The Living Streams Church Podcast

Mark 3 portrays Jesus' growing ministry and its challenges. He heals a man on the Sabbath, sparking tension with religious leaders over tradition. His popularity attracts crowds, but also escalates conflict with the Pharisees. Even his family worries about his intense activity, seeking to intervene. Jesus responds by forming a new "family" with his disciples, emphasizing spiritual kinship over phy...

ABOUT LIVING STREAMS Living Streams Church exists to be a healthy local church that creatively expands God's kingdom. We always seek to display God's glory, build courageous people, and engage in society's pain. Located in Phoenix, AZ. #livingstreamschurch   CONNECT WITH LIVING STREAMS ONLINE: http://www.livingstreams.org/connect INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/livingstreamschurch FACEBOOK: h...

Mark's Gospel, written for Gentile converts, aims to prove Jesus as the Son of God. Despite the author's early abandonment of Paul, he matured and became a valuable minister. The Gospel builds toward the question of Jesus' identity, presenting evidence like his Sabbath teachings, where he challenged the Pharisees' restrictive interpretation and emphasized the day's intended joy and rest. Study fur...

Though Jesus faced hardship and temptation in the wilderness, this wasn't God abandoning him, but the Holy Spirit guiding him toward spiritual growth. Through fasting, solitude, and scripture, Jesus prepared for the challenges ahead, reminding us that spiritual practices strengthen us against the devil's deceptive tactics. Hearing God's Word (the Bible) is key to overcoming these deceptions, leadi...

While yearning for Christ-like growth and closer connection, we recognize God's transformative power through practices like prayer and solitude. Accepting our varied stages in faith, we trust God to author and perfect our journey, multiplying His beauty, truth, and love within us as we humbly follow Him and spend time with Him in silence and solitude. Study further: https://livingstreams.org/media

Jesus' life provides a roadmap for preparing for what God has in store. While often associated with miracles, Jesus' power stemmed from daily practices like prayer, fasting, solitude, and serving. These "practices of engagement" and "abstinence" help us encounter God, curtail worldly desires, and develop a prayerful connection that equips us for life's challenges and empowers us to bring God's glo...

Unlike fortune telling or gossip, prophecy is a divine gift bestowed by the Holy Spirit to uplift and guide God's church. It goes beyond human intuition, offering Spirit-led insights often aligning with Scripture, that may reveal future glimpses or serve to build up, convict, and ultimately express God's heart for his people. It's a powerful tool for edification, demonstrating God's active presenc...

While we celebrate Jesus' first advent with faith and his second with hope, it's love that fuels our present. Guided by Thomas Kelly's call to embrace our "joyous burdens" of love, we can delve into Psalm 84 for guidance. As pilgrims yearning for and praising the Lord, we should develop a heart for His house, a spirit of constant gratitude, and a willingness to walk the path He sets before us. Emp...

Skip the fleeting joys of the world that crumble under life's weight. Instead, discover Biblical Joy: a confident assurance, rooted in Christ and empowered by the Gospel. This Joy shields you from despair, grants perspective on pain, and ignites your purpose. Find it by drawing close to Jesus, the source of this unshakeable Joy He gifted through His sacrifice. ABOUT LIVING STREAMS Living Streams C...

The world lacks peace due to the pervasive influence of sin. The ultimate solution lies in accepting Jesus' sacrifice and establishing a relationship with Him. Jesus, born as the Son of God, is the divine manifestation that addresses the root cause of sin. Despite the mystery surrounding His simultaneous divine and human nature, He lived, died, and rose again to pay for our sins. This profound act...

In his message to the Colossian church, Paul emphasizes the transformative power of the hope brought by Jesus, drawing from his personal experiences. He contends that this hope is so robust that it enables believers to find joy in their sufferings, as Jesus promises purpose in every moment of hardship, likening it to the meaningful pain of childbirth. Paul unveils the mystery of this hope in Colos...

We are called to proclaim Christ with words and deeds, building a collective temple where God's glory manifests. By loving one another, we glorify God, bearing much fruit. Study further: https://livingstreams.subspla.sh/fjgfkdk Scripture: Romans 1:16-17; Ephesians 2:19-22; John 17:20-21; 1 Thessalonians 2:7-12; Matthew 24:6-13; 1 Corinthians 12:28-31; 1 Corinthians 13:1-8; Ephesians 3:16- 19; 1 Pe...

United as God's family, we strive for a healthy church that nurtures new believers, mirroring the transformative power of Christ's sacrifice. Just as healthy families raise healthy children, a healthy church fosters healthy Christians. God's ultimate plan is to make us holy, whole and complete, shining forth His intended design. This is why Jesus' sacrifice was so profound. Healthy overseers safeg...

Finances that God provides for us is a ministry that provides for the needs of the saints, bringing thanksgiving to God and demonstrating our submission to Christ's gospel. Give cheerfully and willingly, as God loves such givers. God promises to provide abundantly for those who give in this way, enabling us to accomplish every good work and experience a beautiful, generous life. Jesus is our examp...

This Sunday we learned that the oikos was a much broader term than the immediate family, and that Paul's instructions for wives/husbands, children/fathers, and slaves/masters are all different from what we might assume. Paul calls for mutual submission, mutual self-sacrificing love, and mutual honor, all of which flow out of being filled by the Spirit. Study further: https://livingstreams.subspla....

We all fear feeling unimportant. The world tells us that we need to be rich, famous, or successful to matter. We may try to compensate for this fear by working too hard, chasing money, or accumulating possessions. But the Gospel tells us that we are all important because we are created in the image of God. We are all uniquely gifted and need to submit to and support one another. In the Kingdom of...

Peter's first epistle is to teach followers of Christ how to use their individual lives to promote what God is building in our world. Peter likens what God is building to a spiritual house, and each believer is a living stone God wants to use to build His house. To explain what living good lives among the pagans looks like, Peter gives us a number of phrases in the Greek imperative form. We are to...

A deeper discussion of some of the topics brought up in Sunday's Sermon, "Conflating Intimacies." In this Podcast Ryan Romeo and Alec Seekins discuss different kinds of loves and intimacies as well as a number of statistics that seem to indicate a trend of the shedding off of sexual boundaries leading to an increase in loneliness. Resources referenced in this podcast: Books- "Love Thy Body," Nancy...

In our confusing world, love and intimacy often get mixed up, leading to misguided connections that harm rather than nurture. To solve this, we're called to love one another, but our understanding of love is cloudy. The New Testament suggests that drawing close to Jesus can clear this confusion and transform us. The Church should then become a sanctuary of healthy intimacy in a world marked by lon...