As Bold As Lions Podcast

Send us Fan Mail Each podcast in the Songs Of The Season series will feature a Christmas hymn.  Join me all month long as we dive into the background, context, and timeless truths of these beloved carols.  HARK!  THE HERALD ANGELS SING (SONGS OF THE SEASON) Hark! The herald angels sing, “Glory to the newborn King!  Peace on earth and mercy mild,  God and sinners reconciled.”  Joyful, all ye nation...

Send us Fan Mail Excited to close this My Favorite Verses series with this last podcast, taken from Joshua 24:15 -  And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.   This verse is importa...

Send us Fan Mail Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?  Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?  And which of you by b...

Send us Fan Mail This week we are diving into a verse that perhaps isn't too popular for many people.  I grew up listening to various genres of Christian music and one band I heard (a metal group), had a song with this verse in it.  So every time I heard the song, I was reminded of the verse:   (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of stron...

Send us Fan Mail This month's blog series, My Favorite Verses, focuses on some verses and passages from the Bible that are near and dear to my heart.  To dive into these verses and pull out some key truths has been a goal of mine for awhile.  It is difficult to pick just a few...this might be a series I have to come back to again!  But I have picked 4 verses and 2 are from the Old Testament a...

Send us Fan Mail The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. Psalm 34:18 Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. Matthew 5:4 Rounding out this Letters To The Hurting series, we are ending on a subject matter that is difficult but necessary.  So many are hurting due to grief; both in the church and in the world at large.  We know many are walki...

Send us Fan Mail The past few months have brought much in terms of fear into our daily lives.  As Christians, we are told repeatedly in Scripture to "Fear not."  But why is this so hard to put into practice, especially as we see a world deteriorating around us?  When fear rises, we must put into practice other patterns of behavior and ways of thinking.  We must consistently rest in God&a...

Send us Fan Mail I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you. Psalm 119:11  Doubt is a real thing we can struggle with at time to time as Christians.  We can start to face certain situations that cause us to stand back and say "Is all of this Jesus stuff real?  Is there a Heaven?  Is there a Hell?  Does God even exist?"  Those questions are not bad in and of the...

Send us Fan Mail Insecurity, I believe, comes from putting our hope in the wrong thing.  As Christians, we know and understand hope is in Jesus.  Yet when circumstances in life press us, we often turn to other things to give us peace or comfort.  Insecurity pops up when we haven't properly understood our standing in Christ -- our identity comes from Him.  When we have the proper knowledge of...

Send us Fan Mail Rest time is not waste time. It is economy to gather fresh strength.  It is wisdom to take occasional furlough.  In the long run, we shall do more by sometimes doing less.  Charles Spurgeon In this first week of a new series, Derek and Corrie dive into the area of weariness in the life of the believer.  Burn out, stress, feeling tired...these are all natural things we can feel fro...

Send us Fan Mail Closing out this series on The Blessed Hope, we turn our eyes to Heaven and pull out some Biblical truths that tell us about what it will be like.  Being this is such an enormous topic, a podcast like this only begins to scratch the surface.  But what are the some of most notable things we learn about Heaven?  Streets of gold, no night or day, continual light (from the Son), new b...

Send us Fan Mail Because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.  Romans 10:9 This week's podcast and blog take a bit of a turn in focus and format.  This week is a bit of a rapidfire, "Sharing Your Faith 101"-type of discussion.  There is a way that I believe we can prompt discussion and ask...

Send us Fan Mail There's a song by the late Larry Norman that the group DCTalk covered in the latter years of their career.  The song is titled "I Wish We'd All Been Ready" and in it are these lines:  There's no time to change your mind, the Son has come and you've been left behind.  This episode centers on the topic this song addresses:  the return of Christ.  To be...

Send us Fan Mail Picking up a new series, The Blessed Hope, we are looking at the return of Christ and some of the elements surrounding this glorious event.  From Titus 2 we read:   Waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ.  Titus 2:13  Jesus' return IS the blessed hope.  It is what our hearts long for:  the hope of spending eternity in...

Send us Fan Mail A true profile in courage, Esther is the story of a Jewish girl who became Queen over Persia and was God's instrument to save her people.  If you've read the story, you know the almost "Hollywood-like" sequence of events.  There's good vs. evil in the narrative of Mordecai and Haman.   There's the unlikely rise to queen by Hadassah; who becomes Esther...

Send us Fan Mail As the first martyr of the early church, we see a unique boldness in the character of Stephen.  He is a man full of the Holy Spirit.  He has a wisdom that cannot be argued with since he speaks the truth about Jesus.  Still, he came up against an authority that did not like what he was saying -- true or not.  The Jewish leaders brought him up on false charges, held a sham trial, an...

Send us Fan Mail Another profile that is worth consideration is Joseph.  Perhaps the path of Joseph's life would not have been the one he would pick if given the choice.  Most of us would rather not endure the suffering that Joseph went through.  Sold into slavery as a young man and abandoned by his brothers, Joseph started at the lowest place possible.  Still, God's favor was upon him a...

Send us Fan Mail We are starting a 4 week podcast series on PROFILES IN COURAGE; Bible characters that we can draw strength from as we examine how they lived in a moment of time that challenged their faith.  The opposition we face in this world:  trials, tests, and persecution...none of them are new.  The tried and true stories of the Bible (David and Goliath, Daniel in the lion's den, Noah a...

Send us Fan Mail Wrapping up this series, Summer of Psalms, this podcast focuses on Psalm 138.  This is a passage that deals with the notion of being grateful and thankful before God.  An "attitude of gratitude" is not something we naturally have within us.  But when we stop and consider what God has done for us and His very nature, we are drawn into a place where we see Him as good.  Th...

Send us Fan Mail He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High      will abide in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress,      my God, in whom I trust.”  Psalm 91:1,2 Psalm 91 is referred to as the "Soldier's Psalm" and for good reason:  it is a Psalm about doing battle.  In a world that projects hate and animosity towards Christians, we sense...

Send us Fan Mail Psalm 51 is a compelling Psalm about broken fellowship with God and the desire to have that fellowship restored.  In context, the Psalm was written by David after his sin with Bathsheba.  We know that the sins of adultery and murder weighed heavily on David's heart.  Although his sin affected others around him, it was ultimately the Lord that he sinned against.   David recogn...

Send us Fan Mail The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims His handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.  Psalm 19:1,2 In my opinion, some of the most poetic and beautifully written words of Scripture are those found in Psalm 19.  The Psalm starts out pointing us to the nature of the Lord:  His vastness and His soverignty over our lives. ...

Send us Fan Mail Starting a new podcast series in conjunction with a blog series that posts at derekcharlesjohnson.com/blog.  Summer of Psalms is the series and all month long, we'll be diving into various Psalms in Scripture and pulling out meanings and themes.   Psalm 23 is probably the most well-known Psalm in the entire Bible.  It is a passage that acknowleges who God is and what our repo...

Send us Fan Mail An interesting encounter to finish up this batch of episodes, we are looking at Peter:  prior to Jesus' death and after His resurrection.  Why is this encounter important?  We know a lot about Peter but in the hours immediately preceding Jesus' crucifixion, he is led astray but doubt and fear.  He denies Christ 3 times.  It is probably his lowest point.  From there, he a...

Send us Fan Mail In John 4, Jesus has an unlikely encounter.  He approaches a Samaritan woman who is drawing water from a well and asks her for a drink.  This request of course, sets up a conversation that for the woman, is life-altering.  Jesus establishes Himself as the Messiah and for this woman, there are definitely implications.   She must now go and tell others about this man who “Told me ev...