A Complete Christian

In this powerful episode of Relentless Pursuit, we are thrilled to welcome back Pastor Jona for an eye-opening conversation about what it truly means to be a 'Complete Christian.' In a world where Christians are often labeled or placed into specific categories—whether as preachers, prayer warriors, or evangelists—Pastor Jona challenges us to rethink this narrow perspective. Instead, he encourages us to embrace all aspects of faith and recognize the fullness of what it means to live a life rooted in Christ.

Pastor Jona opens up about his personal journey, sharing how he’s navigated struggles with legalism and how God has shaped him through seasons of deep reading, reflection, and prayer. He highlights the importance of spiritual growth in all areas, not just in ministry or outward appearances, but in our personal relationship with God and with others.

This conversation is a call to live out a well-rounded, fervent Christian life that isn’t limited to just one role or area of focus. It’s about embracing every part of who we are—spiritually, emotionally, and relationally—and letting God work through us in all areas of our lives.

Don’t forget to subscribe, like, and share this video to stay updated with more enriching content that will deepen your faith and help you grow in your relationship with God.

Transcript

0:00

Welcome back to Relentless Pursuit. We're so excited for you to be joining us today. I have a special episode for you. God is doing such an amazing thief here, relentless pursuit, where our purpose is to pursue after God as he pursues after us. And our special guest today is Pastor Jonah. Welcome Pastor Jonah. How you doing today? I'm doing great. So glad to be here. It's such an amazing time. Jonah hasn't been on since, I think season three, if I can't remember correctly, but maybe about a year ago. Yeah. You'd be hating on me, bro. I, you know what, listen, I have had enough of Jonah. For a lifetime. For a lifetime. I'm just kidding. And here we are. Yeah. Here we're, but this man I will say one thing about you is that you are hungry after God. And there is something that I truly admire about your pursuit of God that you will never, you never allow anything get in between you and God. And that's something that's very valuable and not many people have. And so I honor that. I honor you, and I thank you for coming on today. Appreciate that, bro. And one thing that I wanted to talk about and something that's been on your heart is a complete Christian in the sense of where somebody loves the Bible, loves reading his word, loves praying while also bearing the fruit. Of the spirit. Sure. And so what does that mean to you being a complete Christian man? I've just been thinking in terms of like there's a quote, I heard someone say a quote and it goes something like this. I want to speak in tongues with the Pentecostals and I wanna study the Bible with the Baptist. Yeah. And there's days where I am, I'm like in the word of God for hours, and this is all I wanna do for the rest of my life. And then I hear a sermon about evangelism and then I'm like, man, I gotta hit the streets. And so it's just this idea of you don't have to be a one thing per se. Like you don't have to Yeah. You're just a preacher or you're just a prayer warrior. Like we can be complete Christians and do everything that God has called us to do and Yeah. Yeah. So stuck in a category. Exactly. Yeah. And I felt like so many times people all stuck in categories. If we take our example with Jesus, he in the fivefold ministry, he was all. He was the miracle. He was the teacher, he was the rabbi. People called him. He was the prophet, he was prophesying. He was the teacher. He was or the pastor. He was pastoring. He was shepherding people and saying, I'm the good shepherd. He was the evangelist. He one thousands. Yeah. Potentially. 120 were in the upper room. And then he was the. He started and initiated everything. And so we see him as an example. And his true his true love though was always to sneak away from the crowd and find his alone time. And so what would you say like in that sense, because I believe that's the driving force of his, this complete Christianity is finding all alone time with Jesus. Yeah. And so how would you what would you say about that? I think that's the thing, and I think more and more. This statement is becoming true in my life that I would rather be in my word. I would rather be in my alone time with Jesus than go and preach and stuff. And I think early on in ministry, maybe you can resonate with this. Yeah. You and I, we were like raised in church pretty much, and our dads were pastors and preachers and stuff. And so growing up and getting. To the point where now you're preaching in church and preaching to the youth group and stuff. Like you're your goals are skewed and that's just a part of the process many times. But yeah, before where it was like, okay I prepare for my sermon. But outside of my preparation for my sermon, I don't really get in my word too much. You know what I mean? Yeah. And so now it's I told my dad this the other day. I was like I use this word loosely, but I hate when I have to preach 15 times in a month because I don't wanna sermon prep, I just wanna be in the word. But the backside of that is that when you're in a place of intimacy with the Lord, burdens Come on. His burden comes on your heart. Oh, absolutely. And so one day, and I realize that it changes from day to day, not changes, but God will just highlight different things. So one day I'm in the word. And I'm like, oh, I gotta go, I gotta go evangelize to somebody. And then the next day I'm in the word and I'm like, man, my prayer life needs to grow. And that just comes back to being a complete Christian and anyways. Yeah. Yeah. So you had to give a hundred percent to each category in a sense. Yeah, for sure. For me, in, in this I wanna say season'cause you're never lose the season of prayer. But for me it, God is really pressing me into, go into deep intercessory prayer. That's been my real passion as of late. And I know for you it's been more so diving into your word. Yeah. You would read on hours on end. And so in that, like how do you not lose one side or the other? For example, like for me, I. I, pick up, I make sure to have to, to the psalms, the Book of Psalms. And I read the Psalms and I'll pray a specific prayer, and that's how I initiate the whole reading the word. And how does that work for you? Yeah. And I think you and I even chatted about this the other day, but for me right now, I'm gonna, I'm in a crazy season of reading. Like I've, I'm reading so much. And sometimes it's frustrating. And what I mean by that is so I'm almost to the Bible since the beginning of the year and I'm like seven books down. Funny enough, my seventh book that I'm reading is about humility. And so as I brag about how much I'm reading about humility, praise, praise God. But God is know what, he knows what he's doing. Yeah, exactly. But anyway, so I think I expressed to you the other day that I'm like, man, I know I need to pray more though. But in this season, like. How can I word this? It in a sense like there's no pressure. And I think so many times as you begin to pursue the Lord, you can put this pressure on yourself. I gotta read this much, I gotta pray this much. And if I don't, I'm not a good Christian. But what the Lord is teaching me little by little is this, the pressure has alleviated. Like I'm not trying to check boxes, like I'm just walking with the Lord. And so I think I, what I told you the other day is right now I'm reading so much and I put so many hours into reading the word that I'm not. Praying per se, like the way that we would think of praying as much as maybe I'd like to. And after this stretch of finishing reading through the Bible in the next month or so and then a few more books. Once I get through that stretch of reading in bulk every day, I'm going to give myself more time devoted just to prayer in the morning. Yeah. And then I'm gonna read less chapters every day. And so that's just will be a natural not a negative consequence, but a natural consequence of reading less. Yeah. And anyways, but I think part of the thing is you just go in seasons and you just do what the Lord is having you to do in every season. And I feel like that comes with an intimacy with him. Forget it. It's so crazy. How I don't want to be very condemning, but it's so crazy how lukewarm the church has became Yeah. Where they can't even tune their ear to hear what season you're in or what season you should press in more. Yeah. Like you're in reading, I'm in prayer. That's our. I don't wanna say primary. Say our focus right now. Yeah. Focus. But with that being said, like there's so many times where then it will shift like on a dot, like I, and to, to your seven books or your 50 books that you've read in two months. Yeah that was me. That was me. Oh, no, you're good. You're good. I just unplugged something. Yeah, that's fine. That was me in the beginning or the end of last year, where it was like, I just need to read. I just need to read. I just need to read. In fact, that was my only thing I wanted for Christmas. I just want books. Yeah. Where now I'm like, okay, I'll take it instead of three books a month, I'll take it to one book a month and then I'll make sure I'm devoting my time into prayer. But there was something that you said, w when you said, you're not studying for preparing for sermons because you don't wanna do 15 sermons a month or whatever. But instead of taking it from checking a box, you said, now it's just out of a, out of love, essentially. Yeah. Yeah. And so how did you get to that, get out of that mentality because. There's so many times, as a youth pastor, as yourself, and you preach actively there's so many times where we can like, okay, I preach on this calendar, on the look at the calendar. You preach on this or Wednesday or Tuesday for you. I preach on this Tuesday. Okay, I preach on this Tuesday, so I have to make sure I prepare each time and give it its due diligence. But at the same time, you are just like, I also don't want to just preach from a place of me getting a message, delivering it. I want to preach from a place of overflow. Yeah, for sure. And so how do you get to that point, man? I think, so lemme start here. I think that there was a specific season in my life where this shifted, and I don't know if I've talked about this on the podcast before but there was a time where. I was, because I've been leading the ministry for a while now. And maybe in seasons where I probably shouldn't have, but the Lord graced me and stuff. But anyways Hey man, praise God. But there was a season where I was pretty down. And by that like I was depressed and just riddled with anxiety. Yeah. Like probably a lot of people that'll watch this. And there was this moment where I came to. What I was doing was, I'm gonna give you the short story. I was on the computer and I was literally looking up like Christian counselors and I was like, I don't know what to do, but I'm just like, I'm tripping. Yeah. Yeah. And I remember as I'm. As I'm looking this up and trying to find something, I don't know what I was doing. I was there and I was alone in the kitchen, and tears began to feel my eyes again. And I was just, as frustration, just sat began to sit and sat in is the word, and I shut my laptop and I said, Lord, if you don't help me, I will not be able to continue to do what I'm doing. And I felt him whisper back to me and say, let me be your counselor. And I laughed. I said, really? I said you're, that's what you're asking is for you to be. I said, what do you think I've been asking you to do? I know that you need to be my counselor but you haven't done it. And this is like the attitude I was giving the Lord. And then I felt him whisper back to me. And don't get me wrong don't talk to the Lord like that, but at the same time he can handle it. Yeah. And and I felt him whisper back to me again. Am I not called wonderful counselor? And I said, all right, Lord. And so I went to my dad, who was also my pastor probably a few days later. And I said, I need to learn to pray. I need to learn to be with the Lord. Yeah. And I need you to help me. And so for the next several weeks, my dad would wake me up about 5:00 AM and I would go to the backyard at the house we were living at the time. I would go to the backyard. With my Bible. I put my headphones in, play some worship music, read some scripture, and the next three months, just about every day, I found myself in the backyard, bawling my eyes out as the Lord encountered me there, and was just beginning to cleanse me from the inside. And I realized what happened there is I answered into this new like. I don't wanna say level, but just this deeper understanding of oh, he doesn't just love me when I'm youth pastor. He loves me because I'm his son. Yeah. And so now like that set a hunger in me for if he loves me for more than just youth pastor, then I want to seek him for more than just sermon giver. Yeah. And so now it's yeah man, I'm just in love with the word, not so I can preach a good sermon, but because. The word is life. Yeah. Amen. I dunno if that answers the question, but I Amen. But there was one thing that you said is that from the healing led to hunger and I want you to expand on that. That is really profound if you think about it, that healing led to hunger. I think of of Mary. When she did the good thing that Jesus said and she sat at the feet of Jesus and listened to him, teach while Martha was serving well then in John, I believe it's 11 when Lazarus died, could be 10. I don't remember a hundred percent, but my point is that when Lazarus died, Martha ran. As soon as she heard Jesus was coming and said, Jesus, if only you were here earlier. And then Mary then Martha went back and Mary came and said the exact same thing, but a different posture. It was a place of humility and hunger. Sure. A place of like expectation almost. And so it was the same words. But it was a different posture, a different place, yeah. Of, of hunger. And so speak to that in that sense.'cause I know people one thing that will resurrect the church, resurrect the boldness in the church is hunger for Jesus. Yeah. And speak to that. Yeah. I think the verse that comes to mind is taste and see that the Lord is good. And I tell people this all the time I've gotten over, I'm not trying to stray too far to the side, but I've gotten over. Or I'm getting over, I should say, as a youth pastor, like trying to come in every Tuesday and just give the most fire sermon in the world. That's not my goal anymore. My goal is to give them a taste of God's word and in doing so, a taste of his goodness. And I think that if you'll have a taste, like right now, if you took me to a steakhouse, right? We eat a really good steak, maybe some potatoes, mac and cheese, whatever it is, if I get a taste of something good. It won't be long until I'm craving that thing again. And I think that when you get a taste of the goodness of God, so many times we're trying to sell people church and just welcoming in his presence and pushing them to his word and pushing them to those one of my favorite churches, mercy culture, right? And they talk about daily encounters, pushing them towards those daily encounters, like where they'll taste God's goodness. We won't have to sell them church and we won't have to beg them to come fill the seat if they would just get a taste of God's goodness. And I think that's what was happening there is I was like, Lord, I need your help. And he said and he gave me a taste of his goodness. And so it set this hunger in me for now. Like I don't, I, anyway, like we already said this, but I'll say it a different way. I don't seek God, because I need to give a sermon. I don't seek God. Let say it like this, because I love Jesus, I wanna serve as people. But so many times we have it backwards. We know we need to serve people as pastors or as leaders, or even as just as Christians. We know we need to serve people. So in order to gimme the energy I need to serve people, I'm gonna go and read my Bible and pray.'cause that's what I'm supposed to do instead of seeking God. And it's not just that all he needs to give you energy or it needs to give you what you need just to get through the day. Now it's like you said, I'm serving and I'm living from this overflow. Yeah. Of because I'm just so utterly in love with Jesus. I'm so utterly in love with people. One of the things I've been praying with the Lord, and I'm rambling too much, but No, you're fine. One of the things that I've been praying to the Lord is, Lord, I want to love your people. The way that you love people. And I have to pray that prayer because I, when I'm honest with myself, I'm a very selfish person. And I think when you, amen. No, I'm just kidding. Yeah, he knows. But when you get around other people, like you only know how good of a person you are. And I'm not gonna pretend like this is my revelation. Like I read this in a book by John, re shout out John Vere, but you don't know how bad of a person you are until you get around other people, because our real selves are revealed in relationship. And so anyways, that's just a nugget, but. But I've been praying, Lord, give, like I wanna love people. Like I want to really love your people. And so one of my favorite things, I'm getting way off track here now, but one of my favorite things is like now going to youth group on Tuesdays. I'm not worried about like my perfect sermon. I'm not worried about the perfect worship set. Yeah. Now, like I wanna show up on Tuesday and which kid is sitting in the corner alone? That just barely showed up to youth group tonight that I need to go and love on. Man, the other day I was sitting with at lunch. He's laughing'cause now I'm rambling. For real. No, go ahead. I like it. I was sitting at lunch, me and one of my one of my leaders. We were sitting with the kid that goes to our youth group for lunch, like one random Saturday. We're just like, Hey bro, we're gonna take you out to lunch. And and so good youth pastor was Pat herself on the back, but we're sitting there and humility. That was the hu Humility is the name. Yeah, for sure. So we're sitting there and homeboy's shaking. Oh, he and I'm like, yo, and it was a little chilly or whatever, but not like that. And I'm like, Hey bro, are you good? Are you cold? He's yeah, I'm a little cold. And I was like, like he was shaking like visibly. He was cold. Or so, so I was like, bro, I have a sweater in the car. Like I can go get you a sweater. And he goes nah, I should be good. And bro, like barely looking up from his food now, not tee for timeout, like secret, like here's a, some, something nobody knows about or not too many know about me is I'm probably more nervous to talk to the sixth grader than the sixth graders to talk to me. And so like when I'm having to interact with students and stuff, like I get super nervous and so I'm out outta my comfort zone. But I see. So anyways, he's barely looking up from his. Food, and we're just sitting there chatting and I'm trying to pull stuff out of him. Hey man, how's baseball? You've been reading your bible, like all the youth pastor questions, right? Yeah. And finally in a moment of silence, he goes, Hey he goes, I'm actually like, I am cold. He goes, but I also, I think I'm nervous. And I'm like, what? I'm like, what do you and like me? Like I, that, that had not crossed my mind. I'm like, man, this dude is like really sensitive to the cold. He must need a sweater, right? But no, he's I think I'm a little nervous. And I'm like, bro, what are you nervous about? And he was like bro, like I'm sitting with the youth pastor at Momentum and me and my friend, our other leader look at each other and we're like. First of all, it's really sobering, super humbling, right? We're like, dang.'cause you realize like what you do, whether it's for five kids or 50 kids or 500 kids, it means something. Yeah, a hundred percent. And so super sobering moment. But then we look back at him and we're just like, bro. W we're not that cool. We just really love Jesus. If you wanna be, for whatever reason, if you wanna be like us, like it's just because we love Jesus. So just love Jesus. Yeah. And I don't know what we were talking about. Yeah. So that's that. I forgot. I forgot too. Sorry. Shoot. I wrote it back. Terrible. I just don't remember which part we were on. I'm a terrible podcast. Guess. Hey. Honestly, I love this story though. And I'm sitting next to Jonah, the youth pastor. Momentum. Yeah. Yeah. Shout out to that kid, man. He's a great kid. He's good at baseball too. Good at baseball. And what do you talk about with kids like that? Like they're sixth grade, you're 20, whatever. Dude, like before I wanted to, I wanted to, like every opportunity, I wanted to be like, are you reading your Bible? Are you reading your Bible? And for a season, like that's what I, and also do that'cause like it's so important. But like recently I've just been building relationships. Yeah. It's just oh dude, that's fire. You play baseball? I suck at baseball. We should go to the batting cages and that's what I, that's what I do. Dang. That's wild. So I don't, yeah, A lot of times it's like the other day, there was a kid, it was his birthday too. He was a kid and he was like sitting alone at youth group. I'm like, bro, what are you doing? Let's come play foosball. And yeah, I've come to. I've come to enjoy those things more than I do preaching sometimes. That's awesome. And little, a little rewind. Just trying to get back to the point of where there was a point where you said. About the complete Christian, right? Yeah. And how there was certain areas that could be lacking or not, that there you need to focus on certain areas in certain seasons. I wanted to go off of this into a branch. So what do you think about Jesus in, in, in cleansing the temple and how. There are certain areas that will block us from focusing on the part where we're called, where Jesus, almost like, how's he was? Your wonderful counselor. He'll remove that block from you. So then you can focus on the Yeah. What you need in that due season. Yeah. Yeah. So I think on that note, I would say I think that anything that makes it harder, and this is what I get when I think of when he is cleansing the temple, anything that makes it hard. For us to encounter Jesus or anything that makes it harder for anyone to encounter. Jesus is not a God. Because Jesus came, Jesus did the hard work. Jesus did the heavy lifting. And so if there's something in your life or someone in your life that's making it hard for you to encounter Jesus, like that's the table that he flipped. Yeah. And so and that's what I was saying earlier, it doesn't need to be heavy, like seeking God and reading your Bible and praying like that stuff doesn't need to be heavy. Yeah. Jesus says, take my yoke upon you for my yoke is easy, my burden is light. And yeah, I think it just needs to be easy. There needs to be a level of easiness to our relationship with Christ. And so expand on that part because so many times where we, as, I mean as Christians, whether we're hungry or we're not, we, we get it lost in the destruction of prayer or in the sense of we're praying and we think, oh, my wife, like for me example, my wife asked me to put a frame up two weeks ago. I probably should do that right now. Yeah. And it's that was two weeks ago. You're in the middle of praying before. Sure. Yeah. So in that sense, what do you mean by easy?'cause there's so many distractions that happen, there's so many things that pop in your head when you're trying to do something for God. How does that become easy? Like where do you get that hunger, that drive where you can tap in past that distraction? Yeah, I think when I say easy, I don't mean easy, like not difficult. Okay. Easy, like at peace. And so like for example, I I'm ambitious when it comes to reading my Bible, right? So like right now I'm behind on the reading plan, but I should be through the Bible already for the goal that I set at the beginning of the year. So three months just on it should been two months, should have been two months. And, but there was just days where I was like, Lord, I just need something from your word. So then I. There was, there's been days where I just stayed in one chapter instead of reading the 35 chapters I should have read. So anyways, I, but that's the point there is that I'm ambitious, like when it comes to things like that. But when I told my dad like, yeah, this is my goal for the year. I'm gonna read this many books and I'm gonna read the Bible through twice and dah, whatever. And I told my dad, who's also my pastor I told him and he goes, yeah, that's great. I love that for you son. He goes, but he goes, if there's ever a day where you don't get to your 25 chapters. It's okay. And he was telling me like, you just gotta learn to walk with allure. And I think that was part of my, my growing up too this year is. Is I started to be so ambitious in those things, and because of that, I grew like reading books and reading the Bible and praying a lot because of that, I think I grew so much spiritually, but then like I was measuring my spirituality with the metric of how many chapters did I read today? Not realizing that if it was 25 chapters in one chapter, like it was just the spark and the thing that. What's the word? The thing that catapulted me into walking with the Lord the rest of my day. And so even to your point of'cause we'll use that and it's true. Like we go to pray and it's oh man. Like I gotta put that frame up or Oh man, like I should probably take the trash out right now. Yeah. But you know what, like I would even challenge, challenge that thought with this is. Maybe as you continue to talk to God, you go put the frame up. Like sometimes it's a distraction. Oh yeah. But then other times, maybe it's just the Holy Spirit, like there's literally been times where I encounter the Lord in my room because I'm cleaning my room. Yeah. And I know that pleases the Lord. It pleases the Lord that I steward the my, my living space. Yeah. And so that sounds. Maybe oversimplified, but it's like just learn to walk with God. Like not everything has to be on the floor with our forehead to the ground going sha for 45 minutes. Yeah, we do need that. Yeah. But sometimes it's Hey, would you just take your kids for a walk and pray the Holy Ghost under your breath while you know what I'm saying? While you're chilling, I ain't gonna lie to you. We have so many branches that I've been wanting to go because you touched on so many different areas. I know I have things in the back of my head too right now that I was talking about on that topic. But there was one thing like this morning for me so every day I try to pray 20 minutes in the whole spirit. 20, sorry, trying to get a sponsorship. Oh. Amen. Bryce got, shoot. I need some pre-workout, so facts, hopefully I can get a sponsorship on that one. But anyways so this morning I tried 20 minutes of the Holy Spirit. Whether it's on my ride home from the gym or whether it's like intentionally like sitting down and just closing my eyes and just imagining a cross and just praying. But my point is that today I was just like. I need to do things before my son gets up.'cause once my son gets up, it's gonna make it really difficult. So I was like, okay, you know what? Instead of being almost legalistic in that I had to go make a protein shake. So I went to go make my protein shake while I was praying in the spirit. I had to do some other things, clean up some other. Some areas so that my son, when he did wake up, it wouldn't be like a complete tornado. Sure. And so in that, I was praying and I was trying not to be so legalistic in that. And a lot of times we have this legalistic approach where if we aren't s super intentional and sitting before him and doing the 45 minutes on the face prostrate. And that we won't even do it because we're like, yeah. And so it's like you're almost, I can't read 25 chapters, so I'm not gonna read one. Yeah, exactly. And it's what the that, that logic almost it counteracts the whole po purpose of everything. But that's the tables that Jesus wants to flip. Exactly. Exactly. And that honestly, that is a very struggle of strong struggle in, in American culture. Yeah. Where if we're, if we don't have a guarantee of everything, then we're not gonna do nothing in a sense of for example, if I go to work today, I better get a promotion. And if I don't, I'm not gonna work today, or I better get something out of that or I'm not gonna do it. Okay? So check this out to, to go in a different direction. Go ahead. So something that I, John Vere, one of my favorite authors, right? Everybody knows who John VE is. He's amazing. But he talks about. He gives this testimony. This is a testimony he gives. It's an honors reward, I think, the most amazing book I've ever read in my life. But anyways, he says that he was in a foreign country, I forget where, but in the country where he was the women were still looked down upon or something like that. So you didn't really talk to a man of high regard. Doesn't talk to a woman. Yeah. And he says that he just greets this woman. He just looks at her and just says, hello? Or God bless you, or whatever. And walks away and he goes, it'd be, and he, that's a testimony. Yeah. Is that he was like, I could tell that lifted her countenance. And he goes, you could look at that and say, John, nothing happened. Why are you celebrating that? But as Christians, we have the faith to believe. Oh, see, and when he said this is, I got, gave me a little revelation. Faith is what the evidence of things hope for. The, or the substance things, hope or the evidence of things not seen. Not seen, yeah. And for us, like we, we read that and we know that scripture and then we go, okay, so like this mountain. That mountain that, I haven't seen it moved yet, but I know it's gonna be moved like that. I got the faith to believe. And that's great. Like mountains move. Yes, absolutely. Yeah. But for me, like I've tried to have this attitude is faith is the evidence of things not seen. So this is what I mean. I'm not gonna see the impact that the person I smiled at the coffee shop, or the person I said hello to at the coffee shop. I'm not gonna see the depth of impact that it has in their life. But because I have faith, I can believe that even though I'm not gonna see it, God's still gonna use it in their life. And so one of my favorite things has now become when I, because I spend so. So much time in coffee shops is going up to some Yeah. So much is my office. And excuse me. So one of my favorite things to become this is to walk up to random people and go, bro, those are fire shoes. Where'd you get those shoes, bro? Oh, I got'em here. Oh, dude, those are so sick. Oh man, I, I should get a pair, man. What's your name? Oh, my name is so and oh. My name is Jon, man. It's so nice to me, man. What are you doing today? Oh, I'm just hanging out. Oh, that's great, man. Hey, you have a great day. Or I'll see you around. And to me it's man, I just did God's work. And it's you did nothing. It's no, I planted a seed of kindness in that person's heart. Yeah. I may have been the only person that recognized that person say that, that didn't just walk past them. Yeah. And like when I talk about being a complete Christian. That's part of what I mean is can we just be like, sometimes we turn it on and we go into church, but the world needs you to be a Christian. When you're going to Walmart. Like the world needs you to be a Christian in every moment of your life. And that's not to say we can't have bad moments, but it's just to say I think when Jesus says, lift your eyes and see that the fields are right for harvest, he's not just saying, lift your eyes and invite everyone you can to church. He, I think that's part of it for sure. Yeah. Highways and byways and compel them to come in for sure. But also. The Samaritan woman at the well. And how many Samaritan women have we missed at the well because we were on our way to church. That's good. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And oh gosh, I don't even know where to go from there. Okay let's stay here. So what you're saying is a greeting could be godly. Exactly. And I like that. Put that on a t-shirt. Watch out. I might make another one that's crazy made that, that's fine. But anyways so my point of that is, is that there are so many times, like for example God told me recently to go to a different gym. I was going to the, he told you to go to Planet Fitness? Heck no. He didn't tell you to go to Planet Fitness, right? No. It's EOS or e still, it's just at a different location. Yeah. And I just believe,'cause it was closer to where my church and so I was like, I think God wants me to be evangelize a little bit more there. Yeah. Fair. And so I was like, okay, cool. So I go there. And I'm the type of person when I go in to work out I have headphones on, I have my hat on, I, it's all the way down to my nose, so I don't see anybody around me and I'm like, just zoned in. And I think going to people in that, it's like, bro, you're all reserved already. Like, how am I supposed to say Hey. I'm gonna introduce you to Jesus, let me take you to my church. And where it's not like that, it shouldn't be like that. That shouldn't be the intro to every conversation. It shouldn't just be that, okay, I'm so heavenly minded that I'm no earthly good earth earthy good. Yeah. And so it's instead of. Hey, let me invite you to church. Hey, bro, you're strong dude. Dang, I want to one day be on your level. Yeah, exactly. That's a, or hey, how do you work out your triceps? Or Hey, how can you grow your calves, because my calves are twigs. Yeah. Twigs. Not twigs. I'm hungry a little bit and praise God anyways, but if there's these certain areas or these certain ways that we can go about evangelizing then the cookie cutter way and method that hasn't worked for, however long, we, people are tired of church that aren't, don't go to church. Sure, yeah. People are tired of hearing about God. People are tired of that because they became so numb to it. Maybe as a church we should. Move away from the cookie cutter method and try something different. Yeah. Be, build a relationship before you build, that resentment towards them because they said no to you and to your invite. And so on that topic a complete Christian goes the extra mile in every area that God has called him to. And there has been a lot of reserve to specific areas such as evangelism because people aren't bold outside of church. How would you say, you know what, let's do that a little bit more. Let's focus on your weakness instead of just focusing on only what you strong, what you're strong at. Yeah. Yeah. I think I think that's part of it is to begin to realize okay, what are my weak points? And for me, like one of them was evangelism and who's really good. At Evangelism is our friend Josh, right? Josh will just go up and talk to people. Yeah. And and matter of fact, I was just if I don't send it to voicemail, it's gonna bother me. Sorry. Anyways I was just thinking of Josh and a story. I don't know who told me this story. About his dad and I never met Pastor Art, God bless him. He was a legend, obviously. Yeah. And he said that he was outta town or something and he was at a hotel. And they were gonna have a service that night or something. And Pastor Art gets to the, I don't know if it was, what do you call it? Like the check-in counter? Yeah. And basically starts evangelizing to this guy and Pastor Art, who was obviously such a legend, in his church and a great man of faith. He wasn't just doing work behind the pulpit, but he was doing work everywhere he went. Yeah. And and we need to, I think that's how we get better at that is realizing like we're not just especially ministers like pastors and we need to be so much better at this. We are not, lemme say this is not what I was gonna say, but we're not anybody. Yeah. We build these false platforms for ourselves and think we're somebody, you are not anybody. at the end of the day we're just people pointing to Jesus. Yeah. And so can you, there's a, in the book about humility that I'm reading, there's a, what do you call it? A quote where he says he says, you don't even, he says, in a sense, you don't even tell yourself now. Now watch the phrasing. You don't even tell yourself the things you might have done for God, less pride were its way in. And so I why do I stay pure? Is it because I'm a pastor or do I aim to stay pure because I love Jesus? And if it's because I'm a pastor then my purity will become a, what's the word? I think then my purity will become a reason to like, okay, God, then you owe me something. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? But if I, my compensation. Yeah, exactly. But if I'm pure because I love Jesus, then I've just what is it? I think it's like Luke 1710, or maybe it's Luke 10 17. I think it's 1710. But anyways, we're, after we've done what we should have done for God, then we just say, I'm just your unworthy servant. I'm just your unworthy servant. And I don't like pastors and preachers and teachers and ministers. I don't care if you. Serve a church of 15 people or 15,000 people. Like I love you and I honor you, but I also wanna remind you, you're just an unworthy servant. Yeah. And as am I. And so anyways, I say all, I digress. I say all that because if that's all you are. Then you're, that you're the same unworthy servant in the streets and in the marketplace and in the store and in the gym as you are when you're behind the pulpit. Yeah. And so ah, anyway, like we need to just do better of being Christians, not pastors, and not. Ministers but just Christians to say, Hey, have you met Jesus? Or, Hey, that's a nice t-shirt, yeah. Even at that, like the early church there, they were never centered around a pulpit. The right, the early church was always centered around Jesus. It was the communion. So what they would do is that there would be a circle essentially, of a church, and in the middle of that circle was the communion. It was the communion bread. The wine communion, bread and wine. And so the whole time they would read from the Bible and then worship him. And so it was never centered around this. Pulpit until, I think it was like the 18th century. But I could be completely wrong on, on the time. But my point is that our focus has turned away from God and all and started looking at men. It's like that Saul type of right, where it's strictly focusing on, on, man in the influence of man. Yeah. Man, I, and I don't know, it just, it frustrates me so much. I was just talking, me and Josh were just at the gym pastor Josh Tafoya. Hey man, he's gonna be on soon. Oh, is he? I don't know when, but soon. We were at the gym. We've been having this conversation a lot. Him and Manny too. Pastor Manny Lopez. But anyways, is that his last name? It is, right? I don't know. Yeah, it is. Sure. Oh yeah, it's, anyways, I seen him at Starbucks the other day, but he's a great guy. But we've been talking recently just don't want friends because, okay. Like for example, you and I, me and Josh talked about this today. You and I are friends, but right now, like when we met, not that you were like a young adult's pastor, but you were like a leader Yeah. In a certain young adult group and stuff and I was obviously leading the youth ministry at my church and that's how we met. But you are not necessarily young adult pastor right now. You're not necessarily youth pastor or whatever, right? Yeah. You don't have that title, but we're just friends. Yeah. And and so many times, like I think that we build relationships based off of what we can get out of each other and just. Instead of just doing life together. And so yeah. Ministry, the church it's centered around one man and his name is Jesus. And if your name isn't Jesus, then not Jesus. Yeah. Not Jesus, but yeshua, if you wanna know, but like it's about Jesus and that's the point. Everything needs to come back to Jesus. Yeah, a hundred percent. A hundred percent man. You know what Jonah, I'm gonna close it out right here, man. I thank you so much for your time, dude. And you have so much wisdom. You are an amazing man and I truly believe revival will come. Into Arizona and you will be a major role in that revival. And I thank you, man. I honor you. Again just you're just such an awesome guy to, to be a friend with and to be battling along with this, in this journey. But thank you so much. And then to everyone who is tuned into this episode, we want to thank you. We know that. That you could be spending so much time in different podcasts. But we thank you for tuning into this podcast. And don't forget to follow share and subscribe to all our social media platforms and we want to thank you. See you guys next week.