There isn’t a whole lot in this troubled world of ours about which we can be certain.
But as you will hear in this PODCAST, you can be certain of THIS!
And thank you for listening, and for sharing this message!!!
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God bless you richly as you listen.
Remember the song, “With a Little Help From My Friends”?
In this PODCAST, your number of friends is going to grow by two.
Two remarkable individuals who are about to enrich your life greatly, as they have mine.
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.
Father’s Day with my lovely little Ashley Anne.
I am so ADHD that honestly, I don’t know what to entitle this PODCAST. I’ve got, like, 10 different titles coursing through the frontal lobe of my mind.
“You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet” would work.
How about “A Bride Adorned for Her Husband”?
Or “God’s Best Kept Secret”?
Maybe “There’s a New Day Coming” would capture it.
I almost called it “Moving Day.”
But I’ll stick with “Glorious Scenes and Grand Sensations.”
If a rose by any other name smells just as sweet, I hope you’ll find much sweetness as you listen in.
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 make a prediction?
My prediction is this: As you listen to the PODCAST, you will be awash in waves of encouragement.
As you’ll hear, it was a crazy night to be sure. Here we sat in the midst of a citywide blackout. Yet, Peter’s message of hope and healing shined through bright and beautiful.
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.
So why DID Peter have to write this?
As you are about to hear in this PODCAST, why do we need to read and heed this?
We’ve hit a milestone in our 1 Peter in HD series. This marks the halfway point. 2 1/2 chapters down; 2 1/2 chapters to go!
Four times in 2 1/2 chapters, Peter makes this heartfelt plea. He does so for a very good reason.
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God bless you richly as you listen.
God’s timing is perfect!!!
As you are about to hear in this PODCAST, this passage for me (and I have no doubt for some of you) has come at just the right time. Let me explain.
Simply put, for some time I have been experiencing something of identity crisis. I have been haunted by this one question:
“Where do I fit?”
When it comes to this whole Christian scene, our contemporary Christian culture, at the risk of sounding overly maudlin—a great word that means self-pitying, tearfully sentimental—I honestly don’t know where I fit anymore.
Well, thanks to Peter, that’s not true any more!!!
I now know exactly where I fit. And soon, so shall you!!!
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.
Spoiler Alert: As you are about to hear in this PODCAST, one of the disadvantages of words on a page is that we cannot hear tone; we do not see body language nor facial expression.
In this message, I am attempting tonight to place myself in Peter’s sandals, sit myself at Luke’s writing table, and to teach tonight’s passage—one of most important in NT—in the tone and with the emotions with which Peter confronted a potentially explosive situation; with which Luke recorded this nearly-catastrophic confrontation.
I do not think it a stretch that Peter was caught completely off guard, taken totally aback, disheartened and likely exasperated by the severe reaction he received upon his return to his beloved Jerusalem.
So on the one hand, I speak to you from a broken heart, as I believe Peter’s was broken too.
On other hand, this story in Acts 11 has a glorious ending; and so shall we! God will bring beauty for these ashes! As He always does. As He ALWAYS does.
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.
Throughout His life and ministry, Jesus made some absolutely amazing statements, as only He could do!
As you will hear in this PODCAST, Jesus was able to pack into just a few words the most deeply profound theological truths, the implications of which have taken the most incisive theological minds centuries to unpack.
Case in point: This otherwise obscure little gem buried deep within the Miracle of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fishes, AKA “The Feeding of the 5000.”
Jesus said in John 6:44,
“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them to me.”
An absolutely remarkable statement that underscores our gloriously precious theological proposition known as Divine Election, along with its sister doctrine of Sovereign Predestination—sadly, with all of its attendant questions and endless theological wranglings, divisions, and separations that these blessed concepts unnecessarily generate.
Trust me, courtesy of Philip and an unnamed Ethiopian Eunuch, this is a cause NOT of confusion, but of cerebration!
For as you are about to hear, this eunuch’s story is your story.
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 was a scandal in the making.
As you are about to hear in this PODCAST, a vast cultural divide threatened to rip asunder the fragile fabric of unity these first believers in Jesus earlier enjoyed.
As we learned last week (Podcast #27), the story begins,
“But as the believers rapidly multiplied, there were rumblings of discontent. The Greek-speaking believers complained about the Hebrew-speaking believers, saying that their widows were being discriminated against in the daily distribution of food.”
That was, as you will remember, a dire situation for these precious widows. Dire in the extreme. Women who had lost their husbands, and who were now among the most vulnerable in that male-dominated society. Females forced to live in a world that diminished women to a subservient status. One that rendered them uneducated, unskilled, unemployable, utterly without resources. Totally dependent.
Now that they had become followers of Jesus, they could not return to their synagogues for support. Not to worry. We read earlier in Acts 2 that
“(These first believers) would sell their property and possessions and give the money to whoever needed it… and shared their food happily and freely.”
Not any more.
Last week, we went into much detail about the collision of cultures faced by these early believers. A vast cultural divide between the Greek-speaking (Hellenistic) believers who were in the minority, and Hebrew-speaking believers who were in the majority. A cultural divide of church-splitting potential.
So wide a divide that the majority discriminated against the minority to the risk of the lives of Greek-speaking widows.
This was serious. So serious that the Apostles (all Twelve of the Apostles) were forced to drop everything in order to address problem.
Their solution was nothing short of brilliant! For them. And for us!
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 