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www.mattkrause.comTranscription of Episode (Auto-Generated from Apple):
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Welcome back, everyone, to The Resilient Christian, where we seek to strengthen your soul.
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And people are so weary these days.
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They are anxious, they are burdened and tired, especially around all of the social upheaval and political uncertainty.
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And it's July 9th, and every single day, we are in the heat of politics on the news and in our social media.
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And many believers in Jesus, maybe you're one of them, I know I am, are asking themselves, how can I find Jesus in this season and remain steadfast in my faith?
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So joining me today, and Nathan, our co-host, is Matt Krause, who has ran and been elected to several local offices in his home district of Torrent County, Texas.
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Matt has faced his own share of political challenges head on, and he's drawn from his faith in Jesus and his love of the Scriptures and his family for purpose and meaning and resilience.
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But most importantly, Matt is one of my best friends.
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Matt was my best man in my wedding, and I am a follower of Jesus because of Matt.
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Matt taught me how to pray by praying with me in college.
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He was a teammate of mine in college basketball.
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I should say I was a teammate of his because he was the captain of the team, and I was just a walk-on.
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So, and Matt taught me how to read the Bible.
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He gave me my first lesson in how to read the scriptures.
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So, so much of my own spiritual formation has been because of Matt, and his dad baptized me.
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So, Matt and I have just a rich history.
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I almost gave away his proposal to his beautiful wife, Jenny.
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And one day, we were in San Diego.
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So, Matt is forgiving as well.
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But I'm really excited to share his life with you, because he's got a lot of wisdom, and he's been in this political sphere for over a decade.
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And so, I'm really grateful to have him on today.
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Matt, thank you for joining us this morning.
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As you said, I mean, I think we were about as close to college roommates as you could get without actually being in the same room.
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Our dorms were next to each other, but those walls were so thin.
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It was basically like we lived together.
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And just know, I mean, you said some kind of things about me, but the impact you've had on me and my relationship with Christ is just as impactful.
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I hadn't really seen somebody so sincerely and genuinely connect with Christ, want to grow deeper, just sponge mentality of everything that you could in Christ that I'd seen in you those first couple of years in college.
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So that was a beautiful thing for me to see too, and getting to go to the Holy Land with share those experiences was one of the highlights of my life.
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So know I appreciate you just as much, if not more.
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And so thanks for having me on today.
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I'm looking forward to our discussion.
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Back in the day when we, Matt and I didn't want to be roommates, we would have, but we just enjoyed our sleep so much that we said, we'll just room next to each other.
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And so that was not allowed us to sleep, but also be connected as friends.
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So a lot of good, good memories.
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Nate, bro, it's checking with you.
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Some physical challenges lately that you and I've talked about, but the Lord is good in the midst of it.
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And I'm actually looking forward to seeing how the growth over the last few years with the Lord affects my ability to be resilient and walk through this physical stuff in a way that honors him more and is more resilient, frankly.
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So I'm actually excited about that part, even though I'm not excited about the pain and discomfort of it.
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Man, there's a lot we could draw from from that, and we should definitely talk more about that.
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Take a little turn there.
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Yeah, hey man, let's talk.
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I want to invite Matt in to kind of share with everyone a little bit of what he does and why I feel like his testimony of being a follower of Jesus, a spirit-filled believer in the world of politics and law, why there's a lot of good things to shed on that and resilience.
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So Matt, can you just kind of give everyone a little window into what you do and into the calling, the assignment that Jesus has given to you?
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I think it goes back to you and I at Christian Heritage College together.
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It was pretty much my junior year.
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You know, you and I had started talking about what's next, what's going on, and you were set to go to the ministry.
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And so you headed off to seminary after college.
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I felt like the Lord was calling me into politics even at that time.
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And so I thought, hey, what does every politician have?
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It seemed like a law degree.
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So I thought, OK, I should go to law school.
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So I went to law school at Liberty University in Virginia and had opportunities to work with some constitutional litigation groups and doing, you know, practicing constitutional law.
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Much my entire legal career has been spent in constitutional law.
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And now I work for a group called First Liberty Institute.
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And many of the listeners may have remembered the Coach Kennedy case from several years ago at the Supreme Court, where the high school coach wanted to kneel at the 50-yard line after games to thank God for the opportunity to coach these kids and be involved in their lives.
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The school district said they couldn't.
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We took that all the way up to the Supreme Court and actually won that case, which was a big decision.
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And so there's been three cases at the Supreme Court in the last two or three years that First Liberty Institute has had defending religious liberty that have kind of opened the doors for public displays of religion on a wide scale we haven't seen in probably about 50 years.
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And so I'm honored that I get to work with First Liberty and in advance religious liberty all across the country.
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And we're the largest organization in the country that's dedicated solely to that purpose.
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And so getting up every day to take on that battle is something that I love and something that I really enjoy along with the political stuff.
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But because of politics, that's why I got into law, and it's just kind of evolved into this constitutional law space.
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Some people would be like, hey, I understand being called to the ministry.
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But man, to be called into law and politics, like bring us into how you even heard Jesus.
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Like what stirred in your soul?
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I mean, I remember memories of being in class and you walking out of history and learning about some of the stuff with our country and being fired up.
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But bring us into how did you hear Jesus call you into that?
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Yeah, that's a great question because you're right, I'm a preacher's kid.
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I'm not just a preacher's kid, but I'm the grandson of two preachers, the great-grandson of a preacher, and we both know my brother Michael, who's also a preacher.
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So it's like all preachers in my family.
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