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Do You Really Need Church? The Hidden Power of Community and True Discipleship Revealed · Relish: a Christian podcast

• 0:02
  Relish pleasing or zestful flavor a quantity
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  just sufficient to flavor to be pleased or
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  gratified by enjoy we are hoping that what
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  we bring to your table today might add some spice to your life ladies and gentlemen
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  welcome back to another episode of relish i'm rowan miller this is don patterson
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  don how are you doing i think we're doing all right are we i'm doing good Good, yeah.
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  Okay, good deal. Good start. You're looking good today, so you're doing all
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  right. Yeah, right back at you.
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  All right, so. Oh, man. Oh, yes. Are you going to jump on this question here?
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  I am going to jump on you. I have these nice little questions.
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  What have been the most significant parts of your faith journey?
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  Hmm. Most significant parts. 17.
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  Yeah, I would definitely say accepting Jesus and getting baptized.
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  I think most everybody would say that.
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  I think getting to the NYF youth fellowship age, more conversation with other believers your age.
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  I mean, Sunday school, you kind of had that, but it was more just like learning
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  about the Bible, more getting stories in your brain,
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  learning things rather than kind of communicating about here and now what you're
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  going through, what other people are going through, you know?
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  Yeah. Just, you also get to that age where you're, you kind of treated more
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  like an adult. So then you get, yeah, you get more deeper conversations with
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  people older than you, people that are wiser than you.
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  Faith conversations. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Yeah.
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  So I'd, I'd say that, but yeah. Good. Yeah.
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  Significant parts. Yeah. Those are significant parts. good.
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  All right we'll get back to asking you questions here you notice my questions
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  aren't my questions are scripted and he's one of the wiser people that I get to hang out with oh dear,
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  40 plus years of preaching yeah it has been yeah we show every one of them,
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  oh well Yeah. Is it necessary to go to church?
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  What if we don't go to church and can't we just like watch the service online? Like what?
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  Well. Yeah. Yeah. That's a really
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  good question and one that's come up an awful lot since COVID. Yeah.
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  You can to a certain extent. Yeah.
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  But one of the things that we're noticing and one of the things that we'd bring
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  out is, so is your walk with Christ getting deeper that way?
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  In other words, we're trying to measure the fact that the church was impacted
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  by an event where we didn't control.
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  I mean, we were told we could not meet.
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  And some of us met in smaller groups. We did the best we could.
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  Some of us are still not ready to come back. and be in the building together. And that's a reality.
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  But what we're noticing is how it has changed the discipleship of believers.
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  And so now, instead of being working with each other, sort of like we said in the last episode,
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  we almost need each other to challenge each other at different times,
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  because we could get in our own capsule and head off in Timbuktu in our thinking.
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  And so the reality is the body and how it works together is necessary for us
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  to grow deeper in our walk with Jesus Christ because it challenges us and compels us forward.
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  So it challenges us if we get off on some tangent.
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  And believe me, when you go into social media And even in religious circles,
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  you can get on on a tangent fairly quickly.
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  But if you have a community of faith where you respect your brothers and sisters
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  and you can have those conversations in real time with real time feedback,
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  then the danger of getting off on a tangent that's going to do you in is less likely to happen. Yeah.
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  So the fellowship's needed that way.
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  The second piece of that question, I'd go to 1 Corinthians 12 and remind ourselves
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  that we are called to be a body.
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  We're not called to be individuals, bodies, individual believers, but part of a body.
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  And when we don't participate, then the body, the local body,
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  is missing some crucial elements.
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  And the body, in verse 12 of chapter 12 of 1 Corinthians, The body is a unit,
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  though it's made up of many parts, and though all its parts are many,
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  they form one body. So it is with Christ.
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  We were all baptized by one Spirit into one body, whether Jews or Greeks or
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  slave or free, we were all given the one spirit to drink.
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  So that's Paul acknowledging the Holy Spirit is one of those unifying factors of the body.
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  Now, the body is not made up of one part, but many.
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  If the foot should say, because I'm not a hand, I don't belong to the body,
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  it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body.
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  And if the ear should say, well, because I'm not an ear, I, I don't belong to
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  the body, would it not for that reason cease to be part of the body?
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  If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be?
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  If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?
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  But in fact, God has arranged the parts of the body, every one of them,
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  just as he wanted them to be.
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  If they were not, were all one part, where would the body be?
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  And of course, I've got a sticky note on the other side.
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  You see a lot of those. But you get the idea that God's saying,
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  and Paul is illustrating, that the local church is to be a body, the body of Christ.
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  And we're to recognize the fact that we don't all have the same function,
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  but we're all necessary.
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  So if one part of that body ceases to come and participate in the body, it changes things.
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  And I think that we saw that tremendously in the last five years as to what's happened since COVID.
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  Churches have changed because they weren't meeting together.
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  And some of them cease to be altogether.
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  So you say, can you be a Christian? What was the question again?
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  It's just like, what if we don't go to church? Yeah.
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  Yeah. Well, and the second part of that is- Is it necessary to go to church? Yeah.
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  You miss out. Yeah. On this body
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  piece, because you can't be afoot and get along very long without a leg.
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  Yeah. The traction behind that is the talk right now is about discipleship.
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  Because what we noticed during COVID was people were not getting deeper in their
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  relationship with Jesus Christ.
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  And that's because we weren't practicing together being Christian.
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  Yeah. And so there's different studies out there about that, Pew Research,
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  Barna Research, and it would say how negatively impacted the church was because
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  people weren't able to participate in that period of time and some haven't come back yet.
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  So you could use the church as the whole body and like somebody not going or
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  several people not going could be depriving the church of a foot or something. Yeah. Yeah.
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  Able to get around. Yeah. I mean, how well do you get around without your foot?
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  Not great. I've had to go through that. So. That's right. Yeah. Not great.
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  That's right. Twice, but yeah. That's true. And so with that being in mind,
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  you know how the body reacts when it's disabled and it's like disabling the church.
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  Yeah. But it's also the flip side disabled because you can't get forward in
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  discipleship without the rest of the body. Yeah.
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  Yeah. So it's twofold. At least twofold.
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  That's just the two folds that I came up with quickly without any preparation.
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  Yeah. All right. What are your thoughts about reading a prayer?
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  For example, like in a devotional book, like you do the devotion or something,
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  and then there's like prayer at the end.
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  What are your thoughts to reading
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  the prayer instead of praying your own prayer? Having a free prayer.
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  I really am a believer in that free, Holy Spirit-driven prayer of the heart,
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  because our hearts know what they need to pray for.
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  And so, 90% of my prayers are that.
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  It would be very much just from my heart and free.
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  What's interesting is I've been working with Deeper Walk International,
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  and you can look them up online if you'd like. And one of the tools we use in
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  healing prayer is Neil Anderson's work.
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  And Neil Anderson has a booklet, and it's basically a lot of prayer and strategy for spiritual warfare.
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  And so, I have found in healing prayer by using Neil Anderson's written out
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  prayers that we would be working with that and I'd have that individual read
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  that prayer and they'd come to a word and could not say that word.
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  And then they'd have to confess you know this is
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  this is in my life i need to work with this in my life and so
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  that written prayer was very powerful because they could not speak those words
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  with integrity and that brought them to confession and then we worked through
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  that piece and then they could say the prayer nice so there's there's power
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  in those prayers that have well and neil Neil's still living.
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  The power of his ministry has been wonderful.
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  And I just praise the Lord for men like him and Dr.
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  Marcus Warner, who are working at helping us as Christians deepen our walk with
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  Jesus Christ and take care of that stuff that we don't even realize is holding us back.
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  Many times, a lot of people walk into my office and don't realize they need
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  to deal with this problem.
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  And then being in prayer, Christ will reveal through that prayer or the healing
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  prayer and the real prayer that we practice.
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  And they will, oh man, and the Holy Spirit will convict them right there.
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  And it's amazing what happens.
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  So I see value in those prayers.
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  I still like my prayers that I can say freely before the Lord,
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  like a conversation, like I have with you, and have that relationship with the Lord. Yeah.
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  I feel like sometimes when you do those written prayers, it really just feels
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  like you're just reading it.
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  Other times it actually seems like you're getting something out of it. Right.
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  Yeah. Well, we ought to try some of Neil's prayers. Yeah.
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  Read some of those. I've just been amazed because I immediately sort of wrote
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  that off because they're written prayers.
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  They're down on paper. How can that written word be that dynamic? Yeah.
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  Until I started working with it. And then I realized, oh, there's a lot in those prayers.
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  And it is very dynamic. Yeah. So if you have questions about that,
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  you can go to DeeperWalk International site.
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  And there's many videos on there that you can look at and talk about spiritual
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  warfare and prayer, especially prayer.
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  And they highlight Neil Anderson's work and what he's done. I can't remember the name of his book.
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  I'm no help there, but. But it's a good, yeah, good practice.
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  I don't know. This isn't a question, but it's kind of a story.
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  Okay. But I don't know about it near as much as some people do,
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  but have you heard of Forrest Frank? Yes.
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  Yeah. Do you hear about what happened to him? Yeah.
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  Tell the story. It's cool. So he was going to, those of you that don't know,
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  he's like a, he's a, he's a Christian rapper.
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  So he. He moves in ways I cannot move.
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  He knows that, he knows that this younger generation is listening to rap more
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  and more. So he's putting out like rap with the gospel in it.
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  And so right before he was going to go on tour, I think he was like,
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  two is it two weeks i don't know i think it was a little over two weeks yeah
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  go ahead it was right before he was going to go on tour he was skateboarding
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  in his driveway i think and fell,
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  on video on video yeah he has it on video and broke his back and like you guys
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  know how long it how long it would take to recover from breaking your back but
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  and the videos of his pain,
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  yeah he couldn't he couldn't move couldn't he got stretchered an ambulance to the hospital.
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  And it has x-rays that show the fractures. Mm-hmm.
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  X-rays, visible, clear cracks. And then, I mean, through healing prayer, lots of prayer, then.
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  I prayed for him. Less than, yeah, less than two weeks, I think. Mm-hmm. It was.
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  10 days or something. He woke up one morning and didn't put his back brace on
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  and, like, just got up, walked around, and picked up his kid.
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  And then he's like, I have no pain. Like, I don't have my back brace on.
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  I'm not feeling anything.
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  And sure enough, he went back and got his x-rays taken and no signs of anything. Right.
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  Back fracture that healed in 10 days. Yeah. And right. And then after that event,
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  performed at the Iowa State Fair.
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  Yeah. To a record, I mean, a full house. Yeah.
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  That's good that the Iowa State
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  Fair could have a full house for Christian artists. I think that's good.
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  But when we know the backstory, he was up on stage healed just within those
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  few weeks after he had, and yeah.
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  You kind of also mentioned like the spiritual warfare there.
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  And I heard some other people talking about it on like YouTube.
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  And they were saying like it was, it was attack on, not on Forrest himself,
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  but like attack by Satan on, on God, because he,
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  He sees the threat that Forrest is bringing to him and how he's moving the younger generation.
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  As well. I mean, he wasn't allowed in Canada and the church that was inviting
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  him was actually fined $1,500 because they were going to have this Christian
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  artist come to their church.
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  So yeah, there's spiritual warfare out there in big time. And I think it's getting
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  hotter as time goes on because people are beginning to realize And when you
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  call Satan out on his spot, then he becomes more devious in the way he works. Yeah.
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  So it is real stuff. It's warfare.
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  Yeah. This is kind of another story that would lead into a question.
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  Okay. But there's this guy on YouTube, goes around to college campuses,
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  kind of talks politics with him, whatever, gives his opinions,
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  gives students to come up and like the chance to ask him questions and explain
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  themselves or whatever.
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  And there's this there's this guy
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  that came up wasn't a college student said he was a christian
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  for 30 some years and god called him to show
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  up and fist fight this guy like
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  the guy that goes around the campuses oh so like what do it like how does that
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  see how does that even happen like is ck his initials okay yeah i saw that yeah
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  so how did like how do we even react to that how do we understand that? What happens there?
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  I wonder if God actually asked that guy to do that. I thought that Charlie's response was good.
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  Does that happen? I have not ever seen God put us on a mission that would cause
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  pain to others intentionally.
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  Mm-hmm. Retribution is sort of in our mind, it's not really God's. Yeah.
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  Vengeance is God's, but his vengeance would be on our behalf.
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  He'd do the fighting for us.
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  So having us do the fight without him? I don't think so. Yeah.
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  So I looked at it and I thought it was, basically the question is,
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  did God really send this guy or is he on a mission for somebody other than God?
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  Yeah. And I sort of got there. That's where I came out at.
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  And so I didn't get to the end of the video. He didn't punch him out, did he?
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  I don't know. No, I didn't think so either. I think his bodyguards would have. Yeah.
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  Things get crazy when there's a bunch of college students that. Well, things get crazy.
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  I mean, even pastors in this time are in a danger mode because it is a battle.
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  And we don't want to think of the church, this worshiping group,
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  getting in the crosshairs of culture. We don't want to go there.
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  In fact, however, if we're living for God, if we're representing Christ,
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  we're going to get in Satan's crosshairs.
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  Bottom line, we're going to be there and we're going to remain there.
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  But just like everybody else who's brought Christ to the forefront,
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  let's think of the 11 disciples.
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  So 11 of the 12 died because of their faith.
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  John's the only one lived into old age.
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  That's got to be all right with us. To live for God in such a way,
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  copying David in some aspects, being a man after God's own heart,
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  and trying to live it out in the kingdom, in the here and now.
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  The kingdom we know will be someday because God is king, living it out today
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  as if it were right here right now. And it's going to put us at odds.
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  And it'll mean that we tick some people off pretty royal.
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  Yeah. I mean, it's a humbling reality, but it is reality.
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  I mean, here I am a pastor in the middle of Iowa, and I've been threatened.
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  Yeah. And so it happens.
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  Yeah. And it's what we are all right with because we follow Christ.
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  I mean, he ended up on a cross.
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  We get threats once in a while, eh, no big deal. Yeah.
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  Yeah. It doesn't mean so much when you see what he went through.
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  Right. And I think Hebrews chapter 12, keep our eyes on Jesus,
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  the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the hope set before him,
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  the joy set before him, endured the cross.
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  That's quite a perspective. When you are able to change your perspective from,
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  okay, here's Jesus, he's going to get crucified,
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  to a Jesus set for the joy set before him endured the cross,
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  that should be ours as well.
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  I remember you used that verse when you talked about joy.
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  That was, I don't know, five, six episodes back, something like that.
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  If you want to go back and watch that.
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  It'd be worth your time. It definitely informs a Christian's joy in a different
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  way than we think about being happy, happy, happy.
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  It's a joy that is much deeper, changes our perspective most sincerely.
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  Yeah. For sure. Yeah, so if you're curious about that, go check out that one. Yeah.
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  Check out the other ones that we've made. And we'll do another one on those
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  attributes of the spirit.
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  Those gifts of the spirit fruit of the spirit soon yeah that will be coming up hope you guys enjoyed,
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  Share it with a friend. Hope you learned something. And if you didn't, send a comment.
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  Yeah. Let us know we're not doing good enough.
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  We'll get deeper into it. It's fine. We'll get into the subject deeper.
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  Sometimes. We come with a comic relief here that I don't have any preparation.
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  So when Rowan calls and says, I've got all these questions, you don't need to
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  prepare because I've got so many questions. We don't need to prepare.
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  I come cold. I answer from what I know,
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  and that's the comic relief because I don't get to prepare ahead of time and
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  every once in a while then we'll do a prepared statement like on the gifts of
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  the spirit and we'll do that soon again,
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  but the comic relief is I come in cold yeah we'll let you know when it's prepared
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  if it's not right just assume that he doesn't know what's coming so that's right and I don't yeah,
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  alright well that way I don't get nervous Yeah.
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  Yeah, it feels like there's no pressure then. Yeah, no pressure.
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  No, no, no. You're just in front of the camera with lots of people looking. Yeah.
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  Thank you guys for joining us. We'll see you next time. Lord willing.
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  Thank you for joining us for this podcast. Feel free to become part of this
• 22:32
  ministry by sharing it with others.
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  Our goal is to help each other grow deeper in our understanding of who God is
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  and is calling to us in our daily lives. Thank you again for joining us and may God bless your day.