For some of us, personal finances aren't just personal. They include loved ones, neighbors, the communities we call home, and the causes we hold in our hearts. At Thrivent, planning your finances is bigger than just money. We help you put your plans into motion and faith into action so you can do more for the ones in your heart.
Because sometimes, all you need to make a difference is someone to help you make it happen. Thrivent, where money means more. Connect with us at Thrivent.com. Life Audio. Hi, from the Salvation Army, you're listening to Words of Life.
Welcome back to Words of Life. This is now our second week in a five-week series with our friend, Dr. Carolyn Moore. Last week, we learned about her background, her education, and when she first heard the call to ministry. As we were planning this year, 2025, we wanted to kind of zoom out as far as conversations that we have about our faith and start with the question, who is God? And then move into, with that knowledge, who am I? And then with that knowledge, who are they? Who are those around us? And how do we care for a world in desperate need of hope and the gospel of Jesus Christ?
And so we started this three-part conversation with Dr. Craig Keener, and that series began on February 23rd. He has an incredibly interesting view and take just on the world and our faith in general. He spent the first part of his life as an atheist until he had an incredible encounter with God and gave himself to Christ. He's now a prolific writer, professor, teacher, and doing amazing things for the kingdom. Now we're moving into a question of then, okay, if there is a God, and this is who the Bible says he is, who am I?
And how does God see me? So we brought this question to Dr. Moore and she and Bernie have a great conversation about this today. There's no place like Israel, rich in history, culture, and spiritual significance. From walking through ancient Jerusalem to floating in the Dead Sea or experiencing Tel Aviv's modern energy, it's a destination like no other. While I haven't visited yet, I've heard how life-changing it is. Now more than ever, we stand with Israel and pray for peace. I look forward to exploring its beauty one day.
Learn more at goisrael.com. Welcome back to Words of Life. I'm Bernie Dake and we are privileged again to have Dr. Carolyn Moore with us in our second installment. Welcome.
Thank you very much. I want to know how God sees me. How does God see you, Dr. Carolyn Moore? That's an interesting way to pose that question in two different ways because I mean, there's the theological, how does God see me? And then there's what I'm doing right now and how he's working through my life. I'll start with that, but I want to come back to the theological piece.
Of course. For the last four months, I have been serving as a bishop in the Global Methodist Church. It's such a shift to go from being a local pastor in a small local church in a side town in Georgia to being globally focused all the time. There's two kinds of bishops in the world. There's residential where bishops are.
They live in the area they serve in and they're just responsible for that area. And then there's general bishops and that means you itinerate the way Francis Asbury did and Thomas Coke. You go all over the place and you're sort of responsible for the whole. That's the kind of bishops that serve the Global Methodist Church. So there's eight of us and we serve the whole world.
I have areas of responsibility in the United States and I have areas of responsibility on two other continents and then the Philippines. So I'm all over the world, but what's amazing really in this tiny bit of time that I've had to reorient toward a global worldview, I would say it's not so much how God sees me as how I am beginning to see God and beginning to see how He works all over the world. There are so many questions stirring in my spirit all the time.
What if this is cultural and what if this is biblical or not biblical? I've learned a lot. I maintain my relationships with the Salvation Army because you guys are in 135 countries, I think. So you get it.
As salvationists, you get it that Christ is the same Jesus in every single culture, but He might wear different dress. And so how do you navigate that? This is all very new for me. And so I'm just really getting my sort of a huge education right now on what it means to pray for God's kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven, meaning the whole globe. So that's where I am now. But the other way of looking at that question is how does God see me? How does God see me as a human being? There's the biblical answer as a beloved child. Am I a child or am I a servant?
Well, I think what God wants from all of us is that we move from thinking of ourselves, especially Christians, thinking of ourselves as servants to thinking of ourselves as children of God. I mentioned in the last episode that there was this gap of time from the end of my high school years until I came back to Christ in my late 20s. When I really kind of went off the rails, my life was rough. When I walked away from the call, I ended up walking away from the faith and I just sowed all my wild oats, all of them. And then when I ran out of my wild oats, I borrowed other people's wild oats.
Five siblings. I had acres of oats and it went on well past college. I got married in that time, but we were just hanging on by a thread because we weren't following Jesus and we had nothing to root us. And it was in my late 20s, 28, 29 years old when I finally came back to Christ and then came back to that call. And I remember where I was. I was sitting in my bedroom. We had a child. We had two cars. We had a house.
We had jobs. And I was asking God, so is this it? Is this all there is to life?
Is this where you start just doing the middle-class thing for the rest of your life? And I heard the Lord say, just say yes. In that intervening, there were 17 years between the time I first heard God's call at 13, this is where you belong. And that moment when I was there with Jesus in my bedroom, sitting on the floor of my bedroom, I was immediately aware that from God's perspective, all those intervening years, the wandering and not knowing and being unsure in my teenage years, the walking right off the deep end in my late teens and 20s, walking away from the faith pretty much completely, from God's perspective, it was, I'm just waiting for you to say yes. All the problems, all the sins for Him, all of that was doable because of Jesus.
None of this is irreparable because we have Jesus. So if you just say yes, we'll get your life back on the right track and then you will see how you've been designed to live. That was a remarkable moment for me to realize that I could let go of all the shame. How does God see me? God actually does see me as one for whom Christ died, a beloved child and He is for me, not against me. Even when I am at my worst, God is still for me and He is not nearly as afraid of my pain as I am. He's not as afraid of my sin as I am. He's born all of it and He lived to talk about it.
So there's nothing He can't handle that's in my life. Our producer was pouring through your Bible study and pulled out a quote that is really great. The Bible study is called Encounter the Father. And there you say, discover the freedom that comes in the revelation that your heavenly Father calls you His own. And you mentioned it, you know, there's this way that you can look at it that we're children of God or we called to be His servants. I think for me, when I imagine who might be hearing this, listeners, there is a freedom in God calling us His own.
But in your case, He kept calling you to Him. Is that how you see that? Well that's very Wesleyan. Prevenient grace. Wesley did the body of Christ such a favor and he systematized grace. He helped us to understand it.
And it's not really meant to be a linear process, but there are these seasons that we may revisit even. Prevenient grace, it's the hound of heaven coming after me even before I know His name. And justifying grace, that moment that I stand at the threshold and acknowledge that there is a God and I'm not Him, that Jesus is Lord and I'm not.
And then sanctifying grace, everything inside the house where I come to understand all that God has designed me for and as well as the means of grace, the ongoing ways in which I can draw closer and closer to God, all the way to perfecting grace where I actually believe I can be made perfect and love in this life as I follow God into the deep and allow Him to sanctify me more and more. And so yeah, there is this calling, this draw that I believe is on every human being's life, every human being in the world is being drawn by God. It's why the only religion, and I'm going to call it a religion, in the whole world that is declining is atheism. It's because every other religion, whether they understand that Jesus is Lord and Savior is or not, there is something drawing us, calling us, telling us there is something bigger than you, something bigger than me. Silence is deadly on a podcast, but I need to sit in that for a moment. The fact that you just said atheism is the religion, quote unquote, that's declining, is making me excited to think that God is not done with the evangelistic side of who, I mean, I'm a part of the Salvation Army, we're very evangelical people by nature, and that just makes me excited to think about.
No, we know how the story ends. So we know that the Holy Spirit is constantly at work calling people to Himself, constantly at work. And one day, Philippians 2 tells us, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, amen. There's no place like Israel, rich in history, culture and spiritual significance. From walking through ancient Jerusalem to floating in the Dead Sea or experiencing Tel Aviv's modern energy, it's a destination like no other. While I haven't visited yet, I've heard how life changing it is. Now more than ever, we stand with Israel and pray for peace. I look forward to exploring its beauty one day.
Learn more at goisrael.com. Dr. Mora, I'm so grateful that you're making time for us and just to hear your perspective away from the short time that we got to hear you preach and really present your view of God and that relationship that's just bubbling out of you, which is evident. The gospel is worth getting excited about.
Amen. It is the best story. It is the best story. Well, I hope that our listeners are getting some of that excitement too, and that they're wanting to dive in deeper to that story for themselves.
And then ultimately, for the salvation of the world for others, because wherever you are, God can use you. I hope you'll come back. There's more episodes to come. We are so glad that you joined us. Well, I really hope you're enjoying getting to know Dr. Carolyn Moore. The thing that definitely stuck out to me in this episode is her view of and how honest she is and talking about the years that she really kind of stepped away from the faith. And in God's eyes, he was just waiting for her to say yes. And I have a similar story as far as spending my early twenties walking away from the faith for some time.
And it's hard now to be on the other side of that and not lament time lost. So I really appreciate Dr. Moore's healthy view of this through God's eyes, that he's just there just waiting, just saying, you know, as soon as you're ready, let's go. So I really hope this spoke to you. And if you have a similar story as well, that it gave you permission to give yourself grace as we're just learning to walk with God.
So join us next week as we continue these conversations with our friend, Dr. Carolyn Moore. salvationarmy.org. The Salvation Army's mission, doing the most good means helping people with material and spiritual needs. You become a part of this mission every time you give to the Salvation Army. Visit salvationarmyusa.org to offer your support. You can subscribe to Words of Life on your favorite podcast store or visit salvationarmysoundcast.org. Join us next time for the Salvation Army's Words of Life. Thanks so much for listening to Words of Life. We want to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the show. Visit lifeaudio.com where you'll find dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They have shows about prayer, Bible studying, parenting, and more. Thanks again for listening.
We'll see you next time. For some of us, personal finances aren't just personal. They include loved ones, neighbors, the communities we call home, and the causes we hold in our hearts. At Thrivent, planning your finances is bigger than just money. We help you put your plans into motion and faith into action so you can do more for the ones in your heart. Because sometimes all you need to make a difference is someone to help you make it happen. Thrivent, where money means more.
Connect with us at thrivent.com. I found myself on a ledge three stories high at some condominiums, contemplating my life and struggling to understand my purpose. Have you ever found yourself on the ledge? My name is Billy Ant. I'm a caring father, mentor, and friend in my new podcast, Billy and the Goat. I share the life-changing events that shaped who I am today to remind you that no matter how far you've fallen, God can help you get up and thrive. Listen now at lifeaudio.com.
