Christian Meditation for A Bigger Life with Pastor Dave Cover

God has put your life in a place and time that requires courage to survive. That’s why all throughout the Bible God calls his people to have hearts of courage. Even though you can’t always see it, every minute of your life is taking place in the midst of real enemies. You may not think of life that way. So courage is not something you normally think of as one of your greatest needs. Psalm 108 is t...

Your life is a constant conversion with God, even if you don’t know it. This is why even atheists refer to God when cursing or complaining. The reason for this constant life-long conversation with God is that everyone is created by God and lives inside God’s universe. God created you and your soul knows it deep down. Everyone does. That reality is unavoidable. So when you try to create your own li...

Your life is a constant conversion with God, even if you don’t know it. This is why even atheists refer to God when cursing or complaining. The reason for this constant life-long conversation with God is that everyone is created by God and lives inside God’s universe. God created you and your soul knows it deep down. Everyone does. That reality is unavoidable. So when you try to create your own li...

The weird thing about the Christian life is that the more you are walking in the light and the truth of God’s word, the more you are aware of your sin. You’re more aware that your sinfulness sinks its roots in your life far deeper than you realize. It gets weirder yet when your awareness of your sinfulness actually brings a sense of joy and security in all that God is for you in Jesus. It makes yo...

Too often we confuse the accusations in our head with the conviction of the Holy Spirit. That’s a big mistake. And that’s the subject of this episode. We are setting up a base camp here in Psalm 106 for a little while because it touches on a lot of really crucial issues if we want to walk with God. If we want to live the bigger life. Live the better story. There are three things you have to believ...

Most dysfunctions and problems in life stem from only seeing yourself from an horizontal point of view. What others think of you and say to you has way too much say in how you see yourself. Define your identity. But you can’t live the bigger and better story without finding your identity from the vertical perspective of God. That’s the subject of this episode. We are setting up a base camp here in...

One of the most important ways to see yourself is having an amazing worth to God. You were “https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Corinthians%206%3A20&version=NIV (bought with a price),” the New Testament says. And that price was God himself in the body of Jesus. What that really means for you is the subject of this episode. We are setting up a base camp here in Psalm 106 for a little w...

You’re wanting to walk with God and live into his bigger and better story for your life. That’s why you’re coming to this podcast. And that already says a lot about you. It seems so complicated sometimes though. But it really doesn’t have to be. It can be as simple as believing these two things discussed in this episode. Like this podcast? Leave us a rating so others can find it more easily. Also...

Could it really be as simple as that? That your greatest hindrance to living your life in the bigger and better story of all that God is for you in Christ is your forgetting to remember? That’s what we see in Psalm 106, and we see it with the disciples in an interesting account in the Gospel of Mark. Like this podcast? Leave us a rating so others can find it more easily. Also consider texting favo...

We live in a cultural narrative that focuses on therapy (healing) more than reality. But an honest diagnosis of reality is always your best therapy. That’s counterintuitive. We don’t like thinking about our sin because it makes us feel bad about ourselves. But that’s true only if you think about your guilt but don’t honestly take responsibility for your sin. Honest confession of your sin and takin...

Psalm 106 starts with that ancient Hebrew word, Hallelujah. Why? What are you actually saying whenever you say that? And how can the first five verses in this psalm help you say it in a way that turns your life more right-side-up? Like this podcast? Leave us a rating so others can find it more easily. Also consider texting favorite episodes to a friend or family member who might benefit from this...

What makes your relationship with God secure? What’s your security based on? Your level of faith? Your level of obedience? Or is it something more sure than either of those? Psalm 105 gives us the answer, and the language and phrases in this Psalm will help you feel more sure and secure in your relationship with God. This is a long Psalm, so we’ll just look at the first eleven verses. Psalm 105:1–...

Nothing will lift up your soul more than God-exalting worship. You were created to derive your glory and identity from God’s glory and identity. And whenever you disassociate your existence from the worship of God, you are disconnected in some way even from your own soul. That’s why to worship God, to lift your eyes to him, to incline your heart to him, sometimes you first have to speak to yoursel...

Nothing will lift up your soul more than God-exalting worship. You were created to derive your glory and identity from God’s glory and identity. And whenever you disassociate your existence from the worship of God, you are disconnected in some way even from your own soul. That’s why to worship God, to lift your eyes to him, to incline your heart to him, sometimes you first have to speak to yoursel...

Sometimes your life is not exactly under blue skies. Things are miserable and you’re not doing well. That’s OK. In fact, God has given us Psalms in the Bible to express exactly that. Which is encouraging to think. God wants us to complain to him. That’s what Psalm 102 is. Because sometimes you just need to vent to God. We have to learn to take our negative emotions to God in worship rather than in...

Something is always narrating your life. And most of the time a false narrative is screaming at you to find a better life in its story. Your life is being narrated by the windows you’re looking through. And Psalm 101 is an important window to look through to refocus and revive your own story by pointing your soul to the true and better story. Take some time in this episode to look through a better...

We're missing something big about God when we miss God's name, when we don't understand the importance of God's name, when God's name doesn't come to our mind when we think about God. When Moses asked God to show him his glory, God basically said “No, it would kill you right now because you’re too sinful. But I’ll do the next best thing. I’ll proclaim to you my name.” Then God gives a description...

When Moses asked God to show him his glory, God basically said “No, it would kill you right now because you’re too sinful. But I’ll do the next best thing. I’ll proclaim to you my name.” This side of our coming resurrection, the closest thing we have to seeing God’s glory is to understand his name. When God wants to give his people a name that best captures who he is in a way we can most understan...

Who is God? What comes to your mind when you think of God? Author A. W. Tozer said it this way in his book, Knowledge of the Holy: “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.” Let me state it differently, what comes into your mind when you think of God will determine everything else in your life. How you answer that question “Who is God?” will completel...

A sobering reality in the Bible is the importance of having a heart of gratitude and thanksgiving rather than complaining. It's always surprised me how one of the “big” sins in the Bible is grumbling. Complaining. And one of the pillars of a biblical faith is having a heart of thanks toward God. Actively. Willfully. That's what Psalms of thanksgiving do for me. Like Psalm 100. They’re like those b...

What always amazes me in the Psalms is how they consistently and poetically capture the bigger story this world is in. All throughout the Psalms, God is giving us a glimpse of the future, and it strengthens my faith to see how the Bible has always been giving us this bigger story of what God is doing. I want to be in that story. I don't want to get hijacked by all the other dead-end stories scream...

In our last episode we discussed Psalm 98 about the power of singing and music in worship. God has created this universe, and created music to be a powerful expression of beauty, goodness, truth, and transcendence. Music is grounded in who God is. So you will never be able to worship God as fully as he intends without learning to worship through music and singing. It is embedded with God’s power t...

When we actually pay attention to what the Bible says about singing and music, we discover that music is a powerful force in God’s universe. When we worship through song, something happens in us that doesn’t happen through mere words spoken or heard. In this episode on Psalm 98, I interview Scott Johnson, who has served as one of our co-directors of worship at the church I pastor for 21 years. He’...

When you worship God as holy, it brings a kind of fear that also brings a kind of joy. There’s a reason why Jesus told us in the Lord’s Prayer that the first thing you’re to pray for is that you would see and experience God’s name as holy (“Hallowed be your name”). Your experience of God’s holiness in worship anchors your life vertically. It’s like putting on corrective glasses for the first time....

The battle line in our lives is always at our worship. As human beings created for living in God’s glory and love, we are always worshiping. Worship is when we ascribe the highest worth and worth-it-ness to someone or something in our hearts and minds. That’s ultimately what prayer is all about, worshiping God “in Spirit and truth” (John 4:24). That’s what brings light and life and joy into our li...