Podcasts about often god

Episode Summary:  In this episode, author, speaker, and mother, Jodi Howe, shares the painful wounds she has gone through as she has parented a child with gender identity issues. She shares the wisdom that God has granted her in how to remain true to the gospel of Jesus Christ, but still love her daughter.   Quotables from the episode: Often God uses our most painful experiences to minister to others. The ultimate way to glorify the Lord is to turn our pain into power. My testimonies come from experience with anxiety, divorce, and having a transgender child. But He equips, He leads, He walks alongside us, and I'm at the point now where I'm speaking from a healed scar, not a wound. I've gone through years of learning, growing, messing up, and trying to stay close to my faith in Christ and love my daughter through this. The thorn in my flesh came about ten years ago when my daughter told me she doesn't like the skin that she is in and wants to transition into a male. I firmly believe that God does not mistakes and that the gender you are born in is the gender you are to live in. But that doesn't mean that our children and the culture they live in don't feel lost in who they are. In the course of a decade, not much has changed in her decision, but what has changed is how I approach it as a mom who is adamantly and passionately in love with Jesus Christ and is adamantly and passionately in love with my child. The Lord has shown me that I need to be open to what an agape love looks like, not just the love a mother to a child, but His love as spelled out in First Corinthians. God has shown me such incredible growth in this process. Gender identity issues is not being born in the wrong skin. This is actual societal pressure, infused by the internet, put upon lonely hearts and minds that are struggling just to get by at the times when they are the most vulnerable and the affirmations by doctors, therapists, teachers and educators who say if you want to be a duck, and act like a duck, we're going to help you be a duck. Satan, through society, is really putting a stronghold on those vulnerabilities. But the good news is, God is prevailing through it as I knew He would, in my life, in my family's life, and in my child's life. You grow in Christ as fast as you are intentional about growing. I have been intentional from the day I accepted Jesus into my heart that I was going to build a life and a foundation on who He is, on His foundation. I am going to build my life around Him. These children are told that if your parents won't let you be who you want to be, you need to threaten suicide or even attempt it so they will get on your bandwagon of transitional change in your body. 90% of transgender men and women are coming from a traumatic circumstance. It's crucial to thoroughly vet the mental health therapists you go to for therapy. We don't have agree or like the choices of our children. But when God says “love the Lord with all your strength, heart and soul, and love thy neighbor,” when we appreciate how much he loved us to send Jesus to die for our sins, we don't get to love haphazardly—it is a full love of acceptance. What it has shown me is that I can love her alongside the struggles and the choices she has made. It has softened my heart to not feel as much shame, to not feel as much resentment, to not worry what people think of me…when I go to bed at night, I only care what God thinks of me. I believe that our omniscient God is going to be able to weave this into something beautiful. I know the Lord would want me to have a relationship with my child no matter what. I adore my child, and she is going to see how I, her mother who loves the Lord, is going to honor her. So there is going to be a lot of pressure on me to keep my Godly heart in check, and I'm willing to do it for the sake of my child, and most importantly, to glorify the Lord. You can stay a beautiful believer in Jesus Christ, believe that the gospels are real, and you can still love your LBGT family member but you can't do it without God. God will show you. He will equip you, He will provide for you, and He will comfort your heart when it's at the lowest of lows. He will speak to you, and He will give you the words to say that will speak love. We need to go to God and ask Him how to navigate this world. The only hill to die on is the one that Jesus tells me to die on, and so far, He has told me to keep going. Are we loving God's people to life? Jesus keeps the door open, and I think He's asking us to do the same thing. We often can't help what happens to us, but we can take it to the Lord and we can trust that He's weaving it and working it out for good. I'm trying very hard that regardless of what comes before me, before I react I pray; before I speak I pray. I take it to the Lord. Stop leaning on the world. It's going to disappoint you. It's going to hurt you. Take it to the Lord first and ask Him how he wants you to handle the situation with integrity as a friend, as a coworker, as a parent, as a child…we need to do what God tells us to do, but we have to be willing to listen first.  Wisdom from the Lord will never steer us wrong. That doesn't mean it will always be comfortable, but it will not mislead.  God doesn't care as much about our comfort as he cares about our character. When you walk with Christ, His favor is upon you. And when we walk in His favor, that makes us more attractive to those around us. Scripture References: Matthew 13:6 NIV “But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root.” Romans 12:1-2 NIV “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. But do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.   Recommended Resources:  The Air That I Breathe: Hope and Healing from Anxiety (22 Day and Night Devotions) by Jodi Howe Sacred Scars: Resting in God's Promise That Your Past Is Not Wasted by Dr. Michelle Bengtson  The Hem of His Garment: Reaching Out to God When Pain Overwhelms by Dr. Michelle Bengtson YouVersion 5-Day Devotional Reaching Out To God When Pain Overwhelms   Today is Going to be a Good Day: 90 Promises to Start Your Day Off Right by Dr. Michelle Bengtson, winner of the AWSA 2023 Inspirational Gift Book of the Year Award, the Christian Literary Awards Reader's Choice Award in four categories, and the Christian Literary Awards Henri Award for Devotionals YouVersion 7-Day Devotional, Today is Going to be a Good Day YouVersion 7-Day Devotional, Today is Going to be Another Good Day Breaking Anxiety's Grip: How to Reclaim the Peace God Promises by Dr. Michelle Bengtson Breaking Anxiety's Grip Free Study Guide Free 7-Day YouVersion Bible Reading Plan for Breaking Anxiety's Grip Hope Prevails: Insights from a Doctor's Personal Journey Through Depression by Dr. Michelle Bengtson, winner of the Christian Literary Award Reader's Choice Award Hope Prevails Bible Study by Dr. Michelle Bengtson, winner of the Christian Literary Award Reader's Choice Award Trusting God Through Cancer 1 Trusting God Through Cancer 2 Revive & Thrive Women's Conference Subdue Stress and Anxiety: Fifteen Experts Offer Comprehensive Tools in Ten Minutes a Day. Use my link plus discount code BENG99 to save $90 on course (course will be $99.) Free Download: How To Fight Fearful/Anxious Thoughts and Win   Social Media Links for Guest and Host: Connect with Jodi Howe: Website For more hope, stay connected with Dr. Bengtson at: Order Book Breaking Anxiety's Grip / Order Book Hope Prevails  /  Website  /  Blog  /  Facebook / Twitter (@DrMBengtson)  /  LinkedIn  /  Instagram / Pinterest / YouTube Guest: Jodi Howe is an engaging stage performer, author, and award-winning podcaster known for her heartfelt messages and magnetic energy. She hosts "The Air That I Breathe," podcast and released a book of the same name last year, both inspired by her passion for sharing messages of hope through the gospel of Jesus. Based in Cary, North Carolina, Jodi inspires through her writing, music, and dedication to her family.   Hosted By: Dr. Michelle Bengtson Audio Technical Support: Bryce Bengtson

We hear about Christian “Breakthroughs” all the time: a book that will change your life, or a conference that will restore your marriage. But so often, those “experiences” and resources fall flat. They over-promise and under-deliver. The personal change we sought still seems beyond our reach. What's missing? Why do we stay stuck in unhealthy patterns of living? The story of Jacob from the Old Testament holds out some answers. It's a powerful paradigm for how God often engages us—and changes us. At the center of that story is a tremendous personal struggle, with breakthrough on the other side. Often God must hurt us to help us. Wrestling with God, Sunday at 10am. DHS Auditorium.

Pastor Vince continues his teaching in 2 Samuel 5:1-5.

Gentleness is of great worth to God. There are virtues that God values greatly. Gentleness is one of them. We have a choice. What will we make of great value to ourselves? How much time do we spend working on our outward selves compared to the inner self. It is essentially a spirit. Why is a gentle and quiet spirit worth a lot to God? I believe that when we don't walk in gentleness, we short circuit the anointing. Often God can only use us when we are in this state of a gentle and quiet spirit. Gentleness is enhanced by other attributes.

The Power of SolitudeLuke 5:16 “But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.”The other day, I was listening to the Abiding Together podcast. The episode was called Living in Tension: Solitude and Community. This was a really interesting idea. It is important to keep in mind that we need both solitude and community. Today I want to talk to you a bit about why you also need time for solitude. No matter if we are an introvert or an extrovert, we all need both community and solitude. The solitude is not where we spend time by ourselves watching Netflix and eating ice cream. We all may need that sometimes too, but the solitude they were talking about on the podcast was that time when you go away from everyone and spend time with the Lord. Jesus did this often in the Bible. He fed the 5,000 and then went off to be alone with the Father. He did this so often in the Bible that people would go after Him and try to find Him. They wanted to know what He was doing.No matter how close we get to the Lord, this solitude will always be necessary. There is always more with the Lord. We can always go further in with Him. We can always grow closer to Him. Encounter Ministries says you can always go further up and further in. This alone time with God is essential. This is the time when He can fill us up. This is a time when He can show us what He has planned for us. God will use us if we allow Him to. God will help guide us in our lives if we allow Him to. If we never stop and spend some time with God, just us and Him, when do we learn about His plan for our life? When do we learn about what He wants us to do?Things in our life will go much better when we spend quiet time with God, asking Him what we should do before we do it. In order to recognize the Lord's voice, we need to make sure we are spending time regularly with Him. In order to have an intimate relationship with him, we need to spend time with Him. Maintaining our relationship with God is similar to maintaining our relationship with others. We need to invest our time and our attention to it, or it will fizzle out. I found an article that talks about the 6 Benefits of Solitude with God by John (Click Here for full article)Here are 6 benefits of solitude with God1.)   Exposure to God's wisdom God is all-wise and all-knowing. You can't spend time alone with Him and remain ignorant. Acts 4:13 says that when the religious leaders saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled; and they realized that they had been with Jesus. You can't spend time with the LORD and not be wiser than you are now.2.)   Recipient of divine perspectiveThrough Scripture and time with the Lord, God gives His people the capacity to see all of life from His vantage point. Having God's perspective allows us to rise above the daily grind of life and the petty actions of others and realize there is a sovereign God who rules over His creation and directs the activities of mankind.3.)   Renewal of physical and spiritual strengthWhen you spend time alone with God, you not only gain renewal of physical strength, but you also enjoy spiritual refueling and refreshment. Isaiah 40:31 says “those who wait on the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” According to Psalm 68:35a, the God of Israel is “He who gives strength and power to His people.” Spend time alone with God, and He will give you power and strength.4.)   Beneficiary of Godly guidanceGod promises to guide us all the way through our lives. The psalmist writes, “For this God is our God forever and ever; he will be our guide even to the end.” (Psalm 48:14). But how do we receive this guidance? Psalm 48:9 says: “meditating on your unfailing love.” The secret of guidance is alone time with God – meditating on His word. Wow, what a gift we receive in our alone time with the Lord!5.)   Experience conviction and correctionPsalm 17:4-5 says: “I have followed your commands, which keep me from following cruel and evil people. My steps have stayed on your path; I have not wavered from following you.”One of the great proofs that the Bible is really God's inspired Word is its unique ability to convict men and women of their sins. Often God will use his word to correct us and lead us onto a steady path gently. 6.)   God's great rewardGod rewards time spent alone with him in prayer. “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners so that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father, who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.” (Matthew 6:5-6)God's will, His nearness, His goodness, His love – rewards freely given to those who commune with him. Make solitude a priority! All of the money in the world cannot buy the rewards God longs to give you as you commune with Him. As we get busy in this Lenten season don't forget to prioritize alone time with God this year. It's the best gift you will ever receive; one-on-one communion with your heavenly Father. You might wonder, with all these benefits, why would anyone avoid solitude? We can avoid solitude because when we think of solitude, we think of being alone, and there are all sorts of reasons why we wouldn't want to be alone. We might think that when we are alone, our mind will think of all the things we have been trying to avoid. Maybe we have trauma from our past. Maybe we have things in our lives right now that we are trying to avoid. We might be afraid if we have solitude, we might have to confront all the things we are trying to avoid.However, when we avoid solitude, we are avoiding deep connection with the Lord as well. God is calling each one of us to make the choice to find time away from everyone else and to meet Him there in that silence. Almost all the main players in the Bible spend time in solitude with the Lord. I read an article that had three things for us to consider when practicing solitude. The article was called How to Practice Solitude. I didn't fine an author. (Click Here for the full article)Three things to consider when practicing solitude:1. Solitude doesn't require silenceSilence and solitude are complementary disciplines that aid our communion with God. But while silence almost always requires solitude, solitude does not necessarily require silence. We can use our time of solitude for prayer, verbal meditation on Scripture, singing psalms or hymns of praise, or any other form of “noisy” activity. Solitude doesn't require either silence or a hushed solemnity.2. Solitude requires planningOur lives tend to be filled with people and events, making it unlikely we'll accidentally stumble into solitude. Being alone with God requires planning. Choose a place where you can be intimate with God and free from distractions. This “special place” doesn't need to be special — it just needs to be a place where you can remove yourself from the world for as much time as needed.3. Solitude requires timeOn most days, the best we can do is to get away alone for a few minutes or even an hour. We should cherish these times and guard them carefully. Yet while these solitary moments are necessary, they're hardly sufficient to meet our need for closeness with our Creator. Commit to finding creative ways to be alone with God for extended periods of solitude, ranging from a few hours to a few days.Three reasons solitude is necessary for spiritual formation1. Solitude amplifies other disciplinesWe can carry out almost every other discipline in the company of others. We can pray, meditate, and worship almost anytime and in any place. But practicing those disciplines in the context of solitude helps us achieve a greater focus and augments our efforts.2. Solitude is not about being aloneNormally when we use the term solitude, we're referring to the state of being alone. But solitude also has the meaning of “absence of human activity.” This is what we mean when we refer to the discipline; the purpose is not to be alone but to experience the absence of human activity so that we can more fully experience the presence of God.3. Solitude exposes our idolsWe might tell ourselves we prefer God's company to that of any other person or thing in the world. Solitude puts that claim to the test. By being alone with God, we get a clearer view of the idols of our hearts, and we are presented with an opportunity to repent.As you can see, there are many reasons why we need to make time to be in solitude with God. I pray you will find extra time during this Lenten season to be alone with the Lord and let Him fill you up.Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to be with everyone listening to this episode. Lord, we thank you for wanting to be in a relationship with us. We thank you for wanting to spend time with us. We thank you for filling us up in that time alone with you. Lord, we ask that you show each one of us how you want to be in a relationship with us. Show us where and when you want to meet with us. Lord, if we are struggling to find time to be with you, we ask you to put on our hearts when in our schedule we can add more time with you. We want to be with you, Lord; we are just struggling to make it happen. Please help us. We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus' holy name, Amen!Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to seeing you here again tomorrow. Remember, Jesus loves you, and so do I! Have a blessed day!

Periods of waiting can be difficult, and all we want to do is move. Often God leads us to remain in the famine rather than move in the famine. In this message, Pastor Mike Adkins shares how we can know God's perfect timing and follow His lead.

Periods of waiting can be difficult, and all we want to do is move. Often God leads us to remain in the famine rather than move in the famine. In this message, Pastor Mike Adkins shares how we can know God's perfect timing and follow His lead.

Often God of the Old Testament and New Testament are described quite differently. For example: God in the Old Testament is described as vengeful, versus the New Testament God who is more loving. How do we reconcile this and understand that this is the same God when they are so often described and understood differently?   In this week's Message of the week, we begin a worship series titled, "Living Our Questions." We will be hearing sermons answering some hard questions we may not normally ask others. This week, we hear from Pastor Bryce Blank who shares from Romans 5 and sheds some light on the question: "Is this really the same God?"

We can have confidence in the Holy One.In this message, Pastor Andy Williamson takes us back to the moment when the angel Gabriel brought news to Mary that she would bear the promised Messiah. And while that message fills us with great hope today, we must recall a young girl who had her plans, hopes, dreams, and life turned completely upside down.Often God's timing in our lives seems insensitive. And in our confusion, we can remove ourselves from the miracle He is trying to work in our lives. But if we can remember who it is we're placing our hope in, and trust that He's for us and not against us, we can experience the move of the Spirit we so desperately need.His name is holy, and He can't lead us astray… Will you trust Him in the unexpected circumstances you find yourself in?

We can have confidence in the Holy One.In this message, Pastor Andy Williamson takes us back to the moment when the angel Gabriel brought news to Mary that she would bear the promised Messiah. And while that message fills us with great hope today, we must recall a young girl who had her plans, hopes, dreams, and life turned completely upside down.Often God's timing in our lives seems insensitive. And in our confusion, we can remove ourselves from the miracle He is trying to work in our lives. But if we can remember who it is we're placing our hope in, and trust that He's for us and not against us, we can experience the move of the Spirit we so desperately need.His name is holy, and He can't lead us astray… Will you trust Him in the unexpected circumstances you find yourself in?

Jesus Ministries, Joan Boney  ...   Consider Joseph:   Genesis 39  (Joseph's brothers sold Joseph into slavery and Joseph was taken into Egypt)   And Joseph was brought down to Egypt; and Potiphar, an officer of Pharaoh, captain of the guard, an Egyptian, bought him of the hands of the Ishmeelites, which had brought him down thither.   And the Lord was with Joseph, and he was a prosperous man; and he was in the house of his master the Egyptian.   (Even when Joseph was a slave, God made it possible for Joseph to prosper.  Joseph was a righteous man.)   And his master saw that the Lord was with him, and that the Lord made all that he did to prosper in his hand.   And Joseph found grace in his sight, and he served him: and he made him overseer over his house, and all that he had he put into his hand.   And it came to pass from the time that he had made him overseer in his house, and over all that he had, that the Lord blessed the Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake; and the blessing of the Lord was upon all that he had in the house, and in the field.   And he left all that he had in Joseph's hand; and he knew not ought he had, save the bread which he did eat. And Joseph was a goodly person, and well favoured.   And it came to pass after these things, that his master's wife cast her eyes upon Joseph; and she said, Lie with me.   But he refused, and said unto his master's wife, Behold, my master wotteth not what is with me in the house, and he hath committed all that he hath to my hand; There is none greater in this house than I; neither hath he kept back any thing from me but thee, because thou art his wife: how then can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?   And it came to pass, as she spake to Joseph day by day, that he hearkened not unto her, to lie by her, or to be with her.   And it came to pass about this time, that Joseph went into the house to do his business; and there was none of the men of the house there within.   And she caught him by his garment, saying, Lie with me: and he left his garment in her hand, and fled, and got him out.

Heavenly Father, we recognize that we live as fallen people in a fallen world. Yes, it's all because of our own rebellion and subordination of trying to reject your authority. Lord, we understand that we live in a world that is under the curse. Lord, in this world, we do experience suffering and pain and we experience trials and tempest. Sometimes life becomes tempestuous. Storms come. Lord, in those moments when the storms do come, I pray that you give us the power of the Holy Spirit to stand unflinching on the gospel and the word of God. That you are a great God, there's nothing outside of your control. You are sovereign and that you are good God. You love us and you long to bless us. Sometimes you bless us by protecting us from the storms.Sometimes the greatest blessing is your own presence and protection within the storm. Lord, I pray from the holy scriptures today, remind us that a fruit of the Holy Spirit is peace. That we are to be a people who are characterized, defined by peace, the tranquility of heart, despite the storms. Lord, when the winds of this world blow and they blow against us, I pray that we are not blown from one doctrine to another, but we stand fast and hold on to the anchor of our souls, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Lord, I pray that you bless our time in the holy scriptures and we pray all this in Christ's beautiful name. Amen. We are continuing our sermon series to the Gospel of Mark. We've entitled this, "The Gospel of Mark and The Secret of God's Kingdom."The title of the sermon on this communion Sunday is the Storm Calming King. One of the most accurate gauges for how strong your faith is, is to take an inventory of your current fears, anxieties, and worries. What worries you the most today? Perhaps the state of the economy or your own personal finances. How are we going to keep paying the bills? Perhaps it's inflation or politics or war or disease or perhaps you're more concerned about finding love or keeping love, about losing health or aging. For the wellbeing perhaps of your children, you're most concerned, or not measuring up intellectually, physically, financially. Or how about death? Do you experience fear when you consider death, of what it would mean to meet the living God?The Holy Word proclaims that God gave us the spirit not of fear, but of power and of love and of self-control. The spirit of fear is not from God. God doesn't want you living in a constant state of panic. Peace is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. So we are to be calm and cool, even in the face of storms. The most effective, sustainable way to counter our fears is with a greater fear, a fear of God, and to truly believe in God, to truly know Him as He is to fear Him. Our text today is Mark 4:35-41. Would you look at the text with me? "On that day when evening had come, he said to them, 'Let us go across to the other side.' And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat just as he was.And other boats were with him and a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat so that the boat was already filling, but he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And when they woke him up, they said to him, 'Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?' And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, 'Be still. Peace! Be still!' And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. He said to them, 'Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?' And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, 'Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?'" This is the reading of God's holy, inerrant, infallible, authoritative word. May he write these eternal truths upon our hearts.Three points as we walk our way through the text, a great storm, a great calm, and a great fear. First, a great storm. Jesus had called these disciples by coming to them and commanding them, "Follow me." His very first sermon, both to them and to everyone else, was the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe. What he's saying is, "I am the king. I'm the king of everything. The way you enter my kingdom is repenting of sin and believing in me." Those are the two most important lessons of the Christian faith. This is how everything begins and this is how everything continues. Repent of your sin and believe and follow Jesus Christ.Then Jesus spends in chapter four, parable upon parable explaining to the disciples, trying and impress upon their hearts the importance of paying attention to God's word, of listening in a way that you actually hear and heed and obey the word of God. So after teaching his disciples lesson upon lesson and preaching, now comes the test. You've all taken tests. Are you a good test taker? What makes for a good test taker? Is it just the power of recall? It's more than that. It's the power of recall under pressure. In particular in a pop quiz, you weren't ready. Pop quiz, here we go. Do you know the information? Have you mastered it? We learn about truth, the truth about God and who we are from the Holy Book. Then we're called to apply this truth in real life.That's the real test. Can you apply the truth in real time? Often God does test our faith and he does so with sudden unexpected storms. Will your faith be blown off course? Usually, the storms come in the form of some pain, some suffering. Can you continue trusting God when the skies have darkened, when lightning strikes, when you feel like you're sinking? Can you trust God, believe in God when it matters most? So Jesus administers the test in Mark 4:35. "On that day," it says, "when evening had come, he said to them, 'Let us go across to the other side.'" On that day and in context, we see what happened on that day in Jesus' taxing life of ministry.The day started where he's casting out demons and then the Pharisees and the scribes of the Pharisees, they accused Jesus of doing the work he was doing by the power of Beelzebub or Satan himself. Jesus says, "No, you saying that is actually blasphemous." There's tensions. Whenever there's a conflict, whenever there's tension, there's all adrenaline pumped exhaustion. That's what Jesus went through. The second event of that day was when his mother and his brothers came to take Jesus by force almost. Then Jesus turns around and He looks at his disciples and He says, "Who's my mother? Who's my brothers? Who's my sisters? It's those that do the will of God." Then He spends all day preaching to the biggest crowd yet.There were so many people that He was forced to back off from the shore and start preaching from a boat using the boat as his pulpit. So after exhausting day of ministry in the hot sun, Jesus says, "Let us go across to the other side." The Greek tense reveals a note of urgency in Jesus' decisions to depart. Perhaps he's hit a wall physically where you just can't continue. He didn't have the physical strength to go on. So He tells the disciples, "Let's go out to sea." Whose idea was this? This is important to notice. Whose idea was it to get in the boat that evening and to go into the sea that night? It was Jesus' idea. It was Him taking them right into the storm almost as if it's a setup and it is.He's setting them up to test their faith. He loves them and He wants to strengthen their faith in God and fear of God. God does not promise that when we serve Him, when we obey Him, when we believe in Him that we're going to lead a life of smooth sailing. Jesus doesn't promise to protect us from experiencing storms. He promises to protect us in the midst of storms. The sermon of the Mount in chapter 7, verse 24, Jesus says this, "Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat on the house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat against that house and it fell. Great was the fall of it." But notice in both of these paths, the people that obey God, the wise people and the people that disobeyed God, the foolish people, they both experience storms. The question isn't, "Are you going to experience a storm?" The question is, "Will your faith weather the storm?" Obedience to God takes them right into the heart of the storm, into the eye of the hurricane, so to speak. This shows us that service to Christ even does not exempt us from storms.The 12 disciples seem to be doing all the right things, forsaking everything, following him, listening to his teaching, growing in their faith, doing all He commands. They're as obedient as you'll find. Jesus says, "Let us go to the other side." The other side was predominantly the Gentile Decapolis, a region where most of the people there were Gentiles, they were pagans. They did not believe in Yahweh. So Jesus here is showing us that He's the prophet similar to Jonah being sent to the Gentiles except Jesus did it willingly. Verse 36, "And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat just as he was and other boats were with him." So He's been preaching in the boat and then He just goes to the back of the boat and to the stern, finds a cushion, and goes to sleep.What kind of boat was this? It was probably one of the ordinary 15-passenger boats, 26.5 feet long, 7.5 feet wide, 4.5 feet high, with a little platform in the stern that protected from the elements. Also, notice it says that other boats were with him. The other boats aren't mentioned later in the text. It does nothing to further the plot. Why is this detail here? Because it's just showing us this is eyewitness account as they remembered this detail. So Jesus is exhausted from his day, climbs into the back of the boat. The boat hoist sail and begins the five-mile trip across the lake. Verse 37. "And a great windstorm arose, and waves were breaking into the boat so that the boat was already filling."The sea of Galilee is about 700 feet below sea level and it's surrounded by mountains, by Mount Herman and the Eastern Shore. The mountains go up about 9,200 feet above sea level. So there's about a 10,000-foot difference between the top of the mountain and the bottom of the sea. What happens is cool air sometimes rushes from the top of the mountain down to the sea, which is warmer and it creates this thermal buildup. Tremendous storms, violent changes of weather were known in that area, come out of nowhere severe and treacherous. We know that God is creator of all things and He is the controller of the natural world and natural phenomena.This is also the God that once in a while, He tames or uses creation in order to provide salvation for His people. For example, when he's leading His people out of the exodus and they get to the Red Sea, an east wind was sent by God and dried up the waters. Already Mark has shown that Jesus is the Son of God. At His baptism, the heavens were torn open and the Holy Spirit comes down upon Jesus. God the Father speaks, "This is my son in whom I'm well pleased." Jesus has already proven that He's king over demonic by exercising demons. He's proven that He teaches with a new ring of authority as if it's His word, which it is. He heals the sick, which shows that He has power over sickness. Here Jesus shows us that He has power over creation, but not yet.He waits until the disciples are unnerved. A tempest arises. The waves are breaking into the boat and the boat is filling up with water. The verb translated breaking in is a strongly expressive verb, meaning literally hurled upon. The description of the storm reminds Biblical readers of the story of Jonah. Note the similarities between the two narratives. There's departure by boat, a violent storm at sea, a sleeping main character, badly frightened sailors, and a miraculous stealing related to the main character, and then a marveling response by the sailors. Even the vocabulary that's used is similar. We're about to die or the sea died down or they feared a great fear. But also, we have a significant difference between this text and the Jonah's story.Unlike Jonah, Jesus is not fleeing the will of God no matter how hard it is. No, He's actively involved in accomplishing God's will. Also, the disciples don't ask Jesus to pray to the Father. They go to Jesus directly. So they had faith that He could save them. That's why they're asking for the help. Jesus is greater than Jonah in that He has power over creation. So Jesus is more God than Jonah. Life storms are like this. The disciples had smooth sailing for a bit, and then out of nowhere, immediately a storm is upon them. In life, this happens often. Everything's fine and then you get that one phone call. What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus Christ? It means to be a learner and there are infinite lessons to learn. Sometimes those lessons are learned by reading.Sometimes those lessons are learned by weathering storms. Though the disciples were mostly oblivious to this in the moment, the terrifying storm was actually God's grace and teaching them more about God and more about God's power in their lives. Storms and hardship are an adversity, are essential in our spiritual development. God is a loving father. He does not give us a life without difficulties or trials or stresses or pain or suffering or setbacks or failure. Why? Because He wants us to be strong. He wants us to be as strong as possible in the faith. Verse 38, "And he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, 'Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?'"By the way, these are very experienced fishermen. Peter and Andrew had their own fishing business, and John and James had their own fishing business. They've seen storms, but here this one terrified them. So it must've been some storm. They're freaking out and they wake Jesus. There's a hint of resentment, of reproach as they rebuke him. It's almost as if they're mad at Jesus for allowing this situation. Jesus, we did all the right things. We did everything that you told us to do. Why would you allow this to happen in our life? Jonah, for example, Jonah's situation, yes, that storm was punishment for his disobedience, but they had been obedient. That's why they feel aggrieved. Jesus is in the stern. I love the detail that he's asleep on the cushion, climbs in there, just finds a pillow.He's like, "This one's for me," and just goes into comatose, so a nap, just a tremendous nap. By the way, be like Jesus once in a while, take a nap. There's something here that's majestic about this detail if you meditate on. Jesus, He did get exhausted in His human form. He's God incarnate, but in the human body, He's bone tired after an exhausting day of ministry. Even the storm couldn't wake Him up. In a moment from now, Jesus would calm the storm, but first, He slept in a weary body. Here we have a grand display of the opposites of weakness and omnipotence coalesced into harmony too magnificent to be the product of human imagination. No other religion, no other worldview, no other ideology comes even close to something.God incarnate, God becoming one of us, remaining fully God, yet fully human. There's something so reassuring here that Jesus knows the human experience from the inside. He's been through it. He knows what it's like to be human, and we know His sleep is intentional, thus the cushion. So He is completely in control. He controls the weather, therefore He could have foretold the weather. So this is all a setup. It really is a test. God loves saving at the very last moment, in the 11th hour, when the odds are insurmountable where it just seems impossible. So Israel, as they're coming out of Egypt and the Exodus, they get up to the Red Sea. You got the Egyptian army breathing down their neck. They're trapped, they're doomed.Then in the last hour, God saves them. Or Gideon's army or Sarah or Ruth or widow loses her son or even Lazarus. Jesus goes to Lazarus' funeral and they're like, "Why are you here? If you came a little sooner, you could have healed him. Why are you here? It's too late." It wasn't too late. Jesus resurrects him. Jesus sleeping here indicates His calm trust in God. Psalm 4:8 says, "In peace, I will both lie down and sleep for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety." The disciples call out that Jesus as they're awakening Him. They call him teacher or rabbi. Rabbi's been teaching them and they don't realize that the rabbi's continuing to teach them. They cry out, "We're perishing, we're about to die."This verb, the identical form in the Septuagint and the Greek translation of the Hebrew is used in the Jonah story. Then the crux of their question is, "Do you not care? Do you not care?" The question uses the negative particle in the Greek, ou. It's asked in a way that makes clear. They think they know He cares, but at this moment, they're not sure. "Jesus, you care, right? Jesus, you care for us, don't you?" That's what they're saying. I think we've all felt this. We've all had moments in life where it feels like God just disappears. God just hid His face or it feels like God is asleep and they're crying out, "Lord, save us. We're about to die, we're overwhelmed, we're crushed."Worry in our lives comes from either forgetting the power of Jesus over the storm that He is great, or doubting his commitment to us in the storm that He's good. We either doubt that He's great or we either doubt that He's good. In those moments, I'd like you to remember three things. First, realize that feelings of anxiety or fear, trepidation, those are natural, but we are not to trust in our feelings. Our feelings are fallible. The size of the waves and the fury of the wind and the sight of the water accumulating at the bottom of the boat, the boat is sinking deeper and deeper into the water, into the lake. All of this makes the disciples almost forget everything they've learned about Jesus. J. C. Ryle says this, "Sight, sense, and feeling make even believers very poor theologians."Here you got the theology of what's happening in that moment, in that storm, when all the theologists throw out the window. We have to pause, we got to meditate, because right now, here and now we are not in a storm. It's times of peace in which we need to study God's word and not just learn the truth, but embody the truth. Where the truth becomes so much part of us that we understand that God is in control. At this moment, you could have said to the disciples, "Hey, do you really suppose that God's plan for the world is going to come to an end in some unforeseen accident? Do you really suppose that the Messiah Himself would drown as He's crossing the sea of Galilee?"Couldn't they see that no boat ferrying the son of God, no boat carrying the savior of the world was going to sink? Couldn't they see that high as those waves were deep as the water was getting in the boat, as wild as the winds were, there was no safer spot in the world than being in that boat with Jesus Christ? Faith knows that God is sovereign, but sight forgets it often. At these moments, we are to walk by faith and not by sight. Meaning don't just judge everything you see physically, but what do you see with the eyes of your soul, with your faith? Second, salvation isn't always from circumstances but through. We'll get to that in the second point.Then third, even when you feel like you're drowning, even when you feel like everything is falling apart, you are sinking, just dismantling of everything, at those moments, it's okay to run to Jesus and wake Him up. No matter how much He was enjoying that nap. Have you ever had a nice nap and then someone awakens you? What's your first reaction? I know what mine is. It's irritation. You're just groggy. Jesus doesn't get irritated for them waking Him up. He is grieved by their lack of faith, by their lack of trust, but He doesn't rebuke them for their fretting cries for help. In these moments, we are to remember that when we run to God, when we cry out to Him honestly, from the depth of our soul, He hears those pleas and He will answer. So Jesus is awakened.This brings us the second point of great calm, verse 39. "And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, 'Peace! Be still!' And the wind ceased and there was a great calm." So He says to the sea, "Silence, peace." Then he says, "Be still." That's the same verb that's used in chapter 1, verse 25 where Jesus casts out a demon. He tells the demon, "Be still", but in the Greek, it's more than that. It's be muzzled, or one translator says, "Shut up." He's telling the storm to do what He says because He's king over the storm. He doesn't rescue them from the storm, but He stills the storm itself. Only the one who had initially created the sea and the wind, it's only His place to rebuke the storm and the storm and the wind's instant obedience show us who's in control.It's God himself that's in that boat. It's Jesus Christ, the creator. In Him all things were created, through Him all things were created. He's also the redeemer. It's significant that when Jesus lends his authority to His disciples to go cast out demons and do miracles, He never gives them power over creation itself, over nature itself. That power belongs to the Son of God, king over the natural world. When the authors of the Psalms reflect on the fact that God doesn't just help us in the storms, He also sends us those storms. Psalm 46, for example, the Psalmist says, "God is our refuge and strength and ever present help in trouble. Though the waters roar and foam." Psalm 65 says, "He stilled the roaring of the seas and the roaring of their waves." Then it says, "There was a great calm."That's the same verb that's used for the calming of the sea in the Jonas' story. Remember the other boats, there were other boats with them? Well, the text doesn't say anything else about those boats, but that detail shows us that the calming of the storm wasn't just for the salvation or preservation of these disciples, but also, it was a miracle of mercy in a wider scale. Psalm 107:23-32 is an incredible parallel passage to meditate on. Some went down to the sea in ships doing business on the great waters. They saw the deeds of the Lord, His wondrous works in the deep. For he commanded and raised the stormy wind which lifted up the waves of the sea. They mounted up to heaven, they went down to the depths. Their courage melted away in their evil plight.They reeled and staggered like drunken men and were at their wits' end. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble and he delivered them from their distress. He made the storm be still and the waves of the sea were hushed. Then they were glad that the waters are quiet and he brought them to their desired haven. Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man. Let them extol him in the congregation of the people and praise him in the assembly of the elders." Whenever you are experiencing a storm in life, let us never forget that with the Lord Jesus Christ, everything can change in a second. With the Lord Jesus Christ, nothing is impossible. No stormy sins are so strong that He can't tame them or He can't save us from them.No conscience is so disturbed that He can't speak peace to it and make it come. No despair is so deep that it can't be replaced with unspeakable joy. No sinner, not even one is beyond the reach of our savior. Christ can speak so to any stormy soul, "Peace! Be still!" Scripture says, "Greater is he that is in us than he who is in the world." Matthew 4:40, He said to them, "Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?" After conquering the external threat of the storm, Jesus turns to the internal threat. This is His follower's unbelief. After rebuking the storm, He now rebukes His disciples and He says to them, "Why are you so afraid?" The word for afraid here is deilos, which means cowardly. So Jesus here is rebuking them for their cowardice, for their timidity, for their lack of courage.They challenge Jesus by saying, "Don't you care?" Now He's challenging them by saying, "Why are you so cowardly? Why are you such cowards?" By the way, what would your answer be if you were the disciples? We almost died, Jesus. That's why we were cowardly. We were almost dead, wiped out. Yes, you are the God of the world we know, but in that moment, come on. There's a reason for it. So why is Jesus calling it out? What He's doing is He's pointing out that a secondary fear has become a primary fear on their hierarchy of fear. He says, "Why are you so afraid? Why are you so cowardly?" Meaning you are afraid of something more than God. You fear something more than God. What was that in their case?Perhaps suffering, perhaps pain, perhaps drowning, perhaps death itself. They fear death itself more than fearing the God that was in the boat and that's why they rebuked Him. The Lord rebukes cowardice. Here are a few points just to point out. As believers, we are to grow in courage. This is what it means to be encouraged. God infuses courage in our hearts. Sometimes for that courage to grow, we need a nice rebuking and Jesus Christ rebukes his disciples. If you have a Jesus that never rebukes you for anything, that's not the Jesus of reality, that's not the real Jesus. If you have a God that never contradicts anything you do, never calls you to repentance, never calls you to change, you don't have a God that's the real God of reality.The real God does rebuke and we are to look to scripture for training and for teaching and for encouragement and edification. But we are look through the scripture and say, "Lord, rebuke me. Teach me where I need to change." Proverbs 24:10 says, "If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small." This is what Jesus is rebuking them for. The Lord's sleep did not only show His very natural weariness, it also showed His tranquil faith. He did not doubt that God is sovereign. Here Mark shows that faith and fear are mutually exclusive in scripture. It was because of their lack of faith that they feared that they were about to drown. So it was for a lack of faith that they are rebuked. The command and scripture that has reiterated more than any other is do not fear.Jesus says, "Why are you afraid? And then have you still no faith? Don't you have faith yet?" Here Christ is showing that He, God, takes our craving and fear as a personal insult. Where is your faith, disciples? Is it in me? If it isn't me, I'm right here. I didn't go anywhere. I was right there with you the whole time. So we need to hear from time to time from our savior that our faithless ways, especially in light of the Lord's demonstration over and over years in our lives of his faithfulness, our faithlessness is inexcusable. It's actually a sin that we must repent of and put to death. There is no excuse for us to not understand that when we experience troubles and trials and storms of life, it's because God allowed them in our life. They passed through His hands.If He is for us, then who can be against us? So we need this rebuke and the rebuke itself is a powerful encouragement that we can grow more courageous. We can grow out of our cowardly ways and we can become deeper believers. In our passage, faith seems to have two aspects. On the one hand, it's a trust like Jesus. Here He is exuding a basic confidence in God's provident care. On the other hand, faith is also trust in Jesus. By the end of our passage, faith has come to mean a perception of who He really is, His cosmic stature. He is the son of God and the conviction that nothing bad can ultimately happen to the person who was with Him. In this text, we see this progression that Jesus moves just from being an example for our faith to actually being the object of our faith.Isaiah 45:6 and 7, "I am the Lord and there is no other. I form light and create darkness. I make wellbeing and create calamity. I'm the Lord who does all these things." I want to walk you through Psalm 23, one of my favorite psalms, one of our favorite psalms, one of the most famous ones. I want to show you that all of these truths are right there in that psalm and just show you that transformation is promised when we keep trusting the Lord. Psalm 23:1, "The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me besides still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake." Unfortunately, a lot of people believe that's where the faith ends. You come to the Lord.He's your shepherd and He's going to take you in bucolic green pastures, delicious running water. He takes care of all your needs. That's awesome. No, that's just the beginning and then the story continues. Verse four, "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they come from me." How in the world did we end up from green pastures... Bucolic running water is tremendous. How do we go from there to a valley of the shadow of death? The shepherd led him there. The good shepherd led him into the valley of death. God loves us and bad things happen. Both are true. Jesus was perfect and bad things happened to Him.David here, he doesn't fear that despite seeing only shadows, experiencing near death, he takes comfort in the fact that the shepherd is close. The shepherd has been leading me. He continues to lead me and He will surely lead me through and out. Jesus doesn't always lead us around danger or protect us from danger. Sometimes He leads us into green pastures. Sometimes it's into danger and sometimes He protect us by means of danger. Perhaps the valley of shadow of death was to train David, to learn, to grow in wisdom, to not go through bigger valleys, deeper valleys of shadow of death. He allows us to experience present pain often to protect us from future pain.In verse three, "He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." So the path of righteousness sometimes goes through green pastures and often it goes through valleys of death. Most importantly, David didn't lose sight of the shepherd. I just want to point out that his relationship deepened with the shepherd after going through the valley of the shadow of death. Look at how he changes the way he addresses the good shepherd. In verse two, "He makes me lie down. He leads me besides still waters." Verse three, "He restores my soul." Verse four, "Even though I walk through the valley of shadow death, I will fear no evil for..." It doesn't say he, it's no longer he. It's for you are with me.Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies, you anoint my head with oil and my cup over overflows. His relationship with his shepherd changed. It became more personal, it became more real. God became more present, and this is the universal experience of God's people. If you ask a believer, "At what times in your life did you experience the presence of God like never before?", and they will no doubt tell you a time when they had to walk through a valley of the shadow of death. Charles Spurgeon said, "I've learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the Rock of Ages." God doesn't always shield us from danger, but He shields us in the danger, sometimes with the danger and leads us through it all.Sometimes He does it all so that we get a cup that overflows with comfort for others. Sometimes He sends us affliction so that we learn to be comforted to pass through the affliction and then we become even more useful instruments in His hands to comfort others. 2 Corinthians 2:3-6 says, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation. If we are comforted, it is for your comfort which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer."What a difference it would've made if the disciples had exercised faith that night. Imagine if they got a take two. Jesus, let's do this again. We are terrible at that first pop quiz. This is awful, but imagine if the next storm, all of a sudden, Jesus is in the cushion. They were like, "Jesus, we know what you're doing." All the storm comes, it's filling up. I'd be standing right next to Peter. Peter would be the wild man. Just be fishing off the boat, just enjoying it, just maniacal smile, laughter. All of a sudden, the suffering, the storm turns into an adventure. No matter what, I'm in the hands of God. No matter what, until Jesus says we are invincible, we are immortal until our job is done. Imagine being brought to the brink of death but preserved. That would've been the gift of a deepened faith.Point three is a great fear. In verse 41, it says, "They were filled with great fear and said to one another, 'Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?'" They were filled with the great fear. That's the same idiom that's used in the Jonah's story when the sailors saw the power of God. Here Jesus' great authority leaves them in awe. The word for fear here is different than the previous word for afraid. The word for fear here is phobos, which is the proper response to a manifestation of the divine. They see that God is with them. Whereas the other word, deilos was cowardly. It was reprehensible because they didn't trust in the Lord. The disciples respond to Jesus' question about their cowardice with another question, "Who is this with us in the boat?"Well, who is this? This is the Messiah. This is the Son of God, the one that Moses promised in Deuteronomy 18. He said, "A greater prophet is coming after me. Obey him." The idea here has been magnified. Magnified because obedience is rendered to Jesus, not just by people, but even by creation itself. Even the wind, even the sea, they obey Him and leaving the disciples stunned. If the storms obey Him, if the sea obeys Him, if the wind obeys Him, then who are we to disobey Him? That's the sentiment here. Who are we to defy Him? This is the fear that they're experiencing. He is creator. We are creation and they stand in fear and on reverence of Christ. Do you stand in a right relationship with your creator? That right relationship must include a healthy respect for God.You can fear God without loving Him. That's what the demons do. They fear God. They know God but they don't love God. But you can't love God without fearing Him. To truly love Him is to truly know who He is and to truly know who He is to fear Him. What is the fear of the Lord? It's not just pure dread, it's not just shrinking back from Him in terror. You can obey God because you're terrified of him or terrified of the consequence. But if that's the only reason why you obey, then you don't really know God either because God is a loving God. He is God the Father. We are to fear God in the sense that we are to fear offending Him, displeasing or grieving Him. Therefore, our relationship must not be glib or flippant. We are to fear His rebuke more than just respect or reverence.The word does use the word fear. In Exodus chapter 20, Moses comes down from the mountain given the 10 commandments of God. The people see this. They see that God has been with Moses. Moses has been with God, and they say, "Moses, don't have God speak to us. You speak to us." They're in trepidation. Then this is what Moses says in Exodus 20, "Do not fear for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin." Do not fear but fear. What is he saying? He's saying, "Do not fear approaching God for mercy. Do not fear looking at the 10 commandments and realizing that you have transgressed the commandments." What are we to do? We deserve the infinite eternal condemnation of God upon ourselves for rebelling, for insubordination.Here Moses says, "Do not fear coming to God for mercy." This is what Christ says. Do not fear coming to the cross asking God for forgiveness. But once you do receive Jesus Christ as savior, recognize that He's also your Lord. As you approach this God, we are to fear kindling His wrath against sin. We are to fear His rebuke. Psalm 25:14 says, "The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him and he makes known to them his covenant." It's incredible that the Lord would offer His friendship, but this is what the Lord's saying. He's like, "I would rather just be friends." This is why I tell my kids. I got four daughters. I hate the rebuking. I hate the discipline part. I hate that. I hate that. Can't you just do what I say first time?What I want to say is can't you just know what I want you to do? Can you just read my mind? Haven't we been together long enough and then we can just be friends? We can just hang out. This is what God is saying. He's like, "Do I want to stand over you and tell you what to do?" I want the word to be planted in you so that you don't just learn these truths, but you embody the truths and then your relationship with the Lord is a relationship of friendship. Martin Luther made a distinction between servile fear and filial fear. Servile comes from Latin servus, which means slave, and fillus means son. He says, "Sometimes people have the servile fear of God where they're just slaves and they never understand the relationship with God as children."Luther is thinking of a child who has tremendous respect and love for his father or mother and who dearly wants to please them. Hebrews 10:31 says, "It's a fearful thing to fall in the hands of the living God." It is, and this is why we need Christ. So we don't fall into the hands of God's wrath. But also, once we are forgiven, it's like we are in the hands of God the Father and still a very fearful thing to be held lovingly by these same hands. Psalm 130:1-4, "Out of the depths, I cry to you, O Lord. O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy! If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you, there is forgiveness that you may be feared."That last verse is fascinating. With you is forgiveness that you may be feared. Why include fear with forgiveness? Well, because you begin to understand what it took for forgiveness to be procured. It took the cross of Jesus Christ. The bloody cross was the terrible price for our sin, for our disobedience. We have broken God's commandments. We deserve His eternal wrath. Yet God sends Jesus Christ to the cross, Jesus Christ, fully obedient who did the will of God from the heart perfectly. This same Jesus goes to cross to pay the penalty for our lawbreaking. On the cross, what does Jesus say? He says, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? I'm perishing. God the Father, why are you allowing me to perish?"God the Father allows the son to perish so that we do not. What do the disciples say? We're perishing. Do you not care? What does Jesus say with His life? How long until you truly believe that I have come so you do not perish. I have come to perish so that you'll be saved. For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only son, so that whosoever believes in Him, in Jesus would not perish but have eternal life. The good shepherd is the one that lays down His life for His sheep. Friends, hell is real. It's reality. The lake of fire is real and the condemnation is for eternity. The suffering is for eternity. Jesus Christ came to save us from the ultimate storm of God's judgment, which is hell. The cross of Jesus Christ is as close of a glimpse of hell that true believers will ever get.That's hell, God the Son experiencing it. Why? So that we would never have to. All we have to do is turn to Him, turn from sin, repent and believe. What is the storm? The storm is an expression of the curse. The curse was pronounced upon all creation when the first Adam sinned and fell. The ground was cursed and the fabric of creation was disordered and chaotic and became dangerous. Then Jesus is second Adam, the God man came to make His blessings flow as far as the curse is found. He did what the first Adam did not do. Jesus kept covenant with God perfectly. He obeyed. He bled and He died and the curse fell on him. It was etched into Him and the storm of divine wrath engulfed Him and there was no peace for Him.Galatians 3:13, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: 'Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.'" The disciples were afraid that they would perish that night. They didn't understand that Jesus came to give them life and life eternal. He would perish that they might live and that's why He came to give us life at the cost of His own. The final question is, who really got woken up in the story? Who really got awakened? We see the disciples trying to wake Jesus up. They wake Jesus up. At the end, it's the disciples that got awakened. They're like, "Who is this? We're in the presence of God Himself." They fear Him with a good godly fear. If you fear God, there's nothing else to fear.If God is number one in your hierarchy of fears, there's nothing else to fear. There's no one else to fear. This is how we fight lesser fear, secondary fears. We fight them with the greatest fear, fear of God that displaces all the others. Matthew 10:28, "And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell." This is the Jesus that we worship. This is the Jesus that we follow. He didn't have to save our souls, but He did. He's a good God. If you're not sure where you stand before God today, if you're not sure if you die today where you'll spend eternity, today in your heart of hearts, cry out to Jesus Christ, "Lord Jesus, do you not care?"He will respond, "Of course, I care. Look at the cross. Look at my death, my burial and my resurrection and my ascension." The moment you repent, the moment you believe, you are saved and you are given eternal life. One of our favorite hymns that we sing at Mosaic is Amazing Grace. We sing in particular when people get baptized. If you've not been baptized a believer, let us know. We can't wait to baptize you and then sing the song. In the song, it goes like this. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found. Was blind, but now I see. It was grace that taught my heart to fear. And grace, my fears relieved. How precious did the grace appear the hour I first believed?I'll close with Psalm 42:7-11 before we transition to holy communion. "Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls. All your breakers and your waves have gone over me. By day the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night, his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life. I say to God, my rock, 'Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning, because of the oppression of the enemy?' As with a deadly wound in my bones, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me all the day long, 'Where is your God? Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.'"Well, we celebrate holy communion at Mosaic every first Sunday of the month. We celebrate holy communion as it was commanded to us by our Lord and Savior that we are to do this in remembrance of him. For whom is holy communion? It is only for repentant believers in Jesus Christ. If you are not a believer in Jesus Christ, if you're not a Christian, if you're not a follower of Christ, we ask that you refrain from this part of the service. It'll do nothing for you. Instead, meditate on what you've heard. Or if you today repent of your sins and you become a Christian, you're welcome to partake. Then if you are a believer living in known unrepentant sin, please refrain from this part of the service. Instead, take time to repent and pray.If you haven't received the elements and would like to, raise your hand and one of the ushers will bring them to you. Would you please pray with me over holy communion? Lord Jesus, we thank you that you gave us this ordinance to remember your suffering, bread that you said is to remind us of your broken body. Your body was truly broken. You suffered on that cross and the cup was given to us to remind us of your blood, the blood of the Holy Lamb of God that was shed for us in order to make atonement for our sins, provide a way for salvation. Jesus, bless our time in holy communion now. We take this moment to repent of sin. We repent of pride. We repent of selfishness. We repent of our own desire to be our own gods, to define good and evil as we deem.We repent of transgressing your commandments. We repent of not loving you with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind and not loving our neighbor itself. Lord, we pray that you give us grace and mercy and pray that you forgive us and also give us grace to empower us, to fear you above all else, and to not be cowardly, to truly grow in our courage in particular when we testify to the world of your name. Bless our time in the holy communion. Now we pray this in Christ's name, amen. 1 Corinthians 11:23 says, "For I received from the Lord what I also deliver to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, 'This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.'In the same way also, he took the cup after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant of my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.' For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill and some have died. But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world."If this is your first time partaking communion with us, there's two lids, one at the top to open the cup and then one at the bottom to get the bread. On the night that Christ was betrayed, He took the bread and after breaking it, He said, "This is my body broken for you. Take, eat, and do this in remembrance of me." He then proceeded to take the cup and He said, "This cup is the cup of the new covenant of my blood, which is poured out for the sins of many. Take, drink, and do this in remembrance of me." Heavenly Father, we thank you for our time of spiritual nourishment from the richness of your holy scriptures.Lord, we pray that these lessons that we learned don't just stay in our minds, but we pray that they set roots into our hearts and that we become a people who are not just hearers of the word but doers of the word, because we embody the word. Lord Jesus, we thank you that you God incarnate, you showed us what it means to truly live a life of obedience to you and service to people, love to you and love toward people. Lord, we do fear you and we pray that you deepen our fear of you.As we grow and fear of you, I pray, Lord, that we become more effective servants for you, courageously proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ to all who would hear. Give us opportunities even this week to go and to share the good news, to share the fact that anyone who repents of sin and turns to Christ is forgiven, is given eternal life, and is welcome into an eternal kingdom, a kingdom that will stand the test of time and no storms will shake. We pray all this in Christ's holy name, amen.

Heavenly Father, we recognize that we live as fallen people in a fallen world. Yes, it's all because of our own rebellion and subordination of trying to reject your authority. Lord, we understand that we live in a world that is under the curse. Lord, in this world, we do experience suffering and pain and we experience trials and tempest. Sometimes life becomes tempestuous. Storms come. Lord, in those moments when the storms do come, I pray that you give us the power of the Holy Spirit to stand unflinching on the gospel and the word of God. That you are a great God, there's nothing outside of your control. You are sovereign and that you are good God. You love us and you long to bless us. Sometimes you bless us by protecting us from the storms.Sometimes the greatest blessing is your own presence and protection within the storm. Lord, I pray from the holy scriptures today, remind us that a fruit of the Holy Spirit is peace. That we are to be a people who are characterized, defined by peace, the tranquility of heart, despite the storms. Lord, when the winds of this world blow and they blow against us, I pray that we are not blown from one doctrine to another, but we stand fast and hold on to the anchor of our souls, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Lord, I pray that you bless our time in the holy scriptures and we pray all this in Christ's beautiful name. Amen. We are continuing our sermon series to the Gospel of Mark. We've entitled this, "The Gospel of Mark and The Secret of God's Kingdom."The title of the sermon on this communion Sunday is the Storm Calming King. One of the most accurate gauges for how strong your faith is, is to take an inventory of your current fears, anxieties, and worries. What worries you the most today? Perhaps the state of the economy or your own personal finances. How are we going to keep paying the bills? Perhaps it's inflation or politics or war or disease or perhaps you're more concerned about finding love or keeping love, about losing health or aging. For the wellbeing perhaps of your children, you're most concerned, or not measuring up intellectually, physically, financially. Or how about death? Do you experience fear when you consider death, of what it would mean to meet the living God?The Holy Word proclaims that God gave us the spirit not of fear, but of power and of love and of self-control. The spirit of fear is not from God. God doesn't want you living in a constant state of panic. Peace is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. So we are to be calm and cool, even in the face of storms. The most effective, sustainable way to counter our fears is with a greater fear, a fear of God, and to truly believe in God, to truly know Him as He is to fear Him. Our text today is Mark 4:35-41. Would you look at the text with me? "On that day when evening had come, he said to them, 'Let us go across to the other side.' And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat just as he was.And other boats were with him and a great windstorm arose, and the waves were breaking into the boat so that the boat was already filling, but he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And when they woke him up, they said to him, 'Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?' And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, 'Be still. Peace! Be still!' And the wind ceased and there was a great calm. He said to them, 'Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?' And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, 'Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?'" This is the reading of God's holy, inerrant, infallible, authoritative word. May he write these eternal truths upon our hearts.Three points as we walk our way through the text, a great storm, a great calm, and a great fear. First, a great storm. Jesus had called these disciples by coming to them and commanding them, "Follow me." His very first sermon, both to them and to everyone else, was the kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe. What he's saying is, "I am the king. I'm the king of everything. The way you enter my kingdom is repenting of sin and believing in me." Those are the two most important lessons of the Christian faith. This is how everything begins and this is how everything continues. Repent of your sin and believe and follow Jesus Christ.Then Jesus spends in chapter four, parable upon parable explaining to the disciples, trying and impress upon their hearts the importance of paying attention to God's word, of listening in a way that you actually hear and heed and obey the word of God. So after teaching his disciples lesson upon lesson and preaching, now comes the test. You've all taken tests. Are you a good test taker? What makes for a good test taker? Is it just the power of recall? It's more than that. It's the power of recall under pressure. In particular in a pop quiz, you weren't ready. Pop quiz, here we go. Do you know the information? Have you mastered it? We learn about truth, the truth about God and who we are from the Holy Book. Then we're called to apply this truth in real life.That's the real test. Can you apply the truth in real time? Often God does test our faith and he does so with sudden unexpected storms. Will your faith be blown off course? Usually, the storms come in the form of some pain, some suffering. Can you continue trusting God when the skies have darkened, when lightning strikes, when you feel like you're sinking? Can you trust God, believe in God when it matters most? So Jesus administers the test in Mark 4:35. "On that day," it says, "when evening had come, he said to them, 'Let us go across to the other side.'" On that day and in context, we see what happened on that day in Jesus' taxing life of ministry.The day started where he's casting out demons and then the Pharisees and the scribes of the Pharisees, they accused Jesus of doing the work he was doing by the power of Beelzebub or Satan himself. Jesus says, "No, you saying that is actually blasphemous." There's tensions. Whenever there's a conflict, whenever there's tension, there's all adrenaline pumped exhaustion. That's what Jesus went through. The second event of that day was when his mother and his brothers came to take Jesus by force almost. Then Jesus turns around and He looks at his disciples and He says, "Who's my mother? Who's my brothers? Who's my sisters? It's those that do the will of God." Then He spends all day preaching to the biggest crowd yet.There were so many people that He was forced to back off from the shore and start preaching from a boat using the boat as his pulpit. So after exhausting day of ministry in the hot sun, Jesus says, "Let us go across to the other side." The Greek tense reveals a note of urgency in Jesus' decisions to depart. Perhaps he's hit a wall physically where you just can't continue. He didn't have the physical strength to go on. So He tells the disciples, "Let's go out to sea." Whose idea was this? This is important to notice. Whose idea was it to get in the boat that evening and to go into the sea that night? It was Jesus' idea. It was Him taking them right into the storm almost as if it's a setup and it is.He's setting them up to test their faith. He loves them and He wants to strengthen their faith in God and fear of God. God does not promise that when we serve Him, when we obey Him, when we believe in Him that we're going to lead a life of smooth sailing. Jesus doesn't promise to protect us from experiencing storms. He promises to protect us in the midst of storms. The sermon of the Mount in chapter 7, verse 24, Jesus says this, "Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat on the house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock.Everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell and the floods came and the winds blew and beat against that house and it fell. Great was the fall of it." But notice in both of these paths, the people that obey God, the wise people and the people that disobeyed God, the foolish people, they both experience storms. The question isn't, "Are you going to experience a storm?" The question is, "Will your faith weather the storm?" Obedience to God takes them right into the heart of the storm, into the eye of the hurricane, so to speak. This shows us that service to Christ even does not exempt us from storms.The 12 disciples seem to be doing all the right things, forsaking everything, following him, listening to his teaching, growing in their faith, doing all He commands. They're as obedient as you'll find. Jesus says, "Let us go to the other side." The other side was predominantly the Gentile Decapolis, a region where most of the people there were Gentiles, they were pagans. They did not believe in Yahweh. So Jesus here is showing us that He's the prophet similar to Jonah being sent to the Gentiles except Jesus did it willingly. Verse 36, "And leaving the crowd, they took him with them in the boat just as he was and other boats were with him." So He's been preaching in the boat and then He just goes to the back of the boat and to the stern, finds a cushion, and goes to sleep.What kind of boat was this? It was probably one of the ordinary 15-passenger boats, 26.5 feet long, 7.5 feet wide, 4.5 feet high, with a little platform in the stern that protected from the elements. Also, notice it says that other boats were with him. The other boats aren't mentioned later in the text. It does nothing to further the plot. Why is this detail here? Because it's just showing us this is eyewitness account as they remembered this detail. So Jesus is exhausted from his day, climbs into the back of the boat. The boat hoist sail and begins the five-mile trip across the lake. Verse 37. "And a great windstorm arose, and waves were breaking into the boat so that the boat was already filling."The sea of Galilee is about 700 feet below sea level and it's surrounded by mountains, by Mount Herman and the Eastern Shore. The mountains go up about 9,200 feet above sea level. So there's about a 10,000-foot difference between the top of the mountain and the bottom of the sea. What happens is cool air sometimes rushes from the top of the mountain down to the sea, which is warmer and it creates this thermal buildup. Tremendous storms, violent changes of weather were known in that area, come out of nowhere severe and treacherous. We know that God is creator of all things and He is the controller of the natural world and natural phenomena.This is also the God that once in a while, He tames or uses creation in order to provide salvation for His people. For example, when he's leading His people out of the exodus and they get to the Red Sea, an east wind was sent by God and dried up the waters. Already Mark has shown that Jesus is the Son of God. At His baptism, the heavens were torn open and the Holy Spirit comes down upon Jesus. God the Father speaks, "This is my son in whom I'm well pleased." Jesus has already proven that He's king over demonic by exercising demons. He's proven that He teaches with a new ring of authority as if it's His word, which it is. He heals the sick, which shows that He has power over sickness. Here Jesus shows us that He has power over creation, but not yet.He waits until the disciples are unnerved. A tempest arises. The waves are breaking into the boat and the boat is filling up with water. The verb translated breaking in is a strongly expressive verb, meaning literally hurled upon. The description of the storm reminds Biblical readers of the story of Jonah. Note the similarities between the two narratives. There's departure by boat, a violent storm at sea, a sleeping main character, badly frightened sailors, and a miraculous stealing related to the main character, and then a marveling response by the sailors. Even the vocabulary that's used is similar. We're about to die or the sea died down or they feared a great fear. But also, we have a significant difference between this text and the Jonah's story.Unlike Jonah, Jesus is not fleeing the will of God no matter how hard it is. No, He's actively involved in accomplishing God's will. Also, the disciples don't ask Jesus to pray to the Father. They go to Jesus directly. So they had faith that He could save them. That's why they're asking for the help. Jesus is greater than Jonah in that He has power over creation. So Jesus is more God than Jonah. Life storms are like this. The disciples had smooth sailing for a bit, and then out of nowhere, immediately a storm is upon them. In life, this happens often. Everything's fine and then you get that one phone call. What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus Christ? It means to be a learner and there are infinite lessons to learn. Sometimes those lessons are learned by reading.Sometimes those lessons are learned by weathering storms. Though the disciples were mostly oblivious to this in the moment, the terrifying storm was actually God's grace and teaching them more about God and more about God's power in their lives. Storms and hardship are an adversity, are essential in our spiritual development. God is a loving father. He does not give us a life without difficulties or trials or stresses or pain or suffering or setbacks or failure. Why? Because He wants us to be strong. He wants us to be as strong as possible in the faith. Verse 38, "And he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion. And they woke him and said to him, 'Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?'"By the way, these are very experienced fishermen. Peter and Andrew had their own fishing business, and John and James had their own fishing business. They've seen storms, but here this one terrified them. So it must've been some storm. They're freaking out and they wake Jesus. There's a hint of resentment, of reproach as they rebuke him. It's almost as if they're mad at Jesus for allowing this situation. Jesus, we did all the right things. We did everything that you told us to do. Why would you allow this to happen in our life? Jonah, for example, Jonah's situation, yes, that storm was punishment for his disobedience, but they had been obedient. That's why they feel aggrieved. Jesus is in the stern. I love the detail that he's asleep on the cushion, climbs in there, just finds a pillow.He's like, "This one's for me," and just goes into comatose, so a nap, just a tremendous nap. By the way, be like Jesus once in a while, take a nap. There's something here that's majestic about this detail if you meditate on. Jesus, He did get exhausted in His human form. He's God incarnate, but in the human body, He's bone tired after an exhausting day of ministry. Even the storm couldn't wake Him up. In a moment from now, Jesus would calm the storm, but first, He slept in a weary body. Here we have a grand display of the opposites of weakness and omnipotence coalesced into harmony too magnificent to be the product of human imagination. No other religion, no other worldview, no other ideology comes even close to something.God incarnate, God becoming one of us, remaining fully God, yet fully human. There's something so reassuring here that Jesus knows the human experience from the inside. He's been through it. He knows what it's like to be human, and we know His sleep is intentional, thus the cushion. So He is completely in control. He controls the weather, therefore He could have foretold the weather. So this is all a setup. It really is a test. God loves saving at the very last moment, in the 11th hour, when the odds are insurmountable where it just seems impossible. So Israel, as they're coming out of Egypt and the Exodus, they get up to the Red Sea. You got the Egyptian army breathing down their neck. They're trapped, they're doomed.Then in the last hour, God saves them. Or Gideon's army or Sarah or Ruth or widow loses her son or even Lazarus. Jesus goes to Lazarus' funeral and they're like, "Why are you here? If you came a little sooner, you could have healed him. Why are you here? It's too late." It wasn't too late. Jesus resurrects him. Jesus sleeping here indicates His calm trust in God. Psalm 4:8 says, "In peace, I will both lie down and sleep for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety." The disciples call out that Jesus as they're awakening Him. They call him teacher or rabbi. Rabbi's been teaching them and they don't realize that the rabbi's continuing to teach them. They cry out, "We're perishing, we're about to die."This verb, the identical form in the Septuagint and the Greek translation of the Hebrew is used in the Jonah story. Then the crux of their question is, "Do you not care? Do you not care?" The question uses the negative particle in the Greek, ou. It's asked in a way that makes clear. They think they know He cares, but at this moment, they're not sure. "Jesus, you care, right? Jesus, you care for us, don't you?" That's what they're saying. I think we've all felt this. We've all had moments in life where it feels like God just disappears. God just hid His face or it feels like God is asleep and they're crying out, "Lord, save us. We're about to die, we're overwhelmed, we're crushed."Worry in our lives comes from either forgetting the power of Jesus over the storm that He is great, or doubting his commitment to us in the storm that He's good. We either doubt that He's great or we either doubt that He's good. In those moments, I'd like you to remember three things. First, realize that feelings of anxiety or fear, trepidation, those are natural, but we are not to trust in our feelings. Our feelings are fallible. The size of the waves and the fury of the wind and the sight of the water accumulating at the bottom of the boat, the boat is sinking deeper and deeper into the water, into the lake. All of this makes the disciples almost forget everything they've learned about Jesus. J. C. Ryle says this, "Sight, sense, and feeling make even believers very poor theologians."Here you got the theology of what's happening in that moment, in that storm, when all the theologists throw out the window. We have to pause, we got to meditate, because right now, here and now we are not in a storm. It's times of peace in which we need to study God's word and not just learn the truth, but embody the truth. Where the truth becomes so much part of us that we understand that God is in control. At this moment, you could have said to the disciples, "Hey, do you really suppose that God's plan for the world is going to come to an end in some unforeseen accident? Do you really suppose that the Messiah Himself would drown as He's crossing the sea of Galilee?"Couldn't they see that no boat ferrying the son of God, no boat carrying the savior of the world was going to sink? Couldn't they see that high as those waves were deep as the water was getting in the boat, as wild as the winds were, there was no safer spot in the world than being in that boat with Jesus Christ? Faith knows that God is sovereign, but sight forgets it often. At these moments, we are to walk by faith and not by sight. Meaning don't just judge everything you see physically, but what do you see with the eyes of your soul, with your faith? Second, salvation isn't always from circumstances but through. We'll get to that in the second point.Then third, even when you feel like you're drowning, even when you feel like everything is falling apart, you are sinking, just dismantling of everything, at those moments, it's okay to run to Jesus and wake Him up. No matter how much He was enjoying that nap. Have you ever had a nice nap and then someone awakens you? What's your first reaction? I know what mine is. It's irritation. You're just groggy. Jesus doesn't get irritated for them waking Him up. He is grieved by their lack of faith, by their lack of trust, but He doesn't rebuke them for their fretting cries for help. In these moments, we are to remember that when we run to God, when we cry out to Him honestly, from the depth of our soul, He hears those pleas and He will answer. So Jesus is awakened.This brings us the second point of great calm, verse 39. "And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, 'Peace! Be still!' And the wind ceased and there was a great calm." So He says to the sea, "Silence, peace." Then he says, "Be still." That's the same verb that's used in chapter 1, verse 25 where Jesus casts out a demon. He tells the demon, "Be still", but in the Greek, it's more than that. It's be muzzled, or one translator says, "Shut up." He's telling the storm to do what He says because He's king over the storm. He doesn't rescue them from the storm, but He stills the storm itself. Only the one who had initially created the sea and the wind, it's only His place to rebuke the storm and the storm and the wind's instant obedience show us who's in control.It's God himself that's in that boat. It's Jesus Christ, the creator. In Him all things were created, through Him all things were created. He's also the redeemer. It's significant that when Jesus lends his authority to His disciples to go cast out demons and do miracles, He never gives them power over creation itself, over nature itself. That power belongs to the Son of God, king over the natural world. When the authors of the Psalms reflect on the fact that God doesn't just help us in the storms, He also sends us those storms. Psalm 46, for example, the Psalmist says, "God is our refuge and strength and ever present help in trouble. Though the waters roar and foam." Psalm 65 says, "He stilled the roaring of the seas and the roaring of their waves." Then it says, "There was a great calm."That's the same verb that's used for the calming of the sea in the Jonas' story. Remember the other boats, there were other boats with them? Well, the text doesn't say anything else about those boats, but that detail shows us that the calming of the storm wasn't just for the salvation or preservation of these disciples, but also, it was a miracle of mercy in a wider scale. Psalm 107:23-32 is an incredible parallel passage to meditate on. Some went down to the sea in ships doing business on the great waters. They saw the deeds of the Lord, His wondrous works in the deep. For he commanded and raised the stormy wind which lifted up the waves of the sea. They mounted up to heaven, they went down to the depths. Their courage melted away in their evil plight.They reeled and staggered like drunken men and were at their wits' end. Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble and he delivered them from their distress. He made the storm be still and the waves of the sea were hushed. Then they were glad that the waters are quiet and he brought them to their desired haven. Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love, for his wondrous works to the children of man. Let them extol him in the congregation of the people and praise him in the assembly of the elders." Whenever you are experiencing a storm in life, let us never forget that with the Lord Jesus Christ, everything can change in a second. With the Lord Jesus Christ, nothing is impossible. No stormy sins are so strong that He can't tame them or He can't save us from them.No conscience is so disturbed that He can't speak peace to it and make it come. No despair is so deep that it can't be replaced with unspeakable joy. No sinner, not even one is beyond the reach of our savior. Christ can speak so to any stormy soul, "Peace! Be still!" Scripture says, "Greater is he that is in us than he who is in the world." Matthew 4:40, He said to them, "Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?" After conquering the external threat of the storm, Jesus turns to the internal threat. This is His follower's unbelief. After rebuking the storm, He now rebukes His disciples and He says to them, "Why are you so afraid?" The word for afraid here is deilos, which means cowardly. So Jesus here is rebuking them for their cowardice, for their timidity, for their lack of courage.They challenge Jesus by saying, "Don't you care?" Now He's challenging them by saying, "Why are you so cowardly? Why are you such cowards?" By the way, what would your answer be if you were the disciples? We almost died, Jesus. That's why we were cowardly. We were almost dead, wiped out. Yes, you are the God of the world we know, but in that moment, come on. There's a reason for it. So why is Jesus calling it out? What He's doing is He's pointing out that a secondary fear has become a primary fear on their hierarchy of fear. He says, "Why are you so afraid? Why are you so cowardly?" Meaning you are afraid of something more than God. You fear something more than God. What was that in their case?Perhaps suffering, perhaps pain, perhaps drowning, perhaps death itself. They fear death itself more than fearing the God that was in the boat and that's why they rebuked Him. The Lord rebukes cowardice. Here are a few points just to point out. As believers, we are to grow in courage. This is what it means to be encouraged. God infuses courage in our hearts. Sometimes for that courage to grow, we need a nice rebuking and Jesus Christ rebukes his disciples. If you have a Jesus that never rebukes you for anything, that's not the Jesus of reality, that's not the real Jesus. If you have a God that never contradicts anything you do, never calls you to repentance, never calls you to change, you don't have a God that's the real God of reality.The real God does rebuke and we are to look to scripture for training and for teaching and for encouragement and edification. But we are look through the scripture and say, "Lord, rebuke me. Teach me where I need to change." Proverbs 24:10 says, "If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small." This is what Jesus is rebuking them for. The Lord's sleep did not only show His very natural weariness, it also showed His tranquil faith. He did not doubt that God is sovereign. Here Mark shows that faith and fear are mutually exclusive in scripture. It was because of their lack of faith that they feared that they were about to drown. So it was for a lack of faith that they are rebuked. The command and scripture that has reiterated more than any other is do not fear.Jesus says, "Why are you afraid? And then have you still no faith? Don't you have faith yet?" Here Christ is showing that He, God, takes our craving and fear as a personal insult. Where is your faith, disciples? Is it in me? If it isn't me, I'm right here. I didn't go anywhere. I was right there with you the whole time. So we need to hear from time to time from our savior that our faithless ways, especially in light of the Lord's demonstration over and over years in our lives of his faithfulness, our faithlessness is inexcusable. It's actually a sin that we must repent of and put to death. There is no excuse for us to not understand that when we experience troubles and trials and storms of life, it's because God allowed them in our life. They passed through His hands.If He is for us, then who can be against us? So we need this rebuke and the rebuke itself is a powerful encouragement that we can grow more courageous. We can grow out of our cowardly ways and we can become deeper believers. In our passage, faith seems to have two aspects. On the one hand, it's a trust like Jesus. Here He is exuding a basic confidence in God's provident care. On the other hand, faith is also trust in Jesus. By the end of our passage, faith has come to mean a perception of who He really is, His cosmic stature. He is the son of God and the conviction that nothing bad can ultimately happen to the person who was with Him. In this text, we see this progression that Jesus moves just from being an example for our faith to actually being the object of our faith.Isaiah 45:6 and 7, "I am the Lord and there is no other. I form light and create darkness. I make wellbeing and create calamity. I'm the Lord who does all these things." I want to walk you through Psalm 23, one of my favorite psalms, one of our favorite psalms, one of the most famous ones. I want to show you that all of these truths are right there in that psalm and just show you that transformation is promised when we keep trusting the Lord. Psalm 23:1, "The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me besides still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake." Unfortunately, a lot of people believe that's where the faith ends. You come to the Lord.He's your shepherd and He's going to take you in bucolic green pastures, delicious running water. He takes care of all your needs. That's awesome. No, that's just the beginning and then the story continues. Verse four, "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they come from me." How in the world did we end up from green pastures... Bucolic running water is tremendous. How do we go from there to a valley of the shadow of death? The shepherd led him there. The good shepherd led him into the valley of death. God loves us and bad things happen. Both are true. Jesus was perfect and bad things happened to Him.David here, he doesn't fear that despite seeing only shadows, experiencing near death, he takes comfort in the fact that the shepherd is close. The shepherd has been leading me. He continues to lead me and He will surely lead me through and out. Jesus doesn't always lead us around danger or protect us from danger. Sometimes He leads us into green pastures. Sometimes it's into danger and sometimes He protect us by means of danger. Perhaps the valley of shadow of death was to train David, to learn, to grow in wisdom, to not go through bigger valleys, deeper valleys of shadow of death. He allows us to experience present pain often to protect us from future pain.In verse three, "He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." So the path of righteousness sometimes goes through green pastures and often it goes through valleys of death. Most importantly, David didn't lose sight of the shepherd. I just want to point out that his relationship deepened with the shepherd after going through the valley of the shadow of death. Look at how he changes the way he addresses the good shepherd. In verse two, "He makes me lie down. He leads me besides still waters." Verse three, "He restores my soul." Verse four, "Even though I walk through the valley of shadow death, I will fear no evil for..." It doesn't say he, it's no longer he. It's for you are with me.Your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies, you anoint my head with oil and my cup over overflows. His relationship with his shepherd changed. It became more personal, it became more real. God became more present, and this is the universal experience of God's people. If you ask a believer, "At what times in your life did you experience the presence of God like never before?", and they will no doubt tell you a time when they had to walk through a valley of the shadow of death. Charles Spurgeon said, "I've learned to kiss the wave that throws me against the Rock of Ages." God doesn't always shield us from danger, but He shields us in the danger, sometimes with the danger and leads us through it all.Sometimes He does it all so that we get a cup that overflows with comfort for others. Sometimes He sends us affliction so that we learn to be comforted to pass through the affliction and then we become even more useful instruments in His hands to comfort others. 2 Corinthians 2:3-6 says, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation. If we are comforted, it is for your comfort which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer."What a difference it would've made if the disciples had exercised faith that night. Imagine if they got a take two. Jesus, let's do this again. We are terrible at that first pop quiz. This is awful, but imagine if the next storm, all of a sudden, Jesus is in the cushion. They were like, "Jesus, we know what you're doing." All the storm comes, it's filling up. I'd be standing right next to Peter. Peter would be the wild man. Just be fishing off the boat, just enjoying it, just maniacal smile, laughter. All of a sudden, the suffering, the storm turns into an adventure. No matter what, I'm in the hands of God. No matter what, until Jesus says we are invincible, we are immortal until our job is done. Imagine being brought to the brink of death but preserved. That would've been the gift of a deepened faith.Point three is a great fear. In verse 41, it says, "They were filled with great fear and said to one another, 'Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?'" They were filled with the great fear. That's the same idiom that's used in the Jonah's story when the sailors saw the power of God. Here Jesus' great authority leaves them in awe. The word for fear here is different than the previous word for afraid. The word for fear here is phobos, which is the proper response to a manifestation of the divine. They see that God is with them. Whereas the other word, deilos was cowardly. It was reprehensible because they didn't trust in the Lord. The disciples respond to Jesus' question about their cowardice with another question, "Who is this with us in the boat?"Well, who is this? This is the Messiah. This is the Son of God, the one that Moses promised in Deuteronomy 18. He said, "A greater prophet is coming after me. Obey him." The idea here has been magnified. Magnified because obedience is rendered to Jesus, not just by people, but even by creation itself. Even the wind, even the sea, they obey Him and leaving the disciples stunned. If the storms obey Him, if the sea obeys Him, if the wind obeys Him, then who are we to disobey Him? That's the sentiment here. Who are we to defy Him? This is the fear that they're experiencing. He is creator. We are creation and they stand in fear and on reverence of Christ. Do you stand in a right relationship with your creator? That right relationship must include a healthy respect for God.You can fear God without loving Him. That's what the demons do. They fear God. They know God but they don't love God. But you can't love God without fearing Him. To truly love Him is to truly know who He is and to truly know who He is to fear Him. What is the fear of the Lord? It's not just pure dread, it's not just shrinking back from Him in terror. You can obey God because you're terrified of him or terrified of the consequence. But if that's the only reason why you obey, then you don't really know God either because God is a loving God. He is God the Father. We are to fear God in the sense that we are to fear offending Him, displeasing or grieving Him. Therefore, our relationship must not be glib or flippant. We are to fear His rebuke more than just respect or reverence.The word does use the word fear. In Exodus chapter 20, Moses comes down from the mountain given the 10 commandments of God. The people see this. They see that God has been with Moses. Moses has been with God, and they say, "Moses, don't have God speak to us. You speak to us." They're in trepidation. Then this is what Moses says in Exodus 20, "Do not fear for God has come to test you, that the fear of him may be before you, that you may not sin." Do not fear but fear. What is he saying? He's saying, "Do not fear approaching God for mercy. Do not fear looking at the 10 commandments and realizing that you have transgressed the commandments." What are we to do? We deserve the infinite eternal condemnation of God upon ourselves for rebelling, for insubordination.Here Moses says, "Do not fear coming to God for mercy." This is what Christ says. Do not fear coming to the cross asking God for forgiveness. But once you do receive Jesus Christ as savior, recognize that He's also your Lord. As you approach this God, we are to fear kindling His wrath against sin. We are to fear His rebuke. Psalm 25:14 says, "The friendship of the Lord is for those who fear him and he makes known to them his covenant." It's incredible that the Lord would offer His friendship, but this is what the Lord's saying. He's like, "I would rather just be friends." This is why I tell my kids. I got four daughters. I hate the rebuking. I hate the discipline part. I hate that. I hate that. Can't you just do what I say first time?What I want to say is can't you just know what I want you to do? Can you just read my mind? Haven't we been together long enough and then we can just be friends? We can just hang out. This is what God is saying. He's like, "Do I want to stand over you and tell you what to do?" I want the word to be planted in you so that you don't just learn these truths, but you embody the truths and then your relationship with the Lord is a relationship of friendship. Martin Luther made a distinction between servile fear and filial fear. Servile comes from Latin servus, which means slave, and fillus means son. He says, "Sometimes people have the servile fear of God where they're just slaves and they never understand the relationship with God as children."Luther is thinking of a child who has tremendous respect and love for his father or mother and who dearly wants to please them. Hebrews 10:31 says, "It's a fearful thing to fall in the hands of the living God." It is, and this is why we need Christ. So we don't fall into the hands of God's wrath. But also, once we are forgiven, it's like we are in the hands of God the Father and still a very fearful thing to be held lovingly by these same hands. Psalm 130:1-4, "Out of the depths, I cry to you, O Lord. O Lord, hear my voice. Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my pleas for mercy! If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? But with you, there is forgiveness that you may be feared."That last verse is fascinating. With you is forgiveness that you may be feared. Why include fear with forgiveness? Well, because you begin to understand what it took for forgiveness to be procured. It took the cross of Jesus Christ. The bloody cross was the terrible price for our sin, for our disobedience. We have broken God's commandments. We deserve His eternal wrath. Yet God sends Jesus Christ to the cross, Jesus Christ, fully obedient who did the will of God from the heart perfectly. This same Jesus goes to cross to pay the penalty for our lawbreaking. On the cross, what does Jesus say? He says, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? I'm perishing. God the Father, why are you allowing me to perish?"God the Father allows the son to perish so that we do not. What do the disciples say? We're perishing. Do you not care? What does Jesus say with His life? How long until you truly believe that I have come so you do not perish. I have come to perish so that you'll be saved. For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only son, so that whosoever believes in Him, in Jesus would not perish but have eternal life. The good shepherd is the one that lays down His life for His sheep. Friends, hell is real. It's reality. The lake of fire is real and the condemnation is for eternity. The suffering is for eternity. Jesus Christ came to save us from the ultimate storm of God's judgment, which is hell. The cross of Jesus Christ is as close of a glimpse of hell that true believers will ever get.That's hell, God the Son experiencing it. Why? So that we would never have to. All we have to do is turn to Him, turn from sin, repent and believe. What is the storm? The storm is an expression of the curse. The curse was pronounced upon all creation when the first Adam sinned and fell. The ground was cursed and the fabric of creation was disordered and chaotic and became dangerous. Then Jesus is second Adam, the God man came to make His blessings flow as far as the curse is found. He did what the first Adam did not do. Jesus kept covenant with God perfectly. He obeyed. He bled and He died and the curse fell on him. It was etched into Him and the storm of divine wrath engulfed Him and there was no peace for Him.Galatians 3:13, "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: 'Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.'" The disciples were afraid that they would perish that night. They didn't understand that Jesus came to give them life and life eternal. He would perish that they might live and that's why He came to give us life at the cost of His own. The final question is, who really got woken up in the story? Who really got awakened? We see the disciples trying to wake Jesus up. They wake Jesus up. At the end, it's the disciples that got awakened. They're like, "Who is this? We're in the presence of God Himself." They fear Him with a good godly fear. If you fear God, there's nothing else to fear.If God is number one in your hierarchy of fears, there's nothing else to fear. There's no one else to fear. This is how we fight lesser fear, secondary fears. We fight them with the greatest fear, fear of God that displaces all the others. Matthew 10:28, "And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell." This is the Jesus that we worship. This is the Jesus that we follow. He didn't have to save our souls, but He did. He's a good God. If you're not sure where you stand before God today, if you're not sure if you die today where you'll spend eternity, today in your heart of hearts, cry out to Jesus Christ, "Lord Jesus, do you not care?"He will respond, "Of course, I care. Look at the cross. Look at my death, my burial and my resurrection and my ascension." The moment you repent, the moment you believe, you are saved and you are given eternal life. One of our favorite hymns that we sing at Mosaic is Amazing Grace. We sing in particular when people get baptized. If you've not been baptized a believer, let us know. We can't wait to baptize you and then sing the song. In the song, it goes like this. Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost but now am found. Was blind, but now I see. It was grace that taught my heart to fear. And grace, my fears relieved. How precious did the grace appear the hour I first believed?I'll close with Psalm 42:7-11 before we transition to holy communion. "Deep calls to deep at the roar of your waterfalls. All your breakers and your waves have gone over me. By day the Lord commands his steadfast love, and at night, his song is with me, a prayer to the God of my life. I say to God, my rock, 'Why have you forgotten me? Why do I go mourning, because of the oppression of the enemy?' As with a deadly wound in my bones, my adversaries taunt me, while they say to me all the day long, 'Where is your God? Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.'"Well, we celebrate holy communion at Mosaic every first Sunday of the month. We celebrate holy communion as it was commanded to us by our Lord and Savior that we are to do this in remembrance of him. For whom is holy communion? It is only for repentant believers in Jesus Christ. If you are not a believer in Jesus Christ, if you're not a Christian, if you're not a follower of Christ, we ask that you refrain from this part of the service. It'll do nothing for you. Instead, meditate on what you've heard. Or if you today repent of your sins and you become a Christian, you're welcome to partake. Then if you are a believer living in known unrepentant sin, please refrain from this part of the service. Instead, take time to repent and pray.If you haven't received the elements and would like to, raise your hand and one of the ushers will bring them to you. Would you please pray with me over holy communion? Lord Jesus, we thank you that you gave us this ordinance to remember your suffering, bread that you said is to remind us of your broken body. Your body was truly broken. You suffered on that cross and the cup was given to us to remind us of your blood, the blood of the Holy Lamb of God that was shed for us in order to make atonement for our sins, provide a way for salvation. Jesus, bless our time in holy communion now. We take this moment to repent of sin. We repent of pride. We repent of selfishness. We repent of our own desire to be our own gods, to define good and evil as we deem.We repent of transgressing your commandments. We repent of not loving you with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind and not loving our neighbor itself. Lord, we pray that you give us grace and mercy and pray that you forgive us and also give us grace to empower us, to fear you above all else, and to not be cowardly, to truly grow in our courage in particular when we testify to the world of your name. Bless our time in the holy communion. Now we pray this in Christ's name, amen. 1 Corinthians 11:23 says, "For I received from the Lord what I also deliver to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, 'This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.'In the same way also, he took the cup after supper, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant of my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.' For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill and some have died. But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world."If this is your first time partaking communion with us, there's two lids, one at the top to open the cup and then one at the bottom to get the bread. On the night that Christ was betrayed, He took the bread and after breaking it, He said, "This is my body broken for you. Take, eat, and do this in remembrance of me." He then proceeded to take the cup and He said, "This cup is the cup of the new covenant of my blood, which is poured out for the sins of many. Take, drink, and do this in remembrance of me." Heavenly Father, we thank you for our time of spiritual nourishment from the richness of your holy scriptures.Lord, we pray that these lessons that we learned don't just stay in our minds, but we pray that they set roots into our hearts and that we become a people who are not just hearers of the word but doers of the word, because we embody the word. Lord Jesus, we thank you that you God incarnate, you showed us what it means to truly live a life of obedience to you and service to people, love to you and love toward people. Lord, we do fear you and we pray that you deepen our fear of you.As we grow and fear of you, I pray, Lord, that we become more effective servants for you, courageously proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ to all who would hear. Give us opportunities even this week to go and to share the good news, to share the fact that anyone who repents of sin and turns to Christ is forgiven, is given eternal life, and is welcome into an eternal kingdom, a kingdom that will stand the test of time and no storms will shake. We pray all this in Christ's holy name, amen.

ProsperitySo much of our prosperity from God depends on actions from us.Often God says, you do this and I will prosper you.Learn more here on how to be the blessed.Who can then bless others.

Delivered by Father Peter Tukan, SDB from Salesian Don Bosco Gerak in Labuan Bajo, Diocese of Ruteng, Indonesia. Malachi 3: 13 - 4: 2a; Rs psalm 1: 1-2.3.4.6; Luke 11: 5-13 THE DOOR IS KNOCKED FROM INSIDE   The theme for our meditation today is: The Door is Knocked from Inside. It is generally understood that our requests are our chances to knock on the door of God's heart to pay attention to our situation. But the truth is that God first to knock on the door of our hearts, then we become aware of our actual situation and move to ask for His help.   He knocks on the door of our hearts so that we know ourselves, then we must knock on the door of God's heart. The gospel reading today shows that it is we who knock on the door of God's heart. Our prayers always show that. The request and prayer or offerings we convey to Him which is preceded by the greeting or call on His holy name is a sign we ask for attention. That is the usual way we knock on God's door.   But there are things that are unusual and can be something that we really need to create. Often God knocks on the door of our hearts and of our families. But we might act like the host who is in the middle of the night, the door of the house is closed, he and his family already slept and he does not want to get up to open the door. Laziness, boring, shame, fear and rejection to open the door are the reactions that we often show. There are many people reject the knock on the door and invitation to attend the Eucharist on Sundays and Holidays. There are many people ignoring the knock on the door to faithfully listen and reflect on God's Word. There are so many people who deliberately deny the knock on the door to choose the truth but tends to disseminate false news through social media. There are many other examples.   The truth is that God's invitation and call is a better choice to be able to experience His glory and greatness that is revealed in the real signs of life. We are invited and called to pray, sacrifice, do charity, to help, and to love. It is more appropriate to knock on the door of the house and of the human heart from inside. The point is that knocking from inside is the call or insistence that is stronger in pushing and waking up people who strongly and deliberately close their doors. God has the role of knocking on our doors from inside, but also we ourselves must do the same.   Our regular examination of conscience, confession and spiritual guidance must be the proper ways of experiencing how our doors are knocked from within. Through them all, we can wake up from our sleeps that are often full with dreams, so that we can better practice our life as true followers of Christ.   Let's pray. In the name of the Father ... Our heavenly and benevolent Father, grant that our hearts be always kind and open to all the goodness and truth that are poured through Your sacred words we receive. Hail Mary, full of grace ... In the name of the Father ... --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/media-la-porta/message

#445 Faith To Leave The Familiar. This is truly a special account, a bride has been found for Abrahams son Isaac, she is being asked to leave her home travel 500 via camel to meet her groom, will she be willing to go? This is quite the step of faith for her. Often God will ask us to leave the familiar in order to follow Him. How willing are we? --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/dl-700/support

Often God will get our attention through suffering. Unfortunately, it takes some of us longer than others to finally come to our senses and surrender to God's will.Cody Thompson has an incredible story that entails a long road of trials and suffering on his way to finally discovering God's faithfulness. We took an entire hour in this first half of our interview with Cody to unpack his amazing journey. You'll certainly relate to the wild ride of Cody's story and you'll be inspired along the way with the profound lessons about God's goodness and faithfulness.MEN'S WEEKEND DETAILS:Empowered Manhood Men's Weekend  (https://www.empoweredmanhood.com/event-details/empowered-manhood-mens-weekend)ISRAEL EXPERIENCE:Empowered Manhood Israel Experience (https://registernow.ittworld.com/)Tour Code: Empower24Spouses are welcome!Contact Mike Hatch: mhatch@clchq.orgOrder Mike's book, Manhood: Empowered by the Light of the GospelJoin the Empowered Manhood Facebook GroupListen to the introduction and first chapter of Mike's book:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/special-edition-manhood-empowered-by-the-light-of/id1584970534?i=1000603237979CLC Website: https://www.clchq.org/Contact Chris Bolinger: https://chrisbolinger.com/author/Chris' Devotionals:Daily Strength for Men: A 365-Day Devotional52 Weeks of Strength for Men

Often God is at work in your life and you might not even know it. He is ordering and reordering according to his plan. Sometimes this can be frustrating and overwhelming until you get the fuller picture of his work. Join us this Sunday as we continue in our series in the book of Esther. We will see in Chapter 6 how the God who is not mentioned once by name is ever-present and in full view. 

Often God will use burdens to move us out of a “bless me God” mindset to a “help me to be a blessing to others” mindset. He will use burdens to bring about the best. The jumble of our lives can make sense when we trust that God sees the end from the beginning.

Often God will use burdens to move us out of a “bless me God” mindset to a “help me to be a blessing to others” mindset. He will use burdens to bring about the best. The jumble of our lives can make sense when we trust that God sees the end from the beginning.

Purpose in our lives is the expressed will of God. It is to act in such way that we heed His call even above whT we would wish. Often God's purpose does bring joy and fulfillment; but we may not want to do some elements of His will. It may be difficult, require tough calls, or ask us to go places we don't particularly like. It may ask us to be something we had not envisioned for ourselves. But be faithful in the story so that God may appoint you well in His story! Which is the greatest story ever told! || Support at PayPal.me/lelawinston and subscribe to lovewalk.substack.com for updates direct to your inbox. God bless! --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/lela-winston/support

Sight follows faith. Sometimes when God speaks, our belief system rejects it. A seed that doesn't die doesn't produce anything. Scripture says that we Christians should die to ourselves so we may live in Christ. Often God uses a hidden seed of faith to be a witness and get into a situation where a belief system was limiting it. We should be in alignment with God so that our lives may be used as seed for others.

Square One, 9 of 9 from November 13, 2022 Big Idea: “Jesus shows Himself strong as we dress in His character.” Ephesians 6:10-24 by Michael Lockstampfor (@miklocks) QUESTIONS

The Bible teaches us that as Christ-followers, we have to walk by faith not by sight. That means sometimes we have to take a risk, step out of the boat like Peter did, in order to walk where Jesus invites us. I'm talking about stepping out of our boats this week, and some things I've learned in my years of following Christ. Think about this: Obedience is more important to God than your comfort. I believe that God sometimes withholds information from us and takes away our security blankets because he's teaching us the simple discipline of obeying. If you're trying to cross all your t's and dot all your i's before you step out of the boat, you'll probably be sitting there a long time! Sure, we need to do our due diligence and not foolishly charge ahead without making adequate plans. But seeing every turn in the road ahead just never happens with God. He shows us enough light for the next step. The Bible says that the Word of God is a lamp for our feet and a light for our path. We don't walk blindly ahead, but we take it one step at a time, walking through the open doors even when we're not quite sure what's on the other side. Control freaks will have difficulty walking by faith, because it requires that you trust God all the way and relinquish the control into his hands. Psalm 91 is good for the faith walker—it says that God will cover us and his faithfulness will be our shield and defense. Quoting verse 9: “If you say, “The Lord is my refuge,” and you make the Most High your dwelling, no harm will overtake you, no disaster will come near your tent” (Psalm 91:9-10). When you step out of the boat, God has your back. And consider this: Often God's will is for us to make some decisions. Making decisions is one way we grow and learn. So, there will be times when you simply will not have any great emotional confirmation or direction, but you will be faced with a decision that you must make, based on your knowledge of Scripture and the wisdom that God promises to give us. That means, of course, that you are taking a risk—the risk that you could make the wrong decision. You could absolutely fall on your face. In fact, if you haven't fallen on your face once or twice, my guess is, you haven't done much! Asking God to give us clear, unmistakable signs—like Gideon of old—is not an act of faith. It is a sign that we really don't want to walk by faith; it is evidence that we are controlled by our fears. So, is God showing you that he wants you to step out of the boat? What's keeping you from taking the next step?

The Bible teaches us that as Christ-followers, we have to walk by faith not by sight. That means sometimes we have to take a risk, step out of the boat like Peter did, in order to walk where Jesus invites us. I'm talking about stepping out of our boats this week, and some things I've learned in my years of following Christ. Think about this: Obedience is more important to God than your comfort. I believe that God sometimes withholds information from us and takes away our security blankets because he's teaching us the simple discipline of obeying. If you're trying to cross all your t's and dot all your i's before you step out of the boat, you'll probably be sitting there a long time! Sure, we need to do our due diligence and not foolishly charge ahead without making adequate plans. But seeing every turn in the road ahead just never happens with God. He shows us enough light for the next step. The Bible says that the Word of God is a lamp for our feet and a light for our path. We don't walk blindly ahead, but we take it one step at a time, walking through the open doors even when we're not quite sure what's on the other side. Control freaks will have difficulty walking by faith, because it requires that you trust God all the way and relinquish the control into his hands. Psalm 91 is good for the faith walker—it says that God will cover us and his faithfulness will be our shield and defense. Quoting verse 9: “If you say, “The Lord is my refuge,” and you make the Most High your dwelling, no harm will overtake you, no disaster will come near your tent” (Psalm 91:9-10). When you step out of the boat, God has your back. And consider this: Often God's will is for us to make some decisions. Making decisions is one way we grow and learn. So, there will be times when you simply will not have any great emotional confirmation or direction, but you will be faced with a decision that you must make, based on your knowledge of Scripture and the wisdom that God promises to give us. That means, of course, that you are taking a risk—the risk that you could make the wrong decision. You could absolutely fall on your face. In fact, if you haven't fallen on your face once or twice, my guess is, you haven't done much! Asking God to give us clear, unmistakable signs—like Gideon of old—is not an act of faith. It is a sign that we really don't want to walk by faith; it is evidence that we are controlled by our fears. So, is God showing you that he wants you to step out of the boat? What's keeping you from taking the next step?

This week we will look at Ruth 4:1-12 as we see how God used Boaz, a Kinsman-Redeemer, to restore the lives of Ruth and Naomi. Boaz demonstrates Christlikeness as he shows how we can become God's instruments of grace to others. Often God's grace comes in the form of a person and we who love Jesus will be used by God to grace the lives of others as we follow His ways and use the gifts and resources He has given us to benefit others. This is what it means to be "grace givers". ​    

The Wanderers, the story of God's people brought out of Egypt followed by 40 years of wandering. One of the most important things we've learned as we close this series is that God wants a relationship with His people. He wants a relationship with me, with you! He wants to connect with us. He wants to speak with you. Sometimes He's subtle. Sometimes He's obvious. And one of the most important ways God speaks to us…God speaks to you. Is through His promises. The purpose of this last text in our series is for you to understand God, not only as being One who keeps His promises, but God who is diligent in making sure all His promises are fulfilled, even when we work against Him. The things that have resonated with me have been: God's grace, God's saving power, God's redemption, God's forgiveness and God's faithfulness.  After the Israelites were in captivity for 430 years the Lord used Moses to lead the people out of Egypt. The LORD delivered Israel from the hands of the Egyptians through the plaques. The crossing of the Red Sea. The final point of deliverance was God's powerful display of the parting of the Red Sea. We can trust the Lord when there seems to be no way. Bitter water at the Waters of Marah and Elim. After three days without water the people were at a point of desperation. God was inviting the people to trust Him no matter their circumstances. The Israelites arrived at the Desert of Sin and they were hungry. The Israelites were weeks away from their recent crossing of the Red Sea and God's providence of the water, yet they quickly forgot. 2 Even though their complaining, God came through again. His grace is not dependent on our perfect behavior. The Israelites arrived at Mount Sinai and God spoke the Ten Commandments. God desired a covenant relationship with His people. Through this covenant, they would be His treasured possession of all creation. One loud-and-clear lesson from this series is that we tend to complain. Our natural self has a bent towards grumbling. And although we grumble, God is faithful. We can trust God for every area in our lives. Is there anyone here today that agrees that sometimes your tendency is to grumble when things are not going your way? Maybe something is off in your family, or at work, or in a relationship, or there is something that you want really badly and doesn't seem as though God is answering your request. You're frustrated; You find yourself grumbling about it. This series has reminded me of when I relocated here from Tampa after living there for 12 years. I accepted Jesus in Tampa. I was actively serving Christ. I had a good paying career job and a nice apartment. I loved living in Tampa! God moved in mysterious ways to make it absolutely clear to me that He wanted me to move home to Elkton. I moved home 23 years ago. The first job I worked after returning home was on the Skyline Drive as a Room's Inspector. I learned quickly that if a housekeeper didn't report to work then I was going to clean rooms for the day. It was a hard job. I remember sitting down on a bed, in one of the rooms that I was cleaning, crying, and asking God “Why did you move me back to the valley?” I had a bad attitude! I wanted to go back to Tampa, to my friends, good paying job and nice apartment. 3 I couldn't see God's plan for my life, so I grumbled. I doubted His call to move home. How long would it be before I saw God's promises come to pass for me? Not until I surrendered to God's will, that I didn't understand, did I obtain peace. Immediately upon accepting God's will, I landed a job at a local bank as a manager. Our last area of focus is God's people FINALLY entering the promised land. But there was never any doubt. We can trust the LORD today and for all of our tomorrows. Once the Promised Land was promised by God to the Israelites, it was theirs. Today, I am sharing from Joshua Chapters 1-4. In the interest of time, I will not read the full text. Please make time to read these chapters in their entirety. The context of today's message is that Moses has died. The people are grieving Moses death. The Israelites wandered for 40 years in the wilderness because they had refused to obey God. The disobedient generation wandered until they had all died. Moses was a great leader and he was a servant of God. Moses had been mentoring Joshua who was a young man born as a slave while the Israelites were in Egypt. Last week we learned that Moses had sent 12 spies into the Promised Land. There were two different reports. 10 said “the people are giants and we are as grasshoppers”. Joshua and Caleb gave the minority report to cross over to the Promised Land, “it is good”. Joshua knew what was waiting for the people in the Promised Land. Joshua trusted God's promise. Today the Israelites are on the edge of the Promised Land for the second time. Let us pray for God's blessings over the reading of His word and this message. Joshua Chapter 1: 1-9 1 After the death of Moses the servant of the LORD, the LORD said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses' aide: 2 “Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them—to the Israelites. 5 …As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never 4 leave you nor forsake you. 6 Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their ancestors to give them. 7 “Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. 8 Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. 9Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.” Joshua knew: Here we have God speaking to His people in the language of a Promise. “Get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give them…” They were going to face enemies who were big and strong and they would experience challenges. Often we face tough situations, difficult people and temptations. God promises that He will never leave us. A heart that trusts God's promises sees adversity as opportunities for God to work. The more adversity, the more opportunity. God's word tells us to: Be strong and courageous. The scripture repeats this three times. The repeating of the scripture is like using an exclamation point.Constantly read and study the Bible.Obey God's Word. The only way you know how to obey it is to know what it says. Blessed is the man who walks in the LORD. The land of wandering is the wilderness. Crossing over to the Promised Land is moving into the things of God, the place of maturity for the believer. Joshua Chapter 2 verse 1 2 Then Joshua son of Nun secretly sent two spies from Shittim. “Go, look over the land,” he said, “especially Jericho.” So they went and entered the house of a prostitute named Rahab and stayed there. 2 The king of Jericho was told, “Look, some of the Israelites have come here tonight to spy out the land.” 3 So the king of Jericho sent this message to Rahab: “Bring out the men who came to you and entered your house, because they have come to spy out the whole land.” 4 But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them. 8 Before the 5 spies lay down for the night, she went up on the roof 9 and said to them, “I know that the LORD has given you this land and that a great fear of you has fallen on us, so that all who live in this country are melting in fear because of you. 10We have heard how the LORD dried up the water of the Red Sea[a] for you when you came out of Egypt… 12 “Now then, please swear to me by the LORD that you will show kindness to my family, because I have shown kindness to you. 14 “Our lives for your lives!” Rahab is found in the genealogy of Jesus Christ. No matter what kind of past we have had, or insignificant we may seem to others, God will use simple faith. Rahab trusted God. She may not have known Him well, but she knew that He was the perfect promise keeper. Rahab didn't let her past prevent her from the new role God had for her. She could have said, “Who am I? I'm the lowest of the low…” But she didn't. She had the courage it took to believe God's promise. Joshua Chapter 3 5 Joshua told the people, “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the LORD will do amazing things among you.” The Israelites were to perform a purification process. That's what that word “consecrate” refers to. The consecration or purification ceremony pictured the importance of approaching God with a pure heart. Like the Israelites, we need God's forgiveness for our sins before we approach Him. 6 Joshua said to the priests, “Take up the ark of the covenant and pass on ahead of the people.” So they took it up and went ahead of them. 8 Tell the priests who carry the ark of the covenant: ‘When you reach the edge of the Jordan's waters, go and stand in the river.'” 9 Joshua said to the Israelites, “Come here and listen to the words of the LORD your God. 10 This is how you will know that the living God is among you and that he will certainly drive out before you the Canaanites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girgashites, Amorites and Jebusites. 11 See, the ark of the covenant of the Lord of all the earth will go into the Jordan ahead of you. 12Now then, choose twelve men from the tribes of Israel, one from each tribe. 13 And as soon as the priests who carry the ark of the LORD—the Lord of all the earth—set foot in the Jordan, its waters flowing downstream will be cut off and stand up in a heap.” 6 Joshua had witnessed God's promises fulfilled many times in the past. Joshua trusted God's promise. When God spoke, Joshua, for one, knew God was trustworthy. We have all had promises made to us. We live in a time that we are more familiar with promise makers than promise keepers. We live in a time when people treat their words lightly. People are good at making promises but they don't really care if they break them It's sad. And, even more sadly because people so often break their promises, there are those who wonder if God breaks His promises. Why should we trust God? Several examples of broken promises: Sometimes in the heat of a moment we make a promise and we really didn't mean it.Sometimes we say we are going to do something and we never show up.As a manager and as a co-worker, I have experienced jobs where I worked with individuals who promised to arrive to work on time, only to constantly arrive to work late. Do you know anyone that promises to arrive on time? Spouses this is not the time to hunch your honey, wait until you get home. Everyone is aware of New Year's resolutions to get back in shape, to eat healthier, or simply make time to have more fun and we fail to follow through to achieve these goals.Here's a broken promise that I can still remember at 60 years old… When I was child, we use to raise German shepherd dogs. As the dog grows, their ears begin to naturally stand straight up. I remember as a little girl, probably around 4 years old, taking a clothes pin and pinning their ears together so they would stand straight up. They were puppies and I thought they looked pretty with their ears pinned together. Over and over, I would promise mom that I would stop doing that. A broken promise hurts. Think of the time when someone has made a promise to you and then let you down. What we can learn from Joshua: Focus on God's power to fulfil His promises and not on the circumstances. 7 Joshua knew that God was willing and able to keep every promise to the Israelites. Joshua knew: That as soon as the priests who were to carry the Art of the Covenant (which was the Old Testament symbol of God's presence) set foot in the Jordan, its waters flowing downstream would stop instantly. The Bible tells us: That the Jordan was at flood stage during the harvest season. God backed the water up like a wall about 20 miles north upstream to the town of Adam. The people shouldn't have been surprised, of course, since it's not the first time he parted waters for them. To the people, the river seemed like an insurmountable obstacle. But to God, it represented a decisive turning point. But the priests obeyed God. God worked a miracle in response to the people's faith. Often God provides no solution until we trust Him and move ahead with what we know we should do. The solution sometimes only comes with our first step. Joshua Chapter 4 4 When the whole nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the LORD said to Joshua, 2 “Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe, 3 and tell them to take up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan, from right where the priests are standing, and carry them over with you and put them down at the place where you stay tonight.” 6…in the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?' 7 tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.” The Israelites had witnessed the miracle of the Red Sea and now the Jordan. God did not want them to plunge ahead without focusing on Him first. As we move about our busy days, always set aside quiet moments, times to build your own memorial to God's power. Time to hear Him speak. Remember what He has done for you and recognize the blessings of today. 8 Be diligent about remembering. There are times that we are very much like the wanderers. Over the last several weeks we have heard repeatedly that the Israelites grumbled when things did not go their way. They said “We want to go back to Egypt.” But what if they had? Imagine all they would have lost. All of us, at times, fight discouragement over situations and circumstances that we face. God is greater than the highs and the lows! It is a daily choice to trust God. He will keep His promise to you. We must choose to trust God in every area of our lives. God is bigger than the problem and He will go for us. He speaks. He speaks often. And He often speaks through promises you can bank on. Psalm 145:13 says, “The Lord is faithful to all His promises and loving toward all He has made.” This message requires a ‘response of action'. Remember, the priests obeyed God by walking into the Jordan when it was flooding. Often God provides no solution until we trust Him and move ahead with what we know we should do. God desires movement today. Will you rise up, submitting yourself to the sovereignty and guidance of God the Father and choose to trust Jesus in all situations? Although you have experienced doubt, fear, and anxiety and there have even been times that you have worked against God, you choose:Not to grumble.To trust God to answer, to provide, and to work in the relationship that needs healing. You choose to trust God with the problem.By faith, you believe that God is diligent in making sure all His promises are fulfilled. Trust God. He is a promise keeper. Today say “Even though I can't see that He is working, I choose to trust God that He is working good for me.”

Have you ever felt like God was against you? You look at the things you have experienced in the past year and say, where was God in all this? The only explanation you have is God must be against you. We start a brand-new sermon series called, “The Amazing Story of Ruth, Ancestor of King David”. In the first chapter of the book of Ruth, we see Naomi, Ruth's mother-in-law. She has lost everything and makes the declaration “the LORD's hand has gone out against me!”. Boy, was she wrong, and you might be wrong too. Often God is working His plan behind the scenes, but it feels like He has forgotten us. This book teaches that God can use life's pain and disappointments to position us in the center of His will. Often, we can't see what God is doing until it's been unveiled, then we say, wow, you've been there all along.

God calls people from high and low places. God calls people to witness about the gospel message to the ends of the world. Often God calls the least expecting of people. In Luke 19:1-10 Jesus comes along one of the most despised members of society, a Tax Collector. Zacchaeus lived his life collecting taxes for the Roman Empire and was considered a traitor to his people. One encounter with Jesus and his entire life changed course. Join us this Sunday as we begin our New Sermon Series on God calling Unexpected People to live unexpected lives.

The Bible has a great deal to say about investing, laying out a set of principles to follow when making our investment decisions. We'll talk about them today with financial teacher and author Ron Blue. Ron Blue is the founding director ofKingdom Advisors. The Parable of the Talents appears in both Matthew 25 and Luke 19. This parable makes it clear that God expects us to invest and that a certain amount of risk is acceptable. In both accounts, the servants who were given talents and invested them were rewarded but the servant who held onto the money out of fear was cast into the outer darkness. The lesson is that God gives us resources to manage for our own living expenses, but also to gain an increase to advance His Kingdom. A good steward will do that. 9 BIBLICAL PRINCIPLES FOR INVESTING 1. Do not presume upon the future.James 4:13-14 says, "Now listen, you who say, 'Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.' Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow.' We should invest with an eye toward the future with a long range plan that ignores market ups and downs, but we should not try to speculate on what will happen next week or next month. Don't try to time the market. 2. Avoid speculation and hasty investment decisions.Especially those motivated by greed or fear. Proverbs 13:11 tells us, "Dishonest money dwindles away, but whoever gathers money little by little makes it grow." Fear and greed have led to a lot of costly mistakes with investing, such as selling when the market drops or buying when stocks are up. 3. Never cosign. Proverbs 22:26-27 warns, "Do not be the one who shakes hands in pledge or puts up security for debts; if you lack the means to pay, your very bed will be snatched from under you." 4. Evaluate the risk of an investment. Luke 14:28 reads, "Suppose one of you wants to build a lower. Won't you first sit down and estimate the cost to see if you have enough money to complete it?"In other words, is the risk that you're taking worth it? 5. Avoid investments that cause anxiety.Psalm 131:1 tells us, "My heart is not proud, 0 Lord, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with great matters or things too wonderful for me." We should be at peace with our investment decisions. 6. Be in unity with your spouse.Throughout Scripture we are admonished to counsel together and to have unity in the husband/ wife relationship. Often God uses our mates to bring us back to reality. Don't be so foolish or proud and do not take advantage of the partner God has given you. 7. Avoid high-leverage situations.That means, avoid borrowing to invest. Proverbs 22:7 warns, "The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender." An exception might be borrowing to start or expand a business. 8. Avoid deceit.Proverbs 11:18 says clearly, "The wicked person earns deceptive wages, but the one who sows righteousness reaps a sure reward." 9. Tithe from your investment gains.Sometimes investors will keep their increases to make additional investments. They rationalize that this will multiply these resources even more for the Lord. This rationale is unscriptural because God expects a portion of the increase. Proverbs 3:9-10 reads, "Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the first fruits of all your crops; then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine." We recommend tithing when you sell an investment holding outside of a retirement account and you know the amount of your realized gain. LISTENER QUESTIONS On today's program, Rob also answers listener questions: ●What is the best way to invest money for your teenagers' future? ●Why are you limited on the amount of money you can put in a Roth IRA? ●What's the best investment strategy based on the current market? RESOURCES MENTIONED ●Betterment ●Vanguard digital adviser ●Schwab Intelligent Portfolios ●Sound Mind Investing Remember, you can call in to ask your questions most days at (800) 525-7000 or email them toQuestions@MoneyWise.org. Also, visit our website atMoneyWise.orgwhere you can connect with a MoneyWise Coach, join the MoneyWise Community, and even download the free MoneyWise app. Like and Follow us on Facebook atMoneyWise Mediafor videos and the very latest discussion!Remember that it's your prayerful and financial support that keeps MoneyWise on the air. Help us continue this outreach by clicking theDonate tab on our websiteor in our app. To support this ministry financially, visit: https://www.oneplace.com/donate/1085/29

Speaker: Pastor Andy Searles Scripture Focus: Acts 3:1-10 Sermon notes are as follows: In Need (1-3) • We must commit to spending time with Jesus if we are to be changed to influence change in others. • Prayer & giving go together like faith & works. We have to be about both. • It is the way of Jesus to constantly be inviting outsiders in. In Power (4-8) • Don't get too preoccupied doing God's work. In doing so, you could miss what God is doing. • Often God won't give us what we want because He's got something better for us. • The name of Jesus makes dehumanized people become rehumanized. In Awe (9-10) • As with the beggar at the temple, may our praise of God be louder than our cry for help. • One changed life can create more ripples than we could ever imagine.

Filth described her very well.  While it was an apt depiction, it failed to embrace the fullest description of what she was.  Some lives seem to be nothing more than a brutal manifestation of the accumulated slag and scum that is leftover in the wake of some departed tragedy.  These people become the thing that life has done to them, being so irreparably identified with their own tragedies that they themselves are a living manifestation of all those assorted tragedies.  Sometimes we become what life has done to us.  Hers was a life that was already an abysmal collection of untold catastrophes that resulted in filth nearly indescribable.  She was only fourteen. Susan was of little note as she stepped off the bus that first day of summer camp.  She was one of over one hundred campers swirling in an arriving mass of anticipation.  Gathering tattered bags and a tattered spirit, her eyes were set hollow with the effects of a life lived in hatred.  Filth and a pervading stench drew her apart from the rest almost instantly.  Her soul seemed to reek with a putrid odor that handily eclipsed the smell emanating from her skin and clothing.  There was about her an inner ugliness that permeated everything else about her, that had consumed her and had digested whatever shred of good there might have been.  It all seemed to have effectively left the fragrance of any human goodness now consumed in the sludge of whatever it was that seemed to define her. Her defense mechanism was so refined that she immediately repelled all who drew near, thrusting others so far away that she guaranteed her own isolation.  Her own woundedness was so utterly complete that the poison of the pain she felt spewed in venomous rages at anyone who drew near.  Her self-hatred was effectively projected outward onto anyone who dared draw near physically or emotionally.  She seemed as something less than human, something abominable; something terribly horrifying within which any shred of humanity was consumed and utterly lost. The following week of camp was to be marred by ugly confrontations.  She devolved into assorted rages that were wild, brutish, entirely unprovoked and profuse.  She refused to shower.  Ferocious outbursts were filled with anger distilled into lethal poison that devastated other hearts, young and old.  Physical assaults and violent rages had an insane wildness and a touch of insanity about them.  There emerged at times something animalistic about her, something very primal that raged unrestrained by either reason or rationale.  At times the line between that of a visceral animal and a human being was blurred and terribly ill-defined.  In the end, Susan was isolated in a lone cabin.  Her parents refused to come and get her.  Her pastor was unwilling and unable to deal with her rages as her life did not fit neatly into some clean theological rubric that he could manage.  The camp staff gathering to pray for her, but found their prayers as ineffective.  Some sort of spiritual possession was questioned, and rightly so.  She was a monster; a raging pathetic monster that we waited to relieve ourselves of at the close of camp.  Such was our judgment of her.   Judging From Fear Judging is, I think, a manifestation of our own fears.  We judge so that we might have some sense of control and some feeling of superiority.  If we judge that which is before us, we assume we will not become whatever it is that we are rendering judgment upon.  We set ourselves apart as distinct from that thing or that person with that distinction somehow convincing us that we are different.  Judging places us above that which we judge, meaning that we will not succumb to it from our supposedly elevated position. We judge because we fear, and because we fear we are not prone to look deeply into the person that we're judging.  For if we look deeply, we might see ourselves.  We might be forced to surrender to the reality that that which we are rendering judgment upon is as much a part of that person as it is a part of us.  Superficial judgment allows us to bypass our own humanity and live in the lie of superiority.  The person whom we judge is then sacrificed to our thin self-serving judgments and whatever is it that God wanted to do in our lives through that person is tragically lost.        Judgment Revealed It was to be that final night of camp.  The next morning a mass of buses and cars would invade the gravel parking lot, snatching up sun burnt campers filled with the wild tales of a week's adventures.  But that would be tomorrow.  For now, night had fallen, drawing up a warm blanket of thick summer air across the camp and out beyond the wooded expanse, tucking the world in at each horizon.  Crickets sang in a chorus of the night from the deep woods, lulling the day to slumber with their mesmerizing notes.  Frogs bellowed thick from a stream that meandered through a wooded ravine down a slight ridge.  Their chorus hauntingly rolled up the rise and across the slight meadow.  Lightening bugs cast dancing pinpoint pigments of yellow across the shadowy landscape and deep into the tall stands of sleepy timber.  The moon had only shaken a sliver of itself awake, mingling with the starry minions.  It was the perfect night; soft and subtle.  God's creation was melding into perfection. With the campers bedded down for that final night, I strolled down to the chapel now bathed in the soft shadows of night.  A few moments with God at the end of a long week seemed so right.  Drawn, I descended the winding dirt and gravel path with the soft crunch of each step muffled by night's thick softness.  Slight shadows cut from the thin pastel light of a sleepy moon seemed to whisper something about reverence and what it is to be alone with God. Another person had thought the same.  The outdoor chapel was framed by a wall of river rock that extended muscular granite arms around an expansive gravel floor.  Across the gravel expanse there stood a rock and timber altar with a muscular, rough-hewn cross as a shadowy sentry.  Thick timbers supported a vaulted wooden roof spread with broad knotty pine boards.  The woods beyond were alive with the night.  And Susan was there. A shadowy figure knelt at the altar.  Her aloneness was poignant, an isolated life kneeling before an altar in a desperate hope of somehow breaking that isolation.  The crying was soft and indistinct, being defy muted by her fear of vulnerability.  The moment was a manifestation of a broken heart and deeply wounded spirit which had somehow collided with God enough to strike a spark of hope.  She was kneeling there, her fingers embedded in the rock altar, hoping that this hope would not fail her as had everything else. We had all seen her as ugly, despicable, the slimy scum of humanity that teetered on the savagery of a wild animal.  We wanted nothing more than to see the sun break on the final day of camp and watch her leave both the camp and our lives.  We could not wait to be rid of her, to relegate this vermin back to the hole from which she had crawled.  To say we hated Susan was likely excessive.  To say we despised her was likely true.  And yet, here she was, broken.  The wounded humanity she so vehemently lashed out from was pouring out across that rock and timber altar.  Her core was exposed and for the first time I saw a slight glimpse of her humanity.  I had errantly judged it not to be there for fear that I would recognize it in myself.  Now I saw her brokenness and in it, I recognized my own. I feared her, not knowing in that moment what to do; not wanting to do anything out of the fear of behaviors I'd observed and the hatred I'd seen spew from her.  But I found myself walking toward her anyway.  Having made no conscious decision to do anything, I stepped, my footsteps dictated by something wholly other than me.  Suddenly I was beside her in the thick dark, in the thick of night; in the thick of her night.  Without a word spoken, she reached up and took my hand and drew me down to her side with a force that buckled my knees.  Putting a trembling arm around me as if the whole of her spirit was leaning its weight on me, I felt for that brief instance the intolerable hell of her life.  And in that moment I understood why she was what she was. Her words were to silence the night that surrounded us.  Nature drew down into the moment, stood on tiptoe so it seemed as God reached out from the expanse of that starry night and changed a life. Her next words set me back, instantly slicing through all the things that had caused me to judge her so harshly and revealing who this really was.  She said, “would you pray with me?”  Without a word from me her heart ruptured open in prayer.  I never uttered a word.  I didn't have to as such an action would have been only an intrusion in that transforming moment.  Massive floodgates surged opened and a enormous reservoir of pain that had accumulated over the incalculable expanse of years and events deluged the darkened chapel.  I knelt . . . stunned.  I had arrogantly diminished her in my judgments, and I experienced my own cleansing in hers.  It was a marvelous and privileged moment. In the end, we spent over an hour kneeling in the gravel, cloaked in a deep summer's night. Her prayers, a lifetime tidal wave of events and circumstances kept coming; of abuse and neglect and drugs.  The assorted maladies such as hunger, too few clothes, empty birthdays, numerous evictions and the rejection of society that abject poverty brings to a young life.  There was a devastating abortion and a fathomless litany of other terrifying choices that shredded her soul.  A father's alcoholism, a brother's suicide, and a mother's incessant marital unfaithfulness layered in it all.  Things that I could have never have comprehended.  Hers was a devastated life beyond description; a human holocaust. And it all poured into the night, across the rock and timber altar, down the gravel floor, out into the deep woods and into the expanses of heaven itself.  When it was done, she was free and her core was cleansed.  Likewise, I was free.  In that chapel God gave me far more than I had ever expected as I had trod the dirt and gravel path earlier that night.  I saw bits of me in her, and they were likewise swept away in her own release. The next sunrise may have actually been her very first sunrise, the day dawning over a new life.  With the sun barely warming the eastern horizon, she went to the shower.  Her clothes were deposited in the washer.  She combed her hair into long translucent waves, brushed her teeth bright and put on fresh clean clothes.  A touch of borrowed make-up and a slight sprits of perfume rounded out the transformation.  Arranging herself in the mirror, she gently primped herself to perfection. Susan walked into the cafeteria for that final breakfast wholly new.  Silence fell over one hundred campers.  Its power was deafening.  All of our superficial judgments had defined her for all of us.  So complete were they that we all sat there trying to somehow make them fit this new person for, sadly, we knew no other way to define her.  The old judgments of a monster melted away in the light of their gross insufficiency and a fresh understanding of this remarkable young woman seized the room.  A litany of miracles walked in with her. At that final breakfast she went from table to table to table.  Asking for forgiveness from those she'd hurt.  Weeping with those lives she'd scarred.  Holding the faces of so many in her hands, looking intently into their eyes and telling them how sorry she was.  Hugging and holding and crying with an endless array of campers and counselors.  No one ate breakfast that morning because sometimes life becomes bigger than food and larger than any agenda.  Sometimes life intersects us so powerfully that the only thing we can give attention to is that which intersects us.  And Susan intersected us all. A revival broke in that cafeteria.  Clusters of young lives gave themselves to God over eggs, bacon and a radically changed life.  Busses and arriving cars were asked to wait until the surge of one life changed had fully raced and run through the hundreds of other hurting lives that morning.  The vast gulf between what we were and what we could be was searingly highlighted in Susan.  And in the end, God ravaged the work of Satan and the deep pain of innumerable adolescents through the life of a single young lady who chose to see her core and live differently because of it.  It was the most remarkable thing I have ever seen.  A wretched and putrid life detested by those around her changing the very lives that had hated her, thereby leaving a legacy of life with those very lives.   An Errant Judgment The rocks had dropped; one by one.  Each thud stirred a slight wisp of talcum-like dust that quickly settled.  With it, a slight wisp of hope and of life spun gentle eddies in her heart.  Garbled whispering rose from the gathered cluster of angered religious leaders.  Cutting glances rendered razor sharp with hatred were slung across the courtyard toward her.  Righteous indignation wrapped itself like a robe around pious bodies.  And then, a slow dispersing of those gathered in their robes and finery with the old leaving first.  The sound of feet on departing gravel built and then gradually lessened as the courtyard was emptied.  Soon silence drifted in, leaving the scene littered still with lifeless rocks that attest to hatred halted and judgment deferred.  All that was left was a prostitute and the Son of God.  What remained was a broken woman human groveling in the acidic guilt of promiscuity . . . and Jesus.  Wholeness and hollowness stood one on one. Half naked, the hours had been truncated with deception, discovery, detainment and deliberation.  Deep in an illicit sexual embrace, eyes were watching it all happen, peering past slightly parted curtains.  A door stood ajar.  Shooing away curious passer-byers, they collected visual evidence as to the unfolding offense under the guise of a righteous action while hiding the feeding of their own sensate passion by vicariously engaging in the heat of passion themselves.  The trap was sprung.  She was seized, a few loose garments were thrown around her naked body, heckles of debauchery were hurled at her and she was dragged away.  Her partner somehow vanished as his purpose was fulfilled. The religious leaders had now departed.  Jesus slowly stood.  His eyes, contemplative and soft, shifted from the marks scrawled in the dirt and were drawn across the empty courtyard.  It is painful that people condemn in others that which they cannot accept in themselves.  That somehow the act of condemning it in others supposedly frees them from that very same thing in themselves.  They had in some way proven themselves invincible to whatever they were confronting because they had identified it and confronted in it another.  In doing so, they somehow viewed themselves as insulated from that same thing. In the oddity of facing our own filth, judging is most often not a necessary action, but an action initiated out of the fear that those judging might themselves engage in such horrific actions.  Judging is too often a self-centered act designed to free the one judging from the belief that they will ever be consumed or controlled by that which they are judging.  The sense of love that one might possess for another human being had succumbed to the fear of what oneself might actually do and the narcissism of self-preservation that arises out of that fear.  It had all resulted in their judgment of this woman.  The rocks that littered the court yard yelled it loudly long after those who had dropped them had exited.   Jesus drew a slight breath, paused and then turned.  Before Him there now knelt a scathingly hollow human being.  Few turn to the profession of prostitution unless there is wounding emptiness.  There are few people in life who are so relentlessly hollow and hold such an unyielding self-hatred as those who ply her trade.  She had likely arrived at this moment in time hollow and empty; in desperate need of a touch, of some slight affirmation.  Receiving even a morsel of someone's heart and life might have been just enough to pull her up and out of the life that she lived.  Empathy instead of judgment; compassion instead of condemnation; love instead of legalism; someone who might look just a bit farther beyond the putrid exterior to see the wounded and bleeding person inside.  Men had used her, violating her for a few scant coins.  They saw her only as an object upon which to release their sexual tensions and live out their distorted fantasies.  They had been unwilling to see the person who died a little more after each illicit rendezvous.  They didn't care to see.  They had judged her too, but they judged her differently.  They had judged how she might be used by them and how the assets she possessed could be abducted in the vandalism of another human being. Then there was the disgust of other men that was thrown out in taunts and heckling as she made her way through tight streets.  Vendors refused to sell her goods.  Still other men wanted to stone her, to kill her; to rid the world of her without understanding why she was who she was.  All of them rendered their sordid judgments, each colored by their place of proximity and point of orientation to her life.  It was the very same thing I had done to Susan. Yet, here was a very different kind of man, the kind of man I would like to be.  His example prompts and prods me to grapple with my inadequacies rather than judging those in the lives of others.  His example convinces me that something human resides in even the most destitute of persons and that I must be diligent in seeking it out even when I can't see it.  I must do these things so that I might do the same as He did. Jesus had no need to judge.  He did not need to judge her to feel insulated against her atrocities.  He had no need to elevate Himself over her to feel safe from that which had destroyed her.  He was not concerned with advancing Himself or His interests at her expense.  He simply saw her humanity, He protected it, and then He allowed it to be released rather than condemned by the rendering some sort of self-serving judgment.  He stood in the breech and turned the condemnation away.  ”'Woman, where are they?  Has no one condemned you?'” (John 8:10), he said to her.  A life of condemnation was suddenly still and hauntingly absent; she was entirely free of the condemnation that had satiated her life and shackled her heart.  It was an odd and alien experience for her.  She was no longer suppressed by the judgments of others that were designed to elevate them.  She was not sacrificed out of the need of someone else to feel superior.  She was not used so that someone else was satisfied in the using.  She was freed to be different and to do different. Often God intervenes in ways that are outside of our realm of experience.  Often the very thing we need, we cannot conceptualize.  But it is these very things Jesus brings to us.  And in the perfect freedom of the moment that Jesus brings we find ourselves frozen.  She was frozen and unable to look up.  Her silence makes it clear.  This man had turned away the wrath that had followed her all her life.  The stones of judgment lay still in the dust.  Their voices had been muted and she had no idea what to do in a relationship where she would not be judged. Caught in the void, she attempted to somehow acclimate to what had happened.  She floundered in the freedom because freedom is the place where judgment is absent.  She was free to be who it is she truly was without the proclaimed judgments of others forcing her to remain who she was.  She stammered with the words forming in the midst of mental groping and said, “‘No one, sir'” (John 8:11, NIV).  It was just the two of them.  Face to face with this man; alone in the courtyard of her life.   Our Courtyards “‘Then neither do I condemn you.  Go now and leave your life of sin'” (John 8:11, NIV).  It is not about judgment or punishment.  There was no recitation of sins.  No lengthy exposé on the spiritual and psychological implications of sexual sin.  There was no need.  All that stuff was clear.  It was known.  Her choices were not the point of discourse for they were only the manifestation of pain, not the pain itself.  The lacerated core of this woman that had been heartlessly bludgeoned by so many others is what defined her.  Not the outward appearances as they are only a product of those wounds.  Not the manifestation of behaviors that are a part of all of that as well.  Not her acts of sexual promiscuity.  But the terrified and bloodied inner self that intentionally repulses all others at all costs so that wounded self will not incur further damage.  It's about refusing to judge as judgment only sentences others to that which we're judging them for.  Rather, we need to take a wholly different tact and attempt to see past the behavior to the person behind the behavior so that we can release them from the wounds that so bind them. Likewise, I have stood in many of my life's own courtyards.  There, in those places, inherent in me is the fundamental knowledge regarding my own nature and the manifest actions of that nature.  I often pretend that to not be the case, rummaging forward through the accumulated filth of my life pretending not to know the reason for its accumulation.  Playing dumb.  Feigning ignorance.  Judging others ruthlessly so that I think myself superior and insulated from being what they are, thereby escaping accountability and the possibility of their fate.  But I know.  I know full well. But, those that condemn me have departed.  The rightful punishment that I deserve is suspended.  Justice as I perceive it has been placated and postponed.  All that should be happening to me is not.  And in the absence of judgment is freedom.  God renders all judgment void because the cross consumes it all and renders it all as all gone.  The distractions, demands and declarations of the world as it rails against my sin is rendered silent.  Any judgments are unable to shackle me to my sin because all judgment has been suspended.  Everything that would give me pause to defend defenseless actions is absent for there is no judgment against which I must defend myself.  Every voice that would legitimately and rightly describe the repercussions of my behaviors have fallen silent.  Justice is suspended in silence.  And it is only God; my sin and God and the freedom to be different.   A Choice Freed from Judgment What was her choice after Jesus turned and left?   She stood there, aghast and in paralysis.  The sunrise would likewise dawn an entirely new day for her.  In the months and years ahead she would wash Jesus' feet with her tears.  She would attend to Him; push through the crowds that hailed Him and then condemned Him; follow Him through the pressing mobs and winding streets of Jerusalem to Golgotha.  She would endure the eternity that seemed those three and a half hours on the cross.  She would watch Him die, wait through that Saturday with angst indescribable, and be the first in all of time to see Him risen.  Her life would be radically new in ways incomprehensible to her, being wrenched out of the bed of prostitution and propelled to partnership with the Messiah.  All because Someone refused to bind her with His judgments and instead, sought her freedom.   The End Product The bus had rumbled up the long gravel road of the camp, dust and diesel leaving a path attesting to its journey.  The dust and diesel was now dissipating and thinning in a slight summer breeze.  Clusters of birds raised a cacophony of song in the dense foliage of the surrounding woods.  Golden sunshine rained from a generous sky of blue.  Hundreds of sunburnt campers with suitcases, duffle bags and rich memories gathered in clusters around a myriad of cars, busses and vans that inundated the parking lot.  In the departing mayhem there was a tug on my shoulder.  A transformed face greeted me.  This was not the girl that came off this same bus six days ago. Instantly I was in the grip of hug dripping with the love of a grateful heart.  Long and rich, the hug was one of life and living.  In the midst of the embrace, she whispered, “thanks so much.  I'll never be the same again.” Her bus rolled off down that driveway, leaving a trail of dust and diesel as it had when it had arrived.  On board was a miracle.  God had gotten to the core of her courtyard and suspended judgment.  There she seized the second chance.  And it changed her forever.   Pondering Point We judge based on externals.  It's easy that way.  There is no expenditure of energy attempting to ascertain that which we cannot see.  Seizing and evaluating the obvious is easy, convenient and simple.  It allows us to render rapid judgment and avoid encountering a life at the core of that life.  It's cheap living that is superficial and thin.  We do the same with ourselves.  We are distant from our own cores.  That however, is where Jesus meets us.  Here, at the core of our courtyards we are afforded two things.  Genuine repentance centered in the acknowledgment of our core, and then the chance to do something radically different; a wild departure into the fullness of life and the fullness of God.

Can you think of a time when you stopped pursuing something too soon? What was the result? What hindered your ability to follow through to the desired outcome? Has God ever asked you to do something, and you stopped short? How does the lack of vision impact your life? Often God will ask us to do something that seems insignificant at the moment. However, what we do at that moment has consequences down the road.   Whenever we stop short of the fullness of God's plan, we cease to be more than a conqueror. However, we become more than a conqueror when we learn to listen to God's voice, obey His commands, and see with His eyes.  For additional information, visit Ruthhendrickson.org.

Often God is a “God of process”. We see examples throughout scripture. But if we're honest, we oftentimes hijack the process in one of 3 ways….stopping the process in frustrating, creating our own shortcuts in hopes of being quicker, or we attempt to do the process out of order. Join me as I discuss the process, the dangers of hijacking it, & what we should do instead.

Many times in our lives, God is working in the things unseen. He's working in the background. But that doesn't mean He isn't working. Often God will do something inside of you before He does it for you.

Show Notes: God works outside of our realm of thinking in terms of time, time frames Our human nature makes waiting challenging - we are always in a hurry and find it difficult to wait for anyone or anything Patience is a virtue - do we exude this? Difficulty with patience reveals our level of trust in God's timing God's perspective is eternal - are we aligned with the eternal perspective? Trials develop perseverance - even challenges work to our good (Romans 8:28) Hebrews 11: hall of faith Many of these individuals never saw the promises fulfilled on this side of their lives However, the promises still stand & have been seen to fruition to this day! Ie. Abraham & his dependents as numerous as the stars Our view of timing is influenced by our selfish desire for our needs & wants, not God's eternal plan God's timing is better than our own thoughts on what timing “should be” Psalm 145:17… “The Lord is righteous in all his ways and faithful in all he does.” Give examples of timing working out better than we anticipate Jobs, business, relationships Nothing can be added to God's plans and nothing taken away Ecclesiastes 3:11-14… He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God. I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that people will fear him. Do we fear a lack of control? Paul often talks about preaching by the spirit and not his own wisdom. God uses the foolish things to confound the wise. His power and timing is made known by the perfect order of our universe Provers 3:5-6 Lean on, trust in, and be confident in the Lord with all your heart and mind and do not rely on your own insight or understanding. In all your ways know, recognize, and acknowledge Him, and He will direct and make straight and plain your paths. A. Understand that my timing is not God's timing. Do we trust God with our next step? B. Often God needs to develop us before we can handle the blessings He has for us. C. When our passion and desire align with God's will, we are guaranteed God will bring it to fruition. D. Steward well what you already have. Ways to avoid mishandling blessing: Be diligent and take care of what God currently has in front of you. Trust in Gods timing. Appreciate where God has you right now. Use your blessings to bless others. Be obedient to God's word. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thefreedompodcast/message

This week on Real Talk with Rachael I'm talking with Becky Keife. Becky is the community manager for (in)courage, an online community where women gather to build community, celebrate diversity, and become women of courage. In addition to daily articles on incourage.me, (in)courage also offers Bible studies, devotionals, and a podcast to help women grow in their faith! Becky is also a popular speaker and is the author of The Simple Difference: How Every Small Kindness Makes a Big Impact, the Courageous Kindness Bible Study, as well as No Better Mom for the Job. She and her husband live near Los Angeles, where they enjoy hiking shady trails with their three spirited sons. Key Points from Our Conversation: We often think of kindness as being synonymous with being polite or nice, but often it requires courage. We need to be willing to embrace the awkward for the sake of encouraging someone else. “Our words don't have to be complicated in order to be meaningful.” Jesus often chose kindness through awkward actions. Take a risk and leave the outcome to God. If we let what-ifs become barriers to following the Holy Spirit, we'll miss out on the blessing He has for us. He's offering us the opportunity to see Him work in us and through us in unexpected ways. Often God isn't asking us to make a big move but to do the simple thing. The small things can cause ripples of change. Don't wait for the perfect circumstances. We can make a difference right where we are with exactly what we have. God wants to use our simple kindness. When we build margin into our lives it gives us the opportunity to show kindness without feeling like we don't have the time to invest in others. Regardless of how much time we have, we can choose to be present where we are and to the people in front of us. “Be where your feet are.” There's something powerful that happens when we shift from being self-focused to others-focused. When you feel like you have nothing left to give, choose to be the friend/spouse/neighbor you want to have. The more you pour out, the more God will fill you back up. Don't discount the power of prayer. Prayer isn't a last resort, it should be our first response. Consider offering the profound kindness of praying for someone while you're with them in the moment. Let's Get Real Practical: I'm challenging you to ask God to show you who He wants you to show kindness to today. Then follow through by doing something for that person that makes you a bit uncomfortable. Episode Sponsor: Sign up for JOYmail – my monthly newsletter that's full of resources that deliver a little joy and practical action steps for life into your inbox. Connect with Becky: website | Instagram | Facebook Connect with Rachael: website | Instagram | Facebook

Using examples from the lives of Moses, Elijah and Jeremiah, Derek illustrates how God picked the time and the place to meet with them. It behooves us to get away to a place of quiet stillness so we can focus wholly on hearing from God. Often God speaks in a gentle whisper.

Jesus Ministries, Joan Boney  ... Deuteronomy 32:3-4 Because I will publish the name of the LORD: ascribe ye greatness unto our God. HE is the Rock, HIS work is perfect: for all HIS ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is HE.  

To pray, “your will be done” is to pray that God's purposes be accomplished, what pleases him comes to pass, and that his commands and precepts are followed. Often God's will for our lives is more about WHO we are becoming than WHAT we doing are or WHERE we are going.

Jesus Ministries, Joan Boney  ... From the beginning of my being born again and changed into a new creature by God, HE showed me that no man would stand before me all the days of my life.  I would overcome all through HIM and through turning to HIM and by doing that which HE said.   I lived in Lubbock, Texas, in a house owned by Jesus Ministries.  It was tax deductible.   When I left Lubbock, and put the house up for sale, the Lubbock tax assessor put the house into a taxable status, removing us from tax deductible status on the house that was for sale.    But the house was still owned by our ministry group which was declared non-profit by the USA government and the State of Texas, yet the city of Lubbock tried to change our status.     They wanted us to prove to them that we were tax-deductible even though they had the papers saying we were tax-deductible from both the USA government and the State of Texas.   They were trying to charge us $10,000 per year property taxes while the house was for sale.   We could not pay such as a non-profit tax deductible ministry.   I was furious with the tax assessor.   God calmed me down that night, and when I awoke the next morning, I knew exactly what to do.  I believe God planted this in my heart that night.   I sent the following to the tax assessor of Lubbock, Texas.  

7-5-21 | Sometimes being outsider is beneficial to our God-given assignment. Often God uses outsiders as over-comers because the majority are operating by what they see not what God said.

How can we make sense of adversity? When we try to find meaning in life's seasons of difficulty, where should we turn? Join Pastor Jim as he leads us through the unfolding story of Jacob's developing faith in God, and God's unflagging faithfulness to Jacob.

God has beautiful plans for every one of His kids. Those plans don’t automatically come to pass. Those plans require following the Spirit of God within us. There will be resistance and sometimes out and out attack. But walking out your purpose is often as simple as being brave enough to get up and take the next step and keep on going. Often God will reveal those steps only one at a time. This is by design and requires trusting Him in the process., understanding that He can redeem mistakes, missteps and catastrophes. Join me as I unpack this inspiring and empowering message! FREE complete “How to Hear God” book: https://bit.ly/3cTNb49 FREE chapter from “Marked by Love”: https://markedbylovebook.com/free-chapter/ Go to website for additional resources, including my FREE mini-book, “Rare and Beautiful Treasures”, and a FREE Activation for your spiritual senses on Video/audio: https://catherinetoon.com Social Media Handles: Facebook: @CatherineToonMD Instagram: @catherinetoon LinkedIn: @CatherineToon Twitter: @CatherineToonMD YouTube: @CatherineToon, MD Pinterest: @catherinetoonmd

Facing Your Goliath - I Samuel chapters 16 - 17We read in the book of I Samuel that David, the youngest son of Jesse, was chosen by God and anointed by the prophet Samuel to become the next King of Israel. David was just a boy and his job was to take care of the sheep. After he was anointed, the spirit of God was with him and he continued taking care of the sheep. During these times David perfected his skills at playing the harp and also became skilled at using a slingshot. God was with him and he was not afraid to protect and go after predators that tried to steal and kill the sheep. He killed a bear and a lion and even grabbed the lion by its beard and killed it. David knew that God was always with him and he developed a strong relationship with Him. He grew to become a great man of prayer and worship and wrote the beautiful Psalms.There was a time when Israel's enemies, the Philistines, were challenging the Israelites to a battle. The challenge was one Philistine against one Israelite. The problem that the Israelites faced was that the Philistine challenger was a giant measuring about 9 feet 9 inches and was extremely strong and wore heavy armor.  His name was Goliath and he wore a brass helmet, a coat of mail (weighing 125 pounds), and brass leg coverings. Even his spearhead weighed 15 pounds. All of the Israelites were very afraid of him and no one wanted to fight him. Every day for 40 days Goliath would come out and challenge the armies of Israel.During this time, Jesse sent his son David to the battlefield to provide food and provisions for his brothers and others in the army. When David found out what was happening, he said he would go and fight the enemy.  When the current King Saul heard about David he sent for him and told him that he was too young and had no experience against this great man of war. David told him that God was with him and with the armies of the living God. He relayed his experience of killing a bear and a lion while protecting his sheep and that this Philistine would be no different.The king agreed and dressed him in armor and gave him a sword to go fight Goliath. After trying on the armor and equipment David said he could not wear them because he was not used to them and had no experience in wearing armor while fighting. He elected to go with his normal clothes, armed with his shepherd's staff (stick), a bag that held 5 smooth stones, and his slingshot. When Goliath saw David he was insulted and said “Am I a dog that you would come to me with sticks?” He then cursed David by his own gods. David replied that he was coming to him in the name of the Lord, the God of Israel, and that he would strike him down, take his head, and give his carcass to the birds and that all will know that there is a God in Israel. David said the battle is the Lord's and he would have victory. He then proceeded to run towards Goliath, swinging his sling and released the stone that hit Goliath right on the open spot of his forehead. The stone sunk into his forehead and he fell to the ground onto his face. David took Goliath's own sword and removed his head. The Israelite army then shouted for victory and proceeded to run towards their enemy to defeat them.Although David had never fought a man of war, God had prepared him during his job of watching and protecting the sheep. Often God chooses the lowly and humble to accomplish great things. David was confident of God's power to protect through his own experiences and acted in faith and spoke of God's power.  He ran towards his enemy with full confidence that God would give him the victory and success. What is your enemy or your challenge today? Remember the victories that God has given you in the past and use the talents and skills that God has given you to face your enemies/challenges speaking His words in faith by Christ Jesus.(Mark 11:22-23;

Often God speaks in His Word about that He does things for His holy Name sake. That means He exalts the glory of His character or Being by His own doings or works. None has as much right to exalt His own Name as God.

Beginning tomorrow, we will start posting a daily reading (Monday - Friday) from the book Gospel Meditations by Paul David Tripp. Join us each morning for a quick, but powerful reminder to rest in God's presence! --- I am not a poet; I am a pilgrim. I am not attracted to formal, overly romantic Christian verse, but I think that we do not train our eyes to see enough, our hearts to consider enough, and our emotions to celebrate enough the glories of the grace that is showered down on us in a thousand ways every day. What you are about to read are notes from my journey through the struggle of God's amazing grace. These are my meditations on the intersection between God's ever-present grace and my ever-present battle to live out of the resources of that grace while I walk my way through this sadly broken and dysfunctional world. You may be wondering why I used both the words “glories” and “struggle” to describe a life of grace. Well, God's grace is glorious. It is the single stellar glory of the life of God's children. There is no glory in this created world, no matter how beautiful, that can compete with the beauty of God's rescuing, forgiving, transforming, empowering, and delivering grace. There is no human achievement, no personal accomplishment, and no community victory that can do for us what God's grace can do. There is nothing that we can be given that can accomplish in us and for us what God's grace can. The love of no one in our lives has the power to do what the amazing grace of God's boundless love can do for us. This grace really is so counterintuitive and mind-blowing that we will spend all of eternity performing exegesis on it, celebrating it, and worshiping the Giver for it. Yet, between the “already” of our conversion and the “not yet” of our home-going, God's grace doesn't always look like grace. Instinctively we think that God's grace will be a warm hug, a cool drink, an encouraging word, or a motivating insight. We look for grace to relieve and release us, and sometimes it does, but God's grace regularly comes to us in uncomfortable forms. God's grace causes us to face things in ourselves that are hard to see, consider, accept, and confess. Often God's grace takes us into things we would like to avoid, things that are hard, discouraging, and sad. God's grace will not only give us wonderful gifts, but it will also take precious things away from us. It will not only tell us the best news ever, it will also force us to accept the worst news we could ever be told. It will not only tell us that God is strong, but it will remind us of how weak we are without him. It will not only gift us with incredible wisdom, it will require us to face the fact that sin reduces all of us to fools. God's grace will not only introduce us to the only one in the entire universe that is truly worthy of our worship, but will also expose the catalog of God's replacements that regularly capture the affections of our hearts. One of the primary struggles of the Christian life is this; grace doesn't always seem attractive to us. You see, there is often a difference between what we think we need and what our God of grace knows that we need. And even if we are right in knowing what we need, we fail to understand what is necessary to produce that needed thing in us. So, often we'd rather have a season when life is easy, predictable, and the people around us are drama-free, then we would like to have a season where transforming grace takes us to new depths of humility, understanding, maturity, and worship. So in each of our lives grace is both a glory and a struggle. What you are about to read are my honest meditations on that struggle. They are my spontaneous responses to my journey through glory and struggle. They are: celebratory hymns disappointing cries pleas for help groans of confusion shouts of joy theological mediations desperate requests heartfelt confessions hope for help in temptation quiet contemplations honest notes along the journey They were not written as I sat looking out the window of my country cottage (I don't have one of those) over a pastoral scene on a poet's retreat. They were written: early in the morning late at night in physical suffering waiting for tea at Starbucks on the plane in the car in the middle of a meal when my heart was broken when my heart was filled with joy when I was at the end of my rope when what was around me was hard when what I saw in me caused grief when God seemed distant when I saw my sin clearly when I basked in God's forgiveness when weakness seemed in me and all around me when I knew God was near when resting in grace was a struggle when I knew I'd have strength for the battle when grace seemed glorious after all These meditations have been generating and marinating for years. They are the transparent interactions of one man with the Savior of grace. My hope is that this volume will help you to see the Savior more clearly, to understand his grace more deeply, to confess your struggle more honestly, to worship him more fully, and to find in these meditations the motivation to continue to follow the Savior even when he's leading you into unexpected and hard places. My prayer is that these mediations will stimu- late a worship, rest, and celebration in you that the difficulties of life, this side of eternity, will not have the power to end.

Often God closes doors and opportunities in our lives as a way of leading us into His greatest plans and purposes for us.

Change In Character, House Hunters, Brant's Gym Idea, Being Overweight, Humility, The Unoffendable Gift, Save the Alien Planet   Quotes:   "I didn't say that. It was Evil Brant Hansen."   "God favors the humble over and over in scripture."   "I'm the scruffy guy with the accordion."   "Often God works on one thing at a time in our lives."   "When we blow up an alien planet It's the listener's fault."

Often God gets blamed for the evil in the world. But, is He really to blame? Find out in this week's podcast with Os Hillman!