This week’s PODCAST—my humble, little Christmas Gift to you. Be blessed.
Thank you for listening, and for sharing this message!!!
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God bless you richly as you listen.
Please, oh please, think about THIS the next time you sing O Little Town of Bethlehem.
Thank you for listening to this PODCAST, and for sharing this message!!!
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.
God bless you richly as you listen.
In this PODCAST, recorded on Christmas Eve, 2023, I wish you not only a very Merry Christmas, but a meaningful Christmas as well.
Thank you for listening, and for sharing this message!!!
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.
God bless you richly as you listen.
A manger scene. As you will be reminded in this PODCAST, a manger scene has become the iconic picture of Christmas.
Which prompts to ask and answer this one question:
How does the first—genuine, authentic, as described in the Bible—manger scene compare with our store-bought manger scenes?
The answer will bring to you a bright and beautiful understanding of that very first Christmas Day!!!
Thank you for listening, and for sharing this message!!!
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.
God bless you richly as you listen.
It is THE iconic image of Christmas.
As you will hear in this PODCAST, a picture—it’s always about the picture.
Straight out of Galatians. Straight from my heart. Straight into your soul.
Enjoy!!!
Thank you for listening, and for sharing this message!!!
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.
God bless you richly as you listen.
The picture that you are about to hear me paint in this PODCAST is my Single. Favorite. Scriptural. Snapshot of Jesus, second to none.
Courtesy of our old friend, Peter, who was onsite and who witnessed this up close and far too personal in real time as it happened.
I have a hunch that after hearing this, you will never think of Jesus in quite the same way again.
May my stuttering and stammering words be a blessing in your life.
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.
God bless you richly as you listen.
May I ask you a personal question?
As you will hear in this PODCAST, the exact same question that I asked of a couple of hundred of the best high school students you’d ever want to meet. Here’s my question:
Do you want to live your life in the midst of God’s blessing?
If your answer to that question is “Yes,” THIS is what God’s blessing means; THIS is what a God-blessed life looks like.
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.
God bless you richly as you listen.
I need to read Acts 9:35 to you its context.
As you are about to learn in this PODCAST, there is so much more here than meets the eye. At least that meets our eyes.
Acts 9:35 is a truly remarkable statement for original readers of the book of Acts. It will soon be truly remarkable for us. For this one verse exposes the underlying reality in the spiritual climate of the Land that you and I might easily miss. As well as the ongoing spiritual battle for our souls that is being waged every minute of every day in our lives today.
A truly remarkable verse.
So hear it as I begin at verse 32.
“Meanwhile, Peter traveled from place to place, and he came down to visit the believers in the town of Lydda. There he met a man named Aeneas, who had been paralyzed and bedridden for eight years. Peter said to him, ‘Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you! Get up, and roll up your sleeping mat!’ And he was healed instantly.”
Now verse 35,
“Then the whole population of Lydda and Sharon saw Aeneas walking around, and they turned to the Lord.”
Anything jaw-dropping strike you about those words? Are we missing anything here? I’ll give you a hint: Yes! We are missing a ton! All of which has to do with these two telling locations: One a town—Lydda; the other a region—Sharon.
Foreign to us; all-too-familiar to the people of that land at that time.
It’s the old story: We cannot understand the biblical play if we don’t understand the stage on which the play is performed.
So in this podcast, I’ll take you on a fascinating tour of the stage.
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.
God bless you richly as you listen.
It has become THE iconic image of Christmas: a Manger scene.
And as you will hear in this PODCAST, so iconic that hand-carved Manger Scenes are far-and-away the #1 hot seller when I take people to my favorite olive wood shop in Bethlehem.
A Manger Scene.
Even though everything about it is absolutely wrong.
No knock on the artisans who hand-craft these treasured keepsakes. But you see, it’s all about a picture. An iconic picture.
Manger Scenes paint pictures in wood.
Luke painted a picture in words. And Luke’s picture, when properly understood, is SO MUCH MORE POWERFUL than any hand-crafted manger scene could ever hope to be.
It is simply an undeniable fact, an inconvenient truth, that from Luke’s quill and parchment to our wooden manger scenes today, so much has been lost!
And we are the poorer for it.
But not anymore. Not after hearing this podcast.
Merry Christmas, from my heart to yours.
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.
God bless you richly as you listen.
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.
God bless you richly as you listen.
The Latest News from Jerusalem
Dewey Bertolini 