Native American Christian Answers: Mark Custalow from the Mattaponi tribe in Virginia addresses the question, “After all I’ve done, can God really love and forgive me?”

Mark is a Christian Native American.

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Transcript:

There is not a box that we could build big enough to hold the love of God. The Bible says, “God is love, so He Himself is love, and He is limitless… beyond measure.”

Do you know that when the Roman soldiers who had taken nails and driven them in the hands, in the feet of our Savior, when they were at the foot of the cross, when He was hung there, dying for you and for me, they had before they hung Him there, they had beaten Him mercilessly. The Bible says you couldn’t even recognize that He was a human being and a man. You know what Jesus said from the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they’re doing.”

The Bible also says in Romans chapter 5, it describes the love of God and says, “You know, it’s easy for a person to love someone who’s lovely, someone who’s lovable, someone who will love them back.” Then it goes on and again in Romans chapter 5 and it says, “But God loved you and me when we were unlovely and we had nothing to give and couldn’t give anything back. He chose to love you and me even then in that condition.”

So friend, I don’t know what you’ve done. I don’t know what you’ve experienced in life. I’m sure you’ve done a lot of bad things because you and I, we’re all sinners and we all need a Savior. And it doesn’t matter how big of a sinner you are. What matters is how big our Savior is and He is God and His forgiveness is limitless. And He’ll forgive your sins and wash them as far away as the East is from the West and He remembers them no more and He leaves you clean, pure and white as snow, redeemed, set free. I’d love to see that for you.

End Transcript

Interested in true-life stories of First Nations people from across Native North America who are following Jesus Christ without reservation? Check out The Storyteller on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLm4Y5qad3GcSgJ3xizrCxCWaA-ZO7eUdK

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If there is a God, Why is there so much injustice in the world? Why is there so much suffering? Why is there pain, evil, and death? Why I hear that one an awful lot from Native and non-Native people alike. If there is a God and He is good, why would He allow these things to happen?

Mark Custalow, from the Mattaponi tribe in Virginia, answers the difficult question, “What about all the injustice and suffering?”

Mark is a Christian Native American.

Check out more important questions and answers from First Nations people here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLm4Y5qad3GcRGo7ymJ8Wwzdz6rio7nXv8

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Transcript:

Boy, this is a great question.

Why is there such injustice in the world? Why is there such suffering in the world? Why is there such pain and death and disease in the world? Why I hear that one an awful lot from Native and non-Native people alike.

If God is so great, why would He allow these things to happen?

Well, that’s a universal question, again, that transcends all people groups, all races, all ethnicities. It’s a question that sometimes trips us up from understanding the true nature of who God is, His righteousness, His holiness, but also His love, grace, and mercy.

The reason all those things exist is not because God wants to inflict pain on you. In fact, when God created as our Creator the Earth and Creation and all that’s in it, and you and I, the Bible said every day He created things. He said those things He created in those days were wonderful. They were good.

Do you know that when God created the first people, it was Adam and Eve, man, woman, husband, wife, when He created them, He created them perfect. And had they not transgressed against what God had commanded them, they would still be living today and perfectly healthy without ever having experienced sickness or disease or certainly death.

It was because they chose to transgress God’s commands that sin then entered the picture. And when sin entered the world, that’s really the root of all the sickness and the evil and the disease and all that we see that’s bad in the world. It all traces back to sin. And we brought that on ourselves and on creation too. Have you ever seen parts of creation that are deteriorating? What’s because of sin? Do you see sickness and disease? It’s because of sin. Do you see violence and injustice? It’s because of sin. Now what’s wonderful in all of that, and this is the good news of the gospel, God’s love, His grace and His mercy, infinitely larger than all of that.

And He loved you enough and He loved me enough that He didn’t want to leave us in all that mire of sin and all of its effects. He loved us enough to give His own Son, to take my punishment, to pay my price, that I owe God for all my sinfulness. Jesus paid that for me.

So all the injustices in the world, all the sickness, all the disease, that’s not God inflicting pain on you. That’s the result of decisions that we’ve made in humanity. And God says, “I didn’t create you for that. I created you to live forever. I created you to live with me.” And He’s seeking you out. And He wants to give you His love and grace and mercy.

Don’t let those things stand in the way of you experiencing the true love of God, your Creator.

End Transcript

Interested in true-life stories of First Nations people from across Native North America who are following Jesus Christ without reservation? Check out The Storyteller on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLm4Y5qad3GcSgJ3xizrCxCWaA-ZO7eUdK

You can also listen on The Storyteller radio app. Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tithely.app.c40776Apple: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/the-storyteller-radio-app/id1550371468Or you can visit our website: www.withoutreservation.com

There has been much harm done in the name of God throughout the Americas by those who identify themselves as Christians. So, it’s a legitimate and important question that Mark Custalow addresses: “How can you believe in Jesus after all that’s been done by the church and Christianity?” Mark is a Christian Native American from the Mattaponi tribe in Virginia. He offers a perspective that is both personal and authentic.

There is no excusing evil. Every person will have to answer to God one day. He is just and all wrong-doing will be accounted for. The question is, “How do people come to the place of wanting to follow Jesus after everything that’s been done in His name?”

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Transcript:

Yeah, if you look at Native history in this country, there’s been a lot that’s been perpetuated on our Native people, our ancestors and generations before by non-Native people and done in the name of Christianity, and the list of those things is long.

It’s cost many their very lives, and again, all in the name of Christianity.

That inflicts deep pain, deep grief, deep hurt, anger, angst, all kinds of emotions, and those things are perfectly logical.

It’s not an easy answer to that question, but the best way I know to answer that question is there’s the single greatest need in my life, the single greatest need in your life, is to be rightly related to the God who created us.

There have been many messengers that have come that have tried to tell others about God and they’ve come with great intentions and they use methods that just didn’t connect well. Others came really out of selfish ambition and they cloaked it in the name of Christianity, and a lot of that’s what took place.

I wouldn’t want something like that to keep me from the only source for the only answer for the real need that I have.

And for me, personally, my testimony, I’ve been able to find that. That doesn’t erase all the injustices of the past, but I know for me personally, I have a right relationship with a God who created me and He’s helped me to see all of that in a grander perspective from His eyes.

So again, that’s not an easy answer and it may not be an answer that comforts you, but I can tell you that God is greater than all of the sin of the world. His love far surpasses it all and is worthy of your contemplation and worthy of your faith and belief as well.

End Transcript

Interested in true-life stories of First Nations people from across Native North America who are following Jesus Christ without reservation? Check out The Storyteller on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLm4Y5qad3GcSgJ3xizrCxCWaA-ZO7eUdK

You can also listen on The Storyteller radio app.
Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tithely.app.c40776
Apple: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/the-storyteller-radio-app/id1550371468
Or you can visit our website: www.withoutreservation.com

Mark Custalow from the Mattaponi tribe in Virginia shares his own story of how he decided to believe and trust in Jesus. As a Christian Native American, he is one of many Indigenous people from different tribes and nations across North America and around the world who follow Jesus Christ.

End Transcript

Interested in true-life stories of First Nations people from across Native North America who are following Jesus Christ without reservation? Check out The Storyteller on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLm4Y5qad3GcSgJ3xizrCxCWaA-ZO7eUdK

You can also listen on The Storyteller radio app.
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Apple: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/the-storyteller-radio-app/id1550371468
Or you can visit our website: www.withoutreservation.com

Mark Custalow, from the Mattaponi tribe in Virginia, addresses the question of why a person should put their faith and trust in Jesus – using perhaps the most famous verse from the Bible – John 3:16. Mark is a Christian Native American.

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Transcript:
For God loved the world in this way t hat He gave His one and only Son that whoever believes in Him would not perish, but have everlasting life.

I would want you to know that truth, which I’ve tried to express in some of these answers. I’d want you to know that truth and have that seared into your soul. I want you to know that God loves you with a love that’s beyond comprehension, a love that’s beyond measure, and a love that on our part is undeserved.

Yeah, God loved you and me when we were unlovely, when we had nothing of value to give, when we were broken and maimed. God loves us. And He loved us enough not to leave us in that condition. He created us. We became broken. He didn’t want to leave us there. So He gave His one and only Son, Jesus, who took my sins and your sins, and He paid the penalty for my sins that’s required by a righteous and holy God who must judge sin. And He gave His Son to take my sin on Himself, pay my penalty and yours, and He gave me in place His righteousness.

And that’s available for you too. That whoever believes in Him, that that great exchange is made possible by Jesus, if you only believe that you’ll not perish and spend an eternity apart from God in an eternity called hell with no escape. No, that if you believe in God’s one and only Son, that you too, my friend, can have an intimate personal relationship with the God who created you and live in the place that He’s already gone to prepare for you. Will you trust Jesus today? Don’t let anything stop you. Today is the day of your salvation.

End Transcript

Interested in true-life stories of First Nations people from across Native North America who are following Jesus Christ without reservation? Check out The Storyteller on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLm4Y5qad3GcSgJ3xizrCxCWaA-ZO7eUdK

You can also listen on The Storyteller radio app.
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Apple: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/the-storyteller-radio-app/id1550371468
Or you can visit our website: www.withoutreservation.com

Mark Custalow, from the Mattaponi tribe in Virginia, answers the question, “Why do you believe and trust the Bible?”

Mark is a Christian Native American. He references those who have studied the reasons to believe but for him, it comes down to faith. For more information on the Bible and reasons people believe it is true see the following links:

An interesting visual presentation on why the Bible can be trusted: https://youtu.be/XtNcbu5oHQU
Dr. Craig Evans on Archeology and the Bible: https://youtu.be/VmUEy03Cqzk
Dr. Frank Turek points to four reasons that convinced him: https://youtu.be/hs6cLrdtz_c

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Transcript:

So as a follower of Jesus, I base everything that I believe on the Bible, on the Word of God.

I believe about the Bible, that it is God’s revelation of Himself to us. Why do I believe that? Because it’s what He says in the Bible.

So I’m not a scientist. I haven’t earned doctorate, but I’m not a scientist. And I’m not smart enough to sit here and tell you all the proofs why you should believe the Bible. There are some people who take that approach, it’s called apologetics, and they are worth listening to and considering. But even after you listen to the smartest apologists, it all, underscores all, boils down to faith.

In order to believe, in order to experience God in all that He is, it comes down to faith. The Bible says that in order to please God, He requires faith on our part. Now I’ll tell you this as well, this is kind of extra.

End Transcript

Interested in true-life stories of First Nations people from across Native North America who are following Jesus Christ without reservation? Check out The Storyteller on our YouTube channel.

You can also listen on The Storyteller radio app.
Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tithely.app.c40776
Apple: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/the-storyteller-radio-app/id1550371468
Or you can visit our website: www.withoutreservation.com