Just Follow Your Heart… Really??

Interestingly, isn't that the core idea of Christianity? To have Christ in the center of everything you're doing and having Him as a King? I think that when we really take that to heart and do what he says, follow his word, then as a Christian, your life is in order and it's going the right way.

Ladies and gents, welcome to Voices of Life, the podcast with topics related to the apostolic faith in the 21st century. Let's talk about what interests you here on Voices of Life.

Hello and welcome to another episode of Voices of Life. Thank you for tuning in again. We're happy to have you here on this beautiful Thursday or Sunday or Saturday or Friday, whenever you listen to this episode. But we're happy that you're here and we have a special subject today again. It's about the topic of this world. And that's a broad topic but we're going to zoom in a little bit and talk about the craziness in this world. Maybe you have heard it at your workplace or around colleagues or around Christian friends that they said this world

just turned crazy. Isn't this a crazy world, a crazy time we're living in? And we agree it is a crazy time. There's a lot going on at the moment. And we ask ourselves the question, okay, why is that? What could be a reason why this world is so crazy? And 1 reason we find in the book of Judges, in the last chapter, in the last verse, in 25, it says, In those days there was no king in Israel, every man did that which was right in his own eyes. And we think this is part of the

reason why we're having the state of this world as it is today, and we'll talk about today, first of all, what the state is, where it came from, but also maybe solutions on how this could be changed.

Yeah, I remember in the Bible there's some verse somewhere. I don't know right now where it is, but it talks about that in the last day people will seek themselves teachers, you know, according to what they like to hear, what they want to hear from them, and something similar to that. And it really is like that, that we do live in a time where people want to hear what they want to hear and don't want to hear things that go against their own opinion. Many times it is like that. Also I was reminded of the verse

in Acts in the second chapter where Peter says that we live in a wrong generation, in a wicked, in an upside down, so to say, generation where things are wrong. And so I think this is a very important context for the conversation we're going to have that we just live in a generation where people are wrong and people don't want to be saved out of being wrong and they don't want to hear the preaching that would save them out of it maybe. They want to hear what they want to hear and want to do what they

want to do. They want to follow their heart. And that's a popular saying, follow your heart. And I think that's probably a main reason for the crazy things that we see. Even though we didn't say till now what the crazy things are, even what we're talking about.

Yeah, everybody today, I think, believes that their own preferences, their own opinions is what they need to follow. So they have their own truth, they have their own moral values, and everybody can decide themselves what they like to do and what they like to believe and so on. But there is no objectivity in it at all. So if everybody is able to say, well, that is wrong in my opinion and that is right in my opinion and that is truth in my opinion or that is moral in my opinion, then we actually have no standard. We

don't have a moral standard. We don't have moral guidelines that are applicable for all people, because everybody can define it the way they want to. So you think what you do or what you say is right, but I may think it's wrong. So who is right? And then they say nobody is right. Well, that doesn't work really well, actually.

Yeah, the devil uses that, that me, me, me, and my opinion, my dis, my that, the devil uses that to really give that person an idea, what they think is their idea or what they got from some different sources, and they try to use it or the devil tries to use it to really... Confuse. Confuse, thank you. To confuse people in the world. Yeah, I was just out of it. Sorry guys. To really confuse the people. So and that's what it uses just to that me, me, me and my thing and my idea stuff.

That's how it started already. It started all the way back in the garden when we seen chapter 3 in Genesis. It was the first.

I'm in the interview. It started already with Lucifer. And then

in the garden. That's true. It started with humanity in the garden.

All right,

that's good. Smarty pants.

That's of course what I wanted

to say. I wanna be a smart alec right now.

Only got corrected by the pastor, ladies and gentlemen.

Steven left the chat.

That's it. Well, we have to quit the episode now.

See you next time.

So it started with humanity in the garden where the devil was talking to Eve and said, well, Eve, you won't die. Don't worry, you won't die. You will just be able to discern what is right or wrong or good and evil. And that's like you said, Justin, that's where we are today. Everybody's having their own. You said as well, okay, everybody has their own moral and try to decide for themselves and make rules. This is good and this is bad. I mean,

I'm so sorry to say that, but I think what's also important, what you said, is you can also decide what is good and evil and be like God.

Oh yeah, that's right.

That's the independence. So I'm sorry. That's just 1 more interruption.

Jump in whenever. That's good. It gives me more time to think about my sentences in English, so that's good. It's also what you see that people try to establish their own rules and their own systems. We had that in Israel in the time of the judges. They tried, they followed God for a time long and then they fell off again. We had a judge, he came in 40 years, 30 years, it went better and then it broke down again. And so they asked for a king in the end of judges and even that did not quite

work. So the human government, so to say, the king that was set in, he wasn't able to lead the people in a spiritual way, in a way that God can lead a nation and the people. So there's always a fault in humanity. When there's a human leader, there will be failures, there will be shortcomings, because we're human and we make mistakes, no matter how close even the relationship with God might be or might not be in this case today.

Maybe a little thought, just to go back real quick, it just came into my mind that that's why. If you want to live in paradise, you only can live in paradise when God is God. And you accept Him and you let Him rule. But what they think, they assumed the position of God, and that's why they also had to leave paradise. And when people assume the position of God, there can't be a perfect society. There can't be a perfect world. It's no paradise anymore, Because now it is sin, corruption that took over, and that's why we

have this craziness in this world. Mm-hmm. Because paradise is gone since people assume God's position.

Yeah. And that's why in heaven we will not have a human king ruling. Our king will be Jesus himself, the Son of God, God revealed in flesh. So it will be Him again on the throne and who reigns over us. And if that's the place where we want to get to, well, then we also have to start in our life right now to have Him as our King, because otherwise this won't work.

Interestingly, isn't that the core idea of Christianity? To have Christ in the center of everything you're doing and having Him as a King. I think that when we really take that to heart and do what He says, follow His Word, then as a Christian, your life is in order and it's going the right way.

Yeah, yeah. And with that in mind, the first step really is also humbleness, if you want to get out of the mess that you talked about earlier in this world. You know, you have to step back again and say, okay, I'm not king myself, I'm not God myself, I'm not making the rules for my own life. God is. So you need to learn that humbleness again, and that will be a first step for you to get back to where God actually wanted you to be.

Yeah, we need to get rid of the independent spirit that we have. And especially in our Western civilized societies, we have some philosophers like Immanuel Kant, the Enlightenment time, and so Everybody should be their own boss, should lead their own life. Nobody should dictate your life. But this is a myth. This is just an illusion, because when you say, well, God is not ruling my life, I'm not doing what the Bible says because I'm my own Lord. That is just a lie, because then you are a slave of sin.

Yes, that's right.

You are not free. That's right. But you don't realize it,

of course.

Now that you were talking about philosophers, I think if I understood it right, Nietzsche, he was also talking, you know, God is dead and there's like a superior man who will come and who will be able to do all those things right and very well and arise, you know, and everything. And yeah, we have a lot of philosophy that has brought this contemporary time and contemporary society that we live in, and that is at the ground of it, which is really a lot of that spirit that you said of independence and in us humans is, you

know, the potential to be good, Where the Bible says something completely different.

It's the goal of the devil to keep God out of our everyday life and out of our society. And you see that as well, since we are talking about philosophers. Schopenhauer, for example, is another guy. He said that all the attributes that we give God is just we give it. It's a projection of our failures and the good things that we should do, the opposite of our failures, those good attributes. That's what we grant a being that we call God. And so, the devil tries to take away God and make him just a legend or just

to try to convince people that he is not existing at all. And they are all for themselves responsible. And we see the results in our world today.

And if God is not existing, then also truth and absolute moral is not existing. And then also things that Hitler did, things that communist governments did and other bad governments, You cannot say absolutely that they did anything wrong or right, because without God there is no moral. And I think that's also why we have some very bad things happening nowadays and they are completely normal like for example and we don't want to get into it but the abortion of human livings where hundreds of thousands are killed just in Germany and I don't want to know all

the numbers because It's actually very hurtful to see how many thousands of thousands of humans are killed every year. Yeah, and people think it's okay, you know, there's nothing wrong with it. Because there's no moral without God, no absolute moral.

Yeah, and that's the problem. If you have no absolute morality, then everything becomes subject to your opinion, also subject to different situations, and it's relatively only. And that is not the case. Because then you can, like you said, justify murder in certain cases, which is not right at all. Murder is wrong at any time. And even though you find different words for it, different terms for it, and try to avoid using the word killing or murder. But actually the result is a murder or a killing that took place, for example. But also I think sometimes it's

just other ideas that are post-God that is dominant in our society today. And that leads more to the destruction of the people, of the nation.

We're taking God out of everything. We're taking God out of schools. We're taking God out of... Well, especially in American English, it's Christmas. I mean, you're taking God Christ out of Christmas and it's Xmas. We have that in Germany as well. So you're taking him out everywhere because it might be offensive to this group, or they don't like it, or these people don't like it. And then when something bad happens, oftentimes it is, well, where was God in this situation? Why did he not intervene? And there was 1 quote, I have no idea who said that,

but when all those school shootings started to happen and were more prevalent, people said, well, they took God out of schools and now things like that happen. Because like My cousin, she lives in America and she talked about she was before, like when she was in primary school and prayed over her food, everything was fine, nobody cared. We're like, oh, she's praying over her food, that's fine. But when she got to high school, she told me that story that she sometimes felt ashamed or even afraid to pray for her food because people said, no, you can't

do that. It's offensive to other students that you pray over your food. And that was for me. Yeah. Oh, wow. Yeah. And for me, it was, I like, wow, that is, that is pretty extreme.

But it's not offensive if a Muslim guy prays then.

I was

about to say. It's not offensive if some others want to do yoga or meditation. Exactly. It's not offensive.

But that's taking God out of the school. And then school shootings happen, people are like, oh, where is God? Why did he not prevent it? And 1 said, well, they took God out of school. And now they're crying about why he did not intervene in a school where he is not welcome.

Yeah, now they have to deal with it.

Yeah, it's so amazing. I mean, we talk about this in our German episode that other religions and other ideas are all are just accepting and we can you can you can do whatever you want in that religion, but Christianity is attacked from everywhere and about everything. Like, I had a conversation once with a person who talked about manifesting things in her life or his life and things happen. While I was talking about, oh, the Lord did this in my life and did that in my life. And that was just crazy because it was just, oh yeah,

oh, that was coincidence. But it wasn't, it was, and I believe that full heartedly it was the Lord and other people around me were like, oh yeah, Jesus did that and that. And while The other person says, well, when I manifest things, oh yeah, yeah, I did that before too. And you have to go under the table to manifest that and that. And that was fully, that was fully, that was okay. Yeah. And so, and, but when I, like you said, when you pray over things or ask someone, can I pray for you for healing or

something like that? That's just downright crazy and downright stupid. And that's just crazy to see that. That story just used to be told. That amazed me because countries like America and other countries, they just take God more and more away, not only in schools, but just out of the country itself. Before years ago, that was 1 of the top priorities that God was in some sort of way involved. If it was right or wrong, that's another story. But he was somehow in the back of our minds. But now it's just he's a convenience more likely.

Yeah, just 1 point you mentioned before about this manifesting. I think that's also part of this self-development and just, yeah, try to do it yourself. Manifesting you're doing it yourself. Self-development, you develop yourself, you do something for yourself, with yourself and achieve it your own self. And that's what we talked about, that you become your own God. Well, I made this. I created my life. I have the control over my feelings, over my emotions, over my life, over my finances, over everything. And in general, this is not bad. It's not bad to have your finances under

control. That's not a bad thing. Or if you're emotionally unstable, for example, and say, okay, I want to improve in that area, but to put it all on yourself and be like, oh, I am the king, I did this through my own strength. That's what leads to a fall then, because you're just trusting in your own flesh, in your own experience, in your own mindset. And in the end, like a pastor also mentioned, you are a sin of slave.

A slave of sin. Sorry!

The other way around. A slave of sin, because we're all subjected to this sinful nature that we have. And the only way to get out of there, well, that's, I think we mentioned it oftentimes enough with a little other way around, but it's Jesus, it's God, He can save you. He died for us so that we can be free of this vicious circle of sin. I think

also the ideas you just mentioned, those esoterical ideologies, they became also popular in books like Secret or Think and Grow Rich and things like that. There you find it a lot in those kind of books and self-help books. The thing is, in my opinion, why it is also successful, especially among young adults, is because it caters to our human pride. So I can achieve it, I can do it. I just have to believe it, I just have to do this and that, blah, blah, blah, and think about it, and then this will happen. That's why I

think it's very successful.

That's exactly what just crossed my mind. And I was also thinking of Nebuchadnezzar or how we say it in English, who was also prideful. And then I was thinking how nowadays they celebrate pride.

Right, a month. Yeah.

And so, I mean, that's just making all sense. Now it's all coming together. What you say, you know, young adults, it's feeding pride and pride is something that is being celebrated. And pride is in the end also that thing, what we have to lay down if we want to come to God.

People are encouraged to be proud of their accomplishments, proud of their way of thinking, and, and, and,

and. It was a sinful thing and it still is, but really by now people like, it's good to be proud, you

know, be

proud, like stand up for yourself, like be true to yourself or I don't know, always yourself, you know, be like, it's crazy what the... And that's the spirit of Lucifer again, because that's who he is. He's prideful.

If you're a proud Christian, that's too right-winged. That's too, oh, you're homophobe and everything else, because you have standards from the Lord. So that's

like, make no sense.

Yeah, they are like, in German we say double standards.

Can you

say that in English as well? Sounds right. It's measured with different scales, sadly. But that reminds me also, we were talking quite a lot about it, how people laugh about it or judge it. But I just wanted to say, don't be discouraged when you hear this. It's not that bad to be a Christian. And it's actually our privilege to stand up and make a bit of light in the darkness. And we don't have to be afraid of those mocking comments or something. First of all, Not everyone is influenced by the spirit of this world,

the

same amount. There will be people that are not like that. And second of all, if someone is like that, then just know it's not a personal thing. It's really the spirit of the world fighting the Spirit of God and the work of God. And you shouldn't let it get you down or feel self-conscious and sad about it, because it's just the devil doing his thing against the work of God. And you should just be happy that God made you free and that you will be part of that victory in the end, that He will have over

all those powers that are fighting.

Amen. Just remember, it's not us, it's the devil that is running out of time.

Hallelujah! That's true. That's so true, though. And He knows it. That's the thing. That's why He fights so hard and brings so much confusion in this world and so much hurt and hopefulness. Not hopefulness.

Hopelessness. Closed.

Yeah. So, and because he knows he's running out of time. Yeah, definitely.

And so the answer, I mean, we promised you an answer, an apostolic answer to all this crisis and craziness. And for us, the only answer is Jesus. I mean, there's a song that says, Jesus is the answer, no matter how dark it looks, no matter how hopeless it looks.

Jesus is the answer. This 1. Okay, exactly. I thought about the same song, but I thought it was called Jesus is the center, so nevermind. Yeah, but yeah, thank you.

Maybe that's a different line.

Maybe, it

could be.

Well, you will probably listen to it now. Maybe, if you can Open it up. It's a great song. It has great lyrics. And that's our answer as well. Jesus is the answer. He's the King that Israel in those days should have had, and it's the King that would change everything now. If God would be king in every nation and he would be Lord in every nation, there would be no wars. Wars would end just like that. Famines would end just like that because there is enough food in the world. Oftentimes, many studies, they prove there is

enough food, there's enough for everybody, but it's just that selfishness, that me, me, me. I mean, there's people, they have billions of dollars. And there's others that have 1 dollar or a few cents. So that has such a big spread that we have there. If Jesus would be king, that would be all solved in an instant. It's so crazy to actually think about that. It's all at our fingertips. It's all in our hands. Well, not in ours right now, But in humanity's hand, we could change, but it won't happen. And that's a bubble that I want

to bust in this episode as well. It won't get better. It won't change. Because it will just go downward, because sin is deteriorating everything.

And I may add, it's not just that everything would change if Christ or Jesus is king in every country. It will only change also when He is king and people accept His kingship and are submissive to His kingship. That's right. In fact, God is king. He is the king of kings. But people have to submit to His kingship. I'm sorry, I'm messing him up.

He tried. He tried. It was good, Stephen. I liked it. I liked it. Thank you. I liked it.

I was good. It sounded good. It was great. It was awesome. But we know our past in Dnieks

always the last word.

And we

have to give it to him. In a good way.

It makes

me feel good, you know.

The thing is when you hear it, it's like, oh yeah, right.

Yeah, I know what you're saying. I know what you're saying. Like I say 2 sentences, he makes the whole book out of it. I know how you feel, brother. I know how you feel.

So we end this episode now. Sorry.

Yeah, but you're right. It's exactly right. He is already king. I mean, he died on the cross. He won the victory over death, hell and the grave. He has the keys in his hand. So it is that way. He is king already. And like Sebastian said, when you accept him, When you submit to Him, when you follow His word and do what He says, He becomes king of your own life. And that's the difference. You're right. If everybody would make Jesus the king of his own life, because He was king in Israel. He came as a

Savior to Israel. Or even, let's go a little further back, He was there in a cloud of fire, a cloud of fire, a pillar of fire and a pillar of clouds. So it was even visible. And he was on the mountain. That is such a crazy story for me. He was on the mountain. There was a big cloud and thunderstorms and everything. And just because Moses was going, oh yeah, he's gone now for such a long time. Probably he's dead. Well, there's still the cloud, but we don't know what happened to him. So let's just make

a calf. Just make a golden calf and worship the calf. And do something with our own hands again. Something we can see, something we can touch, something we can really grasp. So that took a whole different route.

Something we made ourselves also. Yeah, exactly. I

also think if there is no continual spiritual guidance from God, people fall back to their sinful nature. They fall back to their default setting. They fall back to what they've known, like those Israelites, that they've known how to worship golden calves, idols, and that's why they did it also. So that's 1 reason for it.

And that's what we're used to today, to live without a God, without a King in our life, without a ruler, but ourselves as rulers.

Amen.

That's why It's important to choose your King each and every day, and that's Him up there, our Lord Jesus Christ. And we have to decide that for that each and every day. It's not a thing where we say, okay, we decided 1 Sunday that He's our Lord and Savior, and that's it. Like I said, it's just a day-to-day process that we get up.

Yeah. And it also reminded me somehow of the tower of Babel that they were building, and they built it to make themselves great, you

know,

to make a name for themselves, to build themselves up and everything. But we shouldn't build a name for ourselves. Like if Jesus is the King, like you say, then we will try to make His name great. And we have to be careful, because in all of us, I mean, that's why we read all these stories about the humans, because it's also in us, and we should be warned.

We

don't try to fulfill our selves and make ourselves a name and all these things.

Yeah, definitely.

Like you all said, making Jesus the king in our everyday life, if you do that, you will see and notice differences in your life. Your world may change when you do that, of course. I'm not saying that everything will be happy, you will always have happy days and everything is fine. Of course, there are some sad days coming, because we are still living in that world, so it can't be perfect all the time. But having Him as our King will change a lot in our lives, will change a lot how we think also, and eventually He

will take us to paradise.

And that's what we're looking forward to. That's what we hope you're on the same journey with us, going to that direction. And when you listen to this podcast, maybe you are not yet, but don't worry, there's still time. When you hear that, there's still time to give your life to God, pray, seek for Him, and He will guide you where you ought to go.

I just wanted to mention before our dear brother Stephen ends the episode, I guess, I think he was about to end it, I just want to do, like I did in the German episode, a little disclaimer, and I will do it every once in a while in those episodes. What I wanted to say is, everything we say here and the advices that we give and the ideas that we have, that's all good and fine, but If you are a member of an apostolic church that believes and practices what the Bible says, and your pastor has a

different opinion or has taught you a different thing than what we've said here or in all of our episodes, then you have to follow your pastor, whatever he says to do it. It's only for your benefit to do that. So we don't want to be 1 of your internet preachers that you just choose and the things you like you do. And if your pastor says something else, you're just not doing it. So please just do whatever your pastor says. And if it's different than what we've said, just do that. That's just 1 little disclaimer. We'll do

every once in a while.

That's right. And that's an important point. It's also again, the subject of submission, the subject of not being your own king and making your own decisions thinking, oh, I know better or I know best. I know better than that man or I'm an expert in that field. So just submitting yourself there. Yeah, and I think that's a great end for the episode. Thank you guys. It was a great subject, I think. I was looking forward to that subject for a long time And we postponed it a little bit sometimes, so I'm glad we could talk about

it now and just share our opinions. So we hope you enjoyed it as well. If you did, leave a like, comment. If you haven't yet, or if you have, write another comment. Yes. It's okay. We're happy to read everything, and especially if you have some subject that you want us to talk about things that interest you because like we said in the beginning we want to talk about things that interest you and we hope this did until next time

bye bye until next time see you then

God bless God bless. Bye.