Hello relatable listeners. How are you? I hope that everyone had a great weekend today is a really big day for me because I have been working towards this for a really long time.

And I finally gotten there almost I'm really really close but I basically am today is the day that I'm able to put my hair all the way up without any pieces falling down in the back.

This has been a really long time coming. I have been working hard towards this. The prenatal vitamins have helped no doubt but I've gotten hair cut in like eight months because I miss so much being able to put my hair on top of my head.

And today if you are watching this anywhere you see that that is happening. And so I just wanted to take a moment to I don't know appreciate it because as you know as like a trash person I don't brush my hair very often.

I certainly don't wash my hair every day. And so the ability to put my hair all the way up without any pieces falling down in the back. It's a really big deal for my trash personness. You know what I'm saying.

So I just wanted to congratulate myself on that and I know that you all want to congratulate me too. So I just wanted to give you the opportunity.

Now surprise that's not what we're actually talking about for the entirety of the podcast. We are going to talk about something much more important and my estimation.

We're going to start by giving an update on what's happening with the government shutdown kind of where Trump is and all of that. And we're going to use that to transition into what you probably notice from the title of this podcast is about the gospel and how the gospel compels us to be involved in culture involved in politics.

What that looks like and what that doesn't according to the Bible. I'm going to clear up a question that I had on my podcast about abortion that had to do with the subject that I thought was a great question. I'm going to kind of use it as an impetus to talk about that particular subject.

So let us start with Trump and the government shut down that has now ended Trump reopened the government if you didn't hear about that.

Timber rarely he says it could shut down again February 15. He opened it to to have negotiations with Democrats supposedly on border security. And he said, you know, this is going to give an opportunity to for Democrats to prove whether or not they were serious when they said they cared about border security and wanted to have a discussion about it as soon as he opened the government. So we're hoping that that happens.

Of course, what we've seen over the past few weeks is that the Democrats really, really, really do not want to give Trump a political victory.

And a lot of people are saying that Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats have won on this that because Trump reopened the government because he didn't secure any funding for the border wall that he has lost that Nancy Pelosi just walked all over him.

So the good part of this, if you want to see any good part of this, the government workers are getting paid now. We're talking about the Coast Guard TSA air traffic controllers. They're getting paid that includes my brother in law, a father of five trying to buy a new home so as kids can go to a different school.

He is now getting paid going back to work. That's a great thing. I think all of them are crossing their fingers. The Democrats and Republicans are finally able or going to be able to come together and to think of some kind of deal so that the government stays open so that they can get paid.

The bad part of this, of course, is that this is like I said, a political victory for Democrats at least temporarily. I mean, Trump made the mistake in the beginning of same.

He is going to own the shutdown. He said, I don't care. You know, you can call it a Trump shutdown. Well, that's exactly what Democrats have done in a unified voice for the last few weeks. They have said this is a Trump shutdown Trump owns this and Trump Trump's numbers have not looked very good in reflection of that. Of course, even if he hadn't said that in the very beginning, Ham, going to own this shutdown, he probably would have been blamed anyway.

Number one, because his approval ratings are just historically not very high, but also because he's the president of the United States, he's the commander in chief, he's the headhunt show. So people are going to blame him for that in general.

So it could also though, it could also as Trump said, show that the Democrats have been lying about wanting to negotiate borders security. And as we have heard so many times, they believe that the wall is immoral. They've said, you know, we will grant you your $5 billion, but we're not going to pay for any kind of new obstruction. We're not going to pay for a wall.

Their reasoning is because this is Nancy Pelosi says this is on Christian like this is unbiblical. This is immoral. We'll just put aside for a second that she also believes in the slaughtering of human beings inside the womb.

And focus on the fact that this is sheer hypocrisy.

Almost all Democrats supported the the Secure Fence Act in 2006, which was the building of instructions on the border.

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