FRESH Official Podcast

The pressures we face in life often creep up on us gradually, imperceptibly. You just live with them, until one day you find yourself at breaking point. I caught up recently with a man in his seventies, just finishing up a part-time job, wondering what God had for him next, in a bit of pain, facing knee replacement surgery, thinking about his finances, and the time he and his wife have left togeth...

Life is mostly made up of the mundane and the repetitive … until it's not. Until something happens that goes way beyond anything you'd imagined, even if you can't see it until you look back on it years later. Does the name Albert McMakin ring a bell? Probably not. But in 1934 this young farmer, who'd recently come to Christ, was keen to share his faith with others. There was a revival meeting happ...

There's so much bad news these days. Dictators, wars, suffering, exploitation, crime. It's ugly, right? So, we put our heads down and get on with living the best life we can in our little neck of the woods. But what if there's more? Blaise Pascal was a brilliant 17 th -century French mathematician, physicist, and inventor, famous for Pascal's Triangle and foundational work in probability. But desp...

Life's messy. You can't argue with that. Show me a single family that hasn't had its, shall we say, issues. Show me a single person with just one or two grey hairs on their head, who hasn't been through some real struggles in life. They simply don't exist. Life does indeed knock us around. Hopefully, it knocks some of our rough edges off. And I am definitely one for building resilience, for taking...

No one likes not getting their own way. You don't, I don't. It began at a very young age, when we started throwing tantrums. And sometimes, let's be honest, we still want to chuck a tanty, yeah?! In the 12 th century, Thomas Becket, as Archbishop of Canterbury, clashed bitterly with King Henry II over the limits of church authority. They'd been close friends but once he became Archbishop, Beckett...

In a world where everyone's trying to be someone, it's not surprising that tucked away deep in our psyche somewhere lies a nagging sense of inadequacy, as we reason that, given our frailties and foibles, we'll never really amount to much. Honestly, it used to bother me that Christianityworks, the ministry that produces these daily messages, didn't have an impressive office compared to the flashy t...

It's easy to imagine that the joy, the fulfilment, the contentment we all long for lie in recognition, comfort and success. And yet, you can imagine all you like, but you'll never find them there. Twentieth-century American newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst built a massive media empire and lived in opulence on his vast estate, Hearst Castle. He influenced presidents, shaped public opinion,...

I often think that it's easier to go off the rails in the good times than in the bad. There are no atheists in foxholes. When the bullets are flying, when you're in danger, of course you cry out to God. But when the going's good … hey, eat, drink, be merry. Interestingly, the Apostle Paul, from his prison cell, writes this to his friends in Phillipi: Philippians 1:5-6 I thank God for the help you...

Life is a puzzle that, all too often, seems impossible to solve. You had plans. They were good plans. I mean, very good plans. Then … boom! Things inexplicably took a dark turn. We've all been there. When you're faced with a dark, unsolvable set of circumstances so complex that you can't reason your way through, what do you do? Well, obviously, you ask God what in the blazes He's up to. Why would...

Have you ever tried to do something, but your heart wasn't really in it? It's dry, it's empty. You chip away at it out of habit. The sense of ritual is what takes over, and the thing itself becomes meaningless. You keep going because … well, that's what you do. And some of those songs … man, they're awe-inspiring. Over half a million have been published over the last decade alone. But none of that...

From a very young age, we each try to figure out our place in the world, where we fit in the scheme of things, as we should. But there's one aspect of that to which we far too readily grant supremacy, to our own peril. Have you ever met someone and thought, "Gee, they're successful. I wonder what they earn. Look at the car they drive, the house they live in. They've done a lot better than me." I e...

Can I ask, what relevance does all this "Jesus" stuff have for your life, here in the 21 st century? I mean, amidst your day-to-day, the things that occupy you, the joys, the struggles, what relevance can a rabbi of 2,000 years ago possibly have? The day-to-day does consume us, doesn't it? I have to get through this, I have to keep going with that, I have to achieve what I've set out to achieve -...

Englishman George Clark was a 19th-century career criminal who ran one of London's most violent street gangs. Hardened by poverty and crime, he'd spent years in and out of prison. During one of his incarcerations, Clark was given a Bible by a prison chaplain. At first, he mocked it. But then he came across this verse: Romans 5:8 But Christ died for us while we were still sinners, and by this God s...

Other people can be so incredibly frustrating, can't they? Why can't they see it my way? Why don't they get it? What's the matter with them? Keep carrying on like that, and you become a bitter and twisted individual, let me tell you. Before I became a Christian, my favourite saying used to be this: It's so hard to soar like an eagle when you're surrounded by turkeys. Okay, have a chuckle. But you...

If there's one thing that history's demonstrated time and again, it's that just because something is accepted by the majority, just because it represents the prevailing wisdom of the day, doesn't mean that it's true or right. Majority support doesn't magically transform a lie into truth. In the mid-1800s, Hungarian doctor Ignaz Semmelweis discovered that doctors who washed their hands with antisep...

The bad things that come at us out of the blue often feel so incredibly unfair. Life throws something at you, I mean something that really hurts, and you think to yourself, "What the … why me?" So, the last time something bad happened to you, what impact did it have on your life? After surviving the infamous  Mutiny on the Bounty  in 1789, Captain William Bligh returned to England a hero—but he ne...

Guilt over past mistakes has a habit of clouding our judgment in moving forward. Many a life has been ruined through unredeemed guilt. Sound familiar? Ludwig Tessnow was a German carpenter convicted of murdering two young boys in 1901. Earlier, in 1898, two similar murders had occurred, but although a strong suspect, he escaped justice due to a lack of evidence. Tessnow lived under deep internal t...

If only we could take back the hurtful things we've said over the years and replace them with words of kindness and understanding. Think about it. How different would some of your relationships, even your life itself, be if you hadn't said some of those things, hmm? We've all done it. We all regret it. We all wish we could take it back. But we can't. What we can do is try to understand why we said...

Have you ever felt worthless as you looked around at what all those other people were achieving and compared it with your own miserable, rotten existence? Perhaps that's overstating it a tad, but isn't that how we sometimes see ourselves, as completely worthless in the scheme of things? As worthlessness goes, I think you'll agree that nothing on planet Earth could be more useless than bird poo. Bu...

The world appears to be sharply divided between authoritarian regimes on the one hand and so-called liberal democracies on the other. Yet there's a growing grey area in the middle where censorship is eroding the basic human right of free speech. A recent UK government report on "Faith and Belief in Modern Britain" states that "Christianity is the one faith that is still considered acceptable to mo...

Elon Musk is, without doubt, a polarising figure. But he's also a visionary of staggering brilliance. He's reshaped entire industries—from motor vehicles to space travel—with relentless innovation. He dreams of colonising Mars, merging minds with machines, extending human life, ultimately casting humanity as its own saviour. But in his soaring ambition, Musk sidesteps the Creator. God's become unn...

We've all heard it said that pride comes before the fall. And it does! If you've ever allowed your pride to get the better of you, then you, like me, know through bitter experience that eventually you fall flat on your face. General George Custer was a flamboyant and ambitious U.S. Army officer in the 19th century. Known for his bravado and overconfidence, he consistently overestimated his militar...

Today is one of those bad news-good news days. We all face bad news in our lives but honestly, the worst news we can ever be confronted with is that there is a God in heaven, and that He judges each of us according to our deeds. Depending on where you sit, that may seem like a joke or it could absolutely terrify you. I'm in the latter camp because I believe with all my heart that there is a God in...

Life has many a turning point. One moment, you can be in the depths of despair. The next, you can be filled with a joy unspeakable. And it's the promise of precisely such a turning point that we're going to revel in together today. Before becoming one of history's great men of faith, George Müller was a thief, liar, and drunkard—even imprisoned as a young man. But in 1825, at a low point of spirit...

Some of the events this world is going through at the moment seem … well, apocalyptic. Hey, perhaps some of the things going on in your life feel apocalyptic too. And yet, in the midst of it all, we each woke up this morning to face yet another day. The concept of the apocalypse kind of speaks to the end times, the destruction of creation. And with the tectonic upheavals in the global order right...