Jonathan 'JP' Pokluda
speaker
67 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Feb 2025
last heard Feb 2025
Jonathan 'JP' Pokluda’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
Because I've always said I was a Christian, but I was like, you know, what are the odds I'd be born to the right country? And if I was born in India, I'd be Hindu. If I was born in China, I'd be Buddhist. If I was born in Israel, I'd be Jewish, you know, and I just started wrestling with this.
And so I started looking at world religions, the Hindu faith, the Buddhist faith, the Jewish faith, Islamic faith, Mormons, Jehovah's Witness, Church of Christian Science, Scientology. And I kept tripping over Jesus.
in history that somehow 2025 years ago this carpenter born in bethlehem reset the calendar and you know bethlehem is a little bitty tiny town smaller than west monroe that no one would have heard of except for jesus was born there and nazareth is a city that we wouldn't know the name of except for jesus lived there so how did this guy become the single most polarizing character in the history of history
And I realized, you know, in studying that, that it's because he died and showed back up three days later. And Paul says over 500 people saw him.
And I, you know, I'm a porn addict at the time, sex addict, drug user, you know, and, and, and not like, and I've got my, you would have thought I had my act together, you know, because I was trying to be a millionaire before I was 30, was chasing the dollar. It's kind of everything wrong with Dallas and a person. And, um, And I just realized, like, this guy paid for my sins.
And if he paid for my sins, then I don't have to pay for my sins. You know, and I don't, you know, there's a lot of sins and I don't want to pay for them. And so he paid for them. Then I'm just going to go all in with him. And then as I went all in with him, I thought, you know, if this stuff is true and people can live forever, like we're all going to die and we're going to be somewhere forever.
I'm going to tell everybody I've got to tell the whole world about this. And so then went into ministry five years later. And really was setting out chairs. No one was giving me a microphone like, hey, come speak. They were like, we don't trust him. We're not even sure he's saved. You can put chairs in a circle. And so I did that for a little while and did some announcements.
And then one Tuesday, actually, they were like, why don't you teach? It was a young adult ministry. And it grew to be the biggest in the country. And it's still rocking and rolling there. But then we... And then I became the pastor of that church that I just talked about that I stumbled into, hung over. And then six years ago, we moved to Waco.
But yeah, I mean, she's a she's incredible. She's I mean, you guys would love her, man. She's your people. A hundred percent. And she's she's from a small town around here. So am I, born and raised in a small town, South Texas. She just loves the family. I love adventure and go and do and I'm an extrovert. Her dream date night is just like a game night on the kitchen floor.
I'll get the limo and 100 roses and write a song. And all of that's just lost on her. She's like, no, no, I don't want any of that. Like, let's I'm just going to make I'll make dinner here and we'll just stay here. And why don't we play play, you know, go fish with the kids. And it's like that's her that's her dream evening. So she's she's awesome. And I couldn't do any of this without her.
And in fact, we like where we have to be careful now. I want to make sure she misses me when I'm gone. It's like, I'm going away. I'm doing these things. I'm just like, hey, babe, I'm coming back now. Don't you make sure you don't change the locks on me. But yeah, it's been sweet.
No, it was, it was in the works. And I think the Lord went before me because I got into this because I wanted to learn about it because I was, you know, Catholic background. And then I got saved in a non-denominational church and we never really talked about angels and demons. And yes, like you have an enemy, like you're just, you know, Satan, this, Satan, that, but I just, here was the deal.
It was like this story. Somebody is like, Hey, they, they got up, they got dressed. They're going to go to church for the first time in a while. Sunday morning, they plan to go. They're all in. And they got in their car and they turned the key and it goes, you know, the battery's dead. And they're like, oh man, spiritual warfare. Well, I'm like, What in the world did a demon do?
Did it have to pop the hood? Did it leave the light on, leave the door open? How many demons does it take to run a car battery? And then when you take your car in and they're like, oh, it's your alternator. Was that a plan for the past six months? Were they wearing down a wire? What in the world can they do?
And, and I realized like, there's a whole lot of Christians out there completely okay with not knowing. And just kind of, as you heard my story, you realize like, I'm just, I'm kind of like doubting Thomas, you know, it's like, I'm not okay. I want to know everything I can know. Like, I understand there's a mystery aspect of God and I respect and honor that.
But if it's available to know, I'd like to know. And so as I started just researching, the Bible has more to say about spiritual warfare than it does about marriage. Well, we're happy to teach about marriage and give the tips and tricks in Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3 and 1 Peter 3. But there's this other thing of angels and demons, this war happening around us.
And I'm just trying to figure out what happened to the car battery. And so that's really how this book was born. And that was before... the Unite stuff happened. And I would just say, man, you got to be careful if you want to write a book on spiritual warfare, because I mean, the enemy just came out full force after I signed the contract for this one. But so did God.
I mean, there were just blessings all over the place. Also, Unite being one of them.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, Heiser's, you mentioned him, he's another level. This book is kind of for, like, if you picked up Michael Heiser's book and then you set it back down, you're like, okay, that's deep waters. This is kind of a layman's guide to spiritual warfare. And so it's, yeah, and it really was a learning, a three-year learning journey for me of reading guys like him and others.
Yes, sir.
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