Episode 45: Three Levels of Knowing God: Belief, Salvation, Intimacy

Jacob Paul: Welcome to the Truth in Love podcast with your hosts Kimberly Faith and John Mac. The Truth in Love podcast seeks to present God’s timeless truth through the lens of his remarkable love. 

Kimberly Faith:  Well, dad, we’ve been down the porch having a conversation this morning.

John McLarty: It’s always wonderful.

Kimberly Faith: It is. And I’ll tell you, this podcast about the three levels of knowing God is man, it’s a good conversation and so relevant.

John McLarty: Yeah. A little light rain falling this morning, just thinking about God’s creation and how he reveals himself in so many ways.

Kimberly Faith: He does.

John McLarty: So this should be a good conversation. 

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. It’s kind of funny too that we decided to do this podcast today because earlier this week I was having a conversation with a lady and she made the comment, I’ve always known God. And, I don’t know about you, but that happens a lot in conversations I have with people. They say those kinds of things and I like to ask, well, what do you mean by that? And honestly, their response is always along the lines of, I’ve always known about God.

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith: And I asked her, I said, well I said, do you know about God like you know your children or you know your parents or somebody who you know loves you? And boy, she just kind of said, Well, no, I really don’t. And so, this whole podcast about the three levels of knowing God becomes very relevant whether you’re a person that’s listening who knows about God but has never discovered an intimate relationship with God.

John McLarty: Right. 

Kimberly Faith: Or whether you’re a person who’s maybe trying to explain that to somebody else who makes that comment. So, let’s jump in. First of all, let’s just put it out there. The scripture gives us three levels of knowing God. And the first is acknowledging his presence. Second is receiving his gift of salvation. And the third is walking in intimate relationship. So let’s start with level one.

John McLarty: Well, my testimony actually kind of is revealing in that area because like the lady you talked to, a lot of people would just say they believe in God. I would say in America, over 80% would just they believe in God. Well, I didn’t. I didn’t believe in God. 

Kimberly Faith: Interesting.

John McLarty: So a big revelation that was a big hurdle for me. So in my hippie gypsy lifestyle of a crazy 18, 19, and 20 year old just roving around the country, I began to observe life events that seem to be just beyond coincidence. They seem to be engineered, like meeting somebody, like Lynn. You kind of be in a certain place at a certain time and something happens, not just meeting Lynn, but a lot of situations. I thought, this seems like it’s engineered.

And I didn’t even think in terms of God, but I began to think that there was a spiritual world. So I kind of thought in terms of more like angels and demons. Like, there’s spirit beings that want good things, and then there’s spirit beings that want bad things.

Kimberly Faith: Interesting.

John McLarty: But that opened my mind up, just observing life events, that there was a spiritual world. 

Kimberly Faith: Wow. 

John McLarty: And that’s kind of interesting because back in American culture where most people believed in God, that wasn’t such a big issue. It kind of started with this assumption most people believed in God. And our associate pastor, Pat Briney, has come up with kind of an alternative.

You have the universal questions. It’s like, Why are we here? What’s our purpose? Where do we go when we leave this place? But Pat has, because of our culture, going away from this basic belief in God, he’s proposed asking somebody this basic question, just look at the physical world and just say, Do you believe this is all that exists?

Kimberly Faith: That’s good.

John McLarty: And if they say yes, that’s where you start with them. That’s where you start the conversation. Well, what about all the engineering and intelligent design? How did this happen? And have you ever considered the human eyeball that the simple cell isn’t so simple?

Kimberly Faith: Just the laws of physics.

John McLarty: Right. It was this spiritual observation I made that opened my mind up that I think there is a spiritual world. When I heard flash forward a little bit. But when I heard the gospel, the idea that there was a God wasn’t so foreign to me.

Kimberly Faith: It’s just a transparent acknowledgment because I think it’s a bigger lie to say, I know God, and yet really not know Him. Then to be very transparent and say, You know what? I’d never seen or heard any evidence that there was this God. When I teach the concepts, I rarely have anybody who comes in with the approach you’re talking about.

Usually it’s these people who are saying, Yeah, I know God. Which is to me a bigger lie perpetuated by the enemy because then you have false sense of security. And so I always take them to the Bible and that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to talk about what does the Bible say about the levels of knowing God? The scripture is very clear. And like again, I hardly ever have to use this scripture in Romans 1:19-20 because most people that I talked to have a basic acknowledgement of God.

But when I do, it’s so interesting. Like I did have a guy that was working on my office and he says he was an atheist. And I said, do you know the Bible is pretty clear that really there are no atheists? And he goes, what? And so, I read this verse to him and I’ll just read it. 

Because what may be known of God is manifest in them for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world, his invisible attributes are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made. Even his eternal power and Godhead so that they are without excuse.

I read that to him and he said, well, he said, I don’t believe the Bible. I said, that’s fair. I said, and that kind of led to the next, this is a little bit off topic, but this kind of led to the next, kind of like what Pat Briney was asking, you know. Well, then how do you explain all that is if there’s no intelligent design? It’s really interesting. And then also, the other question I like to ask, kind of along with what Pat says is, is your source of truth giving you peace?

John McLarty: Right. Yeah. That inner awareness, that’s really interesting because that’s what I began to sense. And it wasn’t so much that because the next question is, if you believe that there is more than the physical world, that there’s a spiritual world, kind of the next question is, well, is there a God? Because a lot of people today, this new ageism is that, well, there’s a spiritual component to life, but not necessarily a God. Just there’s this kind of 

Kimberly Faith: Spiritualism.

John McLarty: Spiritualism. 

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. Like humanistic spiritualism. We’re going to make up our own version of spiritualism. And the problem that I see with a lot of people who are into that is that they’re still, their anxiety is off the charts really, because there’s nothing solid. There’s nothing we can say.

And of course, not to jump off into the Bible concepts, but we know that our anxiety is a gift to bring us to God.

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith: You know, it’s a gift to show us kind of like when you’re dying of thirst in the desert. If you weren’t dying of thirst, you would never drink and you would die. And our spiritual anxiety is a gift to show us we need spiritual quenching, which is a relationship with God.

John McLarty: Yeah, that’s great. I think one of the next questions is, Well, if you believe there’s a God, what’s your source of truth for that God?

Kimberly Faith: Yes, yes. Yeah. Because we can It’s funny, I teach a concept study in our office. All the girls asked me to teach them a concept study and that was one of the things that we’ve talked about a lot. How people source of truth.

We were created for worship. We were created to worship and people want to say, when I asked, I polled the group, what is worship? Almost everybody said, well, it’s raising your hands, it’s singing hymns, it’s in church. I said, let’s expand that definition. Worship is what do you think about. It’s what you put your time into. It’s what you are passionate about. That’s worship.

John McLarty: Direct your attention to. Yes.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. And there’s only one object of worship that will ever bring us satisfaction and that is God. We were created for a relationship with God just like our body was created for water in the desert. And when we have Him, it’s not that we don’t have anxiety, we have a source to quell that anxiety. It’s a totally You’re going to go life with trouble. Life is going to bring trouble. But when you have someone bigger than you to solve and to walk through that with, it makes all the difference. And here’s the sad thing. Most people that we meet stay at this knowledge of God. Let’s just say they’re not an atheist.

John McLarty: An atheist, pure atheist.

Kimberly Faith: But they had this nebulous, I believe in God, but it never satisfies them.

John McLarty: Yeah. It’s kind of God on the same level as apple pie and motherhood and the American flag. It’s just the American. Yeah. We believe in those things.

Kimberly Faith: Right. Right. You believe in an idea, but you don’t believe in a relationship.

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith:  And so, you know, and what’s interesting, the Bible even says that I mean, because this level of belief is not enough to save us.

John McLarty: Right. It’s not enough to have that relationship.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right. And that’s what people need to understand. The Bible says in James 2:19, that even the demons believe in the existence of God.

John McLarty: That’s right.

Kimberly Faith: And their reaction to that is to tremble because they know what’s coming. Unfortunately, someone who says, I believe in God, and it doesn’t bring them to the next level is living a delusion that will send them off the edge and they’ll never be able to return, you know? 

So, it’s, you know, just to kind of summarize this, the beauty, the design, the complexity of the natural world proclaim the existence of God, but also God has put the knowledge of himself inside of us. And it’s important for people to understand that. And I think when people acknowledge that, then they’re ready maybe to hear then like you were at the next level.

Okay, well,  how do I get this relationship? And so that’s kind of the level two, salvation and reconciliation.

John McLarty: Well, I can really relate to that because I’ve kind of been softened up that there’s a spiritual world. And then of course, in our testimony, I heard the Word of God, I heard the gospel. And I resisted it intellectually in my mind because I just rejected that there was barely even a spiritual world, much less a central figure of God. But when the gospel was shared with me, God, through the concept of Jesus having paid for my sins, which was the struggle with me, the people that led us to the Lord. The husband told me I was a sinner, which maybe

Kimberly Faith: God forbid.

John McLarty: Just kind of infuriated me, offended me would be the better word. And then so, not to I have another podcast with our testimony. But being left in the room alone, Lynn had been saved that very afternoon. And then I just had an experience that bypassed my intellect and it came up, you’d say through the heart, through

Kimberly Faith: I like that. Bypassed your intellect. 

John McLarty: Yeah, bypassed my intellect.

Kimberly Faith: I love that.

John McLarty:  I didn’t go a whole study of creation science or prophecy or revelation or a Bible study. The Lord just came and convicted my heart, You are a sinner. And I actually did die for you on the cross.

Kimberly Faith: And mom was praying for you.

John McLarty: And mom was praying for me.

Kimberly Faith: We’re going to do a future podcast about comparing prayers to the magnifying glass. So stay tuned y’all. Go ahead. 

John McLarty:  So you can know of God, like most Americans would say, Yes, I believe in God. But then through that salvation experience, I met God.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. It’s just when we are reconciled to God, we start off innocent in a lot of ways, even though we have the Adamic nature and we won’t chase that rabbit. So back to this lady I was talking to earlier this week, she kept saying, I want to get my spirit back. She kept saying that. And I didn’t really want to chase that rabbit with her, but I kind of knew what she was talking about.

You know, as a child, we remember that. I think we remember that we didn’t have the anxiety we have as adult. Of course, you know, children, many children are abused and go through horrible things. And I think that anxiety starts a lot younger depending on their circumstances, but we are not separated from God because we have not consciously chosen to sin. And I say consciously, we haven’t weighed the moral consequences. Does that make sense?

But when we do, and then we are separated from God, our soul and spirit die and become separated from God. It’s like we’ve entered the desert and the water isn’t there. And we’re dying of thirst. 

Second Corinthians 5:18 says, Now all things are of God who has reconciled us to himself through Jesus Christ. Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the father, but by me.

That’s a different verse. But the desperate need of our reconciliation was met through the death, burial, resurrection of Jesus Christ. He paid the price for sin. We didn’t, because we can’t.

The only price we can pay for sin is hell, eternal hell. And Jesus said, no, I’m going to go through that. I’m going to pay the price in full so that you can be reconciled to my father. And when we, you know, Romans 10:9 says, if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved. You know, the salvation experience is just like what you described.

You knew you had a need. You acknowledged you were a sinner. At some point you realized, yeah, I have sinned and I have been separated from God. The Bible says that everybody has sinned and become separated from God. And that when we have the gift of repentance, in other words, we don’t want to live that way anymore. And that’s a gift from God. And supernatural faith that God gives us, that we know we can trust God to save us.

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith: Then we accept that and we surrender. We turn from darkness to light and we’re born again. And we have established an everlasting relationship, well, God has established it, between us and him.

John McLarty: And that’s so exciting because that’s so dramatic. 

Kimberly Faith: So dramatic. 

John McLarty: The rest of this, our podcast is about developing that relationship and building on it. But that initial experience, being dead in sin, separated from God. And because we’re created to have relationship with God, when that barrier is broken, it’s like the Holy Spirit just pours in and that relationship is established. It’s so dramatic.

Kimberly Faith: We’re living in the oasis.

John McLarty: So when I hear somebody say, Yeah, I’ve been saved all my life, or Yeah, I believe in God. I’m like, Well, is there a time you really repented and believed and had that experience? Well, I’ve just always been that way, and it’s such a dramatic experience.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. You know what I like to tell people when they say that is I like to ask them. Most of the people I’ve talked to have been married, you know, even if they’re divorced. And I’ll ask them, so was there a point where you said I do and that relationship was basically legalized? It basically became, you were married. This moment you weren’t married. The next moment you were married. Was there a point in time when that happened? Was there a transaction that took place that’s recognized in our culture as this is a different status? You’re single and you’re married. And they all say without fail, Oh yeah, yeah, I remember that.

John McLarty: And that’s a good example because just in that marriage relationship, you knew a person. 

Kimberly Faith: Right. 

John McLarty: And then another level is you’re married to that person.

Kimberly Faith: You made a commitment.

John McLarty: You made a commitment. 

Kimberly Faith: Right. 

John McLarty: And then a whole another level is maybe ten years later, twenty years later, you really know that person from a look on their face.

Kimberly Faith: Exactly. And the difference of course is we can’t divorce God because Jesus said it’s everlasting life. So that if we don’t, present tense, have everlasting life, we never had it to begin with. That’s the big difference in that analogy. But the good part of that analogy is, we all know, and I personally know this, that you can have a marriage that fails because you neglect it.

John McLarty: Right. Don’t build it.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right. And again, so that kind of leads us to the next part, which is after our new life begins, our soul and spirit move from death to life. Our body’s going to die. Someday we’ll get a new one, but that’s not the part of us that’s born again. And then we are at the start line. Salvation is the beginning. And now we have the opportunity to live in the richest relationship that we could ever experience. That is a relationship with God. And that’s level three.

John McLarty: Before we move on, just for any listeners out there, for people that because I hear this a lot, Oh, I’ve just always been saved. I grew up in a Christian home, so I guess I’m saved. This is a new birth. This is being born again. So I’ve used the example before. Have you ever heard of a mother that just woke up one day and a baby was in the bed? A new birth, and they had no idea, Oh my goodness, how did this happen?

Kimberly Faith: Not my labors.

John McLarty: Exactly. Being born again is a dramatic event.

Kimberly Faith: Yes.

John McLarty: It’s something you should remember. And some people were six or seven and it wasn’t a sonic boom as mine was, but it was still an experience.

Kimberly Faith: Right. Yeah, no. I mean, and like Tanya, she had a very transitional salvation from the standpoint she got saved at a very young age. So she kind of went from knowing God. And then, at some point she obviously realized she didn’t know God because she had sinned to kind of just quickly recognizing that she had a need for that relationship and she got saved.

She received Jesus Christ as Lord and savior. Whereas your oldest daughter, it took many years of hell bent behavior before I finally surrendered to the Lord. And you know what’s interesting, you’re talking about your testimony. Although I did surrender to Jesus Christ as my Lord and savior when I was 23 years old, then I’d failed to live in the relationship, this third level. I was very hot and very hot and cold. I became very ambivalent. Ambivalent’s not even the right word. I would say apathetic is a better word. Apathy is to me one of the greatest enemies of love. And if we’re going to have a relationship with the Lord that is what he intends for it to be, then we have to work at it, just like a marriage.

John McLarty: Very good. It kind of boils down to spending time with.

Kimberly Faith:  Absolutely. 

John McLarty: I put two categories, spending time with God and in his word, but then not just thumbing our nose at him, obeying what he tells us to do.

Kimberly Faith: Right. Jesus said, If you love me, you’ll obey me. 

John McLarty: Yeah. 

Kimberly Faith: And love

John McLarty: Builds the next step.

Kimberly Faith: Absolutely. This whole thing of love, people have really no idea what love means. And I’ve lived a lot of my life thinking that love was one thing when really according to the Bible, I mean, there’s Of course, we can talk about the four definitions of love in the Bible, but I’m talking about God’s love. And one of the things I like to ask, when I’m teaching is, okay, what is love? And people say all kinds of things from it’s a feeling, it’s feeling like you belong, it’s feeling this, feeling that.

And so then I like to ask, what is the opposite of And we’re talking about God’s love. What is the opposite of God’s love? And most people say hate. I said, well, think about this. Love, Jesus manifested his love for us in that while we were yet sinners, he died for us.

Jesus was selfless. And I think the opposite of God’s love is selfishness, which is sin, which is what the Bible calls sin, right? Especially if you look at the contrast between the fruits of the spirit and the worker for the flesh in Galatians Chapter Five. All those things that are manifest, the works of the flesh are all things nobody wants to be around. They’re abhorrent.

But everybody wants to be around, you know, love, joy, peace, goodness, kindness, gentleness, meekness, all those things. But if you think about the opposite of love being selfishness, then love becomes selflessness. And what God offers us is the gift of Jesus’ selflessness to live in the presence of God who loves us more than we love ourselves. And he wants to give, give, give, give to us. But when all we’re doing is running or rebelling or distancing ourselves through Him by original sin, which is independence from God, how can we experience that relationship?

I saw that in my own life, running from God, doing things my own way, and just living this life of just prickly anxiety and basically running my whole family into the ground by my selfishness. And, you know, recently we were at the cabin and this is just one of those evidences of how knowing God changes you. And usually when we go out to the cabin, I’m thinking about all the hikes I’m going to take and horseback riding or whatever. And we had family out there and small child and their parents wanted to go hike. I asked the Lord, I started to get a little bit like, Well, I want to do this or that.

And it was like the Lord spoke audibly to me. Do you want to experience my love? If you do, then here’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to watch that child and let them hike or let them go ride horses. And we’re going to scrub the logs with dad, you know, because that’s something he wants to do.

And you know, I never really thought about that in terms of here we’re living out our close love relationship with the Lord by cause Jesus said, you know, love him most and love others. Well, that means be selfless. And I had a great time at the cabin. I got to go hike and I got to go horseback riding too. But I think I enjoyed each equally because that is experiencing the relationship when Jesus when God gives us ideas of how to be selfless and we act on those.

You were talking about this. It’s not just studying and reading God’s Word and praying. It’s also acting in obedience. 

John McLarty: Right. 

Kimberly Faith: And then I had the best time I ever had out at the cabin.

John McLarty: And it’s that servant’s heart and Jesus was like that.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right.

John McLarty: The servant’s heart.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right.

John McLarty: This kind of makes me think of I hope we don’t go down a detour, but in beginning of concepts, we talk about you’ve got God on one hand, and then you have kind of God’s influence, poles of influence, and then humanism on the other, but then you add in kind of Satan’s satanic deception. And just as part of this discussion, it really comes down to self will. It’s God’s will and the opposite pole of influence is self will. You know how in the Bible it talks about Satan said, I will, I will. But as humans, selfishness can also be described as self will.

I will do this. I will do that. And as Christians, we’re very prone to that. We want to do even God’s work my way. Self will. Oh, I enjoy this. So I’ll serve God doing this. And it’s really a strong influence to overcome. Think about it.

Kimberly Faith: Call it sleeping with the enemy because our enemies are the devil, which is obvious, the world culture and the flesh.

John McLarty: And ourselves. Our own flesh.

Kimberly Faith: And we sleep with that person every night.

John McLarty: Not our born again soul, which is in tune with God, but our flesh is just self will.

Kimberly Faith: Like I said, it kind of adds a whole different dimension, this idea of sleeping with the enemy. At night, our soul and spirit, they’re eternal, they don’t sleep. But our flesh and our mind, you’ve probably had this too, where you’ve just woken up with the most awful thoughts in your head or had the most awful dreams. Well, I don’t understand all that, but I can say this, that it doesn’t put me in a real, real good place with God, like a feeling of being in comfort and security when I wake up in the morning. And I have to gain that ground back.

If I make a decision, do I want to be close to the Lord? And sometimes I do wake up, I wake up praying because I’ve had, you know, but I don’t know what’s happened in this. We’ve talked about spiritual warfare, you know, in one of the concepts we teach and it’s a real thing. It’s a real thing and it’s happening all the time. If we aren’t in the battle, then we’re fighting against God.

John McLarty: It just makes me think of a verse I read this morning, Kim. Everybody knows it. Most people, there’s a song about it. Psalm 119:105, Thy Word is a lamp into my feet and a light into my path. So as we spend time in God’s Word and with his Spirit, he guides us.

I was just thinking about your example up in Colorado. You might wake up going like, Oh, I want a hike today and do this and do the other. And God might be saying, No, you need to help dad wash the logs. You need to do something special and let Grace and Jake have some time together. They’re going to do a hike. And I’m going to watch Claire which is just exciting in itself. But yeah, God changes our direction and then that helps us know him better because he’s a servant.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right.

John McLarty: And if we’re a servant, we get that blessing.

Kimberly Faith: I’m so glad you said that because I think that when we have the idea that we think is the highest idea about our own blessings, we circumvent the creator of all blessings from giving us his ideas. And Isaiah says that my thoughts, this is God speaking, are far above your thoughts. You know, his ways are far above our ways. It’s kind of like, you know, when maybe one of us kids was younger and you were trying to bless us with something great, but we were stuck in, well, I want to watch cartoons, you know? 

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith: And you were trying to give us something greater than cartoons and we were just stuck in this and we rebel and we said, we don’t want to do, we don’t want to go, we don’t want to whatever. And I think that’s how, you know, if we will because I honestly can say that, you know, by yielding to God up in Colorado, I was, I came away from that vacation. Yeah. I was tired because I’m, you know, still kind of recovering from a sickness, but it’s like my life was rich. It was enriched even though it wasn’t my way.

And that’s such a good lesson. And Jesus said too that in John 15, he says, If we abide in me and I in you, he who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit for without me, you can do nothing.

John McLarty: And that fruit is the abundant life.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right.

John McLarty: And that is a blessing that serving others actually turns back and serves ourselves and gives us satisfaction.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. 

John McLarty: And we learn that from abiding in him, knowing his voice. It’s just so I think you’ve used the phrase, the path of peace. And one thing just to add to this, as we develop that through maturity as a Christian, we recognize the path of peace. And one thing that I know actually more than the path of peace is the path of un peace. The path of 

Kimberly Faith: Anxiety.

John McLarty: Anxiety. 

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. Yeah. 

John McLarty: And you’ve strayed. And it may just be a simple thing. Like, I had a to do list and the Lord says, No, you need to go visit George today, my cousin George, and pray with him. And I go, Well, put this to do list. And I start that and I feel this anxiety. It’s physical actually. And it doesn’t resolve until I go, Let’s do it your way, Lord. And then there’s this path of peace again.

Kimberly Faith: It’s so true. It’s so true. I mean, even in my law practice, getting back from vacation, you’re self employed, you’re a solo practitioner. The to-do list is longer than your arm. And then you have 15 emails where people are saying, you need to call me today. I need this done today. Right? And so the anxiety starts building just from Because it’s just the nature of a law practice. And when I step back and say, Lord, what do I need to do first? The verses in Proverbs you read.

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith: God says, okay, here, here’s what we’re doing first. He just gives me peace. And when I start to not feel peace about something I do, I just stop doing it. And I’m like, okay Lord, clearly this is not the right path. And I never thought, and that was Monday, that on Friday I would be able to. I thought maybe I’m not going to be able to do podcasts with dad on Saturday because I’ve got so much to do. But by Friday at 2:00, I was done. And it was all God. There was no way I was going to otherwise get a lot of this done. Actually God, what he does, and this is just a very practical example. Everybody that has a job understands this.

You know, the to-do list is longer than your arm and more than the time that you have. But it never ceases to amaze me how he orders my steps and he is more efficient and more effective than I am. And, you know, we just finished July 4, celebration, Independence Day and we wrote a devotional that was called the original Independence Day was in the garden. And that’s not to say that I don’t appreciate our country’s independence, but independence is a strong word when used in the context of our relationship with God because it destroys our relationship with God. That’s what Eve did.

She says, Oh, I could be like God. Then I don’t need God. I’m not disobey him. Every time we do that, we surrender this beautiful, rich relationship with God that he wants to give us.

John McLarty: Something that enhances that relationship is his Word. Just thought I’ll read that again. Thy Word is a lamp into my feet, a light into my path. He wants to lead us. 

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: I actually think of, Kim, your example, you had a time in your life, many years ago, maybe ten years ago, you started spending more time in the Word intentionally. And I really just started doing that. I retired maybe eight years ago, seven years ago. And then I would say built into spending more time in his Word, just didn’t have to be at work at 8:00. And that just slowly over time, it wasn’t just this immediate, but it’s developed my relationship with God. And it’s knowing him through his Word, but also through his Spirit. And it leads to an abundant life.

Kimberly Faith: It does.

John McLarty: It really does.

Kimberly Faith: Earlier I said the verse you read earlier, I actually was thinking of trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not into your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your path. That was a different verse than what you read. I apologize for that, but my brain just kind of goes

John McLarty: That’s Proverbs 3:5-7.

Kimberly Faith: Right. I think studying God’s Word, it’s kind of like, here’s the owner’s manual. All right. That’s God’s word. And God’s spirit is a navigator. And he says, now just pay attention and obey me. In other words, obey the manual, obey the instruction manual. People want to say, well, I heard from God and he wants me to go do this and do that. But they’re living in sin. Maybe they’re shacked up with their girlfriend.

Maybe they’re just, you know, stealing from their employer. Maybe they’re goofing off at work. Whatever. We all have our pet sins. Or maybe they’re not praying. You know, that’s one of my hardest things I struggle with is just having, setting aside time to pray.

And so whether it’s a sin of commission or sin of omission, we cannot expect God to navigate us to very special and specific places if we’re not even following the owner’s manual. You know, we can’t expect that to happen because he’s not going to lead us into a special operation mission if we’re not even past basic training. You know, we talk about that a lot.

But man, in any relationship requires time, commitment, trust, surrender, whether that’s with your spouse, with a child, with my office team, I have the best office team ever. It’s because we trust each other’s character. We trust I know if I ask Marilyn to do something, I don’t have to think about whether she’s going to do it, she’s going to do it. And we need to trust God’s character. When we start to trust God’s character, like we trust those who are closest to us, He takes that little bit that we give, that little mustard seed, and He grows a mighty tree out of it.

And I can say that this podcast and Go Faith Strong and all the things that we do, our team does at Go Faith Strong, it’s that mustard seed and we’re seeing it go throughout the ends of the earth. And if you had told me

John McLarty: That’s exciting.

Kimberly Faith: It’s so exciting.

John McLarty: It’s a good team.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. And God doesn’t want to just be our savior. In other words, He’s going to leave us at the salvation. He wants to be our shepherd, our best friend, our navigator. He wants to take us to bigger mountains, bigger plains and bigger valleys and bigger adventures than we could ever ask for or imagine.

You know, Paul prayed that for the Ephesians that they could have more than they could ask for or imagine. And I’m paraphrasing. But that’s what a relationship with God does for us. You know, I don’t ever want to go back to the life I was living as a plastic Christian. I don’t want to go back to that. It was frustrating. It was boring. It was unfulfilling. It was kind of like I’m standing by the oasis in the desert and I’m drinking saltwater. Well, that’s just dumb.

John McLarty: And it’s exciting. This relationship is just going to get better. Better and better through eternity.

Kimberly Faith:  Absolutely.

John McLarty: What great things he has in store for us.

Kimberly Faith: He does. We get a preview of heaven.

John McLarty: We get a preview.

Kimberly Faith: Instead of a preview of hell.

John McLarty: Yeah.

Kimberly Faith: Which is that those are kind of our choices. You know, we’re either living for Jesus said, you’re there for me or against me. There’s no neutral ground. There’s no Sweden in spiritual warfare. Right?

You know, as we wrap this up, I would just challenge, you know, if you’re listening to this and you aren’t experiencing spiritual intimacy, first of all, you need to know that you’re born again. That didn’t just happen by, you know, because your family was a Christian or because you know, you say you’ve always known God, there needs to be a transaction. And if you want to know more about how to receive Jesus Christ, your Lord and savior, we have a whole page on how to be saved and explaining the gift of salvation. But it’s not hard. It’s not hard.

You know, you’re a sinner. You know, Jesus died to save you. He paid the price and you receive his gift of salvation and because he’s given you the desire to turn from your old life and turn towards Him. You know,  when you turn from the darkness, you’re necessarily turning towards the light. It’s, you can’t hold back though.

You can’t say, well, and this is what I did. Yeah, Lord, I want you to save me and I’ll be good. Or yeah, Lord, I want you to save me, but I want to hold onto this or that, because Jesus doesn’t cuddle up to the sin that crucified him. I mean, that’s just You wouldn’t either.

John McLarty: Something we’re emphasizing here is that that’s just the beginning of the journey.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right. That’s right. And if you are saved and if you are not living in satisfaction, man, that’s what our website’s all about. Not just getting saved, but learning how to live in the intimacy, in spiritual intimacy. There’s nothing worse than I’m sure you’ve seen it, maybe you’ve lived in it, a marriage without love.

What’s the point? You know, when you can have a marriage with love, you can have spiritual intimacy with God and it is the greatest treasure. I would, I would rather be dead. And I say this all the time, I’d rather be dead. I would rather my body die than to live without spiritual intimacy.

That’s how good it is. It’s like the best treasure I’ve ever had. And I don’t want to lose that. It is precious.

John McLarty: It takes an intentional effort, but then it feeds on itself.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right.

John McLarty: When you feel like you’re being used by God and then you see God’s pleasure in your life and then you feel this displeasure. It’s just knowing him. It’s like Lynn and I, we’ve been married fifty years. So I can just say, would you like to go to so and so place to eat? I can tell immediately on her face that she does or doesn’t.

Kimberly Faith: Right. Right.

John McLarty: So it can be that way with God and his spirit.

Kimberly Faith: You can probably tell without even asking whether she wants to do it sometimes,right. And that’s what the spirit that God gives us. He gives us His heart and His, His a sense of who He is, the more we know Him because we know His character. You know, I know, I’ll just use Marilyn again because she’s just such a sweetheart in my office. I know before I ask Marilyn that she is willing to do what I ask her to do. And it’s because she’s constantly doing these other peripheral things, kind things for everybody in the office. And God shows so much kindness to us.

He’s given us the breath and the life right now. He’s giving us, you know, the rain. We were on the porch watching the rain. But when we understand his character more and more and understand that it is his nature, his nature is love. His nature is all the goodness we enjoy.

And he will make everything that is wrong right. And sometimes even while we’re here, he’ll take the evil and work it against itself and we’ll get to be part of that miracle.

John McLarty: He wants us to have a fulfilled life.

Kimberly Faith: He does.

John McLarty: I just want to make it clear, we’re not talking about prosperity gospel. God’s just going to pour out wealth on us. It’s more of the fulfilled life, like a tough athletic contest where your team wins, but you’re bruised. It’s not like it’s just uneasy, but it’s fulfilling.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right.

John McLarty: Our life is, Lynn and I’s life is so busy. The idea of just sitting on a beach somewhere, retirees sitting on a beach, watching the waves come in eight hours a day and then going to have a nice meal and sleeping. That sounds horrific. Terrible.

Kimberly Faith: The reason is

John McLarty: And God doesn’t give us that.

Kimberly Faith: Right. And because your heart has become more like his heart. And the only thing we’re taking with us to the other side, so to speak, are the souls of people.

John McLarty: Amen.

Kimberly Faith: So, watching the waves on a beach isn’t working towards that goal. And when our heart becomes more like God’s heart, then we want to do what His work is. And Jesus made it clear that if we abide in him, we’re  going to bear much fruit. But what is that fruit? It’s not more beach time. It’s not more homes. It’s not a greater law practice. Those things are going to not go with us. They’re not going to go with us. But what goes with us is the fruit that we and sometimes it’s just planting the seed.

John McLarty: So, planting the seed. 

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. I mean like

John McLarty: Encouraging other soldiers.

Kimberly Faith: Absolutely. We get to be part of the team. And whether we’re throwing the inbound pass or whether we’re doing the layup or whether we’re hitting the free throw, it’s the team. So I would just encourage, if you’re listening to this and you feel like maybe that your relationship with God is stale or you have no idea what we’re talking about, we want you to know that. That’s our whole goal is to glorify God by bringing souls into number one, relationship with him and number two, an intimate walk with Him.

John McLarty: Amen. 

Kimberly Faith: So, dad, this has been a really great conversation. It’s encouraging to me.

John McLarty: It makes me want to spend more time in His Word and just obeying Him. 

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: Because it doesn’t lead to the miserable life. It leads to the fulfilling life, the fruitful life.

Kimberly Faith:  Exactly. Well, thanks dad, for joining us on this, not really a front porch conversation, but it kind of is the

John McLarty: Kitchen table time.

Kimberly Faith:  Absolutely. 

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