The new pope is from America. That's neat. As people search his twitter account, they're finding more insight into his politics, including a criticism of JD and his application of Ordo Amoris to illegal aliens. 

Welcome to Politics by Faith. Thank you for being here. There's a new Pope. I'm not Catholic so I have no connection to this and I don't know how it all even works. But I am an American and we have our first American Pope so that's something. The Catholic Church has had 217 Popes from Italy, 16 from France, six from Germany, five from Syria, four from Greece, and then on down the list,

the last Pope was from Argentina. And finally, America is an, is a underrepresented nation in something. This guy's from Chicago, he went to Villanova, served in Peru for a long time, he's a naturalized citizen of Peru.

And that is all I've learned from his Wikipedia page so far. Now in the few hours since he's been named Pope, people have perused his Twitter account. Now I don't know how much this guy was involved in his own Twitter account. Maybe he had some interns who don't know.

But if you look at his Twitter, big lefty guy, that's not really surprising. He is from Chicago. Now, since that's not really surprising, the Cardinals who voted for the Pope of Aspen, I'm guessing it was I think it was like 108 out of 133, something like that, of these Cardinals were put in there by the last Pope, so they're gonna vote for another guy who's kind of like this. One of the tweets that this Pope, new Pope sent out, was critical of J.D. Vance. It's something

that J.D. Vance said back in January. The new Pope tweeted this on February 3rd. He said, J.D. Vance is wrong. Jesus does not ask us to rank our love for others.

Uh oh.

So what is this about? This is back January 29th. J.D. Vance did an interview. The context here is illegal aliens versus American citizens. The left, they're the ones who have compassion for illegals

at the expense of American citizens. That's the argument. That's the concern here. That's what the election was all about. And here's JD Vance speaking to that.

But there's this old school, and I think it's a very Christian concept, by the way, that you love your family and then you love your neighbor and then you love your community and then you love your fellow citizens in your own country. And then after that, you can focus and prioritize the rest of the world. A lot of the far left has completely inverted that. They seem to hate the citizens of their own country and care more about people outside

their own borders. That is no way to run a society. And I think the profound difference that Donald Trump brings to the leadership of this country is that the simple concept America first. It doesn't mean you hate anybody else. It means that you have leadership and President Trump has been very clear about this that puts the interests of American citizens first. In the same way that the British Prime Minister should

care about Brits and the French should care about the French, we have an American president who cares primarily about Americans, and that's a very welcome change.

A lot of progressive theologians, pastors, et cetera, did not like J.D. Vance for saying that. And they say, Oh, you know, how could you quote Jesus like that? We didn't quote Jesus. J.D. and then said, and I think it's a very Christian concept as well, which means it's compatible with Christian culture, not that it's an originally Christian concept. So first thing to note is we have two different spheres we're talking

about here. We're talking about the state and the role of the church. We got the role of the state and the role of the church, two different things. So that's the first point. There's another guy, his name's Heracles, Stoic philosopher. He wrote about oikosis. That's where we get the word economics. Economics means management of the home.

Oikos is home and the family in Greek. Heracles, we believe, was the first to come up with the concentric circles that we've talked about many times on this show before. And that is the self is in the middle, and then the next concentric circle out is the family, then the neighborhood, then the country, then the foreigners, the foreigner of the world.

His argument was that the natural thing is to take care of your family before others. And while Stoic said we should have greater concern for every circle beyond the next, he said that the key to the development of justice and ethical behavior is to concentrate or concern yourself first with you and your family and then you can move out. Jordan Peterson makes this point all the time as well. It's one of his central theses and one of his original messages at

least was focus on yourself before you go out and try to change the temperature of the planet, for instance. And I believe that's a Christian message as you yourself need to repent. You need to repent of your sin. Get the plank out of your own eye before you go trying to take the speck out of everyone else's, focus on you and you need to be born again. First and foremost, top priority before you go calling everyone else to repent

while you continue to live an unrepentant sin. Now, every social movement that I've ever lived through my entire life, it always concerns the outer circles of people, right? Black Lives Matter, global warming, right? The marginalized, right? It's always about these big outer circle things. And I've never lived through an era

where the main cultural impulse or calling was repentance of sin, of yourself, or as Leo Tolstoy called it, the regeneration of the inner man. Every social contagion, is a better word, that I've lived through is these outer circles of far away things and never a true focus on the self. Now, anytime there is a focus on the self in our modern world, it's all, you go girl, you're perfect just the way you are.

Everyone else is the problem. They just don't realize how wonderful you are. That's the self-help movement of the last couple of decades. And it's just as toxic. So what JD Vance is talking about here, the Latin term of it is ordo amoris, ordo amoris, ordered loves.

Lots of philosophers have talked about this. Go back to Thomas Aquinas was one of the first. And there is sight of this in the Bible. First Timothy 5.8 says, if anyone does not provide for his relatives and especially for his immediate family, there's an especially there, he has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever. The progressive worldview is this undefined altruism and focus on the universe and love for

all of existence, oftentimes at the expense of those around you. So Thomas Aquinas, these ordered loves, ordo amoris, he says, but living a just and holy life requires one to be capable of an objective and impartial evaluation of things. To love things, that is to say, in the right order. So that you do not love what is not to be loved.

Okay, we don't want to do that. Or fail to love what should be loved. Or have a greater love for what should be loved less. Or an equal love for things that should be loved more or less or a lesser or greater love for things that should be loved equally. We're often all screwed up. There's things we should love that we don't.

There's things we don't love that we should. There's two things we love the same and we shouldn't. Or there's things we don't love the same and we're all screwed up. And Aquinas outlines the proper order. Remember the Stoics, it was self in the middle and then your family and you move out. Thomas Aquinas says, no, it's God who's in the middle. Then the self, spouse, family, extended family, community, nation, and then the world.

Augustine, he said, this, and then the world. Augustine, he said, this is true of everything created, but though it is good, it can be loved the right way or in the wrong way. In the right way, that is when the proper order is kept in the wrong way, when the order is upset.

So this is nothing new. This has been around for thousands of years. It's order versus disorder. Now, this new pope in February tweeted an article about a woman who was against what JD said, or at least JD's application of ordered loves. Now perhaps it's easier for the Pope to say, oh we should love the world because he's ahead of this this church that

has its arms in every corner of the world. So maybe that can be the Catholic church's first priority. And I would argue that the Protestant church, wherever your church is, my church has missionaries all over the world that we support and send out, and that's great. And you're called to do that.

But then there's also the role of the state. And the state should order its love. I believe as J.D. Vance has articulated it. If you're called as a Christian to go and minister to the world, great. But even that has an ordered love to it. There's no way that the Bible says to abandon your family, to go minister to people somewhere else around the world. I have a ministry field right here in my home that I need to pay attention to as well. And if we all focused more on a proper ordering of love,

then we would focus on the self and being born again and becoming a slave to Christ, slave to the Lord, where he is at the center and the highest of all order. I don't know what this Pope will do, who he will be, I don't really care. I'm concerned with your soul and mine. Let's put God in my children. Let's put God in my wife. Let's put God first. Seek first the kingdom of God. Let's pray about how the loves in our life should be properly rewarded.

Mike Slater dot locals dot com. Transcript commercial free on the website Mike Slater dot locals dot com. Transcript commercial free on the website Mike Slater dot locals dot com.

'Tis graduation season. High School graduates are ready to take on the new adventure of college. I have 4 pieces of advice for Christian students entering the lion's den of college.

Welcome to Politics by Faith. Thank you for being here. We walked into church on Sunday yesterday and there were these tables set up and a booth on each table for each of the kids that are graduating from high school. And each booth had a couple of things about each of the kids and if they were going to college, where they're going to college next

year and one of the kids is going to Yale. to college, where they're going to college next year.

And one of the kids is going to Yale. I've never met this kid before. So I sought him out and said, hello. We only had about a minute or so. But I was thinking, what would my advice be to this young man, young Christian man

who's going off into the lion's den? Do you have any graduates that you know?

Tis the season, right? Kids graduating high school, going off to college, grandkids perhaps for you. And what do we do with that now? It's very different than even just a few decades ago. What do you say to a young man or woman who's going off into the lion's den?

I was walking down the hall of the church and there's another guy at the church around my age who went to Princeton. And he said, hey, did you meet the Yale kid? I was like, oh yeah, yeah. I wish I saw him a couple of weeks ago. I would have told him not to do it.

Don't go there. Joking. And then he immediately said, nope, too late for that. Only positive thoughts. We're only doing positive thoughts now. He's in, he accepted, he's going. Positive thoughts. So I got thinking about some positive thoughts for this young man and any man. I guess woman too, but in my head I was thinking a man. Maybe I have some

extra pieces of advice for women going off to college too. Advice to young men going off to college and really these days it young men going off to college, and really these days, it doesn't matter where you're going. There's very few places that are not completely lost. So you have to be completely ready and you have to have the armor of God. This young man is going to major in physics and

philosophy. He went to a classical school here in town. If you have any younger kids or younger grandkids, I recommend a classical school, classical Christian school to send your kids to. They're phenomenal. But this guy, this kid, is gonna study physics and philosophy. What beautiful majors to worship God. My goodness, study the physical world of God's creation and study the love of wisdom. That's what philosophy means. Of course, the philosophy departments have

strayed from this in horrific ways, but philosophy literally means the love of wisdom. So you can study God's creation and the laws of physics that he created, we've merely discovered, and then spend your time studying the love of wisdom. What a wonderful way to worship God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. But you have to do it with the whole armor of God. One last thought of Yale and then I'll broaden it out. The president of Yale in 1937. So all the

Ivy League schools started off as seminaries, we talked about that before, and they've strayed many times since then, maybe never more than right now. But in 1937, the president of Yale said, I call on all the members of the faculty as members of a thinking body freely

to recognize the tremendous validity and power of Christ in our life and death struggle against the forces of selfish materialism. If we lose that struggle, judging from present events abroad, scholarship as well as religion will disappear. Scholarship as well as religion. I would argue that the religion at these schools certainly has disappeared, and in many cases the scholarship has as well. So this president of Yale in 1937 nailed it. All right, so my advice to Christian kids

going off to college. First, know that you are going to battle. Now, battle doesn't mean that you need to be combative all the time, but you're going into enemy territory. C.S. Lewis wrote in Mere Christianity,

a longer quote, but let me do it. He said, one of the things that surprised me is C.S. Lewis, when I first started reading the New Testament seriously, was that it talked so much about a dark power in the universe, a mighty evil spirit who was held to be the power behind death and disease and sin. This dark power was created by God and was good when he was created, but then rebelled and went wrong. Thus, the universe is at war, a civil war, a rebellion, and we are living in a part of

the universe occupied by the dark power that is rebelling against good. Enemy occupied territory. That is what this world is. Christianity is the story of how the rightful king has landed, you might say landed in disguise as one of us, and is calling us all to take part in a great campaign of sabotage. So when you go to church, you're really listening in to the secret communications from our friends.

That is why the enemy is so anxious to prevent us from going to church or reading the Bible. He does it by playing on our conceit and pride and laziness and intellectual snobbery. Plenty of that at the elite institutions. I know some will ask me, do you really mean at this time of day to reintroduce our old friend the devil? Hoofs and horns and all? Well what the time of day has to do with it I do not know and I'm not particular about the hoofs and horns. Yet in other respects my answer is yes I do. But I do not claim to know anything about his personal appearance.

If anybody really wants to know him, I would say to that person, don't worry, if you really want to know him, the devil, better you will. Whether you'll like him when you do is another question. You're going to college to learn, but learning doesn't mean that whatever you hear is true or good but it's still good to learn to learn what the enemy is saying to learn what other people think who are wrong even if they are wrong and maybe you'll learn things

that are true and good and right and that's great take those with you but learning what is wrong can also make you even wiser and can strengthen your arguments as well because the devil is going to come at you with some good stuff, effective stuff. Are you prepared? Learn along the way so you can get prepared. Milton Friedman said he was very grateful for Karl Marx, made him a better economist.

It can be true for all of us. The enemy can make you stronger. So go into the barracks of the enemy and learn, learn, learn as much as you can. Another thing that C.S. Lewis was talking there, this is my second point,

while you're in enemy-occupied territory, is go to church, right? C.S. Lewis was talking about how the enemy's gonna try to keep you from going to church in college. Go to church. You have to connect, reconnect with the source of truth all the time. Certainly every week, every day, in other ways, but you have to go to church. If you

don't get your recharging, I'll use that word, I can't think of maybe a better word, but you're with me. If you get your recharging, if you don't get your recharging from God at church, you'll get it somewhere else at college. And of college and there's plenty of other places that the devil wants you to go to recharge or have fun or sin or rest or whatever using all these sins to try to keep you away from from God. People think that they need these other things in order to thrive. Nope. Church? Go. Go to a church. Find a local church. Maybe it's even disconnected from the school, disconnected from the campus.

Maybe safer that way. but go every week. Everyone else is gonna be hung over on Sunday morning. You're gonna be a church instead and your life trajectory every single week will be completely different because of it. And at the end of four years,

you'll be in a totally different place because you dedicated even just those Sunday mornings. So first order of business is to learn, recognize you're in battle. Now again, that doesn't mean be combative, but just know you're in enemy occupied territory.

Second point, go to church. Third, Matthew 10, 16, behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be therefore wise as serpents and harmless as doves." Love that scripture. We have to be wise, so we have to avoid the traps that are set up for us, but you also got to be innocent. You would need to serve God blamelessly as you proceed. The enemy is gonna try to take you out and there's

a lot of shiny things at college, more so than anywhere else, maybe in the whole country. Shininess is all over the place, fun, fun, fun everywhere. But consider, is it? Or is it just the devil trying to take you out? Now, I'm not trying to be a prude here. Some of it's awesome, good fun,

and you gotta take part in all the opportunities that you think are good, but not all of them are. Fourth point, my advice to kids going to college, if you go to an elite school, you must constantly remember you're not better than anyone. One of the tools the devil uses against people, especially in elite schools, is pride.

And even in the elite schools, people are so ingrained with eliteness that they make elite things in the elite schools. So you go to an elite college, but that's not enough. You have to create a group inside the college that's elite. And then literally, the New York Times wrote an article about this,

about elite groups at Yale that are setting up elite subsections of the elite groups in the elite colleges. And it just goes forever. And it can really affect your soul. And very easily get you to think

that you're better than everyone else who isn't in this group anymore. First Corinthians 1 27, God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise and God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.

And I'll share verse three or chapter three, 18 to 20. Do not deceive yourselves. If any of you think you're wise by the standards of this age, you should become fools so that you may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight. As it is written, he catches the wise in their craftiness. And again, the Lord knows that the thoughts of the wise are futile. There's a lot of fools on college campuses. Now, some of them are in charge of your grade,

so you don't need to call them out every opportunity. Be wise in how you share the truth. But know that even outside these ivory halls, there are the Gothic architecture and all the rest. Just know that there's a lot of people out there who don't have the fancy degrees, but have read the Bible in and out and have more common

sense than anyone inside these Ivy League schools and they may be a hillbilly, they may talk like a hillbilly, they may sound like a hillbilly and look like one, but they're wiser than all the professors put together inside of these universities and I know that's true. Fourth point or fifth point, whatever one I'm on, armor of God. Ephesians 6 10, finally my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. I love this part, before you put on the armor you have to be strong, then you put on the armor. This is important, if you're

weak, the armor of God doesn't do any good. You got to be strong first. Now, I wanna save this for, we should maybe do this the rest of the week. We'll see how the rest of the week goes with news, but Martin Lloyd Jones listed all the ways that Christians waste their strength. They waste their strength, and they apply to college in profound ways. Let me actually share them tomorrow

because it applies to us beyond just college too. We'll save those for tomorrow. But be strong and then put on the armor of God so that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. Take up the whole armor of God and stand, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness, having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace. Above all, taking the shield of faith with which you will be able to quench all the

fiery darts of the wicked one and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God." Man, how good is that? Just study that, meditate on that, pray that all the time. Print that out, put it on your wall. Praying always with all power and supplication in the spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints and for me that utterance may be given to me that I may open my mouth boldly to make known the mystery of the gospel for which I am an ambassador in chains,

that in it I may speak boldly as I ought to speak. That is my prayer also for every Christian college student going into the lion's den. Speak boldly, fear the same for what is true. Mike Slater dot locals.com is the website. If you want to go there, the transcript, and there's no commercials. If you want to listen to it every day over on the website, Mike Slater dot locals dot com is the website. If you want to go there, the transcript, and there's no commercials, if you want to listen to it every day, over on the website, Mike

If you want to listen to it every day over on the website, Mike Slater dot locals dot com is the website. If you want to go there, the transcript, and there's no commercials, if you want to listen to it every day, over on the website, Mike Slater dot locals dot com.

Trump signed an Executive Order last night requiring all truckers to be able to speak and read English. Obama stopped enforcing this law, but Trump said we're bringing it back. We talked to the co-founder of American Truckers United about their efforts to make this happen, and he was sure to give credit where it was due.

Welcome to Politics by Faith. Thank you for being here. I really mean that. Thank you for being here. I know you have a lot to do, a lot going on, a lot of options, a lot of things you can input into your brain. Why are you choosing this? There's got to be other things that are more entertaining than this, right? I don't want to give you any ideas, but maybe we should just start with the episode before you start actually thinking of things.

Now thank you for being a record number of downloads and all that so thank you very much. I want to spend more time on this. I want to dedicate more time to this so thank you for the encouragement. We had a guest today from the old SiriusXM radio show, who pretty much wrote this whole thing. He just handed this to me. He's like, oh, that's amazing.

Thank you, Shannon. So here's the story. About a month ago, we talked with the co-founder of this group called American Truckers United, and they had a very simple mission. No more truck drivers who can't speak English. That's dangerous.

And no more foreigners driving trucks in America, which is bringing down wages for American truck drivers. Makes sense? Now on that speaking English part, that's already against the law. The law says you have to be able to speak and

understand English in order to be a truck driver but in 2016 the Obama administration said that they are no longer going to enforce that law and they told states to stop enforcing that and since then there's been a lot of accidents or as my wife says wre, where people have died from truckers who shouldn't be on our highways. So we talked to him about a month ago,

and then wouldn't you know it, last night, Trump signed an executive order saying that we are now going to start enforcing that law again. This is a very important background thing to know. These executive orders, when you read them, they're not making new law.

They're enforcing laws that already exist. It's an order from the executive, an executive order, that says, hey, this is a priority now, and we're going to start doing this. I think of it kind of like a local DA. I talked to the San Diego DA when she was running, I was like, what do you do? And she explained it, and this always stuck with me. So a DA, district attorney, there's only so much time, money, and focus that you can put on things. So you have to have discretion as a district attorney

on where you're gonna put your priorities and your attention and money and people. So this DA said, we're gonna put more attention on human trafficking because there's a lot of that here. But when we do that, that means there's gonna be

a little less attention on carjacking. And if carjackings get out of control, well then we're gonna move some attention from here to go over there. Now, the George Soros, and that's all done, and then you elect the DA and you try to find someone

with good discretion and values that you have so that they can allot the limited resources in a way that you think is best for human flourishing in your city. The George Soros DAs came in and said, well we have discretion too, we're not going to arrest anyone or charge anyone, they'll be arrested maybe by cops, but we're not going to charge anyone for any shoplifting crimes, anything like that. So

that was the problem with that. They had so much discretion, but they used it like a bunch of fools and to hurt people. It's similar with the president. Now they have more time, money, and attention because it's the president of the United States, not a local DA's office, but they can decide which laws to enforce and which ones not to enforce. Now with Obama, it was ideological. They wanted more illegal aliens in this country. We need jobs for illegal aliens.

The trucking companies wanted to hire people at lower wages and worse conditions, right? Illegal alien will not protest about being on the road for a couple of weeks away from their family where maybe Americans would, maybe they don't have a family here at all.

So we had worse conditions. So they were okay with it, but the trucking companies were okay with it. And the Obama administration was okay with it. So they worked together and did this thing that hurt Americans.

And they said, you don't have to speak English anymore. Well, now Trump last night said, no, no, you do. That is the law. We are going to enforce the law that is already on the books. It was a great victory. So I said to Shannon, I said, man, this moved fast. And I don't know everything you did behind the scenes, obviously,

but just from our perspective, it seems like this happened pretty fast. How did that work? And then a couple of times in the interview, the very first thing he said, and then maybe once or twice in the interview, he mentioned praying. So at the end, I was like, okay, tell me about praying here. What are you talking about?

He said, well, it goes back to 2019. There was an illegal alien from Mexico who was driving a truck that killed a 64 year old man in Colorado. He was sentenced to a year in prison. Can you believe that? A year in prison. He served eight months, and then he was deported back to Mexico.

This would be his 13th deportation back to Mexico. You think, well, how did he ever get a license in the first place? It's all part of the corruption. So he comes back and he kills an American. Shannon said he's been praying ever since.

And he started this group and he said it was started in prayer. The main priority, their logo for American truckers United, the license plate says Psalm 34. So I said, Oh, Shannon just gave me the podcast. You Psalm 34 was written by David when he was in a cave hiding from King Saul, who wanted to kill

him.

The cave of a Dullam David and 400 men. They were not in a good place, physically, emotionally, spiritually, or spiritually. No, I take it back. That was the one place they were. That was good. Every other realm of life. It was not a good scene. So they're in this cave. I would have

pronounced it the cave of Adalim. But I watched this video of a guy who are a bunch of guys who went there in real life. So they'd been there. I got to go with them. Then they pronounce it a dullum. So they're in this cave as fugitives and the king's coming to kill them. And David wrote this psalm. Now if I were writing a little poem while in this situation, it probably wouldn't sound like this. Also it wouldn't be this artistic. This is one

of those poems where each sentence begins with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet. So A, B, C, but Hebrew. So imagine the horrible situation that David's in and here's Psalm 34. I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth.

My soul shall make its boast in the Lord. The humble shall hear of it and be glad. What? James Boyce, the theologian, said, he may have been hiding in a dismal cave, but this psalm tells us that his heart he was hiding in the Lord. Oh, magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together. I sought the Lord and he heard me and delivered me from my fears. Well, hold on. He's not king yet. What's the, he's in a cave. Now he's

made it out of trouble a few times where he just left the city of Gath where he pretended to be insane. So he got out of that bind, but he's no way in the free. And here he is delivered from all my fears. Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who trusts in him." Again, this was the main psalm of this group, American Truckers United. This was Shannon's main comfort. Oh fear the Lord, you his saints. There is no want to those who fear him. The young lions lack and suffer hunger, but those who seek the Lord shall not lack any good thing. Check out this wisdom here.

Come, you children, listen to me. I will teach you the fear of the Lord. Who is the man who desires life? And loves many days that he may see good. OK, so you want one to live a nice life, keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking deceit.

Depart from evil and do good. Seek peace and pursue it. Good as that. It's good for raising kids right there. But ourselves, of course, to the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and he, his ears are open to their cry.

The face of the Lord is against those who do evil to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth. The righteous cry out and the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to those who have a broken heart and save such as have a contrite spirit. That ties into Ed from North Carolina, who we talked about yesterday. He had a broken heart, a spiritually broken heart in a good way to contrite spirit when

he was confronted with his selfishness. Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all. Wow, many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all. He guards all his bones.

Not one of them is broken. Evil shall slay the wicked. And those who hate the righteous shall be condemned. The Lord redeems the soul of his servants, and none of those who trust in righteous shall be condemned. The Lord redeems the soul of his servants and none of those who trust in him shall be condemned." Man. So it's Psalm 34. That's what Shannon brought up. And I mentioned him, I said, oh we just played this clip the other day of Tucker Carlson with Bukele in El Salvador.

It was Bukele's, I think, inaugural, and Tucker was saying, hey, I listened to your speech, and you said we have a three-point plan to save the economy. And Tucker says, oh, you know, I'm thinking, you know, what's the first one?

Like start a federal reserve or lower taxes or whatever. And the first point of the plan was seek God's wisdom. And Bukede said, well, yes, of course. What else would be the first point of the plan? Where would you prefer we start? Name a better place to start. So I said that to Shannon, he said, oh, yeah, yeah.

That's Matthew 6, 33. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Now that all these things, Jesus was just done telling people, don't worry about what to eat, don't worry about what you drink, don't worry about what you wear. He says, your Heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. Seek, don't let these worldly

things, don't worry about it. Seek first the kingdom of God all these things. Seek, don't like these worldly things, don't worry about it. Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. Seek first the kingdom of God. Seek first the kingdom of God. Seek first the kingdom of God. It's like, yeah, is the podcast broken?

No, no, you gotta say it a few times before it clicks. It's so funny that the first time God is like, yeah, what's the podcast broken? No, no, you got to say it a few times before it clicks. It's so funny that the first time you're like, oh, it's a nice one. Second time. Okay, I got it. Third time. Yeah, I know.

I seek first the kingdom of God and eventually it's like, oh, oh, oh, yeah. Yeah, I guess like finally click seek first the kingdom of God. When? Later? At the end? If things work out? If they don't? Nope. See, not at the end. Seek first. Seek first before anything else. Seek what? The kingdom of God. Seek it first. And His righteousness, the very first thing. Seek first. No, really, it's being for real here. It's not a, it's not an expression. It's not a nice little saying. Seek first the kingdom of God. If you need to

hear it a few more times, you can rewind the podcast about 30 seconds. Keep hearing me say it over and over again, but let's pray it over and over again. Let's say it over and over again. Write it out over and over again. Let's say it over and over again. Write it out over and over again. Put it on a piece of paper. Put it by your door. Put it on your door. Put it over your door. As the reminder of what we need to seek first.

As the reminder of what we need to seek first.

The Kingdom of God. His righteousness.