Monday, Jan 10, 2022 • 54min
#118 Will you ever be good enough?
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Episode 118: You can never be good enough, you can never do enough, and you can never pray enough to enter heaven. Religion is man-made. Every other religion claims that you have to work your way up to God, but only Christ meets us where we are. Join me and my friend Bernie as we chat about this topic and more on this week's podcast!
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Granger Smith
Bernie Calcot
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Granger Smith
00:00
You're not good enough, man, you will never be good enough, you cannot do good enough, you will fall short every time. This is, you're talking about religion, erase that word from your vocabulary because religion is man made.
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00:26
What's up guys? Welcome back to the podcast, thank you for joining us each and every Monday morning. Returning guest Bernie Calcot, sitting with us again dude, thanks for being back.
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Bernie Calcot
00:37
Happy New Year.
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Granger Smith
00:37
Happy New Year.
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Bernie Calcot
00:38
2022, here we go.
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Granger Smith
00:39
Yeah, we're here, dude, thank you for, guys, Bernie drives like an hour to come here to do this, and you've done countless episodes helping me through this, walking through this. So dude, just thank you for coming up here on a weekday. I know you have family and work and a lot and everything else you've got going on in your life, and you choose to drive an hour, be on the podcast for an hour drive back for an hour. That's a really big deal to me. I was thinking about that this morning, so thank you.
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Bernie Calcot
01:09
Yeah, absolutely, it's a privilege, man. It's a privilege and I don't take it lightly either. So, you know, every time that an opportunity kind of presents itself, you gotta take advantage of it because you never know when the next one will come, you know?
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Granger Smith
01:24
Yeah, we're Bernie and I go back uh two decades at least now we're over two decades of being friends. I trust him, I trust him with any question I have in life, and so that's why I like to bring him on the podcast because I trust that he's gonna give you guys the same advice that he would give me and that's what we do here.
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01:44
That's that's the nature of this podcast, is we answer your questions as if we're sitting around a campfire, we're just, you know, the nights getting late. Bernie and I are sitting in, you know, on two stumps, and you walk up, you the listener walk up and go, "hey, could I, can I ask you guys something? "
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02:01
And we don't have a time frame, we don't have a limit of how quick we have to say it, we just go, "yeah, what you got? ", and you could ask us anything, it could be about life or love or careers or money or whatever the subject might be. You ask us, we'll walk through it, we're not always right, but we'll give it to you straight, we'll shoot you straight. Sometimes it might be a little tough love, but we'll give it to you the best that we know how, take that with a grain of salt. If you have a question, email grangersmithpodcast@gmailcom.
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Bernie Calcot
02:33
I've noticed over the last year and maybe even, you know, prior to that, I mean you guys are bringing the heat with your questions these days, some hum dingers, and we're like, "whoa, okay".
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Granger Smith
02:48
We got more of that today.
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Bernie Calcot
02:50
Okay, well that's great.
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Granger Smith
02:51
I haven't done, I haven't looked at these very much, besides just skim them and throw them into a folder. And Bernie, Bernie, you have your own folder now because people love you on this podcast, but that's what we do, I throw them in here, we don't have notes, you can see our table if you're watching on
Spotify
or Youtube
, you see we don't have notes or quotes or anything like that, so we're just gonna walk through it as it comes.Share
Bernie Calcot
03:13
So before we get started I had this thought as I was driving up here, which, that space, you know, on the drive here on the drive back, you know, it's really a time of just solitude and the road and anybody out there who's, you know, driving trucks overnight or just has a long commute.
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03:35
You understand what it can be like to just be out on the road? I have nothing but the road in front of you and your thoughts, and be able to just kind of sit and think and process and everything. So, I was listening to the podcast of this buddy of mine, who's a country singer, and he did it by himself last week as you.
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03:55
But as you're answering these questions and I know we've talked about this before, I started to wonder if each one of these questions could be answered with three answers and the first one, and they happened to all start with C I didn't plan that, but community communication and communion.
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04:19
So the what's happening in these questions is there's either a lack of communication, there's a lack of community, or where there's a lack of communion with God, with the scripture, right?
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04:31
So I don't know if this is true, I just thought about it coming up. So as we're going to go into it today, we're gonna see like, hey, maybe burns way off, maybe there's something to those three, and maybe we can kind of dig in and wrestle with that little more.
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Granger Smith
04:45
Let's dig into that, and we'll call it C-one, C-two, C-three.
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Bernie Calcot
04:48
Alright.
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Granger Smith
04:48
And see if it falls and if any question or all the questions fall into one of those three categories, I think that's interesting. And I think, I think you're absolutely right whether there's three or there's four or there's two or, but I do think there are. You could list on one hand, I think you're right, you could list on one hand the answer to every question in life.
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Bernie Calcot
05:11
There were some questions last week that were good, the one about the blue checkmark and like, did you comment to the people? I thought that was really good, and there's some other kind of like a higher level questions surface level questions that I think, we would love for you guys to ask, right?
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05:28
Because before we jump into the deep end, sometimes it's good to be like, oh yeah, the, and it's good information for everybody to know, and they want to know, you know about
Granger
, like, hey. So 2022, here we are, what are you excited about this year?Share
Granger Smith
05:43
Yeah, I got I have a uh.
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Bernie Calcot
05:45
That you can talk about because I know it's all I've got some secret things going on we're gonna tell you about, yeah, but what can you tell us that you're excited about?
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Granger Smith
05:52
So by the way that the blue check question, what you're talking about, that would be communication, right? You could put that under that category. But yeah, I mean, I'm, super excited one for this podcast going into, going into 2022 with this podcast really sizzling is far as, you know, it's always ranked really high on, on all the podcast rankings now and all the platforms, and it wasn't in 2021, it was like just starting to get heat.
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06:21
So now going ahead and fulfilling that, you know, knowing that it's a high-ranked podcast, fulfilling that and just establishing that more. I think I don't want to say there's pressure in that, but there's a responsibility and you kind of, that's what you said earlier, there's a responsibility to fulfill that, it's worth of this podcast. So I'm super excited about that and actually, to help a little bit the next question, The one I have queued up first, will help with all of this.
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06:55
But, yeah, so let's dive into it, your questions, grangersmithpodcast@gmail. com. The first one subject line, this is the only one I've read, subject line says "question for the best podcast ever". Like, you got me man clickbait, you got me.
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07:11
He says, hey
Granger
, I'm wondering why you left your record label and moved to a new one? I love listening to the podcast every Monday morning on my way to work. I've listened to every episode. Your answers are always so good to help me because the best version of myself, I understand the best version of myself, thank you, merry Christmas and Happy New Year.Share
07:31
This comes from Mason in
Wisconsin,
yee-yee. So Mason has heard me talk about somewhere that I left the record label, but I did not join a new record label. So that yeah, so I left my record label and this is going to kind of connect to your question Burns. But I just wanted to, I've been with the record label for several years now that you knew this right? You knew this?Share
07:60
I've actually been talking to you speaking of advice for probably three years because it was before River remember talking to you about this, I would, I was just going, "Bernie, I don't know if I should stay on a record label" and some people would think "why?, I mean that's like a dream to get a record deal". And it is, and it was a dream, and it was a great label and I and great friends, and they worked really hard, and I have great relationships there still at that label.
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08:28
But I felt like over all my life and my career was taking a shift and the record deal primarily is there to get you on the radio. And with that comes a radio game that you need to play, that you need to you need to satisfy radio, and ironically, this year, I'm I have a radio job now, it's so ironic how the tables have turned, but I left because I needed to free up some space.
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09:01
One for this podcast, one for the preaching opportunities that I'm trying to get, and I'm writing a book or just started the process of that and needed to free up some time for that. This, I didn't know this radio gig was gonna come, but that happened right after I left the label. I got this radio job which is gonna take up time, so I'm thankful for that.
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09:24
And then there's some other projects that I just have going on that I just felt like I needed to free up some space because mentally, it takes a lot of effort, a lot of time and a lot of travel to push a radio single up the chart. It's more than just a good song, it's saying the right things to the right people and, you know, going, going out to dinner in their hometown and doing free things for them constantly.
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Bernie Calcot
09:51
And like radio tours, right? You have to be promoting it all the time.
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Granger Smith
09:55
You have to always be so, like, if I go to a tour date in
St Louis
, I gotta show up early and go meet the guy at the station and be super nice to him. And it's that's a young man's game, and it's I've loved it in the past, I loved the, the personal aspect to that and getting to know someone at a personal level, but after doing it for so long, I just I need to free up my space, I need to free that up. And so that was a decision I had to make, and I was talking to Bernie about it for years.Share
10:24
At first, when I first approached you about it, it was, man, I feel like writing a letter. Do you remember I told you that? Like, a long time ago, I was like, I want to write a letter and just express the way I feel and the way I feel about radio and the way that songs go up charts, and it's not in a jaded way, it's just, it's not about a good song, it is at some level, but at some level, you, once you hit a certain threshold, all the songs are good above a certain threshold? And then that's thousands and thousands of them.
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10:55
And the charts are only gonna get 40 of them, so I needed to free up space. So yeah, Mason in
Wisconsin
, that's the best scenario I can give you now. What it doesn't mean, it doesn't mean I'm gonna stop making music, stop making albums, stop touring, none of that's gonna change. Which is the great thing about it, and part of this decision was based on, well, I don't have to give up making music, in fact, I'll make more of it and different kinds of it.Share
11:22
I could put out a gospel record and not skip a beat, I could write a new song and have it out to you guys in two weeks, there's no more red tape that would come with the record label, and that's a big deal. So Tory wouldn't change, making music wouldn't change, making albums wouldn't change. In fact, it would be more of it. So it's a benefit to you guys, and if I wasn't even talking about it at all, you wouldn't even know any difference.
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Bernie Calcot
11:46
Right.
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Granger Smith
11:47
So, yeah, so that's that's going to be a big part going into 2022 record label lists.
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Bernie Calcot
11:53
So of all of those things that you just mentioned making a new record writing a book, touring, what is the most exciting to you?, what are you most excited about? What's the most appealing to, like, kind of this next year?
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Granger Smith
12:08
The book for sure.
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Bernie Calcot
12:09
The book, okay.
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Granger Smith
12:10
100 percent. It's above and beyond all the other things, writing this book.
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Bernie Calcot
12:15
Have you talked to, you know, folks about it like, publicly?
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Granger Smith
12:18
No, no,
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Bernie Calcot
12:19
I know we have, but.
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Granger Smith
12:20
Not really, I just started the process.
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Bernie Calcot
12:22
Did you just announce this, like, right now? The first time?
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Granger Smith
12:25
Yeah, I haven't really even announced it. But I'm with a literary agent, so we don't have a publisher, so I got with a really good, agent and through the recommendation of lots of authors that are that have success that I know on Instagram and, you know, DM moment, and got some really good advice to get an agent first before we get a publisher.
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12:48
So then work with the agent on refining my thoughts so that I'm not just looking at a blank page because it seems impossible to look at a blank page. So, I talked to this literary agent, and they were able to sit down with me, we had coffee two or three times for two or three hours each time and just refined everything that's in my head and go, okay, well here that they could give me suggestions on, "here's how you start, here's where you're gonna go, here's where it's gonna climax, and then here's how you finish".
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13:18
That way, I'm not looking at a blank page anymore, I'm looking at a template, I'm like, "great! "So that's where I am right now, I finished the template, we finished the proposal and then once I actually start diving into the writing, then I'll be talking about it a lot more, but that's, that's what I'm most excited about and that takes, that's going to take a lot of time.
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Bernie Calcot
13:40
As it should, did you hear that guys get excited? 2022
Granger Smith's
first book title "To Be Determined".Share
Granger Smith
13:49
Worked on in 2022, probably most likely released in 2023.
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Bernie Calcot
13:53
Okay, dang that is a lot of time, eh?
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Granger Smith
13:55
I know. Okay, back to these questions.
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Bernie Calcot
14:01
Alright.
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Granger Smith
14:02
Let's see. Where was that one? I got to go back to that one and delete it.
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Bernie Calcot
14:08
I'm gonna turn my chick fill a water this way in case I need to take a drink, I guess you have this right here too.
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Granger Smith
14:14
Yeah, they noticed my coffee cup today. Parker got me this for Christmas.
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Bernie Calcot
14:18
Nice.
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Granger Smith
14:19
Wretched center, that's my coffee cup today. You wanna go, Bernie, you want to go deep? You want to go another surface level?
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Bernie Calcot
14:28
I want to go wherever you want to take us, Grizz. I got a feeling where you're going to say this.
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Granger Smith
14:34
Well, let's look at this one, there's not many light ones on here today, so the subject line of this one says, "I'm confused".
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14:41
Hey
Granger
, I'm a new listener to the podcast and I love him, my boyfriend now ex and I recently broke up after dating for almost a year. We've been seeing each other for about two years, he came back two weeks after breaking up with me, wanted to start from the beginning and go slow, but remain exclusive.Share
14:59
There's a voice inside my head that keeps trying to tell him that I'm conflicted, what should I do by the way? I love him unconditionally, and he does me in return, sincerely Morgan from
Florida,
and she's 20 years old.Share
15:15
A couple of things jump out at this one. One that unconditional love that she has for him is impossible.
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Bernie Calcot
15:24
And he has for her.
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Granger Smith
15:25
It's impossible, Morgan. That's impossible.
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Bernie Calcot
15:28
I get the sentiment, it's like, "I love you forever and unconditional". It's like, "no matter what", right?
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Granger Smith
15:35
But that's not true, I could sit here with you Morgan and give you some conditions to make it up to make it not unconditional. You know? He puts a gun to your head and says, love me or die, okay, I think you just broke a condition of the unconditional love, I don't think you're going to say I love you unconditionally, so yeah.
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15:55
And we can go on and on, but your, your love for another human is not unconditional, so be careful with saying that, right? I, I do believe though, as far as unconditional love, I do believe a parent love for a child should be unconditional.
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16:14
I don't believe a child's love for a parent should be unconditional, right? It's interesting. I think about this a lot, it's like a parent, when you bring a child into the world as a parent, you are responsible forever for loving that child, no matter what they do, no matter how they reject you, no matter what they say to you, you love your job is to love them back to you, right? Like the prodigal son.
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16:41
But a kid, doesn't have to feel that way because there are things a parent can do to the kid to say, "you know what I think I've fallen out of love with you dad or mom" and that's okay, that's interesting.
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Bernie Calcot
16:57
Do you think? So, let's stress test this a little bit, so, do you think that because really it's the definition of love, like, what are they saying? Unconditional love, what does that love look like? Because there can be times when a child has a parent that is abusive, like maybe not in the early years, but starts lying to him, deceiving him, all of these things, can that child still love them as "man, that's my dad, I love him unconditionally as my dad, but as a person, as a friend, as someone in my sphere of influence, I now have to extend further boundaries to that person in order to love them from a distance". Like what.
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Granger Smith
17:51
That's interesting.
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Bernie Calcot
17:52
And the same thing, you could flip the script on like if a kid is, if your child, you know, goes off the deep end and like starts killing people and starts, you know this, it's like, "oh my gosh, this is not the kid I raised, what in the world happened? I still love you, but one there has to be boundaries, first because you're in jail, and I'm scared of you". But secondly, emotional boundaries is there still the ability for a child to love a parent in the midst of that same thing unconditionally with the boundaries kind of help. That's sentiment at all.
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Granger Smith
18:32
I think that's a great point, and it's this idea that, you know, first and foremost that the parent brings the child into the world and the child doesn't have a choice in the matter.
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Bernie Calcot
18:43
That's true.
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Granger Smith
18:44
That's a good point, but I totally understand the idea of loving as you would love any other human or love, love your enemy or love your neighbor, there's that kind of love. And then there's the parental love that you have, like when you, when you lose a father, and you grieve and grieve and grieve because of how much you loved him or if you didn't really, and he dies, and you go, "you know, I didn't really know my dad, I'm not really affected by this loss".
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19:12
You could still love them, like you would love a neighbor or an enemy like a biblical love, but it's not the kind of love that would make you grieve and make you say I'll do anything to have my dad.
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Bernie Calcot
19:25
Yeah, and it's not, yeah, it's not the same kind of love typically associated with the phrase unconditional love, right.
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Granger Smith
19:32
So here's a, so let's flip the script on that. So now you have a parent that loses a child and says, you know, "I didn't really know much about, it doesn't really affect me that they died". That's weird, that sounds weird, it doesn't sound weird for a daughter to go, "my dad died, he lived in
Arizona
, I didn't really know him, so I don't really care". But you would never say that, as a parent, "my son died, he lived in Arizona
didn't really know him and I don't really care". what's the difference in that? But there is one.Share
Bernie Calcot
20:02
There is one, there definitely is one, so.
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Granger Smith
20:04
Okay, Morgan, back to your question.
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Bernie Calcot
20:08
But I will say with, with Morgan, Mason, who is this?
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Granger Smith
20:13
This is Morgan.
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Bernie Calcot
20:13
Mason was last one. Morgan, I feel like this may fall into the communication bucket. I feel like her and her boyfriend that there are things that they're not communicating well with each other about and as far as the future and what needs to happen and where their hearts out and all that stuff, and I think it's a.
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Granger Smith
20:42
Morgan, this is what we call a rebound. What happened to you? He came back two weeks after breaking up and wanted to start from the beginning, that's not uncommon, that's, that's called a rebound, you know, you date for a year, and then you go, "you know what? I think we should see other people", and then you go for two weeks, and you go, "I don't think there's anybody else out there. I'm gonna I'm gonna go back to what was comfortable and what I really loved, and I'm gonna go back" and so two weeks comes back, that's normal.
Share
21:08
But the trend is that's going to happen again. As soon as you guys get comfortable again, he's gonna leave again. That's just, that's what's going to happen, he says he wants to start from the beginning and go slow this time as if this would be a different scenario, and it's not, nothing has changed.
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Bernie Calcot
21:24
No, I would, I would be interested to know, what did they do the first time that was fast? Because it said they were.
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Granger Smith
21:32
They dated, they were together for a year and then dated a year after that year because it says.
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Bernie Calcot
21:39
Wait, wait they were together that year?
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Granger Smith
21:40
We were together, we were dating for almost a year, but we've been seeing each other for over for about two years.
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Bernie Calcot
21:47
That's pretty slow, if you're so let me, let me just tell you because again, I'm gonna stress test this a little bit. Leslie and I, my wife of 17 years, we met each other, and we're in a circle of friends, and we weren't really attracted to each other, we weren't, it was, it just wasn't like that.
Share
22:10
But we both love to play sports, Basketball, Volleyball, so we would go and just like play and all of a sudden we had a friendship, and that was like nine months to a year before there was like a night, a night where we both realized like, "whoa, this, this is like who I want to hang out with the rest of my life", and the veil was dropped. I was like, well, I saw her in a different light.
Share
22:34
After that time though, probably, maybe six, eight months into that, we, I mean you could say we broke up, or we were on a break or however you wanna phrase it right? But that lasted for probably a couple of weeks, and then, but we did that in a different way and that's why I'm wondering like what, what is the.
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Granger Smith
22:59
Yeah, it's Morgan, this rebound thing, it could totally work. He could come back, and you could get married, absolutely, like Bernie saying, I would suggest to you and I think, I think Bernie would to not knowing your full story that go with the part of you that's conflicted. Instead of the part, the voice you said, "there's a voice in my head saying, keep trying with him, but there's another side of me that's conflicted".
Share
23:24
I would go, I would lean on the conflicted side and tell him, "hey", just to avoid the rebound, right? To avoid the problem of, of just a rebound, it's not you, it's the rebound that's bringing him back, go with that side and go, "hey, I actually feel the same way, I love you, I feel like we have a connection, but we did break up and to avoid us just falling into a rebound, that has nothing to do with each other, I think we should go for a month and then reevaluate, go to coffee in a month".
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23:57
And, and if he's the right one and if he truly loves you, he's gonna be like, "babe, whatever it takes you want to go a month, you want to go a year, I love you, I want you, I'm gonna be here for you, I'll wait". Okay, great, but then hold him to that month, you might want to do two months just to make sure to be sure, but if he's the right one, and he truly cares about you, then he's gonna easily wait. But if he's conflicted himself, and he's like, "I don't know, I mean I might find someone else in a month" bye.
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Bernie Calcot
24:28
Right, it's funny that you say that because that is exactly what Leslie and I did before we got back together. There was this period of time where you have to let the emotions settle down a little bit because if you just have this emotional response of like, "oh, I don't want to be alone, I've got to be with" you instead of like "man, we took time apart, and we didn't communicate at all, I happened to be on the road which was kind of like helpful to be away, but we didn't talk".
Share
24:59
And really we just prayed and prayed and prayed like "God, is this the one? Because we don't want to do this whole thing again" and we got past the point of "man, I miss her". This is an emotional response of like "man, I really am overwhelmingly in love with this woman, and I'll wait as long as I need to until it's reciprocated" and then that's what happened.
Share
25:23
So I think if you have these thoughts conflicting thoughts again, I'm gonna go back to communication. I think
Granger's
right, I think you give that space and just see kind of where he's at and see where you're at, process everything.Share
25:40
But after that, regardless, I think you've got to come back together and communicate because otherwise she's gonna be filling in that narrative with assumptions, instead of talking with him and hearing exactly where his heart's at and on as many things as you feel like "I don't know where he's at with this", write it down so that when you guys get back together, you can talk and really kind of established, okay, here's our baseline and from my perspective, this isn't it, no, there's not enough of these answers that are lined up with mine, and so I'm going to move on and vice versa for him.
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Granger Smith
26:25
So good Morgan, I think you have a question you have a lot to think about. It's a great question and yeah, we wish you the best. We're gonna take a break and be right back.
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Break
Bernie Calcot
27:13
So, can I ask a question everybody out there is wondering, when are we going to live call in questions?
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Granger Smith
27:22
I think it would be great, man, I've got something I've a piece of equipment here that I could actually do that with now. Okay, so we'll set it up, that would be great, actually, this next question, the look has a phone number at the bottom. So this question comes from Grant and the subject line is "Mother In Law And Kids".
Share
27:43
Hi, my name is Grant, I'm in my mid-twenties, I live in west
Michigan
, greater Grand Rapids area shout out to Michigan
. I started listening to your podcast a couple of months ago, and it's really changed how I processed decisions. I've been a lifelong follower believer of Christ, but listening to you and your guest work through other people's questions has shown me a way to critically evaluate situations and apply Christ's teachings to them. Thank you.Share
28:08
My wife and I have a son that is nearly two years old, and we're trying for another. I was raised as a Christian and my wife came to Christ in high school and has since become a god fearing woman along with myself, we have plans to raise our children in a Christian home. However, my mother-in-law was raised catholic but she does not participate in any kind of religion, currently I think she believes there are God, there is a God, but does not actively pursue a Christ centered life.
Share
28:37
She is also gay and quite expressive about that part of her, my wife and I have discussed that we need to explain to our children that we are to hate the sin, but not the sinner at an early age, but I'm worried that that may not be enough. My concern is that my mother-in-law may impress some of her unbiblical beliefs onto them and or confuse them.
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28:60
I feel it's important that she is a part of their life. I believe grandparents can be very influential to children, as they were from me, but my dad passed away several years ago, leaving my mother and mother-in-law who are opposites in many ways to be that influence wise counsel, I could turn to. Does not have the experience like this, which makes it very hard to get advice based on experience. Do you or Bernie have any ideas on how to approach this proactively other than our current plan?
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29:30
Also, when are kids, do have questions about faith regarding the origin of the questions, how do we encourage them to turn to us, the church or the bible for answers rather than other bad influences. Thank you so much.
Share
29:44
Grant man, we, I have some answers for you, Grant and Bernie and I could be some wise counsel, or I don't know why is everyone if that's a quite the word. We could be counseled for you, Grant. And I too like your other friends have not personally experienced this, but that's okay because we could fall on the bible and that could be our experience all wrapped into one.
Share
30:11
There's so many things in your email. There's a lot. And so let's kind of just start chopping away like it's a big tree, and we've got a sharp ax, and we'll just go slowly into all of this.
Share
30:24
First of all, you know, congratulations, you're rocking life, you're in your mid 20s., you're trying for a second baby, that's awesome, you got a great wife, it sounds like I want to start with this, I want to start with this you're in protection mode already as a young dad and that's understandable.
Share
30:49
You're you are in your mid-twenties, you're new to this dad thing. Not that I'm any further down the road at all, you know, I'm 42 but so I don't want to speak like that, but I do want to say the protection mode that urine is natural. You're just wanting to protect them from the world from the world.
Share
31:06
But you'll learn through time that it's better to prepare them for the world instead of constantly protect them from it, prepare instead of protect, and you could do that in several ways, but mainly right there in your house, you prepare them. I know Bernie does the same thing. We can't, we can't just put up shields and protect our children from anything they might see or be influenced by, we need to be the main influence coming into them in their house.
Share
31:34
That's our job in a preparation was so that they can go out and go, I see this, I expected to see this because dad told me I would expect to see this.
Share
31:47
Stop me Bernie if I'm getting too far without you having a thought. And I want to dive into something that I read right in here at the top here.
Share
31:58
You said I, I want to, I have been a lifelong follower believer of Christ and, you've taught me how to critically evaluate my wife and I have a son, nearly two years old trying for another.
Share
32:16
We have, okay, here it is. We have always had plans to raise our children in a Christian home, and you want to make sure that this is a Christ centered home and what I don't like about what you said is I don't like to hate the sin, not the sinner.
Share
32:40
I don't, I don't think that that's something you need to explain to your children. I understand the concept, I understand what you're saying, but we're all sinners.
Share
Bernie Calcot
32:51
Yeah, and kids that's a higher level concept for, you know, I don't know how old these kids are, but that's a way until he has to, you know.
Share
Granger Smith
32:60
Grant got my cup, man, I got my cup right here for you, wretched sinner coffee cup because that's me and that's Bernie and that's you and guess what? That's also your kids Amber and I look at Maverick, and it's a funny joke that we say, but it's true when we say, "oh you little wretched hearted sin" because that's how we're born we're born into this world as rebellious sinners, do we need it, do we need to prove that, have you ever seen a two-year-old?
Share
33:32
They will lie, steal, cheat, they would kill you if they weren't so small, and you would probably kill them if they weren't so cute. That's the way it is man, you hold a little two-year-old in your arms and when he wants something, when he wants that piece of candy, and you take it away from him, he looks at you like he would kill you if he was 100lbs heavier muscles to do it.
Share
34:00
Oh yeah, they grab at your eyes and your nose with their little fingernails, and they squeeze. And so from the very beginning, and we pop out of the womb, we are not innocent, we are guilty, guilty upon birth, right? And so that's that's something that we, we could start at an early age breathing into the children is through discipline, showing them that we are inherently sinners.
Share
34:30
Instead of looking at, "oh, mother-in-law, mother-in-law is gay, and we don't want to be like that". It's more like look at yourself, look at who we are, we're all broken. We all have our vices, and we all have things that we shouldn't be doing.
Share
34:48
And so we can't look at this as a protection like, "oh don't look at mother-in-law, don't look at her, she's gay, we gotta we have to protect, we have to protect because this is, you know, you're supposed to hate the sin, and we want to be a god centered" like hey Jesus went to the sinners, he didn't come to earth to make laws for us to follow, he came to save sinners because we already broke the law, it was too late.
Share
Bernie Calcot
35:21
No, that's a good point. A lot of people think that everything that Jesus talks about in the New Testament, all the red letters, this is Jesus just a good teacher on like, and he's our example, that's how we need to live, and it's like, no, that was not the main point of why he came and what he said, you got to go back and read it.
Share
35:41
So like Grant, here's, here's, here's my two cents man, and again I'm a parent too trying to figure this out in a world that is just like falling apart around us. Depraved as it has ever been. So I'm with you man and what I think is that this can apply to any parent, regardless of what you believe, okay, what your belief system, what your worldview is, this still can apply to you, but I'm gonna speak to Grant from a bible, believing disciple of Jesus to another.
Share
36:18
Okay. The things that not just your mother-in-law, but anyone that they come in contact with, they're going to have to learn how to discern is this holy? Is this Godly? Is it not, how do I make decisions based on what I'm seeing? You have the privilege and the responsibility to guide them, not to yourself and not like, "hey look what dad does" because you're gonna fail them, just like everybody else.
Share
37:04
But hey son man, I am broken and busted, just like everybody else including you, but what we believe is that there's this book, these holy scriptures that are truth, these are true, and we are going to wrestle with them and stress test them and open them up, and they're always going to come back, and I can't wait to walk through all these different situations in your life.
Share
37:35
And so like
Granger
said, you're preparing them for the journey so that when they get in these situations they have in their mind, these words, these true words, these tested and faithful words that they can then discern what they're seeing and then make decisions based on that.Share
37:59
In nowhere in the scripture, I believe, are you going to find a place that says, we just need to isolate and only be here and just protect, protect, protect, protect. That's that's not really the mission of the gospel, that's not really what the intent of the bible. I think if you think about sin that
Granger
is talking about in all of us as a disease.Share
Granger Smith
38:30
That we're born with it, we're born like this.
Share
Bernie Calcot
38:32
We're born with this disease, so let's say that your son has a disease. Like how much, and it starts to flare up when it does, and you see him in that pain, you're going to be just like go even closer to him and be like, "man", I think this is what you're saying "man, I hate this cancer, I can't believe, oh son, my heart breaks for you". Like, "I wish that I could take this on for you. I wish I could bear it for you, but I am here with you".
Share
39:05
This is a great way to think about Jesus and his perspective of you, of your son, of your mother-in-law, of all of us. If we are his people we're his son, his daughter, he doesn't see our sin and separate us, he sees it, and he comes even more so to us. So I don't know if that's helpful, but I hope that you take what
Granger
is saying and that I'm emphasizing to you have to be the one that is initiating the conversations, initiating the dialogue. So when they get in situations, and they see things they don't understand.Share
39:45
"Hey dad, I saw this today", and you're like, "oh yeah, hey, remember when we talked about this, this is kind of that thing", and you keep that conversation going, that is huge.
Share
Granger Smith
39:57
You know what the problem is with your mother-in-law? I wish you were around the campfire right now, I could ask you straight up. You know what the problem is with your mother-in-law? Know that the answer is not she's gay. The answer is she's not a believer. That's it, she's a sinner, and so are you, and so is your kids and so am I.
Share
40:16
That's not a problem, that's how we're born, but the only way we could eradicate that problem is through Christ. He does, he does it for us, that's why he came to the earth. That's why we pursue a relationship with him. The problem with your mother-in-law is she's not following Christ.
Share
40:33
That's it, so don't look at anything, you shouldn't be surprised by anything else that she or you or anyone does because did you lie today? Or maybe not today, did you lie this week? A white lie, have you ever stolen anything in your life? Have you ever looked at another woman with lust? Have you ever said that the lord's name in vain in any way, including OMG. The answer to all those questions is yes, you're a sinner too, and you were born with it, just like your mother-in-law.
Share
41:04
So we don't look at her in that way at her sin, we look at her as without Christ, that's the only thing that matters to you, that's the only thing that should matter to your kids, is she's without Christ. And so that's what you pour into your kids is that we, we radically pursue Jesus, we pursue him with all our heart, and we admit our sins, we admit that we are beyond help, we cannot be helped and so when we radically pursue him, he takes care of everything for us.
Share
Bernie Calcot
41:32
That's it.
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Granger Smith
41:34
I hope that this helps, I know that you, there was a long question you asked, and it was, it was very loaded, but I hope that helps, I hope that helps.
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Bernie Calcot
41:45
Yeah, and Grant email back in, man, I was asking
Granger
earlier, like some of these questions that we answer, like we'd love to kind of follow these storylines of like, you know, Grant you know, a couple of years from now, like what happened with your relationship with your mother-in-law as the kids grew up? And like, yeah, we'd love to hear.Share
Granger Smith
42:05
Yeah, thank you buddy, thanks for the question. Let's see, here's, here's a question subject line, "Spiritual Advice". Hey, my name is Weston, I'm from forest,
Virginia
, I need some advice on how to be a better Christian.Share
42:19
Here we go, I was baptized September fifth, and it was amazing, but I always feel like I disappoint the Lord, I try to be a good Christian, I normally pray every day and I try to keep up with my church's livestream, it's hard to go to church with a two-week year old and a two-year-old, would you have any kind of advice on why I'm feeling like I could never be good enough to enter heaven?
Share
42:48
That's an easy question.
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Bernie Calcot
42:49
Goodness, Christian.
Share
Granger Smith
42:50
You're not good enough, and you never will be.
Share
Bernie Calcot
42:54
Why is this our culture? Especially the Christian culture, we have to do the stuff like stop worrying about doing all the stuff guys like.
Share
43:03
Christian you're not, you're not good enough man, you, you will never be good enough, you cannot do good enough, you cannot pray enough, you cannot see enough church live streams to go to heaven, you will fall short every time. This is you're talking about religion, and I see that that word pop up on my podcast all the time on these questions. Religion, religion, religion, erase, if you're listening to this podcast, if you're riding in, erase that word from your vocabulary because religion is man made, let's all say that together. If you're listening, religion is man made, right?
Share
Granger Smith
43:37
It's the pursuit of God from man to try to get into heaven to try to get approval from God to try to do enough things on a checklist on Santa Claus, good and naughty list that you can finally go to
the North Pole
and get a toy. That is totally man made, you cannot be good enough to enter heaven, every other religion besides Christianity says that this is what you do.Share
44:07
Every other religion. I'm talking about
Mormons
, I'm talking about Muslims
, I'm talking about Jews any other branches of the Abrahamic religions, I'm talking about Buddhism
and Hindu when it's not totally God, but it's a, it's Nirvana
. It's what can man do to get there to get to either peace or heaven or paradise or euphoria or what can man do to get there?Share
44:36
And Christianity is Christ, that's what he, that's what it is, or he goes, "come to me, come to me and I will bring you, I will clean up your life around you", you go to him with your dirty room, and he cleans up your dirty room and makes it clean. Go to him, pursue him a relationship, a personal relationship with him, that's what you do.
Share
Bernie Calcot
45:03
Do you think that we're just like really dumb human arrogant beings, and it's like, we can't because the law was established to make us conscious of sin to like show us, hey, here's this law hears these things you're gonna do to live to be wholly right? Oh wait, we can't do those things, no human being except Jesus that's lived on the surface has ever done it. We can't do, it's impossible, that's why the law is established.
Share
Granger Smith
45:28
We can't do it.
Share
Bernie Calcot
45:29
But when Jesus came, and he was like, hey, "I've come to put it into all of this", like "you are clean in me, you don't have like this, this law that you're trying to keep to restore your relationship with God. You don't have to do that. I'm the conduit trust in me, and I'll, I will take care of it".
Share
45:53
But we're like, "nah, we gotta keep doing all this stuff, right? "Like, "okay, we believe in the Jesus, but still we gotta", it's like the law these days that has been in all these other religions in within Christianity is still well, did you have your devotional? Well, did you go to church? Well, did you tithe? Well, did you do these things now?
Share
46:12
I'm not saying that there is an outpouring of good fruit and, and holiness and righteousness that will come out just naturally, but for the love, like, can we stop with this works based, can I say workspace Christianity? Because I think that's kind of other religions say that Christianity is like, no.
Share
Granger Smith
46:38
Parker calls it a plus religion and, and members of the LDS church and
Islam
and their man, their fingers are getting so tired right now because they're burning me up an email right now, they're just about to burn me to the ground and hey, this is not about, this is not about singling out that this is about defending the Christian faith and, and separating it from the others.Share
47:02
And so if you're mad at me, if you're a Mormon, and you're mad at me, it wouldn't be the first time that I've gotten your emails and I want to tell you truly, truly, truly I love you. I absolutely love you and, and I want the truth, I want the truth to hurt, and I wanted to, I wanted to burn a little bit and that's why I say it because I say it out of love.
Share
47:23
If I was driving down a road that I just saw that the bridge was out, and I'm driving down the road, and you're coming at me in a car and I rolled down my window and I say, "hey, the bridge is out ahead, the bridge is out" and you say, "get out of here man, you don't know what you're talking about". It would be love for me to say, "stop, the bridge is out". That would be love, it would be hate for me to go "do what you want, keep ongoing bro". You find out on your own.
Share
47:50
So that, so that, that I just want you guys to know my heart that, that's where it's coming from, I don't want to make people mad, but people are right now they're typing James to on some email to me. And I want to tell you when, when James says that faith without works is dead, he's talking about in the whole chapter that works are a result, you should see good fruits, like Bernie said, good works should come, they will come if it was a real faith.
Share
48:18
If it was a real relationship you have with Jesus, then the outcropping of that, how do you know if it's real? Because you'll see good works, you'll see an image of Jesus coming out through that person and what they do in their daily lives, they're gonna hate their sin. That's a different.
Share
48:34
That's another thing is when you have a true relationship with Jesus, you start hating your own sin, and you want to eradicate it, and you still do it, and you still some stumble, but now when you do stumble, you go, "oh I hate that, and I have to repent for it because I feel terrible that I told that lie or that I stole that song on Napster", or you hate it, and you want to eradicate it.
Share
48:57
But that's an outcropping of your faith, it's not the beginning of your faith, it's not the works that you do that start the ball rolling, it's the faith that starts the works rolling.
Share
Bernie Calcot
49:09
And like he's saying that he's feeling this weight of guilt, right? That is not from God at all.
Share
Granger Smith
49:17
Yeah, that's a lie.
Share
Bernie Calcot
49:18
And so that's that's where these, you know, the work's associated with faith. That's where it's got backwards because you wouldn't be feeling if you had it the way you're talking about where this is an outpouring outcropping of that, your trust and dependency on Jesus being the intercession is the focus, and you're not going to feel the guilt over and over because every time he comes in and says, "hey, I got you, this is why I came, hey, focus on me, just focus on me, just trust in me".
Share
49:53
And so that guilt piece, I think that there's, you know, is there one of the seas that this falls into? I'm kind of hearing communion?
Share
Granger Smith
50:02
Yeah, absolutely communion, yeah.
Share
Bernie Calcot
50:05
So lack of communion with God and the scriptures, like, and so.
Share
Granger Smith
50:09
Let me, let me look at something real quick, some, some 40, hang on a second because this is. Song. Sorry, literally, like on the fly, I have to go day, you'll hear this with David all the time.
Share
Bernie Calcot
50:39
So while while
Granger's
look looking that up and he's fine.Share
Granger Smith
50:43
Okay, David in Psalm 42, listen to what David says, "why are you cast down oh my soul? Why are you in turmoil within me? "He's talking to himself like, why am I so messed up? Why do I have this anxiety? Why am I just churning inside me? And then look what he says right after that, "hoping God for I shall praise again, praise him my salvation and my God, he goes back always to that praise him".
Share
51:13
And so that's that's, that's something for you to remember their westerners is when your, when your soul is downcast, and you're in turmoil, just go "God, I praise you, why do, why am I listening to myself? Why am I conflicting my own brain and myself and thinking that I have to work my way to you and God, I can't take me, take my soul, breathe into me, pull your spirit into me, I praise you, you created me, you gave me a purpose, let me know that purpose, don't be quiet, speak to me, God".
Share
51:43
I mean, I'm talking on your knees in your bedroom, right? Your elbows are on your bed, and you're just, you're just crying out that you can't do it, pour into me. And then you wait on him and watch him fulfill this to you. Watch him give this to you. Watch this piece well up inside of you where you no longer feel like you have to pray a certain amount of times in the day you just do because you want to not because you have to.
Share
Bernie Calcot
52:11
Yeah, I think like anything the more that you probably study the scripture and engage your mind, you're going to see your heart will follow, and you're gonna be like, "oh my gosh, I had no idea that this is what the scripture meant".
Share
52:25
And then all of a sudden this desire that
Granger
is talking about as you're sitting kind of in this solitude and stillness, and you're you're thinking through the verse that you have read for the last two or three weeks and studied, and now it's like God just starts to put these things together, and then you can recall that when you're in a conversation with your co-worker, and you're being used. You're a vessel. You are not doing anything, stop trying to do stuff and be a vessel, okay?Share
52:55
I'm saying this to myself too, guys, like we need these reminders too, every day.
Share
Granger Smith
53:00
Me, and then to the last two questions, you know, we could kind of say the same thing that from the last two questions you have to remember me speaking into this microphone on this podcast right now, I'm a wretched sinner, I'm a sinner, so I don't I don't worry about hate the sin, love the sinner, I don't worry about that kind of thing. All I think of is my own sin, and it's all in me, and it's like Bernie said, it's a cancer and I want to get it out. I'm not going to worry about someone else's all with someone else, all I'm going to worry about is loving them and showing them Christ, showing them their savior.
Share
53:34
That's all I'm gonna worry about with, I'm not gonna worry about other people's sin, but when it comes to me Weston, I just give it all up, and I go, I can't, I can't pray enough, I can't watch enough live streams, I can't do, I can't do anything that's good enough for you, thank God, thank God, I don't have to because I have Jesus. All right guys, we're out of time, bro.
Share
53:59
Amen. Thanks for having me, dude.
Share
54:01
We got, we got rough today, man, I gotta go, I gotta go take a shower.
Share
Bernie Calcot
54:07
I gotta simmer down, simmer down.
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Granger Smith
54:08
See you guys, yee-yee.
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Bernie Calcot
54:09
Yee-yee.
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