Category: Podcasts (Page 59 of 80)

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In an effort to sell soft drinks, advertisers have attempted to associate their products with exciting and dangerous sports such as skiing, parachuting, and mountain climbing. The implication is that real men love to face death for the sheer thrill of it. There should be no doubt that the powerful soft drink companies of America know what they are doing. Before they invest millions in such ads, be assured that the techniques they use have been thoroughly researched and tested.

The fact that humans enjoy the thrill of risk taking is well established. The numbers of large amusement parks multiplying all over the country owe much of their success to the exploitation of daring rides, that give one a sense of life-threatening danger. The millions invested in the making of action-adventure movies, and the billions earned by them also confirm our love for excitement. For a few dollars anyone can pretend to be a super hero or heroin while comfortably snuggled in the safety of their living room or a neighborhood theater.

At the same time, far too many of us tend to shrink from the greatest challenge of them all — life itself! Even with all of the inner drives that nature has provided for us, we still have a habit of shrinking back when faced with the slightest appearance of any personal risk. This could possibly be attributed to the overdevelopment of another natural instinct — self-preservation.

Most everyone wants to love and to be loved, but too often this wonderful experience is prevented by other very strong emotions. There is one in particular that is related to self-preservation, and that is fear. When out of balance, these survival instincts can distort our thinking and actually deprive us of love, intimacy and many other important needs. We have seen how the fear of becoming hurt has caused an unreasonable number of failed relationships in our culture and time. Another fear, that of losing personal security has often driven people to greed, power and excessive materialism.

The greatest Teacher of all history has given us the solution to every problem faced by mankind. He understands us better than we could ever understand ourselves. Yet after 2,000 years, we still have difficulty trusting in His wisdom. Never had any man spoken like this man. His Words penetrated into the depths of our being, challenging us to trust and believe in things that could not always be seen and touched. He reached down inside men and women and ignited that inner light which had long been a dying ember!

By His wisdom, compassion, love and truth He intended to change the world! Even many of those who opposed Him were weakened by the love in His eyes. Could it be the people sensed that somehow He knew a secret? Do you suppose their hearts told them that this One had actually solved the riddle of life?

In a short three and a half years this man had given theologians centuries of homework. Ages of religious debate have followed His life, death, burial and resurrection, but still so few have gotten the point. Jesus came that we all could have LIFE and that MORE ABUNDANTLY! His words, and testimony were given to instill in us the faith to receive and walk in that life.

How is it that we can become so preoccupied with dissecting His Words and those of His Apostles, that we could forget the reality of Him? If we could only give Him the opportunity to speak to us now, I am certain He would be absolutely overjoyed to share His Secret with us again!

Before going any further, I would like to ask you who are reading this to take a few moments to wait before the Lord. By this I mean to become quiet and submissive to Him, allowing His Peace to pervade your thoughts. If you can begin to trust in His Person and grace, you might very well hear His Voice speaking very softly and clearly to your inner being. Take as long as you can and as often as you can to get to really know Him. Only then can the reality of His teachings and commandments have their full meaning for you.

This feeble effort of my sharing with you now has an unusually ambitious goal. Part of that goal is to help all of us recover the true mystery, wonder, and adventure of Life In Jesus. Don’t laugh. This is serious. Anyone who joins in this ambitious undertaking could possibly be put in great jeopardy! Think of what happened to His first disciples! When one sets out to change the world, he might find that the world does not want to be changed! But even simple fishermen and tax collectors have been converted into revolutionaries after spending time with Jesus!

Do you want to live on the edge? Do you want to forge ahead towards a new frontier? Do you want to experience the kind of risk-taking that has real purpose and meaning? Jesus can fill you with the courage to face life and all of its challenges with confidence. He will show us how to lose our lives in order to find them. From Him we can learn and experience the true joy of a sacrificial love that is free from fear! The bonding and knitting between the participators that follow will bring a satisfaction that many have never known. Then together we can all experience a greater union through which to accomplish the exploits of God!

It is time to stop splashing our toes in the water. Modern Christianity often seems pressured to give us just enough of Jesus to get by. It will never work. We must be BAPTIZED into Him! It is okay! Just jump in! He will not let you drown. Just keep your eyes on Him and allow your heart to become filled with His Glory and Grace!

Jesus said, “The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it MORE ABUNDANTLY.” (John 10:10)

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In the parables of Jesus, we saw men who were concerned about the hardness of the master. These hoped to fulfill the least possible requirements, and to so preserve their security.

But the fruitful were more concerned about the pleasure of their master. They took risks that others would not, knowing that He would be pleased in their desire to please Him! Likewise, many today are preoccupied only with what they must believe or do to make it into heaven. Just what exactly are those minimum requirements?

This has resulted in distortions of the true outworking of the grace of God. For example, we have seen the people of God divided into groups like the “saved” and the overcomers.” In this teaching, the merely saved, simply make it into heaven, while the overcomers are to rule and reign in the Millennial Kingdom.

Of course there should always be the motivation to overcome. And the scriptures are clear that rewards are given to those who do! But the missing note to this song is one that is so often found in the lives of all the holy ones that have gone before us.

The Desire of the Lord!

“By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God. But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that comes to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.” (Hebrews 11:5-6)

Enoch was a man who walked with God for 300 years! (Genesis 5:22) This is about all we know of him. The Genesis account leaves no record of any mighty deeds he performed, only that he walked with God and that God took him! Later this commentary was given by the Holy Spirit through the writer of Hebrews that he left a testimony…. His testimony was that he gave pleasure to the Creator and Lord of the universe!

Faith was the means by which He walked with his God, and during this time spent walking with God, he learned about the things that made God happy. Sounds very simple does it not?

He was unlike his ancestors Adam and Eve, who hid themselves when Jehovah God came walking through the garden in the cool of the day. They lived in fear, while Enoch had faith. They responded foolishly to His warnings and desires for them, but Enoch responded positively.

He trusted in God’s greater wisdom, while they questioned it. He believed in the goodness and grace of God, but they perceived Him to be a threat to their overall happiness. He opened himself to God’s dealings, while they hid themselves from Him.

Enoch gave the Father pleasure, but the first couple gave Him grief.

But what was it about Enoch and His walking with God that made God’s Great Heart so happy? Could it be that he somehow touched the Heart of God? Was his simple companionship so important, and was the quality of it so rich, that delight sprang up from deep within the Lord of all?

Do you and I, simple creatures that we are, have this same potential? Does the Mighty and Majestic King of the universe hunger for fellowship with us? Are we even capable of giving Him pleasure?

Consider the passage of human history. Consider all of the covenants that God has make with men, including this new and living way, which Jesus made for us into the holiest place of all by His Blood. We must begin to understand what our Father and Creator has been after all along!

His desire has always been for a relationship with us! Without that relationship, the words of all the various covenants lose their sense of purpose. Even this glorious New Covenant has so often been trampled upon by those of its adherents who have left their First Love!

When you love someone, you delight in giving them pleasure. When someone is in your heart, you hurt when they grieve! Does the Heart of our Lord grieve? I believe it does. I believe it breaks His Heart when we honor Him with our lips alone. When we forget how much He loves to spend time with us, and begin losing our desire for His companionship, does He feel the pain of our rejecting Him? I believe so.

When in our loss of unity with Him, we become gripped with fears and insecurity, His Heart must again become sad. When this fear provokes us to frantic self-preservation, He knows what will follow. He knows that even more foolish, selfish and harmful actions will bring us sorrow, all of which touch Him as well.

After thousands of years of chasing after us, He forever settled the question concerning the desire of His Heart toward us. In this new covenant, which was solidified by the Blood of the Lamb of God, His only Son, He spoke again of a relationship: “All shall KNOW ME, from the least of them to the greatest!” (Hebrews 8:11)

From that time forward all of the powers of hell have been frantically working to prevent the fulfillment of this Word within us. For when mankind fully realizes his destiny, when he comes to know true fellowship with God, when he finally experiences the eternal joy of pleasing the Father — no place will be found for Satan or his lies!

“Their sins and iniquities I will remember no more!” How could a loving father, who has found his son returned safely to him think about such trivialities? The relationship has been restored, fellowship has been renewed. The past has vanished into the sea of His boundless Love, and the desire, the yearning for life outside of the Father’s house has virtually disappeared from the young man’s heart!

Have you become a victim of the subtlety of Satan? Has his concerted effort to complicate your relationship with God taken its toll on you? Have you spent countless minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and years attempting to measure up to an impossible standard?

Or have you bought into this other extreme of lying to yourself in regards to your relationship with Him, pursuing the things of this world to give you pleasure rather than seeking and finding the joy of pleasing Him?

If so, then the time has come for you to return to the simplicity of knowing and loving the Everlasting Father of all!

The first step for the prodigal son was to come to himself (Luke 15:17). What about you? Have you been living like a keeper of swine — one who is not even permitted to eat as well as them? Is there not something terribly wrong with this picture? Are you just now beginning to remember Who your real Father is? And are you finally beginning to remember who you really are?

It has never been your destiny to feed pigs! You have a higher calling than that! Your life is in the heavenlies, where Christ sits on the right hand of God!

Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us, that we should be called the children of God! Remember His House? Remember the peace, the safety, the security, the love? That training, that discipline that you once thought was so hard, even that is being missed about now! You now realize that His Hand, whether firm or gentle will always represent His wonderful and loving Heart for you!

Luke 15:18-19: “I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before you, And am no more worthy to be called your son: make me as one of your hired servants.”

Hear the brokenness, the sorrow of these words. This is the godly sorrow that brings about a true change of mind. No more will he long for his independence. No more will he desire those things that do not satisfy. Oh, just to be with the Father, even though the privileges of his sonship may have been lost! His presence, and this renewed relationship are all that matter now!

See the Father looking, yearning for true fellowship with His son. As in Genesis when God called “Adam, Adam, where are you?” See Him running out to him, embracing him, rejoicing to find him still alive!

“And the son said unto him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight, and am no more worthy to be called your son.’

But the father said to his servants, ‘Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet: And bring here the fatted calf, and kill it; and let us eat, and be merry: For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.’ And they began to be merry.” (Luke 15:21-24)

My friend, a time of joy and celebration is at hand! Not only for the lost sinner who has received salvation for the very first time, but also for the erring believers who are now returning to their very first love!

Do you really want to know the joy of pleasing God? Well then just come home. Receive His gracious welcome back into the family. His house is also your house!

Heavenly Father,

In the Grace of Jesus our Lord,
Amen

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Here in America and around the world we love to cheer on our favorite sports heroes. Consider the yearly Olympic competitions, which began in ancient Greece. Paul and other New Testament writers liked to use these games as a way to illustrate the challenges of Christian living.

In the letter to the Hebrews, we have a wonderful picture in which all the heroes of faith who have gone on before have finished their course. They are now seen in the bleachers and through their testimonies are cheering on the living who are now at center stage. We are encouraged to likewise run the race with patience, looking unto Jesus, who has already crossed the finished line, and waits there for us.

Just like the Olympic runner, we are to rid ourselves of every thing that can slow us down or hinder us from finishing the race. With Jesus as our goal, we see every hindrance and sin as an obstacle to entering into the fullness of life that He has offered us.

His work is finished. He faced the Cross and came out on the other side. Now we must take up our personal crosses, deny ourselves and follow Him to the victory that awaits us, which is secure because He has already won it for us!

Hebrews 12:1-2:
“Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance, and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God”

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