The spiritual condition of America, politics, culture, and current events, analyzed through the lens of Scripture.
Welcome to The Alex McFarland Show. Did you ever see that book several years ago, when God winks at you? Hi, Alex McFarland here Today on the show, we're going to talk about something way better than that, that the true and living God not only loves you, but likes you. One of the early verses that really made an impression on me as a young believer was Psalm 37 four that said, if you commit your way to the Lord, he'll give you the desires of your heart. Now, being a Christian is not just, quote, getting what you want.
But along the journey of being a disciple, God will bless you, God will guide you, God will even thrill you with his grace and his favor, but also God the Holy Spirit will reshape your priorities, where your desires and your heart's highest goals will get in line with God's purposes for your life. And that is a beautiful thing. And we're going to visit today with an author that's written a wonderful book, Mona Razin. She's written a book, and this is a great title, and it's also her website, Hell Bent and Heaven Word.
We're going to talk about what that means. But Mona, thank you for being with us on the program. Thank you for the work that you're doing to help countless lives get in step with God's love and God's plan. It's a great work. It's a great book. Thanks for being with us.
Thank you so much, Alex. I'm excited for the conversation. Well, your website, Hell Bent and Heaven Word, spelled just like it sounds, hellbentandheavenword.com, what does this title mean, and how did you come across it? You know, the title is interesting. As I was beginning to write the book, my publisher was asking me about a title, and I was thinking about words that kind of mean perseverance, but yet, you know, in a bit of a fun tone instead. And there are times when I can definitely be hell bent on uncertain goals, per se, that I may have, whether it's career goals or personal goals. And I don't give up. It may take me a while, but I usually I don't ever give up. And that's pretty much how this book was published in birth.
And what's the basic premise of the book? So the biggest thing for me on this was to really understand the character and nature of who God is versus the lies I may have told myself or I may have been told by, you know, well-meaning, you know, Christians. There are many lies that the enemy can twist, you know, many statements that the enemy twists into lies in our head about who God is. You know, he loves you, but. And one of the biggest things that I tended to learn or get twisted in my head was I'm sure he loves me, but he doesn't like me.
It's like your parents, your parents are unconditional, but they love you unconditionally, but they may not like you at certain moments, which is completely fine. You know, I like what you say that that God likes us. And, folks, this is really important to know that God doesn't just tolerate you. I truly believe, yes, God loves us and he works to not only bring us to a knowledge of Jesus. The Bible says he declares us righteous, but he blesses us and he has a plan for our life.
I've said this to many an audience. I've had grown men emotionally come and talk to me on how this moved their heart. God's not mad at you. God loves you. God has things for you.
God is not mad at you. And people have said that really resonated with them. How did you come to know this, that God really is that friend who sits closer than a brother if we let him, and that he has great blessings for our lives? How did you come to realize this?
By nature, I'm a scientist. I do that from a career perspective, and I started doing a lot of research into who the character of God is. And some of those lessons came from simple lessons from other theologians, such as understanding the shack and looking at that movie and that book and how God loves people and how that book explains it.
One of the examples that I have about God really caring about the details of my life personally was when I was laid off from work and didn't have a job in sight. And I remember going for a walk and praying. It's like, all right, God, I'll be open to the opportunities. And I was like, just please, not like the Northeast.
I don't want to live in the Northeast. I would relate to that prayer. Yeah, right. And it was kind of when I let go of that control and actually just, you know, kind of laid the request down. That verse you quoted, Psalm 37.4 is hanging in my kitchen. And it's like he really does care about the details of your life. And so when I allowed myself to let go of the control and trust that God was working behind the scenes, doing a bunch of details that I had no idea what he was doing, but he put everything in place.
And then ultimately I was able to find a job where I stayed in Colorado and worked remotely and travel if needed. So it was a God wink, similar to what you were talking about earlier when you mentioned a book about God winks at you. So it truly was a God wink where he kind of like just said, hey, see, I didn't forget you. So your book title, Hell Bent and Heavenward, those seem like two different directions.
Unpack the dichotomy of that title for us. Well, hell bent for me means perseverance. It means like I, when I started struggling with trying to reconcile the nature of God, of some of the lies that I had twisted in my head about who he was, you know, he was angry. He was very much, didn't care about any details of my life.
He only was caring about the big aspects of the world and who cares about, you know, some little child in Colorado. I persevered and looking to find the true character and nature of who God was. And I did research, as I mentioned, I'm a scientist by nature and I found that God is love and he likes it. And then when I went on a mission trip to Cambodia, I got this vision when we were swimming in Crater Lake and our host was sitting up on the dock, just smiling. And I was in the water and I was thinking, really, is that what God is doing? Does God just simply look at us and look at his children just smiling at us playing in the water, a bunch of adults playing like kids.
And he's extremely pleased with us. It's that verse in Zephaniah that he rejoices over us with singing. And that with a bunch of many other details that I found through research about just truly how much God cares about us. And so I found that that perseverance is how hell-bent is found. And then with the heaven word, it just means that I moved closer to God in relationally and intimately through that relationship of being a little bit hell-bent on finding out who God really was. Yeah. You know, when people talk about God, or maybe I should say it this way, people assume that God is upset with them or angry with them. Those are distortions.
Those are, like you say, lies. And you know, we're almost out of time in this first segment, but I want you to hang with us. Mona, before we pull away for a very brief break, give us your website again and where people can order your book. It's hellbentandheavenword.com. hellbentandheavenword.com. Is that the best place for people to get the book? Yes, that's the best place to buy the book.
They can also go to Amazon, but that link on hellbentandheavenword.com will take them directly to Amazon. Sure. Stay tuned, folks.
Alex McFarland here, along with Mona Rosin. Some facts about the Lord that I think will expand your vision of who God is and enrich your life if you're open to it. Stay tuned.
We're back after this brief break. Fox News and CNN call Alex McFarland a religion and culture expert. Stay tuned for more of his teaching and commentary after this. Over the last several decades, it's been my joy to travel the world talking with children, teens, adults, people of all ages about the questions they have related to God, the Bible, Christianity, and how to know Jesus personally.
Hi, Alex McFarland. I want to make you aware of my book, The 21 Toughest Questions Your Kids Will Ask About Christianity. You know, we interviewed hundreds of children and parents and families to find out the questions that children and people of all ages are longing to find answers for. In the book, we've got practical, biblical, real life answers that they have about how to be a Christian in this modern world.
My book, The 21 Toughest Questions Your Kids Will Ask, you can find it wherever you buy books or at resources.afa.net. He's been called trusted, truthful, and timely. Welcome back to The Alex McFarland Show.
Welcome back to the program, folks. Alex McFarland here along with Mona Rosin, and part of the reason we're talking about who God is and your relationship to God, it's because quite literally, the most significant thing that can ever happen in your life is for you to enter into a personal relationship with the Lord Jesus who loves you. If you need to come to Christ, if you need to come back to the Lord, on my own website, which is alexmcfarland.com, alexmcfarland.com, there's a tab. It says, what does God say? In other words, what does God say about my relationship with Him? And it explains how to become a Christian, how you have assurance of your salvation, how you can truly, truly know. There's also a lot of apologetics.
How do we know the Bible really is the Word of God? More than a quarter million people have gotten this little book, and it's yours free as a free PDF download, or we'll send you one. But go to alexmcfarland.com and the tab, what does God say about my relationship with Him? Well, Mona, welcome back to the program. Hey, I want to hear a little bit about your story. Before you became a Christian author, you mentioned your background in science, but tell us about your own personal journey, Mona. Well, I grew up in North Dakota, and we went to church on Sunday, and I would say that was very doctrinal as a kid. I went through confirmation. I was Protestant, whatever that means.
I don't even know what that means anymore. But I went through confirmation, got confirmed junior high, all of that kind of stuff, did all the homework that I was supposed to do. I wanted to make sure I did it right, and got confirmed, all that kind of stuff. However, what I didn't feel was taught in the church that I attended was the relational aspect of God, that you can have this relationship with Him. It may not have made sense to me at that time, because I just may have been too young to really understand it. As I've gotten older, I have realized that this relationship with God and with Jesus, especially because He was human and He really understands our struggles that we're going through, is the most intimate relationship that you can ever have. That's where God calls His friend. Jesus says that in John, where He calls His friend.
I think that is probably one of the most important things that I would really like people to understand is that you are a friend of Jesus. He's your BFF and your bestie for all of those out there who need that to know. He's there all the time. He never leaves you.
Sometimes you don't feel Him. But if you look back through your struggles, I remember when I got divorced, I saw a plaque on my wall, the footprints in the sand. My prayer at that time was, Jesus, you better be carrying me now. He did. It was hard to see in the time, but He did.
In hindsight, He carried me through the whole thing. That is the relationship that I didn't learn about when I was young and going to church. I've heard many, many people echo that. Maybe our parents' generation, they wouldn't have been as emotive. We'll talk about Jesus. I meet people that are our age, and we'll say, Man, the Lord is so good, and Jesus is so real in my life.
Our parents' generation, at least the grown-ups that I was around coming up, a lot of them were born-again believers, but they wouldn't have been as demonstrative, or they wouldn't have talked about it as freely as you and I might do. Why do you think that was? Why do you think that even those that had a relationship with Jesus, they really kept it under wraps almost? Why do you think that was?
I think there may have been some fear involved where people, it wasn't mainstream, but I think there may have been fear involved. I was just thinking about my dad, who passed away a couple years ago, and his relationship. I really didn't know what it really was until somebody spoke the night before his funeral about my dad saying, Only what really matters is Jesus. I never heard my dad say that, ever.
When I heard that, I was just awestruck. One thing I believe that we do not understand about Jesus and God, the Trinity, is that God speaks to us in our language, and He relates to us the way we can relate to Him. My dad was a plumber, pipe-fitter, welder, very blue-collar, and so I'm sure Jesus related to him in that fashion. For me, He relates to me through nature, because I love being outside. He relates to me through science, and every time I have to go deep into biochemistry, I'm looking at the processes and just going, Holy buckets, God, what you created in the human body is unfathomable. I can't even explain it. It just blows my mind. God speaks to us in those ways, when He knows for sure that we will hear Him.
Yeah, I think you're completely right. The Bible says that Jesus is the name above all names. I want to quote in Acts 17, 27, very famously, Paul is at Mars Hill, and he says to all the philosophers at the Areopagus, he says, You know, this God that you don't know about, you've even got an altar to the unknown God. Well, this God, I'm going to explain Him to you, and he begins to talk about Jesus.
And I love it. In Acts 17, 27, the Apostle Paul says, You know, people seek after Him, though He be not far from any of us. And speak, if you would, to the nearness of God, to everybody listening. Look, maybe you're a firm believer, or maybe you're not even sure, or maybe you think you've sinned too much, and maybe God couldn't love you anymore.
He does love you. But Paul's word that God is not far, and we often say this, Mona, Jesus is as close by as a prayer. But if you would, speak to what you've learned about the nearness of God.
Well, I'll speak to that with an example. I was hiking with my dog a few years ago, and she was getting a bit old, and it was about a seven-mile hike round trip, and we were nearing the end. And I noticed that she wasn't doing very well, and she eventually just laid down, and she didn't go, and it scared the daylights out of me. And I was talking with her, and I knew I had about a mile to go.
One patch was pretty rough, and I couldn't carry her. And you know, she was a bigger dog anyway. And I get her to walk about 25 yards, and she laid down again, and my prayer was simply, Jesus, I need help.
And through tears, I was like, that was the only thing I could get out. And about 10 to 15 minutes into, you know, praying that and walking and stopping with her, a man walked by and asked if she was okay, and I said, I don't know. And he said, will she let me carry her?
And I said, I think so. And he carried her on and off the rest of the way down to my car. Oh, wow. And his name happened to be Michael, and I'm like, oh my gosh, it's the angel. Wow. If that is not a living example of the nearness of Jesus, I don't know what is, because this is what I mean by he cares about the details of your life.
He cared about me getting my dog off that mountain. Yeah. And our safety, and her safety. And he sent this guy to help carry her down. Yeah.
Like, how much closer can you be? Well, you know, one of my favorite verses, and I've shared this with a lot of people, and you know, Mona, I quote a lot of verses, because I'm sure you would concur. The Bible is our roadmap for life. The Bible is God's love letter to the human race. But Matthew 6, verse 8 says that God knows what we need even before we ask. Isn't that a great promise? And I want to say to everybody, and we've got to take a break, folks, hang tight. We're talking with Mona, Rosine, Hellbent, and Heavenward. But it is true, folks. It's God the Father who loves you, who even likes you.
He knows what you need even before you ask, Matthew 6, verse 8. Stay tuned. We've got a brief break. We're going to come back and continue with Mona, Rosine, Hellbent, and Heavenward.com is her website. Stay tuned after this break.
We're back. Fox News and CNN call Alex McFarland a religion and culture expert. Stay tuned for more of his teaching and commentary after this. In the midst of a culture obsessed with relativism, Alex is a sound voice who speaks timeless truths of Christianity in a timely way. With 18 published books to his name, it's no surprise that CNN, Fox, the Wall Street Journal, and other media outlets have described Alex as a religion and culture expert. To learn more about Alex and to book him as a speaker at your next event, visit alexmcfarland.com or you can contact us directly by emailing booking at alexmcfarland.com.
He's been called trusted, truthful, and timely. Welcome back to The Alex McFarland Show. Welcome back to the program. We're going to continue in just a moment, but I want to thank everybody who's been praying for our youth camps. As we record this, we are in the second of seven summer youth camps, our Truth for a New Generation ministry. You know, we do events, publishing, broadcasting, and for 25 years we've done camps. And during the summer of 2024, we'll have about 1200 youth in seven summer camps, and already we've had nearly a hundred young people pray to accept Christ as their Savior.
They're discovering how to study the Bible for themselves, and they're learning that God has a plan for their life. Now for those that make the camps possible, our conferences, our literature publishing and distribution, our campus clubs, the viral Truth Clubs for young people, and this radio show and so many other things, they are the partners of Alex McFarland Ministries. I want to say thank you so much, and if you are a partner, please continue to support. If you're not yet a regular supporter, please consider linking arms with us and donating.
All deductions are tax deductible, and we have a board, we have two different accounting firms that oversee the bookkeeping, everything. We try to receive it gratefully, handle it faithfully and fruitfully. So if you would go to my website, which is alexmcfarland.com, you can give securely online. There's a button, donate now.
Please, if you would, become a monthly contributor. Or if you want to mail a check-in, you can just simply make a check-out to TNG, as in Truth for a New Generation. Mail it to P.O.
Box 10231, Greensboro, North Carolina 27404. And please know that we consider ourselves partners in the gospel, and we thank you for your support. Well, somebody who is just, in my opinion, a very powerful representative of the gospel is Mona Rosin.
She's the author of Hellbent and Heavenward. And Mona, first of all, thanks for being with us on the show, and thanks for your great witness for the gospel. In the previous segment, you were talking about the fact that Jesus understands and speaks to us in a language that we can relate to.
You know, the book of Hebrews says that we can come boldly to God's throne of grace because He was tempted in all points like we, yet without sin. If you would speak to the listeners about the fact that Jesus, yes, He legitimately understands what we feel, what we're going through, and He cares. And even better yet, He's in a position to intervene and do something about it. He really understands us, doesn't He? He does, and I think it's always been a struggle for me as a scientist to understand, like, what is the difference between the thoughts in my head versus perhaps, you know, Jesus speaking to me? And as I did some of my research on that, I was told by somebody that, you know, He speaks in your language, and He speaks in your tone so that you understand. So it's likely that what you're thinking, some of it, not 100% of it, but some of it is God speaking to you. And when I have had thoughts that are random, and when I've been like praying in quiet time and I'm trying to listen, and I find it harder to listen when I try to listen versus if I go out for a bike ride, He speaks to me more on my bike than He does when I'm actually sitting in quiet time.
So He knows where I hear Him, I guess. And I'll get a thought that is just random and He, and I'll know it. I'll be like, yeah, that's God. And the other thing where I know, I think, where I really trust it is God is if I can get, I usually get emotional. If I hear something, then there's an emotion that follows it that I'm like, yeah, that's Him.
That's not me. You know, I've found that a lot of men, they understand that God is the maker of all things. But folks, whether it's like Mona, with your background in science, the human body is so infinitely intricate that, you know, I've talked to many doctors and medical professionals who said that they were just in awe of the intricacies of the human body, and they later found God the Creator and Jesus the Savior. Maybe somebody listening is, you know, bent toward the arts. And I mean, you might be moved by the beautiful story of salvation, and how God sent His Son to be our Savior. But whatever your language is, whether it's, you know, reflective or investigative or you're curious or you're, you know, given toward beauty, and what could be more beautiful than God's creation and our ability to know the Creator.
But this is so important. Whoever you are, you need to know that God is speaking to you even now. You know, hey, Mona, you might laugh at this. So I was on the road speaking, and I was in Arkansas, and I was in this hotel. And the proprietor of the hotel was from India and was a Hindu. And we were talking about the gospel, and I was sharing about the love of Jesus. And every time I would go through the lobby, he would flag me down with more and more Bible questions. And, you know, and I could tell he was getting close to the point of, you know, maybe being open to Jesus Christ. And he looked up at the ceiling as if looking toward the sky. He said, you know, many times I've called out, God, if you're real, send some way that I can know more about you, you know, but he doesn't answer me. And I said, well, I'm not much, but he sent you a Baptist preacher. And the guy looked, he was like, you're right, you're right. Anyway, but to everybody listening, God is closer than you might imagine, folks.
He really is. And it just might be that little pull in your heart and that little voice you are sensing. Jesus is calling to you right now. Mona, can somebody turn to Jesus anytime, any day?
Yeah, I absolutely believe that. And when you were talking earlier about, you know, that Hindu, like, God sent me something. I remember when I was going back to church, you know, before I did finally cultivate my relationship with God, when I was in my 20s, and every car in front of me had the little fish sign, I swear, everywhere I drove, I had this fish sign. And I thought, okay, that's God's sense of humor. You know, it's like, let's make sure that she sees this and understands, you know, and right now, it's, I can pray for God, just send me something. And, and a lot of it for me is out in nature and seeing God in nature. And sunflowers are one of my biggest flowers that I see God in all the time. I love, I love the cover of your book. Thank you.
You know, I'm a farm boy from North Carolina, Mona. And you know, it's, it's always fascinating, no matter how you plant a seed, it will grow upward, and it will turn toward the sun, the S-U-N, you know, and aren't we humans, even though we struggle against it, perhaps sometimes, we are bent toward the S-O-N, we are bent toward the sun, aren't we? Yeah, absolutely. And it's, we follow the sun, S-O-N, all the time.
It, whether we know it or not, I think our hearts are pulled in that direction all the time. And, you know, with the sunflower, using that analogy, their heads, the sunflower heads will follow the sun throughout the entire day. Oh, wow. And I just think that's amazing. We need to do the same thing.
Yeah. You know, they, you can plant them one direction, and then they will eventually turn their face to the sun. And I always use that as an analogy of S-O-N, they're turning their face to Jesus, and I need to do the same. You saying that about the sunflowers reminds me of Psalm 19 that says, The heavens and earth bear witness to the glory of God.
Creation points to the Creator. But one last thing, and I want you to speak to this, because I think a lot of people almost have to give themselves permission to believe that God loves them. And I've talked to a lot of people, Mona, we've done evangelistic crusades in two dozen maximum security prisons. I've been at the altar praying with men that are broken over how sin has come into their life, and they've been willing participants, and a lot of people in a lot of contexts. But I think sometimes people almost have to give themselves permission to be at peace or to believe that Jesus still loves them and Jesus is still there. We've only got a little while, I wish we had another hour, but talk to the person who wants to believe, who deep in their soul they're thinking, yeah, I would love to have the love of Jesus in my life. And it's almost like they just feel like they can't give themselves permission to go there.
Speak about the reality that they can, and the love of Jesus is available if they would open up to it. I'll take it from the perspective of a little girl where, you know, crawling up into your dad's lap is pretty comforting. But I look at it as a little girl crawling up into the lap of God. And he is just waiting there with his arms open for you to come up and sit in his lap. And he is the lifter of our heads. It says that in Psalms three, I believe he lifts our heads when we're down.
And so there's somebody out there who doesn't feel that they could have the love of Jesus or even know what that feels like in that intimate relationship. Just crawl into his lap. He's waiting there with his arms wide open for you.
And he is just simply saying, baby girl, you're OK. Let's do it different. For your book, information about your work, and then you as a speaker, you're available to speak. Give us the website one more time. It's hellbentandheavenword.com. Mona Rosin, you're eloquent. You're inspiring. I appreciate your time today, folks. Remember, Jesus is as close by as a prayer. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you again on the next edition of The Alex McFarland Show.
