Mavericks & Misfits with Jeff Lyle

Episode 115: Our Ignorance At The Altar When people come forward during altar calls at the end of Christian gatherings, most come seeking something which they need from the Lord. They come in faith. They often come in desperation. Some come forward, compelled by the Spirit of God to receive something for which He has given them hunger. We all come forward with a need, and there is nothing wrong wi...

Episode 114: Why Your Opposition Will Fail Christians living for the glory of God will be assigned territory to claim for His glory. Sometimes this territory is geographical. Sometimes it is relational. Sometimes it is cultural. Regardless of how the territory is defined and assigned by God, the Christian life is one of Kingdom advancement.   And all of Hell will fight against that victory happeni...

Episode 113: Anointed... But Waiting A great moment in the Christian’s life occurs when he or she understands what God has gifted and called them to do in the Kingdom. Everyone desires to know their purpose, and life takes on new dimension when God clearly communicates His desire for the direction of our lives. What God assigns to the believer He also anoints for the believer. He infuses the right...

Episode 112: Peace Instead Of Fear Most Christians would recognize the words of Jesus in John 14:27 where He promises His peace to all His followers. When He commands us to “let not your hearts be troubled”, we tend to experience a sense of reassurance and comfort. We all know these words of Jesus… but are we actually obeying them? In this episode of #MavericksAndMisfits, Jeff Lyle calls the liste...

Episode 111: The Unwavering Voices The Church in America has a speech impediment. It is not that Christians are not talking. In fact, we seem to talk quite a bit. We have the ability and vocabulary to speak. The issue is not in our ability to speak, it is in our discernment of what to actually say. The bold, biblical, loyal spokespeople for God seem to becoming more rare. Jeff Lyle shares in this...

Episode 110: Killing The Victim Mentality Christians typically live with one of two possible mindsets towards life: I am a victim who is helpless. I am a conqueror and overcomer. Our culture today feeds the instinct in most humans to deflect, blame others, shirk responsibility and avoid accountability for their lives. From media to government –and even some within the Church –there is a line of th...

Episode 109: Deep Concerns About The Sinner's Prayer For close to 80 years, most church attendees have been invited into an eternal relationship with God via the repeating of what is commonly known as the sinner’s prayer. The motivation behind using this prayer as a means to welcome sinnersinto the Kingdom is to honor the requirement of confessing Jesus as Lord with the mouth. The weakness of emph...

Episode 108: Prophets In Hiding In Elijah’s day, he once complained to God that he was the only true prophet. Have you ever wondered why he felt so alone and isolated in prophetic ministry during the days of wicked Ahab and Jezebel? Well, there may be a small clue in 1 Kings 18 as to whyElijah felt that way. In a discussion with another prophet named Obadiah, we learn that at least 100 prophets of...

Episode 107: How The Baptist Guy Met The Holy Spirit In today’s episode of #MavericksAndMisfitsJeff shares two powerful accounts in his own story which God imparted to him in order tobring Jeff into a fuller experience and expression of what it means to be a Jesus-follower. These two encounters were separated by twelve years, but they worked together to free Jeff from religious bondage, denominati...

Episode 106: Getting Free From The Fear Of Man Most of us prefer to be liked than disliked. We would rather experience acceptance than rejection. Normal and reasonable is the desire for us to fit into a larger community and to be warmly received, secured, loved, and affirmed within that community. There is not necessarily anything wrong with caring what people think of us. Being controlled by what...

Episode 105: Permission To Be & Do As God Says Well, this episode went quickly in an unexpected direction. While Jeff Lyle was planning to unpack some helpful verses on the fear of man, Holy Spirit appointed a different direction within the first two minutes of recording. In our present generation, a slimy ooze is hitting the church and contaminating our relationships, identity and mission. Sadly,...

Episode 104: What Is Going On Inside Of You? There is a certain representation of Christianity that almost focuses exclusively focuses on our behavior. While the bible is clear on what it means to live outwardly in alignment with the heart of God and the ways of God, following Jesus by faith is not primarily about modifying our behavior. We are not a rules-driven people as the Church of Jesus Chri...

Episode 103: Straight Talk About Sexual Appetites   Any of you who are 45 years and older can remember a time when the American culture had some form of sexual boundaries that were (at least loosely) framed by Scripture. We all recognize those days are over and now there exists an entrenched demonic representation about what is permissible to give expression to human sexual appetites. Frankly, I’m...

Episode 102: Navigating Relational Conflict   With the culture around us remaining in a state of being perpetually inflamed, how do Christians recognize and respond to the conflicts that they themselves cannot avoid? The Bible actually hasmuch to say about Christians in conflict. We are taught that the enemy always seeks to exploit relational conflicts. Jesus prescribed clear instructions about Ch...

Episode 101: Wimpy, Whiny, & Headed For Trouble In American weddings the bride is typically delicate. She radiates a feminine beauty,and she is the focus of the entire wedding. Lace, flowers, stringed instruments, gently flickering candles...weddings are typically tender and delicate, and the bride is most sweet and precious element in the room. Not so, in the Kingdom. While His bride is beautiful...

Episode 100: Jesus As The Ultimate Maverick This milestone 100th episode reminds us of the WHY behind the Mavericks & Misfits podcast. Religion might very well be the foremost deterrent to the current advance of the Kingdom. It certainly was in the days of Jesus. One might well-argue that it was man’s religion that most inhibited the advance of the true Gospel during the days of the Apostles. Now,...

Episode 99: The Dangers Of Elevation Sometimes, God chooses to promote a young person. It is uncommon, but not unheard of. God looks throughout the earth and bypasses the older and seasoned candidates. He skips the halls of academia. He does not look toward the powerful and proven. In Certain moments, God lets His eyes rest upon a spiritually scrawny adolescent and declares that this is the person...

Episode 98: Women In Ministry - That One Big Verse For nearly all who believe that Scripture forbids women in the Kingdom from preaching, teaching men and holding positions of authority and leadership, the go-to verse is 1 Timothy 2:12. On a surface reading, it is understandable how they might reach this conclusion. But what was the apostle Paul actually communicating in this chapter? What was he...

Episode 97: Women In Ministry - Exposing The Inconsistency This is the episode where we really dive down into the nitty-gritty of the hot-button bible verses which are always the ones most strongly used to deny that women can serve in places of authority in the Church. 1 Timothy 2:11-12, when taken alone from the rest of the bible, would certainly seem to prohibit women from preaching, teaching an...

Episode 96: Women In Ministry - End Of The Age Outpouring In our series of podcasts on Women in Ministry, we must take an in-depth look at a handful of very important bible passages. Two of those are fond in Joel 2 and Acts 2. These passages contain an undeniable description from both the Old and New Testaments concerning what God promised to do at the end of the age. Because we are presently livi...

Episode 95: Women in Ministry - The Big Picture   So, where exactly do the daughters of God fit in New Testament Kingdom ministry? Does God welcome Christian women to do anything and everything that their brothers are assigned to do? What are we to make of the hot-button terms of egalitarian and complementarian ? As Jeff begins to unpack this series of podcasts on the never-ending debate about wom...

After receiving a heartfelt email from a listener who felt completely stuck and unfulfilled in life, Jeff felt the need to talk about the three non-negotiable components we all need for the Christian life to make sense. This is what he calls the whole enchilada : identity, personality, and purpose. In this episode of Mavericks & Misfits, we hear from Jeff as a bit of a life-coach who exposes where...

On a small handful of occasions in the Gospels, we are told that Jesus wept. We all know about Him weeping outside the tomb of Lazarus. Most people are not as familiar with the occasion when Jesus wept over an entire city. He literally lamented over them. Why did He do so? Because the people there missed the timing of God visiting them with Heaven’s very best offer. God offered them Jesus. And the...

In this shortened episode, Jeff Lyle responds to a listener’s email asking Jeff’s views on women in ministry. The listener wants to know what to make of passages which seem to preclude women from leadership and teaching in the church. Jeff offers a very broad introduction to the topic as a lead-in to several episodes that will be released after this introductory podcast. Also, Jeff spotlight’s his...

We hear the phrase “spirit of religion” quite frequently these days. Nobody has a clear-cut consensus on what this phrase actually defines. It is a bit of an unformed awareness that a person, a creed, a church or a movement is striving to assert something that appears like a Kingdom value, but actually is not. The spirit of religion is easy to see in those we differ with, but it is not always as q...