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Each week a new verse-by-verse Bible study podcast given in expository style. Join us and see the Bible come alive as we study the truths that God‘s Word has for us.
Episodes
Thursday May 15, 2014
Thursday May 15, 2014
Can you depend on the future?
We all make plans for the future. We plan for our kids to go to college. We plan for our retirement. We plan for our career. It is considered prudent to do all of these things, and foolish not to, but can we depend on the future happening like we want it to, like we are planning for it to happen?
It would be great if we see into the future and know exactly what was going to happen, so we could better plan for the events that were going to occur. For instance, if you knew that you were going to lose your job in a few months, you might begin to save money to prepare for it.
This is why horoscopes, soothsayers, fortune tellers, and psychics, are so popular, people will try anything to look out into the future. The problem is that none of these methods really work because they cannot really see into the future. Only God can see the future. Only God is omniscient. Only God knows exactly what you will be doing in the next minute, the next hour, the next day, the next year, until the day you die.
Satan cannot see the future. Satan cannot prophesy, only God can prophesy. So if we are to make plans for the future, wouldn't it make sense to consult the only One who knows exactly what is going to happen to us, when it will happen, and how it will happen? God knows it all.
Listen to this podcast to learn why it is so important to always consider God’s will for your life in any plans that you make, for it is God that commands your heart make the next beat, or He is the One that tells it to stop beating. In this lesson, James tells us how foolish it is to leave God out of the equation when we need to depend on our future.
Saturday May 10, 2014
Saturday May 10, 2014
In our politically correct society, what is the proper reaction that is expected of someone who has offended someone else? Is it to laugh about what was said? Not likely. Is it to ignore it as something inconsequential? A great number of politicians have learned the folly of this reaction. The accepted, and expected, reaction is for the person to publically, sincerely, apologize and promise to never do it again. It is interesting that our society demands this type of reaction even when the offended person is totally unknown to the person who made the insensitive statement.
Contrast this to what most people consider the proper reaction that is expected of someone who has committed a sin against God. The world celebrates these people, praising them for their courage, and condemning those who would point out that this act was indeed a sin against God, and that God is offended by this sin. Not just this sin, but any sin.
The world laughs at the idea of calling something a sin. Our churches today are calling as good and proper what was once called sin. They not only tolerate sin in the church, but they declare their own open-mindedness because they accept sin as normal and accepted. As a result, church members are not dealing with sin in their lives, even though the Bible teaches that sin of any kind offends God.
In this lesson, James describes how the believer is to react to sin that has been identified in their lives. We are to mourn that sin. We are to ask God for forgiveness of that sin, in other words we are to apologize to God. We are then expected to repent of that sin, which means that we are promising God that we will never do it again.
God expects, and as our Creator deserves, a better reaction than we give to someone, whom we do not even know, that we have offended.
Monday Apr 28, 2014
Monday Apr 28, 2014
When I was a small child, I always wanted to be near my Father, because I knew that he loved me, and that he would protect me. When I put my small hand into his big hand and we walked somewhere, I always felt secure and safe. When he hugged me I knew all was right with the world.
Now that I am a child of God, I want God to be so close that I can feel the warmth of His embrace. I want God to be so close that I can put my small hand into His infinite hand and I want to walk and talk with Him.
What is so amazing about our God is that He wants to be close to us as well. He wants to walk and talk with us in the cool of the afternoon as He did with Adam and Eve. The Bible tells us that there is a great gulf fixed between man and God, yet God has taken the initiative on this side of the grave. In an act of infinite compassion God has come looking for us because we are lost. God has sent His Son Jesus Christ to be the bridge that can bring us to God.
God has come as far as He can. He stops short of violating the human will. He stands at the edge of the bridge with arms outstretched and says Come! Come! Come!
In our lesson today, James tells us how to draw near to God. How it is possible to have a personal, up-close, relationship with the almighty Creator of all things.
Monday Apr 14, 2014
Monday Apr 14, 2014
When we think about the term worldliness we think of the envy and strife that exists in our secular lives. Political parties split, and one group becomes pitted against another. As management and labor meet around the conference table, there is a battle going on. In the corporate world there are climbers on the corporate ladder who are stepping on the hands of others as they go up. In our neighborhoods, one family does not speak to another family. Within families there are quarrels, brother against brother.
When a church allows worldliness to enter its doors, the characteristics of the world become evident in the church. The envy and strife that exists in the world are displayed within the church. The symptoms of a worldly church are divisions, conflict, power struggles, and open warfare among its members.
Worldliness can be exhibited from both the pulpit and the pew. It can pray with self-righteous eloquence. It can find triumph in the middle of a deacon’s meeting. It can take over a trustee’s meeting. It can split churches over the color of the carpet, or a building program. It will begin in a fight over who to ordain to its ministry, who can become a church member, or who can be baptized. All are topics that can destroy the fellowship and evangelistic efforts of the church.
Listen to this podcast to learn that symptoms of worldliness are evidence of a problem that lies much deeper. It lies within the heart of the church member.
What is the answer to worldliness? Prayer. Personal prayer, properly performed, can reveal the worldliness in our hearts and can cleanse it. James teaches us the secret of obtaining an answered prayer from the almighty, living, God who tells us that we have not because we ask not.
Monday Apr 07, 2014
Monday Apr 07, 2014
If you were to list the characteristics of Jesus as He lived on the earth you would probably use words like, peacemaker, gentle, easy to approach, merciful, pure, unbiased, and without hypocrisy. These are the characteristics of God’s wisdom, and they are the characteristics that a true Christian is to exhibit as they deal with those around them.
When someone makes Jesus Christ their Lord and Master, they are reborn and regenerated, they become a new person, and with the power of the Holy Spirit working through them these characteristics become the way a believer will behave. It is the evidence that a revolution has occurred in that person’s life, and that Jesus Christ is their Lord and Master.
Being a Christian is more than just saying a prayer and mumbling some words. We are saved by God’s grace, we do not work for our salvation, but our lives must show the evidence of the transformation that has occurred in our life. The words we say, the works that we produce, the way we control our tongue, and the way we deal with those around us are the evidence of the salvation that has occurred within our lives and they identify the Master of our hearts.
Listen to this podcast to learn how God’s wisdom is to shine through the life of a believer to such a degree that the world sees a positive difference in their lives. Your behavior is your trademark as a Christian.
Monday Mar 31, 2014
Monday Mar 31, 2014
When you need wisdom, where do you go to find it?
Your family, your friends, your mentors, your teachers, the internet, or maybe even some TV or radio show host?
There is certainly some merit in going to someone who has experienced what you are going through to give you guidance on how to handle some problem that you may be facing. If we were to look back over man’s history we would find that man has discovered many great things and overcome many difficult challenges using the knowledge and wisdom that is available to him. Think of the advances in science, medicine, psychology, and even religion, that have occurred in just the last 100 years.
Yet, when you consider how much more knowledge there is for man to discover, and then compare that to what we already know, you begin to realize how little we truly know today. It would be a bold man that declared that he knows even 10% of all the knowledge that is out there to be discovered. And with each new discovery, man must rethink everything that he knows to put it into context with what he has just discovered. It can be an exciting and humbling experience.
So as you go to other people in your search for wisdom, the first thing you must realize is that everyone you are talking to is giving you answers from that 10% of knowledge that man knows, and they are ignoring all of the answers that could be found in the 90% that man knows nothing about. If you were to go to a doctor and ask him what was wrong with you, and he told you that he could tell you, but that he only knows 10% of what he needs to know to be a doctor, you would probably be skeptical of the answer, as you should be.
So, if you don’t go to other men to find wisdom, who can you go to that can provide you with answers from all of the knowledge that man will ever be able to discover, and all of the knowledge that man can never know?
Listen to this podcast to discover that there are two kinds of wisdom; human wisdom, and God’s wisdom. Human wisdom comes from man’s limited knowledge. God’s wisdom comes from the infinite knowledge of the Creator of all things, the omniscient, the omnipotent, and the omnipresent, living God.
Monday Mar 24, 2014
Monday Mar 24, 2014
Is it possible to control what we say?
We usually want to say the right thing, so why don’t we? Most of us will find ourselves having to apologize for saying something that hurt someone else on a regular basis. Is there no way to control what our tongue says?
The tongue is powerful enough to impact all of the circumstances of life.
It is destructive enough to affect the whole realm of human activity.
And it is vile enough to contaminate the whole sphere of our earthly life.
The tongue can ignite all of our worst passions of lust, envy, hatred, malice, and murder and the fallout is all kinds of evil.
When our political leaders use their words to lie to us, to mislead us, to defraud us, and to stir up feelings of class envy, of class warfare, and of racial hatred, the fallout affects everyone in this country and of those around the world. It affects the circumstances that we live in.
James tells us that no man can tame his own tongue. We can tame the wild beasts, but we cannot tame our tongue even when we use our best efforts. The words we say can bless those around us, and they can curse the same people. They can sing praises in harmony one moment, and then explode in profanity the next.
But there is a way for you to control your tongue. Listen to this podcast to learn that God can tame your tongue. It is when the Holy Spirit of God is in control of the heart of a believer that God can use the words that come from your tongue for His work.
Tuesday Mar 18, 2014
Tuesday Mar 18, 2014
Be careful what you say.
Have you ever considered how you would feel if you knew that someone was recording every word that you said or wrote somewhere? And if you knew your words were judged each day by someone to determine if those words were good or evil?
How would that impact the words that you allowed your tongue to say? Would you filter them more closely?
In our world today we get very concerned when the government intrudes on our privacy, such as with the NSA listening in on our phone conversations. We have the concept of presumed privacy in our lives. In countries such as the U.S. that right of privacy is protected, but with technology as it is today, any real privacy is a myth.
Listen to this podcast to learn that God has always been listening in on all of your conversations. God has the sovereign right to bug your conversations, and He has recorded every word that you have ever said.
James tells us that the words used by a person identify who they are. Your tongue gives you away. It tells where you came from. It tells whether you are ignorant or educated, cultured or crude, whether you are clean or unclean, whether you are vulgar or refined, whether you are a believer or a blasphemer, whether you are a Christian or a non–Christian, whether you are guilty or not guilty.
What has your tongue said about you today?
Monday Mar 10, 2014
Monday Mar 10, 2014
If you believe God, will you act on that belief?
There are a majority of people in this country who believe in God, as well as those who claim to believe what God says in His Word. For many years there was a popular bumper sticker that said “God said it, I believe it, and that settles it.”
Yet, if you were to ask those same people if their belief in what God says has made a revolutionary change in their lives, the number of people who said yes to this question would likely be much smaller. The term believer means that you believe what God has promised you in the Bible about what Jesus has done for you, about His shed blood, about forgiveness of your sins, and about death and eternal life. But God demands more from those that He calls His own.
A true believer will take what God says, internalize it, and then act upon it. The promises that God makes to us will create a revolution in the life of person who has accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior. They will view life differently. They will view death differently. The things that were once important to them are no longer important. There are new things that are the focus of their lives, things that God wants you to accomplish. Things that you want to accomplish for God, because of your love for Him. You will take what God has said, and because you believe it is true, you will act upon it in your life. You will create works for God and through God.
Listen to this podcast to learn the story of Rahab. How she heard the promises of God. How she believed those promises, and how she then acted upon them.
Tuesday Feb 25, 2014
Tuesday Feb 25, 2014
Do you believe God?
Not do you believe in God, but do you believe God?
Do you believe what God says in His Word, the Bible?
Do you believe God the Father when He said of Jesus Christ, this is my Son in whom I am well pleased?
Do you believe God when He says that your salvation is by His grace alone, and not by works, lest any man should boast?
Abraham was a man that believed God. What this means is that Abraham said amen to God. God had said, “I will do this for you,” and Abraham says to God, “I believe You. Amen. I believe it.” And that was counted to him for righteousness. Abraham did not work to earn his salvation, it was his faith that was counted for righteousness. But it was not just faith in anything.
It is important to note what Abraham believed, for God to count it for righteousness. It was when he believed the promise of THE SEED. That is when God counted it to him for righteousness.
Ultimately it is the same for all ages. It is the faith in Jesus Christ that our salvation rests. He is The Seed.
It is not mere faith that saves, but it is the object of your faith that saves.
It is not mere faith that saves, but it is your faith in Christ that saves.
Abraham just believed God. He just accepted what God said about the promised Seed, and he believed God. That is the way each of us get saved. That is how we receive God’s gift of eternal life.
You must believe that God has done something for you, that Christ died for you and rose again.
It is then, that God will declare you righteous by simply accepting Christ.
Listen to this podcast to learn that it is not good works that will allow you to stand imputed with righteousness before God, but it is when you believe God.