are other people I believe, that think that it's kind of a majestic type of word. In other words, "if I use this word, 'amen,' then I can kind of get a little twist towards what I want out of this prayer." And so, let me just share a few thoughts before I turn it over to you Gary. But, you know, 'amen' is really a universally recognized word, but it's a whole lot more significant than just, "I'm signing off." I always think about the Looney Tunes, you know, "That's all folks!" You know? And I think for a lot of people, that's what 'amen' means, "That's all I'm done, I'm done with my prayer." But when you really study the word, 'amen,' you find that you can use the word 'amen' a lot in your prayer, through the prayer. And it's an effective way of really saying, "may it be in accordance with the will of God." In fact, to me, it's a marvelous reminder that any discussion on prayer must begin with the understanding that prayer is to bring us in conformity with God's will. It's not, we put 'amen' at the end so that we can ensure that God will give us our will, it's always to be the Lord's will when we pray. And when you look at the word, 'amen,' another thing that sometimes, I think we don't see and understand, is that 'amen' is a direct reference to Jesus Himself; the one who taught us how to pray. I think about the Lord's prayer, as it says in Matthew 6, "Jesus taught us to pray this way: 'Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever." And then notice how Jesus ended that prayer and how He taught us how to pray, "Amen," okay? So what was Jesus saying? Jesus was saying, "This is really about me," because when you go to Revelation 3, you actually find that the title 'amen,' actually refers to Jesus Himself. It says, "Jesus is the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God's creation," in Revelation 3:14. So, Jesus not only taught us to pray and to ask for the Lord's will by saying 'amen' at the end of our prayers, but He modeled it in His life. We're coming into the Easter celebration, good Friday and so forth, and we remember when Jesus was in the Garden of Gethsemane and He was praying passionately. And remember how He prayed in Matthew 26:39, He said, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet, not as I will, but as you will," Jesus finished His prayer with an 'amen.' "As your will is Lord," He was saying to His father, "as your will is." And when we look at this, you know, Jesus is our greatest example about using this 'amen,' referring to Him in our prayers, referring to the will of the Father with our prayers. But we also see, of course, when we look at some of the writers of the New Testament, His brother James. When he told the church to stop bragging about and boasting about what you're gonna get done in a day he said, "Maybe you oughta say this in prayer, 'if it is the Lord's will, then I will do this.' In other words, he started the prayer with an 'amen.' "Amen Lord, is this your will that I will get this accomplished in my day?" And then we think about his closest friend, John. In his earthly ministry, the apostle John actually said this, he said, "This is the confidence that we have when approaching God, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears." There's the 'amen' again. It's not a ritualistic thing, it's asking for the will of the father. And so Gary, I'm gonna turn it over to you. Is there some more thoughts we could have on this, word 'amen' in our prayers?

Gary Hashley
Well, you people out there in Radioland don't realize that Brad does a lot of the legwork for us to get ready for this. From the standpoint of, he takes the questions that we've been given or we come up with and then he kind of breaks it down and, "Okay, Tim's gonna start and he's gonna cover this part and then I'll step in and then Brad will close whatever." And he put something down for me that really got me thinking. I mean, I've been doing this pastor thing for 40 years now, and he said, "Gary continues with the link between amen and obedience." And, you know, I sat and I thought, 'what does he mean by the link between amen and obedience?' And the more I thought about it, the more, you know, we do Brad, we think about 'amen' like the end of a book. Where the author's done and says 'the end,' as if amen is God's version of the end. In fact, the very last word of our Bible, the very last word of the book of Revelation is the word 'amen.' And it's not saying, "Okay, we've reached the end." As you've said, he's saying, "So be it, this is the way it is, this is the truth." And so this thought of, a link between the word amen and obedience, I realize that saying 'amen' to God is acknowledging a few things. It's acknowledging: He's God and I'm not (I think that's part of it), You are God, and I'm not, He has the authority to declare what's right, and what's wrong, and I'm gonna submit and I'm going to carefully obey. And as I did some research, Brad got my mind going here, I never claim to know it all, and so I'm learning all the time, I found myself in Deuteronomy 27.

Gary Hashley
Where Moses and the elders of Israel are going to take the people and they are going to have, basically a service together in a sense. And the Levites are going to make some statements, and the people are to say "Amen," or "Okay, we're on board, we'll obey." For instance, it says, "cursed be the man who makes a carved or cast metal image. An abomination to the Lord, a thing made by the hands of craftsman and sets it up in secret, and all the people shall answer and say, 'Amen." In other words, "Okay, we'll do that. We won't make idols." The next one, "Cursed be anyone who dishonors his father or his mother, and all the people shall say, 'amen." I mean, doesn't God say, "Don't make graven images?" Okay, doesn't God say, "honor your father and mother?" The next one, "Cursed be anyone who moves his neighbor's landmark." In other words, "you don't cheat property lines." The people say, 'amen;' okay, we'll fall in line with that. Cursed be anyone who misleads a blind man on the road, and all the people shall say, 'amen;' okay, we'll obey that one. Cursed be anyone who perverts the justice, due to the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow. And all the people say, 'amen,' okay we'll submit to that. Cursed be anyone who lies with his father's wife, because he's uncovered his father's nakedness, the people answer 'amen." And so you go down, "Cursed be anyone who strikes down his neighbor in secret, and the people say, 'amen." One pastor in a message said, "Moses speaks to the people, as he's about to take charge he says, 'you are about to become God's chosen people and make sure that you follow his commands.' And the people said, 'Amen, we'll follow His commands." So he says, "What's the conclusion? Amen is not just a word. Rather, it is a decision we make to follow God." So to say, 'amen' is saying, "Okay God, you're in charge, okay God, you make the rules, okay God, you deserve me to obey, okay God, I'm going to choose to follow your direction and guidance and leading in my life." So really there is a connection, Brad, I didn't think about it prior to now, but there is a connection to, 'amen' is saying, "God, your will not my will." But how many of us pray and we believe if we say, "In Jesus name," we get points towards what we want? And if we say, 'amen,' we get more points towards what we want as opposed to, God says, "make our request known," but in the end we say, "Amen, God, whatever you want, and I'm on board, I will submit to what you have for me to do." So, yeah, 'amen,' we can say it so mindlessly. In fact, we can say the whole Lord's prayer, we call it, mindlessly. But when we think about what we're saying, we're saying, "Okay God, you're God, I'm not God. You're in charge, I'm not. God, if you say so, that's the way it is." I remember when Gaither came out with the song, God said it, and I believe it, and that settles it for me. My mom, when she was alive, said, "No, God said it and that settles it. Whether I believe it or not." And so 'amen' is basically saying, "God, you are God. I submit." So Tim, the ball's in your court.

Tim Hebbert
You know, I'm sitting here listening to both of you guys, cause I'm going to the, almost the same exact places. We we're trying to approach this word from different angles, yet we come up with the same conclusion every time. Amen, one of the things, and both of you touched on it a little bit. I fear at times it's become one of those throwaway words in the Christian culture. And I hate to say this, but because lots of our folks, and I've been guilty of it in my past too, "Praying for you." Well, that sounds good, but that means I got to do what I'm saying that I was gonna do. But it becomes one of those automatic responses that we have, "Amen," and I'm guilty of this in a sermon, I'll make a point and I'll say, "amen?" and I'm trying to get agreement with people. Well, you know what, that's really not what that was for, "Oh amen! So be it." So, what does that mean to me in terms of, how do we link that word to praise and worship? I think the word 'amen' is a position of the heart, "So be it." And both of you brought up the Lord's prayer and I had in my notes to bring the Lord's prayer up, "Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name." So be it, "your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." So be it. Every one of those statements in that prayer that Jesus is taking the time to teach us how to pray, how to position the heart when we pray. How we approach coming into communion with our heavenly father, every time we make a statement with it, it should end with an 'amen' or with a, 'so be it,' because that's just my heart position Lord. As Gary, you said, "You're in charge, I'm nothing more than a follower. Whatever path you take me down, so be it, I'll follow that path. Whatever thing you've called me to do, so be it, I'm there to do that." But don't you think praise and worship begin with a heart of obedience? We can't really worship the Lord unless our heart is positioned in that place of obedience. That you are who you say you are, you are the all in all. And so when we use that word flippantly, or as a prayer, it's okay as a prayer and folks don't get me wrong. But what I'm saying today is, what's the position of your heart? Is your heart in a place where you always are saying to the Lord, "So be it. Whatever you want, that's what I want. Whatever your will is, that's what I crave in my life. It's not about me, it's always about you." I want to end with this passage from 1 Chronicles, and just to set it up, David is in the process that brought the ark in. And it's in a place of importance, and now it's time to celebrate and he begins to pray. What my Bible says, "The David's song of Praise," but he's basically worshiping God in a sense complete heart position of holiness. Wanting to get as close to the Lord as he can get. Starting with verse 30, this is chapter 16 of 1 Chronicles, in each one of these sentences I could say amen to, "Let all the earth tremble before him. The world stands firm and cannot be shaken." So be it, "let the heavens be glad and the earth rejoice. Tell all the nations, 'the Lord reigns," amen. "Let the sea and everything in it shout his praise," so be it. "Let the fields and their crops burst out with joy," amen. "Let the trees of the forest sing for joy before the Lord, for he is coming to judge the earth," so be it Lord. "Give thanks to the Lord for he is good," that's a double 'amen.' Amen and Amen. "His faithful love endures forever. Cry out, 'Save us oh God of our salvation," amen. "Gather and rescue us from among the nations, so we can thank your holy name and rejoice and praise you," so be it. "Praise the Lord, the God of Israel who lives from everlasting to everlasting," amen. And the passage ends by all the people shouted, "Amen!" Praise the Lord. So where's your heart position today?

How Do We Discern The Will Of God? - Ask the Pastor

You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.

This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastor Ben Poole

Ben Poole
So, last week I was asked, knowing there was just gonna be me today, and with everything going on in my life, (leaving the area, moving, and kind of uprooting our family) I was asked to talk about what it looks like and how we discern the will of God in our life. That's really a huge topic, but I think one that is so incredibly important for the Christians, especially in today's world. We have so much going on in the political realm and you have Christians on both sides of the aisle saying, "This is right and this is wrong," or "this is right and this is wrong." And we have the political climate, we have our kids in schools and the things they're learning, and I mean, there's so many things. And at the same time, we are trying to live our life according to God's word. Trying to do what's right, to live right, and there's so many things in society and culture that are pulling us in one direction or another. It's interesting, being pastors we, I guess I should just speak for myself, becoming a Christian really was kind of a natural thing for me. I struggled with it, but there was more natural, because I was raised in the church. My parents were in leadership, Sunday school teachers, my dad was an elder. I mean, all of these things, it was just sort of a natural thing for me. But for a lot of my friends who didn't grow up with that, it was kind of crazy. And then to become a pastor, really kind of in some ways begins to build a wall between my friends and even some family members who aren't Christians. And it's kind of a battle, and you look at it like, "Okay, if I'm supposed to be living my life out with God and sharing Him, why is there a wall being built between us? Why is it becoming more difficult to reach people?" And man, there's so many things that go into that. And I think I've shared this before, but nearly 30 years have gone by and I have one of my close friends I grew up with, is starting now making his walk towards Christ. And I don't take credit for it, I give that all to God and now God has worked that out. But I look back and all those questions I've asked, but I've stayed faithful to God, and that has been the thing that has really made change in other people's lives. And it might not make sense in the moment to do what God wants me to do, but God's down the road, He knows what's coming, we just need to be faithful. And so, I wanna talk about this a little bit today, but I really want to look at it beyond my thoughts. I want us to look first at the scriptures to see what God's word says to some degree on this topic, because so really the root questions: what is God's will for us? What is the underlying, you know, what's the meaning of life? Where do we find this? And it really comes down to, what we see in the Old Testament, and Jesus even talks about it when He's asked, "What is the greatest commandment? And Jesus says, 'Well, it's to love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. And the second is like it: to love your neighbor as yourself.' These wrap up and complete all the law and the prophets." I mean, that is the foundation. Okay, listen to that. That is the ultimate will of God, is that we would love Him, and we would love people. If that is what we only hear today, just hear that: the will of God at its greatest foundational moment is to love God and to love people. If we do that, if we live that out in our lives, and our daily walk with Him, every single thing that's left will work itself out. Now it's not saying that we should be negligent of what God has called us to, but if that's where we need to start, that's the best place to start is: am I loving God? Am I loving people? There's some other passages I wanted to talk to you about as well. First one comes from 1 Corinthians 2, Paul's writing to a church that is struggling with their identity and the call that they've had. They're struggling with sin in the church and allowing sin to continue. And so God's imparting wisdom through Paul to this church, and I wanna read from 1 Corinthians 2, starting in verse six. "We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we declare God's wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began." And he continues on, but there's a really pertinent point that I want to really take to heart as a Christian in verse 15, "The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment for who has known the mind of the Lord, that He may instruct him?" And the end of verse 16, "but we have the mind of Christ." As Christians, we're not left alone to our own devices, thank God for that! Through God's holy spirit and the work in us, our minds are not even our own. We have been given the mind of Christ. I mean, think about that. Oftentimes we don't talk about the spiritual side of things in the Western world. It's what I can do with my senses, what I see, the feel, the touch, the smell, the hear, right?

Ben Poole
Things need to be tangible, but God is not just tangible, He's spirit, and He works in us and He has given us the mind of Christ. Another passage comes from Philippians 4, when Paul's writing to this church and it was a great encouraging letter. He's talking about, in verse 17, "So I tell you this and insist on it in the Lord that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do." Those were, essentially the unsaved, is how he was talking, "in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality. So as to indulge in every kind of impurity with a continual lust for more." And this is where it turns, "you, however, Christians, do not come to know Christ that way. Surely you heard of Him and were taught in Him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. You were taught with regard to your former way of life to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires. To be made new in the attitude of your minds, put on the new self created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness." And so he's telling us, when we became Christians, that old me, the old Ben had to die, had to cease to exist, to put on the new self. I am not who I was, and that has to be true for us if we're going to follow the will of God. That we have to die to ourselves, Jesus even says in one of His gospels, "if you're gonna follow me, you need to take up your cross daily." Everyday, we have to choose to die to let God be the one who truly leads us in our life. Another one that Paul writes about is in Colossians 3, "Since then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires, and greed, which is idolatry. Because of these, the wrath of God is coming. You used to walk in these ways, in the life you once lived. But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and you've put on the new self, which is being renewed in the knowledge, in the image of its creator. Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised, or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all. Therefore as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body, you were called to peace. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom. And as you sing Psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God and whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God, the father through him." I live for passages like these, for these words in my life. So what does all this have to do with discerning the will of God? Well, it's actually really simple. If I had woken up today, and I had chosen to die to myself and follow God. To focus on these things, to rid my life of that old nature: the struggles, the sins, and to get rid of those out of my life and I can follow God. I believe that every choice I make in following Christ through my daily walk is going to be living out the will of God. A lot of that comes with freedom. We are not stuck in a loop of, this is just what we do now, but God has given us a great freedom to choose how we're going to serve Christ. And that can look in a lot of different ways. So for me, I have the heart of a pastor, I love being a pastor, but what is that gonna look like? Well, it's not going to be, in the near future it's not going to be serving in a church only. Or in that just being part of what I do, but it's investing in people who've entered into hospice care, who are reaching the end of their physical life. And I get to reach into that in a special way with the person who's about to die, but also their entire family that's there. And I get to share Christ and live out my life for Him, and some have talked about, "well, how did you know that's where you needed to go?" It was one of two times in my entire life where God opened up one door. I always ask when I'm coming up to a change in life or a move, "God, is this what you want me to do?" And oftentimes, pretty much every other time, except two times, there's always been multiple doors that I could walk through. And it was sort of frustrating, but when you realize it's kind of a gift from God, He's saying, "you can do this, this, or this, and I'm gonna bless either one or each one. No matter which one you choose, I'm gonna walk with you and I'm gonna bless you through this. You get to choose," and that's what I've done. A lot of times, it's through a lot of great counsel from people, Christian mentors that I have. Obviously through tons of prayer, talking about all of this with my spouse, my wife, even my kids and my parents. And just getting a lot of people involved, especially in the prayer side of things to let God lead. The one thing that I did, especially this time was, I asked God, "if this is not what you want me to do, if you do not want this to happen close that door. Because to be completely honest with you, I have no desire to leave the valley. I have no desire to live in Missouri because I hate humidity, it does not do well with me. But God opened up this one door, and so I chose to honor Him with the call He has put on my life, not just as a pastor, but as a Christian. to walk faithfully through that door. And I'll be honest, there are things that I feel like I need answers to, these questions that I have, and God has not given me the answers, not yet. But what I have seen through this is, every step of the way when something needed to be done or a certain time had to be met, every single thing has worked perfectly. I mean, God has just opened up this door, and so I say all this to kind of wrap it up to tell you, "Follow Christ, read His word, love God, love people, and God's gonna work out the rest in His perfect way and His perfect timing. And on the other side of it, when we answer to God and He says, "will you go?" Treat it like Isaiah did, "Here I am; send me." And then walk through that door. Don't look back, just go and I promise you will see God do some of the most amazing things. But follow Him, read His word, trust Him that He has your best interest in mind. That may not look right in the world's eyes, but trust Him and let Him do the leading and then just follow Him and walk through the door. This is such a huge topic, and I know that this can go into so many different directions. But that's just my encouragement for you is, you are not who you were. You have been bought with a price by the blood of Jesus, and He is not going to leave you hanging out to dry. He's going to lead you. We just have to be prepared to say, "Yes, I will go."

Intergenerational Ministry - Ask the Pastor

You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.

This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Kiley Callaway, John Mulholland, and Jon Simpson.

Kylie Calloway
So, we were talking before getting ready, and John Mulholland just went to the what conference?

John Mulholland
D-6 Conference.

Kylie Calloway
D-6 Conference in Florida, on Intergenerational Ministry. So we just found that very intriguing. So we actually began to question him, and that's how we we're developing our topic today. So tell us a little bit, first of all, about the conference, and what this intergenerational thing even means.

John Mulholland
Sure. So D-6 is, I think they've been around for, I wanna say 15 years. D-6 is based on Deuteronomy 6. So, and I'll just, the part where they really get their--

Kylie Calloway
John, would you read that?

John Mulholland
I would read that, I will read that. The Israelites have left Egypt, have left slavery in Egypt. They're on their way to the promise land, sort of, before they take their 40 year wandering thing, and God through Moses is giving instructions about what's gonna happen. So Deuteronomy 6:4-9, "Listen, Oh Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your strength. And you must commit yourselves wholeheartedly to these commands that I'm giving you today. Repeat them again and again to your children. Talk about them when you're at home and when you're on the road, when you're going to bed and when you are getting up. Tie them to your hands and wear them on your forehead as reminders. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates." So D-6, this is like their foundational text of, it's the role of believers. In this case, it would've been the role of good Jews, because that's where, you know, we flow through the Bible. It would be the role of good Christians to pass along the faith to the next generation. Some things that they really find, I guess, find as values; that parents have priority in discipleship. The church is there to come alongside, the church has a role, but it's an equipping role. It's a support role, it's those kinds of things. But the main purpose of the conference is to talk about what it looks like to have a church, to have a faith that is intergenerational in nature, that's passing on that faith to the next generation. But intergenerational, it's not just one way, it's not just going down to the next generation, but it's also, you know, as a person who is in my, I think I'm Gen X, this is a lot of things that we talked about. Like how, not only are people, (I guess boomers) passing on faith to me, but what am I doing in their discipleship? So it's intergenerational, it's not one way, but that discipleship piece flows both ways.

Kylie Calloway
I love that. I actually did my master's thesis on that scripture of family ministry back in the day, more than 15 years ago. But I love that the parents are the main disciples in the home and not the church, and that as the kids come, we should just be capitalizing on what's already taking place in the house.

John Mulholland
Right, and it deals with how, as a church, we set up programming, and I mean, there's probably a million things that we could talk about over the next three and a half sessions. But, just like trying to help, trying to switch that from, you know, we live in a culture where we're constantly looking for the expert to do the thing that either we can't do for ourselves or we don't want to do for ourselves. So our culture, I think makes it easy to hand off roles and responsibilities to other people. And how do we help the church not continue to facilitate that handoff, but to give that role and responsibility back to parents? And we took all of our pastors, all of our wives went as well. We have two new pastors at Westway, one of them is in that family ministry slot. So it was a really good piece, not only for him as he's developing and learning in his role and his responsibility at our particular church, but also from a big picture standpoint. Cause this is not like, at least at Westway, family ministries is not just the job of Zane as our pastor of family ministries. But each one of our pastors, whether it's on the creative arts side or the adult side, or even on me, like each one of us need to be brought into that intergenerational piece. Cause then we're just doing the exact same thing that we don't want to do, but we're just doing it in the church and just saying, "No, that's your job to do this thing," but it's really all of our jobs. So it was an awesome, it was a great week to be able to get away and spend time with our team in Florida.

Kylie Calloway
So the amazing thing is, before you even went to this conference, God was already working in you about intergenerational ministry. And I think it's amazing as the senior pastor or the lead pastor, whatever you wanna call yourself there, and then as the family pastor, that he actually is up under somebody that is bought into this, because a family pastor would want to just be kind of an island unto himself. So tell us a little bit about what the Lord was dealing with in you about intergenerational ministry and how kind of all this came together.

John Mulholland
Sure. So I was late to ministry in life, I guess I was in the marketplace, I had a real job outside of ministry. And then, over a period of time, I just felt like God was calling me into ministry. So in 2000, 2005, I'd gone back to school, started working at a church in Eastern Iowa as their student minister. And I had a really great first ministry experience, and I had a wonderful lead pastor. And about three years in, that youth ministry had begun to shift in. So I was there for six and a half years, about three years in, we began to notice that we had more unchurched kids coming into our ministry than we had church kids. And it wasn't that we were necessarily losing church kids, but we were reaching unchurched people. And I don't know that there was one particular thing that happened, but one of the things that we noticed, especially with these kids who were unchurched was, you know, like we had them at youth group or we had them on Sunday morning in our Sunday morning ministry. There were a lot of times where it felt like what was taking place was, like, not gospel transformation, but sort of behavior management. Like, we could as a church, sort of control what was happening in our building, but then for many of these kids, cause over a period of time, we got to know their life situation, and many of them came from very dysfunctional home lives. And again, I don't know if it was one thing, but there was a switch kind of, at some point. It was like, you know, "If all we're doing," I mean, "we can proclaim the gospel to them and God is absolutely faithful and God's gonna do what He wants in that hour or that two hours a week." And we did see evidence of transformation and at the same time, it's like, we can do all of these things, but at the end of youth group we're sending kids back home into this, whatever this dysfunctional environment is, or after Sunday morning. And at that point it was kind of like, "Well, what we really need to be doing is, we need to figure out a way to get their parents," like that's as good and beneficial as it is to minister these kids and disciple these kids. And I believe those things are true 100%. The real, I guess, the real long-term change was gonna happen when we could reach the family unit. And that began, so that was like, I wanna say that was 2008, 2009. So that's like a 14, 15 year kind of journey for me then of, what does it look like to try and reach families? And I mean, that caused all sorts of inner turmoil, not only in me, because I had to be honest and think about what I was doing in my student ministry. Like, if I believed that parents were the primary disciple makers of children, like, what systems and structures was I setting up that were the opposite of that? Like, you know, I had this belief system and there were so many things that I was doing that are like, "Well, I really don't believe that, because...Like, I'm doing these things and they're unintentionally hindering that handoff back to parents." We had parents who, you know, at the same time were bringing a lot of unchurched kids into our ministry, and we didn't have a lot of parents who felt this way, but we had, I would say we had some who didn't want their kids exposed to that other element of kids that were coming in. And that was a challenge. I think as three senior pastors, lead pastors, whatever you wanna call us, I think we probably experienced that from people within our own, like adults in our church body, you know? We wanna make like, what's the element that we're letting in, we don't wanna keep those people out. I know we would never say those things, but kind of in the back of our minds. So, when I would have those conversations, it was like, "Well, what would it look like then, if you discipled your children at home, they came to youth group and interacted with and discipled those kids that you don't want your kids hanging out with? And then we, as a church could focus our ministry on equipping you to disciple your children and then being a--" who was it, Spurgeon that said, 'a hospital at the gates of hell,' "then we can then serve our function as being a hospital for people who had no idea who Jesus is." So then I'm not worried about like, and that sounds strange, but I'm gonna just let that sit. I'm not worried about like, it's not my job to disciple a kid who knows Jesus in a family that knows Jesus, because that's the parent's job. So I can equip you, I can serve you, I still want to edify them, I still want them to come to youth group and learn and grow. But what I really want them to do is to love and serve people who don't know Jesus and befriend them, and then hopefully get those kids into your house. Those unchurched kids into your house so they can see, you know, what the faithful Christian life looks like. So that was, I think that was really step one and I know we're coming up on our time, so I think I wanna stop cause like, there are obviously a number of things that happened after this, but initially it was a shift of man. We have these kids in for an hour a week and I'm really concerned that like, again, God can do whatever He wants to with an hour a week, and I'm really concerned that what we're doing, as good as it might be, and when we see fruit from it, we're thankful for that. I think we can be more faithful to what God calls us to be.

Jon Simpson
Yeah, you're talking about getting the church on mission and encouraging, not just the adults, but the families to reach out and be able to reach others. And that's really key for the church in America to accomplish what we're called to do. I think we hear a lot about people leaving the church. And through COVID that's accelerated and even been amplified. So it's like, you know, getting discipleship, which is really what you're talking about in a sense, it's discipling parents so that they're able to disciple their kids. And what have we done as a church? Or are we doing things like you were saying, to short circuit that, or even say to parents, "Hey, no, no, no, you can't do that. We'll do that. We've got it."

John Mulholland
Yeah. Bring your kids here. We've got it.

Jon Simpson
We'll take care of it. And that really is an attitude that as a youth pastor, I started a youth ministry. I wanted to handle it. And maybe part of it is cause you were older when you started doing stuff, but you had a little more insight into that. It took me a while to figure some of that stuff out and go, oh boy. You know, honestly, to see kids that were really a part of my youth group and leaders and then they leave, go off to college and it just falls apart and you're like what happened? And obviously that's a constant battle for anybody that ministers to young people. But yeah, if we can get the kids to grab it and grow.

What Does Serving Christ Look Like? - Ask the Pastor

You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.

This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Ben Poole and Gary Schick.

Ben Poole
So, yeah, talking about serving Christ and what that looks like. Being pastors, it kind of comes with the territory of, serving Christ is kind of our life. But our listeners, you guys out there, are not all pastors. And so what's that gonna look like for you? Not everybody was meant to be a pastor. You know, the scriptures teach about the different gifts that people have, that some should be teachers, some should be leaders, but not everybody. And so what's that gonna look like beyond what happens on a Sunday morning or a Wednesday night, or just what happens at the church building? What does it look like to serve Christ?

Gary Schick
Well, and our larger topic is spiritual disciplines that help us grow. We started with prayer and we're using the acronym G.R.O.W.S. So we're getting to the end of it actually, we're going do a double S at the end here. So, Go to God in prayer, Read the word, Other believers (we need fellowship and to be discipling and discipled together in Christ), Worship (our topic last week), and now Serving God and serving others. You know, Jesus calls us, what's the great commandment? "You shall love the Lord, your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength," and "Love your neighbor as yourself." And what does that look like? Well, what did look like in the life of Jesus? He came as a servant. And really it's kind of an interesting thing, how eventually even the common culture catches on. You know, there's tons of books out there on leadership, and just within the last, I don't know, a couple of decades, this idea of servant leadership has caught on. Kind of leadership, and what would seem to be reversed from the bottom up. But really what's something we all want from our elected officials? We want them to serve our needs as the people they are representing. What did Jesus do? You know? One day, while the disciples, they were walking down the road and they're arguing. I guess they thought, maybe Jesus was far enough ahead or far enough behind, or you know, out praying. I don't know, they just maybe didn't think he was listening. And so they're arguing about who's the greatest, or maybe they're arguing, like, you know, "So come out, Lord," you know, "When are you gonna chip into this little argument and tell us, you know, what you think?" And so finally He does, and he's like, "You know what? The greatest is the one who serves." And then He concludes with this, He says, "For even the son of man," speaking of Himself, "did not come to be served, but to serve and to give His life as a ransom for many." And so much of what He was doing, it was kind of a common thing. You know, there was a teacher, a rabbi who would have around him, a group of disciples who would learn the ways of the teacher and then emulate that. And He's saying, "So here's what you emulate, guys, I've come to serve," and if you look at the life of Jesus from start to finish, He's serving the needs of others. You know, people would come to Him with an illness, He could do what we can't, but He would use His divine power to serve their need in terms of healing or whatever it was. And even right down to, you know, we're just couple weeks out at this point from Easter, although if you're of the Orthodox persuasion, you just celebrated Easter on Sunday. So what is it that Jesus did just a couple nights before that at the last supper? Well, John's gospel tells us that He took off His outer garment, put on the garments of a house slave and got down on His knees and washed the disciple's feet. And they were taken aback, they were appalled. Peter was like, "Uh, ah. You're not gonna do this," until Jesus said, "Well, Peter if I don't wash your feet, you have no part in me." And then he's like, then basically give me a bath, you know? "I want you to wash my feet and my head and my hands, cause I want you Jesus. I wanna be whatever you're about, that's what I want." And Jesus is like, "Well, here's what I'm about. Now what you've seen me do, and you call me Lord and master. I've washed your feet, do this, do this for each other." And there are, it's pretty cool, there are churches where they do more than just communion, they actually do foot washings. And I'm not in a church where we do that on a regular basis, but I have done it in churches and it's always, I think a very humbling experience on both ends. Humbling for me to be, really, literally down with the smelly feet of my people, who maybe weren't necessarily planning to have their feet washed, but were like, "Yeah, I would like that." On the other hand, it's a very humbling thing to have your feet washed, you know? To take off our shoes and our socks, I mean, let's face it our feet aren't exactly the prettiest parts of our bodies you know? And to have somebody actually getting down with a little soap and water and a towel. But you know what? We are called to take care of each other, and one of the most powerful ways to love others is to serve, and you don't have to be an expert in anything. You just have to kind of have your eyes open (Is there a need?), you have to be available (Can I help you?), and you have to be kind about it. You got to do with the heart that doesn't make them feel like, "Well, I guess I interrupted their day," you know? And those three things are powerful, and when somebody with kindness goes out of their way for us: whether to hold a door, whether to help you across the street. You know, whatever it is, it's simple and it's powerful. And actually there was a book written by a fellow named Steve Sjogren, I think several years back called, what was it? Servant Evangelism. And he had this concept, and the church has, we have practiced it a little bit, where you would just go out and do things in the community for no charge. Which always throws people, cause I always want to pay it, you know? And so, we did as a youth group, we did a car wash, and we wouldn't accept payment and people really wanted to help support the youth group. We did it as a men's group. We did a brat giveaway, you know? We were out there cooking brats, people come up, "What do you want for it?" Nothing, we just want you to know, Jesus loves you.

Gary Schick
This is how God loves us. You can't buy God's love. And it was interesting, we never had, I don't think one person that we served, show up at the church while we were doing those things. But the church grew at the time, and it was like God saying to us, "You go out and serve my community and I will bring in people. So you serve those people there and I'll bring people from over here." And it was just a real testimony to me of how: it's all about faith and about faithfulness and about serving God and serving others; and when our heart is about that individually, as a church, what have you, God blesses it. And are we there? You know, I mean, I've been in churches where, "Well I don't know, can we do a funeral for those people, they're not part of our church." Exactly wrong! Somebody comes to you with a need, this is your opportunity to be Jesus for them. And that is when you have a, "Maybe they will come back. Maybe they'll become, maybe they won't." That is irrelevant. Our job is to be the hands and feet of Jesus. Just one more last thought on this. I'm reminded of, again, just thinking of the first church I was at, the local hospital was actually a Catholic hospital. And so that had a little different feel to it than just a regular secular hospital, kind of like we have here. And so one of the things, you know, the nuns were part of serving the patients, and somebody, you know, asked one day, "What's different here? You know, like, you treat us so well." And they're like, "You know what? We are trained to serve every patient as if we are serving Jesus." Well, that's not just a nun thing, that's not just a monk thing. That's a Christian thing, you know? In my lifetime, one of the most powerful people in terms of an impact in the world, and she's gone now with Mother Teresa. She just quietly went to a corner of Calcutta and served the poorest of the poor and impacted the whole world for Christ along the way. You know what? You don't have to be a rich person, a powerful person, a famous person, an influential person. You just have to be a loving person, who does it in the name of Jesus and you will rock your world. You can impact your family, you can impact your neighborhood, you can impact your church. You can impact the community in a powerful way. You and I can, when we take off the tie and pick up the towel.

Ben Poole
Right. Yeah, that's so good. You know, I was thinking about this, as you were talking about, what does it mean to serve? What's that look like? How is that a spiritual discipline? I really gained a lot of wisdom from some of my professors when I was going to Bible college. And one thing, so one of my professors, he and his wife were missionaries to Papa New Guinea. Working for pioneer Bible translators, translating the scriptures into the common language for the people for years and years and years. And he's from a town in Wyoming, country boy, and I remember going on a trip with him and his wife and I said, "What? How in the world did you get there? How did that happen? How did you get to the point, like, 'that's how you're gonna serve Christ?' And they both just, I remember this as such a beautiful memory of mine. They just looked at each other in the car and smiled and just said, "We decided as Christians, if God asks us to do anything, we say 'yes,' we just say, 'yes." And their testimony from their life shows, there's no regrets, there's no, "I wish we hadn't done that." Just a few years ago, actually, they completed the whole New Testament in this language, it took over 30 years and they were part of that from the beginning and served in different ways, built and grew their family there. It's just a beautiful picture of, what is it gonna look like to serve Christ? I can't tell you that. Maybe you'll end up being a pastor or a missionary or a Sunday school teacher or whatever it is. But I think that would be the word I would leave with you is, when God calls you to anything, just say, "yes." Because you're never gonna regret serving Christ, it is so worth it. And yeah, there's gonna be hardships and struggles along the way, but at the end, I mean, I know even for me, and in our situation and things are changing in our life and our family, I don't regret saying 'yes.' I mean, I am excited for what God is doing now and what I can see down the road that He is preparing for us. And so, it can be scary to say 'yes' to God, but when you get in that mix with Him and you are just serving wholeheartedly, knowing that He's leading you, like Ben's not truly leading my family, I'm letting God be the leader here.

Gary Schick
You're just following Jesus.

Ben Poole
I get to sit back and watch the show. I get to be, almost a spectator of the work that God's doing, and then I get to take that and share what God is doing with people. And that's how I can serve Christ best with my life.

Gary Schick
You know, and it's so good because, you know, we're not all called to be pastors or missionaries or teachers, but we all have gifts. And the question is, what are we using the gifts and the talents that God has given us, and who He's made us to be? Are we using it to serve ourselves? Are we using it to serve in the name of Jesus and bless others? And that's kind of an attitude shift, but it's all the difference. And, you know, we're talking about growing in our relationship with Christ's spiritual disciplines to help us grow. Well, nothing's gonna put us more in the image of Christ than putting on His sandals and doing what He did, which is to serve. And you know what? It starts at home for those of us who are husbands, with our wives and our kids. It should be in our workplace. Just where we are and like you said, what a great way to close with that. Just, what is God asking? Just say, 'yes' to Him and do it for Him.

Divine Inspiration - Ask the Pastor

You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.

This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Mike Clement, Michael Gleb, and David Clement.

Mike Clement
The last time we got together, which was 10 minutes ago, we were talking, there was a question that was asked about the Apocrypha and how it had been included in the original King James version. But you really don't find it in very many English Bibles at all today. Very few. And we talked a little about that, and what came up is the whole area of inspiration. And Dave, what was it that you were, how do you define inspiration? Inspiration means what?

David Clement
Well the word actually translated is, is breathed, breathed out. So if you put your hand in front of your face, in front of your mouth, while you're speaking, you can actually feel the breath coming out of your mouth. And that's what inspiration means, it means God breathed. God actually spoke it, and the words came out of His mouth. Therefore, just like if we were to put our hand in front of our face while we were talking, we could feel the breath coming out of our mouths. And so you look up the original Greek language that was translated, and you would see God breathed. And so that's the idea, is the words coming out of your mouth as formed as breath.

Mike Clement
Okay, Pastor, you had a verse that you--

Michael Gleb
Well, yeah. In the last one, we talked about 2 Timothy 3:16 and it says, "Paul," writing to his young son in the ministry. "All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." And so all scripture is given by inspiration of God, and that's a comforting thing.

David Clement
To know that.

Michael Gleb
The Bible that I hold in my hand is God breathed, as you said. So it's coming from Him. It's not coming from the 40 plus authors of, they may have been human authors, but God inspired it. God breathed into them the very words that He would have for them to pen. Right, that's where we have a Bible!

David Clement
You know, one thing that we didn't talk about last time, but is interesting. We could go through the Old Testament prophets and we could see how God said, "You write this down." Yeah, He would say, "Write this down, write this down." So He actually told them, you know, "Write this down," and then He told them what to write down. What's interesting to note though also, because if we go over into Revelation, it talks about not adding to or subtracting from, you know? And interesting, in Revelation there were things that John was told, "Don't write that down."

Mike Clement
Right, God told John.

David Clement
God said, whatever it was that God told him, He said, "Now, you don't write that down." And so, it was literally, God told him exactly what to say, and then God told him, "Don't say that."

Mike Clement
When you take a class in Bible college and seminary and in some theology books, you find the phrase, Verbal Plenary Inspiration. And most evangelical and fundamental churches hold to Verbal Plenary Inspiration. And what that means, the verbal means: the very words; that God has inspired the very words. And we don't understand exactly how it took place, because Matthew sounds like Matthew and John sounds like John and Paul sounds like Paul and Isaiah sounds like Isaiah. And you see that their personalities or their character, or whatever are reflected in the writings. Nevertheless, the very words that they wrote were inspired. And the plenary part of Verbal Plenary Inspiration; plenary means all of them. Every single one of them. And that's supported in a number of places in the scripture. But in Matthew 5, the beginning of The Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said this, He said, "Do not think now that I have come to destroy the Law of the Prophets; I have not come to destroy, but to fulfill. For verily, I say unto you, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled." Now people who read that, may not know what that means. The word jot was the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word jod, and jod is a letter in Hebrew. It's the smallest letter in Hebrew, and it looks like our letter, 'i', without the dot on top of it. So when Jesus said, "Not one jot, (not one, jod)," He said, "Not the smallest letter in God's word would pass away." Now a tittle: a tittle was a stroke in the pen that distinguished one letter from another. In English, if you just put a line down, that's either an 'I' or it's an 'l', but if you cross it, now it's a 'T'. And when you cross that in Hebrew, that was a tittle, that little stroke of the pen, that made one letter into another. And it does, you take the word bell, b e l l, and you cross the last 'l', now it's belt. It's a different word. Yeah, and so what Jesus said was, "The smallest jot, the smallest letter, the smallest stroke of the pen would not pass away." And that is an indication that that's the extent to which inspiration goes. Now, there is a difference between when we use the word inspiration, there's a difference between that and when we say something is inspiring. Inspiring is, it's effect on me. You know, and some people find some things inspiring and some people find other things inspiring, and we don't all agree. But if it's inspired by God, that means it comes from God, and the word that goes along with that is authoritative. Authoritative: what God's word says it says. And do you have that passage in Revelation? It talks about not adding or taking away?

Michael Gleb
Yeah, I was gonna back up that, how important it is, God's word, and jump on that in Revelation 22. This is the very last chapter of the last book of the Bible in the third or the second to last verse or the third to the last verse. "And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away His part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book." And so you could spend time, you know, dissecting and contextualizing that verse, but the fact of the matter is, that's a pretty bold statement. "If any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy," well, that's just how important it is. God's word is important. When I grew up, you know, like what your dad said, "Following directions is important," you know? Sometimes my mom would send me to the grocery store and she'd have a list, and I didn't follow the list always to the point that it wasn't a good day. And so, you know, this is just the importance of, when God says something, it's really important.

Mike Clement
Yeah. Dave, you made a reference before, to something that's found in 2 Peter, about the more sure word of prophecy that we have.

David Clement
That's right. That's interesting, because, you know, Peter was one of the 12 disciples, probably the most outspoken of all the disciples. He had more to say. He was the one that had enough faith to step out of the boat and walk towards Jesus on the water. But anyhow, we have Peter and he spent three years with Jesus, was a part of His ministry, heard the very words that Jesus said. Jesus sat down with him, discipled him, you know, we only have what? Four gospels that are written down? And if you take your time and read through them, you can probably read through all four of them in a day. But there were three years that Jesus, I mean in the book of John, it says that many--

Mike Clement
Many other things.

David Clement
Many other things did Jesus do, the books could not contain it, you know, that Jesus did. And so Peter saw a lot and he heard a lot, Jesus taught him a lot. But in the book, I believe it's 2 Peter, he says that, "We have a more sure word of testimony."

Mike Clement
Prophecy.

David Clement
Okay. I was trying to quote it there. Go ahead and read it for us brother.

Michael Gleb
Oh, okay. Well, I am actually gonna find it for you. Okay, right there, verse 19.

David Clement
Okay. It says, "We have also a more sure word of prophecy; whereunto ye do well that ye take heed, as unto the light that shineth in a dark place, until the day dawn, and the day star arise in your hearts." And so, here we have Peter saying, you know, "I walked with Jesus. I talked with Him, I heard Him." But now, this book that we hold today, is a more sure word. It's more complete, it's fulfilled. And so we don't have to doubt the word of God, and what we have here.

Michael Gleb
And another thing that you pointed out last time, a little, but we touched on it. Or maybe it was when we were talking. Anyhow, the idea of the Holy Spirit's responsibility inside of us too. And one of his jobs is to reveal the word to us as, not just reveal it, cause anybody could pick it up and read it. I was talking to someone just here the other day, and he was just in awe of what God was showing him that day. Even though he has read the passage a hundred times. And you know, that's the Holy spirit dwelling in us. And he has to reveal things, truth to us, because we're each at a different time in our life, every single day, you know? And I pointed out to him, you know, if Methuselah, (Methuselah was the oldest man recorded in scripture to live to be 969 years old), if he was to sit down and study the word of God every single day of his entire life, every single day he'd learn something different.

Mike Clement
Some years ago, I remember reading, I think it was Warren Wiersbe who made the statement, "Every generation has to redefine doctrine for their generation." Because new things came up and he said, "You know, we used to be able to just say that we believe the Bible is the word of God." And that was sufficient. He said, "Then we had to say, 'We believe all the Bible is the word of God, and then we had to say later on, 'Well, we believe all the Bible is the word of God and is inspired." And he said, "Now we have to say 'All the Bible is the word of God, is inspired and is without error." And I remember, in the 70's and 80's, there was a book written about reemphasizing the idea of an inerrancy. Which simply means that there are no errors in the Bible. And boy, lots of Christian organizations hustled to change their doctrinal statements to include inerrancy, because this guy brought it up. And he named names. He named organizations and schools and all kinds of things that didn't believe any longer. We have some of that today, where we have Ken Ham and some others that are emphasizing that all the Bible is true, including the book of Genesis, it's all true. In fact, Ken Ham has said, "Listen, if we can't trust the first book in the Bible, how can we trust any of them?"

Michael Gleb
Which includes some pretty important doctrine.

Mike Clement
Now, back in the turn of the previous century, from the 1800's to the 1900's, there was a fellow by the name of Harry Rimmer. And Harry Rimmer was a real defender of the accuracy of the word of God. And that was not that long after the theory of evolution came along, and Harry Rimmer would preach long and hard and loudly about the accuracy of the word of God. And what he did was, he offered, it was like a $10,000 reward, to anybody who could prove a scientific or historical error in the Bible. In his whole lifetime, it went unclaimed. Yeah, because nobody can. People will talk about it, in fact, we'll get into it, maybe in another session, the whole idea of defending the Bible. But most people that say, "Oh, the Bible is full of errors," okay, name one. They've heard that, they say that, and they may even believe it, but they've never been able to prove it for themselves and nobody else has either.

Equipping Ourselves For Ministry - Ask the Pastor

You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.

This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Kiley Callaway, Tyson Lambertson, John Mulholland and Jon Simpson.

Jon Simpson
In a couple of different episodes we're working through this idea of equipping. We've been talking about equipping ourselves as well as equipping others. And so we kind of want to continue from last time. We were talking about how we equip ourselves, and how we interact with stuff that's maybe oppositional. Where it's not what we agree with or believe, whether that be kind of within the Christian world or even if it gets into the secular culture, you know, we're interacting with stuff that we don't know necessarily agree with. And we read a scripture out of Ephesians 4. Do you wanna read that again just to get us back to that?

John Mulholland
Yeah. "Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won't be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever, they sound like the truth." So really the mindset is, how do I interact with thoughts, philosophies, ideas, ideals that are different, that are counter to what the Bible has to say? Where do we find those ideas? What the purpose of that is, in terms of engaging people who are in our culture, like trying to understand what their viewpoint is before we tell them ours. So how do we kind of do that? You talked about your background in student ministry, which was incredibly influential for you and the same way for me. I talked about kind of scouring social media to see like, what are the things people are talking about? What are the ways they're talking about it, to try and understand their perspective? And we didn't hear from Kylie?

Kylie Calloway
Well, yeah, I mean mine's way different. When I took the part-time position at the hospital as a chaplain, I thought I was doing it for one reason, but it really felt like God had a totally different reason, cause I've entered into what's called CPE or clinical pastoral education that teaches you exactly how to be a chaplain. So my struggle and learning through, is taking off my pastor hat and also as a counselor, my counselor hat, and going into that hospital room that it's not my appointment. It's not my visit, it's the person's visit. And I'm encountering, you know, luckily here a lot of the patients are Christians, but you also encounter people that could care less about you being a pastor, you being a counselor, they're not there to get advice you're going into their world. And so the biggest challenge for me is learning how to enter into their story and enter into their moment and help them in whatever spiritual journey they're in. Whether that be Satanic, whether that be a Jew, whether that be a Muslim, or whether that be a Christian. And even as a Christian, not putting my theological belief on them and listening to them where they're at and trying to steer them to a place that's not a bias on my end, which is pastors, when they come into our office. I mean, we're supposed to tell them, "This is what scripture says, this is what you need to do." And I can't do that. And I find it beautiful because it's challenging me to see the world, the scriptures, and people's journey in different places, and learning a lot from them, of what they're thinking, what they're going through. I think I love now more than ever, visiting those patients that don't even know the Lord, and they're cussing at me and cussing at things in life. And, you know, doing their fist up to God and not bringing in the scriptures, but leading them to a place that can begin to open up a dialogue of discovery for them in their own mind.

John Mulholland
Well, and you even talked about, way earlier today, how your role as a chaplain at the hospital has led you to be in the hospital room with someone from Westway or someone from Mitchell Berean. And to go into that, like kind of checking your, like, we do have theological differences, kind of checking those differences at the door. And how do I minister to, and how do I love and how do I serve that person that's in front of me without bringing like all of my things with that?

Kylie Calloway
I have to turn it off. And I mean, the beauty of it is, being able to be with y'all and actually being your advocate there instead of a pastor trying to, you know, steer somebody one way or the other.

John Mulholland
"Well, when you get out, come to Northfield. Right, I mean, you're not saying that, and you're, I mean, you're not doing that.

Kylie Calloway
No, my job is actually, I visited one of your congregants and, "Can I contact John and let him know that you're here? And, you know, he's already been contacted." Yeah and to be your advocate of, you know, that you're the best thing since slice bread, which is easy for me cause I know y'all. But even if I didn't, I still have to operate that way. Yeah, I would say the biggest challenge is just to turn it off. I'm not a pastor there, I'm not a therapist there. And the moment for you, to help you wherever you are. And that has been probably the first couple months, the hardest thing for me to do,

John Mulholland
I think that's just so interesting. You know, when at the beginning of Acts, Jesus says, "The Holy Spirit's gonna come upon you and you will be my witnesses," like, I think that's one of the hardest things for Christians. I find myself in this category and I would put myself in that category. Man, how do I turn off my desire for them to maybe respond and like, as much as I want them to respond in a certain way and how do I just come alongside them and love them in the midst of where they are.

Kylie Calloway
And I think for me, that's where I try to follow. What's called the Law of Love is, I have to lovingly guide them in that moment. Now that's not to say, if there was an open door, that I can't take it, I can. But it's, you know, I mean, let's just be honest, we're pastors, we're in the Christian world all the time, we're in the bubble. And I think getting outside of that and having coffee with somebody that doesn't believe in God and hates Jesus and hates the Bible is a good thing for us. And what I have gotten out of this, is being in kind of the secular realm, cause it is. And seeing patients that have nothing to do with God, has been the best thing for me ever in 26 years semester.

John Mulholland
And I wonder how much that's changed your real job, your pastoral.

Kylie Calloway
Just the ability to listen, and to have what would just be the ministry of presence in that moment, instead of trying to be the man with the answers, for me.

Jon Simpson
Yeah, that's really good. I think, probably for me too, some of the times where I've probably grown the most, learned the most, have been times when I wasn't in the professional, you know, pastor role. But I was working a regular job in the regular world and just having to be open to and figure out where people are really coming from. When they say certain things, what do they mean? And what is it? Where do those things come from? It's kind of like just a realness to, like you said, "Be able to listen and kind of turn off whatever agenda," in a sense. And just be able to interact and take in where people are at and where they're coming from without that, maybe that push or that judgment. You know, I'm constantly thinking, "You know, I think Paul, when he got to Athens, he's like, you know, he gets up on Mars hill right? It's like, you know, he had gone around the city, looked at their stuff, he'd taken it in, he listened to them. And then he had an intelligent presentation based on a real, kind of deeper understanding of where they're coming from. And he saw, yes, an opening, you know, you have this, I mean, do you wanna read it? The idol to the unknown?

John Mulholland
Yeah, I love it. "Men of Athens, I noticed you're very religious in every way for as I was walking along, I saw your many shrines. And one of your alters had this inscription on it, To an Unknown God, this whom you worship without knowing, is the one I'm telling you about." I think today, like we would expect Paul to be like, "Men of Athens, I noticed that you are worshiping all of these false idols. You guys are going to hell. And let me tell you about Jesus." And it's so counterintuitive what he does, and just like, how do we help? How do I have this mindset? How do we help the people in our churches have this mindset? Like it's such a cautious way. And like, I love Acts 17. It's one of my favorite texts in scripture. And like, he gives a gospel presentation without mentioning Jesus one time. And I think if the three of us were to get up in front of our church body and do this, we might have people who are angry with us, because we weren't maybe as clear as we could have been, or we didn't condemn the idolatry as much. And we didn't do all these things, but the way he handles this is just so incredibly wise, recognizing, cause he knew who he was dealing with. And we read elsewhere in Acts, we know what Paul's you know, what his background was what his education was. Like, he knew who he was talking about. So I think if there is ever an apologetic or if there is ever an instructive on how we are to interact with people who don't know Jesus, like, Acts 17 says.

Jon Simpson
Well, at the end of 17, he takes this really, you know, he takes an approach that says, "I understand where you're coming from and I get a little bit of who you are." And then, by the end, he gets to the resurrection, and that kind of is the hinge point, where some people think he's crazy and some people are like, I wanna hear more. And then he gathers them after, you know, some join him, some become believers, some don't, but his approach is, I mean it's a missionary approach. And I think that's something that, I feel an importance of today that I'm exposed to kind of the modern thinking on things. What are people thinking right now? What is out there? The people that are influencing other people. So I kind of look to podcasts and things, where they have a huge following, a lot of people are listening to them. Cause I'm like, "Okay, this is influencing a lot of people. They're people turning to this. Why?" You know, and listening to what they think and what they have to say. And yes, at times they're oppositional to Jesus and the gospel. At times they say things, that to me, "Oh man, here's why that's true." You know, I just wanna jump in and go. "Here's why that's true." Cause they do, the world does at times figure things out. I listened to a guy talk about forgiveness and the power of it, the importance of it and how he's learned over time. Like, it's not healthy to hold onto grudges and stay mad at people. And he's just learned this and he's not a believer, man, he's a total pagan, but he's learned the truth and the power behind a biblical principle. I'm like, well, yeah. I mean, yeah. Would you talk to, you know, some of us who are Christian struggle with this. You know, it's like anyway, being exposed to other ideas and other people, to me is important. To really be good at presenting the gospel and speaking to our culture today.

John Mulholland
And there would be some people in the Christian world who would have, from their perspective, a legitimate beef that we would expose ourselves to this kind of thinking. But we want to like, we wanna be exposed to it, to I think celebrate what's true. Like you said, the thing that you heard about forgiveness, I said this a few weeks ago at Westway. Like, isn't it awesome when culture catches up to the Bible?

Jon Simpson
Yeah, exactly. When they figure something out.

John Mulholland
You know, celebrate truth where they see it. Like, that's what Paul does, celebrate truth where they see it. But also, confront false things, and we have to know what that is. And part of our role and our responsibility is teaching our church bodies. Like, how do I do that? How do I become like Paul in Athens? Like, kind of checking our theological comfort zones, understandings at the door. Not ignoring them, not turning our back on them, but recognizing, "Like, maybe this isn't the space for someone to hear, like what I might believe about end times theology." This might not be the space for that.

Jon Simpson
Well Paul, to me that Ephesians four passage that, "You won't be tossed by every wind of teaching." Things that sound so good. I mean, honestly, there's people in our culture, and there's churches going this way. There's Christians going this way where, because of a compassionate. Here's the compassionate, loving approach being presented, whether it's sexual orientation or gender, whatever it is, it's like they're being swayed to move away from scripture in order to, you know, "Well, this is what you have to do if you're compassionate and loving." Well, those are biblical. That's what Jesus would do. But then, you know, so to me, when I engage the stuff in the world and what they're teaching, it doesn't sway me at all. I'm not swayed, but I am educated and I do learn better. What are they thinking? Where do they come from? Where are people at? And how can I speak to that? I think it keeps me equipped and sharp to be able to preach the gospel today.

Kylie Calloway
And that's where our job comes in to equip them to where they will be mature and to where they won't be swayed. And I think we'll be talking about that next time.

Spiritual Discipline: Reading Your Bible - Ask the Pastor

You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.

This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Gary Schick and Ben Poole.

Ben Poole
So last week we started a topic on spiritual disciplines, that we find needing, for our lives to help us grow in our faith. Last week we talked about probably one of the most important ones, is our prayer life, and really investing in that communication with God. And a lot of people I think, may have different ideas on how God talks to us, and in the Old Testament, God would show up to certain individuals in certain miraculous ways. You think of Moses and the burning bush, you think of through the prophets, through a donkey. So many different ways that God has shown up. Then we see in the New Testament where God becomes man through His son, Jesus and speaks to the world and performs miracles. And so now we're looking at it from, and I'm not gonna say that God cannot speak audibly or show up in certain ways in certain people's lives, but it's not the norm anymore. And so really I look at the scriptures as, this is God speaking to us. Everything we need to know about God and the message He has for us, we can find in the scriptures. And so today, we just want to dive into that and the importance of reading our Bibles. And so Gary, what are some of your thoughts?

Gary Schick
Well, and you know, as you were just mentioning there and I was thinking, you know, if somebody says, "I feel like the Lord is telling me--," you know, whatever it is. One of the checks to know whether that might be true is, "Okay, is what is being said here in accordance with God's word? Because, you know, unlike us where we contradict ourselves sometimes, God's not like that, He's not gonna contradict Himself. He's not gonna say, "Jesus is Lord one day and Jesus is not the next," Jesus is Lord "period." And so, whatever you're hearing, and not to say that this is the final word on it either, but absolutely would have to be in conformity with what God is telling us in His word. Yeah, we're talking about, really, the way I like to think of it is, what are ways that a Christian's faith grows? G.R.O.W.S. We talked about it last week: Go to God in prayer, and so today read scripture. You know, Jesus, when He was tempted by Satan in the wilderness, He answered Satan with scripture over and over again. I think the first answer He gave was right out of the book of Deuteronomy when He said, "Hey, uh, Satan was like, why don't you turn this stone into bread." And Jesus was like, "You know what? It is written, 'man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God." One of my favorite verses of scripture, Psalm 119:105, "Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path." And actually throughout the scripture, the scripture just describes itself to us in so many ways. It describes itself as a lamp, as meat, honey, milk, a hammer, a sword, a fire. I mean, it's so many things. In the beginning of the book of Joshua they're about to enter the promised land. God says to him, and actually it was the You version verse of the day yesterday, Joshua 1:8. "Do not let this book of the law depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night. That you may be careful to do all that is written in it for then you'll make your way prosperous and then you'll have good success." Do you wanna succeed in life as a child of God? Then it starts with God's word, and my goodness, how blessed we are. You know, today we've got Bibles on the shelf. I mean, they're just all over the place, and if you don't have a physical copy, you can download it. There's Bible apps: I've got the You version, I've got the Bible gateway, I've got the Bible Hub app, I've got the Blue Letter Bible app, and they're all fantastic! But you know, none of it does us any good if we don't pick it up and read it. And so, I guess what I really want to encourage my listeners today is, how are you doing about being in the other side of the conversation? You're right, prayer is talking to God. And yes, it can include being silent in God's presence and trying to hear from God, but ultimately He really speaks powerfully to us through His word. And I'd like to encourage people to kind of do the macro reading and the micro reading. By macro, I mean look at the Bible in large chunks, you know? Take one of those Bible apps where you have the opportunity to actually listen to the word audibly, do the Bible in a year. By the way, if you're wanting to do the Bible in a year, here's how to do it. You don't even need to download something and check it all off. The Old Testament: if you listen to two chapters a day, Monday through Friday and four chapters a day on Saturday and Sunday, you will get through the Old Testament in just like a day or two under a year. The New Testament: one chapter a day, five days a week, exactly one year. So there it is: three chapters a day during the week, two Old Testament, one New Testament; and four chapters a day in the Old Testament on Saturday and Sunday, will get you through the Bible in one year. So that's a good way to just kind of be hearing the word in the big chunks. But I think it's also really important and valuable for us to kind of zero in on the word. And so I think it's also good to take in the word in some of the smaller chunks. You know, like maybe a chapter, or a paragraph, or a verse, or even just a few words, that you can really zero in on and dig into the word. If you've got a Cross Reference Bible and you're reading something, and there's something that intrigues you, those little extra letters that you see kind of above and around the words or in the margins, those are connecting scriptures. You know, commentary is great, other opinions are great, but the reformers had this idea that the best, explanation of the word was the word itself. And that's what all those scriptures in the footnotes and margins are about. Those are about other scriptures that take us to more about what the Bible says on those topics. And so letting the Bible unpack the Bible for you, yes, absolutely. If you've got footnotes, if you've got study notes, glean all that you can from it, mine it. You know, when I was in seminary, we used to have to go and buy tons of volumes to be able to dig and unpack the word. Today, like if you've got a good study Bible, like the ESV study Bible, or the NIV study Bible, or any of the study Bibles, those things are basically whole seminary libraries. You know, you can really dig in that way. And then I would just say, "Meditate on the word," that's what it says in Joshua. "Don't let this book of the Lord depart from your mouth, but meditate on it." And how does that happen? Well, to meditate on it, you've got to have it more than just outside in your hand, you've got to have it in you. And so I would encourage our listeners to be regularly memorizing just little bits of scripture, just little bits. It might be something that's soothing to you. Are you struggling with anxiety or having trouble sleeping at night? Maybe you need to just verse by verse, a few words at a time, memorize the shepherd Psalm. Psalm 23, "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. He makes me to lie down green pastures, He leads me beside still waters, He restores my soul." And let the word restore your soul as you slowly memorize and meditate on it. Do you have access to another language? Did you learn Spanish when you were in high school? Do you know German? Read the word, meditate on the word in another language if you have access to it. Just to hear it from a different perspective use different translations, but get the word into you and let it speak to you. You know, I talked last week a little bit about praying through the Lord's Prayer, which by the way, that also is scripture that you can meditate on. But even if it's a verse like we were just talking about, "Your word is a lamp to my feet and light unto my path," pray the scripture back to God. You know, what are you telling me Lord? In Psalm 23, "Lord, you are my shepherd, what else am I wanting? Help me to just get my needs met right here by you today. Lord, lead me beside the calm waters, calm my soul. I feel like I'm going through the valley of the shadow right now. Lord, I look to you, you are my protector, you are my shield." And so, that's a way to take the scripture and pray it back to God. And then absolutely, as you pray it back to God, ask God to show you how to live it out. Because ultimately we wanna be people in the word, of the word, living by the word. So that we can just be blessed by God, through the word and shine forth His glory.

Ben Poole
Right. Such good information there. I was thinking of a different aspect to this for myself, that's been really important in my life. I grew up in the church and when I went to Bible college, since I grew up in church, I obviously knew what all the Bible's about. And I was quickly shown how ignorant I was of the scriptures. So, through my studies in school, but also my own personal time in God's word, I've grown to need God's word. There have been things in my life, or even in my wife and I's life, where the truth of the fact that we are in a spiritual war has come into a very physical sense in our lives at times. One of which was, I took a call to be the pastor of a church, and shortly after we accepted that call, we found out we were pregnant the same day we found out we were having a miscarriage.

Gary Schick
Oh my goodness.

Ben Poole
And so we knew, even in the hospital sitting there waiting on doctors and stuff, talking to each other about, "We know this is an attack from Satan, trying to hold us back from doing what God has called us to do. And it really began to ring true in Ephesians 6, where Paul tells us to put on the armor of God. All of the armor is for defense, to protect us. Except our sword, it is our offense, the sword is the word of God. Just like you talked about Jesus in the wilderness, He was having a spiritual battle. And what did He use to fight the devil? He used the scripture.

Gary Schick
That He had in His heart that He had memorized.

Ben Poole
He had hidden it in His heart and knew the word of God, and that is something that, you know, with our kids at home, we have them do memory verses. And they're actually getting pretty good at getting larger chunks of scripture down at a time. It's really awesome to watch. And it helps us as parents to be in the word with them and to guide them in this and help them understand what the words means. Because this is gonna go with them into the rest of their lives, and realizing when those attacks come, not if when, they will have that scripture hidden in their hearts to guide them through. And I know that for myself. In certain situations we've gone through, had I not had scripture in my heart, where would I be today? I wouldn't be in a good place, I know that. So it's not something that we should feel like, "Well, I need to read today and I need to do my daily reading." We have the privilege to hear the word of God, to us. Not just because it's there and we should, but because He loves us. And the message, as much as it was for people, you know, the gospels and the letters 2000 years ago for the people that were hearing it, even for the first time, as much as it was for them, it is for us as well. And that we can grow in our walk with Christ. And so we would just encourage you, if you need help on finding resources, there are so many. You look on, especially You version, they have got such a wide array of options to study God's word.

Gary Schick
Yeah, and listen to their devotion every morning, first thing.

Ben Poole
And it's something that we have been truly blessed with and would just encourage you to not see the scriptures and reading them, as a burden, maybe. You know, I kind of grew up that way that I didn't really want to read it, cause I was told to read it. But now I have a deep love for the scriptures, because it affects my life. Affects my wife and my kids and what I do with my life and in my everyday things. It really affects me on a spiritual and physical level, and it is one of the greatest gifts that God could ever give us. Is to have His word given to us so that we can come to know Him.

Gary Schick
And you know, I mentioned about memorizing and meditating stuff that's soothing like the 23rd Psalm. But also taking to heart that which challenges us and helps us with struggle points. You know like, are dealing with anger issues? There's tons of verses on anger, memorize that. You know, "A fool gives full vent to his wrath, but a wise man keeps himself under control," you know? If you've got that on your tongue, it might keep something else from rolling off your tongue that you're gonna be sorry for. You know, verses that challenge us and grow us. I tell you what, if this is kind of a new concept for you, why not start with the fruit of the spirit? "But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control." If you take that and pray that back to God and meditate on it through your day, it can change your perspective on life. You know, the word is powerful. To transform us, to disciple us, to grow us, but it comes by hearing and believing and ingesting it. Letting it become part of who we are as we grow up in Christ. And it's a forever process. None of us ever have reached a point where we've gotten all we can take in. Anymore than, "Sorry, I've had enough to eat in my lifetime. I don't need---," but I'll tell you what, there's the point, what are we ingesting? You know, just as it makes a difference what we ingest into our bodies, food wise, spiritually we're constantly ingesting what we're seeing, what we're hearing, what we're watching. Make sure you've got a healthy diet of God's word to keep you balanced, healthy and growing strong in the Lord.

The Spiritual Discipline Of Prayer - Ask the Pastor

You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.

This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Gary Schick and Ben Poole.

Ben Poole
All right, so here it is. "What spiritual disciplines do you, or God's word, recommend for believers in general? What particular disciplines do you, yourselves practice and what does that look like for you?" So first off, big topic and there's so many things we can talk about. And we are gonna talk about probably some of the big ones, the main ones, especially that we see in scripture. And as always scripture needs to be our guiding factor, and we need to abide by the word and to live by that. We have wonderful examples of this. Obviously, Jesus being our perfect example, but all of this comes down to, I know our heart's desire, your pastor's desires and especially God's desire is that our relationship with God is always growing. These spiritual disciplines are not just a list of things that you should do, or you must do. I look at this as things that you get to do. That we have the privilege to become more spiritually disciplined and grow in God through His holy spirit. And so the one that we want to talk about today is maybe one that seems obvious, but at the same time is probably not utilized enough. And that's the topic of prayer. I think that is a wonderful place to start when we think about spiritual discipline, and what I love about prayer is how we see it transform through scripture. Kind of a backstory in the Old Testament, the way that people went to God was through, well, there's a few different ways, but kind of the main one was through the high priest. The high priest once a year, went into the holy of holies to appeal to God on behalf of God's people seeking for forgiveness. And that was the communication outside of the times where God would speak to certain people at certain times. There was not really a freedom to come to God's throne; until the cross. Once Jesus died, you see in scripture that, the veil was torn in two, which really shows this opening where God is out and open for everyone. And Hebrews tells us that we can come before God on His throne, boldly and confidently; not fearful, not worrying, but we can come straight to God. And that is one of, outside of salvation itself, I feel like prayer is one of the greatest, if not the greatest gift that God has given us. Where we can come straight to Him. So with that, Gary, what are some of your thoughts on this?

Gary Schick
Well, and you know, I just want to back up just a hair, because the question actually had to do with spiritual discipline. And I think you're right, I think we want to go with this for a few weeks. You know, we spend so much time focusing on the gospel, which is: God loves us, He made us, we have sinned, it separates us from God. There is nothing we can do to right that wrong, to make ourselves right with God. Christ did it all when He died for our sins and rose from the dead. We are invited to believe in Christ and receive Him as Lord and savior. And so I think it's always important to start there, because even in our conversation before going on the air. You know we were talking about, we know people who've grown up in the church, who really don't know how to be saved even though they've probably heard it. So have you taken the step, have you put your trust in Christ and owned Him as your savior and also your Lord? So what does it mean that Jesus has saved me and now He's my Lord and I'm growing in Him? I always like to talk to kids about the word, "grows." G.R.O.W.S: G--go to God in prayer(what we're talking about today), R--read the word (get into God's word, the Bible), O--others (connect with other believers and have fellowship with them), W--worship (worship privately, worship publicly with the people of God), and then triple S--serve Christ as you serve others and share the faith. And I think there's kind of an order to that, you know, where it's about serving Jesus, it fleshes itself out in others. And part of that definitely includes sharing the faith, but going back to the beginning, go to God in prayer. Prayer has been described as the breath of the believer. Prayer can be very personal and heartfelt and overflowing. The whole book of Psalms is a book of prayer. It's praise, it's petition, it's crying out to God. It shows us that we can just talk to God. You know, probably the earliest reference we have to prayer in scripture is clear back in the book of Genesis. It says basically, that when Adam and Eve's third son, Seth was born at that time, people began to call on the name of the Lord. I think it's most basic essence, is that it's a calling out, but not, you know, I'm not calling out to you, Ben. I'm not calling out to my wife. Well, you guys are great. Yeah, you're a great buddy. My wife is boom, she is amazing. She's my best friend. But calling out to the Lord. And it can be spontaneous all the time, Paul says, "Pray without ceasing." We should pray on all occasion, we should just be about the business of prayer. The end of the spiritual armor in Ephesians talks about, and through all, through all by prayer and petition, you know? This is key. Prayer can also be formal, you know? Like we don't know what to say, we can use those very words of the Psalms. By the way, Jesus taught us a prayer. And I don't know about you, but I feel like most of us have missed it with the Lord's prayer. We're either from just, you know, really contemporary churches. Like churches I grew up in, where the Lord's prayer, "Yeah, that's somewhere in the Bible." You know, they don't make any use of it. On the other hand, I've been a part, especially in this valley, of some more formal churches where we say the Lord's prayer. And I got to tell you friends: if you're not saying it and if you are saying it, you're probably missing it, because what Jesus actually taught was, "pray in this manner." He actually was giving us the Lord's prayer as a structure, a kind of a rungs on the ladder to hang it on. When I was early on as a Christian, I was kind of taught this little acronym, A.C.T.S. When you pray, think about these topics: Adoration (praising God), Confession (confessing your sins), Thanksgiving, (thanking God), and Supplication, (bring your request). The nice thing about that is, we tend to run into God's presence with all the things we want. The Lord's prayer is even better than that, because the Lord's prayer includes: where do you put those applications? Where do you put those prayer requests? I tend to put it under the heading of, "Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven." You know, bringing boldly our needs to God in prayer, but with the attitude that Jesus did when He was in the garden. His flesh was crying out, "I don't want the cross, take this cup from me. But with a recognition of, "Father, your will." And sometimes our heart's desire and the father's will, they are hand in hand, and you can't even get the prayer out your mouth before God's already answered. But you know what? There was one occasion where Jesus wanted something and the opposite happened, and He knew it. I mean, He knew as He prayed that. He'd already told His disciples, "We're going to Jerusalem, I'm gonna suffer, I'm gonna die, and I'm gonna rise. This is what God's will is, and this is what's gonna happen." And yet, doesn't mean His flesh wanted to go there, and what a comfort to us. We don't have to pray right. We don't have to pray the right words, the right thoughts, the right feelings. We can just tell God what we want and trust Him and trust His will. And that it's perfect. And so, you know, I would invite everybody to take a second look at the Lord's prayer and there's somewhere between five and seven topic headings to kind of keep our conversation with God balanced. You know, it starts with calling Him our Father. It starts by asking above all that He would be hallowed and praised. It prays for His kingdom, His justice, His righteousness. It asks for His will, it trusts Him with our most basic needs. Our daily bread, it reminds us to come and ask for forgiveness, but it also teaches us to forgive one another. It invites us to pray that God would guide our steps and that God would protect us and deliver us from evil. And then it rounds it out by saying, "It's all yours God." I mean, what a tremendous way to go to God in prayer. You can take that out, break it into pieces and spread it through there. You can say it, you can say it holding hands with God's people. But you know, don't just go through the motion of the words. Really let the Lord's prayer guide you into prayer. And that prayer, in my opinion, will do more to disciple you in the way of Christ, in the attitude of Christ, in the heart of Christ, in the mission of Christ. Boom! But again, you know, "Oh, I can't talk to God unless somehow I'm working the per-- No, No! I mean, what is the need of the moment? Go to God. What is the praise of the moment? Thank God. And you know, are you sick? James says, "Call for the elders of the church and get together with God's people in prayer." Probably the saddest thing, it's gone by the wayside in my lifetime. There used to be three things: there used to be Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday prayer, and I think all that's left today in most places is Sunday morning and maybe a Wednesday Bible study. But prayer, why is it left in the margins? I mean, what do we read of Jesus? He went often by Himself to lonely places to pray. The example of Jesus was getting alone with the Father. Martin Luther said, "If he had a busy day, he needed to spend more time in prayer that morning to be ready for it." Not the last thing or the least thing, but the first thing.

Ben Poole
This is such a good topic, and what I've talked to people about in the practical side of this, thinking about, we're in a relationship with the creator of the universe and He wants to hear from us. Beautiful opportunity, and I try to help people understand this. And if you're married, which I am, one of the key ingredients to a healthy marriage is communication. My wife and I talk about everything all day long, even into the night. And I also know the other side, whether I'm upset or she's upset when we're not communicating our relationship struggles. We are told in scripture that we are a bride of Christ. We are in a marriage with God, the Father, and what is one way that we keep a healthy relationship? Communication. And that's what it is. And I really appreciate what you said. It's not about a canned prayer. It is about your heart, and I would so encourage you to read through the Psalms. David especially, felt free to express his emotions, his feelings, even anger, even questioning God's timing. And not that we're doubting God, but we are in this relationship where we can speak freely to God. Knowing that He hears us, knowing that He loves us, knowing that He wants to hear our hearts. Side note to that: He already knows what's in your heart. He knows everything you're going through. He wants you to express that to Him and grow in that relationship. And as we talk about these other topics, I really appreciate that you thought prayer would be the one that we should start with, because I think that should be at the forefront of spiritual discipline.

Gary Schick
It runs through all of it.

Ben Poole
Yeah this will shadow into all these other disciplines if we will lead our life in prayer with God and have that relationship. And through prayer, take the time to say what you need to say, let God's will be His, and then listen. Part of prayer is listening for God to speak and answer those prayers. And just like Jesus in the garden, "Not my will, but yours be done." God's always gonna answer your prayers, it may just not be your heart's desire. And so if we can come to every situation, the easy, the hard things and saying, "God, this is my life, and I've given it to you. I'm giving everything of myself to you, to lead me, and so I'm asking that your will be done that it's not mine. And that you would open doors or shut doors or whatever it may be, and that through that we will follow you faithfully to wherever you lead."

Gary Schick
And you know, some of the great prayer warriors of the past, they would pray themselves into a point of where they had really sought God's will until they had gotten themselves out of the way. Until they were really ready for whatever God's will is. And that was a big---and so much more could be said---I mean, I think fasting. You know, we talk about prayer and fasting something, probably not practiced by many. I've practiced it on and off at different points in my life, but it is a function of prayer. It is a way of getting alone with God wherever you are. If you're fasting, it's, "I'm feeding on you God." And whether you're driving down the road, perfect time to pray. Taking a walk, I tend to pray better when I'm moving in motion, or you know, on your knee in your room. Or if you can take an extended period of time, go hike the Monument. Pray all the way up and down, you know, I mean---

Ben Poole
Oh, I'd be praying up for sure.

Gary Schick
But go do something with God.

Ben Poole
It's being with God, and that's really what it's all about.

Gary Schick
And learning to just rest in Him and His presence. I mean, it's not even all talk. It's just sometimes being quiet, and letting the spirit impress things on our heart and mind, and just learning to be with Him.

Is There Any Validity To The Doctrine Of Purgatory? - Ask the Pastor

You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.

This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Gary Hashley, Tim Hebbert and Brad Kilthau.

Tim Hebbert
So we're here to discuss another question, and this one comes from a listener. "Purgatory, where did this teaching come from? And is there any validity to it?" So guys, I thought I'd give you a little bit of a historic background to that, and then I'm gonna pass the baton to Gary. But as I understand purgatory, it's a temporary place between heaven and earth where those who have died go to be cleansed, or some unconfessed sins are dealt with so that when they enter heaven, they come completely clean. In the dictionary, it says the word purgatory cannot be found anywhere in scripture. The term itself, which literally means, "to purge or to cleanse," did not come into existence until, somewhere between 1175 and 1225 A.D. So let's talk a little bit about the history of it. Yeah, guys, it was interesting to research a little bit, because I didn't know that much about it. It was birthed, actually in ancient pagan religions, as well as Judaism. We can go back even to the time of the ancient Greeks when they were under the teachings of people like Plato, Heracles, and other philosophers. And they taught the ancient Greeks about a place that they were referred to as a Celestial Hades, somewhere between the earth and the moon. And you went there for a season to work out whatever you had not worked out in your earthly life. I think what I read was, Plato even thought that maybe, that was the answer of what the Milky Way was, that he could see. Ancient Judaism, also for a season, believed in prayers for the dead. In a book called 2 Maccabees 12:41-46, they say this, "So they all blessed the ways of the Lord, the righteous judge that reveals the things that are hidden. And they turned to supplication, praying that the sin that had been committed might be holy blotted out. The noble Judas exhorted the people to keep themselves free from sin, for they had seen their own eyes what had happened as a result of the sin of those who had fallen. He also took up a collection, man by man, to the amount of 2,000 drachmas of silver and sent it to Jerusalem, to provide for a sin offering. In doing this, he acted very well and honorably taking account of the resurrection. For if he were not expecting that those who had fallen would rise again, it would've been foolish to pray for the dead. But if he was looking to the splendid reward that is laid up for those who fall asleep in godliness, it was holy in pious thought. Therefore he made atonement for the dead so that they might be delivered from their sins." So you're out there and you're saying, "Well, I've never heard of that book before." Well, it's not in our canon, it's in the biblical canon of the Catholic church. And guys, one of the things I've always struggled with, with some of the books that are added are, they're not recognized in the Old Testament as part of the Jewish canon. Primarily one of the very first reasons is, is because it's written in Greek. It's not written in Hebrew, but I also think as I look at that, they're written in that time between the end of our Old Testament canon and before the gospels begin. And they're written in that time, where for all intents and purposes, God goes silent for those years. So it's very difficult to say, you have divine inspired scripture unless the divine one is inspiring scripture. So we were talking before we went on the air, actually 1 Maccabees is a very good historic document about the Maccabees revolt. But what happens, I think in second and third Maccabees then, is they try to create a theology around that, which I would disagree with obviously. So the foundation of purgatory now is part of the Catholic faith. Their early church fathers didn't always believe it to be something of a physical place until around 1200 A.D. And a medievalist named Jacques Le Goff defines the birth of purgatory, the conception of purgatory, as a physical place. Now this is a place where you go, if you've left this earth, you've died, but you still have some unatoned sins. You go to this place of penance and cleansing. So if you have a loved one there, you can pay penance for them, financial penance for them. In a lot of ways, it's very similar to what we find in the Mormon faith, where they go and they stand as an intermediary or are baptized in place of their relative that may have not died within the bounds of what they would consider, what they need to be in that faith. So, Gary, I'm gonna pass the baton to you. Is there any validity to this teaching and why would it be needed?

Gary Hashley
Validity? That's a that's a good question. Again, the term purgatory really comes from a word that has to do with purification. And I've heard it explained this way, that it's possible that through Jesus your sins have been forgiven, but you haven't been purified yet. So when you die, you have to go someplace to be purified so then you can go to heaven. And so what they will say in their teaching is that there are three main thoughts to purgatory. The first is that, everybody in purgatory is going to heaven. The question in their minds when they believe in purgatory isn't, you're still up in the air as to whether you go to heaven or hell. They say, "You know, if you're in purgatory, that means you're gonna get to heaven eventually." They say, "It means purifying the soul, that your soul wasn't pure. So you need to go and have the fires of purgatory purify your soul." And the third part of their thinking is that, then those who are here and still alive need to pray for the dead and that it helps when we pray for the dead. Some of the reasoning seems a little circular, because they say, actually one of their proponents said, "If someone died and went immediately to heaven, why would we pray for them?" So he's saying, because we're taught to pray for them, must be they don't all just die and go immediately to heaven. They don't say, "Since someone dies and goes immediately to heaven, we don't need to pray for them," they go around the other way in the circle. And so, you know, why would it be needed?

Gary Hashley
Well, if, and here's an if, if we had to earn our own way to heaven: if it was our good works, if it was our efforts, if it was our religious practices that that made it possible to go to heaven. Let's suppose, if we had to earn our own way to heaven and we died, almost there and God was looking down and saying, "Boy, you know, Gary, you got close. I'm just gonna send you to purgatory for a little while to make up for what you didn't accomplish in earning your own salvation. Then you can come to heaven." Well, we don't earn our way to heaven. The Bible says, "It's not of works lest any man should boast." So it's not an issue of, we almost got there. Another thought would be, well, if Jesus' death was a good start, but we had to finish on our own, and that's kind of how I sense what they teach. Is that Jesus died to forgive us our sins, but it really wasn't enough to purify us. And so we have to finish on our own, and purgatory is where we finish that up on our own. But neither of those makes biblical sense, because the Bible teaches us: Jesus died on the cross, Jesus paid it all. His sacrifice was complete, His sacrifice was completely accepted. We add nothing to our salvation. That's why Galatians was written. It's not believe in Jesus and be circumcised, it's belief in Jesus is what saves. So because they divide forgiveness and purification, the Bible does not. In fact, 2 Corinthians 5:8-9 says, "Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please Him." It doesn't lay out a third. It's not, at home, you know, part way, and then away. It's, we're either at home in the body or away. We're either here or we're in heaven as followers of Jesus, and there's no in between place. Now they would take like, 1 Corinthians 3, where it talks about our works being tried, you know, whether gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, or straw. That it's like, God paints the picture, He piles up our works and what burns up, burns up, and what's left, we get rewarded for. And then he says, "And you're saved yet so as through fire." They take that fire, as you go, and you burn a while. Then you get to go to heaven as if we're in the fire, not our works are in the fire. So no, I see no validity to it. So Brad, take this to the close.

Brad Kilthau
Yeah, Gary, I agree with what you're saying there. And even some of that history that Tim was sharing earlier, we think about Roman Catholicism, and it teaches that believers incur debts that must be inevitably taken care of in purgatory before the gates of heaven can be open to that person. And again, I think as you're sharing Gary, is that's not scriptural. Again what the apostle Paul said, "To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord." There isn't a place in between that is taught in the word of God. And also when you think about, you know, the teaching and the believing in purgatory, I think first of all, the doctrine of purgatory undermines the sufficiency, obviously of Christ's atonement on the cross. I mean, scripture declares that Jesus was one sacrifice that He made perfect forever. Those who are being made holy, in Hebrews 10:14, it's also shared in Hebrews 1:3 And according to the Bible, we can rest assured that in Christ's body, on that cross, all the punishment that we deserve was placed into the body of Christ. And Jesus absolutely satisfied the justice of God the Father on our behalf. Romans 3 teaches us that, 1 Peter 3:18 teaches that. And then we also think, of course, we're coming closer and closer to Easter, and we always remember the work of Christ on the cross. And right before He died, Jesus said the words in John 19:30, He said, "It is finished." And what does that mean? It's obviously that the debt has been paid in full with the shed blood of Christ. There needs to be no other payment for our sins. And then I think, also the second part of this, of why disagree with purgatory, is because sometimes as you look at it, it undermines the seriousness of sin. By forwarding the notion that certain sins are not regarded as depriving the soul of divine grace. In other words, there are certain sins that will, you know, if we commit, but they won't keep us out of heaven. We have to understand that there are not sins that are not so bad that God just lets them slide. And they don't need to be atoned for by the blood of Christ. Every individual sin, even if we go steal a candy bar from the dollar general store, you know, that is stealing, that is a sin against God. And that is enough, there alone, to separate us from the presence of a very perfect and holy God. God the Father is not some old man that just lets things slide. He is perfect, He's righteous, He's holy. And so when we say that, that not so bad sin can be atoned for in a place called purgatory, that's saying that, "Well that not so bad sin doesn't need the blood of Jesus to cover it. This temporal punishment will take care of that." Well, that goes back again to what you were saying Gary. We're adding works to our faith again. Anytime you add works to faith, you have a false teaching. You have a belief that will not get you into heaven. It's only by faith alone, in Christ alone, that we are saved. There's never works, Ephesians 2:8-9 is so clear. And we have to understand that any transgression, any iniquity against our holy God is enough to separate us from our holy God, Psalm 51:4 tells us that. And so there's not a temporal debt that can be paid off on some of these sins and other sins don't need to be. Jesus taught very profoundly on that, if you just look at the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7. And then also we know that while the Catholic church promotes the teaching of purgatory, it wasn't officially defined by the, and I think Tim was talking about this, it was officially defined by the council of Florence in 1439. And it was also defended by the council of Trent in the late 16th century. Okay, so there were some council meetings, there were some coming together of high ranking hierarchy of the church in these, and there were some good things that were resolved. But we always have to remember, those councils are not scripture and what those councils wrote is not scripture. And when we look at the Bible, purgatory is not supported in a canon of scripture. In fact, I was even studying this a little bit earlier, even the new Catholic encyclopedia clearly acknowledges that the doctrine of purgatory is not explicitly stated in the Bible. Even those who are trying to promote it can say that it's not explicitly stated in the Bible. And so what you find as a teaching of purgatory, is really based upon traditions of the fathers of the Catholic church and not upon the forefathers of the Christian faith that we have of the apostles of the New Testament and the teaching of them. And then finally, I just got to say that most importantly, the father's testimony throughout all the word of God, as I've studied, it tells us that He has graciously provided salvation to those of us who come to Him by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Romans 8 is so clear on that, Romans 11:6 is clear on that and of course, Ephesians 2:8-9, as I shared earlier. So, when we look at the teaching of purgatory and the validity of it, is it true? Well, when you come to the scriptures, you cannot find that support. You can find history, you can find tradition, but support from the scriptures is not found. Hebrews 10:4, just to finish up it says, "By one sacrifice, He," that is Jesus, "made perfect forever those who are being made holy." Jesus did it all. Jesus did it all in the cross of Calvary.

What Does It Mean To Be Made In The Image Of God? - Ask the Pastor

You can listen to Ask The Pastor every weekday at 9:00am MST on 97.1FM Hope Radio KCMI! You can also listen and subscribe to Ask The Pastor in your favorite podcast feed. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music and most other podcast services.

This edition of Ask the Pastor features Pastors Gary Hashley, Tim Hebbert and Brad Kilthau.

Gary Hashley
So the one we're gonna look at is this, "We often hear from Bible teachers that, we as humans are made 'in the image of God' what does that exactly mean? And what is the significance of this to us today?" Well, let's start with, where do we even find this term used in scripture?" There are really three places in the book of Genesis that alludes to this. In Genesis 1, in the account of creation after God has made, you know, the heavens and the earth in chapter one, verse one. Then He makes light, then He makes an atmosphere, and then He makes the seas and the land and the plants appear. Then He makes the sun, the moon and the stars. And then He makes the fish and the birds, then He makes animals. We get later to where He makes man, and in chapter one, verse 26, it says, "And God said, 'let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens. Over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.' So God made man in His own image, in the image of God, He created him. Male and female, He created them. And then a little later in chapter five, we come across this concept again, where it says, "This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, He made them in the likeness of God. He created them male and female and He blessed them. And named them Man, when they were created. When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son after his image and named him Seth." And then we get to chapter nine, verse six, where we read, "Whoever sheds the blood of man by man, shall his blood be shed for God made man in his own image." Now I'll tell you right off the top, that this is one of those questions that has been talked about, reasoned about, debated about, argued about, written about, and disagreed about as the years have gone on. What is implied when it says, that God made us in His image? One author says, "Christian thinkers have tried to locate the image of God in various dimensions of man's being. Including man's spirit, soul, rationality, will, mind, personhood, immortality and even his physical body. But scripture is not specific." I want you to hear that, "Scripture is not specific as to exactly what it is about man that constitutes the image of God." The image of God cannot be reduced to one attribute or any combination of attributes in man. The biblical portrait is more holistic. The entire man as a human being, images God. So I'm just gonna share a couple, three thoughts, and then I'll turn it over to my brothers, who are way smarter than I am. I have come to the conclusion over the years, that this isn't a physical thing, because God is spirit. Jesus became flesh, but when He became flesh He became like us. So the fact that, you know, we're made in God's image, doesn't mean physically we look like Him. I do believe it's a uniqueness thing, because if you notice in Genesis 1, it doesn't say this about any of the animals, any of the fish, or any of the birds. It doesn't say they were made in the image of God, but when it comes to the final creative act God records for us here, that He created man. It says He created them in His image. So there's something unique about people as opposed to cattle, as opposed to cats, as opposed to canaries, as opposed to trout. There's something in us that's unique enough that God said, we were being made in His image. I think it's also a position thing, because after saying "We were made in God's image," it says "Now have dominion over everything else." Dominion over the cattle, dominion over the fish, dominion over the birds, dominion over the plants. God put us in a position of being over the rest of creation. It's very important to remember, and I agree with the writer. The Bible does not describe the contents of the image. So anything we say today is kind of conjecture, maybe it's implied, but it'd be nice if He specifically said. And there were those over the years who have argued the difference between image and likeness. What's significant about the fact that we were made in the image of, and the likeness of? And there are so many variations of what has been thought and what has been said about such things. So does it refer to our personality, to our consciousness, to the fact that we can use language, to the fact that we have a will, to the fact that some morality that is built into us? I will let Tim pick up and share what he's prepared on this.

Tim Hebbert
You know, going back to Genesis, for me the defining shift there, and I'm gonna talk for just a couple of seconds here about character that we share with God. Things that He shared in our nature that come from Him. But the defining shift from every other piece of creation in the creation story, is He said He formed man out of the dust of the earth. And then He breathed the breath of life into him. And what is that breath of life? Because all the animals had to have life breathed into them, or they were created with that. I think the shift there is, He breathed His essence and His spirit into us, and so one of the very first things that we share with God is, He is spirit. And He has given us spirit. You know, my dad and I, he's jokingly said, "I don't think any animals will be in heaven except for dogs," because he loved dogs. But what separates man from the rest of animal living, breathing, creation, was that spirit that was breathed into him. In the fourth chapter of John, it tells us, "God is spirit, so those of us who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and truth." So while most of us on Sunday morning, we're gathering and singing worship, but there's a physical human act that goes along in that. A physical act of humanity that goes on in life. But really, that worship time is born out of our spirit. All that we do to worship God is born out of our spirit. So the things in His character that He shares with us is, He shares things from His character with us, but not completely like Him. We are born in spirit, but we are a spirit that depends on His spirit. We reflect God's nature and our ability to reason and the freedom to choose God. God gave us part of that, He gives us knowledge, He gives us the ability to learn things and to reason with what we've learned. To make good decisions, and He's given us the freedom to use those, to make good choices. Unfortunately, in the garden, that's the very first thing that they did wrong. We share a nature of God that has a desire for fellowship. It tells us, you know, in the third chapter of Genesis. He would come to the garden for a time of fellowship with Adam and Eve. And when they broke covenant, that was the very first thing that got broken with Him. God is famous in all of scripture for His desire to be in fellowship with those who love Him. We were created and birthed as children with perfect innocence, which is a reflection of the perfect holiness that God has. Again, original sin destroys that. And I wanna just give one last thing and I'm gonna turn it over to Brad. He creates each and every one of us, unique. The one thing that we can say above all things about God is, there has never been or never will be anyone like Him. In the commandments, you know, I go back to A.W. Tozer talking about the second commandment, "Don't make any graven images." Basically Tozer says, "What He's saying to us there is, 'don't you think for a second, you know, what I look like or what I'm all about.' But in correlation with that, He's called and He's created each of us. That's one of the, I think the amazing things about human creation. There's not two of us that are identical. I mean, we are separate, we are different, each one of us is unique. Even if we're twins or triplets and we're identical on the outside, our spirits are still unique and individual to us.

Gary Hashley
So you're saying Mr. Rogers was right. There's nobody like you!

Tim Hebbert
That's it. Maybe, I don't know. You ruined my whole image of God. I always thought He had a long beard with a lightning bolt. No, I'm kidding.

Brad Kilthau
Well, yeah. And what you guys are saying, I agree. You know, the Bible tells us that we are created in the image of God, and Gary you gave three references from the Old Testament. We also have it in the New Testament, we have that in 1 Corinthians 11:7. And then we also have it in James 3:9 and that reaffirms that in the New Testament, that we are made the image of God. And so I guess I could just add to that is, we think about what does it mean to be made in the image of God? My definition is, "To be human is to be a divine image bearer." In other words, we are to reflect the, image of God to all of God's creation. We don't understand, as you guys were saying, it doesn't tell us a whole lot about what it really means to be made in the image of God. So what can you do? You can just go to the Old Testament and you can find the characteristics of God, and keep searching through that and learn more and more about who God is. And then look for those similar characteristics that we could relate to God in. Of course, as Tim was sharing, we have this ability to reason and we have this ability to rationalize things. Also we have this ability to create things. Obviously that's in the image of God. You think about some of the things that man's been able to create and come up with. The concept in His mind and then to make it with his hands, it's an amazing gift that God's given us being made in His image. Also we are moral beings, we for the most part, obviously we've been given a conscience and God's word is written on our hearts. So, but then at the same time, as Tim was saying, we have the choice. To obey what's written on our heart and our conscience, or we can disobey. And again, that's what Adam and Eve did, and of course they passed that down to all of us. And so the image of God has been distorted in us today. But one of the beautiful things is, when we put our faith and trust in the Lord, Jesus Christ, He begins to restore that original image of God back in us. As we go through this process of sanctification, we become more and more like Jesus. And so that starts to change, our attitude starts to change, our thoughts start to change, our desires start to change. And then as those things change inwardly, then outwardly we start to change too. Our language changes, the places we go, the things we do, all of those things begin to change. And I think as you look at that, then that's bringing us again, aback to what God originally created us to be. To walk upright, to be those who seek to live a holy life before God, and to please God. And so again, God gives us an ability that all the rest of the creation that you look at doesn't really have. I mean, the creation has kind of this built-in way of doing things. You know, like this time of year it's the birds who fly south or go to someplace warmer. It's an instinct that we often say they have, but man has the ability to reason these things out. And "why am I going south? And why do I need to do this?" Even our title that we talk about ourselves in science, we're called homo sapiens, which means a thinking being. We have the ability to think where other beings don't, they just do what their instinct says. And even getting back to the thought about dogs being in heaven, you know, we all want our favorite dog to be in heaven, but we have to understand, of course, they don't have a spirit. They don't have a soul, and so are they gonna be in heaven? I don't know. I think God's gonna give us even better animals when we get to heaven. I don't know. But obviously we have a soul that lives forever, He gave us a soul that will live for eternity. And of course, the choice we make determines where that soul is going to live, and with a body that will live with that. If we reject Christ, we'll live forever in a place called hell, with a body that can be tormented forever and ever. If we accept Christ as our Lord and Savior, we're given this beautiful glorified body to live forever and ever in the presence of God. You don't see that with any other of God's creation, just man.