Dewey Bertolini's podcast

It’s one of the most beautiful verses in all of Scripture… which, ironically, may not actually be in the Bible.   But as you will learn in this PODCAST , it really doesn’t matter. Because what Matthew quite possibly did not write, Paul most certainly did.   Paul ascribed glorious praise and power to His sovereign God who quite possibly broke Paul’s heart. His heart broken by a shattered dream, an...

Does your faith ever flicker or falter? Are you ever besieged by doubts, pesky thoughts that call into question God’s love, God’s goodness, God’s presence in your life?   You are not alone, as you are about to hear in this PODCAST .    There is a battle being waged right before our eyes, a battle of good versus evil, a battle of the forces of light against the forces of darkness, a spiritual battl...

As you are about to hear in this PODCAST , it is my sense that far too often in the Christian community at large, we display a woefully naive and underdeveloped understanding of person-to-person forgiveness.   Too many times I get the sense that our default position is to demand of the one who is wronged his or her need to forgive the one who wronged him. While at the same time almost giving a pas...

Welcome to this Encore PODCAST . While I am away speaking to a wonderful group of precious college-age students at a place near and dear to my rather sizable heart -- Hartland Christian Camp -- we travel back into the Safe Haven archives for this most insightful lesson. As you are about to hear, Jesus lived and taught in a spiritual climate remarkably similar to our own. You will be AMAZED at the...

God can sometimes seem so distant. Remote. Removed from the intricate details of our daily lives.   BUT HE’S NOT. As you will discover by listening to this PODCAST .   God is closer to you than you can possibly imagine.   OK, here’s a pop quiz for you. When Jesus wanted to convey to the people He loved in the single most culturally-emphatic way, just how close God is to YOU, what image did Jesus i...

Welcome to this encore presentation of the introductory PODCAST that launched what was then, back in November of 2012, a brand new and exciting and life-changing series: Jesus in High Definition.  I know my friends in the midwest will laugh at us here in the Pacific Northwest when I say this. But when it snows, oh, around two inches, the city and state virtually shut down. Well, we are into our th...

If you were ever going to hear just one message on the mysterious and majestic practice we call prayer, let this PODCAST be the one. Finally we come to the crux of the matter regarding this glorious thing we call prayer. So much is going to become so clear in just the next few minutes: Questions about unanswered prayers. Questions about why God even designed this thing called prayer. Questions abo...

My friends, there is a new day coming! Learn all about it in this week’s PODCAST . Please remember that depending upon your web browser and connection speed, it may take up to 60 seconds for the podcast to begin to play. HAPPY LISTENING!!!

Why?  It is THE question that haunts each and every one of us. Why? Why do bad things happen to us? Why doesn’t God answer my prayers? Why did God let this happen? Why doesn’t God just fix this? In this PODCAST , you WILL discover the answer. Please note that depending upon your web browser and connection speed, it may take up to 60 seconds for this podcast to begin to play. Thank you for listenin...

In this week’s PODCAST , believe it or not, Jesus answers THE question that has haunted church/ministry leaders for years: Why are they leaving the church in droves? The answer is so obvious, that it is staring us right in the face. And yet, with all of the blogs and books devoted to answering this question (and IMHO missing the point completely), with the gallons of ink that has been spilled on r...

In this PODCAST , you will learn one singularly simple concept which, if you take it to heart, will change your life forever. It is my sense that in contemporary Christian culture in America, we have lost sight of the elegant simplicity spoken of in the New Testament. And consequently, we have lost so much of God’s blessing in the process. So here’s to simplicity, with the hope that your life over...

I'll just say this: If you were ever going to listen to one Jesus in HD PODCAST , please, please, please listen to this one. Please remember that depending upon your web browser and connection speed, it might take up to 60 seconds for this podcast to begin to play. If it is a blessing to you, please "Share" the link to the podcast with all of your friends. HAPPY LISTENING!!!

What a glorious night we had at the Safe Haven. We included several of our precious children and young people in a Living Nativity, during which I gave five separate snapshots of Christmas. Think of this PODCAST as five for the price of one. Rather than painting a panoramic portrait, as I try my best to do every week, we instead looked at five different photographs, viewing Christmas from five dif...

Coming at just the right time, this PODCAST will, if we take Jesus’ words to heart, transform our lives in ways that we cannot even begin to imagine. I offer it to you as a gift of love from my heart to yours.  PLEASE remember that depending upon your web browser and connection speed, it may take up to 60 seconds for the podcast to begin to play. HAPPY LISTENING. And if it is a blessing in your li...

In this week’s PODCAST , I am going to take a great big risk and tell you a personal story. A story that I have on rare occasions shared with individuals. But this will be the first time I’ve ever told this story in a public setting. I tell this story for a number of reasons.  First, of course, because it goes right to the heart of this podcast’s passage. It illustrates precisely the issue to whic...

The topic of this PODCAST is one of those subjects that touches us all, deeply and profoundly. The ripples of any divorce, every divorce spread their concentric circles far and wide. Which compels us to take a sober look at exactly what Jesus DID SAY HERE in Matthew 5:31-32, as well as -- and perhaps especially -- what Jesus DID NOT SAY HERE. Because once again, this is one of those passages which...

Well, here we are once again...  Faced with yet another passage (if you can believe it) too often ripped out of its context, twisted into a pretzel, and made to say something other than what Jesus intended it to say. There is an issue addressed in this passage, and in this PODCAST -- a monumentally important issue -- so important that we must understand what this passage means. The fact of the mat...

I am SO excited about this PODCAST . Excited because so much is about to become so clear as we look at this together. If you took the entire Sermon on the Mount, and boiled it all down to one singular soundbite, the over-arching theme, its one takeaway… It would be Matthew 5:20, “But I warn you—unless your righteousness is better than the righteousness of the teachers of religious law and the Phar...

This is going to be fun, and oh-so-instructive. This is the kind of a lesson I LOVE to teach. Did you realize that in Matthew 5:18, Jesus made one of the single most dramatic, declarative statements He would ever make? In one sweeping sentence that we explained at length last week, Jesus affirmed the Bible -- every book, chapter, verse, word, letter -- as absolute truth. Through the process of Rev...

The scene could not have been more chaotic. Crowds clamoring for Jesus’ blood. The blood-thirsty mobs hurling their false accusations at Jesus as they tried to convince the Romans that this man needed to die. The Roman soldiers salivating at the prospect of torturing yet another helpless victim. And through it all, once the mayhem ended, once the maelstrom calmed down, the echoes of one question c...

I’m telling you… If anyone knew how to make someone feel affirmed, feel that they have value, that they have purpose, that they are significant, it was Jesus. This little PODCAST is going to be fun and oh so inspiring! We began last week’s discussion with these words: “I cannot think of a more beautiful tribute to committed Christ-followers than Jesus’ words here in the Sermon on the Mount: ‘You a...

“You are the salt of the earth.” Trust me when I tell you that those 7 simple words were in reality the loftiest compliment, the highest praise, that Jesus could have conferred upon us, His people. I promise you that you will be both encouraged and challenged as you listen to this week’s Safe Haven PODCAST . Please note that depending upon your web browser, it may take up to 60 seconds for this po...

Is it really true?  That the gateway to God’s blessing in my life opens wide when people say hateful, hurtful, spiteful, or malicious things about me? Or when they treat me in a hateful, hurtful, spiteful, or malicious way? Simply because I desire to live a righteous life, rather than an unrighteous one? In this PODCAST , you are about to learn how blessedly true that really is. Please note that d...

Get ready to be encouraged. Super-encouraged, truth be known. I say this because THE THING that everybody wants (and I say “everybody” without any fear of contradiction, without any worry of exaggeration)… THE THING that everybody wants is readily available, and ours for the asking. It’s just that so many people have no idea what it is they really want. But trust me, we all want this… You could ca...

Leave it to Jesus to offer a blessing that includes the word “meek,” the word which the noted Bible scholar William Barclay called “the most untranslatable word in the New Testament.” Dr. Barclay was right. As you are about to hear in this  PODCAST , I know of no other statement made by Jesus that has been so universally mistranslated, misinterpreted, or misapplied. Except that Jesus did not come...