Reliable Truth

With Father's Day coming soon, I wanted to share this talk to fathers and daughters. I believe one of the most important responsibilities that we have as fathers is to teach our children to be wise - that when they leave our houses, they would possess great wisdom.  Proverbs 3 says, “Wisdom is more precious than jewels and nothing you desire compares with her. Long life is in her right hand and in...

The greater the power anything has for good, the greater the power it correspondingly has for evil. This is called the Principle of Double Effect . An example of this might be nuclear power. When you harness nuclear power, it can be used for such good in generating electricity for people's homes and for businesses. But when it's made into a bomb, it can be incredibly destructive.  Another applicat...

What does the farmer expect from the fruit trees he plants? To bear fruit, of course! Today I want to look at the parable of The Sower and the Seed, and it’s found in three of the Gospels. Today we'll study it from Matthew 13 .  The seed is God’s Word, and the soil is man’s heart. Who is the sower that sows the seed? It’s not God. It's you and me! We’re called and have been given the privilege to...

What is the role of truth in our lives?  I believe we must learn the importance of finding out what is true - because truth is paramount in the Christian faith. King David warns us in Psalm 15, of the importance of speaking the truth in our hearts. Healthy people are willing to confront the truth about themselves - and take appropriate action.  People who have the habit of not facing the truth, ha...

What has shaped your ideas about life and about God? Where did you get those ideas and beliefs? Where did you get the perspective that you bring into your life? If God came and spoke to us, I think He would tell us to listen to the words of Jesus. Listen to what He has to say to you, and about where you are in life. "But why should I listen to Him?" you might ask. What does He have to sa...

What is the object of life? And what are you hoping to achieve in this life? American Trappist monk, Thomas Merton said this, "If you really want to know a man - to know what's at the core of his being," he said, find out what he's living for now - in the present. Jesus gives us some good insight on this in one of my favorite parables, found in Luke 12. It's about a businessman who stores up treas...

How great is my desire to know God and to truly find Him as a living reality for my life? For many people, God is nothing more than a concept or a distant being that’s out there, but not One that's alive and that you can have a relationship with. Jeremiah 29:13-14 says, "You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you,’ declares the LORD..."  If this...

Today Richard joins Dr. Michael Easley of Michael Easley inContext to discuss Biblical Manhood in a Man-Hating World.  Dr. Easley’s experience in ministry spans four decades as a gifted Bible teacher and church leader. He was the 8th president of Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, Illinois  He shares a passion for ministry, heart for people, and love of God. Michael Easley inContext wants to help y...

HG Wells was one of the great historians to have ever lived. He was not a Christian nor a religious man, but in his book The Outline of History Wells concluded that Jesus was the most dominant figure in all of history.  How did Jesus do that? How did he become the most dominant figure in all of history? Not by power, prestige, influence nor outward appearance. He chose the path of humility. Watch...

Is the hope of Easter real?   11 Corinthians 4:16 says, "Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day." The apostle Paul was saying that with the passage of time, if you don't have a strong, vibrant spiritual life, you cannot help but naturally lose hope. Most of us know that the body is dying. We also know that ev...

How can the events of Easter transform the heart? Let's consider the events that took place on that first Good Friday and that first Easter morning. If they actually happened as events of history, then they are the defining events In all of life; in all of history. As Blaise Pascal observed, apart from Jesus, His crucifixion, and His resurrection, we cannot know the meaning of life, of our dea...

When thinking about manhood or what really defines what a man is; what do you usually think of? Money? Success? Women? Today Richard joins Brett on The Brett Snodgrass Podcast to discuss what the true measure of a man really is! We talk about fear of failure and unnecessary shame that comes with being a man. We also discuss why fathers need to be teaching their sons about masculinity at a young ag...

I believe we have a tendency to live out the future in our imagination before it arrives. For many of us, our lives are truly out of sync with time because we’re always anticipating the future. We all are always trying to rearrange our lives around future expectations of happiness. Blaise Pascal says this : “ We never keep to the present. We recall the past; we anticipate the future as if we found...

You are what you remember. I believe that what we remember affects who we are and what we experience in this life. Many people are haunted or weighed down by baggage from the past. Others try to live in the future, thinking that when they get to a certain point later, then life will be full and complete. Either perspective makes their lives in the present miserable.  God designed us to live a full...

What is the value of living a humble life? Life for most of us is all about what we do and how successful we are. Yet in today’s culture and with the power of social media, we also want to be well-known and admired for it. This is called the “pride of life.” Humble people are grateful people. They recognize who deserves the credit for everything in their lives. In this message I dig into the issue...

Do you need help with your relationships? Donald Miller says, "...the words alone , lonely and loneliness are three of the most powerful words in the English language... Those words say that we are human... they are like the words hunger and thirst, but they are not words about the body, they are words about  the soul ." God designed people to need other people. We are relational beings because Go...

Is your sexuality sacred to you? I contend that one of the most meaningful and powerful sources of joy in this life is our sexuality, particularly in the context in which God designed it. But when it's abused and misused, I believe, and I have seen, that it can be a source of unbelievable pain and guilt. In our last episode we discussed getting wisdom for handling our money. Well, the way we r...

Do you need wisdom for your finances today?  Blaise Bascal once said, "Human beings find life to be unsatisfying and incoherent as time goes by, because they have false beliefs and false ideas on matters important for living a high quality of life." He goes on to say, "Therefore it is critical that gain genuine wisdom by uprooting false beliefs and replacing them with true insights and perspective...

What will life in heaven really be like? Will we just be spiritual beings floating around in heaven? The Bible teaches that heaven is a place of joyous celebration, and that we will each have a physical, glorified body in heaven. Philippians 3:20-21 says, "For our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables Him to b...

Do you know what life is like if there is no God?  ​It’s kind of like the view that John Lennon wrote about in his song, "Imagine." He says, “Imagine there’s no Heaven, it’s easy if you try, no hell below us, above us, only sky. Imagine all the people living for today. ” Lennon is saying, just imagine what it would be like if there was no God and no Heaven and no religion. ​ Solomon says that life...

What is the purpose of work?  Jeffrey Salkin in the Wall Street Journal said this, “Americans work so hard that we often put work at the emotional and spiritual center of our lives.” And then Sigmund Freud who, in all that I’ve read about him, lived a miserable life -  he said, “Work is the most powerful deflector to keep us from having to face the unhappiness of our existence.”  Last week we look...

What is the modern secular view of life?  You might say it is the same as Solomon’s conclusion in Ecclesiastes - if there is no God, life is meaningless. Your pursuits and your endeavors are temporary, and nothing more than chasing after the wind. Solomon concluded that life "under the sun" means there is no God who stands behind you and existence. There is no God sustaining the universe. No life...

"Do you find yourself unsatisfied with things in your life?" Warren Wiersbe asks in his commentary on the book of Ecclesiastes.  He continues, “ If so, you are in good company, because dissatisfaction is a part of the human condition. That’s why God gave us the book of Ecclesiastes — to remind us that satisfaction in life is not an external issue that can be appeased by amassing more stuff, or hav...

Jerry Leachman of Leachman Ministries joins us again today to share a special message about Christmas. His focus is on the shepherds, the first people the angels told about Jesus' birth. They were the first to see the baby Jesus. They knelt and worshipped him.  They were the first to worship and on the way back to their sheep, they witnessed to everybody. They were the first missionaries. They tol...

What are you living for? A few years ago USA Today did a poll, asking their readers this one question, “ If you could ask God one question and get an answer, what would that question be? ” And interestingly, the overwhelming number one question that the readers answered was ‘ What on earth am I here for?’ Why am I alive? Why do I exist?  What are you living for? Because the way we answer that ques...