S3 Ep 26: The Whisper of Eternity: The Soul's Tale and Our Connection with God; The Heart of Cory Rasnake

Hello and hello. Welcome back one more time. God's Diamonds in the Rough, we are so glad that you are here. Amen. We hope that you're having a blessed day. Amen, a blessed week. For that matter. If you don't know who we are, obviously I'm Catherine.

And I'm Michael.

And we're so glad again to be here with you. You're watching by YouTube or, you know, by visual. We have a guest alongside with us. We're going to be talking to him here in just a short first for you. You want to say hello to everybody.

Hey everyone, I'm so glad to be here. Thank you so much. We're across the country, but I'm great we can connect with this technology.

Amen, yes, hallelujah. So we're going to do what we do. Y'all know we got to do it first. We must pray, so let's get it.

Let's pray. Dear Heavenly Father, our Lord, our Savior, jesus Christ, we just come to you saying thank you. Thank you for allowing us to be among your people one more time. We pray in the name of Jesus, as you go before us in this podcast, that you will have complete control of it. We pray in the name of Jesus, counseling any assignment or the enemy that will be sent back into the picture of where it came from. We beg your forgiveness for anything we might have said, done or thought that's not pleasing your sight. That you'll grace your forgiveness and catch back in the picture of where it came from. We pray in the name of Jesus for the ones that have no desire to know who you are. That you will touch them from the crown of the head to the soles of their feet. That the chains and transformation will start and take place. These things and all things we ask all in Jesus' mighty name. We say thank you, we say amen, amen, amen, amen.

So, for those of you who have been here for a while, y'all know we are in season of revival Amen. This entire season. This is our third season and we are talking again about revival and just the fact that God is concerned about your soul Amen. And he is pulling up and he's planting and he's doing all kinds of things in your life Amen. And today we want to really dig into the image of God and who you are in him and what you look like. You know the fact that everything you've been through is not going down in vain, Amen. So Cory is here with us today and he's going to be sharing his perspective and his heart about what God has taught him over time and, you know, giving us all you know, his perspective on what God has shown him in his lifetime, and so we already. Cory, would you tell us just a bit about yourself?

Yeah, thank you so much for that. Yeah, I am living in the Bay Area of California right now, though I am a Canadian. I was a pastor up in Canada for five years. I lead pastor of a wonderful little church and left actually that the church there to record an album, and I just kind of felt like the Lord was leading me to kind of do the music thing for a while, and so that's what I was doing. And then I got a call from California one day asking if I would come down and be on the past world team down here, and I said Nope, not interested. But as we so often know, god has other plans, and so we had no idea, never in our wildest dreams, that we ever planned something like this. It's something that only God does. And so you know and I'll be honest, you know we live in, we lived in western Canada. If there's a spot in Canada that has a Bible Belt, it's definitely where we were from, in Alberta and kind of a comfortable location. And then to move into Silicon Valley, which is the opposite of any Bible Belt, it is hard ground spiritually. It was not attractive for to us at the time. I know there are some people that are like, oh, we're going to live on the beach in California area and it's like, no less, we would have been much more comfortable in Virginia or in Tennessee or in Montana or something like that. The last thing place we wanted to go was California and, yeah, I felt like the Lord brought us here to minister in this spiritually dark place, and so we came down 2016. And yeah, I've been been pastoring here ever since and I got to say I've evolved to the point where I find great blessing in ministering in a dark place. It's very rare now that I have moments where I'm like, oh, I wish I was in a Bible Belt. You know, I really feel like God has purpose in planting me in a dark place to try to point towards the light.

Right, I mean I myself. I find that interesting that you say that you know you like being in the place where there is darkness, and you know if. If that were the case for us, I believe that I would like it to as well, because then you don't have to worry so much about Fighting was cliche. You know fight. You know trying to reshape the hearts toward Christ. You are shaping. You know what I mean. Yeah of a shaping than reshaping because you got to redo it. It's like it's like building a car that's been put up put together incorrectly. Outwardly it looks like it's all together and everything is fine, but once you get down into, you know when one thing breaks down, something else breaks down and you find that it wasn't even put together properly and then you tear it all the way down. You find out well why I got to do this. I got to do that. You turn it all the way down and you're trying to properly put it back together without the, without the manual, so to speak. But you have the manual, but you don't really have the manual exactly the way you wanted to do because you got to kind of tweak it. You know what I mean. If you've ever tweaked anything without instructions to make it work right, you know exactly what I'm talking about.

You know, sometimes, you know, even with that metaphor, sometimes, when you, when you tweak things and if you don't put it together the correct way, you wind up that time down a line, down a road, tweaking it more.

And sometimes we can make a mess more of a mess than anything. What's your thought?

You got any thoughts?

Yeah, I think you're absolutely right.

I think, and especially when you kind of name the distinction of the two different locations in which we are ministering, it's so important to know where you are If you have any hopes of getting where you need to be. Right, I do empathize with you. I do empathize with you guys because I think that, to a certain degree, where we're fighting battles to awaken minds to the awareness of Christ and the goodness of God and people's lives right, you guys are, think you're in a location where you're in that struggle, right You're, you have you're. I feel like you're kind of in that middle of the teeter totter. Right, you're trying to try to maintain the line. Right, and there is a struggle and a burden, you know, and a diplomacy even that you guys need to have you know in that regard. And then, of course, I'm at a place here where there's a joke going around that Christianity is borderline illegal in California. Right, and so it is very much a missionary mindset, where you feel like you're stepping into a hostile environment where they don't understand your language. Right, and so the but the benefit of that is they don't know the language to start with, so you can teach them the language right and and so, but you definitely have to do it in a way that is, it's a different kind of diplomacy, right? Cause it definitely is a hostile environment, and I'll even say that, amongst the pastors down here, I would, I would sadly say that unfortunately, there has been a lot of compromise, a lot of people who have attempted to kind of acquiesce to the culture rather than contrasting it in Jesus name, right, and so, even amongst the pastors down here, I would say that I feel like there is a bit of a role to play, and reminding them this is what the Bible says, and it is the Bible that changes lives. It is the Bible that gives us hope. It is God's word. That is the foundation upon which we could stand, not your clever, you know your clever way of putting things right. So it's not only a dark place in that it's a dark culture, but even amongst the churches, I'm finding that there is a ministry to just remind pastors God's word is the authority, that's where the answers are found and that's where we have to stay. Don't wander from there, don't deviate from there.

Have you seen the movie Jesus Revolution?

Yes.

I mean what you're saying. It just sounds like that. Yeah Sounds just like that? Is it kind of like that In regards to that?

Yeah, I would say it's. The movie, of course, is a little bit cleaner. It's a, you're right, it's. It's definitely less messy here. You know, I appreciated I'm trying to remember the guy's name years and years ago I think it was. I think it was Ray Comfort, maybe that was his name. It was like a street evangelist anyway, and I remember him. I remember years ago him saying something that really impacted me. He said when you step on a soapbox in public and you're going to preach the gospel, he says you have to have the right expectation. And he says you know immediately that eight out of 10 people are going to walk by that even care that you're there. Yeah Right, yeah, you're just nothing to them, and so you're going to have to manage those feelings that the vast majority you're just kind of an annoyance, you're someone that got to walk around to get where they want to go. He said then there's always one person that wants to punch your lights out. Yeah Right, you, you, they are mad at you. How dare you stand up on the soapbox and give your perspective? But then there's that one person who you can see the impact of your words of the gospel is is is touching their heart and he says when you go into this ministry with the correct expectation, realizing the vast majority, you're just an annoyance. Well, someone is going to want to punch your lights out, but there is that one person who is going to impact. When you have that right expectation, you can. You can approach ministry with a much more realistic mindset, which will give you much more joy. Right, and in a sense of accomplishment, because it's realistic. If you go out on a soapbox expecting everybody that hears you to get saved or to applaud you, you can get saved, you know, or to or to want you there, you're going to be let down. Similarly, if you don't get on the soapbox because you think every one's going to want to punch your lights out, right, you've, you've, again you've. You've made it into something that it isn't. So, just having that right perspective, you know, when you enter into what ministry, wherever you're at, whether you're in Virginia or you're in California, Right, right man.

All right, michael, come on with your question.

Uh, first question what proof is there that mankind has a soul?

Oh man, I appreciate you asking that question. I often answer this question in a couple different ways, but the first thing I generally say is we are our own best evidence that we have souls and that each one of us intuitively knows and this is universal that somehow, in some way, we exist beyond biology. We have these cravings within us that are different than any other creature on earth. They are cravings that are not biological cravings. So when I talk about the soul, I should just say that to start with. When I talk about the soul, I am talking about that part of us that exists beyond biology. And so I think the first evidence is just that internal evidence where we find ourselves. Mankind has this deep desire to reach deeper, to reach further than what is presently within our biological grasp. So we all have that internal evidence within us. And I think another aspect would be I always say, the historic and mathematical aspect. Virtually every culture in the history of the world and this is a historic fact, it's a mathematical fact, it's a sociological fact every culture in the history of the world independently came to the same conclusion that we exist beyond biology, and that is that the awareness of our souls was not evangelized like religion, was Right, you know, we think when the English landed their ships at Plymouth Rock, they had an awareness of the soul. But they came to the North America where the natives who lived here also had an awareness of the soul. Right, they described it differently, but they had awareness of it. The English did not bring an awareness of the soul to North America. You can go further back and you can say you had the Romans. The Romans believed in a soul, but when they landed their legions north of the white cliffs of Dover, to the Celts and all the different people that they were at that time, the Romans had an awareness of the soul, but they landed on an island where they also had an awareness of the soul. Every culture in the history of the world historically came to the same conclusion without coercion, right, and in fact one could say that all the religions in the world are actually birthed out of all these different cultures, trying to describe or make sense of what they know about themselves. Right, and I think that that is like when it comes to scientific evidence, that's as scientific as it gets. Yeah, right, if someone comes into my, you know, if my son comes running into the room and says Dad, did you hear that loud, piercing scream? I'm like no, I didn't. I didn't hear anything. Maybe you must have just been hearing things Right. And then my wife comes in from the garden. She says honey, did you hear that loud, piercing scream? I'm like no, but both of you are in different places and you both heard it, so maybe. And then there's a knock on the door and the neighbor comes in and says, hey, did you guys hear that scream? It's like okay, I know there was a scream, I didn't hear it. The same thing is true with cultures, with every culture independently reaching the same conclusion that we exist beyond biology. That is scientific evidence as hard as it gets Right, yeah. And then, of course, we have the testimony of scripture, where just flight hotels us.

Yeah, I think it's interesting how I made up mine can deny true when it's staring everybody in their face. You know what I mean. That's what they did biblically in that time, the Pharisees and the Sadducees and all of them. They just decided, well, this can't be Jesus. But even within their flock and I'm talking about the Pharisees and all of them they had people within saying how can it not be? You know what I mean. How can it not be that, when all the evidence points to who he is? Yeah, and what we have to realize is that, though we have different color, different cultures, different languages, we still, according to the word of God, we've been made in his image and after his likeness, and so there is truly a diamond in you, because just simply because you're connected to him. Yeah, this will be.

Well, and the whole denial of the soul is a new thing. All history passed, everybody was aware of this. It is a new thing now to claim that we are only biological, that there is no soul, and it's very unscientific to say that. I mean, I often my background is I've studied, I talked to a lot of psychologists and neuroscientists and one of the things I always try to bring to the table with them is there's no doubt the study of neuroscience is fascinating, and when you learn how your brain works and how the release of chemicals affects everything about you, it is a very enlightening thing to learn about. Same thing with psychiatry and psychology. But I often try to get them to understand what you are studying here. What you are describing is not the source of what we do. It's simply it's like looking at a car. Imagine there's a car there. Psychology is like looking at the wheels and the chassis and the hood and the doors, and the neuroscience gets into the engine and all the gears and the pistons and everything that makes it drive. But what they're ignoring is the driver that's in the seat and that is the soul, right. And so to claim I would argue that to claim that there is no soul is an extremely unscientific claim, absolutely it doesn't just deny faith or the Bible, it denies science itself.

Well, I mean you know, I'll just add to what you just said about, you know, disregarding the driver, and that's what the world is doing now by getting these cars that self driving.

Yeah, you know the end up in the ditch.

Yeah, and you, you, you sit there and you wonder why so many things going wrong in the world? And I'll use one example. You know, you see people using GPS and GPS is taking them on the wrong route, on a road that's not there. Yeah, it's because you're denying the soul.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And this life.

And my, my, my life goal or mission that God has placed me on, especially over the last four years, has been to not just talk about the soul, you know, in an ambiguous way. You know, even in the church, when we talk about the soul, we tend to approach it with ambiguity. Right, we, we reference it, but we really don't understand it. So my last four years has been in study and in research to say, okay, the soul exists, let's define it and let's, let's figure out it's operating purpose. Right, and my goal has really been my goal as an author and, to be honest, as a pastor and evangelist is to bring people to an understanding of their soul. Because when you understand your soul not just that you have one, but that it has a great and beautiful and central purpose it really changes the way we view life.

Absolutely. I'm going to read this quote. I think it's interesting and it really speaks to everything that's been said thus far. It says when the when the gospel of Jesus Christ is presented with authority, holding from the very word of God, he takes that message and drives it supernaturally into the human heart. That's a quote from Billy Graham that's powerful because you know, we got to use the word of God. You know what I mean. We are out here and we're preaching and we're evangelizing. We're doing this and doing, but we're too often doing it based on what we think we know, yeah, and not on the word itself. The word is our authority and if they want to deny the truth, then that's on them. But you know there is an accountability that's going to come at us, you know, to say well, I didn't use my word, all you needed was my word to tell truth. You know what I mean. People, they're trying to go back to the science, like you said. And well, god created science. Yeah, you know he created all of that, the thing you're trying to use against them. He created it, yeah, you know he was around before anything was around.

Yeah.

That's the one thing. That's the one question we can't answer is where God came from. Yeah, and we think about wisdom. We think about, you know, we think about wisdom, we think about faith, we think about all of these things that we try to attain, because I'm in the process of writing a book myself, and that was something that just really stood out in my mind earlier today was that, you know, we try to attain the thing that he possesses. He created it all. While we're trying to figure it out, we created it all. He created it all. He's given us access, and it's through his word. Now it's the only way we're really going to get it. It's through his word, and this is how you find out who you are in regards to your soul and to in regards to the image of God. You know who he is and who you are, your purpose. That's the only way that you're going to find it, and if you're listening to leaders and pastors and teachers that are giving you something outside of the word of God, their truths and what they're saying is not rooted in the word of God, they could very well lead you astray.

Preach it? Yep, absolutely. Yeah, god's word is it? And how amazing is it to know that. You know, as we awaken to the awareness of our own soul, god just didn't leave us to figure it out. He, he, he stepped forward and he's with his way. He gave us his word, god's own word, exactly from the very beginning. This is how it began in Genesis. This is how it's going to end, absolutely, and in the middle. This is all the cycles that you're going to face, but there is this beginning and there is this end. Folks, this is God's word. You can trust it, you can take it to the bank.

That's right, got a thought honey? Yeah, you look like you had a thought, a question.

Well, I had a question really. Um, so what does it mean to be made in the image of God?

Yeah, this is, I think, a pivotal question for us to understand, and I'll start by telling us what it doesn't mean. It doesn't mean that God runs around on two legs. It doesn't mean that God gets a brain freeze when he drinks a slushie, right? It doesn't mean that that is the. You know, oftentimes people do struggle. What does it mean? To be made in the image of God? Right, and I I tell it's not in looks right, but what I can tell you, I believe it is to be made in the image of God is to To be made to operate in connection with him, and that is what separates humanity most from all the other creatures on earth. We were designed to live and move and to find our being in connection with God, and Without a connection with God, we wander and we are lost. And we do things without even understanding why we're doing them. And we get money, and we need more money because the money we had didn't satisfy. And then we get that money. We need more money because it didn't satisfy. And then we get power, but it's not enough power. So we need more power. And then we get that power, but we need more power. It's never enough. We're running around in circles? Why? Because we are not acknowledging that we have been created To live in connection with God. That's what it means to be made in the image of God, and if we are not connected with that image, we don't have peace and we wander the world looking for it, but we can't find it. Because we are designed to live in connection with God. I believe that that is the root and understanding what it means to be made in his image. It means we are designed to exist and to live and find our power on his fuel.

It brings us to that word again. All our diamonds knows all about this word we keep talking about seem like every episode. God have us talk about that one word in its relationship. Yeah, we were not. We were not designed to live in this world alone. He did not want us to be alone, and if we have nobody else, we have him a man. What's your final thought? We cuz, cuz. Our time is wrapping up, so, mr Corey, please give us a final thought, a word of encouragement, whatever the Lord is leading you to give to the diamonds here. Yeah, yeah, so we can wrap up.

Yeah, my final word would be the first off. Remember this more than a brain or a body, you are an eternal soul. So we get all confused and all messed up, looking at each other, thinking that we are these bags of flesh, but this is somehow us right? Or that are? Our intellect defines who we are, right. That's what certain scientists would say, the way. It's our intellect, or our ability to make fire, that sets us apart from other living creatures. No more than a brain or a body, you are. You are an eternal soul, and when you, when we realize that we live life differently, we prioritize things differently. You are an eternal soul, designed to live in connection with your maker and what you see happening in the world today. You know, we live in a time of unprecedented prosperity. Never before in the history of the world I'm has, as mankind, been granted access to freedom, to entertainment, to leisure, to, you know, prosperity, to education. And yet every study shows that we are more unhappy than ever as a human race. Why? Because we have pursued all of these things that we thought, to a certain degree, the American dream. We thought we would find peace, we thought we would find meaning, we thought we would find identity and all these things, and ours is a generation that has found out that hope and peace do not exist in these places. And so, yes, you are an eternal soul I encourage people to be aware of this designed to be in connection with its maker, and the reason there is chaos in the world today is because there is a world trying to live, trying to find purpose, trying to find meaning, disconnected from their maker, and it will not work. And so I would just encourage everyone to realize God made you special. He, god made you, he granted you the privilege to not only know him but to be known by him, and in that intimacy is where you will find hope and purpose and meaning, and, as long as you're looking for it, in your job or your education or, dare I say it, even your spouse, who God blessed you with. But God, give you that spouse to serve as a reflection of him, not so that you would find your hope or identity in that person, but so that that person will reflect the hope and the identity found in Christ. And when you realize these things, you are a soul, you are designed to be in connection with God and you start to live that way, everything changes.

Hallelujah, genesis two and seven says this. It says and the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, says and breathe into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. You cannot have life without God. As much as you try, you cannot. You cannot have life without God. He made you a living soul. We might think it was our parents, but if you go all the way back, life began with Adam and Eve and him blowing his breath into dirt to create Adam. See what your Bible says Amen, hallelujah, let's pray. Father, we thank you so much for this day. Thank you, guys, so much for bringing us together one more time. Thank you, god, for Corey and his ministry and all that you're doing in it. I just pray Lord to continue to touch and to bless all that he's doing for you and your glory. We pray God, that you will touch us all, god, as we serve in spirit and in truth. Continue to build us up for your glory in the name of Jesus. I pray, god, that our minds and hearts will be steadfast on you. Continue to show us the diamond that you have placed in each and every one of us. God, we bless your name and we say thank you. We pray that our prayers is pleasing in your sight. In Jesus Christ's name, we do pray, amen, amen.

And amen.

Honey, you look like you wanted to say something.

You know and I like the fact that you use that scripture in Genesis because, as you was talking about it, we had to understand that you cannot recharge a battery by taking a battery cable and putting it on the ground. You have to be connected to the power for that battery to get stronger. That's right. Just because we came from the ground don't mean you can hook it to the ground.

Yeah, I'm just saying Absolutely Yep All right there, corey, we surely do appreciate you, and I think that we ought to do a second part to this or do a schedule. Absolutely Any time schedule another one, but this was really, really good and I just feel, in the spirit that you have so much more that will bring forth some life to somebody, yeah, so maybe we can set it up where we can get together one more time.

That would be great.

Well, again, we appreciate you. We thank you so much for being here. Yeah, all right, so.

And until next time, remember you are a diamond in the rock.