The Eternal Love Story Podcast

We’re developing complete discipleship study materials. Check out this podcast for what is coming next. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mikecleveland.substack.com/subscribe

Friend, Think back to the last time you stood at the edge of a room where you were not sure you belonged, where everyone else seemed to know one another and you wondered whether anyone would notice if you slipped out the door. That ache, that sense of being on the outside of something you long to be part of, is older than any of us, and it sits at the very center of the ten stories I want to put i...

Romans 8:35-37 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mikecleveland.substack.com/subscribe

Romans 8:33-34 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mikecleveland.substack.com/subscribe

Romans 8:31-32 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mikecleveland.substack.com/subscribe

If you’ve ever wondered what God is doing in your life, why you are having to go through such hard and disturbing things, this is the answer. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mikecleveland.substack.com/subscribe

Romans 8:18-25 I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. 19 For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to...

The new Day 34, Romans 8:13-17 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mikecleveland.substack.com/subscribe

One leads to life, the other to death. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mikecleveland.substack.com/subscribe

In this podcast, we show the gospel method of putting to death the misdeeds of the body, by the Spirit. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mikecleveland.substack.com/subscribe

What the Son and the Spirit do in our lives. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mikecleveland.substack.com/subscribe

A quick note before we begin: As I mentioned yesterday, Jody and I re-recorded fresh episodes for Days 19 and 20 after an earlier numbering mix-up. Yesterday we sent out Day 19, and today Day 20 is here. Thanks again for your patience. Day 20: Wages or Gift Imagine two envelopes on a table. One is a paycheck, every cent earned, owed to you, fair to the last penny, and it’s all the work will ever g...

A quick note before we begin: Because of a numbering mix-up earlier in the series, Jody and I went back and recorded fresh episodes for Days 19 and 20 in our study of the book “40-Day Journey Into Gospel Growth and Freedom: How To Grow Into Christ-Likeness”. Today we’re sending out Day 19, and tomorrow Day 20 will follow. Day 19: The Freedom of a Good Master Ask most people what freedom means and...

This is the new Day 18 that matches with the Day 18 of the book. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mikecleveland.substack.com/subscribe

This is the new updated Day 17 that is now accurate with the numbering of the book. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mikecleveland.substack.com/subscribe

Today is the day. Day 40. The final lesson of this journey through Romans 6, 7, and 8 is ready, and it closes with a passage that distills everything into a single, lifelong instruction. We move from Paul to the writer of Hebrews, from doctrine to the starting line of the race ahead, and from everything we have learned to the One all of it has been pointing toward. Today’s study guide also include...

Day 39 is ready, and today we arrive at the summit of Romans 8. Paul has spent thirty-nine verses building a case, and now he brings it all together in a series of questions that every honest believer has asked at one time or another. Does God really love me? Will He come through for me? Can anything undo what He has done for me? Today’s lesson answers every one of those questions by pointing to a...

Day 38 is ready, and today’s lesson takes one of the most familiar verses in Scripture and opens it up in a way that may genuinely surprise you. Romans 8:28 is often quoted as comfort in hard times, and rightly so. But have you ever stopped to ask what Paul actually means by “good?” Today’s lesson answers that question, and the answer changes how you interpret suffering, failure, loss, and even th...

Day 37 is ready. Have you ever found yourself in a situation so overwhelming that you could not form a coherent prayer? You knew you needed God. You knew you should pray. But the words would not come. Romans 8:26-27 speaks directly into that moment, and what Paul reveals there has the power to change the way you approach prayer for the rest of your life. Today’s lesson uncovers a staggering realit...

Day 36 is ready, and today’s lesson gives every honest believer something they may not have known they needed: permission. Permission to acknowledge the ache of living in a broken world without concluding that something has gone spiritually wrong. Romans 8:18-25 shows us that Paul himself carried this inner weight, and that the Spirit dwelling in him did not remove it. What the Spirit gave him ins...

Day 35 is ready, and today’s lesson is among the most tender and gospel-rich we have covered in this entire study. Romans 8:14-17 takes us into territory that many believers know about in their heads but might not have fully inhabited in their hearts. Paul draws a sharp contrast between two ways of living in God’s house, one marked by performance and fear, the other by intimacy and security. And t...

Day 34 is ready, and today’s lesson may be the most practically confrontational we have covered in all of Romans 8. Paul has established that the Spirit lives in you and resurrection power is at work within you. Now he draws the conclusion that changes everything about how you engage with sin: you do not owe it anything. Not a moment of your time. Not a response to its demands. Not a compromise wi...

You cannot see electricity. You cannot touch it or hold it. But flip a light switch and you know instantly whether power is flowing through the wires. The room either floods with light or it stays dark. No ambiguity. No guessing. The Holy Spirit works the same way. Romans 8:9-11 gives us specific, biblical ways to look for the evidence, and then closes with something that should stop every believe...

Day 32 is ready, and today’s lesson is among the most practically useful we have covered in this entire study. Romans 8:5-8 gets down to something very specific: your thought life. Where your mind habitually goes shapes everything about how you experience your days, your relationships, your struggles, and your relationship with God. Paul is not speaking in abstractions here. He is describing somet...

Day 31 is ready, and today we step into new territory. Romans 8 has arrived, and with it a shift that changes everything about how you understand your daily walk with God. We have spent considerable time in Romans 7 learning what the law reveals, what sin exploits, and what the flesh cannot produce. Today Paul turns the corner and shows us what God did in response to all of that, and the answer is...