How God’s Grace Meets Our Daily Struggle And Leads Us Toward Freedom

If you’ve ever wondered why faith can feel like a tug-of-war inside your own chest, you’re not broken—you’re normal. We sit with Brad Church, retired business analyst and author of The Stranger’s Conflict, to explore the daily battle between the flesh and the Spirit, and why grace is power for change rather than a pass for old habits. This is a grounded, Scripture-rich conversation that takes shame off the table and replaces it with practical hope.

We trace a clear arc through Romans 6–8: the real struggle Paul confesses, the honest gap between desire and action, and the liberating promise of no condemnation in Christ. Brad shares candid stories of slow deliverance, the guilt that stalks repeated failure, and the moment-by-moment choices that invited the Holy Spirit to shift his patterns. We talk about the image of God—body, soul, and spirit—as a framework for understanding why the Spirit pulls us toward life while the flesh clings to old comfort, and how worship, Scripture, and community rewire our loves over time.

You’ll hear how Paul’s journey from law to grace offers a path beyond legalism and self-reliance, and why surrender is not passivity but aligned action. Expect practical takeaways: how to feed your spiritual life, how to handle discouragement without hiding, and how to replace self-condemnation with honest prayer and steady habits. If you’re hungry for a faith that meets you in the mess and moves you toward freedom, this conversation will help you breathe again.

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Chapters

• 0:29 Meet Brad And Today’s Focus
• 1:11 Icebreaker And Rest For The Soul
• 1:54 How Struggles Shape Faith
• 3:28 Finding Strength In Word And Worship
• 4:47 Romans 6–8 And No Condemnation
• 5:25 Why The Stranger’s Conflict Matters
• 9:33 Grace, Holiness, And Real Change
• 12:06 Saved At Six And Early Faith
• 13:07 Image Of God And Our Design
• 15:20 Feeding The Spirit Takes Work
• 18:58 Why Brad Wrote The Book
• 21:18 Paul’s Journey From Law To Grace
• 24:13 The Root Of Inner Conflict
• 26:15 Hope For The Discouraged
• 29:42 Where To Find The Book And Closing

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:15

Hello everyone, thank you again for joining me on another episode of the Dorsey Us show. Today we have a guest with us. His name is Brad. He is a retired business analyst and Christian who explores the struggle between sin and the Holy Spirit in his book, The Strangers Conflict. He emphasizes God's grace as the path to purpose and victory. Fred, thank you so much for coming on the show today.

SPEAKER_00: 0:52

Thank you for having me, Dorcy. It's a pleasure to be here.

SPEAKER_02: 0:54

Absolutely. I always like to open up my show with an icebreaker question. And today's icebreaker question is what's your favorite way to spend a day off?

SPEAKER_00: 1:10

Oh boy. I would say one of my favorite ways is to just hop in the car. Um I'm about an hour and 20 minutes away from the Oregon coast and uh just turning on some worship music and driving over to the coast and stopping at places and walking on the beach. It's it's a wonderful way for me to restore my soul and come back home and ready to work some more.

SPEAKER_04: 1:38

There you go. How do personal struggles shape one's faith journey?

SPEAKER_01: 1:47

Oh man.

SPEAKER_00: 1:49

Um I think they shape our faith journey in a in a lot of ways. Um they'll they'll challenge our misconceptions. Um for one. Um, you know, I think I think a lot of people come to faith in Christ and think that all of their problems are instantly going to be solved. And um when we start going through struggles, we begin to to question well, gee, was was my decision to believe in Christ really valid? And for me personally, as I've gone through struggles and and grappled with those questions, there's been just that affirmation of the Holy Spirit inside that says, yeah, your faith is valid. It was your expectation that was off, you know. And uh God never promised that that this life would be easy. And He shapes our He He shapes our character and deepens our faith as we go through those struggles and and recognize that that affirmation of the Holy Spirit from within uh the that frequently contradicts our our human interpretation of our struggles.

SPEAKER_02: 3:02

Yeah. How can believers find strength amidst their inner or internal conflict?

SPEAKER_00: 3:14

Turning to God's word is is the first step. You know, everything we know about Jesus is contained in the book of that Bible, right? And uh understanding scripture and and understanding how it applies to our lives in in practical terms is a great first step. Um another step is is just regardless of what's going on in life, um, if we can if we can turn our our thoughts and our praise to God and recognize God for who he is and his greatness, regardless of our situation and and how confusing um struggles can be sometimes, uh that's that's huge. Um there's a a psalm where David said, uh, even though you cast me into hell, I will praise you. And that's a real statement, you know, of of recognizing God's worthiness of our praise, regardless of of what our circumstances are in life. And I think a third thing that helps us is just fellowshipping with other believers who can come alongside and say, man, you are not alone in your struggle. Uh I know exactly what you're going through. I've been there too. Um, and let's walk through this together.

SPEAKER_02: 4:32

Yeah. When I think about, you know, the struggles and the conflicts that, you know, that I think that we're gonna be talking about today, I think about, you know, Romans, you know, six, seven, and eight, where it talks about, you know, the inner man, the the Sing Man, and how we, you know, conf how we battle with the sinful man and how we, you know, know that, you know, we're not supposed to sing, but yet we we do it anyway.

SPEAKER_03: 5:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 5:01

And then in real in Romans 8, he says, therefore there's now no condemnation for those who are in uh crisis.

SPEAKER_00: 5:09

That's right. Yep.

SPEAKER_02: 5:11

Now you wrote a book as I mentioned in your um preview there about this uh called The Strangers Conflict. Why do you think this topic is so important to believers today? And what is the title about?

SPEAKER_00: 5:31

I I think it's an important uh concept because um because it's it's a reality of our daily lives. And I know for me, you know, I I came to a point in my faith walk where I said, I'm supposed to be a believer. Why, why do I still struggle with with lustful thoughts? Why do I still struggle with you know dishonesty? Why do I still struggle with this stuff that that isn't supposed to be a part of my life, right? Isn't supposed to be part of my life. And um I wanted to understand uh that struggle. And and you know, lo and behold, uh through my my studies, I I found that that even Paul, right, the great apostle Paul, struggled with that, where he talks about that in Romans 5, uh towards the end of that chapter. He he says, there's things I want to do that that I just don't do. And then there's things I don't want to do. I find myself doing them. Woe is me. You know, who's going to save me? And his conclusion was thank God Jesus Christ has saved me. And so the the title, The Stranger's Conflict, it talks about that conflict between our old sin nature and the regenerated spirit within us, uh, and the Holy Spirit working within to conform us to the image of Christ. And I get a lot of questions about why the stranger. Um, and the answer is very simple that that uh even from the patriarchs, uh, the faith chapter in Hebrews, chapter 11, uh as the author of Hebrews went through those people towards the end of that chapter, he said, and all of these people believed in hope, not seeing what they had been promised, but they were they were um living this life as strangers and aliens, sojourners in this world and hoping for a better country. And Jesus himself, you know, said to his disciples, um, you are from the earth and I am from heaven. And basically he was saying, I'm a stranger here. And the apostle Paul said that when we come to faith in Christ, we become citizens of heaven. We're no longer citizens of this world. So that that strangers theme is is very common and it's uh it's something that I picked up on uh and really wanted to focus on uh because as followers of Jesus, we are to be living a different type of life. You know, we have different sets of values than the world around us.

SPEAKER_02: 8:04

Do you think that there's certain sins that I mean, even though that we'll we'll always sin, we'll always have that sinful nature within us, and we'll always deal with, you know, the sanctification of, you know, God, you know, helping us to get rid of that sin. But do you think that there's, you know, um maybe a sin in your book or a conflict, a sinful conflict that you deal with in your book that you can say, yes, we can get rid of that of that issue in our lives.

SPEAKER_00: 8:43

Yeah, you know, Paul said there's a lot of people that that uh believe in God, but they don't believe in the power of God, right? And and I think, you know, recognizing that we have that sin nature and that God's grace covers our sin and forgives us for our sin does not give us license to sin. God calls us to be holy, right? And um I think the key thing is when when we struggle with those things, when we turn to God in genuine repentance, there's forgiveness there. And in I think in the book I use the illustration uh about smoking cigarettes. Um when I first came to Christ, I smoked cigarettes way back, you know, in my early 20s. And I tried and tried and tried and tried and tried and tried for a couple of years to stop smoking. I did everything I possibly could to try to quit. And I could not stop smoking. I was bound. And I felt guilty, I felt ashamed. And um we might not say smoking is a big sin, but it's, you know, violating the temple of God. And I think, you know, it it is a sin to some degree. And I think this illustrates a point that there came a point in time where I traveled to Los Angeles uh with a youth group and was in a situation for where one week I could not smoke cigarettes. Was not allowed. I wouldn't be alone. I was, you know, I was staying in other people's houses, there was no smoking allowed. And I left a pack of cigarettes on my TV at home with 19 cigarettes in it. I went down to LA for a week. God called me to go to Bible college during that week. I came home and I threw that pack of cigarettes away and I was delivered.

SPEAKER_01: 10:32

Now, I struggled with that sin for years.

SPEAKER_00: 10:37

And in God's timing, he delivered me. I think that's that's the same with a lot of sin. You know, some people come to faith in Christ and they are instantly delivered from many, many things. Other people struggle with things for years, and and there's probably things in our lives that we that we all struggle with. And we can we can continue to do what Adam and Eve did when they sinned and go hide in the bushes and cover ourselves with fig leaves, or we can come before God in sincere repentance and openness and say, God, I'm struggling with this and I cannot conquer it on my own. And sometimes God will move instantly, and sometimes for whatever reason, he will let us um struggle with that for a season. Um, but whether it's in this life or or in the next, God will deliver us from that sin. And I think the greatest temptation when we're struggling with those things is to number one, hide from God and and number two, feel like we're not worthy of his grace because we can't overcome it. And it's it's just not about us, it's about Jesus overcoming those things in us.

SPEAKER_02: 11:50

Right. I read in your background that you came to Christ at the age of six.

SPEAKER_00: 11:58

Yes.

SPEAKER_02: 11:59

What was that experience like? I mean, that's really young to, you know, accept him as your Lord and Savior.

SPEAKER_00: 12:08

Well, there's a funny story behind that. Um, I went to Bible college um in the early 1980s, and and one of my professors uh stood up before the class one morning and he said, if you can't tell me the exact moment that you were saved, then I don't believe you're saved. And I sat in that class as as uh probably a 24-year-old at that time. And I'm thinking, when did I first come to faith in Christ? When did I first and I struggled with that question for for several years? And as I thought about it one morning, I I realized, you know, the first moment I believed was at the age of six. I was in a Sunday school class in the upstairs room of the Methodist church in Junction City, Oregon, where my family attended. And my mother was teaching a class and she was talking about Jesus. And, you know, she had the flannel board up there, and she was talking about that. And I remember a very specific moment where in my heart I said, I believe that. And that in that moment I was saved.

SPEAKER_02: 13:13

You say in your book that understanding how God made us in his image is vital to understand the conflict you discuss in the book. Why is understanding how God made us so important?

SPEAKER_00: 13:29

Well, if we go back to Genesis chapter one and two, where God created Adam and Eve, um you know, he formed Adam out of the dust of the ground. And the scripture says that God breathed into Adam, and God is spirit. So when God breathed into Adam, he was breathing spirit into Adam, and Adam became a living soul. So Adam was physical, and he had God's spirit within him because God breathed it into him, and he became a living soul. And so we're we're really a tripart being of a physical being, uh spiritual being and a soul that that is the unique individual of us. And um God created us to have relationship with himself. God is spirit, and if we're going to have relationship with God, it's going to be on a spiritual basis. Because while we see um Jesus in physical form during his earthly ministry, and there are several occasions in the Old Testament where he appears to Abraham, he appeared to Joshua and a couple other people, I think. Um, we don't see him physically, right? We have a spiritual relationship with God. Well, God wasn't done with creation when he created Adam, he also created Eve, and he created her in much the same way, took a physical part of Adam, formed Eve, and then I believe that process of creation for Eve, even though it's not specifically stated in the Bible, was the same that God breathed life into Eve, and she became a living soul. Well, he created them for each other. So we were created to have relationship with other human beings, and we are created to have relationship with God. So the physical part uh is largely how do we relate to other human beings, but I believe there's also a spiritual aspect to our relationships. Um, and in, you know, in the fall, that was all distorted and blown away. Uh, we lost that relationship with God because we were cut off from the Garden of Eden and in the spirit of human beings ceased to be connected with God. And so understanding how we're made, body, soul, and spirit, to relate to both human beings and to God, I think is crucial to understanding that conflict. Because when the Holy Spirit comes into us when we believe in Christ, then we now have that regenerated spirit that wants relationship with God, and yet the sin nature is bound in the flesh and fights against that.

SPEAKER_02: 16:21

Maybe you answered it in but how do we how do we how why is it important for us to see how God made us in his image? Why is that why is that an important aspect of this topic?

SPEAKER_00: 16:37

Okay. Um I think we need to understand that that that desire to run from God, that desire to hide from God, that desire to rebel against God comes from the flesh. It comes from um the sin nature that's bound in the flesh, and that it will always be with us as long as this flesh lives. Um on the on the flip side of that, understanding that my relationship with God is spiritual, I need to feed my my spiritual life. And we do that by understanding God's word, being in God's word, uh worshiping God, spending time with God in prayer, um, and fellowshipping with other believers who can um help influence our spiritual lives. And and I think so many of us, you know, just go about living our lives and and we don't recognize sometimes that that we need to stop and take the time to cultivate that spiritual relationship with Christ. It doesn't just happen, you know, it takes work. It's it's like it's like growing a garden for anybody out there that that grows garden, you know, you you plant the seed and weeds come up with the seed, and you need to pull the weeds and and water the seed and make sure it's in a good uh a place that's got life. It takes effort. And so do our spiritual lives, um, knowing Christ, following Christ, because um to do nothing, uh it seems like the the inertia, the energy is is in a downward spile away from God. And if we want to grow closer to God, then it takes effort to feed our spirits and and cultivate our spiritual lives.

SPEAKER_02: 18:38

What was the purpose of writing writing the book and what do you hope people get out of it?

SPEAKER_00: 18:46

Um you know, the the book was was written largely out of my own experience or my own desire to understand this. Um and as as I began to figure this out and and listen to teaching out there in in Christendom, um, I realized that not a lot of people were talking about this. And I felt like if I if I was having issues understanding this, and if I was struggling with this, and if I was feeling guilty over these issues, that there had to be other believers out there that were feeling the same and struggling with the same issues. And um, I I really wanted to uh be able to shed some light on that. You know, you you mentioned in your in your introduction that I'm a retired business analyst and I do kind of analyze things and um part of that training um was was learning to ask why questions. You know, when something's wrong in a process, we go, why? And we can find, well, that's why, but is that the root cause? And no, usually if you keep asking why, you'll you'll get down to the root cause. And and I felt like in in my study, I was I was asking those kinds of questions to really understand why is this conflict here and what did God do about it? And when I began to get those answers, I I wanted to share um with with whoever would like to read about that. Um I've I've wanted to be an author since I was 19. So that's been you know almost 60, you know, almost 50 years. Um and uh I finally found something that I that I felt like I could write about. And um, so I wrote about it. And I, you know, I'm getting really good feedback on it, and the people who have read it say it's helped them a lot. So I I hope to see it help a lot more people.

SPEAKER_02: 20:46

You drew from the Apocalypse teaching in your book, and how do you see that his writings on the conflict between flesh and spirit influencing the great the way Christians can approach their struggles today?

SPEAKER_00: 21:04

Paul is a really interesting character. You know, he he was raised to be a Pharisee of the Pharisees. And, you know, he was he was likely around Jerusalem when when Jesus was ministering. Um so he he likely saw everything that was going on during those years of ministry for Jesus. And he had a tremendous understanding of the Hebrew scriptures and by his own admission was zealous for God. And when he came to Christ, there was there was a foundation in his life that that was instantly ignited by the Holy Spirit. You know, his perspective changed 180 degrees overnight. And he was in a unique position to understand God's intent and person, purpose for humanity because of his training as a young man. And when he came to faith in Christ, he embraced something that was foreign in the pharisaic world, and that's grace. The Pharisees and religious teachers were all about legalism and obeying the every jot and tittle of the law. And here is this amazing thing called grace, and and Paul was confronted by his own wretchedness. And yet he found God's forgiveness and God's grace. And so as he, you know, he he was in isolation for a number of years after he was saved. And I believe during those times his his doctrine was was formed, right? And uh he he embraced this amazing grace that God has provided through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. And he he understood the difference between law and grace, and he understood God's call to holiness, and he understood human frailty and weakness, and he understood God's powerful grace to save us and to ultimately restore us into that relationship that Adam had, Adam and Eve had with God in the beginning. He he emphasized very, very clearly the need for us to live righteous lives, um, but our inability to do so completely, and that it was God's Holy Spirit working in us to help us to live those righteous lives. It's it's not human effort. It's it's you know learning to surrender to God and allow the Holy Spirit to move in our lives and work through us and in us.

SPEAKER_02: 23:59

What do you think is the root cause of the inner conflict between the spirit and the flesh that believers experience?

SPEAKER_00: 24:09

Well, the root cause is that the sin nature exists, right? And um, you know, when when we have not come to faith in Christ, we have a sin nature um and and we're sinning. But for a lot of us, I think, you know, especially in the United States where affluence is is so predominant, um, we don't recognize our spiritual need. And um when when a person comes to faith in Christ, then they have the Holy Spirit inside of them that uh number one has saved them and he's beginning a cleansing work. Um sometimes he does uh a lot of that immediately, and sometimes it's it's more struggle. But it's the the root cause of that conflict is that when a person comes to faith in Christ, they now have the Holy Spirit who's working to conform us to the image of Christ, and the flesh rebels against that. There's a verse in Corinthians, I believe it is, where Paul says literally that the flesh wars against the spirit. Wars against the spirit. That's a strong word, you know. Um and as free will individuals, it's up to us to make choices that that facilitate the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives against that flesh that's warring against our spiritual benefit.

SPEAKER_02: 25:46

What would you say to someone who feels discouraged or overwhelmed by their spiritual struggles, wondering if they're if they'll trul truly live victoriously for Christ?

SPEAKER_00: 26:01

I would say um, because I've been there, um I remember one one day, uh just a lot of financial pressure, a lot of family issues going on, um driving down the road, nearly in tears, worship music on, and coming to the point where I said, God, about all I can really understand today is that you are who you say you are, and Jesus is who he says he is, and I believe that. And my faith got shaken down to that core truth, right? And to anyone who's struggling um under self-condemnation, under just pressure, under feeling like, you know, I'm supposed to be a Christian, my life is supposed to be better. Why are my debts piled up? Why did I lose my job? Why did my spouse leave? Why, you know, there's a million whys that we can ask. Um but I would say a couple of things. First, um, just recognize that that you're not alone, that that many, many people, if not every person, uh goes through times like that. What what they're experiencing is a human experience. Um it's not because you're um somehow the most sinful person in the world and and beyond the the reach of God's grace. Um, secondly, I'd say lean into God and and just come before God openly and honestly. Uh share your share your frustrations, share your fears, share your anger. There's been times I've been so angry about life and and blame God. And I stood in my living room and I said, Why, God, why? What why don't you do something? What is going on? I I am helpless in this situation. And God's response to me was very simply, and I heard it very clearly, and it happened a number of times during a season of my life. The only response I heard was, I love you. And in that time, if we can pour out our hearts to God and then just listen and let God love us. That's you know, my circumstances didn't change overnight. In time they did, but I had a piece that that helped me get through sometimes a couple of minutes at a time, sometimes an hour, sometimes I made it through a day. And sometimes in those really hard places in life, that's how we live. We make it from moment to moment, hour to hour, day to day. Um, but God will be present with us if we will reach out to him. And um, you know, he's he's able to deal with our our anger and our frustrations, and um because he loves us. And because Jesus became a man, God became a man and lived all of those human experiences, he he can empathize with us because he lived those very things.

SPEAKER_02: 29:28

And then well, but where can people buy your book?

SPEAKER_00: 29:35

It's on sale on Amazon. Um, it's also on Goodreads. Um, so and it's also in uh uh ebook form on Amazon right now. It's 99 cents, I think. So it's a cheap way to pick up what I think is a good book.

SPEAKER_02: 29:51

So well, Brad, again, thank you so much for coming on the show today. We greatly appreciate having you.

SPEAKER_00: 30:02

Well, thank you very much, Dorothy. It was a pleasure to be here and uh God bless everybody.

SPEAKER_02: 30:07

God bless. Well, guys and girls, thank you so much for coming on and for listening. Go and check out the back book and until next time. God bless. Bye-bye.