Michael Card, legendary singer-songwriter, musician, author, and radio host, shares his thoughts on the reality of his faith journey.
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Basically it looks like it's summed up in just stories of
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Jesus telling people stories of Jesus.
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If I kind of got your career right?
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Yeah. What What set you on that path?
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Or what makes that real to you, that that's your life.
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Well, I mean, I grew up in Nashville, Tennessee.
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So I came to both my grandfather's are baptist
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ministers. Both my parents are preachers
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kids, so I grew up, you know, in the midst of of the church.
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And, but when I was 14, I came to faith.
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When I was about seven or eight walk, the aisle and got baptized
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that when I As 14, that's when it became real.
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That's when I feel like, I mean, I belong to Christ and you know,
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I'm not questioning what happened when I was young, but I
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really met the person I got to know the person of Jesus got
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excited about him and when I was about 14, which was just about
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when the Jesus movement started, And so there was a time that I
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went to five or six Bible studies a week.
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I mean it was we were so completely consumed with you
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know the Bible and understanding who he was and that sort of
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thing. And that that never really I
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never really backed off from that.
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I've been sort of this Jesus nerd since I was 14 but at 65
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I'm more excited about the him now than I've ever been.
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I mean, hold on, I don't know if you can see this.
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This that's the picture on my desk, you know, I have that's
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not Jeep, not that's not Jesus. This is a mummy portrait from
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the from from Egypt but that's a first-century Jewish face.
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So, and I've never been, I've never been more excited.
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In fact, I'm writing a book now about the details of his life
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about what, how many languages he speaks, and what, what he
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eats and what it means that he's From Galilee, that that really
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means something that the details means something, the fact that
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he walks to Jerusalem three times a year, means that he
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spends at least like two months out of every year walking back
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and forth to Willam. I mean, I'm everything that can
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be known about him. I want to know, that's what I'm
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working on right now, without Air Jordans without without are
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Joy without Air Jordans and and carrying everything that you
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need it. You know, what does it mean when
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he tells his disciples to sell their coats and buy a sword, I
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want to understand what that means.
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He eats fish every day for lunch, he thinks in Hebrew, what
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does it mean that he thinks you? And I think in nouns, Jesus
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thinks in verbs, he thinks, and he died in in his Humanity.
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He thinks in verbs. So when he said, when he says
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something like his, the the heart of his message is, the
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kingdom of God is come. And as far as I can, determine
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reading people that are much smarter than me, what Jesus is
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thinking. When he says that is the reign
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of God has begun. You're when you're thinking in
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Hebrew, that's really what he mean, the reign of God has
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begun. So Yeah, I want to know
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everything there is to know about it and and I think I think
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that's doable. We don't know that much about
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him. You know, we only have, I have a
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friend who's a mathematician who figured it out the information.
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We have on the gospels is point zero nine percent of Jesus life.
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So she said if Jesus life is a hundred dollars, we have nine
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cents of it in the gospels. That's not much.
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So anyway, so that's where I sense.
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We need it. Yeah, it's perfect.
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Sam. I'm determined that that's
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perfect. But if Jesus life is a hundred
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dollars, I have nine cents of it.
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Yeah. Well it's probably going to take
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it in a hundred percent of our brain capacity to understand
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that other. Oh yeah.
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And what does he think present isn't that right?
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Yeah. And what does understanding it
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mean? It means perceiving it
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spiritually the Holy Spirit, you know, in concert with the Holy
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Spirit and the word, it's this process that he is committed to
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in to be a part of with us. I mean, it's even knowing him,
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it's just What does that even mean?
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I mean, I know I know Jesus as I know nobody else.
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I know Jesus Christ as I know no other person because I know
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historically obviously. But then I know him kind of
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through the word. I know him spiritually.
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He breathes on the disciples, it says received the Holy Spirit.
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So in in one sense, the holy spirit is his breath.
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But yeah, I know him as I know no other person.
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I think there's just this range I think.
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Like, I can show you a picture of what he looked like, I can
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tell you, he was From Galilee, I could tell you all these
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details, but knowing about him is not the same as knowing him.
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In one sense when I was seven, I knew Jesus.
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You know, I how do you want to say it?
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I accepted into my heart. That's what the pastor told me
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to say. And at 7 years old, I said, I
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think he's invited me into his car.
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I think he's asked me into his heart, that's been my
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experience. And so there's this reality of
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realizing. What he did, certainly realizing
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he died on the cross for me and and and feeling the burden of my
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sin. That's part of coming to 60 some
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odd years that have followed. It's been process of coming to
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know this actual person who was a present reality right now in
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my life through the Holy Spirit of speaking, who's showing me
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things as word every day that I thought, I knew but I really
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didn't know him giving me gray stuff.
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Forgive people, love people, don't they're just nothing like
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knowing Jesus of Nazareth there's nothing like I know him
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as I know. No other person.