THIS is why I follow Jesus.
In this PODCAST, you will hear a story and see a Scriptural snapshot of just who Jesus was, and is.
He certainly and without a doubt is THIS to you!
Thank you for listening, and for sharing this message!!!
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God bless you richly as you listen.
As you will hear in this PODCAST, a more fantastical tale has never been told.
Fantastical, but fantastically true.
Thank you for listening, and for sharing this message!!!
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God bless you richly as you listen.
Let the good times roll.
They’ll roll, alright. But as you will hear in this PODCAST, they’ll roll… for only a little while.
And in the end, Jesus wins. And when He wins, we win.
You win!!!
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.
“They” do indeed “know.”
In this PODCAST, you will learn who knows, and what they know.
And I am happy to report that you are on the right side of this discussion.
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.
Words fail me to convey to you the awesome wonder that I am feeling now.
In this PODCAST, you’ll no doubt hear that wonder expressed through my voice’s intonations and verbal expressions.
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 called, appropriately enough, the Via Dolorosa, Latin for “The Way of Sorrows.”
For Jesus, it absolutely was a way of sorrows — every single excruciatingly painful step of it, from the Antonia Fortress (where Pilate sentenced Him), to Golgotha (where Jesus’ execution awaited Him).
In this PODCAST, we will walk that path together.
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.
You talk about a collision of conflicting emotions, welcome to Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into His beloved city of Jerusalem.
As you will hear in this PODCAST, all of this emotional turmoil will come to a climax as Jesus paused during His Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, gazed longingly at breathtaking panorama, and then suddenly sang this song of lament:
“If you had known, even you, especially in This.Your.Day.”
This your day.
The obvious question: What was it about this day that caused Jesus to refer to it with such a pointed specificity?
This was, of course, the day on which Jesus chose to make His return to the Holy City, and thus to trigger all of tumultuous events of His turbulent last week. It was, as you may know, the final Sunday before Passover that year, what we call Palm Sunday. This because the people gathered in their thousands, and waved palm branches all along the route of Jesus’ ride on the back of a donkey into Jerusalem.
I cannot help but to think that the words of Psalm 137 echoed through Jesus’ mind and heart as He rode into the city:
“If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill. May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not consider Jerusalem my highest joy.”
Jerusalem: Jesus’ beloved city indeed. Let there be no doubt that Jerusalem was, and is, and ever shall be Jesus’ highest joy. Which makes His weeping — His crying convulsively — over the Holy City on this her day all the more poignant, all the more powerfully emotional.
Now, I need you to focus on one important fact that overshadows this entire week: Jesus’ thoughts were focused like a laser beam on one particular book of the Hebrew Bible (our Old Testament): the prophetic book of Daniel. How do I know this? Because on the Tuesday of this final week, a mere 48 hours after this Palm Sunday, Jesus will give to His disciples His grand and glorious Olivet Discourse, recorded in Matthew 24 – 25, and rivaled in its beauty and majesty only by the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5 – 7.
That signature sermon was delivered on the Mount of the Beatitudes in Galilee. This final sermon or discourse was delivered on the Mount of Olives overlooking Jerusalem.
In that discourse, Jesus laid out for His disciples and for us the sweeping panorama of the End Times, and all that will lead up to His glorious return. The so-called Signs of Times.
We will, of course, break it down in all of its majestic splendor when we get to that Tuesday in the coming weeks.
What I need for you to note now is what Jesus said right in the middle of that discourse, the interpretive key both for that sermon and for this moment in His Triumphal Entry:
Matthew 24:15, “So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ spoken of through the prophet Daniel let the reader understand.”
Jesus’ unmistakable reference to Daniel 9:24-27.
Now listen carefully: The Triumphal Entry sets in motion the beginnings of the fulfillment of this great prophecy in Daniel 9, what many call “The Seventy Weeks of Daniel.”
Allow me to read to you the prophecy in full, and then we’ll talk about 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.
You are about to hear an amazing story about a remarkable man, AND about an encounter with Jesus that includes one of the most important and practical biblical principles that you will find anywhere in the pages of the Bible.
Quite a claim, I know. One that I will absolutely prove in this PODCAST.
A principle that I will be presumptuous enough to suggest that you and I need to hear, and of which we need to be reminded, perhaps often.
This is on the surface a story about a man born blind (which would be remarkable enough), but it is also a story about sheep, about a sheepfold, about the door of the sheepfold, about Jesus who identified Himself as the “door of the sheep,” and about life in the desert in which the sheep and shepherds in Israel lived and continue to live.
Before we get to the story itself, I need very briefly to remind you of something we talked about way back on February 2, 2013, nearly 3 years ago. When God appeared to Moses in the Burning Bush, He made a most remarkable statement:
I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.
Interesting phrase, “milk and honey.”
Honey (a jam made of figs and dates) refers to the land of the farmer, and the bounty of the fruit of the land that is grown by the farmers.
Milk refers to the land of the shepherd, and that which is produced by the flocks that are raised and cared for by the shepherds.
In Israel, both lands — milk and honey — come together in a breathtaking variety of geography and climate that (NOW GET THIS) puts into its proper perspective EXACTLY the kind of lives that we are living today. More specifically, HOW and WHY we think the way we do today.
We have SO MUCH to learn from this 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. Words worth waiting for, I assure you.
God bless you as you listen.
This is going to be So.Much.Fun for me. (And for you, I hope!) So indulge me here, because I LOVE this stuff.
Look carefully and you might see my bemused smile on my face! It is just so comical to me how easily we take what Jesus made so simple, only to make it so insufferably complicated.
And to be perfectly honest with you, I am awestruck. That’s the tone with which I want to teach this PODCAST’s passage.
I am awestruck at Jesus’ ability to say so much in so little, so many thoughts communicated in so few words. All of which so practical, helpful, relevant, refreshing, and inspiring to us today.
Let me set it up like this: You know the guy in the circus with the hundred plates spinning on a hundred poles? OK. So here’s my question: What does that picture of a hundred plates spinning high atop a hundred poles have to do with this portrait that Jesus paints here in Matthew 10?
The simple, uncomplicated picture of giving someone who is thirsty a cup of cold water? A picture, BTW, that forms the conclusion to Jesus’ training manual for ministry. The ministry manual that we have been studying for lo these eleven weeks or so. The Ministry Manual that Jesus gave to His apostles to prepare them for their very first missions trip.
What do spinning plates have to do with a cup of cold water? As you are about to hear, Everything. 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 as you listen!
At the Safe Haven, we are having a glorious time working our way through the Lord’s Prayer, little by little, phrase by majestic phrase.
Think of the Lord’s Prayer as the Son of God teaching you and me how to pray to God. Amazing.
And it all starts with the enigmatic little phrase:
Hallowed be Your name.
Which means, as is commonly and correctly taught, to treat God’s name as holy.
But what exactly does that mean? To treat God’s name as holy? Not to cuss? Not to joke about God? What does treating God’s name as holy truly mean?
Let me approach it like this: It is THE bedrock declaration of the entire Bible, the foundation upon which our Judeo-Christian heritage rests. I am referring, of course, to Deuteronomy 6:4.
Our Jewish friends call it the Shema, which means “to hear.” The first word of this magnificent verse, Deuteronomy 6:4. As in “Hear O Israel…” As if God Himself is shouting, “HEAR THIS, my people. DON’T MISS THIS! LISTEN!!!”
Deuteronomy 6:4. An absolutely revolutionary statement proclaimed to a people — God’s people — living in a land polluted with (Are you ready?) polytheism, the worship of many gods.
Deuteronomy 6:4 is the declaration of monotheism, our belief in one God:
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one!
Now watch this: “Hallowed be Your Name” does indeed mean to treat God’s name as holy. As uncommon. A God unlike any other god. A different God. A God set apart, unique from every other god.
When the Israelites settled in the Promised Land, it was a land awash in gods, filled to overflowing with pagan gods. Gods of the rain, gods of the harvest, gods of the storms, gods of the sea, gods of fertility/prosperity.
Put them all together and you can basically divide these many gods into two categories: gods of nature; gods of the economy. Or to put that a little more crassly: gods of Health and gods of Wealth.
The pagans in the land (those who worshipped these gods) prayed constantly to these gods, begging them for two things: a problem-free life (no droughts, no diseases), and a prosperously-full life (bountiful harvests, robust herds of sheep or goats).
They prayed constantly to their nature gods for happiness and health. They prayed constantly to the economy gods for prosperity and wealth.
In short, they babbled off their prayers to their gods, begging them to send fewer problems and more money.
The point of which is this: Along came the one true God of the Bible.
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one!
The one true God who is not the god of the sea, not the god of the rain, not the god of the harvest, not the god of fertility, not the god of prosperity, not the god of the storms, No!.
Our God, the God of the Bible, the God of the Israelites, the God of Jesus, OUR GOD created the Universe. He transcends the sea, rain, harvest, fertility, prosperity, and storms.
In fact, here’s a news bulletin for you. Our God sometimes sends the storms.
God uses the sea, rain, harvest, fertility, prosperity (or lack thereof), storms — nature and the economy — to accomplish His purposes.
Now, here comes the key to this entire discussion. Are you ready? Because once you hear and embrace this, you will never view prayer the same way again.
The pagans of Jesus’ day prayed to their gods to make their lives more comfortable and prosperous. Did you get that? The pagans prayed to their gods to make their lives more comfortable and prosperous. Sound familiar? It should. Their “babbling” (Jesus’ word, not mine) sounded like this:
Gimme, gimme, gimme…
I want, I want, I want…
Please, please, please…
They even made bargains with their gods.
If you’ll do this, then I’ll do this…
If you’ll give me this, then I’ll give you this…
You talk about treating gods as common!
Their gods to them were nothing more than good luck charms. Like a sanctified rabbit’s foot. Like genies in bottles whose sole purpose was to grant to them their wishes. Wishes for lives that were comfortable and prosperous, healthy and wealthy.
Now for the punchline to this entire discussion:
We don’t treat our God that way.
We don’t treat our God as a common pagan god!
We do not worship God because we hope that He will give us a life that is comfortable and prosperous. We don’t beg God for stuff. We don’t make bargains with our God. We don’t try to manipulate Him, or to force His hand into giving us anything.
That’s what the pagans of Jesus’ day did. That’s what the pagans of our day do.
Do you see it? The people on the hillside that day sure should have seen it. Listen to what Jesus said:
Matthew 6:7-9 (NIV) — And when you pray, do not keep on BABBLING LIKE PAGANS, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. This, then, is how you should pray: Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
How do pagans pray? They babble on and on to their gods du jour to give them this and that… STUFF. Stuff that will make their lives comfortable and prosperous. Stuff that will make them healthy and wealthy. Stuff that will make them happy.
We don’t. We don’t pray to God to get stuff. We worship God for one, and only one reason: Because He is God.
We don’t have to tell God our needs; He knows our needs. He has already promised to meet our needs.
We don’t beg God to still the storms; God promises to go with us through life’s storms.
We don’t treat our God as a common pagan god to give us stuff — only to get ticked off and bitter, only to have our faith falter or fail — when He doesn’t give us our stuff.
We are not like spoiled children constantly nagging their parents for stuff.
You heard what Jesus said:
Your Father knows what you need before you ask him.
We don’t even have to ask.
We don’t pray to God to get stuff, stuff that will make us happy, healthy, or wealthy.
We pray for one reason and only one reason: Because He is God. The very fact that we are allowed access into His presence is enough.
Did you read that carefully? It bears repeating:
The very fact that we are allowed access into His presence is enough.
Or at least it ought to be.
We don’t beg our God to solve all our problems or still all our storms; we trust God to use our problems and our storms for our good and His glory.
Do you see it? We don’t treat God as a common good luck charm — with a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately attitude.
When we shut the door and are alone with God, what’s the first thing we pray? The very first thing we pray?
Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.
May I keep Your name holy.
May I treat You today, O God, as utterly uncommon.
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Dewey Bertolini 