I hope you brought your spiritual appetite to this PODCAST. You are in for quite a bountiful banquet, all courtesy of James.
Thank you for listening, and for sharing this message!!!
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God bless you richly as you listen.
One fruitful discussion—as you will hear in this PODCAST—for just such a time as this.
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 will hear in this PODCAST, Habakkuk’s psalm of praise fits our current circumstances as perfectly as they fit his. A more timely prayer could not be offered.
Want to know how to pray during a pandemic? Here’s a prayer-clinic, courtesy of Habakkuk, and of Paul who quoted him.
Enjoy!!!
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.
God is on the move.
In this PODCAST, you will hear in just what direction, and with what purpose, God is moving.
You’ll also discover His method to this incredible madness which we are all enduring, as well your purpose during these amazing days.
Be encouraged, my friends. Our brightest days are about to dawn!
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 will hear in this PODCAST, how ironic that Peter should invoke this image, and we discuss it, on the evening of the Winter Solstice, 2019.
As we bring the lovely little letter called 1 Peter to a close, you are in for copious amounts of much-needed encouragement.
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 am in Carson City this weekend, honored to perform the wedding of my beloved niece, Amanda. (CONGRATULATIONS Amanda and Andrew!)
But as you will hear in this PODCAST, this encore message is as timely and needed and comforting and encouraging and hope-sustaining today as it was when I first gave it so many months ago.
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, it’s always been a delicate and debatable dance — a Committed Christ-Follower’s relationship to the government.
This tension forms a theme that meanders throughout the pages of the Old Testament. It spills over into the Gospels and Acts. It’s certainly mentioned in several epistles, as it is here in 1 Peter.
Fortunately for us, the Bible is quite clear, concise, and unambiguous on this topic.
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May these words, humbly offered, be a blessing to and in your life.
It is the single saddest day on the Jewish calendar.
As you are about to hear in this PODCAST, that statement, purposely given with the present tense “is,” is true today.
It was equally true for Peter’s original Jewish readers.
One day each year, indelibly imprinted on the collective psyches of our Jewish friends then and now.
“It is today as it was then.”
A day which reads in English, “the ninth day of the month of Av” (usually around our month of August).
In Hebrew it is called, Tisha B’Av.
If we don’t understand what this day is all about, we will not understand what the closing verses of 1 Peter 1 are all about. For Peter’s original readers. 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.
As you are about to hear in this PODCAST, the time has come for us to have a sensible discussion about an issue that has been grossly misunderstood, and consequently grievously mis-taught, in far too many Christian settings. All of this causing so much harm spiritually, mentally, and emotionally to so many.
Jesus said, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Oh, my dear friends, get ready to be set free!
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.
Dewey Bertolini’s Podcast
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Dewey Bertolini 