Pivotal People
Join us in conversations with inspiring people doing amazing things. Their insights and experiences help motivate all of us to find our purpose that fits with our abilities, gifts and life situation. Get a "behind the scenes" look at successful people making a difference in the world and benefit from their advice for the rest of us. Our guests include authors, artists, leaders, coaches, pastors, business people and speakers.
Pivotal People
Laurel Appel: Embracing Grace to Fortify Your Faith
Laurel Appel returns to the Pivotal People podcast to share her inspiring journey of writing her latest book, "Fortify Your Faith." Laurel dives into overcoming imposter syndrome, embracing the transformative power of grace, and using her personal experiences to craft relatable lessons for readers.
Listeners will gain insight into the profound impact of God's grace and how personal stories can resonate more deeply than scripture alone. Laurel opens up about addressing skeptics and the importance of a strong scriptural foundation in her work. By weaving her journey of accepting grace and overcoming feelings of unworthiness, she illustrates how this understanding can lead to a life filled with love and acceptance.
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I'd like to welcome Laurel Apple to the Pivotal People podcast. You might recognize that name because she was on the podcast a year and a half ago or something with her first book. This is her second book and, by the way, laurel, your podcast episode was one of my most popular ones. So when she came out with a second book, I'm like I got to get her on my podcast. So let me tell you about Laurel.
Speaker 1:She wrote her first book, radical Grace Live Free and Unashamed, and it has won awards. She is a seasoned Bible teacher with over 25 years of experience, so she really not only does she know the Bible, but she loves the Bible. She's dedicated to freeing individuals into the grace of God through her insightful books and Bible studies. Laurel's relatable message, drawn from a tapestry of life experiences, resonates deeply with readers and listeners, and I'll tell you I've read Radical Grace. I've given it to people as gifts because they asked for it. My brother actually asked for it for Christmas two years ago because he heard her podcast episode and said aren't you going to give me your book for Christmas? So I did. Her message of grace is simple, but it's not easy, and I found that her life stories and experiences really helped me understand that very simple but complicated concept. So, laura, welcome. I appreciate you coming back on. It's great to see you.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me, Stephanie.
Speaker 1:It's great to be back, so I know you but I'd like to start out with you telling us about yourself. And I said to Laurel before we started Laurel's written two books, okay, and I put us in the category of ordinary people who write books. So many people 86% of people actually, a survey found would like to write a book, but most people don't because they really don't know where to start or they don't think they're qualified to write a book. So, Laurel, I would love for you to share how you not only wrote the first book, but how you've come to write the second book, which is called. The second book we're talking about today is Fortify your Faith, which is a very good Bible study that goes along with her first book, Radical Grace, right, Okay, so back to you, Laurel, Tell us about yourself.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm a wife of my junior high sweetheart. We've been together a long time. We have a family of three grandchildren and three little beautiful princess granddaughters. So I was recently empty nested and I found myself during the lockdown 2020, kind of twiddling my thumbs because I didn't know what to do with myself. I had, we had, a church that we were leaders of. We were I ran a homeschool co-op. I had homeschooled my children, I was very involved, and then, all of a sudden, we were in a new place five years before that, but we were living on a farm. And now, all of a sudden, we're cut off from the world and I don't know.
Speaker 2:I think I read something online that said hey, during lockdown, if you're, you know, everyone's got a book in them. They should write a book, you know. And so it was neat how God took me through the process, because at first I had a friend who said, hey, there's this really neat thing on Etsy where you can write letters and then sell a subscription. She kind of explained it more than that, but that was the basic gist. So I thought, oh, that would be neat to offer the gospel in that kind of format so people could gift it to friends and relatives that might need to hear the gospel from somebody. So I started down that path and I really felt like God was telling me you need to turn this into a book. So how do you go from? Okay, this is going to be a book about the gospel. Well, that's the Bible. Like you can just pick up the Bible and read about the gospel.
Speaker 2:So I realized then that my journey of understanding grace was probably a story, a narrative that could be heard. So that's why I ended up writing my narrative nonfiction, which is Radical Grace, and it basically it doesn't really tell my story from A to Z, but it gives little snippets and anecdotes and little you know progress and things that along the way to kind of bring the reader into an understanding of what I'm talking about as far as how grace healed me, healed my marriage, and then how just my story and the fact that I've been through childhood abuse and that struggle within my marriage and my best friend we love each other so much but we struggled so much at the beginning and so being able to write down some of those stories and use that as examples of under so people could relate to that and everyone deals with struggles and no matter what, no matter who you are and what status you have and what income you have, it doesn't matter. Everyone struggles in this world. It's a hard world to be in, and so just to be able to teach Grace through that, through that narrative, was exciting for me to do and a lot of hard work.
Speaker 2:It took me two years to do it. I had never written a book before. In fact, I was terrible in school with writing and English classes, and so I very, I very much felt unqualified to do this, but I felt like God was telling me to do it. So I felt like, well, okay, lord, you're going to have to deal with the fact that I don't feel like I'm qualified. I totally had imposter syndrome.
Speaker 1:And you know what's interesting, I was reading your book and I thought yesterday I was reading part of your Bible study and I thought, oh, Laurel has a good vocabulary. There's a word that she just used that wouldn't come to me easily, but that's the perfect word, and I actually thought I wonder if she is. Well, you homeschooled your kids, so you obviously are a better writer than you. But isn't that funny? Because I actually thought the opposite. I thought, oh, she has a good vocabulary.
Speaker 2:My mom had a really good vocabulary and she was a stickler for you got to learn good vocabulary. Had a really good vocabulary and she was a stickler for you got to learn good vocabulary. So I vocabulary is good. It's interesting. I had a writing coach which helped too, so I do suggest that.
Speaker 2:She said to me it's one thing to have a good vocabulary and be able to recall that word that you need to put it on your paper. Then that's a whole different process in your brain than being able to read something and know what they're saying, because they use different vocabulary and so having that good vocabulary and a thesaurus helps. But just basically, I just wrote my words down and then I had my husband, who is a smart guy and he's a Christian, he's a pastor and he knows doctrine and he read through it. I had my children read through it, I had a coach read through it and then I went through it a bazillion times and then I had an editor. So I think anyone can write something, because you just need people around you that can support you and help you along the process. Now does it hurt your ego to have somebody say you know, this chapter kind of is flat, which I had. My husband told me this chapter is kind of flat, you know, on one of my chapters, and it's kind of hard to hear.
Speaker 2:The key is, though, is to say you know what I want to be a good writer, so I'm going to change it, I'm going to struggle with it until it's good, and that process took that's why it took me a long time to write my first one. I had to struggle through that, and you know what I learned and I grew, and now my second book. It was a lot easier to get out my words and to be able to present it in a way that I think could resonate and people could take it in and receive it. So I think anyone can write a book, but I do think that if you do, no matter what your skill level is, get people to read it, get feedback, and then receive their feedback, take it into consideration. It's your book. You don't have to change it, but take that advice and at least ponder it. If not, use it to make your book better, that is so good it. If not, use it to make your book better, and I did Right.
Speaker 2:And then Radical Grace did win awards as an indie author, it won awards and part of that was based on how well it was presented and the mistakes that the editor was able to find and the formatter, the formatting of it, the cover design all of that is important in presenting your book, because I think to some people not everyone, but to some people it's distracting to have a book that the cover looks weird or there's spelling mistakes or grammar mistakes or things like that. And I know of three or four mistakes in Fortify your Faith that I need to fix Little mistakes, missing periods and things that I think oh, I can't believe I did that.
Speaker 1:Those are the things that you well and I'm listening to you thinking because I love to write too and I've had good editors. So editors who went through and said you know, you have said this idea enough like you're being redundant, because I always have this assumption when I'm writing that it's like I'm talking to my husband. So maybe I told him a story last week, but I need to start over from the beginning today, because he probably wasn't listening last week and they're like no, that's not how the readers are. You don't have to repeat the whole thing. You trust that they remember the thing from the last chapter.
Speaker 1:I love to encourage people to write their stories. Whether it's published or not, it doesn't matter. Your story could be for your adult children after you're gone and they're going to be so grateful that you wrote it. But a couple of things I always think, laurel, is write the way you speak. Now, if you wrote the way you spoke, then writing will come far more naturally. You don't have to sound academic, you don't have to sound stilted, you don't have to sound like you have a better vocabulary than you do. You can just write the way you speak, and I've actually found that people appreciate that more.
Speaker 2:Because I think they realize that you're being an authentic person, you're presenting yourself and what you're writing about. Now I think it's a good idea to write something that either your life story if you're doing like a memoir or a narrative in some way or write something you're an ex. Write about something that you're an expert in you know. I don't suggest that if you're an expert in underwater basket weaving that you write about. You know brain surgery, but of course so if you're authentic and you have knowledge about something or you have something to give to your reader, then that is a perfect combination.
Speaker 1:I agree. The other thing that is unique to all of us is our stories. So there is a. It is, you know, overusing words, but it's very vulnerable to share true personal story, but those are the best ones. That's what people want to hear. People don't want to hear. You know, here's a Bible passage. Now does that make sense to you? Now, here's the you know facts and justification for why you should believe that. Bob Goff always says you know, you don't have to give people a Bible verse. You can just tell them a story of how Jesus showed up in your life and so that's good and I think a lot of people receive that message.
Speaker 2:And when I was writing Radical Grace, which is a narrative it doesn't give you know Bible verse but it does talk about doctrine in a sense of how it applied to things in my life. I think some people love that kind of and they receive it better. But as I was writing it I actually had people in my mind that I knew they're gonna say prove it, prove it to me in the Bible. So you say grace is free grace, grace is extravagant, grace is radical. Prove it to me through the scripture. Because they're skeptics, like I am, I'm a skeptic and so when I was writing Radical Grace, that's when I knew I had to do Fortify your Faith for those who need to see the scriptural basis, because not everyone is going to just take a narrative. Some people will, but some people are going to take the narrative of this is what grace is. God's grace is radical. And they're going to say I don't know. I've heard a lot of people say that if you believe that extent of grace, then you're cheapening grace or you're you think you can get away with sin, or so I had to address there's it's funny, there's this thing that my husband and I, I mean, we laugh about all the time when you talk about grace, there's a lot of yeah buts and people say yeah, but what about yeah? But what about what about sin? What about works, what about? And so I wanted to address those yeah buts in my new Bible study because I think some people need that concrete from the Bible scripture.
Speaker 2:I think Bob is right in a sense that if you can live out the scripture, it is a wonderful, beautiful example of what grace is and what love is and forgiveness and all of those things. We love examples, we love authentic examples. But then there's some people who really need that. I needed it. I needed it for my life. I lived it out.
Speaker 2:But in order for me to grow, I had to get my nose in the Bible and in fact I had a husband who is a pastor preaching about grace. We'd come home and I would be drilling him saying, wait, what about? I was the yeah but, or you know, I was the person saying yeah but. And then we would just talk about things back and forth and I'd go to the scripture and I'd wrestle with God about it and say explain this verse to me I don't get it, I don't understand, and that process took about 10 years for me to get through, and so I wanted to be able to just lay it out, brick by brick, and fortify your faith of building on that foundation and building up that doctrine, so that you can see it clearly from the word.
Speaker 1:So I'd like to dig into this a little bit. I'd like to dig into describing grace, because that's a word and everyone might have a different vision of that word. Bob Goff has a devotional I read. That is what is it? Live in grace. So, like you, accept God's grace and then walk in love. So we're showing other people love. But showing other people love is not what earns the grace, right. Showing people love is our response to God's grace and love to us. And this is Laurel.
Speaker 1:I think this is the circular thing that gets us tripped up Like wait a minute, there's nothing. Just because we've accepted, we believe that you know we're saved by grace, doesn't mean that I shouldn't be doing works. It simply means that whatever those works are aren't earning the grace. We're living in grace. We're taking that first and then we're turning around and walking in love. I'm going to go show God's love to people, not because I'm trying to earn God's love, but because he's filled me with love and I hope it's going to overflow. And if it's not overflowing, then let me go back to God. I must not be accepting his grace and love, right?
Speaker 2:I agree with that 100%.
Speaker 2:I think the degree at which you accept God's grace is the degree to which you will give God's grace, because I believe that I know for me.
Speaker 2:When I was struggling through because I felt so bad about myself because I was abused sexually abused as a child, I felt terrible. I thought I was icky and dirty and worthless, and so I was trying to do my works to prove that I was worthy of God's love. And I know that we all struggle with that a little bit, because I see it, I've been in ministry for many years and most people all they want is to know that they're loved and they're worth being loved. And so as I struggled through that and I came to realize more and more and more that God just loved me intrinsically because I was his creation, then that freed me to understand that, oh wow, now we celebrate Grace is the catalyst for love, for loving others and for giving that grace to others. I think that the more we receive that freedom in grace, the more we can say oh okay, now I don't have to prove myself and I also can refrain from judging others and being self-righteous toward other people and their struggles.
Speaker 1:And that is a huge sentence. And then love flows. That is a huge sentence. How? Sometimes, I wonder, you know, we all know people who tend to criticize all the time and sometimes I wonder do they know how loved they are by God? Do they know? I don't think they know. I don't think they know how much God loves them, just the way they are, because it is true. I mean, I have to remind myself of that every single morning because it is not an intuitive thought to me.
Speaker 2:No, we live in a society that tells us if you do good, then you're going to be rewarded. If you behave, if you're obedient, then I'll be happy. Right From the day we're born, to our school, to our jobs, to everything in society. It's this work for reward system that we're. It's so ingrained in us that we put that on God. And he doesn't have, he doesn't go by the work for reward system. He says I love you and I'm going to die for you. I'm going to forgive you, I'm going to redeem you, I'm going to make you holy, I'm going to make you righteous. I'm going to give you the Holy Spirit. I'm going to give you eternal life. I'm going to give fill your heart with love. I'm going to give you all the spiritual blessings in the heavenly places. Just because you said I believe you. I mean I don't know why we're not shouting that from the rooftops every day. You know every moment of every day.
Speaker 1:That's what I mean. It's so simple but it's not easy. I mean, I love the quote. I think it was Tozer who said what you think about when you think about God is the most important thing about you, and the way I hear that is. The way we think of how God feels about us will determine who we are and how we live and how we relate to the world, and how I mean. My number one prayer for my adult sons is that they would realize how truly loved they are by God, and that's because I love them. I so want them to know that. But can you imagine, laura, what the world would look like if everyone truly believed that it would be so different it would be, and I was the one who was.
Speaker 2:I thought of myself as so. I don't know. I don't even know how to explain how terrible I thought of myself. I called myself broken. I called myself unworthy. I was in a very, very dark place, suicidal, agoraphobic. I was hurting myself when I would feel out of control or feel like I wasn't worthy of something.
Speaker 2:I am a walking miracle and if people could see that was my hope for Radical Grace is if people could see the miracle that grace covers and heals and brings me. I am now a person who knows. I know that, I know and this process that's why I named this book Fortify your Faith, because this process of understanding this awesome grace that God has given us and the love that is underpins that grace from God that being accepted by God, while he knows that I am dirty and I'm sinful and I make mistakes and I get angry and I have opinions and I judge, even while I was a sinner, he still gave me that grace and that is so transformational. It is so transformational if you could understand that you are accepted, you are loved and that is my heart for people to understand, because I know, I've been there. I have been there for so many years. It's only been.
Speaker 2:I am 50, almost 56 years old. In the last 10 years I have gotten this. That means over 45 years of my life. I lived with that, thinking I wasn't worthy of love, and so my one message if I could get one message out there is that you are loved by God, so much so that he would come down, put himself in a human body and we all know that that stinks, you know and he would go to the cross and resurrect again because of his love for you. It's just.
Speaker 1:God is so amazing, it is beautiful, and I'm sitting here thinking, as you're talking, you know there's a feeling that, well, that's too good to be true and that's, and you know, I don't. I don't know if I can believe that. Well, let me say that's why I say every single morning I sit, and I am reminded of that when I read. Single morning I sit and I am reminded of that when I read the Bible. I always say you know what? Just open the Bible. You know, open the Bible. Look for the red letters. That's Jesus talking. Just read that. Read that. My pastor always says these have to be true. These words have to be true. They have to. You know, jesus said these. It was recorded. Have to be true. They have to. You know, jesus said these. It was recorded Because at the time, if they were to make up the story of who the Messiah was, it wouldn't have been that story at all.
Speaker 1:It wouldn't have been Jesus. No women would have been involved in the story. He wouldn't have been humble. It would have been totally different. The things that he said would not have been understood at all. People wouldn't have made that up. So and then when you read it and say wow, wow. He just said he loves me, no matter what he's going to go find me, no matter what the one sheep you know he's going to leave behind the 99. And what I think is I hold on to is that he knows every single thing about us. So when we think that there's the side of us that we can't let him see, oh, he sees it, he knows that. It's kind of like when we all had toddlers if you were a mother, when they were hiding and they would put their hands over their eyes so we couldn't see them. Of course we could see them, but I don't know. So I love your passion for this because you're right, if there is one message you could get out there, it would be that you are loved completely as you are.
Speaker 1:I was with a couple of friends this past weekend who aren't churchgoers. They would not identify as Jesus followers, they're not believers. They are two of the most wonderful women I know. I love them. They are two of the most wonderful women I know. I love them. They are just delightful, delightful people.
Speaker 1:And you know I do talk about faith a lot and we were talking about it and I was describing our church. It's a new church plant and I'm really excited about it, and I was describing how we want everyone to feel accepted. We want everyone to be able to come just as they are. We don't want anyone to feel it's not about how you dress or what your political identity is, or what your gender or sexuality or anything. We just want everyone to feel welcomed and know they are loved by God. And my cousin looked at me and she said I love that. I'm like that's the gospel.
Speaker 1:But I didn't say this is the gospel. I didn't say this is what John 3.16 says. So it's like people don't even realize that's what is being offered, because maybe there's some negativity around identifying as a Christian or the church or whatever. We won't get into that today, but when you can pick up a beautiful book and you can have a real person like Laurel telling you passionately how this has changed your life, oh that's pretty relatable. Okay, maybe I will listen to this because everyone wants to hear it. Right, you want to hear you're loved. You want to hear you're loved. You want to hear you're forgiven. You want to hear that there's such a thing as mercy and grace and forgiveness. So, going back to your origin story, I know in your book you talk about how you didn't go to church growing up. You didn't you know until what you said, until the age of 20. So what was your turning point? How did you get curious about being a Jesus follower?
Speaker 2:Well, my husband actually brought me to the Lord at 16. And we moved around a little bit in our, we went to college and then after that we moved to a small town in New Mexico where we started having family and we started our family near Albuquerque. But we had young kids and we were invited to church and started going to church. He has a great story too, my husband, where we kind of weren't real involved in our relationship with Christ. We would have called ourselves Christians but we weren't real involved with Jesus, you know. So we started going to a church and a couple different churches we tried out. We ended up not too many years later where Phil was actually called to be a pastor and he knew he had that calling on his life since he was seven or eight years old. He knew someday he would be a pastor and so we just dove into ministry and he understood the message of grace. Of course we all evolve and he even became more understanding of grace through the time that we had our church, that we led the church. But that church was really where I experienced a lot of people who were really frustrated about their sin and frustrated about they couldn't understand how grace and sin relate. And then you hear a lot of doctrine that's taught out there, that's focusing, it's like we normalize talking about our sin and trying to fix our flesh, when then I'd go to the scriptures and it would be contradictory to that saying paul saying we no longer live in the flesh. If you walk in the spirit, you're not going to fulfill the lust of the flesh. And and so it was this kind of beautiful time in our lives where phil was preaching this now I wasn't't teaching Sunday school during that most of those sermons, so I didn't get most of what he said but we would come home, like I said, and we would talk about this stuff and I would argue with him and say, wait, where's that in the scripture? But what about this verse and what does it say? And so we would struggle through those things and I finally just realized I need to get my nose in the scripture, I need to dig it out, I need to understand these things. And so, as I was going through all those scriptures, reading through the Bible several times, really focusing on things that didn't make sense, scriptures that seemed contradictory or even doctrines that seemed contradictory, I'm being told at one point that I need to work on cleaning myself up. I need to be more Christ-like through my works. And then I go to scripture and it says you're already holy, you're already righteous, and so that didn't gel with me and I struggled with that.
Speaker 2:A lot of people who have been abused or who have struggled with being controlled in a negative way as a child become skeptics because they don't like inauthenticity, they don't like to be lied to, they don't like they've experienced that and don't want it. And that's how I was. I'm a skeptic. I'm like give me the truth, I'm going to find the truth. If it takes me 50 years, I'm going to find the truth. And so that's where all of this background that I have poured into, this Bible study, to kind of organize it, the scripture, because there's different books. Think of it as a library. It's a bunch of little books sitting on a shelf right and Paul wrote a bunch of the new Testament, and then you have the old Testament. And how do you?
Speaker 2:What's the deal with the old Testament versus the new Testament? What's the deal with the old covenant versus the new covenant? What's the deal with the Old Covenant versus the New Covenant? What's the deal with sin and what's the deal with grace, what's the deal with forgiveness, what's the deal with this thing that Paul calls your old man and your new man? What is that? You know, and I just I just was like I'm going to figure this out. If it takes me forever, I'm going to figure it out.
Speaker 2:I don't claim to know the entire scripture, I'm not claiming to know that I figured it all out, but what I have figured out from doctrine is what I present in Fortify your Faith. I start with the base. I start with Jesus Christ. He is our cornerstone of our faith and I talk about him a little bit. We'll never be able to know everything about Jesus Christ. He is our, he's God, he came, he was man, fully God, fully man. I start there because if without Jesus Christ, then it's not Christian, it's not Christianity, it's not the gospel of grace. And then I build, I lay in, I take a format in this new study where I lay foundational bricks. So start there Now.
Speaker 2:We need to understand righteousness, because I don't think it's it's, it's not taught about in the fullness of what we should be able to understand about righteousness the fact that Jesus makes us righteous, he declares us righteous and then he makes us righteous through his death and resurrection. Understanding righteousness is really important to the gospel, because we have to understand that If you are going to rely on your own righteousness, your own righteous works, that's not going to get you to heaven. In the book of Matthew, jesus tells us you have to be perfect, like your father in heaven is perfect, in order to enter the kingdom of heaven. Well, that's a pretty high standard, but that was the point Jesus was making was you can't do it on your own. And if you can't do it on your own, then we have to be able to do it somehow.
Speaker 2:That's what drove me to realize it's all about faith. It's God's grace and our faith. There's two elements. He offers us grace. All we have to do is, by faith, receive it and that's it.
Speaker 2:And if it's only by faith that we can come to Jesus and eternal life, then that's the only thing that is unpardonable. And if that's so so you see how I'm building bricks if that's true, then we have to say that it's not by works. So what are our works? Our works are as you explained earlier. Those are an expression of our love and gratitude and our understanding of we are loved. God loves that person in front of us, even if we're arguing with them. They have value to God and if we can stir up compassion for that person through grace, then we can understand that that person deserves for us to have open communication with them, to not be judgmental of them, to not be ugly to them, to actually have a decent conversation with them, to not be judgmental of them, to not be ugly to them, to actually have a decent conversation with them, to love them.
Speaker 1:Whether they love us back or not, yeah, I love them. Our pastor always says if we can try to see, pray Lord, help me see that person through your eyes, because they're your creation. You made them in your image and you love them completely, just like the rest of us. So what I loved about your study and I'll kind of summarize it here is that you do you walk us through what you call foundational bricks. So, for example, it's this whole thing about you know, the gospel and faith and the Bible and all of that. There's a whole bunch of concepts and Laurel kind of walks us through each concept and makes them simple and then it's like building our foundation of our faith. That is one brick. Now leave it there. And now that you understand it, don't let anyone confuse you over that but they're all very logical and one leads to the next until finally you have this beautiful. Okay, I get it. I get all of those concepts, all right, but it is.
Speaker 1:I really did feel, laurel, like you had to walk me through step by step, each one, instead of throwing them all at me at once, and also you know defining. So you know, these are like Christianese words righteousness, grace. There's a word. Let's explain what that means Covenant. Yeah, I need someone to explain that to me, holiness. Okay, holy Spirit, tell me what that is. So I really appreciate that. You really walked, and what I think is that anyone at any level of biblical understanding would benefit from this. Right, I don't think it, I, and what I think is that anyone at any level of biblical understanding would benefit from this.
Speaker 2:Right, I don't think it. I mean, I think it's great for a new believer who can avoid some of the trappings of legalistic gospel. They can just take that and set that aside and just start with grace. That would be awesome.
Speaker 2:But I think it's really good because there are so many. Like you just said, there's so many words and different doctrines. We don't many churches that I've been to and I've tried a lot, especially here in North Carolina, we ended up just doing a home fellowship but many churches they don't talk about the different covenants and what those mean. They don't talk about what. How do we relate to the old covenant as new covenant believers? I think that's an important part of understanding the gospel in its fullness. You're right.
Speaker 2:Justification, sanctification what are these words and what do they mean? And redemption, and what is righteousness and what is righteousness role? What is obedience, righteousness and what is righteousness role? What is obedience? You know, if you Google being obedient as a Christian, you will get a billion different answers. Usually it's that we have to obey the law. So then that makes you think well, if we're supposed to obey the old covenant law, which laws the 10 commandments? But Jesus says I fulfilled the law. Paul says you're no longer under the law, you're under grace. So how do we reconcile those things? So I just, that's right, I step you through.
Speaker 2:And once you lay that brick, you got to cement that down, because what happened to me was I would say, oh okay, that's what that means.
Speaker 2:And then some other person would come along and teach me something different and say and then I would just go, I'd start to move toward what they were saying and leave that other thing behind, and then I would be confused again.
Speaker 2:And so if you truly believe that this brick let's say the brick about righteousness if you understand that you're born unrighteous that's what happened with Adam and Eve in the garden and now you need righteousness to have eternal life and be with Jesus forever, and Jesus is the only way that can give you that righteousness. If you believe that, cement that brick down and don't let it budge. And if another doctrine comes along that says you have to have righteousness but the way you're going to get that righteousness is working on your flesh, working on your sinful nature, then you can say no, that can't be true, because if A is true, b can't be true. And then you can say I reject that false doctrine because I know the scripture has shown me that our righteousness only comes through Jesus Christ, not what we do, and then that strengthens your faith.
Speaker 1:That's right. Asking questions, as you said, digging in, and you know we might read something. You might read something in Laurel's book and you're like you know, I'm not so sure about that. It points you then to figure it out and go read the red letters and go read other parts of the Bible, and then it gets you thinking, and when we can come to our own conclusion, then it really becomes real.
Speaker 1:Just parroting what we hear, I think that for me it can be superficial. Well, they said I'm supposed to think this. So what I do so I'm saying you know what I do is I learn the words. I learned what I call the holy huddle words. So now I say all the right words and I look good on the outside. You know, the only thing that matters is having an understanding between us and God. So sit down with him, sit down with the Bible, go ahead and have the questions. Have the doubts. Doubts are what draws closer to God. Put in the energy to learn more about it, maybe find some great authors and come to a point where you have peace with what you believe.
Speaker 2:And I want to encourage people because I went to a Christian university and I was told that if what I thought the scripture was saying didn't align with the church fathers, then I was wrong. Automatically. Now I'm not saying that everything the church father said was wrong I'm not but there are people in the past who have interpreted scripture in a way that I don't believe is the way that is the truth of, from where my perspective of interpreting scripture. But here's the thing we are told in the scripture that we don't need somebody between us and God. We don't need anyone between us and Jesus. We have the Holy Spirit living in us. He is the perfect interpreter for the word of God and so I encourage anyone read the scripture.
Speaker 2:If it's something you don't understand, yes, look at commentary. Yes, get other people's opinions about it, but in the end you and the Holy Spirit living in you have the ability to read and interpret and understand the Word of God. You do. You might be being told that it's a book that's hard to read and you don't understand it, but if you go slow and you get some, sometimes you. There are things called teachers, people called teachers, that even you know. In Paul's writings he says there are some who are called to be teachers and we have a role. But in the end, be like a Berean in Acts 17, who listened carefully, took in what Paul was saying, but then they went back to the scripture and wanted to prove whether it was true or not.
Speaker 2:So don't take what I'm saying as gospel truth. Take it in, chew on it, go back to the Bible, ask the Spirit to help you and then come up with is it true? And if it is, don't ever let anyone change your mind about it, because I mean we all change. I guess I shouldn't say that necessarily because we could be misunderstanding something. I'm up for change, I'm willing to change about my interpretation, but at least if somebody comes up with something different than what you have cemented down to as your belief, then you can at least say I'm going to at least give what I already have cemented down heavyweight. But still consider what's going on and does it contradict basic things like where we get our righteousness? Who is Jesus? What did he do for us? You know what is the gospel? What is the gospel message? What is the new covenant? Those things are real important for us to basically think about and pray about, ask the Holy Spirit to give us wisdom in those things, and he will, and I think she's got a third book in her.
Speaker 1:What do you think? I hope so, laurel, because you know what it's so beautiful when you have a passion and it has such a deep purpose. So I just want to thank you for sharing your heart and your passion, and I'm sitting here listening, totally listening, totally enjoying it, and I'm like, oh, I've gone over time. Okay, so I'm sorry about that, laurel, but I really appreciate your time and I want to tell people where they can find you and where they can find your books. What's the best way to get in touch with you?
Speaker 2:First of all, you can go to laurelapplecom. That's my website and you can get any information there. You can subscribe to my newsletter. I send it out quarterly. You can also find my books anywhere. Books are sold online. You can also find me on all the social media Facebook, instagram, x and LinkedIn. Just search for Laurel Apple and remember it's E-L, not L-E. Yeah.
Speaker 1:A-P-P-E-L. I'll have all of those links in the show notes, but people don't always go to the show notes, so it's Laurel A-P-P-E-L.
Speaker 2:Right and apple like a fruit.
Speaker 1:Well, I wish you the best of luck with the study and look forward to our next episode after your next book.
Speaker 2:Thank you, and I do want to say real quick I'm looking to do an online study through Fortify your Faith coming in January, so if people are interested in that they can go to my website and get the information about that. I don't have any information up about it yet because I have to get through the holidays, but early next year we're going to be doing an online study and I welcome anyone who wants to come and participate and have fellowship and communion with fellow believers and discuss this stuff.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's great. I love that. Thanks so much, Laurel. You have a great day.
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