The American Soul
The American Soul
Scripture and Soul: Finding God in Today's America
Faith demands more than words—it requires daily commitment to Christ and our loved ones. When we say we love Jesus or our spouse but don't fulfill our responsibilities to them, we're only giving lip service.
• Making time for God and spouse demonstrates true love beyond empty words
• Song of Solomon provides a biblical model for passionate, God-honoring marriage
• Colossians 3 reminds us to focus on heavenly things and put away sinful behaviors
• Our focus should be on Christ, not denominational labels or divisions
• Christ's message transcends buildings, denominations, and religious traditions
• Living authentically means aligning our actions with our professed beliefs
• American founders valued Christ's principles above specific denominations
If you enjoyed this episode, please check out my family-friendly fantasy series "Countryside" available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. If you read it and enjoy it, please leave a review and tell others about it.
The American Soul Podcast
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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. I sure do appreciate y'all joining me and giving me a little bit of your time and attention, a little piece of your day. I'm a little under the weather, so y'all have to forgive me for the sound of my voice. Under the weather, so y'all have to forgive me for the sound of my voice, not that it's normally wonderful to begin with. But at any rate, for those of y'all who continue to share the podcast with others, tell others about it. Thank you for those of y'all who continue to pray for me and for the podcast. Excuse me, thank you, 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 things, father. Thank you for drawing us closer to you. Thank you for the people that you've put in our lives, that encourage us, support us, help us to run the race well. Help us to, in fact, run the race well. Run it all the way to the end to do your will. Above all else, be with those around the world who are hurting, who are being persecuted simply because they follow the name of your son, jesus Christ. Comfort them and help us to comfort them in any way that we can Be with them. Father, be with our leaders here in America and around the world, where people are listening. Give them wisdom and courage and a strong faith, and help them to rule in fear of you, father, not in fear of man and God. My words here, please. In the name of your Son, jesus Christ, we ask and we pray. Be with those listening, father. Thank you for them, wherever they are, across the nation or around the world. Comfort them, be with their families, bless their marriages. Help us to feel your presence and your comfort, father, in 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? You know we're not going to be perfect, folks. God's pretty clear about that. The only perfect person that ever lived was jesus christ, and if anybody tells you otherwise, that's a pretty good indication that they don't know much about the bible and or they're trying to twist it for their own peculiar reasons. But the only person that ever lived a sinless life, as far as and again, I'm not a priest or a pastor or a theologian folks, but I read the Bible, try to, and it's pretty clear.
Speaker 1:So, again, we're not going to be perfect, but if we're not striving each day to follow Jesus Christ, then we can claim that we love him all we want to, but we don't really. And that sounds harsh, probably, to some people, but it just is what it is. It's the truth. And with our spouse, we can claim that we love them all we want. But if we aren't fulfilling the extremely clear roles and responsibilities that God laid out for us as a spouse, we don't. And it doesn't matter what we say, it just matters what we do. And so you know, if you've got a spouse and they've made it clear to you that you're not being loving or kind or caring and you want to get all bent out of shape about it, made it clear to you that you're not being loving or kind or caring and you want to get all bent out of shape about it. Just read Scripture. That's all we need to do. We just need to look at Scripture and are we following it or are we not? And that tells us whether we do really care about our spouse or not. The marriage Scripture for today is Song of Solomon, chapter 4.
Speaker 1:How beautiful you are, my darling, oh, how beautiful. Your eyes, behind your veil, are doves. Your hair is like a flock of goats descending from the hills of Gilead. Your teeth are like a flock of sheep, just shorn, coming up from the washing. Each has its twin. Not one of them is alone. Your lips are like a scarlet ribbon, just shorn, coming up from the washing. Each has its twin. Not one of them is alone. Your lips are like a scarlet ribbon. Your mouth is lovely. Your temples, behind your veil, are like the halves of a pomegranate. Your neck is like the tower of david, built with courses of stone. On it hang a thousand shields, all of them shields of warriors. Your breasts are like two fawns, like twin fawns of a gazelle that browse among the lilies.
Speaker 1:Until the day breaks and the shadows flee, I will go to the mountain of Myrrh and to the hill of Ensign. You are altogether beautiful, my darling. There is no flaw in you. Come with me from Lebanon, my bride. Come with me from Lebanon. Descend from the crests of Amman, from the top of Sinir, the summit of Hermon, from the lion's dens and the mountain haunts of leopards. You have stolen my heart, my sister, my bride. You have stolen my heart with one glance of your eyes, with one jewel of your necklace. How delightful is your love, my sister, my bride. How much more pleasing is your love than wine and the fragrance of your perfume, more than any spice. Your lips drop sweetness as the honeycomb, my bride. Milk and honey are under your tongue. The fragrance of your garments is like the fragrance of Lebanon. You are a garden locked up, my sister, my bride. You are a spring enclosed, a sealed fountain. Your plants are an orchard of pomegranates, with choice fruits, with henna and nard, nard and saffron, calamus and cinnamon, with every kind of incense tree, with myrrh and aloes and all the finest spices. You are a garden fountain, a well of flowing water streaming down from Lebanon. Awake north wind and come south wind. Blow on my garden that its fragrance may spread everywhere. Let my beloved come into his garden and taste its choice fruits.
Speaker 1:Definitely think we don't talk about Song of Solomon enough inside the church in relation to marriage and what a marriage ought to look like according to Scripture. All right, excuse me the Scripture reading for today Colossians 3, verses 1 through 17. Since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God's right hand. Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth, for you died to this life and your real life is hidden with Christ in God, and when Christ, who is your life, is revealed to the whole world, you will share in all his glory. So put to death the sinful earthly things lurking within you have nothing to do with sexual immorality, impurity, lust and evil desires. Don't be greedy, for a greedy person is an idolater worshiping the things of this world.
Speaker 1:Because of these sins, the anger of God is coming. You used to do these things when your life was still part of this world. You used to do these things when your life was still part of this world, but now is the time to get rid of anger, rage, malicious behavior, slander and dirty language. Don't lie to each other, for you have stripped off your old sinful nature and all its wicked deeds. Put on your new nature and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like Him In this new life.
Speaker 1:It doesn't matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slave or free. Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us. Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience, he says. All together, in perfect harmony, and let the peace that comes from Christ rule in your hearts, for as members of one body, you are called to live in peace and always be thankful. Let the message about Christ and all its richness fill your lives, teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives. Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts, and whatever you do or say, do it as the representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father. Psalm 78, verses 32 through 55.
Speaker 1:But in spite of this, the people kept sinning, despite his wonders, they refused to trust him. So he ended their lives in failure, their years in terror. When God began killing them, they finally sought him, they repented and took God seriously. Then they remembered that God was their rock, that God Most High was their Redeemer. But all they gave him was lip service. They lied to him with their tongues. Their hearts were not loyal to him. They did not keep his covenant.
Speaker 1:Yet he was merciful and forgave their sins and did not destroy them all. Many times he held back his anger and did not unleash his fury, for he remembered that they were merely mortal, gone like the breath of wind that never returns. Oh how often they rebelled against him in the wilderness and grieved his heart in that dry wasteland. Again and again they tested God's patience and provoked the Holy One of Israel. They did not remember his power and how he rescued them from their enemies.
Speaker 1:They did not remember his miraculous signs in Egypt, his wonders on the plains of Zion, for he turned their rivers into blood so no one could drink from the streams. He sent vast swarms of flies to consume them and hordes of frogs to ruin them. He gave their crops to caterpillars. Their harvest was consumed by locusts. He destroyed their grapevines with hail and shattered their sycamore figs with sleet. He abandoned their cattle to the hell, their livestock to bolts of lightning. He loosed on them his fierce anger, all his fury, rage and hostility. He dispatched against them a band of destroying angels. He turned his anger against them.
Speaker 1:He did not spare the Egyptians' lives but ravaged them with the plague. He killed the oldest son in each Egyptian family, the flower of youth, throughout the land of Egypt. But he led his own people like a flock of sheep, guiding them safely through the wilderness. He kept them safe so they were not afraid. But the sea covered their enemies. He brought them to the border of his holy land, to this land of hills he had won for them. He drove out the nations before them. He gave them their inheritance by lot. He settled the tribes of Israel into their homes, proverbs 24, 27. Do your planning and prepare your fields before building your house. Think about that often, that proverb, doing the stuff that we need outside before we start worrying about our house. Psalm 78, verse 36. But all they gave him was lip service. They lied with their tongues.
Speaker 1:I think often we do that, not only with Christ but with our spouse, which is just another example of why our marriage is supposed to represent that relationship between Christ and the church. We say that we really care about Christ. We say we really care about our spouse but in actuality we don't. And then in verse 16, 17, and 10 and 11, when you go back to Colossians, chapter 3, you notice that the point is Christ, folks, it's not a particular denomination. Anytime you see somebody talking about a particular person besides Christ Mary Joseph, the disciples, thief on the cross if that's their focus, consistently right, and not Jesus Christ, there's something wrong with that. Or if their focus is that they're Roman Catholic or Greek Orthodox or Reformed Baptist or Methodist or Church of Christ. If that's their focus, they're not lining up with Scripture. Folks, the focus of Scripture is always Jesus Christ. It's just like people that try and use the Proverbs 31 woman to justify working outside the home for a wife and mother, that Proverbs 31, woman to justify working outside the home for a wife and mother. When you read through Proverbs 31, the focus of that wife and mother was always her husband and her family, not the career, always the husband and the family, right. And so, as a Christian, our focus always has to be God and Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit, not whatever denomination or non-denominational church we belong to.
Speaker 1:Medal of Honor for today Samuel Nicole Benjamin. 1st Lieutenant, highest Rank Brevet Lieutenant Colonel, us Civil War 2nd US Artillery, us Army, june 1861 through May of 1864, bull Run to Spotsylvania, virginia. Particularly distinguished services as an artillery officer, credited to New York, new York, not awarded posthumously June 11, 1877. Born January 3, 1839, new York, died May 15th 1886, governor's Island, new York. Buried St Philip's and the Highlands Church Cemetery. Mh Garrison, new York, united States. Samuel Nicole Benjamin, another name, and some statistics that we ought to remember more than pop stars or athletes.
Speaker 1:Quote today from John Adams in a letter he wrote from Philadelphia to his wife Abigail, october 9, 1774. This day I went to Dr Allison's meeting in the afternoon and heard the Dr Francis Allison give a good discourse upon the Lord's Supper. I'd rather go to church. We have better sermons, better prayers, better speakers, softer, sweeter music and gentler company, and I must confess that the Episcopal Church is quite as agreeable to my taste as the Presbyterian. I like the congregational way best, next to that the independent. I think this quote fits pretty well with a previous comment.
Speaker 1:Folks, our concern should never be Roman Catholic, protestant, orthodox, any denomination, congregationalist, church of Christ, baptist, methodist, anglican, episcopal. Our concern should be Christ and if that church and that priest or that pastor Is teaching scripture, teaching that Christ alone can save us, then I'm glad to go there and any of us should be as Christians. It shouldn't matter. If we walk in the door and that pastor or priest is telling us look, jesus Christ is the whole deal, not this denomination, not anybody else, not Mary Joseph, the apostles, people on the cross or any pope, bishop, pastor, priest, cardinal, then it doesn't matter what the denomination is. The church is just the building. The message is what matters and the message, the gospel of Jesus Christ, is what we should be trying to spread. And you look back at our founders and you see that concern over and over again. They didn't want to kick God out of the nation, but they wanted to make sure that no single denomination was favored by the state, that it was Christ and his principles that were favored by the state, that it was Christ and his principles that were favored by the state.
Speaker 1:If you get a chance, you check out Countryside. It's a family-friendly wholesome, I hope think a middle-grade fantasy series that you can kind of enjoy together and you can find it Amazon, barnes, noble, a lot of places and if you get a chance and you enjoy it, if you'd leave a review somewhere, tell somebody else about it. I would appreciate it. God bless y'all. God bless your families, your marriages. God bless America. God bless your nation, wherever you are around the world. Listen, we'll talk to y'all again real soon. Folks Looking forward to it.