Big Dream Podcast

Doubts, questions and confusion about our faith are both normal and uncomfortable. But rather than a threat to faith, wondering, wrestling and exploring are the soil that grows a more honest and authentic faith.For links and more info, visit:https://www.meadowheights.com/hub

Relativism can be compelling but is insufficient for understanding how truth works. Our confession that Jesus is Lord is an absolute truth that commands us to love all people without controlling, coercing or convincing them to believe it.

People experience bad news rather than good news when we are better at judging them than we are at loving them. But when we focus instead on what God is doing in our own lives, we are free to love others without judgment so they can experience God's love, too.For links and more info, visit:https://www.meadowheights.com/hub

When our faith takes a beating and we hit rock bottom, it's tempting to give up and walk away from God altogether. To survive a crisis of belief, we need unshakeable foundations that will hold us up when everything around us is falling apart.

The only perfect parent is our Father God. When we allow God to be our primary parent, we're free to love and honor our earthly parents, no matter what our story looks like.

We don't owe our kids every opportunity life can offer them. What our kids need is for us to create space in our lives and theirs where they learn kingdom values by living them out in a community of people who share those values.For links and more info, visit: https://www.meadowheights.com/hub

We all have a longing the culture says can only be met by another person. But the deepest longing of our hearts can only be met by God. Surrendering that longing to God allows us to live life in the fullness of community whether we're single, dating or married.For links and more info, visit:https://www.meadowheights.com/hub

Because our world is full of death and dying, our hearts are well-acquainted with sorrow. But Jesus defeats death forever and brings rejoicing back to life.For links and more info, visit:https://www.meadowheights.com/hub

Every king we follow but one will fall short of our expectations. Jesus is the king we want and need to lead us to permanent peace and ultimate victory in his kingdom of love.

Most days we give our best efforts and energies to feeding our appetites for more. Because we never succeed, we wake up to do it all over again. But Jesus fully satisfies our soul's deepest hunger and rescues us forever from the endless need to fill it ourselves.

In a broken world full of broken people, sometimes marriages break down. Grace is the only reason anyone can marry, whether for the first time or for another time.

Rather than trying to gain power over one another, Jesus calls us to use our power to more fully love each other. Marriage is a beautiful submission to one another out of reverence for Christ.

God uses biological families to bring us into the world but then Jesus brings us into new life in a new family. We are first and forever the much-loved children of a Good Father.For links and more info, visit:https://www.meadowheights.com/hub

Only using money to prepare for the future ends in a total loss. Money is a tool for doing something meaningful while you are here to use it.For links and more info, visit:https://www.meadowheights.com/hub

Our money's direction reveals our affection. When we redirect our spending around God's priorities, we train our heart to trust his goodness.

We live like it's all about us when we forget that all we have and are has been given to us. But when we remember the giver and the gift, we get to open our hearts and hands so more good will grow.

Money is not the meaning of life. Money can be the means to doing something meaningful with my life.

We haven't yet met the person we're becoming and don't know what they'll be like when we do. But what we practice today are the seeds of that new person's living and legacy.

We hope our lives will change for the better when God changes our circumstances. But God invites us to help create the change we want tomorrow by investing in something different today.

Many people spend their lives pining for the past, settling for status quo, or fantasizing about the future, but we know that God is making all things new. When we embrace his invitation to dream and plan alongside him, we bring the hope of his future kingdom into the reality of our lives today.

It's possible to spend your entire life doing all the things you can do without doing what you must do. But when we discover what we must do and why we must do it, we can finally live the life we most want to live. For links and more info, visit: https://www.meadowheights.com/hub

Christmas illuminates the whole world with God's love. But even that isn't enough unless that love includes me. The good news of Christmas is that along with everyone else, I am a much-loved child of God.

Jesus comes to be with us in our present sacrifices and suffering. He illuminates our way with great joy today while we trust that he's coming again to make everything right someday.

Hope is more and better than an escape plan. The hope we find in Jesus isn't that we get to leave this earth and go to heaven, but that we get to participate in bringing heaven to earth.

Jesus came into a world marked by conflict to restore what is broken. Christmas illuminates the peace and wholeness God offers us and invites us to gift others that same peace.

There's no such thing as a private relationship with God. We only become human again when we live up close and personal with friends who are committed to following Jesus in their flesh, too. The more of us who do, the more of us who will.

God doesn't ask us to confront people with their sin or their need for him. Instead, we trust the Spirit of Jesus at work in us and let the Spirit convince others of God's goodness as they encounter his love through us.

God doesn't need me to judge others, but he does want me to share the good news of Jesus with them. When grace oozes out of my life, people may want to hear the truth in my life.

Jesus came in the flesh to make his home among us. If our hearts are now his home, then our homes can be reflections of his heart. When we open the doors of our homes and our hearts, we invite others to come home to God's love for them.

Jesus came in the flesh to help us get back what's good, beautiful and true and to oppose everything that isn't. When we live as Jesus we fight like Jesus—for what he's for and against the injustice that opposes it.

We're tempted to view work as either a necessary evil or an idol to chase. But Jesus came in the flesh to show us that in God's kingdom, all work is an opportunity to reclaim the joy of partnering with God to love and care for one another and our world.

We often feel pressure to deny our humanity or be more godlike in order to follow Jesus. But Jesus came to show us how and set us free to be more human, allowing God to be God through us.

Jesus came in the flesh to show us how to live in our flesh. We miss the incarnation when we view Jesus only through his death on the cross instead of through his life in the neighborhood.

Good news has to first of all be good, which is why it can't be about religious legalism, empty ritual, or personal judgment. The good news Jesus brings is that more of the life and love from up there can show up down here in our every day lives right now. For links and more info, visit: https://www.meadowheights.com/hub

Bad religion, bleak lives and a broken world have always made it difficult for people to see God for who God really is. Jesus came in the flesh so people can see the real face and character of God and so our lives can reveal God now, too.

God longs to return to the good, beautiful, and true reality he created. So Jesus came in the flesh to get it all back and to show us the way. Because of his power over sin, death and hell, the dream God wanted from the beginning is once again coming true!

For links and more info, visit: https://www.meadowheights.com/hub

The story of Jesus is a story to hear and a story to share. In a bad news world, naming good news in my life can help others name good news in their lives, too. The best stories are the ones we tell together.

There is no brokenness or need we'll encounter in our world that God doesn't already see and care about more than we do. Because He is already present and working to bring his healing love to every situation, we get to partner with him to meet the needs of people and places around us in practical and impactful ways.

In a world full of increasing loneliness, isolation and division, intentional shared meals have the power to transform us. Eating together removes barriers, builds bridges and communicates belonging like almost nothing else can.

We live in a world where there's more talking and less listening all the time. But when we listen with compassionate curiosity, God will reveal the desires of people he loves and the needs of places where he's at work.

As God's much-loved children, we have access to the blessing of life in God's kingdom of love. When we notice where God is at work in and around us, we get to help him extend that blessing to others where we live, work, learn and play.

When we don't know how we got the Bible, we won't know how to read the Bible. But understanding the plot of the story and connecting the parts of the story helps us lean into and live out the point of the story.

When we can't see God at work within an old story to tell a better story, we can lose hope. But a perspective bigger than the present moment often leads to a new story full of God's goodness.

When we don't know where we came from or why we're here, our story gets lost among every other story. But when we recover the unique source of our story, we also discover the meaning we long for.

When what we expect from the Bible doesn't square with what we experience of the Bible, we can be tempted to abandon the Bible & the God it represents. But knowing the backstory of the Bible raises our confidence in the Bible and the God of life and love it reveals.

Nothing can change the bad things that happened to you, but God cares. His heart is broken by the bad things that happen in our world, and his love is capable of healing your broken heart.

Focusing on negative thoughts perpetuates the world's system of death and destruction in us and around us. But when our thoughts are directed by God's Spirit, we operate as God's agents of life and peace in the world.