Faith to Witness 99

This is Faith to Witness 99, motivating us to hear God and share the Shepherd.  Season 3 Episode 197 Jesus Saves You By Your Name. (human for human) Here’s the gist, human. The world tells us we are one of many. The world tells us we are one of too many. A face in a crowd. A follower on a dashboard. A buyer of the best-selling item. An ancestral spec on the canvas of centuries played out.  But whe...

This is Faith to Witness 99, motivating us to hear God and share the Shepherd.  Season 3 Episode 196 Part 2 - Ezekiel, A Watchman Who Witnesses the Glory of God (linen, cherubim and the glory weight of your witness) Here’s the gist, human. Pausing to picture the glory of God as Ezekiel experienced it is a weighty proposition. The sound of cherubim, the vision of a throne made of lapis lazuli, and...

This is Faith to Witness 99, motivating us to hear God and share the Shepherd.  Season 3 Episode 195 A Watchman Who Witnesses the Glory of God (I have a spirit-crush on Ezekiel) Here’s the gist, human. Ezekiel was a man that listened to God tell him about the “river” and a hope for the future. A man that God took further, beyond the exile, to the return, and the exacting nature of his glory and ho...

This is Faith to Witness 99, motivating us to hear God and share the Shepherd.  Season 3 Episode 194 God May Deliver You From the Fire. Or Not. (three men who let God decide) Here’s the gist, human. We are faced with false gods all the time. Today, we look at three men who chose God, not false gods. Three men who were clear about who the Great Defender is. God. And only God. It’s a beautiful thing...

This is Faith to Witness 99, motivating us to hear God and share the Shepherd.  Season 3 Episode 193 Your Past is Lived Out. Your Present Belongs to Jesus. (gather God’s morning manna) Here’s the gist, human. We crave a blank slate. Starting again. I can picture the excitement of the Israelites packing for the exodus.  Everyone loves a blank slate. But when the post Red Sea reality settles in, we...

This is Faith to Witness 99, motivating us to hear God and share the Shepherd.  Season 3 Episode 192 When You Just Need a Joy Boost (David, Peter, Jesus to elevate your attitude) Here’s the gist, human. Sometimes we just need to jumpstart some joy. The kind of elation and inspiration that only comes from our Creator. We need God to pump us up. And he can. So if you are feeling, depressed, discoura...

This is Faith to Witness 99, motivating us to hear God and share the Shepherd.  Season 3 Episode 191 Live a Life that Honors God’s Covenant (we need the wilderness) Here’s the gist, human. What happened in the wilderness for forty years with Moses and the chosen nation, seems like a long time ago. Time has changed things. Culture has moved on. Jesus came to save us, we can leave the wilderness beh...

This is Faith to Witness 99, motivating us to hear God and share the Shepherd.  Season 3 Episode 190 I Feel You Hovering, God (bring me from chaos to the light) Here’s the gist, human. God “hovered” over the dark surface of the deep.  Genesis 1:1-2 1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Sp...

Here’s the gist, human. Receiving God’s provisions is an ongoing challenge. For instance, right now. I am revving up for my annual Bible trek, Genesis through Revelation. So how is God preparing my heart this year? By putting me right in the middle of Joseph’s Egyptian journey. A “grain beyond measure” kind of motivation. When “God’s provisions eliminate scarcity” storyline.  How does this prepare...

Here’s the gist, human. I hunt for the power of God in my life. I follow Sirga (Sierga), the 400 lb lioness living in the African bush. Just me and a million+ other humans. I do it because I am in pursuit of knowing God more deeply. I think God’s animal kingdom holds deep truth about his nature. Sirga gets my attention. Her presence is uncompromising. She brings the all of her in every moment. As...

Here’s the gist, human. Friends inspire friends to witness. For starters, witness to each other. It’s good practice. Share what God is doing in your life. Do not live through your relationship with a friend on silent, unsaid assumptions that whisper amen. Speak loud, talk boldly to your friends about the presence of the heart of God in your life. We cannot ever get enough of God. We always need Je...

Here’s the gist, human. Jonathan, son of King Saul told the future king, David, that “the Lord is witness between you and me forever.” Now that’s a friendship sealed by a God who doesn’t mess around with the truth. Two warriors who immediately connected, bonded through God’s covenant, and made the pact Jesus talks about in John 15:13.  So for one, can we just ponder the strength of having our Lord...

Here’s the gist, human. Embracing God’s nature, clinging to his Son’s robe with every fiber of my inner and outer being is not something I can do alone. Neither can you. It is God’s right hand, it is the surrendered will of Jesus that binds the moments when my gratitude shares space with my grief. Tell me it isn’t the same with you. When God’s grace saves us by bringing us into the struggle, and t...

Here’s the gist, human. When Jesus takes the time to tell a story, he stops the general conversation to focus on an element that teaches us more about following him. When Jesus pauses to share a parable, does his pause hold something more than a little moral weight, does his focus transcend our finite understanding of, let’s say, an attribute like “justice”? Does his nature overtake our nature thr...

Here’s the gist, human. When was the last time you felt the kind of sorrow that overtook your soul? A flooding sorrow that filled every crevice of your heart, a rising pressure, the suffocating weight of sadness, a tragic suffering for what has come or is about to come, a fear that engulfs your spirit, a non-negotiable reckoning within your gut, so deep, such a feeling of hopelessness, an ending,...

Here’s the gist, human. There are countless scenes in the Bible when someone stopped and laid down a personal affirmation of God’s promise, the Messiah’s purpose, an affirmation of God’s nature, his promises. Moses. Joshua. Daniel. Martha. The woman at the well. The people Jesus healed. The apostle Paul. People who had come face to face with the truth. And proclaimed it. Affirmation of what we bel...

Here’s the gist, human. If we spend our daily life ruled by the answers we need from God, our prayers can give in to a self-guided perspective. How lonely. We were not created to be alone. God walked with Adam and Eve in the garden. Until.  A deep prayer life is not complicated. It is contemplative. Prayer is God’s answer before the answer before the answer. His call to come sit with him. Listen t...

Here’s the gist, human. I find myself growing beyond spiritual ultimatums like “I am at peace” as if peace in God is a static condition. For me peace is a tributary of God’s nature, his spirit running through my heart. And I have to listen for it. Moving water takes its cue from its Creator. God navigates our choices, our mental roadblocks, our psychological debris from the past, our grief, our fe...

Here’s the gist, human. I miss my dog. I spent the last two years deeply anxious about losing her. I prayed for a circumstance, a manageable outcome, a long runway to losing her, a prolonged exit that would let us down gently into a daily life without her. That didn’t happen.  Truth is, anxiety isolates us from God. That should be an unbearable separation. If I had given my anxiety about losing my...

Here’s the gist, human. Nothing new here. Who doesn’t have anxiety, who doesn’t work hard to not worry and perpetuate more of it in the process? For so many of us, that is an ongoing rhetorical state of mind. We don’t even need to answer. We know it’s true.  Let’s call anxiety exactly what it is. Let’s name it to God. A petition of the heart. That we take it to him, and let him measure the depth o...

Here’s the gist, human. The young, ambitious Peter, and the young, skeptical James grew up, spiritually. From baby Christians, eye witnesses of our Savior on earth, to spiritual leaders and two voices that prompt us to grow toward God by living a life that represents his truth on our ground. The simple scripture-based exercise in e175, e176, and now e177 is meant to call out my faith, your faith a...

Here’s the gist, human. Peter’s first letter is impassioned, truth-seared, and glorious. It comes from his experiences, that he has lived his life trading measure for measure, that what he does in action, will receive a reciprocal spiritual strengthening. That spiritual maturity is embracing the glory-bound spiritual gain of things. His life convinces us of this: that a full investment in our obed...

Here’s the gist, human. So James had been sharing the Gospel for 10+ years and Peter for 30+ years at the time they wrote their letters. What strikes me about these letters is the maturity of James and Peter. They both offer wisdom that comes from one place: living in the middle of hard-fought truth on the ground. How to be obedient, the mind battles that fight us, the attributes of God to lay hol...

Here’s the gist, human. Amos had a harsh message about God’s sovereignty for the Israelites in the Northern Kingdom. For us, while we are focusing on his sovereignty we can pray for hearts that see him. For us it is waking up in a mindset of preparation, in fact, asking God to prepare your mind to meet him in that day. Because he will show up. Amos tells us that our God will reveal his thoughts. ...

Here’s the gist, human. If you want to transform your spiritual life, how about a solo row with God? A solo row is a journey that you cannot do without God, without Jesus, without the Holy Spirit. Seems like a paradox, doesn’t it? But it’s really such a defining truth, that when we accept that our relationship with our Maker is 100% up to our free will and his glorious nature we head for much deep...