Up next in 10
Doug & Michelle Bentz On Walking With Christ, The Threats To The Integrity Of The Church & More
25 views
Feb 20, 2025
To support the Eternal Perspective Conversation, see link below https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=W7946Z6TXXRRC or visit https://tayibs.com/about-me/ Welcome to episode1 of the Eternal Perspective Conversation; I was honored with the presence of Doug & Shelly Bentz, a well seasoned couple in the Lord. They have been married for over 20 years and are the parents of two beautiful daughters and a son. Today they will be sharing their testimony very briefly; they will also talk to us about the elements that threaten the integrity of the Church and how they are combatting that. Here is a breakdown of the conversation by topics Introduction 1:10 Their walk with the Lord 1:45 How they met? 4:45 Defining moments (growth spurt) 8:33 Threats to the Integrity of the Church 19:55 Spirit filled life 29:15 Sin is entangling 31:50 Resisting the Spirit of God 36:45 The joy of suffering 40:40 Ways to live a victorious life 43:13 Understanding the Lordship of Christ 46:28
View Video Transcript
0:00
[Music]
0:16
[Applause] [Music]
0:35
all right um so welcome to the eternal perspective conversation that's what i call it and
0:41
uh today i have the honor of presenting to you [Music] dog and michelle banks
0:48
it's funny because i was driving today and i was thinking how do i even introduce you guys and i was thinking okay i'm going to say michelle and doug
0:54
bentley how's that bentley that is their dog's name
1:00
so yes so would you guys please introduce yourself
1:06
hi i'm michelle shelly some people call me and um
1:12
is married to my cousin so we're related yes and uh i'm doug um
1:20
michelle's my wife and so we're gonna be uh sharing a little bit today about uh where we've been and how god has uh
1:27
uh been [Music] faithful to us and how he's using us and just our journey and so thank you for
1:33
taking the uh the time to listen okay so we're just gonna jump right in and i
1:39
have like some questions for you which we know about so the first questions i have for you both is this like how long
1:45
have you been working with the lord how long has that been
1:50
like the first order right um well i accepted christ when i was a young girl
1:55
so that's been a number of years um and i was baptized around 12 years of age
2:03
so um so it's been most of my life uh i would
2:10
say uh with periods of growth i'll call them growth spurts
2:15
along the way how about you doug um well for myself um
2:21
uh i became uh actually accepted christ when i was in college uh uh actually uh
2:26
yeah and and um i could make this uh there's a long version in the short
2:31
version so i'll try to keep with the short version but uh essentially i was at uh carnegie mellon university and uh i was not a believer
2:39
um uh grew up my parents i went to church but uh i'm not sure if it was just the
2:46
teaching that was at the church or whether it was me not listening or you know uh but did not have um a a saving
2:54
relationship did not accept christ as my savior i you know knew that there was a god and you know i think i could talk
2:59
about things in the bible but it didn't it didn't didn't have a hold of my heart uh and i got to college and essentially
3:07
got kicked out of school and uh went to a small
3:12
christian college and it was there that there were people around me that shared their faith and really
3:18
um uh essentially just explained uh you know it got to see the gospel in action and
3:24
got to hear you know that the spirit was working on my heart and it was during that time that i was
3:29
at the between my first executive college that uh there was uh you know i went some met
3:35
a talk with a pastor here in uh um the burnsville area and uh essentially gave my life to christ and accepted him
3:43
as my lord savior well dog i didn't know that you got kicked out of school that's a new one
3:55
but god uses our god uses all things and so if it brings glory to him i'm okay with saying
4:02
whatever he needs to be said that's good and did you guys when you guys met were you both christians where you met or you
4:07
weren't christians we when we met we were questions yes okay and how did you guys meet i met
4:14
doug in college um same college i grew up loving to sing and
4:21
didn't want to go to college and major in that for a couple of different reasons but i thought i still want to continue
4:29
to sing and i loved to sing songs about my faith songs that had meaning that i felt compelled to share
4:35
with others i felt that probably started in high school and so uh when i got to campus i saw
4:43
that there was a student-run singing group that would spend their spring break going out and
4:48
ministering um through music and so i went over and and had to audition and
4:56
believe it was you that was leader yeah yeah doug was leading um he they called him the spiritual leader there was also someone
5:02
who was like the song leader who would work on the music which i really think doug's a talented musician
5:08
and i was shocked this guy was actually this guy leading devotionals and stuff like
5:13
that so that was very attractive to me to see someone living out their faith at a young age and showing leadership
5:21
and um he also had a love of music and and yeah that's so we met through that
5:27
that group so the dog asked you out or did you talk to him first who talked first
5:33
i actually was dating someone from high school and so we were just friends
5:39
for about six months and then i really felt like that other guy was the wrong guy for me
5:46
and broke it off and really had started falling for doug and knew it wasn't right to be dating
5:52
the other guy and then thankfully he that uh second semester he asked me out to i believe
5:59
was it the day it was a formal kind of like a formal dance and that was our first date and then we went to uh
6:05
michael card concert and then doug said he was really this is off topic but he was really busy
6:11
he was engineering really busy and he really shouldn't be dating and i said that's fine you know
6:17
i'm a freshman that's fine and so i thought that we probably weren't gonna continue dating and after
6:23
that i think he called me every night or came to the dorm every night and i was like i thought i thought we weren't
6:29
dating i thought he was busy for some reason
6:35
well it was me it was me falling for her and wanting to spend more time with her and realizing that you know she was a a
6:42
beautiful young woman and obviously had wanted to give her our
6:47
lead a life a glorifying christ and that was attractive and she was you know could you know she could sing we had a
6:52
common interest in music and that was something that we were able to during that singing group be able just to share
6:57
and bond with and i just remember spending a lot of times just kind of just the two of us finding a piano somewhere and you singing and me playing
7:04
for hours on end and it was it was just became just a beautiful time of praise and
7:09
and uh so yeah just there you go so yesterday was our 27th anniversary wow
7:15
so that was a match made from heaven it was god was in it all the way and he knows he's good he's good if i
7:21
can share one more thing there was one more little funny topic was uh her
7:26
dad is the kind of guy that says uh you know he knows everybody out there and so you can just say hey i i
7:32
talked to the garbage man you know i think well hey i know his brother and uh so she went home and said hey i'm
7:39
starting to date this guy named doug benz so the first thing out of her dad's mouth is oh i went to school with his
7:45
dad
7:51
did you know each other no yeah so so she she he goes back and gets his yearbook
7:56
let me get my yearbook and he looked up carl bentz and when he showed me the picture i was like it looked just like
8:01
dog and i said doug did your dad go to this college yes oh wow
8:07
that's incredible oh yeah well i do not know that wow it's
8:12
good stuff anyway uh so you've been working with the lord for
8:18
like maybe 20 years now like 27 years basically or maybe more 30 years
8:24
so in what areas in your life have you seen like a lot of growth in your christian work
8:30
you go first to me um yeah i was thinking about this uh you gave us some questions earlier to
8:37
look over and i i um i think there's been like i said growth
8:43
spurts so um initially when i received christ i heard the message through my family and
8:49
my dad was a pastor so i was in church a lot and um
8:54
was compelled the love of christ but also compelled by um not wanting to go
9:00
to hell i mean i believed it was a true place i believe that and i
9:05
wanted to be with christ and with my family i mean i was young and so that was a real
9:12
true commitment to him but also compelled by certain reasons those are the reasons so
9:18
um christ is faithful even if we come to him as a little child he is faithful to
9:25
lead us gently lead us and help us grow along the way mature in that faith so
9:31
as i look back i can see that that was a real relationship that i
9:38
learned to pray and talk to him about my needs as i was a child like we moved a lot and so i'd often find
9:44
myself okay now i'm in a new school i have no friends i'll i'll ask the lord for friends
9:49
and he'd provide i mean like the girl next to me would be a pastor's the girl's locker next to me would be a
9:55
pastor's daughter you know or something like that and it would keep happening and i was like the lord
10:00
answered that prayer so it built my faith in my 20s i um
10:05
was married to doug and i started to have a growing passion
10:12
for going deeper in god's word i'd always you know read it but not like a consistent daily thing
10:19
and i so i wanted to sit down every morning and read god's word and i was actually i was reading an aw
10:26
tozer book i was probably my early twenties it was called the pursuit of god and i remember it having a big impact on
10:33
me because he talked about surrendering the things that you consider precious in your life that you
10:39
have to surrender surrender those to the lord really they're his anyway if you're a believer
10:45
it's all his but when you keep it like you have to protect it and i i had this new husband
10:50
that i loved dearly and i was a traffic reporter and he had to drive this long commute and i used to worry about that
10:56
commute and what if he died in a car crash and when i read that book i really
11:02
thought you know i need to take this step to surrender my beautiful husband to to the lord and
11:08
children when they come and anything that comes that's a blessing from him back to him because it's his
11:15
and so that was a step of maturity that you know came through
11:20
a pastor but using god's word and um and i remember praying that and feeling like
11:25
okay this is letting jesus be lord in my life like i'm giving him the authority to
11:32
use him how he wants and plan his life how he wants you know not holding on to it as if it's mine to possess so that
11:39
was a growth point i think there's there's others i don't want to take all the time but um recently i feel like he's leading me
11:46
into deeper well i guess we'll get to get to that question some deeper prayer life
11:53
yeah yeah i i would you know tend to agree with that there's there's times where i think the lord is very patient
11:58
with us doesn't expect us to to get everything at the beginning
12:04
um i know um uh for me there was a very uh just a a
12:10
continual deeper understanding of who god is and and i know as even just it became uh becoming a father i know for me that
12:17
was a you know just the the sheer just again
12:22
you ask any father out there just the love they have for their children and for me that was that was a definitely
12:29
uh applying that that you know god loves us that way and crying out abba father and that was a a very
12:35
for me a very poignant time in a time of understanding uh and just a you know and going deeper
12:42
in my faith there and as michelle has prayed you know over the years despite the the desire for his word and and just
12:49
going deeper and deeper there that was again something that i was not as an early christian you know did not have
12:54
that desire to kind of get into this word in a regular basis and that was something that i i've over the years has
13:00
become um you know more and more of a a necessity for for each day um i know
13:06
with our kids uh um you know we were married and as we were even both we have
13:11
uh our first child emma um pretty much that uh i mean she was nine you know michelle
13:18
was getting ready to deliver and they said well um we're seeing something that's
13:24
very wrong um i don't know you know what what this means obviously you're gonna go through the delivery but you need to
13:30
be you know prepared and that was that was kind of a shock for us and and i remember we took it to the lord in
13:36
prayer and and um just you know crying out that she would be fine and and
13:42
i mean you know emma she's a beautiful young woman now um we've had
13:48
you know even with our son tim um which uh when he was um uh eight months old was diagnosed with a
13:56
a heart condition that required open heart surgery and uh just you know once again just crying
14:03
out to the lord to save him and you know i know for me one of the hardest things i ever did was you know
14:09
carrying him you know into the uh operating room was just the time as you know god i'm giving him to you
14:15
and please heal him um and so that was very much a a growth time of of just you know praising god
14:23
for the the things that he does for us huh uh and that happened is it again five years later we tim had to go
14:29
through a second surgery and so you know again just god's faithfulness to us
14:36
um uh through the years it's been evident to see again he's he's carrying us
14:41
through all everything and you know there's there's times in my life where you know i've kind of felt that uh you
14:46
know as we kind of goes in the next couple questions a little bit that you know i i need to um
14:52
not be so um god's been so faithful to us that i sometimes like with my job i know
14:58
i've come to realize that i just you know that kind of has in over the past years has taken up too much of my time
15:04
and that's one of the ways i'm trying to even now is saying i need to kind of back off and and he's been patient with
15:10
me there but you know i don't want that's that's not to be the focus um so again if you go through you know all the
15:16
years you know he's carrying us through he's faithful he's patient um he wants
15:21
us you know to love him to uh to be reaching out to those around us i i so
15:26
he's been you know like i said we could keep going but i guess there's a brief summary of ways that i felt you know the
15:32
growing times in my life over over the last 20 years i think god does use
15:38
hard times obviously to help us mature and i think that's kind of what
15:44
doug's been touching on yeah are we frozen
15:49
you're good yes i'm here yeah okay yes i'm here yeah
15:55
i think those times kind of propel us a bit forward when we could be stagnant
16:02
um and there's other times that you know it's not necessarily a bad
16:09
time we're going through but we're just that we're drawing closer to him and he also uses those
16:15
times or illuminates something in his word that just sparks uh
16:20
our hearts to respond i i remember reading um again i was probably
16:27
it might have been right before our first daughter was born scripture went that when i committed to
16:32
go deeper in his word and reading about um
16:38
the woman who washed christ's feet with her perfume in her
16:43
hair and because i accepted christ at a young age
16:48
i didn't have one of those testimonies i remember in college they said give your
16:54
testimony on the singing tour when i was a senior and i said uh you don't really want me to get mine
17:00
they're like why and i said because it's not very dramatic or
17:06
you know i didn't like have a life of drugs and was saved out of it or something
17:11
dramatically different than you know how i'd always lived but
17:17
it was real it was sincere but it just wasn't dramatic and they said oh no no no no your testimony is your testimony you
17:24
don't have to compare it to someone else's and think theirs is a better testimony so they
17:29
they encourage me to share whatever my testimony was and i think when i read about this woman
17:36
pouring out a perfume and wiping christ's feet i had to stop and look
17:41
at my own heart because christ says of her she's forgiven much because she's loved
17:47
much and he was forgiven little loves little and i thought how much do i love you
17:53
christ because how much do i realize how i've been forgiven
17:59
and so i prayed in that moment and i i remember saying lord reveal
18:04
my heart reveal it to me so i and he did and i didn't really like it
18:10
but the lord again was faithful to say uh the sin doesn't even have to be acted on
18:17
if it's in your heart or your mind your heart or your mind so it's there
18:23
given opportunity you might fall into that temptation
18:28
but don't think for a moment that it wasn't in your heart because i think you know i've forgiven you
18:36
just because you didn't have the the years that you know that you didn't know me to act out on that
18:42
sin so that's a real growth time too when you get into his word and when you let it
18:47
speak to you and you ask him show me show me me
18:54
yeah levi almost interrupted me but uh that was great you know what
19:00
a lot of times you know like you say a lot of times people who have these dramatic testimonies
19:06
some some sometimes it gets a little bit in the way in the sense that they think just because they have a more dramatic
19:11
testimony they have something to say where somebody else may not have the same thing just like you what you said
19:17
and i don't think it matters at all because your testimony is your testimony so god uses anything and everything and
19:24
we shouldn't be trying to force this on anybody else anyway and the next question that i have
19:30
for you guys is uh the church is going through a lot now as you know in our day and age there's
19:37
been a lot of things in the church you know from the prosperity gospel through to
19:42
uh leaders in the church falling you know and and doing things that you didn't you didn't think they could do it
19:47
happened even locally and and so my question to you is what is the biggest threat to the
19:53
integrity of the church today in your own um mind what what do you think
19:59
threatens the interview of the church where you go ahead
20:07
um i think it's kind of
20:14
i guess where i kind of felt this one or what when i thought about this question for the first little bit i i
20:20
i this is going to be a very kind of broad it's my first response but it it could really i think it's real for me it
20:27
drills down into what you're saying is um and we've heard this and but i think it's very true that that um
20:35
when people accept christ you know we we say we accept them as lord and savior
20:41
and um i think as michelle has said you know i think the the first you know the the
20:48
savior part is pretty you know pretty straightforward in the sense that okay i
20:54
don't want to go to hell but the part that i think you know
20:59
takes a little more time to to to understand fully is what does it mean to have him as lord of your life
21:06
and as part of that i i think the um
21:13
again just my i don't have a world knowledge of the church but as far as the you know the church and even people
21:18
you know people um that that i met in the in the band that i was in early on this is the
21:24
i think there's the okay well to be to to be submissive to be obedient
21:30
um that the part of having christ be our lord and wanting to obey
21:37
and and not my will be done but his will be done
21:42
and it starts off at the very simplest things of going through your day and
21:47
even you know with their kids they want to do what they want to do i want to do what i want to do something that makes me feel good i don't want to
21:54
go do the dishes i want to go have fun um i i yeah and even with my own life
22:00
okay well i don't you know i don't really want to do that i want to do this that's more enticing or fun and it's we
22:07
try to say that okay well i believe in in christ but there's still these things that i you
22:14
know god's gonna forgive me and i i think if we don't if we're not
22:20
we're kidding ourselves if we think we can control or you know if we
22:25
try to total lines whatever the the sin may be that we're going to get ourselves in
22:30
trouble and i think you know a lot of the the people that are out there you know they think it's me may start as
22:37
opposed to saying keep your eyes straight ahead of you you know men are looking left and right and you
22:44
know as if when you see sin and you're tempted by it it's not the temptation that you
22:50
attempted this wrong is what your response is and and that's where you know we need to be say run
22:56
you know look at there's you know that that i think we think okay we can handle these things and we're stronger whereas
23:02
you know that the enemy comes to seek and to destroy and though it's and again maybe you know i'm
23:09
oversimplifying it but i think there's a are we really seeking to have him control our lives
23:15
and then being obedient to his word and his word has lays out exactly how to live your life
23:22
and and and things to do and things not to do and i think we try to pick and choose to some degree as to the things
23:28
that we we like that one well that was that was a little harder to do i'll put that one off until for another
23:35
day and with the you know you know with the integrity of the church that's out there i think a lot of it
23:42
are we willing to really put down aside what we want and really be obedient to him and even as even as a follower of
23:48
christ for years that's so a hard thing to do you know even later in life is the more you mature is okay this do things creep
23:55
into your life that are pushing you know god back a little bit and
24:01
that's uh you know so i think it's happens all all throughout life
24:06
um um and so again that's kind of how i again it's kind of
24:11
really broad but i think it drills i believe it kind of drills down into respect as far as the integrity of the
24:16
church what what is that what is the issue that we're dealing with as far as the integrity is it we're we're trying to
24:22
have our we want you know we're selfish in our heart and we want it you know we we think that we can handle it and those things so i
24:29
that's kind of true yeah i was sharing with my teenage son
24:34
this week i said i think the church is some of the church is sick
24:40
and he said what in what way and i said well christ says that he's
24:46
come to give us life more abundant and free so we're to be fully alive
24:52
and yet i don't see that fullness of life
24:58
in all the church in fact the world thinks they're alive
25:05
with all the stuff that the world loves is attracted to is working toward
25:10
is coveting you know and they think it's life
25:16
in fact you know when kids are young like we had kids in youth groups who who
25:22
look at all that stuff that the world's doing why can't i do it because it looks like the life is out there and this is
25:28
dead boring the truth is the church is the one alive
25:33
the world is dead they're dead in their sins and christ came to give us life so why
25:40
is it that so much of the church and i think doug touched on on that
25:46
is the church is living like the world
25:53
and not really participating in the see that that blocks the fullness of
26:00
life which comes through the spirit this verse that christ says to to peter
26:07
i wanted to ask you when you say the church is living out the word could you give me like one or two examples like
26:13
some of the things i want you to be really specific on that like like what are some of the things that you've observed you know
26:20
and and that make you say those things that's kind of what i want to know too like some of the things that you can
26:26
point out and say hey this is not right and i've seen churches do this
26:31
oh well i think there's many things i um
26:37
well i'm just gonna share this other thought that i have is this verse about
26:42
the gates of hell so jesus says to peter on this rock i'll build my church i'll
26:48
build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail
26:53
some people take that to mean the gates of hell
27:00
um they say can't move so it's not like the hell's coming out to to get us but it's that we're gonna
27:07
go and storm hell to you know maybe recipe rescue someone
27:13
over the last few months i was thinking into that verse and i was pondering and praying about it
27:19
and it really became apparent to me as i looked in scripture looked at a few commentaries
27:24
on that the gates have held they are stationary right gates don't they're
27:30
right they don't move around but
27:36
what what would prevail against us in those gates it would be if we were
27:41
inside okay and we couldn't get out which we were when we were part of the world okay
27:48
before we knew christ so they were prevailing against us by keeping us in but now christ came
27:54
died for our sins when we receive him those hell gates open and we're going over to
28:01
life okay now those gates can no longer hold us
28:07
except the things inside those gates are the things satan deceives the world with i you asked me specifics
28:14
um things that are outside of god's commandment for us his word lays out
28:22
clear commands a lot of us know the ten commandments we shouldn't kill
28:27
i don't think the church is necessarily going out and killing or are they i mean
28:32
abortion is now creeped in to the church where we think because
28:38
society is okay with it that we can be okay with it but clearly god's command is we shall not kill
28:46
and so it go it goes from that to
28:52
other lifestyle choices or pornography um
28:58
i'm just watching the news last night and they were saying there's this a porn site that's that's very prevalent right
29:04
now as people are in their homes and and whatnot and it's and it's so detrimental to people
29:10
but they're willingly taking part in it as if it was fun and life-giving
29:16
it's not it's robbing it's stealing it's it's destroying
29:22
hearts and minds and lives so i don't know i you could list a whole litany of things the thing
29:29
is we've been set free from that why why are some of the church going back in
29:36
to those gates to participate in the things of hell
29:41
when they've been set free from it maybe do you think um church discipline
29:47
should be implemented more for that matter
29:52
uh i guess there's i i don't necessarily know unless that you're talking about a
29:58
specific case i mean there's the church should handle it on specific individual
30:03
basis but uh i think one of the things that's lacking
30:09
in the church is a spirit-filled life so
30:15
can we obey god's commands just on our own effort
30:23
are we filled with the life of christ in order to to walk in a way that's obedient and so
30:32
all that to say i think one of the problems is
30:38
maybe we've resisted the lord backed off from
30:43
drawing close to him getting into his word resisting temptation doing what he's commanded us and we suppress that
30:51
spirit of god or we kind of don't welcome his spirit to fully
30:58
fill us and empower us to live for him if you keep longing for the stuff behind
31:05
the gates and keep wandering back in there and like doug said maybe they think ah
31:11
the gates are open so i'm okay i can ask forgiveness
31:17
um but if they if they if we keep participating in those things paul i
31:22
think said we shouldn't consider it a license to sin right just because we've been forgiven or will be forgiven
31:29
and if we if we say well it's a habit or something i i can't get rid of it
31:35
call on christ to deliver and free you baptize
31:41
you anew in his spirit to be able to walk victory there's the gates of hell should not be prevailing
31:47
against you you know if it and sin is addicting and
31:53
in entangling i think the bible describes it as like a web that so easily entangles
32:00
so if we find ourselves entangled it's not that we have no hope
32:05
christ can cut through any entanglement and set free so you're saying we don't leave by the
32:12
spirit of god
32:25
so you you are emphasizing the lack of understanding that we need to be filled with the holy spirit of god
32:32
because we are not filled with the spirit therefore we don't quite know how to live out
32:38
the christian life because we try to do it on our own and we keep falling and like you said i can't stop the same that's because you
32:46
don't understand the power of the spirit of god so how do you
32:51
get people to truly dig back into the word of god and understand his truth so i would say
32:58
maybe it's because maybe people don't really understand the word of god or they don't truly have a deeper
33:03
understanding of the truth in scripture right right right yeah
33:11
the only thing i was going to add on to that which is you know um was it even in the way that
33:17
i think churches are trying to you know i think draw people in they're trying to be like
33:23
the other media out there and the music and whatever it may be try to do things the way the world's
33:30
doing things thinking that it would be more you know we have a better chance of getting these people in
33:35
um and and so i think we're we're letting things of the world creep into
33:41
the church um and how we do business are we relying on on our strength on our abilities uh okay
33:50
our business plan says we're going to do this this this and this as well what you know what does god want us to do right
33:56
you know and and so i think you know kind of dovetailing this same discussion here but you know
34:02
we're not our dependence on god is too small we're counting
34:08
we're not we're not trusting in him enough we're trying to rely on our own strength and i know that seems like you know
34:14
we think we can do it or we know how to do things versus letting the spirit of god uh
34:20
lead us yeah so for from what i gather for both of what you say is is the lack of living
34:27
to the spirit of god basically that's the biggest threat to the integrity of the church if you don't truly understand what it means to
34:33
live by the spirit of god and therefore we fall into trying to do our own thing and not rely
34:40
on god any spirit and and this is yes this you're absolutely right
34:45
so my next question is i'm sure you know a lot of people a lot of christians and and how do you
34:52
think not understanding this um this life's life spirit lived on christian life
35:00
affect affected their lives or impact their lives i mean i know you know a lot of people that are christians and they
35:05
claim to be christians then you look at the fruit in their life and it's almost like okay what's going on here so what
35:11
do you think which is again the same question that i asked just uh 15 minutes ago so
35:17
how has it been like have you seen people fall for this type of um um lack of
35:23
understanding of living by the spirit have you seen a lot of uh people falling because of it
35:29
because of that problem yeah well i think either you know
35:36
even within i know um as i met michelle
35:43
very early in our uh um when we first started dating um i was in a a christian band and and
35:51
essentially the um one fellow that was in it we had to ask to leave the band because there he
35:56
was having a moral failure and then so um and that's you know
36:02
happened you know you know recently can you look out we've had uh i know friends of michelle as uh again i
36:09
don't think you have to look too far to find you know where where people have fallen and i i
36:15
i well we're here i mean we're human there are going to be
36:20
right continue to be sins but keeping an open
36:27
heart to the lord if you're rebuked over something right then
36:32
you turn from it right and seek christ again i'm not saying we're all going to live
36:38
perfectly not having a moral failing but there is a a prevalence of
36:44
resisting the spirit of god and calling what is good evil and what is evil
36:51
good and it's happening even among church leaders why
36:57
a lack of understanding of god's word or wanting to
37:04
keep unity or or some kind of peace
37:11
you can't really can't really have complete unity or peace with things that
37:16
are contrary to god's word we have to stand oppose them being gracious to the sinner but
37:23
not the sin but we can't compromise on god's word so i see leaders
37:29
i mean come to look too far to find leaders that are doing that and then if they're doing that then
37:36
church members are also doing that right so then those church members start leading
37:43
a sunday school or something and teaching it to a younger generation
37:48
and so that creates a lot of unhealth in the church um i think young people i think
37:54
you can look to young people and say well i can see in young people that have
37:59
sadly left the church and then pursued health self-interest or the world's
38:06
interests not pursued christ and that's sad it's sad because
38:14
they didn't understand the treasure that was presented to them i've been thinking a lot about that lately i don't want to
38:20
be too harsh on the young because i think they
38:25
need room to mature but why are they walking away
38:33
uh from and not seeing as a treasure the things that were were taught them
38:39
and i i think that they um
38:46
they always looked at the things that that were taught them almost to they
38:53
were almost too familiar these things they just didn't realize what
38:58
maybe they'll be like the prodigal son who returns and turns and that's how i'm praying but i
39:04
think the one thing was did they really receive it for themselves or did they just
39:12
where they just taught it did they really receive it for themselves and were they
39:18
baptized into his name you know touched on that before received his the fullness of his
39:24
spiritual lives no i don't know it may have been going off
39:30
on a tangent but no no no you're absolutely right or maybe the question is maybe they never cared
39:36
to grow deeper like you said in their faith they didn't grow past their noah's stories and david and goliath stories
39:43
they just read those and it was kind of fun but they didn't really grow deeper roots you know like you you said
39:48
you you had to go through your own difficult times and that's when you found uh your faith growing and maybe they
39:55
never experienced that so for them people praying for me
40:00
but i don't know we don't know but um that's why i said recently i've been going deeper in prayer because i
40:07
realize now i'm in my middle age and maybe i'm the person who's supposed to be praying for maybe that's why they're
40:12
on my mind so much because i'm supposed to pray that the lord hey we have a part to play we have a part to speak
40:20
but we can speak truth but it's the lord who opens the heart and the mind
40:26
and draws the person so i've begun to realize okay i need to do my part lord what is
40:32
my part and then lord you work in their life and like doug said we
40:37
were in our 20s he mentioned our daughter uh when i was carrying her there was
40:42
something before that we had a miscarriage our first try of having a child
40:47
and god used that and you know maybe we were
40:53
um not fully well i remember at that point i
41:00
i loved the lord and we were walking with the lord but i remember reading through the bible and i got to job and i'm like gonna skip that
41:07
i don't want anything to do with that and after the miscarriage i remember
41:14
clearly declaring to the lord okay lord you could slay me i will serve you like the devil's not winning here
41:23
even if i go so i think the immaturity in me was i'll follow lord but i don't want to go through anything difficult
41:29
don't even tell me about job because i don't want to go through it and scared of that and i don't
41:35
then after the miscarriage i realized okay this if this is a test i choose god
41:42
even if it brings difficulty i choose god and so i think for the young people
41:48
the lord has ways of drawing i'm not saying he's going to bring all these bad things in
41:53
their life but he'll use things in their lives and that's when i'm praying lord
41:58
continue to draw them to yourself use the things in their life to remind them
42:04
remind them of what they learned remind them and convince them of these things that
42:09
their truth you know so um yeah that was a little tangent sorry
42:14
ah that's that's okay you know i think one of the things too is as christians we are too afraid of
42:20
confronting our sin or our leaders sometimes when we see them doing things that we know are not
42:26
consistent with the scripture and we don't want to break the unity like you said so we use it as a an
42:32
excuse not to confront it so what we need to pray also for more is for for
42:38
more boldness to be able to speak into these things when we see them happening and not just be quiet and say well i'm
42:43
just going to pray about it yes someone has to speak up and this is why
42:48
john the baptist he got beheaded because he spoke up against what herod was doing so i think
42:54
sometimes we also have to be more vocal when we see things happen and and be able to say hey this is not right
43:02
it doesn't matter what it cost so we still have to do it but i i really appreciate what you guys
43:07
are saying here and now my question to you is how are you preparing yourselves or your own children
43:13
to um go through to to basically resist this kind of temptation and and combat
43:20
it in the sense that how do you prepare your children now and yourselves so that you don't fall into the same things that
43:26
you were talking about well i i try to encourage our kids to
43:34
have a quiet time with the lord with his word daily did you have a
43:40
quiet time you know not always consistent with it but a constant reminding
43:47
uh that we need to stay in god's truth to have it
43:52
over our mind help us to resist temptation his word helps us to resist it and
44:00
to kind of help us to have a right perspective and to recognize his voice in our lives so
44:05
so i remind them to be in god's word uh we have to rightly understand the word though we can't just i always tell them
44:11
it's not like a to-do list and you're checking off this to-do list
44:17
like i said this to my youngest the other day did you have a quiet time
44:22
and then right after i was like you know you don't do that just to check it off the list because i wouldn't say
44:28
um oh i talked to your dad
44:33
to dog today that's a good example i talked to dad because i love him and i
44:40
am interested in him and i want him to hear my heart too so we have a relationship and she was like
44:46
oh yeah okay i got it i get it i have a relationship with christ and i'm not going to let it go for days
44:52
on end without checking in with him and then
44:57
what were we talking about recently where um it's not enough to just
45:02
oh we we were talking about a friend who was reading god's word who's young he's not even a
45:08
believer but he wanted to read god's word and he couldn't understand it and what was the right course to take
45:17
to help this unbeliever who wants to read god's word give him an easier version of scripture to read
45:24
was one of the um suggestions and we were like well you know you could do that but what he
45:30
really needs is a mature christian to come alongside and help disciple him into understanding and
45:37
present to him the choice to make to receive christ because once he receives
45:43
christ he receives his spirit and then will have better understanding
45:49
of what he's reading instead of just putting an easy version of the comic book bible or whatever in his hand
45:56
without a understanding of what he's reading so
46:02
yeah so that to be in his word but also to be mentored in his word in in the word right
46:09
and and and in prayer and communication i think those are and really when you ask me why
46:17
why is the church having a problem i don't know if we're
46:23
treating christ as a like doug said just a savior we said a prayer
46:28
sometime in our life and received him but we go on living and
46:34
really it's like you've forgotten who you're married to you never talk to them you never have a
46:40
relationship with them and you don't care a word what they think about anything in your life
46:45
because you think it doesn't pertain but it does he pertains to everything in your life
46:51
so yeah and i just yeah very very similarly you know
46:57
um and that's trying to make sure that you know our kids are or have the reverence and the
47:04
desire to be in god's word and we've we you know during our family time uh that's one of the i guess the
47:10
the benefits that we had of our time with kobe was we were actually able to kind of circle the wagons again and get some
47:16
more uh um family time family sharing time that we've had you know reading god's word together and
47:22
you know um one thing you know i've was heard this in the past but just maybe you know i wanted as we're going to
47:28
together is you need to understand truth so well that when you hear a lie you know it's a
47:33
lie and i think that that's something that you know you're not going to know what truth is
47:40
if you're not seeking it if you're not asking the spirit to guide you if you're not
47:46
you know in in prayer that you can hear something that's you know sounds good
47:51
but is it truth or not and and that's where they that you you know you really need to
47:56
understand that so that if you hear something else you know i don't want to go there that's not what what truth is
48:02
i think too you mentioned covet um the lack of fellowship among believers because iron sharpens iron
48:09
uh but we haven't been at least doug and i it's been hard to zoom and everything
48:17
our son who goes to a christian college has been in community because they kept meeting in person and uh the other day
48:25
his friend texted him and said hey
48:30
how's your heart health and my son has had doug said heart surgery so and he hadn't he had an
48:36
annual checkup the other day so my so he wrote back to the kid and said hey how did you know i had my annual heart
48:42
checkup it went well he goes well that's great but that's not what i was talking
48:50
i said that's really cool that you're 19 and your friend is checking in to see how you're speaking yes that's good
48:57
when we have when we're in a community of believers it strengthens us
49:04
it gives us accountability and it gives us people who will speak into our lives pray for us and encourage us
49:11
and i gotta admit it's been a little lacking this year with with covet and that doesn't help the health of the
49:18
group oh definitely that's been one of my things i've been you know sorrowful you know very
49:24
sorrowful for the last many many months just the church not getting together and i just uh you know not uplifting one
49:30
another as michelle has said and just uh praising together i mean there's there's so much i really feel like the church has been weakened
49:37
um you know not being together corporately and to share together and to encourage one another that's just been uh really on my
49:44
heart that we haven't been able to do that yeah yeah totally i'm with you on that you
49:49
know because now you know and this is to my shame like i don't even feel like going back to
49:55
church i just like i've been too comfortable just turning on my computer and and then watching stuff online i'm
50:01
like you know i don't really want to go back i'm okay with this and this is not the right kind of mindset this is why i
50:08
want to be able to talk to to people more because the more you talk to people the more you talk to believers the more
50:14
iron sharpen science you know so it's important fellowship isn't it is too important and
50:19
and i'm looking forward to to spending more time with you guys not online but face to face remember we came to your
50:25
house and he was we came home that night and i was like we stayed there for four hours
50:30
and he saw he was almost like it was like 20 minutes this is how much like he was so much
50:36
uplifting to have that time you know and and i miss that you know and and
50:41
yes you're right and so is there anything else you want to talk about you know i don't have any more
50:46
questions for you you pretty much answered every question that i had in and i was really glad to have you here
50:52
but if there's anything else you want to say hey go ahead i'm listening
50:58
i didn't have anything no i think uh we've talked about quite a bit there i just uh thank you for uh giving us the
51:04
opportunity just to uh to share a little bit about us and i like to say hopefully we continue to
51:09
um i'm looking forward for us spending some more time together you know bonfire here shortly yeah next sunday
51:16
it's like 60 today it's really like nice today so i would have loved to have some
51:21
together time but yeah maybe if we plan some for next week we can do that maybe
51:27
i'll talk to sarah and see what happens so yes so michelle would you please close
51:33
us in prayer sure yes heavenly father thank you for the bond
51:39
that we have in christ i thank you for your love for us and that you
51:45
um we just went kind of down memory lane that you took us from young children to
51:51
the point where we are now and you've been faithful every day you've been faithful your mercies
51:57
are new every morning and you gently lead us and i thank you for that and i pray that you would lead the
52:03
next generation as well to um fall deeply in love with you and
52:08
lessen with the things of this world strengthen your church lord please forgive us for
52:14
vacancy for self-love and for being distracted
52:20
and um lord i thank you that you're faithful that the gates of hell will not
52:26
prevail against us we do not fret over the things that
52:33
we've done in the past or the things that maybe are seem to be entangling right now we
52:38
ask you to remove those chains and set us free as you did in your in your word when
52:46
people had um a demon or a sickness the lord you
52:51
touched them and that leave from them and they would be well again alive again and so i just
52:57
pray that you would touch your church let us be fully alive yes full of the life of the spirit and
53:05
live in such a way that we can shine your light yes sir lord i pray that those that hear this
53:11
that don't know you that um would like to know you i pray that you reveal yourself to them
53:18
draw them to you and show them you love them and you've came to save them to give them life more abundant and free
53:25
i praise bless them with in jesus name amen amen and again thank you for being here
53:31
and we are done with our conversation but we are not done talking okay
53:37
let me try to stop this uh recording here okay
#Online Video
#Religion & Belief