REThinker- Faith Culture

I Thought Forever Lasts Longer Than This by Podcast by Author and Designer, David W Litwin

I DON'T WANT TO HOLD YOU NOW Girl, we've shared so much I know your dreams And it's breaking my heart apart To know they don't include me I fought to play the hero Gave it my best try Though you're life's not mine to save But in this final moment Whispering goodbye Emotions flood me like a wave (chorus) But I don't want to hold you now Cause I won't let you go I'd lie to myself Say I'll get through some how But I'm not that strong So don't take it wrong If I don't want to hold you now Your smile could light my soul Now memories must do Still I can't bear the thought Of someone else holding you Caught between clinging to my heart And a love worth letting go So don't mistake my silence For a man not pulled apart Cause my heart is screaming no Chorus (bridge) And I know your flame’ll burn brighter When it’s free to breathe But it’s taking all my strength Just to let you let you leave © 2019, David Litwin

Tragic story man facing a loved lost to a best friend, and the awful ways that friend ruined the woman he loved.

All to often, when it comes to the damaging "wages of sin," many people appear to get off Scott free. While pleasure is the intent of most people engaging in "sin," that is often merely sin in its baby state. Once sin matures, it develops into what it was always intended to become, and that isn't so easily controlled. Using a hypothetical scenario, we discover just how damaging "mature" sin can be; not just to the individual, but also to all of those in the surrounding communities.

A common evangelistic verse is Romans 6:23 - "For the wages of sin is death... " Much of the world then turns around and avoids the approach, choosing instead to engage in pleasure. But playing out the verse to a deeper and more "work related" conclusion, we uncover that while the culture may like the 'vocation' of sin, they have rarely considered the Salary Package.

Too often, when we read the Word of God, we read the surface of the text. Although there is vital life-transforming power just on the surface of the text, the Bible is defined as, "Living and Active." What if that term isn't merely a positive adjective, but a tangible and practical reality? Using Star Wars and the DVD Director's Commentary feature metaphorically, you can not only discover the validation of the words "Living and Active" - but also understand how the Bible can come alive to you like never before!

Most Christians know the verse in Matthew 6: "Thy Kingdom come... on earth as it is in Heaven." But how do we turn this verse into applicable action? By taking the term "Reconciliation" back to it's BANKING roots, we discover what we can do to reintroduce God's intent back into our modern world.

This is probably the most potent and powerful podcast to date! In the last podcast, we talked about how the OUTCOMES of our actions can either build or stagnate a society, and that God wants to prosper ALL of humanity. But what if that prosperous system translates far deeper than the individual and even that individual's history and society? What if God's insights extend to the next generation and beyond? Through an understanding of "Epigenetics," we discover just how loving our Creator God is and continues to be. Part of these insights are found from reading the following article ("DNA is Not Destiny"): http://discovermagazine.com/2006/nov/cover

America has faced some recent economic downturns. But what if there were ways to make both you and your nation more prosperous? What if prosperity came through the OUTCOME of our actions, and that we can either sabotage or incite prosperity in this immediate hour?

Often, the church thinks that to influence the culture it needs to be relevant, but taking a look at the periphery of one of Jesus' parables in Matthew 20, we discover that is cultural ENGAGEMENT, not relevancy that may be our needed approach in this "11th Hour" Society.

In the most strategic podcast yet, we discuss how to use the Biblical Worldview to uncover aspects of addictions that the secular world cannot see. Without judgment, David uncovers the strategy of addiction, the way it propagates and the answers that the church should be communicating.

For decades, the most common approach to evangelism has been to start with separation through sin. But that starts the Gospel at Genesis 3, not Genesis 1:1. Creating and operating through a "Pre-Fall" gospel message not only offers an inspirational story of truly "Great News," but produces a powerful bridge into culture.

Too often, Christians are content with the "God said it, I believe it, and that settles it," approach to faith, and their interaction with culture. REThinker aims to transform that mindset, uncovering deeper and richer insights and understanding when we start to ask the WHY questions.

For millennia, the church has attacked people for their actions, but fail to understand how God is concerned with OUTCOMES. More than just a paradigm shift in thought, focusing on outcomes becomes a huge cultural bridge between the church and the culture, and the objective and the subjective.

Once we uncover the differences between knowledge and wisdom, we discover the vital and transformative power of "understanding." Understanding is not only the bridge between the intended and the broken, but it is truly, "Strategies of Heaven that change Earth."

So how do we effectively engage culture in a manner that resonates with the masses? It begins with a deeper understanding of the vast differences between wisdom, knowledge and understanding. Are you a man or woman of UNDERSTANDING? Listen to these two podcasts to discover the answer.

Jesus calls us, as Christians, "salt." You have probably heard a sermon or two that scratches the surface of this metaphor. But mining the concept deeper presents a far richer and more responsible picture of who we are called to be, where we are called to go, and how we are called to serve.

There are many that consider the God of the Bible not only irrelevant, but also a cruel, petty, unjust bully. Much of these beliefs stem out of the commandments that God gave to His people. But stepping into the realm of software programming, we discover that God's laws were never about man's restriction, instead God was recoding the world BACK to man's freedom.

After nine podcasts, I thought I'd pause for a moment and describe the intent here. I want you to develop and practice a new "Strategy of Sight." Remember the MAGIC EYE prints of the 1990s? Poster art that looked like nothing but abstract dots and lines - until you used the right "Strategy of Sight" to discover what its creators had wanted you to see all along? What if God designed existence using a similar formula? What if the Creator WANTS us to push past the surface abstractions and discover what has been there all along?

Have you ever pondered why God called the geographic location given to the Israelites the, "Land of Bees and Cows?" Okay, He called it "Milk and Honey," but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to correlate the byproduct with the product. What was God thinking? Understanding this PreFall/Postfall insight, we discover that the only descriptors God could have used to describe His intention were: "Milk" and "Honey." Though not a continuation of the "Debugging" series, I recommend listening to that series for the full effect of the insights presented in this podcast session.

Christians often see amazing parallels to their faith in the first Matrix movie. But when we combine this PreFall/PostFall understanding, God's divine nature and intent, and the life of Jesus and His declarations, we uncover just how much Jesus "recoded" the system, and unveil His calling for us to finish the mission He started.

Many people today are trying to change biblical concepts by syncing their thoughts to modern day assumptions. But surprisingly, going to back to many words' Hebrew roots uncovers just how relevant our faith is to our modern times and our modern culture. Such is the case with the terms, "Good and Evil."

While we are made in God's Image, we also bear the resemblance of our Creator's enemy. While to some that appears like the foundation of a fictional story, a few key verses take the understanding out of the realm of theology and drop it straight into our modern culture. This podcast shows just how important the person of Christian faith is (supposed to be) to the world and its most puzzling problems.

While the Bible claims that man was created by an outside divine force, many other religions also assert similar beliefs. But only the Bible says that we were created in that Divine Force's IMAGE - and that understanding radically and wonderfully changes both the value of us, as well as the God that we serve.

When it comes to God's laws, both the church and the culture often focus on the morality (or supposed freedom) attached to the ACTIONS. But when we understand how God intended to "debug our fallen world" from its OUTCOMES, we discover both the church's misstep and one of our greatest responsibilities to our culture.