One more week of camp. So one more Encore Podcast.
My heart goes out to Mother Mary.
Her name means “Bitterness.” Sadly, and quite frankly, in many ways Mary lived up to her name.
Being the mother of Jesus was no small task. One that she fulfilled with great dignity. But boy did she face her challenges.
In this PODCAST, we will gaze upon a Scriptural snapshot of Mary unlike anything you have ever seen before. Not only that, but we will encounter Jesus in His darkest hour, second only to that night before the crucifixion when He sweat drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane.
As we do, our love for Him will deepen. Our respect for His mom will broaden. And our understanding of the both of them will stir up within our own hearts a sense of God’s presence in our lives like we’ve never experienced before.
Please remember that depending upon your web browser and connection speed, it may take up to 60 seconds for this podcast to begin to play.
I’m off doing my camp speaking thing. (I sure would appreciate your prayers: for me, but especially for the campers who are stuck having to listen to me for the week. But I digress.)
Anyway, in this encore PODCAST, you will learn one singularly simple concept which, if you take it to heart, will change your life forever.
It is my sense that in contemporary Christian culture in America, we have lost sight of the elegant simplicity spoken of in the New Testament. And consequently, we have lost so much of God’s blessing in the process.
So here’s to simplicity, with the hope that your life overflows with God’s bountiful blessing as we together apply this principle to our lives.
Please note that depending upon your web browser and connection speed, it may take up to 60 seconds for this podcast to begin to play.
Please remember that depending upon your web browser and connection speed, it may take up to 60 seconds for this podcast to begin to play.
To be perfectly honest with you, the passage here in Matthew 21 is coming — for me,at least — at just the right time. And perhaps for you as well.
Given the current political climate in our beloved country, and the increasing despair that I have felt as the presidential primary season has now concluded, I so desperately need to hear my own message, courtesy of Jesus.
Jesus assured His disciples,
“Whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.”
As you will hear in this PODCAST, the irony of what Jesus said is so thick that you could cut it with the proverbial knife.
The irony being this: Jesus said those words to the disciples on the eve of His crucifixion in order to strengthen, to fortify their fragile faith. And frankly, to strengthen and to fortify ours.
Jesus knew that the events in their lives were about to spin seemingly out of control. The hopes they harbored in their hearts were about to be crushed into the ash heap of history. The Jesus movement in which they played a central role was about to careen into a wall and to explode into a thousand broken pieces.
The wave they had been riding had peaked on Sunday during the Triumphal Entry, and then again on Monday during the Cleansing of the Temple. But Jesus knew only too well on that Tuesday AM that by Thursday PM that same storm surge would dash them into the jagged rocks of reality.
So to bolster their soon-to-be faltering faith (and ours), Jesus made them (and us) this glorious promise:
“Whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive.”
The only problem with that promise? As many of us have come to experience during own crises of faith, It.Doesn’t.Always.Work.
If it did, none of our loved ones would ever die. (Who of us hasn’t prayed for God, in faith believing — to invoke Jesus’ formula — to heal someone near/dear to us, only to watch them whither away to nothing?)
Our kids would never disappoint us, if that promise worked. (What parent hasn’t prayed diligently for their children, in faith believing, Amen, only to stand by and watch helplessly and at times hopelessly as one or more of our kids go sideways?)
If that promise did indeed work, we would always get the jobs we want, have the perfect marriages for which we pray, have enough money at end of each month.
Fact is, myriads of books been written and purchased and read about that promise. Countless sermons been preached and listened to and heeded. All to affirm the fact that if we pray in faith believing and do not doubt, we will receive whatever things we ask. We CAN move mountains by our prayers, we are told. The mountain of sickness, the mountain of debt, the mountain of broken relationships, the mountain of wayward children.
Over the years, I’ve heard it all, read it all, a thousand times. To the point where I’m sick of hearing it. Because it just doesn’t work… Or does it?
Please remember that depending upon your web browser and connection speed, it may take up to 60 seconds for this podcast to begin to play.
Welcome to Monday of Jesus’ last week, His Passion week, the final few days leading up to His coming crucifixion.
As you will hear in this PODCAST, At the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry, way back in John 2 (Podcast #21), Jesus cleansed the Temple for the first time. Now here in Mark 11, at the very end of His ministry, Jesus cleansed the Temple for the second time.
A display of uncharacteristic anger, rare to be sure. But a shocking display of anger nonetheless. Quite out of character for a Jesus who described Himself, and who consistently showed Himself to be a Very.Gentle.Jesus.
As Jesus walked through the Temple courts that day, something set Him off.
Yes, He was understandably upset about the fleecing of the flock that was going on here. To be perfectly pointed about it, these religious leaders were making bank by selling God. Religion had become big business. By the time of Jesus, the Temple Industrial Complex was alive and well and oh-so-lucrative.
Sadly, they had discovered in that day what so many Christian leaders have discovered today: God sells. Jesus sells. Then and now, there is money to be made in Jesus’ name. A boatload of money.
That being said, there was something of even greater offense to Jesus going on there in the Temple courts. You might not see it at first blush. But trust me, it is there, front and center. As you will soon see.
I’ll give you a hint: God desperately longs to dwell among His people, literally. That is a thread that is woven throughout the pages of the Bible.
God desperately longs to dwell among His people, literally. All of His people, Jew and Gentile alike, “from every tribe and language and people and nation” (Revelation 5).
From the very first pages of the Bible (Genesis), through to the very last pages of the Bible (Revelation), God desperately longs to dwell among His people.
That theological thread that ties the entire Bible together runs right through this story here in Mark 11, as Jesus cleansed the Temple for the second time.
Please remember that depending upon your web browser and connection speed, it may take up to 60 seconds for this podcast to begin to play.
Dewey Bertolini 