The Kingdom Is For Everyone

The bottom line is that, however we explain violent portraits of God in the OT, and even if we can’t explain them, we must never allow anything we find in the OT to compromise or in any way qualify the revelation of God we have in Christ. Jesus isn’t part of what God is like. The fullness of God’s deity was in Christ (Col. 2:9). And Jesus reveals a God who chooses to die on behalf of enemies rathe...

The cross is both very ugly and very beautiful to those who believe. The surface of this event is revoltingly ugly, because it reflects the ugly sin that Jesus bore. But to those who by faith see beyond this surface appearance, the cross also reveals the supreme beauty of a God who, out of love, was willing to bear our sin, suffer our curse, and to thereby take on this revoltingly ugly, sin-mirror...

Matthew 7:1-2- “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. These verses often create a misunderstanding amongst believers that we are not to EVER judge. These verses doesn’t actually say that we should never judge, but they warn us that however we judge that the same system of judgme...

The deep revelation of the heart and nature of God as is realized in the Person of Jesus may not bring a million people to a single revival, but it will ignite a million revivals in a million people. I’m excited for what God is doing and I desire to see it on a scale we’ve yet to see. BE THE REVIVAL!

Dr. Hester was pleased to sit down and have a conversation with Pastor Johnny Ova (Sound Of Heaven Church, Long Island NY) on his podcast (Dig In)! We discuss many different topics in this conversation including: Salvation, Union with Christ, Spiritual Sonship and much more. We know this three part conversation will bless your life in a major way.

Dr. Hester was pleased to sit down and have a conversation with Pastor Johnny Ova (Sound Of Heaven Church, Long Island NY) on his podcast (Dig In)! We discuss many different topics in this conversation including: Trinity, The Gospels (what is the good news), Unity and much more. We know this three part conversation will bless your life in a major way.

Dr. Hester was pleased to sit down and have a conversation with Pastor Johnny Ova (Sound Of Heaven Church, Long Island NY) on his podcast (Dig In)! We discuss many different topics in this conversation including: the character and nature of God, the role of Scripture, eschatology and much more. We know this three part conversation will bless your life in a major way.

Matthew 10:28 - Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Is this verse talking about being afraid of God? Does God destroy peoples bodies and souls in hell? Could this verse mean something totally different than what we have been classically taught? Let's take a look into this difficult verse and...

The Sermon on the Mount is more than well-crafted words, but it also builds a rock solid foundation for what life in the Kingdom should look like. Jesus doesn’t craft this foundation by creating a new system of rules, but He builds by sharing the beautiful and radiant nuances of the character and nature of God as they play out in real life scenarios. This is why all who heard these words were asto...

What was Jesus writing on the ground? We do not know exactly what Jesus was writing on the ground, but many biblical scholars believe He was writing the law. Could it be that the onlookers began to see laws written that they were guilty of breaking? It also gives us greater understanding when we consider the ground Jesus was writing on. There is a greater case that Jesus was writing on hard stone,...

What gives us the power to overcome sin? Is it the threat of the law? The fear of the law has never had the power to stop us from breaking it. Think about it, does the fear of the law “thou shalt not steal” stop people everyday from taking what isn’t theirs? For many even the fear of the consequences of breaking the law isn’t enough to stop them from doing so (prison, community service, loss of pr...

The conviction of righteousness is one of the great supernatural works of Holy Ghost. The dual stories of the woman with the issue of blood and the girl who dies in her bed, show us the power of what righteousness can do to bring restoration and healing. Sometimes the only thing anyone can do is press through the crowd and touch Jesus!

The four primary ways the Ascended Life manifests through our lives are through: 1) It’s Secret.2) It’s Perspective. 3) It’s Impartation. 4) It’s Application. The Secret of the Ascended Life is that we have ascended with Him (Eph.2:6) The Perspective of the Ascended Life enables us to look through the eyes of God (James 1:17). The Impartation of the Ascended Life is the downloading of the gift tha...

The Magi showed up a long time after Christmas and they brought gifts fit for a King. These gifts were more than simple lavish presentations for Jesus, but they actually reflected Who Jesus is. The Gift receives gifts from the wise that reflect Who He is…Who He will become. The wise are still worshiping Jesus as King, Priest and the Self-Sacrificial Savior today!

As we all are preparing to celebrate the incarnation (God coming in the flesh) which has become known as Christmas, let us remember how awesome that event actually was. The Word of God left Heaven knowing He would not return the same way.

In the Gospel of Luke, we come across two characters who make their appearance in the final acts of the Christmas drama. One is a man named Simeon; the other is a woman named Anna. They don’t appear in any nativity scenes or in many Christmas cards, but they are significant players in the first Christmas pageant. Both of these individuals were waiting for something...actually, they were waiting fo...

John 6:28-29- 28 Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” 29 Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” The greek word for believe in the above passage is pistevo. This word communicates something that goes beyond believing; it communicates the invitation to trust. “This is the work of God, that you trust in him whom he...

This episode is the first to respond directly to a listener question! We jump into the topic of justice and how God work in Restorative Justice. Restorative justice is a higher form of justice because it’s not about punishing the perpetrator; it’s about restoring both the perpetrator and the victim. This goes completely against the justice system of humanity which is why it's so difficult to talk...

We all first approach God as His enemy…not on His part, but on ours. Colossians 1:19-22- 19 For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, 20 and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. 21 Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavio...

Psalm 23:5- You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows. What do you believe David meant when he penned this verse of his famous song? Maybe there's more to it that we think. "God created man in his own image. And man, being a gentleman, returned the favor." - Henri Rousseau Could it be that our need for enemies reflects a God of our o...

This episode is the first time we've had a guest on the Kingdom Is For Everyone! Jason Clark is a dear friend and we have a powerful conversation about his new book Leaving And Finding Jesus. It's time for us to each take an Emmaus road walk with Jesus and allow Him to gently and definitively change what we believe about Him forever. 

In this episode I share some of the things that helped me navigate grief with the loss of my dad. I share about counseling, inner healing, books, music and more. “We run from grief because loss scares us, yet our hearts reach toward grief because the broken parts want to mend.” - Brene Brown

In this episode I share the journey of the loss of my father and the grief that came with it. I pray that my experience can help you in some way. To have courage is to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart. When grief is part of your story, it needs to be held to be healed. We cannot heal what has not been processed, and it takes time to move through the pain of loss and grief. &nbsp...

God’s goal is to have a people who participate in and mirror His love in their relationship with Him, with each other, and with the rest of creation. It is so important for us to understand that God is relational because this can be imitated.

The truest image we see of God in Scripture is through the Person of Jesus revealed on the cross. If we suspect that God has a dark side and is capable of doing the monstrous things that the OT authors attribute to him, we will mistake the “shadow” for the “reality”.