Coming to you from the Morning Star Mission sponsored studio. This is Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
Helping you take your next step with Jesus. Come as you are. Come as you are. Experience God overcome what seems impossible and live as you never imagined. That's a little creed that I have in my heart for you, and we want that for you in a big way. This whole week we're talking about going under the hood and under the hood is a metaphor very similar to the root system of a tree. It's the unseen things that matter most in the spiritual life. Oftentimes we lead with,
let's get into a small group. Let's join this effort over here. Let's use our gifts. They're all those are great. Those are great. Those are great. But if the engine room of our soul, if the root system of our soul is unattended, those can turn into, uh, painful things. You ever been in a small group and you're like, God, deliver me. Carl.
That's really funny. Oh my goodness.
Come on, let's get out of here. You ever been in a small group and it's God. Deliver me.
Yes, there's a moment. Yes I have.
Deliver me. God. How many more weeks? Four more weeks.
How many more chapters?
Oh.
Yeah.
I'm feeling something.
Are you okay?
Well, know what you can do is you can miss two of them with a cold.
Oh.
Can't miss all of them.
I mean, let's just let's just break it down and get honest here. Yeah, sure. Sometimes you signed up for something. It's like. Yeah. I felt a weak moment, and I signed up for children's ministry. Now I'm enslaved to the children.
I'm stuck coming.
Phoebe.
Phoebe is coming, by the way. But. Yeah.
Oh, no. VBS is awesome. I love VBS, VBS in Alaska was great. We would, we would.
Oh, I can imagine.
Oh, VBS in Alaska was the greatest thing. I mean, it involves shooting things. I mean, that's.
That sounds like a fun VBS to me.
Oh, yeah.
I mean, I remember one VBS, it's like, bring your 20 twos 22 caliber guns.
No, really. Bring your own. Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah. Everybody had them. Bring your 20 twos. We've got the bullets and we're going to do target shooting.
Oh man.
And everybody knew how to handle their guns. So to be fair, it's not like you're handing a weapon to a kid that knows nothing about it.
Sure. Yes.
Very different.
Scenario. Exactly. Yeah. So scary.
I bought my first I bought my first 22. And I got the thing for, I think $18, and I. And I found it in the ads of the newspaper. Do you know what ads are, young Thunder?
I know what ads are.
No, you don't know what ads are.
Well, isn't it the just the section of the newspaper that that has like little, little slips of like, advertisements.
You.
Know, how do you know that young soul?
Well, I mean, magazines have those types of things. And my dad used to have newspapers. I would assume I'd seen those, but yeah.
So I guess. Yeah. So we used to take out ads and you could take out ads. I think back in the day, you know, you didn't want to go over three lines and it got into big dollars.
250 oh, right. Or half a page full page ad. Oh no no.
No no no. I'm talking about in the classified sections. You didn't want to go past three lines. Oh no way. It was three lines. You know, you're grunting basically in an ad.
You got to get the cheap stuff, the.
Cheap table like new.
Um, that's pretty good Shaker design. There you go.
No, you couldn't even use design. No, you just have to go Shaker.
People knew.
$25. Come and get it.
That's awesome.
Yeah. And then you had your phone number in there.
Oh. That's crazy.
That is.
Crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Nowadays were great days, huh? But I digress.
Yes.
Sometimes we find ourselves in situations that we're like, oh my goodness, what is going on? And and the, the thing that you're serving at. I mean, there's some of you are like our teams for 180 Chicago. I pastored church here in Chicago. We got two campuses. Both of them are still we are our newer campus, obviously, but we're meeting in rented space. You know what that means? You back up trailers and you got a team and
you grind it out. And my heart for these guys always is that they don't lose the joy of the Lord in that thing, that it doesn't become something where you're like, God, deliver me from. We call them the crew. Deliver me from the crew. We don't want that. And so the question is, what is it that's under the hood that's going to really keep our soul stoked with passion for Jesus? What is that? And there's several things there. The hidden disciplines. It's it's a heart that is quiet
before the Lord. It's silence. It's solitude, it's prayer. That's why Jesus said, go into the closet. Why private prayers? What God sees in secret, he will reward. There's something about that honest thing that has no performative element in it at all, that is just really attractive to God.
It's beautiful. It's absolutely beautiful. And the question then has to become, if you really go under the hood, is there something else that needs to constantly be on the forefront of our mind to even keep those hidden disciplines in place? And there is. I want to talk to you coming up about two men who were cheating on their wives. Two men that were cheating on their wives came into my office. One had one response, the other another. And what happened?
She was trying to earn her way to God, but God showed her she didn't have to. Ali is in the crew. It's Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
So I want to tell you a tale about two men. And having been a pastor for a lot of years, it's not just twice that I've run into this. And it's not just men, but I want to give you these two men that are a great juxtaposition of choices that are made. I've gotten word from a really desperate wife that her husband was cheating on her. I called him up. He was the CEO of a pretty good sized company. And I said, hey, I need you to come into my office, man. We need to have a chat.
And he said, I figured you'd call. And he came into my office and sat down and I said, what's going on? He said, I'm going to leave. My wife said, what do you mean you're leaving your wife? What's causing this? He said, oh, Carl, I love this new woman. I have a love for her like I never had for my wife. And I said to him. You're lying to yourself. I saw the love you had for your wife. He said. He insisted. He's like no man. Honestly, Karl. I the the the the love that I have for this woman.
I said, bro, that's that's lust that's self-serving stuff going on. That's what you're needing right now. That's not love, bro. And I said, listen to me right now. You're going to walk out of this office, and I'm appealing to you to return to the love of your wife. But if you don't, it's going to cost you dearly. You're going to lose all credibility with your family, friends. You're going to be isolated from God. It's going to be painful because you're not going to greener grass, baby, that
is astroturf. And it hurts when you hit it. He went off and did it. And everything I predicted came to pass. Not because I'm some prophet, but because the Word of God is clear. It was painful. About a year later, another brother came into my office. Same kind of circumstances. Got caught, came in, and I looked at him and I go, man, what's going on? You're sleeping around on your wife. He said, I am. I said,
listen to me. You got to return to that love that you had with your wife, and you've got to do an about face right now. You got to turn around. You got to repent. He wrestled a little bit with the emotions that he was feeling. But ultimately, said, Carl, I'm going to turn around today. And he broke. See, there were no tears from the first guy, but the second guy, man, there were tears galore. Oh man, it was awesome. I bet we sat there and I joined
them in tears. I bet we went through a half a box of Kleenex just pulling them out.
Good.
Repentance is a beautiful thing. When you got both nostrils vacating everything that's in there. It was beautiful to see. And this man ultimately went back to his wife. And they've got a legacy today like you can't believe. Perfect. No. Intact rolling with God. You better believe it. Here's the issue for for both of these guys. Here's the issue for both of these guys. They weren't sleeping around on their wives. First and foremost. They were sleeping around on God.
I want to give you a principle here that is found everywhere in Scripture. When the nation of Israel would walk away from God, you know what it was called? Adultery. That's what it was called.
We don't often think about it like that.
No. Do you know what James half brother Jesus called it? He's talking about you're coveting. You're wanting other stuff. You don't have it. You ask and don't receive because you ask with wrong motives. And then he says, verse four, chapter four. And James, you adulterous people. What?
There's the word.
Don't you know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? And the risk for. Radically transformed people to wander away from their first love is profound. That's what happened to the church of Ephesus. They left their first love. And what the consequence is going to be is their
lampstand was going to be removed. Now they were going to church and they were opening their Bibles, and they were testing apostles that were coming in, whether or not they were teaching the truth, but they were sleeping around on God. Isn't that wild? And I think sometimes we kind of sanitize this thing and we call it backsliding. The problem with the word backsliding is that it's nowhere in the New Testament.
This is accurate.
It's not in the Greek language. It's nowhere. Backsliding is. And I'm just. I love you enough to tell you this. I know this is a hard topic today, but we got to go here. But backsliding is a sanitized way of saying my love and eyes for God have been distracted by a love for something or someone else. That's all it is. And when you when you talk about getting under the sheets with something or someone else in your love for God fades, most people that are born
again can immediately go boom. This is what's pulled me away. This is my new affection. And it can come in so many different forms. Now I want to forecast something for you. We're going to have two days that have the potential to be incredibly powerful. We could see an awakening across this nation. For all of you, our listeners. And I believe this because I see it in Scripture
and it's overwhelming for me. Tomorrow we're going to talk about how to return to your first love, and I'm going to have and I'm going to have a resource for you that is going to give you a biblical path back to your first love. But I just want to ask you what was going on when you weren't sleeping around on God. Just think about that a moment here. And let's not be careful here because it's easy to sanitize sleeping around. Right, guys?
Oh, it's.
Easy.
To do. Well, absolutely. I think that's why we maybe came up with the term backsliding because. Because sleeping around sounds really harsh. It sounds really uncomfortable.
And so we softened it.
No one wants to admit to have done it. So we soften it.
And here's the thing. Rub a dub. We're all in. We can all be in this tub. And this is why this call to intimacy and practicing God's presence daily is so vital. Because there are any number of things that Satan is baiting us with constantly saying, come on over here, fall in love over here. I think the reason God uses adultery is because we all feel that one together. It's like, oh boy.
Yes, everyone knows what it means. Everyone's uncomfortable by it.
Everybody knows the fallout. Everybody gets it. But what if we came back? Here's a question I have for you. What are the things that pull us away from a love for God? Begin to list them. I want you to text in what are those things that pull you away from God? You, not someone else. This is for us to do some soul work together under the hood with God. Because, see, here's the thing. Even the power of prayer in secret, even the power of solitude, the
power of silence, the power of reading the Bible. It's all baked in with having that first love. So churches Ephesus was was warned about mere button down. Man, you're going to church every Sunday. You got it going. You're bored again, there's no doubt about it. But boy, you have left your first love. And I know this sounds raw, but it's biblical. When we're sleeping around on God, our witnesses compromise, our life is compromised, our witness to our
kids and grandkids is just so compromised. All we got to give them is dead orthodoxy. But when we come home, Katie, bar the door. Want to ask you a question? I want you to wrestle with it. And I want you to be honest to God. I'm not going to shout out your phone number. I don't know your name. You. This is totally anonymous, but I want you to ask God right now what has pulled you away from your first love. What affection have you fallen more in love with?
It could be. It could be an adulterous relationship for a percentage of you. But it could be any number of things. And you know what it is? I don't even need to prime the pump text in right now. Make this a holy moment. What has pulled you away from the love of God? Now, here's the hope in this when you begin to identify it. Katie, bar the door. We know the path back. And tomorrow we're going to absolutely ink it for you. What is the affection that
has pulled you away from your love for God? Remember when you were in Fuego for Jesus? What pulled you away? 855. Five. 78. 98. In one word or a phrase or one sentence. No more than one sentence. Just give it to me right now. I'm going to read them on air. Remain totally anonymous. Make this an act of worship this morning. Maybe God's Spirit is telling you, man, I've left my first love and I don't want my lampstand gone. I don't want
my witness compromised. I know you don't want that. See, this is the beauty of the power of the spirit. He can call you back home today. What's pulled you away? Oh, they're coming in right now. This is beautiful. 800 555, 78, 98. I'm going to read them out when we get back. 800 555. 78. 98.
You can take him out of Alaska, but you can't take Alaska out of him. Carl is in the crew. It's Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
Phenomenal responses coming in, asking you questions. Tough one. Today you go to the Word of God and you look at life and you go, wow. What caused the church of Ephesus to leave their first love? And here's the point. It's another affection that's captured our heart. It's just that simple. And the beauty of it is. And the hope is we can return to our first love. We can return. And the lampstand, the light of our life. The intimacy and power of God can be restored in in amazing ways.
Some of you. Some of you have a wayward kid. You know the greatest gift you can give to them. Let loose of any false affections any. And let them see your heart burning hot for Jesus Christ. It's the best gift you can give them. You guys believe me on that one?
Absolutely.
I mean, honestly.
Yeah, it's the best gift we can give anybody in our lives.
Any witness.
I ask you a question. A lot of your very courageous in texting in this morning, I asked the question, what is the affection that has pulled you away from a love for God and their candid here? I'm just going to read them out. Pornography, pride. Sexual addiction, the world. Let me explain the world. Because that is that is a real one. The world is all the world's systems, and it can manifest itself in us getting more political than we are spiritual.
Sure.
Oh yeah.
Frustrations of life. Yeah. You can get frustrated with life and pretty quick that becomes your focal point rather than the goodness of God.
Yeah.
Food, work, sleep, laziness, my job. People, material things, lust, cell phone addiction, comfort. What a.
Great.
Observation.
Wow. That's great.
What a great observation. Beer? Yeah, you were sipping it. Now it's sipping you, man. Sexual addiction. Alcohol again. Porn lust. More money. Better paying job. Yeah. To aspire to. That's great. But when that affection takes us away from a love for God. Oh, my goodness, we're sleeping around on God. Okay, here's the deal. And I want to give you hope today. The Spirit of God that indwells you can turn you around from those affections. Bang! Now, tomorrow, we're going to
spend the whole time. I'm going to have a resource for you that's going to tell you how to regain that love for Jesus that you once had, and make it singular again. Somebody just texted in the American dream. Oh, my friend, don't get me on a soapbox now.
It's real.
American Dream can be one of the greatest distractions from God's vision for our life that you can imagine. Facebook. Social media. Somebody just came in with. Yep. It can bite us all, man. It can be an infection that can pull us away. I just here's all I want you to do with that substitute God that you've put in place that's got you. As James says, it's so hard to hear. And it's like, man, so early in the morning we got to hit this stuff. You adulterous people,
James wrote. You're out looking for everything in this world you covet. You're trying to get something. You ask and your prayers are bouncing off the ceiling because. It's it's so hard to say, but adulterous people just means you're sleeping around on God. In the church of Ephesus was told, return to your first love. and you can just humble yourself under God's mighty hand today and watch what he
can do to restore you. This is Katie Nicole. My God can lift a palm before the Lord and just say, this is what I've had for an affection.
She's a choreographer extraordinaire and everything is Greek to her. Super di is in the crew. It's Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
You know, if you're just catching us right now, we're midstream of some heavy work we're doing. We're talking about identifying those loves that have pulled us away from our first love. Scripture is clear. It's hard to hear, but anything that we find ourselves loving more than God is an adulterous relationship or sleeping around on God. You don't have to go just in Hosea. You can go all the way back to Deuteronomy. You go to James chapter four,
verse four. You can see it right there for yourself. And it's a hard one to hear. But I love how graphic God is because it's that honesty without kind of dumbing it down that allows us to see something in us that's pulled our affection away from God. And we can go, yes, I'm coming back to you, God, coming back to you. And if the Spirit of God is calling you, turn your heart toward home today. Tomorrow, on Freedom Friday, call your friends, neighbors, family. I'm serious.
We are going to have a day of freedom where we are going to give you practical tools about how to return to your first love, how to identify the love that's kind of supplanted God, not kind of, but has supplanted God and how you can get back again. Hormoz Shariat is the Billy Graham to Iran. No joking. 7 million people weekly he is speaking to via the internet and pumping television into the underground church and underground seekers all across Iran. There is something happening in Iran
and could it be linked to Jeremiah 29? Could it be? Hang on. Details are going to be coming up. This is Jordan Feliz. Praise God for that.
He was sharing the gospel on the radio and then he got saved. Young thunders in the crew. It's Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
Well, it's not lost on you. There's a lot going on in the Middle East, primarily Iran. And an attempt from Israel with an assistance from the United States to thwart Iran's ability to get nuclear weaponry. We got the right guy with us, doctor Hormoz Shariat with us. He's the founder and president of Iran Alive Ministries broadcasts into Iran with daily listeners, viewers of 7 million people. How are you doing this morning, Hormoz.
Hey, good morning Carl. A lot is happening, so we're busy serving the people of Iran.
Give us an update from your perspective. We know from the news generally what's happening from a geopolitical standpoint, but can you shed more light on that? Are you getting news from boots on the ground there?
Sure. You know, we broadcast, but we have on the ground churches. We have many leaders inside Iran serving the country, serving through the media. So yeah, I'm in touch with them daily. The situation when you look at from the physical point of view, political economy, I mean, the war suffering, that looks really bad. And looking at it from a spiritual point of view, it continues to be good. The Lord is continuing to save millions of Iranians already. They have.
And even more openness. So looking at the situation, it's really desperate. And right now they have pain, but they have joy also the pain of the war. It's very hard to live in a war, but at the same time, I see joy or hope in the hearts of the people of Iran.
All right, let's back up a little bit. Doctor Hormoz Shariat is our guest right now. Give us your backstory and try to give it at 30,000ft. How in the world did you land in Southern California broadcasting the gospel? They call you the Billy Graham. I know you don't even necessarily love that name, the Billy Graham of Iran, but how did you land there? What's going on? Give us a quick flyby.
Yeah, I was on the streets of Tehran 79, as a young student. As I came to us a PhD in artificial intelligence and Southern California, University of Southern California. And then I got interested in spiritual things. I want to be a good Muslim. So I said, I'm going to read Quran and really dedicate my life to Islam. But when I read Koran one more time, it didn't really satisfy my soul. I said, I'm an open minded person, I'm going to read the Bible also. And that's when
things started happening. Reading the Matthew and reading about Jesus, I went through several months of which one is true, which one is true? Both cannot be true. And eventually I prayed a simple prayer inviting Jesus into my life and amazing, miraculous change happened inside of me first and then my marriage. So I said, this is a powerful message.
I'm selfish if I keep this to myself. I started sharing the gospel with other Muslims and one by one they came to Christ, planted churches in Northern California, started a broadcast after nine over 11, and we have been doing 24 over seven satellite broadcasts the last 15 years. People come to Christ. We take care of them. We
disciple them. We plant underground churches. We plant churches. So broadcast is a tool, satellite broadcast to go over the heads of the mullahs into people's homes and tell them about Jesus. The real hope. The real Savior.
Amen. Doctor Hormoz Shariat is with me right now. Let's get into it. We've been talking all week here on our morning show about the need to deal with the unseen things in our life, the disciplines of prayer and solitude and fasting and Bible study in secret in those quiet places that aren't seen. That's what keeps the church really alive in Iran. Talk to us about what God's doing hormoz.
Well, this is a miracle in the making in the last 40 years. It took him 40 years to come to this point, that Islam is not the way Islam is their source of the problem, and they need to get rid of it. So that's why we see such a high number of conversion. Amazing. The last few years, even this year, we see an exponential growth of number of people coming to Christ. And the reason is, on the one hand, they know Islam is not the way they're done. They're done with Islam. They've been set free
from that spirit of Islam, by the way. It's so strong. It's so strong. Muslims are not allowed to question Islam and look, but the people of Iran are looking, they're comparing, they're studying, they're reading, and many of them are coming to Christ. So the great miracle has been that the Prince of Persia, the spirit over Iran, have been defeated and weakened, and the captives are being set free by Jesus.
You know, you speak to it being a place of Christian revival and awakening and you appeal to. Last time we had you here was Jeremiah 49. And I read, and I will set my throne in Elam, which is Iran, and destroy their king and officials, declares the Lord. But in the latter days I will restore the fortress of Elam, declares the Lord. Now, I've done a lot of study
on this one in the last couple of weeks. I know that there's great theologians that hold to this is a future fulfillment, but many hold to this was fulfilled in 600 BC. Where do you stand on this prophecy of Jeremiah?
Yes, I've studied it very deeply. I've read all those historical documents. For example, Jeremiah 4934, he says, I will break the bow of Iran, the base of power. Israel will attack Iran and will destroy its military bases, the nuclear sites and all that. But what is in those verses is happening right now that Iran is losing the base of its power. This base of its spiritual power is Islam. It's gone now. Nuclear sites are gone. Missile
sites are gone. So then after that, you read in Jeremiah 49 that Iranians will go to a suffering, and that's what's happening and will happen, continue to happen. But not many people know that God promises that. He said he will set his throne in Iran. People know Jeremiah 317 that God says he will set his throne in Jerusalem. But not many people know God will set his throne in Islam. Also, what that means is that Iran will be a Christian nation. You know, when I say that,
people say, are you crazy? Iran will be a Christian nation. Where did you get that idea? And I tell him, hey, I stole that idea. Where did you get it? I stole it from Jeremiah 4938. Because God promises that Iran will be saved as Israel will be saved.
You know, it's interesting in acts two, when Peter preached on that day of Pentecost, among those who had the gospel translated into their language were Elamites. So those are Iranian born again Christians. This dates back 2000 years ago, that God was already doing a work of evangelism in Iran. Speak to that one Hormoz.
You know Cyrus is the only one God calls him besides Jesus. He calls him my Messiah and Isaiah 40. So what we see in Genesis 12, God says, I will bless those who bless Israel. That's a promise. And in the Bible, it's only Persia and Cyrus that qualifies for that blessing part. So there is a favor on Iran. God is blessing Iran because Iran blessed Israel.
Hormoz Shariat. My guest right now, what are you seeing practically that are the spiritual disciplines in the life of the Iranians that makes them strong at the threat of persecution, even martyrdom? What is going on is their prayer movement, is their introspection, is their repentance, is their all the above. What is God doing?
It is all of the above, and it's a move of the spirit. When we talk about the move of the spirit Iran, we think conversion, conversion, conversions, yes, of course, but the work of the Holy Spirit does not stop at conversion. He continues to work in the hearts of Iranians. They love Jesus. You know, Carl, when you come from darkness, you appreciate the light even more. They have come out of darkness, the oppression of that spirit. And now they have come to know Jesus. They have come to know
God that God is love. God is not hatred. God is not violence. So they fall in love with Jesus. Number two, the Holy Spirit. After conversion, they have taken away the spirit of fear. The spirit of fear is taken away. What is it? What does it replace it? Love, power and sound mind. So we see the Holy Spirit working among Iranians. According to that verse, he has not given us the spirit of fear. So we see a love.
Iranian Christians are known for their love and people. Muslims are attracted to the love in the hearts and the actions of Iranian Christians. So many conversions are coming because family member comes to Christ and the rest is saying, hey, what happened to you? Now you have love, you have joy, you have peace. We want that. We want that. So it's an amazing thing.
Doctor Hormoz Shariat with us today and we've got a link for you to learn more about this incredible work and really get some context so that you can pray. Text alive to 800 555 7898. Just the word alive to 800 555 7898.
You're listening to Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
Here's where we've been, and then we're going to pick it up with Gary Thomas coming up here in a moment. Listen, it's hard to hear, but any love that is redirected affection for anything other than God, and he's not looking for perfection. He's just saying at the very core of your soul, is there a love for God there, or are you? Well, here's the word committing adultery, sleeping around on God. And we've had a slew of you respond
here from social media. It can be food, it can be the ladder you're climbing in the corporate world, it can be. I mean, fill in the blanks. Social media is huge, guys. There can be affections that draw us away and they come in any form. Satan does not mind what baits you as long as you're sleeping around on God. Gary. Thomas. You're here in my heart here this morning. We have got a big group of of Jesus followers listening to you right now. You and I,
we've been pastors for decades. We've seen this happen. It's it's an amazing thing that we can go white hot from a relationship with Jesus and then find ourselves getting under the sheets with substitute gods. How does that happen, Gary?
You know, I think God takes us through a process. I call it divine disillusionment. We're looking for our parents to love us like only God can love us, and they just can't. Then we think it's a romantic partner. Then we think it's a child. Because I can control that. I've had wives, young mothers. Tell me, Gary, is it possible for me to love my child more than I love God? And I'm like, well, God has a cure for that. It's it's called that adolescence. Just give it
time and then even we'll go into the church. And all the while, God is waiting. You've been disappointed by your parents. You've been disappointed by your romantic partner. You're disappointed by your children. You're disappointed by your church members. Will you look to me? That's what we find in James four eight when he says, draw near to God
and he will draw near to you. And clearly he is talking to believers when he says that, just take a step toward God and find that fulfillment that you're looking everywhere else to find.
And here's the wild thing. I'm so glad you were in James four eight, which is so providential. I don't even know if you heard this. I've been in James four four because they're struggling with I want this, I want that, I want this, and their prayers are bouncing off the ceiling. Gary and and then James half brother Jesus says, you adulterous people. What? He's calling them spiritual adulterers, getting under the sheets with all their passions. And then
you're right. He says, come back to me, draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. It's like Satan has this, I don't know. He's got this plethora of things that try to draw our affection away from that white hot love for God. And Gary, this can happen to pastors too, right, brother?
Oh it can. I mean ambition, acclaim from others instead of appreciation from God and an affirmation from God. We can look everywhere else. But Carl, a lot of it, I think, is that Christians often don't know how best to connect with God. They don't know how to get their heart needs met. They don't know what it means to set their souls and their minds and their hearts on God. They're trying to one size fits all spirituality
when God made us so different. He's a he's a creative God who created us to relate to him in different ways. And so sometimes it might just be the way that we're trying to meet with him that keeps us from finding that fulfillment and that joy and expectation in our worship.
I love it. Okay, hang on, Gary, can you hang with me for a moment here, my man?
Absolutely.
Okay. Hang on. More with Gary Thomas coming up. And as a matter of fact, let's pick away at nine ways to connect with God. You might feel far from him this morning. God can bring you home, and it's a beautiful thing. Hold on to not the dream. Certainly not the American dream, but God's vision of a 30, 60, 100 fold life. Abundant life. Hang on.
It's Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
With me right now is Gary Thomas. I didn't even ID the guy. Poor guy. Teaching pastor at Cherry Hills Community Church in Highlands Ranch, Colorado. And he's the reason I brought you in here, Gary, is because I wanted to hear some thoughts. You've written a book called Sacred Pathways and and boom crew. We're not selling books here today. We're going to get a we're going to get some nuggets from this. But give me you got nine ways
to connect with God. Give me the top two that you think would deal with this issue of spiritual adultery when we let other affections steal our love for God.
Well, let me say first, a therapist friend of mine once told me, if you're not worshipping God, you're addicted to something. So when you're talking about adultery, you're entirely on we will worship. The question is, who will we worship? Or even what will we worship? And so the pathway is recognize there's different ways that we connect to God so that he fills our hearts. Naturalists are a common one when people get outdoors. Psalm 91 says, the heavens
declare the glory of God. If you're a naturalist, whether it's the stars, whether it's the mountains, whether it's just the sand, you're just seeing the forest. You're just overcome by God's creative power, his beauty. Uh, a mountain climber once told me he was up on a mountain that probably nobody else had climbed that year. And there was this stunning flower. And it just hit him that God creates beauty for the sake of beauty. And that revealed
to him who God is. Just a powerful way. Yes, there are activists that their heart is filled when they're fighting God's battles. Caregivers, their hearts are filled when they're caring for others. In Jesus name, it's they feel closest to God when they're providing care to someone. There's so many ways we could just find out when we give our hearts and minds over to meeting with God in these different ways, we're ruined to the world. We're ruined to the idols.
Yeah. That's beautiful. Gary Thomas, my guest right now. You know, Gary, repentance. It has been so of Satan. He pulled a good one. He pulled it off with rainbows. He pulled it off with the word repentance. He is great at rebranding. Good words. Repentance isn't an angry word, is it, Gary? It means turn around. And there's some people right now that know they're sleeping around on God with some crazy, cheap substitute God,
and they're addicted to it. And they wonder why their radiance has dried up, why their wayward kid doesn't find anything attractive in them. What does repentance look like in Scripture? Pour it out here for a second.
Yeah, well.
Repentance is a word of love. God was silent for 400 years between the Old and New Testament. When John the Baptist came the first prophet to speak again. His first message was, people can look this up, repent, and you think, well, that's John the Baptist. He's kind of angry. He wore the animal skins. He ate bugs, right?
He's he's crazy.
Jesus's first message was really was literally repent because you say you're going the wrong direction. It is the the biggest word of love is somebody going the wrong direction, and that direction is taking them off the cliff. It is a word of love to say, hey, why don't you turn around? You don't have to fall. You don't have to destroy yourself. You don't have to keep looking in the wrong place. You've got to turn and look somewhere else. Is what you've been saying this morning? Turn
from the idols because they're ruining you. It's. It's about compulsion. It's about being driven, not being fulfilled, not being loved, not being affirmed by God. You're just telling people to turn around. What you're doing isn't working. God offers something else. Draw near to God. He'll draw near to you.
Yeah, you're right back at James four eight, aren't you, my man? Oh, isn't it good? Gary, here's what's great. When we strip it all down, get rid of all the religious pretense. We're all on this same battleground. We're all on the same turf, dude. No one avoids it. I mean, lead pastors. How much? And I was a lead pastor of a big old church in Alaska. And I'll tell you right now, Gary, you and I both know Satan is setting bait for pastors, that you find
your validation in nickels and noses, brother. It's like a right. Come on.
It is. Look, every.
Heart is an idol factory. It really is. And we can't afford to lose our taste for God. And that's why I think it's so important to find out how we best connect with God because we're, as you are saying, we're constantly being lured away. And you develop spiritual tastes just like you develop taste buds. If people grew up in Japan, they would have a very different breakfast than if they grew up in Chicago.
Because you just develop.
What you're hungry for. Well, we can move our souls in that direction. We could train our souls to hunger after God.
Boom!
Gary, you're crushing it. Well, you're on the frequent flyer list. First time you've been here with me, but you're on the frequent flyer list. Here's what I want you to know. Boom! Crew, listen to me. He's got. I'm going to give you a link. He's got some most popular blog posts here and all kinds of resources. And yeah, you can get his book to Sacred Pathways. The key word is going to be sacred. But I want to tell you what's going on. How porn creates Angry Men, one of his
most popular blog posts. God didn't tell you to marry your spouse. Another popular blog post. There's a ton of these really provocative what God asks of husbands killer stuff. So text the keyword sacred. We're going to get you hooked up with Gary. And this is powerful content here. All free content. There's a ton of it there. You can go buy a book as well, but check it out. Text sacred to 800 555 7898. Sacred to 800 555 7898. And we're going to watch God do something here today.
You know, final word here, Gary got 30s. What's on your heart? What's the Spirit of God saying for you to urge people to do right now? Right now.
There's no more exciting life than to worship God and to be used by God. And when you worship wrong things, you're living for yourself. The wonderful thing about being affirmed by God is that you're able to give yourself fully over to others, a pastor said, I figured this out. If I'm good enough for God, I'm good enough for others. And so it's receiving so that you can give. And that's the whole point is not just to be fulfilled, it's to have a life of reaching out to others.