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JP Sears — the well-known ‘freedom-fighter’ comedian — released a bombshell video last Friday (24 March 2023) titled, ‘I Changed My Mind About God — Here’s Why’. This is big news.

His brand, called ‘AwakenWithJP’, uses comedy to push back against today’s fashionable and crazy. In a line: “Stay Free or Laugh Trying”. He has 2.8 million followers — quite a feat.

I had wondered about JP. There were some videos that — let’s put it this way — would never make the cut for ‘moral Christian content’. Yet, some of his themes seemed increasingly Christian.

JP has now cleared all this up and his 25-minute video explains it well.

He begins, “I’ve changed my mind about God. I was wrong.”

But was this video just a piece of satire, waiting for the “Huh, got you, you dumb, gullible Christian” line? Instead what appeared was a disclaimer:

“This video is not intended to be a comedy video. And if that offends you… pray about it.”

So no, JP is actually telling us the real story here.

The video has two main purposes:

(1) What JP used to believe, what he believes now, and what made him change his mind along the way; and

(2) What JP believes will help bring more of God into our own lives and the lives of those around us.

(1) What Happened to JP?

JP used to be “spiritual, not religious”. Christianity was simply outdated. He used to be in the ‘spiritual movement’.

“I will honestly say I got a lot of benefit from spiritual teachings… different philosophies… But when I look back I can see I was excluding some amazing traditional Christian values, beliefs of God and ways of connecting with God that I now really value. But out of what I would call spiritual arrogance I was excluding them.”

So what changed him?

“One observation I’ve had over the past three years especially… hashtag plandemic… I’ve found myself accidentally getting more Christian, without even intentionally trying… It’s just been effortlessly happening for me.”

JP says he’s not unique in this, and that other people were having the same experience. Really?

One comment made about his video by Mark McLain states:

“I was an atheist and when the plandemic hit I found myself doing an insane amount of research with my extra time. Now I’m a true believer in Christianity. I’m actually heading out to a men’s Bible study in a few minutes. Excellent testimony JP.”

Quite the encouragement!

But why the change?

“The presence of evil — and Satan that evil emanates from — has never been more obvious… The past three years, evil isn’t hiding anymore. It’s coming at us through authoritarianism, movements, people, groups, companies, governments, trying to invade our minds, invade our God-given free will.”

This free-thinker freely continues his own self-determined thoughts:

“So as that’s become more obvious I think there’s a natural polarity that happens. If you’re not someone who’s willing to do the devil’s bidding, if you’re not someone who’s willing to propagate evil, then there’s a natural occurrence that happens. When you’re in the presence of evil, you polarise to the other extreme. You may not even be consciously aware of it, but the presence of evil makes you lean away. Then, therefore, what direction are you leaning towards? That would be the direction of God.”

“Right now I think the evil that’s in this world is doing a great service of driving a lot of people to find God in ways that they previously hadn’t.”

JP goes on to talk about the link between the decline in Christianity with the rise of socialism/communism:

“There’s a reason why communists have their number one objective to disconnect people from God, where they ban religions. And of course, right now it’s more about discouraging it, shaming it.”

“Why is that?”

“Because they don’t want people having faith in a real higher power. So if you can get people to disconnect from God… then those communists get to be your higher power. And honestly, they make a crappy higher power. They don’t even make good fertiliser.”

I have often thought similarly (although I hadn’t yet made the comparison between communism and garden products. I’m now awakened there too.)

Because very simply, if you have a country where its citizens are largely Christians (or cultural Christians), who more or less follow the moral commands contained in Scripture, well — that will be a country that needs smaller government, less policing, etc. In short: big God, small government.

However, if a country’s citizens are ‘godless’, then moral truth and even truth itself are up for grabs since there is no ultimate authority. It will be a situation where “everyone did whatever seemed right to him” (Judges 21:25). To bring cohesion to such a rabble of an individualistic society will require a heavy top-down approach. In short: little/no God, big government.

It’s clear JP has become nauseous at the amount of control over the past three years. But he states that those who have faith in God are not controllable. This is to do with humanity’s number one fear — death. Hebrews 2:15 refers to humanity as those “held in slavery all their lives by the fear of death”. But for those with faith in God, death is not the end, but only a step in the journey, for an eternity with God. They are free from this fear!

Therefore, Christians can have a boldness and fearlessness that allows them to pursue good even at a great personal cost:

“So the brave, bold, freedom statement of ‘It’s better to die on your feet than live [under control] on your knees’ becomes something that people of faith will live by.”

“Evil restricts; God frees.”

(2) More of God in Our Life

JP moves on to talk about how this new awakening to God should affect our lives — and now is affecting his life. I’ll focus here on JP’s thoughts on prayer and service. On prayer he writes:

“I now believe that the power of prayer is the most important thing you and I can do. I believe prayer is powerful. I believe prayer brings about change. I believe prayer brings God into a place where God is needed.”

In a time of more-obvious spiritual warfare, prayer can only be ever more important:

“Right now I think we are at a time of spiritual warfare. We look at what’s going on in the world, conflict between different nations, division all over the place… Even though we see these literal things playing out at the physical level, I think what we’re seeing are symptoms of what’s happening on a more of a metaphysical level.”

“Right now, Satan and God are at war. At a time of spiritual warfare, what’s on the line is, you and I. Our souls. Our children. One side wants to control us; the other side wants to free us.”

“What we do in our day-to-day lives, our actions, our thoughts, our words, is determining which side of the spiritual warfare we’re fighting on.”

How, then, do we respond?

“Pray often. Know when people are in need. Pray for yourself. Pray for your family.”

“This might sound weird, but when we look at the evil authoritarians… Klaus Schwab, George Soros, Bill Gates, Biden, Trudeau (not that I’m keeping track of who they are)… praying for them as individuals.”

“These are people we need to pray for more than anybody else, to have them saved.”

Encouraging words indeed! And quite incredible to see the transformation that has come.

Finally, JP speaks of the life of service to God and others, a life full of meaning and purpose. But to do this requires that:

“… we look at our own egotistical wants, our egotistical desires. They might even be authentic desires. But sometimes be willing to even abandon those in order to be of service to God.”

If I didn’t know better, I’d say this sounds eerily like some Galilean prophet who taught, “If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me will find it” (Matt 16:24–25). Back to JP:

“A lot of people would say, ‘Ah dude, you mean not just dedicating my life to me and serving myself? How would I ever be happy if I don’t do that?’”

“I would say, ‘How would you ever be happy if that’s all you do?’ I believe true happiness, fulfilment and meaning of life absolutely requires us to be of service to a greater good.”

Lessons for the Church

If JP is right, his ‘awakening to God’ is a vital lesson for the Church.

It’s clear the Church won’t authentically attract people towards God by placing wokeology into their theologies. According to JP, that would be fighting on the wrong side whilst pretending to bring people onto the right side. Enough said.

Rather, there will be people who realise there’s something dreadfully wrong in the world and seek real answers. They will be repulsed by evil and control — because we are all made in the image of God and do have an innate sense of good and evil.

These people might find themselves “accidentally getting more Christian, without even intentionally trying”.

May the Church be ready and found willing to ‘die on its feet’ in service to God and others — including the many who are yet to “awaken with JP” but will.

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Photo by Wikimedia Commons.