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Joanne, Thank you for being patient and welcome to the Jesus Christ Show.
Hi Jesus. My question has to do with being a fairly new believer. I have a lot of background and spirituality and other different walks of life, but being middle aged and becoming a born again Christian at a later age, I have a lot of pull to want to go back to, you know, things of the flesh and the world and things like that, and it's hard and I I just sort of sometimes want to throw my hands in the air and just say, Okay, this is too
hard for me. I'm I can't do this. So what are your suggestions for someone being a newer believer that's being drawn back to the other ways of the older life.
Well, first, I'm very proud of you for even bringing it up and recognizing it, because there's a lot of people that don't, or there's a lot of people that pollute their faith with the luggage from other belief systems or other things that they did or past lifestyles, whatever it was or may be, and they just pollute it
and kind of ignore it. So I'm proud of you that you're even acknowledging it, and that you're brave enough to even say, Hey, this is what I think is going on, and I'm fearful of it.
The process is the same as anything else.
I mean, Paul said it himself, and this is somebody who had, you know, a later conversion by some standards, said the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. There is always going to be the pull of other things, always, whether it's other belief systems or just stuff you know, the phone ringing things to do. There's always going to be distract in life. They keep you from anything and everything, and the best way to do it is to build patterns and habits like anything else. That's what you did
over those years. And other belief systems, other processes, you spent time in them, and that's what makes it difficult. That's why you harken back to that, because you yield to that which is easier, that which is known, versus
that which is new and more difficult. And so you need to build new practices and that is that build regiments for now, and whether it's reading scripture, going to Bible studies, going to church, hanging out and fellowshiping with other believers, both young and old, in different stages of their walk, you know, signing up for the New Believers class at your church, doing things that are going to
build good habits and new habits. And the more you learn, the more though those old habits will fall away, the more you build new ones and establish that relationship like anything else. I mean, you know, you've been through breakups, Joanne, and and you can be with the greatest new guy and you're still going, oh, but that other person used to do this, or you know that that just happens.
That's part of the process.
And you learn to see the newness of the situation for the glory that it is and for the freshness that it is, and those that you know, Scripture says that the new person is created and the old self will.
Die and fall away.
And but that's a process too, right.
And I am doing all the things you just suggested, all right, with Bible study and classes and you know, other fellowship and things like that, And I am I am doing that. It's just that I get sometimes to a point where I get either exhausted, exasperated, or just tired.
Sure something new, it's much easier to go back to the old ways always, always, it's just not better.
So I should just stay on what I'm doing and no other suggestions.
I wish I had a magic wand for you, but I think this is what makes it worthwhile. And a lot of people say, well, gosh, what about this one?
About that?
But really the common sense and the practical are God given and the solutions to these things. It's like saying, well, I want patience. You know how you have patience having to be patient, you know, and you know how you build you don't you don't be careful when you ask God for humility. By the way, a lot of people forget that it comes with humiliation often. So it's these things that you want and that are going to be part of your character, that you want to be part
of your character have to come with time. It's the it's the forging process. Like with steel. If if you try and go for that, when you heat up a metal and it gets that red hot appearance and they take those hammer and tongs and they start beating it into a shape that there's a cooling down process or a curing process that they use, and if they cure it quick in cold water, the metal becomes fragile and
brittle and can break easy. The whole purpose of forging and to strengthen the metal and strengthen the new shape is to slowly cool it down so that as it slowly cools down, it becomes stronger and more dense. So when you want something in life, if it's important enough, you want to go through the process. You want to take the time. If you rush through the process of something important, often it becomes kind of a faux version.
It's brittle, it's fragile, it's thin. It may look the same on the outside, but really it doesn't have the same sturdy structure.
Soundness to it.
So what ends up happening is, Joanne, you leave today and you try and do it quick, then I'm going to get a call back from you in a month or two going, oh, it broke down and this that. But if you slowly, baby steps, little bit of increments to build that structure within you and trust that God says in scripture that he is the author and finisher of your faith. So although you participate in that, God
is doing a work inside you. And I'm trying to build those things and build that structure inside you so that you are strong and can withstand great things rather than just on the outside. Look, well, she looks like a Christian, smells like a Christian, sounds like a Christian. Well, everything should be good, but no, I want it to be a real, honest to goodness change inside you and that that just comes with time.
Honey, that's just the process.
Thank you so much.
You're welcome and you are on the right path. I'm very proud of her. There is a lot of luggage out there as you or on your quest, and people tend to bring it with them.
You know.
It's like talking to some friends of mine and they're moving and not just moving, you know, from a house to another house, they're moving out of state and the process that goes with that, and it's interesting to hear them talk about. You know, one of them's more sentimental and you know, holds onto a lot of things throughout life, and the other is much more pragmatic and practical. Well, if you haven't seen it in a year, then you
don't need it. And to go through that cleansing process of removing certain things from your life to move into a new area or just you know, start fresh, and those types of that's very difficult. It's very difficult with the physical, with the you know, the tangible and the things in your garage, let alone when you spiritually and a lot of you know, Christians, and you can't be you can't fall into this when you're sharing your faith that you act like it's not a big deal for somebody to jump in.
Okay, come into my pool.
I know you've been in that pool forever or you've been in that belief system, but come over here. And sometimes Christians do it as if it's a notch on your belt, and it's like, oh, well, they said the words were good, everybody's good, and they're done all right, moving on next, next, And do you know Jesus Christ
is your personal savior. And meanwhile, this person is going, wow, you picked me up and dumped me off in this foreign land and I don't recognize anything, and I'm nervous and scared and sort of excited at the same time, and I don't know what I'm doing. And you know, those moves are are huge. And it's not just words, and it's not just the bat in the eye. It's not just those things that make the you know, total sum of the experience and coming to something new and
committing yourself to it. It's a process, and you're going to be shedding layers of skin from the old you as you adapt and build layers of new.
Skin for the new you.
And I am proud of anybody who is bold and brave enough to go through that and experience both that physically, but emotionally and spiritually as well. Genna, Welcome to the Jesus Christ Show.
Hello. Hi, what's your question?
Thank you for taking my fall. It's great to talk to you.
My pleasure. How can I help you? Thank you?
Question is why is Jesus Christ being referred to as the God's one and only son?
As I believe that.
I think it's about that we're all God's children.
Good question.
There's there's differences in the way it's stated, and if you notice, there's also, you know, some capitalization changes when it's spoken about in scripture referring to when referring to me as God's son, versus referring to the population of Christianity as children of God.
So you look at a couple of things.
The big difference is between the sense in which I am the son of God and that all people that are Christians are sons of God. So first you have to look at the uniqueness, the difference of the son of God that would put Christ as the son of God, whereas everyone else is only a son of God.
Small ass.
Why because when you're dealing with Christ's deity and the difference is between the two, Christ is the son of God. With this capitalist for a reason humans are adopted, if you will. So Jesus falls under the guise of son of God by eternal right and inheritance. You read about that in Colossians one fifteen. Whereas humans are sons of God by adoption you read about that Romans eight fifteen. So Christ is the of God because he is God in the very nature of God John one to one.
So the difference is really dealing with the nature inherently. So you look over at man and you say, well, what about man? Well, man is created in the image of God Genesis one twenty seven, and remade in the image of via the redemption in Colossians three ten. So you can think of it this way, I, as Jesus, is of God by his very nature, but you are
as a human from God by way of creation. I am divine in nature, but humans only participate in the salvation and not the divine nature two Peter one four. And you can participate only in God's moral attributes, you know, like holiness, love, those types of things, but you cannot participate in his non moral attributes like infinity, eternity or any of.
The other.
You know, larger aspects dealing with the omni attributes and things like that. So there's a difference between the actualness and of sonship versus in this case, the adoption sonship. So there are some differences there, and it's usually spelled out in scripture. I would go back to those verses when critics ask A book by Norman Geisler has a wonderful breakdown as he is wont to do about this, and shows that Jesus is the son of God, is
the natural son, no beginning, the Creator, God by nature. Well, whereas humans, as sons of God are adopted sons have a begin are a creature, not the Creator, and not God by nature. So that's what separates those two and specifically puts them together. Christian Welcome to the Jesus Christ Show.
Yeah, so I am real quick. My phone might die in the middle of this, So just try and answer whatever I say. But there's been an overall theme. I'm a very faithful person, and I've been so since I was little. I'm a college student, and I find more and more in these debates I'm unable to back myself up. And I say debates because I actively engage people and try and show the light and show them the truth. And I get questions such as, like, you know, are
humans God's only focus? If so, why is a universe so big and so elaborate? And and I can't answer that? And also being good just because God says so in the Bible? Is that the most noble way to be good? And and isn't there a greater humunity that we need to live for? And I guess the overall theme is the Bible being taking more figuratively now as opposed to literally. When I grew up, it was all literal, and now it's becoming more and more figurative, which I think loses
some of the credibility. And I'm finding myself questioning my faith. I'm sorry, I'm talking so fast. My phone is just really close to dying, okay. And I guess one of the biggest things is, you know, looking at the so and so begat so and so begat coming up with the age of the Earth and having that fly in the face of so much scientific research whether the Earth is, you know, less than twenty thousand years old or more than four billion years old. I think that's one of
the biggest inconsistencies. And I'm finding myself.
But you know that all Christians don't believe that there there are there are old universe creationists.
I know, I know, I know, And that's that's part of the reason. Is that part of my problem is, you know, how figurative can we take the Bible?
Well, yeah, but that's that could that can be into interpretation. You could obviously make an argument that to try and guess the age of the Earth based on genealogies that may or may not be complete is a bad way to judge the age of the Earth. So that's that's that's a whole different that's separate from everything else, some of the other concerns that you're bringing up. Remember, just because you don't have the answer doesn't mean there isn't an answer.
Christian.
That's ridiculously ridiculous, and you've got to turn your radio down Otherwise, it's going to cause problems, So so don't assume that you don't. There's a lot of questions you don't have the answers to, and it doesn't make them wrong. There's a lot of trigonometry or geometry questions you may not be able to answer. It doesn't mean that those things don't exist. When it comes to your first question, you say, the universe is so big? What was the format that you that you voice that.
You know, well, are humans God's only focus? Are we his only concern in the entire universe? Knowing that the fact that there is light years and light years and light years of space.
Yes, that's what scripture says. The assumption that that is somehow out of balance is ridiculous because no scientist understands completely what all of those light years and light years and light years of space do for mankind. The sheer numbers that it would take to try and calculate why life is here and how it is here are so impossible that to make that statement and say that each of those things don't have a purpose or a place
hanging in the balance is ridiculous. That it's like saying that every grain of sand doesn't have a purpose in the gravitational pull or balance of the Earth. It does every little bit of the elements of the Earth make it different from all other planets, even in your own solar system. So if that makes the Earth's special in a way that is hard to comprehend, then equally it is hard to comprehend the special lists of humanity as it compares to God.
And I mean also, I was confronted with the thing that I couldn't answer, and that is, you know, people say believing and I agree that believing that all of this is random is is so hard to believe. But believing that something, somebody out there or some being out there created it all that seems much more unnatural than a gradual process of growth and evolution. I mean, how do you no, no, no, no, no.
Art But because you have to already start the ball rolling in evolution. So everyone jumps to that point and says, oh, well, look this just kind of it was already there and it just gradually happened. No, there is no there's no reason for you to believe that if you put a violin in a corner in a long period of time, that it's going to become a Cello. They're they're just because they're similar in nature. You wouldn't assume that they came from each other directly. You'd say that they came
from similar to science or specificities. But nothing in science ever, ever, states that the effect is greater than the cause. Ever, in any science, it's always the cause is greater than the effect. Right, Well, in evolution, that's backwards because you have to come from nothing.
Do you believe in evolution?
Well, no, not.
In the evolution that that they're trying to make you swallow. In adaptation, absolutely, of course there's adaptation. There's adaptation. There's a difference between and scientists still have problems with the concept of certain types of evolution, which is why you get theories like punctuated equilibrium And yes, how old do.
You think the Earth is? Because that's one of my biggest concerns.
Well, that's outside of the scope of this program. But people like my producer Neil believe that it's not six thousand years old. But there's nothing that necessarily says that it's builllions of years old. Either the reason why the the the reason why the scientist has to argue that concept or that theory of it being billions of years old is because they need that time to be able to have transitionary forms to get to where you are now.
It wouldn't work in other in other words, but there's no way for them to prove that, So they're all theories.
Now.
There are many Christians. I'll direct you to Reasons dot Org. There are many Christians that believe that the that the Earth is probably uh, you know, fifteen million or more years old. So it's it's not about that. But you can't just say, well, scientists say this because scientists changed all the time, and the theory of evolution is a theory for a reason.
It is it is it was the theory of relativity. I mean, and we.
Assume that to be, but there's but there's changes in the theory of relativity all the time, and that the general theory of relativity changes, just as dark Romanism doesn't exist anymore. The new theory of evolution is not the old theory of Darwinism, right, and that every five years scientists gather to try evolutionists that are scientists try and gather to come up with, well, what do we believe now? Because there isn't a consistency.
Is there a push on the believers side of the believers front, and maybe in a scientific way to justify all of our beliefs and create better and more elaborate speaking points other than twipping to a page in the Bible and interpreting that a different way or using that to convince in an unconventional way.
Is there.
It would be silly to use the scripture to argue about the scientific truths. It'd be silly. And there's many reasons. Dot org would be one of them. Doctor Hugh Ross and the folks over there at Reasons to Believe are focused on they're all scientists. He is an astrophysicist.
Uh.
There are chemists, there are biologists. There are all kinds of uh GISTs over there that you can reference if that happens to be your your focus or concern. But a lot of the things you're throwing out are unreasonable that people are throwing to you. The things you know about evolution and the pan sperming at the beginning, this primordial soup where everyone came from. You still have to explain where.
That came from. And they say, well, there's.
A big bane or a cosmic Uh, just I mean, every every planet in orb and everything out there is just a big glob of chemicals and something so happened to crash into us.
Which I think that's what they But that still argues again, now where did that stuff come from?
Right?
Something has to be eternal, and then you have to go back to you know, the theory of relativity, and you have to go back to the law of thermodynamics, both first and second and then and.
Then I say then, I say, well, all that stuff came from God. And then they say, well where did God come from? And then but you can't always been there, and they say that seems like an easy way to not answer the question that it's not.
It's a reasonable way.
It's a very reasonable way that the creator of the universe would have to be uncreated by definition, because if something created the creator, now that creator's creation and not the creator.
It is completely reasonable.
Like, isn't it just a paradox? I mean no, this is this is the most skeptically I've ever questioned my faith. And that's good time.
You're gonna have to I'm sorry, Christian, You're gonna have to hold on as we have a break.
But hold on.
I know your phone's going out because I do want to talk to you more. Ah, Christian's phone died and we were going at mock speeds trying to get those things out. So I want to downshift a little bit and go over some things because there was a lot of garbage that was being tossed at Christian as he's trying to defend himself. I think it's healthy to question your faith. It's it's healthy to question your belief system. I've said it here on the program many times before.
You will not change the mind of a avout Atheist, a devout Protestant, of a devout Catholic, a devout Mormon, a devout anything. You will not change the mind of anybody that's devout, unless they're a devout truth seeker. Those are the peoples who Those are the people who seek constantly and want to know the truth. If you just and it's not to say that you don't adhere to something,
you should. You know, an open mind has the same qualities or properties as an open mouth, and that is that it should remain open until something of nutrients falls into it, and then you chew and swallow and digest. So I appreciate that Christian was questioning, but some of the things were just ridiculous. One of the questions, is it good to or should you be good just because God says so? If you're not good because God says so, you're gonna be good because someone else says so. I
mean by what standard, societal standard, individual standards. You know, if you go by society. In Nazi Germany, the society said it was okay to kill Jews and Gypsies and blacks and gays. So is it society that says what's good and bad?
No.
The whole purpose, the whole thing about good and bad, and the fact that you know inherently that Hitler was evil, no matter who you are, no matter what your belief system is, is because there is something written on your heart by your creator that tells you what good and bad is. In every society. It's wrong to steal, it's wrong to rape, it's wrong to murder in every society. And these things come from somewhere outside. That's another thing,
the understanding of God's existence. Everything in this universe is contingent upon something else. It's pointing to something else to show its existence. The tree to the acorn to the tree to the acorn, you to your parents, to their parents, so on. So it's reasonable to say that the universe has to point outside itself to explain its existence. That is reasonable. And another thing is that Christians have no problem. The Bible doesn't oppose the special theory of evolution. You
know that there's great change. It can be possible within fixed kinds. It's the general theory of evolution where there's a problem. The amieba to human being. There is too many questions that are left unanswered by that theory. Do not buy the hype, and people get insecure and they don't want to defend themselves because they feel stupid, don't.
Daryl. Welcome to the Jesus Christ Show.
Hi, Jesus, I have a question for you regarding being filled with the spirit and being baptized in the Holy Spirit, and hoping you can give me some insight into your word.
Okay.
My understanding is that when I believe and receive you, that I then also receive your spirit and am filled with the Holy Spirit. But I have those that have been telling me lately that there's a difference between being filled with the spirit and being baptized in the Holy Spirit, and they are using as the criteria, which I struggle with that you're not baptizing the Holy Spirit unless you're speaking tongues. And I know that tongues is a gift
from you and not necessarily requirement for my salvation. But is it true that to be baptized in the spirit. I mean, maybe that's part of the question. Is there a difference between being filled with your spirit and baptized with the Holy Spirit?
Let me let me ask you also, do they talk about the laying on of hands.
Yes, they do, okay that and they use obviously.
Peter mandate to lay hands on to.
It and where you know where they laid hands on people and then they immediately receive the spirit. And then they use the example of Paul who people I think it was Antonius who said that they didn't they had received Christ, but they weren't aware of the Holy Spirit, and then he laid hands on them and they received it.
This can become a very heated debate in Christianity and different there are different factions as to believers, and some people get very wrapped up in the Holy Spirit saying no, you've got to do this and you've got to speak in tongues, and you've got to do all these things.
Not true.
That is not what scripture says. As a matter of fact, it says quite the contrary. It says that certain people will get certain gifts. In Corinthians, it talks about there will be those that have the gift of teaching and those that have the gift of prophecy, and there will be, you know, all kinds of different gifts, and not everybody has those gifts.
That's what makes them gifts, right.
And so this is can be a touchy subject with some I will point out that there are some inconsistencies to their belief and what Scripture says, depending on where they stand in the spectrum of.
That belief system.
But for instance, there are times in scripture where I laid my hands on somebody and they were healed, right, But there's also times where I didn't lay hands on them and they were healed. There was even times, if you remember the centurion, the servant of the Centurion, where I wasn't anywhere near his servant and he was healed. So there's also cases where people were laid hands on in acts and they spoken tongues. But there's also times where people weren't didn't have hands laid on them, and
still spoken tongues. Acts nineteen four through six, also Acts ten forty four through forty six. So just on the surface of their arguments, if that's the arguments they're making, there's problems.
But salvation.
Having salvation means that you've received the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the one that brings you salvation. You can kind of see it this way, Darryl, is the Holy Spirit brings you to me, I bring you to the Father. So that process you couldn't even get to me. You couldn't even believe in that process unless you had the Holy Spirit in your life. Now are there are others that say, no, there's this secondary thing, And I wonder sometimes if people aren't adding things to the process
to make them feel more special. I'm not saying that in this particular case. I'm saying that if you look at things like tongues, the gift of tongues is misused. In the majority of churches that use it, they don't use it in the biblical sense. The three different types of glossialalia or speaking in tongues, and it gets to be like a look, I'm a haver, have not, or look what extra? How much better a Christian I am
than you? That stuff bothers me. But check out those scriptures and that will help you.
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