0:05:57 - 0:06:18 the example of Nathan and David. There are other examples from the scriptures. Nicodemus came to Jesus and I also talked about John the Baptist. Um, Nicodemus came to Jesus and he asked some questions to Jesus which were overtly religious and Jesus's response to him was interesting. He said, I'm telling 0:00:00 - 0:00:22 So I I recently published a book called Joy on Purpose. You can grab it on Amazon if you haven't already, it's sold at print cost. Uh Someone picked up a copy and read it really quickly and sent me a question. He said, I'm curious as to why you decided not to mention God scripture or any gospel related 0:00:21 - 0:00:47 words. The central theme in the book is how to repent yet you managed not to use that word once. Why? Thank you. So that was intentional. So the question is why? Well, um I'll teach you by using scripture. Uh uh You're probably familiar with the story of, of how Nathan interacted with David on the matter 0:00:46 - 0:01:10 of, of Bathsheba. And so he told this this analogy and David thought it was a real story um concerning someone in his kingdom. And so as David was, was hearing this story about this man and he had one sheep that he loved and all this other stuff, David was using his judgment unimpeded by his own self 0:01:10 - 0:01:36 image. And in the end, he, he pronounced a stiff penalty on this person who he thought was real. And Nathan said, thou art the man. And then all of a sudden, David's whole judgment process was, was translated over to himself in ways that never could have occurred. If Nathan started by saying David, you 0:01:36 - 0:02:02 did this and you did that and you should have done this and you should have done that. So in the book repentance and also through faith, I cover a lot of topics, uh subtopics to both of those, I don't know, overarching themes. And um I noticed that it's difficult for people who think they're very familiar 0:02:02 - 0:02:25 with these terms and scriptures to think about them in a, I don't wanna say new way, but uh a more full way that's specific to them in their lives. When John the Baptist was, was preaching to the people, the people could come up to him and they did, you can read about this in the New Testament and tell 0:02:24 - 0:02:45 him something about their lives, one on one individual to individual. And they said things like, well, I'm a soldier. What should I do to draw nearer to God? And John, the Baptist would say, well, don't, don't overreach in the fulfillment of your duties as a soldier, just do your job. Don't go further 0:02:45 - 0:03:07 than that. Don't be cruel to people. And if someone said, well, I'm a tax collector, what should I do? I'm this, I'm that he would tell them this is how you should more fully live the gospel in your specific situation. We do not, you and I do not have that luxury. And so how do you communicate to a diverse 0:03:06 - 0:03:38 set of people, principles that can help them more fully live ideas that they might think they're living already. Well, you have to take a detour, you have to use ideas and words that they have not. Um, they haven't officially partitioned off into, um I'm not wording this. Well, um you have to use ideas 0:03:37 - 0:04:03 and words that they have not converted into rote recall, they're actually willing to think actively about what this means and how they might apply it to their lives. And this is actually, it's a, it's a doubly beneficial approach because in taking a secular uh approach to these ideas, I've also made 0:04:02 - 0:04:22 it accessible to people who are, who already have preconceived notions about religion, uh negative notions. So religious people have a pitfall of already thinking, they know everything there is to know about their religion as they suppose. And secular people have a pitfall of turning off once you show 0:04:22 - 0:04:47 them scriptures or say the word God or use the, the churchy words to describe certain ideas. And so um what I've tried to do here is look at my list of books to write and draw a line with a set of topics that I can teach without appealing to the scriptures directly and uh without, without losing a terrible 0:04:47 - 0:05:09 amount of firepower. And then in a future book which may be the next book. We'll see how that pans out. Uh, it might be two books from now. I'm going to create an on ramp a feathered edge for people who are completely secular to understand exactly why they need the gospel in their lives in ways that 0:05:08 - 0:05:29 I'm confident they haven't thought through. So we'll get there. But this book is designed so that you can hand it to literally anyone that knows how to read and they will get a fire hose of ideas that will make their lives a million times better if they will just apply them. And they're given every reason 0:05:29 - 0:05:57 too in the book. So that's basically the long and short of it. Um, it's, it's much easier to persuade people of different, to think about things differently when you're not using their present definitions or, or directly contradicting their present beliefs. And that's, that's the idea. So, um I used 0:06:18 - 0:06:41 you about earthly things and if you don't understand or believe what I'm telling you, how are you going to understand or believe when I tell you about heavenly things? And that's very, that's in John chapter three, that's very important to understand because uh we tend to think that our understanding 0:06:41 - 0:07:04 and certain things can be um detached from our understanding and other things in reality, what it's like is if each of your appendages are one of these domains of your understanding, you try to climb up a rock wall, you really can't go that much further than wherever your feet are. If your feet are anchored 0:07:04 - 0:07:27 at the bottom of the wall, your hands are not gonna go up very high, you have to climb as a body. And that's how our understanding works. So there's an enormous set of people out there who think that religion is not connected to improvement. They say denigrating things about the self-improvement community 0:07:26 - 0:07:49 , for example, right? In reality, this is completely intertwined with the gospel. God's voice is the voice of improvement. And so, um again, coming back to John, the Baptist, what was the major barrier in these people's lives? It was that they couldn't take their religious understanding and apply it 0:07:49 - 0:08:14 to their daily lives, right? They had this far off idea about heaven and what God expected of them in terms of commandments that had not a terrible amount to do with normal life, but they needed help applying that to their daily routine, right? This is, this is something that has enormous precedent in 0:08:14 - 0:08:39 the scriptures. This is the way it works, right? Uh Back to Jesus again in Luke chapter 12, he, he uh castigates the people because he says, look, you have capabilities of reason that you exercise freely when it comes to secular things. If you see, uh a red sky, then you're going to expect stormy weather 0:08:38 - 0:08:57 . Why is it that you don't use that same reasoning when it comes to your religion, you believe some really stupid things that are obviously really stupid and you skip over these very important things that are obviously very important. And it's because you treat your religion very differently than your 0:08:57 - 0:09:19 daily life. And so that's why this book is taken from um this, this secular angle. It's for accessibility, not just in terms of being able to hand it to people that aren't religious, but also in terms of being able to hand it to people who are. So we're, we're bypassing as many of the barriers to understanding 0:09:19 - 0:00:00 as we can and what this does is it breaks it down. So simply that it not only does it leave people without excuse it absolutely obliterates their excuses. And so it just completely clears the path for improvement. So anyway, what's, what's the book actually about? That's a different story, but it's, 0:00:00 - 0:10:12 it's essentially, it's a, it's a system for being much more intentional in your life and actually integrating everything that you do around a central purpose which is to have more joy and to help others have more joy. So I hope that that's helpful. And um yeah, so what, what the goal is with, this is 0:10:12 - 0:10:32 to get these ideas in front of people in a mindset that they might have when reading Marcus Aurelius or something. You know, no one, no one gets all offended when they're reading Marcus Aurelius and saying, oh, I, I, I'm not religious in this way or I don't believe in this book or that book or, oh, you're 0:10:31 - 0:10:54 in a different denomination. It's just, hey, or some Chinese proverbs, hey, here's some, some, some writing that some people will find wisdom in and I hope you find it valuable for you. And so it's a really um non confrontational way of presenting information with the hopes that people consider it with 0:10:54 - 0:11:19 an open mind without triggering them in, into um becoming defensive about what they already believe or don't believe so, that's why I hope that's helpful and uh as an answer. But I also hope that that tactic is helpful in helping you to consider these ideas and also in helping you to help others consider 0:11:18 - 0:11:40 these ideas. Please share the book. Please write a review on Amazon. Share quotes from the book. You're gonna find a lot of quotes in this book that are profound and that succinctly convey uh powerful information, life-changing information. So please share it with your friends and your family. Take care 0:11:39 - 0:11:40 .