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
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
402
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
403
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
404
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
405
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
406
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
407
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
408
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
409
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
410
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
411
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
412
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
413
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
414
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
415
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
416
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
417
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
418
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
419
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
420
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
421
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
422
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
423
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
424
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
425
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