Practical Faith

Let’s consider something for a moment: why did God choose to relate to us as Father? His creativity is unlimited.  e literally could have chosen any kind of relationship that He could think of to relate to those rescued & redeemed by Christ, and He chose that of Father & children. This is not a metaphor or a figure-of-speech. This is literal – this is who He is, and this is who we are.  In the Lord’s Prayer...

Christ shares His own eternal inheritance with those He has saved – and the inheritance He shares with us is so much more than physical properties and possessions. It is amazing to realize all that we inherit from God through Christ Jesus...

Today, I want to invite you into the lawyer’s office. But don’t worry! You’re not in trouble – in fact, quite the opposite! This is the office of a lawyer who determines the rightful heirs to an estate. This lawyer’s job is to follow the mandates of a written will, and to distribute the rightful inheritance of the estate to the legal heirs named in that will. Now in this metaphor, we can consider the Bible to be “The Will of God” – and for this episode, I have woven together a few significant teachings from the Christian Scriptures to provide a basic but powerful “will” for us to understand...

Most of the Bible was written to be understood literally, describing historical events that actually happened. There are some parts of the Bible, though, that were written in figurative language; they are poetic or didactic in nature, describing an indescribable God using the limited words we have, and using allegory to teach us about ultimate reality in Him...

Did you know that the truest things about you are the things God’s Spirit says about you?  And if I could condense those things down into one, single word, it would be this one: BELOVED.

The following is a prayer I wrote in a moment of unique clarity with the Holy Spirit. I had just realized that it takes so much - so much! - for God to really have all of my full attention. It’s a hundred little things that I’m embarrassed to even say right now... All these layers upon layers of external and internal distraction... In this moment of clarity and realization, I scribbled the following prayer to God in my journal:

We see pain, and experience suffering... We see tragedy, despair, death... We don’t have to pretend like these realities are not difficult. The circumstances of unpredictable life take their toll on us over time. So what’s the answer?  What are do we do?  Today, I want to talk about telling somebody.

Today, we finish up a multi-episode series looking at the Jesus Way of Discipleship.  This was the theme of a spiritual life retreat my family attended a few years ago with a pastor, counselor, and speaker named Barry Brown.

The second phase of the Jesus Way of Discipleship is “FORMATION.”  The wilderness is a sacred space of formation in the Scriptures. The wilderness is where God sends His best. It’s where God takes His people to FORM in them the new identity that He gave them at their baptism. The wilderness is where Christian character is formed...

I am excited to get to bring you a guest on today’s episode of “Practical Faith.”  Lisa Williams is a gifted young minister, worship leader, and writer, and she has a unique calling to grief ministry.  Lisa loves serve and support and journey with people who have experienced a loss in their lives.  And today, Lisa will share with us about the important role of grief in the life of a Christ-follower.

Welcome back to “Practical Faith!”  Over several consecutive episodes, I am sharing with you some of the notes and insights I took away from a wonderful spiritual life retreat I attended a few years ago.  Our retreat speaker was a man named Barry Brown, and the retreat theme was “Following Jesus and Becoming Like Him.”

Thomas à Kempis, in his book The Imitation of Christ, said, “Choose one thing to learn from Christ each year, and soon you will be like Him.”  So, what is the next step for you?  What’s your next 'one thing’ that God is calling you to focus on this year to become more like Christ?  If you do this, then in a few years you will “soon be like Him”!

Let’s reset our view on this together: there is a big difference between a bribe and a reward...

YOU are all strategically positioned – by the Lord Jesus – in homes, in schools, in businesses – for Kingdom impact in a way that pastors and missionaries like me long for!  We wish we could have the impact in people’s homes, schools, and businesses that you all have!

Callings from God are not ranked.  Some are not better or more impressive or more important than others.  What is most important is humble obedience.  Faithfully serving God right where you are is the very highest calling. 

Jesus wants to meet you in your place of pain, your place of failure, of disappointment.  He wants to meet you there so that He can deal with it and heal you there.

Today's episode is in response to a listener's question: What do you do if you've prayed about something for a long time and just can't sense any clear answer or direction from the Lord?

Today I'll share with you a statement that was sent to me from a moral relativist – this is a person who opposes the idea moral absolutes – and the response I sent back.

Following the prayer model provided by Jesus in Matthew 6:10, I decided to let that sentence be a template for my prayers, replacing the words “on earth” with other personalized places and locations that I wanted to specifically ask for God’s kingdom to come and His will to be done:

Given my life circumstances, it is likely that I will die someday as a result of consumption or entertainment... This prospect is beginning to eclipse my fear of persecution and martyrdom.