The American Soul
The American Soul
God's Inheritance vs. Netflix Queue: Where's Your Time Going?
We examine how much time and energy we devote to entertainment and social media compared to our relationship with God, challenging listeners to reconsider their priorities and where they're investing their attention. Scripture readings from Ephesians and Psalms remind us of our inheritance in Christ and the need to praise God for His mighty works.
• Making time for God, prayer, Bible reading, and our spouses should be our priority
• Modern entertainment, sports, and social media have become like false gods in our lives
• We invest disproportionate energy in things that don't matter eternally
• Ephesians 1 reminds us of our spiritual inheritance through Christ
• Following scriptural principles should form the basis of both personal choices and national governance
• Stories of sacrifice like Medal of Honor recipient Harry Bell deserve more of our attention than celebrities
God bless you all. God bless your families, God bless your marriages. God bless America. God bless your nation, wherever you are around the world.
The American Soul Podcast
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Hey folks, this is Jesse Coper, back with another episode of the American Soul Podcast. Hope y'all are doing well, wherever y'all are and whatever part of the day you're in. Sure do appreciate you joining me, giving me a little bit of your time, a little piece of your day. I will try and use it wisely. For those of y'all who continue to share the podcast with others and tell others about it, thank you very grateful for that. For those of y'all who continue to share the podcast with others and tell others about it, thank you, I'm very grateful for that. For those of y'all that continue to pray for me and for the podcast, thank you Very, very grateful for your prayers, father. Thank you for today. Thank you for you, father, and your Son Jesus Christ, and your Holy Spirit. Thank you for your love and your mercy, your grace and your forgiveness of sins through the merit of your son Jesus Christ. Thank you for all your many blessings, father, the ones we admit and the ones we don't, for whatever reason. Forgive us our sins. Forgive us our greed and our selfishness, our pride, judgment of others, our rash words and actions, cowardice and our unbelief. Forgive us when we get more caught up in storing up for ourselves treasures here on earth rather than treasures in heaven. With you, guide our steps, draw us close to you. Help us to love your son, jesus Christ, with our whole heart, mind, soul and strength to love our neighbors as ourselves. Help us to help those that have less than we do. Father, help us to help our country turn back to you. Be with our leaders, both in the state and in the pulpit. Give them wisdom and courage and a strong faith. Be with those around the world who are suffering because they follow your son, jesus Christ. Help us to comfort them in any way we can to ease their pain and their burden. Thank you so much for those who have gone before us, who have given so much, suffered so much so that we might worship you freely, without fear of persecution, to read your word freely, without fear of persecution. Forgive us when we take that for granted or when we ignore you and that privilege almost completely Guide our steps. Guide my words here, father, please, and bring us home to you in your timing. In your son's name we pray Amen. Have you made time for God today? Have you made time to read his word? Have you made time to pray, to talk to him, to listen to him. And if you're married, have you made time for your spouse? Have you made time to love them each day in the way that they need to be loved, folks, not the way that we wish our spouse felt loved or the way that we feel loved, but the way that actually makes them feel loved.
Speaker 1:There was a post recently online that I stumbled across. I guess one of the NFL teams has hired some male cheerleaders maybe more than one, I don't really know, it doesn't really matter and this post was a guy that I follow and he talks often about those athletes that really seem to praise God and honor God through their actions and their words, which is great, that's awesome. But it got me to thinking about the complaint. The guy was really upset about this, and rightly so, because the cheerleader was gay. If I didn't say that, I mean it wasn't like a traditional male cheerleader at some of these big colleges or something. It was a. Blatantly it was a. This particular NFL team was obviously trying to pull in some of the gay population.
Speaker 1:But the problem is we focus so much today on sports and entertainment you know we get so riled up by these different things but really the question we ought to be asking ourselves, folks, is how much time are we giving to these false gods, these little gods that we've made? You know, like the Israelites made the gold calf out in the desert, it's hard not to look at how we treat sports and Amazon Prime and Hulu and Netflix and all the different social media sites YouTube, et cetera. It's hard not to look at those and see that we've made them kind of little gods. Sports and entertainment. We give so much time and energy and effort. We get so excited about a particular athlete or a singer that's got a new song coming out and and there's nothing wrong, necessarily in and of itself, about getting excited about that. The problem is we get so excited about those things, we pour so much time and effort and energy into those things, and then we look at the balance and how much time and effort and energy and excitement that we're pouring into God and serving him whether it's reading the Bible or praying or serving people in our community in his name and our spouse energy and excitement and effort that we can put into those things the sports and the entertainment, all the different streaming services and social media in just a day. You see what I'm saying. We rack up this huge bill on the one side, where we put all of our resources into these things that don't matter and then we put so little into the things that do matter.
Speaker 1:Ephesians, chapter 1, verses 1 through 23. This letter is from Paul, chosen by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus. I am writing to God's holy people in Ephesus who are faithful followers of Christ Jesus. May God, our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ give you grace and peace. All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms, because we are united with Christ.
Speaker 1:Even before he made the world, god loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do and it gave him great pleasure. So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear son. He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his son and forgave our sins. He has showered his kindness on us along with all wisdom and understanding.
Speaker 1:God has now revealed to us his mysterious will regarding Christ, which is to fulfill his own good plan. And this is the plan At the right time, he will bring everything together under the authority of Christ, everything in heaven and on earth. Furthermore, because we are united with Christ, we have received an inheritance from God, for he chose us in advance and he makes everything work out according to his plan. God's purpose was that we Jews, who were the first to trust in Christ, would bring praise and glory to God. And now you, gentiles, have also heard the truth praise and glory to God. And now you, gentiles, have also heard the truth, the good news that God saves you. And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit whom he promised long ago. The Spirit is God's guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people. He did this so that we would praise and glorify him.
Speaker 1:Ever since I first heard of your strong faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for God's people everywhere, I have not stopped thanking God for you. I pray for you, constantly asking God, the glorious Father of our Lord, jesus Christ, to give you spiritual wisdom and insight so that you might grow in your knowledge of God. I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called his holy people, who are his rich and glorious inheritance. I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God's power. For us who believe him, this is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead and seated him in the place of honor at God's right hand in the heavenly realms. Now he is far above any ruler, authority or power or leader or anything else, not only in this world but also in the world to come. God has put all things under the authority of Christ and has made him head over all things for the benefit of the church, and the church is his body. It is made full and complete by Christ, who fills all things everywhere with himself.
Speaker 1:Psalm 66, verse 1 through 20. Praises, shouting your name in glorious songs. Come and see what our God has done, what awesome miracles he performs for people. He made a dry path through the Red Sea and his people went across on foot. There we rejoiced in him, for by his great power he rules forever. He watches every movement of the nations. Let no rebel rise in defiance. Let the whole world bless our God and loudly sing his praises. Our lives are in his hands and he keeps our feet from stumbling.
Speaker 1:You have tested us, o God. You have purified us like silver. You captured us in your net and laid the burden of slavery on our backs. Then you put a leader over us. We went through fire and flood, but you brought us to a place of great abundance.
Speaker 1:Now I come to your temple with burnt offerings to fulfill the vows I made to you. Yes, the sacred vows that I made when I was in deep trouble. That is why I am sacrificing burnt offerings to you. The best of my rams is a pleasing aroma and a sacrifice for bulls and male goats. Come and listen, all you who fear God, and I will tell you what he did for me. For I cried out to him for help, praising him as I spoke. If I had not confessed the sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened. But God did listen. He paid attention to my prayer. Praise God, who did not ignore my prayer or withdraw his unfailing love from me, proverbs 23, verses 25 through 28. So give your father and mother joy. May she who gave you birth be happy. Oh, my son, give me your heart, make your eyes take delight in following my ways. A prostitute is a dangerous trap. A promiscuous woman is as dangerous as falling into a narrow. Well, she hides and waits like a robber, eager to make more men unfaithful.
Speaker 1:Medal of Honor for today is Harry Bell, captain Philippine Insurrection, us Volunteers. 36th Infantry US Army, october 17, 1899. Action Place near Porac, luzon, philippine Islands. Led a successful charge against a superior force, capturing and dispersing the enemy and relieving other members of his regiment from a perilous position. Accredited to Minneapolis, hennepin County, minnesota. Not awarded. Posthumously Presented March 8, 1902. Born September 21, 1860, milwaukee. Died November 10, 1938, leavenworth, kansas. Buried Fort Leavenworth National Cemetery OFF TAC 167, fort Leavenworth, kansas, united States. Harry Bell, just another name to add to our list, folks, that deserves a lot more of our attention than singers or songwriters or actors or actresses or athletes.
Speaker 1:A couple quotes today, if we have time to get through them John Locke, who was the third in the founding era, the third most cited authority when they were looking for political commentary. The law of nature stands as an eternal rule to all men, legislators as well as others. The rules that they, legislators, make for other men's actions must be conformable to the law of nature, ie the will of God. Human laws must be made according to the general laws of nature and without contradiction to any positive law of Scripture. Otherwise they are ill-made. So what you see here is again laws from a governmental point of view. If they go against the will of God, if they go against the laws of Scripture of the Bible, then they're not good laws, they're not just laws and we have a responsibility not to follow those laws when they go against God's will. Excuse me, noah Webster. The moral principles and precepts contained in the Scriptures ought to form the basis of all our civil constitutions and laws. This is what so many people don't understand today, and there's a great quote by Truman that I don't have in front of me right now. But our laws? It's not just that we as a people, in our individual lives, need to follow God and Jesus Christ, it's that our country, our constitutions, our institutions, our laws, our courts, they need to follow God Scripture. That ought to be the basis, the foundation for our nation and for our laws in our nation.
Speaker 1:Folks, I think I'm going to start to end with a little thing here. I am a little embarrassed to bring this up, but if some of y'all are out there, if you're parents or grandparents and you're looking for a book middle grade, early high school, junior high, early high school I wrote a couple of books a few years ago and they're called Countryside, the Countryside series, and if you get a chance and you're interested, it's kind of along the lines of Narnia and the Hobbit, percy Jackson, harry Potter, that kind of stuff. At any rate, if you get a chance to look them up, you can buy the first book in the series on Amazon for about 99 cents on a Kindle, or there's also paperback and hardback, and if you enjoy it and you'd be willing to leave a review, I would be grateful for that too. God bless you all. God bless your families, god bless your marriages. God bless America. God bless your nation, wherever you are around the world. Listen, we'll talk to you all again real soon.