The Surge Podcast

How do guardrails limit our mistakes with money? If you can’t serve both God and money, how to do tell if money is your master? This is about setting up guardrails with regard to over-consumption or greed and handling money wisely.

How do guardrails keep my significant other significant? It’s about keeping your significant other your significant other

How do guardrails keep friends and associates from driving us into a ditch? This is about the need for guardrails with regard to friends and associates. Modern science and the bible show us that we become like those we hang around with. So, choose wisely.

How do guardrails give us practical protection in our personal lives? The main text is Ephesians 5:15-18, and this first message is just establishing the wisdom of having guardrails in our lives to protect us from going into a ditch, i.e., damaging our lives and our futures. Identify where you’re at risk and set some boundaries. Society won’t do this for you, but it will laugh at you and ridicule...

Christmas Eve With The Surge!

The Surge Christmas

Does anyone else have a hard time thinking about anything else but their problems? Two helps with anxiety. (1) Think about the right thing. Problems require some thought, some attention, but fixation? Probably not. Obsessing? Nope. Scripture tells us to be careful what we ponder. Not talking here about positive thinking, but Godward thinking. Intentionally direct your mind to God. Meditate on His...

Has anyone out there found a good counselor to help you with your anxieties and fears? God commands us (not a suggestion) to stop worrying. Great. How do we do that? God's recommendation: pray. But prayer isn't to just be a rehearsal of your worries. It's unburdening yourself, getting rid of the burden, putting them on God. He can handle it. Stop trusting in you; instead trust in God. Plead specif...

Money is tight right now, so how can I not be terrified about finances when I get older? This message is all about financial anxieties, given that 80% of Americans have financial fears ranging from somewhat to extreme. Even the rich have these fears. We can handle money better, but those concepts don't cure this because it's our hearts that need curing. Our fears reveal our idols, what we really w...

How do I break this fear that something bad is always lurking just around the corner? The focus is on fear of the future, what's going to happen. The belief that Murphy's Law is true if it can go wrong, it will. The answer to our key question is found in three questions. 1) Who am I listening to? It'd ought to be Jesus; 2) Who am I trusting? It ought to be Jesus. Our fears show us we're not. 3) Wh...

Death is something we all will experience, so why are we so afraid of it? We have a double whammy in our culture not only fear of death, but fear of aging. Good news is the bible agrees that death is a problem. And death exists because of sin... we've all sinned. So our greatest need is someone to die for us. We may not think so, but the bible tells us we are in lifelong slavery because of a fear...

What do we need to hang on to when depression hits? When it's seems hopeless, we need to hope in God. Our minds are going to talk to us about how awful things are. We need to interrupt that conversation and start one where we challenge ourselves to hope in God, and buttress that with what we know of who God is, what God is, what God has done, and what God has pledged to do. And we use that to keep...

What kind of a citizen should a Christian be? Be subject to governing authorities, recognizing that government is instituted by God. You resist them, and you resist what God has appointed, and you will suffer the consequences. Do this, not from fear, but because you answer to a higher authority than the government: God Himself. Pay the taxes you owe, and deliver respect and honor to those governin...

How are Christians supposed to deal with people in the real world who wrong them? Don’t pay back evil for evil. Do what everyone around you would claim is the honorable thing. In other words, don’t be what you hate in others. Take the high road and give God room to deal with the ne’er-do-wells around you. Even better, look to do something good for your enemy. Special could be about getting even or...

If the church is supposed to be full of God’s love, why do we have so many denominations? It’s all about how we are to genuinely love each other. Let God’s word work in us to root out stupid stuff, and then blast out love to other church members. In fact, outdo each other in showing honor to others. In doing so, you are serving God. Ponder how you can stir each other to grow in Christ. And don’t m...

I became a Christian two years ago, so why is it that nothing really seems to have changed? We live the Christian life best when we’ve died to ourselves. Paul told us earlier that we’re to be led by the Spirit. Same concept. Don’t just conform to the crowd; let God take hold and be transformed. It’s really a whole life commitment, not just one hour on Sunday. A special about being sold out for som...

Is there a master plan afoot, or is life and history just a series of unfortunate events with the incidental nicety thrown in to keep us guessing? Yes, there is a master plan, and it’s God’s, and He’s is working it to perfection in ways that we aren’t even capable of grasping as mere humans. Paul explodes into worship here in v33-36. It’s almost as if he himself is overwhelmed at the inspiration G...

What should a Christian’s perspective be toward Jews? The short answer to that is R-E-S-P-E-C-T. (Should be a song with that title out there, shouldn’t there?) We shouldn’t write the Jews off as lesser because God’s not done with them, any more than He wrote Gentiles off during Israel’s heyday. Jews are still getting saved here and there, despite a partial hardening they are enduring as a people....

If God has rejected Israel for rejecting Jesus as Messiah, why is the US so pro-Israel? From the thousands of years of persecution, it seems God has moved on from his covenant with Israel. But has he? And if he has, what’s to keep him from getting disenchanted with any of us? We find here that Israel is still in the game, even though most are super opposed to Jesus. Even now, God continues to save...

If Jesus was the Messiah, why don’t most Jews believe in him—after all, he was Jewish? Israel was offended that people not Jewish could become the people of God. As such, they lost sight of the great purpose God created the Jewish nation—to be a light to all the other nations, that whoever would believe could be saved. It’s easy to bash the Israelites, of course, but we can be so like them. Christ...

Is going to heaven really as easy as Christianity makes it sound? Yes, God may have elected, or chosen, you, but he has also included your free-will decision to place your faith in Jesus Christ as part of the process of salvation. Paul returns to that concept in this text, lamenting that his Jewish brethren still are trying to make nice with God through their works when Christ has already done it...

Isn’t it wise not to tell my insecure wife about an occasional online, and totally innocent, chat with an ex? It’s about making a vow to confide in and not hide from our spouse. Such openness is the key to purity in a marriage. Why? Sin causes shame, and shame leads us to keep secrets, hide from each other (ex: Adam and Eve in the Garden, post-fall), and secrets begin to eat away at intimacy. As i...

Why is it that many of the things I thought were cute about my spouse when we dated now just irritate the heck out of me? It’s about making a vow of partnership with our spouse--taking the differences of each spouse and weaving them together in oneness rather than allowing them to divide and separate us. To do that, we’ve got to start thinking more about WE than we do ME. This is a commitment, a c...

Why has the spark gone out in my marriage, and is there a way to get it back? This is about making a vow of pursuit of our spouse. We tend to pursue what we don’t have but want. So, we tend not to pursue our spouses—after all, we already have them. But the relationship we really want is only at beginning at the beginning. You should want it to grow. If you want that enough, you will continue to pu...

How do you prioritize all the things required to have a great marriage? This is about making a vow of priority to your spouse. Maybe a successful marriage isn’t as much about finding the one as making God the “one” and your spouse your “two”: God the 1st priority; spouse the 2nd. Let the relationship with the spouse flow from the relationship with God.