You could call this PODCAST A Tale of Two Worlds.
In which of the two do you live?
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Ready for a wild ride?
As you will hear in the PODCAST, from Earth to Heaven, back to Earth, and up again into Heaven. We are in for quite a ride, to be sure.
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.
As you are about to hear this PODCAST, it was a night that Peter would never, ever forget.
Nor should we.
For embedded within the events of this night is a blessedly-enduring word of hope and assurance. Hope and assurance for you. Hope and assurance for me. And certainly hope and assurance for someone or someones whom you and I deeply love.
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.
As you are about to hear in this PODCAST, Peter begins his first lovely little letter literally with a literary explosion. It’s as if he has so much that he wants to say so quickly, that the syllables come pouring out of him like a waterfall of words.
Believe it or not, verse 3 all the way to verse 12 is one long and winding and wondrously scenic sentence. You heard that right. A grand total of 315 words (in the NLT), all of which form one single sentence. Only the first part of which we will discuss now, with so much more rich and glorious truth to follow in the coming weeks.
There is an life-altering, soul-stirring insight embedded in verse 3 that we would do well to consider. Since verses 1 & 2 serve as Peter’s greeting, the letter itself actually begins with Verse 3.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
A rather remarkable statement given dire circumstances in which Peter’s original readers were living. We’ve already detailed them for you in the previous two podcasts. I’ll simply remind you that due to circumstances beyond their control—an empire-wide persecution at the bloody hands the infamously ruthless Nero—these were precious people—committed Christ-followers each, each our ancestors in faith—who had literally lost everything.
Even to the point of potentially losing their freedom and even their lives.
Theirs were the darkest of clouds with no silver linings.
A very fragile people living on the precipice with no safety net, clinging to their lives lived under the capricious actions of an unpredictable madman.
So if you were Peter, someone who fully understood and appreciated their seemingly insurmountable challenges—fears, insecurities, uncertainties—why would you begin your letter to them with the words,
“Blessed be the God & Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”?
Does that not sound like a typically empty Christian cliché?
What prompted Peter to write with such audacity as to command his readers—including us—to bless God:
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Even in the absolute worst of circumstances?
Obviously, Peter’s words, “Bless be the God,” did not come out of a vacuum. Fact is, there is a long and rich history to these words, and the life-altering, soul-stirring insight embedded within them.
Peter’s opening line was anything but a cutesy little Christian cliché. Not to his original readers. After hearing this podcast, not to us.
Although this does raise one intriguing question:
Bless God?
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ”?
I thought God blesses us.
How in the world do you and I bless God?
The answer to that question will change 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.
Welcome back to the foot of the cross.
In this PODCAST, we are now in that six-hour window of time — between 9 AM and 3 PM.
9 AM when the Romans nailed Jesus to His cross; 3 PM, that moment when Jesus finally succumbed to His brutal beatings, His massive blood loss, and the tortures of crucifixion — finally and mercifully to die.
Within that six-hour window, Jesus spoke seven times. The final words of His earthly life pre-resurrection. As we noted last week, a complete, seven-sayings, last lingering look into Jesus’ beautiful, sizable, and irresistible soul.
The first two of these sayings we discussed last week.
We’ll consider the middle two now.
And the final three we’ll explain next week.
Let me give you a heads-up. Get yourself ready for a rollercoaster of a ride tonight. This because the first of the two that we consider now is without a doubt the most emotional of the seven. I dare say, this may well be the single most emotional scene in the entire Bible. I’ll leave that for you to decide.
The second of the two statements that we consider now is equally without a doubt the most dramatic of the seven. I dare say, this is the single most dramatic scene in the entire Bible. No question about that.
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.
Dewey Bertolini’s Podcast
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Dewey Bertolini 