But one of those that I really missed for a long time was the idea that the men of great faith must have lived very righteous lives. I didn't know David had his mistress' husband killed to cover his sin. I didn't know Paul murdered the first Christians and was still the chief of sinners years after his conversion. I didn't know Peter struggled accepting Jesus' plans. And I didn't know John was so competitive!

Neither David, Paul, Peter or John had a thing to do with saving me. But misunderstanding them caused me to misunderstand Jesus. I thought having a strong faith would keep me from making mistakes. But honestly, I think my stronger faith might have even made me more prone to them at times. 

I didn't know Jesus was OK with His followers making mistakes. Sure, I knew He forgave all past sins, as long as you didn't make any more. Go and sin no more, right?! 

But I've learned that while Jesus gives you the option and the desire to not make mistakes, He knows we won't always do it. But I've also learned that He already forgave those too, and has been working them together for good from the start.   

Through His suffering, Jesus displayed His love for us, and made way for His power to be displayed in the resurrection. That's why He came, to demonstrate His power and His love definitively.

The Cross was the means to this end, but it wasn't the central theme. I pray that His power and love are demonstrated this weekend as well! Happy Easter!  

Compare this to Jesus' own words: "I am gentle and humble in heart". "My yoke is easy, and My burden is light". Does that sound like He wants us to balance like an Olympic gymnist? 

We struggle to balance when we try to walk by ourselves. Jesus doesn't want us to learn how to balance. He just wants us to hold His hand. 

I can argue that remembering how prone we are to mistakes can be a healthy reminder to seek God's direction in every action. We rarely see a mistake coming before it happens (although to be fair, I probably have). We often think we are doing the right thing at the time we make the mistake. It's only after the fact that we realize we missed it. Anytime we act without God the risk of mistakes skyrockets.

On the other hand, we can spend so much time remembering the things we messed up that we only see ourselves for our failures. But that isn't how God sees us.

But God's love is in both. I think it's OK to remember your mistakes as long as they serve as a reminder of how much God loves us, flawed as we are, and how forgiving and gracious He is. But He also loves us enough to offer His Spirit and His Word as a guide, so we don't have to make those mistakes.

Best of all, God's power is displayed in what He is able to do with our mistakes. He did some incredible things with some sketchy people and continues to today. We just have to trust and follow Him.

After Jesus' fed 4,000 people, Peter said He was the Christ. But when Jesus told them He would be killed, Peter argued with Him and Jesus called Him Satan. Peter flip flopped so fast he got two new names in five verses!

Believing in God's past goodness isn't faith. That's observation.

Faith is believing God is good even if the next phase of His plan is scarier than we could have imagined. It's remembering He is good when the scary part is actually happening. And it's relying on His grace to comfort us for as long as He allows the pain to last. 

It's not easy. Not at all. When things really got hard, Peter tripled down on denying he even knew Jesus. And this is the man Jesus tasked with building the church. 

I think He understands how difficult it is for us. But it's pleasing to Him. And that's all the reason real faith needs. 

Whether we are confronting sin, discussing interpretations of Scripture, or even the existence of God at all, we can get so fired up defending our stance that conversations turn into arguments. And in doing so, we misrepresent the very thing we are so passionately defending.

God has done plenty to prove His existence and has all the power to convict others of their sins and theological misunderstandings. He doesn't need our help. He asks us to show patience and kindness to others. This is how we represent the one thing He commanded repeatedly: His love.

When we treat others as we think they deserve to be treated, celebrate and applaud our own righteousness, and act like we know the one and only correct answer in every scenario, we represent the complete opposite qualities of Jesus.

We judge non-believers for not accepting the faith that we fail to demonstrate. What do you think Jesus would have to say about that?

When things don't make sense, trusting that He knows exactly what He is doing and that His way will ultimately be perfect, helps us to find peace in the storms. He wants us to stay focused on HIM, instead of the situations we don't understand.

As ancient as the story may seem, His presence is with us as much today as it was then, and it's every bit as miraculous today. A holy God loves us and wants us to know Him, wants to be with us every day of our lives. It's incredible.

Merry Christmas!!

It's easy to get swept up in the chaos this time of year and forget why we are doing all these things in the first place. But what Christmas celebrates is so much more important than how it is celebrated.

Maybe that part isn't entirely untrue. The lie might be in what we think His expectations actually are.

God knows everything, so He most certainly knows we are nowhere close to perfect. He is aware of, and prepared for, all of our flaws. And He loves us anyway. And will gladly use us for His kingdom if we are willing.

Ironically, perhaps the only people God can't (or at least won't) use, are the ones who think they are perfect and righteous.

Reading scripture, prayer, church, these are all great things that we need in our lives to grow closer to the Lord. But what we learn and how we grow should spill over into how we live our lives as well. If it doesn't, how much did we really grow? 

We should also remember God is the source of our growth; we certainly couldn't do it on our own. Don't forget to thank Him for that along the way.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! 

When Jesus was on earth, He voluntarily surrendered some of His God-like attributes, coming down to our level in some ways. This makes His faithfulness to the Father all the more incredible! We can't use the excuse "well, yeah, but He was Jesus" when we can't find the ability to live the way He told us to live. He lived by example, struggling with temptation without surrendering to it. 

When we can't find the power to do this on our own, God reminds us that "on our own" was never His plan. 

It is welcoming Jesus along for the minute by minute ride. The ride with the crazy drivers, difficult people, and less than ideal circumstances. He wants to be a part of it all. Church and quiet time are the easy times to follow Christ. It's the rest of life we struggle with. And that's where He wants to be. 

When we invite Christ into unrestricted 24/7 access to our hearts, our entire lives become about glorifying Him, and He is able to do so much with the little things along the way. 

Chapters

• (00:00:02) - Wonders of the World
• (00:01:24) - Jesus' patience with the she-devil
• (00:06:10) - Pondering the Humility of Christ
• (00:10:11) - Humility in the Word
• (00:14:50) - Jesus Was Tempted 3 Times
• (00:18:27) - Did They Know The Messiah Was the Messiah?
• (00:23:50) - Jesus and the Old Covenant
• (00:24:26) - Christianity and Nicodemus
• (00:26:42) - John 3: The Contrast Between John 2 and 3
• (00:31:33) - Why Was Christ So Humiliated?
• (00:35:46) - say yes to everything
• (00:40:06) - Wonders of the World
• (00:44:38) - Thanksgiving and Being thankful
• (00:47:19) - Rusty Earnhardt In The NASCAR Hall of Fame
• (00:49:33) - Tallahassee Motor Speedway
• (00:51:59) - Carl Lewis on Jimmy Kimmel's Hall of Fame Moment
• (00:54:47) - Things That God Can't Do For You
• (00:56:58) - Homework For Kids

It's so easy to take control and do what we want or do what we know we should for the wrong reasons. But if we are being led by God, our hearts align with our motives, to serve Him in gratitude, and direct others to Jesus!

Chapters

• (00:00:02) - It Takes Courage to Love Self
• (00:01:05) - My Son's First Step To 100
• (00:04:21) - Kenny on His Backup Plan
• (00:05:41) - Pray for Your Enemies
• (00:10:14) - Praying in the Spirit
• (00:15:07) - Blessings Follow Obedience
• (00:17:04) - James 5: The Prayer of a righteous Man
• (00:21:32) - What, What Was It That I Would Love to Be?
• (00:21:46) - Reveal: Self-Control
• (00:26:19) - How to Deal with a Hardheaded Child
• (00:29:05) - Who Comes First? The Test of Discipleship
• (00:31:53) - Mental preparation for God
• (00:33:22) - How to Do a Three-Part Sermon
• (00:36:33) - The Cross and God's Love
• (00:39:59) - An atheist on God and His Love
• (00:42:38) - Jesus on Self-Love
• (00:45:28) - Check Your Motions
• (00:47:49) - Closing with the Book of Jude
• (00:49:17) - Responsibilities of Others and God

Not only are those the wrong reasons to obey God, they are sinful! Self-righteousness, pride, & greed square off directly in the face of what God desires in our hearts. So are we not to obey? As Paul would say, God forbid! 

We shouldn't see blessings and obedience as a divine currency exchanged between us and God. If it were, we'd be bankrupt! 

A unique characteristic of love is that it causes you to find joy in the joy of the person you love. When I do something for my kids that makes them happy, I don't do it to make myself feel like a good dad. I do it because seeing them happy brings me joy! But bringing myself joy isn't the motivation for doing it, but it goes hand in hand with bringing them joy. 

When we pursue the things that make God happy out of our love for Him, blessings follow, because our obedience to Him is the blessings itself! 

But when it comes to the things most important to us, for some reason we try to limit His power. Yes, He can create the universe, raise the dead, multiply fish and bread, but what is that to us?!

We think this one thing in our life is the one thing God can't handle. We trust ourselves to step up and handle a problem that we think is too big for Almighty God. It really is comically stupid.

Chapters

• (00:00:02) - God's Love for Us
• (00:00:55) - Jack's Jams and Jellies
• (00:03:38) - Keep Your Testimony
• (00:06:43) - Jesus' Mercy for Mary
• (00:09:41) - Sub-Points of the Bible
• (00:14:02) - Jesus on the Crucifixion
• (00:17:35) - Wonders of the World
• (00:21:10) - How Much Wine Would Have Been Needed for the Disciples?
• (00:24:04) - Wonders of the World
• (00:26:25) - God's Will for You
• (00:29:41) - Burden of Eternal Trust
• (00:33:44) - Blessed People: How Dependent Are They on God?
• (00:38:00) - How to Be Less Prideful
• (00:40:27) - How to Fight PRIDE
• (00:43:12) - "My Mother in Law Is a Blackey Blank"
• (00:43:52) - It's Just Too Important to Let God Handle
• (00:46:44) - Real Prayers For The Lord
• (00:49:33) - Gabe's Love Letter To His Parents
• (00:52:46) - Gabe's Attempt to Earn 17 Million GTA Points
• (00:55:38) - Mariah Carey on Smartphones
• (00:59:40) - Amelia in the Amber Alert
• (01:01:51) - Moses and Aaron in the Desert
• (01:05:13) - Jesus at the End of His Own Life
• (01:06:20) - Why Did God Tell Moses To assemble the congregation and speak to the
• (01:07:36) - PODCAST: Chick Fil-A

Looking only at ourselves doesn't tell us much. We need to know the answers to these questions for other people to know how we measure up.

Very little can come out of this. We either find ways to be jealous of others or find ways to feel superior to them.

But when we compare ourselves to Jesus, there's no room for either. He holds all the power, all the glory, all the knowledge, and all the love. We will never "out know" Him, or be able to "out power" Him, and we most certainly will never be able to "out love" Him.

He is the only standard worth chasing.

Chapters

• (00:00:02) - How to Build a Personal Pride
• (00:00:48) - How to Prepare for a Hurricane in New York
• (00:04:52) - Hurricane Florence's path through the mountains
• (00:07:49) - Hurricane Florence: Taking a boat to the beach
• (00:09:18) - Chick Fil A In The Elevator
• (00:11:36) - "Oh, That's Pretty!"
• (00:12:03) - Christian Karma
• (00:16:38) - Getting It Out of the Cash
• (00:17:17) - Karma and the consequences of actions
• (00:20:12) - Respondent: Consequences of Our Actions
• (00:23:31) - Consequence and Result
• (00:25:53) - Can Christians Still Live in Sin?
• (00:26:15) - Will Christians Sin?
• (00:30:02) - How to Deal with Homeless People
• (00:30:09) - What About the Sins That You're Still Doing?
• (00:33:04) - Can I Do X and Be a Christian?
• (00:37:02) - 7 Deadly Sins of the Christian People
• (00:41:12) - Sin begins in the mind
• (00:44:19) - Can I Do This and Be a Christian?
• (00:47:07) - The standard is Christ
• (00:48:37) - John 2:1 Through 10
• (00:50:54) - Eternal Heaven and New Earth
• (00:53:49) - Isaac on the New Heaven and New Earth
• (00:57:44) - Hurricanes and the Rotation
• (00:59:19) - God Isn't a Cosmic Killjoy
• (01:03:16) - In the Elevator With Dr. Phil
• (01:03:57) - There Are 8 Million Stories in A Naked City

I've honestly never known which was harder to deal with. On one hand, you have to deal with regret when you know you could have tried harder. But on the other, when your best wasn't good enough, it's a downright humiliating thing to have to accept.

Both are hard to live with, but neither can outrun God's grace. God's grace far exceeds our best efforts or our failures. More than our effort, God desires our hearts, to put our faith in Him and know that His best efforts always work out.

As he rounds first, he trips over the bag into an embarrassing 15-foot barrel roll. Crawling frantically back towards first base, he looks up to opposing players and his own coaches' playful laughter at his expense. More embarrassing than his fall, was that he hadn't even realized that he'd hit the ball 60 feet over the fence. 

It's easy to get so caught up in our search for God's will that we forget that, by accepting His salvation, His will for our life is already fulfilled, and we've received His ultimate gift. Our search should now be for how we respond to the grace He has shown us. 

Contentment isn't about being satisfied with what God has given us. It's about realizing that He has already given us the only thing that matters.

The more we wrap our hearts around this concept, the less we see value in anything but Him and Him alone, and the more we rest in Him calling the shots from here. 

Very few people exemplify Christlikeness as well as Charlie did. He spoke the truth with more grace and love than most can manage these days.

He stood firm teaching the word of God courageously, never alarmed by the many opponents to his purpose. He worked fearlessly, and patiently, to try to unify a crooked and perverse generation.

He didn’t lay down his life voluntarily, but he was obedient to the point of death.  

We lost a bright light in a dark world yesterday, but his life didn’t end. Charlie’s life was eternal from the moment he surrendered it to Jesus. Our loss was his ultimate gain, and I am grateful for his faithful service to the Gospel.

Chapters

• (00:00:02) - Living on a Privete
• (00:02:44) - I Didn't Read The Flashpoint
• (00:03:54) - How Do We Live As Christ?
• (00:07:20) - Corinthians, Galatians and Ephesians
• (00:09:28) - Too Good to Be True
• (00:12:25) - Tongues tied in the seminary
• (00:14:12) - Reverend Kenny on Communion
• (00:16:32) - When You Can't Plan Your Life
• (00:18:53) - What's Your Lesson for Today?
• (00:20:59) - The Too Good to Be True
• (00:24:02) - Jesus on Personal Responsibility
• (00:26:21) - John 11:1-2
• (00:31:14) - Bradley on God and the Creationist
• (00:38:10) - God's Truth in One Verse
• (00:40:29) - The Man Who Missed Ben's Sermon
• (00:43:38) - Good Samaritans on Facebook
• (00:47:36) - If God Were One of Us
• (00:51:51) - Paul's attitude toward Philippians 2
• (00:52:31) - Being Nice to Non-Believers
• (00:54:40) - John 8: Don't Forget How Much He Loves You
• (00:57:42) - There's Still Plenty of God's Beauty in Your Neighborhood
• (00:59:27) - A Lesson on the Nones
• (01:05:05) - Deception of the Good News
• (01:08:46) - How Much of the Country attends Church on a Regular basis
• (01:12:50) - Creeper Creep in Southern Baptist Church
• (01:18:38) - Protecting the Fabric
• (01:20:23) - Contentment in Psalm 18:1-3
• (01:23:24) - In the Elevator With Grading Homework

You can know that God is all powerful and all knowing, without experiencing the peace that comes from trusting Him. 

You can know that God forgives sin, without experiencing the grace of His forgiveness for the worst thing you've ever done. 

You can know that God wants you to have joy, without experiencing the patience He shows while you fight His plans to provide it. 

You can know that Jesus paid for your access to this relationship, without feeling the love that compelled Him to pay such a price.

Knowing God, vs. knowing about God, is a distinction that makes all the difference. 

Chapters

• (00:00:02) - Swimming in the Pool
• (00:03:08) - TRAVEL: Adventures along the Mississippi
• (00:04:11) - Strengthening Yourself in the Lord
• (00:05:09) - Lost Phone
• (00:06:02) - Strengthening Yourself in the Lord
• (00:12:01) - Trusting God
• (00:16:18) - Heavenly Wait: Praying For Changes
• (00:19:45) - How to Strengthen Our Souls in the Lord
• (00:26:24) - Part 3 of Humility
• (00:31:57) - Knowing About God and Knowing God
• (00:36:37) - Getting Away From the World
• (00:41:45) - Quiet Time on Vacation
• (00:46:08) - Pray Without Ceasing for the Lord
• (00:48:16) - Another homework assignment for Philippians
• (00:48:33) - Philippians 1:21: To Live Is Christ
• (00:52:16) - Andy Griffith on His Face

But it can be easy to forget that of all of God's creation, we are His most precious. He created the world around us to show us His power, but He created us to show us His love. 

How can we be a light that points others to His love the same way the sun points us to His power? 

Chapters

• (00:00:02) - Hong Kong Phooey
• (00:03:23) - Dukes of Hazzard
• (00:05:41) - Andy Griffith on His Color Episodes
• (00:08:52) - Southern People Driving On Highway 401
• (00:11:43) - God Seeing Me As Righteous
• (00:15:31) - God Isn't Here for Me, but I Am
• (00:20:29) - How Can a Holy God Love Me?
• (00:23:31) - John 1: Truth in Our Hearts
• (00:28:44) - Labor Day is the earliest it can be
• (00:33:07) - Does Flood Insurance Work?
• (00:34:51) - Prayer: To glorify God
• (00:40:00) - Blowhard on His Condition
• (00:41:14) - Brain Task: Judas Never Had a Spiritual Interest in Jesus
• (00:46:37) - Separation of Judas and Jesus
• (00:50:17) - Pride is the Biggest Sin
• (00:53:14) - David at his lowest point
• (00:57:03) - Judea on Judas in the Bible
• (01:01:09) - Saved From Other People's Sins
• (01:04:46) - North Carolina History

We are natually born scorekeepers. We appreciate that Jesus wiped out the bad that we've done. But we still want Him to credit us for the good He's done through us. 

He doesn't need us. He can do anything, any way He chooses. And He chooses, above all else, to have a relationship with us. 

He paid all He possibly could to offer us this gift, and we expect a pat on the back for accepting it.  

Chapters

• (00:00:02) - Benjamin on Confessions
• (00:00:57) - Daniel Had A Funeral
• (00:03:35) - Sausage in the City
• (00:06:05) - Birthday Gifts for Kids
• (00:09:09) - Swimmer's Swim Cap
• (00:12:31) - A Good Guy's Gift
• (00:14:03) - Brandon Gets A Birthday Gift
• (00:15:28) - Ben's 55th Birthday
• (00:18:05) - Kenny Westbrook on His Birthday Present
• (00:18:29) - God's Love For Crazies
• (00:22:03) - Don't Worry About Relationships at 25
• (00:25:37) - Don't Worry About Tomorrow
• (00:29:39) - God's Love for Us
• (00:34:11) - Walking by the Spirit
• (00:37:18) - Golf Lessons For Amateur Swimmers
• (00:39:15) - God's Weight on Us
• (00:42:07) - Daniel 9: In Jesus Name
• (00:45:17) - The Lord's Prayer
• (00:49:31) - He Uses The Sip Club at Panera
• (00:52:39) - How To Get Out of a Racket
• (00:54:14) - Daniel 9: The End of Man in One
• (00:57:49) - Patriotism in the South
• (01:03:24) - Understanding the Infinite Love of God
• (01:05:39) - How to Love Your Mother
• (01:08:40) - How to Pray for Your Own Life
• (01:12:18) - Ben's Car Gets Passed Inspection
• (01:14:12) - The 6 P's of Bible Study
• (01:18:43) - Reasons We Had A Pool

The same thing can happen in our spiritual lives. In our haste to be satisfied, we fill up on the carb loaded junk, leaving no room for God to truly satisfy us. 

More often than I want to admit, I'm asking how I can seek God so He will give me what I think I need, forgetting that seeking God is all that I need. 

Chapters

• (00:00:02) - Biblical Questions for the Week
• (00:03:09) - Ticket to Heaven
• (00:06:06) - Easter Crosses on a Bank Sign
• (00:08:07) - God's Help For Hair!
• (00:10:17) - Mark 5: Legion and the Message
• (00:12:01) - MacArthur Study Bible: The Miracles of Jesus
• (00:16:27) - Luke 11: The Spiritual Healing
• (00:20:51) - Life is Not Equally Fair
• (00:26:26) - What She's Got and Don't Compare
• (00:27:05) - Ecclesiastes 9: The Prosperity Gospel
• (00:27:57) - The Secret to Living a Rich Life
• (00:31:03) - Scott Scheffler on Renewing His Mind
• (00:35:09) - PGA Champion Brandon Lee on the Trophy
• (00:38:50) - God's Love Is Not Promised
• (00:41:21) - How to Write a Good Sermon
• (00:44:32) - Pastor's Prayer for Saturday Night
• (00:48:07) - Colossians 3: The Most Important Part for Teens
• (00:52:49) - Demon Possession in the Gospel
• (00:57:20) - Pierce on the Spiritual Stuff
• (01:01:32) - Non-Baptists and Islam
• (01:07:22) - How to Convert a Muslim
• (01:10:25) - Are All The Religions Anti-Christ?
• (01:12:54) - Starting the Series on John 1
• (01:14:12) - God's Plan for Luke 12
• (01:17:28) - Pl polo

But apparently the shelf life on a 4-runner's fuel sensor is about 213,000 miles. So I recently started playing the old odometer game. Fill up, reset the odometer, and keep the odometer below 400. Now I'm not quite so confident in my splash-and-go stategy. I check the odometer more often than I check my mirrors, and if it hits triple digits I start second guessing if I remembered to reset it.

We can do the same thing with our spiritual tank. If we're not careful, we start relying on the fuel light to tell us when we're getting low. But God didn't create us to run on fumes. His desire is to fill us with the Spirit so we can fully enjoy the fellowship with Him! 

Chapters

• (00:00:02) - Prayer: Taking the scenic route
• (00:00:47) - Who Really Owns the Church?
• (00:03:27) - Seniors Get Confused By Birthday Texts
• (00:06:12) - Happy Birthday!
• (00:08:55) - How to grow a fig tree
• (00:11:31) - Big vines grow wild in Montana
• (00:11:48) - Israel Was Scattered For 2,000 Years
• (00:17:57) - Separation of Jew and Christian
• (00:23:07) - Adam Levine on Jews and Christianity
• (00:28:47) - Biblical parallels between today and the Bible
• (00:33:49) - How do you prove God is real?
• (00:36:50) - Is Doubt Just as Serious as Idolatry?
• (00:41:17) - Doubt in the Life of God
• (00:45:54) - Daniel the Man of Prayer
• (00:49:32) - Moses and the Prayers
• (00:54:06) - Praying for a Distressed Person
• (00:57:02) - Prayer for the World
• (01:03:25) - Reclaiming the Promises of God
• (01:08:16) - Taking the Longer Route
• (01:13:56) - Deacon's List

How much fear, worry, and doubt to we carry around with us? These aren't fun, and they aren't what God intends or wants for our life. He wants us to trust in Him completely. 

When we follow Him with our whole heart, there's nothing to fear, because we know He is with us. There is nothing to worry about, because we know He holds the future. And there's nothing to doubt, because we know He is faithful. 

It's simple math: fear, worry and doubt show us the part of our heart the Lord doesn't have. 

Chapters

• (00:00:02) - How to Lose Weight on a Challenge
• (00:02:54) - Softball Coach
• (00:04:57) - Fat Kenny on 'This Morning'
• (00:07:36) - Brandon on The Fishing Podcast
• (00:08:46) - Kenny on Cutting My Grass
• (00:11:36) - How Real Is Podcast Analytics?
• (00:14:35) - Gardener Takes Over the Yard
• (00:15:55) - Eminem's "Use This Gospel"
• (00:20:16) - DJ Khaled on Eminem's 'All In'
• (00:23:56) - Josh Hamilton
• (00:30:10) - Josh Hamilton on Social Media and His Christian Calling
• (00:34:42) - Pastor: Do We Judge Others?
• (00:40:32) - Kenny on Judgeing People
• (00:42:26) - Another example of this is with Gabe
• (00:45:26) - Does God Allow His Anger to Last?
• (00:48:35) - Daniel the Book of Suffering
• (00:52:55) - When You Can't Get Down on Your Kids
• (00:53:25) - North Carolina drivers on the road: Too judgmental
• (00:57:32) - The Best Places to Live in North Carolina
• (01:01:13) - Malcolm Phelps on His Training
• (01:04:14) - Bob Phelps swims for fun
• (01:05:56) - Getting the Numbers this Week
• (01:06:24) - Joshua and Caleb: What Set Them Apart?
• (01:10:18) - Outcasts in Society
• (01:13:53) - How To Survive In the Heat

Kenny said people might be shocked to know who I really am, and you might be. So, brace yourself...

I cuss a lot. Not as much as I used to, and I'm working on it. But I say a lot of things I'm glad y'all don't hear. I also like Miller Lite more than I probably should. And I'm about two cute blondes in yoga pants away from actually gouging my eyes out. And the pride, oh, the pride. 

To be fair, I don't say the Lord's name in vain, I'm rarely actually intoxicated, and I've never committed adultery. I mean, technically, according to Romans, well and Matthew....look, I've never cheated, alright?! 

This leaves me just enough wiggle room to also struggle with self-righteousness. I'm basically the worst parts of the Old Testament masked as a Pharisee. 

Why admit this? Because in the hidden parts, God shows us wisdom. It's only by admitting the truth that we allow God to start changing it. 

I don't regret it because it was wrong. Honestly, it sounds pretty righteous to me. I regret it because it turns out it was a lie. To my pastor. In chruch. God reminds me of this pretty much every time I question Him. 

Sometimes we feel like we're running on a treadmill. No matter how hard we try, nothing we do seems to move us where we are trying to go. Other times, we feel like dust in the wind, blown all over the place with no control at all over where we are heading. 

But sometimes God wants us to stay put for a while, so He sends us a treadmill to keep us busy. Other times, He knows that we can't get where He wants us on our own, so He sends a gust of wind to help us get there. 

There's a lot of peace to be found in what I said in the first episode. If you mean it. 

Fortunately, the recording was already uploaded to YouTube, so I was able to get my hands back on it. It comes in handy to have some extra episodes laying around when vacations and life keeps us from recording as often. I hope you enjoy the irony, considering we’re about as far away on the calendar from Christmas as we could possibly be. But Jesus is the gift that keeps on giving the whole year!

Certainly, God wants us to develop good judgement. But we get frustrated that He allows us to have bad judgement along the way. Free will isn’t always convenient, but it is part of His plan. When we make mistakes, or things just don’t work out the way we hoped, we have a choice in how we can handle it.

It’s so easy to fall into blame, regret, and guilt. But when we remember God’s patience, grace, mercy and faithfulness, we can find joy and gratitude in how God will use them for growth.

But we are not free from the earthly consequences of sin. And freedom shouldn’t be mistaken for God's apathy toward our sins. He will still love us, but He will hate our decisions. And out of His love for us, don't be surprised if He goes out of His way to redirect and correct them if they become habits in our lives.

When we see our kids in danger, we tend to throw tactful out the window. Sometimes God has to do the same with us. But as His children, we shouldn’t lose sight of the love that He is showing us, even in the harsh corrections.

Sometimes we try so hard to figure out God’s magic formula for our lives that we forget He created all of these concepts and intended for us to have a healthy blend of them. It’s Ecclesiastes 3 in motion. But how do we decide where the line is and exactly how much of each we need, and when? Simple, we don’t.

The solution to the magical God formula comes from accepting that He is the only One who knows it. Being humble enough to submit to His will when you don’t know what His will is, that’s peace. Because He doesn’t usually give us the answers the way we want them. He tells us it’s time to rest by taking away our job unexpectedly. He tells us we need to be more patient by sending us people to test it. And if He decides you need a little more humility, well, I’ll be praying for you.

But the only way He can truly teach us how to stop leaning on our own understanding is to send us situations beyond our comprehension. That’s how He develops the one thing we can never have too much of: Trust in Him.

My kids love steak, and I cook a pretty good one. But if they asked me to cook it in the toaster, I’d slap them upside the head with a sirloin and tell them to get out of my kitchen. Our plans probably sound even more insane to God, so He has to lovingly redirect us a lot. But we shouldn’t lose sight of His love and joyful nature through these corrections. We should be grateful that He cares for us enough to not let us settle for our own plans.

The Lord has all the power in the world, literally, but He uses it to show us those fruits of His Spirit. I imagine that God is pretty happy and upbeat, probably quick to draw a laugh or smile, and somehow maintains that even when we test His patience and self-control. He doesn’t boss us around to feed His ego. He just loves us too much to want us to do things the wrong way.

Every hour of every day is a constant choice to choose our path or God’s path. Both will involve heartache, disappointment and struggles. But God’s path uses those struggles to grow us closer to Him, and our path uses them to compound our problems and distance ourselves from His love.

But when we ask for His will and mean it, our anxiety fades into peace, because we know His ways are better than ours anyway. We don’t even have to worry about what that means. We can just live in gratitude for what He’s given us, and is giving us, even when we don’t yet know what that is.

A more important question we can answer is what DID He do? It won’t give us the answer to every situation we face, but before we even begin to try to guess what He would have done if He had faced a situation we are in, we should at least do our homework and use His actions as a reference to build on. But we often skip, or forget that step.

What was important to Him? How did He encounter sinners? Who did He challenge the most to change their ways of thinking? What were His commands?

Jesus didn’t tell us to know what He would do. He told us to do what He told us to do. But when our pride tells us to take on more responsibility than He asked of us, we may find ourselves breaking His commandments in the process.

He guides us, developing us to be more like Jesus, who was perfect. And it’s not just so we’ll be better people and make Him happier. It makes our lives better too! He knows it’s best for us. That’s why He tells us to do it!

Honor and treasure your spouse, and you’ll be more likely to avoid an expensive painful divorce and enjoy a happy marriage. Treat others the way you want to be treated, and you’ll spend less time fighting and probably have more friends. Don’t stay out drinking until 2:00 in the morning and you’ll feel better the next day and not have to ask your friends to fill you in on what happened.

Some of God’s plans to develop us aren’t quite so obvious to understand. That’s where we have to trust Him and remember He knows a lot more than we do, and whether we see it yet or not, He’s right.

That was dread. I knew it was going to happen. I just dreaded it. Worry is an even dumber emotion. When we worry, we don’t even know the thing we are worrying about is going to happen. But we still let the possibility of something bad happening rob us of days, weeks and months of the joy and peace that God intended for us to have. Maybe that’s why he told us not to do it.

We dread bad things we know will happen and worry about bad things we think might happen. But if we believe in who God says He is, we should be able to remember that God already has the future covered and He didn’t forget about us in His preparations for them. If the bad happens, He’ll give us peace to get through it and ultimately use it for His good.

We can believe that and enjoy His peace or trade our joy in for the pain and fear that accompany doubting God. It’s a simple choice. It’s just not always easy.

As a non-believer or maybe even a new believer, I think the first half of that line is important to remember. God doesn’t expect us to clean ourselves up. He loves us as we are and that’s how He wants us to come to Him. But make no mistake, He wants us to come as we are, so we don’t have to stay that way.

I loved Ben’s analogy about giving his dog a bath. The image that came to mind was Simba fighting his momma trying to give him a bath in The Lion King. We don’t always realize that we need a bath, and most of us probably fought them when we were young. Christian often asks me to smell under his arms in protest of the process.

But God knows we need it. And like our kids, the process isn’t usually worth the fight we put up to prevent it. Yeah, some soap might get in our eyes once in a while, and a little water might go up our nose. But more often than not, God uses “gentle correction” to steer us toward the path of righteousness. It’s having to correct your nine-year-old for doing exactly what your eighth-grade basketball coach ripped your hair out for, but you still do every day. Or your 12-year old’s Bible test being on your favorite verse, the one about not worrying, when all you’ve done for a month is worry. God has His ways.

As we grow in Christ, the second half of that line starts to become more important to remember. We already know He loves us the way we are. Why wouldn’t He?! But no matter how much we think we’ve grown, He still sees work to do. As “mature Christians” we’re awfully grateful for the work God has done in us, as long as we think He’s finished. But when He breaks the soap back out, there we are, asking Him to smell our arms in protest.

The 66 books of the Bible tell a lot of stories and provide a lot of wisdom in a lot of areas. But the common themes seem to keep repeating. God loves us. God is perfect. God is there for us. God is patient and forgiving. Far from an exhaustive list, but when we remember these things, the minor details of our lives fade in significance.

When we cling our hope to things of this world, we will be hurt. Money can be lost. People can hurt us. We can get sick. There’s no limit of things that can go wrong in our lives that may be out of our control. God knows that when our joy is determined by these things, our lives will be emotional roller coasters. But His love never leaves us, and His power never fades. He knows that the only true peace and joy are found in our relationship with Him, which is why He gave so much to prove His love and provide us a path to it. It’s up to us each day to decide which path we are going to walk.

What was God’s part? While you rested, God kept your heart beating, brain functioning, lungs working, with oxygen in the room at a comfortable temperature and made sure no asteroids fell on your head (and helped your ears hear the alarm clock when it went off).

Our growth with God is the same way. We read the Bible, we go to church, we pray. But it’s His Spirit that enables us to understand and actually grow in Him. Otherwise, we are just going through the motions. You can know the Father and know the Son, but if you don’t know the Spirit you’re really missing out. That’s how the stuff you hear and read about starts to come to life.

I’ve always known that God could do anything. I think the big difference for me has been realizing I can’t do anything without God. It’s all Him, simple as that.

Here’s a question: what did we do to not deserve it? Christians aren’t somehow exempt from suffering. But it’s so easy to slip into thinking we are owed some cosmic and divine favor thanks to our faithfulness to our Creator. But here’s the thing: God doesn’t owe us anything; He’s already given us everything.

Our relationship with God does provide us with one advantage over non-believers. God provides His children with His comfort and peace in our struggles, and it surpasses all understanding, far sufficient to get us through them. But our complaining fills up the room with enough of our own hot air to fog our view of Him, getting in His way of providing this peace.

We’re going to have bad days, struggles, failures and heartbreaks. And sometimes God’s love may feel like the only thing we have going for us. But if we’re not careful, we can get so wrapped up in our own feelings that we block our only source of comfort.

What a waste that must feel like to the One who paid for our privilege.

It’s easy to shy away from God’s instruction. Sometimes His lessons are difficult. Sometimes they make us uncomfortable. Sometimes they make us recognize our imperfections. But they are always intended to grow us and draw us closer to Him.

In order to accept His instruction, we have to first admit that we need it. And that can be a lot harder than it sounds like it should be. We seem to naturally think that we know best and think we have to rely on ourselves to grow, even in our relationship with God. We forget that that’s His job. Our job is to admit that we need Him and then listen to (and obey) His instruction. That’s all. He doesn’t need us to figure out the plan. He just needs us to follow it.

Nick Saban won 7 championships, but he also failed to win 21 times. But God doesn’t fail. Ever. He just needs us to remember it.

For example, what good is God if He is all loving and all knowing, but limited in power to do anything to help us? This places Him as an empathetic bystander, knowing what has happened and will happen, but unable to step in and help.

If God were all loving and fully capable of anything, but limited in knowledge, how can we trust Him to use those powers for good, even with the best intentions? And worst of all, a god who can do anything and knows everything, but lacks compassion, sounds more like a really dangerous super villain than someone we can trust.

These three attributes of God do not just add to each other, they compound His power. He knows everything, has the power to do anything, and how does He use these unlimited abilities? He devotes it all to demonstrating His unlimited love for us.

Jesus demonstrated this perfectly on the Cross and in His resurrection. He showed His knowledge in His teachings and predictions of His own death, and His power in His resurrection. But why did He do it? So we would all come to fear the wrath of the Father and finally start obeying His commands? No. To free us from our inability to obey and to prove, once and for all, that He loves us and can, and will, do anything to prove that.

When we face challenges and uncertainties, it’s easy to doubt God. But when we do, we can ask ourselves which part we are doubting. Do we think our circumstances surprised Him? Do we think He can’t do anything about it? Or do we think He doesn’t love us enough to help? Knowing that all three are false leaves us with only one option. To trust Him and enjoy the blessing of knowing that how He handles it will be best.

If you read a recipe for French Souffle’, then you will know how to make French Souffle’. But that doesn’t mean you can do it. In order to do it, you will have to do the steps in the recipe.

You only really learn from doing the steps. Reading the recipe will tell you the right way to do it, but doing it wrong a few times will teach you why that’s the right way. My first steak in college was a charbroiled leather nightmare, but now I understand the importance of meat selection, and that no matter what your buddy says, A1 and Miller Lite is not a good marinade.

I can read the recipe in Matthew (5:44) and have the knowledge that Jesus told us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us. But when I put it into practice, I start to sound a lot like the Pharisee in Luke 18, thanking God for making me better than them. Apparently, I missed a step in the recipe. Let’s try again. After failing at it enough, I’m starting to realize it might just be easier to try not to have as many enemies in the first place.

Growth comes from trusting the Lord with all of our heart and leaning on His understanding instead of our own, in all of our ways. I trust the Lord, I lean on His understanding instead of my own. Sometimes. The rest of the time I spend learning why I should have.

But we don’t need to worry about what God is doing. God’s handling what God needs to do, and He’s doing it just fine. What we need to be worrying about is what God wants us to do. Simple little impossibly hard things like obeying His commands, loving each other, caring, encouraging, that kind of thing.

And trusting that He knows what is right, has the power to do it, and is faithful to His promises, because He loves us.

Own my own, here would be my list: Lose 15 pounds, grow my business, finish reading the Bible. Now, let’s ask a simple question: why?

I want to lose 15 pounds so I’ll look better and feel better. I want to grow my business so I’ll have more money and feel more successful. I want to finish reading the Bible so I can say I’ve read the entire Bible and have more divine wisdom to help me navigate life. If I take this list to God and say “Lord, please help me accomplish this”, I imagine He’d reply “Why should I?”

I can play around until I think I’m aligning these somehow with God’s will. He wants me to be healthy and happy, so he’d want me to lose weight. He wants to bless me so surely He wants me to have more money so I can give and bless more people. Obviously, He wants me to know His Word and grow in my relationship with Him. But He knows those aren’t my real motives.

But I think it goes further than motivation. It’s about recognition and reverence for His righteousness and power. He doesn’t just want us to set our goals to align as best we can with His. Ultimately, I think He wants to set our goals for us. Not because He’s power hungry, but because He loves us and wants to help us achieve the right goals.

If God gives us a goal, the command itself is embedded with a promise for His power to fulfil it. He doesn’t fail, and He doesn’t set us up to. So, I just have one New Year’s resolution this year, and it’s not complicated. Obey God.

Jesus came to give life more abundantly. But as the recipients of this amazing gift, we think we ought the be the ones who get to define it. Love, joy, peace, that sounds great and all, but what’s the trade in policy on this thing? “I’m pretty well set in the patience department” we might negotiate, “How about some more money instead?” or “I’ve got plenty of self-control but don’t skimp on the kindness. I do wish people would be nicer to me!”

I bet if God were the proverbial genie granting 3 wishes, our requests would reveal at least 4 desires of the flesh. But that’s not what it says.

It’s kind of ironic when you think about it. The word abundant means “existing in large quantities” (in English, I’ll leave the Greek to Ben). How exactly did we turn that into a promise to increase the quality of our own lives, at the individual, singular, level? Isn’t that kind of the opposite of abundant?

Maybe He just meant that He came to give life to more sheep? Considering that without Him, all the sheep would die, that interpretation seems reasonable. But it’s not much of a marketing slogan. Unless you’re a sheep.

So what? We follow Jesus just so we get to live? Not to go all Ecclesiastes on you but, yeah, from John 10:10, that’s about all I read.

But don’t just read John 10:10. Back up a few verses and read about knowing His voice and Him calling us by name. Rewind to John 3 and remember much the Provider paid for this gift, and fast forward to John 14 - 16 and read about how simple the Shepard made His commands and His promises to help us fulfill them.

Read other books too. He doesn’t promise us riches, but Matthew 6 does promise that He’ll provide for us. And when it doesn’t seem like He will, Hebrews teaches us how to have faith. When we get tired of turning the other cheek, Ephesians 4 helps us handle conflict, and when we’re the ones we keep having to forgive, Romans 7 reminds us that we aren’t the first and Romans 8 reassures us that God accounted for our imperfection.

To truly discover the abundant life, we have to get to know the Provider. Yes, He’s more concerned with giving life to more sheep than improving the quality of life for one, but He’d love to let all of the sheep participate in the mission.

I can’t define the abundant life because it is beyond measure, existing in infinite quantities of infinite varieties. But I do know where to find it. Go back to John 10:10.

Following Jesus is a decision that repeats itself more than Bill Murray in Groundhog Day. It has to be. He told us that Himself, and if you didn’t read the warning label in the welcome packet, well, join the club, I guess. But He didn’t say ‘pick up your cross and follow Me once’, or even ‘once a week’. He told us it was daily. But we aren’t always the best listeners. Honestly, it isn’t even daily. It’s constant.

So, what exactly do we have to do? Read the Bible all day? Pray without ceasing as Paul suggests? Oh, if it were only so simple! Prayers can become vain repetitions, and even the enemy can quote Scripture. To truly follow Jesus, we have to do something way harder than that.

We have to trust God. Constantly.

It gets worse. It’s not just the easy stuff. We have to trust Him with everything. Yes, even that thing. Most importantly, that thing!

Did I mention this was constant? It’s not just giving Him that most important thing once, or even daily. I’ve regifted my biggest problems back to God more times than an ugly Christmas sweater, only to steal them back like a tormented game of Dirty Santa.

The only thing I’ve found to manage this impossible requirement is to tell myself that God knows more than me. And if you think that’s easy, well, you don’t know me. But I’m trying. Constantly.

As I’ve prepared for Thanksgiving, I’ve been trying to inventory all the things I’m grateful for. Starting at the top, I’m thankful for Christ. When you let all of that soak in, it’s about enough to stop you in your tracks. Not only for what He did for us at the Cross, but all that He taught us before and all of His guidance since. We certainly didn’t deserve it, and that alone is more than we could ever say thank you for enough.

Then you have the obvious top 5s or top 10s of our lives. Our families, kids, friends, homes, all of the things as Americans we count as a given right rather than a blessing, until we realize that these things aren’t so automatic for a lot of people around the world, and even right here at home.

But when I thank God for the things I’m grateful for today, I start to also thank Him for the things that caused them. Many of today’s blessings grew out of something I was worried or angry about in the past. When I was begging God to change these things, I didn’t know what I was asking Him to take away. And I’m so grateful that He didn’t listen.

God is always working. everywhere, for everyone who loves Him, in every circumstance. So, we should be thankful for the blessings we can see, but I think we can also go ahead and thank Him in advance for all of the blessings we can’t see yet from the things we may not be so thankful for today.

Happy Thanksgiving!

(PS, go like us on Goodpods (https://goodpods.com), and maybe we can crack the top 5)

The man was the father of under complicating things, to a fault. His faith was no different. It was like he read Matthew 22 one day and said “Greatest two commandments, got it. That’s all I need to know.”

I like to say he got the big things right. He certainly couldn’t judge others. He and his friends wouldn’t have been allowed in the church at Corinth, even as visitors. He’d evict a tenant from a property because they were $1,000 behind on rent and send them a check for $2,000 to get them back on their feet. He invented new ways to use the four-letter words, but that Three-Letter Word was never out of context.

He didn’t pretend to be perfect. I’m not even sure he tried to be “righteous”. But he knew how to love, because that’s what “the Master” said was most important to Him.

He died when I was 18, and it’s probably a good thing. Because I’ve spent the last 21 years trying to quit most of the things he taught me how to do. Except for loving God and loving others. No one ever taught me that any better.

We’re bad to play this scene out with God, getting frustrated that we don’t have all the answers, and feeling entitled to the truth we think He’s unfairly withholding from us. The funny thing is, Jack’s line actually works from God’s perspective. We can’t handle the truth. But God isn’t hiding it from us. We know the truth. We just can’t handle it.

I mean, really, how much simpler could God have made it? He put it in writing. He sent us the perfect demonstration. Not a metaphorical one either. A literal fellow human, like us, to show us how it was done. And while He was here, He told us exactly what to do. It’s not like He gave us the instruction manual for cracking the Da Vinci Code. He told us to love God, love each other, and He’d do the rest. That’s it.

It’s not complicated at all. But we can’t handle it because it’s too simple. It doesn’t give us anything to be proud of. No mountain to climb, no race to win, nothing at all to feed our ego. It robs us of any sense of accomplishment and requires us to accept the simple fact that we can’t do anything without God. Put simply, it requires us to admit the truth that deep down, we already know, but can’t handle. At least not without Him.

Here’s the problem: He’d never get elected. Want to hear something even worse? You probably wouldn’t vote for Him. And neither would I.

Consider His platform: He’d close every “reproductive healthcare” facility in the country and impose a tax of, I don’t know, around 10 percent, on all Christians that would go directly to funding a new program supporting unmarried single mothers.

He’d deport every illegal alien on day 1 and pass immigration reform that simplified the process so much that twice as many new immigrants showed up on day 2. This would throw a huge wrinkle into the economy. But He wouldn’t care. He’d just dip into His Christian tax fund to make sure everyone was provided for (including the single pregnant women arriving from Mexico).

He’d appoint a hippie from California as His press secretary to communicate the vision He had for His people and invite the most ruthless and greedy Wall Street executives to Presidential dinners at the White House, setting quite the scene for when the LGBTQ+ leaders showed up with the best seats at the table.

As Christians, we might know that Christ is the answer to the world’s problems. But we only like to think about how He’d fix the problems WE HAVE with the world. How can we be His hands and feet if we only think of how His grace extends to our needs? The right hand might be on the opposite side of the left, but neither one can scratch itself. Just sayin’.

I don’t believe it’s as simple as being dunked in water. I don’t believe any prayer will do it. I don’t believe a certain attendance record at your local church or even the denomination of this church is a deciding factor. In fact, I can make a longer list of things I don’t believe will get us into Heaven than I can of things that I think will.

At the same time, I’m almost positive that whatever the answer is, it’s not a complicated one. I don’t believe God sent His son to bear the burden of our sins and suffer the way He did to demonstrate God’s love, only to make the acceptance of this love difficult to figure out. If we have to solve a spiritual Rubik’s cube in order to receive our salvation, why put Jesus through that in the first place? But if salvation is so simple, why is the Bible not clearer on what exactly defines it and how it’s obtained?

I believe it’s because we are asking the wrong questions. God didn’t share the minimum standard with us because that’s not what He wants for us. He did make it clear and simple. He tells us to seek Him with our whole heart, and to seek first His Kingdom and the rest will be added. If we seek God with all our heart, it’s impossible not to find salvation in the process, but it will be on our way to far greater things.

This isn’t for God’s benefit. It’s because God wants us to enjoy more of His blessings than just the minimum. He knows that we will have more peace, love & joy seeking Him with our whole heart than we will by seeking enough of it to get us to Heaven. Rather than worrying about what we have to do for God, we should be seeking all He wants to do for us, and Heaven will most definitely be included.

I have absolutely no Biblical reason for this. God isn’t giving out bonus points for asking for the right things. He’s well aware that He knows more than we do about what is best for us. He’s even aware of all those selfish things I want to ask for, and probably finds it funny that I pat myself on the back for thinking I kept them a secret.

1 Peter 5:7 is an interesting verse. In the NASB it reads “casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.” But the KJV uses “care” in place of anxiety. “Care” has a lot of definitions, and I’ll yield to the Biblical scholars that they mean the same thing. But in modern English, you could paraphrase that to mean entrusting your care to Him, like you cast the care of your child onto a teacher or the care of your health to a doctor. If you read it this way, the next line just affirms the first.

These two ways of reading the verse don’t contradict each other. They are actually reinforcing. We can trust God with all of our worries, because He cares for us. And because we can trust Him to care for us, we should entrust Him with our care.

I don’t treat prayer like it’s a game show because I’m afraid God will be mad at me for asking for something He doesn’t want me to have. I do it because I’m afraid He’ll give it to me, and it’ll be my fault for asking it! But this is so flawed. Part of casting our care and worries onto God means trusting Him to tell us “No” when that’s the best answer. Paul says in everything by prayer…make your requests known to God. He didn’t say God would grant them. He says the peace of God will guard our minds in Christ Jesus. That’s the answer He wants to give us.

No offense to anyone who has participated in these self-inflicted torture tests, but I’m out. After paying about a $100 entry fee, you get to run like 2 miles through freezing water and mud, through dozens of obstacles including my personal favorite, live electrical wires! But not for nothing, if you complete the course, you get a free tee shirt.

At first glance, this might be the way we see the Christian Walk. Being crucified with Christ and baptized into His death doesn’t sound fun (Romans 6). Dying to self and picking up our cross daily doesn’t sound appealing at face value either (1 Cor. 15 & Luke 9). But that’s because of our flawed human perspective. Our selfish nature causes us to see our ways as best and, as a result, we view trading them for God’s righteousness as a sacrifice.

But God doesn’t see it is a sacrifice. From His perspective, we are ALREADY running the self-inflicted torture test, and He’s offering us a way out. Everything Jesus suffered at the Cross was to give us access to a better way. It even refunds our entry fee and ends up with something way better than a tee-shirt.

If you want to see how much God wants us to stop torturing ourselves, just look at the Cross. Did the same God who loved us enough to brutally sacrifice His only Son for us do it just so we could sacrifice our own joy back to Him? If that’s what He was willing to do to give us another way, how much torture are we putting ourselves through?

I won’t try to answer that. Even God couldn’t find words to answer that. He showed us with Jesus.

We’ll never change the problems of the world. We weren’t designed to do that. Instead, God wants to change our perspective. For Him to be able to do that, sometimes we have to stop asking who to blame, so He can show us who to help.

Week to week, from Ben’s sermons to podcasts, Bible studies and random conversations, a lot of theme words start to pop up. Faith, truth, grace, gratitude, patience, freedom, all just from a quick scroll back through show titles in the past few months. But no matter how complicated we try to make it, God always points us all back to the same answer. Love ties it all together, like a start/finish line we always seem to circle back to.

It’s easy to get the cause and effect backwards on this one, thinking that we love others so God will love us. But He loves us either way. We love others because God loves us. Loving others isn’t a prerequisite. It’s a litmus test. His love propels our love for others. And if we don’t love others, it basically shows disregard for His love for us.

I have a feeling if I tried to play 20 questions with God, asking why He told me to do this or that, He could spend an eternity fitting “love” somewhere into His answer, because that seems to be His ultimate theme word.

Fear can also motivate us to follow the rules. We obey our boss to keep the paychecks coming, and honor legal contracts so we don’t face the repercussions of going to court. And sometimes following the rules is just more convenient than having to deal with someone else being upset with us.

But sometimes we follow rules out of our love for someone else. We don’t want to let them down and we want them to be pleased with our actions. Approaching 40 years old, I still try to do what my parents would approve (usually). We honor our spouses by honoring our vows to them.

There is a certain righteous progression in these motives to stick to the rules. To be sure, doing what someone else says you should do because you love them is less selfish than simply protecting yourself from harm or jail. But I think there is one final step God wants us to take in our obedience of His Law. I don’t think God wants us to do what He says just so we don’t have to face the consequences. On the deepest level, I’m not even sure that He wants us to obey just because we love Him.

By doing what He tells us to do even when we don’t understand why, we demonstrate that we not only love Him, but that we also trust Him. He already knows whether or not we love Him. But by trusting Him, we show that we know He loves us. And that’s the message He wants us all to receive most of all!

Jesus didn’t come in 50% grace and 50% truth. He came in 100% grace AND truth. They aren’t in conflict with each other. They go together. There’s no balancing act. They both stand firmly on a foundation built by His love for all of us. His love tells us the truth so we can enjoy a life filled with peace, joy, empathy and love. His love also welcomes us back into this truth when we choose to suffer from our pride, worry, and hate instead.

Our first of 50 shows was titled “Thou Shall Not Hurt Yourself”. A year ago, I heard this as threatening warning from a jealous God holding the remote control to a shock collar wrapped around my neck. Now I hear it as a plea from a loving Father who doesn’t want to watch me endure the pain (again). Experiencing that love through the Holy Spirit replaces our nature with His and shows us how to share the truth, with grace, out of the same love that doesn’t want to see others suffer.

I’m no therapist, but I do know that there is one word that is key to the trend of a relationship: communication. If you go long periods of time without communicating with someone, it’s nearly impossible to expect that relationship to grow. Likewise, ending a relationship is usually accomplished fastest by minimizing communication.

There are a few key distinctions, however, in our relationships with God compared to each other. First of all, there is no question if we need God, and no question that He wants a relationship with us. And I imagine if you asked Him how well He wants us to know Him, His answer would be simply “more”. Whether you are a 90 year old pastor or a 5 year old child, God wants you to know Him more than you do today.

And unlike with other humans, our relationship with God involves a party that is perfect. He never makes mistakes, and He lacks no knowledge. So there should be no disagreement. But should we choose to, He is also all-forgiving.

Perhaps the most important distinction in our relationship with God is that with another person, a break in communication means that both parties lose touch. But no matter how far you step away from God, or for how long, He still knows you just as well as He did the day He made you. So reconnecting with Him after a while feels more like talking to an old friend, except you don’t really have to waste any time catching each other up on missed time. He hasn’t changed, and He already knows how you’ve been. There may be a need for an apology, and you may have developed some habits that He’ll want to address, but He already knew that.

After some time apart, you’ll need to catch up on getting to know Him, but since He hasn’t changed, you find yourself picking up closer to where you left off than you might expect. And to do that, you end up right back where He wanted you all along. Communicating with Him so you can know Him more.

But our loved ones can present a sneakier challenge. It’s hard to acknowledge God’s sovereignty when it comes to the people He blessed us with. We shouldn’t worry, but surely that worry is justified as long as it’s in the name of love, right?

Then come our virtues. These may be Satan’s last stand. When we see the obvious disregard for God from the world around us, anger, worry, and hate not only comes naturally, but sometimes might even feel in line with God’s will. We should be angry at what angers God. And shouldn’t we worry about helping others see the truth? We are called to be disciples, so that means God needs our help, right?

Seeing God’s perspective has to start with recognizing His sovereignty. Remembering that He doesn’t want to see us hurt ourselves with sinful habits. Remembering that He loves our loved ones more than we do and that they are in better hands when we trust them to Him. And remembering that of all of the virtues He wants to see from His children, love comes first.

The Godlier the excuse for holding onto something instead of giving it to God, the more I think He demands us to surrender it. It could be a test of our faith. But what we might see as a test of our faith, God might see as a reward for it. He’s not taking the things we care about from us. He’s offering to take care of them for us. Which is a no brainer, as long as you believe He is who He says He is.

Then God interrupted. I doubt anybody else heard it, but He couldn’t have been clearer to me. God said “see, I told you it wasn’t complicated.”

I’d been using that phrase a lot around that time, and God loves to use my words to make His points with me. I guess He knows I’m the only one I won’t argue with (He would later double down on this trick and suggest I record them). As Ben continued, I realized that I’d never made God my top priority. I had asked Him to serve me, and had offered Him plenty of constructive criticism to help Him do it better. But I had never put His will first. Or even asked Him what His will was for that matter. I’d always assumed it was to make me happy.

As I’ve learned to seek His will, God continues to show me that it’s not complicated. He wants us to be more like His Son. That’s not complicated at all. It’s impossibly difficult, but it’s a simple instruction. Be more like Jesus.

When things are going well, be more like Jesus. When things are tough, be more like Jesus. When you don’t like how people are treating you, and this one isn’t fun, but be more like Jesus.

I guess He was right. It’s not complicated. But then again, being right is kind of His signature move. I guess that’s why He told us to seek first His righteousness.

We may not do it when we read the Word, but we can’t deny doing it when we try to live it out (sometimes we delete entire verses in real life). But let’s apply this to old faithful: Romans 8:28. When we worry about something not working out, isn’t that deleting “all” from the verse? Maybe we prefer to delete “good”? God works all things together, but they not be for good? These are too obvious. Surely, we know better than this. How about “know”? Do we “know” God works all things together for good? Or do we hope? Or think? Or do we add words like “might”?

Once we nail down every single word and start applying them all in our daily lives, it can change us in a big way. What if you really knew that no matter what you were facing today, God was going to work it together for good to those who love Him? What would you worry about? What would you be afraid of? What type of peace would you experience? How much would joy would you have?

What if the very thing you hated today became the thing God used to prove this verse to you in the future? Would you still hate it? Or would you thank Him for it?

I’ve never really asked myself these questions. But I have started to notice lately that God has been answering them anyway.

It may not seem like it, but this is exactly what we do when we waste our prayers and all of our other spiritual energy on ourselves. We take what God has given us and decide that we can manage it better than the One who gave it to us. By investing our prayers into learning the ways of God, we reap the compounding rewards of better knowing Him and experiencing more of His love. We start to become a little more like Him, and we start to trust Him. This has a double effect of taking our focus off of our wish list and trusting Him, which brings peace and joy that we want to see others enjoy. Sharing that becomes more important than our own wish list, freeing up even more time for peace and joy.

When we pray for what we want, we get the same experience you get at a Blackjack table. Some random wins and losses, and an increasingly short stack of chips in front of us over time. We notice what we don’t have, we worry about bad things happening to us, we get angry and make mistakes which brings more problems and creates more to worry and be angry about. Our “wins” are short lived and really just give us more to worry about losing later.

Maybe this has something to do with why Jesus told us to store up our treasures in Heaven. Investing in God’s righteousness pays off. Righteous prayers are answered more often, because simply put, in the end, His will WILL be done. He offers us the gift of better understanding WHY His will is best, so we can enjoy it when we see it playing out. Or we can bet on ourselves and wait around to lose.

I’d almost say He skipped a step, but the step really should go without saying (and He’s Jesus, so I’m not questioning Him). But before we teach others to observe all that He commanded, I’m pretty sure He meant for us to also learn to observe them ourselves, too.

We tend to be a lot better at teaching Jesus’ commands than observing them. Those who can’t do, teach, right? But Jesus really didn’t seem to be a huge fan of that philosophy. Obeying His commands is the best thing we can do to bridge the gap between Him and the lost. But when we don’t, we make Him even blurrier to the lost and become Trojan Horses in His army.

Maybe it’s just me, but I almost hear a little bit of a sarcastic irony when Jesus said “all that I commanded you”, because He really boiled 39 books down to one word in Mark 12, and John basically repeated it in every chapter. Love. And when that seems impossible, remember that He didn’t forget anything at all in His final message. He just chose to remind us of something more important instead: He is with us always.

Try it sometime. Spend an hour thanking God for the things that you are grateful for. Then spend an hour complaining about what you don’t like about your life. Go ahead and tell God about them, I guess. He probably won’t like it, but it’s not like He doesn’t know anyway. See which hour makes you feel better. Or just take Him at His word and skip step two.

Spoiler alert, I’ve done a lot of both. Gratitude always wins.

Good things will happen, and we may react the way we should. We may also let our blessings overshadow the Blesser. Bad things will also happen, and we may react with patience and faith, or with fear and doubt. In both good and bad times, if the Spirit guides our hearts, we experience peace and freedom, and when we guide our own steps, we suffer, regardless of our circumstances.

Thankfully, God doesn’t rely on our obedience to do good things. He has the knowledge and power to do good things in all situations, and this is all He does. The gift of a relationship with Him is the freedom to know that we can’t mess up His plans. No decision we make or situation we encounter will outmatch His ability to benefit His kingdom. When things go well for us, He will do good things. When we struggle, He will do good things. When we make mistakes, He will do good things. Notice a pattern?

God doesn’t need us to get out of His way so He can work. He tells us to get out of His way so we can enjoy His work and trust that His plans are best, whatever they are.

Two things amaze me about this. First, how quickly it makes a difference, and second, how quickly I seem to forget. Our faith often follows a similar pattern. When we walk by the Spirit, we start to notice our actions naturally reflect God’s nature. We feel joy and peace, show kindness and gentleness to those around us out of a genuine love, and patiently have faith in God’s goodness.

Then we watch a Presidential debate and judge the participants and worry about our future. We scroll through Facebook to see who is bragging about what, thinking about how much more modest we would be if we had what we don’t want to admit we are jealous of. We see a misguided teenager at the grocery store and thank God we had better parents than they have, say a pray that our kids don’t turn out like that, and mumble about the cost of groceries thanks to those clowns in the debate.

Strangely enough, we become irritable and argumentative with the next person we talk to. By the end of the day, we are asking God why we aren’t experiencing the peace that He promised if we walk by His Spirit.

God never promised to give us what we want. He doesn’t even get everything He wants. Just look at us! He does offer us the desire to see Him get what He wants and the Spirit to help us do our part.

As Ben says, “the world is gonna act like the world”. We can’t change that. But we need to let God handle the world and try our best to walk by His Spirit so we don’t join it. How we do this is simple enough: Look to the Spirit while you walk.

This is a fun ‘chicken or the egg’ combo. Which comes first, patience or faith? Faith in God requires patience, that’s for sure. His time horizon is eternal, after all. Our arbitrary deadlines for Him to answer our prayers must seem awfully funny to Him, kind of like Christian asking me 12 times in the first five miles of a two-hour trip if we’re there yet.

On the other hand, faith itself also produces the patience that it requires, which comes in pretty handy when you’re waiting on eternity. Part of trusting God’s plan is remembering that His timing is a part of His plan. He is doing what is best, and we will see what, why and how, when it’s best for us to see it. Remembering His sovereignty frees us to relax and patiently enjoy the other parts of His plan He’s already showing us.

Even though Christian may not understand why I’m not driving 70 mph the entire trip, I know that stopping for red lights is the best call. And I don’t ration his Gatorade out of spite. I know that bathroom breaks will just make it take longer. Trust me, he doesn’t love every decision I make along the way either.

But even a 4-year-old intuitively knows that trusting his dad beats walking by himself.

Hypocrite: a person who acts in contradiction to his or her stated beliefs or feelings (Webster).

That’s us. The Bible says we should be like Christ, and none of us are. At least not all the time. Sure, we are like Him when we forgive somebody or help someone in need. But anybody can be like Christ once in a while. Nobody can do it all the time. And the Bible even says that too, so thinking that we can only contradicts a different stated belief. It’s a real catch 22.

As Christians, we’re like those little kids from the 80s and 90s singing that they wanted to be like Michael Jordan, except we want to be like Jesus. None of them actually were either, but nobody called them hypocrites.

But there is another definition from Webster: a person who puts on a false appearance of virtue or religion.

One of my regular sins is judging people who fit that description, which is ironically, yep, hypocritical. Jesus was pretty hard on this kind of hypocrisy though, so I guess I thought it was OK for me to judge them. But He didn’t confront them because their sin was worse than mine. I think He opposed them more because they were misguiding the people who were seeking Him.

Non-believers by definition don’t know Jesus. They may have heard the story, but they don’t know Him. We are the only tangible thing they have to see who He really is. They assume how we treat them is how He will treat them, since we are like Him and all.

When we judge the sins of others and ignore our own, we lead the outside world to think that you have to be perfect or God is out of reach, just like the Pharisees. And just like they did, we stand in the way of the ones looking for the same peace, joy and love that He gives us. Despite our hypocrisy.

Kenny shared an amazing story about halfway through this one, and as soon as I heard it, I knew it was going to be really hard to resist the urge to use this line from the Eagles.

Whatever we don’t surrender to God becomes the chain keeping us from the freedom He’s offering us. He says cast our worries onto Him. If we save a few for ourselves, He can’t help us. He wants to. He told us to. But if we don’t, well….that’s on us.

But here’s the thing; giving everything to God isn’t the cost of our freedom. Our freedom is the cost of not giving everything to God. He isn’t the chain, and He isn’t holding us captive. He is the universal key that unlocks any chain we give Him access to. But only the chains we give Him access to. We are welcome to stay bound by whatever chains we think are too big for Him to unlock. We just won’t be free.

It isn’t a one-time decision, and that’s a good thing. We don’t have to give over everything we are ever going to face today. We just have to give up whatever we are facing today and return to our freedom. The freedom that glorifies God and wants to share it with others. Unbound from our sinful nature and voluntarily bound to Him.

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Embracing God’s love asks us to know the Father, adopt His ways and seek His righteousness. This is a little tougher. We have to turn away from our sins and walk with Him, His way. It’s so easy to see this part as some kind of repayment, like having to give your aunt a kiss for the Christmas gift she got you. Even though you liked it, if you have to pay her back it wasn’t really a gift, was it?

Embodying it is the ultimate step. We are called not only to stop sinning, but to be like Jesus. Wait, that means giving out grace. We didn’t want to forgive others. We just wanted to go to Heaven. Now it’s just starting to feel like a really divine pay it forward project.

But embracing the love of God is the second gift we get from salvation. To stop at the forgiveness part is like getting a set of keys for Christmas and ignoring the new car parked outside. It allows us to feel an ongoing love like we’ve never felt and want to become more like its source. It gives us the love for others to want to share it. And that becomes its own gift, the fuel for the car that shows us why we were even given the set of keys to begin with.

So many things about God are counterintuitive to us, because we are not like Him. He doesn’t call us to be like Him because He’s selfish and petty. He calls us to be like Him because He is good, and He wants us to get to experience what that feels like. A little more each day, until it is eternal. That’s the gift.

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How we do the thing He asks also changes. Sometimes we have to ask for what we need to remind us of our dependence on Him, and sometimes we need to trust Him to provide it.

Even the “why” is a moving target. Sometimes it is so He can provide joy and peace. Sometimes He needs to comfort us. And sometimes He just wants to show us His love.

But the “Who” never changes. He never runs out of answers, or the willingness to share them with us, as long as He is the one we seek for them. His refusal to be boxed into a set of rules is His gift to us and shows us how unique and valuable each of us are to Him. He tried to give us lists and rules. We broke them. So, He sent Jesus instead.

Jesus paid for our sins. That’s pretty much lesson #1 in Christianity 101. And don’t get me wrong, it’s a very important one. But we can’t stop there, because it wasn’t a donation. It was a purchase, and with it, He bought us direct access to God. Not so we could discover a better version of the rules. He gave us access to God’s heart; the ability to plug into His Spirit so we could see the world through His eyes, and He could instruct us in real-time rather than with a predetermined set of instructions.

That is His will, for us to know Him. Not for what He gives us, how He makes us better people, or for divine answers. Just Him.

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Oh, that wasn’t rhetorical. This seems like a great time to plug the new suggestions and comments page. Click the underlined words there and send a message. I’m all ears. But seriously, why do we spend so much time dwelling on the past and worrying about the future?

Life is a live action event. Everything we do happens now. Regret may result from something that already happened, but the feeling itself happens live. And we may be worrying about something that may (or may not) happen later, but the worry itself is a today feeling.

My favorite workaround this is to put a positive spin on regret and worry. I prefer to “learn from my mistakes” and “plan for my future”. That sounds responsible right? And I’m not technically disobeying Jesus that way. Except in order to slide past Matthew 6:34 on a technicality, I have to ignore Matthew 6:33 altogether. It’s awfully hard to seek His righteousness while daydreaming about being Marty McFly.

Maybe that’s why 6:33 came first. If you listen to that, 6:34 really goes without saying, doesn’t it? I mean play that conversation with God out in your mind: ‘Seek Me and I’ll give you everything you need’. ‘Gee, I mean thanks and all, but I’m still worried'. Seriously?! Even I wouldn’t try to wiggle out of that one.

Best I can come up with, there are two logical explanations for worrying. You don’t think God can take care of you, or you think He lied. Well, that, or you skipped 6:33 because you were busy “planning”.

It was a great reminder of the joy God provides His children. We cover some hard-hitting topics a lot, and our relationship with Jesus is definitely something that should be taken seriously. But sometimes we get so wrapped up in trying to grow, trying to serve, trying to “be better” at walking with the Lord, that we forget to enjoy His presence and the peace that comes with it.

Yes, God provides what we need in the hard times. But He also provides the joys of friendships & laughter and He loves to see us enjoy the world He made for us. And no, He doesn’t want us to walk in sin, but He wants us to repent and move on from it, not dwell in the guilt of our mistakes.

Above all else, God wants a relationship with us. We don’t need all the answers or to know exactly how to handle every situation life might send our way. We need to be constantly plugged into the Holy Spirit and trust that He will tell us what we need to know when we need to know it. But in the meantime, relax and just enjoy Him, because He is pretty amazing.