I have no doubt that you, or someone near and dear to you, needs to hear this PODCAST today.
Thank you for listening, and for sharing this message!!!
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God bless you richly as you listen.
“Eventually” — one of the most beautiful words in all the English language, as you will hear in this PODCAST.
Thank you for listening, and for sharing this message!!!
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God bless you richly as you listen.
So many lessons flow out of the Palm Sunday story.
As you will hear on this PODCAST, this one is arguably one of the most important.
Thank you for listening, and for sharing this message!!!
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God bless you richly as you listen.
We each have them.
As you will hear in this PODCAST, the “them” in that sentence refers to what I call “Unfulfilled Longings.”
But will they remain unfulfilled forever?
Guess again!!!
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 in this PODCAST…
A futile night of fishing…
A breakfast on a beach…
A cringeworthy conversation…
Changed EVERYTHING.
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.
“And just when you thought all was lost…”
As you will hear in this PODCAST, after his customary-yet-warm greeting, Peter could have begun his first foray into his rather short-lived, two-letter, dual-epistle-writing career with these words:
“And just when you thought all was lost…”
Because for Peter’s original readers, All.Was.Lost!
For these now-“scattered abroad exiles” had just been forcibly removed from their homes, had their lives permanently disrupted, and their families dramatically displaced.
Many-if-not-most of them were barely holding on, more surviving than thriving. Precious people precariously perched on the precipice of the abyss of uncertainty, just trying to make it through yet-another threatening day.
All of that to say that Peter could have begun this First Epistle of Peter with the words,
“And just when you thought all was lost…”
Because that was how they felt.
Just.Like.Some.of.Us.
Our challenges may not actually be as dire as theirs. But it sure feels that way some days, doesn’t it? Like we’re just barely hanging on? Like we’re more surviving than thriving? Like we’re maybe one step away from giving up?
“And just when you thought all was lost…”
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.
We are going to begin this week’s PODCAST precisely from where we left off in last week’s podcast.
We left off last week by considering together this most enigmatic verse (Hebrews 5:8):
Even though Jesus was God’s Son, He learned obedience from the things He suffered.
If you are at all uncomfortable with that, then the rest of this story will make no sense, and will leave you with an even greater discomfort.
But if you are willing to allow for the fact that “Even though Jesus was God’s Son, He learned obedience from the things He suffered,” then you are in for this great big blessing: The grand and glorious realization that Jesus, just like you and just like me, learned in real time what it means to live a life of obedience to God the Father.
We stressed last week, and I will ever-so-briefly remind you now, that Jesus was fully human, just like us. Last week we discussed some of the implications of Hebrews 4:15, where the writer emphatically affirms this ever-so-comforting reality:
Jesus understands all of our human weaknesses, for He faced all of the same testings and temptations we do, yet He did not sin.
Jesus experienced every human emotion, felt keenly every human feeling — including our feelings of fear, insecurity, uncertainty, abandonment, betrayal.
I mean, you just wait until we get to the Garden of Gethsemane, at which time there will be no doubt that in Jesus 100% deity meets 100% humanity, with all that that word humanity implies.
As we saw so vividly last week, life threw at Jesus unexpected challenges, unanticipated conflicts, undeserved difficulties, uninvited troubles… Just like life throws at us.
Jesus learned, just as so many of us are now learning, that sometimes, perhaps even most times, our richest life lessons can be taught only in the crucible of calamity.
By the reading of books our minds become broad. But it is only as we walk the pathway of pain that our souls become deep.
Something that Jesus learned.
Something that we are each learning.
Even though Jesus was God’s Son, He learned obedience from the things He suffered.
Please remember that depending upon your web browser and connection speed it might take up to 60 seconds for this podcast to begin to play.
God bless you as you listen.
It’s one of the most beautiful verses in all of Scripture… which, ironically, may not actually be in the Bible.
But as you will learn in this PODCAST, it really doesn’t matter. Because what Matthew quite possibly did not write, Paul most certainly did.
Paul ascribed glorious praise and power to His sovereign God who quite possibly Broke.Paul’s.Heart.
Paul’s heart broken by a shattered dream, an unfulfilled longing.
Yet through Paul’s resilience, we can and WILL derive much comfort in the face of our own shattered dreams, broken hearts, and unfulfilled longings.
This podcast is for you!
Please remember that depending upon your connection speed and web browser, it may take up to 60 seconds for this podcast to play.
HAPPY LISTENING, and may God richly bless you as you do.
My beloved little Safe Haven family is really going through it right now. In a word, we are being broken.
To focus that just a bit, let me say that I am amazed at the significant struggles and overwhelming challenges that some of our precious people are experiencing — painful loses; seemingly senseless disappointments; literally excruciating physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual challenges that defy explanation. Storm clouds are billowing. I cannot help but to imagine the reasons why.
In talking to each of these individuals on multiple occasions, they are understandably wrestling with it all, yet all the while demonstrating a firm-if-sometimes-faltering faith in God’s good plans that leaves me in awe.
I know, I know, I know that God never breaks His people without some amazing purposes behind His breaking. Some of our dear Safe Haven family members are being broken — No doubt about that! — but to what good purposes only time will tell. (Emphasis upon that hope-filled word, “will.”) The stories are just now unfolding. Stories that will be told. Stories of God’s abiding grace and peace. Stories of God’s sustaining strength and power. Stories of how God will profoundly touch the world through the profound pain of my friends. Stories that will illustrate the unbreakable law of nature: We can’t enjoy a shimmering rainbow without some falling rain.
I also know that as God breaks my friends individually, He is also breaking Safe Haven collectively. He is breaking us as we share in these burdens together. A safe haven indeed — an unpretentious cadre of committed Christ-followers who desperately love Him and relentlessly love each other despite the unexpected trials and tribulations that life throws our way. It will be amazing, in the days and weeks ahead, to see not only what purposes lie behind God breaking certain individuals, but what purposes lie behind His breaking our family as a whole.
In the mean time, I have the unspeakable privilege of walking through these storms with some pretty special people whom I love with all my heart. It’s times like these that I am so incredibly thankful that God gave me the priceless privilege of being their pastor. But more than that, to be their friend.
The Latest News from Jerusalem
Dewey Bertolini 