The American Soul
The American Soul
Spiritual Priorities: Where Your Time Goes, Your Heart Follows
Jesse Cope explores how our time allocation reveals our true priorities and examines salvation as God's gift through grace rather than works.
• We demonstrate what's important to us through how we spend our time and money
• Multiple "priority number ones" cannot exist – saying yes to one thing means saying no to others
• Ephesians 2 teaches that salvation is a gift from God, not a reward for good deeds
• Denominational affiliations or religious leaders cannot save us – only Jesus Christ
• Historical example of Medal of Honor recipient James Franklin Bell
• William Blackstone taught that when human laws contradict Scripture, we must follow divine law
• Book recommendation: "Countryside" series as an alternative to contemporary young adult fiction
Countryside is currently available on Amazon for 99 cents, or you can purchase the paperback or hardback versions.
The American Soul Podcast
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Hey folks, this is Jesse Koch, back with another episode of the American Soul Podcast. Hope y'all are doing well. Hope your day is going well. Sure, do appreciate y'all joining me here. Hopefully y'all are getting to listen to it with somebody else. Hopefully it adds some extra tools to our toolbox For those of y'all that continue to share the podcast with others. Tell others about it.
Speaker 1:Thank you For those of y'all that continue to pray for me and for the podcast. Thank you so much. Very, very grateful for your prayers, need them and want them, father. Thank you for today. Thank you for you, father, and your Son, jesus Christ and your Holy Spirit. Thank you for the promise that we have of eternal life with you and your Son, because of your son, not because of anything we've done or haven't done, because we're so good or anything else, father, help us to remember that. But thank you for that promise, father, that one more day or one day, we will get to spend eternity with you, where there's no more heartache and no more sorrow and no more pain, no more suffering, and guide our steps. Forgive us our sins, forgive us when we fall short, when we fail. Help us to do your will. Above all else, help us to love your son truly by following his commands. To love you with our whole heart, mind, soul and strength. And to love our son truly by following his commands. To love you with our whole heart, mind, soul and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves.
Speaker 1:Be with our educators across the nation, as so many kids are going back to school. Be with our teachers, administrators, coaches, counselors, staff, parents, students, whether they're at homeschool, father or public school or private school. Fill their classrooms with your Holy Spirit. Guide them all, bless them, help them to feel your presence, to know you and your son, jesus Christ. Help us to get our education centered back on your word, father, and you and your son. Help us to truly care for the least of these and to teach them your scripture, your commands, and to teach them your scripture, your commands and God.
Speaker 1:My words here. Father, 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? I've said this before Often. My mother-in-law told me this years ago. I've heard it repeated other places.
Speaker 1:You can always tell what's really important to a person by what they spend their time and their money on. I would argue that you probably ought to throw in energy or effort or something like that, you know, but that's basically sum to throw in energy or effort or something like that, you know, but that's basically summed up in time and money. And at the end of the day, folks and this is true and this ought to scare some of us a little bit in the sense that it ought to make us a little bit uncomfortable At the end of the day, whatever we've given our time and money to or energy, that's what's really important to us. And if it's God, then it's God. If that's our spouse, it's our spouse. And if it's social media and sports and entertainment, then it's social media and sports and entertainment.
Speaker 1:And by default, you can't have 10 priority number ones, folks. I had a commanding officer in the Marine Corps that was horrible about that. He would go from thing to thing and everything was an immediate fire that had to be put out. Everything was priority number one, which meant that nothing was really priority number one. And so we just kind of kid ourselves when we say, oh, I'm so great at multitasking or I'm so great at doing everything all at once. We can't really do that. You can't have 10 priority number ones. And so when you say yes to certain things, by default you're saying no to other things. And so if you give your time and energy and effort each day to things that are not God and are not your spouse, then by default what you're saying is well, god's really not that important to me and my spouse really isn't that important to me. And I hate to tell you, folks, it really doesn't matter whether you like that or agree with it or don't, it just is. If you've given your time to something else, then the things that you haven't given your time to they're just simply not your priority.
Speaker 1:Ephesians 2, verses 1-22 spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God. All of us used to live that way, following the passionate desires and inclination of our sinful nature. By our very nature, we were subject to God's anger, just like everyone else. But God is so rich in mercy and he loved us so much that, even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. It is only by God's grace that you have been saved, for he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms. Because we are united with Christ Jesus. So God can point to us in all future ages as examples of the incredible wealth and his grace and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us who are united with Christ Jesus. God saved you by his grace when you believed, and you can't take credit for this. It is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it, for we are God's masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.
Speaker 1:Don't forget that you Gentiles used to be outsiders. You were called uncircumcised heathens by the Jews, who were proud of their circumcision, even though it affected only their bodies and not their heart. In those days, you were living apart from Christ. You were excluded from citizenship among the people of Israel, and you did not know the covenant promises God had made to them. You lived in this world without God and without hope, but now you have been united with Christ Jesus.
Speaker 1:Once you were far away from God, but now you have been brought near to him through the blood of Christ, for Christ himself has brought peace to us. He united Jews and Gentiles into one people when, in his own body on the cross, he broke down the wall of hostility that separated us. He did this by ending the system of law with its commandments and regulations. He made peace between Jews and Gentiles by creating in himself one new people from two groups Together as one body. Christ reconciled both groups to God by means of his death on the cross, and our hostility toward each other was put to death. He brought this good news of peace to you, gentiles, who were far away from him, and peace to the Jews, who were near. Now all of us can come to the Father through the same Holy Spirit because of what Christ has done for us. So now you, gentiles, are no longer strangers and foreigners. You are citizens along with all of God's holy people. You are members of God's family. Together we are his house, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, and the cornerstone is Christ Jesus himself. We are carefully joined together in him becoming a holy temple for the Lord. Through him, you, gentiles are also being made part of this dwelling where God lives by his spirit.
Speaker 1:Psalm 67, verse 1 through 7. May God be merciful and bless us. May his face smile with favor on us. May your ways be known throughout the earth, your saving power among people everywhere. May the nations praise you, o God. Yes, may all the nations praise you. Let the whole world sing for joy because you govern the nations with justice and guide the people of the whole world. May the nations praise you, o God. Yes, may all the nations praise you. Then the earth will yield its harvest and God, our God, will richly bless us. Yes, god will bless us, and people all over the world will fear him. Proverbs 23, verses 29-35 Don't gaze at the wine, seeing how red it is, how it sparkles in the cup, how smoothly it goes down, for in the end it bites like a poisonous snake, it stings like a viper.
Speaker 1:You will see hallucinations and you will say crazy things. You will stagger like a sailor tossed at sea, clinging to a swaying mast, and you will say they hit me, but I didn't feel it, I didn't even know it when they beat me up. When will I wake up so I can look for another drink. Back in Ephesians, verse 8, god saved you by his grace when you believed, and you can't take credit for this. It is a gift from God.
Speaker 1:Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. There's nothing that we can do to earn salvation, folks. It's not a reward for our good works. It's not a reward for not doing bad things. It's a gift of God. We accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, that he's the Son of God, who died for our sins and his blood covers our sins, and that God raised him from the dead and us with him, and that we're going to have eternal life because of his Son, and only because of his Son. There is no other hope, folks. If your hope is even remotely in yourself or in a denomination or a church or a particular pope or pastor or priest or bishop or cardinal, it's not going to be enough. It will never be enough. You're not going to get into heaven because you say, oh, I'm Roman Catholic, oh I'm Greek Orthodox, oh I'm Baptist or Methodist or Church of Christ or whatever else, that's not going to cut it. Or I believe in you know Pastor so-and-so, or this Pope or that Bishop or whatever it is, it's not going to cut it. The only thing that is going to get us to God in eternity is Jesus Christ, his Son, and saying he's my Lord and Savior. I acknowledge Him, that's it. I acknowledge him, but that's it.
Speaker 1:Medal of Honor James Franklin Bell. Colonel, highest rank, major General, philippine Insurrection US Volunteers 36th Infantry US Army. Date September 9, 1899. Place near Porac, luzon, philippine Islands. While, in advance of his regiment, charged seven insurgents with his pistol and compelled the surrender of the captain and two privates under a close fire. From the remaining insurgents, concealed in a bamboo thicket. From the remaining insurgents, concealed in a bamboo thicket, accredited to Shelbyville, shelby County, kentucky. Not awarded. Posthumously presented December 11, 1899, born January 9, 1856, shelbyville, shelby County, kentucky. Died January 8, 1919, new York, new York. Buried Arlington National Cemetery, 3-1735-4 Arlington, virginia. James Franklin Bell Another name to add to our list, folks, ever-growing, it seems.
Speaker 1:I've got a quote that we'll get to today if we have time, folks, but I wanted to take just a couple minutes. There was an article in a recent Epoch Times paper by. Have seen, and it'll take a subject that the post, whoever's posting it, so you know they really don't like. And it'll say you don't hate blank enough, you don't hate abortion enough, you don't hate feminism enough, you don't hate whatever it is. And a lot of times I just kind of roll my eyes, folks, but we truly, you know, the Bible tells us specifically to hate what is evil, to cling to what is good. We don't hate socialism, leftism, communism enough.
Speaker 1:When you look at this article, there's a couple sentences I'll read and we'll move on for the day. But between 2 million and 3 million people were killed in just three years under a political experiment run by young people who were, unbelievable as it may seem, convinced they were remaking the country into a peaceful, egalitarian utopia. And Williams starts off in her opening sentence stating that one in four people today young people has a positive view of communism as an economic system in the united states. Folks, there is absolutely nothing. When you read this article and you see some of the evil that was executed by the keimer rogue government or, however you say it, by pol pot and his crew, we truly do not hate leftism, socialism, communism enough today in the United States and what they are attempting to do, either out of ignorance or malevolence, it doesn't matter. History shows, every time it leads to slaughter, tyranny, genocide, rape, pillage and plunder, there's never a positive outcome for those ideologies. At any rate, I'm not going to stick on it any longer. It's a pretty good article, lengthy article for the paper. It's when Pol Pot read a book on Marx by Laura Williams. If you get a chance, I'm going to keep you for just a minute or two longer.
Speaker 1:Today there's a quote by William Blackstone, who again was the second most quoted political authority during our founding. To instance, in the case of murder, this is expressly forbidden by the divine. In the case of murder, this is expressly forbidden by the divine. If any human law should allow or enjoin us to commit it, we are bound to transgress that human law. But with regard to matters that are not commanded or forbidden by those superior laws, such for instance as exporting of wool into foreign countries, here the legislature has scope and opportunity to interpose. Two things, folks. One, if a law goes against scripture, if it goes against the Bible, that's a bad law and we have not only do we not have a responsibility to follow it, we have a responsibility to resist it, to go against that law. Two, the example that Blackstone uses here, murder, right literally, is what we've been doing via abortion for the last half century. It's evil folks, it's wrong. It doesn't matter that the Supreme Court said it's okay. It goes directly against Scripture. You don't get to murder people just because they're an inconvenience to you or for whatever other excuse you want to use. We should never have gone along with abortion. We should never. We shouldn't continue to. It has to be absolutely abolished. We have a responsibility not to go along with those laws that go against scripture. And again, this is a quote by William Blackstone, who was the second most quoted political authority in our founding era. Who was the second most quoted political authority in our founding era.
Speaker 1:I'll leave you again with Countryside. It's a series I wrote a couple years ago for children. If you're looking for something for your kids or your grandkids and you don't want all of the trash that so many of the middle grade and young adult books have in them today the sex and drugs and alcohol and LGBTQ lifestyle agenda I would recommend give it a try if you would humbly. It's along the lines of Narnia, harry Potter, the Hobbit, that kind of stuff. So if you get a chance, I would appreciate it, and if you enjoy it and you'd leave a review. I'd appreciate that too. God bless y'all. God bless your families, your marriages. God bless America. God bless your nation, wherever you are around the world listening. Ah, and I forgot to tell you, on Amazon right now, countryside is 99 cents, or you can buy the paperback or the hardback. So we'll talk to y'all again real soon. Folks Looking forward to it.