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.
401
Will You Praise God Forever? | Psalm 89
The word “forever” has always intrigued me. Most of the time it’s used in songs or poetry it’s a lie. The Beatles’ Strawberry Fields Forever? Or “Love you forever and forever”? But when the Psalms in the Bible use that word it’s actually a promise that...
21 min
402
Killing Little Jesus | Hebrews 1:1-3
What comes to your mind when you think of Jesus? What image? What imagination? How do you feel toward that Jesus? How much do you want that Jesus to be Lord/King of your life? See, I don’t think the problem for most of us is that our sin is too big for...
26 min
403
Redeeming Your Desire for Greatness and Glory |...
Do you sometimes think that your desire for greatness and glory is pride? Do you sometimes feel guilty for that as if somehow that's an inordinate desire that you need to confess as pride? The desire for greatness and glory is actually not the same as ...
21 min
404
How to Pray Using a Psalm | Psalm 80
Let’s say you want to have a conversation with God using a Psalm. You open to Psalm 80. You start reading and quickly realize it doesn’t really resonate with you. Honestly, you don’t think you understand much of what you’re reading. So what can you do?...
19 min
405
When Life Has Taken a Bad Turn | Psalm 77
Maybe you’re in one of those times. Your life has taken a turn for the worst. Perhaps just temporarily. Perhaps permanently. Maybe you’re grieving the loss of something or someone. Or you’re doubting your future. Is there anything left to look forward ...
19 min
406
Waking Up From a Spell | 2 Corinthians 4:3-6
I’ve become a believer in spells. Supernatural illusions or delusions put upon a person’s mind so that they can’t see reality, or they see non-reality as reality. And that’s what the New Testament is talking about in 2 Corinthians 4:3-6. Like the Psalm...
18 min
407
When You’re Feeling Overwhelmed by Troubles | P...
Written a thousand years before Jesus was born, Psalm 69 is one of those psalms of David that seems to be a favorite of the New Testament authors. It also seems to have been a favorite of Jesus because he quotes from it in John 15:25. It's quoted by th...
25 min
408
Imagining God As Your Living Water | Jeremiah 2...
What we are learning to do in this podcast is to live more vertically and not just horizontally. To lift up our eyes throughout our day, in the moments of anxiety, worry, fear, tension, conflict, temptation, unforgiveness. And in the good moments as we...
21 min
409
Bringing God’s Power Into Your Life | Psalm 68
The Psalms come back to repeated themes for emphasis. We forget what matters most because we get hijacked by the smaller horizontal stories that bombard us everyday. But when we lift up our eyes vertically through praise to God and his bigger story for...
28 min
410
Five Words to Pray for Anyone | Psalm 67
Do you ever want to pray but you’re not sure what to pray? Whether for yourself when you want to pray for yourself. Or when you want to pray for someone else. “I’ll pray for you,” you say to a friend, but what will you pray? What should you pray for? P...
16 min
411
Learning to Pray More Dramatically | Psalm 61
Are there times in your life when you don’t want to pray? You can just barely muster up the focus on God enough to barely pray. You want to pray in the sense that you know you need to pray and you don't want to drift away from God. But your heart is no...
27 min
412
What About Our FOMO? | Psalm 49
Do you struggle with FOMO sometimes? Welcome to being a Christian. Our Fear Of Missing Out (FOMO) is NOT new to the human condition. And it’s certainly not something new to the life of faith. I’m amazed how often 3,000-year-old psalms, inspired by the ...
22 min
413
Lifting Our Eyes | Psalm 47
While all the Psalms were written centuries before Jesus was born, Psalm 47 (much like we saw in our last episode on Psalm 45) brings the future reign of Jesus into our present praises. And in doing so it helps us to lift up our eyes to see the bigger ...
22 min
414
The Life-Giving Power of the Bigger Story | Psa...
Everyone has a mental narrative inside their head of what story they want to live and whether or not they are fitting inside that narrative right now in their lives. And what happens is we have a false narrative inside of our head that is not reality, ...
24 min
415
Living As Though the Truth were True | Philippi...
I often ask myself what did the apostles who saw the risen Jesus know about Jesus that I don’t know? I read where a Jesuit once said of Dorothy Day that she lived “as though the truth were true.” That’s a big statement when you really think about it. S...
17 min
416
When Those Who Reject God Prosper | Psalm 37
It’s easy to get drawn in or intimidated by culturally powerful people. Especially when they are culturally powerful or prosperous because they openly disregard or reject God’s righteousness. It can cause us to lose courage in our faith and commitment ...
24 min
417
Dealing with Those Who Want to Harm You | Psalm 35
Anyone who takes the Bible seriously knows we live in a world where there is real evil. And that evil can take deep root in people’s lives so that they are motivated to bring evil into our lives. To do us harm. To hurt us in some way. That was David’s ...
19 min
418
Imagining Biblical Pictures of God | Revelation...
Imagine writing a letter to a loved one without ever imagining them in your mind as you write. Not much of a conversation. Now imagine conversing with God without using your imagination. Again, not much of a conversation. But the Bible gives us poetic ...
26 min
419
Approaching God with Biblical Imagination | Psa...
As you come before God to pray, what are you usually thinking? To some degree you are using your imagination, picturing in some way God with you and listening to you. But in the Psalms David imagined much more than that. If you pay attention you’ll not...
19 min
420
Seeing Your Poetic Present and Your Literal Fut...
As a psalmist uniquely inspired by the Holy Spirit (Matt 22:43), King David’s prayers were often prophetic; describing poetically/figuratively what will ultimately be literal in the future through the Son of David, the Messiah (the Christ). For example...
21 min
421
Coming to God Emotionally Expressive | Psalm 28
I think in some ways the reason we lose emotional control at work or at home or in traffic or wherever is because we keep too much emotional control when talking to God. We have it backwards. Learning to be more emotionally expressive, even dramatic, t...
24 min
422
What is the Bible’s Biggest Truth for Your Life...
What is the number one truth of life in the Bible? The Bible’s big truth for your life? Here it is: Only God’s will brings life; and every other will brings destruction. Dependence upon God brings life; independence from God brings death.This is the en...
16 min
423
Why Should You Choose God Over All Else? | Pra...
Why should you choose God over anything else? I always have to remind myself why following (seeking, trusting, obeying) Christ is always worth it more than not. My guess is you do too. This is a great Psalm to remind you of who God really is for you, a...
15 min
424
How Jesus Redirects Our Fears | Prayer on Matth...
Jesus’s words in Matthew 10:29-31 have been some of his most important words in my life because of their powerful picture of God’s detailed care and involvement in my life. Jesus emphasizes our eternal value to the God who created everything in this un...
18 min
425
How Jesus Challenges Your Anxiety and Worry | P...
We all worry. We all deal with anxiety. Most of the time it’s the back-burner feeling that’s like a slow leak in our joy. In Matthew 6 Jesus directly challenges that kind of anxiety and worry. Think about it this way -- the creator of the universe -- Y...
20 min