Transcribed by Jeff Fenske from this Chuck Crismier’s Viewpoint interview. (Audio Archives)

Good stuff!

07-30-2009 AFTER GOD’S OWN HEART Keys to restoring your passion for God w/ Mike Bickle Listen Save

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Chuck Crismier:

“Wouldn’t it be neat if God said: ‘John or Mary or Suzi or whatever your name has to be, you are a man or a woman after My heart.”

“Here’s the reality. [And these figures are probably low – editor]

On any given Sunday morning, 50% or so of the pastors and people in the pulpits and pews of America are either adulterers or fornicators according to biblical standards. Yet they’re jumping and clapping and praising the Lord and preaching.

Do they have true passion toward God or are they playing a game?”

.Mike Bickle:

“No, that’s playing a game.”

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Chuck on “paralyzed passion”:

“We’ve got a passion problem with Jesus. We’ve got more passion to restore the American dream than we have to restore the love of our lives.”

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Chuck:

“People will quote Romans 8 and they’ll say: ‘well there’s no condemnation in them that are in Christ Jesus.’ And so anybody who brings a message of wooing, of warning, of correction, of a call to righteousness, of a call to repentance is said to be bringing a message of condemnation.

So it’s impossible under that kind of thinking to bring people back into righteousness that paves the way for passion.

Mike:

That’s absolutely right.

Chuck:

And yet if people are receiving the word of correction which comes by the conviction of the Holy Spirit, but when they hear it they reject it, then they necessarily open the door to the condemner of their souls, which is Satan, himself, and they’re going to walk in condemnation, aren’t they?”

Mike:

“I think the key thought to me is that there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ who repent.”

Chuck:

“And who walk according to the Spirit.”

Mike:

“Who are living in agreement with the Holy Spirit….”

Romans 8

1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who don’t walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death. 3 For what the law couldn’t do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh; 4 that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. 6 For the mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace; 7 because the mind of the flesh is hostile towards God; for it is not subject to God’s law, neither indeed can it be. 8 Those who are in the flesh can’t please God.

9 But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if it is so that the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if any man doesn’t have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his. 10 If Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11 But if the Spirit of him who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised up Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.

12 So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. 13 For if you live after the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are children of God. 15 For you didn’t receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God; 17 and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ; if indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified with him.

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Chuck:

“If pastors were more focused on letting the beauty of Jesus be seen in them, as the song goes, we wouldn’t have 37% or so of our pastors involved in pornography.”

Mike:

“When our heart is not fascinated with Him, then we end up spiritually bored. And a spiritually bored person is vulnerable to all kinds … to the arrows of darkness striking our hearts.”

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Chuck:

“If you look at the church today, if you look at the statistics for the last 25 years in the broader evangelical church of today, you would have to conclude that in fact there is no functional difference between the life and attitudes and behavior and values of professing American Christians and that of their secular counterparts.

Both religious and secular polls have proven that point for at least 20 years.”

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25 years is long enough to lose a country.
– Jeff Fenske