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2 episodes with god be
5 episodes with god be
2 episodes with god be
2 episodes with god be
2 episodes with god be
2 episodes with god be
2 episodes with god be
2 episodes with god be
2 episodes with god be
In this message, Pastor Jamie Nunnally answers your submitted questions. 1. Is it OK for Christians to be cremated instead of buried?According to the Bible during the resurrection, we get new bodies, not renovations of our existing bodies.2 Corinthians 5:1-3 NLT 2. I have a friend and have heard of several other high profile believers who have deconstructed their faith and walked away from the gospel altogether. How should we guard our hearts from this?Three phases of Christian belief:1. Construction – what you were taught.2. Deconstruction – investigating whether what you believe is true.3. Reconstruction – developing a balanced, Biblical belief-system.Acts 17:11-12 3. Who rolled away the stone at Jesus' tomb? Do you think Jesus did it himself? Or was it the Holy Spirit? God the Father?Matthew gives us this detail.Matthew 28:2 4. I've never read all the way through the Bible. Am I a bad Christian?Bad? No. Lazy? Maybe.Romans 15:4 Ultimately, the goal of the written word is to get to know the author, so be spirit-led in your reading. 5. What do you think about seasons of life where God seems distant?This is good news – you're growing up. a. Perspective - It's just a season.b. Practice – Spiritual disciplines are the things you do—not out of obligation—but to ensure a safe trip when visibility is low.c. Presence. Pursue the presence of God.2 Corinthians 3:18 ESV It's OK if you don't feel God all of the time. We are called believers, not feelers. 6. Should wives be upset with their husbands if they go hang out with their friends for hours without telling her?Probably. Married people should act like they're married. Ephesians 5:33 NLT 7. How do we handle unanswered prayers for healing?Acts 10:38Healing is always God's will, but not always God's wisdom.We hold these two truths together: Jesus healed everyone He possibly could, AND 100% of the people Jesus healed still died. Every believer gets permanently healed in heaven.Keep praying! 8. Why do so many Christians look down their nose at the less than fortunate ones?We don't understand righteousness. There are three types of righteousness we see in scripture, and only one works.a. Righteousness of the world – Be good.b. Righteousness of the Pharisees – Be better.c. Righteousness of God – Be in Christ. Romans 3:22 Receiving the acceptance of God doesn't mean we stop trying, it just means that we stop trying out. We already made the team -no need to compare ourselves anymore. 9. Where did John get his papyrus to write the book of Revelation? 10. My spouse and I have some different minor theological positions. How should we teach our kids?Proverbs 22:6 The essentials should be instilled from a young age, but peripheral stuff is a good opportunity to invite them into your varying opinions. Are you trusting God with your questions?
What do you do when life is good? Scripture:“When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the Lord your God… Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God.”– Deuteronomy 8:10–11 Don't Waste the Blessing After the cross came the resurrection. After sorrow came joy. Just as Easter reminds us that God meets us in the valley, it also assures us He walks with us on the mountaintop. But here's the real challenge: how we live in the good days matters just as much as how we endure the hard ones. When life is comfortable—money's steady, relationships are peaceful, and you're healthy—it's easy to get lulled into a spiritual nap. We stop praying with urgency. We stop seeking God with hunger. And before long, we stop acknowledging that He's the one who brought us to this season in the first place. Israel did this after entering the Promised Land. They forgot the God who had delivered them from slavery and began to drift. And if we're honest, we've all done the same. When things go wrong, we blame God. But when things go right? We take the credit. Let's be clear—blessing isn't the finish line. It's the […] The post Thriving in the Good Days appeared first on UNCOMMEN.
In a world that often feels uncertain and overwhelming, it's easy to lose sight of the hope we have in Christ. But no matter the trials or struggles we face, our hope in God is steadfast and unshakable. This hope is not based on circumstances, but on His unchanging love and faithfulness. When we anchor our hearts in His promises, we can take joy, knowing that He is working all things together for our good. Our hope in God is the source of true joy, a joy that transcends our circumstances and strengthens us in every season. Join the Conversation:How has your hope in God brought you joy, even in difficult times? Share your story with us on social media @LifeaudioPodcasting or via email—What Scriptures or moments have reminded you to rejoice in the hope we have in Christ? SUBSCRIBE to our sister podcasts:Your Daily Prayer: https://www.lifeaudio.com/your-daily-prayer/Your Daily Bible Verse: https://www.lifeaudio.com/your-daily-bible-verse/ Full Transcript Below: Take Joy in Your Hope in God Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Romans 12:12 2021 turned out to be a challenging year. My husband and I suffered through many difficulties: financial strain, health issues, and relational conflict. First, a litany of bills and repairs taxed our bank account. Then, I went through a health challenge that impacted my ability to work and forced me to take some time off to rest. Then, conflict with my husband's job brought a looming black cloud into our home. No matter how hard we tried, the trials kept coming. It was quickly becoming too much to bear. One day, during my prayer time, I cried out to God: Why are you doing this to me? Don't you care about me? Can't anything be easy? Although the tribulations kept coming, I noticed something: my reaction to them changed. I no longer came home complaining about how terrible my day ended. Instead, I went to the Lord. I journaled my feelings and read the bible more often. Soon, the Lord's love expressed through the Bible changed my heart. I read about the mercy and grace of Jesus. I saw him express His love to others in each book. I was inspired to become more like a disciple than a Pharisee. As I read, I realized I was more like a Pharisee than I thought. I found that I complained rather than was grateful, and I didn't believe that Jesus was who He said He was. But as God changed my heart, I began to feel God could turn things around. I started to see trials as a good thing rather than a bad thing. Soon, I looked forward to having my time with God. Eventually, the trials subsided, and my circumstances got a little easier. But the suffering brought me closer to God in prayer than I'd ever been. Trials that I thought were a punishment were really a blessing in disguise. When we had financial concerns, my friends helped us. When I faced the health challenge, I had my church uphold me in prayer. When conflict arose, we used the best conflict resolution skills possible and resolved it as best we could. Although I don't want to go through those trials again, God didn't waste my pain during those times. God used it to make me more grateful. I turned my tears into gratitude, transforming my thoughts and, ultimately, my heart. He drew me closer to him and improved my prayer life. I heard his voice when I listened as well. My relationship with God deepened like never before. Sometimes, the worst things in life turn out to be the best things after all. Advent is a season of expectation and anticipation. While the people expected the Savior to be a king who would take away all their suffering, our king emerged in the most unusual circumstances. Jesus was far from what they expected their king to look like. What they thought they wanted turned out to be not what they expected. Life is like that sometimes. Life may look far from what you expected it to be. You may feel disillusioned or jaded with how life has turned out. You may be complaining or confused as to what God is doing. If this is you, take joy in your hope in God. Come to God faithfully in prayer. Let Him turn your mourning into gratitude. Be grateful for what God has already done. Let God turn even the most challenging situation around for your good. Count your blessings. Be content in this season of life. Take joy in the life God has given you. Be patient in your trials. Place your hope in God. Praise God for what he already has given. Put your hope into turning around even the most challenging situation. He always changes things around for our good and His glory. Father, help us to be joyful as we hope in you. Rejoice in knowing that even when life looks far from what we think it should be or if we're dealing with relentless trials, we can still delight in having hope in you. Amen. Intersecting Faith and Life In what ways can you exude patience, unconditional love or joy to others today? Further reading Philippians 4:13 Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.
The one true God: Be glorified. For more resources on reading through the Bible in a year, visit my church's website at this link or text us at 888-644-4034. Feel free to join me on my other daily podcast, Your Next Step. God bless - Doyle See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Meeting the God Who Keeps His Promises Lesson 3 Genesis 1:26-31 Key Statements on the Creation of Man • “Let us” – A reminder of the Trinity • “Make man” – Humans are made not evolved from lower life forms • “Image and Likeness” – Made for a unique relationship with God • “Be fruitful, multiply; replenish the earth” – Fill the earth with “God-fellowshippers” • “Subdue and take Dominion" – Take control and cultivate the earth • “Very Good” – Exceedingly good, nothing bad
Tune in to today's Sermon: The Peace and Love & God Be with you Date: 8th September, 2024 Speaker : Eld Nathan Nartey Readings : 2 Thess 3:16 Luke 2:14 John 14:27 ; 16:33 ; 14:23 Acts 10:36 Romans 5:1 Eph 2 :14-17
Synopsis: In this episode, living amidst the most anxious generation of all time, Fr. John and Mary reflect on Isaiah's encouraging, timely and healing words from God: Be strong! Fear not! Scripture passage: Isaiah 35:4-7a Beauty of Hope from Good News Conference, 2022 https://watch.actsxxix.org/videos/the-beauty-of-hope The Rescue Project Challenge: https://rescueproject.us/challenge/ Connect with us and our community on our websites and social media. Or simply reach us via email at mission@actsxxix.org (mailto: mission@actsxxix.org) ACTS XXIX - Mobilizing for Mission Web: https://www.actsxxix.org Instagram: @acts.xxix Facebook: @ACTSXXIXmission The Rescue Project Web: https://rescueproject.us Instagram: @the.rescue.project Our Streaming Channels Web: https://watch.actsxxix.org/browse YouTube: @actsxxix (https://youtube.com/actsxxix)
Don't work for blessing, work from blessing! Jesus flips the idea of blessing upside down, revealing how we are truly blessed, which is the opposite of what we have always thought. Through the intro of the sermon on the mount, we will see what Jesus meant by 'blessed' and then challenge us to be salt and light. Salt and light! Be these!Group Life Questions:1. What stood out the most about the message?2. Read Matthew 5:1-10 in 2 other translations. What are some similarities and differences between the wordings?3. For each beatitude, list the 'blessed' or 'blessing'.4. Look at your list, where you have seen these truths in the lives of your family & friends?5. Where have you seen these in your own life?6. How can you be salt and light to someone this week? 7. End your time in contemplative prayer. Talk to God/Listen to God/Be with God.
God Be with You Till We Meet Again Closing Music from the August 25, 2024 Worship Service Groveport UMC, Groveport Ohio
AUGUST 11, 2024 TWELFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST REV. KENDRA BALLIET JAMES ROSS, ORGANIST Prelude - Invitation-Paul Randall Keith Welcome *Call to Worship LEADER: We gather today knowing there are people in our world who are surrounded by violence and conflict on every side. ALL: Our work of peace begins with prayer. LEADER: We gather today knowing there are people in our community who feel lost, alone, abandoned, and forgotten. ALL:Our work of love begins with prayer. LEADER: We gather today knowing there are people in this place, this neighborhood, this world that we all share who experience overwhelming grief, despair, and sorrow. ALL:Our work of hope begins with prayer. LEADER: We gather not to look away from the world but to witness the needs of our neighbors through the lens of God's love. ALL: May we be a people who pray and, out of our praying, do the work of bringing peace, love, and hope to all we encounter. Amen. *Opening Hymn “Lord Listen to Your Children Praying” #2193 *Opening Prayer with sung response (#2193 - "Lord, Listen to Your Children Praying") Loving God, who watches over us like a parent, delighting in our happiness and weeping over all the ways we harm one another, guide us. Nurture us. Empower us to be your peacemakers and mercy-bringers in this world. “Lord, listen to your children praying” Merciful God, our world is full of war, violence, injustice, and oppression. We are surrounded on all sides by misinformation, half-truths, and lies. Give us courage to tell the truth of your love, to protect the innocent, and to resist evil in every way it presents itself. “Lord, send your Spirit in this place;” Gracious God, our neighborhoods are full of people who are struggling. Struggling to make ends meet, struggling to find stability, struggling to find community. Empower us to notice, to reach out, and to love our neighbors as you have called us to love. “Lord, listen to your children praying” God of Hope, our lives are filled with so many reasons for despair. Loneliness abounds, uncertainty overwhelms, and suffering feels constant. Fill us with the warmth of your love and inspire us to extend a hand, a hug, a smile, a gesture of connection in a disconnected world. “Send us love, send us power, send us grace.” In the name of the Triune God who gives, receives, and extends Love to all…Amen. Confession of Faith: Apostles’ Creed #881 Gloria Patri Children's Chat Music Ministry and Offertory - Improvisation on "Burleigh"-Jon Spong Doxology and Prayer of Gratitude Scripture - 2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33 Sermon Series “Worship with Rejoicing” Sermon: “It’s Complicated” Joys/Concerns Hymn "Precious Lord, Take My Hand" #474 Pastoral Prayer/Lord's Prayer Closing Hymn “God Be with You till We Meet Again” #672 Action Steps & Benediction Postlude - March on "Joyful Song"-Jon Spong The flowers on the altar today are given to the glory of God and in honor and memory of Rev. Lou Edwards Pierce and Mrs. Denothras Pickens Pierce by Dr. Armendia P. Dixon and the Pierce Pickens Family. Thank you for sharing in this worship service. Please continue to stay in touch through our website (stoneumc.org) and/or by following us on Facebook (Stone UMC). If you have joys or concerns that you would like lifted up in prayer, please fill out the Prayer Card in the pew, on the website, share them by contacting us at 814-724-6736 or churchoffice@stoneumc.org
AUGUST 11, 2024 TWELFTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST REV. KENDRA BALLIET JAMES ROSS, ORGANIST Prelude - Invitation-Paul Randall Keith Welcome *Call to Worship LEADER: We gather today knowing there are people in our world who are surrounded by violence and conflict on every side. ALL: Our work of peace begins with prayer. LEADER: We gather today knowing there are people in our community who feel lost, alone, abandoned, and forgotten. ALL:Our work of love begins with prayer. LEADER: We gather today knowing there are people in this place, this neighborhood, this world that we all share who experience overwhelming grief, despair, and sorrow. ALL:Our work of hope begins with prayer. LEADER: We gather not to look away from the world but to witness the needs of our neighbors through the lens of God's love. ALL: May we be a people who pray and, out of our praying, do the work of bringing peace, love, and hope to all we encounter. Amen. *Opening Hymn “Lord Listen to Your Children Praying” #2193 *Opening Prayer with sung response (#2193 - "Lord, Listen to Your Children Praying") Loving God, who watches over us like a parent, delighting in our happiness and weeping over all the ways we harm one another, guide us. Nurture us. Empower us to be your peacemakers and mercy-bringers in this world. “Lord, listen to your children praying” Merciful God, our world is full of war, violence, injustice, and oppression. We are surrounded on all sides by misinformation, half-truths, and lies. Give us courage to tell the truth of your love, to protect the innocent, and to resist evil in every way it presents itself. “Lord, send your Spirit in this place;” Gracious God, our neighborhoods are full of people who are struggling. Struggling to make ends meet, struggling to find stability, struggling to find community. Empower us to notice, to reach out, and to love our neighbors as you have called us to love. “Lord, listen to your children praying” God of Hope, our lives are filled with so many reasons for despair. Loneliness abounds, uncertainty overwhelms, and suffering feels constant. Fill us with the warmth of your love and inspire us to extend a hand, a hug, a smile, a gesture of connection in a disconnected world. “Send us love, send us power, send us grace.” In the name of the Triune God who gives, receives, and extends Love to all…Amen. Confession of Faith: Apostles’ Creed #881 Gloria Patri Children's Chat Music Ministry and Offertory - Improvisation on "Burleigh"-Jon Spong Doxology and Prayer of Gratitude Scripture - 2 Samuel 18:5-9, 15, 31-33 Sermon Series “Worship with Rejoicing” Sermon: “It’s Complicated” Joys/Concerns Hymn "Precious Lord, Take My Hand" #474 Pastoral Prayer/Lord's Prayer Closing Hymn “God Be with You till We Meet Again” #672 Action Steps & Benediction Postlude - March on "Joyful Song"-Jon Spong The flowers on the altar today are given to the glory of God and in honor and memory of Rev. Lou Edwards Pierce and Mrs. Denothras Pickens Pierce by Dr. Armendia P. Dixon and the Pierce Pickens Family. Thank you for sharing in this worship service. Please continue to stay in touch through our website (stoneumc.org) and/or by following us on Facebook (Stone UMC). If you have joys or concerns that you would like lifted up in prayer, please fill out the Prayer Card in the pew, on the website, share them by contacting us at 814-724-6736 or churchoffice@stoneumc.org
Welcome to today's episode, we are in a series all about building! In today's episode, we are unpacking the blueprint to build community. Community is God's idea. Be open to making community a true priority where you are engaging in active listening and experiencing life together. As you allow God to bring you community, believe that He will strengthen it as well. Highlights of this episode: - Community is God's idea - Community is healthy and necessary - When life gets busy, people let go of community - Make community a priority - Get involved in community - Community is a sacrifice - Making listening a priority - Practice listening so you can be equipped to express the love of God - Be open to experiencing life with people - Community is a part of the building process - Believe that God will strengthen your community The Live Love Lead Community's Prophetic Prayer Retreat is Aug 30th - Sept 1st. To secure your spot, head over to: https://www.aprilnicolescipio.com/retreat Connect & Share: If this message resonates with you, I'd love to hear it! Email me at aprilnicole@liveloveleadmedia.com or send me a DM on Instagram @aprilnicolescip. Join our authentic community, the "Live Love Lead Community" (formally The More Academy). We are purpose-driven women living Christ-centered lives. https://www.aprilnicolescipio.com/liveloveleadcommunity Looking for a daily guide to start your mornings right? Grab the "The More in Your Morning Journal" here: https://www.aprilnicolescipio.com/store
We need God Be at peace Look to Jesus Do not let bitterness get into you
Louie Giglio magnifies the significance of the word "behold" in the Bible. He is Be (Exodus 3:13-15), and as we look at the miracle of Mary holding Jesus in her arms, we can be joyful for the miracle of God (Be) (hold)ing you in His.—With Passion City Online, you can join us every Sunday live at 9:30a and 11:45a, and our gatherings are available on-demand starting at 7p! Join us at https://passioncitychurch.com—Subscribe to our channel to see more messages from Passion City Church:https://www.youtube.com/passioncitychurch1—Looking for content for your Kids? Subscribe to our Passion Kids Channel: https://passion.link/passionkidsonline—If you would like to give to our house, visit https://passioncitychurch.com/give/—Check out Passion's books, music, and more at https://passionresources.com/—At Passion City Church, we believe that because God has displayed the ultimate sacrifice in Jesus, our response to that in worship must be extravagant. It is our privilege, and our created purpose, to reflect God's Glory to Him through our praise, our sacrifice, and our song.—Follow Passion City Church: https://www.instagram.com/passioncity/Follow Louie Giglio: https://www.instagram.com/louiegiglio Passion City Church is a Jesus church with locations in Atlanta and Washington D.C.—Musicbed SyncID: MB01S6PQ6HF8CAF
Lesson 11 Ecclesiastes 11 1. Take calculated risks (11:1-6) 2. Take every opportunity to savor life (11:7-8) 3. Take every opportunity with holy caution (11:9) 4. Take away anger and evil (11:10) How To Know The Will of God: • Be saved • Be obedient • Be clean • Be repentant • Be reading • Be praying • Be fellowshipping • Be going • Do whatever you want
The first Avengers movie (2012) has a special place in my heart for many reasons; the primary reason for why I love this movie is because I kept Nathan from school half the day on a Friday morning on opening day to surprise him by seeing it in Imax. The second reason why I love the first Avengers movie is because it is one of the all-time great movies with great storytelling building up to one of the greatest superhero films on screen. A third reason why I love this movie is because of the theological and redemptive overtones throughout the film. There is a scene in the film when Loki, the primary antagonist in the film, makes his first public appearance in Stuttgart, Germany before a crowd of hundreds where he delivers one of the great lines in cinema on human freedom before he is confronted by the iconic comic book hero symbolizing what we believe about freedom in Captain America. Just before Loki is confronted, he said something that resonated with me: It's the unspoken truth of humanity, that you crave subjugation. The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life's joy in a mad scramble for power, for identity.You were made to be ruled.In the end, you will always kneel. There is truth in Lokis words and the scene in the movie, in my opinion, captures what we believe about freedom with the villains words: You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel. It is as if to say that any powerful person or being that demands the bowing and kneeling of anyone is immoral. Yet, it is from the very words of holy Scripture that say of Jesus: For this reason also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2:911). So, what do we do with the tension we feel over Lokis words, what history seemingly has taught us, and what we read in the Bible? I believe 1 Samuel 8:1-9 and Isaiah 44:8-10 helps resolve that tension for us, and it is to 1 Samuel we now turn our attention. The King Israel Wanted Samuels story is a fascinating one that we cannot explore today, but there are some things that you need to know to make sense of 1 Samuel 8. His mother, Hannah, could not get pregnant and begged God for a son; in a prayer Hannah offered up to God, she made the following vow: Lord of armies, if You will indeed look on the affliction of Your bond-servant, but will give Your bond-servant a son, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and a razor shall never come on his head (1 Sam: 1:11). When Hannah made that vow, she lived in a time in Israels history when Eli the Priest interpreted her pleading with God for being drunk which sheds some light upon the kind of passionless and empty prayers he was used to experiencing. While Hannah begged for a son that she could give back to the service of the Lord, Elis two sons hung out outside the place where people would come to worship God at the tabernacle where they disrespected the worship of God while they slept with the women who served at the doorway of the tabernacle, and they did this all while Eli, as a priest over Israel, knew about it (see 1 Sam. 2:12ff.). The spiritual climate of Hannahs day was, in the words of the final verse in the book of Judges: In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes (Jud. 21:25). So, Samuel was born to Hannah, and just as she vowed, she dedicated her son to the service of God. Samuel loved God and served Him as His appointed judge, as well as a priest and prophet before all of Israel. Samuel would serve as Israels final judge before Israel demanded a king to rule over them. Which brings us to 1 Samuel 8:1-9. Samuel was a man of God who stands out as being uncompromising in his devotion to God. It would be easy to read 1 Samuel 8 and miss the three paradoxes that surround Israels demand for a king; the paradoxes include the names and location of Samuels two sons, the hypocrisy of everyone surrounding Samuel, and who the people really wanted to rule over them. Paradox #1: Samuels sons were a walking paradox that served as a living parable of Israels relationship with God. Samuels sons were named Joel and Abijah; Joel means Yahweh is God and Abijah means My father is Yahweh. Yet, both of Samuels sons who were commissioned as judges over Israel, were not known for living as though they really believed Yahweh was their God or that they identified as belonging to Him in the same way a son belongs to his father. We are told that they, turned aside after dishonest gain, and they took bribes and perverted justice (v. 3). The elders who represented Israel asked as though they were disgusted by Joel and Abijahs behavior. Israel as a nation may not have been characterized by dishonest gain, receiving bribes from other nations, or perverting justice, but do not miss the indictment upon Israel as a nation given by the same God Samuels sons rejected: Like all the deeds which they have done since the day that I brought them up from Egypt even to this dayin that they have abandoned Me and served other gods (v. 8). The takeaways from the first paradox: First, just because you think someone elses sin is ugly does not mean that your sin is no more repulsive in the eyes of God. What matters is not whether your sin looks better than the sins of others, but what God thinks about your heart. Secondly, we do not know what kind of father Samuel was, but you can be the godliest parent on planet earth and even that may not be enough for your child to want to walk in the ways of God. It is important to note that unlike Elis two sons whose sins were before their fathers eyes, Samuels sons lived over fifty miles away and Samuels ways were very different than the wicked ways of his two sons. Paradox #2: Samuels two sons did not live up to their name in the same way that Israel did not live up her name. Remember that Jacobs name means, heel-grabber and that he was known for the ways he manipulated his father and older brother Esau into receiving a birthright that was not his to take. It wasnt until he wrestled with God and was then renamed only after he yielded his life to God, that his name was Israel, and its meaning is simple: He who strives with God. Yet, Israel as a nation was not known for striving with God but walking away from God to the gods of the nations. Many years later following Israels demand for a king, the prophet Jeremiah would declare on behalf of God: Be appalled at this, you heavens, and shudder, be very desolate, declares the Lord. For My people have committed two evils: They have abandoned Me, the fountain of living waters, to carve out for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that do not hold water (Jer. 2:12-13). The takeaway from the second paradox: Israel thought their greatest need was what the world had to offer while ignoring the only source that was able satisfy their deepest longings and remedy their greatest problem, which had to do with the human heart. Sin-begotten kings cannot solve the problems of sin-begotten people. Paradox #3: Israels demand for a king like the other nations was a vote of no-confidence in God as King over their lives. This could not be more obvious. The irony in Israels demand for a king was not the desire for a king, but the kind of king they believed would solve the problem of the heart. We know that the desire for a king was not the issue because in Deuteronomy 17:14-20, God gave Israel the prescription for the kind of king they would one day need; there are seven characteristics listed in Deuteronomy 17 that the king needed to have to qualify to rule over Israel as king. The king would be a person like them who Yahweh would appoint over them. The king would be a person from among their own people. The king would be a person who truly loved Yahweh. The king would be a person whose security and strength rested in Yahweh. The king would be a person who loved the Law and the Word of Yahweh. The king would be a person who would obey the Law and Word of Yahweh. The king would be a person who would seek to serve his people for their good and the glory of Yahweh. Because Israel wanted a king like the nations, they would not get the kind of king described in Deuteronomy 17. The kind of king Israel would get is described in 1 Samuel 8:10-20. The irony is that Israel did not ultimately reject Samuel as a judge, but God as their King. The takeaway from the third paradox: The One Israel needed most is who they seemed to want least. Israel wanted what the nations had and refused the good that God had for them. Israel believed that their rejection of God would give them freedom, but it would ultimately result in a greater bondage and burden that would lead to greater sorrows. The King Israel Rejected It wasnt Israels desire to have a king that was so bad, but the kind of king they wanted. The king that they wanted was one like what the other nations had. They wanted a king they could chose, a king whose splendor and glory came from the strength of his army, a king whose glory rested in his gold and silver, and a king who was attractive just like the kings the other godless nations had. What they ultimately wanted was the same thing Adam and Eve wanted that the serpent offered: they wanted autonomy from the God of Samuel. This is the kind of thing we are warned about in Holy Scripture: Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love for the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world (1 John 2:15-16). When Adam and Even looked at the forbidden fruit as they were tempted by the Serpent of old, we are told: When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took some of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband with her, and he ate (Gen. 3:6). Under the surface of Israels demand for a king like the other nations was the foolish belief in the same old lie, but only with different dressing. After Adam and Eve bit into the fruit what they got was shame and death. According to 1 Samuel 8:10-20, with the king Israel wanted and demanded, he would take from them what they have and give them a greater burden they were never meant to bear. What was Samuel to do with the demand of the people? He brought it before the Lord in prayer. Samuel had faithfully served Yahweh and the people all of his life; it is understandable that he took the demand for a king personally. However, it was not Samuel, as the Lords servant, that they were rejecting: And the Lord said to Samuel, Listen to the voice of the people regarding all that they say to you, because they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me from being King over them (v. 8). What kind of King is Yahweh? Oh, we are told of the kind of King He is in Isaiah 44:6-8, This is what the Lord says, He who is the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of armies: I am the first and I am the last, and there is no God besides Me. Who is like Me? Let him proclaim and declare it; And, let him confront Me Beginning with My establishing of the ancient nation. Then let them declare to them the things that are coming and the events that are going to take place. Do not tremble and do not be afraid; Have I not long since announced it to you and declared it? And you are My witnesses. Is there any God besides Me, or is there any other Rock? I know of none. The One Israel so eagerly rejected was Yahweh as King of Israel. The God who overwhelmed Pharaoh with 10 plagues, parted the sea, and delivered Israel through the wilderness is the One Israel was willing to trade in for someone like pharaoh. Israel demanded a sin-begotten task master in place of the Redeemer. The people demanded something the godless nations produced in place of the One true God whose Israels very existence was owing to Him. Oh, the crazy rational of sin and how it is seen in Israels desire of a man from the dirt in place of the God who is the Rock! So, God gave Israel the desire of their hearts by giving them a man by the name of Saul and boy was he a train-wreck spiritually! If Israel had only waited! If they had only trusted in the One who establishes nations and removes them, who declares things that are coming and events that are going to take place, and had they stood on the promises of the true King of Israel as their Rock rather than on the sifting sand of worldly hopes! Gods intention for Israel always included a King, for hundreds of years before Samuel was born, an ancient promise to one of the tribes of Israel was given: As for you, Judah, your brothers shall praise you; Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; Your fathers sons shall bow down to you. Judah is a lions cub; From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He crouches, he lies down as a lion, And as a lion, who dares to stir him up? The scepter will not depart from Judah, Nor the rulers staff from between his feet, Until Shiloh comes, and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples. (Gen. 49:810) If Israel had waited, they would have gotten a king. Not the king of Genesis 49:8-10, but one like him an imperfect prototype, but a king who was a man after Gods own heart. Instead, Israel got 40 years of Saul, just as their forefathers got 40 years in the wilderness for their sin. Eventually Israel got David who seemed to check all the boxes, the kind of king God prescribed in Deuteronomy 17, but he was only an imperfect foreshadowing of a greater King that would come from his descendants. The King We Need The story of humanity is one of broken cisterns that can hold no water, a story of rejecting a Greater Glory for lesser glories, a story about mans desire for the kings of the earth, and every time we end up with shame, 40 years in the wilderness, or worsewe end of with a Saul when we could have had a David. What are you settling for? What wilderness have you found yourself in because you have settled for lesser glories in place of the Greater Glory who is the God you were born to know? What Saul have you settled for when you could have had a David? Can I leave you with something that ought to encourage you? What God had for Israel was greater than even David! King David was part of the plan, but he was not the end-goal of that plan. What Israel could not see was that God was moving time, space, and kingdoms to introduce to the world a greater King. A King who would reign on Davids throne forever (2 Sam. 7:12-16), a King whose light would light up the darkness of sins dark cloud (Isa. 9:2), a King who would come as the ultimate Lamb for the purpose of reigning as the rightful Lion of Judah, and on the first Christmas His voice would be heard in the form of a newborn infants cries: For a Child will be born to us, a Son will be given to us And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace (Isa. 9:6). He would be sent by Yahweh. He would be a descendant of David as fully human (and fully God). He would be the Son of God with a love for Him unparalleled by any other. He would humble with an absolute dependance upon God as His Father. He would live in perfect dependance upon the Law of God with an absolute love for the Word of God. He would be born not to be served, but to serve, to give His life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45). Oh, dear brothers and sisters that One born on the first Christmas and laid in that manger for lowly shepherds to see and wandering Magi to seek was the One, born King of the Jews (Matt. 2:2); born on Christmas was the Redeemer, the Lord, the One who is the First and the Last the Living One. We were indeed meant to be ruled, but ruled by a Good King. Amen.
The first Avengers movie (2012) has a special place in my heart for many reasons; the primary reason for why I love this movie is because I kept Nathan from school half the day on a Friday morning on opening day to surprise him by seeing it in Imax. The second reason why I love the first Avengers movie is because it is one of the all-time great movies with great storytelling building up to one of the greatest superhero films on screen. A third reason why I love this movie is because of the theological and redemptive overtones throughout the film. There is a scene in the film when Loki, the primary antagonist in the film, makes his first public appearance in Stuttgart, Germany before a crowd of hundreds where he delivers one of the great lines in cinema on human freedom before he is confronted by the iconic comic book hero symbolizing what we believe about freedom in Captain America. Just before Loki is confronted, he said something that resonated with me: It's the unspoken truth of humanity, that you crave subjugation. The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life's joy in a mad scramble for power, for identity.You were made to be ruled.In the end, you will always kneel. There is truth in Lokis words and the scene in the movie, in my opinion, captures what we believe about freedom with the villains words: You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel. It is as if to say that any powerful person or being that demands the bowing and kneeling of anyone is immoral. Yet, it is from the very words of holy Scripture that say of Jesus: For this reason also God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Phil. 2:911). So, what do we do with the tension we feel over Lokis words, what history seemingly has taught us, and what we read in the Bible? I believe 1 Samuel 8:1-9 and Isaiah 44:8-10 helps resolve that tension for us, and it is to 1 Samuel we now turn our attention. The King Israel Wanted Samuels story is a fascinating one that we cannot explore today, but there are some things that you need to know to make sense of 1 Samuel 8. His mother, Hannah, could not get pregnant and begged God for a son; in a prayer Hannah offered up to God, she made the following vow: Lord of armies, if You will indeed look on the affliction of Your bond-servant, but will give Your bond-servant a son, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life, and a razor shall never come on his head (1 Sam: 1:11). When Hannah made that vow, she lived in a time in Israels history when Eli the Priest interpreted her pleading with God for being drunk which sheds some light upon the kind of passionless and empty prayers he was used to experiencing. While Hannah begged for a son that she could give back to the service of the Lord, Elis two sons hung out outside the place where people would come to worship God at the tabernacle where they disrespected the worship of God while they slept with the women who served at the doorway of the tabernacle, and they did this all while Eli, as a priest over Israel, knew about it (see 1 Sam. 2:12ff.). The spiritual climate of Hannahs day was, in the words of the final verse in the book of Judges: In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes (Jud. 21:25). So, Samuel was born to Hannah, and just as she vowed, she dedicated her son to the service of God. Samuel loved God and served Him as His appointed judge, as well as a priest and prophet before all of Israel. Samuel would serve as Israels final judge before Israel demanded a king to rule over them. Which brings us to 1 Samuel 8:1-9. Samuel was a man of God who stands out as being uncompromising in his devotion to God. It would be easy to read 1 Samuel 8 and miss the three paradoxes that surround Israels demand for a king; the paradoxes include the names and location of Samuels two sons, the hypocrisy of everyone surrounding Samuel, and who the people really wanted to rule over them. Paradox #1: Samuels sons were a walking paradox that served as a living parable of Israels relationship with God. Samuels sons were named Joel and Abijah; Joel means Yahweh is God and Abijah means My father is Yahweh. Yet, both of Samuels sons who were commissioned as judges over Israel, were not known for living as though they really believed Yahweh was their God or that they identified as belonging to Him in the same way a son belongs to his father. We are told that they, turned aside after dishonest gain, and they took bribes and perverted justice (v. 3). The elders who represented Israel asked as though they were disgusted by Joel and Abijahs behavior. Israel as a nation may not have been characterized by dishonest gain, receiving bribes from other nations, or perverting justice, but do not miss the indictment upon Israel as a nation given by the same God Samuels sons rejected: Like all the deeds which they have done since the day that I brought them up from Egypt even to this dayin that they have abandoned Me and served other gods (v. 8). The takeaways from the first paradox: First, just because you think someone elses sin is ugly does not mean that your sin is no more repulsive in the eyes of God. What matters is not whether your sin looks better than the sins of others, but what God thinks about your heart. Secondly, we do not know what kind of father Samuel was, but you can be the godliest parent on planet earth and even that may not be enough for your child to want to walk in the ways of God. It is important to note that unlike Elis two sons whose sins were before their fathers eyes, Samuels sons lived over fifty miles away and Samuels ways were very different than the wicked ways of his two sons. Paradox #2: Samuels two sons did not live up to their name in the same way that Israel did not live up her name. Remember that Jacobs name means, heel-grabber and that he was known for the ways he manipulated his father and older brother Esau into receiving a birthright that was not his to take. It wasnt until he wrestled with God and was then renamed only after he yielded his life to God, that his name was Israel, and its meaning is simple: He who strives with God. Yet, Israel as a nation was not known for striving with God but walking away from God to the gods of the nations. Many years later following Israels demand for a king, the prophet Jeremiah would declare on behalf of God: Be appalled at this, you heavens, and shudder, be very desolate, declares the Lord. For My people have committed two evils: They have abandoned Me, the fountain of living waters, to carve out for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that do not hold water (Jer. 2:12-13). The takeaway from the second paradox: Israel thought their greatest need was what the world had to offer while ignoring the only source that was able satisfy their deepest longings and remedy their greatest problem, which had to do with the human heart. Sin-begotten kings cannot solve the problems of sin-begotten people. Paradox #3: Israels demand for a king like the other nations was a vote of no-confidence in God as King over their lives. This could not be more obvious. The irony in Israels demand for a king was not the desire for a king, but the kind of king they believed would solve the problem of the heart. We know that the desire for a king was not the issue because in Deuteronomy 17:14-20, God gave Israel the prescription for the kind of king they would one day need; there are seven characteristics listed in Deuteronomy 17 that the king needed to have to qualify to rule over Israel as king. The king would be a person like them who Yahweh would appoint over them. The king would be a person from among their own people. The king would be a person who truly loved Yahweh. The king would be a person whose security and strength rested in Yahweh. The king would be a person who loved the Law and the Word of Yahweh. The king would be a person who would obey the Law and Word of Yahweh. The king would be a person who would seek to serve his people for their good and the glory of Yahweh. Because Israel wanted a king like the nations, they would not get the kind of king described in Deuteronomy 17. The kind of king Israel would get is described in 1 Samuel 8:10-20. The irony is that Israel did not ultimately reject Samuel as a judge, but God as their King. The takeaway from the third paradox: The One Israel needed most is who they seemed to want least. Israel wanted what the nations had and refused the good that God had for them. Israel believed that their rejection of God would give them freedom, but it would ultimately result in a greater bondage and burden that would lead to greater sorrows. The King Israel Rejected It wasnt Israels desire to have a king that was so bad, but the kind of king they wanted. The king that they wanted was one like what the other nations had. They wanted a king they could chose, a king whose splendor and glory came from the strength of his army, a king whose glory rested in his gold and silver, and a king who was attractive just like the kings the other godless nations had. What they ultimately wanted was the same thing Adam and Eve wanted that the serpent offered: they wanted autonomy from the God of Samuel. This is the kind of thing we are warned about in Holy Scripture: Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love for the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world (1 John 2:15-16). When Adam and Even looked at the forbidden fruit as they were tempted by the Serpent of old, we are told: When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took some of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband with her, and he ate (Gen. 3:6). Under the surface of Israels demand for a king like the other nations was the foolish belief in the same old lie, but only with different dressing. After Adam and Eve bit into the fruit what they got was shame and death. According to 1 Samuel 8:10-20, with the king Israel wanted and demanded, he would take from them what they have and give them a greater burden they were never meant to bear. What was Samuel to do with the demand of the people? He brought it before the Lord in prayer. Samuel had faithfully served Yahweh and the people all of his life; it is understandable that he took the demand for a king personally. However, it was not Samuel, as the Lords servant, that they were rejecting: And the Lord said to Samuel, Listen to the voice of the people regarding all that they say to you, because they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me from being King over them (v. 8). What kind of King is Yahweh? Oh, we are told of the kind of King He is in Isaiah 44:6-8, This is what the Lord says, He who is the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of armies: I am the first and I am the last, and there is no God besides Me. Who is like Me? Let him proclaim and declare it; And, let him confront Me Beginning with My establishing of the ancient nation. Then let them declare to them the things that are coming and the events that are going to take place. Do not tremble and do not be afraid; Have I not long since announced it to you and declared it? And you are My witnesses. Is there any God besides Me, or is there any other Rock? I know of none. The One Israel so eagerly rejected was Yahweh as King of Israel. The God who overwhelmed Pharaoh with 10 plagues, parted the sea, and delivered Israel through the wilderness is the One Israel was willing to trade in for someone like pharaoh. Israel demanded a sin-begotten task master in place of the Redeemer. The people demanded something the godless nations produced in place of the One true God whose Israels very existence was owing to Him. Oh, the crazy rational of sin and how it is seen in Israels desire of a man from the dirt in place of the God who is the Rock! So, God gave Israel the desire of their hearts by giving them a man by the name of Saul and boy was he a train-wreck spiritually! If Israel had only waited! If they had only trusted in the One who establishes nations and removes them, who declares things that are coming and events that are going to take place, and had they stood on the promises of the true King of Israel as their Rock rather than on the sifting sand of worldly hopes! Gods intention for Israel always included a King, for hundreds of years before Samuel was born, an ancient promise to one of the tribes of Israel was given: As for you, Judah, your brothers shall praise you; Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies; Your fathers sons shall bow down to you. Judah is a lions cub; From the prey, my son, you have gone up. He crouches, he lies down as a lion, And as a lion, who dares to stir him up? The scepter will not depart from Judah, Nor the rulers staff from between his feet, Until Shiloh comes, and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples. (Gen. 49:810) If Israel had waited, they would have gotten a king. Not the king of Genesis 49:8-10, but one like him an imperfect prototype, but a king who was a man after Gods own heart. Instead, Israel got 40 years of Saul, just as their forefathers got 40 years in the wilderness for their sin. Eventually Israel got David who seemed to check all the boxes, the kind of king God prescribed in Deuteronomy 17, but he was only an imperfect foreshadowing of a greater King that would come from his descendants. The King We Need The story of humanity is one of broken cisterns that can hold no water, a story of rejecting a Greater Glory for lesser glories, a story about mans desire for the kings of the earth, and every time we end up with shame, 40 years in the wilderness, or worsewe end of with a Saul when we could have had a David. What are you settling for? What wilderness have you found yourself in because you have settled for lesser glories in place of the Greater Glory who is the God you were born to know? What Saul have you settled for when you could have had a David? Can I leave you with something that ought to encourage you? What God had for Israel was greater than even David! King David was part of the plan, but he was not the end-goal of that plan. What Israel could not see was that God was moving time, space, and kingdoms to introduce to the world a greater King. A King who would reign on Davids throne forever (2 Sam. 7:12-16), a King whose light would light up the darkness of sins dark cloud (Isa. 9:2), a King who would come as the ultimate Lamb for the purpose of reigning as the rightful Lion of Judah, and on the first Christmas His voice would be heard in the form of a newborn infants cries: For a Child will be born to us, a Son will be given to us And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace (Isa. 9:6). He would be sent by Yahweh. He would be a descendant of David as fully human (and fully God). He would be the Son of God with a love for Him unparalleled by any other. He would humble with an absolute dependance upon God as His Father. He would live in perfect dependance upon the Law of God with an absolute love for the Word of God. He would be born not to be served, but to serve, to give His life as a ransom for many (Mark 10:45). Oh, dear brothers and sisters that One born on the first Christmas and laid in that manger for lowly shepherds to see and wandering Magi to seek was the One, born King of the Jews (Matt. 2:2); born on Christmas was the Redeemer, the Lord, the One who is the First and the Last the Living One. We were indeed meant to be ruled, but ruled by a Good King. Amen.
Jesus Ministries, Joan Boney ... (Many scriptures and examples have been added to the Audio version of this book to help you better understand how to mediate in the scriptures and also how to do these scriptures in your life today. Joan Boney)
- Rest, for the Christian, is something other than a change in our earthly circumstances. We must find our rest in God.-- There's No Fear of the Raging World -v. 1-3-- - Because of who God is, there's no reason to fear -v. 1-2-- - Refuge, strength, present help -- this Psalm gives a wider perspective on present troubles- - We may grieve, but we need not fear because of who God is, no matter the circumstances- - If everything else changes, God DOES NOT- - God is who He is and will hold His own until the end-- Gladness in the City of God -v. 4-7-- - Rev. 22-1-5 -- God provides the river of life- - This city is holy because it's where God dwells- - God's presence brings unearthly stability- - Every morning is one of fresh mercies and grace, more than enough for the day ahead- - Nations rage and totter, but God gets the last word- - The Yahweh of heavenly armies is with us- - The God of ancient covenants holds us-- Confidence in the Reality of God -v. 8-11-- - Pay attention to what God does- - God will end the war by utterly crushing the rebels -Zech. 14-12-13-- - Be still, and know I am God- - Be still - rest, calm down- - Our rest comes from knowing who God is and what He has done- - God doesn't need me, but He offers Himself to me because I need Him- - Our lives would change if, in the midst of the problem, we would STOP and mediate on who God is-- Allow this Psalm to take your blinded perspective and be in awe of your God- - Jesus will return in glory and be acknowledged by ALL as LORD-- This hope we have in Christ is what people need to hear
“Then Saul took three thousand chosen men out of all Israel and went to seek David and his men in front of the Wildgoats' Rocks. And he came to the sheepfolds by the way, where there was a cave, and Saul went in to relieve himself. Now David and his men were sitting in the innermost parts of the cave.” — 1 Samuel 24:2-3 “…the men of David said to him, ‘Here is the day of which the LORD said to you, ‘Behold, I will give your enemy into your hand, and you shall do to him as it shall seem good to you.'” — 1 Samuel 24:4 It's easy to confuse what we want with what God wills. The only dependable guide to God's will is God's Word. “…stealthily cuts off a corner of Saul's robe. And afterward David's heart struck him, because he had cut off a corner of Saul's robe.” — 1 Samuel 24:4b-5 “He said to his men, ‘The LORD forbid that I should do this thing to my lord, the LORD's anointed, to put out my hand against him, seeing he is the LORD's anointed.'” — 1 Samuel 24:6 Don't sacrifice faithfulness on the altar of convenience. “So David persuaded his men with these words and did not permit them to attack Saul. And Saul rose up and left the cave and went on his way.” — 1 Samuel 24:7 “…My lord the king!” And when Saul looked behind him, David bowed with his face to the earth and paid homage. And David said to Saul, “Why do you listen to the words of men who say, ‘Behold, David seeks your harm'? Behold, this day your eyes have seen how the LORD gave you today into my hand in the cave. And some told me to kill you, but I spared you. I said, ‘I will not put out my hand against my lord, for he is the LORD's anointed.' See, my father, see the corner of your robe in my hand. For by the fact that I cut off the corner of your robe and did not kill you, you may know and see that there is no wrong or treason in my hands. I have not sinned against you, though you hunt my life to take it. May the LORD judge between me and you, may the LORD avenge me against you, but my hand shall not be against you. As the proverb of the ancients says, ‘Out of the wicked comes wickedness.'” — 1 Samuel 24:8-13 “After whom has the king of Israel come out? After whom do you pursue? After a dead dog! After a flea! May the LORD therefore be judge and give sentence between me and you and see to it and plead my cause and deliver me from your hand.” — 1 Samuel 24:14-15 When We Are In Control We Seek Revenge We Seek False Pleasure We Compromise We Get Ahead of God “Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me, for in you my soul takes refuge; in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge, till the storms of destruction pass by. I cry out to God Most High, to God who fulfills his purpose for me. He will send from heaven and save me; he will put to shame him who tramples on me. God will send out his steadfast love and his faithfulness!” — Psalm 57:1-3 When You Have A Waiting Heart 1. You trust the sovereignty of God. “I cry out to God Most High, to God who fulfills his purpose for me.” — Psalm 57:2 2. You have confidence in the steadfast love of God. “He will send from heaven and save me; he will put to shame him who tramples on me. God will send out his steadfast love and his faithfulness!” — Psalm 57:3 “My soul is in the midst of lions; I lie down amid fiery beasts— the children of man, whose teeth are spears and arrows, whose tongues are sharp swords.” — Psalm 57:4 3. You are selfless in your relationship with God. “Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let your glory be over all the earth!” — Psalm 57:5 4. You are Satisfied in God Alone. “My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast! I will sing and make melody!” — Psalm 57:7
IntroductionGiving yourself to God means learning to be a giver, not a taker. Many people in life are takers. They seem to live simply to consume. They're all about what's in it for them. Giving Yourself to God: Be a Giver, Not a TakerThe best thing we can give God is ourselves. If we give ourselves completely to God, then he will use us for his glory. Our lives are controlled by his purposes, not by our temptations and sins. It's a real adventure! Our bodies, our gifts, talents, and abilities, and our skills can be used for all sorts of things. In giving yourself to God, God controls you, and everything can be an instrument for his service. How can we live this way? Care About What God Cares AboutWe can begin by caring about the things God cares about. He cares more about people than he does about money, success, and other people's approval. We can build our lives around the people and the values he cares about - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. True Freedom and PurposeWhen we do, we discover God gives us everything we need, and that we have found true freedom and purpose in our lives. Think It OverThink about the following: Why does surrendering to God lead to freedom? There's a new episode of Battle Drill Devotional every Monday through Friday. Click on the link - https://linktr.ee/battlefieldresources - to listen, watch or subscribe to this podcast. Related PostsSigns You Need to Get in a Small Group A Quiet Time with God is Vital for our Mental Health Focus. It's More Important than You Think What if Approval is the Wrong Motivation for Your Life? Don't Let the World Define You, Be Who God Says You Are
The Holy Face Chaplet in Latin! To pray this chaplet, start by making the sign of the cross with the crucifix. 1. On the Crucifix – The Sign of the Cross / Signum Crucis In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Deus, in adjutorium meum intende: Domine, ad adjuvandum me festina. O God, come to my assistance. O Lord, make haste to help me. Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto. Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum. Amen. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit, as it was in the beginning is now and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. 2. On each of the six larger beads (precedes each decade of six beads) in order say in honor of the five senses of Jesus. First of the sense of Touch, then Hearing, then Sight, then Smell, and finally Taste: “O mi Jesu misericordia!” “Gloria Patri…” “My Jesus, mercy!” and one “Glory Be..” 3. On the thirty-three small beads: “Surge Domine et dissipentur inimici Tui et fugiant qui oderunt Te a Facie Tua.” “Arise, O Lord, and let Thy enemies be scattered, and let all who hate Thee flee before Thy Face!” At the end of meditating on the senses of Jesus, continue repetitions of “Arise, O Lord” prayer on the remaining three beads, to bring the total to 33, one for each year of Our Lord's earthly life. On each of these last three beads, think about the wounds in His holy face from the slaps He endured, and from the crown of thorns. After all of this, repeat seven times, in honor of the the Golden Arrow book): 1) May God arise and let His enemies be scattered and let those who hate Him flee before His Face! “Surge Domine et dissipentur inimici Tui et fugiant qui oderunt Te a Facie Tua.”. (Psalm 67:2) 2) May the thrice Holy Name of God overthrow all their plans! Nomen Trinum Sanctum Dei cogitationes eorum omnes depraedatur! 3) May the Holy Name of the Living God split them up by disagreements! Sanctissimum Nomen Dei viventis eas discidiis dividat! 4) May the terrible Name of the God of Eternity stamp out all their godlessness! Horrendum nomen Dei aeternitatis deleat omnem impietatem suam! 5) Lord, I do not desire the death of the sinner, but that he be converted and live. Domine, nolo mortem peccatoris, sed ut convertatur et vivat. “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” Pater, dimitte illis : non enim sciunt quid faciunt. (Luke 23:34) The “Golden Arrow” prayer (on the Crucifix): May the most Holy, most Sacred, most Adorable, Most Incomprehensible and Ineffable Name of God Be always Praised, Blessed, Loved, Adored and Glorified, In Heaven, on Earth and under the Earth, By all the Creatures of God, And by the Sacred Heart of Our Lord Jesus Christ, In the most Holy Sacrament of the Altar. Amen” "Sanctissimum, sacratissimum, adorabile, incomprehensibile et ineffabile Nomen Dei semper laudetur, benedicatur, ametur, adoretur et glorificetur in caelo, in terra et sub terra, ab omnibus creaturis Dei, et a Sacro Corde Domini nostri Iesu Christi in sanctissimo Sacramento Altaris. Amen." The Golden Arrow Book: https://amzn.to/3mLmLfi The Latin Prayer Podcast is on Patreon - for those of you who are able to financially support the podcast please Click Here (https://www.patreon.com/thelatinprayerpodcast). A huge thank you to my patrons! Please check out our Resources, Gift Ideas & Affiliate Links page: https://dylandrego.podbean.com/p/resources-gift-ideas-affiliate-links Join me and others in praying the Holy Rosary every day; here are the Spotify quick links to the Rosary: Joyful Mysteries https://open.spotify.com/episode/1yhnGJNSl67psg94j3si3s?si=7IjqIg2wQQaZTJTiDm-Dhw Sorrowful Mysteries https://open.spotify.com/episode/3P0nIdaLuEjesHRMklwfoj?si=6qF7JBYpRiG0ylwuOohFwA Glorious Mysteries https://open.spotify.com/episode/3t7lCF7nFQDR3py1jjTAE1?si=hBb_5Ne5Rwu-993nUUqHqg Luminous Mysteries https://open.spotify.com/episode/6vlAjEGgWPCI79K7Eylh31?si=Hue9USzkTf-L3wrXrK79MQ 15 Decade Rosary https://open.spotify.com/episode/2q33PXMrinZi6fkaV6X7vn?si=Jy_d2xLlTVihD5qa4fSH9g To follow me on other platforms Click on my LinkTree below. linktr.ee/dylandrego If you have any prayers you'd like to request, or comments and/or suggestions - please email me at latinprayerpodcast@gmail.com. Know that if you are listening to this, I am praying for you. Please continue to pray with me and for me and my family. May everything you do be Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam. God Love You! Valete (Goodbye)
Waiting Well in the LordIn ordinary life, there are timers of our expectations and when to end our waiting. You may know the exact time and venue where you will receive something or someone you have been waiting for. However, that is a different case with God. His promises have no time limit. When He tells us to wait for something, we never know until when, which can become challenging, anxious, and uncomfortable for many people. God told Abraham to wait for a son, but that took years until Abraham got tired of waiting. Such is a typical life of a believer, and the fact that a day to God is like a thousand years brings more uncertainty. However, we need to retool our understanding and mental awareness, raise our spiritual antennae further, and learn how to wait well upon the Lord.Therefore, if you are the kind of person who has struggled with waiting upon the Lord, this episode has tips for you. Has God told you to wait? Have you been praying for something or just waiting for results or news? In this therapy Thursday, we talk about how to wait well in the Lord. Lidia Martinez joins us.Tune in! Key Highlights from the Episode[00:00] Introduction to the show [01:22] What makes waiting a little bit uncomfortable and anxious[03:39] The most effective tool for waiting well [06:18] What can we do as we wait[09:23] Learn to be patient[10:30] Obey God[11:20] Don't take matters into your hands[13:05] Find an area where you can serve God[13:59] Have information as you are waiting[16:18] Benefits of waiting upon the Lord[28:04] Key takeaways for you[29:06] Ending the show with a word of prayerNotable Quotes: While you wait, worship God Be patient in tribulations and constant in prayerHave the information as you are waiting. That reduces your anxiety.God will always renew your strength as you wait upon Him to fulfill His promise to you. Follow Faith with Friends onWebsite: https://faith-with-friends.captivate.fm/Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/faithwithfriends_podcast/Let's Connect!Lidia MartinezWebsite: https://www.drlidiamartinez.com/Email: info@drlidiamartinez.comPhone No.: 7865656916About The Show *****Thank you so much for listening to the FAITH WITH FRIENDS PODCAST! Get inspired, motivated, and tuned up with honest conversations every week as we seek to know God and make him known. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and be part of this blessed family. Please consider leaving a review and sharing it with your friends and family!
God Be with You.Hymn Tune is "Randolph"
Hymn Arrangements.Meditation.Prayer.God Be with You.
Hymn Arrangements.Meditation.Prayer.God Be with You.
God Be with You.Hymn Tune is "Randolph"
We repeatedly hear a refrain in the Scriptures, "Do NOT be afraid." Now, this is not just in general don't be scared, for there are many things that do and should bring us great fear. But when you consider what is paired with it–the promise of God to be with his people–then the admonishment to not be afraid makes more sense. And this promise that God will be with you and will be with his people begins back in the very first book of the Bible. So we end our time in Genesis with this encouragement, Don't be afraid, for God is with you. Devotionables #434 - God Be with You Genesis 50:25 F260
I HAVE COME TO BRING A SWORD Matthew 10:34 Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Jesus was quoting a Scripture from the Book of Micah the prophet, who felt the burden of serving God above all else when many of God's people were serving all else above God. For the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man's enemies are the men of his own house. But as for me, I look to the LORD; I wait for the God of my salvation. my God hears me (Micah7:6) ‘I come to bring a sword' would ordinarily be received in the sense of saying that the whole purpose for Jesus coming to us is for him to bring division. This is not what this Scripture is saying. ‘I come to bring a sword' is describing division as the primary effect of what happens when the word of Jesus comes to proclaim the inner kingdom of God. It divides the self-centred focus of our life from his Kingdom centred focus of our life. If a business management consultant visits a corporate workplace with the purpose of bringing efficiency and productivity, he will discuss the order and disorder of what is happening in the company. He will then set about how to prioritise goals and roles, and some staff may be moved around or displaced and replaced. His comments will have the immediate effect of ‘shaking things up' and revealing the disorder and chaos. He is not bringing the chaos and disorder, but he is bringing the sword of division that divides between order and disorder. People don't generally like that. Here is an example of what Jesus was experiencing in his own life, as the SWORD OF THE WORD OF LIFE that people could believe or reject, to either live for or live without. Matthew 12:46 As Jesus was speaking in a crowded house, his mother and brothers were outside, wanting to talk with him. When someone told him they were there, he remarked, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” He pointed to his disciples. “Look!” he said, “these are my mother and brothers.” Then he added, “Anyone who obeys my Father in heaven is my brother, sister, and mother!” That was certainly a shakeup and a wakeup for all those people, and for all of us reading these difficult Scriptures. Jesus was not speaking personally against his mother and his brothers. Jesus knew full well of his own mother Mary's obedience to his Heavenly Father and her devotion to himself and his Father's mission. Mary had lived with that sword piercing her heart from before Jesus was born, and in due course his own brothers would become his disciples. Jesus had brought to all of humanity the greatest gift of life that had ever existed and would ever exist. Israel up to this point had received the best that was on offer as declared by promise to Abraham two thousand years before that time and then to Moses through the law and blood sacrifices. Jesus had but a short time to make it clear what was on offer for mankind and he spoke and acted clearly and compellingly at all times. He was saying ‘you can have not only a better life, but you can have the best life – believe it and receive it!' It means a surrender of our life to his and a surrender of our will to his. That is the cross in our lives - where our will crosses God's will. The vertical dimension of the cross is God's will from Heaven – the horizontal dimension is our will on the earth. Where that crosses is where the sword is applied to our lives. Jesus also experienced the work of the sword bringing division and reorder in his own hometown. Matthew 13:54 Coming to His hometown, He taught the people in their synagogue, and they were astonished. “Where did this man get such wisdom and miraculous powers?” they asked. Isn't this the carpenter's son, and aren't his brother's names James and Joseph and Simon and Judas (not Iscariot)? And aren't all his sisters with us as well? Where then did this man get all these things?” And they were offended at him. Jesus also had to put up with the unbelief of his brothers in his own family who didn't yet believe that he was the Messiah. Perhaps they were too used to seeing him as the older brother reminding them of things like showing more respect to their mother or being more diligent with their work in their father Joseph's carpentry shop. Like most of humanity then and now, they wanted more outward proof of his supernatural power so that he could impress the crowds more, and also convince them as we see in the following Scripture – but for Jesus the power he came to exercise was for the inner lives of people to be transformed. John 7:2 But soon it was time for the Feast of Tabernacles, one of the annual Jewish holidays, and Jesus' brothers urged him to go to Judea for the celebration. “Go where more people can see your miracles!” they jeered. “You can't be famous when you hide like this! If you're so great, prove it to the world!” For even his brothers didn't believe in him! The sword was operating in Judea, and in his own hometown, and even in his own home. For Jesus the miracles were an advertising billboard, and they did get the attention of people to see that something powerful was going on. But that was not his aim in coming to earth. A sign is a signpost that points to something far greater and for Jesus the greater thing was not the outward display but the inward life of his Kingdom at work within us. The power that he came to release in the earth was to be exercised in the hearts of men and women, not just for an outward show of power but an inward power and authority to display the nature of God in the earth, for people to become one with him in the spirit. Mary the mother of Jesus fully understood this conflict between the inner and outer life concerning her son Jesus. After Simeon the prophet spoke to Mary and Joseph at the time of his dedication in the temple, he prophesied over her, saying. ‘This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many may be revealed – and a sword will pierce your heart also' (Luke 2:34) Mary lived with that SWORD OF GOD'S WORD in her life. She had said ‘Be it done unto me according to thy Word' to the angel Gabrielle when he announced that she would be the mother of Jesus. Mary had to contend with the continual sorrow of knowing that her son was destined to be opposed by his own people and suffer the fate of all of Israel's prophets, just as did her nephew, John the Baptist who was beheaded by Herod. And she lived with the fact that even her other sons that she loved opposed and disparaged him. God comes to first expose the chaos and disorder of this world and its lack of love and lack of faith in action. And the sword must come and work in us first, allowing the work of the Holy Spirit to bring us close to himself in mercy and grace to reorder our souls first. The Holy Spirit calls us into the surrender of the rest of faith so that we can obtain mercy and find grace and come from an inner place of love and peace in our relationships. Hebrews 4:11 Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. I love to see the supernatural work of God, the miracle work of God. And I have seen it, and I do see it. This work is happening continually if you know where to look. This work happens in the ordinary day to day occurrences where people take up their cross and follow Jesus and lay down their lives for one another and are being transformed into His likeness. (illustration of the horizontal and vertical aspects of the cross) If you're looking for signs and wonders as a priority you will run after the signposts to find them, and the signposts are impressive, but they don't deliver the way the marketing says they will. If you are looking for changed hearts of love and faith starting with your own life the signs will follow you and you will recognise them as being God's confirmation of the SWORD OF GOD'S WORD at work in your life, dividing between soul and spirit and bringing about his will in your life through occurrences and events that you could not possibly have planned. Further on from the quotation of Jesus from Micah 7:6 we read Micah 7:14 where finally Micah prays to the Lord - ‘Shepherd your people with your staf,f the flock of your inheritance, who dwell alone in the midst of a forest… And the Lord answers Micah back… I will show them marvellous things. The nations shall see and be ashamed of all their might. They shall lay their hands on their mouths; their ears shall be deaf. They shall come out of their strongholds. They shall turn in awe to the LORD, and they shall respect you as God's people. (Micah 7:14) We see the same thing in the Book of Acts - The Christians actually received favour from the people after the Holy Spirit came upon them. The sword does not only bring some opposition, but it also releases grace in us and through us and draws people toward God. Acts 2:47, ESV: And they continued in praising God and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. In one way or another, if we understand the principle of THE SWORD OF GOD'S WORD, we will live with that sword piercing our hearts for our good. If we know we bear that sword it will deepen our life of prayer and we will accept our God given role under God and will find grace, whether we are opposed by people or accepted by them - whether some be offended or whether we find favour. But we say to God ‘‘Be it done unto me according to thy Word' A person who is at peace, at oneness with Jesus, can administer that peace to others.
CHRISTIAN LIFE COACH COLLECTIVE- Change Your Life, Start a Coaching Business, Walk in Your Calling
In today's episode: THE COACHING CHOIR & SELF COACHING I've got some great questions for you to consider as you move into a new season. Plus it's the 100th episode of the CLCC podcast! Sooo good! And I appreciate you as a listener more than you can imagine. Thanks for making this worth it✨ ***VIParts of this episode to refer to: God Be by Chris Renzema https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuLIvyQTXV0 Welcome to the Christian Life Coach Collective!
In today's episode, we will discuss the attribute and qualities of Tamar, a woman who fought for what was due to her. Tamar decided not to wallow in her barren place but fight for her victory. God has called us all to be fruitful and multiply with all the gifts and talents He has given us. Be victorious in all that you do for the Kingdom of God.
In today's episode of Changing, Donald speaks to Ashely Winston, an author, and a business advisor. She shares how she was able to change her insecurities into blessings. Sharing her story on how she was overweight and how challenging it was to her mentally. That challenge turned into an unexpected blessing that has forever changed her relationship with God. God listens to you if we go to him in prayer: He helps you deliver yourself from fear He will help you overcome your negative thinking and insecurities God blesses you when you trust in him: You have to do your part and he will open the path for you He will empower you in all your challenges How to grow your relationship with God: Be real and true to yourself Journal your true thoughts and feelings on things you need help with Be open to listening to God's voice and spirit for answers God is always mindful of us no matter the situation. We may be going through a tough time but trusting in God, will help light your path. Having confidence “Don't waste any more time. God has an amazing plan for your life. Even if your life is great, there's more to it than you know. And the only way you can discover it is by surrendering and submitting and developing your relationship with God.” - Ashley Episode resources: Connect with Ashley via Instagram @theAshleyWinston Visit her website at www.theAshleyWinston.com. If this podcast speaks to you or helps you on your journey to change, let us know by leaving a rating or review. Share your testimony or contact Donald at donaldckelly09@gmail.com.
Episode 159 of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Itchycoo Park” by the Small Faces, and their transition from Mod to psychedelia. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a twenty-five-minute bonus episode available, on "The First Cut is the Deepest" by P.P. Arnold. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Resources As so many of the episodes recently have had no Mixcloud due to the number of songs by one artist, I've decided to start splitting the mixes of the recordings excerpted in the podcasts into two parts. Here's part one and part two. I've used quite a few books in this episode. The Small Faces & Other Stories by Uli Twelker and Roland Schmit is definitely a fan-work with all that that implies, but has some useful quotes. Two books claim to be the authorised biography of Steve Marriott, and I've referred to both -- All Too Beautiful by Paolo Hewitt and John Hellier, and All Or Nothing by Simon Spence. Spence also wrote an excellent book on Immediate Records, which I referred to. Kenney Jones and Ian McLagan both wrote very readable autobiographies. I've also used Andrew Loog Oldham's autobiography Stoned, co-written by Spence, though be warned that it casually uses slurs. P.P. Arnold's autobiography is a sometimes distressing read covering her whole life, including her time at Immediate. There are many, many, collections of the Small Faces' work, ranging from cheap budget CDs full of outtakes to hundred-pound-plus box sets, also full of outtakes. This three-CD budget collection contains all the essential tracks, and is endorsed by Kenney Jones, the band's one surviving member. And if you're intrigued by the section on Immediate Records, this two-CD set contains a good selection of their releases. ERRATUM-ISH: I say Jimmy Winston was “a couple” of years older than the rest of the band. This does not mean exactly two, but is used in the vague vernacular sense equivalent to “a few”. Different sources I've seen put Winston as either two or four years older than his bandmates, though two seems to be the most commonly cited figure. Transcript For once there is little to warn about in this episode, but it does contain some mild discussions of organised crime, arson, and mental illness, and a quoted joke about capital punishment in questionable taste which may upset some. One name that came up time and again when we looked at the very early years of British rock and roll was Lionel Bart. If you don't remember the name, he was a left-wing Bohemian songwriter who lived in a communal house-share which at various times was also inhabited by people like Shirley Eaton, the woman who is painted gold at the beginning of Goldfinger, Mike Pratt, the star of Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), and Davey Graham, the most influential and innovative British guitarist of the fifties and early sixties. Bart and Pratt had co-written most of the hits of Britain's first real rock and roll star, Tommy Steele: [Excerpt: Tommy Steele, "Rock with the Caveman"] and then Bart had gone solo as a writer, and written hits like "Living Doll" for Britain's *biggest* rock and roll star, Cliff Richard: [Excerpt: Cliff Richard, "Living Doll"] But Bart's biggest contribution to rock music turned out not to be the songs he wrote for rock and roll stars, and not even his talent-spotting -- it was Bart who got Steele signed by Larry Parnes, and he also pointed Parnes in the direction of another of his biggest stars, Marty Wilde -- but the opportunity he gave to a lot of child stars in a very non-rock context. Bart's musical Oliver!, inspired by the novel Oliver Twist, was the biggest sensation on the West End stage in the early 1960s, breaking records for the longest-running musical, and also transferred to Broadway and later became an extremely successful film. As it happened, while Oliver! was extraordinarily lucrative, Bart didn't see much of the money from it -- he sold the rights to it, and his other musicals, to the comedian Max Bygraves in the mid-sixties for a tiny sum in order to finance a couple of other musicals, which then flopped horribly and bankrupted him. But by that time Oliver! had already been the first big break for three people who went on to major careers in music -- all of them playing the same role. Because many of the major roles in Oliver! were for young boys, the cast had to change frequently -- child labour laws meant that multiple kids had to play the same role in different performances, and people quickly grew out of the roles as teenagerhood hit. We've already heard about the career of one of the people who played the Artful Dodger in the original West End production -- Davy Jones, who transferred in the role to Broadway in 1963, and who we'll be seeing again in a few episodes' time -- and it's very likely that another of the people who played the Artful Dodger in that production, a young lad called Philip Collins, will be coming into the story in a few years' time. But the first of the artists to use the Artful Dodger as a springboard to a music career was the one who appeared in the role on the original cast album of 1960, though there's very little in that recording to suggest the sound of his later records: [Excerpt: Steve Marriott, "Consider Yourself"] Steve Marriott is the second little Stevie we've looked at in recent episodes to have been born prematurely. In his case, he was born a month premature, and jaundiced, and had to spend the first month of his life in hospital, the first few days of which were spent unsure if he was going to survive. Thankfully he did, but he was a bit of a sickly child as a result, and remained stick-thin and short into adulthood -- he never grew to be taller than five foot five. Young Steve loved music, and especially the music of Buddy Holly. He also loved skiffle, and managed to find out where Lonnie Donegan lived. He went round and knocked on Donegan's door, but was very disappointed to discover that his idol was just a normal man, with his hair uncombed and a shirt stained with egg yolk. He started playing the ukulele when he was ten, and graduated to guitar when he was twelve, forming a band which performed under a variety of different names. When on stage with them, he would go by the stage name Buddy Marriott, and would wear a pair of horn-rimmed glasses to look more like Buddy Holly. When he was twelve, his mother took him to an audition for Oliver! The show had been running for three months at the time, and was likely to run longer, and child labour laws meant that they had to have replacements for some of the cast -- every three months, any performing child had to have at least ten days off. At his audition, Steve played his guitar and sang "Who's Sorry Now?", the recent Connie Francis hit: [Excerpt: Connie Francis, "Who's Sorry Now?"] And then, ignoring the rule that performers could only do one song, immediately launched into Buddy Holly's "Oh Boy!" [Excerpt: Buddy Holly, "Oh Boy!"] His musical ability and attitude impressed the show's producers, and he was given a job which suited him perfectly -- rather than being cast in a single role, he would be swapped around, playing different small parts, in the chorus, and occasionally taking the larger role of the Artful Dodger. Steve Marriott was never able to do the same thing over and over, and got bored very quickly, but because he was moving between roles, he was able to keep interested in his performances for almost a year, and he was good enough that it was him chosen to sing the Dodger's role on the cast album when that was recorded: [Excerpt: Steve Marriott and Joyce Blair, "I'd Do Anything"] And he enjoyed performance enough that his parents pushed him to become an actor -- though there were other reasons for that, too. He was never the best-behaved child in the world, nor the most attentive student, and things came to a head when, shortly after leaving the Oliver! cast, he got so bored of his art classes he devised a plan to get out of them forever. Every art class, for several weeks, he'd sit in a different desk at the back of the classroom and stuff torn-up bits of paper under the floorboards. After a couple of months of this he then dropped a lit match in, which set fire to the paper and ended up burning down half the school. His schoolfriend Ken Hawes talked about it many decades later, saying "I suppose in a way I was impressed about how he had meticulously planned the whole thing months in advance, the sheer dogged determination to see it through. He could quite easily have been caught and would have had to face the consequences. There was no danger in anybody getting hurt because we were at the back of the room. We had to be at the back otherwise somebody would have noticed what he was doing. There was no malice against other pupils, he just wanted to burn the damn school down." Nobody could prove it was him who had done it, though his parents at least had a pretty good idea who it was, but it was clear that even when the school was rebuilt it wasn't a good idea to send him back there, so they sent him to the Italia Conti Drama School; the same school that Anthony Newley and Petula Clark, among many others, had attended. Marriott's parents couldn't afford the school's fees, but Marriott was so talented that the school waived the fees -- they said they'd get him work, and take a cut of his wages in lieu of the fees. And over the next few years they did get him a lot of work. Much of that work was for TV shows, which like almost all TV of the time no longer exist -- he was in an episode of the Sid James sitcom Citizen James, an episode of Mr. Pastry's Progress, an episode of the police drama Dixon of Dock Green, and an episode of a series based on the Just William books, none of which survive. He also did a voiceover for a carpet cleaner ad, appeared on the radio soap opera Mrs Dale's Diary playing a pop star, and had a regular spot reading listeners' letters out for the agony aunt Marje Proops on her radio show. Almost all of this early acting work wa s utterly ephemeral, but there are a handful of his performances that do survive, mostly in films. He has a small role in the comedy film Heavens Above!, a mistaken-identity comedy in which a radical left-wing priest played by Peter Sellers is given a parish intended for a more conservative priest of the same name, and upsets the well-off people of the parish by taking in a large family of travellers and appointing a Black man as his churchwarden. The film has some dated attitudes, in the way that things that were trying to be progressive and antiracist sixty years ago invariably do, but has a sparkling cast, with Sellers, Eric Sykes, William Hartnell, Brock Peters, Roy Kinnear, Irene Handl, and many more extremely recognisable faces from the period: [Excerpt: Heavens Above!] Marriott apparently enjoyed working on the film immensely, as he was a fan of the Goon Show, which Sellers had starred in and which Sykes had co-written several episodes of. There are reports of Marriott and Sellers jamming together on banjos during breaks in filming, though these are probably *slightly* inaccurate -- Sellers played the banjolele, a banjo-style instrument which is played like a ukulele. As Marriott had started on ukulele before switching to guitar, it was probably these they were playing, rather than banjoes. He also appeared in a more substantial role in a film called Live It Up!, a pop exploitation film starring David Hemmings in which he appears as a member of a pop group. Oddly, Marriott plays a drummer, even though he wasn't a drummer, while two people who *would* find fame as drummers, Mitch Mitchell and Dave Clark, appear in smaller, non-drumming, roles. He doesn't perform on the soundtrack, which is produced by Joe Meek and features Sounds Incorporated, The Outlaws, and Gene Vincent, but he does mime playing behind Heinz Burt, the former bass player of the Tornadoes who was then trying for solo stardom at Meek's instigation: [Excerpt: Heinz Burt, "Don't You Understand"] That film was successful enough that two years later, in 1965 Marriott came back for a sequel, Be My Guest, with The Niteshades, the Nashville Teens, and Jerry Lee Lewis, this time with music produced by Shel Talmy rather than Meek. But that was something of a one-off. After making Live It Up!, Marriott had largely retired from acting, because he was trying to become a pop star. The break finally came when he got an audition at the National Theatre, for a job touring with Laurence Olivier for a year. He came home and told his parents he hadn't got the job, but then a week later they were bemused by a phone call asking why Steve hadn't turned up for rehearsals. He *had* got the job, but he'd decided he couldn't face a year of doing the same thing over and over, and had pretended he hadn't. By this time he'd already released his first record. The work on Oliver! had got him a contract with Decca Records, and he'd recorded a Buddy Holly knock-off, "Give Her My Regards", written for him by Kenny Lynch, the actor, pop star, and all-round entertainer: [Excerpt: Steve Marriott, "Give Her My Regards"] That record wasn't a hit, but Marriott wasn't put off. He formed a band who were at first called the Moonlights, and then the Frantiks, and they got a management deal with Tony Calder, Andrew Oldham's junior partner in his management company. Calder got former Shadow Tony Meehan to produce a demo for the group, a version of Cliff Richard's hit "Move It", which was shopped round the record labels with no success (and which sadly appears no longer to survive). The group also did some recordings with Joe Meek, which also don't circulate, but which may exist in the famous "Teachest Tapes" which are slowly being prepared for archival releases. The group changed their name to the Moments, and added in the guitarist John Weider, who was one of those people who seem to have been in every band ever either just before or just after they became famous -- at various times he was in Johnny Kidd and the Pirates, John Mayall's Bluesbreakers, Family, Eric Burdon and the Animals, and the band that became Crabby Appleton, but never in their most successful lineups. They continued recording unsuccessful demos, of which a small number have turned up: [Excerpt: Steve Marriott and the Moments, "Good Morning Blues"] One of their demo sessions was produced by Andrew Oldham, and while that session didn't lead to a release, it did lead to Oldham booking Marriott as a session harmonica player for one of his "Andrew Oldham Orchestra" sessions, to play on a track titled "365 Rolling Stones (One For Every Day of the Year)": [Excerpt: The Andrew Oldham Orchestra, "365 Rolling Stones (One For Every Day of the Year)"] Oldham also produced a session for what was meant to be Marriott's second solo single on Decca, a cover version of the Rolling Stones' "Tell Me", which was actually scheduled for release but pulled at the last minute. Like many of Marriott's recordings from this period, if it exists, it doesn't seem to circulate publicly. But despite their lack of recording success, the Moments did manage to have a surprising level of success on the live circuit. Because they were signed to Calder and Oldham's management company, they got a contract with the Arthur Howes booking agency, which got them support slots on package tours with Billy J Kramer, Freddie and the Dreamers, the Kinks, and other major acts, and the band members were earning about thirty pounds a week each -- a very, very good living for the time. They even had a fanzine devoted to them, written by a fan named Stuart Tuck. But as they weren't making records, the band's lineup started changing, with members coming and going. They did manage to get one record released -- a soundalike version of the Kinks' "You Really Got Me", recorded for a budget label who rushed it out, hoping to get it picked up in the US and for it to be the hit version there: [Excerpt: The Moments, "You Really Got Me"] But the month after that was released, Marriott was sacked from the band, apparently in part because the band were starting to get billed as Steve Marriott and the Moments rather than just The Moments, and the rest of them didn't want to be anyone's backing band. He got a job at a music shop while looking around for other bands to perform with. At one point around this time he was going to form a duo with a friend of his, Davy Jones -- not the one who had also appeared in Oliver!, but another singer of the same name. This one sang with a blues band called the Mannish Boys, and both men were well known on the Mod scene in London. Marriott's idea was that they call themselves David and Goliath, with Jones being David, and Marriott being Goliath because he was only five foot five. That could have been a great band, but it never got past the idea stage. Marriott had become friendly with another part-time musician and shop worker called Ronnie Lane, who was in a band called the Outcasts who played the same circuit as the Moments: [Excerpt: The Outcasts, "Before You Accuse Me"] Lane worked in a sound equipment shop and Marriott in a musical instrument shop, and both were customers of the other as well as friends -- at least until Marriott came into the shop where Lane worked and tried to persuade him to let Marriott have a free PA system. Lane pretended to go along with it as a joke, and got sacked. Lane had then gone to the shop where Marriott worked in the hope that Marriott would give him a good deal on a guitar because he'd been sacked because of Marriott. Instead, Marriott persuaded him that he should switch to bass, on the grounds that everyone was playing guitar since the Beatles had come along, but a bass player would always be able to find work. Lane bought the bass. Shortly after that, Marriott came to an Outcasts gig in a pub, and was asked to sit in. He enjoyed playing with Lane and the group's drummer Kenney Jones, but got so drunk he smashed up the pub's piano while playing a Jerry Lee Lewis song. The resulting fallout led to the group being barred from the pub and splitting up, so Marriott, Lane, and Jones decided to form their own group. They got in another guitarist Marriott knew, a man named Jimmy Winston who was a couple of years older than them, and who had two advantages -- he was a known Face on the mod scene, with a higher status than any of the other three, and his brother owned a van and would drive the group and their equipment for ten percent of their earnings. There was a slight problem in that Winston was also as good on guitar as Marriott and looked like he might want to be the star, but Marriott neutralised that threat -- he moved Winston over to keyboards. The fact that Winston couldn't play keyboards didn't matter -- he could be taught a couple of riffs and licks, and he was sure to pick up the rest. And this way the group had the same lineup as one of Marriott's current favourites, Booker T and the MGs. While he was still a Buddy Holly fan, he was now, like the rest of the Mods, an R&B obsessive. Marriott wasn't entirely sure that this new group would be the one that would make him a star though, and was still looking for other alternatives in case it didn't play out. He auditioned for another band, the Lower Third, which counted Stuart Tuck, the writer of the Moments fanzine, among its members. But he was unsuccessful in the audition -- instead his friend Davy Jones, the one who he'd been thinking of forming a duo with, got the job: [Excerpt: Davy Jones and the Lower Third, "You've Got a Habit of Leaving"] A few months after that, Davy Jones and the Lower Third changed their name to David Bowie and the Lower Third, and we'll be picking up that story in a little over a year from now... Marriott, Lane, Jones, and Winston kept rehearsing and pulled together a five-song set, which was just about long enough to play a few shows, if they extended the songs with long jamming instrumental sections. The opening song for these early sets was one which, when they recorded it, would be credited to Marriott and Lane -- the two had struck up a writing partnership and agreed to a Lennon/McCartney style credit split, though in these early days Marriott was doing far more of the writing than Lane was. But "You Need Loving" was... heavily inspired... by "You Need Love", a song Willie Dixon had written for Muddy Waters: [Excerpt: Muddy Waters, "You Need Love"] It's not precisely the same song, but you can definitely hear the influence in the Marriott/Lane song: [Excerpt: The Small Faces, "You Need Loving"] They did make some changes though, notably to the end of the song: [Excerpt: The Small Faces, "You Need Loving"] You will be unsurprised to learn that Robert Plant was a fan of Steve Marriott. The new group were initially without a name, until after one of their first gigs, Winston's girlfriend, who hadn't met the other three before, said "You've all got such small faces!" The name stuck, because it had a double meaning -- as we've seen in the episode on "My Generation", "Face" was Mod slang for someone who was cool and respected on the Mod scene, but also, with the exception of Winston, who was average size, the other three members of the group were very short -- the tallest of the three was Ronnie Lane, who was five foot six. One thing I should note about the group's name, by the way -- on all the labels of their records in the UK while they were together, they were credited as "Small Faces", with no "The" in front, but all the band members referred to the group in interviews as "The Small Faces", and they've been credited that way on some reissues and foreign-market records. The group's official website is thesmallfaces.com but all the posts on the website refer to them as "Small Faces" with no "the". The use of the word "the" or not at the start of a group's name at this time was something of a shibboleth -- for example both The Buffalo Springfield and The Pink Floyd dropped theirs after their early records -- and its status in this case is a strange one. I'll be referring to the group throughout as "The Small Faces" rather than "Small Faces" because the former is easier to say, but both seem accurate. After a few pub gigs in London, they got some bookings in the North of England, where they got a mixed reception -- they went down well at Peter Stringfellow's Mojo Club in Sheffield, where Joe Cocker was a regular performer, less well at a working-man's club, and reports differ about their performance at the Twisted Wheel in Manchester, though one thing everyone is agreed on is that while they were performing, some Mancunians borrowed their van and used it to rob a clothing warehouse, and gave the band members some very nice leather coats as a reward for their loan of the van. It was only on the group's return to London that they really started to gel as a unit. In particular, Kenney Jones had up to that point been a very stiff, precise, drummer, but he suddenly loosened up and, in Steve Marriott's tasteless phrase, "Every number swung like Hanratty" (James Hanratty was one of the last people in Britain to be executed by hanging). Shortly after that, Don Arden's secretary -- whose name I haven't been able to find in any of the sources I've used for this episode, sadly, came into the club where they were rehearsing, the Starlight Rooms, to pass a message from Arden to an associate of his who owned the club. The secretary had seen Marriott perform before -- he would occasionally get up on stage at the Starlight Rooms to duet with Elkie Brooks, who was a regular performer there, and she'd seen him do that -- but was newly impressed by his group, and passed word on to her boss that this was a group he should investigate. Arden is someone who we'll be looking at a lot in future episodes, but the important thing to note right now is that he was a failed entertainer who had moved into management and promotion, first with American acts like Gene Vincent, and then with British acts like the Nashville Teens, who had had hits with tracks like "Tobacco Road": [Excerpt: The Nashville Teens, "Tobacco Road"] Arden was also something of a gangster -- as many people in the music industry were at the time, but he was worse than most of his contemporaries, and delighted in his nickname "the Al Capone of pop". The group had a few managers looking to sign them, but Arden convinced them with his offer. They would get a percentage of their earnings -- though they never actually received that percentage -- twenty pounds a week in wages, and, the most tempting part of it all, they would get expense accounts at all the Carnaby St boutiques and could go there whenever they wanted and get whatever they wanted. They signed with Arden, which all of them except Marriott would later regret, because Arden's financial exploitation meant that it would be decades before they saw any money from their hits, and indeed both Marriott and Lane would be dead before they started getting royalties from their old records. Marriott, on the other hand, had enough experience of the industry to credit Arden with the group getting anywhere at all, and said later "Look, you go into it with your eyes open and as far as I was concerned it was better than living on brown sauce rolls. At least we had twenty quid a week guaranteed." Arden got the group signed to Decca, with Dick Rowe signing them to the same kind of production deal that Andrew Oldham had pioneered with the Stones, so that Arden would own the rights to their recordings. At this point the group still only knew a handful of songs, but Rowe was signing almost everyone with a guitar at this point, putting out a record or two and letting them sink or swim. He had already been firmly labelled as "the man who turned down the Beatles", and was now of the opinion that it was better to give everyone a chance than to make that kind of expensive mistake again. By this point Marriott and Lane were starting to write songs together -- though at this point it was still mostly Marriott writing, and people would ask him why he was giving Lane half the credit, and he'd reply "Without Ronnie's help keeping me awake and being there I wouldn't do half of it. He keeps me going." -- but for their first single Arden was unsure that they were up to the task of writing a hit. The group had been performing a version of Solomon Burke's "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love", a song which Burke always claimed to have written alone, but which is credited to him, Jerry Wexler, and Bert Berns (and has Bern's fingerprints, at least, on it to my ears): [Excerpt: Solomon Burke, "Everybody Needs Somebody to Love"] Arden got some professional writers to write new lyrics and vocal melody to their arrangement of the song -- the people he hired were Brian Potter, who would later go on to co-write "Rhinestone Cowboy", and Ian Samwell, the former member of Cliff Richard's Drifters who had written many of Richard's early hits, including "Move It", and was now working for Arden. The group went into the studio and recorded the song, titled "Whatcha Gonna Do About It?": [Excerpt: The Small Faces, "Whatcha Gonna Do About It?"] That version, though was deemed too raucous, and they had to go back into the studio to cut a new version, which came out as their first single: [Excerpt: The Small Faces, "Whatcha Gonna Do About It?"] At first the single didn't do much on the charts, but then Arden got to work with teams of people buying copies from chart return shops, bribing DJs on pirate radio stations to play it, and bribing the person who compiled the charts for the NME. Eventually it made number fourteen, at which point it became a genuinely popular hit. But with that popularity came problems. In particular, Steve Marriott was starting to get seriously annoyed by Jimmy Winston. As the group started to get TV appearances, Winston started to act like he should be the centre of attention. Every time Marriott took a solo in front of TV cameras, Winston would start making stupid gestures, pulling faces, anything to make sure the cameras focussed on him rather than on Marriott. Which wouldn't have been too bad had Winston been a great musician, but he was still not very good on the keyboards, and unlike the others didn't seem particularly interested in trying. He seemed to want to be a star, rather than a musician. The group's next planned single was a Marriott and Lane song, "I've Got Mine". To promote it, the group mimed to it in a film, Dateline Diamonds, a combination pop film and crime caper not a million miles away from the ones that Marriott had appeared in a few years earlier. They also contributed three other songs to the film's soundtrack. Unfortunately, the film's release was delayed, and the film had been the big promotional push that Arden had planned for the single, and without that it didn't chart at all. By the time the single came out, though, Winston was no longer in the group. There are many, many different stories as to why he was kicked out. Depending on who you ask, it was because he was trying to take the spotlight away from Marriott, because he wasn't a good enough keyboard player, because he was taller than the others and looked out of place, or because he asked Don Arden where the money was. It was probably a combination of all of these, but fundamentally what it came to was that Winston just didn't fit into the group. Winston would, in later years, say that him confronting Arden was the only reason for his dismissal, saying that Arden had manipulated the others to get him out of the way, but that seems unlikely on the face of it. When Arden sacked him, he kept Winston on as a client and built another band around him, Jimmy Winston and the Reflections, and got them signed to Decca too, releasing a Kenny Lynch song, "Sorry She's Mine", to no success: [Excerpt: Jimmy Winston and the Reflections, "Sorry She's Mine"] Another version of that song would later be included on the first Small Faces album. Winston would then form another band, Winston's Fumbs, who would also release one single, before he went into acting instead. His most notable credit was as a rebel in the 1972 Doctor Who story Day of the Daleks, and he later retired from showbusiness to run a business renting out sound equipment, and died in 2020. The group hired his replacement without ever having met him or heard him play. Ian McLagan had started out as the rhythm guitarist in a Shadows soundalike band called the Cherokees, but the group had become R&B fans and renamed themselves the Muleskinners, and then after hearing "Green Onions", McLagan had switched to playing Hammond organ. The Muleskinners had played the same R&B circuit as dozens of other bands we've looked at, and had similar experiences, including backing visiting blues stars like Sonny Boy Williamson, Little Walter, and Howlin' Wolf. Their one single had been a cover version of "Back Door Man", a song Willie Dixon had written for Wolf: [Excerpt: The Muleskinners, "Back Door Man"] The Muleskinners had split up as most of the group had day jobs, and McLagan had gone on to join a group called Boz and the Boz People, who were becoming popular on the live circuit, and who also toured backing Kenny Lynch while McLagan was in the band. Boz and the Boz People would release several singles in 1966, like their version of the theme for the film "Carry on Screaming", released just as by "Boz": [Excerpt: Boz, "Carry on Screaming"] By that time, McLagan had left the group -- Boz Burrell later went on to join King Crimson and Bad Company. McLagan left the Boz People in something of a strop, and was complaining to a friend the night he left the group that he didn't have any work lined up. The friend joked that he should join the Small Faces, because he looked like them, and McLagan got annoyed that his friend wasn't taking him seriously -- he'd love to be in the Small Faces, but they *had* a keyboard player. The next day he got a phone call from Don Arden asking him to come to his office. He was being hired to join a hit pop group who needed a new keyboard player. McLagan at first wasn't allowed to tell anyone what band he was joining -- in part because Arden's secretary was dating Winston, and Winston hadn't yet been informed he was fired, and Arden didn't want word leaking out until it had been sorted. But he'd been chosen purely on the basis of an article in a music magazine which had praised his playing with the Boz People, and without the band knowing him or his playing. As soon as they met, though, he immediately fit in in a way Winston never had. He looked the part, right down to his height -- he said later "Ronnie Lane and I were the giants in the band at 5 ft 6 ins, and Kenney Jones and Steve Marriott were the really teeny tiny chaps at 5 ft 5 1/2 ins" -- and he was a great player, and shared a sense of humour with them. McLagan had told Arden he'd been earning twenty pounds a week with the Boz People -- he'd actually been on five -- and so Arden agreed to give him thirty pounds a week during his probationary month, which was more than the twenty the rest of the band were getting. As soon as his probationary period was over, McLagan insisted on getting a pay cut so he'd be on the same wages as the rest of the group. Soon Marriott, Lane, and McLagan were all living in a house rented for them by Arden -- Jones decided to stay living with his parents -- and were in the studio recording their next single. Arden was convinced that the mistake with "I've Got Mine" had been allowing the group to record an original, and again called in a team of professional songwriters. Arden brought in Mort Shuman, who had recently ended his writing partnership with Doc Pomus and struck out on his own, after co-writing songs like "Save the Last Dance for Me", "Sweets For My Sweet", and "Viva Las Vegas" together, and Kenny Lynch, and the two of them wrote "Sha-La-La-La-Lee", and Lynch added backing vocals to the record: [Excerpt: The Small Faces, "Sha-La-La-La-Lee"] None of the group were happy with the record, but it became a big hit, reaching number three in the charts. Suddenly the group had a huge fanbase of screaming teenage girls, which embarrassed them terribly, as they thought of themselves as serious heavy R&B musicians, and the rest of their career would largely be spent vacillating between trying to appeal to their teenybopper fanbase and trying to escape from it to fit their own self-image. They followed "Sha-La-La-La-Lee" with "Hey Girl", a Marriott/Lane song, but one written to order -- they were under strict instructions from Arden that if they wanted to have the A-side of a single, they had to write something as commercial as "Sha-La-La-La-Lee" had been, and they managed to come up with a second top-ten hit. Two hit singles in a row was enough to make an album viable, and the group went into the studio and quickly cut an album, which had their first two hits on it -- "Hey Girl" wasn't included, and nor was the flop "I've Got Mine" -- plus a bunch of semi-originals like "You Need Loving", a couple of Kenny Lynch songs, and a cover version of Sam Cooke's "Shake". The album went to number three on the album charts, with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones in the number one and two spots, and it was at this point that Arden's rivals really started taking interest. But that interest was quelled for the moment when, after Robert Stigwood enquired about managing the band, Arden went round to Stigwood's office with four goons and held him upside down over a balcony, threatening to drop him off if he ever messed with any of Arden's acts again. But the group were still being influenced by other managers. In particular, Brian Epstein came round to the group's shared house, with Graeme Edge of the Moody Blues, and brought them some slices of orange -- which they discovered, after eating them, had been dosed with LSD. By all accounts, Marriott's first trip was a bad one, but the group soon became regular consumers of the drug, and it influenced the heavier direction they took on their next single, "All or Nothing". "All or Nothing" was inspired both by Marriott's breakup with his girlfriend of the time, and his delight at the fact that Jenny Rylance, a woman he was attracted to, had split up with her then-boyfriend Rod Stewart. Rylance and Stewart later reconciled, but would break up again and Rylance would become Marriott's first wife in 1968: [Excerpt: The Small Faces, "All or Nothing"] "All or Nothing" became the group's first and only number one record -- and according to the version of the charts used on Top of the Pops, it was a joint number one with the Beatles' double A-side of "Yellow Submarine" and "Eleanor Rigby", both selling exactly as well as each other. But this success caused the group's parents to start to wonder why their kids -- none of whom were yet twenty-one, the legal age of majority at the time -- were not rich. While the group were on tour, their parents came as a group to visit Arden and ask him where the money was, and why their kids were only getting paid twenty pounds a week when their group was getting a thousand pounds a night. Arden tried to convince the parents that he had been paying the group properly, but that they had spent their money on heroin -- which was very far from the truth, the band were only using soft drugs at the time. This put a huge strain on the group's relationship with Arden, and it wasn't the only thing Arden did that upset them. They had been spending a lot of time in the studio working on new material, and Arden was convinced that they were spending too much time recording, and that they were just faffing around and not producing anything of substance. They dropped off a tape to show him that they had been working -- and the next thing they knew, Arden had put out one of the tracks from that tape, "My Mind's Eye", which had only been intended as a demo, as a single: [Excerpt: The Small Faces, "My Mind's Eye"] That it went to number four on the charts didn't make up for the fact that the first the band heard of the record coming out at all was when they heard it on the radio. They needed rid of Arden. Luckily for them, Arden wasn't keen on continuing to work with them either. They were unreliable and flakey, and he also needed cash quick to fund his other ventures, and he agreed to sell on their management and recording contracts. Depending on which version of the story you believe, he may have sold them on to an agent called Harold Davison, who then sold them on to Andrew Oldham and Tony Calder, but according to Oldham what happened is that in December 1966 Arden demanded the highest advance in British history -- twenty-five thousand pounds -- directly from Oldham. In cash. In a brown paper bag. The reason Oldham and Calder were interested was that in July 1965 they'd started up their own record label, Immediate Records, which had been announced by Oldham in his column in Disc and Music Echo, in which he'd said "On many occasions I have run down the large record companies over issues such as pirate stations, their promotion, and their tastes. And many readers have written in and said that if I was so disturbed by the state of the existing record companies why didn't I do something about it. I have! On the twentieth of this month the first of three records released by my own company, Immediate Records, is to be launched." That first batch of three records contained one big hit, "Hang on Sloopy" by the McCoys, which Immediate licensed from Bert Berns' new record label BANG in the US: [Excerpt: The McCoys, "Hang on Sloopy"] The two other initial singles featured the talents of Immediate's new in-house producer, a session player who had previously been known as "Little Jimmy" to distinguish him from "Big" Jim Sullivan, the other most in-demand session guitarist, but who was now just known as Jimmy Page. The first was a version of Pete Seeger's "The Bells of Rhymney", which Page produced and played guitar on, for a group called The Fifth Avenue: [Excerpt: The Fifth Avenue, "The Bells of Rhymney"] And the second was a Gordon Lightfoot song performed by a girlfriend of Brian Jones', Nico. The details as to who was involved in the track have varied -- at different times the production has been credited to Jones, Page, and Oldham -- but it seems to be the case that both Jones and Page play on the track, as did session bass player John Paul Jones: [Excerpt: Nico, "I'm Not Sayin'"] While "Hang on Sloopy" was a big hit, the other two singles were flops, and The Fifth Avenue split up, while Nico used the publicity she'd got as an entree into Andy Warhol's Factory, and we'll be hearing more about how that went in a future episode. Oldham and Calder were trying to follow the model of the Brill Building, of Phil Spector, and of big US independents like Motown and Stax. They wanted to be a one-stop shop where they'd produce the records, manage the artists, and own the publishing -- and they also licensed the publishing for the Beach Boys' songs for a couple of years, and started publicising their records over here in a big way, to exploit the publishing royalties, and that was a major factor in turning the Beach Boys from minor novelties to major stars in the UK. Most of Immediate's records were produced by Jimmy Page, but other people got to have a go as well. Giorgio Gomelsky and Shel Talmy both produced tracks for the label, as did a teenage singer then known as Paul Raven, who would later become notorious under his later stage-name Gary Glitter. But while many of these records were excellent -- and Immediate deserves to be talked about in the same terms as Motown or Stax when it comes to the quality of the singles it released, though not in terms of commercial success -- the only ones to do well on the charts in the first few months of the label's existence were "Hang on Sloopy" and an EP by Chris Farlowe. It was Farlowe who provided Immediate Records with its first home-grown number one, a version of the Rolling Stones' "Out of Time" produced by Mick Jagger, though according to Arthur Greenslade, the arranger on that and many other Immediate tracks, Jagger had given up on getting a decent performance out of Farlowe and Oldham ended up producing the vocals. Greenslade later said "Andrew must have worked hard in there, Chris Farlowe couldn't sing his way out of a paper bag. I'm sure Andrew must have done it, where you get an artist singing and you can do a sentence at a time, stitching it all together. He must have done it in pieces." But however hard it was to make, "Out of Time" was a success: [Excerpt: Chris Farlowe, "Out of Time"] Or at least, it was a success in the UK. It did also make the top forty in the US for a week, but then it hit a snag -- it had charted without having been released in the US at all, or even being sent as a promo to DJs. Oldham's new business manager Allen Klein had been asked to work his magic on the US charts, but the people he'd bribed to hype the record into the charts had got the release date wrong and done it too early. When the record *did* come out over there, no radio station would play it in case it looked like they were complicit in the scam. But still, a UK number one wasn't too shabby, and so Immediate Records was back on track, and Oldham wanted to shore things up by bringing in some more proven hit-makers. Immediate signed the Small Faces, and even started paying them royalties -- though that wouldn't last long, as Immediate went bankrupt in 1970 and its successors in interest stopped paying out. The first work the group did for the label was actually for a Chris Farlowe single. Lane and Marriott gave him their song "My Way of Giving", and played on the session along with Farlowe's backing band the Thunderbirds. Mick Jagger is the credited producer, but by all accounts Marriott and Lane did most of the work: [Excerpt: Chris Farlowe, "My Way of Giving"] Sadly, that didn't make the top forty. After working on that, they started on their first single recorded at Immediate. But because of contractual entanglements, "I Can't Make It" was recorded at Immediate but released by Decca. Because the band weren't particularly keen on promoting something on their old label, and the record was briefly banned by the BBC for being too sexual, it only made number twenty-six on the charts. Around this time, Marriott had become friendly with another band, who had named themselves The Little People in homage to the Small Faces, and particularly with their drummer Jerry Shirley. Marriott got them signed to Immediate, and produced and played on their first single, a version of his song "(Tell Me) Have You Ever Seen Me?": [Excerpt: The Apostolic Intervention, "(Tell Me) Have You Ever Seen Me?"] When they signed to Immediate, The Little People had to change their name, and Marriott suggested they call themselves The Nice, a phrase he liked. Oldham thought that was a stupid name, and gave the group the much more sensible name The Apostolic Intervention. And then a few weeks later he signed another group and changed *their* name to The Nice. "The Nice" was also a phrase used in the Small Faces' first single for Immediate proper. "Here Come the Nice" was inspired by a routine by the hipster comedian Lord Buckley, "The Nazz", which also gave a name to Todd Rundgren's band and inspired a line in David Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust": [Excerpt: Lord Buckley, "The Nazz"] "Here Come the Nice" was very blatantly about a drug dealer, and somehow managed to reach number twelve despite that: [Excerpt: The Small Faces, "Here Come the Nice"] It also had another obstacle that stopped it doing as well as it might. A week before it came out, Decca released a single, "Patterns", from material they had in the vault. And in June 1967, two Small Faces albums came out. One of them was a collection from Decca of outtakes and demos, plus their non-album hit singles, titled From The Beginning, while the other was their first album on Immediate, which was titled Small Faces -- just like their first Decca album had been. To make matters worse, From The Beginning contained the group's demos of "My Way of Giving" and "(Tell Me) Have You Ever Seen Me?", while the group's first Immediate album contained a new recording of "(Tell Me) Have You Ever Seen Me?", and a version of "My Way of Giving" with the same backing track but a different vocal take from the one on the Decca collection. From this point on, the group's catalogue would be a complete mess, with an endless stream of compilations coming out, both from Decca and, after the group split, from Immediate, mixing tracks intended for release with demos and jam sessions with no regard for either their artistic intent or for what fans might want. Both albums charted, with Small Faces reaching number twelve and From The Beginning reaching number sixteen, neither doing as well as their first album had, despite the Immediate album, especially, being a much better record. This was partly because the Marriott/Lane partnership was becoming far more equal. Kenney Jones later said "During the Decca period most of the self-penned stuff was 99% Steve. It wasn't until Immediate that Ronnie became more involved. The first Immediate album is made up of 50% Steve's songs and 50% of Ronnie's. They didn't collaborate as much as people thought. In fact, when they did, they often ended up arguing and fighting." It's hard to know who did what on each song credited to the pair, but if we assume that each song's principal writer also sang lead -- we know that's not always the case, but it's a reasonable working assumption -- then Jones' fifty-fifty estimate seems about right. Of the fourteen songs on the album, McLagan sings one, which is also his own composition, "Up the Wooden Hills to Bedfordshire". There's one instrumental, six with Marriott on solo lead vocals, four with Lane on solo lead vocals, and two duets, one with Lane as the main vocalist and one with Marriott. The fact that there was now a second songwriter taking an equal role in the band meant that they could now do an entire album of originals. It also meant that their next Marriott/Lane single was mostly a Lane song. "Itchycoo Park" started with a verse lyric from Lane -- "Over bridge of sighs/To rest my eyes in shades of green/Under dreaming spires/To Itchycoo Park, that's where I've been". The inspiration apparently came from Lane reading about the dreaming spires of Oxford, and contrasting it with the places he used to play as a child, full of stinging nettles. For a verse melody, they repeated a trick they'd used before -- the melody of "My Mind's Eye" had been borrowed in part from the Christmas carol "Gloria in Excelsis Deo", and here they took inspiration from the old hymn "God Be in My Head": [Excerpt: The Choir of King's College Cambridge, "God Be in My Head"] As Marriott told the story: "We were in Ireland and speeding our brains out writing this song. Ronnie had the first verse already written down but he had no melody line, so what we did was stick the verse to the melody line of 'God Be In My Head' with a few chord variations. We were going towards Dublin airport and I thought of the middle eight... We wrote the second verse collectively, and the chorus speaks for itself." [Excerpt: The Small Faces, "Itchycoo Park"] Marriott took the lead vocal, even though it was mostly Lane's song, but Marriott did contribute to the writing, coming up with the middle eight. Lane didn't seem hugely impressed with Marriott's contribution, and later said "It wasn't me that came up with 'I feel inclined to blow my mind, get hung up, feed the ducks with a bun/They all come out to groove about, be nice and have fun in the sun'. That wasn't me, but the more poetic stuff was." But that part became the most memorable part of the record, not so much because of the writing or performance but because of the production. It was one of the first singles released using a phasing effect, developed by George Chkiantz (and I apologise if I'm pronouncing that name wrong), who was the assistant engineer for Glyn Johns on the album. I say it was one of the first, because at the time there was not a clear distinction between the techniques now known as phasing, flanging, and artificial double tracking, all of which have now diverged, but all of which initially came from the idea of shifting two copies of a recording slightly out of synch with each other. The phasing on "Itchycoo Park" , though, was far more extreme and used to far different effect than that on, say, Revolver: [Excerpt: The Small Faces, "Itchycoo Park"] It was effective enough that Jimi Hendrix, who was at the time working on Axis: Bold as Love, requested that Chkiantz come in and show his engineer how to get the same effect, which was then used on huge chunks of Hendrix's album. The BBC banned the record, because even the organisation which had missed that the Nice who "is always there when I need some speed" was a drug dealer was a little suspicious about whether "we'll get high" and "we'll touch the sky" might be drug references. The band claimed to be horrified at the thought, and explained that they were talking about swings. It's a song about a park, so if you play on the swings, you go high. What else could it mean? [Excerpt: The Small Faces, “Itchycoo Park”] No drug references there, I'm sure you'll agree. The song made number three, but the group ran into more difficulties with the BBC after an appearance on Top of the Pops. Marriott disliked the show's producer, and the way that he would go up to every act and pretend to think they had done a very good job, no matter what he actually thought, which Marriott thought of as hypocrisy rather than as politeness and professionalism. Marriott discovered that the producer was leaving the show, and so in the bar afterwards told him exactly what he thought of him, calling him a "two-faced", and then a four-letter word beginning with c which is generally considered the most offensive swear word there is. Unfortunately for Marriott, he'd been misinformed, the producer wasn't leaving the show, and the group were barred from it for a while. "Itchycoo Park" also made the top twenty in the US, thanks to a new distribution deal Immediate had, and plans were made for the group to tour America, but those plans had to be scrapped when Ian McLagan was arrested for possession of hashish, and instead the group toured France, with support from a group called the Herd: [Excerpt: The Herd, "From the Underworld"] Marriott became very friendly with the Herd's guitarist, Peter Frampton, and sympathised with Frampton's predicament when in the next year he was voted "face of '68" and developed a similar teenage following to the one the Small Faces had. The group's last single of 1967 was one of their best. "Tin Soldier" was inspired by the Hans Andersen story “The Steadfast Tin Soldier”, and was originally written for the singer P.P. Arnold, who Marriott was briefly dating around this time. But Arnold was *so* impressed with the song that Marriott decided to keep it for his own group, and Arnold was left just doing backing vocals on the track: [Excerpt: The Small Faces, "Tin Soldier"] It's hard to show the appeal of "Tin Soldier" in a short clip like those I use on this show, because so much of it is based on the use of dynamics, and the way the track rises and falls, but it's an extremely powerful track, and made the top ten. But it was after that that the band started falling apart, and also after that that they made the work generally considered their greatest album. As "Itchycoo Park" had made number one in Australia, the group were sent over there on tour to promote it, as support act for the Who. But the group hadn't been playing live much recently, and found it difficult to replicate their records on stage, as they were now so reliant on studio effects like phasing. The Australian audiences were uniformly hostile, and the contrast with the Who, who were at their peak as a live act at this point, couldn't have been greater. Marriott decided he had a solution. The band needed to get better live, so why not get Peter Frampton in as a fifth member? He was great on guitar and had stage presence, obviously that would fix their problems. But the other band members absolutely refused to get Frampton in. Marriott's confidence as a stage performer took a knock from which it never really recovered, and increasingly the band became a studio-only one. But the tour also put strain on the most important partnership in the band. Marriott and Lane had been the closest of friends and collaborators, but on the tour, both found a very different member of the Who to pal around with. Marriott became close to Keith Moon, and the two would get drunk and trash hotel rooms together. Lane, meanwhile, became very friendly with Pete Townshend, who introduced him to the work of the guru Meher Baba, who Townshend followed. Lane, too, became a follower, and the two would talk about religion and spirituality while their bandmates were destroying things. An attempt was made to heal the growing rifts though. Marriott, Lane, and McLagan all moved in together again like old times, but this time in a cottage -- something that became so common for bands around this time that the phrase "getting our heads together in the country" became a cliche in the music press. They started working on material for their new album. One of the tracks that they were working on was written by Marriott, and was inspired by how, before moving in to the country cottage, his neighbours had constantly complained about the volume of his music -- he'd been particularly annoyed that the pop singer Cilla Black, who lived in the same building and who he'd assumed would understand the pop star lifestyle, had complained more than anyone. It had started as as fairly serious blues song, but then Marriott had been confronted by the members of the group The Hollies, who wanted to know why Marriott always sang in a pseudo-American accent. Wasn't his own accent good enough? Was there something wrong with being from the East End of London? Well, no, Marriott decided, there wasn't, and so he decided to sing it in a Cockney accent. And so the song started to change, going from being an R&B song to being the kind of thing Cockneys could sing round a piano in a pub: [Excerpt: The Small Faces, "Lazy Sunday"] Marriott intended the song just as an album track for the album they were working on, but Andrew Oldham insisted on releasing it as a single, much to the band's disgust, and it went to number two on the charts, and along with "Itchycoo Park" meant that the group were now typecast as making playful, light-hearted music. The album they were working on, Ogden's Nut-Gone Flake, was eventually as known for its marketing as its music. In the Small Faces' long tradition of twisted religious references, like their songs based on hymns and their song "Here Come the Nice", which had taken inspiration from a routine about Jesus and made it about a drug dealer, the print ads for the album read: Small Faces Which were in the studios Hallowed be thy name Thy music come Thy songs be sung On this album as they came from your heads We give you this day our daily bread Give us thy album in a round cover as we give thee 37/9d Lead us into the record stores And deliver us Ogdens' Nut Gone Flake For nice is the music The sleeve and the story For ever and ever, Immediate The reason the ad mentioned a round cover is that the original pressings of the album were released in a circular cover, made to look like a tobacco tin, with the name of the brand of tobacco changed from Ogden's Nut-Brown Flake to Ogden's Nut-Gone Flake, a reference to how after smoking enough dope your nut, or head, would be gone. This made more sense to British listeners than to Americans, because not only was the slang on the label British, and not only was it a reference to a British tobacco brand, but American and British dope-smoking habits are very different. In America a joint is generally made by taking the dried leaves and flowers of the cannabis plant -- or "weed" -- and rolling them in a cigarette paper and smoking them. In the UK and much of Europe, though, the preferred form of cannabis is the resin, hashish, which is crumbled onto tobacco in a cigarette paper and smoked that way, so having rolling or pipe tobacco was a necessity for dope smokers in the UK in a way it wasn't in the US. Side one of Ogden's was made up of normal songs, but the second side mixed songs and narrative. Originally the group wanted to get Spike Milligan to do the narration, but when Milligan backed out they chose Professor Stanley Unwin, a comedian who was known for speaking in his own almost-English language, Unwinese: [Excerpt: Stanley Unwin, "The Populode of the Musicolly"] They gave Unwin a script, telling the story that linked side two of the album, in which Happiness Stan is shocked to discover that half the moon has disappeared and goes on a quest to find the missing half, aided by a giant fly who lets him sit on his back after Stan shares his shepherd's pie with the hungry fly. After a long quest they end up at the cave of Mad John the Hermit, who points out to them that nobody had stolen half the moon at all -- they'd been travelling so long that it was a full moon again, and everything was OK. Unwin took that script, and reworked it into Unwinese, and also added in a lot of the slang he heard the group use, like "cool it" and "what's been your hang-up?": [Excerpt: The Small Faces and Professor Stanley Unwin, "Mad John"] The album went to number one, and the group were justifiably proud, but it only exacerbated the problems with their live show. Other than an appearance on the TV show Colour Me Pop, where they were joined by Stanley Unwin to perform the whole of side two of the album with live vocals but miming to instrumental backing tracks, they only performed two songs from the album live, "Rollin' Over" and "Song of a Baker", otherwise sticking to the same live show Marriott was already embarrassed by. Marriott later said "We had spent an entire year in the studios, which was why our stage presentation had not been improved since the previous year. Meanwhile our recording experience had developed in leaps and bounds. We were all keenly interested in the technical possibilities, in the art of recording. We let down a lot of people who wanted to hear Ogden's played live. We were still sort of rough and ready, and in the end the audience became uninterested as far as our stage show was concerned. It was our own fault, because we would have sussed it all out if we had only used our brains. We could have taken Stanley Unwin on tour with us, maybe a string section as well, and it would have been okay. But we didn't do it, we stuck to the concept that had been successful for a long time, which is always the kiss of death." The group's next single would be the last released while they were together. Marriott regarded "The Universal" as possibly the best thing he'd written, and recorded it quickly when inspiration struck. The finished single is actually a home recording of Marriott in his garden, including the sounds of a dog barking and his wife coming home with the shopping, onto which the band later overdubbed percussion, horns, and electric guitars: [Excerpt: The Small Faces, "The Universal"] Incidentally, it seems that the dog barking on that track may also be the dog barking on “Seamus” by Pink Floyd. "The Universal" confused listeners, and only made number sixteen on the charts, crushing Marriott, who thought it was the best thing he'd done. But the band were starting to splinter. McLagan isn't on "The Universal", having quit the band before it was recorded after a falling-out with Marriott. He rejoined, but discovered that in the meantime Marriott had brought in session player Nicky Hopkins to work on some tracks, which devastated him. Marriott became increasingly unconfident in his own writing, and the writing dried up. The group did start work on some new material, some of which, like "The Autumn Stone", is genuinely lovely: [Excerpt: The Small Faces, "The Autumn Stone"] But by the time that was released, the group had already split up. The last recording they did together was as a backing group for Johnny Hallyday, the French rock star. A year earlier Hallyday had recorded a version of "My Way of Giving", under the title "Je N'Ai Jamais Rien Demandé": [Excerpt: Johnny Hallyday, "Je N'Ai Jamais Rien Demandé"] Now he got in touch with Glyn Johns to see if the Small Faces had any other material for him, and if they'd maybe back him on a few tracks on a new album. Johns and the Small Faces flew to France... as did Peter Frampton, who Marriott was still pushing to get into the band. They recorded three tracks for the album, with Frampton on extra guitar: [Excerpt: Johnny Hallyday, "Reclamation"] These tracks left Marriott more certain than ever that Frampton should be in the band, and the other three members even more certain that he shouldn't. Frampton joined the band on stage at a few shows on their next few gigs, but he was putting together his own band with Jerry Shirley from Apostolic Intervention. On New Year's Eve 1968, Marriott finally had enough. He stormed off stage mid-set, and quit the group. He phoned up Peter Frampton, who was hanging out with Glyn Johns listening to an album Johns had just produced by some of the session players who'd worked for Immediate. Side one had just finished when Marriott phoned. Could he join Frampton's new band? Frampton said of course he could, then put the phone down and listened to side two of Led Zeppelin's first record. The band Marriott and Frampton formed was called Humble Pie, and they were soon releasing stuff on Immediate. According to Oldham, "Tony Calder said to me one day 'Pick a straw'. Then he explained we had a choice. We could either go with the three Faces -- Kenney, Ronnie, and Mac -- wherever they were going to go with their lives, or we could follow Stevie. I didn't regard it as a choice. Neither did Tony. Marriott was our man". Marriott certainly seemed to agree that he was the real talent in the group. He and Lane had fairly recently bought some property together -- two houses on the same piece of land -- and with the group splitting up, Lane moved away and wanted to sell his share in the property to Marriott. Marriott wrote to him saying "You'll get nothing. This was bought with money from hits that I wrote, not that we wrote," and enclosing a PRS statement showing how much each Marriott/Lane
In today's devotional we wrap up our week on living an unveiled lifestyle by looking at our righteousness in Jesus Christ. Acknowledging the new nature we've been given in God is absolutely critical in living life to the fullest, having the fullest experience of God and interior abundance in him. May you see yourself in light of the finished work of Christ today as we make space to see the new nature we've been given by God's grace. Our Scripture for today comes from 2 Corinthians 5:21, and today's worship is God Be by Chris Renzema. -- From now until August 26th we are offering a bundle of two printed First15 devotionals: Grace + Grow for your donation of $40 or more. With the Grace + Grow Bundle you can: Grow in your connection to the vine, and experience the transformation that comes from a life lived with God! Experience a fresh glimpse into the life-giving grace of God! Grace and Grow will take you through 8 weeks of quality time with the Lord & explore topics like: The freedom we find in God's grace The power of forgiveness towards yourself and others How to walk honestly before God How to follow God's direction for your life You don't have to do this alone. We're here to help. And it's a privilege to help you make space that only God can fill. Know that your donation will go on to impact the lives of believers around the world who use First15 resources daily. Get your copy at supportfirst15.org!
Did Habakkuk know what it meant to -be still and know that I am God--- Be watchful and focused on God and not on what is going on around us. The greatest evidence of our faith being real is that we can wait and not be discouraged. If we lose focus and become discouraged, we quit listening to the voice of God and, many times, quit praying.-God is always speaking but we need to be in a place where we can receive and respond.
Laying hold of peace in the middle of transition and trouble After Jesus' death, the plans, security, and position of the disciples were thrown into chaos. Fearing the government and their futures they hid. Jesus brought the answer by saying three times, Peace to you! Highlights: * God doesn't choose based on status, gender, rank, or position. * Hold on as tight as you can as long as you can * Agree with God * Be a believer * My peace I leave you. My peace I give to you. www.jaimeluce.com I'm proud to announce that my podcast is part of the Charisma Plus App! This Christ-centered app allows users to listen to Spirit-Filled podcasts, stay up to date on the news through a Christian lens, and stay connected to the spirit throughout the workweek. When you sign up for the Free Charisma Plus App, you help support this show. Get your subscription at http://play.charismaplusapp.com/subscribe?code=JaimeLuce Are you looking for Spirit-filled articles, teachings, insights, prophetic words, and the tools to gain intimate knowledge of the Holy Spirit? Charisma magazine empowers believers to live life in the Spirit. Each issue of Charisma Magazine contains articles, teachings, and insights to gain a more intimate knowledge of the Holy Spirit. https://shop.charismamag.com/collections/subscription?ref=JaimeLuce To purchase the Spiritual Warfare Bible. https://shop.charismamag.com/collections/bible/products/spiritual-warfare-bible-leather?ref=JaimeLuce
This morning, our guest speaker Pastor Rene Hernandez from Open Heavens Christian Center, shared from 2 Chronicles 20 the five steps we can follow to trust God: Be quick to pray; Surround yourself with the community of faith; Be sensitive to the Holy Spirit; Speak words of faith; Have a heart of praise.
The Bible is chock-full of examples of other men gathering together and calling on each other to do the things that they do as they imitate Christ. So, we, too, have opportunities each day to surround ourselves with Godly men who set the kind of example in their walk that we need.Men came from all over to attend Versus, and God put them there for a reason. He used Versus to call men to determine the next steps to grow in their faith. Or, maybe even to call men to Himself for the first time. There was such a response to the message that was shared that dozens of men walked down in front of the crowd to announce their acceptance of Jesus as Lord and Savior of their life. Seeing other men and hearing the stories they shared of the struggles and victories they've had in Christ is powerful. It's something that can happen in everyday conversations.As Tim Tebow stated, he has a platform, and, rather than use it for selfish desires, he chooses to use it for the glory of God. We know that Scripture tells us the things of this world will return empty. So, in examining your life in this context, what is your purpose? Like many men, do you find you identity in your job, money, or success? When you do that and something happens to throw that off-kilter, it can feel like your whole world is crashing down. That's why we are told to seek first the kingdom of God.So, what are the next steps after Versus? Don't Go Alone – You may not know it, but there is power in walking with other men. Oftentimes, it isn't until you have community that you realize how much stronger your walk can be than it is on your own. Take a Habit Inventory – Look where you are devoting your time (e.g. social media, sports, Netflix, etc.). What spiritual habits are you practicing, or could you practice, instead? Spend Time with God – Be in the Word and in prayer – everyday. Not because you have to, but because you get to. We have an opportunity and are equipped to handle the things of this life by a God who loves us and wants to spend time with us. Take full advantage of this one-of-a-kind relationship. If you don't know where to start, we've created a unique curriculum you can find below. Find some men to go through it with you and learn about the Weapons of War that God provided to help us in the battle.
Elohim means God in Hebrew. Why does it have a plural suffix at the end? Is it really plural in Modern Hebrew? How do we use elohim in Israeli slang, and what did we borrow from Arabic? Listen to the All-Hebrew Episode on Patreon New Words and Expressions: Elohim – God – אלוהים El, Ela – God, Goddess – אל, אלה Elohim adirim – God Almighty – אלוהים אדירים “Elohim natan lecha be-matana” – God gave you, as a present… – אלוהים נתן לך במתנה Elohim gadol – Nobody knows – אלוהים גדול Elohim yodea – Only God knows – אלוהים יודע Yow, elohim – Oh God – יואו אלוהים Ein lecha/lach elohim – You don't care, huh? – אין לך אלוהים Ani nishba be'elohim – I swear to God – אני נשבע באלוהים Be-elohim – I swear to God – באלוהים Be'elohim, ani lo yodea – I swear, I don't know – באלוהים, אני לא יודע Ze me-elohim – It's a godsend – זה מאלוהים Min allah – From allah – מאלוהים La-allah – Very – לאללה Ani ayef la'allah – I am really tired – אני עייף לאללה Haya kef la'allah – It was really fun – היה כיף לאללה Elohi – Divine – אלוהי Elohut – Divinity – אלוהוּת “Elohai ad mati” – My god, until when? – אלוהיי, עד מתי Playlist and Clips: Oshik Levy – Ze Mikvar (Lyrics) Eitan Massuri – Elohim Natan Lecha Be-matana (Lyrics) Matsav Ha-uma TV Show Rockfor – Ein Lecha Elohim (Lyrics) Yuval Perry – Isha Satan (Lyrics) Pita Crunch – Commercial Zehava Ben – Tipat Mazal (Lyrics) Uzi Hitman – Ratsiti She-teda (Lyrics)
The Hope of Refuge by Cindy Woodsmall ch3 and 4https://amzn.to/3BOqCtUThe widowed mother of a little girl, Cara Moore is struggling against poverty, fear, and a relentless stalker. When her stalker ransacks her home, Cara and her daughter, Lori, flee New York City for an Amish community, eager for a fresh start. But she discovers that long-held secrets about her family history ripple beneath the surface of Dry Lake, Pennsylvania, and it's no place for an outsider. One Amish man, Ephraim Mast, dares to fulfill the command he believes that he received from God - “Be me to her” - despite how it threatens his way of life. While Ephraim tries to do what he believes is right, will he be shunned and lose everything, including the guarded single mother who simply longs for a better life? https://amzn.to/3BOqCtU
The Hope of Refuge by Cindy Woodsmall ch1 and 2https://amzn.to/3BOqCtUThe widowed mother of a little girl, Cara Moore is struggling against poverty, fear, and a relentless stalker. When her stalker ransacks her home, Cara and her daughter, Lori, flee New York City for an Amish community, eager for a fresh start. But she discovers that long-held secrets about her family history ripple beneath the surface of Dry Lake, Pennsylvania, and it's no place for an outsider. One Amish man, Ephraim Mast, dares to fulfill the command he believes that he received from God - “Be me to her” - despite how it threatens his way of life. While Ephraim tries to do what he believes is right, will he be shunned and lose everything, including the guarded single mother who simply longs for a better life? https://amzn.to/3BOqCtU
4 Tips to incorporating more gratitude in your life 1. Keep a gratitude journal and set a goal over the next 30 days to always write what you are grateful for2. Being thankful for the “extremely small things”3. Build the habit that when something bad happens, you immediate think of what you are grateful for in that moment 4. Spending more time in worship to God Be sure to subscribe to the channel for more - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfA1...Want more inspiration content to keep you going in the right direction? Follow me around the web.Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/_justincarter/Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/iVestJustin/Podcast Links:Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/60FdwuF...Apple Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...
Focusing on the Lord at the beginning of your day is critical in accomplishing Kingdom goals, allowing Him to fill any gaps in your life. But it requires spiritual discipline. Many of us set goals at the beginning of the year and never check in with God about how those goals and assignments are progressing for His Kingdom The summer months are the perfect season to narrow our focus on the Lord so that our dreams will come to pass. In this podcast, Curt Landry gives practical advice and explains the 7 pillars you need to establish in your life to ensure that you stay focused on the Lord, becoming successful and prosperous in what He has called you to do. As you explore these 7 pillars... Start your day by stilling your heart in prayer Be honest with yourself and with God Be a doer of the Word and intentional with your goals The accuser of the brethren uses the distraction to get you off course throughout the year. Reset your heart and mind and focus on the Lord in this season. Your dreams are waiting… Want information about the Jewish roots of your faith. Click clmmin.com/jewishroots to get a FREE guide.
Have you ever felt like your goals are so far away? Or Does it seem like the vision of who you want to be is far away? Believe it or not…this way of thinking will ultimately hurt you…and today we will talk about THE RIGHT MINDSET to have to win in ANY area of life! Let's define what I mean by this ‘flawed mindset'. I'm talking about the mindset that you are striving to achieve something that you currently don't have or be someone that you are currently not. I used to think this way. I thought I was so far removed from who I was and what I wanted to achieve. Therefore it was a struggle to… Be a better father Be a better husband Be in great shape Be closer to God Be successful in my career as a doctor Be a great speaker Be fulfilled I saw myself as a failure or underachiever in those areas because the way I had currently viewed myself was so different than how I wanted to be. Therefore, everyday was a consistent reminder of WHO I WASN'T. The reality is this… How you see yourself, is how you'll be yourself!! Basically, this means that in order for you to become the person you want to be…you MUST FIRST IDENTIFY YOURSELF AS THAT PERSON! You have to BE IT, before you BECOME IT! Here is the difference between (1)‘striving to be something you currently are not' versus (2)‘being the person you want to become': In (1) you are trying to be something I'm currently not In (2) it's understanding that you currently ARE THE PERSON YOU WANT TO BECOME, but just not expressing it yet. Here are a couple of analogies to help you understand the concept: ART: Within a slab of stone is a future sculptured masterpiece. It lives beneath and within the stone, but eventually gets expressed with time and work. BUTTERFLY: Just because a caterpillar doesn't have wings, doesn't mean it's not a future beautiful butterfly that flies. It's simply a matter of time and transformation. FROG: A tadpole has no legs and looks like a fish but is undoubtedly a future frog that can leap ridiculous lengths relative to its size. It's just a matter of time and transformation DOCTOR: I had to believe I was a doctor before I was a doctor. Therefore, it was simply a matter of time, work, faith, and transformation to eventually express what I believed I was. You must first understand this sequence: BELIEFS (aka. How you identify yourself) lead to -> THOUGHTS that lead to -> FEELINGS that lead to -> ACTIONS that lead to -> OUTCOMES/RESULTS Therefore… Belief comes before Results!!! Here's what is awesome… YOU WERE DESIGNED, BY GOD, TO BE EXTRAORDINARY!! YOU WERE DESIGNED, BY GOD, TO BE A BEAST!! YOU WERE DESIGNED, BY GOD, TO BE MORE THAN A CONQUEROR!! YOU WERE DESIGNED, BY GOD, TO BE A WINNER!! Here's the problem: We've forgotten our identity! We were…YOU WERE created in God's image and are fearfully and wonderfully made! We've forgotten that Christ is in us…is IN YOU! We can…YOU CAN do all things through Christ who strengthens you! (Phil 4:13) We have conformed to the way the world sees us instead of the way God sees us We are like Eagles amongst chickens. We were meant to fly and sour but have been convinced that we can't fly and are restricted to the ground. Once you realize and accept who you REALLY are and what you are capable of, your potential will be realized! Here is the goal we should all seek… Attempt to see yourself as God sees you!! Once you build this habit…you express the ELITE MAN that you have been made to be! However, this requires relationship with God. Prioritize relationship with God above all else…and experience life like NO ONE ELSE!! Book a 1:1 discovery call with me at https://drbradmd.com Talk to you soon, Dr. Brad P.S. Do you want more consistency in your faith, work, and life? Learn how to create an unstoppable morning routine that will create more consistency in your faith, more productivity in your day, and more fulfillment in your life. Enroll now to learn the ELITE Power Hour Morning Routine at elitepowerhour.com
Jesus will reap vengeance and eternal destruction against all Godless sinners. When Jesus attacks, there will be literal “Hell” to pay. Who will be able to stand in the great terrible day of the Lord? You have rejected His salvation and you have persecuted God's children, so then you will pay with your very soul. Repent today or receive the eternal consequences of your stubborn rebellion. Children of God- Be of good courage! Your Father and Lord fight on your behalves. They will settle the score, and you will come out as the victors in the end! Stand up and raise your voice in a hallelujah Chorus! Praise God and Praise Jesus- we have won! (2 Thessalonians 1:5-10) “This is an obvious sign of the righteous judgment of God, to the end that you may be counted worthy of God's Kingdom, for which you also suffer. Since it is a righteous thing with God to repay affliction to those who afflict you, and to give relief to you who are afflicted with us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, punishing those who don't know God, and to those who don't obey the Good News of our Lord Jesus, who will pay the penalty: eternal destruction from the face of the Lord and from the glory of his might, when he comes in that day to be glorified in his saints, and to be admired among all those who have believed, because our testimony to you was believed.” What the YouTube Video for fire side effect.https://youtu.be/qdKMl_xxqyc#Persecution #ChristainPodcast #BrotherLance #Judgment #Jesus #ProphecyAll podcasts will be released @ 5 a.m. on Fridays!BrotherLance.comhttps://brotherlance.com/Free Music, Bible Studies, Videos & More!Weshallbelikehim.comhttp://weshallbelikehim.com/Download Our Free 45 Day Devotional Book Today!(BrotherLance.com) Free Music, Bible Studies, Videos & More!(Weshallbelikehim.com) Download Our Free 45 Day Devotional Book Today!
This week, as we continue our series on the ways COVID life is shaping us, we're joined by Margaret Davis. Margaret is an NLCF alum and a current member of the Storehouse church plant team at Penn State University. In this episode, Margaret shares about the difficulties and blessings of enforced slowness during this season and the importance of remembering the Lord's work in the face of uncertainty. Questions for reflection -Where are you groaning? Where are you dancing? -What am I feeling? What does that indicate? Resources The Rest of God by Mark Buchanan Psalm 46:10 prayer Be still and know that I am God Be still and know that I am Be still and know Be still Be
In the face of overwhelming obstacles, the Israelite leader Joshua was given this command by God: “Be strong and courageous.” And we can do the same, because of the One who is with us, in us, and for us.“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” — Joshua 1:9
In the face of overwhelming obstacles, the Israelite leader Joshua was given this command by God: “Be strong and courageous.” And we can do the same, because of the One who is with us, in us, and for us.“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” — Joshua 1:9
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