I am coming off of an exhilarating week with the best students in the world, the Joshua Wilderness Institute students. So in my absence, and for your edification and enjoyment, I have reached way back into the archives, all the way to Podcast #61.
This was at the time a wonderfully received and enormously helpful discussion that brought so much peace to so many troubled (and sometimes tortured) souls.
If you were ever going to hear just one message on the mysterious and majestic practice we call prayer, let this one be the one. For here we come to the crux of the matter regarding this glorious thing we call prayer.
So much is going to become so clear in just the next few minutes: Questions about unanswered prayers. Questions about why God even designed this thing called prayer. Questions about the purpose of prayer. Questions about what we ought to pray for, and what we don’t need to pray for. Why prayer sometimes doesn’t seem to work. Yet why every time we pray biblically, it ALWAYS works.
So much to talk about. I am so glad you are here to share in this discussion with us.
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HAPPY LISTENING, and may God richly bless you as you listen.
An encouraging discussion, certainly to me personally, and hopefully to you, because Jesus’ 2nd parable, The Parable of the Wheat and the Tares (the 1st we discussed last week, The Parable of the Farmer Scattering Seeds) is spot-on as far as Jesus predicting with pinpoint accuracy EXACTLY what would be taking place in our contemporary Christian culture and communities today…
…And why!
A thought-provoking portrait upon which you and I need to gaze with insight and understanding.
This is one of those messages that puts so much into its proper perspective. Honestly, I can’t wait for you to hear it.
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That’s right! In this PODCAST, we begin in earnest now to understand Jesus’ parables in Matthew 13.
Oh, you’re in for a treat. Because this first parable, just like the eight that will follow it, speak directly to our lives at this time, in this place, in our day, today.
This is as personal as it gets.
Jesus now shifts His focus completely, from talking to the crowds of His day, about the many challenges that they faced, to talking directly to us in our day, about the many challenges that we each face today.
I cannot stress enough the absolute importance of understanding these parables. Neither could Jesus, who begins this first parable with the word, “Listen.” And then ends the parable by referencing those of us who do indeed “listen and understand.”
In this podcast, we will do both — listen and understand.
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. God bless you as you listen.
Mothers, think back to what it was like when you gave birth to your firstborn child – the fears, the insecurities, the feelings of inadequacy.
Now imagine that when you did give birth, it was not in the clinical cleanliness of a hospital room or birthing center.
Imagine you were in a cave, dark and alone, unsanitary to the extreme, no nurse, doctor, or midwife to help you, and you are all of 13 or 15 years old, in what was essentially a foreign country, away from your family, with only your fiancé to help you.
Add to all of that the political climate of the world Mary was living in – a world of crushing oppression fueled by a brutal and barbaric military occupation.
Furthermore, if we discover nothing else from the birth narratives in both Matthew and Luke, we at least learn this: There are some people in this world who are without a doubt the very incarnation of evil.
Such was the power of Rome, and so was the person of Herod.
From this point on in all four Gospels, every miracle that Jesus performs, every lesson that Jesus teaches, every person whom Jesus meets, every action that Jesus completes will all be done under the watchful and wary eyes of Rome, the imperial power to whom Herod had sold his soul.
With that in mind, can we even begin to imagine the world into which Mary gave birth to her son?
You will learn so much more about that world as you listen to this podcast.
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I can’t tell you how excited I am, both about this particular message AND the enormous encouragement that I know it will bring you as you listen!!!
In this week’s PODCAST, we break the seal on the parables. As you will hear, Jesus had quite compelling reasons for completely changing His teaching style — from preaching to the masses to huddling with the disciples; from sermons to stories; from proclamation to parables.
This particular discussion will set up our Fall, sort of a series within a series, as we will take the next several weeks to consider together each of Jesus’ parables in Matthew 13. Specifically, what they meant to the disciples to whom Jesus spoke them, and what they mean to us today.
Jesus used parables to reveal new truth never before mentioned in the Old Testament. This is brand new stuff. Stuff that relates specifically to the day in which you and I are living. Stuff that explains some of the many challenges we are facing as committed Christ-followers today.
This is a personal as it gets.
So thank you for coming along for this wild ride, and making the journey with us.
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.
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 and distinction.
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. May God richly bless you as you listen!
Gifts of Gratitude: If interested in expressing your gratitude in this biblical, tangible way--by giving a gift directly to me, OR giving a gift to a friend or loved-one-in-need in my name--please click on the Gifts of Gratitude tab at the top of this page. Thank you!!!
Dewey Bertolini 