For God so loved he used his great power - Episode 9-13, April 1, 2019
Release Date: 04/01/2019
A Little Walk With God
If you listen to much of the news or social media, you find the divide across the nation just grows deeper. We have a tendency to hear only what we want to hear or at least what the marketing algorithms think we want to hear and stay as biased as ever. What are Christians to do when the world around us keeps boiling in this cauldron of hatred? We do what John tells us in his letters. "We love because God loved us first." And with that in mind, we "love God and love each other!" (1 John 4:19,21)
info_outline At the Name of Jesus - Episode 21-17, April 19, 2021A Little Walk With God
We like the stories from the Bible, the heroes, and miracles, but it's what's behind the stories that we need to pay attention to. God's message to us about how he wants to renew creation and how he wants to use us to help him do it is the real story within the story. God came as a human to show us how to live as the humans he meant us to become. Now he is recreating the heavens and the earth with death defeated on the cross. We can be a part of that renewal process when we follow him.
info_outline Just Believe - Episode 21-16, April 12, 2021A Little Walk With God
Why is it so hard to believe in the resurrection? We believe the stars are like our sun. We believe we have the same internal organs as everyone else even though we haven't seen them. We believe what climbers tell us about Mt Everest. We even believe the Internet. We have no personal knowledge of any of those things, only the testimony of a few witnesses. Why then can't we believe the testimony of the thousands upon thousands who testify of the life-transforming power of believing in the resurrected Christ?
info_outline He Has Risen - Episode 21-15, April 5, 2021A Little Walk With God
We should celebrate Easter more than just one day a year. We should even celebrate more than once a week on Sundays. Jesus is alive! He changed the world forever. His shed blood on the cross made a path for humanity and God to meet. We can meet with God because of Jesus, the human embodiment of God. And like the Israelite homes in Egypt, with blood on their doorposts, we do not need to fear death. It has no power over us. Our sins are passed over, we can worship God and reflect God as he designed.
info_outline The King Has Come - Episode 21-14, March 29, 2021A Little Walk With God
We miss the significance of Palm Sunday without understanding the rich history of God's covenants with the Israelites. If we don't understand how his promises fit into the Exodus, their exile, and the return of his people but not his glory to the Temple, we lose the importance of Jesus' triumphant entry on that first day of the week leading toward his crucifixion. It all begins at Bethphage, near Bethany, on the Mount of Olives, where Ezekiel saw the glory of God rest at his departure from the city.
info_outline The Hour Has Come - Episode 21-13, March 22, 2021A Little Walk With God
Jesus gave Phillip and Andrew a strange answer when they brought a request from Greeks who wanted to see him. Yes or no, or following the two of them to see the foreigners would be expected. Instead, Jesus tells of a grain of wheat dying to bring a harvest, losing life to gain it, and being lifted up from the ground. In hindsight, we understand his words, but they must have sounded mysterious and foreboding to the disciples and those around him as they approached this last Passover with Jesus.
info_outline Love Wins - Episode 21-12, March 15, 2021A Little Walk With God
When we put John 3:16 into the broader context of verses 14-21 and understand the vocation of the Israelites and Jesus' fulfillment of that vocation as the Son of Man and Son of God, we get a picture of God. God is not a cruel punisher, but a giver of love whose son finished the work we could not do as in reflecting his love in a world completely broken by sin. Jesus entered the world of darkness to defeat its forces once for all, and like the serpent in the wilderness, all who believe can have life.
info_outline The Heavens Speak - Episode 21-11, March 8, 2021A Little Walk With God
Apologists use logic and scripture to get their point across about the existence of a unique personal God. In the past, apologists argued to save Christians' lives with false charges ranging from arson to incest to cannibalism. Whether an apologist or just an everyday Christian, we have a responsibility to share the reality of God, or the rocks and hills will cry out his praise. I don't want to be guilty of missing the opportunity and being dumber than a rock when it comes to praising him, do you?
info_outline God's Covenants - Episode 21-10, March 1, 2021A Little Walk With God
Lent is a great time to consider the covenants God made with us. As you look through the Old Testament at covenants he made with Adam, Noah, Abraham, David, Solomon, and others, you find he does all the work. The only thing he asks of us is obedience, and Jesus summed up the command to obey God's commands into two simple - but sometimes not so easy - rules. Love God, and love others. Take some time during this season of Lent to ponder the wonder of God's covenant with us as he gave himself on the cross.
info_outline In God We Trust - Episode 21-09, February 22, 2021A Little Walk With God
Since 1837, at least some of our coins have had "In God We Trust" engraved on their surface. The Coinage Act of 1873 put the phrase on all our coins, and in 1956, when the phrase became our national motto, it found its way to all our money. It's important to remember our trust is in him, not money, every time we pay for something. Material things never last. Rather, God remains the permanent source of our strength, particularly in the times in which we live today.
info_outlineJoin us as we explore God's ancient wisdom and apply it to our modern lives. His word is as current and relevant today as it was when he inspired its authors more than two and a half millennia ago. The websites where you can reach us are alittlewalkwithgod.com, richardagee.com, or saf.church.
I hope you will join us every week and be sure to let us know how you enjoy the podcast and let others know about it, too. Thanks for listening.
Thanks for joining me today for "A Little Walk with God." I'm your host Richard Agee.
We are in the middle of Lent. Not the kind of tiny little balls of cotton that stick to your clothes, but the kind that has all but been forgotten in the Christian in terms of its original purpose. When Lent began almost two millennia ago, the church used it as a time to introduce new converts to a period of study to ensure they understood what the faith really entailed.
By the middle of the fourth century, Christianity had leaked into some of the ruling class and some tried to claim the faith without understanding what the faith really was or what it meant. Lent ensured new baptismal candidates really knew about Jesus, knew about lostness without him, and knew the real cost of the commitment of following him. So here we are looking at Lent, preparing for Easter, examining ourselves in light of who Jesus is, the salvation he brings us, and the price he paid and our commitment to him because of it.
This morning in my devotions, I ran across these words: “In the beginning, there was power.” I’d never used those words about the creation story myself, but of course they are true. We understand the incredible forces resident in our universe. We understand because of our scientific knowledge, how the sun continues to shine and give us the light and warmth we require to survive. The fusion explosions that continually fuel the sun and enable life in this very narrow band of our solar system in which we thrive provides enormous energy.
We sometimes discuss nuclear power and how little fuel it takes to power cities with the energy those plants produce. They are certainly dangerous when not properly controlled because of the radiation they can produce, but the raw energy that can come from those tiny amounts of material compared to every other form of energy production is phenomenal. Someday we will figure out how to harness that power more safely and use it worldwide as our best sources of power instead of fossil fuels and other lesser forms of energy production.
But back to creation. Can you imagine the power of the sun times billions of stars like it stretched across our galaxy that we call the Milky Way? Now can you imagine billions of those galaxies like ours stretched across the universe? Our God made those. The Bible tells us he just spoke them into place. Out of nothing. His imagination and his voice created those powerhouses. Just like that. He spoke and it was done. His power created all there is. Some would have you believe it all just happened. That given enough time, all the universe would shape itself into what we have today because of the laws of physics.
The problem with that theory is the thermodynamic property called entropy. Left alone, things tend to become more chaotic, not less. Enough monkeys on enough typewriters will not produce a novel. They will produce nothing but garbage. It’s like the parts of a watch put into a bag and shaken. You’ll never get a watch, only bits of metal that look more like sand than a watch over time. The universe and the power needed to keep it in place requires a designer, a creator. It didn’t just happen.
And where did the raw materials come from in the first place? Now there is a good argument with the “it just happened crowd.” Something had to generate all the atoms that made everything begin. All those hydrogen atoms in the sun that smash together into helium atoms that smash together into larger atoms that smash together into larger atoms that then smash together into molecules that smash together to make something you can see, like water and dirt, had to come from somewhere. So where did it come from unless someone or something created that first hydrogen atom in the first place. Something coming from nothing? Think designer. Think creator. Think God. Think power beyond our ability to think or imagine. He spoke it into place.
The trouble we have today is we are sometimes to smart for our own good. We have discovered all these neat scientific rules to explain how things work. God gave us a pretty nice brain sitting in that bony skull. We only use about 10-15% of its capacity other scientists tell us, but that’s beside the point. The part that we use often makes us rather inquisitive. We want to know about things. What they are. How they work. How we can use things better. What alternative uses can we make of them?
Our inquisitive minds helped us discover all those physics principles, but we didn’t create those principles, we just discovered them. That’s a very important point. We didn’t make the rules. God did. Scientists didn’t cause the world and the universe to operate the way it does, they just discovered some of the mechanics to explain how they work. And they keep modifying those rules because we learn more about them everyday because we still understand so little about how everything really works together in this vast universe. Scientists have a hard time agreeing on things a lot of times. It wasn’t until the late 1500s that we figure out everything in our solar system revolves around our nearest star, the sun, instead of revolving around us! That was a pretty self centered view of the world, but that’s just who we are.
So here we are in the middle of Lent. Three more weeks until Easter. And the thought of the day is “in the beginning there was power.” Power that puts the universe around us into place. Power that creates the laws of physics that keeps order in that universe rather than letting the law of entropy drive those celestial bodies. Power that put this tiny planet in just the right place to sustain life. Power to create that life on the blue planet of our solar system and sustain it. Power to create man and give us the capacity to think and reason. Power to love us and want a relationship with us.
Power to clothe himself in flesh and live among us as an example of how to live and love in community with others. Power to heal and feed thousands. Power to teach what God’s plan and purpose for us. Power to willingly die on a cross to show us the extent of God’s love. Power over death. Power to burst out of a sealed and guarded tomb. Power to appear to over 500 people after his death. Power to ascend to heaven in a cloud. Power to sit at the right hand of God and intervene on our behalf. Power to forgive our sins.
In the beginning there was power. Elohim, the Almighty God. The God of creation. God is the same as he was in the beginning. God will be the same when time stops and eternity stretches on forever. God’s power is beyond our capacity to understand. God was, is, and will be. The Great I Am never changes. His power is available to those who love and serve him. He created us for that purpose. He demands and desires our love. Our devotion. Our worship. He is God, after all. There is no other. He holds the power of creation in his hand.
In this season of Lent as we prepare to celebrate Easter in just a few weeks, think of God’s power. We will sing of his power on that day. Power to overcome death. We will hear sermons on that day. Power to burst forth from the tomb. We will gather to worship the one who demonstrated his power on that first Easter morning 2000 years ago in just a little while. But in these moments. In these few days leading up to our celebration of Easter, take some time to contemplate what God’s power really means. Imagine who he is as Elohim, the Almighty God of creation. Yet came to sacrifice his life that you and I might experience abundant life through him. He shares his incredible, unimaginable power with us, so that we might share his story to those we meet that need his powerful touch.
You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more Bible based teaching. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn't, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day.