When Truth Meets Comfort: Which Do You Choose?

What did your last twenty-four hours say about your priorities? We take an unflinching look at how time, habits, and attention reveal the loves that lead our lives, then recalibrate around Scripture, prayer, and practical steps that restore what matters most.

We start with honor in marriage through Hebrews 13:4—why covenant is sacred, how purity protects trust, and how aiming for holiness gives real shape to daily choices. From there, we explore growth with a Lewis-inspired lens: measure progress by starting points, steward blessings with courage, and turn talent into service. Then we open 2 John to fuse love with truth—walking in obedience, resisting false teaching that denies Christ’s incarnation, and refusing to sponsor deception with our platforms or our praise. Love that endures refuses flattery and clings to truth, even when it costs.

Presence becomes the pivot. Joy deepens face to face, not device to device. We talk about putting down screens, listening well, and doing shared work that knits families and friendships back together. History sharpens the moment as we read Lincoln’s 1864 Thanksgiving proclamation—a call to gratitude, humility “in the dust,” and hope during national trial. That posture still fits today: repent clearly, thank God boldly, and resolve to live as people who belong to Christ—come peace or storm.

If this conversation helps you refocus your next twenty-four hours—on your marriage, your family, and the truth you live—share it with a friend, subscribe for future episodes, and leave a quick review. Your support helps more listeners find their footing in faith and practice.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome And Opening Prayer
• 2:41 Examining Our Last 24 Hours
• 4:06 Marriage Honor And Purity
• 5:15 Growth, Upbringing, And Using Talents
• 7:29 Reading 2 John And Warnings On False Teaching
• 10:55 Real Fellowship And Face-To-Face Presence
• 12:13 Medal Of Honor Moment: Blenquet
• 13:06 Lincoln’s 1864 Thanksgiving Proclamation
• 16:13 Repentance, National Humility, And Resolve
• 18:27 Book And Support Requests
• 19:08 The Lord’s Prayer And Closing Blessing

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:02

Hey folks, this is Jesse Coop, 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 piece of your day. I hope you're able to listen with somebody else. I will try and use y'all's time wisely. For those of y'all who continue to pray for me and for the podcast, thank you. For those of y'all who continue to share the podcast with others and tell others about it, thank you. Very grateful. 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. For all your many blessings, Father. The ones we admit, the ones we don't for whatever reason. Thank you for the time to record this podcast. Thank you for the people that listen to it. Please be with them. Be with their families. Bless the marriages of those who are married. Help us to love you, Father, with our whole heart, mind, soul, and strength. Help us to love our neighbors as ourselves. Help us to remember to keep our priorities in line with your priorities. To keep eternity at the forefront of our mind with you and your son Jesus Christ and your Holy Spirit. And to store up for ourselves treasures in heaven. Not here on earth.

SPEAKER_00: 1:42

Be with those who are anxious, fearful, concerned, depressed. Comfort them. Help them to feel your presence and your peace. Be with those who are injured and ill. Ease any discomfort that they're having, Father. Be with the brokenhearted.

SPEAKER_01: 2:09

Be near them. Be with our military. Our law enforcement of firefighters, those who go out in the cold and dark and rain, snow, sleet.

SPEAKER_00: 2:20

To protect us, please protect them. Protect their families. Bring them home safe to their families. Your son's name we pray.

SPEAKER_01: 2:41

Well how'd you spend your last twenty four hours? Are you pleased with it? Was God really your top priority? If you're married, were you a great spouse? Good spouse? Decent spouse? Or were you pretty poor? What does that even look like, folks? Do we even know what it looks like to be a good servant to God? Right? What does Christ tell us? He tells us if we really love him, we'll follow his command. And as a as a spouse, what does that look like? That's why we go over these marriage verses each podcast. A huge part of the problem that we have in our nation today, folks, here in America, and really in quite a few nations around the world, is just simply Bible illiteracy. We don't really know what God says because we're giving so much time to other things. Marriage verse for today is Hebrews 13 4. Marriage is to be held and honor among all, and the marriage bed is to be undefiled. For fornicators and adulterers, God will judge. Our goal should be perfection, understanding we'll never obtain that goal this side of heaven. But that ought to be the goal, folks, striving toward that. Just like any other endeavor, professional, athletic, academic, if you're really striving toward that goal each day, you you ought to see some improvement. It's uh I'm gonna paraphrase this really horribly, but there's I I I can't remember what book it is that C.S. Lewis talks about this, but he talks about the fact that a lot of times we look at the outward actions of people and we don't pay enough attention to what they're starting with, right? So if you've got this guy that's man, he's just a real so-and-so and horrible person, most people would say, right? And then you've got this other guy or gal, and and they're they're pretty nice. But Lewis talks about the fact that what we don't realize, for example, maybe is this this guy that's that we think is doing this horrible job, his upbringing was atrocious. He was raised by drunks, he was beaten and abused his whole life, and he's really doing a lot better than what he started from. And then you look over here at this other person that society says is a pretty good person, pretty good guy or gal. And you look back at their life, and man, they had two parents that loved them. Uh, they grew up not in want or need, uh, the best education, uh, the best of all these things, and and they're actually doing pretty poor relative to where they started. I'm always kind of afraid of that. I was blessed with an extremely loving, caring family, uh, wonderful opportunities in a lot of ways. And I think too often I made too little use of the talents that God gave me. Hopefully, I'm picking up the pace a little bit here at this point in my life. But it's it's so important, folks. You know, we talk about so many people talk about the need to acknowledge God's blessings, and man, that's true. But we have just as much need to use those talents that God gave us to the fullest extent of our abilities. It's not enough just to sit there and say, Oh, I've been so blessed. Yeah, well, what are you doing with that? Scripture for today, 2 John 1, verses 1 through 13. This letter is from John the Elder. I am writing to the chosen lady and to her children whom I love in the truth, as does everyone else who knows the truth, because the truth lives in us and will be with us forever. Grace, mercy, and peace, which come from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Son of the Father, will continue to be with us who live in truth and love. How happy I was to meet some of your children and find them living according to the truth, just as the Father commanded. I am writing to remind you, dear friends, that we should love one another. This is not a new commandment, but one we have had from the beginning. Love means doing what God has commanded us, as He has commanded us to love one another, just as you heard from the beginning. I say this because many deceivers have gone out into the world. They deny that Jesus Christ came in a real body. Such a person is a deceiver and an antichrist. Watch out that you do not lose what we have worked so hard to achieve. Be diligent that you receive your full reward. Anyone who wanders away from this teaching has no relationship with God, but anyone who remains in the teaching of Christ has a relationship with both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to your meeting and does not teach the truth about Christ, don't invite that person into your home or give any kind of encouragement. Anyone who encourages such people becomes a partner in their evil work. I have much more to say to you, but I don't want to do it with paper and ink, for I hope to visit you soon and talk with you face to face. Then our joy will be complete. Greetings from the children of your sister, chosen by God. Those who trust in the Lord are as secure as Mount Zion. They will be they will not be defeated but will endure forever. Just as the mountains surround Jerusalem, so the Lord surrounds his people both now and forever. The wicked will not rule the land of the godly, for then the godly might be tempted to do wrong. O Lord, do good to those who are good, whose hearts are in tune with you, but banish those who turn to crooked ways, O Lord. Take them away with those who do evil. May Israel have peace. Proverbs twenty nine verses nine through eleven. If a wise person takes a fool to court there will be ranting and ridicule but no satisfaction. The bloodthirsty hate blameless people, but the upright seek to help them. Fools vent their anger, but the wise quietly hold it back. Verse nine here in Proverbs, there's a point, folks, at which you you've said, argued with a person, you've told them the truth, and they just don't have any intention of hearing you, and you just you just move on. You just move on. Verse six out of 2 John 1, love means doing what God has commanded us. And also you look at verses 10 and 11, right? If you don't teach the truth about Christ, don't invite that person into your home or give any kind of encouragement. Anyone who encourages such people becomes a partner in their evil work. When we encourage sin, folks, when we encourage people committing sin, it's like becoming an accomplice to a crime. There's nothing loving or kind about encouraging people in sin, right? Verse seven, those that uh that deny that Christ came in a real body, such a person is a deceiver and an antichrist, right? Uh and then, real quick, verse 12, for I hope to visit you soon and talk with you face to face. I don't think we give enough attention to that, folks, in our relationships, right? Uh like you talk about with your children or your spouse, sitting in the same room just staring at a screen is not really spending time together. You need to interact with that person, talk to them, listen to them, do something together. There's nothing wrong, folks, with going to a play or watching a movie or watching TV every once in a while. But this idea that we can sit in the same room and each scroll our phones or watch a TV show and we're somehow developing that relationship. I think there's plenty of evidence around us today to see how foolhardy that really is. Medal of Honor for today. That's the name, Indian Campaigns, U.S. Army. Rank Indian Scout, Unit Command, Indian Scouts, U.S. Army, 1872 to 1873, Medal of Honor Action Place, Apache Campaigns, USA, Gallant Conduct During Campaigns and Engagements with Apaches, not awarded posthumously, presented April 12th, 1875, Born, Wyoming, United States. And that is it. Don't you know how many stories there are in between the lines of that citation? Gallant conduct during campaigns and engagements with Apaches. Can't even begin to imagine, folks. There's a lot more there. Blenquet. That's it. That's the name. B-L-A-N-Q-U-E-T. I'm probably murdering that, but that's the name. Thanksgiving today. Proclamation. We're going to read one from 1864 by the President of the United States of America proclamation. It has pleased Almighty God to prolong our national life another year, defending us with his guardian care against unfriendly designs from abroad, and vouchsafing to us in his mercy many and signal victories over the enemy, who is of our own household. It has also pleased our Heavenly Father to favor as well our citizens in their homes as our soldiers in their camps and our sailors on the rivers and seas with unusual health. He has largely augmented our free population by emancipation and by immigration. While he is opened to use new sources of wealth and has crowned the labor of our working men in every department of industry with abundant rewards. Moreover, he has been pleased to animate and inspire our minds and hearts with fortitude, courage, and resolution sufficient for the great trial of civil war, and to which we have been brought by our adherents as a nation to the cause of freedom and humanity, and to afford to us reasonable hopes of an ultimate and happy deliverance from all our dangers and afflictions. Now therefore, I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, do hereby appoint and set apart the last Thursday of November next, as a day which I desire to be observed by all my fellow citizens, wherever they may be then, as a day of thanksgiving and praise to Almighty God, the beneficent creator and ruler of the universe. And I do further recommend to my fellow citizens aforesaid, that on that occasion they do reverently humble themselves in the dust, and from thence offer up penitent and fervent prayers and supplications to the great disposer of events for a return of the inestimable blessings of peace, union, and harmony throughout the land, which it has pleased him to assign as a dwelling place for ourselves and for our posterity throughout all generations. In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed, done at the city of Washington this 20th day of October in the year of our Lord 1864, and in the independence of the United States, the 89th, Abraham Lincoln. This is a great, not that the others aren't, folks, but this is a great Thanksgiving proclamation for us to look at in our current condition because we've got a fight coming. There's a very good chance. It's hard, minus a miracle by God Almighty, which would be wonderful. It's hard not to see that we have another civil war coming. And it's it's going to be beyond what most people can even comprehend, myself included, most of the last generation that really could even begin to comprehend it is the World War II generation that saw fighting around the world, Europe, Pacific, etc. It's going to be horrible. But there are worse things, as Chesty Puller, our general in the Marine Corps, said, than war and death. And willingly going into Islam, leftism, socialism, communism, Nazism, fascism, those are all, those would be worse, far worse. But these some of these, you know, his acknowledgement here, Lincoln's acknowledgement that this civil war that came from within our own household, right? That's telling that applies today. And and talking about the fact that we need to humble reverently ourselves in the dust and offer up penitent and fervent prayers and supplications to the great disposer of events. That's that's not light, folks. That's a big deal. To really truly repent of our sins as individuals and as a nation and turn back to God, not just kind of, not just going to church at Christmas and Easter or going to church on Sunday and spending the next six days of the week doing whatever we wanted, not giving lip service to God, but we need to actually humble ourselves before God. Folks, and I'm talking to myself here as much, if not more, than anybody else listening. And really look to Him, tell Him thank you and ask for His guidance. Whatever comes, right? Live or die, we belong to Christ. And that ought to be our attitude as a nation. For those of us that love America, live or die. We belong to Christ. Our nation belongs to Christ. If you are looking for a family-friendly middle-grade read, I would humbly recommend Countryside. And if you get a chance to check it out and you enjoy it, if you would leave a review somewhere for the first or second book or both, I would greatly appreciate it. It's kind of along the lines of Narnia, The Hobbit, Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, that kind of stuff. And if you're getting something out of the podcast and you feel like you have three or four or five dollars to donate each month, there is a donation page on the Buzz Sprout website where you can set that up, and I would greatly appreciate that as well. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not to temptation, but deliver us from evil, for that is the kingdom, the power, and the glory forever and ever. Amen. God bless you all. God bless your marriages. God bless your families. God bless America. God bless your nation, wherever you are around the world. Listen and folks. We'll talk to you all again real soon. Looking forward to it.