May 12, 2017 Show with Catherine L. Morgan on “Thirty Thousand Days: The Journey Home to God”

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Live from the historic parsonage of 19th century gospel minister George Norcross in downtown

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Carlisle, Pennsylvania, it's Iron Sharpens Iron, a radio platform on which pastors,

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Christian scholars, and theologians address the burning issues facing the church and the world today.

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Proverbs 27 verse 17 tells us, Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.

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Matthew Henry said that in this passage, quote, we are cautioned to take heed whom we converse with and directed to have in view in conversation to make one another wiser and better.

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It is our hope that this goal will be accomplished over the next hour and we hope to hear from you, the listener, with your own questions.

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Now here's our host, Chris Arntzen. Good afternoon

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Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, Lake City, Florida, and the rest of humanity living on the planet

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Earth who are listening via live streaming. This is Chris Arntzen, your host of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, wishing you all a happy Friday.

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On this Friday, the 12th of May 2017, the Friday before Mother's Day, and let me take this opportunity to wish all you moms and expecting moms out there a very happy Mother's Day and may the

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Lord bless you richly and surround you with people who you love and also who in return demonstrate how much they love you and value your role in their lives.

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And I want to give a particular Happy Mother's Day shout out to the woman who led me to Christ back in the 1980s,

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Susan from Newville, Pennsylvania. I want to give her a Happy Mother's Day wish and also

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I'd like to give a Happy Mother's Day wish to her daughter, Katie, who is in Orlando, Florida, and I hope the both of you are listening or at least will listen later on the archive recording.

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And you both have been a very special part in my life and I thank

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God for you. Well today we are going to be interviewing for the very first time on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, Catherine L.

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Morgan. She is a Christ follower, the wife of Pastor Michael Morgan at Calvary Wellspring of Aurora, Colorado.

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She's a mother of three, an author, a conference speaker, and blogger at CatherinesLetters .com,

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and today we are discussing one of her books, 30 ,000 Days, The Journey Home to God, and it's my honor and privilege to welcome you to Iron Sharpens Iron for the very first time,

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Catherine L. Morgan. Thank you, Chris. It's an honor to be here. And before I go into the subject of your book,

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I'd like you to give a little explanation of Calvary Wellspring of Aurora, Colorado, where you are a member and where your husband is on the pastoral team there.

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And I'm wondering with the name Calvary Wellspring, do people ever wander in by mistake thinking that they're entering into a day spa or anything like that?

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We get a lot of people who think they're coming into Calvary Chapel, which we are not. Okay. But I've never heard the day spa thing.

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Well, tell us something about Calvary Wellspring of Aurora. Yeah, my husband and I actually were on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ for a number of years, and we left staff with crew to plant a church, which is sort of a long story, but we ended up coming back to the

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Denver area where we had been serving, where we had served previously in the inner city with Campus Crusade.

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We did inner city ministry, and then we moved away and did prison ministry, and then we returned back to start this church.

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So it was just initially the two of us, and we quickly recruited two other couples that we were friends with, and it was the six of us adults and our three little children who were all toddlers.

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And we started in our living room about 12 years ago, and the Lord has been really gracious to sustain us through a lot of difficult years and slow growth, and he's just been awesome.

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And today we are still small compared to a lot of churches, but really thriving and just a really joyful congregation.

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We just joined a network. We originally just called Wellspring Community Church, but we joined the

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Calvary family of churches this year and linked arms with some like -minded churches in the area.

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So now we're part of a bigger network which has been really encouraging. Can you tell us something about that Calvary network of churches, because I don't believe

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I'm familiar with it. Yeah, so they partner with the

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Southern Baptist Convention and with Acts 29, so it's sort of a

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Reformed Baptist circle of churches. The initial church in that network,

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I believe the story is, was a replant. It was a church that asked a new pastor to come in and kind of give them a kickstart because they were dwindling, and that went smashingly.

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And Pastor Mark Hallock really just did a wonderful thing, and pretty soon other churches started asking for help with replanting.

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So initially I think all of the churches that joined up were replants of older kind of dying congregations.

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We were the first church that was not a replant, we just were, they call us an adoption.

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They adopted us in because we had so much in common with them. So it's been a real privilege and an honor to partner, and it sure makes you feel less alone in the world when you're doing this thing together with other churches.

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Amen. Well I'm even happier now that I'm doing the interview because I happen to be a Reformed Baptist. I had a feeling there must be some kind of a connection with the

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Reformed faith due to Christian Focus Publications' connection to your book. Yeah. And, go ahead,

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I'm sorry. No, no, I was just gonna say it's such a blessing to me that that company is so committed to strong theology, and you just don't really have to wonder too much what you're getting when you pick up one of their books.

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Yeah, amen, I agree with you, and we interview many of their authors on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and in fact we will be more than happy to interview any author that has an interest in coming on the program because I am so confident in the missional statement or theological commitment that a

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Christian Focus Publication has, so I never have to be biting my nails or anything like that.

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But, well, before we even enter into the discussion of 30 ,000

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Days, I'd like to get a little bit more of an explanation of your own personal background, the religion of your youth, if any, that you were raised in, and how, in the

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Lord's sovereign grace and providence, He drew you to Himself and saved you. Yeah, I love that question.

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I love to hear people's stories. So exciting to hear how God works in so many different ways.

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My story is not especially, well, I tend to say it's not exciting, but it is exciting.

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It's exciting that God is faithful and that God drew me to Himself, but my story is not particularly momentous in the sense of like a grand conversion story.

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I always kind of start my testimony with my dad's testimony. To me, it kind of makes sense of my upbringing.

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I was raised in a home with my parents. My mom was a believer and my dad was not when

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I was born, and that was a huge point of contention and their marriage had kind of almost fallen apart, but mom was taking me to church from infancy on, which made my dad roll his eyes a lot.

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My earliest, one of my earliest memories, honestly, in life is stealing the crackers from the

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Sunday school teacher. Under a table, I was going to eat them all.

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So I've been in church as long as I can remember, and honestly, I know it sounds far -fetched to some people when

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I say this, but I just loved Jesus from as early as I can remember. My memories of Sunday school were of grace and of love, and even though my theology was pretty ill -formed at that point,

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I knew that this Jesus loved me in spite of my stealing tendencies.

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He forgave me, and why would you not love him? So he really drew me in from kind of toddlerhood.

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My mom swears I was like two and a half when I prayed to receive Christ, and my memories of that are pretty fuzzy.

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I remember praying with my mom on my bed, but like I said, as long as I can remember, I just loved

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Jesus. And then within a couple of years, you know, I was sharing Christ with my dad all the time, and my poor dad,

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I mean, he was agnostic, and here's this little upstart telling him that Jesus loves him, and why doesn't he want to go to church, and what is

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Easter all about that? And so he became a Christian, too, by the time I was about four.

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And then from that point on, my parents were fully in, fully committed, they were very excited about things like apologetics, and we had a lot of vigorous conversations around the kitchen table every night at supper about God and theology.

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And so I was really, I just consider myself really, really blessed to have grown up in that.

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And when I was little, I wanted to be a missionary more than anything, and God, he just, he's been faithful to me.

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There's definitely been, I'm still definitely a sinner, and there's definitely been points in my journey where I have not represented him well, or I have wandered, or I have, what tends to happen to me more in my adulthood is struggling with sadness, which is really probably traced back to a lack of faith.

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But all in all, God has been so, so faithful to me, and has really, it's just been a joy to follow him.

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Well, praise God, you know, you said that that was not going to be a spectacular or remarkable testimony, but I'll tell you what, when

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I hear about a person being preserved from overt, scandalous rebellion since the time that they can even remember having a brain, that to me is a miracle.

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I mean, that is a glowingly remarkable, and wonderful, and glorious testimony.

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And I can, I know I've said this on my program before, but I can still remember when I was a fairly new

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Christian myself, I had unfortunately been quite a rebellious person before I came to Christ.

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I was seriously addicted to alcohol, and smoking pot was a daily habit, and things like that, and worse.

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And I can remember after coming to Christ, this woman who was raised in the church, the daughter of a church pianist, she said to me, you know,

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I wish I had a testimony like yours, because I think that if it was more remarkable, and exciting, and sensational, perhaps

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I could lead more people to Christ. And I said to her, are you out of your mind? I said, your testimony of having been spared all that, that's its own miracle.

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That is, in fact, that kind of thing, I think, is also, gives great hope to parents, especially if they are raising toddlers, and so on, or they're just expecting children, that they don't have to necessarily go through a season of having children that have gone, that are going through a serious and scandalous rebellion in the family.

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And of course, that may happen too. But it's not, it's not a given that that will happen. Yeah, our testimonies are supposed to be boring.

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Especially our children's testimonies, I should say. Yeah, that's absolutely the kind of testimony

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I pray my kids will have. Yeah, well, that would be something certainly to pray for. And this book that you have written, oh, well, before I even go into the book again, tell me how you wound up meeting, by God's providence,

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Michael, and the circumstances involved in that. Well, that was a great day.

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I met my best friend and just the most godly, wise man I could even imagine when

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I met him. So, yeah, as I said, I had desired to be a missionary, and I wasn't sure what form that would take, but when

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I was in college, kind of trying to figure out what direction to go, I really began to be burdened for the inner city, and I thought, you know what,

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I don't have to go to another country to be a missionary. I can just head to the inner city, and that is a really, really needy people group.

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So I decided to join staff with Campus Crusade for Christ and moved to Denver, Colorado.

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After spending a summer out here, I fell in love with it. I'm from North Carolina. This was a big transition to me to move out west to cowboy country.

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And honestly, I didn't even know before I came out here for the summer, I didn't know that Denver had an inner city. I thought

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Denver was just, I don't know, a mountain town. Anyway, I came out here to do inner city ministry with Campus Crusade, and the first year that I was working here, my husband was a student on a summer project that came out here with Campus Crusade.

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So I was technically his boss, which I think started things out on a good note. But he was a student, and he just...

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I had decided at that point, you know, if I don't meet a man who points me to Jesus, who's running just as diligently toward Christ as I am, then there's just no point in getting married.

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And I had this list in my head of qualifications, like I'm not even going to consider dating somebody unless they have all these things.

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Wow, that's refreshing to hear, and I think it's unfortunately rare even amongst Christian young ladies in this day and age.

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Oh, it is, and it's such a shame, because, you know, in Corinthians it talks about a single person living in an undivided devotion to the

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Lord, and there's so much joy to be had as an undivided, devoted, single person if you really are on fire for Jesus.

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So I don't know why anybody would forfeit that to get into a bad marriage. But yeah, so Michael was amazing, and he was obviously a leader, and he was committed to the same things

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I was, and he also wanted to do inner city ministry. So we began dating and got married about a year and a half later.

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Praise God. And for anybody who wants to investigate more about Wellspring, or should

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I say Calvary Wellspring in Aurora, Colorado, which is in the Denver, Colorado area, that's

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WellspringDenver .org, WellspringDenver .org. And I have a very fond memory of my one trip to Denver with my late wife.

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We were visiting a lifelong friend of my wife's in Colorado Springs, and we went out to Denver to an amusement park one day.

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And I understand, I don't know if they still have it there, but at the time I believe that Denver Amusement Park had the largest completely wooden roller coaster in the planet

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Earth, which is one of the reasons my wife refused to get on it, and being entirely made out of wood, and I believe that is why,

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I think I used the excuse that I didn't get on it because my wife wouldn't, but I remember having just a very wonderful time though in Denver that one time, and God willing

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I'll be returning. And where in North Carolina are you from? I'm from Greensboro, North Carolina.

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Okay. I spent a couple of months in Boone, North Carolina. That's a beautiful place.

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Yeah, Boone was a wonderful place. That's actually where I went to a

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Christian alcohol and drug rehabilitation ministry, and Hebron Colony Ministries.

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I take advantage of every opportunity I can to announce Hebron Colony Ministries in Boone, North Carolina, because without them

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I might not be sitting here speaking through a microphone right now. But now

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I will enter into the subject of our book, and anybody who would like to join us on the air with a question of your own, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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chrisarnson at gmail .com. And the book we are discussing, as I said earlier, is 30 ,000

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Days, The Journey Home to God, and for those of you who are unfamiliar with the lifespan of the average human being, that's why this title is being used to describe our journey to God.

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That is the lifespan in days of the average human, am I right? Yes, that's right.

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That's right. Give or take. Right, and obviously it varies according to God's will on when

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He wants to call individuals home. What does that amount to in years? Is that 70? It's about 82.

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82, okay. Yeah, and actually, you know, those life expectancy numbers are always changing, and that's a little higher than it used to be, but that's that's the average lifespan in a lot of places in the world.

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So what was the catalyst behind you writing this book, 30 ,000 Days? Yeah, good question.

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So I think, you know, when it really started to gel, eternal perspective has always been important to me.

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That's something I've meditated on for years, but we, my husband and I, after we planted our church, it was hard, man.

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Planting a church is not for the faint -hearted, and there was a season where we just were feeling really depleted, exhausted, and worn out, and we went, we're blessed.

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God was just so, so gracious. We got to go on a sabbatical, and we spent about five months out of the city, which was really refreshing.

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I think the city can be kind of oppressive. We went up to a cabin, spent the first half in the cabin in the mountains here in Colorado, and then we went to Massachusetts, because Michael was working on his doctorate ministry at Gordon -Conwell, so we spent some time over there, and during that time,

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God was so, He just was refreshing us and meeting with us in really vivid ways, and this book really just started to come together.

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Things that He had been teaching me and working on in me began to really come to life, and I just, at that point,

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I was thinking, life is too short to live under the pile the way

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I've been living. Life is too short to not experience the joy that God has given us. I already had decided years before that life is too short not to be purposeful about how you spend your life, and life is too short not to serve

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God, but now all of a sudden, He was kind of impressing on me, hey, hey, life is too short to linger in sorrow when there's so much to be thankful for.

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He just kind of turned my whole perspective around, and the book kind of came together. And let's see, we do have a listener already.

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We have CJ in Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York, and he says,

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I know this might be off -topic, but I'm asking this question because of something your guest said earlier in regard to her own relationship with her husband and how they met.

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Do you believe that Christian parents should allow their children to date, or do you believe in a strict courtship model of getting to know somebody of the opposite gender with the exclusive intention of being married?

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Wow, that's a big matzah ball right there. My oldest son is actually 16, so we're just kind of wading into these waters right now, and you know, our philosophy thus far has been to try to just let everybody take a deep breath and go really slow, and we haven't put real strict parameters on what that has to look like.

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You know, one of the things I talk about in this book is, it's my conviction that as parents, there's a big difference between teaching your children to obey

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God and teaching your children to enjoy God. And if you teach your kids, if our bullseye with our kids is obedience, and we are telling them all the time, listen, this is what you do, this is what you don't do, here's the rules, here's the parameters, this is how to please

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God. Sometimes that works splendidly, and your kids grow up and they really want to please

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God, and obviously obeying God keeps them out of a lot of trouble, but sometimes that dry duty,

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I think, can backfire, and I've known a lot of people who were very strictly raised to rebel a lot, because they didn't love

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God for themselves, they didn't enjoy Him for who He is. So in the dating thing, as in all the things that we try to do with our kids, we're trying to show our kids, hey, you can enjoy

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God. In fact, God made relationships for your joy, and those should point you toward Him and make you closer to Him, and anytime you think you have this little secret thing that you need to do outside of His awareness, well, first of all,

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He already knows about it, but secondly, in withdrawing from God to pursue something else that you think is better, you're just setting yourself up for heartbreak.

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So I guess that's kind of loosey -goosey, but our strategy has been more to try to emphasize that whatever you do, whether it's dating, or school, or anything in life, it needs to come out of this overflow of love.

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And I'm assuming from what you said about your own life, you would never, well,

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I know you'd never be happy with this, I don't know whether or not you would never permit it, but I'm assuming that you would not want your children to even develop any kind of romantic relationship, even in an initial stage, with somebody who is not a born -again believer.

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Absolutely. I remember as a teenager trying to just follow the rules, and you wanted to get as close as you could to breaking the rule without actually breaking it, and I remember having a conversation with the lady who discipled me in high school, and saying, but why can't

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I date somebody who's not a Christian? I'm not gonna marry him, I just, you know, just want to go on a date, why not?

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And I just remember her wisdom and saying, it's not, you're not trying to get away with something here, you're trying to guard your heart, and you're trying to develop relationships that draw you closer to Jesus, not push you away from him.

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And you're gonna be miserable, miserable, in an unequally yoked kind of marriage,

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I believe. Somebody's bound to get hurt, too, in a relationship like that.

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Absolutely. One or the other, yeah. Yeah, I heard Kathy Keller recently, or read an article by her, where she was saying, either you're going to draw close to that spouse at the expense of your relationship with God, or you're gonna draw close to God at the expense of the relationship with your spouse.

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That's gonna be one or the other. Well thank you CJ and Lyndon Hearst Long Island, and guess what, you have won a free copy of 30 ,000

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Days. No, that is not about my recent visit to the Department of Motor Vehicles.

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This is about The Journey Home to God by Katherine L. Morgan, our guest today, and so make sure we have your full mailing address and that will be shipped out to you.

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Compliments of our friends at Christian Focus Publications, but also compliments of our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, CVBBS .com,

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CV for Cumberland Valley, BBS for Bible Book Service .com, who ship out all of our winners in the

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Iron Trip and Zion audience. They're free Bibles, books, CDs, DVDs, and anything else they win by submitting questions to our guests.

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So thank you CJ, and keep spreading the word about Iron Trip and Zion Radio in Lyndon Hearst, Long Island, and beyond.

26:45

I have a listener all the way in Slovenia who has a question for you, and I'm going to read it and then

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I'm gonna actually email it to, actually I can't email it to you because I don't have your email address, but I'll just read it to you slowly and then

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I'll repeat it when we come back from the break, because I want you to answer it when we come back from the break, since we're entering right about that time when we are having our first station break of the day.

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So Joe in Slovenia says, as I read biographies and historical accounts of saints of 150 years ago and beyond, it seems that a recurring theme is that it was quite common for them to write about their regular thinking about and savoring the reality of heaven, of finally going home.

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I'm wondering what it is, or should I say, I'm wondering about what is the difference about our lives today, that we are rarely deep in contemplation about the joys of being rid of this cursed world and being with Christ in glory forever.

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Is this another one of our first world problems? Do we have it so comparatively easy that we are lulled into thinking that heaven isn't really going to be that spectacular and great in comparison to our modern luxurious lives?

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Thank you for sharing and sharpening our focus on eternity when we will truly have life abundantly.

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Wow that's a really great question, and I'll have you answer that when we return from the break.

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If anybody else would like to join us on the air with a question, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

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Please give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence if you live outside of the USA.

28:43

If you're asking about a personal and private matter that compels you to remain anonymous, you may feel free to do so, but otherwise please at least give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence.

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We're gonna be right back, God willing, right after these messages with Katherine L Morgan. One sure way all

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Our time will be lively, useful, and I assure you, never dull. Join us this Saturday at 12 noon

35:43

Eastern Time for a visit to the pastor's study, because everyone needs a pastor. Welcome back, this is

35:48

Chris Arnzen. If you just tuned us in, our guest today for the full two hours is Catherine L. Morgan.

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She is a Christ follower, wife of Pastor Michael Morgan at Calvary Wellspring of Aurora, Colorado, which is a suburb, or it's actually the urban area near Denver, Colorado.

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And she's the mother of three, author, conference speaker, and blogger at CatherinesLetters .com.

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That's CatherinesLetters .com with a C, you would spell that. And today we are discussing 30 ,000

36:20

Days the Journey Home to God. And before I go back to our listener in Slovenia who had a question,

36:27

I want to read a publisher's description of this book. Christ came so that we could have life to the full, but what does this really mean for everyday life?

36:38

It is so easy to become disheartened by the sadness or just bogged down by the monotony of life.

36:45

We have a constant ache reminding us that we don't belong in this fallen world. 30 ,000

36:51

Days offers an opportunity to think about and savor the reality of heaven, of finally going home.

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This special book draws our mind irresistibly to Christ and invites you to revel with a childlike excitement in the salvation he has secured for us.

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And that is a description, as I said, of 30 ,000 Days the Journey Home to God, a book

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I am addressing today with my guest Catherine L. Morgan, the author of that book.

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And it just struck me how remarkable it is that a young lady like you even wrote on this theme. I don't know how old you are, but I'm assuming you're quite young.

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Are you in your 20s or early 30s? I'm celebrating my 29th, my anniversary of my 29th birthday.

37:38

Wow. I've been celebrating that for a while now, but I'm really, I'll be 43 this summer.

37:44

You're kidding me. No. Wow. I would never have guessed that from your voice or from your photograph on your blog there.

37:53

Wow. And I'm going back now to Joe in Slovenia's question.

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And let's see here, I somehow lost it. Well Joe in Slovenia says, as I read biographies and historical accounts of saints of 150 years ago and beyond, it seems that a recurring theme is that it was quite common for them to write about their regular thinking about and savoring the reality of heaven, of finally going home.

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I'm wondering about what is the difference about our lives today that we are rarely deep in contemplation about the joys of being rid of this cursed world and being with Christ in glory forever.

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Is this another one of our first world problems? Do we have to, do we have it so comparatively easy that we are lulled into thinking that heaven isn't really going to be that spectacular or great in comparison to our modern luxurious lives?

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Well that was a great question and I'm really grateful to Joe in Slovenia that he asked it in English and not in Slovenian.

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He really asked a great question there. You know, I collect quotes about homesickness for heaven.

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I have for a while and I just, I find that so poignant that we are not home yet, that we're waiting for home.

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And I think he's totally on to something. I think it is a first world problem. I didn't know Slovenia had a first world problem, so that's a good thing,

39:28

I guess. But when I find these quotes, he's right.

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They're often from people from long, long ago or the other category that I see a lot of reflection from is missionaries.

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I mean, I have quotes from people like David Brainerd or Nate Saint or people who have really counted the cost and laid down their lives for Christ.

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Those are the people who spend the most time, I think, meditating on heaven because I think it's because they've given up so much comfort here.

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And when you have, and whether you're suffering because, I think people who suffer from illness probably spend a lot of time thinking about heaven.

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People who have really sacrificed for Christ as well, like I said. Because we had a break there,

40:15

I had an opportunity to look up a quote. I've been doing a lot of study of Ecclesiastes lately.

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It kind of wove through my book, and then as a follow -up I put together a Bible study on it with a friend from church.

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And I read a commentary by Derek Kidner called The Message of Ecclesiastes, and he just had this great summary,

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I thought. He said, the book of Ecclesiastes has good news for us once we can stop pretending that what is mortal is enough for us who have been given a capacity for the eternal.

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And I just think we often do think what is mortal is enough. We try to find satisfaction here, and we're so desperately looking for satisfaction here that it doesn't always cross our minds that we're dissatisfied.

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We're just restless. We keep looking from one place to the next. When there's a deep well of satisfaction for us in Christ that extends to eternity.

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But I think the only way for us to really lift our eyes off of earth and lift our eyes up to heaven is to realize how far earth falls short.

41:26

Yes, and for those of our listeners who were unfamiliar with those two

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Christians from the past, one further back in the past and one from the 20th century,

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David Brainerd was most well known for being an evangelist or a Native Americans.

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And Nate Saint was one of the missionaries who perished along with Elizabeth Elliott's first husband,

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Jim Elliott, who Nate Saint and Jim Elliott were both murdered by Alka Indians in South America and or Ecuador.

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Am I correct? It was Ecuador, right? And Elizabeth Elliott remarkably went back.

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She returned to the very tribe that murdered her husband and Nate Saint to evangelize that very tribe, and the

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Lord did bring about great fruit and saving souls. In fact, saved the soul of the very man who killed

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Nate and Jim Elliott, right? Nate Saint and Jim Elliott. Yeah, and well thank you

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Joe in Slovenia, and thank you also for providing an American address where your daughter lives in Georgia, because we're shipping out the book 30 ,000

42:50

Days the Journey Home to God by Katherine Morgan to you at your daughter's address, and you should call or write your daughter and tell her to read it before you get your hands on it, because she'll probably be blessed by it immensely as well.

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And keep listening to Iron, Sharp, and Zion, and keep spreading the word about the program in Slovenia and beyond.

43:12

We have a fellow Christian woman author who's asking a question.

43:20

Katherine? Latane C. Scott from Albuquerque, New Mexico, who has been a guest on Iron, Sharp, and Zion a number of times.

43:29

She is a former Mormon who came to Christ by his grace and mercy, and she wrote a classic book on the cult of Mormonism called the

43:40

Mormon Mirage, and she is quite a brilliant woman, and she says or asks, is your guest familiar with the theory that time is perceived as passing faster as we age to such an extent that by the time we are 18, one half of our perceived life has passed?

44:02

I don't even know if it's a theory that time is perceived as passing faster as we age, because I think it's a fact, isn't it?

44:08

I mean, I know that's a fact with me. It's perceived as passing faster as I grow older.

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And then her actual question, or another question that she adds to that, is for those of us toward the end of our 70 years, what is your best advice for making the most of that remaining time, since it feels like just a sliver of what's left?

44:33

Wow. That's a good question. I think one of the key things, probably the key thing in my mind, and I say that because Jesus kind of said it was the key thing, is that we were made to love

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God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourself. So the best way we can savor the days we've been given is to devote them to loving

45:06

God with our heart and soul and mind and strength, and to loving our neighbor as ourselves. And you know,

45:14

I think a lot about the poor and the oppressed because of doing inner city ministry, and I think we can learn more about Jesus and who he was in the face of a person who has nothing than we can learn in a cathedral, oftentimes.

45:39

And to spend your days loving Jesus and then loving people around you as to love

45:46

Jesus, like when I give a homeless person a cup of cold water, I can either do it just for that guy, or I can give that to Jesus, and he's just, you know, the hands who are going to receive it are here in this homeless person.

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But I think if you really want to savor your days looking for opportunities to love on people, particularly the poor and the downtrodden and those who have nothing, that's going to sweeten your relationship with Jesus like very few things can, and therefore sweeten your days.

46:25

Well thank you, Latayne, and you are also getting a free copy of Catherine's book 30 ,000

46:32

Days, The Journey Home to God, and make sure that I have an updated mailing address for you, and then that will be shipped out to you, compliments of Christian -focused publications, and also compliments of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, CV, or Cumberland Valley BBS for BibleBookService .com,

46:50

CVBBS .com, and we thank Todd and Patty Jennings, owners of Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, for being faithful supporters of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

47:03

We have another question from Jerry in Charlestown, New Hampshire, and I have to enlarge the tiny font on Jerry's email, and he says, thank you for dealing with the important topic of the brevity of life and living in light of eternity.

47:21

One scripture that has always stood out to me is the end of 1st Corinthians 15. In that chapter,

47:27

Paul is explaining the manifold glories of the resurrection, and then in the very last verse he gives this practical application of that doctrine.

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Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the

47:43

Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

47:49

My question is, how does living in light of eternity motivate and spur one on to fruitful labor for the

47:57

Lord, to be abounding in the work of the Lord? How can our hope of a future resurrection encourage us as we walk in what is often mundane acts of obedience from day to day?

48:11

That's kind of related to what you just said. You turned what might be thought of as a mundane act of obedience or even kindness, giving a homeless person a glass of water, to actually serving

48:25

Christ. Yeah, I think that's what it's all about.

48:35

So let me just rephrase Jerry's question and be sure I understood it correctly, but he's saying, how does living in light of eternity help us to serve

48:46

Christ here and now? Is that correct? Yes, and you know, live fruitful lives filled with good works and so on.

48:55

Yeah, I think that's so key. I think if life is really short, it changes your perspective on everything to kind of step back and realize that.

49:07

If you realize that God created you with this certain bundle of personality and gifts and passions, he created you very specifically in a particular unique way to reflect part of him that nobody else can.

49:23

And I kind of think that like we make this mosaic, but none of us on our own can reflect more than just a teeny piece of who he is.

49:30

So he puts each of us with this unique little imprint of him, and then he sets us down here and he says, okay,

49:36

I want you to be ambassadors for me here on this earth. I think it charges your whole life with purpose.

49:48

I know this is kind of a lame example, but I think about this. In Star Wars, in the trilogy, there's this, one of the first movies that came out, there's this scene where Han Solo and Princess Leia get set down on this planet, and it's the one with all the

50:04

Ewoks, you know what I'm talking about? It's been such a long time since I've seen that.

50:10

I know that my co -host, Reverend Buzz Taylor, who's like a groupie or whatever you call them when it comes to Star Wars.

50:16

I just saw that the other day, as a matter of fact. Okay. So what about the Ewoks now?

50:23

Here's Han Solo and Princess Leia, and they have this like save the world mission to accomplish, and they're supposed to go down this planet and do something,

50:31

I don't know what, important. But if they had forgotten, what was the purpose for their being there?

50:38

And they had just decided, you know, these Ewoks are really cute, and we're just gonna go live in a tree house and hang out with the

50:44

Ewoks forever. Like that would be a tragedy. That'd be the end of the movie, and the whole world, you know, like the whole movie would end differently, and they wouldn't save the planet or whatever.

50:54

But I kind of feel like that is the state of any Christian who has forgotten why we're here.

51:00

That we've been sent to this place where we really are aliens and strangers.

51:06

This is not our home. And yet so many people kind of forget that, and they think, well, I'm just gonna,

51:11

I'm gonna set up shop here. This is gonna be my home now. heaven's like a later thing that I'm putting off on the back burner and I'm not going to think about that.

51:20

But if really your citizenship is in heaven and that's more real and more significant than this place where we are just for a moment,

51:28

I think it changes how we live because we're doing everything for that ultimate mission or that ultimate purpose that we were created for.

51:37

Yeah, and like you were saying before when you're giving a glass of water to a homeless person, viewing that as giving that glass of water to Christ, even as he said when he was giving the example of the sheep and the goats, that those that were doing these acts of kindness to the least of their brethren, they were doing it unconsciously unto

52:03

Christ. And that will, I'm sure you would agree, would give us more perseverance and patience to continue in those good works because those good works are very often not even appreciated at all.

52:16

I mean, giving the homeless person example, I can remember as a new Christian going out into the subways of New York City with New Hyde Park Baptist Church and we were giving out on Christmas Eve blankets and food, sandwiches that were pre -wrapped and so on, and this homeless person was so grateful to receive the sandwich.

52:38

He opened up the wrapper and he said, I don't need pork products, man, get me a slice of pizza. So even that homeless person was not grateful for that food that I was giving him.

52:49

But if we are viewing that as serving Christ, it really doesn't matter how the people on this planet are reacting to it.

52:59

Absolutely, and that is so freeing. I mean, just a shout out to any of your listeners who are in full -time ministry, that can be exhausting, and I think that exhaustion is exacerbated when we are doing it for the benefit of the recipient as opposed to doing it for Jesus.

53:17

I think there's a fine line between thinking, okay, I'm going to save the world,

53:23

I'm going to change the world, or saying, no, I'm not going to save anybody. Jesus is doing that.

53:29

I'm just loving Him. But when you kind of feel bright, you know, as a former staff person with Campus Crusade for Christ, we heard this quote a million times.

53:39

He said, success in witnessing is taking the initiative and the power of the

53:44

Holy Spirit to share Christ, and then leaving the results to God. And I think success in ministry, success in life, all of it is taking the initiative and the power of the

53:54

Holy Spirit to obey in whatever way that looks, and then leaving the results to God.

54:00

It's not my responsibility to make the homeless person go out and get a job.

54:06

It's my responsibility to love, to love extravagantly and to love joyfully.

54:12

And that, you know, I think that grace, when we give that grace, it's just a fresh retelling of the

54:18

Gospel every time, because my goodness, I didn't deserve it. Grace is unearned, and Jesus gave it to me not because I was good, but because He is good.

54:27

And so every time we give grace, we're just getting to retell that Gospel story. Oh, by the way, in case anybody is wondering,

54:34

I did buy that homeless person a slice of pizza. Good job! Reverend Buzz Taylor, my co -host, has a question or comment, but we'll have to wait until we return from the break, so don't forget it,

54:47

Buzz. And if anybody else would like to join us on the air with a question, our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com.

54:56

chrisarnson at gmail .com. Don't go away. We'll be right back after these messages from our sponsors.

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We strive to reflect Paul's mindset to be much more concerned with how God views what we say and what we do than how men view these things.

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.com. We bring biblically faithful pastoral ministry to you, and we invite you to visit the

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Pastor's Study by calling in with your questions. Our time will be lively, useful, and I assure you, never dull.

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Join us this Saturday at 12 noon Eastern Time for a visit to the Pastor's Study because everyone needs a pastor.

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Iron Sharpens Iron Radio is sponsored by Harvey Cedars, a year -round Bible conference and retreat center nestled on the

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Jersey Shore. Harvey Cedars offers a wide range of accommodations to suit groups up to 400.

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For generations, Christians have enjoyed gathering and growing at Harvey Cedars. Each year, thousands of high school and college students come and learn more about God's Word.

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Rev. Buzz Taylor and me at the Faithful Shepherd Pastors Retreat at Harvey Cedars Bible Conference Center on Long Beach Island in New Jersey this coming

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Monday through Wednesday, May 15th through the 17th. The Faithful Shepherd Retreat will feature such speakers as Carl Truman, Todd Pruitt, John Nielsen, and Amy Bird.

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AllianceNet .org, click on Events, and then click on the Faithful Shepherd.

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You'll have all the details that you need. Following that, God willing, I will be at the 2017

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U .S. Ministers Conference in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania at Elizabethtown College, hosted by Banner of Truth.

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The theme of Banner of Truth's Ministers Conference this year is The Living and Enduring Word.

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And the speakers include such notable names as Joel Beeky, Jeff Thomas, William Vanderward, Mark Johnston, Jonathan Master, Carlton Winn, and Ian Hamilton.

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And if you would like to attend this conference, go to BannerofTruth .org,

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BannerofTruth .org, click on Events, and then click on U .S. Ministers Conference. And that conference is

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Tuesday, May 30th through Thursday, June 1st. And I hope to see as many of you there as possible as well.

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And then following that, June 22nd and June 23rd, Sermon Audio is conducting the

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Foundations Conference in New York City on 350 West 26th

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Street in Manhattan in the Chelsea area of New York City. The featured speakers at that event are, once again,

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Dr. Joel Beeky, Dr. Stephen J. Lawson, Phil Johnson, who is the Executive Director of John MacArthur's Ministry, grace to you,

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Todd Friel, the host of Wretched TV and Wretched Radio, and a number of other speakers.

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And if you would like to join me at the Foundations Conference to register, go to thefoundationsconference .com,

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thefoundationsconference .com, and you'll have all the details that you need there as well.

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August 3rd through the 5th, Fellowship Conference New England is being held in Reverend Buzz Taylor's Old Stomping Grounds in Portland, Maine, at the

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Deering Center Community Church. And speakers at Fellowship Conference New England include

01:07:16

Don Curran of Don Curran Ministries, who will be my guest in a number of weeks on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

01:07:24

He is also the East European Coordinator with HeartCry Missionary Society in Radford, Virginia, which is the ministry founded by Paul Washer.

01:07:35

Also speaking at this event are my friend Pastor Mac Tomlinson of Providence Chapel in Denton, Texas, Pastor Jesse Barrington of Grace Life Church in Dallas, Texas, and Pastor Nate Pickowitz of Harvest Bible Church in Gilmantown, Iron Works, New Hampshire.

01:07:54

For more details on this conference, go to fellowshipconferencenewengland .com, fellowshipconferencenewengland .com.

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Last but not least, I just heard recently from Pastor Josh Bice of Praise Mill Baptist Church in the

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Atlanta, Georgia area that Iron Sharpens Iron Radio will have an exhibitor's booth for the

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G3 Conference 2018. I look forward to seeing many of you that I met for the first time last

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January at the G3 Conference, and I hope to meet many new faces that I've never had the privilege of meeting before at the

01:08:32

G3 Conference January 18th through the 20th, 2018. Speakers at the

01:08:38

G3 Conference in 2018 include Paul Washer, Stephen Lawson, Votie Baucom, H .B.

01:08:46

Charles Jr., Tim Challies, Josh Bice, my dear friend of many years,

01:08:51

Dr. James R. White of Alpha Omega Ministries, Tom Askell, who is the president of Founders Ministries, and Michael Kruger, who is the president of Reform Theological Seminary in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Paul Tripp, who is a well -known author, and also

01:09:14

Todd Friel, who I mentioned earlier, the host of Wretched TV and Wretched Radio, Derek Thomas, another prolific writer who

01:09:22

I've had on Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, and there will be other speakers as well. If you would like to register for the

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G3 Conference, go to g3conference .com, g3conference .com,

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click on Support, and mail us a check of any amount that you feel comfortable mailing us, and I thank all of you from the bottom of my heart who have already mailed us checks, and some of you have done so on a number of occasions, and some have pledged to do so regularly, and I don't have the ability to convey to you in the

01:11:06

English language how grateful I am to you and for you. Those of you who want to advertise your special event, your business, corporation, your church, your parachurch, ministry, or anything else that you'd like to promote to the listening audience of Iron Sharpens Iron Radio, as long as this does not conflict with the theological makeup of our program,

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01:11:35

and just puts advertising in the subject line. And that is also our email address for anyone who has a question for Catherine Morgan on her book, 30 ,000

01:11:47

Days, The Journey Home to God. Our email address is chrisarnson at gmail .com,

01:11:54

chrisarnson at gmail .com. And before we went to the break, Reverend Buzz Taylor, my co -host, you had either a comment or a question.

01:12:01

Yes, and of course the last thing you said before the break was, remember what you were going to say now. Okay, where am

01:12:07

I now? But really though, by the way, I also am looking forward to meeting as many of our listeners as possible at Harvey Cedars.

01:12:19

And it's kind of interesting to watch people when they see you for the first time after hearing you, when they see what you actually look like, you know, they're in shock.

01:12:28

That's an understatement when they meet you, Buzz. Horrified, disappointed.

01:12:35

You might as well say it right now. Everybody else does. I have a face for radio because I used to be in radio. Anyway, Kate, about your book now.

01:12:45

I do remember what I was going to say. I wrote a composition during the break. But as you're speaking, of course,

01:12:52

I kind of listen between the lines and I catch little nuances of things that almost got said and didn't quite make it to the surface.

01:13:00

And you had mentioned about, we've been given certain giftings and so forth. And I think that if we were to grasp what you're saying in this book, it would really help a lot because I remember what it was like going into ministry.

01:13:13

I never really felt like I was ready to do it. I was thinking, well, after I grow a little bit in this area, then

01:13:21

I'll be more ready. And then all of a sudden it's like, wait a minute. Now I'm 60. Now, I'm not going to say that God didn't use me.

01:13:31

I did pastor three churches. But I finally came to a realization that what

01:13:37

I was was already used. And I really didn't change that much. But God used me in spite of who

01:13:43

I was. It wasn't so much that I had to change my whole personality. I had to let God use that personality that I have.

01:13:50

And now here we are. It makes me want to, when I get home today, of course I'm going to grab my calculator.

01:13:56

And I've got to figure out which day I'm in. Really, I don't know if I'm going to get 30 ,000.

01:14:04

But I'd like to know at least where I am. Because really, since you did mention that you have passed that magical summit of the big four zero.

01:14:19

Every year, and everybody attests to this, it's so much faster than the year before. And that 30 ,000, the second half of them,

01:14:29

I'm sure, is going to go much faster than the first half. I did something the other day.

01:14:36

I was prepping for this Ecclesiastes Bible study. And I was thinking about that very thing.

01:14:41

And I drew a little graph. If you graphed your life and your spiritual journey, and where you're closer to God and where you're farther away from God, and then you stopped the graph at the day you were at now, or the year you're at now, and then you look forward on that graph to where do you want to be when you're at 30 ,000 days.

01:15:04

When your time is up, where do you want to be with God? And is that trajectory of your life right now heading in the right direction to get you where you want to be with the

01:15:14

Lord when he takes you home? And if it's not, if you're drifting, if your life is pulling you away from Jesus, where would you end up at that end of lifetime?

01:15:25

And where do you kind of need to make a course correction? I just thought that was an interesting kind of way to think about the rest of the days

01:15:31

I have. And Catherine, you indicate that A .W.

01:15:40

Tozer is some kind of an inspiration or hero to you. A .W.

01:15:45

Tozer, one of the great voices of the past, now in glory with Christ for eternity. And although he was not in lockstep with we who profess to be

01:15:55

Calvinists, it seems that he is probably the most often quoted Arminian by Calvinists that I'm aware of.

01:16:05

How has A .W. Tozer been a blessing to you? Oh, you know, I just loved

01:16:10

The Pursuit of God. I think I read it when I was in college, and so many of the quotes from that book have stuck with me.

01:16:18

One of the things, I actually don't know if he said this in that book or I read this somewhere else, but he said that the secret of successful Christians has always been that they've had a sweet madness of Jesus about them, and I just love that idea.

01:16:32

But I love thinking about him whipping out that classic, an overnight trip on a train, and how,

01:16:42

I mean, I wrote about this in the preface of the book, but here he is riding the train, and he's under no illusion that he's arrived at his destination.

01:16:51

He knows that he's in this short little journey, and he didn't waste that time.

01:16:56

He took that time, and he trained his thoughts and his heart on Jesus during that time, and he whipped out a classic.

01:17:04

And I think that's kind of analogous to our lives. It's like we're on a flight to Hawaii, and we haven't gotten to Hawaii yet.

01:17:12

We're just on the flight. Nobody thinks when they're on the airplane, like, this is it,

01:17:17

I'm hunkering down. No, you're waiting for that destination, and I think that's kind of how

01:17:22

I like to live, living for that destination. Yes, and worship is also an important aspect of your book.

01:17:30

I just had, two days ago, a fascinating interview with Jonathan Master, who's one of the speakers at the

01:17:39

Banner of Truth United States Ministers Conference coming up. He wrote a book, The God We Worship, and it was quite a fascinating discussion.

01:17:47

And how does the idea of living with eternity in mind, how, in your opinion, should that affect our worship?

01:17:58

Oh gosh, it affects it so much, because we know the creator of the universe.

01:18:04

We know the one who is above, you know, Ecclesiastes talks about how we're under the sun.

01:18:09

We know the one who's above the sun. We know the one who planned all of this and made us who we are and has this perfect, you know, end of the story that he's bringing us to.

01:18:23

We know him, and so to not spend your life just adoring him would be such a loss, such a waste.

01:18:33

I think he, something I've said before is, it's like a little kid who plays peekaboo, and there's this moment in infant development where they attain a sense of object permanence, and that person steps out of the room, and they think the person's just gone.

01:18:52

That's why peekaboo startles them so much. But once they hit that milestone, they realize, oh, he's still there.

01:18:58

He just stepped out of the corner of the room, but he's coming back. And I think that's how, you know, Jesus is, he's there.

01:19:04

He's right behind the veil. And so just living with an eternal perspective means realizing he's not gone.

01:19:10

He's right here with me right now, so I constantly have an opportunity to be in conversation with him and abiding in him and drawing close to him.

01:19:20

And Tozer, again, said, I want to want thee. I long to be filled with longing.

01:19:26

And so even when we're falling short in that worship, to have that desire to worship, then

01:19:31

God, you know, praying out of that lack, like, Lord, I want to worship, but I'm not feeling it, he'll supply that so abundantly.

01:19:39

Yeah, you talk about worshiping wholeheartedly, and I don't know what the worship services are like at Calvary Wellspring, but very often

01:19:48

I can recall inviting my Charismatic or Pentecostal friends to worship services at the

01:19:55

Reformed Baptist churches that I've been a member of over the years, and they have walked out saying, wow,

01:20:01

I didn't like that at all. You guys were not excited about worship and so forth.

01:20:07

And I had to remind them that, well, somebody can have just as much passion and love for the

01:20:15

Lord who sings without leaping into the aisle and doing a dance as someone who is dancing.

01:20:23

But having said that, I am the first to admit that we Calvinists can live up to the stereotype of being passionless, and we, above all people, who believe that every single thing that we are blessed with in this life comes directly through a sovereign, decreed act of God that has been ordained before the foundation of the world, and we would not have anything that is good and lovely and precious without Him.

01:20:52

We should be more thankful and exuberant in our praise than anybody, but what do you have to say about this wholehearted worship?

01:20:59

Oh, man, I agree. I just, you know, I'm not charismatic, but I fault toward over -exuberance,

01:21:09

I guess, because I just, man, I just love Him. And I think if you really get a glimpse of Him, if you understand who

01:21:18

He is, that's got to just charge your life with meaning.

01:21:23

And I think even just in nature, and I'm blessed, I live in Colorado, so we have more 14 ,000 -foot mountains in Colorado than I think any other state in the country,

01:21:35

I think even more than Alaska, which is weird. But you go up there to the mountains, and it takes your breath away to see the scope of creation.

01:21:46

And I think sometimes we forget that you can see that scope of God's creation even if you live in a big, bustling city.

01:21:55

If you stand on a street corner, because creation isn't just mountains and oceans. Creation is every single person who walks by you.

01:22:04

And just to be blown away by the imagination and the detail of this

01:22:11

Creator, like it really ought to take our breath away and amaze us all the time. And I think if we're not living in wonder, we're not paying attention, because there's so much to be astounded by if you have eyes to see.

01:22:29

Amen. And we have Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, who says, don't we have to be careful about not crossing the line when we are worshiping in a way that we think is wholehearted and enthusiastic, but unconsciously, perhaps, we delve into superficial entertainment and fleshly excitement.

01:22:55

Yeah, I think we do. There's much more to worship than just singing or any other kind of thing that typically comes to mind.

01:23:06

Worship with your whole heart is worship with your whole life. It's surrender and it's obedience. But that also reminds me of that quote, and I don't have the details of this.

01:23:15

I'm not sure if this is authentic or not, but William Carey, when he gave what they call his

01:23:21

Deathless Sermon, he stood up and said, expect great things for God, attempt great things for God.

01:23:27

That sermon, there was reportedly an old Crossody preacher who said, sit down, young man, you are an enthusiast, and, of course, was trying to put a damper on Carey's zeal.

01:23:41

But I think that zeal, sometimes it makes us uncomfortable. Often it's very childlike.

01:23:48

That childlike tendency to be just caught up in worship,

01:23:55

I think is a very Christ -honoring kind of thing, even if it does make us a little nervous sometimes.

01:24:00

And, by the way, Arnie in Perry County, Pennsylvania, you have also won a free copy of 30 ,000

01:24:07

Days, the Journey Home to God by our guest, Catherine L.

01:24:12

Morgan. Please make sure that we have your full mailing address before the program is over so we can get that address off to Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, CVBBS .com,

01:24:24

CV for Cumberland Valley, BBS for Bible Book Service, dot com. So look for a package in the mail from CVBBS .com,

01:24:31

and we thank also, of course, Christian Focus Publications for providing these books today that we have been giving away.

01:24:41

One of the other chapters that you have in the book is Walk Purposefully.

01:24:48

Tell us about that. I know that sometimes people, they get caught up in, even when they pray, their prayers are too general and non -specific, and I think that we have to have more specificity and purpose in the things that we do in this life when it comes to following Christ and adoring

01:25:13

Him. But what do you mean specifically by that? You know, I think what comes to my mind when

01:25:20

I think about this is college students. And they have this whole life set ahead of them, and they can choose how they're going to spend that life.

01:25:31

And sometimes when you listen to a college student's thought process of what they're going to do with their life, they kind of say, well, you know,

01:25:39

I think I'm going to go into business. And you say, well, what does that mean? What kind of business? Ah, I don't know. Some kind of business.

01:25:44

Well, are you passionate about something? Is there something that you're excited to create and produce and sell?

01:25:51

No, I just, you know, I think I have a good head for numbers. And I think about those kind of conversations

01:25:57

I've had with college students over the years, and I think, man, I wish I could grab every college student or every, you know, young adult who's looking at a lifetime and trying to spend, trying to decide how to spend it, and just say, all right, let's think about who you are.

01:26:13

What did God put in you? How are you uniquely wired? And then think about this whole big world we're in and areas of need in the world where your gifts and talents intersect with the great need of the world.

01:26:26

Now, is there a way that you could employ who you are in a vocation that meets that need of someone somewhere in the world, and then do that with your whole heart and with excellence for Jesus?

01:26:39

I don't think you have to be a missionary to serve God's vocation.

01:26:45

I think, you know, accountants can serve God wholeheartedly, every bit as much as, you know, a pastor in that field if they have really surrendered and given that to the

01:26:56

Lord and said, okay, God, here I am. Now work through me and help me to love people here and help me to do what

01:27:02

I do to your glory. But I think it's that daily asking, like, am

01:27:09

I doing this for me or am I doing this for the glory of God? And living soli deo gloria, for the glory of God every day, changes the way you spend your day.

01:27:19

And we're going to be going to our final break right now. If you'd like to ask Kathryn Morgan a question about her book, 30 ,000

01:27:28

Days, The Journey Home to God, please send the email as soon as possible because we are running out of time.

01:27:35

Our email address is chrisarnsen at gmail .com, C -H -R -I -S -A -R -N -Z -E -N at gmail .com.

01:27:44

Please give us your first name, your city and state, and your country of residence. If you live outside of the USA and I understand that you might be asking about a private or personal matter that compels you to remain anonymous, well, you may feel free to do so if that is the case.

01:27:58

Otherwise, please at least give us your first name, city and state, and country of residence. And don't go away.

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01:34:52

Days, The Journey Home to God, with our guest, Catherine L. Morgan, who wrote the book of that title.

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01:35:06

And one of the chapters, Catherine, in your book is care passionately,

01:35:12

I should say. Tell us about that. Sometimes we might seek to honor

01:35:18

God by obeying Him and doing wonderful deeds, kind deeds, gracious deeds to our fellow men and women and children, but we might not really be doing that from a genuine heart of compassion or passionate care.

01:35:37

If you could explain what you mean by that a little bit more deeply. Sure. You know,

01:35:43

I think we've already touched on it earlier in the interview, but when we see

01:35:50

Jesus in raggedy clothes, whether we see a homeless person or a starving person in another country or just a battered wife or whatever that is, when we see

01:36:02

Jesus through the eyes of that person, what we do or don't do with that knowledge is indicative of our heart.

01:36:11

It's a picture of the state of our own worship.

01:36:17

It's a portrait of how we view ourselves too because if we view ourselves as sinners desperately in need of a

01:36:25

Savior who's been saved by grace alone, that's going to spill out because we realize we are not worthy and the grace that we've received from God is something that He's given us to pass on.

01:36:36

So I just talk a lot about caring for the poor and the least of these in that particular chapter.

01:36:44

How do you respond when you see or meet someone who is really hurting?

01:36:51

I think it's a really important question to Jesus. I think it was you who mentioned

01:36:57

Matthew 25 where Jesus or maybe it was your co -host who said that Jesus at some point in Scripture said, hey, what you do when you do to other people, you've done them to me.

01:37:09

That was me. I'm taking credit. It was a good word. Jesus said,

01:37:17

I was hungry and you gave me food. I was thirsty and you gave me drink. And I was a stranger and you welcomed me. I was naked and you clothed me.

01:37:24

I was sick and you visited me. I was in prison and you came to me. And I think how we care for those around us is a really critical issue to Him, which we would like to squirm out of a lot of times.

01:37:38

But it does, it's just a fact. It's important to Him. In fact, it reveals that the sheep that He is referring to, that Jesus is referring to, were not acting in a robotic sense of duty and obedience alone.

01:37:56

They were truly caring about these people because they were unconscious as it were, that they were doing it for Christ.

01:38:04

That's why He was telling, and they were saying, when did we do this? So it was obvious that they were not, and of course

01:38:12

I'm not trying to remove the importance of doing things out of a sense of obedience and duty, but it was not done in a robotic way.

01:38:20

It was obviously done from genuine care and compassion. Yeah, that's very true.

01:38:27

And I think, too, another point to make about that is when we care passionately for whoever's around us, but particularly for the poor,

01:38:36

I think that's really key to living an abundant life. The prosperity gospel folks like to throw around that word abundance and blessing as though it's just a wealth or health thing that God pours on us, but I think abundant living partly is just experiencing the love of Christ welling up in you and through you, and sometimes there's a lot of brokenness associated with that, a lot of hurt, and a lot, like you said, of people going, hey,

01:39:04

I don't want this kind of sandwich, I want pizza! But I think when we're willing to face that and let

01:39:13

Jesus just start to pour through us, we meet Him in a really incredible way.

01:39:20

And you have a section on give generously. I know that you have been involved in parachurch organizations like Campus Crusade for Christ.

01:39:29

I believe that may have involved fundraising duties and things like that. Tell us something about giving generously.

01:39:40

Yeah, I always joke that everybody should spend a season raising support. It's good for your soul.

01:39:46

And maybe you experienced this with the radio program too, raising support through that. It's a tenuous thing when your living depends on the generosity of others.

01:39:57

But the funny thing about it is that I think what we tend to not realize is that even if your paycheck comes from a corporation, it really ultimately comes from God.

01:40:08

God owns the cattle on a thousand hills, and God decides what pennies you're going to get because He's sovereign over that.

01:40:15

So living on financial support, which we still do, my husband and I, at least partly still live on wonderful, generous support from people across the country, it's taught me so much about God because if our supporters choose not to give, we don't get paid.

01:40:37

And through that we've learned that God is the supplier of every good thing in our life, that when you give a gift, you really need to let it go, which

01:40:49

I think we touched on with the homeless people issue. Sorry, I think it's beeping.

01:40:56

We don't give a gift because the person deserves it. We give a gift because it's worship.

01:41:05

And so when you give a gift, you have to let go of it. And, you know,

01:41:10

Michael and I, we have to decide how we spend our money knowing it's

01:41:16

God's money. And so that involves a lot of tough decision making that maybe you don't have to make if you get a paycheck from a company, but maybe we should be making those kind of decisions, asking those kind of questions.

01:41:29

This is God's money, how am I going to spend it? You have another chapter, Hold Loosely, and I don't know if I should be admitting this or not, you might be too young to remember the

01:41:43

Rock Band 38 special, but probably their most famous song was Hold On Loosely.

01:41:49

And that immediately popped into my head because I used to hear it so often on the radio back in the 80s when

01:41:54

I was a rebellious young man, but Hold On Loosely, or Hold Loosely as you phrase it.

01:42:01

Yeah, yeah, this is one of the hardest ones for me. This is personally the chapter that probably affected me the most writing it because the idea is that we can hold on really tight to our dreams at the expense of holding on to God, or we can let go of our dreams or whatever's important to us and hold on to the giver.

01:42:24

And I talk about that the story, primo story in my mind of this is

01:42:30

Abraham and Isaac. And here Isaac was this prayed for child, had been prayed for for so long and waited for, and he finally is there, and then

01:42:43

God says okay Abraham, I want you to sacrifice your child, which is shocking, deeply shocking.

01:42:52

And that story, to read that as though you've never heard it before and just watch it unfold, it is still startling to me to read that story.

01:43:02

But Abraham, as opposed to holding on tight to Isaac, he lets go of Isaac, and he clings to God.

01:43:14

And he trusts that even though God has taken away the most precious thing in his life, that God is good, and that he's good even in the middle of that, what would have been such a loss and such a heartbreak.

01:43:28

And if he hadn't, if he had even obeyed, but with a tight -fisted heart,

01:43:35

I think he would have been really bitter toward God. Even if God had given Isaac back,

01:43:41

I think he could easily have come away from that thinking I'm never going to trust this

01:43:46

God again. What kind of God does that? But obviously Abraham's heart is this heart of faith, even in the middle of this crazy request that God gives him.

01:44:00

And he lets go of that gift. So for me, letting go of things that I just deeply desire, and saying,

01:44:09

God, you may never give this to me, but you're still good. And even though you're able, if you choose not to give it to me, you're still good.

01:44:18

I think that's a lesson that I just have to keep learning over and over again. Yes, something we all need to learn over and over again.

01:44:25

In fact, something more profound than the Rock Band 38 special also came to mind.

01:44:32

I don't know if you're familiar with the quotes by the Christian Holocaust survivor

01:44:38

Corey Ten Boom, whose family was imprisoned in the camps by the

01:44:44

Nazis because they were harboring Jews in their attic, hiding them to keep them safe from the

01:44:53

Nazis. And unfortunately, the Nazis found out about that and arrested the whole family. But Corey Ten Boom, who survived the

01:45:01

Holocaust in Holland, she said, hold everything in your hands lightly, otherwise it hurts when

01:45:09

God pries open your fingers. And that is something that is very true because if we don't view ourselves as merely pilgrims passing through this foreign land, awaiting our ultimate home in heaven, and we begin to hold on to these things of the earth too tightly,

01:45:31

God may very well teach us a lesson by taking those things away to remind us of what is truly important and what is eternally important.

01:45:43

So true. He does. And it's so hard, isn't it, to...

01:45:48

I think for me the hardest thing is not... I don't have a hard time believing that God is able. His power is pretty evident to me, just looking around the world.

01:45:57

But it's hard sometimes. I think Satan comes after me and says, yeah, but is he good? Because what kind of a good

01:46:03

God would do X, Y, Z? And so, reminding, preaching that truth to myself, he is good, and here's why

01:46:12

I know. And of course, the number one reason I know why God is good is because of what Jesus did for us on the cross, and you can't spend too much time looking at Jesus and not be overwhelmed by the goodness of God.

01:46:26

We have a listener in eastern Suffolk County, Long Island, Ronald, who says, would you recommend this book for bedside reading at the sickbed of someone seriously ill, or perhaps someone who is on their deathbed awaiting eternity?

01:46:45

You know, I had a real privilege last month. One of our supporters, one of our financial supporters called me up and said he had bought this book, and he was reading it out loud to his wife, and she wasn't feeling well, but I pray for her.

01:47:02

Well, she, the next day I think, after I spoke to him, was diagnosed with cancer, and it was in the last stages, and she only lived another three weeks, and went to be with Jesus, and it really overwhelmed me that God had used this in some way in her life, and he just talked about reading this out loud to her, and I thought, you know,

01:47:26

I hope it did encourage her because the last, particularly the last couple chapters, I talk a lot about heaven and what we have to look forward to, and I think there's such a joy to meditate on what awaits us.

01:47:41

It is unbelievable how good that's going to be, and although we haven't been there, we haven't seen it, and we can't really speak to it from an eyewitness perspective, it flows out of his character, and we know him, so we know that he is love, so his dwelling place was designed out of love, and there's no tiny little detail that he's forgotten.

01:48:11

It's a gift to us, and so he is grace, and so home is this place of grace and abundance and feasting and celebration, so I think,

01:48:24

I hope, that meditating on that would be a great encouragement and a solace to someone who's about to go there because what a joy.

01:48:34

I mean, man, I don't take lightly the suffering of people who are struggling with a mortal illness, but there's a part of me that's kind of envious, because Heaven is so, our home is so far beyond comprehension better than this

01:48:54

Earth that going home is only a cause for celebration, really.

01:49:00

Amen. Well, thank you, Ronald, for the question, and if you know of someone who is in the condition that you are speaking of, you're going to be getting a copy of this book to read to them, and perhaps give to them.

01:49:14

30 ,000 Days, The Journey Home to God by Catherine Morgan. Please make sure we have your full mailing address, and we'll ship that out to you through our friends at Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, cvbbs .com.

01:49:27

Compliments of our friends at Christian Focus Publications, who donated these books for giveaways today.

01:49:35

And you have another chapter, Love Deeply. Tell us more about that.

01:49:41

That may sound like a no -brainer. Of course, we're supposed to love more deeply, but what do you mean by that?

01:49:48

Yeah. Well, you know, I differentiated it from the Care Passionately chapter. It's two kinds of love

01:49:54

I was trying to hit on in this chapter. One is one that we sometimes just forget about, or neglect,

01:50:03

I guess is a better word. And that is the love for the people who are closest to us. And I think when we really live like we're not going to have people around much longer, it changes the quality of that relationship.

01:50:16

Then the second group that I focus on in this chapter is Loving the Bride of Christ, the church.

01:50:22

And that kind of love is sometimes just really difficult. I don't know if your listeners, if you hear this a lot, but my husband and I meet a lot of millennials who talk about anger at the church.

01:50:40

And they hear a lot of complaints. Well, I'm hurt and I'm wounded because of the church. And I hear that as a kind of constant theme.

01:50:48

And so people who have been hurt, Michael calls them sheep bites, been bit by other sheep, that there's this tendency to say, well, you know what?

01:51:00

God and I we're good, so it doesn't matter if I'm really involved in the church or committed to the local church.

01:51:06

I can go this alone, me and God. I'll read my Bible on my own and pray on my own, but I don't need to be part of a church.

01:51:13

And I just feel like that is a grievous error, because there is so much that we gain from being part of the body of Christ.

01:51:23

And so much God can teach us there that he can't teach us any other way. And honestly, when we get to heaven,

01:51:31

I think it's going to be kind of a big deal to Jesus how we treated his bride. I mean, if you go to a wedding and you do something horrible to the bride, the groom is going to be pretty ticked off at you.

01:51:41

And so I think when we try to withdraw from the bride of Christ, that's an insult to him.

01:51:48

He died for that bride. So even though the church is made up of a lot of sinners, we always say ministry would be really easy if there weren't any people involved.

01:51:58

There's a lot of sinners. There's people who are going to hurt you or let you down, but we don't get involved because we expect perfection from them.

01:52:10

We get involved because it's loving to Christ. Yeah, you also reminded me of Paul's warning to the church in Galatia, Galatians 5 .15,

01:52:23

if you bite and devour each other, watch out, or you will be destroyed by each other.

01:52:29

And he's talking about Christians here. Yeah. It's a really, I mean, it's a tragic thing when people are hurt by the very people who should love best.

01:52:38

And I really think that is the number one thing that has put the witness of the church in a sorry state in the world.

01:52:48

In our city, we only have 5 % of the city, at the top end, 5 % of the city, who are believers in Christ.

01:52:58

And the other 95 % have a lot of ugly things to say about Christ because of what they see in the church, which is tragic.

01:53:07

I think if we really, really love each other well, that witness is amazing and that really does point people to Jesus.

01:53:16

What do you mean in your chapter by stand firm? That one is about spiritual battle, and that is something that I think people in ministry, particularly in really difficult places, probably bump into a lot.

01:53:33

And so that's kind of a meditation on Ephesians 6 and the armor of God, and what does it mean to put on the helmet of salvation and the breastplate of righteousness, and what does that accomplish?

01:53:44

And I love that story. There's this little teeny kind of parentheses in 2

01:53:50

Samuel chapter 5 where David's army is getting ready to go into battle, and it says,

01:53:58

David inquired of the Lord, and God responds to him. He says, Go around to the rear and come against them opposite the balsam trees, and when you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the balsam trees, then rouse yourself.

01:54:11

For then the Lord has gone out before you to strike down the army of the Philistines. And there's this picture of God going to battle for us.

01:54:20

And I think, in addition to seeing eternally on the timeline of a short life, there's also this eternal perspective thing of, what is going on in the spiritual realm right here and now that we just don't see, that we're not aware of?

01:54:35

And I think there's a big battle taking place that, of course, Christ has already won, but Satan is still after us.

01:54:42

So being alert and being suited up in your armor to deal with that and then realizing that God has already won, the victory is

01:54:51

His and the battle belongs to the Lord. Yeah, stand firm is something that is like the antithesis in many ways of the modern evangelical church.

01:55:04

It seems like the watchword of modern evangelicalism is bend as much as possible.

01:55:11

And not standing firm. And that is quite a tragedy when there are many things that we need to stand firm on are things that are becoming regulated or lowered to the level of either tertiary importance or no importance at all.

01:55:35

And sparing people's feelings seems to be the height of what we are to be concerned with in our day and age.

01:55:43

Which is tragic because Jesus is the truth and Satan is the father of lies.

01:55:48

So we can't capitulate to lies. We have to stand up for truth if we're going to stand up for Jesus. And finally, you have a chapter,

01:55:57

Choose Light. Not that that's the last chapter in your book, but it's the last chapter we have time to address.

01:56:03

What do you mean by Choose Light? You know, I think we are kind of like those little creatures that live in caves that just prefer darkness a lot of times.

01:56:13

And I'm thinking a lot about struggling with depression and sadness. That one of the best things we can do is choose to meditate on that which is good and pure and beautiful and true.

01:56:24

As Paul says in Philippians 4, 8, that we have to set before our hearts what is eternal and not what is temporary.

01:56:33

And we have to choose to dwell in light. We have to choose to turn away from anything less than God, anything that's dark, and meditate on him.

01:56:44

And I really think there's a choice involved with that. Not to say that depression is solely reduced to a sin issue, because I don't believe that, but I think that the best remedy

01:56:57

God has given us when we're really struggling with weariness or sadness is to choose to be thankful for all the things that he's done for us.

01:57:08

Well, I'd like you to basically, in about two minutes time, summarize what you most want etched in the hearts and minds of our listeners today in regard to this book.

01:57:18

Life is short, and eternity is really, really long.

01:57:25

And the light and momentary troubles that are afflicting us right now are nothing compared with the beauty and the wonder and the joy that is in Christ.

01:57:36

And if we choose to give it all to him and to surrender everything and lay down our life for him, he will imbue it with such purpose and joy that it will completely change the way that we live and give us what

01:57:53

I think Jesus meant when he said he has come to give us life abundantly. Well, I want to make sure that our listeners have all the websites and contact information they need.

01:58:06

First of all, don't forget about Catherine's blog, Catherine's Letters, and that's easy to remember.

01:58:14

Catherine'sLetters .com Catherine'sLetters .com, and of course there's no apostrophe in that, it's just Catherine'sLetters .com.

01:58:23

And the church website for Calvary Wellspring in Aurora, Colorado, that website is

01:58:32

WellspringDenver .org WellspringDenver .org WellspringDenver .org

01:58:38

The publisher that provided us with the free books today that we were giving away, 30 ,000

01:58:43

Days, The Journey Home to God, that publisher is Christian Focus Publications, and especially if you live in the

01:58:51

UK, if you want to order that book, go to ChristianFocus .com ChristianFocus .com

01:58:58

ChristianFocus .com, but one of the major U .S. sources of Christian Focus Publications books is one of our sponsors, and that is the sponsor

01:59:08

I've been repeating throughout the broadcast, Cumberland Valley Bible Book Service, CV BBS .com

01:59:14

CV for Cumberland Valley BBS .com Do you have any more contact information that you care to give?

01:59:23

People can find me on Facebook if they want, but it's under Kate Morgan. My parents,

01:59:29

I don't know why, they called me Kate and they spelled it with a K. But yeah, they can find me there, or they could even shoot me an email.

01:59:39

My email is katharineslettersatgmail .com katharineslettersatgmail .com

01:59:44

and that's with a C. katharineslettersatgmail .com Thank you so much for being on the program, and I want everybody to always remember for the rest of your lives that Jesus Christ is a far greater