December 17, 2024 • 27 mins
Many believe that faith creates problem-free situations if we will only believe for them. Is this what God does, or does He do something else within those who believe in Him? Join Apostle Dr. Lee Ann Marino live at Sanctuary International Fellowship Tabernacle - SIFT (Charlotte, North Carolina) for a study on the idea of "right now faith" and learn what God has in store for us in every situation...even the ones we despise the most. (Intro and Conclusion Track "Ready to Rock" by Yvgeniy Sorokin, https://pixabay.com/users/eugenemyers-40510887/. Empire Transport Track "The Beauty of Green Legends" by DTXN1,https://pixabay.com/users/dtxn1-42017842/.)
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Are you ready to enlarge your territory?
(00:06):
Empire Transport is ready willing and able to cover all your transportation needs both
long haul and local.
We serve all South Carolina throughout the southeastern United States and across the
country.
Sound good?
In addition to freight hauling, Empire Transport also offers a 24/7 taxi service in South
Carolina and the Greater Charlotte area and a mobile mechanic service where we come to
(00:31):
you.
Empire Transport, your go-to for freight hauls, taxi service and mobile mechanic work.
Learn more at empiretransport.co.
Come in and large your territory with us.
Welcome to Kingdom Now, the podcast featuring Faith with an Edge.
(00:54):
As we celebrate the Kingdom of God within you.
I am your host, Dr. Lee Ann Marino, apostle, author, podcaster, professor and theologian,
and founder of Spitfire Apostolic Ministries and all the works that go along with it.
I am excited to share this program with you as we explore the ins and outs of counterculture
(01:16):
Christianity present as you live out the Kingdom of God in your everyday life.
And to learn more, visit my website at www.kingdompowernow.org.
And now, our program, which features a variety of formats here, just for you.
Interviews on a variety of relative topics, teaching and preaching proclaimed everywhere from
(01:39):
my North Carolina studio to sanctuary and beyond.
And powerful insights here for now as we turn the world upside down everywhere we go.
Well, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, heavy whatever time of day it is wherever
(02:01):
you are.
And two hour listeners in Nepal, we say, Namaskar.
We hope that whatever time of day it is when you are listening that you are having a good
one.
And I welcome you to this edition of the Kingdom Now podcast.
And I am your host, Apostle Dr. Lee Ann Marino here as the Spitfire serving as the voice of counterculture
Christianity where we feature the theme of faith with an edge.
(02:22):
And if you would like to learn more about the world of counterculture Christianity, feel
free to visit my website at www.kingdompowernow.org.
This edition of the Kingdom Now podcast was recorded October 6, 2024 at Sanctuary International
Fellowship Tabernacle in Charlotte, North Carolina.
And is my message titled Right Now Faith.
I hope that it is a blessing to you.
(02:45):
If you would like to learn more about sanctuary, feel free to visit our website at www.welcomeinthisplace.org.
Okay, and we should be live.
Okay, so we are good.
Hey live, don't go unlive on me because I need this recording.
Okay, so before we get started, let's pray, Father and Jesus name we thank you for our
(03:08):
day and we thank you for the gift of our faith because we do recognize that the spiritual
gift and for all the things that you're kind of revealing through it and we ask that you
be with us through this message in Jesus Name, amen.
Okay, so Right Now Faith is the title of this message and this was actually a message by
request because I was going to talk about Assyria not being able to save us.
(03:32):
I was going to talk about idolatry, which I'm actually going to talk about anyway.
But you know, you know we had to get in there somehow.
I had to have an idolatry in some way, shape or form, but we're talking about the concept
of right now, Faith and I'm going to actually be teaching on it in a way that is not the way
that it's typically taught or understood, which sounds exactly like it.
(03:52):
So whenever we hear the term right now, Faith, that tends to have a very specific connotation
to us.
And one of the things that we actually have talked about when we've talked about witchcraft,
when we've talked about idolatry, particularly in the context of demonology, which thank God
we're almost done with for the year, probably have one more after this month, we probably
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have another class and then we're probably going to be done with it and then you guys could
do the homework and then we can start torturing you with something else next year.
But when it comes to the idea of things, when we talk about witchcraft and we talk about
all the evolution of all that stuff, does anybody remember something that I said is the basic
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reason for why all those things start to emerge?
Well it is manipulation that does relate to it.
So and I'm going to work on that because that's actually along the right lines.
So whether you're a believer or you're not a believer, okay?
Whether you're somebody sitting somewhere that never goes to church and insists you don't
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believe in God or you're somebody who's in church on Sunday every week and you're shouting
to all the songs and you've got all these different understandings and beliefs and love
to be in the Bible and you're aat Bible study every week.
Whether or not that's you or you're the other person or you're somewhere in the middle because
I would say most people are somewhere in the middle.
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You have the hardest challenge that's the same.
It is the same whether you are way over here or way over there or way in the middle.
And that is what we're going to call acceptance.
So when we're Christians we have hope and that is what separates us from people who do not
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believe in this vein.
So in other words, even though maybe everything isn't the way that we want it to be right now,
we have the hope that God will eventually whether in this life for the next, basically kind
of make everything right.
But you still struggle with acceptance.
But maybe your family situation isn't the way that you like.
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Maybe your job isn't the way that you like.
Maybe you don't have enough money or the amount of money that you want.
Maybe you're always dealing with different things or different emotional states or have mental
health issues or have chronic medical issues or something of that nature right now.
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And you have to deal with that reality every day whether you like it or not.
And whether you are a Christian or not a Christian, you still are faced with the right
now.
You are faced with the issue of dealing with and accepting the reality of what is.
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Now we believe and we know and most of the time when people talk about right now faith,
they talk about the idea of suddenly or a breakthrough or that God can change anything in a second.
And God can change anything in a second.
I believe that God can make anything different at any time that God so desires to make different
at any time.
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I don't believe that God is bound by us being in turns or in line or some of this crazy
things that people come up with now where they go, you're next in line for a miracle, there's
no line.
There's no line at the miracles, this is not some sort of corralling order.
God does what God does when God does it.
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And when God does things, it proves that God is God.
It's not really done because we're stellar people or we have more faith than everybody else
or we're better than everyone else.
And sometimes we do give that impression that we get our miracle because we have enough
faith for it and somebody else didn't have enough faith for it and so they didn't get
their miracle.
And when we embody those ideas, this is what happens, you get one of three outcomes.
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Either people feel they didn't have enough faith and they walk away all together.
You have people who just kind of think that maybe they're not doing it right and this is
not for them.
Or you have the people who just kind of look over it all and are going to press in that
much harder and that much firmer and still maybe not get what they're getting at.
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But everybody has the issue of acceptance and common.
Everybody has the problem that you're not necessarily getting what you want when you want
it because God is not a magic trick.
And that's why it says this is not about us.
Our faith, we are saved by grace through faith.
This is not about us having enough faith.
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This is not about us showing off our faith.
This is not about our works because if it is, then it wouldn't be about God.
So this is not a reward.
This is not God is a magic trick in the sky and we know the right formula and the right
words to speak and we just call it all down from heaven and everything works like that.
I'm going to tell you as somebody who's been in ministry for all these years, I don't
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think that there is any particular formula or science or guesswork for why stuff happens.
When it happens, why it does, except that's the time it's supposed to happen.
And I don't have an answer beyond that.
And I know that that's not satisfactory.
I understand that that's not really what we like.
I mean, if we look out over a lot of the movements over the past 100, 200 years, a lot of them
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are trying to somehow assign some sort of scientific method or research or application to
divine things and it doesn't work.
It doesn't work.
I could sit up here and speak all the wrong words and have something great happen to tomorrow
or I could not have something great happen tomorrow.
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But it's not dependent on me and it's not dependent on my faith level or the right kind of faith
or the wrong kind of faith or anything of that nature in order to bring it about because
it's not about me.
Jesus did not heal every person on the planet while he was down here.
He could have, but he didn't because it proved who he was.
That's why he did it.
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His goal was not to eradicate all the problems of humanity.
And we don't like dealing with that when we start to get down to the right now faith
because God is not responsible to fix all our problems.
He is not responsible to come down and change everything about our circumstances so we
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like our lives better.
And we were talking about that today when we were talking about Assyria and we talked about
that off camera.
Some of the different things and the different issues that pertained to that, the amount
of war that people saw and poverty and relocation and watching their family members die
and stuff we don't think about all the time and God did not just rapture everybody out of
(10:43):
those problems.
And so that's an unrealistic expectation that we're going to just have things because
we want them because we think God ought to do it for us as some kind of treat or reward
or trick because God is not a magic trick.
And sometimes I think God does not move like we might like him to because he's not a magic
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trick.
Because if we just got everything all the time that we wanted from God based on our vein
and very, very bad theologies then that would set a very bad precedent.
It would be idolatry and we would think about something Paul Tillich said that any God who
would let us prove existence is an idol.
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It's one thing if God wants to reveal himself, it's one thing if God proves himself all on
his own but it is a whole other thing if we are expecting God to do something in that vein
and prove himself to us on that kind of a level.
It's not faith anymore then.
It's not what it's about.
And so yeah I believe that God can do miracle and God can change situations around and I'm
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going to tell you straight up he does do it and he does it all the time and it's usually
right when it has to be done.
He is not early as people often say they go, "Oh God it's never late.
Oh God is also not really early because God is not on our timetable."
And our goal with faith is supposed to make us start to view things from more of an
eternal perspective rather than us being on our little marching timetables down here
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to always get all these petty little things that we want and we think that we should have
all the time and it doesn't work like that.
And so what about the thing that we have that we have to accept that we don't want to accept?
There is an awful lot of miracles I think that happen and maybe the biggest one is the
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idea of acceptance is that sometimes things just are and maybe God gives us the faith
to walk through those things and that's the miracle that we all don't want.
We want the miracle to be rescued out.
We want the miracle to not have the issue anymore.
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We want to not have the problem anymore but what we don't recognize is that sometimes
God leaves us in situations that we cannot change because He wants to change us.
The Israelites were left in the situations that they were in because they needed to change.
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They needed to change their attitude.
They needed to change their thinking.
They needed to do certain things and they weren't doing it and if God just said, okay, if
God just gentle parented these Israelites and just gave them their way all the time, that
would be the result.
But what happens is we don't really get what we want a lot of times from God.
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And so the answer is that we're going to try to take control and that's where things
like witchcraft and idolatry come in.
So what is idolatry?
I'm going to tell you straight up.
The biblical idols and the Bible says that the idols are nothing.
They're not real.
They're imagined what they are and if we understand it properly and if you start reading
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like some of the prophets in particular, I'm thinking Jeremiah and Isaiah it talks about
that you're fashioning these gods with your own hands and then you're bowing down and worshiping
them.
In other words, there are things that we create.
There are the things that we create, the things of this world.
Paul talks about the creature rather than the creator.
In other words, whereby proxy through them, worshiping ourselves.
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We're worshipping what we're able to create because that's more comfortable and that's
exactly what they did.
So I've said this before, I don't really think that the Israelites woke up one morning because
they were bored and that they said, I'm going to go worship an idol today.
This is slow.
I'm going to go right in my diary, dear diary.
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I'm going to walk the cows down to the hill.
Hey, walk the cat down the hill.
Why not?
Okay.
Yeah, just get him.
Walk the cows down the hill, got them some water, looked out over some flocks, bowed down
to an idol, great day.
You know, one of the best.
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That's not what you don't do.
No, I don't do that.
Okay, you know, I don't really think that that was their intention.
But the idols over time became more comfortable than the God where they had to deal with and
accept who they were as people.
It was more comfortable to go chase after the rain and to chase after the corn that they
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could grow themselves and to chase after some fire deity that circles the equator and once
every once it's children to be fed to them.
And, you know, it was a lot easier to chase something fake and then justify that you're
chasing something fake.
Well, now we can marry with those people over there and we can share territory and they're
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not going to attack me in my land now because I gave them my daughter and my cow, which
is how marriage was done back then, you know, or we're going to kind of join with this
family and we don't have to worry now about this invader over here because we're going
to team up and we're going to fight that.
Now, they're nice ideas.
They sound really good.
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It sounds like teamwork, like people working together, but they don't display any type of faith
in God to execute life for those people and it doesn't show any faith in the power of
God that, you know, what maybe instead of looking at everything is some sort of weird divine
sign.
We need to just say, hey, let's learn the weather patterns.
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Hey, let's understand more about nature.
Let's recognize more stuff about our environment.
Better yet, why don't we just go ask God?
I'm sure God would have said the creek just flooded.
It really had nothing to do with nothing, you know, it just the creek flooded.
You know, you have a lot of rain.
You've got these mountains and it funneled and, you know, it's got nothing to do with anything
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else, but they all tried to come up with their own answers on their own.
And that's exactly what we do in witchraft is we're trying to somehow, by some means,
take that control back and know our future and understand the conflict between life and
eternity and death and all the different forces that we're trying to fight.
But God sometimes I believe gives us the faith for right now.
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So second Corinthians five.
And I'm reading from the NIV and this is the 84.
Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from
God and eternal house in heaven not built by human hands.
Meanwhile we groan.
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Yes we do.
So even the Bible says we complain.
Longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling because when we are clothed we will not be found
naked.
For while we are in this tent, we groan in our burden because we do not wish to be unclosed
but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling.
So that what is mortal maybe swallowed up by life?
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Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the spirit as a deposit
guaranteeing what is to come.
So in other words he's talking about the concept that of being absent with the body and being
present with the Lord which is actually in the next section that we're going to read.
But he's in other words saying that right now we're down here.
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We're not up there and up there might be more desirable because our bodies don't decay
and we don't have problems and we don't deal with the results of sin which is why we
have decay in our bodies to begin with.
And yada yada yada.
We don't deal with other people in the negative context in heaven and we're not fighting our
histories and we're not trying to transform and become new people.
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We're basically in heaven with the Lord.
We have taken off this mortality.
We have taken off flesh and we are dwelling totally in the spirit.
But he says for now he's given us the spirit as a deposit.
So in mortal flesh we have something that gives and promises hope for that other time.
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We have something that gets us through right now because in the first century the first
century believers were right now people.
They really literally believed Jesus could come at any time and they were waiting for that
and they were very, very imminent and they were, I would say apocalyptically but
it was not in the context of these crazy people who are hoarding food and guns and playing
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army out in the desert because they think that the American government is going to come
and attack them and they're going to be able to fight off the American army just you
know the five or six of them.
You know more power to you I think that you know we all have, we all either are humbled
or we're all humiliated so hope you pick right.
We were talking about that this morning.
Go go for it.
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But we have to live right now in the flesh and that means we have to live right now with
things we don't like.
We have to live with things that are uncomfortable and we have to accept that as part of our lives.
And this is not to say that everything that comes up is a God lesson than this is not to say
that everything that comes up is a problem but it is to say that in everything that we
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go through we can have right now face.
In everything that we're going through we can experience life in a way that makes it
so we have hope that even if God doesn't do what we're believing for we are still going
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to believe.
We think of the Hebrew three in the flames and how they said we believe God will deliver
us but even if he does it we are not going to bow down to your God.
Even if God doesn't do what we know that God can do even if he doesn't feel the need
to do it right now for us I'm still not doing what you want.
And that's an aspect of this that a perseverance that we don't have we think we need a reward.
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We think that God should reward us for faith without recognizing that faith is an essence
its own reward and we will talk about that shortly.
Therefore, verse 6 we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in
the body we are away from the Lord.
We live by faith not by sight.
We are confident I say and would prefer to be away from the body in at home with the Lord.
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So we make it our goal to please him whether we are at home in the body or away from it.
Or we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ that each one may receive what
is do him for the things done while in the body whether good or bad.
Since then we know what it is to fear the Lord we try to persuade men.
What we are is plain to God and I hope it is also plain to your conscience.
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We are not trying to commend ourselves to you again but we are giving you an opportunity
to take pride in us so that you can answer those who take pride in what is seen rather
than what is in the heart.
If we are out of our mind it is for the sake of God if we are in our right mind it is for
you.
So Jesus came into the flesh to reconcile us to God and we stay in the flesh with the
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spirit of God in us to reconcile people.
This is a ministry of reconciliation.
We are here for a purpose and we are here to do something and in the meantime we are walking
out and we are working through our faith.
So what is it saying Hebrews 11:1 that faith is the substance of things hope for the evidence
of things not seen.
That is an ontological statement which means it relates to being.
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It has to do with the being of something in this instance the being of a spiritual being.
So in other words faith is the substance.
It is the stuff.
It is what it is made up.
It is essence.
It is continuing things.
The substance of things that we hope for the things we have not yet seen the things that
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we do not yet understand the things that we have not yet experienced.
It is the evidence, the proof, the fact, the relevance of those things unseen.
So in other words faith proves itself.
It is both a substance and an essence.
It is something that is.
Just like we talk about God does not exist.
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God is.
If you study existentialism that is the premise that they go on.
God is outside of existence because in order to exist you have to be created.
So faith is a substance and it is an essence.
It proves itself.
It is its own thing.
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And we are in it in all the words because it proves automatically what we already believe
for.
You want to know what we can believe down here for wrong things.
I know that that just shocks everybody.
We can want stuff for the wrong reasons.
We can believe for things for the wrong reasons.
We can have hope that God just makes us not so uncomfortable for the wrong reasons.
(24:13):
We can believe for all sorts of different things.
But right now faith stands back and it takes a deep breath and it accepts that this is where
we are right now.
Right now we are in the flesh and right now we deal with issues and we are going to deal
with those until we die or Jesus comes back, whichever comes first.
So right now maybe I won't have this job in a year or two years.
(24:36):
But right now God has given me enough faith in order to do this job right now.
We already know the job I have I won't have in two years because it won't exist in two
years, only six months assignment.
But that's true of anybody or any job that's true of the editing that I do.
Maybe right now I have to do this but I may not have to do it in two years.
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But right now I have the faith and I have the ability to say I'm right here.
Maybe I don't live where I have to live.
Maybe my living situation isn't what I want forever.
But right now I can do this because God has given me the faith to deal with it and God has
given me the faith to do it.
Maybe right now we are believing or we are looking for something that we don't yet have.
(25:18):
But right now I can do this.
I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me which people use all sorts of different
ways but in essence Paul was talking about having a right now faith that whether he was happy
or sad or had enough or didn't have enough he could do all things through Christ to strengthen
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him.
We can do all things.
That is our right now faith that maybe it's not what we want to do.
Maybe it's absolutely the last thing that we want to do in this entire world but we can
do it because God has given us the faith to do it today.
And sometimes we have to look out at our lives and literally just take our acceptance one
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moment at a time.
And it doesn't mean we don't ever have days where we think about it or we wish it was a different
way or we don't like it because there's nothing wrong with that.
Even Paul is talking in second Corinthians about longing for heaven.
I mean that goes way beyond just having a bad day and wishing your circumstances would
change.
But right now faith, we live right now.
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We don't live chasing a miracle.
We recognize God can do one.
We recognize that God can do anything but sometimes the miracle that God really is trying
to work is within us.
Like we were talking about before we got out here the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of
prophecy that means what he did for another he can do it again.
We believe that and we believe that right now is we stand here and we know that God is
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working even though we don't always see it and even though we don't always feel it that
we can work and we can be here right now in order to make the impact that we are supposed
to for the world.
Thank you for joining us on the Kingdom Now podcast today.
I pray it is proven to be a blessing in your life.
(27:08):
To learn more about this work ask a question, submit feedback, advertise with us, be a guest
or donate to support this work as our podcast is sponsored by listeners like you.
Visit my website which contains essential information, projects and looks for other
points of contact around the web at kingdompowernow.org.
(27:33):
Also if you are in our area and would like to visit sanctuary international Fellowship
Tabernacle, visit welcomeinthisplace.org
Until next time this is Apostle dr Lee Ann Marino reminding you that the
Kingdom of God is within you and that means the Kingdom is now.
(27:55):
[MUSIC]
Are you ready to enlarge your territory?
(00:06):
Empire Transport is ready willing and able to cover all your transportation needs both
long haul and local.
We serve all South Carolina throughout the southeastern United States and across the
country.
Sound good?
In addition to freight hauling, Empire Transport also offers a 24/7 taxi service in South
Carolina and the Greater Charlotte area and a mobile mechanic service where we come to
(00:31):
you.
Empire Transport, your go-to for freight hauls, taxi service and mobile mechanic work.
Learn more at empiretransport.co.
Come in and large your territory with us.
Welcome to Kingdom Now, the podcast featuring Faith with an Edge.
(00:54):
As we celebrate the Kingdom of God within you.
I am your host, Dr. Lee Ann Marino, apostle, author, podcaster, professor and theologian,
and founder of Spitfire Apostolic Ministries and all the works that go along with it.
I am excited to share this program with you as we explore the ins and outs of counterculture
(01:16):
Christianity present as you live out the Kingdom of God in your everyday life.
And to learn more, visit my website at www.kingdompowernow.org.
And now, our program, which features a variety of formats here, just for you.
Interviews on a variety of relative topics, teaching and preaching proclaimed everywhere from
(01:39):
my North Carolina studio to sanctuary and beyond.
And powerful insights here for now as we turn the world upside down everywhere we go.
Well, good morning, good afternoon, good evening, heavy whatever time of day it is wherever
(02:01):
you are.
And two hour listeners in Nepal, we say, Namaskar.
We hope that whatever time of day it is when you are listening that you are having a good
one.
And I welcome you to this edition of the Kingdom Now podcast.
And I am your host, Apostle Dr. Lee Ann Marino here as the Spitfire serving as the voice of counterculture
Christianity where we feature the theme of faith with an edge.
(02:22):
And if you would like to learn more about the world of counterculture Christianity, feel
free to visit my website at www.kingdompowernow.org.
This edition of the Kingdom Now podcast was recorded October 6, 2024 at Sanctuary International
Fellowship Tabernacle in Charlotte, North Carolina.
And is my message titled Right Now Faith.
I hope that it is a blessing to you.
(02:45):
If you would like to learn more about sanctuary, feel free to visit our website at www.welcomeinthisplace.org.
Okay, and we should be live.
Okay, so we are good.
Hey live, don't go unlive on me because I need this recording.
Okay, so before we get started, let's pray, Father and Jesus name we thank you for our
(03:08):
day and we thank you for the gift of our faith because we do recognize that the spiritual
gift and for all the things that you're kind of revealing through it and we ask that you
be with us through this message in Jesus Name, amen.
Okay, so Right Now Faith is the title of this message and this was actually a message by
request because I was going to talk about Assyria not being able to save us.
(03:32):
I was going to talk about idolatry, which I'm actually going to talk about anyway.
But you know, you know we had to get in there somehow.
I had to have an idolatry in some way, shape or form, but we're talking about the concept
of right now, Faith and I'm going to actually be teaching on it in a way that is not the way
that it's typically taught or understood, which sounds exactly like it.
(03:52):
So whenever we hear the term right now, Faith, that tends to have a very specific connotation
to us.
And one of the things that we actually have talked about when we've talked about witchcraft,
when we've talked about idolatry, particularly in the context of demonology, which thank God
we're almost done with for the year, probably have one more after this month, we probably
(04:15):
have another class and then we're probably going to be done with it and then you guys could
do the homework and then we can start torturing you with something else next year.
But when it comes to the idea of things, when we talk about witchcraft and we talk about
all the evolution of all that stuff, does anybody remember something that I said is the basic
(04:36):
reason for why all those things start to emerge?
Well it is manipulation that does relate to it.
So and I'm going to work on that because that's actually along the right lines.
So whether you're a believer or you're not a believer, okay?
Whether you're somebody sitting somewhere that never goes to church and insists you don't
(05:00):
believe in God or you're somebody who's in church on Sunday every week and you're shouting
to all the songs and you've got all these different understandings and beliefs and love
to be in the Bible and you're aat Bible study every week.
Whether or not that's you or you're the other person or you're somewhere in the middle because
I would say most people are somewhere in the middle.
(05:21):
You have the hardest challenge that's the same.
It is the same whether you are way over here or way over there or way in the middle.
And that is what we're going to call acceptance.
So when we're Christians we have hope and that is what separates us from people who do not
(05:42):
believe in this vein.
So in other words, even though maybe everything isn't the way that we want it to be right now,
we have the hope that God will eventually whether in this life for the next, basically kind
of make everything right.
But you still struggle with acceptance.
But maybe your family situation isn't the way that you like.
(06:03):
Maybe your job isn't the way that you like.
Maybe you don't have enough money or the amount of money that you want.
Maybe you're always dealing with different things or different emotional states or have mental
health issues or have chronic medical issues or something of that nature right now.
(06:23):
And you have to deal with that reality every day whether you like it or not.
And whether you are a Christian or not a Christian, you still are faced with the right
now.
You are faced with the issue of dealing with and accepting the reality of what is.
(06:45):
Now we believe and we know and most of the time when people talk about right now faith,
they talk about the idea of suddenly or a breakthrough or that God can change anything in a second.
And God can change anything in a second.
I believe that God can make anything different at any time that God so desires to make different
at any time.
(07:05):
I don't believe that God is bound by us being in turns or in line or some of this crazy
things that people come up with now where they go, you're next in line for a miracle, there's
no line.
There's no line at the miracles, this is not some sort of corralling order.
God does what God does when God does it.
(07:26):
And when God does things, it proves that God is God.
It's not really done because we're stellar people or we have more faith than everybody else
or we're better than everyone else.
And sometimes we do give that impression that we get our miracle because we have enough
faith for it and somebody else didn't have enough faith for it and so they didn't get
their miracle.
And when we embody those ideas, this is what happens, you get one of three outcomes.
(07:50):
Either people feel they didn't have enough faith and they walk away all together.
You have people who just kind of think that maybe they're not doing it right and this is
not for them.
Or you have the people who just kind of look over it all and are going to press in that
much harder and that much firmer and still maybe not get what they're getting at.
(08:11):
But everybody has the issue of acceptance and common.
Everybody has the problem that you're not necessarily getting what you want when you want
it because God is not a magic trick.
And that's why it says this is not about us.
Our faith, we are saved by grace through faith.
This is not about us having enough faith.
(08:32):
This is not about us showing off our faith.
This is not about our works because if it is, then it wouldn't be about God.
So this is not a reward.
This is not God is a magic trick in the sky and we know the right formula and the right
words to speak and we just call it all down from heaven and everything works like that.
I'm going to tell you as somebody who's been in ministry for all these years, I don't
(08:54):
think that there is any particular formula or science or guesswork for why stuff happens.
When it happens, why it does, except that's the time it's supposed to happen.
And I don't have an answer beyond that.
And I know that that's not satisfactory.
I understand that that's not really what we like.
I mean, if we look out over a lot of the movements over the past 100, 200 years, a lot of them
(09:17):
are trying to somehow assign some sort of scientific method or research or application to
divine things and it doesn't work.
It doesn't work.
I could sit up here and speak all the wrong words and have something great happen to tomorrow
or I could not have something great happen tomorrow.
(09:39):
But it's not dependent on me and it's not dependent on my faith level or the right kind of faith
or the wrong kind of faith or anything of that nature in order to bring it about because
it's not about me.
Jesus did not heal every person on the planet while he was down here.
He could have, but he didn't because it proved who he was.
That's why he did it.
(10:00):
His goal was not to eradicate all the problems of humanity.
And we don't like dealing with that when we start to get down to the right now faith
because God is not responsible to fix all our problems.
He is not responsible to come down and change everything about our circumstances so we
(10:21):
like our lives better.
And we were talking about that today when we were talking about Assyria and we talked about
that off camera.
Some of the different things and the different issues that pertained to that, the amount
of war that people saw and poverty and relocation and watching their family members die
and stuff we don't think about all the time and God did not just rapture everybody out of
(10:43):
those problems.
And so that's an unrealistic expectation that we're going to just have things because
we want them because we think God ought to do it for us as some kind of treat or reward
or trick because God is not a magic trick.
And sometimes I think God does not move like we might like him to because he's not a magic
(11:06):
trick.
Because if we just got everything all the time that we wanted from God based on our vein
and very, very bad theologies then that would set a very bad precedent.
It would be idolatry and we would think about something Paul Tillich said that any God who
would let us prove existence is an idol.
(11:28):
It's one thing if God wants to reveal himself, it's one thing if God proves himself all on
his own but it is a whole other thing if we are expecting God to do something in that vein
and prove himself to us on that kind of a level.
It's not faith anymore then.
It's not what it's about.
And so yeah I believe that God can do miracle and God can change situations around and I'm
(11:51):
going to tell you straight up he does do it and he does it all the time and it's usually
right when it has to be done.
He is not early as people often say they go, "Oh God it's never late.
Oh God is also not really early because God is not on our timetable."
And our goal with faith is supposed to make us start to view things from more of an
eternal perspective rather than us being on our little marching timetables down here
(12:17):
to always get all these petty little things that we want and we think that we should have
all the time and it doesn't work like that.
And so what about the thing that we have that we have to accept that we don't want to accept?
There is an awful lot of miracles I think that happen and maybe the biggest one is the
(12:37):
idea of acceptance is that sometimes things just are and maybe God gives us the faith
to walk through those things and that's the miracle that we all don't want.
We want the miracle to be rescued out.
We want the miracle to not have the issue anymore.
(12:58):
We want to not have the problem anymore but what we don't recognize is that sometimes
God leaves us in situations that we cannot change because He wants to change us.
The Israelites were left in the situations that they were in because they needed to change.
(13:18):
They needed to change their attitude.
They needed to change their thinking.
They needed to do certain things and they weren't doing it and if God just said, okay, if
God just gentle parented these Israelites and just gave them their way all the time, that
would be the result.
But what happens is we don't really get what we want a lot of times from God.
(13:40):
And so the answer is that we're going to try to take control and that's where things
like witchcraft and idolatry come in.
So what is idolatry?
I'm going to tell you straight up.
The biblical idols and the Bible says that the idols are nothing.
They're not real.
They're imagined what they are and if we understand it properly and if you start reading
(14:01):
like some of the prophets in particular, I'm thinking Jeremiah and Isaiah it talks about
that you're fashioning these gods with your own hands and then you're bowing down and worshiping
them.
In other words, there are things that we create.
There are the things that we create, the things of this world.
Paul talks about the creature rather than the creator.
In other words, whereby proxy through them, worshiping ourselves.
(14:27):
We're worshipping what we're able to create because that's more comfortable and that's
exactly what they did.
So I've said this before, I don't really think that the Israelites woke up one morning because
they were bored and that they said, I'm going to go worship an idol today.
This is slow.
I'm going to go right in my diary, dear diary.
(14:47):
I'm going to walk the cows down to the hill.
Hey, walk the cat down the hill.
Why not?
Okay.
Yeah, just get him.
Walk the cows down the hill, got them some water, looked out over some flocks, bowed down
to an idol, great day.
You know, one of the best.
(15:08):
That's not what you don't do.
No, I don't do that.
Okay, you know, I don't really think that that was their intention.
But the idols over time became more comfortable than the God where they had to deal with and
accept who they were as people.
It was more comfortable to go chase after the rain and to chase after the corn that they
(15:31):
could grow themselves and to chase after some fire deity that circles the equator and once
every once it's children to be fed to them.
And, you know, it was a lot easier to chase something fake and then justify that you're
chasing something fake.
Well, now we can marry with those people over there and we can share territory and they're
(15:55):
not going to attack me in my land now because I gave them my daughter and my cow, which
is how marriage was done back then, you know, or we're going to kind of join with this
family and we don't have to worry now about this invader over here because we're going
to team up and we're going to fight that.
Now, they're nice ideas.
They sound really good.
(16:16):
It sounds like teamwork, like people working together, but they don't display any type of faith
in God to execute life for those people and it doesn't show any faith in the power of
God that, you know, what maybe instead of looking at everything is some sort of weird divine
sign.
We need to just say, hey, let's learn the weather patterns.
(16:36):
Hey, let's understand more about nature.
Let's recognize more stuff about our environment.
Better yet, why don't we just go ask God?
I'm sure God would have said the creek just flooded.
It really had nothing to do with nothing, you know, it just the creek flooded.
You know, you have a lot of rain.
You've got these mountains and it funneled and, you know, it's got nothing to do with anything
(17:00):
else, but they all tried to come up with their own answers on their own.
And that's exactly what we do in witchraft is we're trying to somehow, by some means,
take that control back and know our future and understand the conflict between life and
eternity and death and all the different forces that we're trying to fight.
But God sometimes I believe gives us the faith for right now.
(17:25):
So second Corinthians five.
And I'm reading from the NIV and this is the 84.
Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from
God and eternal house in heaven not built by human hands.
Meanwhile we groan.
(17:45):
Yes we do.
So even the Bible says we complain.
Longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling because when we are clothed we will not be found
naked.
For while we are in this tent, we groan in our burden because we do not wish to be unclosed
but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling.
So that what is mortal maybe swallowed up by life?
(18:06):
Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the spirit as a deposit
guaranteeing what is to come.
So in other words he's talking about the concept that of being absent with the body and being
present with the Lord which is actually in the next section that we're going to read.
But he's in other words saying that right now we're down here.
(18:32):
We're not up there and up there might be more desirable because our bodies don't decay
and we don't have problems and we don't deal with the results of sin which is why we
have decay in our bodies to begin with.
And yada yada yada.
We don't deal with other people in the negative context in heaven and we're not fighting our
histories and we're not trying to transform and become new people.
(18:56):
We're basically in heaven with the Lord.
We have taken off this mortality.
We have taken off flesh and we are dwelling totally in the spirit.
But he says for now he's given us the spirit as a deposit.
So in mortal flesh we have something that gives and promises hope for that other time.
(19:20):
We have something that gets us through right now because in the first century the first
century believers were right now people.
They really literally believed Jesus could come at any time and they were waiting for that
and they were very, very imminent and they were, I would say apocalyptically but
it was not in the context of these crazy people who are hoarding food and guns and playing
(19:43):
army out in the desert because they think that the American government is going to come
and attack them and they're going to be able to fight off the American army just you
know the five or six of them.
You know more power to you I think that you know we all have, we all either are humbled
or we're all humiliated so hope you pick right.
We were talking about that this morning.
Go go for it.
(20:04):
But we have to live right now in the flesh and that means we have to live right now with
things we don't like.
We have to live with things that are uncomfortable and we have to accept that as part of our lives.
And this is not to say that everything that comes up is a God lesson than this is not to say
that everything that comes up is a problem but it is to say that in everything that we
(20:26):
go through we can have right now face.
In everything that we're going through we can experience life in a way that makes it
so we have hope that even if God doesn't do what we're believing for we are still going
(20:47):
to believe.
We think of the Hebrew three in the flames and how they said we believe God will deliver
us but even if he does it we are not going to bow down to your God.
Even if God doesn't do what we know that God can do even if he doesn't feel the need
to do it right now for us I'm still not doing what you want.
And that's an aspect of this that a perseverance that we don't have we think we need a reward.
(21:13):
We think that God should reward us for faith without recognizing that faith is an essence
its own reward and we will talk about that shortly.
Therefore, verse 6 we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in
the body we are away from the Lord.
We live by faith not by sight.
We are confident I say and would prefer to be away from the body in at home with the Lord.
(21:37):
So we make it our goal to please him whether we are at home in the body or away from it.
Or we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ that each one may receive what
is do him for the things done while in the body whether good or bad.
Since then we know what it is to fear the Lord we try to persuade men.
What we are is plain to God and I hope it is also plain to your conscience.
(21:58):
We are not trying to commend ourselves to you again but we are giving you an opportunity
to take pride in us so that you can answer those who take pride in what is seen rather
than what is in the heart.
If we are out of our mind it is for the sake of God if we are in our right mind it is for
you.
So Jesus came into the flesh to reconcile us to God and we stay in the flesh with the
(22:23):
spirit of God in us to reconcile people.
This is a ministry of reconciliation.
We are here for a purpose and we are here to do something and in the meantime we are walking
out and we are working through our faith.
So what is it saying Hebrews 11:1 that faith is the substance of things hope for the evidence
of things not seen.
That is an ontological statement which means it relates to being.
(22:46):
It has to do with the being of something in this instance the being of a spiritual being.
So in other words faith is the substance.
It is the stuff.
It is what it is made up.
It is essence.
It is continuing things.
The substance of things that we hope for the things we have not yet seen the things that
(23:08):
we do not yet understand the things that we have not yet experienced.
It is the evidence, the proof, the fact, the relevance of those things unseen.
So in other words faith proves itself.
It is both a substance and an essence.
It is something that is.
Just like we talk about God does not exist.
(23:29):
God is.
If you study existentialism that is the premise that they go on.
God is outside of existence because in order to exist you have to be created.
So faith is a substance and it is an essence.
It proves itself.
It is its own thing.
(23:51):
And we are in it in all the words because it proves automatically what we already believe
for.
You want to know what we can believe down here for wrong things.
I know that that just shocks everybody.
We can want stuff for the wrong reasons.
We can believe for things for the wrong reasons.
We can have hope that God just makes us not so uncomfortable for the wrong reasons.
(24:13):
We can believe for all sorts of different things.
But right now faith stands back and it takes a deep breath and it accepts that this is where
we are right now.
Right now we are in the flesh and right now we deal with issues and we are going to deal
with those until we die or Jesus comes back, whichever comes first.
So right now maybe I won't have this job in a year or two years.
(24:36):
But right now God has given me enough faith in order to do this job right now.
We already know the job I have I won't have in two years because it won't exist in two
years, only six months assignment.
But that's true of anybody or any job that's true of the editing that I do.
Maybe right now I have to do this but I may not have to do it in two years.
(24:57):
But right now I have the faith and I have the ability to say I'm right here.
Maybe I don't live where I have to live.
Maybe my living situation isn't what I want forever.
But right now I can do this because God has given me the faith to deal with it and God has
given me the faith to do it.
Maybe right now we are believing or we are looking for something that we don't yet have.
(25:18):
But right now I can do this.
I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me which people use all sorts of different
ways but in essence Paul was talking about having a right now faith that whether he was happy
or sad or had enough or didn't have enough he could do all things through Christ to strengthen
(25:39):
him.
We can do all things.
That is our right now faith that maybe it's not what we want to do.
Maybe it's absolutely the last thing that we want to do in this entire world but we can
do it because God has given us the faith to do it today.
And sometimes we have to look out at our lives and literally just take our acceptance one
(25:59):
moment at a time.
And it doesn't mean we don't ever have days where we think about it or we wish it was a different
way or we don't like it because there's nothing wrong with that.
Even Paul is talking in second Corinthians about longing for heaven.
I mean that goes way beyond just having a bad day and wishing your circumstances would
change.
But right now faith, we live right now.
(26:23):
We don't live chasing a miracle.
We recognize God can do one.
We recognize that God can do anything but sometimes the miracle that God really is trying
to work is within us.
Like we were talking about before we got out here the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of
prophecy that means what he did for another he can do it again.
We believe that and we believe that right now is we stand here and we know that God is
(26:46):
working even though we don't always see it and even though we don't always feel it that
we can work and we can be here right now in order to make the impact that we are supposed
to for the world.
Thank you for joining us on the Kingdom Now podcast today.
I pray it is proven to be a blessing in your life.
(27:08):
To learn more about this work ask a question, submit feedback, advertise with us, be a guest
or donate to support this work as our podcast is sponsored by listeners like you.
Visit my website which contains essential information, projects and looks for other
points of contact around the web at kingdompowernow.org.
(27:33):
Also if you are in our area and would like to visit sanctuary international Fellowship
Tabernacle, visit welcomeinthisplace.org
Until next time this is Apostle dr Lee Ann Marino reminding you that the
Kingdom of God is within you and that means the Kingdom is now.
(27:55):
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