Understanding God’s Will, Making Confident Decisions, Finding Freedom From Paralysis – w/ Costi Hinn

Aaron Smith (00:04)
Everyone welcome back to the marriage after God podcast. Today I get the pleasure of sitting with Kosti Hinn. Welcome to the show Kosti.

COSTI HINN (00:10)
Sounds good.

Thanks, man.

Thanks for having me, Aaron. Appreciate you, brother.

Aaron Smith (00:32)
Dude, it’s an honor to have you on the show. I’ve known about you for a very long time. When you popped up in my emails, your publicist, and I was like, ⁓ I’d love to talk with Kosty. And also, your book that we’re going to talk about today is very timely. Our church is going through just trying to figure out what the will, what God’s will is for where we’re going, where we’re headed. But on the individual basis, I know a lot of believers are…

always wondering what’s God’s will for my life. And that’s what your book’s about is just understanding that. And also we just started as a group. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Henry Blackaby. He’s got a devotional called Experiencing God. It’s been around. Yeah.

COSTI HINN (01:10)
Hmm. I think so. Yeah. When I went

to at Dallas Baptist University, one of my classes we had to go through as book, think on spiritual leadership. Yeah.

Aaron Smith (01:19)
Oh, okay.

Yeah, we’ve, my wife and I have done his devotional several times throughout the last 20 years. But I just, I just recently bought copies of it for all the guys in my church for us to go through as men. And it’s about knowing God’s will and just like understanding how to listen to him and see, and see what he’s already doing and joining him and what he’s working on. And it’s just really timely. So I love to get in that conversation, but before we do, I’d love to just know some of your background. Like who are you? How long you been married? Kids? We just talked about that a second ago before we started recording.

COSTI HINN (01:48)
Yeah.

Aaron Smith (01:49)
But so

my audience can get to know you a bit more.

COSTI HINN (01:52)
Yeah. So I am married to an amazing woman who’s my best friend. Christine is her name and we have been married for 12 years. This will be 13 this year and, ⁓ six babies later, we just had baby number six on December 23rd, little girl named Evangeline Chloe Hinn. And so we’re, yeah, the quiver is full and I think we’re done. I, my, my joke, but I’m serious is I don’t want to go Sprinter van. No shade to the Sprinter van loyal.

Aaron Smith (02:10)
Amazing.

COSTI HINN (02:22)
people out there. I love you. One of the pastors at our church has nine kids and they have a Sprinter van. His name is Kevin and he’s a stud and him and his wife are amazing. God bless them and their Sprinter van. I’ll drive in it with them. I don’t want to buy one. I’m just I’m maxed. I want to be able to fit in underground parking still. So that’s kind of one aspect of my story. And on the ministry front, I

Aaron Smith (02:37)
Yeah.

COSTI HINN (02:48)
get the joy of shepherding a church. I’m a pastor, a church planter at a church called Shepherds House Bible Church in Chandler, Arizona, and we planted three years ago. God’s done some amazing things, and it’s a group of just sold-out people. We love Jesus, we love people, we love the lost, and love discipleship. And so, the Lord’s been blessed in that effort by His grace. And then, I also founded a ministry called For the Gospel.

And that’s a ministry that’s focused on providing sound doctrine for everyday people. I’m a simple guy. I am educated seminary-wise, but man, I love when people just keep it simple. I remember hearing Chuck Swindoll one time say, our job is to bring the cookies down from the top shelf. And I was like, yes, that I need, I need that. If you could take big theology and use smaller words, please, for me, I’m in. And so the Lord provided.

⁓ some influence and some reach super kind of him to do that. It’s undeserved. And so, one day I just thought, you know, I, there’s a lot of shady guys out there. There’s some false teachers and there’s different efforts people put out using media and their technology is always awesome and everything looks amazing. It’s just not, not the right content. And so, ⁓ and sometimes in conservative or, or more sound doctrine circles, we are like, well, God’s sovereign, so he’ll take care of it. And we don’t put a lot of effort into it.

I thought, well, why don’t we do things with excellence and with sound doctrine, make it look awesome, but present the truth. so for the gospel has been reaching now people around the world for a number of years. And we just started translating into Spanish using AI. So we’re, ⁓ we’re one of those. Yeah. People, people, ⁓ it’s my voice, but my lips don’t move. We’re not trying to deceive people, but, ⁓ we, we were able to use some technology to.

Aaron Smith (04:16)
Mm-hmm.

That AI, it’s awesome.

COSTI HINN (04:38)
have translation dubbing that’s close to the way the speaker sounds, but in native languages. And so just trying to reach people, and that’s that. And then maybe the last thing that’s helpful for people to know is I came out of some really just dark and dangerous theology. I grew up in the prosperity gospel, if you’ve ever heard of that, like in the reality show level, not like differences between maybe Pentecostals and

Aaron Smith (04:57)
Yes.

COSTI HINN (05:06)
Baptist, I mean like the private plane, Bentley driving, yeah just all of it. Yeah, so the Lord saved me and He saved me from reading, when I was reading the Word, He saved me by reading His Word and hearing faithful preaching and stuff that I had never really had eyes or ears for, I’ll say it that way, I’d maybe heard little things here and there, but man one day the Lord just

Aaron Smith (05:11)
the TBN size television shows here.

COSTI HINN (05:33)
turn the light bulb on, and it was His Word, and it was teaching and sound doctrine from faithful preachers, and it messed me up in the best way. And so I pulled out of ministry. I was a pastor at the time. I would say was an imposter, an imposter. And pulled out, went to seminary, got discipled, and then, four to five years later, re-entered ministry properly, and I believe I was converted. So I got baptized, I would say for real, biblical baptism as a true convert.

Aaron Smith (05:48)
Yes.

COSTI HINN (06:03)
And ⁓ and I the lord’s just changed our lives ever since that was like 13 14 years ago ⁓ right in the kind of window of our marriage that first year of our marriage into the second year was when I was converted and so My wife is just a jewel. She’s my crown jewel and and an amazing gift from the lord because she’s gone on that whole journey And did not grow up like I did. She’s like blue collar california girl put herself through college and was like love you, man, but you’re

Like your family says really weird stuff and the Bible says this, and she’s like black and white thinking, and I’m like, well, you don’t understand, know, pitching the stales, selling the snake oil. And she rolled with me through it and God was gracious. So that’s the backstory of some of our ministry, personal life, and why I tend to be strong on some aspects of false teaching and dangerous stuff is because I was in that and I know there’s other Costies out there. There’s other Aaron’s, there’s other people that

Aaron Smith (06:40)
Yeah.

COSTI HINN (07:01)
we just preach the truth and say the hard stuff with love, God will redeem and He’ll pull out His sheep from those spots.

Aaron Smith (07:09)
There’s something incredible about just with an open heart reading the Word of God. as God says, my word doesn’t come back to me void. It goes out and it accomplishes what I want it to accomplish. And so many times I hear that. I was believing this one thing over here and then I started reading the Word. And it didn’t line up with what was believing in. It’s so true often, even just as believers, when we have

COSTI HINN (07:17)
Yeah.

Amen.

Aaron Smith (07:38)
misunderstandings of Scripture, we have false beliefs from Scripture because they come from many places. Much of my life when I was stuck in certain sins and I would read the Word of God, I’m like, these things that it says about me don’t seem true. Not because it’s not true, but because my life isn’t true to what it is. And that’s what’s amazing about the power of the Word of God is it is sharper than any two-edged sword and it cuts all the way through to the bone and marrow and it discerns the hearts of man and

So it’s cool hearing that you were in this life and from the outside, probably even your wife is like, how does this person going to change? And the Holy Spirit does it. God works and you open up the word of God and you’re like, wait a minute, like something’s not right here. you saw your, your wife had a different background than you did, but you guys came together, you guys found each other and what was her. So it sounded like very soon after you guys got married.

COSTI HINN (08:18)
Amen.

Yep. Totally.

Yeah.

Aaron Smith (08:35)
You had that conversion story. You came to Christ, true knowledge of him. What was that season, that short season like?

COSTI HINN (08:38)
Yeah. Yep. Yeah, she didn’t.

Brutal. she, to be fair, didn’t sign up for marrying a new convert. She thought she was married to a convert when we were dating and engaged in that. Yeah. And that process, I, she was super new. And so I remember when I met her, ⁓ we met at a Jason Aldean concert country music. And I, you know, just through like mutual friends and happenstance, was God’s providence, obviously working, but,

Aaron Smith (08:52)
Yeah, mature Christian, yeah.

COSTI HINN (09:11)
just she was like, yeah, I’m going to Azusa and trying to learn more about God and I was like cool like and that was it like that’s the start as We were progressing in our relationship She was coming to a greater understanding of the simple gospel the truth the Bible learning and then coming to understand and I could teach her true things like she one time asked me about the Trinity and I explained it biblically or she’d asked me like what what what is like what is the the gospel and this and like when people say that

How do people pray? Like, we were very—she was very new, and I was a longtime church kid with some very skewed theological views, but I held some views that were like Bible answers. And so, over time, when she wasn’t becoming like us, like the family and like the theology, that’s what sounded off alarms. And so, people started prophesying like, she’s not your wife, she’s not from God.

Aaron Smith (09:51)
Yeah.

COSTI HINN (10:08)
This woman is going to destroy the anointing on your life. You’re supposed to inherit the ministry and take it to the next level. You can’t marry this. This like girl that just isn’t becoming like she’s not doing all the things, you know, and she’s not, she was never in awe. She’s very, ⁓ awesome that way. She was never in awe of like the aura. She’s not into celebrity stuff. And so she’s like, cool. So like, you guys are famous, like, so what? ⁓ neat, like whatever. And so that was a good thing. Well, in the midst of that.

Aaron Smith (10:09)
man.

COSTI HINN (10:37)
We started reading the Bible to figure out one of the teachings was you had to speak in tongues as evidence of salvation, which is not old school differences between Baptists and Pentecostals. That’s like dangerous heresy. You can’t say you have to speak in tongues or you’re not saved. And that was one of the teachings. And so she couldn’t get tongues. And we’re like trying to get it, trying to get it. And one day we read 1 Corinthians 12 verse 30, where Paul says, not all have gifts of healing. Not all speak in tongues, do they? And he’s being rhetorical. It’s like…

Aaron Smith (11:04)
That’s pretty clear.

COSTI HINN (11:06)
variety of gifts. ⁓ like, and so, like, you’re off the hook. What else do I believe that’s false? And so I started doing that. That untangled, we end up in California at a church plant. And so in that sense, we were both new and learning, but I hadn’t had that epiphany moment yet. And so when I did, when I say rough, like this poor woman had to live with a man who lost his identity.

Aaron, my identity was in my family, what I knew, who I was, all these things, and it was stripped. And God did that on purpose. He stripped away everything that I had hoped in and held to as my identity, and all I had left was Christ. And so it’s like that song we always sing in our church where the chorus goes, hallelujah, all I have is Christ. Hallelujah, Jesus is my life. And that became a reality for me.

Aaron Smith (11:37)
Yep.

Mm-hmm.

COSTI HINN (12:03)
And I went through anger issues. I went and saw a counselor. I was angry. I was angry at my family. I was just angry at everything. I was like, I don’t have anyone now. I don’t have anything. There’s nothing to be proud of. Like my whole identity growing up is, is gone. And I loved my family. So then it was really tough because you’re in this juxtaposition of my uncle who, if someone doesn’t realize it now or not, but Benny Hinn, the kind of faith healer guy out there with the white suit. He’s awesome. I worked for him while he’s not.

Aaron Smith (12:29)
Yeah.

COSTI HINN (12:32)
currently awesome theologically, but I love him. He’s my uncle. I love my father. I love my family. Like, no one ever did anything bad to me. Nobody ever stole from me. Nobody ever hurt me, abused me, cussed me out, or fired me. They were awesome in every sense as a family. It was now about the truth. And so Matthew 10, where Jesus says, I didn’t come to bring peace, but a sword, and basically tells his disciples, like, families will divide over me. So that was tough. And so

Aaron Smith (12:41)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

COSTI HINN (13:01)
I went and saw a counselor who walked me through forgiveness, bitterness, anger, loss of identity, hope in Christ, identity in Christ, and I got disciple, hardcore discipleship. And so our marriage also went through a challenging time because in a way, you’re like, who are you? The goal is to not have a ton of change. I I don’t mean sanctification, like good change.

I mean, the goal isn’t to be shocked after marriage and be like, you’re a different person. This isn’t good. And that’s No, it does. And it’s cause we’re not fully honest or we don’t fully know before. And so for us, ⁓ I love that I was honored and humbled that you’d have me on. We love marriages and we love healthy marriages and helping marriages because for us, the first two years were not the prettiest happiest.

Aaron Smith (13:36)
Yeah, hopefully that’s not what’s happening, but happens a lot, bet.

Mm-hmm.

COSTI HINN (14:00)
perfect little picture, it was a grind and the Lord was carving out all of the old, everything of ourselves and replacing it with the new. And now, I mean, when I say we’re best friends and we say we don’t just love each other, we like each other. often say, we often say that, I said, honey, I love you. do, but, but I like you. You’re my best friend. Cause we’ve been through those kinds of seasons. And so that’s.

Aaron Smith (14:11)
Mm-hmm.

So huge. I like you. Yeah.

COSTI HINN (14:29)
That’s what it cost, I’ll say it that way. There was a cost to it, and I wouldn’t trade it for the world because the treasure and the reward is Christ at the center of the marriage and no other identity but an identity in Him.

Aaron Smith (14:33)
Mm-hmm.

I’ve done so many interviews where in the conversation about, you sometimes I have the husband and the wife on and I’m just talking that you get to hear both dynamics. And I was just interviewing Ginger Dugger and she was sharing, yeah, she was sharing how her husband was pivotal in her, you know, I don’t want to say conversion, but just coming to the truth, you know, yeah. And it just sounds like just in God’s love for you.

COSTI HINN (14:59)
yeah.

Yeah, Jeremy.

Aaron Smith (15:14)
and for your wife and for your family even because you coming out of that is a love for your family. It’s like, hey, I’m going to shine a light where light needs to be shined. Bringing your wife in your life, not that you even knew or thought that you had a direction that God wanted you to go and He used your bride to be a part of that. that is a huge part of what marriage is about. Is that we just like that, you know, that scripture on iron sharpening iron just in the body of Christ.

COSTI HINN (15:41)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith (15:42)
God uses other people, uses our spouses often to bring us to the truth, to bring us to reality, to often humble us. is a reality because marriage is not easy. Often a lot of that happens in the first few years of marriage. That’s just so common. So it’s beautiful to hear that your wife was… I would imagine her lack of care for the fame, her lack of care for the prestige, was that attractive to you?

COSTI HINN (15:51)
Amen. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith (16:13)
Was there something about it like, hey, you don’t actually care about this stuff. actually, there’s something, I like that.

COSTI HINN (16:16)
Yeah,

totally her. I always call it just blue collar mentality. She was focused, worked hard, put herself through school. ⁓ she was a dreamer with me. Like she loved the, like she could live in the, the, ⁓ those conversations where we’re dreaming about the future and she’s, she believes God for big things and we’ll take on big challenges, all of that. ⁓ but she was.

not ever into the hype or the fame or anything like that. And so very much down for that’s why she’s just she’s the best ministry teammate I could have ever imagined because she’s down for the ride, the adventure of it all hype for that in a good way. Like, imagine what God will do if we take this step of faith or what do you think of it? We dream all the time, but the idea that people will be impressed by it or and then we’ll get this and then we’ll have that and then people will think this

Aaron Smith (17:06)
Yeah.

COSTI HINN (17:14)
She just could care less. And, you know, I never grew up really thinking about all that. I just, we had this super kind of royal family slash mafia life and was used to everyone being impressed with it or wanting what we had in that sense, because that’s what we’re selling. If you believe in Jesus, He’ll make you happy, healthy and wealthy. Look at us. We can sell you essentially the American dream. And so she didn’t care. It’s like, whatever. Learn like content with a lot, content with a little.

Aaron Smith (17:29)
Mm-hmm.

COSTI HINN (17:42)
hard-working gal, and there was something so attractive about a woman who knew who knew who she was and was strong. My wife has such a spine, and God has made her that way, and she’s a woman of wisdom, so I often call her, I guess the more I talk about it, it’s my not-so-secret sauce, but I always call her my secret sauce. This woman of wisdom in my life, and who I have the deepest conversations with, and who I can consult for wisdom,

and ask her, what do you think of this? What are your thoughts on this? And she’s not this basket case, know, damsel in distress or whatever, the movies and all these Hollywood things, or even some weird, like, even some weird Christian circles that teach, you know, your wife as a doormat, because, you know, Ephesians 5, like, I teach the Bible the way it speaks, and husbands are to love their wives like Christ, and wives are to submit to their husbands as unto the Lord, like, I’m all there with

Aaron Smith (18:19)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

COSTI HINN (18:37)
biblical roles and teaching on that, but there’s some weird stuff out there where like the woman just sits in the corner with her head covered and never opens her mouth, and God forbid she ever give you advice because now she’s taking over the church. Like this stuff, I’ve never experienced that. My wife is the most godly, humble, strong, wise woman I know, and so in that, He gave me what I needed, even when I didn’t know that I needed it. And looking back, every good thing, every great season, every mountaintop moment,

Aaron Smith (18:50)
Mm-hmm.

COSTI HINN (19:07)
I can see God’s work through her and her fingerprints are all over it. And so even writing children’s books, that was her idea. I, I write them. I’m a part of it, but I, I rolled them like children’s books. I’m gonna write for adults, honey. And she’s like, I’m telling you, we need to do this. You need to do this. And I’m like, only if you do it with me. And so there we’re here to talk about an adult book, but she’s the reason for that too.

Aaron Smith (19:19)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, I just want all the husbands listening to hear what Kostya is saying is you got to take a look and see if you’re missing something in your wife right now. Because our wives have immense influence in our lives, whether we like it or not, whether we think it or not. And that’s a gift from God. The Bible tells us it’s a good thing to find a godly wife. And that’s what we should be desiring. So hey, I have a question for you. I feel like, so I grew up in Southern California. I’ve lived in Central Oregon now for, gosh, 12 years.

And were you a part of a church plant down in like near the beach area? I went to a church called Crossroads and one of the pastors left there to plant a church and I believe you were a part of it.

COSTI HINN (20:17)
Okay, so that church that planted initially was called Moment Church. It was like super cool. That church plant, we were serving there a little bit. My wife Christine found it because one of her friends that she was serving with at a restaurant heard of it. So we were at the Orange County Rescue Mission, bro, and that’s why it went.

Aaron Smith (20:24)
Moment, yep.

Was it like in a homeless shelter or something? a rescue mission, that’s what it

was.

COSTI HINN (20:40)
It went moment church, and then we changed it to church at the mission. And then eventually it was mission. Now it’s mission Bible church. We went there and it was just like a church plant, like try to be cool, try to get people to like it and hope it all survives. And we, and that’s the church that invited me to come and be its youth pastor and never

didn’t do a lot of research on my background, it didn’t care, frankly, so God used that. I would never have gotten a job anywhere that was like, you’re, wait, you’re related to who? This was sort of a clean slate, and they were like, yeah, you’re a good students guy, you’ll be cool for them, that’s great. So it was there that I started studying the Bible more and more as a pastor, as a youth pastor, and I got saved. And that, at that church, they took my title away, rightfully so, and I became a pastor in training. So

Aaron Smith (21:13)
Hmm.

COSTI HINN (21:30)
That church has gone out. We were there for seven years and then moved to Arizona in 2019 to serve at a church that had had us come out to help structure some ministry, do student ministry more, and then plant. They wanted to plant churches. And so, yeah, funny, small world.

Aaron Smith (21:46)
Yeah, what was the pastor’s name again? He was in the documentary with you guys, American Gospel. Tony Wood. Yeah, so the Woods. So I was, my wife and I were a major part of that church in the marriage ministry there. so we were there when he had left there to go start that church. I know. I was just thinking, I was like, I feel like I remember hearing you about you years ago because of that. was, I remember hearing the transition and you changing and the testimony and

COSTI HINN (21:50)
Tony Wood. Yep. Yes. Dude.

Small world dude, that’s the one, yes.

Yeah.

Aaron Smith (22:16)
cool story. I’ve been known about you for a long time. that’s awesome. Hey, let’s talk about your book. So this book is called Walking in God’s Will. And this is a main issue. I feel like in America, especially like in the West, like we have the luxury of just so many choices in our life.

COSTI HINN (22:23)
Okay.

Aaron Smith (22:36)
We can choose where to live. could choose what church to go to. We could choose what our hair color looks like. We can choose what job we want. Especially right now, there’s so many jobs available, which is amazing, but also says something about our country. We often, get believers, I believe, get stuck in this cycle of like, well, what, you know, should I do this job or that job? Should I move to this house or that house? Should I live in this city or that city? I? We’re always stuck in this decision paralysis because there’s so many options.

COSTI HINN (22:45)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith (23:06)
What we have today is not what has been the norm for all of history. You know, I was just talking to my church last night. I’m a pastor of a small home church and I was just sharing how like churches, like the first churches, like in the beginning in Acts and like the, you know, the first few hundred years and for a long time, Christians weren’t church hopping. They weren’t deciding like, where should I go? They were hearing of Christ and conversion was happening and they were

COSTI HINN (23:25)
Yeah.

Aaron Smith (23:35)
Churches were planted because there was salvation. And so, you know, that’s why we have these letters of, you know, Paul teaching about like structure and organization and how these things work because the churches just happened. They existed. So I feel like Christians nowadays, I’ve been there. What’s God’s will for my life as if it’s something some mystery that we can we have to like, you know, I think about Gideon and he’s, you know, putting the fleece out and we have all these

COSTI HINN (23:45)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

He’s freezin’ God.

Aaron Smith (24:04)
Not

that it’s wrong to ask God for signs, to show us, like, show me the direction. But I feel like we put so much weight on the mystery of God’s will rather than understanding what He’s already said. you talk a lot about that in your book. I’d just love to know what was in your personal life that led to you wanting to write a book about walking in God’s will, and how did that come about?

COSTI HINN (24:09)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, no, it’s a really good question. I just a couple years back written a book called Knowing the Spirit, and it was all about understanding the true work of the Holy Spirit. And along the journey in that book, I talk about how the Holy Spirit guides us, and how He speaks, and how He directs, and how He fills, and how He uses the Word of God, and all of that. And actually, as I was writing,

my mind naturally went to the application of like, okay, Costi, I get it, yes, true, Bible, all right, but then how do I know which direction the Holy Spirit is leading me? And I found my pastoral heart going like, man, I can’t go off the topic, but man, I need to write something or put something together on God’s will, like the continuation of, all right.

You are standing on God’s word. You are full of the Holy Spirit. You are saved. You’re confident in who God is. Okay. Now what do you do? Well, and I need to write more. And so I went into our, uh, I had two book ideas that I was kicking around with Zondervan and I went over to my, uh, the, our co-planter and one of the other pastors, his name is Brett McIntosh. He was actually a teacher, uh, at Crossroads High School for a while. Uh, and I went over to Brett. Yeah. Hilarious. Like.

Aaron Smith (25:27)
Mm-hmm.

⁓ interesting. I’m trying to think if I remember

the name.

COSTI HINN (25:50)
Yeah,

Brett and his wife, Rizel, they’re there. They planted the church with us. And so I go over to his office and he’s the pastor of shepherding. He’s meeting with the director of prayer ministry, this brother from our church named Tom. And I said, Hey, sword interrupt fellas question for you. Two book ideas. Here they are. Which one would you write or which one do you think? And both of them like immediate were like the dude, the book on God’s will hands down. That’s the number one question we get asked. then Tom in our prayer ministry was like, that is always.

on the table. And so, man, I wish we had like a handbook or a resource on that. I said, done, shut the door, and off we went. So, my heart was, what if I could write something that would, and the subtitle of the book is, demystify God’s plan for your life and make decisions with confidence. The thing that breaks or burdens my pastoral heart is when people have, whether it be FOMO, like fear of missing out, and they’re like, I should have, could have, would have,

Aaron Smith (26:37)
Yeah.

COSTI HINN (26:48)
Or like buyer’s remorse, they have decision remorse. They made a decision and then they’re going, well, I don’t know. we like, remember those books used to read as a kid and it was like, you choose your, your path. so you, at the end of the chapter, it’s like, if you choose this, go to page 76. If you choose this, continue reading. And we’re so obsessed with the. like gambling, like, well, what if it’s this? Well, what if it’s that? what do I do? And it’s paralysis by analysis though, at that point, because

Aaron Smith (27:14)
Yeah.

COSTI HINN (27:17)
We get so weighed down with perfectionism and fear and worry and doubt. The enemy is just reaching back, grabbing any arrow. He is his pick of the litter. Let me just grab fear right now. Remember you screwed that one up last time? Ha, and now we’re not gonna make a decision. Or worry, let me get you worried about all the factors you can’t control. Fires another dart, pulls another one out, and goes, ooh, too many options. You won’t know what to do. They’re all good. Well, which one will?

Aaron Smith (27:33)
Yeah.

COSTI HINN (27:47)
be the one. I don’t know. Perfect. Let’s leave that person wallowing in indecision.” And so I just thought if I could write something that walked somebody through a theology of God’s will, which theology, theos in the Greek, God, it’s God logic, the knowledge of God and what the Bible says about His will, and then we did a little Bibliology 101, like the doctrine of the Bible, why Scripture, what does it mean to

Aaron Smith (27:52)
Yeah.

COSTI HINN (28:14)
walk in God’s will according to Scripture, and then the mystery of God’s will, is there other secret things that God will do anyway? Yes. How do you wrestle with sovereignty in that? And then the practical, I thought, well, how about a chapter on cripplers, decision-making cripplers, these things, let’s just get really honest about fear and paralysis by analysis and doubt and all that, and then fundamentals for every fork in the road.

Aaron Smith (28:36)
Yeah.

COSTI HINN (28:40)
so that people can go through a decision-making process. So that was the why, and I just wanted to help people. And so far, with some friends who’ve been reading it and some folks at our church kind of testing it out, it seems to be a really practical tool. So I praise God for that.

Aaron Smith (28:56)
And I think we need it. Not just this one book, but just the understanding of God’s will in our life. It sounds like your book has a lot of the direction for that, which is amazing. But I’ve seen this often in my life when I’m walking with certain believers. I feel like often our understanding of God’s will goes a lot like this. I feel like God’s leading me in this direction, so

I’m just going to go in faith and do this thing. Okay? Which on the surface sounds great. The hard part is when you say God said to yourself, like God told me to make this job change, God told me, I think of a story of a brother saying, I quit my job. I’m like, oh, why’d you quit your job? He’s like, well, really felt God wanted me to try something else. like, well, do you have something else lined up? And he’s like, no, I’m just taking on faith. I’m like, oh, that’s…

COSTI HINN (29:32)
Totally.

Aaron Smith (29:53)
Okay, that’s interesting because I feel like God wants you to little bit more wise than that. But I feel like often as believers, because we don’t have an understanding of like, well, God’s will is totally subjective and is based on how I feel. It’s based on things that I might see and I’m trying to like decipher, you demystify, I’m trying to decipher like, well, where there was that and there was this door that opened, like we’ve all learned like the door opening, door close terminology.

COSTI HINN (29:55)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Aaron Smith (30:22)
And therefore, that must be God’s direction. How do we as believers combat that? How do we have a more confident way of thinking? Because that doesn’t feel very confident to me because I’ve seen too many times someone say that. And essentially when you say, told me, what you’re saying is you can’t say otherwise because God’s got the ultimate authority in my life, correct? That’s biblical. Yes, God has the ultimate authority, but…

COSTI HINN (30:45)
Yeah.

You

Aaron Smith (30:51)
There’s more to that than you’re saying. Essentially, you’re just telling me I’m not allowed to say anything to you. How can we combat that? How can we as believers be like, there’s a more mature way of wanting to seek God’s will for our life?

COSTI HINN (30:53)
Totally.

Yeah. Okay.

Totally. So first of all, guilty as charged time and time again in the past and something that I had good friends and good brothers and disciple makers have to deal with and call out. ⁓ the ultimate gag order. Okay. God told me and therefore, so you’re like, dude, we don’t want to say that God told you like, okay, so you’re going to do, you’re going to do you like, okay. Or I feel like God told me, well,

Aaron Smith (31:21)
Yeah, no, didn’t. Yeah.

COSTI HINN (31:28)
Can we slow down and parse terms here? Like you feel like God told you. So first of all, God told you, you hear with your ears, not feel, in your emotions per se. then, well, that’s not what I mean. I didn’t mean audibly, Costio. Just feel, okay, then why don’t you say, deep down, I feel a strong conviction to do this. I don’t know all the answers, but I’m gonna take a leap of faith.

then just leave it there and you go, okay, so I can roll with that. Well, here’s what I would encourage somebody to do. We don’t need to cut people down or shame them for using the phrase, but instead of just operating by feelings or sensing, what if we compliment, and by that I mean bring alongside other aspects of the process? So in the book, I call this the seven P’s for no regret decisions. And the last one is do I feel peace?

And so I’m like, hello, permission at the end. Subjective and objective piece, subjective pieces. Yeah. I feel good about this. I do. You know, you’re allowed to like God, when we moved to Arizona, I didn’t feel like the bad idea, bad idea, bad idea. Like, why are we doing this? Why are we doing this? I kept giving my wife first down signals down the whole, down the 10 freeway from California where we moved with the U-Haul and she’s laughing. She’s like, Costi, we’re moving to Phoenix area. Like this is.

crazy and we’re gonna serve at this church and they’re awesome people and then Church plant apparently if that like cost you this is crazy. Are you like this is wild? That’s we were definitely it was daunting, but we still didn’t feel this crazy consternation It wasn’t war we were both at peace and in unity. I was going first down, baby I don’t know what God has but apparently we’re leaving the promised land and going to Egypt because this is the desert and she’s laughing and like it was and then but objectively

Aaron Smith (33:17)
Arizona.

COSTI HINN (33:21)
We met with our elders. We had their elders talk to our elders. We prayed. We were prudent. I had a job lined up. We had talked finances. We had a place to live. We had thought about the future. So we were considering the long-term perspective. That’s one of the P’s as well. And we were thinking through our priorities, and those were spiritual, financial, relational, and eternal. We were walking through what I would just call a grid.

Aaron Smith (33:38)
you

COSTI HINN (33:51)
decision-making. Well, by the end of it, we had the good feeling. If someone were like, are you, you feel like God’s really like called you to this? Look, feel and call can be subjective, but I can respond to that going, absolutely. Well, how do you know? Well, number one, our desire was aligned with all of these confirmations and affirmations, and God was orchestrating, doors were flying open. Well, how did you know it was the right one? Well, we

We sought the Lord in prayer. We sought wise counsel with prudence. We discussed our priorities. We maintained a long-term perspective, and we assessed whether or not we have peace. And believe me, there were three other potential things that had come up over the years. Two other job offers, so three total, when we did move to Arizona and chose that as our route. And I’ll tell you what, one of them, my wife, was like, no way. And instead of looking at her as a stick in the mud blocking God’s will,

If I would have said, well, I want it. I bet deep down underneath the surface, it would have been selfish ambition. It would have been some other thing, but I think people should ask when they’re having marital conflict with major decisions, stop viewing your spouse as your enemy, view them as your ally, and then ask humbly, hmm, why is the Holy Spirit not providing the bond of unity and a spirit of peace? Why is there a fight right now? Am I being prideful? she?

Am I wanting my way and not listening? Does she want her way? Are we concerned? Is this about money, place, weather, attitude? What really is the heart issue underneath? Why don’t we have peace? And as you seek the Lord and in prayer and talk together and discover that, I think you’ll find things pop up. And for us, some of these other things were unwise decisions. Not that the people were evil or bad. They were unwise decisions. Staying was no longer wise.

Aaron Smith (35:19)
Thank

COSTI HINN (35:47)
been told time and time again, you need to preach, you need to preach, you should plant a church, you should this, you should that. No, I know, I know. And eventually, I was hitting a ceiling to where our own pastor was like, hey, if you ever get opportunities to go somewhere, we’re not ready to plant. We don’t have the money, and it’s California. We’re like house poor as a church. But we should be thinking about these things. So you’ll see God begin to align, and Proverbs says, who separates himself seeks his own desire. Whenever we start going, well, I feel God.

Aaron Smith (36:04)
Yeah.

Yeah, Prev is 18.1.

COSTI HINN (36:16)
I want to do this. Look, maybe you just want your own way, and being honest about that will reduce a lot of anxiety for people that think you’re just ignoring them. So there’s a lot of things that go into that. I just want to encourage people, add more like an insulation to a home, and you’ll find you can feel it’s okay. We’re not down on feelings. And you can feel as though God’s calling you to something, but where God calls, He clarifies.

Even Abraham. When Abraham obeys God, and it’s credited to him as righteousness because it’s faith, he goes. The Bible still says he went not knowing where he was going, but God had already said, go to the mount, which I will show you. God had already told him the direction to go. So he wasn’t wandering aim. I feel like God said, I feel like God said he was going in the right direction. And then God clarified, God always clarifies where he calls. And so I want to encourage folks to

Aaron Smith (37:03)
Mm-hmm.

COSTI HINN (37:14)
be humble in the process, but have a process.

Aaron Smith (37:19)
I love that you brought up Proverbs 18.1. That’s a huge one. I’ve actually never considered it in the sense of decision-making, even though it is like me deciding to separate myself from other believers, you know, or from the Church or, you know, isolate myself. But if we’re making decisions, especially large decisions, there’s a million small decisions we make every day that should be happening just with you and the Lord, you and your spouse, you and your family, but then…

It definitely quickly, as decisions get bigger, to your community, your church. And if we’re making decisions, if our decision we’re making is completely isolated, like, I’m just going to do this, I’m not even going to bring it up to my wife. I’m not going to present it to my closest Christian brothers. There’s a problem there. I think that’s a big indicator of why don’t you want anyone else to know about the decision?

COSTI HINN (37:58)
Hmm.

Aaron Smith (38:16)
Maybe because you already know what the answer is. Maybe you know what someone’s going to say. think that’s a good, making those decisions in isolation rather than, as the proverb says, surrounding yourself with many counselors, succeeding in battle by doing so. And seeing the value in it as a Christian being like, I don’t always see clearly.

I make decisions emotionally. I have cravings. I have desires. have fleeting ideas that may not be the wisest for me, for my family, for our church, for our community. That’s really good. So what is some of the main—I would say this—what is, do you think, as a pastor, something that you often see when it comes to this, how do I know what God’s will is for my life and how do you address it in the book?

COSTI HINN (38:47)
Mm. Mm.

Whew, that is a great, great question. I think multiple things. First, I see paralysis by analysis. People overthink and overanalyze. And so I have a section in the book that is dedicated to you people, to all of us, but you know what I mean. Paralysis by analysis. And in the chapter, I think you’ll appreciate this. Maybe some people don’t know what this restaurant is, but if you’ve ever lived in California, you do, or a number of places, but you’ve heard of the Cheesecake Factory, right?

Aaron Smith (39:37)
yeah, yeah love their Buffalo Blasts.

COSTI HINN (39:38)
Yeah. So I, I open up with

the, I, and you have six kids like I do it. So, you know, this very well, if you ever take them there, I I’d made the mistake of taking, ⁓ before we had six, but we took, four and five kids to the cheesecake factory and the menu. And in the book, I, I will in the, it is, it’s, it’s, it’s over 200. So, and it’s over 20 pages on the menu. So when you.

Aaron Smith (39:54)
There’s like 5,000 things.

COSTI HINN (40:04)
have a Cheesecake Factory mentality in your decision-making, what does it lead to? Procrastination. Well, I want this. No, I want that. What do you want? When you have too many decisions. And so I address paralysis by analysis, where we overanalyze. It comes from a spirit of or an attitude of perfectionism. I want to get it right. And if I don’t, I fear this, this, this, this, and this. It’s like we quote Romans 8.28 all the time. You know, someone’s going through say,

cheer up, you know, God’s going to turn it around for He causes all things to work together for good. And then apparently, when it comes to our own decision making, we need to be perfectionists because, you know, God can’t possibly deal with any ambiguity or I can’t take a step of faith of obedience in this area because that’s what’s clear. And when I don’t know the rest, I better not do anything until I have the perfect plan. And a lot of that is rooted in social media comparison, looking at people’s life, looking at what they have, looking at the way it is.

Aaron Smith (40:36)
Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

COSTI HINN (41:01)
saying, well, I want that, I want that, and then we put together this massive menu of things we want, and the way it has to be, we’ve created too large of a scenario instead of saying, Lord, I know in Your Word You have called me to this, this, and this. Your commands are so clear on this, this, and this. As far as the rest of it, I don’t know, but this much is clear, and I’m gonna take the next step of obedience and trust You with the rest. That’s a

at the same time, it’s faith. And so in that regard, I deal with that. Maybe the other thing is fear, and in this I share an illustration, and I’ll share it briefly with everyone here. People moving. And I’ve been around the church a long time. I’ve been in a number of different churches, and one church in particular was so scared of people moving, because if people move,

Aaron Smith (41:31)
Yeah.

COSTI HINN (41:56)
We have less money because they’re giving. It’s like the business of church, which that’s a whole other episode. And so we had developed, and by we I don’t mean me, but I was at the church and the church had developed this culture where moving away was like sinful and the real people stuck it out and stayed and you’re just like, what like what abuse of people’s freedoms? And so

Aaron Smith (42:00)
Yeah.

Anyway.

COSTI HINN (42:21)
If you live too far, like you’re not the real core, you know, if you move to different states, like, yeah, they just wanted to go where it’s easy. And like, you know, and, so you see people crippled in fear. Well, I had this brother come up to us in our church plant, church now, and he exhibited some of these fears. He wasn’t from the past or anything. It was just a new guy. He had grown up in a very crippling type of religion. And if you made the, if you did the wrong thing or anything, the priest would like, you know, declare you have.

Aaron Smith (42:25)
You have me close.

COSTI HINN (42:49)
left the faith, you know, the anointing is, yeah, you’re out. And so came up and said, Hey, I wanted to ask you, like, we’re thinking about moving to this other state and we just want a couple acres and a cow and some chickens and a lawn and it’d be cool, you know, it’s like right on. And he’s like, do you think we’re in sin? And I said, no, why? You’re only in sin if you don’t invite me to come over and come hang out, you know, when it’s

Aaron Smith (42:50)
Yeah, you’ve hypothesized you are excommunicated.

COSTI HINN (43:18)
120 degrees in Arizona, and he’s laughing. I said, what, why do you say that? And he said, I just, I’m to be honest with you. It’s not a need, it’s a want. And do you think God is kind of not into our wants? Like, you know what I mean? And we’re supposed to suffer. And I was like, so first of all, if I’ve ever taught you and I have a theology of suffering, yes, we all will suffer. If you want to live godly in Christ Jesus, we will be persecuted. Life is not easy and you’re not guaranteed health and healing. But

what makes us also believe that God is this sadistic, cosmic abuser. And remember 1 Timothy 6, where in verses 17 to 19, Paul says, just instruct the rich to be rich in good works, generous, ready to share, and then not fixing their hope on stuff, but on God, and then for God has given us all things to enjoy. So you’re just, your hope isn’t it? The stuff doesn’t have you. You have the stuff.

Aaron Smith (44:05)
Mm-hmm.

COSTI HINN (44:15)
But the stuff doesn’t have you. So we talked through that and there was this fear that, you know, God’s will is, that it’d be hard and it’s this and you can’t want things and enjoy things. And so we talked through that. said, brother, whether you stay or go, I love you. And if you want to have now let’s talk our priorities. And in that we did one of the P’s I said, let’s talk about our priorities. Number one, have you talked, have you thought about church spiritual? He said, yes, we already found a church. If we move.

It’s this far away, there’s a Bible study I can go to, blah blah blah blah blah, discipleship. I said, great. What about financial? He said, yes, I can work from, I mean, he had walked through it all and already thought. I said, what about relational? He said, yes, there’s some friends out there, there’s this, there’s that. We’ll miss our friends here, but we have a great community and we can grow and serve and be a part of the body of Christ in a strong way. And then finally, eternal. I said, have you thought through the eternal perspective? He said, yes. I mean, just investing in my family, working from home, having a bit of a homestead.

making disciples, being a part of a community, all of these things, and just preparing for the future and being a good financial steward. And I said, well then, brother, go with the blessing of the elders, your church, the family of God around you. Like, we’ll miss you, but you’re allowed to have wants. It’s okay. And I see that a lot, Aaron, in the church, because we

Aaron Smith (45:34)
Mm-hmm.

COSTI HINN (45:34)
We

kind of act like, you see those documentaries like the one about the Church of Scientology where if you leave, you’re the suppressive person, and like you’re cut off. We kind of do that in the Christian Church. It’s really messed up. you’re going to this other church. you’re moving. ⁓ you’re leaving us. No, I’m going to the next step, because I belong to Jesus, and there’s a big C body of Christ with many little c local expressions, but dude, we’re one body, and so we need to be careful.

Aaron Smith (45:43)
Mm-hmm.

COSTI HINN (46:03)
getting paralyzed by a lot of options, but also having a fear-mongering culture where people aren’t allowed to exercise their liberties and their enjoyment and their freedoms for fear of upsetting people. If you’ve gone through the process, look, not everyone might be happy, but you don’t need to people-please if you’re pleasing the Lord.

Aaron Smith (46:26)
Do you have, I really appreciate that and it made me think of a couple of things I wanted to ask you, but only if you got time. You got time for one more question? Okay. You mentioned the earlier, kind of leading into what we were just talking about, this idea that there is, you know, there’s these unknowns that like you can’t perfectly know whether you should choose this job or that job. Like that’s not in scripture.

COSTI HINN (46:33)
Yeah, let’s fire a few more.

Aaron Smith (46:53)
doesn’t say like you should choose this kind of job all the time. So there’s an unknown there. But there are knowns. And I just I want to end on what are some of the knowns like we we can confidently know for a fact 100 % this is the will of God. And I’d like there’s I pulled up a bunch of scriptures, but I’d love for you to point out a few of those that we can just play on our flag like I know that no matter what choice I make right now in this situation, this is the will of God over here and I can

So I just want to end on these.

COSTI HINN (47:23)
Yes,

totally. let me encourage people, I rarely do this, but I’m going to do it right now to you’re allowed to Google this. would be like, don’t go to Google, go to your pastor or go to your small group leader. But, Google is using AI now. And if you were to Google all of the verses, or if you have like logos or one of those Bible softwares, just

Aaron Smith (47:34)
Be careful.

I used chat

chat GBT to pull up the verses. That’s what I did.

COSTI HINN (47:48)
Dude, you could do

this. You go every Bible verse on God’s will, and there is going to be a laundry list of them, and here’s the best part. There’s so many about sexual purity, your sanctification, God’s will for you to be saved, God’s will for you to serve, God’s will for you to be submissive. I mean, there’s a bunch of S’s. You could break them down that way, but God’s will for us to be unified, God’s will for us to walk in love, God’s will for us to be filled with the Spirit. I mean, you and I can stay plenty busy.

walking in the revealed will of God. And then think about this. They’re not all S’s, but every command of God. You read the New Testament within the epistles and these letters written to churches, and you see the commands of God. Thinking about one marriage podcast, Colossians 3.19, husbands love your wives and do not be, the word translates, harsh or embittered towards them. Right now, today, I’m good. I’ll work on that. My wife is not

Frustrating me. I’m not embittered, but you know what? It’s very easy to get an attitude problem over the simplest things on a Wednesday, a Thursday, a Friday, or a Saturday, and you just kind of insensitive it right right away. There’s always something in God’s Word that we could look at and think, you know, I’m gonna put on love. I’m gonna put on kindness. I’m doing a series right now, a little mini series about kindness on our podcast, and we’re thinking through bitterness and anger and selfishness and all of these kindness killers. And I’m going, I’m plenty busy.

Aaron Smith (49:05)
Yeah.

COSTI HINN (49:15)
knowing the will of God and asking His help in these areas to ever say, man, I wish I knew God’s will. Like, no, right now His will is this, this, this, this, and this. And so, I give in the book ten things to do or to know right now that are God’s will. And the chapter is called God’s will for every Christian. And then in that regard, I want to just make this distinction for people. There is, theologically speaking,

Aaron Smith (49:37)
Yep.

COSTI HINN (49:44)
God’s decreed will, some people call it His sovereign will, when is Jesus going to return? When will you die? Who will you marry? Will you have a tragedy? What will finally get you? Will there be war? What will the market be like? Will you make money off this? Will you still have the same job? Look, the Bible says the secret things belong to our God. That was the reminder to Israel in the book of Deuteronomy in the Old Testament. The secret things belong to our God. There’s just things you’re not going to know. And then there is

Aaron Smith (50:12)
nor have control over.

COSTI HINN (50:14)
It’s His sovereign will. He’s gonna do it. You can trust Him. You don’t need to worry about it. However, there’s God’s revealed will, and some also call this God’s will of command. It’s what He’s given to us to do. He’s revealed it, and so He’s prescribed it. His precepts are clear. And so I want to say this. I’m gonna say it love, pastorally, but

Aaron Smith (50:32)
his prescription for the believer.

COSTI HINN (50:40)
Please, this is what I desire, that you, if you’re listening or watching to this, you stop at some point saying words like this, man, I just wish I knew God’s will. I don’t really understand God’s will. No, no, no, say, ⁓ I don’t always understand God’s sovereign will. There’s just things He knows that I’m never going to understand, but I’m grateful that I know how to live today because I can always access

His revealed will. God has been so clear. We can wrestle as humans with His secret sovereign will, but we don’t have to walk in ambiguity or confusion. We can all know what He’s called us to do.

Aaron Smith (51:24)
I love Jesus. even says he’s like, I have revealed these things to you because you’re my friends. Like he he’s revealed things to us. And I, I often bring this up to people. Mike, you can be so concerned about the unknowns, about the things that we have no control over, the things that we have no power over, the things that we can’t like even you going to Arizona. You might have done all of the front end work and just did the best you possibly could and still would have no idea what the results going to be. Still have no idea what the outcome is going to be once you get there. What, what like

COSTI HINN (51:31)
Come on. Yep.

Aaron Smith (51:54)
the scenarios, the situations, the life that’s going to happen tomorrow, which is why God says there’s enough worry for today. Tomorrow doesn’t mean you don’t worry about tomorrow. You have enough for today. And I have to remind people, you know, the simplest things in scripture that are the clearest are the hardest things for us to walk in as believers. Like just walking in the fruit of the Spirit, like love. You were bringing up marriage and I thought of like, it says husbands walk with your wives in an understanding way.

COSTI HINN (52:01)
Yeah. Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith (52:24)
I’m like, well, that right there is going to take me a lifetime because there’s so many times I’m just, Lord, do not understand. Help me understand right now. But He’s told me to do that. you’re right. God has revealed and it is all you got to do, listener, go search, use chat, tbts, Google, say, verses on the will of God. And there’s very specific ones that says this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus. so there’s an end, be honest.

COSTI HINN (52:31)
Yeah.

is yep.

Aaron Smith (52:54)
There’s enough in it for us. And if we’re to walk in these things and desire to walk in these things, I know for my own life, and Kostya, could probably attest to this, the other things tend to fall in place. Not the way we want them always, not the way we would imagine, but God continues to lead us and guide us. like you said, I was thinking we were just teaching the kids about Abraham this morning. Abraham. He doesn’t give all the instruction right away, but he does over time as he follows him.

COSTI HINN (52:55)
Mm-hmm.

Aaron Smith (53:23)
Hey Costi, you so much for sharing this. Would you share where they can get your book, what’s the title again, and where they can find you online?

COSTI HINN (53:29)
Yeah.

Yeah. The book is Walking in God’s Will, Demystify God’s Plan for Your Life, and Make Decisions with Confidence. It’s available on Amazon. You can get it at Barnes & Nobles, christianbook.com, Target. I mean, anywhere books are sold, it’s online. And then if you want to know more about our ministry, you can go to www.forthegospel.org. That’s O-R-G. And then we’re on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, X.

Aaron Smith (53:44)
Anywhere, yeah.

COSTI HINN (53:58)
⁓ we’re all over. And then we have a YouTube channel as well. And I drop a podcast every Monday video and audio format. And so if you want to know more, and then our children’s books are available as well. My, myself, Costi, and then my wife, Christine Hinn, and we have books for children on the fruit of the spirit and prayer.

Aaron Smith (54:13)
Tasi, thank you so much for your time and I just pray that God blesses you and just keep preaching the word of God, man. It’s what this world needs.

COSTI HINN (54:21)
Thanks bro, keep up the good work.

Aaron Smith (54:23)
Yeah, God bless you.