https://www.listennotes.com/e/60dc913c0a5f41f583609525b3645df6

Welcome, everybody. I see you smiling already at that opening, Royce. What's up, everybody? Happy Friday. Happy Valentine's Day to everybody today. I am today's host, Christian Edwards, and this is King's Council Live. Usually I'm the sidekick today, but Riley is traveling. He's in the air at the moment. So I am at the reigns today at. And don't worry, don't, don't, don't worry, don't tune out, because Riley's not here. We have a special not guest, the man behind the scenes for everybody who's gonna be on camera with us for this whole episode. So I'm pumped about that. Royce, our producer. What's up, man? I'm here. How you doing?

I am here. And I. I mean, I would consider myself a guest because I'm not on screen. There's. I'm not a guest to the show because they know me and I am behind the scenes, but they don't always get to talk to me, unless you catch me on Dear America or Chad Prather. But I am excited to be here because I like this show a lot. I love doing this show because it's more biblically, like, you know, I guess structured, and I appreciate that. I love that. Grew up in church, so I love everything about the show, and I love to be here with the audience that feels the same way. And. And today's Valentine's Day. It is a special day. I'm married. You're married?

Yes. Not to each other.

No, not to each other.

Let's clarify.

Let's make that very known. Not to each other, but.

Right, right. And, yeah, that's what we do on this show. We take the. The current events, the. The hot topics of the week, and we dissect them from a biblical perspective. And today is Valentine's Day, so we will talk a little bit about the history of Valentine's Day, just like we did back in December, talking about the history Christmas. Is it pagan? Should Christians be celebrating it? But, yeah, we're gonna dive into that. And it's the day of love. Right? So. But when you're going to talk about love a little bit and celebrate a day of love, what better place to come but from the Bible? Because we serve a God who declares himself that he is love. And the Bible has some things to say about love that are a little bit different from the world's perspective of love today. So we'll dive into that a bit. But you, Royce, what are your plans? I mean, you're. You're. You've Been married a couple years now. But you're still a newlywed, I would say. So what's the big plans for Valentine's Day?

I, I have been married for a couple years now. September will be three years. So we're excited about that. But today my, my wife just got her, her rn. She's a registered nurse now and she just started her first 12 hour shift of all days today. So she will be gone until late tonight. I say late, like 7:00, like 7:30. And then I think we're just gonna do a movie night. We try to switch it up and do something different. We've done the nice fancy dinner, you know, and you go out and you have fun. And we did a picnic one time in front of a lake. That was fun. Very. We like to be romantic, right?

Yeah.

This year I think we're gonna do soda and popcorn in front of the 65 inch TV and just watch something. Don't know what we're watching yet, but that's our plans. We're gonna just kind of hang out tonight. Especially after a long day of work, you know, I don't think she wants to go out and do anything. So we're just gonna do our.

No, I love it. You sound like me and my wife. We have nothing planned for today. I, I have it pretty good with my wife. She does not care about holidays. She doesn't care about her birthday. The only thing she really cares about is our anniversary. Right. Because that's the date that's special for us. The day we got married. And we usually take a trip, whether it be a long trip, a short trip, you know, having kids, it's difficult to get away every time that time of year. But it's beautiful. And I, she actually, I don't wouldn't say hate. Hate is a strong word. But she and I both very much so dislike Valentine's Day as, as we celebrate it today. It's so commercialized and it's a day. It's like you're obligated to show how much you love your wife. Right. Well, if you're not showing your wife how much you love her the other 364 days of the year, then it's like, what are you doing? So I, I, she wasn't expecting anything. But yesterday, just to kind of throw her off a bit, I bought her a nice new plant. She's not a big flowers girl, so I bought her a plant, got her some chocolate covered strawberries, and probably even buying that a day before Valentine's Day, I Saved money. Because if you buy anything on Valentine's Day, if you go out to eat on Valentine's Day, it's going to cost you a fortune because that's when everybody else in the world is celebrating.

That's right. Well, my wife does love flowers, so I went out and got her two dozen roses yesterday because I'm smart. And then I've got, I got a little gifts over here that I'll give her later tonight. But we don't do too much. We don't go crazy. I know some people buy like, like jewelry and electronics and make it a whole big thing, but it's not about that. In the same way, like we've made Christmas too much about the presents. I think it's starting to be that way with Valentine's Day. But no, it's about, for me at least how I view it, it's just about spending time with your loved ones, you know, your significant other more specifically. And not about what did you get me, what did you do? For me, it's just being together and enjoying the love that you have. And we'll go deeper into all that too.

But yeah, yeah, I love it. So Lucy and I will be hanging out tonight. Yesterday when I surprised her and my 4 year old son, we surprised her together with the plant and the chocolate cover strawberries. She's like, wait, when's Valentine's Day? Is today Valentine's Day? I said, no, it's tomorrow. So she doesn't even know when Valentine's Day is, which is good. But yeah, the holiday is so commercialized. I think it's over a billion cards are, are sent every Valentine's season. Right. Second only to Christmas where it's, it's, it's a higher number. But think about that. A billion Valentine's cards. So when you're ever driving by a little strip mall and you see a Hallmark that there and you see nobody in it, well, they stay in business because there's a billion cards being bought every Valentine's Day and more than a billion every Christmas.

Have you seen any of like the digital cards, like on Twitter or whatever where people are putting Trump with the shot in his ear and he's like, I take a bullet for you. Valentine's Day card, you can print it out into and from. There's a ton of, they're like memes, right? There's a ton of them. So on top of the physical ones, I'm sure there's another trillion digital ones too that you can send and have fun with.

But yeah, I remember in, like, grammar school, you know, everybody, like, gets a Valentine's card for somebody else in the class. And I remember even as a little kid, I refused to give a Valentine's card to another boy. I was like, to me, it didn't make sense. It didn't make sense to me. And even, like, as kids, everybody's just getting. You get a card and you write something on for, like, every other kid in the class, I was like, I'm not.

You're like, nah, I like girls. I'm not doing that.

Yeah. And it's like, I don't want to receive one from another boy, even though it's. It's harmless. It's innocent. I know, but I just kind of remember that as a child, those little Valentine's cars that we would send back and forth in class, we were kind of forced to. Right. That's what you do. And. Yeah. Yeah, I had an issue with that. But we'll jump more into Valentine's Day. But let's talk a little bit about some of the news that that's going on this week. And you've been keeping me up to date, because I've been traveling this week, and I think it was Thursday. I was like, royce, I have no idea what's been going on this week. I need your help.

Luckily, I stay pretty active on Twitter, and when you texted me, the biggest thing at the time, and it still is huge news, is the RFK being confirmed officially. And that's such big news. And we have a clip here that we can play of him actually being sworn in if we want to play that. But it's such big news because, a, the Democrats keep trying to stop all of these confirmations, and RFK was no exception. He was definitely hard to get put through, and they try to hit him with all the hard questions in the hearings, but he made it. And he's such a big upgrade from who we had last, which makes no sense to ever be in the Health and Service Department, like, in charge of our health. And we can show that image. But I thought maybe we should play this first.

Sure. He's in.

And it's so. Again, it's so important because this is who we had representing us before as health. As the. This was the depiction of Health and Human Services in America as of a couple days ago. And it's. It's embarrassing as a country, you know, it is.

And it's not necessarily because it's a transgender person. It's just the whole package, quite frankly.

The transgenderness aside, it's just the, it's kind of overweight and obese and not. Does not look healthy in any sense.

Yeah, even the hair doesn't look healthy. I don't know if it's because it's, it's a man trying to look like he has long women's hair, but the hair just doesn't even look healthy to me. But yeah, certainly not a healthy looking individual. I bet he is probably on blood pressure medication and probably medication for high cholesterol, all, all sorts of stuff. But yeah, I mean, RFK is, if I could look like RFK when I'm his age, I'll be a happy man and Lucy will probably be a happier woman if I could look like that at RFK's age.

So is he like 70? I forget how old he is. He's, he's up there though.

I think so. And I knew he was in shape, but then once the name started getting floated, floated around to have this position. That's when, you know, you start to see all the clips online, him doing the pull ups and him with the shirt off and all that. I was like, oh, I didn't know RFK was jacked like that. All right.

He's more in shape than a lot of 20 year olds will ever be. Know what I'm saying? Like, he's, he's very, very in shape. Not to be weird, but it's just impressive for his age. 71, someone said in the comments.

Okay, Roger. And then Roger, what's up man? And then apart from that, how about the fact that what he's actually trying to do, he's been trying to do and now he's in a position to do it. But he, he's been very outspoken about what's being put in our food, about vaccinations and all sorts of things. So he, he is about health, period. Right. And if you're, if you're that concerned with health, you probably will look more like RFK than this depiction that we see next to RFK here.

And then just to like, I mean, give a little bit of, of clarification on some of this stuff, there are things in America that, that's allowed in our food that's not allowed in any other country. All these different dyes and different preservatives and things that we put on our crops to keep them, you know, keep the bugs off. Like you're not allowed to do a lot of these things in other countries because it was deemed unsafe and unhealthy and bad for the produce or Whatever it is. And you know, they keep doing this stuff and they put people like this thing in charge to keep Americans fat and poor. Because if you're fat and poor, then you're pretty easy to control and they make the good stuff more expensive, which I also think is, is wrong. We should reverse that.

Yeah, I remember as a kid just seeing like my father take medication for different things and then like aunts and uncles if I stayed at their house and it was like a whole closet worth of stuff and it's just going in. Taking your pills in one of those containers, you know, I have one of those containers for like supplements and vi vitamins, but it was like, no, I, I take this pill twice a day. I take this pill three times a day. And as a kid I just kind of assumed you get old and you need medication, right? You just, as you age, you get sick. But I'm 43 now and it's like, wait, that's not the case. Right. If you actually take care of yourself, take care of your health, then you won't be on all these medications later on in life. And I hope I say this right, I've heard this said. But yeah, if you don't, if you don't take care of your health now, you'll be forced to take care of your health later. Right? And nobody wants to be in that situation. Nobody wants to be old and dependent upon medication, going to the doctor every single day. You ever meet some of the older people where that's their whole life and it almost becomes a highlight of your day. I get to go out and go to my doctor's appointment. It's like, I don't want to sign up for that if I could avoid that.

People get old and they become drug addicts unwillingly, kind of, they have to take these drugs because something happens earlier in life and they're prescribed something that truthfully they probably didn't need and that comes with side effects. And there's another drug to solve those side effects and those. That drug comes with even more side effects. And it's just a never ending strain of like, oh, how many pills do you. I take 50 pills a day. I do this and that to fix all these different things. And they make you look at yourself like there's so many things wrong with you, when in fact everything that you're taking is causing a majority of that and all stemmed from one thing that you probably didn't need that medication for in the first place. Now, there's a lot of scenarios where obviously people do need medication for certain things to fix some things. But a lot of the time there are natural ways to take care of things. I'm a big advocate for that. Not telling people how to treat their health. But I'm really big on personally if there is a plant I can eat, a natural way that I can take care of whatever it is that I have, I will go that route before I go and take some prescribed drug that the side effects are a mile long. But that's just me.

Let me ask you this thing because this is a hotly debated topic in the church. What about marijuana? So it's a plant, it comes from the earth. Right. There are some health benefits. Not the THC part. Right. The cbd, which is a good anti inflammatory. But marijuana. No for Christians. No, for everybody.

For me, for me personally and I really, I would say for Christians because I think anything that, that kind of messes up your, your train of thought and your thinking and, and, and could put you in bad scenarios I think you shouldn't do. I think, you know, obviously we're taught don't do drugs, don't drink alcohol, this, this, this and that, but I think it goes even further in that that's not taught. And to stay on this topic of food and health, I think there are foods that just like even Christians just abuse. And I think in God's eyes, if you are allowing yourself to become so unhealthy that you can't move or whatever the case is and you're doing it willingly, that could be viewed as like, hey, you did not take care of yourself. And that could be viewed bad in God's eyes. I don't know, I can't really speak to say that it's a sin, but I don't, I can say that, that I guarantee you God doesn't like to see you do that to yourself. And so with marijuana, like other drugs, I think it can serve a purpose medically. But like regular marijuana, just for what it does. Do you get the high? Like I don't think that that is, that's something that people should be practicing. But that's again just, I don't and I wouldn't.

Yeah, well I agree with you and food addiction is a real thing. Like people get addicted to food and you may have somebody who said I've never done a drug, never drank my entire life, however, they're, they're overweight and they get all giddy when they're about to eat a meal. Right. Those same endorphins that, that are rushing through your brain, giving you satisfaction for somebody else. When they have a glass of wine for somebody else, when they do a particular drug for somebody else, if they're, you know, sleeping around, what. Whatever. Whatever that rush is. People do get that with food and it can be an addiction. Marijuana, obviously, the Bible says to be sober minded, right? And the scripture in Ephesians that says don't be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Holy Spirit, right? So it's not just wine to be drunk with wine. It's. It's whatever will intoxicate you, whatever will get you out of that state of sobriety. Because if you're mentally in that state, even if it's, you know, people like, oh, marijuana is harmless. Well, guess what? You're not sober minded. It doesn't. To be sober minded doesn't mean. Or to be the opposite of sober minded doesn't mean you're just like blacked out drunk. No, it's anything. It's anything that that's added to take away from the. The sober mind. So it literally says, don't be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Holy Spirit. And the way it's written in the present imperative, it l. If you were to literally write it out, how it's said in the Greek is to continuously be being filled with the Holy Spirit. Guess what? If you don't have a sober mind, if you have something in this temple of which God calls his home, right? When you say yes to the Lord and you're filled with the Holy Spirit, if you're not can. You're not going to be able to be filled with the Holy Spirit and receive more of God if you're not sober minded. So, yeah, yeah. Who knew we'd start the first 20 minutes of the show on this, Royce. But here we are. Here we are.

It's why the people came, right? They want to hear the gospel.

But yeah, and. And make sure you guys hit the like button kind of secretly. I want to make sure this episodes has more views and more likes than any with Riley on it, just so I can have some writing rights. I can kind of poke and needle him a little bit. Yeah, yeah. But let's move on. I know we have a clip of Trump and this was big. I've been closely following all that's been going on in Israel pretty much since I got saved, but obviously with the war that's going on there, and this was Trump last week, what he has to say, because there was a ceasefire that was put in place because of Trump between Israel and Hamas, but then now Hamas, they've been slowly releasing the hostages under the cease fire deal, but they said that Israel is violating the terms of the ceasefire. So. And they said they're not going to release more hostages. So this was what Trump said.

Well, I would say this, and I'm going to let that because that's Israel's decision. But as far as I'm concerned, if all of the hostages aren't returned By Saturday at 12 o' clock, I think it's an appropriate time. I would say cancel it and all bets are off and let hell break out. I'd say they ought to be returned by 12 o' clock on Saturday. And if they're not returned, all of them, not in drips and drabs, not 2 and 1 and 3 and 4.

And 2.

Saturday at 12 o' clock, and after that, I would say.

All.

Hell is going to break out.

Well, I would, I like how he contemplated whether or not he wanted to say that at the end.

Right.

He knew it was on his mind. He wasn't looking for those words. He was trying to figure out if he wanted to say, all hell will break loose. And I don't think he's bluffing. And that's why we like Trump, because he's definitely not bluffing.

Yeah, yeah. And I came across this just this morning, and this is an American hostage that has been freed. His name is Keith Siegel. And he, he created this video message to Trump. We're not going to show it, but I'll read some of what he said. He said, I was held by Hamas for 484 days in unimaginable conditions, and every day felt like it could be my last. Please bring them home. Referring to the remaining hostages, he said, president Trump, you are the reason I am home and alive. Because of you, I've been reunited with my beloved wife, four children and five grandchildren. Thank you for your continued fight against terrorism and your courageous leadership, which has brought me and so many others back to our homes, to our families, to safety and to peace. And it's like, yeah, that, that alone, I know there's a, a lot of topics, there's a lot of factors as to why you vote for one person as opposed to another. But for everybody on the, on the left who's talking about, you know, if you're pro life, you're taking away women's rights, you know, and the rights of women, the rights of children to become another gender, that sort of thing. What about the rights of people who were like, savagely Taken from their homes and held captive. This guy. 484 days. Can you imagine just one of those days how they were treated Right. And again, a lot of those hostages were being killed. So you don't know if this is the day. And probably a lot of them were probably just asking, God, let this be my last day. I can't bear this anymore. And for Trump, it took, you know, Trump getting in office and he actually negotiated the ceasefire before he January 20th. Right. So credit goes to him. Credit goes to that party, I believe. And I, I just think it's. I'm proud to have a president that's making sure that these hostages in another country that they're taking care of. And again, all hell will break loose. And then what did Hamas say yesterday? They say, yeah, we're going to continue. Hold, hold on. But my four year. Go ahead. But I'll be right there are. My 4 year old is here in the house. Our nanny couldn't come today, so it's good. We're 22 minutes into the show. He's a very active, restless four year old. So the fact that this is the first time he's come in. I don't know if you heard what he said, but he told me he had to go poop, which I may throw it to you for a minute while I wipe him because he knows how to wipe himself. Just not very good as a four.

Year old as he need to take care of that. Go ahead. We can keep talking, but yeah, so.

Why don't we show that clip. Has nothing to do. Has nothing to do. Let's show this clip of the whale and then will you be able to talk about this whale for I can a minute. Okay. All right, I'll be right back.

All right. You're good, man. All right. All right. So Christian actually brought this up to me. I'll take him off just for a second. So there's not, you know, a random empty chair. But he brought this to my attention. I didn't really know too much about this until he showed it to me. And we can watch the clip. It's kind of graphic and you can read right here what it says. Man was, you know, kayaker was swallowed by a whale and then spit out. Obviously sounds like a biblical story, but let's not waste any more time. 36 seconds. Let's just kind of nervous. Let's just see what this looks like.

Oh.

Does it show him getting spit back out? There he is. Whoa, man. Holy cow. I mean, could you imagine being swallowed by a Whale and then spit back out. I have an article here as well. Kayaker gets swallowed by humpback whale while. Humpback whale before he spit back out while video shows. And then a quote from him. I thought it had already eaten me. This was apparently in Chile that this happened. And I don't know how often something like this actually happens, let alone be caught on video. I mean, that itself in itself is wild that they even got this on video. And who knows why the whale would even do this. I guess this is the guy that was swallowed by the whale. Jeez, it's straight out of a biblical story. But he didn't spend, you know, any amount of time in that whale like we. Like we know from the Bible. Geez, man. Kayaker in Chile. Remind me not to go kayaking in Chile. This is just some shocking stuff. I'm trying to see if it says any more information about this dude or about. Or about this situation, but. Holy cow. Swallowed by a whale in Chile. Again, I'm not going kayaking in Chile. And, you know, I don't think this bears a question like, oh, is this a biblical thing? Does this mean something? I don't think so. I think this is just a freak scenario. It could. It very well could, but I don't think so. Oh, Christian, you're back.

Yeah. Can you hear me?

I. Sorry. Yeah, yeah, I. Sorry, I couldn't hear you. I had to listen to offstage feeds off. I don't even know how long you were there. My bad, dude.

Yeah, I was there a minute. I was trying to chime in, but, yeah, well, my bad. Obviously, it's remarkable to see the footage of this, but, you know, Jonah in the Bible is one of those stories where people are like, this can't possibly be true that a whale swallows a human. And. But the story of Jonah, he was in the belly of the well for three days and three nights, similar to Jesus being in the tomb. Three days, three nights and spit out. So I just want to show this. And there have been some reports over the course of history of this happening. And unfortunately for a couple of those, they were found in the belly of the whale, dead. So luckily or thankfully for this guy, he was spit out right away. But I can't think of possibly a more scary thing on planet Earth than being in a kayak, seeing this gigantic whale circle you, approach you, and open that gigantic mouth, and you're literally in the whale. I mean.

I mean, what are the chances that he got spit back out, though, like that? To me, the craziest part, you know, because whales, it's a fish, it's going to eat stuff, but to then be spit back out is even wilder, in my opinion.

Yeah. I don't know, maybe the kayak helped. Maybe it was like it got lodged in its throat or something. I don't know.

But maybe.

Yeah.

Yeah, but he wasn't tasty enough, right? He's like, ah, no, I'm good.

Right, right. So let's transition here, man, because it is Valentine's Day and I want you guys to get active in the chat here. If you haven't liked this episode thus far, like it, share it, because we're going to talk about love. And again, as I mentioned earlier, the. The Bible has some different things to say about love than what the world says about love. And I certainly had a different perspective of love before I came to Christ. Now, I'm going to put you on the spot here, Royce. What's your definition of love?

I don't know if I have like, like a one sentence definition of love, but I mean, I feel like I can describe how I perceive love, I guess. And that's just an emotional relationship, you know, with someone that, that you're close to, like a spouse or a mother or a brother or a father. Someone who, I mean, you would risk your life for. You couldn't imagine your life without someone that you care about deeply. And that's not going to be like your typical friend, your neighbor. It's going to be, you know, when you know, you know, right?

Yeah. Yeah. So a lot of the things that you said, I think are compacted in this definition. This is the definition that I use when I've done a Bible study on love before. So the definition that, that I have, and I think this is probably the best biblical definition, is it's the decision to compassionately, righteously, responsibly, sacrificially and unconditionally seek the well being of another or meet the need of another. But the key word that I said there is the decision. Right. A lot of what we know as the love today. And all I knew about love before I came to Christ was it was a feel. And, you know, you watch movies, I'm a sucker for some chick flicks, I have to admit. And you see this love story, the Notebook being one of them, and you see this story of love, and when you watch it when you're younger, you just kind of like dream of that, that you find that person that you love. You almost, it's almost a sense of worship. The way that it's depicted. Right. Which isn't good, obviously. That would be idolatry. If we're worshiping anything more than we're worshiping Jesus. A decision, because when you look at scripture, God commands us to love our enemies. Now, if love was just a feeling, I don't think that I could love an enemy. I could make a decision to actually love my enemy. And. And it will be sacrificially. It will be undeserving. Right. They don't deserve my love, but I do it anyway. They may have spited me, they may have done me wrong, but I'm still commanded to love them. So there's no feelings involved there. Like, I don't have to get a warm, bubbly feeling in my gut to love somebody. It's a decision to. To act as Christlike as possible. Right. Is it to. To offer that sacrificial love? And that's really when we see love in the Bible, there's a number of Greek words for love. But the way God loves us and the way that we are to love him and love others is with this agape love. And agape love is sacrificial. It's unconditional. You bestow that love even if the person is not deserving of it. And God knows that. I was certainly in that place where I was not deserving of God's love in any sort of way. And quite frankly, none of us are deserving. But that's where God's grace and mercy comes to play. We're not deserving of it, but it's unmerited favor. Right. That's. That's God's grace. And even think about this, we're to love our wives as Christ loves the church. Now, the church being all of us, like in scripture, Jesus is depicted as the husband or the groom, and the church is the bride. Right. And ultimately there's going to be this great marriage in heaven where all of us who are saved, who are a part of the church, are in heaven with them. The great marriage in the sky, so to speak. But there's days where I don't feel like necessarily going out of the way for my wife. Right. There's days where maybe we get into an argument, and I've shared this. Roger is on here, so he's heard this. But I remember a day specifically. We have a. One of the coffee makers that just makes like one cup at a time. So we don't do the K cups. Yeah. We still like the. The grinds in there.

Yeah.

And she would get on me because after I made a cup of coffee, I wouldn't dispose of my grinds. So she would have a fresh little. Little cup there. And I. I was like, you're right, babe. I know. And here's the thing. It may be something that, on your end is just, you know, an oversight. You mean nothing by it. But if you have a spouse that says, hey, you know what? Can you just do this for me? Even if in your mind, it's like, why can't you do yourself? You know, you leave the grinds in there for me most times too. Why can't you do yourself? If you have a spouse that's asking you, can you just please do this for me? Even if you think that it's no big deal, just do it. Because those little things are. And that's part of love, right? You're being sacrificial. This is a little example, a small example, because we're just talking about coffee grinds. But I remember we. We had a conversation I had a few days in a row. I'm disposing of my grinds when I'm done, and even putting the grinds in there for her so she can just hit the button and. And have her coffee. Well, we got into a little argument. I remember the next day, I got up early, had my coffee, and I was like, you know what? I'm gonna leave these grinds in here. She does it the way she. She. The way she was talking to me last night. She doesn't deserve for this husband, this gift that God has blessed her with to dispose of those grinds for her. She should guess what. She's gonna have to throw out those grinds herself. Right? And I left it. And. Oh, man, the conviction of the Holy Spirit. You wouldn't think I. I, like, made the biggest sin. I committed the biggest sin on earth, but I was just convicted because I was in my feelings, right? We talk about feelings with love, and feeling feelings are out of the equation with love. With love. But I was in my feelings in my flesh, and I wanted to just kind of poke her. And. And that's what I did. And then I was so convicted, like, oh, my gosh, that's not love by any means. Tit for tat. We're. We're wired. We're hardwired to be vengeful. Right? Even think about it. When you watch a movie, Good guy, Good Guy versus Bad Guy. Think. Think of the movie Taken right, with. With Liam Neeson now.

I will.

It's not good. Yeah. It's not good to, to kill, right? It's not good to hurt people. But when you're watching that movie, even as a sold out for Christ believer, you want him to, to kill and torture every single person that's affiliated with the taking of his daughter, right? Because that's just how our flesh is wired. We want vengeance, right? Especially if we believe that, that it's. It's good versus evil, even though it, it is evil effectively to like ruthlessly torture and kill somebody even if they're in the wrong, it. That. That's not God's plan. That's not God's will. One second, bud, I'll be right with you. Okay?

You know, and if you, if you take your story and you reverse it, though, into, into her persp. Your wife's perspective, right? She loves you regardless of the fact that she has to get on to you for leaving the coffee grounds in there. God, you know, in that moment when you said, you know, you were gonna be a little mean, I guess for a second, I'm leave those coffee grounds. He convicted you. He talked to you despite. And he still loves you. But he had to tell you to correct yourself in the same way your wife was telling you to correct yourself. And she still loves you. We all make mistakes every day. I'm still very young guy, but I've made mistakes in my life, plenty of them. And he knows the mistakes that I'll make in the future. And he loves me despite those mistakes, regardless. And this is why we use God. I mean, every sermon, every Bible study about love uses Jesus as the perfect example of love. Because of, you know, not only how he loves us, just in general, and the fact that he came to this earth to show us how much he loves us and to tell us that he loves us, but he died on the cross for our sins. I talked about when you asked me definition, I even mentioned, like, somebody you would die for. Jesus literally did that. He did that representation, right? That saying he died for us, for our sins, so he can be with us and we can be with him in heaven one day. And I think, I think as long as we keep looking at God as an example, you know, then people will be on the right track. But, and we talked about this a bit before this show, but today's culture, like my peers, people my age, have no idea how to actually look at love. They have no idea. They just. They look at it as a sexual act, right? And they sleep around and they want to be with a million people because they think that's what love is when if you read the Bible and you understand Jesus in any sense, you know that that's not the case. And this culture has like dumbed down this idea of what it means to be in love so much, you know, that it's separated us from Jesus, you know, and people don't often realize that until they've seen Jesus. Nobody who's living in sin says, you know what? I bet there's more to this. Or they do, and they have no idea what it is until it causes them to see Jesus. But I've seen it my whole life. I see it around my friends where it's just turned into this weird, dull, nobody knows what it is. They think it's just being sleeping with that next person and they don't actually know how to treat somebody, you know, to have that feeling.

Yeah, yeah. Well, sex is a sacred thing. It's reserved for a husband and wife and God. I'm very grateful that God created it in such a way where we could take pleasure from it, right? It could have been just strictly to reproduce. You get married, you reproduce, and there's no joy, there's no pleasure involved. But no, God made it pleasureful for us. And that's a great thing. But you're right, we've become numb to what it, what it actually is and what it does. Things like soul ties, right? People who sleep around and all of a sudden, because it's literally two becoming one. That's what scripture says. Like a, a man and wife are to come together and those two become one and you consummate that by the phys of sex. And if you think about it, not to get too graphic, but like a man has an Audi, a woman has an innie, so to speak. And the, those two come together and they, they fit so perfectly together, making two puzzle pieces, one puzzle piece now. And once you're, you're locked in to that and adhered to that spouse and you become one, the two become one. You're, you're not supposed to separate because it's so much more than a physical act. I, I, I've, I've counseled so many folks that have dealt with like the, the term soul ties isn't necessarily in the Bible, but I believe, I believe in them where, because it's such an intimate act, right? And think about the same word used in scripture when it said that, that Adam had sex with his wife Eve, right? It said, like in the King James Version, it says he knew his wife. And it wasn't just that they physically had sex and they had kids. It was like, no, they knew each other. It's the same word for new that David uses in Psalm 139 when he says, God, search my heart and know me. Like, there's such an intimacy involved and, and there's such an intimate piece to it where I want to know you on the deepest level of. Of how I can know you, but I'm willing to be known by you. It's so intimate and that it's. There's so much humility involved to just let all your walls down. A husband and a wife come together and become one. But growing up, I mean, I. I didn't know God's love. And I would argue that you don't actually know what God. I'm sorry, what love is until you actually encounter God and his love, because he is love. And growing up, no Bible background, church background. Now, I had a mother who loved her children, right? I had a father who loved his children. My parents were great parents. They didn't have a relationship with the Lord. So my mother was actually atheist because she had grown up going to Catholic school. And it was a little bit ruthless. The nuns used to beat the kids back then. And she would tell me stories of when she literally would hop out of windows to escape the school. And that was her association with God. So she decided, like, if this is God, then God's not for me. But my mother has the. The kindest, warmest, sweetest heart. She did. She passed away in 2023 after coming to know the Lord. Praise God for that. But I realized as much as she loved me and my sister, and I'm a mama's boy, like, she. She loved me, spoiled me, right? It paled in comparison to the love I experienced from Jesus when I said yes to him. You just. You just get overwhelmed by this new sense of love in all of its fullness and what it is. And my mother loved me probably at the max capacity of what a human being, apart from having the Holy Spirit within them, could love me, right? And then. But then one, when now, all of a sudden, you're pouring out your love from a place of God's reservoir, right? You're not pouring out from your own reservoir. You're pouring out from God's reservoir. It's like. It's different. It's different. And I would. I believe that the best way I could express how much I loved somebody with girlfriends in the past was by the act of having sex. There's no more intimate act that. That you could do. It's not buying flowers. It's not emptying out the coffee grinds. The way I convinced myself and oftentimes would convince other young ladies of how much I love them was by the act of having sex. And in my mind, it was true. In my mind, it was true. And I was just fulfilling what my idea of love was. But again, love isn't an emotion. If love was simply an emotion, you wouldn't be able to command it. You can't command an emotion like Royce right now. Be happy, be sad, right? Be depressed, be giddy. You can't command emotions. But that's what people think of love today. It's emotions.

You can fake emotion, though.

You can fake emotion. For sure. For sure.

You can fake love and, you know, convince yourself that it's something that it's not when it's not real.

Oh, yeah. Even. I mean, I was so bad. Every girlfriend, like, serious girlfriend ever had, I was convinced I love them. And even though, like, looking from the outside in, it's like, there's no way this person you're supposed to be with, right? There's just no way. But I had formed that bond with them. And probably the fact that I had sex with them helped or hurt when I knew I had to break away, but I felt like I couldn't. Right? And that's where kind of those soul ties come in, come into play with that. But, yeah, I would convince a girl how much I love them by having sex with them. But again, true love, biblical definition of love, it's not an emotion because an emotion can't be commanded. It's a decision. True love is a decision. It's a decision to compassionately, righteously, sacrificially meet another need to benefit somebody else. It's a decision, not an emotion. And the world gets it wrong big time when it comes to that. And you feel. And you know, when you first had your first girlfriend or for women out there listening, your first boyfriend, you. You get the call it puppy love, right? You know, you look at somebody and it's kind of like the cartoons. Your eyes turn into the hearts, right? And you're like, oh, my God. You just get that warm, fuzzy feeling. Feeling like, that's great. That. But that's an emotion. That. That doesn't mean that you love the person. So.

That's right.

Yeah, man. Now with your wife, did you know she was the one from, like, day one?

Well, I mean, I thought so. I. I definitely had what you call puppy love. Where I was. I was Attracted to her. And then we dated for like. Or what we talked, you know, for three months before we actually started dating. And I even like, you know, went the proper way of like asking her dad if I could date her. And I even talked to her pastor and stuff like that. Born and raised in church and stuff. So it's just like.

Hold on.

I know.

Pause that there. I love that. Because that. That's so foreign to so many people. Right? So you asked for permission to. From her father to date her and ask and ask for permission from her pastor to even date her. Dude, that's phenomenal. That's phenomenal. That, that's outstanding.

I wasn't. I. It's not like I was raised or taught that you will do this or anything like that. Like, my parents never told me that I would do that. It just felt like the right thing to do. And partly, you know, whenever I. I was. I was like 16 or 17 when I started dating Gianna, my wife. And, you know, I like girls and I talk to girls and stuff. And I never felt like I should tell my pastor about her or tell my parents about her or anything like that until I met Gianna. And it's. It can be a long story, but we've known each other since we were kids, but always lived hours apart. We just knew each other, right, Kind of thing. And then we. We. I was doing something at their church and we hung out and we just started talking. And for three months we just kept talking. And I just. I liked this girl so much. It felt like the right thing to do. And that's partly when I started to know that I. That I did love her because I was willing to go out of the way to do the uncomfortable thing for me, right, to be with her. But the thing that I knew was right, you know, I did. So, yeah, I talked to her. I talked to her parents or her dad. Didn't get any no's. And so we dated for three years. And then I did the same thing where I talked to her dad to marry her, talked to her pastor, talked to my pastor at the time because I lived somewhere else. And. And then we got married. And I just always felt like doing the right thing for her. And I never felt like I had to, like, hide it from anybody, you know, it. So it just always felt right. And so for me, that's also partly love. Like they always say, like when, you know, you know, well, spiritually, I felt like this was it. I felt like I had gotten the nod from Jesus, like, this is Here you go, buddy. You know, right? And, you know, that's why I married her.

Amen. Amen. I actually feel like I got that nod from God before I even had a relationship with God. Because when I met Lucy and we became friends, one second, and we became friends, and, like, she was outstanding. There's my little guy. So we met, and I felt like she was the one for me. And it was like I had no chance with this woman. I was an unbelieving junkie. Hey, but just be quiet, okay? Thank you. We're almost done. We're almost done. I was an unbelieving junkie, essentially, but there was just something about her. She, like, swept me off my feet, and it was like, oh, my gosh. I. I think she's the one. I actually called my mother and told her about Lucy. And this was just like, from a couple conversations and Lucy and I becoming friends. It wasn't even like we were, like, serious. We weren't even in a real relationship. But I felt like I had a gut feeling. And now I. You know, I kind of think some of that intuition that you would say you have before you're even a believer, that's still God talking to you, right? That's still God kind of giving you that wink, giving you that nudge in a certain direction. Because the Holy Spirit, although he's not living inside of you yet, he is with you. You. Right? And the Holy Spirit's constantly drawing you to himself. So I'm getting distracted by as you boy over here. Hey, don't touch that, okay? Hey, I'm almost done. We're gonna go get milkshakes, chocolate, whatever you want shortly. Talk about health, right? I said a bad example here, but sometimes you just gotta bribe your child, you know? Sometimes like, hey, I need about 10 more minutes. And then you have whatever you want. All right, buddy? Okay. And then we're gonna run around, ride.

A bike, and then they'll go to 10, 97, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0.

That's right, bud.

But anyhow, stuff for them, though. You're gonna get a milkshakes, because you love them.

I do love them. And that's tough, too, when you love your child so much that you just want to spoil them. But then you know that spoiling them is not in their best interest in the end. And that's how God deals with us, too, you know, he loves. He. God loves us more than I could even possibly love my son. Right? It's just because he is God. He's the source of love. He's the authority of love, but the fact that I do have God living inside of me so I can. I can love my. My son and all others, even my enemies, at that godlike level, because it's coming from that reservoir of God. But it's tough as a parent, man, when you just want to spoil your kids because you love them that much and give them what they want. It's like, well, wait a second. What they want probably isn't in their best interest. Interest, not even just long term, but like five minutes from now. Right? So that, that's tough. But we often, you know, we. We shake our fists at God because it's like, God, why. Why are you not doing this for me? Or why are you doing that to me? And what you would perceive as a bad way. And in the end, it's like God as our Father is up there saying, I know what's best for you. You may not understand it right now. Your little itty bitty finite mind that I put in your head won't understand this, but I know what's best for you. Like when you're. You're trying to launch a company or a business or a career path or something, and the door closes and you're like, oh, my God, I knew that was the door I was supposed to walk away through. I knew that was the path. I knew that was God's plan for me. And then that door closes, and then again we shake our fist at God and we say, why did this happen? Then a year later, a door that you couldn't even imagine, that was so, so grand, so majestic, God opens that door, and then you're like, oh, now I see why you didn't give me the desire of my heart, but really more my flesh to walk through that door.

Yeah. Let me tell you, man, God has blessed me more than. More than I deserve, you know, And I think as Christians, we say that all the time in our prayers, like, God, I don't deserve your love, but you're. You're there for me regardless. I think we understand that as Christians, but God has just blessed me throughout my life and throughout my career for no reason. For example, you talk about the different doors that are opening and different doors that are closing. Well, I. I pray all the time, and I used to pray all the time. You know, God, give me, give me courage, give me strength, you know, help me to be a better man. Give me wisdom. And it's not like God ever gave me magic. He never magically gave me strength or wisdom or courage or Whatever that I was praying for. But I saw throughout my life, him put me through scenarios that strengthened me, that made me wiser, that made me a better man. He put me in those scenarios. And as long as I kept going down his. His path and staying in his will, or what I felt like was his will, God has always opened up doors for me. When I was back to the love thing me and Gianna had dated for. And I know we only have a few minutes here, so I'll try to be a little bit quick, but we had dated for a few years, three years, four years. And I knew that. I'm like. In my mind, I'm like, all right, I want to marry this girl. I know that I want to do it. But she lived in Tampa. I lived in a little town called Bellevue. And I had no. I was like, 19 or 18. I had no idea how I was gonna get over there or if she was gonna come here. And I began to pray. God, you know, if this is in your will, you know, right now or, you know, whatever. I didn't say whatever, but, you know, then open up. Then open up the door. And that next week, I was working with some people, and I work in the film industry, and we were on. On set for something in Orlando, right, at Disney. So completely unrelated to where I was and where she was. And randomly, he goes, hey, I'm opening up a camera equipment rental shop in Tampa, Florida. He's like, do you want to work there? Do you want to manage that shop for me? Out of the blue, just a week before, I decided that I was going to start praying about this and figuring it out, and I said yes. And I went and told my parents, and they were, you know, not happy to see me go, but they were excited about it because they knew that it was a blessing. And I made my way over there and. And then a year later, I got another opportunity to work with a political influencer. And just as that door in that rental shop was closing, you know, God had opened this one, like, the same day. And I can tell this. I could tell this. I can spend hours telling this story. And then I was. I was working with that political influencer, did amazing things for multiple years. And then, you know, sometimes you just know when it's time. And I felt like I knew it was time, but I didn't know what I was doing, what I was gonna do next. And I was just trusting in God, you know, that in my prayers, in my gut, my conviction was like, it's time to find something else. And literally the same day that I went in to let my boss know that I wasn't going to continue and all this stuff, I got a call or a text, really, from a friend who connected me to Graham Allen, who I'm with now. And I never would have made my way here, talking to the camera, to this audience, telling you this story, if it wasn't for everything I just said, all of the pieces aligning, you know, me trying to stay in God's will and praying about it. And I'm forever grateful that God closed doors on me because it never would have pushed me through another one. And God continues to open doors for me to this day. And it's just. It's such a blessing. And again, talking about, like, you know, even though, you know, we love someone, we have to do what's best for them. I've been put through pain. I've been wronged by people. I've been put in positions that I didn't like that were uncomfortable for me, but it built me up, and it's what God knew was best for me, to help me get to where I needed to be, to help me understand that this door needed to close. Right. And to push me through to the next one. So that's my story. I try to make it again. I could talk about it for a very long time, but I'm just, just. I'm so blessed and I'm so thankful for all of it.

Yeah. Yeah. No, it's a phenomenal testimony. I'm glad you shared it. I just want to mention to Sarah in the chat who. Who had said she wishes her husband loved her. Sarah, I want to encourage you, and really, my. My exhortation is continue to love him. Right? You continue to have the love of Christ rest, rule, and abide in your heart. And you continue to set the example of love by loving him. And if he is walking with the Lord, then he's obviously being disobedient by not loving you. But may the love you, you show him, may that win him over to a place of obedience. And if he's not walking with the Lord right now, let the love of Christ that's in you and what you bestow upon him, let that win him over to Christ. Period. Right? That's. That's what scripture says. If you're married to somebody who. Who is, you're not equally yoked with somebody who doesn't know the Lord, let that love win them over to Christ. And it more so him loving you the way he's supposed to is what will be a byproduct of his heart being truly devoted to Jesus first. Right. If you're truly devoted to Jesus. You know, Jesus says that the way you actually show me how much you love me is by being obedient. You obey my commands. So if he has a heart for the Lord, the byproduct of that will be he will love you in a way you've never been loved before. So let the love of God be in you. And if you don't have a relationship with the Lord yourself, Sarah, then cry out to him. Cry out to him and just confess him as Jesus, as Lord, and make him Lord of your life and just invite him into your heart. Wherever you are with the Lord right now, just open your heart even more to receive more of him. So Sarah will be praying for you for sure. And as we wrap up, I just want to mention one of the greatest examples in the Bible of love is the book of Hosea. Now, the book of Hosea, he was a prophet, and he got the short end of the stick. None of the prophets really like the position as prophet because you're going and declaring that, you know, people must repent, and if they don't, this is the consequence, essentially, right? So people weren't signing up to be prophets, but most times, prophet, they declared the word of God. Now this prophet, he actually lived out what God's message was to the people and the people of Israel, they were. They were idolaters, right? And they. They let other things come between them and their relationship with God. They started drifting, they started wavering in their faith, and they were like sheep without a shepherd. So Hosea was instructed by God to marry this woman named Gomer. And she's described as a harlot. So basically, she was a hoe, right? She's a hoe, Right. She slept around. A prostitute, Right. So Hosea was obedient, married her, and had three kids. And then she went back out to hoeing it up again, and she was prostituting herself. And what did Hosea do? He had to represent the love of Christ for us. Now this, this is the Old Testament. This is before Christ came. But this was a gigantic foreshadowing of Jesus Christ. And Hosea played the role of Jesus. And what he did was he essentially bought her back to himself. This is your wife. She's already yours. And he went and paid so she could get out of that prostitution and he could keep her for good. And ultimately it was, you know, she, she turned from that turned to Hosea. And, but the picture of this is Hosea represents Jesus and all of us, everybody listening. We represent Gomer, and we commit spiritual idol adultery against the Lord all the time. When we start seeking other things to fulfill the. The desires in our hearts. Hearts to. To fulfill. To just have this feeling of pleasure, right? Contentment, whatever it may be. But the. The book, it's not necessarily for, like, newlyweds. I wouldn't recommend this book. It's not a book on marriage necessarily, but it is a book on love. And it. It so in such an extraordinary way, just shows and depicts the relentless pursuit of God's love for us. He relentlessly pursues us. Because guess what? How many men out there, if you married this woman, she had your kids, and she started going out, just sleeping around with other men, not caring, would you chase her down? And like, no, I'm gonna go above and beyond to win you back to me, to draw you back to me, man would be like, I'm done with that chick. It's divorce. We're done. We're over. But no, Hosea represents Jesus Christ, that no matter what we've done in our past, no matter what we were doing in his presence, even, right? Because we all fall short of the glory, we're all sinners. And we all must recognize that we're sinners. And we need forgiveness from the Lord every single day. But no matter where we are, no matter how checkered our past is, no matter how messy our past is, we have a God that relentlessly pursues us. That's love. So when we talk about the definition of love, that's sacrificial, it's unconditional, it's undeserving. Read the book of Hosea, especially those first three chapters. I was like, oh, my God, I can't identify with this guy Hosea. Like, it just doesn't make sense. Well, good, because you're not supposed to identify with Jose. You're supposed to identify with Gomer, the one who's out cheating and. And fill in her needs with things other than her husband. Jesus is Hosea. We're the gomers out there. So read that book. It's a. It's a great book. And it's hard to. To. You know, I gave it a biblical definition of love, and we talked about some scriptures, but when you actually read the Word of God and realize that from Genesis to Revelation, it's a love story, from COVID to cover, it's a love story. And when you sit with scripture, you dive in, you read scripture, you meditate on it. You actually get this depiction of what God's love really is. And at the end of the day, there's no words I could say, no words you could say to truly accurately identify what God's love is. It's that powerful, it's that majestic, it's that unimaginable almost. But it's actually real. It's actually real. I'm a beneficiary of it. You're a beneficiary of it. And we get to call God Father. Right? We're his children as believers. So my encouragement to everybody today on this day of love, think about. And we didn't even talk about St. Valentine, right? I think we started showing. Talk about St. Valentine. He was a saint in the third century. And when the Roman government when. And they made a law basically saying young men couldn't get married because they were being attacked. And they needed these young men to go out on the front lines and be in the military. And they thought we'd have better warriors, better soldiers, if they weren't married. So St. Valentine, he was a priest, he was continuing to marry these young men who wanted to get married because he believed in the sanctity of marriage and how sacred it was and. And God's design and plan. So he was doing it. He was ultimately put in prison and put to death on February 14, 270, I think, AD so that. That's the CliffsNotes version. I can't believe when I told you, I was like, yeah, we'll talk about Valentine's Day, the history, where it came from. And we're two minutes past the hour and it's just coming up.

We got lost in Christ, brother. We got lost in the Word.

Yeah, yeah, it happens to me all the time. All the time. So any final remarks from you, brother?

I mean, not really. I love the story of Hosea. Someone in the comments said that, you know, they were praying of what to. What to say at their Overcomers in Christ Recovery meeting, and they just got their topic. So it's so amazing to see these people in the comments, you know, actually receive, you know, what. What we're talking about here and listen to it and use it in their Overcomers in Christ Recovery meeting. Like, you know, that. That's amazing. And. And love to see that. So.

Yep. Amen. I think I just hit a button to put a comment on there, brother. Sorry about that.

No, you're good. This is the one I was talking about. But.

Okay, cool, cool, Good stuff. Well, mind Commander. Yeah, go ahead, sit with that. Just read the first three chapters tonight before you go to that meeting, man. It'll bless your soul and you'll be able to bless others with that story. With that said, I apologize for the interruptions for my son, Ezzy, but I apologize but not really because this is my 4 year old son and this is the circumstance today. So I love my boy and I feel like I've neglected him for the last hour and a half.

Also, also, don't forget to hit that like button so we can get more likes than Riley's on the show. That's the like button, right?

Yeah. Yeah. It's good competition, right?

Share the video.

Yeah, share the video. Let's get it done. If you're interested in joining us on Wednesday mornings, we start at 6:30, do 30 minutes of prayer, then an hour Bible study over zoom. We're in the book of Revelation right now. Go to joinkingscouncil.com and just put in some information there and you'll be on our email list where, where you will get a reminder with the zoom link every Tuesday evening for that Wednesday morning Bible study. So that's. Join kingscouncil.com There it is, Royce. Just put it there on the screen. Join kingscouncil.com and with that said, I believe Riley will be back steering this ship next week. But I appreciate you filling in and I, I was looking forward to it. You always have a lot to offer, brother. And I enjoy chatting with you.

Thank you. I, I enjoy talking with you too. And I enjoy talking biblical. I don't get to do that enough. I talk too much politics. So I like talking, talking in this sense. So I appreciate it.

It's refreshing, right?

Yeah, it feels good.

Yeah. Good stuff. All right guys. Well, you have a blessed week. All you, you married couples out there or dating couples, enjoy your evening tonight. I hope the restaurants aren't jacking their prices up too high on you. But when you think about loving your significant other today, think about the love of Christ and pouring out from that reservoir of Jesus and his love, not your own. Let it be the love of God. Be sacrificial. Let it be unconditional. And even if you got in a little spat with, with your wife earlier today or something like that, it's like, listen, I'm going to continue to show my love with my actions. Agapeo, that, that's the word, Agape, love in its verb sense, agapeo, the act of loving. So let's all agapeo tonight and love our spouse. Love our significant others. And love everybody. Because we're commanded to love. Love all. Love everyone. That's right.

And if you learn. If you didn't learn anything in this episode, just remember, clean the coffee machine. Just clean the coffee machine, and everything will be okay.

Yeah. And if that's your greatest takeaway today, I'm okay with it. I'm okay with it. But with that said, love you guys, God bless you, and we'll see you next week.

See you guys.

Peace.