Posts Tagged With: miracles

Our Daily Bread

Money-back guarantee (of course, that’s not saying much, since the PODCAST costs you nothing!) if you are not super-encouraged.

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.

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Miracles-On-Demand

I am so excited for you to hear this latest PODCAST.

So many questions will be answered.

So much confusion will be addressed.

So many mysteries will be resolved.

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.

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Bible Bootcamp — The New Testament

Welcome to our third and final installment of Bible Bootcamp.

As you will hear in the PODCAST, with due deference to Peter’s challenge to you and me—1 Peter 2:2 (KJV), “As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby.”—we thought if beneficial to take a bird’s-eye view of the entire Bible. An overview. A survey. The box top to the biblical puzzle.

This so that we can understand how each individual piece fits into the whole.

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.

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A Sermon for the Ages (Not mine, but Stephen’s!)

It was a sermon for the ages.

As you will hear in this PODCAST, it was originally preached by a layman. He had no formal training in advanced biblical studies. There is no mention of any degrees. No diploma hung on his office wall, if he had an office. We have no indication that he had studied under a leading rabbi, such as Saul studied under Gamaliel.

His only claim to fame? Stephen was (Acts 6:3) “full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom”; (6:8) “a man full of God’s grace and power.” And that was certainly enough!

Stephen was a humble, unassuming man, selected by Hellenistic, Greek-speaking Jewish believers in Jesus to be one of “The Seven,” chosen to care for their neglected widows.

Through circumstances not of his choosing, Stephen was suddenly thrust into the spotlight, hauled violently before the Sanhedrin, and forced to testify on his behalf.

But instead, Stephen chose to testify on Jesus’ behalf.

And oh what a testimony it was. You talk about power.

Stephen embodied God’s power as he took the High Court on an exciting excursion through Old Testament history.

And in so doing, provided for us a most-significant warning. One that you and I desperately need to hear.

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.

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A Fury Unleashed

 

“The apostles (rejoiced that) God had counted them worthy to suffer disgrace for the name of Jesus.”

As you will hear in this PODCAST, a most-interesting word, “disgrace.” Both the NKJV and the NASB translate it “worthy to suffer shame for the name of Jesus.” In the ESV? “Worthy to suffer dishonor for the name of Jesus.

It’s a word that means to render infamous through insult, innuendo, and/or intimidation; to strip someone of their honor and dignity; to sully one’s name and reputation.

This is the exact same pattern that we saw with Jesus—a gradual escalation of opposition against Him, that we are now seeing intensify against the Apostles.

In Acts 4, Peter and John were arrested, imprisoned, warned, and threatened.

Here in Acts 5, all twelve Apostles were arrested, imprisoned, and flogged. They were publicly disgraced, purposefully stripped of their honor as well as their skin, insulted, rendered infamous, their reputations sullied before the watching world.

It should therefore come as no surprise that come Acts 7, the situation will have escalated to the point to where Stephen will be stoned to death.

So what happened now to cause this next step in the escalation of opposition and intimidation? Fact is, it’s really quite a story! One that give to us a heartwarming insight into the thinking and feelings of this first generation of committed Christ-followers. A window both into their world and into their souls.

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.

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Times of Refreshment WILL Come. That’s a Promise!

 

“Starting with Samuel, every prophet spoke about what is happening today,” Acts 3:24.

What a remarkable statement.

As you are about to hear in this PODCAST, with those eleven words, Peter alerted that unsuspecting crowd that had gathered at the Temple for their daily 3PM prayers that the singular message of the entire OT was now beginning to be fulfilled right before their amazed and curious eyes.

Jerusalem in all of its storied history had never before experienced anything like the events of the past two-to-three months. Going all the way back to Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into the Holy City, then His cleansing of the Temple, the crucifixion, the Resurrection, the Day of Pentecost. And now, for the past two-to-three months, nonstop, ongoing miracles.

All of that leading up to this: a very public, and deafeningly loud miracle—the healing of the lame man whom everyone in Temple precincts that day had passed every day on their way up to Temple.

I say loud because, as we can only imagine, when this man now went “walking and leaping and praising God” throughout Temple courts, everyone heard him.

And everyone naturally wondered, “What on earth is going on around here?”

Peter was about to tell them exactly “What on earth is going on around here?”

As it turns out, A LOT was going on around here.

Peter’s answer to that question?

“Starting with Samuel, every prophet spoke about what is happening today.”

The entire Old Testament—every story, prophecy, promise, sacrifice, festival, feast day, type, symbol, sign—all of it pointed to that day here in Acts 3, and all that they were witnessing now.

Get ready for a wild ride, courtesy of Peter.

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.

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A Day in the Life of the (First) Early Church

These were exhilarating times indeed for that original company of committed Christ-followers.

In this PODCAST, and in the upcoming weeks, it will be our privilege to relive these salad days of the first ekklesia—in Jerusalem—as we join in a virtual sense these first precious believers, our ancestors in the faith.

Last week, we looked at the four foundational dynamics that characterized this first early church. Foundational for them; foundational for us. You will remember that we considered each of these in some detail—that marvelous biblical blueprint for every local church, both then and now! The elegant simplicity and sincerity of which was breathtaking for us to behold.

Now, we will consider a day in the life of these very first committed Christ-followers. The precious and precarious first hours of this first church’s delicate-if-exuberant infancy.

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.

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Proof Positive

It was proof undeniable.

A reality on the ground about which every person in that vast crowd on this most significant Day of Pentecost knew.

As you are about to hear in this PODCAST, Peter triumphantly trumpeted to that crowd, and to us,

“As you yourselves know.”

Boy, did they know.

How could they not have known?

Fact is, reports of this wonder-working man from Galilee had circulated far and wide throughout the whole of the Roman Empire. Eyewitness accounts of His “miracles, wonders, and signs” had spread to every corner of the Mediterranean world.

Fact is, if the people who had gathered in the Holy City on this Holy Day were honest with themselves and honest with the facts, they knew that what Peter’s voice boomed in Acts 2:36 was undeniably true:

“So let everyone in Israel know for certain that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, to be both Lord and Messiah.”

Yes, they knew. “For certain,” they knew!!!

Of course, the obvious questions are: Why did they know for certain? How could they have known for certain?

The answer to those questions is equally obvious, for them, and for 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.

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

What DOES the Bible Truly Teach about Healing Today?

The day before yesterday, I read a recently released report out of University of Missouri on the subject of Facebook Depression.

Well, as you will hear in this PODCAST, I really didn’t need to read a report about that. I know all-too-well what happens in my own rather sizable soul when I scan my FB newsfeed.

Sometimes I just can’t help but to feel so deeply and compassionately and sadly for many of the challenges so many of my friends are going through, especially as they relate to their issues of health.

I, like so many of you, just want to wave a magical wand and fix everything. But I can’t. Of course, as the cliché goes, I do know Someone (capital “S”) who Can.Fix.Everything.

But what happens when He doesn’t?

Perhaps amplifying my FB depression, this was the week for “I don’t know if I believe in God anymore” messages. Messages sent to me by a few of my friends, unsolicited on my part, each message unrelated to the others, in which their faith is floundering, seriously so. This precisely because they have things broken in lives, significantly so. Yet despite their cries and pleas to the Almighty Who — as that name for God so powerfully suggests — has the power to fix it all. But He didn’t. He doesn’t.

Now what?

What does a person do when, in their moment of greatest need, it appears that God is either…

1. Silent/indifferent/deaf to their pleas, or worse…

2. Appears to be powerless to fix it all?

And so, in the lives of some of my friends, faced with a seemingly silent/indifferent and/or powerless God, their faith in God is in a free-fall.

I say all of that so that you know that I take this podcast’s passage in Matthew 10 Ever.So.Seriously. Tonight’s discussion hits me Ever.So.Personally. And so I will endeavor to bring to this discussion Ever.So.Compassionately the understanding of what it’s like to have one’s faith collapse.

Because it’s simply a fact that, despite the title of the runaway bestseller that just celebrated its 30th anniversary with a rerelease of a 30th Anniversary Edition — the book entitled He Is There and He Is Not Silent — for many of my friends, just when they needed Him the most, from all outward appearances God was NOT there and He was deafeningly silent.

Why so silent?

It all comes down to what you will hear in this podcast.

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.

If it is a blessing to you, PLEASE share a link to this podcast with your friends.

HAPPY LISTENING.

Categories: Uncategorized | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Blog at WordPress.com.

%d bloggers like this: