GIG282 My Resolution for the New Year
Growing In God with Gary Hargrave
Growing In God Podcast Program Number: GIG #282 Air Date: 12/31/2025 My Resolution for the New Year Web Description: The period from the ascension of Christ to the present has been labeled the Church Age. In reality it should be called the Age of the Holy Spirit. Yeshua (Jesus) did not tell His disciples, “The Father will teach you how to have good churches.” He promised that they would be endued with power by the Holy Spirit and be His witnesses in the earth. My New Year’s resolution is to change my emphasis from church to being filled with the Holy Spirit first and endued with...
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GIG281 Christmas, Celebrating the Son of Man
Growing In God with Gary Hargrave
Growing In God Podcast Program Number: GIG #281 Title: Christmas, Celebrating the Son of Man Web Description: The symbolism that most often defines Christmas is the Nativity scene. And the Nativity scene is about the reality that Christ, the Messiah, the Savior, the King of kings, was born and lived as a human being. At Christmas we are not celebrating His divinity. We are celebrating His humanity. We are celebrating the fact that He came to earth as a man who went through everything we go through and is thus able to lead us and help us through everything. Show Notes: ...
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GIG280 Hanukkah—Do Not Be Conformed to this World
Growing In God with Gary Hargrave
Growing In God Podcast Program Number: GIG #280 Categories: Biblical Feasts Web Description: In Romans 12, Paul exhorts us not to be conformed to this world. That is what Hanukkah is all about. It expresses the refusal of the Jewish people to be converted into something that was against the will of God and against the teachings of God. We as believers in Yeshua (Jesus) should have the same resistance to the culture that is set to move us away from the Scriptures, away from our Christian values, and convert us to a different way of life. Hanukkah is not a substitute for Christmas....
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GIG279 Eight Reasons for Christians to Celebrate Hanukkah
Growing In God with Gary Hargrave
Growing In God Podcast Program Number: GIG #279 Categories: Biblical Feasts Web Description: Hanukkah may be best known for the lighting of the menorah and the miracle of the oil lasting for eight days in the Temple following the Maccabean revolt. But the true heart of the Hanukkah celebration is the cleansing of the altar and the rededication of the Temple after a small group of Jewish farmers had defeated their enemies. Just as there are eight candles burning on the menorah during the celebration of Hanukkah, there are at least eight good reasons for Christians to celebrate...
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GIG278 Walking With God Is Doing
Growing In God with Gary Hargrave
Growing In God Podcast Program Number: GIG #278 Title: Walking with God is Doing Web Description: How do we walk with God? By taking steps to act on what God is telling us to do. The Scriptures are more than ideas to learn about and discuss. They are a way for God to speak directly to us what He wants us to do. We can know His will for us in the Scriptures when we are willing to do His will. And we can know the blessings of a walk with God when we find the way to do His will as He makes it real to us in His Word. Show Notes: There is an abundance of material available to...
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GIG224 (2) Thanksgiving—A Time of Gratitude
Growing In God with Gary Hargrave
Growing In God Podcast Program Number: GIG #224 (2) Title: Thanksgiving—A Time of Gratitude Web Description: Thanksgiving is a wonderful time set aside for giving thanks to the Lord. But the scriptural example of thanksgiving is not something that is done only on specific days. It is a continual practice of giving thanks and praise to the Lord every day. The pattern in our lives should not be thanking the Lord whenever we feel He has blessed us. We should have an attitude, a mindset, and an intentional emotion of gratitude for everything God is and does. Let this...
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GIG277 Love Is the Antidote
Growing In God with Gary Hargrave
Growing In God Podcast Program Number: GIG #277 Title: Love Is the Antidote Web Description: The world is experiencing an increase in lawlessness and a corresponding decrease in people’s love. As a byproduct, anger and hatred are spreading like infectious diseases. We need an antidote. And that antidote is the Father’s love in Christ. As believers in Christ, we have the ability and the responsibility to deliver this antidote to the world. Show Notes: When describing the end times, Yeshua (Jesus) said that the increase in lawlessness would cause people’s love to grow...
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GIG276 Renewing Our Minds
Growing In God with Gary Hargrave
Growing In God Podcast Program Number: GIG #276 Title: Renewing Our Minds Web Description: When we get into spiritual warfare, we tend to become focused on things outside of us. But it is actually an internal battle that takes place in our minds. We are fighting a battle against mental speculations that attack the knowledge of God and draw our focus away from Him. Let us bring our focus back on Christ the King and enforce His victory with the divinely powered weapons He has given us. Show Notes: The practice of building a booth, or sukkah, at the Feast of...
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GIG275 Christ the King
Growing In God with Gary Hargrave
Growing In God Podcast Program Number: GIG #275 Title: Christ the King Web Description: Why are the nations in an uproar? Because God has established Christ as King and has given all the nations to Him. God is not moved by their uproar, and neither should we be as believers in Christ. He is our refuge, He is our focus, and His unshakable Kingdom is the reality of our lives right now. Show Notes: We read in Psalm 2 that the nations are in an uproar, and today we see how true that is. It is difficult to find a nation where positive things are happening. Every nation is...
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GIG274 The Bronze Serpent
Growing In God with Gary Hargrave
Growing In God Podcast Program Number: GIG #274 Title: The Bronze Serpent Web Description: Do you feel like you are being bitten to death by your circumstances and problems? Get your focus back on Christ. Renew and deepen your relationship with Him because He Himself is the answer. He Himself is the victory and the overcoming of any situation that we are in. And by believing in Him, we will not perish in our circumstances but instead have eternal life. Show Notes: When the children of Israel complained against the Lord and Moses in the wilderness, the Lord sent them...
info_outlineGrowing In God Podcast
Web Description:
There is a great deal of debate concerning Christmas. Why is it celebrated? When should it be celebrated? Should it be celebrated at all? Rather than attempting to unravel all the doctrinal and scheduling dilemmas surrounding Christmas, this podcast goes into its real purpose. Christmas is all about the love of God manifesting to humanity. The coming of Christ into the world is God manifesting His love in us. There is no more perfect gift that can be given for Christmas.
Show Notes:
What is Christmas all about? First and foremost, the birth of Yeshua (Jesus) is about God sending His Son into the earth. But we get so caught up in what the celebration of Christmas is supposed to be, what church is supposed to be, and what religion is supposed to be that we lose sight of exactly why we are celebrating Yeshua’s being born. Very simply, God was manifesting His love within a human so that we as humans could find a way to open up and receive God’s love in us.
God wants us to know the love He has for each one of us as individuals. It is easy to get lost in the big picture of God doing something for the whole world. But by the gift of His Son, the Father manifested His love in you personally. In Christ, God is driven to get every human to know and feel and recognize and celebrate His love. That is a big part of what He was doing in the birth of Yeshua. If God can get us to see His love for us, then He can make us become love just as He is love. That means love for yourself and love for one another.
If you celebrate Christmas as the time when Yeshua was born, then remember the purpose of that event. As you exchange gifts, remember that the greatest gift was God manifesting His love in a human being. Today we need that more than ever because we are losing the love for one another. We are seeing the opposite of love in the destructive actions toward ourselves and toward one another. There is only one way to stop that trend, and that is by opening our hearts to receive how much God loves us. Loving yourself and loving others will not be a challenge when you really receive the love that God has for you.
Key Verses:
• 1 John 4:9. “By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son.”
• 1 John 4:7–11. “The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.”
• 1 John 4:12–21. “We love, because He first loved us.”
• Leviticus 19:18. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”
• Ephesians 3:16–19. “Know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.”
• John 3:16. “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son.”
Quotes:
• “If you’re celebrating the birth of Christ, then you’re celebrating the manifestation of God’s love in us.”
• “What is sin? It’s separation from God. But it’s deeper than that. It’s separation from His love for us.”
• “What is eternal life? The love of God is eternal life. Because God is love and that is eternal.”
Takeaways:
1. As we give ourselves to this season, let us remember that it was because of God’s great love that Yeshua was sent to this earth. He came to be the expression of God’s love to each of us individually. God is driven for us to know and experience His love for us. And the greatest celebration of Christmas would be us opening our hearts to know and receive and experience the love of God.
2. Since no man has seen God, and we cannot relate to Him easily, God sent His love packaged in Christ. If we receive Him, we are receiving the love of God so that we may be filled up to all the fullness of God, just as Christ was the fullness of God in man.
3. Read John 17. What made Yeshua and the Father one? The love that the Father had for Him and the love He had for the Father is what welded them into oneness. And because of that love, we have the ability to be one. The one who abides in love abides in God. And Christ and the Father will come and take their abode in us because we finally come into the revelation of God’s love for us.