Explore the concept of dependency on God versus traditional religious practices in this thought-provoking discussion. Bob George sheds light on the distinction between old covenant tithing and New Testament free-will giving. He also delves into how Christians should maintain peace and show unconditional love to family members, even amidst disagreements. This episode offers practical guidance for believers seeking to embody Christ’s love in their daily interactions and reminds us of the centrality of Jesus in navigating life’s challenges.
Welcome to Classic Christianity Radio with Bob George. Today we are pleased to present a special radio show featuring call-in listeners from Bob’s original people-to-people daily radio program that was on the air for over 30 years, offering real answers for real-life problems as he addresses common questions as well as the tough issues of today, directing callers to the centrality of Christ in you, your only hope of glory. We want to remind our listeners that Bob George Ministries needs your financial support to continue to have Classic Christianity Radio on the air. Please visit BobGeorge.net to find out how you can help support us financially. Let’s now join Bob as he presents practical biblical insights as he helps people experience a life of faith, hope, and love in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER 02 :
We’re going to go to Pebble Beach, California, listening on KKMC. Manon, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 03 :
Hi, Bob.
SPEAKER 02 :
Did I pronounce that right, or is it Manon?
SPEAKER 03 :
No, that’s right. It’s a French name, Manon.
SPEAKER 02 :
Manon, okay.
SPEAKER 03 :
My question is, my husband and I come from different backgrounds. I’m Catholic, my husband’s Protestant, and we’ve tried very hard to lead a Christian household traditionally, with the husband being the head of the household, and we raise our children to go to Sunday school, and we both had the benefit of growing up in households that had that kind of structure. But Now that we’re older and our parents are getting older in their 70s and 60s, we go back home and we find our parents aren’t living certain Christian principles, and it’s causing a lot of conflict. Like, his parents have changed religion, and they’ve become, to me, less Christian. And I’m finding we have a lot of conflicts with them, and I want to lead a Christian lifestyle, but I feel like it’s a lie when we go home for family visits and it’s filled with tension. So how do we… be Christians and live a Christian life, you know, and get along with our families, not just, you know, at church and with each other, but truly with our families of origin.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, you know, people, you know, there’s a world of difference between that word Christian has been thrown around so much today that it really has no meaning to it. What it means is I go to Christian churches on Sunday instead of going to a Buddhist church or a Muslim church. I go to a Buddhist or to a Christian church and I go to a Catholic Christian church and he goes to a Baptist Christian church and And all of it has no meaning to it because that is not Christian. Number one, you don’t become a Christian by going to church. You are a Christian by spiritual birth. And that’s something that has to take place by God. It isn’t something that takes place by man. It’s a supernatural event that takes place in a person’s life at some point in time in history. when they die to their own self-sufficiency and die to their own self-righteousness, and to recognize that there is not one thing in us worthy of ever going into the presence of God, and that as a result of that, God cleared the deck for us to do so through his Son, who took away the sins of the entire world, never to see them again, so there’s no more forgiveness to be executed on our behalf by God. and secondly, was raised from the dead so that that resurrected life of Jesus could be used to raise us from our condition of spiritual death. We’re not born into this world alive spiritually. We’re born dead spiritually and in need of spiritual life, and he’s the only provider for that. When we come to that by faith, We begin to grow in our knowledge of Christ Jesus and realize that we cannot live the Christian life. In other words, how do we live the Christian life? You don’t. You can go try. We can make ourselves look semi-good. But we try and we fail. The only way that the Christian life can be lived is allowing Jesus Christ who lives in us to live his life in and through us. It’s like the vine and branch. The branch cannot live a vine life, period. It’s impossible for the branch to live a vine life. A branch cannot produce fruit on its own. It can’t do anything that anyone is interested in on its own except just hang there. But if a branch learns to abide in the life of the vine, The vine produces fruit in and through the branch, and the branch is able to bear the fruit of the vine, but it cannot produce it. And so we can’t live the Christian life. We can pretend and hope that no one finds out that we really do have faults, and we can pretend, but we can’t live it. Now, what happens is many times people… have thought that being a Christian, and I’m talking about my own family, I’m talking about my own family, that they certainly thought they were Christians. They went to church and prayed occasionally and read the Bible every now and then, so they thought they were Christians, but they weren’t. it wasn’t until the very, very latter years of their life, in fact, with my father right before he died and my mother shortly after that, that they came to know Christ as their personal Lord and Savior. Well, how are they going to produce a Christian life? They don’t have anything to produce it with. And so what happens is you said, yeah, I’m religious. I went to church, but I have nothing inside of me to live this life that I’m trying to live. So I’m being hypocritical. So they finally give up on it. and sometimes go to other religions or go to whatever. It doesn’t make any, you know, where people go. They might go to the bar, probably find a more sincere fellowship there than they do in the church. So the issue is that that’s why you’ll see people who start off looking like they’re being religious, And they’re trying to be religious, but they can’t pull it off. This is not a life for us to live. It’s a life for him to live in and through us. And that’s why Jesus himself said, I, you know, Jesus was God himself. And he said, I don’t do anything unless the father tells me to do it. And I don’t say anything unless the father tells me to say it and how to say it. And so as the Father sent me, so send I you. He taught us how to live on this earth, not as God, because we’re not God, but as a man. And that’s in total dependency upon God to do it and through us. But we have no ability of producing on our own. So that’s the lifestyle of the Christian. And that explains many times why some people start off. But I would say in most cases, they never got there to begin with. They Like I said at the beginning of the program, so many people have been told you come to Christ and get your sins forgiven, and they think that’s all it is. It’s what salvation is, getting your sins forgiven. And they’re never saved. I’m sorry, you’re just not saved by thinking you get your sins forgiven. You were born with your sins forgiven. But they have never come to Christ for life, never came to Christ for the consequence of sin is death. and that’s a pretty when you stop to think about that’s a problem death is a real problem and unless it is solved by resurrected life we’re going to remain dead trying to act as if we are alive and that’s when we become actors i just feel like my um you know i don’t understand it seems like our families of origin are literally falling apart you know we’ve watched
SPEAKER 03 :
when we thought my husband’s parents were very involved in a church, and they just walked away.
SPEAKER 02 :
And then they went to another church.
SPEAKER 03 :
And, you know, even I remember once I was asking my father-in-law about tithing. My husband and I had just purchased a home, and if we were going to continue tithing, we were going to have about $60 a month left over. And he said, my father-in-law said to me, well, that’s foolish. You can’t put your own, you know, and I couldn’t believe he was recommending that I not tithe. I was sort of looking for a little earthly guidance, and so I did it. And it quickly became apparent to me that that is indeed not what God wanted me to do. And so I went back to tithing and kind of had a laugh about it with my pastor at my church and said, it’s so funny because I thought this was going to solve our problems, and it didn’t. I’m better when I’m tithing, and so it’s confusing when you tithe.
SPEAKER 02 :
Hold on a minute. How are you better when you’re tithing, madam, when there’s no such thing as tithing in the new cabinet that we live in today?
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, it’s a trusting.
SPEAKER 02 :
No, it isn’t. No, hold on a minute, man. You can’t make up your own theology. See, I sense in you, quite frankly, I sense in you a great work ethic, but I don’t sense in you the reality of Jesus Christ being alive, living in you as your only hope of glory, to be real honest with you. You cannot see tithing. You obviously think that if I tithe, God’s going to bless me. or something else. There’s nothing in tithing in the New Covenant. If it’s not there, then why do it if it’s not there? Tithing is for the Old Testament. It was for the Old Covenant, Levitical priesthood. It’s the way that you supported the Levites. Twelve tribes of Israel, one of them was Levites. They could not work. I tell pastors, if you’re going to teach people to tithe like a Levite or like an Israelite, why don’t you tithe like a Levite? Or why don’t you live like a Levite? They can’t work. They can’t own property. They couldn’t own anything. And so the issue is that free will giving.
SPEAKER 03 :
Did I say that? No, when I say tithing, I mean giving money to your home church to support it, to give it.
SPEAKER 02 :
I know what you’re talking about. That is not the method that you use. It’s called free will giving.
SPEAKER 03 :
All right, well, then let’s call it free will giving because that’s what I do. I try to give to build God’s kingdom.
SPEAKER 02 :
But you see, the issue is that when you are calling something tithing and encouraging other people to tithe and criticizing for not tithing, you’re criticizing for doing something that the Bible didn’t tell him to do. He didn’t tell him to tithe. He told him to give freely, to give joyfully, and to give accordance to what you do have, not in accordance to what you don’t have. And there’s two chapters in 2 Corinthians that deals with the principles of biblical giving. And that’s how we should give. But you see, in our churches today, we come back because we can’t trust people to do so, being led by the Spirit, because they don’t know the Spirit’s there. So you say, no, you’ve got a rule. It’s a law of tithing, and you’re not under the law of tithing.
SPEAKER 03 :
So did my father give me the right advice or the wrong advice when he said not to do that?
SPEAKER 02 :
He gave you the right advice. He said if he knew what he was talking about, to say that I’m going to tithe and not pay a bill, that’s ridiculous. God says that you’re supposed to pay your bill. So he gave you the right advice. You’re not tithing. You don’t need to be tithing. But you should be joyfully giving and joyfully giving in accordance to what you have in accordance with the Scripture, not in accordance with church tradition. See, the problem we have today in Christianity is people are hanging on to church tradition that has nothing to do at all with the Scripture. And there’s many denominations that place tradition over and above the Word of God. We only have one source to live by, and that’s the Word of God. The Word of God. Many people have never opened the word of God. They don’t know what it says. And they say, I’m Christians. No, you’re not. You’re just religious. The word of God is what is our guide. That’s the way God speaks to us, is through his word. How do I know that our sins are taken away? It tells us God was in Christ, reconciling the whole world unto himself, not counting the sins against us. Don’t get me wrong.
SPEAKER 03 :
I understand the concept. I understand the concept that my salvation comes not from my good works, but from God. Jesus’ job that he did on the cross for me and dying for myself. I know that. That’s not a conflict for me. My question is a very real-life one, which is how do you get along with people harmoniously? How do you live trying to follow those precepts, Romans, in so far as it is up to me to live at peace with everyone? How do you do that? How can you go to church and do all those things and then not live at peace with people?
SPEAKER 02 :
Quit judging them. Quit judging them. Didn’t it say that you’re not there? Jesus said, I didn’t come to judge the world, but to save the world. So what are you doing judging it? Quit judging people. Not all people. Again, if you are comparing yourself by another person, he says you’re a fool. In other words, you’re comparing your deeds by their deeds. The Bible says you’re a fool because in all of our deeds are as filthy rags to God. That’s what the Bible says. They’re all like filthy rags. So when you’re judging people, you’re judging them that they’re not doing what I’m doing. Well, that is not only is it judging, but it’s self-righteousness. It isn’t walking in the righteousness that’s been given to you in Christ Jesus. It’s self-righteousness. And the reason I’m righteous is because I do all of these things this way and this way and this way, but they don’t. And that’s judging. And God says don’t do that. You see, man, what’s interesting to me, and believe me, I’m trying to help you. Maybe you don’t think you need help, but I’m trying to help. Maybe I’m judging here myself. But you said to me that I understand all this stuff. You were very quick to go, I understand these principles. It’s not a principle. Jesus isn’t a principle. He’s life. And you said, I understand that, and I understand that Jesus died for all of our sins. And you stopped there, didn’t you? You stopped there. And let’s go on to reality. In other words, there’s no reality in Jesus. Let’s go on to reality. Jesus is the most reality that you’ll ever run into in your life, is the resurrected Christ living in you, your hope of glory. And you see, again, many times we don’t realize that. We have been taught and taught and taught, come to the Christ, get your sins forgiven. That is not true. You come to Christ because he’s already taken away your sins. There is no further forgiveness to be executed on your behalf by God. None. None at all. He has taken away the sins of the entire world. But where is that forgiveness that was provided 2,000 years ago? received in his resurrected life. That’s why Paul said, without the resurrection, we’re to be pitied of all people and are still in our sins. Salvation is not getting your sins forgiven. Salvation is being saved from the consequence of sin, which is death, by the gift of God, which is life. That is the most reality you’ll ever run into. So when a person now is indwelt by Christ… is indwelt by Christ, now he has a choice. Am I going to listen to the Spirit of God who lives in me, who wants to live his life in and through me, going to listen to him, or am I going to listen to my flesh? And you’ve got the option to listen to either one of them. That’s the conflict. The desires of the flesh are in conflict with the desires of the Spirit. They never are going to get along with each other, and that conflict will be until the day that you die. And so in the meantime, what does he say? The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love, period. That’s the only thing he’s looking for.
SPEAKER 03 :
So you should love people even when they’re being, you know, it seems impossible?
SPEAKER 02 :
Sure. Absolutely. That’s what it says.
SPEAKER 03 :
What if they’re hurting you? What if they’re hurting you?
SPEAKER 02 :
What happened when they hurt Jesus? what did i don’t imagine that they back and said doesn’t hurt when he was slapped you know on when he was hung on a cross what did he do father forgive them they don’t know what they’re doing and so the only way that that you that you can’t do that is if you’re judging them i’m just getting back to that same thing you’re When you are putting your works and the things that you do as a standard of righteousness, you’ve now lost your life. You’ve now lost your ability to think properly in regard to God’s work. And so the issue is that if you are doing anything wrong, that is so-called Christian, then it’s Jesus doing it through you because you don’t have the ability to produce it, and neither do they. So if they’re not producing, if you do not see them bearing the fruit of God in any way, shape, or form, what’s their problem? Well, they’re not abiding in the vine. How come? They don’t know anything about it. They don’t have anybody to tell them. Obviously, they weren’t told that in the churches they were in. That’s why they went from one church to another. Why? Because they were searching for something. So I would look at those people with pity. I would look at them as the poor souls have never been able to find truth. And if I knew truth, I’d be the first one there to try to tell them truth. When I came to Christ when I was 36 years of age and I came to know Christ as my personal Lord and Savior, I got on an airplane immediately and flew back to Indiana to my mom and dad to try to communicate to them the truth of Christ Jesus. My dad was the most moral man I’ve ever met in my life. He lived an exemplary life, but he didn’t know Jesus. And it was my mission was to be sure that he knew Jesus before he died. Because as good as he was, he would not have gone into heaven because of his good works, only by putting his faith in Christ’s works.
SPEAKER 03 :
So you’re, I mean, you don’t know, you know, you don’t know my background. You don’t know what I’ve done or what I haven’t done or what my daily practices are. But I just, you know, I believe that I am… a Christian in the biblical sense, in that I grew up Catholic, but I came to know the Lord as an adult when I made this realization that Jesus did die on the cross for me, and I don’t do anything to deserve the salvation. It’s a gift. And there’s no good works that can save me. If I want to do things for my church, or if I want to do things because I think that it built God’s kingdom, great. God accepts that, but it doesn’t make me better than the guy next to me who’s doing a whole bunch of nothing, but accepts gifts of salvation. Now, you can take that as judging if you want to, but I’m just saying that, you know, some people do this and some people do that. So why don’t we just say it that way so it sounds less judgmental, because you seem to think that I’m very judgmental. And I don’t hold that against you, but that’s your opinion. But what I want to know is, like, say you do God’s principles. Say someone does wrong you, and you call that person and you say, because God’s at the center of my life, I’m asking you, to forgive me and I would like to live at peace with you as we’re called to do. And that person doesn’t respond. Where do you proceed from there? You just keep going?
SPEAKER 02 :
Sure. Is there anything that you can do beyond that? You cannot move the will of another person. It’s what it says in the scripture. If someone has offended you, you go to them. But if they don’t respond, you move on. And there isn’t anything else you can do.
SPEAKER 03 :
If the person that’s doing that in your life is someone like your mom or your dad or someone that’s very close to your family of origin, you just walk away.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, no, they’re not walking away. You just have to recognize that they’re not accepting what you have offered to them is forgiveness and a desire for friendship that you’re not walking away from them. They’re evidently walked away from you. I mean, if they’ve walked away from you, you haven’t walked away from them.
SPEAKER 03 :
Now, what if the person wants to keep going? Say they want to keep going as if nothing had happened.
SPEAKER 02 :
Keep loving them. Keep loving them and pray that they’ll get to know Christ Jesus as their Lord and Savior. That’s the only solution to anything.
SPEAKER 03 :
I guess you’re right. I mean, I believe that.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah. So the only thing to do is those are people. If they’re not going to accept your forgiveness and that type of thing, then it’s a person that doesn’t know forgiveness. You forgive how? As Christ Jesus forgave you. If you don’t know he’s forgiven you, how in the world are you going to forgive one another? So you must get people to Christ.
SPEAKER 03 :
Well, I’ll tell you what. I think you are right about me. I think I am judgmental, and I think that you did a very good work today for Jesus in sort of telling me and confronting me with that truth because that’s not an easy thing. to hear or learn about yourself. And I thank you for being honest.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, thank you for your attitude, my dear. It’s a sign of Christ living in you, and that’s what this whole thing’s all about.
SPEAKER 03 :
You know it.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, I appreciate your call. God bless you.
SPEAKER 01 :
Bye-bye. Classic Christianity Radio is a listener-funded program, and because of your generous donations, we are able to be on the air. Go to bobgeorge.net to order the life-changing audio CD series, The New Covenant, Law and Grace, and How to Have a Proper Self-Image. These series are essential to understanding our inheritance in Christ, what it means to experience freedom and the abundant life in Christ, living under grace, not under the law, and to see ourselves as God sees us, as a completely forgiven person, loved perfectly and righteous in His sight. Please visit bobgeorge.net for additional information on how you can join us financially and help support the radio ministry. With your prayers and support, we can continue to share the good news of Jesus Christ. Let’s continue now with our Classic Christianity radio program.
SPEAKER 02 :
Let’s go to Nashville, Tennessee, listening on WNQM. Ron, you’re on the air.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hey, Bob, how are you today?
SPEAKER 02 :
Good, good, Ron. Thank you.
SPEAKER 04 :
Wonderful. I was listening to you saying about we can’t initiate anything and… I feel you on that, but what I was wanting to ask you, because sometimes I witness to people and I tell them that if they find in God’s Word what He says, such as Psalms 1, if we don’t get our counsel from ungodly people, don’t sit in the seat in the scornful, if our delight is in the Lord, the Lord, and in His law we meditate day and night, whatsoever we do shall prosper. So if we come to God and we say, hey, God, I’m doing what you said to do in your word, and you can’t lie whatsoever, we touch the gospel, is that initiating God?
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, in the first place, I don’t know what you’re doing over there to begin with because that isn’t where we live. We’re under a new covenant of grace today, Ron, and it’s not conditional in any way, shape, or form. It’s all the fact of following what Jesus did, and Jesus said, As God, and as Archie Bunker said, he wasn’t too bad of a Christian. We have to realize that Jesus said, I don’t do anything unless the Father tells me to do it, and I don’t say anything unless the Father tells me to say it and how to say it. And so even though Jesus was God, when he was in here, when he came to this earth and took upon himself an appearance as a man, he walked in total dependency upon his Father and initiated nothing. The role of God is to initiate all action, to be the initiator of his own acts, the cause of his own effect. But he put that prerogative aside and walked in total dependency upon God the Father in order to show you and me how to live this Christian life. And as he said, as the Father sent me, so send I you. So in essence, living on this side of the cross and dwelt by the Spirit of God, who now is not to meditate on the laws of God or the law of God, but to meditate upon Christ Jesus, the Son of God, that our meditation and our walk with God is to be totally dependent upon what he leads us to do. So many times we go out and take initiative on our own and fall flat on our face, and it’s just God’s way of showing you what taking our own initiative does. So if we’ll wait on the Lord and for him to lead us and to guide us into all truth, then we’ll be functioning exactly as God meant us to function, and that is in total dependency upon God the Father.
SPEAKER 04 :
Right, I understand what you’re saying, but What I was saying was he initiated it by his word, but if we follow his word, which it could even be Christ teaching, following Christ.
SPEAKER 02 :
Well, then who would be the initiator? See, he’s the initiator, isn’t he? In other words, if God is the initiator and we’re the responders, so that’s just basically what I was saying. We don’t initiate to him. We don’t tell him, now, God, you told me if I do this and this and this, you’re going to do that. That’s putting yourself in a position of being God. He says because you are in Christ Jesus, go and love one another. And quite frankly, Ron, the only thing that Jesus left us to do is to love one another. He said the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. That’s it. And we put on all this other stuff and we think we’re so obedient and we’re so godly. And that to me is the most ridiculous thing in the world. He’s the godly one. We’re not. We have the privilege of participating in the divine nature that lives in us. But in and of our flesh is still no good thing. And in as much as there is indwelling sin that is living in us, that is what is going to keep us dependent upon Christ. I’m convinced, Ron, that if we didn’t have indwelling sin living in us, we’d forget Jesus in a New York minute. And so that’s why Paul says to rejoice in our weakness because our weakness is what keeps us dependent on Jesus. I hear you. Yep. So he’s the initiator. We’re the responder. He says, go talk to that person. We say, thank you, Lord, and we go talk to him. Not so that God will do something because he’s already done something.
SPEAKER 05 :
Yeah, I believe that.
SPEAKER 02 :
Yeah.
SPEAKER 05 :
Okay.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, brother. Does that help, Ron?
SPEAKER 05 :
Yes, sir, it helps.
SPEAKER 02 :
Okay, my friend. Appreciate your call, Ron. God bless you.
SPEAKER 01 :
Bye-bye now. Until next time, walk in faith, be good to one another, and praise the Lord. Amen.
SPEAKER 05 :
Put Jesus first in your life and turn your life around.
