Podcasts about reject god

First Thessalonians Series: 1 Thessalonians 4:8-To Reject the Teaching of Paul, Silas and Timothy is to Reject God's Authority-Lesson # 57

First Thessalonians Series: 1 Thessalonians 4:8-To Reject the Teaching of Paul, Silas and Timothy is to Reject God's Authority-Lesson # 57

Speaker or Performer: Pastor Grover Cleveland Scripture Passage(s): Isaiah 8:5-7 Date of Delivery: September 15, 2024 5 The Lord also spoke to me again, saying:6 “Inasmuch as these people refusedThe waters of Shiloah that flow softly,And rejoice in Rezin and in Remaliah’s son;7 Now therefore, behold, the Lord brings up over themThe waters of the River, strong and mighty—The king of Assyria and all his glory;He will go up over all his channelsAnd go over all his banks.

Pastor Bart and Director of Outreach Devona give some additional thoughts on the sermon, "Woe to those who Reject God's Messengers" given at WCPC on Sunday, August 4, 2024. Watch the sermon Listen to the sermon

Message from Bart Garrett on August 4, 2024

Sermon by Pastor Hans Kristensen at Marsfield Community Church, Sydney on Sunday 28 July 2024.   Series "Messy people, merciful God - Judges"  

A new MP3 sermon from Calvary Baptist Church Of Treherne is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: Why Reject God's Healing Subtitle: Hosea Speaker: Pastor Bartel Broadcaster: Calvary Baptist Church Of Treherne Event: Sunday Afternoon Date: 7/28/2024 Bible: Hosea 7:1-10 Length: 67 min.

This message was given by Pastor Dan Greenfield during Orwell Bible Church's morning service, June 2, 2024.Why is not only homosexuality but so many other sinful actions (like strife, murder, deceit, and disobeying parents) and attitudes (like covetousness, envy, pride) growing more common? The reason is not found in politics, seeming social or economic inequities, difficult times, or perceived injustices. When people do not glorify or thank God for who he is and what he has done, they instead dive deeper into sin and God doesn't pull them back but lets them go deeper into darkness. Thankfully God is also merciful and gracious, saving sinners who turn from their wicked ways and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. You can download this outline to follow along and take notes. 

Most people HATE or REJECT God because He doesn't act the way THEY think He should. I mean, what good is an all-powerful god if He doesn't prevent famine, floods, and child abuse? What good is a god that doesn't PROTECT you and make you HAPPY? Do they have a point?  If you know someone who HATES God, is DISAPPOINTED in God or simply wants nothing to do with God, I'm willing to bet it's because they've MISSED the most important thing about God.  I think you'll be surprised by what it is! #faith #worldview Brightmedia.org twitter.com/GodIsTheIssue GOD, Who Are You Anyway?  by Bill Bright, with Brad Bright brightmedia.org/resources Time Stamp 00:00 – God haters have missed it! 01:02 – God's central, core attribute 03:19 – God's Holiness 04:31 – Why we WANT God to be Holy 06:10 – God's love, God's Power, God's Justice is Holy (Perfect) 06:27 – What if God was NOT Holy? 10:13 – Cancel culture can't cancel this!

Listen to one of the sermons from our Sunday morning services.

Listen to one of the sermons from our Sunday morning services.

Listen to one of the sermons from our Sunday morning services.

Have you ever met someone who wanted something so badly, it affected all their decision making? Have you ever heard anyone say that it seems no matter what they do, something bad happens? It may just be bad luck, but it possibly might be that that individual is dominated by their emotions, their desire for approval from others, or some other thing. At every turn, King Saul seemed to do the wrong thing. But each time, his decision was based upon his own passion, wisdom, or desire for glory. In this study, we'll discuss the topic of "Why We Reject God." This passage is one of the saddest passages in Scripture. Saul seemed to have every gift, and every opportunity to excel, but the event that was used to describe his life is one of rejection. This passage should challenge us to question our motives and humble ourselves before our patient God.

Apologetics is the defense of the faith. We need to make good intellectual arguments for what we believe. But the strongest arguments for and against our faith are moral arguments. The most effective things used to keep people from God are moral. Join me for today's Daily Word & Prayer to learn more.Scripture Used in Today's MessageRomans 1:18John 3:18-192 Thessalonians 2:10-12Have you read my book, "Takin' it to Their Turf"?If not, you may request a copy on my website, www.åTomthePreacher.comWe send a copy to anyone who donates to our ministry, but if you can't do so, simply request a copy by sending us an email.Who do you know that needs to hear today's message? Go ahead and forward this to them, along with a prayer that God will use it in their life.To find Tom on Instagram, Facebook, TicTok, and elsewhere, go to linktr.ee/tomthepreacher To support Tom Short Campus Ministries, click herehttps://www.tomthepreacher.com/support************ Do you want to have all your sins forgiven and know God personally? *********Check out my video "The Bridge Diagram" at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0Kjwrlind8&t=1sCheck out my website, www.TomthePreacher.com, to learn more about my ministry and sign up for my daily email. And make sure to request a copy of my book, Takin' it to Their Turf, when you visit my website.Check out my videos on this channel to learn how to answer tough questions challenging our faith.

It's easy to put other Christians and other churches who have rejected God's commands in a different category from ourselves. We say things like, “I can't believe they did that,” but our surprise says more about us than it does about them.

Reconcile Community Church | 01/21/24   Mark 12: 1-12   Preacher: Pastor Will Broadus

When a person rejects God, they're left to determine for themselves their own identity. Alan unpacks some problems with this approach.

WE'RE at the tail-end of our deep dive into Deuteronomy—and what a soul-expanding exploration it has been. Talk 7 unpacks Deuteronomy 27 to 30. In these verses, Moses is offering two choices to the Israelites. Moses says the Israelites have two options in life: Option 1: Follow God's Ways and get blessed. Option 2: Reject God's Ways and get cursed.

Rev. Azuka Obi invites you to explore the complex question, 'Why do people reject God?' In this thought-provoking podcast, we delve into the myriad of reasons, from doubt and scepticism to personal experiences and societal influences, that lead individuals to question or reject their faith. With deep insights, personal stories, and discussions with experts, we aim to shed light on the diverse paths people take away from God and what this means for their spiritual journeys. Join us on a compelling exploration of the human quest for meaning, belief, and the decision to accept or reject the divine." Check out our YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/@PastorObi?feature=shared #rejectGod #pastorcobi #pastorobi #thisislife #highlights #everyone #viral #subscribers #subscribe --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/pastorobi/message

Audio Transcript: This media has been made available by Mosaic BostonChurch. If you'd like to check out more resources, learn about Mosaic Boston,or donate to this ministry, please visit mosaicboston.com. Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your Word, and we pray that You make us a people that love Your Word and love every part of Your Word and people that love Your law even. As the psalmist in Psalm 119 says, "O, how I love Your law. It's my meditation all the day. Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies for it is ever with me." Lord, I pray that You give us a love for Your law, and I pray that You give us a desire to meditate on it all the day. And I pray that You make us a people who grow in wisdom and knowledge and discernment. Lord, as we continue our sermon series in the Gospel of Mark, I pray that You focus our attention on not just how Jesus taught or how He lived, but how He did everything He did according to Your will, to fulfill Your commandments. And Lord, I pray that You extend grace to us, that if we and where we break commandments that You forgive us and then You give us grace to live according to the law. Lord, I pray that You bless our time in the holy Scriptures. Send us the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, regenerate anyone who's not yet a believer, speak to their hearts, and draw them to Yourself. And Lord, fill them with the power of the Holy Spirit. And continue to refine Your church, Lord, to continue to build up Your body and with the washing of water, with the Word continue to cleanse Your bride. We pray all this in Christ's holy name. Amen. We're continuing our sermon series through the Gospel of Mark. We call it Kingdom Come: The Gospel of Mark and the Secret of God's kingdom. And the title of the sermon is Yes, God Really Said. There are two ways offered to people, two ways of life. One way promises God likeness and one promises godliness. Both offer a way of becoming like God. The first one is offered by Satan, God's adversary. He tempts each person with the following: "Reject God's law and you'll become like God, God likeness, defining what is good and evil for yourself. The second way is offered by Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who says, "Follow me in keeping the law of God from the heart." Satan is too crafty to just come out and say, "Reject God's law" or "Follow me." No, the way Satan builds his kingdom is by veiling, God's law, by obfuscating, distorting it. And he does it by undermining it with the question, did God really say? Did God actually say? Those are his very first words spoken in Scripture when he tempts Eve, "Did God really say that on the day that you eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil you will die." Jesus Christ comes declaring with divine authority, "Yes, God really did say. God really said it." God really did give us a law, a perfect law, an everlasting law written by the very fingers of God. It was initially just called the Word, the Word of God, written with His finger, the Ten Commandments. Trivia question: who was the very first person to break all Ten Commandments in one day? It was Moses when he broke the Ten Commandments as he's coming down from the mountain. I asked two people this week and within two seconds of asking, I asked my third daughter and she nailed it. I was like, "How did you know?" She's like, "It's obvious." But that happened because it's a symbol, it's a symbol of the fact that God has given us His law. And the very first thing that the person entrusted with the law, the very first thing he does is break it. Why does he break it? Because he sees the people of God not worshiping God. His heart was broken by the fact that their hearts were so far from God that they wanted nothing to do with worshiping God. And therefore, God does send us the law and the prophets. God gave the Ten Commandments through Moses to all of humanity in all places for all time. God also provided a sacrificial system for atonement when the people of God broke commandments. Then God sends Jesus Christ as the king to establish God's kingdom on earth. What are the laws of the kingdom? It's the Ten Commandments. Matthew 5:17-20, Jesus said, "Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot will pass from the law until all is accomplished. Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you'll never enter the kingdom of heaven." So when Jesus says, "I've come to fulfill the law," what does He mean? To fulfill the law means that Jesus kept the law, He followed the law. He kept every one of the Ten Commandments from the heart, and then He offers Himself as a sacrifice to provide atonement for our law-breaking. Then He says, "Repent of your breaking of God's law. Receive forgiveness. Receive a new heart. And in that new heart, the wineskins, new wineskins and filled with new wine of the Holy Spirit and with the indwelling power of the spirit in the new heart. We want to follow God from the heart. We want to obey His laws as they're written on our heart. The righteous law of God, which condemns our sin, is as permanent as the good news from God, which promises salvation from sin's judgment. It's an inside-out kingdom because God regenerates our hearts, writes His law on our hearts. We want to obey the letter of the law and also the spirit of the law, which is love. It all starts in the heart, but it doesn't stay in the heart. And that's really the issue with Jesus and the Pharisees. We keep coming up on Him going toe to toe with them in debate on the Sabbath. Why? What's the fight over? It's what is God's law? They ended up adding traditions and regulations, their own law on top of God's law to obfuscate the law. So today we're in Mark 3:1-19. Would you look at the text with me? "Again He," Jesus, "entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand. And they watched Jesus to see whether He would heal on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him. And He said to the man with the withered hand, 'Come here.' And He said to them, 'Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?' But they were silent. And He looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, 'Stretch out your hand.' He stretched it out, and his hand was restored. The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against Him, how to destroy Him. "Jesus withdrew with His disciples to the sea, and a great crowd followed, from Galileo and Judea and Jerusalem and Idumea and from beyond the Jordan and from around Tyre and Sidon. When the great crowd heard all that He was doing, they came to Him. And He told His disciples to have a boat ready for Him because of the crowd, lest they crush Him, for He had healed many so that all who had diseases pressed around Him to touch Him. And whenever the unclean spirits saw Him, they fell down before Him and cried out, 'You are the Son of God.' But He strictly ordered them not to make Him known. "And He went up on the mountain and called to Him those whom He desired, and they came to Him. And He appointed 12, whom He also named apostles, so they might be with Him and He might send them out to preach and have authority to cast out demons. He appointed to the 12: Simon, to whom He gave the name Peter, James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James, to whom He gave the name Boanerges, that is, Sons of Thunder, Andrew and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Him. This is the reading of God's holy and infallible, authoritative Word. May He write these eternal truths upon our hearts. Three points to frame up our time. First, King Jesus defends the law of God. Second, King Jesus endures the crush of service. And third, King Jesus appoints the 12 apostles. First, King Jesus defends the law of God. Here in verse one it says, "Again He entered the synagogue, and a man was there with a withered hand." The emphasis here is on the word again. This was the pattern of Jesus' life, on the Sabbath day, He would go to the synagogue, which was the place of the gathering of the people of God. He did this on a weekly basis. He enters this synagogue, this was his way of going to church. And the way of Jesus is the way of God's law. He fulfilled God's law. When He says, 'Follow me,' He say follow me in obeying God's commandments. And thus the emphasis on the fourth commandment, thus the emphasis on the gathering to worship God on the Sabbath. He's keeping the fourth commandment, and He's doing it from the heart. He gathers on the Lord's day to give God His due glory because He loves the Lord His God with all His heart, soul, strength, and mind. And in the synagogue are the Pharisees, the representatives of big religion, the religious establishment. They were pitted as the enemies of Christ here because Christ's popularity is growing His authority, it's self-authenticating. They're losing authority, and they recognize that Jesus is a threat to their dominion, so to speak. In verse two, "They watched Him to see whether He would heal Him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him." It's a gentleman with a withered hand and most likely it's an image of paralysis, most likely he couldn't work. The Pharisees are watching Jesus closely because they're concerned with Sabbath observance. The word for watch here is used in the Septuagint and other places in the salter of sinners who are lying in wait for a righteous person to slay him, lying in wait. So the Pharisees who objected to Jesus eating with sinners, well, they are revealing themselves to be sinners here. So that they might accuse Him, they want to bring charges against Him because they're breathing murderous plots in their hearts. So this is the second run in with big religion over the Sabbath between the Pharisees and Jesus. In the previous text, they accused Jesus' followers of not following the Sabbath law. Here they're accusing Jesus Himself. Why? Because the deliberate transgression of the Sabbath law carried the death penalty. If they can find Jesus breaking the Sabbath, they can bring charges against Him in order to execute Him. Exodus 31:12, "And the Lord said to Moses, 'You are to speak to the people of Israel and say, "Above all you shall keep My Sabbaths, for this is a sign between Me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, the Lord, sanctify you. You shall keep the Sabbath because it is holy for you. Everyone who profanes it shall be put to death. Whoever does any work on it, that soul shall be cut off from among the people. Six days shall work be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of solemn rest, holy to the Lord. Whoever does any work on the Sabbath shall be put to death. Therefore the people of Israel shall keep the Sabbath, observing the Sabbath throughout their generations as a covenant forever. It is a sign forever between me and the people of Israel that in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, and on the seventh day He rested and was refreshed."'"And He gave to Moses, when He had finished speaking with him on Mount Sinai, the two tablets of the testimony, tablets of stone, written with the finger of God. And then in Numbers 15:32, "While the people of Israel were in the wilderness, they found a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath. And those who found him gathering sticks brought them to Moses and to Aaron and to all the congregation. They put him in custody, because it had been made clear what should be done to him. And the Lord said to Moses, 'The man shall be put to death, all the congregations shall stone him with stones outside the camp.' And all the congregation brought him outside the camp and stoned him to death with stones as the Lord commanded Moses." So Jesus is here to fulfill the law. He's fulfilling it. Now the question is, is He transgressing the law by healing on the Sabbath? Well, Jesus is going to heal the man on the Sabbath. He has an opportunity to do a good work. And no, He's not transgressing the law, as He's going to explain, because the law was given for the people of God as a day that is designated in holiness. This day is different. This day is devoted to the Lord, and it's devoted to good works. So no, doing good works on the Sabbath does not transgress the fourth commandment. Verse three, He tells the man, "Come here." Jesus calls him to stand up publicly. Jesus knows that the man wants to be healed, and if the man truly desires healing, he must confess his need and show his faith in the power of Jesus Christ by standing up in the face of the whole congregation and displaying his need. It's a moment of public confession, of faith, and potentially costly confession. He understands by standing up and doing what Jesus says, he is going against the religious establishment which might come at a cost. This is one of the reasons why baptism is what it is. Jesus Christ commanded us to be baptized, and baptism is a public profession of faith. When we do baptism here at Mosaic, we ask that whoever's being baptized to come on up and to answer one question, why do you love Jesus Christ? We do that because that's the pattern of Holy Scripture and that's commanded to us. The person gets up, and they're confessing their need for Christ. "I've broken the commandments. I need Christ. I need His sacrifice. I need His grace. And I commit to follow Jesus Christ all of my days." So that's what He's doing here. And then Jesus, before He heals the man, He has a theological debate with the Pharisees by asking them a question that leaves them silent. He said to them, "Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to kill?" But they were silent. And here Jesus is getting at the intent of the law, and He's saying, "What is the point of the law?" The point of the law is that God is a God who loves life. He's the creator. God is love, so whatever he does command, the point of what He commands is love. He's given us the law because He loves us, He wants us to flourish. This is the pattern of the less life, the life of shalom, the life of universal flourishing. So on the Sabbath He's saying, "What's lawful? What's lawful? Is it lawful to do good or to do harm?" The point of the Sabbath is to designate one whole day where we do good, where one-seventh of our waking hours are devoted to God, loving God with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind, and to love people, to do good. The reason why they fall silent is because they understand that in their hearts they are intending to destroy Christ. What are they doing in the Sabbath? Are they doing good, or they doing harm? They're doing harm. So Jesus reads their minds, He asks a question that answers the doubts of their heart, and He's like, "Obviously the point of the Sabbath is to do good, is to promote life, is to promote rest in the Lord." And also, He is showing them their inconsistency. On the Sabbath they allowed for people to rescue animals. Obviously if it's true for animals that they could be saved on the Sabbath, it's an order of magnitude more true for humans as image bearers of God. This is more explicit in Matthew 12 where it says, "He went on from there and entered their synagogue. And a man was there with a withered hand. They asked Him, "Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?" so that they might accuse Him. He said to them, "Which one of you who has a sheep, if it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will not take hold of it and lift it out? Of how much more value is a man than a sheep. So it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath." According to most of the rabbis, they would argue that what Jesus here is doing transgresses the Sabbath law because the man is not in imminent danger. According to most of the rabbis, and certainly those the Pharisees followed, unless the person's life is at stake, it's work to help the person. But there's nothing remotely even close to that in the Old Testament. Why are they judging Him according to a standard that's not in Scripture? Well, by the time that Christ has come, they have created an elaborate set of rules regarding what could and could not be done on the Sabbath. And their rules, their own regulations, their own traditions were presented as inert, infallible, and more authoritative than the Word of God itself. Jesus here is saying, "No, I'm not going to be ruled by human tradition. I'm not going to be ruled by human rules and laws. I'm going to be ruled only by the law of God." Jesus was, and that's why He's the righteous king. We always have to be careful of that. Whenever we look at the faith, we have to ask, "Is this in Scripture? Is this from the Holy Scriptures, or is whatever we're doing, whatever we're teaching, whatever we're following, is it based in tradition and human tradition?" So Jesus as the holy one of God, He knows exactly what God's law says, and He knows the letter of the law and the spirit of the law, and He's saying that, "No, on the Sabbath we should be doing kindness. It is permitted. We should be doing good works. There's no better day of the week to do good works than on the Sabbath." The Pharisaic attitude, on the other hand, not only misses the point of the day but smacks of indifference to this human being who's suffering. So they were silent. Their silence is hostile. They understand that they have been publicly humiliated because how do you answer that question? There's only one answer, and they know that Jesus is right. They understand that they've lost face in front of the people, in front of the crowd, which makes them for dangerous enemies. To what extent was it lawful to watch for the life of another as they were doing? They're looking to destroy Christ. Verse five, "And He looked around at them with anger, grieved at their hardness of heart, and said to the man, 'Stretch out your hand.' He stretched it out, and his hand was restored." There's anger in Christ's heart because He understands that they don't have love for God and they don't have love for neighbors. So they are law-breakers and they present themselves as the guardians of the law. So he's angry at that. He's angry and grieved at their hardness of heart. Hardness of heart is willful refusal. When you see a miracle in front of you, when you see the power of God in front of you, when the truth is evident and you just choose to refuse it, choose to not believe. Some of the commentators are saying that this appeal of hardness, it's actually an illusion to in the Old Testament where Pharaoh exhibited hardness of heart. He saw miracle after miracle after miracle after miracle, and he chooses to harden his own heart, and then God hardens Pharaoh's heart as well. Some of the commentaries say that that's why the Pharisees, it's a play of words, Pharisees and Pharaoh perhaps. But the hardness of heart is the Son of God is in front of them, the Son of God who knows the Word of God better than them, who reads their thoughts and actually does miracles right in front of them to authenticate that what He's saying is true, in the face of all the evidence, they still choose to disobey. Jesus heals the man, and He does so by telling the man, "Stretch out your hand." Here you see the cleverness of Jesus. Can they accuse Him of doing works by healing the man? Well, what was Jesus' work? Jesus told the man, "Stretch out your hand." The man stretches out the hand, the man does the work, and as he does, the man is healed. Verse six, "The Pharisees went out and immediately held counsel with the Herodians against Him, how to destroy Him." The Herodians were the Jewish supporters of Herod. And so you have the religious Jews, that's the Pharisees, and the political Jews, the Herodians, teaming up, uniting in wanting to kill Jesus Christ. How to destroy Him, that's a phrase that was used by the demons when they said, "Are you the Son of God come to destroy us?" And here the Pharisees are seeking to destroy Christ. Big religion's response to Jesus stands in stark contrast to the other response, which is the crowds. They flock to Jesus Christ to experience healing and to experience exorcisms. And this is point two, King Jesus endures the crush of service. Verse seven, "Jesus withdrew with His disciples to the sea, and a great crowd followed from Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem and Idumea and from beyond the Jordan and from a round Tyre and Sidon. When the great crowd heard all that He was doing, they came to Him." He withdraws, and the emphasis here is that He's leaving the danger from the Pharisees. Withdrawal from danger fits in this context. And it shows us that as He goes outside He's entering Gentile territory. He shows that He's not just the savior of Israel but the savior of the nations. As He told the shocked Pharisees in Matthew 8:11, He says, "I tell you, many will come from east and west and recline at table with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, while the sons of the kingdom will be thrown into the outer darkness. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth." So the people flock to Jesus Christ. In verse nine, He told His disciples to have a boat ready for Him because of the crowd, lest they crush Him. The crowd is growing and they're exerting pressure on Him. It's a phrase that's used metaphorically, to oppress or afflict. These are people that know that Jesus can meet their physical needs. They're attracted to Jesus primarily for that. They're pressing in to just touch Him and get just a taste of His power to be healed. Jesus backs away from them onto the boat that's probably owned by Peter, James, and John. And He heals them. In verse 10, "He healed many, so that all who had diseases pressed around Him to touch Him." The word for press here and crush, those are two implications that when Jesus comes as the Messiah, as prophesied in Isaiah 53, our diseases will be placed upon Him, our chastisement and sins will crush Him. This is Isaiah 53:4-6, "Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteem Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities, upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all." Along with healing, Jesus exorcizes demons. Verse 11, "Whenever the unclean spirits saw Him, they fell down before Him and cried out, 'You are the Son of God.' And He strictly ordered them not to make Him known." The human and demonic reactions to Jesus here are similar. The human sufferers fell upon Him, the unclean spirits fall before Him, and they confess that, "You are the Son of God." This is the second time in Mark that Jesus is called the Son of God, the first time by God the Father. He said, "This is my Son, my beloved Bon whom I'm well pleased and whom I've taken delight." The demons say similar thing, "You are the Son of God," but there's no love for Christ in their hearts, that's why they're demons, and they do not delight in Him. But Jesus doesn't want their confessions. He tells them, "Don't say this out loud." Because it's not their job to proclaim the good news. It's not their job to proclaim who He is. That's the job of His followers. Speaking of His followers, this is point three, that King Jesus appoints the 12 apostles. Verse 13, "And He went up on the mountain and called to Him those whom He desired, and they came to Him." And here Jesus as sent on the mountain, recalls Moses as sent to Sinai. Throughout the Pentateuch in Exodus 19, God prophesies and He said, "Israel is my treasured possession." And here Jesus in calling the disciples calls them to intimacy, that they are His treasured possession. Another important mosaic ascent of Moses occurs in Exodus 24 when Moses ascends Sinai in the company of the priests and the elders and sets up 12 pillars to symbolize the 12 tribes. The emphasis here is on Jesus' call. He called the disciples to Himself. He initiates the call. Those whom He desired, it's to emphasize His power of choice, that He chooses whom to follow Him. When Jesus calls, it's a prophetic call, and it's a call that's effectual, with a desired effect because God's Word does not return to Him void. Isaiah 55:11, "So shall My Word be that goes out from My mouth, it shall not return to Me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it." So they come up the mountain with Him, they follow Jesus. They leave behind whatever their vocational calls were in order to devote themselves to Christ. In verse 14, "He appointed 12, whom He also named apostles, so that they might be with Him and He might send them out to preach and have authority to cast out demons." He appoints the 12, and this reawakens the Jewish hope that the Messiah will come, renew the nation, and these 12 are to symbolize that. What does He call them to? He calls them to be with Him. He calls them to be with the presence of God. In the Garden of Eden, the greatest blessing that Adam and Eve experienced in that garden, the greatest blessing was the fact that they had unfettered access to God. They walked with God in the cool of the day. Whatever questions they had, they could ask God face to face. He knew them, they knew Him. When we listen to Satan's lies of, "Did God really say?" and we rebelled against God, they lost that access to the presence of God. They lost the ability to walk with God in the garden. Jesus Christ comes and He offers His presence. He offers the presence of God. He offers that same ability for them to walk with God. So He called them to be with Him, that's the first step. Before they preach, they got to spend time with the Lord. But if you spend time with the Lord, if you truly experience the presence of God, your heart gets filled, it brims with truth about God, and you have a desire to speak about the Lord. So He calls them to be with Him, and then He calls them to preach, to preach the good news. A lot of Christians, they just want to be with Jesus. That's all they want to do. Jesus, me, Jesus. It's all privatized. It's all very self-focused. No, Jesus says, "If you spend time with Me, go and make disciples of all nations. If you follow me, I'm welcoming you into the mission of God." And what is the mission of God? To seek and to save that which is lost. He gives them power to preach the word and also authority to cast out demons in the name of Jesus Christ. He gives them power over even the demonic realm. In Mark 3:16, "He appointed the 12. The first one was Simon, to whom He gave the name Peter." Simon was His Hebrew name. He's renamed by Jesus to Peter. In the Greek that's Petros. So he's got a Hebrew name, Simon, he's got a Greek name Petros. And then the Apostle Paul affectionately calls Peter Petros. He calls them Syphus. If anyone that knows multiple languages, you know affectionately you do that with people, you call them their name, but you do it in the language that only the two of you know. Syphus is the Aramaic version of Petros, which is the new name, and Simon was his Hebrew name. I say that because a lot of people think the disciples were morons. They're like, "Oh, He picked fishermen. They don't know anything." These guys were very well-educated. They grew up most likely trilingual in an area that was trilingual. They knew Aramaic, they knew Hebrew, and they knew Greek. That's why Jesus chose them, because they knew the scriptures of Hebrew and Aramaic, and they understood how to communicate it to the Greek world and the Greco-Roman Empire. So Simon Peter is the first one. And then verse 17, "James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James, to whom He gave the name Boanerges, that is Sons of Thunder." Then Peter, James, and John, they formed the inner circle of the three disciples of Jesus Christ. He changes the name of Peter. He gives the others, James and John, He gives them a nickname, but Peter is the one that gets the name changed. And this is significant because of the patriarchs in the Old Testament, whenever God chose the spiritual leader of the people, He would change His name, Abram to Abraham, Jacob to Israel. Abraham is called the rock in the Old Testament, which is why Jesus, who gives primacy to the leadership of Peter, calls him the rock. Isaiah 51:1-2, "Listen to me, you'll pursue righteousness you who seek the Lord. Look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were dug. Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who bore you, for he was but one when I called him, that I might bless him and multiply him." So Peter is presented as the man in charge. That's why in all the lists of the disciples he's the first one. This is why Jesus resurrected Christ, revealed Himself to Peter first. James and John are called Sons of Thunder. Why? Because they had a hot temper. They were very zealous for the Lord, and sometimes the zeal overcame their wisdom. For example, in Luke 9:51, "When the days drew near for Him to be taken up, He set His face to go to Jerusalem. And He sent messages ahead of Him, and he went and entered a village of the Samaritans to make preparations for Him. But the people did not receive him, because His face was set toward Jerusalem. And when His disciples James and John saw it, they said, 'Lord, do you want us to tell fire to come down from heaven and consume them?' But He turned and rebuked them. And they went on to another village." I always find that text funny or interesting. "Jesus, You want us to call fire from heaven? No one believes here, let's just smoke the whole place." What if Jesus said yes, "Yes, I want fire from heaven."? They'd be like, "Jesus, could You send the fire?" Everything they did was in the power of Jesus. What Jesus is there saying is, "They didn't receive me, yes, but hold on, the power of the Spirit isn't here yet. That'll come on the day of Pentecost." And that changed their hearts as well. The other disciples in Mark 3:18, "Andrew, and Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Him." I'm not going to get into what the names is, but the titles here are important. Simon the Zealot is pointed out. Who were the Zealots? They were nationalist party willing to fight to free Israel from Roman rule. So on the one hand, you got Simon the Zealot. They hated the Romans, and they hated anyone that collaborated with the Romans. And then you got Levi, who then became Matthew, was a tax collector. Who's he collecting taxes for? The Romans. So God brings these two people, diametrically opposed, completely different political ideologies, perspectives in the world, brings them together and saying, "Now I'm going to show you what it means to love one another as I have loved you." Iscariot, Judas Iscariot, it's from the Greek sikarioi. Commentators say there were also a group of Jewish revolutionaries who practiced assassinations. Perhaps that's why Judas did ultimately end up betraying Jesus Christ, because he assumed Jesus was going to be primarily a political king. And the first time that Christ came, He came to build His kingdom from the inside out by saving people. Although the text ends on a somber note, foreshadowing of violent crucifixion, the main theme of this text is joyful of being called by God, being called by God's grace, being chosen by Jesus Christ, personally enlisted in the war where battles are won by proclaiming good news and thereby shattering demonic structures of evil. God gave the Ten Commandments through Moses, and Jesus Christ lived according to the Ten Commandments. He summarized them by saying, "This is the point: it's love God and love people." He was asked, "What is the greatest commandment?" and He said, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. The second one is love your neighbor as yourself." But in summarizing the Ten Commandments, He does not obliterate or abrogate the Ten Commandments. The summary does not abrogate the expansion of which is a summary. A lot of people think that in the old covenant the law was in force, then Jesus Christ comes and gets rid of the law. A lot of Christians think in the new covenant there is no law and the new covenant is just grace. I would push back and say, "No, that's not true." Because in Hebrews 8 it says that in the new covenant, when God gives us new hearts, He writes His law on our hearts. Which law? It's God's law, the Ten Commandments. This is Hebrews 8:8, "For He finds fault with them when He says: 'Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will establish a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt. For they did not continue in my covenant, and so I showed no concern for them, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord, I will put my laws in their minds and write them on their hearts, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall not teach, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, "Know the Lord," and they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will be merciful toward their iniquities, and will remember their sins no more.'" I do, I pray for a day when the Spirit descends upon our town, upon our city where people's hearts are regenerated, and then they turn to Jesus Christ as king. And then what? Then I pray that they join the Body of Christ, join the church. Recently school restarted, and I have a high schooler now, so I was driving to the high school. I have a high schooler now, Christ. I was driving to the high school and there was traffic everywhere. I've never seen that many people on the street just crossing left and right. And when it's that chaotic, we've got crossing guards. Just families going to school. I was like, "That's awesome that that happens Monday through Friday. Imagine if that happened on Sunday. That's where people just come and they're drawn by the Spirit and they want to worship God and they want to obey the fourth commandment, which is worshiping God on the Sabbath day." We practice Sabbath on a Sunday because Jesus Christ rose from the dead on a Sunday. The church was birthed on a Sunday. Have you broken any commandments? Jesus Christ calls us to repent, believe, and follow the king. I do want to mention that obeying the commandments and loving God's law, the approach with God's law is very different than the approach of man-made laws. I've been pulled over one time by the Brookline Police. On Route 9 going east, there's a speed trap, it goes from 55 to 35. I realized I try to obey man-made law basically to keep the cops away, to keep the authorities away. I don't keep the law to get to know them or to have a relationship with police. No, no, no, just leave me alone. But it's the opposite with God's law. That's why Psalm 119, meditate on Psalm 119, says, "I love your law, O, Lord." Because the law is an extension of God. God is holy, His Word is holy, His law is holy. By walking in the commandments of God, you grow in holiness and you grow in the presence of God. You grow closer to the Lord. Have we broken the commandments? Of course we have. What are we ought to do? We are to repent and believe that Jesus Christ fulfilled the law perfectly in our behalf. And then He goes to the cross and He bears the penalty for our law-breaking. The wrath of God comes down upon Him. Why does Jesus do that? So that after He is resurrected and ascends, when we repent and believe, our sin is counted to Him on the cross and His righteousness counted to us. And He gives us grace to do what? To then follow Him. And following Him means following Him in the obedience of the law of God from the heart. Following King Jesus and keeping God's law and to live lovingly is to live lawfully, and to live lawfully is to live lovingly. Hebrews 5:9, "And being made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey Him." Does that verse contradict salvation by grace through faith? No. It's the inevitable outworking. We're saved not by our works, not by fulfilling a law, but by Christ's work in fulfilling the law and Christ's work on the cross. And then we're saved by grace through faith for works, which is walking in the commandments of the Lord. 1 John 3:24, "Whoever keeps His commandment abides in Him, and God in Him. And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us." If you're not a follower of Jesus Christ, today, the Lord commands you, King Jesus commands you, God commands you, follow Christ by repenting of sin, turning to Him, receiving grace, and then following Him the rest of your days. And then if you are a believer, is the law of God, is it on your mind, is it the meditation of your heart? This is what every single one of us should be doing, every day going through the commandments, "Lord, where have I not kept the law from my heart? In those places, Lord, forgive me, give me grace, and give me the power of the spirit to live in obedience to you. Amen. Would you please pray with me in conclusion? Lord Jesus, we thank You for being a great God, and we thank You for being a great king, a righteous king. We thank You, Jesus, that you don't call us to do anything that You have not done yourself. When You call us to live in obedience and obedience of faith, it's because You've already done that. You are the champion of our faith, and You lived perfectly according to the law. And Lord, we thank You for saving us. We thank You for giving us, and we pray for the power of the Spirit to empower us to continue to walk in Your ways and continue preaching the good news to those who are far from You, so that people meet You, so that people are transformed by You, so that Your church is built up and so that You are glorified. We pray for a revival. We pray for Your Spirit to fall on this church, to fall upon our neighborhood, on our community, on our town, on our city, and we pray, Lord, that You do that for the glory of Your name and for our joy. We pray this in Christ's name. Amen.

A classic sermon of the late W.A. Bradfield—addressing the sad reasons men reject God so we can avoid them and see the blessing of obedience to God.

When we hear the gospel message, we can choose to either embrace it or keep God at arm's length. The reality is that no matter how clearly the message is communicated, some will reject God while others will accept Him. This is apparent in the account of God's chosen people, Israel, who rejected Him numerous times in spite of all He did for them and through them. In his sermon, Emmanuel Donor encourages us to obey God and allow Him to reign in our lives at all times.

A classic sermon of the late W.A. Bradfield—addressing the sad reasons men reject God so we can avoid them and see the blessing of obedience to God.

Teens ages 13-18 are twice as likely to say they are an atheist. But why is anyone labeling themselves as an atheist? We look at some reasons why in this episode of the Unapologetic Show. Welcome to the Unapologetic show, where we make a case for why Christianity still makes sense in a world of doubt, with a near apostate and now Pastor and Apologist, Dr. Bobby Conway; I am your host Tim Hull. These are the reasons we think people are atheists, but let us know in the comments of this video if we missed any. And boy, did the comment section get some love in the first video we did on this, where we laid the groundwork for this conversation in last week's show. You can check that out on our YouTube Channel or click the link in the description. Part 1 https://youtu.be/LZtu0masizg

Why do people reject God's existence? There may be as many reasons as there are atheists. But we will look at several that we think rise to the top. Welcome to the Unapologetic show, where we make a case for why Christianity still makes sense in a world of doubt, with a near apostate and now Pastor and Apologist, Dr. Bobby Conway.

If someone is abused despite praying to Krishna for protection, isn't it easier for them to reject God

Summary -- It is so common for Catholics (and others) to reject the love of God, to not let that love in.  Join Dr. Peter for this episode where we explore in depth the eight natural, human formation reasons why we refuse God's love. We also look at what Hell really is and why it really exists.  Through examples, quotes, and an exploration of Dr. Peter's own parts, listen to how this critical, central topic comes alive.  And then Dr. Peter presents the an action plan for accepting and embracing God's love.   Lead-in “It's very hard for most of us to tolerate being loved.” ―Psychiatrist and Harvard Professor  George Vaillant (need description)  The Hardest Thing about love for many of us Catholics -- is to be loved.  To tolerate being loved first.  We can't love unless we take love in first.  We can't generate love out of nothing on our own, we don't have that power.     Many Catholics make sacrifices great and small in an attempt to love others.   Many Catholics go to great lengths to try to please God and to love their neighbor -- very busy people, most parishes have a few of these -- always volunteering, working, making things happen, St. Vincent de Paul, soup kitchens, corporal works of mercy -- working so hard to live out the Gospel as they understand it, but it's all external -- they are very out of touch with their internal lives.  Their prayer lives are shallow and sketchy and they are uncomfortable in their own skin and they will not tolerate silence.   The vast majority of us Catholics will not tolerate being loved deeply or fully.  We shy away from receiving love.  We get so uncomfortable, we skirt around the edges of being loved Or we allow love into us only so far.  Only so far.  We won't let real love permeate all of our being.  We let the quote acceptable unquote parts of us be loved, those parts we allow in our shop window.  Those parts we believe others will accept.   But to allow someone to love all of you -- your nasty parts, your shameful parts, your disgusting parts, your hidden leper parts, your sinful parts -- those tax collector parts, your inner prostitutes and blasphemers, your Pharisee parts, the parts of you that are so lost and so isolated and so angry and hateful?  Those parts?  Most of us will say -- No way -- no way does anyone get to see those parts if I can help it, let alone love those parts.  How about your terrified parts, your desperate parts, your wounded, traumatized parts, the ones no one wants, the parts of you that have been rejected by everybody, including yourself.  This podcast is for us Catholics who understand at least intellectually that we have those parts.  And that those parts need to be loved.  Those parts also need to be redeemed.   For anyone out there who is saying "Well, I don't think I have any parts like that, Dr. Peter. I don't have any problems being loved."  My response to that is one of two possibilities -- either you are: 1 -- A very special person, who has been freed from our fallen human condition and you've achieved an extraordinary degree of perfection in the natural and spiritual realms -- and if so, congratulations to you.  You don't need this podcast and you don't need this episode, you are so far above the rest of us.  I'm in awe of you.  You don't need what I have to offer.   Or 2 -- you don't know yourself very well.  You are out of touch with yourself and your parts, disconnected inside.   It's especially hard for us to tolerate being loved by God.  That's the primary reason we don't love God back and we don't love our neighbor and we don't love ourselves. We won't be loved first.  God loved us first.   It all starts with God's love -- not our love.  God loved us first.   Heisman Trophy Winner Tim Tebow in his Book Shaken  “We were created by Love, in love, and for love.”   Paul tells us in Romans 5:8  But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us.    God loved us first.   1 John 3:1 See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. The world does not know God.  Christianity is the way to discover who God actually is.  To discover what Love actually is.   John tells us in 1 John 4:9-10 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins.  This is what I want you to remember.  From St. John, 1 John 4:19:  St. John tells us:  We love because he first loved us  And it's up to us to take that love in, to let it reach to every corner of our being.  That doesn't sound easy.  And it's not as easy as it sounds.    Intro I am Dr. Peter Malinoski, a.k.a. Dr. Peter, clinical psychologist, trauma therapist, podcaster, blogger, cofounder and president of Souls and Hearts -- but most of all I am a beloved little son of God, a passionate Catholic who wants to help you to experience the height and depth and breadth and warmth and the light of the love of God, especially God the Father and our primary Mother Mary. What I want for you more than anything else is that you enter into a deep, intimate, personal, loving relationship with the three Persons of the Trinity and with our Lady. That is what this Interior Integration for Catholics podcast is all about, that is what Souls and Hearts is all about – all about shoring up the natural foundation for the spiritual life of intimacy with God, all about overcoming the natural human formation deficits and obstacles to contemplative union with God our Father and our Lady, our Mother  We are on an adventure of love together. Episode 94 of this podcast focused on the primacy of love in the Catholic life. Episode 95 focused on trauma's devastating impact on our capacity to love. Episode 96 discussed how trauma hardens us against being loved. Episode 97 discussed how trauma predisposes us to self-hatred and indifference, a refusal to love ourselves.  And episode 98, the last episode was all about ordered self-love, how we need to love ourselves in an ordered way in order to love God and neighbor, to carry out the two great Commandments. Today were to take a step back were to look at the most critical prerequisite for loving God and others. We are going to discuss being loved the first, accepting the love of God first. This is absolutely essential. The most critical mistake that most Catholics make is to refuse the love of God. Let me say that again.  The most critical mistake, the most devastating, catastrophic mistake that most Catholics make is to refuse to allow God's love to transform us entirely, to make us into new men and women.  Let us start out with The order of Loves God leads with love -- he goes first.  God makes the first move.  He moves toward us, we who He created, and who have fallen from grace because of original sin.  We don't make the first move.  God does.  He loved us first, and he continues to love us first  Sean Mitchell -- We Love Because He First Loved Us -- Those Catholic Men.   “We love because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19).  These words from the first letter of John beautifully and succinctly sum up the origin and end of the Christian life—which, in a word, is love.  “Being Christian,” said Benedict XVI, “is…the encounter with an event, a person, which gives life a new horizon and a decisive direction” (Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est, 1).  That “encounter” is our experience of God “first loving us.”  The “new horizon” that it opens up, the “decisive direction” that it gives to our lives, is love—our love of God and our neighbor because of His prior love of us.  To participate in that endless exchange of love is what it means to be a Christian.  It is the center from which all other aspects of the Christian life emanate.  I fear that a significant number of Catholic men miss this point and regard something other than love as the central point of being a follower of Christ. What I did not include from Benedict's quote above is what he says being Christian is not.  It is not, he says, “the result of an ethical choice or a lofty idea” (Benedict XVI, Deus Caritas Est).  To state that more generally, being Christian isn't primarily about my will or my intellect and what I do with them (i.e., make “ethical choices” and assent to “lofty ideas”).  Rather, it is first and foremost about my heart, my whole person in all its mystery, and what has been done to it by God.  Is it not the case, though, that so many of us fail to understand this?  If we're honest with ourselves, I think we would have to admit that it is, that we ourselves are among those men who place something other than love at (or at least close to) the center of our “Christian” life…even if we don't realize it. Comment on this Edward Vacek:  Love, Human and Divine: The Heart of Christian Ethics.  The sequence in loving and being loved.    (1) God affirms us; (2) God receives us; (3) we accept God's love; (4) we affirm God; (5) God forms community with us; (6) we cooperate with God in loving God in the world; and finally (7) we grow in a limited co-responsibility with God. p. 177 Genesis 3.   The trauma of original sin.   God comes looking for them -- God seeks them out -- hiding, fleeing from him in their shame and confusion and bitterness, in the trauma of original sin.   God calls out to them -- example of His gentleness.   No cursing of Adam and Eve.  The serpent is cursed, the ground is cursed.  Not Adam and Eve Provides clothing for them to help them with their shame.   Protects them from the Tree of Life.  Banishing them from the garden was an act of love -- if they had eaten from the tree of life, the Genesis 3:22- 24 Then the Lord God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”—  therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken. 24 He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.  God making sure that they won't be separated from Him forever. St. Ephrem the Syrian, Commentary on Genesis, 122 explains, “God did this lest this life-giving gift that they would receive through the tree of life become misery, and thus bring worse evil upon them than what they had already obtained from the tree of knowledge.  From the latter tree they obtained temporal pains, whereas the former tree would have made those pains eternal.  From the latter they obtained death which would have cast off from them the bonds of their pains.  The former tree, however, would have caused them to live as if buried alive, leaving them to be tortured eternally by their pains.”   The basic problem with the sequence -- not tolerating enough contact with God  to be affirmed, for Him to receive us. to understand Him in a radically different way.   And what kind of love is God's love for us?  God Himself tells us:  I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you. Jeremiah 31:3.  God is faithful to us.  He loves with an everlasting love.  Isaiah 54.10  For the mountains may depart     and the hills be removed,but my steadfast love shall not depart from you,    and my covenant of peace shall not be removed,    says the Lord, who has compassion on you. How steadfast is God's love:  Deuteronomy 7:9 tells us.  Know therefore that the Lord your God is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments, to a thousand generations Psalm 86:5 For thou, O Lord, art good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call on thee. God requires a response from us.  -- abounding in steadfast love to all who call on thee.  We have to call on him, we have to respond to the love.   That is what this episode is all about.  This is episode 99 of the Interior Integration for Catholic podcast, released on November 7, 2022 titled IIC 99 Why We Catholics Reject God's Love for Us and How to Embrace that Love  CCC 221 But St. John goes even further when he affirms that "God is love": [1 John 4:8, 16] God's very being is love. By sending his only Son and the Spirit of Love in the fullness of time, God has revealed his innermost secret: God himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and he has destined us to share in that exchange.  We have to take him up on that.   How do we know we are loved by God? -- 2 ways.   Faith and lived experience Faith  Infused virtue  CCC 150   Faith is first of all a personal adherence of man to God. At the same time, and inseparably, it is a free assent to the whole truth that God has revealed. As personal adherence to God and assent to his truth, Christian faith differs from our faith in any human person. It is right and just to entrust oneself wholly to God and to believe absolutely what he says. It would be futile and false to place such faith in a creature. CCC 153  When St. Peter confessed that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God, Jesus declared to him that this revelation did not come "from flesh and blood", but from "my Father who is in heaven".24 Faith is a gift of God, a supernatural virtue infused by him. "Before this faith can be exercised, man must have the grace of God to move and assist him; he must have the interior helps of the Holy Spirit, who moves the heart and converts it to God, who opens the eyes of the mind and 'makes it easy for all to accept and believe the truth.'"25  Lived experience of the relationship with God.   2 Timothy 1:12 But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am sure that he is able to guard until that Day what has been entrusted to me. Can feel it in consolations.   We don't want to engineer emotional experiences of closeness, manipulating emotions -- Concern about Catholic youth events, hyper emotional, noisy and using psychological techniques of influence to generated contrived emotional  experiences.  Hyping people up, getting them out of their window of tolerance.   We don't want to rely on our subjective experience of lived relationship Because the subjective experience of connection with God can vary way too much.   Von Hildebrand writes, “Our confidence in God must be independent of whether we experience His nearness, whether we sense the enlivening touch of grace, whether we feel ourselves being born on the wings of His love.” (p 210).  Mother Teresa 1957 confided to spiritual director:  In the darkness . . . Lord, my God, who am I that you should forsake me?  The child of your love — and now become as the most hated one. The one — you have thrown away as unwanted — unloved. I call, I cling, I want, and there is no one to answer . . . Where I try to raise my thoughts to heaven, there is such convicting emptiness that those very thoughts return like sharp knives and hurt my very soul.  Love — the word — it brings nothing.  I am told God lives in me — and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul.  David Scott in chapter 17 of his book The Love That Made Mother Teresa wrote:  For more than fifty years following her initial visions and locutions, Mother Teresa was wrapped in a dark, pitiless silence. She only once more heard the voice of God, and she believed the doors of heaven had been closed and bolted against her. The more she longed for some sign of his presence, the more empty and desolate she became.   Needs Weekly Reflection:  from September 6, 2022:  The Top 10 Needs That Fuel Modern-Day Idol Worship  go to soulsandhearts.com/blog   Integrity Needs My need to exist and survive  My need to matter  My need to have agency  My need to be good  My need for mission and purpose in life   Attachment needs  --Brown and Elliott (2016) Felt sense of safety and protection -- have to go through the valley of shame, fear, anger, grief  Feeling seen, heard, known and understood -- have to tolerating being in relationship, being present.   Feeling comforted, soothed and reassured  Feeling cherished, treasured, delighted in  Feeling the other has your best interests at heart   Resistance to being loved Weaving in Integrity needs and attachment needs.   Main themes Limited vision and lack of imagination, leading to a refusal to be transformed by God  We don't understand God's love  The Costs of Being Loved by God  Poor God images  Poor Self images -- Shame  Refusal to be vulnerable, to be exposed, to be revealed to God.  Lack of courage.  Anger at God -- rebellion   Limited vision and lack of imagination, leading to a refusal to be transformed by God -- unhealthy satisfaction in far more limited spiritual goals -- a willingness to settle.  Von Hildebrand According to von Hildebrand, the vision of most Catholics is way too narrow – our sights are set way too low. We are satisfied with too little in the spiritual life – we are like chickens pecking at the ground when we are called to soar as eagles.  We may be content with merely avoiding sin, overcoming vices and developing virtues. Some of us may pursue the spiritual life as a self-improvement project, satisfied with incremental gains  Weekly reflection October 26, 2022 -- Why we resist change – and especially radical transformation.  Ransom Riggs Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children character Jacob Portman “One day my mother sat me down and explained that I couldn't become an explorer because everything in the world had already been discovered." Love, in some sense, is nothing other than an invitation to great joy and suffering, so they shy away from it.  Paul Catalanotto Refusal to love is also refusal to live  The Catholic Weekly John 6: 41-42 The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, “I am the bread which came down from heaven.” They said, “Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, ‘I have come down from heaven'?”  John 6: vs. 60 and 66  Many of his disciples, when they heard it, said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” After this many of his disciples drew back and no longer went about with him. We don't understand God's love Isaiah 55:8-9  For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.  Sharon Jaynes When Love Hurts April 17, 2018.  Proverbs31.org   “Mommy, Mommy,” Steven cried. “Don't let them hurt me!”My son, Steven, was about 3 years old when he contracted a severe case of the flu. His slumped body snuggled listlessly like an old, worn rag doll.When I carried him into the medical clinic, the doctor quickly diagnosed dehydration and immediately sent us to the hospital.My heart ripped apart as the nurses strapped my little boy onto a table and began placing IVs in his tiny arms.“Mommy, Mommy,” Steven cried. “Make them stop! They're hurting me.”“No, honey,” I tried to assure him. “They're going to make you all better.”“Mommy, help me!”Steven cried. I cried. The nurses cried.I could only imagine what was going through Steven's little mind. Why are these people hurting me? Why doesn't Mommy make them stop? She must not love me. She's not protecting me. If she loved me she wouldn't let them do this. She must not care about me.Standing in the corner watching my little boy cry, I wondered if that's how God feels when I'm going through a painful situation that's for my ultimate good. I cried out, “God, why are You letting this happen? Don't You love me? Don't You care about what's happening to me? Why don't You make it stop?” Can see the need to exist here being threatened.  I might be very injured, I might die.  Integrity need No felt sense of being protected -- attachment need.  In fact, just the opposite.  The little child was being protected, but didn't understand, didn't feel it.   No felt sense of being comforted or soothed, child not open to it.  Third primary condition of secure attachment No felt sense of support for his highest good.  Fifth condition of secure attachment.   Parts of us very young, like this 3-year-old.   Hebrews 12:11  For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant; later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.  Poor view of discipline Bad experiences of being disciplined -- not having been disciplined out of love  But rather out of anger or inconvenience or frustration.   Freud -- gratification and frustration to grow.   The Costs of Being Loved by God  Real love, agape or charity, is always given freely -- we understand that much But real love, agape, charity -- real love is never received freely in this fallen world.  There is a cost to allowing real love into our lives.   Very little discussion about the costs of being loved by God.  I find that so strange.  So many Catholics don't think this way. It is as though Catholics have parts that believe that being loved by God is one of two things Being loved by God should easy, delightful, peaceful --  like being the lead character a Hallmark movie  Romance novels.  Easy love that just come naturally.    Emotional Junk food that nourishes illusions.   and when it's not, they conclude that God isn't loving them, or that they are excluded from His love Being loved by God is terrible Echoes of Hebrews 10:31    It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.   Burning away Real love -- Agape -- burns away things that are sinful within us -- it doesn't coexist with the vice within us.  Real love also purifies us from anything that is not morally wrote, but that is disordered or dysfunctional or imperfect  Real love is the greatest good.  And because it's the greatest good, it requires us to give up lesser goods.  Perceived good and actual goods.   Coping strategies, crutches that helped us in the past Analogy of the safe -- limited room, silver and gold.  1 Peter 1:7 So that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.  Isaiah 48:10 Behold, I have refined you, but not as silver; I have tried you in the furnace of affliction.   Zechariah 13:9 And I will put this third into the fire, and refine them as one refines silver, and test them as gold is tested. They will call upon my name, and I will answer them. I will say, ‘They are my people'; and they will say, ‘The Lord is my God.'”  Proverbs 17:3  The crucible is for silver, and the furnace is for gold, and the Lord tests hearts.  Job 23:10 But he knows the way that I take; when he has tried me, I shall come out as gold.  Integrity needs I exist  I matter  I am good   Attachment needs Felt safety and protection  Felt comfort and reassurance  Felt sense of being cherished and delighted in.  No experience of that while being corrected, perfected.   xThe cost is up front -- the benefit in the future.   Poor God images We don't understand God.  We don't know who he is. -- reflected in the Sharon Jaynes' story of her son at the doctor's office.    Lack of confidence in God.  Lack of Faith   God Images =  My emotional and subjective experiences of God, who I feel God to be in the moment.  May or may not correspond to who God really is.  What I feel about God in my bones. This is my experiential sense how my feelings and how my heart interpret God. Each part, not in right relationship with the innermost self, has a distorted God image.   God images are often unconscious.     Initially God images are shaped by the relationship that I have with my parents.     My God images are heavily influenced by psychological factors  Different God images can be activated at different times, depending on my emotional states and what psychological mode I am in at a given time.   God images are always formed experientially; God images flow from our relational experiences and  Also how we construe and make sense of those images when we are very young.  My God images can be radically different than my God concept.  We all have heretical God images.   Differ from  God Concept  = What I profess about God.  It is my more intellectual understanding of God, based on what one has been taught, but also based on what I have explored through reading.  I decide to believe in my God concept.  Reflected in the Creed, expanded in the Catechism, formal teaching.   Can take a while to get to these God images -- not on the surface  We don't know God very well.   We refuse Mother Angelica's Little Book of Life Lessons And Everyday Spirituality :  Allow people to love you as they must love you, not as you want them to love you. Even God does not love us as we wish Him to. Learning to love is learning to accept love as it comes. I will lose the relationship with God that I have if I push the envelope And you will.  That is true.   Episodes 37-49 on God images.   Really hits on attachment needs.   Poor Self images -- Shame Self-images are much more emotionally driven, much more intuitive, subjective, and they vary a lot more from moment to moment.     Each part, not in right relationship with the innermost self, has a distorted self image.   Pastor Jonathan Edwards  Sinners in the Hand of an angry God, 1740s    “The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked; his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire ... you are ten thousand times so abominable in his eyes, as the most hateful and venomous serpent is in ours.”  Hiding from God.  Genesis 3.   I don't want to find out I am unlovable.  I can't bear that.   Episode 24 of this podcast, God images and self images.  Really hits on integrity needs.  Especially the need to be good.   Refusal to be vulnerable, to be exposed, to be revealed to God.  Because for love to be real, for love to be agape means me allowing you to love all of me.  All my parts.  My entire being Not just the acceptable parts of me in the shop window, those that I allow others to see.   Fears of being hurt one more time -- Fears of betrayal  Fears of abandonment   We think we can hide.   Self protection -- need to survive.  Need to be good.  Lack of courage. Philophobia -- fear of love  All of us have parts that fear love.  Comfort in the familiarity of the dysfunction we know.   Predictability Change is scary  Maureen Brady, Beyond Survival: A Writing Journey for Healing Childhood Sexual Abuse “For change to occur in us, we must be willing to enter the wilderness of the unknown and to wander in unfamiliar territory, directionless and often in the darkness....We do not need to keep every little thing under control. In fact, we find ourselves only by allowing some falling apart to happen.” Erica Jong:  I have accepted fear as a part of life - specifically the fear of change... I have gone ahead despite the pounding in the heart that says: turn back. Nelson Mandela:  I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear. Anger at God, Rebellion against Him. secondary to poor God images.  Anger is the ordered emotion in response to injustice.   What is a part?  Separate, independently operating personalities within us, each with own unique prominent needs, roles in our lives, emotions, body sensations, guiding beliefs and assumptions, typical thoughts, intentions, desires, attitudes, impulses, interpersonal style, and world view.  Each part also has an image of God.   When parts are not integrated, under the leadership and guidance of my innermost self Self:  The core of the person, the center of the person.  This is who we sense ourselves to be in our best moments, and when our self is free, and unblended with any of our parts, it governs our whole being as an active, compassionate leader.   Parts in greater detail -- discussed my parts in Episode 71 A New and Better Way of Understanding Myself and Others.   Good Boy Evaluator (formerly "the Critic") Melancholio Adventurer (formerly my "part who holds fear") Feisty One (formerly my "angry part") Challenger (formerly "the Rebel") Lover Part Collaborator Parts (formerly my Competent Part) Guardian (formerly "the Intimidator") Creative Part Consequences -- Hell Nothing can separate us from God's love.   Romans 8:38-39 For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. Nothing can separate you from the love of God, not even demons -- angel and principalities.  Nothing can separate you from the love of God.  With one exception.  You.   Only you can separate you from the love of God.  Only you have the power to do that, by refusing to let that love come it. That's what sin is.  It's separating ourselves from God.  Sin is damaging our relationship with God.    Separation happens  Jesus weeping over Jerusalem Luke 19:41-44  And when he drew near and saw the city he wept over it, saying, “Would that even today you knew the things that make for peace! But now they are hid from your eyes. For the days shall come upon you, when your enemies will cast up a bank about you and surround you, and hem you in on every side,  and dash you to the ground, you and your children within you, and they will not leave one stone upon another in you; because you did not know the time of your visitation. It's not that God won't protect Jerusalem.  It's that he could not protect the Israelites, not without violating their freedom, not without forcing Himself on them.   Matthew 7:13-14   “Enter by the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is easy, that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many.  For the gate is narrow and the way is hard, that leads to life, and those who find it are few. Pope John Paul II  in a 1999 audience, God did not create Hell.  Hell  “… is not a punishment imposed externally by God but a development of premises already set by people in this life.” Catechism of the Catholic Church edited by Archbishop Rino Fisichella 2019 by Our Sunday Visitor Louis Ladaria:  To be precise, God did not make Hell.  His free creatures make it, inasmuch as they separate themselves from Him. Nor does God send anyone to Hell: it is the damned one who separates himself and does not want to enter into the Father's house. God, St. Irenaeus said, does not really look to punish the damned, but as they are deprived of all good things, it is the penalty that pursues them (Adversus Haereses, V. 27, 2; a similar idea in St. Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos, 5, 10: God abandons the sinner to his evil, he does not, properly speaking, give evil to anyone). Because of this, and despite what is said sometimes, we need to insist on the fact that Hell does not say anything against the infinite goodness of God. (p. 863).  Dean Koontz: The Book of Counted Sorrows:  “We make Hell real; we stoke its fires. // And in its flames our hope expires.   CCC 30 Although man can forget God or reject him, He never ceases to call every man to seek him, so as to find life and happiness. CCC 1037  God predestines no one to go to hell; for this, a willful turning away from God (a mortal sin) is necessary, and persistence in it until the end. In the Eucharistic liturgy and in the daily prayers of her faithful, the Church implores the mercy of God, who does not want "any to perish, but all to come to repentance. Not trying to catch us, not with a hand on the trap door to hell.   Fr. Edward McIlmail, LC  “Ask a Priest: If God loves us so much, why does hell exist?”  An analogy might help. Imagine you are on a ship that is searching for survivors from a sunken ocean liner. You see a passenger struggling in the waves behind you. You throw a lifeline to him, but he refuses to grab it. You beg him to take hold of the lifeline, but he ignores your plea. Eventually, he sinks below the waves and drowns. Does his drowning indicate that you were indifferent? When you begged him to grab the lifeline, were you displaying hate? Was his drowning your fault?  The answer to all these questions is: no. The person in the water, for whatever reason, refused your help. His drowning was the consequence. It doesn't matter why we flee from God and why we flee from His love.   Hell as isolation -- cut off from everyone.   Images of hell   Hell as isolation Tekla Babyak in 2018 article Dante, Liszt and the alienated agon of hell writes:  Dante Alighieri's Inferno portrays Hell as an alienated realm in which the doomed spirits must spend eternity in isolation and regret.  Deepest level of hell, the ninth circle:    "The treacheries of these souls were denials of love (which is God) and of all human warmth. Only the remorseless dead center of the ice will serve to express their natures. As they denied God's love, so are they furthest removed from the light and warmth of His Sun. As they denied all human ties, so are they bound only by the unyielding ice." John Ciardi, Inferno, notes on Canto XXXII, p. 248 Satan encased waist deep in ice.  Not fire.   Celeste Ng  Little Fires Everywhere character of Mia Warren “In all her years of itinerant living, Mia had developed one rule: Don't get attached to any place, to any apartment, to anything. To anyone.”   In Hell on earth Fragmentation of Dante's inferno -- lived now.   Dietrich Bonhoeffer  Life Together  “Sin demands to have a man by himself. It withdraws him from the community. The more isolated a person is, the more destructive will be the power of sin over him, and the more deeply he comes involved in it, the more disastrous his isolation.”  Sharon M. Draper  Out of My Mind  character Melody Brooks  “It's like I live in a cage with no door and no key. And I have no way to tell someone how to get me out.”  Sue Johnson Hold Me Tight   “Isolation and the potential loss of loving connection is coded by the human brain into a primal panic response.”  C.S. Lewis:  The Great Divorce:  “That is why, at the end of all things, when the sun rises here and the twilight turns to blackness down there, the Blessed will say, “we have never lived anywhere except in heaven,' and the Lost, “We were always in Hell.” And both will speak truly.”   Action Plan  Pray Set aside the time.  First thing  Personal Prayer: A Guide for Receiving the Fathers' Love Fr. Thomas Acklin and Fr. Boniface Hicks.  Benedictines, very wise, good grasp of psychology.   Prayer Primer or Fire Within Fr. Thomas Dubay   Read the first letter of John. Lectio Divina Dan Burke Spiritual Direction.com Lectio Divina, A Guide: What it is & How It helps Prayer Life  Appendix on Lectio Divina in Fr. Jacques Philippe's book Called to Life  Section on Lectio Divina titled "mediating on Scripture in Fr. Jacques Philippe's book Thirsting for Prayer   Nike Model -- just do it.  Set aside perfectionism, desire to do it well. You're not going to do it well.  You're going to do it badly.   The most important things in life we either do badly or we don't do at all.   St. Therese of Avila. says: “He who neglects mental prayer needs not a devil to carry him to hell, but he brings himself there with his own hands.”   St. John of the Cross says: “Without the aid of mental prayer, the soul cannot triumph over the forces of the demon.”  St. Teresa of Avila “Prayer is an exercise of love.” (Life 7:12)   Do your human formation work Relational spirituality -- about relationship  Any difficulties you have in relationships in the natural realm, here on earth -- you are going to bring into your spiritual relationships.   Interior integration  Why is interior integration crucial for union with God?  Weekly reflection October 12, 2022  soulsandhearts.com/blog.   Get to know your parts Reason for not praying   Jay Earley -- Self Therapy Vol. 1.  Now in the Third Edition.    Bonnie Weiss Self-Therapy Workbook.   Means Therapy or counseling -- especially Internal Family Systems therapy with a therapist who is Catholic or who at least respects your Catholic Faith and will not undermine it.   Experiential Exercise -- November 21.  Splitting those out.   Resilient Catholic Community -- you do not have to be alone.   Reopening December 1 -- new cohort Get to know your parts I've brought together the best Wait list -- email on November 10.  Sign up soulsandhearts.com/rcc If interested, contact me.   Crisis@soulsandhearts.com 317.567.9594 conversation hours 4:30 PM to 5:30 PM Eastern Time Every Tuesday and Thursday.  (not November 17 -- online conference).   Pray for me  Sent the word out.  Let people know about our offerings at Souls and Hearts, this podcast, the weekly reflections.  Sign up for those - email.  Can see the archive at soulsandhearts.com/blog   Patroness and Patron  

Welcome to Teachback Tuesday, where we play the most popular episodes from the previous season. This week's episode, “Three Common Reasons Why People Reject God” only covers a few of the common, not the complete list. Many of us know someone who has decided to abandon their walk with God, but do we really understand how hard this decision must have been, let alone what led up to it? There are always reasons for life-altering decisions such as this. This is short list with a call for more compassion. If you've been listening to Keep the Heart regularly, you know that we cover the “issues of life,” and rejecting God is a big issue. The reasons people reject God are so many that if I did an episode with three points every week for a year, we wouldn't cover them all. We'll consider three common reasons, encouraging a more careful and thoughtful approach to those who are trapped in unbelief. It is indeed a trap. Heart Conditions--from the Popular "ICU" Bible Study Series Great Gift Idea: One-of-a-Kind Rose Gold Compact Bible Ponder the Path: 31-Day Bible-Habit-Building Devotional Shop the Mall of Keep the Heart! Follow Keep the Heart on Instagram Like Keep the Heart on Facebook

Liar Liar Pants on Fire pt.1 John 8:39-47 Sunday, 10/16/22 Satan lies to get us to… 1.  Believe our lineage and not Jesus v.39-40 2.  Live for self rather than honor God v.41-44 1 Corinthians 2:14, “The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are spiritually discerned.”  James 2:14, “What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him?” James 2:17, “So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” James 2:26, “For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.” 3.  Reject God's word when sin is confronted v.43 4.  Cling to his lies and not God's truth v.44-46 5.  Have a false sense of righteousness v.47

Sunday Service | A teaching in Romans 1:18-32 through the series The Glorious Gospel with Pastor Josh Black

Have you ever met someone who was adamant about denying or rejecting God? We have learned that a person's past experiences, their upbringing, and possibly hurt or pain can lead to great misconceptions about who God really is. If we would be willing to ask people questions about themselves, and really listen to what they are saying, it can show us how to share God's love and truth with them. For more information about Bill Wiese and Soul Choice Ministries please visit us at: https://soulchoiceministries.org/  You can find more of Bill's teachings at: BillWieseTV-YouTube

A new MP3 sermon from Calvary Baptist Church Of Treherne is now available on SermonAudio with the following details: Title: Unwise To Reject God's Kindness Subtitle: II Samuel Speaker: Pastor Bartel Broadcaster: Calvary Baptist Church Of Treherne Event: Sunday School Date: 7/31/2022 Bible: 2 Samuel 10 Length: 49 min.

Lee Strobel shares how his wife, Leslie, prayed for him daily. His testimony is strong: from atheist to Christian – – this is truly a case for Christ!

Thy Will be DoneMatthew 6:10·      Our Great DESIRE should be to know God's Will·      Our Great DELIGHT should be to do God's Will·      Our Great DANGER is the Reject God's Will                   1.     The Prerequisite Matthew 6:10aColossians 1:17-18 ·      The Lord will not accept second place to anyone or anything·      The Lord is not a part-time God and His throne is not a duplex Ø  Give God the First Thoughts of your dayPsalm 5:3Ø  Give God the First Day of your weekActs 20:7Ø  Give God the First Fruits of your blessingsProverbs 3:9-10Ø  Give God the First Consideration of your decisionsProverbs 3:5-7Ø  Give God the First Devotion of your heartRevelation 2:4 2.     The PursuitMatthew 6:10bPsalm 32:8Proverbs 2:3-7 ·      Pray with IntensityProverbs 2:3·      Pray with PersistencyProverbs 2:4·      Pray with ExpectancyProverbs 2:5-7  Support the show

Is negotiating with God something we try to do? Or do with think we don't really need God in our lives because we are able to do it ourselves? While I was in hospital and recovering from a major operation, Trevor Love came to share a powerful message from Mark 8:11-13 at Long Creek Baptist Church. Take time to consider this text!

Thank you to our 2022 Daily Dose Devotions sponsor, https://www.thefamilyleader.com/ (The Family Leader)! Here are a few other ministries we are proud to highlight and partner with: Christian Crusaders, where you can find weekly 30 minute worship services at https://christiancrusaders.org/ (ChristianCrusaders.org) AND where you can hear engaging interviews and other content on https://christiancrusaders.org/ccpod-conversations (The CC Podcast: Conversations). Cedar Falls Bible Conference, whose conference videos are available at https://cedarfallsbibleconference.com/ (CedarFallsBibleConference.com). And please consider joining us for our 101st annual conference: Saturday, July 30 – Saturday, August 6, 2022. https://p2cdigital.com/ (Power to Change Digital Strategies): If you or someone you know could benefit from an anonymous online Christian mentor, please visit https://issuesiface.com/ (IssuesIFace.com). Please subscribe to or follow this podcast, leave a 5 star review, and prayerfully consider financially supporting one of our partnering ministries. Thank you for listening, and may God richly bless you! Contributors to The Daily Dose include: Tim Boettger - Director of Spiritual Care at Western Home Communities and Associate Radio Preacher for Christian Crusaders Radio & Internet Ministry Pastor Steve Kramer - Radio Preacher for Christian Crusaders Radio & Internet Ministry Andrew Nordstrom - Technical Director of Christian Crusaders Radio & Internet Ministry Matt Reisetter - Director of Christian Crusaders Radio & Internet Ministry and Director of the Cedar Falls Bible Conference Special thanks to, Terri, our podcast announcer!

Carmen talks about the wisdom we find in Psalm 14, results of a new low level of Americans who believe in God, and why atheism can be easier to address than apathy. Political scientist Daniel Bennett outlines the expectation of even more violence targeted towards pro life groups and the continually shifting political landscape in South Texas. Click here for today's show notes

Carmen talks about the wisdom we find in Psalm 14, results of a new low level of Americans who believe in God, and why atheism can be easier to address than apathy. Political scientist Daniel Bennett outlines the expectation of even more violence targeted towards pro life groups and the continually shifting political landscape in South Texas. Click here for today's show notes

Daily Devotion from the Psalms - Proverbs - Ecclesiastes Today's devotion is from Proverbs 3:11-12

You probably know someone who used to claim to be a Christian, but now they say that they either don't believe in God, or they will not discuss anything about Christianity or spiritual matters. Something happened for them to arrive at this spot. There are common reasons why people reject God, or say that they don't believe in God. It's actually a popular position today but it's also very hazardous. We can't change our minds after the final breath. It's hard to watch friends and loved ones drifting away from God and the foundational principles of His Word. It is even more painful when those loved ones are close relatives, such as a spouse, a sibling, or adult children. If you are watching this happen to someone you love, you've probably also realized by now that you can't make them turn around. That's God's territory. If we try to force change in someone else's life, we may find ourselves being rejected as well. This shouldn't make us angry. It should increase our compassion and resolve to pray without ceasing. The reasons people reject God are so many that if I did an episode with three points every week for a year, we wouldn't even come close to covering them all. We'll consider three common reasons, with a goal of inspiring listeners to consider a more careful and thoughtful approach to those who are trapped in unbelief. It is indeed a trap. ICU--In Christ Unconditionally: Heart Conditions Bible Application Study Give to the Podcast HERE Visit Keep the Heart Keep the Heart on Instagram Keep the Heart on Facebook Francie on Facebook