Podcasts about 14the

THE WEEK OF TRINITY XIII - WEDNESDAYLESSON: 1 CORINTHIANS 5:6‒8Far be it from me to glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Galatians 6:14The really wicked people in God's sight are those who are proud of their external performances, who want to justify themselves and be accounted righteous before God because of their works. The lawyer in the Gospel belonged to this class of men. What a proud ass he is! And like a proud ass, he comes to the fore. He imagines that Christ can find no fault in him. He probably even thinks that the Lord will commend and praise his life right here before all the people. It never entered his head that he might have something to learn from the Lord; he was seeking only his personal honor and glory. This coxcomb was expecting a song of praise from the Man to whom the people looked up and about whom everyone wondered.The Lord does not really do this man a service in shaming him like He does. Christ can really be quite unfriendly and anything but kind, especially when He tells people the plain, unvarnished truth. One can understand why some people became so cross with Him. This pious, holy lawyer is still standing on his head. He has but one aim in view: to cash in on the very high reputation he has won by his holy living. He is quite sure that he has fulfilled all the commandments. He hopes to hear from Christ the commendation, “My good man, you have done everything; all is well with you.” But Christ says: “Do this!” In plain language Christ means to tell him, “You are a complete fake; you have never at any time kept this law, not even a letter of it.” He shows this man his wickedness. The poor simpleton thinks that he should be in one of the upper seats. It would be fine and clean. He would rather take his place among the angels than among these people. At times Christ can certainly be a very strange Christ.SL 11:1539 (11‒12)PRAYER: You have made it perfectly clear, O God, that self-righteousness never has any room to spare for Your grace and mercy. Empty our hearts of all false pride and self-righteousness, that Your grace and mercy may enter and abide there, in and through our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.Editor's note: No American Edition (AE) equivalent for today's sermon excerpt exists at the time of this publication. For an alternate English translation of this sermon, see Lenker, Church Postil—Gospels, 5:17-35.

Nick is joined by artist and graphic designer, Paul Halkyon, to discuss the world, lore, and visual design behind Soda Smugglers, Pumafiosi, and Hot Lead.Link to the Criminal Capers Collection on KickstarterLink to Paul Halkyon's instagram pageSend us your questions for a Bitewing Games Q&A podcast episode!  Follow this link to submit your questions or email nick@bitewinggames.comIntro to Paul Halkyon - 0:53How Paul got into art and graphic design - 4:21How Paul and Nick met (screen printing apparel) - 11:40Designing the world behind the Criminal Capers Collection - 14:30The art and soda brands behind Soda Smugglers - 18:25The art and mafia families behind Pumafiosi - 22:14The lore behind the Boss Knife and Boss Rose - 25:38The impact of excellent art in board games - 30:48Counterbalancing the criminals with the investigators of Hot Lead - 32:19Unique art styles within a consistent universe - 34:15Paul's favorite Soda Smugglers soda brand - 35:37Paul's favorite Pumafiosi characters - 36:34Paul's favorite Hot Lead character - 38:33The hardest parts of illustrating the Criminal Capers Collection - 40:30Paul's entry and goals into the board game industry - 44:28How Paul broke his toe - 47:10Easter eggs in the art - 48:58Where you can find Paul - 52:30

THE WEEK OF TRINITY XII - SUNDAYLESSON: MARK 7:31‒37How are men to call upon Him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how are they to hear without a preacher? Romans 10:14The external history of this Gospel or the example it sets before us is good in itself. For here we see how many adopted the pressing need of this poor man as their own need and brought him to Jesus that He should help him. In this action there is set forth an example of both faith and love. It is an example of faith. They had heard that the Lord is good and merciful and helped all who came to Him. The Word, portraying God's goodness to us, must be heard beforehand and reach our hearts so that we cling to it in faith. Christ's words must have taught these people these basic facts about God; otherwise, in the absence of that Word, faith and works are also absent.Although the actual details are not recorded here, we must infer from what actually took place that before these people brought this man to Jesus they must have heard the good news, the Gospel concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, by which they were brought to faith. For the Gospel in its real essence is good news, a good report, not written on paper but promulgated and made known in the world in the living voice. Accordingly, they had no doubt heard that Christ is good, friendly, and beneficial, helping everyone. This was the beginning of their faith.So you must take a firm grip of the Gospel. You will always find that the good news must first go out and bring us to God. God must lay the first stone or otherwise all is lost. Secondly, they adhered to this good news. They came to Jesus and expected to obtain from Him what they had heard about Him.SL 11:1516 (2‒4)PRAYER: The Gospel which you have made known to us, O God, is a message of good news. May this message ever draw us closer and nearer to our Savior and keep us with Him. In His name we ask it, and for His sake. Amen.Editor's note: No American Edition (AE) equivalent for today's sermon excerpt exists at the time of this publication. For an alternate English translation of this sermon, see Lenker, Church Postil—Gospels, 4:370-380.

THE WEEK OF TRINITY XI - TUESDAYLESSON: 2 CORINTHIANS 4:13‒15“I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other.” Luke 18:14The tax collector's faith certainly proves itself by its fruits. How do we explain Christ's statement here that he “went down to his house justified rather than the other”? We have suggested that this tax collector was justified before the happenings recorded in this Gospel and before he beat upon his breast as here reported. What does Christ mean here, then, with the statement that “he went down to his house justified”?This refers to something I have frequently stressed previously: if faith is as it should be, it will break out and produce fruit. If the tree is green and good, there is no coming to a standstill; it must sprout and produce fruit and leaves. Nature sees to this. I do not have to command the tree and say, “Listen to me, tree, produce apples!” If the tree is there and it is a good tree, fruit comes of its own accord. If true faith exists anywhere, works must follow.If I confess myself to be a sinner, it follows that I must also say, “Dear God, I am a rogue; make me godly!” So also the tax collector here. He does not hold back, but speaks out quite freely. He is not afraid of disgracing himself before other people. He must come out with his faith, saying, “God, be merciful to me a sinner!” It is as though he meant to say, “Now I see that all is shattered for me; I am a rogue and acknowledge my sin. There is nothing else for me now but to believe in God and cling to His mercy, to implore His grace; otherwise I am ruined.”In this way faith casts itself upon God. It breaks forth and establishes itself through works. When that happens in a man, I can recognize him as a believer and so can others.SL 11:1488 (8‒9)PRAYER: When You bring men to true faith, heavenly Father, You also empower them to prove their faith in their lives. Make our faith such a power in our lives that all men will know that we are Your children and glorify Your holy name, in and through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.Editor's note: No American Edition (AE) equivalent for today's sermon excerpt exists at the time of this publication. For an alternate English translation of this sermon, see Lenker, Church Postil—Gospels, 4:336-347.

Commanding a RoomIn this episode, herdacious host Lorelei chats with Caren Lock about commanding the room. Executive presence is that badass woman who walks in with all the self-assuredness in the world and demands to be heard. We've seen it, we want it, but how can we develop it? Caren divulges that, contrary to popular belief, executive presence isn't this natural skill allotted to the lucky few; instead, it's a skill that each of us can obtain with practice and positive habits. Equipped with her legal and public speaking background, Caren teaches us that commanding a room [as women] takes a more strategic approach because of the gendered communication behaviors that can and do undermine women's authority in the workplace. However, with awareness of our learned behaviors and a drive to improve, we can avoid detrimental habits that keep us from moving forward. From being cognizant of our intonation while speaking to ensuring we're dressed for our power-roles, Caren reminds us that although gendered barriers cannot be ignored, they can be tackled by developing purposeful communication habits that reinforce our professional presence. We are all that badass woman who inspires confidence in those around us, and we owe it to ourselves to show up as her everyday! Host: Lorelei GonzalezCo-host: Caren Lock, JDCaren Lock is the regional vice president and associate general counsel of government relations for TIAA, a national financial service firm. Caren attained her JD from Baylor University School of Law and has since worked as an experienced litigator.  In addition to her professional work, Caren is a nonprofit leader with a passion for diversity & inclusion. Things you will learn in this episode (chapter markers available):  Command the room 5:00Gendered language 8:10Executive presence 13:14The power invested in listening 16:10Vulnerability is here, do not fear! 17:22Your guide to honing the skills 19:00Femme fact: Lyda Conley 24:30Resources mentioned in this episode:  10 talks by women that everyone should watch (TED Talks playlist) The Leader's Guide to Unconscious Bias by Pamela Fuller, Mark Murphy, Anne ChowEpisode sponsors:  HERdacity   Moonray  Looking for additional resources on this topic? Check out our blog “How I Learned to Stop the Nerves and Love the Speech” by Lorelei GonzalezLoved what you heard on herdacious and want to share with friends? Tag us and connect with HERdacity on social media:Twitter: @herdacityFacebook: @HERdacityInstagram: @herdacityLinkedIn: HERdacity Email: herdacious@herdacity.orgFor up to date information on HERdacity events, webinars, podcasts, and community activities, join our newsletter here.  Disclaimer: While we appreciate our sponsors' support in making this show possible, herdacious content is curated with integrity and honesty.Support the show (http://herdacity.org/donate/)

Korey S. shares on today's reflection "Anonymous Gifts of Kindness" for July 29th. ANONYMOUS GIFTS OF KINDNESSAs active alcoholics we were always looking for a handout in one way or another."THE TWELVE TRADITIONS ILLUSTRATED," p. 14The challenge of the Seventh Tradition is a personal challenge, reminding me to share and give of myself. Before sobriety the only thing I ever supported was my habit of drinking. Now my efforts are a smile, a kind word, and kindness. I saw that I had to start carrying my own weight and to allow my new friends to walk with me because, through the practice of the Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions, I've never had it so good.Need the Daily Reflection Book?Visit our web siteRead about Recovery on our BlogVisit our Facebook GroupFollow us on TwitterSupport the Podcast:- On Patreon: https://patreon.com/dailyreflection- On PayPal: https://paypal.me/dailyreflectionIf you're struggling with alcohol or addiction, or wondering how to stop drinking it's helpful to know that there's a solution that has worked for millions of people. The Daily Reflection Podcast provides hope, and inspiration through the shared experiences of people that have found a way out. 

No One Is Too Bad For Jesus To Love 1 Timothy 1:12 - 14 12I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me trustworthy, appointing me to his service. 13Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief. 14The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.

Proverbs 14:9,11,14Acts 2:22–24,32–33,38–39,46–472 Samuel 8:14The ultimate victory of God came with the life, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus and the outpouring of his Spirit who gives you power to live a life of victory.

Thoughts Chapter 1 John is either shown a vision of Heaven, or he is taken there. We can’t really tell from his description. And when he is there, a voice tells him to write down what he sees. When he turns to see who was speaking to him, he sees someone who looked like a son of man. He didn’t know who it was, and no wonder. John says, “He was dressed in a long robe with a gold strip of cloth around his chest. 14The hair on his head was white like wool, as white as snow. His eyes were like a blazing fire. 15His feet were like bronze metal glowing in a furnace. His voice sounded like rushing waters. 16He held seven stars in his right hand. Out of his mouth came a sharp sword that had two edges. His face was like the sun shining in all of its brightness.” What would you do if you saw something like that? Probably what John did. He fainted.  But this awe inspiring person puts his right hand on John and said, “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. 18I am the Living One. I was dead. But look! I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys to Death and Hell.” It was Jesus! And he told John not to be afraid. Despite His appearance, despite the fact that He holds the keys to Death and Hell, He tells John not to be afraid. If we are in Christ Jesus, if we are His, we have no cause for fear. We don’t need to fear what is in the past, we don’t need to fear what is in the present, we don’t need to fear what is in the future. We are His. We are in Him, and He is in us. And greater is He that is in us than he that is the world.  Do not be afraid.  Chapters 2 and 3 The Lord told John to write to the seven churches which were spoken of in the first chapter as the seven golden lampstands. What does a lampstand do? It brings light into darkness, and the church is meant to bring light into a dark world. As we read here in Revelation, each of the seven churches is singled out by Jesus, and He has a message for each. Of the seven, only two receive commendations with no negative comments. Those two are the Philadelphian church and the church at Smyrna.  Jesus says He knows that the church at Smyrna is suffering and is poor. “But,” he tells them, “you are rich!”  How could they be rich if they are poor and suffering? Because they are faithful.  This sort of puts the lie to those who say that God wants you to be materially rich, doesn’t it? It puts the lie to those that say that God will bring prosperity to your church if you are pleasing Him, doesn’t it? The Philadelphian church is similar to the church at Smyrna, in that Jesus says, “I know that you don’t have much strength.” Then He says, “But you have obeyed my word. You have not said no to me.” Several years ago I read a book by Henry Blackaby that changed my life. It’s actually a Bible study called Experiencing God. And the thing that changed my life was this. Blackaby said that one of the things that we can do to please God is to decide *in advance* to say “Yes” to whatever God asks of you. Don’t wait until He asks. Trust that He is loving and faithful and able to manage your life infinitely better than you can. Then decide that whatever He asks you to do will be for His glory and will be the right thing to do.  The Philadelphian church might not have had much strength, but they never said no to God. The remaining five churches all had serious problems, but each were given a “those who overcome” promise, and a warning of “Those who have ears should listen to what the Holy Spirit says to the churches.” Until Jesus returns it is never too late to turn back to Him, but we must listen and hear. Chapters 4 and 5 So what picture did you have in your mind’s eye of God the Father? Did it look at all what John described? Listen again: At once I was in the Spirit, and there before me was a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it. 3And the one who sat there had the appearance of jasper and ruby.

Later, they discuss Dr. Ryu's evolving journey as a leader and how his unique intersection of identities – Gen X, Asian American, from a multigenerational household – impact his approach.Dr. Ryu explains his nonlinear career path and how being exposed to communities different than his suburban upbringing impacted his career and his desire to bring better value and health to the communities that he serves. 3:02As Geisinger considers their diverse patient mix, they are intentionally creating programs that provide proactive care for the people that they serve - 65 Forward senior care, a genomics program, Geisinger at Home, their Fresh Food Pharmacy, and more. 13:14The measures that Geisinger is taking to provide proactive care is resulting in higher patient satisfaction rates, increased positive outcomes due to preventative measures being taken, lower ER and hospitalization utilization rates, and improved relationships with patients. 17:39Geisinger is investing in the future of their community through the Abigail Geisinger Scholars Program which provides free tuition and a living stipend to medical students who commit to Geisinger in the areas of primary care and behavioral health. 23:12Taking away the cost barrier for training of a diverse workforce is being utilized so that Geisinger can better serve a diverse population and bring equity to their service areas. 26:02

This is the sermon preached by Rev Stephen Haward on the morning of 16th May 2021 in the Market Harborough Congregational Church.The theme was Beginning again and the Bible Readings Matthew 21:28-32 and Philippians 3:4b-14The recording of the full service is available on our website

Bible Reading: Psalm 139:13-14The wax museum--filled with extremely realistic full-size figures of famous people--went completely dark the instant the storm cut the electricity.Courtney crouched low. "Jimmy--where are you?""I'm over here."Courtney crawled toward his voice and grabbed onto his leg. "Why did I go into the monster exhibit with you? I should've stayed with Mom and Dad.""I'll turn on my phone flashlight," Jimmy said.The instant the light came on, Courtney screamed. She wasn't holding onto Jimmy, but onto the leg of the eight-foot Frankenstein monster! She ran to Jimmy.Jimmy laughed. "He can't hurt you. He's just a wax dummy.""Dummy nothin', he's smart enough to scare me!" Courtney said.Seconds later, Mom and Dad came in with their phone flashlights on."We're okay," Jimmy said. "Frankenstein scared Courtney."Mom patted Courtney's back. "He looks so real--and scary!"Dad read the display sign. "Mary Shelley published her famous novel, Frankenstein, in 1818. In the story, Victor Frankenstein was a scientist who created a living creature.""We've read her book," Mom said. "The scientist, Dr. Frankenstein, abandons his creation after bringing it to life. The creature is filled with anger at being rejected by his creator, and he begins to do monstrous deeds." "Wow. I can't believe Dr. Frankenstein just left the creature he created like that!" said Courtney.Mom nodded. "He's nothing like our Creator.""That's right," Dad said. "Dr. Frankenstein ran away from his creation, but the Bible says God loves us and will never leave us.""And being rejected by his creator drove the monster to do bad things," Mom added. "But we were the ones who rejected God when we chose to sin. Yet God still loved us so much, He sent His Son, Jesus, to die for our sins so our relationship with Him could be restored." "Wow," Courtney said. "God really is a fantastic Creator!""Yeah," Jimmy said. "Even though we acted like monsters, He saved us."Courtney nodded. "That's why I'll never run away from my loving Creator." She pointed at the wax Frankenstein monster. "If I did, I'd be a bigger dummy than him!" (Matt Shoemaker)How About You?Do you trust and obey your loving Creator? Or are you trying to run away from Him? God created us, and even though we acted like monsters and rejected Him by choosing to sin, He still loved us and sent Jesus to save us. He will never abandon us. Stop running away and trust in Him! (To learn more, click the "Good News!" button in the right column of this page.)Today's Key Verse:[God] himself has said, "I will never leave you or abandon you." (CSB) (Hebrews 13:5)Today's Key Thought:God will never leave us

Explore the overlooked root chakra & its role in our spiritual expression and personal growth. Get practical tips to cultivate the chakra and receive an energetic healing to work through blocks at the end of this episode. Do you have an excess or deficient rook chakra? Can't quite manage to manifest or get your projects to come to life? The root is why. Tap Here to Ask a Question & We'll Answer on AirEpisode HighlightsThe role of the root chakra in our spiritual expansion 1:33Root chakra 101-understanding your root chakra and how it’s impacting you 6:14The developmental growth of the root chakra through infancy & root chakra deficiency/excess 14:28How to balance the root chakra physically and spiritually 24:35Take homes on working with your root chakra 31:53Guided energy healing for your root chakra with Neil 32:54Check Us OutNeil  @neildisyWork w/ Neil www.neildisy.comZach  @justzachkaufmanWork w/ Zach www.calendly.com/eli125CreditsMusic-Max Van Soest @ max_fly5Cover Artwork-Kelsey Glass @ k.divine.glassContactWokewastedpod@gmail.com

Is it possible to change? Is it possible to have victory over sin?Yes! 100%Biblical change can happen for any believer no matter what the sin. Thats encouraging!But there is a catch.The prerequisite for change is salvation. You must be born again. You must be regenerated by the Holy Spirit, otherwise victory over sin is impossible. Apart from salvation, we have no power to stop sinning.Why is that? Here are a couple supporting verses.1 Corinthians 1:181 Corinthians 2:14The bottom line is this. The word of God is what changes us, however, if you are not a Christian, you can’t understand the things of God, therefore you can’t change.In Episode 14 we spoke about God’s grace. God’s grace is the means that changes us. But we can’t experience this grace unless we are born again. It’s God’s grace that saves us and it’s also God’s grace that changes us.Titus 2:11-12What is the pattern of biblical change?According to Ephesians 4 he pattern for change is put off - renew - put on. Let’s take a look.Ephesians 4:17-24 - Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.Support the show (https://abundantlife.fm)

                        Strangers in a Strange Land:                                       “Fiery Ordeal”                                        1 Pet 4:12-19Four Instructions about Suffering:1.         Expect SufferingDon't be surprised: 1John. 3:13 Persecution is keeping in step with Christ: 1Pet 2:20-21Persecution is inevitable: 2 Tim 3:12Jesus stressed persecutions inevitability: Jn. 15:20The purpose of testing is purified Faith: 1Pet 1:6-7 2.         Exult in Suffering  Suffering is proof that we are his possession: Rom 8:17 He has already mentioned the abuse: 1 Pet 4:4The culture is repelled by our message: Acts 4:12Our present may be tenuous, but our future looks bright:Mt. 5:10-12 3.                  Evaluate Suffering God has ordained the practice of law:  1 Pet 2:13-14The shame of being seen as a fool: 1Cor 1:18We are the very stones of the temple: 1 Pet 2:5This brings us back to the concept of the “fiery ordeal” of verse 12; the testing of our faith: Mal 3:1-3Judgment starts in the house of God and moves out to the rest of the world, for us it is about salvation not condemnation: 1 Cor 11:32The fire that purifies the house of God will consume the wicked: Mal 4:1-2It is hard (difficult) to find salvation: Mt. 7:13-14The refining fire will separate those who are truly committed to Christ from those whose commitment is shallow or partial:  Heb 10:26-27 Peter is saying that the unbelievers eternal suffering compared to the believers temporal suffering, is far greater: Mt. 10:28 4.            Entrust Your Soul to God Follow in his steps: 1Pet 2:21-23; Lk 23:46We react with the best interest of our persecutors in mind; we bless not curse: Lk. 23:34 Support the show (https://paypal.me/pwp398?locale.x=en_US)

Jesus said to them, “Come, have breakfast.” And none of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?” because they realized it was the Lord. Jesus came over and took the bread and gave it to them, and in like manner the fish. This was now the third time Jesus was revealed to his disciples after being raised from the dead. John 21:12–14The appearances of Jesus after His Resurrection were cloaked in mystery. Not a mystery of confusion, but a mystery of profound depth and awe. On this, the third time Jesus appeared to His disciples, Jesus first spoke to them from the shore after they had been fishing all night without catching anything. He told them to try again and to throw the net over the right side of the boat. They did so without even realizing that it was Jesus Who was speaking to them. But upon catching more than they could handle, they realized it was the Lord.The “mystery” present in this resurrection appearance has many aspects. Why did the disciples not recognize Jesus at first? Why did Jesus instruct them to throw the net over the right side of the boat? Why was Jesus made known through this catch of one hundred and fifty-three large fish? Why was Jesus cooking breakfast for the disciples on the shore? And why did John record that “none of the disciples dared to ask him, ‘Who are you?’” Though all of these mysteries have answers that have been offered over the centuries by the saints and great Scripture commentators, it’s useful to also simply ponder the fact that Jesus’ resurrection appearances were, indeed, cloaked in mystery.In a mystery novel, the reader is given various vague clues to help them try to figure out the mystery and solve it. The clues are vague intentionally so as to make the solving more enjoyable and challenging. However, when it comes to a “mystery of faith,” such as the mystery of faith surrounding Jesus’ resurrection appearances, the mystery is of an entirely different sort. In these cases, the mystery is one of depth and breadth and is something that has the potential to draw us deeper and deeper into the infinite nature of God and His saving action.Take, for example, this one line quoted above: “And none of the disciples dared to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ because they realized it was the Lord.” It appears that the disciples gathered around Jesus as He was preparing breakfast on the shore and sat there in awe of Him. Their silent awe of Him in this appearance reveals that words are not sufficient. Normally, when you see someone whom you are happy to see, you greet them and start talking, asking them how they are, etc. But here, the disciples remained in this holy awe, listening to Him, receiving this meal and pondering the mystery of His resurrected presence.Reflect, today, upon the ways that our Lord comes to you. It’s easy to miss Him since His ongoing presence in our lives is also mysterious. Imagine if the disciples would have ignored Jesus’ call to “Cast the net over the right side of the boat…” If they would have ignored that command, they may have never come to realize it was the Lord. Reflect upon the ways that our Lord speaks to you. Do you respond? Do you recognize Him? Do you allow yourself to be drawn into this holy awe of His divine presence? Follow the example of the disciples and be on the lookout for the ongoing presence of our Lord all around you.My divine Lord, You are constantly present to me, day and night, and yet I so often fail to perceive You and adore You. Help me to become more aware of Your presence in my life. As I do, help me to enter more deeply into these holy mysteries with love, devotion and awe. Jesus, I trust in You.Source of content: catholic-daily-reflections.comCopyright © 2021 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission via RSS feed.

Ephesians 6:14The belt of truth is the first piece of God's Amour we are given for defense. Let discuss it. 

1To you, O LORD, I lift up my soul. 2O my God, in you I trust; let me not be put to shame; let not my enemies exult over me. 3Indeed, none who wait for you shall be put to shame; they shall be ashamed who are wantonly treacherous. 4Make me to know your ways, O LORD; teach me your paths. 5Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long. 6Remember your mercy, O LORD, and your steadfast love, for they have been from of old. 7Remember not the sins of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for the sake of your goodness, O LORD! 8Good and upright is the LORD; therefore he instructs sinners in the way. 9He leads the humble in what is right, and teaches the humble his way. 10All the paths of the LORD are steadfast love and faithfulness, for those who keep his covenant and his testimonies. 11For your name’s sake, O LORD, pardon my guilt, for it is great. 12Who is the man who fears the LORD? Him will he instruct in the way that he should choose. 13His soul shall abide in well-being, and his offspring shall inherit the land. 14The friendshipb of the LORD is for those who fear him, and he makes known to them his covenant. 15My eyes are ever toward the LORD, for he will pluck my feet out of the net. 16Turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. 17The troubles of my heart are enlarged; bring me out of my distresses. 18Consider my affliction and my trouble, and forgive all my sins. 19Consider how many are my foes, and with what violent hatred they hate me. 20Oh, guard my soul, and deliver me! Let me not be put to shame, for I take refuge in you. 21May integrity and uprightness preserve me, for I wait for you. 22Redeem Israel, O God, out of all his troubles.

Growing up Roman Catholic in a small town in Upstate NY, confession with a priest was a weekly ritual. In the 1960’s, you couldn’t go to communion unless you had confessed and said your “penance” of Our Fathers and Hail Marys. Times have changed and now that I am an Episcopalian, it appears that in most congregations a public confession is more of an annual and optional custom during Lent, even among my Roman Catholic friends.Of course, we are always encouraged to make private confessions directly to God where we admit our humanness and acknowledge how our sins have caused us to stray from Him. It is difficult that our culture demands perfection and the shame and guilt from falling short continues to circulate in our heads even after many years. We’d like to forget, but we can’t, and the burden of shame continues to multiply in our mind.But God’s intent is not to have us perpetually trapped in these feelings of inadequacy. We read in 1 John 10: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives.”It seems that confession leads straight to forgiveness and purification from evil. Maybe that was the value in a public confession to the priest. It was a personal examination of our life and our love for God. Once spoken and acknowledged by another, the burden was lifted from us to be forgiven forever. We don’t have to dwell on the past sins, instead we can use them for instruction both for ourselves and for others. In Philippians, Paul recognizes his past and details his impressive Jewish heritage, but he boasts only to show his hearers how little it means. He doesn’t agonize over his past of persecuting Christians as Saul, instead, he looks to the future and his hope in Christ.“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus..- Philippians 3:12-14The past is the past, we don’t have to re-live our sins over and over again. After confession to God we start life anew in a closer, more intimate relationship with Him as we look forward to an eternity with our Lord.And that is Good News for this Lenten season! May your confession to God release you from the bondage of past imperfections and bring a renewed life for you in Christ.Blessings, my friend,Agatha

                    Strangers in a Strange Land:                      Living in a Hostile Culture                                   1 Pet 3:13-17             Five Keys to living in a Hostile Culture1.                  A Passion for Goodness:The answer is no one; Peter is focused on the prize: Psalm 56:4What can a mere mortal do to us?  Rom 8:31We belong to God: Mt. 10:28Be eager to do good: (William Barclay)  2.         A Willingness to Suffer: It is a blessing! Suffering is not the opposite of Blessing: Mt. 5:10-12Suffering leads to maturity: James 1:2-4Do not fear the enemies of God: Isaiah 8:12bThe words frighten means to be shaken: Jn. 14:21 3.                  A Devotion to Christ  He is again thinking about Isaiah 8:13  4.                  A Readiness to Defend of the Faith  Defending the faith is about personal testimony, not factual proof:  Luke 4:11-12Paul says, “Speaking the truth in love…(Eph 4:15)”  5.         A Pure Conscience According to Roman 2:14, even those without God's written law have an innate moral sense of right and wrong; Yet, human conscience is tainted by sin.At salvation, God cleanses the conscience from its lifelong accumulation of guilt, shame, and self-contempt: Heb 9:14The purpose is again evangelism: 1 Pet 2:12This goes back to the first verse: 1 Pet 3:14; 2:20 Support the show (https://paypal.me/pwp398?locale.x=en_US)

THE WEEK OF SEXAGESIMA - WEDNESDAYLESSON: MARK 10:17-27As for what fell among the thorns, they are those who hear, but as they go on their way they are choked by the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and their fruit does not mature. Luke 8:14The third group are those who hear the Word and understand it, but still fall out on the other side, namely, among the pleasures and comforts of this life so that they, too, achieve nothing with the Word. This is also a very large number.Although they do not introduce heresy like the first group, but always retain the Word unalloyed and pure and are not assailed on the left like the second group with opposition and persecution, they still fall away on the right. Their undoing is that they have peace and good times. They do not really give themselves to the Word in all earnestness but become lazy. They immerse themselves in cares, riches, and pleasures of this life, and their fruit does not mature.They resemble the seed that fell among the thorns. Although there is no rock there but good earth, no hard-packed path but land ploughed deep enough, the thorns still prevent the seed from coming up, or they choke it.These people have all that will serve them for salvation in the Word, but they do not make use of it; they rot away in this life, in the flesh. To this number belong those who hear the Word but never tame the flesh. They know what is right, but do not act accordingly. “Their fruit does not mature.”SL.XI.518,6AE 76,333PRAYER: Forgive us, O Lord, all the wasted opportunities that we miss amidst the many pressures and tensions of our daily lives. Grant us grace both to hear your Word with open hearts and, with a ready will, act in accordance with it. Amen.

THE THIRD WEEK OF ADVENT - TUESDAYLESSON: 1 Timothy 1:8-11The law is holy, and the commandment is holy and just and good . . . but I am carnal, sold under sin. Romans 7:12,14The law is the word by which God teaches us and instructs us in what we are to do and not to do, as He does in the Ten Commandments. Where nature stands alone, without God's grace, it is impossible to keep God's Law for the reason that man, after Adam's fall in Paradise, is corrupt and has nothing but evil lust leading him into sin. It is impossible for him to be well-disposed to the Law from the depths of his heart.We all experience this. There is no one who would not prefer to be without any Law at all. Every one of us realizes and feels in himself that it is very hard to be pious and to do good, and very easy to be wicked and to do evil.Such shortcomings and unwillingness to do what is good force us into transgressions of God's Law. What is done reluctantly, poorly, and unwillingly is of no avail at all before God. God's Law overcomes us. We learn this from our own experience as we are by nature wicked, disobedient, lovers of sin, and enemies of God's Law.SL.XI.81,19AE 75,143PRAYER: Lord God, our heavenly Father, guard against all spiritual pride and self-righteousness so that when we look into the mirror of your Law we may see ourselves as we really are, lost and condemned sinners, whose only hope rests in our Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ. Amen.

In this episode of Finding Recess podcast, Kyle Jones have two guests their names are Danielle Miller and James Stewart, they will talk about entrepreneurship. Ms. Miller is the CEO of ESS Group Inc, they are a government contractor. And Mr. Stewart is the owner of NEXGEN Financial Group LLC, a financial education.  Episode Timeline 1:19Ms. Miller is the CEO of ESS Group Inc, they are a government contractor. It basically provides training and development services, administrators, services, program management, contract management, and acquisition services. Plus, they have a lot of strategic partnerships where they can dip into different industries.2:00The primary focus is to build strategic partnerships, and win contracts. The company still offers a little bit of coaching programs where it can still assist small businesses, but they don't really necessarily do it in the consulting room anymore.5:00Mr. Stewart is the owner of NEXGEN Financial Group LLC. They teach a lot to help people get out of debt or move to the next level. They have people in different financial levels. They also do different life insurance and annuity products. His business of restaurant has just opened. And he thought losing the same predicament because he already had to plan everything and rolling right before COVID. But luckily, God blesses that the business is still going. It's still rolling. They’re not having a chance to expand, but it's a Thai restaurant.10:30We all have some product that we are selling, get some insight into that product, get it out there, get it, go have conversations with not just friends and family because they tend to, they tend to be sympathetic to what we're trying to accomplish. But get someone who's really going to tell you the truth about that particular product,14:20A lot of people don't have mentors in their field. You want to get around with people who are doing what you aspire to do. Educate yourself on those principles of business.18:20Sales and marketing are the most critical piece. You're going to educate yourself in business. The very first thing that you need to do is educate yourself in sales and marketing process. Because, the more you sell, the more you can get to the point where you don't have to do the selling. 25:20It's important to surround yourself around the right people who are achieving more who are like minded like you where you don't feel like you are the smartest person in the room and finding those organizations can help. We've met a lot of different successful companies who are doing really well and it also helps to network and meet other people that you can go to for information.31:10There's an old saying that if there's six more people in the room, if there are five smart people in the room, you'd be the six ones. If there's five dumb people, you'd be the sixth one, You need to move to a different location for different people and that's when you can find better mentors, and somebody's doing higher than you.36:00You need to kind of understand your personality. I've done a few personality tests around very high improvise. So I can get into a situation and understand what's going on with that situation and then make decisions based on you what know on the information that I'm presented at that point in time.40:32Once you kind of know what you know, you know what you can get away with what you know. You can hit the ground running. We already have our foundations that we already know. We want to worry about getting the next product and moving forward because, our mindsets are already in business mode.45:26People think that failure is a bad thing. You can't get to success without going through failure. As a matter of fact, success is built on the steps of failure. If you're going, if you want more success, you have to find more ways to fail more. And I don't mean that in a negative way, but you got to find ways to mess this up.49:34I think the first thing is to really make sure that you've identified your market and how large that market is. Once you kind of target that audience, how are you getting feedback and data from that audience to determine whether or not your product is one that's meaningful to them.50:10If they don't like your product, then maybe you need to develop another product. I think it's important to have the data once you kind of understand if you're moving in the right direction and the last thing that you want to be doing is spending.55:20More and more people started to come back to their business simply because of the relationship that they built. That's part of marketing is to build rapport with the people you plan to market to will do sales and business with, but you can't look at them.57:30Your sales will double because your mentality is going to change and your behavior and how you approach that situation is going to change.1:00:01Most importantly, in any partnership, it has to be a win-win for both sides. So, if you're asking for money, or you want someone to donate or partner with you in any shape or form what are you also bringing to the table to be enticing to the other person. You don't want to be in a situation where you're just asking for money, and you have nothing to offer the other person in this particular partnership.1:08:25Make sure that this person is backing you. You're going to advertise this piece of backing but it doesn't want to infringe of what your business is doing or what your non-profits doing. Make sure that you're getting the correct money from the people.1:12:14The difference between folks who become successful with those ideas is really the devotion, the drive, and the focused energy on making it happen. In order to build a strong business that's going to be successful, it's going to take time, energy, and painstakingly you're just gonna have to commit. Connect with us on: http://findingrecess.com/ | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter     

Today’s guitar villain is Misha Mansoor, a key founder of the beguiling genre of Djent and an overall machine of a guitar player. Misha is the mastermind behind the wall of sound that is the band Periphery, a signature artist of Jackson guitars and BareKnuckle pickups, the founder of the excellent Get Good Drums software, and an avid sports car enthusiast. Misha is also the founder of Horizon Devices, a company featuring some truly spectacular guitar pedals like the Apex PreAmp and Flux Echo, and now, most recently, they’re making guitar strings. With that resume, you better prepare yourself, because it’s time for this episode of Guitar Villains.Intro and Misha’s supervillain alter-ego: 0:00Burning Questions: 6:14Misha’s backward sense of harmony: 11:10Problem-solving in songwriting: 15:10Name Those Notes: 16:44The re-release and return of Bulb: 27:35Guitar playing from the producer perspective: 30:14The hardest and easiest thing about playing guitar: 32:22The most important skill guitar players ignore: 34:34Writing music starting with a drum groove: 37:02The problem with drum loops: 40:29The difference between delay and echo: 42:00Misha’s dream band: 45:59Misha’s favorite airplane album: 48:56Misha’s supervillain advice: 49:39Check out Horizon DevicesCheck out GetGood DrumsFollow Periphery on YouTube Sign up for Guitar Super System, the most popular independent guitar learning platform on the internet: https://bit.ly/GVMM006

Today’s guitar villain is Tommy Emmanuel. One of the most musical guitar players you’ll ever hear, Tommy has been dropping the jaws of audiences for decades with this impeccable acoustic guitar playing that sounds more like an entire band than just one person. With flawless rhythm, unreal technique and a way of playing that just makes you laugh, Tommy’s musicianship is captivating in a way that will inspire you to pick up your guitar, or, maybe, just set it down and watch. Tommy’s way of explaining things is another testament to his world class talent, so you may yourself coming back to this one over and over, on this episode of Guitar Villains.Intro and Tommy Emmanuel's supervillain alter-ego: 0:00Burning Questions: 7:14The sound of tuning perfection: 11:12Name Those Notes: 15:19Dress up, show up, and do your best: 29:09The difficulty of instrumental songwriting: 31:10Tommy's unique approach to guitar playing: 33:35The hardest and easiest thing about guitar: 37:49Tommy Hollywood is working on a movie, The Tiger Rising: 38:42Tommy's favorite airplane album: 42:10Tommy's dream band: 42:46Tommy's supervillain advice: 43:35Tommy Emmanuel on YouTubeTommy's websiteSign up for Guitar Super System, the most popular independent guitar learning platform on the internet: http://bit.ly/GVTE004

In the last episode we covered the topic of the Gospel of Jesus Christ or the Good News of Jesus Christ. This episode is called the Gospel of Idolatry. Why in the world did we title this episode the Gospel of Idolatry?There are things we place importance on that that is not the good news, it is not the gospel of Jesus Christ but the "gospel" of an idol we have set up in our life.The problems the experiences of our life will never bring us joy nor will they allow for the rejoicing of my heart. My heart rejoices in Him and the gospel of Jesus Christ. John 16:33Jesus has overcome this world, He is our hope He is our joy, the gospel, good news! Proclaim Jesus Christ and not your own agenda or soap box in which you stand.Do you preach the gospel of Jesus Christ or do you preach something in place of it? Do you make your own personal issues or agendas more important than God’s Word? Are you focused on the truth or do you refuse to be corrected? May we align our thoughts with God and may we about His business. Luke 2:49John 4:14The point is not simply give someone water but to offer them the water (Gospel) which is the water that fully satisfies the thirst. Mark 8:36 Our encouragement to you is to repent, forsake your sin, confess and be restored to fellowship with Jesus.1 John 1:9Support the show (https://abundantlife.fm)

Mt. 7:12-14The narrow gate.Pastor Matt explains how Jesus merges compassion with uncompromising truth.

This sermon was preached by Rev Stephen Haward MA in Market Harborough Congregational Church on Sunday 27th September. The theme was The road less travelled and the Bible readings from 1 Kings 22:10-17 and Matthew 7:7-14The complete service is available on our website.

In this episode, we discuss the importance of treating your employees like customers to drive customer loyalty. We have with us Vipula Gandhi, Managing Director at Gallup, who has vast experience working in different industries such as hospitality, consulting, and banking. As a true expert in business strategy, business performance and human potential, Vipula will talk about how to leverage information and extract insights to strategically take action that directly impacts the business. Join this interesting conversation to understand how emotions improve the customer experience and how to build a brand that transcends time by taking care of their employees. About Vipula and Gallup 1:26What is wrong with the current way we think about customer experience? 3:31Example of emotional and actionable drivers in customer experience 14:14The importance of treating your employees right 18:50“What we have found through science and through our experience of working with clients in this area is that, we don’t want people to complain obviously, but when people complain there’s an opportunity for you to actually increase the emotional engagement with the brand after the complaint more than what was possible before the complaint.” 14:24www.gallup.comhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/vipulagandhi1/

Message Notes “You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. You are…a city set on a hill.” Matthew 5:13-14The truth is—you don’t go to church; you are the church!The church isn’t a place; it’s people!Paul, in these two verses, uses three powerful words to describe Phoebe Sister - The church is about family. - Being included in God’s family is the highest honor and the greatest privilege you will ever receive. Saint - More than anything else, I think the Spirit of God uses the Word of God to make you more like the Son of God. - God loves you just the way you are, but He loves you so much, he refuses to leave you that way. He wants you to be just like Jesus. Servant There’s a massive difference between going to a building, and being plugged into a calling, a movement, a mission.Scripture 1 John, 2 Corinthians, 2 Peter, Ephesians 4:32, Ezekiel 36:26, Galatians 5:13, Genesis 2:18, Hebrews 10:25, Hebrews 2:11, John 13:34, Matthew 12:49-50, Matthew 5:13, Matthew 5:14, Philippians 2:5, Romans 12:10, Romans 12:16, Romans 14:13, Romans 15:14, Romans 15:7, Romans 16:1-2, Romans 16:16, Romans 1:7, Romans 3:23.

INSTAGRAM: @youth_bioyPSALM READING: Proverbs 18:17–19:2NEW TESTAMENT READING: Romans 14:1–18OLD TESTAMENT READING: 1 Chronicles 9:1b–10:14The referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU resulted in a 52:48 split in favour of leaving. The campaign was acrimonious, the nation was divided, and the main political parties soon descended into infighting and division. This is one example of what we see across the globe. Every news update seems to include stories of arguments, disputes and fighting.How should we handle conflict?

Bethany Worship CenterCelina TXPastor Carl Tiner https://bethanyworshipcentercelinatx.business.site/ 1 Corinthians 2When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. [1]2For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.3I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling.4My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power,5so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power.6We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing.7No, we speak of God's secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began.8None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.9However, as it is written: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him" [2] --10but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.11For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man's spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.12We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us.13This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. [3]14The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.15The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment:16"For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?" [4] But we have the mind of Christ.

Scripture: Philippians 1.4-11Scripture to Remember: Philippians 1.9-11For this reason, I kneel before the Father. - Ephesians 3.14The church of Philippi was forged through prayer and initiated by the supernatural work of God in Christ. The Spirit of God connected hearts, continents, circumstances, spiritual hunger and a heart to know our Rescuing Redeemer. At great cost, God connected Paul as a discipling leader for this church. With great passion, a small group of spiritually hungry stood outside the gates and prayed day in and day out. At even greater cost of imprisonment, worship and miraculous provision of freedom, God grew this amazing Macedonian church. They are a people quite familiar with prevailing power of prayer. So, Paul carries on in prayer as he writes…..1- Paul prays for abounding love among His people…The words ‘keep on’ presupposes that they are already loving God. Already loving Jesus Christ. Already loving one another. No matter where a faith family may be in their journey, Paul prays for exponential increase in their love. What are the practical implications of this prayer for our Mandarin family? How will we know that we are abounding, more and more, in our love for Christ and for one another?2 - Paul prays that this love abound in real knowledge and in depth of insight. Talk about very real ways that you may grow in the knowledge of God. What will this growth require of you? Who will grow with you? He also invites us to abound in discernment or depth of insight. This abundance is the capacity to best serve and to love those who make up your faith family. He is praying that you will know best how to love one another. Talk about what this means for you and what impact this desire can have on our Mandarin family? Brainstorm abounding love, care and serving one another for awhile and share ideas. 3- Paul prays that we determine and pursue what is best or superior or excellent. He prays that you are able to set proper values on things, not so much the ability to distinguish good from bad, but good from the best; to focus your time and energy on what really matters. What do you believe that God values most? Explore this thought. Do you value what He values most? In this context of prayer, Paul is praying that we will love one another and love Christ in the BEST ways. How are you loving others best? 4 - Finally, Paul prays that we will be sincere and blameless. That we are authentic. Avoid offense. Intentionally love and serve. Cause no one to stumble. Walk upright ourselves. Our lives can only be judged ‘in the sunlight’ as sincere. We love with abundance because we are loved in abundance by our God. Because this is true, what may be the issue if we are in fractured situations and our love seems to be waning? Talk about this. There is no explanation for us this abounding love except God who is at work within us both to will and to work for His good pleasure and His glory.The greatest gift that you can give to this church is to be rightly connected to Jesus Christ, and for the love of God in Christ to be flowing through your life.

Ephesians series message 34Text: Ephesians 5:7-14The consistent call of God in each generation is for His people to walk in a manner worthy of their calling. Paul says this, in so many ways, just in Ephesians alone: walk in a manner worthy of your calling, no longer walk as the Gentiles do, put off the old & put on the new, and walk as children of light. It's the latter that we'll consider in this message, with special attention given to the corollary given in Israel's deliverance from Egypt. The Feast of Unleavened Bread and the Passover meal provide a blueprint for every generation to follow.

Hi everyone Joy and Jason are back. We haven't actually done this for a couple of weeks. So we're excited to bring you a brand new episode. And today we're going to talk about equipment. What do you need? Do you need it? And how much would it cost you to start a business?00:23Hello, Jason, how you doing?00:24Hello Joy, how are you?00:26I am good. Thank you. There is a reason why Jason has that green screen behind him because this is what this episode is going to be about. Alright, so Jase let's dive into this. Can you tell people a little bit? Can we start up with minimum cost as an entrepreneur? How much did it cost you to startup?00:44Yeah. So if you're going the online entrepreneur route, there are some basic needs that you're going to have to have, but it's not going to cost you an arm and a leg. So the first thing that you're going to need is a computer and I don't recommend, although I guess you could start in the very beginning with your smartphone, I really recommend that you either get a laptop, and or a desktop to work from laptops are nice because you can bring them wherever you want, obviously, and work from wherever you are. But sometimes people just have a desktop around, and that's how they're getting going. So that's absolutely fine. So let's talk more about once we have that in place, just some of the critical and functional components of the computer and or laptop that you really want to have in place. So let's talk about your RAM. Your RAM is your random access memory. And so this is important because this is where the computer is storing information as you're going between screens and downloading here and you have 55 different tabs opened. So the more RAM that you have, the more your computer can essentially do all at once and keep things up to speed, and keep things going. So I would recommend that you have at least four gigabytes of RAM. And that's a great starting point. And with the four gigs that'll allow you to have multiple tabs open while you're doing some sort of a meeting like this at the same time, you'll be able to share your screen and you'll be able to search while you're doing all these things at the same time with relative ease and fluidity. So four gigs, I definitely recommend you start there. And the nice thing about RAM is it's easy to add to it. And it's relatively inexpensive so you can buy ram sticks really cheap and they usually come in either 2 4 8 or 16-gigabyte sizes. It just depends on the motherboard on your computer, what type you need to buy and how fast it actually sticks in but for desktops, you could probably put a new stick of RAM in an upgrade about eight minutes. For a laptop, it gets a little bit more confusing, but it's not that bad. But so four gigs, so let's start there with your RAM. Your video card. So your video card.03:14The video card is really going to help with how good your videos are coming across. And if somebody's sending you video, and it's an HD or something like this, it's nice to have a video card that has that type of output. And so, I will tell you this, all the newer computers and laptops that you're going to buy today will have the minimum video card requirements that you're looking for, as long as you're not also gaming on this computer at the same time, which requires just tonnes of GPU. You're going to be good now if you have an older computer or laptop, whatever is in there, if you can see your screen, you're probably going to be okay. But as time moves on, you might want to upgrade to a better video card. And you'll know you have to do that when you go into any type of program and it says, can't run this, you need a better video card, but you're really not going to run into that too much. So I don't want to spend too much time on like gamer video cards that you might need that have a dual purpose, you know what I mean? So that's the video card. The next big huge important thing is going to be your camera. A lot of times a lot of laptops come with a camera these days, which is absolutely fine. And you can also buy a webcam or whatever if you don't have one on your laptop, or your PC monitor doesn't have one. But we really want to make sure the at least the one thing that your camera has is you want to make sure that it's 30 frames per second minimum. What does that mean?04:55It means when I'm talking to you Joy, it doesn't look like an old Chinese movie where they say something, and then that kind of thing happens and the sound comes out later. So you'll be able to the computer will be able to process as close as to real-time as possible on what's going on and outputting it to the other end. So 30 frames per second are ideally where you want to be minimal if you can get up to like 60 62 that's outstanding. It's not necessary all the time, you'll be just fine with 30. But, you know, as you're doing presentations and little things like this, and you want to seem more credible, you want to look more professional, especially if you're speaking to someone on the other end about a possible collaboration, or you're selling your product or whatever it is, the more professional you look, the better. And sometimes that's just the simple upgrade, and a spend of $25 or $30 to go from a camera that's 15 to one that's 30 frames per second, and an additional 30, or whatever to one that's, that can go up to 60. So, highly important, definitely something to think about when you go computer shopping, or you're looking at the one that you have. Also, now we want to talk about memory. Now memory is different from Ram. So RAM is the random access memory, the memory that your computer is using to run all the products and windows that you have open, where your memory is where you're going to store your files, and folders and all these types of things. You're probably more familiar with a memory from this standpoint than you are with Ram. And so you want to have in my opinion, you want to have at least 125 gigabytes of RAM on your computer minimum and memory is still another thing that's relatively cheap these days, especially on Amazon and stuff like this. You can upgrade your memory and you know, if you're buying or you know, if you're buying a computer or a laptop, it's really nice to have like a terabyte of memory because as you start getting busier and busier, and taking on more projects, and you want to save these things, and even backing up your hard drive, you can suck up a lot of memory real quick. It's nice to have, you know, Google Drive on the side, and these internet-based memory banks that you can access, but it's also really nice to have and you should have a decent size. So if you can start with 125 starts there. But if you really can go to 500 gigabytes. And that'll just be you just won't have to worry at that point which is nice so.07:49You know, investing in one of these little babies is good. I mean, this robot, it's so tiny look at it, it's so tiny I think I paid three or 400 bucks for it four terabytes. And I mean, you can take this everywhere with you. So if it's not in your budget to buy a computer that has a whole terabyte of things on it, I mean, you can always just use one of these as long as you're very gentle with it and you don't pass it around and shake it around, then you know, your information is safe on it. So08:17Absolutely. And so this is called an external hard drive. And the reason why it's called that is that it sits outside of your computer and it simply attaches to your computer with a USB cord now the thing that you have to remember about these is these are memory only you cannot operate a program from these so you can't download like a video editor and put it on your external hard drive and run it, you can but it's it takes up so much of your computer that you don't ever do that these strictly for file storage. And like Joy says you can get real cheap these days. I mean, you can pick up a cheaper one terabyte probably for around 100 bucks.09:01Oh, wow. Yeah, I get that US process but in New Zealand. I forget that. Technology stuff in New Zealand is a lot more expensive than in the US definitely. Okay. I forget that sometimes. Yeah, no right. Feel sad for us that we always have to pick up all these things so expensive.09:23Oh, I feel oh I feel terrible. But you know if you can't  get a hold of one of those right in the beginning don't worry about it because services like I mentioned before, like google drive you can get I think it's like 100 gigs for 299 a month. They give him I forgot how much they give you for free.09:46It's like $2 99 cents. Yeah, you get this I've got, I pay extra for Google Storage and it is literally $2 99 cents and it's like, I think it's an extra 30 but it comes with a 100 gigs. Anyway, the $2 99 that I've got, trust me, it's not running out. So and I'm running videos and I do a lot of video type stuff so imagine if you don't do that yet it will take you forever to get that capt. It really does.10:16Yeah, anytime you can back up your computer or your laptop or whatever it is, you feel because that shit, anything could happen with electronics and that your shit could be gone. And there is nothing worse than that feeling. So if you don't have it outside of your hard drive in your computer, yeah, I would look into trying to get that or update at least your Google Drive for the $2 99 cents a month to have that kind of storage you'll be thankful for.10:52Even just like your photos, you know, even if you just backup your personal files, like again, I'm not it's a bit off-topic, but I have a friend that lost all her photos on her phone like over 6000 photos because the phone crashed. So I mean automatically I know I like an Apple for example, you have that automatically but with Google, not necessarily so you have to set it up if you have an Android phone, so if you just go you know, make sure that you backup these things on the cloud anyway, you know, it will definitely help you and I mean if guys saying was like, obviously on your computer as well but your phone, it's so easy to backup files on your phone, because a lot of the times I actually just take videos on my phone, and that was the next thing that I was going to you know, Jason was talking about having a good webcam, which is great to talk to people that you can use your phone to, I do a lot of video recording just using my phone, three quarters of my videos are actually all my videos that I do on YouTube, that I'm not sharing my screen is from my phone, phones these days are really amazing and giving a good thing so if you do not have a webcam, or you don't have money to have a webcam and you've got a phone with a half decent camera, I mean it comes so I mean all the phones in the last year at least have really good cameras.12:00I know you do a lot of stuff on your phone more than I do and I, the phone, the camera on my phone, I have a decent phone, it's probably way better than the one that I have sitting on top of my monitor. I just don't use it as much. I don't know, I guess everyone's different like that.12:18That's the thing. Yeah. And also just to dive into so what Jason was saying with the laptop. We don't want to talk price on here because I mean, it depends on the country that you're in. Okay. So you didn't need to go and find your best option if Amazon has this option. We are in your country, whatever else. But also, if you don't have money for a laptop, a desktop is a lot cheaper in general than a laptop. So yes, you obviously don't have the portability of it, you can go and sit in a coffee shop and work or whatever else. But if you don't have the money and you're just starting out, you can get a desktop for a quarter of the price than you would pay for a laptop. So that's another option for you if you don't have $1,000, or even five or $600 for a laptop. You can get it for like two $300 for a desktop, which is the same concept, you can have your RAM that Jason talked about, you can have your memory you can have all of those things for a fraction of the price. So that's another option for you, which is obviously what laptops is better especially if you know you are then you're gonna start seeing clients and things like that but if that's not an option for you yet it's a great starting point if you don't have the budget.13:22Yeah. 100% and you know, if a desktop is where you start, you know, that could be one of your main business goals. Yeah. Monetarily wise as you move towards, you know, you move towards getting the laptop.13:38Yes, exactly. I've had quite a few conversations lately with people where they are fixated on the technology they not fixated on or if that's the right word to use on the actual starting a business. So guys, I just want to explain this to you so you understand your technology is going to help you to make money but that's not the sole reason you're going to make money, your time and effort that you put in every single day that is gonna make you money. So if you buy a $2,000 laptop, and you buy a $600 mike and whatever else, you're going to spend like five con equipment, and you're not making money, that's your own fault. So I just want to make sure that you know, people understand it because the other day I saw a price with someone saying, I've got $1,500 for a mike, what can I get for it for that? You don't need to pay $1,500 for a microphone. That's crazy. You can get like a really good Jet eye one, which by the way I'm ordering for 100 bucks and that's it why spend  worry about the content. This year, my phone on here I have an app, so sorry, Jason going on content. But I was assuming that that microphone was the next thing that we were talking about. And on here, and if you guys are on screen, you can you know if you're going to look at this on YouTube, you're going to see this. Just gonna see if I can pull this system up or this app that I've got. So I have an app called voice record. So if you, if you can see the little button there, if you can see, it says voice recording. And on that, that is how I record my podcast episodes. That actually sounds better than my microphone. And I don't have the best microphone yet. I've been slowly investing in that because it for me, it was more about the content. I am not excited about technology, but more on the content. And but this is the thing and my podcast episodes that are recorded and that act actually transcribes it for you. And I think I pay like $3 a month for it, which is nothing. And it transcribes it for you. If you upload it, you can change the speed, you can add in audio, you can do everything with it. It's literally like an editing software tool for voice over things as well. So it's amazing. So I mean, for apps like that, that's an iPhone app. I don't know if it's on Android though. But I mean, that is how simple these things can be. You know, you don't even if you want to start a podcast, all you need is your phone. You can do everything on it. You don't even need a computer, you don't need a microphone. So, videos, if you're not going to share your screen, just use your phone, you can do everything from your phone. If you're going to built software for people or built funnels or do those types of things, yes, you're going to need a laptop. But I mean, if you're just starting out, and you just want to make noise, I call it noise, you know, do marketing and advertise yourself and do you know your attractive characters, people get to know you, all you need is a phone. But then it gets into the details. And Jason has some really, really valid points, you know, as far as the RAM and the monitor, and those things go, What's your point? What's your thing on the mic? Because Jase, I know you've got a good mike because you've got a friend that recommended that to you, that is a very good podcaster so what's your evaluation?16:48So I think it's nice to be able to have a mike like this is the one I have here, which by the way I'm not using at the moment. So when you know you get one of these guys. So this mike is good you know, it's a good decent I'll say condenser mike. And so this mike with the arm was like it was less than 100 bucks. Now, I mean, but I don't have it in now because it does require an external power source that broke and I need to order a new one. But like Joy said with the phone, I think it's good to have a microphone. Because when you start as if you start doing things like webinars and things like this, you want to sound as clear as possible. And you want to be able to have a microphone that has the ability to diffuse the outside noise and getting rid of that for you. I think that's it's a good thing to have, fortunately for you to get to that point where you can get something decent is not a lot of money. So you know, it's just another thing you can keep on your list of things we're working towards, but that is not going to you know, not going to break the bank but it's a good thing.17:57Yeah. Well, my mike and I'm on a decent laptop here, I mean, this is like a couple of thousand dollars worth of laptop it's a gaming laptop. So it's like it's a really good laptop, but the sound on it is terrible. Like, if I unplug my mike, it sounds like I'm in a tunnel. It's really really bad. So and I mean, as I said, this mike was like a $60 mike. So it's not like it's a wow, like a most expensive laptop or a mike because I didn't want to invest a lot of money in it at the time when I bought it because I felt like that is not the reason you know, I wanted to invest in the actual things that I'm doing with it. And in saying that, you know, you just need a like the cheapest thing to start out with just so you can actually get going and with your content and like maybe I. Barely18:47It's terrible if I unplug it and this is a decent laptop, you know, so in saying that it doesn't matter how amazeballs your laptop potentially can be when you buy a new one the sound output or input however this it can be shocking when it comes to not having a microphone. And especially if you're going to do like what Jason said, if you do webinars and voice me out, like, you know, sharing your screen meetings or any meetings with a client, when you use your laptop, it's worth the 50 or 60 bucks if you just thought out to invest in it. I do need to get another microphone, that's for sure. But that's, that's my next thing in the next couple of days. Okay, so in saying that, Jason, let's talk about the green screen. So you've got that green screen behind you. Can you show us what that is? Because I don't have a green screen guys there you go. Jason has invested in the green screen and he thinks he and his girlfriend made it. Didn't Cam make that for you? I didn't make that.19:46That's nice. I think he crocheted that out on the deck. No. So what actually greets, you know, green screens are really cool. And I really only started getting into them recently and what they're really doing is video editing. So if you don't have like a nice place to record, or you're doing something more professional green screen is where you can manipulate your background. And if you don't know the science behind that there's a whole science you can go look that up on your own. But to get like, for example, this I bought this as a green screen, it wasn't, it was like, honestly, it was like $25, right. And what it's hanging from is like a clothes rack, like a portable clothes rack where you hang your clothes on. So I just put the clips across the clothes rack and so if I want to record something with the green screen behind me, I just simply put it behind me when I'm recording and then I can manipulate all the green screen stuff afterward.20:45Can you show us how it looks like? What? To actually have the green screen going, like is it possible or not. I'm putting you on the spot, but it's a good thing because guys, I don't have a green screen and honestly just have not felt, I haven't felt like the need like I need one. And because I'm in between offices, so this is my office on the side of the house. And then I've got my actual real office at the back which I and my husband are splitting at the moment, you see, so you can see the. So that's how it looks like if you have a green screen, so you can do any background, it actually looks good. Like with zoom, for example, if you do a virtual background resume, it actually looks like it's highlighted with a green screen. It doesn't.21:24With the green screen because so there's a setting there happens to be a setting on zoom. Yeah, where anywhere there's green screen space. So if I was sitting in front of it, you know, and I had this thing wide, as wide as the camera angle is here, I'd be on this little starship, you know, whatever it is, and then that's just an example of what the green screen is. The other thing is I bought this from a green screen place. It's just as easy to go to say target. And you go into a kid's bedding section and get like a green that's used from a Disney movie like I don't know where to start. What's the guy with the bubble on his head and then Toy Story to astronauts and beyond theirs. Buzzlightning. Thank you. I do have kids and I do pay attention to them. So you can go get a sheet that's like that color, like solid. And it will work just fine blue also work again, there's a science behind it, and you just have to go check it out, but good to have if you ever want to get there. That's the whole setup is probably $30 it's more learning the science. Yeah, that really takes up your time. So another thing and I just want to bring this up because it reminded me when Joy was talking before, all these different like programs that you can use to edit photos and to do organization and all these little tricks and to do podcasting and to upload podcasting and all these little programs that you're going to want to have most of them at least for a decent program you can get for free yet if not real cheap. I mean Joy, you're you can speak more.23:10Yeah, I was just gonna say that was actually going to be my next thing. So to start a podcast which I would strongly recommend guys, let's be honest your first 40 episodes is going to suck donkey balls it's let's be honest because you're going to learn how to do this but in saying that this is a great way for you to publish and my students know I always go on about  publish publish publish start a podcast or blog, start a blog, whatever it is, but get yourself out there and market.  Jason knows I irritate him all the time about publishing. So and this is a podcast is like the cheapest and the easiest way to start out publishing. If you are scared of videos, then do a podcast if you're not if you were terrible in writing anything to do a podcast. And I mean where the podcast is like I said, all you need is your phone to record the episodes on you don't even need much more than that. And then I use anchor when I started out, so the anchor is completely free. The nice thing about an anchor is that I distribute your episodes when you reach a certain amount of people I think I can't remember how that works. But they distribute your episodes on Apple and breaker and Spotify and Google podcasts and whatever else all the different ones I do that I upgraded now I'm not on anchor anymore. I am using simple cost, which there are so many other ones to use. You can have simple costs, you've got buzz sprout, you've got all these different ones I like simple costs simply because you can take snippets of your actual podcast and uploaded everywhere so it makes it easier, but in saying that you can do it on a normal editing tool as well, but that's just easier for me to find that. Also in saying that, I would not recommend starting out with anchor because I had issues transferring my podcast onto Apple, sorry, onto a paid version. The reason why I would not recommend anchor, but it's up to you how you want to do this because they own your content. So that makes it a bit bad because you can't because they own it you've got less control over it because it's free, you see. So that's why I think the simple cost, I think I pay, I've got their middle plan. I think it's 25 bucks a month 25 or $30 a month US dollars that are and that's what I'm on. And it works for what I'm doing. But when you start out, you can go on a minimum plan, which I think is 10 bucks a month, okay. And then what you get with that is your actual set up you get all of your, you know, you're you know how many episodes how many people have listened to it? Where are people listening to your episodes is it on Spotify than on Google? Is it on whatever else, you know, is it an iTunes, etc? So it lists all of those things. So you don't have to wonder like, ooh, you know, how many people are listening and what platform are they listening on, etc. And you can also see what episodes get the most listeners and you can see okay, this is actually what my audience needs, and you can publish more episodes linked onto that type of thing as well. And that's why I and Jason's once work well because I've noticed that me and Jason's episodes, get a lot, a lot of viewers, a lot of listeners. And that's why I know that people appreciate the episodes because we actually educate people a lot on different topics. But in saying that you don't need to go crazy if you don't have 10 or $15 a month to start out then use anchor, it's just a mission to get it transferred. It took me three weeks to actually go back and forth with people to get transferred. Other people don't have the issues but I had. And that made me really cross and I've actually lost my, my podcast was off of iTunes for a week because of the whole mess, which was really bad for me because I lost a lot of listeners. So I was not a happy customer. And that's why I wouldn't recommend anchor. But in saying that, you know, other people don't have these issues. But that's how you start a podcast. You don't need to go crazy, you're fine, and a free tool. I use Movavi for editing my things. I've recommended this to Jason as well. So sometimes what happens is I'm a tech weenie, everybody that knows me knows I'm a tech weenie, I don't do technology very well. When you buy sometimes you buy this hundred 200 $300 programs. It's very complicated to use those things. It's taking forever to edit stuff. We're like, what was that Jason 60 bucks? I think it was 60 bucks. And that's a once-off fee that's what you pay for the software. And you bought it recently. I bought mine two years ago now, so I can't remember. Yeah, I think I think mine was it was like, it was like 65 it's right there.27:29Yeah, it's like it's and that's it, that's the one so the fee you don't pay it again. And you can use that to add your audio to podcasts and all of that stuff. So it's a really it's like really one of the cheapest and that actually got recommended to me by previous coaches that I and Jason shared  like a few years ago. And it's up to that. Seriously, I use it every single video that I edit my YouTube stuff, everything. That's what I use. And I've recommended the software  to so many people. And also just note guys, we don't get any affiliation things for sharing, any of these, you know, the programmes that we use, there's no affiliation commissions for us whatsoever. We're not signed up for any of them. It's just purely our experiences and what we use and that works for us. That's what this is all about. So just to make sure you're not advertising anything because we're not getting paid for it. But yeah, so that's, that's really what I have on on the podcasting thing Jase. So I don't know,That could be a whole nother subject.28:28Just about it really can be so if you guys need more information on that just, you know, drop a comment and we can definitely dive into the details on that. As I say, I'm ordering Mojito mike, because I've been looking into getting another mike but I haven't really made it a priority because this one works. But I think because I'm getting more listeners, it's time to upgrade. So the JSR one apparently is really really good. A lot of people have recommended it. I read a post on Facebook, there was somebody that asked you to know the same guy that wants to buy an  expensive mike and then people was like every other comment was saying the same thing JSR and you can get it on Amazon apparently for like 80 bucks. So not bad29:08Yeah. So I will be able to make fun of you talking into that big red thing you got there. Jason has a problem since we started this like forever ago what was this Jase like wow probably a year in four or five months now. I think for a long time yeah, he hates this thing. I can talk to you. No, I'm just joking. Well, at least I don't look like I'm gonna go to spice like you are where's your suite?Where's your space suit? Maybe I will put on the goggles people will know.Put on the goggles. That's what you do when you go to space. Okay, and the other big thing that we need to just talk about is having an internet connection. Oh yes.29:50That is the biggest thing. Guys, I don't know where you are in the world. Because let me just put this out there when you in South Africa and I know this firsthand because I have family in South Africa internet is stupidly expensive, stupidly expensive, okay, I don't know why it's because it's like it's not a monopoly or whatever, there's not a lot of competition. So the people that have the internet can make it really expensive. We're here in New Zealand, it's cheap. And where you are, it's relatively cheap. But how does the speed work Jase I know we are on the fastest speed that you can get in New Zealand I don't know what that is? But I don't know about technology. I'm a weenie. So what is your recommendation on the speed to actually just, you know, run proper videos and those types of things?30:31You know, a lot of it depends on what in the houses using up your bandwidth, you know, is it just you by yourself? You have a family, and everybody's phone is connected to the Wi-Fi, and you're watching movies and you know, like my house here, there's usually always four, four of us. And everybody's connected. Everybody's connected to the internet. And I think that we have 100 megabytes per second here, and that does as well. But when you're just starting out if you can get at least 15 megabytes per second, that's going to take care and that's going to cover all the video stuff that you'll be doing like we're doing here right now. It's going to cover your phones. It's going to cover your movie watching so if you have a family 15 will get you through. It just depends it depends on the plan so yeah, cable companies are really good at sucking you in. So you really have to look I mean, do you already you might have TV phone and internet already bundled and it might just be quick you know, another, I don't know 20 bucks a month to get to that level of the internet if you don't have it already. But yeah, I would try to get to 15 meg's is is a really good start. If you only have 5 like an economy package or something like that you should do okay, but you might have an issue of somebody watching a movie while you're working there might be an issue there and you don't want to run into that.32:11I would not recommend that if you run zoom meetings and things like that because that eats up a lot of stuff. And a lot of bandwidth here. Yeah, and I definitely agree with that. Like you know what, like Jason saying there's a lot of good packages like you're in New Zealand for example, I'm not gonna mention the name because I just don't want to talk people but um, and we use one of the like, the bigger you know, standard marketplace people and we pay 200 bucks a month for our internet and that is including our phones internet as well. And on top of that, we get Spotify as well on the package like that really bundled it together. So and I mean we've shopped around like you're in Zealand and that's the best one that we got, you know, considering got Spotify and with what iPhones you're not intended on the as well so it's really not a bad price. In comparison to what's out there so just really shop around, if you're in a position to shop around, really shop around, see what they can offer you as a package because the package deals are normally the best ones that you can get, that's for sure.33:09And also whatever cable company you may have now, your cable provider may have hotspots set up throughout. That's very true. Whatever area that you're in that as long as you have a cable account, you can access those hotspots and if you are near them, they can be up to 20 25 you know, megabytes per second. So look into that as well.33:32That's very, very true. Also, if you don't have the internet if you don't have a connection set up at home, which is probably a more expensive option, but it's very doable. And if you can get a really good package for your phone, you can hotspot your phone to your laptop, that's another option. I used to do that a lot when I did meetings. I used to be in sales I used to take my laptop and hotspot at client's offices if you know I couldn't get set up on their server or whatever else. And that works well, it's not cheap, though, you have to have a lot of data for it. So what I used to do when I did that is the boss, the boss that I had at the time pay for it, so it wasn't a big deal, but you would get like boost packages. So you'll get like 100 megs for a day for only like three bucks, you know, little things like that, you know, so you can do that as well, depending again, on your cable company like here we just put into the package, not a cable company. That's all different in America. But yes, but that's the concept really, you know, is that you can do that. So if you know you're going to do a lot of work on just one day or maybe plan it out. If you really don't have the budget for it, then you know, to actually set up the internet and pay for the internet connection, etc. Then work outside today I'm going to work nine hours on my business and then just do that type of package and spend maybe 10 bucks to just get like a gig of data because that's normally how that works is only valid for one day. So you have to finish it within that one day and then you can do that and then you save hundreds of dollars potentially yourself.35:03If you're not doing webinars or stuff right off the bat, go to McDonald's sit in there or a coffee shop. Maybe you want to block out your time where you know I'm doing these things and I need this connection. And you can get away to a coffee shop or McDonald's or something like that, where it's free. You know, by all means, utilize those resources.35:24So guys, really the big thing here that I and Jason is talking about this, this is your setup fees on things that you need to start a business, okay? You don't need to buy crazy equipment, don't get fixated on $3,000 laptop and I need like $1,000 mike, and I need this and I need that people don't give a crap. Honestly, I'm being blunt when I started but there's a truth. They care about you as a person and what you can give them and what they need and what how you can fix the needs. Okay? That's the basics of starting a business. You don't need fancy equipment, you don't need to invest in the next best technology thing. I mean, you see me and Jason technology, we use very, I don't have a green screen. I don't care to have a green screen. It doesn't bother me. You know, for Jason it works because he's lighting is not so great in his office. But that's the thing you know. So, you know, it really depends. It depends on what you do. So, in saying that, I think that completes our episode. Jase do you have anything to add?36:17Nothing to add that's an awesome episode. And I know that's, you know, those are questions that people looking at looking to get into this business,a  have those questions, or two you use that information to say, I could never get this going and becomes one of your excuses. So now that myth is expelled. The procrastination is smashed.36:39Gone. Okay, awesome. Thank you, guys. And then I think we will actually do a whole new episode, eventually just on podcasting setups, and all of that stuff, because I think there's a lot more to it than just what we've mentioned. Definitely. And especially like, and then what we'll maybe do is we'll even do a screen share and talk more about it like that as well. You know, programs and whatever else awesomeness. Thank you, Jase.37:06Bye-bye

Receive and Listen to your words Matt 10: 14The biblical tennis match volleys back to the New Testament.What is the one thing the Lord credits? The Bible uses some different language to describe it. Faith, Belief, and receiving His Kingdom, His Savior, His Righteousness, in short: HIM.Abraham did it and we are to walk in his footsteps.That is the call to the people who hear the Apostles' message. There is no plan B. It is about faith, or Sodom comes back into the picture. Listen as we go back to the New Testament for a call to faith and receiving.

"If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land." 2 Chronicles 7:14The land God was talking about was the Temple. But the Temple isn't in Israel anymore. The Temple is You. God wants to reside in you. God wants to make His home inside of you. God wants the world to know He lives inside of you. God wants to heal your land.When God moves in, He cleanses you. This is how He will heal our land.

Please note: The number of COVID-19 cases and the situation referenced in this episode were based on reported data at the time of the interview and are subject to change.TranscriptionAlex Gorsky 0:03As we announced in late March, our goal is to be able to do this in a safe and effective way and have more than a billion vaccines by the end of 2021. We're working with regulators in the United States and around the world. We're partnering with other companies, particularly manufacturing facilities to be able to scale up so that we can produce here in the United States, but also around the globe. And that we would be doing all of this on a not-for-profit basis.Gary Bisbee 0:29That was Alex Gorsky, Chairman and CEO, Johnson and Johnson, on J&J's goal to produce 1 billion doses of coronavirus vaccine by the end of 2021. And to do so on a not for profit basis. I'm Gary Bisbee. And this is Fireside Chat. The most important next step in the battle against coronavirus is the availability of a vaccine. Alex discusses the prospects in progress as of May 20, 2020. The day this conversation was recorded.Alex Gorsky 0:57For making good progress there's still a lot of work that needs to be done. Much more testing needs to be concluded. But every piece of data and new insights that we gather, I think, are giving us greater confidence that this is certainly something that is possible, and that we're going to do everything we can to make it happen.Gary Bisbee 1:14The vaccine update is all-important. And in addition, we went deep with Alex on a wide range of topics, including the development of medicines to treat COVID, lessons learned from J&J's global and resilient supply chain, the most important characteristics of a leader in a crisis, key questions the board should ask in a crisis like COVID-19, the resources and support J&J have devoted to frontline workers and the value of J&J's diversified business model. I'm delighted to welcome Alex Gorsky to the microphone.Good afternoon, Alex, and welcome.Alex Gorsky 1:53Hey, Gary, thank you very much for having me.Gary Bisbee 1:54Well, we're pleased to have you at this microphone. Let's lead off with the discussion of the all-important vaccine and everybody's talking about that. It was just recently front page on the Wall Street Journal and so on. Can you provide us with an update on the status of J&J's pursuit of the coronavirus vaccine, Alex?Alex Gorsky 2:14Sure, Gary. First of all, let me say it's a pleasure being here with you to have this discussion. Thank you and all the Academy is doing to continue to educate and inform stakeholders about these important issues. And I guess the way that I would start off there is, first of all, who would have thought, even two-three months ago, let alone two or three years ago or several decades ago, that we would be facing into likely one of the most challenging times in our country's history. Perhaps other than World War Two and a few others as we face and deal with the coronavirus. And I think by almost any measure, certainly in terms of human life, in terms of health, healthcare systems, our economy, and many other issues. It's challenging us in ways that we really haven't been challenged before. And what I would say is, many companies we were watching closely when some of the first news started to come out of Asia, very late in 2019 and early 2020. And when we first started getting the reports, our priority was to ensure the safety of our employees in the region, as well as to secure our ability to continue to serve customers, hospital systems, physicians, and consumers in their respective countries. And at the same time, it was about mid-January, when the scientists that worked in our vaccine group who have long been researching significantly in areas such as HIV, such as an ebola, and the Zika vaccines identified coming out of the healthcare system in China, the DNA sequencing of the coronavirus. And they quickly did some work and developed hypothesis that if we utilized our vaccine platform, combined with information regarding the virus itself, obtained from the gene sequencing, that we could in fact, have the potential to develop a vaccine that would develop neutralizing antibodies and would eventually work. And in a process that would usually take five to seven years, literally in five to seven weeks, they put together a plan that included the work that I just mentioned, and some early animal studies that indicated we had a strong likelihood of producing a safe and effective vaccine. But also one that could be produced at large scale. And so really, since then, the entire focus of our organization has been on doing just that. And as we announced in late March, our goal is to be able to do this in a safe and effective way and have more than a billion vaccines by the end of 2021. We're working with regulators in the United States and around the world. We're partnering with other companies, particularly manufacturing facilities to be able to scale up so that we can produce here in the United States, but also for around the globe. And that we would be doing all of this on a not for profit basis, given the significant challenge that the virus represents to the world, and we're making good progress. There's still a lot of work that needs to be done, much more testing needs to be concluded from every piece of data and new insights that we gather. But I think they're giving us greater confidence that this is certainly something that is possible, and that we're going to do everything we can to make happen.Gary Bisbee 5:50Well, that's our great news and congratulations on your efforts in this space. Could we dig into the timeframe a little bit more? You mentioned 2 billion doses by the end of '21. What does that suggest in terms of the approach to the FDA and clearance and so on? In other words, would it be cleared by the end of this year or by mid next year? What would the timeframe be?Alex Gorsky 6:17Well, there's still much more than we need to learn through the preclinical work, the clinical work as well as the scale-up in the manufacturing process work that we're doing. And what I can tell you is I've never seen in my more than 30-year career in the industry, the level of partnering not only between different companies but also between regulators, the FDA, organizations such as ARDA are responsible for vaccine oversight and the United States. The same agencies in Europe all understand the severity and the importance of this moment of trying to do everything possible to accelerate that process. However, to do it in a way that ensures safety, and that ensures a high level of quality in everything that we do. Now what that means for us technically is that we are working hand in hand with regulators trying to parallel pass certain processes, where we would ordinarily, for example, do certain testing procedures prior to starting our larger scale-up of capacity and manufacturing an actual product. We're going at risk and doing some of those things simultaneously. We're looking at what are the absolutely critical steps in the process, and what can be done by utilizing new types of data analytics, at times even utilizing data and information from other similar compounds to see what we can do to move the timelines up. Because all of us understand that if we let it run its full process this could take five or seven years. Which frankly would be unacceptable. At the same time, if something is going to be used, with literally billions of patients or around the world, we need to ensure that the risk-benefit equation is very strong and agreed upon by regulators and other interested parties around the world. We're working hard to be in humans by late August or early September. Again, we will be producing at risk by that time to be able to have sufficient quantities. And it's our expectation that as we work our way through the early part of 2021, that we could be at that time producing at a rate of hundreds of millions of vaccines. Our goal is to be at a position by the end of 2021. To be doing at the rate of a billion doses, we do want to ensure that there's broad Global Access that's affordable that it's accessible for everyone. And again, on a not for profit basis.Gary Bisbee 8:46Well, good luck. We're obviously all very enthusiastic about the work that you're doing. Why don't we turned to medicines or treatment options?Alex Gorsky 8:57The very good news here, Gary, is that while this is a difficult virus, and certainly one is presented a major challenge in terms of what should be the right approaches to treatment, and how can they rapidly help address the underlying pathophysiology and biology with the patient and the disease. Once someone is diagnosed, we have literally dozens and dozens of companies working on therapeutics, medicines, and vaccines. And I believe that literally 10s of billions of dollars, hundreds of billions of dollars have been invested in the biopharmaceutical industry over the past several decades, that have put us into a position where we are today to be able to make significant strides in relatively short order. While again, there are dozens of approaches being studied. I would say the two main are one - can we develop an antiviral? Or how do we better perhaps regulate the body's immune system either up-regulating it or downregulating it in certain cases, it needs to be expanded in other areas, it can actually overreact and result in challenges something called the cytokine cascade syndrome. And so by either taking these independent approaches or combined approaches, I believe most scientists would agree that in the coming months, we should be in a position where we have not only one but potentially several therapeutics available to treat patients who've been infected. As we all know vaccines take longer, but here too, I think we're going to have multiple approaches. We're going to have RNA, DNA, mRNA approaches, vector approaches as we have. And what I can tell you from the collaboration that I've seen, between the various pharmaceutical companies involved is that we don't see this as competing against each other. We see this as competition against COVID-19. And something that's so important for the world for humanity, that we've got to do everything possible to bring these kinds of solutions to patients.Gary Bisbee 11:26Well, we appreciate the leadership that you and J&J have shown, along with the other pharma companies. So again, our good wishes are with you. Why don't we turn Alex to the caregivers who have operated under a very stressful environment. And I know J&J has spent considerable resources developing expertise and workers and the stress that workers are under. Can you describe the programs where J&J is committed $50 million to supply frontline workers with PPE?Alex Gorsky 11:59Sure, we're very proud of the long tradition in history we have at J&J investing in our frontline health care workers. In fact, Johnson and Johnson is one of the first companies to support nurses in a significant way. And on a personal level, to me, that's very important. My wife and sister are both nurses. I have a niece who's literally a nurse manager at ground zero in one of the local areas that are significantly impacted by COVID-19. And there's always been a strong ethos at J&J. We certainly put a priority on bringing new technology to patients and healthcare systems, but nothing replaces the important care provided by those frontline workers, the nurses, the aides, the physicians, the EMTs, who are literally on those front lines every day and imagine those who were there today, often putting themselves at risk often having to improvise in a significant way due to the patient load they were facing at any one particular time. And it's been nothing less than a rollercoaster. What we've seen particularly in places like New York City, Northern New Jersey, Detroit, Michigan, New Orleans, where there have been really significant outbreaks, we've made a commitment actually to do over 250 million dollars of investment over a 10-year time frame. But then we've also got another 50 million, half of which has already been committed directly to the pandemic issue and we think that that's important that we're there showing our support of putting tangible programs and other investments in place, all in the spirit of trying to help them do their job that's ultimately going to help patients.Gary Bisbee 13:43You've also supported the Chan public health school at Harvard and thrive global for stress management resiliency program. Can you describe that for us, Alex?Alex Gorsky 13:53We're fortunate at Johnson and Johnson. That was actually one of my predecessors, Jim Burke. Dating back to the 1970s, really put a challenge on the company to say we not only want to have the best workforce, but we want to have a very healthy workforce as well. And recognizing the important role that healthcare for each of us and for our families plays, ultimately in helping to ensure that we can be our best every day that we can show up to not only do our job but to be our best and make a contribution to be able to take care of our families. It's essential that we take care of ourselves. And through the last several decades, we've been able to make a lot of progress in wellness prevention live for life energy programs, that all have the focus on saying, "How can we help people be at their very best physically, and ultimately, that manifests itself in things like productivity, but also levels of engagement, how they feel about the company, and frankly, how they're also able to engage with their broader community. Where they live and work and raise their families, whether they're online training programs, whether they're in person, classes that focus on things like diet, exercise, like sleep. And again, all with an emphasis on prevention and wellness is perhaps being some of the most important steps that we can take to maintaining our overall health. And that certainly applies to COVID-19. And through the years, we've taken these very same ideas and programs, and in many cases, we've worked with customers and other partners and help do a like a train the trainer of sorts where we have produced these programs in their institutions. And I must tell you, the feedback is great. I think if you look at some surveys among nurses and physicians and other health care providers, their own health and in making sure that they are getting the amount of rest that they need on a daily basis is a significant challenge and I think the feedback that we've gotten from many of our partners has been overwhelmingly positive. And it's another way that we can take what we do at Johnson and Johnson, partner with others, and hopefully have a positive impact on the entire healthcare system.Gary Bisbee 16:14Well, the Academy has worked with J&J on several of those programs. And we're definite fans. Alex, I know there's a number of other activities and programs that J&J has worked with the health systems. Many of our audience are health system executives. Can you just share with us a bit about other programs that J&J is working on during the crisis in particular?Alex Gorsky 16:42Sure, you know, what I think is exciting about the crisis and every crisis that brings forth an opportunity to work in new ways together, and very early on in the crisis. Partners came to us asking if we could help in areas such as for example, acquiring PPE. Our hospital group rallied very quickly worked with our internal teams that were where we use PPE extensively in many of our manufacturing and production facilities and worked with some of their suppliers to try to assess hospitals to get an adequate supply of mass gowns, gloves and other types of equipment. We did that to a significant degree. When it looked as though we're on the cusp of exceeding capacity for ventilators in this country, our engineers and one of our groups quickly went to work and came up with a way to almost double the output from ventilators by creating a splitter, a 3d printed splitter, that could be applied in the right circumstances to help maintain additional patients on those systems. So again, in a very hands-on patient facing away, but in other cases, who actually helped some of the large accounts with terms we tried to revise our contracts that were very customer friendly. Recognizing the challenges that they were facing. So those are just a few of the ways that we been trying to partner and we continue to do so today as many hospitals start to open up again for elective surgeries. They're having to consider what kind of changes do they need to make in their supply chain to ensure that they can ramp back up that during a period where they're likely to accelerate their number of elective surgeries that the supply chain stays robust, stays constant? How do they ensure that they can get their workers and technicians back into the operating room with the right kind of protection and equipment in place? So these are all areas that we think offer a significant opportunity to partner likely in new and unprecedented ways with inpatient and outpatient health care systems around the country and in fact around the globe?Gary Bisbee 18:45Well, it's much appreciated by the health systems. You bring up supply chain if we could turn to that for a moment. The supply chain for PPE has been, I think we would agree, unreliable. We've looked across the country and I know J&J has substantial experience in building a reliable global supply chain. What are the key success factors that health systems could learn from J&J in terms of a reliable supply chain?Alex Gorsky 19:13Well, look, I think we're all going to learn a lot of lessons in this process that will hopefully put us in a better position and prepare us for the future or in a significant way because chances are, this won't be the last pandemic that we face. There will be things in the future, that through better preparation, better planning, and better early execution, we can make an impact sooner in the course of the disease. A few things that we've always tried to focus on at Johnson and Johnson is ensuring that you've got the kind of resiliency and redundancy systems in place that enable you to handle certain surges. We've seen this to a significant degree. There are parts or products that were quickly taxes as hospitals and others. Systems ramped up, being able to quickly engage not only your own internal supply system but other external partners to help fill some of the gaps that can be created when you see that kind of surge is critically important. Having the kind of business continuity plans in place so that you know what the checklist is where you need to go, how can you quickly adapt things as simple as your purchasing order requirements and protocols to be able to rapidly seek and complete ordering in a very different kind of environment that many of us face. So those are things that we have done that we continue to do and that I think all of us are going to have to improve our systems going forward like that. The other big opportunity here, Gary is I think, technology innovation. I think we're finding that in many ways. Many of our systems are rather antiquated, and how can we apply some of the new technology and the new ways of looking at and using datasets to gather insights and to rapidly develop options for us in a much more integrated, digital and connected way.Gary Bisbee 21:13Well, there's a balance between the federal, state, and private sectors regarding PPE supply chain stockpiles and so on. How do you think about that, Alex?Alex Gorsky 21:22Well, look, I don't think anybody has the ability to do it alone. I think it's going to take a lot of public-private partnerships, there will be certain components of the supply chain healthcare system that should be more centralized or standardized or done at the federal level, just as you would expect us in a company like Johnson and Johnson to do. On the other hand, you want the right amount of agility, flexibility, accountability, and responsibility at the local level. so that people can respond based upon the unique needs of that particular unit or customer at any given time. So I think again, knowing what should be done for example, In the preparation stage around stockpiling, or clearly, the federal government could play an important role versus what are those unique hospital opportunities? Do we want to continue to support at the local level to ensure that we are matching real-time need, which real-time supply and not encumbering it with ultimately could be a kind of paralyzing bureaucracy or other impediments that would prevent a particular system from getting exactly what they need at a certain time?Gary Bisbee 22:36Let's turn to J&J's diversified business model. Can you describe the Johnson and Johnson business diversification for us, Alex? Particularly, what's the value how you see that contributing to Johnson & Johnson as a whole,Alex Gorsky 22:50Our diversified model is one that we believe is an essential component of our success. For well over 100 years and it's a choice on how we run our business for the long term. If you look over most measures of performance, over 50, over 25, or 15, over 10, 5 years, Johnson and Johnson has exceeded the performance of its peer group. And we think because we have a diversified bottle of a consumer group, pharmaceutical group, medical device group, that at various times in their life cycles have either outperformed or underperformed. It gives us the optionality to continue to perform even in a market like today where the medical device market is down significantly. And yet our pharmaceutical business and consumer businesses continue to do very well, even in this type of environment. We think that having that kind of breadth and depth across our different businesses, frankly also gives us a very unique insight into healthcare. We try to go where the best technology the best capabilities are, we are not relegated by only is this type of pharmaceutical product or this kind of device or this kind of consumer product. And I think it gives us the ability to leverage the spaces in between. In fact, right now we're working on a comprehensive program in our cancer group to say, "How can we prevent and cure and treat cancer much, much earlier in the process?" All too often we find cancer very late. And if we can find it, if we can diagnose it, identify it, and treat it much earlier in the process, the probability of success and have a better outcome goes up significantly. And it's only because we have such a diverse portfolio that we are positioned to do something like that. Again, we think that there's a number of advantages, but we also expect each one of our business units to compete within their particular vertical to be competitive in terms of their performance of their pipeline. Their cost structure. So it's something that we pay a lot of attention to. And again, we think it's a core strength of Johnson Johnson.Gary Bisbee 25:08As a CEO of a diversified company, what do you pay particular attention to, Alex?Alex Gorsky 25:15I think it's all about appropriately managing your portfolio. And we set consistent and strong goals in place that each one of our sectors and each business within each sector should strive to be number one or number two in their category. Because we know that when you've got that kind of critical mass, it gives you the ability to find better science, find better people, and frankly, reach more customers. We require those respective units to have strong pipelines for the future, are they investing with the long term in mind so that they can be competitive today, but also competitive and five months, five years, 10 years away? That's critical. Next, we look for ways for these businesses to be complimentary. With other businesses, is it something that would be a good match to either help them better serve a particular customer? Or is it something that can help us be more effective or efficient within a particular business? And of course, we require all of our businesses to be competitive to also have a strong business over time that they have a competitive p&l relative to benchmarks in their particular area. And it's one of our businesses that doesn't meet those criteria over time. Then, of course, we ask a question, is it the right fit for J&J, even though it could be a healthy and good business, perhaps it would be a better fit someplace else. So that we could continue to invest in other areas of perhaps greater unmet medical need, or that presents a greater growth opportunity. So it's an ongoing process, literally something that we do with our leaders monthly, that we do with our Executive Committee on an ongoing basis and all the way up to our board of directors, to make sure we're investing areas where number one, we think we can make the biggest difference with patients and consumers. And number two, where we can ultimately generate the best long term returns for our company to be able to continue to invest in for shareholders to realize an appropriate gain.Gary Bisbee 27:16So if I could follow up on the leadership question for a moment, what are the most important characteristics of a leader during a crisis, like this crisis?Alex Gorsky 27:25I think that there are so many characteristics of a leader that really have a light shine upon them during times like this. One is an ability to react quickly to a situation frequently, we can become so bogged down with bureaucracy, or having both the systems that are there often to protect this kind of takeover versus understanding that decisions need to be made in a very timely in a very agile and a very flexible way. The way that I frequently describe it is: the best leaders are those who know that when things slow down, they speed up. When things speed up too much, they slow things down. And I think having your hand on the rudder of the organization, so to speak, at all times, to know when to ramp up and ramp down to make the best decisions is critically important. The next thing for me, it's, it's about engagement and communication, people expect to be communicated with particularly in today's environment, and if you leave a vacuum void, unfortunately, negativity tends to fill in versus speaking in a very authentic adult way providing your team's your colleagues with the facts of the situation that as best you understand them and know them at the time and then providing them a clear path or roadwork ahead that acknowledges the challenges but also gives them a reason to believe in the future. So I think those elements I found to be important always in leadership, but particularly so during times of crisis.Gary Bisbee 29:04Turning from leadership to governance, you sit on several large company boards in addition to J&J. What are the key questions of board members should be asking in a crisis situation like this Alex?Alex Gorsky 29:17As both the Chairman of our board and also as a board member on IBM, I think the kinds of questions you need to be asking in times like this are, what are the risks that the company faces? What are they in by risk, in terms of business, financial, operational, execution, an employee at all levels, so that, again, plans can be not only put into place but reinforced were necessary to ultimately protect your stakeholders. The second thing that I think the boards should be asking is, look, what are the immediate, near term and long term challenges and opportunities that will evolve as a result of this particular situation. We all have to work simultaneously on the issue. But also be looking around the corner over the hill so that we have the right and appropriate balance between today, tomorrow, the next month, next year. The actions we're taking not only allow us to address today's issue but better position us for the future, as well. I think the other question that the board should be asking is, what are we doing to ensure the safety, the success, the resiliency, of our people in our teams. Times like this can be very, very trying. There's always going to be an issue or a situation that you're dealing with, but making sure that you're providing your employees the kind of support they need to work from home, to help manage their family issues as well as their work issues, how to take care of themselves, how to continue their own career development, even during times like this. More important than ever, because without the engagement, the support of your employees, you just can't be successful.Gary Bisbee 31:05Alex, this has been just a terrific interview. I have one additional question if I could, and that is that we're all talking about a new normal that we imagine will be coming. How do you think about a new normal? in particular? What would you like to see, change, or evolve in the future?Alex Gorsky 31:24I think out of every crisis, there comes an opportunity to rethink the way that we do everything. And I think coming out of this, a few changes that will actually be good for us as a society and as a country would be a reprioritization, of public health policy. And I think we clearly are gaining an understanding that without a strong public health policy and outcomes, we can't have a strong economy, we can't have strong security, we can't have a strong society. So making those appropriate investments and keeping them consistent going forward, I think is going to be more important than ever. The second thing is I think that we're going to only accelerate the uptake in technology across almost every aspect of healthcare and of our business, whether it's telemedicine, telehealth, whether it's the way that we think about doing medical education, and training and support, whether it's the way that we merge files and data sets to do better patient and virus tracking and understanding technology, data, AI, machine learning, connectivity, sensing will all be inherent in what we do. And I think the pace of that uptake will only increase in the coming months and years. And last but not least, I think we're going to perhaps rethink the working contract that employees have with large institutions and organizations. I think we're realizing here that there are some jobs and roles that need us to be there every day. There are others that can be done remotely. They frankly facilitate us to be more productive and more engaged. And so rethinking the standard roles and responsibilities that many of us have had in place for decades, in light of the way that we live, the way that we work today, I think will present a significant opportunity going forward as well. I consider myself a realistic optimist. And I think I am in this case, there's no doubt we still have a significant road ahead. There will be challenges along the way. But I do remain confident that on the other side of COVID-19, that we can be a stronger healthcare system. We can be stronger leaders, we can be a stronger country if we address these things in the right way.Gary Bisbee 33:45Alex, thanks again, just a terrific interview. We very much appreciate your time today.Alex Gorsky 33:51Thank you very much, Gary. Stay safe, stay healthy, and I look forward to talking again soon.Gary Bisbee 33:57This episode of Fireside Chat is produced by Strafire. Please subscribe to Fireside Chat on Apple Podcasts or wherever you're listening right now. Be sure to rate and review fireside chat so we can continue to explore key issues with innovative and dynamic healthcare leaders. In addition to subscribing and rating we have found that podcasts are known through word of mouth. We appreciate your spreading the word to friends or those who might be interested. Fireside Chat is brought to you from our nation's capital in Washington DC, where we explore the intersection of healthcare politics, financing, and delivery. For additional perspectives on health policy and leadership. Read my weekly blog Bisbee's Brief. For questions and suggestions about Fireside Chat, contact me through our website, firesidechatpodcast.com, or gary@hmacademy.com. Thanks for listening.

Why And How Do I Pray? Philippians 4:4-7 Matthew 6:5-14The post Why And How Do I Pray? appeared first on Bedhampton Church.

My son, do not despise the Lord's discipline or be weary of his reproof,12 for the Lord reproves him whom he loves, as a father the son in whom he delights.~Proverbs 3:11-12 (ESV)Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.~Proverbs 22:6Hear, O sons, a father's instruction, and be attentive, that you may gain insight,2 for I give you good precepts; do not forsake my teaching.3 When I was a son with my father, tender, the only one in the sight of my mother,4 he taught me and said to me,“Let your heart hold fast my words; keep my commandments, and live.~Proverbs 4:1-4“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 You shall love the Lord your Godwith all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 6 And these words that Icommand you today shall be on your heart. 7 You shall teach them diligently to yourchildren, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way,and when you lie down, and when you rise. 8 You shall bind them as a sign on your hand,and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 9 You shall write them on the doorpostsof your house and on your gates.~Deuteronomy 6:4-8Discipline your son, and he will give you rest; he will give delight to your heart.~Proverbs 29:17Discipline your son, for there is hope; do not set your heart on putting him to death.~Proverbs 19:18Whoever spares the rod hates his son, but he who loves him is diligent to discipline him.~Proverbs 13:24Folly is bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him.~Proverbs 22:15Do not withhold discipline from a child; if you strike him with a rod, he will not die.14 If you strike him with the rod, you will save his soul from Sheol.~Proverbs 23:13-14The rod and reproof give wisdom, but a child left to himself brings shame to his mother.~Proverbs 29:15My son, give me your heart, and let your eyes observe my ways.~Proverbs 23:26

Originally Published 4/21/14The stuff that Dreams are made of!Here's the Playlist:Caught In A Dream Alice Cooper Love It To Death How Come Vertebrats A Thousand Day DreamSuggested by Tom TDreams... Real Punk Radio podcast Network brings you the best in Punk, Rock, Underground Music around! From Classic Oi!, Psychobilly and Hardcore to some Classic Rock n Roll and 90's indie Alt Rock greatness!! With Tons of Live DJ's that like to Talk Music From Garage Rock, to Ska.. We are True MUSIC GEEKS!

Esther 3:1-6, 5:9-14The "back-story" of Esther is the conflict between Mordecai and Haman. This conflict is what lead to the Jews being threatened with extermination.

"God’s Spirit has been breathed into us, connecting us one to another and raising us up to new life where we can walk together through fear and death and destruction.”"We are created with connectedness and spirit and hope breathed into us."How are you experiencing connectedness and spirit and hope right now?//Ezekiel 37:1-14The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.”So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act, says the Lord.”//This episode was written and recorded by Rev. Callie Swanlund. It was produced by Rev. Jim Keat. Background tracks include Button Mushrooms and Canada Goose by Podington Bear and Live For the Dead by Corrina Repp.Visit www.trcnyc.org/BeStillAndGo to listen to more episodes from all five seasons of Be Still and Go.Visit www.trcnyc.org/Donate to support this podcast and other digital resources from The Riverside Church that integrate spirituality and social justice.Rev. Callie Swanlund is the Associate Rector at St. Christopher Episcopal Church in Gladwyne, Pennsylvania. She is also the creator of How2charist, a digitally instructed Eucharist. Visit https://how2charist.com/ to find out more.This season of Be Still and Go is supported in part by Convergence as they help share each episode with their community. (You should do the same!) Convergence a network that supports the reshaping of organizations, congregations and leaders engaged in an age of movement from “organized religion” to “organizing religion” driven by the values of an inclusive, progressive theological vision for a more just world for all. Visit www.convergenceus.org to find out more.

"God’s Spirit has been breathed into us, connecting us one to another and raising us up to new life where we can walk together through fear and death and destruction.”"We are created with connectedness and spirit and hope breathed into us."How are you experiencing connectedness and spirit and hope right now?//Ezekiel 37:1-14The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.”So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act, says the Lord.”//This episode was written and recorded by Rev. Callie Swanlund. It was produced by Rev. Jim Keat. Background tracks include Button Mushrooms and Canada Goose by Podington Bear and Live For the Dead by Corrina Repp.Visit www.trcnyc.org/BeStillAndGo to listen to more episodes from all five seasons of Be Still and Go.Visit www.trcnyc.org/Donate to support this podcast and other digital resources from The Riverside Church that integrate spirituality and social justice.Rev. Callie Swanlund is the Associate Rector at St. Christopher Episcopal Church in Gladwyne, Pennsylvania. She is also the creator of How2charist, a digitally instructed Eucharist. Visit https://how2charist.com/ to find out more.This season of Be Still and Go is supported in part by Convergence as they help share each episode with their community. (You should do the same!) Convergence a network that supports the reshaping of organizations, congregations and leaders engaged in an age of movement from “organized religion” to “organizing religion” driven by the values of an inclusive, progressive theological vision for a more just world for all. Visit www.convergenceus.org to find out more.

View the Bulletin for Sunday March 29, 2020Service Times: 8:00 a.m. and 10:30 a.m.Bible Study and Sunday School temporarily on holdView the complete service on our YouTube Channel:>VIEW COMPLETE SERVICE

Matthew 24:9-14The antidote for tribulation

The Teachers Of Babylon Who Threatened To Kill Yeremyah For Speaking The Laws Of Yahweh, Are Now Called Catholic - Who Came From The Holy Roman Empire #03 - The History Of "The Ways Of The Kings Of The East" Fought Against By Yeremyah And All The Prophets Is Given In Kings And Chronicles.

The Teachers Of Babylon Who Threatened To Kill Yeremyah For Speaking The Laws Of Yahweh, Are Now Called Catholic - Who Came From The Holy Roman Empire #03 - The History Of "The Ways Of The Kings Of The East" Fought Against By Yeremyah And All The Prophets Is Given In Kings And Chronicles.

Deuteronomy 12:1-14The way the fruit of God's love through our Treasure demonstrates the extent to which all the other aspects of our lives really belong to Him.Pastor Jenn

Welcome to BedtimeGamer’s newest addition to our podcast content, Night School, where we dive into everything you need to know about a specific topic in the nerd world. Our first series is all about getting started with RPGs, focusing specifically on Dungeons and Dragons, 5th Edition.In this episode of Night School: D&D series, Shawn, Emily, Austin, and Drew are joined by Shawn's brother, Kevin, to discuss the ins and outs of being a Dungeon Master. The DM is basically the referree and rulemaster of Dungeons & Dragons, but they are much more than that! We discuss how the DM is integral for a fun experience, drafting a story that entices their players and pivoting to continue to progress the story when needed. Austin, Drew, and Kevin draw on their experiences as DMs, while the group at large discusses what they enjoy from their DM and tips for any would-be DM listeners to help you get started!Episode ContentIntroductions - 00:00:14The role of the DM- 00:01:30Who should DM - 00:02:41What you need to DM - 00:08:22How do you choose a campaign? - 00:16:26Prep work: how much and how to - 00:22:17Tips for starting to DM - 00:31:00Our favorite DM / campaign moments - 00:42:55Listener questions: 00:55:40Recommended resources - 1:05:50

DETERRENTS AND ACCELERATION OF ASSIGNMENTSREVIVAL SERIESSunday, Feb. 9, 2020In Ezra we will find deterrents and accelerants to prophetic fulfillment your assignment. The first deterrent to assignment is fear.Ezra 4:1-5Prophetic fulfillment does not make you exempt from adversity. The second deterrent is recognizing compromise.Micah 6:5, Numbers 25:1-3, Revelation 2:14The acceptance of compromise will become something that dominates your private world. Numbers 33:50Do you want acceleration of assignment then ask these questions;What areas of flesh have I allowed in my life that has caused me to become desensitized to the moving of the Holy Spirit? Can I say the antichrist is here and he has nothing in me? What areas have I given place to the devil and made it ok that my enemy is in my house?Community Group Discussion Questions-Have you ever been promised something but failed to fulfill the requirements to receive that promise? What is your greatest fear, if so, has that fear gotten in the way of your God-given assignment?What are you doing to protect your assignment from compromise?ANNOUNCEMENTSSpaghetti Fundraiser- February 16th is the youth spaghetti dinner fundraiser. It will be held at Rustbelt coffee at 1:30. Be sure to purchase your tickets in the foyer, after church, and support our youth that are going to summer camp.Healed Series- Next Sunday will be the beginning of a new Sermon series that will be running for the next 7 weeks called HEALED. We are encouraging you to take some extra cards with you that you received and invite friends and family to come and experience healing for their mind, body, and soul. The sermons will be loosely based on the book Emotionally Healthy Spirituality written by Peter Scazzero. We are sure that you will be blessed and encouraged by this powerful series.Church Center App- If you are still looking for the most convenient way to give in the offering here at Life Chapel, you will want to download the CHURCH CENTER app right away. It is very easy to use and it safely stores your information so you don't have to re-enter it each time you give. You can also set up recurring giving through this app. Make sure to download it today!

Alma Brunson lost her 16-year-old daughter Micaela to suicide back in 2016. Through her grief, Alma's mission now is to change the way families talk about suicide, depression and anxiety. She and her husband have been working to honor Micaela's life through scholarships, organ donation awareness, blood drives and programs to offer more resources for those facing mental health problems.Micaela Brunson Memorial Blood DriveVisit any Mississippi Valley Regional Blood CenterMonday, Feb. 10-Friday, Feb. 14The group code to donate in honor of Micaela is #3427

Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the firstfruits of all your produce;10 then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine.Proverbs 3:9-10Whoever trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will flourish like a green leaf.Proverbs 11:28A rich man's wealth is his strong city, and like a high wall in his imagination.Proverbs 18:11Do not toil to acquire wealth; be discerning enough to desist.5 When your eyes light on it, it is gone, for suddenly it sprouts wings, flying like an eagle toward heaven.Proverbs 23:4-5One gives freely, yet grows all the richer; another withholds what he should give, and only suffers want.Proverbs 11:24Whoever oppresses a poor man insults his Maker, but he who is generous to the needy honors him.Proverbs 14:31Whoever is generous to the poor lends to the Lord, and he will repay him for his deed.Proverbs 19:17Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise.7 Without having any chief, officer, or ruler,8 she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest.Proverbs 6:6-8The desire of the sluggard kills him, for his hands refuse to labor.26 All day long he craves and craves, but the righteous gives and does not hold back.Proverbs 21:25-26A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich.Proverbs 10:4The fallow ground of the poor would yield much food, but it is swept away through injustice.Proverbs 13:23Whoever is greedy for unjust gain troubles his own household, but he who hates bribes will live.Proverbs 15:27A false balance is an abomination to the Lord, but a just weight is his delight.Proverbs 11:1“Bad, bad,” says the buyer, but when he goes away, then he boasts.Proverbs 20:14The people curse him who holds back grain, but a blessing is on the head of him who sells it.Proverbs 11:26Whoever multiplies his wealth by interest and profit [a] gathers it for him who is generous to the poor.Proverbs 28:8A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.18 One who lacks sense gives a pledge and puts up security in the presence of his neighbor.Proverbs 17:17-18Riches do not profit in the day of wrath, but righteousness delivers from death.Proverbs 11:4

And it Drags On 01/22/20 Vol. 8 #14The impeachment trail is the Senate is a circus and the Democrats are successfully politicizing the process because the Republicans are weak and unprincipled.*Impeachment Speeches*Still No Direct Accusation*All the Did is Rules*Witnesses Scmitnessess*All About Slander*Clinton Attacks Bernie*She Recognizes the Danger*NetFlix Playing Games with Views*Meanwhile Over on YouTube and Platforms*Greta is MadVideo of today's show can also be seen HERE:Buy my Bestselling Book: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1460977033/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0Also: The Shotgun Republic; https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CDXG1EG/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1The money pledged thru Patreon.com will go toward show costs such as advertising, server time, and broadcasting equipment. If we can get enough listeners, we will expand the show to two hours and hire additional staff.To help our show out, please support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LibertyNeverSleepsAll bumper music and sound clips are not owned by the show, are commentary, and of educational purposes, or de minimus effect, and not for monetary gain.No copyright is claimed in any use of such materials and to the extent that material may appear to be infringed, I assert that such alleged infringement is permissible under fair use principles in U.S. copyright laws. If you believe material has been used in an unauthorized manner, please contact the poster.Special Thanks To:Craig B.Vanessa A.Patricia P.MirrakuDixie MScott L.Additionally:Janet R.David A.Marcia D.Howard R.Chris S.Eric M.Michael L.Christine R.Darryl R.

And it Drags On 01/22/20 Vol. 8 #14The impeachment trail is the Senate is a circus and the Democrats are successfully politicizing the process because the Republicans are weak and unprincipled.*Impeachment Speeches*Still No Direct Accusation*All the Did is Rules*Witnesses Scmitnessess*All About Slander*Clinton Attacks Bernie*She Recognizes the Danger*NetFlix Playing Games with Views*Meanwhile Over on YouTube and Platforms*Greta is MadVideo of today's show can also be seen HERE:Buy my Bestselling Book: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1460977033/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i0Also: The Shotgun Republic; https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00CDXG1EG/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i1The money pledged thru Patreon.com will go toward show costs such as advertising, server time, and broadcasting equipment. If we can get enough listeners, we will expand the show to two hours and hire additional staff.To help our show out, please support us on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/LibertyNeverSleepsAll bumper music and sound clips are not owned by the show, are commentary, and of educational purposes, or de minimus effect, and not for monetary gain.No copyright is claimed in any use of such materials and to the extent that material may appear to be infringed, I assert that such alleged infringement is permissible under fair use principles in U.S. copyright laws. If you believe material has been used in an unauthorized manner, please contact the poster.Special Thanks To:Craig B.Vanessa A.Patricia P.MirrakuDixie MScott L.Additionally:Janet R.David A.Marcia D.Howard R.Chris S.Eric M.Michael L.Christine R.Darryl R.

Series: EcclesiastesMessage Text: Ecclesiastes 12:9-14The way to enjoy the gifts of God is to acknowledge the giver of the gifts. Fear God and keep His commandments. Then, you'll be able to enjoy all of God's gifts.[Access all message assets, audio, video, and notes]

Summary: Open to the God who EmpowersPhilip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves. “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. John 14:8-14The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith!” And the Lord said, “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you. “Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’? Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’? Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’” Luke 17:5-10

There is a trigger warning for this episode. If you are listening to this episode and you feel triggered, please just go ahead and skip forward to the next incredible episode. Thank you so much for listening.In today’s episode, I am joined by Marian Bacol-Uba. Marian is a TEDx speaker and a conscious business coach. Before helping leaders grow their impact, influence, and income through conscious public speaking, she shared about the double life she was living at the age of 14 and the challenges of being a Filipino woman in their industry. Marian is a founding member and USA chapter lead for the Keynote Women's Speakers. The founder of Thriver Lifestyle and the host of Thriver Lifestyle Podcast. She has been featured on CBS LA, Miami Under 40, Thrive Global and other numerous international publications, and over 50 podcasts.Insights:How she started living a double life at the age of 14The transformation of her mindset from victim to survivor to becoming a thriverThe definition and the key concepts of conscious public speakingHow to own the power of your own voice and your authentic truthCreating positive social impact and elevating the collective consciousnessFinding the compatible set of tools, tactics and strategies fit for youManifestations of masculine and feminine energiesIf you want to know and read more about Marian, visit her website at http://www.marianbacoluba.com/ or check out her Instagram.If this episode resonates with you, make sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. Take a screenshot and share with your friends on social media me (@island_randi) so I can connect with you. Follow Randi on Instagram and FacebookRegister/ Learn more about The Inside Job: How to Attract Abundance by Connecting with Your Highest Self Support the show (http://paypal.me/islandrandi)

What if Mary had said “No”?Readings for the Fourth Sunday of Advent (Year A) 22nd December 2019.Reading 1Isa 7:10-14The maiden is with child.PsalmPs 23:1-2, 3-4, 5-6Let the Lord enter! He is the king of glory.Reading 2Rom 1:1-7Jesus Christ, descendant of David, Son of God.GospelMatt 1:18-24Jesus is born of Mary`who was betrothed to Joseph, son of David.

Listen to the recording of this sermon on our website: https://www.casperwels.com/sermons/what-does-it-look-like-when-our-savior-goes-after-a-lost-sheep/It is often not a sheep that you would want in the flock, but that sheep is made valuable to the shepherd and to the flock, and God is glorified by His grace to His sheep.12I give thanks to the one who empowered me, namely, Christ Jesus our Lord, that he treated me as trustworthy, appointing me into his ministry. 13He did this even though formerly I was a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a violent man. But I was shown mercy, because I acted ignorantly in unbelief. 14The grace of our Lord overflowed on me along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. 15This saying is trustworthy and worthy of full acceptance: "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners," of whom I am the worst. 16But I was shown mercy for this reason: that in me, the worst sinner, Christ Jesus might demonstrate his unlimited patience as an example for those who are going to believe in him, resulting in eternal life. 17Now to the King eternal, to the immortal, invisible, only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.

Title: Wake Up, Sleeper!Text: Romans 13:11-14The journey to self-awareness is an uphill climb. For those seeking a closer relationship with God, it is pivotal. Calvin reminded us, "...without knowledge of self there is no knowledge of God.” So, we wrap up our sermon series this week with a call to awake. We want to be fully alive for the discoveries we will make together.

seattledigital@hbi.com9a7eb17f-1c46-4c76-bc57-8b2c0fc98306Tue, 21 May 2019 00:00:00 PDTSha'ron and Skip00:55:14The

Sermon Recording Sermon OutlineSpeaker: Rev. Charles DrewSermon Series: What Heaven Has to Do with Real LifeEcclesiastes 1, 12; 1 Corinthians 3 (ESV)Ecclesiastes 1:1-11The words of the Preacher, the son of David, king in Jerusalem. 2 Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity. 3 What does man gain by all the toil at which he toils under the sun? 4 A generation goes, and a generation comes, but the earth remains forever. 5 The sun rises, and the sun goes down, and hastens to the place where it rises. 6 The wind blows to the south and goes around to the north; around and around goes the wind, and on its circuits the wind returns. 7 All streams run to the sea, but the sea is not full; to the place where the streams flow, there they flow again. 8 All things are full of weariness; a man cannot utter it; the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing. 9 What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun. 10 Is there a thing of which it is said, “See, this is new”? It has been already in the ages before us. 11 There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to be among those who come after.Ecclesiastes 12:13-14The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. 14 For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.1 Corinthians 3:1-6, 10-15But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. 2 I fed you with milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. And even now you are not yet ready, 3 for you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? 4 For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human? 5 What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. 6 I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth… 10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. 11 For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12 Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw- 13 each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. 14 If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. 15 If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.Sermon OutlineIntroduction:A haunting question: “Why am I putting in all this effort when there is so much frustration and inefficiency in what I do, and when in the end it will all be forgotten?”The Bible teaches that our work may be remembered forever.I) Heaven promises the possibility of meaning to our present workA) Heaven and the work of the churchPaul, Apollos, and Jesus: 1 Cor. 3:12ffB) A broader meaning.For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing whether good or evil. (Eccl. 12)1 Cor. 3.13, 14: “disclosed”… “survive”… “reward”Not talking about whether we get to heaven or not based upon their work, but whether we get to take anything with us.Our work might (and might not) survive the purging at the endThe eternal durability of our work will not depend upon the type of gifts we have been given (“gold, silver, and precious stones” versus “wood, hay, and stubble”–! Cor. 3:12), but upon the “foundation” upon which we build.Why is Christ so foundational?C) Meaning for us.“I reject at once an idea that lingers in the mind of some modern people that cultural activities are in their own right spiritual and meritorious—as though scholars and poets are intrinsically more pleasing than folks who pick though trash for bottles… The work of a Beethoven and the work of a house-cleaner become spiritual on precisely the same conditions, that of being offered to God, of being done ‘as to the Lord’.” (Learning in War-Time, C. S. Lewis)II) Two questionsA) How does our work “last” into eternity?Hard to know—but it will be satisfying.“Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little. I will put you over much. Enter now the joy of your Master.”B) How do we build upon the foundation of Jesus Christ?Bringing the Lord to work with us.Bringing the Savior to work with us.Questions for ReflectionWhat haunts the poet in Ecclesiastes 1:1-11? Do you ever share his sense of the vanity of your life and work? Why? Why not?The occasion for 1 Corinthians 3:1-12 was a squabble in the Corinthian church over whether Paul’s work or Apollos’ work were more important. Summarize Paul’s response to the squabblers.Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3 and elsewhere that a day is coming when every person’s work will be fully revealed and assessed. On that day that which does not measure up will “go up in smoke,” even if the person who did the work may not. How do you react to this notion? Why is final judgment described as a “revealing.” What sorts of things will be revealed?Reflect on the following statement: “The notion of a thorough assessment of our lives is sobering. But it is also exhilarating, for it tells us that God respects us enough to evaluate everything we do.”1 Corinthians 3 makes clear that God’s assessment of our work will not be based upon the type or prominence of our calling. How does the comparison between Paul and Apollos make this point? Why is it important to understand that God’s evaluation of our lives is not based upon the type or prominence of our gifts?God’s assessment is based instead upon what two things?Building upon the foundation of Christ can mean (among other things) bringing him as Lord to “work” with us: that is, imagining what our work world (our workplace, our block, our family, our politics, our studies, etc.) would look like if he were to assert his reign in them, and then nudging that work world, according to our ability and opportunity, in that direction. Identify at least one way you can bring, or have brought, Christ to work with you.Building upon the foundation of Christ can also mean bringing him as Savior to work with you. This will show up in at least two ways: (1) Knowing that we are sinners in need of forgiveness will keep us from acting as if we know all the answers to whatever problem we are addressing at work—it will, in other words, keep us humble; (2) We will be servants—always looking for ways to reflect the servant leadership of Christ in what why do, how we do it, and in what we seek our work world to do. Where can you make some progress in these areas?Prayer of ConfessionLord Jesus, all authority in every sphere of life has been given to you. It is only a matter of time before the fullness of heaven will cover our world as the waters cover the sea. We confess that we limit your reign. We tend not to bring you with us to work and study. We often fail to see colleagues and adversaries as you do. We rarely empty ourselves in the service of others. We often fail to speak of you when doors open. Forgive us for living so much of the time as if your kingdom were not real. By your Spirit give us your love and your Father’s love for this world. Amen.

2-17-2019 Weekly MessageThe contemplation of the week: Psalm 46:1-11Text: Genesis 17:1-14The title of the Word: The covenant of circumcision and the law, the gospel of eternal life through Christ’s circumcision When Abraham became ninety-nine years old Almighty God  appeared to him, and g...

Highlights in Hebrews (with Roger Kirby)Part 22 - Hebrews 9:11-14The blood of Jesus When Jesus Christ came as high priest of the good things that are now already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not made with human hands, that is to say, is not a part of this creation. He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, cso that we may serve the living God! Perhaps a summary of the OT (Old Testament) practices that the writer is relying on for so much of his argument is necessary first. This has two aspects found in the books of Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy. Negatively - full of ‘no’ and ‘not’ - are all sorts of instructions about how they were to live and what they were to eat. Our writer is not very interested in these. They comprised the Law. Positively there were detailed instructions about the tabernacle ( a sort of big tent construction) used during their wilderness journey and the practical details of how sacrifices were to be made there and what they accomplished. They thought of the tabernacle as the place where God was much more than anywhere else. Later the same basic idea was transferred to the temple that was to be built in Jerusalem. These sacrifices constituted a recognition that no one is perfect and there would be many involuntary infringements of the Law. These could be remedied through the complex sacrificial system. Not that it was the sacrifices that effected the remedy. They were symbolic of the attitude of the one sacrificing and of the grace of God that accepted his or her contrition. Even with the help of the Holy Spirit we too are not perfect - we sin - and we need Jesus to remove defilement from us. His death is effective and does remove the consequences of our sin from us. This is the great concern of our writer who explains the effects of the death of Jesus in terms of the OT examples. Of course this is not really about the ‘blood’ of Jesus. It is what is called a metonymym where a small part of something is used as a name for a whole. (Another example is the way some people will refer to their car as their ‘wheels’.) The ‘blood’ refers to the whole death of Jesus given as a sacrifice for us. In a quite remarkable way the writer uses the practices associated with the temple to explain what Jesus death means for us. He says that the earthly temple was, by Moses instructions (8:5), a copy of the true temple in heaven. So he is able to use the known facts about the earthly temple to indicate the deeper heavenly truths. The central purpose of the temple was as the place of sacrifice for sins and for worship. There were at least three implications of a sacrifice: 1. It rendered clean those who were not because of their past sinfulness. The OT system, particularly with the annual sacrifice in the innermost part of the temple made by the High Priest once a year, allowed for recovery from sin, that is redemption, Verse 12 uses that picture to explain what Jesus did “he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption. . 2. The Old Testament sacrifice was a symbol that the person making the sacrifice wanted to live in and for the Lord. This becomes what verse 14 says about “serving the living God”; 3. In the giving of the blood of the OT sacrifice it died in place of the one sacrificing. Now Jesus obtains for us an eternal redemption, “ He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption” (9:12). Of course, we must expect that we shall die one day in a physical sense. How then can our redemption be eternal? By the fact that although we shall die in an earthly sense we shall live forever as members of the eternal kingdom. So we have past, present and future aspects to the meaning of a sacrifice. The Old Testament sacrifices had to be made again and again, daily, monthly and annually. Because Jesus was both human and divine his sacrifice was effective forever and did not have to be repeated. This then is the great central teaching of the book of Hebrews. Christ was sacrificed to take away our sins (9:28); he sets us the greatest example of how we should live, ‘serving the living God’ (9:14); and he gives us a great hope for the future ‘he will bring salvation to those who are eagerly waiting for him’ (9:28). Click or Tap here to listen to or save this as an audio mp3 file ~ You can now purchase our Partakers books including Roger's latest - The Puzzle of Living - A fresh look at the story of Job! Please do click or tap here to visit our Amazon site! Click or tap on the appropriate link below to subscribe, share or download our iPhone App!

Find us online at: AdventNYC.orgEmail us at: Podcast@AdventNYC.orgTalk with us at: Advent Sermons & Conversations on FacebookCome to a service and hear the sermons live and in person Sunday morning 9am and 11am in English and 12:30pm in Spanish at 93rd and Broadway.Readings for this Week:First Reading: Jeremiah 33:14-16In the Old Testament, “righteousness” often has to do with being faithful in relationship. God acts righteously both in punishing Israel for its sin and in having mercy. In today’s reading, Jerusalem’s future name—“The Lord is our righteousness”—proclaims that the Lord is even now working salvation for Israel.14The days are surely coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah. 15In those days and at that time I will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David; and he shall execute justice and righteousness in the land. 16In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this is the name by which it will be called: “The Lord is our righteousness.”Psalm: Psalm 25:1-10To you, O Lord, I lift up my soul. (Ps. 25:1)1To | you, O Lord,I lift | up my soul.2My God, I put my trust in you; let me not be | put to shame,nor let my enemies triumph | over me.3Let none who look to you be | put to shame;rather let those be put to shame | who are treacherous.4Show me your | ways, O Lord,and teach | me your paths. R5Lead me in your | truth and teach me,for you are the God of my salvation; in you have I trusted all | the day long.6Remember, O Lord, your compas- | sion and love,for they are from | everlasting. R7Remember not the sins of my youth and | my transgressions;remember me according to your steadfast love and for the sake of your good- | ness, O Lord.8You are gracious and up- | right, O Lord;therefore you teach sinners | in your way.9You lead the low- | ly in justiceand teach the low- | ly your way.10All your paths, O Lord, are steadfast | love and faithfulnessto those who keep your covenant and your | testimonies. RSecond Reading: 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13Upon Timothy’s report from the congregation at Thessalonica, Paul is exuberant with gratitude for them. In this passage from his letter, Paul voices overflowing thanks, joy, and blessings for the people of this growing church.9How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy that we feel before our God because of you? 10Night and day we pray most earnestly that we may see you face to face and restore whatever is lacking in your faith.11Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you. 12And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you. 13And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.Gospel: Luke 21:25-36God will fulfill God’s purposes and, already, hidden signs of that fulfillment abound. On that great day there will be dismay, perplexity, confusion, and terror, but God’s people shall be given strength to stand boldly and receive God’s promised redemption.[Jesus said:] 25“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth distress among nations confused by the roaring of the sea and the waves. 26People will faint from fear and foreboding of what is coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken. 27Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in a cloud’ with power and great glory. 28Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”29Then he told them a parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees; 30as soon as they sprout leaves you can see for yourselves and know that summer is already near. 31So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that the kingdom of God is near. 32Truly I tell you, this generation will not pass away until all things have taken place. 33Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.34“Be on guard so that your hearts are not weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and the worries of this life, and that day does not catch you unexpectedly, 35like a trap. For it will come upon all who live on the face of the whole earth. 36Be alert at all times, praying that you may have the strength to escape all these things that will take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”

DAY 6 | SON OF A CHOSEN PEOPLEScripture Reading: Luke 1:33; Numbers 24:16-19; Daniel 2:44, 7:13-14; Genesis 49:10; Daniel 7:27; Hebrews 7:14 “He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will have no end.” — Luke 1:33 “the oracle of one who hears the sayings of God and has knowledge from the Most High, who sees a vision from the Almighty,who falls into a trance with his eyes uncovered: 17 I see him, but not now; I perceive him, but not near. A star will come from Jacob, and a scepter will arise from Israel. He will smash the forehead[d] of Moab and strike down[e] all the Shethites.[f]18 Edom will become a possession; Seir will become a possession of its enemies, but Israel will be triumphant. 19 One who comes from Jacob will rule; he will destroy the city’s survivors.” — Numbers 24:16-19 “44 In the days of those kings, the God of the heavens will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, and this kingdom will not be left to another people. It will crush all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, but will itself endure forever.13 I continued watching in the night visions,and suddenly one like a son of manwas coming with the clouds of heaven.He approached the Ancient of Daysand was escorted before him. 14 He was given dominion, and glory, and a kingdom;so that those of every people, nation, and language should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will not be destroyed.” — Daniel 2:44, 7:13-14 “The scepter will not depart from Judahor the staff from between his feetuntil he whose right it is comes[a]and the obedience of the peoples belongs to him.” — Genesis 49:10 “27 The kingdom, dominion, and greatness of the kingdoms under all of heaven will be given to the people, the holy ones of the Most High. His kingdom will be an everlasting kingdom, and all rulers will serve and obey him.” — Daniel 7:27 “14 Now it is evident that our Lord came from Judah, and Moses said nothing about that tribe concerning priests.” — Hebrews 7:14 Read Luke 1:33, Numbers 24:16-19The Old Testament recounts God’s endless commitment to the Israelites, His chosen people. The Savior of the world was born into a Jewish family. That was no accident! Despite the consistent rebellion and unworthiness of Israel, God's every action aimed to set them apart and make them holy. Generation after generation, the Jewish people lived in the tension of God’s discipline and mercy, and often lived in slavery or oppression under other nations. But God continued to promise a coming Messiah who would rule over them in love and set them free from all oppression.Read Daniel 2:44, 7:13-14; Genesis 49:10Imagine living as an Israelite before the coming of Jesus, knowing the prophecies concerning the coming Messiah. Now, imagine that all of those prophecies have come to fruition in a helpless baby born in a small town. It is no surprise that some Jewish people could not recognize Jesus as the promised king.Read Daniel 7:27; Hebrews 7:14The life and ministry of Jesus pointed unmistakably toward His death on the cross, through which God revealed a new covenant for His eternal kingdom. By God’s amazing grace, through the blood of Jesus, we now have the opportunity to share in the inheritance as part of God’s holy, chosen people. The Bible tells us that when we trust in Christ, we are adopted into His family as sons and daughters. We are now part of the holy kingdom of God, regardless of our earthly heritage.Reflection & Prayer:1. Have you ever struggled with the reality that God has a chosen people? What are some reasons God has the freedom to choose people for Himself and why might some people dislike that?2. In your own life, have you failed to acknowledge Jesus as the all-powerful king of the universe? Have you regarded Him as something less?3. Pray that God would give you proper sight to see Jesus for who He is, – and to see yourself properly as part of His eternal family.

Matthew 7:7-14The tenth session in our Manifesto series with Dave Dickinson sharing on Jesus' words on how we Ask, Seek & Knock in this life.

The Names and Titles of Jesus – The King of Kings Episode 103 This series of the names and titles of Jesus will give us a more in-depth understanding of Jesus Christ our Lord. This is eleventh in the series. Pilate therefore said to Him, “Are You a king then?” Jesus answered, “You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth Abraham blessed by Melchizedek 7 This Melchizedek was king of Salem and priest of God Most High. He met Abraham returning from the defeat of the kings and blessed him, 2and Abraham gave him a tenth of everything. First, the name Melchizedek means “king of righteousness”; then also, “king of Salem” means “king of peace.” 3Without father or mother, without genealogy, without beginning of days or end of life, resembling the Son of God, he remains a priest forever. 4Just think how great he was: Even the patriarch Abraham gave him a tenth of the plunder! 5Now the law requires the descendants of Levi who become priests to collect a tenth from the people— that is, from their fellow Israelites—even though they also are descended from Abraham. 6This man, however, did not trace his descent from Levi, yet he collected a tenth from Abraham and blessed him who had the promises. 7And without doubt the lesser is blessed by the greater. 8In the one case, the tenth is collected by people who die; but in the other case, by him who is declared to be living. 9One might even say that Levi, who collects the tenth, paid the tenth through Abraham, 10because when Melchizedek met Abraham, Levi was still in the body of his ancestor Judah Genesis 49:10 “Judah, your brothers will praise you;… The scepter will not depart from Judah, nor the ruler’s staff from between his feet, until he to whom it belongs shall come and the obedience of the nations shall be his. Israel Rejects God 1 Samuel 8 (NIV)6But when they said, “Give us a king to lead us,” this displeased Samuel; so he prayed to the LORD. 7And the LORD told him: “Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king. 8As they have done from the day I brought them up out of Egypt until this day, forsaking me and serving other gods, so they are doing to you. 9Now listen to them; but warn them solemnly and let them know what the king who will reign over them will claim as his rights.” 1 Samuel 12:12(NIV)… you said to me, ‘No, we want a king to rule over us’—even though the LORD your God was your king. The Anointing of King David (1 Sam. 16) David was not “the” king of promise “Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will fulfill the promise I made to the house of Israel and the house of Judah ... For thus says the Lord: David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel and the house of Judah” (Jeremiah 33:14-26). “When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body and I will establish his kingdom ... Your house and your kingdom shall be made sure before me forever” (II Samuel 7:11-16). David was not “the” king of promise Isaiah speaks of the coming son who will shoulder the government “upon the throne of David, and over his kingdom ... from this time forth and for evermore” (9:6-9) Ezekiel says that the Lord “will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David” (34:23). “My servant David shall be king over them ... forever” (Ezekiel 37:24-25). Psalm 45:6 Your throne, O God, is forever and ever; A scepter of uprightness is the scepter of Your kingdom. 7You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; Therefore God, Your God, has anointed You With the oil of joy above Your fellows. Once again their King would be God. God The Son Matthew 1:1-17(NIV) This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham: Abraham--Jesse the father of King David David --Josiah the father of Jeconiah[and his brothers at the time of the exile to Babylon. 12After the exile to Babylon---16and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah. 17Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Messiah. 18This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about[d]: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. 19Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet[e] did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. 20But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus,[f] because he will save his people from their sins.” 22All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23“The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”[g] (which means “God with us”). Luke 1 New International Version (NIV) God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, 27to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. 28The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” 29Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. 30But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. 31You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. 32He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.” Matthew 2 New International Version (NIV) 2 After Jesus from as born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi the east came to Jerusalem 2and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” 3When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. 4When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written: 6“‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’ Matthew 3 The Baptism of Jesus In those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea 2and saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” 13Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John. 14But John tried to deter him, saying, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” 15Jesus replied, “Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.” Then John consented. 16As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. 17And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with Him, I am well pleased.” Jesus reveals himself as the king of the Jews “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” John1:49 Teaching Parable, Parable, Parable, Parable about the kingdom of God Demonstrating His Power as King over—Satan—nature—sickness—time and space—death. Fulfilling Prophecy—Prophecy—Prophecy--Prophecy The Coming of Zion’s King Zechariah 9 9.Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey. Pilate therefore said to Him, “Are You a king then?” Jesus answered, “You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth Hey Vav Hey Yod YHVH . Hebrew language reads right to left. – – Sound, pictographs meaning, and numerical value. Yod = Means extended arm and hand. Hey = Means the breath of God, behold or reveal, Abraham – 5 for Grace, Vav = Means spike or nail. It is also the number 6 in the Hebrew alphabet meaning man and is the exact center of the Torah. Hey = Means the breath of God, behold or reveal, Abraham –or  5 for Grace, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.” 18And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Hebrews 1 8But about the Son he says, “Your throne, O God, will last forever and ever; a scepter of justice will be the scepter of your kingdom. 9You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy.” 1 Timothy 6 (NIV) Christ Jesus, who while testifying before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you 14to keep this command without spot or blame until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ,15which God will bring about in his own time—God, the blessed and only Ruler, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16who alone is immortal and who lives in unapproachable light, whom no one has seen or can see. To him be honor and might forever. Amen. Revelation 3:21 King James Version (KJV) 21To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne. Revelation 19 13He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. 14The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. 15Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. “He will rule them with an iron scepter.”[a] He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. 16On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS. Psalm 21 Why do the nations conspire[a]and the peoples plot in vain? 2The kings of the earth rise up and the rulers band together against the LORD and against his anointed, saying, 3“Let us break their chains and throw off their shackles.” 4The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them. 5He rebukes them in his anger and terrifies them in his wrath, saying, 6“I have installed my king on Zion, my holy mountain.” 7 I will proclaim the Lord’s decree: He said to me, “You are my son; today I have become your father. 8 Ask me, and I will make the nations your inheritance, the ends of the earth your possession.9 You will break them with a rod of iron; you will dash them to pieces like pottery.”10 Therefore, you kings, be wise; be warned, you rulers of the earth. 11Serve the LORD with fear and celebrate his rule with trembling. 12Kiss his son, or he will be angry and your way will lead to your destruction, for his wrath can flare up in a moment. Blessed are all who take refuge in him. Takeaways From Psalm 2 Vs. 4-9 We have a King. Greater than all Kings, God says, My King Vs. 1-3 Tells us we, as human beings hate that King. Vs. 11-12 Declares though we who have hated Him we need the King. We will never have blessedness until we serve the King and kiss The King. He is the King of the Jews (Matt. 2:2). He is the King of Israel (John 1:49). He is the King of the nations (Rev. 15:3–4). He is the King of Heaven (Dan. 4:34, 37). He is the King of righteousness (Heb. 7:1–3). He is the King of peace (Heb. 7:1–3). He is the King of glory (Ps. 24:7–8). He is the King of the ages (1 Tim. 1:17). He is the King of all kings (Rev. 10:12, 16). Worship Jesus the King. Subscribe to the podcast: {Apple Podcasts}{Stitcher}{Google Play}{IHeartRadio}{YouTube}{Spotify}{CastBox}

Daily Garfcast for 2018.07.14The first episode! 

Find us online at: AdventNYC.orgEmail us at: Podcast@AdventNYC.orgTalk with us at: Advent Sermons & Conversations on FacebookCome to a service and hear the sermons live and in person Sunday morning 9am and 11am in English and 12:30pm in Spanish at 93rd and Broadway.Readings for this week:Ezekiel 37:1-14The hand of the Lord came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?” I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.”So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude.Then he said to me, “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act, says the Lord.”Psalm 104Bless the Lord, O my soul.O Lord my God, you are very great.You are clothed with honor and majesty,wrapped in light as with a garment.You stretch out the heavens like a tent,you set the beams of your chambers on the waters,you make the clouds your chariot,you ride on the wings of the wind,you make the winds your messengers,fire and flame your ministers.You set the earth on its foundations,so that it shall never be shaken.You cover it with the deep as with a garment;the waters stood above the mountains.At your rebuke they flee;at the sound of your thunder they take to flight.They rose up to the mountains, ran down to the valleysto the place that you appointed for them.You set a boundary that they may not pass,so that they might not again cover the earth.You make springs gush forth in the valleys;they flow between the hills,giving drink to every wild animal;the wild asses quench their thirst.By the streams[e] the birds of the air have their habitation;they sing among the branches.From your lofty abode you water the mountains;the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work.You cause the grass to grow for the cattle,and plants for people to use,to bring forth food from the earth,and wine to gladden the human heart,oil to make the face shine,and bread to strengthen the human heart.The trees of the Lord are watered abundantly,the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.In them the birds build their nests;the stork has its home in the fir trees.The high mountains are for the wild goats;the rocks are a refuge for the coneys.You have made the moon to mark the seasons;the sun knows its time for setting.You make darkness, and it is night,when all the animals of the forest come creeping out.The young lions roar for their prey,seeking their food from God.When the sun rises, they withdrawand lie down in their dens.People go out to their workand to their labor until the evening.O Lord, how manifold are your works!In wisdom you have made them all;the earth is full of your creatures.Yonder is the sea, great and wide,creeping things innumerable are there,living things both small and great.There go the ships,and Leviathan that you formed to sport in it.These all look to youto give them their food in due season;when you give to them, they gather it up;when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.When you hide your face, they are dismayed;when you take away their breath, they dieand return to their dust.When you send forth your spirit, they are created;and you renew the face of the ground.May the glory of the Lord endure forever;may the Lord rejoice in his works—who looks on the earth and it trembles,who touches the mountains and they smoke.I will sing to the Lord as long as I live;I will sing praise to my God while I have being.May my meditation be pleasing to him,for I rejoice in the Lord.Let sinners be consumed from the earth,and let the wicked be no more.Bless the Lord, O my soul.Praise the Lord!Acts 2:1-21When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—in our own languages we hear them speaking about God’s deeds of power.” All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” But others sneered and said, “They are filled with new wine.”But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, “Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o’clock in the morning. No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:‘In the last days it will be, God declares,that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,and your young men shall see visions,and your old men shall dream dreams.Even upon my slaves, both men and women,in those days I will pour out my Spirit;and they shall prophesy.And I will show portents in the heaven aboveand signs on the earth below,blood, and fire, and smoky mist.The sun shall be turned to darknessand the moon to blood,before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day.Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’

The Names and Titles of Jesus – Jesus The Light of the World - Episode 95 This series of the names and titles of Jesus will give us a more in-depth understanding of Jesus Christ our Lord. This is the fourth in the series. The following is an outline. 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2He was with God in the beginning. 3Through him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made.4In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome[a] it. 6There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7He came as a witness to testify concerning that light so that through him all might believe. 8He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light. 9The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world.10He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 11He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—13children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. 14The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. 15(John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’”) 16Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. 17For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. and[b] is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known. Jesus THE LOGOS HE IS THE REASON WHY FOR EVERYTHING Colossians 1:16 For in Him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities. All things were created through Him and for Him. Jesus The Word = Logos Light - Life - Truth Jesus the Light of the World 1 John 1:5 This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. Psalm 36:9 For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. 1 Timothy 6:16 He alone is immortal and dwells in unapproachable light. No one has ever seen Him, nor can anyone see Him. To Him be honor and eternal dominion! Amen Nothing is a coincidence with God – everything he's created can all be traced back to Jesus the 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome Throughout the Old Testament, we have this promise of a great light that comes into the world and would push back the darkness of the world. Prophecies Isaiah chapter 9 “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone” (v. 2). In Isaiah 49 God says in relation to Messiah, the Servant of the Lord, He said: “I will make you as a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth” (v. 6). Isaiah 60: Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the Lord [Jehovah] will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you (vv. 1–2). The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the Only-begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. Σκηνόω Dwelt =(tabernacled) Jesus the light of the World John 1:18 No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side [Jesus, the Logos/Word of God], he has made him known. 2 Corinthians 4:6 For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," [that God who spoke in Genesis 1] has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God [how?] in the face of Jesus Christ [the Logos, the Word]. After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. 2 There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. 3 Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus. 4 Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters—one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” 5 While he was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!” 12 I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands, 13and among the lampstands was someone like a son of man, [d] dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. 14The hair on his head was white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing … His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance. Philippians 2 15so that you will [i]prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you [j]appear as [k]lights in the world, THE CONNECTION BETWEEN THE LIGHT ARE THE GLORY OF GOD John chapter 1: 6-13 Jesus the light of the world and the glory of God God is zealous for his glory The heavens declare the glory of God The sun is our light by day that warms, lightens and gives us life The moon gives us a testimony of the light of the sun with its reflection That brings me to John's statement about John the Baptizer not being the light but a reflection of the glory of the true light Jesus Christ John the Baptist Matthew 11:11 Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist;… John the Baptist The light and Glory John contrasted to Jesus Jesus was in the beginning with God – John was sent from God Jesus was God – John was a man Jesus was the light – John was a reflection of the light Jesus was the fulfillment of the law and prophets –John terminated the prophets and law God has called us not just to survive in this world, but to be light that pushes back the darkness Jesus is the Light of the world He’s the “Star come out of Jacob” that we read about in Numbers 24:17 He’s the sun of righteousness risen with healing in His wings in Malachi 4:2 He’s the One that John saw in Revelation 1:16 whose face was like the sun shining in full strength. He’s the bright morning star we read about in Revelation 22:16. The Lamb, the Light of the world One day He will return. There will be one final great sunrise. And then there will be no more sunrises. We read in Revelation 21 about the new Jerusalem. This city “has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb [the Lamb, the Light of the world] and [the] gates [of that city] will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there” (vv. 21–23). As I studied this lesson on Jesus is light and in that light His life studied light itself the sun for instance gives us son gives us life and it is pure energy of God never does anything by coincidence the word is not even in the Hebrew language and so the sun is shoo-in that gives us life is also unapproachable if we got close to it we would be destroyed and so it is with God Timothy said he lives in unapproachable light no man can approach God and live Facts about Light The human eye sees specific areas of the spectrum, but other animals and insects can actually see parts of the spectrum that we can’t. Light travels in a vacuum at 300,000 km per second (186,000 miles per second). Space does not have any light. We can see things in space due to light bouncing off of the objects in space. Light is used by plants to convert the light into energy as their ‘food’. The process is called ‘photosynthesis’ and converts carbon dioxide through the energy of the light. Subscribe to the podcast: {Apple Podcasts}{Stitcher}{Google Play}{IHeartRadio}{YouTube}{Spotify}

On this episode we discuss Game of Thrones (Finally)! This episode also features one of Jacob's friends from Work, Carlos. We get into how we got into the series and our full recap of the season 7 finale. There's also a dash of Star Wars in the middle somewhere. I'd include song credits here but i'm really not sure who did these songs. 

Philippians 1:7-14The word for “feel” in verse 7 sometimes gets translated “think” or “attitude” or “mindset.” It is a word that connects head and heart. We don’t have an adequate English equivalent. Some people may be more “head” people and others...

Series: The JourneySpeaker: Kimberly SmithKey Passage: Amos 5:18-24Other Passages: Exodus 19:5-6, Amos 1:1, Amos 2:6-8, Amos 3:2, 1 Corinthians 5:12, Isaiah 1:17, James 1:27, Amos 5:14The prophet Amos speaks God's message calling the Israelites to act from a heart of Justice rather than practice empty religion. Pastor Kimberly unpacks how this message is relevant to us today.

2 Corinthians 13:14The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.p.p1 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000} p.p2 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 7.5px 0.0px; line-height: 18.0px; font: 12.0px 'Helvetica Neue'; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000} p.p3 {margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px 'Times New Roman'; -webkit-text-stroke: #000000} span.s1 {font-kerning: none} span.s2 {text-decoration: underline ; font-kerning: none} In this study we examine the change brought about by the sacrifice of Jesus. In the Old Testament we see the ark of the covenant kept in the Holy of Holies. The thick veil that separated the Holy of Holies from the rest of the tabernacle was a “line of demarcation” between the priest and the layman. The layman had no access to this Holiest of places where the presence of God dwelt.   Now, in the New Covenant, we all have access to the presence of God. As Jesus “breathed his last,” the dividing veil was torn from top to bottom. No longer does the Spirit of God dwell in a temple made with hands, but resides in every believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. We can now have true fellowship, communion and partnership with the Holy Spirit in our daily lives. We can expect him to lead us and to teach us.

This week’s show: curveballs and home runs. New developments are on deck in the saga of Oregon’s art glass makers, and for one act trying to get recognition for its entirely ironic band name. Plus we bring back a favorite from last year, to get you primed for Wordstock. Hope you’ve got your helmet on — all the best bombs are dropping! Thanks for helping us make this listener-supported show every week. Give a gift, before you do anything else this weekend. Supreme Court Will Hear The Slants Trademark Case — 1:18The U.S. Supreme Court says it will hear a case pitting Portland-based all-Asian electro-rock band The Slants against the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The band has been fighting to trademark its name since 2011. The PTO denied the request on the grounds the name is racially disparaging. Bandleader Simon Tam says it’s unconstitutional for government to use offensive speech as a basis for rejecting trademarks. The high court refused to hear a similar case involving the Washington Redskins, but a ruling in the Slants’ favor could help the team.  Listen Back: Ursula LeGuin at Wordstock 2015 — 3:15The Library of America has just published some key early work by literary great Ursula K. Le Guin. “The Complete Orsinia” is a fascinating early lab in which Le Guin explored life under oppressive regimes. We thought it was a good time to listen back to our conversation with Le Guin at Wordstock 2015. Le Guin discusses her process, her guide to writing, “Steering the Craft”, and more. (You can find a longer version of our interview here.)Uroboros To Close In Early 2017 — 13:52Portland art glass manufacturer Uroboros just announced this week the company plans to close its plant on North Kerby Ave. early in 2017. Glass has been made there for more than 43 years. The company’s president Eric Lovell cited market conditions, the real estate value of the central location, and the cost of new environmental regulations. Lovell also said that his own impending retirement as a factor. Glass artists including San Diego’s Cathy Coverley called the loss of Uroboros “terrifying.” Portland-born Writer Fighting To Save Harlem Landmark — 17:04Portland native Renee Watson, now with the I, Too Collective in New York, was in town this week for some fundraising. Langston Hughes was the heart and soul of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and ‘30s. His brownstone on East 127th street in Harlem is a national landmark but it’s been mostly empty for decades. As Harlem’s real estate scene goes upscale, Watson is leading the effort to preserve the building. We listen back to an August conversation she had with NPR - Weekend Edition’s Scott Simon.In Other Words, Portlandia No Longer Welcome — 22:14The feminist bookstore In Other Words servers its ties with the IFC series, Portlandia. Looks like Candace and Toni will be looking for new digs. Any suggestions?Pete Krebs’ Autumn Trifecta — 23:41A huge month for singer, songwriter, and rock & roll survivor Pete Krebs: he’ll be inducted into the Oregon Music Hall of Fame on October 8th, and is launching two new records at the same time — a career retrospective, called “Hey Pete Krebs” and a new Hazel live album, excavated from 1993 recordings. Krebs earned his chops in Portland’s 80’s punk rock scene, and has been a mainstay on country, jazz, and indie stages around town ever since.(photo cred. Jeremy Balderson)

Hebrews 8:1-9:14The old covenant made clear what an insuperable barrier sinfulness raises between mankind and an infinitely holy God. The sacrifice of Christ is so powerful it removes all those barriers so that we can enter the Holy of Holies and approach the Mercy Seat, God's throne of grace.

The Book of Revelation is regarded by most people as the most difficult to understand book in the Bible, and to be sure, there are many passages within its pages that we can only guess at their meaning. But there is much we can learn, and as a matter of fact, chapter 1, verse 3 promises blessings to those who study it. The author is the apostle John, who was imprisoned on the island of Patmos, just off the coast of Greece. John is either shown a vision of Heaven, or he is taken there. We can’t really tell from his description. And when he is there, a voice tells him to write down what he sees. When he turns to see who was speaking to him, he sees someone who looked like a son of man. He didn’t know who it was, and no wonder. John says, “He was dressed in a long robe with a gold strip of cloth around his chest. 14The hair on his head was white like wool, as white as snow. His eyes were like a blazing fire. 15His feet were like bronze metal glowing in a furnace. His voice sounded like rushing waters. 16He held seven stars in his right hand. Out of his mouth came a sharp sword that had two edges. His face was like the sun shining in all of its brightness.” What would you do if you saw something like that? Probably what John did. He fainted. But this awe inspiring person puts his right hand on John and said, “Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. 18I am the Living One. I was dead. But look! I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys to Death and Hell.” It was Jesus! And he told John not to be afraid. Despite His appearance, despite the fact that He holds the keys to Death and Hell, He tells John not to be afraid. If we are in Christ Jesus, if we are His, we have no cause for fear. We don’t need to fear what is in the past, we don’t need to fear what is in the present, we don’t need to fear what is in the future. We are His. We are in Him, and He is in us. And greater is He that is in us than he that is the world. Do not be afraid. What do you think?

THIS IS A PRERECORDED SHOW!!!!!!  This HoH Rewind is to prepare yall for the All Women's Show come up next Wednesday 11/19/14The show all of yall have been waiting for!!!!  This is one of those shows you don't want to miss!!! Join us on House of Harley Talk Radio as Brothas from ALL walks of life come together as one to discuss our issues and what we need to do to make our lives better and our familes better.  We will be uncut and RAW as we discuss Man Issues, Life Issues, Relationship Issues, Fatherhood Issues, Husband Issues, Success, Education, and MUCH MUCH MORE!!!  Ladies if you ever wander what men are thinking...this show IS for you.  Ladies if you have questions for the panel of men....THIS show is for you, so make sure you don't miss this show.  Join us Wednesday at 9pm....and join in on the dialogue with these GREAT MEN of our community.  They will be calling from near and far, so make sure you tune in!!!!  Call the show 347-884-9373 

Minister Favor Mitchell February 9, 2014 I Chronicles 13:1-14 1David conferred with each of his officers, the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds. 2He then said to the whole assembly of Israel, “If it seems good to you and if it is the will of the Lord our God, let us send word far and wide to the rest of our people throughout the territories of Israel, and also to the priests and Levites who are with them in their towns and pasturelands, to come and join us. 3Let us bring the ark of our God back to us, for we did not inquire of it during the reign of Saul.” 4The whole assembly agreed to do this, because it seemed right to all the people. 5So David assembled all Israel, from the Shihor River in Egypt to Lebo Hamath, to bring the ark of God from Kiriath Jearim. 6David and all Israel went to Baalah of Judah (Kiriath Jearim) to bring up from there the ark of God the Lord, who is enthroned between the cherubim—the ark that is called by the Name. 7They moved the ark of God from Abinadab’s house on a new cart, with Uzzah and Ahio guiding it. 8David and all the Israelites were celebrating with all their might before God, with songs and with harps, lyres, timbrels, cymbals and trumpets. 9When they came to the threshing floor of Kidon, Uzzah reached out his hand to steady the ark, because the oxen stumbled. 10The Lord’s anger burned against Uzzah, and he struck him down because he had put his hand on the ark. So he died there before God. 11Then David was angry because the Lord’s wrath had broken out against Uzzah, and to this day that place is called Perez Uzzah. 12David was afraid of God that day and asked, “How can I ever bring the ark of God to me?” 13He did not take the ark to be with him in the City of David. Instead, he took it to the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite. 14The ark of God remained with the family of Obed-Edom in his house for three months, and the Lord blessed his household and everything he had.