Christian Meditation for A Bigger Lif...
Christian Meditation can help refocus your mind and recalibrate your body to get the stress, anxiety and anger out of your heart and out of your body. Spend about 23 minutes to "be still" with God as each episode uses a different biblical image to experience God's presence and promises in a way that brings relaxation and renewal. Look for new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday.
351
Why You Need to Speak to Yourself in Worship | ...
Nothing will lift up your soul more than God-exalting worship. You were created to derive your glory and identity from God’s glory and identity. And whenever you disassociate your existence from the worship of God, you are disconnected in some way even...
31 min
352
Sometimes You Just Need to Complain | Psalm 102
Sometimes your life is not exactly under blue skies. Things are miserable and you’re not doing well. That’s OK. In fact, God has given us Psalms in the Bible to express exactly that. Which is encouraging to think. God wants us to complain to him. That’...
25 min
353
Revive Your Story By Looking Through A Better W...
Something is always narrating your life. And most of the time a false narrative is screaming at you to find a better life in its story. Your life is being narrated by the windows you’re looking through. And Psalm 101 is an important window to look thro...
30 min
354
The Uncomfortable Claim in God’s Name | Exodus ...
We're missing something big about God when we miss God's name, when we don't understand the importance of God's name, when God's name doesn't come to our mind when we think about God. When Moses asked God to show him his glory, God basically said “No, ...
32 min
355
Experiencing God’s Glory In His Name| Exodus 33-34
When Moses asked God to show him his glory, God basically said “No, it would kill you right now because you’re too sinful. But I’ll do the next best thing. I’ll proclaim to you my name.” This side of our coming resurrection, the closest thing we have t...
23 min
356
Do You Pray Using God’s Name? | Exodus 3:14-15
Who is God? What comes to your mind when you think of God? Author A. W. Tozer said it this way in his book, Knowledge of the Holy: “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” Let me state it differently, wh...
24 min
357
Why You Really Do Want to Embrace Thankfulness ...
A sobering reality in the Bible is the importance of having a heart of gratitude and thanksgiving rather than complaining. It's always surprised me how one of the “big” sins in the Bible is grumbling. Complaining. And one of the pillars of a biblical f...
22 min
358
Keeping Yourself Inside this Amazing Story | Ps...
What always amazes me in the Psalms is how they consistently and poetically capture the bigger story this world is in. All throughout the Psalms, God is giving us a glimpse of the future, and it strengthens my faith to see how the Bible has always been...
21 min
359
The Power of Music Part 2 - House Worship Recor...
In our last episode we discussed Psalm 98 about the power of singing and music in worship. God has created this universe, and created music to be a powerful expression of beauty, goodness, truth, and transcendence. Music is grounded in who God is. So y...
38 min
360
The Power of Music - Interview with Scott Johns...
When we actually pay attention to what the Bible says about singing and music, we discover that music is a powerful force in God’s universe. When we worship through song, something happens in us that doesn’t happen through mere words spoken or heard. I...
49 min
361
Our Conflicted Reaction That God is Holy | Psal...
When you worship God as holy, it brings a kind of fear that also brings a kind of joy. There’s a reason why Jesus told us in the Lord’s Prayer that the first thing you’re to pray for is that you would see and experience God’s name as holy (“Hallowed be...
38 min
362
Light and Life and Joy from Right Worship | Psa...
The battle line in our lives is always at our worship. As human beings created for living in God’s glory and love, we are always worshiping. Worship is when we ascribe the highest worth and worth-it-ness to someone or something in our hearts and minds....
31 min
363
A Meditation on Jesus as the I AM | John 6:20
We learn from the order of The Lord’s Prayer that Jesus saw prayer as worship. And one significant key to learning to worship in Spirit and truth (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John%204%3A23-24&version=NIV (John 4:23-24)) without ima...
26 min
364
When Jesus says, I AM | John 6:60-69
What does it mean when Jesus says, I AM? Like in John 6:20, he stands on the waves in the middle of the Sea of Galilee and says, “I AM, don’t be afraid.” In the Bible, the seas represented the unknown, chaos, evil. And Jesus stands on top of all that a...
20 min
365
When Following Jesus Is Hard | John 6:60-69
How long will you stick with following Jesus? What would it take for you to walk away from him? When we read of the miracles of Jesus, the idea of following Jesus is attractive. Jesus is being a healing and blessing God. But then there are other times ...
25 min
366
Imagining Jesus as Your Bread of Life | John 6
Often the reason we desire other things more than God is a lack of using our imagination in worship. With any desire we have that we pursue, we use our imagination. That’s what makes us want it. We imagine a possible experience that makes us desire it ...
25 min
367
Trusting the One Story of the Bible | Isaiah 1...
It’s a conspiracy that increases my faith in the gospel. I’m amazed at how often we see the Bible’s one story threaded all throughout Scripture, but written centuries apart. This one story of the Bible, written over a period of 1,500 years by more than...
24 min
368
Why Worship Is So Worth It | Psalm 96
Don’t let yourself get hijacked away from the incredible bigger and better story this world is in and you could be in. Your trust and faithfulness will be so worth it! But we must worship the I AM to keep our affections focused on the right story. Lear...
19 min
369
Do You Find It Hard to Worship? | Psalm 95
Do you find it hard or even awkward to worship God? The truth is it’s easier than you think. You just have to choose to do it. Worship is a choice. In fact, it must always be a choice. God never coerces our worship. Jesus said in https://www.biblegatew...
23 min
370
What About the God of Vengeance? | Psalm 94
Worshiping God means worshiping him for who he really is. Our lives become more anchored horizontally when we anchor them vertically to the true God. Worshiping God in Spirit and truth, as Jesus puts it in https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=J...
21 min
371
When the Glass Is Half-Empty | Psalm 90
We all get into a funk. We’re disappointed. Frustrated. Experiencing the pains of life’s fragile realities. Some of us bend that direction more than others, but we all bend under that weight at times. And in those times it’s all too easy to start sinki...
27 min
372
What’s Your Image of Prayer? | Mark 1:35-37 and...
Question: When you think of the word prayer, what image comes to your mind? When you think to yourself, “Should I pray right now?” or “I’m going to pray,” what do you imagine doing? What do you imagine when you imagine praying? Too often my image is ne...
25 min
373
Should You Really Pray for That? | Luke 22:39-44
How do you know when it’s OK to pray for something? What kind of prayers are out of bounds? Do you sometimes not pray for something because you figure you should err on the side of not offending God with your request? I think that’s a mistake. Here’s w...
29 min
374
Seeing the Bigger Bigger Story in Psalm 89 | Ps...
Psalm 89 shows us that the drama of our lives takes place in the bigger story of God’s redemption and restoration of this world through the perfect Son of David, Jesus the Christ. But that story is even bigger yet, because there’s an even bigger drama ...
27 min
375
Seeing Jesus in Psalm 89 | Psalm 89
Centuries before Jesus was born, the Psalm of the Old Testament told of him. Jesus told his disciples that everything would be fulfilled that was written about him in the Psalms (https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2024%3A44&version=N...
19 min