Easter - The Gospel Truth! | Ron + Hope: Unfiltered

A March 28, 2024 YouTube episode of Ron + Hope: Unfiltered where Ron Carpenter (with Hope interjecting) explores the theological meaning of Easter and the essence of the gospel—God as spirit and love, the creation of humanity as love's object, Adam's choice, Jesus' incarnation, crucifixion, and resurrection—and connects those doctrines to ‘kingdom’ theology (earth vs. the world, systems, and a future transfer of authority). They also critique contemporary church culture and society: the effects of social media and cancel culture, generational shifts in leadership and discipleship, and a call to preach uncompromised biblical truth while relying on the Holy Spirit. The hosts intersperse pastoral anecdotes and a sponsor ad.
Chapters
Foreign.
Hello, everybody. It's Ron and Hope. Unfiltered, real raw and relevant. What are you doing?
Your eyes jumping, literally when they started to count down. 3, 2, 1. My eye just started doing like.
You know what they say that is?
What? Lack of rest.
Mm. Well, have you been lacking your rest?
I liked rest last night. I didn't have a whole lot of rest. I went to bed about 2:30.
I know. I remember.
And didn't have a great restful night of sleep.
You said I snored.
That's pretty consistent. That's not an anomaly.
You snore.
I don't snore at all.
Lately you hadn't been snoring. You have traded your snoring for coughing.
Cough. Because I've been sick.
Yes.
Right. I'm getting on the backside of it. I'm about over it. So. Yeah, but I didn't sleep a lot last night. And, you know, sometime I think when you're 30, you can overcome those things a whole lot easier. When you miss a good night's sleep when you get our age, it tends to follow you a little bit more. Let's tell them what we're talking about today. And I don't want them to turn it off because we're not going to preach an Easter message. Everybody's going to hear Easter messages all weekend. But you wanted to talk about Easter, and maybe, I think maybe some of the controversy surrounding it a little bit, I think, is where you kind of wanted to go.
No, I just wanted to talk about Easter in general and all that swirls around with Easter. Easter is the fundamental of the Christian faith.
It's the centerpiece of humanity, and it's the centerpiece of time. You know, even time is divided BC and ad. The cross stands between two eras of time.
Right.
And I don't even care if they're an atheist. They'll tell you it's the year 2024 or 2024 after what? Right after the death of Jesus Christ. So I want to talk a little bit about, you know, we can talk about some of our traditions and things and that and other. I don't want y' all to leave and say, oh, they're going to talk about the resurrection. I' get that. Sunday. No, I want to go somewhere a little bit different. I want to talk about this generation's approach to these things. Can I start off with the essence of the gospel?
Yes, absolutely.
Let me. Give me. Give me. It's going to take me about four or five minutes. I can't do this in 60 seconds. The essence of the gospel is God is love. God makes two declarations of himself. He's a spirit, and his worshipers must worship him in spirit. And he's love. To my. Off the top of my head, that's the, you know, the two declarations God makes about his being. In other words, what is he made out of? His substance is spirit and his substance is love. Love is not love. If it has nothing to love, you know, there's got to be an object. There's an object of love, there's an object of affection. And God, because he is love by his very. By the very nature of love, has to have something to love. God created man in his likeness and in his image as the object and the affection of his love as the expression of who he is, and made that physical expression in his image with Adam in the cool of the day, gave him a physical earth. The earth mirrored heaven. Adam mirrored his heavenly father. And I've always taught, when I teach the kingdom, Earth was never meant to operate apart from heaven. It was meant to operate just like heaven. That's why the first place was called Eden. And Eden means paradise or heaven. So Eden was heaven on earth. I don't believe Eden was a place. I don't think Eden was a geographical location. They have unearthed so many biblical cities, they've unearthed so many ancient cities, but they've never found Eden. Why? I think Eden was an environment, right? I think the earth state of being, yeah, the earth was Adam's. Not a little corner in the earth called Eden. I believe there was an environment that created paradise for him, and it was the environment of God. Adam's environment was the presence of God. That was his environment. That was his heaven. That was his paradise. And people say great theological questions, well, if God is love and God is good, why is there so many things in the world that just suck?
Why kids die?
Why is there evil? Why is there sickness? And why is there so much crap in the world? There sure is. But you got to understand, love reciprocated has to be chosen to be reciprocated. I've used this illustration, 20 years of you and the kids. I hope you didn't ever have to do it. But, like, let's say I went on an overnight trip and I preached at a conference, and I got back the next day, and, you know, one of the kids riding the bike, the other one's throwing the ball, the other one's jumping on the trampoline. I don't want to drive up in the driveway. And you call the kids and roll your eyes and say, your dad's here.
Go hugging.
You know, I need you to go, at least try to hug your dad. I don't want that. I don't want that. Because they didn't choose to do that. But if I just drive up and they throw the bicycle down and the ball gets tossed in there and they jump off the trampoline and they come running and they grab my leg, there is nothing in the world like that moment because of what you're experiencing. You're experiencing love. That's what Adam was given was the choice, hope to turn around and love him back. You don't have. I love you. You don't have to love me back. You can choose to. Here's how you make this choice. If you obey me, anything that obeys loves me. If you disobey me. Then basically, when Adam took the fruit, whatever fruit it was, we call it an apple. But whatever fruit it was, when Adam took that fruit, he declared independence from heaven. Heaven is a country. Earth is a country. Earth declared independence from heaven. And the Bible makes it very plain that Satan became the God of this world. Now, I'm going to say some things right here, maybe some people haven't heard, because I don't know how many teachers try to go in this much depth. There's a difference between the earth and the world. The earth and the world are not the same thing.
You preached a whole series on this.
I preached it so good a while back, I'm not sure how much time I spent on it.
So good.
The earth and the world is not the same thing. The Earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof. So God owns the planet and he owns all the resources and everything in the planet. So that's not in question. But the Bible says that Satan is the God of the world. The word world is actually is cosmos. And it means governing systems. So you have a planet that is governed by systems. It used to be governed by heaven's systems. Adam declared independence, Satan took over. So now you have the kingdoms of this world. Not the kingdoms of the earth, the kingdoms of this world. That's why the Bible says, for God so loved the world, not the planet. For God so loved the world that he gave his own. So God so loves and cares about the way that the planet is run, that he sent his only begotten son. So Jesus is not just. For God so loved people, God so loved the world. So Jesus is not just the answer for people, Jesus is the answer to the system.
Yeah.
That's why Jesus said, I am the light of the world. I'm the knowledge of the world. I can illuminate you who are functioning in a system that is dark and corrupt. I'm the light of the world you end up in. This is a lot of stuff being covered. Revelation where it says, the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our God and his Christ and his anointed. That's us.
Yeah.
So the kingdoms of this world, at some time or another, there is a divine shift that is supposed to take place where the governing systems and all of its corruptions and even the wealth thereof is laid up for the righteous. And the system shifts and becomes run by God's anointed. I don't know how that's going to happen. There are people who think we do that, then Jesus comes back, or there are people that think that Jesus comes back to do that.
Right.
The kingdom believe there's some work we're supposed to do, and Jesus comes back to a bride without spot or wrinkle. There's another group that thinks, you know, it's lost and it's going to hell, and only Jesus can save this thing. But Romans 8 says that the earth will be delivered up from its corruption into the glorious hands of the children of God. So there's a lot, you know, just Jesus going to come back and take care of everything. He said, occupy till I come. There's a lot of motivation and militants that's been taken away from the church because we just get in our stained glass buildings and sing. Please hurry up and come back and get me out of this life that I'm powerless to change.
Right. Miserable.
That's not who we were supposed to be at all. So you want to interject anything right here? You want me to keep going or you want me to slow down?
Let's take a break.
Do we have a sponsor today?
Yes, we need to take a break. This is good. It's deep, but we're going to come back and break it down. But right now we're going to thank our sponsor, Nutrafol. Hair thinning is complicated. Ron says thank you, thank you, thank you. He loves Nutrafol.
Tell him about our son right quick before you leave.
Oh, that is so funny. Our oldest son, Chase.
I started thinning about, what, 10 years ago in the back, I started. My hair started thinning some.
Yes. So about two weeks ago, he's 29. Chase sends me a picture bent over the top of his head, and he goes, am I going bald. And I text him back. I'm like, chase, no, you're not going bald.
No, we're just going to send you some Nutrafol. I did.
I said, but I will send you some neutral fall because your hair is thin. And he said, I can't go bald, mom. I can't. He said, that's gross. He said, I'll look gross.
But anyhow, that's funny.
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Code ra all right guys, sorry for the cough during the ad, but like Hope said, I'm getting on the backside of this thing. But anyway, the essence of the gospel is you got man is lost and the world is messed up, right? Jesus is the answer. Yeah, okay, that, that's the essence of the gospel. But God had already marked off the boundaries. Dominion. Man has dominion in the earth. So if God is a spirit, he has no dominion in the earth because you got to have one of these flesh, you got to have flesh. So then you have the immaculate conception. Which Christmas ties in with Easter. You had God coming into the earth through the womb of a woman, but not born with the seed of a man, born of the seed of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit overshadowing Mary, Mary, the Immaculate Conception. Jesus growing in wisdom and stature with God and men. God becoming a man and a man paying a horrific price, ultimately, a crucifixion, giving up his life, and then you've got his spirit. He gives up the ghost, and then you've got his body is laid in the tomb and. But then you've got his soul, the Bible says, descends into Hades and preaches to all the tormented spirits from before the flood.
So there had to be a crucifixion, There had to be a payment.
There had to be a payment of our sin. There's no removal of sin without blood. See, here again, God has to abide by his own rules because he's a king. When a king speaks, what he speaks is law.
Right?
So God is coming and abiding by his own rules. He don't even. You know what? I'm God, I'm going to skirt this. He became a man and heaven emptied itself. The Bible says. And the Bible says that Jesus emptied his heavenly attributes to take on the lowly form of a man, the most humbling thing, to become what he created and then to pay the kind of price he paid and the humility and the suffering that went along with it. So many things right here. But the essence of the gospel is he got back up. And when he got back up, spirit, soul, body, reunited, he led captivity, captive, got keys of death, hell and the grave. And when I put my faith in him, there's always been the forgiveness of sins with pigeons, bulls, goats and blood, but there's never been the removal.
Right? Right.
Jesus removes sin, removes sin. He didn't just forgive them, they are no more.
Yes.
And though your sins were a scarlet, that's why there's a clean slate. So only the Lamb that takes away the sin of the whole world, Jesus could do that. And so, you know, we're halfway in our podcast. That is the gospel.
It is.
That's the gospel of Jesus Christ, the gospel of the kingdom. Different, different story. A lot of teaching has to go with that. That's where you become discipled. Living in the kingdom is living the Jesus way. Yes, it is bringing the way heaven is governed back into your life, into the earth. So that is something totally different. And Jesus said, don't go get people saved. He said, make disciples now. Let's Hit our present generation. Let's hit our present generation.
He said make disciples.
He said make disciples of all nations. Baptizing in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit.
So salvation's first.
I'm just. Here's where I pick a fight.
But you got.
I've given you the essence of the gospel. Now here, here's where we're going to get down and we're going to brawl a little bit. My generation and generations before me, I remember my dad's generation. I remember generation before him, Oral Roberts. I watched TV and heard preachers at least two generations before me preach the gospel unabashedly, without shame. More of the nation than ever during those years claimed to be Christians, right? The influence of the Christian community was warranted everywhere. People were scared to make decisions that would be crossways against the Christian community because our influence in our nation was so powerful. The voting base was so powerful, the business base was so powerful. I remember years the malls didn't open up until after church was over. I remember when I played football in Little League when we had Wednesday night services, we didn't have practice on Wednesday night to ensure kids could go to church. This right here, I've got millennials and Gen Z looking at me probably right now like I landed from outer space. You know why? Because they didn't know a day like that existed. Because now that we're scared to death to offend anybody to preach the gospel, we are in the offense generation. And I'm going to tell you what it's done. It's infected the church. And the thing about it is church, when it's been affected by world, it don't realize it's been infected. No, it doesn't see it this. We don't want to offend anybody. It's a worldly thing.
Don't you think that started though with social media?
Absolutely.
It started with. Well, I think it started because everybody has an opinion.
I think it started with millennials who wanted a whole different paradigm shift for church.
But two, I think it's flows in a parallel flow.
The social media was going on during their, during their upbringing and they saw.
How everybody's opinion on social media can matter and how it cancel you and cancel you.
They leave, they follow, they unfollow, they turn.
They can make your life a living hell.
That people are venomous people and they see that right there, okay?
And they didn't want that.
Then we moved that over to church, okay? And I don't believe any of this is bad intention. I'm not picking a fight with people. I don't think any of this is bad intention. I know a lot of people in these movements, and they are good people. And these people live right, and these people want to do right. And these people can talk about Jesus with tears in their eyes. But you, you know, Jesus said, make sure the light in you be not darkness. Light is knowledge. Darkness is ignorance. He said, make sure what you know is not ignorant.
Yeah. It's like a stronghold.
Yeah. Make sure. Make sure you don't think you're doing right and you're doing wrong.
Right.
That's a powerful statement by Jesus that nobody talks about. Make sure the information you have is not actually dark. And you're preaching it like it's light.
My God.
Okay? And so here's what we have. We have a cancel culture. We have a culture. Everybody's offended by everything. You now can be raked out ordering something at Burger King if you don't use a proper pronoun. I mean, fist fights. I'm seeing them on Twitter. How did it start using improper pronoun?
We saw a fight on an airplane.
Yeah.
I mean, because of the pronoun.
Crazy stuff. All these different ways you can get canceled. Anything political, anything racial, anything that has to do with the homosexual community.
It's our own personal opinion.
Just an opinion that you have, much less a conviction that you have because of your faith. People are scared to say anything because they're scared of the wrath.
Yes, it is.
That will come back upon them. So here's what we do. We live the very life that Jesus warned us against people pleasing. We become people. The Bible says, be God pleasers and not man pleasers. Don't do it for their eyes. Only James talks about that in depth. And so what we're doing is we are scared of people. We are scared of people's reactions. We are scared people's not going to like us. We are scared of us. And we've taken that, shoved it right into the church, and we think it's a holy thing, it's a worldly thing.
It is.
It started in the world and infected the church. It didn't start in the church. It started in the world.
Anytime you're afraid to say what Jesus.
Said, yeah, we got real problems. We got real problems. Number two, if you sit here and you don't want to offend anybody, you fundamentally. I'm going to look in the camera. Do not understand the essence of the gospel.
No.
Jesus said, they hated me.
They will hate you.
They're Going to hate you.
And he said he was the rock of offense.
The Bible says that Jesus is the rock of offense. To the disobedient.
To the disobedient.
So whenever you have a world corrupt with Satan being the God of the world that is living in disobedience, God's way will offend you when you speak the truth. Okay, what we have now is we have a void of truth. We got people in churches that don't know what they believe about abortion.
They don't.
We got people in churches don't have a clue how to vote. We got people in church because there's no. Here's what God believes. Here's what. Here are the keys of the kingdom. Here is the way a man or woman of God conduct themselves. Here is the way we function. Here is the way we behave as believers. None of that is being said. It is still relationships and anxiety.
Fluffy, fluffy stuff.
It is relationships. So we got this whole 2,000 pages of the Bible where God speaks and wants somebody to thunder through that microphone fund.
He wants to preach.
Yeah. How will they know if there's not a preacher?
That's right.
That's what. That's what Romans says. How will they know if there's not a preacher? And preaching has to do with a conviction. Preaching is not conversational.
Right.
The Bible says when Peter got through preaching, they were cut. Cut to the heart. You know, there is an element of my preaching. I want to be informational. I want them to learn. There's an element. I want them to be inspired. And there's an element. I want them to go. I got to get right.
Right I that feeling as a young.
Girl, I got to get right.
Feeling like, oh, I got to make this right. I'd go to the altar every single church service.
If you can go to a church 10 years and never had one Sunday where you feel like you need to change. Yes, something is wrong.
It is.
Guys, I'm just telling you something's wrong.
If you leave, just, oh, hey, everything feels good. Some churches are. Some services are like that. But, my goodness, grace.
Grace takes you like you are, but grace doesn't keep you like you don't leave you there. Because grace is not the power to stay the same. Grace is the power to change. And so somebody has got to be preaching. This is where we are, but this is where God wants us to be. Okay? When this hits their ears, it's going to offend. But you are not in charge of how they perceive it. You are in charge of speaking. It Then the Holy Spirit is in charge of what happens with that seed you just sowed into their life. I have Hindus all over my church because we have so many Indians. We have a huge Indian population in the Bay Area. And we have our beautiful, precious Christian Indians who will bring family members with them that are non Christian. And I have to get up there and say why they believe in all of them. They believe that there's a million ways to God one way. So when I see them in there on purpose. There is no other name given among men by which we must be saved. Say the name of Jesus Christ. I have to say that you do.
Because it's the gospel now.
I'm not in charge with what they do with that. And we act like there's no Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit takes that word and takes that person. Let me tell you something. When I left churches and I was sinning and I was in sin or a sinner. Let me tell you something. The Holy Spirit, it's like I would close the door on my car and the Holy Spirit would get in the passenger seat. Okay, let's talk about this thing. So we think that because they didn't come back next Sunday. Oh, we offended them. They are dealing deeply with everything. You said you wanted to see them next Sunday or you offended them. He's Lord of the harvest.
Yes, he is.
Not you.
Yes, he is.
He's Lord of the harvest. So however long it takes for that seed, that seed, it depends on a person's readiness. There are some people that get saved and will change forever that day. They're done. They're tired of it, they're sick of it, and they want out of it. Some plants, some water, and there's some others that are not ready to go there, but they're now having to wrestle because the truth will not let them go.
But we don't stop preaching truth.
Exactly right. It's got to be preached. It's got to be preached with some sense. Yeah.
Speak the truth in love. The Bible says.
Let me tell you what I mean about some sense. I had some bullying happen to me, Hope. I knew they were bullying me and I knew who they were talking about because they didn't veil it very well. They were kind of calling me out without calling me out. When the Supreme Court overturned Roe versus Wade, which is monumental in historic. Most people never thought it happened, especially in our lifetime when that happened, you know, I was in a church about two days after that happened. Big church, big meeting. And the pastor got the mic and said, the curse has been lifted and the place goes, you know what? And he's absolutely right. Yes.
And we were grateful for that.
There was a scourge of death.
Yes.
Across America. A nation who will kill its own. Okay.
Yes.
He was exactly right. But he knew where he was at. He was in a Bible Center. He knew who was in the room, and he knew what kind of response he was going to get when he said it.
Yeah.
I'm in the Bay Area of California. There's no telling how many people in our church. In our church, you got to understand this Bay Area. 97% unchurched. The 3% are Catholic evangelicals. I don't even know if they register as a percentage in the place where we're with millions of people in the Bay Area. Okay. So people were bullying me that I made no bold proclamation about that legal event. They bullying me, wanting to say something. And I finally got a chance to talk to one of them that was bullying me. I said, you know what? I said I could have did what you did. I said, I could have walked right back in the Bay Area Church and said, the curse has been lifted. And I said, and they'll get offended and they'll leave. And what have I done? I pleased you.
Right.
Why? Because they haven't had any truth.
Yeah. You haven't taught and preached.
Truth does not need to be released on the heels of political victory. So one of my next series. Okay. Before you were formed, I knew you.
Yes.
You taught the Word when you were in your mother's womb. I ordained you to be a prophet to the nations. All of your days were ordained for you before one of them came to be. All of the days of your life are written in a book. Daniel, chapter nine. And those people who are in my church that probably thought overturning Roe versus Wade was the worst day in the world for women. But love Jesus. But they haven't been taught.
No.
I'm sitting there and I can see in their mind. And I even had one or two of them tell me, said, you're challenging everything I've been taught.
And you even said, I remember you saying when you were teaching that, you said, republicans aren't right, Democrats aren't right.
Because they talk about, when is life?
When does life start? You said, they're both wrong. Life started before you got here.
Life started in heaven.
It started in heaven.
Yes. He knew you. Did you. Before you got here.
Yes.
So if God had a plan before you got here, and then we take away the body and it's Time to enter the earth. We have removed that plan. How many plans of God are absent in the earth right now? You see what I'm talking about?
So you spoke the truth, but you spoke it in love.
I spoke it in love. I taught it.
And you left it.
Wherein the Holy Spirit do the rest. And I didn't do it on the heels of political victory. So I can come in there and just tick everybody off.
Right.
You know, and so there's a way to preach the truth and not be totally, totally offensive. But the truth in its essence offends when people aren't living it.
Yes.
There's no way around.
And you can't help it. And you can't help it.
So the only way I cannot offend is embrace the life that you now live and tell you it's all right. So here's where we are. Our church numbers are big. But people who claim to be Christians in America. Diminishing, dwindling. Christian culture in America has almost goodness.
It's hard to find.
And our values are deteriorating at a rate that no other generation, that every generation combined has not seen.
Yeah.
So that tells me, as a church, we are not impacting our generation just because we got them in a building and gave them a T shirt and.
Latte and they're clapping and jumping up and down.
The only thing that brings change is truth. And here's where I am, at my church, and this is what I challenge everybody else. Hope we don't skip pages or words. There's not a page in that Bible I won't preach. Not one. Even the ones I don't like. Not one.
So I'm concerned we don't skip the Holy Spirit.
I'm concerned that sinner or saint, we have so many things we're scared to say. I'm concerned that the church has. Why is a government making policies that spit in the face of Christians? Because they know there's not enough Christian impact and evidence to make a difference. So they're not scared of you. That's why I told people, I said, the Bay Area has so many non Christian laws, literally laws. And I said, why? Because the Christians don't make up a significant enough part of the voting base for a politician to care.
But lives are hanging in the balance every day that we're silent and we don't preach truth.
I don't know what the answer to this is because, you know, I will tell you another thing about the generation after me that's different than the ones before me. We looked to fathers, we Hunted fathers. We wanted to hear the voice of a father. We wanted to carry their briefcase. I've noticed the generation after me, they listen to each other.
That's like going to your family reunion to find your wife.
Yeah. They listen to peers. They don't go to fathers. If you told me to name 10 of the most popular millennial pastors right now, I could not tell you. I could tell you mentors. They have mentors. Somebody who helped them build their church and devise their system and help them organize their organization, but somebody who has fathered them and schooled them in their theology, which I'm hearing some of the craziest theology I've ever heard. Who's anchored their character, who anchors them right from wrong, who reels them back in, who keeps them humble, and who ensures that they're preaching the gospel and not just all this other fluff. I don't know who those fathers would be in these guys lives. And that's not.
You've tried to be some of their.
Fathers, but they won't let it.
They won't let it happen.
And they're a father up until you challenge something they believe. And another thing is, if they got more people in a building than you, why should they listen to you? And what they don't understand about a father is, I'm not here to have an arms race on who has more people sitting in a building. And as long as you got more people in your building, I can listen to you. That's not what a father is. Those are mentors and teachers. Go find somebody to help you build your church bigger. I got a problem with that. A father anchors you to who you are, your character. A father anchors you to your character. You will need outgrow your father. You'll outgrow mentors, and you'll move from one level to another level to another. You will never outgrow your father.
Your father can still jerk your chain.
Your father will jerk your chain. And when you think you all that and when you think you're like, it's like Samuel when he came back to Saul. I remember when you were small in your own eyes.
In your own eyes. Yep.
Saul. When Samuel first started talking to him, Samuel was a prophet. Saul was a nobody. Saul's the king. Samuel. I got too much influence now, and influence without a guide, that's scary. And so these are some things that I see that are troubling. And I felt like I need to speak to it.
And I'm thankful. I'm thankful for the truth of this.
Weekend, we're about to approach the true essence of what it really is that will be proclaimed boldly at redemption.
There was a high price to pay for my life, and I couldn't pay it. And only a spotless lamb spilling holy blood redeemed my life.
There was a death and resurrection, and I am grateful for it and redeemed me from the pit. And the fact is, it needs to be preached. And then after it is preached, disciples need to be made. And that means you're going to have to speak the lifestyle of God into their present lifestyle. And it is going to be bumpy. It's going to be bumpy, but you're not in charge of their rate of growth. You are in charge to preach the Bible without compromise.
Right?
And when we start compromising and skipping pages, then hope we become idol worshipers because we don't worship the God of the Bible. We have a lifestyle we want to live. We pick the scriptures that suit our lifestyle, and we fashion a Jesus that suits our lifestyle. And then we become an idol worshiper because that's not Jesus at all. And so I want to call everybody back to the true essence of the Gospel this Easter. I told you I felt this week I've done 33 Easters as a pastor.
Feels like you've done 3300.
There's something different about this week. I couldn't even have a planning meeting for crying and a planning meeting. There was nothing to cry about. We were planning logistics, moving things around the stage. When this happens, light goes. And I was weeping on the plane. You saw me on the plane when I was going from west coast to East Coast. I just immersed myself in the story. I read it from three different accounts. And starting today, I told the spirit of God. I want to read the Easter story every day, all the way through till Sunday, because I want a rebirth of its true meaning in me. When you do 33 of them, it can become familiar. And I want it to be like, it's the first time I've been touched by the gospel and my heart was shaking and tears filled my eyes, and there's a warmth in my soul. And I knew he was near me. And I just believe something special is going to happen this weekend. But I'm calling you guys to go with me. Go with me as people who speak it in an uncompromised fashion. Don't care how creative you get, that's fine. I don't care if you use props. That's fine. I don't care if you use videos. That's fine. I do some of that, too. But when you finish, however you do it, make sure they've heard the real message. Amen.
Because only the truth can make you free.
That's it.
The truth is what makes you free.
It's been good.
Yeah, it has. So until next time, it's running. Hope Unfiltered.
Real and relevant. Jesus healed my eye from jumping while we were having a podcast. We love you. We'll see you guys later.
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