Hope Wisco Podcast

Elijah is in big trouble! Queen Jezebel is not happy that Elijah has shown up all her priests on Mt. Carmel and has vowed to kill our protagonist prophet. Elijah is on the run and must have been thinking: "What?!? That was not how it was supposed to go!" Elijah flees for 40 days and nights to the place where it all started for the People of Israel - Mt. Horeb (Mt. Sinai). When we are on the run an...

Elijah followed God into a lot of situations, and one of the biggest challenges he faced was this one. Seemingly alone, facing an apathetic nation and evil rulers, he had to stand up for God in the midst of it all. Elijah takes the challenge and steps up, and trusts that God is going to show up. When we face difficulties, challenges, and situations where we feel alone, it can be hard to lean on Go...

Widows in the ancient world were extremely vulnerable figures. No social service network, no one to care for them when they lost their means for economic support. That’s why the prophets talk so much about widows and orphans and our need to care for them. Elijah the Prophet appears on the scene in 1 Kings 17 and encounters a widow, living amidst a drought, and down to her last meal – about the low...

When someone says that they want peace, what comes to mind? Maybe the absence of conflict? Possibly inner tranquility? And for any parent with young children, the word “quiet” needs to be in there. Having peace is usually seen as a release—a release from worries, stressors, and conflict. But how do you get to that point? Is it something you just feel? And how does peace come into a situation? Whil...

We all face trials. Be it on a global scale or within our homes, we all encounter things, people, and situations that are heart wrenching. And where is God in the midst of all of this? If God is real, shouldn’t He be protecting us from the hard things? The scriptures have a different take on these questions. Instead of protecting people from trials, we see a God that is preparing and equipping peo...

Hope. We all carry some level of hope. It could be the hope for a good grade on a test, hope for a promotion at work, hope for a new relationship, or even hope that our neighbor shovels our driveway. And of course, the hope that this is the year (and every year going forward) the Packers win it all. We all hope for certain things, but the level of hope we have all depends completely on what or who...

We put our hope in everything. People, politics, finances, our favorite sports team. Over time those things end up letting us down and the results are painful. The reason there is so much pain is that we lose trust and when we lose trust we lose hope and when we lose hope we end up feeling hopeless. So, what can we trust?

This episode reminds us that as Christians we are called to love everyone less fortunate than us. But Sean also reveals the truth of our human hearts when it comes to serving others. By the end of this episode, you will understand the importance of serving others locally and globally.

Forgiveness is one of the hardest things to do. By the end of this episode, you will know the joy in forgiveness, not because we want people to walk over you but because we look at the mental health effects of holding on to hate. You will also be given small steps to start taking today because we understand that for some, this is going to be a long journey.

In this episode Zach dives into a lesser-known short story from Jesus's life and shows us two things. 1. How to focus on other people not on other people's actions. 2. How to do life with people even when it's messy.

In this episode we answer some tough questions like, "If God is real then why is there so much hate in the world?" Or have you ever thought, "How can a loving God send His creation to hell?" At the end of the video, you will understand God's justice and God's timing.

Now we have the Jesus template for prayer, but there’s one more aspect to prayer that we want to learn from Jesus. He didn’t teach us to have dignified prayers. He taught us to pray in a way that it real, raw, authentic, and – well…obnoxious in its boldness. He told us to relentlessly pray until God is so annoyed by your prayers, he finally decides to answer.

Prayer is not just a way to deal with guilt and shame after a lapse or failure. It is also a way to avoid their occurring. In this psalm, the narrator tells us that his feet almost slipped because of his self pity and the discouragement that followed when his heart turned away from God. But through prayer, he experienced a reorientation of his heart that rescued him from the spiritual peril he pla...

What’s wrong with us and why is it so hard to change? The answer to that question is found in the Lord’s Prayer. “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” The key is repentance. Resentence is the key that gives access to canceled debts, and the freedom to cancel our debtors. But repentance is often misunderstood. It doesn’t grow out of shame. It doesn’t grow out of frustration. Repentance...

Now that we have learned to align our hearts with the glory and will of God, we are ready to bring our requests to the king. Now that our hearts are aligned it is safe to receive his blessings. The temptation of the human heart is to put our trust in God’s blessings, rather than in God who blesses us. By praying for daily bread, we train our souls to see the reality that we are daily dependent on...

There’s an assumption that most of us carry into prayer. We assume that the purpose of prayer is to get stuff from God. But what if that weren’t the purpose of prayer at all? Or, what if that’s just one of the purposes of prayer, but not the main one? When Jesus taught us how to pray, he taught us that there’s a critical step to take before we ask God to move in our direction and do something for...

The challenge of prayer is that many of us aren’t exactly sure how the whole thing works. Jesus uncomplicated prayer by inviting us to frame up prayer in a new and different way. He invited us to pray to “Our Father”. Because of Jesus, we pray as children of God. Jesus gave us a familial relationship with God. He wants us to come to him as children of a loving father who don’t care about the right...

Easter means that religious practices don’t bring us closer to God. Instead, Easter gives us forgiveness and a place with God.

The path to resurrected life begins with the cross. It must go through the cross. Jesus could not get to resurrected life without it. Neither can we. His invitation to follow him is an invitation to take the way of the cross, to deny themselves, and follow him every day. This is a challenge in a culture that tells you to indulge yourself. Jesus died to forgive us. But he also died to show us the p...

We live in a modern, western culture. But what we call “culture”, Jesus called “the world”. The world is a system of ideas, values, practices, and norms that are comprise a culture, and are opposed to the values of the Kingdom of God. It is a system that constantly seeks to redefine good and evil. But much of what we call “modern culture” is what Jesus called “the world”. The danger is that we are...

The Devil isn’t the only force that is opposing spiritual growth. He has an ally that lives within you. The Biblical authors called it the flesh. It’s the part of you that wants to be free from the reign of God to pursue whatever desires you find within you. The devil’s deceptive ideas find a willing accomplice in our disordered desires. To grow a robust and resilient inner life, we must practice...

When we hear that Jesus and the devil had a showdown in the desert, our minds might visualize an action movie with lots of cool explosions. But remember, the devil only has one primary weapon, that’s what he uses on Jesus. He attempted to use deception to get Jesus to question his identity as God’s Son and to shortcut the Father’s purpose for his life, to win the world to himself. In this message,...

Ideas can be powerful. They form the foundation for how we view the world, what we value, and how you live. They also have the power to dominate how your inner life is formed. This is something that Satan knows all to well, and it’s why his primary weapon in his effort to deform you spiritually isn’t demonic possession. It’s telling lies...lies that are 95% true. In this message we’ll learn about...

We are constantly assaulted by lies. Every day we are told lies about who God is, about who we are, and about what the good life looks like. These are not merely lies from a culture war between the left and the right. These are deceptive ideas live in our own minds and imagination and memory –from family of origin to lived experience. These are lies that find an easy target on the disordered desir...

Marriage is a reflection of the relationship Jesus has with the church. That’s why putting God in the middle of your marriage can allow you to exceed your best relationship targets.