Episode 108: How to Help Someone Who is Mistaking Their Feelings for Truth

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

Kimberly Faith: That podcast one zero eight, how to show compassion to those who have mistaken feelings for truth. This is personal.

John McLarty: Great topic, very relevant, relatable, and I can’t believe we’re in our we’ve finished our two years and into our third years of podcast. Only God. But just kind of like we’ve we’ve mentioned before, this podcast is not a systematic bible study verse by verse, Genesis to Revelations.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: It’s more of what’s happening in our lives and the culture at large.

Kimberly Faith: It’s our front porch discussions.

John McLarty: Our front porch discussions.

Kimberly Faith: Put on a podcast. Yeah. And it’s a you know, we like to invite people in because what God is teaching us is we’re supposed to be the irons that sharpens iron. And, you know, just to be completely transparent on this, I I want for let’s we’re gonna we’re gonna use this analogy, first of all, of if somebody that you loved was standing on a frozen lake, fully convinced that the ice beneath their boots was thick and solid because of how it felt. Meanwhile, you knew that that ice was actually only a quarter of an inch thick.

And you could hear it cracking, but they couldn’t because they felt so convinced it was thick. Their much

John McLarty: truth is that they’re safe.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. How much effort would you put into trying to get them off that thin ice? And really that analogy is what we’re going to focus on today. How do you help someone that is allowing their feelings to be imposed for truth in Yeah. Their

John McLarty: That’s a good analogy too.

Kimberly Faith: It’s very dangerous. I I will tell you I’ll just give you a preview of my my one of the things we’re gonna talk about later. But I know that ice. You know? I’ve been I’ve been on that ice.

And and I’m sure everyone listening to this probably has some analogy in their own life about how how they felt about something became their truth. And then it ended up circumventing God’s will for their life, God’s best for their life. It destroyed some area of their life. It derailed them. And we’ve all been there.

John McLarty: Turned out not being the truth and actually led to destructive

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. And Outcomes. More more and more destruction. Yes. And it took a long time to get back on the path of truth.

So I I wanna first, let’s just start with Jesus because that’s where we always need to start, with Jesus and how he handled this how people had built their perception of themselves around their feelings, and how he gave them the truth. But he did it not by itself, but the truth in love. Mhmm. And because he is love. Right?

And so let’s start with the story of the woman at the well in Samaria. And let’s just let’s just what you wanna just read Jesus’ encounter with her?

John McLarty: Yeah. This is great. John John four sixteen through 18. So Jesus said to her, go call your husband and come here. The woman answered and said, I have no husband.

Jesus said to her, you have well said, I have no husband. For you have had five husbands, and the one who you now have is not your husband, and that you spoke truly.

Kimberly Faith: You know, he could have stopped there. He could have stopped there and just by judging her and saying, you know, this is really who you are. But the indication that he did not that that wasn’t his intent just to reveal her faults to her or that she had because she had clearly built her entire life up to then on using her body as a way to create her identity and how she felt was driving the decisions that she made and making for a very a very unstable foundation to have in in the first century, you know, to have five husbands is was probably a very shameful thing. Yeah. And just like it kinda is today.

John McLarty: I mean,

Kimberly Faith: people you know? And and not only that, the fact that Jesus was even talking to her as a Samaritan woman who was probably in in somewhat of ill repute in the culture. The fact that he was taking the time to talk to her was one indication of where his heart was at. But then he doesn’t shame her. He, in fact, offers her living water.

She’s there at the well to draw water. Right? And what does he what how does how does that work out in John? You wanna read John four twenty five and twenty six?

John McLarty: Yeah. The end of that story says, the woman said to him, I know that Messiah is coming who is called Christ. When he comes, he will tell us all things. And Jesus said to to her, I who speak to you am he.

Kimberly Faith: He gave her the truth.

John McLarty: Amen. The truth

Kimberly Faith: that could set her free. And he did that with compassion. He did that with dignity. And and this is what we’re talking about. We’re talking about where we do we have a whole culture built on feelings and feelings being my truth.

You know? This is my truth. Therefore, it is true. And it is what I’m gonna build my my whole life on until it crumbles, until it doesn’t work Mhmm. Until it causes so much anxiety that you have to shift gears and do something different.

But but Jesus is in in this example, I think, a really good example of how he is taking a person who has who has gone there. You know? Has she has been her how she feels has taken her to this place of being rejected, being an outcast, probably not even liking who she was. She didn’t even respect herself enough to really that the man that she was living with wasn’t even her husband. She was just being used Right.

Really. And that’s what we’re talking about. Taking people where they are and how their feelings have led them to a place that is is really over the edge and bringing them back by using the truth of about their situation and God’s love combining those to speak the truth in love like Paul talked about for believers to have in Ephesians four fifteen.

John McLarty: And this is the perfect example. Jesus told her the truth Right. But then then gave her a solution in love.

Kimberly Faith: Right. The solution is him, and he did that in love. And, know, we we go back to we’ve talked about this before, but truth without love is cruel. Mhmm. It basically calls somebody out on their brokenness with the this is the, you know, this is the judgment that you’re gonna face because you’re doing these things and uses truth like a weapon instead of a gift.

But then love without truth does the same thing. It’s the same cruelty. You watch someone standing on that cracking ice, and you say, well, if I tell him to move, it might offend him.

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith: Well, that’s Yeah. That’s insane. But where does real truth come from? Jesus told us. Right?

John McLarty: He says, I’m the way. I’m the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me.

Kimberly Faith: And that’s the only truth that’s

John McLarty: stirred up. That’s John fourteen six.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. And that’s the only truth that is that can survive time is that when we build our life on the foundation of Jesus Christ. And what that means, just for somebody who might not even know what that means, that means that we are born again. In other words, we have been reconciled into relationship because truth is a person. That person is Jesus Christ.

And through his gift of salvation, we are reconciled to our heavenly father. And that truth then, when Jesus says I am the way, the truth, and the life, he’s giving us that connection to the father, which is the foundation, that solid rock that will withstand the storm. Whereas our feelings are shifting with every wind that blows. Right. We’re like the waves, you know, that waves that they’re they’re driven by the storm.

John McLarty: And he’s the rock. He’s the shoreline.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. And this is what Jesus did. Jesus with the women at the well, he shared himself. He said, I am the messiah that you’ve been waiting for. And then she went in and she went to the whole town.

She didn’t care what people thought. She’s, I have met the messiah. Mhmm. You know? And that truth gave her that foundation she’d been looking for her whole life.

So today, what we wanna talk about is how do we bring the truth people in love, the people who are so deluded by the truth by thinking that their feelings are the best source of truth. Right? Because we see it all through our culture. We absolutely do.

John McLarty: What a shifting sand our feelings can be.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. And I and I think I think we need to understand that, you know, first of all, when we’re talking, with somebody or trying to help somebody who is, has has set up, truth, their feelings as truth, that we need to you know, one of the things I I learned one thing in undergraduate school when I got a teaching degree is that you need to know what your audience knows or your student knows before you start teaching them. Mhmm. So in this context, we know that according to God’s word, Romans chapter one verses nineteen and twenty, we know that there are two sources that God gives every human to know the truth about himself. So we need to understand this is already in people.

So we don’t have to teach this to them. Right.

John McLarty: This is a great, great passage.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. And you wanna read that?

John McLarty: Sure. It’s in Romans eight, as you said. Romans one. Romans one nineteen to 20. 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.

Kimberly Faith: The two sources. God put it in them, and god has shown it to them. There’s no

John McLarty: And his invisible attributes are clearly seen.

Kimberly Faith: Clearly seen. And his godhead. Right. So in other words, they know there’s an accountability to a source of truth that is beyond their own their own self and their own feelings. So if we start with that presumption about people, that help I think that helps me anyway.

I don’t have to go and explain this to most people know this, but they don’t they’ve they have diluted themselves. They’ve they’ve abandoned it. We’re gonna talk about that what that looks like here in just a minute. But God doesn’t just manifest himself in us and all around us. He also gives us his word because he wants to reinforce this idea that truth is not something we’re supposed to make up on the fly based on how we feel.

It is his word. And why don’t we read second Timothy three sixteen? All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness. You know, this is this is god’s god gives us, hey, here’s the inner here’s the inner manifestation of who I am. You know, we talked about Jesus being the word and the manifestation of the innermost thoughts of the father.

He gives us that in his word. And so it’s not like we can’t find it. It’s out there. But for for those who have Mhmm. You know, so maybe there’s somebody who’s never read the bible.

We can start with the presumption that that they have god has manifested himself to them. And, you know, I I thought about a verse we were talking about on our front porch discussion earlier today that you were, you had found in Thessalonians. Is that right?

John McLarty: Yes. First Thessalonians. It’s kind of

Kimberly Faith: That really goes along with this, this truth and love approach to dealing with people who have substituted truth for feelings.

John McLarty: Well, this is Paul, the apostle Paul, talking to the Thessalonians and his ministry to them. Yeah. Very, very revealing here. He says he says, but we were gentle among you even as a nurse cherisheth her children.

Kimberly Faith: And

John McLarty: then this is key. So being affectionately desirous of you, we were willing to have imparted unto you not the gospel of God only, but also our own souls because you were dear to us.

Kimberly Faith: That’s good.

John McLarty: So that’s kinda that’s the truth in love there.

Kimberly Faith: Yes. Yes.

John McLarty: They imparted the gospel to them, but their own souls, you were dear to us. Yeah. I think that’s a key distinction.

Kimberly Faith: That’s and it’s also interesting that exhortation and comfort are given side by side, you know, in that verse. Mhmm. Because you can’t if all you do is is correct somebody, but you don’t show them like what Jesus did with the woman. He said, yeah. You this is your situation, but guess what?

I’m the answer. You

John McLarty: know? Mhmm.

Kimberly Faith: Don’t just leave them at the question and the judgment. Yeah. Give them the solution. And I think that’s where the that’s love is revealed. And before we kind of, go into some examples of how, trading truth for feelings or making your feelings your truth shows up today in the culture, I really think it’s gonna be it’s beneficial, at least it was for me when I was studying this, to understand how the bible, the result the bible says it’s a result of a culture of an entire culture that trades truth for feelings.

And this this is does not leave anything to to question or to chance. And it’s so crazy how it absolutely describes the situation our world world is in today. Let’s start by reading Romans one twenty one and twenty five just to kinda see that exchange.

John McLarty: Yeah. This is really you might we might call this the downward spiral.

Kimberly Faith: Mhmm.

John McLarty: But because although they knew God, we talked earlier that, you know, people kind of God is manifest in our hearts. His invisible attributes are known to not clearly seen. But then back to this Romans one twenty one and twenty five. Because although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts and their foolish hearts were darkened, who exchanged the truth of God for the lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. That’s just so that’s so easy to understand. You know?

John McLarty: And just kinda to point out when it says the the creature, that’s the creation. Mhmm. And people think, well, worshiping a creature, but it’s the entire creation, which, of course, involves creatures. But we I can totally relate to that because, you know, back in the sixties, the whole hippie culture and then, you know, worshiping the creation.

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: Which is and, you know, there’s there’s nothing wrong with

Kimberly Faith: the beautiful sunset

John McLarty: and the roar of a waterfall. And but that is becomes a substitute Mhmm. For worshiping the creation rather than the creator.

Kimberly Faith: Right. Right. It’s when you marvel at a rainbow, you can it’s kind of stopped short of satisfying. You just marvel at the rainbow. And when you understand that the god who created that rainbow must be more wonderful and beautiful and

John McLarty: amazing

Kimberly Faith: than that rainbow, then you really enter into the admiration of that rainbow by a totally different perspective and a higher perspective, really.

John McLarty: And think of the word exchange there. Exchange the truth of God for the lie and worship the creature, the creation rather

Kimberly Faith: Yes.

John McLarty: Than the creator.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. That’s exchanging something of infinite worth for something of temporal worth, and it’s never enough. That’s the whole key. It’s never enough. And, you know, when when I have done that in my life, and I still do it.

I mean, it’s not like we arrive because we had this flesh that just wants what it wants. But when I find myself exchanging the truth of who I am in Christ for my feelings, the truth about, well, I feel like I want this. I need this, you know, $100 pair of pants to make me look better because I wanna look like this person. Well, then suddenly, my identity about my my who I am is in my feelings and my perceptions instead of being known and loved for who I am in Christ. And that’s what we’re talking about, really.

Mhmm. And and it makes a fool of us. It makes and it actually yeah. No. Human the this subsidy or swapping out our feelings for truth actually makes a fool of us.

It says, you know, they became fools. Right? And their foolish hearts were darkened because earlier we read let’s see. Oh, there’s one oh, well, maybe it’s not maybe we don’t have this scripture. But it says their foolish heart was darkened because they exchanged the truth of God for all life.

John McLarty: Yeah. That’s in Romans one twenty one and twenty five.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. Yeah. So but here’s the thing. And again, I don’t wanna chase this rabbit too far, but it’s worth talking about that when we swap our feelings and substitute those as the for the truth of God, this is what happens. And I wanna just read it’s a long passage, but it’s worth reading.

And as I’m reading it, what I think about is this is absolutely describing our culture today. Says, and even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, in other words, it was a choice not to retain God. Right? God gave them over to a debased mind to do those things which are not fitting, being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil mindedness, whispers, backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful, who knowing the righteous judgment of God. That those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same, but approve those who practice them.

This is playing out in our culture in a 100 different directions. It is. It really is.

John McLarty: And think of the contrast of God is love. Right. And he who does not love does not know God, for God is love. Right. And love is is selflessness, God’s love.

And just contrast this with some of these words, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil mindedness.

Kimberly Faith: Right. All the opposite of love.

John McLarty: The opposite of love.

Kimberly Faith: Right. And we all want love. That’s the thing. Yeah. We all think that our that our substance, our feelings for truth is going to get us love, but it it’s the great lie.

All it does is drive us further from the experience of love, which is selflessness.

John McLarty: Exactly.

Kimberly Faith: Only god can produce selflessness within us because we are the Bible says our heart is desperately wicked. Who can know it? Our best righteousness is as filthy rags. So if we want to experience the opposite of these things, we have got to know the truth because the truth is the foundation for love, for joy, for peace, for freedom.

John McLarty: And that’s a great example that comes from God. We don’t conjure that up.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right.

John McLarty: That comes from God. Yes. It says for God is love.

Kimberly Faith: Yes. And so kind of going back to what you said earlier about Jesus saying, I am the way, the truth, and the life. The truth is a person, and we know that person. It’s that he shows up in how we love. Because first John four eight says, he who does not love does not know God.

Right. For God is love. So if I’m as a I claim to be a Christian, and I’m full of envy, guess who guess who I’m not representing? If I am, you know, sexually immoral, guess who I’m not representing? That’s not loving because it’s selfishness.

It’s if I am, you know, proud. I mean, that’s good grief. How many times have I caught myself being proud and God’s had to show me, hey, this is not loving. So my point is this is so critical for all of us. Whether you’re, you know, living in full abandon, full sin, like you’ve just you’ve chosen a lifestyle you know is completely against God’s word, or whether you’re trying to serve the Lord and you’re just trucking along trying to do the best that you can.

We’re not immune to this idea that when we substitute how we feel and act on how we feel, we’re treating that as a truth basis instead of what God’s word says. You know? Mhmm. The reason that we become proud is because we’ve decided we feel like we’re entitled as opposed to what the Bible says, and that is we are nothing without God. Right.

And so this truth, this juncture between our feelings and truth applies to every one of

John McLarty: us. Absolutely.

Kimberly Faith: And it’s and the more that we let the culture of God’s word infiltrate and permeate and transform us, the more that we are able to see God produce his love in us and his wisdom. So then we’re able to do this, you know, when we’re trying to help other people. We can show them, look, here’s why your feelings are lying to you. And this is why you’re on thin ice. And, oh, by the way, here is the solution.

I wanna help you get there. I wanna help you off the ice. And Jesus is the real solution.

John McLarty: Yeah. So it’s not a self righteousness, and I think we we in indicate that over and over. It’s God’s love and God’s righteousness brings that care and compassion

Kimberly Faith: for others. That’s right. And it’s you said you make an excellent point because we self righteousness and Christ’s righteousness are two very opposite things. A person who is working and and proclaiming or pointing out somebody’s facts or somebody’s flaws in self righteousness is never going to do this in love because they’re doing it from a seat of judgment, which we’re not called to do. Again, we’re going back to this truth and love idea.

You know, we if we speak just the truth, that is we use it as a hammer.

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith: If we speak it if we speak just love, that’s that’s an abandoning the truth. And that’s just as cruel. Have to use both. And so kinda moving to, you know, four kinda four examples that that I was kind of impressed with to talk about. And first one is is sexuality.

Because, you know, in this list that we just read, one that was sexual, immorality was one of the first ones that was read. Our whole culture is geared towards sexual sexualizing people. You know? True. From little children.

John McLarty: Children. Oh, yeah.

Kimberly Faith: All the way

John McLarty: to pageants.

Kimberly Faith: Yeah. All the way to, you know, 80 year old women. Yep.

John McLarty: Rock stars.

Kimberly Faith: I mean, it’s it is Beauty makeovers. And what’s the point? What is the big point? Is sex or your allure going to give you what you’re looking for? No.

That is a fleeting feeling being substituted as truth. It’s and they say truth because truth is what drives us. Whatever truth we’re operating by is what we operate that’s our that’s our manual. That’s our owner’s manual. Right?

If I think my truth is that I feel like if I am sexy, I’m going to get what I’m looking for. How many times do I have to do that to get what I’m looking for and finally feel like I’m satisfied? It never stops.

John McLarty: You know, and that’s, of course, part of our biology. But then that really gets just exaggerated by the world culture and commercials and just we’re bombarded with that.

Kimberly Faith: Oh, yeah. And that’s not that’s not the new. I mean, this has been around

John McLarty: forever. Yeah.

Kimberly Faith: This is not, you know, this this idol of sexuality, you know, saying that I feel like I’m if I’m not sexy, then I’m going that I’m somehow not enough. I and if I can be sexy, then I’m going to get everything I’ve always wanted. I’m gonna get the man. I’m gonna get the house. I’m gonna get the I’m gonna get success.

I’m gonna get enough money. I’m gonna be satisfied. It’s such a lie because it’s never instead of satisfying us, we always need more. And this is this was one that I have struggled with my whole life. And it’s like, I’ll tell you though.

It wasn’t even somebody telling me, hey, you need to dress more modestly that changed me. I’ll tell you what changed me. And this is a very personal story, but it’s it it is so it was the the love that God kept showing me despite the fact that I was still trying to dress that way, you know, and act that way. And I I came to recognize that the more I pushed that feeling button of needing that feeling, the more I needed. And I was also simultaneously growing deeper my relationship with God

John McLarty: Mhmm.

Kimberly Faith: And recognizing that the more that I was getting closer to him, the more I was beginning to see him or see myself the way he does, and how I’m unconditionally loved. How he paid the ultimate price for me, and starting to appreciate and expand that knowledge about how he made me valuable, especially reading the Psalms, like Psalms one thirty nine, how he has a written a plan. He thought so much of me that he wrote a plan for me before I was

John McLarty: are in him.

Kimberly Faith: Yes. He wrote a plan for me before I was even born. And he made me it says fearfully and wonderfully made. Right? When when I started seeing God seeing myself through God’s truth instead of the quote truth of my feelings and how I was they were so, you know, always changing, I started liking who I was.

But more importantly, I started loving the sense of God’s presence,

John McLarty: which is Peace.

Kimberly Faith: Which was yes. The peace

John McLarty: that was given

Kimberly Faith: to me.

John McLarty: We talked about it.

Kimberly Faith: The the path of peace. That’s right. And the more I went back to trying to, you know, get the attention that I was looking for, I was becoming less and less satisfied with that and more and more satisfied with God’s presence. And then one day, kind of God kinda flipped the switch for me. I remember this probably ten years ago.

I was walking out the door, and the way my house is designed, I can be I was I went to my and out of my garage, and I turned around, and I was getting ready to shut the door. And I can look I can look down the hallway and go all the way to my bedroom. Mhmm. And it was like I saw God standing in my bedroom almost like with his hand on his hip saying Mhmm. Girl, I know you’re going out the out the house like that, and you you go on now.

You go on, do your thing without me because I’m gonna be here.

John McLarty: Interesting.

Kimberly Faith: And I thought I thought, oh, wait. No. I don’t wanna go out the door without God.

John McLarty: Without God.

Kimberly Faith: And so I went back, changed into something more modest, and I was like, okay, God. Here we go. Here we go. You know?

John McLarty: That’s an interesting fork of the road experience.

Kimberly Faith: It was. And and I I share that because I know this is something that we all struggle with replacing what God’s word says. You know, God’s word says that our body is to glorify him.

John McLarty: Mhmm.

Kimberly Faith: Well, when I started getting that, like, okay, wait a minute. This doesn’t glorify God, and this represses his presence in my life. And I want the full on presence of God to manifest itself and help me in every I want him to protect me. I want him to give me wisdom for, you know, what I’m what I’m dealing with. I want his peace.

I wanna be able to share his love. Those are the things that matter. Those are the things that satisfy. And he started he started giving me those moments where I was like, oh, this is a really good idea to to lean into God’s truth instead of my feelings. And it’s been a just an amazing experience.

And this is what I wanted

John McLarty: to tell interesting because that’s after your salvation, clearly, years after. Right. But as you’re growing closer to God

Kimberly Faith: 100%.

John McLarty: He’s and boy, it’s a journey.

Kimberly Faith: It is a journey. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s it’s food that is your you know, I feel like I need to eat cake for, you know, 10:00 at night or whatever. There’s the flesh is so creative in getting us distracted. And this is why I I really wanted to do this podcast because I I feel like in this age where, like, one of the areas I I wanna talk about and this is controversial. I get it.

Some people may just, you know, not appreciate this. But this thing called gender dysphoria. I mean, that is a recent diagnosis that never was on the books before. Never in the diagnostic manuals. But it’s this clinical term saying in identifying psychological distress a person feels when their feeling of what their gender is doesn’t match their biology.

And they basically have said this person should be treated the way they feel instead of who they biologically are. And, you know, so our culture increasingly has taught that an inward feeling can override an objective, biological, provable fact. And, you know, we just gotta start understanding that this great lie is destroying people. It’s destroying our culture. And we as Christians aren’t to be screaming from a, you know, from a platform, you know, you wicked sinner.

You’re going to hell. Because the fact is we all deserve it. We all deserve that condemnation. We need to be like Jesus saying, yeah. Hey.

Here’s the truth. The truth is you are actually biologically this gender, and your feelings have very little to do with that truth. In fact, what you’re feeling is actually a desire to have your anxiety cured through Jesus Christ who is the truth. Yeah. And yeah.

And I mean, that’s real simple.

John McLarty: Yeah. You know, whatever the problem is because, I mean, we were searching as hippies. I just remember

Kimberly Faith: Right.

John McLarty: For truth and, you know, what’s the meaning of life. And the solution was Jesus. Yes. Yes. But one of the common factors is what was driving us?

Anxiety. Yeah. This feeling that something’s not right. And that’s know, you just translate that to today and it’s just almost exaggerated due to kind of the The anger social media.

Kimberly Faith: Anger algorithm.

John McLarty: Yeah. The anger

Kimberly Faith: algorithm about. That we previous show. Yeah. It’s it’s we are we need to address the truth 100%. Look.

You know, I have a friend who lived in the lesbian life for a long time, and she made she she came on the podcast and her you know, she just did a great job explaining this. She goes, I felt better when I was dressed and acting like a dude. That was her feeling, you know? And now, she’s, you know, she’s a born again believer and she’s undoing all those feelings and replacing those with the truth that, you know, she came by the other day and she used this beautiful dress. And and all all of our friends, we are all we’ve got a group of friends, and we’re all just, you know, like, man, girl, you look so good.

And you could just tell that just really she had peace. And that’s what she keeps saying. I have peace now. And I’m learning to love who God made me the way he made me instead of trying to stuff myself into something I never was. And, you know, she’s a

John McLarty: Yeah. And that’s a great common ground. And you talked about kind of pursuing sexuality just in in the culture, you know, and then this issue or whether it’s somebody pursuing drugs, it’s like, how’s that working? How’s that working for your anxiety level?

Kimberly Faith: That’s right. How is your version

John McLarty: Is it of increasing it or decreasing it? And actually, the ultimate solution is Jesus.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right. It doesn’t matter what what feeling has led you, you know, some substitute for truth and led you down a path, whether that’s alcohol, drugs, sexuality, whether that’s food, whether that’s work and success or money, you know, possessions, they’re all if they’re misplaced, they’re all addictions that lead us to more anxiety. Jesus Christ is the only one that can give us peace because he is the prince of peace. And that that applies to another area. You know, we you mentioned online identity.

These online identities, you know, these keyboard warriors, these people who present themselves as really just this unattainable person.

John McLarty: These fake profiles.

Kimberly Faith: Fake profiles. Fake accomplishments. You know? The the To generate likes. To to generate likes.

John McLarty: And attention. It is.

Kimberly Faith: And even even people who like, you know, you know, pop stars who, they’re constantly their money and their fame is their they’ve got that’s their cure. That’s their that’s their addiction. Right? And I’m not saying that about all performers. I’m just that’s an example.

Because we’re all performers on on some level when it comes to our own satisfaction. But we have to understand that the only way if we are born again believers, we have to approach people. We have to let let ourselves go into their space and give them that I don’t know. I wanna say dignity of being able to explain where they’re at.

John McLarty: Yeah. Sure. Just caring for their souls.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right.

John McLarty: It’s not giving them a lecture. It’s let’s

Kimberly Faith: let’s hear this out. Jesus said to the woman, come bring your husband. Yeah. And that allowed that conversation to start in a culture where he as a Jew would never be caught dead talking to a Samaritan. Their culture didn’t that was not that was such a and and a woman nonetheless.

They’ve been married four or five times. We have to understand that the person that we look at and tend to judge was created in the same image of the same god that we were created in.

John McLarty: So this person has created this online identity that’s not them. Right. Our question is, you know, just in compassion, why did you need to do that?

Kimberly Faith: Right. Right.

John McLarty: Are you you know, is there this unhappiness with who you perceive yourself to be?

Kimberly Faith: Right. Yeah. And I remember that in senior high. Yeah, absolutely. I wanted to be like Cindy Crawford.

And the thing is, none of the people that we even aspire to be, A lot of times, those people are searching for the same thing we are. Exactly. Know? I don’t hear too many people say, I wanna be like Billy Graham.

John McLarty: Right.

Kimberly Faith: You know? But that’s a great aspiration because Billy Graham was with Jesus now. But I’m just saying that we no one even if I said I wanna be like Billy Graham, that’s still the wrong goal because God made me unique, and my mission is unique. It’s as unique as every cell in our body.

John McLarty: We’ve talked about as a Christian, you know, here we are born again in our inner man, our inner persons, our soul. And it’s covered with our flesh. And a lot of the Christian life is pursuing who we are in him.

Kimberly Faith: In Christ. Yes. That’s a great point.

John McLarty: And even as a Christian, we can go way off track,

Jacob Paul: searching

John McLarty: to be like trying to be like Billy Graham.

Kimberly Faith: Right. Right. That’s a great

John McLarty: Actually, maybe, you know, your ministry is just

Kimberly Faith: Is to be like

John McLarty: to run

Kimberly Faith: an orphanage. Yeah. I mean

John McLarty: Being the janitor for the school.

Kimberly Faith: Right. And it’s it then that’s just important. It’s just as important as point. You know, I think this I appreciate you saying that because it kinda brings us to the the last category I wanna talk about because we talked about, you know, sexuality. We talked about gender dysphoria.

We talked about online identity. Mhmm. But I think that one of the things that is probably undermines really the greatest way that the enemy uses to undermine us and allow us to substitute our feelings for our for what the truth is, is in is how the enemy allows us to use our feelings to deconstruct our image of God.

John McLarty: Mhmm.

Kimberly Faith: And we we recreate God in our own image based on our own experiences with other people. Over the people how other people have failed us, how we believe God has failed us. We, you know, we maybe had we we we create God in the image of an overbearing father or a boyfriend who failed us or somebody who cheated on us or the man upstairs who’s kinda senile or he god let our child die. He doesn’t care. He didn’t care enough to save.

This is back to that verse in Romans that says when we fail to, quote, retain god in our knowledge, god doesn’t force us back. He the Bible says, he gives us over to that debased mind to do the things that

John McLarty: He welcomes us back, but he doesn’t force us back.

Kimberly Faith: Yes. But his the the Bible also says it’s the goodness of God that leads us to repentance. See, we are surrounded by God’s goodness. His creation is a multi fold manifestation of his goodness. I mean, just having a variety of food.

We’ve talked about this before. Having no sunset is the same. You know? Just all these things are manifestations of the goodness of God. And when people talk about when we when the Bible talks about hell, what the Bible is talking about is a separation from the presence of God in everything good, you know, forever.

John McLarty: Yeah. Which is a horrible idea.

Kimberly Faith: Which is a horrible idea. You know? And and when people you know, when I have chosen I keep saying people. I’m gonna say myself as a when I have chosen to substitute my feelings and allow those to be my operating agenda for truth as truth for God’s word, it always leads to misery. Always.

And I don’t want anyone I know to be miserable. Do you, dad?

John McLarty: No. That’s that’s just the compassion God’s put in our hearts.

Kimberly Faith: Yes.

John McLarty: Yes. No credit to ourselves. But, you know, just as a born again believer, you you have, as you let that out, that compassion for others.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right. It’s something that, you know, I heard somebody say one time, well, I, you know, I go to Walmart. It’s really hard for me to love the people around you. And I and I I thought to myself, that’s true. We can’t love the people around us.

We don’t have it in us.

John McLarty: We don’t.

Kimberly Faith: It’s but one.

John McLarty: Not in ourselves.

Kimberly Faith: When we are unleashing the love of God in our life because we are choosing every day to pursue him and to and to forsake the things that separate from him.

John McLarty: And by the way, that’s a struggle.

Kimberly Faith: It’s a big struggle.

John McLarty: Because the flesh is always, you know, jumping in.

Kimberly Faith: Well, we always sleep with the enemy, our flesh. Right? It’s it’s part of our life.

John McLarty: We’ve seen the enemy, and it’s us.

Kimberly Faith: That’s right. And we but when we allow God’s love to multiply inside of us, love is, by definition, not something we can keep to ourself. We have to share it with the the sticky creature in Walmart. You know? It it’s just part of life.

We start looking at people the way God does. And it doesn’t matter what their situation is, what their feelings have led them. Even the person who is who’s belligerent and and maybe screaming at us for for giving them a tract, you know. We don’t have to retaliate. We have all we need in Christ.

John McLarty: Amen.

Kimberly Faith: And it’s so I just wanna you know, this this was a real encouragement to me that to live out Ephesians four fifteen, speaking the truth in love just because we

John McLarty: The name of the podcast.

Kimberly Faith: Yes. Yes. And it is I know that the the inspiration for this name of this podcast was 100% the Lord because only the spirit of God and the truth of his word working together through us and rescue all those people who are still out there on that thin ice. Amen.

Jacob Paul: You’ve been listening to the Truth and Love Podcast with your hosts, Kimberly Faith and John Mack. To discover more answers to the big questions in life, visit us at gofaithstrong.com.