Grounded Podcast with Chuck Quinley: ReJesus Everything!

Learn to be rock solid even if the world around you is not
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Millions are walking away from church but not from Jesus. Over 25 episodes, author and missionary Chuck Quinley diagnoses what's gone wrong with global Christianity and offers a radical solution: ReJesus everything. Restore the central authority of Jesus alone as chief theologian and leader of the mission. Strip away 2,000 years of accumulated traditions and return to the simple, powerful path of following Jesus himself—his words, his practices, his mission. www.quinley.com

  1. 1d ago

    The Real Reason God Didn’t Just Blast the Devil Away

    I know you’ve wondered this. I have too. If the Almighty can speak galaxies into existence, why not just snap His fingers and blast away the devil and all spiritual darkness? Why not open the heavens and incinerate the rebel powers with raw divine force? But the answer isn’t about God’s power. His power was never in question. The answer is about His character—and specifically, about His stubborn, unwavering commitment to His own word. In our last episode, we established that God’s gifts and callings are irrevocable. He built our world by using His voice and speaking commands. Those commands become the fabric of the universe. When He makes a decree, it stands forever. When He gives humans the gift of dominion over the earth in Ge. 1, it remains our dominion, even when the holder of that dominion fails God. If God makes a person a king they may be a great king or a horrible king, but they will be the king for the rest of their life. God’s gifts are permanent. He stands by his word. The universe exists because his word cannot pass away. God governs his world by faithfulness to His word. So although he had the ability, and they surely deserved it, YHWH wouldn’t just swat the rebels like flies. There’s no point building a society of free-willed beings if all of them only obey you because you threaten to nuke them if they don’t. Any successful society on earth must be a true collaboration between God and his higher creations. Secondly, dominion over the earth wasn’t given to Heavenly Beings. It was given to humans. To us. Irrevocably. Therefore, since humans are already the ones in charge of this planet, it was up to the human to defeat the cosmic powers who had seized this power and take back dominion over the earth. That created a cosmic dilemma. A human had to reclaim what humans had lost. But no ordinary human could defeat the host of celestial beings who had seized control. The domain authorities, the territorial powers, the principalities that rule over nations—these aren’t enemies you fight with swords or missiles. A mortal can’t stand against elohim if the battle is going to be power vs power. God could have done it alone, but that would have violated the very structure He established. From the first day of our creation, He declared that humans shall have dominion over all of his creation. Only a human could take back from this occupation army the dominion that already belongs to humans. The solution was the Incarnation—the God-man. Fully divine, fully human. Only a human had the legal standing to reclaim dominion that was given to humanity. Only an unblemished human, operating within the bounds of human limitation, could undo what humanity had lost. But that human also needed divine power, because fighting celestial forces requires power beyond human capability. Into this dark arena steps our champion, Jesus Christ—perfectly human, perfectly divine, wielding both the legal standing to act and the power to enforce the restoration of human dominion on planet earth. This is the strategic brilliance of the Incarnation. Jesus is the Human Champion. The one being in all of creation who could rightly reclaim dominion while possessing the power to pull it off. He was aware of this calling. You see it in the wilderness temptation. Satan didn’t tempt Jesus to do evil in the way we usually imagine. He tempted Him to bypass being bound by the human condition. He tempted him to meet his own human needs and to engage the fallen powers using the supernatural abilities of God. He baited him to reclaim authority without going through the cross. Turn stones to bread. Use divine power to escape hunger. Jesus refused. He limited Himself to what was possible for a human. He stayed hungry. Throw yourself from the temple. Force God’s hand. Demand the miraculous rescue you deserve as the Son of God. Jesus refused. He wouldn’t use His divine power to bypass human limitation. He chose to remain subject to the consequences of His own actions. Show Respect to Satan for all the kingdoms of the world. The ultimate shortcut. The rebel powers offered Jesus the very dominion He came to reclaim—minus the suffering. Just acknowledge that Satan’s authority is legitimate. Take the kingdoms without the cross. Jesus refused absolutely. Every single time, He stayed within the boundaries of the human condition. He chose the hard path of perfect human obedience, perfect trust, even in agony. He would win not through divine force, but through living out a loyal life as a righteous human. That brings us to the pivot point of cosmic history. The cross wasn’t just about personal salvation. It was a legal revolution. The rebel powers had used the law as their weapon. They had a case. Humanity was too sinful, too disloyal to God to exercise dominion on the earth. We had proven ourselves unfit. Every failure was recorded. The Bible uses a specific legal term for this: cheirographon. A handwritten certificate of debt, written in the debtor’s own hand, self-condemning in court. The powers could point to this document and say, “God, your own law condemns them. Dominion was given to humans, but look at the evidence. They are unfit to rule. The contract is void.” But, according to Paul, Jesus did something unexpected on the cross. He took that record of debt—all our sin, all our shame, all our legal condemnation—and He became it. Then He nailed it to the tree in His body. Colossians 2:14-15 says He “canceled the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. He disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” He disarmed them of their right to assert the need to be at least a provisional government over the Creation. Jesus didn’t destroy them yet. He removed their primary weapon—the legal justification for humanity’s oppression. The cross was a cosmic act of legal liberation. It canceled the debt that justified the occupation. Jesus didn’t just die so we could have nice feelings about God and go live in heaven after we die. He died to legally disarm the powers that had oppressed humanity since the beginning, removing their supposed grounds for taking dominion (like forcing a drunk driver out from behind the wheel of his own car). The story culminates in the Resurrection. In Matthew 28:18, the risen Jesus declares: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.” Not partial authority. All authority. Every corner of the cosmos. This is the legal transfer of dominion from the defeated rebel powers back to the rightful King—a human being. A physical, resurrected human. He appeared in a body. He ate fish. He bore the marks of crucifixion. Then comes the Ascension. A physical human body is now seated at the right hand of Yahweh. This echoes Psalm 110:1, where Yahweh invites a second figure to sit on His throne and rule. Paul is explicit in Ephesians: Jesus is seated “far above every rule and authority and power and dominion.” Those aren’t poetic flourishes. Arche, exousia, dynamis, kyriotetes—these are technical terms for the territorial powers that rule over nations. The same beings allotted the peoples at Babel. The same powers sentenced in Psalm 82. Jesus is seated far above every single one of them. A human now holds dominion over the powers that occupied the earth. Every rebel power is under His feet, waiting for final judgment. This is the answer to ending refrain of Psalm 82: “Arise, O God, and inherit all the nations.” God inherits the nations—by enthroning a man. The dominion lost by the first Adam, forfeited at Babel, has been reclaimed by the Last Adam. Here’s what changes everything: we don’t have to wait for heaven to participate in this. One human has done it perfectly. And one human doing that is enough. Jesus has ascended the throne. He is King of earth and heaven, and all powers are subjected to Him. We have authority through His authority as we live in alignment with Him. We can now rule our little worlds in Jesus’ name—not through brute force, but through the same stubborn faithfulness that won the cosmos back in the first place. The war is won. The King is crowned. The only question left is whether we’ll live like it. Ready to dig deeper into the ancient biblical worldview that reshapes your faith? Get the full series and discover how ReJesus Everything is calling believers back to the Jesus of Scripture—not the domesticated version we’ve inherited, but the King who reclaimed the cosmos. Order here. Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

  2. Aug 10

    Are Demons Envious of Humans?

    When you look at the major systems of our civilization—government, finance, education, the arts—there’s a pervasive sense that something is off. Not just slightly misaligned, but fundamentally bent away from God’s order. Institutions designed to serve justice become instruments of oppression. Systems meant to transmit truth become tools of propaganda. Culture meant to reflect beauty becomes a celebration of darkness. We often blame individual corruption, dysfunctional systems, or that it’s just human nature. And yes, those factors matter. But the Bible offers a more unsettling explanation: we’re living in occupied territory. The Envy That Never Dies Imagine you’re one of the elder elohim—a spiritual being who has existed for ages, powerful beyond human comprehension, serving in God’s heavenly court. And then, God creates humans. Fragile. Physical. Temporary. And He crowns them with glory and honor. He gives them dominion over the earth. You might expect the response to be graceful acceptance. These elder beings were assigned to be shepherds, tutors, guardians to help humanity steward the world. A sacred role. A partnership. Instead, according to Scripture, envy festered in many. Psalm 8:5 captures the shock: “You have made them (humans) a little lower than the elohim and crowned them (humans) with glory and honor.” The implication is clear: this was unexpected. Humans—shorter-lived, weaker, more vulnerable—were exalted above the elder spiritual beings in terms of delegated authority regarding planet Earth. The beings who had been closest to the throne, who had served longest, found themselves subordinate on Earth to creatures they might have viewed as inferior. This, it seems, is the birthplace of the cosmic rebellion. Not from ignorance—from wounded pride. From the refusal to accept God’s mysterious choice to place authority for this world in human hands. The Hunger for the Physical Even to powerful spirit world beings, according to Genesis chapter 6, humans are beautiful. Part of our attraction is that we are part of the physical reality. We have bodies and experience being alive through our bodies. These spiritual beings don’t just want power—they want physicality. They want bodies. They want to feel. There’s something unique about physical existence that transcends mere utility. To taste. To touch. To experience the weight and texture of the material world. To inhabit a body and feel its sensations. This is not something disembodied spirits possess. And according to the gospels, they want it. The demoniac of Gadara illustrates this graphically. When Jesus confronts a legion of demons, they beg Him with a specific request: “Send us into the herd of pigs.” Not freedom. Not peaceful annihilation. Pigs. They would rather inhabit filthy pigs than remain disembodied. Why? Because physicality itself is the prize. This hunger drove them to something far darker. Genesis 6 describes how the bene elohim—the sons of God—”saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married (took) any of them they chose.” This wasn’t romance. It was strategy. By interbreeding with humans, these rebel powers sought to do something brilliant and horrifying: they attempted to merge with human bloodline. If they could corrupt the human line, they could seize claim to human dominion. They could make the earth theirs not by stealing it, but by infiltrating it, by becoming part of it. The result, according to the Genesis account, was the Nephilim—hybrid beings trying to rule the physical realm with absolute authority. Giants. Tyrants. The visible manifestation of spiritual rebellion in physical form. Most ancient cultures have stories of superhuman beings that were in the form of humans but were much larger and had impossibly great size and abilities. God’s response was the global flood because this corruption and the ensuing violent downward struggle of human society threatened the very foundation of His irrevocable decree to humanity. Human dominion had to remain human. The bloodline had to be preserved. But the spirit of this rebellion never died. It just adapted. The Parable of the Tenants: A Cosmic Story Jesus tells a parable that speaks directly to this rebellion, though most of us read it as mere social commentary. Matthew 21:33-41: A landowner plants a vineyard, leases it to tenants, and goes away. At harvest time, he sends servants to collect his share. The tenants beat and kill them. Finally, he sends his son. And the tenants say: “This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance.” On the surface, it’s about corrupt workers. But read in context of the cosmic rebellion, it becomes something else entirely. I think the “tenants” are stand-ins for the rebel elohim—the spiritual beings assigned by God to help steward the earth for humanity. But they decided to squat on the property. To occupy. To claim ownership of what was never theirs to possess. They saw humanity’s irrevocable gift of dominion and wanted it. They couldn’t take it by force—God’s word is unbreakable. But they could plot. They could scheme. They could be a provisional government that drags on and on. And when the Son came to reclaim the land that was rightfully His, their response was murder. “Kill him and we’ll get it forever!” This parable reveals the core sin of the angelic rebellion: Coveting. The refusal to accept the order God established. The determination to seize what belongs to others. The Fingerprints on Society’s Pillars The rebellion isn’t abstract theology. It’s tangible. If we open our eyes, we can see it woven through the institutions that shape civilization. Government everywhere consistently wants more and more control. This lust for power always corrupts it absolutely. Instead of justice, it becomes oppression. Finance could be the stewardship of resources to make sure that everyone flourishes. Instead, the banking system in every nation becomes machinery for exploitation. The love of money drives the system to benefit the few at the expense of the many. Greed becomes structural. Education that’s meant to transmit truth. Knowledge is a wonderful thing. But once the stewardship of knowledge becomes institutionalized it gets perverted. Young minds are indoctrinated rather than enlightened. The transmission of wisdom becomes the propagation of rebellion against God. Enlightenment is another word for independence from our Creator. The Arts are designed to reflect beauty and divine creativity. Institutionalized, they become twisted into celebrations of darkness and rebellion. Beauty gets corrupted into obscenity. This isn’t coincidence. It’s not mere human sinfulness (though that’s present). Ephesians 6:12 names it explicitly: “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” These are intelligent, organized entities. They’re not just tempting individuals—they’re occupying entire systems, bending institutions toward their rebellion, marking civilization with their fingerprints. The Divine Courtroom: Psalm 82 But Scripture doesn’t leave us without hope or clarity. Psalm 82 pulls back the curtain on the divine courtroom. “God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the elohim he holds judgment.” Yahweh is presiding over the assembly of spiritual beings. And He speaks an indictment: “How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked? Give justice to the weak and the orphan; maintain the right of the afflicted and the destitute.” He condemns them for corruption. For defending the unjust. For failing to uphold the cause of the poor. For betraying their original stewardship role. Then comes the sentence: “Nevertheless, like men you shall die, and fall like any prince.” This is a legal proclamation—shockingly, it’s their death sentence. Their time is limited. Their authority is revoked. They stand condemned before the highest court in creation. What This Means for You If you understand that your world is occupied by intelligent spiritual powers bent on subverting human dominion, you’ll see things differently. The systems you navigate daily aren’t neutral platforms. They’re battlegrounds. They’re occupied territories. But through Psalms 82 you also understand something crucial: their occupation of the pillars of human society is already judged. The sentence has been pronounced. The rebels know their time is short, and they fight with increasing desperation. This is the moment we live in. The indictment has been issued. The rightful King is moving to reclaim His vineyard. Our response isn’t to despair at the occupation of our world’s power positions, but to see them clearly. To be discerning. To recognize the anti-God bent in the structures around you—not with paranoia, but with the clarity that comes from biblical realism. The occupation is real. But it’s also—Praise God!— temporary. Share this post. If you’re enjoying this treatment of the Cosmic Rebellion please pass it on to your friends. Just click the button below. In Our Next Podcast The rebellion of the elder sons is the backdrop against which the entire drama of redemption unfolds. In our next episode, we’ll explore how a human—fully human, perfectly human—became the key to cosmic victory. Because only a human could legally reclaim what humans had lost. Ready to dig deeper into the ancient biblical worldview that reshapes your faith? Get the full series and discover how ReJesus Everything is calling believers back to the Jesus of Scripture—not the domesticated version we’ve inherited, but the King who reclaimed the cosmos. Order here. Stay grounded. God’s Lamb has conquered. His kingdom is advancing. Every Blessing, Chuck Get ful

  3. Aug 4

    Is it weird to believe that the gods are real?

    Many people begin their spiritual journey after answering this question: Is God real? It’s a vital question. Philosophers wrestle with it. Scientists challenge it. We all, in our own quiet moments, feel the weight of it. And rightly so. But after Sherry and I had served for 25 years in the 1040 window, the home of every world faith where millions of gods are named and sacrificed to, I had to face another question: Are the gods also real? I’m not asking if there are idols of wood and stone that sit in temples. We have lived within sight of temples filled with images of deities for the last 18 years. We have sat in Buddhist temples for hours observing and interacting with the worshippers. We have witnessed processions and festivals to deities. The real question is whether the deities that are worshiped around the world are just products of superstition and folklore or actual, intelligent, spiritual beings with real authority, territory, and often malevolent influence over the course of human history. Are the “gods” real or not? I was watching Jordan Peterson’s video series on Genesis and was surprised to hear Dennis Prager of Prager University say that only very recently has he even considered the possibility that there might be a real Satan. That’s how strong his monotheism is. I felt that I had to answer this question of whether the gods are real not because of Asian polytheism, but because of the Bible. The writers of the Bible simply assume it. From Genesis to Revelation, Scripture operates from a foundational worldview that the space around us is populated with intelligent beings we cannot see and that these beings engage human society and are a real factor in developments within our history. If you just ignore dealing with this, you’re reading the Bible with a fundamental blind spot AND you’re going to miss some of the most powerful messages the Bible is trying to transmit to you. The Elohim: A Category of Being In Hebrew, these spiritual beings are called elohim—a plural, generic term that appears throughout Scripture without explanation or introduction. The psalmist refers to humans being made “a little lower than the elohim“ (Psalm 8:5). Job describes divine beings gathering in the council of the Lord. Daniel encounters an angelic hierarchy of intelligence and power. And yet, most modern readers treat these references as metaphor or mythology, when the biblical writers intended them as straightforward theology. Elohim isn’t exclusive to God. Yes, it’s used for Yahweh, the uncreated Creator. But it’s also used for members of the divine council, the “gods” of nations, even the spirits of the dead in certain contexts. It’s a category—describing a type of being, specifically those who exist in non-physical form. Think of how we use the word “human.” It can mean a specific person (like me), or it can refer to the entire species of us. The same logic applies to elohim. It’s a classification. And while Yahweh is elohim, He is utterly unique—the uncreated Creator of all other spiritual beings. He’s the Lord of lords, the elohim of elohim. Another way of putting it is that, while Yahweh is an Elohim, no other Elohim is Yahweh. He stands in an uncontested position as Creator of everything that exists. This distinction matters. It’s the difference between monotheism (belief in one God) and the biblical worldview (which acknowledges one Creator and multiple intelligent, created spiritual beings). Some scholars say we would do better to say that the Jews were commanded to monolatry (the worship of only one Elohim, YHWH), not monotheism (the belief that there are no divine beings except one). Opening your mind to allow for the existence of the multiple Elohim mentioned in the opening verses of scriptures reshapes everything that follows in the Bible. God’s Irrevocable Word: The Foundation of Everything If the populated cosmos is the backdrop of Scripture, then God’s irrevocable decrees are the framework that makes sense of the entire drama. Romans 11:29 states: “For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.” Most of us skim past this verse. We apply it to individual callings—”God won’t take back the purpose He’s given you.” But Paul’s statement goes far deeper. He’s articulating a principle about God’s fundamental character: When Yahweh assigns authority, grants a gift, or makes a decree, it cannot be revoked. Not because He lacks the power. But because His character demands He keep His word. His faithfulness is absolute. Once His commands are released, they stand in force forever. Consider the implications. If God makes an irrevocable decree, then that decree remains in force regardless of whether the recipient remains faithful. A king appointed by God remains a king—his authority is a real, persistent legal standing—even if he becomes corrupt or rebellious. This isn’t arbitrary. It’s God’s commitment to the stability of His own established order. To revoke the word would be to make God capricious, His universe unpredictable, His promises fragile. In the creation narrative of Genesis 1 and 2, God creates the universe by making verbal decrees. Go back to Genesis 1. What do we witness? Chaos. Formlessness. Darkness. And what imposes order? The voice of Yahweh: “Let there be light.” “Let the waters be gathered.” “Let the earth bring forth.” Each spoken word is a divine decree that brings cosmos out of chaos. These decrees become permanent. They form the architecture of creation itself—the laws governing both physical and spiritual realms. Isaiah 40:8 reminds us: “The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever.” Jesus Himself says (Matthew 24:35): “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.” And again (John 10:35): “Scripture cannot be broken.” This isn’t sentimentality about the Bible as a book. It’s a statement about the nature of God’s spoken commands. They create something in the substance of reality itself. Unbreakable. Eternal. The fabric holding creation together. The Crown: Human Dominion Against this backdrop, God makes one of His most consequential declarations—one that sets the stage for everything that follows in Scripture: Genesis 1:27-28: “Then God said, ‘Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule... So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them... Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the ground.’” Dominion. Authority. Rule. Given not to the elder spiritual beings. Not to the celestial powers who had existed for ages. But to humans—fragile, physical, mortal humans. Only humans will be the rulers of God’s world. He has installed us as kings over his creation. Humans, not angels or any other celestial power. God’s eternal decree installs humans, with all of their weakness and frailty, as the image of God for planet Earth. This is the crown jewel of God’s creation: the capacity to exercise authority, to steward, to choose. It’s the power to have true agency: to decide what kind of person you will be and what you will do and not do, and how you will affect the people, animals, and world around you in your little domain assigned by God. Agency is woven into your very identity as someone made in the image of God. Your dominion over creation isn’t incidental. It’s irrevocable. It’s part of what makes you human. Caring and nurturing for all the life on this planet is the reason for which we exist. Here’s the paradox that drives the entire cosmic drama: genuine dominion cannot be coerced. It’s built on real agency. Real choice. Real consequences. God’s own name means freedom and complete agency—“I am what I am.” This can only happen if we truly have the ability to follow or not follow God, to be loyal to him or as disloyal as we want to be, to be a positive force in the world, or a true monster. This is the risk God takes in creating beings in His image. And it’s the reason there can be spiritual rebellion in the cosmos—which we’ll explore in future episodes. Why This Reshapes Everything If you understand that heaven is populated with real spiritual beings, and you understand that God’s decrees are irrevocable, then you’re ready to see the biblical narrative as it truly is: not a story about humanity’s moral progress, but a cosmic drama about the reclamation of humanity’s stolen dominion. You’re ready to understand why the systems of our world—media, government, finance, education, the arts—seem always bent against God’s order. You’re ready to grasp why Jesus had to become human and live a perfect human life to reclaim what humans had lost. You’re ready to see yourself not as a passive believer waiting to die and go to heaven, but as an active agent of the Kingdom right now, reclaiming lost territory. Most importantly, you’re ready to understand your own significance. You are not a minor character in a story controlled by cosmic forces. You are a steward of real authority, a carrier of divine image, an agent of restoration in a world under occupation. This is the foundation. The populated cosmos. A world filled with intelligent beings, both seen and unseen. Two realms overlapping on this one-of-a-kind planet. Our planet as the meeting point between the heavenly and the physical realms, with man as the connection. We are created from the carbon of this planet. Our feet are grounded in the earth, but our head is in the heavens. We have the ability to think and have a vision for the future and the capacity to interact with God and, surprisingly, with the Elohim as well. These pages of scripture tell us. Humans enter into conversation with members of the Elohim. Jacob wrestles with one and has his hip kn

  4. Jul 28

    Brothers Know Each Other — Why Jesus Came to Be More Than Your King

    (As always, the video version of this is much better, but in case you want to just read it, here’s a 30% version.) Imagine there’s an author and podcaster you genuinely admire. You own all her books. You never miss an episode. You’ve held onto every personal detail she’s ever mentioned — her husband’s name is Victor, she has three kids, she loves glamping, glamorous camping in those rolling houses on wheels, with soft beds and real creature comforts. If there were a quiz about her, you’d win it. You know more about this woman than most of her own relatives do. Then one weekend you’re at a distant friend’s wedding, and by some miracle you’re seated right next to her at the reception. You hit it off immediately. On impulse, she and her family invite you to join them in their RV parked outside, right after the wedding. You go. And it changes you. Their wholeness somehow rubs off on you. Their stability becomes something you carry. One day you’ll probably mention that you’d been a fan for years — but by then it won’t matter, because now you’re a friend. Part of the family. Do you see the difference? On the first level, you knew about her. You knew the details. Her words had shaped you and you respected her deeply. But you didn’t know her. Then you met her. You talked, ate, and traveled together. And from that point on, you could be anywhere in a crowded room, and the moment your eyes met, you’d both smile and start making your way toward each other. There’s actually a dedicated region of the brain for remembering the faces of people you truly know. Everyone else functions as background — never really seen, instantly forgotten as you walk away. The people you truly know are different. Specific. Real. Present. I’ve come to believe this is the single most important distinction in the Christian life, and we don’t talk about it nearly enough. There is an enormous difference between the tangible presence of Jesus and a religion about him — even a religion done perfectly. Religion isn’t just a substitute for knowing Christ. It actually stands in the way of knowing him. That’s the most frightening thing about it. You can go extraordinarily deep into a religion about Jesus — become a raving, devoted, lifelong fan, keep every observance, deny yourself everything fun in life — and still never actually know him. I’m not the one who came up with that. Jesus said it himself, and he said it in the most sobering way imaginable: “Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me.’” (Matthew 7:21–23) Not “you got the doctrine wrong.” Not “you didn’t work hard enough.” I never knew you. Now, these are people with a résumé — prophecy, deliverance, miracles—all of it in his name. It’s like owning the jersey, the signed photos, and the game ball of a sports hero. You might be completely genuine in your devotion. But that doesn’t make you family. Jesus came to be our King — but also our brother. And brothers know each other. So there’s really only one question underneath all of this. Religion or presence — which one do you actually want? Some people, honestly, want religion. They want to keep God in his place. They’re happy to follow a religion about him and they don’t need a backstage pass to meet him personally. That’s a real choice, and it’s available. But other people aren’t that easily satisfied. They want to know their Maker. They want to know why they’re here. If that’s you, I want you to hear that what you’re after is not only possible — it’s the whole point. Jesus wants to live with you. He wants to animate you from within and do his work for others through you. People who encounter you should encounter him. You’ll find yourself in conversations where strangers open up about the deepest things in their hearts without quite knowing why. That’s not an elite spiritual tier. That’s the normal life with Jesus as Lord. If you’ve never had that experience, the way in is embarrassingly simple. Start talking to Jesus about it. Get hungry for it. Silence your feed. Seek it earnestly. You don’t find true north through a rational analysis of whether Christianity is historically valid. You find it through an encounter with a Being who is both otherworldly and your Creator. He gave you the promise himself: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all of your heart.” (Jeremiah 29:13) We can keep being a fan. Or we can get in the RV. ReJesus Everything is available now on Amazon — a letter to the generation inheriting the Christian movement, about trading a religion about Jesus for the real thing. Grab a copy, and bring a few friends: the free discussion guide on the website is built for exactly this kind of conversation. Every Blessing! Chuck Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

    Brothers Know Each Other — Why Jesus Came to Be More Than Your King

  5. Jul 21

    Jesus brought a wind.

    There’s a translation problem at the very beginning of the Bible, and I think it’s been costing us something important for a long time. In Hebrew, the word Ruach means wind. It also means breath. It also means spirit, immaterial intelligence. Not three related concepts — one word, carrying all three at once, whenever it appears. When Genesis 1 says the “Spirit of God” was hovering over the waters — that’s ruach. The Spirit is the breath of God and the wind of God—all three simultaneously. I don’t believe The ancient Hebrew reader had to choose between those meanings; they felt all of them at once. Then in Genesis chapter two, God bends down and breathes ruach into the clay body of the first human. Wind. Breath. Spirit. Entering a body made from the ground, and the man becomes alive. That’s where your life came from. Not just biologically — eternally. The breath of God is the source of human life. And then Jesus comes. He teaches about this wind you cannot control, cannot predict, and cannot contain. He breathes on his disciples and says, receive the Holy Spirit. This is what he came to release. The breath of God. Back into human beings. The way it was always supposed to be. That is your birthright. Not a doctrine about it. Not a religion organized around the memory of it. The actual thing. The ruach of God, alive in you, doing what it has always done — creating, restoring, delivering, bringing life out of death. That is what’s at stake in this conversation. Not church attendance. Not doctrinal correctness. Your birthright. Let’s talk about it. The Oldest Story in the World I want to walk you through the biblical thread of ruach, because once you see it, it completely reframes the way you interpret all that Jesus was doing and saying. RUACH begins before day one of creation. Genesis 1:2 — “the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters.” That word “hovering” in Hebrew is the same word used later for an eagle hovering over its nest, watching over its young. The ruach of God is intelligently hovering over chaos. Waiting. Present. About to move. Then God with his breath speaks and everything comes into being. Light. Sky. Land. Life. All of it called into existence by the breath of God moving over the chaotic void. Chapter two — God forms a body from the ground. Beautiful, detailed, complete. And then he bends down and breathes ruach directly into the man’s nostrils. And the man becomes a living being. The breath of God entering a human being and making him an embodied life, fully alive. Connected. Known. Animated. Fueled. This is the original human experience. Ruach flowing freely between Creator and creature. No barrier. No intermediary. Direct. Intimate. Alive. Then sin enters, and the connection breaks. Not God’s choice — humanity’s. We chose independence from God, and independence from God means separation from his ruach. And the whole rest of the Old Testament is the story of God working to restore what was lost. The breath keeps moving. The wind keeps blowing. It dries the earth after the flood — ruach. It parts the Red Sea — ruach. It falls on the judges and the prophets and the kings when they need power beyond themselves. Ezekiel stands in a valley of dry bones and God tells him to prophesy to the ruach — to call the breath of God back into what is dead. And the bones come together and stand up and live. The whole Hebrew story is a story about ruach. About the breath of God and what happens when human beings are connected to it — and what happens when they’re not. It is the oldest story in the world. And then John the Baptist appears in the wilderness, and he is burning with urgency, and his whole message is this: someone is coming! Someone who will baptize not with water but with ruach and fire. He is saying: the original thing is returning. The breach is about to be healed. Get ready. God is doing something for you that you cannot do for yourself. Jesus and the Wind When Jesus arrives, watch how he talks. He doesn’t primarily talk about religion. He doesn’t speak about proper church structure or how to do the rituals properly or how to organize a proper worship service. He talks about the wind. In John 3, a religious leader named Nicodemus comes to him at night — a sincere man, a careful man, someone who has spent his whole life doing religion correctly. And Jesus tells him: you have to be born again. Born of water and ruach. Spirit. Wind. Breath. Nicodemus is confused. How can a man be born again when he is old? And Jesus says: “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8) He’s not being evasive. He’s being precise. The ruach of God is not something you can systematize. You cannot predict it. You cannot control it. Cannot forbid it. You cannot package it, franchise it, or put it on a ministry calendar. It moves where it wants. It does what it wants. Your job is not to manage it. Your job is to raise your sails and be carried by it. John 7 Then in John 7, on the last day of a great festival, Jesus stands up and raises his voice and says: “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” (John 7:37-38) Rivers. Out of the hearts of ordinary people. John tells us he was speaking about the ruach — the Spirit — which those who believed in him were about to receive. Not a trickle. Not a substance so rare it has to be sprinkled, not a carefully managed flow through approved institutional channels. Rivers. Wild, life-giving, uncontainable rivers. This is what Jesus is offering you, my friend. This is what he came to restore. The ruach of God flowing freely through human beings the way it was always designed to. Thanks for reading Grounded Podcast! This post is public so feel free to share it. The Fire And then there is the fire. John the Baptist didn’t just say ruach. He said ruach and fire. Both. Together. And on the day of Pentecost, both arrived simultaneously. Acts 2 — they are all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like a rushing violent wind fills the entire house. And what appeared to be tongues of fire rest on each one of them. And they are all filled with the Holy Spirit. Wind and fire. Together. Exactly as John promised. I want you to sit with the image of fire for a moment, because fire does specific things. Fire gives light in darkness. Fire gives warmth in cold. Fire purifies what passes through it. Fire spreads — it doesn’t stay contained in one place unless you smother it. And fire, once it is truly roaring, is very difficult to stop. The disciples who walked out of that upper room were on fire. Not metaphorically — they had flames of holy fire upon them. There is no other explanation for what happened next. Uneducated fishermen stood up and spoke with such authority that thousands of people in a busy crowd, gave them their rapt attention and were cut to the heart. The lame walked. The dead were raised. The message spread across the known world within one generation. No budget. No institution. No marketing strategy. Just ruach and fire in ordinary human beings. This is your birthright. Not the memory of that day. Not a doctrine about that day. The same ruach. The same fire. Still available. Still moving. Still looking for human beings who want it badly enough to receive it. What We Did With It — and Why It Matters That’s why I do not believe Jesus came to establish a religion of any kind. The thing he brought did not fit in Judaism. It does not fit in Buddhism or Hinduism, and I don’t even think it fits in Christianity. The thing that Jesus brought does not fit into any concept of religion. It is above religion. Religion cannot contain it, although it will always try. Every time ruach moves powerfully through a community of people, the same thing eventually happens. Institution keepers arise. People who are drawn to order and structure begin to build structure around it. They name it. Organize it. Incorporate it. Create guidelines for it. Establish who is authorized to handle it and who is not. And slowly, without anyone intending it, the structure begins to replace the thing it claims to protect. The hurricane becomes a ceiling fan. The fearful blast becomes managed by a fireplace. I have watched this happen in movements in my own lifetime. A community gets genuinely alive — ruach is moving, people are being transformed, there is an unmistakable presence in the room. And within a generation it is an institution. The structure remains. That superhuman energy is gone. I am not saying structure is the enemy. Jesus himself had structure — he had twelve disciples, he had a clear mission, he moved with intention and purpose. The early church had elders and deacons and real accountability. Structure is not the problem. The problem is when structure stops serving the ruach and starts regulating it. And the reason this matters for your generation specifically is this: you are the ones who get to decide what you build. You are the ones who will lead the next movements. You are the ones who will choose, when the ruach moves, whether to follow it freely or immediately begin building a box around it. Choose the wind. Always choose the wind. Your Birthright — How to Claim It So what does this mean practically? How do you actually claim this birthright? Jesus gave Nicodemus the answer: you have to be born of the ruach. You have to receive it. And receiving it requires wanting it — actually wanting the wind itself, not just the structure built around the memory of it. In his last week, Jesus gathered his disciples in a small room and simply breathed on them. “Receive the Holy Spirit.

  6. Jul 7

    Who’s Actually in Charge Around Here?

    Hi there! I hope you’re having a great day. This newsletter will be the short version of what I go into much greater depth in the video version. I noticed that there are two kinds of learners on this mailing list: some who just want to read it and others who enjoy the video version. So here we go. In forty+ years of ministry I’ve seen a lot of things go wrong inside churches, organizations, and movements. Leadership failures, church splits, burnout, abuse of authority, financial scandals — most of it up close. And underneath almost all of it is the same root problem. Not bad theology. Not weak leadership. Not a lack of resources or strategy. The number one source of dysfunction in Christianity in my humble opinion is simply the subordination of Jesus. Not his absence. His subordination. He’s still in the building. His name is still on the sign. People are still singing songs about him and praying in his name and carrying Bibles with his words printed in red. But somewhere along the way, Jesus stopped being the actual authority. He became the mascot. He became an advisor we consult when we need wisdom, a therapist we visit when we’re struggling, an emergency contact we call when things fall apart. We rarely treat him as Lord — the one with the final say over everything. Influence and authority are not the same thing Influence is the ability to affect someone’s thinking and maybe their behavior. Authority is the right to make decisions and expect obedience. You can have one without the other. Jesus has enormous influence in Christianity. In practical terms, he often has minimal authority. People talk about him constantly. They study his teachings. They worship him on Sunday. But they don’t necessarily do what he says. He said it himself: “Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and not do what I say?” A secular historian named Michael Hart wrote a book ranking the hundred most influential people in history. He places Jesus third — behind Mohammed and Isaac Newton — despite Christianity being the world’s largest religion. His reasoning: Jesus’ ethical teachings are among the most remarkable and original ever presented. Then he says — Christians don’t feel the need to obey Christ in order to identify as Christian. A secular historian just described the central problem of Christianity in one paragraph. We can never truly align with Jesus until we individually, and corporately, accept his authority over everything. The seminary problem As someone who worked in seminaries for twenty years, including as a seminary president, I think I’m entitled to an opinion on this one. If I wanted to reinstall the authority of Jesus in Christianity worldwide, I’d start with the seminary — the place training the next generation of pastors and thinkers. You’d assume the primary curriculum in a seminary would be Jesus. You’d spend three years unpacking his words, his practices, his way of training people, his handling of conflict and power and poverty, how he dealt with the rich and the poor, how he made disciples. But if you enroll in seminary expecting that, you’ll be disappointed. In actual seminary, you’ll study a million other things. A dedicated course on Jesus is typically an elective — if offered at all. You get one course called The Gospels, but you’ll spend half the semester on technical arguments about authorship. etc. Jesus is not even the chief theologian of his own movement. Paul is. You’ll spend two years studying every word Paul wrote. Just as John the Baptist was the forerunner of Jesus, Jesus might as well be the forerunner of Paul if you judge by who gets the spotlight in the institutions built in his name. Let that sink in. The authority he simply commanded I want to talk about the kind of authority we’re actually reinstalling by intentionally placing Jesus not just as the most influential Person in our life, but actually as the central authority in our life. What bothered the temple authorities most about Jesus was the authority he simply commanded. He held thousands of people on a hillside with no amplification — just his voice, while he sat on a stone. In every recorded conversation he speaks as the Master, never searching for words, never uncertain about what he wants to say. The Pharisees kept throwing the same question at him: “Who gave you this authority?” John answers it in the first line of his Gospel. He has it by creation. The Father confirmed it through miracles done by his voice alone — commanding demons, sickness, storms, and death. He now sits at the right hand of God, Lord of Heaven and Earth. That is the authority we are reinstalling. Not a new ministry strategy. Not a doctrinal revision. This. Jesus is higher than all the apostles. Higher than any ancient or modern prophet. Higher than Mary and the Pope. Higher than your pastor. Higher than the most brilliant theologians who have ever lived. He is higher than anyone else within the pages of the Bible. He is not a teacher — he is THE Teacher, THE Prophet, THE Messenger of God to us. See Jesus. Then reJesus everything else. Reinstalling the authority of Jesus starts with one decision: choose to treat Jesus as if he is actually in charge. Not an advisor. Not an emergency contact. The one with the final say. That single decision changes what you read in Scripture, how you handle disagreements, and how you conduct yourself every moment of every day. If you’ve got time to listen to this on video, I think you’ll get a lot more out of the podcast version this time. Every Blessing! Chuck ReJesus Everything is available now on Amazon. It’s a letter to the generation inheriting the Christian movement — about how to put Jesus back at the center of a faith that has quietly promoted other things in addition to him. Grab a copy, and if you want to work through it with a group, there’s a free discussion guide coming soon. PS: Please leave a review, even a short one. It’s a powerful way to expand the reach of the book on Amazon, the world’s largest book marketplace. Thanks!!! Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

  7. Jun 30

    An Idea for Turning a Powerful Scripture into an Internet Video

    Hi there! I hope you’re having a super good day. Are you good at imagining things? Can you, for example, get an idea about the furnishing of a room so that it comes alive and becomes a place with a purpose? Can you see it before actually dragging furniture into the space? I think we all have this ability, but some people use it more and so it becomes stronger with them. Anyway, we’re always trying to encourage people to release their creativity because creativity is worship. God is our Creator, and He invites us to create things with Him. In this video, I want to invite you into the process that is involved in making a video out of a scripture passage. Today I was reading Psalms 148, and it just read like a script. I could see it in my mind. Read it with me in this video, and I think you’ll see it also. Over the next few months, we want to convert this scripture into a powerful video that lays down the foundation of teaching behind the Old and New Testaments. I hope to have the liberty in the next year to build out some videos that can hopefully gain traction with young audiences online and teach them the big strokes of God’s message in a way that feels the most natural to them. So, without further ado, let’s open up the Bible to Psalms 148 and start envisioning what a video of those few verses might look like. Thanks for standing with us as we raise up a generation of content creators who put God’s words into artistic form so they can impact this digital generation. Every Blessing! Chuck and Sherry Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

  8. Jun 30

    Make Up Your Mind

    Hi friend! Sherry and I are back in Thailand, so I’m back in the studio, able to produce again. Thanks for your patience. Let’s dive in. There’s a scene at the very end of the Bible that has always amazed me. It’s my new favorite Bible verse, and you’ll find it in the last chapter of Revelation — God’s final word to the world. You’d expect something tender. Something like, “Please, my children, come back to me. I love you too much to let you go.” That’s not what happens. A glorious angel steps forward to deliver the closing message: “He who is unjust, let him be unjust still. He who is filthy, let him be filthy still. He who is righteous, let him be righteous still. He who is holy, let him be holy still.” No pleading. No last-minute persuasion campaign. Just… “Hey Humans, Make up your mind.” I’ve come to believe that whole speech is basically a command to decide who you’re going to be and get on with it. Vote already. If you want to be crooked, then lie, cheat, and abuse like a gangster. If you want to be lustful, then go roll in the filth. But if you’re going to follow Jesus — wake up, and do it with everything you’ve got. What strikes me about that passage is that it doesn’t seem to matter to God whether every single person chooses him. He gave us free will. What matters is that everybody votes. He wants us to pick a team. I’m picking Team Jesus. The either-or This is where I think a lot of churched people skip past too quickly. We think we settled it all when we prayed the sinner’s prayer one day so we wouldn’t have to go to hell. All of us need to intentionally make up our minds about Jesus. Either he is the Creator come in the flesh to save us, or he is not. Either he is the only door to God, or he is not. If he’s none of those things, then he’s just a man — a good teacher, maybe — but not someone you build a life around. But if he is that Savior, then he must also be Lord. If this is true, then we have to live like he’s actually the boss. The early church didn’t have a twelve-point statement of faith. They had one doctrine: Jesus is Lord. That was enough. Everything else fit inside that one conviction. Compare that to what a lot of us grew up with — stacks of doctrinal positions and denominational distinctives layered on top of each other. Somewhere underneath all of it, the actual Lordship of Jesus has often gotten buried instead of being the one thing holding everything else together. Lordship or nothing The core of the Gospel message is that Jesus offers to be our Lord. The choice to accept this offer belongs entirely to us from that point on. But he won’t lower his position to make it easier on us. It’s Lordship or nothing. That sounds like a hard sell, doesn’t it? Who actually wants a lifetime under the authority of a Supreme Lord? Our experience with power, in this life, is that power tends to end up unpleasant, even abusive. We chafe at the thought of someone else having the final say over us, and that’s a completely normal reaction. But Jesus isn’t like any human leader you’ve ever lived under. The people who actually live under his Lordship discover something that surprises them every time: his yoke is easy, and his burden is light. His authority strengthens and lifts you rather than crushing you. It releases your creativity. It ignites vision instead of shutting you down. This is not religion. Religion takes what you have and always demands more. What Jesus offers is the exact opposite — he’s offering to become your shield, your provider, your healer, your leader, forever. That’s an unbelievable offer, once you sit with it. My own conviction If Jesus is anything less than what he claims to be in the Gospels, I don’t want to follow him. I don’t need another moral teacher. I need a Savior. There’s no middle road. He’s either a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord. I spent my early years in the spiritual wilderness working through exactly what I believed about Jesus, and why. I looked at the alternatives. I sat with the doubts. And then I made up my mind. I believe him because of the life he actually lived — he refused to compromise to be popular, wealthy, or to avoid pain. I believe him because five hundred witnesses were willing to face persecution and death to testify that they had personally seen him alive again. But more than any of that, I believe Jesus because I’ve experienced him for myself for fifty years now. He healed my depression as a teenager. He’s answered specific prayers more times than I could count. That’s not theory. That’s my own history with him. Represent Jesus, not Christianity Sherry and I have spent over forty years living in Southeast Asia. We have not spent forty years representing Christianity. We represent Jesus — not our denomination, not a nonprofit. Just him. This Jesus thing has never been doctrine for us. It’s experience. So don’t follow a religion about Jesus, or a creed, or a particular church’s brand of him. Follow him. Know him. Whatever else you do this week — make up your mind about Jesus. Vote. If this question is stirring something in you, this is exactly where the book picks up. ReJesus Everything is built around one conviction: Jesus is the standard, and the Christianities we’ve inherited are just our attempts to represent him — some better than others. This piece you just read is the opening move of a much longer conversation in the book: making up your mind about who Jesus actually is, before we ever get to what’s broken in how the church has tried to follow him, and what it looks like to rebuild from here. It’s not a book about tearing anything down. It’s a letter to the next generation of leaders, written from fifty years of ministry across dozens of cultures, about how to put Jesus back at the center of a faith that’s drifted. If you’ve ever sensed that gap — between the Jesus you grew up believing in and the Jesus actually described in the Gospels — this book was written for you. ReJesus Everything is available now on Amazon. Grab a copy, and if you want to work through it with friends, there’s a free discussion guide on the website too. Click here to order. Please leave us a review on Amazon. It’s more powerful than you could know in causing the algorithm to show the book to other people. Thanks! Get full access to Grounded Podcast at www.quinley.com/subscribe

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Millions are walking away from church but not from Jesus. Over 25 episodes, author and missionary Chuck Quinley diagnoses what's gone wrong with global Christianity and offers a radical solution: ReJesus everything. Restore the central authority of Jesus alone as chief theologian and leader of the mission. Strip away 2,000 years of accumulated traditions and return to the simple, powerful path of following Jesus himself—his words, his practices, his mission. www.quinley.com

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