The American Soul
The American Soul
True Patriotism: Where Christ and America Meet
We explore what truly matters in life by examining our priorities and where we place our trust. This episode challenges listeners to evaluate what they're putting before God, Christ, and their spouses in daily life.
• Making time for God through reading scripture and prayer
• The concept of an "eternal bank account" measuring heavenly treasures
• Scripture readings from Philippians, Psalms, and Proverbs
• Trusting in Christ alone rather than denominational affiliations
• Reflections on American unity and the dangers of divided loyalties
• The connection between true patriotism and Christian principles
If you enjoy wholesome middle-grade fantasy, check out my Countryside series available on Amazon in paperback and hardback. Please consider leaving a review if you enjoy it.
The American Soul Podcast
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1791934/subscribe
Hey folks, this is Jesse Cope, back with another episode of the American Soul Podcast. Hope y'all are doing well, wherever y'all are, whatever part of the day you're in. Sure do appreciate y'all joining me, giving me a little bit of your time and a little piece of your day. I will try and use it wisely. Hopefully it'll give us all some extra tools for our toolboxes. We used to send the Marine Corps For those of y'all who continue to share the podcast with others and tell others about it. Thank you For those of y'all who continue to pray for me and for the podcast. Thank you Very, very grateful for your prayers.
Speaker 1:Father, thank you for today. Thank you for you, father, and your Son Jesus Christ and your Holy Spirit. Father, thank you for today. Thank you for you, father, and your Son Jesus Christ and your Holy Spirit. Thank you for your love, your mercy, your grace and your forgiveness of our sins through the merit of your Son Jesus Christ. Thank you for sending him. Thank you for him being willing to come. Thank you, father, that we can trust you even when we don't understand what's going on, even when we don't understand Scripture, when we just don't understand.
Speaker 1:Father, help us to cling to you and to your Son Jesus Christ. Help us to follow the commands of your Son, to love you with our whole heart, mind, soul and strength, to love our neighbors as ourselves. Forgive us when we choose our own way over yours. Forgive us when we choose our own way over yours. Forgive us our pride and our greed and our selfishness, our judgment of others, our rash words and actions, our cowardice, our lust, our covetousness, our unbelief. Help us to overcome them all. We do believe Father and be with those who are listening to the podcast. Please, father, give them wisdom and courage and a strong faith. Heal whatever heartaches are there, whatever pain, illness or injury, loss of loved ones, confusion, hopelessness. Help us to remember that we have ultimate hope in your Son Jesus Christ and that one day we will get to spend all of eternity with you and your son in heaven, where there's no more pain and no more sorrow and no more sadness, no more brokenness. Please, god, my words are for your son's name. We pray Amen.
Speaker 1:Have you made time for God today? Have you made time to read his word? Have you made time to talk to him, to listen to him? And, if you're married, have you made time for your spouse? Do they know it? Do they care? Or do they know you care? What are you putting before God and Jesus Christ and your spouse? Social media Work, in person or on a screen, tv Workouts? What in our lives, what are we giving more time and energy and effort to than we are to God and Jesus Christ and our spouse? Second to that, who's our closest neighbor, right?
Speaker 1:I've often thought over the last couple of years that it would be really nice if we had an app on our phones that showed us our eternal bank account, how much money we had saved up there, and that eternal bank account, how much treasure we had put there. I think it would change the way people acted pretty drastically. I know it would for me. I know that there are days when, if I could flip open my phone or turn on open one of the apps and there was the amount that I had gained that day treasures in heaven. It would. And you know it would right, because look how much so many of us pay attention to the metrics and social media. How many likes, how many followers, how many shares we would pay attention. Many shares, we would pay attention.
Speaker 1:Marriage scripture for today Proverbs 5, 18 and 19. Let your fountain be blessed and rejoice in the wife of your youth as a loving hind and a graceful doe. Let her breasts satisfy you at all times. Be exhilarated, always with her love. Scripture reading for today. We're going to start with Philippians 2, 19-34.
Speaker 1:If the Lord Jesus is willing, I hope to send Timothy to you soon for a visit. Then he can cheer me up by telling me how you are getting along. I have no one else like Timothy who genuinely cares about your welfare. All the others care only for themselves and not for what matters to Jesus Christ. But you know how Timothy has proven himself Like a son with his father. He has served with me in preaching the good news. I hope to send him to you just as soon as I find out what is going to happen to me here, and I have confidence from the Lord that I myself will come to see you soon.
Speaker 1:Meanwhile, I thought I should send Epaphroditus back to you. He is a true brother, co-worker and fellow soldier and he was your messenger to help me in my need. I am sending him because he has been longing to see you and he was very distressed that you heard he was ill. And he certainly was ill, in fact he almost died, but God had mercy on him and also on me, so that I would not have one sorrow after another. So I am all the more anxious to send him back to you, for I know you will be glad to see him, and then I will come, and then I will not be so worried about you. Welcome him in the Lord's love and with great joy, and give him the honor that people like him deserve, for he risked his life for the work of Christ, and he was at the point of death while doing for me what you couldn't do from far away. Whatever happens, my dear brothers and sisters, rejoice in the Lord.
Speaker 1:I never get tired of telling you these things, and I do it to safeguard your faith. Watch out for those dogs, those people who do evil, those mutilators who say you must be circumcised to be saved, for we who worship by the Spirit of God are the ones who are truly circumcised. We rely on what Christ Jesus has done for us. We put no confidence in human effort, though I could have confidence in my own effort if anyone could. Indeed, if others have reason for confidence in their own efforts, I have even more. Psalm 73, verses 1 through 28. Truly, god is good to Israel, to those whose hearts are pure.
Speaker 1:But as for me, I almost lost my footing. My feet were slipping and I was almost gone, for I envied the proud when I saw them prosper. Despite their wickedness, they seemed to live such painless lives. Their bodies are so healthy and strong. They don't have troubles like other people. They're not plagued with problems like everyone else, they wear pride like a jeweled necklace and clothe themselves with cruelty.
Speaker 1:These fat cats have everything their hearts could ever wish for. They scoff and speak only evil and their pride. They seek to crush others. They boast against the very heavens and their words strut throughout the earth. And so the people are dismayed and confused, drinking in all their words. What does God know, they ask. Does the Most High even know what's happening? Look at these wicked people enjoying a life of ease while their riches multiply, these wicked people enjoying a life of ease while their riches multiply.
Speaker 1:Did I keep my heart pure for nothing? Did I keep myself innocent for no reason? I get nothing but trouble all day long. Every morning brings me pain. If I had really spoken this way to others, I would have been a traitor to your people. So I tried to understand why the wicked prosper. But what a difficult task it is.
Speaker 1:Then I went into your sanctuary, o God, and I finally understood the destiny of the wicked. Truly, you put them on a slippery path and send them sliding over the cliff to destruction. In an instant they are destroyed completely, swept away by terrors. When you arise, o Lord, you will laugh at all their silly ideas, as a person laughs at dreams in the morning. Then I realized that my heart was bitter and I was all torn up inside. I was so foolish and ignorant I must have seemed like a senseless animal to you. Yet I still belong to you. You hold my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, leading me to a glorious destiny. Whom have I in heaven but you? I desire you more than anything on earth. My health may fail and my spirit may grow weak, but God remains the strength of my heart. He is mine forever. Those who desert him will perish, for you destroy those who abandon you. But as for me, how good it is to be near God. I have made the sovereign Lord my shelter and I will tell everyone about the wonderful things you do. Proverbs 24, verses 13 through 14. My child. Eat honey, for it is good, and the honeycomb is sweet to the taste. In the same way, wisdom is sweet to your soul. If you find it, you will have a bright future and your hopes will not be cut short.
Speaker 1:Go back to Philippians, chapter 3, verses 2. Watch out for those dogs, those people who do evil, those mutilators who say to you you must be circumcised to be saved. For we who worship by the Spirit of God are the ones who are truly circumcised. We rely on what Christ Jesus has done for us. We put no confidence in human effort. We put no confidence in human effort, folks, if somebody is telling you, don't let your heart be troubled by somebody trying to tell you that you have to belong to their particular denomination in order to be saved. If a person gets to the gates of heaven and they try and get in and the way they try and get in is, they say well, I was Roman Catholic, I was Protestant, I was Church of Christ, baptist Methodist, I was Greek Orthodox those gates aren't going to open, just like the Jews here trying to convince Christians that they had to be circumcised in order to be saved. They didn't. You don't have to belong to a particular denomination. In fact, belonging to a particular denomination is no guarantee. Not only no guarantee, it makes you truly question whether that denomination isn't doing more damage than good. But try and keep people out of heaven based on nothing that's in Scripture. Our trust should be in Christ Jesus and what he has done for us alone. We should not put any confidence in human effort, circumcision, particular denomination, church of Christ, roman Catholic, greek Orthodox, baptist, methodist. Don't put your trust in denominations or in other people or in works acts. Put your trust in Jesus Christ. That's the only hope I have. Folks, if he doesn't stand up for me, I'm not getting into heaven. That's it. He is my only hope and I cling to him wholeheartedly, or at least I try to cling to him wholeheartedly, or at least I try to.
Speaker 1:Edward Roosevelt, I think in 1916, if I have the year right around Memorial Day in St Louis. These are some quotes of his. I appeal to all our citizens, no matter from what land their forefathers came, to keep this ever in mind and to shun with scorn and contempt the sinister intrigues and mischief-makers who would seek to divide them along lines of creed or birthplace or of national origin". Talking about hyphenating American Whenever it represents an effort to form political parties along racial lines or to bring pressure to bear on parties and politicians, not for American purposes, but in the interest of some group of volunteers of a certain national origin or the country from which they or their fathers came. He spoke there in St Louis condemning that, and I think we talked recently about this idea. Let me read this again, just in case.
Speaker 1:The effort to keep our citizens divided against itself by the use of the hyphen and along the lines of national origin is certain to a breed of spirit of bitterness and prejudice and dislike between great bodies of our citizens. If some citizens band together as German-Americans or Irish-Americans, then after a while others are certain to band together as English-Americans or Scandinavian-Americans. And every such banding together, every attempt to make for political purposes a German-American alliance or a Scandinavian-American alliance, means, down at the bottom, an effort against the interest of straight-out American citizenship, an effort to bring into our nation the bitter old-world rivalries and jealousies and hatreds. There shouldn't be anything above America if you're coming to America in the sense of a country no flag, no national anthem that you value more than America's and if you really love the only way to be a person that loves America. The only way to truly be a patriot is to love the values that founded America and therefore to love the general principles of Christ. As John Adams said, those were the only principles that our founders could unify around, that our founders could unify around, and if you don't love those values that flag, national anthem, but, most of all, the general principles of Christ, you cannot, you never will truly love America.
Speaker 1:If you get a chance and you're looking for a family-friendly, wholesome, middle-grade fantasy series, I would humbly recommend Countryside. I've written a couple books on the series so far. You can find it on Amazon, paperback, hardback, a number of other places and if you enjoy it, if you would leave a review, I would be very grateful for that. Those help quite a bit. God bless you all. God bless your families. God bless your marriages if you're married. God bless your nation. God bless America. We'll talk to you all again real soon. Folks Looking forward to it.