Podcasts about love god

A SPECIAL MESSAGE FROM STEPHANIE:I want to share a special invitation with you. You may have heard that I will be releasing my first book with IVP on July 28, 2026. It's a big deal and I am so overwhelmed with God' goodness in allowing me to share such an essential message about delighting in Him as the true essential foundation for all our spiritual growth and maturing. Truly, when we delight in the Lord, He promises to give us the desires of our hearts – namely, more of Himself!So, here's the invitation. If you feel this message is indeed important, and you know people – including yourself perhaps – who need to be encouraged to awaken and cultivate their delight in God, would you consider joining my book launch team? It's a great and super easy way to share the good news of God's love for us in Christ, Jesus, our Lord.**If you're interested, please go to gospelspice.com/awakendelight and find the section about joining the launch team, or email me at contact@gospelspice.com **Together, let's encourage everyone we know with the wonderful news that, in Christ, God delights in us and invites us to delight in Him!Stephanie welcomes her dear friend Erica Wiggenhorn for a transparent, encouraging conversation about what it means to delight in God. Drawing from personal experiences, Scripture, and practical examples, they explore how all believers can experience and sustain joy in the Lord—even through difficult seasons.Stephanie, when pondering this conversation, took away these key points to remember:Delight is not limited to profound spiritual moments; it can be awakened in ordinary, beautiful encounters with God's world.Delight is sometimes borrowed from others, shared through community, creativity, and kindness to oneself during dry seasons.God uses even our hardest experiences as a foundation for authentic delight and hope, especially as we support each other.Getting the Word into us daily is not just a duty—it's the ongoing source of delight and transformation.Delight is rooted not in our performance but in Christ's finished work and the Father's unchanging love.Here's more from this conversation:Delighting in God doesn't require deep theological expertise or perfection. Instead, it's woven into everyday life and accessible to everyone. Erica describes experiences from her childhood at the beach—watching children squeal with joy as they run into the waves, or observing baby whales playing for the first time—highlighting how witnessing God's creation leads her heart to delight in Him.Life isn't always easy. Erica is honest about facing times when delight in God seems distant—whether due to discouragement, struggles, or the pressures of daily life. She insists it's a common, human experience and gives listeners permission to acknowledge seasons where faith feels routine or strained. She offers three practical helps for regaining delight:Music – Worship songs often “tear down the walls” of her heart and renew her connection with God.Movement – Getting outside and moving, especially in sunshine, lifts her spirit.Community – Sharing experiences with others, and especially seeing God through the delight in someone else's eyes, reignites her own joy.Erica shares personally about parenting wayward children and organizing resources for others in similar struggles. She teaches that as we surrender our pain to God, He uses it for deeper purpose—serving others and discovering fresh delight through His redeeming work. Community and expectancy in God's goodness anchor us during heartbreak. For more details about the MOMentum conference, see below.Scripture is the chief wellspring of delight. We get to know God, experience His love, and gain new joy through His Word. Erica encourages varied approaches—listening to the Bible, studying alone or with others, or combining the Word with creative activities. The important thing is to absorb Scripture in the way that fits how God has wired you.In Isaiah 61:10, God dresses us in garments of salvation as a beloved bride. Erica reminds listeners that while we may struggle with shame or self-critique, God sees us beautifully in Christ. We don't earn His delight; we receive it as a gift by simply approaching Him.If you struggle to believe God delights in you, print a picture of a radiant bride and declare, “This is me in the eyes of my King.” Ask Him for faith to accept His joy over you.MORE ABOUT THE MOMENTUM CONFERENCE, JANUARY 29-31 2027, PHOENIX, AZYour child is going their own way, in a direction you would never choose, leading to disruption and separation in your relationship.But what if you found a new pathway for connection, where you could both move forward, together?The Momentum Conference provides a safe place to rest, remember you're not alone and receive tools and perspective empowering you to stand strong in faith and pursue healthy connection with your child.God is for you, for your family — and together we can cling to His promises and find hope.Details and tickets at https://ericawiggenhorn.com/momentum/ What is the Momentum Conference?Momentum is a Friday night through Sunday morning getaway with a balance of biblical teaching, practical help, group connection and time to pursue individual rest.The weekend schedule has been designed to lavish love, impart resources and provide hope to moms who are walking a hard road with their teens, young adult, or adult children.Freedom to pursue preferential activities provided by the resort promises a time of rejuvenation as well as a mental, emotional and spiritual reset."Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart." Psalm 37:4 isn't a poetic suggestion — it's a promise. But many believers quietly assume it doesn't really work, or it's not really possible here on earth.In Awaken Delight, Stephanie Rousselle invites you to rediscover what Scripture actually means by delight — not emotional hype, not religious performance, but a steady satisfaction rooted in who God is.Delight in God isn't a mood to manufacture; it's a relationship to receive.Through biblical theology and practical rhythms, you'll learn how communion with God reshapes suffering, quiets restless striving, and anchors your identity in something unshakable.Delighting in God isn't sentimental optimism. It's deeply rooted in Christ, Jesus.It's the quiet revolution that reshapes how we endure pain, love others, and understand our own heart.Awaken Delight is a theologically grounded spiritual formation book for thoughtful believers who feel spiritually fatigued and are ready to embrace the reality of Psalm 37:4.More at https://www.gospelspice.com/awakendelight Purchase the book, "Awaken Delight" by Stephanie Rousselle: https://a.co/d/0bqhUb5JKind words from Jennifer Rothschild, Bible teacher, Author, Speaker, Podcast Host, Founder, Fresh Grounded Faith:“Stephanie helps us awaken to and experience true delight. It is a rich mix of God's delight in you and your delight in him. This is the life you were made for, the life your soul deeply longs for. So, the table is set. Pull up a chair and let your heart sit alongside Stephanie. As your delight in God wakes up and becomes fully realized, you'll find a satisfaction in Christ that makes you want more and more.”Kind words from Amanda Jenkins, Lead creator of THE CHOSEN's literary content"I have yet to meet another person quite as eager to intimately know Jesus as Stephanie is. Her enthusiasm for the beauty found inside a thriving relationship with her Savior is downright contagious. Indeed, Stephanie's joy and faith and commitment to growth—along with her love for really good food!—will implant themselves in the hearts of readers. Lucky readers."Kind words from Os Guinness, Theologian, Social critic, Author, The Call "Stephanie addresses one of the greatest needs of Christians today. Knowing God is not knowing about God, but knowing Him genuinely and with desire and delight. She does so practically and helpfully, and in a style that sparkles with a verve and joy that is distinctively French."Kind words from Pippa Gumbel, Pioneer, The Alpha Course; Author, The Bible in one year with husband Nicky"Stephanie's love of God is inspiring and infectious. Her book is an invitation to share in that delight and to come to know God in new and wonderful ways." More at https://www.gospelspice.com/awakendelight Purchase the book, "Awaken Delight" by Stephanie Rousselle: https://a.co/d/0bqhUb5JSupport us on Gospel Spice, PayPal and Venmo!

Lead Pastor Dan Vera closes out the Loving Like Jesus series with a powerful message titled Love God, Love People, Change The World.

The devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is a devotion to Our Lord's immeasurable love. Although the Sacred Heart devotion had been around since the Middle Ages, its prominence came at a crucial point in ecclesiastical history, namely during the spread of Jansenism in France during the 17th century. Contrary to the belief in God's mercy, Jansenism taught that we can never be pleasing to God. As fallen and fallible humans who are often consumed by our own desires, we find it difficult to return love to Our Lord despite His great love for us. However, His love, and the unfathomable patience that comes with that love, never abates.

Pastor Tyler Downing preaches from 1 John 4:7-21 that true Christian love is not something we create on our own. It originates in God, is demonstrated through the sending of His Son, the sacrifice of Christ, and the gift of the Holy Spirit, and is then poured into the lives of believers. As we abide in God's love and rest in the finished work of Christ, we gain confidence before God and are freed from fear, enabling us to love others with a selfless, loyal, and sacrificial love that reflects His heart.

In this episode, we cover:Worship as a lifestyle, not just a Sunday experienceWhat Jesus meant by worshiping “in spirit and in truth” (John 4)How spiritual disciplines (prayer, repentance, surrender) are acts of worshipIdentifying competing “gods” (pleasure, money, approval, knowledge)The power of corporate worship and God's manifest presenceKey Moments00:00 – Introduction: The call to consecration03:00 – What is worship in spirit and truth?10:30 – Worship beyond music (Romans 12)15:30 – Competing objects of worship25:00 – Encountering God's presence (Shekinah glory)33:00 – Corporate worship as heavenly practice41:00 – Preparing your heart before Sunday47:00 – When the Spirit leads worship54:00 – A powerful testimony of spontaneous worship56:00 – Vision: Reset and awakening

Join our Senior Pastor, Rev. Steve Hogg, every weekday morning as he gives his insight on a chapter from the Bible. At First Baptist Church Rock Hill, we exist to Love God, Love People, and Make Disciples. Connect with us on: Twitter - @FBC_RH Instagram - @fbc_rh Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/FirstBaptistRH​​

Pastor Cody preaches the final sermon in a series looking at the Ten Commandments and their impact on our lives on Sunday/21/June/2026 at Cornerstone Baptist Church, Stratford, PEI.

Everyone has questions about God and faith, and they aren't always easy to talk about. But what if our questions aren't something to avoid, but an invitation to go deeper in our faith?

Gluttony Dr. Eric J. Gilchrest | June 21, 2026 Check out the weekly sermon here or on our SRBC podcast on Apple Podcast and Spotify. While you're at it, check us out on Facebook and Instagram too. Like what you hear? We'd love to know.At South Run, we read every message personally. Whether you have a question, want to share how God is moving in your life, or are thinking about visiting in person, this is the place to start. If you click the link below, Pastor Eric will personally reach out to you. Listening online? Let us know. Sermon Transcript The Good Samaritan and the Age of Life: Love, Eternal Life, and the Narrow Road of Luke 10 — Sermon TranscriptSouth Run Baptist Church | Springfield, VARev. Dr. Eric GilchrestLuke 10:25–37June 14, 2026 This is a full sermon transcript from South Run Baptist Church in Springfield, Virginia. In this message, Rev. Dr. Eric Gilchrest preaches on the Parable of the Good Samaritan from Luke 10:25–37. This sermon is part of the ongoing "The Jesus Way" transformation series and addresses what eternal life actually means in the original Greek, why love and life are inseparable in Jesus' teaching, and how the Good Samaritan parable reveals that walking the narrow road means active, costly, others-centered love. Opening Prayer: A Church on MissionHeavenly Father, we come today offering you thanksgiving for Ian and for Emma, the great work that they're doing at GW, but also for this church and for the work that those who are in these walls do for those who are outside of these walls. We, Lord, desire to be a church on mission, and we need to keep that front and center. And so, Lord, plant it in each of our hearts that as we go where we go throughout the week on Monday and Thursday and random points on a Saturday afternoon, that we be reminded that we bear your image, we bring your word to the world, and we make new disciples. And so, God, we pray all of this in Christ's holy name. Amen. Where We Are in The Jesus Way SeriesWe are in a series on two ways, right? There is the narrow way that leads to abundant life, and this morning we are talking about that way, and the way that Jesus teaches us to walk — a way that leads to abundance and to life eternal. And then the other way we'll get back to next week, and that's the broad way. It's the easy way, frankly, and it's the way that leads to death and destruction. On Father's Day next week, we will cover the lovely topic of gluttony, so you definitely won't want to miss that, dads. You're welcome. For today, though, we are in a parable that you are probably familiar with. Whether you've been around the church much or not, you definitely know what a Good Samaritan is. We even have like Good Samaritan laws, right? Well, I want to dive down deep, and I'll say this whole framing for me — the whole like two ways, the life, death — has become clarifying, we'll say, in ways that I've not anticipated and I have quite enjoyed as we've gone throughout this series. And I almost think of it as like this lens that I take and then I put it over top of the scripture that we're reading and then I kind of see what pops out, like what's new. And so here we are in a very familiar passage and it is, well, it came as a little bit of a surprise to me, exactly how Jesus frames this. So I hope you have a Bible with you. If you don't, go ahead and grab the one that's in front of you — we definitely want to turn to Luke 10 together. Luke 10:25–28: A Lawyer Asks About Eternal LifeSo again, Luke chapter 10, starting in verse 25. It starts this way as you're turning there. "Behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test." Here we have lawyers doing what lawyers do, right? A lawyer, though, you should know in this day and age is not what you're thinking of as a lawyer. He does not work for the IRS. He does not do like tax law or something like this. He is a lawyer of the Torah, the Jewish law, right? And so this is a man who knows his law well, but very specifically the first five books of our Bible. And this is going to become important because Jesus is going to say to him, like, what does the law say? Like, what does our Bible say, the one you and I share together, right? And so this lawyer, he has spent lots of time in the law, as we'll see, as good lawyers often do. They know the law in order to kind of skirt through it, and he's trying to do this in this passage, but he actually knows what he's talking about. So the passage goes on, and he says, "Teacher" — rabbi, this is Jesus here, our rabbi, the one we should be listening to and following — "what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" And as I'm pulling that lens, remember, and I'm putting it on and I see this phrase, eternal life, I think to myself, well, here it is. This is part of what we're trying to do for this season of our church history — looking at ways that lead to life and ways that lead to death. And here Jesus is being asked like the exact question I'm asking you and I'm trying to get us all talking about, and that I think is of utmost importance. We might even say a matter of life and death. And he says, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Now, if you were asked this question, if somebody on the street came to you, it's worth asking, like, what would you say? How would you answer that question? What "Eternal Life" Actually Means in the Greek: The Age of Life vs. The Age of Death Backing up just a minute, this phrase eternal life needs just a little bit of clarification. The word for eternal here is not exactly the platonic, like, eternal sense that you and I often use it. Now, it might mean that to a degree, but only in like a secondary sense. It actually comes from a Greek word, eon — or the English version is eon. Eon is an age, right? There's one eon, and then there's the next eon, there's one age, and then there's the next age. And he's asking him, well, how do I get myself into the age of life? It's important that you know that there is an age of death — or as Paul calls it, the evil age, right? This age actually is that, right? It's the age that ultimately we all know is hovered over by these two things of sin and death and evil, and it lurks about, and none of us get out of here alive, right? That's why this age is the age of death. And this is why the Bible speaks to this matter over and over and over again. And this is the final enemy, death. And so the man is asking a very good question, which is, how do we make it out of the age of death and then make it into the age of life? And he has in mind — he thinks like a good first century Jew — and I need you to think this way for a second so that we can maybe make it a little more complicated. His timeline goes like this. There's the age in which we live, the age of death. There's then an ending to that, and there is a resurrection that happens of all people, good and bad. And then there's a judgment that happens, and the people are either judged good or bad. And then there is the age of life. That might be how you're thinking of things right now, in fact. But here's the important wrinkle. A resurrection has already happened. A resurrection has already happened. And so when Jesus is resurrected, the timeline gets shoved into the present. And then also, with that happening, there is a real sense in which judgment has also happened, and yet is also going to happen. It's a both-and. And Paul, if we had time, he gives us both of these. But the point is actually this — what Jesus does is he drags eternal life and he puts it smack dab into this life. And this life is where eternal life begins. And he'll say things like, "the kingdom of God is in your midst, is among you." He's referring to himself. He's saying, through me starts this eternal life. It's here and it's now. And so when Jesus is being asked this question — what must I do to enter into this age of life? — he doesn't say it out loud, but he is saying, well, it starts right now. It's not something we're pushing off to the future. We don't just kind of do all the right things now and then punch a ticket and then we get into the thing. No, you're in it right now. Jesus Tosses the Question Back: How Do You Read the Law?And so he says to this lawyer — well, he refuses to answer his question, actually. What does he do? He tosses it right back to him. And he says to him, well, you tell me, you lawyer, you know the law. What's written in the law and how do you read it? I actually love that last question — the "how do you read it" — that is so important. I don't have time to dig down deep here, but just know that we should all be asking, like, how do we read this scripture? Like, how do you read it? We all read it slightly differently, but Jesus wants to teach us how we read our scripture. And so the man says, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself." And Jesus, maybe to his shock, certainly to my shock, says, wow, you're correct. You got it right. Like, that is the answer. And in fact, in the other Gospels, Jesus is the one to say these things. Who knows? Maybe this lawyer got it from Jesus. And he says, you're supposed to love God. And by the way, all of those categories — that just simply means your whole being, everything you are. You're just supposed to love God with like every last ounce of who you are. And then love your neighbor as yourself. And this is the simplification of all things. It's the simplification of the law, the scriptures, what God is trying to do with the world. It is just love, right? Love God, love your neighbor. Now, I'd add this. When we talk about loving our neighbor, the Bible breaks down for us to love God with our souls and our minds and our strength and all these various aspects of who we are. And I would say, well, that's just a description of how to love. And we should do the same with the people in our lives. We should love them in similar kinds of ways, with our whole being. "He said to him, you have answered correctly. Do this and you will live." Again, there's our word — life, right? Well, how do we live a life? And how do we do it right? And how do we stay on that narrow path? He says, well, do this. The guy gets it. "Who Is My Neighbor?" — The Question Jesus Refuses to Answer DirectlyAnd if we stopped there, we would feel really good about this passage and it'd all be done. But the man, remember, he's a lawyer and he knows his law. And the job of the lawyer is to get around the law and to kind of sneak through it. And so he says the follow-up. He wants to justify himself and says to Jesus, well, excuse me, who is my neighbor? Jesus does not answer this question. I'll just go ahead and say that very clearly here. Jesus does not answer who the neighbor is. He pulls up the example of somebody being a good neighbor — that is the Samaritan — treats the robbed man that we're going to meet here as the neighbor, but the Samaritan is not actually technically the neighbor here. He's the one who's doing it right, who is loving his neighbor well. All of this explodes the boxes that this lawyer no doubt has, and it should explode ours too. And I can't go into exactly what a Samaritan is, but I assure you, the lawyer is thinking the Samaritan is not one of us. Whoever the "us" is for you — not one of us. He's over there. He's one of them. And Jesus is saying, well, look at the them. Whoever your "them" is, they're doing it right. They're the one who's loving well. And it should cause us to stop in our tracks and to ask, well, if they're able to love well, and they're finding what Jesus is calling eternal life or abundant life in this life that's leading to this eternal life, well, maybe I've got some work to do. Jesus replies to the question that the lawyer asks. He doesn't answer it. He, of course, does what Jesus does, which is to either ask a question — which is what he did the first time — or to tell a story, which is what he does this time. Luke 10:30–32: The Priest and the Levite Pass ByAnd so he says, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance, there was a priest going down the road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. Well then likewise, a Levite came to the place, saw him, passed by on the other side." I assure you, the Levite knows the law too, right? And the priest, well, he knows the law too. And Jesus is saying, do the priest or the Levite do the law? That is, do they love their neighbor? And the answer is very clearly no, right? They do not. Luke 10:33–35: The Samaritan and the Meaning of CompassionNow the Samaritan, whether or not he knows the law is actually not exactly clear, and in some ways not even to the point. The Samaritan does the law. He does the thing that should be done here, which is he sees the man half dead, and he goes to help him. I would stop here for just one minute and point out this word to you — compassion, at the end of verse 33. Compassion. This word shows up only three times in your gospel of Luke. It shows up in the following ways. The widow of Nain — Jesus encounters this woman who already is a widow. She's lost her husband. She then loses her son in the story that is being told. And Jesus looks at this woman who has lost her husband and her son, and he has compassion. Which is to say, the word itself means like his insides are like turning outside, and he's like physically in pain watching this woman and is feeling her pain, right? It also shows up in the passage we're going to talk about next week as you join us for gluttony, which is the story of the prodigal son, actually. When the prodigal son returns home from his gluttonous encounters, the father is there and he looks at him from afar and he has compassion on him. His insides are turned outside. And then here, the Samaritan — he looks at this man and he has compassion on him. I would say if we are going to love at all, we need compassion. If we are going to love our neighbor as ourselves, it is going to require us to put ourselves into the very shoes of the neighbor, to walk the mile with them, to see ourselves as the dead man on the side of the road who needs help, and to ask the question, if I were that dead man, what would I want this priest to do for me? If I were that dead man, what should that Levite do? I'm crying out for him, and he walks right on by. That is not keeping the law. But the Samaritan — the Samaritan sees him and is able to put himself into his place and to see the position that he's in, which is helpless, and he has the ability to do something, and he does. Interestingly, this idea of love is then here for the next few verses explained not as a feeling the Samaritan has — because we all have the feeling when we see something bad happen, and we're like, oh, that's awful, oh man, I feel so bad for this person — love requires action. It requires actually doing something, which is precisely what the Samaritan does in the verses that follow. In verse 34, "He went to him, to the man dying on the side of the road, and he bound up his wounds, he poured on oil and wine to heal them, and then he set him on his own animal, and he brought him to an inn, and he took care of him." This doesn't even account for the fact that he took time out of his own, no doubt, busy schedule to stop and to help this man and to assist him to a place. And he probably missed a really important meeting. And I'm sure some friends and some family were probably upset with the Samaritan who was supposed to be home for dinner. And he missed the kid's soccer game. But he did this very important thing that was in front of him. But it doesn't even stop there. "The next day, he took out two denarii. And he gave it to the innkeeper. And he said, take care of him. And if you spend more, keep track of that, because I will repay you when I come back." This is a man who loves in a way that goes above and beyond, and it is active. It's not just a man who walks and says, oh, there's a person that is almost dead over here, and that's tragic, as he keeps walking on by. This is the kind of love that God is calling us into as well, and this is the narrow road that leads to life. You might understand why now it's a narrow road, because it's difficult to walk. It's the road less traveled. It's the one that requires something of you. "Go and Do Likewise": Love and Life Are InseparableAnd then Jesus finishes up. He says, "Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?" And the lawyer has to confess, well, I guess it's the one who showed mercy. And then Jesus says again, well, you got it right. "Go and do likewise." Go and do likewise. When I think about this passage and this idea that we are to walk down this narrow road that leads to life — life and love, in my mind, are almost like one in the same. They all come together, these two come together in ways that are almost impossible to pull apart as you dig down deeper and deeper and deeper into what a full life is. I was trying to wrestle with the question, why does this road lead to life? Like, why does loving someone lead to life? And here's what I think Jesus is doing. Remember, Jesus has pulled eternal life into this life. The very one that you're in now, listening to me speak. And love in this life, this eternal life we're hopefully, prayerfully in — it is the substance of it all. Love is the design of humanity. It is what we were made for. In Eden, when we were created, we were created to love God. And then it was not good for man to be alone. So he creates Eve, and we were meant to love one another. And then he looks at the first couple and he says, multiply, make more of you, and then love them too. And this is what it's all for and all about. The God who made us is in himself self-giving love — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If the Trinity means one thing, it means pouring out love one to the other to the other. And we are made in that kind of image, which means the great commandment — love God and love neighbor — this is not a rule that gets bolted onto the side of life, as if it's like some sort of external hope that you might do this at some point. It is the manufacturer's description of how this whole thing runs. Withholding love doesn't keep you safe, and spending love doesn't drain your life. Jesus, in fact, says, do these things and you will have life. Jesus Is the Good Samaritan: He Crosses the Road to Find Us Half DeadWe see this love most clearly in the person of Jesus. When he pours himself out on the cross, he redeems us. He snatches us out of death and delivers us into an age of life, eternal life. If Jesus has done this for me, well, then he must love me, right? And if Jesus has done this for you — and he has — then he must love you. But Jesus has loved the whole world and God has sent his son that we all might have eternal life, that we all might be entered into the age of life. And why love? Because God loves you, and he wants us to love one another and to love him as we were intended to do. Communion: The Table as the Place Where Love and Life MeetAs we come to the table this morning, it is important that we recognize that this two-fold command of love — to love God and love our neighbor — it is kind of one thing. I would suggest to you that when God says to us that we are to love him, what he does not mean is that we have like a really nice worship service together and I have all the feels and it's just me and God and I'm loving every minute of it. And I don't even think he means like, well, I love God and therefore I pray every day and I love God and I'm reading my Bible every day. These are all very good things and they actually do lead you to God. So don't misunderstand me. But what I think he means is he pairs that with love your neighbor, because that is the ultimate understanding of whether or not you love God well. Because every person in this room around you right now and every person you've ever met in your life is bearing the image of God. And if you can't love them well, it is worth asking whether you're loving God. And so this morning as we come to the table, we are reminded that Jesus has poured himself out for us. He has shown us what love looks like. He literally puts his hands on the cross like this, and he opens himself up for humanity. And he takes the penalty that was due to us, and he offers us a way to God. I find Jesus directly in the parable of the Good Samaritan. In fact, many interpreters have. It turns out he's not the priest, he's not the Levite, he is the Samaritan, though. He is the outsider, the despised one, yet the one who actually does the law of love. And he comes to our roads where we are lying half dead and he has compassion on us. He looks at us in our estate and he is moved. His insides turn outside. He says, I want something better for this child of mine. I want them to live a full life now, and eternal life forever. This is what I want for them. And so what does he do? He binds up our wounds. He pours the oil and the wine on them. He pays the price. And he promises he will come back to pay the rest of it. And this is what the table is. On the night before Jesus died, he took bread and a cup and he said, this is my body and this is my blood. And it is poured out for the forgiveness of your sins. We have all been robbed by the age of death. But we have also participated in the age of death. And we need forgiveness from that. So Christ, he crosses the road and he offers us a hand up and out of it. And this morning we get to participate in the forgiveness of sins that he offers to each and to every one of us. Our Call: To Be the Samaritan for OthersHe then expects something of us. As people who are walking down that road with him, the dust of the rabbi getting all over us — you remember that? — as we walk that way of love, we then too must take up the role of the Samaritan for the others who are around us. Our job in this world is to bandage those who are hurt and broken and to pour whatever oil and wine Jesus has given to us onto their wounds too. And we're to lift them up out of their estate. And this, this is what it means to be a follower of Christ. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, Holy Son, and Holy Spirit, you are self-giving love, perfected. God, we have fallen short of your glory, no doubt. We have sinned and are in need of a Savior. And so, Jesus, this morning, we come asking one more time for your salvation. Some of us, this might be the first time, saying, I need a Savior. I need someone to bandage up the wounds that are just too deep. I can't do it myself. Or somebody is lying there saying, I am half dead. I can't do this by myself. And Jesus, we know you are saying to them right now, I am here for you. I am here to bind those wounds and to raise you back to life again. So God, as we prepare our hearts for the communion table, we ask that we do so with sincerity and with gravity, knowing the cost that you have paid — your very life. And that out of this should flow for all of us gratitude, a thanksgiving. And for all this and more, we give you thanks and praise. In Christ's holy name we pray. Amen.‍ ‍South Run Baptist Church | 8712 Selger Drive, Springfield, VA 22153 | Sunday Worship at 11am Serving Springfield, Burke, West Springfield, Lorton, Alexandria, Fort Belvoir, and Franconia, Virginia. Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify

Dr. Jim Tillotson - 2 Corinthians 5:14-21

Our message to the world is not “Love the Lord your God.” Pastor Colin talks about why this message is for Christians.

Fr. Paul Born currently serves as the Parochial Vicar at Mary, Queen of Martyrs Parish in Plymouth, Massachusetts. In Today's Show: Is it wrong to drink in front of my Mormon parents on vacation? I've realized I don't really love God; I fear him instead. What can/should I do? Can being a perfectionist trying to live a sinless life lead to burnout? If so, how can we deal with this?  Why have Orthodox and Protestant Christians faced persecution by evil forces if they're not the one true Church? And more. Visit the show page at thestationofthecross.com/askapriest to listen live, check out the weekly lineup, listen to podcasts of past episodes, watch live video, find show resources, sign up for our mailing list of upcoming shows, and submit your question for Father!

Join our Senior Pastor, Rev. Steve Hogg, every weekday morning as he gives his insight on a chapter from the Bible. At First Baptist Church Rock Hill, we exist to Love God, Love People, and Make Disciples. Connect with us on: Twitter - @FBC_RH Instagram - @fbc_rh Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/FirstBaptistRH​​

Join our Senior Pastor, Rev. Steve Hogg, every weekday morning as he gives his insight on a chapter from the Bible. At First Baptist Church Rock Hill, we exist to Love God, Love People, and Make Disciples. Connect with us on: Twitter - @FBC_RH Instagram - @fbc_rh Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/FirstBaptistRH​​

Polygamy: What Love Is This? Host: Doris Hanson Co-host: Karen Bradshaw PWLIT - 1912 - 17 Jun 2026

Join our Senior Pastor, Rev. Steve Hogg, every weekday morning as he gives his insight on a chapter from the Bible. At First Baptist Church Rock Hill, we exist to Love God, Love People, and Make Disciples. Connect with us on: Twitter - @FBC_RH Instagram - @fbc_rh Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/FirstBaptistRH​​

How do you actually learn to love God?In this reflection on Psalm 31, John Ortberg explores one surprising pathway to loving God more deeply: curiosity.Drawing from theologian Cornelius Plantinga Jr., relationship researcher John Gottman, and Dallas Willard, John invites us to think about building a "love map" for God.This episode explores:- Psalm 31 and loving God- Curiosity as a spiritual discipline- John Gottman's concept of love maps- Fascinating biblical images of God- The mystery and wonder of God's character- Learning to love God with all your mindScriptures:- Psalm 31- Deuteronomy 6:5- Matthew 22:37- Luke 23:46- Psalm 78#Psalm31 #JohnOrtberg #Prayer #LoveGod #SpiritualFormation #DallasWillard #JohnGottman #BibleStudy #Psalms #ChristianFaith

June is the month dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and today we celebrate the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart.The devotion to the Sacred Heart is a devotion to the love of Our Lord Jesus Christ for us, especially His love for us as manifested in the Holy Eucharist.This devotion to Our Lord's physical heart, as a symbol of His love for us, existed during the Middle Ages, but in the 1600s, Our Lord Himself came down on earth to explicitly ask for Catholics to practice this devotion and for this feast to be instituted.The timing and place was important. Our Lord appeared in France at a time when the heresy of Jansenism was rampant in the Catholic world. This heresy made the hearts of Catholics cold towards God and so, a few decades after its appearance, Our Lord reminded the world of His great love for us and of our duty to love Him in return.If we fast forward to 2026, we find that we as Catholics and even as traditional Catholics very much struggle to love Our Lord as He deserves to be loved. This is why it is important for us to have a devotion to Our Lord's Sacred Heart. This helps us to love Our Lord.We must remember what our catechism teaches us, namely, that we are made to know, love and serve God in this life. We are made to love God. Loving God is to fulfill the very meaning for our existence, to accomplish the purpose for which we exist.There are two pieces of knowledge that are very important for us to possess in order for us to love God: one is an understanding of sin and the other is an understanding of God's love.These two things are mentioned in the beautiful Collect of the Mass of the Sacred Heart: “O God, Who in the Heart of Your Son, wounded by our sins, mercifully lavish upon us the infinite riches of love”.There are two great truths there: a) our sins wound Our Lord; b) Our Lord lavishes His love on us. Both of these truths are attacked today by two great illusions.One is the illusion that our sins do not hurt God. This is one of the reasons why sin is not taken seriously today. People do not worry about sin; they do not worry by saying to themselves, “If I engage in sinful behavior, I will offend God and He will send me to Hell”.This is particularly true of the sin of heresy. Heresy has always been considered to be one of the greatest sins because it is a willful rejection of what God has taught us. Our Lord came on earth, He taught us the truths that we are to believe about Him and which we need to get to Heaven. And the heretic says, “I refuse to believe; I choose not to believe” Offensive!But this is also true with sins against the moral law. Many people have the idea today, including many Catholics, that no matter how you live your life, God is still pleased with you. If you have a homosexual lifestyle, God blesses you; if you divorce and remarry, God blesses you; if you contracept your children, God blesses you.It is a hallmark of love that you seek to avoid anything that might displease the one that you love. But today's mentality is that nothing that I do can displease God, whether it be in thought, word or deed.This idea is false; it is sinful. Liberalism is a sin.The other blind spot we have today is not seeing how much God loves us, only understanding God's love in a minimalist way.

Join our Senior Pastor, Rev. Steve Hogg, every weekday morning as he gives his insight on a chapter from the Bible. At First Baptist Church Rock Hill, we exist to Love God, Love People, and Make Disciples. Connect with us on: Twitter - @FBC_RH Instagram - @fbc_rh Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/FirstBaptistRH​​

EVERY RUNNER KNOWS..... that if you don't have a good pace, then you won't finish strong. You'll burn out, fall way behind, or maybe just quit altogether. When it comes to your faith, the same is true: You need a healthy pace. You and I need healthy rhythms that will lead to a healthy spiritual life, because if we don't, we too can fall into exhaustion, apathy, and ultimately defeat. This week, I hope you join us as we talk about "Getting Back Your Rhythm!" The heartbeat of Church on the Rock is to help people discover how they can LOVE God and LOVE one another, LIVE with passion, purpose, and freedom, and LEAD others to this same experience in Jesus. We simply say, “helping others Love, Live, and Lead in Jesus". Commit to your "One More": https://onemoreak.com Let's Connect here: https://churchak.ccbchurch.com/goto/forms/84/responses/new Learn more about us at https://churchak.org If you enjoyed our teaching and would like to donate to our ministries, go here: https://pushpay.com/g/churchak?src=hpp

DO YOU LIKE BEING COMFORTABLE? I sure do, especially when the weather is just right, the food is tasty, and the company is exceptional.  Everyone likes being comfortable, and there's nothing wrong with that... Except when pursuing comfort becomes the goal. As followers of Jesus, we are never told to chase comfort; instead, we are called to follow Christ. One will lead to an abundant life, and the other to an apathetic one… the choice is yours! The heartbeat of Church on the Rock is to help people discover how they can LOVE God and LOVE one another, LIVE with passion, purpose, and freedom, and LEAD others to this same experience in Jesus. We simply say, “helping others Love, Live, and Lead in Jesus". Commit to your "One More": https://onemoreak.com Let's Connect here: https://churchak.ccbchurch.com/goto/forms/84/responses/new Learn more about us at https://churchak.org If you enjoyed our teaching and would like to donate to our ministries, go here: https://pushpay.com/g/churchak?src=hpp

Join our Senior Pastor, Rev. Steve Hogg, every weekday morning as he gives his insight on a chapter from the Bible. At First Baptist Church Rock Hill, we exist to Love God, Love People, and Make Disciples. Connect with us on: Twitter - @FBC_RH Instagram - @fbc_rh Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/FirstBaptistRH​​

Kevin and Jessica Harkins: Missions in the South Pacific This week we welcome Foursquare and OSL Missionaries to the South Pacific, Kevin and Jessica Harkins! Hear about the work that the Lord is doing through their mission in New Zealand as they train and equip young adults to do missions work. ABOUT US Welcome to Life Foursquare Church in Decatur, Illinois! We're a vibrant, diverse community of believers who are passionate about our core purpose: Love God. Love People. Make Jesus Known. We believe church is more than a Sunday—it's a family. Whether you're joining in person or online, you belong here! We'd love to hear how God is working in your life through this service. Share your story, prayer requests, or simply connect with us at office@visitlife.org . NEXT STEPS Did you say “yes” to Jesus today?

One of the things that stood out in my conversation with John Longhurst about his book Can Robots Love God and Be Saved? A Journalist Reports on Faith (CMU Press, 2024) was his seriousness about journalism itself. Longhurst understands the journalist's vocation not as providing definitive answers but as asking good questions, paying close attention, and engaging thoughtfully with the people and events that shape our world. Our discussion focused on a theme that runs throughout the book: if religion's enduring strength lies not in providing final answers but in sustaining meaningful questions, then what sustains belief amid suffering, doubt, and uncertainty? Longhurst's work suggests that faith often emerges not from certainty but from ongoing engagement with life's deepest mysteries. Rather than offering simple conclusions, Can Robots Love God and Be Saved? invites readers into conversations about faith, technology, culture, politics, and everyday life. It reminds us that religious questions remain central to how many people understand themselves and the world around them. In an age increasingly shaped by AI and our histories, these questions may become even more important, not less so. My thanks to John Longhurst for joining me on the New Books Network and for sharing insights drawn from a lifetime of careful observation, thoughtful reporting, and persistent questioning.  Amisah Bakuri (PhD) is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her research examines the intersections of religion, sexuality, gender, and migration, particularly within African diasporic communities in the Netherlands. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Rhythms

All Saints of North America and Antioch St. Matthew 4:18-23 On the Sunday of All Saints of North America and Antioch, Fr. Anthony reflects on how the same American instincts that often lead people to Orthodoxy can become obstacles to spiritual growth once they arrive. While habits of inquiry, comparison, and evaluation help many converts discover the Church, the Christian life requires a transition from constantly judging and analyzing to trusting the Church's proven path of formation. Drawing on examples from marriage, culture, and the lives of the saints, he argues that the Church has been making saints for two thousand years and invites us to relax into that process of transformation. --- In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Glory to Jesus Christ! This is the Second Sunday after Pentecost, which means we celebrate the saints. Now, some of you are thinking, "Father, wasn't that last Sunday?" Yes—but this Sunday we celebrate the saints who are the fruit of the Christian faith in particular places. Here in the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America, we commemorate both the Saints of Antioch and the Saints of North America. Antioch is where the followers of Christ were first called Christians. North America is where that same faith has borne fruit in our own land. Today we celebrate what happens when the Holy Spirit takes root in a people and a place and brings forth holiness. The saints were not abstractions. They were not merely names in books or faces in icons. They had families, homes, occupations, and daily struggles. They lived in particular places and faced particular temptations, just as we do. Their lives remind us that holiness is not reserved for another age or another people. It is the calling of every Christian. I know some people who are jealous of Christians who lived in other times and places. I understand the temptation. We imagine what it must have been like to live in a culture where everyone was Christian, where theology, marriage, friendship, and worship were reinforced by the world around you. It can seem as though faith would come naturally in such a setting. But every culture has its own strengths and weaknesses. Every age has its temptations. Ours certainly does. This is one reason I often speak about the long, slow slog of salvation. It takes time for Christ to gain traction in our lives. It takes time for the Holy Spirit to draw us out of our sins, reorder our desires, and teach us to see the world according to the truth. As much as we may romanticize other places and times, the reality is that the whole world groans under the weight of sin. Consider the relationship between Church and state. Some Christians look with envy at times when governments openly supported the Church. One of my favorite examples is Saint Volodymyr of Kyiv. The church he built became known as the Church of the Tithes because he dedicated a tenth of his wealth to support it. That kind of patronage can be a tremendous blessing. It keeps the doors open. It provides a place where people can encounter Christ. But there is also a danger. If people do not intentionally offer themselves to the life of the Church, they can begin to take it for granted. Historians, sociologists, and political scientists have repeatedly observed that when the Church becomes too dependent on state support, participation often becomes passive. The buildings remain full, the clergy remain funded, but the active fellowship of the faithful can become hollowed out unless people are deeply intentional about their commitment. In modern language, we might say that people need some "skin in the game." Faith must become personal. It must become sacrificial. We cannot simply inherit it; we must offer ourselves to it. The same pattern appears elsewhere. My Greek friends often point out that Hellenistic culture provided many of the intellectual tools that helped people understand and articulate the Christian faith. Concepts such as the Logos and the philosophical vocabulary of the ancient world became powerful instruments in the service of theology. And yet those same intellectual strengths carried their own dangers. Some Christians were tempted toward Gnosticism. Others drifted into excessive rigorism. The very strengths of a culture can become weaknesses if they are not transformed by Christ. The same is true for us as Americans. There is much about our culture that I celebrate. We are approaching the 250th anniversary of our nation, and as a son of the American Revolution, I appreciate the freedoms we enjoy. The First Amendment protects our ability to seek the truth and worship God according to our conscience. Many of us found Orthodoxy precisely because we were free to look beyond the assumptions of our surrounding culture. But there is another characteristic of American life that deserves our attention: consumerism. Consumerism is not merely an economic system; it is a pattern of thought. It trains us to compare, evaluate, and choose. Every trip to the grocery store involves a series of cost-benefit analyses. We compare quality and price. We examine options. We decide which product best meets our needs. That habit of evaluation has actually helped many converts find Orthodoxy. Most of us arrived here because we became dissatisfied with something. We sensed that something was missing. We began asking questions. We read books, listened to lectures, watched videos, and compared alternatives. We weighed ideas the same way we weigh products. Eventually, we discovered Orthodoxy and recognized that it offered something we had not found elsewhere: a way of life capable of leading us into deeper communion with Christ. For many of us, that process was a blessing. Without it, we might never have escaped the assumptions we inherited from our surroundings. We might never have realized that another way was possible. Now here is the challenge. The same habits that helped many of us find Orthodoxy can become obstacles once we are inside the Church. Let me explain through an analogy. Think about the way Americans approach courtship today. We live in a culture of options. Dating apps, personality profiles, compatibility scores, and endless advice all encourage us to evaluate potential spouses through a kind of cost-benefit analysis. We compare possibilities and try to determine which person is the best match. Now, thank God, many people eventually find someone they love. They build a life together, get married, and begin a family. But what happens if they never leave behind that consumer mindset? What happens if they continue to evaluate their spouse the way they once evaluated potential spouses? Sooner or later they discover something unexpected. They find an imperfection they did not anticipate. They encounter a habit they dislike. They discover a weakness that was not apparent before. At that point the consumer instinct kicks in. Some begin looking around, wondering whether there might be something better. Others begin trying to "fix" their spouse, treating the relationship like a renovation project. After thirty-six years of marriage, I can tell you that my wife became much happier when she gave up trying to fix me. There are some things that simply cannot be fixed. More importantly, that is not how healthy relationships work. A good marriage is not built through constant evaluation. It is built through trust, commitment, patience, sacrifice, and love. At some point you stop analyzing the relationship from the outside and begin living it from the inside. You relax into it. You allow yourself to be formed by it. That does not mean you stop growing. It means growth happens through love rather than manipulation. The same principle applies to the Church. I celebrate the fact that many of us found Orthodoxy because we were willing to ask questions, compare alternatives, and search for the truth. Those habits served us well. But once we arrive, we must be careful. If you have ever been a catechumen with me, you have heard me say something that may sound strange: don't become a catechumen unless you are ready to trust. You do not have to know everything before becoming Orthodox. No one does. We make sure people understand the essentials. We address the major questions and objections. But eventually there comes a point where a person must decide whether this is a place where he can be formed. If we carry the spirit of consumerism into the Church, we begin treating everything the same way we treated products on a shelf. We evaluate constantly. We compare constantly. We judge constantly. Combined with the polarization that already infects our culture, this can become spiritually destructive. We begin dividing ourselves into camps. We become critics rather than disciples. Instead of allowing the Church to form us, we place ourselves above it as evaluators. Now, that does not mean we stop improving things. We are always working to improve parish life. We renovate buildings. We develop ministries. We solve problems. But there is a profound difference between building up and tearing down. One spirit seeks to serve. The other seeks to dominate. One spirit acts from love. The other acts from judgment. One spirit strengthens communion. The other undermines it. At some point we must surrender the very habit of analysis that helped bring us here, just as a husband and wife must eventually stop evaluating one another and begin living together in trust. Once you have given your life to Christ and entered His Church, relax. You are in the right place. This is not a pig in a poke. Most of my catechumens know that expression. For those who do not, a "poke" is an old word for a bag. If you were buying a pig at market, you always looked inside the bag before handing over your money. Otherwise you might discover later that someone had sold you something entirely different. Orthodoxy is not a pig in a poke. You have looked inside the bag. You have examined the evidence. You have read the books. You have asked the questions. You have seen what the Church is. Now trust it. The Church has been forming saints for two thousand years. It has done so in Syria and Lebanon, in Greece and Romania, in Kyiv and Moscow, in Alaska and North America. It has formed saints in every culture, every language, and every century. It can form saints here. It can form saints out of us. But only if we allow it to do its work. There are very few places left in modern life where we can lower our defenses, let go of constant evaluation, and simply receive. The Church should be one of those places. This is one reason our worship is so carefully ordered. The prayers have been tested by generations. The hymns have been handed down through centuries. The services have been shaped by the wisdom of the saints. The Church knows what she is doing. Now, I still tell my catechumens and students to keep a little filter active during the homily. The prayers have been vetted by the Church. The sermon comes from me, and I am still a work in progress. But the larger point remains. Let the Church form you. The Church has been creating saints for two thousand years. It is not a cookie-cutter process. Saint Nicholas, Saint Tikhon, and Saint John were very different men. Yet all were united in Christ. The Church knows how to confront our sins. It knows how to heal anger, lust, despondency, pride, and despair. It knows how to help us become more patient, more loving, more peaceful, and more faithful. You do not need a guru. You do not need another internet rabbit hole. You do not need endless searches for the next great spiritual secret. The saints have already shown us the way. Pray. Love sacrificially. Open yourself to God's grace in the sacraments. Love God. Love your neighbor. This is the calling of every human being. This is the vocation of the royal priesthood. This is the path walked by the saints of Antioch, the saints of North America, and the saints throughout the world. And it is the path set before us today. May God strengthen us as we walk it together. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

One of the things that stood out in my conversation with John Longhurst about his book Can Robots Love God and Be Saved? A Journalist Reports on Faith (CMU Press, 2024) was his seriousness about journalism itself. Longhurst understands the journalist's vocation not as providing definitive answers but as asking good questions, paying close attention, and engaging thoughtfully with the people and events that shape our world. Our discussion focused on a theme that runs throughout the book: if religion's enduring strength lies not in providing final answers but in sustaining meaningful questions, then what sustains belief amid suffering, doubt, and uncertainty? Longhurst's work suggests that faith often emerges not from certainty but from ongoing engagement with life's deepest mysteries. Rather than offering simple conclusions, Can Robots Love God and Be Saved? invites readers into conversations about faith, technology, culture, politics, and everyday life. It reminds us that religious questions remain central to how many people understand themselves and the world around them. In an age increasingly shaped by AI and our histories, these questions may become even more important, not less so. My thanks to John Longhurst for joining me on the New Books Network and for sharing insights drawn from a lifetime of careful observation, thoughtful reporting, and persistent questioning.  Amisah Bakuri (PhD) is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her research examines the intersections of religion, sexuality, gender, and migration, particularly within African diasporic communities in the Netherlands. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/anthropology

A lawyer asks Jesus how to inherit eternal life, and the answer is “love.” Love God and love neighbor. But because the lawyer is practiced in manipulating the law, he follows this up with a question we all secretly ask: who can I exclude from my love? Jesus answers with a story that inverts everything. Not only is the Samaritan the neighbor, he is the very one who does the heart of the law by loving the neighbor, and by virtue of this fact, it is assumed that he is the one to inherit eternal life. Jesus' point is this: if you want to walk the path of abundant life now and eternal life in the future, you must learn to love. Dr. Eric J. Gilchrest | June 14, 2026 The Good Samaritan Download Check out the weekly sermon here or on our SRBC podcast on Apple Podcast and Spotify. While you're at it, check us out on Facebook and Instagram too. What We'll CoverWhy eternal life begins now, not in the next lifeWhy "Who is my neighbor?" is really a question about exclusion and why Jesus refuses to answer it on those termsHow you can tell whether you actually love God (hint: it's not about your feelings on Sunday morning; its about how you love your neighbor)Why love is a verb, and the difference between the right words and the right worksWhat the Samaritan teaches us about empathy and compassionWhy self-giving love isn't a rule we're forced to keep but the design we were made to live Like what you hear? We'd love to know.At South Run, we read every message personally. Whether you have a question, want to share how God is moving in your life, or are thinking about visiting in person, this is the place to start. If you click the link below, Pastor Eric will personally reach out to you. Listening online? Let us know. Sermon Transcript The Good Samaritan and the Age of Life: Love, Eternal Life, and the Narrow Road of Luke 10 — Sermon TranscriptSouth Run Baptist Church | Springfield, VARev. Dr. Eric GilchrestLuke 10:25–37June 14, 2026 This is a full sermon transcript from South Run Baptist Church in Springfield, Virginia. In this message, Rev. Dr. Eric Gilchrest preaches on the Parable of the Good Samaritan from Luke 10:25–37. This sermon is part of the ongoing "The Jesus Way" transformation series and addresses what eternal life actually means in the original Greek, why love and life are inseparable in Jesus' teaching, and how the Good Samaritan parable reveals that walking the narrow road means active, costly, others-centered love. Opening Prayer: A Church on MissionHeavenly Father, we come today offering you thanksgiving for Ian and for Emma, the great work that they're doing at GW, but also for this church and for the work that those who are in these walls do for those who are outside of these walls. We, Lord, desire to be a church on mission, and we need to keep that front and center. And so, Lord, plant it in each of our hearts that as we go where we go throughout the week on Monday and Thursday and random points on a Saturday afternoon, that we be reminded that we bear your image, we bring your word to the world, and we make new disciples. And so, God, we pray all of this in Christ's holy name. Amen. Where We Are in The Jesus Way SeriesWe are in a series on two ways, right? There is the narrow way that leads to abundant life, and this morning we are talking about that way, and the way that Jesus teaches us to walk — a way that leads to abundance and to life eternal. And then the other way we'll get back to next week, and that's the broad way. It's the easy way, frankly, and it's the way that leads to death and destruction. On Father's Day next week, we will cover the lovely topic of gluttony, so you definitely won't want to miss that, dads. You're welcome. For today, though, we are in a parable that you are probably familiar with. Whether you've been around the church much or not, you definitely know what a Good Samaritan is. We even have like Good Samaritan laws, right? Well, I want to dive down deep, and I'll say this whole framing for me — the whole like two ways, the life, death — has become clarifying, we'll say, in ways that I've not anticipated and I have quite enjoyed as we've gone throughout this series. And I almost think of it as like this lens that I take and then I put it over top of the scripture that we're reading and then I kind of see what pops out, like what's new. And so here we are in a very familiar passage and it is, well, it came as a little bit of a surprise to me, exactly how Jesus frames this. So I hope you have a Bible with you. If you don't, go ahead and grab the one that's in front of you — we definitely want to turn to Luke 10 together. Luke 10:25–28: A Lawyer Asks About Eternal LifeSo again, Luke chapter 10, starting in verse 25. It starts this way as you're turning there. "Behold, a lawyer stood up to put him to the test." Here we have lawyers doing what lawyers do, right? A lawyer, though, you should know in this day and age is not what you're thinking of as a lawyer. He does not work for the IRS. He does not do like tax law or something like this. He is a lawyer of the Torah, the Jewish law, right? And so this is a man who knows his law well, but very specifically the first five books of our Bible. And this is going to become important because Jesus is going to say to him, like, what does the law say? Like, what does our Bible say, the one you and I share together, right? And so this lawyer, he has spent lots of time in the law, as we'll see, as good lawyers often do. They know the law in order to kind of skirt through it, and he's trying to do this in this passage, but he actually knows what he's talking about. So the passage goes on, and he says, "Teacher" — rabbi, this is Jesus here, our rabbi, the one we should be listening to and following — "what shall I do to inherit eternal life?" And as I'm pulling that lens, remember, and I'm putting it on and I see this phrase, eternal life, I think to myself, well, here it is. This is part of what we're trying to do for this season of our church history — looking at ways that lead to life and ways that lead to death. And here Jesus is being asked like the exact question I'm asking you and I'm trying to get us all talking about, and that I think is of utmost importance. We might even say a matter of life and death. And he says, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Now, if you were asked this question, if somebody on the street came to you, it's worth asking, like, what would you say? How would you answer that question? What "Eternal Life" Actually Means in the Greek: The Age of Life vs. The Age of Death Backing up just a minute, this phrase eternal life needs just a little bit of clarification. The word for eternal here is not exactly the platonic, like, eternal sense that you and I often use it. Now, it might mean that to a degree, but only in like a secondary sense. It actually comes from a Greek word, eon — or the English version is eon. Eon is an age, right? There's one eon, and then there's the next eon, there's one age, and then there's the next age. And he's asking him, well, how do I get myself into the age of life? It's important that you know that there is an age of death — or as Paul calls it, the evil age, right? This age actually is that, right? It's the age that ultimately we all know is hovered over by these two things of sin and death and evil, and it lurks about, and none of us get out of here alive, right? That's why this age is the age of death. And this is why the Bible speaks to this matter over and over and over again. And this is the final enemy, death. And so the man is asking a very good question, which is, how do we make it out of the age of death and then make it into the age of life? And he has in mind — he thinks like a good first century Jew — and I need you to think this way for a second so that we can maybe make it a little more complicated. His timeline goes like this. There's the age in which we live, the age of death. There's then an ending to that, and there is a resurrection that happens of all people, good and bad. And then there's a judgment that happens, and the people are either judged good or bad. And then there is the age of life. That might be how you're thinking of things right now, in fact. But here's the important wrinkle. A resurrection has already happened. A resurrection has already happened. And so when Jesus is resurrected, the timeline gets shoved into the present. And then also, with that happening, there is a real sense in which judgment has also happened, and yet is also going to happen. It's a both-and. And Paul, if we had time, he gives us both of these. But the point is actually this — what Jesus does is he drags eternal life and he puts it smack dab into this life. And this life is where eternal life begins. And he'll say things like, "the kingdom of God is in your midst, is among you." He's referring to himself. He's saying, through me starts this eternal life. It's here and it's now. And so when Jesus is being asked this question — what must I do to enter into this age of life? — he doesn't say it out loud, but he is saying, well, it starts right now. It's not something we're pushing off to the future. We don't just kind of do all the right things now and then punch a ticket and then we get into the thing. No, you're in it right now. Jesus Tosses the Question Back: How Do You Read the Law?And so he says to this lawyer — well, he refuses to answer his question, actually. What does he do? He tosses it right back to him. And he says to him, well, you tell me, you lawyer, you know the law. What's written in the law and how do you read it? I actually love that last question — the "how do you read it" — that is so important. I don't have time to dig down deep here, but just know that we should all be asking, like, how do we read this scripture? Like, how do you read it? We all read it slightly differently, but Jesus wants to teach us how we read our scripture. And so the man says, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself." And Jesus, maybe to his shock, certainly to my shock, says, wow, you're correct. You got it right. Like, that is the answer. And in fact, in the other Gospels, Jesus is the one to say these things. Who knows? Maybe this lawyer got it from Jesus. And he says, you're supposed to love God. And by the way, all of those categories — that just simply means your whole being, everything you are. You're just supposed to love God with like every last ounce of who you are. And then love your neighbor as yourself. And this is the simplification of all things. It's the simplification of the law, the scriptures, what God is trying to do with the world. It is just love, right? Love God, love your neighbor. Now, I'd add this. When we talk about loving our neighbor, the Bible breaks down for us to love God with our souls and our minds and our strength and all these various aspects of who we are. And I would say, well, that's just a description of how to love. And we should do the same with the people in our lives. We should love them in similar kinds of ways, with our whole being. "He said to him, you have answered correctly. Do this and you will live." Again, there's our word — life, right? Well, how do we live a life? And how do we do it right? And how do we stay on that narrow path? He says, well, do this. The guy gets it. "Who Is My Neighbor?" — The Question Jesus Refuses to Answer DirectlyAnd if we stopped there, we would feel really good about this passage and it'd all be done. But the man, remember, he's a lawyer and he knows his law. And the job of the lawyer is to get around the law and to kind of sneak through it. And so he says the follow-up. He wants to justify himself and says to Jesus, well, excuse me, who is my neighbor? Jesus does not answer this question. I'll just go ahead and say that very clearly here. Jesus does not answer who the neighbor is. He pulls up the example of somebody being a good neighbor — that is the Samaritan — treats the robbed man that we're going to meet here as the neighbor, but the Samaritan is not actually technically the neighbor here. He's the one who's doing it right, who is loving his neighbor well. All of this explodes the boxes that this lawyer no doubt has, and it should explode ours too. And I can't go into exactly what a Samaritan is, but I assure you, the lawyer is thinking the Samaritan is not one of us. Whoever the "us" is for you — not one of us. He's over there. He's one of them. And Jesus is saying, well, look at the them. Whoever your "them" is, they're doing it right. They're the one who's loving well. And it should cause us to stop in our tracks and to ask, well, if they're able to love well, and they're finding what Jesus is calling eternal life or abundant life in this life that's leading to this eternal life, well, maybe I've got some work to do. Jesus replies to the question that the lawyer asks. He doesn't answer it. He, of course, does what Jesus does, which is to either ask a question — which is what he did the first time — or to tell a story, which is what he does this time. Luke 10:30–32: The Priest and the Levite Pass ByAnd so he says, "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead. Now by chance, there was a priest going down the road, and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. Well then likewise, a Levite came to the place, saw him, passed by on the other side." I assure you, the Levite knows the law too, right? And the priest, well, he knows the law too. And Jesus is saying, do the priest or the Levite do the law? That is, do they love their neighbor? And the answer is very clearly no, right? They do not. Luke 10:33–35: The Samaritan and the Meaning of CompassionNow the Samaritan, whether or not he knows the law is actually not exactly clear, and in some ways not even to the point. The Samaritan does the law. He does the thing that should be done here, which is he sees the man half dead, and he goes to help him. I would stop here for just one minute and point out this word to you — compassion, at the end of verse 33. Compassion. This word shows up only three times in your gospel of Luke. It shows up in the following ways. The widow of Nain — Jesus encounters this woman who already is a widow. She's lost her husband. She then loses her son in the story that is being told. And Jesus looks at this woman who has lost her husband and her son, and he has compassion. Which is to say, the word itself means like his insides are like turning outside, and he's like physically in pain watching this woman and is feeling her pain, right? It also shows up in the passage we're going to talk about next week as you join us for gluttony, which is the story of the prodigal son, actually. When the prodigal son returns home from his gluttonous encounters, the father is there and he looks at him from afar and he has compassion on him. His insides are turned outside. And then here, the Samaritan — he looks at this man and he has compassion on him. I would say if we are going to love at all, we need compassion. If we are going to love our neighbor as ourselves, it is going to require us to put ourselves into the very shoes of the neighbor, to walk the mile with them, to see ourselves as the dead man on the side of the road who needs help, and to ask the question, if I were that dead man, what would I want this priest to do for me? If I were that dead man, what should that Levite do? I'm crying out for him, and he walks right on by. That is not keeping the law. But the Samaritan — the Samaritan sees him and is able to put himself into his place and to see the position that he's in, which is helpless, and he has the ability to do something, and he does. Interestingly, this idea of love is then here for the next few verses explained not as a feeling the Samaritan has — because we all have the feeling when we see something bad happen, and we're like, oh, that's awful, oh man, I feel so bad for this person — love requires action. It requires actually doing something, which is precisely what the Samaritan does in the verses that follow. In verse 34, "He went to him, to the man dying on the side of the road, and he bound up his wounds, he poured on oil and wine to heal them, and then he set him on his own animal, and he brought him to an inn, and he took care of him." This doesn't even account for the fact that he took time out of his own, no doubt, busy schedule to stop and to help this man and to assist him to a place. And he probably missed a really important meeting. And I'm sure some friends and some family were probably upset with the Samaritan who was supposed to be home for dinner. And he missed the kid's soccer game. But he did this very important thing that was in front of him. But it doesn't even stop there. "The next day, he took out two denarii. And he gave it to the innkeeper. And he said, take care of him. And if you spend more, keep track of that, because I will repay you when I come back." This is a man who loves in a way that goes above and beyond, and it is active. It's not just a man who walks and says, oh, there's a person that is almost dead over here, and that's tragic, as he keeps walking on by. This is the kind of love that God is calling us into as well, and this is the narrow road that leads to life. You might understand why now it's a narrow road, because it's difficult to walk. It's the road less traveled. It's the one that requires something of you. "Go and Do Likewise": Love and Life Are InseparableAnd then Jesus finishes up. He says, "Which of these three do you think proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers?" And the lawyer has to confess, well, I guess it's the one who showed mercy. And then Jesus says again, well, you got it right. "Go and do likewise." Go and do likewise. When I think about this passage and this idea that we are to walk down this narrow road that leads to life — life and love, in my mind, are almost like one in the same. They all come together, these two come together in ways that are almost impossible to pull apart as you dig down deeper and deeper and deeper into what a full life is. I was trying to wrestle with the question, why does this road lead to life? Like, why does loving someone lead to life? And here's what I think Jesus is doing. Remember, Jesus has pulled eternal life into this life. The very one that you're in now, listening to me speak. And love in this life, this eternal life we're hopefully, prayerfully in — it is the substance of it all. Love is the design of humanity. It is what we were made for. In Eden, when we were created, we were created to love God. And then it was not good for man to be alone. So he creates Eve, and we were meant to love one another. And then he looks at the first couple and he says, multiply, make more of you, and then love them too. And this is what it's all for and all about. The God who made us is in himself self-giving love — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If the Trinity means one thing, it means pouring out love one to the other to the other. And we are made in that kind of image, which means the great commandment — love God and love neighbor — this is not a rule that gets bolted onto the side of life, as if it's like some sort of external hope that you might do this at some point. It is the manufacturer's description of how this whole thing runs. Withholding love doesn't keep you safe, and spending love doesn't drain your life. Jesus, in fact, says, do these things and you will have life. Jesus Is the Good Samaritan: He Crosses the Road to Find Us Half DeadWe see this love most clearly in the person of Jesus. When he pours himself out on the cross, he redeems us. He snatches us out of death and delivers us into an age of life, eternal life. If Jesus has done this for me, well, then he must love me, right? And if Jesus has done this for you — and he has — then he must love you. But Jesus has loved the whole world and God has sent his son that we all might have eternal life, that we all might be entered into the age of life. And why love? Because God loves you, and he wants us to love one another and to love him as we were intended to do. Communion: The Table as the Place Where Love and Life MeetAs we come to the table this morning, it is important that we recognize that this two-fold command of love — to love God and love our neighbor — it is kind of one thing. I would suggest to you that when God says to us that we are to love him, what he does not mean is that we have like a really nice worship service together and I have all the feels and it's just me and God and I'm loving every minute of it. And I don't even think he means like, well, I love God and therefore I pray every day and I love God and I'm reading my Bible every day. These are all very good things and they actually do lead you to God. So don't misunderstand me. But what I think he means is he pairs that with love your neighbor, because that is the ultimate understanding of whether or not you love God well. Because every person in this room around you right now and every person you've ever met in your life is bearing the image of God. And if you can't love them well, it is worth asking whether you're loving God. And so this morning as we come to the table, we are reminded that Jesus has poured himself out for us. He has shown us what love looks like. He literally puts his hands on the cross like this, and he opens himself up for humanity. And he takes the penalty that was due to us, and he offers us a way to God. I find Jesus directly in the parable of the Good Samaritan. In fact, many interpreters have. It turns out he's not the priest, he's not the Levite, he is the Samaritan, though. He is the outsider, the despised one, yet the one who actually does the law of love. And he comes to our roads where we are lying half dead and he has compassion on us. He looks at us in our estate and he is moved. His insides turn outside. He says, I want something better for this child of mine. I want them to live a full life now, and eternal life forever. This is what I want for them. And so what does he do? He binds up our wounds. He pours the oil and the wine on them. He pays the price. And he promises he will come back to pay the rest of it. And this is what the table is. On the night before Jesus died, he took bread and a cup and he said, this is my body and this is my blood. And it is poured out for the forgiveness of your sins. We have all been robbed by the age of death. But we have also participated in the age of death. And we need forgiveness from that. So Christ, he crosses the road and he offers us a hand up and out of it. And this morning we get to participate in the forgiveness of sins that he offers to each and to every one of us. Our Call: To Be the Samaritan for OthersHe then expects something of us. As people who are walking down that road with him, the dust of the rabbi getting all over us — you remember that? — as we walk that way of love, we then too must take up the role of the Samaritan for the others who are around us. Our job in this world is to bandage those who are hurt and broken and to pour whatever oil and wine Jesus has given to us onto their wounds too. And we're to lift them up out of their estate. And this, this is what it means to be a follower of Christ. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, Holy Son, and Holy Spirit, you are self-giving love, perfected. God, we have fallen short of your glory, no doubt. We have sinned and are in need of a Savior. And so, Jesus, this morning, we come asking one more time for your salvation. Some of us, this might be the first time, saying, I need a Savior. I need someone to bandage up the wounds that are just too deep. I can't do it myself. Or somebody is lying there saying, I am half dead. I can't do this by myself. And Jesus, we know you are saying to them right now, I am here for you. I am here to bind those wounds and to raise you back to life again. So God, as we prepare our hearts for the communion table, we ask that we do so with sincerity and with gravity, knowing the cost that you have paid — your very life. And that out of this should flow for all of us gratitude, a thanksgiving. And for all this and more, we give you thanks and praise. In Christ's holy name we pray. Amen.‍ ‍South Run Baptist Church | 8712 Selger Drive, Springfield, VA 22153 | Sunday Worship at 11am Serving Springfield, Burke, West Springfield, Lorton, Alexandria, Fort Belvoir, and Franconia, Virginia. Listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify

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Matthew 22:34-40

Enjoy this week's message! This sermon is from Sunday's service. At FBC Rock Hill is a Family of Faith passionately committed to following Jesus. First Baptist Church exists to Love God, Love People, and Make Disciples. Like and share our stream and comment below so we can connect with you! For more information, visit us at https://www.fbcrockhill.org. Sermon by Pastor Steve Hogg Sermon Title: How to Love Our Country & Community: Part 1 (It Starts With Us) Scripture References: II Chronicle 7:12-14 II Chronicle 7:19-23 Proverbs 14:15 I Thessalonians 5:21 Proverbs 18:17 Proverbs 18:17 Jeremiah 29:13 Matthew 6:33 | 2 Chronicles, Jeremiah, Matthew, Proverbs

One of the things that stood out in my conversation with John Longhurst about his book Can Robots Love God and Be Saved? A Journalist Reports on Faith (CMU Press, 2024) was his seriousness about journalism itself. Longhurst understands the journalist's vocation not as providing definitive answers but as asking good questions, paying close attention, and engaging thoughtfully with the people and events that shape our world. Our discussion focused on a theme that runs throughout the book: if religion's enduring strength lies not in providing final answers but in sustaining meaningful questions, then what sustains belief amid suffering, doubt, and uncertainty? Longhurst's work suggests that faith often emerges not from certainty but from ongoing engagement with life's deepest mysteries. Rather than offering simple conclusions, Can Robots Love God and Be Saved? invites readers into conversations about faith, technology, culture, politics, and everyday life. It reminds us that religious questions remain central to how many people understand themselves and the world around them. In an age increasingly shaped by AI and our histories, these questions may become even more important, not less so. My thanks to John Longhurst for joining me on the New Books Network and for sharing insights drawn from a lifetime of careful observation, thoughtful reporting, and persistent questioning.  Amisah Bakuri (PhD) is an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. Her research examines the intersections of religion, sexuality, gender, and migration, particularly within African diasporic communities in the Netherlands. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/science-technology-and-society

Welcome back to Gnostic Insights and to the Gnostic Reformation on Substack. This week, we’re going to follow up on last week’s episode, which was called Gnostic Pentecost, and that was first broadcast on the 6th of June, 2026. I have a lot more examples out of the New Testament of the Bible about Pentecost, and as we learned last week, Pentecost is what we’ve been calling the coming of the Third Order of Powers here in this Gnosticism out of the Tripartite Tractate that I share with you at Gnostic Insights. Here’s a quote from last week’s episode where it says, Jesus stood up and said loudly, ‘if anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and let him drink. Whoever has faith in me, just as scripture has said, out of his parts, living streams of water will flow.' Now he said this in regard to the spirit whom those who had faith in him were about to receive, for as yet there was no spirit, because Jesus had not yet been glorified. [Hart's New Testament, John, Chapter 7, verse 37] And this is speaking of what we call the Holy Spirit, because of course we have spirit. We’re born with spirit, because we have the Fullness of God within us. That is the First Order of Powers. But Jesus here is talking of the Third Order of Powers, the army of Christ that has come after Jesus is, glorified. And glorified means risen from the dead, ascended into the sky in front of hundreds of witnesses. And glorified means that Jesus is living above, just as we will all be living above in a glorified body in the presence of the Father. So I shared that with you last week, and if you haven’t heard last week’s episode, again it’s called Gnostic Pentecost, go back and listen to it, because it’s a deep dive—what we call hermeneutics in theology or philosophy. It’s a deep deconstruction of a couple of very important passages in the Old and New Testament that have to do with the coming of what is called Pentecost. And Pentecost was when the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, came and sat upon the disciples while they were gathered in the upper room after Jesus had left and gone back above. But we’ve been talking about Pentecost all along here at Gnostic Insights as the coming of the Third Order of Powers that is the army of Christ. I’m going to quote a whole lot of New Testament for you today, and I take this out of The New Testament by David Bentley Hart, published by Yale University Press. So let’s start with John 14:16-30, and this is Jesus speaking. ‘And I shall entreat the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, that he may be with you throughout the age.' Now, by the way, when Hart and all translators translate throughout the age, they’re talking about Aeons. The word is Aeons. And so an alternate translation that Hart mentions in the footnote to this passage, throughout the age, can also mean, or until the Aeons come, or until the return to the Aeons. So listen to this again. ‘And I shall entreat the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, that he may be with you throughout the coming of the Aeons.' And of course here at Gnostic Insights and in Gnosticism, we believe that these Aeons are units of consciousness, that they’re parts of the Son, they’re parts of the mind of God. It’s not a measure of time, but a measure of consciousness. Carrying on with John 14:16. ‘The Spirit of Truth, which the cosmos cannot receive, because it neither sees nor knows it, you know it because it abides with you and will be within you. I shall not leave you orphans. I am coming to you. Just a little while, and the cosmos no longer sees me, but you see me. Because I live, you too will live. On that day, [and he’s referring to Pentecost, the coming of the Third Order of Powers], you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, that one is the one who loves me. And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.' Then Judas, not Iscariot, says to him, ‘Lord, what has happened then that you were about to manifest yourself to us and not to the cosmos?' Jesus answered and said to him, ‘if someone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him, and we’ll make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words, and the word that you hear is not mine, but rather that of the Father who has sent me. These things I’ve spoken to you while remaining with you, but the Advocate, the Spirit, the Holy One, which the Father will send in my name, he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you. Peace I leave you, my peace I give to you. I give to you not as the cosmos gives. Do not let your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. I will no longer speak much with you, but the Archon of the cosmos is coming, and he has no hold in me, but so that the cosmos may know that I love the Father, and that just as the Father has commanded me, so I do.' Now, what Jesus was sharing with the disciples in this passage was that his physical body was about to go away. We know that he was about to be crucified and gone. They don’t exactly understand what’s about to happen because they can’t see the future, but Jesus can. He says, I’m going to go away, but don’t worry, I’m going to send a Spirit called the Advocate, and it will come in my name, and in the name of the Father, and it will advise you. Right now you walk with me physically, and I am outside of you, but when the Advocate comes, it will be inside of you. And here at Gnostic Insights, I describe the coming of the Third Order of Powers as overlaying our Second Order Power. See, it’s like your cells of your body. Imagine that there is another version of you that is perfected, that is cleansed of all illness, or cleansed of all poor cellular replication. We’re making an analogy here between cells and spiritual parts, but right now I’m just talking about cells. So let’s say you’ve got all these kind of little faults in your body that have developed over the years. Now imagine there was a perfected body that slipped right into you, like a sort of like a ghost, the Holy Ghost, overlaying upon your cells that cause your cells to pattern themselves after it. It’s like stepping into your body and overlaying what has been damaged over the years. Well, that is what happens with our spiritual bodies. We are what are called Second Order Powers, and we are made up of various combinations of, I hate to get confusing here for you, but of the First Order Powers. The First Order Powers were the Aeons. The Second Order Powers are all of us living things. We Second Order Powers are the children of the Aeons of the Fullness–the First Order Powers, who are themselves the Totality of the Son. The Third Order Powers are the army of the Christ, who represent all of the Powers of the ethereal plane, individually and collectively working for our redemption. The Third Order Powers are the perfected Christly powers. We are the fruit of the First Order Powers. Each of us is unique, a unique combination of various First Order Powers, and they make up our body. It’s like the recipe. Each of us has a different recipe. Down here, we manifest that recipe. That is who I am. You have a slightly different recipe, but mainly we’re the same. When the Third Order of Powers come, they overlay upon your unique combination and my unique combination. The Third Order Powers are unique to each one of us because they are made to be in our countenance so that we will recognize them. These perfected Third Order Powers, the army of Christ, steps into our soul, steps into our spirit, and overlays upon our pattern, upon our recipe. That’s what brings us the perfection of the Christ. But it only happens if you ask for it. It only happens when you allow it and you seek it out. Now, at the end of that quote I just read you out of John, he says, peace I leave you, my peace I give to you. I give to you not as the cosmos gives. And you see, the distinction is that the cosmos, that’s our material instantiation. That’s the material part of our bodies. It’s the material world. It’s matter itself. And Jesus is saying that when he gives you something, it’s not the way that the Demiurge gives it to you, with strings, lots of strings. Jesus says, do not let your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. So we’re not supposed to live in a spirit of fear. There’s no need to be afraid. When you trust in the Father, when you trust in the Christ and the Holy Spirit, you are imbued with the most powerful energy that has ever been. It far outweighs the energy of the cosmos, the energy of the material, the energy of the Demiurge, the energy of the archons. It outranks them, it outweighs them, it’s more powerful. And when you allow it to come inside of you, then you have that power within you to overcome the archons, the cosmos, the Demiurge. Jesus says, I will no longer speak much with you, [that is physically, because he’s about to be crucified], for the archon of the cosmos is coming. He’s speaking of the Demiurge in the form of the Roman soldiers that are about to arrest him and put him to death. And he has no hold in me. [So he’s saying that even though the archon of the cosmos is coming, it couldn’t contain him except that Jesus is allowing it.] He has no hold in me, [because Jesus is more powerful, because Jesus embodies the Christ]. He’s the first perfected human to embody the energy of the Third Order Powers. That’s what it means by being fully human and fully God. Jesus says, but so that the cosmos may know that I love the Father, and that just as the Father has commanded me to do so. And what is this commandment of Jesus? Well, that’s described in Matthew 22:37-39—the teaching most often referred to as Jesus’s commandment and what is called the great commandment. And Jesus summarizes God’s law, all of those laws of the Old Testament that the Demiurge had constructed. He summarizes them into two main commands. 1: Love God completely. 2: Two, love others as yourself. And here’s the quote, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your reason. This is the great and first commandment. The second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. All the law and the prophets depend upon these two commandments.' Together, these two are described as the foundation of all the other laws and teachings. Of course, when the Demiurge had this transcribed, he had the hundreds and hundreds and thousands of rules added onto it, because the Demiurge is law-bound, and he can only work through law. But Jesus said, don’t worry about all those little laws that you’ve been burdened with. All you have to know is love your neighbor, and love the Father, love God, and then all the other commandments will take care of themselves, because the power of love will be working through you. The book of John, chapter 15:17-27, puts it this way: ‘These things I command you so that you love one another. If the cosmos hates you, you know that it has hated me before you. If you were of the cosmos, the cosmos would have loved its own. But since you are not of the cosmos, the cosmos therefore hates you. But all these things they will do to you on account of my name, because they do not know the one who has sent me. Whoever hates me also hates my Father. But they have both seen and hated both me and my Father. And thus might the passage written in the law, [and that’s the law of Jehovah, of the Old Testament], be fulfilled.' And here’s what the passage said, ‘When the Advocate comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth who comes forth from the Father, he will testify concerning me. And you too must testify, for you are with me from the beginning.' Now, this from the beginning—that's a Gnostic term, and that was before the material cosmos was created from the Fall. In the Tripartite Tractate, it says that only those things which were from the beginning will continue through eternity. The rest will be disappeared. So, Jesus is saying that the number one command is to love. And he’s also saying that the cosmos will hate you if you do, because the cosmos hates love. Again, from the New Testament book of John, in chapter 16, verses 1 through 15, Jesus says, ‘I’ve spoken these things to you so that you might not be caused to falter. They will make you exiles from the synagogue, [and I add, and the churches and the mosques], and an hour is coming in which everyone who kills you thinks he is offering a service to God. And they will do these things because they have known neither the Father nor me. But I tell you the truth, it is for your own good that I should go away. For if I do not go away, the Advocate, [that is the Holy Spirit, that is the Third Order Powers, that is the army of Christ], surely is not coming to you. But if I go, I shall send him to you. And when he comes, it will prove the cosmos wrong concerning righteousness and concerning judgment, concerning sin.' And by the way, sin means literally to miss the mark, as if you’re shooting an arrow at a target. It’s to miss the bullseye. It means to fail, to fall short, as if your arrow fell short of the bullseye. So that’s what sin is. It’s not a list of naughty things. It simply means to miss the mark. So Jesus is saying, when that one comes, the Spirit of Truth, ‘He will prove the cosmos wrong concerning righteousness and concerning judgment, concerning sin because they do not have faith in me, and concerning righteousness because I am going to the Father and you no longer see me, and concerning judgment because the archon of this cosmos, the Demiurge, has been judged. I still have many things to tell you, but right now you cannot hear them. But when that one comes, the Spirit of Truth, he will guide you on the way to all truth, for he will not speak from himself, but will speak what he hears, and he will announce to you things to come. That one will glorify me because he will receive from what is mine and will announce it to you. All that the Father has is mine. That is why I said that he receives from what is mine and will announce it to you.' Now in this passage, when Jesus is talking about the Spirit of Truth and that it will come to the disciples after he is physically disembodied, it will come to everyone who accepts the coming of the Spirit of truth—that Spirit of truth, that’s gnosis. That is gnosis. That’s all there is to it. It’s not lists of this and lists of that that you have to memorize. It’s not the names of the angels and the names of the archons and the names of the Aeons. It’s not the order of the planets or the astrology. It’s not the secrets of alchemy. Those are not the gnosis of which Jesus is speaking. It doesn’t have to do with having magical powers over the cosmos. The cosmos is the cosmos. This is the kingdom of the Demiurge. This is the kingdom of the archon of the cosmos. This is the valley of death. The Spirit of Truth, the gnosis that comes from above, is all about the Father. It’s about eternity and the ethereal plane. It’s simply about love and the fact that we come from love and that we will return to love and that this down here is mostly delusion. It’s mostly falsehoods. That’s why the Holy Spirit is known as the Spirit of Truth. It’s what combats the Spirit of delusion, the falsity of the deficiency, the falsity of the imitation, as we know it here in Gnosticism. So you see these quotes in the New Testament, they’re all about gnosis. They are Gnostic. It’s just that we are not familiar with them if we are Christians nowadays, because the gnosis was taken out. The true references, the definitions of these phrases, were taken out. That’s why I call this the Gnostic Reformation. I’m literally sitting here attempting to return Christianity to its roots, to what Jesus is teaching here. He’s teaching of the Father above, not the God of this world. Now you’ve heard the Holy Spirit being referred to as the Advocate, which is a legal term. And when Jesus referred to the Holy Spirit, he called it the Advocate. And the Advocate’s role is to teach us, to guide us, to remind us, and to empower us as believers. The Son of Man, whom Jesus was known as, is a messianic title from Daniel 7 of the Old Testament, one of the prophets of the Old Testament. The Son of Man is a title that refers to one who receives authority, kingship, and judgment. He’s the representative human who rules God’s kingdom. So the role of the Messiah, or the Son of Man, is judge, king, mediator of God’s reign. And the Holy Spirit is our Advocate. He’s the defense attorney. So who’s the prosecution? It’s the Accuser, and that is the original word used whenever you see the word Satan referred to. It’s actually the Accuser. So the Accuser is the Demiurge, or one of his chief henchmen, one of his archons, that we call Satan. He’s our prosecutor. It’s its job to make us feel bad, to accuse us of crimes and sins and petty misdeeds, and not being loving enough or not being good enough to even talk to God. But the Holy Spirit is our defense attorney on the other side, who says, of course they’re good enough. Of course you’re fine. If you love me, if you love the Father, all is good. That’s his job. And it’s the job of the Son of Man, the king, to judge. So I’m going to put a little chart in the transcript here of the difference between the Son of Man and the Advocate. The Son of Man is the Messiah, King, Judge. The Advocate is the presence of God within. Role Son of Man (Jesus) Advocate (Spirit) Identity Messiah, King, Judge Presence of God within Mission Establish kingdom, redeem humanity Continue and internalize that work Authority Given dominion over all Acts with Jesus' authority Relationship to believers External presence (historical) Internal presence (ongoing) You see, it’s always within. So this notion that the Third Order Powers comes into us and overlays upon our Second Orderness, that’s not Gnostic hyperbole. That’s not my imagination. It says this in the Bible. It’s the presence of God within. The mission of the Son of Man, of Jesus, was to establish the kingdom here in the cosmos. Because after the Fall, the cosmos was entirely ruled by the Archon of the cosmos. But after the coming of the Son of Man, that is our most perfect human being from above, it is the Son of Man’s job, his mission to establish the kingdom here in the cosmos, to redeem us. And the Advocate’s job is to continue and to internalize that work, to bring it inside of each and every human being on the planet. But it can’t do that without cooperation, without being invited. So this is God outside of us and God inside of us, an internal presence, and it’s ongoing. In Gnostic terms, the ongoing Spirit, the Advocate, that brings the presence of the Son into us is the Third Order of Powers that comes with each of our countenances, or our faces, so that we can recognize the one to whom we pray. That’s a paraphrase out of the Tripartite Tractate, that the Third Order Power, the Christ, comes with the face of everyone who prays for help. It also comes with the face of every  one of the Aeons above, and with the face of the Son of God. So you can see it’s the most powerful thing that exists. The Third Order of Powers replaces our Second Order Power with a renewed and repaired indwelling of Spirit. We can’t rectify our own flaws. Redemption must come from a wiser, greater source. If you could fix yourself, you’d have fixed yourself by now. It’s called pulling yourself up from your own bootstraps. You can’t lift yourself off the ground by pulling up on your shoelaces. You need a more powerful figure from the outside. If they pull up on your shoelaces, they can lift you up from the ground. You see, that’s the expression known as being lifted by your bootstraps. I don’t know if you remember that or not. Anyway, we can’t rectify our own flaws. Redemption must come from a wiser, greater source. The Christ was formed for that very purpose and duty. The Son of Man is our perfected genotype of humanity. Let me repeat John 16, 7 to 11 again. ‘For if I do not go away, the Advocate surely is not coming to you. But if I go, I shall send him to you. And when he comes, he will prove the cosmos wrong concerning righteousness and concerning judgment, concerning sin because they do not have faith in me, concerning righteousness because I am going to the Father and you will no longer see me, concerning judgment because the archon of this cosmos has been judged.' Do you understand that phrase better now? Now from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 3, verse 18 through 23. ‘Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks to be a wise man in this age, let him become foolish in order to become wise. For the wisdom of this cosmos is folly before God. For it has been written, He catches the wise in their craftiness. And again, the Lord knows the ponderings of the wise that they are vapid. Hence, let no one boast in human beings, for all things are yours, and you the anointed and the anointed gods.' And this bit about appearing foolish in the eyes of the world—I know that when we profess to follow these Gnostic teachings, that people who think themselves so wise, so smart, and so much better than we are, think we’re stupid jerks. We are much reviled for being innocent, for being true believers. But that is how we are to be. We are to believe as children, fully believing with all of our hearts and minds and reason. Don’t hold back because you’re afraid that people are going to think you’re stupid. They’ve always thought that. They mocked Jesus. Of course they’re going to mock you. But the wisdom of this cosmos is folly before God, it says. And it also says that the ponderings of the wise are vapid. Vapid means empty, like vapor. So people that think they’re so darn smart, they’re not. They’re just serving the archon of the cosmos. But it’s folly. It’s foolishness. You can’t take it with you. All that matters is your connection to the Father above, and your love for the Father, and your love for your fellow humans. Not pretending, not professing to be love that arises from hatred, but true love, true righteousness. And when you ask the Third Order Powers to come and help you, to come and redeem you, that’s between you and the Father. That’s between you and the Aeons. That’s between you and the Christ. It doesn’t have to do with some priest, or some minister, or some internet influencer. It’s a private matter. But once you do have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and you’ll know it when it happens, that’s that born-again experience. You’ll be filled with reassurance. You’ll be flooded with love. You’ll know that it happens. And then you will know that you are the anointed, that is, that you belong to Christ, and that you belong to the anointed God, that is, the Father. So in conclusion, from the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 2, verse 38, it says, And Peter said to them, Change your hearts, [and that’s from the hearts of stone to hearts of receptive flesh, like we talked about last week], change your hearts. Let each of you be baptized upon the name of Jesus, the Anointed, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, [that is, the army of the Christ, the Third Order of Powers, sent to battle the archons of this cosmos on your behalf]. God bless us all. Onward and upward. If you would like to contribute to this ongoing work, please use the form below. You are appreciated! 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Garth Heckman The David Alliance TDAgiantSlayer@Gmail.com Gravity  -  You can't beat it. Client lost 265 pounds… Box jump 2 inches… to 20 inches.   You can't beat gravity… but you can improve.   Eph. 3 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the Lord's holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. 20 Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.   Look at the dot of an “I” in your bible. That is the sun, it holds 1 million earths Our current earth is the galaxy it lives in THERE ARE PLANETS OUT IN OTHER GALAXIES THAT ARE BIGGER THAN OUR GALAXY.      Paul is essentially praying that his listeners will do the impossible: to intellectually comprehend something that is inherently beyond intellectual comprehension, all so they can be entirely consumed by the divine.   He is telling you to try to beat gravity… you won't but you can experience it greater and greater.      A teacher in bible college put it this way… Describe to someone what the ocean is who has never SEEN THE OCEAN AND NEVER experienced anything liquid.     God calls us to grasp how wide, long, high and deep his love is… knowing we never will fully grasp it.      But the attempt is clear: ALWAYS FOCUS ON GODS LOVE FOR US!        When you focus on Gods love 3 things happen in your life!        - 1. Sin We don't have a sin problem,  we have a knowing God problem.     Knowing His Supreme love keeps us tender and sinless - think of the time you were most whipped in love. I can. Kim and I were dating and she was in the car leaning forward fiddling with the radio. I was outside standing behind my car filling it up with gas. I looked at my buddy Pele and said can you believe that girl loves me? I literally could not fathom it… He looked at me in disbelief and said “it makes no sense”. **But what if he then said “how many times do you think she will let you fool around  with other girls… how many times will she let you smack her around, lie to her, steal from her, gossip about her… etc… I would have had a mental breakdown and sparks shoot from a short circuit in my head… that would make no sense to me. Knowing God's love keeps us from asking how far can I go in the world...     Satan will take your sin, your past, your guilt and try to make you feel like a servant. ITS CALLED SIN CONCIOUS   John 14:31 If you love the father you will obey his commandments. Love God = the fruit is obedience.   *if you focus on the commands you will be religious and guilt ridden and sin conscious.     You will fall into the trap of trying to push yourself away from your sin Using willpower Discipline Rules Accountability    What did Joseph say when he was tempted by Potiphar's wife? He remembers the 7th commandment: Thou shalt not have adultery… NOPE!  

Join our Senior Pastor, Rev. Steve Hogg, every weekday morning as he gives his insight on a chapter from the Bible. At First Baptist Church Rock Hill, we exist to Love God, Love People, and Make Disciples. Connect with us on: Twitter - @FBC_RH Instagram - @fbc_rh Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/FirstBaptistRH​​

Speaker - Rudy Nikkerud Message - I Love God's House "I Said Yes To Jesus" - Click Here! The Belonging Cø • Nashville, TN USA For the latest on what's happening at church, visit thebelonging.co

Katie and I chose St Lukes Methodist Church 3 years ago. Love God and love your neighbor as yourself (without exception). Their mission is to share God's love and bring hope to the world. They value kindness, generosity and love to all. It's part of what makes it a great church.

You'll never move forward with purpose until you let go of the past and pursue what truly deserves your passion.

Join our Senior Pastor, Rev. Steve Hogg, every weekday morning as he gives his insight on a chapter from the Bible. At First Baptist Church Rock Hill, we exist to Love God, Love People, and Make Disciples. Connect with us on: Twitter - @FBC_RH Instagram - @fbc_rh Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/FirstBaptistRH​​

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Send us Fan MailHelp BookWorthy make plans and know how to serve your best by filling out the 2026 Listener survey. Click the link, answer 10 questions. I can't wait to hear what you have to say. Full Transcripts available at http://www.valeriefentress.com/blogIn this episode of Book Worthy, Valerie interviews Yvonne M Morgan, an award-winning author known for her children's book 'Mary the Missionary.' They discuss the inspiration behind the book, which aims to teach children about compassion, cultural understanding, and faith through the adventures of a young girl named Mary in Kenya. Yvonne shares her experiences in mission work, the joy found in different cultures, and the importance of teaching children about the world around them. The conversation also touches on Yvonne's journey to becoming an author, her favorite books, and her future writing projects. Yvonne's Author Page Join BookWorthy's Summer Reading Challenge HereTakeawaysYvonne's first memorable book was 'The Ballerina.'Her mission work inspired her to write children's books.'Mary the Missionary' explores themes of compassion and cultural understanding.Children can learn about joy despite poverty through stories.Traveling helps us understand different cultures better.Yvonne's journey to becoming an author was unexpected.Mary's adventures teach kids about overcoming challenges.Books can communicate deep messages to children.Yvonne plans to write more books featuring Mary.Exploring differences can enrich our lives. Chapters00:00 Introduction to Yvonne M Morgan and Her Work01:59 Inspiration Behind 'Mary the Missionary'03:36 Cultural Insights from Kenya05:33 Mary's Adventures and Challenges07:32 Lessons on Faith and Understanding09:19 Yvonne's Journey to Becoming an Author11:11 Unique Travel Experiences and Insights12:56 Favorite Books and Their Impact14:34 Future Projects and AspirationsListener Survey invitationLet's discover great books together!Follow for more:FB: @bookworthypodcastInstagram: @bookworthy_podcastYouTube:  BookWorthy Podcast - YouTubetiktok: @valeriefentress

Join our Senior Pastor, Rev. Steve Hogg, every weekday morning as he gives his insight on a chapter from the Bible. At First Baptist Church Rock Hill, we exist to Love God, Love People, and Make Disciples. Connect with us on: Twitter - @FBC_RH Instagram - @fbc_rh Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/FirstBaptistRH​​

"No other god." President at NBA Finals. God has nothing to do with thoughts. Toledo fest. YouTuber couple. L.A. birthday party. MA beach.

Join our Senior Pastor, Rev. Steve Hogg, every weekday morning as he gives his insight on a chapter from the Bible. At First Baptist Church Rock Hill, we exist to Love God, Love People, and Make Disciples. Connect with us on: Twitter - @FBC_RH Instagram - @fbc_rh Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/FirstBaptistRH​​

Join our Senior Pastor, Rev. Steve Hogg, every weekday morning as he gives his insight on a chapter from the Bible. At First Baptist Church Rock Hill, we exist to Love God, Love People, and Make Disciples. Connect with us on: Twitter - @FBC_RH Instagram - @fbc_rh Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/FirstBaptistRH​​

Quoting Deuteronomy 6:4-5 and Leviticus 19:18, Jesus teaches us the two greatest commandments: to love God and one another. (Lectionary #356) June 4, 2026 - Cathedral Rectory - Superior, WI Fr. Andrew Ricci - www.studyprayserve.com  

Fr. Patrick preached this homily on June 4, 2026. The readings are from 2 Timothy 2:8-15, Psalm 25:4-5ab, 8-9, 10 and 14, Mark 12:28-34 (Thursday of the Ninth Week in Ordinary Time) Connect with us! Website: https://slakingthirsts.com/ YouTube: www.youtube.com/@SlakingThirsts Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/slakingthirsts/

We exist to Know God, Be In Community, and Live On Mission as we seek to Love God and our Neighbor.Connect with us at www.newlifesl.church